I'd like to invite you to open your Bibles to Daniel chapter five, if you would. Now, as we open up to Daniel Chapter five, I want to bring up something. I saw in the news this week that LifeWay has a recent poll out that says that 80% of Christians want their pastors to address current issues in the pulpit. And you may, if you're new around here, go like, well, yeah, that sounds good, but you guys just keep preaching the next chapter. So I want to drop into that for just a second and explain why it is that our pattern, for the most part, is to teach passage after passage through the Bible. First, we want the agenda for our lives and our church to be set by Jesus, not by headlines, not by cultural trends, and especially not by my or our pastor's bright ideas. We want the Lord to set the trajectory, to set the agenda, to be on his agenda, not on ours. That's the first reason. Second reason we do this is that there is no part in the Bible that is not profitable. That's what Timothy says, or Paul says to Timothy, rather. There is no part of Scripture that does not connect to our lives. So when we're out looking for a word for today, a word for the moment, actually, that word is to be found not in some newspaper editorial, but in the word of God himself, who is the only one that can see all of history. He's the only one that can see through all the events and knows what they means. He's the only one that knows even what's going to happen five years from now. I mean, think about five years ago. How many of us in 2019 knew what our lives are gonna be like in 2020? You know who did? The Lord. The Lord's the only one that knows. And so we want him to edify, encourage, strengthen, and shape us. So it gives me my joy then to turn to the next chapter in the book of Daniel, Daniel, chapter five. And let us receive from the Lord.
This morning we're gonna read as the headline over our study of Daniel, chapter 5, verses 25 through 28. And as we read, let's remember, this is God's word. This is the writing that was inscribed, mene, mene tekel and Parson, this is the interpretation of the matter. God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. Perez, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians. This is God's word. And Lord, I pray as we open it, you would allow us to be a people at cross of grace, of open Bibles and open lives, that we would open up your word and then open our lives that it might change, rearrange and reshape us in the best of ways. In your name we pray. Amen.
Well, what is the scariest thing that you can imagine? We've got a lot of that going around in this current season. And for all of us, here's the observation I want to make. Most of the things that we worry about and are scared of are not actually the things that we should be worried about. I'll give you one example. When I was a kid watching cartoons, I assumed that quicksand would be one of the great dangers of life. I mean, all the time characters are falling into quicksand. They need to know how to get out of quicksand. And I knew how to get out of quicksand. Don't move. Wait for, you know, all that stuff. I knew everything. But in my adult life, I've never encountered quicksand. To my knowledge, it's not been a big deal. You know, it's been a bigger deal. Income tax returns. That's what I should have been afraid of as a child. At 12, I should have been spending my time not worried about quicksand, but trying to figure out the inscrutable mass of IRS regulations that if I do not get them right, I will go to jail. That's a legitimate fear, right? Or maybe your fear is different. I know for my wife, Jen, she hates clowns. To my knowledge, she has never been attacked by a clown. It has never attempted to kidnap her, but she's still weirded out by them. For me, it's snakes. I hate snakes. I hate them so much. Even pictures of snakes, I hate looking at them. To the point my nephew and niece know this. And so they just show me pictures of snakes. Like, look, Uncle. Like, ugh, stop, right? But in the course of my life, I have encountered a grand total of three to four snakes in 38 years. Okay? Not been a big deal. You know, it's been a way bigger deal. Knowing what the check engine light means on my car, that's a way bigger deal. I should be afraid of right. The point is this. We are so often afraid of the wrong things.
We spend our mental energy thinking about things that really matter very little in the grand scheme and missing some of the most obvious things we should actually be concerned about. And that is this passage in a nutshell. It helps us see that so often what we spend our time concerned about, thinking about is not what we actually should be concerned about most and thinking about most. And the simple truth is this. We should be most concerned with the reality that God Himself is watching us, weighing us and readying a payment that is do our actions. That actually should be the reality that makes us most concerned as we think about the end of life. Because I don't know if you've noticed this, but we're all going to die. We're just dying at different rates. And so while we could spend our energy worried about clowns or snakes or even income taxes, there's going to be one thing that actually matters most, and that is what happens when we stand at the end of life. So the truth of this passage is summarized this way. You're being watched. You're being weighed. You will be paid. Mina minal, tekel, parson. That's my translation. Watched, watched, weighed, and paid.
