Sermon in Minneapolis 02.06.2013

From the God of grace, peace from our Christmas Prince of Peace. May they increase for each and every one of us in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Let us join in opening these services with prayer and thanksgiving. Dear Heavenly Father, holy and righteous God, we humbly draw nigh unto You in prayer, asking for Your presence and blessing. Father, You alone know our needs, our cares, our trials, our temptations, and our failings, and You alone are able to divide unto us of Your holy word. We ask that You would do so. Give us that morsel of grace that You have appointed for this time, and let us once again be strengthened and refreshed in faith that we would be able to take another step on this narrow way of life.

We pray on behalf of those who are able to be with us at these services, whether they are bound in the infirmities of old age and illness or even working, and especially those who are far away serving our nation in its military services. Father, be with each and every one of Your children. Grant them to feel Your holy presence, fill them with Your grace and love, and cause them to rejoice with all of Your sights over the breadth, the height, the depth, and the width of Your love, which goes beyond all human comprehension.

Father, bless our services for the honor and glory of Your name and the edification of Your congregation. Amen.

For our study this evening, I shall read an Old Testament text for this Sunday from the prophet Daniel, chapter five. Although essentially this whole chapter pertains to the issue involved, I will start with reading the first nine verses. We hear these words in Jesus' name as follows:

Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whilst he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, that the king and his princes, his wives, and his concubines might drink therein.

Then they 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, his wives, and his concubines drank in them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and of silver, of brass and of iron, of wood and of stone.

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 another.

The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake and said to 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 be the third ruler in the kingdom."

Then came in all the king's wise men, and 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 or perplexed. Amen.

This chapter of Daniel describes for us one of the portions of the history of the children of Israel in their Babylonian captivity. We heard in this chapter a reference to the previous king Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, who had overthrown the nation of Israel, the southern kingdom of Judah, the city of Jerusalem, and destroyed the temple and took from it all of the vessels of the temple.

The people of Israel were then taken into Babylon. They were forced to march that long journey of tears, weeping over the destruction of their nation, their city, and their way of life, brought into slavery by this foreign power.

Nebuchadnezzar was not only a very powerful Babylonian king in the empire, the Babylonian empire, but he was also wise, and he recognized that there are many, many gifts in this world and there is much wisdom in this world. If it could only be used for the benefit of his kingdom, that would be for the betterment of the kingdom.

And so he had these Daniel and his three companions, as this text relates to us in the beginning of the chapters of Daniel, that they were chosen to study in this special school, and they were found to be in all matters of wisdom and understanding that the king inquired of them. He found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.

So God blessed these believing young men and blessed their lives and also blessed then the kingdom of Babylon through their efforts.

The prophet Jeremiah told the people of Israel as they were in captivity to pray for the best of that nation, and so it was that they were also blessed there in that nation, and eventually God, through these different Babylonian kings, granted them the opportunity to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city.

So seventy some years they were in captivity, and then they were allowed to return.

But Nebuchadnezzar, in spite of being such a wise and great king, was also a very proud man, and even though he noted and admitted that there is no other God that can save such as the God of these children of Israel who saved these friends of Daniel from the fiery furnace, he said, "Therefore I make a decree that every people, nation, and language who speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill, because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort."

But then Nebuchadnezzar grew so much in himself that he dreamed this dream that Daniel, in interpreting to him, said predicted unto the king that he will lose his kingdom. He told the king that, "They shall drive you from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee till thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, giveth it to whomsoever they will."

So hearing, seeing this salvation heavenly of the one the king recognized as, "Lo, I see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."

So Nebuchadnezzar saw, knew, and experienced all these things. But yet then, a year after this prediction of Daniel, he says, "Is it not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?"

While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying, "O King Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken. The kingdom is departed from thee."

In the same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from men, and to eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagle feathers, and his nails like bird's claws.

For seven years, Nebuchadnezzar was in that state, until he said, "At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and my understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High. And I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation."

"And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest thou?"

"At the same time my reason returned unto me, and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honor and brightness returned unto me. And my counselors and my lords sought unto me, and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me."

"Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgments. And those that walk in pride, he is able to abase."

So, Nebuchadnezzar experienced, and so of course, all of those around him, especially his family, and his son, of whom our text was, Belshazzar, knew and experienced, saw what had happened to his father, and how God was both able to humble him and also to exalt him.

And he heard, and he knew, how Nebuchadnezzar confessed then his faith when God regave his understanding back to him.

