This sermon was preached to Grace Church Guildford on 21 August 2022 as part of our summer sermon series on Daniel. The full video recording of the service can be found below along with the transcript.
It was the greatest empire in the world, stretched across continents and dominated all other political powers. Its hanging gardens were one of the wonders of the ancient world and over 2500 years later, its stunning artefacts still draw crowds to museums around the globe. How then did such a colossal kingdom come to an end? How did Babylon fall?
Well, if you turn to the history books, you find a detailed account of its collapse. After the glorious 45-year reign of Nebuchadnezzar, a series of coups and counter-coups took place, and it’s enemies began to sense its weakness. Finally, one leader, a general called Nabonidus, emerged from the pack and ascended the throne. After taking Babylon, he installed his son, Belshazzar, as king of that city and left him to look after the capital while Nabonidus himself led the army into battle against Babylon’s circling enemies. King Belshazzar should have been perfectly safe in that city – its walls were said to be impenetrable, and it famously kept 10 years of food provision at hand so it could outlast any siege. The only thing that was getting past the walls of Babylon was the mighty Euphrates river, which passed through the city, giving it an endless water supply which again could sustain it through any siege. There was no safer place for Belshazzar to be than shut up in the city of Babylon. And yet history tells us this formidable fortress fell in one night. It thought it would last years under siege, but didn’t even last a single night.
The history books go on to tell us that, knowing the strength of the city, the approaching Persian army decided to attempt an unusual attack. Further upstream, they diverted the Euphrates into a manmade lake and so reduce its depth as it passed through the city walls. Then, under cover of darkness, they sent crack commando units to stealthily wade down the lowed river, literally walking straight through the gaps in the city walls. When they got inside, we are told that they caught Belshazzar and Babylon’s inhabitants entirely by surprise. In fact, the history books record that the whole city was caught up in a giant party that night, distracted from the imminent danger they were in. Before they had time to realise what was happening, King Belshazzar was captured, the city had fallen, and the greatest empire on earth had come to an abrupt end.
That is how the history books tell the story. Those details are all well attested, if you go up to the British Museum you can literally see the ancient artefacts and inscriptions that tell you that that is what happened. However, when we turn to this book, to God’s Word, we get a slightly different slant on the story. Of course it should be recognised that the Bible’s version is entirely consistent with what all the other historical records tell us –see here Belshazzar acting as coregent under his father, that’s why Daniel can only be offered the position of third highest ruler in the kingdom, for Belshazzar himself was only the second highest ruler. Similarly, we are given details of the great party that took place the night the city fell, just as other records mention. When we turn to God’s Word, we will find that is completely trustworthy as an historical source, its details match those that we find in our history books.
And yet, this record of Babylon’s fall is not only perfectly reliable, it is also remarkably personal. For here we have an account not of armies and empires, but of one man’s personal relationship with God and the consequences of that for the course of his life. You see, the fall of Babylon in the Bible isn’t some far-off event, only relevant for those who are into history. No, this chapter should confront each of us here this morning, challenge us about our relationship with God, cause us to consider whether we are living just like Belshazzar was. O yes, when we read the history books, we learn that Persia defeated the Babylonians. But when we turn to this book, we are taught another lesson, not just that Persia defeated the Babylonians, but that God humbles the proud.
The author couldn’t make it clearer that is the main message he wants to communicate, for he literally finishes the previous chapter by telling us that. In 4:37 he closes it with the confession of King Nebuchadnezzar, who after his own humbling fall, declares ‘Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.’ That is the lesson that Nebuchadnezzar learnt from his own rise and fall, and here in Daniel 5 we find his successor Belshazzar, learning the very same lesson but in an even more painful way. This morning we are going to consider our passage in three parts: (1) A Proud Heart (5:1-4); (2) A Puzzling Hand (5:5-16); and (3) A Painful Humbling (5:17-31). Let’s dive into it together.
