Weighed And Wanting (Part 1)

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Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth.

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Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

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My all -time favorite electioneering slogan. My favorite political slogan of all time is

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Daniel 525. That was an actual political slogan in a campaign,

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Daniel 525. It was 1989, it was Nicaragua. Daniel Ortega is the

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Daniel. 5 was he's the fifth person down on the ballot, and 25 was it's

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September 25th. So vote for Daniel Ortega, fifth one down, the 25th of September.

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But Christians who were in Nicaragua at the time in 1989 saw this a little bit differently because Daniel 525 says in the

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Bible, God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.

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Ortega and his communist fellows for years persecuted Christians there in Nicaragua.

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They outlawed Christmas, they outlawed Easter. Their economics levels dropped down to second only

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Haiti. And in 1989, Mr. Ortega lost in a landslide.

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Daniel 525. Let's turn our Bibles to Daniel chapter 5 and look at this great chapter today.

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We finish 1 Corinthians going verse by verse. Romans is next, but I was dying to preach about Barabbas last week and who

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Jesus was in the life of Barabbas. And I've been dying all this week to preach Daniel chapter 5.

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So today, Daniel chapter 5, all of Daniel 5. And then next time, we'll go through Romans chapter by chapter.

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Now, I love Daniel 5 for lots of reasons. One is it shows not a lot about Daniel, but it shows the

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God of Daniel. This book is all about the Lord. We don't have a lot of details about Daniel, his age and a lot of his background.

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Just a few little snippets of his life. Because everything in this book speaks to this. God will be vindicated.

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Things might not look like they're going according to God's plans, but they are. And this book drives us to think we ought to walk by faith and not by sight.

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That when you look at the world now in the political, economic, social, worldly perspectives, there's a way to think

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Christianly, and there's a way to think non -Christianly, un -Christianly, a -Christianly.

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There's a right way to think. And Daniel 5 is history, yes, but it's theological history, driven so that you say to yourself, the same

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God of Daniel is my God. I can look at the political scheme and all the things that are going on in the world and everything else.

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Does God care? Does God rule? Does God reign? I wonder if God's still in control.

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How could a God who says he's sovereign let the world go like this? Daniel 5 answers that question and many more.

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If you're a Christian, you should be encouraged as you go through Daniel 5, even though you say, I know the story.

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And if you're not a believer, my goal today is to show you the testimony of Scripture so that you see your life before God is weighed and found wanting, so that you'll turn to the risen

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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for sinners like you.

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As you read through Daniel 5, it's like sitting back watching a train wreck about to happen, but there's nothing you can do about it.

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The train's too heavy, the train's going too fast, the car's too stuck on the tracks, and you just see this impending doom coming upon a man who has got so much bravado and sheer arrogance and oozes a kind of strutting peacock kind of life.

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God will vindicate his name. I don't care who you are, how powerful you are, who's the most powerful person in the world,

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God's plans are not frustrated by Babylon or by any person. Daniel 2 says,

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God changes the times and epics. He removes kings and establishes kings. And the same

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God in this chapter is the God we have been worshiping.

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Now, just to give you a little idea on Daniel so you can kind of think through this, Daniel, written around 600

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BC, probably Daniel wrote this book in the last decade of his life.

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It didn't look like Yahweh's glory was being vindicated and held up for honor, but Daniel knows differently and he wants to write an account so we see that God's plans are going to be fulfilled.

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Just like Esther, right? In spite of circumstances, God is in control. He is to be trusted.

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Now, the critics hate this book. They can't stand it because it's true and it's got all kinds of prophetic things in the last few chapters.

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But let me just read you one Bible verse that can take care of all the critics. Whenever I want to know, is the Old Testament authentic?

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Do you know what I do? How did Jesus view the Old Testament? Matthew 24, therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, let the reader understand.

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Daniel wrote Daniel. And he wrote the first part in Hebrew and the last part in Hebrew and the middle part in Aramaic.

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I wonder why. Why did he start off in Hebrew, then move to Aramaic in chapter 2, verse 4b, and then later switch back to Hebrew?

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And the answer is there's two different kinds of readers. So when the readers who spoke Aramaic read it, they would realize judgment is coming unless I repent.

