Episode Transcript
Daniel chapter 5, God willing, we'll be expounding verses uh 7 through 9 this morning.
I think we're getting that far.
And the title of the message is The message and its messengers.
The message and its messengers.
Now last week we read in our verses, our previous verses, that God, through the agency of a human hand, wrote Belshazzar's judgment upon the wall as they were celebrating their false gods And that caused the king to be greatly troubled, as it would any of us who saw a hand, just a hand and no arm and no man riding up there on the wall.
And the handwriting was something that Belshazzar and nobody there could read And so picking up from there in verse 7 this morning, the Bible says the king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your precious word.
Thank you for Sunday school this morning.
Thank you for the faithful students.
Thank you, Father, for the people who faithfully come here each Sunday.
And Lord, show up to hear your word, to sing your praises, to fellowship with your people.
We pray all eyes will be on you now.
You'll fill us with your spirit.
Help us to understand your word deeply, communicate it clearly, and obey it fully.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So the king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers.
Now these are essentially the false religious leaders of his day the experts uh of his day.
And I want you to notice that Belshazzar did what his grandfather also once did.
Do you notice that, Brother Doug?
Same thing.
When when Nebuchadnezzar was troubled by the messages that God sent him, he also brought in the astrologers.
Chaldeans and the soothsayers.
And they were the very people who historically had proven themselves time and time again. incapable of understanding and explaining the word of God God's writing on the wall was a spiritual message And it would therefore take someone with the Spirit of God to understand it and explain it.
Carnal people can't explain spiritual things.
They can explain carnal things.
You take someone who's a medical doctor.
They can explain medical things.
It's carnal.
It's physical.
And they can explain it, they can lecture on it, and you can learn, we could all benefit from that.
But I have watched people who were experts in very intelligent in worldly things.
And then when it comes to the Bible and spiritual things, they make no sense whatsoever.
They're like babes.
They have no understanding at all.
It takes spiritual people to explain spiritual things.
The most educated, intelligent people can discuss certain earthly matters with great authority.
But when they try to discuss the Bible, they quickly reveal that they don't understand.
Here's a kingdom truth for you this morning.
Carnal men cannot explain spiritual messages.
Carnal men cannot explain spiritual messages.
It takes spiritual men to understand and explain spiritual truths.
First Corinthians chapter 2, verse 13 and 14.
1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 13 and 14.
The Apostle Paul said, Which things also we speak.
Not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.
Comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
Now that's important.
We're going to get back to that in just a moment.
But the natural man, he says, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spirit. spiritually discerned.
Now that's a big statement that Paul made.
Men of God speak things that the Holy Ghost teaches.
I have had people that I've spoken to before.
I've tried to share the gospel with them.
I've tried to share spiritual things with them.
I have explained it so clearly.
So plainly, so obviously, so eloquently, and half after having done that, they'd look at me and not understand.
I was over at a man's house one time, and I was explaining the gospel to him And he said, I don't believe that.
I don't believe that at all.
I was at another man's house one time.
I waxed so eloquently.
I felt like I was filled with the Spirit of God.
And I was explaining the gospel, and I was so thrilled in my heart that I had the opportunity to share what Jesus did with that man at his kitchen table.
And I thought, I just know God's going to save this man.
This is so wonderful.
And he's listening very intently.
And when I got through, I waited for his response.
He says, that goes against everything that my family taught me growing up.
Goes against everything I've ever been taught.
I can't believe that.
I'm like, huh.
Wow.
But you know what?
Taught me a lesson.
It taught me a lesson.
The lesson is this.
The Holy Ghost can teach me.
God's Holy Spirit can teach me.
But you know what?
It's going to take God's Holy Spirit to teach somebody else.
He can use me to convey the message.
But it is the Spirit of God who is the teacher.
Spirit of God.
Now the Holy Spirit gives men in the church the gift of preaching or gift of pastoring and teaching.
He gifts certain people in the church with an extraordinary gift. of understanding Scripture and then being able to take that Scripture and then make it easy for other people to understand and explain it to them.
So it's the Holy Spirit that gives the gift But it is the Holy Spirit who not only gives the gift to the teacher, but it is the Holy Spirit who takes those spiritual things.
And when those spiritual things leave my mouth, Get to your ears, it's going to take the Holy Spirit on your end to take those spiritual things and enlighten you and give you the comprehension of it.
