Welcome. Please turn with me to Daniel chapter 5 this morning. This is the story of Belshazzar and his seeing the writing on the wall, the handwriting on the wall. There are, I suppose, many possible sermon titles that I could have chosen for the message this morning. Chapter five of Daniel, it introduces us to this new king, this Belshazzar. There's not a whole lot of introduction to him in the transition from Nebuchadnezzar that we've been in chapters one through four. But you might have thought that this guy named Belshazzar, who is said to be a son or at least a successor of Nebuchadnezzar, you might have expected that he would have changed his name. in light of the transformation in his father's life. His father learned some lessons and became a believer. He was converted to faith in the Jewish God Yahweh and began to serve him. But instead, this one who follows after Nebuchadnezzar is one who takes the throne and he keeps his name, Belshazzar. A name which means Bel, protect the king. Bel being a false god that they worshiped. Bel, you're also, it could be translated Baal. Baal be one who protects the king. So his trust is not in the Yahweh, living God, but in Baal. or Bel, the chapter soon reveals that this particular king has no regard for the living God, for his father's God. And with that introduction, then, we might title the message a number of different ways. You might say, the sins of the fathers, or learning nothing from history, or you could go any kinds of, lots of different directions with that, I think. But it seems that Nebuchadnezzar's conversion had little to no impact on this successor. He becomes the regent, the king, the one who rules over Babylon six and a half years after Nebuchadnezzar does. And after Nebuchadnezzar died, and so he's very aware of the lessons that God taught Nebuchadnezzar. He could hardly be ignorant of that. The things that this king went through when he went mad, was kicked out of the palace, was out in the fields eating grass, and then God restores him. And then that king puts out a declaration to all the nations of what God had done for him. So he's very aware of this. And yet he seems not the slightest to have changed in his own heart. He's seen God's judgment on his predecessor and yet he does not follow in his ways. He turns away from the truth of God's gracious providence. And the title then that I've given to the passage is Weighed and Found Wanting. And I use that phrase, of course, because that's the phrase that's actually given by God to Belshazzar in this handwriting on the wall. So let's read this account and be ready to heed the warnings that God gives in it. Daniel chapter five, beginning at verse one. 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 the 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 silver and gold and bronze and wood and iron 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 in 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 banquet hall and the queen declared, oh king, live forever. Let not your thoughts alarm you or your color change. There's a man in your kingdom in whom is 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. And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, your father the king, made him chief of the magicians, the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. Because an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, to 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. 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. 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 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. 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 writings 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 peoples, 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. And whom he would, he humbled. But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit 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 your lords, your wives and your concubines have drunk wine from them. And you've 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 and his writing was inscribed. And this is the writing that was inscribed. Mene, Mene, Tikal, and Parson. This is the interpretation of the matter. Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. Tikal, 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, a chain of gold was put around his neck and a proclamation was made about him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. That very night, Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed and Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about 62 years old. I want to give a little bit of historic clarification as we begin this particular message. We ought to begin by clearing up an apparent problem with secular histories that are out there and what we have here recorded in the biblical account of the history. Because for generations, historians were having a very, very difficult time finding any evidence. In fact, they couldn't find any evidence to find that Belshazzar was a king of Babylon. All they ever found was that of a man named Nabonidus. Nabonidus was the king. In fact, the indisputable evidence of ancient secular history is that the king that was in authority, the one who was reigning in Babylon during the time of Cyrus the Medes' invasion of Babylon was not Belshazzar, but was Nabonidus. Jim McLarty, a sovereign grace pastor in Tennessee, he's a historian, enjoys writing some of these things out. He accounts it this way, and I'm going to quote him here. He says, Nebuchadnezzar died after a reign of 43 years. He was followed by his son, evil Meredok. And because his rule was arbitrary and licentious, he was assassinated. by a man named Nereglisar, after he had reigned only two years. So the successor to Nebuchadnezzar for only two years, and then he was assassinated. Then the next four years, Nereglisar was on the throne. And after his death, his son, I'm not sure if I'll get the name right here, but Leboros Sorkhod was his name, who was a mere child, reigned for nine months until he was beaten to death. The leaders of the conspiracy then appointed a man named Nabonidus, one of the conspirators, who was