Transcription downloaded from https://legacy.freechurch.org/sermons/4501/study-in-daniel-part-5/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Seeking the Lord's blessing, we'll turn to the part of scripture we read, Daniel chapter 5. And verse 26.

[0:25] Daniel chapter 5, verse 26. This is the interpretation of the thing. Many, God, hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.

[0:36] Tekel, thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting. Peres, thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians. Especially the 27th verse.

[0:49] Tekel, thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting. Now the events of this chapter occurred in 539 BC.

[1:10] In fact, you can say that it took place in the month of September in 539 BC. And that means that there is over 60 years since Daniel first appeared in the pages of the scripture as a young man deported to Babylon.

[1:26] And when we find him here in the presence of Belshazzar the king, he is an old man of around about 80 years of age. Nebuchadnezzar's long reign has come to an end.

[1:39] He reigned for 40 years. And after he passed away, Daniel's influence in the empire of Babylon declined gradually.

[1:50] Until by Belshazzar's day here, he was more or less out of sight as far as ruling the kingdom went. However, just as the kingdom was about to fall or just as the empire was coming to a close, God caused Daniel to reappear and to be raised to an illustrious position.

[2:10] In fact, to become third ruler in the land. So that when Darius the Mede entered into Babylon on this particular evening here in the chapter, and when he conquered it to establish the great kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, he found Daniel there in front of him as a man who had just that night displayed great wisdom and great statesmanship.

[2:34] And he was immediately taken into the confidence of Darius the Mede. God casts one down and raises another up. And we see so clearly in this book, as we see in the world around us, that God rules even in the kingdoms of men.

[2:50] We speak of the church as God's kingdom, and so it is. But we must never forget that the kingdoms of the world are his too. He appoints people over it. He raises them up. And in his own time, he casts them down.

[3:04] Now, we have an account here of the fall of Babylon, the city, and the fall of the Babylonian empire. And really, by the day of Belshazzar, it had reached its epitome in terms of its worldliness, its sensuality, its carnality, and its sheer wickedness before God.

[3:25] And I suppose you could say that it found a fitting representative in its own king and head, the man Belshazzar. And it's quite clear, even from the short account that you have here in the scriptures, that he was an immoral man, he was a careless man, and he was a profane man who thought nothing of sacrilege, of bringing the things of God right down to an ordinary and common level, and abusing more or less everything that the Lord in his mercy had given him.

[3:52] So Belshazzar stands as a kind of example of what the Babylonian empire really stood for. And perhaps he represents many people, maybe some people in here tonight, who live carelessly just like that, who live wildly just like that, and maybe even profanely too.

[4:12] I know you might give a nod to the house of God on Sunday. And it's possible that you're found here, but the rest of your life is just lived in riotous abandonment or carelessness of God's word.

[4:24] And you're just flouting the laws that you've learned maybe since you were a child, and that God has told you since you were a young boy or a young girl. You live in careless disregard of them.

[4:34] And let me impress this upon you right at the outset. You're not talking here about an old man. As far as I can understand, Belshazzar was a teenager on the night in which he died.

[4:46] And that is often overlooked. Belshazzar was a teenager on the night in which he died. In other words, when God struck him down, and when God called him into his own presence, this man had not yet seen his twentieth year.

[5:01] And that should be a reminder to us of the solemnity of the gospel and of the whole account that we find before us in this chapter. Now, after Nebuchadnezzar had passed away, a succession of weak kings followed him.

[5:19] Until finally there was a revolt by a man in the army called Nabonidus. Now, he married a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar in order to make his own claim to the throne more stable.

[5:35] And their son is this young man, Belshazzar. Now, right throughout the chapter, he's called the son of Nebuchadnezzar. But that word can be translated either a son, grandson, and some would say even further.

[5:49] In other words, a direct descent. And so, although he is termed the son, really he is the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. And he is the son of Nabonidus, the king.

[6:02] And as soon as he came of age, Nabonidus left Belshazzar in charge of Babylon itself, while he went on an extensive campaign of war in North Arabia.

[6:15] Now, this is particularly interesting. I mean, the whole situation is like something that you had in England long ago. Some of you will know that when Richard the Lionheart went out to fight the Crusades, King John was left effectively as king at home.

