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The story in Daniel 5 tells of a festival held by King Belshazzar of Babylon, who used vessels from the temple in Jerusalem to drink and praise false gods. During the festival, a hand appeared and wrote on the wall, causing the king to seek an interpretation. Daniel revealed that the writing meant Belshazzar's days were numbered, and that night he was killed. The story highlights the problem of human arrogance and the consequences of rejecting God's authority. It also emphasizes the importance of trusting God's word, coming to grips with pride, and discerning between false religion and true faith.
Takeaways
Takeaways
- Human arrogance can lead to a loss of meaning, truth, and morality.
- Trusting in God's word is essential for understanding the reality of life without God.
- Pride must be laid down in order to have a deeper relationship with God.
- Differentiating between false religion and true faith is crucial in following God's will.
Creators & Guests
What is Redeemer City Church - Lafayette, LA?
Pastor Aaron Shamp preaches about the Gospel and facets of Christianity at Redeemer City Church. These podcasts are his sermons.
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the meat of the story, and then later today or this week you can go back and read the whole of chapter 5. I would encourage you to. This is a remarkable story. It just shows Daniel is, just literally speaking, Daniel is a fantastic book, so interesting to read. So I'd encourage you to go back and read the whole chapter later. All right, so in Daniel chapter 5 and starting in verse 9, it says, King Belshazzar had a great feast.
for a thousand of his nobles and drink wine in their presence. Under the influence of wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that his predecessor Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, wives and concubines could drink from them. So they brought in the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, wives and concubines drank from them.
They drank the wine and praised their gods made of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone. At that moment, the fingers of a man's hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the king's palace wall next to the lampstand. As the king watched the hand that was writing, his face turned pale and his thoughts so terrified him that he soiled himself and his knees knocked together. The king shouted to bring in the mediums, Chaldeans and diviners.
He said to these wise men of Babylon, whoever reads this inscription and gives me its interpretation will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain around his neck and have the third highest position in the kingdom. So all the wise men came in, but none of them could read the inscription or make its interpretation known to him. Then King Belshazzar became even more terrified. His face turned pale and his nobles were bewildered. Now let's get down to 17. This is after
They go find Daniel and bring Daniel in. Belshazzar gives the same command to Daniel and then Daniel says this in verse 17. Then Daniel answered the king, you may keep your gifts and give your rewards to someone else. However, I will read the inscription for the king and make the interpretation known to him. Your majesty, the most high God gave sovereignty, greatness, glory and majesty to your predecessor Nebuchadnezzar.
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Because of the greatness he gave him, all peoples, nations and languages were terrified and fearful of him. He killed anyone he wanted and kept alive anyone he wanted. He exalted anyone he wanted and he humbled anyone he wanted. But when his heart was exalted and his spirit became arrogant, he was deposed from his royal throne and his glory was taken from him. He was driven away from people. His mind was like an animal's. He lived with the wild donkeys and fed grass like cattle.
and his body was drenched with dew from the sky until he acknowledged that the Most High God is ruler over human kingdoms and sets anyone he wants over them. But you, his successor, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart even though you knew all this. Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of the heavens. The vessels from his house were brought to you, and as you and your nobles, wives, and concubines drank from them, you praised the gods made of silver and gold,
bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see, hear, or understand. But you have not glorified the God who holds your life breath in His hand, and who controls the course of your life. Therefore, He sent the hand, and this writing was inscribed." And then Daniel tells him the meaning of the writing, which is that his days are numbered, and that very night his life is taken from him. So, this is one of the most famous stories from all of the Old Testament.
and it's quite a colorful and interesting story. We're going to try to pull as much meaning from it today as we can. Of course, there's always more that could be left to be said. But you know, here on the Gulf Coast, we have this phenomenon that makes little sense to people not from the Gulf Coast that is called hurricane parties. You know, maybe if you're not from here, what a hurricane party is, is it means whenever we... So here on the Gulf Coast, we have these gigantic life -threatening storms.
that spin and swirl and then throw themselves upon the coast called hurricanes. They're frightening, they're life threatening and so on. Well, people around here, instead of leaving, decide to stay and throw a party. You know, several years ago, whenever Hurricane Laura hit, the brunt of it went to Lake Charles. It was extraordinarily devastating. Lake Charles is still rebuilding. It was strong here as well. We didn't see nearly as much.
