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DATE:
The Hand of God
The Gospel According to Daniel
Daniel 5:1-31
Adam Meredith
7-10-16
We’re in Daniel 5 this morning. I want to invite you to enter into this text with
me. And thereby to invite this text—this Word—to enter into us.
Since the events of last week, Nebuchadnezzar has died. Much time has
passed. In fact, Nebuchadnezzar has been dead for 23 years. 3 successive kings
have come and gone. It’s been now 70 years since Daniel was first deported to
Babylon. And Daniel himself is now in his 80s.
I want you to keep that in mind as we read: Daniel is in his 80s. A new king—a
young king—is in power. Today is the fantastic story of The Hand of God appearing,
writing on the wall, in the midst of King Belshazzar’s Babylonian ruckus. Giving a
message that will take its place as one of the most harrowing communications in all
of literature and in all of history.
Through this chapter we are going to see 3 things. We’re going to see the Rival
of the Hand of God. The Hand’s Rival. In saying they I don’t mean to suggest that
there’s anyone who’s a real or equal competitor for God—we usually think of a rival
as another team where you win some and you lose some—but simply that there are
some who challenge or try to usurp the role or rule of God’s hand.
Second we’re going to look at The Hand’s Message. What the writing on the
wall is and means. Going to look at the Message the hand gives.
1
And third we’re going to say something about the fact that the Hand appears at
all. The Hand’s Appearance.
The one who sets himself up to be the Hand’s rival. The message that is given
to him. And then the appearing of the hand itself. The writing on the wall. The hand
of God. Daniel 5.
1King
Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank
with them. 2While Belshazzar was drinking, he gave orders to bring in the goblets
that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the
king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. 3So they
brought in the gold goblets from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and
his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. 4As they drank, they
praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.
5Suddenly
the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of
the wall, near the lampstand in the palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote.
6His
face turned pale; he was so frightened his knees knocked together and his legs
gave out under him.
7The
king called for all the enchanters, astrologers and diviners to be brought
and said, “Whoever can read this and tell me what it means will be clothed in purple
and have a gold chain around his neck, and will be third highest ruler in the
kingdom.”
8They
9So
all came in but could not read the writing or tell the king what it meant.
King Belshazzar became even more terrified and his face grew more pale. His
nobles were baffled.
10The
queen, hearing the voices, came into the banquet hall. “King, live
forever!” she said. “Don’t be alarmed! Don’t look so pale!
11There
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, intelligence, and wisdom like that of the gods. King
Nebuchadnezzar your father—your father the king, I say (shape up boy, you should
have known this!?)—appointed him chief of the magicians, enchanters, astrologers
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and diviners.
12This
man Daniel 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.”
13So
Daniel was brought before the king, and… the king’s offer was repeated to
him, and he
17said,
“You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to
someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing and tell you what it means.
18“The
Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty, greatness,
glory, and splendor.
19Because
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.
20But
when
his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal
throne and stripped of his glory.
21He
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 the Most High God
is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone he wishes.
22“But
23Instead,
you, Belshazzar, have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this.
you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had goblets from
his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines
drank from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, 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.
25“This
24Therefore
he sent the hand that wrote.
is the inscription: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin
26“This
is what these words mean: Mene: God has numbered the days of your
reign and brought it to an end.
27Tekel:
You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
28Peres:
Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
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29At
Belshazzar’s command, Daniel was clothed in purple, a gold chain was
placed around his neck, and he was proclaimed third highest ruler in the kingdom.
30That
very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain,
31and
Darius
the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two.
Throughout ancient literature—several times just in the Bible itself—you have
a ruler promising that if someone accomplishes a great task, they will be made
second in command in the whole country. They’ll be next in charge. Joseph,
interpreting Pharaoh’s dream, then governing the land. Or even the high standing
Saul promised the man who killed Goliath. Second in command.
So it’s weird that when Belshazzar makes his offer he promises that the
overcomer will be “third highest in the country,” not second. For years historians
had been puzzled by this, and the riddle was compounded by the fact that for
centuries the name Belshazzar was found nowhere else outside the Bible, and the
secular records instead recorded that a king named Nabonidus was ruling when the
Persians took over. What’s going on? Was the Bible wrong, were the other records
wrong, or did the two fit together in a way we just weren’t seeing?
Well the answer is fascinating history, and it’s great testimony to the reliability
of Scripture even when things look uncertain, but it’s not just fascinating history.