Now, this truth, you may think, okay, this is going to be a real downer of a message, isn't it? I don't actually think so. The purpose of Scripture often functions in two ways. It often functions in afflicting the comfortable, making the comfortable that shouldn't be comfortable, uncomfortable. But Scripture also serves to comfort the afflicted. So however you're coming in today, the word of the Lord is for you. Now, first, let's, let's take the bulk of this to talk about the affliction this truth brings to those like us that perhaps are too comfortable.
Let's back up to verse one and pick up the story here. King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. Belshazzar, when he had tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father, had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords and his wives and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and Stone. Now, you find Belshazzar quite comfortable at the beginning of this text, don't you? Now, you may not know who this is. This is. It refers to Belshazzar as Nebuchadnezzar, rather as Belshazzar's father. Now, father in that sense doesn't mean his immediate biological father. It means his predecessor, one of his predecessors on the throne, Nebuchadnezzar. And things in this moment, if you read the context of Daniel and the rest of the prophetic literature, things are tense in the kingdom because the Medo Persian army is knocking on the door of Babylon. And so what does Belshazzar do in the face of this oncoming army? He throws a party. And the point of the party seems to be, I'm not concerned, I'm not bothered, not going to stop me. In fact, I'm going to do this publicly. I'm going to invite a thousand of the top people in the kingdom, and they're going to watch me drink wine because I'm not afraid. And in fact, you know what else I'm going to do? I'm going to take some of the holy vessels of the people that we have conquered, and I'm going to take the vessels that used to be for their gods. Well, those gods have been defeated. We're going to use them to toast our gods, which are the best gods, right? And he is just. This bravado is being displayed in this feast.
6 · The pastor exposits Daniel 5:5-9, emphasizing the horror of the moment: a disembodied hand writes on the wall under dramatic lighting, and Belshazzar's bravado collapses into terror
But then we read perhaps some of the most chilling words in Scripture verse 5. Immediately, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Okay, just, just for a moment, imagine this. This is a display of bravado, a display of. Of kind of arrogance. And in the midst of it, on this white plaster wall, perhaps in view of everyone, a human hand appears in the air and writes an inscrutable phrase on the wall. Notice this opposite the lampstand, right? If you've ever done one of those things where late at night you put a flashlight under your chin to tell a scary story, like, yeah, guys, and then the dog ate, you know, just that. Essentially, that's what's happening. The light is right there. Right over it is this inscrutable, terrifying phrase. Look at verse six. Then the king's color changed, his thoughts alarmed him, his limbs gave way and his knees knocked together. Where's your bravado now? Belshazzar, verse 7. The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men of Babylon, whoever reads this writing and shows me its interpretation shall be clothed with the purple and have a chain of gold around his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then all the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation. The king Belshazzar was greatly alarmed, and his color changed and his lords were perplexed.
7 · The pastor exposits the transition to Daniel's appearance, noting that Daniel has been forgotten in the new administration despite his proven ability to interpret signs
Now, what happens next is interesting. The queen, and likely here, when it says the queen, it means the queen's, the king's mother, or his, even his grandmother is possible the queen mother remembers. Wasn't there a guy that could interpret weird signs? What was his name? Now, the reason they didn't immediately go to Daniel, and that he wasn't called in with the rest of these people is that by this time Daniel is very old. He's likely in his 80s at this time. And he has been forgotten in this new administration of Belshazzar, as have so many other things been forgotten, as we'll see. And he is called in, not very respectfully, I might add, and said, okay, give us your shot.
8 · The pastor exposits Daniel's prophetic rebuke in Daniel 5:17-23
So verse 17. Daniel answered and said before the king who had offered him gifts, if he could interpret, let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another. Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation. O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar, your father, kingship and greatness and glory and majesty. And because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him whom he would kill. I mean, whom he would he killed, whom he would he kept alive, whom he would he raised up, whom he would he humbled. But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne, and his glory was taken from him. He in his dwelling he was driven rather from among the children of mankind, and his mind was made like that of a beast, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, until he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom he will. And you, his son Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this. But you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven, and the vessels of his house have been brought in before you and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose hand is your breath and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.
