All right, let's look at Daniel
chapter 5. This is one of the most intriguing
stories. It's a historical record that
we find in the Bible of a man named Belshazzar. He was the
king of Babylon. You'll see as we go through these
passages, this is a long passage, I won't read every verse, but
we'll get to the meat of the matter here. This is an account
where God brought this man down from his pride and brought him
under judgment, this king of Babylon. Babylon was probably
the premier empire of that day. And you know this man, as you
go through here, it'll talk about him being Nebuchadnezzar. You
know who Nebuchadnezzar was. It'll talk about him being Nebuchadnezzar's
son. He's probably Nebuchadnezzar's
grandson. And there'll be a mention of
a queen here that's probably his mother, the queen mother.
So those details aren't really that important, but just to understand. Look at verse one of chapter
five of the book of Daniel. It says, Belshazzar the king
made a great feast to a thousand of his lords and drank wine before
the thousand. So we're having a party here.
Now at this time, the kingdom of Babylon was under siege, being
attacked by another kingdom, the kingdom of the Medes and
the Persians. And you know, the Medo-Persian
army in the empire, through a man named Cyrus, that's how God brought
judgment down upon Babylon for her sins and her idolatry. So
here they are. But now this Belshazzar, he knows
the kingdom is under siege, but Babylon had great walls And they
were very well protected. So Belshazzar was lifted up with
pride to throw a party when his kingdom is under siege. Because
he imagined that his kingdom was impregnable, invincible.
There's no way they could get into the city. Of course, we
know historically what happened. That there was a real unique
way that the Medes and the Persians got into the city of Babylon.
And this very night, when Belshazzar's having this party, This drunken
party for a thousand of his lords, a great feast, he died. And the
kingdom was overrun, and then it became the Medo-Persian Empire.
So look at verse two. Belshazzar, while he tasted the
wine, he commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which
his father Nebuchadnezzar, and again, that's probably his grandfather,
had taken out of the temple, which was in Jerusalem, that
the king and his princes, his wives, and his concubines might
drink therein. You know what he's talking about
here now. See, Nebuchadnezzar was the one who destroyed Jerusalem
and destroyed the temple, and he took the vessels, the cups,
all of those things that were to be used in the worship of
God alone. In Leviticus, these are called
the holy vessels. And the reason they're called
holy vessels, there was no holiness or quality of character in these
things, but it's just like this cup up here. If God said that
make this cup, and this cup was to be used for one purpose alone,
and for no other purpose, then that's a holy vessel. And these
vessels were to be used in the worship and service of God by
the priest of Israel. But Nebuchadnezzar gathered them
all up, gold and silver, and he brought them into Babylon.
And I don't know where he put them, but they were set off aside. But Belshazzar says, get those
vessels, bring them over here, and we're going to have a party
with them. And look what happened, verse three. Then they brought
the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the
house of God, which was at Jerusalem, and the king and his princes
and his wives and his concubines drank in them. And look at verse
four. Now they'd already committed
a great sin against the God of Israel by just getting those
vessels and saying, we're gonna drink wine out of it, we're gonna
have a party. But it says, they drank wine and praised the gods
of gold and of silver and of brass, of iron and wood and of
stone. So they used them in idolatry,
taking the vessels of the temple that were to be used in the worship
and service of the true and living God and using them for their
own selfish purposes and praising their idols. And so, this is
this man being lifted up in pride Now in verses five through nine,
here's what happened. Let's read this one too. It says,
in the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand. Now this is
a vision that Belshazzar is seeing. And the fingers of a man's hand
and rode over against the candlestick. Some people say that's the candlestick
that was in the temple. I don't know for that. But the
key is where he could see them in light. and upon a plaster
of the wall of the king's palace, and the king saw the part of
the hand that wrote, and then the king's countenance was changed. He was partying, he was happy,
he was joyous, boom, here it comes. The fingers, I mean, he
was scared. It says, and his thoughts troubled
him so that the joints of his loins were loose, and his knees
smote one against the other. He was shaking, his knees coming
together. What a picture this is. And it
says, the king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers. He's got to read his horoscope.
Everybody likes to read their horoscope. Well, that's what
Belshazzar, he had astrologers. The Chaldeans, those were the
priests of the idols. He says, and the soothsayers,
the seers, the ones who tell the future, bring them all in.
