Daniel 5
Theme: Belshazzar arrogantly and wilfully rejects the sovereign
Lord, he has been judged found wanting and slain.
We are going to start by having a bit of a rave
Calvin Harris
It might not be everyone's cup of tea but this song is an anthem
for loads of people. Its got a great beat and you can just
imagine everyone in the club shouting out the chorus. "Forget
about tomorrow, because tonight were drinking from the
bottle". All round our city this is peoples anthem. Forget about
tomorrow, lets live it up tonight. Don't worry about the
consequences, do what you want now. . "Forget about
tomorrow, because tonight were drinking from the bottle".
That is exactly how our reading started this morning
Chapter 5 opens with a massive party where the drinks are
flowing. King Belshazzar invites a thousand of his Nobles, plus
all his wives and all his girlfriends. They are all gathered in the
banquet hall and he is giving it large. Belshazzar is drinking v1.
And while he is drinking his wine v2 he says forget about
tomorrow, tonight we are drinking from the bottle. Go and get
Gods cups that we robbed from the temple. We are going to
drink from them tonight.
Till now no one has dared to do this. Everyone rightly realised
to drink from these cups was to set yourself up against the God
of the Jews. But Belshazzar the king has no restraint. He says
"Forget about tomorrow, because tonight we are drinking from
these cups."
Can you picture the scene. A thousand people at a massive
banquet with plenty drink. Like many partys where there is
plenty of alcohol it soon turns into a night to regret. The king
basically flicks God the vs and they drink from his special cups
whilst worshiping all sorts of idols.
For some of us here it's not hard to imagine v1-4. We feel like
we have been to this kind of party plenty of times. You know
how getting a few drinks down someone causes them to let
their hair down and often exposes a godless side to them. You
know all about drunken regrets. The start of the story is not a
pretty sight, people being as rebellious as possible, this is a
drunken night you would regret.
If you were here last week you might be thinking, Hang on
a minute. Wait a second. What on earth is going on? Last week
we were in chapter 4 and Nebuchanezzar was king and he had
become a believer, everything was looking pretty good for Gods
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people and now this. Chapter 5 kinda smacks you in the face.
What happened to king Nebuchanzzer? Why is Belshazzer king
now? Whats going on?
The book of Daniel is asking us how are we going to respond to
the most high God? Are we going to continue in our arrogance
or will we humble ourselves?
They are all good questions. But they are not the question
Daniel wants to answer. Daniel is not writing a history book
about all the different kings of Babylon. He is writing with a
purpose.
Come back to Daniel 5. It is a great story that should help us
make a wise decision. Do you remember the drunken party.
Forget about tomorrow, tonight they were drinking from Gods
cups. Look what happens next
Lets just take a step back and see what Daniel is doing. This
section of Daniel is written in a foreign language. Most of the
OT is written in the language of the Jewish people, Hebrew, but
Chapters 2-7 written in the language of everyone else, Aramaic.
Chapters 2-7 were written for Gods people, but everyone else
could read them as well. And Daniel has arranged the chapters
to make a point. The chapters are a bit like a sandwich, 2 & 7
bread, 3 & 6 butter, 4&5 meat.
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As we all know the important thing about any sandwich is the
filling. And what is the filling. Chapter 4 and chapter 5 are all
about 2 kings responding to God. Daniel is answering this
question. How should I respond to God?
There are 2 ways to live. You can humble yourself, or you can
arrogantly reject. Humble yourself now and be accepted,
arrogantly reject now and you will be judged.
Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on
the plaster of the wall... The king watched the hand as it wrote.
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His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his legs
became weak and his knees were knocking.
I reckon the music stoped, the room went silent and everyone
turned and looked at the terrified king. A floating hand had
appeared and written on the wall. The king goes from being
proud to petrified. He can’t stand up. The writing is on the wall
for him and he goes weak at the knees.
He calls for his wise men. His dream team. These guys were no
help in chapter 2 or chapter 4 and unsurprisingly these are guys
v8 are no help agian. The king goes as white as a sheet v9.
And then v10 the queen, most probably the queen mother,
comes in and trys to talk some sense into Belshazzar. v11 there
is a man(Daniel) in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy
gods in him. In the time of your father he was found to have
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insight and intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods. Your
father, King Nebuchadnezzar, appointed Daniel chief of the
magicians, enchanters, astrologers and diviners. Call Daniel and
he will tell you what the writing means.’
