Summary: As we study Daniel 5, you are reading an eyewitness account of the fall of the Babylonian Empire by one who was a prime minister of that very empire itself.

Divine Graffiti

Date: February 19th, 2012

Scripture: Daniel 5

Introduction

As we study Daniel 5, you are reading an eyewitness account of the fall of the Babylonian Empire by one who was a prime minister of that very empire itself.

 Daniel was a prime minister in a pagan culture

 in a pagan society, in a palace of Babylonian monarchs

 But he never compromised his faith in the true God.

And thus, every time he appears on the scene, we find him somehow unrelated to everybody else that's there.

 He always makes a grand entrance alone

 Never with/magicians/soothsayers/Chaldeans who come to give their human wisdom.

 He is set apart as God's man and the record he has given us is wonderfully true.

As we come to Daniel 5, these 31 amazing/marvelous, insightful verses, we see the end of an empire.

 We see/movement/head of gold as the image in chapter 2

 to the breast and the arms of silver

 Remember/Medo-Persians who followed the Babylonians.

 This great transition takes place at the close of this, the fifth chapter.

As we begin our study, let me remind you of a verse in Ezekiel 18:20. "The soul who sins is the one who will die…the righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him."

 And this chapter is a vivid commentary on that verse.

 Sin brings death.

 In the life of an individual and in the life of a nation and an empire.

Sermon

Take your Bibles and turn to Daniel chapter 5 and let’s see what God has in store for us this morning.

 30yrs/passed since the end of chapter 4...

 Nebuchadnezzar finally lost his pride, gave up his worship of false gods...

 And committed to praise and serve the one true God.

 He ruled seven more years after making that all-important decision after his insanity.

 So basic math tells us, it’s been twenty-three years since he died in 562 B.C. unfortunately his religious reforms died with him.

____________________________________________________________

After Neb/dies/empire begins to decline

 Neb’s son/ Amel-Marduk

 And by the way, these kings have a couple of different names.

 They seem/change/ names according/whatever gods they identified with.

 We see him/Bible as Evil-Merodach –2kings 25 and Jer. 52

 He released Jehoiachin from prison/seat of honor in Babylon

 He only reigned 2yrs before his power-hungry brother-in-law, General Neriglissar, assassinated him and stole the crown.

He/mentioned/Jer. 39 under the name of Nergal-sharezer.

He was an official under Nebuchadnezzar who apparently was involved in helping Jeremiah be released from prison.

 After a four year reign, Neriglissar died and his son, Labashi-Marduk, stepped into power.

 Just calling him would be a linguistic problem.

 His rule only lasted a few months before he was murdered in a coup led, Nabonidus.

He/appointed the monarch/but not of royal lines

• Couldn’t become king.

• Best we could tell/married/one widows or daughter/Neb.

• This put him in royal lines to be the king

• One of these daughters/or widows/he married had son named Belshazzar.

____________________________________________________

Nabonidus spent most/reign away from Babylon

 Attempting to secure the borders and strengthen the weakening empire /never set foot in Babylon.

 So he appointed his son, Belshazzar as co-rule...

 He left him in charge/famous double-walled capital city.

Unfortunately Belshazzar received none of the benefits of his grandfather’s hard-learned spiritual truths.

 In fact, only trait he picked up/Nebuch/discarded pride

 His heart was not at all responsive to the Spirit of God.

Now—you’ll see that in Daniel 5 Nebuchadnezzar is referred to as Belshazzar’s FATHER—

 In that culture the word “father” was used interchangeably with “Grand-father” or even “great-grandfather.”

 Any male ancestor could be called your “father.”

 This is why we call Abraham, “Father Abraham.”

___________________________________________________

The Authenticity of Daniel

I must point out that for a long time there was absolutely no historical record of Belshazzar and this became the basis for many liberal attacks on the authenticity of the book of Daniel.

 1854/archeologist/J. G.Taylor/exploring some ruins in southern Iraq for the British Museum and he came across several small cylinders.

