Dennis Tuuri

Isn’t that Luther’s song beautiful? And how fitting for today’s sermon. We’ll be dealing today with chapter 10 of Daniel. We finished the book of Daniel last Sunday, but I had intended to do this back on January 26th, I think. And that’s why the order of worship has the wrong date. We were intending then to follow up my first talk on Daniel 10 with the second one.

Looking at what happens to Daniel in chapter 10 is kind of an illustration, an example, a picture lesson for us of how he is raised up.

So now we’ll return to Daniel for kind of this application sermon. I think next week we’re going to talk about Psalm 6 and touch briefly on the Lenten season before we get into Hebrews. So I guess this is really my last sermon on Daniel, at least for a few weeks. I might have to go back to Daniel one or two more times. You know, every time I finish a book of the Bible, I have great sympathy for the women who normally make meals and they put all this time and effort into presenting a meal and it’s over in half an hour and then there are the dirty dishes left.

I feel the same way when I study through books of the Bible. It’s kind of sad leaving them.

So I’m not going to do that today. We’re going to look one more time at Daniel chapter 10. I’m going to focus on your handouts. You know, I prepared this outline structure that is chiastic—it has a pivot point in the middle—and the bolded or dark rectangles are what we’re going to kind of focus on. But probably we should go ahead and read the whole chapter because it is a section of Scripture and I don’t want to get too far from what the Scripture is doing. So we’ll read all of Daniel 10, verses 1 through 21, but we’ll focus on the C-sections of the outline.

Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a message was revealed to Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar. The message was true, but the appointed 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, nor meat nor wine came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.

Now on the 24th day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, that is the Tigris, I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, a certain man clothed in linen, whose waist was girded with gold of Uphaz. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnished 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 that they fled to hide themselves. Therefore, I was left alone when I saw this great vision. And no strength remained in me, for my vigor was turned to frailty in me, and I retained no strength.

Yet I heard the sound of his words. And while I heard the sound of his words, I was in a deep sleep on my face with my face to the ground. Suddenly, a hand touched me, which made me tremble on my knees and on the palms of my hands. And he said to me, “Oh Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand the words that 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 that you set your heart to understand and to 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 withstood 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.”

When he had spoken such words to me, I turned my face toward the ground and became speechless. And suddenly one having the likeness of the sons of men touched my lips. Then 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 is any breath left in me.”

Then again the one having the likeness of a man touched me and strengthened me and he said, “Oh man, greatly beloved, fear not. Peace be 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.”

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. Also in the first year of Darius the Mede, I even I stood up to confirm and strengthen him.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your Scriptures. We thank you for the wonderful words of the resurrection of Daniel here and the way that’s affected us. We thank you for giving us an illustration, Lord God, of the resurrection of men, bringing them back from deep sleep, the death-like nature of deep sleep to life. Help us, Father, to understand this text and its application to our involvement in the ministry of Love, Inc. here in Oregon City. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Yeah, I love that Luther song we just sang—the military imagery all used in the context of the coming of a small babe who’s going to defeat the foe, not in the normal way. I got a call yesterday from a guy from KU Radio. They found out they were having the Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals conference here in October. And somehow he does his research at PSU and the next Christian Reconstruction and Dominion Theology to the CRE and we’re off and running, right?

So he wants to come out and talk to me this week. He could be praying about that. He’s coming on Tuesday, I think. But you know, I talked to him a little while. I did kind of a pre-interview to make sure he wasn’t trying to disabuse him of some notions that have been spread about what we might believe. And this is an important text and what we have to say today is important.

And it’s important also that we can sort of see already in the book of Daniel something very significant about how the kingdom of Jesus Christ works. By way of illustration, we remember chapter 2 that sets up all the prophecies and we see that God ordains this empire in a particular fashion to house his people until the coming of Christ’s empire, right? And what’s interesting about chapter 2 is this: as we move from Babylon to Persia to the Greeks to the Romans, how does that happen?

The prophecy tells us very clearly how those kingdoms of men that were seeking to conquer, and sometimes successfully—but those kingdoms that are innately kingdoms of men and done by men’s power—how do they succeed one another? They do it through military might, right? You know, they each conquer each other. But then when the final kingdom comes, when Jesus Christ’s incarnation—remember the stone of the image in Daniel 2, Jesus is coming. That’s what Daniel’s all about. When Jesus comes, we got a new creation.

