Daniel 25: Daniel's Fourth Vision, Pt. 2
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Dan 10:10-11:1
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Again, good morning and welcome to everyone in the room and to those of you who are here via the internet today. I’m Pastor Bill Connors, and I’d like to say thanks to our Welcome Ministry team this morning. Every week, we have these great volunteers who man the Welcome desk out in the foyer so that they can greet everyone who comes in, welcome our guests and visitors, give folks information that they need, and point them in the right direction. The church appreciates your faithfulness and service.
If you are a guest or visitor this week, we would really like to have the opportunity to thank you for being here today and to connect with you in case there is some way that we can serve you as a church family. You’ll find a welcome card in the back of the pew in front of you. Would you please take a moment during the rest of the service to fill that out, and then either drop it in the offering boxes by the doors as you leave later, or after our benediction verse at the end, would you mind bringing it down to me here at the front? I’d just like to meet you and give you a small token of our appreciation for your visit today.
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Opening
Opening
In his very interesting work The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis wrote a fictional series of letters from the demon Screwtape to his nephew demon named Wormwood. The letters concern Wormwood’s “work” of first attempting to keep his “patient” (the human man he has been assigned to) from turning to Jesus, and once his patient does become a believer, to make his life as ineffective as possible for the Kingdom of God, even through attempting to seduce him into sin, getting him to doubt his salvation, and even despairing that he ever could have been saved at all.
It’s an entertaining behind-the-scenes imagining of spiritual warfare, complete with Screwtape’s own form of propaganda: he refers to our Lord as “the Enemy;” he refers to Satan as “Our Father Below;” and he constantly refers to Christian virtues that we would hold in high esteem: humility, self-control, and joy for example, as “bad” things. Sometimes Lewis is comical, sometimes serious. He obviously drew from his own experience with the spiritual struggles in his own life and in the lives of others as he wrote.
The last three chapters of the book of Daniel serve in part to give us a non-fictional “behind-the-scenes” look at the spiritual realm, and the battle being waged there. This morning’s passage launches us into the fray.
So please open your Bibles or your Bible apps to Daniel 10, and stand as you are able as we consider our focal passage this morning, Daniel 10:10 through 11:1:
10 Suddenly, a hand touched me and set me shaking on my hands and knees. 11 He said to me, “Daniel, you are a man treasured by God. Understand the words that I’m saying to you. Stand on your feet, for I have now been sent to you.” After he said this to me, I stood trembling. 12 “Don’t be afraid, Daniel,” he said to me, “for from the first day that you purposed to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your prayers were heard. I have come because of your prayers. 13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me for twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me after I had been left there with the kings of Persia. 14 Now I have come to help you understand what will happen to your people in the last days, for the vision refers to those days.” 15 While he was saying these words to me, I turned my face toward the ground and was speechless. 16 Suddenly one with human likeness touched my lips. I opened my mouth and said to the one standing in front of me, “My lord, because of the vision, anguish overwhelms me and I am powerless. 17 How can someone like me, your servant, speak with someone like you, my lord? Now I have no strength, and there is no breath in me.” 18 Then the one with a human appearance touched me again and strengthened me. 19 He said, “Don’t be afraid, you who are treasured by God. Peace to you; be very strong!” As he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, “Let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.” 20 He said, “Do you know why I’ve come to you? I must return at once to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I leave, the prince of Greece will come. 21 However, I will tell you what is recorded in the book of truth. (No one has the courage to support me against those princes except Michael, your prince. 1 In the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to strengthen and protect him.)
PRAYER (spiritual warfare globally, pray for the protection and preservation of Israel)
Last Sunday morning, we looked at the first nine verses of Daniel chapter 10, as we began what is the “beginning of the end” of the book of Daniel. We noted that this prophecy—the last of the book—came about two years after the “seventy weeks” prophecy of chapter 9. In that prophecy, Daniel had been shown the difficulty that Israel would have to go through in their future, but also ultimate victory that God would have over the antichrist.
As we saw last week from 2 Chronicles, at the time when this last vision was given to Daniel, very important prophecy from the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah was fulfilled when the Jews were sent back to Jerusalem with permission to rebuild the temple. The fulfillment of this prophecy had to happen before the fulfillment of the seventy weeks prophecy would begin.
