I'd like for us to look in the
book of Daniel this morning, chapter 5.
So often we're reminded that there are many
historians that think that perhaps we're heading into
a time of, might even refer to it
as the golden age, with all of the
great scientific things that are being developed and
all of the things that are being accomplished,
that we're just standing on the brink of
a new great day in the history of
mankind.
I would be inclined to like to believe
that, if it were not for what we
read in Scripture.
The Apostle Paul, if we interpret these days
to be the last days, Paul says they
will be perilous times.
They will be distressing times.
They will be times that put a lot
of pressure upon people.
You know, if you look at your television
set and if you read the newspapers and
get those accounts of what's happening in the
world today, I'd have to say it's a
very violent world we live in today.
There's such an increase in violence.
If it's not on a national level, it's
on a local level.
Crime seems to be on the increase.
Doing all that we can to try to
combat those that live those lives in rebellion
of the law of the land.
I'm trying to call to mind some of
the things that are happening in the golden
age.
I'll be very honest with you.
I'm not in agreement with what they see
for the future.
It seems to me that things are not
getting better.
If you followed the thinking of those that
are given to secular humanism and you look
at what man has achieved, you can't deny
there have been giant steps taken as far
as mankind developing things that are in the
world, exploring things that are in the world,
bringing to light things that we never knew
before.
But when I look at all of those
things in the light of what we have
in scripture and think about what God has
done, it seems like a drop in the
bucket.
I don't want to minimize what God has
created in mankind.
We are the highest order of things that
God created.
We can be God-like.
As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, he
has a divine design for each one of
us.
He wants each one of us to be
conformed to the very likeness of his Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
That's a wonderful thought, to be like Christ,
to be like the Son of God, to
have the mind of Christ, a mind that
was dedicated to doing the will of the
Father perfectly.
You couldn't be inspired to seek anything higher
than to do the will of God.
Yet we are living in a world in
which the secular humanists would tell us it
is getting better and man is getting smarter
and we don't need God.
Man can do anything God can do and
maybe do it better.
That's the thinking of the humanists.
Put a lot of confidence in what man
can do.
I don't hear a lot of talk about
all of the evil things that men do
sometimes.
I think when you look at a book
like the book of Daniel, we get a
little picture of mankind living at a time
in history long ago, over 2,000 years
ago.
We get a little picture of how ambitious
people were.
Nations were very ambitious.
War, the taking of things from other people
and other nations.
They didn't always take gold and silver.
In this case, in the book of Daniel,
you are brought face to face with the
value that was placed upon human life and
people that were promising young people.
They looked upon that as having great value,
and they took that resource and they took
it back home with them and they used
it.
Someone might think, as we recount in the
book of Daniel, of just one incident in
which Daniel, a very promising young man, was
a part of the nation of Israel, the
chosen people of God.
Babylon, a great and powerful nation, had invaded
that land, had taken captive a people, had
destroyed a lot of the things that were
a part of that culture, and someone would
say, you know, they knew what they were
doing.
Well, let me qualify that by saying they
had been brought into a position where, because
of what they were doing, God is in
control and he is using them to bring
about the fulfillment of his plans and purposes.
God raises up and God puts down.
If you are a sovereignist and you believe
in the sovereignty of God, you must know
that God is in control.
Many people today think that everything is out
of control.
Oh, no.
God is still upon his throne, and God
is ruling sovereignly over all of the affairs
of mankind.
You say, what's happening over in Iraq, the
very setting for what we are about to
read this morning?
You mean to tell me that all of
the things that are happening there is a
part of a divine plan and purpose of
God?
God controls everything.
Oh, men are given freedom sometimes to act
and behave in a way that is far
removed from what is ideal as far as
the plan of God, but God allows even
those like Pharaoh of old.
You remember Pharaoh of old, and he hardened
his heart, and one day God said, that's
enough, and he hardened Pharaoh's heart.
Here we have a nation that because of
their power, because of their ability to conquer
and take control of not only their own
lives, but the lives of many others, in
this case the nation of Israel.
