Daniel 10, Awe on the Way to the Manger, Dr. John B. Carpenter

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Daniel 10 On the Way to the Manger: Awe

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Daniel chapter 10, be reading the whole chapter, hear the word of the Lord. In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a word was revealed to Daniel, who was named
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Belteshazzar. And the word was true, and it was a great conflate. And he understood the word and had an understanding of the vision.
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In those days, I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did
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I anoint myself at all for the whole three weeks. On the 24th day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, that is the
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Tigris, I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist.
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His body was like barrel, and his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude.
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And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision, for the men who were with me did not see the vision, but a great trembling fell upon them, and they fled to hide themselves.
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So I was left alone and saw this great vision, and no strength was left in me. My radiant appearance was fearfully changed, and I retained no strength.
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Then I heard the sound of his words, and as I heard the sound of his words, I fell on my face in deep sleep with my face to the ground, and behold, a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees.
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And he said to me, O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now
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I have been sent to you. And when he had spoken these words to me, I stood up trembling. And then he said to me,
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Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your
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God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty -one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision is for days yet to come.
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When he had spoken to me according to these words, I turned my face toward the ground and was mute, and behold, one in the likeness of the children of man touched my lips, and then
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I opened my mouth and spoke, and I said to him who stood before me, O my Lord, by reason of the vision, pains have come upon me, and I retain no strength.
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How can my Lord's servant talk with my Lord? For now no strength remains in me, and no breath is left in me.
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Again, one having the appearance of a man touched me and strengthened me, and he said, O man greatly loved, fear not.
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Peace be with you. Be strong and of good courage. And as he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said,
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Let my Lord speak, for you have strengthened me. And then he said, Do you know why
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I have come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia, and when
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I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come. But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth.
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There is none who contends by my side against these, except Michael, your prince.
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May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. First, thank
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Joshua and Jacob for their special music. It was awesome. It's awesome to have you all here.
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And I hope it's awesome to have Nancy back after being over a month away. And I hope you all notice how nice and clean the place is.
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I mean, Micah works all day Saturday afternoon to make it tidy for the rest of us. So that's awesome,
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Micah. Thank you. And the food looks, if you've seen the food yet, the food is awesome. We're all looking forward to eating.
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And then some of you, of course, after this have to go back to work. You have an awesome work ethic. And some others of us, we get a break.
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So we get to go home, watch some awesome TV, maybe take an awesome nap and be ready to continue in our awesomeness.
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One of the most misused and overused words over the last generation is, of course, awesome.
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It used to be a very rare word. It's only used for very exceptional occasions, extremely great and impressive things.
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The Grand Canyon is awesome. But the Denver River Walk, that's nice.
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A starry night out in the country when you get a glimpse of how enormous the universe is, that is awesome, leaving you with this feeling of how minuscule you are by comparison.
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Some lights on your tree in the front yard, that's cute. But now awesome has come to be used to give approval of whatever kind, anything that's kind of above average.
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It's just awesome. Awesome job driving to church. You didn't crash into anything. It's a shame because we need a word for those rare occasions when things are really awesome.
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When I was 14, my mother can attest to this. She's here, so I'll be a witness to this. We had just moved to central
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Florida. And then what soon learned was a typical afternoon thunderstorm came rolling through as we were swimming in this backyard pool.
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And even though I thought it was unnecessary to leave the pool, because I'm thinking, 14, anyway, what do I know? But I'm thinking, well, why get out of the pool?
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After all, what's the worst that could happen in a thunderstorm? You get wet. But anyway, we got out. And as I was standing under the awning in this backyard pool, waiting for the storm to subside, about 15 yards away, just on the other side of that pool, a bolt of lightning struck, blowing out a chunk of concrete about the size of basketball.
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There were shards of it on the roof of the house, basically shrapnel. It also hit a nearby tree, splitting it and killing it.
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If I had been in that pool, I'd be like the tree. I wouldn't be here today. My first instinct was to run inside.
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I was terrified because the lightning was awesome. Something is awesome when it's powerful, it's overshadowing, it's overpowering, it's beyond how you can describe it.
