I hope you have brought a Bible and if you have or can sit next to one to see, open it now to the fifth chapter of the book of Daniel. Daniel chapter 5. As we are making our way through this prophet, Daniel, today we're going to be looking at probably one of the more familiar sayings that comes out of the Bible, the handwriting on the wall. We've all heard that, we've all said that, different times and in different ways. But today, wanted to read the entirety of chapter 5 and so let me call your attention to the reading of God's Word. Hear now his word. King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, drank from them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king's color changed and his thoughts alarmed him. His limbs gave way and his knees knocked together. The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans and the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men of Babylon, Whoever reads this writing and shows me its interpretation shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and shall be the third ruler of the kingdom. Then all the king's wise men came in but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation. Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed and his color changed and his lords were perplexed. The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banqueting hall, and the queen declared, O king, live forever! Let not your thoughts alarm you, or your color change. There is a man in your kingdom in whom the spirit of the holy gods, in the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him. King Nebuchadnezzar your father your father the king made him chief of the magicians and chanters Chaldeans and astrologers because an excellent spirit knowledge and understanding to interpret dreams explain riddles and solve problems were found in this Daniel whom the king named Belteshazzar now let Daniel be called and he will show the interpretation Then Daniel was brought in before the king, and the king answered and said to Daniel, You are Daniel, that Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom the king, my father, brought from Judah. I have heard of you, that the spirit of the gods is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you. Now the wise men The enchanters have been brought in before me to read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, but they could not show the interpretation of the matter. But I have heard that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Now, if you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then Daniel answered and said before the king, let your gifts be for yourself and give your rewards to another. Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation. O king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar, your father, kingship and greatness and glory and majesty. And because of the greatness that he gave him, all the people's nations and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would, he killed. Whom he would, he kept alive. Whom he would, he raised up. Whom he would, he humbled. But when his heart was lifted up and his pride was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne and his glory was taken from him. He was driven from among the children of mankind and His mind was made like that of a beast and His dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed grass like an ox and His body was wet with the dew of heaven until He knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom He will. And you, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all of this. But you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven, and the vessels of his house have been brought in before you. And you and your lords, your wives, your concubines, have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know. but the God in whose hand is your breath and whose are all your ways you have not honored. Then from his presence the hand was sent this writing was inscribed. And this is the writing that was inscribed. Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parson. This is the interpretation of the matter. Mene, God, has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. Perez, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed with purple and a chain of gold was put around his neck. And a proclamation was made about him that he should be the third ruler of the kingdom. That very night, Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was killed. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about 62 years old. This is God's word. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Father. We thank you for this text. We thank you for this book. We have been learning much of who you are. We have been seeing in its pages your sovereignty over mankind and how we pray today that the spirit who gave Daniel wisdom to understand and interpret the Word of the living God would also grant to us understanding and the ability to see and get the Word of God. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Now this again is another fascinating chapter but it sort of startles us. We've been going along looking at this guy named, this king named Nebuchadnezzar and we're just starting to get used to his name and he vanishes. And we get a new king and his name is Belshazzar but there's a whole lot more that has transpired that has not been said here in the text. Daniel's an old man now. He's probably 70s, approaching maybe 80 or older. He's an old man. And this King Belshazzar is now occupying the throne of Babylon. And yet, he seems to fall out of thin air. Suddenly, Belshazzar is dropped into our laps. With four chapters of Nebuchadnezzar behind us, we're now staring Belshazzar straight in the face. Who is he? Where did he come from? And we need to do a little historical catch-up to really get the thrust of the story. Nebuchadnezzar died in 562 BC after a reign of some 43 years. In less than another 25 years, all of Babylon was lost. Now there was an evil son of Nebuchadnezzar who followed his father on the throne. His name was Merodach. He, however, was assassinated by his brother-in-law, Nereglisar, who had a tenure of about four years and was succeeded by his son, Labashi Marduk. This poor creature was liquidated within a month, and one of the conspirators, Nabonidus, became king around 555 to 539 BC. It seems that Nabonidus did not have designs on the throne himself, but may have been placed there as a compromise candidate by conspirators. Some think that Belshazzar Nabonidus' son was the real mover behind the conspiracy. We get a lot of palace intrigue going on here. leave it to say this Belshazzar functioned as a de facto king that's why he says to Daniel if you'll interpret my dream you will be third in the kingdom because he's second and his father's really first but his father is exiled because he worshipped the moon God Sin instead of the Babylonian God Marduk therefore Belshazzar is the king. Now I know you were all dying to know that but that's what's going on here Now the amazing thing you don't know that you need to know is this. He's in a bad spot. And he's partying like it's 1999. But it's really 539. See even Prince steals from the Bible. But he's throwing this wild wild unbelievable party as only kings can throw with wives and concubines and lords and wine is flowing and the feasting is occurring. But do you know what's happened? Less than 50 miles away, the Persian army has already conquered the Babylonian army. They have destroyed them. And at the present moment, the Persians are right outside the city walls and gates ready to come in and overthrow his kingdom. You can hear them knocking on the doors and pounding on the walls. it was thought by the king in his arrogance that Babylon was impregnable it was unassailable no one could ever get in because it had two systems of walls built around the city one of them being 21 feet thick nobody's getting in Babylon let's party we're okay we're safe we're secure and denial ain't just a river in Egypt either but this is what's going on with Belshazzar And so the armies are right outside the gates. They are there. They are ready to pounce. You know how they got in? I think this is fascinating military strategy. The Euphrates River ran right through the center of the city of Babylon. order for them to get in they built a canal outside the walls of the city, diverted the water of the Euphrates down the canal and then came in where water was only thigh-high and the river came under the gates, under the walls and thwarted a totally devastated Babylon. So that's the context of the party going on. Belshazzar has decided that everything's cool, everything's working for me, nobody's going to be able to get inside, nobody's going to be able to do anything to me. And so the Medes and the Persians are outside the city and we might wonder why in the world is Belshazzar throwing this party with such gusto. I'm sure they felt somewhat secure. They had provisions, they had water, they had walls around the city. Perhaps the Babylonians were celebrating an annual festival, but why cancel it when you got a horde of Medes and Persians outside the walls? Who would have thought that the devious enemy would divert the course of the river into the basin by means of a canal so lower its level to thigh-high depth where the commando units came in and took the city. So first we see in the first nine verses of Daniel chapter 3, of course a wild party, but we see human defiance met by divine opportunity. How do we know it was defiance? Belshazzar orders the gold silver vessels of the temple Yahweh's temple in Jerusalem that had been sacked by the Babylonians brought back to Babylon and now his cronies and his ladies all of them that were there could imbibe out of these vessels what so all fired bad about that I mean he's a conquering king didn't he have the right to do that according to Daniel's word in verse 23, you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. In other words, what he was doing in taking the vessels of the temple is spitting in the face of Yahweh, spitting in the face of Israel's God. It was a deliberate act of defiance. It's kind of like walking on the flag or it's kind of like As they did that, Belshazzar and his crowd, when they used the temple