Dennis Tuuri

# The Kingdom Ours Remaineth

The kingdom ours remaineth. Amen. Our text today is Daniel chapter 5. We’ll see God preserving his kingdom, remaining in the hands of those who will honor him. You can follow along in the outlines that have been provided. This particular week, I don’t have a separate outline for the text. It’s actually put right into the structure of the reading of Daniel 5 that you have in front of you. And there’s also some structure to the first five sections that I’ve tried to demonstrate the way I’ve laid out the text as well.

I was at the ministerial conference in Idaho this last week. Wonderful conference. I’ll talk more about it in a minute. I think each of the four speakers acknowledged the work of James B. Jordan and his importance to their work. And now would be a good time to say that much of the outlines that I’ve provided in Daniel are his. Another set of outlines that’s very useful in studying Daniel are David Dorsey’s, but this is from Jim’s outline and the various substructures in the first five sections are his as well.

And so Jim has taught on the book of Daniel about a year and a half ago I think in Florida. Wonderful set of tapes to acquire. They’re in the church library. But I have them checked out until I’m done with my series. But it is Jim and his mature knowledge of this book. He’s probably studied this book more than any other. And so it’s a tremendous blessing listening to these tapes. And I wanted to acknowledge him as we look at today’s text and the way it’s structured.

So please stand and we’ll read Daniel chapter 5.

You can follow along in your notes or of course you could follow along in your own Bible or you could just listen.

King Belshazar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. Belshazar when he tasted the wine commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple of Jerusalem be brought that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines might drink from them.

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. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. 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. Then the king’s color changed and his thoughts alarmed him. His limbs gave way and his knees knocked together. 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 the interpretation shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.” Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation.

Then King Belshazar was greatly alarmed and his color changed and his lords were perplexed. The queen because of the words of the king and the lords came into the banqueting hall and the queen declared, “Oh king, live forever. Let not your thoughts alarm you or your color change. There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy God. In the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods were found in him.

And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, the king, made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and astrologers. Because an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems were found in this Daniel, which the king named Belteshazzar. Now, let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation. Then Daniel was brought in before the king.

The king answered and said to Daniel, “You are that Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom the king, my father, brought from Judah. I have heard of you that the spirit of the gods is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you.” Now, the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this writing and make known to me its interpretation. But they could not show the interpretation of the matter.

But I have heard that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Now, if you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then Daniel answered and said before the king, “Let your gifts be to yourself. Give your rewards to another. Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation.

Oh king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father kingship and greatness and glory and majesty. And because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled in fear before him. Whom he would, he killed, and whom he would, he kept alive. Whom he would, he raised up, and whom he would, he humbled. But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly.

He was brought down from his kingly throne and his glory was taken from him. He was driven from among the children of mankind and his mind was made like that of a beast and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed grass like an ox and his body was wet with the dew of heaven until he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sits over it whom he will. And you his son Belshazar have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this.

But you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. And the vessels of his house have been brought in before you. And you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know. But the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways you have not honored.

Then from his presence the hand was sent and this writing was inscribed and this is the writing that was inscribed. Mene mene tekel upharsin. This is the interpretation of the matter. Mene: God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. Tekel: you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. Upharsin: your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. Then Belshazar gave the command and Daniel was clothed with purple.

A chain of gold was put around his neck and a proclamation was made about him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. The very night Belshazar the Chaldean king was killed and Darius the Mede received the kingdom being about 62 years old.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your holy word. We are in awe of it. We delight in it. We luxuriate in the beautiful way you have revealed yourself to us in these words. We pray now that you would transform our lives by them. Show us the implications of King Jesus for our own evaluations. Help us, Father, to renew our commitment to honor you, our Father in heaven, as well as the authorities that you place over us in this earth. And help us, Lord God, be prepared that by the preaching of your word to partake of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper with you today. In Jesus name we ask it.

Amen. Please be seated.

Now what do these people have in common? Musicians all Sibelius particularly in his symphony number five, Eric Clapton’s band rock band, Dennis Brown reggae musician, George Jones of course country and western—what do these people have in common? Well you wouldn’t know but this morning they were what came up when I searched on my Rapsody online music program to hear songs this morning about Belshazar’s feast.

One of the things I like to do on Lord’s Day morning as I’m preparing to come here is to play music perhaps related to what I’ll be preaching on. And so I looked for music and found music from a classical composition, beautiful four-piece movement in Sibelius’s symphony number five. By the way, his second piece in that suite evokes our Psalm 27 music that we’re learning—interesting correlations. We know that well these other groups also have songs maybe not about Belshazar’s feast, although one of them that I didn’t name was Courtney Patty who’s a Christian singer. Very nice song about Belshazar’s feast and the handwriting on the wall.

These other men have handwriting on the wall words as well in their songs—the writing on the wall. Paul Simon, I didn’t come up with that this morning because it wasn’t in the title, but of course his song “Kodachrome” talks about how he’s able to read the writing on the wall. Bob Dylan no doubt has many allusions to the handwriting on the wall in his music, heavily influenced from the Old Testament as it is.

There was also, and I didn’t get the name here, but there was also an old spiritual gospel Negro spiritual that I listened to this morning about the handwriting on the wall as well. It’s a phrase that has become a truism you know that people use all the time. And many of these artists, think of the variety here. Reggae, you know, applying as they do this biblical truth to contemporary times. That is much of what reggae does.

The blues spiritual that I listened to, you know, relating of course the old gospel songs to modern times, their suffering in the context of where they were. Sibelius making a beautiful piece of romantic music about Belshazar’s feast and trying to capture Daniel 5 in a musical composition. George Jones using it in kind of a country western way talking about the handwriting on the wall and a little child that brings a father to tears over awareness of what he’s done and leaving the family.

Many venues, many different types of music, all focusing on the handwriting on the wall. Well, that all comes from our text here. And this text is the last night of Babylon, the last few hours of the great city of Babylon and the empire Babylon that had ruled now for decades in the affairs of the world. This is the second Babylon. Of course, the first Babylon built by Nimrod, Tower of Babel, was destroyed. This is the second end of Babylon, given over at the end of the chapter to the Medes and Persians, to Cyrus, the ruler of the Persian Empire.

