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You know, as we're going through the Book of Daniel, I would just encourage all of you, if you, if you spend any time during the week studying the Bible on your own and reading through the word of God, which I know all of you in here do, everyone in here does. If you haven't, if you haven't started doing that after almost six years of, of the church being in existence, then come and talk to me. Let's get that fixed. So first John 2, 27, 28. But as you're going through it, just. I would encourage everyone, you know, when you. Not just here in these messages, but anywhere, any podcast you listen to, any. If you're visiting another church, if you're out of town and you go to a service somewhere, whatever, if you're listening to another pastor, take anything they say and just take it to the word of God yourself and just prove that those things be so from Acts 17:11, because you have the Holy Spirit from 1st John 2, 27 and 28, that you don't need to outsource teaching from the Lord in your own life. He will bring people along to supplement what he's doing in your life. He did that for me radically, back in 2011 when I started reading through the Bible verse by verse, cover to cover every year. But give him first right of refusal, because he won't refuse. I promise. So as we're going through Daniel, you know, we looked last time at chapter four as the only chapter in the Old Testament that an entire chapter that's written by a gentile king. Most of the Old Testament's written by Jewish kings or prophets or Jewish people. And it's Daniel is the one book in the Old Testament that changes focus on the gentile kingdoms that will rule the earth for a season. And in Daniel, the whole focus is on these gentile powers, from Babylon all the way to the Antichrist kingdom, and then Jesus's kingdom coming to the earth as that stone cut without hands and shattering the Antichrist kingdom and setting up a kingdom that will fill the world, fill the earth for eternity, never to be disposed again. So he's not going to be here for just a season. It's not just the thousand years. The thousand years is the millennial reign and then one last rebellion. But he's here forever. From that point, the rebellion's put down. There's no. There's no vote held again to try to figure out who should be president or king. And this banquet hall that we're going to study in Daniel 5 today was excavated by back in 1899-1917, all these excavations of Nebuchadnezzar's palace surrounding Babylon took place. And the banquet hall from this chapter was found to be 173ft by 56ft in size. And it was rebuilt by Saddam Hussein before when he was on the earth some years ago, if you remember him. But that banquet hall is huge. 173 by 56. That's a huge hall. Now that very hall that was found a little over 100 years ago now is where this event with the hand on the wall. Now, Jesus validates Daniel as a prophet in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and he's the beloved prophet. He's the one that's held up in great esteem that there's nothing bad said about him. And Abraham didn't even have that distinction. Abraham's called a friend of God in Isaiah 41:8 and 2 Chronicles 20, verse 7. Those terms are not synonymous in God's word. They. They mean something different. It has to do with your level of intimacy and relationship and what you've actually surrendered to the Lord. And you don't learn it in the Old Testament, but in Stephen's discourse in Acts, you learn that when God called Abraham, he actually went the other way first. He went upriver until his dad died and then decided to go about what the Lord called him to do. But you don't see Daniel ever do anything outside of what God commands. And it's the way the Holy Spirit has portrayed Daniel in the text is really a model for you and I, Daniel Joseph, in that whether from prison cell, lion's den to the height of the palace, you rely on and are obedient to your God. And that's the key. It doesn't matter where you are in your life. It doesn't matter what comes against you. It doesn't matter who is against you. It doesn't matter if you're sitting in a rotting a cell with shackles around your ankles or if you're at a seat next to the king. You do not, do not turn your back on God and blame him for the circumstance. So Daniel's a. A great, great figure to study for our time today. Now remember, chapters one through six are historical. We've gone through the first four. Five is what we're studying today. The handwriting on the wall, the fall of Babylon is what we stall, what we're going to study today. Chapter six next time is the lion's den. And then seven through 12 is really where it gets into a lot of heavy gentile kind of world prophecy, but also about Jesus from Daniel 9, the 70 weeks. One of the greatest prophecies in the whole Bible that we talked about during Passover a few weeks ago. But 7 through 12 are heavy prophetic chapters. So get your, get, get your full spirit on. Okay, Guard up for those chapters because we need understanding from the Lord for those chapters for sure. Now remember though, they're not completely in chronological order. So one through four are in chronological order. Then it actually goes seven, eight and then five. And so what we're studying today