Living Faith in Turbulent Times - The Book of Daniel - Daniel 10-12
Outline:
1. We must live with clear awareness that our daily lives are involved in a great cosmic conflict.
2. God’s people persevere through courageous suffering and persistent wisdom.
3. Our heart and our sense of identity must be rooted God's works and promises.
• Look to the cross of Christ.
• Look to what God has done in your life.
• Look to glorious future that God has promised.
Scripture References:
• Daniel 10-12
• 2 Timothy 3:12
Application questions:
• Do you live with a daily awareness that your life is constantly involved in a cosmic spiritual conflict?
◦ That your daily battles and struggles have bigger consequences than you can see? That your spiritual life and integrity has an impact on others around you?
• Is your life driven by a conscious pursuit of God's wisdom and guidance in your life?
• What is the anchor of your sense of identity? Is it what God has done? Or is it your own works and circumstances?
Discussion questions:
• What new insights have you gained looking at the book of Daniel? How has this study shaped your thinking or your spiritual life?
• How does it impact our approach to daily life when we have a clear understand that we are involved in spiritual battle every day?
◦ How does this change your struggle with sin?
◦ How does this change your approach to relationships?
◦ How does it impact your view of church and ministry?
• What is the difference between a mindset that actively seeks God's wisdom and guidance versus a mindset that simply tried to avoid doing sin?
◦ What is wrong with using the question "Is it a sin?" as a primary way to make decisions?
• What are ways you may be called to stand alone for God's truth? To suffer? How do we know if we are ready for these things?
• How do I know if my sense of identity is rooted in God and his work rather than my own works and circumstances?
• How do we grow in rooting our identity in Jesus and cross and his promises?
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We have been spending the summer in the book of Daniel, and today we come to our final message.
Daniel is a written to help God's people navigate the struggles of following God and his promises in a broken and dangerous world.
As we come to conclude our study, many of us have already clearly noticed that the lessons in this book repeat over and over from different angles as the book goes on.
This is a very typical pattern in Old Testament writing, especially in the prophets.
They often have a pattern of talking about the same topic over and over, but from different sides and with different emphasis.
This is why when you read the book of Isaiah or Jeremiah, you will sense that repetitive nature. But every time they circle around, they come at the topic from a slightly different angle.
The end result is like a "surround sound" 3D effect - to give the reader a rich immersion into the topic.
Because we have run out of time for this series, this final message will be an overview of the last three chapters - and in essence these three chapters are all ONE unit, one event that concludes the book.
First of all we will read through all three chapters - just kidding no we wont.
There is a LOT of rich truth we can explore in these chapters.
There is also a lot of complex stuff here that we don't have time to unpack - feel free to follow up with me with questions on these items.
What I want to do is to bring out three core principles for our lives, one from each chapter - principles that guide our lives as God's people in difficult times.
1. We must live with a clear awareness that our daily lives are involved in a great cosmic conflict.
4 On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris, 5 I looked up, and there was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of gold from Uphaz around his waist. 6 His body was like beryl, his face like the brilliance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the gleam of polished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude.
7 Only I, Daniel, saw the vision. The men who were with me did not see it, but a great terror fell on them, and they ran and hid. 8 I was left alone, looking at this great vision. No strength was left in me; my face grew deathly pale, and I was powerless. 9 I heard the words he said, and when I heard them I fell into a deep sleep, with my face to the ground.
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.”
Daniel's final vision in the book is a of these angels - and their presence is so overwhelming to him, he becomes weak and feeble.
What is also really interesting is that Daniel is allowed to see history and world events from yet another angle.
This angel come to tell Daniel about a battle that he has been having between himself and an evil spiritual force that is seeking to influence world events for for the worse.
The curtain is pulled back and he is allowed to see that behind the historic events of kings and empires, there is a fierce spiritual battle that is taking place.
"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. "
Daniel is made to see that the causes in the results that we see here and now in our world today are not simply accomplished by human agents alone but by the fact that there is an entire spiritual realm of beings and forces involved, which is interconnected with the flow of human history.
As Daniel is praying and fasting about the outcome of the life of his people, he is told by this angel, that about the very things that he is praying and fasting about there is a fierce angelic battle that takes place.
So easily today in the modern world, we fall into the trap of thinking that what we see is all there is. We become functional materialists. We say we believe in a spiritual world, and we believe in God and all the things that he does, but in our day-to-day function, these things don’t ever come into our consideration, and they’re not part of how we view our every day life.
What some scientists and physicists are only now starting to realize Christians have always believed in the Bible has always said that the created world has two dimensions to it, which exist parallel to each other.
There is a Physical created world, the things that we touch and see and feel, and then there is the spiritual world, which is inhabited by spiritual beings to have the ability to sometimes take visible form.