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But that night, I wanted to stay up and try to hear the storm because I mean, they said it was gonna be so strong. It was gonna hit Lafayette at this time. And so I stayed up. We decided to stay because we knew that we were safe here in Lafayette. So we stayed home and I stayed up late because sometime between 12 and 1, it was going to hit. And so I just stayed up watching TV, waiting until that time, whenever I could just go step out on the back porch and see it, then go to bed and so on. But anyway, I had neighbors. By the way, we live...
around 100 % elderly people. Basically a retirement community is where we live. All of our elderly Cajun neighbors were at my very next door neighbor's house getting drunk until two in the morning. And whenever the hurricane force winds came and I stepped out in the garage to watch, you know, and just the wind, the rain is going sideways. The wind is blowing so hard. They were still out there in an open patio, by the way. They must have been soaking wet.
just screaming at each other over the wind, having themselves a good old hurricane party. You know, this is something that a lot of people do and we find there's almost a badge of honor in it. I think sometimes, you know, people say, we stayed and we had a party during the hurricane. You know, you compare that to, did any of you guys get a notification on Facebook this week that your friends in California will march safe? You know what happened? They had rain. That was it. Like, as far as I know, from everything I've seen, they like had rain.
Okay, rain on the level that we would call like a Tuesday, all right? And people were freaking out, all right? And here, we throw parties wherever there's hurricanes, right? So, it's this strange phenomenon that happens. What's happening here in Daniel chapter five is kind of similar, because here you have a successor to King Nebuchadnezzar. That's what we've been learning about, and he's been one of the main characters in all the stories leading up to chapter five. He was the one who really established the empire.
of Babylon and made it great. We have a successor of Nebuchadnezzar named Belshazzar, and he is holding a festival while they don't have a hurricane outside, but they do have the Medes and the Persians. These were the two other rival empires that had been warring against the Babylonian armies. They had defeated the Babylonian armies at the edges of the empire and drove themselves all the way to Babylon, the city of Babylon.
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They were outside the gates in the wall of Babylon holding the city under siege and Belshazzar throws this festival. Really similar to kind of like what we do with the hurricane party except it's two armies, the Medes and the Persians outside the city walls. In his wall they're having this festival and Belshazzar has much wine that he looks at this, he looks at the wall and he sees a hand, just a hand that is writing on the wall here. That
terrifies them and they have to bring in Daniel to tell him what it means. This is a classic story in the Old Testament, so much so that there's a few different phrases from this story that are part of our common language and idioms now, such as seeing the writing on the wall, right? We use that all the time that comes from this story because it's a classic story. But beyond just the historical context or the fantastical elements,
I want us to try to grasp, but what is the meaning of it here? And does it say anything to us today? To do that, we're going to look at a couple of things. We're going to look at the festival, the writing on the wall, and then the meaning or the lessons of this story for us. So we're look at the festival, the writing on the wall, and then the lessons of this story for us. So beginning by looking at the festival, like I said, as they are throwing this festival right here in this moment, in the midst of all this partying, they are under siege.
from two armies that joined together to take them down. It's similar to in World War II, whenever you had the cooperating forces of the Americans, British, Canadians, and so on, pushing into Berlin from the west, and you had the Soviet armies pushing into Berlin from the east, and now there are these two gigantic forces that are about to take them down. That's similar to what's happening in Babylon right now. You have the Medes and the Persians,
these two great world powers who have teamed up together to take them down. Now, Babylon was an incredibly large city. It was very well fortified. And one of the key strategic benefits that Babylon had was that they had the Euphrates River passing right through the city, and they had built their wall so that the river could pass beneath the wall into the city. You know, because whenever cities were sieged back then, the number one reason that they would eventually surrender,
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was not so much because of arrows being shot over or spears or anything else. It was because they ran out of water, right? They couldn't get outside of their walls to get food, water and provisions. And so that's all you had to do to take down a city. Babylon didn't have that problem. So they're throwing this festival, this party, because they feel like they're fine. So what if the Medes and the Persians, so what if Darius the Mede is outside the city, ready to cut off Belshazzar's head? They can't do anything to us. They can't hurt us. We're fine. We're safe.
