David Macdonald - December 9 2018

Hopefully I'm driving my car better than this. Good morning everyone. Oh, there are people here. Good morning everyone.

Thank you. Good to see you. Good to have you here. Nice to be at the point where we're seeing Christmas Carols.

She's back. I can't do this secretly. It's going to ask for prayer for Esther. She's having surgery on Tuesday.

So I would ask that you would pray for her. I was hoping she was still downstairs when I gave that little announcement, but she's back. So maybe in trouble. Also, little Megan Pattison.

Please be praying for her health. She's had some ongoing health issues from birth that seem to be kind of plaguing again and some upcoming tests and someone that are going on. And it's quite a thing for Megan, especially for her family. So I'd ask you to pray for Megan.

Sam, thanks for reminding us of the Downtown Outreach on the 21st. I want to remind everybody that a year ago when we all came out from Northbrook and went downtown and did the outreach on that cold night and gave out little candy canes and tracks and so on. And you don't have to preach. You don't have to do anything.

Just come and sing. Just come and stand and watch. It's an opportunity. But right there on the street with us last year, a lady who was just totally lost in her life came to Jesus Christ right there.

And she has been going on. So she's had her struggles. Lots of them. But she has found hope in Jesus Christ.

And so that's how important that is. And if you could be part of that. Just come and sing some Christmas Carols. If you just come for half an hour and go.

That's fine. If you come and stay the whole time, then we would welcome that too. So that's really important. And the other thing, and I don't want to fill the morning with special announcements, but where's Jane?

Jane is in Sunday school. I saw her walk in there. But I was going to get her to stand so you know who she is. We have a lending library right here.

We never talk about it. It's one of those secret things at Northbrook. It's like we don't want anybody to know about the lending library. But just so you know, there's hundreds and hundreds of great books in there that you can take home and borrow and read.

And there's dozens of DVDs in there. There's actually probably some VHS stuff there if you're still living in the 80s. But you can take that stuff home and watch it. You can borrow it.

And there's really great books there. There's fiction. There's in between. You know, there's all kinds of stuff there.

You can borrow that to take it home and read it. There's all kinds of kids books. There's some deep theology books if that's what floats your boat. There's all kinds of good stuff in there.

So I want to just mention it because we don't give it any attention and we should. So those are the special announcements for the morning which we're totally unplanned. Alright, let's turn to the Lord and pray. Thank you Lord for bringing us here.

Thank you for the Lord Jesus our Savior. And we thank you that we can sing. And especially at this time of the year when we have opportunity to speak of our Savior. The one who came.

God becoming a man that He may come and die for sinners. I pray this morning as we open your word and we look at it that you would help me. To be clear, I pray that you'd help us to understand clearly. And I pray that through the help of the Holy Spirit that our lives will be impacted as we look into the Word of God.

Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. I want to speak and I struggle with what the call this message. But I want to call it the invisible war.

And I've stolen that title from a book by Donald Gray Barnhouse that I read many years ago. Which for the most part is a very good book. And it speaks of the kind of war that goes on in spiritual realms behind the scenes that we don't get to see. The first thing I'm going to ask you is have you ever been in a fight?

Have you ever been in a fight? Physical fight? Other people. He was when he was younger.

So, well, there was a bully in our school. And his name was, my name was McDonald and it wasn't me. And he wasn't related to me. I don't want to give his first name because he has such a unique first name that you could probably find him somewhere.

In fact, I did creep him on Facebook the other day and he's still alive. I think I could take him. Like I really do. Because he's not looking as physically fit as I probably would have thought.

But back in grade six, this guy bullied me and a bunch of other guys all the time. Like on the way home from school. He blocked my path. You're not getting by and back and forth back.

Just frustrated until the point, not almost. He did. You cried. So this is what his goal was to see how many guys he could bully.

And he was like, everybody just couldn't stand. There's another guy who's on CBC radio. And he's a reporter here. Every time he comes on, I turn it off because his brother was the worst bully I ever knew in my whole life.

