God Is Not Mocked
Notes
Transcript
God Is Not Mocked
Daniel 5:1-31 sermon notes
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I. Intro: From Gold to Silver
Things are going to get worse. Some of you may remember Pastor Ken’s
message from Habakkuk 2 when he highlighted how the prophet told his
Jewish audience essentially, “You think things are bad now; just wait, they are
going to get much worse!” Daniel lived through the “much worse” Habakkuk
was talking about. Habakkuk had announced that Babylon was going to
invade Judah to execute God’s judgment against the sin of God’s own people.
Society had become terribly broken; suffering was rampant in Judah; and now
God announced ahead of time that he would send the Babylonians to destroy
everything!
Teenage Daniel and many of his friends may have heard that announcement,
and then they lived through its fulfillment. Babylon came, took young Daniel
and many other Jews away from their homes, away from their families, and
sought to re-program them into becoming Babylonian, as we read about in
Daniel chapter 1. While resistance might’ve been futile, at least a few endured
the re-programming but retained their identity as God’s faithful people, and
we see Daniel especially thriving in Babylon. In chapter 2, he interpreted King
Nebuchadnezzar’s bizarre dream of a statue destroyed by a stone, and the king
rewarded him with a promotion. In chapter 3, his three faithful friends who
had benefitted from his promotion with promotions of their own, refuse to
bow down before the king’s idolatrous statue, and so the enraged king
attempted to execute them in a blazing furnace. Somehow, they came out
completely unscathed. In chapter 4, some 20 years later, the same king has yet
another bizarre dream, this time about a giant tree being chopped down and an
angel announcing that the one represented by that tree was going to live like
an animal for a little while. Daniel, again, shows up to interpret the dream,
direct the message home to the king that he needed to repent, or else he was
going to lose his authority and his mind.
But these four chapters are not really about Daniel, his three friends, or the
pagan king. Rather, they are about Yahweh, the one true God, the God of
Israel, God of gods, and Lord of kings. All four of these stories have been
portraying different aspects of the gospel of God’s sovereignty, the good news
that our God reigns. He exercises his sovereignty to execute judgment against
the wicked, and he exercises his sovereignty to save his faithful people. His
sovereign rule is on display in the movements of kings and nations across the
globe and throughout history, and his sovereign rule is on display in the lives
of individuals.
And yet…things get worse! Things get worse for God’s people, and things get
worse for all people! Back in chapter 2, Daniel identified the golden head of
the statue the king saw in his dream as representing him, King
Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian Empire. As much as this king spoke
words of praise of Daniel’s God on multiple occasions, he was still the one
God sent into Judah and into Jerusalem to punish and destroy the Jews and the
temple of Yahweh. By the time Nebuchadnezzar has his last terrifying dream,
which we looked at last week in chapter 4, God had already used him as his
instrument of judgment. The Jews are scattered throughout the Babylonian
Empire, living in exile. After his humiliation, the Lord did restore the king to
the throne as promised for probably a few more years. But King
Nebuchadnezzar died in 562 BC. We can begin to perceive the gold of the
statue fading.
When we come to Daniel chapter 5, 23 years have passed since
Nebuchadnezzar died. Babylon experienced its own deterioration during those
years. If you’ll take a look at this slide, you can see a family tree, of sorts, that
connects Nebuchadnezzar to Belshazzar, the king featured in chapter 5.
Some of these kings are mentioned in passing in other places in Scripture, but
the book of Daniel has no interest in any of them. We might wonder what
happened to Daniel during these years, under the reign of these other kings.
Well, just notice that Daniel survived through all these years. Daniel survived
through at least two political coups. Daniel survived as the Babylonian Empire
deteriorated to the point we see it in chapter 5 of Daniel’s historical account.
Notice number 6 and number 7, on the right side of this family tree. The final
king of the Babylonian Empire was actually Nabonidus, who, according to
Babylonian records, may have married one of Nebuchadnezzar’s daughters
named Nitocris. Somewhere between 553 and 550 BC, Nabonidus named his
son Belshazzar vice-regent, while he ran away from the capital. Nabonidus
had some religious beliefs that didn’t sit well with some of his officials, and it
appears that they encouraged him to take his elevation of a different
Babylonian god and go off on a pilgrimage of sorts. But, whatever the real
cause, he remained the true king of Babylon, even while he lived away from
the capital, but Belshazzar was in charge in the capital, and he was a
particularly foolish man. Now, I tell you all of this history that’s not
mentioned here because some of the historical details make sense of certain
things that we read in Daniel 5.
