SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible with you, let me uh invite you to turn to Daniel 5.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have a Bible, we do have some in the back.
SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to take one with you, and you can hop over where we are right now and go and get it.
SPEAKER_00: So that would be great.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you a little warning on the passages we're jumping through.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to feel like we skipped some things.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we didn't skip anything.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Daniel and his writing skipped uh some things.
SPEAKER_00: Uh there's what we might call in modern parlance a time jump.
SPEAKER_00: And what that means is there are a lot of years that are skipped uh between the last thing we read in chapter four and what we're reading now.
SPEAKER_00: Uh some people think that probably Daniel is in his 80s at this point, and there is a new king on the throne named Belshazzar.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the passage we're reading, it's going to refer to Belshazzar as uh uh as uh Nebuchadnezzar's son or Nebuchadnezzar's father, and that's not meaning that he was his literal offspring, biological offspring.
SPEAKER_00: It's referring to, like we would use the word founding fathers to refer to our forebears.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of that language that's taking place here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and because this is uh why not just keep with the story?
SPEAKER_00: What happened to Nebuchadnezzar?
SPEAKER_00: What happened during this time frame?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because that's not the point of the book of Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Daniel is not giving us uh a story, the way that we would read a story, it's bringing, it's the revelation of God.
SPEAKER_00: And in the midst of this, it's revealing God's divine will.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel is not the main character.
SPEAKER_00: He was present for these things and he's writing them down, but the main actor and the main person in the midst of all the main focus is with God.
SPEAKER_00: It's about God and his revelation to us.
SPEAKER_00: And he's having a conversation in this passage that he wants us to listen in on and to hear.
SPEAKER_00: So as we read this, Nebuchadnezzar has passed away.
SPEAKER_00: He's gone the king the way of all the kings of the earth, uh, leaving a trail of kings until we get to Belshazzar.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, because it's done thematically, not just chronologically, but thematically, we're gonna start reading with Daniel chapter four, the very last verse, because you're going to hear that verse, though the ideas there pulled all the way through into chapter five.
SPEAKER_00: And again, because this is a long reading, and because I do want to honor God and honor you, uh, please stay seated for the reading of God's Word this week.
SPEAKER_00: This week.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel 5, uh Daniel 4, uh starting with verse 37.
SPEAKER_00: Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just, and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
SPEAKER_00: King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand.
SPEAKER_00: Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king's color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him, his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.
SPEAKER_00: The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, the astrologers.
SPEAKER_00: The king declared to the wise men of Babylon, Whoever reads this writing and shows me its interpretation shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Then all the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed, and his color changed, and his lords were perplexed.
SPEAKER_00: The queen, probably the queen mother.
SPEAKER_00: The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banqueting hall, and the queen declared, O King, live forever.
SPEAKER_00: Let not your thoughts alarm you or your color change.
SPEAKER_00: There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods.
SPEAKER_00: 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, 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, whom the king named Belteshazzar.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: Then Daniel was brought in before the king.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard of you that the spirit of the gods is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you.
SPEAKER_00: Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this writing and make known to me its interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: But they could not show the interpretation of the matter.
SPEAKER_00: But I have heard that you can give interpretations and solve problems.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless I will read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: O 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 and trembled and feared before him.
SPEAKER_00: Whom he would, he killed, and whom he would he kept alive, whom he would he raised up, and whom he would he humbled.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: 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 sets over it whom he will.
SPEAKER_00: And you, his son, Belshazzar, 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, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know.
SPEAKER_00: But the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.
SPEAKER_00: Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed, and this is the writing that was inscribed, Mina, Mine, tekel, parson.
SPEAKER_00: This is the interpretation of the matter.
SPEAKER_00: Minay, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end.
SPEAKER_00: Tekl, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.
SPEAKER_00: Perez, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
SPEAKER_00: Then Belshazzar 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.
SPEAKER_00: That very night, Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was killed.
SPEAKER_00: And Darius the Mead received the kingdom, being about 62 years old.
SPEAKER_00: That is a fascinating story.
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, we don't have time to go into all of it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but there are things online, there are good commentaries that you can read if you want to cover anything that I'm not able to cover this morning.
SPEAKER_00: So let me pray and ask God as we dig in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: I would be absolutely terrified, Lord, to see the hand writing on the wall.