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And the Hebrew people who would read it, they would say this, you know, even though we're stuck here, we're exiles,

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God's still to be trusted. And so it moves fluently from Hebrew to Aramaic back to Hebrew because judgment is the message in Aramaic and hope is the message in Hebrew.

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This is an Aramaic section, chapter 5. Here's my goal this morning, not for you to dare to be a

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Daniel and dare to make it known. How does the rest of the song go? I'm glad you don't know it,

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I'm just too shy. The hero of Daniel is not Daniel.

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Oh, he's going to have a good character, he's going to do the right thing. We have to look past Daniel to see the

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God Daniel worships. Now, from chapter 4 to chapter 5, moving from Nebuchadnezzar to Belshazzar, 20 years has elapsed.

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Nebuchadnezzar moves off the scene, his son takes his place and is assassinated by his own brother -in -law.

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This guy rules for four years, he's killed in battle, then there's another ruler, then we have a guy named

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Nabonius and he has a son named Belshazzar. And we pick up chapter 5, verse 1, with Belshazzar's contribution to the feast and that is unrestrained sensuality.

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Let's pick it up in chapter 5, verse 1, pretty much the party's over. Oh, I forgot to tell you, he thought he was very safe.

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Huge high towers, huge high walls, the walls were so wide, four chariots could be spread apart, shoulder to shoulder, as it were, to drive on top of these walls.

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They had plenty of water, the Euphrates went right through the middle of the city. Twenty years worth of food all hoarded in there, impregnable.

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So what does the king do? Verse 1, King Belshazzar, his dad's the real king but he's the second in charge, he's the king of this area, made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of a thousand.

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Who drinks that kind of...who does this in front of these kind of people?

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I think the answer is, you do this because you can do it, because you're in charge and you're the king and you've got all these resources.

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But if you're reading this with the lens of the Old Testament, here's what you do. Anytime there's a banquet, you should be going like this.

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Uh -oh, banquet's not too good, watch out. Genesis 40, on the third day, which was

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Pharaoh's birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the cub bear and the head of the baker among the servants.

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He restored the chief cub bear to his position but he hanged the chief baker. Esther chapter 1, big banquet.

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And here he has this huge feast strutting his stuff, pride and arrogance.

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It's been reported in History of the World, Alexander the Great invited 10 ,000 people to his wedding, 10 ,000 people.

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I read another account, Ashurnashapal said he invited 69 ,754 guests to his banquet as he dedicated a new city in Kala in 1879

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BC. Athanasius said he slaughtered oxen, camel, chickens, geese, horses a day, 1 ,000.

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Now, here's Belshazzar, he's having a big party. Maybe he's saying, you know what, the hordes outside of the city, the

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Medes and the Persians, they don't bother me. Or he maybe knows his goose is cooked and so might as well have one last party.

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Eat, drink, for tomorrow we what? Die, oh, sorry, he's going to die tonight. Didn't know that part of the proverb.

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And his name means Marduk protect the king. Marduk the false god protect the king.

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We're going to have a showdown here at this OK Corral, if you will, between Marduk and Yahweh, whose name will be vindicated.

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Belshazzar was a wicked man. One of his workers made a comment about one of his concubines and killed him.

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He's a wicked man. Chapter four in Nebuchadnezzar, at the beginning, there's some nice things said about Nebuchadnezzar.

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He says some nice things. It's almost like ahead of time, chapter four lets us know there's going to be good things happen in Nebuchadnezzar, even though it's going to be bad.

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Here we don't get any of that. We just have this Bacchanalian kind of drunken feast going on. Sheer bravado for this guy.

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He's drinking before his guests. This is theater. This is, I'm in charge, I can do this.

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Look at me. Belshazzar, verse two, the issue isn't really going to be drunkenness, although that's always sin.

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When he 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.

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Hey, we have conquered the Jews. Marduk rules over Yahweh. Give me those things from Solomon's temple that prove our superiority, because we're going to drink.

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Here's to you, Yahweh, you scum of the earth. We win. Marduk is better. Cheers. It's one thing if you're

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Nebuchadnezzar and prideful. It's another thing if you're blasphemous. These vessels symbolize the presence of God.

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And now Belshazzar is going to say, you know, those people outside the Medes and the Persians, we don't have to worry about them, because we've already had victory over Israelites.

