Prayer: God’s warfare

A glimpse of Daniel’s prayer life raises important questions for our own

We are not alone in the universe. No, our space explorers have not finally discovered another inhabited planet…

It’s the Bible… if we take it seriously, the dramas and headlines of history are simultaneously played out on two stages – one the tangible world of men and women, the other, the invisible realm of God, angels and demons. “For,”said one apostle, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”.Peter spoke of “your enemy the devil”. James commanded: “submit yourselves to God, resist the devil”.Jesus, the greatest intellect ever to walk the planet, resisted the devil, rebuked him, cast out demons and had at his disposal “twelve legions of angels”. And Daniel’s prayer life was an unwitting interface with this strange, invisible reality.

We read in Daniel 10:21 – 11:1 that God’s prophet encountered “one having the likeness of a man”(Dan 10:18). This angelic person spoke of being upheld by the angel Michael in his conflict with spiritual forces and says, “No one upholds me against these, except Michael your prince”. The background to this is that Daniel had been “mourning three full weeks”(Dan 10:2).We are not told why. 

By this time in his life he has come through many trying situations and has proved the LORD’s faithfulness. Now he is prospering after the fall of Babylon under the reign of Cyrus the Great (Dan 6:28). But rather than retiring and settling back to a quiet life Daniel is moved with spiritual concerns that cause him to fast for this three week period. His deep concern may have related to the issue of the returning exiles. It appears that many exiles wanted to stay in Babylon when they were actually living through the fulfilment of the LORD’s promise! Their response ought to have been one of faith and determination to return to Jerusalem and Judah.

What if…?

It’s clear that the spiritual conflict is connected in some way with Daniel’s praying and the enemy’s attempt to hinder heaven’s answer to his concern. This raises a question… What if Daniel had become discouraged and given up on his fasting and prayer before the end of the three weeks? As we all know, it is not easy to persevere in prayer – even over a pressing concern – if the answer is a long time in coming. But Daniel did not give up.

It seems that Daniel was unaware of the spiritual dimension to his prayer; he was not privy to the spiritual pitched battle being fought out beyond the natural eye and in which he apparently had no part. Daniel’s concern was more on an earthly level and he was most probably exercised about the return of the exiles. He knew that the exiles should return because of the LORD’s promise through Jeremiah (Jer 25:12) and his prayer would have been directed to that promise being fulfilled. Had he not prayed that God’s prophetic plan would be fulfilled – and would he not therefore pray that His exiled people would embrace God’s plan for their lives? His concern no doubt related to the lack of faith among the LORD’s people. He would have been horrified that any of his countrymen would lack gratitude that God had kept His word to the letter.

At Dan 11:1 this same angelic person says, “Also in the first year of Darius the Mede, I, even I, stood up to confirm and strengthen him”referring to “Michael your prince”. So, we have Michael upholding this angelic person at the time of Daniel’s fasting and we also have this same angelic person strengthening Michael in the first year of Darius the Mede. It was in the first year of Darius the Medethat Babylon fell to Cyrus’s forces (Dan 5:31). (There is historical uncertainty over the identity of Darius the Mede with some saying that this was a name that Cyrus used and others stating that he and Cyrus were not one and the same. Historical research has not yet settled his identity.) 

We have no record of any prayer that Daniel offered up at the time of the fall of Babylon but we do know that Daniel believed and consulted the writings of the Hebrew prophets for he refers to Jeremiah’s prophecy in Dan 9:2 which caused him to seek the LORD regarding the seventy years for the“desolation of Jerusalem”. If Daniel had the prophecy of Jeremiah then he would also have had the prophecy of Isaiahand he would have read in Isaiah 45:1, “Thus says the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held”. So we can well imagine the excitement Daniel would have felt when Cyrus finally appeared on the world scene. His expectation would have grown as Cyrus moved his forces against Babylon. Daniel, within Babylon which many thought to be impregnable, would have prayed for the success of Cyrus’s plans because they were in line with Isaiah’s prophecy. At the time of Belshazzar’s feast even Daniel may have wondered how such a well defended city could fall but we know that when the river gates were opened and Cyrus’s army entered the city that it was captured almost without a fight.

Unseen conflict

In the story of the fall of Babylon no mention is made of any ‘spiritual’ battle yet this angelic person strengthened Michael at the time Babylon was being attacked and taken. Is it too much to presume that Daniel’s prayers, although not recorded in Scripture, were heard in heaven and once again his prayers – in line with God’s prophetic word – connected with unseen warfare? There was an attempt to block any answer to Daniel’s fasting in Daniel 10 and it also appears that determined spirit opposition sought to stop the fall of Babylon. In both situations it took Michael and this other angelic person to defeat the forces of evil which aimed to frustrate the LORD’s will for His people. Daniel only heard about this spiritual battle “in the third year of Cyrus king of Persia” (Dan 10:1), i.e. two years after the city actually fell.

We may never know the intensity of such spiritual battles but we do need to be aware that, as we pray for the LORD’s will to be done here on earth and here now, our prayers are part of this unseen conflict.

Nowhere does Daniel make explicit reference to demonic opposition, yet we know that he knew of such forces for he had to deal daily with people who invoked such powers. Nebuchadnezzar had promoted Daniel to be “chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers”(Dan 5:11).Daniel had to oversee such people and he must have been well aware of their practices – both the deceitful manipulative use of such so-called powers and the more sinister use of dark forces that stem directly from the evil one. Daniel walked before those people with a clean heart and a strong trust in the LORD and was not intimidated or waylaid by them or by any of their schemes against him. 

Daniel did not interpret his days through intimate knowledge of evil, but in the light of the LORD’s Word – and his prayers were focussed accordingly. His eyes were towards his God and not towards his enemy, but he was not naïve about the powers of darkness.

The story of Daniel was written for us in our day for we read, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope”(Rom 15:4). Daniel’s prayers were fired by devotion to God and self-discipline, not by knowledge of warfare in the heavenlies – yet his prayers were vital to that warfare. Likewise, God works through our prayers more than we know. Daniel’s prayers were not concerned with getting a better house or a better chariot;  he was concerned primarily about the Kingdom of God. His mind and his heart were focused upon the LORD’s revealed will. In our day we must learn to pray in line with what we know to be God’s will from His Word. Three areas immediately come to mind: That in our day 1) Jesus’ promise to build His church would progress; 2) That the LORD’s intention for His people the Jews would be fulfilled; 3) That many people would come to repentance and saving faith(2 Peter 3:9). 

Who knows?

Daniel encourages us to pray and not lose heart. Our prayers may seem weak and ineffective, but who knows what is happening in the realm that we cannot see? It strikes me that, for some reason, Daniel had to pray: had he not prayed would there have been the spiritual battles that are mentioned in his book? If Daniel had just read Jeremiah’s prophecy and put the book aside what might have been the negative impact? Daniel’s prayer life was God at work through His prophet for the success of Cyrus who would soon decree and finance the return of the Jews to Jerusalem!

No doubt God would still have fulfilled His word, but Mordecai’s words to Esther have timeless value: “…if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house shall perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this? (Esther 4:14)