SPEAKER_00: But I am grateful that the hand that would write on the wall for me would say, justified in the name of Jesus through faith.
SPEAKER_00: I pray this morning that you would be pleased and to show us your glory and your majesty, your holiness and your grace, that you would pour out your spirit on this place to direct us, direct me.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of notes on the page, it's all jumbled up right now in my mind.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would give me clarity to speak about uh weighty matters, confusing matters, and beautiful images from your scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Would you bless us?
SPEAKER_00: Would you be with me?
SPEAKER_00: I pray, and would you be with all of us who are listening?
SPEAKER_00: We ask it in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All will be well.
SPEAKER_00: You know that, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: I know it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: I do, I know it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: Uh things are out of our control, the economy, healthcare, AI and the news media, AI and future jobs, AI and whatever else, um, politics, Epstein and widespread corruption, Iran, tariff, trade wars, just playing wars.
SPEAKER_00: And that feels oppressive, right?
SPEAKER_00: Which feels like a ceiling is just beginning to bow down a little bit from the weight of what's on the floor above us, and it's about to crumble in on us on top of us.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Was it more stressful in yesteryear?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I've thought about, you know, those old newsreels.
SPEAKER_00: Did you see like black and white footage of, and there are people sitting in the news in the auditoriums, and then before they watched Bambi or something, a newsreel came on about a war, and that was all they would get, right?
SPEAKER_00: So they would go to the movies and get a newscast, and then it became like evening news, and then it became 24-hour news, and now it's 24-second news, or it's in our hands all the time, and we're getting it kind of as it's happening around the world.
SPEAKER_00: Um, was it easier or harder then?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But we feel weighed down.
SPEAKER_00: And many of us, most of us, have things at home that are heavy and weighty, in addition to the things that are going on in the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to know that all will be well.
SPEAKER_00: You know it will be well, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: That God has this in hand.
SPEAKER_00: There's this weird thing that happened last week.
SPEAKER_00: After worship, I went out through those doors and I was just praying like I normally do, and I looked up and there's a lizard.
SPEAKER_00: And on a whim, I just put my finger on his tail, and his tail didn't come off, which they sometimes do.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just got him in my hand and didn't know what to do with him, and the music was winding down, and I knew that I had to come in here.
SPEAKER_00: So I carried in a lizard with me last week, and I stood in.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that last week?
SPEAKER_00: You could see his tail like hanging down from my hand as I was standing.
SPEAKER_00: And then I gave the benediction, and then that's one some one of you maybe got the lizard.
SPEAKER_00: And uh is he okay?
SPEAKER_00: Do we know?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's okay, he's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's good because that would ruin my illustration.
SPEAKER_00: Um so, but as I, you know, it's it was a weird moment.
SPEAKER_00: I I can I admit it was a I don't know why I did it just on a women.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I walked up here with a lizard in my hand, but I did.
SPEAKER_00: But it was an image that stayed with me all week, and I thought about being in the hollow of my hand all this time.
SPEAKER_00: And there's this image from Isaiah where it talks about God holding things in the hollow of his hand.
SPEAKER_00: And and Christians through the years have picked up on this idea that God holds us in the hollow of his hand, and we are safe with all the things that are going around at home and abroad.
SPEAKER_00: All will be well because he's holding us in the hollow of his hand.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the image of God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: That's an image of confidence that we have.
SPEAKER_00: We when we begin with this, we begin with this is God has already secured our happy ending.
SPEAKER_00: He has it in hand.
SPEAKER_00: He accomplished our happy ending on a cross 2,000 years ago, but he's been working that out in real time.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're in Christ, you know that just like there was a happy ending with the Christ, with Christ, and he came forward from the tomb on Easter, that someday, one day, the same is going to happen with us.
SPEAKER_00: Though I die, yet shall I live.
SPEAKER_00: Though we die, yet shall we live.
SPEAKER_00: We know the end and we know him who holds us.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason we can be confident about the end, and you're thinking, he's skipping Belshazzar.
SPEAKER_00: No, we're getting there.
SPEAKER_00: The reason we can be confident about these things is because of the gospel of grace, the gospel of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the Bible is not a book of weird stories, and the Bible is not a religious book.
SPEAKER_00: It never was.
SPEAKER_00: It was a divine manifesto from God saying, here's what I'm going to do in the world to redeem a people for myself.