This is the last night. This story involves just a few hours and ends with the collapse of Babylon and the triumph of God’s kingdom once more. It is, I’ll have to say, this is the fifth in a series of six stories in Daniel and then chapter 7 begins prophecies. This particular story is out of sequence chronologically. The next story will be about the Persian Empire. That’s okay. But then chapter 7 and chapter 8 are two prophecies, visions that are given to Daniel while serving Belshazar. Chapter seven in the first year of Belshazar’s reign. Chapter eight in the third year. And this is some years later, the events of today.

Well, why? Why not put those in front of this?

Well, maybe two reasons. One, because we then have a series of six stories followed by then the visions. Maybe that’s one thing. Or maybe another reason that’s going on here is this desire to show this pattern to compose the book and edit it in such a way as to show this flow of the Ten Commandments that we’ve been talking about this whole series. Now, I hope that as we read responsibly the Ten Commandments, you may be some of you who may be reviewing the stories in your head as we read responsibly those first five commandments so far and maybe this is a good way for you to meditate on the truths of these chapters from Daniel’s gospel—his good news—and it truly is that as we’ve seen. So maybe that’s one reason. In any event the book is composed, it’s edited into a form for artistic purposes and for purposes of helping us to understand it.

We will take a break in this sequence before we finish the last of this story section. Next Sunday, Ralph Smith will be preaching here at Reformation Covenant Church, pastor of a CRI church in Japan. He’ll also be teaching the Sunday school time here in the sanctuary. My class of 10 to 12 year olds will be in here listening to him. I don’t know what other classes plan on doing, but he’ll be talking about his work in Japan during Sunday school time and then be preaching for us next week. And so we’ll return to Daniel, Daniel chapter 6, two weeks from today.

I saw Ralph rather in Moscow as Isaac and I were over there most of this week, Monday through Thursday at the ministerial conference and I got to spend some time with him at Peter Leithart’s library and I wanted to mention one of the things that Leithart said in his talk, one of his talks at the conference.

The conference is on type and antitype and understanding biblical narratives and how to fully appreciate their allusions to other biblical imperatives. And one of the things that Peter talked about was his children brought to him a joke out of Reader’s Digest to say, “Dad, why is this funny? We don’t get it.” And the joke in Reader’s Digest was this. A priest, a rabbi, a woman, and a Buddhist all come into a bar. And the bartender says, “What is this? A joke?”

You know, if you’ve never heard stories where a priest and a rabbi and somebody else come into a bar that then becomes a joke, you don’t understand the punchline. But if you understand that then it’s maybe mildly amusing, somewhat funny, but at least you’ll understand what the point of the joke was. So context, understanding things, things we bring to a text are quite important.

We’ll be using some of Peter and the rest of the material we received at this ministerial conference this year, which is excellent. At our teacher training session on November 13th here, we’ll give our normal teacher training session, a couple hours, Saturday morning, donuts, coffee. It’ll be a lot of fun on how to teach the Bible. But this year, we’re going to broaden it out and include anybody that wants to come and learn more about how to teach the Bible to your kids, to your wife, to your husband, whatever it is—just how to teach the Bible.

And we’ll be including some of this material. And certainly, what Peter said about a contemporary movie is germane to this. And it may sound odd, but he said he likes to use Shrek, the movie Shrek, as a way to teach people how to read the Bible. Well, what is that all about? Well, again, it’s his understanding of context, motifs, narratives, etc. that you have to have to appreciate the jokes in the movie Shrek.

If you don’t understand the nursery rhyme, then when Farquaad and the gingerbread guy go back and forth—”Do you know the muffin man? The muffin man. The muffin man. Do you know the muffin man that lives on Drury Lane?”—if you don’t know the fairy tale, the little old rhyme, the fairy tale, the rhyme about that, it doesn’t seem funny to you. It may seem mildly interesting, but you don’t get it. If you don’t understand the story of Pinocchio, when the little puppet lies and says he’s a real boy.

And immediately after he says he’s a real boy trying to fool everybody, his nose starts to grow. He’s told a lie, you see. Well, if you don’t know the story of Pinocchio, it doesn’t make any sense. And if you don’t have some idea of fairy tale motifs of the person rescuing the maiden and killing the dragon, then when the princess gets mad at Shrek for not killing the dragon, you’re not, you don’t really understand why she’s getting upset.

He’s doing what’s logical, getting away without killing the dragon. But if you know the narrative, if you know that motif, rather that the dragon’s supposed to be killed, then it makes sense.

Well, what we’ve tried to say is that in the book of Daniel, there are all these allusions back to other stories. And if you don’t know those stories, you’re not going to understand fully the text in front of us.

Now, it stands on its own. It’s a narrative of actual events that happen, but it’s told in such a way and it happens in such a way God superintends it to bring in other accounts and then the text becomes a little more significant. If you were like Ezra, Mordecai, and Nehemiah growing up in Daniel’s Sunday school class in Babylon, right? He’s the old guy by now in our text. They were middle-aged guys, younger guys. They had no doubt learned from Daniel. Why not? He’s the wise man here that God has really used in a mighty way. They came over more recently.

If you were them and had grown up knowing the Bible and being taught the Bible and being taught by Daniel in Sunday school class, well, you would know some things about the text in front of us. You would know for instance when you hear this Belshazar and Belteshazzar—and you heard that Nebuchadnezzar named Belteshazzar Daniel and Belshazar—who was not really Nebuchadnezzar’s direct son. You’ll see that both of them being alluded to are sons and their names are almost identical. You would know the story of other twins. You would know of course the story of Jacob and Esau. You would think in terms of the first Adam and the second Adam, you would think in terms of, you know, bad son, good son. And so this story would appear to you to be kind of geared to the fifth commandment.

And you’d know that the queen here is not Belshazar’s wife. The text tells us that his wives and concubines were in the banqueting hall, but the mother comes in from outside when she hears the clamor. And then, so who is this queen? Well, you’d know the history if you sitting there hearing this at the time, you’d know that Belshazar was actually the son of Nabonidus, who was married probably to one of Nebuchadnezzar’s daughters. But in any event, she would be the queen mother, Nabonidus’s wife. Nabonidus had given over, excuse me, Babylon to Belshazar to rule. They were like co-regents.

