Sermon starts at 49:29
Last week we left King Belshazzar with his knees knocking in terror. A mysterious hand had suddenly appeared and wrote a message on the wall at his big party with 1000 nobles and the wives and concubines. He yelled (5:2) for the wise men to come and explain it, but they couldn’t. Then the Queen Mother came in and urged him to call in Daniel, and that’s what he does. As we’ll now see, Daniel has a message from God: “You are without excuse. Payday has arrived.”
Unknown to Belshazzar, at the very time Daniel was speaking these words, the Medes and Persians were already pouring into the city under the sluice gates of the Euphrates River and scaling the steep river banks. Cyrus had stationed some of his army where the river entered the city under the city wall to the north and some men to the south where the river exits the city. He had the river diverted upstream into a swampy area and told his soldiers to wait until the river was fordable and then enter the city. That’s exactly what happened. They took the great city of Babylon with hardly a fight. Verse 30 simply says that on same night, October 12, 539 BC, the Chaldean King Belshazzar was slain.
God’s invisible hand of Providence was at work and, of course, right on time. God never misses His appointments. Not only is it payday for Belshazzar and time for the collapse of that head of gold in Daniel 2, but Jeremiah’s 70 years is nearly up. God said in Jeremiah 25:11-12…
11 ‘This whole land (Judea) will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12 ‘Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,’ declares the LORD, ‘for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting desolation.
This morning we are looking at two men in this passage. One ruled over a mighty earthly kingdom and the other represented the kingdom of the Most High God. The people of God are to be essentially different from the people of this world. Let’s see the essential differences between Belshazzar and Daniel in this account of the fall of Babylon.
Daniel and Belshazzar are different in their basic identity. One is of this world; the other of God’s kingdom.
Daniel 5:13, Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Are you that Daniel who is one of the exiles from Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah?
“Then Daniel was brought in before the king.” Here comes light into the darkness of the palace hall to stand before the king; two completely different men. One is of this world; the other is of the Most High God. There stands Daniel, a godly man who has remained faithful to his God through a world of idolatry and pleasure-seeking. He’s a Titus 2:2 man: “Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance. Daniel is over 80 years old.
And there’s Belshazzar, pale and terrified, a man of the world, forced to call on God’s man for help. His wise men had no answer to the handwriting on the wall.
Daniel 5:14-16a, “Now I have heard about you that a spirit of the gods is in you, and that illumination, insight and extraordinary wisdom have been found in you. 15 “Just now the wise men and the conjurers were brought in before me that they might read this inscription and make its interpretation known to me, but they could not declare the interpretation of the message. 16 “But I personally have heard about you, that you are able to give interpretations and solve difficult problems.”
Belshazzar lives for his pleasures and when a crisis hits because of his sin, he loses it. He is terrorized. He knows he mocked the God of those sacred vessels from the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem. He heard about Daniel, but apparently had not befriended him like Nebuchadnezzar had done. And here is Daniel, his ancient face wrinkled from time with God’s peace in his heart and in his eyes. He isn’t afraid to come before the king and give God’s message.
When you don’t have God, all you have is this world. When you believe God and know God is in control of all things with His invisible hand always moving, you aren’t afraid of the face of man. John Knox was such a man in Scotland in the 1500s. When brought before Mary, Queen of Scots, she charged him with teaching contrary to her laws. She scolded him, “How can this be right since God commands subjects to obey their rulers?” John Knox replied, “Madam, your subjects are not bound to follow what you feel is right but what God’s word declares to be true.” Queen Mary retorted, “How dare you speak to me like this? I have put up with you for too long! I shall be revenged.” Knox’s reply, “I must obey God. His Word commands me to speak plainly and flatter no one on the face of the earth.” At his funeral someone said, “Here lies one who never feared the face of man.” This is Daniel, fearlessly standing before the great king of Babylon, ready to deliver the truth.
Daniel and Belshazzar were different in what they treasured.
Daniel 5:16b-17, ” Now if you are able to read the inscription and make its interpretation known to me, you will be clothed with purple and wear a necklace of gold around your neck, and you will have authority as the third ruler in the kingdom.” 17 Then Daniel answered and said before the king, “Keep your gifts for yourself or give your rewards to someone else; however, I will read the inscription to the king and make the interpretation known to him.
