Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.12UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.07UNLIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.55LIKELY
Sadness
0.5LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.52LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.02UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.84LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.59LIKELY
Extraversion
0.07UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.34UNLIKELY
Emotional Range
0.69LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction
In the Psalm of Moses (Psalm 90) Moses writes these words.
Psalm 90:12 “So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
James would write in the New Testament would write in James 4:14 “whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow.
For what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”
Our lives are fleeting.
They are here for a moment and then gone.
For King Belshazzar and the Babylonian Empire their time was up.
Last week Daniel was brought into the court after no one was able to tell the co-Regnant what the handwriting on the wall said or meant and Daniel told the King a bit of history.
He told him of how Nebuchadnezzar had been given the Kingdom he had, and Nebuchadnezzar had messed up and humbled by God and had become a beast and had turned to the one true God.
Then picking up in Daniel 5:22 we read.
He had not learned from the past and so he repeated the same mistakes and had compounded them.
The very God who holds your very breath in His hand and owns all your ways, that is the same God whom the King has not glorified.
God still hold our very breath in His hand and owns all our ways.
Are we learning from our past?
Daniel going to bring some worse news to Belshazzar as he turns his attention to the handwriting on the Wall and its meaning.
Handwriting on the Wall
God was the One who had sent the fingers down.
The One who holds every breath in His hand was the One who wrote out this phrase.
The phrase is MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN or MENE MENE TEKEL, PARSIN
The enigmatic message is “a mina, a mina, a shekel, and two halves” (either a half-mina or a half-shekel) and refers to units of measure.
The message to the King wasn’t that no one could read it.
The words were simple enough.
“The Aramaic words written on the wall were not foreign to King Belshazzar.
They were quite ordinary words.
The mystery lay in their brevity and the fact that they could be read either as nouns or as verbs.”
(UBS)
MENE: Mina (a form of money around 60 shekels worth)
TEKEL: A Shekel
PARSIN: Half Shekel or Half Mina
Think of it this way if you had a phrase that said one hundred dollars, one hundred dollars, fifty dollars, twenty-five dollars.
Does that mean $275 dollars or does it mean something else?
The thing is these had other meanings as not only the noun form of the words, but also a verb form.
MENE may be translated “number,” “measure,” or “quantity.”
TEKEL concerns a “weight” or a “load.”
PARSIN has to do with “division,” “split,” “partition,” or “separation.”
So what do they all mean?
What does it mean?
So the words themselves are easy to understand, but what do they mean?
That is the enigma.
That is the riddle.
MENE: God has numbered your kingdom’s days and brought it to an end.
(NET)
So right off the bat, Daniel gives Belshazzar very bad news.
God has counted the days for the Babylonian Kingdom and it has come to the end.
2. TEKEL - You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.
He is not fit to rule the Kingdom, he has desecrated the items in the temple.
He has not learned from history.
3. PERES— His Kingdom has been divided.
It will be split and it will be given to the Medes and the Persian Kingdoms.
So the news is your days are numbered and this Kingdom’s days are numbered.
You are not fit to rule any longer and the Kingdom is going to be split going to foreign rulers.
This I don’t think is the message you want to be the bearer of, but Daniel as he had spoke truth to power before also did it here.
Belshazzar’s response in the next verse is interesting.
All in Vain
I am sure he was dumbstruck, but he honored his word even though Daniel had said he wanted none of these items.
Daniel 5:17 “Then Daniel answered, and said before the king, “Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another; yet I will read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation.”
It is all in vain for King Belshazzar.
His very moments were numbered.
The God who held his very breath in His hands was about to take it from him.
The Medes and Persians are Coming…Fall of Babylonian Kingdom
That very night, he would die and the kingdom fall!
The head of gold that Daniel had told to King Neb.
in chapter 2 was transitioning to the arms and chest of silver.
The Media-Persian empire was about to grow and take control.
King Saul Similar Prophecy
Conclusion
God has our very breath in His hand.
Do you know Him?
One day we will be judged.
Do you have Jesus Christ on your side?
Is He your Savior?
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9