And without the Holy Spirit, you'll never understand So, here's a wonderful truth for you.
If you're ever sitting in church and you hear the preacher teach something out of God's word, And you think, praise God, that's good.
Do you know what had just happened?
When that light clicked on in your head, that was the Holy Spirit of God caring about you in saying, here, let me enlighten you on something.
Let me give you the understanding of spiritual things.
Apart from that, right over your head.
It'll bounce right off your forehead, bounce right off your ears, and you won't understand.
And so you just understand when that happens And you get all excited about what you've learned, it's because God's Holy Spirit personally taught you.
And gave you that understanding.
Men of God speak the things the Holy Ghost teaches.
When we teach, Paul said we are, quote, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
Can we go back to um, there you go.
Where's my little pointer?
I like that little pointer.
We speak comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
Now that word comparing.
In the Greek, it means to jointly fit together.
To jointly fit together.
Spiritual things with spiritual.
Now.
The other day, Brother Shepherd, in one of his Sunday school lessons, I can't remember what the purpose was, you were talking about uh uh a right angle if I remember right. 245 is making a right angle, you're talking about a right angle Well, that's literally what it's talking about, to jointly fit together.
So we jointly fit together spiritual things with spiritual.
That's what a a a man of God does.
He jointly fits together spiritual things with spiritual, just like putting two 45 degree angles together to form that 90-degree angle.
Join.
Now you don't put a 30-degree angle.
If you want a 90-degree degree angle, you're not going to put a 30-degree angle with a 45-degree angle.
You're going to have to have a 45 and a 45.
And if you don't, they won't jointly fit together.
If you have a two before. or or a piece of trim and it's got a perfect 45 degree angle.
You're going to have to have another piece of trim with a perfectly cut 45 degree angle and it will be make a joint It will jointly fit together.
Now, if you have a 45 and you have a 35 and you try to slide it together, are there going to be some gaps?
It's not going to butt up like that.
It's not going to be flushed together, is it?
It is it and you can tell that one does not jointly fit with the other.
One was not properly cut.
They do not marry up.
Okay?
And as it is in the physical, Paul says, so it is in the spiritual.
You have to jointly fit together. spiritual things.
You must join the same angles, a 30-degree angle to a 30-degree angle, a 40-degree angle to a 40-degree angle, to spiritual things in order to construct spiritual truth in people's minds.
Have to.
Now Belshazzar had a spiritual message on his wall.
It was written by the hand of God, had a spiritual message on the wall, and he would by calling in the Chaldeans, the soothsayers, By calling in these people, he was trying to join that message on the wall, that spiritual message on the wall, with the carnal wisdom of natural men.
See that?
It's not gonna work.
It's not gonna butt together.
Now, I have had construction projects in the past that I've done. when I wasn't a very experienced making angles with trim.
I won't tell you.
I used a lot of that silicone putty and stuff, you know.
I have.
I use a lot of it, man.
I tell you.
I made it look pretty good, but man, you go you go back later, you can take your fingernail and you stick right in there.
It's not real.
It's not butted up together.
I'd have to take that caulk and shh, you know, fill that in.
And that's the way some people are with their Bible doctrine.
Belshazzar had a spiritual message on the wall trying to join it with the carnal wisdom of natural men.
Paul said the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God.
Now a natural man doesn't mean someone that likes nature.
It means that someone who's been born once by his fleshly birth, just born naturally like any other person Jesus said in John chapter 3, verses 6 and 7, Jesus said, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that's the natural man, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit Now, if you want someone teaching you spiritual things, if you want someone jointly fitting together the spiritual with the spiritual, then you better have a person who's been born of the spirit teaching you Otherwise, you're going to have a natural man who only understands carnal things.
Jesus said, Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.
That is born of the Spirit.
So a natural man only has fleshly, that is, carnal, physical concepts to build with.
That's all he's got.
It's all the materials he can understand.
The message on the wall was a 45-degree angle, so to speak.
But the natural men that Belshazzar called could only see, know, and cut carnal messages with 30-degree angles.
So they could never comprehend that 45-degree message on the wall.
They could never butt it up together with their explanation.
The message contained spiritual things that could not be understood by carnal men.
As Paul said, for they are foolishness unto him.
Paul said, neither can he know them. for the because they are spiritually discerned.
Sometimes when someone says, uh, do you know Spanish?
Right?
