Scripture declares: You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things-- by your will they were created and have their being. Amen.

The Word of the Lord for our consideration this morning is Daniel's interpretation of the handwriting on the wall-- in Daniel chapter five. Although the sermon will draw upon the entire chapter, for now I will read you verses twenty-three through twenty-five:

The Prophet Daniel declared to King Belshazzar, "You did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. Therefore he sent the hand that wrote the inscription: mene, mene, tekel, parsin."

This is God's Word.

Dear fellow Christians-- who want humbly to honor God:

These days are good days in America.

Outside our borders: it's been years since our nation has fought in a major international conflict. It's been decades since we've fought in a real war. And it's been half a century since our country has fought a world war. We are at peace.

Within our borders: most people who want to be at work are at work. Most young people who want to be in school are in school. And most older people who want to be retired are retired. We are well off enough to do what we want to do.

These days are good days in America.

And yet-- and yet, do we really deserve these good days? More to the point, do we really honor the Lord for giving them to us? And furthermore, don't some of our underlying societal ills suggest that these good days may not last?

Those are the sorts of questions we'll consider today-- as today's readings, and particularly today's sermon text, urge us: HUMBLY HONOR GOD! Friends, I urge you: Humbly Honor God BECAUSE GOD'S HANDWRITING IS ON THE WALL IN REGARD TO OUR SINS' JUDGMENT. And friends, I urge you, Humbly Honor God BECAUSE GOD'S HANDWRITING IS ON THE WALL IN REGARD TO OUR SAVIOR JESUS.

Well, it was the evening of October twelfth, five hundred thirty-nine bc. The scene was the city of Babylon, built on the mighty Euphrates River, in the middle of the desert, in what is modern-day Iraq.

The city of Babylon was, at that time, the capital city of the world. You see, the country of Babylon pretty much controlled the area from Egypt to Asia Minor to Arabia to Persia-- and everything in between. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, was the one who had conquered this territory, beginning some seventy years earlier. In fact, he was the king who had led the Lord's nation of Judah into exile, a thousand miles from her homeland. And the current kings of Babylon were Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar.

Now, I'd be misrepresenting the situation if I didn't mention that there were at this time some clouds on the horizon for Babylon. In fact, this very night the armies of the Medes and the Persians to Babylon's east were camped outside the city of Babylon.

But King Belshazzar wasn't particularly alarmed. You see: Babylon, a city which, by some accounts, encompassed an area of two hundred square miles-- Babylon had a wonderful series of walls. The outer wall ran for fifty-six miles. One wall was twenty-one feet thick, and another eleven feet thick. One wall was said to have watchtowers every sixty feet along its length. And get this: one of the walls was supposed to have been three hundred feet high-- that's two or three times the height of the steeple of our church!

And so we read, in Daniel chapter five, that during that night: King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles. The room in which this took place, with a thousand people and tables for all of them to eat: it had to have been the size of our parish center and church combined-- and it was probably as ornate as our church is getting to be, too. And, it says, Belshazzar drank lots of wine with his nobles.

Now: While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he made a particularly rebellious mistake. He gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his forefather had taken from the temple in Jerusalem. So, he grabbed the goblets that the true God had used at his place to represent the fellowship that united him and his people. Belshazzar grabbed these goblets so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. Not only so, but: As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone. And they did so in an effort to persuade those so-called gods to protect them from the armies outside.

It was in this drunken revelry and false worship that: Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. It was close enough to Belshazzar that: The king watched the hand as it wrote. And so shook was Belshazzar that: His face literally turned pale, and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs literally gave way.

The king called in his advisors, even the supposedly spiritual ones, but they couldn't interpret for him the writing. Then the queen, likely either Belshazzar's mother or grandmother, suggested that he quickly call in Daniel.

Daniel, at this time, was an eighty year old man. Nebuchadnezzar had brought him to Babylon from Judah some sixty-five years earlier, and Daniel had served faithfully since then. He had told and interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a statue, representing four or five kingdoms to come. Daniel had interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a tree, representing insanity Nebuchadnezzar would suffer because he had failed to honor the Lord. In the twenty years since Nebuchadnezzar had died, Daniel continued to serve the Babylonian government in lesser positions. Belshazzar didn't personally know him.

And so, the story continues: Daniel was brought before the king, and the king said to him, "Are you Daniel, one of the exiles my father the king brought from Judah? I have heard that the spirit of the gods is in you and that you have insight, intelligence and outstanding wisdom. (Think of how this could have stroked Daniel's ego!) The wise men and enchanters were brought before me to read this writing and tell me what it means, but they could not explain it. Now I have heard that you are able to give interpretations and to solve difficult problems. If you can read this writing and tell me what it means, you will be clothed in purple (of royalty!) and have a gold chain (of great worth!) placed around your neck, and you will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom" (or it could even be translated: "one of the three highest rulers of the kingdom-- King Nabonidus, King Belshazzar, and King Daniel!").

But: Daniel humbly honored God, and in his service he answered the king, "You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means."

And read it and interpret it Daniel did! Daniel says: "Belshazzar, you have not humbled yourself. Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand."

"But -- and here is our sermon text -- You did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. Therefore he sent the hand that wrote the inscription: mene, mene, tekel, parsin."

