By Earl Nutz - Greenville, SC

The year is 605 BC and Nebuchadnezzar at the battle of Carchemish defeated the Assyrians, and the Egyptians, and took people of Judah in Israel captive marching them some 880 miles from Israel to Babylon by the Euphrates River (present day Iraq). Daniel the writer of the book of Daniel in the Old Testament and his three friends, men of ability, found themselves serving in the king’s court. The Babylonian Empire unlike any nation before it extended its reign over the surrounding nations even dominating the Medes and the Persians who had help Nebuchadnezzar defeat the Assyrians and the Egyptians.

The city of Babylon became a monument to Nebuchadnezzar’s power.  The king build walls so wide that chariots could be driven on them.  The walls themselves were made of fired bricks that had been glazed with a beautiful light blue color.  Every few feet on the wall one of the  bricks would display a gold color lion with wings.  Today, a portion of the wall with the large Ishtar gate stands restored in the Pergamum Museum in Berlin Germany.  The opening of the gate is over twenty feet high.  Things were going quite well for the king.

 One night Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of a giant image of a man. It was a dream that troubled him and one that he forgot. None of the Chaldeans could interpret it. The king sent for Daniel who daily prayed to the God of heaven, and God revealed the dream and meaning to Daniel: the Babylonian empire represented by the head of Gold of the giant image of a man would be replaced one day by an empire represented on the statue by the breast of silver.  In an another dream Nebuchadnezzar saw a large tree cut down.  Again Daniel is called on to interpret the dream.  The two dreams and a seven-year hiatus from power taught Nebuchadnezzar that the God of Daniel was the true and living God who reigned over all the kingdoms and nations.

The year is now 539 BC and Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson is ruling the Babylonian Empire. Babylon is now under siege by Darius I, the Mede.  Belshazzar, the king had gathered over a thousand people to celebrate together.  In front of all these people the king calls for the golden goblets taken from the temple in Jerusalem and drinks from one of them.  The Bible records, “They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. 5 In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.  6 Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.”  The words MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN are written on the plaster meaning that the kingdom is being taken from Belshazzar and given to Darius the Mede. That night Darius diverted the Euphrates river that flowed under the wall.  Some of his soldiers crawled through the dried up passage and opened the gate allowing Darius I to march into the city and kill Belshazzar.

The passage gives us a warning. No nation can leave God out of their affairs and become great or remain great.  Making America great again is more than economic, and military might.  Greatness is established the moral fabric of a people who honor and worship God.  The American Legion motto is God and Country and is in that order.  God has made this country great.

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