The Writing Is On The Wall (Daniel 5:1-31)

So glad that you chose to be here this morning. We believe that you're here not only because of your choice—you got out of bed—but because the Lord draws people to himself. And he has things for each of you here this morning. I pray that you come in with an open heart and that you're available to hear what He has to say to you.

If you would find those worship pads, those welcome pads at the end of every row, we want to welcome you if you're new to our church. If you don't mind giving us your contact information, we would love to invite you in. We know it's hard if you are checking out a church to get a sense of it on one Sunday. We encourage you to come six times in order to get a real sense of what our church is like. Go try other churches six times. There are a lot of great churches in Raleigh. We are by no means the only good church, and we encourage you to really process that with others. I'm happy to talk to you about that after our service.

Sunday School Announcement

I have an announcement for you that I'm really delighted to share with our whole congregation. As many of you know, we moved to Oberlin Middle School in August for several reasons. One was we wanted to be all together in one room. We have been in separate services for years. We have lots of people who don't know each other very well, and we're sort of getting reacquainted as a church. So that's really important. We wanted to serve together, and this move here has provided a lot of ways for us to do that as a family.

But the other reason is starting more intentional discipleship. We have a mission statement where we talk about developing disciples. We have a vision statement about being people transformed by the Gospel. And we have a three-tiered approach to that. So we have one-to-one Bible reading because there's something about spiritual formation that happens in pairs. We have community groups that are so good at developing a sense of spiritual family together. And then the third tier is we're adding Sunday school for all ages starting January 7. Our elders just voted on that this week. We're really delighted to make this announcement today.

This was part of our move here and a reason for doing so. All the current classes for our kids will shift to 9 a.m., and we will have classes for adults, high school, middle school, and kids. Those adult classes will be about six to seven weeks each, and then we'll pause and have a breakfast together, and then we'll go another six to seven weeks with a variety of topics related to equipping the church to be disciples.

This is really important to us as a group of elders because we found that for years, the pulpit is great, community groups are great, but we're not providing the kind of equipping we really want to provide. This is really important to our leadership, and we've prayed over this and made it a main point of our church. We know Sunday school is kind of an old-fashioned idea. We didn't come up with this ourselves, of course, but we think this is really needed for our church right now.

So I would ask you, as you begin looking at the next couple of months, to begin thinking about your Sunday mornings and being here and bringing your kids and going to bed early enough Saturday so you can get up early on Sunday and being intentional about that. It matters. This isn't about taking attendance or putting gold stars or black marks by people's names, but this is a way that God is providing for our church a feast, and we hope that you'll come to the table.

Scripture Reading

So let's turn our attention to God's Word. If you want to find it, we have a QR code, or if you go to our website, you can find the bulletin for today, and it's got the very long passage from Daniel 5. Instead of making everyone read this aloud together, I'm just going to read this for us. So if you would listen as I turn and we read God's Word together.

King Belshazzar held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine in their presence. Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels his predecessor Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem so that the king and his nobles, wives, and concubines could drink from them. So they brought in the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem. And the king and his nobles, wives, and concubines drank from them. They drank the wine and praised their gods made of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

At that very moment, the fingers of a man's hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the king's palace wall next to the lampstand. As the king watched, the hand that was writing—his face turned pale, and his thoughts terrified him so much that he soiled himself—yes, that's in the Bible—and his knees knocked together. The king shouted to bring in the mediums, Chaldeans, and diviners. — Daniel 5:1-11

He said to these wise men of Babylon, "Whoever reads this inscription and gives me its interpretation will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain around his neck and have the third highest position in the kingdom."

So all the king's wise men came in, but none could read the inscription or make its interpretation known to him. Then King Belshazzar became even more terrified. His face turned pale, and his nobles were bewildered.

Because of the outcry of the king and his nobles, the queen came into the banquet hall. "May the king live forever," she said. "Don't let your thoughts terrify you or your face be pale. There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the days of your predecessor, he was found to have insight, intelligence, and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods. Your predecessor, King Nebuchadnezzar, appointed him chief of the magicians, mediums, Chaldeans, and diviners. Your own predecessor, the king, did this because Daniel, the king named Belteshazzar, was found to have an extraordinary spirit, knowledge, and intelligence, and the ability to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems. Therefore, summon Daniel, and he will give the interpretation."

