Like the Stars 2025
Notes
Transcript
Say something about small world
Thank Maxwell and the youth and Karl and Lisa
Introduction
Introduction
We’ve been studying the book of Daniel for a while and one theme has come up more than any other: God is the King of kings and He rules in the affairs of men.
From the very beginning of Daniel’s story we find God’s fingers in the middle of everything—helping Daniel and his friends with their troubles, troubling the king and wooing his heart, revealing his plans for the future, and guiding the course of history.
Paul said it this way:
And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
God has determined the times and boundaries of nations. Which is why we saw the Babylonian empire grow and then be conquered by the Medes and Persians just like God said it would be. And then we saw the Persian empire grow, and then be conquered by the Greeks under Alexander the Great just like God described. And then the Greek empire divided into four pieces after Alexander’s untimely death, just like God predicted it would. Then Rome conquered Greece with its iron military. And then Rome assisted the Jews in killing the Messiah, just as Daniel 9 predicted.
All the big players and time frames for this story were predicted and determined by God. He is the one who rules in the affairs of men.
Today we’re going to explore the last three chapters of Daniel in a big-picture finale to this amazing book.
Prayer Warrior
Prayer Warrior
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There are very few things that Daniel is described as doing. One of the most prominent is prayer. As much or more than anything else we find Daniel in prayer. We find him praying for an answer to the dream in Daniel 2, and praying in Daniel 6 despite the death decree, and praying again in Daniel 9, and again in Daniel 10.
If the central theme about God in Daniel’s story is the fact that He guides the course of history, then the central theme about people in Daniel is our need to humble ourselves to God’s rule and surrender our needs to Him in prayer.
Even though God is the architect of history, amazingly He was also very interested in answering Daniel’s prayers. We saw this in Daniel 2 when Daniel faced death but God revealed the dream to him, and again in Daniel 6 when he was going to be thrown into the lion’s den, and God protected him from harm. But something shifted in Daniel 9 and 10. He wasn’t praying for personal deliverance; he prayed for a different reason. Look back at Daniel 9:
…I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, …“O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments,
now skip forward to verses 16 and 17
“O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, I pray, let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem, …hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord’s sake cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate.
The vision that Daniel received in the previous chapter was all about the sanctuary and desolation and Daniel interpreted that vision to mean that the sanctuary wouldn’t be repaired for another 2,300 years. That thought was devastating to Him, and so he prayed that God would honor his 70 year prophecy from Jeremiah. He prayed this for “the Lord’s sake.” Not for his own needs, but for the sake of God’s mission.
The conclusion to Daniel’s prayer is the ideal that we all want when we pray—an angel came to talk to Him And show him God’s plan. It didn’t take long. He started praying, and by the time he was done there was the angel, dispatched from God’s throne. I suspect that god sends his angels as ministering spirits to answer our prayers a lot more often than we realize.
Now skip forward to Daniel 10.
In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a message was revealed to Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar. The message was true, but the appointed time was long; and he understood the message, and had understanding of the vision.
In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks.
He goes on to describe how he was fasting and seeking God. This wasn’t a single prayer, but three weeks of prayers. And notice that he was praying about the vision that he had in Daniel 9 because the angel had revealed to him that the promised Messiah would be “cut off,” and killed.
So Daniel prayed and fasted and prayed and fasted. Day after day, with no answer. The last time he prayed like this was just a little over a year before, and when he prayed the angel came right away. But this time, no angel. And so he persists in prayer. And still no angel.
Every difficulty is a call to prayer.
If you’re having trouble at home, pray.
If you’re fighting to have victory over a sin, pray.
If you’re dealing with doubt and discouragement, pray.
if your finances are a mess, pray.
If you’re feeling lonely, pray.
if you’ve just had a fight with a friend, pray.
But there’s something different about Daniel’s prayers in Daniel 9 and 10. Daniel wasn’t praying because HE himself was having trouble, he was praying for the bigger concerns of God’s kingdom. He was praying the way that Jesus taught his disciples to pray,
Matthew 6:9–10 (ESV)
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Daniel’s chief concern was for the glory of God, and for the fulfillment of His covenant promises. He also prayed for understanding of what God had revealed to him. He was saying, “Lord, for your name’s sake forgive and have mercy, and please help me understand what your doing.”
We need to pray because it puts us in the place of surrender to the will of God, and because it gives God the opportunity to give us understanding and peace.
