Be Strong and of Good Courage
Be Strong and of Good Courage
Daniel 10:1-11:1
by William Klock
I have been asked more than once what the chapter and verse are for the statement, “God helps those who help themselves.” It’s one of those things that innumerable people think is in the Bible. But it’s not. In fact, the very idea undermines the idea biblical concept of grace. That phrase, instead, goes back to ancient Greece, back to Aesop and probably much further. There’s nothing Christian about it. But, again, plenty of folks will go hunting for it in their Bibles, never to find it. There are all sorts of things like that. Ideas and concepts and doctrines that a lot of people take for granted are biblical, but aren’t actually there. As a pastor I have observed that two subjects in particular dominate this sort of pseudo-biblical domain. One is the intermediate state—that state of existence between our death and our future resurrection—and the other is the subject of angels. We have loads of ideas and doctrines about both—a lot that we take for granted—that have little or nothing to do with the Bible. The Bible, for example, says almost nothing about what happens to us between death and resurrection. If you think about it, this makes sense. The end goal is resurrection. What happens in between is relatively unimportant. It is enough for scripture to ensure us that the dead are, in some way and after some fashion, in the safekeeping of God. But we don’t like ambiguity, we don’t like not knowing, so we fill in the gaps on our own and quite often when we do that, we forget the point the Bible makes and end up putting all the emphasis on the things we come up with to fill the gaps. The same thing happens with the subject of angels (and their fallen, demonic counterparts). I remember my grandmother once talking to me about my guardian angel and I asked if we could read the Bible story about guardian angels. I was thinking of a storybook we had that showed a powerful angel standing guard over a little boy, but she thought I was asking where this doctrine was in the Bible. She didn’t know. I asked Grandpa the next morning and he didn’t know either. Years later I learned that that’s because it’s not. The idea of a guardian angel for every person arose in the middle ages after a long evolution that probably began with our reading today from Daniel 10. Angels show up quite a lot in the Bible, but the fact is that the Bible really doesn’t tell us very much about them. It’s one of those “need to know” things and, it seems, we don’t need to know all the details. Instead of being frustrated or annoyed that God hasn’t revealed all the details we’d like to know, instead of trying to fill in the gaps ourselves, sometimes we just need to be satisfied with what our loving God has revealed. I try to remind myself that maybe I should even be thankful. When I think of biblical encounters with angels—particularly Ezekiel and Daniel—it occurs to me that my head might explode were I to be confronted with all the truth about angels and that the Bible’s ambiguity may be a mercy. So let’s look at Daniel 10.
Before we begin, it’s important to know that Daniel 10, 11, and 12 are one unit—one vision. That’s too much for one sermon, so I’m going to break it down into three and we’ll look at single theme from the vision each time. Chapter 10 is the introduction. Look at verses 1-9.
In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a word was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar. 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 three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks. On the twenty-fourth 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 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 words, and as I heard the sound of his words, I fell on my face in deep sleep with my face to the ground.
As I’ve said before, the chronology of Daniel isn’t always easy to work out, but at least the date here is clear. This happened in the third year of the Persian King, Cyrus. That puts this about 536 or 535 BC. Things have been happening. In 1:21 we were told that Daniel was in Babylon until the first year of the reign of Cyrus. Maybe he’s now retired, because here we see him on the bank of the Tigris River—he’s not in Babylon anymore. More important is what’s been going on in Jerusalem. Ezra tells us that story. Cyrus decreed that the Jewish exiles should return and rebuild Jerusalem. They did return and they got to work, but that work was thwarted at every turn and as a result, not much had happened in Jerusalem. Too, it turns out, a lot of Jews opted not to return. They’d been in Babylon for a long time, they’d made lives for themselves there, so they chose to stay, rather than return to what they knew would be a hard life in the ruins of Jerusalem and Judah. Daniel was disappointed. The exile was technically over, but his people faced opposition from without and apathy from within.
