The Overwhelming Christ

Daniel

The Overwhelming Christ

March 19th, 1972 @ 8:15 AM

Daniel 10:1-12

In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a thing was revealed unto Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar; and the thing was true, but the time appointed was long: and he understood the thing, and had understanding of the vision. 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. And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel; Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: 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. And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves. Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength. 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. And, behold, an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands. And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling. 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.
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THE OVERWHELMING CHRIST

Dr. W. A. Criswell

Daniel 10:1-12

3-19-72     8:15 a.m.

 

On the radio you are sharing the services of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, and this is the pastor bringing the message entitled The Overwhelming Christ.  In our preaching through the Book of Daniel we have come to chapter 10, and I read the first few verses.  Daniel chapter 10:

In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a thing was revealed unto Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar—

a name given to him about seventy years earlier [Daniel 1:7]—

and the thing was true, but the time appointed was long:  and he understood the thing, and had understanding of the vision.

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.

And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel—

that’s the ancient Akkadian name for the River Tigris—

Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen . . .

[Daniel 10:1-5]

And then follows the description of this pre-incarnate Christ, this Christophany, this theophany; and then the humbling of Daniel before Him, and then the reason for the delayed answer to his prayer [Daniel 10:5-13], and finally the vision itself [Daniel 10:14-21].

These things have transpired between the ninth chapter of Daniel and the tenth chapter.  In the ninth chapter of Daniel the statesman prophet was praying that God would visit His people.  He had been reading the prophet Jeremiah [Daniel 9:2], especially chapters 25 [Jeremiah 25:11] and 29 [Jeremiah 29:10-14], where the Lord had said that His people would be exiled for seventy years, but after the seventy years God would remember them, and they would have opportunity to return to their homeland.

And Daniel, having been taken captive in 605 BC [Daniel 1:1-6], and this now being about 536 BC, the seventy years were complete, or somewhat near completion according to God’s date of reckoning at its beginning.  And the statesman prophet began to pray in sackcloth, and in ashes, in confession and intercession and importunity that the Lord would remember His people and open a door for them to return home [Daniel 9:3-19].

Now since that prayer and supplication in the ninth chapter of the Book of Daniel, the prayer has been answered.  One––these things have happened––one, Cyrus is now the king of Persia and of Babylon, and in a writing he has made a decree that the captives are free to return home and to rebuild their sanctuary [Ezra 1:1-3].

But second, this also has transpired: there have been relatively insignificant numbers of the people who have responded to the open door and have returned.  Out of the multitude of captives who have been settled in Babylonia, there are only forty thousand six hundred of them who have returned [Ezra 2:64], and it is now the third year.  Zerubbabel is their governor, but he’s unable, though of the line of David, to restore the monarchy [1 Chronicles 3:9-19].  And Joshua is their high priest and spiritual leader [Ezra 3:8].  Not only has the response of the people been apathetic, lethargic, phlegmatic, insignificant, inconsequential, greatly and deeply disappointing, but the problems that they have faced in Jerusalem itself have been frustrating.  The local inhabitants have resented the return of the exiles.  And it has taken them seven months, even to clear off a level place of its rubbish and debris, that they might lay the foundation of the temple on its old site [Ezra 3:6-8].

Because of that agonizing disappointment, the statesman prophet Daniel has given himself to mourning, to fasting, and to prayer.  He has prayed two full weeks.  He says beginning at the first of Nisan, the beginning of the old Jewish new year, and he prays through the Passover, two full weeks, and there’s no answer from God, the heavens are brass.  He prays another full week in fasting and in agony.  He prays through the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and there is still no answer from God.  He continues praying three more days, into the twenty-fourth day of the month of Nisan [Daniel 10:2-4]; and in that period of time, apparently he has been sent by the state to a place about sixty miles away, on the River Tigris.