Belshazzar’s world revolved around all the hypocrisy of politics, the lust for wealth, the pride and arrogance of position. So here he offers Daniel an amazing reward of wealth and position. Belshazzar may have thought his rewards would assure a good word from Daniel. “Every man has his price.”
Daniel replies, “Keep your gifts and rewards to yourself.” Daniel can’t be bought. He wasn’t “in it for the money.” This is the corruption of politics and worldly leadership. On these high levels truth isn’t the issue, but rather whatever forwards the agenda, no matter how blatant of a lie. Lust for power and wealth are deadly to leadership. But Daniel isn’t filled with selfish ambition. He isn’t willing to compromise his message to get a higher position. He’s is a true servant of God, like Abraham, Moses, Samuel, and the apostle Paul, men who couldn’t be bought. And flattery slid right off Daniel like water off a duck’s back. He was not a member of the Ear Ticklers Society (2 Tim. 4:3-4).
While Belshazzar, like most men of this world, loved power and money and people’s flattery, Daniel was simply committed to God’s truth and told the truth whatever the cost.
Daniel and Belshazzar were utterly different in their understanding of life’s purpose – honor self or honor God.
Daniel 5:18-21, “O king, the Most High God granted sovereignty, grandeur, glory and majesty to Nebuchadnezzar your father. 19 “Because of the grandeur which He bestowed on him, all the peoples, nations and men of every language feared and trembled before him; whomever he wished he killed and whomever he wished he spared alive; and whomever he wished he elevated and whomever he wished he humbled. 20 “But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit became so proud that he behaved arrogantly, he was deposed from his royal throne and his glory was taken away from him. 21 “He was also driven away from mankind, and his heart was made like that of beasts, and his dwelling place was with the wild donkeys. He was given grass to eat like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until he recognized that the Most High God is ruler over the realm of mankind and that He sets over it whomever He wishes.
Belshazzar learned nothing about God from this history he was surely aware of. Daniel reminds him that God is the sovereign Most High God who gave Nebuchadnezzar his kingdom and all of his great majesty. God “bestowed” on him all his power and authority. Belshazzar should have learned about how God humbled his grandfather by turning him into a human beast until he confessed the Most High God, Jehovah, Daniel’s God, is ruler over all! God put him in power and God removed him.
But Belshazzar learned nothing from what he surely knew about. He’s a natural man. The natural man is blind and deaf to God’s judgments. What about us? Do we learn from history? Do you realize God is sovereign over your own life? Daniel knew God. He knew all about what God had done in history. He knew that only through faith in the true and living God can you make sense of life. He knows that God must interpret life for him. He looked at life through the lens of Scripture and saw the hand of God in everything, including Nebuchadnezzar’s humbling and repentance.
Daniel and Belshazzar were essentially different in their heart attitude – pride and humility.
Daniel 5:22-24, “Yet you, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this, 23 but you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see, hear or understand. But the God in whose hand are your life-breath and all your ways, you have not glorified. 24 “Then the hand was sent from Him and this inscription was written out.”
Here the difference between a true believer and a lost person is most obvious. Belshazzar is essentially proud and arrogant and Daniel is essentially humble and obedient to God. Daniel is unafraid to aim the message straight at Belshazzar. “Yet you, his son…” Just like Peter in Acts to the Sanhedrin, “But you crucified Him.”
Daniel brings five blistering indictments against Belshazzar.
- You knew all this! You are without excuse, O king. You knew and didn’t humble your heart! Romans 1:20 says every man and woman is without excuse. You know creation itself bears witness to God’s power and eternal nature. Your conscience itself bears witness to your accountability to God. You knew all this.
- You have exalted yourself in direct defiance of God – vs. 23.
- You have mocked God Almighty by bringing out His sacred vessels of gold and silver to make fun of them by praising your own gods.