9 · The pastor exposits Daniel 5:24-28, unpacking Daniel's interpretation of the vision
This is just his introduction to the vision, right? This isn't even the sign yet. But notice what Daniel is doing. Daniel is pointing out the lesson that Belshazzar should have learned. He should have learned from his forefather, Nebuchadnezzar, that when you lift yourself up and seek to place yourself in the place of God, you will always be brought down. That's the point of the previous chapter. You seek to place yourself in the place of God. You, as a creature seem to take the place of the Creator. You will be returned to the creature, right? You will be brought down further. He says, not only is all that true, but the God, the most High that you are dishonoring, he's the one that's keeping your very heart beating right now. And imagine it was beaten pretty fast in that moment in his chest. In verse 24, he finally brings the interpretation. Then, from God's presence, the hand was sent and this writing was inscribed. And this is the writing that was inscribed. Mene, Mene. Tekel and parson. This is the interpretation of the matter. God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. Paris, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
10 · The pastor unpacks the three-fold judgment pattern—watched, weighed, paid—and establishes that this is not unique to Belshazzar but applies to every human being
Now, this is somewhat lost in English because there's a bunch of things going on with this. They're. They're. They're words that sound like other words. They're essentially. It's a terrifying pun, if I could say it that way. These are words that sound like other words. You can consult the footnotes in your Bible here, but the emphasis is this. Numbered. Numbered. The vision means that God himself, the Lord Most High, is numbering the beginning and the end of every king's days and every kingdom's days. He's watching all. And this is the contrast to Belshazzar's God that Daniel points out. You're offering these things to them. They can't hear you, Belshazzar. They can't see you, Belshazzar. But somebody else does. That's Maine Tech, meaning the Lord evaluates. The Lord weighs. The Lord puts things in the balances and renders according to what would be just. And then Paris, that's the payment of what you have earned, right? You, what you have earned is your kingdom being taken from you. That's the judgment. Now this would have been not a new concept to Belshazzar. In the ancient near east, many religions had an awareness that after you die there was some post death judgment. For example, in Egyptian mythology, you'd have your heart taken out and it would be, and it represented you and your being and it would be weighed against a feather which represented essentially justice. And so if it, if it revealed that you'd been just, you went on to a happy afterlife, if it revealed that you were unjust, you got eaten by a guy with the head of a crocodile forever. That's a real thing. That's what they thought. I don't know where they were going with that, but maybe they were afraid of crocodiles, I'm not sure. But the reality is that when Belshazzar hears these words, when he hears the reality that he's been, he's going to be weighed. It wouldn't have been a new concept to him. What would have been new is that the person weighing him would have been someone different than he expected. Right? He thought, oh, I'm going to be weighed in the balances of history, I'm going to be weighed in popularity, I'm going to be weighed in all these other metrics. And nope, those metrics don't matter. You know what? Only the only thing that actually does matter, Belshazzar, you being weighed by the living God in front of whom you will stand and give an account at the end of your life. That would have been a shocking turn for him. So if I could capture this the best I can in English, there's no way to do it fully. But the vision, what was written across the wall would have sounded like this. Watched, watched, weighed, paid. I mean, that is terrifying. I mean, this is like spooky season on steroids. Somebody's writing on your wall, watched, watched, weighed, and paid. If you're watching that movie, you're going get out of the house. Like, this is the reality. This is a terrifying moment. And here's what I want us to see. These truths are not unique in their application to Nebuchadnezzar. This, he's not the only one being watched, weighed, paid. These are truths for every human being. And we would do well to listen. The Bible reveals that God watches all we do. Isaiah 47, the wicked say, no one sees me. Your wisdom and knowledge have warped you. You have said in your heart, I am and There is no one else besides me. Therefore evil shall come upon you. It is only the wicked and the arrogant that think that they can. They can hide. They can find a corner of creation, they can find their own kingdom where the Lord does not have dominion, where he cannot see what they are doing, but he watches and he numbers all their days. It's also true that God weighs and evaluates everything we do. First, Kings 8. 39 says that God and him alone, God and only God knows every human heart. Now, that should be terrifying because there's a lot of times in our lives that we can fool those around us, right? Where we could say, oh, I was just kidding when I said that. Just, you know, I was just talking, you know, I didn't mean that when I said that. And the Lord is looking at your heart and going, mmm, pretty sure you did right. He sees through all the bluster and the bravado and the excuses. He sees right to the very core of us. And he weighs everything. Matthew 12. Jesus tells us that even every careless word will be weighed by the Lord. I mean, can you imagine that? Every word. Just how many thousands of words a day do we speak? And the Lord takes each one and weighs it against the standard of justice. Would you like to. You like those receipts? You'd like him to walk you through yesterday? Let's see how you did right. There should be a little bit of, okay, fear and trembling. Appropriate that we know that every deed, every heart posture, every word. And third, God will then pay us what we deserve. Now, this is the reality. When our record is weighed and evaluated, the payment that we have earned is never something to look Forward to. Hosea8.7 says of evildoers in the land, they have sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind, meaning they have sown chaos out of the world, and wrath and chaos will come back on them in the form of a hurricane or a tornado. The wages of sin is death. According to Romans 6:23, God cannot be bribed, he cannot be bought. He has all the receipts. And no one gets off on a technicality. We got to hear this. This passage is a warning for us. Watched, watched, weighed, and paid.
