Daniel Chapter 10 Verses 1 – 2

• It’s now the third year of Cyrus, the King of the Medes and the Persians and so we know that Daniel has remained in Babylon. He has not returned to Jerusalem and most scholars agree that he’s simply too old and most likely in poor health by now to make the trip or really… He’s well into his 90’s at this time…
• And so as he remains in Babylon, no doubt conflicted in a way, he receives this final vision that begins with this chapter and continues to the end of the book. Now this vision is detailed…we’ve seen the outline before…with the coming conqueror Alexander the Great, the Greeks, the belly and thighs of bronze from Chapter 2. The leopard with wings like a bird from Chapter 7 and the unicorn goat from Chapter 8…and so this final vision will wrap details around the Greeks and the Grecian Empire and what happened after Alexander and culminate in a vision of the end of all things…
• Now what we’ll study from here to the end of the book is so accurate, so remarkable in its fulfillment, so pin-point perfect in exactly what happened in terms of Alexander the Great and Antiochus Epiphanies that critics have gone to great lengths to explain it away…by claiming that the prophecy cannot be genuine because it is too precisely perfect and thus it must have been written much later than Daniel’s day…it must have been written during the time of Antiochus Epiphanies…yet verse two sits them in the corner like a raging child and puts them in timeout!
• "I, Daniel…" Stunning! And yet he does write, "In those days," rather than proclaiming the present and so this may have been written a bit later but one cannot deny Daniel’s selfie there…And he writes that he was mourning…

Daniel Chapter 10 Verse 3

• He ate no Big Macs, no Dunkin Donuts…drank no wine nor did he bathe…Ok guys, don’t get any ideas…ain’t nobody want to be around your super spiritual self when you haven’t showered in three weeks! Yuck!
• Oh but I’m so spiritual and I’m so Daniel-ish…what you is – is Lazarus-ish…you stinketh! Clean up man! HA! But seriously, Daniel is messed up…why? Maybe because so many Jews stayed in Babylon…Thousands upon thousands of Jews had settled in really and when Ezra led the folks back to the promised land of Moses and the victorious land of Joshua…the majority simply stayed living their lives in Babylon…
• I can see how that would do it…I see this as well and become utterly spiritually discouraged…victory right over here…promised land…the freedom has been granted…yet so many – unwilling to go. Babylon is a type of the world, a type of the flesh. It stands for all that has rebelled against God. Remember who founded Babylon right? Nimrod. The ultimate false deity. Some know him as Zeus. Some as Jupiter. Jupiter meaning literally, "God of the sky," which ultimately was repackaged into the God of the night sky or…Allah…
• All that is utterly backwards man…Babylon stands for captivity…and the people of God…free to go. Yet they stay. It is the same today. The prescribed cure found in the pages of God’s own instruction manual to His creation. Love, forgive, strive for peace…pursue it…trust in Him…find sufficiency in Him and Him alone and your heart of hearts will enter into a peace that passes understanding…the promised land of eternal life even while our mortal heart yet beats…still…some stay in Babylon…
• And so I can understand his angst as the elder of the Israelites…and he is three weeks - twenty one days - three complete and perfect cycles of seven…interestingly enough and the vision arrives…

Daniel Chapter 10 Verses 4 – 6

• Now one substance that I didn’t recognize when going through this description was beryl. Beryl is an interesting crystal. It is pure and clear with a brilliant appearance. The type we see most often is Green Beryl which also goes by the name Emerald.
• So Daniel sees a man in his describing of this being…clothed in linen with a radiant belt of gold around his waist. His body like pure colorless beryl. His face like a flash of lightning and his eyes like torches of fire…arms and feet like burnished bronze and his voice like the crashing waves of the coast.
• Now, scholars are divided as to the identify of this man. One more verse is needed in my opinion…

