God's Warning Labels

Today I want to talk about God's warning labels because there's a time in the Bible when the finger of God literally writes warning labels onto the side of a human kingdom, and it's in Daniel 5. If you brought your Bibles with you, crack them open to Daniel 5. If you don't have your Bibles with you, we got brown TLC Bibles right there in front of you, and some of the verses are in your notes, in your bulletins as well. I want to kind of slap a warning label on this chapter of the Bible, and the warning label reads, "Not for the faint of heart." Because this is one of those intense parts of the Bible. This is one of those parts of the Bible that's not like your warm and fuzzy part of the Bible, but these parts of the Bible are in there, so we got to talk about them.

I kind of want to show you something else here that somebody just showed me this past Thursday. This is the Yelp review page, you know Yelp online, and it's cool. This is our review page for Twin Legs Church. We got some five-star reviews. That's awesome, and you can review us too, but look at the description that somebody wrote a little bit more closely. They meant to say, "The music will be contemporary and the message will be relevant." What it says is, "The massage will be relevant." Perhaps this explains our church growth, right? The massage will be relevant. Sometimes you come to church and you're studying Psalm 23 or something, and the message is a little bit like a massage, and you leave feeling uplifted and happy because everything was 100% positive in all the verses you study, not this week.

Daniel 5 is more like a tough love chapter. Daniel 5 is a chapter where God writes three different words on the wall of a human kingdom to express three different universal truths, but tough truths about life. The good news is if you and I apply these truths to our lives, we will live rich lives and full lives and no regret lives. Doesn't that sound good? But if you ignore these three warning words, well, you run into some peril. Let me set the stage for you. The date is October 12th, 539 BC. The place is the royal palace of Babylon. Daniel is now over 80 years old. King Nebuchadnezzar, he's been dead for 24 years, and the shrinking empire is centered on the great city of Babylon.

Outside the massive walls, the mighty Medo-Persian army has surrounded the city, and that is the context for verse 1 of chapter 5, which says, "King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles." Now stop there because immediately you are introduced to a name that you have never heard before, Belshazzar. Who is this guy? What happened to Nebuchadnezzar? What is going on here in this verse? A couple of things. For years and years, critics of the Bible said Daniel is wrong. This is an example of how the Bible can't be relied on historically because there is no Belshazzar. No such person in the historical record was ever a king of Babylon, and so the Bible is obviously in error. This is just a fairy tale.

In fact, you can still get books in the library that say that about Daniel because Belshazzar apparently did not exist. At least that's what they used to think until something was found, archaeologists call it the Nabonidus cylinder, and it is a record of what led up to these events in Daniel 5. What is this all about? Well, after Nebuchadnezzar dies, the empire starts to fall apart. Nebuchadnezzar's son reigns for just two years, is assassinated by his own brother-in-law. That guy reigns for four years and dies. His young son only reigns for nine months and is beaten to death by conspirators. The whole thing's just falling apart.

And then a man named Nabonidus ends up being the new ruler of Babylon. Problem. He is not related in any way to Nebuchadnezzar the Great, and he is aware of there being almost this cult of personality surrounding the royal lineage. What he very cleverly does is he appoints Nebuchadnezzar's grandson to the kingship. That's Belshazzar. Belshazzar is kind of a puppet king. Nabonidus says, "Look, people in Babylon aren't even going to see me, but I'm going to do all the governing. I'm going to lead the army, and you will kind of be the figurehead, right? And you can do whatever you want in the city, but I'm going to rule over the whole empire." Nabonidus was the actual leader.

Now, meanwhile, something is happening outside of Babylon. This character Cyrus, the king of the Medes and the Persians, is conquering the world. As you can see, there he is actually karate chopping the world with his army. They're just eating up the countryside, and his soldiers end up wiping out the Babylonian army south of Babylon about 50 miles. They destroy the whole army of Babylon led by Nabonidus, who is the acting governor of the country, and then they literally camp out and surround the entire city of Babylon. The whole empire is shrunken down to just this city, and they are camped around it.

When Daniel 5 opens up, the Medes and the Persians have been besieging the city of Babylon, that is surrounding it with their army, for up to four months depending on which historian, ancient historian you read. It could have been two months, three months, or four months, but they've been there for a number of months. That's the scene. Belshazzar is in Babylon. All around him, just outside the city walls, is a siege from the Medes and the Persians, and he looks at this peril and decides to throw a party. That's the odd context for this celebration he has. It says he made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand.