And while he is there on the banks of the Tigris River, the answer comes on the twenty-fourth day.  And it comes first in the form of a Christophany, of a theophany, of a manifestation of the pre-incarnate Christ.  Daniel says:

I lifted up mine eyes, by the side of the great river Hiddekel, and looked, and behold a certain Man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz, of Ophir:

His body also was like beryl, and His face as the appearance of lightning, and His eyes as lamps of fire, and His arms and His feet like in color to burnished, polished brass, and the voice of His words like the voice of a great multitude, like the voice of many waters.

And I Daniel saw Him, and when I saw Him, there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength.

[Daniel 10:5-8]

The glory of the vision bowed him to the ground, “and his strength became weakness, and his comeliness corruption” [Daniel 10:8].

This is the vision of the pre-incarnate Christ.  Thrice does He appear in the Book of Daniel.  First in the third chapter when the three Hebrew children were cast into the fiery furnace, “they saw One like unto the Son of God, walking with the three in the furnace” [Daniel 3:25].  The second appearance of the Son of God is in the seventh chapter of the book.  And there, Daniel envisions, sees Him, “Come before the Ancient of Days; and there is given to Him the everlasting kingdom of the Lord Jehovah in heaven, a kingdom that shall never pass away” [Daniel 7:13-14].  Then the third Christophany is here in the tenth chapter of the Book of Daniel, when he seems Him in all of the glory of His person on the banks of the Tigris River [Daniel 10:4-10].

As we read the description it is almost exactly like the description that we read in our passage this morning from the first chapter of the Book of the Revelation.  There in the Revelation, John saw the glorified Christ after His incarnation [Revelation 1:9-18].  Here in the tenth chapter of the Book of Daniel, the statesman prophet sees Him before His incarnation [Daniel 10:4-10].  He is the same glorious person.

From time to time He has appeared throughout the days of the Old Covenant, of the Old Testament, assuming human form, made in the similitude of a man, He appears to His people.  He appeared to Abraham in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis [Genesis 15:1-6].  He appeared to Jacob, Israel, at Peniel, when He changed his name from Jacob to Israel the prince of God, in the thirty-second chapter of Genesis [Genesis 32:24-28].  The same glorious Christ appeared pre-incarnate to Moses in the thirty-third chapter of Exodus [Exodus 33:9-12].  He appeared to Isaiah in the sixth chapter of the prophecy [Isaiah 6:1].  And He appeared to the prophet Ezekiel in the first chapter of his book [Ezekiel 1:4-28].  From time to time this glorious pre-incarnate Christ appears in the Old Covenant, and thus He appears here, “His body girded with linen and fine gold, His countenance like the sun and like lightning, His eyes as fire, His feet like burnished brass, and His voice like the sound of many waters” [Daniel 10:5-6].

This is the Messenger of the covenant [Malachi 3:1].  This is the Angel of Jehovah [Exodus 3:2-6].  This is the pre-incarnate Christ.  This is the Son of God.  Not a superman or a superhuman, but God manifest, Jehovah made visible in the similitude of a man.  And let us consider just for a moment the glory of His person, this incomparable Christ.  There is no one in heaven or earth like Him.  He is unique, and separate, and apart [Hebrews 7:26].  There is no flaw in Him, perfect and matchless and incomparably, wonderfully glorious.  Spurgeon one time described a visit to Trinity College Library in Cambridge University in England.  He said that the man who was showing him the statue of Lord Byron said, “Look at him from this view, from this angle, from this point of vantage.”  And Spurgeon said he looked at the statue of Lord Byron, and there was the nobility depicted of that gloriously gifted English poet.  Then the man said, “Now come around from this vantage point and look at the statue.”  And from that point, when Spurgeon turned and looked, there was depicted the debauched, and defiant, and blasphemous, and wicked, and worldly sinner that was Lord Byron.

And Spurgeon said that all of us are like that.  From some vantage point we can be seen and we are admirable and commendable.  But from other vantage points when we are looked upon, alas and alas, we are filled with flaws and mistakes and sin and error.  This is we, all of us.  But in Christ, however you look at Him, He is without fault.

