The Dangers of Arrogance

A thousand guests, sacred cups stolen from God’s temple, and a king so sure of himself he throws a party while Babylon is under siege. Then it happens: a human hand appears and writes on the palace wall. Daniel 5 isn’t just a famous Bible story, it’s a mirror, and we spend this message asking what the “writing on the wall” looks like in real life when pride turns into spiritual blindness. 

We connect Belshazzar’s arrogance to a warning you might recognize from pop culture: Jurassic Park’s line about being so preoccupied with what we can do that we forget to ask what we should do. From the Rumble in the Jungle to Babylon’s unnoticed weak point, we walk through three ways arrogance works in us today: it blinds us to our limits, diverts our attention from what matters most, and inflates us with the lie that we’ll be the exception to the rule. Along the way we hear Jeremiah’s call to stop boasting in our strengths and Paul’s sobering reminder in Galatians that we reap what we sow. 

The good news is not that we can outgrow pride with a few habits, but that God meets arrogant people with mercy through Jesus Christ. We end at the cross, where sin’s cost is fully revealed and fully paid for, and we’re invited into humble repentance, Spirit-shaped endurance, and a life that doesn’t give up. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review, then tell us: where do you feel most tempted to rely on yourself instead of God?

Transcript

Scripture Reading From Daniel 5

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Our scripture reading today comes from uh it is the entirety of Daniel chapter 5. Uh it is not in your bulletin because it's a little bit of a lengthier reading. So if you have a Bible with you or a Bible app, I invite you to pull that out and follow along. I'm reading from the ESV, and in verse 1, the word of God, or beginning in verse 1, the word of God reads this way. King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone. Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king's color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him. His limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men of Babylon, Whoever reads this writing and shows me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold around his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then all of the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation. Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed, and his color changed, and his lords were perplexed. The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banqueting hall, and the queen declared, O king, live forever. Let not your thoughts alarm you or your color change. There is a man in your kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him. And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, your father the king, made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and astrologers, because an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems, were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Beltashazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation. Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king answered and said to Daniel, You are that Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom the king my father brought from Judah. I have heard of you that the spirit of the gods is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you. Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this writing and make known to me its interpretation, but they could not show the interpretation of the matter. But I have heard that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Now if you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck, and shall be third the third ruler in the kingdom. Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another. Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation. O King, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father, kingship and greatness and glory and majesty, and because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, languages, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would, he killed, and whom he would, he kept alive, whom he would, he raised up, and whom he would, he humbled. But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened, so that he dealt proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne, and his glory was taken from him. He was driven from among among the children of mankind, and his mind was made like that of a beast, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, until he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind, and sets over it whom he will. And you, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven, and the vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them, and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know. But the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways you have not honored. Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed, and this is the writing that was inscribed. Mene, Mene, Tekl, and Parsine. This is the interpretation of the matter. Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. Perez, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed with purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation made about him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed, and Darius the Mead received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated, and may God bless this reading and preaching of his word. Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. This very famous line could fairly be applied to many technological advancements. The internal combustion engine, if you ask Tolkien, nuclear weapons and technologies, even artificial intelligence. But it was written by Michael Crichton for his novel Jurassic Park. In that story, scientists discover how to extract DNA, dinosaur DNA, and bring extinct creatures back to life, and they build an entire theme park around their achievement. It's a park designed, they believe, to account for anything that could possibly go wrong. But Dr. Ian Malcolm, the person who said that famous line, is concerned. His theory is that complex systems cannot be fully controlled, and that the people, these people are foolishly playing with something that they're not prepared to handle. Jurassic Park is a story of the consequences of arrogance, a group of people who believed that they were in control of powers far greater than themselves. And in Daniel chapter 5, we meet a king who has made the same mistake. Our story today in Daniel 5 is about the disastrous consequences of arrogance. And more specifically, it is about what happens when human arrogance meets the judgment of God. Last week we looked at the fact that God must humble us in order to save us. We saw that from Nebuchadnezzar's story just in Daniel 4. And this week we have an opportunity to take a second look at why arrogance and spiritual pride are so dangerous. And just to give a simple definition to arrogance, arrogance, simply defined, is thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought. And it's not it's not merely rude to be arrogant, it's not merely a character flaw, but it is a delusion. Those who are arrogant have a distorted perception of reality. Arrogance makes us blind, to put it simply. Why is arrogance so dangerous? And how can we recognize it in ourselves and turn from it? How does it make us blind? Well, there's three ways that we can see just from this story. Um, first of all, just that arrogance blinds, arrogance diverts, and arrogance inflates. That it blinds, it diverts, and it inflates. So that's what we're going to look at this morning. So, point one, arrogance blinds. Arrogance makes us think that we are stronger than we actually are. This story begins abruptly after Nebuchadnezzar's conversion, which we read about in Daniel 4, but a lot of time has passed since that event and the verse 1 of chapter 5. The king here is Belshazzar. We haven't met him before. He's suddenly introduced to us in this chapter. After Nebuchadnezzar died, there was a lot of political turmoil. Several kings reigned after him for short periods of time, several different dynasties vying for power, until it came to Belshazzar. And Daniel at this time would have been an old man, maybe about 85 years old, no longer a young man in Babylon. Belshazzar here throws a great feast. In verse 1, it says, King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. Well, what is the occasion for this feast? This could coincide with some Babylonian festival, but there's something else that's going on here that's not revealed until the very end of the story. In verse 30 and 31, at the very end, it says, That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed, and Darius the Mead received the kingdom, being about 62 years old. But there is something here that the text does not say directly, but it's something that the original readers would have known immediately and known very well, is that this was happening at a time where Babylon was under siege. So their city was surrounded by the Persian army. In the political instability that came after Nebuchadnezzar's death, the Persians, who were a rising threat in the ancient world, made their move. And Persia has been at war with Babylon, slowly taking parts of its empire away from them, and now they have come to the capital, the city of Babylon, and the city has been under siege, surrounded by a Persian army. This feast, then, tells us something about Belshazzar. It tells us that he's not worried. Or at least he wants to communicate that he's not worried. They're having this massive party while they're under siege. And why should he be worried? The walls of Babylon were legendary. Ancient historians say that chariots could race on top of them. And it was a city built for this very purpose. They had enormous stores of provisions and food inside of the city. Think the hanging gardens of Babylon, which was unusual historically. Typically, your food is mostly outside of the city, which is why a siege is so devastating. And the Euphrates River ran through the city. So they had an endless supply of water so they could outlast a siege of any army. These things that would normally cripple a city under siege had no effect on Babylon. So the feast shows us that Belshazzar felt secure and believed that nothing could touch him. And so, on top of all of this, he calls for the temple vessels from Jerusalem to be brought in so that they can drink from them and praise their gods. And maybe he does this just as a reminder of the nations that Babylon has already conquered, and in their mind, the gods that they have already conquered to just embolden them even further. Babylon looks strong, Babylon feels strong, but in reality, within just a few hours, the empire will