And of course, it was those words that were the source of Belshazzar's puzzlement. It wasn't that he couldn't read them. They were common words. In fact, they meant (on the surface, at least): "mina, mina, shekel, half-shekel." These were units of weight and money. It would be as if they read in our language: "pound, pound, ounce, half-ounce," or "hundred, hundred, dollar, half-dollar." But what does that mean? And then again, by a quirk of the language and read a little more deeply, these words said: "numbered, numbered, weighed, divided." But again, what does that really mean?

Well, Daniel explains, "This is what these words mean. Mene, mene ("numbered, numbered"): God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel ("weighed"): You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Peres ("divided"): Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

And the mystery, although it was very ominous, was solved. And we read: "Then at Belshazzar's command, Daniel was clothed in purple, a gold chain was placed around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom.

But that very night the armies of the Medes and the Persians were busy diverting the water of the mighty Euphrates River that ran through Babylon. When they had done so, the dry river bed gave them a pathway under the wall, which was their entrance into the city. And so, we read: That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain. And under Emperor Cyrus the Great, King Darius the Mede took over the kingdom of Babylon for good.

And that's it. That's the account of the fall of Babylon, in the desert of Iraq and along the shores of the Euphrates River, on October thirteenth of five hundred thirty-nine bc. So, what does that mean to you and to me?

Well, the parallels between ancient Babylonia and modern America are striking, aren't they?

Babylon was powerful: the world's leader. Babylon was prosperous: rich enough to banquet a thousand nobles a night. Babylon was apparently impossible to overpower: with those awesome walls.

America is powerful: the world's leader. America is prosperous: wealthier than any other nation this world has ever witnessed. America is apparently impossible to overpower: with our awesome military arsenal.

Yet Babylon was a sick nation.... Babylon was built on bloodshed. The city of Babylon celebrated in drunken revelry. And Babylon acknowledged thousands of gods-- not one of them the true Lord.

America is a sick nation.... America is built on bloodshed. What else can you say about a nation that kills more than a million of its children a year in the wombs of its mothers? America celebrates in drunken, drug induced revelry, complete with every form of sexual perversion imaginable. And America acknowledges thousands of false gods, too-- from its founding fathers to dozens of its historical figures, from its form of government to its system of economy, from the ingenuity of its great engineers to the creativity of its musical and visual artists, from the dollars in the pockets of its citizens to the trillions of dollars its government has spent: every god, it seems, but the true God.

Babylon saw the handwriting of God's judgment on the wall, but it was much too late. Will it be the same for America?

But more importantly, my friend, will it be the same for you and for me? You know, it's easy for us to condemn our nation. But we've got to put ourselves under the same microscope of condemnation.

Are we not all too often all too willing to harm others, to sacrifice others, for our own benefit? Do we dream of sexual perversion? (And I don't just mean some sort of abnormal act; I mean any sort of sex outside of marriage, or even any abridgment of our companionship in marriage....) And who is our God? I mean: which do we really fear most-- the true Lord, or the loss of our income? And which do we really love most-- the true Lord, or a Packer victory? (And yes, I myself am a Packer fanatic....) And which do we really trust most-- the true Lord, or our own decision making ability?

Friend, for sins such as these, God's handwriting was on the wall in Babylon: "numbered, numbered, weighed, divided." Your days are numbered, too. You've been weighed, too, and found wanting. You deserved to be divided from your God, damned eternally-- and so do I.

So, is there any hope for us? Yes! Certainly! And really, it comes to us in this very story!

You see, not only was Babylon proud of its own pagan character, it was also the place of imprisonment for thousands of God's people. And even though it caused God's people some suffering, Babylon had to fall -- Babylon needed to fall -- in order for God to fulfill his promise and deliver his people from enemy clutches.

This, too, is true-- for you and for me!

You see, God's handwriting is on the wall. There is coming a day, maybe before Judgment Day and certainly on Judgment Day-- there is coming a day when God will fully and finally judge all sinfulness. Every murder, every harm, every perversion, every lust, and every false god will be shown for what it is-- and its perpetrators cast into hell.

However, it's got to be that way: in order for God to deliver us out of the clutches of sin and death and hell. It's got to be that way: in order for God to deliver to us the heavenly land that he has promised. The Scriptures say that on that day: The devil, who deceived the non-Christians, will be thrown into the lake of burning sulfur. There he will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. ...And if anyone's name is not found written in the book of life, he will be thrown into the lake of fire.

But the Scriptures say that on that day: we will see the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And we will be a part of it! On that day, Christ will say: It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. The perfect birth he accomplished for us, the perfect life he won for us, the death of death he brought about, and the powerful resurrection that he has effected-- they will be ours!

And you see, that's why I urge you: Humbly Honor God! Humbly Honor God because God's handwriting is on the wall in regard to our sins' judgment. And Humbly Honor God because God's handwriting is on the wall in regard to our Savior Jesus.

Humbly honor God: like Daniel did in today's sermon text-- where he refused earthly gifts from Belshazzar's hand, in order bravely to proclaim Christ's heavenly message. Humbly honor God: like Paul did in today's epistle reading-- where he refused to be considered a god, and instead insisted on the true Lord as his maker. Humbly honor God: as did Jesus Christ in our gospel reading.

He humbly bore our sins. He humbly provided rest for our souls. He is the Savior that you can count on forever. Amen.

Scripture declares: Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise! Amen.