vessels for their wine and they sang doxologies to the non-gods that couldn't even hear their praise, it was a sign indeed that he believed that this God, whose vessels he was abusing and whose name he was insulting, had now in Babylon no reality or power. Belshazzar had counted God out. And the imagery involved surely supports such an inference. We may put it crassly, contempt for God's stuff is the same as contempt for God Himself. Let's say you arrive at work tomorrow morning. And let's say that you find your desk, your chair, your filing cabinets, your briefcases, your coffee maker, your computer, your pictures. and your filing cabinets, your briefcases, knickknacks, all sitting in the hallway outside your office door, you immediately get the point. You're done. so Belshazzar is demeaning Yahweh's vessels with his way of demeaning, was his way of demeaning Yahweh himself. Belshazzar was not simply a drunken slob but he's a profane drunken slob and God brought him almost to instant sobriety. Belshazzar came unglued. what happened to him the text here is as always interpreters try to guard the integrity of the text by saying what the text says but sometimes they don't go as far as the text goes. When it says that he was terrified that his color changed and he lost the use of his limbs and his legs got wobbly it means he lost all bodily functions. When he saw that human hand appear and the fingers right on the wall of the palace, he came totally unhinged, totally unglued. And I'm sure he could not believe what his eyes were seeing and perceiving there. What do you do when a situation like that happens? He became deathly pale, his thoughts terrifying, his lower body lost all of its strength, and the clear sight and sheer spookiness of fingers writing, producing paralyzing terror. So where do you turn to in such moments? Well, he turned to religion. He said, I don't know what's going on, get the people in here who traffic in this kind of stuff and bring them in. So he brings in his faith priest. He asked for the conjurers, the Chaldeans, the astrologers to come in and interpret this mysterious text. So these losers came traipsing in and once more they fail and Belshazzar's alarm only intensifies. And that's sometimes God's pattern with people. God's pattern with people is also to aggravate our helplessness by exposing the uselessness of our favorite props and even our favorite religious props. You may have a favorite prop. You may have your own form of paganism as well. Occultism, pluralism, machoism, feminism, agnosticism, moralism. And they will all prove as petrifyingly useless as the Babylonian variety. But the human defiance here is very clear. And you may wonder where divine opportunity appears. Precisely here at the end of verse 9, God has terrified, he has frightened Belshazzar. His religion has failed him. He's reduced to a shivering, sniffling mess with no supports whatever. He is therefore on the edge of abyss of hope, is he not? He is the object of God's terror. But in one sense, it's a kind terror. God does Belshazzar here the favor of leaving him with no recourse at all in utter helplessness and hence with a huge opportunity. I remember one time being at the end of my rope and I was talking to a dear friend and I was opening up and sharing with him all my woes and he looked at me and he had this big smile on his face and I said I don't think I've said anything funny yet what are you grinning at? And he had this big Cheshire cat grin on his face. And I said, what are you grinning at? He says, God's got you right where He wants you. He's got you at the end of the rope. He's got you helpless. And all of the things that you've used in your life to get you by are not working for you, are they? He said, maybe you'll turn to Him. Maybe you'll turn to trust in Him. Maybe you'll turn to His way. And Belshazzar was in that spot. It was a favorable moment in his life indeed, but he refused to see it. He absolutely refused to see it. Augustine said this, he said, I had been undone if I had not been undone. I had been ruined if I had not been ruined. God orders lesser afflictions that we may escape the greater. Isn't God gracious like that? Sometimes God has a way of waking us up, a way of bringing us to the end of ourselves, and it's an act of great mercy. And the whole time we're kicking against the goads and pitching a fit that things aren't working in our lives. And it's a kindness, it's a mercy, it's a providential goodness of God to block us in our way and bring us to himself. Now, Notice also human desperation is met by divine foolishness at least from Belshazzar's side. There was such mayhem and ruckus coming from the banquet that the queen mother intruded the scene. By the way, the queen here is not Belshazzar's wife. He refers to Nebuchadnezzar as his father, and the queen here is really Nebuchadnezzar's wife, one of them, who is the queen mother who happened to know Daniel and remember Daniel. And so she's an older lady, but she has power and influence enough to come in and intrude. without her counsel Belshazzar would have been left staring at the wall or watching his body quiver out of