I mean, this is how cocky these Babylonians were. No need to preserve food. Let's have a thousand people over to pig out on our reserves. They figured they were protected by a double line of walls that stretched 20 miles around the city. These are the reconstructed ruins that you could see today just outside of Baghdad, and they're impressive today, but back in the day, they were even more impressive. The ancient historian Herodotus said the walls were 85 feet wide, 335 feet tall at their tallest, topped by 250 defensive towers. This is an artist's recreation of the way Herodotus describes the ancient city of Babylon at the time of Belshazzar. It was just immense. There was no other city in the ancient world that even approached this.

Plus the Euphrates River ran through the city, so they have an unlimited water supply, and the walls are built right over the water so that no floating army can possibly enter by surprise. The city had a stockpile of food not just for a year or for two years or five years or ten years or 15 years. Babylon had a stockpile of food for 20 years. Unlimited freshwater, 20 years of food, impregnable walls. Now you maybe can understand why they said let's throw a party because we can outlast any bivouacking army. They thought there's no way somebody camping outside our city is going to be able to provide provisions for the army for 20 years. We're going to outlast them, and we will have literally the last laugh.

To me, this verse honestly shows what people can get used to, right? The Persian armies at the gates probably cost some worry the first day, the first week, but this is one, two, three, four months later. They're used to it. They're not afraid anymore. We humans can get used to any threat, and this party gets off to a great start. Everybody's drinking, having fun. There are musicians there, and no one knows when the idea first came to King Belshazzar, but at some point, he decides to bring out the gold and silver objects that have been taken from the temple in Jerusalem almost 70 years earlier.

And what's worse is somebody grabs one of the gold goblets from the holy temple of God in Jerusalem and thinks it would be funny to fill it with wine and say a toast to our Babylonian gods, and it gets a big laugh, and everybody thinks that's hilarious to toast pagan gods with the Hebrew gods' temple stuff, and soon they're all at it. A toast to this god, a toast to that god in the name of Jehovah; the party gets crazy. Then suddenly, a disembodied hand appears, writing on the wall. It's a miracle. First, one person sees it, and then slowly everyone notices the writing on the wall, and that's where we get this expression. You could call it a mass hallucination, but it would still be a miracle because every single person is saying the same thing, right?

There are three words like a little chant: many, many, tekel, parson. It literally means numbered, numbered, weighed, divided, and the Bible says suddenly the party stops. Everyone sobers up, gets really serious. Now let me take a break from the story. I'll leave it a mystery for a couple of minutes what those words meant because I want you to try to put yourself in the shoes of these people, the sandals of these people emotionally and spiritually. Have you ever been in a place where there was just nothing but levity and frivolity and hilarity, and suddenly reality intruded and everything came to a screeching halt?

I was thinking about this, and the last time this happened for me, I was coming back from an overseas flight after being on a trip to visit several of our missionaries. One thing I've noticed on my last couple of flights overseas, the distractions, the entertainment possibilities people have these days are absolutely incredible on overseas flights. You sit down in your seat, and there's a screen right in front of you. Often these days, it's a touch screen almost like a built-in iPad or something, and they have dozens of TV channels you can select, and you can watch them live like you can watch ESPN live or whatever. There are dozens and dozens of movies that you can choose to watch. There are video games, there are games you can play with other people on other seats in the plane. You can kind of compete playing Scrabble or hangman or whatever you want to. There are magazines you can read travel on about the places you're going, and this is in coach.

I was experiencing all this, wondering what are the first-class people get, you know, a sushi chef, you know, a live Broadway show, relevant massages. I don't know what they get, but I know it's incredible, and I'm thinking the flight attendants must love these entertainment systems because everybody is just sort of happily docile, right? You know, drooling. Nobody's bugging them; just plug us into our fantasy machine, and we're staring at our screen unaware of any threat. Until this last flight that I was on coming back from Europe a couple of years ago, we were all happily watching our own little screens when suddenly the alarm goes off. The entertainment system shuts down; please pay attention to your flight attendant. The warning lights pop up, emergency runner lights in the hallways. We look up dazed; there's smoke in the cabin, I kid you not, and the pilot comes on.

