SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/18/2013
9:14 AM
My Worship Time Focus: An Invisible
War
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Daniel
10:10-21
Message of the
verses: “10 Then behold, a hand
touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. 11 He said to me,
"O Daniel, man of high esteem, understand the words that I am about to
tell you and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you." And when he had spoken this
word to me, I stood up trembling. 12 Then he said to me, "Do not be afraid, Daniel,
for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on
humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your
words. 13 "But the prince of the
kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold,
Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there
with the kings of Persia.
14 "Now I have come to give you an
understanding of what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision pertains to
the days yet future."
15 When he had spoken to me according to these words, I turned my face toward
the ground and became speechless. 16 And behold, one who resembled a human
being was touching my lips; then I opened my mouth and spoke and said to him
who was standing before me, "O my lord, as a result of the vision anguish
has come upon me, and I have retained no strength. 17 “For how can such a
servant of my lord talk with such as my lord? As for me, there remains just now
no strength in me, nor has any breath been left in me." 18 Then this one
with human appearance touched me again and strengthened me. 19 He said, "O
man of high esteem, do not be afraid. Peace be with you; take courage and be
courageous!" Now as soon as he spoke to me, I received strength and said,
"May my lord speak, for you have strengthened me." 20 Then he said,
"Do you understand why I came to you? But I shall now return to fight
against the prince of Persia; so I am going forth, and behold, the prince of
Greece is about to come. 21 “However,
I will tell you what is inscribed in the writing of truth. Yet there is
no one who stands firmly with me against these forces except Michael your prince.”
What we see in this section of Daniel’s writings is very
special and also very informative, for in it we see something that Bible
scholars call angelology, which is the study of angels. We will not get into the prophecy until we
begin to look at the eleventh chapter of Daniel, which Lord willing will be
next month, but we will see in this section something that makes it clear to us
that there is a constant battle going on in the invisible places around the
earth. The Apostle Paul writes about
this in different places of his writings, but let us first of all look at
Ephesians 6:10-20 where he describes who we war against and how we can be
protected while in this war: “10 Finally,
be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full
armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the
devil. 12 For our struggle
is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers,
against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of
wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore, take up the full armor
of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done
everything, to stand firm. 14 Stand firm
therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE
BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, 15 and
having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; 16 in addition to all, taking up the shield of
faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the
evil one. 17 And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God. 18 With all
prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be
on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, 19 and pray
on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to
make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.” Paul uses the word “stand” many times in this
section showing his readers the need to stand, and not to fall down. He speaks of the different pieces of armor
that the believer needs to put on in order to be able to stand, and if you
count prayer, and I think we should there are seven pieces of armor needed in
our battle, a battle that it not against flesh and blood. We can see from verse twelve that Satan has a
well organized army that fights against the Lord and the people who belong to
the Lord. We can also see this in the
section of Scripture we are studying for our lesson today.
It is possible that the One whom we speculated was the
pre-incarnate Jesus Christ has left and Daniel is now in the presence of the
angel, which was probably Gabriel, and Gabriel tells Daniel why it took him
three weeks to be able to come to him with the answer to his prayers. Daniel at this time needs the angel to
minister to him in a special way and will also need it again so that Daniel
will gain his strength to be able to understand the prophecy that he is about
to receive. There were two times that
the angels came to minister to our Lord when He walked on this earth, one was
after his forty day fast, and the other was when He was praying in the garden
just before He would go to the cross to die for our sins. The angel tells Daniel that he is loved or
dearly loved and this is the second time Daniel hears these words from an
angel. Jesus heard words similar to
these from His Father while He was on the earth on several occasions.
As mentioned Daniel’s conversation with this angel
reveals to us that we are in an invisible war, and prayer has much to say about
the outcome. We will speak more about
this later, but I want to mention that there is a novel written by Frank
Peretti entitled “This Present Darkness,” that gives a wonderful illustration
of what goes on in this invisible war.
