series in the prophet Daniel. And we begin reading in verse 1. 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 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. And he 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. And they drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver and bronze and iron and 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. And then the king's color changed and his thoughts alarmed him. His limbs gave way and his knees knocked together. And the king called loudly to bring in the enchanters and chaldeans and astrologers. And 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 of 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 is the spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father, light of outstanding wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him. And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, your father the king, made him chief of the magicians. and chanters, and chaldeans, and astrologers. But because of excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belt-Shezar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I want to thank you and praise you for this opportunity once again to gather together to worship you in praise and song We offer up our very best to you, Lord, and we thank you for your love for us. We thank you for your revelation to us. And Lord Jesus, we just pray now that you would please open our hearts and our eyes and our ears, that we may behold the truth of your word, that we may understand it and we may apply it. I pray that we would be changed by your word. I pray, oh Father God, that we wouldn't just be hearers of the word, but doers of the word. The 19th century philosopher G.W.F. Hegel once said, the only thing we learn from history is that we have learned nothing from history. Sadly, this is a fundamental play out throughout time. The errors of a son, of a father is committed by the son. The errors of a mother is committed by their daughter. We seem to pass on our sins to generation to generation and people never seem to learn their lesson. Nations don't seem to learn their lesson. There is a pattern in humanity where we hope that by looking at the failures the false of others, we will not repeat those mistakes. In fact, the Bible is full of stories and accounts for us, particularly the Old Testament, of the failures and mistakes of many people with the hope that we will not repeat them. In fact, that's what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 when writing to the Corinthian church. He is describing in that chapter many of the events that took place in the Exodus when the children of Israel rebelled against God from time after time of God punished Israel and each punishment, instead of learning, they kept rebelling even more. Well, what does God say through his word to us? 1 Corinthians 10, 11, and 12 says, now these things happened to them, right? They were punished as an example, but they were written down for our instruction of whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall. There's this reminder here that just as God dealt harshly with Israel, there is a pattern to our history and we've seen how God interacts with different people. It should be a lesson to us upon whom the end of the ages has come. One such person who didn't learn from history and didn't learn from the mistakes of his forefathers was Belshazzar, the new king in Babylon. He is the central character of our story today. and provides us a valuable lesson what not to imitate. You see, today's passage is not only about the downfall of Belshazzar, as we'll continue reading in the text, but it is also about the final collapse of Babylon itself. Remember, in the very beginning of Daniel, in chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. He was in his second year of his reign, and it was already decreed by God in the dream that one day, would come to an end. The vision of the statue was that Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold, Babylon, but after him would come another kingdom, and after this, another kingdom, and after this, another kingdom. In other words, Babylon is not eternal. As grand as a kingdom is, as powerful as it seems to be, and as much as it seems like Babylon will last forever, it will end is the theme of the story. And today's chapter is about the end of Babylon. It is about the end of Babylon. Now I want you to notice that as we look here at Belshazzar, I want to give you a little historical context because there is a big contrast between him and Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar, although he was a proud and arrogant man and God humbled him, one thing about Nebuchadnezzar is he was teachable. He was teachable and he had moments of sobriety and ultimately he was converted Not such the case with Belshazzar. Belshazzar is even more proud and arrogant than Nebuchadnezzar ever was and will cross a line to which there is no return. Now it's important to note, given the historical background to this chapter, that Daniel is not a chronological book. This is not a history book. This is not a historical narrative. This is a prophecy. who came to Babylon when he was 15 would have been about 80 years old when Belshazzar was