And the world, you could say, man, represented by Daniel, is going to raise up a new creation. And how does that happen? It doesn’t happen in the same way that the kingdoms of men advance. It happens by an altar stone, right? A stone comes off the mountain, cut without human hands. It’s an altar stone. It’s worship. It’s specifically the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ as portrayed then in the worship of the church.

And the worship sets the pattern and goal for what we do in our lives. And what it says is the way that kingdom grows to fill all the world is not ultimately, as we’ll sing later, with swords loud clashing. There’s a place for that. Praise God for David Spears. Praise God for the Christian men who are going to Iraq to increase freedom. There’s a place for military warfare. But this is not ultimately the way the kingdom of Jesus Christ proceeds.

It proceeds with the work of institutions like Love, Inc., seeking to assist local churches to bond together as the Church of Jesus Christ in Oregon City or in Clackamas County to minister to people in the name of Jesus Christ. Love in the name of Jesus Christ. It comes that way. It comes through sacrificial labor. It comes through laying down our lives for other people the way Jesus lays down his life for us.

It comes from that repeated refrain: “Our mercy endures forever. That’s the only reason we are here is because of the great mercy of God. If it’s up to us, we’re all dead. If it’s up to us, we’re all hellbound. But the Lord God and his sovereign grace has called us forward out of his great mercy. And it’s that mercy then and the proclamation and thanksgiving for the mercy of God that leads forward and becomes then the way kingdom grows.

We like the application. How can you avoid applying the Scriptures to political action or public policy only if somehow you think God didn’t create kings and rulers and stuff. So we like all that, but the guy from KU, of course, always gets the impression that what we want to do is force a bunch of people to do this or that or the other thing, and this is not ultimately the way the kingdom expands and grows.

So it’s pertinent for us. It’s pertinent for me to kind of get my head straight as I prepare for talking with this guy this week. It’s pertinent for us. Most of us here are very optimistic about the future. We’re very involved in the context of our cultures and this church has decided that, you know, God has placed us here in Oregon City for five or six years. We know where our field of ministry is, what part of our mission is, and Love, Inc. seems to be the vehicle that God has raised up to help us accomplish that mission.

I hope my tie doesn’t offend you. I’m sorry if it does. I repent. You know, I really do. I hope it doesn’t offend you. But and I struggled whether I should wear it or not. But you see, we believe that worship does not all by itself change the world. Worship equips man with mission, discipleship, community. This is our vision map.

And our vision map has specifically said that the mission, one of the missions we leave Sunday with, we’re on a mission from God, right? And one aspect of that mission from God is to demonstrate, to give, to be benevolent toward those outside of RCC who have needs, to extend the grace of God to the greater community, to find people that are hurting, that are in deep sleep of desperation, that are fearful, and to raise them up.

This is one of our missions and it’s a mission that we will be able to accomplish in some very specific ways before the day is out. Every one of the handouts from the talk today—the sermon with the outline and all that stuff in there, coloring sheet for the kids, last page is your application today. It’s really asking you to consider very strongly whether you should fill out an inventory and then volunteer to help people out when you get the call sometime in the future, whether you’ll be able to do that.

The application is to make out that form, to fill it in at the end of the day or during this service sometime, and to return it to us today. So the application is built in.

And what I want us to do today is sort of remember what’s going on here on your outline and before we get to the actual text, you know, there’s—it would probably be that if we didn’t have all kinds of repeated doctrinal sections that tell us the truth of what I’m going to use Daniel’s resurrection by analogy to demonstrate, I’d be on a little shakier ground. But I’m not on shaky ground doing this because the Scriptures are replete with calls for the Christian church to engage in mission.

We’ll get to Hebrews in a few weeks, and what we’ll see there is that there are two specific characteristics of Jesus Christ. He’s designated a faithful high priest but also a compassionate high priest. And on the basis of that, if that’s who he is, we as Christians, as priests to the world, that’s supposed to characterize us as well: faithfulness and compassion. Faithfulness, right? Calling people to be faithful to the word of God, justice—we can say—defined by God, God’s law. But compassionate for people.

Hebrews says, “Who don’t have a high priest who was untouched, but who went through the same things we do, who encountered the same temptations as we do.” And he has compassion, Hebrews says, for those who are sinful and as a result are suffering because of their sin. Jesus is a compassionate high priest.

