This is our final lesson from the life of Daniel. In Daniel chapter
9, we looked at Daniel's prayer life. Chapter 10 continues that study
from another perspective.
Please read Daniel 10.
Who is your #1 enemy? --- yes, the devil.
When you think of the devil, what kind of emotion do you think he has?
Happy? Depressed? Loving? No...
How about: Scheming? Sly? Sneaky? Angry? .
We already know that the devil is angry at God.
But what are some things that you do... or can do... that makes the
devil mad?
Witnessing to unbelievers
Prayer
Praising God
Why do those things make the devil mad?
Some people say, "Oh, you don't want to make the devil mad,
because then he will cause trouble for you!"
Those people fear the wrong spiritual power.
I, for one, want to make make the
devil mad!
If the devil is mad at me, then I am doing something right,
and God is doing something good through
me for His purposes.
Our story begins with Daniel doing what? Praying.
Praying for what? (see verse 12)
[1] "get understanding"
Daniel was a very,
very smart man.
But he was also
an old man.
The older we get,
the more we realize how little we know.
[2] "humbling" himself before God.
Because of Daniel's
high position & successes,
his greatest temptation my have been PRIDE.
(The Bible has many sad examples good people who went bad because of pride.)
[3] (ch.9) praying for God's will to
be done for Israel.
Notice that Daniel did not pray alone.
Fellow believers shared his load, as they prayed together.
Daniel and his friends persisted in prayer for 3 weeks without results.
Then it happened...
Who did Daniel see in his vision? An angel of God.
In chapter 9 God sent the angel Gabriel.
But this time the Bible does not tell us the angel's name.
The angel told Daniel:
"Daniel,
do not be afraid. Some time ago you decided to get understanding and to humble
yourself before your God. Since that time God has listened to you, and I
have come because of your prayers. But the prince of Persia has been fighting against me for twenty-one days."
(vv.12,13 NCI)
And who is this "prince of Persia"? King Cyrus? No,
he is only human, and there is no way he could stop a powerful angel, like
Daniel saw.
The Bible says:
Our fight
is not against people.
We are fighting against
many spiritual rulers,
authorities,
and many dark powers
in this world.
We are fighting against
the evil forces in the
spirit world. (Ephesians 12)
The "prince of Persia" is obviously an angel of Satan.
But why "Persia"?
[Note that Persia today is called Iran. Two years before this story
Persia defeated Babylon (Iraq) and took it over. King Cyrus of Persia
issued his "emancipation proclamation" to send the Jews back home to the
land of Israel. For some reason Daniel stayed behind to continue his
government service.]
The Bible does not explain the association between this powerful evil angel
and the Persian empire. I have two theories.
[1] The people of Persia worshipped idols -- they did not worship the true
and only creator God. The Prince of Persia may have been a demon spirit
- the evil angel - represented by one of their chief idols. The people
who worshipped that evil angel gave it authority over them.
Or...
[2] Satan himself may have assigned a powerful evil angel jurisdiction over
Persia.
Please understand that these are only my own ideas. The Bible does
not tell us why or how the particular evil angel is called the "prince of
Persia."
A third angel named in this story is Michael.
The angel speaking to Daniel calls Michael:
"one of the chief angels"
(Daniel 10:13)
"the great prince who protects your people,"
the guardian angel for the Jewish nation (Daniel 10:21; 21:1)
(For more info about Michael,
click here.)
There was something about Daniel's prayer that made the devil mad.
So for three weeks, the evil angel over Persia tried to block God's answer
to Daniel's prayer. And the battle from that evil angel continued long
after this story, as the holy angel told Daniel:
"Soon I
must go back to fight against the prince of Persia. When I go, the prince
of Greece will come." (v.20)
Oh, oh! There's another one! (After the Persian empire
fell, the Greek emperor, Alexander the Great, conquered Israel and the rest
of the Middle East. Uh... Could it be that international politics
have an invisible spiritual powers behind them?)
The Bible makes it clear that God made two words:
[1] The physical world which we see and know.
[2] The spirit world -- a world invisible to us, a world
of angelic spirits.
God originally made both worlds good and perfect.
But now both worlds are corrupted by evil.
