The Big Picture Chapter 10 … Prelude
As if the dream predicting the Messiah’s coming wasn’t enough, two years later I received another revelation. This one gave me such detail about the future of my people that in your time “scholars” who don’t believe in predictive prophecy have tried to make the claim that I didn’t really write my story at all. They would have you believe that someone in the second century BC wrote it to encourage my people during a time of national despondency. Their biggest problem is that in just the first 35 verses of that part of my story you call chapter 11, over 100 prophecies have been fulfilled by historical record. So to try and reconcile this amazing display of prophetic accuracy with their refusal to believe that such a thing is possible, they’ve invented an anonymous author who they claim wrote it all down after the fact. But they’ve outsmarted themselves. The authenticity of my story has been so mercilessly attacked that it’s become one of the most thoroughly documented books in the entire Bible. As a result, my claim that I wrote this story in the late 6th century BC has now been established beyond reasonable doubt, at least for all who are willing to accept the idea that God knows the end from the beginning and sometimes lets us in on part of the future just to prove He exists (Isaiah 46:8-10).
I had gone into a time of fasting and praying for my people that had lasted for three weeks when an angel appeared to me in the form of a man. He explained that he had been dispatched as soon as I began praying, but had been attacked by enemies in the spiritual realm until finally Michael, the Archangel, had come to rescue him.
Even though I had been visited by angels before, this one had such great power that his mere presence literally knocked me flat on the ground. But the same strength that defeated me restored me, and at his touch I was refreshed and able to stand again. He told me his antagonists were evil spiritual powers working to influence the kingdoms of Persia and Greece to deny God’s will and suit the Devil’s purpose instead. All during the time of my fasting, they had been trying to prevent him from reaching me. We mortals have no idea of the scope and intensity of battles fought for us and because of us in the spiritual realm. The God Who died that we might have life daily sends His legions into battle to keep and protect us now that we’re His. A word of thanks now and then is definitely in order.