11 · The pastor applies Belshazzar's errors to the congregation, identifying three patterns we must examine in our own lives: (1) assuming that relative calm means no consequences are coming, (2) treating sin casually as if ease of sinning means it's not serious, and (3) using God's gifts in service of our idols rather than for his glory
And notice a couple of the ways that Belshazzar rather goes wrong here. First, he goes wrong by assuming that relative calm means no consequences are coming. And this is true for us as well, isn't it? Sometimes we may sin kind of fearful, and then nothing, right? I mean, everybody's probably had this experience as a kid, right? Where you. Your parents say, don't do this. Here's the line. Don't do that. I'm gonna leave the house, but don't do that. And you go, hmm, you go like this and see if anything happens, right? And then you kind of do, oh, nothing. Nothing happened, right? And then you're like, oh. And then all of a sudden, you're dancing around on this side of the line, right? Because you're like, hey, nothing's happening. I'm good. Right? Wrong. The reality is everything's watched, everything's weighed, everything will be paid. The other thing Belshazzar does is he turns. He assumes that this is not serious because he turns sin into a casual thing. Notice how casually he treats the vessels of the temple. Sometimes people assume, well, if I can sin so easily, it can't be that bad, right? If I can just do this, it can't be that bad. I mean, look how easy that was. Again, a fearful thing. If the living God watches and weighs. And then the last thing that Belshazzar does, that we must. Well, we must examine ourselves for is he, he replaces, or he uses, rather the gifts of the living God in the service of his idols. And we've seen this thread in the Book of Daniel. An idol is really anything we put into the place of God. And Belshazzar, what he does is he takes God's holy things and uses them in the service of his own idolatry. And for us, we can do the same thing. We can take the Lord's gifts and we. We use them in service not of the Lord, but of what we really want. We use them in service of a relationship or our own lust, or our success or our comfort or our wealth. We think, okay, I'm going to use what God's given me because I'd like to use it to get what I really, actually, truly want. And all these things should make us examine our lives and say, man, is there perhaps more Belshazzar in me than I would care to admit?
12 · The pastor uses a personal story about an unexpectedly expensive crab dinner to illustrate the sermon's central warning: the bill always comes at the end
The first section, second section, we're going to see affliction and comfort meet. Now, this is where we must back up and put Daniel, chapter five in the context, as is appropriate, of the entirety of the Bible, because it leaves something slightly unresolved that's only answered in the rest of Scripture. And here's what's unresolved. Well, if that is true, if we're all being watched, if we're all being weighed, if we'll all be paid, what hope is there? Right? What? Why wouldn't the Lord then Just wipe us all off the map immediately and have done with it, and all of us should tremble. There's a phrase from a series of novels that the author uses creatively throughout the novels. And the phrase is simple. The phrase is just this. The bill comes at the end. And so as characters are doing things that are bad, sometimes another character will remind them. Well, those who love war, the bill comes at the end. Those who do this, the bill comes at the. And I think all of us have probably experienced reality that in a restaurant or two in the course of our lives, right? Everybody's having a great time. You get into the mode of like, you know what, let's order the appetizer. You know, you know what, let's order the second entree. Why not? Let's order the dessert then. And all of a sudden the person comes with the bill and you're like, whose bill is this? Did you. Is this. I think that's that table over there, right? I remember this vividly because at one point we were. Jen and I were on a family vacation out in Maryland. Now, Maryland is famous for their fresh caught crabs. And so we're out at this amazing lunch kind of by the water on the bay in Maryland. And Jen's brother goes, man, let's get some fresh caught crabs. And we're like, yeah, let's do it. I'm not even a huge fresh caught crab fan, but, man, we're here in Maryland, the sun's shining, the water's beautiful. Let's do it. Let's order them. So we order them, we order another appetizer, we order this, we order that. And then finally at the end, I start to wonder, how much are these crabs? They brought us buckets of them. The server asked, how many do you think you'll need? And they kind of were like, well, how many do you recommend? Never say that. Right? And so they were like, well, this is about how many. So they brought these two giant buckets of crabs. And at the end, I realized that there was actually no price listed for the crabs. It was the dreaded two words of every restaurant. Market price. Anytime you see market price, I'm just life tip. Just watch out, you're taking out a second mortgage. And so the bill comes. And I am not exaggerating when I say I think we ate like $150 of crabs. Was it higher? Like $200 of crabs? Just the crabs. Do we eat like $250? Oh, my gosh. Oh, I blocked. You see, I blocked