 what was the purpose of the handwriting on the wall in Daniel 5? Is there something we can learn from it? Many of you have heard this term the handwriting is on the wall and where we get that from is in Daniel 5 where this wicked king King Belshazzar sees during a party this little drunken feast that he's having and he is using these vessels that were stolen interestingly enough by his father not necessarily his father but someone who he's descended from which is Nebuchadnezzar he's using them and he's doing some I guess many appropriate things and so he looks up and he sees this handwriting on the wall but Bible tells us though that he is kind of lost his strength his weak his knees and hips are weak and so he's discouraged and wondering people see this handwriting on the wall it's this word this many many Techo Ufarson will cover that in just a second but he tries to get people to interpret they can't and so they say well Daniel can and so Daniel comes to him and tells him that I will give you what this is now one of the things that Daniel tries to get him an understanding to see though it's going to be too late one of his forefathers Nebuchadnezzar had this little arrogance about God and did not recognize that God is sovereign and so what did God do? God gave him the heart of a cattle made him graze until he understood that God is Lord of all that God is sovereign and so the lesson should have been learned who here he is a descendant maybe even an immediate descendant of Nebuchadnezzar he didn't get it and so oftentimes in the position that you're in you can bring about pride and so forth and so that's what we see here and so this handwriting is on the wall and he didn't see it he didn't get it which is kind of where we get it I'll tell you why this applies to us in just a little bit but we want to look at what Daniel is told or what Daniel tells him that the meaning is in Daniel 5 25 it says now this is the inscription that was written out many many tekel ufarsin this is the interpretation of the message many God has numbered you and your kingdom and put it into it tekel you have been weighed on the scales and been found deficient Paris which is kind of an interpretation of ufarsin meaning the same thing that your kingdom will be divided and given out over the means and the person now those words would have probably not enough meaning in of themselves but because Daniel is the one that's given interpretation and these people who are debauched as they could be they are not going to understand in any way but he says your kingdom will be given and divided into the means and persons as a matter of fact it happened that night as to where Balthasar is killed that night why is this important well the important that we can learn the important thing that we can learn from it is this we've seen these lessons we've seen many lessons either from other people either in our lives or specifically in the bible and the lessons that we can glean from the things that have been taught to us and we don't get oftentimes the handwriting is on the wall it's kind of worth this this eating the wheat where we get it from it's from here he should have known better he should have known from the lesson that was learned from or should have been learned from Nebuchadnezzar he didn't learn it well he actually did I take it back he did learn he just learned the lesson the hard way we should not be the same way oftentimes the writing is on the wall and in many cases people tell us before we have these prior warnings in prison there are people who will sit and tell you man I saw it coming I knew it I should have done this same thing with people in the hospital who who are going through certain health conditions if they would have just he'd certain warning signs where as we say the writing was on the wall you are now pre-diabetic you are 40 pounds overweight 100 pounds overweight what have you you are doing things that you should not do and you know better the writing has been on the wall and oftentimes God gives us a lot longer than he gave someone like Belchers are and we still don't get it and the hard part is when we who profess to be believers have these falls where the writing was on the wall and we could have even just looked at the the lessons learned from biblical characters and we still don't do not let yourself be so exalted where you think that there is no consequences for what you do be you a Christian or non-Christian even Christians suffer consequences for your actions don't wait too late to where everyone can see the writing on the wall and you don't and then God has to deal with you amen