Euphrates River is still flowing through. We have food and provisions. We'll be fine. Well, little did they know that the Medes and the Persians had diverted the Euphrates River, meaning that it dried up and then they were able to pass underneath the city wall and get into the city. That very night, they entered into the city and once and for all took down the Babylonian Empire and Belshazzar's life was taken that night. Just as Daniel told him it would be because of the inscriptions on the wall.
Death was on their doorstep in this moment, and in the midst of this siege, with death on their doorstep, they throw a wild party. They throw a festival. In the middle of this festival, he calls for the plunder that Nebuchadnezzar had brought in from Jerusalem. They're having this party. There's a thousand people there, right? So, I mean, it's more than just a party, like I This is a festival. There's tons of people there. They're getting drunk. They're eating. They're having, who knows what else going on? And Belshazzar says,
Go and take the gold and silver vessels, all the treasure and the plunder that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem. Because if you remember back in chapter one, whenever Nebuchadnezzar had marched into Jerusalem, taken over the city, he had taken exiles with him, but he also had his men plunder the temple in Jerusalem and go and take all of the vessels that were meant for worship with them. And they brought it back to now be his treasures of victory. Right? Belshazzar says, go and get them.
bring them in here so that we can use them to drink and have our party. You see, if you're going to understand what is going on here in this story, then you need to understand that this party, this festival, was fundamentally religious in nature. It was not just that they were hungry and thirsty. It was not just that it was someone's birthday. It was not just a mere celebration. This was a religious festival. This was a religious event.
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in nature, all of the aspects of it, of having all the people there, Belshazzar leading the feast, all of the wine that was flowing, and then bringing in the vessels, the cups that were meant to be used in the worship of Yahweh, and filling them with wine and drinking them to their own gods. You see, all of this was a religious event, because what he was doing by taking in Yahweh's worship instruments,
And using them for his own festival with himself at the head and their own gods being celebrated, is he was declaring that Yahweh, that God had no power in Babylon. Now, if you back up just one chapter, you'll see that this was the final lesson that we are left with in the story of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel. In chapter four, we have the famous story of Nebuchadnezzar being driven mad, literally living as a wild animal.
until he was humble to the point that he finally acknowledged that Yahweh was Lord, that God was Lord and sovereign even over him. Throughout the first several chapters, we see Nebuchadnezzar slowly acknowledging the power of God, but not truly submitting to his authority. And then finally, at the end of his life, we see that he does. Belshazzar, on the other hand, is doing the exact opposite. He is rejecting the lesson that Nebuchadnezzar had learned, the lesson that certainly would have been passed down because Daniel,
note was reminding him of something he knew. Belshazzar was familiar. He knew the story. Daniel said, I'm reminding you of what you know. He's rejecting this, declaring that God had no power in Babylon. You see, his demeaning of Yahweh's stuff was demeaning Yahweh himself. This festival was religious in nature. As death is on their doorstep, what do they decide to do? Distract themselves with a party. Exalt themselves.
in the midst of their bleak situation. But isn't this how it still goes today? This is how it still goes today. The closer that death gets, the more frantic a culture will turn to sensual pleasure, reveling in wealth, silver and gold, as well as religious frenzy, particularly pagan religious frenzy. You see, we live in a culture today as well where death is on our doorstep.
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Now, death isn't on our doorstep in terms of the Medes and Persians living outside the walls, but we do live in a world today where, particularly in our culture here in the West, in America, we call it a post -Christian culture often, right? We live in a culture that has denied belief in God, that has denied the authority of God, and with the, denying the authority and reality of God, denying all that comes with God's existence. That being a few things such as objective truth,
objective morality, the wisdom and knowledge of God that comes, as well as the meaning and significance that comes from knowing that we are created by this God. Now, once you take all those things out of the picture, the truth, meaning, goodness, beauty, morality, so on, once you take all those things out of the picture, what are we left with? Well, we're left in a world where nothing matters, nothing is significant, nothing endures, because death
is the finality of everything. If there is no God, then that means that death is ultimate extinction. No one can live with that fact. No one can live life truly believing that in the end, nothing has meaning and nothing matters. Nevertheless, we live in a culture that has done their their hardest to try to adopt that belief. But then what happens whenever you do? Well, what happens?
