The Feast of Folly, Part II: Belshazzar Challenges the God of Israel (Dan. 5:2-4)

 

v. 2b: “…he gave orders to bring the gold and silver vessels…”

 

o   There is no evidence that this particularly expressed demonstration of contempt for the God of Israel and for the Hebrew People was part of Belshazzar’s original design in holding the Feast—it seems evident that the alcohol inflamed his passions and lowered his inhibitions, allowing him to venture into actualizing what may had previously been a suppressed and hidden desire.

 

This is not the first time in the Scriptures that impiety and transgression is fueled by alcohol—leading inevitably to judgment! Consider the case of Nadab and Abihu, the priestly sons of Aaron, whose lack of mindfulness in handling sacred forms (Lev. 10:1-3) appears to have been, in some measure, associated with the use of alcohol (Lev. 10:8-11). Today’s leaders of the Christian Church and their families would be well advised to profit from this example (cf., 1 Tim. 3:3; 3:8; Titus 1:7, 2:2-3)!

 

Lev. 10:9: “Drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations.”

 

1Tim. 3:2-3: “Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.”

 

1Tim. 3:8-9: “Deacons likewise must be dignified, not two-faced, not given to excessive drinking, not greedy for gain, holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.”

 

o   Such a profane use of the sacred articles was a blasphemous act of sacrilegious impiety specifically targeting the God of Israel for ridicule.

 

o   Presumably, the treasuries of Babylon contained the artifacts of a variety of subject peoples—but Belshazzar only calls for the sacred articles of the Jews!

 

o   Daniel later affirms that Belshazzar (who was probably a teenager at the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s life) had some degree of knowledge of God’s redemptive dealings with King Nebuchadnezzar (vv. 19-22)—but would have none of it! Perhaps this act of impiety was designed, in part, to represent a contemptuous refutation of Nebuchadnezzar’s conversion and subsequent testimony.

 

o   Daniel also represents the King’s act of sacrilege as a prideful deed of self-exaltation (v. 23), in which the King places himself over the Sovereign God of Heaven and Earth.

 

o   This was also a bold display of contempt for the revealed will of the God of Israel Belshazzar was also doubtless aware of Biblical prophecies that indicated that the time of the 70-year Jewish Captivity was nearing its end (Jer. 25:8-13, 29:10-11), and that Babylon’s end would come at the hands of the Medes (Jer. 51:11) and their specifically-named prophesized ruler, Cyrus (Isa. 44:28, 45:1-7). Belshazzar may also have been well aware of the content of the Dream of the Great Colossus, as interpreted by Daniel years earlier (Dan. 2).

 

o   This act also constituted a challenge to the God of Israel—and was probably designed as a morale-boosting affirmation of the superiority of the gods of Babylon over the God of Israel.

 

o   A basic assumption and theory of the heathen: the victory of a nation in battle demonstrates the superiority of its gods over those of the vanquished people.

 

o   This thinking guided the path of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, in the Days of righteous Hezekiah, King of Judah:

 

2 Kings 18:32b-35: “But do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you, saying, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?'"

 

o   But ultimately, the weakness of the above heathen-theory (i.e., God’s favor self-evidently rests with those who possess earthly might) would be best demonstrated at the Cross—that place of seeming defeat and rejection for Christianity’s Divine Founder—where the power of God was never more evident (1 Cor. 1:24, Phil. 2:8-11)! God’s power is made perfect not in our strength, but in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Ultimately, Christianity is about the triumph of the meek (Matt. 5:5)—not the advancement of the powerful (Luke 1:46-56).

 

o   As in the former days of King Hezekiah and the Prophet Isaiah, when a foreign ruler had likewise forced God’s Hand through a public display of blasphemy, challenging God’s power, the result would be catastrophic judgment:

 

2 Kings 19:5-7: So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. Isaiah said to them, "Thus you shall say to your master, 'Thus says the LORD, "Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land."

 

2 Kings 19:32-37: “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city or shoot an arrow there; and he will not come before it with a shield or throw up a siege ramp against it. By the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he shall not come to this city,' declares the LORD. For I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David's sake." Then it happened that night that the angel of the LORD went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home, and lived at Nineveh. It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.