When Belshazar says that he offers first the wise men and gives to Daniel the third rulership in the kingdom, that’s what he’s talking about. The first two are Nabonidus and Belshazar, his father. So you’d know that the queen is his mother. That she’s being—it’s a test of Belshazar. Will he honor his mother? She’s telling him to honor his father.

And then she talks about this other son of Nebuchadnezzar, right? Daniel. You’d know that Nebuchadnezzar is not the direct father of Belshazar, but he’s the father of the nation, right? Like George Washington is the father of our country. And you know that, after four or five different kings who had ruled between Belshazar and Nebuchadnezzar you could still talk about the empire as being fathered by Nebuchadnezzar because you know in Daniel 4 the whole thing was really solidified and became a theocratic kingdom. So you’d know all this and so it wouldn’t be unusual for you to think of this in terms of fifth commandment: who’s the true son? Will Belshazar honor father and his mother and will he honor the true son Daniel? And beyond him the greater son Jesus Christ. You’d kind of have that in your mind.

And as these vessels of the temple are brought into the banqueting hall of Belshazar, by the way, you’d also probably know that this wasn’t a big nice joyful feast going on. It sounds like that in our translation, but Daniel certainly knew and the contemporaries knew that big trouble was coming. By this time, we know, historical accounts tell us, and Jeremiah sort of hints at this as well, that Nabonidus, who was a ruler that had come along after some other godly rulers, had left Babylon. He was from Haran where Abraham came from. He was a moon worshipper, not a Marduk worshipper at all. He was troubling to the people of Babylon.

The successors to Nebuchadnezzar seem to be kind to God’s people. Evil-Merodach that Jeremiah identifies for us, the immediate successor of Nebuchadnezzar after he died, is the one who brought Jehoiachin back and this gave him rule, made him his right-hand man the way that Nebuchadnezzar had made Daniel his right-hand man.

So we know that after Nebuchadnezzar there was a series of God-fearing emperors but now we have this evil Nabonidus and his son Belshazar and they’re being judged by God and they’re about ready to be discarded. The next empire is coming. Cyrus has been around a long time. He’s on the march. He’s already routed Nabonidus in another battle. You would have known all this.

What Belshazar is doing is not making hay and making fun. He’s calling out his gods to protect him. He’s solidifying the empire and calling on the gods to protect him in this coming battle with this Cyrus guy. Well, as he brings these things into his own house, the house associated in the text with these false gods, right? He brings in the articles of the temple.

Well, you’d know the motif. You should know it here because I told you about this in Daniel chapter 1. What story do you remember from the Old Testament that you would have known in your history class? Story of Dagon where God’s temple item goes into Dagon’s house and what happens? Well, at first Dagon falls down before it. They set Dagon back up and the next night they come back and Dagon is broken. Now his hands are broken off. You know that God wars against the idols and that now we have the repeating of chapter 1 that began to tell us about this Dagon motif.

And here we have God warring against the idols and it’ll be finished now. The Dagon story will become complete in the Babylonian events that happen here. And you might even be wise enough to think, well, in chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar representing, you know, idol worship is caused to kneel before God, right? Nebuchadnezzar is humbled, taken to his knees. That great painting by William Blake, down on the ground, he kneels.

And now in chapter five, the idolatrous Belshazar will not just kneel, he’ll be broken. The kingdom will be over. Belshazar will be killed. He’ll be broken. Dagon first was caused to kneel, then was broken. Nebuchadnezzar brought to kneel and now broken. And you’d read these stories. So you’d get excited hearing this story as it begins to be told. You’d say, “How will this work out? What will it be like?” You’d know about this.

You would recall the Tower of Babel. We’ve talked about this. The plain of Shinar. Shinar is identified in chapter one of this narrative, right? Chapter 5 kind of repeats that theme again here because we have a new confusion of language. Tower of Babel—speech was confused. Now the people cannot read writing. The writing on the wall is confused to them. And so just as first Babel was judged with confusion and then scattering happened, now second Babylon is going to be terminated and there’s confusion of words that happens in connection with that.

So you’d know this. And you would take pleasure in this. You might even think in terms of the Babel narrative, you’d remember that Babel was a tower and a city, a place of worship and a place of civilization. And you may recall then as Babel rises to your head again as you read this Bible story, or hear this story read to you, when it’s received. You might recall then that in chapter 3, true worship, the true tower of worship is exalted. And in chapter four the true city is the emphasis, right? Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 4 said “this great city that I have built.” In chapter 3 he set up a tower to be worshiped.

So worship and city and the connection of worship to our culture. And you would have thought of those things. And this is the final judgment on Babylon. As you heard these three repetitions throughout this thing over and over again.

If you look at the text there’s a repetition of three things. Threes, threes, threes all over the place. And as you read that, you’d probably think in terms of, you know, Jonah, three days in the belly. We think of Jesus, three days in the earth. You might think of Joseph, three days, and he’s exalted. So you’d have all these connections to other stories where after 3 days, 3 months, or 3 years, final judgment is meted out either to complete destruction or to salvation and conversion.

So you’d be thinking about that, too, as you hear this story read and the triplets that run throughout it.

So you’d be bringing all of these things in. I mentioned this three. I’ve got three short application points at the end of today’s sermon. I had seven last week. Seven was the predominant image, right? Nebuchadnezzar’s creation and decreation was talked about in that text. Here we’ve got a three-fold period of judgment. Basically, an emphasis on three. And so, I’ll restrict my application instead of seven like last week, to three this week.

By the way, children, you should be filling in your outlines for today. We’ve already referenced some of the things on the outline. My apologies. Last week, there were two places on my handout where the number of spaces for the answer was one shy of what it should have been. I apologize for that. Hopefully, I’ve got them all correct today. But you should be filling out these children handouts and you can then be remembering these things that I’m talking about.

I’ve not given the first one yet. It’s important for us to recognize—as I said, we’re reading the narrative and we’ve just read of Nebuchadnezzar. Now we read about Belshazar. It’s easy to think it’s the next year. It’s not. 54 years roughly has passed from chapter 4 to chapter 5. Daniel had visions, two visions in chapter 7 and in chapter 8. Chapter 8 tells—in chapters 7 and 8, Daniel knows that judgment is happening. One of the ways Daniel interprets the writing is because God has already revealed to him in vision that judgment is on its way.

