because of it. If you have a Bible this morning and you wanna read along with us, we're gonna take a reading from the book of Daniel chapter five. Book of Daniel chapter five, this is a very famous text, familiar text to you, and we're not gonna read necessarily the part that is familiar to you. If you remember, David, or excuse me, Daniel's an old man. He has been called to a party because there's been some panic involved. There is a, Party going on by Belshazzar the king. And he took it a step too far. Took it a step too far. It should never started. He definitely took it a step too far to the point where God's judgment came into view. And finger wrote on the walls, these words, and all the wise men, the king himself, nobody knew what it meant. I love the part of the scripture, we won't talk about it this morning very much, but where the old queen, suspected to have been, we don't know this historically, at least I'm not aware of it, you can show me, I'd love to see it, but a lot of it suspect that it is Belsh's, our grandmother, which would have been Nebuchadnezzar's wife. So if that's the case, she had gone through this experience with Nebuchadnezzar from chapter four, She knew Daniel, she knew of the things that Daniel, who he was and what he had done, and so I love, if that's what happened here, that this terrible thing is occurring, everybody's in panic, and this old woman comes forward and says, I remember this guy who did this thing. I'm sure he'll be able to help us. He didn't have any titles. Most likely he had long been forgotten as this leader, but he was known as the man who walked with the Lord, or as these people understood it, walked with the gods, because they were paganistic. They didn't understand everything. But there's something about this guy that's unique. We don't know what it is. They call him in to reveal to the king what it is he needs to say. Now we're gonna stop before we get to what is normally the pronounced judgment. So what we're reading here is he is standing before the king, which in and of itself, from a cultural standpoint, I can't even express how terrifying a place that is. That was a terrifying thing because the king, if he said something you didn't like, he could do anything to you. And so if you remember in the story of Esther, she was very hesitant to go before her own husband in his official capacity because he could have just had her killed. Now, if we transfer that same mentality here, he's about to come before the king. And he doesn't have a request like Esther that was one rooted in benevolence. He has a word of judgment against the king that he is going to give. And we're gonna begin reading in verse 17. So this is Daniel chapter five, verse 17. And we're gonna really focus on what occurs before the pronouncement of judgment. So this is nothing new to you because this is very often how I preach is context. This is the context of the judgment. Or in other words, what justifies God's decree against Belshazzar? So think about when your kids come into you and you're gonna punish them in some capacity, even if it's a minor infraction, The lead up is you explain, oh, you did this, and you did this, and you shouldn't have done this, and you knew this, and so now, pronouncement. And I think in this story, this is really important. I'm gonna try to get to the reading part, but I think this is really essential that we don't just focus on the pronouncement without the context. Because then it distorts who God is. In other words, if all we ever go when we're reading scripture and we hone in on God did this, he destroyed the world through Noah. And so if you do bad things, God's gonna destroy things. And we come to a situation like Belshazzar and we focus on the handwriting on the wall and that his life was taken and we don't read why that was the occurrence, then slowly in our minds we begin to see God in this light to be a harder individual than what He really is revealed in Scriptures to be. But the preliminary events that lead up to the pronouncement of judgment is truly the emphasis of the text. Is that he is saying, all these things have occurred, Belshazzar. Now God has determined this. And so we're gonna read what he is telling them has occurred in the story. Daniel five, look at verse 17. So Belshazzar has just promised, I'll give you a whole bunch of stuff if you'll tell me what this means. And Daniel says, then Daniel answered and said before the king, let thy gifts be to thyself and give thy rewards to another. Yet I will read the writing unto the king and make known to him the interpretation. O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom and majesty and glory and honor, pause for a moment and notice in verse 18, the word gave. This is central to what he's saying. Nebuchadnezzar is revealed in the previous chapter. He was proud in his own heart and mind. We'll read that here in just a moment in chapter four. He was proud. And God clearly wanted to prove to Nebuchadnezzar and all of Babylon You have what you have. Because remember, Nebuchadnezzar stepped on the porch, and he thought, look at the glory of my kingdom that I have built. And as soon as those thoughts went through his mind, God struck him down the way that he did in a punishment. Made his mind go crazy, and he began to eat like the animals Outside and had to live with them that happened. What was it for seven years? I believe it was for a prolonged period of time that took place and so Daniel begins in his explanation by saying remember God gave Glory and power and that's a focus of that verse. He's trying to point out. He's not just saying he had it God gave it to him Verse 19, and for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive, and whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him. I gotta stop there for a minute. Notice, the preeminent thing that is trying to be emphasized here is not a series of events. Like sometimes, I don't do this very well. When I'm reading the scriptures, it's very easy to begin to read and you're reading it as a narrative so you're wanting to continue to look at facts about the story. But notice here, The main point of both of these stories, that it's trying to be communicated to us. No matter how much power, no matter how much wealth, no matter how much glory a kingdom or nations or people ascend to, God made a definitive point