They could say, do you know Spanish?
He said, I don't know Spanish.
I don't know that.
In the same way, carnal people don't know spiritual things, you see.
It's like a different language.
The truths are not merely foolish in the sense that carnal people understand them, but they don't believe them.
They're foolish to the carnal people in the sense that they're like them trying to read a foreign language.
The language was right on the wall, right in front of them.
The letters were there.
The words were there.
It was right in front of them.
But they did not speak that language.
It was like them trying to read a foreign language.
Spiritual things cannot be deciphered, cannot be understood by carnal people.
And that's why we must make sure That the Bible teachers we listen to, that we tune into on the radio, that we stream on the internet, The Bible teachers we listen to first and foremost understand the gospel of Jesus Christ before we listen to anything else they have to say.
I've had so many people send me videos and uh uh of people teaching the Bible.
Say, man, this, I don't know.
I agree with it.
Could you tell me if you agree with this or not?
You know, and they they or this person's got me all confused and I'm all troubled now listening to this person.
Quit listening to them.
Just quit.
Man, I tell you what, there's enough teaching right here at church and things that we've covered in the past.
But whoever you listen to, You make sure that they are right on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And if they're not, You better not listen to anything else they have to say.
You see, if they don't understand the gospel, they're not believers.
You can't believe what you don't understand.
And if they're not believers, then they are natural, once-born, carnal, however you want to put it, men. born of the flesh, not supernatural, twice-born men born of the Spirit of God.
And thus they cannot understand spiritual things.
You're going to have someone hold a Bible in one hand and then give you the other angle, the carnal angle, and try to butt it up together in your mind.
It's not going to work.
You're going to have a mess.
You're going to have a doctrinal mess.
And that's why there's so many people who have preachers in the pulpit.
They've been sitting in the pew for years.
And I've had so many people tell me I've been in church all my life, and I've this is the first time I've ever had the gospel explained to you.
I have lost track of how many people told me that.
And it's not because I'm the only one that has the gospel.
There's a lot of churches out there with a lot of godly pastors preaching the gospel all over the world.
But it's because, unfortunately, they wound up in a church where they had a man with a spiritual Bible. but only a firstborn carnal birth.
And they're holding something with a foreign language and they're over there trying to teach out of it.
Calling yourself a Christian pastor doesn't make you a twice-born person.
Just because someone has been ordained by their church just because they're on television, just because they have a big following, just because they have a popular podcast, doesn't mean they are born of the Spirit of God.
And understand spiritual things.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees preached religious things in God's name.
But they did not know the things of God's Spirit.
They didn't know it.
They were the religious experts of their day, just like the many of the religious experts of our day, but they were once-born men, they were carnal men, and that's why they didn't recognize the gospel.
When Jesus came and began preaching it and fulfilling it.
The king Belshazzar, he called these men in, look back at your text, and the king spake and said to the wise men of Babylon that is wise men with with men's wisdom.
Whosoever shall read this writing, that is talking about the handwriting on the wall, and show me the interpretation thereof, that is, translate it for me. shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.
Eager to have the message interpreted for him, he told these carnal religious leaders that whoever could read the writing explained it to them.
Would be clothed with beautiful royal apparel and become the third ruler in the kingdom.
Big promotion.
And that's a great motivation for reading that mysterious writing.
But all the money in the world, all the promotions and promises in the world cannot open the carnal man's eyes to understand spiritual truth.
Can't do it.
It'd be like someone offering me a great sum of money to read a letter written in Russian.
Someone wrote a message in Russian up on the wall right now They said, now you read that.
We'll give you lots of money.
Lots of money.
Build you a brand new sanctuary.
Give you a new car to drive.
Just read that too.
I couldn't do it.
I don't speak Russian It would be foreign to me, a foreign language.
And what these men were reading, or trying to read rather, was foreign to them.
Spiritual things used to be foreign to me.
But when I look to the cross And I saw what Jesus did for me on that cross.
That was my first time to be able to read a foreign language.
That was the first great spiritual truth that I digested in the kingdom language, the heavenly language.
Someone said one time they they were speaking to a missionary and I believe that's how the how it went.
They were telling me about it.
And uh You know, the missionary spoke different languages, you know.
And that person said, well, I speak two languages too.
I said, what do you speak besides English?
They said, I speak Canaan.
I speak the language of the promised land.
