Here, in the summer of 2016, we find ourselves in a presidential election contest once again. As citizens, we can ponder what our nation’s future may be, who will be leading the country, and what our role is within it. We know in some measure that what goes on in the wider world may affect us – either the economy and our prospects of finding or keeping a good job, or worse yet the prospect of war, that could bring death to our shore. Perhaps you’ve noticed that for the first time ever the summer Olympics has a squad of refugees competing in the games in Rio. They fly under no flag but the Olympic flag; and they represent over 21 million refugees throughout the world, the greatest number since the end of World War II.

As Americans, we have little personal appreciation for the painful loss of identity people feel when they are forced to flee their country, and all that is familiar, to become refugees. The Bible, however, repeatedly tells how the Israelites were forced to become refugees from their homeland; and in the first century AD, Christ’s disciples were aliens wherever they lived. They lived in the vast Roman Empire, but were refugees within it.

So Peter addressed his first epistle: “To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.” And again, he exhorted God’s people in 2:11, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul.” As Christians, even when we feel very much at home geographically, we’re still aliens from a sinful world that wages war against the Christ-nature within us.

Over 2500 years ago, the nation of Israel was a nation of refugees. In the eighth century BC, the northern kingdom of Israel had been crushed by the Assyrian Empire and its people were scattered abroad. Few, if any, people returned from the northern kingdom to reconstitute any of the “lost ten tribes” of Israel. Then the southern kingdom of Judah was repeatedly invaded till its final destruction in 586 BC, and most of their people were forcibly exiled to Babylon. Most of the remnant of Jews in Judah later fled to Egypt, in defiance of God’s instructions through the prophet Jeremiah, only to be killed by invading Babylonians for their persistent idolatry.

So by the late sixth century BC, the Jewish people were a nation of refugees. But God raised up a new generation of prophets and leaders to call the remnant back to Himself in repentance, and promise that He would restore Israel to its land and fortune. Daniel was a prophet and leader at the pivotal transition from Babylonian to Persian suzerainty.

A few weeks ago, I spoke on Daniel 9, which told the Prophecy of the 70 Weeks or Sevens, of the execution of Messiah the Prince and another desolation of Jerusalem. This was God’s ironic answer to Daniel’s intercession for the restoration of Jerusalem; but God had something much greater in mind. The Prophecy of the 70 weeks began with the mighty angel Gabriel declaring God’s intent: “to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.” God accomplished that through Jesus’ death on the cross.

In this period of great weakness and danger to the Jewish refugees, God raised up a new standard of hope to His people. Isaiah had promised: “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him” (Isa. 59:19 KJV). In olden times, a standard was a battle flag around which an army would rally. As long as the standard was held aloft, fighting men knew their cause was not lost. God’s standard would one day become the standard-bearer not only for righteous Jews, but for God’s people throughout the world: Messiah the King.

Messiah, which means “the Anointed One,” had revealed Himself as God in human form from the beginning of time, even in the Garden of Eden. We call such divine appearings theophanies. He appeared to Abraham and Sarah to promise them a son, Isaac. Messiah pronounced judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah to Abraham, and later called out to him to not slay his only son Isaac. Messiah also appeared to Moses and Balaam the prophet as “the Angel of the LORD” and to Joshua as the Commander of Heaven’s Armies. He was spoken prophetically as the Son of God in Psalm 2 and Immanuel “God with us” and the transcendent “Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace” by Isaiah. His coming as Redeemer had been promised through Isaiah and Jeremiah; and His kingdom had been described to Daniel as an everlasting kingdom that one day would fill the whole earth.

Messiah then appeared in a vision to Daniel as “one like a son of man” who came before the Ancient of Days to receive all the kingdoms of the world – a direct reference to Psalm 2. Then in Daniel 8, Messiah told Gabriel to interpret the vision of the ram and the goat that described the coming collision between the Persian Empire and the rising power of Greece. In Daniel 9, Gabriel again told Daniel about the execution of Messiah the Prince by a coming people – that is Rome.

But now in Daniel 10, the Messiah, finally appears in glory as the narrator of the longest, single prophetic message in the Bible, Daniel 10 through 12. Let’s read verse 1 of Daniel 10:

“In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a message was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar; and the message was true and one of great conflict, but he understood the message and had an understanding of the vision.”

Daniel 10 occurred two years after the event in Daniel 9, which would place it between 536-535 BC. It was now the third year of Cyrus’ reign as Emperor over a greatly expanded Persian Empire. Cyrus reigned from 559 to 530 BC, during which time he expanded his rule from a couple small provinces, to take over all of Elam or southern Persia, and then subdued the Median Empire to the north, which was ruled by his grandfather. He finally plotted his takeover of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom to his west.