 One of them contained a prayer for the long life and good health of Nabonidus, king/Babylon and/his eldest son Belshazzar.

This find squelched these liberal attacks and helped prove the authenticity of this book of the Bible.

 Just one more example/fact/Bible becomes MORE and not LESS reliable as time passes.

 I mean, over/over again archeological finds like this have AFFIRMED the reliability of God’s written Word.

 Unearthed the plaster wall.

__________________________________________________

Nonetheless, 5th chapter opens the empire/Medes/Persians

 The “silver empire” foretold in Nebuchadnezzar’s first dream six decades earlier—is growing in power.

 How did it happen?

 In an attempt/end the threat/King Nabonidus took armies of Babylon out to fight against Cyrus.

 Cyrus, the King of the Medes and Persians.

Nabonidus was defeated and fled so Cyrus/his hordes advanced, capturing every outpost until the city of Babylon alone remained.

 Remember, Belshazzar/in city/Babylon.

 Probably thinking!

 “Who’s afraid of the big, bad Persians?!

 I’ve got plenty of water!

 Why the Euphrates flows right through town.

 And I’ve got tons of grain stored—enough to feed the population twenty years—so we can just wait them out.”

Now—this wasn’t that foolish of a thought...because after all everyone thought this city was impregnable.

• Remember the size/double walls/fortifications that we talked about last week?

• Here’s a picture of the ruins of those double walls—and even after 2500 years they are impressive

___________________________________________________

Well, Belshazzar shouldn’t have been so proud/self-confident.

But Belshazzar and his predecessors had foolishly ignored all that God-given knowledge.

• They/refused/bow/knee/to the one/only Most High God.

• It should remind us of this truth as well.

• Main truth—Daniel—was intended to convey God is completely sovereign.

• God—not you and me—not government—God.

• God is in charge.

As Psalm 33:10-11 says, “The Lord foils the plans of the nations; He thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations.”

__________________________________________________

Belshazzar’s mistake!

To show his lack/fear/armies that encamped around them

• And to boost /morale of those in his government

• Belshazzar threw a party—a HUGE one.

• He invited a thousand nobles and broke protocol by telling them to bring their wives and concubines as well.

Archeologists tell us that this party was held on the night of October 12, 539 B.C.

They have also unearthed/banquet hall where this party was held.

____________________________________________________

The Banquet

Follow along now as I read verses 1-4, note a VERB that appears five times—a VERB that tells us the “theme” or purpose of Belshazzar’s little get together.

• Okay—did anyone see what this repeated verb is?

• It’s the verb for DRINK/the main activity/October 12, 539B.C. in that banquet room.

• But that’s not all they did.

• It was considered improper for women to come to banquets.

So the fact that wives/concubines were invited tells us hunger and thirst weren’t the only appetites this banquet was intended to satisfy.

• In fact, it was more of an orgy than a banquet.

I mean, the writer, Daniel, is using fairly restrained language

• But he’s making it clear that Belshazzar is giving free reign to any appetite his guests wanted to indulge...

• He has set the tone with his own perverse behavior at the head table.

• Well, since habitually indulging ANY appetite gets boring after a while

• Belshazzar and his guests got tired of their orgy...

• So he decided to push the envelope and get even bolder.

This should remind us of a very important fact—sin is never static.

• It always follows the law of diminishing returns.

• The path of sin always leads downhill.

• One sin always leads to a worse sin, which leads to an even worse sin and so on.

I think this downward spiral is what James was referring to when he wrote:

“Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” (James 1:14-15)

___________________________________________________

The Goblets

• Belshazzar decides to pull out the sacred goblets.

• The goblets that Neb/obtained 65yrs earlier when He conquered Jerusalem.

• They were abnormally valuable/considered sacred objects.

They had never been used for anything other than the worship of the God of Israel, the God we worship in this room every Sunday.

Well, Belshazzar decides it would be kind of entertaining

• So he mocks their God and His warnings of this coming silver kingdom...