We've talked about this before; why does every pilot sound like he's on Prozac? I don't know, but he does, and he comes on and says, "Uh, excuse me folks, uh, uh, seems like we've, uh, got a, uh, warning light, uh, showing, uh, smoke in the cabin," and then they always turn their microphone off in the middle of their announcement. Have you noticed that every single time? You feel like going, "Somebody wake up the pilot; what's going on up there?" He goes, "Uh, we're gonna get that cleared up, and, uh, thank you for flying northwest." Seriously, what's happening? But let me tell you something; we were focused, right? We were not distracted anymore in any way. In fact, we looked a lot like these people. I kid you not, you know how nobody ever listens to the safety spiel ever that the flight attendants give anymore? Yeah, well, we were paying attention now, listening to every word, looking around like half of the people have their life preservers on already, you know?

Well, they tracked it down, and it was just one of the ovens acting up. Yeah, at least that's what they told us, right? "Uh, folks, uh, uh, it's the stove, right?" But the entertainment system never did get working again for 10 hours. Listen to that; you guys are more concerned about that than you were about the fact that I could have died. No movies, right? Well, guess what happened? At first, it was like awkward; what do you do on an airplane when there's no entertainment? You know, nobody comes ready for this because you think it's just going to be right there in the seat back. And guess what happened? We got up, and we talked. We introduced ourselves to each other, made friends.

And you know that conversation we've talked about before that's kind of awkward that I have to get into every time I fly about what I do? I'm a pastor. Usually, that's like shuts down the conference. Suddenly, everybody was very interested in talking to me on this flight. I kid you not; I ended up doing two weddings, three conversions, and a baby dedication. No, that part's not true, but after a while, I wondered to myself what would happen if somebody unplugged our society's giant entertainment system? Because all of us are really plugged into entertainment, right? 24/7 these days: TV, cable TV, DVDs, iTunes, our cell phones, and our iPods. What would happen if somebody unplugged it? What would we be paying attention to? Because that's what happened at this party; God says, "Hey," and unplugs the Babylon entertainment machine.

Not because it's wrong to enjoy life; I want to make that clear. The Bible commends the enjoyment of life. He unplugged it, first of all, because there was serious blasphemy going on, and secondly, because sometimes serious warnings must be heard. Sometimes you gotta listen to the safety spiel, right? Let's go back to Rembrandt's picture of this moment. Suddenly, they're all staring at these words; they're all listening. What do these words mean? And the queen mother says, "You know, there's an old man who lives in the compound here. He used to interpret dreams for the king. Somebody get him." Enter Daniel, 80 years old by this time, and Belshazzar says, "Interpret this; I'll give you a fortune, purple clothes, a gold chain, all kinds of stuff." Daniel says, "Keep your money; not interested, but I'll interpret this for you."

He says, "King, here's the thing: you've already heard these warnings for years." That's a very important part of the story because God does not surprise Belshazzar. Daniel says, "You should know what God is writing on your wall." He says, "For one thing, you know the story of your father, meaning your ancestor, King Nebuchadnezzar, because he was proud and he was humbled before God. That was a story we looked at last week in Daniel 4, and then he ends up being converted and worshiping the one true God, and he wrote a hymn about him that you have in your royal records. But you have not humbled yourself even though you knew all of this." He says, "You deliberately thumbed your nose at God and rejected God and mocked God for many years. God has been very patient with you, and now time's up." And now you know everybody's real quiet as Daniel says, "Because this is the inscription that was written on the wall: many, many, tekel, parson."

And this is what those words mean: many, many means numbered. God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel, which means weighed, you have been weighed on this—this is a haunting verse—you have been weighed on the scales and have been found wanting. And now you can hear a pin drop as people are going, "Well, what does the next word mean?" The final word, Daniel says, "Parson," a conjugation of parson, parson meaning divided. Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians, and he means right now because switch scenes. What is going on with the Medes and the Persians? What are they up to outside the walls even as Daniel is going through all of this? Well, we know this from secular history; they were diverting the Euphrates River, busily diverting it into a swamp, and the Persian army ends up strolling right under the gates of Babylon through the dry riverbed and takes over in one night without a fight.

And it was this night, verse 30, that very night, Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom at the age of 62. Now, by the way, in case you're going, "This is that Old Testament God I don't like. That Old Testament God is all about judgment and wrath, and he was so mean here to Belshazzar." You know, whenever there's a—in the rare cases actually in the Old Testament when there's this kind of a military judgment that God pronounces against somebody, you got to understand the context. Belshazzar was a very mean guy. He was very petty. He was just interested in his own pleasure and not in the nation. In fact, we know this not from the Bible but from secular history. Herodotus says that when the Persians and the Medes came into Babylon, the Babylonians called the king of the Persians our liberator. Now that should tell you something about what Belshazzar was like.