The answer to this mystery of who was Belshazzar and who was really in charge—
who was king—the night the Persians take over helps set the stage for our
understanding of who Belshazzar was and what he was doing. You see, Belshazzar
himself was a puppet king. He was a puppet.
In the middle of the 1800s, an archaeological discovery revealed an inscription
of a King Nabonidus, who was 4th in line from King Nebuchadnezzar, who had a son
named Belshazzar, and who left that son in charge—second in command, in charge
of the whole palace—left that son in charge while he went on a distant trip.
Belshazzar is the ruling king, but as the ruling king, he himself is really
second in command of the country. Because his still-living father, Nabonidus, is
really king, though he is away.
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Can you picture it? This is a boy king—youthful. A play-king, a puppet-king.
“Daddy’s away.” And by the way, “father” here is being used in the common sense of
“ancestor.” Nebuchadnezzar was not his dad biologically. He was “your predecessor,
your forebear.” Perfectly consistent with how it’s used elsewhere in Scripture:
But Daddy’s away. A young man is left in charge. And while the Persians wait
outside to siege and attack, it is this young man who sets himself up to throw a big
party. Persians outside—get the goblets. It is this young man who sets himself up as
God’s rival. #1 The Hand’s Rival.
1. The Hand’s Rival
Not equal competitor, just setting himself up as challenger. To see this, we
need to see just how outrageous his party was.
A. Idolatrous Consumption
This is revelry and festivity to put an end to all revelry and festivity. The king
calls in a thousand (v. 1) drinking buddies. He’s having a drinking party—he’s
getting drunk—with a thousand people.
Now on top of that, the text tells us 2, really 3, times they call in the wives and
the concubines (v. 2 and 3). The wives and his mistress(es). In that culture, as
virtually everywhere where this heinous practice happens, men spend time with their
wife or wives or with their mistresses, their concubines. It’s not hard to imagine, they
didn’t really like being in the same place.
Yet here is this party passing even what few sexual, social bounds remain in a
wildly promiscuous culture. Thrown by its playboy king. It’s wild, it’s out of control,
it’s irresponsible… and it gets worse.
In the midst of everyone getting drunk, Belshazzar calls for the goblets. The
goblets. From the Jewish temple, the gold and silver goblets, to be brought in, that
they might drink from them. This is a party that is passing every acceptable bound:
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not just socially, not just behaviorally, but now also spiritually. This is a party of
idolatrous consumption.
He wants to drink out of God’s cup. Why? These are not perfect analogies, but
when 2 crew teams race each other, the men in the losing boat commonly take off
their jerseys and give them to the men in the winning boat. It’s a souvenir, a prize, a
spoil of war. The more jerseys you have hanging on your (prep school college) wall,
the more defeated foes you have vanquished.
It’s not just some macho thing in sports. 2 girlfriends have a falling out. One of
them begins to date the ex-boyfriend of the other. Why? She doesn’t even like the
guy. She just wants to say—to show—what used to be yours is now mine. I own you.
What once was yours I can have in an instant. I outrank you, I outclass you.
Can you picture? This goblet, this chalice, once used in ceremonial offerings,
used in sacrificial offerings to the God of the heavens, and it’s now hoisted to the sky,
held aloft, and lowered for Belshazzar to drink out of. “Used to be yours, now is
mine.” Raised to the heavens, and lowered. “I outpace you. I outclass you. I take from
you and use for myself. I own you.”
Raised to the sky. Held up by his… hand.
They’re praising other material gods of gold, silver, wood, etc (v. 4). But it’s
not just that they’re praising other “gods.” It’s that they’re acting like gods
themselves. Idolatrous consumption. And just like Nebuchadnezzar’s bovine
condition, we see that whatever starts out promising to make you more than a man—
immune, invincible, splendid revelry: a god!—in the end always makes you less than
a man, less than how you started—in this case captured, conquered, killed.
B. Imminent Catastrophe
Because not only is this a kingdom of idolatrous consumption. This is also a
kingdom of imminent catastrophe.
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While this party is going on, the Persian army lies outside the city. The great
river Euphrates flowed into, through, and out of the city of Babylon. King Cyrus, or
Darius, stationed parts of his army where the river entered and exited Babylon. He
then went upstream with the rest and blocked or rerouted the river until the main
channel was low enough to be fordable.
That very night Persian troops entered the city walls. They’re partying on the
inside. The city was so big that the slaughter and takeover took part in the outer rims
while those in the center of the city had no idea what was going on. They just kept…
on… partying. Consuming. Entertaining.