And Daniel probably would have thought of that judgment as the exaltation of himself. In chapters 7 and 8, one like the son of man receives the kingdom. And while we read that and think of Jesus, the son of man, ultimately Daniel would have had 40 years to read and become very familiar with Ezekiel’s prophecies. And in Ezekiel’s prophecies, over and over again, Ezekiel’s referred to as the son of man. So one like the son of man would probably be to Daniel himself. And that’s just what happens here, isn’t it?

We know that after Cyrus, the king of the Persians, takes over, he gives rule to Daniel after a few days. One like the son of man receives the kingdom, the next phase of the kingdom. Well, Daniel was sort of set up for all this stuff.

We don’t, you know, as we move from four to five, if we haven’t read seven and eight, then we’re not quite ready for all of that. There was, and I give it on your outline for the adults, there was this transition of rulers that I give you there, ending up in Belshazar at the end, and that’s where we’re at.

And so there is this span. That’s why I put a certain part of the chronology on the outline today—was to sort of let you remember that we’re talking here about something that happened later, many years later, 54 years later.

In Daniel chapter 8, by the way, at the beginning of Daniel chapter 8, Daniel says when he sees this vision that he’s in Persia, he’s in Susa, the capital of the Persian Empire. And, you know, the question is, is that just in a vision that he’s there, or is he really there? And a lot of commentators say in a vision he was there because after all, he was some poor, you know, Israelite servant in Babylon locked up. Well, we know that’s ridiculous. We know that Daniel is serving in the context of government. And so we tend to think that he’s in Persia as an emissary of the king. And that’s really reinforced because at the end of chapter 8, after the vision, Daniel goes about doing the king’s business.

What king? Belshazar. It’s been identified in chapter 8 as the third year of King Belshazar’s reign. And so Daniel’s doing the business of Nabonidus and Belshazar in the Persian capital. And so Daniel is acquainted with Cyrus. He knows what’s going on. He knows that they’re on ascendancy. He knows the prophecies. He knows all this stuff as he’s brought in to interpret the message that’s given to Belshazar spelling out the end of the Babylonian portion of God’s empire.

So children, you should be finishing writing in some of this. And of course, when Belshazar says, “Well, aren’t you one of the ones that my dad brought captive out of Judah?” We remember why people are coming out. Judah had become Egypt. We can, I suppose we’d want to think as we go from Nebuchadnezzar, theocratic king, to now several rulers later not knowing God and pretending not to know Daniel—a Pharaoh arises that knows not Daniel nor his God. Right? So we know this is, you know, another motif we would bring into our understanding of this text correctly—is to think in terms of what happened with Egypt and God’s people are going to be delivered again from an ungodly king and empire, by putting into the hands of Cyrus who will have them rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, who will tell everybody worship in the right way. Cyrus is devout. Isaiah talks about him as a shepherd.

So, so we can as we come to the text and we see now a Pharaoh arose that knows not Daniel nor his God. We know by the end of the tale what’s going to happen to that pharaoh? He’s going to die. God’s people are going to be delivered once more. So it’s all redemption songs as another reggae artist says. We have in the scriptures redemption song after redemption song. And this text is one of those joyful redemption songs.

One other aspect you’d bring to this text—we’ll get to the text itself here in a couple of minutes. But once you know these stories that you’re supposed to understand the correlations to, you’re going to sort of understand the text already and the details will simply be obvious to us.

What happens? Well, Nebuchadnezzar brings—comes in and where does the handwriting appear? Well, the text says it’s opposite the lampstand, right? He brings in these articles of the furniture. He’s drinking wine. He’s having a feast, which in—we’ll talk about this in a minute, but it’s a bread. It’s not the word for feast. It’s a word for a big bread. So he’s eating bread and wine. He’s got the lampstand there. And opposite, he’s got it lit because it says opposite the lampstand. The lampstand shows up this handwriting on the wall that spells out these words.

So the words which Daniel will say are words of evaluation and judgment are connected in the story to the lampstand. Well, if you’re Ezra or Ezra, Nehemiah, Mordecai, if you’re a good student of the scriptures, you knew what that lampstand was. It was a watcher tree, right? Now, hopefully most of us know that, too. The lampstand, Exodus says, was to be made to look—I think this—I’ll be right back.

Some of you have seen that lampstand that I bought in an antique store and it’s very accurate because it sort of looks like an almond tree. And in the Hebrew the word almond there—is no, really, it doesn’t mean almond. It means watcher. The lampstand is the picture of the seven eyes of God, right? The seven spirits of God in Revelation that go out and search out matters, light, overseeing, supervising. In the context of the temple the bread, the face bread, the presence bread, which is Israel. So God is watching over me, right? That old Gaither song, “God Is Watching Over Me.” Beautiful song. Our children should know it. They should know that God is watching over them. It’s a good thing. He’s protecting us. He’s taking care of us. But they should also know that he’s evaluating us.

“I see things.” No, it isn’t. Sorry. It’s the gold, you know, bronze thing I had. Not gold. I wish I had a gold one. This was gold.

So you would know, you would associate the judgment with the presence of God shining in this watcher tree evaluating and bringing judgments.

Now in terms of Babylon, right? You would know all of that. And in fact, the text tells us that the finger comes out from the presence of God. The text says, and we can identify that presence at the lampstand. I want to make this—so this is not 100% clear, but it seems like we’re to associate the presence of God overseeing the situation, knowing what’s going on, and that lampstand sending out these fingers and writing this judgment on the wall.

So you would have thought about that. See, at least the part where the lampstand is doing evaluation and judgment, you would have known as soon as you started to read in the text. They’re bringing in the stuff from the temple. Dagon, idols will be destroyed here. They’re lighting the lampstand. Woo! Something’s going to happen now. They’re drinking the wine. They’re eating bread, right? We would say, “Well, this is bad.” I guess to us it’s kind of an Indiana Jones moment, right? When they find the Ark of the Covenant, take the thing off, and God comes out and judges them.

Well, it’s not magic, but God does work through means. And you would understand that, and you would get excited hearing about this as God makes war against his enemies in this text. So you would have thought about all these things as we come to the text and it would have been an exciting story.

