Ever wondered how the mighty empire of Babylon fell in just one night? This study explores Daniel 5, where King Belshazzar’s defiance led to a shocking judgment. We’ll examine the mysterious handwriting on the wall—"Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin"—and why God used Cyrus to fulfill prophecy centuries in advance (Isaiah 44–45).

Transcript

Open your Bibles to Daniel chapter five. We're going to be looking at the night that Babylon fell.
2,654 years ago, that is in 539 BC, an event occurred that rocked the world. The greatest city of the ancient world of its day fell to its enemies almost without a fight. It was Babylon. And in this lesson, we'll ask what happened the night Babylon fell, and what we can learn from this event about God and his rule over the nations and the nature of biblical prophecy.
We'll see that this event was surrounded by some of the most amazing prophetic revelations in scripture. It serves as the centerpiece of God's argument in Isaiah that He is the only God. Therefore deserves the worship of all mankind. And it's also a key event in the life of Daniel, which is one of the characters that we're in the midst of studying right now.
Yet many of the details of this world shaking event remain virtually unknown today. But as we examine them together this morning, we will find much to build our faith and prompt our reverence and worship for the God of heaven and earth.

The Feast of Belshazzar

And we'll notice first of all, that God foretold the fall of Babylon, the day it happened. In Daniel chapter five, verse one, "Belshazzer, the king held a great feast for 1000 of his nobles and he was drinking wine in the presence of the thousand. When Belshazzer tasted the wine, he said to bring the gold and silver vessel, which it Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple, which was in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. And they brought the gold vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God that would in Jerusalem. And the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. They drank the wine and they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

The Mysterious Handwriting

Suddenly the fingers of a man's hand came out and began writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace.
And the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing and the splendor of the king's face changed, and his hips joints went slack and his knees were knocking against each other. Then the king called out loudly to bring in the conjurers, the chaldeans, and the diviners.
The king answered and said to the wise men of Babylon, 'Any man who can read this writing and declare its interpretation to me shall be clothed with purple and have a necklace of gold around his neck and rule with power as third ruler in the kingdom'".
There's a massive drinking party in Babylon, the capital city of the Babylonian Empire. And it's interrupted by a miraculous event. The fingers of this man's hand comes forth. They see this vision of something being written on the wall, and we see the emotional impact it has on King Belshazzar as he can hardly hold himself together.
And of course, why not be king if you don't have wise men and counselors to advise you? And so he's calling them in and asking for help. "What does this mean? Can you interpret this message? So were these wise men able to help King Belshazzer in his highly disturbed state? All the wise king's wise men came, but they could not read the writing nor make known to the king.
The Queen, this is not Belshazzar's wife. She Is probably the queen mother from a previous generation of the royalty. She comes in and reminds him of Babylonian history that there is one of the wise men that hasn't been called yet who had been in prominence in Nebuchadnezzar's day. From our previous study in the book of Daniel, we know how he rose to prominence under King Nebuchadnezzar and gained great favor because of the blessings that God gave him to be able to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dream and stand for what was right in Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom. Even giving him personal advice about turning away from wickedness and turning to righteousness. Most recently in Daniel chapter four when a dream of judgment came on King Nebuchadnezzar.
The Queen says, we need to hear from this Daniel if we want to solve this riddle.

