Daniel 10 - Encountering the Living God

Daniel chapter 10, starting verse 1.

Daniel 10 · chapter mention

In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a revelation was given to Daniel, who was called Belteshazzar.

Its message was true and it concerned a great war.

The understanding of the message came to him in a vision.

At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks.

I ate no choice food, no meat or wine touched my lips, and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over.

On the twenty fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris, I looked up, and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Upaz around his waist.

His body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.

I, Daniel, was the only one who saw the vision.

Those who were with me did not see it, but such terror overwhelmed them that they fled and hid themselves.

So I was left alone, gazing at this great vision.

I had no strength left, my face turned deathly pale, and I was helpless.

Then I heard him speaking, and as I listened to him I fell into a deep sleep, my face to the ground.

A hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees.

He said, Daniel, you who are highly esteemed, consider carefully the words I am about to speak to you, and stand up, for I have now been sent to you.

And when he said this to me, I stood up trembling.

Then he continued, Do not be afraid, Daniel, since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.

But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days.

Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me because I was detained there with the king of Persia.

Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.

While he was saying this to me, I bowed with my face toward the ground and was speechless.

Then one who looked like a man touched my lips, and I opened my mouth and began to speak.

I said to the one standing before me, I am overcome with anguish because of the vision, my lord, and I feel very weak.

How can I, your servant, talk with you, my lord?

My strength is gone, and I can hardly breathe.

Again the one who looked like a man touched me and gave me strength.

Do not be afraid, you who are highly esteemed, he said.

Peace, be strong now, be strong.

When he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, Speak, my lord, since you have given me strength.

So he said, Do you know why I have come to you?

Soon I will return to fight against the Prince of Persia, and when I go, the Prince of Greece will come.

But first I will tell you what is written in the book of truth.

No one supports me against them except Michael, your prince.

And in the first year of Darius the Mead, I took my stand to support and protect him.

Let's pray.

We thank you, Father, for your holy word given to us by inspiration and for our benefit.

We ask that you would help us to learn all that we can and then be all that we should, so that we might represent you well to those around.

In Jesus' name, we ask.

Amen.

There are some encounters that we have that really stick in our mind that perhaps even change the course of our lives.

Think back on people you've met in your life.

Is there anyone you met for the first time and it left a remarkable impression, either for the better or for the worse?

There are some people who are perhaps so unique, so eccentric, that it promises to be a very memorable encounter.

Sometimes meeting somebody, encountering somebody can really change us.

People can have an impact on us.

They can influence us for better or for worse.

The relationships that we build and the people that we meet can change the course of our lives.

We have here in this passage this morning a meeting, an encounter.

But it's not simply an encounter between two people, it's an encounter between Daniel and a messenger of the living God.

It is an encounter that Daniel has with God himself.

And Daniel is profoundly affected by it.

Nobody who encounters God walks away from the experience unchanged.

There are people that we see every day that we drive by, people that we wave to, say hi to.

We might notice them for a moment, but at the end of the day, perhaps it didn't make a huge difference one way or another that we saw them, that we encountered them.

Not so with God.

When we encounter God, it is transformative, it leaves us changed.

And Daniel here encountered God in a real and powerful way.

And this text shows us some ways that a real and true encounter with God's presence changes us.

And so as we look at the passage this morning, I want you to ask yourself this question: your relationship with God, is your relationship with God something that's purely past tense?

Or is it something that continues in the present?

If you were to share your testimony, the story of your Christian journey, the story of your faith, where would it end?

Would it start with a conversion experience and then end the next day?

Would the story of your faith end 10 years ago?

Or would it continue up to the present day?

Is the living God an ongoing reality in your life?

I've heard it said that our testimony should never be more than 24 hours old.

In other words, we should always be having a fresh experience, fresh encounter with the living God.

This text shows us Daniel encountering God, and it shows us some ways that an encounter with God changes us.

It tells us some truths about a true encounter with God.

The text tells us, first of all, that a true encounter with God comes in response to us seeking Him.

