Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Belshazzar the king held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he was drinking wine in the presence of the thousand. When Belshazzar tasted the wine, he gave orders to bring the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. … They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone. Suddenly the fingers of a man's hand emerged and began writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace, and the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing. Then the king's face grew pale and his thoughts alarmed him, and his hip joints went slack and his knees began knocking together. Daniel 5:1-2,4-6
The Handwriting On The Wall
One of the most well-known phrases from the bible comes from this text. A lot of times in business, sports and just in life, everyone seems to know or have heard the phrase, "The handwriting is on the wall." This phrase is normally spoken when it is clear that without intervention something is inevitable. It is a warning to do something now to stop a later consequence.
Here we have a man named Belshazzar who was the King of Babylon at this time. Belshazzar was the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. This young man was around to witness what happened to his grandfather when he failed to take heed to the voice of God. He was around when his grandfather was told by Daniel to stop worshipping idols, to stop sinning, to do what was right and be merciful to the poor. Belshazzar knew that his grandfather's biggest mistake was thinking that he had obtained all his success on his own. His grandfather had failed to listen to Daniel the prophet and ended up losing his mind so badly that he finds himself eating grass with the cows every day. Wow! The Bible says he was wet with dew and his hair grew as long as eagle feathers. His nails grew and became like bird claws and he was in a terrible state for seven years. Yet when his mind finally returned to him he praised and worshipped the most High God. This man had lost his mind because he had forgotten who allowed him to become great. This is a good time for me to tell you that God’s Word says in him we live and we move and we have our being.
Many times we may gain success in life but we must remember who the praise goes to. Without Him we could do nothing, without Him we would fail. God allowed his grandfather to go through a terrible situation to bring him to the understanding that he needed God always.
Now Belshazzar is on the throne and he finds himself falling into the same trap that his grandfather fell into and he is terrified of what his happening. One of the greatest mistakes in life we can make is not making mistakes but failing to learn from our mistakes or the mistakes of others.
If we would learn from our mistakes we would not fall for the same trap that the enemy presents to us each time. Many times we make the same mistakes because we are not paying attention to the consequences of others or even our own pain. We live for the moment like these men and we tend to think things won't happen to us like it happened to our predecessors. Yet if we look at the Bible it's amazing how history repeats itself. The biggest mistake is not learning from our mistakes and the second half of that is our failure to keep God in the forefront of our lives. There comes a time when “the handwriting is in the wall” and we must deal with consequences.
Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. 1 Corinthians 10:5-6