Because of that, God forbids us to explore the spirit world. God alone
must be our only access to that invisible world. If we try to poke
around there on our own, we flirt with evil; we play with fire. (Click here for more information from the Bible
about the occult.)
One of the last things the people of Israel promised Moses before his death
was:
"There are
secret things that belong to the LORD our God,
but the revealed things belong to us and our descendants forever,
so that we may obey these words of the law." (Deuteronomy
29:29 NLT)
Knowledge and management of the spirit world is one of those things that
are God's responsibility.
However, here in this story with Daniel, God cracks open the door just a
little to let us take a peek. And through that crack into the spirit
world we see a violent battle happening. And Daniel, through is prayer,
is a participant in that battle, and he didn't even realize it! And
we see how vigorously evil powers opposed Daniel's prayer.
What is prayer?
Our perspective is that prayer is talking to God,
asking God to do things, or
telling God what we think about Him (praise or complaint)
This story shows us that prayer is much, much more.
Now we see why the devil doesn't like us to pray!
If we were always aware of this when we prayed,
would it affect how we prayed
and for what we prayed?
Pacifists may find the battle imagery in this story - and in our hymns -
distasteful. Sorry. We have no choice. You may think
that you can successfully negotiate peace with a fanatic terrorist, but the
only condition for peace that the devil will accept is our full surrender.
On February 22, 2004, Diane Sawyer interviewed Mel Gibson about his new movie,
The Passion of the Christ.
It is interesting that the first
question that Sawyer asked Gibson was this:
DIANE SAWYER: You said at one point that
"a big dark force didn't want us to make this film."
MEL GIBSON: Sure.
DIANE SAWYER: What was the force?
MEL GIBSON: What was the force? It's the
thing you can't see. See, I'm a believer, by the way, so if you believe,
you believe that there are big realms of good and evil and they're slugging
it out.
DIANE SAWYER: What does the evil side
want?
MEL GIBSON: It wants you...
Wow! Good answer! But then for emphasis, he said it again:
...It
wants you.
The battle is for the eternal souls of people!
(Click here for the full text of Mel Gibson's interview
with Diane Sawyer.)
It is clear from the teaching in the rest of the Bible that the invisible
war that happened during Daniel's prayer is still happening today.
The invisible war that is happening right now in the spirit world is a battle
for the souls of
your family,
your children,
your brothers and sisters,
your friends and coworkers.
You are a partner in that invisible battle
through your prayers,
through your expressions of Christian love,
through your words of faith in Jesus Christ,
through your praise of God.
Our mission is to take back the battle field from Satan. The Bible
describes our weapons for the spiritual war:
Finally,
let the Lord make you strong. Depend on His great power. Wear all of
God's armor. Then you can stand strong against the devil's terrible
plans...
[1] Wear the belt of truth around your waist.
[2] Wear the chest protector of holy living.
[3] Wear on your feet shoes that will prepare
you to tell the good news about peace.
[4] Also, pick up the shield of faith. With it you can stop all
of the flaming arrows of the evil one.
[5] Put on the helmet of salvation.
[6] And take the sword of the Holy Spirit.
The sword is God's Word.
[7] At all times, pray by the power of the Spirit.
Pray all kinds of prayers.
Be watchful, so that you can pray.
Always pray for all of God's people. Pray also for me [Paul]. Pray that when I speak, God will give
me the right words. Then I can be bold as I tell the wonderful truth of the Good News. (Ephesians 6:10-19)
(For a deeper study about the Armor of God,
click here.)
Christ Jesus, through His death on the cross, defeated the power of Satan.
God's whole nature is living in Christ in human form.
Because you belong to Christ, you have everything you need. He is the ruler
over every power and authority...
When you were baptized,
you were buried together with him. You were raised to life together with
him by believing in God's power. God raised Jesus from the dead.
At one time you were
dead in your sins... But God gave you new life together with Christ.
He forgave us all of our sins.
He wiped out the written
Law with its rules. The Law was against us. It opposed us. He took it away
and nailed it to the cross. He took
away the weapons of the powers and authorities. He made a public show of
them. He won the battle over them by dying on the cross. (Colossians 2:9-15 NIrV)
-------------------------------
After this the Lord [Jesus] appointed 72 others. He sent them out two by
two ahead of him. They went to every town and place where he was about to
go.