And as believers in Jesus Christ, we speak the language of the promised land.
Now I can see things I could never see before.
I can understand things I could never understand before.
And like any language, when you begin studying a language, the more you study, the more you use it, the more you learn it, and the better you are with it.
It's the same way with spiritual things.
Now the things of God's spirit are no longer foreign to me.
In Ephesians chapter 2 Ephesians chapter 2, verses 19 through 22.
Speaking of the new birth, the apostle Paul told the people of Ephesus, Now therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners.
But fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone in whom all the building fitly framed together.
How about that?
Jointly framed together.
What does that mean?
As Paul said. fitly framing or jointly uh jo uh uh uh uh framing together spiritual things with spiritual, well we also are the same way You've got spiritual people joined to spiritual people, joined to spiritual people.
Every time somebody is saved by their faith in Jesus Christ, they are born of the Spirit of God and they are jointly framed into the body of Jesus Christ. into the church, into the spiritual temple.
And so he says, in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of the Spirit, a habitation of God through the Spirit.
We are spiritual people. join with spiritual people, making up a spiritual house, discovering our new spiritual language It's what we're doing.
You're hearing truths this morning that only spiritual people can comprehend.
It's a whole new language.
The Spirit has made us citizens by birth.
And now we can read the language of our new native tongue.
The Holy Spirit has given me sight. to see spiritual things and praise God, the gift of explaining what I see.
What a treasure to be able to get up here, take God's word, and expound it to God's people in a heavenly language of Canaan, the language of the promised land.
We were talking the other day, very sad, very, very sad.
The other day we had a prayer request come up on our church announcement group And there were a couple of people who used to be church members here.
They were here when I first came.
And when I first came here, we had some folks that just didn't belong in church.
They didn't believe the gospel.
They didn't believe the truth.
And uh that's in almost any church.
And um, but they requested prayer for their son, who has terminal cancer.
And I prayed for him.
I believe everyone that has seen that on the announcement group has prayed for that man.
He's a grown man, and they're elderly people.
And one day, when I first become pastor here, I preached a gospel message.
I preached my heart out, preached a gospel message explaining the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Back there in the back was that man's mother who requested prayer and her son who now has cancer.
Also back there in the back was a deacon of the church here.
Who I love very much.
I preached that message in the middle of me explaining the gospel of Jesus Christ, the man who now has cancer, objected to what I was preaching, stood up and in protest walked out of that door The same message, the same day, in the same church that that man walked out that door That deacon after the service walked up to the front and told me, he said, I just understood the gospel and I've trusted Christ as my Savior.
Same preacher, same message, preaching about the same cross and the same Jesus who died there One man leaves in protest, the other man comes forward in confessing Christ as his Savior.
One left carnal, the other came down spiritual.
Isn't that amazing?
Absolutely amazing.
The Holy Spirit, by God's grace It's given me the gift and the privilege of being able to expound spiritual things, but when those spiritual things go forth, it takes the Spirit of God to open those eyes, convert that heart, and let them be born of the Spirit.
No man who denies That salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ crucified for our sins alone.
No man who rejects that message is born of God's Spirit.
Can't be.
Therefore, no man who rejects that message can join spiritual things with spiritual.
These men that Belshazzar called in, they were foreigners to God's kingdom.
The Bible says, look in verse 8.
Then came in all the king's wise men, but they could not read the writing.
Isn't that good?
They could not read the writing.
Let me tell you something.
When I went to first grade I aced first grade, by the way, Brother Doug.
Aced it.
When I went to first grade, A lady named Reba Gordon, she's still living.
A lady named Reba Gordon taught us How to take letters, form them together, and be able to start making phonetic sounds off of those letters and then when you join them together they make a word.
My first book to ever read was a book called PUP, P-U-P.
Good old pup.
I tell you what, man, I'd have some incredible, incredible stories reading about old pup.
Pup, run pup, run.
See pup run?
I see pup run But that was the first time that I could look at letters and comprehend How you could read.
My first exposure with the English language of reading and writing And our first exposure with the language of God is that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures And when it's like going to grade school, you understand you're a sinner You're condemned by God's law.
But God gave you a substitute to be condemned in your place.
And God justifies all who put their faith in the substitute.
It's as simple as that.
And people like the man who walked out.
There are people who reject the simplicity of that message.
It'd be like saying.
That P-U-P doesn't spell pup.