And then the Persians did something that nobody could have possibly anticipated. The Persian king starts to act like somebody really had never acted before in human history. He's almost like a 21st-century person who is put back into, you know, 500 BC by time travel or something because one of his first acts is he announces freedom for political prisoners, and then he announces freedom for people to worship whatever gods they choose to worship, and then he announces that he's going to allow the Jews to go back to Jerusalem, and he's going to support them as they rebuild Jerusalem, and he's going to support the kingdom of Israel. It's a remarkable turn of events benefiting everybody in Babylon, in Israel, in Persia, everybody that is, of course, except for Belshazzar and his immediate court. More on that next week.

But today, what I want to ask is why is this weird story even in the Bible? What does this story mean to me today? Because the Bible is not just a history book; it's about lessons about God and human nature that we're supposed to apply today. So what does this mean to me today? Well, would you agree with me on this? I think that the finger of God could write these exact same words for every one of us: numbered, numbered, weighed, divided. They could be written on my wall; they could be written on your living room wall because the point of these same words is really in other scriptures about every single one of us. Show you what I mean.

First word, numbered or many. The message here could be warning: quantities are limited because this is true for me, and it is true for you. The Bible says this in Psalm 90:12, and let's say this out loud together; it's on the screen. Read this out loud with me: "Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are. Help us to spend them as we should." I want you to circle that phrase in your notes: number our days. What's the number of your days? Did you know that the average lifespan is 25,550 days? That is what the average person in America gets, about 25,000. That ain't much; that goes by super fast. In fact, try to imagine how quickly you could spend 25,000, right? And so the psalmist says, "So help us to spend them as we should." It's interesting; he doesn't say, "So help us to spend them." He says to spend them as we should because you can't save days, right? You can't bank days. Every 24 hours, you're spending one; you're spending it on something. The question is, what are you spending it on? Is it something that is worthwhile? Is it something that's going to matter in eternity? That's question number one.

There are three questions that come out of the story for you and me, and jot this down in your notes. Question number one is, do I live like my days are numbered? Instead of letting that depress you, it should liberate you and set you free to really live. I'll tell you a true story. The Russian author Dostoyevsky once talked about the time that he was arrested in Russia and sentenced to die. They played a cruel psychological trick on people in those days. They sentenced you to die, put you through the whole court proceedings, then they blindfolded you, they led you outside to the firing squad, they put you in front of the soldiers with guns, then they fired at you, but you felt nothing because the guns were loaded with blanks. And then the czar would laugh and say, "You're set free; I hope you learned a lesson." Well, that bizarre experience that Dostoyevsky went through had a transformative effect on him.

He said that the morning of his execution, he woke up knowing it would be the last day of his life, and as he ate his last meal, he savored every bite, and every breath of air was taken with an awareness about how precious it was. As he walked through the halls, he wanted every experience etched on his mind, and he was praying the whole time. As they marched into the wall, he said he felt the sun beating down on him; he appreciated the warmth of the sun like never before. He said his senses were heightened; everything around him seemed to have what he called a magical quality. After that, everything about him changed. He became forgiving, or he'd been bitter. He became a thankful person, and he claimed it was that experience that made him into a novelist.

Like we talked about in our series in January, one month to live, when I know my days are numbered, I just don't know the number. It helps me appreciate life, savor life; it clarifies my priorities. He became more intentional to do the things that matter most when you know, yeah, God could write that on my wall: your days are numbered because they are. Living in an awareness of that is part of the recipe for an abundant life. Belshazzar was not living like this; he was living like I'm an immortal god. But this really helps to focus our attentions, and that goes right to the second word, weighed or tekel. The label here could read warning: contents may weigh less than they appear.

See, the Bible says the Lord is a God who knows, and by Him, deeds are weighed. Your deeds are weighed by God. Now, what deeds weigh a lot to God, and what things are lightweight to God? Well, as it turns out, exactly the things that we value. We value gold, money, fame, houses, diplomas, whatever; those things just don't weigh a lot in heaven. Now, they're not useless or even evil or anything, but it's just that in heaven, you could say outside of earth's gravity, in heaven, they're weightless. What weighs something to God? Tony Campolo says that when he was a kid, they broke into a local drug store and switched the price tags on all kinds of items as a prank. So expensive stuff read 99 cents; cheap plastic beach balls, 20 bucks.

