The Writing on the Wall
Daniel 5:5
Many years later King Belshazzar gave a great feast for 1,000 of his nobles, and he drank wine with them. 2 While Belshazzar was drinking the wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver cups that his predecessor,[a] Nebuchadnezzar, had taken from the Temple in Jerusalem. He wanted to drink from them with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines. 3 So they brought these gold cups taken from the Temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. 4 While they drank from them they praised their idols made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
5 Suddenly, they saw the fingers of a human hand writing on the plaster wall of the king’s palace, near the lampstand. The king himself saw the hand as it wrote, 6 and his face turned pale with fright. His knees knocked together in fear and his legs gave way beneath him.
It's vital that we take note and learn from our predecessor's mistakes. It will save a huge amount of heart ache.
Belshazzar was Nebuchadnezzar's son, so you would think he would have learned a lot from what his dad went through. He must have seen first hand his father suddenly smitten with a mental disease and eating grass like the cattle for 7 whole years. After which he regained the throne and gave glory to the One True God.
However, years later, we see that Belshazzar had completely forgotten what had happened as a result of his dad's pride.
On a boozy night, with a few too many drinks in his belly, he decided to bring out the gold cups from the Temple of the Lord and drink out of them before his own false gods.
Big mistake!
God did something to shake him out of his complacency and something that needed a prophet to interpret.
Cue Daniel, faithful servant of the Living God.
He told Belshazzar straight to his face what was the message from God, written on the wall:
Daniel 5:22
“You are his successor, O Belshazzar, and you knew all this, yet you have not humbled yourself. 23 For you have proudly defied the Lord of heaven and have had these cups from his Temple brought before you. You and your nobles and your wives and concubines have been drinking wine from them while praising gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone—gods that neither see nor hear nor know anything at all. But you have not honoured the God who gives you the breath of life and controls your destiny! 24 So God has sent this hand to write this message.
25 “This is the message that was written: Mene, mene, tekel, and Parsin. 26 This is what these words mean:
Mene means ‘numbered’—God has numbered the days of your reign and has brought it to an end.
27 Tekel means ‘weighed’—you have been weighed on the balances and have not measured up.
28 Parsin means ‘divided’—your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
29 Then at Belshazzar’s command, Daniel was dressed in purple robes, a gold chain was hung around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom.
30 That very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, was killed.
31 And Darius the Mede took over the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.
Could Belshazzar have prolonged his earthly life had he taken on board the hard lesson learned by his father.
Look to your own family and see if there are lessons you can learn to ensure that you stay in the precious plan that God has for you.
Don't retrace the old paths and repeat the mistakes of the past.
God is watching what we do and no one gets away with anything in His grand scheme.
Take notice of God's written word and live by it, then you won't have to interpret the "Writing on the wall".
Selah.
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