Daniel 5 - Application Over Accommodation
Tom Shrader examines Daniel 5, where King Belshazzar throws a drunken party using sacred temple vessels and sees mysterious writing appear on the wall. Despite knowing his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar's humbling by God, Belshazzar refuses to humble himself and is judged by God that very night. The lesson emphasizes how pride leads to destruction while highlighting that spiritual bankruptcy is the starting point for anyone seeking a relationship with Christ.
“Every false God never fails to fail - whatever it is you're trusting other than Christ, wherever you're looking for your identity or your security other than Christ will never fail to fail you.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Integrity Under Fire (2013)
Recorded: December 05, 2013
Duration: 38 min
Themes: pride, humility, judgment, conviction, courage, faithfulness, consequences, repentance, struggling with pride, facing opposition, standing for convictions, new believer, young adult, leader, parent, feeling spiritually empty
Scripture: Daniel 5, Daniel 3:16-18, Daniel 4:37, Genesis 1:1, Romans 1, Acts 13:36, 1 Peter 5
Theological Themes: divine judgment, gods sovereignty, spiritual bankruptcy, salvation by grace, biblical worldview, countercultural living, sanctification, becoming holy
Full Transcript
If you have Bibles you can open them to Daniel chapter 5. We understand that the main character of the book of Daniel is the same main character of all the scripture. That's God Himself. Humanly speaking, their focus has really been on five guys. It's been on Daniel and his three boys: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
We've seen them—remember they were young men who were taken from a foreign land from Israel and brought to Babylon. They were then trying to assimilate into the culture. So again, let me make the point, and by way of summary: in our life we have these things that we would call convictions. I hear something or study something, I begin to noodle it, I may develop a theory about it. It moves into a belief, and a conviction to me is when I start to act on those beliefs. That's what convictions are.
Living Counterculture
Well, in our life, because we as followers of Christ are living counterculture, there are times when our values and the world's would coincide. So I think almost everybody believes that a 30-year-old man should not have sex with a five-year-old girl. I mean that's generally accepted. There may be an exception or two, but generally we would agree on that.
What I'm saying is there are issues: generally you shouldn't steal, generally you shouldn't kill people, generally you should act in an ethical way—those kinds of things. But periodically, maybe more so now than ever, they collide. That does not mean we have to fight World War Three over every issue. I know it sells books and I know it gets you high ratings. But there are times when we can stand for our convictions and find a way to do it without compromising or without World War Three.
Then we talked about integration over segmentation. If I say I'm a Christian, it affects everything I do. It has to affect what I believe, has to affect how I behave.
The Boys in the Fire
Then in chapter 3, Daniel disappears and we saw the boys come on the scene. It contains one of my favorite two- or three-verse sections in Daniel 3. I'll say 16, 17, and 18. Where the king says you're going in the fire, and they say our God is able to save us. Verse 18: "But even if He doesn't," not a reflection on Him.
He is a good God, and how He deals with us individually does not determine whether He's good or not. By that I mean if you all of a sudden today end up in some sort of traffic accident and you're hurt seriously, that does not mean God is not good. Why did that happen? Well, I can't always tell you, but I can give you this general thought: everything that comes into your life happens for your good and His glory. So we just embrace that.
Nebuchadnezzar's Transformation
Last week our main character was Nebuchadnezzar, and we see the king who begins with this decree that you know what—you started a couple of chapters ago with the decree that you're going to worship this idol, and he ends up in chapter 4 with a declaration. At this time, "My reason was returned to me. My majesty and my splendor were restored to me for the glory of my kingdom, and my counselors, my nobles, seeking me out so that I was reestablished in my sovereignty." Chapter 4 verse 37: "Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true. His ways are just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride."
So what we see at this point now is the king has this understanding of the God of the universe. Daniel's been used in that. When we get to chapter 5, we've now fast-forwarded. Nebuchadnezzar has now been dead 23, 4 or 5 years. We believe the date of the event we're going to look at this morning is October 12th, 539 BC.