You know, each church has its own little personality, and I think that what we’re saying today is that I don’t think I’d characterize all Reformed churches this way or that. But one of the temptations to us is to be all faithfulness and no compassion. To be all speaking—in the context of today’s sermon—and no touching. To think that what’s important to people is their minds as opposed to their bodies.

You know, because they say the old line is that a Presbyterian is an educated Baptist. The Episcopalian is a rich Presbyterian. Well, we get this Bible knowledge going out and we study this stuff and, you know, we sort of can be tempted to fall into a ditch where intellectual understanding is what it’s all about. And there’s a component of that. Certainly, Jesus is a faithful high priest, faithful to God’s word, and we’re to be faithful that way. But we’re to be compassionate people as well.

I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t have done it, but on the outline I put “Phantom of the Opera.” And if you’re wondering what that’s all about, I saw that a month or so ago. And again, there it’s very interesting that the story works because the Phantom is redeemed at the end. Or at least he’s turned away from his murderous, horrible plot. And the way the Phantom is turned away from his murderous, horrible plot is for the love of a woman who will go ahead and love him in spite of his horrific nature and kisses him.

She’s loved by another man who gives his life for her, willing to at least come down to the pit of hell where she’s caught by the phantom. He’s sort of like Jesus dying for the church. She’s a picture of the church and she is a picture of the church redeeming a horribly twisted fallen world by love and by touch. Okay? So compassion for the world.

Now, there’s bounds to all of that, of course, but it’s kind of the picture of what we’re talking about today: that as Christians, our job is to win the world through our love. Doug Jones had a great review of Moulin Rouge. Same thing. We woo the world through our songs of love, through our compassion for those who are suffering and who are on the verge of dying. It’s that aspect of who we are that buttresses our speech then in our words calling them to be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ.

So Jesus is a compassionate high priest. And we are to be compassionate priests, prophets, and kings to the world in which God has placed us.

The Scriptures—I’ve got some references here—the necessity of benevolence. James 1:27: “What is, how do we live? How then shall we live? Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” Faithful and compassionate. You see, this is the essence of the Christian faith. Why? Because that’s what God did to us.

We’re the orphans. Our father Adam, right, abandoned us. We’re the widows. Our husband Adam—looking at it from that perspective—why do we have a special, you know, heart in the Scriptures for the fatherless, widows, orphans, and the strangers? Because that’s who we are. Jesus saves us. And we’re to have compassion then to people who are in light states of need.

And if we don’t—okay, if we are not moved with bowels of compassion toward those in our culture who suffer, okay, even in spite of their suffering, sometimes for their sin—if we’re not moved with bowels of compassion toward them, then that means that we have somehow taken this doctrine of sovereign grace and not understood it really in our hearts. Because sovereign grace means that the Lord God chose us. Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners. While we were his enemies, Jesus reaches out and saves us. And that’s what he wants us to do to others.

Clearly, the Scriptures—well, what does it say in 1 John? “By this we know love because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?”

Now, the emphasis there is within the church and the Scriptures make that clear that charity begins at home, but it doesn’t end there. It moves out to the broader world as well. So we know that the Scriptures are replete with evidences that it is alms, its benevolence work toward other people, that is the true demonstration of our Christian faith.

Cornelius—we talked about this last month. You know, Daniel’s prayers had gone up in chapter 10 and God had heard the prayers and immediately dispatched angels to help him. And we see that same thing with Cornelius in the New Testament. His alms went up before God and God immediately dispatched people to help Cornelius and to lead him into more truth. So the benevolence actions of the church are an important mechanism that will motivate God to move in the context of our prayers and our mission and what we do.

And as I said earlier in Sunday school lesson, Isaiah 58: if we’re Sabbatarians, if we’re keepers of the Lord’s day, we must understand that the Lord’s day is explicitly stated in Isaiah 58 to have a benevolence component to it. This is the approved celebration of the Sabbath or the Lord’s day—not a holier-than-thou, you know, “things that we don’t do.” There are things we pledge as a church not to do, as you heard earlier with Mr. Roach, but that’s not the idea.

The idea is to free people from oppression. What we want to do is free people who are being forced to work on the Lord’s day, but get rid of all commerce. You see, so Sabbath-keeping itself is directly tied in Isaiah 58 to this administration of benevolences.