And the king spoke and said to the wise men of Babylon, whosoever
shall read this writing and show me the interpretation thereof
shall be clothed with scarlet and have a chain of gold about
his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Now this
is the scene. I mean, it's just intriguing
to me how you see this. Well, what happens? Well, none
of those wise men of Babylon knew the writing on the wall. They looked at that writing,
they couldn't understand it. And when I read that, you know
what I thought about? I thought about the natural man,
what the Bible says about the natural man. You know, in 1 Corinthians
2 and verse 14, it says, the natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because
they're spiritually discerned, spiritually understood. And the
natural man is a way of describing man in his first nature, in his
natural state, being born into this world. The Bible says that
we fell in Adam, and that were born physically in spiritual
death and depravity. Remember in Ephesians 2, which
we're gonna be talking about next week, Lord will it. He says,
and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin?
And that's why Christ said you have to be born again to see
the kingdom of God. You can't understand it. You
can't read the handwriting on the wall, so to speak. People
pick up the Bible. and they study it and they memorize
it. Do you know what Christ told
the Pharisees and the lawyers? He said, you read the scriptures,
you search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal
life, but they are they which testify of me. They read the
Bible, but they couldn't understand it. What does it take to understand
the writing, the handwriting in the Bible? It takes the spirit
of God giving us eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts and minds
to understand. And that's what happens when
we're born again by the Spirit. We're born again by the Spirit,
by the will of God under the preaching of the gospel, so that
the gospel becomes the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth. And you know that believing is
not natural to us. That believing is the gift of
God. By grace are you safe, through faith that not of yourselves.
It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
It's not of him that runneth, Romans 9 tells us, that's works,
and it's not of him that willeth. It's not the free will of man
that brings the new birth, it's the will of God. It's the sovereign,
powerful, invincible will of God that brings the new birth
from Christ as the Spirit brings God's people under the gospel
and gives them eyes to see, ears to hear. Remember, Christ said
that in Matthew 13 when he was talking about the parables. The
disciples said, why do you speak in parables? And it was a judgment. It wasn't this. The parables
are not children's stories. The parables are illustrations
of true doctrine. And the Pharisees and the Sadducees
and the Herodians and all of them rejected the gospel. So
having rejected the gospel, Christ spoke in parables as a judgment
against them. And that's what he tells the
disciples when they ask him, why do you speak in parables?
He said, because they seen, see not. They got eyes. They've got
ears, but they don't see and they don't hear because they
don't want to be converted. They don't want to hear it. And
that's the natural man. They're like Belshazzar. They
see the writing on the wall, but it's all, somebody says,
it's all Greek to me. And that's the way it is. But
he told the disciples, he said in Matthew 13, but blessed are
your eyes, for they see. Blessed are your ears, for they
hear. Now, do you think that they saw
and they heard because they were better people than the Pharisees? Well, if you think that, you're
wrong. You don't know the Bible. Grace is what saves us, folks. Grace is what keeps us and grace
will lead us home. That means we don't deserve it
and we didn't earn it. It wasn't based upon anything
we do or anything we decide. It's a sovereign purpose of God. that brings us to a saving knowledge
of Christ. So here's Belshazzar, or in Daniel
chapter five, Belshazzar, who blatantly, arrogantly, decided
to cast off on the Israel of God. And he brought these soothsayers
and astrologers and all these guys in, and they all got around,
and they couldn't see it either. They couldn't understand it.
And he got angry. And he's about to the point where
he's gonna kill them all. What good are you? Well, in verses
10 through 12, the queen pops up. It says here, now the queen,
by reason of the words of the king and his lords. And this
is probably the queen mother, the mother of Belshazzar. Or
it could be the grandmother, but I'd say it's probably the
mother. And this is what she says in verse 10. She says, now
the queen, by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came
into the banquet house, and the queen spoke and said, oh king,
live forever. Now that was just a way of kissing
up to the king. That's what I call it. It shows the ignorance of man,
because who's gonna live forever? The Bible says only those who
are in Christ. Light and life is in Christ. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man cometh under the Father
but by me. That's what our Lord said. He
is the resurrection and life, he told Martha. And so, she says,
go king, live forever. Well, verse 11, she says, there
is a man in thy kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. Now, she's talking about a guy
named Daniel. Daniel was something else, wasn't
he? He was God's prophet. You know what Daniel's name means?
It means God, my judge. That's what Daniel means. And
he's God's prophet in Babylon. And through the amazing providence
of God, if you read the first four chapters of the book of
Daniel, it's an amazing work of God's providence that Daniel,
even though he was a believer in the true and living God, and
ethnically he was an Israelite, a Jew, that he had a pretty high
position in the court of the king. But now Belshazzar didn't
remember him. So we don't know why. So the queen says, there's a
man in thy kingdom in whom the spirit of the holy gods, and
in the days of thy father, light and understanding and wisdom,
like the wisdom of the gods was found in him, whom the king Nebuchadnezzar,
thy father, the king, I say the father, made master of the magicians,
astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayer. Now Daniel wasn't any of those
things. He was God's prophet. But he
had a position over them, Why Belshazzar didn't remember him,
we don't know. I guess he was just probably
so full of himself that he didn't care. But you remember what happened
with Daniel when he, and Daniel was probably about 80 years old
at this time. Maybe that's the reason. He was just an old man,
they just put him to the side. But you remember what happened
in Daniel's dealings with Nebuchadnezzar? Remember how Nebuchadnezzar was
lifted up with pride? And he looked out over his kingdom
and bragged on himself, you know. and God brought him down, do
you remember that? He lost his mind for a while.
