Sermon Tone Analysis

A Humble Man and An Awesome God that Listens and Answers

 

I was reading the only piece of English that I could find in my hotel room with Jenny one night – it was from the Sunday Telegraph that she brought over.

In it was an article about words that have lost their meaning through overuse.

The one that had most lost its meaning was the word *AWESOME*

 

It can be used to describe the taste of an ice-cream, to the power of a car, to the sound of a rock band, to the destruction of a Tsunami.

There is no doubt that it is an over-used word.

But it is the correct word to use to describe God in this passage.

Now you or I are not going to be in a Tsunami.

Neither are we going to be confronted by what confronted Daniel.

So to help us to visualize Awesome, here is a short video clip from last night’s movie ‘Twister’, to see Hollywood’s interpretation of *AWESOME*.

Daniel was not an easy man to scare.

He had served the Lord for  70 years – going through the worst years for Judah – the exile years.

Daniel had been tested in every possible way: 

*      He had been conspired against.

*      His three young friends had stood up to the worship of Nebuchadnezzar’s gold image, and risked the fiery furnace.

Now that is /awesome/.

*       Twice he had interpreted dreams for Nebuchadnezzar, once for Belshazzar.

Twice he directly had a vision in the reign of Belshazzar, and twice at least he proclaimed bad times for a king, directly to the king himself – normally enough to get yourself killed.

Now that is Awesome.

·       Last week in Chapter 9 we see Daniel taking personal responsibility for the whole kingdom of Judah, with that incredible prayer, that we separately studied during the Jer 29:11 Project that Tim took us through in those purple binders.

Now that is awesome!

But now this Daniel in Chapter 10 sees something right at the end of his life – right at the end during the reign of Cyrus king of Persia.

He sees something that causes the colour to drain from his face, and to fall flat on his face.

If that happens to Daniel, who has been through all these moments before – whatever you call it, AWESOME is a description that you can use without fear of wearing the word out.

Last chapter – Chapter 9 – Mr W was talking to us last week.

Started with Daniel thinking about Jeremiah’s prophecy of 70 years of exile.

Since it was coming to an end, he was ready for a king to be returned to power in Judah.

But it is not to be.

Daniel has to wait a long time.

The prophecy in Chapter 9, given to Daniel indicates that it will be 7 times longer – nearly 500 years – till there is a rightful King once again on the throne in Israel.

He is told exactly in Ch 9 : 69 times 7 or 483 years.

King Artaxerxes 1 (mentioned in Ezra Chapter 7, as starting the return to Jerusalem – in around 458BC, and if you add 483 to that you get to the time of Jesus’ public ministry – 25 – 30AD!

A fantastic, exact prophecy.

For us, we know that this means Jesus, the man born King, the Saviour!

Daniel is a tremendous book for pointing out to us, again and again, that the whole of the Old Testament ultimately bears testimony to the coming Jesus – who would be  both King and Sacrifice.

So let us move to Chapter 10.

It starts the last section of the book, running all the way through to chapter 12.

Here is my break up – starting at [[10:1|Bible:Dan10:1]] and finishing at [[11:1|Bible:Dan11:1]]

 

#.

A humble man and an Awesome Vision  - [[V1-9|Bible:Dan10:1-9]]

#. 3 Touches, and 3 Actions [[V10-11|Bible:Dan10:10-11]], [[V15-19|Bible:Dan10:15-19]]

#.

Truths Told and Battles Fought  [[V12-14|Bible:Dan10:12-14]], [[V20-11:1|Bible:Dan10:20-11:1]]

Let us read the first few verses together:

 

[[Bible:Dan 10:1-3]]

In the third year of the reign of King Cyrus of Persia, Daniel (also known as Belteshazzar) had another vision.

He understood that the vision concerned events certain to happen in the future—times of war and great hardship.

When this vision came to me, I, Daniel, had been in mourning for three whole weeks.

All that time I had eaten no rich food.

No meat or wine crossed my lips, and I used no fragrant lotions until those three weeks had passed.

----

The first thing that I want you to notice is Daniel’s preparation.

The first month of the year is the Passover.