Moral Erosion
It becomes now kind of an erosion that's taken place in the land. Ethics, behavior are gone. Now those are challenges in the world you live in. I was going through some files looking for some different things, and I came to a file I had on some stuff on Jerry Colangelo, and I had this quote from Jerry: "I will tell you categorically that as the stakes have increased in sports, more opportunities have popped up for people in every area of the industry to bend the rules, to take shortcuts. The ethics of business have deteriorated. The business seems—" He's talking past tense now—"seemed not only more innocent in earlier days, but also more ethical."
So that's kind of where we are. I would say throw in a bad economy and throw in a lot of personal stress, and those stakes get even higher. Get that culture is gonna bump against that.
Cultural Opposition
How about just to demonstrate to you how different our culture is? Again, though there's some similarities. Here's how far we get in the book before it's different: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1. We're already in opposition to the world and we only got one verse. So you're going to live in that.
But as followers of Christ, as those who know Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, let's just make sure we kind of define that a little bit. We're not talking about going to church. We're not talking about being part of a certain movement or doing anything. We're talking about what separates us as followers of Christ from the rest of the world is what we believe, not how we behave.
Belief vs. Behavior
So let me race in and say but our behavior is different. So at its core, biblical Christianity is what we believe—our beliefs are essential. Now, our behavior is really important, but it results from the belief. God sees me acceptable in His eyes not because of my behavior, but because of my belief.
Belshazzar's Feast
Chapter 5 verse 1: "Belshazzar is now the king." I don't want to get into a whole bunch of stuff, but let me just tell you there's essentially two kings. The land's a little divided by the one king, say, and absentees irrelevant. Belshazzar is the king, and he gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and he drank wine with them.
And while Belshazzar was drinking wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets his father had taken from the Temple of Israel, so that the kings and the nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. So he brought them in the gold goblets.
that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the kings and the nobles and his wives drank from them as they drank the wine. They praised the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
Now there's a lot in here. We want to paint this picture. Archaeologists believe they have uncovered the room where this event took place. In this room at about the ten-foot mark is an area where they could sit up there, so Belshazzar and his entourage would be sitting up there watching this event.
A Wild Party
Now they are having a party. There are three things that would indicate that this is a pretty wild event. Number one: he'd do something he'd never do sober, and that is bring in these gold and silver goblets. You wouldn't be bringing these in because even he understood they were special.
But there are two pragmatic ways I know it was wild. Did you catch it? You brought your wife and your girlfriend. Now that's usually a wild deal when you bring them both to a party. Lots of times they may inadvertently end up there. Lots of times you may have a party with the wife in the morning and the girlfriend in the afternoon, but rarely do you bring them together.
Here's how I know they were drunk: they toasted the God of wood. Now I've been drunk in my life, and I've drank to a lot of things in my life, but never "Here's one for the God of wood." I just never had that experience. Some of you perhaps did—I'm looking at you—but you get the drift here. This is a wild event. There are a thousand of the key people here. This is a big, big, big party. My suspicion is, other than the bird's nest, you've never been to anything like this.
The Writing Appears
In the middle of this something happens. Now I'm going to suggest that it's a wild event—they're toasting the God of wood, they're with their girlfriends and their wives. Well all of a sudden in verse 5, this comes to a grinding halt.
In the middle of this drunken orgy, suddenly the fingers of a human hand appear and wrote on the plaster of the wall. I'll just stop—when you hear the phrase "I've seen the writing on the wall," this is the origin of that. It was near the lampstand of the royal palace, and the king watched the hand as it wrote.
So in your imagination, I think you could picture that. Here's this guy with wife and girlfriend and God of wood, and here comes this hand. He sees it, people see it clearly, and he watches the hand as it writes. As it writes, in verse 6, his face turned pale and he's frightened. He's so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.
Everybody sees it. Everybody stops. It's clearly a teachable moment. We have everybody's attention. I will tell you ahead of time, here's what's going to happen: the way that God intervened in Nebuchadnezzar's life, He's now going to intervene in the life of his grandson, but with two radically different outcomes.