You see, not just is this a picture that the judgment is so imminent that it’s
going to come later that night. This is a picture that the judgement, the downfall, the
catastrophe is so imminent that it’s already started, it’s already happening, and they
don’t even realize it. It’s concurrent with the consumption. It’s being taken from him
in the very midst of the self-indulgent party he’s throwing. He’s partying his kingdom
away, and he doesn’t even know it.
And just like previous weeks, we do not have any right to sit back and say,
“That foolish Belshazzar. Look at him. How could he do such a thing?”
What Belshazzar is showing us is that any time we take something meant to be
used for God’s glory and honor and use it for ourselves, any time we live only for the
here and now, for our own consumption and entertainment with no thought of God,
no thought of others… that is what it means to set yourself up as a rival to God. And
this is always the natural outcome of it.
One of the areas where we do this the most in our culture is with our sexuality.
Our sexuality was a gift from God meant for God’s glory, meant to teach us
something about God, help us worship Him. We take it, on our own terms, and make
it all about our own fulfillment, apart from Him and His terms.
And if you take our hookup culture, even secular psychologists are recognizing
all kinds of damage are coming out of this. Just sex on our terms, just to gratify
ourselves, and psychologists are telling us it’s breeding far more narcissistic young
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people—people who live only for themselves. Creating pride and an inability to
empathize with other people. It’s causing emotional strain—people connecting at a
deeper level than they realize, it’s not just physical, and then casually breaking it
off—it’s impairing their ability to interact in healthy ways in the future. Causing
emotional damage. It’s inviting all sorts of physical repercussions. Causing
psychological breakdown, relational breakdown, biological breakdown. This is not
just that later you’re going to get something bad if you disobey; it’s that the judgment
is happening even as, you’re doing it! Take sexuality out of the bounds God’s placed
it in—take what is His and make it for you—and this is what happens.
We’ve looked at this one before, but your work is meant to be for God’s glory.
Whenever you take it and make it about your own name/recognition/pride, not His,
do you know what happens? It begins to take more and more time, separating you
from the people you are ostensibly working for—relational breakdown. Eventually you
have difficulty sleeping, high cholesterol, maybe ulcers—biological breakdown. You
become disproportionately worried, irritable, and upset—psychological breakdown.
Destruction and judgment is happening in the very midst of, it’s simultaneous with,
your idolatry. Catastrophe is not just a future consequence of messing up. It’s part
and parcel of idolatrous consumption.
2. The Hand’s Message
Now, I’ve said before that the book of Daniel is mocking these other attempts to
be god. To see that in this chapter, we have to see something about the message
that’s given by the hand. And not just the inscription itself, but the way that that
message is delivered to Belshazzar.
A. Weighed, Measured, and Found Wanting
Do you see the contrast between Belshazzar and Daniel? These famous words:
“you have been weighed, you’ve been measured, and you have been found wanting.”
These famous words, but before we even get to them…
Look at Belshazzar. Look at him. Robes flowing. These regal, royal, purple
robes. Dressed as a king. He has a crown on his head. Partying. He’s surrounded by
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beautiful women. Hundreds of his best friends. Center of attention. A strong youth.
He’s the one in command, in control. And yet… he’s helpless, isn’t he? He’s
absolutely helpless. He’s clueless. He’s afraid. He’s powerless to do anything about
what happens. And he’s drunk. This is not a great ruler; this is an intoxicated
youngster who’s gotten caught while dad’s out of town. That’s Belshazzar.
Now, Daniel comes in. He’s in his 80s. Intoxicated youngster, 80-year old man.
His supernatural wisdom now complemented by the wisdom of age and experience,
though he is physically weaker. Imagine what these partyers would have thought as
this aged old man enters. He’s been completely overlooked, the only one not even
invited to the party. He seems weak, helpless/outdated, irrelevant. And yet what’s the
book showing us? He’s the only one who really understands anything that’s going on.
He’s the only one with real power in the situation. He’s the only one even in
command of his own faculties.
Do you see what the Bible is showing us is the result of trying to make
ourselves the center of attention, of trying to make life about us, thinking we can
be in control? In chapter 2, the ruler of the world can’t even control his own sleep.
He’s powerless. He can dispatch armies but he can’t get a little shut-eye. In chapter
3, we saw the satire. In chapter 4, the ruler—the one who says “I did this”—in
chapter 4 the person who does that ends up on his hands and knees and eating
grass like a cow. For 7 years sleeping outside with no shelter. Next week, chapter 6,
Darius is to be prayed to as a god yet he can’t even get his friend out of the trouble
caused by his own decision. His hands are completely tied, bound by the rules of the
country he supposedly governs, bound by the action of the men he supposedly leads.