to show the whole world and all of human history that would come thereafter. God is the ruler of all things, period. God is on the throne. And so even in light of the inauguration that's coming up this week and the difference in perhaps things that can occur in our country for the good or for the bad, and for some there's fear, and for some there's excitement. Let us never as Christians get too far from the reality that in the end, God rules supreme. not just as it relates to the providence of your life and the providence of this church, but there is no one under heaven and nothing under heaven that God does not control. He has power. He has might. And much the same as these people, it seems as though that there is American framework that thinks that we are beyond that. even with the Christian mind that we can have this sense that we have such financial, we have such prosperity and we have such military strength and we have all of these various things that for our whole lives and perhaps for our parents' whole lives and grandparents, that there has been this threshold that has never been crossed of safety and prosperity. And that can often provoke in our hearts this assumption and this assurance that if the right people just push the right buttons and the right leaders make the right decisions, then these things will happen. And this story is central to our understanding that God is communicating through Daniel, no matter what the power distribution looks like in the world, God will do what he chooses with whom he chooses, period, end of story. And that's the central theme that is happening here, and that God is punishing the thought of one who would think otherwise. So he emphasizes here, remember what happened to your father. Remember, this is what he did, this is what he thought. And then this is what God did as a result of that pride. And in the original, I think it says presumption. There was a presumptuousness, which to me, is a unique type of pride that we gotta beware of. James, in the book of James, I believe it's chapter four, it talks about this, that we should not presume that there were some, that he was warning some Christians, James was, where he says, you know, you think I'm just gonna go into this city, I'm gonna make a bunch of wealth, I'm gonna invest, I'm gonna do it, and he says, be careful for your presumption. You ought to say, if God wills, I will do this. Now, those words are not some magic formula. You don't have to say before everything, hey, if God wills, I'm going to the grocery store this evening. That's not what the point is. The point is, when your life is being built upon a series of presumptions about your own ability, I am going to do this because I have the strength, because I know what tomorrow holds, because I'm intelligent and wise and have enough whatever. He says, beware of that. And so the presumption here that's being made by both Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar is that they're so powerful and they're so sovereign that what they wanna do, they can do. And so Belshazzar makes a decision to do something that God had forbidden being done. And God is not pleased with that. And he stops everyone in their tracks. Let's continue reading in verse 22. He says this, and this will be our focus this morning, is really verse 22. It's been a few minutes here. It says this. And thou, his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this. but has lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven, and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines have drunk wine in them, and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and of gold, and of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know, and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways hast thou not glorified. Then, was the part of the hand sent from him, and this writing was written. All right, so what we're gonna talk about this morning is the God of judgment, which is occurring here in this text. We wanna point out in particular about verse 22, because this is really what grabbed my attention in studying this text, where he says this, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, Though thou knewest all this. Though thou hast known all this. Reminds me of a scripture in James from the very area that I talked about a moment ago where it says, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. So what's interesting about what Belshazzar is doing here is that he is a leader of a pagan nation doing what pagans did. And we can go through the scriptures and we can read back in history, this is nothing There's no conjecture here. There's no assumptions here. We know that it was a very common thing for pagan kings to gather their lords and gather all of their nobility together to throw these multi-day parties where sin abounded. where an attempt was made to display their own wealth and power and also to denigrate those nations whom that they had conquered. So oftentimes, if you were a conquered king, you would be required in the presence of that grand party to come forward and offer gifts and bow yourself down to now what was your king. And it was a twofold reason. It was not only to give glory to that king that was conquering, but it was also to humble you to reinforce in the minds of all of the nations, I am the supreme ruler and you are not. And for as much as you ruled with an iron fist and as much as you thought you had glory, my glory is greater. And so, Belshazzar really is doing what is common practice in the ancient world. And yet, very often, we find that all these ancients, they, what we would call, got away with it. Like, I'm not saying there weren't occasions where God did not make clear judgment against them, but this is a unique setting. This is a unique thing, where God deliberately and pointedly before all of the nation of Babylon makes a point of judgment against this man and against this nation. And so the question would be why? I don't think what I'm about to say is necessarily the answer always, but I think it is an A answer sometimes, both in their day and ours. Because Belshazzar knew better. He knew better. You see, what we can go back and we can read if we were to read Nebuchadnezzar, excuse me, Daniel chapter four, is what's interesting about that chapter, and we pointed it out before, is it's written in the first person