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THE HOUR OF JUDGMENT IS ANNOUNCED IN BABYLON

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 5, 1900

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 77, No. 23.

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THE HOUR OF JUDGMENT IS ANNOUNCED IN BABYLON.

By William Warren Prescott

There comes a time in the experience of the individual who persists in rejecting the mercy of God, after which there is no hope for him. By his own act he has cut off all possibility of salvation. So it was with Esau: “For ye know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected (for he found no place of repentance), though he sought it diligently with tears.” Heb. 12:17, R. V. The same principle holds good in the life of a nation, inasmuch as the fortunes of a nation depend upon the character of those who shape its affairs. So it was with the Jewish nation when Jesus, looking upon Jerusalem, “wept over it, saying, O that thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.” Luke 19:41, 42, R. V., margin. In the same way the end of the world is determined, not by an arbitrary decree, but by the conduct of men. When the gospel of the kingdom shall have been preached in all the world for a witness, and each one shall have fully made his choice for or against the King of heaven, then shall the end come. All this is plainly shown in the simple account of the fall of Babylon of the Chaldees. When king Belshazzar and his thousand lords, the representatives of the whole nation, openly repudiated that gospel of the kingdom which had been preached to Nebuchadnezzar, and which had been both accepted and proclaimed by him, and made themselves drunken with the wine of Babylon from the vessels of the Lord’s house, they finally and irrevocably rejected the protecting presence of the Lord of hosts, and in death and destruction they simply ate the fruit of their own doings. Sudden destruction came upon them, and they did not escape.
“In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake, and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and show me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then came in all the king’s wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof. Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonied.”
That law which was originally “written with the finger of God” had been set forth in Babylon as “the law of the Spirit of life” in the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom through human instrumentality, and had been rejected. The present king of Babylon would not allow this law to be written in his heart. Now while the “surfeiting and drunkenness” and “abominable idolatries” were in progress, the result of his rejection of God was written where all the assembled rioters must see it, “over against the candlestick.” And so the fall of Babylon was announced upon the wall of “the palace of the kingdom of Babylon,” the very palace in which Nebuchadnezzar took so much pride before his conversion, which he said he had built “by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty.” How often do what are intended to be the monuments of human greatness become the announcement of impending ruin!
The effect upon the king was most marked, but there was no sign of any repentance for his heaven-daring course. With changed countenance, loosened joints, and smiting knees, he was the very picture of abject fear. How plain it is that he was really king only in name! He had sufficient of what is sometimes wrongly called courage to insult the King of heaven, so long as he kept silence, but when longer forbearance was useless, and the Lord of lords began to let him “see how the case stands,” then the real cowardice of his rebellious heart was revealed. So it will be in the fulfillment of this historical prophecy when “the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man” in the agony of their fear will say to mountains and rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne. . . . For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” “The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.”
The wise men of Babylon were utterly incapable of dealing with the revelations which were made in Babylon concerning the course of events in the kingdom. Twice had they failed to justify their claims to superior wisdom when Nebuchadnezzar had turned to them for help, and now for the third and last time it was revealed in Babylon that the education which ignores God, and substitutes human speculation for “sound wisdom” can not interpret to man “the mystery of his will” or “declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God.” These men handled words as dead things, and more frequently as a means of hiding thought than of revealing it. It was their task to maintain a reputation for wisdom, not by imparting light and understanding, but by confusing with high-sounding phrase and ambiguous construction the minds of those who sought unto them. When, however, they were asked by the king of Babylon to make known to him the message which had been sent to him in a few simple words of their own language, and as a reward for so doing were promised the highest honors within the power of the king to bestow, “they were unable to read the writing, so as to make known the interpretation to the king.”