God has allowed this because he is using
this nation, using the leaders of that nation
to discipline his people because of wrongdoing.
You wouldn't get that in this picture unless
you read and understood exactly what the prophetic
picture really was.
But God works through nations, the subduing of
one people by another people, and all of
it ultimately working toward the fulfillment of plans
and purposes of God in which he will
install and put his Son in the position
of Lord of lords, King of kings.
That's our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, he's been here upon the face of
the earth, and he has accomplished something that
every one of us in this room, I
trust this morning, you have accepted the value
of what he did in fulfilling God's will
to save our souls.
He did it perfectly.
And we call ourselves today Christians.
We're Christ ones.
We have eternal life.
We have spiritual life.
We're no longer under the control of the
God of this world, Satan.
Satan is the God of this world.
We have a new master.
We have one that we are to yield
the control of our lives to him and
let him control our lives.
God is well-pleased with that.
God is well-pleased with that believer that
says, not my will, thy will be done.
So this is a very interesting book in
that we see people that lived in a
different age, a different time and a different
culture.
You could say things are much like they
are today as far as one nation invading
another nation, taking captive people, taking resources, all
of these things.
But if you take that one factor that
God is going to use this and is
using this to discipline his people, he's making
them pay for their disobedience in keeping the
sabbatical year, not observing the Sabbath.
They had discarded the plans and purposes of
God for his people.
And because of that, he makes them pay
and pay big time, 70 years of captivity
for the nation of Israel in the land
of Babylon under the control of those that
do not honor the God that they're actually
serving by disciplining his people.
Daniel was one of those people.
He was a young person.
The course of all of this covers, I'm
told, about 70, 75 years.
Daniel was there as a young man.
He was a valuable resource, and it didn't
take long for him to discover that.
Brilliant minds, people with values, values that people
are urged to seek after for their own
lives, for their own personal living.
It's said like this in the first chapter,
Children, in whom was no blemish.
That's Daniel.
Well-favored, skilled in all wisdom and cunning
in knowledge and understanding science, and such as
had ability in them to stand in the
king's palace, in whom they might teach the
learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.
Daniel is going to be used.
He's going to be elevated to a place
of authority.
That kind of character in a person and
that kind of wisdom in a person is
to be highly valued.
We encourage our Christian young people to go
out into the world and develop all the
talents that you have.
Not necessarily to be used in the world
and for the world, but for the glory
of God.
I think there needs to be more emphasis
placed upon parents focusing, Christian parents, focusing upon
getting your sons and daughters to follow a
course in life that you can be used
for God in the world that we're living.
You may get into politics.
There are a lot of fine young people
that get into politics and serve sometimes political
leaders, but we need the light wherever it
can shine for the good and the glory
of God.
That's where Daniel is.
He's in a culture in which things are
happening and something's going to happen in the
life of this man we're going to read
about, Belshazzar.
And he recognized, at least it's brought to
his attention, that somebody here that you may
not have taken account of, but he can
be of great help to you.
Others had detected it, and no doubt he
had some recognition of it.
Let's read from Daniel 5, verse 1.
Belshazzar the king made a great feast to
a thousand of his lords, drank wine before
the thousands.
Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to
bring the golden and silver vessels which his
father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple
which was in Jerusalem, that the king and
his princes, his wives, and his concubines might
drink therein.
Then they brought the golden vessels that were
taken out of the temple of the house
of God which was in Jerusalem.
And the king and his princes, his wives,
and his concubines drank in them.
They drank wine and praised the gods of
gold and of silver, of brass, of iron,
of wood, and stone.
Babylon as a city, I can't give you
all the details, but it was a very
impressive place, a very modern city, well laid
out.
Everything that could be thought of being able
to live independent of outside help had been
taken into account.
The river Euphrates ran diagonally through the city.
Huge mammoth walls, thick as this building, surrounding
that city.
It had eight gates to that city.
That required quite a bit of personnel to
look after those gates and to tell who
could come in and who went out.
On either side of the Euphrates rivers that
came through that city, there were also walls
with gates.
It would be kind of hard to invade
that city, wouldn't it?
