The Writing on the Wall
Mar 18, 2012 Dan 5
Intro:
There is a fairly common English idiom, you’ve probably heard: the writing is on the wall. It is a portent of doom or misfortune (Wikipedia) – something bad is going to happen; you should be able to see it coming because the writing is on the wall. The expression comes from today’s story.
Let me set the stage. It is at least 20yrs later than the previous chapter, where King Nebuchadnezzar commits the sin of pride and ends up going mentally ill and living like a wild animal. As we saw last week, he was restored from that but now he has died, and a new King is on the throne. But it is not going well – the Babylonian empire is crumbling, and the Persians are just outside the city ready to attack. Daniel is around 80 years old, and had probably been living quietly in the city for the past 20 years or so as political power has shifted around. And just as an aside, if you enjoy reading history this is a fascinating chapter to dig into and try to really figure out who is who and how it all fits together with historic accounts from outside of Scripture.
There is one other piece you need as background to really understand the story. Kings of this time were comfortable acknowledging the existence of all kinds of different gods. And most of those gods were attached to different nations, and the stronger gods were the ones whose armies won the battles. The armies would then seize religious artifacts as symbols of their victory over the other gods, but they would generally still have some respect and even superstition towards those objects, as they still were attached to supposedly real supernatural beings, who could still wreak some minor havoc if they were overly insulted. A King would have to be pretty drunk to get brazen enough to directly insult another nation’s god.
Dan 5 (NLT):
1 Many years later King Belshazzar gave a great feast for 1,000 of his nobles, and he drank wine with them. 2 While Belshazzar was drinking the wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver cups that his predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken from the Temple in Jerusalem. He wanted to drink from them with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines. 3 So they brought these gold cups taken from the Temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. 4 While they drank from them they praised their idols made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
5 Suddenly, they saw the fingers of a human hand writing on the plaster wall of the king’s palace, near the lampstand. The king himself saw the hand as it wrote, 6 and his face turned pale with fright. His knees knocked together in fear and his legs gave way beneath him.
7 The king shouted for the enchanters, astrologers, and fortune-tellers to be brought before him. He said to these wise men of Babylon, Whoever can read this writing and tell me what it means will be dressed in purple robes of royal honor and will have a gold chain placed around his neck. He will become the third highest ruler in the kingdom!
8 But when all the king’s wise men had come in, none of them could read the writing or tell him what it meant. 9 So the king grew even more alarmed, and his face turned pale. His nobles, too, were shaken.
10 But when the queen mother heard what was happening, she hurried to the banquet hall. She said to Belshazzar, Long live the king! Don’t be so pale and frightened. 11 There is a man in your kingdom who has within him the spirit of the holy gods. During Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, this man was found to have insight, understanding, and wisdom like that of the gods. Your predecessor, the king—your predecessor King Nebuchadnezzar—made him chief over all the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and fortune-tellers of Babylon. 12 This man Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar, has exceptional ability and is filled with divine knowledge and understanding. He can interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve difficult problems. Call for Daniel, and he will tell you what the writing means.
13 So Daniel was brought in before the king. The king asked him, Are you Daniel, one of the exiles brought from Judah by my predecessor, King Nebuchadnezzar? 14 I have heard that you have the spirit of the gods within you and that you are filled with insight, understanding, and wisdom. 15 My wise men and enchanters have tried to read the words on the wall and tell me their meaning, but they cannot do it. 16 I am told that you can give interpretations and solve difficult problems. If you can read these words and tell me their meaning, you will be clothed in purple robes of royal honor, and you will have a gold chain placed around your neck. You will become the third highest ruler in the kingdom.
17 Daniel answered the king, Keep your gifts or give them to someone else, but I will tell you what the writing means. 18 Your Majesty, the Most High God gave sovereignty, majesty, glory, and honor to your predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar. 19 He made him so great that people of all races and nations and languages trembled before him in fear. He killed those he wanted to kill and spared those he wanted to spare. He honored those he wanted to honor and disgraced those he wanted to disgrace. 20 But when his heart and mind were puffed up with arrogance, he was brought down from his royal throne and stripped of his glory. 21 He was driven from human society. He was given the mind of a wild animal, and he lived among the wild donkeys. He ate grass like a cow, and he was drenched with the dew of heaven, until he learned that the Most High God rules over the kingdoms of the world and appoints anyone he desires to rule over them.
22 You are his successor, O Belshazzar, and you knew all this, yet you have not humbled yourself. 23 For you have proudly defied the Lord of heaven and have had these cups from his Temple brought before you. You and your nobles and your wives and concubines have been drinking wine from them while praising gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone, gods that neither see nor hear nor know anything at all. But you have not honored the God who gives you the breath of life and controls your destiny! 24 So God has sent this hand to write this message.
