FBC Morning Light – October 27, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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A good Thursday morning to you. I trust your week has gone well thus far and your day gets off to a good start today.

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In our Bible reading schedule, we're reading today the account from the

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Scripture that serves as the background for that little phrase, the handwriting on the wall.

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You hear that not just in church. You hear that in the culture as well.

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Everybody understands what it means, the handwriting on the wall. It means we know something ominous is about to happen.

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What's the background behind that? The background behind that phrase is this incident with Belshazzar, the king who has succeeded

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Darius. Daniel is still alive and he's a very old man by now, but Belshazzar has become the king.

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Belshazzar serves as kind of a typical politician of our world today.

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It doesn't matter the political party, though frankly mostly those who consider themselves to be more politically liberal would be reflective of some of the attitudes and actions of Belshazzar.

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What do I mean? Notice how Belshazzar has a condescending attitude toward God's people, toward the things of God.

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It's expressed in Daniel 5 in verses 2 and 3. Belshazzar is throwing this great feast, he's got all kinds of people there, they're praising him, praising the kingdom, and so on and so forth.

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But then it says, while he tasted the wine, Belshazzar gave the command to bring the gold and silver vessels which his predecessor,

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Nebuchadnezzar, had taken from the temple which had been in Jerusalem. So you go back to the history here, and Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, attacked and plundered

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Jerusalem, stole all these vessels, the gold and silver and so forth, precious vessels from the temple, brought them to Babylon.

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Here Belshazzar calls for these vessels from the temple in Jerusalem to be brought to this feast, and he did so, so that the king and his lords, his wives, plural, and his concubines, plural, might drink from them.

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Verse 3 says, then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God which had been in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them.

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What kind of an attitude does that express toward the

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God of the Jewish people, the God of the Bible? It's a very condescending attitude, it's intended to be a slap, really.

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It's basically saying, our gods are superior to the God of this temple.

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This is an attitude that's very prevalent in our culture today. People give lip service to the

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Christian faith, and I'm talking about political leaders. They give lip service when it's convenient to do so.

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You've got political leaders who boast about their Roman Catholicism, and yet they're supportive of abortion.

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Absolutely hypocritical. Why do they wear their

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Catholicism on their shirt sleeves? They only wear it on their shirt sleeves when it is politically expedient to do so.

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But in their policies, and in their own behavior, and their actions, they communicate a condescending attitude toward those who would want to really serve and worship the

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God of the Bible. That's one thing they do. Verse 4 goes on to show that they not only have that condescending attitude, but they praise and extol the gods of their own making.

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Verse 4 says, they drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.

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Gods of their own making, and so do our pagan political leaders in our world today, our culture today.

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They praise the gods of their own making while they diss the God that really is.

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What are those gods today? They're not so much gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.

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They're things like the economy, climatology, technology, science, engineering, engineering, and science.

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These are the gods of our day. These are the gods that are so critically important that we need to bow down to, and we need to praise, and we need to extol, and we need to worship.

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On the one hand, there's a condescending attitude toward the God of the Bible. There is an arrogant attitude as they extol the gods of their own making.

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But the end is going to be the same. Then came the handwriting on the wall, and the handwriting on the wall for Belshazzar was, your kingdom is about done.

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You can read the rest of chapter 5 and you can see that that's exactly what happened.

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The handwriting came on the wall, Daniel interpreted it, said, your kingdom is going to be taken from you, and that's exactly what happened.

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Verse 30 of chapter 5 says, that very night Belshazzar the king of the

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Chaldeans was slain, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom being about 62 years old.

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Belshazzar was slain. The kingdom was taken from him. The kingdom is gone.

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The same fate has happened over and over and over again throughout the course of world history, and it will happen yet again.

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The leaders of our land, the leaders of our world who snub their nose at God, who have a condescending attitude toward God and his people, their time is limited.

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Their time is coming when the handwriting on the wall comes to them, and God says, enough, time is up.

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So, believer in Christ, don't be discouraged. Don't despair when you see the arrogant politicians raise the gold vessels from the temple and defile them, having their condescending attitude toward you and your

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God and your faith. Don't despair. Don't despair. The handwriting is on the wall.

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Our Father and our God, we do thank you that we can trust you, even in times when it seems like the vast majority of the political, governmental leaders don't really want to have anything to do with you, your word, or your people.

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We thank you, Father, that their times are in your hands, and we pray that we would not despair when we see such condescending attitudes.

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We pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, have a good rest of your Thursday. Hope the