He told them, "The harvest is huge, but the workers are few.
So ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field.
"Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
Do not take a purse or bag or sandals. And don't greet anyone on the road.
"When you enter a house, first say, 'May this house be
blessed with peace.' If someone there loves peace, your blessing of
peace will rest on him. If not, it will return to you. Stay in that
house. Eat and drink anything they give you. Workers are worthy of their
pay. Do not move around from house to house.
"When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set
down in front of you. Heal the sick people who are there. Tell them,
'God's kingdom is near you.'
[Later...] The 72 returned with joy. They said, "Lord,
even the demons obey us when we speak in your name."
Jesus replied, "I saw Satan
fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority...
to destroy all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. But do not be glad when the evil spirits obey
you. Instead, be glad that your names are written in heaven."
(Luke 10:1-20 NIrV)
For the present time, God has given Satan and his followers freedom to oppose
God's purposes and plans. Why? To give people more time to repent
and trust Christ. Please understand that when the time comes for Satan
and his evil angels to be locked in hell forever, that also will be the time
when all the opportunities Satan's human followers to turn back to God will
end.
The Lord
is not slow in doing what He promised—the way some people understand slowness.
But God is being patient with you. He does not want anyone to be lost, but
He wants all people to change their hearts and lives. (2
Peter 3:9 NCI)
Can we avoid the battle?
Let me offer an illustration from history -- World War II.
- In 1935 -- Italy (under Mussolini) attacked and conquered
Ethiopia in Africa.
American,
England, and France sat on their hands and did nothing.
- In 1936 -- Italy and Germany helped overthrow the government
of Spain. Hitler and Mussolini help set up Francisco Franco as a dictator,
like themselves.
American,
England, and France sat on their hands and did nothing.
Only Russia tried to help the Spanish government.
- In 1937 -- Japan attacked China.
American, England, and
France sat on their hands and did nothing.
- Hitler said, "The country of Austria speaks German. They should
be part of Germany." So in March 1938 the German army marched into
Austria and took over.
American, England, and
France sat on their hands and did nothing.
- Part of Czechoslovakia also spoke German, so Hitler decided they should
belong to Germany, too. (September 1938)
Now England and France became concerned.
(France had a defense treaty with Czechoslovakia.) The English and
French Prime Ministers met with Hitler and Mussolini in Munich, Germany.
Hitler promised that this piece
of Czechoslovakia was "the last territorial claim I have to make in Europe."
England and France gave Hitler their permission. British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain announced that this agreement would make sure that the
world would have "peace for our time."
- March 1939 -- Hitler broke his promise and took the rest
of Czechoslovakia.
- April 1939 -- Italy took the country of Albania.
American, England, and
France sat on their hands and did nothing.
- September 1939 -- Germany attacked Poland
England and France kept their promise to
the people of Poland and declared war against German.
That was the beginning of World War II.
America knew that what Japan, Germany, and Italy were doing was wrong, so
we cut off business with them and we sent support of material to China, Indonesia,
England, and France. But we did not join the war. When a German submarine torpedoed and sunk an
American ship, we still did not join the war.
So what finally pulled us into World War II? Pearl Harbor.
|
|
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor
(Why? Because they saw our economic support of China and our refusal
to do business with Japan as an acts of war.)
|
|
|
Congress pass resolution to declare
war on Japan
(Only Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin from Montana, voted "No.") |
|
|
Italy and Germany declare war on US. |
America refused to go to the war, so the war came to America.
We Christians are in the same situation.
We can't see it, but there is a war happening right now.
We may not like it, but every one of us is already involved with that battle.
If we sit on our hands and live only for our own pleasures, then we let the
devil win.
But when we
pray,
praise,
grow in
God's word,
serve others with Christ's love,
and witness to the lost,
we join forces with the angels of God who are even now battling on our behalf.
Please pray like you mean it.
Pray like God's means it.
Pray like you are engaged in the battle for the souls
of the lost for whom Christ died...
...because you are.
Other Scripture verse that apply to this topic:
Author Frank Peretti has written two interesting novels which are based on
this story from Daniel.
These novels imagine what is happening among the angels while Christians
and occultists are both about masters' business.