king. So we're talking about the span of 80 years within five chapters. Daniel is just hand-picking a few events that really testify to the intervention of God in the life of Babylon and in the life of God's people. And ultimately the theme of all these chapters is to demonstrate that God is all-powerful, that God is sovereign, and the human governments of this world are nothing in comparison to God. And so when we look at this chapter, I have to give you a little background to it because reading the text may mislead us a little bit just on the surface. So I have to give a little understanding to what's going on, give a sense to what's going on. After the events of chapter 4, which would have been towards the end of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar's rule, we have a big gap of time between chapter 4 and chapter 5. Nebuchadnezzar would die, and he would reign for 43 years on the throne of Babylon. And after he died, there would be a series of successors. His immediate son, Emel Marduk, takes the throne and doesn't last but two years before he is assassinated by his brother-in-law, Neger-Glissar. Okay, so we see already there's intrigue, there's a buying for power. This usually happens when a very powerful man falls from power or dies. There is a battle for who takes his place. He is assassinated by his brother-in-law, and so Neger-Glissar rules for about four years. He rules for about four years, and he dies in 556 BC. His son, Levashi Marduk, succeeds him. Well, he didn't last too long either. He was king for only nine months, and he was murdered by a group of conspirators who didn't think he was fit to be king. One of those conspirators' name was Nobunidus, Nobunidus. And he was the last monarch of Babylon. Nobunidus was a different person. He was not a descendant. of Nebuchadnezzar. He was of a priestly lineage. Whereas Nebuchadnezzar was a Chaldean, Nobunidus was from Terra. He would have been from the same area, more or less where Abraham was originally from. He was a very able leader, he was a wise leader, but he was a very religious man. He was devoted to a cult. His mother was a was a priestess in this cult which worshipped in Tehran. By the way, that was the same pagan deity that Abraham worshipped before he would have been converted and God saved him. So it's an interesting connection there. And so because he was very religious and very devoted to his cult, he did not have much interest in legislating and ruling. He did not want to live in the city of Babylon. The patron god of Babylon was Marduk. He didn't believe that Marduk was the chief deity. He worshiped the god Sin. And so he decides he's going to leave the ruling of Babylon to his son, Belshazzar. And so Belshazzar is a co-regent with his father. His father goes in his spiritual pilgrimages down to Tima in Arabia for spiritual, whatever you want to call it, his time. of vegetation, but his son, Belshazzar, is the one who is co-regent and is king in Babylon, and that is who Belshazzar is. Now, this would make sense because in chapter 5, verse 7, Belshazzar promised whoever of the wise men could interpret the vision, their reward would be third place, the third ruler in Babylon. Well, that makes perfect sense. This is consistent with history. would be first, Belshazzar would be number two, and whoever interpreted the vision would be third in charge. Now this is a big contrast, obviously, to when Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dreams, and Joseph was made second in command of Egypt. Now if we look at chapter 7 and 8 of Daniel, the visions Daniel received there, and we'll get there later on, were in the first and third years of Belshazzar's rule. first and third years of Belshazzar's rule. That would have taken place in about 553-551 BC, respectively. However, Chapter 5 takes place at the fall of Babylon, and that takes place in 539 BC. That would make Belshazzar's rule about 14 years, which is the second longest compared to Nebuchadnezzar. And it also means that Daniel had foreseen and prophesied the full of Babylon in Belshazzar's first and third year, in the visions, as we'll see, that he knew that the Medo-Persian Empire would conquer Babylon. And so it's with this in mind that we are in 539 BC. Cyrus the Great is ruling the Persian Empire, they conquer the Medes, and it's expanded In 539 BC, the Persians actually conquered the city of Opus. Now, Opus was a military city. It was a fortified city just to the north of Babylon. If you wanted to get to Babylon, you had to conquer Opus first. Opus was a strong, fortified city. It would be very difficult to get past Opus. But Opus fell to Cyrus. At that point, The king, Nobodinus, actually flees. He runs and leaves his son in charge in the city of Babylon. Now this means that the Persians are at the very gate of Babylon. But let me just tell you about the city of Babylon. We talked about it a little bit last week. The city walls themselves were so thick and so tall that two chariots could race side by side around the whole city. I mean, this was a huge city, and around the whole city was a moat. Water from the Euphrates River was diverted to go around the entire wall so that no enemy could build a siege mound to invade and conquer the city. In fact, it