Your Days Are Numbered (Daniel 5)
Last year (2012), a South Carolina funeral home opened a “Coffee Corner right there in the home.” It had a fireplace, a TV, a free WI-FI connection, and it was stocked with Starbucks coffee. The funeral home director said that he hoped it would help mourners “get their minds off what's going on.”
At the time, a news magazine called The Week ran a contest, asking people to submit a name for this novel café.
Honorable Mention awards included …
• The Grim Roaster
• You Can Take It with You
• The Last Cup
• De-Coffinated!
• Perkatory
• Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
• Bean Nice Knowing You
• See Ya Latte
These were the top winners:
• Third Place: Latte for Your Own Funeral
• Second Place: Still Above Grounds Café
• First Place: Time to Meet Your Mocha (The Week, “The Week contest—Funeral home cafes,” 7-26-12; www.PreachingToday.com)
Somebody has a morbid sense of humor, but it only reflects our society’s efforts to avoid facing its own mortality. Many people don’t like to think about the end, so they do whatever they can to keep from considering it. Whether it’s putting a coffee shop in a funeral home, throwing a party when your world is falling apart, or just working more hours than one should, people do whatever they can to “get their minds off what’s going on.”
But is that the best way to approach life, especially when you sense that an ending is near, whether it’s the end of a job, the end of a relationship, or even the end of a life. Is it best to try and ignore such endings? Or is there a better way to approach life and death?
Well, let’s see what happened to a man, who not only tried to ignore the inevitable, he acted in defiance of it. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Daniel 5, Daniel 5, where we are introduced to King Belshazzar, king of Babylon and grandson to the great Nebuchadnezzar.
Daniel 5:1 King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them. (NIV)
He’s throwing a party even though his empire, the Babylonian Empire, is about to be overrun by the Medo-Persian Empire. You see, ever since his grandfather, the great Nebuchadnezzar, died 23 years before this, the empire has been in serious decline. Three kings followed Nebuchadnezzar, two of which were assassinated after very short reigns. The fourth king, Nabonidus, then came to the throne and ruled Babylon for 17 years, but towards the end of his reign, the Medo-Persian armies began to invade. Nabonidus left the city of Babylon with his armies to try and stop the Medo-Persian invasion, but he never returned. Nabonidus was defeated in battle and forced to spend the rest of his days in exile. He had left his son, Belshazzar, in charge while he was away, and Belshazzar now finds himself surrounded by the Medo-Persian armies. They had begun to lay siege to the city of Babylon, but instead of fortifying the city against the siege, Belshazzar throws a party, the party we see described here in verse 1 of Daniel 5.
After all, the city of Babylon is the greatest city in the world! The mighty Euphrates River flows through the city, coming in from the north and going out through the south – an unending supply of fresh water. The city itself is fortified by walls so thick that four chariots, side-by-side, can race around the top. Within the walls are beautiful avenues, parks and palaces. Many of the streets are lined with building 3 and 4 stories high. There’s the 8-story temple of Bel and the magnificent palace of the king with a banqueting hall that can hold a thousand nobles. A great bridge spans the Euphrates River, connecting the eastern and western sections of the city. And the city contains one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – the famous “hanging gardens,” which are large enough to support full grown trees! Furthermore, they have enough supplies to keep them going for 20 years against any siege (Walvoord, Daniel¸ p.119).
They’re invincible, or so they think, but Belshazzar had failed to respect the opposition. Even as he is throwing this great party, the Medo-Persian army has already begun to divert the great Euphrates River north of Babylon by digging a canal from the river to a nearby lake. The water level in the river is already dropping, and soon the Medo-Persian army will be able to march right into Babylon under its great walls through a shallow river bed from both the north and the south.
Belshazzar was so arrogant and convinced of his invincibility that he failed to respect the enemy, and that’s how any of us can get into trouble as well. My dear friends, uou know your days are numbered when you lose respect for the opposition, when you fail to appreciate how powerful and how cunning it can be.
In his book The Last Stand, Nathaniel Philbrick describes the reckless arrogance of General George A. Custer. In the spring of 1867, George Custer and his regiment were on a scouting expedition on the plains of Kansas. Suddenly Custer's English greyhounds, his constant companions, began to chase some antelope over a distant hill. In spite of himself, Custer could not resist joining the chase. It was not long before the general, his horse, and his pack of dogs had left his regiment far behind.
He quickly forgot his men and his mission when he crested the first hill and saw his first buffalo: an enormous, shaggy bull. He put the spurs to his horse's sides and began the chase. As the horse gained on the massive buffalo, Custer yelled with excitement. An avid hunter, he had to bring this trophy home. He drew his pearl-handled pistol. But as he came alongside the thundering beast and shoved the barrel into its thick shaggy side, Custer paused. Feeling the ground shake, hearing the ragged breathing of both animals side by side, he pulled the pistol back, to “prolong the enjoyment of the chase.”