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It makes us seem tiny and powerless in contrast, leaving us in speechless wonder.
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Here in Daniel 10, we see genuine awesomeness. And we see four qualities of it.
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First, it inspires humility. Second, it reveals holiness.
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Third, it overwhelms the heart. And fourth, it comes from heaven.
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That's humility, holiness, heart, and heaven. Someone who is awesome inspires humility.
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The awesome one humbles you. Notice here what happens to Daniel when he the truly awesome.
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In verses 5 and 6, he encounters this being he sees in his vision, probably a mighty angel.
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We may call him an angel. Actually, he's not called that here in the passes, but we would describe it as that way. He's described as spectacular with the hardness of metal, gold, and marble, but bright and brilliant and shining and loud.
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Now, some people think this is God himself kind of described symbolically, but assuming this is the same being speaking to Daniel throughout the chapter, then later in the chapter, it becomes clear that this is an angel sent to Daniel to reveal the future.
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He says himself, this is what could happen to your people in the latter days and was in days to come in the future, which is the vision in chapters 11 and 12 coming just right after this.
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He's a servant of God. This being communicating this is not God himself, but because he's so close to God, he reflects some of the glory and the splendor of God.
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He is awesome, leaving Daniel awestruck. Notice in verses 7 and 9 and throughout the chapter, the impact of encountering the awesome, that is being awestruck.
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It's a humbling experience of how small and weak we are. In verse 7, the men who were with him, it was other people with him, they didn't see the vision, didn't quite know what was going on, but they had a sense of awe and so they trembled and they fled to hide.
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Daniel says in verse 8, no strength was left in me. He was overwhelmed. When he hears the sound of the words of this angel, this messenger, in verse 9, he collapses to the ground.
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It says a deep sleep, but in Hebrew, it probably means kind of any kind of unconsciousness. As he fainted, he doesn't do what many people now probably think they would do if they met an angel.
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You know, say, hey, hey, dude, you look awesome. Love the belt of gold.
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Great, great outfit you got there. Have you heard of me? Right? You've heard of me. I'm the one who interpreted
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Nebuchadnezzar's dream without him even telling me what it was or the lions didn't think.
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That was all over the news, right? That's the way people impressed with themselves would respond, but Daniel doesn't.
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He was so overwhelmed, he loses all his strength. He knew how weak he was compared to this being he's encountering and so he became weak.
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Says he lost all his strength, he collapses. And when he heard his voice, it was like an amplified voice of a multitude.
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Imagine a choir chanting at the same time, amplified. He fell on his face to the ground. Encountering the truly awesome inspires humility.
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Three times in verses 10, 16, and 18, the awesome being gently touches and encourages the awestruck
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Daniel. It's humbling when the awesome gently touches the awestruck.
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Well, first in verse 9, Daniel falls flat on his face and then in verse 10, he's humbled by being down on his hands and knees.
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Kind of a very humbling position, right? Be on your hands and knees before someone trembling. The great
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Daniel. Remember this is Daniel for whom scripture doesn't tell us if he even lost a wink of sleep.
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You know when he was threatened to be thrown in the den of lions if he didn't stop praying? Remember?
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Doesn't say anything about him and kind of any inner turmoil or whether he was anxious at all about it. He apparently had no fear of lions, but now before this reflector of the glory of God, he's down on the ground shaking.
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That's what real awe does to you. Well, the angel speaks to him in verse 11 and so he stands up finally, but still trembling, and the angel explains some of what's going on in verses 12 to 14.
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Daniel again humbled by being in the presence of someone awesome. He bows his head, says he's muted. He can't say a word.
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He's so overcome. And so in verse 16, the angel touches Daniel's mouth so that he can speak.
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Again, the awesome gently touching the awestruck. And Daniel's words in verses 16 and 17 are full of the humility that awe inspires.
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Daniel calls the angel my lord, small l, meaning my master, my superior, someone much greater than I am.
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He admits I'm weak. He stammers, how can my lord's, meaning you, my lord's servant, meaning me, talk with my lord, with you?
