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Number 1 of Daniel 5, Bob reads, Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar waltzed, he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, that the king and his princes, his wives, and his concubines might drink therein. Now this is actually one of my favorite stories in the book of Daniel. This is probably my favorite chapter. And when I was a child, this was one of my favorite stories. And basically, this man Belshazzar, it's very clear to tell us in verse number 2 that when Belshazzar the king began to drink, is when he had the idea to desecrate God's house and basically desecrate the vessels that were taken from God's house. It's very clear in verse number 2, it says, Belshazzar waltzed, he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem. So you notice that alcohol had an effect on him of emboldening him to do something wicked, to basically blaspheme God, to take the vessels that were used in the temple of God that Nebuchadnezzar had stolen to use them to worship another god, to drink their liquor in, and then to praise the gods of gold and gods of silver, praise a bunch of false gods. Now it's interesting because my grandfather, this story meant a lot to him because my grandfather was a great soul winning Christian, he was a deacon in an independent fundamental Baptist church in Los Angeles, and when he first got saved and got in church, for a long time he still drank. And one time he came to church and the pastor, Dr. Rasmussen at that time, preached on this subject right here, and my grandfather walked out of there and said, you know what, that's exactly how I get when I drink. I've become arrogant. You know, I've become prideful, I've become emboldened to do wrong, and we have to take a lesson here. Belshazzar's problem started with drinking. It's clear, he started drinking and he began to do stupid things. Now there's nothing good that's going to come of you drinking alcohol. And people try to justify alcohol and say, well, I'll just do it in moderation, just drink a little bit, as long as I don't become drunk. Is that what it says in verse number two? Does it say that Belshazzar became drunk? It says, while he tasted the wine. So God is showing us here that just after a little bit of alcohol, his judgment is clouded to where all of a sudden he wants to do something wrong. All of a sudden he wants to sin, just after a taste. Now you say, Jesus turned the water into wine. Look at Isaiah chapter sixty-six. Go ahead and turn, I'm sorry, Isaiah sixty-five. We're in Daniel, just go back a few pages toward the beginning of the Bible. Go to Isaiah sixty-five. And in Isaiah sixty-five, verse number eight, it says this, Thus saith the Lord, as the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it, so will I do for my servant's sake, that I may not destroy them all. Notice here that he's saying that the wine here, the new wine is found in the cluster. The cluster is basically what grapes are in before you pick them, before you take them down and juice them and squeeze them. And so he's calling the juice that's in a grape that's growing on the vine wine. That's simply because the word wine in the Bible is just referring to any kind of grape juice, whether it be fermented or unfermented. You know, in 1611 when this Bible was first published, the word wine was used for both. It was basically used to mean an alcoholic grape beverage or juice beverage or an alcoholic, just a glass of juice. That's why you'll notice a clear distinction if you look up every time the word wine is mentioned. Sometimes God will be talking about it in a positive way in relationship with things like bread and honey, milk, wine, things that are natural, things that are healthy, things that are good for you. And then other times he'll say, you know, don't even look at it. In Proverbs 23, he says, look not on the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color of the cup, when it moveth itself aright, for it to last, it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. He says, there's a type of wine that you shouldn't even look at. That's what he said in Proverbs 23. He said, when it's in this certain situation. Obviously, the type of wine that we shouldn't look at is alcoholic. And the type that's okay is just grape juice, you know, that's not been fermented and processed to the point where it becomes alcoholic. Now, he's drinking an alcoholic beverage here. He's partying with a thousand of his lords and they're basically drinking, they're partying. He's got his wives. He's got his concubines. This is a wicked man. He shouldn't have wives, plural, number one. And then he has concubines. Well, you say, what's a concubine? Well, a concubine, according to the Bible, it's someone that you go to bed with that you're not married to, but it's not somebody you go to bed with one time. It's like a live-in girlfriend. I mean, in today's lingo, talking about a live-in girlfriend, that's what a concubine is. Or sometimes people will call it your common law wife. Have you ever heard that term? Has anybody heard the term your common law? Yeah, okay. Yeah, I mean, it's a term that people nowadays may not know what it means because today people have such a bizarre view of marriage and things. They don't even call it your common law wife. It's just your girlfriend that you live with for ten years or whatever. But you know what? It's wicked. It's ungodly. It's fornication. God says, flee fornication. And having a concubine is wicked, okay? If you're going to sleep with somebody, it should be somebody that you've made a vow to and sworn an oath that it will be till death do you part, you and her, or you and him if you're a lady, that you'll become one flesh and what God has joined together, let not man put asunder. You should not ever lie with someone that you're not married to. That's what the Bible teaches. That's what a concubine is. Someone that you're lying with that you're not married to. And it's ungodly. It should be kept within marriage. So he's got his wives, his concubines that they might drink therein. Notice that when someone sins, you know, they always want other people to participate in the sin with them. You know, it's not enough for him to desecrate the vessels of God's house. These vessels that have been sanctified and set apart to be used for the house of God back when the tabernacle was built, later when the temple was built, he has to get everybody else to drink with them. He's got to get everybody else to use these sacred holy vessels from God's house to drink liquor and to praise false gods. Everyone will always try to get you to participate in their sin, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. Adam was told by Eve to eat the fruit because she didn't want to be in sin alone. And misery loves company. And whenever anybody gets backslidden, and whenever anybody goes into sin, they always want to take as many people into sin with them because misery loves company and because nobody