it from my memory. And I'm like, calculating. Okay, even if we're splitting this, that is ba ba. You know, like. And here's what I real. This is what I learned that day. The bill always comes at the end. Everyone's having a great time. Belshazzar is getting down, he's having wine. It's a big party until the bill comes. And that is the reality, friends. The bill comes for all of us. And it is actually God's kindness that this passage is in our Bible because the bill is coming. And sometimes people will go. I don't like Christians to be mean. I don't like Christians to talk about, you know, the wrath of God and the justice of God and judgment. Because. Because that seems so mean. We don't. We're not mean Christians. Were nice Christians. No. If the bill is coming, the unkind thing is to pretend it's not. The bill is surely waiting for us.
13 · The pastor transitions from the warning to the gospel by posing the urgent question: if the bill is coming, what must we do to be saved? This echoes Acts 2, where the crowd responds to Peter's sermon with the same question, signaling a shift from affliction to comfort
So then the question we should ask as we read our Bibles is what then? This is where we, like Those in Acts 2, cry out, what must we do to be saved? Because for each of us there is a record of every deed, action, word, heart, posture, waiting for us with an evaluation and the appropriate payment.
14 · The pastor makes a crucial biblical-theological claim: the Old Testament repeatedly establishes a pattern of substitutionary payment—the Passover, the sacrificial system—pointing forward to the Son of Man in Daniel 7
Well, the good news is this. The way that God has seen fit to show us throughout the Old Testament is a pattern, a glorious pattern from the beginning of his people, that when the bill is due, there is a way for a substitute to pay the bill instead. That's what you see with the Passover. That's what you see with the sacrificial system. It is this pattern over and over throughout the Old Testament, that the bill is due for you, but I will give you the means to pay it. You should have to pay this, but I will give you the means to pay it. And that is what we find in a couple chapters when we get to Daniel, chapter seven. When the Son of man, this messianic figure, is revealed.
15 · The pastor identifies Jesus Christ as the one who can pay the bill—the only human being in history who is perfectly righteous when weighed by God's standards, yet who offers to take our bill
And notice what Romans says about him in this context. Romans 6:23 says, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The bill is coming due, but the Lord is giving us a way to pay it. And what is that way? Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, what makes Jesus so unique? Well, man, Jesus is the only human being in history that when his heart is weighed against the feather, or his actions and deeds and heart posture are weighed against God's standards of justice, that the verdict is righteous, gloriously righteous, true and right. That's Jesus verdict. But he in his love for us says, give me your bill.
16 · The pastor illustrates the gospel through a personal story of his anniversary dinner bill being unexpectedly paid by his aunt and uncle
No. A few years ago, we were at an anniversary dinner downtown at one of the nice restaurants down there. And I think it would be right to say, I can. I'm trying to couch this, but I think it would be right to say I could be a little miserly when it comes to spending money at times. Jen. I'm trying not to look at Jen. But there are times I struggle to make purchases, even if they are good. And I was having a great time at the anniversary dinner. But, you know, it's an anniversary dinner, so you're like, of course, hon, like, order the second appetizer. Of course. Let's order that thing. But in the mind, back of my mind, I could feel the bill. I could just feel it. I was, like, trying not to calculate it as we went, but I could feel it just back there, back there. And so finally, the moment I dreaded arrived. And the waiter comes over and he says something unexpected. He says, oh, you know what, sir? The bill has actually been taken care of, if that's all right with you. And I thought, wait, what? And he pointed me over. And when we had walked into the restaurant, we'd run into my aunt and her husband who were having dinner there as well. And we just said hi, and we told them, oh, we're on our anniversary, you know, date. And they're like, oh, that's so great. And so the waiter told us that they, because it was our anniversary, offered to pay for our whole meal. And he just. I remember him saying something like, if that's okay, is that all right with you? And I'm going, yep, yes, sir. Yeah, that sounds great. Love it. Do you understand the feel of that? That is the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that you don't have an anniversary dinners bill waiting for you, friend. You have a bill coming due with every word, thought and deed from your entire life, and you have no way to pay it back. No amount of religion is going to do it. No amount of church going is going to do it. No amount of being a good person, quote unquote, is going to do it. When you're evaluated by the living God, none of that's going to do it. But there is one guy in the back with his hand up saying, I can take care of that for you, if that's all right.
