Belshazzar's Feast and the Day of the Lord.

Daniel 5.

1906 165 The mind of man, though professedly believing the Scriptures, with its record of past events and particularly the acts and ways of God in judgment, is nevertheless slow to accredit what is written of future solemn realities. God's judgment of the world by a flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are facts, owned nominally, at least, by all professing Christians, yet that both are used by the Lord Jesus Himself as solemn warnings of a terrible judgment ere long to burst with appalling surprise upon this present evil world, is not so readily assented to. Yet is it written that "as it was in the days of Noe so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man" (Luke 17:26-31). Thus Noah's day of past overwhelming judgment, is coupled with the future approaching day of Christ, on His return as the Son of man. Yet where are those believing and heeding the warning?

So also, the fact of Belshazzar's Feast with its splendour and sudden doom, abides as a matter of history and warning, but how few believe it to be a picture of the surprising judgment which will overtake the boast and splendour of this world of pleasure and greatness, in the day of the Lord? The same unerring scriptures recording the past, most assuredly declare the future; and woe to those who refuse to heed and fail to escape ere it is too late.

A great king who made a great feast in the day of Babylon's greatness and glory, is what God in Dan. 5 records for our instruction. This heathen ruler, the successor of a mighty king who received his position and extensive rule from the God of heaven, commands and invites a thousand nobles to a feast of grandeur and luxury, in character with his own majesty and court, calculated to give pleasure and gratification to himself and his guests; but at the expense of the honour and claims of the living God, to Whom they were indebted for their life, position, and mercies which they were then abusing. All for a time appeared bright and joyous, exceeding all bounds, for this king commands to be brought the golden and silver vessels that had formerly been in the temple at Jerusalem, and held in some sanctity as in relation to the God of heaven. These holy vessels were brought, and wine drunk from them, to give its exciting pleasure and sensual gratification, so that they "praised the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and of stone."

Such was the debased level of man, yea, man in his greatness going lower than the beasts. He not only drinks wine in sacred vessels, but defies the living and true God, making himself the object of veneration and glory. This was the case with the king at his feast, when the living God interposed in a way both sudden and effectual. He who saw, knew and heard all said and done against Himself, must as He ever will, vindicate His Name and glory, as well as judge the king and kingdom in responsibility to Him. Escape is impossible when God acts, as we see with Israel whom Nebuchadnezzar as God's rod, had carried captive, with the sacred vessels now so desecrated; hence the hand of God suddenly appears to strike terror in the midst, in the form of writing on the wall.

The eye of the king is made to fix on the handwriting, with its immediate effect not only upon himself, but also on his lordly guests. "Yea," the king "saw" the part of the hand that wrote. "Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another." Not only did he cry aloud, but finding that his resources failed to explain the why and the wherefore, he was still more troubled, so that his lords were astonished.

The world's greatness and glory not only come to an end, but its wisdom totally fails, as will assuredly appear in the day fast approaching. The world's wisdom is folly and gross darkness when God is acting, and it needs one entirely outside its course and ways to make known the mind of God, whether in grace or judgment. In the hour of deep distress, the queen makes known to the king that there is one man in his kingdom with light and wisdom beyond all others; whose excellency and sufficiency had been proved in the interpreting of the dream that troubled Belshazzar's forefatherNebuchadnezzar. This was Daniel, a captive youth from the land of Judah, who in Nebuchadnezzar's reign had instructed and warned the king as to his God-conferred dignity and consequent responsibility, and for this faithful and timely service had been promoted by that monarch to greatness and rule. This separate and now hidden servant endowed with the mind of God, who had been been brought forth in the past, again reappears, not as a guest at the profane God-defying feast, but as the revealer of God's judgment upon it.

Faithfulness in separation from evil, God ever honours, as Daniel had proved. Now at this solemn juncture,by request of the stricken Belshazzar, he appears before him. Surely a grave and critical moment for the humanly weak in the presence of the world's strength and power! But in what conscious dignity as knowing God and His wisdom and sufficiency for declaring the truth, and laying the sin with its terrible consequence upon the conscience, does Daniel now stand when ushered in their midst!

The fear of God preserved a Joseph in the hour of keen temptation, and the poor, lowly, worm Jacob in his confessed failing pilgrimage rises in given grace to the dignity of blessing Pharaoh. Equally does Daniel speak and act in lowly dignity as a vessel of wisdom and power, without fear of consequences. He had previously interpreted to Nebuchadnezzar the departed dream, saying of his kingly power under the God of heaven, "Thou art a king of kings," "Thou art this head of gold." Now in holy confidence and God-honouring dignity, he plainly and fearlessly tells the deep sin and failure of Belshazzar's, and declares God's mind and intended judgment, saying, "Thou, 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 and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are thy ways, hast thou not glorified" (Dan. 5:22-23).

