Sermon Tone Analysis

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

“Belshazzar had been given many opportunities for knowing and doing the will of God.

He had seen his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar banished from the society of men.

He had seen the intellect in which the proud monarch gloried taken away by the One who gave it.

He had seen the king driven from his kingdom, and made the companion of the beasts of the field.

But Belshazzar‘s love of amusement and self-glorification effaced the lessons he should never have forgotten; and he committed sins similar to those that brought signal judgments on Nebuchadnezzar.

He wasted the opportunities graciously granted him, neglecting to use the opportunities within his reach for becoming acquainted with truth”.

— Ellen G. White, Bible Echo, April 25, 1898.

“The history of nations speaks to us today.

To every nation and to every individual God has assigned a place in His great plan.

Today men and nations are being tested by the plummet in the hand of Him who makes no mistake.

All are by their own choice deciding their destiny, and God is overruling all for the accomplishment of His purposes”.

— Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 536.

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.