So it points out for us today this very question of what are those things that are of greatest value? Where is our heart and our treasure?

Nebuchadnezzar, through the school of God, learned that there is something that is more important than earthly wealth, honor, glory, might, and power.

A Finnish poet has written that, "Oh, how fortunate you are, who have your home on Mount Zion. The gracious spring sun of blessing shines upon you. It pierces those dark, heavy clouds rolling out of the world."

When we look around us at the people of this world, and we see it even amongst those who proclaim or attempt to be righteous, they seek for something that is greater, something that is more mighty, something that would reach beyond the troubles of this time.

But because they seek it in the wrong way, they are not able to find it.

But you, dear brothers and sisters, you, dear young people, are such fortunate ones, because you have experienced, as Prophet Isaiah wrote, "The God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint, neither is weary. There is no searching of His understanding. He gives power to the faint, and to them that have no might, He increases strength."

"Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint."

Oh, how wondrous is that blessing. Oh, how wondrous is the portion of such a one who is able to experience that blessing of God, to know such a source of strength, such a source of power, such a blessing of understanding.

So Belshazzar should have known. But we see that when he became king over this mighty nation of Babylon, instead of ruling humbly as his father ruled, what did he do? He attempted to turn things around and look at it from an entirely wrong point of view.

In a similar way as the son of Solomon did when he took over, when Solomon had passed from this life and was no longer king of Israel. His son, when he asked for advice, the elder counselors of his father told him how to rule so the nation of Israel would be his servants and would continue to accept him as king.

But he turned from listening to those elder counselors and statesmen and turned to his own, probably his own friends and those of his own age, and asked them for their advice.

And their advice was that, "My father may have whipped you with whips, but I will whip you with scorpions," or something along that line.

In other words, "I'm going to be even a more harsh king than my father ever was."

And the nation of Israel, the ten of the twelve tribes of Israel, said, "We've had enough."

And the kingdom of Israel was split into the northern kingdom and the southern two tribes.

So, the mind of man can be so, we could say, stuck in its own pride and wisdom and honor and glory that it is not able to see the wisdom of God.

Belshazzar was just such a king because his father had established the order of rule for his kingdom where Daniel was the leader of all of such wise men.

But we note that when this hand came and wrote on the wall, when Belshazzar was celebrating and drinking wine from the vessels taken from the temple in Jerusalem, that he did not call for the wise men in the order and in that priority as his father had set up, but rather as he had reorganized it.

And so Daniel wasn't a part of that group that first came in.

The other thing that this description of what happened to the king and before all his lords and princes, his wives and concubines, that God keeps very close track of what is happening in this world.

He is not such a creator that He is far off, far away in heaven and not aware of what is happening.

But He knows and He affects.

And we often look at the things that happen around us in the world and we wonder, "What is the will of God? Why does He allow such to happen?"

And we do not know, of course.

God in time reveals what His good and gracious will is.

But at the time it happens, we are often left wondering, as I'm sure Joseph wondered there in his slavery in Egypt where he was put into prison, an innocent man guilty of nothing, condemned into prison, "What is the purpose of God?"

But God hears the prayers of His own, as James writes, that the prayers of the righteous avail much because they are in truth.

And God promises that they are brought into golden vessels in heaven. They rise up before Him as savory incense.

But when God sent His hand to write on the wall, it also reveals how close we are.

It is like a veil between the temporal and the spiritual world that is before our eyes that we cannot see because we are too earthly.

Our feet are too stuck in the mud here on this earth.

But God is able to lift such a veil if He so desires.

And I believe, and I'm sure you all also would say you believe, that if He would lift that veil so that He could see the glory of heaven, then our stiff tongues of clay would not be silent.

But certainly they would be moved to rejoice and thank God.

God lifted that veil just in part for that hand to appear to write this message.

And we can well imagine because of the condition in that great festive party which they attempted to keep, where they were, of course, defiling the vessels taken from the temple in Jerusalem, they were astonished and greatly perplexed.

And says the king was so troubled that the joints of his loins were loosed and his knees smote together, one against another.

And the king cried aloud to bring in all of his wise men, magicians, soothsayers, Chaldeans, and so on.

In other translations, it also points out that he shouted with a loud voice; he was so disturbed.

But none of them could interpret it. None of them knew how to interpret that which was written.

But this text then goes on in the portion which I did not read in the opening, how the queen of his father, his mother, came in and reminded Belshazzar that there is a person in this kingdom, she says, whom the king Nebuchadnezzar, thy father, the king, I say, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers.

