And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of His house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. Daniel 5: 22,23
What a fool Belshazzar was! He knew about the God that his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar had acknowledged, and what had transpired to that great king to bring about that acknowledgment. Belshazzar knew where the Temple vessels had come from, and knew of the God for Whom those vessels were designed and utilized. His great party was an act of rank defiance against the God Who he chose to dismiss. With the very breath of which Daniel spoke, Belshazzar had blasphemed God and with his entire being he had done everything imaginable to defy and defame God. Did Belshazzar get away with his great sin? God not only spoiled his great party and all its merriment, He also cut off the rest of this evil king’s days and doomed his soul to eternal perdition. And his name and experience live on today in infamy. God is not mocked. Let us be careful that we don’t dabble in Belshazzar’s error.
Even the world and its most irreverent will use the expression ‘the handwriting on the wall’, although they may not know where it came from. The message that the Hand wrote on Belshazzar’s wall was not a warning, it was a sentence. God had accepted Belshazzar’s defiance as his answer to God’s claim upon him. That was tragic. But it was only what Belshazzar deserved. Before we take too hard an attitude toward Belshazzar, let us examine our own hearts. Have we always given to God the reverence He deserves? Have we always bowed to His will for our lives? Have we always submitted to His Word in all its direction to us? Have we always given the things of God and His Christ the uppermost priority in our lives? To the extent that we have come up short in these things, God will call us to account. No, our salvation is secure. But we risk the loss of reward and approval when we stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ. We risk being set aside as ineffective and useless vessels instead of being useful to bring glory to our Lord and Saviour.
How do we glorify the Lord of Heaven? By reverence to His Person and obedience to His Word! -Jim MacIntosh