Daniel #11: an exposition of Daniel 10:1-21. This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday morning, April 7, 2013.
Intro:
It is a time of great political unrest. World leaders are jockeying for position. There are wars and rumors of wars. It seems the power of darkness is ever increasing while the people of God are oppressed and persecuted. When will it end? Even among the people of God there is unrest and theological debate. Scholars disagree over how to interpret what God is saying and the meaning of world events. The world is in a mess. Society is crumbling. Where is God? Why isn’t God doing something about this? That’s how people were thinking in 537 B.C.! The mighty Babylonian Empire had fallen. The Medes and Persians were advancing. Cyrus, king of Persia, had decreed that God’s people could return to their land and the temple could be rebuilt. Few had returned and the work was slow. In fact just a few months into the project it all came to a grinding halt. Daniel, and old man, was burdened and in earnest prayer when he received his final vision. The vision is contained in Daniel chapters ten, eleven and twelve. It, once again, reminds Daniel and us of God’s sovereign rule over all the earth. Our text this morning is found in the tenth chapter of Daniel.
Text: Daniel 10:1-21
The context is the 3rd year since Cyrus had conquered Babylon (537-536).
Daniel is given a great vision.
There are some things to keep in mind about Daniel’s visions:
- First there is a vision of the grand scheme.
- Second zeros in on a certain aspect or truth.
We’ve also noted that the visions of Daniel cover the same ground.
We keep getting different perspectives of the same time period.
Of course we also note this is prophecy and not history.
It is the telling of present and/or future events from God’s perspective.
As such events tend to overlap, at times they telescope.
This distant events blends in with an event from even greater distance.
The overall point is one of encouragement – our God is in charge.
Regardless of how “out of control” things may seem, God controls all things.
Chapter 10 serves as a prologue for this last, great vision.
From this chapter we learn the importance of perspective.
We must see things in their proper relation.
This chapter (and the vision following) deals with things in Daniel’s future and our ancient past – yet there are important principles for us to learn. Principles that relate directly to how we are to live today. In fact from this text we learn…
Thesis: If we are to live as God intends we must understand and engage the world from a biblical perspective.
Perspective is everything. The grid through which I view the world, understand and interpret world events determines how I live. Our faith is to be an active faith. I believe certain things because the Word of God informs me. Those beliefs then are used to interpret and understand what’s going on around me and my response to those events. You are not to “trust Jesus” and then live out your days doing your thing until you die and go to heaven. You are to think biblically. You are to act righteously. You are to engage the world as a follower of Christ. This passage gives us some insight into how we are to do just that.
Let me point to 3 things from our text.
- Believers are rightly burdened by the surrounding wickedness and the lack of progress in godliness. (10:1-3)
- Believers must view everything from the perspective of God’s sovereignty and sufficiency. (10:4-9)
- Believers must understand the great reality behind what they see. (10:10-21)