happens a little time after the vision of the four beasts and the ram and he goat from seven and eight and then it goes nine and then all back to six. So it kind of jumps around a little bit there in the middle. And then it closes in order though 10, 11 and 12. So that, that chart's actually very helpful when you're studying the book of Daniel on your own. Okay, now the three different 70s in the book of Daniel. So you have three sieges of Jerusalem. The first siege to the decree of Cyrus, which we're studying Today is the 70 year period of the servitude of the nation. The third siege of Nebuchadnezzar to the decree of Artaxerxes is the desolations of Jerusalem. So two different 70 year periods, but both important. Neither of those have anything to do with the 70 weeks of Daniel except the decree of Artaxerxes. That is the trigger point to start the 77 year periods known as the 70 weeks of Daniel. Now those 70 weeks are 490 years that lay out all of Jewish history to Jesus returning and setting up the kingdom. From the decree of Artaxerxes to that moment. Now where you and I find ourselves is in the gap of time between the 69th week and the 70th week. We know that gap to now be almost 2,000 years on our calendar. And it's when you read the prophecy and we get into it, you'll see that a gap of time definitely is, is called out there. But the 70 weeks of Daniel are really important to understand because you can get down to the day of which Jesus would ride in on the donkey that we stayed at Passover a few weeks ago. From that decree it was 69 weeks of years times on God's calendar it's always 360 day years. We, we messed it all up to go to 365, and a quarter. God's calendar throughout the Bible is 360 day years. Even in the tribulation he counts it as 360 day years, because then tribulation, it's seven years, two halves of three and a half or 42 months or 1260 days. So he always uses 360 days. So when you count from the decree of Artaxerxes to Jesus riding out on the donkey, it's 173,880 days to the day that he rides in, as prophesied in Daniel 9. And it's important to understand that because God is very precise in everything that he says and what he does. And the other key to that is you may hear a lot of people in, you know, the media today or out in the church culture put a lot of, of weight in calendars and times and dates and things. Number one, don't be a date setter, because whenever you do that, it's a sure thing. It won't be that date. And so if we want it to be this fall at whatever feast, don't talk about it, just let the Lord do it. If you make a book about it or publish an article, it's not going to happen. He'll just move the, he'll push it out. So don't set a date. But keep in mind that on God's calendar, it's always 360 days per year. So when you do that math, if it really was 2,000 years from when Jesus died, that 2,000 years on God's calendar happened back in the 70s, not coming up soon. So just keep that in mind. It's important to understand God's timing in all of that. Now, this is that statue we studied back in Daniel 2. And the stone cut without hands. So Babylon, Persia, we're gonna, we're gonna study today when Persia takes over Babylon, then Greece, Rome, and then Roman, two phases or the Antichrist kingdom, so to speak. So that stone would cut without hands smashes the feet of the Antichrist kingdom. So where you are on this chart is that white line at the very bottom between Rome and the Antichrist kingdom. That gap has been known to be roughly, like I said, About 2,000 years on our calendar. So that's where we are sitting today. And we are looking for Jesus Christ to take us home in the Rapture, not Antichrist. So keep that in mind. God does not want you to be fearful of what's ahead. He wants you to be excited to meet him in the air and to carry out his plan for your life until the day he calls us home. So this chapter focuses on Nebuchadnezzar's grandson. Now this is A kind of a family tree of Nebuchadnezzar. So you have Nebuchadnezzar there. Then to the right there's Nabonidus and then Belshazzar. So don't get confused with Belshazzar and Belteshazzar. Belteshazzar is Daniel. That's a name that Nebuchadnezzar gave him. Belshazzar is Nebuchadnezzar's grandson. In the ancient languages, they didn't have a word for grandson. So that's why in the Bible you hear a lot of the son of or the son of. So I, in. If. If I was in the word of God in the Bible, I would have been the son of Lester. Well, Lester was my grandfather. Okay. If they talked about Lester, so to speak. So in any case, just keep that in mind when you're reading the Bible. Sometimes it helps to. To look at family trees to understand where these people are. Okay, in verse one here, Belshazzar, the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords and drunk, drank wine before the thousand. So in, like I said, they don't have a word for grandson. So he's the son of Nebuchadnezzar. We'll see. But Belshazzar, whilst he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden 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. This is a big mistake to decide to desecrate the temple instruments by your own devices and getting drunk on them. So he's getting drunk and he thinks it's a good idea to desecrate God's temple instruments. Here in verse three. Then they brought the golden vessels and were taken out of the temple of the house of God, which was at Jerusalem. And the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines drank in them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and of stone. Now that's a lot of gods to keep track of. Aren't you glad we only have one to keep track of and to surrender to. But look at Psalms 1:15. There's a couple places in Psalms that contradict heathen idols to our true kings. So starting verse one here. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. Wherefore should the heathen say, where is now their God. But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased their idols. So the ones we just read in Daniel they're worshiping, their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not that interesting. They have ears, but they hear not. Noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they handle not. Feet have they, but they walk not. Neither speak they through their throat, because the demons speak for them. They that make them are like unto them. So is everyone that trusteth in them. Know when you look at those idols of what they used to worship in ancient times, you don't see people today. You do see some people doing this, but not many today have little carved images and idols they put on their mantle and they bow down and worship it. And, you know, you do see it in some weird parts of culture, in the earth with little statues. And if you go into certain restaurants, you'll even see on the back of, like a Buddha statue, they have a. A hole in it. And they believe that's where the spirit can then enter the statue and, and then converse with them out of it. But that's why they drill a hole in the back of those little statues now. But are those idols, you know, cold and unforgiving and not really in tune with what you need. That's the same thing that you worship today. You become what you worship, the Bible says, which is why it's important to worship Jesus, because the more you worship him, the closer you get to him, the more you become like him. And you may start out knowing the Lord, being very cheerful, but maybe not very empathetic. The more you get to know Jesus, the more empathy you have, the more joy you have, the more you are a giver, the more you decide to walk by faith and not by sight. But these idols, our culture does the same thing today. They worship things that are they. They do nothing for them in their lives. A career, money, success in some way, some standard out there that the world wants you to, to bow to. It's the same concept. We just don't put it in a little idol and put it on a mantle somewhere in your house. But people put faith in a lot of things that really do nothing for them. And that's really what Psalms 1:15 is talking about for us today. That if you, if you look around the world today and you see what people are bowing down to and worshiping, it's really no different. And back in ancient, in the Old Testament, for example, they used to sacrifice babies to molech and lay them in the burning arms of this. Of this fake statue. Well, they do it today just under the guides of choice. And it's. And it's in the holy of holies, in the mother's womb. So they're worshiping the same demonic spirit, just in a different manner. So in verse five, here, 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 wrote. So it's almost like when God says, in the same hour, it's almost as if they kind of hit this volume, metric, volumetric measure of blasphemy to God. And he's going to act now. And you see that measure in, like Sodom and Gomorrah, you know, when their cry reached to heaven, the grievousness of what they were doing finally reached the throne room of heaven. And God acted. You kind of see that throughout the Bible in different ways. But it's almost like he just said, okay, that's enough. And in verse 6 here then the king's countenance was changed and his thoughts troubled him so that the joints of his loins were loosed. And this is where Debbie would get excited. And his knees smote one against another. So the king sees Jesus's. This is my speculation that this is Jesus's hand that wrote on the wall. And I'll show you why. Why I think that at least, and I could be wrong, but he sees this hand of a man writing on the wall and he gets so freaked out. His knees, even like in the old Looney Tunes cartoons, where the knees would, like, hit together when there's fear or something. That's kind of how I picture Belshazzar here. He's. He's freaking out. And his joints of the loins were loosed. Okay. In other words, today his bowels had a movement. Just put it that way. Okay, so Cyrus the Great, he's the Persian who ends up conquering Babylon. Now he founded an empire from the Aegean Sea to the Indus river, and he's renowned in the Middle east as a legendary leader. In 1971, Iran even celebrated the 2,500th anniversary of his monarchy. Iran, the Persian empire, celebrates Cyrus as one of their greatest leaders in all of history. But Cyrus the Great, and there's the. In Persia, that's the writing of his day. And it's celebrated on the 7th of Aban on their calendar, which is the eighth month on the Iranian calendar. It usually occurs on the 29th day of October in our calendar. He established the Medo Persian