It’s not overstating it to say the book of Daniel is mocking—making a
spectacle of—every other attempt to be god.
Belshazzar supposedly in charge, regal purple, crown on his head, high spirits
from kingly, godlike feasting—and his knees are knocking together. His face turns
pale. His legs way (v. 6).
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Old Daniel enters. Forgotten, overlooked by successive kings and kingdoms.
Face creased yet composed. Looks at a man considerably younger than himself. A
man in the prime of youth whose face is fallen, his feet unsure, his body convulsing.
A mature, elderly man before an intoxicated fool.
The contrast between the 2 is so complete that when Belshazzar repeats his
offer to Daniel in verses 13-16, the original Jewish audience almost certainly would
have smirked. The impotent one attempts to command his tongue in ways that
suggest a continuing claim to control. But for the early Jewish readers, the king is
meant to appear as a street drunk, in Halloween dress no less. He is only a pretender
to power, stammering out promises to Daniel of bling, and a shawl, and best yet, a
share of his power. Helm And the original readers, knowing the end from the
beginning, and that at that very moment Belshazzar’s city is surrounded and
infiltrated would have simply laughed.
Everywhere the book is mocking our attempts at self-worship. Teaching us
that if we want to be godlike on our own merits, on that basis we will be
weighed, measured, and we will be found wanting. Every single time.
B. The Upside Down Kingdom
What can we possibly do? Is there any other way to live? The Biblical answer
for the only other way to approach life—not out for your own glory—the Biblical
answer for the only other way to approach life is to be poor in spirit. To be a part of a
kingdom that is an Upside Down kind of Kingdom. It’s completely opposite to
everything that comes natural to us.
In Luke 6, Jesus contrasts 2 groups of people. Luke’s version of the Sermon on
the Mount. Jesus says there are fundamentally 2 groups of people. One is those who
are rich, well fed, successful now. And the other group are those who don’t have
those things now. They’re not rich; they’re poor. They’re not well fed; they’re hungry.
They grieve now. They’re despised, excluded now.
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2 groups of people. And the reason there are 2 groups of people is because
fundamentally there are 2 kingdoms. There are only 2 kingdoms: the kingdom of this
world, and the kingdom of heaven.
One group appears to have everything now; the other appears to have
nothing now. But here’s the catch: the time will come—in fact it is even now
coming—when the fortunes of both will be utterly reversed. Completely reversed.
Those that appear to have everything really have nothing and will have
nothing. And those who appear to have nothing, in that day, and paradoxically even
now in the midst of having nothing, will have everything.
You can live for the now, and if you’re living simply, only, or primarily for the
now the judgment, the downfall, the catastrophe is imminent. But if you live
sacrificially, worshipfully, for God and putting others above yourself, it will look like
you have nothing to those around you—like you’ve lost it—but in that moment you
have everything.
It’s Upside Down from everything that comes naturally to us. You don’t seize
whatever sexual gratification you can get. You don’t make the absolute most amount
of money you otherwise could. You give it up. And in so doing, you gain.
You can be partying while the judgment’s right outside your door and not even
know it, or you can humble yourself, repent, and live this way—self-giving,
sacrificially, in weakness—for the sake of greater reward and blessedness. The
Message of the Hand. Only way to escape the judgment.
3. The Hand’s Appearance
Why would a kingdom be set up like that? To reward the weak, the lowly, the
overlooked? And if it is, how can we truly enter it when it’s so unnatural to us?
You know it’s interesting that, after Daniel gives this interpretation: “you’re
going to lose everything this night,” it’s interesting that Belshazzar still gives him the
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robe, and the gold, and the share of his power. Daniel’s like: “What good is this going
to do?”
We wonder, it’s possible, that that was the best response Belshazzar could
have given. As penitent as he could be: “you’ve pronounced this on me, but I’ll at
least be true to my word to the very end.” Tries to lock arms with the man who
understands.
That’s one possibility. But the other, and this seems more likely to me, is that
he just doesn’t get it. He’s been so blinded by his idolatry, by living for himself and
his false sense of security, that Daniel has just pronounced woe on him, and in his
inebriated bliss he sloshes out, “Let him join us. He’s next after me.” He doesn’t see.
He can’t see.
And if that is the state of our sinful, idolatrous hearts on our own, then how
can we ever reverse course and enter this other kingdom that’s so completely
unnatural to us? What gets us from “here” to “there”? The only way you can do it is
when you have seen, #3, The Appearance of the Hand. The Hand’s Appearance. The
writing isn’t just invisibly telestrated.