The Best and the Brightest
Verse 7: the king called for the enchanters and astrologers and diviners to be brought to him and said to these wise men, "Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple, have a gold chain placed around his neck, and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom."
So he does what we've seen is the pattern of the leader. He calls in the best and the brightest. There'll be an extraordinary reward—you'll be the third highest. Why third highest? Remember, there are two kings, one functionally out. You'll be second in command.
The best and the brightest and all the king's wise men came in, and they could not read the writing or tell the king what it meant. Belshazzar was even more frightened, and his face grew more pale, and his nobles were baffled.
Whenever I'm down a little bit, I will go online and YouTube and watch a Reagan speech. I've heard all the thing—he's not that sharp, might have even had dementia toward the end. I'll take him with dementia. You listen to those speeches, you go back and you'll see they're handwritten by him with almost no corrections.
Not the best and the brightest. We had the best and the brightest in 1960 and we got Vietnam. We've had best and brightest. I'm not putting down intelligence. I'm just saying I'm not sure that's the quality in the leader all the time.
A Political Aside
Let me just tell you where I am on Sarah Palin—not that you care. I'm massively neutral until a couple days ago, where now I'm trying to find a reason to like her the way they're killing her. That cover in Newsweek is an insult. If you put Hillary on Newsweek in an apron, tell me what would happen. How demeaning is this.
But the rap is she's not up for the job, and she may not be up for the job. She went to the University of Idaho. You know what? If I had to figure out life, I might rather have a guy or gal from Idaho than from Harvard, Yale or Brown right now. I've had about enough Harvard, Yale and Brown. Not putting it down too much, but I'm just saying I don't know. I'm not anti-intelligence. I'm just saying Nebuchadnezzar and now Belshazzar get the best and the brightest and it ain't helping him much. You get what I'm saying. I'm not anti-intellectual. I have smart friends. I just don't want to be one right now.
When Terror Increases
Well, here's what happens. Belshazzar goes to these guys, they can't figure it out, and verse 9: he's even more terrified.
When I read that, I think about a moment in the life of Jesus. Remember, He's on the boat with the boys and the winds are blowing. The seas are rocky and they wake Him up and they say, "Don't you care? Don't you care anything about this? We are afraid." It says they were afraid, and Jesus says, "Be still," and the sea was calm.
Now you would think at this point the guys would go, "Oh wow, that's cool." But it says now where before they were afraid, now they were very much afraid. Because all of a sudden they realized they weren't fighting the elements or in the presence of the elements—they were in the presence
of the one who created the element and they had a whole different experience. I don't know because it reads into the text and I don't want to do this, but I believe that Belshazzar at this moment realizes that he isn't who he thinks he is—king and in control. All God does is just reveal to him at that moment what has always been true.
The Illusion of Control
I was reading something the other day about a lady who had breast cancer. When she started chemotherapy, she and her friends shaved their head. This happens regularly to demonstrate that we're in unison, but also "I'm not going to let this thing dominate me." I'll tell you how much it's dominated you—you just shaved your head! You're not going to let it control you? You're bald, lady. This thing's in control.
No, God controls it. You can't control squat—your attitude maybe, but you don't have control. There's an illusion of control.
I did a funeral for a guy who was 45 years old, a wonderful guy, but I don't know a lot of the people that are there. I'm doing the funeral and I tend to be—I like funerals, I love to do funerals. So I told the people, "I don't know a lot of you, so this can be an awkward moment because I'm a little bit like coffee—I'm a bit of an acquired taste. Just hang in there with me because I want to say something, but don't shut me off till I finish the thought."
"I've heard from so many of you that you were surprised by Todd's death. I don't want to nitpick, but I do want to be technically accurate here. You weren't surprised by his death—you were surprised by the timing of it. There's a big difference. When Todd was born, they didn't go, 'Oh, I'm sure he'll live forever.' So we're not surprised by death. We're surprised by the timing of it."