empire. His father was the king of ancient eastern Elam, which is in the headlines a lot today because of it's where Iran has their nuclear reactor. So in modern day Iran or Persia, according to the Bible, the mountain range that cuts through the country from that mountain range to the Persian Gulf to the south, that is biblically called Elam. And it happens to be where they have their nuclear reactor. One of them that's made a lot of headlines lately because it might be a target for the US and Israel to strike at some point. If it does, it likely would be the fulfillment of Jeremiah 49, the judgment on Elam, where God judges the kings of Elam and in that judgment, whatever he does to judge them, the inhabitants are scattered all over to the four corners of the earth. And so you could see how if it was some kind of a nuclear reactor meltdown, the inhabitants of that region certainly would be scattered all over the earth. And so I've been watching that prophecy very closely and it, it may come to pass at some point in our lifetime, but he established Osiris, he established that eastern his, his father was the king of eastern Elam, his mother was the daughter of the king of the medes. So in 550 BC, he attacked his father in law, the corrupt, this corrupt king, and captured E, I think is how you say that, without a battle. Thus he merged, he was the one that merged the Medes and the Persians into a unified nation that continued for over 200 years. So on October 12th of 539 BC, he captured Babylon without a battle. Now this is important because biblically, Babylon has a, a prophetic future that it is destroyed at some point, never to be inhabited again. That did not happen when Cyrus captured Babylon. In fact, there are still inhabitants there today in modern times. So that has not been fulfilled yet. We're going to look at that in detail next week. Actually, there's six chapters of the Bible that declare the fall of Babylon, the destruction of Babylon, I should say Revelation 17 and 18 being two of them. But what he did, the Persians diverted the Euphrates into a canal upriver so that the water level dropped to about the middle of a man's thigh. So think, you know, walking through a creek, kind of speak, so to speak, or a low running river. And it rendered the moat around Babylon, the flood defenses, it rendered them completely useless. So Babylon had a lot of pride. They thought they were impenetrable because of this moat. And Cyrus just rediverted the river and rendered those flood defenses useless. Now, Babylon never paid attention to happening because they were comfortable in their security. And the same can happen to you and I today. You can have things in your life that give you a lot of false security. And a false security is a very dangerous security. Just know that. So according to Josephus, when Cyrus made his entrance into Babylon, Daniel presents him with a scroll of Isaiah because he's prophesied by name. In Isaiah 44 and 45, the citizens of Babylon they did. The city was so big, they didn't even know that they had been captured. For days and days after this, they just went about life. It would be like if someone took over downtown Oklahoma City and all of us up here in Edmond had no clue for, you know, a month, and we just went about our lives. That's what happened in Babylon. And so it never, it never was destroyed. As Jeremiah 50:51, Isaiah 13:14 and Revelation 17:18 declare it was captured. It was captured very quietly. Now this is where God prophesies about cyrus in Isaiah 44, starting in verse 24. Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb. I am the Lord that maketh all things that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself, that frustrateth the tokens of the liars and maketh diviners mad. That is true. A lot of witchcraft practicing people are mad at God because there's no real power in what they're doing. But he frustrates them that turneth wise men backward and maketh their knowledge foolish, that confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers. That saith to Jerusalem thou shalt be inhabited, and the cities of Judah ye shall be built. And I will raise up the decayed places thereof that saith to the deep. Now this is, this is where it gets Cyrus. Right here. That saith to the deep, be dry. And I will dry up thy rivers exactly as Cyrus did to the rivers around Babylon. That saith of Cyrus, he is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, thou shalt be built again, and to thy temple, the temple, thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings. In other words, I'll give them a bowel Movement to open before him the two levied gates. And the gates shall not be shut. I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates of brass and and cut in sunder the bars of iron. And I will give thee the treasures of darkness. Babylon had a lot of dark treasures and hidden riches of secret places. That thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob, my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name. I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the Lord and there is none else. And there is no God beside me. I girded thee, though thou has not known me. In other words, God saying, cyrus, I knew you long before I even formed you in your mother's