And You, His Son...

FROM: March 7-13, 2017

TOPIC: "And You, His Son..." Daniel 5:17-23

What our eyes have seen and read in the Bible about what happened to others is of vital testimony to our lives, so that we realize how God has treated these people in response to their evil deeds. The purpose is that we learn from all that, being warned so that we do not stumble and fall in the same way. By learning the lesson we will avoid enduring pain or suffering as we have seen in others. But...unfortunately, even with these shocking testimonies some do not want to learn. King Belshazzar was someone like this, this king did not learn from the testimony of his father (or grandfather) King Nebuchadnezzar! Daniel 5:17 "Then Daniel answered the king: You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means." Before anything, Daniel told Belshazzar everything that God GAVE to his father Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 5:18 "O King, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness and glory and splendor." So that it would be clear to Belshazzar that it was not by his own intelligence or his human power, or his talents that he came to have such a vast empire, as he thought. That is why he recounts to him what his father Nebuchadnezzar received on behalf of God. He was given the kingdom and the greatness, the glory and the majesty. And because of the greatness which the Lord gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him (Daniel 5:19 "Because of the high position he gave him, all the peoples and nations and men of every language dreaded and feared him.") So Nebuchadnezzar was an administrator of the power of God; the power that had been given to him came from God, it was not his. Nebuchadnezzar did to the people what seemed right to him, good or bad (Daniel 5:19 "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.") Daniel 5:20 "But when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and stripped of his glory." To be filled with arrogance is proper for one that is given much. He became arrogant, filled with pride for all that came to him from God. All that power and fame filled Nebuchadnezzar with pride, he became haughty, arrogant, boastful. He hardened in pride for all that he came to be and to possess; all this given by God. What better! To take away than to perish! He was deposed (removed from his position) to make him reason! The payment of his arrogance was that the kingdom was taken from him and he was stripped of his glory. Where was the glory of Nebuchadnezzar now? Daniel 5:21 "He was driven away from people and given the mind of an animal; he lived with the wild donkeys and ate grass like cattle; and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven..." God also punished him in his mind and he was similar to the beasts; and with donkeys he came to be. A donkey is much more noble than the impetuous horse that the king would have. The donkey is of service, it serves to transport loads, for people to saddle. Because of his arrogance King Nebuchadnezzar received God's punishment and was reduced to live like the donkeys of the hill, with the mind of a wild animal. He ate grass like an ox and his body was mistreated, he remained without the glory that gave him power over men. Daniel 5:21 "...until he acknowledged that the Most High God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone he wishes." Authority comes

from God and He is the one who can exercise it, always without being mistaken, because He is just. And you, his son Belshazzar, have fallen into the same, in pride (Daniel 5:22, 23) BUT YOU HIS SON, O BELSHAZZAR, HAVE NOT HUMBLED YOURSELF, THOUGH YOU KNEW ALL THIS. INSTEAD, YOU HAVE SET YOURSELF UP AGAINST THE LORD OF HEAVEN..."). The punishment was without consideration because he had his father as an example! The empire of Belshazzar was filled with great pride and wickedness. In Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation his delight had to be to dwell with the beasts and donkeys. Belshazzar, on the other hand, had not erred out of ignorance, but rather by a deliberate contempt against God! HE HAD BEFORE HIS EYES THE AMAZING WARNINGS GIVEN IN THE CASE OF HIS GRANDFATHER NEBUCHADNEZZAR! But, Belshazzar believed himself to be great and rose up against the Lord. He was not going to have his grandfather's considerations. His bad day came, though he came to honor Daniel. His pride broke all respect; with his friends and women he used the vessels of the temple of the house of God that had been brought from Jerusalem and had been retained with respect to God. They did it in the midst of worshiping other gods (Daniel 5:3, 4 "So they brought in the golden goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.")

For all this wickedness King Belshazzar had to see with his own eyes the one he had defied, the God who gives the kingdoms. One finger was enough for the sentence (Daniel 5:5, 6) "Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.") Belshazzar, you should have considered that the Most High God gave the kingdom to Nebuchadnezzar, your father, and later passed it on to you, for you were expected to have learned from him about the brokenness of haughtiness, but it was not so. You did the same! Therefore, God himself wrote to King Belshazzar his sentence on the wall of his palace and Daniel interpreted it (Daniel 5:22-28): "God has counted your kingdom and put an end to it, you have been weighed in the balance, and you were found at fault, your kingdom has been broken and given to the Medes and Persians. You never honored the God in whose hand your life is." "And the same night Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was dead." Daniel 5:30 From all this, let us fear those that others have done and in consequence have received the terrible payment from God. Let us learn from Belshazzar, he ignored what happened to his father (grandfather) Nebuchadnezzar and he did the same. He had the payment of his wickedness. Let us be careful when God gives us something; pride and haughtiness arrives, only humility will deliver us! Amen.