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WRITING ON THE WALL
 Anyone
who loves drama should read the Bible, for in it we have stories
outlined for us in graphic details of startling incidents, e.g. the
story of how Abraham in obedience to God took his only son Isaac up
Mount Moriah to offer him there as a burnt offering, but when
Abraham had shown how great his faith was in God, God provided a ram
caught in a thicket by his horns, to be offered up to God for a
burnt offering instead of his son. Again there is the dramatic story
of how one Saul of Tarsus, who had gone about persecuting the
Christians, imprisoning both men and women, and torturing them until
they blasphemed against the Person of Christ, was on his way to
Damascus carrying letters giving him authority to imprison any
followers of Christ, was suddenly struck down by a light from
heaven, and there came the voice, ‘Saul,
Saul, why persecute thou Me?’ (Acts
9.4), and this man who had been the No.1 enemy of the
Christian church now became the Church’s NO. 1 missionary in taking
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. He whole life
was completely changed by his meeting with the risen Christ on that
Damascus Road, so that looking back later he could say, ‘I
am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ
lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by
the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me’
(Gal. 2.20).
One of the most dramatic scenes is that of
Belshazzar’s feast pictured in Daniel 5. Belshazzar was not the
supreme king in Babylon, but was acting on behalf of his father
Nabonidus. Puffed up by his position he decides to hold a great
banquet for the leading lords and ladies of the realm. The palace of
Babylon is ablaze with light. There are a 1,000 guests gathered. The
air is heavy with rich perfumes and spices and Belshazzar is
drinking wine before his guests. As the night advances the revelry
increases, and in the midst of this mad merriment a strange and
daring deed enters the mind of the royal host as he becomes more and
more intoxicated by the wine. He whispers to his chief steward who
disappears from the banqueting hall with hosts of attendants, soon
to reappear bearing in their arms the golden and silver vessels
which had been dedicated by Solomon to the worship of God in the
temple at Jerusalem, but which Nebuchadnezzar had captured. And now
the king commands that the golden gobbles be filled with Babylonian
wine, and as the guests drink from God’s goblets the revelry becomes
faster and wilder, and the people begin to sing praises to the gods
of gold, and silver, and brass, and iron and wood and stone.
But suddenly a silence falls upon the
banqueting hall, for they are startled to see writing on the plaster
of the wall “over against the candlestick”,
the armless fingers of a man’s hand. The king’s appearance changes
from one of revelry to that of fear, and in the graphic language of
the Bible ‘the joints of his loins were
loosed, and his knees smote against another’. The king pulls
himself together and cries aloud to bring in the astrologers, the
Chaldeans and the soothsayers promising them that whoever is able to
read the writing and give the interpretation shall be clothed in
royal purple and be proclaimed the 3rd ruler in the
kingdom. And so the magicians study the writing on the wall, but
they could not understand the writing and dismayed they depart.
Again Belshazzar is disturbed and his countenance is changed.
Now the Queen Mother hearing what had
happened comes into the banqueting hall in order to comfort her son,
and remind him that there is a man in the kingdom in whom is the
spirit of the holy gods, whom Nebuchadnezzar had appointed master of
the magicians because he had an excellent understanding in all
visions and dreams, and this man’s name was Daniel. So Daniel is
summoned before the king, and Belshazzar repeats his promise that if
he can interpret the writing he will be clothed with purple and be
made the third ruler in the kingdom. But Daniel is not interested in
the king’s rewards but proceeds to sternly rebuke the blasphemous
pride of the king. He reminds him of how God had humbled the pride
of Nebuchadnezzar his grandfather, how he had taken him away from
his throne and driven him among the wild asses, to feed on grass
like oxen. And turning to Belshazzar, Daniel says ‘And
thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though
thou knew all this …’ Read
Daniel 5.23-28.
Then commanded Belshazzar that the royal
garment of purple be brought and place upon Daniel, and that the
proclamation be made that he should be the third ruler in the
kingdom.
But listen! What is all the noise outside
in the streets of Babylon? Belshazzar and his guests look up in
terror, some rush to the doors and try to escape, but it is too
late. The soldiers of Mede throng the room. Belshazzar is terrified,
a glittering sword falls, and Belshazzar is a corpse. ‘In
that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain’,
Dan 5.30.
Let’s consider just one of the words upon
the wall, TEKEL – ‘Thou are weighed
in the balances and found wanting’ (Dan.