By this time Daniel is an old man, in his 80s, and he seems to
have been tucked away and forgotten about. He comes to the
king who explains that none of his wise men can help 16 Now I
have heard that you are able to give interpretations and to solve
difficult problems. If you can read this writing and tell me what
it means, you will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain
placed round your neck, and you will be made the third highest
ruler in the kingdom.’
Well, Daniel makes it quite clear to the king that he cannot be
bought. v17 You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your
rewards to someone else. I don’t want it. Daniel is clear he will
not work harder, speak better, or give more pleasing messages
for a bribe. Daniel lives to please one king and it is not the
drunk one he is stood in front of.
Your Majesty, the Most High God gave your father
Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness and glory and
splendour. 19 Because of the high position he gave him, all the
nations and peoples of every language dreaded and feared him.
Those the king wanted to put to death, he put to death; those
he wanted to spare, he spared; those he wanted to promote, he
promoted; and those he wanted to humble, he humbled. –
Your predecessor was a mighty king who could get the job done,
everyone submitted to him.
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But when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride,
he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory.
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He was driven away from people and given the mind of an
animal; he lived with the wild donkeys and ate grass like the ox;
and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven, until he
acknowledged that the Most High God is sovereign over all
kingdoms on earth and sets over them anyone he wishes.
Daniel says God taught him a lesson (ch 4) God can take the
most arrogant of rulers and make an ass out of them.
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Did you notice that Daniel in v17 he says I will read the writing
and tell you, but he doesn’t tell him till v25. Old man Daniel
with his wrinkles, beard and glasses stands before the king and
does what a lot of Old people tend to do. He tells him
something he already knows.
‘But you, Belshazzar, his son,[d] have not humbled yourself,
though you knew all this. You knew but have ignored it. You
have the written record, and people who tell you, but you are
ignoring it. You knew all about how God is in charge and how
he can humble anyone. But 23 (spot the yous)23 Instead, you
have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the
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goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your
nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them.
You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood
and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did
not honour the God who holds in his hand your life and all your
ways. Listen king you know the truth, Gods rules, but instead of
accepting it and bowing the knee you reject. You v23, set
yourself up against God, you worship other things and do not
honour the God who holds your life in his hands. Your problem
is not ignorance, its insolance.
Daniel, in his old age looks at this king and says What a stupid
thing to do. You knew and yet you rejected.
He then explains the writing on the wall and what it means.
That writing on the wall says God has judged your life and it is
full of sin so you are going to come to an end.
Now we might expect that after this speech from Daniel. The
king might do one of two things. Either he is going to kill Daniel
for the way he has had a go at him or he will fall down on his
needs before God and ask forgiveness.
Strangely the king does neither. v29 No he just carries on with
his plan. There is no change he carries on regardless. He is
continuing to arrogantly refuse to bow the knee to God. He
keeps on ignoring what God has got to say. Well v30 That very
night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, [h] was slain, 31 and
Darius the Mede took over the kingdom.
This arrogant person wilfully rejects God and faces his
judgement.
Daniel 5 screams out an obvious application for each of us
today. Humble yourself - Gods judgement is real
It could be easy to read this story and skim over vv18-23. If we
did. We could easily miss the point. We might start thinking
that God is angry with the King for having and party getting a bit
drunk and borrowing some of his cups. We could then say the
application is don’t get drunk and defiantly don’t get drunk
using church cups. But that is not what this story is about.
Look at v22 But you, have not humbled yourself, though you
knew all this. The problem is not that Belshazzer has got a bit
drunk, the problem is that he is rejecting Gods revelation and
refusing to repent. Belshazzer knew the God was in charge, he
knew it, but he refused to bow the knee.
This is the sin of the bible. The bible does describe lots of sinful
things, but behind them all is this sin. This sin is the reason we
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deserve to die under Gods judgment. This sin is arrogantly
refusing to bow the knee to Jesus. Refusing to bow the knee to
God, refusing to listen to him.
That is what humans have been doing since gen 3. Refusing to
listen to what we know, refusing to bow the knee. Romans 1
explains that through creation God has revealed his eternal
power and divine nature it has been clearly seen, so that people
are without excuse. But instead of turning to God we all run
from him. We see an beautiful sunset, or some amazing
mountains, or a powerful storm and we know that God is in
charge. We know, but by nature we do not humble ourselves.
We do v23. We set ourselves up against God, "I am not
worshiping him, he should worship me". We worship other
things v23 things that can not hear or understand. We give our
lives to worshiping money, or reputation, or beauty. We give all
our time and effort to these false worship projects but we have
no time or energy to honour the God who holds our life in our
hands.