Daniel Chapter 10 Verse 7

• So already from verse 6, the physical description that we get…sounds awfully close to what John saw on the island of Patmos in Revelation Chapter 1 right? Revelation Chapter 1 verses 12 – 15. If this person in Daniel chapter 10 isn’t Jesus Himself then this angel shops at Jesus-Mart for his clothing and accessories! HA! And yet verse 7 I believe is very important…
• Daniel says that he wasn’t alone…there were men there with him but they didn’t see…they instead were filled with fear and bolted…Turn over to Acts Chapter 9 and look with me at verses 1 – 7…so the men there with Saul…they saw nothing as well…
• So the physical description given by Daniel, the fact that the others there saw nothing but instead were filled with a sort of fear to the point that they fled…and then one more subtle detail…

Daniel Chapter 10 Verses 8 – 9

• This Person spoke with Daniel…yet he tells us nothing of it…His words like the sound of many waters…Daniel on his face as the words come and go…and then verse 10…

Daniel Chapter 10 Verses 10 - 11

• So I have no problem with the man that Daniel sees in verses 5 and 6 being Jesus the very Son of God. What we would call a Christophany…an Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ. Why? Because I read verse 10 as a hand of another. Not the hand of the one that is described in the preceding verses.
• Daniel says that while he heard the words of the One who had a voice like many waters…he was in a deep sleep…in verse 11, the voice is heard while he is on his knees trembling…chronologically, to me, they are separated and so I lean towards the Person that Daniel saw at the beginning of the vision being the Person of persons…the King of Kings Himself!
• And so another, an angel standing in the presence of Daniel and the presence of Jesus now speaks to him and we know this is an angel by some of what he says…

Daniel Chapter 10 Verses 12 – 13

• What we just read is both encouraging and revealing. Revealing because now we know that this angel that speaks with Daniel now…is not Jesus. No way Jesus could be withstood, restrained, limited…Not a possibility, period. Also, this shows us a dichotomy of sorts in the angelic realm. This angel sent from God, yet withstood by another. And so we know, we can conclude that the Prince of Persia is indeed not one sent by God…or…he is evil. Not only evil, but powerful and so many believe this to be Lucifer, the fallen, himself.
• We learn here that Michael is one of the chief princes, in other words there are angels over angels and Michael is one in a grouping of chiefs…and he is able to come and help…Very revealing indeed into the angelic realm…
• Now encouraging because of what was said…since you started praying Daniel…since the very first word uttered…the answer was on its way…but notice, HOW did he pray? "God, You owe me…You’re not being fair…Where are You?" Nope. Since the day that Daniel set his heart to understand and to humble himself before God…THAT is the moment in time that the answer is dispatched…
• But why 21 day? Why not 21 seconds? Because God’s timing is perfect…7+7+7…the answer arrives at the perfect time to glorify the Father, reveal the Son and exalt the Holy Spirit. God’s grace at God’s pace…

Daniel Chapter 10 Verses 14 – 16

• Now I see a third there…another angel that touches Daniel to minister to him and encourage him to speak…

Daniel Chapter 10 Verse 17

• He’s simply overwhelmed…overwhelmed by the years of powerful revelational visions…overwhelmed by the vision of the Glorious One…He finds no strength and even no need to talk…which is often the case when a true encounter with Jesus occurs…

Daniel Chapter 10 Verses 18 – 21

• So the heavenly realm is revealed…the Prince of Persia, evil. The Prince of Greece, evil. The Prince of Israel, Michael…and Michael whips ‘em all…Israel may seem weak and small and timid and insignificant in our world in terms of stature and power, but in the heavenly realm, the realm that is real…it’s the strongest of them all…
• And what we will see as the rest of the Book of Daniel unfolds is that the source of the strength is God Himself. The source of strength here in this chapter, God Himself. The source of any strength at any time to last through testing and even into the next life…is God Himself. Oh that we who hear this would understand…
• The point of it all is not the heavenly star wars that we see going on…the point of it all is not the mourning of an old man seeing visions and revelations…the point of it all is that the interaction between God and man is established when we are found trembling on our knees with our palms down…setting our hearts to understand and to humble ourselves before God…that is the posture of the promised land…
• 21 verses, a perfect and complete point…a point that caused an entire generation to wander their whole lives away complaining and complaining and complaining…yet when they died a new generation was born…Israel was born again as it were…and Joshua, the High Priest, led them in…