As we will see, this is the end of the Babylonian Empire, the very last day. So,
thinking back to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of chapter 2, we’re seeing the
transition from the golden head of the statue to the silver chest and arms. This
is the first aspect of the historical fulfillment of what that dream portrayed.
Yahweh, the God of Israel, is giving the kingdom of Babylon into the hands of
another kingdom, an inferior kingdom, as Daniel said in chapter 2. Speaking
of Daniel, at this point, he’s about 80 years old. Also, as we noted in our first
message in this series, some of the chapters of this book are not in
chronological order. It could be helpful to remember that, at this point in
Daniel’s life, he has already experienced the visions recorded in chapters 7
and 8. When you read those chapters and find out what Daniel saw, ponder
whether what God revealed to him in those visions might’ve helped equip him
for this moment in chapter 5. Nevertheless, we find things getting worse, even
here. But the message of Daniel 5 is this: God executes judgment against
those who exalt themselves and refuse to honor him.
Let’s get into the story. We find Belshazzar exalting himself against Yahweh.
Look at verses 1-4:
II. Belshazzar Exalts Himself Against Yahweh (Dan. 5:1-4)
King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank
wine in front of the thousand. 2 Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine,
commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his
father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and
his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. 3 Then they
brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house
of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines
drank from them. 4 They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver,
bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
1
Babylonian history notes the feasting that occurred on the final day of the
Babylonian Empire. In fact, we can date this with precision to the night of
October 11, 539 BC. Two historical details are fascinating to note here. First,
the Persian armies had been invading the Babylonian Empire over the past
several weeks. And, two days before, they had captured King Nabonidus,
Belshazzar’s father. It’s likely Belshazzar had gotten the news. Secondly, the
capital city of Babylon was a nigh-impregnable fortress. It’s likely that
Belshazzar’s feast was a bit of an arrogant thumbing-of-the-nose at the
Persians, a “nah-nah-na-nah-nah, you can’t get me in here” kind of move.
Immature, I know. But that’s exactly the kind of man we’re looking at here.
Almost as soon as the drinking party begins, an idea seems to strike the young
king out of nowhere. “When he tasted the wine,” as soon as he started
drinking, he looked at the cup he was drinking from, and he must’ve thought,
“Oh, we have better dishes than this! We have those shiny, golden vessels that
my grandpa took from that fancy temple in Jerusalem! Let’s get those and
drink from them!” Now, some of you will notice that I said “grandpa,” but
your Bible says “Nebuchadnezzar his father” in verse 2. As I showed on the
family tree earlier, it’s possible that King Nabonidus, the real official last king
of Babylon, had married one of Nebuchadnezzar’s daughters, so that
Belshazzar is Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson. The Aramaic word for “father,”
like the Hebrew word for “father,” is flexible. It can refer to father,
grandfather, great-grandfather, or put-as-many-greats-as-you-like grandfather.
In other words, the word fundamentally means “ancestor.” The same is true of
the words for “son.”
In thinking through this, I realized that this is actually a fulfillment of
prophecy. Jeremiah specified that Babylon would fall under
Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson. The Lord says through the prophet Jeremiah in
Jeremiah 27:5-7: “5 It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm
have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give
it to whomever it seems right to me. 6 Now I have given all these lands into
the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I have
given him also the beasts of the field to serve him. 7 All the nations shall serve
him and his son and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes. Then
many nations and great kings shall make him their slave.” We’re seeing the
fulfillment of that last part in this chapter.
Daniel, as he writes this story, wants to show a tight connection between
Belshazzar and Nebuchadnezzar; for Daniel’s purposes, Nabonidus is
completely unimportant, and that makes sense because Daniel may have had
absolutely zero dealings with Nabonidus. For all we know, 80-year-old Daniel
has been enjoying Babylonian retirement for many years when he gets
summoned on this historic day.
Nevertheless, the important thing to see is the blasphemous, idolatrous,
sacrilege Belshazzar is committing in using these golden vessels this way.
These vessels had been sanctified, set apart for use in the Jerusalem temple.
Nebuchadnezzar had taken them out of the temple at the same time he took
Daniel out of Jerusalem, but, recalling chapter 1, Nebuchadnezzar had treated
them with respect. He had stored them in the temple of his god. Belshazzar,
instead, puts them to profane use as part of his drinking party, and then the
partyers go so far as to toast the gods with these vessels. If the owner of these
vessels were to see what they were being used for, how do you think he’d
respond? Well, as it turns out, the owner does see, and the owner does respond
in a way that gets the king’s attention. A disembodied hand and some
unreadable writing appears; look at verses 5-9:
III.
