This sermon opens Daniel 10, explaining that in the third year of Cyrus, Daniel is crushed in spirit, mourning and semi-fasting for three weeks because he sees God’s people largely choosing comfort in Babylon over returning to rebuild the ruined temple in Jerusalem—an issue of materialism, apathy, and compromise. The pastor connects this to Haggai and Ezra, showing how only a small remnant returned, how opposition and offers of syncretistic “help” tried to derail the work, and how this all illustrates real spiritual warfare that still confronts the church today. He stresses that believers are not on a cruise ship but a battleship, that the time until Christ’s return will be “long and difficult,” and that we must respond like Daniel—grieved over spiritual ruin, refusing compromise, and fighting with God’s armor and Spirit-empowered perseverance rather than in our own strength.