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God will do more in answer to the prayer of a believing soul than He could have done had we not prayed. (GC 525)
It’s amazing when we can point to answered prayers, but what if God doesn’t answer your prayer?
It’s far too common for God’s people to fall into doubt and cynicism when God doesn’t answer their prayers in the time or in the way they want Him to. Let’s examine two important principles from Daniel’s experience:
Daniel’s prayer in chapter 9 reveals his ignorance of God’s plan. We don’t come to God with great wisdom and knowledge, we come to Him in prayer recognizing that He sees the master plan, and we don’t. We pray in ignorance. We have a few of the big picture prophecies, some grand principles to guide our lives, and the promises that God is just and merciful and loving. But we don’t see the details. Which means its not wrong for us to feel uncertain or even question our circumstances or the things we find in Scripture. But instead of wallowing in our doubt and uncertainty, God invites us to take our difficulties and questions to Him in prayer. And it’s important for us to recognize that we don’t know the right outcome to our prayers. Which means we need to submit ourselves to God’s best plans for our lives and wait for Him, even if it takes a little while for Him to answer.
Daniel’s experience in chapter ten shows us that God is dealing with a much bigger struggle than we can comprehend, and far beyond our present concerns. And yet, he’s still very interested in our prayers and wants to help us with our problems.
Let’s see how that plays out in this story:
Daniel was praying for three weeks, and then, finally, on April 23rd, while he was praying by the Tigris river he saw a vision of a messenger from God. What he saw was a being clothed in brilliant white and wrapped in gold. His skin shown and his face was like looking into a lightning bolt with eyes shining even brighter than his face. He looked around him and all his companions fled in fear for what they heard, but they didn’t see the being Daniel saw. Even Daniel was afraid and he fell to the ground paralized. The angel reached down and lifted Daniel up off the ground and gave him supernatural strength.
And he said to me, “O Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you.” While he was speaking this word to me, I stood trembling.
And then he said something amazing…
Then he said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words.
But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.
The moment Daniel started to pray this messenger was sent from the throne of God to answer Daniel’s questions, but he was delayed along the way. Who could delay an angel? Can swords or bullets or magical spells prevent an angel? No. Only another angel—a wicked angel—could withstand one of God’s messengers. And notice how God himself intervened to ensure the answer to Daniel’s prayer got to him. Michael, the archangel, the chief over all the armies of God, the co-eternal 3rd person of the godhead, and the one who would one-day become God incarnate in Jesus Christ, came to assist His angel messenger.
There’s a whole study on this. Let me be very clear. The bible never says its OK to worship a created being. Michael, the archangel, isn’t a created being any more than Jesus, the “son of man” and “son of God” is a created being. They are two names for our eternal God and Savior.
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But that’s a discussion for another time.
Do you understand what this means for you and me? God knows no delay and no haste, but we are so impatient to Him.
We pray once or maybe a few times, and then quickly lose heart and stop. If we could just see the bigger picture and wait on the Lord, praying persistently for God to reveal His plan, then God will answer our prayer.
Sometimes He will send his messengers and answer immediately, like he did in Daniel 9, and sometimes it takes Him a while. Sometimes there are evil forces at work, battling against us, and God himself may have to intervene to bring us an answer. God always answers our prayers. Sometimes it takes a while, and sometimes we get an answer we don’t like, but God always answers our prayers.
We have so much to learn about prayer. I’m grateful for our prayer ministry team. They’ve been busy this past week making plans for keeping our church a praying church. Please take advantage of the opportunities they will bring to learn how to pray.
Comparing Daniel 8, 9 and 10-12
Comparing Daniel 8, 9 and 10-12
As we keep reading in Daniel 11 we discover that the vision in Daniel 10-12 is another parallel prophecy with Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 and Daniel 8-9. By the time of this vision, Babylon was gone already, so this prophecy starts with Persia in the time of Cyrus.
And now I will tell you the truth: Behold, three more kings will arise in Persia, and the fourth shall be far richer than them all; by his strength, through his riches, he shall stir up all against the realm of Greece.
Some suggest that the 4th king in this prophecy is the king that married Esther. While that’s possible and deserves consideration, our focus today is the broad strokes to show how this prophecy repeats the pattern of earlier prophecy. What empire would take over after Persia?
Keep reading In verse 3:
Then a mighty king shall arise, who shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will.