• A kingdom that would supposedly conquer mighty Babylon.

Understand—no other king has had the audacity to use these holy vessels—not even “Evil-Merodach.”

 But Belshazzar did—his heart—a proud heart he had

 He long since hardened his heart against God

 This led him to make the VERY serious mistake of treating the HOLY as UNHOLY.

____________________________________________________

What does holy mean?

Now—let’s pause a minute so we can understand exactly what we mean by calling something, “HOLY.”

 The word literally means, “set apart for a special purpose.”

 2nd Chronicles 7:16 says that God Himself had consecrated Solomon’s temple and everything in it which included these goblets.

 He had declared them HOLY.

 He had said they were set aside exclusively for His purposes.

 These weren’t just any goblets—these belonged to God and were to be used ONLY for worship in His temple.

__________________________________________________

I stress this point because in a very real sense we do the same thing.

 You see, as Christians, we too are God’s HOLY VESSELS

 Set apart for His purposes.

 In the NT we are repeatedly referred to as God’s SAINTS

 His “Holy ones.”

 2nd Corinthians 1:21-22 says,“God has anointed us, set His seal of ownership on us.”

Well, do we always live/life/way/reflective of God’s ownership?

Do we always live according to His will?

____________________________________________________

Let’s ask ourselves this question: Am I treating myself as God’s HOLY VESSEL?

Or—am I using my life for UNHOLY things?

 Listen friend, Satan has no greater agenda than attempting to DESECRATE what God CONSECRATES.

 He wants to do with us what Belshazzar did with those goblets.

 He wants us to take what God has declared HOLY and SET APART—and use it for UNHOLY behavior.

 Well, how are you doing in that area?

 Does your life look CONSECRATED to God?

____________________________________________________

Well, in my mind as soon as the goblets were distributed Belshazzar called for a toast—perhaps to the “impregnable” walls of his city.

But then, as soon as he and his guests brought those HOLY VESSELS to their UNHOLY lips for the first time something amazing happened.

• A hand appeared/mid air/finger began to write on the wall.

• This was God’s hand—think about that!

• We have heard of the “unseen hand of God...”

• But with their own eyes Belshazzar and his guests beheld the SEEN hand of God.

___________________________________________________

The finger of God

• Look at verses 5-6:

I think this shows that nothing sobers like crisis—I mean, fear has a way of negating the effects of too much wine—and GOD’S HOLY HAND can be a very fearful thing.

In fact, we see it referred to numerous times in the Bible.

 Remember?

 It was the finger of God that defeated the Egyptians when Pharaoh refused to let the people go.

 In Exodus 8:19 “...the magicians said to Pharaoh, ‘This is the finger of God.’

 But Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not listen.”

 It was also the finger of God that wrote the holy law for Israel on tablets of stone.

Exodus 31:18 says,“When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.”

In Luke 11:20 Jesus said, “I drive out demons by the finger of God.”

And on October 12, 539B.C. the finger of God wrote a terrifying message on the plaster wall of that Babylonian ballroom—a message that contained His judgement.

__________________________________________________

In essence, the Most High God turned that BALLroom into a COURTroom and declared the king guilty.

 Belshazzar was understandably terrified.

 Remember?

 Daniel tells us that his knees literally knocked

 At this point history repeated itself/THIRD TIME a Babylonian ruler called on his wise men to interpret something.

 And, for the THIRD TIME they failed in this task and for the THIRD time Daniel was called in.

The calling of Daniel

Now—Belshazzar didn’t know Daniel.

 I’m sure he had HEARD of him

 Perhaps long ago he/pushed that name out of his mind.

When /wise men failed/interpret/words God had written on the wall, Belshazzar/his nobles continued to cry out and moan in fear.

 Their cries were so loud that Queen Mother, the last surviving wife of Nebuchadnezzar—and Belshazzar’s grandmother heard.

 The Queen would have known of Daniel’s skill.

 After all, she had seen or heard of all the events of chapters 1-4.