You can read about it in Daniel chapter four. And he went out
like an animal. His fingernails grew long, his
hair long, I mean his beard, and he crawled on the ground.
This is the king of Babylon now. This is not just some guy who
rode into town on the back of a turnip truck. This was the
king. And God brought him down, and
then God brought him back to his senses. Look across the page
to Daniel 4, 35. And when God brought Nebuchadnezzar
back to his senses, Nebuchadnezzar made this statement. Look at verse 34. He says, and
at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted mine eyes unto heaven,
and mine understanding returned unto me. He got his mind back.
And I blessed the most high, and I praised and honored him
that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and
his kingdom is from generation to generation, and all the inhabitants
of the earth are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest
thou? Now a lot of scholars say that
that was Nebuchadnezzar's conversion, that he became a believer in
the true and living God. I don't believe that's so. Now
the reason I don't believe that's so is, listen, the king's word
was law. You understand that? Read the
first four chapters of Daniel. You remember when Nebuchadnezzar
made a law that nobody was to worship anyone but him? And you remember the three children,
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and how they refused, and so
they were gonna put them to death. They put them in the fiery furnace.
You remember all that story, how they looked in that furnace,
and there was another person in there, the fourth man, and
that was Christ. That was a pre-incarnate image
of Christ, and he delivered them. They weren't burned up, all of
that. The king's word was law. And if Nebuchadnezzar had been
converted, to be a believer in the true and living God, I guarantee
you that all those other gods would have been obliterated.
He would have made a law, you can't worship these idols. But
either way, salvation comes by coming to God through Christ. Now Nebuchadnezzar was brought
down to recognize the sovereignty of the God of Israel. But he
didn't go any further than that. He was just one among many gods. He may have been, Nebuchadnezzar
would say, he may have been the best god, the greatest god, but
he wasn't the only god. Well, the queen was there when
all that happened, and then she reminded him, reminded Belshazzar,
that there was a man named Daniel. that he had the gift of interpretation. So beginning in verse 13 through
17, Daniel shows up and the king tells him, now Daniel, if you
can interpret this, he said, I'll give you riches, I'll give
you the third place in the kingdom, and Daniel refuses it. He said,
I don't want your money, I don't want your position, I'll interpret
it. And I thought about that, you
know, that's the way salvation is, isn't it? God does not give
salvation on the basis of what we pay Him or what we do for
Him. It's totally a free gift. And
we bring out the gospel. We're not asking people to come
here and pay for this or pay for that. We preach the gospel
of salvation conditioned on Christ and Him alone, and that He fulfilled
the conditions, and it's totally a free gift. But man by nature
doesn't want the free gift. He wants to do something for
it. That's part of our depravity
by nature. We have to think that we've done
something either to earn or deserve salvation. But that's not the
case. In 1 Corinthians 2 verse 12 is
a really nice verse that tells us that when the Spirit of God
comes, and convicts us of our sinfulness and shows us God's
way of salvation by grace in Christ, he causes us to understand
that which is freely given. And what is freely given? All
of salvation. Every blessing of it, every benefit
of it, the forgiveness of sins, justification before God, it's
all freely, unconditionally given to us because Christ is the one
who earned it on the cross by shedding his blood as the full
payment of our sins, by bringing forth an everlasting righteousness.
We don't have any righteousness in ourselves and we can't work
righteousness, but we have righteousness, how? in Christ. And that's what
we're getting to here now. In verses 18 through 23, Daniel
reminds Belshazzar of what happened to his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar.
He relates that. And you know what happened to
Nebuchadnezzar, even though I don't believe Nebuchadnezzar was saved
there, but it's sure a picture of how God saves sinners, isn't
it? What does he do? He brings us down into the dust
of our sin and depravity. convicts us of sin because we
believe not on Christ. In other words, without Christ,
listen, without Christ, man at his best state is altogether
vanity, worthless. And that includes every, there's
none righteous, no not one, there's none that doeth good. Read it
in Romans three. That applies to all of us, the
best of us, the worst of us, and everybody in between. If
we're going to be saved, we're going to be saved by grace, based
upon the righteousness of Christ, and not anything we do or decide
to do. So Daniel reminds him of that,
and then in verse 24 down here, look, this is where we come to
the handwriting on the wall in Daniel's interpretation, listen
to it. It says, then was the part of the hand sent from him,
and this writing was written, and this is the writing, verse
25, that was written, mene, mene, tikal ufarsin. That's what was
written. And then Daniel gives the interpretation.
