Sermon Tone Analysis

Heavenly Visitors

Now in this book of Daniel, there are four great prophetic revelations.

This is the last of them, and it stretches from chapter 10 through chapter 11 and chapter 12.

This final great vision fills up and finishes the book.

Chapter 10 introduces the vision, chapter 11 gives the prophecy, and chapter 12 adds an epilogue.

So we’ve come now to the end of the things to come that are given to the prophet Daniel.

It stretches from Daniel’s day until the great tribulation and the return of Christ.

It stretches throughout all of the remainder of human history until Christ comes again.

However, the prophecy in chapters 10, 11, and 12 gives greater detail about the tribulation than any other prophecy.

In the previous chapter, chapter 9 of the book of Daniel, Daniel was reading in Jeremiah.

And Daniel was very much aware that Jeremiah had prophesied that the captivity of Israel would only last seventy years.

And you remember now, Daniel is a prophet in Babylon.

He is with the captives who have been taken aware from their land, and their land has been destroyed.

But Jeremiah said it would only last seventy years.

And so as Daniel was reading Jeremiah’s prophecy in chapter 9, he came across those two prophecies where Jeremiah says it’ll only be seventy years; and he knew that it had been nearly 70 years since he had been taken captive, and so he began to realize that the time must be coming for it all to end.

And so in chapter 9 he began to pray, and he began to fast, and he began to confess his sin, and he began to ask God to fulfill the promise that the seventy years would fill up the chastisement and the people could return to their land.

That was his prayer in chapter 9.

And you’ll remember at the end of the chapter, God gives him a tremendous prophecy in answer to that prayer.

Now that prayer in chapter 9 and the subsequent answer by God occurred in the first year of Cyrus the king, the first year of the king of the Medo-Persian Empire.

You’ll remember that in that first year, according to Ezra chapter 1 all the way through Ezra chapter 3, Cyrus made a decree, and he said, “All of the people of Israel can now return home.

You can all go back.”

Daniel’s prayer was answered directly in the very year in which he prayed that prayer.

But you know what happened?

As we come to chapter 10, what’s the first statement?

“In the third year of Cyrus.”

Where are we now?

Two years later.

And you know what?

Two years later, a very disheartening and a very discouraging reality has occurred.

You want to know what it is?

The people didn’t go back.

They were comfortable.

They were sufficiently paganized.

They were enmeshed in the society in which they lived.

They were prosperous.

They were absorbed.

They were too involved to care about the Promised Land, too involved to care about the rebuilding of Jerusalem, too involved to care about restoring the temple.

You say, “Didn’t any go back?”

A few. Ezra tells us just 42,000 went back.

You say, “Well, that sounds like a lot.”

Not really.

They had flourished in Babylon.

There were myriads more than that.

That was only a drop in the bucket; just 42,000 went back.

There had been many born in captivity, they didn’t go back.

The few that did go back were led by a man named Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel was in the line of David.

He had kingly seed.

And he couldn’t establish again the monarchy, he just couldn’t pull it off.

He was accompanied by a man named Joshua – not the Joshua of old, but Joshua the high priest who was to be their spiritual leader.

And when they got back, it took them seven months just to clear the rubble off the temple ground to say nothing of the city.

And as they started to try to rebuild the temple, they were opposed, and they were harassed, and they were mocked, and they were scorned, and they were hated; and finally the work came to a halt altogether.

So, you see, all of Daniel’s great anticipation had not been fulfilled.

The great dream of his heart was that seventy years after he was taken captive, the whole nation would go back, and they’d rebuild the temple, and they’d rebuild the city, and they’d rebuild the wall, and they’d reconstitute their nation and their worship, and everything would be the way it used to be.

But it wasn’t so.

A small number went back, and they couldn’t pull off anything.

They couldn’t establish the nation.

They couldn’t establish the monarchy.

They couldn’t rebuild the city.

They couldn’t even get the sanctuary going.

At that same time, in the first year of Darius, a third monumental thing happened: Daniel retired, and he was one of the presidents of the Empire.

He had been a president through the Babylonian period.

And now even into the Medo-Persian period, he kept his place of tremendous power.

And in this particular situation, it was time for him to retire.

He was approximately 85 years old.

And so he left the presidency, according to chapter 1, verse 21.

He was only in the government until the first year of Cyrus.

And so he left the presidency, according to Daniel 1:21 “And Daniel continued even unto the first year of king Cyrus.”

Some have asked why didn’t Daniel go back?

Some have speculated that he was too old......?

One commentator said this about that: “I think he didn’t go back, because he was too disappointed.

In other words, I think that he saw himself as having the responsibility to motivate the remaining Jews to go back; so he couldn’t leave because he wasn’t satisfied.

He had a passion to see his sinful people forsake Babylon and return to their country.........Surely he would have longed to go himself, back to the land he loved; but he was utterly unselfish, and he was far too burdened for his needy people to worry about his own desires.”

This commentator believes that the mourning in verse 2 is the key to his view.

Mourning for 3 weeks.....21 days.

No fancy or choice food, or even the regular food......

He wasn’t concerned with personal grooming.

The 24th day of Nisan (March-April)......from the 3rd day of Nisan till the 24th day Daniel was mourning.

The 14th of Nisan is when the Passover would of been celebrated.

This mourning was during the celebrated time of deliverance for the Jews.

This great river is the Tigris, which flowed through Babylonia, it was located about 20 miles from the capital........

Daniel lifted up his eyes.....in the Hebrew this is a look of excitement.

Daniel was amazed at what he saw.

“A Certain Man”.......There has been much debate on whether this “man” was an angel in human form or Jesus Christ Himself in his true form that John saw in Revelation 1.

Fine linen....we know that angels were clothed in fine linen in Rev.

Girded with fine gold.......

No one knows where Uphaz is or was.

Beryl-is a gold like stone.

Face like lightning

His eyes like lamps of fire

His feet like brass

His voice like many, a multitude of people.

Now let’s look at Revelation 1:13-15 “And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the

Son of man,

clothed with a garment down to the foot, and

girt about the paps with a golden girdle.

His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow;

and his eyes were as a flame of fire;

And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and

his voice as the sound of many waters.”

That sounds a lot like what Daniel is seeing here........The reaction of the people who didn’t even see the “Man” is pointed and also Daniel’s reaction.