wants to be the only one in sin. And so, notice that in this story as well. They drank wine, verse 4, and praised the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand and rode over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace. And the king saw the part of the hand that rode. It doesn't say that anybody else saw it. I don't know if anybody else did, but it just makes a point to say that the king personally happened to be looking in the exact direction. There was a candlestick on the wall, so it was probably kind of a darker corner. There's a candlestick there, and the wall is made of plaster. And it doesn't say that there was a hand, but just fingers of a man's hand. Now, isn't that creepy? Yeah, that's why this is a story that appeals to children. I thought this was a really cool story when I was a kid. And they're just fingers only, not a hand. Just the fingers of a man's hand riding upon the wall. Well, Nebuchadnezzar... I'm not Nebuchadnezzar, good night. I hope I haven't been saying that this whole time, have I? Belshazzar, all right? Belshazzar sees the part of the hand that rode on the wall. And it says in verse 6, 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. Now, this is a very powerful man, right? The most powerful man in the world. The ruler of the civilized world. The ruler of approximately 127 different provinces. The most powerful man. He has a thousand lords under him that are gathered together at his party, not to mention the wives, the concubine. And this powerful man, this prideful, arrogant man, who's even more prideful due to the influence of alcohol, as soon as he sees those fingers from a hands man, his countenance has changed. He's not so tough anymore. He's not so big anymore. Now all of a sudden, he's so scared that he literally begins to shake and tremble, and his knees smote one another. Now, tell me the truth. Who here has been so afraid in your life that you have begun to shake in fear? I know, I know I have. Where you actually began to shake uncontrollably, because it's true. I mean, if you really get scared, I mean, if you're really in a position where you're afraid, you'll begin to shake. And he became so afraid that his muscles and his legs basically start causing his knees to hit together. He was so scared. He was extremely scared. You see, when God confronts the most prideful, arrogant atheist on that judgment day of the great white throne, nobody's going to be standing up tall saying, go ahead, send me to hell. Go ahead. Amen. You know, that's where all my friends are. Nobody's going to say that. The Bible says, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. You say, well, I know so-and-so, the atheist, and they would never do that. You know, put that person in hell for about a thousand years, because there's going to be a thousand year millennial reign of Christ at least between the time that that person goes to hell and before they stand before God, that great white throne judgment. Put somebody in hell for a thousand years and when they come out, they're going to fall upon their face and be begging Jesus Christ for mercy. They will call him Lord. They will acknowledge him. They won't say, oh no, I'd rather, you know, reign in hell than serve in heaven. No, there will be no proud look. God is able to bring down the proud looks, the Bible says. He and those that walk in pride, he is able to abate. Don't even think for one second that anybody is so tough and so hardened that God cannot break them down. God can break anyone down. It's called hell. But let me tell you something. It takes a lot less than that to break down most people. Because then, you know, this is just fingers of a man's hand. As soon as he saw this creepy vision, and this is another reason why I don't think he had drunk that much. Because it says he just tasted the wine. I mean, he was just getting started. If he had drunk that much, he might have just thought, well, I'm drunk. You know, so I'm seeing stuff. You know, I don't know what's going on. I don't think he was drunk. I think he just started drinking just a little bit. I mean, he just tasted the wine, started to do this thing where he's desecrating the vessels from God's house, and this begins to happen. He's scared to death. His thoughts troubled him. So the joints of his loins, verse 6, were loosed and his knees smoked one against another. The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake and said to the wise men of Babylon, whoever shall read this writing and show me the interpretation thereof shall be clothed with scarlet and have a chain of gold about his neck and shall be the third ruler of the king. Now, here's another funny thing that I remember from when I was a child, because I love this story. When you're a child, you know, you don't understand everything that you hear in the Bible sometimes. And I remember it said a gold chain around his neck, you know, and the only chain I knew was, like, the chains that we would use when we were attaching a trailer to the truck, you know, and it's like, you know, like, big links of chain. And I pictured, like, a gold chain around it. You know what I mean? Like, a chain. Later on, like, when I was about 12 or 13, I started seeing people with just, like, a little tiny gold neck, was calling it a gold chain. And I was like, oh, that's what I was talking about, you know. I pictured, like, Mr. T or something. You know, like, serious. And I was just thinking, why did he put a gold chain around his neck? Like, you know, why would you wear around a chain? You know, I pictured, like, a big chain. But, you know, he's offering him this necklace. I don't think that Daniel was really into necklaces. And I'm not into necklaces either, by the way. Like, I don't wear a necklace. This is about as radical of an ornament as I get, this tie right here. You know, this is borderline for me. And then, you know, this wedding ring is about as far as I'm gonna go. I'm not really one to just ornament myself, like a Christmas tree. And I don't think Daniel really was either. But, you know, this is what the world is looking for in life, right? Fancy clothes, clothes in scarlet, the gold chain. You know, you got your gold chain, you got your scarlet clothing. And a proclamation concerning him, you know, that he's the third ruler in the kingdom. Now, when these things are offered to Daniel, look what it says in verse 17. Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself and give thy rewards to another. Yet I will read the writing unto the king and make known to him the interpretation. He said, you know, I don't even want the reward. I'll tell you what it means, but I don't want the reward. Now, think about this. Do you know about how old Daniel was at this time? He's an older man because of the fact that he was taken captive when he was a young person. Children is what they called him. Maybe teenagers. We don't know what they meant by children. The Bible used that word to encompass a large age group there. But he says children, and this is pretty close to 70 years later. This is way later. And so we don't know exactly how long, you know, we can get in the ballpark, but we're talking about a man that's over 70 years old, you know, 80 years old, something like that. He's an older guy and he has a lot of wisdom. He's been around a long time because here's what you have to understand. If you flip back to Jeremiah, I'm going to kind of prove that to you a little bit that he was that old, but look at Jeremiah 52. We know that the captivity of the children of Israel lasted for 70 years, okay? And when Daniel was taken captive, that would start for 70 years, about that time. And then in the first year of Cyrus, commanding for the temple to be rebuilt and sending some of them back, we know that that is when the captivity ended, 70 years later. And the Medes and the Persians are the ones who basically invade and destroy Belshazzar's kingdom. Look at Jeremiah 52. It says in verse 31, it came to pass in the 7th and 30th year of the captivity of Jehoiachin. Now, Jehoiachin was one that went captive pretty close to the time that Daniel went captive, okay? So 37 years after Daniel goes to Babylon and the 37th year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, verse 31, king of Judah, in the 12th month, in the 5th and 20th day of the month, that Evel Merodach, king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison. So we see here that 37 years after the children of Israel have been taken captive, Nebuchadnezzar is no longer king. He's probably died, and so therefore this other king, Evel Merodach, takes over. Now, this was probably Nebuchadnezzar's son. Because of the fact, go back to Daniel 5, if you would. In Daniel chapter 5, the king's name is Belshazzar, and it says that Belshazzar is the son of Nebuchadnezzar. However, and he also calls Nebuchadnezzar his father. However, all throughout the Bible, the words son and father also refer to a grandson or a grandfather. You won't see that word as much. For example, Jesus called the son of David, you know, and thy father David is said to a lot of the younger kings following David. So it probably was Nebuchadnezzar and then his son Evel Merodach 37 years later, and then after that, this young man Belshazzar. They could have been brothers, could have been something else, but because of the 70-year difference, it's probably more like a grandson, Belshazzar. Now, one thing about his name that's interesting is that if you remember Daniel's name was changed to Belteshazzar, which is only two letters different than Belshazzar. Remember how he gave Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego those names? And he changed Daniel's name to Belteshazzar. So Belshazzar could have been named after Belteshazzar. Possible. But both of them were named after a false god, Bel, because Belteshazzar, the name given to Daniel, was according to the name of Nebuchadnezzar's god, Bel. That was explained, I believe, in chapter number 4. And so this guy is named after the same false god. Maybe he was named after Daniel and didn't even know it. We don't know. But he calls for all the astrologers and the soothsayers and all these different people, and he offers them these great rewards that the world would be excited about. God's people wouldn't really be excited about a gold chain and a scarlet. You know, I'm not going to wear a scarlet suit, personally. You know, I stick with more conservative clothes. I don't even wear like a bright red suit or anything. But anyway, verse 8, it says, Then came in all the king's wise men, but they could not read the writing nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof. Then was King Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonished. Like they were astonished. They were perplexed. Now, the queen, by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banquet house. Now, that tells me that she probably was not already in the banquet house, where his wives and concubines were. So the queen is probably his mother, someone older. Okay, because, you know, she is not his wife because his wives were already in the party. And she's older because she remembers back to the time of Daniel, because Daniel's been kind of off the scene. He hasn't really been a key player in a while. She has to remind him of who Daniel even is, even though he used to be a very powerful leader under Nebuchadnezzar. The queen, by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banquet house, and the queen spake and said, O king, live forever. Let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed. There is a man in thy kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. Now, is that true? No. Not the spirit of the holy gods. He did have the spirit of God upon him, but not the spirit of the holy gods, because there is only one God. The Bible is very clear on this. That there is one God, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all. God said in Isaiah 43, 10, Before me there was no God for him, neither shall there be after me. I am the Lord, and there is none else, and beside me there is no savior. Isaiah 43, 10. But she says, In whom is the spirit of the holy gods? And in the days of thy father, light and understanding wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods was found in him. Whom the king Nebuchadnezzar, thy father, the king I say, thy father, master of the magicians, astrologers, chaldeans, and soothsayers, for as much as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and showing of harsh sentences, and dissolving of doubts were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belchazar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation. Now, these words that are used to describe these adjectives and other attributes that are listed about Daniel, they keep coming up in chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five. These and chapter six as well. These attributes keep being brought up. A word that you find over and over is the word excellent. Have you noticed that? All throughout the book of Daniel, almost every chapter in the beginning, excellent, excellent, excellent. Now, we might just throw that word around and not really think about it, but look at the root of the word excellent, excel. What does excel mean? It means to go beyond what someone else is doing, to go further, to excel, okay? And an excellent spirit, someone who's excellent, excellence is basically going above and beyond, not just going to your job, because we want to be like Daniel. I mean, Daniel's one of the greatest men listening to the Bible. He's praised all throughout other parts of the Bible. You don't want to go to work and just do the minimum, right? You want to be excellent. You want to excel. You don't want to just study and let's say you're a child and you're in school right now or homeschooled or, you know, you want to excel at everything you do. The Bible says, Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. Anything that's worth doing is worth excelling at. We should want to excel, not