Daniel's Burden for God's Glory Daniel 10:1-12

Daniel, The Humble Servant of God Daniel 10:13-21

It is another fantastic passage we are studying this evening! There are those passages in Daniel that might completely escape our ability to understand every ‘little nook and cranny’, but there are also those passages that are there to edify us and upbuild us in the faith. This is one such passage!

The seventy years of captivity had just recently been completed and Zerubbabel and a small group of the Jews had returned to the ruins of Jerusalem. Daniel’s burden for his beloved city had touched the heart of God who in turn had touched the ear of the pagan king Cyrus, [II Chron. 36:22-23 = Ezra 1:1-3a] Ezra 1:1  Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, 2  Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3  Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem. 4  And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. 5  Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem.

But why … why was Daniel in mourning for three weeks?! Surely this should have been a time of great rejoicing and thanksgiving … for the people of God to be at last going back home! …

Daniel, (v.3) why did you fast and starve yourself from bread and from flesh and from wine?

Why didn’t you wash yourself and keep yourself clean?

Daniel, why are you letting yourself ‘go’ when God has been so good to release the people of Israel from under the yoke of Babylon?!

He has done that for which you have been praying … as you opened your window, - the one facing Jerusalem, - three times every day. Why are you in mourning?!

(I found myself working out how many times he would have prayed. He was there for seventy years praying the same prayer: 3 x 300 days x 70 years = 63,000 prayers!)

Again, don’t read too fast … for notice (v.4) the exact date that Daniel records here, And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel. Why is the date significant? … because it was the first month. Turn to Ex. 12 to see the importance of this date.

The people of God are in slavery in Egypt; the nine plagues have spread across the land … but they hadn’t afflicted the Israelites in Goshen,

The tenth and most harrowing plague of the deaths of the firstborn are about to take place … and God makes a covenant with His people, - a covenant that is to be sealed with the blood of the lamb on the doorposts … Ex.12:2 This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. … v.3 Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house … 5  Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats. v.6 And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. 7  And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. … v.15 Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread … v.24 And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever.

… That’s why Daniel was mourning … because he had just been remembering God’s goodness in days gone by, - this was Passover time and the Feast of Unleavened Bread! … but where were the people of God that should have been remembering those great days with him!?

Where indeed were they? The Bible tells us elsewhere that only a relatively small few returned to Jerusalem at the first opportunity. Why was that? Probably because to many of them the city of Jerusalem was no longer relevant as once it was.

Oh yes, during the opening years of the seventy years they would have longed to have returned, - they would have been praying with Daniel … but they had become settled in Babylon.

After all, those in that small group who had returned with Nehemiah had to face seeing the ruins of the city and the opposition from wicked men like Sanballat and Tobiah.

As Daniel considered these things he was once again in tears … and notice too where he was in tears; he was on the banks of the river Hiddekel (most likely Tigris), - the only other time the Bible mentions Hiddekel is in Gen. 2:14 and there it is one of the tributaries of the river that flowed though the beautiful Garden of Eden … and Daniel was walking along its banks with tears in his eyes for the state of the people of Israel.

Matthew Henry wrote, “Good men cannot but mourn to see how slowly the work of God goes on in the world and what opposition it meets with, how weak its friends are and how active its enemies.”

On the banks of this old river Daniel – because he was such an important person - was accompanied by others and in his mourning (v.5 Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked) he saw a man standing before him; this was not Gabriel (8:16; 9:21), neither was it an angel (3:28; 6:22) … and neither was anyone else able to see what Daniel saw … v.5 a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: 6  His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.

When you compare what he saw with Who John saw on the Island of Patmos the vast majority of commentators would consider this to be a ‘theophany’, … that this was none other than the Son of God that Daniel saw through his tears. Daniel saw the pre-incarnate Christ.

This was a personal and a private meeting between this faithful old man of God and the Son of God.