We don't read by assembling these letters and making phonetic sounds.
And the whole time they're reading the book, They're reading a whole different message than what it actually says.
And that's why you have so many churches that use the same book we do, But the letter P doesn't go P.
The letter A doesn't go uh.
You don't put them together and make pup.
They have never been to the grade school of the gospel.
But from there, every doctrine, every true doctrine flows from the cross of Christ.
And any doctrine that can contradicts it is not true.
They could not read the writing, it says, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof.
Church, when we open up the Word of God, we are opening up a document that is written in a foreign language.
Oh, yeah, strangely enough, it uses the same words, the same letters that we know in our English language, but it contains truths that are foreign to our carnal comprehension.
Have you ever noticed how the lost world thinks they're an expert when it comes to the Bible?
Oh boy.
Now Jesus says don't judge.
Well, you know the Bible says this right here, and they're an expert on it.
In Tucker Carlson's interview with Mike Huckabee, he spoke with great disapproval of 1 Samuel 15, verse 3.
When God told Saul, go now, go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not. but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
Tucker claims to be a Christian, but he condemns God's commandment That we just read there as genocide.
Let me see.
When I read that commandment, I don't see genocide.
Do you know what I see?
With open eyes.
I see the sovereign creator who made the Amalekites, giving the commandment to destroy the Amalekites he made.
That's what I see If Saul decided to destroy them, well then that would be murder.
But when God destroys them, Then that, my friend, is judgment.
An act of God who made both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
Sadly, Brother Huckabee uh uh uh uh uh sort of agreed with Tucker that we should never do what God commanded Saul to do.
That would be wrong.
I think if he had an opportunity to clarify himself, I think he would say that Saul would have been right to have followed the commandment, but under the pressure in the interview, he caved.
Church, there are times when God's word says things that carnal men are not going to understand and approve of Brother Huckabee was right to condemn genocide.
But that would have been a great time to explain that when the Amalekites stood against Israel, they stood against God.
Because God was the one taking Israel into the promised land.
And having stood against the Lord, the Lord gave the commandment to destroy them.
And God was right.
For judging that nation.
Christian, don't ever apologize for God's word.
Don't you ever back up?
Don't you ever apologize?
Enlightened people should not apologize for what the world does not understand.
Don't apologize when God's eternal word doesn't agree with the fleeting opinions of man.
The Bible says that we would be wrong to take a single life on our own.
That violates one of the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not kill.
People don't belong to us.
They belong to God.
So we can't do with people what we want to, but people do belong to God.
God said in Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 4, behold All souls are mine.
As the soul of the Father, so also the soul of the Son is mine.
God can do anything He wants.
With anyone he wants.
He did it with Job.
He did it with Jesus.
He does it with us.
He's going to do it with Belshazzar and the people of Babylon very shortly.
And everything he does is right.
Don't expect the world to understand God's handwriting on the wall.
Now, when these carnal men couldn't read God's words, the king and his men were very troubled.
They knew the message was for them.
And they knew it was important.
But how to understand it they knew not.
The Bible says in Daniel 5. 9, then was King Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonished.
In other words, they were petrified.
And God let the wise men of Babylon fail.
In our verses today, do you know why?
He let them fail to read the handwriting on the wall to show us that only God's men can deliver God's message.
Only they, by God's Spirit, can resolve the mystery of God's writings and make them plain for us to see Aren't you glad that God has taught your tongue the language of Canaan?
I'm so glad.
And every time we come back, we're learning more of our heavenly language.
We're framing more words, putting more sentences together. in reading more of those wonderful spiritual truths, comparing or jointly fitting together spiritual things with spiritual.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word and the depth of the truths that you have placed there, Lord.
Thank you, Father, for teaching us, Lord, how things work in your kingdom.
How things are discovered in your word.
And why the world does not understand and why thus they are so hostile to the people of God.
We speak gibberish to them, or as your word says, foolishness to them.
But thank you, Lord God.
That your words no longer gibberish to us.
Lord, there's some things we don't understand, just like there's some English words we've got to look in a dictionary to find them out.
Lord, we're so grateful that at the cross we've learned how to read.
Thank you for loving us.
Thank you for your Holy Spirit teaching us.
And Lord, we pray these wonderful truths will sink deep into our hearts in Jesus' precious name.
Bless the food we're about to receive now next door.
Amen.