1. A PROUD HEART (5:1-4)
The chapter launches straight into that famous night, introducing us immediately to King Belshazzar in 5:1. As mentioned, from other historical records we know that he is neither the immediate successor nor direct descendent of Nebuchadnezzar. When the text later describes him as his ‘father’, its simply reflecting the convention of that culture, where past monarchs were called ‘father’, rather than ‘forefather’ or ‘predecessor’ as we might put it today. Decades of time pass between 4:37 and 5:1, yet Daniel draws them together to highlight the lesson described there is repeated here. He drops us into the middle of ‘a great banquet’ which was being held for 1000 nobles of the kingdom. This was quite the gathering: imagine a group of lords around five times the size of us here this morning, and then add in all of Belshazzar’s wives and concubines, as well as all the servants needed to put on such a party. Even by Babylonian standards, this was a huge event. Indeed, as we heard, the whole city was caught up in the occasion. It was supposed to be a party to remember. And that is what it was, although for all the wrong reasons.
Daniel only gives us a few details about the party in 5:1-4, but they are enough for us to imagine what kind of occasion it was: the King’s wine was flowing, the King’s women had been provided, this was a thoroughly hedonistic evening of entertainment. And yet, it is not the pursuit of pleasure that Daniel finds most offensive, but rather it is pride that permeates the whole event which he wants to draw our attention to.
Now, this pride can certainly be seen on an earthly level. What arrogance it must have taken to throw a party in the city when their enemy was at the gate. And yet, King Belshazzar is clearly so confident of his strength, so sure of his security, that he is celebrating like he has already won the battle.
However, even more shocking than his pride over the Persians, is his arrogance towards God. For in 5:2, Daniel tells us:[READ]. As if this was so shocking a suggestion for Jewish readers, Daniel repeats it all again in 5:3, emphasising again where these cups came from and what he did with them. These temple vessels play a crucial role in the book of Daniel. In fact, their arrival in Babylon kicked the whole book off. Back in 1:2, we were told the Lord gave both the king of Judah and ‘some of the vessels of the house of God’ in Jerusalem into Nebuchadnezzar’s hand when he besieged the city, and he took those vessels and put them in the temple of his own gods. Such an act was already arrogant, boldly declaring that the gods of Babylon were greater than the God of Israel. However, by now calling for them to be brought to the party, Belshazzar was rubbing salt in the wound, taunting the God of heaven, reminding him that he still had hold of his stuff and was going to use it however he wanted.
So, he took God’s holy vessels and turned them into a party piece. In fact, even worse, he used them as cups to toast his false gods. In 5:4, we read the vessels weren’t only used for wine, but were also used for worship. For from them they ‘drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.’ The cups of the true God used to worship false gods. For all the sinful pleasures that were on display that evening, it this pride that seems to provide the pinnacle, the peak, of the party. Belshazzar’s complete confidence in his safety from all danger, superiority over all others, was publicly proclaimed for all to see. We can see how high he has ascended in his own arrogance and ego. And we shall soon see that it is from this great height he will so dramatically fall.
Last week, Hugh helpfully highlighted the intoxicating power of pride for us. We heard that pride is so powerful, that it can convince the man who falls from an aeroplane that he is really flying. Friends, having seen it two weeks in a row, do you now better understand the danger pride presents? The threat it is to every one of us this morning?
In his classic little book, entitled ‘Humility’, CJ Mahaney defines pride as ‘aspiring to the status and position of God and refusing to acknowledge our dependence on him.’ He goes on to highlight how some Christians have written about it over the years. In the 1700s, the theologian Jonathan Edwards called pride ‘the worst viper that is in the heart’, the most difficult sin to root out. More recently, John Stott comments, ‘At every stage of our Christian development, in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is our greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend.’
Friends, have you forgotten about the danger of pride? Forgotten that it was pride that plucked the angels out of heaven and turned them into the devils of Hell? Pride not only destroyed Babylon; pride emptied heaven. If you read Isaiah 14 this afternoon you will see that in it God uses the fall of Babylon to allude to that first fall, that fall of Satan and his followers from heaven. Brothers and sisters, if pride was able to take angels and turn them into devils, what could it do to you if you let it linger in your heart? What could it do to us as a company of God’s people if we are not alert to its advances? Mahaney comments, ‘Show me a church where there’s division, where there’s quarrelling, and I’ll show you a church where there’s pride.’
