Daniel 5:1-31

“Mene, Tekel, Peres”

Intro:

Memorial Day is set aside for those men and women who have given their lives so we can call our home “the land of the free.”

They died for our country so that we can have the freedom to live, freedom to make our own decisions, and freedom to worship.

(Without them we probably wouldn’t be here today.)

And how do we choose to remember and honor them as a nation…by promoting retail sales.

On a day that we are to remember and honor our past…we still only manage to focus on ourselves.

What does that say about us as a nation?

Some people would say, “Well, it’s kinda open to interpretation.”

But what if all the sudden a hand appeared and wrote the words…Mene, Tekel, Peres?

You would probably want to get that translated correctly, right?

Let’s read and see what it says,

Daniel 5:1–31 The Message

King Belshazzar held a great feast for his one thousand nobles. The wine flowed freely. Belshazzar, heady with the wine, ordered that the gold and silver chalices his father Nebuchadnezzar had stolen from God’s Temple of Jerusalem be brought in so that he and his nobles, his wives and concubines, could drink from them. When the gold and silver chalices were brought in, the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines, drank wine from them. They drank the wine and drunkenly praised their gods made of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone. At that very moment, the fingers of a human hand appeared and began writing on the lamp-illumined, whitewashed wall of the palace. When the king saw the disembodied hand writing away, he went white as a ghost, scared out of his wits. His legs went limp and his knees knocked. He yelled out for the enchanters, the fortunetellers, and the diviners to come. He told these Babylonian magi, “Anyone who can read this writing on the wall and tell me what it means will be famous and rich—purple robe, the great gold chain—and be third-in-command in the kingdom.” One after the other they tried, but could make no sense of it. They could neither read what was written nor interpret it to the king. So now the king was really frightened. All the blood drained from his face. The nobles were in a panic. The queen heard of the hysteria among the king and his nobles and came to the banquet hall. She said, “Long live the king! Don’t be upset. Don’t sit around looking like ghosts. There is a man in your kingdom who is full of the divine Holy Spirit. During your father’s time he was well known for his intellectual brilliance and spiritual wisdom. He was so good that your father, King Nebuchadnezzar, made him the head of all the magicians, enchanters, fortunetellers, and diviners. There was no one quite like him. He could do anything—interpret dreams, solve mysteries, explain puzzles. His name is Daniel, but he was renamed Belteshazzar by the king. Have Daniel called in. He’ll tell you what is going on here.” So Daniel was called in. The king asked him, “Are you the Daniel who was one of the Jewish exiles my father brought here from Judah? I’ve heard about you—that you’re full of the Holy Spirit, that you’ve got a brilliant mind, that you are incredibly wise. The wise men and enchanters were brought in here to read this writing on the wall and interpret it for me. They couldn’t figure it out—not a word, not a syllable. But I’ve heard that you interpret dreams and solve mysteries. So—if you can read the writing and interpret it for me, you’ll be rich and famous—a purple robe, the great gold chain around your neck—and third-in-command in the kingdom.” Daniel answered the king, “You can keep your gifts, or give them to someone else. But I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means. “Listen, O king! The High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar a great kingdom and a glorious reputation. Because God made him so famous, people from everywhere, whatever their race, color, and creed, were totally intimidated by him. He killed or spared people on whim. He promoted or humiliated people capriciously. He developed a big head and a hard spirit. Then God knocked him off his high horse and stripped him of his fame. He was thrown out of human company, lost his mind, and lived like a wild animal. He ate grass like an ox and was soaked by heaven’s dew until he learned his lesson: that the High God rules human kingdoms and puts anyone he wants in charge. “You are his son and have known all this, yet you’re as arrogant as he ever was. Look at you, setting yourself up in competition against the Master of heaven! You had the sacred chalices from his Temple brought into your drunken party so that you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines, could drink from them. You used the sacred chalices to toast your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone—blind, deaf, and imbecile gods. But you treat with contempt the living God who holds your entire life from birth to death in his hand. “God sent the hand that wrote on the wall, and this is what is written: mene, teqel, and peres. This is what the words mean: “Mene: God has numbered the days of your rule and they don’t add up. “Teqel: You have been weighed on the scales and you don’t weigh much. “Peres: Your kingdom has been divided up and handed over to the Medes and Persians.” Belshazzar did what he had promised. He robed Daniel in purple, draped the great gold chain around his neck, and promoted him to third-in-charge in the kingdom. That same night the Babylonian king Belshazzar was murdered. Darius the Mede was sixty-two years old when he succeeded him as king.