SPEAKER_00: And how we are redeemed by grace through faith in Jesus Christ is clearly and plainly spelled out through the whole of the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about it, it's the golden thread.
SPEAKER_00: And the first time Jesus as the Savior, as the redeemer is announced in Scripture is in Genesis 3.
SPEAKER_00: And that image is pulled all the way through.
SPEAKER_00: And all these questions are coming forward, like how's he going to do it?
SPEAKER_00: Who's he going to be?
SPEAKER_00: And you're finding out he's going to be a king.
SPEAKER_00: And as we're reading through this passage, we're uh Belshazzar is a bit of a foil, and Nebuchadnezzar was a bit of a foil for us to think about what the kingship of Jesus was going to be like for us.
SPEAKER_00: But there are other things that are uh coming through.
SPEAKER_00: There's it as we read through this, we're getting a picture of how God preserves and takes care of his people, even in really difficult circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: But the reason we can have confidence that he's going to be with us, he's got us in the palm of his hand, no matter what's going on, is because of what he has done for us in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: John Bunyan said this He said, To be saved by grace supposes that God has taken the salvation of our souls into his own hand.
SPEAKER_00: And to be sure it is safer in God's hands than in ours.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that.
SPEAKER_00: We know that there's some things you don't leave in the hands of people, even that you love, especially if you love them, because they're not going something's gonna go wrong, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I asked Rebecca this question because I was thinking about it as I was thinking about this sermon, is what would be the one thing if, or you know, some things, but the one thing that you would want in our car if we were moving at some point?
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I've used that is because when we were moving from Clemson to Mississippi years ago, a moving crew was hired.
SPEAKER_00: And Rebecca still has PTSD from that experience.
SPEAKER_00: She's shaking her head, it's like I can see her triggers like uh somebody go get her water.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and it was it was horrible.
SPEAKER_00: Like we and we arrived in Mississippi with key things, big things, big items broken.
SPEAKER_00: It's like could did you just threw that into a box?
SPEAKER_00: What did you do?
SPEAKER_00: You didn't pack it, and so it was a kind of a miserable thing.
SPEAKER_00: So I asked her what she would put in the car, and she said, our cat.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I think she would go in the moving van personally.
SPEAKER_00: So um, let me change the image for you because you might not have had that, like that idea of like this is something that's valuable to me, no one else is handling it, right?
SPEAKER_00: Another image.
SPEAKER_00: If you are with your uh with a youngster and you're doing some work and you want that, and they come and they want to participate in that, you want to find something for them to do, but you know what you're doing at this moment might be too technical, they could get shocked, or there could be something going on.
SPEAKER_00: And so you find something that they can do, but you take the main part of it in your own hands because I can't let them do that.
SPEAKER_00: So you may you may be outside, it may be sunny, and you may say, Here, hold my flashlight.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're holding the flashlight, not really participating in the thing, but they're they're doing something to help you, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or um you may say, sing me that song that I like to hear.
SPEAKER_00: That'll help me because I'm a little bit stressed out.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to sing that song that I like so well to call me, it'll calm me down as I'm doing this work.
SPEAKER_00: But you're going to do, you're gonna do it yourself because it matters to you and it matters to the young person, but they have a sense that they're somehow participating.
SPEAKER_00: Why am I saying this?
SPEAKER_00: It's because what God has done for us in the gospel is he's done it, he's accomplished it.
SPEAKER_00: And we get to be with him in the midst of these things.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So it is by grace.
SPEAKER_00: And what did God do?
SPEAKER_00: What did he take into his own hands?
SPEAKER_00: Well, two things primarily.
SPEAKER_00: One is the debt for our sin that he took on himself.
SPEAKER_00: We would never have the ability to pay for that.
SPEAKER_00: You would never have the funds, you would never have what it takes to pay for sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's what hell is about, is that's the payment, and that's forever because it's never done.
SPEAKER_00: But at one moment on a cross 2,000 years ago, Jesus said, I'm taking that sin on myself and I'm paying for it.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus took the punishment that we deserve on himself.
SPEAKER_00: That's number one.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, and this is something we need, you know, to say my debt is paid is one thing, but to have the entrance to be able to go in, well, that's different.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the second thing.
SPEAKER_00: God said, You hold the flashlight.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to accomplish this in my son.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus lived a perfect life.
