Truth For Life

Guest (Male): The Bible makes it clear that we are reconciled to God by grace alone. Today on Truth for Life, we'll consider why that same grace antagonizes us to the evil one and instructs us how to respond to spiritual forces. Alistair Begg continues our study in Daniel chapter 10.

Alistair Begg: Now the real question and the taxing question in this chapter has to do with who this figure actually is. Who is this person? After all, if you noted carefully as we read it, three times Daniel refers to this individual as "my Lord" in verse 16, in verse 17, and in verse 19. Many of my friends go to the Christophany, some of my other friends go elsewhere, and as I say, it seems to me that it's fair to conclude that what we have here is as elsewhere in the Bible, an unnamed angelic figure.

Incidentally, some people say he's not unnamed, this is clearly Gabriel whom we've met already and so on. But rather I take it that it is an unnamed angelic figure who conveys in himself something of the power and the glory of God in a manner that is quite frankly terrifying. So that it is not to diminish him in any way at all, but it is certainly to say it's possible for us and irrespective of our conclusion regarding the identity of this figure, it doesn't alter the information that is conveyed or the implications of what is conveyed.

First of all, in verses 4 through 9, you have this devastating vision. Then in verse 10 and following, through to about verse 19, you have what I'm referring to as a clarifying message. Verse 10 tells us that a hand touched him and as a result of that, it set him trembling on his hands and his knees. The voice then assures him that he is greatly loved. Remember we saw this in verse 23 of chapter nine. "I have come to tell you a word," says the messenger, "for you are greatly loved."

It's a wonderful thought, and here again, Daniel is reminded of the fact that God has made him the object of his affection. Number one, I'm here to tell you that you are greatly loved. I am here also to tell you that your words were heard. What were his words? Well, his prayers. "I'm here, I've been dispatched." The prayers of Daniel have released angelic forces from heaven. That's what the Bible is saying. It is amazing. It is to the skeptic entirely unbelievable. It is only by faith that we would bow beneath its instruction.

Because you see James tells us that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Then he tells him that his delay in responding is on account of the fact that there has been a conflict in the heavenly places. Verse 13: "The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days." Now, here is where we get into this notion of in the heavenly realm, a representative of Persia in these heavenly realms engaging with this individual and for a period of 21 days, this encounter takes place.

Now, you're going to see this again in verse 20 concerning Greece. "Now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia and when I go out behold, the prince of Greece will come." Behind all these earthly powers stands this or these angelic princes. Now, this is just not something that has popped out of nowhere. In the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 24, God says through his servant concerning the brokenness of the earth and the impact of the sound of terror that is there. He says, "On that day, the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven."

What is the host of heaven in heaven? How can you have this conflict in heaven? Well, I said the conflict is in the heavenly realms, but in actual fact, the untrammeled glory and beauty of heaven as it exists in the wider heavenly realms will bring about the execution of God's righteous judgment on those fallen angels who, in following Satan, have and do and will oppose the work of the Kingdom of God throughout all of time.

Once again, it is a reminder to us that the things that we see as evidences of chaos and discord, unrighteousness and bitterness and mayhem and so on are, as we said in our opening statement, a reflection of a conflict that is taking place in a realm that most people pay no attention to and many in fact would deny the existence of it in its entirety. But the Bible says so, that behind these earthly powers you have these evil forces.

Now he goes on then and says that it is Michael, this angelic warrior who has come to his aid. "But Michael, one of the chief princes came to help me because 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." In other words, he says, you need to understand something, Daniel, that this vision is not going to be exhausted in the immediate; it refers to many days that will still unfold.

Well, the impact of that in verse 15, Daniel tells us, "When he had spoken to me according to these words, I turned my face toward the ground and was mute." I was struck dumb. So if we find it challenging, daunting, alarming, unsettling, we're in very good company. Some of us can just sit here and absorb it. Daniel couldn't. For a second time he is laid out and once again he's touched, and he's strengthened, and he's amazed, and he's overwhelmed, and he's weakened.

And once again he's reassured. "You are greatly loved," verse 19. The appearance, the one having the appearance of a man touched me and strengthened me again. Aren't you encouraged by the fact that he needed this three times? He didn't just go, "Oh, I get it" and move on. He was faithful but he was also fearful. He was definitely frail. "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." In other words, now at the very end of this encounter, he is put in a position where he has the capacity to receive the vision. So a devastating or a terrifying vision, a clarifying message, and then finally a tantalizing question. Verse 20: "Then he said, 'Do you know why I have come to you?'"

