Gooding, David: 6 - What are Life's Ultimate Values?

So now we come to chapter five of the book of Daniel, and as we said in our first session, this chapter five is the last chapter in the first half of the book, and forms, in some sense, the climax to the message that the first half of the book is presenting. You will see that in a number of ways. In chapter one, we are told that Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem and took it, and he took certain vessels of gold and silver out of the house of the Lord and took them to Babylon and put them in the house of his gods. And that is that, and perhaps you've forgotten those vessels, but the writer hasn't. When he comes to this first climax in the book, chapter five, then those vessels form a central point in the great drama that is enacted in Belshazzar's banqueting hall. Belshazzar takes those golden vessels and drinks from them himself. It's a climax in the sense also that chapter five brings to an end the record of Daniel's experience under the Babylonian Empire. For in chapter five, Cyrus takes the city of Babylon, and the empire of Babylon passes over to the control of the Medes and the Persians. So we've reached one great stage in the book at the end of chapter five. Daniel's prophecies elsewhere, of course, tell us that successive empires come to an end. The final Gentile empire will come to its end under the judgment of God, and then the Messiah will appear in power and great glory and set up his own kingdom. The end of Babylon did not prove to be the end of all Gentile power and authority. Did not prove to be the end of the times of the Gentiles. But if you care to compare chapter five, the last, uh, story in the first division, with the visions and histories in chapters ten, eleven, and twelve that constitute the last prophecy in the second division, you will find they're both, of course, talking about ends. Chapter five, the end of Babylon. In chapter ten, eleven, and twelve, of the end before the coming of the Messiah. And you will perhaps see that there are certain correspondences in the behavior of Belshazzar and how he met his end. Certain correspondences between that and the behavior of the last great Gentile imperial ruler, whom our Lord will have to destroy and will destroy, by the brightness of his apocalyptic coming. Again, chapter five is a climax, if read in connection with its, uh, uh, other pair, uh, the story in chapter four. As we have been thinking in our earlier session, in chapter four, God disciplines Nebuchadnezzar. First, he warns him about his sins and gives him time to repent. Nebuchadnezzar does not repent, and therefore God, in his discipline, cuts him down. And yet, in his mercy, allows Nebuchadnezzar to profit from that experience and finally to repent and find a true God and to be restored. So says chapter four. Chapter five deals with another king, Belshazzar. Not that he was full king, he was regent in the place of his father Nabonidus. And there, if you care, is a clay cylinder that tells us how, uh, um, uh, Belshazzar, he's there named on the s- on the cylinder. Belshazzar is named with his father Nabonidus on, on this clay barrel cylinder, which records the king's restoration of the temple of the moon god Sin at Ur. That dates at about, according to the British Museum, it dates about five hundred and fifty BC. So there is an actual clay tablet with Belshazzar's name on it. He appears to have been vice, uh, uh, regent in the place of his father, who was off in other parts of the empire doing various things. So chapter four is about a king, Nebuchadnezzar, and God's discipline on him and his restoration. Chapter five, God's dealing with Belshazzar himself. Now we are told in chapter five by Daniel, as he stands in the banqueting hall addressing the king, he relates the story of Nebuchadnezzar from chapter four and says to Belshazzar, Belshazzar, you knew it. And though you knew all this, you hardened your heart against God Almighty. Now the judgment falls. Now there is no warning with chance of repentance, and certainly no restoration. For this time, unlike Nebuchadnezzar, this man knew it all. And with the lesson of what happened to Nebuchadnezzar in front of his eyes, he came to his deliberate decision, sinned against the light of God, and sinned, went beyond the point of no return. And therefore, in this chapter, we come to the great climax of God's judgment, without any chance of repentance. God's summary judgment, the end of Belshazzar, the end of his empire. Now, having said those preliminary things, put us in the picture, I shall need only to say once more that this final chapter five is going to be about values, like all the other chapters have been in the first half of the book. But the story of Belshazzar is a s- story exceedingly well known, one of the best known of all the Old Testament stories, and as I said earlier, there's surely not a, a preacher of the gospel here present who hasn't at some time preached his gospel message from this marvelous story of Daniel chapter