A human hand appeared and wrote a message on the wall.
What?!
Daniel tells us this actually happened in the middle of King Belshazzar’s huge banquet! If I saw something like that today, it would definitely get my attention.
This is where we get the saying, ‘I can read the writing on the wall’. Many of us don’t know this comes from. I know I didn’t until I started reading the whole Bible.
King Belshazzar could not understand the handwriting on the wall so he consulted with Daniel who was well-known for being able to interpret things when no one else could. Daniel read the writing and told the king that God was bringing his reign to an end because the king had not acknowledged God as sovereign over all the kingdoms on earth.
That very night, the message on the wall was fulfilled and Belshazzar was killed.
One part of the message on the wall was ‘Tekel’ which means you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
The bad news for all of us is – our scales don’t look any better. Our rebellion. Our need for control. Our self-centeredness. Our busyness which causes us to ignore God.
The writing on our wall would have the same message…..
except for the fact that God loved us so much that he gave us an ‘out’.
He sent his perfect son, Jesus, to save us from the eternal separation from God. The entire Bible is a love story about how God created us in his image and desires to have a close, personal relationship with us.
Jesus offers a gift of grace to each one of us – that’s his part. Our part is accepting his free gift which makes the scales flip in our favor.
Through Christ’s sacrifice, we can become precious children of God who are never ‘found wanting’ because Jesus did it all for us….
for all time,
for all who will believe and receive.
It is finished.
Thank you, Jesus.
Judy