SPEAKER_00: And what God does for us in the gospel when we come to believe is the perfect life of Christ is counted as ours.
SPEAKER_00: And so that means when you come to faith in Jesus, you have a joint account with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Is all your debt becomes his and he swallows it and eats it and it's paid for.
SPEAKER_00: And all of his riches, all of his wealth, his status as a child of God, that all becomes yours in the midst of that.
SPEAKER_00: And so what that means is there's a there's incredible freedom.
SPEAKER_00: There's a freedom from condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we say when we read in Romans 8.1, it says, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's not talking about how we feel.
SPEAKER_00: There's no there's no feelings of guilt.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what it's saying.
SPEAKER_00: It's saying between us and God, there is no condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't see us that way.
SPEAKER_00: So we're free from condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: We may struggle with guilt sometimes, but that's in us, that's not coming from him, ways of guilt that he's heaping on us.
SPEAKER_00: There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's paid for.
SPEAKER_00: But it also means that all of the status of Jesus becomes ours.
SPEAKER_00: We are children, we are righteous, we are fully and completely acceptable.
SPEAKER_00: And the gospel of Jesus says you have it already.
SPEAKER_00: It's been paid for already.
SPEAKER_00: It was paid for 2,000 years, and when you come to believe, it comes into your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 15, 6 says, this is the way it was in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, just like it is for us.
SPEAKER_00: He believed, and all those things became his as well.
SPEAKER_00: So God has fully restored our broken relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: That's not all that Jesus came to do.
SPEAKER_00: He came, yes, to restore our broken relationship with God, but he also came to restore the broken world that we live in.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a concept in Scripture called the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: So he's redeeming our souls, but he's also going to redeem the world and transform the world and everything in it.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I'm talking about that is because the word kingdom is used more frequently per word in the book of Daniel than anywhere else in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It's a book about the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's a book about the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, three times he repeats a phrase three times in chapter four, and it's this the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will, and sets over it the lowliest of men.
SPEAKER_00: So the kingdom of men is controlled and ruled over by God.
SPEAKER_00: What is the kingdom?
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of God is nothing less than the power of God in heaven entering the world to heal every alienation, every brokenness in every dimension of human life, whether it's social, economic, racial, emotional, physical, psychological, or spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: And when you enter the kingdom, God's kingdom power comes into your life.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom exists not merely where God is supreme, because that's everywhere all the time, but where God supernaturally carries through his supremacy against all evil and harm and brings man to a willing recognition.
SPEAKER_00: Of the same.
SPEAKER_00: So the kingdom is God's loving reign over all things, recognized in the hearts and lives of those who call on the Lord by faith.
SPEAKER_00: He's at work in the world.
SPEAKER_00: He was at work at that time.
SPEAKER_00: And what he's talking to us about here is how the thrones and the courtrooms of the greatest kings, God's in control of those.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, will be well.
SPEAKER_00: This is what N.
SPEAKER_00: T.
SPEAKER_00: Wright wrote.
SPEAKER_00: He wrote, God is utterly committed to set the world right in the end.
SPEAKER_00: This doctrine, like that of the resurrection itself, is held firmly in place by the belief in God as creator on the one side and the belief in his goodness on the other.
SPEAKER_00: And that setting right must necessarily involve the elimination of all that distorts God's good and lovely creation, and in particular, of all that defaces his image-bearing human creatures.
SPEAKER_00: Not to put too fine a point on it, there will be no barbed wire in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And those whose whole being has become dependent upon barbed wire will have no place there either.
SPEAKER_00: And this is good.
SPEAKER_00: This is good news.
SPEAKER_00: This means Rebecca gets to take down all of our barbed wire we have around our house.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_00: It means Jesus will act with finality to remove it all so that there will never be any more.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for those in here who might think that just sounds extreme to me.
SPEAKER_00: It may sound extreme because love is extreme.
SPEAKER_00: It really is.
SPEAKER_00: And love leads you to attack anything that is harming the people that you love, no matter what it is.
SPEAKER_00: I've used this story before, and I didn't ask you if I'm going to use it, but I'm going to use you because I love you.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we did a mission trip to Spain years ago, and when we first moved into the apartment, I started having huge sneezing fits.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's a problem because when I was 19 years old, I had such a sneezing fit that I detached a retina.
SPEAKER_00: So just so you know, that can't happen.
