God Is Active In The Lives Of The Faithful Series

Introduction

What would happen if someone gave a party—and God crashed it?

In the first verses of Daniel chapter 5, we find a description of a rather wild party thrown by a king named Belshazzar.

Then we are told how his party was crashed. Right in the middle of the party, at what was probably the loudest and wildest part, an unexpected and unusual guest suddenly appeared that brought the party to an abrupt end.

The uninvited visitor was a disembodied set of fingers. In view of all the astonished party revelers, the uninvited hand wrote a mysterious message on the palace wall that no one understood.

The meaning of the message to those people—and us—is what we are going to look at today.

But to understand the full meaning of the message, we must start with the historical setting.

King Nebuchadnezzar ruled over Babylon for almost forty-five years. By the time of Daniel 5, he had been dead for about twenty-five years.

The fourth king after him was Nabonidus. Nabonidus had a son named Belshazzar. Belshazzar and his father Nabonidus were co-regents over Babylon for about twenty years. From 559-539 BC they reigned together. It’s believed that Nabonidus was presently living in North Arabia, where he had been for the last ten years. During this time, his son Belshazzar remained in Babylon.

Belshazzar seems to have been a very insecure man, the kind of man who indulged in very wild and loose living as a way of covering up his many insecurities.

At this time, the great kingdom of Babylon was just about to fall to the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. In fact, the capital city was now surrounded by the Medo-Persian army. And Belshazzar knew it.

So why was he going ahead with this big feast?

Because he and his people thought they were invincible.

In its prime, the city of Babylon was second to none. 1.2 million people lived in Babylon. The city was 60 miles around and surrounded by a wall 350 feet high and 87 feet across. Historians tell us that four full chariots would race abreast on top of the wall.

Guards were constantly on watch as if they were guarding a prison wall. The Euphrates River ran through the center of the city. There was a 30-foot mote outside the wall that ran around the city. The city was considered to be impregnable. It was believed that no military strategy could ever break through that wall.

At the time the city was under siege, it had twenty years of supplies. If they never grew another crop, they could have lived twenty years off the surplus. There was a prevailing smug of sophistication, an air of superiority, among the people of Babylon.

Belshazzar was so sure of himself that in his smug, pseudo-security he went ahead with his great feast in which he showed that he did not fear the army that surrounded his city.

We should keep in mind that Daniel was still living in Babylon. At the time of this narrative, Daniel was an old man. He had lived his entire adult life as a faithful believer in God in an utterly pagan culture.

The reason we are studying Daniel is that it answers the following question, “How do I live as a believer in the Biblical God in an unbelieving world?”

Scripture

Let us read Daniel 5:1-31:

1 King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand.

2 Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. 3 Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. 4 They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

5 Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. 6 Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. 7 The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing, and shows me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.” 8 Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation. 9 Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed, and his color changed, and his lords were perplexed.