The Book of Daniel: Daniel 10
Pastor Tyler Speck from CoaH Brookline preaches from Daniel 10 about the spiritual forces acting behind the scenes in our world. Discussion points: Spiritual forces behind the scenes are always influencing what we can see in the physical world, it is possible that the man who came to Daniel was the preincarnate Jesus, we can trust that God is good and working in our world even when we can’t see it.
-
Scripture reader: [Daniel 10:1-14] In the third year of Cyrus, King of Persia, a word was revealed to Daniel, who was named Beltashazzar, and the word was true, and it was a great conflict, and he understood the word and had understanding of the vision. In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for 3 weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all for the full 3 weeks.
On the 24th day of the first month as I was standing on the bank of the great river, that is the 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. His body was like beryl. His, 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. 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.
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. Then I heard the sound of his word, and as I heard the sound of his word, 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, and he said to me, O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you. And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling.
Then he said to me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 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.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Preacher: Good morning. Good to be with you all. Like Fletcher said, my name's Tyler. Always a privilege and a joy to come and be with you all, a number, number of times over the past few years. And so really great to see you guys. almost didn't make it. my Uber driver decided it was a really good idea to speed this morning, and at one of the lights we were approaching, the, the car started just drifting sideways and I was like, you're gonna hit that car in front of you and. Luckily he didn't, the car stopped and I'm not kidding, this dude puts it in park and turns off the car. I think he just needed to reset his like body, mind and soul after that experience.
So but we made it, you guys made it the great snowstorm apocalypse of 2025, right, where we got a foot of snow. Just continuously disappointed the past two years. I just, I, I feel like my hot take right now, there is nothing worse than 4 inches of snow because it's just enough that you're annoyed. But not enough that you're excited, so it's just like, come on, I don't know, maybe next week we'll get a foot of snow that's, that's what I was hoping for, but anyways, glad to be with you guys, glad to dive into Daniel 10.
So many years ago, more than you kind of, might think my best friend, his name is Josh and I, we auditioned for, the school musical, kind of honestly a little bit as a joke, we had absolutely no acting ability, no acting background, no musical ability, whether it's our, our voices or instruments, no background in that, we just kind of thought like this would be a fun way to just be absolutely ridiculous together. no interest, no expectations, no anything like that, but for whatever reason we thought it'd be a good idea, we thought it'd be fun, we tried out and to our surprise we both actually got roles, and I think maybe there's this idea of like two seniors and, I don't think there are actually any seniors in the kind of theater group at that point in time, having them, kind of join the play would be a good thing. I remember hearing a year later that they actually used us as a way to try to get people to join the play, and they said, I, I, this is a quote, they said, Josh and I were examples of being able to be in the play without much ability.
The roles we were given, they weren't main characters, right? They were minor roles, but, but they were more than just kind of like an ensemble like background role, or a behind the scene kind of role. there were a couple of times the play was Grease by the way, there are a couple of times where there were only like 3 or 4 people on stage and we were 2 of them for like a couple of entire songs singing and dancing and doing cartwheels and and kind of some things of that nature, and, so it was fun. Prove it. No, yeah, I said this was a long time ago. Yeah, I kid you not, yesterday was the first time I hurt my back without doing anything. I just, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just like stood up and I'm like that hurt. And it kept hurting.
So anyways, but we got, we, we, we did this play. It was a fun time I remember entering into this world of theater, this world of singing and acting that I was not familiar with, and something that took me by surprise was how big the team behind the curtain was. whether it's the tech team or stage managers, the director, prop creation, choreography, there's actually more people behind the scenes at every single point in time than there ever was kind of on the stage in the scene, and I initially kind of arrogantly thought at first like that they were kind of maybe less important that those teams behind the scenes were less important, but if you spend any time in theater, or any time in even the kind of movie production or anything like that, you actually realize the show doesn't happen without them. Right?
Without a playwright who goes unseen in the play, the play, the musical doesn't even exist, right? With a stage director, the things you see unfold wouldn't have even been brought to life to begin with. Now of course the actors and actresses and the musicians on stage, they are important, right? They're doing very important work and their job is very difficult and they bring a certain personality and certain skill set to the thing but the reality is they wouldn't be up there doing the things they're doing without the people behind the stage kind of behind the scene. In other words, what I'm really getting at, the thing that surprised me was that really it was the unseen, kind of the behind the curtain things that people, the behind the curtain things and people that dictated the play.