was considered one of the most impenetrable city walls in ancient history. But Cyrus the Great and his army were very clever. The generals of the Persian army actually had engineers who learned how to divert the water of the Euphrates away from Babylon, thus cutting off the water supply. Not only would that cut off the water for the people to drink, but it cut off the water that surrounded the city, thus allowing them to build a siege mount and to invade the city. So the Persians are outside the wall. It looks like it's basically the end. Nobodinus has run for the hills, but Caesar is left in charge. And if you're the king of Babylon, what are you going to do if all this is going on? Or what else are you going to do? You're going to throw a party. And that's exactly what Belshazzar did. It's obvious that things are pretty serious. And what does he do? It tells us here in verse 1, he made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of a thousand. This was a man who didn't have a care in the world. He was full of pride, full of arrogance, and moreover was simply just blind to reality. And that's what we're going to do in the first point of our sermon, is look at the sin of Belshazzar, which leads to his ultimate fall. Now, just to make certain, these large feasts, thousand, is quite common. In fact, Greek historians, both Herodotus and Xenophon, confirm not only the historicity of this event in particular, that there was a big feast and party the night Babylon fell, but it was common in ancient worlds, in the ancient worlds, that these kind of feasts took place. The king is king. He's a party animal. He can do whatever he wants. And you see, he's got his wives and his concubines and his lords, and they're drinking and they're having fun. And so in the midst of this bacchanalia and revelry, we see God sends a son. But first of all, this sign brings judgment. But the question is, what are the sins? And I want to outline a few of them here, as I just mentioned. But the first is pride. You see, the pride and the ego of the Babylonians were high. And they saw themselves as invincible. After all, they defeated the Assyrian Empire, which was one of the strongest empires in the ancient world. Through Nebuchadnezzar, they built Babylon The Hanging Gardens of Babylon remained as one of the ancient wonders of the world. In fact, in the ancient Near East, there is no other city that would have been like Babylon. And by the way, Babylon is where current-day Iraq is. Just to give you a little contrast and give you a modern understanding, Saddam Hussein, when he was alive and he was ruler of Iraq, believed that he was the natural descendant of Nebuchadnezzar. metal around his chest of Nebuchadnezzar. He wanted to rebuild the ancient city of Babylon. It was a little crazy, but then again, that was Saddam Hussein. On the other hand, the Persian Empire and Cyrus the Great are from modern-day Iran. So this conflict between Iran and Iraq goes back thousands of years. So first of all, he was a very proud man, but there was a lot to be proud of. We have a great city, we have great walls, we have a great military. I don't care that there's people out there. We're going to be just fine. We're Babylon. Nobody's going to take us down. All right? And I could almost see that in his thinking that people are starting to panic. They're starting to get nervous and say, wait a minute, there's an army outside the city. What are we going to do? And so he says, well, I know the best thing to do. Let's throw a party to kind of lift up the souls of everybody and help them to remember who we are, Babylon the Great. Their view of invincibility, however, was unrealistic. That's what pride does, though. Pride blinds us to reality. When people are proud and arrogant, it's almost like scales come over their eyes. Not only can they not perceive reality, but they live in a false reality. They believe that they're invincible. Like, for instance, you see a lot of young people today, right? They're in their college. and they're having big parties and they're not taking serious the COVID epidemic, right? Why? Because they're proud. They've got blinders on their eyes. They don't perceive reality correctly. They think they're invincible. This isn't going to touch me. This isn't going to bother me. Or what about when people go through life and they think that nothing terrible will ever happen? It's a false sense of security. You know, it was interesting, because in September 11, 2001, I remember just being shocked when I saw the Twin Towers fall. This idea that nothing could ever happen in America, that no enemy could ever attack us, was shattered. We were reminded that America isn't so impregnable after all, is it? But that's what pride does. It blinds you to your vulnerability. Just remember something, we're all vulnerable. We're all susceptible, particularly to the judgment of God. No one can avoid that. So when we are filled with pride and arrogance, we are really setting ourselves against God. Secondly, he was a drunkard. His pride was exhibited in the way he drank and showed off about his drinking. The Bible tells us he was drinking in front of a thousand. On the surface, it doesn't seem too important, All eyes were on Belshazzar. Look at me, I'm