25 This is the message that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, and PARSIN. 26 This is what these words mean:
Mene means numbered. God has numbered the days of your reign and has brought it to an end.
27 Tekel means weighed. You have been weighed on the balances and have not measured up.
28 Parsin means divided. Your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
29 Then at Belshazzar’s command, Daniel was dressed in purple robes, a gold chain was hung around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom.
30 That very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, was killed.
31 And Darius the Mede took over the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.
What does it Mean?
Easter weekend is three weeks away on April 6-8. Our preparation for Easter this year has followed the theme of awakening, with the hope that the lessons we see in the book of Daniel would reveal to us some areas of sin in our own lives, that we could then deal with, confess, be forgiven, and experience that newness, that awakening, that comes from our experience of a right relationship with God. It is an extended season of repentance, of preparation, or readiness to come once again to the cross and the empty tomb, and to celebrate once again the incredible truth of forgiveness, freedom, and right relationship with God.
Last week we considered the sin of pride – a substantial one in our culture and often in our own lives. At the root of it is leaving God out, doing life ourselves and on our terms, and reducing God to nothing more than a cosmic power to call in when our own power is not enough rather than making God truly our Lord and King. We saw what happened to Nebuchadnezzar, both when he sinned and when he repented. Today’s story is similar, expect Belshazzar does not repent of his sin and so we see the consequences of that as well; that very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, was killed.
But this story is not only the sin of pride. It is rooted a little deeper, in the sin of blasphemy. Here is another sin we don’t talk about all that much today. I think because we don’t really have much of a clue what it is. What do you think, how would you describe blasphemy?
In the story, the heart of the sin is the king taking the holy objects and drinking from them and using them to praise their idols. This is clearly an act of blasphemy.
But how does that translate today? Back then there was a clear division between the things of God and normal things – items and places and even people were set aside, called holy, and reserved only for God. Obviously, then, misuse of those holy items was an act of blasphemy. But now that is no longer the case, most vividly illustrated by the death of Christ and the act of the temple veil being torn in two, now we can know God directly, intimately, personally. We no longer recognize things as inherently holy. Probably the closest we have would be our Bibles. We still call them the Holy Bible; yet none of us would be terrified of eternal damnation if we dropped ours in a puddle getting out of our car to come into church. Oh, yes, we would be upset and disappointed, but we wouldn’t consider it a grave sin.
So what does this mean; is nothing holy? Our entire basement was destroyed, and then our entire main floor contaminated with diesel exhaust. Are any of us deeply disturbed in the depth of our souls because precious, priceless, spiritual artifacts, imbued with a deep unique holiness have been impacted? Nope, it is all stuff. Important, needing to be cleaned or replaced, but we are not in mortal fear of divine punishment for mishandling holy artifacts.
So is nothing holy? Or, perhaps, is everything? Here is what one commentator writes: Or is it the other way around? It is not that there is nothing holy, but that everything is holy. This makes sense, does it not, as we consider the difference with the Old Testament era? Whereas before Christ God made his presence known in a special way in a certain location; today we can meet God anywhere, in a church, a street, a car, our homes, a bar.
Such an understanding intensifies the concept of blasphemy. Blasphemy is not just defacing a church or a cross. It is a misuse of any part of God’s creation. An assault against a fellow human being is an act of blasphemy. After all, we are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27; James 3:9). An angry word spoken against a fellow believer is an act of blasphemy. After all, Christians are all temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16). The destruction of the environment for selfish purposes is an act of blasphemy. The land, the air, the seas are each the creation of our holy God.
Again, when we fully understand blasphemy, we are staggered by the extent to which each and every one of us is implicated. The implication, however, should not come as a surprise. Like Belshazzar, we know all this. (Tremper Longman III. Daniel: The NIV Application Commentary. p. 152-153).
Conclusion:
To me, and to us, maybe the terms aren’t really that important: if blasphemy is too strange a term to you, forget it. Don’t get caught up in it. Because here is the question that really matters and that must shape our weeks leading up to the cross and the empty tomb: does your entire life please and honor God? Do we recognize all the amazing realities around us as part of God’s creation, and live as if God is in it all and part of it all? Or do we continue in sin, squirrelling away parts of our lives, compartmentalizing and believing well, this part and that part are for God, the others are for me. I can do as I please with those. If so, we are raising the glass with king Belshazzar, participating fully in his sin of pride and blasphemy.
But there is a better way to live. Humbly recognizing everything as a gift from God. Seeing God in it all and through it all, and approaching every decision and action from the freedom and love that accepts the gift, enjoys it, celebrates it, and gives it back to God. Living in holiness and righteousness rather than continuing in sin. It is a better way to live.
So let us walk to the cross and the empty tomb. Since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. 2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. 3 Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. (Heb 12).