However, as we saw last week, that work had stalled. The rebuilding of the temple had been opposed, and likely in response to this opposition Daniel had entered into a period of mourning, with fasting and prayer, for 21 days. We saw last week that the Lord, who I believe was a pre-incarnate appearance of God the Son (called a christophany), appeared to Daniel and said things that we don’t get to hear. Daniel was so overcome by this that he passed out.
And now in our focal passage this morning, we pick up with Daniel being “picked up” from the ground by an “interpreting angel” and set shaking back onto his hands and knees, with the explanation that Daniel need not be afraid because he is treasured by God, and that this interpreting angel had come in answer to Daniel’s deliberate, humble prayer. The angel had come because Daniel, a righteous man and treasured by God, had asked. So he should stand, instead of cowering in fear.
I believe this interpreting angel to be the angel Gabriel again, though he is unnamed in this passage. I’m going to use the name Gabriel for him in my message this morning, knowing full well that he is not named here. However, the assignment, actions, and words of this interpreting angel are in line with what we’ve already seen from Gabriel, so I’m going to call him Gabriel to help with communication, since there is more than one angel referenced in this passage.
So what is it that Gabriel reveals to Daniel when he picks him back up onto his hands and knees, and then calls him to stand?
1: Spiritual warfare is operating.
1: Spiritual warfare is operating.
He showed Daniel that spiritual warfare is real—it is operating—that it is a present aspect of reality, and that the things happening there are just as much real and true as the things happening in our lives and in the course of human history. In fact, those two things overlap.
13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me for twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me after I had been left there with the kings of Persia. 14 Now I have come to help you understand what will happen to your people in the last days, for the vision refers to those days.”
Gabriel had told Daniel that he had been sent out “from the first day” that Daniel’s mourning had begun, when Daniel had “purposed to understand and to humble [himself] before God.” (v 12) But though Gabriel had been sent out, he had not arrived for three weeks. Is that the travel time from heaven to Babylon? No, because we saw back in chapter 9 that as soon as Daniel started praying Gabriel was sent, and he arrived while Daniel was still praying.
God the Son’s revelation of Himself (last week, verses 5 and 6) had been what had ended Daniel’s period of mourning, and Gabriel arrived right on the heels of that vision. So somehow, Gabriel had been detained. He had been opposed by the “prince of the kingdom of Persia” for three weeks, the same amount of time Daniel’s mourning had lasted.
The Scriptures are clear that there is a spiritual plane of existence that we generally cannot see, but that is nonetheless real, actual, and operating, and that in that realm there is an ongoing conflict between the armies of God and the armies of the evil one. Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper said it this way:
If once the curtain were pulled back, and the spiritual world behind it came to view, it would expose to our spiritual vision a struggle so intense, so convulsive, sweeping everything within its range, that the fiercest battle ever fought on earth would seem, by comparison, a mere game. Not here, but up there—that is where the real conflict is waged. Our earthly struggle drones in its backlash.
—Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), quoted by Sinclair Ferguson in The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 21: Daniel
In the book of Job, we get to take a peek behind the veil of this spiritual tension that is playing out all around us. It’s not that we are pawns in some cosmic power struggle—it shows us that that struggle has ramifications and effects in the physical realm. In order to prove that God is not worthy of humanity’s worship, Satan attempted to get the most righteous man on the planet to curse God. God allowed it because He knew how it would turn out—that Job would hold on to his integrity, even if it cost him. It's a powerful reminder that our earthly battles are connected to a larger spiritual conflict happening in the unseen realm. In Job we get to see that which we do not normally get to see.
Likewise, in the book of 2 Kings, the king of Aram decided that the only way to defeat Israel was to capture Elisha, the prophet of God, who had given God-inspired advice to Israel’s King Ahaz which thwarted Aram’s plans for invasion. When Elisha and his servant heard of the plot, his servant went to investigate and found that it was so. He was afraid, but Elisha could see behind the veil into the spiritual realm, and knew that he had nothing to fear because God had provided all the support that he needed. He asked the Lord to open his servant’s eyes to what was real, but unseen:
16 Elisha said, “Don’t be afraid, for those who are with us outnumber those who are with them.” 17 Then Elisha prayed, “Lord, please open his eyes and let him see.” So the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he saw that the mountain was covered with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
Sometimes we struggle with either remembering or responding to the fact that the spiritual realm is real. This is because in our (supposedly) science-based culture, we have an antisupernatural bias—meaning that we assume that things we can see, touch, taste, hear, and smell are real; things that don’t fit in those categories are not. But this is a short-sighted perspective, because we believe that things are real merely because of the effect that they produce, even if we cannot see them, etc. The things happening in the spiritual realm DO have effect in the physical realm. We just fail to realize what those effects are.