womb. That they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord do all these things. So can you imagine being Cyrus at this point? You know, you. You walk in, you conquer Babylon, you're a war general, you've been conquering lands all over the the Middle east. And here you are walking and conquering this people. And a people group that are captives in that nation. One of their great leaders comes forth and gives you the scroll of the book of Isaiah and says, hey, do you know that my God prophesied about you 200 years before you were ever born? Let me show it to you. And the Lord prophesied not only specifically about you, but about you being his servant, about how you would dry up the rivers, about how you would break through the gates, even that the king would not be able to control his bowels, that you would then command to go and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, all of that declared hundreds of years before he was even born. I just have to imagine Cyrus was very impressed, so to speak, because his gods can't do that. His gods never did that in his life. So what does he do? Well, he honors what God commanded. He frees the captives. He returned the temple vessels that had been taken 70 years earlier. So this is now 70 years to the point. So Daniel's an old man at this point. Older, I should say. You remember he was a young man taken in the first siege. 70 years have passed. So he, he might be in his, you know, mid to late 80s at this point, so to speak. We're not exactly sure of his age when he was taken. But Cyrus even provides financial incentives for the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple. Only 42,360 Jews take him up on the on the offer. Out of a lot of Jewish people in Babylon, a very, very small percentage From Ezra, chapter two, verses 64 through 65, say, hey, we'll be a part of that. We want to go back and rebuild the house of our God. They got comfortable in Babylon. They they were fine being fed from Nebuchadnezzar's table. They were fine working the fields and having jobs and some of them even being promoted in the palace. They were fine with the riches of the world there in that place. And they settled down and put roots in the world instead of being a sojourner and a pilgrim through it, like Daniel was doing in Second Chronicles 36:22. Now, in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and put it also in writing, saying, so that is to fulfill Jeremiah 29:10, which is where the Lord prophesied that it would be 70 years that they'd be at Babylon. So cyrus fulfilled Jeremiah 29:10 in 2nd Chronicles 36, verse 23, the next verse. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, all the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord of God of heaven given me, and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem. So he knows the charge now, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all the people? The Lord God be with him, and let him go up. So he's encouraging God's people. And then this is in Ezra chapter one, starting in verse one. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, thus saith Cyrus and king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel. He is the God. So Cyrus is declaring that God is God, and whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth let the man of his place help him with silver and with gold and with goods and with the beasts besides the free will offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. Okay, this is in the British Museum in London. It's called the Steel of Cyrus. Now, this stele, steel, whatever you want to say. It's a cylinder that he wrote on. And this is what the part of the. Of the cylinder says. Without any battle, he entered the town, sparing any calamity. So he's talking about Babylon taking over. So this is not the destruction of Babylon. This is the fall of Babylon. I returned to sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris, the sanctuaries of which had been in ruins for a long time and established for them permanent sanctuaries. I also gathered all their former inhabitants and returned to them their habitations. So he's talking about his. His conquering of Babylon. So now, okay, so that's about Cyrus and the prophecies of him. And Isaiah and Jeremiah and Second Chronicles and Ezra. So now back to chapter five, verse seven. In Daniel, 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, whosoever 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 in the kingdom. Now, the third ruler in the kingdom, it might be a hint that Nebuchadnezzar is still alive. So it might be a hint that he is. He's passed the kingdom, some ownership of it to his grandson. So Nebuchadnezzar his grandson. And now whoever does this will be the third in line is what he's pronouncing. 