Bible tells us very clearly that angels are created beings and just like us humans they have some form of a will and intelligence and they are powerful and yet they are not created in the image of God like we as humans are. They are not created for the same glorious purpose is that human beings are created.
Angels are created to serve God within his created world in various forms. The Bible shows that at some point in the early days of creation, there was an angelic rebellion, and so there are two spheres of Angels. There’s angels that are obedient to God and then there’s angels who are in rebellion to him.
We see from the book of Job that Satan and his host have the ability to influence events in the lives of people, including causing illness, causing natural disaster, and motivating the hearts of evil people to more evil.
Satan and his demons oppose God and all that he does and this means that they are always working to bring destruction, suffering, and rebellion to the lives of people into God’s creation.
The world we live in is deeply spiritual whether we know it or not.
A few weeks ago I sent my guys to do some moving work in a home that was full of Satanic statues and worship symbols. They were really disturbed by being in that home.
Yaro was telling me about a conversation with a coworker who said he is not religious at all and does not go to church - but he is really rethinking his whole spiritual attitude because he is seeing the massive surge in witchcraft and satan worship and satanic religions today.
This stuff is real and its all around us.
Daniel is going about his business doing life as usual. He is praying for his people. He is working his job in government and he is unaware of the fact that his prayers and his role in the Persian government is constantly crossing paths with the efforts of spiritual enemies, who oppose God, and work through evil people in the world.
“I have come because of your prayers…”
There are two extremes that Christians take when it comes to Angels and the spiritual world. One is to act like they don’t exist in the other one is to obsess over them, and to try to see demons under every rock and around every corner.
One of the clear points for us to see here is that it is naïve to live in a way, where we are oblivious to the cosmic conflict us around us in the world. We live in a world, charged with conflict in the conflict between the enemies of God, and those who seek the glory of God.
Every day, as we are going about our bills parenting, our kids interacting with our neighbors, going to work, we are engaged in spiritual battle and spiritual battle is always trying to pull us away from God away from knowing him worshiping him and serving him
Not only that our life of obedience to God, in ordinary ways every day our prayers, especially have a great power in the world around us, in ways that we are completely unaware.
Daniel had no idea that his prayers impacted angelic warfare in the sky.
This vision shows him that his every day faithfulness matters so much more than he realizes.
Sinclair Ferguson -
"Daniel prayed, and angels went to war."
Do you live with an awareness of the spiritual significance of your life on people and on events around you? Do you have an awareness of the fact that your battle with sin impacts many others around you?
When a father or a husband is tempted to neglect, leading his family spiritually, when he is tempted to isolate himself or embrace laziness, there’s so much more at stake than his own personal comfort.
When there’s marital conflict, constantly challenging family life
When moms are perpetually, battling frustration and temptation to escape the calling of being present, and diligent and faithful in bringing truth and grace to their kids
There’s always a spiritual battlefield for the home for the spiritual state of the home, and there are many forces that we do not see. They have a great interest in disrupting the worship and the discipleship of life in our families.
2. Gods people persevere through courageous suffering and persistent wisdom.
This angelic messenger that comes to Daniel proceeds to give him a revelation of what is to come.
Don’t worry, we’re not going to read chapter 11. It is long and scary and complicated.
But the basic idea of this chapter is pretty simple and it’s pretty much a repetition of what we’ve already heard, and Daniel.
This angel give Daniel a detailed account of wars and trials and difficulties that will follow in the next couple of hundred years has the Greek empire moves in. It’s pretty amazing to see the level of accuracy that many of these predictions have, and how precisely they were fulfilled during Alexander, the great and his Greek kingdom conquests.
But also, as the pattern goes in the whole book, as we have already seen God‘s revelation to Daniel here merges from talking about the Greek empire, to talking about the general pattern of increasing opposition and persecution from gods enemies against God’s people in the final days of history.
The Bible consistently speaks of an increasing difficulty and opposition that God’s people experience as the end of the age draws near.
It’s interesting to me to notice the two pathways or techniques that these evil characters used to oppose God’s people. The first in the most obvious way is persecution and oppression, and pursuing gods people and eliminating them. But the second pathway is to flatter to impress him to entice people with privilege and success.
We see this as a pattern in persecution throughout history.
The church is persecuted, almost always a two ways at the same time first of all there’s a threat of harm various forms of harm. If you do not stop following Christ if you don’t denounce Christ if you don’t adjust your beliefs, you will suffer.
At the same time, there’s always almost always a offer of reward of privilege of status of comfort and ease of life if you can align with the ideas of the world today
It’s really interesting to see how this text describes gods people prevailing in the midst of difficulty.
Two things that we can notice.