It's a self-contained environment.
They raised their own foodstuffs, had water, had
learned how to control the flow of the
river during flood stage, all of that.
It could have made somebody that was in
charge feel pretty heady.
We're not vulnerable at all.
Man, we could stay here.
We could stay here for years.
If there was a siege that took place,
we'd keep going right on, right on.
Except for one thing, the Medes and the
Persians and Dyrus, they're pretty smart, too.
How can we invade and get inside of
that city of Babylon?
I don't know who thought of it first,
but it's a good idea.
All we'd have to do is drive up
the river and we could walk right into
that city, right on the riverbed.
You know, that's exactly what they did.
Now, I'm of this mind, they had inside
help, too.
There were some people there that helped them
because the gates that led to the river,
they had to be manned, and somebody went
on his job.
The very night, the very time that what
we're going to read about here about Belshazzar
and all this celebration, this revelry, while they're
having this big blowout, the Medes and the
Persians are coming in on that dry riverbed
because they've directed the flow of the river
in another direction.
You know, they walked right into the city
without even firing a shot.
They took it.
They took it to control of everything.
Times change so radically, and that's what Belshazzar's
life is all about.
It reminds us, you be very careful how
you govern the affairs of your life.
No man knows what another day will bring
forth.
What we encourage people to do spiritually, be
ready, be ready to leave this world at
any time.
Be prepared.
We talk to people from time to time,
are you prepared to leave this world?
I've got plenty of time to decide on
that.
Man, I'm living.
I'm living now.
Isn't it so strange that the God of
this world is able to blind the minds
of those that will not believe, will not
accept this wonderful offer?
Belshazzar.
I'm told that in the city of Babylon,
there were at least 180 places of worship,
shrines to every kind of imaginable deity that
you can think of.
They had them.
They weren't short on religion.
They had it.
Religion.
If you want religion, we've got it.
Pick and choose what you want.
Daniel belongs to the one sovereign God that
has created all things, and everything else is
subservient ultimately to the divine will of our
God and Daniel's God.
You have to believe that Belshazzar got a
little heady about this thing.
Perhaps he just got a little bit bored.
The party, I'm told that sometimes these parties
and these get-togethers like this could go
on for days, weeks, celebrating.
I mean, it's not just an afternoon or
an evening of having a little party and
a get-together.
Man, this went on for weeks, maybe a
month.
It couldn't get boring.
I mean, things are slowing down.
I'm not fascinated by that anymore.
Give us something new.
He comes up with a bright idea.
You remember all of those vessels of gold
and silver that we took out of that
temple down in Jerusalem?
Bring them in.
We've never used them.
We're going to celebrate drinking from those vessels.
That's what they did.
They brought the golden vessels that were taken
out of the temple of the house of
God, which was at Jerusalem, and the kings
and the princes, his wives and his concubines,
they drank from them.
You say, no big thing.
It was just silver and gold utensils, vessels.
You be very careful how you tamper with
God's things that he has sanctified and set
apart for a specific purpose.
These vessels were to be used in the
worship of our God, the God of the
Israelites.
This man has no recognition of that.
He has no respect for these things.
But God has taken note of it, and
payday time has come.
Wake-up time has come.
I often think of that poor man in
the 16th chapter of Luke's gospel where it
said he died and he opened his eyes
being implemented.
Belshazzar is going to get his eyes opened
to something.
I have to tell you, sadly, because we're
not going to be able to read all
of it, but it was too late.
Some people say, it's never too late, too
late for him, because we've got the story
right here in front of us.
Too late for Belshazzar You know, when people
preach the gospel and they try to urge
people, trust Christ today, most people say, I've
got plenty of time, procrastinating about this matter
of trusting Christ.
What a day!
I've got plenty of time.
I want to think about it more.
Well, something happened there that, think about it,
I think if all the lights were out
in this place, then over on that wall,
a light appeared and a hand and a
message was written on that wall over there.
Hey, what is this?
Just a hand now.
A message is written on that wall.