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How can I even talk with you? I'm your servant. The very splendor of your greatness so overwhelms me.
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I have no more strength. Otherwise, you leave me breathless. And for the third time in verse 18, the angel touched him.
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Again, the awesome gently touching the awestruck to revive him because he was so stunned.
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And this is just a reflector. This angel, just a reflector of God's glory.
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Imagine how much more awesome is the Lord himself. Do we today even have a sense of awe?
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A being so much greater than we are, so glorious that the mere sight of them just overwhelms us, leaves us bedazzled, amazed, and even terrified.
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You've heard so much about, you know, the past couple of generations. So, self -esteem. You got to think well of yourself, as though people don't naturally do that, but whatever.
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Something that they need to be constantly telling their kids how great they are. But studies have shown that kids who are constantly praised, at least particularly praised for basically doing nothing, develop narcissistic personalities and then can't handle the real world where the boss tells them that they need to improve, where everyone isn't so impressed by them.
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And then comes the gospel, which begins with the idea that all have sinned and deserve punishment, but they think, no, not me.
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I'm awesome. To come to the Lord, you need to see who is really awesome.
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And it isn't you. Second, awesomeness comes from holiness.
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To be awesome is to be holy in one way or another. There are two senses of the word holy.
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First, to be holy is to be morally pure, to be set apart from sin. That's probably the way most people think of holiness.
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We saw that in chapter 9, where Daniel prays that God is right, your ways are right, and Israel is wrong, we've sinned, we deserve what we've gotten, that they have sinned and deserve the punishment that a holy, sinless
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God brought on them. But holiness also means a radical transcendence, that is something or someone that's completely above and beyond us, of another category altogether.
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Not just improved us, but something else, something other than us. God is the creator and we're just creatures.
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He is eternal. And there was a time when we were not. He is limitless.
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We are limited. He is infinite. We are finite. That is holiness as transcendence, otherness.
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One of the doctrines that, by the way, sets Christians apart from Mormons, Hindus, and Buddhists is
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God's transcendence, that He transcends us. That kind of holiness, that God is someone eternally and radically other than us, than who we are, that we're not of the same species, not of the same category.
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Mormons believe that, and they actually say this in their teaching, that as man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man can become.
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And Hindus and Buddhists believe that we're all kind of ultimately part of the same divine universe. We're all part of the same thing.
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And so in that sense, they don't really believe in a holy God. That is a transcendent other
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God who is eternally something that we can never be, the creator.
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To them, God or gods may be great now, may be impressive now, but that's basically because they got a head start.
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You know, they've been training longer. They've been in the system longer. They're like a few years ahead of us in college or whatever, so they know more.
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But we can catch up if we follow their principles. We follow the same steps they did,
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God or gods. We can get to their category. We can be a god of our own planets, at least if we're men.
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Sorry, women, you can't. It's not good. Not for you. Whereas Christians say that when you see God or anyone close to Him like this angel, you'll see someone so awesome, you'll know that you can never approach
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His greatness. Your response won't be to think, I'll be like that one day.
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But it will be either awe -inspired worship or sheer terror like me running away from the lightning, like those companions of Daniel in verse 7, who knew there was something awesome going on.
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There was a sense of awe in the air, and so they fled. If God is truly awesome and holy, then being right with Him is the most important thing.
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The all -consuming quest, more important than everything else in this world, even in getting rich, making money.
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The sad irony of our time is that even many of those who talk about holiness, being holy, don't really know what it is.
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They often think it's a certain kind of conservative look. It's dresses down to your ankles.
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It's short hair for men, a certain style of music, going to revivals and sings and spouting the right pious things, all about appearances and sentiment, a feeling.
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Christmas is great for that feeling. There's manners and etiquette, grand cathedrals and magnificent furnishings.
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It's certainly not a small group of believers in a gym, sitting in regular chairs. They don't understand that they can't impress
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God by dress or furnishings or architecture, and that to even try shows that they don't really know the
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Lord they claim to believe in. When you get a glimpse of what Daniel saw here, a
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God so awesome that even the angels close to him are overwhelming, are breathtaking.