control. And so the Queen Mother here comes and announces that Daniel is the one who's capable of making sense of what's going on. And so he summons Daniel and he makes his pitch to him in verses 13 through 16. Belshazzar was not entirely ignorant of who Daniel was and for he knew something of Daniel's pre-Babylonian circumstances, something the Queen did not mention. Moreover, it implies that Daniel was serving in some bureaucratic capacity as recently as the third year of Belshazzar. He may have been relegated to a minor role, apparently he was not among the movers and shakers in the government. So Belshazzar knew of Daniel. It seems what he didn't know or hadn't remembered is Daniel's indispensable interpretive service to his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar. However, Belshazzar does not seem to be seeking information when he asks if Daniel is that Daniel who is one of the captives from Judah. There's a bit of a dig and a put down in that. He's not being gracious to him. He said, yeah, you're one of those Judean exiles or exilees that my grandfather drug here out of Jerusalem. Now it's precisely here in the overlap of the Queen's Council and the King's Offer that we see the writers are in irony. The same Daniel occurs five times in two verses, 12 through 13. He is Belshazzar's sure help, and yet he is one of the captives from Judah, a servant of the God Belshazzar has just defiled. rebelled against and defied. The king has despised Daniel's God and demeaned Daniel's status and yet Daniel is the only person in the kingdom who can help him at this time. So the only help for Belshazzar was a cast-off Jew whose God, Belshazzar, absolutely despised. And the same is true for you, and it's true for me. Jews, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians, demand signs. Greeks seek wisdom. But we preach Christ as the crucified one, a scandal to the Jews, foolishness to the Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. And so the Apostle is speaking of the only way to keep from perishing and the only way heaven's help comes to perishing people is through a crucified Messiah. For Jews, the last two words was a contradiction in terms since Deuteronomy 21-23 told them that the one who hanged on a tree was cursed by God. To speak of a crucified Messiah was like saying clean filth or delicious vomit. A damned Messiah couldn't be a saving Messiah. He must be mighty, not mangled. And the Greeks had the same mindset. God must fit into their expectations to win their vote and their trust. And so for the Jews, the Messiah must be mighty. For the Greeks, he must be slick. Jews want strength, Greeks want style. Jews are interested in power, Greeks in packaging. Jews focus on force, Greeks on finesse. For the Jews, the cross lacks punch. For the Greek, it lacks sense. Jews demand signs, Greeks seek wisdom. Americans want therapy, but we preach Christ, the crucified one. Divine foolishness in the face of our desperation. And we're not so different than Belshazzar. A cast-off Jew of the God you have despised is your only hope. And in the last section we see human denseness met by divine judgment. There's nobody denser than Belshazzar all throughout this passage. He refuses to see. And Daniel did announce the judgment of God on Belshazzar in verses 25 through 28. He interprets the writing on the wall which seems to consist of terms designated weights but which Daniel interprets as word plays indicating that God has got Belshazzar's number. and that Belshazzar is a lightweight, no pun intended, he's a lightweight, and his kingdom is going to split. In short, you are finished, you are flimsy, you are fractured, and that night the Persians entered the city. All this, however, is only the end of Daniel's answer to Belshazzar. It was, of course, what Belshazzar was interested in knowing, but Daniel did not give the king the answer he wanted. Notice the majority of verses 17 through 24 of Daniel's words are essentially a prophetic denunciation of Belshazzar. The king didn't ask for this, he simply wanted what was written on the wall interpreted. But Daniel will not simply spit out the meaning, he wants Belshazzar to understand the interpretation, why it's going to be so severe. So, Daniel. solves the mystery for him and the understanding was needed in a patient way that we usually love to short-circuit. He speaks carefully and Daniel repudiates the king's reward. He launches into his address and it begins emphatically, you O king, you O king. Probably hanging there Daniel sort of picks it up and he uses it against this king. He mentions his father, Nebuchadnezzar, mentioning that Yahweh is the one who gave him greatness. And here is throughout scripture the axiom of Jesus' whole sway. You would have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above. And it was because of this gift, Nebuchadnezzar enjoyed the privileges of immense power. For example, whomever he wished, he executed. Whomever he wished, he kept alive. The sense is not that Nebuchadnezzar acted in a terribly oppressive way, but simply that he acted in a typically royal way, like a king might function. But then Daniel