He Judges Sin part 2

Introduction

On its maiden voyage from the United Kingdom to New York in 1912, the luxury passenger liner RMS Titanic stood as a monument to human engineering in its time and was immediately an international sensation. Moreover, it was deemed by many to be unsinkable. In retrospect, such pride and arrogance were clearly misplaced, resulting in a tragic collision with an iceberg, the sinking of the ship, and the loss of more than 1,500 lives. It is one of the deadliest peacetime disasters in modern history. The captain, Edward John Smith was overheard saying, “Even God Himself couldn’t sink this ship.” Clearly, pride, arrogance, and overconfidence can lead to disaster.

Last week we saw God’s judgment on Nebuchadnezzar for his prideful boasting. This week, we will see another act of arrogant pride, but with very different results.

As we do we will consider where we stand with God and learn the one and only way we can find hope in the face of God’s righteous judgment.

Body

Verses 1-4: Belshazzar Gave a Party…

Belshazzar:

He wasn’t really even the king. His father, Nabonidus was the true king. But when Nabonidus would go to Arabia (as he often did) Belshazzar was put in charge.

In fact, historical archeology seems to point to Nabonidus as a eccentric king, who didn’t worship the Babylonian gods and who spent much of his time outside of Babylon.

As I mentioned last week, Nabonidus could have been the man called Nebuchadnezzar in the last passage…but that also might not be the case...

When he was gone, Belshazzar was king for all intents and purposes, and probably made many of the important decisions.

When the king’s away, the son will play!

Belshazzar gives his party and everyone gets drunk.

And as drunk people often do, he got stupid!

The odd part of this is that the Medo-Persian army had just scored a major victory against Babylon days earlier, and the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was assured at this point.

It’s odd that Belshazzar would throw a party.

It could have been a religious party...

It could be that he was trying to appease his gods in an attempt to turn the tide...

It could be that he was just throwing one last big party before the fall of the empire (I tend to think this was the case)...

Regardless, the issue here is not the party, per se, but the manner in which the party was thrown.

The wine was of such good quality (or at least he was drunk enough to believe it was) that he decided that it would be best to drink it out of the finest vessels.

Of course, they finest he had had been stolen from the temple by Neb. when he conquered Jerusalem. So those are the vessels he chose.

Not only did they drink from the vessels they had no right using, but they even worshiped false gods because of the quality of the wine.

So they “double-dipped” in the defiling to the temple vessels. They used them for unholy purposes and worshiped false gods with them.

We don’t have temple relics today like they had, but we have a personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ. That should never be taken for granted or treated as common, casual way...

Verses 5-9: The Writing was on the Wall…

The “writing was on the wall”, literally! Belshazzar’s judgment was so sure that God hand this supernatural hand etch it into the wall.

Why this way? Not sure…but I bet he wrote it on the plaster so no one would believe it was just drunk talk.

Look at how descriptive we see Belshazzar’s fear: color changed, alarming thoughts, limbs gave way, knees knocked.

Then, making Neb’s mistake, he calls in the tricksters to help interpret this…which of course they cannot, despite Belshazzar’s bribes.

Verses 10-17: Remember Daniel…

Then the queen (possibly Belshazzar’s mother, but also could be the highest ranking wife of Nabonidus) tells him of Daniel.

Of course, when he shows the writing to Daniel and ask for an interpretation, he offers Daniel the same bribe as he offered the tricksters.

However, Daniel refuses. Why?

Possibly because he knows that being offered the third highest position in the kingdom didn’t matter because the kingdom was about to fall!

Also, Daniel was probably somewhere in his eighties at this time. People in their eighties can rarely be bribed with money, riches, position, and power, because they understand that you can’t take that with you anyway!

Verses 18-24: Pride vs. Humility

Then Daniel tells him of Neb. How God had raised Neb. to his high position, but because of Neb’s pride, God humbled him to the lowest of lows.

All this was done to show that God is truly the One in ultimate control, not man.

Then he goes on to tell Belshazzar that his sin is pride as well. And not only had he been full of pride, but had defiled the vessels from the temple, something even Neb hadn’t done!

And thus, the writing was on the wall.

Why did God give Neb so many chances, and not Belshazzar? Tough to answer, however:

We don’t know that Belshazzar didn’t get other chances.

God’s divine sovereignty means that he can give mercy to whom He wills and judgment to whom He wills.

Verses 25-31: Belshazzar’s Bad News

The writing is:

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin.

These words are Aramaic. Like Hebrew, there are no vowels, so it would have been a very short set of words.

Mene = numbered (Belshazzar’s days were numbered…and the number was 0!)

It’s repeated, probably to show that this decision was certain...

Tekel = weighed (God had weighed his character on a scale and he didn’t measure up)

Parsin = divided (His kingdom would be divided between the Medes and Persians)

This last part could be another clue as to why God didn’t give Belshazzar another chance. Neb always honored Daniel’s God. Belshazzar only honor’s Daniel.

Then, Greek historians tell us that the Persians took the Babylonians by surprise while the Babylonians were partying. Belshazzar was killed, just as promised.

Then we are introduced to Darius…a person who is highly controversial not just because of his actions, but because many historians say he never existed. But we will look at that interesting little question next week!

So What?

What if God weighted your life? Would it be found wanting?

Truth is, all of our lives would be found wanting!

We might not share Belshazzar’s specific sin, but we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God....

That’s why He sent Jesus to die in our place, if we would receive His free gift of salvation then we would be set free from the eternal punishment that comes with our sin.

You see, (Mene) Our days are numbered…(Tekel) the weight of our sin is overwhelming…(Parsin) in the blink of an eye, we can lose everything…and yet, those who put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ:

Our future hope is rests not in the number of our days, but our inheritance in Heaven.

Though our sins be many, He bore them all on Golgotha and our sins are completely forgiven.

Our Heavenly inheritance far outshines anything on this earth.