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When you see that God, then you'll see what it means to worship God in splendor and holiness.
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God's awesomeness inspires humility. It reveals holiness. And third, it fills the heart.
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Now, some people, a lot of people today like to talk about head knowledge versus heart knowledge. You probably all heard that.
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Head knowledge is just the facts, that you can know the facts about Jesus. You can know your Bible books in order, how to find the book of Daniel in 2 .3
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seconds without a bookmark or having to look at the table of contents. You know about the 70th week of Daniel.
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You know exactly what it is and you're sure, or you think you do. You know facts about this or that.
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You have knowledge in your head. Then someone will ask, do you have knowledge in your heart, the experience of the
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Lord? Have you tasted, like from the Psalm, taste and see, have you tasted and seen that the
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Lord is good? You have a relationship. Now, first, I believe that that line of thinking is generally right. There is such a thing.
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There is a difference. All of that is right. If you understand, it's not either or, it's both and.
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It's not a choice between having head knowledge or having heart knowledge. You should have both.
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You should want both. Notice here, Daniel has set out to understand what
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God is doing. Says that in the very first verse, and then particularly in verse 12, he wants to know. That's how the angel describes what he was doing in verse 12.
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Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, think of that phrase, first part of that sentence, you set your heart to understand.
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Daniel wanted to know, to understand. He was seeking knowledge for his head, and he determined to get it with his heart.
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What would you think of a young man who announced that he had finally met, finally met the girl of his dreams, everything he's been looking for?
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She's perfect. I'm in love at first sight. And then you ask him, well, okay, great.
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What's her name? He said, I don't know. Where does she live? Where's she from? No, no.
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Where'd she go to school? And what's she majoring in? What's she studying? Where does she work? What kind of church does she go to?
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Tell me something about her. And he said, oh, that's just head knowledge. I don't care about head knowledge.
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It's only the heart that matters. You'd think that's really weird. Or what if the young man announced,
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I met a young woman whom I've analyzed and determined from examining 31 dimensions of compatibility, that a relationship with her has a 93 .4
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% chance of success for the first five years. And you ask, oh, okay. Well, how do you feel about her?
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I don't care about feelings. I just want to understand. Now, wouldn't you think that too is bizarre?
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Well, here in Daniel 10, he seeks with his heart to understand with his mind.
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He has a passion that consumes him in his heart to have knowledge in his mind.
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So verse one announces from the start that he got it. He got what he set his heart to get.
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What was he seeking to understand? Remember, God has made coveted promises, first to Abraham to give him as many descendants as the stars in the sky, to make him a blessing to every nation, and then to David that his descendants will rule forever.
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But things look really bad now in Daniel's time. God's people were supposed to be awesome, but now they look just awful.
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And some of them had returned. Many of them were still scattered around all the Middle East. Jerusalem was in ruins.
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They have no temple. We looked at that some last week. They were just now seeking to rebuild that temple, and he wanted to know why.
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We have these promises from God. How are they going to be fulfilled? The prophets say they're going to come to pass, but how?
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What was God doing with his people? He set his heart to understand that with his mind, to get the answer to that.
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Well, we now know, of course, that God was taking them on the way to the manger.
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And in the vision to come in the next few chapters, God will fill in some of what he did on the way to the manger to prepare the way for Christ so that he could fulfill those promises, which he did.
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And here, God reveals himself through an emissary, an angel, not as a cute, cuddly baby in a manger, so unintimidating that even the world likes to celebrate his birth, but as overwhelmingly awesome.
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Then notice how he was seeking it in verses two and three. He didn't just take a course or read a book.
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Someone publish a book, how God's promises to Israel will be fulfilled. No, he was first mourning, mourning or grieving for the condition they were in.
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He said that in verse two. What Daniel is doing here in seeking to understand is not just an intellectual exercise.
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He grieved over the state of his people, over how are God's promises going to be fulfilled.