So let’s turn now to the text directly.

So if you could either open your Bibles or look on the handout and we’ll talk about some of the specific details in the text.

I suppose there’s one other element before we get started that you would also be aware of. You would know if you were raised with an understanding of the Old Testament that there was this thing in Numbers chapter 5 that was referred to as an ordeal of jealousy. If a husband suspects his wife of adultery, but there’s no evidence, she came in and they had to bring bread. Bread for an offering. And then when there—the woman had to drink from a cup that had holy water in it. It had dust from the temple floor. And then it had the words of the curse in the cup. You know, the text explicitly tells us in Numbers 5 he’s to write out the words of the curse.

So she’s guilty. This thing, this judge will come upon her. And then he’s to blot the words into the water in the cup. So words, holy water, dust from the temple. She’s to drink that. And if she’s guilty, her leg rots, her thigh rots, and her belly swells. False pregnancy. She will not have children. If she’s innocent, then she’s going to have children. So she’ll have a future or not depending on if she’s guilty.

And as you read Belshazar and his people drinking from the holy cups, right? And the words coming on the wall in association with that and Belshazar eating the bread. The feast in verse one means bread literally. There’s a different word that they could use for a rejoicing feast. This isn’t it. It’s a word that literally means that he made a great bread. So he’s got bread and he’s drinking and he’s got the words and God is going to inspect him. God is going to assay him. God is going to evaluate him and he’ll be found wanting.

All right? So those are things that we should know the tune of as we come to this.

And now let’s look briefly at the text and then we’ll draw some points of application for us.

Okay. So in this narrative the first thing that happens is Belshazar’s idolatrous feast of bread and wine. So immediately here Belshazar is placed forward for us. This is King Belshazar but as I said he’s really co-regent. He makes a great feast—that is bread—for a bunch of his lords and he drinks wine. So we’ve got bread and wine here at the context of his feast placed forward in the narrative.

Then he tastes the wine. He commands the vessels that Nebuchadnezzar his father—the first of several repetitions—is identifying this Belshazar as a son. He takes these things, these vessels out of the temple in Jerusalem, puts them into his house. Notice if you look at C and then C prime how temple in Jerusalem is house of God in verse three. So in verse two temple in Jerusalem, house of God—that’s the association that’s made.

And as we said before there are two houses here. Whose house will you live in? And his concubines, his wives. Now it’s important to notice this. His wives are there at the feast. The queen is not his wife. His wives and his concubines drank from them as well. They drank wine, praised the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. Gods that don’t hear, don’t see, don’t know. And Daniel will tell Belshazar in a few minutes, God knows, sees, evaluates. He hears these things. Their gods don’t know what’s going on. They’re false gods. They’re just empty items. But the true God is actually hearing.

And this says, we could see the correlation here: gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. This is basically the same configuration of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision in chapter 2 of the empire. So the empire here is being overseen by idolatrous lords and that’s what the first section tells us and that God is present now and he will evaluate. They’re praising the false gods. The true God will evaluate them.

Okay. Second section. Troubling words in the watcher tree. Immediately then, as they drink this wine, as the ordeal of jealousy begins, hands—as the evaluation happens, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace opposite the lampstand. So the lampstand is shining on them and revealing the words.

And then notice the king’s color has changed. His thoughts alarmed him. His limbs gave way and his knees knocked together. Well, his limbs gave way. Literally here, the knots of his loins were untied. That’s what it says literally here. And what it means is that the knots of his loins were untied. And when the knots of your stomach get untied, you release something comes out. So what’s happening here?

And the text, the translations are all too delicate for us. But you know his face changes color. His splendor in the King James changes. And then his thoughts—in the Bible his thoughts are in his heart. The thoughts of his heart alarm him. And his belly gives way and he soils himself is what it literally means here and then his knees knock together. Well, it’s a picture of ultimate fear and we have the ultimate judgment coming upon him here. He’s going to die.

But it’s also a picture of him being the opposite of what he’s supposed to be. Right? In Daniel 2, the emperor, the empire, the emperor representing it—gold in his head, silver in his chest, right? A bronze in his midsection, iron in his legs. Right? So here the same progression is being described, you know, face, chest, belly, and legs, but it’s all going south. Belshazar is collapsing. Babylon as the maintainer of this empire is collapsing.

So that’s what happens to him. And he calls to bring in the interpreters. They can’t do anything about it. Again, you know, the example here is of the threes that are described here. Enchanters, Chaldeans, astrologers, clothed with purple, chain of gold, third ruler in the kingdom, third ruler in the kingdom. Over and over again, threes in the context of judgment. Three is judgment and resurrection potentially, but they can’t do it. They can’t describe to him what’s going on.

He then is greatly alarmed and his rulers are perplexed as well.

Well, now in comes the queen mother. Because of the noise going on, the problems happening in the banqueting hall. There must have been great gasps, shouting, whatever. She hears these things. Now, notice that she’s not there. As I said, we don’t know for sure, but Nabonidus’s wife, who would be Belshazar’s mother, the queen mother, is probably a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar. And her actions here certainly bespeak someone who is faithful to Yahweh.

Again, here we have translated the spirit of the gods in Daniel, but really it’s the spirit of God. So it’s the same thing that Pharaoh said about Joseph, the same thing that Nebuchadnezzar knew about Daniel. And now the queen mother knows that the spirit of God’s in him. He’s right and all these other guys are wrong.

So she’s supposed to be seen, I think, as a faithful believer here. So she comes into the banqueting hall. She was outside. She was the queen mother. She wasn’t there with his wives. First thing she says, “Oh king, live forever.” Remember that. “Oh king, live forever.” Don’t become worried. She says, “There’s a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy God. In the days of your father. All this stuff he could figure out. King Nebuchadnezzar, your father. Your father the king.”

You see, father, father, father. That’s the emphasis here. Belshazar is being called to act as a true son of Nebuchadnezzar, his father. It’s like addressing civil magistrates today. Act like George Washington, the father of the country, believed in Jesus Christ, faithful churchman, solid believer. Be like dad is what she’s saying. If you want to be a son, if you want to survive the ordeal of jealousy and have fruit, have future, you should have been like your dad. You see, he’s not going to have a future. He’s going to be cut off because he didn’t honor his father.