It’s only when you see, in the eyes of your heart, that the Person of God
materializes, takes on human flesh, and a hand physically appears and writes out
the word.
Because there was another time, wasn’t there, when the Hand of God appeared
on earth. Not just 1, but 2. And not just 2 hands, but a whole body. Whole person.
A. Power in Weakness
And Jesus Christ appears and enters a life that is completely and utterly
characterized by poverty of spirit. He made himself poor. He had power to be sure,
but it was power contained in weakness, power presented in weakness. Not
outright, flashy power all now.
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He’s born and placed in a feed trough. Born to displaced parents with suspect
reputation. Has no place to lay his head. Jesus Christ came in weakness and
humility. He was despised and rejected. He had nothing in His appearance that
would make us say, “that’s the one that has the power.”
And in shabby garb, being overlooked and excluded, the wise man of God—
Colossians 2—wisdom from God appears, in humble form, before the powers of this
earth, and Col. 2:15 Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a
mockery of them, triumphing over them—in weakness—by the cross. He rides into
town on a borrowed donkey, eats his last meal in a borrowed room, and he is buried
in a borrowed tomb.
Jesus Christ made Himself completely poor, completely marginalized. He
hungered, He grieved, He was excluded. At the cross He is rejected not just by His
closest friends, but by His own Father. “Why have You forsaken me?”
And the only thing that will change your heart, get you from the old kingdom to
the new, is when you see weakness, hunger, and rejection He took on Himself was
your weakness, hunger, and rejection. The weakness, hunger, and rejection that’s
due you and me as the fair and just outcome of what we have done. Not just is He an
example you have to follow. That won’t change you. He took the catastrophe that was
due you that He might put you in the new kingdom.
The Hand of God stretched out. Not just 1 of them, but 2. Stretched out, and
He was numbered. Is. 53:12. He was numbered with the transgressors. MENE. He
was weighed on the scales of justice. TEKEL. And He was given over not to the
Persians, not to Peres, but to Hades, and He was found absolutely sufficient, not
wanting but sufficient, for your salvation and mine.
He drank the cup of the wrath of God. The Upside Down Kingdom. Power in
apparent weakness. The One in seeming nothingness, appears before the seeming
powers of this world. One dressed in a crown and flowing robes and seated on a
throne. One despised, overlooked, humble, and weak.
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When you meet Him in that poverty of spirit, trying on your own merits, not
your own terms, you will see, you will experience, that He takes your grief, your
rejection, your poverty, your hunger on Himself, and gives you joy in the midst of
those things right now and for all eternity. Makes a public spectacle of them.
Triumphing over them in weakness. By the cross.
B. Now But Not Yet Feasting In The Now But Not Yet Kingdom
Last thing. When you live in this, in the new kingdom, it will not mean that you
never have joy or delight or partying or feasting. Belshazzar’s party was not really
revelry and festivity to put an end to all revelry and festivity. Because there will be a
greater feast.
The image the Bible uses for the end of history—the fullness of this new
kingdom that has come and is coming—the image the Bible uses is—you know
what?—a reception. A wedding reception. A feast. An image Jesus uses over and over
again to describe the kingdom is a great banquet. At the last supper, just before
Jesus is to die, he doesn’t tell his disciples, “I’ll never eat this again.” He tells them,
“I’ll never eat this again until I come anew with you in the new kingdom.”
This is not “all delight and revelry is bad.” God delights. He’s made us to enjoy.
But this is that there is a “not yet” dimension to our revelry. This is now but
not yet feasting in the now but not yet kingdom.
We can’t think we can have it all now. It’s not being ascetics or masochists,
because the kingdom is now. You don’t have to automatically condemn every time
you see someone buying a new toy or taking a nice trip or splurging on a meal. Who
knows what season God has them in and whether He’s told them: “I want you to take
part and enjoy as worship to me”?
So it’s not always being minimalists. But in that spectrum of “going without” or
“indulging,” we are so far to this end, that if we can look at our lives and see very
clear ways of how we are doing without, radically giving away enough that someone
in the world’s kingdom would think we’re being reckless, humbling our own condition
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to put others higher… then we have to question whether we’ve truly experienced
Jesus making Himself poor and humbled to exalt us.
There’s loads more we could say, about thanksgiving and community guiding
what we take part in and what we don’t. But let us live in the Upside Down Kingdom,
living not just for the now but also for what and who is yet to come—Jesus Christ,
who sits at the right hand of God.
Let’s pray together.
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