In the same hour came forth fingers of a man'shand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote (Dan 5:5). God's judgments of the past seem so remote and safe for us today. If they actually occurred, it was thousands of years ago and all of that is in the past. Right? Science and the Humanist Manifesto I & II have set us on a course of saving ourselves since no deity will save us. And we now think that 150 years of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species makes us safe from the outdated book of Hebrew and Christian theology, the book that promises a day of reckoning at the feet of the Almighty (Heb 9:27; Rom 5:12; 6:23). And, who needs a savior nailed to a cross to save us? The prevailing mood today is "We must save ourselves from the myths of the Bible."
And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; (2Th 1:7-9). God will have the last word!
It's nice to read about terrible things if we can enjoy the agony of others with a bowl of popcorn. Our fascination with horror movies betrays our innocence. We are obsessed with the entertainment of death and horror, safely removed. Police stories are popular and always begin with someone getting graphically bloody and dead. Otherwise, where is the story? We have CSI, not only plain but also of New York and Miami. And let us not forget that no modern drama is worth its salt without at least one humongous explosion in living color with lots of boom. Two booms are better. Our addiction is better fed if we think someone is inside the explosion, burned to a crisp. We have become a nation with a growing appetite for artificial violence and shock.
Those too timid for CSI violence can view lesser artificial shock programs. Death and violence sells advertising which sells products. Please stay with me—there's a point to this.
If there is a God who keeps accounts and measures out judgment when mercy has run its course, then we can likewise transform THIS bad news into an evening of entertainment and popcorn. We are so-trained. The possibility of God's judgment is yet another fiction. Others may expect to stand before God, but not me. We also have installed within ourselves the little fiction of our personal innocence i.e. I'm not perfect but I'm not really bad, certainly no worse than a lot of religious people I know.
That little fiction, combined with our training in horror fiction leave us in a pitiful condition to deal objectively with a holy and living God who has told us plainly that we are going to stand before Him to be judged. There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Rom 3:18)
This is the truth and not fiction: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Rom 3:23) For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. (Ecc 7:20) … it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Heb 9:27).
"At the height of Belshazzar's awful blasphemy and defiance of God, when his cup of iniquity was full, there came forth in full view of the inebriated crowd a weird phenomenon. Out of the sleeve of the night there appeared the fingers of a man's hand writing strange words across the plaster of the wall in the king's palace. Suddenly the revelry ceased, and all eyes were riveted on the wall. The lamp stand of Jehovah, being at that very hour desecrated by Belshazzar, was now being used to illuminate the handwriting on the wall so that all could read the words" (Strauss).
There was no hand; no arm—just fingers. We are reminded of God's fingers at other times:
And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God. (Exo 31:18)
Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said. (Exo 8:19)
But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. (Luk 11:20)
This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. (Joh 8:6)
Concerning Belshazzar, McGee suggests: "God does not speak by dream or vision because this is a man whom He doesn't intend to reach. God would not endure this impious insult to heaven, so He writes on the wall of the banqueting hall. Is it done in anger? Very frankly, I think it is, and I believe the One who wrote this is the same One who wrote in the sand when they brought a sinful woman before Him (John 8:1-11)." For the woman "it was a time of forgiveness: here, for Belshazzar, it is a message of doom. He has ignored the God of heaven, as Daniel will soon make clear to him."
Belshazzar must have grown up in Grandpa Nebuchadnezzar's palace, the same place his father, Nabonidus, had grown up. With Nebuchadnezzar's conversion to the true and living God he would automatically have had great respect for the vessels he took from God's Temple in Jerusalem. He had completely destroyed the Temple, so there was nothing to do but house and protect the vessels until another Temple might someday be built in Jerusalem. Grandpa Neb had now been dead 23 years.
Belshazzar knew from his earliest years that the room and the items in it were regarded by his father (grandpa) as holy unto the Lord God of Jerusalem. Belshazzar's father, Nabonidus was gone a lot and had no interest in rearranging Nebuchadnezzar's palace or its artifacts. So Belshazzar knew—HE KNEW BETTER— than to desecrate the holy vessels of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
In a sermon by the great Methodist evangelist, Sam P. Jones (1897) is found these words:
"There is a time I know not when; A place I know not where, The Spirit will poise his golden wings and leave me in despair. There is a line by which all our paths are crossed; beyond which God has sworn that he who goes is lost." Follow link below to find the sermon. Type "Sam P. Jones" into Google and get acquainted with him.
http://books.google.com/books?id=WSI3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA211&lpg=PA211&dq=There+is+a+line+I+know+not+where&source=bl&ots=X9ONYu7wKF&sig=SexReJhXky22dLZBDHHz5bqaVXk&hl=en&ei=ZaXFSZaeC9zMmQej0NXYCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPA211,M1
Memory Verse for this week:
(1Th 4:13)But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. (1Th 4:13) (See 1Th 4:13-18).
A cluster of six verses on the second coming of Christ will be presented as memory verses, one verse per week. I hope you will work faithfully on each verse, each week and master the six verses as a group. Begin a new verse on Sunday evening. Go over it and all the others you have memorized, five times a day. You will treasure them the rest of your life and be able to share them again and again. "May I say my verses to you?"
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