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Good Monday to you my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
Significant things, history shaping things are happening so fast these days, in so many parts of our world, are you having a hard time keeping ‘up to date’ and piecing it all together?
Join me again back in Babylon about 2500 years ago in between chapter 4 & 5 of Daniel. Amazing things were happening, and I think it will be exciting for us to step into it. Yesterday I left you in the throne room of King Nebuchadnezzar as he was dictating to his scribes his autobiography regarding that shocking time when the king actually went insane for a while and lived out in the wild with the animals!
By God’s grace he repented, and God restored him to his palace and kingship until his death in 562bc. We have no record in the Bible of Nebuchadnezzar’s funeral, but it must have been as extravagant as his life was!
King Nebuchadnezzar was followed by his son Amel-Marduk who reigned only two years. He was assassinated by some angry officials. The contrast between the stable and world dominating leadership of King Nebuchadnezzar’s 43-year reign and the turmoil and failed leadership of two dismal leaders in the next five years could not have been greater.
Then the throne was seized by King Nabonidus who reigned over the Babylonian Kingdom until Babylon was conquered 17 years later. Nabonidus was a warrior who had a passion to be with the Babylonian army rather than governing at home in Babylon thus he named his son Belshazzar to be a co-regent king with him during these years. Belshazzar evidently governed in Babylon while his father Nabonidus led the military advances of the Babylonians out on the frontier of the empire.
It appears during this tumultuous time Daniel was largely ignored by these kings who followed Nebuchadnezzar.
Have you ever found yourself in a place that felt like your life journey was stuck on a prolonged, dead-end detour, a life-pause? The 20+ year gap between Daniel 4 & 5 must have been like that for Daniel who was growing older by the day and yet we have no record of any contact between Daniel and any of the Babylonian kings during those years. But God was not at all finished with Daniel and we presume Daniel remained faithful to God while awaiting his next assignment from God.
Have you and I learned the important lesson of NOT allowing times which appear to be what I call “God pause times” to be wasted time? “God pause time” is when it appears to you that God is not actively engaging you in something significant and your life story seems to be paused. I have learned that times like these can be vital, a very significant time of growth and preparation for God’s next assignment and it seems to me Daniel viewed it the same way and remained diligent in nurturing his relationship with God during those “God paused time” years.
Daniel chapter 5 opens with a party. Not just any party, but a gigantic, extravagant, royal celebration with over 1000 guests, the most distinguished, important officials in Babylon and perhaps much of the empire. After a long time of lavish food and wine, King Belshazzar, perhaps in a near drunken stupor, gave a dangerous order to those in charge of the banquet. What order? “To bring in the gold and silver goblets that King Nebuchadnezzar, his grandfather, had taken from the Temple of God in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles could drink from them.” (Daniel 5:1,2)
I don’t know exactly how old Belshazzar was, so I don’t know if he understood much about what Nebuchadnezzar had accomplished during his three invasions of Jerusalem nor the ransacking and final demolition of the Jewish Temple 45 years earlier. It is clear, however, that Belshazzar was mocking the Jewish captives and their God by defiling their priestly artifacts, the golden goblets, which were to be used only in worship in the Jerusalem temple. Since their capture, those goblets and many other objects from the Jerusalem Temple had been kept and perhaps used in the Babylonian temple of Nebuchadnezzar’s gods. (2 Chronicles 36:7)
It should not be difficult for us to imagine the obscene, immoral, decadent frivolity at this huge celebration in Babylon, which likely continued for several days and nights. What Belshazzar did not know, of course, was that God had been paying close attention to everything happening in Babylon for nearly 70 years and so Daniel records this: “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 dis-embodied hand as it wrote. His face turned pale, and he was so frightened that his legs became weak, and his knees were knocking.” (Daniel 5:4-6)
I doubt any of us can really imagine what this hand in the air writing on the wall really looked like nor the fear that spread throughout the banquet palace. Shock, dismay, fear, confusion, terror and so many other emotions gripped more than 1000 revelers, the musicians, the servers and all present!
Was Daniel aware of this huge party taking place? Had someone told him the king had called for the Temple goblets to be brought to the party? Was Daniel feeling God had forgotten him over the years?
I’d like us to pause right here and tomorrow we’ll learn what the hand wrote, whose hand it was, what the King did and what God did in this terrifying, history changing moment. For today I have these questions for us to ponder…
* Are you in a ‘God-pause’ season of your life right now? Do you feel as though you are wasting time, your life is not accomplishing anything significant, and you really don’t sense God is close or guiding you?
Don’t give up and don’t waste this time, my friends. Lean in close, pursue God, dig deeply into His Word, for He may be preparing you for your next God assignment and it may require you to be more of a wise, Godly man or woman than at any time in your past!
* Is it possible your extended family or social group are the party scene folks, and are they trying to draw you in and are you wavering in your commitment to living a God, to living a God honoring life and being on a growth journey with God?
Are you in danger of finding yourself in the type of celebration described in Daniel 5?
Here’s a worship song based on the words of the prophet Habakkuk 3:17,18 to help us consider who we are; how we are with God; and the situation we’re in… and join me tomorrow to see what God does next in Babylon. It’s remarkable and it’s important you and I learn the lesson!
Today’s Scripture: Daniel 5:1-6.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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