Unreadable Writing (Dan. 5:5-9)
5
Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster
of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the
hand as it wrote. 6 Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed
him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. 7 The king called
loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. The king
declared to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing, and shows
me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold
around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.” 8 Then all the
king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known
to the king the interpretation. 9 Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed,
and his color changed, and his lords were perplexed.
The king’s response to this mysterious occurrence is physical unraveling.
Where the ESV says “his limbs gave way,” the KJV has “the joints of his
loins were loosed.” Or we could translate it “the knots of his loins were
untied.” Either his hip joints have failed so that he crumpled over into a chair,
or he has lost control of his bladder or bowels. Either way, not a pretty picture.
More on that in a bit. The king shouts frantically for “the wise guys” to come
in and do their thing, and to whomever can make sense of it, he offers to make
him “the third ruler in the kingdom.” Why “the third ruler”? Because
Belshazzar is “the second ruler,” vice-regent under the authority of his father,
King Nabonidus. Well, as we readers of Daniel would expect, “the wise guys”
can’t make sense of it. Notice that it’s not just that they couldn’t interpret the
meaning; the text specifically says that “they could not read the writing.” Why
is this writing unreadable to them?
Over the years, several guesses have been made. Here is Rembrandt’s famous
depiction of this from the 1650s. It depicts one possible understanding of why
the writing was unreadable. Those letters are actually Aramaic letters, very
finely painted by Rembrandt. However, as you may know, Aramaic, like
Hebrew, is to be read from right to left. When Daniel shows up and tells us
what the words are, they are ordinary Aramaic words. However, as Rembrandt
has depicted them, the words are put together from top to bottom, rather than
from right to left. That’s a possibility; Daniel perceived what the others
couldn’t, that the letters needed to be read in a different direction than normal.
However, a simpler explanation seems more likely to me. When Aramaic was
originally written, like Hebrew, vowels were not written and spaces between
words were not always included. So, in your sermon notes, you’ve probably
noticed a series of English letters that don’t make any sense. Here they are on
the screen. I’ve provided you an exercise, a puzzle if you will. Now, I must
ask that you don’t distract yourselves trying to figure it out during the sermon.
Look it over at home, later today. Send me your guesses via email or text
message. The first five who independently tell me correctly what it says will
receive a prize. I will provide one clue: the answer is similar to Daniel’s
answer.
Now, back to the text. Try to focus! An arrangement of letters like this could
be combined with many different meanings; many different words could be
strung together this way. So, I imagine “the wise guys” had guesses, but they
couldn’t get a consensus and they couldn’t make sense of the words together.
So, everyone is stumped and the king is petrified! Enter the queen, who is
probably the queen mother, who may have been Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter.
Listen to her words as she reminds the king of a humble reader from the past.
Look at verses 10-12.
IV. The Humble Reader (Dan. 5:10-12)
10
The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came into the
banqueting hall, and the queen declared, “O king, live forever! Let not your
thoughts alarm you or your color change. 11 There is a man in your kingdom in
whom is the spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father, light and
understanding and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods were found in him,
and King Nebuchadnezzar, your father—your father the king—made him
chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and astrologers, 12 because an
excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain
riddles, and solve problems were found in this Daniel, whom the king named
Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation.”
She was not among the partyers, but she either heard the commotion from her
quarters in the palace nearby, or someone sent a message to her about the
situation. She describes Daniel very much in terms that Nebuchadnezzar had
used. He has “the spirit of the holy gods,” “wisdom like the wisdom of the
gods,” and King Nebuchadnezzar had promoted him to chief of “the wise
guys.” She must’ve been around to know all these things, and she has
confidence in Daniel, so she encourages Belshazzar to bring him in. She
indicates that Daniel can “solve problems,” which is literally “untie knots.” As
Daniel writes these words from the queen’s mouth, he uses this exact phrase
that described what happened to the king, that “the knots of his loins were
untied”! I think his original readers would’ve gotten the joke. That’s the last
thing the king needs, to have his “knots untied”; they’ve already been
“untied”! When he does call him in, he goes right into mocking this reader
from the past. Look at verses 13-16:
V. Belshazzar Mocks the Reader (Dan. 5:13-16)
Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king answered and said to
Daniel, “You are that Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom the king my
father brought from Judah. 14 I have heard of you that the spirit of the gods is
in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in
you. 15 Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to
read this writing and make known to me its interpretation, but they could not
show the interpretation of the matter. 16 But I have heard that you can give
interpretations and solve problems. Now if you can read the writing and make
known to me its interpretation, you shall be clothed with purple and have a
chain of gold around your neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.”
