THE BOOK OF DANIEL – 4                          

HANDWRITING ON THE WALL

Daniel 5:1-5  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.   NIV

Daniel 5:23     Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven.      NIV

Daniel 5:25-26 “This is the inscription that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN. This is what these words mean: Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.”   NIV

We forget that our days are numbered. 

 Daniel 5:27   “Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.”     NIV

We allow our lives to get out of balance. 

Daniel 5:28 “Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”   NIV

We ignore the warning signs. 

Psalm 46:10   Be still, and know that I am God;    NIV

CHANGE OUR DIRECTION

 Daniel 5:29-31 Then at Belshazzar's command, Daniel was clothed in purple, a gold chain was placed around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom. That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two.    NIV

1. Live with a sense of purpose and urgency.

Psalm 39:4-5  LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away. My life is no longer than the width of my hand. An entire lifetime is just a moment to you; human existence is but a breath.   New Living

2. Put first things first.

Matthew 6:33   But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.      NIV

3. Do it now. 

2 Corinthians 6:2   I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.   NIV