If we want to have a true encounter with God, it comes in response to us seeking God.

Look at what it says in verse 12.

Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.

Daniel is in exile.

He's in exile, he's living a life apart from his homeland, a place that is foreign, where his culture is not prevalent, where his faith in God is not respected.

It's a strange, distant, weird place.

And as I've said on occasion throughout this series, that we as followers of Christ should never feel too comfortable here in this world.

We should always feel a little bit of a sense of discomfort because we know that this is not our true home at the end of the day.

And Daniel here is in exile and he is seeking God.

It says that he set his mind to gain understanding and to humble himself, and that he was speaking to God and that his words were heard.

And this messenger appears to Daniel and communicates to Daniel the presence of God.

Now, there is some debate about the exact identity of this messenger that's talked about.

Some would say that this is Jesus himself before the incarnation, an appearance of the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ.

Others might say, no, that's too far.

This is an angel of some kind that's delivering a message from God.

Regardless of the exact identity of the messenger, the point is that Daniel here encounters God's presence through this messenger.

This messenger comes from God and communicates something of God's presence to Daniel.

You see, God can mediate his presence to us in a variety of ways.

God can communicate presence to us in all kinds of ways.

God communicates his presence through his written word, the scriptures.

It's been said that if you want to hear the audible voice of God, read the Bible out loud.

God communicates his presence to us amongst his people when we are gathered with the fellowship of other believers.

Physical, in-person presence is an important way that the presence of God can be mediated to us.

God can mediate his presence to us when we take communion, the bread and the cup, which we do the first Sunday of each month.

It's a way that we are reminded and nourished and strengthened by God's presence.

God can mediate, can deliver his presence to us directly when we pray, when we seek him.

Here Daniel had been seeking God, and in response to that, God's presence appeared to him.

Now, in some sense, whenever we seek God, the fact that we seek him is actually a gift from him.

Jesus says in the Gospel of John, chapter 6, no one can come to me unless the Father draws them.

John 6 · chapter mention

So God is at work drawing people to himself.

God has not left us in a state of isolation and rebellion, but God is at work drawing people to himself.

Of our own initiative, we would go our own direction and not seek God.

God is reaching out, God is seeking after lost sinners.

But nonetheless, we have to respond.

We have to respond to God's invitation.

And throughout Scripture, we see that God invites us to seek Him, and when we seek Him, we will find Him.

God says in Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 13, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13

Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6 says that without faith it is impossible to please God.

Hebrews 11:6

Why?

Because anyone who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that God rewards those who earnestly seek him.

The writer to the Hebrews tells us that God rewards those who earnestly seek him.

In other words, this is not simply a one-time quick casual prayer, but a life dedicated to, devoted to pursuing the presence of God.

Now, in one sense, of course, God is everywhere.

There is nowhere we can go where God isn't there.

In that general sense, yes, God is everywhere.

But God can mediate, bring his presence to us in a uniquely powerful way in response to us seeking Him.

When we seek God, it's always in the context of His grace and His enablement.

But nonetheless, we must seek after Him.

Has there ever been something that you have wanted and you refuse to give up on it until you found it?

There might have been something like that in your life.

Many years ago, I worked at an elementary school, and it was the end of the school year, and they were getting rid of a lot of stuff from the school year, and uh some of the students had brought some old snacks, brought some snacks to school that they'd left there.

And so they were throwing away all these old snacks, and there was this one box of something that looked kind of interesting, and one of the teachers said, Hey Eric, do you want to try this?

I said, Sure.

I tried it, I was hooked.

It was some kind of a little caramel waffle with this caramel syrup in the middle of it, little like candy thing.

I'd never had one before, but it was amazing.

Unfortunately, there was only one left in that box.

That kid had eaten all the rest of them.

So I tried one.

I said, This is amazing.

And then I discovered they are not easy to come by.

They're actually a Dutch specialty that is imported.

I don't know where this kid got this, and school was out for the summer, so I mean I couldn't ask them.