 

Likewise, Belshazzar’s profane act would providentially serve to stimulate and provoke the Hand of the Lord (vv. 22-24), in accordance with the plan of God as previously revealed by the Prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 51:39-41; cf., Jer. 51:55-57):

 

Jer. 51:39-41: “While they are inflamed I will prepare them a feast and make them drunk, that they may become merry, then sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares the LORD. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and male goats. How Babylon is taken, the praise of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become a horror among the nations!”  

Jer. 51:55-57: For the LORD is laying Babylon waste and stilling her mighty voice. Their waves roar like many waters; the noise of their voice is raised, for a destroyer has come upon her, upon Babylon; her warriors are taken; their bows are broken in pieces, for the LORD is a God of recompense; he will surely repay. I will make drunk her officials and her wise men, her governors, her commanders, and her warriors; they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

 

o   The decadent and impious feast of Belshazzar also typifies the sort of derangement that we see amongst the lost during the Great Tribulation period, who commit spiritual fornication with the Whore of Babylon while remaining insensitive to impending Divine judgment.

 

Rev 17:1-2: Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, "Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality."

 

o   Sinclair Ferguson offers this apt reflection regarding Belshazzar:

“Belshazzar is perhaps the supreme Old Testament parallel to the rich fool in Jesus’ parable.”

 

Like the rich fool of Luke 12:16-21, Belshazzar was purely a man of the “here-and-now,” leaving no room in his daily deliberations for God and utterly destitute of any significant life-purpose other than the poor and paltry cause of self. Likewise, even as the rich fool’s illusion of security lay in the abundance of his many possessions, so too was Belshazzar’s ill-founded confidence centered upon the material—namely, Babylon’s mud bricks and its vast storehouse of stockpiled provisions. In both cases, neither worldly strategies nor material wealth would serve to rescue either Belshazzar or the rich fool from experiencing a sudden and unanticipated death and a subsequent outpouring of catastrophic Divine judgment.

 

o   Belshazzar is depicted by Daniel as the consummate nihilist, wallowing in a self-created milieu of intoxication, gluttony, and sensuality, crowned with his blasphemous acts of impiety and sacrilege. It could also be well-observed that Belshazzar ultimately demonstrates contempt even for the founding-ideals of Babylon itself. Standing in contrast to the great Nebuchadnezzar—who was at least sincere in his promotion of the nation’s interests, and studious in his attempts to uphold its values and ideals—Belshazzar may be accurately characterized in his smallness as one who was quite unburdened by any sort of lofty principles or higher worldview.

 

o   Interestingly, the ancient historian Xenophon strongly concurs with Daniel’s assessment of the King’s character. In reference to the last (unnamed) King of Babylon, Xenophon refers to him as “young” and “impious,” ascribing to him various moral outrages and shocking abuses of authority.

 

o   In one such case, Xenophon relates (Cyropaedia, 4.6.1-6) that the king cruelly murdered with his own hand a young nobleman, the only son of the high official Gobryas, who had made the mistake of besting the king in a hunting expedition. After being bidden by the king to do his best, the young man demonstrated his acumen with a spear in killing both a bear and a lion after the king had missed both. Hot with a jealous rage, Belshazzar proceeded to snatched a spear from an attendant and slew the young man—who was later poignantly described by his father in an interview with Cyrus the Great as “my son, my only, well-loved son;” a mere youth sporting his first “peach-fuzz” of a beard.  

 

o   In another such case, Xenophon relates that the son of a very high official, a courtier named Gadates, was seized and “unmanned” (i.e., castrated) by King Belshazzar at a banquet where they had been drinking together—simply because one of the king’s concubines had praised Gadates for his handsomeness and remarked that the woman who would one day be his wife would indeed be counted most fortunate. In a jealous rage, the king had the young man transformed into a lifelong eunuch (Cyropaedia, 5.2.28).   

The Feast of Folly, Part I (Dan. 5:1-2a)

 

II. God’s Sovereignty seen in His Control over World Empires (chs. 2-7).

 

D. Divine Judgment: Belshazzar’s Feast and the Writing on the Wall (5:1-31).

Recall that structurally, with reference to the chiastic pattern of the Aramaic portions of Daniel (chs. 2-7), this chapter is a companion piece to chapter 4, which also pertains to God visiting a proud ruler with an outpouring of judgment (cf., our introduction to ch. 4: II. C. 2. c. ii.).

