97. A Man Troubled By His Thoughts.

His thoughts troubled him. - Daniel 5:6.

TO many men thinking is an unusual employment.

Yet it is a distinction of man that he can think.

No wonder that when thought is forced on some men they are troubled.

This trouble from thought is salutary: by it conviction and conversion may come; and, in any case, troubled thought is as the sounding of the tocsin, arousing the mind, and warning the soul.

Let us think of Belshazzar, and of ourselves. Of us, too, it may have been said, "His thoughts troubled him." We must be in a bad way if we dare not face our own thoughts about ourselves. What must God's thoughts of us be?

I. IT DID NOT APPEAR LIKELY THAT HIS THOUGHTS WOULD TROUBLE HIM.

l. He was an irresponsible and reckless monarch. He came of a fierce nation, and was born of a father who had been punished for his haughty spirit.

2. He had hardened his heart with pride (verses 22 and 23). Daniel said, "thou hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven."

3. He was drinking wine, and it had worked upon him (verse 2).

4. He was rioting in gay company: "his princes, his wives, and his concubines." Such comrades as these usually chase all thought away, and help their leader in his recklessness.

5. He was venturing far in profanity (verse 3); daring to abuse the sacred vessels, in his banquets, as an expression of his contempt for Israel's God, whom he despised in contrast with his "gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone." Perhaps he had mentioned these in detail as the gods who had triumphed; at any rate, the prophet brings them forward with detestation in verse 4.

No man is rendered wise or thoughtful by the wine-cup.

No man is out of the reach of the arrows of God.

No conscience is so dead that he cannot arouse it.

Many other men in far lower positions exhibit equal pride of station and success; this is stimulated in much the same manner, and exhibited with much the same contempt for the things of God.

A parallel is easily drawn between Belshazzar and other proud ones.

II. YET WELL MIGHT HIS THOUGHTS TROUBLE HIM.

l. For what he saw was appalling: "fingers of a man's hand over against the candlestick" (verse 5).

· God sometimes gives men warnings which they must notice.

2. For what he could not see was suggestive. Where was the hand?

· Where was the writer? What had he written? What did it mean? A terrible mystery was involved in his vision.

· God gives men hints of something behind, which is yet to appear.

3. For what he had done was alarming.

· His own past flashed before him. His cruel wars, oppressions, blasphemies, and vices.

· What he knew of his father's career increased his terror.

· What he had himself failed to do came before him:"The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified" (verse 23).

· What he was then in the act of doing startled him. He was wantonly defying Jehovah, the God of Israel.

See him trembling before whom all trembled.

He has drunk a strange draught out of those holy cups.

III. AND MIGHT NOT YOUR THOUGHTS TROUBLE SOME OF YOU?

1. You are careless, riotous, fond of feasts, given to much wine. Does wantonness ever end well?

2. You are prosperous. Are not beasts fattened for the slaughter?

3. You are trifling with holy things. You neglect, or ridicule, or use without seriousness the things of God. Will this be endured? Will not the Lord be provoked to avenge this contempt?

4. You mix with the impure. Will you not perish with them?

5. Your father's history might instruct you, or at least trouble you.

6. The sacred writing "over against the candlestick" is against you.

· Read the Holy Scripture, and see for yourself.

7. Specially, you have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting. Conscience beholds the scales in the hand of the infallible Judge.

Take heed that you do not fall into Belshazzar's condition, to whom Daniel gave no counsel, but simply interpreted the sentences which sealed his doom.

As yet we dare preach the gospel to you, and we do. God's thoughts are above your thoughts. He bids you repent of sin, and believe in his Son Jesus; and then your thoughts will cease to trouble you.