a hero of drinking. He was showing off. Isaiah 522, woe to those who are heroes of drinking wine and valiant men in mixing strong drink. Maybe he thought he was showing off his bravado and machismo, but he was really showing what a weakling he was. Finally, the icing on the cake was the desecration. He took it a step further and did something that night that neither, none of his predecessors even thought of. In his drunken stupor, his feasting, he says, I got an idea. Why don't we go get those gold cups out of the closet that we took from the Jewish temple years ago? Let's drink, let's use them to drink our wine. Let's get those fancy gold cups. Nebuchadnezzar, even in his worst moments, didn't stoop that low. Even Nebuchadnezzar, in all his pride, had enough common sense to know you don't cross those kind of lines to offend another religion, another people's gods. You see, one of the things that kept a lot of the ancient empires surviving was a pluralistic mindset. You respected the religions of other cultures. But not Belshazzar. In fact, the Jews didn't do anything to provoke him to this, and they were no direct threat to him. There is no reasonable explanation other than his own sinful rebellion and hatred of God. His wickedness was so deep that it just naturally developed into this desecration of the sacred vessels that were used in the Temple. And just to understand what these vessels were, in the plunder of the Temple of Jerusalem, in 586 when Nebuchadnezzar did destroy the Temple in Jerusalem, There were many vessels in the temple that were used for the sacred times of worship and sacrifice. Many of those goblets were used for the libation offerings and were being used by the priests in toasting to the Lord. But here these now were taken and profaned. These sacred vessels were taken and profaned and used in this disgusting display of an orgy and drunkenness and feasting. to use the sacred objects of God for wickedness. This wasn't just desecration, it was blasphemy. And cross the line in which there was no return. There are certain sins when you cross the line, there's no turning back. But that's what pride does. Again, it desensitizes you to the danger of crossing that line. When you're proud and you're arrogant, you think nothing of crossing that line because you think nothing will happen. You don't think there's any danger. You don't think there's any threat. Oh, that's just superstition. I'm going to go ahead and do what I want. Nothing bad will happen to me. I see this happening more and more in our own society today. One of the things I noticed in Western culture today is nothing is sacred anymore. You notice that? There was a time where there were boundaries that you didn't cross. There was a time when there was a sense of sacredness and holiness to certain institutions and to certain ideas. That has all changed, hasn't it? We used to treat sexuality as something sacred, reserved for marriage between a man and a woman. Now, forget it. There is no boundary that hasn't been crossed. I think it was Alan Moeller who said a few years ago, we've reached a point where every line has been crossed, there are no more boundaries we could cross. Nothing is sacred anymore, nothing is distinct, nothing is holy. We live in a culture that is profane through and through. But there is an application even to us as believers, that our bodies are considered vessels to be holy, Do we glorify God? Do we use it to live in sin? How do we live our life before God? This is important to us because so often we lose focus of our own significance, of our own meaning into holiness and godliness. I want you to turn your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 3, for this is the will of God, you want to know the will of God for your life? Your sanctification, that means your holiness, you're setting apart the sacredness of your own life, that you abstain what? From sexual immorality, that each one of you knows how to control his own body. The King James Version says to control his own vessel, in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgresses and wrongs his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of these things who do you for him and solemnly warns you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man, but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. When we defile our bodies in sexual immorality, we offend the Holy God in whom we have been bought. Belshazzar also reminds us of the parable of the rich fool. In that parable, Jesus describes a man who was prosperous and congratulated himself. He accomplished so much. He had so much grain. He didn't know where to put all the grain. He said, let me build more barns. You know, so often it seems like everything's going smooth, we're partying, we're having fun. It seems like nothing could be better. Tragedy and judgment could strike in an instant. We're very foolish when we live in such a blind way. So let's look at the judgment that comes in. The judgment that comes in is in verse 5 through 12. It tells us about the handwriting. Mysteriously, out of nowhere, and supernaturally, a hand appears in the air. And this has a chilling effect on Belshazzar. Right? And the handwriting, a hand appears and it writes on the wall. We'll