God Owns the Victory: Daniel 10:15-21

God’s victory is assured.  He created the world.  He watched the world fall.  He sent His Son into the world to save the world.  With this pedigree, He is the only one who can win.

Once more the message of the vision causes Daniel to be weak.  He is unable to continue to stand in the presence of heavenly beings.  As human beings we are rooted in the moment and skilled at seeing our immediate environment.  We can understand mathematics, the physical world around us, and the body language of the people around us.

We aren’t good at understanding the heavenly realms.  God sees across the eons, not just the present.  God may have set the physical laws of the universe into motion, but He is not bound by them.  The presence of heavenly beings is hard for us to understand because we struggle to see them, know them, and comprehend their body language.

Because of this, Daniel struggles to get through this moment even though this moment happens because Daniel wanted it.  Daniel kept himself religiously pure for three weeks to seek wisdom from God, yet when the answer comes, he cannot stand in its presence.  Daniel was not caught unaware by this event, yet he still struggles to keep up.

Once more the heavenly being helps Daniel find the strength to stand.  The heavenly being reminds Daniel he is loved.  God wants Daniel to remember to be strong because God is at his side.

This is the point of the heavenly being’s final message.  He will leave Daniel to go and continue to fight against the prince of Persia.  After the prince of Persia, he will resist the prince of Greece.  God fights for us.  God sends heavenly beings to fight against the principalities of evil for our sake.  He does not leave us abandoned and on our own.  As we come up against the world, He has already gone before us and is already invested in our ability to follow Him.

This leads to the final point.  When the heavenly being says he will fight against the prince of Persia and then against the prince of Greece, there is surety in his statement.  Although the principalities of evil offer up resistance, God knows victory is on his side.  The Prince of Persia will offer up a struggle, but the prince of Persia will lose so that the prince of Greece can take his place.  God will win in the end.

While we are most comfortable living in the moment, God lives across time.  He desires to watch kingdoms rise and fall and see who within those kingdoms will walk with Him.  He wants to give space for people to choose to join Him.  God could stop the world right now and win, but He doesn’t.  There is still time for people to join Him, to know His love, and to know His protection.  God can give us time, though, because God’s victory is assured.