It says in the 5th verse, The same
hour came forth fingers of a man's hand
and wrote over against the candlestick upon the
placeta of the wall of the king's palace,
and the king saw the part of the
hand that wrote.
The king's countenance was changed.
Hey, man, it's wake-up time.
Things are going to change around here.
He's startled by all of this.
If he wanted something different, he got it.
And believe me, when God speaks and God
acts, believe me, he gets people's attention.
He's got Pharaoh's attention down in Egypt.
He can get our attention today.
I'll tell you, when we realize what's going
on in the world today, we see men
taking all of these liberties in doing things
that we know for a fact are contrary
to the mind and the will of God,
a departure from that which is holy and
righteous.
You know, you're just able to say, well,
he hasn't done anything about it yet.
I do believe he will act in due
time.
His thoughts troubled him so that the joints
of his lorns were loose and his knees
smoked one against another.
This king is frightened.
Something has happened that has shook him up,
and we have all of the earmarks of
that in what we've just read.
Joints of his lorns were loose and knees
smoked together, and he cried aloud to bring
in the astrologers, the chaldeans, the soothsayers.
Give us some help here.
What's going on?
I wanted the party to have a little
life in it, but I didn't plan on
this.
This is a little too much.
Bring those people in that seem to know
all about these things that are so mysterious.
Well, they came in.
Couldn't help him one bit.
Couldn't help him.
They could not read the writing or make
known to the king the interpretation thereof.
Don't know what it means.
He was in more trouble.
Yeah, but the wisest people I've got around
me, these people that I'm depending on to
advise me, they don't know.
They had a queen.
He had a queen there, and she had
met Daniel, and she had witnessed some of
the things that this man of God was
able to do.
Somebody that could do things that none of
the others could do.
She said, "'As a man in the kingdom
in whom is the Spirit of the Holy
God, and in the days of thy father's
light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom
of the gods, was found in him whom
the king Nebuchadnezzar, thy father, the king, I
say, thy father, made master of the magicians,
the astrologers, the chaldeans, and the soothsayers.
It was an excellent spirit and knowledge and
understanding, interpreting of dreams, the showing of hard
sentences, and the dissolving of doubts.'" He needs
Daniel.
He needs someone like Daniel.
Daniel is there sovereignly by the will of
God to fulfill the purposes of God.
Daniel was brought in before the king.
The king spake and said unto Daniel, "'Are
you that Daniel, which are to the children
of the captivity of Judah, whom the king
of my father brought out of Jorah?
Yes, I'm him.
I've heard about you.
The Spirit of God is in thee.
I've called in the wise men, the astrologers,
and all them, so they could read this
writing, make known unto me the interpretation of
doubt, but they couldn't do it.
But I've heard of thee.
You are able to handle things like that.
You seem to have an insight into these
things.
You must have contact with your God.'" Yes,
he does have contact with God.
He is a man of God.
There to be a Daniel.
The next chapter, of course, would remind us
of that.
Well, the king wanted to really treat Daniel
royally.
He wanted to clothe him with scarlet, put
a chain of gold about his neck, all
of that.
Third rule in the kingdom.
Daniel answered and said before, to keep your
gifts.
I don't do this for pay.
I am under the control of my God.
I only do those things that he wills
me to do.
You keep your gifts.
Give your rewards to someone else.
I will read the writing and make known
unto you the interpretation.
And this is what he did.
He says, this is the 22nd verse, "...thou
shalt not humble thine heart, though thou knewest
all these things."
He had a recount brought before him of
what his father and grandfather had done in
the past, how God had dealt with them
to get their attention.
He had ignored all of that, but has
lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven.
They have brought the vessels of his house
before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy
wives, thy concubines, have drunk wine in them.
And thou hast praised the gods of silver
and gold, brass, iron, wood, and stone, which
see not, nor hear nor know nothing.
The God in whose hand thy breath is,
and whose are all thy ways, hast thou
not glorified.
Then was the part of the hand sent
from him, and this writing was written."
This is the writing that was written.
Mene, mene, peckle, you farsome.
Daniel gets right to it.
This is the interpretation of the thing.
Mene, God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished
it.
He's used you for a purpose.