She reminded Belshazzar of what was the order under his father and why it was so.

She says, "For as much as an excellent spirit, 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."

Belshazzar, let Daniel be called and he will show the interpretation.

The queen had every confidence and trust that God would reveal unto Daniel what was the interpretation of the writing.

Daniel was, of course, put into a very difficult place, but he had experienced before that when he openly and straightforwardly confessed that which God revealed unto him, God also then blessed those words.

So he had confessed previously to Nebuchadnezzar.

So his young companions had told the king when they refused to bow down to his golden image that if our God does not save us, then so be it, but we will not bow down to the idol image.

God, of course, saved them from that trial.

Daniel tells the king that even though he would give him all of these gifts, he says, "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."

So he reminds Belshazzar of these things that happened to his father when he became so hardened in pride that he lost his understanding, was taken from him.

And so then Daniel says, "And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thy heart, though thou knewest all this, but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven."

"And they have brought the vessels of His house before thee, and thou and thy lords and thy wives and thy concubines have drunk wine in them."

"Thou hast 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 are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified?"

Then was the part of the hand sent from Him, and this writing was written, and this is the writing that was written:

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.

This is the interpretation of the thing:

Mene: God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.

Tekel: Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting.

Peres: Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.

The king could have very well, of course, said, "Daniel, you are a fool, you don't know what you're talking about, I'm going to get rid of you."

But of course he did not because he could not. He knew in his heart that this was the message from God, what God desired him to be told.

Because that which Daniel brought forth was the true condition that he had defiled and rejected the God of heaven in whose hand thy breath is.

And he was measured in the balances and found wanting.

Just think, dear brothers and sisters, if we had to appear before God and God would weigh our lives in His balances without the grace of God, we would all find that we are wanting, we are lacking, we cannot come close to measuring up to that righteousness that God requires.

A man, we are too sinful to sin corrupt.

We would be in the same position as this Belshazzar.

But what has God given unto each and every one of you?

He has given that most and greatest portion, the name of a child of God, that you, as you are, can believe your sins forgiven.

And God then looks upon you through the works of His Son. He sees no sin when you believe that your sins are forgiven in the name and blood of Jesus.

God, as if with a red stamp of the blood of His Son, wipes those sins out of His book, and they are no longer remembered.

Your name is written, as our brother spoke this morning, in the Lamb's book of life in heaven.

He knows you. He calls you by name.

John writes that, "Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we can be called the children of God."

God promises that you will be His sons and His daughters, and He will be your God.

So great is His grace, and so wonderful are His promises, and so sure are His mercies that He doesn't take them away from you.

Here in this world we have struggle, we have sin, we have so many doubts and trials and temptations.

We often wonder, "Does God know? Is He aware of my life and my trials, my difficulties?"

But He is. He knows.

Dear brothers and sisters, you are the possession of the greatest blessings, the greatest portions, the greatest good gifts.

You believe you are a child of God. Your sins are forgiven.

You are part of that priestly throng of which John writes, "Blessed and holy is he that is all such ones who are partakers of the first resurrection from the dead."

Over such, the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and Christ and reign with Him for a thousand years.

This is the portion of each child of God that you have access to the mercy seat, and you can ask for and you can forgive sins.

Lift up your hearts, dear brothers and sisters, and believe that your sins are forgiven in Jesus' name and blood unto peace, freedom, and joy.

This chapter ends where Daniel notes that in that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain, and Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about three score and two years old, in other words, 62 years old.

Darius became king, and he set Daniel over all of the wise men of his kingdom so that his kingdom would be blessed.

This world yet today is still spinning because God so desires.

Yet today His grace sounds forth to all seeking ones, whether on this continent or wherever in the world they may be.

To anyone seeking for peace, God offers peace, the peace of conscience and peace with heaven.

To all seeking, yearning ones who hear this message, you can hold on to this promise, grasp it by faith, believe your sins forgiven in the name and blood of Jesus Christ, and become a child of God enjoying with the rest of His saints to follow Him in life, in suffering, and in doctrine.

We do so by the power of His grace until He comes to take us home.

I ask for my own soul and heart, I came to serve Him in my own sinfulness and temptations. Can I believe my sins forgiven?

So I desire to believe together with you.

And we have before us this evening the table of the Lord.

Come in full assurance of faith to receive the body and blood of Christ for the nourishment and the refreshing of your life of faith.

In Jesus' name, Amen.