five. And many a Sunday school teacher has done the same to his or her class, and Bible class leader likewise. So I don't im- intend to talk very long for this session because, well, you know it all anyway. And secondly, I robbed you some time, you'll see, in the first session, so I'm going to repay my debts if I can this session. What I suggest we do, therefore, together is to study the some of the detail, the main points of this story so that we may increase our grasp on its message. Granted, we know it all, but we still have our responsibility to go on preaching the gospel. And if our study this morning helped us to see Daniel chapter five in its story with just a little bit more precision so that we could put it across to our friends, either publicly or privately, with more precision and effect, and so be used of God to bring men and women to Christ, well, then that would be worth spending a little time on, would it not? It's in that spirit that I approach this story with you, conscious I'm not going to tell you anything new, but, uh, uh, we're going to try and get the thing in clear focus and precision. Belshazzar, Daniel dignifies him with the name of the king. Belshazzar the king made a feast to thousands of his lords. Cor, it was some feast. Wow. I don't know whether Belshazzar was interested in art and architecture like his, uh, uh, predecessor Nebuchadnezzar was, but he was interested in having a gay old time. Crown prince, you know anything about crown princes, how they love to go around in their airplanes and submarines and playing polo and goodness knows what, and with the prettiest girls off on the yacht, whatnot, uh, uh, you know what they do. And Belshazzar seems to have been one of those. He was going to have a party. It was going to be the biggest party that the Babylon had ever seen, and Babylon had seen some marvelous parties. Because he loved parties. Why shouldn't you love parties? It's all right eating your occasional sausage, but why shouldn't you break out now and again and have a party with all the finery? And there they came, his lords in their livery and their military medals, and there were their wives and diamonds dripping off their ears, you know, woohoo, and their tiaras. And the food, Fortnum and Mason had been brought in to do the food and the wines and the caviar. Oh, it was magnificent. There is an artist's reproduction of what the banqueting hall may have actually looked like. It wasn't exactly a hovel in some back street. It was going to be a feast. Well, why shouldn't you? Yes, but in the middle of that feast, Belshazzar came to a decision. I suspect he'd had enough wine to bring him to the state where, huh, a man could suddenly make up his mind and feel very confident about the decision he was now making. It would appear that this question that he now decided was something that had rankled with him from a long time, because, as I say, Daniel reminded him how he knew the story of Nebuchadnezzar. I don't know whether he knew Nebuchadnezzar personally, and the historians disagree as to how he was related. He wasn't perhaps literally his son. He may have been a grandson, or the term son could have been used in a dynastic sense. He was a successor. But there stood the Queen Mother. She knew all about Nebuchadnezzar. I wonder how many times she'd heard the story. You know Nebuchadnezzar, and what an experience he'd had, how God came into his life, uh, Dulcy, and spoke to him and humbled him, how he'd had this terrible affliction, and in his misery he'd reached out his hand and found the reality of the living God. And out of the mire and quicksand of his mental breakdown, his discovery of the real God had brought him back to sanity and salvation in that physical sense. Oh, what a story that was, and how Nebuchadnezzar must have told it. It is an amazing, eh, e- evidence of the grace of God that Nebuchadnezzar should have published the whole thing. It was known far and wide through his dominion. And Belshazzar knew of it and what it implied. I wonder if and how many times the Queen Mother would have said, Belshazzar, you know, I'm getting a bit worried about those fast women you keep company with and and all your behavior, Belshazzar. Isn't it time that you too sought the living God, the real God? Rankling with him for a long time. What a man to do, you know, the crown prince with all the money at his fingertips, just in the position to have a real marvelous time in life. And God, why should he bother about the gods? Have all those religious temples in Babylon, always wanting a sub, always wanting to to maintain the priests. Well, at any rate, he didn't mind giving a few, uh, million pounds towards the upkeep of the temples, but to be bothered himself about the gods and live for God like Nebuchadnezzar, no, no, no, no. Rankled with him. And this night, halfway through the feast, suddenly it clicked. He came to his decision. He was going to have done with this business of God and living for God and serving God and all that kind of thing. Why should he let it