Nor do we have any reason to be dissatisfied with results. The waters that flow down the great Niagara with such rush and roar, and then sweep onward in deep majesty to the ocean are formed by countless brooks and rills and trickling streamlets and melting snows and little raindrops, and so the results that have all wrought for our congregation, and the amount upon which it is still largely dependent, comes from the small contributions of our members, regularly and systematically given. In view of the fact that a large indebtedness rests upon us, I feel warranted to bring this matter before you in the pulpit, asking for a faithful continuation of the plan.
"The widow's two mites"—what grand services they have accomplished, what an immense harvest of good they have brought forth to the whole world. Remembering how His all-seeing eye still scans the church receptacle, let us not allow selfishness, avarice, and a carnal greed to hinder what conscience dictates; rather let us strive to secure this commendation which this poor widow received, and be blessed in our deeds. Amen.
HUMILIATION AND PRAYER SUNDAY.
TEKEL: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.—Dan. 5, 27.
The words of our text connect with an account of Old Testament story which, if once heard, is never forgotten. The place was Babylon, a city so vast in extent that after its capture it was three days before the fact was known all over it. The scene was in the royal palace, a marvelous structure within the walls of which were the famous "hanging gardens," which the world has agreed to number among its "seven great wonders." There, in the most sumptuous of all his banquet halls, at a table groaning with the burdens of massive plate and the rarest and richest of viands and wines, reclined the proud and voluptuous King of Babylon, Belshazzar. Around him reclined a thousand of his lords and the fairest women of his harem. A more magnificent banquet was never given or enjoyed. Golden lamps, suspended from a ceiling, paneled with ivory and pearl, shed soft luster on walls pillared with statues, on a floor paved with alabaster, and carpeted with richest rugs from the looms of India, on couches mounted with silver and cushioned with velvet, on illustrious princes, gorgeous costumes, in the most bewildering splendor, whilst over it all floated the sweet strains of music and song. Every heart in that glittering company was wild with delight. No one seemed troubled with care.
In the midst of the feasting an impious deed suggests itself to the king's mind. Calling a servant, he orders him to bring the golden and silver vessels which his grandfather, Nebuchadnezzar, had carried away from God's altar in Jerusalem. They were brought and placed before him in a glittering row. They had been consecrated to the service of God centuries before, and had never been put to any common use. For any man to use them, unless he were a heavenly-appointed priest serving at the altar of Jehovah, would be sacrilege of the most damning kind, Belshazzar knew that, but he was resolved to insult Jehovah in the presence of that great company, and so, at his command, those consecrated vessels were filled with intoxicating drink, and he and his princes, and his wives and his concubines, drank from them, amid profane jests and ridicule, to the health of the god of Babylon, whose images of gold, silver, brass, and stone adorned the hall where the wild revel was held. Suddenly a cry of agony is heard. There sat Belshazzar, pale as marble, pointing to an object on the wall. With horror unutterable they look and see the fingers of a human hand slowly tracing a style across the wall,—that was all that was visible. The pen and hand vanished, and nothing remained but the writing. At that the banqueters stared, transfixed with speechless terror. No one in that drunken crowd was able to read it, until Daniel, the Lord's prophet, was summoned. This was the inscription: "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." The prophet gave their hidden meaning: "Mene: God has numbered thy kingdom and finished it. Tekel: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Upharsin: Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." And so it was. That very night, by an underground channel, Darius the Mede entered the city of Babylon, and Belshazzar was hewn to pieces.
And is there nothing in this piece of ancient history, transferred to God's Book and interpreted by God's prophet, that has value and application to us? Is not everything that we find recorded in the Scripture written for our learning, our warning? Those four words, and particularly, the one chosen for our immediate devotion, "Tekel," has it no spiritual warning for us? We have met this morning for that very purpose—to weigh ourselves. Fifty-two Sundays—another year of grace has come and has departed in the church calendar—we are invited to solemn retrospect and thoughtful review, to consider what report we have to make. Let us, then, honestly and conscientiously, address ourselves to it on the basis of the text, and may God's Holy Spirit touch your hearts and solemnize your minds!
"Tekel: Thou art weighed in the balances." We all know what a balance is, a pair of scales. The beam is suspended exactly in the middle. The two arms are equal, and supplied with a pan, not to differ by a hair's thickness. If equal weights are placed in the two pans, the beam rests perfectly level. Such is God's balance. It is sensitive to the last degree. It weighs men's acts; it weighs men's words; it weighs men's thoughts; it weighs men's characters. It weighs them accurately, and every weight is set down in the book of divine memory. At the judgment on that Great Day that book will be opened, and every one shall be judged out of those things which are written in the book, according to their works. Ask you me the name of God's balances, I answer: Justice,—that's God's balance.
But in weighing there are two scales. On the one pan is placed that which is weighed, and in the other that against which it is weighed, the standard, the weight. And so God, in weighing man, uses weights which have been tested by a perfect standard. Conscience is such a weight, that "still, small voice" which speaks to you out of your own soul, that forceful monitor in your breast, that weighs against your acts and words and thoughts, excusing or else accusing you, from whose troubling thoughts you cannot escape, and which, as the saying is, makes cowards of us all. Conscience—that's one.