13
The queen had referred to Daniel in respectful terms, identifying him as the
former chief of “the wise guys.” Belshazzar, instead, immediately puts him in
his place, referring to him as “one of the exiles of Judah.” He reminds Daniel
of his abduction as a teenager, of his status as an exile forcibly removed from
his home. Nevertheless, he quotes the report from the queen, including the
line about Daniel being able to “untie knots” or “solve problems.” He wants
Daniel to read the words on the wall and then explain what they mean. He
says, “If you can…” How unlike Nebuchadnezzar, who, in chapter 4, had
essentially said to Daniel, “I know you can.”
I’m reminded of the story about Jesus in Mark 9, after he comes down from
the Mount of Transfiguration, and he meets a father whose young boy had
been possessed and abused by a demon. Jesus’s disciples had been unable to
cast the demon out of the boy and bring relief, and so he approaches Jesus
directly as soon as he sees him. And then he says to Jesus, “If you can do
anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus’s response in Mark 9:23
is sharp, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” A gentle
rebuke for a desperate and fearful father in order to crystallize and strengthen
his faith. Mark 9:24 continues, “Immediately the father of the child cried out
and said, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’” Jesus is patient with our incomplete
and weak faith; he prods it in order to grow it. He stretches it in order to
strengthen it.
But in Daniel 5, we’re not dealing with a man who believes. We’re dealing
with a pagan king whose desperation has not humbled him and who is facing
the judgment of God. So, he offers to reward Daniel with a promotion if he
can read and interpret the message. Before Daniel does that, however, he is
going to provide Belshazzar with a history lesson about the humbled ruler,
Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar’s grandfather. Look at verses 17-23:
VI. The Humbled Ruler (Dan. 5:17-23)
17
Then Daniel answered and said before the king, “Let your gifts be for
yourself, and give your rewards to another. Nevertheless, I will read the
writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation. 18 O king, the
Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father kingship and greatness and
glory and majesty. 19 And because of the greatness that he gave him, all
peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he
would, he killed, and whom he would, he kept alive; whom he would, he
raised up, and whom he would, he humbled. 20 But when his heart was lifted
up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was brought down
from his kingly throne, and his glory was taken from him. 21 He was driven
from among the children of mankind, and his mind was made like that of a
beast, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed grass like an
ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, until he knew that the Most
High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom he will. 22 And
you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all
this, 23 but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. And the
vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords,
your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them. And you have
praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do
not see or hear or know, but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose
are all your ways, you have not honored.
First, Daniel dismisses the offer of promotion. At Daniel’s age, I’m sure he
wants nothing more to do with Babylonian politics. Moreover, he knows
what’s about to happen! It’s a meaningless offer! Second, he agrees to read
the words and explain their meaning. But then he launches into this history
lesson, summarizing much of what we know from Daniel chapter 4. Notice
again how Daniel emphasizes God’s gracious sovereignty as “the Most High
God gave Nebuchadnezzar” royal authority and glorious splendor. I can’t help
but chuckle a bit at Daniel’s line in the middle of verse 19: “Whom he would,
he killed, and whom he would, he kept alive.” Except those three Jewish men
who refused to bow down to his idolatrous image in chapter 3! But Daniel’s
message for Belshazzar comes from Nebuchadnezzar’s later experience with
Daniel’s God, and, as an important backdrop, Daniel wants to make sure to
give credit to his God for all the power and status the great Nebuchadnezzar
had.
That’s the point that Nebuchadnezzar himself had to learn the hard way. Since
he took credit for all his accomplishments, since he exalted himself against the
one true God who had given him everything, that same God took it all away.
That experience of humbling, which we looked at last week, was for
Nebuchadnezzar to learn the lesson “that the Most High God rules the
kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom he will.” Daniel doesn’t mention
God’s gracious restoration of Nebuchadnezzar to serve a few more years as
king of Babylon. Instead, he presses the point home to Belshazzar with those
haunting words, “though you knew all this.”