After several minutes, Custer decided it was time for the kill. Again, He shoved the pistol into the side of the buffalo. But, as if sensing Custer's intentions, the buffalo abruptly turned toward the horse. The horse veered away from the buffalo's horns, and when Custer tried to grab the reins with both hands, his finger accidentally fired a bullet into his own horse's head, killing it instantly. Custer was thrown to the ground and then struggled quickly to his feet to face the animal that had been his prey only seconds before. Instead of charging, the buffalo stared at the strange, foolish man and walked off.
Horseless and alone, Custer began the long, dangerous walk back to his regiment. In less than a decade, this same reckless arrogance would lead the General and his men to their death on a flat-topped hill next to a river called the Little Bighorn. (Nathaniel Philbrick, The Last Stand, Viking Press, 2010), pp. xv-xvi; www.PreacingToday.com)
Like Belshazzar and many others before and since, Custer failed to respect his enemy and it led to his downfall. With reckless arrogance, he considered himself invincible, and he soon found that he was anything but.
You know your days are numbered when you lose respect for the opposition. So if you want to face life well even with all its harsh realities, then first of all, learn to…
RESPECT THE ENEMY.
Learn to appreciate how powerful and how cunning the opposition can be. And don’t assume with reckless arrogance that you are invincible against any foe. That’s why God says in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (NIV).
Dear child of God, don’t ever assume that you are invincible, or that you will never fall. Don’t ever assume that you will never get involved in an affair, or that you will never be addicted to anything, or that you will never succumb to ruinous sin. The enemy of our souls will do everything he can to bring us down, and we must ever be vigilant to his tactics, living in constant dependence upon our Lord, who alone can defeat the devil. Don’t live your life with reckless arrogance like Belshazzar did. Instead, in humble dependence upon the Lord, respect the enemy 1st of all. And then 2nd…
RESPECT THE HOLY.
Regard the things of God with reverence. Treat as special everything that belongs to God. That’s what Belshazzar failed to do. He not only failed to respect the enemy; he failed to respect the holy.
Daniel 5:2-4 While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father (i.e., his predecessor) had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone. (NIV)
Belshazzar took the vessels that had been created to serve the Living God, and he used them in a drunken orgy to honor his own dumb idols. He treated the holy with contempt, and it brought him down!
Daniel 5:5-6 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. (NIV)
His defiance turned to dread, and he could hardly stand anymore. Let me tell you: You know your days are numbered when you lose respect for the holy, i.e., when you fail to treat the things that belong to God with special reverence. Now, we don’t have goblets from the temple to deal with today, but there are plenty of holy things that our society has begun to regard with contempt.
For example, the 4th commandment says, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Exodus 20:8). Yet many Americans treat it as any other day, working seven days a week, in honor of the god of money. They worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship. Then they wonder why their values are so mixed up and they can hardly stand anymore. Most Americans are living in fear, because they are beginning to see “the handwriting on the wall” for themselves.
Another example is the way we treat the widows and orphans in our country, the elderly and the unwanted babies. James 1:27 says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” Psalm 68:5 says, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.”
Orphans and widows are holy to the Lord; they are special to Him. That’s why he says to His people in Jeremiah 22:3, “Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.”
And yet what have we done as a nation? We are slaughtering our unwanted unborn to the tune of 1.5 million a year, and we are encouraging our elderly to hurry up and die so they are no longer a burden. Abortion and euthanasia are commonly accepted practices in our country. Obama Care forces even conscientious objectors to pay for abortions and will cut off medical treatment for the elderly in order to save costs. As a nation, we’ve lost our respect for human life, which was created in God’s very own image. Then we wonder why our “legs have become weak” and our “knees are knocking.”
The great evangelical theologian, Carl F. H. Henry, sounded the warning way back in 1980. That’s when he wrote, “I think we are now living in the very decade when God may thunder his awesome "paradidomai" (I abandon, or I give [them] up) (Romans 1:24ff.) over America's professed greatness. Our massacre of a million fetuses a year; our deliberate flight from the monogamous family; our normalizing of fornication and of homosexuality and other sexual perversions; our programming of self-indulgence above social and familial concerns – all represent a quantum leap in moral deterioration, a leap more awesome than even the supposed qualitative gulf between conventional weapons and nuclear missiles. Our nation has all but tripped the worst ratings on God's Richter scale of fully deserved moral judgement.” (Carl F.H. Henry, The Christian Century, Nov. 5, 1980; www.Preaching Today.com)
Now, God in his grace spared us through the 80’s and the 90’s, but I wonder if September 11, 2001, was God’s handwriting on the wall for our nation. Thomas Jefferson, at the founding of our country said, “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberty of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that those liberties are the gift of God? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, [and] that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
Like Belshazzar, we are treating the holy with contempt, and the handwriting is on the wall. You know your days are numbered when you lose respect for the enemy and for the holy. So if we would prolong our days, by God’s grace, we must respect the enemy; we must respect the holy; and #3, we must…
RESPECT GODLY COUNSEL.