Look at Him in His childhood.  See Him in His manhood.  Look upon Him in His ministry.  Look upon Him in His words, His deeds.  See Him in His suffering and death [Matthew 27:26-50].  Look upon Him in His resurrection [Matthew 28:5-7] and His ascension into glory [Acts 1:9-10].  Look upon Him in heaven today [Romans 8:34].  Wherever you see the Lord Christ, there you see the faultless, visible, manifestation of God in the flesh [1 Timothy 3:16].  As Pilate said, “I find no fault in Him at all” [John 18:38].  When men speak of the Lord Jesus as though they would commend Him or approve Him, it violates our feeling and sensitivity of propriety.  Ian Maclaren wrote:

When one seriously recommends Jesus to the notice of the world by certification from a Rousseau or a Napoleon, or when some lighthearted man of letters embroiders a needy paragraph with a string of names where Jesus is wedged in between Zoroaster and Goethe, the Christian consciousness is aghast.  This treatment is not merely bad taste, it is impossible by any means of thought.  It is as if one should compare the sun with an electric light bulb, or the colors of Titian with the bloom of a rose.  He is not a subject of study.  He is a revelation to the soul.  He is that or nothing.

[from “The Mind of the Master,” Ivan Maclaren (Rev. John Watson), 1896]

Christ is the alone, and the unique, and the separate, and the apart [Hebrews 7:26].  He is the overwhelming Lord!  He is the incomparable Christ! [Jude 1:25].

Not only is He perfect and flawless in His person, but the reaction of even the most godly of the saints, as they stand in His presence and look upon His face, is ever the same and is like this of Daniel in the tenth chapter of his book.  “And I Daniel, when I saw Him, there was no strength in me, and my comeliness was turned into corruption, and I retained no strength” [Daniel 10:8].  That is ever the reaction of even the saintliest of God’s people when they stand in the presence of the overwhelming and incomparable Christ.

It was thus with Isaiah when he saw Him “high and lifted up” [Daniel 6:1].  He cried, “Woe unto me, woe is me! for I am undone; I am a man of unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” [Isaiah 6:5].  It was thus the reaction of Simon Peter, “Lord, depart from me; I am a sinful man” [Luke 5:8].  It was thus the reaction of Saul of Tarsus.  When he met Him on the road to Damascus, he was blinded by the glory of that sight, and fell to the ground [Acts 9:3-9].  It was so in the Revelation; when John the sainted apostle on Patmos looked upon Him [Revelation 1:9-16], he fell at His feet as dead [Revelation 1:17], the overwhelming Christ.

He is no less so the Lord of tenderness, and of compassion, and of sympathy, and of mercy.  Here in the tenth chapter of the Book of Daniel, three times does it say that the Lord touched him.  In the tenth verse, “He took His hand and touched the prostrate Daniel” [Daniel 10:10].  In the [sixteenth] verse, “He touched his lips” [Daniel 10:16].  And in the eighteenth verse the Lord touched him again [Daniel 10:18].  He is our kinsman [Daniel 10:18]; and He understands and sympathizes with us [Hebrews 2:17-18].

Though in glory, His heart has not changed.  The richest and the deepest and the most precious of all of the comforts that can come to the human heart is this; that our Lord in heaven is a man, made in the likeness of human flesh, tried and tempted in all of the ways as we are, and understanding our infirmities and our necessities [Hebrews 4:14-16].  He is God as though He were God alone, but He is man as though He were man alone.

His Godhead is complete Godhead.  His godhood is complete godhood.  He is deity as full deity.  But His manhood is also full manhood.  He is man as though He were not God; as He is God as though He were not man.  The two natures are in the one Person.  And our Lord and our Jehovah Christ, the great Sovereign of the universe, is a man who understands us.  And this is our comfort and our strength in the pilgrimage of this earthly life.  He is one with us.  He is our kinsman.  He is our sympathizer.  He is our great strength, and shield, and comforter.