SPEAKER_00: And so we moved into this apartment in Spain, and I started having severe allergy.
SPEAKER_00: My daughter started having severe allergy, and Rebecca hit mommy and wife mode.
SPEAKER_00: And she went to the local store.
SPEAKER_00: I remember what it's called, but I'm not gonna say it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the local store, and she got all the cleaning supplies she could.
SPEAKER_00: And so she put on the rubber gloves, she put on the mask, she did all the stuff, and she went to every windowsill and scrubbed it.
SPEAKER_00: She went to every nook and cranny in that whole place and cleaned it spotless because of the harm that it was doing to the people she loved.
SPEAKER_00: This is the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: God is attacking, he's going after the brokenness of the world for the sake of his people.
SPEAKER_00: And we're getting bits and pieces of the final of what he's going to do when everything is made new.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says at the end, behold, I'm making everything new.
SPEAKER_00: None of the vestiges of the brokenness will be there anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And here's one of the things that becomes, you know, he's not called emergency services.
SPEAKER_00: He's called the king, and it's a kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason it's called a king in a kingdom is God doesn't ask people's permission to act.
SPEAKER_00: We have told ourselves culturally that God is relegated to the realm of the private, but God never signed off on that.
SPEAKER_00: God never wrote, he never made that agreement.
SPEAKER_00: He does not govern by consent, nor is God our God by consent.
SPEAKER_00: This is R.
SPEAKER_00: C.
SPEAKER_00: Sproull.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of God is not of the people, by the people, or for the people.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: It is a kingdom ruled by a king, and God does not rule by the consent of his subjects, but by his sovereign authority.
SPEAKER_00: His reign extends over me, whether I voted for him or not.
SPEAKER_00: So God is going, he's in the process of healing the world.
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're looking at here in Daniel chapter 5, uh, and the humbling of the proud.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel 4 brings us straight into Daniel 5.
SPEAKER_00: The last verse in Daniel 4 read, I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just, and those who walk in pride, he is able to humble.
SPEAKER_00: And we read that Belshazzar did not humble himself.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 22 and 23 of chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: And you, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So what does that mean in verse 22 to humble your heart?
SPEAKER_00: It means that you see yourself in true perspective regarding God and true reference to God.
SPEAKER_00: He's the creator, I'm a creature.
SPEAKER_00: He is God, I'm a mere human.
SPEAKER_00: He's the greatest power, and I am weak.
SPEAKER_00: He is an authority over me, and I am in submission to him.
SPEAKER_00: He's almighty, I am frail, he is perfect, I am flawed, he is wholly righteous, and I am a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Humble in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: He is the great one of all him, period.
SPEAKER_00: And when we read about Nebuchadnezzar's life, Nebuchadnezzar didn't believe that fully.
SPEAKER_00: Like you watch his progression through chapters one through four.
SPEAKER_00: And then in four, there's this question that God brings to him through Daniel about uh concerning the dream.
SPEAKER_00: And we read it, we talked about this last week, is Nebuchadnezzar in his response to what God said about humbling himself and repenting and believing.
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar said, Is this not Babylon that I have built with my own hands?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I don't need to do that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a self-made man.
SPEAKER_00: And so his humbling meant that he got sent to the fields.
SPEAKER_00: This is in verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: 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 sets over it whom he will.
SPEAKER_00: So in this chapter, Belshazzar is dealing with the same God who knows exactly how to humble the proud.
SPEAKER_00: Now, with Nebuchadnezzar, he was humbled to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: With Belshazzar, he was humbled for removal.
SPEAKER_00: That was his humbling to be removed.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's this odd thing here with the cups and utensils.
SPEAKER_00: Why draw lines there?
SPEAKER_00: Daniel 5 is not, you know, he talks about the cups and utensils.
SPEAKER_00: This is it's not because Belshazzar got out the fine china.
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: We don't use the fine china.
SPEAKER_00: Um, this is God addressing kings who think they can do whatever they want whenever they want, because they're special and significant.
SPEAKER_00: So the the cups and utensils, if you read back in chapter one, these were taken, we read it here too, is the cups and utensils that they're using were taken out of the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So these are, if you want to say, holy artifacts that come into Babylon that Nebuchadnezzar never really touched.
SPEAKER_00: He had some sense that, you know, I'm not going to touch these.