see later, it's Mehemenetekl, arson. And that handwriting on the wall basically brings the whole party to an end. That'll sober you up quicker than 10 cups of coffee. The music stops, the drinking stops, and everybody's scared. What does this mean? Now, it's interesting, because in a palace in the ancient world, walls were very significant, because on walls there hung tapestries, or there were paintings that told the story of the king's mighty exploits, that told stories of the king's power, that told stories about how great the king was. And so when one looked in the palace walls, one would assume that there would be paintings that portrayed the greatness and majesty and power of the king. This hand that appears does not so do, does not do so, but rather tells the story of the downfall of the king. It is a sign of judgment. And so what does he do? First of all, he tells us Belshazzar was frightened. He says his color changed, his thoughts alarmed him, and his knees were knocking together. It literally means his knees came out of a joint. Essentially, he was scared. He was scared to death. The fear had taken over him to such a point that he was unraveling He was a nervous wreck. However, we should take note of something. Seeing him in this frightened state, you may say, hmm, maybe because he's so frightened, maybe that's a sign that he's converted, that he's saved, right? I mean, think about it. If you're witnessing to someone, you're sharing your gospel with someone, and they get really frightened, and they show emotional tremors, and they develop a sense of deep conviction, and they say, that's truly a sign of conversion. Not necessarily. In fact, Jonathan Edwards, in his own analysis of the Great Awakening, wrote a treatise called Religious Affections. Because there was a great enthusiasm in the colonial period during the Great Awakening. People came under great conviction of their sin. There was a lot of crying, a lot of weeping, a lot of yelling in the churches. And Edwards came to the conclusion that means nothing. They're crocodile tears. You can have a great wave of emotion come over you, and like that, you can be hardened in your heart immediately. True conversion is not just about displaying great emotion. It's about displaying the work of conversion, the fruit of the Spirit. And so what does he do? He summons again all the experts. You see a pattern developing here, right? Like Nebuchadnezzar. He appeals to all his pagan advisors and experts, the wise men, the astrologers, the soothsayer, and he promises them everything he could offer them. Third place in the kingdom. I'll put a coat of purple on you and I'll put a gold chain around your neck. But no one could tell him the meaning. We could speculate why, but suffice it to say, like the previous scenarios, the experts of this world are clueless when it comes to spiritual matters. You know, there are some issues that we deal with in life that you could go to the psychiatrist You can go to the therapist, you can go to the experts, and you can try to seek counsel, and they will not be able to help you. You know why? Because it's a spiritual matter. And when you have a spiritual matter, only God can deal with that. Well, one person knew it was a spiritual matter, and that was the Queen Mother. It tells us in verse 10 through 12 that the Queen Mother hears what's going on, and she comes in. And she says in verse 10, Let not your thoughts alarm you, or your color change. There is a man in whom your kingdom, in whom the spirit of the holy gods is. The days of your father are 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 magicians and enchanters, calgene and astrologist, who caused an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and soft novels were found in this Daniel. the king named Belteshazzar. Two things to take note of. Number one, when she refers to Nebuchadnezzar your father, we ought not to take that literally. Some who have criticized the authenticity and the inerrancy of scripture, you say, well, here's evidence of an error in the scripture. Nebuchadnezzar was not the father of Belteshazzar. Well, that's true. We know that physically and biologically he wasn't the father. However, in the ancient Near East, it was common to refer to someone as your father who wasn't exactly your father. The Jews often referred to Abraham as their father. He wasn't the father, but he was their ancient descendant, ancestor. And likewise, Nebuchadnezzar, having been on the throne and who was the founding king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, would have been looked to as the father of all succeeding kings. And so there's no really conflict there. But there's something else that should be thought of, and that is Daniel, at this point, would have been living in relative obscurity. Delcesar wasn't really aware of this. He might have remembered him from when he was younger, when he was serving in Nebuchadnezzar's court. But clearly, he wouldn't have had a great understanding of who Daniel was. He was an 80-year-old man. He probably was living alone somewhere. He is far gone and out of Babylonian life. But the Queen Mother remembers him. This indicates to me that the Queen Mother more than likely was Nebuchadnezzar's widow. The