The Writing on the Wall

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We’re going to be in Daniel chapter 5 tonight. Daniel chapter 5. And just to warn you, as I was studying this this week, I told Charla, this sounds, at least the point of this, sounds repetitive to what I preached last week.

And sometimes that can be frustrating to me. I don’t want to say the same thing every week. And y’all probably don’t want to hear me say the same thing every week.

So how can I put a fresh spin on it? Which you’ve got to be real careful trying to put a fresh spin on the Bible. We’ll just teach what it says.

But as I was talking to her about it, I realized I don’t just tell the kids something one time and expect them to remember. As a matter of fact, we can make a rule, and they think it applies only to that day. Oh, I wasn’t supposed to run in front of traffic today.

I thought that was yesterday you told me that. You know, God describes himself as a father, and I’ve told you that I started to understand more. I started to have a better picture of how God relates to us once I had children and once I was a father myself.

I have to tell the kids things over and over and over. My parents had to tell me things over and over and over. So when God’s word repeats itself, and then I repeat myself by telling you what it says, it’s not that God is repetitive, because, well, it is repetitive, But it’s not that God is unimaginative and ran out of things to say.

It’s not that God forgot he told us that. It’s that God sometimes has to tell us the same thing over and over and over and has to teach individuals a lesson over and over and has to teach nations a lesson over and over. And if you have any familiarity at all with the book of Judges, you’ll realize that to be true.

God was constantly pulling them out of the fire because they had gone and abandoned him, and in order to discipline them, he let some other country. He said, fine, you don’t want my protection, you don’t want my care, I’m out. And then the natural thing is some bigger, stronger country that God had held back would come and take them over.

And they’d realize, hey, we don’t like being slaves to these foreign countries, and they’d cry out to God, they would get right with him, he would come and rescue them. Fine, if you want me to take care of you, I will. And then a generation later, they do the same thing over again.

And this went on in a nasty cycle for a few hundred years. That’s human nature. God has to tell us things over and over again.

God sometimes has to teach us the same lessons. Belshazzar is a man in the book of Daniel, who’s recorded, who failed to learn from the lessons of one of his predecessors. If you were here last Sunday night, I talked to you about Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 4 and how he really chapter four is sort of Nebuchadnezzar’s flashback.

He says, hey kids, gather around, let me tell you a story of what happened in my relationship with God. And he talks about how God sent him this dream where he was represented in the dream by this tree that was this massive tree that was just impressive. You could see it from everywhere and the birds could live in it and the animals could live underneath it and it provided fruit for everybody.

And then in the dream, an angel comes from heaven and says, cut it down. But leave the roots because we’re going to raise something back up there. And so Daniel came and explained to him that, yes, this dream is about you.

I wish it wasn’t, but this dream is about you. That God is saying because you’ve gotten too big for your britches, as we would say, you’ve gotten too prideful and too arrogant, and you’ve quit caring about what God wants, God is going to take everything away from you. You think you’re so majestic and so powerful and so impressive, God is going to take everything away from you.

He said, but they’re going to leave the roots here because God is not going to totally destroy you. God is going to raise you back up again. And so what we saw is that for seven years, Nebuchadnezzar was out of his mind.

He didn’t sit on the throne. He didn’t rule Babylon. He thought he was an animal for seven years.

And he wandered around out in the field, and his hair was long and nasty and unkept, and his fingernails were like eagle’s claws, it says, and he got rained on and dood on and sunned on and everything else. He thought he was an animal. Until the moment where, I don’t know if it was some moment of clarity that God gave him or what, he looks up to heaven, and God knew what was in his heart, that he at that moment recognized that God was in control of the nations, not him. And, you know, it seems like it just takes a split second, but, you know, sometimes you have those realizations in your heart, something dawns on you, and it’s not even that you’ve reasoned this out in your mind, and it’s a long statement, but just you know something.

You know something has happened, you know something to be true. Nebuchadnezzar looks up, and in his heart, he recognizes God, the God of Israel, Daniel’s God, was in control, and not him. And he was humbled before God.