It's fascinating, isn't it? I'm sure Daniel says, "Well, I'm trying to know why you have come to me. I've been paying attention for a long time." At the end of chapter nine, he had been charged with the responsibility to consider the word and to understand the vision, to apply his mind to things. And once again, it is necessary for him to do the same. The question, tantalizing as it is, is a good question and it is a necessary question. Because what he's doing is he's causing Daniel to think about what he has heard and to consider the implications of what he has heard.

And what he is now told is that this conflict is going to continue. "Behold," he says, "you will find that I will have to go and resume the fight against the prince of Persia. And when I go out, that will be followed by the prince of Greece and the battle will ensue." The inevitable question, of course, is what will happen then? Will God's people survive? Are they going to make it? "But," he says, "I will tell you," verse 21, "what is inscribed in the book of truth. There is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince."

In other words, and this is important for us to get, this vision as taxing as it is, is intended to provide the assurance to Daniel that no matter how bad things appear to be—and remember the news from Jerusalem is bad, not what they might have expected or hoped for—no matter how bad things appear to be, no matter how chaotic or apparently hopeless things have become, God is actually so fully in control of things that he is able to disclose the sequence of the events before they actually happen.

That's what's happening here. That's the vision. That is why, incidentally, liberal scholarship says, "No, this did not happen. The dating of Daniel was way, way, way after this because nobody could know that these things would transpire as they did." Because history records the fact that the Kingdom of Persia was so radically opposed to the cause of God's people and when that was gathered up, then it was the Kingdom of Greece, as we've seen in chapter eight, that came against the people of God.

How on earth could anyone know? Only someone who knows the end from the beginning, only the God of all eternity could give to Daniel a vision that would make plain events that people had no knowledge of at all. And that I think is the significance of this thing in verse 21: "I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth." It's a very enigmatic little phrase, isn't it, the book of truth? It may well be an allusion to Psalm 139:16 which you will recall: "All the days of your life were written in his book before one of them came to be."

Nothing is taking God by surprise. He is sovereign over all these affairs. Or it may refer to Malachi, where the names of the saints of God are written in a book of remembrance. And so he says, "Daniel, you need to understand something, son. You've lived your life, it's toward the end, the people have gone back, the news is poor. You've received this vision. You now must apply your mind and your heart to understand it better, but you may rest secure in this reality: that ultimately God will triumph over all these things."

And Daniel is therefore encountering sixth century BC what Paul is describing to the people of God in the first century AD, reminding the people of God of the triumph of Jesus in a realm of which most people know nothing. Even some of you, I can tell by the way you're looking at me, are going, "Is this for real? Are we genuinely agreeing about this? I mean, are you really telling us that there are angels?" Yes, angels are mentioned in every part of the biblical record. There's no question that there are.

Was Satan cast out of heaven? Yes, and the demonic forces that accompanied him. Yes. Are those forces at work in our world? Yes. Where are they? Every place. So that when we see the machinations of man, the evil of man, the forcefulness of man against the kingdom and authority of Christ, we see not simply man vesting his arrogant self, but man under the sway of evil influences. It's a quite staggering notion, isn't it?

Evil powers at work in the corridors of the Persian and the Greek empires. Evil powers, anti-God, dark and demonic forces in the hallways of our senators and our congressmen, in the framework of the British Parliament, in the anti-God dimensions of an atheistic world. The God of this age has blinded the minds of men and women so that they cannot see the truth. They cannot be argued into the truth.

Why do they not just respond to our best attempts at apologetics? Because their minds are at enmity with God. They're not in a neutral zone. They're not in a position where they can say, "Well, maybe or maybe not." They are actually opposed to God and the forces of evil are ranged against the message of God. And therefore, the people of God need a vision of God to understand how things will actually unfold and finally end.

The conflicts tonight of our world, the Bible makes clear, reflect the ongoing battle of Genesis 3:15, worked out by Augustine in his City of God and City of Man. A kingdom that is actually opposed to God and his might and his majesty and his son and his love and all of his plan for the universe, his divine plan for the nature of life for men and women within the framework of family, vehemently opposed. Vehemently opposed. You can find explanations for it in the superficial cursory readings of the newspapers, but behind that, says the Bible, you have dark forces that are ranged in the heavenly places against the Kingdom of God.

They will not triumph. The evil one is a defeated foe. It was checkmate at the cross. He cannot alter the final verdict, but he is dead sure that he's going to play out the final moves on the board. And as he does, the people of God in every place and ultimately in every generation will be confronted by the fact that we do not wrestle ultimately against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places.

