Word of Salvation – Vol.50 No.37 – October 2005

 

Old Testament Opposition to the Gospel

 

Sermon by Rev J De Hoog on Daniel 10 (part 1)

Scripture Reading:  Ezra 1

Suggested Hymns:  BoW 23; 20; 433

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ…

Have you ever wished that you could see an angel, or that you could have a vision of the greatness of God? Perhaps after reading this chapter you might think twice about that kind of wish. Daniel’s experience doesn’t seem like the kind of experience to be envious of. Far from being elated by the vision, Daniel is drained of all strength, deprived of speech and almost unconscious. Three times he needs the healing touch of his heavenly visitor before he is ready to hear the Word of God from his mouth.

Chapter 10 gives us a glimpse of spiritual warfare in the heavenlies. Notice how the messenger was delayed in coming to Daniel. Daniel has been fasting and mourning and praying for three weeks. And for all of those three weeks, while Daniel was mourning and praying, and trying to understand, there was conflict in heaven.

See it in verse 12. “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’.”

These words are depicting spiritual warfare, conflict in heaven. I want to go into more detail about this spiritual conflict next time. Today, just notice it. There are spiritual forces at work that are trying to stop the messenger from coming to Daniel. Indeed, they manage to detain this messenger from God for twenty-one days. For those twenty-one days, Daniel mourns and prays and fasts. Then at last the messenger can “get through” to Daniel, and he gives Daniel the message of Chapters 11-12.

Now as I said, we will investigate this conflict in more detail next time. Today, I want you to take one very important point home with you. There is a message that the spiritual forces opposed to God do not want Daniel to hear. What is that message? When we study Chapters 11-12 in detail, we will come to understand that the message these evil spiritual forces are opposing is the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What we have here in Daniel 10 is an example of Old Testament opposition to the gospel!

Let’s begin by thinking about the overall setting of this passage. The first thing to understand is that Chapters 10-12 are a single unit – they make up one long vision. Chapter 10 is actually an introduction to the vision. Just see the continuity in these three chapters. Daniel is receiving a revelation from a heavenly messenger. Look at him in verse 5. “I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of finest gold round his waist.” In verse 16 he is called, “the one who looked like a man.” Again, in verse 18 he is called “the one who looked like a man.” Then if you go across to Chapter 12:6-7, he is called “the man clothed in linen” a couple of times. These three chapters belong together. Chapter 10 introduces the single vision contained in Chapters 11-12.

Let’s understand the situation. Chapter 10:1, “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.”

Daniel is in mourning. He says he uses no lotions at all during the three weeks. It was a normal part of everyday personal grooming to anoint yourself with a little oil as a sign of health and well-being. But Daniel refrains from this normal part of his morning routine, and neither does he eat choice food or drink wine for those three weeks. He is in mourning. Why is he mourning? He is mourning because once again he is being told that the end of the exile is not the end of trouble for Israel. [Repeat]

Think about how the situation in Daniel’s life is unfolding. Notice the year: Verse 1, “In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia…” The year is 537 BC. It’s a very significant time. Cyrus was the Persian king who had taken over the Babylonian Empire on behalf of the Medes and Persians. Cyrus had made a very significant decree in his first year of rule. You can read about Cyrus’ decree in Ezra 1.

Ezra 1:1, “In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfil the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it into writing: ‘This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you – may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem”.’ “

Cyrus had made this decree in the first year of his rule, in 539 BC. Do you remember what else had happened in 539 BC? We saw it last time, in Daniel 9. Daniel 9:1, “In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler of the Babylonian kingdom…” By the way, this Darius the Mede is most likely Cyrus’s chief general. Babylon was destroyed by the Medes and the Persians. Cyrus was the Persian king, and Darius was a Mede who was most likely Cyrus’s chief general or an important right hand man of Cyrus. See how it says that Darius was made ruler of the Babylonian kingdom. Who made him ruler? Cyrus did. The first year of Darius the Mede is the first year of Cyrus the king of Persia.

Anyway, Daniel 9:1, “In the first year of Darius…I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last forty years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.” And then comes that magnificent prayer of Daniel’s that we studied last time.

So, here is what is happening. Daniel has been in exile for seventy years. He is about ninety years old and has served the Lord faithfully all his days. In the first year of Darius, which is the first year of Cyrus, which is 539 BC, he understands from reading the Book of Jeremiah that the desolation of Jerusalem is to last for seventy years. So he prays in great humility and repentance for the restoration of Jerusalem. God has promised that after seventy years Jerusalem would be restored. Now the seventy years are over, and so Daniel prays that the Lord would keep his promise and restore Jerusalem. It’s God’s heavenly timetable, and Daniel prays that God will keep his promise.

So what happens in answer to Daniel’s prayer? Cyrus makes his decree that the people of Israel should return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple of the Lord! And as we read in Ezra, God made sure this happened in a particular way. “In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfil the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm…” Daniel claimed the promise of Jeremiah in his prayer, and, in order to fulfil his Word through Jeremiah, God moved Cyrus’s heart to make the decree.

What a momentous year it was, 539 BC! How Daniel must have rejoiced over the answer to his prayer! At last the people are returning to the land, just as God had promised they would through the prophet Jeremiah! The exile is over! Jerusalem is being rebuilt!

Now, in Daniel 10, it’s two years later. It’s 537 BC. Many Israelites have gone back to the land. Daniel has remained in Babylon – he is old; and he is a very important official in Darius’ regime – one of the three top administrators. He can’t make the trip back. But his great hope that the people might go back to the land is being fulfilled. The exile is over!