And his brother just tormented. Tormented, tormented. All the guys in the school. And he was bigger and he was older and he was way dumber because he was probably five grades behind where he should have been.

And because of that he would bully us young guys. But this McDonald guy. So one day I said, when will you stop this? And he said, I'll stop this when you fight me.

I said, all right, I'll fight you. He says, OK, tomorrow after school we'll have a fight. OK. Now I'm a grade six or five.

I'm a grade five. I'm just a little kid. But I felt like I was a bigger kid than that. But all right.

So it was all set up and not on the school grounds because you know you're probably going to fight on the school grounds. So there's a field near our home. We decided we're going to go to this field. And we're going to go to this fight.

And it's going to be over once and for all. Now it's bigger than this guy. And I said, all right, fight. I'm just running at him.

I'm going to jump on top of him. And I'm going to knock him down and lie on top of him. And it's over. And it worked.

I did. And he goes, OK. That's not a fight. In the days of Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, a fight was this.

Dukes. So I get up. I'm thinking. And you know, a little kid, grade five.

Jumped on another little kid, grade five. Pinned him. And we're good. But no, he wants this.

So everybody's like, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. I still see them all. I still see them all. I still see them.

It's like it happened yesterday. I still see it. So we decided we're going to start slugging at each other. Well, I'll tell you what.

He got two. One left eye, one right eye. I went through the next two weeks with two black eyes. The embarrassment is not my greatest moment in life.

So I had to go back to school. I had two black eyes. And I think they hung around for like the rest of the school year. And so I really, really got beat up by this bully.

Well, I asked you if you're ever in a fight. I didn't count the hands. Stick them up again. OK.

Now I'm going to tell you something. You are part of a fight whether you know what or not. You're in a fight. You're in a conflict.

In fact, I'm speaking about this. The one that we fight against does not want me to even say this stuff today. He doesn't want to hear this. He doesn't want you to hear this.

So I've struggled all morning with different things. With asthma, with dizziness, with all kinds of things have gone on this morning. And I'm thinking, this is part of the fight. It really is.

You may not know it, but you might try to steer clear of it if you're a Christian, but you can't. And Daniel was going to get a clear picture of this fight in Daniel chapter 10. Or continuing in Daniel. You are in a conflict if you were a child of God.

Just by virtue of who you are, you are in a conflict. You are in a battle. There is a war going on. And there's an enemy.

And he is on the prowl. He hates God and everything to do with him and you have to do with him. And you are stuck in the crossfires. It's just the way it is.

You know, it's hard to get surveys in Canada, but surveys in the US. And I'm not going to win any numbers here, but most people in the US, probably in Canada too, believe in God. Well, that's nice. But a lot fewer believe that there's a devil.

Really. Most Americans believe that there's a heaven. But few believe that there's a hell. You know, there's a couple of quotes that I put up.

First of all, C.S. Lewis says this, humanity falls into two equal but opposite errors concerning the devil. There were those who don't take him seriously enough. And there were those who take him way too seriously.

You know, there's the side of denial, which it sounds like a lot of people who might believe in heaven are in denial. That there's a hell. There is. The Bible teaches one.

It teaches the other. And people who want to say, yes, I believe in God. Oh, yes, God is good. God looks after me.

I talked to God and all this stuff. He says, well, no, it's kind of a made up story. The Bible teaches that there's both. And they're in opposition to each other.

So there are people who are in denial. And that's a dangerous place to be. But the other side that's even just as dangerous are those who take the devil way too seriously. They see the devil in everything.

They see the devil in every little thing that goes on in their life. I mean, the devil's after me. That's why I had that car accident. The devil's after me.

That's why I got this chest cold. The devil's after me because of this. The devil's in behind that and behind this and that. And they just torture themselves, obsessing over the devil.

But here's the thing. We do have an enemy. And it is the devil. And we can't see him.

And the most dangerous enemy you can have is one you can't see. It really is. And there's an interesting, and I can't remember which war it was. It was one of the wars in early days of Israel, probably in the 60s.