First of all, there’s a willingness to suffer, and the to stand alone
There is an expectation of hardship. There’s an expectation of opposition, and there’s no naïve idea that there’s going to be some prosperous golden age that everything’s gonna be perfectly good in my life as long as that I will be in the word God.
Actually, the more serious you are about obeying God, and seeking his kingdom, the more opposition various kinds of your face in your life.
Daniel 11:32-35
"32 With flattery he will corrupt those who act wickedly toward the covenant, but the people who know their God will be strong and take action. 33 Those who have insight among the people will give understanding to many, yet they will fall by the sword and flame, and they will be captured and plundered for a time. 34 When they fall, they will be helped by some, but many others will join them insincerely. 35 Some of those who have insight will fall so that they may be refined, purified, and cleansed until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time."
2 Timothy 3:12
"...all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."
This question of suffering makes us dig down to the core of our faith - is my christianity just because of my parents? or my friends? or my community? or is my faith in Jesus something that is the anchor in my OWN HEART?
Are you prepared to stand alone for your faith if everything around you was stripped away?
The second thing is, they’re both pursuit of wisdom and truth
Noticed that they are described as those who have insight other translations say, as those who are wise.
In other words, the angel describes the powerful lives of the people of God not as merely waiting for God to come back, and not as merely making sure that they are not sitting and not doing something terrible, but as those who are actively seeking truth and wisdom in their life
Satan’s great tactic is not simply to just deny God’s truth outright, but to make it murky and unclear.
He wants to make God's standards unclear - and he wants to promise many rewards that are very clear.
Its not sin to pursue these things, but if you do they will make your life so much better - money, power, health and fitness, - it can be anything.
There are a thousand ways that the enemy dangles a carrot of success and pleasure in front of you - what is the end result? He wants to take your focus away from the things that really matter, he wants to drain all the time, energy and resources you would have spent on pursuing true wisdom and devotion to God and his work in your life and all the ways he is calling you to follow him.
Often times people will use the criteria in their life. I’m just making sure they’re not doing something bad. Is it sin for me to do this?
In other words were really pursuing what we want, and we don’t wanna ask too many questions about what we should be pursuing as long as we know very concretely. What I’m doing is not a sin that nobody can stop me.
This is not the attitude of the people of God in the final days.
The only way to survive a world full of deception and conflict in opposition to God’s truth is to be a person who is truly pursuing honestly from your depth of your heart pursuing to know God in his ways.
"the people who know their God will be strong and take action. 33 Those who have insight among the people will give understanding to many.."
3. Our heart and our sense of identity must be rooted God's works and promises.
When we face times of difficulty and distress - the reason why it is so difficult is because it hits at our core identity.
It makes us question ourselves.
It makes us wonder, it makes us doubt.
Why did this happen to me? Does this mean that God has abandoned me? does this mean that everything I believed was false?
Everyone is happy and jolly and confident in God when everything is peachy.
But when times get dark, with life presses in, when evil closes in and we see no way out - we start to crack on the inside, we start to question and doubt.
We are deeply tied in our sense of identity to our CIRCUMSTANCES and to our PERFORMANCE.
This is why in the final chapter, God gives Daniel a glimpse of final victory. And it is not a victory over evil that we accomplish with our own power.
It is a final victory over evil, over sin and over death itself that GOD accomplishes.
Daniel 12:1-3
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. 2 Many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, and some to disgrace and eternal contempt. 3 Those who have insight will shine like the bright expanse of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
It is critical that our sense of self worth and identity is being constantly rooted in GOD - in WHO he is, in WHAT he has done, in what he IS doing and what he SAYS he WILL do.
How do we do that?
• Look to the cross
How committed is God to redeeming his people out of difficulty?
So committed he took on flesh and become one of us - taking on human nature to make a way for us to be redeemed.
The trails we face today and the trails we will face tomorrow are NOT because he is trying to get you to pay for your sins - it is because he is refining you - this is training for something bigger, a more glorious end that he is preparing you for.
• Look at what God has done in your life.
YOU ARE HERE - this is proof God is working in your life, speaking his truth of hope to you
• Look to the glorious future that he promised.
His future promises are guaranteed by his past actions!
3 Those who have insight will shine like the bright expanse of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
My foundational sense of identity and self worth is NOT rooted in my circumstances and in my performance.
It is rooted in Jesus and his victory - it is rooted in Jesus and his Word, his promises and his purposes.
Application questions:
• Do you live with a daily awareness that your life is constantly involved in a cosmic spiritual conflict?
◦ That your daily battles and struggles have bigger consequences than you can see? That your spiritual life and integrity has an impact on others around you?
• Is your life driven by a conscious pursuit of God's wisdom and guidance in your life?
• What is the anchor of your sense of identity? Is it what God has done? Or is it your own works and circumstances?