be mediocre. There's nothing average about Daniel. He was 10 times better than the other worldly guys that he was compared with in chapter 1. He was found to be 10 times better inasmuch as an excellent spirit was found in him. And excellence begins with an excellent spirit, with an attitude that says, I want to do my best at everything. I don't want to just see what other people are doing and match that and just fit in on my job and say, Oh, okay, this is what people are doing. I think I'm going to do about the same thing. This is what someone else is doing. So if I can do that level, if I can live up to so-and-so. No, an excellent spirit says, Let's just see how high we can go. Let's go past what I see anybody doing. Let's take it to a whole new level. That's what excellence means. So it's a great word. If you look at it and study it throughout the Bible, and it's applied most to Daniel because he was an excellent man because he had an excellent spirit. What are some of the other attributes? An excellent spirit, knowledge. Knowledge is something that we should strive to acquire. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Fools don't like to learn. But a wise man will increase learning, the Bible says, and will attain unto wise counsels. He'll learn. He'll want to grow in knowledge. The Bible's clear that we should grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You ought to be growing in knowledge. You say, Well, I've been in church for 20 years. You should be growing in knowledge because you don't know it all. I don't know it all. I'm constantly, every week, learning new things from the Bible, constantly. Now, sometimes if you know a lot about the Bible, sometimes you have to read a little more before you're always learning something new. But a lot of that is just because you don't see everything that's there. How many scriptures I've had memorized for years and then after quoting it, you know, because all the chapters that I've memorized, I quote them once a month to keep them fresh, to keep them sharp. How many times I've had somebody preach a sermon or show me something in the Bible out of a chapter that I've had memorized for four years, five years. I've quoted it once a month from memory. And when I learned it, I went through it hundreds of times. And again, I say, I never thought of that, never seen that. I mean, the Bible's deep. We ought to want to grow in knowledge. And, you know, there are two kinds of people that come to Faith Ward Baptist Church. There are a lot of people who come to our church and after about six months or a year or two years, here's what they think. Oh, I've learned everything that Pastor Anderson has to teach and now I know everything. There are people who literally have that attitude. And then there are people who can come here for three or four years and still come with an attitude of wanting to learn. Now, let me explain to you why you don't know everything that Pastor Anderson has to teach. Number one is because I don't even know everything that I have to teach because of the fact that I'm going to learn something new by next Sunday. And I'm constantly learning new things and therefore I'm constantly preaching new things, okay? So therefore, you're never going to get to a point where I already know everything that you... And then the second reason is that a lot of times the very people who think they know everything, you know where they got most of that knowledge from? From me. And then they think they can't learn anything from me. And it's funny because, you know, if you read the Bible on your own, the people who read the Bible the most on their own are the people who learn the most when they come to church. And you think it'd be the opposite, like you think that somebody who didn't know any Bible at all would come to church and everything would be new to them. But you know what? It's the people who read the Bible the most that get the most out of the preaching and learn the most. Because the more you know, the more you have, the more will be given unto you. And so the people who've been coming to this church the longest, the people who've listened to the most preaching are the ones who are honestly learning the most. And it's kind of ironic that the people who have listened to the least preaching and done the least Bible reading learn the least. Even though you think, well, it's all new to them. No. Because it's an attitude of learning. It's an attitude of coming to a sermon to learn. And you know, I don't listen to a lot of preaching because I'm the pastor, so I don't really listen to a lot of preaching. You know, but when I do listen to preaching, I come with an attitude of wanting to learn and wanting to take something from it. And I usually cannot listen to a sermon without learning something. You know, and I've been in church for a long time, I've listened to a lot of preaching, I've read a lot of Bible, I've preached a lot of sermons. But yet every time I go to some other, sometimes I'll go to another church, either it's a lame sermon or I usually pick up something because the Bible's so deep. And if somebody's preaching the Bible for 45 minutes or an hour, I guarantee you I'm learning. I'm learning, I'm applying it, I'm getting truth. You know, and I don't get preaching as often, but when I do, I hang on every word. That's how I listen to preaching. I like to hang on every word and just listen to everything and get the most out of it. Be a person who loves to learn. And not just on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Learn throughout the week, study your Bible. And even areas of life besides the Bible. On your job, try to learn everything that you can. Read books, learn things. Don't just go through life just amusing, amusement. You know, if you were to say the word amusement, A means not, muse means think. So amusement is just like something that you do to not think. Not thinking. You know, it's just kind of an amusement. It's just kind of a thoughtless fun. And there's nothing wrong with just blowing off a little steam, having a little fun sometimes. But you know, is that your whole life? Recreation, amusement, leisure. You know, do something with your life and be a person who wants to learn and know more. Come to church to learn. And by the way, I wouldn't go to a church where I don't learn anything. I wouldn't go there. I wouldn't do it. Say, oh, but they're doctrinally right and they're winning souls. I need to learn. I want to learn something. There's too much in the Bible to learn. Life is too short to listen to preaching where I learn nothing. I don't have time for it. If I'm going to invest three hours a week listening to preaching, it's going to be something that I'm learning. I'll promise you that. Right. And so we got to come with an attitude of wanting to learn. So what characterizes Daniel? An excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting of dreams, and showing of hard sentences. So he was a smart guy. And he was a guy who knew God. He knew the Bible. He