[6:28] But really, Richard still ruled. That's the kind of relationship that you had here between Belshazzar and Nabonidus. Now, the reason I say it's interesting is this. And we always come across this, and I find myself frequently referring to it.

[6:42] Belshazzar's name didn't appear on any historical or archaeological document until 1854. In other words, for hundreds, nearly thousands of years, it was constantly said that the Bible could not be true because it had mistaken the name of the last king of Babylon.

[7:03] In other words, it had always been known that the last king of Babylon was a king called Nabonidus. And this was held to disprove the accuracy of the Bible.

[7:14] Now, it's really quite remarkable the way in which the Lord uncovers one thing after another just to show that this is his word. In 1854, oath tablets were found in which Nabonidus stated there quite clearly that there was another regent ruling with himself, a man by the name of Belshazzar, his own son.

[7:38] And from 1854 onwards, this man's name was found as being a joint ruler in Babylon with Nabonidus. God's word is true, and you can chip away at it as much as you like, at its doctrine, its history, its archaeology, but you will find that God's word will be proved true, and it shall be found to stand when everything else peels away.

[8:03] Now, on one night in September, in 539 BC, this young king, and he is very young, he prepares a feast. And he invites a thousand of the lords to attend that feast.

[8:17] Now, that means the nobility. It means those who are really important and those who matter something in Babylon. Just as you see important people today in your own country inviting people into their own residences and having marvelous feasts.

[8:31] Well, this is the king bringing the lords, the captains, and the army, those who rule and state, powerful people, and so on. He gathers them to a feast. And these Babylonian feasts were something like the kind of revelries that you see all over the country today.

[8:48] They consisted of drinking and of dancing and of everything that accompanied that. They were well known for their immorality, their licentiousness, and their sensuality.

[9:00] And El Shazar began this feast. But at some point in the feast, he took a turn himself that was going to be his real undoing.

[9:11] Because God's hand was patiently hovering over him. But now it was time to bring it down. Because we're told in verse 2 that an idea came to him that he regrets even now.

[9:24] He regretted that night, and he regrets it still in a lost eternity. While he was tasting the wine in verse 2, he commanded to bring the gold and silver vessels, which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the Jerusalem temple, so that he, his princes, his wives, and his concubines might drink therein.

[9:50] Now, Nebuchadnezzar was what he was. Even in his worst days, he was what he was. But he never touched those vessels. He kept them aside. And for over 40 years, they lay untouched, guarded somewhere.

[10:05] Yes, they were the possession of Babylon. And they were a triumph of Babylon. The holy vessels that had been taken from God's temple in Jerusalem. But never had they been profaned. Never had they been sacrilegiously used in this kind of way.

[10:19] But this man commands that they be taken into the midst of the drunken orgy. And they pour the wine into these vessels. And they raise them to their lips in the very act of toasting the gods of gold and silver, wood and stone, that were arrayed across the wall in that massive chamber in which they were.

[10:39] There the Babylonian gods were. And it was before them and to them that these sacred vessels were raised. And they were toasted as being the gods of Babylon.

[10:52] But in the light that was cast from the candlestick, we're told that this wall was over against the candlestick. And that candlestick may have been the candlestick that came from the temple.

[11:05] The seven-branched golden candlestick. The light was cast from that candlestick onto the plastered wall where there were the statues of gold and silver.

[11:16] But above it there was the white plaster. And just as they were in the act of drinking and toasting, suddenly a part of the palm of a man's hand appeared on the wall.

[11:29] And it began to write in clear, legible letters, although they did not understand what the words actually meant or signified. the finger began to write. The finger of God which carved the Ten Commandments into the stones on Mount Sinai appeared on the plaster of the chamber of the wall of the king's palace when they were in the midst of a drunken stupor.

[11:53] And out of his own bloodshot, wine-reddened eyes, he sees the hand of God writing his own doom upon the wall in front of him. Many, many, tekel, you farsen.

[12:05] Numbered, numbered, weighed in the balances, found lacking. And although the king doesn't understand what the words mean immediately, like someone who lives with a guilty conscience, and you know what that's like.

[12:20] You know what it's like to be drowning yourself in revelry and insisting on living in the pleasures of the world, but still arrows from the king's bow come to you progressively, now and again, and you feel that God's word is speaking to you and that God is driving you through.