fall. Belshazzar cannot see this because arrogance blinds us. Arrogance always makes us think that we are stronger and safer than we actually are. In 1974, George Foreman was the heavyweight champion of the world. This was long before he revolutionized the grill industry. That was a joke. At that time, he looked unstoppable. He had demolished Joe Fraser and Ken Norton, two fighters who had beaten Muhammad Ali. So when the fight was announced, most people thought that it would be easy. The fight was called the Rumble in the Jungle, and it took place in Africa. The reigning champion was George Foreman versus an older fighter that many believed was past his prime, Muhammad Ali. Foreman fought the way that he always did. He walked forward, he relied on his power, he threw powerful punches, but Ali had a plan. For seven rounds, he shelled up most of the time. He leaned on the ropes and he covered up and he let Foreman just unleash, just throw punch after punch. He even whispered to him, Is that all you got, George? Is that all you got? And just egged him on. Foreman believed that victory was just one more punch, just one punch away. But with every punch, he was exhausting himself. And by the eighth round, he had nothing left. And by that time, Ali stepped forward, he landed a few clean counters, and he put the heavyweight champion of the world on the canvas. Foreman lost the fight because he believed that his strength would carry him. He believed that he was stronger and more durable than he actually was. And that's exactly what arrogance always does. It blinds us to our own weaknesses. It over-emphasizes our strengths. Remember, it is a distortion of reality. We cannot see clearly our own weaknesses. We over-emphasize our own strengths. And in doing so, it exposes us to significant loss. Arrogance is thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought. It's easy to see arrogance in other people. As a matter of fact, as I'm preaching the sermon, many of you are probably thinking about, yep, that that person is very arrogant. Whatever person you're thinking of, maybe it's me, I don't know. But it's easy to see in other people. But how do we recognize arrogance in ourselves before it's too late? The prophet Jeremiah helps us here. Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24, he says, or the Lord says, thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in the Lord. In biblical language, to boast in something means to rely upon it, to lean upon it, to put our weight upon it, to trust that it will save you when you need it, to trust that it will be there for you when you need it. And we tend, all of us, tend to rely on whatever it is we have going for us. We rely on our strengths. If you are wealthy, you will tend to rely on your riches. If I fall into trouble, if I fall into trouble, my money, my investments, these accounts, these things will protect me and save me. If you are young and beautiful and have your looks, you tend to rely on your charisma and your appearance and whatever it is you have going for you. If I fall into trouble, these are the things that are going to help me. The strong man relies on his strength. If I fall into trouble, my abilities, my gifts, the things that I'm good at, will save me. All of us rely on our greatest gifts to save us when we need it. In other words, we rely on ourselves. But the Bible teaches that all such boasting is evil, because all of these things eventually will fail us. And like George Foreman in the ring, our energy will run out and we will hit a brick wall when we need it the most. So the scriptures say, let him who boasts boast in the Lord, that I will only be successful in my goals if God gives me success. It's not going to be because of my own ability to make it happen. It's going to be because of God's grace. If I fall into trouble, it's not these things that are going to help me. Only God will be able to save me. I must depend upon God. Only God preserves my life and upholds my breath, as it says here in Daniel 5. We must repent of our arrogance and boast in the Lord alone. Arrogance blinds. Point two, arrogance diverts. Arrogance diverts our attention from where it is needed most. It diverts our attention from where it is needed most. We've already found out what happens, but if we look again at verse 30, it says, That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed, and Darius the Mead received the kingdom. So if Babylon was so impenetrable, if their walls were so famous, then what happened? Well, the text does not tell us, but thankfully this very event is widely attested in other ancient histories. The ancient historian Herodotus tells us that the river Euphrates ran underneath the walls of Babylon and through the city to supply it with water. The Persians, being crafty and treacherous, dug a canal upstream from where the river was flowing, and in the middle of the night they temporarily diverted water from the Euphrates into the canal, and the river, the water level of the river sank, and it dried up enough for the Persian soldiers to walk under the walls of the city and invade the city in the middle of the night, without even a battle. The city was taken in one night, very famously, and without a battle. The Cyrus cylinder is the Persian account, and it puts it like this: without any battle, Marduk, which is their god, Marduk enabled Cyrus to enter his city Babylon, sparing Babylon any