The lesson was not just for Nebuchadnezzar; as the angel had said in the
dream in Daniel 4:17, the lesson was for “the living”! Belshazzar knew the
story; the record was from Nebuchadnezzar’s own hand! Listen again to
verses 22-23: “22 And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart,
though you knew all this, 23 but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of
heaven. And the vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and
you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from
them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron,
wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose
hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.”
Fourteen “yous”! “Though you knew all this, you have exalted yourself
against the Lord of heaven”! “Though you knew all this, you have not
honored the God in whose hand is your breath”!
I’m reminded of Romans 1:21: “For although they knew God, they did not
honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their
thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Who’s the “they”?
Everybody. Every human being on the planet throughout history knows their
Creator. Romans 1:19-20 explains, “For what can be known about God is
plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible
attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly
perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been
made. So they are without excuse.” God has imprinted creation with his
signature, indications of his eternal power and divine nature, that there is one
great God who created all that exists, a powerful personal being who has
always been there and who has brought everything else into being. How do we
get from “although they knew” to “they did not honor him”? Paul said in
Romans 1:18 that it’s because we’re all suppressing the truth, and because
we’re suppressing the truth God is pouring out his wrath against us: “For the
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”
How do we stop doing that? We need a Savior who can satisfy God’s wrath;
we need a Spirit who can enable us to believe the truth. More on that in just a
bit. But it’s important for us, as Christians, to feel the weight of the warning
here. “Though you knew” comes across to us as well. We are a privileged
people. Essentially unhindered access to God’s Word, in a multiplicity of
translations, a seemingly infinite reservoir of information about any topic we
want to understand, advanced technology that enables us to communicate
across the globe at the touch of a screen or the click of a mouse—Christians,
especially in America, have received many gifts from the Lord. The freedoms
we currently enjoy in this nation are remarkable when contrasted with the
challenges and restrictions that many of our brothers and sisters in other
nations experience daily. What does that say about our responsibility? Doesn’t
our increased knowledge increase our accountability? Didn’t Jesus say,
“Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from
him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more”?
We could compare ourselves with people in other nations, and we would see a
measurable difference in the gifts we’ve received and the knowledge we have
access to. And it is this kind of contrast that makes Daniel’s words to
Belshazzar pack their punch. This king knew what his grandfather had
experienced; the message of that experience was clear. Yet, he acted like his
grandfather did before he had learned his lesson, and even worse!
The unreadable writing has been sent as a message of judgment against King
Belshazzar. Let’s see Daniel read the unreadable writing. Look at verses 2428:
VII. The Reader Reads the Unreadable Writing (Dan. 5:24-28)
24
“Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed.
25
And this is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, and
PARSIN. 26 This is the interpretation of the matter: MENE, God has numbered
the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; 27 TEKEL, you have been
weighed in the balances and found wanting; 28 PERES, your kingdom is
divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
So, the hand wrote four Aramaic words on the wall. Each of the four words is
a measurement word, a weight. The mene is perhaps more familiar to you as
the mina. Aramaic is mene; Hebrew is mina. Jesus told a parable about ten
minas. Notice that the hand seems to have written this first term twice. Then,
you have the Aramaic word tekel, which is equivalent to the Hebrew shekel.
Finally, the Aramaic word parsin is the plural form of peres, which is a
weight valued as half of a mina. Even if the Babylonian “wise guys” could’ve
read the four words, how would they have made sense of this? They probably
would’ve assumed that the words made a sentence of some kind, so that the
words communicated a coherent message. And when you insert different
vowels among those consonants and you divide the letters differently to make
different words, you can make a number of coherent sentences.
But, as it turns out, the message is not strictly about the weights. Instead,
Daniel takes each word as a kind of pun; his interpretation puts a clever spin
on each word by turning it into a related verb. Each word communicates two
related ideas. First, the mene indicates that “God has numbered the days of
Belshazzar’s kingdom.” This is a word of judgment against Babylon: “Your
days are numbered.” The verb translated “numbered” is related to the Aramaic
mene. Secondly, from this same word which was written twice on the wall,
Daniel adds that God has brought the kingdom to an end. “Your days are
numbered and it’s all over, today!”
The second word, tekel, is a word of judgment directly against King
Belshazzar personally. Daniel says, “You have been weighed in the balances.”