 

As a parallel, however, it also serves as a contrast between Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, and with the nature of God’s dealings with both. Under God’s sovereignty, King Nebuchadnezzar is graciously numbered amongst the elect; Belshazzar, however, falls under the classification of a reject. A classic case of Augustinian double-predestination!

 

Rom. 9:18: So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

Rom. 9:22-24: What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

 

1. The Feast of Folly (5:1-4).

v. 1a: “Belshazzar the king…”

o   The probable meaning of his name: “Bel, protect the King!” But, ironically, the false god Bel, an object of the King’s praise (5:4), would sadly prove utterly powerless to do so (5:30)!

 

o   The son of Nabonidus, last King of Babylon, Belshazzar was co-regent with his father, and thus, second ruler in the kingdom (cf., 5:7).

 

o   Belshazzar held sway within the capital city of Babylon during his father’s decade-long period of absence in Arabia. As the great Persian Bear (7:5) moved-in to devour the rotting corpse of Neo-Babylonian Empire, Nabonidus took to the field to lead a final futile military campaign against Cyrus, while Belshazzar continued to oversee the administration of the government from the capital.

 

o   The matter of Belshazzar’s identity: yet another example of the Bible’s vindication in the face of opposition from liberal higher-critics.

 

o   Due to his lesser status as a subordinate-king, both Belshazzar’s name and regal dignity were soon forgotten by post-Neo-Babylonian Era chroniclers and historians—and long-forgotten by the time of Maccabees (2^nd century BC—the general era from which liberal critics have long insisted that the Book of Daniel originated). Subsequent secular history over the centuries thus recorded and remembered only Nabonidus as the “last king of Babylon.”

 

o   Daniel’s seeming ignorance of the person and position of Nabonidus (but again, note 5:7!) along with its multiple references to the “mythical” Belshazzar as “king” (cf., 5:1-31, 7:1, 8:1) were thus regarded by modern liberal critics as constituting hopeless anachronisms, confirming both Daniel’s general unfamiliarity with the basic facts of Neo-Babylonian history and the book’s general status as a pious fraud and forgery.

o   Beginning in the 1860’s, however, a steady stream of archeological digs unearthed multiple references that served to confirm both Belshazzar’s existence and his co-regency (i.e., sharing of royal authority) with Nabonidus. Amongst the various ancient cuneiform texts and documents that emerged, for example, was the “Persian Verse Account of Nabonidus” (published in 1924), which states that Nabonidus “entrusted the kingship” unto his firstborn.[1]

 

o   Herein lies a great confirmation of Daniel’s origins arising from the 6^th century BC! In that all of the available historical sources arising after the 6^th century BC lost sight of Belshazzar’s existence, we must pose the following questions: “How would a 2^nd century BC Maccabean Era “Daniel” have known about Belshazzar? Would he not have named the well-remembered Nabonidus as the last king of Babylon?”

 

o   The above questions are bewildering unto liberal writers, who face an insoluble mystery as long as they cling to their presuppositions with regard to a later, pseudonymous “Daniel.” Note R.H. Pfeiffer of Harvard University:

 

“We shall presumably never know how our author [i.e., Daniel] learned… that Belshazzar, mentioned only in Babylonian records, in Daniel, and in Baruch 1:11, which is based on Daniel, was functioning as king when Cyrus took Babylon.”—R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (1948)

 

But humble, ordinary Christians who trust in the Living God and in His Word know the answer to this question which has stumped the experts of infidel scholarship! The simple reason that Daniel knew all about Belshazzar is because he was an actual eyewitness to these events!

 

o   All of this illustrates both the value and limitations of evidentialist apologetics.

 

1)    There are many spectacular “proofs” which confirm the veracity of the Word of God. Biblical events occurred within the spectrum of the real space/time continuum—and thus it is to be anticipated that an inerrant Bible is not only true with regard to spiritual matters, but with reference to scientific and historical ones as well (cf., John 3:12: "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?).