And when he was humbled before God, God raised him up. And that’s taught all throughout Scripture, that if we will humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, he will lift us up. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

God can do more with us, and God is willing to do more with us, if we are humble before him, than he is with somebody who may be super impressive, but is prideful before God. Well, Belshazzar did not learn this lesson. Belshazzar came a couple kings after Nebuchadnezzar and was possibly his grandson, it kind of sounds like.

He was the last king of Babylon. Although according to history, we know that the last king of Babylon is Nabonidus. Now this doesn’t mean that the Bible is wrong.

What history also tells us is that Nabonidus was kind of, I don’t know if irresponsible is the right word, but he kind of went somewhere and left Belshazzar, who was his son, I believe, to take care of the kingdom. Which, when you look at the beginning of chapter 5 and see the kind of behavior that Belshazzar is up to, that he’s throwing these wild, drunken parties, you have to think how bad of a king was Nabonidus, that Belshazzar was the responsible one holding down the fort. So Belshazzar is somebody who would have been familiar with Nebuchadnezzar.

He was the great king of Babylon. He was the standard by which they were measured. He was the guy that they looked to.

I mean, even just a couple years ago, which is thousands of years after this happened, Saddam Hussein talked about wanting to be like Nebuchadnezzar in the same part of the world. So he was this guy that they all looked up to and patterned their reigns after, and they wanted to be as great as or greater than Nebuchadnezzar. So he should have known what Nebuchadnezzar had told his kingdom, what he had said, I want this message spread far and wide about what happened between me and the God of Israel.

And yet, Belshazzar ignores it. And we’re really going to pick up just for time’s sake here in verse 18, but just to tell you the basics of the story on the chance that you’re not familiar with it, Belshazzar throws this wild, drunken feast-slash-party at his palace, and it seems like most of the people from the capital city are there. And we get the impression from this passage and from history that there was already a war going on and that the enemy forces of the Medes and Persians were somewhat close to the capital. Belshazzar doesn’t seem so concerned that it doesn’t sound like they’re necessarily known to be right outside the walls at that moment, like they’ve been laying siege for a while, but they’re somewhere in the neighborhood and yet the people who should be responsible for leading the country and raising its defense are off having a wild drunken party.

And while they were at this party, they decided to drink out of some vessels that they had that had been taken from the temple in Jerusalem when Nebuchadnezzar sent the Babylonians to overrun it several years earlier.

And they take these vessels which were used in worship in the temple and they decided to drink out of them and that’s bad enough to steal from God’s house and use the stuff at a drunken party but they decide to make toasts with the wine that they’re drinking out of these cups God’s cups and they use these cups to toast their gods and they praise the God of gold in verse 4 the God of gold and of silver the God of gold, the God of silver the God of brass, the God of iron the god of wood and the god of stone they’re praising all of these gods of all these inanimate objects all these weakling made up deities and they’re using God’s cups to do it of course this made God upset and so while they’re there in this drunken party they look over and they’re shocked because they see something that you don’t normally see they see this disembodied hand and it begins writing on the wall.

Now, number one, I’ve never seen just a hand floating by itself. So that would creep me out to start with. But a hand writing on the wall, I can’t walk up to the wall here and leave a mark on it just by writing.

I mean, maybe with the fingernail I could scratch, but I’d get splintered. He was writing on the wall. So they knew something out of the ordinary is taking place here.

And they’re looking at it, And it says, as they saw this, the king’s countenance was changed. His whole face changed. The man was terrified.

There’s a statement in verse 6 that his thoughts troubled him, I bet, so that the joints of his loins were loosed and his knees smote one against another. Excuse me. It would be nice if I could talk tonight.

That his knees smote one against another. So he’s scared. All the blood’s drained from his face.

His countenance has changed. His knees are knocking together. And not to be too graphic, but people have differing interpretations of what the original language means here when it says the joints of his loins were loose.

Some people take that to mean his hip joints give out, and you can be so shocked that you can’t stand. And others have said he lost control of himself. So, however, I don’t know which one is correct there, but I know that the man was very scared to see this.

And so he did just what Nebuchadnezzar did when he had a problem. He screamed out for his magicians, for his astrologers, these sorcerers, all these wise men, and he called them in here and he said, he ordered them, give me the interpretation. Read this to me, because apparently it was written in some language they didn’t recognize.

