I have a problem with pride, and although I don't
know most of you, I'm assuming you do as well.
I guess you don't come across as arrogant or
boastful, and I hope I don't either. Pride can
look like that, can't it? It can be the obvious
form, loud, in -your -face arrogance. And it
looks like that, I think, for Belshazzar, the
king in this passage. But more often, pride hides.
It lurks in the darkness, hiding underneath other
more noticeable sins, pushing them to the surface
while it stays in the background. And all the
time that pride does that, all the time pride
remains hidden, it is particularly powerful.
In some ways, it is the mother of all sins. And
while we wrestle with pride's children, Other
sins in our life, we can be blind to the matriarch
herself. But do the opposite. Drag pride out
into the light and you find it begins to lose
some of its power. And then as pride loses its
grip on us, all sorts of other sins and struggles
begin to weaken their hold as well. This pride
is the big one. And what this passage does, I
think, is to push our pride into the light of
the gospel to give us hope. So orientation first.
We're in Daniel 5. Nebuchadnezzar, the famous
guy, he's dead. Verse 1 tells us a bloke called
Belshazzar is king in his place and he has set
himself up against the Lord of heaven. That's
Daniel's take on him in verse 23. That's a way
of saying he's proud. And as this chapter shines
a light on his pride, notice first how stupid
it is. First, Belshazzar throws a massive party
in verse one, but later on in the passage in
verse 30, we discover that as he's doing that,
as he's hosting this great gathering party for
so many people, the army of the Mesan Persians
was literally surrounding his city. He is actually
at the crucial moment of a desperate battle for
survival. And at that moment, he decides to get
drunk with his nobles and his army officers,
who probably had better things to be doing. Historians
tell us the Babylonians were overconfident in
the city walls. They thought Babylon itself was
unbeatable. And Belshazzar's pride makes him
act like a fool. on the eve of the turning point
of his kingdom and indeed of history. Then it
gets worse. Verse two, while Belshazzar was drinking
his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold
and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar, his father,
had taken from the temple in Jerusalem so that
the king and his nobles, his wives, his concubines
might drink from them. No matter what your religion,
Belshazzar, bleeding, all sorts of things, to
use the holy temple vessels from a sacrosanct
space for a drunken party is, in anyone's book,
a proud scorning of the gods to whom that temple
belongs. It is also really foolish. Belshazzar's
gods of gold and silver that he praises in verse
four haven't been much use to him or his people
in the... Heavy defeat after defeat he's receiving
from the Persian Empire. Daniel says in verse
23, your gods cannot see or hear or understand.
Belshazzar's pride makes him worship like a fool.
And then Daniel confronts the king about his
pride. What he does in verse 17 to 21 is to retell
the story of chapter four, which I'm sure you're
familiar with. Nebuchadnezzar, the king then.
refused to heed a dream that God gave him, boasted
about how great he was, and was then humbled
by God by being driven mad and driven out of
his kingdom, out from his throne for a period
of time. Now, Belshazzar, his son, knew all of
that. He was, I presume, there when it happened.
The lesson was obvious. Humble yourself before
this God, before the Most High. But unlike his
father, Belshazzar refused to listen. Maybe you
had kids in your class at school who were overconfident,
thinking they're great, don't listen to the teacher,
just mess around. Belshazzar's that kind of kid,
grown up, but not grown up very much. Verse 22,
but you, Belshazzar, his son, have not humbled
yourself, though you knew all this. Instead,
you've set yourself up against the Lord of heaven.
His pride makes him refuse to listen and learn
like a fool. And because he won't turn from his
foolish pride, God's judgment falls on him. God
miraculously writes on the wall of the banqueting
hall. The writing says, mene, mene, tekel, parsin.
The wise men of Babylon, they can't understand
it. There is no true wisdom apart from God. But
Daniel comes in and he can. Mene, he says, God
has numbered the days of your reign and brought
it to an end. Those gods of gold will not keep
you going. Tekel, you have been weighed on the
scales and found wanting. Your rejection of God
means he rejects you. Perez, your kingdom is
divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
Those famous city walls won't guarantee your
future. And that very night, he's killed. Now,
listen, I think it's easy for us to laugh at
this proud and foolish king throwing a party,
showing off his greatness, thinking gods of gold
are going to protect him, ignoring the only God
who could when his city is surrounded and he's
literally about to die. But my guess is at the
time, none of that felt silly to him. It's only
when God's word shines a light on it. That's
the moment that human pride looks and feels ridiculous.
