Daniel 5

Introduction

How we get to this episode of real world history is like an aggressive season of Game of Thrones

Assassinations, alliances made in secret, a new world power building in the shadows, affairs and drama

a lot of time has passed between the closing verse of chapter 4 and the opening verse in chapter 5.

Nebuchadnezzar has been dead for 23 years,

it has been nearly 70 years since Daniel was deported to Babylon as a captive of war.

Daniel is now in his eighties—an old man.

And what is happening in Babylon itself?

As the chapter opens, Babylon is only a few hours away from enemy invasion and collapse.

The new world power has been torching its way through modern day Iraq

We see new names in power but no matter what changes in world history God’s mission never changes and it is moving unstoppably forward

And we will se what the mission is and how we ultimately will accomplish it through the collision of mercy and judgment at the Cross

If you need a real life drama to tell you the story of reality it is Daniel Chapter 5

It is the story of the mess we make in our sin, how we slap God in the face when we sin, the judgment it deserves and the scandal of the cross to save sinners

It is the story of Judgement meeting mercy through a faithful man…and that points to Jesus in the end

Lets dive into the lost game of thrones episode

The Tragedy of Sin (1-3)

A new name emerges as in charge

Belshazzar

And this scene is God’s display of the stupidity of our sin

Belshazzar is that teenage kid whose parents are out of town and he throws a party and trashes the house

But this hasn’t been a weekend

His dad has been gone for a while and the kids are stumbling over beer cans and passed out friends who have no idea how to handle adult life

He is about to throw a rager of all ragers

The kegs are ordered the cool kids are invited and this trust fund kid throws an epic party

And he takes it too far like we all do in the tragedy of our sin

To impress the popular kids and all the girls who showed up he raided the treasure chest

Daniel 5:2–3 CSB

Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that his predecessor Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, wives, and concubines could drink from them. So they brought in the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, wives, and concubines drank from them.

We are so cool we have heard about this pathetic God so lets make fun of him and the prudes who don’t party like us

We think we are so untouchable in our sin don’t we

No lightning bolt zaps me so I am getting away with it

And worse no lightning bolt zaps me so this God must be weak or not real at all

He didn’t care about His grandpa Nebuchadnezzar and the story he told as he exited this life

He didn’t care about the Gospel

We think we can handle this sin those christians are just weak and need a crutch

We miss that worshiping ourselves is the real crutch

We want what we want and make a mess of life

As the rager goes down and the slap in the face to God gets more extreme they are ignorant of the fact that destruction is a mile a way and coming for them …the world is about to change and they are too in love with themselves to see it

The message of the Gospel always flips the worlds script

The Script Flips (5-8)

Daniel 5:5–8 CSB

At that moment the fingers of a man’s hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the king’s palace wall next to the lampstand. As the king watched the hand that was writing, his face turned pale, and his thoughts so terrified him that he soiled himself and his knees knocked together. The king shouted to bring in the mediums, Chaldeans, and diviners. He said to these wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this inscription and gives me its interpretation will be clothed in purple, have a gold chain around his neck, and have the third highest position in the kingdom.” So all the king’s wise men came in, but none could read the inscription or make its interpretation known to him.

At that very moment though, everything changed. The one who had seemingly “held God in his hand,” now sees strange fingers appear

He is so scared he craps himself …words inspired by the holy spirit..bet you didn’t think that was in the bible

But he can’t understand what it means

Like his grandpa he calls in all the kings horses and all the kings men to tell him what it means

And none of them can…poor steve again…imagine trying to do your job falling down drunk

Even the offer of wealth can’t entice anyone to interpret it

The people with the world by the tail are left with no idea what is happening in the world or what is coming

Enter Daniel (9-16)

The queen remembers the stories of a man who has been good to the kings of old

She remembers there is a man who is able to do what the kings popular kids couldn’t

And she remembers he is still around

David Helm paints the scene- Imagining the scene is not hard. I believe the author intends it to come off as more than a little humorous. Aged Daniel enters the banquet hall. I envision his face now creased, but his gait still strong. He is calm, and the only one who is clearheaded. He looks at the king, a man considerably younger than himself, but whose face is fallen, feet unsure, and body convulsing in uncontrollable shakes. This mature, elderly man stands before a foolish, intoxicated youngster with actual poop in his pants.

Verses 13-16 are meant to almost make us laugh

Daniel 5:13–16 CSB

Then Daniel was brought before the king. The king said to him, “Are you Daniel, one of the Judean exiles that my predecessor the king brought from Judah? I’ve heard that you have a spirit of the gods in you, and that insight, intelligence, and extraordinary wisdom are found in you. Now the wise men and mediums were brought before me to read this inscription and make its interpretation known to me, but they could not give its interpretation. However, I have heard about you that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Therefore, if you can read this inscription and give me its interpretation, you will be clothed in purple, have a gold chain around your neck, and have the third highest position in the kingdom.”

for the early Jewish readers, the king is meant to appear as a street drunk, almost in a halloween costume

Helm again He is only a pretender to power, stammering out promises to Daniel of bling, and a shawl, and best yet, a share of his power. I think the original readers—who would know the end of the story from the beginning, and so would know that Belshazzar’s city is surrounded and his power is already slipping away—would have smiled.

Remember this is not written like Daniels Diary

Dear Diary today I had to go talk to a drunk teenager who sharted his pants

This is looking back compiled after the story of world history is played out

The author wants us to know the stupidity of our power grab from God

The new world power is hours from the door of this party to kill everyone and take over the globe

The first readers would need this hope

Remember there situation…we have to get it to understand what exactly God wants them to see

And it is the exact position as followers of Christ we are wrestling with today

Helm says They were men and women who were trying to find their religious way in a world gone wrong. These small congregations had been forced to live under foreign power and ungodly rule. They were working hard to remain true to God.

