#DanielChallenge – Day Five Chapter Five

Hello Beautiful People!

Its amazing to see so many of you on board with the #DanielChallenge! Even those that haven’t done the previous Bible Challenges ( #EstherChallenge , #RuthChallenge, #JamesChallenge and #LWChallenge.) we welcome you! For those that still don’t know what it is, don’t worry! The Daniel Challenge is a 12 day challenge, where we read the 12 chapters in the book of Daniel in the Bible! It is not just about reading, I would love for us to share our understanding of what we have read with each other, so as you read, feel free to hashtag #DanielChallenge if you have twitter. In addition, please email biblechallenge@outlook.com with your notes for each chapter, or a summary and I will put it up on this blog page! The book of Daniel really focuses on our character and identity, especially in the area of being CONSISTENT and LOYAL which I believe is so key in really getting the most out of our Christian walk and abiding in God’s will for us! Some points I haven’t touched on in my summary are covered in everyone else’s contributions, OR I have purposely left out to encourage you guys to touch on! 🙂

Day Five- Chapter Five

I’ve done a video for those who prefer audio/video than reading a whole bunch of text! I summarised the chapter and spoke about the main points for me, which are also below. Enjoy and Share! PLEASE SEND IN YOUR NOTES 🙂

KEY POINTS FOR ME (Elaborated in the video which is still uploading)

Idolatry AGAIN! WORSHIP THE CREATOR NOT THE CREATION

Daniel 5:23 ‘ Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. ‘

Some people worship the creations of God. Some worship things carved out by man using the materials that God created but not God himself. It is foolish to do so.

LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES OF OTHERS

But you, Belshazzar, his son, have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this. Read Daniel 5:18-22

King Bel had known about his Granddad Nebuchadnezzar all his life and what he went through with God! So why didn’t he learn from the mistakes of his ancestor? Pride will block all forms of adaptive reasoning. It is adaptive to avoid the same hole that you have seen someone else fall into. But Pride will tell you that you are invincible to all holes. Well…please learn from the mistakes of the past and avoid them at all costs!

DANIEL GENERATION! WHAT DO PEOPLE SAY ABOUT YOU AND I?

I have heard that the spirit of the gods is in you and that you have insight, intelligence and outstanding wisdom. Daniel 5:14

Daniel generation! Let our names be associated with insight, intelligence and outstanding wisdom that comes from God! Let people see you and see the glory of God in your life. Let your name be remembered for generations and generations because of your uncompromising obedience and loyalty to God.

DO THE THINGS OF GOD FOR THE GLORY OF GOD AND NOT BRIBES!

The king summoned the enchanters, astrologers and diviners. Then he said to these wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck, and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.” Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or tell the king what it meant. Daniel 5:7-8

Then Daniel answered the king, “You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means. Daniel 5:17

The king issued a bribe to interpret the writing on the wall and those ‘wise men’ came for the bribe, not because they were given the ability to interpret what was on the wall. Notice that Daniel didn’t go out of his way to go to the king, which showed that his intentions were noble and he did not exploit the gifts God gave him. It was the queen who testified about him and then he came.

When you do the things of God, do it with all your heart, don’t do it for a bribe. Don’t exploit the talents and gifts God has given you. Don’t use the gifts from God to get things from man, use the gifts to glorify God and He will reward you!

What you all thought:

So it’s a trend for the king to look for answers for his dreams everywhere magicians, enchanters, astrologers and diviners) but from God. This relates to our daily lives; whenever something problems us, we mainly rely on our own strengths or other resources to find a solution for our troubles.

We talk to everyone and fail to find the right answer. But we go to everyone else and look for an answer. God is saying just come and ask me whatever, IT SHOULDN’T BE THAT HARD TO JUST LEAN ON THE FATHER IN ALL SITUATIONS. The king knew the power of the Lord and his word, but yet refuses to go to it. I think because he knows exactly how dramatically it will change him. And yet again another 21st century Christianity problem.

Now on to Daniel, in his case we clearly see that what or whom God has blessed with favour, mercy and grace no one can compare with. And God does not bless us with all this amazing gifts so we can boast in them but so we can show other his true colours and glorify him alone. – Johanita

Here, King nebu’s son is the current king and he doesn’t seem to have learnt from the mistakes his father made..

Key points here :

* He who dishonours God shall not go unpunished….Belshazzar was disrespectful using things from God’s temple to carouse and on top of that give praises to false gods….

* Daniel is still showing that him in whom the Spirit resides can do great things…once again all the wise men in the land couldn’t interpret the writing except him…

* Daniel told the king he wasn’t doing the interpretation for the reward…When God’s work needs to be done we as Christians need not be concerned with what we will get in return the most important thing is that His will be done…

* Belshazzar perished for his folly…because he refused to humble himself before God, he refused to look at what happened to his father and learn from it…We, to be better Christians should be able to learn from mistakes of others and not lose sight of the fact that we are all accountable for our actions. – @Fleurparfait

I put the song I wrote above here, because I believe it really conveys my reason for creating these bible challenges. Its for people to see God’s glory wherever they are in the world!

What I got from this is, The chapter has to do with the past and judgement day. Also that if you are aware that it is wrong, and you proceed to do it then God will not have mercy on you when its your judgement day. God is a jealous God and he doesn’t want us to have any other God but him. He likes us to be humble and give him all the Glory for all the blessings that he has given to us. – @mrschinaboo

Hope everyone is doing well
We are on Day 5 guys !! Whao ! Ok lets get straight into it..

1 BelShazzar and his YOLO LIFE.
This guy must have thought he was IT! He had the ladies,He threw this huge party and got ridiculously drunk with whoever was present. He even ordered that the gold and silver from the temple be brought to him so he can use them at this party.He wanted to show off basically. And what we should take home from this is that wanting to impress others will only make us do things that we shouldn’t do.

2. Daniel said : No thanks.
In V.17, we see Daniel here rejecting the gifts that Belshazzar was offering him. This shows that Daniel knew he didnt need Belshazzars gifts to manifest Gods glory. He trusted in Jehovah Jireh to be his ultimate provider and to meet all his needs according to his riches in glory.

3. The writing on the wall
Well Well Well! How silly of Belshazzar and his crew to think they could really eat, drink and merry, worship the gods of silver and gold, mock the true God and get away with it!! Nope.

In V. 5-7. We see this ‘human’ hand ( which was really the hand of the Almighty) write on the wall of the palace. What made me laugh was the way Belshazzar reacted to this! The bible (msg version) says his legs went limp, he was white as ghost, he was scared. He probably wet himself in the middle of all that too after all the wine he’s had to drink. What i’m trying to bring out here is that they were already scared and confused as hell before they even knew what the writing meant. All their laughters and cheer turned into fear. See how quickly God can turn a situation around! This to me is so striking in the sense that, any of us.. Displaying the characteristics and the nature of the babylonians as we see here.. The writing is on the wall. Beltshazzar could have learnt from his grandad but he didnt. And now it was too late. For us it isn’t. Let us LEARN.. The bible is there for instruction. If we choose to ignore it, we are only digging out own holes deeper and deeper. The writing is on the wall.

Also all around us we already see numerous signs of the end time. Nations rising against nations, spirit of sodom and Gomorrah etc. let us be the DANIEL of our day. We should be the ones to tell the people what these signs mean. Why? Because we have the Bible and we know better. Not just by words but by our life. I love this quote: ‘Preach the gospel and when necessary, use words’.