[12:36] Well, he felt like that because his thoughts troubled him. We're told that twice, that his thoughts troubled him. In fact, we're told that his countenance changed.

[12:47] His whole appearance changed. Just like a man who's received a shock, the color drained. And not only that, but the strength of his loins went from him and we're told that his knees knocked together.

[12:58] In other words, his legs collapsed. Just as when you hear something terrible or you see something awful, he lost his strength. And he knew deep down that this was to himself, that God was speaking to him through the words that were written on this wall, although he didn't understand what these words meant.

[13:21] His legs gave way and his countenance changed. And immediately, like his foolish predecessors before him, he calls all the wise men of Babylon, the men of ability, the scientists, the astrologers, the psychiatrists, the whole lot, he calls them and says, read it for me.

[13:39] What does it mean? And what is the message for myself? And of course, they all fail. You find this theme constantly in Daniel, that the world's wisdom falls short and God steps in as the one who has the answer.

[13:55] They all fail. But then suddenly, a woman appears in the room. And this is the queen. And we shouldn't understand by that Belshazzar's wife. It is his mother, the daughter of King Nebuchadnezzar.

[14:08] Now, she didn't attend the feast at all. In fact, from the wisdom with which she speaks, I think she had learned better herself. And she stayed away from such a place. She so shows herself, even in the little she says, that she seems to have been at least a sensible woman.

[14:25] Maybe for all we know, a woman who had learned more of her father's conversion than we realize. Now, this woman comes in. She was a young girl, remember, when Daniel explained the dream to her father.

[14:38] She was a young girl rising up in the court of her father, Nebuchadnezzar, when the young Daniel first dazzled the court by explaining the word of God and by explaining dreams.

[14:50] And she comes in to her son and she says this, there is a man in the kingdom who in the days of your father showed that he possessed light, understanding and wisdom.

[15:04] And Nebuchadnezzar, your father, made him a master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans and soothsayers. He, if he's called, he will show you the interpretation.

[15:16] And immediately, Nebuchadnezzar summons Daniel. And wherever he is, he isn't there either. He knows where not to be either.

[15:28] But they bring him into the room, an old man now of 80 years of age, who served God in that country since he was a young boy of 17. And they cast him gradually onto the scrap heap, but in he comes at 80 years of age.

[15:43] And he commands the room as he commanded it a long time ago in the presence of this man's grandfather. And after Nebuchadnezzar offers him all the rewards, Daniel says, keep the rewards to yourself, but I will read you the words and I will explain what they mean.

[16:04] Now, the reason the words couldn't be read lies in this fact that in this language, in Aramaic, just as in Hebrew, the vowels weren't printed.

[16:18] Only the consonants were written. And that's why reading these languages, it requires a knowledge of the context, sometimes before you can identify particular words. Only the consonants are written.

[16:29] Now, when you had words like this, many, many, take a leupharsen, they're disjointed, they're separate. It's not clear without the vowels what they would have meant. Never mind what they were, never mind what they would have meant.

[16:44] What Daniel does is he adds the vowels and he explains the significance of these words. I suppose if you were to look at the words without the vowels, you would think that there were three measures of weight, a minor, a shekel, and a divided shekel.

[16:59] But Daniel says no. It is many, it is tekel, and it is peris. And that is numbered, weighed in the balances, and divided.

[17:13] Now, this was a message for Belshazzar. It was a message for Babylon, all right, but it was a message for Belshazzar personally. And it's a message to you too. And it's a message to me.

[17:24] And as we look at it, may the Lord enable us to take it to heart. First of all, the first word that appears on the wall is many.

[17:36] God has numbered your kingdom, and he has finished it. Now, not just the kingdom, but his own reign as king over the kingdom.

[17:48] God has numbered it, and God has finished it. And you can tell through the whole passage that it's not just the kingdom. It's you are weighed in the balances, and you are found wanted. Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

[18:01] God has numbered your kingdom, and he has finished it, because he has numbered your days, and he has finished them. That is the essence of what it's saying. The word means to number something, to count it out, to finish it, to lay bones around something.

[18:17] And what Daniel's saying, and what God is saying to Belshazzar, is that God has numbered your days, which your life is finished, and you must enter into the presence of God.