not a legal heir to the throne at all as king, and he reigned for 17 years before being defeated by Cyrus the Persian. So that's a record of the secular histories that are out there given the evidences that they have. But then he writes, nowhere in that ancient record do we find any mention of a king named Belshazzar. The critics claim that Daniel then confuses the historically verifiable King Nabonidus with a king who is without any historic merit, this so-called Belshazzar. So that's a pretty significant problem that we have had with the text of the scripture here with regard to what seems to be the evidence of history. However, in 1854, archeology began to unearth various things, and they came up with a clay cuneiform cylinder that is called the Nabonidus cylinder. And if I could just summarize all of this, what comes down to is what they found on that cylinder is that Nabonidus had a son, and his name was Belshazzar. Very interesting, Belshazzar began to serve as a co-regent in the land of Babylon with Nabonidus. We have a good many texts that have been found since that time that speak of Nabonidus, this particular king, who was king during the time of Cyrus' invasion, as an eccentric ruler, probably not even having his origins in Babylon. He was actually an Assyrian, and Assyria was the power that had had power prior to the Babylonian Empire. So here he is, this man who comes inside as an eccentric. He's more concerned with the country that he came from, Assyria, and all the gods of his country. Particularly there was one god, in fact his mother was a goddess, or a priestess of the god, the god Sin was the god of the Assyrians. And so what you have is then this man who's all about Assyria, all about the gods of Assyria, he has very little following in the land of Babylon. People don't like the fact that he doesn't serve the god Murdoch, which is their god in Babylon. He is one who keeps promoting these other things. And so he basically was very unpopular. And because of that, he often wasn't in Babylon. He spent most of his time out of that to the north. And he left his son Belshazzar to be a co-regent ruling in that time. So that's what is going on. Nabonidus is out of town. We have Belshazzar ruling in Babylon when Cyrus comes. Technically, his father is the king. But he is the one, well that's kind of the long story in that. But when Daniel calls Shazar the son of Nebuchadnezzar, it is more in the sense of his being a successor of Nebuchadnezzar than an actual biological son. It is thought that maybe he's married to one of Nebuchadnezzar's daughters, so that there is a sense in which there is a relationship there. But anyway, that's the situation. When the queen is mentioned in verse 10, we're probably not talking about Belshazzar's wife, we're talking about his mother, who is the queen, mother Nabonidus' wife. All of that's to say that what we've got here is her coming in, giving counsel to her son, that he ought to look up this man Daniel, the one who's going to give him counsel from the Jewish God. So, getting all that out of the way, we now can deal with the point of the passage, which is Belshazzar, this man being weighed in the balance and found wanting. Because he has not learned from the lessons of those who went before him, his kingdom is going to be taken from him and divided between the Medes and the Persians. If you can picture for me, this is quite off that subject for a moment, picture in your mind a family that's going on a hike. they're going to go through some dense woods and they're kind of spread out as they hike. But before they go on the hike, the teenage son is, is got his headphones and he's got his earbuds in and so on. And the dad stops him and says, there's going to be some things along the hike that I want you to pay attention to. I want you to be careful. So please take those earbuds out of your ears. so that you can hear the instructions. Well, as they go along, the father who's leading the way, who's a bit ahead, he stumbles. There's some leaves covering up some roots, and he stumbles along the way. He trips, and he actually falls and hurts his knee pretty badly. Upon recovering, he looks back and yells to his son, who's way back there, who has not really paid attention, still has the earbuds in, be careful, there's some roots up here that you can't see very well, and I stumbled, I fell, be careful about that. Well, the son doesn't hear him at all and continues to hike and eventually gets to the roots and sure enough, he stumbles and he falls and he scrapes his knees as well. What you have in that story is sort of an example of what's happening with Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. Only it's a much worse situation because what Belshazzar does is actually witness Nebuchadnezzar's fall. He sees the fall, he watches them trip as it were. He sees him hurt himself and yet he doesn't pay any attention and he falls as well. Daniel points this out to him in verse 22. His son, Belshazzar, you have not humbled your heart, though you knew all of this. You see, Belshazzar has witnessed history. He has observed what God does with his predecessor. And yet he pays no attention, and he stumbles as well. And I would just like to say here as a second point in our outline, there is folly in neglecting or ignoring God's revelation. And typically we think about revelation coming in the form of God's holy word. The Bible is revelation from God. And it certainly is. We call that special revelation from God. But there is also a general revelation of God that takes place as God reveals himself through nature, through the events of history. And that's also something we're held accountable to. I think we're fully aware of the fact that we're held accountable to this book. The man will be held accountably before God with what the scriptures plainly say. But this is special revelation. We forget sometimes that God truly does reveal himself and hold us then accountable to that revelation also through general revelation. In that case I'm referring, in the case we're dealing with here, I'm referring to how God has dealt with Nebuchadnezzar in Belshazzar's experience and he has witnessed