And then again, she says, backing out the same way she said, “Excellent spirit, knowledge in this guy. These are found in this Daniel whom the king named Belteshazzar.” Why does the text tell us that here? To draw a connection between Daniel and Belshazar. They’re almost identical. They both mean basically the same thing: “God protect the king.” So we have this twinning again, reference to us. And who’s the true son? Well, Daniel. Who’s the true second Adam? Not us. The true son is the greater Daniel. Jesus. Now we can become sons too. And that’s what’s being offered to Belshazar.

“Let Daniel be called. He will show the interpretation.” Woman of faith. She knows God’s emissaries. His pastor will come out. He’ll know how to understand this stuff.

Then at the very center, we have this story of the third and final failure of the false wise men. This will be the third time they can’t predict and can’t understand what’s going on. They’re done. This is the end of the Chaldean wise men. You see, this is their third attempt in failure. Daniel comes in. The king says, “Oh, yeah. You’re that Israelite Jewish slave, aren’t you?” He still is proud and he’s treating Daniel lowly, but by the end of this section, Daniel is exalted.

So Daniel is at first showed as a beast in the king’s eyes, at the end exalted. We’ve seen this over and over again in the first five chapters of this book. Reminds him of his low heritage. “Well, I hear that the spirit of God is in you. We’ll see.”

Now, the wise men, they couldn’t do it. That’s at the very center of this chapter then—is this failure of old Babylon and its final rejection. Three attempts apart from the spirit of God. Three and out, three strikes, you’re out. That’s the end of it.

“I’ve heard you can,” he says, backing out the same way as he came in to the center. “And if you can do it, then you’ll get all these neat things. You’ll be exalted.”

Daniel then instead of immediately going to the interpretation gives a long story about Belshazar’s father. Right? The same story we read about in the last chapter. He says, “Well, keep your stuff. I don’t want money, but I will tell you what’s happening here. I’ll be a good servant to the king.”

Belshazar knows Daniel. He knows this story. We know because the text tells that he knew the story of Nebuchadnezzar. He knew the story of Daniel. He knew he wasn’t just some obscure guy. He’d been in the king’s business in Persia. He knew him. But he tries to belittle him at the beginning of this because he’s still not fully broken yet.

Daniel says, “Most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father—again, king—kingship, greatness. So he was exalted. He had all these neat things—peoples, nations, languages. Three. And then he says, his will is being done in the C-section as opposed to God’s will at the end of the story of Nebuchadnezzar.

Whom he would, he killed, he humbled. But he will be humbled as Daniel recounts the story of chapter 4 his heart was lifted up, spirit hardened, and that he dealt proudly. Three things again, right? Three descriptions of Nebuchadnezzar. And in opposition to that, what’s going to happen is he’ll be brought down and brought low. And that’s what’s described at the middle of Daniel’s story to Belshazar about Nebuchadnezzar.

And again here in this story, the last thing that happens before his complete humbling is his body is wet with the dew of heaven. Baptismal recreation. Nebuchadnezzar was raised back up knowing that the Most High rules the kingdom of men, sets over it whom he will. You see, in opposition to Nebuchadnezzar doing what he would.

“And you his son, Belshazar have not, Belshazar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all of this.” There’s the inspired guy. He’s the truth teller in this narrative. He tells us that Belshazar knew this story already. He knew the story of Daniel. You know all this, but you haven’t humbled yourselves. Unlike him, you’ve lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven and pride. You brought in all this temple stuff and you have met in the context of these gods of wood and stone. And it says, “But do not—they do not see, they do not hear, they do not know or evaluate.”

God is one who sees. The lampstand, what’s going on. He hears what’s being said in praise of these false gods. He will know and evaluate what’s happening in the midst of Belshazar’s feast. He’s not like the other gods. He’s a God who does see and hear and know. The God in whose hand is your breath and in whom are all your ways, you have not honored. He’s not honored God. He’s not given glory or weightiness to God.

And he then interprets the dream, or the vision rather, the handwriting from his presence—can I maybe say the lampstand from God’s presence—the hand is sent, the writing is inscribed. This is the writing that was inscribed: Mene tekel upharsin. These are weights.

Mene is a 60-shekel weight. Mene is a 60-shekel weight. Again is the Chaldean way of saying shekel. So it’s one-sixieth of a mina. And a parsin is a half mina. But it’s written in the plural here, so the parsin here is either 60 shekels, 90 shekels, but it’s at least 60 as much as the first one.

And these are terms of evaluation and assessment. Mina at the top is the title for what’s happening. The first word is the introduction. “A Belshazar. You’re being assessed. You’re being evaluated. The weight the judgment has come.” And we could almost think of the lampstand in the configuration. Seven things as a scale. God is weighing and evaluating Belshazar and his actions.

Assessed. And then the first one—your kingdom is weighed out. It’s pretty good. 30 shekels or 60 shekels, but it will be given to somebody else. You’ve been assessed, weighed out. You’re only a lousy little shekel, 60 shekel kingdom, one shekel ruler. You are lighter. You’re as light as you can possibly be and still draw breath. You’re a light thing. Why is he light? Because he has not given honor to God. He’d had a great tradition of it. Father of the country was a believer.

Evil-Merodach, the next after him, Evil-Merodach brings back Jehoiachin. He’s a believer. Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter here, probably the queen mother. She’s a believer. He’s got heritage, but he hasn’t honored God. And when we don’t honor God, we become light like the dust, like the chaff which the wind drives away. Right?

And then Parsin, multiple of 30, is your kingdom which will be given now to the Persians. So the basic idea is pretty easy for us was hard for them because there were no vowels. It was a series of consonants. Where do you break the words up? What do they mean? Wasn’t hard for Daniel. Inspired by God—certainly we don’t want to leave that out. But you know he’s got a lot of understanding already. He had those visions in seven and eight. He knew Belshazar was coming down. He knew the Belshazar that his dad was not only not worshiping Yahweh, he was worshiping some moon god and trying to convince everybody of that. He was a crazy person. He knew this. He knew God’s judgment was coming. He knew Cyrus was getting strong.

