SunWest Church Weekly Sermon Podcast · SunWest Church

Life In Babylon - Part 6: The Writing On The Wall, Pastor Matt Dyck

·43 min·4 clips

The host asks if you'd want to know your death date, sparking curiosity about mortality.

This sermon continues the "Life in Babylon" series by exploring themes of mortality and divine judgment. The speaker, a pastor, opens with a personal anecdote about searching for his death date online. He uses this modern example to introduce the biblical story of Belshazzar's feast from the Book of Daniel. The pastor recounts how King Belshazzar used sacred temple vessels for a drunken feast. A mysterious hand then appears and writes a message on the palace wall. Daniel is summoned to interpret the cryptic words: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. Daniel explains that "Mene" means God has numbered the days of Belshazzar's kingdom and brought it to an end. "Tekel" signifies that Belshazzar has been weighed on the scales and found wanting. "Parsin" indicates that Belshazzar's kingdom will be divided and given to the Medes and Persians. The central claim is that the king was judged for defiling holy items and failing to honor God. The pastor connects this to the idea that all people will ultimately be weighed and measured. He contrasts the unreliable nature of internet death calculators with divine certainty. A surprising moment is the pastor's admission that he initially disliked the early death date an online tool gave him. He humorously notes the algorithm's inconsistency when a second attempt yielded a date 20 years later. The pastor shares that his great-grandmother lived to be 112 and was once Canada's oldest person. He also reveals a family tragedy where his father's cousin died of a heart attack at the pastor's current age. This creates a tension between genetic longevity and sudden mortality. The insight is that human life is both numbered and unpredictable from a human perspective. The sermon's tone is conversational, illustrative, and application-focused. It blends personal storytelling with direct biblical exposition. Listeners interested in practical life lessons drawn from Old Testament narratives would appreciate this episode. Those preferring purely theological or academic Bible teaching might find it too anecdotal.

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