Daniel, chapter 5; most hotels will offer a wake-up call. If you want to get up at four in the morning, I don't know why you would want to do that, but you can call the lobby and they'll wake you up at four in the morning. But that term "wake-up call" has become sort of an adage in our culture, a saying that talks about some event, attention-getting event, some warning sign. "It's a 'wake-up call,' " we say. So people have called September 11, 2001, a wake-up call for our nation, waking us up to the threat of terrorism and the need to strengthen our domestic security, a wake-up call.

In 1912 when the Titanic took its maiden voyage and it was going through icy waters, several surrounding ships sent messages to the Titanic warning them of icebergs in the water. All of those messages were wake-up calls: "Hey, be careful, there's ice where you're at." What you may not know is that the communications officer aboard the Titanic wired back to one of those messages, saying, "Shut up! Shut up! You're jamming our signal. I'm busy. I'm working."

Of course, the real wake-up call came at 11:40 p.m. when that ship struck an iceberg and fifteen hundred lives later on were lost. Here's the deal: they had all the information; they didn't put the information into action. Information without appropriate action can lead to devastation.

In chapter 5 of the book of Daniel we read about a king named Belshazzar. You've not read about him yet in the book of Daniel. Belshazzar has all of the information to avert a major disaster, but he does not listen. He's asleep at the wheel. He needs to wake up. I believe that God seeks to get people's attention throughout life in a number of ways, some more dramatic than others—all the while trying to avert a fatal destination.

The Bible says in Romans 13, "It's high time to awake out of sleep." Chapter 5 of the book of Daniel is essentially an interruption. A party is going on, a cocktail party, a Babylonian cocktail party, and God interrupts the party with some divine graffiti. You know the story, "The Handwriting on the Wall." A hand writes on the wall a message; the party is interrupted.

Let me just give you a few historical thoughts so we can dismiss them, but they're important to the text. For years, in fact for centuries the book of Daniel was ridiculed by professors because of Daniel, chapter 5. Professors would say things like, "Well, Belshazzar appears in the Bible in Daniel 5, but does not appear anywhere in secular history.

In fact, they used to say in secular history we have the leaders Nebuchadnezzar, after him three successive kings in rather swift order, and then, finally, the last king of Babylon, Nabonidus, and then the kingdom falls in 539. So King Nabonidus, not King Belshazzar, was the king of Babylon when it fell.

Yet, Daniel 5 says Belshazzar was the king. So they scoffed, they laughed, saying, "Well, these, these Bible nitwits, you can't believe anything they say. And certainly you can't believe in a book that makes people up but never existed historically." All of that scoffing stopped in the year 1854 when they were snooping around archaeological digs in southern Iraq, and they found a clay cylinder called the Nabonidus Cylinder. And the cuneiform writing that was etched around the circumference was a prayer for long life and health for King Nabonidus and his eldest son Belshazzar.

Now, suddenly he emerged out of the archaeological earth and all the critics were silenced. And what we have discovered in the last fifty to one hundred years is that not only did he exist as the eldest son, he was the king of Babylon placed on the throne by his father, Nabonidus, while he himself was away from the city. For seventeen, of fourteen of the seventeen years of his reign, Nabonidus didn't even live in Babylon. So in his place as second in command he placed Belshazzar as the king of Babylon.

Now, why is all that important? It's important because twice in Daniel 5, verse 7 and verse 16, there's the mention of being the third ruler of the kingdom. "Whoever can interpret this weird thing that just happened to me," the king says, "I'll make him third ruler of the kingdom." Why third? Why not second? Because he was second; his dad was first, he was the second, and whoever gets this right can be the third.

So when your kids go away to college and some professor mouths off and says, "You can't believe the Bible; there's names that are made up, and there's history that never really happened." Know that just give it enough time and those professors will get embarrassed, as right now only about one percent of all archaeological knowledge in the Middle East has been uncovered, but they're digging it up every day.

So we have in chapter 5 of Daniel, thirty-one verses of an interruption from God at a cocktail party. And that's how it begins in the first few verses: a wild party, and then a weird picture, and then a wise prophet, and then a weighty announcement. That's how I've divided up this chapter. Well, let's begin our reading in Daniel 5 verse 1.