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He was wracked in his soul over that. In verse three, he said, I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did
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I anoint myself at all for the full three weeks. That was he deprived himself of delicious food and drink.
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He didn't anoint himself to make himself look good. So in other words, no shower or hair gel. He afflicted himself, detaching himself from the luxuries.
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Remember, he's a rich man, a powerful man. He could have luxuries all he wants, but he deprived himself of it, of the comfort, of the things so that his heart could understand.
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Sometimes today we have to afflict ourselves, perhaps through fasting, perhaps withholding some indulgences from ourselves and set our heart to understand
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God. Understanding God is not all cerebral. Reformed people of all need to understand that.
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It's not all about the mind, the intellect, getting facts, understanding theology.
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You have to set your heart to do it. And it often takes more than books and classes and just studying.
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You can't know that God is awesome just by studying.
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You have to experience him like Daniel does here. And on the flip side, the truth is if you're not interested in studying, at least some, then that is likely because you've not yet seen that God is awesome.
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Once you've encountered God's awesomeness, had a sense of awe in his presence, he becomes the most interesting subject you can study.
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When you finally see that God is awesome, you long to know him.
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You set your heart to understand, to learn about him with your mind and relate to him with your feelings.
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Now, heart is not just feelings, it's your whole being. And it's not either or, it's both and.
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The heart here in verse 12 is all of you. And Daniel sought with all of his being to know the
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Lord. Have you? The awesomeness of God inspires humility, reveals holiness, overwhelms the heart, and forth comes from heaven.
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When we encounter heavenly beings, both good or bad, our response is awe.
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Daniel has been praying for three weeks. He's depriving himself when he was standing on the banks of the Tigris River.
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And finally, he sees this angel. This is truly awesome. Being is truly awesome and awe -inspiring encounter he's had with him in verse 12.
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And this angel tells him that he's come, tells Daniel that he's come to answer his prayer.
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And he was sent on the first day. He's been praying for three weeks, for 21 days.
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When he began to pray, this angel was sent to Daniel. Well, what took so long?
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What took three weeks? He says he was delayed for three weeks, not because he had to change planes in Atlanta, because there's some interference.
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And he tells us what it is. He was resisted by another being he calls the
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Prince of Persia. Now, this all begins to sound kind of strange to us modern people, but try to pay attention, see what the
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Bible says here. He's resisted by another being, the Prince of Persia, which means is it apparently an equally powerful supernatural being, what the
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Paul calls in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12, principalities and powers. And this angel, the angel that's sent to Daniel that he's so in awe of, had been withstood.
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In other words, had been resisted, had been delayed by this other being, apparently we would call demonic being, behind the
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Persian Empire, which Daniel is now in. It begins in verse 1, first year of, or second year of Darius, is the emperor of the
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Persian Empire. Daniel is in the Persian Empire. And so this Prince of Persia is able to interfere with this angel getting to Daniel.
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As Paul wrote, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
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We're not given many details of what that means. And I don't think it's profitable. It's not good to try to speculate.
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There's a lot of people that like to speculate about angels and demons and that kind of thing. And don't do that. I think it's fruitless.
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It's a waste of time. But we are told everything we need to know. Like in the military, you're told what you need to know.
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And don't worry about speculating about other things. Here, this is a spiritual war. We're in God's army. We're in God's military.
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We're told what we need to know. And this is it. Between this and Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12, where Paul tells us that they are there, there are principalities and powers.
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And Daniel chapter 10 here tells us that there are cosmic powers over nations like here, like Persia, and both either good or bad.
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And our prayers and our actions and words, they play a part in that conflict with them, that the battles on earth are one front in a heavenly war.
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Here, this angel was sent to answer Daniel's prayer. And God was taking his people on the way to the manger.
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Daniel is seeking what's happening with Israel, with God's people. What are you doing, God? And the angel said to give him the answer was delayed by three weeks by this principality and power.
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Daniel couldn't see that yet. He could only see now the trouble that they were in.
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And so God sent the angel to tell him. And he sent the angel on the first day of the prayer. But the angel didn't arrive until 21 days later when
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Michael called him, verse 13, a chief prince, what we would call an archangel.