The testimony of Scripture is that BOTH the spiritual realm and the physical realm are real; both are active; both are operating in real time. Scripture might even say that the unseen realm is even more “real,” because it is what will always be:
18 So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
In fact, what we see in our focal passage is that this spiritual conflict is operating on a much grander scale than merely our individual lives. Gabriel said that he was detained by “the prince of the kingdom of Persia,” and by the “kings of Persia.” Who could this be? And who then is “Michael, one of the chief princes?”
Remember back in chapter 8, we saw this same use of the word “prince.” It could mean anyone who is an overseer or commander. The “prince” of the kingdom of Persia was not Cyrus’s son, Cambyses. Rather, this prince was the spiritual one who had been placed over the kingdom of Persia to influence its direction. He was the demonic “superintendent” over what was at that point the most powerful empire the world had ever known, and he was actively opposed to the work of God. The “kings of Persia” were likewise those who exercised their authority in Persia, and I would say that the reference is again to spiritual beings, not physical ones. And Michael, one of the chief princes? We shall determine his identity in a moment.
The ability of this prince of Persian to detain the interpreting angel is the biggest reason that I cannot affirm, as some do, that the man dressed in linen from verses 5-6 and this interpreting angel are the same being. The man dressed in linen is the God the Son. No malevolent being, no matter how powerful, would have been able to detain Him, and He certainly wouldn’t have needed Michael’s or anyone else’s help to break free.
But consider this for a moment. If there had been some demonic “prince” set over the Persian empire, don’t you think that there would be demonic forces working in governments today? I know that I step back and shake my head at some of the decisions of governments around the world, including our own, because they are in direct opposition to God’s moral commands for humanity. Psalm 33 says in verse 12: “Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord.” Most nations do not seem particularly happy (or blessed) right now. There is a reason for this: spiritual forces are operating on a global scale, influencing the course of nations and peoples. Satan knows that he is bound for hell when the time comes. In the meantime, he and his followers are working to take as much of humanity with them when that occurs, or to make earth as much like hell—a place devoid of the presence of God—as they possibly can. The struggle is real.
So Daniel has been given a glimpse of what is happening on the other side. Gabriel warns him that his purpose is to help Daniel understand more deeply what is coming, and he’s going to give him a vision about the “last days”. This revelation of what he’s about to learn is too much for Daniel, because spiritual warfare is overwhelming.
2: Spiritual warfare is overwhelming.
2: Spiritual warfare is overwhelming.
Daniel is having a rough day. He’s just coming off of a form of fasting for three weeks, and he has a vision that makes him pass out, and when he comes to, an angel is waking him up and making him get up and telling him about his struggles in getting there, and then telling him that he’s going to be given another vision. It almost threatens to put him on the ground again. Instead, he just looks at the ground and cannot speak:
15 While he was saying these words to me, I turned my face toward the ground and was speechless. 16 Suddenly one with human likeness touched my lips. I opened my mouth and said to the one standing in front of me, “My lord, because of the vision, anguish overwhelms me and I am powerless. 17 How can someone like me, your servant, speak with someone like you, my lord? Now I have no strength, and there is no breath in me.”
We might be surprised by this given that we met Gabriel two chapters ago, but Daniel to this point has not spoken a word to him, although Daniel has heard a great deal from him. And now, faced with the prospect of speaking, he is so awe-struck that can’t bring himself to say anything at all.
It seems to me that there are two angelic beings in view here in verses 15 through 17 — Gabriel, the one originally speaking and who is referred to as standing in front of Daniel, and the one with human likeness who touches Daniel’s lips, allowing him to speak. And Daniel addresses Gabriel, essentially saying that the vision of God the Son, along with the presence of Gabriel and the prospect of yet another vision, is simply too much for him. He’s empty. Its all taken his breath away. He’s overwhelmed.
Job said something similar to the Lord after God had appeared to him:
3 Then Job answered the Lord: 4 I am so insignificant. How can I answer you? I place my hand over my mouth. 5 I have spoken once, and I will not reply; twice, but now I can add nothing.