We’ve said before and I’ll mention it again here that specifically in the Scriptures there are four specific ways that people are helped: gleaning, loans, poor loans with no interest, gleaning—you know, letting people work the edges of your property, your business, your house. Salvation Army was begun as a gleaning ministry. Poor loans, giving people money at no interest. Alms, just giving people money or help, and dues. A portion of the tithe was to be used to help people with benevolences.

And so GLAD is the acronym. It’s one I’ve remembered for 20 years since I kind of came up with it. It’s a way to remember and to evaluate: How am I ministering the love of Christ? Am I trying to figure out ways to give my glenable resources to the less fortunate? Am I engaging, if I have the resources, and not everybody does, to give no-interest loans to poor people for their development of a business or their house or whatever it is. Am I doing anything, giving any alms at all?

Am I giving my time and talent, my money, whatever it is—am I praying at least for the work of Love, Inc.? Again, today’s an opportunity to then that one there: to make sure yes, I am doing something. I filled in this volunteer form. I’m able to provide a little bit of help to somebody in need. So I’m fulfilling what God wants me to do.

And then finally, if you’re tithing, a portion of that tithe is used by the church. You may use a small portion and yourself of course to assist those who are the fatherless, the widows, and strangers, particularly in the land.

And today my point is that we have two responsibilities and two ditches: touching and speaking. And so by touching today, what I’m using—this Daniel is touched and he’s spoken to—and in Reformed circles too often all we want to do is speak to people and not touch them. And now we can say that, you know, physical touch itself is important, but what I’m using touch for is this metaphor for assisting people in their need, not just by intellectual transmission of data, okay? That’s helpful, but to actually touch them, get involved in their lives.

So when we say “touch” today, I mean that it’s people helping other people in physical ways with physical needs that they have. And we could go into either ditch here, you know. Many conservative Reformed churches, we tend to fall into the ditch of being all speaking and not a lot of touching. On the other hand, there are churches around that don’t stress doctrine. They’re all touching but never get to speaking—at least speaking consistently truths of doctrine. And ultimately that doesn’t help people either because what we need is both aspects.

Daniel is raised from his deep sleep, death-like state to full resurrection strength. And now he’s going to be effective for God’s ministry through both touch and speech. Touch and speech.

Pray for the Oregon Family Council. We put out the Christian Ballot Measure Voters’s Guide or a version of a voters’s guide. PAC does too, but theirs is always biased for candidates and a series of questions. We had a board meeting this last week and we want to develop some questions that emphasize this side of it: benevolence. How do we help people, you know, in terms financially, economically, what public policy issues impinge on that? You know, Micah—”you know, do justice, three things God requires: to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.”

The conservatives emphasize doing justice. The liberals emphasize, you know, loving mercy, and neither of them typically are humble before God and so they do it all wrong. Well, we want to do justice right, but we also want to love mercy correctly, and we want to engage individually and as a church in ways to reach out, touching people’s lives in the name of Jesus Christ.

And loving gives us this wonderful opportunity to do just that.

So what I’m saying is that what we just read in the text—where we have touching and then speaking in that order—it isn’t just here in the Bible. There’s a few other texts as well. In Daniel 8:18: “Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground, but he touched me and stood me upright.” So there’s another instance where touching is the mechanism that’s used to stand Daniel upright, not speaking.

Daniel 9:21: “Yea, while I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.” So again, the importance of God’s messengers—the ones that are sent by God—touching Daniel.

Revelation 1:17 and 18: John says, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.” So Daniel in deep sleep, doesn’t breathe. John, he’s dead. Coma. But he laid his right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am he who lives and was dead, behold, I’m alive forevermore. I have the keys of Hades and death.” So he raises John up, but he raises him up by speaking to him.

But prior to the speech, we have the laying on the right hand—the right hand of Jesus on John. Again, in Isaiah 6—another traditional text we use for calling people to worship, confessing our sins, and then God’s forgiveness of our sins. Even here, it isn’t just a verbal declaration. In Isaiah 6, after Isaiah says, “I’m a dead man,” then one of the seraphim flew to me having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar and he touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged.”

Now there’s other stuff going on—there’s a change of one’s confession or, his belief system—but tactile sensation, you see. If you think about touching someone, it means you’re going to get close to that person, right? Almost as close as you can possibly get. The only closer you could get would be kissing. That’s closer, but touching is very close. Speech is distant, right? Sight is even more distant.