is you throw festivals. You become more frantic and sensual pleasure, reveling in wealth, as I said before, reveling in your affluence and turning to various pagan religious frenzies. A few decades ago, there was a journalist named Ernest Becker, his name might ring a bell for you, and he wrote a book called The Denial of Death, and in that book he had his main thesis as this, that civilization, particularly
our civilization now, is one great project to try to stave off from our minds the reality of death. The reality that in the end, everything comes to an end, that if death is actual extinction, then in the end, nothing has meaning and nothing matters. He says that civilization is just a great project to stave off that sense, to stave off the sense that if death is extinction, then we are ultimately insignificant, forgettable, and insubstantial, right?
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So what will people do in a civilization whenever they hold that belief? And whenever they have a loss of that meaning, of that significance, and objective truth, and morality, and authority, what will they do? Well, they'll do a few different things. Ernest Becker said particularly three things that he thinks they'll do. First of all, they will follow the romantic solution, he calls it. They will turn to more and more sensual pleasures, romantic pleasures.
diving more and more to their fleshly desires and in that trying to find significance, right? Because there's great pleasure in romantic experiences, right? God designed us so that it would be a wonderful, wonderful experience in the proper union that God desired, that God designed. And so, but whenever that great and wonderful experience is taken out of that context that God
desired, well then what happens? It can become a God in and of itself. It becomes something that people can turn to as an idol to say, you know, whenever I experience the affirmation of another person in a romantic relationship, well, that makes me feel as though I matter. There's so many people who are struggling with loneliness and they think, you know, if I could just have that one person, that the one for me, well, they don't tell me that.
My life does have some significance. My life does matter. And so we have a culture today that tells people, you you need to throw off the shackles of traditionalism and embrace all of your deepest sexual romantic desires, because it is in that that you will truly express yourself. And in that expressing yourself, you'll find significance. The romantic solution is also the creative solution. These are all the different things we do in culture to try to.
boost up our significance. You know, this is just the modern manifestations of what the Tower of Babel was. If you go back and you read in Genesis, in Genesis chapter 11, whenever they decide to gather together to build this great tower to the heavens, do you know why they do so? It's not because they needed just a strong tower to check the weather, anything else like that. They came together and gathered to do so because they said, so we can make a great
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name for ourselves. They were desiring to say we matter. There is some significance in this life that after our death, we will not just be forgotten, or there will just be extinction here. That was the meaning of it. And so much in our culture today, when it comes down to when it comes down to art, when it comes to entertainment, when it comes to government, whenever it comes to festivals and celebrations, and so on, are an attempt to do the same to make a name for ourselves. We can do this.
even in small ways in our own personal lives with the cars that we choose to ride around in, the houses we decide to buy, the neighborhoods that we want to live in, the job titles that we want to have, right? The schools we want to make sure our kids are going to and so on. It can be more than just wise decisions for us, but it can become a spiritual need that we were trying to fill with the affluence of the best vehicles, best homes.
neighborhoods, schools, and so on, trying to make a name for ourselves to say, look, I matter.
Or there's the pagan solutions, the religious solutions. We see this in our culture today as well, as our culture is more and more embracing, odd, bizarre, and sometimes even perverted beliefs and lifestyles because, well, this is how one expresses themselves. And self -expression is placed on the altar of ultimate value and importance. In other words, in idol. We have a culture today that just like Belshazzar,
and his friends in their festival are either just trying to drink and eat and sleep their way, sleeping with others, their way out of the awareness of death or spending time shopping and caring about the appearance of affluence and so on. You see, this festival that we have here in Daniel chapter 5 is representative of mankind's wrestling with the reality of life without God.
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Whenever you put God out of the picture, this is what will happen. And for the last several decades or century, you could say that we have seen in the West and in America, even as our cultures try to push God out of the picture and say, he has no relevance here. He has no power here. It's OK if you and your own personal life believe in him, but just don't dare take that into public life.
just like belchers are taking the gold vessels and saying, Yahweh has no power here. That's the result. And we have a culture that is living exactly like the festival that is going on here. If you're going to understand not just the story, but if you're going to be able to look around at our culture and the music, the movies, the hey, Super Bowl today, the sporting events and different things that are going on, and you're going to truly understand them at a worldview level, right, at a level deeper than just what is there on the surface. You need to see this.
