Sharing the Truth!

Daniel 5:1-31

 

A little more than twenty years have passed since the end of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.

           Here in chapter 5, Belshazzar, his grandson is now king.

 

           Evidently, Belshazzar has forgotten the lessons learned by his Grandfather.

                      For he has lead the people away from the true God of heaven and into a steep moral decline.

                                 And because of that, Belshazzar is about to lose the kingdom.

At the time of these events, the city of Babylon is under siege by the Persian army.

           It’s fully surrounded.

                      All the gates are locked and barred.


           Now the massive wall surrounding the city, does provide state of the art security.

                      It’s impossible for an army to break through.


With a twenty year food supply laid up, and the Euphrates river running right through the city,

Belshazzar is confident he can simply wait out the siege.


                      So secure is the city that the walls are virtually unguarded.


           All that is needed, is to rally the morale of the people,

                      so he put on a huge banquet,

                                 probably with the intent of putting a good spin on this recent turn of events.

Now, what better way to show the nobles his confidence, than to mock the God his grandfather had

accepted in the latter part of his reign?


           Little did he know, that he was mocking the God of heaven for the last time,

                      and that this would be his last night on the earth!

Word of the handwriting-on-the-wall incident spread quickly until it reached the ears of the queen.

           Scholars suggest this woman was either Belshazzar’s mother or his grandmother,

                      certainly a woman who remembered the lesson learned in the days of Nebuchadnezzar.


                      She remembered Daniel from that incident, too.

What an irony!

           Belshazzar is forced to call in a prophet of the God he has just been mocking!
To this point, no one in Belshazzar’s cabinet had any reason to believe they weren’t safe,

and that the kingdom wouldn’t endure.

In verses 18-24, Daniel recounts for Belshazzar the lesson learned by Nebuchadnezzar:

                       you don’t exalt yourself above your Maker.


           The hand, Daniel explains, was sent by the God of heaven to give him a message.


Have you ever heard someone say: “I just don’t understand what’s happening!” Or,

           “I just don’t understand why this is happening to me!”


           How do you respond to people when they make such comments?

                      What do you say when someone tells you that they don’t understand why something,

                                 and it’s usually bad, is happening to them?


           Let’s take a look at how Daniel responded to the king.

 


I. Remember The Real Issue! Peoples feelings or the Truth?


A popular comic strip is “Momma” by Mel Lazarus.

           One of his strips shows Momma entertaining her perpetual suitor, Mr. K. Frankly,

                      he’s not much of a catch, but he is persistent.


           As the two sit on the couch, Mr. K. says,

                      “Mrs. Hobbs, I am at a low ebb, psychologically. My ego is flattened.”


           Mrs. Hobbs responds in an affirming way,

                      “Mr. K., let me hasten to state that you’re a fine, interesting and attractive man.”


           Mr. K. perks up at this and asks,

                      “Oh, Mrs. Hobbs, is that the truth?”


           Mrs. Hobbs says,

                      “No. There’ll be plenty of time for the truth when you’re emotionally stronger.”



We tend to be concerned about peoples feelings.

           For most of us, the last thing that we would want to do is to hurt someone’s feelings,

                      especially someone who is a close friend or loved one.


           Which means that we often go out of our way to avoid telling them the truth,

                      when we know that the truth may hurt them in someway.


Whether or not we tell someone the truth, more often than not,

           has a lot to do with how we think that person is going to respond to it.


           If the truth may hurt their feelings, we may tell them something less than the truth.


           If they may become angry if we tell them the truth, again,

                      we may tell them something less than the truth.



Daniel knew that the truth contained in the message that God had written on the wall, was not going to be received well by the King Belshazzar.

           In fact, the King may become very angry, and even take his anger out on Daniel.


           But Daniel realized that telling the truth was more important

                      than how the other person is going to respond to it.



Should we be concerned about people’s feelings? Yes!

           In fact, just as we must be willing to share the truth with people,

                      we must also be sure that we share it in love.


           If the person knows that we really care about them,

                      then the truth can be shared and accepted more easily.