You think of the progression of the senses. Doug Jones did a great talk on this at one of the ministerial conferences. But you know, you can see somebody coming a long way away and then you can sort of hear him coming, and then maybe if he gets closer you can smell him or something coming close to you, and then the next sense is touching somebody, and then finally you eat them or whatever it is. And if you eat something, now it becomes mysterious because it’s inside your body and where is it? Who knows? I don’t know anymore.

So in terms of interaction, you know, touching someone means you’re getting as close and personal as about as you can get. We like to speak to people because that means distance, you see. But if these texts repeatedly are telling us this, it means we’ve got to kind of get involved personally in people’s lives. Whether you’re physically touching or not, even that is important.

One other thing before I go on here: this is a little different application and I know it’s a little bit of a tangent, but I wanted to mention this. If I forget it, I’m going to be really upset at myself. There’s a very practical immediate application of this truth of touching and speaking to someone who is dead, or not fully dead—mostly dead, right? Mostly dead. Here and more and more of us are in situations where we’re around people in coma states, right? Loved ones who get old, they slip into unconsciousness, they’re in coma, they’re in deep sleep, you know.

Dean Helix’s wife, Sierra Pastor, up in Washington State, who fell off the horse, has been in a coma ever since. She’s responded a little bit now, and some of that response is in relationship to touching her and speaking to her. And I spoke—I was in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago. There’s Theron Johnson, this United pilot there that we’re working with to ordain as the second elder, and his sister was there, and she’s an anesthesiologist, and she said that hearing is the last sense really to go as a person slips away and dies.

And she is always very careful, she says, whether she’s put somebody under with anesthesia or a coma is involved or whatever it is, she always tries to get people in the room to recognize this person’s hearing. They maybe can’t respond to that. The point I’m making is this: that when we have loved ones that we’re trying to minister to who are in coma states or slipping away, continue to speak to them. Read the Bible to them. Continue to hold their hand. Touching and hearing usually is still active and it can mean a tremendous amount of comfort to them as the Lord God is taking them in his inexorable, unseen ways—perhaps to death or perhaps to bring them back to life.

All right. So now let’s look specifically at this text and we’ll talk a little bit about some specific things going on here.

Observations on Daniel’s resurrection and recreation.

And again, I’m using this as an illustration. When we have people in need out there, typically they’re not Christians who are going to be coming to us for help. Or maybe they made a profession of faith, they’re not involved in a faith community because they’d be getting help there already. So we have people who are, in a sense, whether they’re Christians or not, in a sense of decreation. They’re in a state rather of need. Things have fallen away and they’re in a death-like state, at least in some aspects of what they’re doing.

And Daniel here is an image of this for us. He’s an image, as I said, of the recreation of the world and of the bringing back to life of anybody ultimately. And the first observation we have on this is: touching and speaking. The repeated order of Daniel’s resurrection, recreation.

I’ve mentioned this already and I’ve got some specific verses for you, but the point is it seems like it’s always that order: that first there is touching, as it is in the text before us, and then there’s speaking. This reinforces the whole ministry of Love, Inc. because it’s what we’re trying to do. People call with a need and we meet the need. We attempt to meet the need first.

Now, if that’s all we did and never got around to the name of Jesus Christ, then we’re swallowed in that ditch. But touching and speaking go together, but touching goes first usually. Our Savior, the same thing. When he does his miraculous healings and stuff, that precedes instruction. And so, you know, James tells us the same thing: that we’re supposed to feed people and clothe them. We’re to visit the fatherless and the widows and the strangers and the prisoners. We’re to touch and then on the basis of that interaction, that assistance we’re giving people, then speaking comes second.

So this is the way it means to work. And again, by “touching” here, by touching, we mean ministering to people’s physical needs, you know, physical needs. Even if they’re trying to budget their money better, it’s to the end that they could pay physically for things around them. Touching is non-gnostic, right? It’s a way to—we’ve said that the Christian church for all too many years has had a strain of gnosticism. Bodies aren’t good. Whatever. You know, it’s kind of fun. But by the way, the Roaches—the first time I ever met them was at a dance we had at family camp.

So they sort of danced their way into membership at RCC. Movement of the body is a good thing. Dance is a good thing. And, you know, dumb Christian in a Christian way. The created order—what does God say when he makes the physical world? It’s all good. It’s all very good, he says. And so because of that, you see, when a person is hungry, it’s not that they’re interested in some kind of secular event. Food is at the heart of what Christianity is all about. This is what we do at the height of our worship—is eat.