Daniel's Interpretation

Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king said to Daniel," I personally have heard about you that you are able to give interpretations and solve difficult problems. Now, if you are able to read the writing and make its interpretation known to me, you will be clothed with purple and wear a necklace of gold around your neck, and you will rule with power as the third ruler in the kingdom."
And you might wonder why is he offering to make him third ruler in the kingdom? Did he have a really trusted advisor? That was his number two man. And Daniel could be promoted up to third position, but not second. The reason for that, although it's not explained in the book of Daniel, we find out actually from reading Babylonian history that Belshazzar was, although he was king his father was the high King and he was essentially the king regent underneath his father, Nebodinus. Nebuchadnezzar then would be a grandfather or even a prior generation to that.
Nebodinus was actually not in Babylon at this time. He was at the head of one of Babylon's armies in the field at the time that these events happened. If Belshazzar had offered him the second place in the kingdom, he would've had to step aside himself because that was the place that he had. So he is offering him the third place in the kingdom.
How does Daniel respond? "Daniel answered and said, before the king "Let your gifts remain with you or let them be given to another. However, I will read the writing to the king and make the interpretation known to him.'"
And so Daniel is going to interpret it, but first he wants to give Belshazzar a little history lesson.
We learned about this amazing series of events the last time we were studying Daniel and Daniel chapter four, where we observe the lengths that God goes to when He is trying to reach somebody. In this case, He was trying to reach Nebuchadnezzar to turn him away from his heart of pride. He definitely got his attention as at the end of chapter four, as a pagan king praising the true God, the God of heaven, affirming that everything that God had done to him , essentially making him like a beast for a temporary period of time, was just and that God knew how to humble those who walk in pride.
And Daniel now is advising a later generation of Babylon's kings and saying, "You would be a lot better king if you remembered what happened to your father." What had Belshazzar done? Verse 22, "Yet you, his son, Belshazzar, have not made your heart lowly, even though you knew all this, but you have raised yourself up against the Lord of heaven, and you have caused the vessels of His house to be brought before you. And you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in Whose hand are your life's breath and all your ways you have not honored. Then the hand was sent from him and this writing was inscribed.
Now, this was the writing that was inscribed: " Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." I don't think it was in some obscure language that couldn't be read by these individuals. It was in their language, but it was interpreting it in a way that anything could be made out of it.
Because these were words that had to do with weights and measures. Each was a word describing various weights and measures in their culture. And to translate it into our terms it would be: " a pound, a pound, a shekel and a half shekel" or something like that. How do we make sense out of that?
Because Daniel had the spirit of the living God, he was able to make sense out of this. And so we read as we go on in verse 25, "This was the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin and this is the interpretation:,
Mene: God has numbered your kingdom and put an it.
Tekel: you have been weighed on the scales and found lacking.
Peres:, -- Upharsin is the plural form of that--. "Your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians." And you can even see the similarity between "Peres" and the Persians who are going to receive his kingdom that had now been divided in two and destroyed.
Belshazzar was convinced that Daniel in fact, had given to him an accurate representation of what this message means. He was the only one of all of his advisors who was able to make an interpretation. And so in verse 29, "Belshazzar said the word and they clothed Daniel with purple and put a necklace of gold around his neck and issued a proclamation concerning him that he would be the third powerful ruler in the kingdom."
That same night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of 62."
So the very day that Babylon fell God brought about these series of events within the kingdom of Babylon, within the city of Babylon issuing a, this declaration of judgment on Belshazzar the Babylonian king.
And Daniel, as the prophet of God, tells him it's because of his lifting himself up in pride against the true God because of defiling the vessels of the temple, of the house of God. And because he had not honored the true God. The result: his kingdom has been numbered and put to an end, his kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
And we were told that same night that very thing happened. This king of Babylon is dead and a Mede, one of the Medes and Persians, is now receiving the kingdom but without any additional explanation.

