Daniel 5 - Pride and Humility pt. 2

HBI - We need to Humble ourselves before God while we help each other grow closer to God in love.

Intro

All through the book of Daniel so far we have been learning that “in spite of present appearance, God is in control”. The main theme that we see running through all of this is that because God is in control, because he is the one true King, there is hope for faithfulness in a hostile world. We can remain faithful but that does not always mean things are going to go well for us.

When people refuse to follow God with their lives, when they want to go their own way, God sometimes tries to get their attention. in the last chapter in the book of Daniel we went through the same idea. The struggle between pride and humility. We saw what happened when someone was confronted by God on their sin, they had to be brought low before they realized that God is really in control and they needed to humble themselves before God. The King even had someone come and warn Him and say that God is trying to get your attention here, you need to repent and turn your life to the Lord God.

God uses people, other Christians to try and get our attention sometimes, to get us to turn from our sin and to turn back to Him. He sometimes also uses our circumstances and all all that we are going through to get us to turn back to Him. You see sometimes we need to be reminded that God is still in control and we need to humble ourselves before Him. It is not usually a fun thing though to be told that we are struggling with sin in our lives by someone else. It is hard to deal with, but when done in love the results are worth the pain. I read a story of a cop I’m a cop. I woke up one morning at 5:00 A.M., tired. I put on my uniform, checked my gear, kissed my sleeping wife, and slowly walked to my patrol car parked in front of my apartment building, probably looking like a stereotypical zombie in a police uniform that you might see on TV or in a video game.I started my normal routine: Got in the car, turned on the radar, checked on duty, and started playing the best “prepare for a police shift” music I can find. Now for my 15 minute commute to the city.My vehicle was getting low on gas so I stopped at my favorite gas station to fill up, and went inside for my daily breakfast burrito. I went in, put my sausage, egg, and cheese burrito in a paper tray, and grabbed all the needed hot sauces. Then I grabbed a cup and filled it with water, just like I do at the beginning of every shift. After this, still in zombie mode, and went back to my patrol vehicle with the goodies and continued on with my day.At about noon, I get a call from my Sergeant, who simply said, “I need to talk to you at the department.”Oblivious as to why he would need to talk to me, I began heading to the police department. Millions of thoughts rushed through my head, all wondering what he would want to discuss with me. Upon my arrival, I was directed to my Lieutenant’s office. When I walked in, I heard a stern, “Close the door”. At this point I knew this wasn’t good. I sat down, disturbed, being stared down by my Corporal. Sergeant, and Lieutenant.After a preface from my Sergeant, he says, “Tell me everything that happened this morning, especially at the gas station.”I didn’t say anything, just sat there and thought about it again. “oops. I forgot to pay for my burrito.” Then I just heard, “Guess what, that’s theft.”After a “Come to Jesus” moment with my superiors, I left, went straight to the gas station, and paid for my burrito. They didn’t want to press charges.

In reality though we need to remember that we have to humbly bow before the Lord as the true king f Kings. When we do not God may humble us and bring us low. SO we need to look into our lives and see if God is trying to get our attention, then as you see others struggling with sin as they try to live for Jesus, come to them and love and help point them back in the right direction.

The Story

To start out with, if you follow the reading plan I made you will note a few things. I get into them a bit more in the reading plan though, so pick it up to find out more. The first is that the book of Daniel contains a few Chaisms. But we will just focus on the main the main one. Chapters 2-7 form groups. chapter 1 is kind of like the prologue, then chapter 2 and 7 are pairs, 3 and 6 then in the middle we have 4 and 5. I will point this out as we go through the remaining chapters. This is interesting to note as you read through the book of Daniel, all pointing to the main theme of the book. So then chapter 5 is a pair to Chapter 4, both dealing with the same issue. You have Nebuchadnezzar who was prideful and then God made him lower then the beasts of the earth until He humbled Himself before God. Now we go to the Grandson of his who is dealing with the exact same issue of pride, but the result was not the same.

Belshazzar has an interesting story as well, something again you can read more about in the reading plan if you wish. But the word used for father in

Daniel 5:2 (CSB) 2 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.

The CSB uses a better translation for the word, saying predecessor but it can also mean father or grandfather. His real father was a man named Nabonidus who was part of a rebel force that took over and he took the throne. Then he forcefully married Nebuchadnezzar's daughter to try and legitimize his reign. Sop technically speaking the Belshazzar was the grandson of Neb. This was about 10 years after the reign of Neb.

So we get to the setting of Chapter 5. Babylon was currently under siege by Cyrus and the Persian empire. They had taken all of the empire but the city of Babylon remained. The people in the city laughed at them likely because it was heavily fortified and had never been taken before (think veggie tales). Plus they had enough supplies to last them for years. So the people in the city where having a big party.

Daniel 5:3 (CSB) 3 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.