[18:30] It is time up in this world, and you must appear as you are in the presence of God. And this man was only in his teens. And you think here tonight, because you're a teenager, that you can never die.

[18:45] And there's this idea of indestructibility, that belongs sometimes to young age, and we'll come to that later on. And you feel like that. You feel death is always somebody else's portion.

[18:56] And death will never be yours. And that feeling can linger on into old age, I'm sure. Well, he felt like that, and he died. And when God counted out this man's days, it stopped in his teens.

[19:09] That's when his days were numbered. And that's when his life came to an end. Isn't that a solemn thought? Moses prays in Psalm 90.

[19:20] It's the only psalm that Moses wrote, that we have in the Word. He prays that God would teach him to number his days. That he would apply his heart to learn God's wisdom, and God's truth, so that he would live by that all the days of his life, whatever they be.

[19:40] You need to be taught to number your days. It doesn't come naturally. Naturally, you think yourself indestructible, but God has numbered it.

[19:52] Numbered it. One day, they'll come to an end. And you just never know, my friend, whether that will come to you old or young. You just never know.

[20:03] One thing's sure. It's only a breath between you and eternity. just one breath. That's all. And in God's appointment, you will leave, and you will pass into the world to come, whether that will be, like Lazarus, to enter into Abraham's bosom in the presence of Christ, or like the rich man, to lift up his eyes in Hades.

[20:30] In hell, he closed his eyes on earth, and he opened them in a lost eternity. Numbered, your days are numbered. But then, tackle, you are weighed in the balances, and you are found wanting.

[20:47] You are found light, or lacking. Now, this follows on from the numbering. What Daniel is saying is this, all your days that God has appointed you are now finished.

[21:00] And God is taking all your days collectively, the life that you've lived, the short life that you've lived, and he's putting them into a balance. And he's done that, and you are found wanting.

[21:16] Now, you're all familiar with a balance, or scales. And I suppose, too, you're all familiar with thinking of the day of judgment in terms of a balance, or scales.

[21:28] And the common view that you have of it is this, and many people may have it. But here is a set of scales. On one side, you put the good things that you have done, and God will put the good things that you have done on one side.

[21:43] And on the other side, he'll put the evil things that you have done, and the thoughts that you have had, and so on. And if, when these things are put side by side, the good weighs down over the bad, then you are saved, and you pass into glory.

[22:00] But if, when these things are put on the scales, the bad outweighs the good, then you pass into a lost eternity. Not so.

[22:11] What is meant here by scales is this. You have the two sides, all right, but what you have is on one side, you have the law of God. That's what you have in the scales of judgment.

[22:22] The holy, perfect, unblemished, spotless law of God that reflects his own holiness, his purity, his being without blemish, that is put in one side of the balance.

[22:35] And how heavy it is. How heavy the glory of God in his perfect law. And in the other side, there is heaped up and gathered all that you are, all your numbered days, all the days of your life, what you have thought, what you have spoken, every idle word, what you have done, all the numbered days that God has appointed you.

[22:59] It's taken into a bundle and gathered and it's put into the other side of the law. And if, in its heaviness, it can weigh down and bring the law off the ground, you are saved.

[23:11] if your life meets the law of God and if the law of God is satisfied, then you are saved. But if, when everything is put into this dish, the law of God still remains on the ground, you are lost.

[23:26] Just like that. Only one thing can budge that law. Only one thing can move that weight. We'll see that later on. But you take this man, Belshazzar. Maybe take yourself.

[23:37] Take Belshazzar. Let's put him into the balances. Let's put him in. What do we see? Well, first of all, you see a man that didn't glorify God. Verse 23.

[23:49] The very last part of verse 23. This is what Daniel says to him. Thou hast not glorified God.

[24:01] Read the last part. The God in whose hand thy breath is and whose are all thy ways hast thou not glorified.

[24:13] That's the truth about her. Taken all in all, he has not glorified God. Friends, of all the catechisms that were drawn up at the times of the Reformation to teach people, whether it be in Holland or Germany or Scotland or wherever, no catechism really, I would say, is comparable to the shorter catechism of the Westminster Divines.

[24:35] And it goes right to the heart of the matter in question one. What is man's chief end? You've all learned that. Well, most of you have learned that. What is man's chief end? What's man's chief purpose?