How vividly is this history being acted over again in this night of feasting and revelry when the end of all things is just at hand. The impending doom of the world has been plainly declared in the word of the Lord, in language simple enough so that the humble child of God may understand it, but how many professed religious teachers are only juggling with words to maintain a creed or to defend a ceremony, while the people are perishing for lack of knowledge. “The priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts,” and yet many are unable to read the message for this time so as to make known the interpretation to the people. The Spirit of Prophecy is needed in order to read aright the prophecy: “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. . . . But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
On the walls of all the Babylonish temples of the present time it is written that “there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down,” and yet in many of them rites that are empty and ceremonies that are meaningless are maintained in the name of religion, with a zeal worthy of a better cause. Jesus has “departed from the temple,” but his presence does not seem to be missed. Oh, for men who are Hebrews indeed, who have not forgotten Jerusalem, and who will not shun to declare the whole counsel of God for this time!
The consternation of the king and his lords, and the cause of it, soon became known outside the palace of the king of Babylon, and reached the ears of the queen, who was doubtless the mother of Belshazzar and the daughter-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar.
“Now the queen by reason of the words of the king and his lords came into the banquet house: and the queen spake and said, O king, live forever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed: there is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers; forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and showing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation. Then was Daniel brought in before the king. And the king spake and said unto Daniel, Art thou that Daniel, which art of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Jewry? I have even heard of thee, that the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom is found in thee. And now the wise men, the astrologers, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing, and make known unto me the interpretation thereof: but they could not show the interpretation of the thing: and I have heard of thee, that thou canst make interpretations, and dissolve doubts: now if thou canst read the writing, and make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about thy neck, and shalt be the third ruler in the kingdom.”
Such genuine revelations of the wisdom which is from above had been made through Daniel in the days of Nebuchadnezzar that he was not wholly forgotten, even though it does not appear that he was occupying any official position under Belshazzar. The great perplexity of the king, and the failure of the wise men of Babylon to satisfy his request for an understanding of the message which the fingers had traced upon his palace wall, would naturally bring to mind those remarkable experiences of Nebuchadnezzar, and the part which Daniel had acted in them. The occasion brought forward the man. This makes it clear that the gospel of the kingdom, and the preacher, had made an impression in Babylon, which the lapse of twenty-five years had not effaced, and shows why it was that the lessons to Nebuchadnezzar were not repeated to Belshazzar. A lesson given to one man and then made known by him to others is just as much a personal lesson to those who hear it as to the one who experienced it. This is true in reference to all God’s dealings with individuals and nations in the past. “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”
The Hebrew captive again stood before the king of Babylon, not now to preach the gospel of God’s everlasting kingdom, but to declare that the hour of his judgment is come. The preacher’s reputation had preceded him, and the promise had already been made that he would reveal what was hidden from the king’s wise men. When he interpreted the first dream to Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel frankly said, “This secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living.” He claimed nothing for himself, but acknowledged it all as a direct gift from God, and declared this source of wisdom to be open to all. Thus Daniel set forth in Babylon principles of education which, if they had been followed, would have revolutionized the whole Babylonian system and established the Christian system in its place. Then the wisdom of God would have directed the affairs of the kingdom, and the pages of history would have told a different story. But now that “light and understanding and excellent wisdom” which were found in Daniel could only be used to read the sentence of destruction which was already upon the walls. How much like a mockery must have seemed to Daniel the promise of preferment in the kingdom of Babylon! Being already clothed with the robe of righteousness, and having found that wisdom which is “more precious than rubies,” and “can not be gotten for gold,” and having the kingdom of God within, that kingdom which stands forever, of what value was the scarlet clothing, the chain of gold, and the joint dominion of Babylon, a kingdom which had already fallen beyond hope of recovery? With the same worthless promises does “the god of this world” delude men in these days, offering if necessary all the kingdoms of the world, if they will fall down and worship him. How many hopes of worldly greatness, on which men have staked their souls, will be disappointed in the great day of settlement so near at hand! “Whoso is wise, let him observe these things; and let them consider well the mercies of the Lord.”
W. W. P.