Thought it'd be a little weird if I called his house and asked his parents, hey, where'd you get those?

So anytime I went to a grocery store, I looked around.

I asked if they had these.

Nobody had them.

I looked online.

I could buy them for great cost, imported, but I was having trouble finding them anywhere.

Finally, I went to enough grocery stores that I finally found one grocery store that actually had them.

And I bought several of them, enough to last me quite a while, because I didn't know when I was going to get my hands on this treat again.

I finally found what I was looking for, but it didn't come the first time that I went looking for it.

I had to search it out, seek after it.

And the intensity of my search showed how much I loved them and how much I wanted to find these little candies.

The things that we search for reveal what we truly love.

The things that we set ourselves to find reveal what's most important to us.

And God asks us to seek him, and he does that because the act of seeking him has a way of orienting our hearts toward him.

That when we seek after him in prayer, when we seek after him through studying scripture, when we seek after him through fellowship with other Christians, it has a way of orienting ourselves to God and reminding us of what is truly important.

Because in the search for those little treats, there were a lot of other things I could have been doing that I didn't do because I was devoting myself to looking for that candy.

And when we seek after God, things that are of lesser importance to us fall by the wayside.

And our hearts are oriented toward the one true God.

We tend to find what we seek after.

Perhaps you feel that maybe your life is not as rich with the presence of God as you would like.

I ask you to consider the question: how earnestly have you been seeking after him?

Have you been praying to God, asking him to reveal himself?

Have you been putting yourselves in context with other Christians where God reveals himself most naturally?

Are you seeking after God?

Daniel here had a true encounter with God, and that encounter came in response to Daniel seeking God.

If you want more of God, seek after him.

True encounter with God comes in response to us seeking him.

A true encounter with God, we also see from this passage, gives us strength.

A true encounter with God will give us a kind of strength we cannot get anywhere else.

Are you feeling weak?

Are you feeling weary?

Tired?

This passage is for you.

It says verse 18.

The one who looked like a man touched me, that is Daniel, and gave me strength.

Do not be afraid, you who are highly esteemed, he said.

Peace.

Be strong now, be strong.

When he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, Speak, my Lord, since you have given me strength.

When Daniel had an encounter with God, it gave him a kind of strength that came from outside of himself.

Now, ironically, the reason Daniel needed to be strengthened in the first place was partly because the encounter with God was so overwhelming that it actually left him feeling weak.

Says in verse 16.

Verse 15, that he was speechless.

He bowed with his face toward the ground.

Verse 16, he said, I am overcome with anguish and I feel very weak.

And when people initially encounter God in Scripture, the consistent response is actually one of feeling weak and overwhelmed.

In the book of Isaiah, we have a record of Isaiah encountering a vision of God's holiness.

And when Isaiah doesn't meet, when Isaiah meets God, it's not a casual encounter.

He doesn't say, Hey, what's up, God?

How are you doing?

Good to see you, God.

He says in Isaiah chapter 6, verse 5, Woe is me, I am ruined.

Isaiah 6:5

I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.

Kevin Zuber says that being intimate with God does not mean being casual with God.

Being intimate with God does not mean being casual.

And encounters with God are intimate, but they are not casual.

Because God in his holiness is so much greater than we are, so much powerful, more powerful than we are, that when we encounter God, the natural response is actually an awareness of our own weakness, a realization of our own sin, and an acknowledgement that we could never come to him apart from his grace.

The vision in Isaiah 6 continues.

And Isaiah is told, your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.

And we come into the presence of God and find strength because of the finished work of Christ on the cross for us.

Isaiah wasn't able to stand in the presence of God apart from the forgiveness and the empowerment that God offers.

Daniel wasn't able to stand in the presence of God until he had been strengthened in order to be able to do so.

And so encountering God on the one hand, it humbles us, it kicks our ego down a notch, knocks us off kilter a little bit, helps us realize that maybe we're not all that after all.

It humbles us, and yet it also uplifts us.

An encounter with God humbles us, but it also dignifies us and strengthens us.