So Daniel mourned. For three weeks he mourned. He ate no fine food. He drank no wine. He did not anoint himself with oil—in today’s terms, he went without deodorant. For three weeks he mourned and he fasted. The date given in verse 4 tells us that this happened at Passover. Daniel’s people should have been celebrating the Lord’s deliverance, but it doesn’t seem that they were. So once again, Daniel prays for them. And in response the Lord visits him. The people around Daniel couldn’t see anything unusual, but they sensed the presence of the holy and went running in fear. But Daniel looks up and before him he sees this magnificent figure. The man is clothed in linen and girt with gold. Those are the garments of a priest. His body like beryl and his arms and legs like bronze. His face is like lightning and his eyes like flaming torches. His voice is like a multitude. The language comes straight from the first chapter of Ezekiel. Ezekiel uses this language to describe the living creatures with the faces of men and animals, to describe the angels that appeared to him as wheels within wheels, and to describe the throne of God and the one like a man seated on it.
Who or what is this figure Daniel sees? It’s hard to say. Some think it might be an appearance of the pre-incarnate Jesus. Some think it’s God himself. Others think it was an angel. I’m inclined to lean toward it being an angel, especially when he says that he’d been trying to reach Daniel for three weeks, but was delayed by the “prince of Persia”. It’s hard to imagine God himself being waylaid by any created being. Maybe this is Gabriel, who appeared earlier (and who will appear to Mary) and seems to be God’s messenger. It’s hard to be certain about any of this, but that’s okay. The important thing is that the messenger is heavenly and that he’s bringing a message from the Lord to Daniel. Let’s look at 10:10 to 11:1. This is the beginning of the visitor’s message.
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 your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”
When he had spoken to me according to these words, I turned my face toward the ground and was mute. And behold, one in the likeness of the children of man touched my lips. Then I opened my mouth and spoke. I said to him who stood before me, “O my lord, by reason of the vision pains have come upon me, and I retain no strength. How can my lord’s servant talk with my lord? For now no strength remains in me, and no breath is left in me.”
Again one having the appearance of a man touched me and strengthened me. And he said, “O man greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage.” And as he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, “Let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.” Then he said, “Do you know why I have come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia; and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come. But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth: there is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince.
“And as for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to confirm and strengthen him.
As Daniel lies there, his face to the ground, and his strength gone, awed by the presence of the holy, a hand touches him and sets him on his knees. Three times this being he describes as having the appearance of a man gives him a sort of heavenly first aid to relieve his fearful trembling. The text is clear that this is an angel, but it’s not clear if this is a different being than the majestic figure clothed in linen and gold. Whatever the case, the angel speaks to Daniel, he reassures him, and he explains that from the moment he had opened his lips in prayer three weeks before, God had heard him. As always, in the Old Testament, for God to hear is also for God to act. And so he sent this heavenly messenger to Daniel.
Again, there’s more to the message than what we read here. This is just the introduction. But here the angel tells Daniel this story that probably seems pretty weird to us—and maybe it felt weird to Daniel, but I doubt it. Ancient peoples had a more organic view of earth and heaven. The gods were at work behind everything, whether it was the cycle of the seasons, the sun and moon in their journeys across the sky, the tide rolling in and out, or the rise and fall of kings and nations. This is the image that Genesis 1 gives us—although I think we miss it by trying to read Genesis with modern eyes. Genesis shows us God, having finished his creation, taking up his rest on the sabbath. And that rest isn’t a disengaged rest, like taking a nap on a Sunday afternoon. We see him taking up his throne in his temple. The work of creation is done, but now he takes his place in the control room. God is engaged with his creation and takes an active role in its working. It’s a very different way of seeing the world than our modern view. We tend to see creation like a great machine governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and biology—created by God, sure—but now running more or less on its own. Miracles, for us, are those times when God steps in and manually turns back the hands of the clock or activates the chimes when they weren’t expected. And this goes for nations and kings, too. Where we see things like nationalism or economics or racism behind wars, they understood that supernatural powers were at work too. Their view, like I said, was an organic one. There was an unseen world underneath ours and things that went on in that unseen world had an impact on the world we can see.
So the angels explains to Daniel that for three weeks he was held up—like the waters of the Jordan being held back at the beginning of Joshua. Someone he calls the “prince of the kingdom of Persia” held him up, but after twenty-four days Michael arrived to help him in his struggle against this “prince”, and now—finally—he’s here to help Daniel understand—to understand what’s happening or what’s going to happen with his people in the latter days. The Lord has sent him with a vision about the days yet to come.
