You've Been Quoting Daniel All Week

You've probably said it this year. Maybe at work, when the boss called that meeting with no agenda and closed the door. Maybe about your football team in the third quarter. "Well, the handwriting's on the wall."

Can I tell you something? You were quoting the book of Daniel. Most folks have no idea. I think we use the Bible all day long and never know it, and this is one of my favorites.

A party you didn't want an invitation to

Turn with me to Daniel chapter 5. It's near the end of the exile. Babylon is the superpower of the world, the biggest and richest kingdom around. And the king, Belshazzar, decides to throw a party.

King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. (Daniel 5:1)

That's a big party. Then it gets worse. He sends for the gold and silver cups Nebuchadnezzar had carried off from the temple in Jerusalem, the vessels set apart for the worship of the Lord. And they start drinking out of them and praising their idols. All the Christians are going, "Whew, what are they doing?" Not good, right?

Listen to what happens next:

Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. (Daniel 5:5)

No body, no arm, just fingers writing on the plaster. And the most powerful man in the world falls apart. The Bible says "his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together" (Daniel 5:6). Anybody ever been so scared your knees knocked? That's from the Bible too. You get a lot of your sayings out of this book.

What the wall said

Nobody can read it. Finally the queen remembers an old man named Daniel. Daniel comes in and, before he interprets anything, he preaches a little sermon. I like to say Daniel was a Baptist. Then he reads it: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin. Those are Aramaic words connected to numbering, weighing, and dividing.

Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; (Daniel 5:27)

Ever wonder where "weighed and found wanting" came from? Same wall, same night. There's a lot of etymology in one chapter.

And here's the part that'll make the hair stand up on your arms: "That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed" (Daniel 5:30). The writing wasn't a forecast. It was a verdict.

How it got into our mouths

The exact phrase "the handwriting on the wall" isn't in the verse. English speakers took the picture straight out of this story. Generations grew up hearing it read from the old King James, with the hand writing on the plaster of the wall, and the scene stuck. Over time, "the writing on the wall" or "the handwriting on the wall" came to mean any sign that something bad is coming.

But notice what we've done with it. Today we use it for things that just happen: a company folding, a relationship fizzling, a season going south. It's more or less bad luck you can see coming.

In Daniel, it's not luck at all. Daniel tells the king exactly why it's happening:

And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, (Daniel 5:22)

Though you knew all this. Belshazzar knew how God had humbled Nebuchadnezzar before him. He knew better. The writing on the wall wasn't random. It was the Most High God, who still rules the kingdoms of men, answering a proud heart.

Where this lands for you and me

Here's what I want you to sit with. Every one of us has some writing on the wall with our name on it. Weighed in the balances and found wanting? That's not just Belshazzar. That's me on my best day. The Bible says we all fall short.

And here's the good news, and it's so good. Paul says God dealt with the writing that stood against us:

by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:14)

Belshazzar's verdict was written on a palace wall. Yours and mine were nailed to a cross, and Jesus paid them. Belshazzar knew better and wouldn't humble his heart. Don't be Belshazzar. If you can see the writing on the wall in your own life this week, don't wait until "that very night." Humble your heart, bring it to Jesus, and let him cancel the debt.

You bring nothing to the table. He already paid the bill.