that. Belshazzar was ignoring both prophetic revelation through the man Daniel in the past and also now providential revelation through God's dealings with those who had come before him, especially Nebuchadnezzar. Now we have to be careful about how we view those two. They're not equally clear because one of those in the special revelation, the word of God through the prophet is going to be without question clarity. It is the thing that helps us then interpret the experiences and the events of happening around us. And I think the lesson here, this chapter is not hard to see and we've been singing about it all morning. And that is that it comes there at the end as Belshazzar has shown an important truth regarding God. Belshazzar is accountable to this God. He is being observed by this God and will one day be judged by this God. That truth is stated very plainly in a passage we read earlier in 2 Corinthians 5, 10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Now, if we apply a truth that is found in the New Testament to the Old Testament context, You look at Belshazzar and realize that he's going to be accountable to this holy God. Regardless of whether he acknowledges that God to be true or not, or even that God exists or has any divine authority, he most certainly is going to be Belshazzar's judge. And we are accountable to him both in this life and as we pass into the next. The picture of being weighed on the balance is that picture of God taking your life and weighing it according to his standard. And we realize here from that passage in 2 Corinthians, who is the judge, particularly? We talk about God standing before God at the judgment day, but actually, clearly in 2 Corinthians 5, we're talking about Jesus Christ before whom we stand. So he is the judge. God's anointed one in the Old Testament. The one we talked about last week in Psalm 2, as you have Yahweh described, and then Yahweh and his anointed one, the Messiah. Well, Belshazzar is now, another ruler who fits the category that's described in Psalm 2. He is, as Nebuchadnezzar had been, raging against the Lord and against his anointed. If we put the dots together there, what we realize is what he's raging against is the one who is going to be his judge. He's raging against the anointed one. He's raging against Jesus Christ, even though he doesn't know that name yet. And what's more, as verse 3 indicates, Belshazzar was by his actions saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. That's from Psalm 2 verse 3. He's trying to get rid of that bond, that authority that that judge has over him. He doesn't want to have any involvement with that. And that defiance that you see in verses, say, for example, 3 and 4 indicates that he's acting as his successors. God had no authority over him, as if that had no bearing in his life. Indeed, he made fun of that God. He indulges in things which clearly are against what God has said. He's having a drinking party with 1,000 of his buddies and his wives and his concubines while using the vessels from the temple of Yahweh. He's showing a sack religious sort of action here. He's drinking wine and praising false gods while he's using the instruments that had been made to serve the true God. And what's more, this is what's shocking in this story, is that history tells us that while this party is going on, while King Belshazzar is mocking the living God, he's mocking the living God while the armies of Persia and the Medes are outside his doors laying siege to the city of Babylon. That's not the typical thing we think of doing, is having a great party when you're being attacked. But that's what the king is doing here. History tells us that Belshazzar's father, Nabonidus, actually had gone out to war against the Medes and Persians to try to stop them from doing this and had been taken captive. And it's very likely that Belshazzar knows that. He knows that his father has been taken captive and that the enemy's at his gates, but he thinks, my walls are impervious. We're safe here. Let's throw a party. But what he didn't realize, and it did come as a surprise to him, was that the army was underneath his city walls even at that moment. He didn't think it was a surprise that they were there. He wasn't worried about that. But this reveals the folly of ignoring revelation, the ignorance of observing what's going on around you and the pride that's in his heart, the same pride that had brought Nebuchadnezzar down. Well let's then look at what God says, what does He communicate through His prophet then, through the special revelation to such a person like that who is ignoring the evidence all around him. You have this in verses 26 to 28, this interesting phrase, mini, mini, teakle and parson. which is written on the plaster wall by that hand. This is the interpretation of the matter, these verses say. God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting, and your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. I think as a kid, when I heard this story over and over again, I always thought that that was in some sort of foreign language, that nobody in the kingdom would have any idea what it was talking about. It's not. That's Aramaic. Those words would have been very recognizable to the king. He knew exactly what the words meant. The problem is he didn't know what they meant with regard to his situation. He wasn't applying them. And so interpreting them as trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. What are these three interesting words that I know what they mean? How do they impact my situation? And I think that's a little bit, it's a little bit like Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the tree. We said last time that the dream of that tree was pretty obvious. Who else could be the tree but you, Nebuchadnezzar? In this sense, what does it mean to be weighed? Because some of these words have to do with being weighed and tested. And then, of course, the Persians being outside your door. A lot of this is making sense, but there's the denial of the reality that's right before you, it seems. out of terror because what the potential meaning of this is, is that it's going to impact me and I'm going