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 the king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonished. Now the queen. So Nebuchadnezzar's wife, 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. Now, the fact that the queen was not there in attendance at that banquet is also telling. She was not in approval of what he was doing desecrating the God of the Israelites. There is a man in thy kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. And in the days of the Father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him whom the king Nebuchadnezzar, thy father, the king, I say thy father made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans and soothsayers. For as much as an excellent spirit in knowledge and understanding, interpreting of dreams and showing of hard sentences and dissolving of doubts were found in the same Daniel whom the king named Belteshazzar. So not Belshazzar, but Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation. So did she know from experience, or did the Holy Spirit prompt her to know that Daniel would tell the interpretation? It's an interesting thing to think about. Then was Daniel brought in before the king. And the king spake and said unto Daniel, art thou that Daniel which art of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king, my father, brought out of the Jewry? I have even heard of thee that the spirit of the gods, so the Trinity, not we have one God, remember from Deuteronomy, the Lord is our God, the God is our God, is one is in thee. And the light, that light and understanding, excellent wisdom is found in me. And now the wise men, the astrologers, have been brought in before me that they should read this writing and make known unto me the interpretation there. But they could not show the interpretation of the thing. And I have heard of thee that thou canst make interpretations and dissolve doubts. That's what our God does. Everyone that goes out and tries to disprove the Bible, their doubts get dissolved. It's amazing how that works. There are so many. So many people throughout history that have a testimony of, yeah, I sought out to disprove the Bible and then became born again. Now, if thou canst read the writing and make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with scarlet and have a chain of gold about thy neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Okay, in verse 17 here, then Daniel answered and said before the king, let thy gifts be to thyself. In other words, hey, keep all of this trash that you're worshiping, I don't want it. And give thy rewards to another. Yet I will read the writing unto the king and make known to him the interpretation. So he's. He's looking at Belshazzar going, I want nothing to do with the gods and the wealth and the gold that you worship. Just keep it. I want nothing to do with it. Oh, Thou king, the most high God, gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom and majesty and glory and honor. And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him, whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive. In whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down. That's what our God does. He raises up and puts down kings. But when his heart was lifted up and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him. That's what we studied last week in chapter four. And he was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beast, and his dwelling was with the wild asses, and they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven until he knew. Remember, it took seven years. Last time in chapter four. It took seven years for Nebuchadnezzar to finally realize who God really is, that he alone sets up kings. He told him he would have a kingdom for a season, not forever. As he tried to make the statue all of gold and command worship of it, till he knew that the most High God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointed over it whomsoever he will. And thou his son, O Belshazzar, and has not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all of this. So apparently Bill Shazer of his grandfather's knew of his grandfather's correction from the Lord, but he did nothing with that testimony. And it's an important point to note in your own life that God has given you a special testimony. He wrote a testimony in your life. And when you share that with others and you walk around and you are living out God's purpose for your life, it is to be a witness to all of those around you. But not everyone will receive that and do anything with it. They. But that's okay. It's okay. Your goal is to walk out and to share what God wants you to share. Let it be to them whether they receive it or not. And Jeremiah, remember, God said, go and declare this word to your people, but they'll never receive you. And that's a hard call, you know, to. To walk out something in your life that God has called you to, and nobody receive it in any way. But just take courage. It's only for a season. It's only for a season. Verse 23. But has lifted up thyself 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 not, nor hear not, nor know. And the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified? Now, that's comforting to know that your very breath is in the hand of God. Then was the part of the hand sent from him, and this writing was written. The same finger that wrote the Ten Commandments for Moses is my speculation. I could be wrong, but is the same finger that wrote on this wall in Exodus 31:18, and he gave unto Moses when he had made an end of communion with him upon Mount Sinai. Two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God. Now, Jesus is the word from John 1:1. And the word became flesh and tabernacled amongst us in John 1:14. So my personal speculation is that it was