The verb translated “weighed” is related to the Aramaic tekel. God has
“weighed” Belshazzar, and he lacks weight, lacks substance. He has become
worthless because of his arrogance and pride. The third word contains a
double pun. Daniel says, “Your kingdom is divided,” and the verb translated
“divided” is related to the Aramaic peres. But the Aramaic peres also sounds
like the Aramaic word for Persia, and God has given Babylon to the Medes
and Persians. Yet again, we see God’s sovereignty on display; he gives the
kingdoms of men to whom he wills; he raises up rulers and he brings them
down, in every kingdom and nation, both back then and also today.
The last few verses of the chapter give a clipped summary of the aftermath.
Belshazzar exalts Daniel, but Yahweh, Daniel’s God, humbles Belshazzar.
Look at verses 29-31:
VIII. Belshazzar Exalts Daniel, Yahweh Humbles Belshazzar (Dan. 5:29-31)
29
Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed with purple, a
chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made about
him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. 30 That very night
Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed. 31 And Darius the Mede received
the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.
King Nabonidus had been captured by the Persian army two days earlier.
Then, in the middle of the night, after the feasting was over, interrupted by a
message from the one true God, interpreted by an aged prophet of God, the
Persian army spent hours burrowing under the city of Babylon, using the
waterways to gain entry to the impregnable fortress. There was no battle in
Babylon, no fighting that night. The city surrendered and the arrogant King
Belshazzar was unceremoniously executed. With Nabonidus in custody and
Belshazzar dead on the ground, old man Daniel was suddenly the highest
ranking Babylonian official.
In verse 31, we are introduced to Darius the Mede, and lots of ink has been
spilled over the historical identity of this man. I won’t try to explain the full
nature of the debate. Since he “received the kingdom” from God, I believe he
is the Medo-Persian king also known as Cyrus the Great. Jump down to the
end of chapter 6. In Daniel 6:28, we read this summary statement: “So this
Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the
Persian.” From that statement, it sounds like Darius and Cyrus are two
different rulers with two different terms. However, in Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Greek it is not uncommon that the word normally translated “and” can
function as a clarifying conjunction rather than a simple coordinating
conjunction. So, it is quite possible to translate 6:28 as, “So this Daniel
prospered during the reign of Darius, that is the reign of Cyrus the Persian.”
That begs the question: Why does Daniel refer to him as Darius the Mede at
the end of chapter 5 and Darius throughout chapter 6? I suggest two reasons,
one personal and one biblical. First, as we will see in chapter 6, Daniel
develops a personal relationship with this king. He becomes one of his top
advisers and he knew him well. It makes sense that Daniel might provide a
personal detail and refer to his friend by a name that doesn’t show up in
official imperial documents. Secondly, Daniel may want to provide a link for
his Jewish readers to biblical prophecy that highlighted God’s usage of both
Media and Persia as his agents of judgment against Babylon. For example,
Isaiah 13:17-19 says:
17
Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them,
who have no regard for silver
and do not delight in gold.
18
Their bows will slaughter the young men;
they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb;
their eyes will not pity children.
19
And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,
the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans,
will be like Sodom and Gomorrah
when God overthrew them.
And, famously, Isaiah mentions the name Cyrus on two occasions,
prophesying specifically that he would be the man God would use to bring the
Jews back to the land of Judah and rebuild the temple. From Persian historical
records, we know that Cyrus’s mother was a Mede and his father was a
Persian. We also know that Cyrus was 62 years old when he conquered
Babylon. So, it’s likely that Darius the Mede is Cyrus the Persian, the king to
whom God gave the Babylonian Empire.
IX. Conclusion: God Is Not Mocked
What do we take away from this chapter for us? It takes on a bit of a warning
edge: God is not mocked. Belshazzar thought he could get away with
arrogantly, blasphemously, idolatrously using what belonged to Yahweh the
God of Israel. The apostle Paul says, in Galatians 6:7-9, “7 Do not be
deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8
For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but
the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let
us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not
give up.” In the context, Paul is specifically addressing the situation in a
church family when someone comes to the aid of a brother or sister who is
ensnared in some sin. Someone has attempted to restore a sinning brother or
sister, and now he is warning the one who receives this kind of help about the
danger of not responding appropriately. He is warning of the danger of
continuing in sinful behavior: doing so will lead to a terrifying harvest on
Judgment Day.