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I don't know where we got the word archangel from, a chief prince. Although he's a prince, but he's a chief prince. So he's a prince first class.
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This angel that's sent to Daniel is now relieved by Michael. So Michael was reinforcements.
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He was a superior force. Now, so think of it. I know this all kind of seems strange to us, but think of it.
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The angel Daniel sees is so awesome, so impressive. Daniel has to be touched and revived three times before he can receive the revelation, just so overwhelmed that he can't deal with it until he's revived by the angel.
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That's how impressive this being is. And yet that angel that Daniel is so impressed by, so awestruck by, is resisted by a demonic power over Persia that's at least equally strong, meaning that the demonic princes are also impressive in power, even awesome in a way, an awful way.
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So they're awfully awesome. And so that's our enemy. That's what we're wrestling with.
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Now, all this may sound bizarre. Well, let's talk about angels and demons and archangels, chief princes battling prince demons, a heavenly struggle being reflected on earth, a two -front war, the heavenly places and its effect here on the earth.
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Sounds so supernatural. Sounds medieval. But it seems to be what this passage is telling us, that we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with these kinds of princes that the battle we're in is not just trying to overcome, you know, our own laziness.
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That's the problem. I'm just lazy or I'm just whatever, not motivated. Our own unwillingness to spread the gospel.
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No, it's more than that. Our battle isn't just intellectual. I just need to understand better.
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I need to study more. It's more than that. It's not just, well, if we only have the right arguments.
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The problem with why I have a family member or friend who won't believe, who won't put his trust in the
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Lord, who keeps living in sin, keeps going back to sin, going back to the world. The problem is I just don't have the right arguments yet.
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I haven't said the right thing yet. If only I get them right, then I can win the debate. It's a matter of intellect.
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No, it's more than that. The battle is epic. That is what heaven and earth are warring over.
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And that's an awesome thought. What this tells us is that the root cause behind our problems is much deeper and awful than what we often think.
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We might think our problem is a lack of money or a lack of customers or lack of church members or lack of companionship.
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Our problem is a husband or wife who's insensitive or a co -worker who seems impossible to get along with, a rebellious child, or it's the politics we don't like.
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It's that other party, that other politician, only we can vote him or her out, or the bad manners, the poorly raised kids coming up around us.
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It's my lack of knowledge, something like that. We might think our problem is our bad habits, the sins that we keep clinging to.
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Those all might all be problems, but the root of our problems is much deeper, or you could say, in this case, much higher.
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It's in the heavenly places where the problems are cosmic and spiritual.
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The root cause is the one rooted in heavenly places.
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That's why we need to go much deeper than just training minds and manners, just learning facts and habits.
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Like with the kids, the kids who come here for Jim Jr. or for Jim, we could teach them, you know, don't get drunk, don't use bad language, don't be sexually promiscuous, don't steal, don't be a shoplifter, be a good boy or girl, study hard, keep the rules.
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We could teach them the road to success, you know, graduate from high school, don't have kids till you get married. That's about the major two things.
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And maybe we could teach them all that, and maybe they would reform, and likely their life would be much better off for it.
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Then they die, go to hell. Just as much going to hell as if they had been a drunk or an addict, use the
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F word all the time, sleeping around, stealing. We would only have wrestled with flesh and blood, not dealt with the spiritual root cause.
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And at best, at best what we'll make is we just train our kids to be nice.
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At best what we'll do is make them into hypocrites who keep the letter of the law. But if they get a chance, they'll gladly crucify the prince, the prince chapter eight talked about, the prince of princes.
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The problem of sin is awful and awesome.
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It seems so powerful that it overwhelms our ability to deal with it.
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To think we wouldn't solve the problem of sin with just our training, our habits, our knowledge, our schooling is like thinking we can empty the ocean with a thimble.
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Far beyond what we can handle. It can't be dealt with by rules and advice and discipline.
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It requires an even more awesome power. It requires the power of God for salvation.
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Where will we find the power of God for salvation?
