What a solemn thing to die at
such a moment! By Charles Simeon King Belshazzar
gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine
with them. As they drank the wine, they
praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood,
and stone. Suddenly the fingers of a human
hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the
lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as
it wrote. His face turned pale, and he was so frightened that
his knees knocked together and his legs gave way. This is what
these words mean. God has numbered the days of
your reign and brought it to an end. You have been weighed
on the scales and found wanting. Your kingdom is divided and given
to the Medes and Persians. That very night Belshazzar, king
of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over
the kingdom. What a solemn thing to die at
such a moment! Yet how many are there, who,
if not slain like him, yet are called away from the midst of
the mirth and pleasures of this life, as unprepared to die as
this heathen king? It was so at the time of the
flood. It will be so at the end of the world. It is so daily
and hourly. The foolish virgins greatly outnumber
those who are wise and have their oil to seek when the bridegroom
arrived. Lost sinner, might not God justly
destroy you instantly with fire, as He did Nadab and Abihu? So
fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them,
and they died before the Lord. Leviticus 10. Might not God cause the earth
to swallow you up, as He did to Korah and his rebellious followers? How many sudden deaths take place
all around you, some old, some young, and some in the prime
of life? Are the illnesses and accidents
which you see or feel no warnings? But you have a handwriting, yes,
the handwriting of God Himself. You may see it in the Scriptures
of truth. There you may see written, as
with a sunbeam, God has numbered the days of your reign and brought
it to an end. You have been weighed on the
scales and found wanting. All hope of entering heaven will
be quickly taken from you if you do not turn unto God with
your whole heart. While you are living at ease
and putting the thoughts of death far from you, God may be saying,
you fool, this night your soul shall be required of you. And
oh, how terrible would this be to you. What hope has the godless
when he is cut off, when God takes away his life? Job 27,
verse 8. How suddenly are they destroyed,
completely swept away by terrors? Psalm 73, verse 19. Your soul
must be covered with the sin-atoning blood of Jesus, or your sins
will infallibly plunge you into everlasting perdition. Seize
then the fleeting hour. Adore your God that you have
not been taken away, as thousands of your fellow creatures have
been, with all your sins upon you. Today, while it is called
today, do not harden your heart, lest you perish in impenitence
and unbelief. May the Lord grant that it may
never be so with us.