And that's what happened to Daniel.

He encountered the holiness of God and realized his own limitations, but then he was strengthened by the power of God and he received a new strength to stand and to move forward.

You might be feeling weak this morning.

Not just this morning, you might be feeling weak, period.

Weak in your soul, weak in your spirit, weary from life, from disappointment, from sadness, from grief, heartache, the burdens that you're trying to carry.

A fresh encounter with God is a way to receive strength.

But ironically, sometimes when we encounter God, he's got to humble us before he can strengthen us.

He's got to humble us, bring us to an end of ourselves, and make us realize that we can't do it on our own.

And then once he humbles us, we're fit to be strengthened.

Are you operating in your own strength or in the strength that comes outside of yourself?

I was helping somebody move many years ago, which I don't recommend, by the way.

I was helping somebody move, and there was a big old mattress that me and one other person were trying to carry, and you know, it looked fairly light.

It was deceptive.

We picked this mattress up off this truck, and me and this other guy were carrying it, and we realized pretty quickly we were not going.

To be able to bear the weight of this ourselves.

It's frankly a little embarrassing, though, to, you know, just drop it on the yard and say, nope, can't do this.

We struggled along, struggled along, trying to get it across the yard, up through the front door, and a couple others saw that we were struggling and kindly came to our help and lifted it up, and we were able to get it across.

We needed some strength that went beyond ourselves, but we were a little too proud to admit it.

We need a strength from God that goes beyond our own strength.

And when we can humble ourselves and admit our need for God's grace, that is when we're in a position to be strengthened and to be used for his glory.

When Daniel encountered God, it came in response to Daniel seeking God.

When Daniel encountered God, it gave him strength.

And then, third and finally, we see in this text that when Daniel encountered God, it gave him insight into spiritual warfare.

And when we encounter God, it gives us insight into the reality of spiritual warfare.

When we come into contact with God, we begin to see behind the scenes.

We see that there's more to life than just the material.

There's more to be seen than what the eyes can see.

There are spiritual realities about life with which we have to deal.

Realities that go beyond what we can see physically.

And here the messenger gives Daniel a glimpse in the spiritual warfare taking place behind the scenes.

Says in verse 13 that there was a struggle going on for this messenger to be able to come to Daniel.

He says, the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me 21 days.

Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me because I was detained there with the king of Persia.

In other words, this messenger says, Daniel, I was trying to come to you and deliver a vision to you.

And yet there was a battle going on in the heavenly realms, and I was prevented initially from getting here.

Michael, we've seen, is one of the angels.

And it says that there was a prince of the Persian kingdom, likely some kind of evil angel or demon or something like that.

And it says that Michael, one of the angels, came and assisted, and there was a battle going on in the heavens.

Daniel receiving a message from God was something that happened on the other side of a struggle, of a battle.

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus describes people as always seen but never perceiving.

Always seen but never perceiving.

There is a way to have 20-20 vision and yet be completely blind.

And people who don't follow Christ often aren't aware that there is more to the world than what meets the eyes.

There are spiritual realities to life.

When a person comes to faith in Christ, there's a sudden awareness of new spiritual realities.

But even as Christians, sometimes we can functionally live like atheists.

We can live as if the only thing that's real is what we can see.

When we encounter God, though, we began to see spiritual realities behind the scenes.

As a kid, of course, I was into all kinds of classic superhero stories.

Have you ever noticed that every superhero story has a showdown between a hero and a villain.

The forces of good and the forces of evil.

Batman versus the Joker.

Spider-Man versus the Green Goblin.

Superman versus Lex Luther.

A cosmic showdown between the forces of good and the forces of evil.

And that kind of a story seems to appeal to people.

Superheroes, superhero movies are popular, not just with kids, but with adults too.

It seems to appeal to an intuitive sense, perhaps we have, that there is a real struggle going on in the world.

An intuitive sense we have, but don't always live in light of.

An intuitive sense that perhaps we're aware of, but not fully living in light of.

Listen to what Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12 says.