It is significant that Daniel dated this chapter according to the reign of Cyrus, rather than that of Darius. The context of each chapter made their respective designations appropriate. Daniel 9 focused on Daniel’s mourning and prayer for the restoration of Jerusalem, and the prophecy of the 70 sevens or weeks that included a period where Jerusalem would again be devastated. So the dating of this chapter to the king of Babylon was apropos, since it was Babylon that first conquered and destroyed Jerusalem.

In the book of Revelation, which is the New Testament apocalyptic counterpart to Daniel, “Mystery Babylon” is the seat of power of the Beast, a great city whose wealth and power are at the service of false worship and opposed to God.

Daniel 10 occurred in the third year of Cyrus the Great, first of the Persian emperors. Daniel wrote this message “was true and one of great conflict (or warfare).” It first told of the conflict between Persia and Greece from a heavenly perspective – that is the struggle of Messiah and his angels against a satanic Prince of Persia in order to weaken Persia and make way for the rise of Greece and the future Hellenistic Empire. Since the focus of this passage was on the empire and not on a city, Daniel chose to date his experience from the time Cyrus ascended to the throne over his empire.

Daniel 10 is only the first part of an extended vision which continues until the end of the book. The narrator of the vision is the same Person, described as a man, but clearly much greater than a mortal man. In Daniel 9, the herald angel Gabriel is sent from heaven to give Daniel God’s answer to his intercession; but in Daniel 10 a new Person appears in response to Daniel’s 21-day period of prayer and mourning. This Person is Messiah in his pre-incarnate form, God in the form of a man.

Continuing with verses 2 and 3: In those days, I, Daniel, had been mourning for three entire weeks. ³ I did not eat any tasty food, nor did meat or wine enter my mouth, nor did I use any ointment at all until the entire three weeks were completed.

Daniel deprived himself of tasty food and wine, as a sign of mourning. It had been perhaps two years since he had received the Prophecy of the 70 Sevens, and Daniel was still interceding for the return of the people of Judah to Jerusalem. He knew that almost two years earlier, Emperor Cyrus had issued the decree recounted in 2 Chronicles 36:22-23: “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia—in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah—the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, ²³ “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all His people, may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up!’”

Cyrus was magnanimous in triumph and undoubtedly understood the importance of religious leaders in stabilizing recently acquired lands like Judea. Moreover, Jewish tradition asserted that Cyrus responded positively to being the prophesied conqueror in Isaiah 44:28 through 45:3 over 150 years earlier:

“It is I who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd! And he will perform all My desire.’ And he declares of Jerusalem, ‘She will be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation will be laid.’”

Thus says the Lord to Cyrus His anointed, whom I have taken by the right hand, to subdue nations before him and to loose the loins of kings; to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut: ² “I will go before you and make the rough places smooth; I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars. ³ “I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden wealth of secret places, so that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.” (Isaiah 44:28-45:3). In ancient Persian, Cyrus’ name was pronounced Kūrush. In Hebrew, Prophet Isaiah called him Koresh.

So Daniel had biblical authority to appeal to God for the fulfillment of King Cyrus’ decree to be fulfilled, even though it seemed stalled. And once again, God replied to Daniel’s intercession with an extraordinary answer. Reading on from verse 4: “On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, while I was by the bank of the great river, that is, the Tigris, ⁵ I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, there was a certain man dressed in linen, whose waist was girded with a belt of pure gold of Uphaz. ⁶ His body also was like beryl, his face had the appearance of lightning, his eyes were like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the gleam of polished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a tumult [roaring]. ⁷ Now I, Daniel, alone saw the vision, while the men who were with me did not see the vision; nevertheless, a great dread fell on them, and they ran away to hide themselves. ⁸ So I was left alone and saw this great vision; yet no strength was left in me, for my natural color [splendor] turned to a deathly pallor [corruption], and I retained no strength. ⁹ But I heard the sound of his words; and as soon as I heard the sound of his words, I fell into a deep sleep on my face, with my face to the ground.”

When Daniel had fasted and called upon God for Jerusalem in Daniel 9, God sent Gabriel to tell him indirectly of Messiah’s own intercession to bring about the final atonement. Now Messiah Himself appears in response to Daniel’s mourning. Why do we know that it was Messiah, and not merely an angel as some commentators have believed? The answer is in the description of this “man” and the effect He had on Daniel and the men around him.

First, this person was clearly described as a man, with a body, head, eyes, face and arms of a man, and who spoke in Daniel’s tongue. Yet this man, Daniel said, had a “body…like beryl, his face had the appearance of lightning, his eyes were like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the gleam of polished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a tumult” – that is, like the roaring of the ocean when waves are crashing ashore. Gabriel did not present himself to Daniel this way, so it is evident that this “man” was Gabriel’s superior. Only Messiah, God incarnate, could fill that superior position and still be human.

