A False Sense of Security — E.A. Johnston

The Proverbial Handwriting on the Wall

I want to read us today, friends, a story about handwriting on the wall. It's a story about a king who threw a big party and who rested all he had on a false sense of security. The term handwriting on the wall has become proverbial for the end is near.

I believe a nation can have a false sense of security. I believe America is more vulnerable than she realizes. I believe a church can have a false sense of security, too. I've seen some big, famous churches end up split right down the middle and end up in tatters.

And I believe an individual can have a false sense of security and rely too much on his money. When there's not enough money in the banks to cover one-third of its deposits, the dollar could be devalued like the mark in Germany during World War I.

We could enter an unexpected economic depression in this country that would make 1929 look like a cakewalk. The title of my message today, friends, is A False Sense of Security. And my text can be found in the Book of Daniel.

Daniel 5 and the Judgment of Belshazzar

You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. We will be in chapter 5, beginning in verse 1. Let me read us this striking passage of Scripture. And it is my prayer that if someone listening to me today is unconverted and resting on a false sense of security, that the Spirit of the Lord will bring that person under conviction.

And may God's Spirit attend the reading of His Holy Word. Belshazzar, the king, made a great feast to a thousand of his lords and drank wine before the thousand. Let me pause here, friends. Here is a despot king who decides to throw a big party for his drinking buddies.

Belshazzar's Feast, Sensuality, and Idolatry

If you've been in a room with a thousand people, you know how large a raucous group like that must have been sitting in Belshazzar's banquet hall. Remember this, friends. Security and sensuality go hand in hand.

Here the old boy throws a big drunken reverie to provoke God. He brings in the sacred articles from the temple of God and profanes them by making them drinking goblets for his drunk lords. We see this in verse 3.

Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God, which was at Jerusalem, and the king and his princes, his wives, and his concubines drank in them. Then we see the whole sad affair turn into a scene of idolatry, where they worship gods of gold and silver.

Let me ask you, friend. Do you worship your gods of gold and silver? But now here's where the party takes a turn for the worse, going from being a festive, boisterous occasion to one of deep solemnity and concern.

The Handwriting on the Wall and Sudden Fear

Look at verse 5. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace. And the king saw part of the hand that wrote.

Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against the other. Picture that scene in your mind, friends.

The drunken king's face gets a look of terror on it, and his knees go to knocking because of his fright. This tells me that a sovereign god can quite suddenly alter our circumstances and our perception of a thing.

We can be resting on a false sense of security regarding our wealth, and it can be suddenly swept away from us to where we have nothing. We can rest on a false sense of security regarding our health, and one day we think we're in perfect health, and a long life awaits us, and then we get a bad medical report informing us we don't have long to live after all.

Spiritual Deception, Repentance, and the New Birth

We can have a false sense of security regarding our spiritual state. For years we can be fooled by the devil with a false peace. We can rest our hope of heaven on what we've done and a good opinion of ourselves.

Then we die in our sins and wake up to the torments of a burning hell. Believe, friend, that if God opened your eyes and showed you that if you were sitting on a rotten plank over hell that the expression on your face would make Belshavards look like Ned and the First Reader, if you suddenly found out that you were not on your way to heaven at all, that your hope of heaven was nothing more than a hole in the wall, that God could suddenly invade your life and upset your false sense of security and reveal to you by writing on the wall of your conscience that you are indeed lost and his enemy, that you're nothing more than a guilty rebel who deserves to be sent to hell.

Personal Conviction and the Necessity of Repentance

I remember the day God showed me I was lost and on my way to hell. I became like a madman. I would not believe it. I argued with God that day and defended myself and presented my case to him of all my good works done in his name.

I said, Lord, Lord, I've done this and I've done that for you. And all I felt was a sense of dread for that would rival old Belshavars. I want to read you, friends, verse 23 of this chapter because it's Daniel bringing conviction to a guilty king.

And if you ever truly get saved, friend, it will be because you have come under Holy Spirit conviction. For if you miss Holy Spirit conviction, you miss repentance. And if you miss repentance, you miss faith.

If you miss faith, you miss the new birth. If you miss the new birth, you miss Christ. If you miss Christ, you miss heaven. And if you miss heaven, you were doomed and damned to a devil's hell much more terrifying than Belshavar's side of a bodiless hand.

Daniel's Indictment of a Proud King

Listen to how God holds up his law against the sins of this guilty king. Notice how he lists them in detail. He lists in detail the transgressions one by one that were done against him. But thou hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven, and they have brought the vessels of his house.

And thou, thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines have drunk wine in them. And thou hast praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know. And the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose all thy ways hast thou not glorified.

I will stop there, friends. If you are sitting on a false sense of security at the devil's banquet table, then all your good works in the name of religion are nothing more than idle worship to a God who cannot hear or speak, because the God you worship is not the God of the Bible.

God is a God who must punish sin. And one day all men will be held up to the strictness and severity of God's holy law, and every mother's son will fail that test. The sentencing of the law must be carried out by that just judge, for shall not the judge of all the earth do right?

Here, in our passage, is a self-confident king who decides to show off his wealth and position by throwing a big party to impress a bunch of drunks. In the process, he sins against the Most High God, who is completely ignorant of.

And that's what a lost sinner is, friends, a person completely ignorant of the living God of the Bible. For they have fashioned in their own mind a God of their own that they feel comfortable worshiping, one who will not disturb them in their sins as they go on provoking the Almighty in them.

Belshazzar's Sudden Doom and the Call to Christ

Notice verse 30. In that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain. At the very same day he saw the frightening hand that spelled out his coming doom. He was killed, and rather than sleeping in the comforts of his royal chamber in the palace, he instead makes his bed in hell amidst its horrors.

A false sense of security. How about you, friend? Are you in Christ? Have your sins been washed in his blood? Have you been born from above? Let us pray.