Then Daniel was brought before the king. The king said to him, "Are you Daniel, one of the Judean exiles that my predecessor, the king, brought from Judah? I've heard that you have a spirit of the gods in you, and that insight, intelligence, and extraordinary wisdom are found in you. Now the wise men and mediums were brought before me to read the inscription and make its interpretation known to me, but they could not give its interpretation. However, I have heard about you that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Therefore, if you can read this inscription and give me its interpretation, you will be clothed in purple. You will have a gold chain around your neck and the third highest position in the kingdom."

Then Daniel answered the king, "You may keep your gifts and give your rewards to somebody else. However, I will read the inscription for the king and make the interpretation known. Your majesty, the Most High God gave sovereignty, greatness, glory, and majesty to your predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar. Because of the greatness he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages were terrified and fearful of him. He killed anyone he wanted and kept alive anyone he wanted. He exalted anyone he wanted and humbled anyone he wanted. But when his heart was exalted and his spirit became arrogant, he was deposed from his royal throne, and his glory was taken from him. He was driven away from people. His mind was like an animal's, and he lived with the wild donkeys. He was fed grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with dew from the sky until he acknowledged the Most High God is ruler over human kingdoms and sets anyone he wants over them.

But you, his successor, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this. Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of the heavens. The vessels from his house were brought to you. And as you and your nobles, wives, and concubines drank wine from them, you praise the gods made of silver and gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or understand, but you have not glorified the God who holds your life breath in His hand, who controls the whole course of your life. Therefore, He sent the hand, and this writing was inscribed. This is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. This is the interpretation of the message. Mene means that God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. Tekel means that you have been weighed on the balance and found deficient. Parsin means that your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and the Persians."

Then Belshazzar gave an order, and they clothed Daniel in purple, placed a gold chain around his neck, and issued a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. That very night, Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, was killed, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the age of 62.

A Pattern in the Family

There's a young girl sitting in her mom's lap one day, and she says, "Mommy, you have gray hairs. You have gray hairs. Why do you have gray hairs?" And her mom looks at her and says, "I have gray hairs for every time you're disobedient. Every one of those gray hairs was one of those times that you did not obey me, that you rebelled against me." And the little girl looked back at her mom and said, "Mama, are you the reason grandma's hair is all gray?"

Now, Daniel 5 highlights a similar pattern in a family—another family, the family of Nebuchadnezzar II, an emperor of the Neo-Babylonian empire. So if today's passage feels a lot like last week's passage that James preached on from Daniel 4, you're not crazy. These are meant to be held together.

Two kings, the same family, the same sin patterns and tendencies. And yet, one of them—they're meant to be a contrast because Nebuchadnezzar humbles himself before the Lord. Belshazzar is prideful and arrogant and is judged by the Lord.

The Background

Here's the background of this passage. The year is May. It's been seventy years since Daniel and the other captives from Judah were brought miles away from their homeland after the destruction of Jerusalem to be servants in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. So Daniel is now about 80 years old. Nebuchadnezzar has been dead for twenty-three years. And now Nebuchadnezzar's uber-privileged grandson named Belshazzar is on the throne.

Belshazzar is holding a party. We know that because in verse one, the word for wine there doesn't just mean a sip of wine. It means a lot of wine. This was a raucous party—maybe a rager.

Suddenly, as they're partying, a mysterious hand appears out of nowhere and begins writing on the wall. And this is not just frightening. This is terrifying to the guests of the party. The three words that appear on the wall—which we know now mean numbered, weighed, and divided—are Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. People start screaming. The party descends into chaos.

As there's all this noise, the queen mother—Nebuchadnezzar's widow, a very elderly woman at this point—comes in and says, "I remember. I remember there was a man named Daniel who was prominent in your grandfather's kingdom. Call him in." They bring in Daniel and he reads the message:

Mene, Mene—God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. Tekel—you've been weighed on the balance and found deficient. Parsin—your kingdom has been divided and given to another.

That very night, these things came to be. Fifty miles away, the army of the Medes and the Persians is encamped right outside the city of Babylon, prepared to destroy it. That night, all that royal family will die.

The Gospel According to Daniel

Here's where we've been in this series so far. We've been looking at the Gospel according to Daniel. I love preaching from the Old Testament because the Old Testament is filled with pictures for us of why we need a savior, God's provision for us for a savior, and what it means to know Him.

