"And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven ... and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified. Then the fingers of the hand were sent from Him, and this writing was written." Daniel 5:23,24 (Read Daniel 5:1-31)
What would you think if you were at a party or celebration and enjoying all your successes in life, and then, suddenly, a man's fingers appeared and wrote words on the wall -- words you did not recognize or understand?
It happened during the reign of the last king of Babylon, King Belshazzar. He threw a great feast for a thousand of his lords and, while he tasted the wine, he called for the gold and silver vessels Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and used them as drinking vessels in which to serve wine to his guests. "They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone," verse 4 says.
Daniel 5:5-6 tells us: "In the same hour the fingers of a man's hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his hips were loosened and his knees knocked against each other."
No one could be found to interpret the writing until Daniel the prophet was called. Listen to what he tells the king before he interprets the writing and reveals to the king that his kingdom would fall that very night: "You have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven ... and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified."
Who is it who holds our breath in His hand and owns all our ways? The Lord God who created the heavens and the earth!
I think of the words of Psalm 100:3: "Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture."
We like to imagine that our lives are our own and that we are in control, and then there is the writing on the wall to remind us of the truth: it is the almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, who created us in the beginning and breathed life into our bodies and made us living souls (Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7,18ff.; Psalm 139:13-16). He holds our life, our very breath, in His hand.
What Daniel said to Belshazzar is very similar to what St. Paul said to the Athenians at the Areopagus who had altars to many gods and even an altar to the unknown god, just to be safe. Paul said, "The One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring'" (Acts 17:23-28).
The current coronavirus pandemic which has caused fear and panic around the world is another form of writing on the wall. It reminds us that God holds our very breath in His hand and, with something so small that we cannot even see it without an electron microscope, He can take it away.
And the writing on the wall in Babylon? "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN."
What does it mean? We read in Daniel 5:26-28: "This is the interpretation of each word. MENE: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it; TEKEL: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; PERES: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."
And these words could very well be applied to people today who fail to give glory to the God of heaven by humbling themselves before Him and hearing and heeding His Word. MENE, God has numbered your time and your life in this world and finished it. TEKEL, You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. PERES, Your earthly kingdom and wealth will be divided and given to others.
What's my point?
God is in control and holds our lives and our every breath in His hand. He gives us life that we might acknowledge Him and bow before Him by repenting of our self-centered and sinful ways and looking to Him for mercy and forgiveness through faith in the Savior He provided for us -- Christ Jesus, who died for the sins of all and then rose again in triumph on the third day.
If we continue to imagine that we are in control and go on in our self-centered ways, refusing to repent and look to Him for mercy and forgiveness in Christ Jesus, the handwriting is already on the wall. The current virus scare is just one more reminder to all of us of who really holds our breath in His hand.
Have mercy upon us, O God, for failing to acknowledge and glorify Your name by true sorrow over our sinful and rebellious ways and Spirit-wrought faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus, Your Son and our Savior. Amen.
[Devotion by Randy Moll. Scripture is taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.]
Religion on 04/01/2020