Word of warning: There’s a tendency amongst some folks today, to hear phrases like “latter days” and “days yet to come” and to immediately assume that this is about us or about our immediate future. It can’t be said strongly enough that this is an irresponsible way to read the Bible. Context is everything and before we start asking what any part of the Bible has to say to us, we have to first ask what it meant to the people who originally heard it—and first we have to figure out who those people were. We’ve done that with Daniel already. The implied audience was the Jews living under the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes in the 160s BC. What we’ve seen so far in Daniel’s vision and what we’ll see in the coming chapters maps right on to the events leading up to those days. This is about their current events, not ours—although that doesn’t mean we can’t learn something relevant to the troubles of the days we’re facing.
Again, Daniel’s strength fails him. Three times this happens as the angel speaks. But each time the angel lifts him up and exhorts him. “O man greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage.” Daniel’s looking at the events around him—just like the people of Judah in the 160s BC were looking around them—and they didn’t just see human kings and human armies. There was more to it than that the armies of Antiochus were greater than the people of Israel. They knew that other powers were at work in the unseen realm and they were tempted to fear that the Lord had either abandoned them or had failed. And this part of the vision was given to encourage them. The angel says again to Daniel, “Do you know why I have come to you? Now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia; and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come. But I will tell you…there is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince.”
In other words, yes, there’s a war going on. There are things Daniel can’t see. Heavenly beings are waging a war he can’t see. But he urges Daniel not to fear, because Michael, the prince, the angel who fights for the people of God at the Lord’s behest—he’s fighting and there is none like him. And that means that the Lord hasn’t abandoned his people. In fact, it means that in the end, the Lord will win. It’s an exhortation to stand firm. It’s an exhortation to keep praying. It’s a reminder that in the end God wins and with him his people who remain faithful.
This is an idea we see throughout the Old Testament. Bible scholars refer to it as “holy war”. The Lord fights for his people. Sometimes they fight with him and sometimes he fights when they cannot. Think of Israel’s victory at the Red Sea when the Lord caused the waters to crash down on the Egyptian army. Think of the battle of Jericho. The people did nothing but march in circles around the city, carrying the Lord’s ark—his throne—and blowing trumpets. It seems absurd to us. But it was the Lord’s way of teaching his people that he fights for them. They marched with his throne going before them surrounded by his priests, they blew his trumpets, and the walls fell down. Over and over we see this in the Old Testament. Think of Gideon going up against the Midianites. In that case Israel did have the army to face them and so the Lord made a point of thinning Gideon’s forces to a paltry three hundred simply to make the point that it was he who won the battle for them. Warfare took on element of worship. The troops of Israel were to be clean—much like the priests in the temple—when they went to battle. And when the Lord triumphed, they sang his praises.
And, throughout the Old Testament, we also see that when Israel was in the wrong, the Lord fought against them. Achan’s theft from the ruins of Jericho put the entire Israelite army under judgement and the Lord caused their defeat in the next battle. And, of course, there was the defeat of Jerusalem, after which the people were carried off into exile. The book of Lamentations describes the Lord stringing his bow and going to war against his own people (Lamentations 2:4).
Now Daniel’s repentance on behalf of the people prompts the Lord to respond by going to battle once again on behalf of his people. The next two chapters describe the victory in more detail, but Chapter 10 sets the stage by pulling back the curtain and showing the heavenly realities behind Israel’s troubles. When we’re tempted to trust in horses and chariots, the Lord reminds us that there’s more to what’s going on in the world than what we can see and that he fights for his people. It’s hard to imagine anything more encouraging than that!