So here's what we've seen so far in the Gospel according to Daniel:

• Chapter one: God will remember his people, even his people who sin.
• Chapter two: God remains with his people.
• Chapter three: God will show mercy even to the worst of people.
• Chapter four: God will rescue those who have humbled themselves.
• Chapter five: God will judge the proud.

On Judgment

Now, I know that judging, judgmental, being judgmental—that's a bad word in America today. So for me to say, "Hey, we've got a great sermon this morning for you on judgment. Aren't you excited for that?"—people are like, "No, I don't want to hear anything about God's judgment." In fact, I think that probably most people in our culture, if they know one verse from the Bible, it's Matthew 7:1:

Do not judge.

People love to say this back to Christians: "Don't evaluate anything morally. Don't judge." We hate judgmental people, and yet we're such a hypocritical society. We live in a time right now where we weigh people in the balances very quickly and find them deficient, and we cancel them. This is a very judgmental time. So maybe we, of all people, shouldn't be so skittish about God saying that He judges.

This is one of the few places in the Bible where we get to see God's judgment in real time. The Bible tells us that there will come a judgment day at the end of all history where the God of all time will judge all people throughout history. But there are few places in the Bible where we get to see God's judgment in real time, in the middle of the story. Passages like Sodom and Gomorrah, or Noah and the flood, or the exiles from Jerusalem, or this one with Belshazzar—we see God's judgment in history. We should lean in. This should make us curious to understand what we mean when we say God is judge, and what does that mean for us?

Today, I'm going to look at this under four points: the grounds for God's judgment, the good news of God's judgment, the warning of God's judgment, and our response to God's judgment.

The Grounds for God's Judgment

It's interesting. God gets to define what sin is, and people don't. We really don't like that. Right now is a time where people love to say, "I want to define what sin is." But when you buy a product—particularly an electronic product—it always comes with a manual. The manufacturer sends a manual with it and even has a warranty that's tied to the correct use of that product. The manufacturer will say, "I will guarantee and actually replace this product if it breaks down as long as it's used according to the manual."

There are wrong ways to use this product. There are ways that you can abuse this product. There's ways to misuse this product. And we are okay with that when a manufacturer does it. But why should not the manufacturer of all the world, of all creation, of the whole universe, not also have the right to say, "This is my manual, and these are my instructions. And this is the right way to use the product called People. This is the wrong way to use your life, to be a person."

So I want us to lean in this morning as we think about the grounds for God's judgment because it tells us about what God has in His owner's manual. What does the manufacturer say about who we are and how we're supposed to operate? This passage tells us a lot, therefore, about what is the anatomy of sin.

You know what the study of anatomy is? The study of anatomy is how your body works, how all the systems of your body function and work together. And there's a way that sin operates as well. There's an anatomy to it. There's a way that it works. And this morning, I want us to look at and understand sin because sin is your mortal enemy. It is the enemy within you. It's the enemy on the inside.

I mean, don't companies, don't corporations, don't countries want to know if there's an enemy in the ranks? Don't they want to know if there's somebody selling trade secrets or sabotaging their work? Don't you want to know how your enemy on the inside is at work within you?

The Anatomy of Sin

Let's look at this from this passage here from Daniel 5. First, we see sin works this way. The anatomy of sin is like this: sin is false confidence. It's false confidence in self. And you can see this in Belshazzar in this party.

Remember, Belshazzar is the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. And his father, Nabonidus, inherited the throne from the grandfather, Nebuchadnezzar. Nabonidus has abdicated the throne. And so Belshazzar is appointed as regent. Even though his father is still alive, he's this young man, and he's drunk at this party, but not just on wine. He's drunk on power.

Now, why would I say that? Because a week before, this gigantic army of the Medes and the Persians had defeated the mighty army of the Babylonian Empire 50 miles away at a battle called Apis. And now this army is encamped right outside the walls of Babylon. But notice Belshazzar is not preparing his troops for war. He's not making sure that everything's ready. He's not worried about the defenses at all. What is he doing? He's having a big, raucous party. He's confident in the walls of this city.

Now, the walls of Babylon were well known. They were almost mythical. They're 80 feet thick, 300 feet high. Two chariots were supposed to be able to race across the top of them side by side all the way around the walls. And nobody had been able to get through the walls. This is an impregnable city. This is a city that's not going to fall. They've got food stored up for years. They've got a water source. The Euphrates River flows right through the city, right under the gates, right through the city of Babylon. They got a water source. They got food. They're fine. So he's throwing this huge party.

And yet, Babylon did fall that very night. The Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon, they talk about this very specifically. What happened? How did the Medes and the Persians conquer? Well, they found when the general of the Medes and the Persians comes to the city and sees the Euphrates River, he begins this massive campaign that took a week, building canals to divert the Euphrates River. And so the army, that very night, simply turns off the water supply and marches under both sides of the city, comes from either direction where it comes in and where it goes out of the city, Euphrates, marches with all their troops underneath where all the water came through, defeats the city in one night.

Sin is, by definition, false confidence, like we see with Belshazzar, partying in the face of something sure that's coming. You know, humans do this all the time. We think we're really in control of our own lives and our circumstances. We think we have control of ourselves. We say to ourselves, "I can handle it. I can handle me. I'm in control of my money, my body, and my finances, and my family, and my decisions, my relationships, my thinking, my speech." But like Belshazzar, so often we are deluded. And something happens in your life, something that was unplanned for, and you're shocked, and you're like, "Wait, I thought I was in control." And what it reveals to us is that was a complete illusion in your life. You weren't ever in control.

How many people's lives have been shipwrecked, like completely destroyed by their own decisions, by the enemy within, and we're like, "I'm not like that." Yeah, you are.

Sin is also asleep to the reality of God. You see this again in the case of mighty Belshazzar. He doesn't heed the warning of his grandfather. The queen mom comes in and says, "Don't you remember, grandpa?"

Don't you remember what happened to Nebuchadnezzar? The queen reminds him of the pride of his grandfather and the pride that's resident in Belshazzar's own heart. Pride leads us to a place of spiritual blindness.

When God confronts him, He confronts him with a story that He already knew. Many of you know the stories from your family history. You know the stories of the generations before you. And we don't take warning. This is what he says here: "You, Belshazzar, you've not humbled your heart even though you knew all this. Instead, you exalted yourself against the Lord of the heavens."

There's a way in which all sin is like playing a giant game of pretend. We're all sort of deluded, pretending that there's no omniscient being in the whole universe. Somehow God can't see me in this moment. God can't see what I'm doing. Really? God doesn't know? The Maker of all the universe doesn't know what's happening in your bedroom, doesn't know what's happening in your finances, in your business. The God of all the universe is somehow blind to this?

Dorothy Sayers writes this: "Think of a joint that's dislocated. It's painful. It's been wrenched out of place." And sin has that same quality of dislocation—self harm in order to pretend that God doesn't see, God doesn't know. Sin is asleep to the reality of God.

Sin Is Desecrating Holy Things

Belshazzar calls for the spoils of war. "Hey, we're having this big party. I think I know some great cups and plates we can use." And he calls for the things that were taken away seventy years before from the temple in Jerusalem that were set up for the worship of God. He brings them in, and they eat—I don't know—pigs in a blanket on them and lots of wine, like Swedish meatballs. This is what they're having at their party. And they're celebrating. They're taking the holy things, and they're desecrating them. Spoiling them, ruining them. To desecrate means to profane something, to treat it with violent disrespect.

I don't know of a temple that we could go plunder today after service, but we do the same things all the time. We take holy things and we ruin them. We desecrate them. I'm going to apply this two different directions.

First, I want you to think about the talents that God's given you. Each of you have things about you that God loves and he delights in. He's like, "I made you this way and it's so special and precious to me that you are this way." You have those gifts. There's not a person in this room that is talentless or not gifted in some way. You are uniquely you, and God designed you that way. He loves and delights over the way He made you.

Jesus tells a story about three stewards that are given some money by the master of the house. One's given, like, $100, one's given $300, one's given $5,000. The first two go and waste it. One hides it, one protects it, one of them invests it. Jesus' words of condemnation are to the ones who don't use the things that God's given them—the talents, abilities, the special youness—with reference to Him. And He says that's sin. He calls them wicked. We think of wicked as people who do bad things. But that's a way to be wicked: to squander the things that God's given you—the gifts, the special things that make you you—with no reference to God.

Do you know that you live in a world that God made? You breathe God's air. The things that God's given you, the gifts and abilities, these are holy things. Are you desecrating them? You spoiling them? You hiding them? You hoarding them?