The vision in Daniel 9, devastating as it is, and this explanatory message and this tantalizing question takes us into that realm. Now, some people trivialize it, some people marginalize it, some people sensationalize it. Some people take this and they run with it to extremes that you cannot imagine. It was years ago now, I think it was called "This Present Darkness," wasn't it? I can't remember who wrote it. And it was good up to a point, but it had demons everywhere, you know.

Every time you turned on your bath, one came out. You went for a coffee and there was another one there. "Oh, there goes another one." And people were dealing with them all over the place. They had sensationalized the thing. They took something that is true and pushed it out to such an extreme that it became almost a nonsense in itself. We daren't do that. But what are we to do?

Well, he tells us in Ephesians 6: In light of this fact, he says, put on the whole armor of God. The helmet of salvation, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness. No armor for the back. Nothing for the back. Why? Because we're not going to run and we're not going to hide. We're going straight on and the gates of hell will not prevail against us. That's what the Bible promises. So put on the whole armor of God, take up the weapons of God.

For the weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of guns and swords and uniforms, but rather the weapon of prayer and the preaching of the word of God. "Oh, do you really think you're going to do anything with that?" Well, yes, God answers prayer. The angelic forces were sent as a result of the hearing of Daniel's prayer and God hears our prayers too. I don't fully understand how it works, but I see every evidence of it. So put on the armor, take up the weapons, and into battle we go. Quick march! Quick march!

Isn't it strange how the idea of Christian warfare has become so politically incorrect? Banished from hymnbook after hymnbook. Well, I'd be glad to sing it, I don't care. Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war. Because we're now involved in a continual and irreconcilable conflict. The same grace that reconciles us to God antagonizes us to the evil one. We once lived in a kingdom of darkness, we now live in a kingdom of light. You can't live in both places.

And because we're now children of the light, the children of the dark don't like that. Marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before. Kings and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane, but the Church of Jesus constant will remain. Mid toil and tribulation and tumult of her war, she waits the consummation of peace forevermore till with the vision glorious, her longing eyes are blessed and the great Church victorious will be the Church at rest.

I say to you again as I said this morning, this is either true or it is the biggest load of bunk you ever heard in your entire life. But there ain't no middle ground. There isn't. So liberal Christianity is a crock. It is a complete waste of time. Every time you hear somebody getting rid of the difficult parts, run for your life because the challenge in the difficult parts is the challenge that is there in the very essence of it all.

Bob Lepine: You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. He'll return to close today's program in just a minute. As Alistair just mentioned, as Christians, we need to be prepared for continual and irreconcilable spiritual warfare. But we won't be adequately prepared if all we study are the comfortable passages of scripture. That's why at Truth for Life, we teach the whole Bible and encourage other pastors to do the same, even when it may be tempting to skip the difficult or unpopular parts.

That's the reason Alistair initiated the Basics Conference years ago. This is a conference that aims to encourage and equip leaders to do the basics of Christian ministry well. And if you're in pastoral ministry, church leadership, or if you're in seminary, join Alistair as he hosts Basics 2026. It's taking place September 29th through the 30th in California. Basics is an opportunity for pastors to come together to address the unique challenges and responsibilities of ministry leadership.

You'll be taught from God's Word and enjoy a time of worship and fellowship. This year, Alistair is joined by guest speaker Dr. Hershael York. He's the Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Seminary. I'll be there as well. We are all looking forward to this. Basics is always a time of refreshment and renewal designed to equip you to return to your ministry role energized. I hope you can join us. If you'd like to register, go to basicsconference.org. And by the way, there are student discounts available.

And if you're not in leadership but you're looking for a way to show your pastor how much you appreciate his faithful shepherding, consider gifting him a time of spiritual refreshment at Basics 2026. Visit basicsconference.org to make arrangements. Now here's Alistair with a closing prayer.

Alistair Begg: Father, thank you for your word, a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We scratch the surface of these things. We bow down before you, a good God, and we pray that you will open our blind eyes and soften our hard hearts and enable us to see what by nature we do not see, enable us to believe what by nature we reject, enable us to accept as wisdom what by nature we regard as folly. We do need your help and ask you for it. And we pray in your son's name. Amen.

Bob Lepine: I'm Bob Lepine, thanks for joining us this week. Do you ever struggle trying to understand passages like Daniel's prophetic visions? Is God trying to keep us guessing? Join us Monday when we'll consider his purposes. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.