Well, in a lot of ways, the world has switched the price tag. Stuff that's worthwhile is undervalued by the world, and stuff that doesn't mean much is treasured. So what does God treasure? Jesus said, "Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal." What weighs a lot in heaven is the cup of water given to the thirsty. What weighs a lot in heaven is the meal given to the hungry. What weighs a lot in heaven is the gift given to a prisoner. What weighs a lot in heaven are the clothes given to the poor. That's what weighs a lot to God. And so question number two that comes out of the story is, do I value what God values? Do I give weight to what God gives weight to so that the kingdom of heaven's values are reflected on earth? This is another really key to an abundant life.

In Arthur Miller's play, "Death of a Salesman," Willy Loman, the main character, is buried following his suicide, and at the graveside, bleak day, rainy day, his family huddles together, and Willy's wife cries out, "Why? Why? Why did you do it, Willy? Why did you do it?" At this point, her son Biff speaks up and says, "Ah, shucks, Mama, shucks. He had all the wrong dreams. He had all the wrong dreams." The wrong dreams will leave you empty because you will feel their weightlessness. So have the right dreams, dreams that'll give you abundant life and meaning and reward. And this is a church that wants to help you do that. That's why we have the second harvest food drive; that's why we have this stuff the bus thing; that's why we have mission trips to help you store treasures in heaven, to help you give weight to what God gives weight.

All right, what about the third word, parson or divided? The message here could read warning: there are side effects. Right? King Belshazzar's time was up; he couldn't keep living like he was living without the side effects. And the Bible says that the same thing is true of all of us. It's not that your time is up, but that you've got to be aware of the fact that one day you're going to reap the consequences. The Bible says, "Do not be deceived; God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction. The one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." Let me explain this verse to you.

I got a question for you, kind of an audience poll. Show of hands, any gardeners here? Anybody like to garden? Raise your hands if you like to garden. Good, lots of you. Okay, you might want to shield your eyes because I'm about to show on the screen something that's almost like something out of a horror movie for gardeners. I'm going to show you a picture of every California gardener's arch enemy. Ready for this? The snail. That's not a beautiful picture, is it? Did you know that these guys are not native to the state of California? Did you know this? Their ancestors were all brought over, this is true, to be eaten as escargot. They are all escargot snails. Doesn't that look delicious to you? No, it doesn't to me either. In fact, I read that every single snail in California, this is true, can be traced back to one French chef in 1850 who brought them over on a ship to San Francisco for escargot. This is true.

But they escaped. This makes me think two things: number one, yet another thing to blame the French for, right? And number two, I want to know how a snail escapes, right? I mean, how slow does a cook have to be to not catch an escaping snail? You know, come back here, you dog of a snail; you know how is that even possible? But it's true; it all started with some small number of escaped escargot, and a few years later, millions of snails causing billions in damage. To me, that is a great example of the law of consequences, the law of sowing and reaping or planting and harvesting. Do you know what this is? This is scriptural, the law of sowing and reaping. Jot this down into notes: first, you always reap what you sow, right? You don't lose snails and later find, you know, lots of cuddly kittens or something. You don't plant peaches and harvest plums. You reap what you sow.

And then you always reap more than you sow, right? Little seeds, big crop. You start with a small bad habit, and you might reap a compulsion that takes years to cure. And you always reap later than you sow. The harvest takes a while for good or for bad, right? Plant good seeds in your marriage; the harvest is later. Plant bad seeds in your life; the harvest comes later. So do you understand that this is true for you? It was true for Belshazzar. God tells Belshazzar, "Look, I was patient with you. You were not a good man, but I waited and waited and waited, and now it is time for the consequences." You say, "Well, the story's about Belshazzar, not me." Well, here's question three: do I understand there are always consequences? There are always consequences to every action.

Now look over your notes here because you could misunderstand something in a very crucial way here. I don't want you to misunderstand. You are saved by grace; I am saved by grace. That means God does not weigh my deeds to decide if my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds, then I get to go to heaven after I die. That is not what this message is about. That's not what the writing on the wall was about. You say, "But René, you just said that God weighs my life, right?" This is about there are consequences on this earth to how you live, right? Your eternal destiny is always all about God's mercy. No one, no one is ever good enough to demand heaven from God. God brings us into heaven 100% by His mercy.