The spiritual realm is an intimidating thing for us. We don’t live in it. We don’t (normally) see it. We don’t even truly understand it. Daniel was absolutely right in his evaluation of his own powerlessness in the face of it, especially in light of the reality that he’s been shown that through his prayers, he had had some part to play in the war raging in the spiritual realm.
Last week, one of my points was that considering the Lord’s glory should overwhelm us, as it did with Daniel, and we pondered whether or not we have made the Lord Jesus too familiar, too like us, robbing him of the glory that only He is due. This is absolutely true.
But something that the Scriptures also show us is that we aren’t to take any spiritual being (angels and demons) lightly. Now, they don’t deserve the glory that the Lord is due, but they do deserve our wise respect. Even Michael, the archangel that we just met in Daniel 10, did not get into a put down war with the devil when they were in a conflict:
8 In the same way these people—relying on their dreams—defile their flesh, reject authority, and slander glorious ones. 9 Yet when Michael the archangel was disputing with the devil in an argument about Moses’s body, he did not dare utter a slanderous condemnation against him but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
See, these people Jude was referring to were speaking flippantly about “glorious ones.” We might have fun talking about wanting to give the devil a shellacking in a spiritual sense, but that’s just hubris. The devil versus any of us alone in a dark alley, apart from Jesus: he whoops us. Every time. Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, we wouldn’t last a moment in truly spiritual warfare against a truly spiritual enemy.
So how are we to face this? If we are easily overwhelmed by the spiritual forces of darkness, what hope to we have to stand against them? What strength do we have? Praise the Lord—we have a great deal of strength!
3: Spiritual strength is ours from the Lord.
3: Spiritual strength is ours from the Lord.
We’ve seen that spiritual warfare is operating—it’s real; and that spiritual warfare is overwhelming. Left to our own devices for dealing with it, we would be in dire trouble. But gladly, we aren’t: like we saw with Elisha, all the the spiritual strength that we need to face the spiritual battles around us is available from the Lord:
18 Then the one with a human appearance touched me again and strengthened me. 19 He said, “Don’t be afraid, you who are treasured by God. Peace to you; be very strong!” As he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, “Let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.”
What a turnaround from the verses before this one! In the first part of our focal passage, Gabriel had to pick Daniel up from his collapse. Now, he caused this other one “with human likeness” to strengthen Daniel for the receiving of the vision. And what a message of encouragement he receives: “Don’t be afraid; you…are treasured by God; Peace be to you; be very strong!” And Daniel became so strong, in fact, that he was now able to speak to Gabriel and declared that he was ready to face the spiritual struggle ahead of him.
The truth is that receiving this vision from God, while not direct spiritual warfare of the kind I’ve been referring to, was going to be a spiritual struggle for Daniel nonetheless. Sometimes, that’s what receiving truth feels like— like a struggle. For Daniel, this vision was prefaced by the appearance of God the Son, and was accompanied by the discovery that Daniel’s request had in some way been involved in a conflict in the spiritual realm. When the Lord reveals truth to us, there is often a struggle involved as we wrestle with whether to believe the truth and build our lives around it, or reject the truth and run from it.
Daniel was learning that he was a part of a much larger picture in the spiritual realm. As Sinclair Ferguson put it, “Now the curtain, beyond which his prayers traveled invisibly, was momentarily lifted, and he realized the drama of heavenly warfare in which his intercession had involved him.” What an awesome thing to realize! And now, he was going to be given insight into the things happening in the spiritual realm, and he had to be strengthened by the Lord in order to face it.
The Scriptures are replete with verses that we can cling to when faced with a spiritual struggle with truth or a battle against malevolent spiritual forces. We have no need to be afraid. Sober? Yes. Afraid? No. Through the power of the Holy Spirit living within us if we are in Christ, and through our obedient submission to Him, we are empowered to stand firm in the face of spiritual difficulty or opposition.
Consider just a few of the verses that the Bible contains to encourage us when we are afraid:
9 Haven’t I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
10 Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with my righteous right hand.
27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful.
There are passages to hold on to when we face spiritual battles::
3 For although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh, 4 since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments 5 and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.
3 But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.
7 Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. 9 Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world. 10 The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little while.
And ultimately, the Bible reminds us of where our strength actually comes from:
10 Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.