"Belshazzar the king made a great feast for a thousand of his lords, and drank wine in the presence of the thousand." That is one big party. "While he tasted the wine," and the implication would be he's a little bit tipsy, "Belshazzar gave the command to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple which had been in Jerusalem that the king and his lords, his wives, his concubines, might drink from them."

Hold on for a minute. When it says "his father Nebuchadnezzar," you got to understand something. In Aramaic, that's what this was written in, and in ancient Hebrew there's no word for "grandfather." So they would often say "father" meaning your ancestor, or it could be your father, it could be your grandfather, it could be your great grandfather; same with the word "son." Just like Jesus is called the "Son of David." He's not really the son of David, he's the ancestor; David was his ancestor. So you find "son," you find "father," and it could probably mean "grandfather," and I'll explain a little more of that as we go along.

Verse 3, "Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God which had been in Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives," plural, "and his concubines," again plural, "drank from them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone."

This is quite a party and it's a very strange party. You know why? The year we know definitely from history, the year is 539 BC. It's October around eleventh through twelfth, October 539 BC. At the very time this party is going underway, the enemy has surrounded the walls of Babylon. The Medes and the Persians are at the gates looking for a way to breach through the walls and overtake the city.

They have already sequestered, captured and then sequestered Nabonidus the king. Belshazzar his son is inside knows that he's being surrounded. So what do you? What does the government do when we're down and out? Have a party. [laughter] Bring in the wine. And so here we have our tax dollars at work.

Why a party? Evidently the king can see the sagging morale in the faces of his people: "The city is surrounded. They're going to overtake us." So, to boost the sagging morale he throws a party. And at this party there's a lot of wine and there's a lot of women. And men can say and do stupid things when they're intoxicated and kings as well.

I remember as a young believer witnessing to drunks, not exclusively, but I remember especially whenever I would encounter somebody who was drunk and I would try to witness to them. And I thought it was so effective, I was being so effective, because they'd cry and they'd pray: "I love you, man." And I thought, "Wow! Man, this is awesome." And the next day they had no idea who I was or what happened.

On a serious note, here's some facts: alcohol contributes to 50 percent of all suicides in this country, over 50 percent of violent crimes, 50 percent of all traffic accidents involve alcohol, and 60 percent or more of all emergency room admissions are related to alcohol.

So here's the king. They're at a party. They're having fun. They're praising the gods of all their Babylonian belief systems. And the king has a bright idea. He's thinking, "Why are we drinking from Dixie cups when there's gold and silver mugs over in that palace that my grandfather Nebuchadnezzar stole from Jerusalem. Let's take those."

Now, it wasn't just a bright idea, in all fairness, it was an absolute defiance of God. He had information. You'll notice this as we go through the text. There's certain things this king knows about, but the practice to defy the gods of the peoples that you have taken over was quite a common practice. And to show the superiority of the Babylonian gods over any other nation, especially when you have another nation wanting to overtake you at that very moment, would have been important to him. It was a calculated insult.

So, Belshazzar the king is sort of asleep at the wheel of his kingdom and trying to get all of his leaders drunk in a drunken stupor from which they will never wake up, because that very night they will be overtaken by the Medes and the Persians. A couple of verses I think are important at this point, especially for this king. I wish he would have known it and lived by it. In Proverbs 31 it reads, "It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor princes intoxicating drink."

You need leaders who think clearly when they make decisions for a nation. Proverbs 20, "Wine produces mockers." There's a whole room full of mockers here in chapter 5. "Liquor leads to brawls. Whoever is led astray by drink cannot be wise." A wild party in Babylon. Now, it gets even more strange in verse 5, from a wild party to a weird picture.

"In the same hour the fingers of a man's hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace; and he saw, and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance changed and his thoughts troubled him," sort of a general statement. Want to know how much it troubled him? Keep reading.

"So that the joints of his hips were loosened and his knees knocked against each other. The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans," here goes the parade again, "the soothsayers. The king spoke, saying to the wise men of Babylon, 'Whoever reads this writing, and tells me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck,' " like Mr. T. [laughter], " 'and he shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.' Now all the king's wise men came, but they could not read the writing, or make known to the king its interpretation. Then King Belshazzar was greatly troubled, his countenance was changed, and his lords were astonished."