But there are other ways to reap destruction. If you're a king, you could reap destruction by losing your kingdom. If you're a husband or a wife, you could reap destruction by losing your marriage or losing your family. If you're healthy, you could reap destruction by losing your health. This warning label is about turning away from any path of destruction. I want you to think about something for just a second here before we go to the overall warning label. My guess is that almost everybody in this room would be able to think of something in a second that God might want to give you a warning label about in your life. If God appeared and the hand of God was writing a warning to you on the wall of your bedroom tonight, what might He warn you about? Probably most of you are thinking of something right now, and it's different for everybody in this room.

For some people, that might be God might be saying, "Hey, your days are numbered. I've been weighing the way you've been spending your time," and careful because there's going to be consequences to your using drugs or your drinking, or careful because there's going to be consequences to how you're treating your spouse, or careful because there's going to be consequences to what you've been looking at on the computer, or careful, there's going to be consequences of spending all your time playing video games and none of your time socializing with friends in the real world, or careful, you've been putting off a commitment to Christ, and you gotta listen to that warning label because here's the overall warning label: the overall message from this story, offer available for a limited time only.

Right? Offer available for a limited time only. The king was living like he had all the time in the world. You know, while the Persian army was surrounding him, he was getting drunk and having a party and getting relevant massages. But Daniel says, "Time's up." And one day my time will be up, and one day your time will be up. So the overall warning in this story is make the best use of the time you have, and the best use of the time you have right now is to respond to whatever God might be talking to you about in your life. Like the Bible says, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." Did you know that this exact phrase is repeated three times in the book of Hebrews? "Today, if you hear His voice, don't harden your hearts. Today, if you hear His voice, don't harden your heart." Maybe today the voice of God, and you can hear it, is calling you to renounce a sin in your life and maybe to start finally getting some help, maybe to start growing up in that area.

Or maybe today God is calling you to commit your life to Christ. You've been putting it off and putting it off. Or maybe today God is calling you to get some help for your marriage. This is the moment; today is the day. Now I want you to have hope here. It was too late for Belshazzar, true in this story, but the point is if you are alive today and if you're hearing my voice, you are. That means it is not too late for you. If you are breathing and you're here hearing this message, it's not too late for you. You're hearing this because this is the writing on the wall for you. God wanted you to know, and if you turn to God, there's always mercy for you.

Here's what I want to do. I don't want to put any pressure on anybody, but I want to give you some breathing room to come to God and say, "God, what's the writing on the wall for me? What are you warning me about? What's the reality check that I am due? What do you want me to work on?" If nothing comes to mind, that's all right; just thank God for His grace. But my guess is a lot of us are going, "Yeah, I think I know what God would say to me if He was writing on the wall." So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to invite the band to come back on stage, and as we distribute the communion elements, I want you to spend some time with God and say, "God, I do want to commit myself, surrender myself to your power, to your will in whatever area God is speaking to you about." And then in a moment, we're going to celebrate communion, which is a focus on God's mercy and grace.

God does not condemn you for those things in your life because Jesus Christ bore those sins on the cross, but He warns you about reaping what you've sown, and that's what Romans 5:10 is all about. It says, "For if when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life?" This verse means I can not only find forgiveness for my sins but also practical salvation in this life from despair, from emptiness, from weightlessness. So in just a moment, the communion elements are going to be distributed; they represent the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, and we're going to let everybody have them and hold them. Then once everybody has been distributed the communion elements, I'm going to lead us in partaking together. But as you hold those elements, do some business with God. See, God, what are you talking to me about? Because it is not too late; it is not too late for you if you can read the writing on the wall for you today.

Let's pray together. Would you bow your heads with me? Heavenly Father, as we move into communion, I pray that there would be no condemnation in the spirit of people here today. You're not here to condemn people to make them feel like, "Oh, it's hopeless." You're here with a message of hope. That's why by your grace you give us warnings about ways that we might be going to destruction. And so, God, I pray that we would see even these warnings, even these reality checks as acts of your grace, and that we would do some business with you as we hold on to the communion elements. But especially, Lord, that we would focus on what was bought for us by the death of Christ on the cross, not only just I can get to heaven because my sins are forgiven, but I can be empowered to change. I can be strengthened by Jesus Christ to overcome that thing that you're speaking to me about today.

I pray that in these moments, many people all over the sanctuary would commit their lives to you, Lord, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.