When people come to us and say, “I just don’t understand why this is happening to me!”,

           we need to be aware of there feelings,

                      of how they are going to respond to the truth,

                                 but we must at the same time, tell them the truth.



II. Don’t Change the Message.

While there is no indication here that Daniel considered changing the message,

           I wonder if we would have had the courage to tell the King the truth?


No one else in the room recognized that Aramaic writing on the wall.

                      He could have said it meant anything he wanted

                                 and no one would ever have known the difference.


                      No one, that is, but God.

Oh that we feared God, and feared changing His message, more than we feared how people may or may not respond to His message!
           The New Testament warns us about changing the message.

 

After an exhortation to “preach the word,” Paul told Timothy in II Timothy 4:3,: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.”



We know there is a mass of conflicting teaching about Bible truth coming from all quarters today.

           There is a tendency to believe that most of the confusion comes, because the Bible is hard to understand.

           I suggest to you that it isn’t always that way.

                      Perhaps it isn’t even often that way.


           Paul warns, that the origin of much false teaching in the world,

                      comes about because people don’t really want to hear the truth,

                                 instead they want to hear what fits their own desires.

People don’t want to hear that homosexuality is a sin, instead they want to believe that it really doesn’t matter what your sexual orientation is, what really matters is how you treat your fellow man.


People don’t want to hear that adultery is wrong, instead they want to hear that as long as your not hurting anyone, there is no problem.

 

People don’t want to hear that gambling is a sin, instead they want to hear that everyone has a right to have a little fun in life.


People don’t want to hear that gossip is a sin, instead they want to hear everything you have to say about everyone else.


People don’t wan to hear that Christ is the only way to heaven, instead they want to hear that there are many ways for a person to get to heaven.


People don’t want to hear that you must be baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, instead they want to hear that all you have to do is believe.


People don’t want to hear that women can not be Elders or Preachers, they want to hear that women can do everything a man can, even in the Church.


 

We have to resist the temptation to change the message, because we have found it easier than telling the truth.

           We have to resist the temptation, to chance the message, to spare some ones feelings,

                      or because they may become upset and angry.

 

Listen to what God said to His prophet Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 3:17-19: “Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die’; and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you have warned the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself.”

Granted, this was spoken to a prophet.

                      But I find it hard to believe, that God would take distorting His word any less seriously today.



Daniel told the King the truth, about the circumstances he was facing, and we must do the same thing when people come to us and say “I just don’t understand why this is happening to me!”


           It just may be happening because God is trying to get your attention.


           It may be happening because there is sin in your life that God’s knows you need to deal with.

 

           It may be happening because you need to make Jesus the Lord of your life.


           It may be happening because you have let the world become more important to you than God.


           There can be any number of reasons why a person is in the circumstances they are,

                      and we must be willing to tell them the truth.


                      Because the truth is, God is trying to tell them something!


I don’t know whether you have read Charles Colson’s book “Born Again”.

           Charles Colson was a counselor to President Nixon.

 

Colson said about himself, “About 40 years of age I had everything that I could possibly want. I had a good salary, I had access to the Oval office, I had an influential position...”

 

Then the Watergate scandal broke.

                      It was then that He went to visit a friend of his by the name of Tom Phillips.

                                 Phillips had a beautiful house overlooking the Potomac and a salary of 6 figures.

 

He said, “I hadn’t seen him for 4 years, but I wasn’t with Tom for more than 10 minutes before I realized that something had really changed in his life and I said Tom, what’s the difference and Tom said, “I have given my life to Jesus Christ and He has made all the difference in the world to me.”

 

Colson said, “I tried to appear unimpressed, but when I left that day I sat in the driveway with tears in my eyes and I determined as I drove home I was going to decide for myself if maybe this is what was missing in my life. Shortly after that I took a vacation to Maine, by myself, and I took with me a Bible, C.S. Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity, and a legal note pad.

 

Being a lawyer, I divided that note pad in half and on one side I put the pros and on the other side I put the cons and I began to study as to whether Jesus Christ is really the Son of God and whether the Bible is true.

