IS THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL AGAIN TODAY?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 40, 23 April 1948, Page 3

IS THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL AGAIN TODAY?

(Contributed by the Ministers’ Association) A pagan king of a pagan Empire infatuated by his own conceit and love for pomp and ceremony held a banquet to a thousand of his lords and rulers. Amidst the celebrations, when much wine had been consumed and all were merry, the true nature of the arrogant Belshazzar revealed itself by the command given to toast the deities of his own people by drinking from the consecrated cups taken from the holy tanks in Jerusalem during Babylon’s captivity of Israel in the time of his father Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. The action was one of blashemy, as these sacred vessels were lifted to unclean lips amidst a drinking debauch. Belshazzar claimed that such mockery of the living God is not tolerated by the Supreme Being and that no man can flout the Divine laws and commands and not pay the penalty. “God is not mocked for whatsover a man soweth that shall he also reap.” The very hour of Belshazzar’s toastings to his gods of silver and gold the hand of God wrote in judgment upon the same place on the wall where the King himself used to hang his own royal proclamations and commands “Belshazzar thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting.” The .judgment of God in Belshazzar’s life was drastic and complete. There was nothing to merit mercy as the scales went dead against him revealing a life of appalling moral and spiritual poverty, of sin and degradation. The fruit of a man’s sowing who had neither respect nor honour for the living God. Across his life God wrote “finish” and we read that the same night was Belshazzar king of Babylon slain.

The price a man paid who lived

for self first and self all the way. The price any will pay who live likewise to the continual neglect of the just demands of the Divine Being. Leave God out of one’s life and we share in the spiritual and moral

landslide that has overtaken the world today. World conditions are such that they reveal simply that long enough man has played the fool. He has banqueted, eaten and drunk and toasted the deities of his own creation —the gold and the silver and of things material. Not without price, as is now being revealed. We know that for many nations the tables are now empty and nations are face to face with the stark realities of the merciless consequences of such toastings. It is a costly business, such worship. Man’s selfishness has truly produced its partner—man’s inhumanity to man. In a world of fast-moving events the landslide already mentioned is gathering momentium. The lessons of 1914 and 1939 have failed to make some of both men and nations realise the futility of Godless living. Today a new menace (the grown child of a corrupt monetary system) called Communism has created an acute uneasiness all around and even the war lords must tremble at the grim prospects of another conflict too ghastly to contemplate. Truly the grand old Book rings a warning note today. “Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall

he also reap.” The world today is trying politely to keep the Christ the Prince of Peace in the background, some would even dare to keep Him on the Cross. His laws of love have yet to reach the statute books. Can God tolerate indefinitely such indiffer-

ence and the blasphemy of our “modern civilisation?” Let those see who will, the handwriting of Divine Judgment not only written upon balconies of many a government house and upon ? many pleasure houses and many a home of both rich and poor alike but also upon the human heart striking at the very core of man’s corrupt living. The hand of God writes demanding judgment and justice. Before the judgment comes the working. The handwriting is upon the wall of many a heart today. The answer to the judgment of a righteous God is to be found in the salvation offered, and the refuge offered by Jesus Christ His Divine Son who took upon Himself the full judgment of a lost world’s sins and souls when upon the Cross of Calvary. The hand of God has written our judgment. The hand of Christ (the hand of the wound print) can alone erase the judgment and write our name in the lamb’s book of life. The decision is ours to make.