fact that she has such knowledge of Daniel and his understanding and his prophetic ministry tells me that she had first-hand knowledge and access to Daniel's ministry. So we can speculate who the Queen Mother is, but I believe that this would have been Nebuchadnezzar's widow because no woman could just walk into the court of the king and speak up like that. We know from the book of Esther that Ashley tried to do that and she was killed for it immediately. On the other hand here, what we see might have been, if this was Nebuchadnezzar's widow, everybody would have listened up. And so Daniel is summoned. We pick up in verse 13 and I'll begin reading here. Then Daniel was brought in before the king, and the king answered and said to Daniel, you are that Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom the king, my father, brought from Judah. Right there, we're stopped. Notice how Belshazzar is addressing him. He wants to put Daniel in his place right off the bat. Notice, he says, oh, you're one of those exiles that my father took from Judah. You're a slave. In other words, be careful how you talk to me. And he says in verse 14, 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. He would have known who Daniel was, even if he was living in obscurity. Daniel's reputation would have been preceded. He was the chief of the wise men and magicians. He chose not to remember him. And he's saying it in a way where it's to demonstrate skepticism. Let me see if you really are as wise as they claim. Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this 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, that if you could 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, Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king and make known to him its interpretation." Okay, so Daniel accepts, but he has a few words for Belshazzar first. So there's verse 18, "'O king, the most high God, king, never can answer your father, kingship and greatness and glory and majesty.'" I think that's so beautiful what he does there. He starts off very clear. Belshazzar wants to tell him something. He thinks that Nebuchadnezzar is the one who took the gold from the temple. He thinks that Nebuchadnezzar is the one who took Daniel into exile. And Daniel comes back and starts off, just remember, it is the Most High God who gave Nebuchadnezzar, your father, kingship and greatness. Nebuchadnezzar didn't take anything, God gave it to him. This is the theme that is resplendent throughout Daniel. And because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples and nations and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he killed, he killed. Whom he would, he kept alive. Whom he would, he raised up. And whom he would, he humbled. But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened, so 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. And 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 sits over it whom he willed. And you, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this. You have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven, and the vessels of his house have been brought before you, and you and your lords and your wives and your concubines have drunk wine from them, and you have praised the gods of silver and gold and bronze and iron and wood and stone, which you 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." It's interesting because Belshazzar wanted to put Daniel in his place, and Daniel put Belshazzar in his place. He turned the tables right away. You see, Daniel wanted him to know something. He said, let's do a little history lesson here. And clearly, Belshazzar would have remembered what happened to Nebuchadnezzar. Clearly, he would have been alive. It would have been news. It would have been headline news for seven years that Nebuchadnezzar was out in the fields eating grass like a donkey. He saw everything that happened, yet he did not learn from it. Not only did he not learn from it, but he's basically saying, you're even worse than Nebuchadnezzar. At least Nebuchadnezzar humbled himself before God. You will not humble yourself. You go as far as to defy God, to take the golden vessels and use them to worship your pagan idols. How dare you? God gave Nebuchadnezzar power. He'd given you the power, and you dare to defy him like that. He wanted to remind Belshazzar that he wasn't half the man that King Nebuchadnezzar was. Nebuchadnezzar was a much better person, and judgment was about to come. So Daniel proceeds to interpret verse 24. And from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed. And this is the writing that was inscribed many, many tickled parsons This is the interpretation of the matter of many. God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. Techel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. In Perez, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. Then Belshazzar gave the command and Daniel was clothed with purple, a chain of gold, and was put around his neck. And a proclamation was made about him that he should be third ruler in the kingdom. And that very night, Belshazzar the Chaldean was killed. Many, many, tekel, parsim. This is Aramaic, which is the language of the Babylonians. Read in the form of nouns, it forms