April 27 : Daniel 5

"This is what these words mean:
Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.

Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.

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

All I can say is, freaky! I thought this was such a scary chapter. The king basically got told that he was going to pay for his transgressions and die. So the story goes like this. The king took goblets from God's altar and brought it to his party. Then this king got his wives, concubines, and his friends and drank wine from them. Then they worshiped the gods of gold, silver, bronze. After that moment God sent down a big hand that wrote on the wall three words: Mene, Tekel, and Peres. Up above is the meaning of those words. The night Daniel had translated those words God took his life. What I learned from this a few things. First, there is a parallel between this story and that of Jesus'. Just as the king did not know when judgement was coming we too do not know either. I bet the king had no idea that this was going to happen like this. He was living life of sin, and it was then that God decided to take his life. Second, God watches what we do. He saw the king defile God's glory, and God was not happy. Third, we must heed the words of those who are faithful to God. Daniel basically gave a huge warning to the people of Babylon about who they should worship. This king failed to do so and he paid the price of it - even to this day. We must learn from the mistakes of those in the past. Even though they lived so long ago, we can learn a lot here.