He said, read this to me and tell me what it says and tell me what it means. And he makes a promise that whoever was able to do those things would be clothed with scarlet. They’d be given this beautiful scarlet robe and a gold chain around their neck.

And they would be third in command over his kingdom. The man was so desperate to know what this disembodied hand was writing on the wall. And they all came in and not only could they not tell him what it meant, none of them could even read it.

and so Nebuchadnezzar now gets even more I’m sorry Belshazzar gets even more terrified he was greatly troubled and his countenance was changed in him and his lords were astonished so he’s terrified even more so now he realizes there’s something really wrong here it says the queen comes in and this is probably not his wife or she might have been at the she might have been at the party too a lot of commentators say that this is the queen mother or maybe even his grandmother maybe Nebuchadnezzar’s wife. It’s a woman who’s been around the royal court for a few years because she knows exactly what Nebuchadnezzar used to do in situations like this. And she tells Belshazzar, you know, there’s a guy named Daniel who used to consult with Nebuchadnezzar like this.

Now, why wasn’t Daniel already among his wise men? Because this was years later, and Daniel was from years later. He’s probably either retired voluntarily, said, I’m getting up there in years, I want to enjoy some time.

He’s probably retired voluntarily, or as these young guys came in and thought they knew everything, they replaced the guys that worked for the old guy. And said, ah, you’re a has-been, you worked with Nebuchadnezzar, we want to go our own way. One of those two things happened.

So Daniel’s not there with a group of wise men, but he sins for Daniel anyway. And he says, I want you to tell me what this says. And I want you to explain to me what it means.

And so Daniel comes into his presence and begins to explain the message. Although he tells him before that, he says, keep your rewards. All these promises, the gold and the robe and the power over the kingdom.

Keep your rewards. I’m not here for the rewards, but I’ll tell you what it says anyway. So in verse 18 is where we’re going to pick up.

It says, this is Daniel speaking. He says, O thou king, the most high God, gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom and majesty and glory and honor. Now this word father doesn’t mean literally he was the father, like he’d be the guy on Belshazzar’s birth certificate.

It means he was an ancestor and a predecessor in that office. He said, the God of Israel, the most high God, gave Nebuchadnezzar all the power and majesty and honor that he had. Verse 19 says, And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him.

Whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive, and whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down. So he said, because God made him this strong, mighty king, everybody was afraid of him. And he could go and he could kill as he wanted.

He could spare people as he wanted. He could raise up and put down whoever he wanted. So basically he’s saying Nebuchadnezzar, because God gave him the power, he had this near absolute power.

But when his heart was lifted up, verse 20, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him. So he started to let all the hype go to his head, and he thought he was strong because of himself, and not strong because of the God of Israel, and he ended up losing his throne. Verse 21, And he was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys, and they fed him grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, until he knew that the Most High God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will.

So he said, he lost his mind and he became an animal for all those years, So he recognized that the true source of power was not Nebuchadnezzar. The true source of his power was from the God of Israel. It says in verse 22, And thou his son, O Belshazzar, has not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all of this.

He says you should have known. This is part of the history of your country, part of the history of your kingdom. One of the things that your predecessors made sure that everybody who was around him and came after him knew, He wanted everybody to know what had happened between him and God.

You should have learned this lesson from him. I’ve heard it said that a foolish man doesn’t learn from his own mistakes, but an absolute idiot doesn’t learn from the mistakes of others. And I think there’s some truth in that.

Belshazzar could have saved himself a lot of trouble. Nebuchadnezzar had already learned the lesson the hard way. And Belshazzar could have, without going through all the trouble himself, could have learned the lesson from Nebuchadnezzar.

But sometimes we’re like that, aren’t we? We don’t want to look at what our parents and grandparents and people before us said. Listen to me.

I learned this the hard way, and I can spare you that. Sometimes I listen to my parents about that and learn from their lessons, and I’m glad I did because there are other times I didn’t listen, and I had to learn the lesson the hard way for myself. Belshazzar, this is one of the most important lessons of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, And he could have learned it the easy way and put it to good use, and yet he didn’t.

He said, your problem is that you’ve done exactly what Nebuchadnezzar did, and you have not humbled your heart. It says in verse 23, but has lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven. In other words, you think you’re bigger and tougher and stronger than the God of Israel.