And Egypt and a number of Arab countries were coming up against Israel. And Israel got themselves on one side of a hill. And they told every man to bring your lawnmower, your chainsaw, you bring anything that makes the noise of an engine with you. And at the most opportune time, we're going to hide behind the hill where nobody can see us.

And we will start every engine we've got. Lawnmowers. Well, they didn't have snow blowers. But lawnmowers and anything that they had.

Cars, trucks. And they made this humongous noise. There was very few of them. But the enemy turned and ran away because they were terrified.

Why? Because they could hear this army, this great, huge army that's going to come over the hill and crush them. An army that they couldn't see. The most dangerous enemy you can have, or the most dangerous enemy you can have is one that you can't see.

Because they're going to spring up over the hill. And if you're not ready for them, you're in trouble. And the devil is that type of enemy. And you don't want to deny that there's an enemy lurking behind the hill.

Some Christians don't engage in spiritual warfare, but they're not going to be in the enemy. Some Christians don't engage in spiritual warfare because they're engaged in other things. They're too busy doing other things. Leave me out of this.

I don't even know why you're talking about this this morning. I'm just cool. I just want to go along. I don't want to be part of this whole thing.

Well, you were in it. If you're a child of God, you were in it. And you were part of it. John White.

Anybody remember John White from back in my early days as a Christian? John White had written a couple of books. One was called The Fight. And this is a quote from that book.

He says, have no delusions about the reality of demons and their hostility. They will also oppose you as you obey Christ. If you play a cool and decide not to be a fanatic about Christianity, you will have no trouble from them at all. But if you're serious about Christ being your Lord and God, you can expect opposition.

If you're a serious Christian, you are going to have serious opposition. If we're serious as a church about obeying God, if we're serious about taking this book seriously and obeying what it says, we will have opposition. It might not walk through the front door and terrorize us all. It might be just some hideous little things that creep in.

But be aware that as we walk more and more with the Lord, we will have more and more opposition. So Daniel got some cosmic insight here into a bully, the devil and his cohorts. This is kind of like pulls the curtain off the invisible and you're going to get to see it. So Daniel 10, we're looking at this morning.

That's kind of the prologue of what's coming up. There's a prophetic vision concerning all the future, battles and recent futures that are now passed and future future that we haven't seen yet. We'll come out in Daniel chapter 11 and then chapter 12 is an epilogue. So I've broken things out into, I actually had three points and then I thought, no, I have to have a fourth point to share it all up at the end.

So concerning problem, a commanding presence, a containing powers and a Christian's conquer. First of all, the concerning problem. I put the text up and I took David Hanson's advice yesterday and I'm keeping my slides to a minimum and we're just going to look at good sized text that you can look at up there. Let's read chapter 10 verses 1 to 3.

If you have your Bible, you can open that because it's always good that way you can make your own notes in your Bible. But if you don't, I put it up here for you. In the third year of Cyrus, King of Persia, a message was revealed to Daniel whose name was called Belta Shazar. Remember that was Daniel's Babylonian name, Belta Shazar.

The message was true, but the appointment of time was long and he understood the message and had understanding of the vision. In those days, I Daniel was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant food, no wine, no wine came to my mouth, nor did I annoy myself at all until three whole weeks were fulfilled. So here's Daniel, goes through three weeks, no decent food and no bathing.

So I have a story on that but I don't talk today. He was in the later part of his life. Daniel's about 86 at this point in time. He's weeping and he's mourning and he hasn't eaten.

So why is he weeping? Well, what I like about the Scriptures here, it gives you the time. We were talking a group of us down in the fellowship room last week and he said, I love the Bible, it's an amazing book. And I said, yeah, it is an amazing book.

And I said, look at this, I thought this is an amazing book because it tells me exactly what the time is at this point in time. Daniel's about 85, 86 years old and he's weeping. It's the third year of Cyrus, King of Persia. Now, if you look at that, the Jews have been back in Jerusalem for two years at this point in time.