get in the way of his enjoyment? And he decided to do something. Oh, it was real shocking. He sent his servants to the big temple down the road where Nebuchadnezzar had put the vessels of silver and gold out of the house of God, and he ordered the vessels to be brought and placed in front of his majesty, and he determined to do a something cool. The gays set in the tables, they would love it. Cool. It would be shocking enough to give a little zest to the party, you know, like a blasphemy on BBC. And and they would think it uproariously funny, and it would be in the press tomorrow. He took these golden vessels, and he drank thereof himself, and he gave to his lords and ladies, and they drank off them. So point number one, what was he saying? Golden vessels, what were they anyway? They came from the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem. They were gold and silver, the most valuable metals that they could get hold of. They were dedicated and sanctified and set utterly apart for the use and glory of Jehovah. They were the nation's response to God. They were saying that God is the supreme value. Worthy art thou to receive the honor, the glory, the power, the might, the riches, and the dominion. For you made all things, and for your pleasure they were and were created. All creation was made for the pleasure of God. Belshazzar included. Life's ultimate value. God. No, said Belshazzar. I'll show you what life's ultimate value is. It's me! And my pleasure. And my enjoyment. This is the ultimate value in life. This is what I live for. Let me show you. And he takes the golden vessel and drinks of it himself. Point number one. And it's down to earth practical, isn't it, this diagnosis? How many men and women, and they may not be kings or queens either, have come to that evaluation of life. What is life's supreme end? It's my pleasure. If it makes you feel good, do it. Live for your own enjoyment. That is life's chief aim. He came then to his decision. So next point, we come to God's comment on it. In that moment, there came forth the hands of a man and wrote upon the plaster. El Shaza put down his glass on the table, and his legs started to wobble, and he went white. For now it was obvious that the e- e- eternal was breaking into time. And God was speaking and conveying a message, and he watched as the fingers wrote upon the wall. And there you see what it may have looked like. And you'll see it from where you sit. The fingers would have written from this way on, on the plaster of the wall. And Belshazzar was petrified with fear. Why? He couldn't read the writing. Sometimes when I've been preaching, I stopped there and made the general point. Ah, take, find a man and he's lived his life for self, for mere pleasure. Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Live for self. And now life begins to draw to an end, and tragedy begins to loom up. And he knows that God has written, written a book, and he opens it and tries to read, and he can't read the writing. Oh, it would break your heart, wouldn't it? There are thousands in Belfast tonight, and they can't read the writing. Writing to you that is as simple as anything you've understood of for years, John three sixteen and all its loveliness. God so loved that he gave that whosoever believes on him should not perish. And they read it, and they can't read it. They can't read the writing. It doesn't make sense. Oh, praise God, if you can read the writing that the other world, the fingers of the other world, the very fingers of God have written in our world. What a blessing that is. You can read the writing. Ah, but this was a particular writing. Why couldn't we read the writing? Uh. Uh, it's very odd. You'll see, as far as we can, uh, make out from what follows, the writing was plain, straightforward Aramaic. Mene, mene, mana, mana, tekel yufasin. And Belshazzar would have seen those words thousands of times in the course of his daily life, for they were the ordinary terms for weights, and therefore for money. Because in those far off days, people didn't have coins for money like we do. They had weights. They weighed out on a pair of scales. So much gold or so much silver. There's a chap doing it. He, as you see, is an Egyptian, not a Babylonian. But what he's doing is, he's weighing this curious object here, and these round things are precious metal, not coins, but weights of money. And of course, in the earlier parts of the Old Testament, where you have stories of people buying things, like Abram buying the field in Genesis, uh, you'll see the f- uh, in the cave of Machpelah. He weighed him out the silver. That's how they did it. And of course, there were, uh, terms for the different weights of money. Here they are as a comparative table for you. Hope you can see it. I'm sorry it is, uh, uh, dark, but there are comparative terms of weights, you'll see. This is weights, but they're often applied to money, a jera, a beka, a pim, a shekel, a mina, and a talent. And here you get some idea of comparative worth and size and weight. Here, this