- You have praised non-existent gods who can’t see, hear, or understand. He was like those Baal prophets who cried out to Baal to send fire from heaven, but Baal didn’t even exist. Same with all the false religions and cults of our own day. Their gods don’t exist. In John 17:3 Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
- Worst of all, you have not glorified God who sustains every moment of your being. Every breath you take is a gift from God, but you haven’t even thanked Him. Every step you take is by divine mercy. You have not glorified God by worship and praise and thanksgiving and submission to do His will. Even though Belshazzar is dead in his sins and an enemy of God, he is still responsible to glorify God in every area of his life. This is true for everyone. You live in God’s world, breath God’s air, drink God’s water, you better give Him the glory!
Daniel lays it right out there. In our world of radical rebellion and gross perversion, of deceitful scheming and deception in high places, from brainwashing children about race and sexuality to denial of God’s overruling authority and truth, someone like Daniel has to stand up and speak the sober word, the word of judgment. Daniel is essentially different from Belshazzar and these nobles in his palace. He wasn’t a chameleon trying to blend in with all the rest. This is the church’s role – to be essentially different from the world so we have a message to bring to the world. And now we come to the handwriting on the wall.
Belshazzar and Daniel were essentially different in their end – death and life.
Daniel 5:25-31, “Now this is the inscription that was written out: ‘MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.’ 26 “This is the interpretation of the message: ‘MENE’–God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. 27 ” ‘TEKEL’–you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient. 28 ” ‘PERES’–your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.” 29 Then Belshazzar gave orders, and they clothed Daniel with purple and put a necklace of gold around his neck, and issued a proclamation concerning him that he now had authority as the third ruler in the kingdom. 30 That same night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. 31 So Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of sixty-two.
The handwriting is on the wall. Judgment is here. This message to Belshazzar applies to anyone who ignores Jesus Christ and lives for other idols or religious systems. There is a weighing of nations. Os Guinness in his book A Free People’s Suicide says, “America’s writing is on the wall for those who are watching now.” He also wrote, “In the end the ultimate threat to the American republic will be Americans. The problem is not wolves at the door but termites in the floor.” Those Marxist termites are chewing away in our government, armed forces, media, universities and schools from kindergarten up as Critical Race Theory and Marxist class conflict and confusion are pushed into the minds of this generation. Irwin Lutzer in We Will Not Be Silent says, “The church is the last barrier against a total breakdown of sexual sanity in today’s culture.” Like Daniel, we have to see the handwriting and speak God’s truth with courage to our generation. The termites are incessantly chewing away!
Here is God’s message to Belshazzar and his empire.
- Mene Mene – Numbered. God has every man’s life numbered and the time comes when His patience ends and justice is applied. For Belshazzar it’s October 12, 539 BC.
- Tekel – Weighed. With all your gold and silver, all your earthly glory, before God you are weighed and weightless. Your scale comes crashing down on the side of doom.
- Peres – Divided and broken. Babylon’s day is over. God’s judgment is the final dividing of the ways. When God steps in, every mouth is shut, every tongue is silenced, and every heart will know its own guilt.
It’s the end of days for Belshazzar. He kept his promised rewards to Daniel, but what good was it anyway? The Medes and Persians are taking over the city. History says they found Belshazzar with a knife in his hand. Somehow he is slain and the head of gold disappears into the silver chest and arms of the Medo-Persian Empire. Darius the Mede, also called Gubaru, was the commanding officer of Cyrus’ army and was given authority to rule the entire Fertile Crescent (Whitcomb, Daniel, p. 80).
Our study this morning has shown us essential differences between Belshazzar and Daniel. Where did their differences take them? What was their end? Belshazzar dies and is gone under the righteous judgment of God. Daniel stands there honoring his God, living on to serve God another day!
That message on the wall applies to every one of us. Everyone’s days are numbered and our lives in this world will end. Our deeds will be weighed on God’s scales and for those who have not trusted Christ for salvation, condemnation will come crashing down. But when you come to Christ, God sweeps away all your sins and Christ stands in for you. Instead of being found wanting, Christ is your righteousness. There are two gates, two roads. One road is wide and leads to destruction. The other road, through repentance and faith in Christ, leads to life. Where are you headed?