In our life, there's just this recognition that there are very few things that we can control, but God's in control of everything. That's where we derive our comfort. Everything that happens—because I've had a week where I've had three or four things I wouldn't have picked—so I go, "This is somehow, I'm not quite sure yet, this is somehow for my good and for His glory." I know that. Don't know anything else. Don't know why we're doing this right now. I just know that.
Belshazzar has this moment here where he understands he's in really deep trouble. This is way beyond him as king.
When We Run Out of Plans
It's interesting, and I think it's a good thing—I'm running into a lot of business guys who are now coming to that realization. It's always been true, but we've always had plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D. We're at plan Z3. We're out of plans. We've done everything we can do.
"We've never seen it. How many times have you ever seen it like this? Don't know what it's going to do, man." My heart aches and I don't like that. But God's got us here individually, and I think as a nation, for our good and His glory. He'll figure it out. We work hard, He gives us our principles, we do it, and He'll take care of the outcome one way or the other.
The Queen's Intervention
Now in verse 10, something really fascinating to me happens, and I want to read a bunch of stuff into it: "The Queen, hearing the voices of the king and his nobles, came into the banquet hall. 'Oh king, live forever!'"
That'd be kind of a cool greeting for every time they saw you—"Tom, live forever!" "Don't be alarmed. Don't look so pale. There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the Holy Gods in him."
So she doesn't get it technically accurate—she's still a polytheist—but she understands this guy's got some connection. "In the time of your father, he was found to have insight and intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods. King Nebuchadnezzar your father—the father of the king, I say—appointed him chief of the magicians and cantors, astrologers, diviners. This man Daniel, whom the king called Belteshazzar, was found to have a keen mind, knowledge, understanding, and also the ability to interpret dreams, explains riddles, solve difficult problems."
"Read the writing on the wall"—okay, so I add that part of it—"Call Daniel and I'll tell you what it means."
Daniel's Forgotten Legacy
Now this is an interesting moment. We're going to see a little bit later that there was probably some familiarity here that Belshazzar had with Daniel, but certainly not enough that it stuck in his mind. Daniel is too powerful apparently and too popular—he's probably over 80 at this point—to kill. So he's just put out to pasture.
Nebuchadnezzar apparently either did it and it didn't take, or maybe never took the time to sit down with Belshazzar and say—and you would think a grandpa would want to do this, putting him to bed or talking to him—"Let me tell you about a guy. He was really kind of a cool deal. I'm going to blow chapter 6 for you—I put him in the lion's den and he made it out."
Now we think a kid would love this story. "Let me tell you a story about these guys. We threw them in a fire." "Oh wow, grandpa. What was the fire like?" "Seven times hotter than normal." "Wow! Did they die?" "No, they walked out. We put three guys in and got four guys out." "Wow!"
You would think there'd be those moments. Those of you that are grandparents, I just encourage you to take those moments.
Grandparent Moments
The boys were over the other day—Braden and Yale. When they were potty training, Braden, if you went to the bathroom, if you did one of the things you got two Skittles, if you did the other you got three Skittles. So I was a five-Skittle guy myself, personally.
Still, even though we're way beyond this, because he's at our house he'll go, "Hey, Grandpa, I get three Skittles!" Well, Skittles are back in our bathroom, so we go back. Well, he finds my hats back there, some caps, and he finds my Iowa cap. Then he goes, "Yale! Good! Papa's hats!"
So they spent the rest of the day thinking it was the coolest thing in the world to walk around in one of my Iowa hats. I told Haley when you get home, you might want to wash their hair.
They're there for the picking. They want to talk. I had Braden the other day at the bookstore and
He said, "I can read me a book." So I'm reading—I mean, he's picking like War and Peace. I said, "It's gonna take a long time, buddy. We're gonna be here a long time and I don't know all these names. I mean, can you do something with a train or something?"