The other way that we desecrate holy things is with people. People are made in God's image. God takes it super personally when we hurt each other, when we sin against one another. That's a sin against Him. To treat another person like an object—we call that objectification. Making a person into a thing. To objectify another person with pornography is to treat them like an object when they're really an image bearer. To tear down another person with your language and gossip is to tear down somebody who God says, "That's part of me. That's an image bearer." The way that we treat people online, the way we think bad thoughts of one another—those are holy things, these people that God has made, and we treat them like objects.

Sin Is Idolatry

Sin is desecrating holy things, and finally, sin is idolatry. That's what they're celebrating. They're toasting the gods of gold and silver and wine and iron and stone. Sin is idolatry. It takes good things and makes them into ultimate things.

Augustine said this: Making created gifts—good gifts—ultimate, as you ignore the Creator. Making good things ultimate things. Making extra things our essential thing.

Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used and using anything that ought to be worshiped. Or David Foster Wallace, at his speech at Kenyon College, says, "If you worship money and things, if they're what you tap real meaning and life from, then you will never have enough. Never feel that you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty, sexual allure, you always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally put you in the dirt."

On one level, we know this stuff already. It's been codified in myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables, the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up front in our daily consciousness. Don't worship created things. If you worship power, you will feel weak and afraid. You will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect. Be sane and smart. You will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, and so on, always on the verge of being found out.

Sin is idolatry. Now, this is why I'm saying there's good news in this passage about God's judgment. I know that's weird to say—good news about God's judgment? The words here that Daniel reads on the wall are measurement words. It would be like he looked up on the wall and said quarter, dime, and nickel. Those kind of words—words that are used for measuring something. Mene comes from the word mina, and tekel is a shekel, and parson is a half shekel. They're all monetary terms. I want you to think of an old timey scale where you put something on the scale and you put little weights. There's two plates to it. You put weights on the one side, you put something on the other, and you weigh it. That's what's being in view here. And it's good news, this language of measurement.

It's good news that God is one who measures and weighs in the universe. That's really good news for us for a couple of reasons: that there's a moral accounting in the universe. It's good news for people who have suffered at the hands of other people. Being told, "Hey, God sees. God is going to make things right." I think about the people today, this morning, who woke up in Israel, who lost family members, who woke up in Gaza, who lost family members. Don't you think they are crying out for a God who will one day put everything right? It is good news that there's a moral accounting in the universe. It's good news that God is not blind or deaf or unmoved by human sin. That's good news. It's good news that God is not unmoved by the desecration of people, of holy things. That's good news. And that even the bad in us, the enemy within, the sin that we love and can't stop loving or doing, it is good news that this will fall under God's moral judgment. That's even good news for us.

But one aside for you. It's been the mistake of Christians over and over throughout years and centuries, going back to Jesus' time, to label current events as God's judgment. And that's always wrong. When we begin to write on the wall what we think is God's judgment, that's where we get things really backward. We've got to be really careful. Preachers, lots of religious leaders have said, "You know, that shooting in the nightclub, the AIDS epidemic, that hurricane, that's the judgment from God on these people." Well, Jesus told a story about this. People come to Jesus and they're like, "Hey, Jesus, you know that tower that fell on those people? Who sinned? That's clearly God's judgment. Which was the person who sinned that made that happen?" Jesus is like, "No, no, no. That's not the judgment of God, and it's not yours to say. It's not yours to pronounce."

It's not ours to pronounce judgment or write on the wall for other people. I heard another speaker put it this way. I thought this was really helpful: It's God's to judge. It's Jesus' to save. It's the Spirit's to convict, but it's ours to love. I find that really helpful.

Okay, back to our story. So here's why this is good news. There's more good news. God loves enough to warn. God loves enough to give a warning. The hand appears on the wall. The finger of God—he's giving Belshazzar this huge warning. This is what's about to go down, big guy. This is what's about to come. The finger of God indicates a power of some kind, a direct communication from God. Not mediated through somebody else. Not a prophet coming and saying, "Hey, by the way, here's what God says." This is a direct communication from God. God loves enough to warn Belshazzar. God loves enough to warn us.

How is God warning us? I want to say this: The finger of God is at work in this world all the time. Romans 1 tells us that God has written in creation, in the created order.