calamity. So, of course, in classic ancient propaganda, the Persians are seen as the liberators of Babylon, liberating them from the administration of Belshazzar. But they did it without any calamity, without any battle. They took it in one night. Not only, well, and I'll just say this, all of this happened without Belshazzar noticing, because he's busy partying in his palace. He was too busy praising the gods of Babylon at the feast to notice that his doom was unfolding. Not only does arrogance blind us to our weaknesses and over-inflate our strengths, but it diverts our attention away from the things that really matter. Belshazzar should have feared the Lord, and he should have cried out to the God of heaven for deliverance, like his father, Nebuchadnezzar, had done. He should have been paying attention to what was happening. But arrogance always diverts our attention from where it is most needed. The most important thing that Belshazzar needed to see that night was God, but arrogance kept his eyes on the party. In The Dark Knight Rises, Batman's body and ego have been wounded. And Bruce Wayne has withdrawn from society, ignoring Wayne Enterprises, ignoring the needs of Gotham for the most part, focused only on licking his own wounds in solitude. But in Batman's absence, evil has quietly gained a foothold in Gotham. One day he is confronted by Detective John Blake, and Blake, having been an orphan himself, knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman. He sits in his office and he admonishes him to get back in the fight, and he says, Batman needs to come back. Gotham needs Batman. And he mentions that orphanages in the city have stopped receiving funding from Wayne Enterprises, which is a surprise to Bruce Wayne. He didn't know that. And Detective Blake leaves him with these words. He says, Maybe you should start paying attention to the details, because some of those details might need your help. And then he walks out the door. As Bruce turned inward, his attention drifted away from where it was most needed, from what mattered the most. And while he was looking inward and thinking about his own hurt, evil quietly gained a foothold in Gotham. Arrogance is thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought, and it diverts our attention away from the things that matter the most and onto ourselves. Whether that be attending to our own goals, our own hobbies, our own image, our Just ourselves, or even attending to our own pain and our own woundedness and brokenness, both of those things can be arrogant. It can be arrogant to be consumed with our own pain. All the while, the things that most need our attention don't get it. The children in our homes and the struggles that they're dealing with and the help that they need. They need your attention. They need your help. The work that God has given us so that we might provide for our families and that we might share with others needs our attention. The hurting people around us that we interact with every day and we have no idea that they're hurting and they don't know Christ, these people that God puts right in front of us need our attention. The marriage that has slowly drifted into neglect needs your attention. We need to start paying attention to the details because some of those details might need our help. When our attention is diverted toward ourselves, our own pain, our own image, our own success, we are walking in arrogance and we must repent before it's too late. Arrogance diverts our attention from what is most important. And then finally, arrogance inflates. Arrogance makes us think that we are exceptional. In the middle of the party, something terrifying happens. This could have been a Halloween sermon, because this is like the spookiest story in the Bible. A human hand appears and begins writing on the palace wall. In verse 5, it says, Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace opposite the lampstand, and the king saw the hand as it wrote. In a familiar move, Belshazzar calls all of his attendants and all of his counselors to read and to interpret the writing, but they cannot help him. So the Queen Mother comes in and reminds him of Daniel, and Daniel has not been consulted. And Daniel, by this time, is not in Belshazzar's inner circle of counselors. He's again, he's an old man, maybe about 85 years old. And he has been mothballed to some administrative position in the kingdom, we can only assume, that keeps him away from the palace. Belshazzar probably didn't like him around because he was probably such a downer to him all the time. But the irony of the story is that the only person who can help Belshazzar is a Jew whose God Belshazzar has mocked. This is the only person that can help him. Daniel comes in and he pulls no punches. He reminds Belshazzar of Nebuchadnezzar, his predecessor. God exalted Nebuchadnezzar and gave him dominion over all the earth, but Nebuchadnezzar walked in pride, and so God humbled him until he recognized the king of heaven. And this is indicting because Daniel concludes in verses 22 and 23. He says, And you, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, you knew all this, but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. Belshazzar is not ignorant. For some of us, for for many people that we know, and for ourselves included, our problem sometimes is ignorance. We just don't know. That's not Belshazzar's problem. He knows that Nebuchadnezzar