SPEAKER_00: But Belshazzar, elevated in his own status and in his own mind, uh, took those.
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't say exactly why.
SPEAKER_00: It could be because he thought, if I have these talismans and we can employ not just our gods, but their gods.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe these are trophies that he's passing around to people and say, we don't need to worry about the Medes and the Persians who are knocking at the door to take over.
SPEAKER_00: We have, we've already beat other people's gods.
SPEAKER_00: We'll beat the Medes and the Persians too.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know exactly why, but for some reason he felt like that was a great idea to present these trophies of war.
SPEAKER_00: And what these utensils, these cups were there for was God is showing, it's like God packed a suitcase from Jerusalem and took it to Babylon and said, I'm going to bless my people here too.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be with them.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in the midst of that, it's a representation of God's love for his people and his protection for them, and that Belshazzar would get his grubby little hands on God's holy objects that only the priests could touch was a problem.
SPEAKER_00: And that began to reveal deeply what was truly going on in Belshazzar's heart and who he was.
SPEAKER_00: Because he saw God this way.
SPEAKER_00: And I tried to, when I was reading the passage, I tried to bring in the scorn that's under that Belshazzar's words towards Daniel are laced with.
SPEAKER_00: All the commentators said, yeah, he's being really condescending to Daniel in the midst of this.
SPEAKER_00: Because what we believe about God and what we believe about other people affects everything that we do.
SPEAKER_00: It does.
SPEAKER_00: We don't ever get away from that.
SPEAKER_00: There's a great theologian from the 20th century who puts this in perspective for us.
SPEAKER_00: You might have heard of him.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Adolf Hitler.
SPEAKER_00: And Hitler said this.
SPEAKER_00: Rebecca's going, don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, no.
SPEAKER_00: It would have been from Hogan's heroes.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Adolf Hitler.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion.
SPEAKER_00: Talking about Germany and the heritage and Martin Luther and all these things.
SPEAKER_00: It's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion.
SPEAKER_00: Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese who regard sacrifice for the fatherland as the highest good?
SPEAKER_00: The Mohammedan religion, too, would have been much more compatible to us, Nazis, than Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?
SPEAKER_00: He recognized the difference.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, That's not who I want to be, and that's not who I want us to be.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Belshazzar is doing.
SPEAKER_00: And then chapter 5, verse 23, Daniel says, You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know.
SPEAKER_00: But the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.
SPEAKER_00: So Belshazzar knew.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 22, you knew the story of Nebuchadnezzar.
SPEAKER_00: You knew what I did with Nebuchadnezzar.
SPEAKER_00: And he did.
SPEAKER_00: Like we've got a record of it.
SPEAKER_00: It's fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: As you go through, Daniel chapter 2, in each of the chapters that follow, Nebuchadnezzar is giving bits and pieces of his testimony of faith.
SPEAKER_00: So in chapter 2 is when the dream is done, and Nebuchadnezzar says, Your God is the only one who can interpret and give these kinds of dreams.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel chapter 3 is the three young men in the flaming, fiery furnace.
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of that, Nebuchadnezzar issues a decree to his whole kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Anyone who speaks ill of their God shall be torn limb from limb, because he is a powerful God.
SPEAKER_00: And then in chapter four that we read last week, we read Nebuchadnezzar's testimony, starting at the beginning, all the way through, saying, I believe in the Lord God.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's saying to Belshazzar, You knew this.
SPEAKER_00: You're responsible for what you knew to respond to it properly.
SPEAKER_00: So God is in control.
SPEAKER_00: God is in control through the whole of Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: God is having this conversation in our hearing to let us know he's not a personal God, just my God, or he's God.
SPEAKER_00: If I let him be God, he's just God.
SPEAKER_00: Kings, supreme rulers, presidents, parliaments are all subject to him.
SPEAKER_00: With the idea of mine, mine tekal peres, God is saying, your performance review is over, the trial has been carried out, the sentence is passed, and that very night Belshazzar died by the hands of the Medes and the Persians.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's fascinating about this?
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know this until I was doing deep dive study on this, is we have lots of historical records.
SPEAKER_00: For a while, they didn't think that Belshazzar was a real person because there wasn't the uh there wasn't evidence for him in the archaeological record.
SPEAKER_00: But something like 1859, they discovered this huge cache and they know, okay, Belshazzar was a real person.
