Through the Bible (Daniel 5)

well on sunday we took sort of a high level view of daniel chapter five and we looked at it sort of the telling of the story and sort of we already looked at the punch line if you would but it actually is worth really diving in tonight excuse me if you would just uh take a look at the details of the story and we'll read through it verse by verse as we always do uh and there's so much really in this chapter i'm pretty sure we're not even gonna come close to diving into the depths i want to remind you of that you know it depends on your perspective i suppose but i always feel like we're just scratching the surface when we're going through the bible verse by verse chapter by chapter there's different ways of doing it and jay vernon mcgee it took him five years to go through the bible um but he would skip chapters because you know he was talking about how many spoons and forks and knives were in the uh tabernacle and and he'd say now those are all the spoons and knives and the forks in chapter 20 you know then you move on to the next chapter we read through it all and so it takes us uh 15 years or we're on a 16-year pace right now um but uh but i do like covering all the details and even with that we're scratching the surface so we'll do our best to cover as much as we can tonight on this but um but it's great great stuff now we got to remember in a little bit of review just so because it's so important i think to understand the context of what's going on here but um you know nebuchadnezzar died um you know in our dating system uh october the 7th 562 uh bc and so um this is kind of a big moment a big change in uh in what was going on there in babylon and we we talked about a little bit of the drama between nebuchadnezzar and the rulers that kind of came and went family members that murdered each other and stuff like that we looked at that a little bit on sunday but we ended up getting to nibonadis um you know and the bonnetus was that guy who was the son-in-law of nebuchadnezzar um and uh and he ended up reigning sort of in a strange way he got the throne nebonnitus was the king of babylon and the babylonian empire but we learned that belshazzar who is the story starts you know as the king in babylon in chapter five we make this jump from nebuchadnezzar to belshazzar now what i love i forgot to mention this on sunday but i always love when people critics cynics so-called scholars for the longest time they um they said that belshazzar didn't exist the the bell shabba shazar was never the king of babylon the the babylonian empire um and it always kind of cracks me up because the bible's always right and man you'll be in good standing if you just stick with the bible don't listen to the archaeological people don't listen to the biblic even the biblical archaeological review i'm a a longtime subscriber and there's interesting articles and digs and stuff all around the world b.a.r uh but but even those guys i remember reading years ago you know this and that then they have to kind of eat their words if they ever controvert the bible or go against the bible they're always wrong one such thing i've told you about you know they said there was never the plains of dura i've talked about you know in the book of daniel they said that never existed then they found the plains of dura and and they always do this but one such thing was was the existence of belshazzar for the longest time they said there was no belshazzar and for sure there was no you know king over the the babylonian empire named belshazzar now let me just give it to him for a second are you guys ready for this um there never was a king over the empire of babylon named bill oh well brad what do you mean well as it turns out belshazzar is the king over the city of babylon and he is the son of nabonidus now by the way if you're interested we we saw this relief on sunday of nebodus this relief there on the left um but what's interesting is some of these cylinders of nubonitus now these cylinders are found in the archaeological digs uh very ancient stones that have the etchings of the deeds of pneumonitis and there's there's there's uh tablets and there's cylinder stones on this very cylinder stone you're looking at there on the top it explains the whole thing what they did the mnemonics was the king over the babylonian empire and and belshazzar was made king over the city babylon um they almost had them handled them like two almost separate entities because the city of babylon was big enough to need a king of its own so nibonitis they called them co-regents that is nobodis was the king and then second to nobodis was belshazzar his son and they put him in charge of the city bel belshazzar was in charge of the city of babylon not in charge of the entire kingdom of babylon um and that's kind of an interesting bit of information because it's funny uh in some ways you know you might say uh even bible people said yeah belshazzar was the king of babylon well he was the king of the city babylon but not the the the province of babylon the province of babylon was huge so when people say where was nebodis and what was he doing um this king you know why did he leave his son in charge of babylon well we talked about this a little bit on sunday and that was that uh that the modest was trying to bring the empire of babylon to its former greatness um and so he was out doing you know battle and stuff the first seven first for basically 17 years nobody reigned but he was trying to improve the conditions because it kind of fell apart uh after the reign of nebuchadnezzar and and the various rulers that came and went uh they sort of ruined and squandered the former glory of babylon so nobody was trying to bring that back well while he was doing that the medo-persian empire was the up-and-comers and they were getting more and more powerful and they were starting to conquer all the surrounding regions of the babylonian empire and so the big question you know people ask well where was nabonidus when all this happened and and for you guys that like to go a little deeper there's two writers that you should probably read about this it's not armchair reading but it is interesting um there's there's an ancient his two ancient historians herodotus and josephus both write in great detail about um what was going on during this time and this is extra biblical literature so it's obviously not the inspired word of god like what we have always go with the word of god other stuff's just interesting and you can study history and all that with that but uh don't bank on that stuff you can bank on the bible are we good with that that's important to know but it is fun to study and i i was reading a bunch of herodotus today and josephus and and it was it was interesting to hear their description of what what happened and whether this was true or not who knows but josephus and herodotus were known to be fairly accurate in all of their histo historical writings and a lot of their stuff perfectly aligns with the bible which is interesting they weren't you know bible-believing christians which is kind of cool uh to have that kind of a con ancient confirmation of what was going on so what herodotus and josephus write about is that nabonidus actually was got a little overwhelmed as he was trying to you know keep the former glory of babylon when the medes and the persians started rising up and eventually nobody had to run for cover and he went to a city that was far away from babylon and he he kind of held up in that city because uh he knew he couldn't have him and his army out there uh to go against the medo-persian empire they weren't able to uh defend the empire of babylon so he was sort of hiding in a city um of the medio persians which they would eventually conquer as it turns out after they conquered babylon so nabata has probably outlived belshazzar according to history um but belshazzar king of babylon we know his death and we're going to see that tonight but nobody's would actually uh the middle persian empire would take over they would actually capture nabonidus and they would give him a nice little place to live and sort of exile uh and he'd die an old man as it turns out that's that's according to josephus and um and herodotus so there's kind of an interesting story there but um but um we talked a lot about the walls of babylon we talked about the euphrates river and it's uh it's you know the moat um there's some interesting you know um drawings and pictures and artwork and stuff that you can see and and even the archaeological digs of the city of babylon you can see the river moat that is around it in a