knew the Spirit of God. But this is the part that I love the most. And dissolving of doubts. Okay. Now you see, the devil is the king of doubt. What was the first thing that the devil did in the Garden of Eden? He just cast a doubt. He didn't say, God lied to you. He just said, Yea, hath God said? You shall not eat of every tree in the garden? He just asked a question. Just kind of put doubt in their mind. Is that really what God said? And then the next thing he did was, he didn't even say, you shall not die. He said, you shall not surely die. So he's saying, you're not for sure going to die here. You know, he didn't even say you're not going to die. He just said, you're not for sure going to die. I mean, are you sure? Did God really even say that? Did you hear God say that? Oh, you heard it in the second half from Adam. Your husband, okay. Well, are you sure that maybe God's not just trying to withhold something from you? I mean, look how good the tree looks. He just puts doubt in the mind. And then her own mind and her own heart decided to taste that the fruit of the tree and the knowledge of good and evil and commit sin. And the devil has always been someone who just wants to put doubt in people's minds. Look at Matthew 4 when he texts Jesus. He said, If thou be the son of God. He didn't say you're not the son of God or you are. He just said, well, if you are, I'm not saying you're not. You know, but it's still questioning it, isn't it? If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made great. Then he starts bringing up some other promises of God and misapplying them. He's taking them up into the pinnacle of the temple. And the devil says unto Jesus, If thou be the son of God, and I'm not saying you're not, but if thou be the son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. He says, you know, are you sure that God's really going to protect you like he said he would? Why not throw yourself down if you are the son of God? He's trying to put doubt in Jesus's mind that he really was the son of God. Trying to get him to doubt God's word. Of course, he was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin. And so he did not stand, he did not doubt. He did not follow the devil's commands. He told him, get away from, you know, get thee hence, Satan, for it is written. And then so forth. Jesus said unto him, it is written again, and I shall not tempt the Lord thy God. And so we see that the devil's the king of doubt. Now, I've heard some preaching. I've sat in a sermon before, and that sermon created doubt. More than it dissolved doubt. And I remember, I'm like mixing the words specific and particular. Oh, a particular sermon I'm thinking of right now, a specific sermon. Where I walked out and said, I feel like I've just been preached to by the devil. Because the sermon did nothing but create doubt. That's all it was. Doubt is not from God. God's spirit is in the business of dissolving doubts. Okay, now look, it's normal to have a doubt. Are you going to doubt things in your life? But God is not the one sending you doubts. God is not the spirit of doubt here. He is the God of dissolving doubts, okay? Let me give you an example. Have you ever been in a church where everybody doubts their salvation, or tons of people doubt their salvation? And you're constantly talking to people and they're doubting whether they're saved? No, if you're not saved, you ought to doubt whether you're saved. You know, if you don't trust Christ as your savior and know for sure that you're believing fully on what he did on the cross, nothing good that you're doing, no good works, you know. But if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, and you know for sure, you believe the record that God gave to his son, that God has given to us eternal life, and his life is in his son. You know, you believe it's by faith, that it's eternal, that you can't lose it, that it's not your works. I mean, it's all with Jesus. You know, there's no reason to doubt your salvation, is there? Because the Bible is true. He's promised us that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. And so, the Bible will dissolve doubts. But yet, I've been to so many churches and so many places where lots of people doubted their salvation, will wrestle with it, and yet, Faithful Word Baptist Church has never been one of those places. Have you noticed that? I mean, just talking to your fellow church members. I mean, there are people who are new or so. But like, you talk to people in our church who've been here for any length of time, and man, they know their faith. They don't have any doubt about it. They're solid on it. They're clear on it. Because why? The clear preaching of God's word dissolves doubts. I preached a sermon called Doubting Your Salvation a while back. You can listen to that sermon. I mean, it'll dissolve the doubt. But I've been to so many places where people are just constantly doubting their salvation, and they keep coming down the aisle and, you know, getting re-saved. I'm just making sure again, you know. But then they do it again. And I'm not criticizing those people, but it's a problem with the preaching. Because I can remember doubting my salvation sometimes growing up, because of the preaching I was getting, that was sending all kinds of mixed messages about what salvation was, confusion, conflicting. You know, one minute it's belief. You know, and then it's like, well, you have to repent of your sins. And, you know, you're like, what? And you're not sure what that means, to repent of your sins, you know. Well, you know, how repentant do you have to be? You know, which ones do you have to repent of? You know, it just kind of brings confusion. Another thing that you'll hear a lot that can confuse you, you know, one minute it's, it's believe on Christ, you know, believe on Jesus Christ, but then you'll hear this kind of preaching. You know, if you're still struggling with the same sin, you know, you keep struggling with that sin for years or for months, and you can't, you know, if you're still struggling with that same sin, you're not safe. Who's that preached? I've heard that many times. You know, if you are still struggling with the same sin in your life, you're not safe. I got news for you. The flesh that causes you to sin, the flesh, the simple flesh that you live in, that wars against the Spirit, and the Spirit warth against the flesh, and the two are contrary, the one to another, since you cannot do the things you're with, it will never change. Your flesh will never change. Your flesh has to die one day. You know, and if you want to live in the Spirit, you got to die daily. You know, it's a constant battle with the flesh. If you think that your appetite for sin, or your struggle with sin is ever going to end, you're wrong. It's never going to end. Now you can get the victory over certain sins and move on, but you know what, I guarantee you, you will be tempted by sin for the rest of your life, because you're a human being, because you're in the flesh, you will