alludes to the time Nebuchadnezzar began to strut and swagger. One of my favorite titles of this chapter came from Ralph Davis. He entitled this chapter, The Strut Stops Here. And Nebuchadnezzar had that swagger. He had that strut. He was swaggering in his royal britches. and then his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened in pride and he seemed to lose it all. He was deposed. They took his glory from him. He was driven from association. Daniel details the beast and the grass and the dew. His dwelling, he says, was with wild donkeys. Maybe Belshazzar would get it. God can take an arrogant ruler and essentially make an ass out of him. That is exactly what Daniel says to him. But no, Belshazzar didn't get it. And Daniel begins his application by picking up the you, O king, and he says, you, his son. Here he accuses Belshazzar of being totally dense. You have not humbled your heart, though you knew all of this. His problem was not ignorance. His problem was insolence. He both opposed. refused to acknowledge the Lord of heaven and by desecrating the temple vessels he had thumbed his nose at Israel's God and by singing doxologies to the sightless heedless witless deities of Babylon he had denied the honor to God who gave him the breath to utter such damnable praises. Pay attention to what Belshazzar teaches you about having clear information doesn't necessarily guarantee the right response. We have in the minds of many people this notion of the messianic character of education. People will do the right thing if they only know what the right thing to do is. And so if we can teach people the right thing to do through educating them, they will stop. They will stop abusing drugs because they find out that's not the right thing to do. Or they will stop doing, you know, it's ridiculous, it's powerless, it's stupid. And yet, Belshazzar has before him everything he needed, all of the good information necessary to bring about change. But political and social gurus preach that information fallacy constantly. We must educate people. We must help them. If people don't use seatbelts, just show them. You know, when I was in driver's education in high school, we had to watch those dreaded films. I don't know about you, but I sat on the front row and they'd have these accidents and people would be thrown out of the cars, and you know, it was awful. It was terrible, and I liked it, but it was terrible. It was entertaining. Teacher was dull as watching paint dry, but the videos were cool. And I'm sure that every 16-year-old boy that got his driver's license, first thing he did was just drive cautiously and carefully throughout the county. No, I never saw anybody do that. Driver's education didn't do a thing for anybody, except prove to most of us that we couldn't parallel park. That was about it. But Daniel's point is this, Belshazzar knew and it didn't matter. It did not matter to him. It didn't matter in the least to him. Now, it's easy as a Christian to stand here and whip up on old Belshazzar as if, you know, he's a lot worse than we are. And you know, he's one of those pagan kings. And I'm glad that we're on the right side of the line, that Belshazzar, he's an extreme case. And therefore, when Daniel told him it's over, son, you know, lights out, you're done, you're toast, it's history. He fully deserved that. And Daniel 5 tells us that God does care. God is going to set things right ultimately. There's coming a day when God will execute judgment and those who have sinned and executed crimes and have not received justice will receive it in the end. And we can believe this because God is a God who sets things right. God is a God whose very character demands that His creation be put back into order and He will answer our constant prayer for things on earth to be done as things are in heaven. And yet the promise of final judgment and a final setting to write all of the accounts should cause a shudder to pass through every one of us. After all, what was justice to Belshazzar only came after decades of justice to God's people. It was just for them to be in exile and captivity. They had been idolaters, blasphemers, and adulterers. Their exile was divine punishment, justice, and wrath. And this reality points us to our own sin, our own injustice, our own transgressions, our own iniquities and crookednesses and perversions. In those secret places of our hearts and minds are the sins of pride, arrogance, blasphemy, idolatry, sensuality, murder, lying, and covetousness in every darkened heart. It's there. And if God were to judge us now as we are in ourselves, we would be undone. We are the people of unclean lips. We are the people of unclean hearts and minds. Is there any hope at all for us? Is there a way for God to forgive us so that we don't have to bear the wrath, justice, and retributive justice we deserve? And the good news is the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The good news of the gospel gives us hope. We have hope that God will not stand against us as judge, but will turn to us a face of a loving father. Because he poured out his justice and wrath on Jesus Christ. That is our hope. That