17 · The pastor articulates the gospel clearly for non-Christians—Jesus offers to pay the bill if you repent and believe—and then addresses Christians who forget that the bill has been paid and try to earn their way back into God's favor through religious performance
That is the man, Jesus Christ himself, who on the cross, even though he was utterly righteous and deserving of none of it, offers his life in the place of sinners to pay their Bill in full. That is why the Gospel is such good news. That is the unspoken question and answer embedded into Daniel chapter five. And let me just say this. If you are not a Christian, let me ask you this question, friend. Who's going to pay your bill? Because the reality is this. Being religious is not enough. Being here in church is not enough. Growing up in and around churchy things is not enough. There's only one thing that's enough. And Jesus himself. Listen, I want you to hear this. If you are not in Christ today, if you've not repented of your sins and believed in Christ, I want you to hear this. The offer of Jesus is this. I can pay that bill if it's all right with you, right? If you believe in Jesus as your Savior and Lord and say, you know what? The way I've been living has only given me this bill that I've accumulated, this injustice that I'm going to receive payment for. I want to live a new life. And you today could have the story of those we saw baptized right, buried in the likeness of Christ in their old life, raised to walk in newness of life. And let me just say this to the Christians here today. We too often forget the glory of this truth and live like it's not true. I think I have run into Christians. It is one thing and a good thing to say, okay, I'm going to be evaluated by the Lord at the end of my life. I want to live as honorably as I can. I don't want to return to the sins for which Christ died. That's a good desire. But so often it begins to bleed over into Christians to going, well, I committed a real big sin, and I don't. I don't know how I'm gonna pay it back, right? So I better do some good things. I better get back into church. I better try to clean up my life. And I remember years ago, Vince was having a conversation. One of our former pastors was having a conversation with somebody who had done some really bad things in their life that had resulted in their life getting absolutely destroyed. But they had become a follower of Jesus, and they were seeking to honor him. And they were doing their best, and two steps forward, one step back, kind of sanctification. And I remember Vince recognizing in this brother this pattern of when he would sin really bad. It was like he had to go back and kind of, like, do as much good as he could before he was able to, like, offer it for the bill. And Vince just told him something like this. He said, Friend, stop trying to pay for things Jesus already paid for. Right? Because the reality is this, the bill has been paid and the effect of the gospel isn't. Man, I better pay that bill. The effect of the gospel is, now that it's been paid, I'm a new person. I don't want to live for those things I used to live for. Those idols are worthless. I'm following Jesus. That's the motivation of the Gospel. I think of the beautiful hymn before the throne of God above. I have a strong and perfect plea. A great high priest whose name is Love. Whoever lives and pleads for me, My name is graven on his hands, My name is written on his heart. I know that while in heaven he stands, no tongue can bid me thence to part. The cross of Jesus Christ is where comfort and affliction meet, resulting in our eternal good.
18 · The pastor signals a major structural shift: having addressed afflicting the comfortable, he now turns to comforting the afflicted
All right, third and last, very briefly, comforting the afflicted. Now, the reality is that this passage is not just a warning. It's a warning to Belshazzar and all those like him and perhaps like us. But it is actually included in the Scriptures also as a comfort for the people of God. Now, you might think that strange, but put yourself in Daniel's position here.
19 · The pastor exposits Daniel's life experience—kidnapping, re-education, watching Jerusalem burn—to establish why Daniel would have wondered if God was watching, weighing, and paying injustice
Daniel was essentially one of the last survivors of the destruction of the promised land. He likely watched Jerusalem and the surrounding areas burned to the ground. He likely had family members and people he had as adults in his life slaughtered. He was forcibly kidnapped, subjected to a program of re education in Babylon, renamed after a Babylonian God. And do you not think that over the many years he ever wondered, is God watching? Does God care? Does God weigh any of the injustice of Babylon? Will they ever be paid back? Now, in his 80s, he lives long enough to see justice does come.