Several years ago I had the privilege of visiting Babylon, and we were taken into a room that was 56 feet wide by 173 feet long. That's a big room. Our archaeological guide said, "Gentlemen, you are standing in the very room where the handwriting on the wall appeared at Belshazzar's feast the night Babylon fell in 539 BC." And what was interesting is you could see toward the bottom where it had not yet been eaten away—it had been uncovered by dirt for years—the plaster still on the walls even as the Bible says. It was amazing.

Now, I don't know if anyone has ever kept a record of the shortest time it takes to sober up an individual, but I would say Daniel, chapter 5, might be the winning lot. A hand appeared not attached to a body, to an arm, just a hand that wrote something on the walls.

Back in 1963 there was a black and white movie called The Crawling Hand. Do any of you remember that? It was really a lame movie, but when you're a kid, it like scares the pajabbers out of you. It's like this: the plot is there was an astronaut, who died and buried, and his hand came back from the grave and strangled people, and it just scared me to death. The crawling hand!

Well, here's the writing hand on the wall. And the Bible so vividly describes what we know would happen medically, that adrenaline would rush into the king's body, and that would prime that fight or flight reflex that we get, makes a person often sick to their stomach and their heart pumps. He's nervous. He's fearful. It says he was astonished, his countenance changed, and his lords were astonished.

Now, this king's fear came from his guilt. He knows what's happening outside the walls of the city. But he also knows something about his grandpa Nebuchadnezzar and how God humbled him, and the reputation of God in the kingdom of Babylon well attested to in Babylonian history. And I think, I think that when a person is guilty, he sees all of life through that lens. Our conscience is able to make cowards of us all if you're not walking right with the Lord.

Remember Adam and Eve? It says God came to them after they sinned in the cool of the day and called for them. And when God called for them, what did they do? They ran. They fled. They didn't do that before. When God called to go walking with them in the cool of the day, it's like, "Hey, God showed up. Let's have a walk. Awesome!" But after they sinned, now they're feeling guilt, and they interpret all of life's events through that lens of guilt, as does this king.

So the same routine, he brings all of these lame soothsayers of Babylon who cannot read the inscription. Now I know somebody is going to ask me, "Well, why couldn't they even read? They may not be able to interpret what it means, but why couldn't they read what it says?" Either it was some sort of ideogram, pictogram, cuneiform-looking figure that they were unfamiliar with, or some suggest rather than the script being in Aramaic which they were prolific in, it could have been in Hebrew which Daniel would have known from his upbringing in Jerusalem.

Either way this gives to us an incredible picture of the natural man. You know what I mean by "natural man?" The Bible calls a natural man, not a guy who doesn't wear deodorant or eats granola, a natural man is who we are by nature as fallen human beings apart from Jesus Christ. Unsaved people are called the natural man, the natural woman.

And it says in First Corinthians, chapter 2, "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, they are spiritually discerned." That's why unbelievers, they hear a sermon, they hear Scripture, and they go, "I don't quite get this." They can't figure it out. And here in Daniel 5 is a revelation from God. Daniel will be able to figure it out; they can't figure it out. It's a picture of the natural man.

I can't resist this. Can you think of another instance in the Bible where God writes something? John, chapter 8, they bring to Jesus a woman caught in adultery, and they say, "The law says that this woman must be stoned. What do you say?" You know what Jesus said? Nothing. He bent down on the ground and took his finger and started writing in the sand. And they saw what he was writing, and they all walked away convicted.

The question has always been: What did Jesus write? The answer: We don't know. It doesn't say. Maybe he wrote their names and their secret sins: "Shlomo, lust." Shlomo looked at it and goes, "Oh, I'm out of here." "Avi, greed." Maybe he just started unveiling their secret indiscretions, or perhaps, just a thought, he wrote on the ground what you're about to read in this chapter: "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. You've been weighed in the balances, and found lacking." It would have been a story they as Jewish leaders were familiar with and would have gotten the point. But either way, they could not interpret in this chapter what this is all about, so they are scared.