Remember they were taken captive and Daniel was one of them 70 years ago. They were all hauled into Babylon and they were slaves basically to the king and then they had children and 70 years go by. And then at the end of 70 years, they're to go back into the land. But something Daniel saw in the vision that he prayed for had come to pass.

In Ezra chapter 1, we learned that in the first year of Cyrus, anitic was given for the Jews to return. But then, and I think this is why Daniel's upset, only a small portion of them returned to Jerusalem. Less than 50,000 of them went back. Now, there would have been millions of them or at least hundreds of thousands for sure.

Because they were all taken captive. Forget the ones that were slain but 70 years later they had children. They had become part of the culture, they were absorbed into the culture. They really became paganized.

They raised their children. They had more children. And they had businesses and so on. And they were probably hearing words that, you know what?

Those guys that went back, like, I know that's where God wants me. But he really wants me here running my business. I mean, I got this really nice shoe factory going on here. Like, you know, making sandals by the dozen.

And if I go back there, I got to start hauling rocks away from that old temple. I just don't know. I think it's easier to stay here than it is to go back. I know he wants me there, but, you know, I'm doing okay here.

And so only 49,600 of them go back. And the rest of them stay. And the ones that went back are saying, where's the rest of them? Man, this is a lot of work.

And it took them seven months just to clear rubble away from where everything was just ravaged by the Babylonians previously, 70 years ago. So they're back there working hard and things aren't going that well. They brought this dude, Zerubabel. I mean, if you really want to punish your kid, go on Zerubabel.

But this guy was of the lineage of David. And he went back and he's going to lead them. It's going to be their king. And it's not going all that well.

And then their enemies are hassling them. They're being made fun of. It's just not going well for them. And work came to a halt.

And you read a lot of this in Nehemiah and you think, oh, wow. But you know what? The ones that went back were obeying God. The ones that went back were where God wanted them to be.

49,000. The rest of them were so involved and so absorbed into that pagan culture that that was there now, their comfort zone. I'm not going to go where God wants me to go. I'm just going to be comfortable.

And I have to ask, is that where you were? Are you willing, if it makes you uncomfortable, to go and do what God wants you to do? Are you going to say, you know what? I got to get going.

That's pretty good for me right now. I think I'll just stay where I am. I hear the call. I know what I should do.

I know I should talk to this person. I know I should go to church. I know I should do this. I know I should read my Bible.

I know I should do all of that stuff. You know things are going pretty good. I think I'll just stay right where I am. And you become paganized as these people did.

You come and slip further and further and further away from God. And I believe that's why Daniel is weeping. He's looking around and he's seeing all these Jewish people. He's walking by their businesses.

He sees their children. He sees moms and dads. And he sees them all walking around Babylon saying, you guys should not be comfortable here. We're prisoners here.

Freedom is in Jerusalem. Yet you're choosing to stay a prisoner. Why? And it brings him to tears.

I'm in so much trouble when I look at the clock. So Daniel's praying. And he's about to be let in on a cosmic battle. He's engaged in this.

He's on his knees. What does Daniel do when he's troubled by things? He prays we've read this so many times. Daniel, a man of prayer.

I think I used to sing that as a Sunday school kid. Daniel's a man of prayer praying three times daily. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Can't remember the rest.

But Daniel was a man of prayer. Every time trouble came, Daniel defaulted to prayer. What do you do when trouble comes? Where's the first place you go in a spiritual battle?

Sadly, most churches go and have a board meeting and then they set up a committee. Let's deal with this problem. Don't you have a prayer meeting? Yeah, this is real world stuff.

We were dealing with here. You need to have prayer meeting. Christians, a lot of Christians, do the same thing. When your committee is a little smaller, your committees on the end of the phone or on the end of the text.

Oh, life is miserable. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I got this trouble. I got this trouble.

I'm playing, I'm playing, I'm playing. Great, great, great, great. And then, did you think about praying for that? But this is real.

Come on, I got a real problem here. Daniel knew that every problem had to go before God. If you got real problems, you got to be real God. You can take your real problems too.

And get some real answers to your real problems. Get some real help for your real problems. And Daniel knew that. He caught onto this.