God has made man hungry. That’s a good thing. Eating is a good thing. So physical needs are proper. They’re holy things. And so it’s important for us to see that in this book of Daniel, we have this process described where we minister to people’s physical needs as a way of setting up then speaking to them in the name of Christ. So touch precedes speech.

But secondly, of the outline: touch is not enough for full recreation.

And I go back to the text here, and I know again this I’m using this as an illustration, but I think it’s important for us. In verse 10, Daniel—okay, in verse 9, he’s in a deep sleep, coma, near death, almost dead, mostly dead. Verse 10: “Suddenly a hand touched me, which made me tremble on my knees and on the palms of my hands.” So he’s up on all fours. He’s laying down flat at first and then he’s touched. He’s ministered to in a physical way and he gets up to all fours. Okay? But he’s not upright yet.

And then the person touching him says something to him: “Oh Daniel, man, greatly beloved.” He speaks to Daniel. “While he’s speaking, I stood trembling.” So, see, we can use that as an illustration that it’s not enough just to minister to people’s physical needs. That gets them halfway up out of their despair. But what we really want to do is bring them into the body of Christ—the way the Roaches, next week maybe the Lopezes, and each of our brought into. You know, it takes a church to properly disciple people to bring their lives into wholeness.

And so to bring them to full stature as men, it takes ministering to physical needs in the name of Jesus Christ, Love, Inc., and that’s what affects then full restoration or recreation. So touching comes first, but touching isn’t enough. Touching brings him to a kneeling position. Speaking brings him to a standing position.

Nebuchadnezzar’s conversion, you know, it’s elements of being ministered to, but then God raises him up by bringing him to a sensibility through hearing the words of Daniel as it relates to how he has governed his kingdom. He needs to be ministered to. Daniel and his friends do that out there. They give him the food, probably while he’s crawling around. He’s touched. He’s ministered to, but then he’s brought to full resurrection status. His conversion is completed by the speaking forth of Daniel and his friends to Nebuchadnezzar.

So this is the way it works in the Scriptures. And these words—how do we speak these recreative words? You know, and here I go. See, this is my problem because I tend to want to emphasize the text. The text has more information on the speaking side of the thing than the touching side. And because of that, we end up talking about it more. Well, that’s okay. That’s the way the text is. But in terms of emphasis, just remember that this speaking of recreative words follows ministering to physical needs.

So what I’m going to give you for the next couple of minutes only works—okay? Or normally works. Let’s say only works normally. After you fill out the form at the back of the handout today, after you volunteer to meet somebody’s physical need, after you’ve agreed to touch somebody in the name of Christ, then what kind of words are spoken? Okay? But you don’t get to this part if you don’t do the other part.

So the immediate application is not so much these words. It’s good training for you, but it’s filling out the form and agreeing to try to minister to people’s physical needs in the name of Christ. And this is a vehicle that this church thinks is appropriate to do that with. Okay.

There are these recreative words though and I think it’s instructive for us in our ministry in terms of Love, Inc.

And the first thing we notice in verse 11—what does he say to Daniel? Well, first he calls him by name: “Oh Daniel.” I think it’s significant to just stop there. You know, it’s real easy to give our tax money to the civil government. Welfare community pays out stuff to people. Everything becomes impersonal. And that’s easier for everybody. It’s easier for you because you don’t have to reach out and touch somebody that might not be pleasant to touch. And it’s easier for the people being touched because now it’s considered more and more a right and they’re not getting grace and mercy. They don’t have to be brought to the confession: “My mercy endures forever.” This is just what you owe me, you see.

And that’s the kind of mentality we’re fighting. It’s going to be tough sledding getting things like Love, Inc. off the ground in our particular political setting in 2005 when people see food, clothing, shelter as rights, not as benevolent gifts from God. So it’s tough to do it personally, but that’s what happens here.

The minister of God says, “Daniel!” When you sign up for Love, Inc., you’re going to be put in touch eventually with a person. You’re going to want to know their name. You’re going to speak to them, what their name is. Personal speaking, personal touching is very important here. And I mean, it’s what a corrective to our world. Our world is filled with impersonalness. You go to the grocery store usually and you don’t call the checker by name. And if you do, you know, it’s kind of—if they call you by name, it’s because they got your credit card or whatever it is and they’ve been instructed to do that with you.

