This past Sunday at the Family Church in Gainesville, senior pastor Philip Griffin continued his series titled Counter Culture about the Old Testament book of Daniel. The sermon, Am I at the Right Party?, was based on Daniel 5, which you can read through Bible Gateway by clicking on the passage...
Daniel Chapter 5 is about the infamous Belshazzar's Feast and the Writing on the Wall. King Belshazzar, the final king of Babylon, held a banquet for thousands of his nobles. They drank wine from golden cups taken from the Jerusalem temple...and then proceeded to toast to pagan gods. God's response? A hand materialized out of thin air and wrote on the wall the words MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN. There was a sense of panic in the air, and the king found Daniel, who gave his interpretation, which signaled the end of the Babylonian Empire and its replacement by the Persians...
Pastor Philip connected the events of that night with what is going on in our culture: the party our culture throws celebrates pleasure, power and possessions, and pride. The possessions Belshazzar brought out, the golden cups looted from the temple, he treated as trophies...we have the tendency to show off our own "trophies" as well. Then there was that mysterious hand, the "party crasher" as Philip put it: what was written on Belshazzar's wall is also written on ours: MENE: our days, too, are numbered as we all will die, TEKEL: we have all sinned and been found wanting, and PARSIN: everything we have in this world will be divided among others after we're gone. But our pastor pointed out that there's another kind of party, the one that God throws, which celebrates repentance, humility, and grace: the celebration of salvation through Jesus Christ. To get a sense of this party, read the following verses from Jesus' Parable of the Prodigal Son: Luke 15:22-25...
You can watch this sermon via the church's website, which uses YouTube...just click on the following link: [TFC Videos]. The Family Church meets each Sunday morning and has the weekly message, praise and worship music, prayer, and opportunities for fellowship and discipleship. It's a good place to get to know some wonderful people and form friendships...
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