Jamie recently taught us from Eph 5 that there should not even be a hint of sexual immorality among us. But Grace Church, let us also pray and press on toward the goal of being a church where there is not even a hint of pride among us. For it is pride that can poison this fellowship. It is pride that can prevent one member asking for help, and pride that can prevent another accepting it. It is pride that can stop honest sharing after our services; pride that can cause us to shut others out of our lives during the week; pride that can keep us from admitting what we do not know, pride that can prevent us from sharing responsibility, pride that can stop established members from taking the initiative in getting to know new members, and pride that can prevent new members from taking the time to get to know existing members. In short, it is pride that can pull down and pull apart all that has been built up here at Grace Church over the years, pull it down just like it did the city of Babylon in a single night. And so, it is pride we must always guard against, both in our own hearts and in the lives of our fellow church members.
If you are here and not a Christian this morning, do you see the peril your pride puts you in? Perhaps you don’t think of yourself as proud. You have no holy vessels stashed away in cupboards at home, and you certainly don’t worship gods of iron and stone at parties. At first, it may seem you don’t have much in common with this Belshazzar. Well, if that is how you feel this morning, can I encourage you to take a closer look. For while the symptoms may be different in your life, the disease will ultimately be the same. For it is the same disease that all of us have, that every human being has from the moment of their birth. We read about it earlier in Romans 1: our refusal to honour God, rejection of his rule over our life, failure to give him thanks for all he has given to us. In short, it is what the Bible calls ‘sin’. It is taking God’s stuff and doing what we want with it.
I’m not just talking about taking cups from a temple. I’m speaking about everything we find in creation. It all belongs to God. We live in a world filled with God’s stuff. God has made it all, everything that exists he brought it into being. And so, God owns it all, he even owns you. God made you, and so has a right to rule over you, deserves to be worshipped by you. And when you refuse that, reject his laws, ignore his claims over your life, you are rebelling against him, committing a crime against your creator. By sinning, you are setting yourself up as ruler in his place, denying your total dependence on him. In short, you are acting in pride.
No matter what shape your sin takes, whether it is extravagant partying like these lords of Babylon, or more like the quiet moralism of the religious leaders in the New Testament, you are acting in pride. For pride was not just the first sin that was ever committed, pride is part of every sin that has ever been committed. No matter what recipe of rebellion you are following in your life, pride is a core ingredient. However you are rejecting God, you are doing it in pride. For all sin is carried out in pride. And so, if you are here this morning and not a Christian, then like Belshazzar you have a proud heart. And as we are about to see with Belshazzar, God will also humble you.
2. A PUZZLING HAND (5:5-16)
As the party reached its peak, in 5:5-6 we read: [READ]. Quite a contrast to the confident king that was the life of the party only moments before. The appearance of a hand writing a message on the wall was enough to literally make King Belshazzar wet himself. That’s what many think is politely indicated by the phrase ‘legs became weak and his knees were knocking together’, which acts as a euphemism. However, even if he did manage to hold it all together, he certainly wasn’t in a good state. And as we read on, he only seems to get worse, for after he discovers his wise men can’t read the writing, in 5:9 we see he ‘became even more terrified and his face grew more pale.’ Belshazzar doesn’t even know what it says yet, but it seems whatever remains of his conscience is telling him that it can’t be good news. That it is unlikely to be a congratulatory message from the king of heaven. And so he is entirely overcome, completely terrified.
Friends, see here that while pride can throw a large party, it cannot provide lasting peace. See that the happiness offered by this world is far more hollow than it first may seem. For with a single pinprick, the balloon bursts. Surely it is a poor party where in an instant the mood can change from thoughtless fun to overwhelming fear. Surely it is a cheap joy, a poor pleasure, which four words can turn from causing much laughter to bringing great terror. And yet, such are the cheap joys that sin and Satan offer us every day.