I mean the world has become more and more depersonalized and we want to see this as another opportunity to repersonalize. So the speech that brings men back to wholeness as Christian men and women—this speech and it’s touching—is personal: Daniel.

Secondly, the first thing Daniel is told is that he’s greatly beloved: “Oh Daniel, man greatly beloved.” And now I know that there’s a specific context for this. This is Daniel after all. He’s the one who set his heart to understand God’s word. But you know, we can say covenantally that it’s the love of Jesus Christ for the world. “For God so loved the world”—that’s motivating us to touch and speak to the people we do through Love, Inc. And so what are we doing?

We’re telling them of God’s love, right? We’re saying that, well, you know, we’re going to help you work out your budget or we’re going to give you some food or a place to live or whatever it is, or help you figure out how to discipline your children better, whatever it is they need, some furniture. We’re doing that in a way that demonstrates the love of God for them. We’re trying to actively love them. We’re saying to some person, not impersonally, that you’re a person who’s loved by us. We’re demonstrating God’s love.

“Man greatly beloved,” and God loves the world.

And then third, as this progresses: “Understand the words that I speak to you.” See, the ministry of touching, getting involved personally, Love, Inc., doing this in the name of Christ’s love, moves us to a place with some people—at least opportunity will present itself—where we can bring them to an understanding of what’s going on in their life.

I mean, Daniel wanted to understand what’s happening. How does the word of God impact me? And our speech, whether it’s in the context of loving our neighbors, people we meet in the bus—evangelism is getting involved personally in the name of Jesus Christ’s love, and it’s doing it in such a way to try to move them into a further understanding of their situation.

And after that, then after he calls Daniel to understand, then he says: “Understand these words that I speak to you and stand upright.” The call is to conversion. The call is to resurrection. The call is to fullness of strength and ability. Now, right?

So our movement of moving through touching and speaking to people is to the end that we might see them raised up from the dust of earth—pictured by their problems that they’ve come to a longing about—but ultimately pictured about their need for the Savior, the need for Jesus Christ, the need to stand up from the dust of the earth in resurrection strength and glory.

So he’s been told to send. Notice: “For I have now been sent to you.” We don’t do this, you know, saying that we’re the ones who are doing [it], we’re making you strong. We are sent to you in the name of Jesus Christ, right? Love, Inc. And so we go as ones who are sent to deal personally in people’s lives, to tell them of the love of Jesus Christ for the world, to urge them to understand the application of Christ’s truths to their situation, and to call them to stand up as fully reformed, fully resurrected, and powerful men of God.

So this is recreative words in the context of this first C section.

Now there’s other words. The next section of the outline drops down to verses 16 to 19, and it’s the same sort of thing here, right? It kind of repeats itself. Daniel goes down again and he needs to be raised back up again. We’re persistent with working with people, right? We don’t say “three strikes and you’re out.” We’re saying if a man repents 70 times 7, we’re supposed to forgive him. He may need this process again.

And Daniel needs this process again in the matching section of chapter 10. And again, there are words here spoken to Daniel to fully affect this.

Verse 18: “Then again, the one having the likeness of a man touched me and strengthened me.” Ministering strengthens people partially. And then we get the rest of it in what he says: “Oh man, greatly beloved.” Same message. Now it’s “oh man,” not “Daniel.” But you know the idea—again, this emphasis upon the love of God is motivating the person who is being sent to Daniel—and then the oft-repeated words of Scripture: “Fear not. Peace be unto you.”

This is what Jesus says over and over again after the Resurrection. His appearances: “Fear not. Peace be to you,” right? What does this tell us? This tells us that the people that we minister to are usually in a state of fear, anxiety. May not be evident, may not be seen. But ultimately what we have to do is not just feed their stomachs. It’s to try to give them a sense of encouragement, to fill them with courage in the face of fear.

How do we do that? Well, we point them to the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus says in the book of Hebrews that all men are fearful and through that fear they’re servants to sin. That’s why we sin—because we’re fearful. Hebrews says Jesus has come to die so that we’re not afraid of dying. And it is that ministry to people of the Resurrection—the death and Resurrection of Jesus for them—that leads them to the place where they can indeed obey the commandment not to be fearful. Not to be fearful.