despised the Lord and what happened to him as a result, and he knows about how the Most High God saved Nebuchadnezzar and what he has done in Babylon. It is Belshazzar's arrogance that leads him to think that the same thing won't happen to him. Another dangerous hallmark of arrogance is that it makes us think that we are exceptional, or in other words, that we are the exception to the rule. We may repeat the same mistakes that we have seen many other people make, and mistakes that we bewail in others, but somehow we think that we will not face the same consequences because we are special, because we are the exception to the rule. For other people, it's black and white. For us, uh, it's a little more complicated, isn't it? Belshazzar learns too late that he is not exceptional, that he's just like everybody else, and he is not immune to the consequences of dishonoring the Lord. It reminds me of the scene in Arrested Development when Tobias is talking with his wife Lindsay about having an open marriage. And their marriage is notoriously troubled in the show. So Tobias, who's a professional therapist, recommends they open their marriage in order to save it. And in classic arrested development humor, Lindsay asks, Does that actually work? And Tobias responds with a scoff, oh heavens no, it never works. People delude themselves into thinking that it might work for them. But you know what? It might work for us. As a therapist, Tobias knows this has never worked for any of his patients, and yet, in his arrogance, he thinks that maybe they could make it work. The history of humanity, it's funny because all we should all see ourselves in that scene. We all make the same mistake. The history of humanity is a history of trying to make sin work. Sin has never worked. It promises freedom, but it produces slavery. It promises pleasure, but it produces ruin. It promises abundance, but it only produces scarcity. And yet, in our arrogance, we continue to fall for it. Because we think that we're the exception. We convince ourselves that we are exceptional, that it has never worked for anyone else, but maybe I can make it work. Maybe we can make it work. Belshazzar knew what pride had done to Nebuchadnezzar, but he convinced himself that it would be different for him. The Apostle Paul gives us these sobering words in Galatians 6, 7 and 8. He says, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. Do not be deceived. None of us are the exception to this rule. If you allow for sin to persist in your life in an unrepentant way, in a way that you do not resist, you do not repent, you refuse to recognize it, you will reap the consequences. And I will too. None of us are immune to this. As you do that, as you allow that to persist, you risk destroying your reputation, you risk destroying your relationships, the things that matter the most to you. You risk destroying your career, you risk forfeiting the good fruit that God wants to bear in your life and forfeiting the blessings in life that God wants you to have. You don't want to get to heaven and hear God say, I wanted to give you so much, but you only let me give you this. Look at all that I wanted to give you in your life, if you would just listen to me, but you only let me give you this. You don't want to have you don't want to, all of us are gonna have that to some extent, but we have a chance now to mitigate the damage there and to receive more of God's blessings that he has for us. So what do we need? For Belshazzar, the only one who could help him was a Jew whose God he had mocked. And the same is true for us. The only one who can help us is a Jew whose God we have mocked. The Lord Jesus Christ came to save arrogant people like you and me. Let the cross be your teacher. On the cross, we see the full and the horrifying consequences of sin. They're there for us to see on the cross, but we also see the one who is willing to bear those consequences on our behalf. If we will turn from our sins and put our faith in Jesus Christ, he will bear all of the consequences of our sin. Not so that we can continue in sin, but so that we may be sobered and humbled, and we might instead sow to the Spirit, so that we may reap spiritual rewards and blessings. Again, the the uh Paul the Apostle encourages us in Galatians 6. He says, Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. To these ends, let us pray. Our Father, we do pray that you would help us today to see a little bit more of our own arrogance so that we might turn from it. Help us to see how it is that we boast not in you, but in ourselves, and help us to turn from that and to boast in the Lord, to depend upon you, to rely on you, and to trust in you. Lord, help us to no longer sow to the flesh and to see the danger that we are in, and to see what we are risking, and to see that it is not worth it, and that sin does not work, and it has never been a good deal for anyone. So help us, God, by your grace, to abandon these things, and instead to put our faith in Jesus and to sow to the Spirit and to not give up, because it can be a weary work. Sometimes we don't see immediate results, but you promise us here in Galatians 9 that uh in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So help us, Lord, not to give up. We know that you did not give up on us, but you went to the cross for us, and we thank you for this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's stand and sing together.