square form and the the euphrates also would run through the city and that's where those gates the bars of leaves of steel and brass that the you know that we talked about on sunday would would go when the water would flow into the city this would ultimately be their achilles heel and what have you we talked about the walls of babylon by the way herodotus um some believe he was exaggeratory and so we don't really know uh he wasn't known to be uh given to exaggeration but um some some of the writings say that uh the the walls of babylon parts of them reached 350 feet high uh that's what herodotus says that's pretty high and so a lot of people think that must have been an exaggeration um well what about the archaeological digs did they find walls that were 350 feet high no um it's interesting in the archaeological digs of ancient babylon one of the problems is that the walls were made of clay because that's kind of all they have there they don't have the same like stone of jerusalem or even rome or some of these you know even ephesus some of these ancient cities they had a lot of stone these guys had some they baked bricks and they made giant walls out of baked bricks and the problem with that is not a lot of longevity especially if it was a really tall wall so um there's argument about how big and tall the walls were so the highest uh herodotus says was 350 feet who knows um maybe he's including the towers that were on top of the walls but it is agreed that these walls were huge like we talked about on sunday where you could race you know four to six chariots on the top of the wall of babylon the inner wall and then there was the outer wall on the other side of the river like we talked about on sunday um you should know by the way what probably the most famous gate uh is the ishtar gate it was constructed in 575 bc by nebuchadnezzar himself um and they they dug this gate up and it was it was really intact and even the beautiful coverings you see in this sort of uh drawing um those those coverings were found just like that and they back it when they found this uh they peeled off the coverings and took them to berlin and reconstructed this gate in berlin okay so kind of interesting you can go see the covering of this gate the the skin uh and they sort of made a replica of the ishtar gate which was probably the most famous gate of uh of babylon but it was built by nebuchadnezzar ii which is the nebuchadnezzar of the bible and this is that section that they peeled off uh and and took to berlin glazed bricks were which were glazed mostly in blue and had um animals that were some strange animals and you say well what are these strange animals were were there extinct animals uh because they looked a little weird no the babylonians believed in these animals as deities they worshipped these animals as deities which is kind of funny because we're going to talk a lot about animals coming up in the next chapters of the book of daniel and it's going to speak loud and clear of what god thinks of these beasts and animals but um uh um these these also made up uh you know beautiful beautiful mosaics if you would uh another thing you'll see in babylon if you go there today and by the way we've had ethy creekers who were uh stationed right there i'll show you where in a minute uh right where the palace of uh nebuchadnezzar was uh in our some of our military servicemen uh have been there uh you know when they were in that region of near not too far from baghdad um but but all that to say you can see some of these uh one of the most famous things you'll see today in babylon is the the break bricks but then they have these pop-out sort of reliefs of the animals that they worshipped and people go uh you know before there was that much warfare people used to go and tourists would go see that stuff um but all that to say daniel chapter five sort of picks up in the you know in this in this time period where you know the medo-persian empire is kind of enveloping the the kingdom of babylon and and sort of you know babylon is is this one fortified city that's that they're saying well it's all that's left but who cares we're safe we're safe here in babylon now the reason i kind of get into this is i want you to kind of just for a minute you know i like to sort of think what was going on in the mind of belshazzar you know um why do i do that why do i think that about bible characters i think when you when you you pause to sort of think what was he thinking um i think there's things to learn when you kind of consider what makes a person do what they're doing and and we can learn from that hopefully tonight as well so let's take a look starting here in chapter 5 verse 1. it says belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords and drank wine before the thousand hmm interesting right there this is what the first thing we read about belzer he's making a big banquet a big feast a thousand of his lords now here's the funny thing were a thousand of the lords of babylon doing in babylon there's something about that we learned just by looking at this um there were never normally a thousand of the lords of the empire of babylon all in babylon but but the reason scholars believe that a thousand of them were in babylon is because of the besieging of babylon they all kind of said hey the needs of the persons are coming let's all run you know from our variants you know various cities around the province of babylon and go to the city of babylon and and so that's exactly what they did and that's why there would be a thousand of these lords in the city normally they would have been scattered all around but that's kind of an interesting thing when you've got all the lords of babylon all in one place um you know it's it's a little bit like you know um you know there's been movies and tv series about what would happen if you know during one of these events where the president the vice president you know congress and senate in the house all are in one place and what happens if that place explodes suddenly um man you know hopefully you have your designated survivor uh kiefer key for sutherland who's the president of the united states suddenly um well as it turns out that's the situation here in babylon in the city all the bigwigs all the lords of babylon are all gathered together in the same room on the same night and and that's important to know as far as the the fall of babylon um you know so um we have to ask ourselves what were what were one thousand of the lords doing they were protecting themselves by by moving in or going to the city now um i want to make a case uh and i wouldn't die on this battlefield the case i'm about to make but i want to make a case about bill shazer if you do the math belshazzar he was about 14 years old when nebuchadnezzar set up an image you know his uh his grandfather when nebuchadnezzar set up an image to be worshipped in babylon and everybody was supposed to bow down when the music played remember that um bell shasta would have been 14 years old a freshman in high school if you would when when that whole thing went down he was around he knew about you know this uh event no doubt it was a big deal the fiery furnace i mean news gets around i'm sure belshazzar knew about this situation um so that's kind of the thing you kind of you got to remember he was around when his grandfather was still ruling and reigning for 43 years so belshazzar saw that and i believe that it's possible belshazzar knew who daniel was because do you remember after daniel chapter 2 belshazzar was around when daniel was second in command over everything do you remember that daniel was was made in charge in fact let's flip back to to chapter two and i want to show you how i mean this is a powerful description of what nebuchadnezzar does for daniel after the the interpretation of the dream in daniel 2. it says in daniel 2 48 then the king made daniel a great man now we know daniel already was a great man the king didn't make him a great man by god's grace daniel was an amazing man but this is what it says the king made daniel a great man and gave him many great gifts and made him ruler over the whole what province of babylon now and the reason i i want to remind you remember it's it's the province of babylon but then there's the city of babylon um so let's think about this for a second daniel was in charge second in command to nebuchadnezzar over the whole province not just the city question who has a higher rank in in their prime i should say not at the same time but in their prime when daniel was second in charge over all the province of babylon or if you compare belshazzar's