Lessons from Daniel 5
The Writing on the Wall
To understand that we cannot trifle with sin
MEMORY TEXT
• Proverbs 3:33 “The curse of the LORD is on the house of the wicked, But He blesses the home of the just.”
From Arrogance to Destruction
Belshazzar’s Feast Daniel 5:1-4
An Uninvited Guest Daniel 5:5-8
Enter the Queen Daniel 5:9-12
Weighed and Found Wanting Daniel 5:13-28
The Fall of Babylon Daniel 5:29-31
Lessons from Daniel 5
1. Sin does not go unpunished, but when the sinner knows better, the punishment will be so much greater.
2. The Babylonians did not expect their city to fall.
3. How prone we are to forget!
4. Right at the beginning, the book stresses the need for self-control in eating and drinking (Dan. 1).
5. Revelation states that before the deliverance of God’s church, spiritual Israel, there will be a drying up of the symbolic Euphrates, the “peoples, and multitudes, and nations” that support spiritual Babylon, as they withdraw their support from the apostate church (Rev. 16:12; 17:15).
6. Cyrus is used in Isaiah 45:1 as a type of Jesus the Messiah. As Cyrus came from the east (41:2, 25; 46:11) with fellow king Darius the Mede to overthrow ancient Babylon, and to deliver Israel from the Babylonian captivity, so Christ will come from the east to deliver His people from end-time Babylon at the battle of Armageddon (Rev. 16:12–16). As Israel of old left Babylon to return to Jerusalem, so it will be for spiritual Israel (Rev. 18:1–4).
7. God is deadly serious when it comes to holy things.
8. “That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain” (Dan. 5:30). “There is a last night to everything and everyone on earth.… The Belshazzars of today may make their great feasts, drink their expensive wines, profane holy things and mock holy men, but there is a last night for them all.”
9. The common English expressions “Your days are numbered!” and “The handwriting is on the wall” are a modern legacy of Daniel 5, reminding people that judgment follows the sins of men, like night follows day.