sin. If even the Apostle Paul could sit there and say, hey, the things I would do, I do not, he's like, I do things I don't want to do, oh righteous man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of the dead? He said, the flesh is causing me to sin. If John, the great Apostle said, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not us, I guarantee you, sin is always going to be present with you. And so this kind of preaching just breeds doubt and confusion that says, oh, you know, if you're still in the same sin, you know, if you're still smoking after all these years, and you can't get past that, you're probably not safe. That's a lie. Where is that? That's not found in the Bible. There's no teaching like that in the Bible. I see people in the Bible who kept struggling with the same sins sometimes, and they were saved though. Look at Samson. That guy struggled with a lot of the same sins over and over again. It was always women that was his downfall. You know, I'm not excusing him for giving in to that temptation. But there's no scripture in the Bible that says, if you're still struggling with the same sin, you're not safe. But I would hear that kind of preaching, and it would cause doubt. You know, you're like, is that true? Here's another thing that would cause doubt. People would talk about realizing that they're not saved, but being afraid to come down the aisle, and so putting off getting saved for months, because they were nervous about coming down the aisle. And then you stop and think, why would you have to come down the aisle to be saved? Do you have to come down the aisle to believe? Do you have to come down the aisle to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and call upon Him? You know, why would you have to come down the aisle, and do it in front of the whole church? But see, this kind of teaching will breed confusion, and it will bring doubt. Bible preaching that's the right kind of preaching dissolves doubt. Other preaching that will cause you to doubt God's Word, is basically preaching that quote-unquote, goes back to the Greek. And let me tell you something, I'm sick of it. I'm through with it. You know, I'm sick of going back to the Greek, and here's why. Here's why I'm totally sick of it. This is why the preacher goes back to the Greek, okay? It has nothing to do with trying to teach you the Bible. You know, on Sunday morning I preached about it. You know, I preached about speaking in another tongue, from 1 Corinthians 14. It's about edifying himself. It's about lifting himself up. Let me prove it to you. Because if you truly had to go back to the Greek, to get the true meaning of God's Word, and obviously we already, you know, I believe that it's available in every language, you don't have to go. But if you truly had to go back to the Greek, to get the meaning of God's Word, well then couldn't that preacher just in his own study, go back to the Greek, make sure he has the right interpretation, you know, he's just double checking with the Greek, and then just preach what the Bible means. Preach what it really means. Why would he have to get up and tell you the Greek Word, that you don't understand? Do you understand what I'm saying? Like if it was really something where there was a verse, that was a little bit ambiguous, the word ambiguous means something can mean one of two things. Hmm, I wonder what this means. If he really felt like if he went back to the Greek, he's going to settle it, you know, a language that he doesn't even speak, then wouldn't he just go back, settle that, and then just preach what it actually, just preach it right. Okay, I'll preach it right. But no, no, no, he has to get up and tell you, now the Greek word here, you know, it's metanoia. You know, and therefore, you know, it means, when it says repent, it means a change of mind, because the Greek word is metanoia, and that's what metanoia means. You know, why doesn't he just say that's what repent means? But no, no, no, he's got to tell you, no, no, no, you go back to the Greek, because it lifts him up. I mean, look, metanoia, repent, meta, you know, like a metamorphosis, right? Noya, like paranoia, you know, metanoia, like how about this, repent, like rethink, like pensar, pensaje, pensamientos, you know. It's like you can sit there and do all this talk, it's stupid, why not just look in the Bible and see what it says, and you know what it does, it creates doubt. Let me tell you how it creates doubt, because you'll be looking in the Bible, and all of a sudden, somebody will get up and tell you, well, it actually means this if you go back to the, and you know what you're going to doubt? Well, I don't, can I even understand this book without going to this foreign language? Oh, man, I don't even know if this is really right, because the pastor just explained some meaning that I've never heard of, that I can't see it written in the scriptures, because whenever somebody goes back to the Greek, they're doing one of two things. They're either telling you something that you already know, because you can see it right there in English. Like, you know, if you go back into the Greek here, the word repent means repent, you know, isn't that cool? So if you go back to the Greek here, the word world is actually, you know, kosmos, which is world, isn't that cool? You know, or, which that's dumb, or they're going back to the Greek to tell you something that is not apparent from reading it, and therefore, it's made up. It's some made up thing that they're putting in that wasn't really there. You see what I'm saying? So it's like, either they're adding to God's word, or they're stating the obvious. Right. But it creates doubt in the mind of the person in the pew that they have God's word, number one, or that they can never understand God's word without the aid of someone interpreting it into another language. That's the whole point of having the Bible in English, so we don't need an interpreter. Everybody, I'll show people the Bible, I'll say, here, says it right there. Well, that's just how you interpret that. I'm like, well, I'm not interpreting it, it's in English. We don't need an interpreter. You know, if I'm speaking Swahili, I'll get an interpreter. And so, dissolving of doubts, my friend, my goal in preaching is to get you to have faith in God's word, not to doubt it. To have faith that you're saved, to know that you have eternal life, not to doubt that you're saved, not to get up here and try to make you doubt that you're saved. Now, if you're not saved, you ought to doubt it. But if you believe what the Bible teaches about salvation, there's no reason to doubt it. And so, let's dissolve the doubt. But I got it very up here, I'm running out of time. It said, now let Daniel be called, he'll show the interpretation. Verse 13, Daniel was brought before the king. And basically, just to make a long story short, Belshazzar begins to recount everything that the queen just told him. Brings up again the excellent spirit, dissolving of doubts. Daniel answers