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*The Price of Rejection; The Unforgivable Sin*
*Daniel 5 July 18, 1999*
* *
*Introduction:*
This chapter we read this morning gives us the high points, or essential details, on an intriguing story of truth and disaster.
But it leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions.
Such as who is King Belshazzar and what point are we now at in Babylonian history?
How did this transistion take place, seemingly so easily, from the world empire of the Babylonians, to that of the Medes and the Persians.
Why does it appear that Daniel was no longer intimately involved in the royal court?
Why wasn’t he at the party, and why didn’t the king seem to know about him?
Why did Belshazzar take out the holy goblets?
And why was he having this banquet anyway?
Who is the queen who seems so wise in the face of such a seemingly foolish king?
Why didn’t Daniel want the reward at first but then took it later?
Why was Daniel’s attitude different toward Belshazzar than it was toward Nebuchadnezzar?
How did Daniel interpret words that should have been obvious to the diviners?
Why didn’t Belshazzar repent, and why wasn’t he given more of a warning?
Why did God even give him this message?
Why does it appear that the king was afraid of the message before he knew what it was, but not after?
In a nutshell, what was this king’s problem?
These are important questions if we are to understand what we must apply from this passage of truth.
Asking such questions is a very effective way of studying the Bible.
We learn much as we seek and find the answers.
So we need to take a look at some of the historical context around this story.
History is important for present lessons and direction.
In our own culture there is a present attempt to rewrite our history (called revisionism) in an effort to make certain problems and truths conveniently disappear.
The purpose for this is so that present beliefs and actions may be redirected without the conscience of the past.
But we will have to pay the price of learning the same lessons all over again.
Perhaps the historical and spiritual lessons of this chapter in Daniel will stir us about the handwriting on the walls of our own culture.
Some twenty-three years pass between chapters 4 and 5. Remember that chapter 4 was the story of King Nebuchadnezzar’s sin of pride, and God’s judgment of insanity upon him until he would acknowledge that God is sovereign.
Nebuchadnezzar died after 43 years as king.
He yielded his heart to God, and God gave him a long reign for the benefit of his people, the Jews, whom he held in captivity.
A lot happens between the close of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign and the events of chapter 5. Most notably, the lessons learned by Nebuchadnezzar are lost upon his successors.
He was succeeded by his son who reigned just two years and then was assassinated by his own brother-in-law who ruled for four years when he was killed in battle.
He was succeeded by his son who reigned for only a few months before he was executed and succeeded by Nabonidus.
Nabonidus was the last king of the Babylonians and the father of Belshazzar, the subject of today’s message.
Nabonidus was also a son-in-law to Nebuchadnezzar and may have married his widow.
At this time, Nabonidus was king of the Babylonian empire, and his son Belshazzar was king of the city/ /of Babylon.
This explains why the offer was given to make the interpreter of the divine writing the third highest ruler in the kingdom (v.
7) because Nabonidus was first ruler and Belshazzar was second.
How this came about was the result of a religious power struggle.
Nabonidus was devoted to the moon god, Sin, which was unpopular with mainstream Babylonian culture that followed the powerful Marduk priesthood.
However, his son, Balshazzar, did worship Marduk and was more favored politically.
Even though Nabonidus was not forced to vacate the throne, it did result in his abandonment of the capital to reside in an oasis in Saudi Arabia to protect a vital trade route.
But just several days earlier to the events in chapter 5, the Babylonian army under the leadership of Nabonidus was defeated only 50 miles from Babylon by Cyrus the Persian, although Nabonidus had escaped elsewhere.
The Babylonian Empire comes to an end in 539 B.C. by the hand of God who takes it from the remaining co-regent, Belshazzar, and gives it over to the Medes and the Persians entirely.
Recall that this was part of the vision of the statue that Daniel interpreted from Nebuchadnezzar’s dream – the chest and arms of silver.
It all fits into the progression of God’s plans for the redemption of his people.
We can be confident that God’s plans are also in effect for us as believers in Christ.
As we read in Isaiah 45 this morning when we opened the worship service, Cyrus, the king of the Persians, was God’s prophetic choice to release the Jews and to allow the reconstruction of the temple.
The stage is being set for this to take place.
We can be confident that God is in control and keeps all his promises – for the Jews and for us.
But the theme of this morning’s message is what it means to reject God, and what happens when we do reject God.
*I.
Enjoying his feast: begging for a fall (5:1-4)*
Notice the situation that opens before us.
There is a huge banquet with lots of drinking and idolatry.
It is being put on by King Belshazzar for the elite.
Notably, the king is drinking with his guests.
This is important to note because many foolish decisions have been made while one is under the influence of alcohol, or any other mind bending and controlling substance for that matter.
People say, “It is not my fault.”
But the foolish decision started with a previously unwise decision to start drinking which increased with the momentum of the crowd.
Each of us is the king or ruler of our motivations and actions.
Especially when our leadership is responsible for others, we must consider the result of our decisions.
Even beyond that, any decision we ever make will effect someone else at some point.
We cannot contract away our responsibility.
The king makes a decision, possibly under the influence of his drinking that makes us say, “Oh, oh.”
He decides to send for the golden goblets that served the worship of God in his holy temple.
These vessels had been previously taken by his “father” Nebuchadnezzar when he conquered Jerusalem (Dan.
1:2).
The reference to Nebuchadnezzar as his “father” most probably means “predecessor” or in the sense of his ancestral relative or grandfather.
We can picture the foolish motivation of this scene.
Perhaps in his drinking, this upstart king sought to foolishly promote himself as the one who dared to profane the truly holy - to challenge Yahweh himself.
Perhaps he was trying to prove himself as greater than Nebuchadnezzar who took the golden goblets as trophies but never trifled with them.
Perhaps he was trying to impress the temple priests of Marduk and his guests.
Perhaps he was trying to provide diversion in the face of onslaught.
Perhaps it was all of these.
But let us ask another question.
Why was Belshazzar throwing this party anyway?
The answer is probably the same as why Nebuchadnezzar wanted to make the large golden image that he commanded everyone to worship at the sound of music.
It was because he wanted to have a symbol to bring together the divergent parts of his kingdom and satisfy his insecurity.
Here we see that there is an urgent need to rally the people together in a public display of loyalty to the king in the face of the Medes and the Persians who are even now outside the city walls.
It was a means to promote a sense of security in comraderie.
The boastful drunken courage of this comraderie also finds support in their traditional idolatry that now gets out of hand in an orgy promoted by the sotted inspiration of their upstart king.
They take what is most holy and worship idols with it.
They take what exclusively belongs to God and drink mindless and immoral toasts to the gods of gold and silver.
But it was a false sense of security.
With huge bronze gates and walls 350 feet high and 87 feet thick, the Babylonians thought themselves invincible.
They, in their impregnable city were laughing at the invading armies.
But God is in control and Belshazzar is begging for a fall.
What a picture of our world today when judgment is about to fall and people go on blaspheming God in their sinful arrogance.
They make merry and worship their false gods.
“When they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them” (1Thes.
5:3).
Notice also that Daniel is not on the guest list.
Nor would he have come if he were invited to such a thing (2Cor.
6:14-18).
*II.
Revealing his fear: the writing on the wall (5:5-9)*
The hand of God is a mighty thing.
It can be hard, or gentle, or even instructive as it is here.
But like the law of the Medes and the Persians that is to come – the laws that cannot be changed as we shall find in the next chapter in v. 8 – this instruction shall be irreversible.
None of us in this situation would doubt that such a sight as a hand writing on a wall is overtly a spiritual matter.
The question is the nature of the spirit and the meaning.
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