 Look at verses 10-12:

____________________________________________________

Now—by this time Daniel is in his 80’s.

 It has been decades since he was called to advise a king.

 He was probably living in some sort of Babylonian retirement home.

 I imagine his hair is gray—but gray hair is not a sign of decrepitude in the Bible.

 In fact it is prized. Proverbs 16:31 says, “Gray hair is a crown of splendor.”

 Even today, gray hair is often associated with great wisdom.

 In fact, I read somewhere that only one thing is said to be a greater indicator of wisdom—and that is BALDNESS.

 Just kidding.

___________________________________________________

In any case, after decades/retirement, this discarded, old prophet is once again brought forward to advise a Babylonian ruler

 As he surveys/banquet hall he sees what’s been going on.

 He sees the scantily clad women.

 He sees the behavioral results of wine that flowed like the Euphrates itself.

 And then his eyes land on those GOBLETS—the holy vessels from the temple in Jerusalem.

 He probably hasn’t seen them since he was a boy.

 But he knows what they are.

 He knows their purpose.

 He knows that God had set them apart for a special HOLY purpose...and so in disgust he says, “I’ll interpret the writing.

 But you can keep your gifts.

 You can’t buy your way out of your sin, Belshazzar.

 God’s judgment is coming and all the gold in your treasury won’t stop it.”

_________________________________________________

The Interpretation

Follow along as I read verses 18-31. Daniel says,

 You sinned against knowledge. You knew. You knew.

 You're not ignorant. You can't claim…,

 "I'm just an ignorant pagan. What do I know?"

 You have sinned against light.

 Your sin is not a sin of ignorance.

 You knew what happened to Nebuchadnezzar.

 You knew that he ascribed all things ultimately to the God of heaven

 You knew that God broke him and God was demanding to be worshipped.

 And against that knowledge, you sinned.

 You know all the facts of Nebuchadnezzar.

 You failed to heed. You did not humble your heart.

 Therefore, your sin is flagrant rebellion against knowledge.

 A serious sin, people.

And I'm telling you, the same is coming from/heart of God to any soul who sits under the gospel of Jesus Christ today and refuses Christ.

That is a flagrant sin of rebelling against knowledge, the severest of sins. It is blasphemy.

Christ pronounced horrible judgment in Matthew 11 on the cities, you remember, in Galilee.

And He said, "I pronounce this judgment on you. It shall be worse for you than Sodom and Gomorrah because you refused to heed the word and the work that I did in your midst."

__________________________________________________

God is speaking to each of us here today, right now of this very thing! Are we listening?

This is one of the most arresting phrases in the Bible...and Daniel says it to Belshazzar, “YOU KNEW.”

 it was bad enough/Belshazzar did the wicked things he did

 But what made it worse was he KNEW better.

 I mean, he had no excuse!

 God had given him a front-row seat to all that had happened to Nebuchadnezzar.

 Belshazzar KNEW that about the dreams and their interpretations.

 He KNEW about the fiery furnace.

 He had HEARD his grandfather’s testimony.

 He KNEW Who God was

 What He demanded and STILL he chose to do all he did.

But before you judge Belshazzar admit it—you and I sin in the same way!

We avoid responsibility for KNOWING the truth because we want to do what we want to do.

I mean, I hate those speed cameras as much as you do—but let’s be honest here.

 We know the speed limits—but we ignore them because we want to go faster.

 And that’s only a minor example of the way we repeat Belshazzar’s sin.

 We have the Bible—we have God’s Spirit living in us.

 We KNOW better—but we still sin in COMMISSION and OMISSION every day.

 We do what we WANT to do

 and DON’T DO what we DON’T WANT to do all the time.

 We avoid thinking about, reading about, talking about, dwelling on,

 Looking at that which might convict us, cause us pain, or call us to change.

 Think about it—is there any area in your life where YOU KNOW BETTER, but you’re closing your eyes?

Maybe you’re a mom/dad/you’ve been making work too much of an idol.