One of the most beautiful stories I ever read about Alexander the Great was a reason—they were explaining, the historian was explaining the reason why that the soldiers so loved Alexander their king and general.  It said that Alexander, wherever his men marched, he marched with them.  Whatever they suffered, he suffered with them.  And in the hot burning under the broiling sun of Asia Minor, modern Turkey––some of you being there know how hot and dusty it can be––as Alexander marched his soldiers through that burning country under that broiling sun, their thirst became indescribable.  And finding water, they first would bring the cooling draft to him.  Was he not their king and their leader?  First they offered it to him.  Alexander would take it and say, “Alexander will not drink as long as there is a sick soldier in my army who needs the refreshment of this water.”  That endeared him to his men.  He was one of them, and he sympathized with them.

And our Lord is like that.  As long as one of us is sick He is not well.  As long as one of us is discouraged and in despair, He is not encouraged.  As long as one of us is in need, He is not full.  As long as one of us is in prison, He is not free.  He identifies Himself with us.  He is one with us.  And this Lord Christ, seeing Daniel prostrate and his comeliness turned into corruption, touched him with His hand [Daniel 10:8-10].  Just as the Lord did with the apostle John when he fell at His feet as dead, He reached forth His right hand and touched him; the sympathizing Lord Jesus [Revelation 1:17].

Now there is explained to Daniel the delay in the prayer.  He says to Daniel, “On the first day, thy words were heard” [Daniel 10:12].  And yet, it is twenty-one days later that the answer comes [Daniel 10:2-3, 13].  And the explanation is made:  “The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood Me until Michael, the prince that guards thy people Israel, came to help Me” [Daniel 10:13].

Now when you read the commentators, and the exegetes, and the scholars as they discuss this tenth chapter of Daniel, they say this could not possibly be a Christophany, the Lord Christ; for how could the evil prince that guarded the destinies of Persia withstand Him?  So they say, “This could not possibly be the Lord Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Angel of Jehovah.  He is omnipotent and cannot be opposed.”

Now I would be the last one to think that God is not omnipotent, and that all of authority is not placed in the hands of the great Christ and Messiah [Matthew 28:18].  But I would be the first to avow that both, as I read the Bible and as I look in human experience, God can be opposed, and our prayers can be hindered.  There is more than one will in this universe.  There are other wills in this universe.  And in the providence of almighty omnipotent God, God has chosen to limit Himself.  And He does not violate the sovereignty of the soul, and volition, and choice of any man, and apparently of any angel.  And God can be opposed, and God’s program can be hindered, and our prayers can be delayed.  I read that in the life of our Lord.   When He was in Nazareth where He was brought up, the Scriptures say, “He did no mighty work there because of their unbelief” [Matthew 13:58].  He was hindered.

 I read in the story of His visit on the eastern side of the Lake of Galilee to the country of Gadara, that the pig keepers came, the swine herders came and begged Him to leave their coast [Mark 5:17].  It cost them pigs for Him to stay there.  And the Lord left in obedience to their importunity.

I read in the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Matthew where the Lord said, “The people’s hearts are waxed gross, and their ears they have stopped, and their eyes they have closed, lest they hear with their ears, and lest they see with their eyes, and lest they feel with their hearts, and be converted” [Matthew 13:15]. A man can say, “No,” to God, and a man can hinder God, and a man can frustrate the purposes of God.

Apparently Satan can also.  Here he delays the answer.  He’s able to do it for over three full weeks [Daniel 10:2-3, 13].  In the parable of the tares, the Lord expressly says that it is Satan that over sows the good seed, the wheat in the field, sowing tares, Satan does that [Matthew 13:36-40].  Apparently he can harass us, and he can attack us, and he can frustrate us.  He has that power under the hand of God [1 Peter 5:8-9].

But, but, there is always the sovereign grace of the Lord and help comes.  Here, there came help from Michael, one of the chief princes who stands for the people of God [Daniel 10:13].  Well, you say, “Now that is strange, that the great Angel of Jehovah, the Christ, the Messiah, should need the help of a prince, of an angel.”  Was it not so in the days of His flesh?  After His temptation [Matthew 4:1-10], the Book says that angels came and ministered unto Him [Matthew 4:11].  In the story of His agony in Gethsemane it says, “And an angel came and ministered to Him, and encouraged Him” [Luke 22:43-44].  In the fourteenth verse of the first chapter of the Book of Hebrews it says that they are “ministering spirits to help us who are the heirs of salvation” [Hebrews 1:14].  And that’s what happened here [Daniel 10:13].  As the Lord was opposed by Satan and by the angels of darkness and destruction, and despair, and defeat, Michael came to help Him and to stand by Him.  And the tenth chapter closes, “And there is none that holdeth with Me in these things, but Michael your prince” [Daniel 10:21].  What a singular exception is that!

Let me illustrate that to you; one and God, what a majority they are, if the One who stands by you is God, or the one who stands by you is Michael the archangel.  Look!  Suppose there is a musician and the world rejects his music.  He can’t sell it.  He can’t publish it.  Nobody wants it.  And he says, “There is none that holdeth with me in these things but Beethoven.”  The signature and the approbation of Beethoven is worth more than a thousand others who might criticize him.  Or suppose there was a young artist, and the earth and the world and its people are blind, and they ridicule and look upon his paintings with contempt and scorn; and he were to write, “There is none that holdeth with me in these things but Raphael.”  He’s worth more than a whole theatre full of viewers.  His commendation, his word covers the whole horizon in heaven and earth.

So it is with us.  You may think yourself alone, but if God is with you, if the guardian angel is with you, you and that one are always a conquering, incontestable, indefatigable, undefeatable, invincible majority!  As the apostle Paul wrote in the eighth chapter of the Book of Romans, “If God be for us, who could be against us? [Romans 8:31].  Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? [Hebrews 8:33].  All things work together for good to them that love God” [Romans 8: 28].  As the forty-second Psalm says, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?  And why art thou disquieted within me?  Hope thou in God” [Psalm 42:5].  This is the great message to Daniel [Daniel 10:19].

And I close with a returning to that first verse; the sovereignty of God.  The thing was revealed to Daniel, and he says, “And the thing was true, but the time appointed was long, and God gave me understanding of the vision” [Daniel 10:1].  To us, those things are so separate.  “The thing was true, and the time appointed was long”; and to us, there is such a hiatus between them—this thing that God says is true and will come to pass and the time that it actually is realized and materialized.  It is so far, and the distance between them sometimes seems to be so needless and so severe.  Will it ever come to pass?  Will it ever happen?  We’ve prayed and asked.  We’ve waited and longed.  And there’s no answer from heaven; it turns to brass [Deuteronomy 28:23].  God doesn’t speak.  God doesn’t hear.

Yesterday afternoon, late, I was visiting one of our dear sweet people in the hospital who’d gone through a tragic illness and an amputation.  And she said to me in her sorrow, she said, “God doesn’t seem to hear me anymore.  God doesn’t seem to answer my prayers anymore.  He seems so far away.”  That is just apparent.

The things we pray for and the things we long for may be removed from us.  There may be hiatus between, distance between, time between to us, but not to God.  “The thing is true, and the time appointed long” [Daniel 10:1].  But listen: both of them are just the same in the sight of God.  Both of them are appointed, both of them are ordained, and both of them shall surely come to pass.  The sovereign will of God will ultimately and finally be fulfilled; and it is our part in patience and love to give ourselves to the choice and purpose and will of God [Hebrews 10:36].  And that’s what it is when we look in faith to Christ, when we open our hearts to Jesus, when we bow in prayer before Him, “Lord, there are ten thousand things I don’t understand, but You understand.  There are a million questions I can’t answer, but You have all of the answers.”

And there are things that are discouraging, and things that bring abysmal despair to our hearts and souls; but God knows, and in His day, in His time, at the appointed moment, God shall bring it to pass, and we shall pray, and we shall wait, and we shall be humble before God and give ourselves to His sovereign will.  “Thy will be done in me, in us, in earth, as it is in heaven” [Matthew 6:10].