Why then is he mourning? All his hopes are being fulfilled! The prophecy of Jeremiah is being fulfilled! Why is he mourning?? He is mourning because once again he is being told that the end of the exile is not the end of trouble for Israel.

Please understand something about Chapters 10-12. The message of these chapters is very much a reinforcement and an expansion of what God has already revealed to Daniel. In fact, if you take Chapter 8, then nearly every verse in Chapter 8 reappears in identical or similar form in Chapters 10-12. Why all this repetition? What is it that God really wants Daniel to get?

God is reinforcing and expanding the message of Chapter 8 and Chapter 9.

Chapter 8 – yes, Daniel, the exile will end, and the temple will be rebuilt and the daily sacrifices and the worship of Israel will be reinstituted. But Daniel, understand that there are still very difficult times ahead for Israel. You may remember that Chapter 8 has much to say about what it calls the little horn, who will take away the daily sacrifice and will set himself up as God in God’s temple.

When we studied this, we saw that the little horn points to the terrible times Jerusalem suffered under the Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes, and further it points ahead to the final destruction of Jerusalem under the Roman general Titus, and even further it points ahead to all the coming antichrist figures who persecute and oppose God’s people throughout history and set themselves up as god or God’s replacement, and even further still, the little horn of Chapter 8 points to the final Antichrist figure who will set himself up as god in the Lord’s temple at the end of time and cause astounding devastation, until his end comes when Jesus Christ blows him away with the breath of his mouth. It’s all pointed to in Daniel 8. Yes, the exile is nearly over, but the end of the exile does not mean the end of trouble for Israel, for God’s people.

And then, Chapter 9. The seventy years of exile are over, and the people can return to the land. Yes, God will keep his promises and Jerusalem will be rebuilt. But Daniel, don’t look so much at the seventy years of Jeremiah’s prophecy. Rather, look at the seventy ‘sevens’ of Gabriel’s message to you in Daniel 9. Great trouble still lies ahead for God’s people, including the cutting off of the Anointed One, the death of the Messiah, and, yes, once again, the destruction of Jerusalem. O Daniel, realise that the end of the exile is not the end of trouble for the people of Israel, for the people of God!

Twice Daniel has been given this same message, once in the third year of Belshazzar’s reign in Chapter 8, and once in the first year of Darius’s reign, the year of Cyrus’ decree, in Chapter 9. Now in Chapters 10-12 the message is repeated a third time. And Daniel’s response is to mourn. He is at last beginning to understand that the great hope of his life, the end of the exile and the restoration of Jerusalem, is going to prove to be empty and disappointing. Daniel needs to refocus his hope on something much greater than the end of the exile and the restoration of Jerusalem.

Here is the purpose of Chapters 10-12, in keeping with the purpose of Chapters 8 and 9. God gives Daniel this revelation so that he, Daniel, and his people, the people of Israel, can refocus their hope. Yes, God will keep his promise. The city and the temple will be rebuilt. But God’s keeping of his promise to bring the people home from Babylon is meant to point his people to a much greater keeping of promise: the sending of the Messiah, the sending of the Christ, the final forgiveness of sin and the true restoration of God’s people. Restoring them not just to the land, but to fellowship with God and to eternal life.

Here is the message that the spiritual forces of darkness in the heavens are opposing. Here is why the messenger from heaven is delayed for twenty-one days until the powerful angel Michael comes to his assistance and enables him to “get through” to Daniel. The powers of darkness are opposing the message of the gospel, which refocuses hope on Christ!

We have already seen that message displayed throughout these chapters so far, haven’t we? In Daniel 7 we saw the little horn waging war against God’s people and oppressing and subduing them, until one like a son of man came with the clouds of heaven and was given authority, glory and sovereign power over all people, nations and men of every language. That Chapter promises that the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it for ever and ever. And Jesus, the Son of Man, has come, and has announced the kingdom, and will come again one day on the clouds of heaven to gather all his own to himself forever.

In Chapter 8 we saw the little horn once again waging war against God’s people, but the promise was repeated that his power will be destroyed, but not by human power. For Jesus Christ will destroy him with the breath of his mouth and the splendour of his coming.

In Chapter 9 we were pointed to the seventy ‘sevens’ set aside for the accomplishment of God’s great purposes of salvation, which included the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ, being cut off and having nothing. But that apparent defeat on the Cross of Calvary was the signal for the final victory of all God’s purposes and the salvation of all God’s people.

This is the message that is repeated in Chapters 10-12; this is the message that the dark forces of evil do not want Daniel to hear and to record for the sake of his people. But God is sovereign, and the message is spoken and recorded in Scripture and it is for the salvation of all who believe in Jesus Christ. Listen to its climax in Chapter 12:2-3. “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.”

We are going to consider next time, Lord willing, the nature of the spiritual warfare we have caught a glimpse of in Chapter 10. But realise that this warfare revolves principally around the message of the gospel, the message about Jesus Christ.

In 1996 I was speaking with one of my colleagues, the pastor of another congregation. He told me that before he preaches, every time before he goes to church and prepares to preach, he prays in a very specific way. He prays that the kingdom of Satan might be defeated or pushed back, that backsliders might be turned around, that the Spirit would empower his preaching and the congregation’s hearing, and that God may be glorified and his kingdom increase.

It seems to me that he is thinking right to pray in this way. The warfare today, in this time after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, centres around the message of the gospel. Indeed, even in Old Testament times, in Daniel’s day, the conflict focussed around this message. It is this message that we must guard; it is this message that we must proclaim, and we must pray for those who proclaim it. Amen.