is why we sing hymns like how deep the Father's love for us. How vast beyond all measure that he should give his only son to make a wretch his treasure. How great the pain of searing loss. The father turns his face away. and wounds as wounds which mar the chosen one bring many sons to glory. We sing this because the good news declares to us that on the cross Jesus bore the full outpouring of the wrath and judgment of God on behalf of all who would ever believe in him. not for himself, not for his sins, but he bore judgment for our sins, for all the sins of his people. God's Word tells us that God put Jesus forward as a propitiation by his blood, an atoning sacrifice that satisfies the justice of God against us because as we heard in Sunday school God is holy and he's righteous and he's just and he can't weaken sin and he can't pass by sin and he must be sin or he must punish sin or he can't be God In order for Him to pass by sin, He'd have to contradict Himself. He'd have to deny Himself. And that means God would have to be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship. He must punish sin. And He's either going to do it in your body or His body. It'll either be you for eternity or it'll be Jesus upon the cross who suffered in the eternity of God's wrath on behalf of every person who ever trusted in Him. Even more, through the death of Jesus, God demonstrates to a watching world His determination to set the world right again. The Apostle Paul puts it this way, it was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus Christ. God displays to the world that he takes it as an affront to his infinite honor and dignity. He takes sin as an affront to his infinite honor and dignity. Hence, sin is an infinitely heinous crime that deserves eternal judgment and wrath. But God's justice has been satisfied through the death of Jesus, the infinite Son of God. And for all those who come to him through Jesus, he declares, write with me. I declare you to be justified. You stand under my favor forever. There is no double jeopardy. There is no punishment to fall upon you because it has fallen upon my Son on your behalf. would, if that was not true, we'd be in worse shape than Belshazzar. He grants and credits to us the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Jesus. All of our sins, all of the injustices we have perpetuated, all of our evil, all of the horror, all of it's gone. As if I'd never sinned before, as if I'd never been a sinner, as if I'd been perfectly obedient as Christ himself was obedient to me. And at the cross through Jesus, God has already begun to set the world right. He has already judged sin and injustice and death and the devil. He has taken our enemy and crushed his head on Golgotha's rock. He is over every foe victorious. And so for us. And so it is in the great truth that God is a judge. We find hope. We find hope because here's the truth. One day God's going to do, He's going to vindicate, He's going to set it all right. Sometimes we look at this world and we look at our systems built in this world for justice and the preservation of justice and we laugh because of the injustice and in the face of injustice we are depressed and grieved. But we as believers have the hope that what God has set in motion through His Son upon the cross will one day, you know, one of the biggest things of heaven, one of the greatest hopes of heaven is vindication. You never hear about that, do you? We always hear, you know, that heaven's going to be heaven for me because, you know, I'm going to walk those, you know, those little southern gospel songs. Don't get me started. There was a southern gospel group that wanted to sing in the church I pastored, and they got mad at me because I wouldn't let them put their albums in the back of the church to sell. I said, well, just do it out in the parking lot. And they got undone with me, and I sat through the whole thing. And I have to admit, I didn't have the best spirit at the moment. But I found all their singing aggravating. But that's not what makes heaven heaven. What makes heaven heaven, of course, is seeing Jesus and being like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. But also what makes heaven heaven is vindication. In this world, we don't get justice. Don't expect it. You're not going to get it. But when He comes again, justice will prevail and everything will be put back right. Let's pray. Gracious God and Father, we thank You for this text. Daniel chapter 5 and how it speaks to us today and how it challenges us that just because we know the right answer doesn't mean we have experienced the reality of what we know. How I pray today that your Spirit would work in our hearts and show us our desperate need for Jesus and to show us that in Jesus we have everything our heart could ever long for. And I pray that you would lead people today to turn from every other form of religion, superstition, whatever they may be trying in their lives, whatever ism they're into, and to turn to Jesus and Him only. Now, Father, may we continue to worship you as we give back to you a portion which you have entrusted to us. In Jesus' name, amen.