Every time you go outside, the things we love to take pictures of, those are things that tell us that there is a God, that there is a real God in control of the universe. Everybody loves sunsets and rainbows and oceans and mountaintop vistas and puppies and kittens—all the things that people put on Instagram. And we put them on Instagram rather than hearing what they say. Because every one of those things is telling us there's a real God. There's a real creator of all things. You live in His world. You're breathing His air. Your life actually is a gift from Him. The way He's made you is from Him. Do you not see it? We suppress the truth of God written in creation.

And then Jesus is the ultimate warning from God. What do I mean? Jesus came, and He did these miracles. He walked on water. He raised people from the dead. He healed people. And it's interesting, in Luke 11, do you know what He says about what He's doing? He says, "The finger of God is among you." He's referencing Daniel chapter five. He's saying God is writing on the wall to this generation. There's a judgment that is coming.

He claimed you know, if you listen to me, you've heard the Father. You've seen the Father. Jesus didn't say just say, "Hey, there is a finger of God." He's basically saying, "I am the finger of God. I am the finger." Both in creation and in the person of Jesus, God has given us this huge warning. And so this generation cannot stand up and say, "We didn't hear. We didn't know. Nobody told us." But God has given us not only a warning, but the hope of salvation in Christ. He appeared to us, verified through prophecy, through His birth, through His miracles, especially through His resurrection. God loves enough to warn.

So what is your response? What's your response to this word about God's judgment? I know this is a hard sermon. I didn't want to say this this morning. I'm with you.

The Architecture of Your Life

On March 22, 2022, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit Northern Japan right off the coast. Do you know how many people died in that? Three people died. One hundred and eighty people were injured. On January 12, 2010, a little smaller earthquake, 7.0 on the Richter scale, hit Haiti. We remember this one. Two hundred and twenty thousand people died. I mean, an incredible difference. Same magnitude earthquake almost. But one was loss of three lives, and one was the loss of two hundred and twenty thousand lives. What's the difference? Architecture. That's the difference.

Those who studied the building codes for Japan and Haiti said that's the entire difference, the architecture. One investigator wrote, "In Haiti, there are no enforced building codes. Concrete is really brittle. Steel bars that are used to reinforce the concrete are too thin, meaning the building has no integrity." And so when the earthquake hit Japan, everybody was okay because the architecture was good. But when the earthquake hit Haiti, complete devastation.

I want to ask you this morning about the spiritual architecture of your life. Are you Haiti, or are you Japan?

If you're not a Christian, you're like Belshazzar in this story, but you don't have to respond like Belshazzar. I think even at this moment, God writes this on the wall, and Belshazzar could have, like his grandfather, turned to God at that moment and said, "Have mercy. Have mercy." Instead, he does this. He turns and gives Daniel a purple robe and some gold chains. "Hey, you're the man. Great job interpreting that. I'm just not going to listen to what it says." He hears it, but he doesn't hear it. He doesn't listen. How foolish. I'm afraid there are many people like this.

Those who grow up in Christian homes, and you hear about all this about who God is, and you're like, "That's a good story." And you're like, "Yeah, okay," but you ignore it, acting like the words don't apply to you. And I just want to encourage you, do not miss this. Don't miss this today. If you're a covenant child and you've grown up in the church, you've grown up in a Christian home, you've heard this stuff all your life, please hear me with these words. Sin is really real, and God is really the judge, and Jesus really is the savior. You can't rely on your parents' faith. You have to own this for yourself. This has to be yours. Listen to these warnings.

Whoever remains stiff necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed without remedy. — Proverbs 29

How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery, and fools hate knowledge? Repent at my rebuke. — Proverbs 1

The Bible tells us God takes no delight in the death of any person that's made in His image, but He is just, and the God of all the universe will not be mocked. All of our sin, every person here, it puts us in a place where apart from Christ, we stand condemned. We stand in a place of judgment. And sin must be made right, either by the judgment of God at the end of time or by standing, holding on to the judge who was judged in your place, Jesus who was judged, and the judgment of God falls upon Him at the cross.

Either you will stand in Christ before God at the last day, or you will stand apart from Christ at the last day. And there's no middle ground between that. Be warned. If you're in that place, spiritually speaking this morning, you're Haiti. You're Haiti. The spiritual architecture of your life will not stand the judgment of God, and it will collapse.