There are so many themes we could explore in these opening verses of ch.10 but let’s concentrate upon the effect the Presence of God had upon Daniel …

Is it right today to talk about experiencing the effect the presence of God upon those who seek Him? Is that not something we should avoid … when we look at the charismatic-style meetings and attempts to introduce the contemporary so-called ‘worship’ of the pseudo-evangelical church? … Is it right to talk about experiencing the effect of the presence of God?

Yes, I believe it is entirely Biblical for God’s people to feel the effect of the Presence of God. It was what happened in the great days of Revival. In the Bible we read the faithful servants of God groaned and hungered after the glory of God. We read they stayed up all night, - they couldn’t sleep, - they couldn’t eat … such was the effect the presence of God had upon them.

Let’s take a look and see the effect it had upon Daniel. First of all he was …

He was an old man anyway … but this phrase is not referring to the frailty of an old man.

Daniel had fasted for three whole weeks, and now he was walking by the side of the river.

Daniel was fit as far as human strength for his years was concerned … but when God came to him in this miraculous way all the strength he had drained from him.

When he looked upon the Son of God all his strength sapped from him, - in the presence of the pre-incarnate Christ he was weak, feeble and frail.

Yes, surely when confronted by the majesty of God’s presence that is when humanity is confronted by all it weaknesses … We don’t dance around or work ourselves into a religious frenzy the way some are prone to do …

When Moses stood on Mount Sinai the writer to the Hebrews wrote, Heb. 12: 21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake.

When Paul was challenged by the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus he did what Daniel did … he fell to the ground,

When John, on the island of Patmos, saw the Lord Jesus standing in all His glory in the midst of the golden lampstands he tells us, Rev. 1:17 when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.

When the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin and shows to you the holiness of God you see your weakness, you see that you have no strength in you as far as God is concerned, you see yourself as a dry empty vessel.

Confronted with the glory of God there is nothing in and of ourselves that can cause us to stand … and yet a man – covered with boils and suffering great agony (Job) could say, Job 19:9 He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. 10 He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like a tree. … 20  My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. 21  Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me. … 25 I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: 26  And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: 27  Whom I shall see for myself.

Daniel here was defenceless before God because there remained no strength in him.                        Notice too, he was …

What does that mean? It means that the presence of God had such an effect upon him that his face took on a new form. This wasn’t a stroke or any such thing; it wasn’t because he had fasted for those twenty-one days … No, his whole ‘look’ became distorted and this was the effect of God’s presence, i.e. of his meeting with the holiness of God.

He looked as if he was dead, - his colour was gone, his comeliness in him was turned into corruption. …

(Isaiah praised the Name of God, 38:17 thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.)

But now this man of God – Daniel – looked distorted … like the corpse ready to be buried!

This was the great servant of God in Babylon … the prophet who had remained faithful through those seventy years! … who often had stood alone for God.

… The child of God in this present dispensation of grace has the privilege to come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, but it is a privilege never to be taken for granted.

Reverence for God has always been the believer’s privilege,

You’ll never hear a child of God making a joke out of Him,

You’ll never hear a child of God making light of Him,

When God saves you He confronts you with His majesty and His holiness and He causes you to see all the wretchedness of your sin; the Bible says Daniel looked as if he was a dead corpse … in the same way, the Bible talks about us as having been dead in trespasses and in sin, - distorted as far as God is concerned.

And there wasn’t a thing Daniel could do for himself. He was totally…

He was powerless, helpless, incapable.

Out there on his own (his entourage had run away, vv.7,8a), anything could have happened to him,

He could have fallen into the water and drowned,

This old man could have lain on the banks and died,

… Anything could have happened to him.

Alone on the banks of that great river, this meeting with God left him defenceless, distorted and disabled.

But what a change was about to happen, v.9 Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground.

On seeing the majesty of God Daniel was lying on the ground … Now, in absolute no way does this correspond with that modern practice known as the ‘Toronto blessing’ (for one thing you will notice that Daniel fell on his face and not on his back as they do in front of the false prophets Kenneth Copeland, Rodney Howard-Brown, etc.)

No, keep your eye on the passage to see God’s grace at work!