I can laugh at this king, but just because my
pride might not look exactly like his, maybe
it's less blatant, less on the surface, that
does not make my pride any less ridiculous. My
pride can hide behind perfectionism. Of course,
that's not why I think. I want to get everything
just right. I think I'm just trying to do a good
job as my family suffer. But sacrificing others
in order to achieve a perfect result in my work
is ridiculous. My pride can hide behind prayerlessness.
Of course, that's not why I think I struggle
to pray. I think the reason I struggle to pray
is because I'm too busy. or too distracted, or
too lazy. But deep down, I'm too proud to pray
more than I do. If I felt my weakness, my true
dependency, desperate need for the Lord Jesus,
I would pray more. My pride can hide behind anxiety.
And don't mishear me, anxiety can have many causes,
including physical ones. It's not simply down
to sin, but my anxiety can come from acting like
I need to manage the future. To provide for my
family in this or that potential imagined future
scenario, that is God's job. My shoulders are
not... big enough, broad enough to carry that
load. And if I take God's job in my pride, it's
no wonder the weight crushes me into anxiety.
Pride hides in the darkness of my heart and it
conceals itself behind other sins and struggles.
And as it lurks there in the darkness, my pride
whispers, I'm reasonable. I'm sensible. Other
sins might be out of order, but looking after
number one is just sensible. So if I want to
repent of my prayerlessness, if I want to lose
my perfectionism, I need God's word to shine
its light where my pride lurks. Drag it out of
the shadows. Show me how foolish it really is.
Daniel 5 does that, but it doesn't only say,
turn from foolish pride. A bare command is never
much help for people like you and me. If I'm
simply told to turn from my foolish pride, I'll
either be too proud to listen like Belshazzar,
or I'll try to turn from it through my own willpower,
tell myself I'm strong enough to do better this
time around. Well, that's just another form of
pride. So Daniel 5 says, turn from foolish pride
by trusting the humble king. Turn from foolish
pride by trusting the humble king. There's a
contrast here, isn't there? Between Belshazzar
and his dad in chapter four, Nebuchadnezzar humbled
himself. Belshazzar doesn't. What's the turning
point? What's the difference? What's the moment
that changes for Nebuchadnezzar? It's not when
he goes mad. His madness was God's just punishment
for his mad pride. The turning point comes, if
you've got a Bible, you'll find it for yourself
in chapter four, verse 34. What happens there?
We're told he raises his eyes to heaven away
from himself. And the scripture says that is
the moment when his sanity is restored. And what's
the first same thing he does? I blessed the most
high. and praised and honored him who lives forever.
See, Nebuchadnezzar came to a point of realizing
we can only turn from our foolish pride if we
turn towards something better. And so Daniel
5 shows us the most high God in all his power.
It's easy to miss this. Don't forget what we
are witnessing in this chapter because The Bible
almost sort of skims over the historical detail,
but this is basically the end point of perhaps
the greatest world empire there had ever been
up to this point in history. Daniel 5 is where
it finishes. In verse 30, Babylon is done forever.
Why? Verse 26, because God has numbered its days
and brought it to an end. If you know the wider
story of Daniel, you might remember that's exactly
what God said he would do back in chapter two,
that famous dream Nebuchadnezzar has there of
the giant statue with different chunks made up
of different elements. He said then, God said
that he would break the Babylonian empire like
the golden head of that statue in the dream was
broken. And this is him doing it. This is God
keeping his words. Daniel showing us the most
high doesn't just rule kingdoms. He rules history
and there is none that can stay his hand. Well,
seeing that, seeing the most high, paying attention
to the way that Daniel elevates and lights up
the Lord reminds us that we are very low. That
title for God, the Most High, particular characteristic
of Daniel and his book, reminds us that we are
very low. It punctures our pride. But that's
not quite enough because our pride is so subtle,
so adept, it can even hide behind low self -esteem.