[24:46] Why was man made? Why are you made? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Isn't it wonderful how these two things come together?

[24:59] To glorify and enjoy him forever. And the sad fact is that Belshazzar fell short of that for which he was created.

[25:11] Why are you in the world? Why are you here? Do you ever stop to ask, what am I here for? Am I made? Have I evolved? Is there meaning to me?

[25:24] Is there meaning to life? What is it all about? That's what it's all about. You have been born into this world to glorify God and to serve God, to worship him.

[25:35] That is what life's all about. And that's what the gospel is all about, to bring you to a new life in which you glorify God, to recreate you in the image of God, in the image of his son, Jesus Christ.

[25:47] And he fell short of that. His life just did not glorify his maker. In fact, it only glorified himself. You'll look at that at the beginning of verse 23.

[25:58] You have lifted up yourself against the Lord. And the verse closes, you have not glorified him. Far from glorifying him, you have lifted up yourself.

[26:09] Now you know what that means. It means that even as a teenager, he just lived his life saying, look at me. Look at me. Look at what I can do. Look at what I am.

[26:20] He lived to impress people. And there's even an element, in spite of the sinfulness of it, in spite of the sacrilege, and in spite of the profanity of it, there's an element of sadness in it.

[26:31] When in verse 2, he calls for these vessels, like a young man. And he wants to show just how big he is. How big he is. That he can take these vessels that belong to Yahweh, the God of Israel.

[26:45] He can drink his wine from them. And all the time, it's his own bravado. It's his show. It's that he doesn't think anything of religion. And he's lifting himself up in the face of God.

[26:58] You'll not always get off with it. No. You'll not always get off with it. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.

[27:09] You say, well, surely, he won't destroy me as an 18-year-old. Belshazzar was no older. If you have come to years of discretion, and you're treating with impunity the things of God, God, when he numbers your days, will say that you have been found wanting.

[27:27] And whether you be 18, 19, 20, 21, it will be to a lost eternity you will go, my friend, without the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the truth of the scripture.

[27:40] He lifted up himself, and his whole life showed it. And there's a few things I want to focus on. First of all, just notice the sheer carelessness of his life.

[27:52] He just engages in revelry, showmanship, drunkenness, and debauchery. He calls for the vessels, and there's profanity.

[28:06] And that's obviously how this man lived his life, and that's why he's found wanting. He said already, maybe on Sunday, you could come to the church, but the rest of your life, you live wild, and you live to abandon.

[28:19] You give God a nod, and you think it's a kind of deal, as much as to say, if I'm here, then the rest of the time is mine. Not so. That is not what the gospel is all about.

[28:31] The gospel is about giving yourself to the Lord entirely, and without reserve. And I tell you, my friend, it's a bad deal you're making anyway. Not only is it invalid, but you're so wrong in esteeming that you can enjoy life outside of Christ, and that life is miserable inside of Christ.

[28:50] The fact of the matter is that Christ alone gives life. If God made you to glorify him, how on earth do you think you can function if you're not doing that?

[29:01] How can anything function unless it's actually doing what it's supposed to do? You can pick up something, and you can use it for something else, but it's never going to be the same thing as using it for what it was made for.

[29:14] You could say, well, I'm enjoying life. I could say to you, you're not, because you're missing out on your highest calling. How can you be? When God made every single thing about you to glorify himself, how can you be functioning right?

[29:28] You're dysfunctional. We all are without the Lord. We need Christ. And Belshazzar lived a life of abandonment and carelessness, and therefore did not glorify God.

[29:41] Second thing about him is this. I refer to the indestructible feeling. Well, Belshazzar's got that. You know, this is staggering, but the night on which he's making the feast, and he knows this, the night on which he's making it, the Medes and the Persians have encircled Babylon.

[30:00] They've been making their way towards the city for a long time, and they're encircling it. But Belshazzar is wanting to show that he doesn't really care. He feels so secure.

[30:12] He's a young man. He's got to the throne. He's got his whole life in front of him. He can do what he wants. And nobody is possibly going to penetrate the 125 foot high walls of Babylon, thick walls of Babylon, and the 330 foot high walls of Babylon.

[30:31] Who's going to penetrate them? And that's not even considering the moat that was outside the walls. It has been said that no city in history has been fortified like the city of Babylon.