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God reminds me of Paul's words in Romans one, even as they did not like to retain

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God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do things that are not fitting, who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.

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And the text says what? When Belshazzar tasted the wine. What does this mean? You don't drink the wine until the king drinks the wine.

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Runners on your mark, get set, the shotgun goes off.

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The starting gun goes off. This is like Daytona 500 and the flags go.

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Start your engines, go, drink. I said to the first service when

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I was moving from California to New England 16 years ago, I thought the Yankees had more refined sensibilities.

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But there's a lot of closet NASCAR people here. We've conquered the king of the

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Jews. We've conquered the king of the Jews. Now the text reads about Nebuchadnezzar, his father.

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Father just means ancestor, predecessor. It's there because he should have learned from Nebuchadnezzar.

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He's in the line of Nebuchadnezzar. He should have learned from great -grandfather or great -great -grandfather. However he fits into this, the relationship in his ancestry should have spoke volumes about what

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God did in Nebuchadnezzar's life. Now normally when you would have a banquet if you were a king, you wouldn't bring the women out.

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You can see Esther chapter one for that. But here with this brazen, bravado -like, bring out the wives, bring out the concubines, bring them all out.

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And going past normal propriety, he says let's take those holy vessels and drink from them.

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Normally they would say, well, there's some kind of maybe hex on them or some kind of voodoo kind of thing, we better not use those.

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But here, forget that. Conquests of the past might help us with the

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Medes and the Persians outside. He didn't just run out of cups.

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Here's to Marduk. Hear, hear. Three cheers for Marduk. Sounds weird.

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The stage is perfectly set. God will intervene. The triune God of the universe has had enough.

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Verse three, for shock value it's stated again, like you almost want to choke when you read this. He 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, his wives, and his concubines drank from them.

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The audacity, the insolence, the shamelessness. Herod had nothing on him.

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Which Herod? I don't care, pick one. Proverbs 18, before destruction the heart of a man is what?

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Haughty. These people act like Philippians three language when

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Paul said, these people whose end is destruction, whose

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God is their bellies, and whose glory is their shame. Verse four, they drank the wine and praised the

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God of gold, silver. See, that's what they made Marduk with. Bronze, iron, wood, stone, and the worship leader is

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Belshazzar. This is like taking the menorah of Israel and lighting it on fire so you can commit adultery in the light.

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Babylon the great, Belshazzar the great. This is a picture of 1

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Thessalonians 5. While they are saying peace and safety, then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child and they will not escape.

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This sounds like Isaiah 47, for you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, no one sees me.

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I am and there is no one else besides me. Therefore, evil shall come upon you. You shall not know where it arises.

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Trouble shall fall upon you. You will not be able to put it off. Desolation shall come upon you suddenly.

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Look at verse five. Suddenly, the fingers of a man's hand emerged.

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King James says, in the same hour, and began writing opposite the lampstand. Why is that important? Because you could see it, it's lit up.

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On the plaster of the wall of the king's palace. Now, the text doesn't say the people saw it, and the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing.

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Talk about kind of spooky. There's no flashing, no bells, no loud thunder,

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God talking, you are doomed. And, you can just imagine it's getting louder as the drinks are poured.

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It's getting louder and louder. And now, Belshazzar looks over on the wall. By the way, why did they have plastered walls back in those days?

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Chalk -like walls, because the king would write his exploits on those walls. We have victory over these people.

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We've won over these people. This is a scoreboard. You write down how your kingdom is so great, just so everybody knows.

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It's just kind of a nice mural up there of how great we are. And these are all the peoples we have dominated and killed.

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All of a sudden, silently, suddenly, kind of spookily, is that a word?

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Is now. The hands that took those wine goblets and said,

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I defy you, God. Have to deal with a different kind of hand, a judgment hand that's writing something on there.

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And only the king can see it. Must have been something crazy going on in his mind.

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You can see some of the hand, but not all of the hand. It's writing. Where's the body? Whose body is it?

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Is there a body? How big is it? Big enough to see it, that's for sure.

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I think he's no longer needing coffee to wake up. I think he's quite sober by now. I think the wine is sour, food's bitter, music is off key.

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There's some kind of anterior part of the hand that starts writing things. This isn't God's hand, this is a hand from God.

