Divine Graffiti
King Belshazzar (remember Daniel was called Belteshazzar) threw a feast where he ridiculed the God of the Hebrews by using the temple goblets. A human hand appeared and wrote on the wall - the message declared the king's arrogance and impending downfall.
We have a number of sayings that have their origin in these events:
- So-and-so "couldn't read the writing on the wall."
- "The words of the prophets are written on the subway halls"
The key thought out of our text here is that in the midst of arrogance and evil, God speaks. He doesn't always speak in the ways we expect Him too.
The interesting thing about the writing on the wall is that the words written on the wall were known words but the king and wise men could not read them! Was it a secret script? Maybe Hebrew writing? Or was it that "there are none so blind as those who will not see?"
There are many issues like this in society today: (You may disagree with some of these, but bear with me...)
- Society promotes and has legalised abortion and we wonder why life is so cheap.
- We allow pornography because we are so "open-minded" and wonder why our rape statistics are off the charts.
- We have enshrined human rights and allow prisoners to vote (when by their behaviour they have undermined society) and then we wonder why corruption and injustice rule the day.
- We have given children so many "rights" in education (education is a privilege in my opinion) that now our schools are torn apart by violence.
- We pay teachers, nurses, and policemen peanuts, preferring to pay lawyers and accountants and techies top dollar and wonder why the fundamentals of our society don't function.
| King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them. While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone. Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way. (Daniel5:1-6) |