The effect this man had upon Daniel and his companions was pronouncedly greater than what Daniel experienced in Gabriel’s presence. The other men ran away in “great dread” from Him, and Daniel lost all strength, so that he became almost like a dead man. This was a natural human response to being in contact with the divine; for unless God shields you from the effect of His glory it is overwhelming to the human body and spirit. The Hebrew word for glory is kavod, which literally means heaviness. God’s glory, unrestrained, will crush the life out of anything mortal exposed to it. “No man can see My face and live”, God told Moses; and Messiah let Daniel experience just enough of His glory to flatten him in holy awe.

The Book of Revelation, chapter one, clearly affirms that the man Daniel saw was none other than Jesus the Messiah in His pre-incarnate form. Notice the similarity of description between the Risen Lord and the man Daniel saw. The Apostle John was in exile on Patmos on the Lord’s Day, or Sunday, when he heard a voice that blasted like a trumpet: “Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; ¹³ and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. ¹⁴ His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. ¹⁵ His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. ¹⁶ In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. ¹⁷ When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, ¹⁸ and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.”

Jesus Christ looked exactly the same, and had the same effect upon John as Messiah had upon Daniel. John called Jesus “Messiah;” and Jesus clearly identified Himself as equal with God when He said “I am the first and the last, and the living One… and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” So Daniel experienced a theophany, seeing God in human form. Thus everything that followed in the rest of Daniel’s prophecy had the unassailable weight of a direct, divine revelation. And Messiah’s appearance and words impacted Daniel with the kavod, the awesome heaviness, of divine glory!

Let’s continue with verse 10: “Then behold, a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. ¹¹ He said to me, “O Daniel, man of high esteem [desirability, preciousness], understand the words that I am about to tell you and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you.” And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling.

Daniel was held in high esteem in heaven, someone precious and desirable. You may not feel that way about yourself, dressed in khakis and t-shirts in prison, but when the Spirit of God comes to indwell you through your faith in Jesus Christ, He makes you exceedingly precious and desirable to God. Now your former, prideful self-esteem can be replaced by the uplifting, holy esteem of God for His work in your life.

“Then he said to me, “Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words. ¹³ But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia. ¹⁴ Now I have come to give you an understanding of what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision pertains to the days yet future.”

The prince of the kingdom of Persia that Messiah said withstood him for 21 days was not King Cyrus; for Isaiah had already foretold Cyrus as God’s servant, and Cyrus willed for the holy temple to be rebuilt. This prince was a mighty satanic angel who ruled over all the demons in his region. So Messiah called upon one of his great princes, Michael, no doubt with his angelic forces, to overcome this evil prince.

Some commentators have concluded that because this demonic Prince of Persia was able to withstand this man for 21 days that he couldn’t be Messiah; for God could simply dismiss the devil with a word. In response, we should note that these 21 days covered the length of Daniel’s intercession, and Messiah wanted Daniel to experience the magnitude of the spiritual forces he was unleashing in his intercession. Nothing of great importance is ever accomplished with ease. If Messiah had appeared in the first hour of Daniel’s prayer, would it have had the same effect upon him, and upon our imagination even today, 2500 years later? No, it wouldn’t; so God expects us to persist in prayer, and beseech Him with importunity, to use a term from the King James Bible. Perseverance is the necessary co-worker with our faith.

Second, the number 21 is a multiple of 3 times 7, where three is the number of God and seven is the number of perfection. Multiplied together, Messiah let Daniel experience a perfect work of God, His own appearing, in response to Daniel’s labor in prayer.

Third, these satanic princes are formidable beings in their own right; and Messiah had not yet stripped them of their power through His atoning death on the cross. Thus, demons had considerably more freedom to exercise their preternatural, demonic power and resist God than they do today.

Fourth, the power of demons was, and still is, intertwined mysteriously in the minds and wills of people; and those of demonic princes through the manipulated consensus of societies or nations that are riddled with self-serving idolatries of every kind. God respects the free will of human beings; so He doesn’t dislodge human infrastructures instantaneously for defying His will. Rather, God prefers to let the course of human sin expose its failures through the bitter fruit that it bears, and so teach others the inevitable consequences of our words and actions.

Now continuing with verse 15: When he had spoken to me according to these words, I turned my face toward the ground and became speechless. ¹⁶ And behold, one who resembled a human being was touching my lips; then I opened my mouth and spoke and said to him who was standing before me, “O my lord, as a result of the vision anguish has come upon me, and I have retained no strength. ¹⁷ For how can such a servant of my lord talk with such as my lord? As for me, there remains just now no strength in me, nor has any breath been left in me.”