It is an older book but well worth reading or listening to.
There are many people today that do not believe that the
devil is real, and that is a part of his plan.
I remember trying to witness to a man at work who told me that if you
add an “o” to God you get “good” and if you take the “d” from devil you get “evil.”
I could tell from these words that he certainly did not believe in either God
or the devil. James tells us that the
demons do believe in God and they tremble when His name is mentioned. There is a story in the book of Acts that
tells of some men who were trying to cast out a demon from a person in the name
of the Jesus that Paul preached and the demon said that he knew Paul and he
knew Jesus but he did not know the men who were trying to cast him out and so
he beat up all of these men. (See Acts
19:13-15.)
Dr. Wiersbe writes “The believer’s responsibility is to
put on the whole armor of God by faith and use the Word of God and believing
prayer to oppose and defeat the wicked one.”
Daniel was doing this along with fasting, something else that we can do
when there is something very important we need to pray about. Daniel did not realize how much his prayers
were affecting the invisible war that was going on above him while he prayed
for three weeks, and we probably don’t realize it either.
The angel told Daniel that the “prince of Persia” was
opposing him, and this was why he delayed in coming to him, something we have
mentioned, but I want to quote from Dr. Wiersbe again on this subject, as it is
important. “It appears that there are
specific evil angels assigned to various nations;; some students of angelology
call them ‘territorial spirits.’ That’s
why Paul told the Ephesian believers that the Christian’s battle was not
against flesh and blood but against the demonic forces in the heavenlies that
oppose the holy angels who always do God’s will. The problems that the Jewish remnant were
having in Jerusalem at that time weren’t being caused by the local officials
but by Satan’s evil powers using those officials. Christians are never to worship angels ( Col
2:18-19; Rev. 19:10; 22:8-9) or pray to angels, for our worship and prayer
belong to God alone. But when we pray,
God direct the armies of heaven to fight on our behalf, even though we may know
nothing about the battles that are being waged in the invisible war.” “Then Elisha prayed and said, "O LORD, I
pray, open his eyes that he may see." And the LORD opened the servant’s
eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of
fire all around Elisha (2 Kings 6:17).”
“The prophet Daniel realized the great significance of
God’s plans for Israel, and once again he fainted and was unable to speak. Here he had been involved in a cosmic
spiritual conflict and didn’t even know it, and the Lord was using some of His
highest angels to answer his prayers! This certainly lifts prayer out of the level
of a humdrum religious exercise and shows it to be one of our strongest and
most important spiritual weapons. The
neglect of prayer is the reason why many churches and individual believers are
so weak and defeated. The late Peter
Deyneka, a missionary to the Slavic peoples, often reminded us, ‘Much prayer,
much power; no prayer, no power!’ Jesus
taught His disciples that the demonic forces could not be defeated except by
prayer and fasting, the very activities that Daniel had been involved in for
three weeks.”
We see again that the angel restored Daniel’s strength in
order for him to hear the prophetic message and we also see that there are two
times that the angel tells Daniel “fear not” (Daniel 10:12, 19).
Lastly we see that the angel tells Daniel that the battle
is not over as he and Michael had to continue their fight against the Persian
prince and then go to the prince of Greece.
The Persian king allowed the people to return to Israel and so we can
believe that this had to do with the prayers of Daniel and others.
Dr. Wiersbe concludes by writing “One reason why God
commands His people to pray for those in authority is so that God’s will, not
Satan’s plans might be fulfilled in their lives (1 Timothy 2:1-3). The destiny of more than one nation has been
changed because God’s people have fervently prayed.” (See 2 Cor. 10:4-5).
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: This has been a
great reminder to me on the importance of prayer, and my need to pray more and
more fervently.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Take this message to heart and pray
more.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Foolish questions, genealogies,
contentions, strivings and the law” (Titus 3:9).
Today’s Bible
Question: “What year is it believed that
Jesus was crucified?”
Answer in our next SD.
12/18/2013 10:49 AM
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