SPEAKER_00: And then on top of that, they know how he died.
SPEAKER_00: So this is this is how he it's not like I'm laughing like it was funny.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he died.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm just it's like this is just fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: Is in 539, Persian forces took the city.
SPEAKER_00: Herodotus, if you've heard of him, this Greek uh historian wrote it all down.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he said, if if the Medes and the Medes and the Persians were outside the city this night, we might wonder why Belshazzar and the rest of his party were uh were parting with such gusto.
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, they felt secure inside the city.
SPEAKER_00: So the city that they were in was virtually impregnable to assault.
SPEAKER_00: It was overstocked with like 20 years of provisions.
SPEAKER_00: They could hold out on an assault.
SPEAKER_00: The Euphrates, you've heard of the Euphrates and Tigris, the Euphrates flowed under the city walls, and so they had no worries about running out of water because the Euphrates is there.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason they think some people think they're doing, you know, they're partying here is because they had an annual feast.
SPEAKER_00: They're celebrating.
SPEAKER_00: And why cancel their feast to their gods when there's a horde of Medes and Persians outside who can do nothing?
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the fascinating part for me is King Cyrus that's mentioned in here, came up with somebody in his uh kingdom, came up with the bright idea to divert the Euphrates away from the city into a basin.
SPEAKER_00: And so the water level that flowed into the city sank down.
SPEAKER_00: So these uh Persian Mead commandos walked in thigh-deep water into the city and took it.
SPEAKER_00: And that was the night that Belshazzar died.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that fascinating?
SPEAKER_00: And it's right here, recorded, and God's saying, What happened?
SPEAKER_00: I was in control of that.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel didn't know, none of them knew, but God knew what was going to take place, and with very little ceremony and apparently very little struggle, the Babylonian Empire is over, and the empire of the Medes and the Persians began.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been with us, you remember back in Daniel chapter 2, that was the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had.
SPEAKER_00: The head of gold was the Babylonians, and then the the shoulders, the chest, arms of silver, that was the Medes and Persians.
SPEAKER_00: And so with very little uh uh struggle, the Babylonian Empire is over.
SPEAKER_00: No big war happened, and God's people, though there's this huge regime change that's taking place, God's people didn't have to go to war and fight a war that they didn't want to fight, which would be beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: But God's people kept doing what God's people do, trusting God, serving God, taking care of the people around them, worshiping, that's what they kept doing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh do you think it's all going to end well?
SPEAKER_00: If God told Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar back in chapter two, this is what's going to happen, and he's told us throughout the New Testament, throughout Scripture, this is what's going to happen at the end, do you think that maybe he has us in the hollow of his hand and he knows exactly what's going to happen?
SPEAKER_00: It's all going to end well.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to go through hard things.
SPEAKER_00: We are.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go through hard things.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to go through hard things.
SPEAKER_00: But we are in the hollow of his hand and he loves us.
SPEAKER_00: And he's in control.
SPEAKER_00: Um the words that are written in the wall, the plaster wall.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you have a sense that judged and divided and given over, that all of the all of those words are on the backs of every uh I can get it right here.
SPEAKER_00: In the backs of all the Kremlins, all the forbidden cities, all the palaces, even in the Oval Office.
SPEAKER_00: Our kings and rulers, all the people who affect us that we have no control over, all the wars, all of those things, they're going to be held accountable.
SPEAKER_00: We're called to do what we're called to do.
SPEAKER_00: And that is to serve our king.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is the one who doesn't have mine, mine, techal paras written over his throne.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had words that were inscribed when he was crucified.
SPEAKER_00: And it said, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Pilate wrote it and put it on the back of the cross or put it on the cross for all to see.
SPEAKER_00: And it couldn't have been more true.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a king who does not uh send his servants to fight his battles, but who takes our battle in hand and says, I'm not leaving this up to you.
SPEAKER_00: You hold the flashlight, you sing those songs that I like to hear, and I'm going to go and fight the foe to release you, to redeem you, and to make you safe.
SPEAKER_00: And I will hold you in my nail-scarred palms until you get home.
SPEAKER_00: The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_00: We may go through changes.
SPEAKER_00: Every four years we go through some sort of a change in our country.
SPEAKER_00: But the one thing that doesn't change is that Jesus is still on the throne and he is doing his work.
SPEAKER_00: So let me pray for us.