¹⁸ Then this one with human appearance touched me again and strengthened me. ¹⁹ He said, “O man of high esteem, do not be afraid. Peace be with you; take courage and be courageous!” Now as soon as he spoke to me, I received strength and said, “May my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.” ²⁰ Then he said, “Do you understand why I came to you? But I shall now return to fight against the prince of Persia; so I am going forth, and behold, the prince of Greece is about to come. ²¹ However, I will tell you what is inscribed in the writing of truth. Yet there is no one who stands firmly with me against these forces except Michael your prince.

Messiah let Daniel feel the awesome significance of His words. Behind every human conflict there is a much more powerful conflict taking place in the unseen spiritual realm, the second heaven. The spiritual realm is swayed by human action and words. Separated from God, our thoughts, words and actions inevitably stray into selfishness and strife, which empower the devil, the Accuser of the brethren. But when we humble ourselves and persist in prayer, the angelic realm has authority to thwart the devil’s devices at every turn, and advance God’s purposes in the earth.

I don’t know why it is so; but the Bible and long human experience affirm that it is. God responds to prayer, and the devil exploits human strife and folly; but God’s kingdom is ultimately triumphant, because His Spirit works among us, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is more than sufficient to help us overcome our adversary, which is what Satan’s name means. Yet God has balanced the forces in the world to never allow us the luxuries of indolence or overconfidence. Just as soon as you experience a triumph in one area, adversity seems to strike in another. God keeps us humble that way, and dependent upon Him, rather than our fleshly might, which are useless against the devil. So one can see the paradoxical utility of the enemy in forcing us to rely upon God and His grace, and not in our natural abilities.

Psalm 60:11-12 says, “Oh give us help against the adversary, for deliverance by man is in vain. Through God we will do valiantly, And it is He who shall tread down our adversaries.”

As soon as Messiah spoke peace and courage to Daniel, he regained his strength. That’s why you and I should regularly spend time alone with God in prayer and in His word. God still speaks to us – both by His written word and by His Spirit; and when God speaks to us, our spirit is strengthened.

Messiah asked Daniel if he knew why He had come to him. He had departed from fighting the demonic Prince of Persia, but was set to return to fight him again; for the Prince of Greece was about to come. Messiah described in one sentence the course of Providence that prevented the Persian Empire in a few decisive battles from overcoming the numerically inferior Greeks during the reigns of Darius II and Xerxes, until Alexander the Great united the Greeks to conquer the Persian Empire over 200 years later. What we learn from this brief passage is that human institutions are often backed by separate, jealous demonic powers that both use and abuse human power to manipulate, dominate and control human beings into bondage. God secretly resists these demonic powers and loosens their grip, and their ability to control events; but as soon as one force of evil is overcome, another rises to fill the vacuum of power left behind. Thus, as soon as the Prince of Persia was defeated, the Prince of Greece came with Alexander’s armies to expand its own base of power.

Yet the rise of Greece, and of the Roman Empire behind it, strangely served the expansion of Christ’s kingdom even while it sought futilely to suppress it. The Greeks gave us the original language of the New Testament, a tongue whose grammatical and lexical precision made it an ideal vehicle for conveying New Covenant truth. The Romans created the Pax Romana that enabled the Christian faith to expand throughout Europe in the first five centuries, and in North African and the Middle East, until Islam supplanted it. But this, too, will ultimately serve God’s providential purpose.

What can we gain from Daniel’s powerful encounter with the Messiah? First, we can draw from this passage, and the earlier one in Daniel 9, that our earnest seeking of God in prayer has a real impact in the realm of the spirit, and the outcomes people experience in the world. God promises to answer prayer; but His answers are often surprising and usually go way beyond what we imagine He will do.

Second, there really are opposing satanic forces at work at every level of human society; and we cannot defeat them merely through human activity. Good works are really important, but if they are to have a lasting impact in the souls of people, helping them become disciples of Christ, they must be accompanied by prevailing prayer. Satan and his host are expert in subverting good intentions through generating strife, resentment, discouragement, disillusionment and so forth. “Yet they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

Third, never give up because the answer to your prayers and longings are delayed. In heaven, all our longings will be more than fulfilled; but until then, the Bible assures us, “Let us not lose heart in doing good; for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

Finally, just like Daniel, your life will be transformed through a personal encounter with the Messiah, who is Jesus our Lord. I know a lady volunteer who encountered Jesus in blazing glory, as well as my seminary friend, Kevin Hinman, the day he became saved. You don’t have to see Jesus to believe in Him; you only have to trust Him at His word, that his death on the cross will save you, and His resurrection proves it. Trusting in Him will guarantee your place as a child of God in heaven, because the Spirit of God will reside in your heart forever as the seal of Christ’s presence and righteousness within you. Have you trusted in Him? Let us pray.