In Ephesians chapter 6 verse 18, it says, and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. with this in mind be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. I don't know about you, but the word that stuck out for me at least three times and this is pray, prayers, praying. Pray, pray, pray.

You know, I mean, I'm excited about it, but our worst attendant meetings are pre-meeting. It really is. And I'm not saying that to guilt you. I'm saying that that is a temperature problem on where some of us are.

I'm guilty myself. I've missed as well. But when I look at it and think what really, really will bring change into your life, will bring salvation to your kids will bring hope to a hopeless world, his prayer. It's not this.

It's not coming here. It's not coming tonight to the sing and I hope you do come. But if you're really serious about wanting to reach somebody in your family, if you're really serious about wanting to see the troubles in your life dealt with, you need to come and pray. You need to be praying.

Daniel took it very, very seriously. That's what he did. The next thing we see here is as he's praying, we see this commanding presence. Suddenly this happens.

Heaven breaks in on him. Chapter 10, verse 4. On the 24th day of first month, I was by the side of the Great River. That is the Tigris.

There were two rivers in Babylon, Tigris in Euphrates. I looked, I lifted up my eyes and looked and behold a certain man clothed in linen whose waist was girded in the gold of Yufaz. His body was like myrtle, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnish bronze in color. And the sound of his words like the voice 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 terror fell upon them so they fled and hid themselves. So Daniel sees his man, he's clothed in linen. All of these other qualities that he sees of him, he's a fearful vision. Daniel's friends didn't see him, but they knew something was going on and they hid.

They just said, I'm getting out of dodge here. I'm going. And they took off. Daniel fell on his face.

Now remember, 86-year-old man falling on his face is not usually a good thing. But he falls on his face before this being. It's as if he's now seeing in the presence of God himself. He brings himself low and humble and terrified in the presence of God.

I got annoyed when I see him turn on some person show and somebody who on the operating table actually died and saw God and came back to write a book about it. I'm thinking if you saw God, you're not writing a book about it. You're either dead or you're humble, one or the other. There are others in the scriptures that saw God.

Joel when he did in 42 verses 5 and 6 said he abhorred himself, repents in sackcloth and ashes. Isaiah said, wall was me for I am undone. Peter said to Jesus Christ when he understood who he was, he said, depart from me. I'm a sinful man.

What I am becomes very apparent if I see God. Revelation, there's a group of people who are so terrified of the land that in Revelation chapter 6, 15 and 17 they beg for the rocks to fall on them and crush them rather than be face to face with God. To be face to face with God is a terrifying thing. But Daniel sees this being.

Who is it? Some say it's Gabriel, some say it's Michael, some say it's another angel. Many good commentators suggest that it's Jesus Christ, the pre-incarnate manifestation of Jesus Christ. And based on the context and cross references it seems like it could be.

I'm not so sure, myself, but that's a lot of, pretty much every commentator I read said that. But see John, remember what we just read. Just remember the description that we just read here. It says, I lifted up my eyes and behold a certain man called in Linen whose waist was girded with gold if you fas, his body was like burl, his face, the body was like burl, his face, the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnish bronze and color in the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude.

Now in Revelation chapter 1 verse 11 it says, this is Jesus Christ himself speaking, says I am Alpha in Omega the first and the last, then I turn to see the voice that spoke with me. This is John writing it. And having turned, I saw the seven golden lampstands and in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like a son of man clothed with a garment down to his feet and girded about his chest with a golden band, his hair, or his head and hair, white like wool, white as snow, his eyes were a flame of fire, his feet were like fine brass, refined in a furnace, his voice like the sound of many waters. Now it pretty much sounds other than the hair, sounds like the same person.

It really does, it sounds like the same person. So it's possible that's who it was. Then John when he saw this, he fell at his feet dead when he saw him. So why did Daniel see this?

First of all, he saw this because it's about to be revealed to him, the future of Israel, all of the battles, the future battles near future and far future is going to be revealed to him. And God wanted Daniel to know who's in charge here. It's not the first time that we see the Lord Jesus Christ come and appear before a man in the Old Testament. He's back in Joshua and it's in chapter 5, just as they're about to go into the battle of Jericho.