I have a question for you: Could there be handwriting on the wall in your life—that is, has God been trying to get your attention for a while? Maybe a crisis, maybe a close call, an accident, but you're still here. Maybe a family related crisis, a work related crisis. You know, some people need sort of a shaking before God really gets a person's attention. In a crisis the first question you're tempted to ask is: How can I get out of this? Here's a new question you need to ask: What can I get out of this? Is God trying to say anything to me, and if so, what? So, a wild party, a weird picture, and now a wise prophet.

Verse 10, "The queen," interesting. "The queen," who is the queen? Can't be his wife because it says in verse 2 that all his wives were at the party drinking it up with him. So just keep that thought in your mind. "The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came to the banquet hall." She hadn't been there until now.

"The queen spoke saying, 'O king, live forever! Do not let your thoughts trouble you, nor your countenance change. There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the Spirit of the Holy God. And in the days of your father,' " or grandfather, " 'light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him; and King Nebuchadnezzar your father—your father the king—made him chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers. Inasmuch as an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting dreams, solving riddles, and explaining enigmas were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar, now let Daniel be called, and he will give the interpretation.'

"Then Daniel was brought before the king. The king spoke, and said to Daniel, 'Are you that Daniel who is one of the captives from Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah? I have heard of you, that the Spirit of God is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you. Now the wise men, the astrologers, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing and make known to me its interpretation, but they could not give the interpretation of the thing.' "

I think Daniel is yawning about now. He's heard these speeches before. "'And I have heard of you, that you can give interpretation and explain enigmas. Now if you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.' "

It's amazing to me that Belshazzar the king of Babylon either didn't know who Daniel was, or knew who Daniel was and has up to this point completely ignored him. He certainly knew about the incident of his grandfather losing his mind. But Daniel is absent from this. He didn't even come to the feast. He's not in their club, the Drunk Leaders Club. He's not a part of that club.

But later on he is summoned and he's called. He's called, he's been called and he comes. Now, what you have here is a picture of the world, the natural man, and the Christian. The world doesn't want to hear what Christians have to say. They certainly don't want to hear what preachers have to say. It's funny, when I go to places and people introduce themselves and: "Well, what do you do?" "Well, I'm a doctor," or "I'm an engineer." "What do you?" "I'm a pastor." "Oh." They don't even know what to do with that in some cases.

But you have already felt this in your life where people really aren't interested in what you believe as a Christian. They don't really even care about what you think or have to say until the bottom drops out of their life, and they'll come to you.

I remember going to work when I worked in radiology in a hospital, and I'd come and I'd, I'd hear these cracks, especially if I had a Bible. "Ooh, here comes the Christian with his Bible." And then, "Hey, we're going to have a party tonight. You probably don't want to come; you're going to have a Bible study." I heard all that stuff every day. It was sort of this ongoing little mockery, until they had a tragedy. Then they'd come find me and they'd get so humble and: "Could you pray for me?" "Of course, I'd love to pray for you. In fact, I'd love to talk to you." "Well, maybe later."

Joseph Parker writes this: "Preachers of the Word, you will be wanted some day by Belshazzar; you were not at the beginning of the feast, but you will be there before the banqueting hall is closed. The king will not ask you to drink wine, but he will ask you to tell him the secret of his pain and to heal the malady of his heart. Abide your time. You're a nobody now. But the preacher will have his opportunity. They will send for him when all other friends have failed." All the other friends have failed Belshazzar, so Daniel is brought in.

In verse 10 it says the queen came to the banquet hall. I mentioned this couldn't be his wife. This is probably the queen mother: the queen mother, the mother of Belshazzar, the wife of Nabonidus, the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar. Nabonidus took this woman, Nitocris is her name in history, took this woman as his wife which gave him the right to rule because he wasn't from the lineage of Nebuchadnezzar, and Belshazzar is her son.

So verse 16 he pours it on, "'if you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you will be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.' Then Daniel answered, and said before the king, 'Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to [someone else]; yet I will read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation.' "

At this point Daniel is in his seventies or eighties; it has been that long since the beginning of the book. He's been through all this stuff: "Been there, done that. Don't want the gold. Don't want the position. Had it all, could care less about it. Not tempted by it."

