He Is Mighty

"Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty." Psalms 93:4

I found something so striking this morning my friends as I was reading in the book of Daniel, this book is such a bright, bold and colorful story of times past of Gods greatness through a man named Daniel. As I read it the words jump of the pages like they never have before, and I am finding myself marveling at the wonders of God, but mostly, how He knows everything. There was a king, who's story is in Daniel chapter 5, his name is Belshazzar, maybe you've read or heard his story before but he is like every person walking on earth today. Going about their own way doing their own thing, thinking nothing of the great High God, and thinking everything of the god's they love to worship in their own little worlds.

This king, was mighty in the land, great and had much. He had women, power and money..any man's dream and he was living the high life, and obviously gave God not one thought.

One night, while he and all his wives and friends were partying late into the night Belshazzar decided to show off his royal greatness (why do we always have to show off?) and bring up the cups of the temple of God in Jerusalem taken in war...the king wanted to show these artifacts off and so they all drank wine from them, they were gold, silver bronze and stones...so this is what they did, and while they drank from these cups, they praised the gods of gold, silver, bronze and stone.

Let me stop here for just a moment...although to all of us it sounds absurd to praise god's like that, we do it all the time. How often to go through our day, and praise the "things" we have, we take so much pride in them, we treat them so highly, and we idolize them in our hearts...

I have done this with many things, my children were one of them...it used to be my appearance, and before that, it was what I wanted, rather than what I had...so I have a long history of worshiping things.

To get back to the story here, what happens next would put the fear of God in any heart, because in verse 5 this happens "Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lamp stand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale, and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way." (5-6)

That my friends is what happens when you are in the presence of the most High God and you know you are not in the right. These were the words written on the wall and my friends, it brought tears to my eyes for two reasons: one, because of the greatness of God and the fact that He knows all, is everywhere at all times, and can see our hearts and two, that He has this power to do what He said He would do.

The words that the fingers of God wrote were these: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN.

To the blind eye you would look at those words and say, "what?!" Well that was the kings response also. He called in all his best translators and they also had no clue, so the king then began to be very afraid, and eventually to make a long story short (a good long story that you should read for yourself in Daniel chapter 5)

Daniel was called, and Daniel, with the faith of God, the wisdom of God and the boldness of God told the king what these words meant for his fate, and it was this:

MENE means God has numbered your the days of your reign and brought it to an end (interesting that He said this one twice)

TEKEL: means You have been weighed on the scales, and found wanting. (this one hit me the hardest)

PERES: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.

And all of this of course happened, Belshazzar was slain that very night and his kingdom was taken over by the Medes and the Persains, why? All because he had been weighed on the scales of God and was found wanting.

Friends...this is a sobering thought but it is true for us as it was true for Belshazzar, his fate was death and so is ours if on the sobering day of Christ's judgement we too are found in wanting. Let this not be said of us!!!

Here my friends is the good news though, we still have time, where this king did not, we can turn our eyes from our idols and exclaim to God his mightiness...and tell Him, He is the greatest of all, and in return my friends, wait to see what you receive: better than what you have, better than what you can imagine, better than anything you've ever known...a full life.

Would you say your life is full right now? Not full of business or taking care of kids, or cleaning your home, or taking care of projects...that not full. That's busy.

FULL is this: Filled to the brim of all you need to make it through each day with joy, having the ability to look at the conflict in your life as lessons rather than pain, having the ability to praise Him in a way that even the joy you feel seeps out the edges of your eyes. That is full. And I want it. Do you? Well, it's yours for the taking, all you have to do is ask.