Yet … what a beautiful word! It shows you there is something tremendous about to happen … something different. Daniel was about to be delivered from his defencelessness, distortion and disability.

Yet heard I the voice of his words. It was at the word of God that his soul began to stir.

Let’s apply that to the preaching of the Word of God. It is the Word of God that begins the work of salvation in the heart, Ps. 119:130 The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple. … This is the revelation of the Word of God … heard I the voice of his words.

There is nothing about the Word of God that attracts anyone to it simply because it is the Word of God; what attracts you to it is the Holy Spirit of God working in your heart.

As Daniel lay on the banks of that river, - to anyone walking there they might have thought he was dead; but the first thing he remembered was this, Yet heard I the voice of his words.

And here is his response, and when I heard the voice of his words

You see, there is the effectual call of God and there is the human responsibility to respond to that call. Surely this once again is the work of grace when God opens up our ears to hear His Word.

Daniel says there were others with him that day but the Bible tells us only he heard the word of God. He alone responded to the voice of his words.

Keep on watching what happened: he fell into a deep sleep with his face to the ground and … behold, an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands.

God – in sovereign grace - reached down and touched him. Daniel was in a deep sleep from which only God could awake him.

Outside of Christ the unsaved are in such a sleep of death … and only Christ can awaken them.

The young man in the coffin in the town of Nain … Lazarus in the tomb in Bethany … the young daughter of Jairus … only Christ could awaken them out of death.

When Jesus comes back again to this earth all the dead who have died in Christ will hear His shout from Heaven and rise to meet Him in the air.

When Christ saved us we heard His voice and He wakened us out of the sleep of the dead.

When Daniel was wakened he got up unto his knees and his hands … but Christ didn’t only ‘half-save’ us, - He saves us completely because (v.11) the Lord tells Daniel to stand upright.

There was no arch in his back because of his age; there was no crouching, … Jesus said to him, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent.

God addressed him personally, O Daniel.

God valued him particularly, a man greatly beloved

God spoke to him plainly, understand the words that I speak unto thee

God commanded him practically, stand upright

God assured him of His presence, unto thee am I now sent.

Each of those thoughts are studies in themselves … but time has beaten us again!

Do you see the effect of the Presence of God?

He saw Daniel walking along the banks of that great river … and He saw how his heart was breaking for the glory of God to once again come in among his people.

Daniel had been looking forward to those seventy years coming to an end so that once more God would be given His place but it seemed as if there was no desire among the people of God.

Remember – if we did our sums right – how many times Daniel had prayed over those long years: 63,000 times!

The tears were falling down his face again as he remembered the goodness of God in those past days of the Passover in Egypt and the Feast of the Tabernacles. “Oh, Lord, can we not have those days back!”

When you pray this evening don’t pray empty prayers … just to fill in a space or because no-one else is praying. Pray because God has laid a burden upon your heart. … And I believe you do have a burden for His glory.

God lifted Daniel up off the ground, onto his knees and onto his feet, - He made him stand upright in His presence.

He found him by the riverbank, - this 86 year-old man whom God had yet more for him to do, - and He gave him the privilege of His presence … and God answered the prayer of his heart, v.12 Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.

Daniel had been a long time praying … God had been a long time listening … and He was now ready to answer the prayers of this man who had prayed so long … so faithfully.

Daniel chapter ten is the important introduction to chapters eleven and twelve, - the final portion of the book. These are two very significant chapters which are reliant upon chapter ten to place them within their proper context. In this ch.10 the pre-incarnate Christ meets with Daniel.

Is Jesus in the Old Testament? Yes, He is … He has got to be because the Bible is the story of God and He is God. Here is one of just many examples of Jesus in the Old Testament,

Gen. 16:7 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. 8  And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. 9  And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. 10  And the angel of the LORD said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. 11  And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction. 12  And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. 13  And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?

Returning to Daniel 10, as I read these verses a part of v.17 particularly caught my attention, For how can the servant of this my lord talk with this my lord?

“How can such a person as I even talk to such a Person as the wonderful and majestic and altogether Sovereign God? How is it that I am privileged to stand in the presence of the Son of God?”

