Message of the Week!

The Little White Community Church

Scripture: Daniel 5: 1-6, 13-30 August 25, 2024

Message: “The Handwriting on the Wall!”

by Pastor George Gnade

Intro.: 1. All of us who are parents care about our children and our grandchildren. We hope and pray they will learn from us. I think Nebuchadnezzar felt that way too.

a. In Daniel 4, many believe Nebuchadnezzar had a conversion like experience. If you remember the story, the king was bragging about his greatness when his mind went crazy. He became like an animal, eating grass and growing feathers and claws until “seven times passed over him.”  

b. Most scholars believe that meant seven years in which his kingdom was kept intact until his sanity was restored to him. God had warned him it would happen but he didn’t listen.

2. In Dan. 3: 29, after God had spared Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego from the fiery furnace, the king had recognized their god “as the only god who could save in this way.”

a. But in Dan. 4, after God humbled him, Nebuchad-nezzar finally acknowledged Daniel’s God, to not only be a great god, but to be his God.

b. In Dan. 4: 34-37, after his sanity was restored, he made a proclamation saying: “Then I praised the Most High. I honored and glorified Him who lives forever and ever. His dominion is an eternal kingdom; His kingdom endures forever … Now I praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven… And those who walk in pride He is able to humble.”

3. After a testimony like that, I am sure he hoped his kids and grandkids would listen to him. But they did not. Historically King Belshazzar was his grandson. He was just as full of pride as his grandfather had been. (In the O.T., “to be the son of” simply means to be related. Frequently there is more than one generation in between.)   

a. What is worse, he took the gold and silver goblets that had been taken from God’s temple and put on a drunken party, praising the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.”

b. We must never give the glory that God deserves to the things He has made. That dishonors Him.

4. But King Belshazzar was as wicked and worldly as they come. I am not sure how many years passed between Nebuchadnezzar and him, but we do know that he forgot (or didn’t care) about Daniel. 

a. Not only that, his wickedness caused the nation to go downhill and God had had enough.

b. In Dan. 5: 5, it says: “Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall…in the royal palace.”

A. Let us begin with the king’s reaction.

1. In vs. 6, it says “his face grew pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.” My friends, worldly power means nothing when we come face to face with God. 

a. Nebuchadnezzar had learned the hard way.

b. His grandson should have learned from him.

2. Immediately he called for “the enchanters, the astrologers and diviners to be brought” to him.

a. He told them: “Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck. He will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.”

b. His own father, Nebuchadnezzar’s son, may still have been alive but too old to rule by himself. So King Belshazzar was offering the highest position in his power to give, placing whoever read the writings and explained them this position under him.

c. But he should have learned from his grandfather that these enchanters etc. could not help him.

3. But someone had learned where to turn in a time like this. The queen (mother) heard the uproar and came to the banquet.  She told the king in vs. 10-12: “Don’t be alarm-ed… There is a man …who has the spirit of the god’s in him. In the time of your (grand)father, he was found to have insight… Call for Daniel and he will tell you what the handwriting means.”

B. Let us consider what Daniel told the king.

1. He had not come to impress him. He didn’t want the rewards.

a. He began with a history lesson, explaining how God had dealt with his grandfather and how King Nebuchad-nezzar had learned his lesson.

b. But in vs. 22 Daniel says: “But you…have not humbled yourself (like he did) though you knew all of this. Instead you set yourself up against the God of heaven …and did not honor the God who holds your life in His hands.”

c. It is very dangerous to ignore the spiritual lessons we should have learned.  King Nebuchadnezzar considered what happened to him, including his restoration, to be a miracle of God’s grace. Yet Belshazzar ignored all of this.

2. So Daniel explained the message on the wall. It was simply 4 words: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin”  In Dan. 5:25-30, we are told what all this meant.

a. Mene – “God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.”

b. Tekel – “You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.”

c. Parsin – “Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.”

In conclusion: 1. Daniel was clothed in purple; but that very night, the king was slain and Darius the Mede reigned in his stead. History tells us all of this happened just as God predicted.

a. Back in Dan. 1: 15-21, we were told how Daniel and his friends were promoted by King Nebuchadnezzar to positions of power in Babylon. And in vs. 21 it says: “And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.

b. Darius the Mede was working under King Cyrus the great. In Dan. 6, Darius honored Daniel who then continued to serve the Lord under him.

2. As for King Belshazzar, the Medes and Persians entered the city that very night and took his life. He had had his chances and wouldn’t listen. His life was weighed in the balances and found wanting. He paid a high price.

3. This story explains why our country is in grave danger in our day.  We have been blessed by God and received the Word of God. Yet many are throwing God aside and choosing the pleasures of the flesh instead. 

a. Our country has more Bibles and churches than we can count. No one can say they didn’t know better. Like Belshazzar, many have deliberately chosen the ways of the world while rejecting what their parents taught them.

b. If God were to weigh us in His balances, I am afraid many in our country would be found wanting too.

4. Most conservative Christians believe Jesus could come anytime. May God help us to be ready when He comes. May God open the eyes of our children and grandchildren to learn from us and not turn away like Belshazzar did.