[30:42] And this man felt so safe inside them. And even if there was a siege outside the city, you know, sometimes in ancient warfare, they would encircle a city, and they would try and starve the people to surrender.

[30:56] Well, inside Babylon, secular historians tell us, there was 27 years worth of provisions to keep a people inside a siege city.

[31:07] 27 years. That's why this man doesn't feel too worried about the siege that is round about his city. Now, he was going to be wrong, and I don't know exactly how this worked, but there's an account of it in which the Medes and the Persians diverted the river Euphrates so that the moat was drained.

[31:27] And they were able in some kind of way quietly to enter the city. And they took over the city that night without fighting. The city had been reduced to nothing in terms of the willpower and the resistance of the people.

[31:41] It was brought to nothing. God ordered them to be overrun that night by the Medes and the Persians. And that's September night in 539. Just before that, Belshazzar thought no one could touch him.

[31:54] A few minutes later, he was killed. According to the handwriting on the wall that God has numbered his days, and he was put in the balances, and he was found wanting.

[32:05] He felt indestructible. He ought to have proclaimed a fast, and he ought to have sought the God of his grandfather, Nebuchadnezzar. Instead, he proclaims a feast. And I mention that feeling of indestructibility.

[32:17] You think you're young. You're healthy. Other people die of diseases. You're not. Other people have strokes or heart attacks. You can't.

[32:27] Other people are struck down by cars in the middle of the streets. You won't be. Other people are knifed by gangs or by careless people. You will never be.

[32:38] He thought he was indestructible, and he was wrong. And Daniel says this so clearly. You have not glorified the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all thy ways.

[32:54] Your breath, he said to Belshazzar, is in the hand of God, and you've never once acknowledged that. The breath you breathe is in the hand of God.

[33:07] A breath. What is it? You're sitting there. You're breathing. And you take your breathing so for granted. What makes your heart beat?

[33:19] What is there between yourself and the vastness of a lost eternity but a heartbeat? A breath. In the twinkling of an eye, your eye could shut and you could slump and enter into the presence of God.

[33:34] In his hand is your breath. And you are not glorifying him. Is it not time young man and young woman especially, to change?

[33:46] Is it not time to seek something better and to find a life that shall never die? I don't know if Belshazzar felt like many other people at these feasts.

[33:57] Maybe you go to revelries or to raves or things of this kind where God is just forgotten. And the music blasts at you from all sides. And it's meant to drown out everything that would hamper what you wish to do.

[34:10] and maybe you're pretending most of the time you're enjoying it. You're pretending to yourself you're enjoying it. You're thinking you're enjoying it but you go home at night and you know you haven't really enjoyed it.

[34:24] You know somehow or other it's just not it. It's not meeting your need. Why? Because you are not glorifying the God who made you for himself.

[34:34] and your breath is in his hand and it is time that you took stock and it's time that you reconsider. There's something else too that makes this poor man as light as a feather when you put him into the balances.

[34:50] And that's the fact that he disregarded God's warnings. Notice when Daniel speaks to him. Daniel goes over the history of his father or grandfather Nebuchadnezzar.

[35:02] He reminded him of what his grandfather was like. How great he had become and how God just brought him to be like a beast eating grass. And then how he came to his senses.

[35:16] And then he says this and you O Belshazzar you have not humbled thine heart though thou knewest all this.

[35:28] That's the key. You knew it Belshazzar. Since you were a child your mother told you about her father. His experiences and his life.

[35:40] You knew it. And what you were doing you knew. You knew that the vessels you took were the vessels of the God who changed your grandfather.

[35:51] You knew when you put them to your lips that they were the vessels of the God who made Nebuchadnezzar a new man. You knew it. And still you did it.

[36:03] A man who resisted the warnings of God. And you know what you're doing too. You know what you're doing.

[36:15] And you know you're doing it against the warnings of your father and against the warnings of your mother which you have heard from a child. You know it. You know you're doing it in spite of what you have seen in the lives of people like Nebuchadnezzar changed powerful by the glory of God.

[36:34] You knew it. You know it. You've seen it. And still you do it. This man sinned with his eyes wide open. And it's one thing to sin with your eyes partly shut.

