I am reading in Daniel 5, and Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, was now King. And he held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he drank wine with them. And under the influence of the wine he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem. Then the king, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines, drank the wine, and they praised their false gods.

Daniel 5:5-6 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“5At that moment the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. As the king watched the hand that was writing, 6his face grew pale and his thoughts so alarmed him that his hips gave way and his knees knocked together.”

Then the king called for all the enchanters, etc., to read the inscription and to tell him its interpretation, but none of them were able to read it. And the king was terrified. But the queen let him know about Daniel. She encouraged him to summon Daniel, while assuring him that Daniel would give the king the interpretation of the writing. So Daniel was summoned, and he spoke frankly to the king, reminding him that his father had to acknowledge that the Most High God rules over the kingdom, choosing who should be king.

Daniel 5:22-31 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“22But you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this. 23Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways. 24Therefore He sent the hand that wrote the inscription.

25Now this is the inscription that was written:
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN.
26And this is the interpretation of the message:
MENE means that God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.
27TEKEL means that you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.
28PERES means that your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.
29Then Belshazzar gave the command, and they clothed Daniel in purple, placed a gold chain around his neck, and proclaimed him the third highest ruler in the kingdom. 30That very night Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was slain, 31and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.”

Don’t Mess With God!

So, what can we learn from this? We can learn that God is God and that He will do what He said He would do, and we should not take Him and His words lightly. Now His judgments may not be all as immediate as this one was, or as dramatic and testimonial as this was, showing that God means business. But God does not lie. What He says He will do, He will do. And when He decides it is time to act, He surely will act. But He is also a God of grace and mercy, and He does give us humans time to repent and to obey Him, too.

But we should never take for granted the patience of the Lord. All who profess faith in Jesus Christ must be those who have denied self, died to sin, and who are now following our Lord in walks of obedience to His commands in holy living, in the power of God. And this is not saying that we will be absolutely perfect in every way, or that we will never sin again (1 John 2:1-2), but that sin must no longer be what we practice (our lifestyle), i.e. what we do habitually and continually, instead of obeying our Lord in practice.

Sadly, many who profess faith in Jesus Christ do not take God and His word seriously. Many of them are believing the lies rather than the truth of the Scriptures. They are embracing these diluted and altered false gospels created in the minds of humans, thinking that God will not judge them for their sins since they made a profession of Him as Savior. And so they keep on in their sins of rebellion, lying, cheating, stealing, committing adultery, sexual immorality, and the like, thinking God will do nothing against them.

But God is a God of His word. And His word teaches us that if sin is what we practice, and not obedience to our Lord’s commands (New Covenant) that we will not inherit eternal life with God. We will not be saved from our sins. For God’s grace, which is bringing us salvation, is instructing us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives. For Jesus taught that to come after Him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin) and follow Him in obedience to His ways.

Don’t Mess With God
An Original Work / August 24, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

HOW GREAT THOU ART

By Carl G. Boberg and R.J. Hughes

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: “My God, how great Thou art!”

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

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