rank as the king over babylon who had the higher rank daniel did i have no question that daniel was known by bill schauzer because daniel was the guy he was the guy only second to nebuchadnezzar over the whole province of babylon well belshazzar so it says he made him over the whole province of and chief of the governors over all the wise men of babylon and then you know of course verse 49 daniel requested the king that he'd sent shadrach meshach and abednego over the affairs of the province of babylon but daniel sat in the gate of the king by the way this this might answer some of the questions we had remember where was daniel in chapter three uh when nebuchadnezzar made everybody bow down where was daniel he was probably off somewhere in the province and if you look at a map of babylon's province it was gigantic and it went you know all the way to the mediterranean sea and i went down in even into parts of arabia and almost up into lebanon and up into almost parts of europe like the babylonian empire was huge and daniel could have been anywhere remember he was he was in second in in charge of the whole province so it wouldn't have been a big deal for daniel to have had to do you know affairs uh you know business affairs or or kingdom sort of issues that he was dealing with so he probably wasn't even around when all that happened i think that's that's likely uh people say daniel must have bowed down uh that's what people say some uh in in daniel chapter three that's ridiculous especially when you know daniel but all that to say um this is interesting to me and and again so what what case am i trying to make well back to daniel chapter five the case that i'm making is um you know i i believe that belshazzar is in total rebellion against the true and living god um you know we a lot of times we read the story okay there's this weird babylonian king who is busting a move and partying down and drinking and getting drunk you know poops his pants and uh he dies that night and we just kind of dismissed the story and that's what happened and that did happen but but i think if you read between the lines i believe we're seeing a guy who's in rebellion against you know the god of the jews and he's in rebellion to what the god of the jews predicted years earlier because we have to remember in daniel chapter 2 you know daniel said here's what's going to happen nebuchadnezzar you're the head of gold but after you is going to come another kingdom the medes and the persians and and and that was that was in record there's no doubt the people of babylon remember you know that daniel second in command of the whole kingdom interpreted the stream and that's why he became the king like like this would have been history 101 if you're a kid being raised in babylon and i believe belshazzar must have known of those prophecies given through the jewish boy daniel who would later now be an older man daniel by this time by the way is probably in his 80s if if you do the math he's getting up there and and uh but he's i love that he's still going strong as an 80 year old guy i love that and some of the best things that happened in the book of daniel and most powerful prophecies come when he's an older guy but um but then that also begs the question why in the party would belshazzar suddenly bust out the jewish vessels let's read that it goes on now in chapter five daniel chapter five it says um in in verse two belshazzar while he's uh while he tasted the wine uh commanded to bring the gold and the silver vessels which is father notice your margin says or grandfather because that's what it was remember in the in the chaldean language hebrew language they would use the word father interchangeably as father or grandfather or even great ground or even ancestors it was a word in general that you see in the bible so um he says uh he he he commanded the vessels which is father nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in jerusalem that the king and his princes and his wives and his concubines concubines might drink therein then they bought brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of god which was at jerusalem and the king and his princes and his wives and his concubines drank in them and they drank wine and praised the gods of gold and of silver and of brass of iron and wood and of stone wow bold brash this king saying get the jewish vessels from the temple let's drink our you know party uh you know beverages from that um why would a guy do such a thing and and let me ask you this do you think the babylonian empire at this time had other vessels from other kingdoms remember they'd conquered all those kingdoms all around that region of the world they had vessels coming out their ears i'm sure but what was so special about the vessels now you could make the argument well the jews they put a lot of wealth you know during the reign of solomon man solomon remember during the reign of solomon silver was like gravel the bible says silver just laid around like gravel because it was just a waste you know only gold and gems and precious stones were valuable because there was so much gold and silver during the time of solomon so that could be it maybe they were just really valuable vessels and they kind of stood out among all the others but i believe there's more to it because um he even renumerates where the vessels came from he says let's get those vessels the ones that my grandfather took from the temple you know in jerusalem the holy vessels and let's what are we doing they're drinking and partying to their gods of babylon of gold silver you know wood and stone there's a very deliberate message here if you ask me and this is the case that i'm making he's in rebellion against the god of the jews that had predicted babylon's fall and he is just in denial about god's power and god's ability to do what he says he's going to do and it's almost like he's trying to sort of you know just live his life in a way that's just kind of an abject rebellion so that it hopefully won't really happen the way that it was supposed to happen well brent what does that have to do with us today why are you making such a point i believe a lot of people are living that same life today a lot of people today are flying in the face of the god of the christians who by the way is the same god the same god that belshazzar's rebellion against here in this daniel chapter five story is the same god you and i worship today and the same god that has prophesied that what's going to happen in the last days we're living in the same exact scenario of end times if you would belshazzar's living in the end times of babylon you and i are living in end times of the world but the worldly response is often to just fly in the face of the true and living god and say yeah whatever and even you know mock and even you know blaspheme the name of the true and living god so we're living in a day where we're seeing you know a lot of people say you can't do this you can't do that and they're they're saying you can't worship because of this or that or you have to get this or that you know it's an amazing thing where people are sort of forcing uh and and it's in my lifetime your lifetime we're starting to see some of the liberties that we've always enjoyed as americans being taken away and and and they're starting to touch on some of our religious freedoms and they have been now for several years and it's only going to get worse i believe if you read your bible and know how the prophecies go i believe it's only going to get worse oh as a patriot i hope i'm wrong and i i hope the united states we pull up but we're headed we're headed down really fast does anybody get the sense that america is spiraling right now man if you watch what's going on and you see what our president is doing or not doing or saying or not saying uh if you see you know um you know the the the the world scene and what the world thinks about the united states now it's set it's the stage is set for the end time scenario do you know i hope you understand you know for the world to go the way the bible says it's going to go in the last days globalism one world religion one world government um you know uh this coming world leader called antichrist for that to happen america can't exist as it has for the last 200 years america cannot be in the scene and and that's why the bible is it's amazing we've always wondered why is the united states not talked about in bible prophecy that we've always kind of scratched our heads with that and you know we said well maybe maybe um you know maybe we the rapture of the church happens and we're suddenly emptied of of a