For how can this servant of my Lord talk with You, my Lord?

From his teenage years, - and perhaps even earlier when he was in the courts of Jerusalem, - Daniel had enjoyed a privileged lifestyle.

King Nebuchadnezzar had installed him and other similar young boys into a special learning environment so that he could groom them for future seats of government and influence within Babylonian society.

Daniel had lived during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar and now under the authority of Darius and Cyrus.

He was used to the king’s court and men of influence; he himself was a great man of authority, - his word was heeded, his commands were obeyed.

Yet, as he walked upon the banks of this river with his official entourage (v.7) he was interrupted by a Man Whose whole Person burned, v.6 his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire …

We finished off our last study by considering Daniel’s burden for God’s glory. The seventy years of captivity had come to an end and some of his fellow-countrymen had returned home to Jerusalem.

But Daniel, alongside the river Hiddekel, had a meeting with God that had such an effect upon him that he became weak and fell on his face to the ground (vv.8,9).

Instantly a hand reached down and touched him, and (v.11) the the pre-incarnate Christ spoke to him, O Daniel (He addressed him personally), a man greatly beloved (He valued him particularly), understand the words that I speak unto thee (He spoke to him plainly), and stand upright (He commanded him practically): for unto thee am I now sent (He assured him of His presence).

This was the effect the presence of God had upon him. God interrupted Daniel on the banks of the river … and God saw how His servant’s heart was breaking for the glory of God to once again be demonstrated among his people.

God lifted Daniel up off the ground, onto his knees and to his feet, - He caused him to stand upright in His presence.

The Lord had yet more for this old man to do, - and He gave him the privilege of His presence … for God answered the prayer of his heart, v.12 Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. … the prayer-answering God!

I believe in a God Who knows all things – from the very beginning of time to its final conclusion. He knows all things in between and there is nothing outside of His knowledge.

It’s important to have all our trust placed in Him and in His ways as once again we have entered into war.

I firmly believe and am absolutely convinced that God’s plan has been drawn up without any prior consultation with any of His creation. He is not a ‘reactionary God’, - i.e. some people tell you He saw what we were going to do and then He worked out His plans accordingly, - such reckoning has no Biblical basis and is a insult to God! He did not look ahead and then decide what to do, - such a way of looking at His Sovereignty is absolutely ridiculous and undermines Who He is.

God works to His own agenda … an agenda that He drew up – in the counsel of His own good and perfect will – in the majesty of His own presence in Glory … and it is according to that agenda that I would want to pray.

You know, it is altogether wrong to think that we can change God’s mind, - we can’t … who do we reckon we are that we can convince Him that we know better than He does!

No, the purpose of prayer is that we come into line with the will of God and God changes our mind … and when God met Daniel that day immediately Daniel realised the absolute greatness of His Person.

The very first prayer that you prayed when you came before God was the prayer of the sinner, how did you come?

You came, I trust, as Daniel was on that day … realising your total inadequacy in His presence,

Like Daniel you became broken not just because of the heavy burden that you noticed the weight of your sin to be bearing upon you but also because of the splendour of the majesty of God … God met with you!

He didn’t send an angel, or a saint, but He - by the presence of the Holy Spirit – met you and entered into your heart whereby you would be saved by His redeeming grace.

What did He have to go through in order to achieve your salvation? … v.13 the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me, - spiritually that was what happened at Calvary,

In Daniel’s day Persia was the land that imprisoned the defeated children of Jerusalem; consider how it also relates to the manner by which the devil withstood the ministry and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ … imprisoning the people under his domination. It was Jesus alone Who freed His people out from under spiritual bondage.

For Daniel this period of deep anguish lasted for one and twenty days; for the Lord Jesus at Calvary it lasted from the Friday to the Sunday morning.

Daniel 10:2,3, In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled, - that was during the time when v.13 the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me … when the battle was on!

He came with words to prepare Daniel for what was ahead (v.14), in order that this old man would not lose sight of Who was in control.