Verse 18," 'O king,' "now just listen to this sermon." 'O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father a kingdom and majesty, and glory and honor. And because of the majesty that he gave him, all peoples, nations, languages trembled before him. Whomever he wished, he executed; whomever he wished, he kept alive; whomever he wished, he set up; and whomever he wished, he put down.

"'But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him. And he was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beasts, his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. They fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, until he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomever he chooses. But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this.' "

Wow. You call for a man of God, expect a sermon, not a pat on the back. He didn't say, "O king, live forever! Long live the king!" because the king's going to die in a few hours. Daniel has predicted the fall of this kingdom, so he gets right to it. Daniel in this little sermon levels three hefty charges against this king.

Number one, charge number one: "You have disregarded knowledge. You have sinned against knowledge. There's certain things you knew and you have pushed them aside. You knew about Nebuchadnezzar your grandfather. You knew what God did to him, and how he glorified God at the end of that. You've known all this. You have disregarded knowledge." God judges individuals and nations depending on the light of knowledge they have.

Can I just say, quit worrying about the Pygmies who have never heard the gospel? I hear that all the time: "What about the people who have never heard?" You have heard. I have heard. I have a different kind of a light. God made them; I'll let God worry about them. I'm not worried. I want to get the gospel to them. "Well, what about the people who have never had a Bible?" You have one. God judges us depending on the light we've received. How many sermons have you heard in your life?

You think, you think America will be judged for the light it has? How much light does this country have? Hundreds of thousands of churches, millions of Christians, twenty-five hundred Christian radio stations full power, a hundred Christian television stations full power. Sermon after sermon, truth after truth is accessible. This nation has light and will be judged accordingly.

Remember Jesus, he lived in Galilee, right? What town did he live in? What was his headquarter town? It was Capernaum, right? He moved to Capernaum and set up shop there. And there were three little villages: Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin. They're just little villages next to each other. They heard what Jesus said. They saw what Jesus did. And you know what? They were indifferent to it.

So one day you know what Jesus did? This is what he said, listen to what Jesus said, "Woe unto you, Capernaum and Chorazin and Bethsaida! You have been exalted up to heaven; you will be brought down to hell; for if the works that were done in you had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented long ago. You have been given a high status, been raised up to heaven, the Son of God has been living in your town, and you have not regarded him." They were judged according to the light that they sinned against.

So charge number one for Belshazzar: "You've disregarded knowledge." Charge number two: "You have defied the true God." Verse 23, "'and you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of his house before you, you and your lords, and your wives, and your concubines, have drunk wine from them.' "

"You didn't do this in ignorance, you did this in defiance. You are shaking your fist at the God that you knew humbled your grandpa." This is some sermon. Again, he's in his seventies, eighties; he doesn't care.

Charge number three: "Not only have you disregarded knowledge, not only have you defied the true God, you have (number three) defied false gods." Look at the end of verse 23, " 'And you have praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, stone,' " all the statues around Babylon, " 'which you do not see which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in his hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified.' "

"King Belshazzar, you pray and sing to a bunch of statues. They can't answer back. They can't hear a word you're saying." What a contrast, is it not, to these statues and images in Babylon that were false, dead, and the living God who can write on a wall? One's living and powerful, all these gods are not. Look at that phrase, it's so vivid: "The God who holds your breath in his hand and owns all of your ways." It's quite a God.

In the 1800s a man by the name of William Henley of Britain, a British humanist, secularist, poet, wrote a very famous poem called "Invictus." I think some of you know it. Part of the words is: "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." Ah, no you're not. Because at the end of the line, William Henley; at the end of the line, Belshazzar; at the end of the line, everyone—you're going to have to deal with God who holds your breath in his hand and owns all of your ways. What a moment this must have been.

Now we get to the final part of it, verse 24, "a weighty pronouncement." Let's find out what this thing said and what it means. He continues, verse 24, the weighty pronouncement: "'then the fingers of the hand were sent from him, and this writing was written. And this is the inscription that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN,' "means numbered, numbered, weighed, divided.