lot of the people of our nation well that could happen that's that's the most positive scenario i can think of or maybe we're just not in the picture because we've been weakened and we just don't have it anymore um man it's sad i um i i've found it's interesting in my prophecy updates i get a lot of responses and people and one of the things i was talking about a couple prophecy updates ago if you missed our what was that let's see we're in september so in the august prophecy update i talked about the weapons of the world and weapons of the end times and i was talking about you know the chinese and some of their weapons and the russians and what they're doing and you know i got a lot of people and i understand i'm with these guys that were arguing against me i'm like yeah i was cheering on their arguments against me uh what were their arguments brett the united states is the most powerful nation in the world and our military is superior and i'm like yeah you're right about that but but i'm like yeah but i'm reading a lot of things that and and here's here's my trouble we have we have people that are active in our military as we speak who are telling me brett it's worse than you guys even know was talking i'm not going to give any real detail on this one but i met with a guy who was just just in the thick of battle on the other side of the world somewhere and um and he was talking about how um how how you know they'd be engaged with the enemy in in some real you know legitimate and important issues and everything was postured and ready and they were they had people and they went and then suddenly they were told to shut everything down stop all the flights and the air you know support and pull back all all the soldiers get them turn off all their computers and go because they had to do their diversity training he says it's ridiculous like we let people go who should have been taken out we didn't let people get away because we were making sure you know and you know they've said brett when you showed the recruiting videos in your prophecy updates you know the the the one from the united states and the ones from the russians um they said it's worse than you even know and and uh you know it makes you kind of wonder you know what's going on with the united states i believe that a large problem with with where we're at as americans is i'm going to call it the belshazzar syndrome we've been weighed in the balance and been found wanting as a nation and we're we're like bill cesar we just don't even want to know about it and and and we've heard what's going to happen and people say oh you believe in the end times and god's wrath and all this stuff whatever party down eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die and that's kind of the attitude i think that you know this this rebellion belshazzar is sowing i recognize this um as an attitude that is largely against god um you know our politicians you know many of them are just openly against the biblical truth and christianity but but you know frankly i have to say there's some that you know they wear the pin and they they act like the god bless america and pray for this and pray for that and they quote scriptures oftentimes wrong and out of context and they sort of have the poser uh christianity going on but they're not they're not who are you to say who's a christian i'm not i'm not anyone to say who's a christian but you'll know them by the fruit and the fruit is not good and it stinks and it's rotten and you know the sad truth is as i see this rebellion that i see here in belshazzar i think he knows who daniel is i think he's he's sees the he sees that you know the needs of the persons are coming and he sees that you know who knows where nobody is his father but he hasn't heard from him for a few months so whatever but we're good and he's just gonna party down and act like nothing's wrong do you get a sense that our leaders are sort of partying down and acting like nothing's wrong meanwhile our cities are falling apart i mean we live in portland for crying out loud we're seeing it as much as any city um i was just in downtown today um and um i talked to one of the store owners in downtown portland they said yeah we all of our stores whoever's left it's like armageddon down there um the stores that are left they all got a private investigator and hired a person because all their streets were taken over by tents and and these people homeless people and they they'd complain and the city would say no they have the right to camp if they're camping on public property and you couldn't walk down the sidewalk uh you couldn't even park a vehicle next to the road because their tents were kind of falling out on the road i saw it this morning well while i was there the police were there trying to subdue some people because the name all those stores said um we had to hire a private investigator we all went in together and paid so that we could show that criminal activity was going on in these tents and they were able to show drug stuff and weapons and all this stuff well sure enough they finally gave the city um you know the um the information and so the city uh did a raid and out of the 40 tents that are on that street uh three of them were taken down and that's what i saw happening today three of the tents were being taken out they took out full huge truckloads of stuff just taking three of these tents and they they found all kinds of weapons like tons of like loaded guns and and all kinds of drug paraphernalia and stuff and uh and they just let all the other campers uh stay there uh and and and meanwhile these businesses are all dying and stuff and you think man how can how can we look at that and say that's a good thing we're really helping the homeless people there by letting them camp out on the streets you know and you say where's the reason where's the logic and the answer ask bill shazer where's his reason and where is his logic he's surrounded by the medo-persian empire um he knows that there's been this prophecy given he's going down and babylon's going down but he's just acting like everything's great no big deal party down we're all good but he's going to die this night and sad to say i worry that we as an american culture that once stood for you know righteousness and goodness in the world at least we have a history of that um we're falling away from that i see a great parallel about this you know all these people were set up to be destroyed and i think this was god's plan to carry out his prophecy on the nation babylon and the babylonians i believe god has even a more important and more powerful future for the world and we're right on the cusp of that i really believe that and the the decline in the fall of the united states that we're seeing sadly and again i pray for revival i pray this is just one of the birth pains you know before and maybe we're going to have another enlightenment that'd be awesome i don't think it's going to happen but i pray for that but if it doesn't it would fit exactly with what the biblical narrative says the united states is going to be a non-issue when it comes to the end times and when the antichrist comes and his one world government and his one world religion and as one world economy the bible says this is going to all happen the united states cannot exist the way it has traditionally and all that stuff happen at the same time well that's depressing it is but remember you know jesus taught us we're supposed to remember that our kingdom is not of this world um we can be patriots and we can pray for this country and and some of you are even called to political activity and i hope there's people in our congregation that are out there doing that work and i know there are so i'm so thrilled to see some of you guys actively working hard and there's a real place for that i believe that for sure and i'm i'm thankful that anything is full of people out there just doing stuff to try to turn these things around and i think you should keep doing that but at the same time we also have to remember you know when things don't go the way we hope they do i'm sure there's a lot of californians tonight that are a little discouraged because of what's going on there but you know what that's we have to remind yourself you know heaven is our place we're headed uh my kingdom is not in this world jesus said we need to remember set your affection on things above and not on things of this earth we have to remember that well be that as it may belshazzar i think is a is a sort of a type of of the modern day person uh eating and drinking and being marrying and all that speaking of