TEKEL: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found
wanting.--_Dan. 5, 27_.
The words of our text connect with an account of Old Testament story
which, if once heard, is never forgotten. The place was Babylon,
a city so vast in extent that after its capture it was three days
before the fact was known all over it. The scene was in the royal
palace, a marvelous structure within the walls of which were the
famous "hanging gardens," which the world has agreed to number among
its "seven great wonders." There, in the most sumptuous of all his
banquet halls, at a table groaning with the burdens of massive
plate and the rarest and richest of viands and wines, reclined
the proud and voluptuous King of Babylon, Belshazzar. Around him
reclined a thousand of his lords and the fairest women of his harem.
A more magnificent banquet was never given or enjoyed. Golden
lamps, suspended from a ceiling, paneled with ivory and pearl,
shed soft luster on walls pillared with statues, on a floor paved
with alabaster, and carpeted with richest rugs from the looms of
India, on couches mounted with silver and cushioned with velvet,
on illustrious princes, gorgeous costumes, in the most bewildering
splendor, whilst over it all floated the sweet strains of music and
song. Every heart in that glittering company was wild with delight.
No one seemed troubled with care.
In the midst of the feasting an impious deed suggests itself to the
king's mind. Calling a servant, he orders him to bring the golden
and silver vessels which his grandfather, Nebuchadnezzar, had
carried away from God's altar in Jerusalem. They were brought and
placed before him in a glittering row. They had been consecrated
to the service of God centuries before, and had never been put
to any common use. For any man to use them, unless he were a
heavenly-appointed priest serving at the altar of Jehovah, would be
sacrilege of the most damning kind, Belshazzar knew that, but he was
resolved to insult Jehovah in the presence of that great company,
and so, at his command, those consecrated vessels were filled with
intoxicating drink, and he and his princes, and his wives and his
concubines, drank from them, amid profane jests and ridicule, to the
health of the god of Babylon, whose images of gold, silver, brass,
and stone adorned the hall where the wild revel was held. Suddenly
a cry of agony is heard. There sat Belshazzar, pale as marble,
pointing to an object on the wall. With horror unutterable they look
and see the fingers of a human hand slowly tracing a style across
the wall,--that was all that was visible. The pen and hand vanished,
and nothing remained but the writing. At that the banqueters stared,
transfixed with speechless terror. No one in that drunken crowd was
able to read it, until Daniel, the Lord's prophet, was summoned.
This was the inscription: "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." The prophet
gave their hidden meaning: "Mene: God has numbered thy kingdom and
finished it. Tekel: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found
wanting. Upharsin: Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes
and Persians." And so it was. That very night, by an underground
channel, Darius the Mede entered the city of Babylon, and Belshazzar
was hewn to pieces.
And is there nothing in this piece of ancient history, transferred
to God's Book and interpreted by God's prophet, that has value
and application to us? Is not everything that we find recorded
in the Scripture written for our learning, our warning? Those
four words, and particularly, the one chosen for our immediate
devotion, "Tekel," has it no spiritual warning for us? We have met
this morning for that very purpose--to weigh ourselves. Fifty-two
Sundays--another year of grace has come and has departed in the
church calendar--we are invited to solemn retrospect and thoughtful
review, to consider what report we have to make. Let us, then,
honestly and conscientiously, address ourselves to it on the basis
of the text, and may God's Holy Spirit touch your hearts and
solemnize your minds!
"Tekel: Thou art weighed in the balances." We all know what a
balance is, a pair of scales. The beam is suspended exactly in the
middle. The two arms are equal, and supplied with a pan, not to
differ by a hair's thickness. If equal weights are placed in the two
pans, the beam rests perfectly level. Such is God's balance. It is
sensitive to the last degree. It weighs men's acts; it weighs men's
words; it weighs men's thoughts; it weighs men's characters. It
weighs them accurately, and every weight is set down in the book of
divine memory. At the judgment on that Great Day that book will be
opened, and every one shall be judged out of those things which are
written in the book, according to their works. Ask you me the name
of God's balances, I answer: Justice,--that's God's balance.
But in weighing there are two scales. On the one pan is placed that
which is weighed, and in the other that against which it is weighed,
the standard, the weight. And so God, in weighing man, uses weights
which have been tested by a perfect standard. Conscience is such a
weight, that "still, small voice" which speaks to you out of your
own soul, that forceful monitor in your breast, that weighs against
your acts and words and thoughts, excusing or else accusing you,
from whose troubling thoughts you cannot escape, and which, as the
saying is, makes cowards of us all. Conscience--that's one.
Another, heavier than the first--for it is made out of stone--we
recognize at once: God's Ten Commandments, a holy standard. "Thou
shalt have no other gods before me," reads the first line, and we
know that means that an idolater is not he alone who bows down to
rocks and stones; whosoever worships self in greed or manner, or
bestows supreme regard for anything short of the true and only
God, sets up an idol and is an idolater. And so he is not the only
murderer, according to the sense and spirit of these tables, who has
killed a fellow-mortal, but he already that hateth his brother, that
indulges the malicious feeling, the revengeful desire. Nor is he
the only lewd man who has given himself to lewdness, but according
to this sixth line on that measure, the impure thought, the sensual
look, and the cherished unchaste hope already fix the guilt of
adultery. We observe, then, it is an exact weight, and so if all
that a man has thought and said and done is up to the standard, the
beam hangs level, and the divine face of the weigher is wreathed
with smiles. If not, the Judge frowns, and from His lips issues the
verdict: "Wanting!"
The third weight that God employs when He wishes to learn the
avoirdupois of your soul is opportunity. Into one scale He puts
the man's character and life; into the other He puts all the
opportunities which he has enjoyed for getting and doing good.