The Fall of Babylon: Historical Accounts

And so this description of what happened, although it certainly is a fascinating and amazing story of God's miracles and how he used Daniel to to have influence in Persia and to give a tiny bit of warning to the people in Babylon that something bad was happening it does raise a lot of questions.
Like, how is it possible that this city, one of the greatest in the ancient world, could fall in a single night, especially when apparently its rulers who were responsible for its defenses were felt so secure in their position as to be holding a drunken party. Were they unaware that there were any enemies nearby? If there were anyone nearby enough to take over the city that same night, surely the king and his military would be aware of it. So how is that possible? How strong were Babylon's defenses? How were the defenses penetrated and who led the Medo-Persian forces to this great victory?
Like I said, we don't have the answers to any of these questions in the Bible text. We're just given a very brief description of this change in power and the king of Babylon being deposed. But it turns out the more we know about this event, the more amazing it becomes and the more God's glory is manifested.
But to get more information, we'll, need to turn to human history, they're non inspired authors of human history. Three main sources that we have about this event: there's this Cyrus Cylinder which was inscribed 539 to 500 BC. And there is the very famous historian Herodotus, who wrote his histories that tells of this event. His histories were written just a hundred to 150 years of these events taking place (484-435 BC).
And these events were also recorded by another Greek historian Xenophon, in his Cyropaedia about 370 BC. So about 200 years after these events.
And so let's examine the records of these historians. This is Cyrus' Cylinder.
This is one of the very few manuscripts we have of Herodotus' history in the original Greek.
And this is a English translation of Xenophon's Cyropaedia. To give you a visual picture of the sources.
Here's what Herodotus had to say about Babylon itself, and so we'll get a picture of what it was like and what its defenses were. He had this to say: "In Assyria, there are many other great cities, but the most famous and the strongest was Babylon, where the royal dwelling had been established after the destruction of Ninus. Babylon was a city such as I now will describe. It lies in a great plain and is in the shape of a square, each side 15 miles in length. Thus 60 miles make the complete circuit of the city." A massive city!
"Such is the size of the city of Babylon. And it was planned like no other city, which we know. Around it runs first a moat deep and wide, and full of water, and then a wall 83 feet thick, and 333 feet high," A massive wall! He says: "On the top along the edges of the wall they built houses of a single room facing each other with space enough between to drive a four horse chariot.
There are a hundred gates in the circuit of the wall, all of bronze with posts and lentils of the same. The city is divided into two parts; for it is cut in half by a river named Euphrates, a wide, deep and swift river flowing from Armenia and issuing into the Red Sea. The angles of the wall then on either side are built down quite to the river and here they turn. And from the here, a fence of baked bricks runs along each bank of the stream.
"The city itself is full of houses three and four stories high, and the ways that traverse it, those that run crosswise is toward the river and the rest are all straight. Further at the end of each road, there is a gate in the riverside fence, one gate for each alley. These gates also were of bronze, and these two opened on the river.
Here we have an artist's representation or depiction of the city of Babylon attempting to match these details, which we primarily have from Herodotus and the description that we just read. And so you see one half of the city on the right and the edge here of the second half of the city because this is a depiction of that, the center of the river Euphrates flowing through the middle of the city of Babylon, and one of the temples is there, and maybe some of the hanging gardens might be in the background there along with the houses.
And what he described is these bronze gates on the outside of the city, but also bronze gates where the major thoroughfares through the city would cross the river on bridges. But with gates edging the river as well.
Let's continue reading Herodutus describing the enemies who came against the city of Babylon. .
"Cyrus with the first approach of the ensuing spring marched against Babylon. The Babylonians, encamped outside their wall, awaited his coming. A battle was fought at a short distance from the city in which the Babylonians were defeated by the Persian king where upon they withdrew within their defenses.
"Here they shut themselves up and made light of his siege, having laid in a store of provisions for many years in preparation against this attack. When they saw a Cyrus conquering nation after nation, they were convinced he would never stop and that, their turn would come at last.
I skipped a part where Herodotus has actually described how it came about that the river was flowing through the middle of the city. A previous ruler named Netocris had decided this would be a pretty good defense if we could both surround the city with Euphrates River and also have access to the river in the middle of the city as well. And so she actually had a massive project of digging a canal from the Euphrates River to a depression not far from the river bank, and temporarily diverted the Euphrates into this lake that she created there while they were creating the quays and the gates and the moat around the city and then redirected the river to create these defenses.
But Cyrus now has approached the city. He is intending to attack it but he's finding that these preparations made are going to be very difficult to penetrate.