drinking uh notice how he does all his stupid things after he's been drinking too much oh brett is this where you tell us the evils of alcohol well yes i do um in fact um don't forget like this is a classic example right here of what the bible teaches in proverbs 31 remember um it says in proverbs 31 solomon who is the wisest man that ever walked the face of the earth he pens down the words of his mother as wisdom and he says it is not for kings o lemme well it is not for kings to drink wine nor for prince's strong drink lest they drink and forget the law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish and whine unto those that be of heavy hearts let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more uh you know let the person be sloshed and drunk with wine um that wants to you know be doomed and that's kind of what belshazzar is doing he's drowning his sorrows and he's doing it as boldly against god as he can using the vessels of the temple of the jews and uh and he's gonna go down just as you know this guy's stupid we could talk about belshazzar's stupidity i could do a whole sermon and we could alliterate it you know his pride his poop is we i could do all kinds of things about you know belshazzar and how what a loser he was um but i won't do that sermon tonight that's tempting uh but but back to daniel 5 this is the this is the scene this is what's going on they're they're totally busting it out thinking they're going to somehow defy god and then verse 5 in the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote then the king's countenance was changed and his thoughts troubled him so that the joints of his loins were loosed and his knees smote one against the other the king cried aloud to bring the in the astrologers and the chaldeans and the soothsayers um and the king spake and said unto the wise men of babylon whosoever shall read this writing and show me the interpretation thereof shall be clothed with scarlet and have a chain of gold about his neck and shall become or be the third ruler in the kingdom first of all just that promise is so stupid what if what if some guy gives the interpretation and he just happens to be an imbecile you just made an imbecile the third ruler of all the kingdom like like like is that something you should take lightly um it's funny how these guys are like i'll make you third ruler and i don't even know who you are yet but whoever you are with the pulse i can tell you what the writing on the wall is um like this just is him acting stupidly um but but um there's so much here you know like i mentioned on sunday says uh in the in the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand and and there's debate is that is the fingers of an angel is it the fingers of god um but it says it's the fingers of a man's hand maybe it's just the lord using a a little puppet of a man's hand to write down something on the wall i don't know for sure but but don't forget we were created in the image of god and we're told the finger of god wrote the ten commandments by the way you can jot that down exodus 31 18 tells us that but but here we see it says the fingers of a man's end i love it john chapter 8 verse 6 is where we see jesus with his finger riding in the sand we talked about that on sunday and this writing against the indictment against do you remember when christ returns the second coming of christ what's coming out of his mouth a sword um well brother that's weird who comes with a sword coming out of their mouth like that that's that's weird well you got to remember don't paint these pictures of the book of revelation they're not meant to be painted they have meaning and the sword is what the word of god what's going to happen when christ comes it's the word of god that's written that's going to be indicting the world for their sin and their their evil it's not that there's a sword coming out his mouth that's supposed to be this image the idea is the thing that's going to strike and divide is going to be the sword of the word of god when he comes and nobody will have an excuse when christ comes um and that's that's what we need to understand about this um so um so as it turns out you know um we we see here that that um you know nebuchadnezzar he has totally lost it he's the joints of his loins loosed um and again you know your your newer translations try to clean it up even still but most scholars believe in the in the uh you know language of the day uh you know aramaic it's speaking that he kind of you know he didn't quite make it to the restroom in time uh and his knees smote together uh have you ever had your knees smite together uh when something bad happens it's like you just kind of drop and it's like your knees kind of come out from under you that is probably what happened is he kind of fell down uh and what have you but he's he's troubled and so he pulls a nebby what's the nebby he says get me the chaldeans the source the magicians the same thing his grandfather did stupidly um and and you say brett well this shows that belshazzar must not have known daniel uh because he doesn't ask for daniel that would have been the obvious choice had belshazzar known daniel but you could also remember he's flying in the face of the god of the jews he doesn't like the jews and we're going to see some language that's very derogatory toward daniel coming up here from bill shaizer i don't think belshazzar likes the jews i don't think he wants anything to do with daniel maybe and again i'll admit i might be reading into history a little bit but maybe belshazzar is a little you know jealous of daniel and his former power whatever happened to daniel's power we don't know for sure but most of us as we read this and most scholars actually uh say that daniel was probably in retirement he'd been second ruler under nebuchadnezzar but with the coming and going of all these other leaders daniel was probably sort of retired after nebuchadnezzar died after his 43 years of reigning so daniel's just off retired probably that's where he is so they're gonna have to call him to come in we'll see that in a second but but that's kind of important to know um as it turns out so the fingers of a man's hand uh and it's inscribing it on the walls um it's kind of funny because in in babylon everything was inscribed on walls that's kind of how they did stuff you can go and see stuff on walls still inscribed pictures and what have you did you know by the way do you remember when saddam hussein was still alive he was trying to rebuild ancient babylon um you can go see uh well if you're if you're wearing a bulletproof vest maybe you can go see uh the the king you know uh the the the you know the king nebuchadnezzar's sort of uh reincarnation did you know that saddam hussein believed he was nebuchadnezzar sort of reincarnated and one of the things that he did is you can find these reliefs on saddam hussein's head chiseled in stone just like in babylon days it's interesting that his head is there disconnected because that's kind of what happened uh to him but but salaam nebuchadnezzar hussein that was sort of his thing as it turns out now by the way uh this this palace where this happened um you know there was this is kind of a really high satellite photo but you can see where you've the bend and the euphrates river there um you know that that's kind of where this palace or near where the palace is saddam hussein built his palace right up over the old palestine area the round circle in that is saddam hussein's palace um the the the the city that's along the river by the elbow in the river that's where the united states military base some of you guys from athene creek were uh uh stationed right there um and uh and had to do service there um the ishtar gate you can kind of see a little bit of the outline of the ancient city and you can see uh like this this high level view is kind of hard to see all that but the detail as you kind of dial in you know it gets more and more clear now these see these big rooms here this is where they believe um you know that this banquet actually took place in our daniel chapter five story this is an ancient archaeological dig where they found these rooms and and were they the same size there's debate and there's different ancient historians that talk about that but it's just interesting that these are real places and these are real things that happen real event uh i think sometimes we read bible stories and we kind of go oh these are like fairy tales you know santa claus uh daniel uh you know all these things no this is a real story but all that to say um this this this this um this is you know him freaking