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BELSHAZZAR
“ Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords , and drank wine before the thousand . Belshazzar , whiles he tasted the wine , commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem ; that the king , and his princes , his wives , and his concubines , might drink therein . They drank wine , and praised the gods of gold , and of silver , of brass , of iron , of wood , and of stone . In that 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 . Then was Daniel brought in before the king … This is the interpretation of the thing : MENE ; God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it . TEKEL ; Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting . PERES ; Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians … In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain . And Darius the Mede took the kingdom .”
[ Daniel Chapter 5 ]
Thus ended the reign of Babylon , the first of four kingdoms prophesied to rule the world .
[ Dan 2 : 37-40 ] Alcohol was a key factor in its overthrow . As there was a Witness at the feast of Babylon , there is also a Witness in every scene of sacrilegious mirth , recording the names of those weighed in the balances of eternity .
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
The third prophesied world kingdom was Greece . Even though the Grecian armies were
symbolized by the speed of the leopard , their leader , Alexander the Great , could not outrun the ravages of alcohol abuse . This emperor died in his mid-thirties in a drunken stupor before he could enjoy the spoils of global rule . Alexander conquered the world , but in the end alcohol conquered him . “ Alexander is said to have wept that he had not another world to conquer but for what ? That he might do well to his fellow-men , bless and elevate the race ? No ; but to gratify his own insatiable thirst for power , and to pander to his ungovernable lusts . With contemptible arrogance , he claimed for himself divine honors . He himself often murdered his own friends and favorites in his drunken frenzies . He encouraged such excessive drinking among his followers that on one occasion , twenty of them together died as the result of their carousal . At length , he , having sat through one long drinking spree , was immediately invited to another , when , after drinking to each of the twenty guests present , he twice drank full the Herculean cup containing six of our quarts . He thereupon fell down , seized with a violent fever , of which in a few days after he died in the very prime of life .
Such was Alexander , whom the fulsome pages of history style “ The Great .” If vice , cruelty , and vain-glory , and love of power , and thirst for blood , constitute greatness , he was great ; if otherwise , he was a monster because his powers of mind , some of which he possessed to a remarkable degree , were prostituted to unholy ends .” [ Daniel & Revelation , Uriah Smith ]