So we're driving back. He said, "Where are we going now?" I said, "Well, we're gonna go back over to Sarah's house." "What are we gonna do then?" I said, "Well then I'm gonna take you in and we're gonna eat." "What are you gonna do then?" "Well, then I'm gonna go home." "What are you gonna do then?" "I'm gonna take a nap." "What are you gonna do then?" "Well, I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna take Nan out and we got some errands to run." "What are you gonna do then?" I said, "Then I'm gonna come home and then I'm gonna go to bed." "What are you gonna do then?" "Well, I'm gonna go to sleep." "What are you gonna do then?" I said, "I'm gonna give you to your mom."
Those moments are there—they want it. We're sitting at a red light the other day and he goes, "What does that sign say?" I said, "It says Chase Bank." "Ha! Now that's a funny name." To this day, we'll drive down the street and he'll go, "Chase Bank!" That just makes me laugh.
The Danger of Losing Historical Perspective
You get that—this moment's gone. He has no sense of history. I can make a point: if you don't have a sense of history, you're in real trouble.
When you look at the world we're in right now, what breaks my heart is to see the erosion of the fundamental things that made America what it is—good, better, and different. I think you can't tax people at this level. You can't take away freedoms at this level. You're killing and you're gonna kill entrepreneurialism. You're gonna take away the spirit. But how do you know that? History.
President Nixon when he left office wrote a book called In the Arena. It's an interesting book, but the book tape is amazing because it's him reading it. I'm in the bookstore and on a fluke, because I've lost my copy—somebody took it, but I lost it. So I'm in the bookstore the other day, just kind of a fluke. I thought I'll ask, but I can probably go on eBay or Amazon and find one. So I went up to the guy and I said, "President Nixon wrote a book called In the Arena. I wonder if you have a book tape." She said, "All right, President Nixon. What was his first name?"
Could I have your voter registration card just out of curiosity and tear this thing up? But that's the world you live in.
Daniel Confronts the King
Daniel now is brought to the king in verse 13: "Are you Daniel, one of the exiles? I've heard you've got this and that. I heard you can solve these. If you do it, it's a deal. I'll give you a purple robe and I'll put chains around your neck and you'll be the third highest ruler in the land."
Here's what Daniel says, and you got it like this when you get to old people, verse 17: "Daniel said, 'You can keep your gifts for yourself.'" There's something cool about that: "You keep your gifts and your rewards for someone else. Nevertheless, I'll give you the reading on the wall and I'll tell you what it means."
Here's Daniel and he's saying: You couldn't buy me at age 16. I'm really not for sale at age 80.
The Value of Older Mentors
It's like with kids—I'm spending more and more time with young business guys, young pastors. You have to have a tolerance for like stupidity if you're gonna do that, and arrogance. You just have to. But if they'll listen, you got something special.
It's a little bit the same with old people. You got to have a tolerance for some stuff because they're gonna tell you green doesn't go with blue and that looks stupid. But if you're there, it's worth the price of admission.
Did you get a wise business person who's walked with Christ for a long period of time? You've got a treasure—something to be mined by you. Something you don't have to meet every week, just somebody that you can meet on a regular basis that you can talk to on the phone.
Do you remember the name Fred Smith? If you remember Fred Smith, when I became a Christian, Fred Smith was like one of the guys—big business guy in Dallas. Tyler came in a while ago, and he said, "Guess who I just talked to on the phone." I said, "I don't know." He said, "Fred Smith, you know him." I said, "I thought he was dead." He said, "Well, he had a lively conversation." I said, "Okay. How did you get him?" He said, "I just called him. I kept hearing his name all over. I saw his name on all this stuff. So I just called him and he answered the phone and I talked to him for an hour."
That's amazing. One of the things about guys as they get a little bit older is they're more available than you think they are, and they want to be talked to.
Daniel's History Lesson
Here's old Daniel and he gives it to him: "Oh King, the Most High God," verse 18, "gave your father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness and splendor." Remember, he built this whole thing—built this town you're living in, the walls 350 feet high and 87 feet wide. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world. He gave him that.