out seeing that this handwriting is carved or chiseled by the finger in the in the wall and so he cries out now um notice uh um it says in verse 8 then came in all the king's wise men but they could not read the writing nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof then was king belshazzar greatly troubled and his countenance was changed in him and his lords were astonished some of your newer translations say confused or perplexed uh they didn't know what to say they didn't know what to do we don't know what the handwriting on the wall is now it's interesting because the um the writing on the wall was in fact aramaic and so the big debate is why couldn't they read it at least no meaning meanie taco you farsan or perez why couldn't they have gotten that down um some believe it maybe was an interesting script or an ancient version of the aramaic script but somehow they didn't know what it meant or said so they had to figure out something else and that's where we introduced the queen probably the we would call her the queen mother verse 10. it says now the queen by reason of the words of the king and his lords came into the banquet house now this is interesting to me she wasn't in the banquet house why maybe a couple reasons one she was probably very old this is probably either nebuchadnezzar's wife or evil marrow dex wife we don't know for sure but she's probably the queen mother now some people make the argument that um the bondedness would have been married to her or even belshazzar you say well that how's that i mean who did she marry it could be all of them you have to understand this is the way the babylonians rolled when you became the king you would take on a harem and multiple wives and and you would definitely take the queen as your own even if it was your mother um this is this is the way the babylonians rolled and it was a show of force and power by saying you know she's still the queen or whatever it was it was kind of so there's some people that argue that i don't know that i would argue that uh as much i believe this is probably the queen mother or grandmother and i find it interesting she's not in the party um she has to be called in because uh the party kind of stops uh once uh he pooped his pants uh parties over uh as it turns out um so the queen comes in to the banquet house by the way in verse two i didn't really mention this but where it says his wives and his concubines came into the party this is something you have to know about babylonian history as well when they did these parties they did not allow the women in these parties unless it was for sexual perverse kind of reasons you have to understand that it's different than our culture uh but that's that's that's what gives us sort of an indication of what kind of party this was it was basically a drunken orgy it was ugly and sinful and that's why daniel's not here of course but that's also why the queen mother probably wasn't there either but she comes in and um and she says she comes in the banquet house and the queen spake and said o king live forever let not thy thoughts trouble the nor let my countenance be changed there is a man in thy kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods and in the days of thy father and again look at your margin it says grandfather light and understanding and wisdom like wisdom of the gods was found in him whom the king nebuchadnezzar thy father the king i say thy father made master of the magicians astrologers chaldeans and sooth theirs for as much and now she's going to explain what daniel did verse 12 for as much as an excellent spirit and knowledge and understanding interpreting of dreams and showing of hard sentences and dissolving of doubts were found in the same daniel whom the king named belty shazar now let daniel be called and he will show the interpretation man don't you love this um man there's so much here i love what she says about daniel what a reputation daniel has i mean i love this she says man he's a guy who interpreted dreams and had understanding and knowledge had an excellent spirit oh we can just camp out on these attributes that she acknowledges a guy who had an excellent spirit that's what we as christians should have we have an excellent spirit within us we should be different than the world we should stand out among the world and daniel did he had an excellent spirit and you know what i love about daniel is one thing that he did is he answered questions more than raised questions daniel when he got into the room he'd start answering and solving and causing the questions to to be taken out one by one what an important role that is um that's the problem today by the way one of the big problems i see both in churches in ministry and also in christian universities and colleges and all that what what happens more do people hear more answers do they walk away with more answers or do they walk away with more questions um you know it's become sort of cool to just raise the question and say well we don't really know about this and what do you think about that and is it okay to do this or that and and people like to discuss and debate and um you know have sort of a um uh let's let's talk through it an open forum for everybody to sort of give their two cents why i think this is what the bible means well i think that's what the bible means bible doesn't teach that's the way to do it bible says they're you're supposed to have teachers um that that and by the way the bible teaches what we should be doing that we should be answering questions more than raising questions one of the things i've seen and this has happened now for a long time and don't get me wrong there's good professors at george fox and and some you know christian universities there's good professors of course but there's also a lot of ones that are kind of off the rails that's the bummer and a lot of these people our kids come out of college and university with more questions than they did answers right now watch out mom and dad when you send your kids off to school the big thing right now is deconstructing your faith forget your mom and dad's faith we need to deconstruct that because your mom and dad were kind of wacko they have these very conservative christian you know views and we want you to kind of deconstruct that i think it's one of the most evil sinister things that's happened to the universities in the college and now some churches are really into deconstructing your faith watch out for this i think it's ugly and it's wrong but this deconstruction what does it do it makes people with more questions well i don't know if i believe in in the power of the holy spirit i don't know if i believe in the authenticity of the bible and the inerrancy of scripture i don't know if is it really god's word or does it contain god's word um the jesus seminar so there's only a few sentences jesus really said the other ones we don't know for sure and what about the book of enoch in the book of judas in the book of those are more questions um jot this scripture down in your notes i think it's an important one second corinthians paul the apostle says in chapter 6 of second corinthians he says be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness and and what communion hath light with darkness and what concord hath christ with belial or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel and what agreement hath the temple of god with idols for you are the of the temple of the living god as god hath said i will dwell in them and walk in them i will be their god and they shall be my people wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate saith the lord and touch not the unclean thing and i will receive you and will be a father unto you and you shall be my sons and daughters saith the lord almighty the lord says i want to call you out from among them i don't want you to do the same things you know that that uh um you know that the world uh once wants you to do um but what about this there's there's other scriptures first timothy jot this one down first timothy chapter one it says neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith so do there's so many people that are all into let's just raise the questions and not give people the answers the bible gives us all the answers we ever need and i hope you never apologize what do you know all the answers christian um i think we don't know all the answers but the bible provides all the answers that we could ever need uh jot this one down first timothy this is paul teaching on timothy chapter six verses three through five if any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words