We can sometimes slip into thinking that our “little sins” don’t register on
God’s radar. But Paul here warns against that kind of foolishness; God is not
mocked. People will be held accountable for this kind of thinking, to be sure,
and Paul quotes a general principle that we’re all too familiar with: you reap
what you sow. But he then applies it specifically to Judgment Day; I see this
because of his mention of reaping corruption, on the one hand, and eternal
life, on the other. Paul pictures “the flesh” as one field we could sow into and
the Spirit as the other field. He warns that sowing into “the flesh field” will
only produce a crop of corruption, but he promises that sowing into “the Spirit
field” will produce a crop of eternal life. Corruption is probably a reference to
eternal punishment, as it is set opposite eternal life. I don’t think he’s listing
the two options for the Christian; rather, he’s warning people in the church
who claim to be believers but are “caught in a transgression” that, if they
continue sowing in that field, “the flesh,” they will show themselves to be
non-believers.
What does “sowing to the Spirit” mean? Well, I think he elaborates in verse 9,
calling all Christians to keep on doing good deeds, without growing weary,
without losing enthusiasm. Why does he need to encourage them (and us!) not
to lose heart in doing good? I suspect it’s because we so often measure the
success of our efforts in terms of “visible results.” We seek to provide
encouragement, support, or help to someone else, or we share the gospel with
someone who doesn’t know Jesus, and there doesn’t seem to be any positive
response. Or, we try to help hold someone in church accountable, try to help
them overcome some sin, and they keep going back to it. We often quote
Isaiah 55:10-11, or part of it anyway, to encourage and motivate us to keep
speaking God’s Word:
10
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
What we need to remember when we appeal to these verses and say, “God’s
Word never returns void,” is that God sends his word both to save and to
judge. Like with Belshazzar, this message was sent to announce his doom. As
the apostle Paul knew all too well, often sharing the gospel is met with
rejection and hostility rather than faith and repentance. Nevertheless, the
encouragement Paul gives in Galatians 6 is to keep on speaking, keep on
doing good, and he gives a promise of a guaranteed harvest: “In due season
we will reap, if we do not give up.” “In due season.” Well, who decides
whether it’s “due season” or not? God does. God is the one who delivers the
harvest to those who sow in the field of the Spirit. Now, ultimately he’s
referring to the reaping of eternal life, but he’s probably also got in view the
results of our “sowing,” the results of our good deeds, along the way. This fits
quite well with Paul’s assuring words in 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore, my
beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of
the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” So, to all who
have ever looked at your hard work and wondered what good it does, the
apostle Paul assures you that, because of the resurrection of Jesus, because of
the Holy Spirit’s work, and because of our loving Father’s plan, investing our
time and resources in pointing people to Jesus and his Word is never wasted!
That was a bit of a rabbit trail. God is not mocked. The truth is that the writing
on Belshazzar’s palace wall is a message that God could rightly send to each
and every one of us, especially the middle part of the message: “You have
been weighed in the balances and found wanting.” That word “wanting”
means deficient, insufficient, lacking. What is it that we lack? Well, according
to Romans 3:23, we all sin and lack God’s glory. At the end of the day, that is
humanity’s fundamental problem. Normally, we read Romans 3:23 and we
think of God’s glory as his standard of holiness that we fall far short of. It is
certainly true that we all fall short of God’s standard of perfection. But God’s
glory is so much more than that.
God’s glory is his significance, his importance. The Hebrew word literally
refers to his weightiness. If we are weighed in the balances and found lacking,
it’s because God’s weight is on the other side of the scale. But how can sinful
human beings, whether an arrogant king or a hard-working, middle-class
American, ever be sufficient? Something’s gotta change, right? What we lack
has to be provided, and the problem of sin has to be dealt with. The good news
is that God has provided everything we need.
God loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins, as 1 John
4:10 says. The eternal Son of God became the man Jesus, who perfectly
obeyed God throughout his human life. If he were weighed in the balances, he
would not have been found wanting! He didn’t lack the glory of God; he
embodied it! John 1:14 says, “And the Word—that’s the eternal Son of God—
became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the
only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” And he, unlike all other
human beings throughout history, never sinned! 1 John 3:5 says, “You know
that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” He
came to take away our sins. Instead of taking over human kingdoms by force,
he offered his life as a sacrifice in the place of sinners who deserved to die. He
propitiated or appeased or satisfied God’s wrath against sin and sinners. He
accepted condemnation and punishment for sins he never committed, the
condemnation and punishment for the precise sins I’ve committed. Then, he
rose from the dead, having succeeded in his mission. God accepted his
sacrifice! He then left this earth physically and took his rightful place at the
right hand of God, sitting on his royal throne, having all authority in heaven
and earth.