[36:49] It's another to sin with your eyes wide open. And that's how this man passed into eternity still a young man. He sinned with his eyes wide open.

[37:01] I don't think I ever or you ever lay to heart how responsible we are when we have seen and known better than people who have seen or heard nothing.

[37:13] And he finished his life in sacrilege. The word sacrilege means the profanation or the making common of what is holy. he made cheap the things that belonged to God.

[37:28] And he did it when he was under the power of wine. We're told that when he tasted the wine he commanded to bring the gold and silver vessels. That translation perhaps makes you think that he just sipped it and then commanded it.

[37:43] But really it means that while he drank the wine while he drank it. In other words when he came to be under the power of it he did something that he was to regret for eternity.

[37:58] Now some people say that if you're under the power of a thing like drink it excuses you or it absolves you.

[38:10] Does it? No. If you only had this it would tell you that it doesn't excuse you or absolve you. What you do under drink you are as responsible for as if you had not drunk at all.

[38:26] Why? Because you drank. Knowing that you are going into a state of stupor and of many other things still you did it.

[38:39] You say that you do this to your wife sometimes but you do it because of drink. Does that excuse no? It does not. It never excuses anything because you do it voluntarily.

[38:55] That is why. And this man came under the power of it. And he's guilty for all he did. He couldn't say I called the vessels because I was drunk.

[39:08] Well he should have thought of that beforehand. Don't look on wine in the cup when it is red. In other words when you are passing beyond that state where wine is just a refreshing drink into a place where it is going to clothe the sense or darken the mind don't look at it.

[39:27] When it is red in the cup in the sense that it says drink me drink me you must drink me don't look at it. Because the man who comes under its power is under the power of everything else.

[39:40] Once you are under the power of this you are abandoned under its power that he committed this sacrilege.

[39:52] Now let me tell you again especially young people never mock the true faith and never mock the word of God. Sometime well actually I looked back it's nearly two years ago we looked at Elisha when the 40 young youths came out to mock him and called him a bald head when he was on his way to Bethel they said go up you bald head go up you bald head and God caused the she bears in that ferocity to come out of the woods and to destroy 40 of these men young men somewhere between 15 and 18 because they had mocked sacrilege profanity whatever you do never sit in the scorners chair because it is usually a precursor of the sword of God falling profanity is what God does not like and this man came under the power of drink and he profaned the things of God and that's why when you put this man in the scales he's as light as a feather he did not glorify

[40:57] God no your life may not be as abandoned but let me tell you no man's life all his numbered days can budge that weight of God's law you must put something else with you and that is the righteousness of Christ if you can put the righteousness of Christ in those scales that mighty weight of the law will lift off the bottom it will balance because he magnified the law and he made it honorable he met its demands and he made a perfect righteousness how about that for life people say choose life that's life you come to Christ and you have life you have justification you are right with God you have peace in your conscience and you have a life that shall never die lastly and very briefly you have the word Paris your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians you know when you apply that to yourself if we are without

[42:00] Christ and if we die without Christ what it is saying to us basically is this all you have had you have lost your days have been numbered and finished they have all been put into the balance and you are found lacking and every single thing you have ever had you have now lost your kingdom is divided between the Medes and the Persians as Psalm 49 tells us we heap up wealth and we don't know to whom we will leave it one thing sure what you heap you look for security from but the one security it can never give you is for the life to come never naked you came into this world naked you leave it you have a grasp of nothing when you leave this world nothing and if you don't have trust you perish your kingdom is divided and given to the

[43:01] Medes and the Persians that man who was building his barns because he was expanding in his wealth God came to him and said you fool this night thy soul shall be required of thee then whose shall all these things be and even that night thou would give us that wisdom to recognize that we are finite and that we are on probation in this world.

[44:32] Give us grace, Lord, to see the glory of Christ and to see the beauty of life in him. We pray that all, whether young or old, would commit themselves to the Lord.

[44:46] Help us to do so. And whatever may lie before us, grant us that we may be found in the service of the Savior. We pray that thou would restrain us from many kinds of evil and wickedness.

[45:02] And we ask thee especially to have mercy on the young people, that they might come to be young Christians and as Christian men and women to work for the Lord all the days of their lives.

[45:16]  Have mercy upon us. For his sake we pray. Amen.