Thus the open sin of sensual gratification linked with awful impiety against the living God, brought the terrible witness of divine displeasure in the handwriting on the wall, causing trembling and astonishment, and fixing the doom of the daring guilty king. God, so sinned against, deigns to make Daniel His mouth to tell the writing, as well as to give the solemn interpretation.

Brief are the words, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin," and striking their significance. "Mene: God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. Tekel: Thou art weighed in the balances, and are found wanting. Peres: Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians" (Dan. 5:25-28). So ended the pride, glitter, and boast of kingly greatness and glory, where responsibility to the God of heaven was despised and His name blasphemed in exalting the god of gold and the god of pleasure. If the past judgment is fulfilled with its recorded history and warning, scripture is no less clear and emphatic regarding the day of the Lord, and the solemn judgment by which it will be introduced and established.

Part 2.

1906 177 The day of the Lord as the statement implies, is associated with the Lord Jesus Christ, when (in constrast to man's day) His rights, claims, and glory will be established, and He will universally rule and act for God, as the second Man, the last Adam, the Antitype of David and Solomon. His throne, as largely stated in scripture, is to be set up in Jerusalem, and His dominion will extend to the ends of the earth. All will be brought to bow and own Him, and of His kingdom there will be no end. To Him will be no successor (as there was to Nebuchadnezzar), but as King of kings and Lord of lords, will He inaugurate, establish, and fulfil His perfect and blessed rule over this long-stricken earth, and at its close shall deliver up the kingdom to the God and Father, when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power (thus terminating the day of the Lord), and God shall be all in all. This do Psalms and Prophets and New Testament plainly reveal, concerning God's Christ, the Son of man; whose glories to come are as certain as were His sufferings and death in the past, and now also His exaltation and glory at the right hand of God. The wondrous day of glory for this sin-stricken scene, so largely foretold, awaits the great Redeemer to bring it in and establish it. Then and then only, will it be "the day of the Lord."

How this day will be introduced is a question which scripture clearly answers, showing that it is by divine judgment and not by man, nor by the preaching of the gospel of God's grace as is supposed by many and largely taught. The opening prophecies of Isaiah, and of Joel, speak most distinctly of the day of the Lord, as a time of most solemn judgment, when man in all his pride and greatness shall be brought down, and Jehovah alone exalted in that day. Twice over does Isaiah 2. declare this, when terrified man (in character with the lords and nobles of Belshazzar) "shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of Jehovah and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth." Then all idols of silver and gold, which man has made for himself to worship, will be cast to the moles and to the bats; then will' men be made to tremble and quake, in a fuller and wider sense than at Belshazzar's feast. Joel 2. states, "The day of Jehovah cometh, for it is nigh at band `day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness"; "for the day of Jehovah is great and very terrible; and who can abide it? "

Evidently this scripture treats (as do indeed the prophets generally) of the day of the Lord as in special connection with the Jewish nation and their Messiah but in the Book of Daniel we find predicted, in his early prophecies and interpretations, the rise and fall of the Gentile kingdoms in responsibility to the God of heaven. Not only the judgment and loss of Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom but the final smiting of the great image by the stone breaking all to pieces to be found no more, for the Stone no longer hidden will beccme "a great mountain and fill the whole earth." That this refers to Christ and His coming kingdom to be established by His judgment of living men on the earth as the prelude to universal blessing under His rule, should be evident to every student of prophecy. To this, Daniel 7 gives plain testimony, and presents us with the twofold titles of Christ as the Ancient of days, and Son of man, to whom is given "dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages, should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." The Lord Himself in taking the title of Son of man speaks openly in Matt. 24 of His "coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory," in judgment, and for the gathering of His elect (Israel), in view of His glorious kingdom. So also when asked by the high priest whether He was the Christ the Son of God, Jesus said unto him, "Thou hast said; nevertheless I say unto you, hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power coming in the clouds of heaven" (Matt. 27). Yet, must He know rejection "and have nothing" (Dan. 9:26 margin, John 1:11), before this time of coming glory. Man metes out to Him as "King of the Jews" the cross; yet even there a dying malefactor is made to give testimony to His precious Person and coming kingdom, as he learns the grace and love of His heart to fit him by His death and shed blood, to be with Him in the heavenly Paradise. There the Son of man, the rejected King, is hid with God, awaiting on high the moment when He shall receive His kingdom, and return to establish the day of the Lord.