So he had revelation from God. He had observations of his own. And then when he comes in and he’s told they’ve got the lampstand in there and they’re drinking wine out of the cups and they’re eating bread, you know, it’s not hard to figure out. God will evaluate and reckon.

So he sees the letters and he can fill in the vowels real easily.

Time of evaluation, test, final exam, quizzes are due, evaluation of you. Your kingdom’s great. You see, the kingdom belongs to, you know, Jesus. It’s always his kingdom. Particularly now in the period of this empire, the kingdom is going to be given to the shepherd, Isaiah calls him, to Darius the Mede, Cyrus is the other name, and he’s going to take care of it.

So it’s not, when the—your King James says divided at the end. Well, the king Babylon wasn’t divided. It was paid out, which is another use, another meaning of the same term. It was given over to the Persians, taken away from Belshazar. He’s the one ultimately being evaluated. He’s the one that’s going to die and the entire Babylonian Empire will be transferred over now to the Persians. That’s what Daniel says is happening.

“You have been weighed in the balances. You’ve been evaluated by the eyes of God. God has seen, heard and he knows, he makes judgments. He’s evaluated you and you are too light in the scale. You’ll be destroyed.”

And the amazing thing is, I mean you think Belshazar is going to say “well, get out of here, right now I don’t need to hear this,” but he doesn’t, does he? The text ends by saying that Belshazar gave the command Daniel was clothed with purple, chain of gold put around his neck, proclamation made that he was the third ruler in the kingdom, and that very night Belshazar the Chaldean king was killed.

The reason I’ve got 31 in italics is that may be better seen as the introduction to the next chapter. So that this chapter begins and ends with Belshazar. But then Belshazar’s death. But it is important that we know that what was prophesied, that’s being given over to the Persians, actually occurs within that very night they control Babylon and after a few days the governor who ruled for a couple of days in Belshazar’s stead then transfers, actually does give it over to Darius the Mede or Cyrus and to the Persians.

So it’s done.

Well, what can we say in terms of our lives? Three very simple points.

First, children should remember and honor their fathers in the faith and their mothers in the faith. Children should obey the fifth commandment. And Belshazar should have obeyed his father—not his immediate father, but his father in the faith, the father of the nation. He should have honored him and honored his immediate mother.

He does that though, doesn’t he? She says, “Bring in Daniel.” And he actually honors his mother. He listens to her and does what she says. Hopeful sign. He doesn’t honor Nebuchadnezzar, but he does honor his mother.

And there are various fathers in the families, children. You know, you think it’s unimportant whether you honor your parents or not, but this tale tells us that an evaluation happens. You will be assessed and evaluated at various times in your lives. God will bring judgments. He’ll make you humble, kneeling like Nebuchadnezzar, or in some cases, he will break you totally and kill you because you do not honor your parents.

What’s the promise of honoring your parents? Living long in the land, being part of the empire, living. And the curse if you don’t honor your parents is this destruction that comes upon Belshazar.

Children, take away from this lesson the requirement to honor your parents. But we all need to honor our parents. We have other fathers. We should honor the father of our country, George Washington. We should honor the rulers who rule for King Jesus. You should honor your fathers and mothers in the context of the church.

You know, you’re going to come up here, have communion, and there’s going to be lampstands standing up here, won’t there? Guards guarding the table, evaluating you, sifting you out. Yeah. They’re called elders. And our eyes are like lights, like those lampstand lights looking at you, thinking of you. And we will have made evaluations. We have over the years that you cannot come to this table if you’re in sin. You see, the lampstand is there.

Even more than that, the true presence of God is here. We’re going to get a lot of things wrong. I don’t see too good. God sees. You come forward and take these elements today in a state of rebellion against your parents. Expect illness, death. That’s what happens in First Corinthians—we’re warned about that. It’s an example for us. So we should honor parents. Are you going to be a true son or a false son? Daniel, named by Nebuchadnezzar, Belteshazzar, or Belshazar, which are you going to be? You’ll be assessed.

Will you be too light? Gave a quiz to my Hebrews class in Sunday school last week. Too light. Many of them failing grades. One shekel at 100 points—one point, something like that. I don’t know. The point is assessments and evaluations happen.

Belshazar had to be taken back to first things, right? He had to be reminded about how the theocratic kingdom began. Well, we’re in a church and you people that are new to the church, there are some church fathers walking around this place. Dan P., Takashi Fakuda, Howard L., Vic Couture, Doug H. the wives of many of these people—very important people to you. God taught us first lessons here, right? Establishing this church. Will you turn away from them? Will you forget them? Will you just have a good time in your life? Or will you try to honor God in what you do?

What about this day? I give you a way to honor God today. I give you the Oregon City Prayer Walk. If you understand the mission of the founders of this church and you understand that we didn’t want to just get together and have a good time, time. We love doing that. But we’re here to change the world person by person, city by city. We’re not sitting around waiting for the end. We’re taking the end to the city that rejects Jesus Christ. That’s who we are. And we have worked our hearts off doing this.

For 20 years, these men I have just named and many more that came after them have worked hard. Young people, we want you to rejoice and party. That’s a good thing in the Lord in a way that’s honoring to him. But we want you to work. We want you to take up the mantle. We don’t want, you know, in another 5, 10 years at this church to be evaluated and God says, “No good. You got to be taken down to your knees or even worse, no good. It’s out. RCC is done.”

We don’t want that. You’re the key. Young people, teenagers, young adults, will you carry it on? We’re going to start dying. We’re going to be like Nebuchadnezzar long gone when some of these judgments happen. Remember the first things.

What’s more important to you today? I know that Sunday is a good time for rejoicing and getting together, but Sunday is also a day to do benevolent work to go out there and pray for this city. We don’t ask you to do that much. We’re asking you today, will you come out or will you go sit around, you know, a lake somewhere or a river? It’s okay to sit around rivers. Good thing to do. Daniel did it. But, you know, we think the fathers have told you that we think it’s important today to have our presence known in Oregon City by way of prayer, asking God, the great watcher, right? To evaluate this city and to start to move in the context of it.