a sequence of weight that decreases in value. Mena is lamina, tekel is shekel, and parsim is a half-shekel. It shows the decline that's taking place in value. But the meaning in the verb has greater emphasis, and that's what Daniel brings out. You see, the astrologers were reading it simply as a noun form. No one could make sense of it. Daniel brings out the true meaning of it. And here we go. Menin, which was twice for emphasis, means your days are numbered. in his sovereign decree before the creation of the world. The days of Belshazzar's rule were numbered, and it was all coming to an end. In fact, it would end that night, and he would be killed in his palace by the Persian army. But this harkens back to Daniel's original prophecy, and that is that every kingdom has their days numbered. Every nation has their days numbered. Every ruler has their days numbered. There is no kingdom, there is no ruler who will last forever. Every kingdom and nation of power will come to an end. That's a reminder, too, that even America will come to an end one day. Let us not think, as much as I'm a patriot and I love my country, I know the United States will end one day, because that's the way of the nations and that's how history goes. The only kingdom and the only nation that will last forever is the kingdom of God. That's the message of Daniel. But it's also a reminder to us that our days are numbered. Each and every one of them. We strut through life with such pride and arrogance we think we're going to live forever. We think we're going to be healthy forever. We think that nothing bad is going to happen to us. We imagine that we're impregnable and impenetrable like the city of Babylon. And like Belshazzar, we just want to keep partying, eat, drink, and be merry. But we need to be reminded that all of our days are numbered. And we're all going to stand before G-d one day. We all have a divine appointment. Psalm 39.4, David says, O LORD, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days. Let me know how fleeting I am. In Job 14.5 it tells us that our days are determined and the number of our months is with God and He has appointed limits and no one can transgress. Because our days are numbered, we should live every day like it's our last. We should live every day not knowing when the writing on the wall will take place for us and it's all over and the part is over. Sadly, people live their lives as if there's no God. And then when they get a decree from the doctor that says they have six months to live and they have pancreatic cancer, all of a sudden they get religious. People go through their whole lives without praying or reading the Bible. They go to church like it's a theatrical rehearsal until something bad happens and they're on their knees all day and all night. Why do we have to wait for that to happen? Our days are numbered. God has already decreed it. I don't know it. You don't know it, but God knows it. Secondly, tackle. Weighed and found to be wanting. Weighed and found to be wanting. The picture is of a merchant who has a scale. And on one end of the scale is the weight in which you ought to be. And Belshazzar was put on the scale, and he was found to be wanting. In other words, he was a shallow, empty person. Outwardly, he looked like he was magnificent. He had beautiful robes, he had power, he had money, he had women, he had it all! But God says, I wage you, Belshazzar, and you're empty. You're found lacking. He might have been a hero at drinking, but otherwise he had no significant accomplishments compared to his predecessors. He was an empty windbag. But that is so much of life, isn't it? A lot of people that look very good on the outside, they give a good appearance, they seem like they got it all together, but if God was to weigh them, where would they be found? And more importantly, where are we found if God were to weigh us? If God were to weigh you or me, would we be found wanting? Well, according to His perfect standard of righteousness, every one of us is found wanting, aren't we? If God were to put us on the scale of His righteousness, none of us measure up. We're all shallow. We're all empty. We're all full short of the glory of God. But that is the place where we begin to realize the good news in the Gospel. Where we are found wanting, Christ is not. Where we are found shallow, Christ is found in fullness. Where we are lacking, Christ has everything. And that's where we come to God, empty, poor beggars, and we look to Jesus, and we humble ourselves, and we repent of our sins, and we look to Christ as our Lord and Savior, and we believe in Him and trust in Him, taking His righteousness as our own. And He takes our sin, and deals, pays the penalty for it. That's the gospel, that's the good news. Christ rose from the dead so that we would be justified, so we could be declared just. You know what justification really is? It's being balanced and being weighed in a scale and found full with the righteousness of Christ. I think of this today, if God were to weigh our rulers from the president down to the governors, to the senators, to the congressmen, how many of our rulers would be waited and found wanting. Just like Belshazzar, there's a lot of pride and arrogance in our leaders in our