 

2)    But the problem is not with the evidence—rather, it is with the stubborn and unregenerate human heart, for which no amount of “proofs” will be sufficient! (Note Luke 16:30-31, Matt. 11:20-24, and John 12:9-11).

 

Luke 16:30-31: And he said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”

v. 1b: “Belshazzar the king made a great feast…”

o   Some commentators have stressed the phraseological and thematic similarity between this opening phrase and the opening phrase of the account of the making of the great Golden Image in chapter 3:

 

Dan. 3:1: “Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold…”

 

Both the image and the feast were born out of royal arrogance and a false sense of security created by the illusion of human power and strength.

 

The contrast, however, is found in the fact that Nebuchadnezzar made his great image at a time when Neo-Babylonian power was at its zenith. Belshazzar, however, made his great feast on the night of Babylon’s nadir—when its powerful enemies were at its very gates! Is not the arrogance of Belshazzar thus all the greater—and more absurd?

 

o   This drunken feast was also referenced by the later Greek historians Herodotus (5^th cent. BC) and Xenophon (4^th and 5^th cents. BC):  

 

Herodotus, Histories, 1:191:

“Because the city is so immense, its inhabitants say that when the Babylonians at the edges of the city were taken, those Babylonians who lived in the center were unaware of their capture because they happened to be celebrating a festival at that moment, and so they sang and danced and enjoyed themselves until they found out all too well what had happened. This is how Babylon fell to the Persians the first time.”

 

Xenophon, Cyropaedia, 7:5:

“…Cyrus heard that there was a festival in Babylon in which all the Babylonians drank and reveled the entire night…”

 

o   The peculiar context and timing of such a Feast (Oct. 12, 539 BC)…

The vast army of the Persians and the Medes—under the command of Cyrus, one of the greatest conquerors of antiquity, who had recently devoured the huge collective-domain of many other kingdoms and who was now fresh from his decisive victory over King Nabonidus’ Neo-Babylonian forces at Opis (Sept., 539 BC)—was completely surrounding the city!

 

o   WHY such a Feast? Shouldn’t Belshazzar have been fasting, instead? What was his mindset? Was there any method behind his madness? Various proposals…

 

o   Possibly this was a regular annual affair dedicated unto the gods, as inferred by the Greek historians and suggested by Daniel 5:4. To cancel such an affair would be damaging to morale, constituting an official admission that the current situation was indeed most dire and abnormal—and possibly hopeless. Also, such a difficult hour was certainly not the time to offend Babylon’s official patron-deities, whose demands required some form of appeasement!

 

o   Even if this was simply a state banquet (and thus not a an explicitly cultic festival), it should be remembered that even so-called “secular” court activities were always infused with some level of religious and spiritual content that acknowledged of the patronage and protection of the gods.

  

o   Perhaps the King saw this as a morale-boosting grand-show-of-confidence to brighten dark times. The message he was thus communicating unto the nation: “Who’s afraid of Cyrus? Are we not Babylon the Great? See how untroubled and nonchalant your brave King is in the face of Persian might!”

 

o   Not unlike the modern French Maginot Line, the massive walls of Babylon were considered unbreachable. Further, Herodotus records that the Babylonians had stocked years’ worth of provisions before retreating to safety within the great walls:

 

“A battle was fought at a short distance from the city, in which the Babylonians were defeated by the Persian king, whereupon they withdrew within their defenses. Here they shut themselves up, and made light of his siege, having laid in a store of provisions for many years in preparation against this attack; for when they saw Cyrus conquering nation after nation, they were convinced that he would never stop, and that their turn would come at last.”

 

Ultimately, Belshazzar’s confidence and trust in the man-made defenses of brick and mortar proved to be tragically mislaid! Ultimately, a nation’s security rests in the invisible Hand of God—not in the power of its armies or the wonders of its defensive technologies. Only the Lord is uniquely worthy of the investment of our absolute trust!

 

Ps. 33:16-17: The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue.

Ps. 20:7: Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

 

The wise man, according to Solomon, approaches life recognizing that despite having various beneficial resources, a man’s destiny is ultimately in the Hands of the Lord. While it is true that in accordance with the general principles and normal outworkings of nature that certain advantages (e.g., wealth, physical strength, intelligence, etc.) are usually of great profit, it is also true that there are always notable exceptions to the rule. Space must be left in our thinking for the unexpected actualization of the Sovereign will of God!