Joshua, who's the general is going along and he meets somebody with a sword drawn and the sword's going back and he says, oh, are you for us or are you for our enemies? He said, neither. What? It's not what I wanted to hear.

He's neither. But as the commander of the Lord of hosts, the commander in chief, I have come. This is likely none other than the Lord Jesus Christ who has come and appeared to Joshua. Joshua saw the commander of the Lord's army.

You know, for us, we're in this battle. We better know who our commander is. Joshua had to get a glimpse of who his commander is. We're in a spiritual battle, as I said, and we better know who our battle leader is, who our commander in chief is.

It's Jesus Christ. And if you don't know who your commander is, you'll get bloodied and bruised and beaten. When we have Jesus as our commander, the scriptures tell us in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 2 says we should be looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He is commander in chief.

For the Christian, he is our commander. You know, here's the problem I have. Maybe you have the same. It has come.

I gaze at my problems, glance at the Lord, gaze at my problems, glance at the Lord, gaze at my God. How do I fix this? What am I going to do with this? Ah, I don't have enough to fix this.

Ah, how am I going to do this? No, no, no, no, no. How am I going to do this? What am I going to do?

When the Scripture tells me to do just the opposite, gaze upon the Lord, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Oh, you have that problem? Lord, thank you. I'm looking at you.

Can you help? Yes, of course you can help with this. Thanks. I'm just going to look at you.

I'm just going to trust and look at you. what we're supposed to do. But I do the opposite oftentimes. I'll admit it.

I heard somebody speak one time, King has a guy, what did he do? He tried to fix his problems like a man does. I'll do it myself. I've got a home hardware, I'll pick up what I need and I'll fix it myself and make a mess of it.

When I should be looking to the Lord, the author and finisher of my faith. And just a glance, yeah, this is another one. Yeah, and I've got five more over here coming. But I look at you.

That's what the Lord wants. He's our commander in chief. Then we see Daniel comes in touch with something that's really, really amazing here. And I said, that's commanding presence.

Sorry, sorry for the small font, but you can follow along your Bible if you can. Daniel chapter 10, verse 10, contending powers. Daniel's words are heard and this is suddenly a hand touch me, which made me tremble on my knees, on the palms of my hands. And he said to me, Daniel, oh man, greatly beloved, understand the words I speak to you and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you.

While he was speaking this word to me, I stood trembling. Then he said to me, do not fear Daniel, for from the first day you set your heart to understand and humble yourself before your God. Your words were heard and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia with stood me 21 days.

And behold, Michael, one of the chief princes came to help me for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia. Now I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days for the vision refers to many days yet to come. And when he had spoken such words to me, I turned my face toward the ground because I became speechless rather. And suddenly, one having the likeness of the sons of men touched my lips and I opened my mouth and spoke, saying to him who stood before me, my Lord, because of the vision, my sorrows have overwhelmed me and I have retained no strength.

For how can this servant of my Lord talk with you, my Lord? As for me, no strength remains in me now, nor has any breath left in me. Then again, the one having the likeness of man touched me and strengthened me. And he said, oh man, greatly beloved, fear not, peace to you.

Be strong, yes, be strong. So when he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, let my Lord speak for you have strengthened me. And then he said, do you know why I have come to you? And now I must return to fight with the prince of Persia.

And when I have gone forth, indeed, the prince of Greece will come. But I will tell you what is noted in the scripture of truth. No one upholds me against these except Michael, your prince. So Daniel was shaken by this vision.

But what relief must have come to him when this being touched him and said, man, greatly beloved. You know, if you're a believer, you are greatly beloved. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we shall be called the children of God. In the Bible, there are certain designations that are given to special people.

In Second Chronicles, we hear that Abraham is called the friend of God. David is called a man after God's own heart. John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus Christ himself said, this is the greatest man born to women, the woman. In Matthew chapter 11 verse 11.

