322. The Midnight Revel

The Midnight Revel

Dan_5:30 : ’93In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.’94

Night was about to come down on Babylon. The shadows of her two hundred and fifty towers began to lengthen. The Euphrates rolled on, touched by the fiery splendors of the setting sun; and gates of brass, burnished and glittering, opened and shut like doors of flame. The hanging gardens of Babylon, wet with the heavy dew, began to pour, from starlit flowers and dripping leaf, a fragrance for many miles around. The streets and squares were lighted for dance and frolic and promenade. The theaters and galleries of art invited the wealth and pomp and grandeur of the city to rare entertainments. Scenes of riot and wassail were mingled in every street; and godless mirth and outrageous excess and splendid wickedness came to the king’92s palace, to do their mightiest deeds of darkness.

A royal feast tonight at the king’92s palace! Rushing up to the gates are chariots, upholstered with precious cloths from Dedan, and drawn by fire-eyed horses from Togarmah, that rear and neigh in the grasp of the charioteers; while a thousand lords dismount, and women, dressed in all the splendors of Syrian emerald, and the color-blending of agate, and the chasteness of coral, and the somber glory of Tyrian purple, and princely embroideries, brought from afar by camels across the desert, and by ships of Tarshish across the sea.

Open wide the gates, and let the guests come in. The chamberlains and cupbearers are all ready. Hark to the rustle of the silks, and to the carol of the music! See the blaze of the jewels! Lift the banners. Fill the cups. Clap the cymbals. Blow the trumpets. Let the night go by with song and dance and ovation; and let that Babylonish tongue be palsied that will not say, ’93O King Belshazzar, live forever!’94

Ah! my friends, it was not any common banquet to which these great people came. All parts of the earth had sent their richest viands to that table. Brackets and chandeliers flashed their light upon tankards of burnished gold. Fruits, ripe and luscious, in baskets of silver, entwined with leaves, plucked from royal conservatories. Vases, inlaid with emerald and ridged with exquisite traceries, filled with nuts that were threshed from forests of distant lands. Wine brought from the royal vats, foaming in the decanters and bubbling in the chalices. Tufts of cassia and frankincense wafting their sweetness from wall and table. Gorgeous banners unfolding in the breeze that came through the opened window, bewitched with the perfume of hanging gardens. Fountains rising up from enclosures of ivory, in jets of crystal, to fall in clattering rain of diamonds and pearls. Statues of mighty men looking down, from niches in the wall, upon crowns and shields brought from subdued empires. Idols of wonderful work, standing on pedestals of precious stones. Embroideries stooping about the windows, and wrapping pillars of cedar, and drifting on floor inlaid with ivory and agate. Music, mingling the thrum of harps, and the clash of cymbals, and the blast of trumpets in one wave of transport that went rippling along the wall and breathing among the garlands and pouring down the corridors and thrilling the souls of a thousand banqueters. The signal is given, and the lords and ladies, the mighty men and women of the land, come around the table. Pour out the wine. Let foam and bubble kiss the rim! Hoist every one his cup, and drink to the sentiment: ’93O King Belshazzar, live forever!’94 Bestarred head-band and carcanet of royal beauty gleam to the uplifted chalices, as again and again and again they are emptied. Away with care from the palace! Tear royal dignity to tatters! Pour out more wine! Give us more light, wilder music, sweeter perfume! Lord shouts to lord, captain ogles to captain. Goblets clash; decanters rattle. Then come in the vile song and the drunken hiccough and the slavering lip and the guffaw of idiotic laughter, bursting from the lips of princes, flushed, reeling, bloodshot; while mingling with it all I hear, ’93Huzza! huzza! for great Belshazzar!’94

What is that on the plastering of the wall? Is it a spirit? Is it a phantom? Is it God? The music stops. The goblets fall from the nerveless grasp. There is a thrill. There is a start. There is a thousand-voiced shriek of horror. Let Daniel be brought in to read that writing. He comes in. He reads it: ’93Weighed in the balance and found wanting.’94

Meanwhile the Assyrians, who for two years had been laying a siege to that city, took advantage of that carousal and came in. I hear the feet of the conquerors on the palace-stairs. Massacre rushes in with a thousand gleaming knives. Death bursts upon the scene; and I shut the door of that banqueting-hall, for I do not want to look. There is nothing there but torn banners and broken wreaths and the slush of upset tankards and the blood of murdered women and the kicked and tumbled carcass of a dead king. For ’93in that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain.’94

