THAT FATAL NIGHT

DANIEL 5:3

A. "IN THAT NIGHT BELSHAZZAR, THE KING OF THE CHALDEANS, WAS SLAIN"
  1. Historic setting of our text:
    1. Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled between 500 and 600 years before Christ.
    2. Just prior to the fatal night for Belshazzar, the city of Babylon was one of the wonders of the world.
      1. It had hanging gardens.
      2. Magnificent buildings.
      3. Its walls were made of bitumen 87 feet thick and 350 feet high.
      4. The city was surrounded by a deep channel, the Euphrates, and seemed impregnable by every known military standard of the time.
  2. All this until the fatal night:
    1. Fatal for the kingdom of Babylon.
    2. Fatal for the king - Belshazzar.
  3. A memorial to the just retribution of divine justice:
B. THAT FATAL NIGHT
  1. A night of dissipation and sinful pleasures:
    1. It was a royal banquet, with all the trimmings that go with such feasts.
    2. Only the top nobles of the Babylonian society were the participants - Dan. 5:1
    3. All moral perception was set aside and sinful pleasures had full sway, the description of which would be a nightmare.
  2. We are choosing this text because a similar situation will prevail in the days of the Son of man:
    1. James warns us against this pleasure-mad condition in the last days - Jas. 5:1-9
    2. Our Lord warns us against this sin of the last days - Luke 17:2-34; Matt. 24:36-39
    3. Paul warns against the same sin - 1 Thess. 5:1-6; 2 Tim. 3:1-9
  3. It was a night of impious profanity:
    1. Reveling leads to profanity.
    2. Reason gives away to stupidity and immoral excesses.
    3. Sacred things must serve the vileness of sin.
    4. Belshazzar surely knew that the Medes and the Persians were at the gates of the city.
    5. They knew also that the enemy was digging a new channel to divert the water of the Euphrates out of its natural channel, and so exposing the very foundation of the city.
    6. What is still worse, they left the gates to the city wide open.
    7. Drink and revelry had caused the Babylonians to neglect their duties to the city and to the kingdom.
C. A CLOSER LOOK AT THE HISTORICAL SPECTACLE
  1. It was a night when heaven intervened:
    1. The handwriting on the wall for Belshazzar and his kingdom.
    2. Its message was very brief -
      1. "God hath numbered thy kingdom."
      2. "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."
      3. "Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."
  2. It was a night of fearful realization:
    1. While the lords of Babylon reveled, the enemy drained the canal, moved into the city, besieged the palace and killed the king.
    2. Thus, the handwriting on the wall found a speedy fulfillment.
    3. The judgment of God fell on the sinners with a speed unexpected by the revelers.
  3. What a lesson for our day:
    1. That fatal night!
    2. It was fatal because it ended a life of sin and degradation swiftly.
    3. It was fatal because it ended all hope for the guilty.
    4. It was fatal because it came unexpectedly.
    5. So will it be a fatal night for the sinners in the last days - Luke 21:34-36


Design © John Bryant 2011