Or 11 verse 11, sorry. Only two people in the Bible are given this term, greatly beloved. John, called by the inscriptures, the disciple whom Jesus loved. And Daniel in this chapter, interesting, both of them are given to write for us apocalyptic literature.

They've given us the look into the future. And both of them are called beloved of God. So this angel was dispatched, that's a sidetracked, but this angel was dispatched as soon as Daniel prayed, it says, as soon as you prayed, I was dispatched to come. Except I had a problem.

This is why you were stuck here for three weeks, Daniel. I ran into the Prince of Persia, and I required assistance from Michael. So when I read this, and I think, oh, well, we said that that person heads the gold sash and the eyes of fire and so on, that's obviously a pre-incarnate view of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I read this and say, hm, contented with the Prince of Persia, 21 days not able to come until I got help from Michael.

Really? Like the Prince of Persia is gonna withstand the Lord? I kind of don't think so. And then I kept thinking about it and reading about it, but the first one just appeared before him and spoke.

This one, it says suddenly a hand touched me. It doesn't say this, but quite possibly a different being came and touched him. I believe he saw the Lord Jesus the first time. And I believe this is probably Gabriel, or another angel that came and touched him.

And if you read it, it doesn't say this is a different being, but it's almost like two different phases of the thing, where the first one, he encounters this shining being with the gold sash and all of those descriptions that fit the Lord Jesus Christ. And now he's been touched by this one who said, listen, just so you know, as soon as you started to pray, I was on the way, but I ran into problems with the Prince of Persia. And Michael, another angel, came to help me out. And now I'm here.

Warren Wierzby raises the possibility as well. These are two different beings. There was a vision that resembled the King of glory and the one who touched Daniel, likely an angel, a Gabriel. So who's the Prince of Persia?

Well, first of all, he's not human because it takes two mighty angels to fight and subdue him. Daniel has a look here into something significant. This is a spiritual battle that goes on, an invisible war that's going on behind the scenes. He's a demon.

He's not a human king. Cyrus is the king. This is the Prince, the Prince of Persia. You know, Jesus called Satan the Prince of this world.

John chapter 14 verse 30, and John chapter 12 verse 31. Paul called Satan the Prince of the power of the air. Who was it working the children of disobedience? He fees in chapter two verse two.

So we have to understand what the battle is. Not only is there a God, but there is a devil. And the devil has his gang of forces and demons that fight and work with him. At a time in the past, there was a war in heaven.

Where Satan elevated himself and said, I will be like the most high. And God says, no, you won't. You're nothing like the most high. And he's out of there.

But when he fell, he led with him a third of the angels that followed him. Now how many would that be? Don't know. And not to really be smart about it, but when John talks about how many angels there are in heaven, he says that I saw there were 10,000 times, 10,000 and thousands of thousands.

Those are the ones who are worshiping God around the throne. He's just kind of taking a shot at how many there are. Like if you said to me, how many people were at the football game? In Legos, because that's where you'd get 10,000 times, 10,000.

If I said, I've never been there crowd like that. 10,000 times, 10,000, and thousands of thousands. You mean like millions? Yeah.

I mean, he saw millions of angels. So if that's the ones that remained, there would be many that followed Satan. And they're a work in this world to destroy you. They're a work in this world to try to destroy the work of God in this world.

We're deceived if we were just going through the world and reading on Google News or Yahoo News or Chronicle Herald and say, oh look at the awful things are going on in China in the US and Russia and Ukraine and so on and so on. And you leave out the idea that there's a spiritual battle going on behind all of this. There are forces of evil that are behind all of this. It says in 1 John 5 verse 19, it says, we know we are the sons of God and the world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

There is a wicked one and he is controlling the world system. Daniel prayed and he got a lot more than what he prayed for. He got revelation of future battles. He got insight into a heavenly battle.

And something struck me as I read this and studied this chapter. We mess around with petty little unimportant things when God wants us to know great truths. When he wants to know that you are in a fight and you better take it seriously. I am the commander in chief and you need to follow me.