"Cyrus was now reduced to great perplexity as time went on, and he made no progress against the place. In this distress either someone made the suggestion to him or he besought himself of a plan, which he proceeded to put into execution. He placed a portion of his army at the point where the river enters the city and another body at the back of the place where it issues forth with orders to march into the town by the bed of the stream as soon as the water became shallow enough."
And so he's got two major portions of his army, one on this side of Babylon, where the river flows in one on this side where the river flows out saying, I have plans to make the river level drop. When it does, you can invade.
"He then himself drew off with the un warlike part of his host and made for the place Netocris dug the basin for the river where he did exactly what she had done formerly. He turned the Euphrates by a canal into the basin, which was then a marsh upon which the river sank to such an extent that the natural bed of the stream became fordable.
"Hereupon the Persians, who had been left for the purpose at Babylon by the riverside, entered the stream at which had now sunk so as to reach about midway up a man's thigh and thus got into the town."
Listen to this!
"Had the Babylonians been apprised of what Cyrus was about or had they noticed their danger they never would've allowed the Persians to enter the city but would've destroyed them utterly for they would've made fast all the street gates, which gave upon the river and mounting upon the walls along both sides of the streams would have had the enemy caught as it were in the trap."
And we can see what he is talking about there. If we imagine the river level being dropped by these projects going on outside the city and having an enemy trying to invade Babylon, if these bronze gates on the riverside were being defended it would be very difficult to fight up these slopes and get into the city.
But what happened? They were not manning these gates.
"As it was the Persians came upon them by surprise, and so took the city. Owing to the vast size of the place, the inhabitants of the central parts (as the residents at Babylon declare) long after the outer portions of this town were taken, knew nothing of what had chanced. But as they were engaged in the festival, continued dancing and reveling until they learned the capture but too certainly. Such then were the circumstances of the first taking of Babylon."
What do you know! That answers a lot of questions! Did they not know that there was an enemy close enough to attack them? Oh, yes, they did! But they had plenty of stores and were ready for a very long siege of many years. Taking siege to a city that was well prepared was not an easy task as Cyrus found, and Babylon was very well prepared. So what were they doing? They had no fear of the enemy, and instead they were engaged in revelry.
In fact they took their festival so seriously that they forgot to post the guards on the river gates, which could have caught the Persian army in a trap if they had any defenses at all. But as it were, they were essentially able to take it without a fight.
The other Greek historian Xenophon describes what happened in this way: "At last the dishes were completed. Then when he," that is, Cyrus, "heard that a certain festival had come around in Babylon, during which all Babylon was accustomed to drink and revel all night long, Cyrus took a large number of men just as soon as it was dark and opened up the heads of the trenches at the river."
"As soon as that was done, the water flowed down through the ditches in the night, and the bed of the river where it traversed the city became passable for men."
Again, these two independent witnesses describing the same event, both making it clear the answers to our perplexing questions about what happened on that night.
And again, inside Babylon. Daniel was telling the Babylonian king, "This is the writing that was inscribed 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.' And this is the interpretation of the message. Mene: God has numbered your kingdom and put it into it. Tekel:, You have been weighed on the scales and found lacking. Peres: Your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians. "
They knew the Medes and the Persians were at the gates, but they had no fear of them because of their defenses. But guess what? Their defenses, maybe even at the same moment that Daniel was speaking these words had already been breached.
And because the guards that should have been posted at the river gates were not there, the Persian forces were able to march straight into the city uncontested.
As a result, verse 31: "That same night, Belshazzar the Chaldean King was killed. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the age of 62."
Now, Cyrus was the general who led this army and ruled over the Mede and the Persians. But he installed Darius as his king, under him, responsible just for the city of Babylon. So he becomes the political ruler with whom Daniel is dealing with as the history of Daniel proceeds from this point on.
But let's also look at the testimony of the Cyrus Cylinder. This is something that was carved during the days of Cyrus himself commemorating his great accomplishments. And the relevant part for us is it says: "He," that is Cyrus's god, "had him enter without fighting or battle right into Shuaana," which is their word for Babylon. "He saved his city Babylon from hardship."
And so from the Persian point of view, Cyrus and his armies were liberating Babylon and their people and the city from the rule of Nebuchadnezzar and his descendants.
Notice that none of these secular historians tell any of the events that we read in scripture in Daniel chapter five, other than the fact that there was a drunken party that night.
And Daniel's account doesn't answer any of the questions about how Babylon fell. Although the secular sources vary in some details about the details of what happened, they all harmonized perfectly with the biblical account.