Once again, Daniel now is able himself, – not to fall down weak as in vv.8,9, - but v.15 I set my face toward the ground. As he did so – in the glorious presence of Christ – he records, and I became dumb.

In the presence of Christ this man was changed so that he would in an even greater way than before magnify the One he served; is that not our one purpose and desire to be as Daniel was … completely taken up with the Saviour?! Surely that is what we seek.

How fantastic it would be if you could say, “I met with Jesus in a precious way at the prayer meeting this evening” and how fantastic it would be if His presence continued on with you! Surely this is what every sincere child of God desires.

Are you envious of Daniel in what he experienced in the immediate overwhelming presence of God?     The presence …

As Daniel had his face toward the ground an angel came and touched his lips (you remember how that also happened with Isaiah in the temple … Is. 6: 6 Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: 7 And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.)

Daniel, - as with Isaiah, - regains the ability to stumble out a few words in explanation of why he had lost all his strength, v.16b O my lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength.

It was the power of God that returned to Him the power of speech … but he continued to feel the inadequacy of being in the presence of God.

In the Book of Revelation we read about the numbers round the Throne falling down on their faces and worshipping the Lamb.

Great and all as Daniel was in the kingdom of the Medes and Persians he still felt himself as nothing when faced with the power of God.

You know, it is the power of God that is behind the influence of good that permeates this world; without God there would be no good. If God decided to remove Himself from His creation all order would vanish, utter confusion would reign, everything good that has worked since the beginning of creation would stop working, - gravity, growth, everything! – it all would be thrown into utter chaos if the goodness of God was to leave His creation!

It was the power of God that opened Daniel’s mouth, that set him upon his feet, that breathed in once again to his heart, - this old man who had fasted for twenty-one days because of the state of his people, - in grace and in mercy God had made known to him in a very special and personal way His power and His presence.

“How is it that God would ever deign to speak with such as I?! How is it that God would stoop so low as to take time for me!”

Daniel had served God faithfully in a variety of ways all his life; we look to Daniel as one of the great prophets through whom God spoke and interpreted visions; … and yet old Daniel considered himself not even worthy of the attention God was now giving him.

What a privilege when Jesus offered the invitation to sinners, Mt. 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; and when God called unto His people,  Is. 55:1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.

What a privilege when Jesus spoke with the woman of Samaria … What a privilege when Jesus spoke with the man who lived among the gravestones …. What a privilege when Jesus draws near and you enjoy His presence, - Daniel’s lips were touched and He spoke to the Lord, how can this servant of my Lord talk with you, my Lord?

He had been used to speaking with kings and governors … but he was now having an audience with the King of kings!

Do you feel honestly it a privilege when you take the opportunity to speak to God in prayer? (I know there are some Christians who don’t feel it is a privilege because prayer doesn’t feature too much for them.)

But it is a privilege to speak with God and to meet with the greatness of His majesty.

It is a privilege the unsaved know nothing about, - that’s why they can’t understand why we would want to come to a prayer meeting or why we even find it necessary to pray, - the unsaved don’t understand the privilege of meeting with God.

This was only the beginning of what Daniel was about to hear and experience in this latter part of his life. How beautiful that God found him by the river side and blessed him with His presence.

Daniel only said a few words in this chapter, - on the face of it they don’t stand for all that much, but yet … the servant spoke with His Master.

Jesus saved us to enjoy Him; it was His purpose to bring us into a relationship with Himself and His Father … and a relationship is beholden to the conversation between both participants; it is not a proper relationship when only one of the parties speaks and the other stays silent.

There is a beautiful verse 19, O man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong. And when he had spoken unto me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my Lord speak; for thou hast strengthened me. You see where he was enjoying all the glory? … at the feet of Jesus.

… greatly beloved … peace … be strong … Look to Whom He attributes the work done in his life … thou hast strengthened me.

How blessed we are too to know God personally through the work His Son carried out for us at Calvary. He saved us, He redeemed us, He justified us, He did the work that made us into the sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father.

Glory to His most precious Name!