 

Eccl. 9:11: Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.

 

o   The King may have also been attempting to psychologically dampen and discourage the foreign enemy outside the city through a prominent display of indifference and bravado. Doubtless, the Persians were carefully monitoring the internal developments within the city, as indicated by Xenophon.

 

o   Was this audacious exhibition of brazen nonchalance also a response to certain prophecies that were being circulated by the conspicuous Jewish community, such as Jer. 51:11 (which specifically prophesized the destruction of Babylon at the hand of Median rulers)? Note further discussion on vv. 2-4.

 

Jer. 51:11: “Sharpen the arrows! Take up the shields! The LORD has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His purpose concerning Babylon is to destroy it, for that is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance for His temple.” 

o   However, even upon granting due consideration to the plausible motivations lying beneath such an extravagant assembly, the matter remains drenched in a bizarre atmosphere of tragi-comic irony and absurdity. Indeed, the very phrase “Belshazzar’s Feast” has entered the cultural lexicon as a proverbial byword signifying an obnoxious display of obscene wealth and decadent frivolity that stands oblivious and indifferent to the basic facts of human mortality, Divine Judgment, and impending doom (Ps. 10:4-6, 14:1; Rom. 1:28; 2 Pet. 3:3-4).

 

Ps. 10:4-6: With haughty arrogance, the wicked thinks, "God will not seek justice." He always presumes "There is no God." Their ways always seem prosperous. Your judgments are on high, far away from them. They scoff at all their enemies. They say to themselves, "We will not be moved throughout all time, and we will not experience adversity."

 

Rom. 1:28: And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

 

"…you know when God will ruin a man he first of all bereaves him of his senses…⁠"—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot, III:9

 

v. 1c: “for a thousand of his nobles…”

o   “thousand...” Such huge numbers were not uncommon for royal feasts in the ancient Middle East, demonstrating the power and majesty of the vainglorious kings of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia. Persian sovereigns were known to often dine with up to 15,000 guests on a daily (!) basis.

 

o   Ashurnasirpal II, the great king of Assyria, claimed to host an astonishing 69,574 guests at a feast of dedication for his new capital in 879 BC!

 

o   Note the extravagant ways of Xerxes (i.e., Ahasuerus), King of Persia:

 

Esther 1:1-5: Now in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces, in those days when King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne in Susa, the citadel, in the third year of his reign he gave a feast for all his officials and servants. The army of Persia and Media and the nobles and governors of the provinces were before him, while he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor and pomp of his greatness for many days, 180 days.  And when these days were completed, the king gave for all the people present in Susa the citadel, both great and small, a feast lasting for seven days in the court of the garden of the king's palace.

 

o   Archeological excavation has revealed that the dimensions of the probable site of the great hall within the king’s palace were comparable to those of the entire original main White House building in Washington, DC!

 

v. 1d: “…and he was drinking wine in the presence of the thousand.”

o   We see within the narrative a strongly implied indication of overindulgence in the use of alcohol—leading, in all probability, to the brazen and perverse command of verse 2, involving the foolish and impious desecration of the sacred articles of the Hebrew nation.

 

o   It is clear that “all of the stops” were pulled-out in this supreme exhibition of carnal and worldly decadence, featuring a gross overindulgence in wine, women, and gluttonous feasting, as well as an overall display of bohemian irreverence towards both the ways of God and the conventions of men.

 

o   Probably the King was situated upon a raised dais in full view of the multitude—guiding the company’s behavior by way of both his personal commands and his alcohol-fueled example (cf., vv. 1-4).

  

o   An immodest inattentiveness to prevailing ancient Middle Eastern royal protocol may also be implied here; generally, kings were screened or veiled from public view upon such festal occasions.

 

v. 2a: “When Belshazzar tasted the wine…”

o   The inflaming influence of alcohol serves to dull the perceptions and create an illusion of invincibility—thereby emboldening a man and causing him to neglect his own natural inhibitions and lower his sensitivity toward societal conventions. Thus, the wise queen-mother of Proverbs 31 advised her royal son, King Lemuel, to abstain from the use of intoxicating beverages.