 You KNOW your kids need you.

 You know they long to spend time with you but you avoid thinking about that reality.

 You’re closing your eyes to that truth—but YOU KNOW.

 YOU KNOW.

Maybe you have a problem with your anger.

 You use words that drip with sarcasm/contempt

 and you avoid the hurt look in the eyes of your spouse or co-worker because YOU KNOW you are doing wrong.

Maybe you have a neighbor in need.

 And YOU KNOW you could help them

 but it would mean giving of yourself

 Giving up time to do what you want to do and so you ignore them.

YOU KNOW BETTER—but you still selfishly look the other way.

Maybe you’re not spending your MONEY in ways that please God

 You KNOW you should make Him Lord of your checkbook but you don’t.

 Just one more month Lord to pay these credit cards

 But you know, like Belshazzar what you should do…

There may be someone here this morning who is not a Christian

 And YOU KNOW you need Jesus.

 A friend or family member has shared the Gospel with you, perhaps repeatedly.

 So, you know you should ask Jesus into your heart and life...

 But you know what that would mean...so you don’t ask.

 You resist God’s love.

If you are convicted in any way by this part of our text, don’t close your eyes.

 Don’t pull a Belshazzar.

 Don’t ignore what you KNOW.

 Humble yourself before God and follow His leading!

 Remember—God has given us free will so we are responsible for acting on what we know.

Well, Belshazzar seemed unmoved by Daniel’s admonishing.

 He even insisted on giving him his reward.

 He put the purple robe/shoulders/gold chains around/neck.

 He honored Daniel but not his God.

 He went right back to his revelry—blind to the fact that, “the party was over.”

 One of the greatest empires in existence was about to crumble in a single night.

 You see, for two years now the army of the Medes and the Persians has had workers upstream digging a canal to change the course of the river—dumping the water into a swamp.

 And on this night it was finally finished.

They opened it’s sluice gates and the water level of the Euphrates dropped such that their troops could easily enter under the sluice gates.

 They literally marched right into that “impregnable” city.

 The Babylonians surrendered w/o a fight

 The only one they killed was Belshazzar himself.

 All others were spared, which explains how Daniel lived to serve God another day.

Now before I close I want to point out a very important fact.

______________________________________________

The Inscription

Mene, (MEE-nee) Mene, Tekel (TEH-keel) Peres (PEE-rehs)

God says to Belshazzar….

Mene. Let's see what it means. God has numbered thy kingdom and finished it."

• Mene means numbered.

• You want it in the vernacular?

• Mene meant your number's up. Your number's up.

• God, who number all kingdoms, says you're finished.

• And He says it twice. You're number's up. You're number's up. Mene, mene.

You see, there is another way that you and I are like Belshazzar and here it is:

Tekel (TEH-keel)

EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM HAS BEEN WEIGHED IN THE SCALES AND FOUND WANTING.

If we were to somehow put our lives on one side of the scales of righteousness none of us would come up to God’s Holy standard.

As Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

None of us measure up!

Romans 3:10-12 gets even more specific when it says,“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

So WE have all been weighed in the scales and found wanting.

Invitation

I share this to point out that ALL of us sin—every single day.

All of us fall short All of us ignore God—all of us disobey Him.

God could write on the “wall of your life” and mine:

“Tekel...You have been weighed in the scales and found wanting.”

And because this is true, if it weren’t for Jesus—we would all be HORRIBLY lost—but Jesus came—just as Daniel prophesied.

• He came to give us a “clean slate.”

• He came to die on the cross

• And in so doing wash away our sins.

Listen to how Colossians 2:14 puts it: “Jesus forgave us all our sins having BLOTTED OUT all the ways we broke God’s Law (all the handwriting on the wall) and He took it way nailing it to the cross.”

Fellow Christian, aren’t you glad Jesus did that?

Aren’t you THANKFUL for the blood of Christ that cleanses us from all sin—the blood that WASHES the list of our sins away?!

LET US PRAY