What would you do if you gave a party and God provided the entertainment?

 

That's what happened to King Belshazzar. As we continue our series on Daniel today, we read in Daniel 5 about a wild party thrown by the king. Open your Bibles if you would and let's see what happened.

 

It was a party for 1000 guests! And right in the middle of the party in the midst of the noise and commotion, the party was crashed. An unexpected guest changed the mood drastically. Daniel 5:5 reads, "Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote." 

 

It was a mysterious message that no one understood----right there on the wall. 

 

The handwriting was on the wall! How many of you have heard that expression before? How many of you knew it came from the Bible? It was a baffling message. Nobody knew what it meant until Daniel arrived. But before we get into the meaning, let's back up a bit.

 

The last few weeks we've been hearing about King Nebuchadnezzar. But now he is dead and Belshazzar is king. Nebuchadnezzar is called his father--a word which could be translated "father or ancestor or predecessor". 

 

At this moment in history, Babylon is surrounded by the armies of the Medes and the Persians. The city is under siege. And Belshazzar was well aware of it! So why the party? Wasn't he worried. No----he thought Babylon was too strong to fall. As Pastor John mentioned last week, the walls around Babylon were immense. Their defenses were incredible. The Euphrates River ran through the city, so they had water. Historians tell us that they had provisions stored away that could feed them for 20 years. There was a huge moat around the wall that circled the city. They felt safe even with invading armies surrounding them.

 

Belshazzar was so confident, so secure that he threw a party for 1000 people! And you could tell that the king was feeling pretty puffed up with pride because somewhere into the party, he sent servants to go and get the sacred gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem when he had conquered the Jewish people. And the king passed them around for his guests to drink from. It was a gesture of arrogance. He was feeling his power over the people of Israel --some of whom like Daniel were still exiles living in his kingdom. And it was a gesture of mocking their God--the one whose temple the Babylonian army had destroyed.

 

Belshazzar and his guests were having a great time--and then it happened. Remember Daniel 5:5-- "Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote."

 

Until this week, I never knew that the master artist Rembrandt had painted this scene. 

 

There's a look of total shock on the king's face! You see the temple goblets being spilled as the guests react to the handwriting on the wall! One moment the king's heart is puffed up with pride and the next his knees are knocking in fright.

 

Belshazzar gets himself together long enough to ask for help. At least he knows when he needs help. But he looks to the wrong place. He calls his enchanters, astrologers and diviners to interpret the writing. He promises great rewards to anyone who can figure it out. Give him credit that he knows he can't just ignore this! He promises new clothes, gold chains and a job as his chief of staff. But even all the enticements didn't work and no one could help him. 

 

The queen knows who can help. She knows Daniel had handled things like this before. He had a long history of solving problems for Nebuchadnezzar. So Daniel was summoned by the king. You can see that encounter in verses 13-21. Basically Daniel gives the king a history lesson. He reminds Belshazzar about what happened to Nebuchadnezzar. We heard of Nebuchadnezzar's temporary insanity last week in Daniel 4.

 

How well do you and I learn from history--either our own or that of another? How well do learn from our mistakes? How well do we learn from things others have gone through? Sometimes it helps us to hear from a friend or a parent or a co-worker about something they have struggled through. They share their experience with us out of love and concern so that we don't have to repeat their mistakes. And sometimes that's a powerful gift that can save us a lot of misery when we learn from their history. But other times, our ears are closed and we don't want to learn anything.

 

Belshazzar didn't learn from history. He knew about Nebuchadnezzar's pride and downfall, but he went the same route. Daniel says, "But you, Nebuchadnezzar's son have not humbled yourself though you knew of all this.  Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them."

"You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways." (Daniel 5:23)

 

"You did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways!"

 

So Daniel tells the king that God has sent this hand and its message on the wall to give him a message.  “This is what these words mean: Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.  Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.  Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” (Daniel 5:26-28)

 

That night--Belshazzar was killed by the Medes and the Persians---- Babylon was conquered and Darius the Mede became king! So today when you hear someone say that the handwriting is on the wall, it usually is an expression that something or someone is headed toward inevitable defeat or failure.

 

The Greek historian Heroditus records that there was a great feast on the eve of the overthrow of Babylon. During that feast, the military commander of the Medes and the Persians discovered a way to change the flow of the Euphrates River so that the water level of the moats around the city walls was lowered. It was low enough that his army could slip into the city in the middle of the night. 

 

Belshazzar was so arrogant and self-secure, but that night he died, his city fell to the invaders and another king took his place.