Brother or sister, the next time you are tempted to sin, drawn to indulge in a pleasure this world promotes, to give into a desire your flesh presents, whether its lust, or anger, or gluttony, or jealousy, or gossip, before you give in, put yourself in Belshazzar’s shoes, imagine that as you indulge in that sin, a hand appears to write judgement on the wall. To expose you before the world, to call you to account before God. Brothers and sisters, before you give in, before you jump down that well of sinful desires Dave helped us to confess earlier, remind yourself how quickly sin turns into shame, how bitter those pleasures are after you have taken just the first sip. And tell Satan that he can keep his empty joys, tell your flesh that you have enough of those worthless pleasures. For obedience to Jesus offers a far better deal, provides eternal joys and lasting pleasures, gives you happiness that never leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, calls you to a life of gladness that cannot be undone, no matter what the future holds.
O friends, a conscience at peace with God is a far better pillow to lie down on than any sinful pleasure offered by this world. For the Bible makes clear that when we succumb to sin, we only end up becoming our own torturers. Digging pits, we later fall into. Walking dark paths, that we will soon come to dread. This kind of foresight is why Daniel is so uninterested in becoming third ruler in this kingdom: by the time he’s invited to the party, the writing is already on the wall. He sees where all this is going, knows judgement is just around the corner, that the Persians are literally at the gates. What’s the point in joining the party, when the writing is already on the wall? It would be like volunteering to become captain of the Titanic when it has already started sinking beneath the waves. And yet, brothers and sisters, see that the writing is already on the wall for this world, and all of its so-called joys and sinful pleasures. God has declared judgment on then all. So why would we join in? What’s the point of pursing the so-called joys of earth, when we know they will soon result in the judgment of eternity?
Of course, while the writing is already on the wall, its meaning isn’t yet clear. And so, like Nebuchadnezzar before him, Belshazzar sets out on a quest to find an interpreter. We thought about this together on Thursday night at our prayer meeting, where we did a brief overview of the book of Daniel. However, as was the case in chapter 2, this search takes up a great deal of our story. Just glance through and see how many times the word ‘interpretation’ appears in our chapter. Through the wise men of Babylon’s failure to understand (5:8-9), the Queen’s rambling suggestion to consult Daniel (5:10-12), and the King’s lengthy request for Daniel to interpret (5:13-16), the author is emphasising to us the utter inability of anyone to read the message, except God’s prophet. For all his puffed-up pride, in the end, King Belshazzar is forced to send for God’s man. Though he went to great lengths to announce his rejection of God, in the end we see just how dependent he is on God. And so in this, his humbling has begun.
Earlier we seen that pride is rejecting God’s rule, denying our dependence on him. And so humility, is just the flip side of that: accepting God’s rule, acknowledging our dependence. Or again, as CJ Mahaney puts it: ‘Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.’
Sometimes in our lives, as in the case of Belshazzar, God uses difficulties to help us make that assessment, remind us just how dependent we really are. Sometimes suffering is God’s scalpel for cutting out the pride in our heart. We see that in the life of Paul in 2 Cor 12:7. He was given a thorn in the flesh to keep him from becoming arrogant. However, there are less painful ways to grow in humility than undergoing such heart surgery. In the 16th century, the puritan Richard Baxter wrote, ‘It is for want of self-acquaintance that any man is proud. [If] men [considered] what they are, how quickly it would bring them low!’
If humility is considering, honestly assessing, ourselves, then the way to grow in humility is to spend some time doing that. Reminding ourselves just how much we cannot do, how much we depend on God in every moment of every day. We do that in prayer, which itself is a declaration of our dependence on God. The best defence against being a proud church is to be a praying church. Or we can spend time looking at passages like this one, where we see that we are so utterly dependent on God, we even depend on him to tell us just how dependent we are. To write words on the walls of our lives that we cannot understand, and so must look to him for answers.