We must appreciate the advice of God’s holy Word. We must listen to it, heed its warning, and change our ways. That’s what Belshazzar failed to do. Instead, he turned to the voices of this world, but they were clueless.
Daniel 5:7 The king called out for the enchanters, astrologers and diviners to be brought and said to these wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck, and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.” (NIV)
His father, Nabonidus, is still the 1st ruler in the kingdom, even in exile. Belshazzar is therefore the 2nd highest ruler, ruling in his father’s place until he gets back. So the best Belshazzar can offer is 3rd highest ruler in the kingdom.
Daniel 5:8-9 Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or tell the king what it meant. So King Belshazzar became even more terrified and his face grew more pale. His nobles were baffled. (NIV)
The voices of this world have nothing to offer us. The enchanters, the astrologers, and the diviners of yesterday, or the philosophers, the psychologists, and the commentators of today, none of them know what they are talking about. At best, they can speculate, but their speculations are nothing but the baffled babblings of buffoons compared to what God offers us in His Word.
Belshazzar turned to the voices of his world, and he became even more terrified, because they had no answers for him. That’s when his momma, the queen, comes to the rescue.
Daniel 5:10-12 The queen, hearing the voices of the king and his nobles, came into the banquet hall. “O king, live forever!” she said. “Don’t be alarmed! Don’t look so pale! There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the time of your father he was found to have insight and intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods. King Nebuchadnezzar your father—your father the king, I say—appointed him chief of the magicians, enchanters, astrologers and diviners. This man Daniel, whom the king called Belteshazzar, was found to have a keen mind and knowledge and understanding, and also the ability to interpret dreams, explain riddles and solve difficult problems. Call for Daniel, and he will tell you what the writing means.” (NIV)
You see, Belshazzar had long since pushed aside the only person in his kingdom that could bring him God’s perspective. Daniel was nowhere to be seen among his advisors, even though Belshazzar’s grandfather considered him the wisest “wise man” in the kingdom. But for Belshazzar, Daniel’s advice was out of date. It no longer applied to the problems of a new generation, so Belshazzar pushed it aside. Now he’s in a panic, because nobody else has any answers for him.
Let me tell you, you know your days are numbered when you lose respect for the enemy, when you lose respect for the holy, and when you lose respect for godly counsel. So if we would prolong our days, by God’s grace, we must return to the counsel our forefathers depended on; we must return to the advice of God’s Word, and heed its warning. Call for the Daniel’s of old, the Jeremiah’s, and the Paul’s. Open up this Ancient Book (the Bible) and respect its counsel.
The Morgan sea gypsies are a small tribe of 181 fishermen who spend much of the year on their boats fishing in the Andaman Sea from India to Indonesia and back to Thailand. In December, though, they live in shelters on the beaches of Thailand. And that’s what they were doing in December 2004, in the hours before the killer Tsunami crashed ashore. The Morgan sea gypsies were living on those beaches. They were in harm's way and would have likely all perished – had they not listened to their elders.
For generations, the elders of the tribe had passed along one piece of wisdom. The tribe's 65-year-old village chief Sarmao Kathalay says, “The elders told us that if the water recedes fast it will reappear in the same quantity in which it disappeared.”
And that is exactly what happened. The sea drained quickly from the beach, leaving stranded fish flopping on the shore. How easy it would have been for those who live off of the sea to run down where the water had been minutes ago and fill every basket available with fish. Some people did just that in other areas of South Thailand. Not the Morgan sea gypsies. When the water receded from the beach, the tribal chief ordered every one of the 181 tribal members to run to a temple in the mountains of South Surin Island. When the waters crashed ashore, the 181 sea gypsies were safe on high ground. (“How 'Sea Gypsies' Survived the Tsunami,” Associated Press; www.PreachingToday.com)
They respected the ancient advice while everybody else followed the conventional wisdom of their world and perished as a result. My dear friends, as we face the end of our world as we know it, we would do well to do the same. We would do well to respect the ancient advice of God’s Word.