Babylon made three huge mistakes.

They lost all sense of remembrance.

They lost all sense of reality.

And, they lost all sense of respect.

The Danger of Losing All Sense of Remembrance (Daniel 5:18-23)

Daniel reminds Belshazzar of the blessings and the problems of Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom.

He had been blessed by the Lord, and when his heart was filled with pride, he was humbled by the Lord.

Belshazzar had not paid attention to the lessons of the past.

Instead of obeying the Lord as Nebuchadnezzar had done, Belshazzar despised his godly heritage and chose another path through life.

Again, that is what our nation has done.

The secret of America’s greatness has always been her faith in Almighty God.

America was founded as “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”

After surviving their first year in the New World, the Pilgrims, together with some friendly Native Americans, met to give thanks to God for His blessings.

Modern history books tell our children that they met to thank one another!

QUOTE

President Woodrow Wilson said it best, “A nation that does not remember what it was yesterday does not know what it is today, or what it is trying to do. We are about a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.”

America used to not be ashamed to honor God.

There was a time when we credited Him with our blessings and our successes and turned to Him in our trials and our losses.

But in 1962, a simple prayer would change our course as a country indefinitely.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Union Free School District No. 9 in Hyde Park, New York had violated the First Amendment by directing the Districts’ principals to cause the following prayer to be said aloud by each class in the presence of a teacher at the beginning of each school day.

It says, “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.”

What is significant about that prayer is that that it only acknowledges God once, and does not even contain the word Jesus.

On June 25, 1962 the courts declared that prayer to be unconstitutional.

This was despite the fact that our own Declaration of Independence acknowledges God four separate times. Based on that decision the courts removed prayer from our schools.

As a nation we have turned our back on our godly, Christian heritage.

Like Belshazzar, we have ignored the teaching, the warnings and the lessons of the previous generations.

The Danger of Losing All Sense of Reality (Daniel 5:1)

Babylon was one of the greatest civilizations known to man.

It was home to one of the seven wonders of the world (Hanging Gardens).

It’s walls stretched for sixty miles in circumference...They were massive.

Babylon had a lot to admire…but it also had a lot of enemies.

In fact, while Belshazzar and his people are partying it up, the enemy is growing outside those massive walls.

Still they thought, “No problem, we’ve got twenty-years worth of supplies in here…we should be good.”

The Babylonians were too blind to realize that the strength of a kingdom is never on the outside but on the inside.

When we begin to feel secure in our own strength, danger is just on the other side of the wall.

The Danger of Losing All Sense of Respect (Daniel 5:3-4)

Here we see the crumbling culture of Babylon. Nothing was sacred to them anymore. It was party time in Babylon.

Then an amazing thing happens.

“The fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote opposite the lamp stand on the plaster of the wall” (Daniel 5:5).

The king sobered up. His “knees knocked against each other” (Daniel 5:7).

Into the party hall comes Daniel (Daniel 5:13).

Most people don’t want the man of God around when the liquor is flowing and the women are present.

But, when the writing is on the wall, when the crisis comes, they no longer want their drinking buddies, they’re looking for someone who can tell them what this means.

Daniel did what every preacher should do.

He took God’s word, and without fear or favor simply revealed to them what God said.

First, there was a word about power.

Daniel reminded Belshazzar that King Nebuchadnezzar’s power came from God (Daniel 5:18-19).

Second, there was a word about pride.

Daniel reminded the king that Nebuchadnezzar lost his kingdom because of pride (Daniel 5:20).

Third, there was a word about punishment (Daniel 5:21).

King Nebuchadnezzar was punished until he came to realize that the “Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses”(Daniel 4:32).

Next, Daniel applied the text.

“You have not humbled yourself, although you knew all this” (Daniel 5:22).

“Mene, Tekel, Peres”

First, MENE “number” meant Belshazzar’s number was up. God has our number.

Second, TEKEL “weight” meant he hadn’t measured up.

Third, PERES “divided” meant his kingdom would be broken up. The party was over.

“That very night.”

While Babylon had partied with no sense of reality or remembrance, the armies of the Medes and the Persians diverted the Euphrates into a swamp and they marched right into the city through the dry river bed that ran under the city walls.

God’s judgment is certain.

There’s not a wall high enough or thick enough to prevent a person, or a nation, from falling when God writes, “Mene, Tekel, Peres” on the wall.

Who knows how close we might be to our number being called?

Who knows how close we might be to facing God’s judgement?

There’s a lot of people trying to interpret that writing on the wall, but that don’t know who to turn to...