to be accountable to that God who is my judge. Well, Daniel's not afraid to tell it to him directly. This is the end of the matter. You, Belshazzar, have lived a life of ignoring the clear communication that God has given to you, both in his providence and through his servant, the prophet here. And now you will be judged accordingly. Though you have denied God's rule, he has declared that you fall short of his standard. Your kingdom then will be removed from you, and that will be split up among those Medes and Persians. And at the very moment that this is happening, it says immediately, the writing of the wall, things went on the wall. But secular history tells us that the armies of Persia, what they did while they're laying siege around the outside was find a waterway that went underneath the walls of the city. And they got their soldiers to go into the waterway and climb underneath the walls. And there was absolutely, when they pop up inside the city, there is no defense whatsoever. There's really no way to stop these Persians coming into your city. Psalm 2 says that those who do not yield to the sun, to Yahweh and to his anointed, and I'm quoting here from Psalm 2, you shall be broken with a rod of iron and dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel. And then it gives us a directive, something to do, not to avoid that. Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, because his wrath is quickly kindled. You see, when you've been weighed in the balance and found wanting, you've been tested with regard to the standard that God has, and you fall short, there's only one thing that can happen. There's going to be judgment. And I wanna say that when we see the folly of Belshazzar here, who has witnessed Nebuchadnezzar, has seen what God has done in his pride and bringing him to a point of humility, and then ignoring that, that same kind of folly is prevalent all around us today. It's prevalent all around us today. It manifests itself in a multitude of different ways, but like Belshazzar, you can see it maybe in a couple different ways. First, in this pride. that simply refuses to listen to the teaching of God's revelation, the special revelation that God had made clear to him, the Bible, or to the communication of God through the providences of his dealing with you and with others in history. Many people have heard in our day the teaching of the scripture. They have a sense that there is a God to whom we are accountable. He is a creator God, that he is a holy God. He has a perfection about him. They know that they sin against this God who is their maker. They know that there is an accountability to him and that one day we will be judged before this God. They've heard enough stories to know that that's true, but they will not believe it. And even if in the depths of their hearts they do believe it, they do everything in their power to escape having to face that reality. Kind of like what Belshazzar does in throwing a party in the face of the judgment at his doorstep. They refuse to go to worship. They don't want to worship this God. They live their lives as if they were the king, as if they were sovereign. They do what they please. They build their own kingdom. They build their own Babylon. They build their own walls, great walls around their kingdom thinking that then that truth cannot penetrate the fortification of my walls that I built around me. I won't hear that truth. And then of course there's another manifestation of this, folly, and that's thinking that we can escape the consequences by distracting ourselves from them. Why would you throw a party in the face of the enemy at your doorstep? other than to distract you from the reality that you're about to be destroyed. The haunting truth that's tunneling without opposition underneath that wall that you have built. Why are we trying to avoid that? Well, the enemy is at the gate and yet we will not face up to that. And yet so much of our population today around us, some of your friends, some of the people you work with, some of the people you care dearly about are doing exactly this. Human nature hasn't changed all that much. People today try to block the truth from penetrating their mind by all kinds of things, entertaining themselves to death, by drinking to the point where I can't conscientiously have to face that, or maybe taking drugs or whatever it might be, throwing parties, buying stuff. I'll get so much stuff just so I'll be occupied with that stuff. They boast of their accomplishments. They boast of their autonomy from God. They worship false gods. They drink themselves into a stupor, all in the face of God's true revelation, both general and special. And because they cannot, in fact I think probably more realistically they will not, face that reality of the culpability that they have to that God, they try to block it out, as Belshazzar did. And all of it's a refusal to believe a reality which is all too obvious. And that truth is that we are being weighed in God's balances. And we are found wanting. We fall short of God's standard. What particularly, how do I particularly fall short? How do you particularly fall short of the standard? Well, Daniel explains it more thoroughly to Belshazzar in verse 23. If you look particularly at verse 23, he says, here's your problem, here's your sin. Here's where you fall short. You have lifted up yourself against the Lord of Heaven. You have failed to humble yourself, just as Nebuchadnezzar had to learn the hard way. But you haven't even done it. In your own heart, you still have elevated yourself above God. Friend, that's folly. That's where your sin is, right there. You have put yourself in a position already occupied by the God of Heaven. That's folly. Then secondly, he says in verse 23, you have praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, so on, which don't hear, they don't know, they don't hear or see. Why are you worshiping the false things in this world? You've denied the God who exists for gods that don't exist. You've turned for counsel to the things in this world that don't give an answer, like the wise men that Belshazzar turns to, the astrologers and the enchanters, the magicians