And they have brought these vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them, and have praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know, and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. He said, you could have humbled yourself, you should have humbled yourself, but you didn’t. You took these things that were set aside for the worship of the one true God, and you’ve abused them in these ways.

Now, it’s not so much the use of his cups that God is concerned with. God is not petty. But it’s the attitude of Belshazzar’s heart.

Have you heard those people that just, in conversation, if he’s real, dare God to do something to him? If you’re real, strike me with lightning. That’s insane.

That is insane. even though I know he probably would not because God is merciful and God gives us every opportunity to repent even though I know he probably would not I have more respect for God than to dare him to do something to me to prove himself and yet I would look at the Babylonian gods and I have no problem daring the gods of wood and stone and dust and whatever else they worship, go ahead, do something to me. Because I know they’re not real. So I’m not afraid of them at all.

Which brings us to Belshazzar’s attitude. He was not in the slightest afraid of the God of Israel. There was no part of him that had respect for the God of Israel.

There were points early on in Nebuchadnezzar’s reign where he was still wrong in thinking that God was one of many but at least he seemed to have some respect for the God of Israel. He recognized that Daniel couldn’t have done the things he did and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego couldn’t have survived the things that they did had it not been for the power of the God of Israel. So he was still wrong thinking he was on equal footing with these false gods but at least had some respect.

Belshazzar says, I don’t have the least bit of respect for this God of Israel. Let’s take his things that are supposed to be used in worship and let’s toast all these false gods with them. It was really a way of shaking his fist at God and spitting in God’s eye.

Then was the part of the hand sent from him and this writing was written. Daniel’s a bold man. Daniel is a brave, brave man.

The king has asked him to come in here and explain what is written on the wall. Tell him what it says and tell him what it means. Daniel has said all of this.

Daniel has pointed out all these places where the king of Babylon has royally messed up, and he hasn’t even gotten to the part where he does what he’s asked to tell him, where he tells him what he was asked. So he’s answering questions Belshazzar hadn’t even asked yet. So he tells him, verse 25, Alright, now let’s get to the writing on the wall.

This is the writing that was written, Mene, Mene, take hell, the first scene. And we still don’t know exactly what languages those are, but some of the words seem to be related to some things in the Persian language. Or Aramaic, I’m sorry.

And he says, this is the interpretation of the thing. Mene. And all of these words seem to have a connection to a unit of weight or measure or currency.

He says, Mene, God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.

God has numbered your kingdom and finished it ties in nicely with with what I talked about this morning numbering our days in other words with Mene God has looked at Belshazzar’s kingdom and said yeah that thing has an expiration date on it you show no respect toward God you’re so prideful and arrogant and think this is just going to go on forever be assured there’s an expiration date on it and he says not only is there an expiration date but it’s coming it’s coming up fast not only have your days been numbered but you’re finished you are at the end you have run out of days imagine having to say that to the king of Babylon this incredibly powerful man and this man who would shake his fist at God look at look at world leaders and I say this whether you like him or not look at Trump can you imagine going into Trump’s office in the White House and sticking your finger in his face and saying God says you’re done oh buddy you will be fired a lot of ways think about Daniel and his bravery and telling that to Belshazzar God says you’re done and not only that but the mean he said twice God was emphatic you are done verse 27 take yellow take well thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting this is God telling telling Belshazzar, it’s not me, it’s you.

You’re the problem. It’s not that I found somebody else I’d rather run Babylon. I’ve weighed you.

I’ve evaluated you and your rule and you as a person and I found that you are deficient. Again, imagine telling that to the king. You were weighed in the balances and you’re found wanting.

You are deficient. And perish. Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

So not only is your rule coming to an end, because you’re such a sorry king, your kingdom is not even going to go on after you. There’s not going to be a successor to you to remember you and raise up monuments to his predecessor. Your kingdom is going to be overrun by the Medes and Persians and divided between them.

And then we see Belshazzar still doesn’t get it. He still doesn’t respond the way he should. He was scared earlier about the handwriting on the wall, but as soon as he hears that, he goes back to the same attitude toward God, one of total disrespect.

Because if I had just been told by God that my kingdom was about to be ended, I was going to be overthrown, all of that, and I believed it, I would not have reacted this way. I’m thinking probably something along the lines of falling on my face and repenting and begging God to change his mind. If I believed what Daniel said.