I go on to learn some lessons from all this, as on former occasions I learned certain lessons. I learn that when God writes any thing on the wall, a man had better read it as it is. Daniel did not misinterpret or modify the handwriting on the wall. It is all foolishness to expect a minister of the Gospel to preach always things that the people like, or the people choose. Young men of Brooklyn, what shall I preach to you tonight? Shall I tell you of the dignity of human nature? Shall I tell you of the wonders that our race has accomplished? ’93Oh! no,’94 you say; ’93Tell me the message that came from God.’94 I will. If there is any handwriting on the wall, it is this lesson: ’93Repent! Accept of Christ, and be saved!’94 I might talk of a great many other things; but that is the message, and so I declare it. Jesus never flattered those to whom he preached. He said to those who did wrong, and who were offensive in his sight, ’93Ye generation of vipers! ye whited sepulchers! how can ye escape the damnation of hell!’94 Paul the apostle preached before a man who was not ready to hear him preach. What subject did he take? Did he say, ’93Oh! you are a good man, a very fine man, a very noble man?’94 No; he preached of righteousness to a man who was unrighteous; of temperance to a man who was the victim of bad appetites; of the judgment to come to a man who was unfit for it. So we must always declare the message that happens to come to us. Daniel must read it as it is. A minister preached before James I of England, who was James VI of Scotland. What subject did he take? The king was noted all over the world for being unsettled and wavering in his ideas. What did the minister preach about to this man who was James I of England and James VI of Scotland? He took for his text Jas_1:6 : ’93He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.’94 Hugh Latimer offended the king by a sermon he preached; and the king said, ’93Hugh Latimer, come and apologize.’94 ’93I will,’94 said Hugh Latimer. So the day was appointed; and the king’92s chapel was full of lords and dukes and the mighty men and women of the country, for Hugh Latimer was to apologize. He began his sermon by saying: ’93Hugh Latimer, bethink thee! Thou art in the presence of thine earthly king, who can destroy thy body. But bethink thee, Hugh Latimer, that thou art in the presence of the King of heaven and earth, who can destroy both body and soul in hell-fire.’94 Then he preached with appalling directness at the king’92s crimes.

Another lesson that comes to us tonight: there is a great difference between the opening of the banquet of sin and its close. Young man, if you had looked in upon the banquet in the first few hours, you would have wished you had been invited there, and could sit at the feast. ’93Oh! the grandeur of Belshazzar’92s feast!’94 You would have said; but you look in at the close of the banquet, and your blood curdles with horror. The King of Terrors has there a ghastlier banquet; human blood is the wine, and dying groans are the music. Sin has made itself a king in the earth. It has crowned itself. It has spread a banquet. It invites all the world to come to it. It has hung in its banqueting-hall the spoils of all kingdoms, and the banners of all nations. It has gathered from all music. It has strewn, from its wealth, the tables and floors and arches. And yet how often is that banquet broken up; and how horrible is its end! Ever and anon there is a handwriting on the wall. A king falls. A great culprit is arrested. The knees of wickedness knock together. God’92s judgment, like an armed host, breaks in upon the banquet; and that night is Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain.

Here is a young man who says, ’93I cannot see why they make such a fuss about the intoxicating cup. Why, it is exhilarating! It makes me feel well. I can talk better, think better, feel better. I cannot see why people have such a prejudice against it.’94 A few years pass on, and he wakes up and finds himself in the clutches of an evil habit which he tries to break, but cannot; and he cries out, ’93O Lord God! help me!’94 It seems as though God would not hear his prayer; and in an agony of body and soul he cries out, ’93It biteth like a serpent, and it stingeth like an adder.’94 How bright it was at the start! How black it was at the last!

Here is a man who begins to read depraved novels. ’93They are so charming,’94 he says; ’93I will go out and see for myself whether all these things are so.’94 He opens the gate of a sinful life. He goes in. A sinful sprite meets him with her wand. She waves her wand, and it is all enchantment. Why, it seems as if the angels of God had poured out vials of perfume in the atmosphere. As he walks on, he finds the hills becoming more radiant with foliage, and the ravines more resonant with the falling water. Oh, what a charming landscape he sees! But that sinful sprite, with her wand, meets him again; but now she reverses the wand, and all the enchantment is gone. The cup is full of poison. The fruit turns to ashes. All the leaves of the bower are forked tongues of hissing serpents. The flowing fountains fall back in a dead pool, stenchful with corruption. The luring songs become curses and screams of demoniac laughter. Lost spirits gather about him and feel for his heart, and beckon him on with ’93Hail, brother! Hail, blasted spirit, hail!’94 He tries to get out. He comes to the front door where he entered, and tries to push it back, but the door turns against him; and in the jar of that shutting door he hears these words: ’93This night is Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain.’94

Sin may open bright as the morning. It ends dark as the night!

I learn further from this subject that death sometimes breaks in upon a banquet. Why did he not go down to the prisons in Babylon? There were people there that would liked to have died. I suppose there were men and women in torture in that city who would have welcomed death. But he comes to the palace; and just at the time when the mirth is dashing to the tip-top pitch, death breaks in at the banquet. We have often seen the same thing illustrated. Here is a young man just come from college. He is kind. He is loving. He is enthusiastic. He is eloquent. By one spring he may bound to heights toward which many men have been struggling for years. A profession opens before him. He is established in the law. His friends cheer him. Eminent men encourage him. After a while you may see him standing in the American Senate, or moving a popular assemblage by his eloquence, as trees are moved in a whirlwind. Some night he retires early. A fever is on him. Delirium, like a reckless charioteer, seizes the reins of his intellect. Father and mother stand by and see the tides of his life going out to the great ocean. The banquet is coming to an end. The lights of thought and mirth and eloquence are being extinguished. The garlands are snatched from the brow. The vision is gone. Death at the banquet!