Jesus's finger that wrote the Ten Commandments. It was Jesus's finger that wrote on this wall declaring judgment. And it was Jesus's finger in John 8 that wrote in stone again. So when you read this in John 8, starting in verse 1, Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple. And all the people came unto him and sat down and taught and taught them. And the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious zealots who are looking to. They just want judgment and law and cast the stones and kill people, okay? They brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, master, this woman was taken into adultery in the very act. Now, Moses in the law, look at him. They're like, hey, hey, look. Moses in the law said that such should be stoned. But what sayest thou? In other words, they're saying, we want to abide and be very religious and be zealots that are following exactly what the law says and not recognizing that the word of God himself was in the flesh before them, to bring life and to bring it more abundantly and to forgive them of those sins, to fulfill the law, so that this woman didn't ever have to on her own. Thus this they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he had heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto unto them, he that is without sin among you. Let him first cast a stone at her. Now, on verse six back there, it says he stooped down and wrote in the ground. A lot of. A lot of. It's easy to assume that's dirt, but the temple floor was stone. And so it's just my speculation that when he stooped down and wrote on the ground, not in dirt, but on the ground of the floor of the temple, that his finger was writing in the stone exactly as he did in the Ten Commandments and exactly as he did to Belshazzar in Daniel 5 on the wall. And what he was likely writing. And it's. We don't know what he was writing, but whatever he writes, they're not impressed by. They're very. They become very embarrassed by what he's writing. So he may have been writing the law, he may have been writing their sin and transgression. He may have been publicly writing out what they did. We don't know. But whatever he was writing, my personal speculation, like I said, is that he was riding in stone and they were freaking out by it. So they. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it being convicted by their own conscience. In other words, maybe he was writing their sin because whatever it is is convicting them went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing in the midst. And when Jesus had lifted up himself and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? And she said, no man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, neither do I condemn thee. Go. And there's the. The important part, though. Sin no more. So you've been forgiven, but now stop what you've been forgiven for. Stop sinning. Get on the sanctification part of your journey and allow the Lord to refine that out of your life. I love that whole discourse in John 8 because the same is true with you today. If you will surrender to him, your accusers will back up one by one. Okay, to close out here in verse 25. And this is the writing that was written. Many, many Tekla, Upharsin. This is the interpretation of the thing. Many God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. Tecla, thou art weighed in the balances, art found wanting. Perez, thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. So Daniel Interprets it. Then commanded Belshazzar and they clothed Daniel with scarlet and put a chain of gold about his neck and made a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. In that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans slain. So it's an important distinction that he's slain, not corrected by God like his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar was corrected. He's just taken out. And Darius the Meden took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old, so 62 years old now. And that closes Daniel 5. One of my favorite verses in the Bible, Proverbs 25:2. It's the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter. And what, what God did was he wrote in code on the wall. He wrote in an encryption. And Daniel's able to interpret it in the form of cryptography used in Hebrew that he wrote in on the wall is called At Bosh. Now at Bosh just means like in our language it would be writing in a code where A, if you had A to Z, well you replace A with the letter Z and you work backwards through the Alphabet. So Z would be A and you just replace every letter going all the way down to the middle. So the Atbosh cipher is a particular type of mono alphabetic cipher formed by taking the Alphabet and mapping it to its reverse. So the first letter becomes the last, the second becomes the second to last and so on. So this is if you took the Hebrew Alphabet, Aleph, Tata, or we'd say A to Z or alpha and omega in Greek the cipher would be what's on the bottom. So Aleph would be Ta, bet would be Shin, Gimel would be Resh. And you go down the Alphabet like that. So that's, that is what the handwrite on the wall wrote. God transposed every other letter like that. And that's. But Daniel was able to interpret it through the wisdom of God. You also find that form of encryption in