thing, if that represents a talent, then this little block here is a, a, a, a, a minor, and this little one here is a shekel. So these were weights, yes, but in our modern equivalent, money. And the hand had written mana mana tekel yufasin. A minor, a minor, a shekel, and fractions. Or half shekel, maybe. You say, why couldn't the man read it then? I don't know. Suppose you went home tonight, sitting comfortably in your lounge, when a hand came out and wrote on you. You read it, couldn't you? Pounds, shillings, and pence, dollars, hundredweights, kilograms, pounds, ounces, pesetas, and francs, and so forth. We could read it. But suppose you had reason to think that this was the hand of God writing on your wall. What would it mean? You can make sense of it. What are these, you say? Well, they're they're weights, they're denominations of money then. And money, what is that? Isn't that about value? Oh, well, just a minute. We have to go careful, wouldn't we? Money isn't the same thing as value, is it? Money is only a way of measuring value. You can prove that. Uh, find an odd ten pound note that you don't want and give it to seven-year-old. year old. Ha ha. Now you'll find out his values. Whole ten pound note. Well, it might be the biggest knickerbocker glory that ever man beheld, or it could be a space age man or something. These are his values. He'll spend his ten pound on that. You give ten pound to a sweet young thing, seventeen years old, now about to go to a Christmas party. She won't spend it on an ice cream, of course not, it's absurd to ruin your figure with such like things, and she's going to a party. So she'll take the ten pounds and add it to the other fifty and get a most beautiful dress. Oh, she's caught sight of the beauty of life. This is life's value, I mean to say, and all the other things that lie behind that as well. You take the ten pound and give it to Papa. He's fifty eight. Well, he doesn't want ice creams, and he's got enough suits to fill a wardrobe for the rest of his life. So what for him? Well, he takes it and put it with one hundred and fifty and buys a special golf club. Ah. Same amount of money. Ah, but behind it lies the question of values. Do you notice how values change in life? What the child thought was exceedingly valuable, ice cream. Well, okay, it's all right, it's not life's chief value, is it? Values change. Tell me, are there any eternal values? Change and decay, and all around I see. Are there any values that are eternal? I know your answer as a Christian, you're going to say, well, God, oh God. And then you're going to say the love of God and the grace of God and that supreme value, the precious blood of Christ, heaven's greatest purchase, heaven's superior currency, with which God's love bought rebel men and women and redeemed them to himself. These are the values. And beyond that, you say God's dear people, surely, born again of incorruptible seed by the word of God that lives and abides forever. Whereas all flesh is grass, the ice cream is melting, and the crows decay, and the golf clubs will be gone one day forever. God's dear people last eternally, born with the blood of Christ, the coinage of heaven, the love of God, God himself. These are unchanging and eternal values. Oh, Belshazzar, Belshazzar, tonight, man, you are to die. And you look back on the table, you know, when it started it was beautiful, wasn't it? Now the breadcrumbs and the wine spilled, and it's looking a bit of a mess. Sparkling there in the light of the candelabra are the golden vessels representing God and his eternal values, and the man has said no. Hm. So what now? Belshazzar has decided that life's ultimate value is Belshazzar himself and his personal enjoyment. Now God is going to evaluate Belshazzar. All unseen, the scales are erected in the banqueting hall, and God is about to weigh Belshazzar and find out how much Belshazzar is actually worth. You say, I've always found a difficulty, or some people have, in understanding the next bit, because the writing said, mana mana tekel yufasin. A little lesson in Hebrew. In Hebrew, you work normally with three consonants. They form a verbal stem. So here, take a very common one, the letters DBR. That forms the basic root of a whole host of words. Now you get varied meanings by inserting different vowels to those consonants. So I can put the vowels long A and long A and make that read da ba. That will me give me the noun, a word. Or I can use a different set of vowels and put I here, a dot in there that doubles that B, and an E here, and that makes it diber, but same consonants. And that means he spoke. Now I've turned it into a verb in the past tense, he spoke. Or here, for instance, take the w- the letters PR and a certain kind of an S, paratz. Its basic meaning has something to do with dividing. So when Daniel first read it, he read it as ufasin. The u, the u is the Aramaic for and. And now he's supplied vowels. The P is now what we call soft aspirated, and he's put a plural ending onto it. Farsin means divisions, eh, or