narrative. So let's say that Daniel wrote the book of Daniel. It seems like what he did with chapter four is he took Nebuchadnezzar's own autobiography, and he said, I'm gonna take that and copy and paste it right here. And so we know that chapter four is coming from the vantage point of Nebuchadnezzar. And that's a very helpful thing when you're trying to understand the implications of an event because the facts can be told accurately from anybody's perspective, but when you're talking about the emotions, when you're talking about what you sense and what you notice, it's a powerful thing when the person who experienced it is the one telling the story because you get a sense of nuance from it that you don't get from a secondary perspective. And so Nebuchadnezzar evidently, he writes this document, and some have contested, I don't know that this is the case, but certainly the way it's written supports this, that he broadcast it all over Babylon. It's almost like a newspaper article detailing, this is what's been going on the last 10 years in the kingdom. This is why I've disappeared, and I am proclaiming to you, there is one God, and it's the God of Israel. You can go back and read chapter four and tell me that's kinda what you surmise from all that. This was all written. This was all told to Babylon. And the very last verse of chapter four tells us the summary of what Nebuchadnezzar took home. All of the story happens, a lot of cool details. Here was his takeaway, verse 37, chapter four. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the king of heaven, all whose works are truth and his ways judgment, and those that walk in pride he is able to abase. So he's trying to pass along to the rest of the world. If you ignore the revelation of God, if you ignore who God is and you think that it is of your own strength, your own power and might and glory, God is able to abase even the most exalted. So when Daniel begins to confront Belshazzar, he's going after his pride. And at the crux of the message is not all that Belshazzar did, but it's that God had already revealed this to you through your grandfather Nebuchadnezzar. He made a pointed example of him. And let me say this for just a moment. It is a blessed privilege in the age that we live in that we have access to so much of what has gone before us. I don't think we recognize the blessing it is to have access to even be able to read history. To speak to those who have lived parts of history. to speak to those who have gone through mountains of experience that one day we will be confronted with. and to have those resources available because we can be sure that the nature of this sinful world is never going to change and that our nature is never going to change and so we can predict if God allows time to go on that whatever it is that we have in human experience from this point forward has once already been likely multiple times through multiple seasons and God has granted us such a unique space where we can draw from those things to learn and how that we can live in obedience and honoring Him from this day forward, come what may. And so, God had given Belshazzar this blessing of his — what was thought to be his grandfather. and all the experience and all of it detailed in such precise, firsthand detail, even to the point that, listen, if you take anything from this story, know that God will humble even the most powerful. And then, Belshazzar, you know, I don't know this, this is speculation, so take it as such. there's a type of pride that is pronounced, that I think all of us, having grown up in church, are smart enough not to pretend to have, and that is a, oh, that's what, oh, I don't care about that. There's that. Just a blatant disregard. But I find that my conscience has a hard time letting my sin be that blatant. So, the way that my presumption always works is in the spirit of Hebrews chapter two, where the writer says, beware lest you drift away from these things. So, if you think of that visual, you can say, you know, I'm not the guy in the boat that is warned about the storm, and I say, I don't care about the warning, I'm launching off. It's not that. Very often the way that my pride comes up is that I think, you know, I don't need to tie the boat too tight. I don't need to make the extra provisions. I don't need to make sure that at all times I'm keeping my eye on the shore so that I know I'm staying connected. I'm going to prioritize these other things. think on these other things. And then slowly I find myself drifting. Well, I get a little out from shore and you get this terrible reinforcement. And here's what happens. You get a little bit from shore and nothing bad has happened. So we think, you know, they warned us about this. They said there's a big storm coming. It's going to be really bad. I've been away from shore for a couple of days. And it's actually really beautiful out here and it's peaceful and it's okay. I would say that is the pride of youth in large part. You hear all these warnings and I know it's funny to me now thinking that you think of me the way I thought of Doug Skinner. That's the person who comes to mind. Because when I was your age, Doug Skinner was my age. And he'd get up here and he'd say all these things and give all these warnings And he lived up in India at the time. And you know, I would take him at face value, but not realize the weight of them. And now, I'm sitting in Doug's spot, right? And I'm like, no guys, really? Really? You can get out from shore just a little bit. And there is peace and calm. But you can be assured for the heart that is set on glorifying God, that the peace and calm is not going to last, there is an adversary that will make sure of that. I don't know if Belshazzar was initially blatant, but then here's the danger. The longer that you have peace and calm, the more blatant you become. Time actually becomes your enemy. Peace becomes your enemy. because it gives you a false sense of assurance. Did you know that God enacting swift judgment is actually a blessing to the Christian? In other words, if I'm doing something sinful, and the third time I get caught, praise God for that. Praise God that if your eyes are seeing things that they should not be seeing, and your company that you're interacting with are clearly people you ought not to be interacting with, that the secret sins of