Daniel: Does God Reign? Does God Care? - Reading PlanSample

Start with prayer, and then read Daniel 10.

Daniel 10 is the one chapter in the book not really covered in our film series, although the wider vision it begins (chapters 10-12) is covered in more detail.

At the heart of the chapter is a spiritual battle between the awesome “man in linen” (v6) and the spiritual forces behind the Persian Empire. There is endless debate about who the man in linen is. Is he an angel? A vision of God? Is he Jesus, pre-incarnation? The honest answer is we don’t really know – but somehow his power and greatness point us to God’s glory. What we see here, and in the revelations that follow, is a manifestation of God’s power over the spiritual forces of evil.

That is a sobering thought, crystalising something hinted at in previous chapters. The beastliness we see in our world is a manifestation of spiritual forces that we cannot see. As Paul says, ‘our battle is not against flesh and blood’ but ‘spiritual forces of evil’ (Ephesians 6v12). How do we respond?

The first thing to note is that this spiritual battle is real, and it does impact and blight our lives. Daniel mourns and fasts in response to his vision (v2-3), and there is a delay in his answer as spiritual battles rage. We need to recognise the reality of the darkness.

But even more importantly, we need to recognise and rejoice in the power of God over it. On its own, chapter 10 can seem equivocal – it speaks of opposition and delay. But when we read it with what follows, we see clearly that God is in control. The spiritual forces somehow represent empires and nations – and the next chapters make clear that God determines exactly when they rise and fall, and will one day finally bring them to an end. It’s the same message we saw in chapter 7, as the temporary successes of the beasts gave way to the glory of the Son of Man. Just as he reigns over the greatest powers of this world, God also reigns over the heavenly realms.

That means our key response to spiritual evil should be to lean into God, as Daniel does in this chapter, by turning to prayer and fasting – or to put it another way, ‘be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power’ (Ephesians 6v10).