Now he gives the interpretation, "'this is the interpretation of each word. MENE: God has numbered your kingdom and finished it.' "Why does he say "MENE, MENE," numbered, numbered? I think here's the vernacular to understand it: "Your number is up. Your days are numbered. You're done. You're finished." By the way, in a few hours this king will be dead. His number is up. He's been numbered.

You know, our days are numbered. Psalm 90 says, "Teach us to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom." James puts it this way, "Our life is but a vapor." Its here for a moment, vanishes away. "It is appointed unto every man once to die and after this the judgment." Our days are numbered.

Second word, verse 27, "'TEKEL,' "which means weighed." 'You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting.' "The word here TEKEL, weighed, implies to weigh something on the scale and find it to be light. Here's God's standard. You put something on the scale like his life, its light. Let me interpret that for you: "Belshazzar, you're a lightweight. You are all fluff and no substance."

The final word PERES, and it says "UPHARSIN." U is the word for "and." Numbered, numbered, weighed, and divided. "'PERES: For your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and the Persians.' "Let me tell you what's happening at this very second while this is going on. Outside the walls of Babylon the Medes and the Persians, as I mentioned, have surrounded the city.

This very moment a general by the name of Cyrus who worked for Darius the Mede, the king, came up with an ingenious idea. He thought, "Well, the River Euphrates runs right through the town of Babylon. It's an impregnable city." He had an idea. He dammed up the river upstream diverting the river into a swamp.

The water level in town went down, down, down, to about knee heighth. The entire army walked underneath the wall through the river, killed the guards, and by the time the party is over the entire army of the Persians are in town. "'Your kingdom is divided, given to the Medes and the Persians.' "

Verse 30, "That very night Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, was [killed] slain. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old." There's a last night for everyone. There's a last meal for each one of us. There's a final statement that will come from our mouth. There's a last breath for everyone, and then eternity.

In the meantime your life is being weighed in God's balances on God's scale. What is it, all fluff? Is it substantive? Is there integrity there? Is there depth there? Because one day you will stand, not in a party hall, not in a royal hall with handwriting on a wall, but in a judgment hall with handwriting in books.

Revelation 20, "The books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire." Boy, that's some handwriting. That's some handwriting.

Here's the good news, Colossians, chapter 2, get this thought, says, "Jesus Christ has taken the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and he took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." The handwriting on the wall that said, "You're guilty. You're guilty. You're guilty. You're guilty. You're guilty." Jesus took it upon himself and nailed it to the cross.

So on that final day, that judgment day, for a lot of people the party is over, but for other people the party's just begun. Eternity will hold the biggest, coolest, party ever. But for some the party is over. God's been trying to get your attention, maybe this sermon, maybe this message.

Maybe he's said, "I love you so much. I want to invade your life and show you what I have for you." I wonder what you'll say to him. Will you say, "Shut up! Shut up! You're jamming my signal. I'm busy. I'm working," like they did on the Titanic? Or will you say, "Oh, yeah! Please take over my life."

Father in heaven, Lord God, the Most High God, as Daniel referred to you as; you hold our breath in your hand. You own our ways. Each little breath we're taking at this very moment is one of your gifts, and then another gift, and then another gift, and then another heartbeat, and then another breath. But it is appointed unto every man once to die and after this the judgment. That was Belshazzar's time, ours is coming.

I pray that we would take the knowledge we know, we've heard in all the years we've heard it, and apply it to our lives. So it won't be information without action that leads to devastation, it would be information that leads to action that brings us celebration. I pray for anyone who doesn't know you in this setting. They've never surrendered their life to Christ. They're feeling the emptiness, the alienation.

Some of them are just here; they just don't get it all. They don't understand us. At the same time there's a craving deep inside their heart to know truth, to know you, to be satisfied, to have purpose, to be settled, to not wander. Still others have come and they've come before. Maybe they came a long time ago. Maybe they haven't been walking with you. They've been disobedient to you, but they feel the urgency to get right with you. It's been a wake-up call to them. I pray they would awaken to life and to light in Jesus' name, amen.