even the words of our lord jesus christ and to the doctrine which is according to godliness and he is proud knowing nothing but listen what's this doting about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy strife railings evil surmisings perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth supposing that gain is godliness from such withdraw thyself what are you supposed to do from these people withdraw yourself get away from the people that are doting about questions and strifes of words rather than bringing you know solid doctrine see the reason i kind of harp on this one i love daniel because he's the one who was dissolving of doubts as the king james puts it um the word doubt there in the ancient languages is another word for the word not he's the one untying the knots whereas they were they were messing everything up and confusing and tangling up everything that's what you need to ask yourself am i am i learning to have more clarity when i'm you know uh reading the scripture at this church or at this university or with this bible study or do i walk away more confused than when i came i believe that's a sign of a group that's misguided i really do if you're walking away with less clarity strife and confusion the bible says that's every evil work and it's not of the lord it's earthly sensual and devilish james chapter three but the the wisdom that comes from heaven is easy to be enacted full of good fruit and without partiality it's clear there's clarity and there's no strife or confusion watch out if you're sensing all kinds of confusion and watch out for podcasts and blogs and all these things that raise more questions and cause more fear and anger watch out for this stuff because i think that it's just part of the way the enemy wants to divide and conquer be careful well all that to say we see uh you know first timothy six is kind of a reminder um of what we have to watch out for um also i mean i could go on and on in second timothy 2 23 but foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender strifes do you guys see the bible says watch out for this and i love that daniel was the guy who always brought clarity dissolving of doubts that's a huge attribute that i love about daniel well let's go on it says you know uh so uh she she says daniel the dissolving of doubts were found in the same daniel whom the king named belty shazza that was remember his babylonian name well verse 13 then when then was daniel brought in before the king and the king spake and said unto daniel art thou dan that daniel that daniel which are the children of the captivity of judah whom the king my father brought out of jewry now this is where you could read this and you could not see um sort of a sort of a insult but all the scholars of the of these original language say he was being insulting here he was saying you know are you one of them jews that my dad brought you out of your jewishness and made you become babylonian like there's a there's definitely sort of an insulting kind of tone that's being used here in verse 13. um and verse 12. i i have even heard of thee that the spirit of the gods is in thee and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom is found in me and now the wise men the astrologers have been brought in before me and they uh that they should read this writing and make known unto me the interpretation of but they could not um they could not show the interpretation of the thing and i have heard of thee that thou canst make interpretations and dissolve doubts now if thou canst read the writing and make known unto me the interpretation thereof thou shalt be clothed with scarlet or the word scarlet there could also be purple which is kind of a royal color and have a chain of gold around your neck and shalt be third ruler in the kingdom um remember nobody's number one belshazzar number two daniel would have been number three verse 17. then daniel answered and said before the king let thy gifts be to thyself and give thy rewards to another man i love this this is such a great statement of daniel you can have your junk whatever you know i think this is one of the healthiest places to be in life just to say you know what you can have your material goods i'm you know like i feel like we're living in a day where one of our greatest fears is to lose our wealth or lose our you know material possessions um but daniel seems to be kind of free of that yeah whatever i don't need that stuff he had a bigger picture in mind and he was free from the bribery or you know he was gonna he was gonna do what's right no matter what was coming or going even if it meant you know he'd have his head chopped off like daniel wasn't afraid uh to just be bold and i love that about daniel lord make us in these days where i think there's there's things that are sort of the world's bribing you they're trying to bribe you and say well if you do this then we'll let you do this or let you do that or the other but you've got to do what god's called you to be and do uh with or without the world be careful on this one we need to have a daniel mindset on this i see the handwriting on the wall sorry to use the the phrase but i see it for us too um so you know he said give your rewards to another yet i will read the writing unto the king and make known to him the interpretation o king the most high god gave nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom and majesty and glory and honor and for the majesty that he gave him all people nations and languages trembled and feared before him whom uh he would whom he would he slew and whom he would he kept alive and whom he would he set up and whom he would he had put down in other words your grandfather he was a power he was a real king he had real power people freaked out when your grandfather was in the room punk he didn't say that but you kind of get the sense you just get a little bit of a little bit of that maybe your grandfather was different you know um but verse 20 when his heart your grandfather's heart was lifted up and his mind hardened in pride he was deposed from the the kingly throne and they took his glory from him and he was driven from the sons of men and his heart was made like the beasts and the his dwelling was with the wild asses and they fed him with grass like oxen and his body was wet with dew of heaven till he knew that the most high god ruled in the kingdom of men and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will and thou his son o belshazzar has not humbled thine heart though thou knewest all this see this is why this is starting to nail down my case belshazzar knew all this stuff i i don't think you know we we read this story correctly we're like oh this dumb young king just didn't know what was going on no i think he knew all this stuff daniel even says it right here he knew all this but it was all in the face of god his pride his arrogance his you know saying this is not going to happen but you knew all this verse 22 verse 23 but you've lifted up yourself 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 has praised the gods of silver and gold of brass iron wood and stone which see not nor hear nor know and the god in whose hand thy breath is and whose all whose are all thy ways hast thou not glorified then was the part of this hand sent from him and this writing was written oh boy uh daniel man he just lets him have it there you should have you should have known all this stuff and and instead of doing the right thing and humbling yourself belshazzar you're in the situation you are because of your pride just like your your your grandfather but even he was humbled even your grandfather was humbled before god but you you're less than a man than he was and you still think you're all that and now this handwriting is coming and and i love that daniel reminds him you know don't you understand even your very breath that you have in your lungs belongs to god it's amazing when you think about our bodies and the involuntary muscles things we don't have to think about your heart just kind of beats thank the lord most of us you know your your lungs breathe i think that's probably one of the scariest things of when you've had coronavirus is the breathing part man it just you kind of feel like you're just not getting air and it's it can be really rough we've had some people that have been really close to you know you know huge trouble um there's a few ethy creakers um that have gone home to be with the lord since the coronavirus thing and you know it's it's so sad and it's so brutal but you know there's something about when you're sick have you ever noticed when you're sick