Don’t ignore the crisis or try to drown it out with parties or more work. Instead, by God’s grace, if we would prolong our days, we must respect the enemy; we must respect the holy; we must respect godly counsel; and finally, we must…
RESPECT GOD HIMSELF.
We must humble ourselves before Him and throw ourselves on His mercy. We must trust and obey the only One who can save us from our sins – and that’s the Most High God who is sovereign over all the kingdoms on earth.
That’s what Belshazzar failed to do; and as a result, he lost it all that very day. For years, he had pushed aside the only godly adviser he had, but upon his mother’s suggestion, he calls Daniel in, who is not afraid to tell him the truth.
Daniel 5:13-17 So Daniel was brought before the king, and the king said to him, “Are you Daniel, one of the exiles my father the king brought from Judah? I have heard that the spirit of the gods is in you and that you have insight, intelligence and outstanding wisdom. The wise men and enchanters were brought before me to read this writing and tell me what it means, but they could not explain it. Now I have heard that you are able to give interpretations and to solve difficult problems. If you can read this writing and tell me what it means, you will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around your neck, and you will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.” Then Daniel answered the king, “You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means. (NIV)
Daniel has no use for the Belshazzar’s worthless trinkets, but he will tell Belshazzar the truth.
Daniel 5:18-23 “O king, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness and glory and splendor. Because of the high position he gave him, all the peoples and nations and men of every language dreaded and feared him. Those the king wanted to put to death, he put to death; those he wanted to spare, he spared; those he wanted to promote, he promoted; and those he wanted to humble, he humbled. But when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory. He was driven away from people and given the mind of an animal; he lived with the wild donkeys and ate grass like cattle; and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven, until he acknowledged that the Most High God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone he wishes. “But you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this. Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. (NIV)
Oh, the courage of this man! Daniel is in his 90’s at this time, but he puts his finger right into the chest of the king and calls him an arrogant sinner. Let me tell you: Those who bow before God can stand before any man, and that’s exactly what Daniel does before the most powerful man in his world at the time. Daniel tells Belshazzar, “You did not honor the God who holds your life in his hand…”
Daniel 5:24-31 Therefore he sent the hand that wrote the inscription. “This is the inscription that was written: mene, mene, tekel, parsin “This is what these words mean: Mene (which means numbered): God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel (which means weighed): You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Peres (which means divided): Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” Then at Belshazzar’s command, Daniel was clothed in purple, a gold chain was placed around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom. That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two. (NIV)
Even while Daniel was talking, the Medo-Persian army was already making its way under the walls of Babylon undetected. It was too late for Belshazzar and the Babylonian empire, but maybe it’s not too late for you and me.
You see, you know your days are numbered when you lose respect for the enemy like Belshazzar did. You know your days are numbered when you lose respect for the holy and for godly counsel. You know your days are numbered when you lose respect for God himself. But if we would return to the Lord, even as Nebuchadnezzar did, if we would humble ourselves before the Most High God, then maybe God in His grace would heal our land and spare us from the judgment that must come on those who reject Him.
In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God said, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” Let’s humble ourselves before God today and ask Him to do that for our land.
We cannot ignore the handwriting on the wall any longer. We cannot try to push it aside with our parties or our work. Instead, we must face life with a respect for our enemy, a respect for the holy, a respect for God’s Word, and a respect for God Himself. In a word, we must humble ourselves before a holy God so that He can life us up again.
I think Nik Wallenda exemplifies the attitude every American Christian should have these days. He is an American follower of Christ who has become the most-watched high wire artist and daredevil in the world. His two most recent feats were seen by a billion people across the world. In 2012 Wallenda walked a tightrope across Niagara Falls. In 2013 Wallenda became the first person to high-wire walk across the Grand Canyon.
Wallenda knows that he will be tempted by pride, so after the huge crowds and the media fade away he engages in a simple spiritual discipline: he walks where the crowds have just stood and quietly picks up trash. Wallenda recently wrote...
My purpose is simply to help clean up after myself. The huge crowd left a great deal of trash behind, and I feel compelled to pitch in. Besides, after the inordinate amount of attention I sought and received, I need to keep myself grounded. Three hours of cleaning up debris is good for my soul. Humility does not come naturally to me. So if I have to force myself into situations that are humbling, so be it… I know that I need to get down on my hands and knees like everyone else. I do it because it's a way to keep from tripping. As a follower of Jesus, I see him washing the feet of others. I do it because if I don't serve others I'll be serving nothing but my ego. (Nik Wallenda with David Ritz, Balance, Faith Words, 2013, page 207; www.PreachingToday.com)
Nik Wallenda has learned an important secret to life. The Bible says, “Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (1 Peter 5:5-6). It's only when we learn to humble ourselves before God and one another that we truly succeed in life.