Right and this is something that's true not just for plays and musicals, but many aspects of life. Right, politicians and governments, businesses, many movies, right, whether it's The Wizard of Oz, it's kind of like the, the, the, the ultimate behind the, the curtain scene, right? Or, Thanos in the first two Avengers movies, right, kind of unseen pulling the strings, sports organizations, right? You saw this this week with Luca if you know, you know.
But maybe, arguably, definitely, most importantly. We see this with spiritual things, supernatural things. When I say spiritual, I don't just mean spiritual beings, God, angels, demons, right, the devil, and I don't just mean this kind of generic idea of religion. When I say spiritually, I kinda mean that holistically for your own self too. And I mean that personally. I mean, why do certain things happen in your life? Right, maybe you're here in a constant refrain in your life is sort of just like God, like why? You look around and you're confused and and what do we do with that? We're very logical people, right? We try to take stock and inventory of what's happened up to this point and try to kinda trace this narrative to make sense of things and. We look at what's in front of us, right? We look at what's on the stage, we don't look behind the scenes.
But what our passage would actually show us today is that there's far more to it than just what's on the stage. Right, our passage shows us that there are things behind the curtain. Whether it's with just a scene like this or whether it's with the entirety of reality, right? Scripture actually challenges our version of reality because there's far more to our reality than what we just see. What I mean, well, for example, that terrible relationship with your boss who's constantly demeaning you, taking credit for your work and it's just rude, there's probably more to it than just that's the way he is. That crippling anxiety you feel when you're about to step out in faith and do something bold and the anxiety kinda keeps you back from it, there's a good chance it's more than just oh you struggle with anxiety. Right, the current administration, whether you have a positive view or a negative view. There's more to it than just this is just what this country needs or our country will never be the same.
But there's more to it than what meets the eye. There are forces unseen, good and evil unseen behind all of these things. As Daniel says in verse one, there's a great conflict that is happening. You see, to understand what's going on here, your life, your relationships, your mind. To understand what's going on here, you have to understand what's going on up there. And the unfortunate side note of that is we can't always do that as mere humans, by the way. Abraham Kuyper has a good thought, and he speaks to this he says if once the curtain were pulled back and the spiritual world behind it came to view, it would expose to our spiritual vision a struggle so intense, so convulsive, sweeping everything within its range that the fiercest battle ever fought on earth would seem by comparison, a mere game, not here but up there. That is where the real conflict is waged. Our earthly struggles drones in its backlash.
We see this idea all over our passage, and this is quite frankly a theme that reverberates through the entirety of the book of Daniel, right, but it's really on display in our passage we get a glimpse into the unseen, right, an unseen angelic and demonic battle, cosmic battle going on that we see that what is unseen is dictating the scene conflicts. We see that idea broadly speaking that what is unseen is dictating the scene. And that's our main point for today as we look at this passage, as we work through it, the unseen dictates the scene. we're just gonna do two things, two kind of questions we're gonna answer. What does it mean as we work through the passage and then why does it matter? In other words, why should I care? What does this do for me?
So before we dive in to what it means just to very briefly catch everyone up to speed, Daniel 1 through 6 stories that if you grew up in church you probably learned about, right? Daniel and the lion's den, the handwriting on the wall, the fiery furnace, all of these kind of, fun stories that are true but they're very memorable, your kids, if you have kids will probably learn about the MOA kids. Daniel 7 through 12, not so much. Right, things you probably don't remember or didn't learn about if you grew up in church. And these are decisively more difficult passages to understand, right? That's why Fletcher himself said he needed a break, right? You can only do so many of these tough passages in a row, and, and quite frankly it's a different style of literature, right? if Daniel 1 through 6, it's a little bit of more narrative it's kinda for the most part one story, one event after another that you can kind of read and understand, but then the genre kind of shifts a little bit, right?
And it's apocalyptic literature is what we would call it, if you've been around the church, you've seen Left Behind. Or any kind of crazy doomsday movie that's probably what images come to your head and that's not entirely incorrect, right, but it's not just wow look at how the world ends or wow look at what's going to happen in this crazy end of times kind of cosmic battle. But it's much more intentional than that. It's much more kind of particular. The word apocalyptic can be translated as unveiling secret or revealed. In other words, God is showing Daniel something. I remember this vision along with the others that Daniel's received at this point is at a given to him at a particular time in a particular place in a particular culture and for a particular purpose. It's God revealing something to Daniel that he wants Daniel and us to see.
But if you remember Daniel's culture by the way, a particular time place and culture that is increasingly godless in thought and action, increasingly anti-God and increasingly difficult to be Jewish. Compare that to our current particular time, place, and culture that is mostly godless in thought and action, increasingly anti-God of the Bible and increasingly difficult to be a Christian. To you and I, we're not being thrown into the lion's den. We're not being forced into an oven, but we do desperately need in the same way that Daniel did to know what God is communicating through these through these things and just what kind of the message or the purpose is behind these things.
So first, should be noted, what is actually happening in the majority of this passage is Daniel is being prepared to receive another vision in chapters 11 through 12, which you guys will be covering next week. But when you consider just chapter 10, I think what is kind of, what we said earlier, what's being shown is that there are unseen forces, things, beings at work that are really kind of pulling the strings. So to walk through, what does it mean?
Daniel, at this point, if you didn't know, he's probably I think towards the end of his life he's in his 80s, to kind of put that in the frame of the rest of the book, he was likely 1415, 16, and Daniel won, and so he's in his old age and in his old age he's fasting, right, verse 2. In those days I, Daniel was mourning for 3 weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all for the full 3 weeks. Why is you fasting? Well, most likely if you know your Bible, biblical timeline or the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, you know Cyrus, the king of Persia, says decree that the, the Jewish people could go back into the land of Judah and go back and start rebuilding their temple, and that process started, but it kind of came to a screeching halt. There were politicians, other governments, people that just didn't want to see that happen, and so they're kind of infringing upon that, making that more difficult.
And so, most think that this is kind of maybe the reason why Daniel is fasting. He's so troubled by this that he wants to stop and fast and seek God and say God, why is this happening to my people? We aren't sure why he's not with them. Maybe it's his old age. Maybe it's kind of his place in, the government and the place he was serving and was in maybe it made sense for him to stay there, but this might be why he was fasting and after 3 weeks in, he sees a vision or the, the Daniel calls it a word, right? A word was revealed to him.
He sees a vision of a man, verse verse 5. I lifted up my eyes and looked and behold, a man clothed in linen with a belt of fine gold around his waist. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the glee of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude. The pastor goes on to say that just seeing this man just brought Daniel to utter ruin. He had no strength, right, he completely collapsed, he couldn't speak, he couldn't move, so it seems, and he fell into a deep sleep.
Who is this man? Who is this man that could cause such a thing to happen? Admittedly it's debatable, right? Most scholars and commentaries either think it's an angel, who is representing the very power of God, or some scholars and commentators think it is the pre-incarnate Christ that Daniel got a glimpse of the Jesus before he came to earth. Now the thing with with this kind of vision that he saw in any of the other prophecies in Daniel, we can only go as far as scripture will allow us, and scripture does not definitively identify this man and so at the end of the day we have to say that we cannot 100% know.
But to give you my two cents, I do personally think Daniel saw a glimpse of Jesus. But I think that well the parallels for when other people across scripture came into contact contact with Christ are pretty similar. Take Revelation for example, John, who wrote Revelation, has a vision where he sees Jesus, where Daniel describes this man as clothed with a linen garment which is and can be a robe. John in Revelation 13 described Jesus also in a vision as dressed in a robe. Where Daniel describes him as as as wearing a belt with gold, Revelation describes him as wearing a wide golden belt. Or Daniel describes him as having a face with the appearance of lightning and eyes as flaming torches. Revelation describes his face shining like the sun and his eyes like a fiery flame.
And it goes on and there's a lot more parallels like this and beyond Jesus's physical description, also the, the way that people reacted in his presence are very similar too. Daniel, John and Paul all kind of fell at the presence of Jesus, all kind of shuddered at his presence. And also what adds to this, I think more likely being Jesus is that it isn't the first time Jesus is mentioned in the book of Daniel, this is Jesus. He's actually shown up a number of times with visions and prophecies, right? Daniel too, if you remember there's a little line about a stone being cut out of the mountain that trumps other kings and kingdoms. This is Jesus. Jesus is quite possibly the fourth man in the fire in Daniel 3. Jesus is the fuller picture of Daniel in the lion's den in chapter 6, an innocent man being put to death for the sins of other people that he didn't commit.
Jesus is the son of man in Daniel 7. If you remember that, he's given dominion and glory in a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. And so this picture of Christ in chapter 10 is not new to the book of Daniel and to use some language from a commentary, it's the culmination or crescendo of Messianic revelation in the book of Daniel, the climax of the revealing of Jesus in the book of Daniel. And it brings him to utter ruin.
The men that were with Daniel began to tremble. And they couldn't even see what Daniel saw. Again, the unseen dictating the scene. And Daniel has no strength and he falls asleep until verse 11. An angel comes and speaks to Daniel and the angel says this oh Daniel man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you. Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you have been you have set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before God, your words have been heard, and I've come because of your words.
Two quick things I want to point out that this angel kind of sheds light on. Don't forget Daniel, he's absolutely overwhelmed at this point. Right, we, we read that idea and it kind of just in and out of our minds maybe like always having our time or always kind of on the ground, but that's not too far off from you receiving the worst possible news that you could think of and all you can do is just collapse to the floor and cry can't move, can't be consoled. That's what kind of situation the angel is entering into and what does this heavenly being do?
First he encourages Daniel to not be afraid. But look closely though, he encourages them not to be afraid for a very specific reason. If you caught it, What he doesn't say I don't be afraid because God is going to work out everything in the way that you hope he's going to when it comes to your people and their situation. What he doesn't say is fear not, God is going to make sense of your life. What he doesn't say is fear not. God is going to eventually make you understand every little part of the vision that you're seeing. Now, what does he say? He says, fear not because God hears you.
I think some of us would do well to realize that there is far greater comfort, resolve, strength and courage available to us in knowing that God hears us. Rather than knowing or thinking that it's going to be OK. Why? Well, roots are being OK in the person and presence of God rather than our being OK being in circumstance or understanding.
This angel goes on to mention that he was delayed. During the time that Daniel was fasting, verse 13, the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days. But Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the king of Persia. What do we do with that? I think it's actually an interesting look into how real life events were impacted by the unseen. If you caught in the first part of the passage, how long was Daniel fasting and mourning? 3 weeks, 21 days. How long was the angel delayed? 21 days. In other words, this battle the angel was involved in had a real-time impact. The unseen battle that the angel was involved in had a real life impact on Daniel. And is waiting.
This shows a side note that it's very possible that the delay and the waiting that you might feel in your life is far more than just God's not showing up. The silence you feel from God, it's more than just he's not answering and remember what we said a minute ago, right? That the comfort comes in knowing that he actually hears you. After all this, the angel says all that and Daniel's overwhelmed again. But once again be strengthened and encouraged by the heavenly beings and the angel says to Daniel, oh man, greatly love, fear not, peace be with you. Be strong and of good courage. Now I will return to fight against the Prince of Persia and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come.
In other words, the cosmic battle rages on. And later on Greece is going to be involved. Some think that this is a reference directly to Alexander the Great. But at the very least what this is saying is that more nations more kingdoms, more kings, more powers will come into this conflict in the future and will be heavily involved in this ongoing cosmic battle. So that's sort of What it means, what's happened in this passage. But the more relevant question is maybe why does it matter? This battle that we know rages on to this day but is depicted in our passage 2500 years ago. Why does it matter? Why does it matter for me? What bearing, what impact does this have on my life?
Three things we see and then we'll close. First thing is to recognize that there are spiritual forces behind worldly forces, worldly powers. If God sets up and takes away certain governments and authorities as Romans 13 tells us, that also means that as we see in our passage, those who oppose God are working to do the same thing. Now what are we to do that with that I think it's something to simply be acknowledged rather than figured out. The only thing scripture actually has us do when it comes to that, is to obey so as long as we're in line with the biblical commands and to pray for those in places of authority. Romans 13 let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
Or 1 Timothy 2. First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life godly and dignified in every way. In other words, it's not our job to figure out who's kind of behind these people in places of power. Which side note if I could be blunt. Depending on your political leanings, especially if you have very strong feelings, it's pretty easy to see whomever is in power, whether someone like Donald Trump or Joe Biden as totally sent by God or as totally a servant of the devil. But I think scripture would actually challenge us with that. Remember our main idea there's so much more going on that we can't see and don't understand.