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God doesn't have a body. Petrified king first, then the people follow.

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On that same wall where they would write the titles and victories and exploits of the king's greatness, something just starts writing.

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Verse six, the people don't seem to see that first, they see the king. Verse six, then the king's face grew pale.

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His thoughts alarmed him. His hip joints went slack and his knees began knocking together. Where's Marduk now?

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Divine judgment. In Aramaic it reads, his brightness changed from him. I don't know if you're in medicine or not, but it looks like he's having what?

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Heart attack. Party's turned into a nightmare now. Isaiah 13 says, wail, the day of the

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Lord is near. It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore, all hands will fall limp and every man's heart will melt.

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They will be terrified. Pains and anguish will take hold of them. They will writhe like a woman in labor.

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They will look at one another in astonishment, their faces aflame. That's exactly what's happening.

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If I was going to make a soundtrack behind this, it would be the off -tune screeching of some violin.

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But there wasn't even that, it's just silence. Now some people think, you know what, he's getting converted.

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Because when you do have that kind of response physically, that must be conversion. Edward said a work of God's grace is not to be judged by effects on bodies of men, such as tears, trembling, groans, loud outcries, agonies of body, or failing of bodily strength.

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The reason is because scripture nowhere gives us any such rule. Verse 7, the king called aloud to bring in the conjurers,

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Chaldeans, the diviners. King Spoken said to the wise men of Babylon, any man who can read this inscription and explain its interpretation to me will be clothed with purple, have a necklace of gold around his neck, and have authority as a third ruler in the kingdom.

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Abonidas, me, then them. Third in rule. And you knew,

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I'm sorry, you know he had to be thinking to himself, this is all because of what I did. He'd been informed, and now he's afraid, so afraid he's gonna give third in charge.

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Verse 8, then all the king's wise men came in, all the king's horses came in.

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I'm sorry, that's not in the text. But they could not read the inscription or make known its interpretation of the king. Why?

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These people were smart. It's not like they couldn't read it. Maybe it's straight from top to bottom.

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Maybe it's some kind of symbols, weird shape. We don't know. They just couldn't do it. So what is the response of the king?

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Then King Belshazzar, verse 9, was greatly alarmed. That word is used in chapter 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

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All the Aramaic chapters, alarmed. His face grew even paler.

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Probably looked like that board up there, that plaster chalk white. And his nobles were perplexed.

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Will somebody put some sanity into this guy's mind? How about the queen mother? She'll know what to do.

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Verse 10, the queen, now his wife was at the beginning of the banquet. So this is the queen mother.

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Entered the banquet hall because of the words of the king and his nobles. The queen spoke and said, oh, king, live forever.

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Do not let your thoughts alarm you or your face be pale. Pull yourself together, man.

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I don't know what mother -in -law says that, but this particular one did. Don't let your thoughts alarm you.

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Act like a king. Some say she was the wife of Nebuchadnezzar or the wife of Merodach.

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Doesn't matter. She knew of Daniel. So she says, verse 11, you know the story.

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There's a man in your kingdom of whom there's a spirit of the holy gods. And in the days of your father, illumination, divine illumination, insight.

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Wisdom, like the wisdom of gods were found in him. King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, the king, appointed him chief of the magicians, conjurers,

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Chaldeans, and diviners. It's like this new king came on scene, and he didn't want to have anything to do with Daniel, our

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Daniel's god, so he just relegates him back down to the stay out of my sight mode.

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And the way Hebrew language does it, and the way Aramaic language does it, the way the storytellers say these things back in the east, they just repeat them.

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And here it is. This was because an extraordinary spirit, knowledge and insight, interpretation of dreams, explanation of enigmas, solving of all difficult problems, were found in this

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Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Let Daniel now be summoned, and he will declare the interpretation.

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And now, here comes Belshazzar in front of Belteshazzar, making sure the one knows who's in charge.

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Then Daniel is brought in before the king. King Spoken said, are you that Daniel? You know, that slave

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Daniel, that prisoner Daniel, that conquered Daniel? Are you that Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah?

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Me king, you slave. But he didn't know as Nathan was to David, as Samuel was to Saul, Daniel is to Belshazzar.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please, come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m.

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We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.