 

What was Belshazzar's real problem? He was king of Babylon----he enjoyed so much privilege and pleasure yet he didn't know who was the source of it all! 

What was Belshazzar's problem? 

Daniel said, "Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven....... But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways." (Daniel 5:23)

 

Belshazzar did not honor the God who holds him in his hand. 

 

How about you and I? From the Lord's hand we receive the breath of life and he continues every day to make possible every good thing we enjoy. But how well, how consistently do we honor the Lord?

 

How often do we dishonor the Lord? Whenever we start to think that we ourselves are the source of life, we dishonor God. We may not say "we are the source of life" or think it in so many words, but when we get the big promotion, when we score the winning goal, point or touchdown, when we're complimented for our musical talents or our brains, it becomes very easy to lose all humility just like Belshazzar and think we are the source of life.

 

Listen to a quote from a well known author--"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."

 

That could very easily have been written in 2009 but it was written in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln.

 

We start to believe that we are the source and we forget that the Lord is truly the source of life!

 

We also dishonor God by thinking that the source of life is some other power that the Lord. Remember again, Daniel said to Belshazzar, "You praised the gods of silver and gold........ But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways."   (Daniel 5:23)

 

Do you and I ever praise the gods of financial security, or the gods of technology, or the gods of youth and the latest promises and products for eternal health? Are we ever like the woodpecker that began pecking on a large tree just as it was hit by lightning? The tree was blown to bits and the woodpecker was dazed a bit but looked up and saw the tree in splinters and said--"I knew those nutritional supplements were just what I needed!"

 

We often believe the source of life is something that has been created by the true source, forgetting the Lord our God, creator of all things.

 

When we do that, the writing is on the wall for us as we travel that path of disaster. But we don't have to take that path. There is a far, far better way!

 

First, we can honor the Lord God when we live in humility, recognizing him as the source of all that is good in life.

 

Jesus said, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.^"  (Matthew 11:29)

 

Jesus invites us to learn from him. Truly God yet truly human, he lives in humility.

 

True life and peace comes from the humble heart like Christ's. Max Lucado suggests that Jesus teaches us humility because we haven’t done anything to be arrogant about. "Do art critics give awards to the canvas? Is there a Pulitzer for ink? Can you imagine a scalpel growing smug after a successful heart transplant? Of course not. They are only tools, so they get no credit for the accomplishments."   You and I are merely the tools in the hands of God.

 

Jesus, the one who has done great things and could claim all credit, lives with a gentle and humble heart to show us the way to find rest for our souls.

 

Second, we honor the Lord God when we live in awe toward the source of life.

 

In August when we had our family visiting we went up to Logan Pass and some of us tried to climb Mt Oberlin. We got pretty close to the top before the wind got too bad and we decided not to go farther--but even from there, the view was awe-inspiring. Whichever way you looked, the towering peaks and glacier-carved valleys were beyond beautiful and I stood there in awe of our God who has created such majestic places.

 

But for me, even more awe-inspiring is to consider that the Lord would leave the security of his heavenly realm to enter human life. To open himself to hunger, temptation, ridicule, and even torture and death. That Jesus Christ, God himself, would be willing to die that we can have forgiveness and new life. That is truly awesome!

 

Third, we honor the Lord God when we live in gratitude to him as the source of everything.

 

There is an old story about a Jewish tailor who visits his rabbi and says, "I have a problem with my prayers. If someone comes to me and says, `Mendel, you're a wonderful tailor'--- that makes me feel good. I feel appreciated. I can go on feeling good for a whole week, even longer on the strength of one compliment like that. But if people came to me every day, one after another, hour after hour, and kept saying to me `Mendel, you're a wonderful tailor,' over and over again it would drive me crazy. It would soon get to the point where I wouldn't want to listen to them anymore. I would tell them to go away and let me do my work in peace. Rabbi, this is what bothers me about prayer. It seems to me that if we told God how wonderful He is once a week, even once every few weeks, and just one or two of us at a time, that's all He would need. Is God so insecure that He needs us praising him all the time? It seems to me it would drive Him crazy."

 

The rabbi smiled and said, "Mendel, you're absolutely right. It probably is hard for God to listen to all of our praises, hour after hour, day after day. But God knows how much we need to utter that praise, so in His great love for us, He listens to all of our prayers."

 

When we offer praise and gratitude to the Lord, it is a reality check that opens our hearts to the way things really are.

 

We honor the Lord God when we live in humility, awe and gratitude!

 

And when we live in humility, awe and gratitude, we remember or perhaps learn for the first time the answer to the question, "Who is the source?" It is the Lord our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit who provides all that we need in life.