So that’s the introduction to Daniel’s final vision. Let me close with two points. The first goes back to where we started. We need to be satisfied with what scripture tells us. In studying this passage over the last few months, more than once I’ve come across some bizarre rabbit holes. Some folks have used Daniel 10 to come up with some weird stuff under the heading of “spiritual warfare”—doctrines about demons controlling nations or even cities or neighbourhoods and all sorts of teaching about what Christians must to do to combat these demonic forces. As I read some of this stuff I found myself coming back to my search for scriptures about guardian angels when I was young. None of this is there. The angel in Daniel 10 lays out no sophisticated doctrine of either demonic or angelic powers and nothing here or elsewhere makes it our responsibility to fight them. What we read here is meant to encourage us. Yes, there are unseen powers that oppose God and his people, but there are also unseen powers—more powerful ones—that fight for God and for us. That’s not a battle that we can fight. Our duty is to fight the battle that we can: to stand firm in faith, to pray, to obey the Lord, to bear the fruit of the Spirit, and to proclaim the good news about Jesus, crucified and risen and Lord. We have been empowered by the Spirit and we’ve been given the gospel and we win the holy war by proclaiming that good news in the power of the Spirit. That’s the job we have been given; whatever is going on behind the scenes in the heavenlies is the job of those heavenly powers—whoever they are and however they operate. I’m inclined to suspect that the reason we’re given so little information about them and about their battle is that God doesn’t want us to get distracted by it. He’s given us our task and our battle and they have theirs and one day we’ll all join together to celebrate the Lord’s victory.
And that leads to point two: St. Paul exhorts us in Colossians, writing those wonderful words that on the cross, Jesus “stripped the rulers and authorities of their armour, and displayed them contemptuously to public view, celebrating his triumph over them.” In Ephesians 4:7-8 Paul writes about Jesus’ ascension using the words of Psalm 68, which is one of those Old Testament hymns about the divine warrior: “When he went up on high, he led bondage itself into bondage, and he gave gifts to his people.” The cross and the empty tomb and the ascension into heaven were those visible events in our realm by which Jesus won his victory in the invisible heavenlies. He won the spiritual battle that began back in Genesis 3:15. Those old powers, like those of Persia and Greece that Michael fought, those powers that held back the angel and kept him from visiting Daniel—Jesus has stripped those powers bare and as they once held humanity in bondage, Jesus has broken their shackles and bound them with their own chains.
People in the Old Testament, people like Daniel or the people living in Jerusalem under Antiochus Epiphanes could sort of be forgiven for losing hope. They knew their own stories and how the Lord had fought for them in the past, but those evil powers in the heavenlies were real and powerful and—well—sometimes it really did look like they might win. But as I’m so fond of saying, the resurrection of Jesus changed everything. Jesus has stripped those powers of their power and authority and now we go out as his people into the world to do battle, not armed with swords to kill the enemies of God. We go out armed with the gospel and as history shows, the devils flee and the nations fall like dominos before the power of the gospel. We all know Paul’s passage about the armour of God. Consider how Paul transforms the imagery of the holy war of the Old Testament in the light of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Here’s what he writes and I’ll close with his words:
What else is there to say? Just this: be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his power. Put on God’s complete armor. Then you’ll be able to stand firm against the devil’s trickery. The warfare we’re engaged in, you see, isn’t against flesh and blood. It’s against the leaders, against the authorities, against the powers that rule the world in this dark age, against the wicked spiritual elements in the heavenly places.
For this reason, you must take up God’s complete armor. Then, when wickedness grabs its moment, you’ll be able to withstand, to do what needs to be done, and still to be on your feet when it’s all over. So stand firm! Put the belt of truth round your waist; put on justice as your breastplate; for shoes on your feet, ready for battle, take the good news of peace. With it all, take the shield of faith; if you’ve got that, you’ll be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is God’s word.
Pray on every occasion in the spirit, with every type of prayer and intercession. You’ll need to keep awake and alert for this, with all perseverance and intercession for all God’s holy ones. (Ephesians 6:10-18)
Let’s pray: Father, we thank you that you fight for us and we praise you for your victories. We praise you especially for the victory you won at the cross when your Son, Jesus, died and rose in triumph over sin and death. Keep his victory ever before us, we ask, so that we might always follow him in confident faith and hope. And give your church the grace to continue to stand firm against your enemies as we carry the good news about Jesus into the world, trusting in the power of your word and your Spirit to bring your new creation. Through the Lord Jesus we pray. Amen.