Prophecies Fulfilled

One of the thing that we want to notice about this is not only did God say that Babylon would fall on the very day that it fell, but He also foretold who would take Babylon. Only He made that prophecy 200 years prior to the event. And that's what we want to notice next by turning over to the book of Isaiah 44:24:,
"Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, and the One who formed you from the womb, I, Yahweh, the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by Myself and spreading out the earth all alone, causing the omens of boasters to be annulled and making fools out of diviners, causing wise men to turn back and making foolishness out of their knowledge..."
and I'll just pause there and say we met a lot of chaldeans and diviners and wise men in the kingdom of Babylon that were unable to answer. When God took action He made them very confused. God enjoys making those who consider themselves to be wise, especially those claiming supernatural wisdom, making those individuals foolish.
But continue reading here verse 26; " Confirming the word of his servant-- and the council of His messengers He will complete. And being the One who says of Jerusalem, 'She shall be inhabited," and of the cities of Judah, 'They shall be built.' And I will raise up her waste places again."
Okay, so he is talking about a servant of His who is going to do certain things, including declaring Judah and Jerusalem to be inhabited and rebuilt and the waste places built again.
As we continue reading: "It is I who says of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd! And all My good pleasure, he will complete.' saying of Jerusalem, 'She shall be built,' and of the temple, 'Your foundation will be laid. That's how chapter 44 ends. But really chapter 45 is a continuation of this declaration of Yahweh, the God, the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob saying, I have chosen a servant who is going to, after Jerusalem and Judea have been destroyed, is going to call them to be rebuilt.
And I'm going to give this command to my servant, my shepherd Cyrus. He goes on in chapter 45 to say: "Thus says Yahweh to Cyrus His anointed, whom I have taken hold of by his right hand to subdue nations before him and to loose the loins of kings to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut.
"I will go before you and make the rough places smooth. I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars. I will give you the treasuries of darkness and hidden wealth of secret places so that you may know that it is I, Yahweh, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name."
For the sake of Jacob, my servant, and Israel, my chosen one. I have also called you by your name. I have given you a time of honor, though you have not known me. I am Yahweh, there is no other. Besides me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun that there is no one besides me. I am Yahweh and there is no other. The One forming light and creating darkness, producing peace, and creating calamity. I am Yahweh who does all these."
God identifies a person who He has chosen to, to accomplish a task for him. He says, you don't know me, but I'm calling you by name. And here's the task that I'm going to give you to do. In fact, he says, I'm gonna help you accomplish this task. I'm going to be the one who is assisting you in overthrowing many nations.
But I also have a job that I want you to do for me. Which includes us making this declaration that Jerusalem will be rebuilt. 200 years after Isaiah prophesied, a man named Cyrus came to the throne in Persia. A man named Cyrus conquered Babylon, as we have just read about in history. And almost immediately after that, he returned many of the peoples who had been taken captive by Babylon to their homelands, including the Jews.
And we have a record of this in the scriptures. And Ezra chapter one: "In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia-- in order to complete the word of Yahweh from the mouth of Jeremiah-- Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he had a proclamation passed through all his kingdom and also put it in writing, saying: 'Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, "Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build in my house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him. Let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of Yahweh, the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem. So everyone who remains at whatever place he may sojourn, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a free will offering for the God which is in Jerusalem."
This is what history says: that Cyrus, the Persian king, is the one who sent the Jews who had been taken to the Babylon connectivity back to back to Jerusalem. And it was according to the number of years that Yahweh had spoken to Jeremiah, the prophet. Seventy years, they were to be in Babylonian exile.
And when we get to Daniel nine, we will see Daniel himself realizing, wait, the time is about to occur. And he begins praying to God earnestly that this will come about. That is in the future in our study of Daniel. But historically we're skipping a little bit ahead at this point to observe that this task that God gave him to do by name in Isaiah chapter 44 and chapter 45, he did accomplish and he did exactly what God told him to do.
Now, how did God stir up the spirit of Cyrus to return God's people to Jerusalem? The Jewish historian Josephus explained how Cyrus knew that God had commanded him to have Jerusalem rebuilt. , This is from "Antiquities of the Jews," that famous history written by the Jewish historian Josephus in the first century AD.
He says, "This was known to Cyrus," that God wanted him to send the Jews back, "by his reading of the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies. For this prophet had said that God had spoken to him in his secret vision. 'My will is that Cyrus, whom I have appointed to be king over many and great nations, send my people back to their own land to rebuild my temple.' this was foretold by Isaiah 140 years before the temple was demolished," and just over 200 years before Cyrus fulfilled this.
"Accordingly, when Cyrus read this and admired the divine power and earnest desire and ambition seized on him to fulfill what was so written. So he called for the most imminent Jews that were and said to them that he gave them leave to go back to their own country and to rebuild their city Jerusalem in the temple of God."
It's true that someone named Cyrus is mentioned in Isaiah telling Jerusalem to be rebuild. And it's true that once he had conquered Babylon, he was in a position to free the Jews. But why should Cyrus care that his name occurred in the writings of one of the peoples that he had conquered?
Because even though Babylon is not mentioned by name in connection with Cyrus and Isaiah, the distinctive features of the city and the extremely unique way in which Cyrus captured it are mentioned again over 200 years before Cyrus did these things. Do you remember that Babylon had a hundred gates made of bronze in the outer wall and that the inner walls overlooking the river had also had bronze gates that were closed at night?
This is what God had said to Cyrus in the writings of Isaiah, "Thus says Yahweh to Cyrus is anointed. Whom I have taken hold of by the right hand to subdue nations..." He says, "opening doors before him that gates will not be shut. I will go before you and make the rough places smooth. I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars."
If those bronze gates had been shut and guarded, he would not have made it into Babylon, but those bronze gates were left open on the night that his army came in. Again, skipping down a little further in verse 26 and 27 saying that he's going to be his servant who should say of Jerusalem, she shall be inhabited and of the cities of Jerusalem, they will be rebuilt and I will raise up the waste places again.
God says, "It is I who says to the depths of the sea, be dried up and I will make your rivers dry. It was by drying up the rivers that he was able to enter the city of Babylon."
The night Babylon fell its famous bronze gates were opened up, it's mighty Euphrates River was dried up and it was subdued by a man named Cyrus.
If we living 2,600 years after these events, see these three remarkable parallels to Cyrus' taking of Babylon by comparing Isaiah with the contemporaneous his accounts at the time, it's very likely that the other statements made in this text of scripture also had striking parallels to the man who personally witnessed all these events.
As a result, Cyrus recognizing that his conquest of Babylon had been foretold by the God of Israel 200 years prior and that he had been called by name, not just to conquer Babylon, but also to free God's people from Babylonian captivity did exactly that.
Isaiah 45:13 says, "I have awakened him in righteousness and will make all his paths smooth; he will build My city and let My exiles go without any payment or reward, says Yahweh of hosts." And that is what happened.