And when he has arisen, his kingdom shall be broken up and divided toward the four winds of heaven, but not among his posterity nor according to his dominion with which he ruled; for his kingdom shall be uprooted, even for others besides these.
Who is this mighty king from Greece? That was Alexander the Great who we saw in Daniel 7 as the Leopard with four wings and again in Daniel 8 as the prominent horn on the Goat. And just like we saw in previous prophecies, after Greece conquered Persia and after Alexander had died an untimely death, Greece was divided.
Daniel 11 expands on what God revealed earlier. That’s the repeat and enlarge principle that I keep talking about. This time we’re told that Greece would be divided—not among Alexander’s children. That’s a new bit we didn’t see before. We knew there would be four divisions, but one could assume it was his kids. This just ties the prophecy closer to Alexander because we know he didn’t have children and instead his generals took over the four divisions of Greece.
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Daniel 11 continues with lots of intriguing details with the king of the north and the king of the south representing progressive kings in Greece and then in Rome and then in divided Europe—tracing the same path of history as every other prophecy in Daniel has.
Hold that thought for a moment and we’ll come back to it.
This prophecy has attracted all sorts of different interpretations. It’s absolutely worth a good study, but we’re keeping to the highlights to understand the larger movements of prophecy, so I won’t be attempting to add my thoughts to the mix.
I can say this however, most of the confusion comes because of the very detailed descriptions of events. In previous chapters we could broadly connect an animal, such as the bear, to a nation—Medo-Persia. But in Daniel 11 the details don’t have that kind of a this-equals-that connection. It’s describing micromovements inside these empires, not just the overthrow that the previous prophecies have described.
Many connect the first half of chapter 11 with the Greek empire under Antioches II in Greece, and then they split off the last half of chapter 11 and say that it’s a prophecy about the end-time antichrist power. No other prophecy in Daniel is able to be divided into a past fulfillment and a future fulfillment—they progress one step after another thorugh history until the coming of Jesus. So why would this prophecy be any different? We can debate about the minute details forever, but the broad strokes are a little easier to define.
Like other apocalyptic prophecies in Daniel, this one begins during the time of the prophet and extends to the time of the end when Jesus will come again.
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Look at this comparison between Daniel 8/9 and Daniel 11.
Notice how things line up so nicely from Persia to Greece to Rome and to the crucifixion of Jesus.
Then skip forward to Daniel 12:2 where God describes the 2nd coming, or to the last few verses of Daniel 12 where you’ll find references to the same time periods that we can read about in Daniel 7 and Revelation 12 such as the 1,260 year time period that ended in 1798 (see me afterwards and I can show you how to find the fulfillment of that prophecy).
These indicators show us that this prophecy in Daniel 10-12 is parallel to Daniel 2, 7, 8 and 9.
The big picture we need to understand is that God rules in the affairs of men. The details are intended to be an after-the-fact confirmation to show us that God was able to do what He set out to do, and that He will be able to complete the work that He has started.
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Most of us are not theologians and don’t know every facet of every prophecy in the Bible or even have access to the historical information to study out the fulfillment of these prophecies. We’re left to believe what the preacher is telling us, or what we read online. If you feel overwhelemed studying prophecies like Daniel, I want you to take a breath and relax. We don’t need to catch every facet of the prophecy to understand what is essential for us. The essentials prepare us so that we can be ready to meet our Lord When He comes.
Like the Stars
Like the Stars
Turn to Daniel 12:2-3
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, Some to everlasting life, Some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Those who are wise shall shine Like the brightness of the firmament, And those who turn many to righteousness Like the stars forever and ever.
Look at what is at stake at the end of this prophecy—everlasting life, and everlasting death. This is the essential story of salvation. From ancient times God has been saying,
“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!
In Daniel’s story we see a young man who prayed for his own personal challenges and needs. And we also see a mature man who prayed for the big stuff — for mercy for the promised people and for the fulfillment of God’s covenant of salvation. His prayers are so noteworthy that we find one of them written out in Daniel 9.
I think God is calling us on the same maturing path that Daniel was on. It’s absolutely OK to pray for anything and everything that comes to your mind. God wants that and we need that. But God is also inviting us into a special work that can only be categorized as the work of angels.