We saw the same thing, on a larger scale, illustrated in the last war in this country. Our whole nation had been sitting at a national banquet’97North, South, East, and West. What grain was there, but we grew it on our hills. What invention was there, but our rivers must turn the new wheel, and rattle the strange shuttle. What warm furs, but our traders must bring them from the Arctic. What fish, but our nets must sweep them for the markets. What music, but it must sing in our halls. What eloquence, but it must speak in our Senates. Ho! to the national banquet, reaching from mountain to mountain, and from sea to sea! To prepare that banquet, the sheep-folds and the aviaries of the country sent their best treasures. The orchards piled up on the table their sweetest fruits. The presses burst out with new wines. To sit at that table, came the yeomanry of New Hampshire and the lumbermen of Maine and the tanned Carolinian from the rice-swamps and the Western emigrant from the pines of Oregon, and we were all brothers’97brothers at a banquet. Suddenly the feast ended. What meant those mounds thrown up at Chickahominy, Shiloh, Atlanta, Gettysburg, South Mountain? What meant those golden grain-fields, turned into a pasturing-ground for cavalry-horses? What meant the corn-fields gullied with the wheels of the heavy supply-train? Why those rivers of tears’97those lakes of blood? God was angry! Justice must come. A handwriting on the wall! The nation had been weighed and found wanting. Darkness! Darkness! Woe to the North! Woe to the South! Woe to the East! Woe to the West! Death at the banquet!

I have also to learn from the subject that the destruction of the vicious, and of those who despise God, will be very sudden. The wave of mirth had dashed to the highest point when that Assyrian army broke through. It was unexpected. Suddenly, almost always, comes the doom of those who despise God, and defy the laws of men. How was it at the Deluge? Do you suppose it came through a long northeast storm, so that people for days before were sure it was coming? No; I suppose the morning was bright; that calmness brooded on the waters; that beauty sat enthroned on the bills; when suddenly the heavens burst, and the mountains sank like anchors into the sea that dashed clear over the Andes and the Himalayas.

The Red Sea was divided. The Egyptians tried to cross it. There could be no danger. The Israelites had just gone through; where they had gone, why not the Egyptians? Oh, it was such a beautiful walking-place! A pavement of tinged shells and pearls, and on each side two great walls of water’97solid. There can be no danger. Forward, great host of the Egyptians! Clap the cymbals, and blow the trumpets of victory! After them! We will catch them yet, and they shall be destroyed. But the walls begin to tremble. They rock! They fall! The rushing waters! The shriek of drowning men! The swimming of the war-horses in vain for the shore! The strewing of the great host on the bottom of the sea, or pitched by the angry wave on the beach’97a battered, bruised, and loathsome wreck! Suddenly destruction came. One-half hour before they could not have believed it. Destroyed; and without remedy.

I am just setting forth a fact, which you have noticed as well as I. Ananias comes to the apostle. The apostle says: ’93Did you sell the land for so much?’94 He says: ’93Yes.’94 It was a lie. Dead! as quick as that! Sapphira, his wife, comes in. ’93Did you sell the land for so much?’94 ’93Yes.’94 It was a lie; and quick as that she was dead! God’92s judgments are upon those who despise him and defy him. They come suddenly.

The destroying angel went through Egypt. Do you suppose that any of the people knew that he was coming? Did they hear the flap of his great wing? No! No! Suddenly, unexpectedly, he came.

Skilled sportsmen do not like to shoot a bird standing on a sprig near-by. If they are skilled, they pride themselves on taking it on the wing; and they wait till it starts. Death is an old sportsman; and he loves to take men flying under the very sun. He loves to take them on the wing.

Are there any here tonight who are unprepared for the eternal world? Are there any here who have been living without God, and without hope? Let me say to you that you had better accept of the Lord Jesus Christ, lest suddenly your last chance be gone. The lungs will cease to breathe; the heart will stop. The time will come when you shall go no more to the office or to the store or to the shop. Nothing will be left but death and judgment and eternity.

Good-night, my young friends! may you have rosy sleep, guarded by him who never slumbers! May you awake in the morning strong and well! But oh! art thou a despiser of God? Is this thy last night on earth? Shouldest thou be awakened in the night by something, thou knowest not what, and there be shadows floating in the room and a handwriting on the wall and you feel that your last hour is come, and there be a fainting at the heart and a tremor in the limb and a catching of the breath’97then thy doom would be but an echo of the words of the text: ’93In that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage