Click here to download the sermon.
Recap of 8/7/11 (Daniel 10:1-9)
1. J. Vernon McGee said of Daniel 10, “We are moving into a very eerie section. Maybe you would call it weird or strange. The veil of the spiritual world is partially and momentarily pulled aside, and we get a look into the unseen world. There is nothing here to satisfy the morbid curiosity of an idle spectator. However, there is enough to produce a beneficial and sobering effect upon the humble believer similar to the effect that it produced upon Daniel.”
2. The background to Daniel 10-12, the last vision of the book, is as follows. The Jewish exiles had begun to return to Jerusalem, the exile was ending, the Temple was being rebuilt, and it seemed that at last Israel might be in the land in peace. The year of the vision is 536 B.C. Daniel’s vision, however, is not a vision of peace but a vision of war, of suffering, of persecution, of testing and crisis for Israel. This prompts Daniel to mourn, to fast, and to pray for clarification.
3. Daniel has a vision of an angelic visitor. All his companions fled leaving Daniel alone with the angel. God often moves in our lives to remove the props which unwittingly get in the way of our hearing Him. He separates us from the familiar, the routine, the comfortable to have our complete attention. He uses that alone time with us to give us a fresh vision of Himself, to renew our commitment to Him first. Often other people and circumstances (not bad in themselves) serve to distance us from really knowing God.
4. The first casualty of that aloneness was Daniel’s strength. As Matthew Henry said: “Before God gives strength and power to His people he makes them aware of their own weakness.”