Now he's through with you.
This person so ungodly, it had no respect
for the God that had created all things
and provided salvation for all mankind.
God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.
Peckle, thou art weighed in the balances and
art found wanting.
You want a picture there that you can
see of yourself?
Well, before God, God has scales that he's
going to weigh what value there is in
your life, how much of your life is
turned toward God.
Have you ever worshiped the true and the
living God and given him his rightful place
in your heart and life?
He's weighed you very carefully.
He's weighed you righteously and justly.
You're found wanting.
You just don't have to carry any weight
with God at all.
You've been living for now.
You've been living for this present day and
age.
You're a man of this world and you're
limited to this world.
Isn't that a sad picture of mankind without
God?
Mankind without God having no weight before God.
Your life.
Believers in Jesus Christ are to live worthy
of their calling as believers.
They're to be like Christ and their lives
are to change and their lives make a
difference.
And God takes note of it.
Oh, poor Belshazzar.
Weighed in the balances and found wanting.
Perez, your kingdom is divided and given to
the Medes and the Persians.
They've already taken over.
Haven't you got the news yet?
You're through.
You're through, says then-commanded Belshazzar.
And by clothes Daniel was scarlet, put a
chain of gold about his neck, made a
proclamation concerning him.
This is his last act, mind you, that
he should be the third ruler in the
kingdom.
The next verse you'll read is, Then that
night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldean
saints.
The wages of sin is death.
The gift of God is eternal life through
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being
about three score and two years old.
I tell you, it just doesn't pay to
take liberties with God and decide that you're
going to live your life the way you
want to live it.
It pays to know God.
It pays to know the will and the
mind of God.
It is not God's will that any should
perish.
God doesn't want to send people to hell.
He wants to save them.
He wants them transformed into the person of
his Son.
He wants each one of us in this
room this morning to one day be just
like the Son of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Would God begin to make some progress while
we're still here?
There'd be evidence of some Christ-likeness in
our lives, the love of God which has
been spread abroad in our hearts.
We love each other because he loved us,
gave himself for us.
Oh, that poor soul!
Brother and sister, there are so many people
in this world today who haven't got a
serious thought in their head about God.
They're just thinking about M-O-W, now.
Now.
What can I have now?
I want mine now!
Well, I tell you what, if you get
what you want now and God holds you
to it, you won't like the outcome because
one day those scales that Belshazzar was weighed
in, you'll be found wanting.
You'll be found wanting.
You'll come up short!
You've got to have Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, in your life.
It makes you sin to new creatures in
Christ Jesus.
We're born again into the family of God.
We have spiritual life.
Now we're able to glorify God which is
the chief end of man and not live
for self, not live for now.
We're heading out into eternity.
We're supposed to make the best of everything
that God has provided for us right in
the center of his will, do all that
we can do today.
There are no tomorrows.
It's always today.
Today if you hear his voice, today if
he speaks to you by his Spirit, turn
your life over to him.
Turn everything over to him.
I'm just a poor lost sinner.
I want your Son as my Savior, and
I want you to control my life from
now until the day I look full into
the face of the one who loved me
and gave himself for me.
Oh boy, that's living!
Let us pray.
Our Father in Heaven, we thank thee this
morning that we could take just a little
look at someone in the past, someone that
indeed lived his life on such a miserable
level, thinking that he had it all, and
he was lost, and the judgment of God
fell upon him in that lost condition, and
now he's lost for all eternity.
Oh God, help us to measure very carefully
the time that you have allotted to us,
and help us to live and seek to
do the mind and the will of the
God who created us and provided a Savior
for us.
Help us, Lord, to live our lives for
the glory and honor of the loving, sovereign
God who provided that wonderful person, your Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ, to be our Savior.
In our Savior's name we pray.
Amen.
First, I
think if Bobby can find music of a
song that was in one of the older
books that we had.
Dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand
alone, dare to have a purpose true, and
dare to make it known.
Let's stand and sing that chorus.
I think it's in the Old Choice Hymns.
Dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand
alone, dare to have a purpose firm, and
dare to make it known.