This was defiling the Lord God, He likely thought that they represented the defeated God, Yahweh so why not use them to drink to the Babylon gods. In defiance of the Lord God, He took the vessels of the temple and defiled them in use to Idols. This is a foreshadow of when the Abomination of Desolation is prophesied to defile the temple during the end times. This is going to happen again, and we will get into that more in chapter 9.

and then we learn that God humbles the proud. Imagine this next scenario if you can. You are sitting their with the King and following his lead. Not worried about the massive army encamped at your walls. You have just drank out of fancy goblets that belong to another God that you do not worship, but is the God of the people that are slaves in your city. suddenly a hand appears before your drunken eyes writing things on the wall in front of you. Daniel 5:5

Daniel 5:5 (CSB) 5 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,

This was no drunken vision, this actually happened and it terrified everyone there. the kings response is kind of funny, though if I where there likely my response would have been the same. Daniel 5:6

Daniel 5:6 (CSB) 6 his face turned pale, and his thoughts so terrified him that he soiled himself and his knees knocked together.

He soiled himself it was so scary. The problem is that when he cleaned himself up, no one knew what the hand wrote. Again, the promise of becoming the highest in the kingdom would belong to the man who could read the inscription. Again Daniel’s name came up, He was known as someone who could interpret dreams and visions.

what he gets first though is a history lesson. He is called before the king and told what he has to do and the reward and Daniel refused the reward but says instead How God gave greatness to Neb. He did whatever he wanted, killed who he wanted and everyone feared Him (God establishes governing authorities). But it become enough, His glory was taken from Him for trying to establish himself over the Lord God. The Lord establishes power and the Lord takes it away, we need to fear God. Because Neb didn't fear God and established himself over the Lord God he was humbled and made to be lower then the beasts that God has given us authority over.

Daniel 5:21 (CSB)21 He was driven away from people, his mind was like an animal’s, he lived with the wild donkeys, he was fed grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with dew from the sky until he acknowledged that the Most High God is ruler over human kingdoms and sets anyone he wants over them.

A few things we learn from this speech here, all Glory needs to go to God. We sometimes have pride get in the way and think that we do not need God. But all glory needs to go to God. And God has the ability to humble those who do not turn to Him, to give them one last chance to turn their lives to Him.

I have always wondered what Language the text was written in, whether it was some heavenly language, or characters unknown to man. Maybe it was in Aramaic but words that no one knew the meaning of we do know that Daniel, through the Lord God, could interpret the Mysterious words. The meaning of the words (Men Mene Tekel Parsin)

God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. you have been weighed on the balance and found deficient. your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

You Will be humbled before God, but apparently he didn't care because he rewarded Daniel, and then the Persian army snuck in and killed him and gave the city to Darius to govern.

So What

Humility and pride, in learning to have hope for faithfulness in a hostile world we need to come to the realization that God is really in control and we are not. We need to humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God. God can and will humble us under His mighty hand to draw us back to Himself so with this being said there are a few things that we can learn from this.

God is in control and we need to serve Him.

Swallow your pride we are told. God is in control, we read in here that God has established those that govern over us and He takes them out of power as well. God is in control and we are told that we need to serve Him. God knows what is going to happen and we can trust in Him and have hope. Life was not that good for Daniel and the rest of the Israelite's but they where still called to have faith in God and so are we today. Now to deal with God Humbling us, there are different ways God does this when we refuse to turn our lives to Him. But one thing that came to mind as I was going through this passage is the fact that as followers of Jesus God uses other believers to confront sin in our life. so it begs the question,

How do we handle Brothers and sisters confronting sin in our life?

This must be done in love, because we are called to love those around us. This is not to be done out of malice or some form of Justice we think that we have but rather because we care for other children of God. God used Daniel to confront sin in the Kings life. Though we need to tell other non-christian people about the consequences of their sin it will not do much good if we do not also focus on what Jesus has done for them.

For Christians who know the way that they need to walk and are not walking in the right path. How do we handle it when someone in love comes to us and tells us what we are doing is wrong? Search the word of God together and see where it says you are doing wrong. If it is sin then we need to deal with it in our lives. I have had people come to me in the past and confront my sin in love, and I didn't deal with it well but looking back I am glad they did it. This is all part of discipleship, we need to work together to help each other grow closer to God.

How do we handle confronting sin in other peoples lives?

This is the same thing in a sense but a different side of it. I have heard to many times people misquote the verse that says “Judge not lest you be judged”. They forget to read the rest when it says to deal with the sin in your life, get right with God and then, and only then, will you be able to see clearly enough to help your brother or sister in love get through their sin.

Some people God has given the gift of discernment, God tells them stuff about people that they have no business knowing on their own. God will tell people with this gift sometimes when someone is struggling with sin and to tell them how to deal with it. God does confront pride and sin in our life this way. What is in your life that needs to be dealt with? deal with your sin and then in love help point your brothers and sisters in Christ in the right direction.

Is God humbling you? He is in control and maybe God is trying to get your attention and turn you back to Himself.