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Let’s read it again In Daniel 12:3 “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”
In another week or two we’re going to start talking about Christmas themes, and one of the important stories is about the wise men who saw bright angels in the sky and they looked like a star. These angels had announced Jesus’ birth and then multitudes of angels showed up to sing His praises. I believe they banded together and shone like a star in the sky and led the wise men to find Jesus and worship Him.
Jesus told his disciples that they were each like burning candles
Matthew 5:14–16 (ESV)
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. ... In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
And Peter picked up this theme when he talked about the Community of believers in 1 Peter 2:9-10:
1 Peter 2:9 (ESV)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
The angel talking to Daniel was saying this exact thing: Daniel 12:3 “those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”
God wants us to join Him in turning people to the Son of Righteousness, Jesus Christ. And when we do, we are just like that group of angels in Luke 2 whose brightness shone into pagan hearts and drew them to Jesus.
We are living, completely dependent on God, in the framework of His divine plan. Today we find ourselves in the time of the end of the world, just before Jesus returns and raises those who have fallen asleep in death back up from the grave. Jesus‘ greatest desire is to save people, from every walk of life and every nation of the earth. Wise people will join Him in His mission and turn people’s attention to the Son of Righteousness.
Conclusion
Conclusion
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How has God called you to shine?
If you look into the sky on a dark night you’ll see that some stars shine bright and some are dim. Add a powerful telescope to your gazing and you’ll discover that stars are different colors. Some are red or yellow and others burn a bright blue or purple or white.
Stars are primarily made of hydrogen and helium with a variety of what astrophysicists call “metals,” which are just elements that are heavier than Hydrogen and helium—things like oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, neon, iron and others. Stars that are really hot at the surface appear as though they’re blue, and stars that are relatively cool burn more red. Our sun is in the middle and appears to be more white, though when we look at it through our atmosphere it can look yellow or even red depending on the time of day.
Stars shine with the intensity and brilliance of whatever they are made of, and so do we.
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
Jesus said that we speak from the abundance of our hearts.
it’s when we abide in Jesus that our hearts are transformed and we truly begin to shine:
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
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Maybe at one point you were someone who didn’t shine much, but you have been redeemed. You have been adopted. The old you is gone and now you’re a child of God. You abide with Jesus. And so, I ask again, how has God called you to shine?
If you already know, that’s fantastic. Shine for Jesus.
But, if you’re not quite sure how God is calling you to shine, maybe now is the time to ask Him. Ask Him to reveal what He’s made you for. And then live for Jesus. Abide with Jesus. Live in Him and let Him bring out the light that He wants you to shed on the world.
As you’re processing what that looks like for you, may I suggest an opportunity to shine that’s close by?
Occasionally I’ll be leaving a friend’s house when they say something like, “come back when you can’t stay so long!” They’re just joking, of course…
Every week we make new friends here at Riverview Adventist Church, and its important that we express ourselves well. People who have only been here one time may not know if we really want them here or if we feel like they should come back when they can’t stay so long. We have to be intentional about showing our desire for their company or they will think they are unwanted.
Here’s two things that you can do:
First, pray as you come to church that God will show you someone He wants you to get to know. God will often put someone in your path and when He does, stop and talk with them, and exchange contact information. Then give them a call or send them a text sometime in the next few days letting them know you’re glad to have met them and would like to know them better. Next time you see them, maybe invite them over to your house, or if you’re really brave, ask if you can drop by to see them at their home sometime. Being welcoming is less about saying, “i’m glad you walked through the doors of the church,” and more about saying, “I’d love to have you as a part of my life.”
Second, we can shine a little by simply noticing when people aren’t around. If you know of someone who is sick, or if you’ve not seen someone for a couple weeks, send them a text or put a note in the mail or give them a call. Don’t just pray, be intentional about telling them you care about them. So don’t excuse yourself by saying, “someone else is going to send them a card.” When you notice someone is missing, that is God’s Spirit nudging you to take action. No one else can shine for God in your place.
Will you make a commitment with me? It’s a simple commitment, but one that I expect will make a big impact on our community. Let’s commit to shining for Jesus with the tools and personality and opportunities that God has given us. Would you make that commitment today?
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Please stand with me as we sing a very appropriate song, “let all things now living” Hymn number 560
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We have a special thanksgiving potluck in the event center next door. You are all invited to join us. Today will be a tiny bit different than normal. I’d like to encourage you to go over there right away and find a table and chat there. The leaders want to have a prayer together and then dismiss you by tables. And please thank our fellowship lunch team that has organized this meal.