That includes such things as these: godly parents, godly example,
a Christian school, Confirmation, the preaching of the true and
pure Gospel, the faithful ministry of the Word and Sacraments.
It includes bereavements, disappointments, startling events of
Providence, losses of health, fortune, family, all of which were
to direct you nearer to God. It includes every example of holy
living which you have witnessed, every occasion presented you to
glorify your Master and bless your fellow-men. All these and such
like opportunities, impulses, and impressions to move the soul
and bring it into saving harmony with God, make up the sum of his
opportunities, and if the weight of what the man has done and is,
equals the sum of all these opportunities, it is well; if otherwise,
God's scale goes up, and the sentence is: "Wanting!"
And one more weight must be named. We shall not dwell lengthily
upon it, for we can all see it so conveniently. It lies before me.
Let us take it and put it into the pan of the scales--the Bible;
as your Savior says: "Ye have Moses and the prophets,--ye have the
Evangelists and Apostles,--hear ye them." That is your standard,
your measure, placed against you; by its precepts you shall be
weighed.
And now let us proceed to put something into the other side of the
scale to counterbalance, and watch the result. Let us judge in the
light of conscience, God's Law, our opportunities, and the Lord's
Bible, our beloved congregation. They tell us that knowledge of
one's self is one of the hardest and most unpleasant attainments,
but the most needful and most salutary for all that. Weighing
ourselves, what report have these fifty-two Sundays to give of
our congregation as a whole and of you, my dear member, as an
individual? How has it been with the worship, the attendance at
services? Nothing to boast of, in most cases something to be ashamed
of. Some are hovering near the verge of church discipline for their
laxity and deficiency; particularly does this pertain to the male
portion of the flock.
"Thou shalt sanctify the holyday," reads the third and unalterable
command of their God, yet months pass at a time, and their face
appears not in the assembly of the worshipers. But for the visitors
and strangers, especially at the evening services, these pews
would be deplorably depleted. Others come with a commendable
degree of regularity, but is there participation in the services
and punctuality in arriving? Do not the hymns drag along at times
so dull and spiritless because many never open their lips? How
listless and devotionless the hearers betimes appear, their eyes
roaming about elsewhere, and even closing in sleep. Remember every
attendance is weighed in the balance. Occasions when every member
ought to regard it a loss to be absent, like Pentecost, Reformation,
Easter, Church Dedication, little increase in the audience is noted.
Announce a particular topic for the following Sunday, and it would
seem as if some deliberately stay away. O what a poor thing it must
appear in the case of the average Christian, of the most of us!
Is it much different--to take up another point--with our partaking
of the Lord's Supper? What drudgery, what shrinking and hesitancy
with regard to the sacred feast! The Lord says: "This do, as oft as
ye drink it, in remembrance of Me." Paul the Apostle directs: "As
oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup." Luther, in his preface
to the Small Catechism, thus interprets this "oft:" "If a person
does not seek nor desire the Lord's Supper at least some four times
a year, it is to be feared that he despises the Sacrament, and is
not a Christian." Weighed in this balance, what shall we say of
our Communion Table? How many times have you gone in these twelve
months, these fifty-two Sundays? Observe the handwriting on the
wall! Read those letters: "Wanting," and ask yourself, Does that
mean me?
But permit me to pass briefly to an examination of your hearts
and your homes. Have you grown in grace and in the knowledge of
your Lord and Savior? Do the fruits of your discipleship abound in
greater liberality and activity? Do you read God's Word at home, say
grace at table, have family devotion? Are you increasingly imbibing
and personifying the temper of your religion in the control of your
passion, in the subduing of your pride, in the cultivating of a
forgiving spirit? Do you pray thoughtfully, regularly, cheerfully?
For you to live--is it Christ? As you grow in age, do you grow in
heavenly-mindedness, draw closer to your God? To serve the Lord,
to speak for Him, is this your delight? I need not press these
inquiries. With each one of you the scale takes an upward turn, and
I hear you saying with sighing of heart: "Enter not into judgment
with Thy servant, O Lord," for this servant is wanting, _wanting_.
And what is to be done, with the scales always rising higher and
higher and striking the very beam? First of all, repent; learn to
understand and acknowledge your dismal condition. That was the
fault with Belshazzar--his security and vain confidence; as God
said to him through Daniel: "O Belshazzar, thou hast not humbled
thine heart, but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven."
Therefore, in the dust with thee! Let ours be the publican's cry:
"God be merciful to me, a sinner!" "If Thou, O Lord, shouldst mark
iniquity, O Lord, who shall stand?" With the balances suspended,
God's Law, God's Bible, conscience, against us, repentance,
conviction and confession of sin, is the first thing required of
you. But that alone would lead to despair. Dear hearer, observe
the scales as they are held by the stern and just hand of divine
Justice, the one down, the other with man's soul, asking for mercy.
Behold, another hand appears. It is a soft, delicate hand; in its
palm is a wound, from that wound there oozes out a drop of blood
upon the weighed and wanting soul. Instantly the scales go down,
till the beam hands are evenly poised, and a voice is heard: "The
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." Faith in that
blood, belief in Christ Jesus, your Savior, is the next thing
necessary. And the last is renewed consecration, earnest, honest
resolve with God's help to do better, firm determination that the
incoming year of grace shall be characterized by a brightening
of faith, an advance in holiness, a progress in all lines that
grace a follower of Christ, that it find you at its close a more
intelligent, a more humble, a more sanctified Christian than to-day.
Beloved, cast another look at the handwriting on the wall, lest it
be written against you on the day of Judgment. Repent, believe in
Christ, amend--in this may God help us! Amen.