The Handwriting On The Wall Series

This morning, we have the privilege of consider the actual historical and Scriptural event that resulted in our proverbial saying, “And I saw the handwriting on the wall.”

Obviously, the biblical story has made such an impression on people of our culture that 2600 hundred years later we still use the expression to communicate the idea that we saw a sign, or came to mental clarity, about some impending doom that would certainly come upon us with respect to some kind of relationship or our immediate future.

We often giggle when we hear the expression. Yes, it’s clever. But it was anything but a funny situation when the literal handwriting was placed on that wall in a Babylonian banquet hall so many eons ago. It signaled a final, sudden, immediate, this-life judgment of God that changed the fortunes not only of a king, but his own kingdom.

A question a wise man might ask is what was the recipe for such a disaster? What exactly was it that King Belshazzar did that resulted in such a sudden change in fortune—such a sudden, this-life kind of judgment? Surely the Bible tells us that there will be a day of judgment of one sort or another for us all, but as Hebrews 10:27 indicates, that judgment, whether it’s a judgment for reward or a judgment with regard to our eternal destiny, for most of us takes place after our physical deaths. Many great sinners are portrayed in the Scriptures, and most of them are judged in eternity as well. But there are some, like, Belshazzar, for whom judgment came suddenly in this life, as though God could no longer wait. The question for us this morning is determine how we can avoid such a fate for ourselves and for those we love. And so this morning, we’re going to examine this story from the perspective of what you don’t want to do if you want to avoid an immediate, this-life kind of judgment like the one Belshazzar experienced.

But before we get to that, a little background is necessary. First, who was this Belshazzar? Daniel introduces him without much explanation other than that he is now the King of Babylon the Great. There is no explanation of what became of King Nebuchadnezzar, the great king who we’ve just been told in Daniel 4 finally became a worshiper of the God of Daniel and wrote his testimony for his whole kingdom to consider. For that information, the pages of history will need to be consulted.

King Nebuchadnezzar had continued to be the great king of Babylon for a generation, for 43 years, until he died in 562 B.C. Five kings from his family succeeded him over the following 23 years. Two of their reigns were shortened by assassination, in one case, by members of the same family. It’s now 539 B.C., and two kings of Babylon, grandsons or great-grandsons of Nebuchadnezzar, are ruling. One is not mentioned here. His name was Nabonidus. He was out of town for these events. And had given co-regency, or shared his royal rule, with his son Belshazzar. During the reign of these five kings, amid all the changes and chaos, Babylon’s greatness had deteriorated, and its hold on its satellite nations had suffered. It is now October 12, 539 B.C. The great city of Babylon has come under siege by two of its formerly subjected peoples who had formed an alliance. The Kingdom of the Medes, today knowns as the Kurds, and the Persians, today known as Iran, had laid siege to the great city. So it would seem to have been a very strange time for the King of Babylon to be throwing a huge drinking party for all his officials, but such was the pride and bravado of the king. He perhaps wanted to show just how confident he was in his ability to maintain his own power. After all, Babylon was surrounded by two walls for 14 miles of its circumference. The walls were more than 100 yards high and had 250 towers another 100 feet higher. And archeological excavations actually revealed that the outer walls were thicker than the Greek historian Herodotus had reported. The outer wall was 133 feet thick for all that 14 miles. More than that, 20 years of provisions had been stored within the city and so it appears that the grandson or the great grandson of Nebuchadnezzar shared in his grandpa’s pride—the pride Nebuchadnezzar had before his conversion. This drinking party was perhaps an act of bravado, an attempt to demonstrate that the Kingdom really was in no danger after all. How could anyone, no matter how great, invade such an incredibly fortified city—Babylon seemed impregnable, as secure as man could make it.

So Daniel in the first few verses mentions several key details about this great banquet. A thousand nobles, their wives and their concubines attended. Alcohol was served, and upon tasting the wine, Belshazzar ordered the wine be served in the most excellent vessels that were available, those that consisted of gold and silver and had been imported from Solomon’s great temple of God in Jerusalem. And as they drank from these holy vessels, Belshazzar and his guests praised the idols of Babylon. The fact that women had been invited to such a drinking party promised that all sorts of pagan debauchery and immorality were to follow. But it was as the idols of every kind were being praised that the “signature” event occurred. God Almighty crashed the party with a mysterious message that completely unglued the previously carefree and arrogant king. This was the recipe for disaster, spiritually and every other way for Belshazzar. The handwriting suddenly and ominously appeared prominently on a wall in the sight of everyone attending the party—written by a disembodied hand!!! Whoa!!! What in the world was going? Who had interrupted the time of great revelry with such an ominous sign???