Is’t that us today

And this has so much application to pastors and leaders of God’s people today

We think God can only be affective if we turn church into a party

We think leaders have to be TED talk pros

We think we need topical sermons based on one verse out of context

And here is the wisdom of God as a leader we should instead see modeled

God refuses to esteem what men do, but rather “looks on the heart,”

1 Samuel 16:7 CSB

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or his stature because I have rejected him. Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart.”

We see the Heart of Man

Daniel doesn’t address the behavior he addresses the heart that leads to self desctrutive behavior

That is a sermon in and of itself

It was Jeremiah, the prophet who sent letters to Daniel and the exiles in Babylon, who wrote: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds” (Jeremiah 17:9–10).

Your greatest threat to your joy is not out there somewhere or even satan himself

It is your own heart

Not what you know …but what do you love as ultimate

Pay attention to what Belshazzar teaches you: having clear information does not guarantee the right response. He knew all this but did not humble his heart (22). So having good data does not necessarily bring about required change

And God’s judgement is not a lightning bolt..it is letting us have too much of what we want apart from him

Your behavior is a result of what you believe in your heart will make you whole and happy

I struggle with this all the time

We all do

Daniel had the same view of the human heart—and here, Daniel confronts Belshazzar, a pagan king, about the state of his

He goes at the heart and where it got his grandpa..but how the gospel changed him

He will go on to proclaim: “And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven” (v 22–23)

And no matter how it looks they are headed for a cliff one way or another

Even though the message of hope in the gospel is all around them in changed lives

But it is hard when it looks like the bad guys are winning but they aren’t and Daniels first readers needed to see the end game so they wouldn’t grow tired in the fight

I was reminded of the hard saying in the bible where God says in Romans 9:13

Romans 9:13 CSB

As it is written: I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.

How did God love Jacob

He put Jacob through it

he let him see what life apart from God was like

and always in love broke him to bring him back

It was hard for Jacob but it was the perfect love of God to do perfectly in Jacobs life what it took to save him

How did God hate Esau…

He let Esau be Esau

God said you want the world and not me …so be it

We could insert the names of this story into Romans

Daniel I have loved but Babylon i have hated

Again like his grandpa he is forced to see the irony

The arrogance of the ones who think they have the world by the tail is simply slavery of the heart…and a physical slave is the one who delivers the message of freedom

Weighed and Found Wanting (24-29)

Daniel 5:24–28 CSB

Therefore, he sent the hand, and this writing was inscribed. “This is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. This is the interpretation of the message: ‘Mene’ means that God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. ‘Tekel’ means that you have been weighed on the balance and found deficient. ‘Peres’ means that your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

Weights and measures have been used, nearly from the beginning of time, as symbols to represent justice and righteousness.

To this day, law courts show Lady Justice—or the Greek goddess Themis—carrying the scales of justice in one hand and a sword in the other.

Most often, her eyes are covered, the blindfold being a symbol of her integrity and impartiality.

Daniel’s interpretation of the writing on the wall uses this familiar image of weights and scales.

The writing declares that when Belshazzar and his unrighteous kingdom are put on the divine scales of justice, they are

Mene Mene- Counted, Counted,

Tekel- Found wanting,

Parsen Divided.

Helm says - The king who thought he had throttled God in his hand now falls under the hand of God. He had lifted up his heart, rather than walk humbly before the true Sovereign. Daniel tells him that God’s judgment has come.

Life Comes at You Fast (29-31)

Daniel 5:29–31 CSB

Then Belshazzar gave an order, and they clothed Daniel in purple, placed a gold chain around his neck, and issued a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. That very night Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans was killed, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.

what really haunts us here is that little phrase, that very night (30). It suggests that Belshazzar joins the ranks of King Saul and Judas Iscariot—and the rich man in Luke 12:20—in sharing the hopeless darkness outside of God’s truth.

It is the term that describes those who reject the Gospel in other places in the bible

Life comes at you fast

It is really cool how secular history proves Daniel is accurate in all of this

The bible is not make believe

Life has always come at people fast

the biblical record is not alone in recording it. Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian of the fifth century BC, confirms how the battle was won. And strikingly, he tells us of a night of partying, celebration and dancing, just as Daniel records

One day you will be weighed and its closer every day

Hebrews 9:27 CSB

And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment—

What hope do we have ?

Arent we all Belshazzar in this story more then we are Daniel?

But here is where the Gospel hope and what is coming collide with scandalous hope

When we die we will stand before God and he will lift your head and place the Son on the scale in your place

Justice and Grace meet at the cross where sinners like me are forgiven

And it is a humbling thing to receive the scandalous grace of the Gospel

Like we saw last week in the lyrics to amazing grace

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now I'm found Was blind, but now I see

Paul pulls this imagery forward to put on display the scandal of the gospel where what we deserve is overcome by grace

Romans 3:23–24 CSB

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

That word for glory means weight

Doesn’t that pull forward the writing on the wall

We are all weighed and found lacking in our pride like Belshazzar

BUT God

When we fail on the scales of loving God with all our heart Jesus steps in the scale in our place

We are found perfect freely by Grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone

Daniel for You Humility or Hubris?

With relative ease, we can lift up our hearts against God.

WIth ease we do everyday

But God….

Ephesians 2:4–5 CSB

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!

The writing was on the wall for all of us ….

But God

He took our place

He stood in the place of those who are His on the scale so we may declared perfect

That is the scandal of Daniel 5 and the scandal of the Gospel