If you are here this morning and you are not a Christian, is that not your experience? Are there not a thousand questions about your life that you cannot answer? Why are you here? Why are any of us here? What should you do with your life? Why did that experience happen to you? What did it mean? Friend, like Belshazzar, you can go and try every other form of wisdom in this world, every other ideology and religion, whether paganism, secularism, moralism, atheism, agnosticism, or simply don't carism. But like Belshazzar you will find that none of them can answer the questions you are asking. But God can. God can answer every question humans could ever ask. He knows the story behind every detail in your life, the reason for every experience and event, he can interpret the writing you cannot read, because he put it there. And though the working of his hand may be puzzling to us, it is perfectly clear to him. And that should humble us, cause us to look to him to direct us in our daily lives. To turn to his Word, like Belshazzar did eventually turn to Daniel, to understand what God is doing in this world, and how we should humbly respond.
3. A PAINFUL HUMBLING (5:17-31)
We finally arrive then at the interpretation of the writing. And yet, do you see though Daniel begins to interpret in 5:17, it isn’t until 5:25 that he finally tells us what it says. Before he gets to the verdict, he wants Belshazzar to hear the charges. Before he delivers the sentence, he wants him to understand his crime. And so, in 5:18-21 he retells the story of chapter 4 from last week, reminds Belshazzar what happened to Nebuchadnezzar when his heart grew proud, when he was humbled by the God of Heaven.
We are reminded of the power that Belshazzer’s predecessor had there in 7:19, ‘all the nations and peoples of every language dreaded and feared him. Those the king wanted to put to death, he put to death; those he wanted to spare, he spared; those he wanted to promote, he promoted; and those he wanted to humble, he humbled.’ And yet, as exalted as Nebuchadnezzar was, Daniel reminds us that God was even greater. For in 5:18 we are told that it was God who ‘gave...Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness and glory and splendor.’ In 5:19, it was God who ‘gave’ him that high position over all the nations of the world.
Here we see that God has been, is and always will be the great kingmaker. That it is his hand that writes the history of this world. That suddenly appears to catapult kings to greatness or to cause their kingdoms to collapse. As Jesus reminded Pilate in John 19:11, all authority rulers have earth has come from above. We even see that at the end of our chapter, where in 5:31 we are not told Darius the Mede ‘takes’ the kingdom of Babylon, through his daring midnight wade down the Euphrates, no we are told that he ‘received’ the kingdom. That is, God gave it to him. Daniel summarises this lesson in 5:21, saying it is ‘the Most High God [who] is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and sets over them anyone he wishes.’ As we have been reminded, one of the main messages of this whole book of a Daniel is that ‘God rules’, so much so that all other rulers are ruled by him.
That was the lesson that Nebuchadnezzar learnt from his own proud heart experience, where God literally turned him into an ass for his arrogance, made him live among the wild donkeys in 5:21. And it should have been the lesson that Belshazzar learnt from that experience too. However, as Daniel declares in 5:22, ‘But you, Belshazzar, his son, have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this.’ That last phrase is particularly striking, isn’t it? Belshazzar knew all about his predecessors proud predicament, perhaps he had been told it as a child, perhaps he was old enough to remember it happening. However he found out, we see Belshazzar’s problem was not with his head, it was with his heart. He knew all about what God does to the proud, but failed to act accordingly.
If you are here this morning and you are not a Christian, have yet to turn from sin and trust in Jesus, or you have yet to publicly declare your faith through baptism and by joining a local church, I wonder where your problem is? Is it with your head? Do you have questions about Christianity you need answered? Or don’t understand something that you have heard us teach about? Well, if that is the case, can I urge you to come speak to me or Dave or whoever you came to church with this morning after the service. We would love to try to help you understand what Christians believe and what it means to follow Jesus. If it is a head problem, let’s see what we can do to help you work through that.