This is the interpretation of the thing. Mene means this, and
what this is, mene means God hath numbered thy kingdom and
finished it. Now what Daniel's telling him
is what this handwriting means is your time is up. Your number's
up, buddy. It's gone. You've done crossed
the line. You're past the point of no return.
God has numbered your kingdom and finished it. And then he
comes to the word tikal. Tikal is a word that has to do
with a measure of weight. And here's what he says, listen
to this. Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting. Lacking, that's what that means.
The scales. Think about the scales of justice.
If any of us were weighed in those scales based upon our works,
based upon our decisions, our choices or anything, We, like
Belshazzar, would be found wanting. Now that's the case. And then he says in verse 28,
Perez means thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the
Persians. Perez is a singular form of that
word up there, upharsin. And it means the kingdom is divided.
God has chopped it up and you're gonna, God's judgment was gonna
fall on Babylon. Now every bit of this, you think
about it, it's a solemn reminder to us. Sinners say by grace that
were it not for Christ's blood, were it not for his righteousness
imputed to us and received by God-given faith, God's wrathful
judgment would fall upon us too. That's what we've earned. The
wages of sin is death. Is that right? That means that's
what we're, now salvation, eternal life, is not earned by us. The gift of God, a free gift,
is in Jesus Christ, our Lord. If God were to judge us at any
time based upon our best efforts to serve him, We would be like
Belshazzar, weighed in the balance and found lacking. That's right. And so the question is, and somebody
says, well, how can we make, the question is, how then can
we balance the scales? How can we be weighed in the
balance and not found wanting? That's the question. You see,
this is God's scales. This is not man's scales. This
is not how man measures. Because man's measurement, man's
scale is always off. It's always false balances and
false scales. But God's scales are true. So
how can I, a sinner, be weighed in that balance of God's scales
and have it measure up, have it balance out and me not found
wanting? And the answer is in Christ. To be found in Christ. You know the verse that I quote
all the time, Acts 17, 31, where it says that God has appointed
a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness. Now, what kind of righteousness
is he talking about? That means justice, rightness,
being right with God. How righteous do I have to be?
Well, you say, well, I know I'm not perfect, but I'm not as bad
as so and so. Well, so-and-so's not the standard
of the balance here, whoever it is you have in mind. God has
appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness
by that man whom he hath ordained. Well, who's he ordained? Who
has God chosen to be the measure? the standard of righteous, by
that man whom he hath ordained in that he hath given assurance
unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead. That's
Christ. How righteous do I have to be
to balance these scales? I've got to be as righteous as
Christ. So if you come before God pleading
the fact, you say, well, Lord, I believe on you. Well, is your
belief perfect? Does it equal the perfection
of righteousness that can only be found in Christ? Do you ever
doubt? Every person who's honest would
say yes. So our believing is not the perfect,
our preaching, our works, do they equal the perfection of
righteousness of the Lord? And the answer's no. They won't
balance out the scales. Remember Matthew 7, 21 through
23, not everyone that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the
kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father.
And what is the will of the Father? To believe on the Son. To plead
the righteousness of Christ, that's what that means, the blood
of Christ. They'll say, many will come to him and say, Lord,
haven't we prophesied or preached in your name? Haven't we cast
out demons? Haven't we done many wonderful
works? And he said, depart from me. I never knew you, you that
work iniquity. You see, I'll use this as an
example. I'm standing before you preaching
the truth from the word of God. Check me out with the Bible.
But my preaching will not save me. My efforts to obey God are
not my righteousness. So how can I stand before God
and be weighed in the balance and the only way is by his grace? And grace, Romans 521, grace
reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. Christ is my righteousness. My
sins were charged to him and he died for them on the cross.
His righteousness has been imputed or charged to me. That's why
David wrote, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes righteousness,
charges with righteousness, without works. We sing the hymn, You're My Favorite.
Y'all remember it. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood. and righteousness. I dare not
trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name, on
Christ the solid rock I stand. That's how the scales balance.
I stand before God, weighed in the balance of his righteousness,
but I stand there not in my works, not in my choices, but I stand
there in Christ. And he is the Lord, my righteousness. That's the only way. Christ is
the measure. And the only way we can measure
up is to have his righteousness, the merit of his work, charged
to our account, imputed to us. Now the last few verses just
show that God was faithful to his threat, and Baal Shazar died,
Babylon was overran, and the Medes and the Persians took over,
okay.