It is a spiritual event. All the things that we see, there is a spiritual need that is driving them. Mankind's wrestling with life and the reality, the harshness, the bleakness, and the supposed meaninglessness of life without God. You know, another example of this is in Victor Frankl's book. Victor Frankl was a psychiatrist who was also a survivor of the Holocaust.
And he wrote a classic book called Man's Search for Meaning. It's a phenomenal book, one of my all time favorites. I highly recommend it. But in that book, Man's Search for Meaning, if you go and you pick up, I think it's the 40th anniversary edition, he writes a new preface to the book and introduction. And he says, you know, this is 40 years later after the massive, massive success of Man's Search for Meaning. It was published right after World War II, where he was liberated and able to take his writings and journals and publish them in a book.
It had sold millions upon millions of copies at that point. I mean, just wildly successful book there. Man Search for Meaning. And in the 40th anniversary edition, he reflects on the success of the book. And he says, you know, I don't whenever I ever reflect on that, I don't really take it so much as.
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indicative of my wisdom or something truly unique that I put forward, but I take it as indicative of how badly people are searching for a source of meaning in our culture today. That so many people would buy a book that tells them that they can find meaning. Belshazzar, similarly, is having this festival. He sees the handwriting on the wall. He has no clue what the meaning is.
He has no objective source of meaning for his life. And then even once it is revealed, he isn't able to see it because of his reveling in his own greatness. They call in all these different diviners, it says, and magicians and Chaldeans. If you've been with us for the past couple of weeks, you know those guys are very familiar. They were a group of men who were trained and educated in Babylonian literature in order to actually be able to interpret dreams and so on in order for the king. He brings all of them in. Remember, these are
we would say not just diviners and magicians, but these were the priests, we can even say, of the Babylonian religion. He brings them all in to look at the writing on the wall, and none of them are able to read it and interpret it for him. He promises them all kinds of rewards, a purple robe and jewelry and promotions in his kingdom. He says the third highest position in his kingdom. He promises them all of these different things, and it says they come in,
and they can see the inscription. You know, whenever you read the story, it seems as though Belshazzar was the only one who saw the handwriting, but then everyone was able to see the inscription. They see it, but they're unable to read it and interpret it. So what does he have to do? He has to go and call Daniel, this exile, to bring him in and tell him what was the meaning of the writing on the wall. You see, Belshazzar's...
own religion that he was reveling in and that he was exalting himself in, in his need, in the most salient detail, salient point in the story that we can see his need, which is understanding the meaning of the writing and the meaning of the moment. He is unable to interpret. His religion fails him in that moment. His partying, his exaltation, it fails him.
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And he needs revelation from Yahweh through Daniel. Similarly, we live in a culture today that, like I said, is wrestling and struggling and in hurting with the reality of life without God, and they cannot understand the meaning of it. Their chosen methods to stave off the sense of the bleakness of life if you push God out of the picture will not be able to help them. They need the revelation of God.
So Daniel comes in and Daniel gives him the bad news. If you go and you read the end, I didn't read that portion, he tells him, here's what the inscription says. And he tells him it is, mene mene teko parsen. These are terms for currencies and measures. In other words, what Daniel tells him, and he gives them a specific meaning of each word. In other words, what he tells them is, Belshazzar, your days are numbered. And you have been weighed.
and found lacking. And the last word, parson, was a term for having something. He says, your kingdom is about to be halved between the Medes and the Persians. And it says, that very night, like I talked about before, they had broken through the city. They didn't even know it yet. Belshazzar was overthrown and executed, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom. The primary theme of the story beneath all of the other elements in the story is the problem of human
arrogance. You see, the reason that they had no way to interpret the time that they lived in and the reality of the situation they were in was because of their human arrogance, exalting themselves against the Lord and against His wisdom and revelation that came. They didn't think they needed the Word of God.
