“His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.”
– Daniel 5:6
Hi James and Ellen,
A wedding feast was celebrated on June 5, 2011 in Gainesville, Georgia. The oldest daughter of the couple who God – as God the Spirit, prompted Adventures in Missions core ethos is now the very happy wife of a young guy from California. Over 200 guys, gals and kids celebrated with Jim and Tanya the moment of their becoming husband and wife. After the wedding ceremony – which took place next to Tanya’s folk’s house, the wedding guests joined Jim and Tanya for the wedding feast which took place inside a large tent that had been set up on Tanya’s folk’s property. It was the desire of Tanya to have an elegant wedding feast that was combined with homespun, humble items. A china settings along with an accompanying goblet was placed at each place where a guest would sit. All the tables were covered with fine linen tablecloths. A wide burlap strip ran down the center of each table. A narrow strip of lacy material ran down the center of each burlap strip. Tanya asked your Aunt Lynn to incorporate her wishes into the ambiance of what she wanted the tent’s interior to be like for her wedding reception feast. Your Aunt Lynn was hardwired by God to be able to listen to what a guy or gal is wanting and then incorporating in an absolute confident way the ideas or dreams of the guy or gal. Your Aunt Lynn enlisted your grandmaa to help with the decorating of the tent. Your Aunt Lynn, your grandmaa and Katalina Torinski – who is a good friend of your Aunt Lynn, invested hours and hours creating the kind of visual atmosphere that Tanya had communicated to your Aunt Lynn that she desired. Tanya’s dad has over and over again expressed publicly his genuine, heartfelt thanks for what your Aunt Lynn did to make his daughter’s wedding a joy filled, memorable event that met his daughter’s personal desires of what she had dreamed of what her wedding would be like. The wedding between Jim and Tanya went off with minimal hitches. It has been very warm here in Gainesville, Georgia. Clouds showed up just as the wedding ceremony began – causing the hot air to cool some. Even though your grandpaa’s preference is that there be no beer, wine and dancing at a wedding reception, your grandpaa knows that drinking and dancing are cemented in today’s ‘Christian’ youth culture – which there was during the wedding feast after the wedding vows that were made during the wedding ceremony between Jim and Tanya.
A great banquet took place on October 29, 539 B.C. in the city of Babylon. A grandson of the guy who God led to overrun and pillage the city of Jerusalem and who carried away the sacred items that were being used in the temple of God that was in the city of Jerusalem scheduled a revelry filled night. Daniel – in Daniel 5, wrote that 1,000 nobles joined King Belshazzar – a grandson of King Nebuchadnezzar, to drink wine with him, his wives and his concubines. It was after King Belshazzar requested that he be brought the gold goblets that his grandfather had plundered from the temple of God that was in the city of Jerusalem – so that he and every guy and gal who was at the banquet could drink wine from these gold goblets, that the night’s ambience changed. A human finger suddenly appeared writing on one of King Belshazzar’s royal palace’s walls. Verse 6 is Daniel’s detailing King Belshazzar’s reaction to what he saw, “His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.” Despite King Belshazzar promising his pool of enchanters, diviners and astrologers purple clothes and gold chains to whoever could tell him what ‘MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN’ said or meant, none of them could tell him. This made King Belshazzar even more afraid. When the country of Babylonia’s queen heard all the fuss and saw how pallid and terrified that King Belshazzar was, she told King Belshazzar to send for a Jew exile by the name of Daniel – who King Belshazzar’s grandfather had renamed Belteshazzar, and that Daniel would explain to him what had been written on a wall in his palace. The queen knew of Daniel because of what Daniel did during the 43 year reign of Nebuchadnezzar as the country of Babylonia’s king. While Nebuchadnezzar’s was king over the guys and gals who lived in the country of Babylonia, Daniel became known as being insightful, intelligent, having exceptional wisdom and having the ‘spirit of the gods’ in him. After Daniel told King Belshazzar why God gave his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar the sovereignty, greatness, glory and splendor that he is remembered by even today, Daniel told King Belshazzar that because he had set himself up against the ‘Lord of the heaven’ by drinking wine from the holy goblets that had been taken from the temple of God that was in the city of Jerusalem and that because he had not humbled himself like his grandfather did after his grandfather had become arrogant and prideful was why God wrote his pending fate on a wall in his palace. Even after Daniel told King Belshazzar that ‘MENE’ meant that God had numbered his days and that his days would end that night, that ‘TEKEL’ meant that God had weighed what he had done on planet Earth and that God had found him lacking and that ‘PARSIN’ meant that his kingdom was being given to the Medes and Persians, King Belshazzar still gave Daniel purple clothes and gold chains.
Are you looking forward to the ultimate triumphant ‘party’? Your grandmaa and grandpaa are. That ‘party’ will begin when God – as God the Son, returns to planet Earth. Do you have your hearts ready for this fiesta of joy?
Daniel 5 (1167)