And quite frankly, the stories across scripture would disagree with that idea, right? There's so many people in power across all of scripture that did morally detestable things, yet God completely ordained them to be in that position of power for his purposes. And the flip side of that is true too. There are people all across scripture that are fairly righteous, good people, and guess what? They didn't even come close to a position of authority or high influence. What do we do with those uncomfortable thoughts?
I think one, it ought to bring us to a place of humility. There's a greater plan going on that we can't grasp. Now we would likely won't know his reasoning for placing certain people in power. We won't know his reasoning for removing kings and kingdoms, presidents, nations. The unseen is dictating the scene and it's not our job to figure it out figure it out, it's our job to trust the God behind it all. That's what scripture encourages us to do. And a key distinction here is we're not supposed to trust that God's gonna work it out in the way we want it to, we're supposed to trust that his plans are good even when it doesn't make sense. And we're supposed to trust that he is good even when it doesn't seem like it from the outside.
So first, there are spiritual forces behind worldly forces. Second, spiritual warfare is a real is real and it impacts you personally. Spiritual warfare is real and it impacts us personally. It's not just some far off battle that's depicted in our passage in Daniel. And it's not just only over nations and kings and kingdoms and people and places of high authority though that is certainly a key strategy. It's real and it impacts us personally. Whether you know it or not, you've likely been involved in this. Some sort of spiritual attack. Whether it's you or your family, your job, your mental health. And it could be easy when you think of these things, by the way, to kind of fall into extreme thinking.
CS Lewis, one of his more famous quotes, there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence, the other is to believe and feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. And so I would argue that most of us actually typically probably do one of the one of two things. We either overestimate how much spiritual attack comes our way and us underestimate how much sin and our own faulty decisions play into things or we underestimate how real spiritual attack and spiritual warfare is and overestimate ourselves.
So what do we do with this? The third and last thing we see. We see Daniel do this as we are to engage in this. How, why? Well, without even knowing, so it seems he doesn't know, Daniel is engaging in this. Ready fasted and prayed, verse 2 again. And then the angel came to him in verse 12 and said, What? Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humble yourself before your god, was to say your words have been heard. And I have come because of your words.
The prayers of Daniel literally prompted an angel to do something. The prayer and the fasting, the seeking God that Daniel did prompted heavenly beings to do something, prompted God to act. We have to be encouraged by that. Right, we ought to engage in that. We ought to be in prayer and fast and seek God about these sorts of things. Paul in the New Testamenty gives us an even more kind of more direction and more clarity as to what that looks like. Ephesians 6 verse 10, finally be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, having done all to stand stand firm.
This whole chapter, people tend to naturally so move beyond that and look to kind of the armor of God, right, the belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shield of faith, and so on. But look at verse 10 how Paul actually sums up all of this. He says finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. In other words, At the end of the day, we engage in this spiritual battle. We engage in spiritual warfare by engaging with God. And we engage in this battle knowing that it's his strength and it's his power and it's his might that wins. And he always wins, by the way. Your demons, your spiritual struggles, your sins, Jesus always wins that fight for you.
And it's Jesus' fight, by the way. It's in Jesus that we see this ultimate victory. Right? Jesus proved God's strength over demonic forces in his life on earth, right? And how much he casted out demons and how he had authority over them. But he proved God's strength over death and evil and existence itself by dying and raising from the dead. It is through that, through the gospel that we can engage in this battle by engaging with God. It is through that that we can partner with God as he does his work, things that we can't see, can't understand, and yet we can partake in them. Because of what Christ has done, we get to step into these things because of what Christ has done, the unseen dictates the scene, but we can trust the ultimate God behind the scene and the unseen. That in Christ we are safe. No matter what happens on the stage of your life, no matter what happens with the scene. We can be confident. The unseen dictates the scene. Through Christ we can be confident that we can participate in this. In God's good plans, God's good good actions. Let's pray.
God, we are thankful for you. Thankful that you are majestic and beautiful and powerful. God, that everything we see and don't see falls under your control and your authority. God thank you that we get to partner with you and be in right relationship with you because of Jesus. And that we get to engage in your plans, your purposes, the things that you're carrying out, even we can't fully understand it, help us help us to trust that. Help us to trust you in your name, Amen.