Daniel was having a fast from fancy food – which included pastry, meat and wine, and from fancy living – no washing, deodorant or perfume.

My guess would be that this was Daniel’s yearly custom.

Until he saw the restoration of Israel, with a King sitting on the throne, that he would reach out to God in the fast from luxury, in order to pray, as he had in chapter 9 for understanding for the happenings in the nation of Israel.

It is one of the things that we have been able to admire right throughout Daniel’s book.

He never seems to have allowed his personal habits to get in the way of his relationship with God – instead he has trained himself to be exactly the opposite – they enhance his relationship.

You will remember, of course, Daniel’s insistence on praying to God regardless of what the rules were in the time of Darius.

He was a man of consistency, of passion, consumed with following God.

It is a tremendous example to me.

I would follow that up by acknowledging Rich Hoyt as an example of someone who has personal habits that enhance his abilities.

He doesn’t take shortcuts in his service.

When it was ruled that his satellite internet was potentially a problem, he instantly turned it off, and we removed the cables together.

It isn’t a form of righteousness that is going to get him browny points with God, but I think it is rather that he tries not to have obstacles between him and God.

What obstacles do you have between you and God?

 

  What personal habits limit you as far as your christian walk goes?

Daniel was very useful over his entire life, because of his refusal to allow those obstacles to occur.

Here Daniel is showing what service is about:  After 70 years we could humanly excuse him for starting to take it easy.

Daniel is showing that he is still active in wanting God’s way.

What a challenge that represents for those of us who are young, and what a challenge it is to those who are in the middle, or those of us who are elderly.

What a model of consistency Daniel represents!

  2ndly, humility is never an end in itself, it is always to make us useful.

Here Daniel is  fasting, and has gone on a trip – between 30km and 300km – to the River Tigris.

When the first awesome thing happens – the vision:  Let us read about it.

4On April 23, as I was standing on the bank of the great Tigris River,5I looked up and saw a man dressed in linen clothing, with a belt of pure gold around his waist.6His

body looked like a precious gem.

His face flashed like lightning, and his eyes flamed like torches.

His arms and feet shone like polished bronze, and his voice roared like a vast multitude of people.

\\ Here is a description where it seems that the language of Daniel is struggling to put into words what he is seeing.

Think of that scene from the twister movie – how hard is it to describe a natural phenomena which is just a product of God’s handiwork – when experiencing it is so full of sensory overload – your body getting pushed around like a rag doll – and all the subtitles can say is “Twister Thunders Loudly”.

It doesn’t matter how you describe it, it can’t really do it justice – we don’t have the soundtrack, and we don’t have the visions.

Daniel has seen visions, he has interpreted dreams for kings, and has served the most powerful kings in the world for his whole life.

But all we get are flat words on the page.

Remember Paul talking about his vision – 2 Corinthians 12 – I saw I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell.

There are two ideas on who is shown here.

The first is that the person who appears is the person that has the conversation with Daniel later – and he is an Angel.

The second is that the person who appears in v10 is an angel, while the vision is of the Glorified Jesus.

I think the second view for a few reasons, but I don’t want to go into them now, as it is a complex argument, and not easy to follow.

~*~*~*~* \\ \\

Firstly, Daniel has already seen a vision of the Lord Jesus as Judge in Daniel 7.   But I think it was a vision at a distance.

Daniel notices the throne, the clothes and his hair.

Fiery throne, clothes of white and hair of white.

Here it is a vision close up – Daniel sees his features – his body, his legs, his belt, his face, his eyes, his arms, his voice.

It has a feel to it of Revelation 1, but different.

But one thing is similar – John’s reaction in Revelation 1 was to fall down as though dead.

Here Daniel has the same reaction – let us read about it:

 

7Only I, Daniel, saw this vision.

The men with me saw nothing, but they were suddenly terrified and ran away to hide.8So

I was left there all alone to see this amazing vision.

My strength left me, my face grew deathly pale, and I felt very weak.9Then

I heard the man speak, and when I heard the sound of his voice, I fainted and lay there with my face to the ground.

\\ Who is this man in the vision?

Only the Glorified Lord Jesus – the King – can evoke that sort of reaction.