Applications for Today

Let's look at some applications for us today. These events occurred 2,500 years ago. What possible benefit could we have from thinking about or studying these historical events?
We need to realize the same things that Cyrus and the whole world needed to realize, which was demonstrated so emphatically by this series of events.
There is no God but Yahweh.
As he said in Isaiah 45:5:, "I am Yahweh, there is no other. Besides me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known me."
Even though Cyrus didn't know Yahweh at first, he came to know him, at least in part. We can hope that it did him some spiritual benefit as well.
Everyone needs to know this God and praise Him
Isaiah 45:6: " That they may know from the rising of the sun to the setting that there is no one besides me, that I am Yahweh and there is no other."
Another important application for us is to realize that God knows what he's doing.
He knows what He is doing long in advance. And when we're making our plans, sometimes they. Go well, and sometimes they go awry. But God is the one who knows all things. He has ultimate wisdom.
He's the one that establishes kings and humbles kings and raises up and puts down rulers. And we can trust that He knows what he's doing, not only in the nations, but also in our life. And so if we're trusting him we can have confidence that he will do what is right and what is best.
We should also learn from this story that God rules in the kingdoms of mankind.
And that was the lesson that Nebuchadnezzar needed to learn in that previous generation and that Belshazzar had not learned, which contributed to this judgment that came upon him when he lost the kingdom. But this is a lesson that everybody needs to know, that the most high God is the powerful ruler over the kingdom of mankind, and he sets up over it whomever he wishes, God still rules in the kingdom of men.
Because of who God is, we must glorify him and realize that He's the one who holds our breath in his hands.
That's something that Belshazzar didn't realize, and that's why he spent so much time praising these gods that could neither see nor hear nor speak. But the reality is there is a God in whose hand is not only the life of Belshazzar, but each and every one of us that is the God whom we must honor, worship and serve.
And we must look to him for salvation.
Turning back to Isaiah 45. This declaration is made in verse 22: "Turn to Me and be saved all the ends of the earth. For I am God and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself. The word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not turn back. That to Me every knee will bow and every tongue will swear allegiance."
Our study of really Isaiah and Daniel and many other of the prophets really are a frequent reminder that God's plan was not just for one nation, but was for all nations. His revelation of himself in the nation of Israel was not just for their benefit, but was for the benefit of all mankind.
And that's why some of these amazing events like the fall of Babylon and the fact that in advance God called out the victor by name and gave a special message to the prophet Isaiah to that specific ruler and gave him some additional tasks to accomplish for His glory and for the benefit of His people really was because God's goal is for as many as possible to turn to Him and be saved.
There is salvation in no other than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Yahweh who revealed himself to Moses on Mount Sinai, but then made a much more complete revelation of himself in Jesus Christ.
When God, the Son came and lived among mankind and it is to Jesus, to whom we must turn in order to be saved.
And just as God the Father earned the loyalty and allegiance of all mankind by the amazing things that he accomplished in human history in Old Testament times, so that rightly every knee in all the world should have been bowing and swearing allegiance to the God who did those things in the fall of Babylon even in Old Testament times.
Then when we see what God has done through Jesus Christ we can see all over again. Every knee must bow and every tongue must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. That's what the New Testament has to say about God with us, Jesus himself, who has earned this same allegiance and loyalty from every human being of every nation.
And my admonition to each one of us is to be in awe and to reverence the God who did these great things 2,500 years ago, who did even greater things at the cross 2000 years ago and to whom we continue to owe allegiance, reverence, loyalty, worship, and love because of who He is and what He has done.
If you are not faithfully serving this God and this Lord, I urge you to change your life. Jesus is the one to whom you must swear allegiance today if you desire to serve the God of heaven and earth. And so if you desire to follow Jesus, turn away from your own sins and your own will. Confess your faith in Him and be baptized in His name to have your sins washed away.