They had their power. Oh, well, what about whenever your power is starting to show signs of weakness and vulnerability? Well, then they had their own pagan religion. They had their own wise men and experts. They failed them. They needed the word of God. Whenever human arrogance exalts itself against God, what happens is, is you have a loss of meaning, of truth, of morality, beauty, and knowledge. This is the primary issue beneath it all.
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Not just in this story, you see, it was human arrogance ultimately revealed in their drinking of the cups that came from Yahweh. That was the final straw. It was their arrogance that had led them all the way there to that point. Death is at their doorstep and look at how they act. They think that they are invulnerable. It's reminiscent of the arrogance of the builders and sailors of the Titanic, right, who said that even God cannot sink this ship.
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And similarly, it is human arrogance that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, the rule and authority of God that causes the problems that we see in our world today. And the way that we are festivaling in our world today because we cannot wrestle with the reality of life without God, this is due to exalting ourselves against God today. But God is still riding on the wall. He is still sending a message to a world that has rejected him.
of the reality of the state that they are in and the invitation, not just the reality of the coming judgment, but also an invitation for salvation from that judgment. The writing on the wall today is seen in the church. The role of Christians today is to declare the writing on the wall to our world that doesn't see it. Belshazzar saw the hand and they saw the inscription.
Today we do not have a hand and an inscription on the wall. We have the church, the church that declares the message, the church that tells the world, you must repent from your rejection of the Lord, of his wisdom, of his authority, and submit yourself to it. Just like Nebuchadnezzar finally submitted himself to the authority of God and found salvation in that repentance and submission. So also the invitation is made to the world today.
And as long as you refuse to do so, you are getting closer and closer to that death that is on your doorstep. We declare to the world today that Satan's dominion has been defeated and the kingdom of God is advancing.
Satan's dominion was defeated because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus taking upon himself God's wrath and condemnation for sin on the cross and then laying down death in his grave, overcoming it, he inaugurated the kingdom. Throughout the gospels, Jesus said to the people who were listening, to his disciples, that he was coming to bring the kingdom of God. He was coming to crush
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Satan's dominion. He was coming to show the rulers of the world who truly was the ultimate authority. But how is he going to do that? He didn't do it by picking up a sword. He did it by declaring the message. He did it by declaring the good news, by serving those around him, by healing, by bringing people together in new community. And then ultimately he did it by taking death upon himself. But then defeating death and rising again from the grave.
This is how the kingdom of God is established versus every other kingdom. Other kingdoms are established by force, violence, threat, and fear. But the kingdom of God is established by love, by love overcoming the grave. The kingdom of God is established by an invitation to receive forgiveness for sins. So what does this mean for us? As we now live in the kingdom of God and we declare the writing on the wall to the world, it means that if we're going to declare
the kingdom of God is advancing and we're going to do the work of advancing the kingdom and invite people into it, then we must do it in the same manner that Jesus laid out for us. We don't do it according to the methods and wisdom of the kingdoms of the world. We don't do it through coercion and force. We don't do it through threats or manipulation. We don't do it through propaganda. We don't do it through deceit. We do it through truth. We do it underneath the authority of our sovereign Lord.
We do it through love. You see, we declare in love the message of the good news of the gospel to our world that is dying around us, to our world that is festivaling and reveling, trying to distract themselves and stave off that sense of death. In love and humility, we declare the message to them. We serve. We create communities where we come together and love one another, where broken people are healed, where relationships are restored.
where there is service and generosity and loving one another in our community. It is through these means, just as Jesus laid out, that we advance and declare the kingdom of God to the world. It doesn't mean that we soften our message. Being a community where we are loving one another and there is healing of relationships, there is broken people being mended, right? It doesn't mean that we soften the edges of the good news. No, we still declare.
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that you cannot find salvation from death through romanticism, through affluence, through wealth and riches, through political power or anything else. We also declare to the rulers of our world today, whether they be city councilmen and women, mayors, governors, presidents, or so on, we declare to them that they must submit that they are in their positions only by the permission of the Lord.
Daniel boldly declares to Belshazzar, he says, God gave you that position and because you did not acknowledge him, you are being removed from it. He says, you see, Nebuchadnezzar was made great and he finally acknowledged it. In love and still as being a community of love following the manner of Jesus, we still must declare that message too. We must declare that people need to repent from their lifestyles that go against the word of the Lord, no matter how much the culture affirms their lifestyles.
