+ Daniel 5:4-6 + Pride

Daniel 5:4 They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. 5 Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the wall of the royal palace, next to the lampstand. The king was watching the hand as it wrote. 6 Then the king's face turned pale ...

Yes, the expression "the handwriting on the wall" comes from this chapter.

A reveling King Belshazzar drank from the holy vessels which had been stolen from God's holy temple in Jerusalem ... until a mysterious hand appeared! Only Daniel could interpret the words from God: Belshazzar's kingdom would be "28 divided and given to the Medes and Persians." In fact, "30 that very night Belshazzar ... was killed."

There are at least three powerful lessons in this chapter ...

+ First, very few stories in life begin well when they start with these words: "2 under the influence of wine."

+ Second, stories quickly turn from bad to worse when we mock God as Belshazzar did -- "3 they brought in the vessels of gold and silver that had been taken out of ... the house of God in Jerusalem ... drank from them .... 4 and praised [instead] the gods of gold and silver ..."

+ Third, Daniel reminds Belshazzar of the humbling that his father, Nebuchadnezzar, endured -- "18 the most high God gave your father ... kingship ... 19 He killed those he wanted to kill ... 21 [So] he was driven from human society and made like that of an animal ..." And then comes the key verse: "22 You knew all this ... and [yet] have not humbled your heart." The question for us is this: What do you know is godly or ungodly and yet have refused to humble your heart and obey?

O God, let this be the handwriting on my wall. Let me see the hardness of my heart and turn from my sin.

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