Will you give yourself to that this morning?  I will open up my heart God-ward.  I will look upon Jesus in faith and in prayer.  I’ll ask Him to see me through; and I’ll turn all of the issues and destiny of my life over to Him.  Would you this day?  “I want to be a Christian.  I want to bow at the feet of the great Lord God, the Savior, the Jehovah Jesus, and I am coming today.”  In this balcony round, a family you, a couple you, or just one somebody you, in the press of people who throng this lower floor, into that aisle and down to the front, “Here I am, and here I come, pastor, I make it today.  The choice is made in my heart now, and I am coming now.”  You, your wife, the whole family, “Pastor, this is all of us coming today.”  Just a couple or just you, make the decision now in your heart.  “I’m giving my life in faith and trust to God.  I’m accepting Christ as my Savior.  I’m putting my life in the circle of the church, and I am coming today.”  Make the decision now.  And in a moment when we stand up to sing, stand up walking down one of those stairways, or into the aisle and down to the front,  “Here I am, pastor, and here I come.”  Do it now.  Make it now.  Come now, while we stand and while we sing.

THE OVERWHELMING CHRIST

03/19/72

Daniel 10:1-12

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These events had occurred since
chapter 9. (When prayed for 70 years of captivity.)

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1.         Cyrus,
the deliverance had come, decree placed in writing, the captive could rebuild
their sanctuary.

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2.         The
response, however, was disheartening in the extreme.  Just 42,600 return out of the multitude.  Zerubbabel, their governor.  He was in the line of David, but he was
unable to restore the monarchy.

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Also they were led by Joshua the
high priest, a spiritual leader who seemed incapable of commanding enthusiasm
in the hearts of the exiles.

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<![if !supportLists]>3.
<![endif]>The prospects discouraging and disheartening.  Took 7 months just to clean away the rubbish
and rubble away from Mt. Moriah and to find a level place on which they could
begin the restoration of the sanctuary on the site of the old Solomonic Temple.

Daniel
mourning at apathy, indifference, few numbers wanting to return.  The captive wanted to stay in Babylon.  Immersed in world of comfort.

Two
full years after release, the indifference response still apparent.  Mourned, fasted 2 full weeks from first day
of Nisan to Passover.  And their was no
answer from Heaven.

Mourned,
fasted 1 full week through Feast of Unleavened Bread to the 21st of Nisan.  No answer.

Mourned,
fasted 3 more days.  Evidently, during
the last days of his fast, he had been sent by the state on some national
mission 60 miles away from Babylon to the Hiddekel, the Tigris River.

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I.
The vision of the Son of God.

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1.
10:5-6–A Christophany, a
Theophany

As
John on Patmos.  Rev. 1:13-16 after His
incarnation.

So
Daniel on Tigris River. 10:5,6 before His incarnation.

Thrice
seen in Daniel: 3:25; 7:13,14; 10:5,6

Appeared
throughout Scriptures:

To
Abraham–Gen. 15

To
Jacob–Gen. 32:24-32

To
Moses–Ex. 33:18-23

To
Isaiah–Isa. 6:1 and following.

To
Ezekiel–Ezek. 1:26-28

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2.
The glory of His person.

He
is the Uncreated Messenger of the covenant, though not born under our nature in
David’s day, yet he took our nature upon Himself in Bethlehem in the days of
His flesh.  A similitude of a man for a
time, and at other times, heaven form.

 

No
mere super man or super human.  God
manifest.

The
incomparable Son of God.

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1.
In the perfection of His person.

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(a)
Trinity College in Cambridge,
England.  There in the library is a
statue of Lord Byron.  Spurgeon
describes visit.  The man who was taking
Spurgeon through the library, showing him this particular statue, said, “Come
and look at it from this point of view.”
“Now come and look at it from this side.”  One view, luxury-loving, spoiled, blasphemous, wicked, and
dissolute English poet.   The other view
he saw the nobility of that English poet–so gifted, a magnificent
representative of the finest literary genius of English literature.

So,
with us, there are points of view from which we can be seen and all who look
upon us exclaim how admirable, how noble we are.  Yet, in all of us, when seen from another point of view, there is
fault, failure, and mistake.

But,
Jesus, See him from any vantage point, always He is perfect and flawless.

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(b)
Our commendation, recommendation of
human fault, failure.

