Daniel 5:24-31 “Writings on the Wall”
I know that not all of you are into computers, and those of you who are may not be into going onto Facebook, so I will share with you that this ancient story of writing on the wall has made a modern comeback. When you want to catch someone’s attention on-line, you go and write on that person’s wall. Every once in a while, my daughter in Germany writes on my Facebook wall. To this day, she has not sent me the ominous “mene, mene, tikel, parsin” line from Daniel. So, we are still good. I just find it fascinating that the next generation still uses idea of writing on a wall as a way to put forth something important and attention grabbing. I could imagine that some if they were to hear this story from Daniel today might be prompted to ask, “So, God’s hand wrote on Belshazzar’s Facebook Wall?”
I will be honest with you that when I read this story, I am a little jealous of Belshazzar. Just a little bit. You see, God really made things extremely plain for him to see! You cannot get much more plain than a hand coming down from heaven and writing directly in front of you on a wall a huge warning with big letters right in the middle of a feast! Oh Lord, if you could always make your signs so clear!
I look at the blank wall at home and nothing comes to me! I will open up the Bible and scratch my head sometimes, wondering what the message from God is supposed to be from this or that scripture. I know that it is in the Bible, so it is supposed to mean something to me. Why does it read just like “mene, mene, tikel, parsin?” In other words, it’s important, but I don’t get it.
In the time of Belshazzar, he was having a feast with one thousand of his royalty there. Not one of them could read the words on the wall. Why not? Were they all too drunk and happy? Did they forget to wear their glasses? It is an amazing statement that no one of the upper echelons of government in those days could read just four words! I don’t know if I am the only one who ever does this, but I tend to start correcting the grammar on government documents whenever I get one in hand. This is just a bad habit I have picked up. However, we are not just talking about the government of Babylon having poor grammatical skills. Those guys could not read four words on a wall and make sense of them. This tells us of the utter corruption of that government. Obviously there was nobody of any intelligence left in the group.
But, are we really talking about intelligence here? One does not have to be intelligent at all to consider the words on the wall in the context that they are being written. There is a drunken debauched orgy going on and a giant hand comes out of nowhere and writes on the wall. You would have to be rather thickheaded not to know what the writing means: “This drunken fiesta is over!” It is that plain to those who have eyes to see.
I will tell you that I sometimes do get a little frustrated—not with you all—but with people who come to me who are not Christian and ask me about things in the Bible. And, I will respond to them, “Well, Jesus had to die to take the sin of the world to himself that it might be crucified, in order that He might rise again, and save us to eternal heaven promised to us.” I might as well be saying “mene, mene, tikel, parsin.” They don’t get it. I could explain it over and over again. They will not get it.
Then I think to myself, they are not seeing the handwriting on the wall. Make it plain. First, God wants you to be with Him. Second, nothing you can do can make yourself good enough to be with God. Third, God sent Jesus to take your sin away. Fourth, accept Christ and you will be good enough then to be with God in eternity. Just like that, they get it! We have to make the writing on the wall plain for all!
If you have trouble perhaps understanding one part of the Bible, then go to someone who can make it plain for you. Go to a pastor. Go to a friend. Go to Facebook and put it on somebody’s wall!
Just be careful for unsolicited help. We should not forget about what happened with poor Job in the Bible (Ch 4) when his friends came over and tried to convince him that he had become ill because he had somehow sinned against God and was being punished. I bring this up because I was of course still sick this last week, and I began to wonder if God were maybe punishing me. But, then my wife Helen got sick, too. I knew that God would have no reason to punish her, so I dropped the idea! I digress!
I want to move on with this text by saying that if you really are having a spiritual hard time, God will give you a hand. (ha ha) We need to consider the timing in this story for a bit. Belshazzar gets the warning sometime in the afternoon. He is dead that evening. That is not a lot of time to effect change in one’s life.
I was in a group of pastors about two months ago talking about church life and all. Out of the blue, one of the pastors there said, “Gee, wouldn’t it be great if God came down from heaven tonight? That tonight would be that night!” Then he asked the various serious question, “Did your sermon last week get your folks ready for this?” I always have trouble remembering what I preached on. I could not recall. That was a good wake-up call though. This story of Belshazzar speaks to this selfsame issue. He is alive one minute and gone the next. He was not prepared in anyway to meet his Maker, but he was dead.
I do want you to consider today that our worship here is urgent business! I had a neighbor growing up whose husband was away always. She had two kids. One day I saw the husband looking into his wife’s car under the hood. He was just standing over it shaking his head. It was a relatively new car at the time. I went up to him and asked him what was wrong. He told me that his wife had neglected to ever have the oil checked and eventually the engine had frozen up. She had had the mechanic simply tow it home after hearing that it would need a new engine.
Church is very much the same way. If you had your spirituality checked last week and your still out there this week, then all is good. But, if you have not had your spirituality checked in a few thousand miles and you think you are ready to climb that next big hill with the engine you got right now, then you might be surprised. One may think that checking oil is not urgent, but it really can be. Belshazzar did not even make it through the night. The handwriting on the wall was his “spiritual oil light” coming on but he did not heed it. It really was urgent.
In John 8, we read the story of the adulterous woman who is about to be stoned. Jesus steps between her and the men who are there about to stone her. He says to them, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” After he says this, the Bible tells us that he bent down and wrote on the ground. When he got back up, the accusers were gone. What did Jesus write? We do not know. But, it might have been something like “mene, mene, tikal, parsin.” Fortunately, those men saw the handwriting on the ground! They changed their hearts right away. Their own salvation depended on it!
My final point has to do with the idea that it is nice to have a good interpretation of the Word of God. I like the character of Daniel because he is always interpreting God’s Word. What good is having the Word of God coming down to us if we cannot interpret it rightly?! I know that this sounds like a superfluous point at best, but it really is not. Throughout the ages, we have had people wrongly interpreting the Word of God. We have had people pretending to have the Word of God when in fact they have made something up. We have had people who have pretended to be speaking in tongues. They do this for myriad reasons, none of them godly.
I was once told by another pastor from a neighboring church that I was not really welcome to come up to the chancel, much less preach, because he did not believe that I was born again. When I insisted that I had been born again to the Spirit of God, he asked when it was that I had spoken in tongues. Those of you who know my penchant for languages, could probably guess what my response to him was, “When have I not been speaking in tongues?”
In many churches today, and throughout history, one is not counted as being reborn unless he or she has had the experience of speaking in tongues. I do believe that speaking in tongues is a gift from God. But, it is a gift with little value unless there is an interpretation to go along with the speaking in tongues. The Bible tells us this. Check out 1 Cor. 14:13-19, “Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret. . . .nevertheless in the church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others also than ten thousand words in a tongue.” Paul goes on to say how words without interpretation will just scare people away from the faith as they will think that we Christians are all crazy!
In fact, I often think of this Scripture when we sing in Hawaiian language here in the church, knowing well that a lot of us do not understand what we are singing! Our final hymn today is “Nu Oli.” Maybe we need not just to sing the words but interpret them too?
Our message out to the world needs to be plain. It is an urgent message. And, it is for those who might need a little help interpreting it from us. Jesus came to save us to the eternal life with the Father in heaven. Amen.