Daniel 5:18 O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour.
I remember once talking to some junior-highers in the Northeast. It became apparent after a few moments that they had never heard of George Washington. They did not know who George Washington, the father of their country, was. They had not been taught. Here are young people who are looking to the future, but literally don‘t know what was in the past. They don’t even know who they are because they don’t know a fundamental part of their history. Sometimes we think that what we lack today is vision, an imagination for the future, a thought of what could be. Vision certainly has its place, but sometimes it is our memory that limits our future.
That was certainly the case in the kingdom of Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 5:1 says, “Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.” Here is a man who was feasting when he should have been fasting. The city was surrounded by encroaching Medes and Persians, but Belshazzar was drunk, happy, and arrogant in the confines of a mighty wall and a mighty kingdom. He praised his false gods and drank himself drunk from the very vessels he had stolen from God Jehovah’s temple.
Verse 5 says, “In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.” This is the proverbial handwriting on the wall. God sent a message. A hand appeared and wrote on the wall a message of impending doom.
When you read what happens next, you think you are reading about Nebuchadnezzar because it is the exact same sequence. The king brought in astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers to explain what all this meant. Nebuchadnezzar had done this at least twice before and both times came up with nothing. He was asking the wrong source. Verse 8 says, “All the king’s wise men…could not read the writing.”
Verse 22, speaking of Belshazzar’s grandfather, basically says, “You knew what happened to your grandfather Nebuchadnezzar. You knew how God humbled him, yet you have not humbled your heart even though you knew all this.” Belshazzar’s problem was not that he did not have vision. His problem was that he did not have any memory. Verses 30-31 tell us, “In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom.” He didn’t learn from history. He was doomed to repeat what he did not pay attention to.
Consider a few things. First, know where to look. When you are looking to the future to see where things are going, know where to look. Verse 18 says, “O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom.” He didn’t look to the past and he didn’t look to God. So, know where to look. What we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.
When my grandfather would see a young person at camp, troubled and going the wrong direction, he would try to help them. If they refused, he would sometimes say, “I can write that young person’s story.” It wasn’t that he was a prophet; it was that he could see the same actions would produce the same results. There is a difference between hoping and knowing. Hoping is vision; knowing is looking to the past and seeing how life actually works and the character and nature of God. Know where to look. It can be our memory that limits our future.
Second, know whom to ask. In verse 11 the queen mother says, “There is a man in thy kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods.” She tells him that this man helped Nebuchadnezzar in times past and perhaps could help him now. Daniel himself said that no man could answer the king’s question but there is a God. So, the queen said, “There is a man.” And Daniel had said, “But there is a God.”
So, know whom to ask. Sometimes our memory limits our future. If you want guidance for your life and leading for the future, look to God. He sees the beginning from the end and provides wisdom in His Word and through godly people who know what He has said. So, know where to look and whom to ask.
Finally, know what to do. Verse 22, “And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart though thou knewest all this.” He knew what had happened, but it was no good to him because he didn’t act on it. What he needed to do was not strengthen his walls or guard the conduit bringing the river into the city. What he needed to do was humble himself, realize his limitations, that his kingdom was short-lived but God’s kingdom lasts forever.
No person knows the future, but God does. Sometimes it is not our visions that lacks, but is our memory that limits our future.