, unhallowed wine, and pressed to the polluted li^s of Babylonian voluptuaries, and gods of »-• "gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of iron, and of wood, and of stone" were pledg- . ed in them. These gods did not save them. ATheir gold and silver would not buy off ythe foe; their gates of brass did not keep, him out; their weapons of iron, and spears and arrows of wood, and their missives of stone, were all unavailing, and yet they praised them. All was in deliberate defiance of JEHOVAH. For Bershazzar knew that He was God alone and that He had pre- dicted Babylon's ruin now at the doors; 1 "though," said Daniel, "thou knewest all this," Dan. 5:22. Men, even the heathen, do l not drink and blaspheme in ignorance of the * wickedness (Rom. 1:20; 2:14, 15), how much less "Christians" who have the Bible. * VI. THE BAN. 1. "In the same hour," the climax of their wickedness, "came forth fingers of a man's hand"—see- the consternation of the king! where now is his haughty pride? his bold front? his royal majesty? Pale, haggard. | qiiaking from head to foot, his knees knock- L in'g together, and all at the mere apparition ^ of "the fingers of a man's hand!" Ah! but they were the fingers of the God-man, the l}and that wrote the "ten words" of the law beginning: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me!" Fx. 20:3, and Belshazzar felt it, knew it. 2. The wise men of Babylon • could not read the celestial cipher. The na- tural man has not the code (1 Cor. 2:14). But the natural man knows that such signs bode him no good. 3. The queen mother commended Daniel. In the many administra- tive changes Daniel had fallen out of sight, but his story was not unknown to the king (Dan. 5:22), and the queen mother revered , the prophet and, we trust, his GOD. 4. The Pking made a complimentary address to Daniel. "1 know," said he, "that thou canst dissolve doubts." This is true of all the ** prophets if men would but read and heed them, or, rather, believe them. But in mat- ters of Belshazzar's sort there should be, there are, no essential doubts. He knew (1) that his heart and life were wrong; that de- bauchery and drunkenness were wicked; ^ that blasphemy was the sin of sins; and that the writing on the wall was a call to •Vi-instant repentance before swift-co -ning "judgment. (2) But if doubts remained, he knew and we know that the right should r have the benefit of the doubt. "If it's doubt- ful It's dirty," said a wife to her husband who was inspecting his collar to see if he might wear it again. As to pleasures, wine, DANIEL 5. One single word, mighty in its import, comforts us in this lesson. A word so sim- ple and yet so solemn that it should startle and stay every soul. That word is Judg- ment. God is good. God is love. God is gracious. God is long-suffering. God is abundant in mercy, but God is just. Jus- tice and judgment are the habitation' • of His throne, Psa. 89:14. There is no escape for saint or sinner; all must be weighed in God's balance. Believers on the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord have the as^ surance of salvation. They will have a right to enter heaven, but the question of how they have lived and what they have done will have to meet the searching eye of
tobacco, business, "If It's doubtful it's dirty," that- is spoken "like a Daniel." 3. Faithfully and fearlessly (let teachers deal likewise, thé Grand Old Man reminded him monarch of JEHOVAH'S revelations to Neb- uchadnezzar, and charged him to his face, saying, "And thou, his son, O Belshazzar, (1) hast not humbled thyself, though tho,u knewest all this, but (2) "Hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaveri,'" (3) "They have brought the vessels of His house before thee, (4) and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines have drunk wine in them, (5) and thou hast «praised the gods of silver, and of gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, and (6) the GOD in whose hand thy breath is and whose are all ithy ways thou hast not glorified." .Weigh thoughtfully each of these indictments, especially (1) with (6), for "the chief end of man Is to glorify GOD." B ut he deified self and defied GOD. 4. "Then was the part of a hand sent (the whole arm soon followed) and this writing was written: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin." Mene is doubled for emphasise; upharsin is the same as "peres," v. 28, with (u), "and," and (in) the sign of the plural added, while (p) is softened to "ph." The "wise men" could read the words, but not interpret their appli»- cation. Daniel read, "Mene, numbered. "God hath numbered (the days of) thy kingdom, and finished it. Tekel, weighed. Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting-. Peres, divided, (also, Persian). Thy king 4 dom Is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.". "5. But the Interpretation has wider application. It applies to the spirit and kingdom of this age, to its gods, the forces it worships, its gold, its silver, its brass, iron,' wood and stone, the foundations of its civilization, the powers and imple- ments of its "progress"; of its trusts, its kings, presidents, governors, civil and finan- cial; its parliaments, congresses, diets; its society, fashions, reforms; all, all numbered.; weighed, rejected, doomed to destruction; and that suddenly. The HAND has written it. And it reaches individuals. GOD num- bers our days, our probations; w«ighs our actions, words, motives; and will divide and finish. I.(>arn His arithmetic. Get into His balances. See how light you are—how far short you come. See! the Hand is writing! What will you do? Cry for mercy! lay hold on that Hand, it not only holds the pen of destiny, but it felt the nail of Calvary. That Hand can feave. as it can destroy-; and just as suddenly. It can bestow a kingdom ' as easy as take it away. Seek first the king- dom of God (Mat. 6:33), for it shall neveç pass away. (Dan. 2:44). God, 1 Pet, 4:17. All must stand before the judgment seat of Christ, Rom. 14:10. The appeal of the lesson should be to our inner-: most' souls to live a clean, straight out and out life. We - cannot hide anything* from God for the day will manifest it, 1 Cor. 3:13. Every act of our Christian life en- ters into the bundle that shall be put into God's' -scales. Our iea'tiing and drlniking, walking and sitting, working and playing; reading and thinking. Everything is in- cluded in' our probationary life here on earth. -Is there any hand writing on the wall that startles you today? Is there a call loud and long to you to get right with and keep' right with Him? Let us live in the consciousness that it is a solemn thing to live,, be we saint or sinner.
PITH AND PIVOT.—T.C.H.
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