We see in verse 19 that Daniel was strengthened and was ready to face the reality of the spiritual warfare all around him. Are we?
First, we need to ask ourselves if we are in Christ? Do we believe the Gospel? We cannot draw strength from the Holy Spirit if we do not have the Holy Spirit living within us. And He only lives within those who have believed in Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Son of God in the flesh, came and lived a sinless life. None of us can say that we have. We’ve all sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious standard. But Jesus did live that life. The only one who didn’t deserve to die because of sin willingly went to the cross in our place, dying the death that we deserve so that the price demanded by sin would be paid. And if we will believe in what He has done on our behalf, and surrender our lives to following Him as Lord, then we are forgiven of our sins and justified before God. And because Jesus overcame death and rose again, if we belong to Him by faith in His death, we also receive his eternal life according to Scripture, and we will live forever with Him.
Ultimately, we know that God wins this conflict because the Scriptures tell us that it is true. He hasn’t done so yet because He’s waiting patiently for all who will be saved to come to Him.
9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.
He wants you to be saved—to turn from your sin and trust Him for salvation. Believe in Christ even right now, and surrender your life to Him. It is only through Him that we can have the strength we need to face the spiritual struggles of this life.
But until the time that God wraps it all up, the conflict is ongoing, which is our final point this morning:
4: Spiritual warfare is ongoing.
4: Spiritual warfare is ongoing.
Right now, as we sit here, there is never a moment when spiritual warfare is NOT being waged. What Gabriel revealed to Daniel about what was happening behind the scenes is still true to this day, and it will remain true until the ultimate fulfillment of God’s Kingdom at the end of time as we know it. Spiritual warfare is an ongoing struggle.
20 He said, “Do you know why I’ve come to you? I must return at once to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I leave, the prince of Greece will come. 21 However, I will tell you what is recorded in the book of truth. (No one has the courage to support me against those princes except Michael, your prince. 1 In the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to strengthen and protect him.)
Gabriel had come to Daniel in order to tell him what was recorded in the book of truth—that’s not our Bible, and it’s not a physical book in our sense. It’s the truth of what was, what is, and what will be in history, as known by God. And after that, he would go and continue in his battle against the spiritual overseer of Persia—a battle which would last for another 200 years. But even then, the battle of global dominance in the spiritual realm would continue when “the prince of Greece” arose.
And we know from Daniel’s previous visions that this spiritual battle will continue through the Greek empire into the Roman empire, and continues still even today.
One last thing to consider this morning is the introduction of Michael as the “prince of Israel.” He is the archangel overseer of the Hebrew people. And while they will constantly be persecuted by the enemy, the Jewish people will never be wiped out, because they constantly have him as their defender.
1 At that time Michael, the great prince who stands watch over your people, will rise up. There will be a time of distress such as never has occurred since nations came into being until that time. But at that time all your people who are found written in the book will escape.
In Revelation 12, we are given the privilege of seeing what has occurred in the past in the spiritual world. Satan has already faced Michael and the armies of heaven, and was defeated.
7 Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, 8 but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him.
His final defeat will come when Christ returns to set the world right.
Closing
Closing
What a passage to think through! As I wrote this sermon, I felt kind of like Daniel… a bit overwhelmed. But we can trust that if we are in Christ, then our strength comes from Him. He is doing a work to make us more like Jesus, even using these kinds of spiritual conflicts to do so. As Daniel Akin said in his commentary on Daniel:
This is the God who strips us of our strength that he may become our strength. This is the God who knocks us down that he may raise us up with renewed strength, peace, and courage (v. 19). Our God often knocks us down to show us who we are without him. And our God raises us up to show us what we can be in him.
—Daniel Akin, Exalting Jesus in Daniel
Are you in Christ? It’s only through faith in Him that we are delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God, according to Colossians 1:13. The domain of darkness will pass away, but the kingdom of God is eternal. Surrender to Christ in faith and be saved! And let us know, so we can celebrate that with you. If you’re online, email me.
Baptism
Church membership
Prayer
Giving
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Bible reading (2 Kings 21, Psalm 30) We’ll get the August calendar on the website tomorrow.
Pastor’s Study tonight, moving on to the next passage in Ephesians 5.
Prayer Meeting Wednesday night.
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal encouragement and good hope by grace, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good work and word.