Well, now what? Because every bit of my sin, all of my failure, all of my notmeasuring-up, has been punished, all of my debt has been paid in full, he
offers me complete forgiveness and cleansing. Hearing such good news, I say,
“Yes, Lord! Forgive me, Lord! My life is yours!” But what about the glory?
What about the glory I lacked? Oh, in a marvelous twist, the glory of God is
the very thing that enabled me to say “yes” to my Lord. Paul explains it like
this in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4: “3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to
those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the
minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of
the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” That was true of me before I
began to trust in Jesus. If you’re a Christian today, that was true of you. If you
are listening to this right now, and you don’t know Jesus, that is true of you
right now. Satan, the god of this world, has you blinded. God’s glory could be
right in front of you, but you cannot see it, cannot hear it, cannot perceive it,
cannot respond appropriately to it. Can’t, can’t, can’t! How is blindness
overcome? How does one who was blind now see?
Ironically, to get sight, we need to hear a word! Paul adds in verse 6, “For
God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ.” Someone has to turn on the lights in our hearts! God has to shine the
light, he has to create light where there was only darkness. Just like he did in
the beginning, he speaks, and the Spirit gives life! If you’re a Christian today,
that’s what happened to you! If you’re not a Christian today, that’s what you
need to happen to you. Confronted with the glory of God, God himself must
turn on the lights and enable us to see. When we see his glory, transformation
happens! This is what Paul had already said in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we
all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed
into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from
the Lord who is the Spirit.” It is the Spirit who lifts the blindness, and it is the
seeing that results in transformation. Glorification is a process that is going on
right now for those who know Jesus. We are being transformed from one
degree of glory to another, and the transformation happens as we keep looking
at Jesus in the Scriptures. We must see the glory to become glorified.
The gospel is unreadable writing to those who are perishing. The gospel
comes across no plainer than “mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,” to those who
haven’t had the lights turned on yet. As with Belshazzar, we need an
interpreter, and that interpreter must be the Holy Spirit. Paul explains in 1
Corinthians 1:14, reading from the 2011 NIV, “The person without the Spirit
does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them
foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only
through the Spirit.” “The person without the Spirit” is “the natural person,”
the person as he or she comes into this world. When we share Jesus with
someone who doesn’t yet know him, someone who hasn’t been healed from
their blindness, someone who hasn’t been rescued, saved, from their natural
citizenship in the dark kingdoms of this world, they can’t see him as he really
is. They can’t recognize him as glorious. The Spirit of glory must open their
eyes first. He does that in conjunction with our sharing the Word with people.
As long as a person is alive, we should never give up on them and assume that
they must not be chosen or that they’ll never be saved! Either we need to keep
on sharing Jesus with them, or we need to rest confident in God’s power to
save through the Word we’ve already shared with them. After all, seeds don’t
always sprout immediately.
In many ways, we find ourselves in the place of Daniel, responsible to share
God’s Word to people who aren’t really interested in knowing the God who
sent the message. Daniel was promoted and praised for his various
opportunities to speak before kings, but his preaching didn’t result in
conversions. Jesus instructed his disciples about what to expect: “people will
deliver you over to courts and flog you, you will be dragged before governors
and kings, who will deliver you over to tribulation and put you to death, and
you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.” Wasn’t the Great
Commission the command to “make disciples of all nations”? So, you’ll be
hated by all nations, and you must make disciples of all nations. Yes. “To
whom much is given, of him much will be required.” The call is for us to be
faithful in proclaiming the gospel, faithful in making disciples, no matter the
cost. The promise is that he will be with us, no matter what, and he is in
charge of bearing fruit.
The message of Daniel 5 is: God executes judgment against those who exalt
themselves and refuse to honor him. It is the Word that brings this
judgment. Our responsibility as God’s people is to continue speaking the
Word. The offer of salvation in the gospel message becomes a word of
condemnation to those who reject the offer. But to those who respond with
faith and repentance this word brings wondrous transformation during the few
years of our life in this world and a guarantee of eternal life in a new world
with wonders that break the limits of human imagination. Those wonders are
rooted in the person of Jesus and his glory. Look to him now and you’ll never
cease gazing on him with adoration forever; ignore or reject him now and
you’ll spend eternity in agony, with the words “though you knew all this”
echoing in your mind forever. Exalt yourself now, and you will be humiliated
forever. Humble yourself now, and you will be exalted and glorified forever.