That's what he wants. And whether you realize it or not, you are part of that conflict. And if you're not aware of it, then the devil has you right where you are. If you just dismiss it, then he has you right where you are.

Now I'm not going to leave you there. Scripture says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. This is the Christian. This is you.

This is me. Paul writes this. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness at this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. In a battle we don't even see.

We are wrestling in this battle. I hope you are listening to your commander. Daniel was strengthened by who? The God of Heavens and an angel to strengthen him.

God will provide you the strength for this battle. He will provide you the weapons for this war. So as I read through this and I thought, you know, even if Satan did, take 130 angels with him. Two-third of them stayed.

There's two-third of them on the right side of this battle. The Bible says that he that is in you, that's Jesus Christ if you're a believer, is greater than he who is in the world. That's Satan. That's a precious truth to cling to.

Memorize and remember that one. If you're a believer, a child of God, you are on the winning side no matter what. There's no defeat. Romans 8, verses 35 to 39.

I'm gonna close with these verses and actually a couple more. It says, who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? I don't know what you're all going through.

I know what some of you are going through. But it falls into some of this stuff. Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, disease, poverty, whatever it might be. It says, will those things separate us from the love of God?

Verse 36, just as it is written, for your sake we are being put to death all day long. We are considered a sheep to be slaughtered. But, but in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. We are on the right side of this battle.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creative thing will be able to separate us from the love of God. No longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God. Romans 837 and the new King James says, yet in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

To survive, there are two things. There's so much I can tell you. But there are two things that he may mention last week when he spoke on freedom. The first one is scripture.

What does the angel say to Daniel in the very last part of this? He says, but I will tell you what is noted in the scripture of truth. You know, this book will keep you from deception. This is truth.

In a world of deception, you have in your house, your hand, your lap, whatever you have right now, in your phone, you have the word of truth, the scripture of truth. In a world filled with lies, you have the truth. This book will keep you from deception. It will keep you from Satan's deception.

It's absolute truth. It's an amazing book as was said last week. The second thing is prayer. Daniel was on his knees.

When you pray, when you're in a fight, you're all not the big guns. Now, there's other people that are old like me. Do you guys remember Indiana Jones, the first one? Like the original, the good one.

You never remember when he went to the market and the guy comes up, ha, ha, but the knife? And he just goes, boom, fight's over. He brought the big gun out, fight's over. You bring out a prayer, like it's Satan, fight's over.

You just ask God to intervene. When God intervenes, the fight's over. One verse to close with, and before I go there, I'm gonna say that no matter at all costs, our enemy wants to keep you from this book. Our enemy wants to keep you from prayer.

Our enemy wants you to be so busy, you don't have time to read, you don't have time to pray, you don't think to pray, you just get distracted by all the problems and the cares around you. That's what he wants. Because he knows when you pull this out and when you pull up prayer, you've hauled out the big guns against the enemy. So I would put it to you, pray.

Read the scriptures, know the word of truth, the scripture of truth. Finally, there's so much more I can say, but I'm not going to, for that you can be thankful, but I'm gonna read these verses as we close, and then we're gonna sing a song. It says in Ephesians, chapter six, I want you to listen to these verses. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness, in heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God you may be able to withstand the evil day, and having done all stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waste with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith with which you'll be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication or prayer for all the saints. Father, thank you this morning, that in spite of being in a war, we have great weapons, great power because we have a great God. I thank you, Father, that greater is He that is in us, those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ than He that is at work in this world.

Help us, Lord, to be serious about the battle we face. Help us to look to you, help us to be humble, to pray, to look to you first, fixing our eyes on Jesus rather than on our problems. Help us, Lord, to walk with you, help us to pray, and to be in the scripture of truth. Lord, I pray that there's anybody here this morning who doesn't know you.

Father, what a dangerous place that they are finding themselves in, without God, without hope in this world. Father, may they look to come to know the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and find the hope and the life that is found in Him. Pray as we leave today, Lord, that you would part us with your blessing, and that your word would be enriching to our souls. Help us to walk with you through this day, in Jesus' name, Amen.