Daniel 5

Written By Citylight Bennington

“God Weighs You”

1. 🍷 The Fall of a Prideful King

📖 Read: Daniel 5:1–6

Belshazzar throws a reckless feast, using the sacred vessels stolen from God’s temple to mock Him. In the middle of the revelry, a hand appears and writes a message on the wall—an immediate collision between human arrogance and divine holiness.

Key Insight:
Belshazzar’s pride was not ignorance—it was defiance. He knew the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s humbling but chose the opposite path.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What forms of pride or self-reliance does this passage expose?

  2. Where might we be minimizing or mocking what God calls holy?

  3. How does knowing someone else’s spiritual downfall place greater responsibility on us?

2. 🧠 Remembering What Belshazzar Forgot

📖 Read: Daniel 5:13–17

Daniel confronts Belshazzar, reminding him of Nebuchadnezzar’s downfall and repentance. Belshazzar had the advantage of “knowing all this” (v.22) but refused humility.

Key Insight:
Spiritual drift often begins not with rebellion but with forgetfulness. Belshazzar forgot who God is—and forgot what God had already taught his kingdom.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What truths about God do we most easily forget in day-to-day life?

  2. How does pride distort our spiritual memory?

  3. What habits help us stay anchored in what God has already shown us?

3. ⚖️ Numbered, Weighed, and Found Wanting

📖 Read: Daniel 5:18–28

Daniel interprets the writing:

  • Mene — God has numbered your days.

  • Tekel — You have been weighed in the balance.

  • Peres — Your kingdom is divided.

This is not just a message for Belshazzar—it is a sobering truth for all people. Scripture consistently teaches that God weighs our lives.

  • God Weighs our Heart

📖 Proverbs 21:2 — “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart.”
📖 1 Samuel 16:7 — “The LORD looks on the heart.”

  • God Weighs our Deeds

📖 Job 31:6 — “Let me be weighed in a just balance…”
📖 Proverbs 24:12 — God “weighs the heart” and “repays man according to his work.”

  • God Weighs our Spirit / Motives

📖 Proverbs 16:2 — “The LORD weighs the spirit.”

  • God Weighs the Fruit of Our Lives

📖 Luke 6:43–45 — “A good tree bears good fruit… out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
📖 1 Corinthians 3:13 — “The fire will test what sort of work each one has done.”

Discussion Questions:

  1. What part of your life feels “weighed” by this passage?

  2. Are there hidden motives or habits that God’s scales would expose?

  3. What kind of fruit is your life consistently producing?

4. ✝️ The God Who Judges and the God Who Saves

📖 Read: Daniel 5:29–31

Belshazzar is slain that very night—there is no delay between God’s verdict and its fulfillment. But the story of Scripture offers a contrast:
Where Belshazzar is weighed and found wanting, Jesus is weighed and found worthy—and His righteousness is offered to us.

Application:
We cannot change our past, but we can humble ourselves today. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How does the gospel answer the problem of being “found wanting”?

  2. What does genuine humility look like this week?

  3. Are there areas where God is asking for repentance or decisive action?

🙏 Prayer Prompts

Use these to shape your group’s response:

  • Confession: “Lord, reveal where I am proud or forgetful.”

  • Humility: “Give us hearts that listen, remember, and submit.”

  • Dependence: “Teach us to rely on Christ’s righteousness, not our own.”

  • Fruit: “Produce in us the kind of life that stands up under Your scales.”

Citylight Bennington
Next

Daniel 4