BELSHAZZAR’S BALL
TEXT - Daniel 5: 1-6, 22-31
INTRO. - There are many people in the Bible who are good
examples to follow and teach us about faith, love, sacrifice,
and practice Christianity. There are others who are red light
warnings that teach us to beware lest we follow in their
ways. Belshazzar is one of those people who teach us not to
be like they were.
Belshazzar the king threw a feast. I am sure it had the best
of everything and no expense was spared. Pleasure was the
order of the hour. History teaches us that some of these
feasts prepared by ancient kings would last for weeks.
Serious decisions and the important matters of life and the
kingdom were put away and forgotten. These feasts were wild
and unrestrained. Passions were allowed to run free. I am
sure the feast was filled with wine, women, and song.
The sin at this feast was bad enough. I am sure that the
feast itself was enough to stir the wrath of God.
But Belshazzar couldn’t stop there - See vs. 2
Some people cannot just be unsaved. Some people cannot just
reject God. Some people have to go a little further.
The suggestion probably came with a roar of laughter.
What made Belshazzar do it? What made him take the holy
vessels of the Temple of God and bring them into the feast?
1. Maybe his friends were in his thoughts. People will
do alot of things against God to please their friends.
Christians will even miss church because friends came over at
the last minute.
2. Maybe he thought that he was big enough and powerful
enough to insult God. He may have thought that he was the
exception to the rule. Many people today feel this way. Many
know what the Bible says about repentance, confession, and
faith in Christ as the way of salvation but feel that they
are the exception to the rule. They feel that they can get to
heaven by another way other than the way of the cross. They
feel that they are a special case with God and somehow god is
going to let them in the back door somehow.
3. Maybe it was for the thrill that might have
accompanied it. There is a thrill to danger. Here was the
danger of slapping God in the face. I believe that this may
be a reason some people take God’s name in vain.
4. Maybe his conscience began to bother him because of
the sins of the feast. Maybe he figured that what he needed
to do was bring a little religion into the feast. There are
many today who live their lives like they are living at
Belshazzar’s feast. They begin to have their conscience
bother them. They think that what they need is to bring a
little religion into the feast so they attend church
occasionally. They become "Sunday morning glories". They go
to church very once in awhile to appease their conscience and
then on Monday they return to the feast.
All is going fine. The feast is at its pinnacle. The feast is
filled with its fun, its sin, its godless wicked pleasures.
UNTIL SOMETHING IS SEEN ON THE WALL - vs. 6
I can hear it now. People begin to cry, "It’s a spirit".
Others cry "It’s a phantom". Someone cries "IT MUST BE GOD".
The music stops. You could hear a pin drop.
THAT NIGHT DEATH BURST UPON THE SCENE.
I WANT US TO LOOK BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST AND REMEMBER THREE
THINGS.
I. WHEN GOD WRITES ANYTHING ON THE WALL, YOU HAD BETTER READ
IT AS IT IS.
There may be someone here today living at Belshazzar’s feast.
You have forgotten God and what God wants for your life. You
can eat, drink and be merry but remember we all must one day
face God. God is still on the throne. Abraham Lincoln said
"You can fool all the people some of the time. And you can
fool some of the people all of the time. But you cannot fool
all the people all the time". Let me add to that, you cannot
fool God any of the time! When God is speaking to you, you
had better listen.
ILL. - I once saw a bird sitting on a high voltage wire that
had danger signs posted on every pole that carried it. I
asked an electrician working nearby why the bird could
live on the dangerous wire. The man explained that if I
reached up with a stick or pole and touched the wire, I
would die instantly but the bird could live because it
was "totally given over to the wire". As long as the
bird touched only the wire, it was safe. If it touched
the wire and a ground, it would die. Many people today
want to hold on to God and this world at the same time.
We need to be totally given over to God completely.
Remember Lot’s wife. She held onto God and the world at
the same time and it destroyed her.
God is trying to speak to people today and many try to still
his voice with pills, alcohol, and psychiatry. No conscience
is so dead that God cannot revive it.
Felix in Acts 24:25 saw the handwriting on the wall when Paul
preached to him and he trembled. He trembled and did nothing
about his soul.
Belshazzar’s conscience interpreted the message from God
before he heard what it meant from Daniel. He knew in his
heart that he had sinned against God and he showed it - vs.6
II. THERE IS A GREAT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE OPENING AND THE
CLOSING OF THE BANQUET OF SIN.
Sin is almost hypnotic in its ability to deceive people into
thinking sin can go on forever.
The opening of sin is fun, exciting, and carefree.
The end is far different.
Notice vs. 27 - This is one of the shorted texts in the Bible
and so tragic.
Earlier in the evening those at the feast would have laughed
a person to scorn who would have suggested that they would
die that very night. People today are the same. Belshazzar
like so many others forgot the writing of God’s finger on the
stones of the law given to Moses at Mt. Sinai until he saw
the finger write on the wall. Will you forget God until he
signs your death warrant? Many do.
III. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WICKED WILL BE SUDDEN AND WILL
COME ALMOST ALWAYS AT THE HEIGHT OF THE FEAST.
See Pro. 29:1 - He that being often reproved....shall
suddenly be destroyed....
Belshazzar died at the highest point of the feast.
Herod Agrippa I also died at the height of the feast.
See Acts 12: 21 - 23
No man is out of the reach of the judging hand of God.
Someone has said that 99% of judgment in the Bible and in
life comes unexpected.
Your day and my day to meet God is coming.
I have never pastored a church for a year that there was not
at least one death that came very close to the church.
Lord Byron in his poem "The Feast of Belshazzar" put it this
way:
The king was on his throne,
The Satraps thronged the hall;
A thousand bright lights shone
O’er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,
In Judah deemed divine--
Jehovah’s vessels hold
The godless Heathen’s wine.
In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man;--
A solitary hand
Along the letters ran,
And traced them like a wand.
That night they slew him on his father’s throne,
He died unnoticed, and the hand unknown;
Crownless and sceptreless, Belshazzar lay,
A robe of purple round a form of clay.
Belshazzar’s grave is made,
His kingdom’s passed away,
He in his balance laid
Is dead and worthless clay.
The shroud, his robe of state
His canopy the stone,
The Mede is at his gate,
The Persian on the throne.
IN CLOSING ---
How do you stand with God? Like Belshazzar?
It does not have to be. Your life does not have to be like
his and your death does not have to be like his.
Jesus can make the difference. Jesus loves you. He can save
and satisfy. Wont you come to him while there is time.
See John 6:37
Matt. 11: 28 - 30