And so this is part of this Resurrection ministry that we’re to perform. We’re to assure people that they don’t have to fear because peace is being proclaimed to them through the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then it’s not just “don’t be afraid.” Our job is not just to meet people’s temporary needs and relieve their fear. Our job is to make them fully standing again, as strong dominion men. The rest of the verse: “Be strong. Yes, be very strong.” That’s the goal. Not to just get people out of problems, but to bring them to the place where they’re strong enough to help other people get out of problems, like the video we saw earlier—people that were ministered to by Love, Inc. and who now are the sent ones themselves.

God sent people to them to minister, to touch them, and to speak to them in the name of Christ and they’re now the sent ones from God. And that’s just what happens to Daniel here as this verse progresses. In verse 19: “I was strengthened and said, ‘Let my Lord speak for you have strengthened me.’”

The speaking of recreative words is to the particular purpose of touching and speaking—that its purpose is sending. “Let my Lord speak!” We minister. We touch people’s lives. We get involved personally through ministries involved in Love, Inc. We speak to them. And the end result, the whole goal of this, is that they may then see themselves as the servant of the Lord now themselves who will go out and strengthen other people.

So this is touching, speaking, causing Resurrection life to flow. And people are resurrected not just to take care of their needs. They’re resurrected to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, to do as Daniel said: “Let my Lord speak for you have strengthened me.” One was sent to Daniel that Daniel may be sent to other people. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re saying that as a church corporately, individually, we want to be those sent ones to minister love in the name of Christ.

And the application today is so easy. Just turn to that last page, turn to the inventory form and you can fill that form out as the application of today’s sermon. It’s a commitment by you to want to be these messengers of God. You’ve been strengthened. What does the Lord want me to do? The Lord wants you to fill this form out and prepare yourself to get involved personally assisting people.

Now, we—one of the great benefits of Love, Inc. is they screen out the people that the church is not really able to itself. You know, we’ve had several people come through here. Scam artists have taken advantage of us at times. Love, Inc. won’t get rid of all of that, but it will certainly help us. We will not put you in a position of danger. The intake people for Love, Inc. are trained to root out these sort of situations and they won’t send you to a situation that is not safe that they haven’t determined is safe.

So we have the ability through this particular mechanism—now a trained coordinator—contribute needs in the church of Jesus Christ who can fill needs. We have this tremendous opportunity for us to obey this command to reach out and touch somebody. We said earlier in the Sunday school program, we can say it again here.

How can you help?

You can pray. Prayer is prayer is important. Pray for Love, Inc.

You can do. You can do this. You can fill out this form. You can volunteer. You know, any teenagers on up feel encouraged to take your own form, fill it out, give it to Isaac or back today—turn it into the church office. You know, if you can help, if you can avoid it, please do not take the form home because we probably won’t see it back.

Now, if you just have to, if you have to go home and talk and pray about it, that’s okay. But if you, if you, if you can possibly do it, we’d really like you to fill it in today, turn it back into the office, and that would be very helpful.

Today, unusual day, but what we’re going to do in the discussion time after the sermon—after the service about my sermon—we’ll also be just we’ll have Tom up here again, Tom Rainey from Love, Inc. And he’ll take questions and answers if you have him about Love, Inc. I’ll take him about the sermon. He’ll take him about any aspect of Love, Inc.

So: pray, do, and then talk. “Do” is kind of the touching thing. “Talk” is the talking thing.

One of the things we really want you to be able to do today is to take away some business cards of Love, Inc. And you can use those cards to give to people that have a need, or you can use it to call Love, Inc. It’s the way to talk about the ministry of Love, Inc., to encourage its exposure in the broader community.

Do we have business cards here now that we can hand out? Let’s do that right now. Then as we prepare to sing our offering hymn, let’s hand out the business cards. I know all you’ll have the intake sheets, but let’s hand out business cards as well right now in the context of the service. So you can pray about it. Many of you can do something about it—getting [ready] to touch people’s lives—and you could all talk about Love, Inc. and try to encourage your friends and neighbors to know about it as well.

We could get some guys to help hand out those business cards. That’d be great. Well, I guess we could do it while we’re singing the offering song, right, Edward? Okay, let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for Tom and Zach and the others that are here, Lord God, Ralei and his wife. Thank you, Father, for the ministry of Love, Inc. Thank you for our churches being able to and get involved in it. We do pray that we’d leave here with this image of touching and speaking to the end of Resurrection and sending nailed down, Lord God, imprinted upon our hearts and help us, Father, to commit ourselves afresh to do this in people’s lives. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.