Meanwhile, for nineteen centuries the gospel has been preached by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, His mission being to take out of a condemned world a people for salvation, and glory with the heavenly Man, Christ Jesus, as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, and given as His beloved to suffer for His sake during this day of man's assumed rights and honours, in the knowledge that we shall reign with Him in the day of the coming kingdom. The two Epistles to the Thessalonians treat conspicuously and definitely of the return of the Lord Jesus, and reveal to us His coming in the air to catch up His saints to be with and like Himself in heavenly glory, as also to bring them with Him when He shall come to the earth for His reign in the day of its glory. These saints were converted to wait for God's Son from heaven; hope so bright in their souls with its possibility of realisation before death overtook any, that the passing away of some aroused concern whether such would share the future reign. This the Lord by the apostle graciously clears up, writing by the Spirit to show that those who had fallen asleep would certainly come with Christ, when God brings Him back from heaven, to rule in His established kingdom and glory. Hence they were not to sorrow as those without hope, "for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep through Jesus will God bring with Him." How this can be is revealed by the precious and significant parenthesis which follows — "for this we say unto you in the Lord's word, that we, the living who remain to the coming of the Lord, shall not anticipate those fallen asleep; for Himself the Lord, with an assembling shout, with archangel's voice and with trump of God, shall descend from heaven," when the dead and living saints would be caught up together in the clouds, to meet their Lord in the air, to be for ever with Him. This fact blessedly settled, the coming with Christ is resumed in the following chapter (1 Thess. 5) respecting the day of the Lord and its manner of introduction, which saints are called to know perfectly, and should assuredly declare as clearly as the handwriting at Belshazzar's feast. This appeared suddenly, to the terror of the king and his guests, when all seemed hilarity and peace. So, too, will the day of the Lord come as a thief in the night, "for when they, (not we) shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them." Thus the poor world that was left in darkness when "the Light of the world" departed is doomed to judgment as pronounced at the cross of Christ, to be executed at His return. The world's night then began, and its darkness has continued, and is increased by the church and the world shaking hands, loud in its profession of present riches and glory, but without the pure gold tried in the fire, having a name to live and yet dead.

Church and state with attractive cups of gold, under the name and banner of the cross, may do for man, deceived under the name of Christian, in boastful contrast to the heathen without God: but God is not mocked, and He has appointed a day in which He will judge the present habitable earth in righteousness, no less than the professing church as Babylon the Great (Rev. 18) with all its boast of treasures, for in "one hour will her judgment come."

Thank God, grace continues to work in souls to own their need of life, salvation and peace, through faith in the death and shed blood of the one and only Saviour. He who came the first time to settle once and for ever the question of sin by the mighty sacrifice of Himself, will appear the second time to those believing, or looking for Him, apart from sin unto salvation. Such belong to the coming day of glory, being children of light and of day; therefore are they enjoined not to sleep, like the poor worldling and professor, but to be sober, putting on the breast-plate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ: who died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with Him." The apostle James declares that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh; "therefore are we to wait in patience having the heart stablished. But in keeping with what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, Peter affirms emphatically that "the Lord is not slack concerning His promise," whatever the poor worldling or sceptical reasoner may say about things continuing as they did in the past. The Lord is long-suffering and, blessed be His name, as a Saviour God, He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Unlike the handwriting of Daniel 5 revealing judgment without remedy, grace now lingers with its "whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely," and so be saved.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. Further, the apostle not only testifies to the opening day of judgment for "the living," but to its awful close, "when the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up." Then, as we learn elsewhere, shall follow the judgment of "the dead" before the great white throne. Thus the unerring word of God speaks in language more solemn than at Belshazzar's feast, and all who heed it not, shall not escape, either the judgment at the beginning, or that at the end, when the dead great and small shall stand before the throne, to find their names not written in the book of life, and themselves judged out of the things written in the books "according to their works." All true believers, as having eternal life in Christ, are already free from judgment, and possess a living hope in the expectation of their Lord's return to receive them unto Himself. Instead of dread, at the dissolution of heaven and earth, we who have believed can with assurance say, "nevertheless we, according to His 'promise,' look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." These plain scriptural facts may well have their voice for us who look for such things that we may indeed "be found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless," at His coming. And for the worldly professors of today — so unerringly described beforehand in Holy Writ as "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; as "having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof" — we would earnestly pray that the solemn warning of Belshazzar's feast with its present counterpart of religious pride and human glory may be used of God, in this His day of long-suffering and salvation, to arouse the careless and indifferent to true repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; that so, fleeing to the only refuge now, they may escape His wrath, "when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and on them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." "For behold, now is a right acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." G.G.