"But because of this high position, all the people of all the languages dreaded and feared him. Those that the king wanted to put to death, he put to death. Those that he wanted to spare, he spared. Those he wanted to promote, he promoted. Those he wanted to humble, he humbled." He's king.
"But when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from the royal throne and stripped of his glory and driven away from the people. Given the mind of an animal, he lived with wild donkeys. He ate grass like cattle, his body was drenched in the dew of the heavens until he acknowledged the Most High God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets everyone He wishes over them."
He said, "I want to give you a history lesson here. Your grandfather Nebuchadnezzar was as dumb—"
As you are and as arrogant as you are and as prideful as you are, God humbled him and he broke him. It's an absolutely perfect picture of anyone who has a relationship with Christ. It starts with that beginning spot—spiritual bankruptcy. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You cannot be a proud person and come to Christ in repentance and faith. It can't happen.
That's why so often people will have what we would call a foxhole conversion. That's why somebody would say most people are just one crisis away from coming to Christ. Now speaking humanly here, it's just one more thing—they're not desperate enough.
God Opens Eyes in His Timing
Here's what we know theologically: you can get desperate because we know a lot of people that get desperate, desperate, desperate, desperate, desperate and they die desperate. But oftentimes in the middle of lives, God will intervene at that moment. Here's what God does: God changes your heart. God opens your eyes. God allows you to see—that's what happened to Nebuchadnezzar.
There wasn't something magic about seven years. It wasn't that after seven years of eating grass he went, "You know, this doesn't seem right. I'm going to come to God." God opened his eyes at that point. That was God's desire for Nebuchadnezzar, and this is far more about God than it is about Nebuchadnezzar.
Somebody the other day was asking me for books to read, and I just quickly said: "Knowing God," "Loving God," "Pursuing God," "Pursuit of God," and "Chosen by God," and we're all done. He said, "Well, there's a pattern there." Yeah, that's a lot about God. Because if you can figure that part out, you can figure out the other part. Once you figure out who He is, it doesn't take you long to figure out who you are, because you are a bit player. You're essentially inconsequential, certainly not essential. I'm not saying you don't have value, but the value you have is the value that God places on you, not the value that the world gives you.
Belshazzar's Willful Ignorance
But there's something different in verse 22: "But you, His son, O Belshazzar, you haven't humbled yourself, though you knew all this." So apparently there was some transfer of information. "Instead you've set yourself against the Lord of Heaven. You brought out the gold goblets from the temple. You and your nobles, your wives, your concubines—they drank from them. You praise the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, stone, which cannot see or hear."
We stop there. Every god you worship other than the Living God is impotent. That's what he's saying. They can't see you. They can't hear you. They can't fix you. Whatever it is you worship other than the one true God—here you go, big statement, big point: Every false god never fails to fail.
Got to get it: every false god—money, sex, power, you fill it in—whatever it is you're trusting other than Christ, wherever you're looking for your identity or your security other than Christ will never fail to fail you. It will fail.
"But you didn't honor the God who holds in His hand your life and all your ways. Therefore He sent this hand and He wrote this inscription on the wall." That, by the way, is kind of a summary of Romans chapter 1: didn't honor Him, didn't praise Him.
The Meaning of the Writing
Here's the inscription: "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin." Mene means God has numbered the days of your reign and He brought it to an end. Here's what the psalmist says: "Teach us to number our days aright." Understand the finiteness of life so we might gain a heart of wisdom. Help us understand that we're finite. Help us not to be surprised if we die at 45, 25, 75, 85, 105, 212—wherever it is, there's a finiteness to it. Mene: your days are numbered.
Tekel: you've been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Here's what He said: you've been judged, but not by your own standard. I'm reading a pretty interesting book right now—I've got a bunch of different books going—but I'm reading this book about the American people at their core, about what they want really. He's got a stat in there: 90% of the American people rate themselves above average.