No matter how much the culture might affirm different forms of depravity, we still stand on the truth that the Lord says, no, the Lord says that that will destroy, but he offers life.
We stand upon the message, but we do so in love. We do so selflessly and generosity. Jesus ultimately gave up his life. What does that tell us about what we ought to be willing to give up for the sake of advancing the kingdom? In the kingdom of God, the writing on the wall today is the church.
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But are we acting that way? Are we living that way? Are we declaring the writing on the wall? You know, it says that Belshazzar saw it behind a lampstand. And I think that's interesting. He wouldn't have seen it if the lampstand hadn't have been lighting up the message. And what did Jesus tell us about who we are in Matthew chapter five, after the Beatitudes? He says, you are the light of the world. He says, a lampstand cannot be put under a basket and be hidden. But how many of us have
had kept the light hidden. Because we're afraid of awkwardness. We're afraid of professional ramifications. We're afraid of social ramifications. We're afraid of being mocked and marginalized by the world because we stand on kingdom values rather than the world's values. We keep the light hidden for all different kinds of reasons. We are not revealing the light.
to declare the writing on the wall to the world around us. But this is what we were called to do.
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Let's consider a couple of just practical lessons for us from this story before we close.
Daniel reminds Belshazzar of the lessons that Nebuchadnezzar had to learn the hard way. And in this section, we can find a few different things of lessons for us. So the first thing is this. The first is that you must trust God's Word. As we seek to be the light, as we seek to declare the writing on the wall, there are going to be many threats. There are going to be many difficulties. You are going to be, at the very least, called out of your comfort zone quite often.
And whenever those times and the uncertainties, the having to step outside your comfort zone, or even threats come against you, what will you choose to stand upon? Will you compromise and say, OK, maybe it is some of the world's values and biblical values? Or will you stand only on the Word of God? We must trust in the Word of God. We must stand upon it and not waver, not compromise. Recognize here, Daniel says,
Tenebke Nessar, I don't want any of your rewards because I'm just telling you God's Word. He's calling him. You need to listen to God's Word and believe it because the Word of God gives us objective truth and morality.
Human societies that do not accept the objective truth, morality, and authority of the Word of God are just staking their lives upon whatever is currently fashionable. Right now, we are told from our culture and from our supposed experts, from our supposed betters in the culture, that there are all these different manners of living that are completely good. They are completely natural, right? They are just...
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people's self -expression and that you are hateful if you go against it. Now recognize that this has only been the consensus opinion for maybe eight years. What was the consensus opinion two decades ago? What was the consensus opinion half a century ago, a century ago? You know, not that long ago, it was the consensus opinion that people of different skin colors were inferior to other skin colors and so therefore it justified what we wanted to do. That was consensus opinion back then.
We recognize that it was wrong. Are we going to continue staking our lives and our culture upon whatever is the consensus opinion of those people who have rejected God's Word? Or are we going to stand upon God's Word that has stood true throughout centuries and ages? Because we recognize that it is not the opinions of men, but it is the Word of God who stands in ultimate authority overall. Well, some people say, you know, the Bible is so antiquated.
It's so old, it's so full of errors. I just don't know if we should really trust it, whereas we should really trust the experts who know everything today, right? The Bible is too full of errors, you know? This story was debated for a long time because you had these scholars who we call critical theorists, wait no, higher criticism. We had these scholars who practiced something called higher criticism, and they came in and they said, you know, is there historical evidence for this Belshazzar guy?
Does this story line up with what we find from our archaeological digs and so on? And for a long time, they said, you know, this story cannot be accurate. It's just another example of how the Bible cannot be trusted because it's full of errors because we know that Belshazzar was not the successor to Nebuchadnezzar. We've looked at all of our records, and our records say that after Nebuchadnezzar was this guy named Nabonidus. That's what was thought for years. The people who continued to trust that God's Word was
accurate and therefore reliable. We could stake our lives upon it. We're seen as just, you know, you're not, you're closed -minded, you're ignorant, you're not willing to trust the facts. Well, until all of a sudden, someone happened to dig up in the Middle East a couple of centuries ago, some more artifacts, some more scrolls that told us that Nabonidus did succeed Nebuchadnezzar. But Nabonidus was a little bit of a religious nut, and
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Either he was exiled by other powerful people of the kingdom or he kind of self -exiled, it's a little murky, but he left to go live in the desert and he left his son Belshazzar in charge. Therefore, it turns out the writer of Daniel chapter five knew more about that historical context than our supposed experts. What are you willing to stake your life upon? The changing fads, whatever is currently fashionable, the opinions of men?