5.27). In whose balances was he found wanting – in the
balances of God. Certainly not in the balance of his own estimation
of himself. Not in the balances of human philosophy or public
opinion. But in the balances of God. And the same applies to us.
God is weighing each of us in those same balances. How much do we
weigh in the balances of God? Not how much do we weigh in the
balances of our own opinion, or in public opinion, for that is not
important, but how much in the balances of God. Can we tell? Yes,
for God Himself has given us in His own book, the Bible, the weights
by which He weighs us.
Look at the 10 commandments which
initially were given to the Jews to expose sin. Sin existed long
before the law was given, from the time of Adam’s transgression, but
God gave the law to make wrong doing a legal offence. How would we
fare up against the weights of the law of God? How many of us have
really kept any of them? How many of us have raised the pleasures of
this world to the plane of idols? If a man thinks more of pleasure
than of anything else then pleasure has become his god, whether that
pleasure is an alcoholic stimulant, watching TV, social life,
football, bingo etc. How many of us today make a god of money, and
for money will sacrifice our health, our conscience, our family,
and if we are honest and examine ourselves, we would have to confess
there are many idols in our lives.
Perhaps we could argue that we have never
stolen anything and so have not broken the 8th
commandment, but are we sure? Have we ever sold anything for more
than its real value? Have we ever shirked at work and not given our
employer a full day’s work for the wages received? Have we given 24
hours per day, seven days of the week to God which is our reasonable
service as a creature? Of course we haven’t, and it means we have
stolen from God and so are condemned by the law of God.
We are probably vaguely familiar with all
the commandments and the question is, “How much do we weigh against
these primary laws of God?” If we are honest with our self and with
God we will cry out, “I am weighed in the balance of God and found
utterly wanting”
Perhaps some of us will be saying that we
live by the golden rule that says “do unto others as you would have
them do to you”. Well, do we? Or do we try and get the highest
prices for the poorest goods? Do we work for our employer as we
would like others to work for us? Or are we trying to get the
largest pay for the least amount of work? Do we talk to other people
behind their back just the way we want other people to talk behind
our back? How much do we weigh by the application of golden rules
like this to our life?
And what is our balance weight when we
come to the first and great commandment, “Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind”. This means putting God first in
everything. God first in business, God first in politics, God first
in study, God first in our social life, God first in pleasure, God
first in home life, God first in everything. Have we always done
that? If not, we have broken the law of God, and the Bible concludes
that ‘all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God’ (Rom 3.23).
We are all under sin, and even if we have kept the whole law except
for one point, we are guilty of all, and, ‘Cursed
in everyman that continues not in all things which are written in
the book of the law to do them’.
Every man and woman reading this, when put
in the balances of God, is found wanting and forever wanting.
What must then
we do? This article has brought before
us
so far the law of God which only condemns us and does not offer one
particle of hope. Yet
many of us in our attempts to get right with God try and find hope
in our efforts to keep that
very
law which only condemns us. There seems to be something in our
makeup which insists on telling us
that we can earn our way into God’s favour, but the Bible insists
that a man is justified before God, not by the works of the law, but
by faith in Jesus Christ.
Thanks be to God that there
is something besides the law; there is the gospel of the grace of
God. God, as it were weighed this world in the balances and found
the whole world wanting, and then He provided salvation for a
“wanting world”. He gave His Son to perfectly keep the law of God,
and then to die as a substitute for us who had broken it.
Isaiah 53.6
says, ‘All we like sheep have gone
astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has
laid on Him the iniquity of us all’.
The moment any one of us
turn from our sinful ways and puts our trust in Jesus Christ as
Saviour, and believe that all our sins were laid upon Him when He
died on the cross, that moment we take Jesus Christ into the balance
with us, and the moment we have Him on our side, we can weigh up
against the heaviest weights of God’s holy law. Oh that we might
know that every sin we ever committed was laid on Him when He died
on the cross of Calvary in my place. We need to understand that
through faith in Him, we have been redeemed from the curse of the
law, Christ having become a curse for us, for it is written, ‘cursed
is every one hanged on a tree’ (Gal.
3.13, JND).
Don’t listen or read the
teaching of “New Theology” or “Liberal Theology” that says there is
no such thing as “sin” – we know there is. Jesus Christ, the
crucified and risen Saviour, stands ready to get into the balances
with us, and with Him in the balances we will never be found
wanting. Will we take Jesus Christ into the balance with us? Will we
accept Him as our personal Saviour, surrender to Him as our Lord and
Master, and confess Him as such before the world, for ‘if
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in
thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved’ (Rom. 10.9).
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