Jeremiah 25, verse 26 with that word shishak. And that word shishak, it's a reference to Babylon men through Akbash code. When you go through the letters like that, it spells out Babylon. So it's very interesting that God uses that. The, the Jews love riddles and codes and things like that. Which is why when Pilate wrote on the cross in that acrostic that the king of the Jews they got all upset because it was, remember Y H W H and it was Yahweh and that's why they wanted Pilate to change what he wrote, to say not that he's the King of the Jews, but that he said he's king of the Jews. So it would have added a letter, and thus the code wouldn't spell Yahweh. But they're obsessed with things like that. God has those kind of hidden throughout the Bible. And, you know, if you look at, like the Torah, the first five books of Moses, if in Genesis and Exodus, you go to the first T in the. By the letters and you go seven letters, you get an O, then you get an R. In our language, you get an A and an H. In Hebrew, in the original, it's writing, but it spells Torah. Exodus does the same thing. Leviticus doesn't do it. Numbers and Deuteronomy do it, but they go backwards. So it's, it's reversed. Torah spelled backwards. You go the first letter, go seven more letters. And then the middle, if you take seven squared, it spells Yahweh. And so you have the whole Torah pointing to God in those five books of Moses at the beginning. And so it's just a. God has these things hidden throughout the whole Bible constantly. Esther is full of them. If you ever dig into the. The Bible codes in Esther, it's very interesting, but it all just proves that there's no way a man wrote any of it. It's just an. It's a thumbprint of the Holy Spirit. So our, our action is to be like Daniel. So we're a captive in a wicked society, just like he is. Yes, we live free here in the US but we are in a world that's under the sway of the wicked one. And Daniel did not eat the food forbidden by his God. He did not bow down to the golden statue. He's not even in that. In that chain of events, just his friends are. He did not stop praying to God. We're going to see him later in Daniel, pray towards the temple, despite the lion's den. And the question really for each one of us is who will you serve from Joshua 24:15. And my prayer is that you and your household serve the Lord. And that's our call. And if for some reason you're here and you don't know the lord, it's Romans 10, 9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. You are born again in an instant, never to be without the Lord. And then you can allow the Lord to start pruning your life and refining everything you do. So let's pray. Father, we just thank you so much for this time together. God, we pray that you would pour your spirit out over the Middle east and that you would give your people safety and refuge during this time of turbulence. God. In East Eastern Europe, in the Middle East. God, we are praying that you, Jesus, the Prince of Peace, walk across that land and subdue those kingdoms, God, just as you did to Babylon back as we're studying here in Daniel. And Lord, I pray that you'd give your people refuge in the shadow of the Almighty. Lord, I pray and we pray that you would get your word into their hands that it would be a light to their feet. That, Lord, you would show their family exactly where to go to take shelter and if they're to leave a country or a city, how to travel. And, Lord, we just pray that you would pour your spirit out and that, Lord, there are millions, millions of Muslims in the Middle east coming to know you through dreams and visions, just as in the days of Daniel and God, we pray that your spirit would continue to move and draw many of them into the ark that is Jesus Christ into that relationship. That you would wake them from their slumber. That, Lord, you would show them that you are a God that died for them, not a God that commands their death. Lord, there is no. There is no life in their religion. There is only life in you, Jesus. And we pray that they would surrender their life to you and confess the name that is above every name and the name that every tongue shall confess, and every knee you shall bow to Jesus, the King of Kings. And we thank you, Lord. We thank you so much for preserving our nation during this time, Lord. We pray Babel in the camp of the enemy that, Lord, if there is any attack, then, Lord, it is thwarted by your spirit, Lord. Scramble their communications. Scatter them to the wind. Because you, Jesus, stand over this nation. And Lord, forgive us in this land of our trespasses. Just as Daniel was crying out for his nation and his people, we are doing the same. God. Lord, we are not a perfect nation, Lord, but we plead the blood of Jesus over this land. And that you would forgive us and that you would wrap your head, your protection around this land and that you'd preserve this nation, Lord, until you call us home in the Rapture. Let this be a place of light and a beacon of hope and prosperity for the world. Until that time, God preserve us. Until then, let your church thrive in this land. Until then, to send your word out to the ends of the earth. And Lord, we thank you for the book of Daniel and we just pray that you'd be with us through our week ahead. In Jesus name, amen.