However, my suspicion is, that for many of you this morning, if you are not a Christian, it is your heart rather than your head that is holding you back. Like Belshazzar, you have heard all these lessons before. Teenagers, many of you have grown up in Christian families, who have faithfully brought you along here to Grace Church and taught you God’s Word at home, you know this story about Belshazzar, as well as all the others about Jesus and Paul, you’ve heard them all before. And yet, like Belshazzar, you ‘have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this.’ You head is full of knowledge about God, and yet your heart is far from him. You know all about the Gospel, but you have yet to do something with it. You are refusing to bow the knee to Jesus, rejecting his rule over your life, living as if you don’t depend on him, don’t need him. When the reality is that like Belshazzar, in 5:23, it is God who holds your very life in his hand.
Belshazzer refused to willingly bow, and so experienced a painful humbling. The end of our chapter reminds me of some of the cases I was involved in while working as a lawyer. I recently heard from a former colleague of mine who reached out just to let me know how one of those cases had turned out. It was a case I literally spent thousands of hours on over several years. It took that long to prepare all the evidence. When they went to tribunal earlier this year it took weeks to hear all the oral arguments. And yet, despite all that work and time, it ultimately came down to just a few words from the judge at the very end: guilty or innocent, allegation upheld or defendant acquitted. God gets that final word on all our lives, that what all our time on earth ultimately comes down to, and we see in 7:25 that he delivers his verdict on Belshazzar in four words: ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin’. Or in English, ‘numbered, numbered, weighed, divided’. His time was up, he was weighed and found wanting, and so all he had was ripped from his grasp. The previous 3 chapters closed with King Nebuchadnezzar repenting of his sin and confessing God’s greatness. But there is no such happy ending here. In fact, rather than finishing with a flourish, the account kind of fades away. We are simply told that night Belshazzar was slain and the city was taken. For all his bravado, Belshazzar was effortlessly removed. For all its prominence and power, it seems it only took a matter of minutes for Babylon to become history. As John later puts it in Revelation 18: Babylon the Great had fallen, its doom had come upon it in a single hour. In less time than we have spent in our service this morning, the greatest empire on earth and its proud king were no more.
Friend, you can ignore God, but you cannot avoid him. Yes, you can turn away from God, but you cannot get away from him. You are living in God’s world. You are breathing in God’s air. You are using all of God’s stuff. And Daniel 5 shows you that even if you feel as safe and secure as Belshazzar felt that night on the way to his party, that within a single hour, it can all come crashing down. Your time could be up. The writing could appear on the wall of your life, you could be summoned to stand before the judge to whom we must all give account. Friend, God could judge you at any time. If he was to do so now, right now, in the middle of this service just like he judged Belshazzar right in the middle of that party, what would that judgment say? What would his verdict on your life be? Would he find your heart humbled before him? Following Jesus as your Lord? Or would he find you still resisting his rule, rebelling against his ways, refusing to submit to Jesus as your Saviour?
O see here in Daniel 5 that God is able to humble the proud, that if you do not humble yourself before him, then he himself will humble you. Judge you eternally for your sin. And yet it need not be that way, your story need not take the same course as Belshazzar’s did. For just as he experienced a painful humbling, God’s judgement for his sin, God sent his Son, Jesus Christ into this world to be painfully humbled, to go to the shame and suffering on the cross, where God judged him for the sin of all those who put their trust in him, who humble their hearts and find forgiveness in Jesus. Our Lord who became a lamb, the one who humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, and so was raised from death and has been highly exalted, is even now seated at the right hand of the Father, and will one day return to rescue those who trust in him. O yes, in this passage we see that God is able to judge the proud, but see that he is also a God who is able to save the humble. Our God not only rules, but as we will see next week in chapter 6, he is a God who rescues.
Friend, if you have been coming along to Grace Church for a while, perhaps your whole life, you know all this. Like Belshazzar you’ve heard it all before. Why haven’t done something about it? These truths are all in your head, why do you still resist them in your heart? Turn to Jesus this morning, humble yourself before him now, seeking his forgiveness for your sin, and then declare your allegiance to him as Lord by being baptised and joining a gathering of his people, just as he calls us to do. Humble yourself willingly before God this morning, or be sure that he will painfully, fatally, forever humble you.
ALEXANDER ARRELL