The king sat on his throne, reveling at the party going on in the opulent banquet chamber. Thousands of revelers, government officials, generals, and wealthy citizens were drinking and celebrating their wealth and power. The king, giddy and proud, sent for the vessels of gold his grandfather had brought home from his defeated enemy in Jerusalem 70 years earlier.
When the vessels arrived, filled with wine, they began to toast the pagan gods of Babylon. “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. Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him.” Scripture is very specific when it says that “his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.”
We know this story from Daniel 5, in which an elderly Daniel, probably around 85 years old, faced a frightened king. The king offered him wealth and position to interpret the writing on the wall. Instead, Daniel pronounced not only judgment on the king for his arrogance in flouting the true God, as his grandfather had years before (Chapter 4), but also the end of his reign and Babylon’s destruction.
How could that be, as the walled citadel of Babylon was an impenetrable fortress? What the Book of Daniel doesn’t tell us is that outside the walls, an army of 1,250,000 Medes and Persian soldiers had the city surrounded. King Cyrus of Persia was given a plan to take this fortress, not knowing it had been foretold over a 100 years earlier by the prophet Isaiah.
God called King Cyrus by name, over 100 years before his birth, to capture the city of Babylon. As Daniel stood before King Belshazzar pronouncing his kingdom’s fall, the massive armies of the Medes and Persians walked into the city unopposed. By God’s designed plan, the city fell. Belshazzar’s own guards killed him as he sat on the throne when they realized the destruction of their city.
But the reality is even starker. When Daniel told the king what was written by the Hand of God, it was because he knew what his grandfather had experienced years earlier. By God’s divine judgment, because of King Nebuchadnezzar’s pride and arrogance, God humbled him with years of insanity, and he was led by a leash, eating grass. Then Nebuchadnezzar was touched by God, his sanity and kingdom restored.
Daniel scolded the king after retelling the story, saying, “And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this” (Daniel 5:22).
This leads me to wonder: Is America making the same mistake King Belshazzar made? Daniel told him the whole story of God’s judgment on his grandfather for his pride and arrogance. Daniel implored the king to turn from his sin, do right, and maybe — just maybe — God would have mercy on him. Nebuchadnezzar went for a whole year and then boasted of his power and might. God’s judgment fell, and for as many as seven years he was insane. But God’s mercy allowed the restoration of his kingdom and he returned to the throne.
America has been flaunting God’s grace upon our nation. We have ignored His warnings such as the terror attacks of 9/11, which in my opinion were an exhortation from the Lord to turn our hearts back to Him. We have not — we’ve just doubled down on our national sins and offenses toward a Holy God: abortion, pornography, homosexuality, etc.
Judgment was at the very gates of Babylon, and Belshazzar refused to see it. We are being warned by a God who offers mercy and compassion when we turn to Him. It’s not too late to pray for a move of God to spare us from the judgment that we deserve and to receive the mercy that we do not.
Something to pray about!
Semper Fidelis