Ephesians 6:12

The Apostle Paul says, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

When we become followers of Christ, we become part of a greater cosmic battle.

When we become followers of Christ, we've picked a side.

We've sided with Christ and against the enemy and his schemes.

And what this means is that in our Christian lives, you know, our acts of obedience or disobedience, those aren't simply choices between chocolate and vanilla ice cream.

When we choose to obey God or when we choose to disobey God, we are actually taking sides in spiritual warfare that is going on.

When we commit ourselves to being part of the mission of God and we love others the way Christ calls us to, and share the gospel with others as Christ calls us to, we are taking a side, and there are spiritual forces that we cannot see, but that are trying to oppose us.

If you are seeking to follow Christ, you are part of a spiritual battle.

We know the end of the story.

We know that God wins.

Read the book of Revelation.

It's not even a close battle, okay?

I don't want to imply here that God is somehow trying to win, but he's so incapacitated and so weak that he can't.

No, no.

God can do as he pleases, and the victory is secure.

But here in this time period before the second coming of Christ, there is this battle going on, and God allows Satan to be on a pretty long leash, even though Satan ultimately will be defeated.

And we are part of the battle.

And the day-to-day choices that we make about following Christ are part of that battle as well.

And when we seek after God, it gives us insight into this battle.

It gives us insight into the fact that we need to align ourselves with Christ and against the forces of the evil one who would oppose us.

Seeking God is the way that we engage in spiritual battle.

Seeking God is the way that we become aware of the spiritual battle.

We might think that whether or not we follow Christ is inconsequential.

But when we understand the battle, we realize that it's massively consequential.

I like what Louis Giglio says.

He says this to know, to truly know God, you have to learn to linger with him.

Lingering with the Almighty is the very best defense against the enemy who's trying to get at your table.

You stop looking at the enemy and you start looking at God.

To truly know God, you have to linger with him.

It can't be a quick high and buy.

You have to spend time in his presence.

Lingering with God is the best defense against the enemy.

Satan hates it when you pursue God, and that is all the more reason to do so.

There will be spiritual battle, there will be opposition, there will be hostility.

When we encounter God, it strengthens us for the mission and it gives us insight into the stakes.

It makes us realize that there is a spiritual battle going on, and we are called to follow Christ and live out his purposes in the world and further his kingdom.

Encountering God.

Who have you encountered in life and it left you changed?

Daniel encountered the one true God and it changed him.

When Daniel encountered God, it happened as a result of him seeking God.

Daniel encountered God, it gave him strength.

And when Daniel encountered God, it gave him insight into spiritual warfare.

Are you seeking God that you might know him?

Are you receiving strength from God when you encounter him?

And are you growing in your understanding of spiritual warfare so that you can do your part to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ?

I like an analogy here that author William Hendricks gives.

He talks about the movie Jurassic Park.

Some of you may have seen this movie.

It came out when I was a young kid and I tried to watch it.

It was too scary.

I was little, I might still be too scared, I don't know.

But in this movie, in Jurassic Park, scientists are able to clone dinosaurs from fossils, able to take old DNA of extinct dinosaurs and bring them back to life.

The extinct dinosaurs come to life.

And there's a moment in the movie when there's a paleontologist, someone who's been studying dinosaur fossils his entire life, and he actually encounters a real-life dinosaur.

And he's shocked and he's horrified.

His whole life he's been studying the fossils.

He's been looking at drawings of dinosaurs, reading about them, but then he actually encounters an alive dinosaur and he's terrified and it completely undoes him.

William Hendrick says that for many Christians, their encounter with God is a little bit like studying fossils.

They study the records of something that happened in the past, but never experience him in the present.

They study fossils of people who walked with God.

They read books about people who walked with God.

They're even perhaps around people who have encountered with God, and yet it's all like a paleontologist studying dinosaur fossils.

The real living thing just isn't there.

Is that your Christian life?

Are you studying fossils or have you encountered the real living reality of who God is?

Are you living a fossilized faith, or is your faith living and active?