And listen to this invitation, though. What should you do? You should repent. To run to the judge who was judged, to run to Jesus and throw yourself like Belshazzar should have done this moment. That's the right word. This is me. Have mercy. Jesus is such a good savior and he loves sinners. He loves sinners who are honest about what's on the architecture on the inside of us. He loves sinners who come to him and are like, yeah, I don't have anything else. I need you.

Now, maybe you've heard this message before and before and before, but unless you've personally responded to this, you're Haiti. And I have to warn you in this. To repent is to turn toward Christ. It's not reformation. It's not like, I promise to do better. I will be a better person after today. This is not a Scrooge Christmas story like that. No matter of reformation pays for what you've done in your past. Only the blood of Jesus can do that.

One writer puts it this way: "Repentance has nothing to do with what you've done or what you promised to do. Rather, repentance is coming undone. Mercy. Have mercy on me a sinner. Coming undone. Going outside of yourself and going to the Lord Jesus for salvation."

I love that. Not what you've done, not what you promised to do, but coming undone. Listen to His warning and embrace His mercy.

A Warning for Christians

Now, listen, if you are a Christian, you might think, "Man, I'm glad this sermon is nothing for me." No, no, no. Not so fast. I'm not letting you out of here that easy. Be warned as well. This passage shows us the anatomy of sin and just how much it costs for humans to find safety from the judgment of God in the person of Jesus. It warns us about how dangerous and destructive sin is, and we do well to listen and take warning.

Yes, if you are a Christian, you are Japan. The earthquake of God's judgment will come. You will stand before Him in Christ at the end of your life, and you'll be shaken but you will stand.

Nothing can take you. If you're in my Father's hand, nothing can take you out of His hand. — John 10

And yet, I have to also say, remember that sin is still your enemy. It's still the enemy on the inside. All that I said about being asleep to the reality of God or the danger of idolatry, all that still applies to Christians.

Can you live a miserable Christian life? Yes, Christians do it all the time. Christians love to live a miserable, joyless Christian life. If we underestimate our enemy on the inside, we will live a life of defeat. If we underestimate the enemy on the inside, we will live a life of joylessness.

You know why it's hard for you to sing praises to the Lord many times? Because we've underestimated the enemy on the inside. If you underestimate the enemy on the inside, if you give in to sin in your life, you're going to live a life of feeling compromised all the time, one foot on the dock, one foot on the boat. Always torn. You can live a life of incredible joylessness, powerless defeat, compromise, hypocrisy, fear. Christians love to do this all the time.

And so my warning to you Christians, you may be Japan this morning. You may be like, I'm good. My architecture is good. It is on the foundation of Jesus. And yet the warning for us as well is don't be naive about the power of sin, about the destructive nature of sin. Kill sin or sin will be killing you. Grieve it. Mourn it. Hate it.

What's my call for you? It's the same word. It's the same word: repent. It's one of the best words in the Bible. It means to despair of self and collapse on Jesus. It means to run to Him. It means not trusting in self, not trusting in how you got it under control. You don't got it under control.

One writer puts it this way: "Those who understand the cross increasingly see their sin the way God does and therefore begin to feel about the sin the way God does. We begin to mourn for it and to hate it."

In other words, the cross becomes larger and we become smaller. Amen?

How Will You Respond?

How will you respond today? When I was a kid, we had these books—my favorite kind of books for many years were the choose your own adventure stories. You open up to the first page, and at the bottom of the page are two questions, and you get to choose which way you want to go in the story. Do you want to go into the castle or do you want to go back into the forest? And it tells you turn to page 56 or turn to page 101, depending on what you want to do. You get to decide what happens in the story—my favorite kind of book for a while there.

This is a choose your own adventure sermon. You know, you can come to me and say, "Hey, it was a great sermon this morning." But really, what matters is what you do with it. How do you respond to this news of the just judge and the danger of sin and the goodness of Christ? If you're Haiti this morning, if you're Japan this morning, will you turn to the Lord?

Let's go to Him in prayer together.

Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word. Thank you for this very hard word, Lord, about Belshazzar. Lord, I pray for us this morning that we would be rightly afraid of our sin and know that we have an enemy on the inside. I pray, Father, we would rightly see the bigness of our Savior Jesus and the goodness of the judgment that is to come. Lord, I pray that we would long for it—for you to set all things right. Lord, we are so in touch with the brokenness of our world. Set all things right, including us this morning. We pray this in your name. We thank you that Jesus is such a good Savior. We pray this in his name. Amen.