him after he tells him everything that we've already heard in the chapter. It says in verse 17, then Daniel answered and said, for the king left thy gifts be to thyself and give thy rewards to another. Yet I will read the writing unto the king and make known to him the interpretation. O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom and majesty and glory and honor. And he basically explains the story of what happened last week. We already went forward into Daniel 5 last week and read this. So let's jump down to verse number 23. But us lifted up thyself, Daniel's accusing Belshazzar of, against the Lord of heaven. You see, it wasn't enough for Belshazzar to just be drunk and a whoremonger. When he started tampering with God's house, when he lifted up himself against God, he went too far, is what Daniel's telling him. And he says, you've lifted up yourself 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 has 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, has thou not glorified. Then was the part of the hand sent from him and this writing was written. This reminds me of Romans 1, because that when they knew God, they glorified him, not as God. Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. The God in whose hand thy breath is, isn't that an interesting thought, that God holds your breath in his hand? So that just means at any moment, you can just go like this. That's right. And I can't breathe. You know God has the power to do that, right? God can just make your heart stop beating in the next moment, it's true. God, in him all things consist. I mean, he is the one that holds your breath in his hand. And he says, you haven't glorified him. You haven't praised him. You haven't lifted him up and exalted him to his true position. And he says, this is the writing that was written. Mene, Mene, Tykel, Eufarsin. This is the interpretation of the thing. Now, when he interprets it here, he's not just going to simply translate the four words. He's going to give the interpretation. Because if you remember, Belshazzar had asked her two things. He said, I want someone to read the writing to me. And I want someone to give me the interpretation. So we don't know what kind of an alphabet was used here in this writing. Might have been something that his wise men couldn't even read. Like for example, a lot of languages don't use our Latin alphabet, do they? You look at Arabic, it just looks like a bunch of squiggly lines. Korean, Japanese, Chinese. Whatever language this was, it was not even something that they could pronounce. The soothsayers and the Chaldeans. They came in, they couldn't read it, they couldn't interpret it. They said, I don't know what that is. You know, I'm not saying it was one of those languages, but it could have been something that they didn't quite understand how to read. So he's going to read it to him, and he's going to give him the interpretation as in what it means. He explains it point by point. This is the interpretation of the thing. Mimi. God have numbered thy kingdom and finished it. Now another question that I had in my mind as a child was, how can you fit so much meaning into one word? You know, is there one of that, you know? You know, Mimi. God have numbered thy kingdom and finished it. Tikil. Thou are weighed in the balance and thou are found. This is a really concise language. Pires. Thy kingdom is divided and given to the means and persons. Now let me explain this real quick, because I love language, so I really enjoy this part of the chapter, because foreign languages is my forte. This is the interpretation of the thing. What one word is here? This is just one word, and he's explaining what it means. So this word Mimi, okay, basically probably just means numbered, like your days are numbered, okay? And he's reading into it and explaining what it means. God has numbered thy kingdom and finished it. Tikil. Thou are weighed in the balances and are found wanting. So he's basically explaining the choice of words. But notice the difference in verse 28. Do you notice the difference in the word? Does that say Ufarsin at the beginning of verse 28? It says Pires. Because you see, words go through changes when they're used as different parts of speech, okay? Like here, Ufarsin. Look at the word Ufarsin, and you can see the same building blocks as the word Pires, right? Because you can see the P there right after the U. You can see the R is there. The S is there. Just a difference in vowels, a little bit of a difference there. Now, our English language doesn't really do this as much. We don't get too radical with our words in English. You know, we pretty much have car, and it pretty much becomes cars. You know, you can add an S on the end. But other languages like Spanish, for example, you can have a pretty big difference when you put it into a different part of speech. Like Conocer can become Conosco, you know? Or Saber can become Se, Jose, or Sabe, or Sabemos. You know, so you pick up a lot of letters, right? When you put things in it. So basically, he's just explaining the root word. Basically, Daniel is saying that the root word of Ufarsin is basically Pires, which means thy kingdom is divided. So that word probably means divided and given to the means in Persian. Now, there's another word used in the Bible, Pires. And I don't know if these two words are related at all, but the word Pires in the Bible, if you remember, there was a guy named Pires, and he was named Pires back in the book of Genesis when it was said, how hast thou broken forth? Okay, notice the word broken forth. So they called his name Pires. Well, then later on, there was a guy named Uzzah. You remember Uzzah? He put forth his hand and touched the ark as the ark came by on a new cart. And because it was stumbling and he was afraid he was going to fall over, he touched the ark. Well, no one was ever allowed to touch the ark. And God killed him. And they named the place Pires Uzzah because God had made it a breach upon Uzzah. So the word breach is another form, older English. Broken becomes breach. A breach is a break. We would use the modern word break now, breach. So that word means like broken or breach. And I can see a relationship between broken and breach with the word Pires. So I don't know if there's a relationship there or not, but it's very possible because the two divided and broken, you can see how those two words can come from the same root possibly, divided and broken, okay? Because when things are broken, they're usually divided, okay? Just a thought on that. Probably nobody else interested in that, but I am. In verse number 29, it says, then commanded Belshazzar. So what did he say? Let's just boil it down. He says, guess what? Your time is up. Your days are numbered. You are weighed in the balances and found wanting. And by the way, if any of our good works were laid in the balances, we would be found wanting too. It's only by grace of God that we're not consumed, okay? He says, thy kingdom is divided and given to the means and persons. So the means and persons are going to take over and divide the kingdom between themselves. It says that, this is my favorite part of the story. Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet and put a chain of gold about his neck, not the big chain I pictured as a kid, but probably something smaller, I don't know, and made a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. In that night was Belshazzar, the king of Dachau, the enslaved, and Darius the mead took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old. Isn't that funny? Does anybody else think that's funny? That's my favorite part of the story. Like he just made, he's like, man, thank you so much for interpreting that for me. It's like he doesn't even get it, but it's bad news. Oh man, this is, thank you so much, go get those clothes. And he's the third ruler in the kingdom for about five minutes. That position didn't last very long because the kingdom is gone that night. So he was the third ruler in the kingdom for about an hour. Isn't that funny? I mean, he's just, oh great, thank you so much. And he makes this big proclamation and that night he's killed. Now you have to imagine this. And you say, well, you need to study the history and understand, you know, I don't study the history of things in the Bible because of the fact that the people who write history books that pertain to biblical times have an agenda many times of creating doubt, of creating confusion, of misleading because whenever people start going to the history and the culture of the times, I find that they're always contradicting the Bible is what I've noticed. They're always contradicting what the Bible says. Well, if you study the culture, it was actually like that. And it'll be like contradict something I know from scripture. This is the only thing I know is true. Amen. Amen. The only thing I know is true is what is in the book. I don't know that anything else is true. But I can look at a historical account of Cyrus the Great, of Darius and me. I can read the historical account of how they invaded Jerusalem because, you know, it is in the history books, obviously, that they came, they invaded Jerusalem. But I don't really know that that's true. I like to just stick with what I know here. Praise you. And here's what we know. We know that Belshazzar did not see this coming at all. That's right. Because he was just partying and drinking and he had a thousand of his Lords in the meeting with them. They're not out getting ready for an attack or an assault. Now, if there were a thousand of the Lords there, plus wise, plus kite, this is a huge gathering of people. And I promise you that he had bodyguards or soldiers or, I mean, he's the king of basically the largest empire that the world had ever seen or has seen after that, okay? The head of gold, if you remember, of the four kingdoms mentioned in Daniel chapter two. He didn't see this coming at all. But let me ask you this. Do you think that just overnight the Medes and the Persians just decided to, you know, get in their chariots and just, let's go give this a shot? I mean, there must have been a huge amount. Think about this now. There must have been a huge amount of planning to overthrow the largest government in the world, the most powerful man in the world, the most powerful government when he's right there with a thousand of his Lords, when he's right there in the heart of his kingdom in Babylon, in the palace, behind the walls, behind the gates. Think about the planning that would have had to go into it for the Medes and the Persians to defeat this kingdom. I mean, it had to have been years and years and years of planning. I've heard people say all kinds of things, you know, that they had built a tunnel, that, you know, I'm not saying that that's not just possible. I mean, maybe they did build a tunnel. I don't know. The Bible doesn't tell us, therefore, we don't need to know because if we needed to know, God wouldn't tell us. But I'll tell you this right now. There was some serious planning that went into this. And that means that long before the handwriting came on the wall, this was already happening. His destruction was already being planned. This was already ordained years and years before. And you know what? People boast against God. They can say whatever they want. They can be cuffed up like Belshazzar was. But you know, the clock is ticking for everyone. I mean, the clock is ticking. It's appointed unto men once to die, and after this, the judgment. And you know, basically, the clock is ticking. Everyone will die that's an unbeliever. The only way you're not going to die is if Jesus Christ died for you. Because that's what that passage means. And as it's appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. And unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without the sin of the salvation. Everyone who is not saved will die. Jesus said, Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. But it's just a matter of time. It's just a question of time. No matter how big they talk, no matter what they say, no matter what they do. Every minute that goes by in their life is just one minute closer to going to hell. Think about that. It's just one last second until the judgment comes. Until destruction comes. And so we ought to realize that sometimes God's hand of judgment, we say, Where is it? As they said in Malachi chapter 2, Where is the God of judgment? Where is all this judgment that all these preachers are preaching about? You know, they preach all this destruction and doom and gloom. Where is it? And God said, Oh, it's coming. Don't worry about it. It's on its way. And so understand the fact of how God operates. God is working behind the scenes. We don't know it, but God is bringing judgment and retribution to evil doers. And it doesn't always come right away. It doesn't always come right at the moment that we think it should come. But it's coming. Don't ever think that people are getting away with anything. No one will ever get away with anything. As far as an outward prayer. Father, thank you so much for this great story. It's a fascinating story about a man who began to drink and be God and praise a bunch of wicked false gods until he saw the fingers of a man's hand writing a cryptic message on the wall. And God, just help us not to be deceived by the world. Help us not to be deceived like a Belshazzar that thinks that life is all about scarlet clothes and gold chains around your neck and drinking and partying and sleeping around and everything he was involved in. It didn't do him any good in the night that his soul was taken from him and he dropped into hell. Father, please help us not to follow this world. This world's going to hell. Help us not to pattern ourselves after people who are going to hell. Help us not to drink what they drink or live the fornicating lifestyle that they live. Help us to live a holy, clean, and righteous and separated life and have an excellent spirit like Daniel. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.