 

Prov. 31:4-5: It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.

 

o   The sensual character of the feast is also implied, with the subtle reference to the presence of women in vv. 2-3; the King’s wives and concubines are specifically referenced.

 

o   It has been suggested by some commentators that in all probability, these women were not present at the beginning of the feast (which was given explicitly for the benefit of “his nobles;” v. 1), but that they were invited to participate at some later point—after the alcohol had begun to flow freely and take its toll upon the character of the assembly. Recall a similar alcohol-inspired situation and consequent lapse in regnal propriety in Esther 1:10-11.

 

o   Here too is a reminder of the corruptions associated with polygamy—a tragic lapse from God’s original creation-design for human intimacy, which was established by the Edenic-model of ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN (cf., Gen. 2:20-25, Matt. 19:3-9).

 

o   While the Scripture records the historical fact that certain ancient worthies (e.g., Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon) departed from the standard of primitive monogamy, it never endorses this example. It is worth noting that such departures by the ancients were always attended by grave personal and familial difficulties!

 

o   It is also worth noting that the first bigamist referenced in the Bible is Lamech (Gen. 4:19)—a wicked, violent, and rebellious son of Cain. Belshazzar, King of Babylon, thus follows the way of the rebel!

 

o   Overindulgence in food was also something that typically characterized the “great feasts” of pagan antiquity. The Greeks and the Romans, for example, were infamous for such exhibitions of debauched gluttony—which were frequently characterized by the use of vomit-inducing emetic substances that allowed the participants to repeatedly gorge themselves over and over again.

 

And despite current political circumstances, the assembly had plenty of food available to them!

 

“Thus his [i.e., Cyrus’] army was employed, but the men within the walls laughed at his preparations, knowing they had supplies to last them more than twenty years.”—Xenophon: Cyropaedia, VII.5.13

 

Furthermore, the flowing Euphrates River which intersected the city meant that there would always be a perpetual source of fresh water.

---

[1] For a more extensive discussion of these discoveries and their subsequent interpretation, see Daniel (Moody Press, 1985) by Dr. John C. Whitcomb, ch. 5, pp. 70-73.

The Ongoing Battle with the Flesh

 

The Spirit vs. the Flesh

(Pastor Terry Reese; Valley GBC, 10/14/22)

Intro. In Gal. 5:13-26, Paul speaks of the ongoing contest between the Spirit and the Flesh, contrasting their respective fruit. He also addresses this matter at length in Rom. 7:14-25, detailing his own personal struggles in this regard.

 

The Flesh defined. With reference to the spiritual side of man, the Flesh is that self-centered aspect of our spiritual nature that is disposed towards sin and which stands in opposition to God (Rom. 7:18; 1 Cor. 3:3; 2 Cor. 1:12; Gal. 5:16-26; Col. 2:18). For the believer, the Flesh constitutes the last vestiges of the “old man”—i.e., the sin principle that remains within us, or the sin nature—which stands in opposition to the new man, who both loves and desires to serve God. The Flesh thus causes us to do those very things that we hate within our new and regenerated hearts (Rom. 7:15, 19). This battle against the old man will continue in the Christian’s life until our death & glorification, when we will finally and ultimately be liberated from the influence of the sin nature.

 

Errors regarding the Flesh & Personal Sanctification. Certain schools of Christendom (e.g., the Holiness Movement) believe that entire sanctification and perfection is possible in this present life. Such advocates affirm that the old nature—following a post-conversion “second blessing” event—can be finally and decisively defeated, giving the believer a total, lasting victory over sin. But this is a false and unreal understanding of personal sanctification. Paul, as a mature believer, testifies that the struggle with the Flesh was, for him, a present and intense ongoing reality (Rom. 7:14-25).

 

Wherein lies the victory? Sanctification and victory over sin is not a single “event” or some sort of “quick fix” experience. Rather, it is an ongoing process of discipleship that continues throughout this present life. The old man is progressively put to death on a daily basis as we starve his desires and submit to the Spirit’s control in our lives (Eph. 5:18), allowing Him to renew our minds (Rom. 12:2) through God’s chosen agent of cleansing & sanctification—namely, the Word (Eph. 5:26).