20 · The pastor makes the core theological claim of the comfort section: God watches, weighs, and will pay all injustice—either through Christ's blood or through the offender's judgment
Look, this is meant to be a comfort for the people of God. Friend, take comfort that God watches. Do not ever, Christian, take God's apparent silence as apathy or disregard. God sees it all. God weighs it all. God will pay it all. Look, if. If a. Not a sparrow falls from the sky without the. Without God himself seeing it, Jesus says, how much more valuable are you and the details of your life than a sparrow? There has not been one moment that the Lord has abandoned you, one moment that his eyes have been turned away from you. Christian. He has watched. He will weigh. He will pay. And the reality is this. In the, in the. In the perspective of eternity, every injustice will be paid for. And there's only two options. Either the blood of Jesus Christ will pay it, or the offender will pay it. So in the end, nobody gets away with anything. And I think sometimes Christians, out of a desire again to appear loving and kind, stop talking about the justice and wrath and judgment of God. But in reality, that truth is what enables us to do things like love our enemies and bless those who persecute us. Do you know why we can do that? Because we look at the enemies who were once like us. We were once like them. We look at the enemies and think, friend, either the Lord himself is going to pay you back, or you turn to Jesus. And when I see that for you, I can't help but call you to turn to Jesus. This is the reality. Romans 12:9 says this, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. The reality is, brothers and sisters, on the last day, no one will accuse God of being unjust. Everyone will either get exactly what they deserve, or they will get what Jesus deserved if they've trusted in him. Those are the only two options.
21 · The pastor applies the comfort to Christians who experience personal injustice, telling the story of a church member whose loved one was murdered but whose case no one would take
And so here's why I think that could be an encouragement. First, it encourages us as Christians when injustice is done personally against us. I think often Christians lack categories for what happens when somebody sins grievously against us. Categories for things like, well, a few years ago, I was talking to a person from the church that shared how tragically their loved one had been murdered. And as that happened, the various agencies involved within the police force, within the other government agencies, it felt like no one wanted to take the case. There wasn't enough evidence. It wasn't clear whose jurisdiction it was. They were all kind of passing this case around. Look. And it can feel like, oh my goodness, I'm going mad because injustice has been done and no one sees it. Here's the reality. The Lord will take the case. The Lord will see justice done.
22 · The pastor applies the comfort to Christians who see injustice in the world—dictators, corrupt politicians, criminals who get away with it—and shares a personal story of accompanying his grandmother to pray outside an abortion clinic
Second, when we see injustice, perhaps not personally directed toward us, but just in the world around us, look, open up the newspaper. You see injustice after injustice, Dictators abusing people, politicians who are corrupt, criminals who seem to get away with it. And we wonder, does anyone see? Does anyone care? Daniel gives us the answer. The Lord does. The Lord does look. For years, my grandmother, just a dear woman, went with friends to pray outside a particular abortion clinic in the city of El Paso. This was in the through the 80s, into the 90s. And once I went with her. You know what the most shocking part of that experience was? As they prayed, as they looked for opportunities to talk to women in crisis pregnancies. While all this was happening. While I felt life and death at stake in that moment, what the most striking thing to me was that all around that little corner of El Paso, people just went on with their lives. People just drove by. And you think, how many injustices are being done? And the world just keeps driving. The world just keeps going. And it's almost maddening. It almost feels like too much weight. And it is. But this passage gives us the answer. The Lord watches over those who can't watch themselves. The Lord watches over the fatherless. The Lord watches over the weak. The Lord will see justice done against aggressors. The Lord himself will take the case. That's what we should think when we open the newspaper.