Belshazzar doesn’t. Because he takes this scarlet robe and has it put around Daniel. And puts the gold chain on him.

Wait a minute, Daniel just told you your kingdom is about to end, and yet you’re giving him these symbols of authority in it, and you’re telling him that he’s going to be the third in command of a kingdom that Daniel says is not going to be here anymore. This leads me to believe that Belshazzar just thinks the whole thing is a hilarious joke. He’s not honoring and rewarding Daniel.

He’s not a man of his word here, saying, well, I said I’d give you this. He’s mocking Daniel. I mean, they are at a drunken party, after all.

And here comes Daniel, the buzzkill, saying God’s going to end the party. Yeah, we don’t believe it. Let’s make him third in command of the doomed kingdom.

Everybody laugh at Daniel. In verse 30 he says, And that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. That very night he was killed.

And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about three score and two years old. So this Darius that we see later on in the book of Daniel came in and took over the capital city that night. and what we know from history is that this was a brilliant military maneuver we learned about this when I was in school in a secular history class that what they did that night was there was water that ran under the city gates a river or stream of some sort ran under the city walls so that they could have a supply of water in the city even when they were closed up even when there was a siege or something.

And the Medes and Persians marched in and they decided the best way, why lose all of our guys trying to find our way through or over the wall when we can just dam up the flow of water and divert it somewhere else and we can slip under the wall. And that’s exactly what they did. And they went in and this man who refused to humble himself before God was humbled.

It would have been a nicer story if he had humbled himself while there was still time for redemption, where there was time for him to humble himself before God, and maybe God would have changed his mind, or God would have turned away the punishment. God’s been known to do that. But he refused to humble himself.

He refused to admit that he wasn’t the master of the universe, and so somebody else came in, slipped under his walls, and killed him. took him and his family off the throne and gave his kingdom to somebody else. There’s a passage in Proverbs that says pride goeth before destruction.

Man, I can’t read the story of Belshazzar without thinking of that. Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better is it to be of a humble spirit with the lowly.

This is in Proverbs 16, 18 through 20. Better is it to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud. he that handleth a matter wisely shall find good and whoso trusteth in the Lord happy is he I just want to leave you tonight with now that we’ve looked at this story and seen that really it’s a story of God dealing with over the top pride and arrogance from somebody who could have learned a lesson from a predecessor who was over the top prideful and arrogant now that we’ve heard that story I want to leave you with the thought of what happened to Belshazzar versus what happened to Daniel.

Because the Bible tells us here in Proverbs that pride goes before destruction. But he says it’s better to be humble with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud. They were sitting there literally dividing the spoil among themselves of the temple in Jerusalem.

They were sitting there in that party taking the things that had been stolen from the temple at Jerusalem and saying, here’s you a cup, here’s you a cup, here’s you a cup, here’s you a cup, let’s all raise our stolen cups and shake our fists in God’s face. Yet there’s Daniel who’s been at the center of power and probably could have still been if he wanted to be. And even when offered it, told Belshazzar, keep your rewards, but I’ll tell you what the wall says.

One of those men was ultimately and finally humbled that night. One of those men was destroyed that night. But the humble man who feared God lived to fight another day.

The humble man who feared God was used under Darius. He was used under the next kingdom to serve and encourage him and nudge him in the right direction. And so as much as this story is about Belshazzar, it’s also a good study in contrast between Belshazzar and Daniel.

And it’s a reminder to us that pride will lead to destruction. But God looks for people who are humble. God uses people who are humble.

And God raises up people who are humble. So the natural lesson there for you and me is to avoid the very real temptation to look at ourselves as the center of the universe. And realize that we are here because of the God who created us.

And we’re here to do His bidding. Not my bidding, not what I want to happen, not to fulfill my agenda, but I’m here to do his bidding. And so are you.

And I may not be able to tell you tonight exactly what that looks like for you. I’ll tell you some biblical principles about how it looks, but as far as the specifics, what are you supposed to do when you get up tomorrow morning? That’s for him to tell you.

But a prideful person says, now God, I don’t care what you want for me to do today. I have my list of stuff to do. the humble looks for how God can use him.

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