and things like that. You're turning to things which don't give an answer. And then finally he says in verse 23, the God in whose hand is your breath and whose are all your ways, you have not honored. Ultimately, this is why we're condemned. before that judge. The God who has given everything that I have, including my very breath, I've not honored him as I should, not worshiped him as I should. Belshazzar, you are guilty before this God for your sin of pride, for your worshiping false gods, and for not honoring the true God. Now Nebuchadnezzar, by God's grace, learned the hard way. He learned to praise and to thank God for giving him all that he had. And you know, it's honoring to God when we acknowledge him for who he truly is and our place in our proper relationship to him, that we're creator, created beings. We're not the creator. He made us, he gave us all that we have. All good gifts are from above. Come down from the father of lights. But Belshazzar ignores this lesson of history. Interestingly, Belshazzar's history is also our history, isn't it? Everything that he learned, we have seen. We've learned the same things from the scripture. And this is again where we turn, as both Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar were called to do, as what does Psalm 2 tell us to do? Because the danger is there, the threat is there that we will be found wanting in the scales. This judge is going to find us short What do I do? Psalm 2 tells me to kiss the sun. Kiss the sun, lest his wrath come. And it's quickly kindled. The meaning of that phrase, to kiss the sun, I think, is that we're to give our allegiance to this king. We give our devotion to him. And if, as the psalm says, his wrath is quickly kindled, then we must make haste to make peace with this king. And this is where we demonstrate that we're not like Belshazzar, Lord willing. Unlike him, we learn from history that we listen to God's revelation. And by God's word says that this son whose wrath is quickly kindled, and I want you to realize this, this is also what the scripture says about this anointed one, this Messiah, this Jesus Christ. God's word says that this son whose wrath is quickly kindled by those who reject him is also quick to show compassion and forgiveness to those who will place their trust in him. Now, I hope you can see the marvel of what's going on in God's plan here. The remarkable truth of the Bible is that this one, before whom you and I will stand one day, Belshazzar had to face, you know, this is the one we're gonna face, is the same one who came to earth so that he could match up our shortcomings, that place where we fell far short of his standard. He came to accomplish it for us and to grant us to. That's why he came. And who are we talking about but the one before whom I will stand, the judge himself. This judge loved us so much that he would come down to earth to provide that for us, to meet that need. And whereas we all fall short, We all fall short, we all have sinned and turned away from God's way. This one who has done that, when weighed in God's balances, nevertheless, Jesus Christ promises to grant his perfect righteousness to those who will rely upon him. Indeed, his righteousness is the standard by which we will be judged. His perfect righteousness, Christ came and lived on this earth, perfect obedience to the Father, both passively and actively. His righteousness is the standard. Those who defy him, who refuse to believe, who will not respond to the scriptures, they will fall short. Of course, they're standing in that original condition, but those who trust in him, those who call out upon him and say, Lord, by your grace, you have opened my eyes to see my need. Those who are able to do that, who trust in him, are given what is required. It's as if this judge says to you, here's my standard by which you will be judged. I give it to you, so that when you're weighed on the balance, here's my righteousness, you will say, yes, I have your righteousness. That's what gives me hope. That's the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the scriptures. It would have been for Belshazzar to trust in the anointed one, to kiss the son, to put his hope in that one, but he refuses. All of us must listen and submit to God's revelation. We must do so to God's word as we have it before us, but also to the lessons that God has been showing us through history, including this one. as we understand it, through the filter of God's word. You have to be careful that you don't just sort of say, I'll look at circumstances around here and this is what God must mean by that. I don't interpret them unless I have the sureness of what God has revealed here. But I'm held accountable to both because he's given me both. Let's all abandon any hope of self-reliance. Will you do that this morning? Will you be sure that you're not relying on yourself? Your own standard is gonna somehow match up to Christ's. Friends, it will not. And you will be found wanting. Abandon all hope of self-reliance. Let all cast off pride and put on a realistic humility that says, I understand that I fall short. God has given me everything I have and he's going to give me his righteousness. Let's all face the terrors of this broken world. And friends, there are terrors in this broken world. But face the terrors of this broken world that our failure is to measure up. Let's meet it head on rather than cowering and denying the reality and closing our eyes and trying to distract ourselves and be busy about everything else. Let's face the reality we fall short. but then cling to what he's provided in Christ. That's what we're called to do. Rather, let us cling to God's provided standard, Jesus Christ, and go forward as conquerors. It's marvelous, but God tells us not to just be crumbled little pieces of dust over here that have no sense of hope. Worms, you know, I don't get anywhere in the world, I can't do anything. God has called us to be more than conquerors in Christ. To raise up and trusting in him, then go forward to win. My friends, kiss the sun, lest you perish in the way. Be sure that you're trusting in him. Today, be a Nebuchadnezzar, not a Belshazzar. Let's pray.