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Another way of putting it, how do we wrestle with principalities and powers? If the prince of Persia could resist, you know, this, this awesome angel, which we spent the first few minutes talking about how overwhelming he was, but the prince of Persia resists him.
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How are we supposed to deal with someone so powerful? This chapter suggests two things.
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First, do what Daniel is doing here. Pray. It was an answer to Daniel's prayer that God released this awesome angel in the first place.
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And second, think, you know, just consider, think about what he's doing, what's happening here.
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What the prince of Persia is resisting. In other words, why did this prince of Persia, this principality of power, what was he trying to stop?
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What was he trying to accomplish? That is, that demonic prince, remember, he's trying to keep the angel from getting to Daniel.
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He wants the word of God to be undelivered, to be returned to cinder, so the word of God doesn't get to people, so that it doesn't get out.
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The demonic prince is trying to suppress the word of God. So that tells us that to wrestle with principalities and powers, we need to spread the word as far and as wide as we can.
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We need to do what the prince of Persia here didn't want to be done, the word, getting the word out.
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That's why, besides prayer, our witnessing, our teaching, the kids of Jim Jr.
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or Jim, the youth of Jim, sharing the gospel, sharing it with your family, getting the word out.
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But that is spiritual warfare. That's our job as soldiers in God's army.
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A church as an outpost of the kingdom of God does spiritual warfare by spreading the word.
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Now, it's not our responsibility, Jude 9 and 10 tells us, to directly address these principalities and powers.
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Not even Daniel does that here. He just hears about this prince of Persia. We don't need to do that. We don't need to engage principalities and powers.
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We don't have to bind them. Some people think we have to bind the demons. No, we don't have to do that.
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The Bible never says to do that. Jesus said he is already bound the strong man. Instead, we pray like Daniel.
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Paul tells us in Ephesians 6, just after he said, you know, we wrestle not with flesh and blood, says pray at all times with all prayer and supplication.
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So we use, we pray and we use and we spread the word of God. We read it.
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We meditate on it. We sing it. We share it with friends through tracts, giving up biblical books or just plain
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Bibles, biblical songs. We let loose the revelation that the devil is trying to suppress and we'll find that the word is awesome.
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So with a word and with a touch of heaven, we can do what Daniel is told to do in verse 19.
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Look at verse 19. Daniel, be encouraged. Sure, this prince of Persia, far beyond your power, but don't worry about that.
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Even when our enemies seem awesome and awful, he says, fear not.
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Don't be afraid. Be strong. Be courageous. Be at peace.
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Just relax. You don't have to tremble. You're protected. The Lord is your keeper.
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That's what God does for those he has chosen to love. Daniel is told he is greatly loved. Twice in this chapter, the holy transcendent
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God sends an angel to tell Daniel in verse 11 that he is a man greatly loved.
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In verses 11 and 19, at the incarnation, he sent angels to tell the shepherds in the field, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace.
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And among those with whom he is well pleased, peace. Pleased as man with men to dwell.
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Among those he enjoys to greatly love.
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What other word is there to describe that than awesome?
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So think of the wonder then that this God who is so awesome that a being who merely reflects his glory, this overwhelms the great
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Daniel, that three times Daniel has to be revived before he can receive the word. Think of how much more awesome then is
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God himself and then think that that God didn't just send another angel to come and live a perfect life for us, but he came himself, the
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Son, the Son of Man in chapter 7, condescended to us to disguise himself, to disguise his awesomeness so that he could live with us, like us, as one of us, fully
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God and fully man. He is so glorious, he leaves all who see him awestruck, but he veiled that glory, veiled in flesh the
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Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity. He condescended not just to live as a mere human being, but he condescended to obey perfectly his own law so that there could be a perfectly holy man for the sinners that he's chosen to greatly love, to receive the guilt and the death that they deserve.
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That's how God and sinners are reconciled.
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From that humiliation, God raised them up, defeating all the principalities and powers.
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So joyful, all you nations rise, join the triumph of the skies.
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God showed his great love for us while we were still sinners. That God, that man is awesome.