All of us need to admit it. We have got an attitude problem. By
nature we all want to ignore what God has got to say and reject
him.
Why do you think the Bible says don't get drunk? I think one of
the reasons, is that if we get drunk it reveals what our hearts
are really like. As the king drank, the alcohol began to depress
the restraining element in his mental powers. The caged
monster of his heart was released. Belshazzar’s heart was a
factory of rebellion against God. And by nature so is ours. As he
got drunk what was inside, his arrogant anti God attitude, came
out. When someone is drunk, they loose self control and the
evil inside comes out for all to see.
Understand this. The kings problem was not lack of knowlegde,
it was not a head problem, he knew it. It was a heart problem,
he refused to bow. He rebeled against God because he wanted
to.
When you think about it, rebelling against Jesus makes no
sense. On wednesday I was in prision reading Marks gospel
with some guys. We were in Mark 12 and Jesus said to the
leaders you are going to kill me and if you do, God will judge
you. As soon as the leaders hear this, they don't repent, they
plan how to get rid of jesus. One of the guys in the group said
"Wait a minute this makes no sense. They know who Jesus is
and they know if they kill him they will face judgement. Yet
they just go ahead with it. It doesn't make any sense."
It just shows how twisted up their hearts were, they would
rather face Gods eternal judgement than humble themselves.
How about you? Would rather face Gods eternal judgement
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than humble yourself before him? Gods rules and his
judgement is real. Humble yourself now and your will be
rescued. To humble yourself means saying something, seeing
something and doing something.
v23 the king set himself up against the Lord. This is fighting
language. He was like the cocky guy who is out for a fight. God
walks past him, but he turns round and says what are you doing.
He puffs out his chest, and sets himself against him. The king
had such a twisted up heart, whenever God spoke he refused to
listen because he was trying to take him on. He refused to let
Gods words shape his life. He was un teachable, he thought he
knew best, he was threatened by others because he was trying
to rule.
Our sinful nature wants to set us up against God. What should
we do we feel that attitude in our own hearts? Say something.
Say to God I need you. By Nature we want to say I don't need
you, I can do this. Turn around. God rules not you. Bow the
knee to him, stop trying to take him on. Stop ignoring the
gospel. Stop ignoring what God has got to say. All of us need to
turn to him and say I need you.
In v23 as well as taking God on, the king was praising gods that
cannot help him. If we humble ourselves we will say "I need
you", we will see that idols can't help us. He was worshiping,
admiring, longing after gods that could not see or hear or
understand. They couldnt know him, they couldn't love him,
they couldn't help him. If your are not investing your time into
knowing and praising God, you will be worshiping something
else. What is it? What makes your life worth living? What do
you worry about most? What do you use to comfort yourself
when things get difficult?
If your answer was anything other than God. Learn the lesson
of Daniel. It does not rule the universe, it cannot save you, it
will not last. See your idols for what they are. They can not
save you because they do not rule.
Say I need you to God, see idols cannot help you, do Honour the
God who rules.
When you think about it v23 is so stupid. We have a saying
don't we: don't bite the hand that feeds you. What does the
saying mean; don't reject the one who helps you out. Look at
the end of v23 God currently holds your life and breath in his
hands, he is big and powerful, Belshazzar won't honour him. In
fact he trys to bite the hand that holds him. Jesus is holding
your life in his hand now. He is giving you your breath this
minute. He knows all about your sinful rejection. But he has
not rejected you yet. Everyone else might have given up on
you. He is offering your total forgiveness.
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How are you responding to him today? Are you honouring him
or are you trying to bite his hand?
Jesus rules don't try and take him on. Don't try and twist his
arm by being a good boy, it wont work. He rules perfectly. He
will judge rightly. The only way to escape his judgement is to
come to him and find forgiveness today. On the cross all my sin,
my arrogance, my rejection, was put on Christ, he took the
punishment for it. He died. And then he rose again and is
seated in heaven on the throne. Ruling. Nothing will take him
off his throne. The king tried to take him on, he lost. Jesus rule
is not affected by our rejection of it. You can reject Jesus and
continue ignoring what you know. It wont stop him being king.
Jesus is ruling over everyone and everything everywhere.
How are you responding to him? His offer of free and full
forgiveness is real and his judgement is coming. Don't be like
the people at the party, rember them. "Forget about tomorrow,
because tonight were drinking from the bottle". Lets forget
about the future and live for today. No Jesus is coming in
Judgement get ready for him now.
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