or the unchanging word of God. You need to trust it. You need to stake your life upon it. You need to listen to it. All of scripture, including the parts you don't like, including the parts that our culture wants you to reject, you need to listen to it, stake your life upon it, obey it. Otherwise, how will you know that you are following the true God or just an idol of your own making or a God that was made in our culture's image? If you have a Bible that can never disagree with you,
How do you know? I've used this example before, and some of you guys might have heard it. Imagine that I had a relationship with my wife where she never ever disagreed with me. Whatever I said, she always agreed with. She perfectly mimicked my opinions and always went with whatever I wanted. We never had any differences between us. Would you say that we had a real relationship or that I just had a relationship with a robot? This was kind of...
interestingly portrayed in the Stepford Wives movie, right? But that wasn't real relationships. Everybody knows whether it's a marriage or a friendship or siblings that when you actually get to know another person, there's often disagreements. Because they're not just made in your image. They're not just a copy of you, whatever you desire, but they are another person. The same is true with God. If you have a Bible and a God that you're worshiping that always agrees with you, that never challenges you,
then you are most likely just following a God made in your own image. We call that an idol and not the true God of the Bible. So, do you have a God that disagrees with you? Do you have a Bible that confronts you and challenges you? That's what you need in order to know that you truly do know the real God.
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You need to come to grips with your pride. We recognize that pride is the sin beneath all other sins 99 % of the time. It is pride that frequently causes us to exalt ourselves. It is pride that often causes us to debase ourselves and to do awful things to ourselves because we say, well, you know, I should be better. It's like, what do you mean you think you should be better? Right? Isn't that prideful in itself? You need to come to grips with your pride and lay that down at the cross.
and let it die on Jesus's cross. The last thing that I want to get to. You need to know the difference between false religion and true faith. You know, Belshazzar had taken these instruments that were made for the worship of God. He had taken religious artifacts and then used them in however he wanted. He had taken these cups and instruments that were dedicated so that by using them, you might know the real God.
instead use them how He wanted. You know, we can do that with a lot of different things, too. We can take all different sorts of things that the Lord gave us so that through those things, they might be a means of grace that allows us to know Him and instead just use it for our own purposes, use it to exalt ourselves. Things like church attendance, things like biblical literacy, doctrinal knowledge, various gifts of our
artistic gifts, leadership gifts, and service, our leadership and our serving in the community. We can use so many different things, even good things that the Lord gave us through which, you know, He gave us His words so we might know Him, but we can use it instead as a weapon to boost our own selves.
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Are you practicing false religion using the vessels that God gave you, or instead are you using them to know God truly? Are you practicing false religion, or do you have true faith? Do you know God? Let's pray. So, Lord, we come before you now and we ask that you would search our hearts, Lord, and help us to see what you are challenging us with today, Father, whether...
It is that we have been covering the light and we have not been what you called us to be in the world or whether we have been taking your vessels made for your worship and turn them into things that glorify ourselves.
Whether we have been turning to the world's answers for facing the supposed meaninglessness of life instead of turning to you Lord, recognizing that we are created by you with intention and purpose and that purpose and meaning is found in you. Father, would you address our hearts to help us to see what you would have for us to learn this morning so that through this story and through your word and through worship, we might truly come to know you.
Father, we do not desire just momentary inspiration today, but we desire a step deeper into a true, authentic, ongoing relationship with You. We recognize that the first step to that is submitting ourselves to You, laying down our pride, letting it be crucified at Christ's cross. And so, Lord, we lay down our pride before You this morning. We lay down our being absent from the mission.
We lay down all these things before you, Lord, so that you might wash it away in your grace and we might experience a deeper relationship with you today. We pray this in the name of our King Jesus, amen.