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(c)
Ian Maclaren:

When
one seriously recommends Jesus to the notice of the world by certification from
Rousseau or Napoleon or when some lighthearted man of letters embroiders a
needy paragraph with a string of names, where Jesus is wedged in between
Zoroaster and Goethe, the Christian consciousness is aghast.  This treatment is not merely bad taste, it
is impossible by any canon of thought.
It is as if one should compare the sun with an electric light bulb or
the color of rouge with the bloom of a rose.
Christ is not a subject of study.
He is a revelation to the soul.
He is that or nothing.

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2.
In the overwhelming effect He has
upon those who see Him, he immediately finds himself bowed to the ground.

9:8
this result has ever followed where man beholds his face.

Isa.
6:5

Peter
in Luke 5:18

Saul
of Tarsus in Acts 9:3-8

John
in Rev. 1:17

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3.
The tenderness of the divine way.

Thrice
touched him. 10:10, 13, 19

So
John 1:17

 

Could
there be a richer, a deeper, or a finer comfort than to know that our Lord God
in heaven has a human heart, has human understanding, and was at all points
tried as we are, though He was without sin?

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The
Son of God is also the Son of Man.
Jesus in heaven is a man.  God
and man in one person.  No confusion of
nature: He is neither deified man nor is He a humanized God.  His Godhead is altogether Godhead and His manhood
is altogether manhood.  We must not
divide the persons nor confuse the natures.
He is the God-man, the Jehovah-Jesus, the Angel of the Lord, the Son of
God, who is the Son of man.

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His
sympathy for us.  Heb. 1:18;4:15

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(a)
There was a historian who was
seeking to illustrate why the soldiers of Alexander the Great loved him so much
and followed him so faithfully.  He
shared their suffering.  Water, brought
to him first.  He would not drink until
first shared with the sick.  Our Lord is
like that.

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II.
The Mystery of the delayed answer
to Daniel’s prayer.

10:12
heard at beginning, first day of praying.

10:13
but lingered.  The angel prince of the
king of Persia withstood me.

As
Michael, your chief prince who guards the fortunes of Israel when he came to
help me, that the message came through.

Can
the Lord be withstood, hindered?  He is
omnipotent and could not be thwarted or hindered.  Not for lack of power, but recognizes the needs of men and of
angels.

Of
men: Nazareth “no mighty works because of unbelief.”

Gadara:
the swine keepers and the pigsty owners begged Him to leave, and He left.

Matt.
13:15 the hearts of the people are waxed gross, their eyes have closed, their
ears have stopped.

Matt.
13:39 tares oversown.

Of
Satan: held God’s message in check for 3 weeks.

  :Our lives harassed, attacked, troubled.

  : Jesus slain.

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III.
Overwhelming Help

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1.
The help of the angel Michael.

10:13

Compare:
Matt. 4:11 ….angels came and ministered unto Him.

Compare:
Gethsemane Luke 22:43

Compare:
Heb. 1:14

Dan.
10:21 “but Michael”

What
a noble and singular exception! “but, Michael”

Compare:
Young man composer of music.  World
rejects his composition.  “There is none
that hold with me in these things but Beethoven, just Beethoven.”

The
very singularity of the creation creates a majestic which Beethoven contributes
his signature, approval and approbation would be worth more than a whole world
of contemptuous rivals.

 

Compare:
Young artist and the world is blind.
“There are none that hold with me in these things but Raphael.”  But having the love, approval, encouragement
and approbation of Raphael would be like having the world above and below.

The
true majesty–you and God.  One and God.

Rev.
8:31,33,28.

Ps.
42:5

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2.
The Victory of Daniel.

10:1
“if the thing was true, but the time appointed was long.”

For
us the division of the two is so needless and so severe and so grievous, it’s
not to God.  Why not now?

But
the two are the same.  Both  same to God.  To Him it is an everlasting now.
It is an everlasting present.  He
looks upon it all.

God
shall bring it to pass and we shall live in hope and in assurance and in
victory and in optimism.  Praying thy
will be done in me.  In this earth as it
is in heaven.

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