the heart, that the gossip you're confronted by, that you get caught in gossip, pray that that happens. Because listen, the longer you drift out into sin, the more fleshly reassurance you have that it's okay and that you'll get away with it and that there's no harm and foul being done. If you drift off from shore just a couple hours. And I'm sure many of you have probably either been on the ocean or you've maybe seen pictures and it's really neat when you're on the ocean and you see it, as long as you're not in the line where it's coming, but where you see like a strip of clouds that are coming towards a certain area. Like you can really see that on the beach, real clear. If you're on the beach and there's a large thing of clouds and they're headed a certain direction, it's, the only word I know to use is ominous. And from my ignorant van point, it looks like a hurricane's coming. Well, it's not, it's just a little thing of clouds. Well, if you go two days or a day in the clouds, it's gonna compel you to realize this is not worthwhile. I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be doing this. This is exposing me to a world of possibility. I need to heed what I have been told. Because what we can know about the character of God is the rules, the things that he expresses are not rooted in this tyrannical desire to deprive you of life. It's actually meant to do the opposite, which is to preserve and grant you abundant life. that if the Coast Guard doesn't go out and say, you know what, nobody can go on the water today. But a week from now, it's looking clear, you can go out every day and enjoy all that you want to. Their intent is to preserve and grant abundant life, though in the moment, it seems like, especially if you're just there for a moment, just for a couple days, man, it's just unnecessary. Why are they doing this? Well, a lot of it's because they know a lot more than what we do. And it's the same is true with God. God knows more than all of us. And when He puts boundaries up for us, He's doing that because He loves us. And He knows that the ominous judgment that is forthcoming is going to be a greater cost than what we would ever deign to pay. I don't know if belches are drifted initially. or was blatant initially, but here's what I do know. He came to a point where he was blatant and emboldened. I can't help, it partially came from, I'm not gonna get off on this today, but from the company he kept and from the environment he was in. That's why a church is so central to the health of people. I'm not talking about like a church that we just gather Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, but what we're talking about on Wednesday night, this community that God intends to be existent among His people. It's so central because when we begin to drift, there is a group of people who even unbeknownst to us are grabbing the ropes of our life and our family and our marriages and our friendships. And when we begin to drift a little bit, they, even against our will, can pull us back. And praise God for church family and church friends who love people enough to step in and say, Brother Brian, are you doing okay? You've seemed off today. Brother Brian, is there something going on? Can I help you? Let me pull you back a little bit. That's the way we're meant to be with one another. Because we all have what the song says, this proneness to wander. Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God that I love. That proneness is present in me every single hour, and praise God that I can establish myself amongst this congregation of people, that when that proneness and that sheep to wander off, not only does the shepherd come looking for me, but other sheep try to prevent me from springing loose into a place that will inevitably lead me to places that shouldn't be. Belshazzar wandered off. He became bold and blatant, and the judgment of God evidently to some degree was delayed, and it cultivated this spirit of presumption and pride inside of him And he knew better. I'm thankful today. I'm going to begin to close by saying this. I'm thankful today that God loves us enough. And listen, if you've gotten to a place where you're practicing sin and you don't feel conviction about it, pray that God would convict you about it. If you can do things now that six months ago you felt awful about, And now you don't. Standards of righteousness reaffirm in our own hearts. How do I want to say this? When we're close to people or to God who is righteous, One of the reasons it's necessary to have a church who is spiritually alive, pursuing righteousness as a group, is because when I begin to veer from that, there's this almost intangible energy. This isn't, I don't feel right. Something's not right inside of me. My conscience begins to identify in me. They're aiming for one thing, you're aiming for another. And what a wonderful blessing that God gives us that. This morning, if that's the way it is. And even if it's not some terrible sin, it's just a drifting away from the presence of God love, faith, those things that God desires to be cultivated in our hearts. Tonight, we're gonna have a brother come and preach for us who, a season of my life, whenever I would get preoccupied with things, he was kind of like a touchstone of reset. I thank the Lord for that friendship, that it kind of, what at times, And if you come tonight, you'll see what I mean. It was a little jarring sometimes, right? Sometimes it was a little more than just a, sometimes it was a handwriting on the wall. I'm thankful for a brother who loved me enough at times to have that jarring impact that, oh yeah, money, title, those things will burn away, but that person's soul in Guatemala matters. to awaken that in my mind. I pray this morning that would be the case. In conclusion, I wanna say this about this text. Belshazzar's judgment was largely dependent upon God's justifiable expectation of what he knew. And the same is true for us. I could go into the scriptures in the Old Testament where sacrifices could be given for sins of ignorance, but Hebrews 10 reaffirms what the Old Testament law, there was no more sacrifice for sin for deliberate rejection. This morning, I pray, whatever God has entrusted you to do, you would do it. That's my prayer this morning, I hope that it would be of some benefit to you today, the message this morning.