If God's greatness just shrivels us, we stay
focused on our shriveled nature. thinking a lot
about how weak and ineffective we are focused
still on ourselves. So as God breaks the kingdom
of Babylon and starts to fulfill that dream from
chapter two, he's pointing us as well to how
that dream ends. If Daniel 5 is the first bit
of the dream coming true, the head breaking,
we're supposed to remember the end of the dream,
what happens. at that moment because it works
like this first babylon breaks and then persia
breaks and then the greek empire breaks and then
the roman empire emerges and in that dream of
chapter 2 we're told in those days the roman
days the god of heaven will set up a kingdom
that will never be destroyed and when jesus steps
onto the scene of history he announces the kingdom
of god has come near Repent and believe the good
news. Repent, turn from your foolish pride. How?
By believing the good news. By believing the
good news that the most high God has used his
power, all the power that we see in Daniel, with
a posture of humility and a purpose of love.
The one king. Who could honestly have said, is
not this the great world which I have built as
the royal residence by my mighty power for the
glory of my majesty? Nebuchadnezzar's words from
chapter four. The one king who could actually
have said that instead says, I have come not
to be served, but to serve and to give my life
as a ransom for many. The one king who could
fairly have grasped equality with God. That thing
that Nebuchadnezzar and his son stretched for,
instead emptied himself by taking the form of
a servant, by being born in the likeness of men,
being found in human form, humbled himself by
becoming obedient to the point of death, even
death of the cross. The fact that God is most
high means that we are very low and should not
be proud. But the fact that God the most high
uses his power to stoop very low in order to
lift us means that we are greatly loved and don't
need to elevate ourselves. Here's the glorious
gospel truth. My pride could never lift me half
as high as God has placed me in Jesus. With a
king like him, we don't need to steal his job.
Sometimes you'll come across the true idea that
pride is us pushing God away. That's real. But,
you know, it's also our way of coping with the
aftermath. It's our way of coping in a world
without God or where we're acting like there's
no God. Because if he's not looking out for me,
if we've, as it were, got rid of him from our
minds, well, then I'd better look out for myself,
right? That's why to our fallen natures. Pride
feels so sensible where other sins might feel
silly quite quickly. Pride feels right all too
easily because in a world without God, it's unavoidable,
essential. But because we don't live in a world
without God, it is deeply foolish, most especially
for God's people. Because God is not only ruling
our world, he's caring for us. All the power
of the Most High given in a posture of humility
for a purpose of love. So, brothers, sisters,
unleash the gospel on your pride. When God's
word shines a light on our hearts, pride is going
to scuttle through a dark corner like a startled
spider. It'll crouch behind some other sin or
struggle and say, look at that one, ignore me.
I think this is held true for me in pastoral
ministry. People come and talk about their sins
and their struggles. The one that we tend to
find hardest to admit is pride. We don't want
to admit that pride lies at the root of our other
sins, our anger, our gossip, our prayerlessness.
I think because in our redeemed nature, we do
sense that our pride is ridiculous and ridiculous
sin feels shameful. Surely we should be better
than this by now. But the gospel came. The gospel
comes for ridiculous sinners like you and me.
Jesus came. to take the judgment and the shame
that our pride earns. His message to all who
receive him is not, I'm king, you're not, so
kneel and knuckle under. It's, I'm king, you
don't have to be. So be free from acting like
you are and killing yourself in the process.
And the turning point for us in our struggle
with pride. And therefore, in our struggle with
a hundred other sins that cover pride over, the
turning point for us is even more potent than
it was for Nebuchadnezzar, because he saw the
most high God in his power. That's kind of all
he saw. We see him in Jesus, using all of that
power in a posture of humility for a purpose
of love, stooping low to lift us high. In the
light of a gospel like that, to a God like that,
you and I, we can safely admit our ridiculous
pride to him. We can admit how it drives other
sins, admit how it plays into other struggles.
We can admit. And then we will admire. We will
admire the Lord Jesus. Praise him, magnify him,
exalt him, delight in him. Ultimately, it's praise
that kills pride. Let me pray. Heavenly Father,
we are ridiculous in our sin. Thank you that
the Lord Jesus moves towards ridiculous sinners
in power and grace. Thank you that he willingly
takes our shameful rebellion and inflation of
ourselves on himself on the cross. And now serves
us remarkably as king so that we don't have to
fake the job ourselves. And we pray for the power
of that gospel to go to work more and more deeply
in our hearts to free us from pride and all that
it breeds. And to make us a people of praise
for the most high God. In his name we pray. Amen.