that um you just realize wow you know our bodies work most of the time that's amazing like i'm always amazed at how our bodies work and god made us i'm kind of amazed how god helped our bodies to fight off viruses and stuff like that like he sort of did that it is interesting by the way again i'm not a doctor and i'm not making a medical statement or vaccine statement but i am saying you know it's amazing how your natural immunities are really pretty good they're only now figuring that out by the way did you see what israel is doing israel is an interesting study and and we should keep our eye on israel and i'll tell you why israel was the earliest nation to be totally vet i mean there was high vaccination rate of any country of the world um and they it was like israel did it man they had their vaccine passports the israelis it was awesome they were all boasting yeah we you know and and then they realized oh we need we need to get a booster because we're starting to see some of our you know bodies are getting sick now did you know israel's already done their their third shot and and and for your you know israeli uh vacation passport to be legitimate they're getting ready to make it to where you have to have the fourth the booster um they're you have to have if you're going to be truly carrying the vaccine card where you can go wherever you want to go in israel you need the fourth it's it's coming and but here's what and i got to give it to israeli you know medicine they're they're cutting edge you know on science and all kinds of technology but as far as medicine israelis are way ahead but there's they're saying we're seeing so many people who are vaccinated back in the hospital but here's what what i thought was interesting they said the people that are probably the better off and they're using numbers now that nobody they're trying to cover up and i don't know why these are israelis just saying we we see that a person who's had coronavirus is 43 times better protected than somebody who's been vaccinated that's an interesting number uh i think that's interesting watch it watch what's going on with israel and see what happens with the science uh but i i think that there's a narrative out there that makes me kind of wonder but i'm kind of amazed like oh who would have thought god made our bodies in a way that kind of works and the world's like no that doesn't work your bodies can't do that and you're the problem the you know it's just funny like uh just this narrative today i kind of think it fits into some of this uh but maybe i'm making more of it but i don't know well anyway the handwriting was on the wall and now daniel interprets and we looked at this on sunday it says this in verse 25 and this is the writing that was written mine meanie tackle you farsin this is the interpretation of the thing mene god has numbered your kingdom and finished it tech hill thou are wade in the balances and are found wanting perez thy kingdom is divided and given to the medes and the persians then commanded belshazzar and they clothed daniel with scarlet and put a chain of gold around his neck and made a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom totally meaningless verse 30 and in that night was belshazzar the king of the chaldeans slain now the interesting verse is 31 and darius the median took the kingdom being about three score and two years old um now before we pack it up just a few more things um don't forget darius was the mede cyrus was the persian and cyrus was the one really in charge darius uh some people believe he was kind of subservient to cyrus and it depends on who you're reading in ancient history outside of the bible but we know that cyrus was the one sort of leading the charge against the babylonian empire and he was you know cyrus gets the credit for taking over the babylon empire cyrus does um darius is the guy who's left in charge of the babylonian empire um are you guys with me on that that's important and it is true in relation to the isaiah prophecy before we pack it up jot this down in your notes isaiah 44. um this is where the prophecy was given let me just read this to you because it now that you know the story now that we kind of reviewed what happened um and you know the river was dried up and they cut the bars and all that stuff listen to this this comes from 200 years earlier god gave isaiah the prophet this vision and it says and isaiah 44 27 through 45 verse 5 thus saith the lord to the the deep the deep rivers be dry and i will dry up thy rivers saith cyrus he is my shepherd who's the shepherd cyrus and shall perform all my pleasure even saying to jerusalem thou shalt be built and to the temple thy foundation shall be laid thus saith the lord to his anointed to cyrus whose right hand i have holden to subdue nations before him i will loose the loins of kings there was a prophecy that a king was going to poop his pants that's funny i will loose the loins of kings to open before him the two leaved gates and the gate shall not be shut i will go before thee and make the crooked places straight i will break in pieces of the gates of brass and cut us under the bars of iron and i will give thee the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places that thou made us know that i the lord jehovah which have called thee by thy name cyrus and the god of israel for jacob my servant's sake and for israel mine elect and i have i have even called thee by thy name i have surnamed thee that thou hast not known me i am the lord there is none else there is no god beside me god calls out and says i'm going to have a dude come along in history called cyrus and he's going to be my anointed one that i'm going to use to conquer the babylonian empire dry up the river go through the two gates first wall second wall all of that was prophesied and the reason it was for israel because cyrus would be the one who would give the decree for israel to ultimately go back to jerusalem and that would be the why the lord says cyrus you're going to be my shepherd isn't it interesting the lord uses this secular king to be sort of his shepherd over rebellious israel that's kind of interesting well prophecy fulfilled check that box isaiah 44 and there's many plenty of prophecies about the days you and i are living right now that are going to be fulfilled and i think we're seeing them fulfilled in our very day these are exciting times i hope you realize christians these are exciting times to be alive and you and i are i think we're blessed to be able to live during days where we're seeing bible prophecy unfold right before us but we also have to have our game on we got to be following jesus we got to not be into material possessions and and be willing to be bribed over the gold necklace and the chain you know in the coat and the don't don't be taken in by that even if we lose everything we have don't forget heaven's coming this kingdom is not our kingdom is not of this world and we need to set our affection on things above don't be like belshazzar who flies in the face of the prophecies of god and says i'm just going to outlive all that never going to happen better to follow the lord and submit to his future and his will and then you'll be in good standing amen amen lord how we thank you so much for this uh this amazing story really lord of your word and how history continues to just uh show us not only what happened in the past um but but even kind of gives us a a glimpse in what's going to happen in the future lord um it's been said that uh if there's one thing we've learned from history is that we've learned nothing from history lord it's true your word is these stories that we should learn from but so many just kind of blow them off and say yeah whatever bible stories but lord we know there's much to glean so as we pray through these passages and meditate on your word day and night may we be like the tree firmly planted by the river give us vision help us to be more like a daniel a shadrach meshach and abednego in the days we live in this babylonish world that we're living in right now give us that same boldness that same vision and clarity may we bring more answers to the table than we bring questions lord all of these things we want to follow you and follow your word so give us strength we pray in jesus name amen

Channel: Athey Creek

Views: 8,468

Rating: 4.9689922 out of 5

Keywords: Brett Meador, Bible, Church, Teaching, Study, Christian, Jesus, Oregon, Through the Bible, Athey Creek, Athey Creek Church, Athey Creek Christian Fellowship

Id: kMKd73xsGik

Length: 71min 35sec (4295 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021