country. Very few people of integrity. Very few people who are found with weight and substance to their souls. Parson. It's a passive participle here, which means to be broken or divided, and it sounds like the word Persia. Ironically, Belshazzar's kingdom was about to be broken and divided among the Medo-Persians, and his empire was to end. It was all over after that night. You know, it's interesting, when we die, you can't take nothing with you, right? Naked you come into this world, naked you leave it. And yet, we put so much emphasis on accumulating wealth. How often we see that you accumulate wealth only to leave it to someone else who squanders it. How often you see children or children's children who receive an inheritance from their parents and they waste it all in riotous living, prodigal living, because they never worked for it. I want that not to be a lesson for us. We put so much emphasis, so much energy into accumulating material wealth, when we don't realize that that leads to emptiness and shallowness of life. Having a lot of stuff doesn't make you full. Having a lot of stuff and having a lot of money doesn't make you happy. It helps, right? But it doesn't meet the goal. True success, true happiness, true wealth is having eternal life, is having spiritual wealth. What did Jesus say in Matthew 6, 19? It doesn't mean that you can't have material wealth in this world, but it's a delicate balance, isn't it? Jesus says it's easier for a cow to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to go through the kingdom of heaven, because wealth is very deceptive. security. That was the whole point of Belshazzar. He says, look, I'm mighty Belshazzar, I'm king of the biggest city in the ancient Near East, I got the biggest walls, I have the biggest temple, I have the biggest hanging guards, I have the biggest palace, and I've got the biggest military. Who's going to take me down? God did. Remember when I said it in chapter 3? Nebuchadnezzar said to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Who is able to deliver you from my hand? The real question is who is going to deliver? Where are the gods of Babylon to deliver Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar from the hand of the Lord? In the end, Belshazzar accepts the interpretation and rewards Daniel. He is triumphant of Babylon for a few hours. At that very night, the Persians come in. And it's over. Let me conclude. There are many lessons to learn from this text. Chief among them is that God is able to humble the proud. If God was able to humble someone like Nebuchadnezzar, he could certainly reduce him to an animal. An empty windbag like Belshazzar would come down all the more easier. We are far removed from ancient Babylon, but Babylon still exerts itself in our culture. You see, in the Bible, Babylon becomes the archetype for all worldly kingdoms that oppose God. Babylon might have fallen in 539 BC, the city of Babylon, but Babylon continues to exist. All throughout the Bible, Babylon becomes typical of all governments, of all societies that oppose God. For instance, in 1 Peter 5.12, Peter refers to the city of Rome as Babylon. Why did he just say Rome? Because it became a code word, because Rome represented everything that Babylon was. Power, luxury, wealth, worldliness, pluralism, everything that is opposed to the Kingdom of God. And you see, it's very tempting. It's very tempting for you and for me to join the feast. Babylon is having a feast every day. And we're invited to that feast every day. We're invited to that party. And it's very tempting. It's very luring. But we have to acknowledge what Babylon is and distinguish from it that we don't get sucked into it. Look with me in Revelation 18. The Bible tells us in Revelation what will happen and it typifies all the world, the whole system, the whole anti-Christ system will come down one day. In Revelation 18 we read, After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. And he called out with a mighty voice, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. She's become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean, detestable beast. For all the nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living. And then I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins. Remember those words, come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins. Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins. Lest you share in her plagues, for her sins are he ties heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double glorify herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, I sit as a queen, I have no widow, and mourning I shall never see. For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burnt up with fire, for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her." Babylon will fall one day. That's this world, and all the luxuries and the money and the power and the glitter and the gold. It looks cool and it looks fun, but God is gonna judge all of it one day. Don't be deceived. Don't get sucked in. Come out of her, my people. Do not share in her sins. Do not share in her plagues. Come out of her, and to come out of her, we must come into the kingdom of God, into the church, where we worship God and serve Him alone.