fractions. So a minor, a minor, a shekel, and fractions, half a shekel maybe. That's how he read it the first time. Or to take, uh, uh, minar itself, as you'll see. Minar has to do with counting and numbering. You can use it in a verbal form, which means he has numbered, or you can use it in a noun form, and then it means a certain weight of money, a, a, a mana. And similarly with shekel, or as in Aramaic it is tekel, it means literally to weigh in the balances if you use it as an, as a verb. And then, of course, it comes to mean a certain weight of money weighed out in the balances, and, uh, as a noun, they call it shekel or tekel, shekel. Now you say, that's a funny language, but yes, modern Hebrew is just like that. If you go to Israel, to this present, and buy a newspaper, you'll find the newspaper is, for the most part, printed just in consonants, and they leave you to supply the vowels. What the hand wrote on the wall was doubtless the consonants. And Daniel was led and inspired to interpret those consonants in different ways. When you first saw them, well, you would take them just as consonants, perhaps, to be the form that indicates the money. Ah, but we'll reinterpret this money business and come to the heart of the matter that God is saying through these symbols of value. And God now is evaluating Belshazzar. How much is he worth? Great king in all his glory. Ah, but now God has weighed him and has counted and numbered his days, and his days are coming to their end. My good friends, the psalmist is wise, isn't he? He tells us to do similarly. If we would find out what life's true values are ultimately, then says the psalmist, teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart to wisdom. Oh, for the wisdom in life, life's little temporary years. To open one's eyes to see that this life is transient, is temporary, and God has put within our grasp things eternal. Oh, young man, young woman, if you fail to to take note of that and you go on as if this life were all, it will satisfy you a moment, and old age and death comes on. You could have missed the eternal. When I stand on life's brink, ask not merely now, what do I think of God, and is he my supreme value, but what about me? What shall I be worth? Weighed in the balances, says God, and found wanting. For all have sinned and do come short. God can't have short weight in his heaven. And his balances must reject Belshazzar. What a sad thing. What are you worth, man? There was a moment, wasn't there, when you held your firstborn child in your lap. Oh, you loved to love that child, didn't you? That child to you was everything. Yes. Yes. And you were everything to the child. And you know, you loved to feel you were wanted, didn't you? To feel that little infant loved you and needed you. That was worth more than pound notes, wasn't it, and dollars? And your family grew up, and as teenagers, father, they needed your wisdom and to feel you were wanted. Oh, that was worth more than all your golf sticks. Some unfortunate men and women come to life's end, and their children have gone, and they no longer care tuppence about their parents, and the state doesn't much either, and they come to the end of life, and they have that terrible feeling that they're not wanted. Oh, what it will be to stand in eternity and find that heaven doesn't want you. Nobody wants you. That's hell begun. Oh, yes, it's true. All have sinned and come short. Oh, if only Belshazzar had known there was a message for sinners even in, even in that far off day, that though men have come short, God loved them. Even then, if Belshazzar had in his early days repented and sought God, God would have received him and pardoned him, and the blood of Christ, though he didn't know it, would have covered him. What a lovely gospel. God so loved bankrupt men and women who come short of his glory, but God, don't tell me to explain it, wanted them, and so wanted them that they became important to him, that he was prepared to give the very blood of Christ to purchase them. This is value. This is your value, sir. This is your significance in the universe, madam, that God wants you and gave the blood of Christ for you. That's your significance. When we look back on the table, they're pretty sorted now. Spilt wine, food spat out, all the dirt and the debris of the banker. There stand those vessels. God. God's values. El Shaza has finally said no. That night he went out into eternity, and his body lay dead. There's the seal, the cylinder that records the fact how Cyrus took Babylon and destroyed Belshazzar's empire. Tell me, what value would you put on Belshazzar now? A human corpse, what's it worth? A spirit gone into eternity, lost forever. Would break your heart, wouldn't it? He could have been shining as a jewel to delight God's heart eternally, and he said no to eternal values. As I see it, somewhere along there lies the gospel message of Daniel five. If we could get hold of it and could present it, surely God would bless it to the salvation of many souls. Now for questions.