Well, how can that be? Because they hang around with people like them and they go, "I'm better than him."
A Humbling Memory
When I was in eighth grade—this is the most demeaning, humiliating thing when I look back; if you wanted to scar a person for life, this is what you would do—we had a dance. There were certain dances in the night; I can't remember what they called them. You'd get three or four girls or you'd get three or four guys together. So in our case, three or four guys together, you'd come up and you'd hold hands around a couple, and then the girl that was dancing would have to pick one of the guys to dance with.
It's rude when you look back at it. It is brutal. So you spent the whole night trying to find three guys uglier and dumber than you. That was the whole night—me trying to go, "No, no, no," and then just stand there thinking I have a shot, and to have her look you in the eye and go... I mean, it's brutal. When you think about it, it's just demeaning.
Well, here's what we do when we judge that way. What he's telling Belshazzar is: you've been judged by God's standards, not by yours, and you're screwed. You got no shot here, man. You thought you were okay, but you aren't.
The Final Judgment
Parsin: your kingdom will be divided among the Medes and the Persians. I got some bad news for you, my man. It's just bad. There's no good side. Your days are up. You didn't measure up. And your kingdom is going to be taken from you.
Now if you were with us a couple weeks ago, you're going, "How could there... there must have been a bloody war?" 350-foot walls, 87 feet deep, Euphrates River running through it. They have all of the livelihood. This must...
The Night Belshazzar Died
Look what happens then at Belshazzar's command. Daniel was clothed in purple and made the third highest ruler.
Verse 30: "That very night Belshazzar the king of the Babylonians was slain, and Darius the Mede took over his kingdom at the age of 62."
What happened? Here's what happened: Darius got his court engineers to reroute the river. The army walked in on a dry riverbed, found the king, and slain him. That's a God thing.
You're Immortal Until God's Done With You
I want to pull something out of this, and don't kill me on this—just flow with me. There's a sense in which you're immortal until God's done with you, and once He's done with you, nothing's going to keep you alive.
In the book of Acts, Paul's teaching in chapter 13 and he uses our boy David as an example. He's trying to compare—he's talking to the men of Israel, so he's talking to Jews. He's going to use a lot of Old Testament stuff because he's trying to say that Christ is superior to all of these. That's his whole point. So he talks about David, and he talks about how Saul's king.
Verse 22: God removes Saul and installs David, raises him up. Listen, this is a great verse—chapter 13, verse 36: "For David, after he served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay."
Every Life Has Purpose and Value
God has you here for a reason and a purpose, and that purpose is all the way through life—and make sure you hear what I said—all the way through your life. It includes maybe that agonizing moment at the end of death. It includes even if you're laying there as a vegetable—God's using you as others get to serve you, use their gifts, and your death becomes a testimony to the people around.
Every life has value. The quality of life is irrelevant to that statement.
You get all these people who celebrate Special Olympics. Special Olympics is so cool, but they want to do a test in the womb to see if there's a problem with a kid, because if there's a problem, they say it would be so cool ministering to this kid—but they're going to kill the kid. Does that seem consistent? Obviously not.
Is that kid not perfect by our standards? Maybe not. But I will tell you this from being around a few of those kids and their parents: they love them. They love these kids. Those kids have a quality of life that they couldn't even get at the University of Idaho. Those kids with that quality of life are making statements and serving and bringing joy to people's lives. It's not about what we call the quality of life—it's the gift of life that God gives. It's wrong to take it at the beginning in the womb, and it's wrong to take it at the end, and everything in between.
Looking Ahead
We're not done. Daniel has an encounter with a roaring lion. We'll see that in two weeks.
You are about to celebrate my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving's my favorite day. I was going to say until a week ago you could watch game seven of the World Series and then the Lions, but they mercifully ended the baseball season. So just eat until you have to unbutton your pants and just pass out and sleep. It's great. Enjoy.
Father, teach us these truths. Drill them deep in our heart. Thank You for Jesus, and we pray in His name. Amen.