Daniel 5:24-28 Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written.… More than forty years have passed since the erection of the golden image in the plain of Dura and the subjection of the three heroic confessors to the fiery furnace. 1. This invisible hand, tracing with its pen-fingers these characters upon the wall, is but the infinite Hand that follows us, tracing day by day, though upon a page unseen by us, the record of our lives. It had followed Belshazzar from the period of his first elevation to power until now. It had traced in indelible characters the history of his idolatries, his debaucheries, and his crimes. These characters were all the darker because of the light against which Belshazzar had sinned. As Daniel reminded him of the visitation of Heaven that had fallen upon Nebuchadnezzar when "his heart was lifted up and his mind hardened with pride," and when, by the Divine decree, "he was driven from the sons of men." "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." They told of a wanton disregard of God's authority and contempt of His former judgments. That jealous God, who will not give His glory to another, had not forgotten all this reckless defiance of His authority. And so with each one of us; an invisible eye marks and an invisible hand records all the sins and shortcomings of our life. In God's book of remembrance they are written with ink that shall never fade. 2. The day is coming when the hand that now writes in invisible Characters shall trace in letters of fire over against the candlestick upon the wall of God's great judgment-hall the characters that shall settle our eternal doom. The pallor that overspread the countenances of the king and his nobles on that awful night in Babylon was as nothing compared with the abject terror of that still more awful day when the sun shall be turned into blackness and the moon into blood. The cry that rang from the festal hall that night for the astrologers and soothsayers shall find its terrible counterpart in the cry of that great day for the mountains and the rocks to fail upon men and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. And the silence of the soothsayers in the presence of the invisible hand is but a prefiguration of that awful silence when "every mouth shall be stopped, and all the world shall become guilty before God." 3. In those three words, "Mene, Tekel, Upharsin," as interpreted by Daniel, we have foreshadowed the three elements in the sinner's final doom. (1) The end of probation: Mene, numbered. Belshazzar's kingdom had been a stewardship. The years of his stewardship are now numbered. The day of his probation is now ended. The eternal hand comes out of its obscurity to announce the fact that the day of opportunity is ever and the day of reckoning has come. And so to you and me, my dear reader, shall that day suddenly come. Death's bony fingers shall write over against us the word Mene, numbered. It may come as suddenly and as awfully in the midst of your worldliness and gaiety as it did to Belshazzar amidst the impious revelries of his midnight feast. (2) The sentence of condemnation: Tekel, weighed and found wanting. Little as Belshazzar dreamed of it, his life had been placed in the balance of eternal and unerring justice. It had been impartially weighed. Your best righteousnesses would be but as the "small dust of the balance." As over agninst the weighty demands of God's perfect law they would be lighter than vanity. (3) The doom of disinheritance: Perez (Upharsin — U, and, and Pharsin, the plural form of Perez), divided. Belshazzar's kingdom was taken from him and divided between the Medea and Persians. But what was the kingdom of Belshazzar compared with that kingdom forfeited by the soul which at last shall be weighed and found wanting? Oh that kingdom in the skies, that kingdom that cannot be moved, that kingdom whose capital city is one that "lieth foursquare" like Babylon, but the side of whose square, instead of being, like Babylon's, fourteen miles, is, as measured by the angel of the Apocalypse, twelve thousand furlongs, and the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal! 4. The day of the sinner's undoing shall be the day of the saint's coronation. Amidst that scene of terror in Belshazzar's festal hall there was one figure that stood unappalled. No terror blanched the cheek of Daniel. No sudden weakness "loosed the joints of his loins." No dismay made his knees "smite one against another." It was his Father's hand that was writing; why should he fear? There was no guilty conscience in his breast responding with its Tekel to that upon the wall. What a grand character he appears, erect and self-possessed amidst the cowering throng, the light of a serene peace illuminating his face as he reads the writing that carries terror to all around! Even so shall it be in that great day when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, when the books shall be opened, and the dead shall be judged out of the things that are written in the books. The judgment-day shall have no terrors for those who have been the servants of Christ. Not only shall they be exempted and honoured of God, but they shall on that day receive at the hand of an ungodly world the just meed of honour and praise which has been so long withheld. So the servants of God in that final coronation-day shall receive, even from the most depraved, that tardy recognition denied them here upon the earth. 5. Repentance, long deferred, may come too late. Had Belshazzar sought the counsel of Daniel before the handwriting appeared on the wall, had he signalised his entrance upon the responsibilities of regal power by restoring the prophet to the post of influence and authority he had once so happily filled under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar — he might have escaped the impending ruin. Alas! it is now too late! Divine patience has been exhausted. Doom is sealed. And so must it be with those who wilfully postpone the great interests of the soul. (T. D. Witherspoon, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written.WEB: Then was the part of the hand sent from before him, and this writing was inscribed. |
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