Specific way to do it. Another specific way to do it. Get registered to vote. October 12th last day. October 11th, the offices of the election offices closed. Columbus Day. Do it by the weekend. Next weekend, register others. We’re brought to the kingdom the next four weeks to vote on particularly important matters including marriage as it will be known in Oregon for a long time. If we lose this battle where the homosexuals have focused things will be changed that we will not honor the father of this state Jason Lee.

Let’s remember his example. Why did he come to Oregon to preach the gospel? Why did he start what became, you know, Willamette University to bring the gospel of education? Why did he want statehood and a provincial government established because he knew the crown rights of Jesus over government. We should know this stuff and we should want to come to the kingdom this next month in voting and in talking to people to accomplish change and to honor God with the way we vote.

You know what did I read? What did I hear? I heard something. I got an email that said young people last election 450,000—and I don’t know what’s this in is this in our state I don’t know—but only 300,000 of the 450,000 in the 18 to 29 year old age group excuse me, 300,000 did not vote, only 30% of the young people 18 to 29 even bothered to vote last election four years ago, whatever it was. It’s important to call our state to honor its father Jason Lee.

So first of all, the first of these three simple applications: children, reverence your fathers in the state, in the church, in your homes. Understand that you will be assessed, evaluated. Judgments will happen. Grades will be given. Tests will be distributed, collected and graded and they will be of such a type in some of you that you’re going to wet your pants. There will be fearful things that will come upon those who reject the value and wisdom that this church, the holy God who created you and redeemed you brings to you.

You don’t want to be like Belshazar needing to change your clothes. You want—when the test comes around, the evaluation happens, you want to be like Daniel, confident, knowing that you’ve honored God.

Secondly, mothers, encourage yourselves to pray for your children even when it looks bad. The queen mother undoubtedly a believer. She says, “Live, O king, forever.” Remember I said, “Remember that.” That’s her prayer for her son. A son that she knows is wicked and nasty and mean. Her dad is nuts. Her husband is nuts. She’s suffered for 20 years or so. I don’t know how long, many years watching the foolishness and the effect of the foolishness and the deterioration of the kingdom. And she prayed for her son.

Reminds me of that old Merle Haggard song, “Mama’s Prayers Are Always with Me.” Are your prayers, mothers, always with your children? Even those who are apostate and rebel.

This is a deathbed conversion. Her prayers are answered. That may be news to you. But look, he honors his mother. And then after Daniel brings him to humility, he honors Nebuchadnezzar by doing with Daniel what Nebuchadnezzar had, giving him rule and reign and blessing. And he honors his Father in heaven by exalting his man, the one full of the spirit, to the third ruler in the kingdom.

I think we have every reason to believe that Belshazar will see him in heaven. Mama’s prayers were answered on and he didn’t know it was going to be his deathbed, but his deathbed. Three hours later, he’s dead. But I think those last three hours were spent in repentance before God. He honored God’s men instead of striking out at him. He honored him the same way that Nebuchadnezzar had. And it sort of brings to the conclusion this Babylonian cycle. Nebuchadnezzar elevated Daniel. And now Belshazar elevates Daniel. And the mother’s prayers are answered simply by enlisting to Daniel first and then being brought from a position of ridiculing him to honoring him with purple, gold and rule in the kingdom.

Mothers, do not give up praying for your children. And even if they’re doing well, regular prayer for our—of course Dad should be praying too obviously, but mothers—the text tells us a mother’s prayer is wondrously answered here.

Now her son has to die. There are consequences for sin, you know. In that movie Sean Penn about the death penalty, right—probably intended to be anti-death penalty, but it’s when Sean Penn sees that he cannot get out of capital punishment, all his appeals are exhausted, then he deals seriously, then he confesses his sin, then he repents. He’s still got to be executed because he is guilty of murder. The right thing is to execute him. And that very execution is what brings him to his senses.

Belshazar is the same here. He knows what Daniel said is true. He is too light. He is destroyed. His kingdom will be given to Cyrus, who he knows is at the gate. No sense in consulting the gods. Humbly admit what I’ve done is horribly wrong. Take my medicine, death. But he knows that he’ll live eternally. And his mother’s prayer will be answered that way.

And then third—so children, honor your parents, applies to us as well, the authorities that God places over us. Mothers, pray for your children. And third, be very careful while you come to this table. This text is a text about sacramental efficacy.

As I said, Belshazar is eating bread. He’s drinking wine in the presence of the evaluating God who is with us. And we sang this morning about God descending, about us going up. We meet with God in a special way. The elders represent Jesus Christ standing here. The eyes of the lampstand looking over you as you come up. It’s a comforting thought. Hopefully, hopefully, you know, you can call on us when your times are troubled, when you have difficulty or when you want to share joy, when you need instruction. Hopefully, we’re a comfort to you in many ways.

But there should also be an element of fearfulness, a proper fearfulness as we come to the table. And if we’ve made light of God this week, don’t not come to the table, but repent of that lightness you’ve given to God as you come to the table because it is effectual, not magic, but the Lord God sees fit to work through the lampstand, the vessels of the temple, the wine. He sees fit to work in that way, bringing his word to bear and bringing about this ordeal of jealousy, judgment.

He sees fit to do that. And he sees fit to take the elements of the Lord’s Supper and have them be at one level an ordeal of jealousy to us. Have we been adulterous this last week? Literally, hopefully not. But spiritually, maybe so. And if we come to this table in a state of unrepentant spiritual adultery, we can expect our belly to swell, our thigh to rot, our future to be cut off, some to get sick and some even to die.

Sacramental efficacy and a carefulness as we come to the Lord’s Supper every Lord’s day is the third and final application. Judgment: Jonah and the belly of the whale, three days, but unto repentance and conversion, even of Belshazar. We’re Belshazars in the text, aren’t we? We’re the ones who all too often treat God lightly and we become light. Daniel’s a picture of the text of Jesus Christ bringing the word to bear upon our lives. And like redeemed Belshazars we should come forward and offer ourselves afresh to the kingdom of God in the offering of our tithes and offerings and as we partake of the Lord’s Supper recommitting ourselves to treat God with all the glory, all the weight, all the importance that he is due as our creator and redeemer. And as we do that indeed we will change this city and the world.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for this wonderful text. We do pray that as we come forward, you would do your business with us. Give us, Father, the faithfulness of the true son, Jesus Christ, that we may be your sons and daughters in this world. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.