 

When I got finished, the evidence for Jesus Christ being exactly who He claimed to be was overwhelming. I too gave my life to Jesus Christ. After that I confessed my role in Watergate and went to prison. Even in prison I was freer that I had ever been in my life.”

 

Upon his release from prison, Colson began a ministry to prisoners, to lead them to Jesus.

                      And he is one of the most brilliant Christian writers that you can find.



Now what changed Charles Colson?

           Circumstances, trying to understand what was happening and why.

 

           And a friend that was willing to share with him the truth.

                      That Jesus was trying to get his attention,

                                 that he needed to make Jesus Christ the Lord of his life.


           We must be willing to share the message with people, share the truth with them,

                      no matter how painful it may be.


           For God is trying to get their attention and help them to see their need to turn to Him.
 


III. Fear God’s Judgement.
 

Perhaps you have, at times, used the phrase, “The handwriting is on the wall,” meaning that what is going to happen is very evident, and there is no stopping it.

           That phrase originated from the story in this passage.

           For Belshazzar, the handwriting was on the wall, literally and figuratively.

BIBLE KNOWLEDGE COMMENTARY says this about what happened: “Belshazzar had a false sense of security, because the Persian army... was outside Babylon’s city walls. Their army was divided; part was stationed where the river entered the city at the north and the other part was positioned where the river exited from the city at the south. The army diverted the water north of the city by digging a canal from the river to a nearby lake. With the water diverted, its level receded and the soldiers were able to enter the city by going under the sluice gate. Since the walls were unguarded the Persians, once inside the city, were able to conquer it without a fight.”

Far to many people in our world today, are like King Belshazzar was that night.

The King felt all secure in his palace, even though an enemy army was right outside the city walls. And before he knew what happened, the enemy was inside the palace and he was dead.


           People today feel pretty secure about their life, about eternity.

                      What they fail to realize, is that the enemy is knocking at the door of their life.

                                 In fact, sin has already entered their life, and has rendered them spiritually dead.



But, they think they are alright, after all, it doesn’t matter what you believe about God, just that you believe in God.


           It doesn’t matter if you are baptized or not, just as long as you believe in Jesus.


           It doesn’t matter if you go to church or not, just as long as you are a good God fearing person.

 

It doesn’t matter if cheat on your taxes a little, or stretch the truth a little in your business dealings, just as long as you go to church once in a while.



It doesn’t matter....Yes it does matter! That is the whole point.


           When people say, “Why is this happening to me, I just don’t understand!”

                      We need to tell them the truth.

 

Realizing that if we don’t, that person is going to face the awesome judgement and wrath of a sin hating God!


 

And we are going to be held responsible too!

           Yes, you heard me right!

                      If we fail to tell them the truth about the sin in their life,

                                 and how they need to get right with God, we will be held responsible to God!


           In Ephesians 4:15 we are told to “speak the truth in love.”

                      If we don’t tell people the truth, in a loving and compassionate way,

                                 then we will be held responsible by God for failing to do so!



It comes down to this, do we fear hurting someone’s feelings,

           do we fear how they will react if we tell them the truth,

                      more than we fear God and His response if we don’t tell them the truth!


           You see, there are two things we should fear here:

                       One, if we don’t tell the person the truth about their life,

                                 they will end up in Hell for all eternity.


                      And second, that if we don’t tell the truth,

                                 we will have to answer to God for why we didn’t.

 


Conclusion:


When King Belshazzar called in Daniel and asked him to explain what the hand writing on the wall was all about.

           Without fear Daniel told the King what it all meant.


The book of Daniel puts it this way in our text: “That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain.”

You only get so much warning and then “the handwriting is on the wall.”

                      God will warn of impending judgment only so long, then the ax falls.



What’s going on in your life right now?

           Are you going through some problem.

 

           Are you facing a situation that has you asking,

                      “Why is this happening to me? I just don’t understand!”


           Maybe God is trying to get your attention.


           Maybe God is trying to help you to see and to deal with some sin in our life.


           Don’t ignore the handwriting on the wall!