23 · The pastor applies the passage to political upheaval, identifying two common Christian responses—apathy and rage—and then proposing Daniel's model: do everything you can do and trust the Lord for everything you can't
And third and last, very briefly, I could say much more about this. But this is especially relevant when there is political upheaval. This is a moment of political upheaval. And instructive for us in a very different context. In moments of political upheaval, this is the end of one, not just administration, but one empire and the beginning of the next. And the Bible lays out that, According to Romans 13, government is given to restrain the worst kinds of evil and promote good. Right? Even corrupt governments often function as a means of common grace in restraining some of the worst crimes, like think of anarchy situations like some places have experienced. It is far worse even than some of the more corrupt governments. And yet those governments are still corrupt, right? We look at government and we see, listen, this place, that there are politicians who are corrupt. There are politicians who are dishonorable. There are politicians and government agencies that are not coming to the aid of the oppressed. They're not doing justice. They are not fulfilling the purposes of Romans 13. So then what do we do in those moments? Well, often I think Christians default to one or two kind of directions. One is apathy and the other is rage, right? What happens sometimes is we see all of this going on and we just go, kind of throw our hands up and go, okay, well, it's no use even doing anything to try to help this city, you know? No use helping here. Whatever. I'm just gonna wait for Jesus. That's one common impulse. The other common impulse is to see it all and just rage, right? And just almost take on yourself. I've gotta be the avenging agent of every injustice. I'm gonna, you know, move over, Lord. I'm gonna get some stuff done right now. Not that anybody would say that, but that's almost the heart posture. But notice what Daniel does in light of the truth. That God watches, God weighs, God Pays. Look the way. Look at the way he behaves. He does everything he can do and trusts the Lord for everything he can't. That's what he does. He does everything he can do and trusts the Lord for what he can't. Right? We, in the same way, should seek to use whatever tools we have, like voting and advocacy that have been extended to us within our government. We should act wherever we can, right? To see justice done, to see good promoted. But, friends, we should not bear the weight of the world on our shoulders because that's the Lord's job only. He is the king. We serve the king. We do what we can, and then we leave the rest in his more than capable hands.
24 · The pastor shares a personal story of voting early and feeling unsettled by the complexity and moral ambiguity of the choices before him
So let me end with this. This week, I went voting, went early voting, encouraged people to do. To do that. That's a tool we've been given by the Lord. And I tried to go through all the races, from the big ones to the little ones to school boards, and I'm trying to sort through all this information. And sometimes I'm like, oh, that's a great person. And other times I'm like, but, you know. And so maybe I'm the only one. But I left the voting booth with a number of mixed emotions, and I thought, okay, my heart's unsettled. I should probably pray. But then I started to wonder, what do I even pray? Like, I don't. I mean, I don't even know how to pray.
25 · The pastor brings the sermon to a close with Psalm 97:1—'The Lord reigns
And the Lord brought this verse to mind from Psalm 97, verse 1. So simple, so beautiful. It goes like this. The Lord reigns. Let the earth rejoice. See, that's. That's the posture, I think, from Daniel. From Daniel 1 through our passage next Sunday, the Lord reigns. Does that keep Daniel from doing all he can? No way. He's in there. He's representing the Lord. He's pointing faithfully to him. He's doing good to the. To the people around him, but he remembers at all times. The Lord reigns. He's got this. He rules. He reigns. And his plan will ultimately triumph. The Lord watches. The Lord weighs. The Lord pays. And it is always for the good of his people.
26 · The pastor closes in prayer, addressing non-Christians with the gospel one more time—Jesus offers to pay the bill—and then praying for believers to rest in God's justice and sovereignty in a world of turmoil
Would you stand? Let's pray. Lord, I pray first for anyone here today who perhaps has felt with startling clarity that they do have a bill waiting for them at the end of life. Lord, that the trappings of religion are of no help to us in that moment. For there's no amount of small good deeds we can do to make up for what. But what you see through in our hearts. If Every action, every word, every thought was weighed. Who could stand? None of us could stand. But, Lord, I pray that they would see clearly today that that warning is given to them in love, that they might see the offer of Jesus Christ who stands in the corner with his hand raised and says, I will pay the bill. If that's all right with you, Lord, may they turn to Christ today, knowing that only you can pay. But the only one who can pay is the one offering to pay. That's the beauty of the gospel. And Lord, I pray for the rest of us then, Lord, that we would be able to rest in a world of turmoil, in a world where we often experience injustice or see injustice done. I pray that we would. We would grow to trust you, trust that you will make wrongs right. Trust you that in the end no one will be able to accuse you of being unrighteous. And Lord, we know this in our deepest heart of hearts because we see it on the cross of Jesus Christ. You care so much about justice, you care so much about doing what is right, that your own son went to offer himself for our bill. And that's the God we serve, and that is the God we trust. Amen.