The Workings of a Religious Spirit, Part 6

"But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia." (Daniel 10:13)


This verse, in the middle of chapter ten of Daniel explains why our prayers are sometimes not answered immediately. It also shows us yet another way a religious spirit retains control over a geographical area. A message was revealed to Daniel in a vision. He did not totally understand what was being shown him so he set himself to fast and pray for understanding. Twenty-one days later, an angel appeared to him while he was going about his business. Most scholars believe this to be the angel Gabriel who is understood to be God's primary messenger. The angel told Daniel he had been dispatched three weeks earlier when Daniel had begun to pray. He apparently had to literally fight his way through spiritual interference to bring Daniel his message. The battle was so intense that he was not able to beat back the demonic forces in the heavens by himself. It was only when Michael, the archangel arrived to reinforce him that we was able to continue on his way and fulfill his mission to talk to Daniel.

We are trying to understand what factors might affect our ability to see clearly into the spiritual realm. While some things from the Old Testament do not exactly equate with the New Testament, there are many, valuable lessons we can learn from what is recorded there.

There was and is spiritual interference between us and God. In the previous post we discussed why we must be careful not to allow anything to become more important to us than God is. When we do that, we do not know how we should be praying and we may not be able to understand His answers to our prayers. If you pay attention here, we may be explaining much of the mystery of unanswered prayer. Had Daniel quit praying after two weeks, Gabriel might still be battling the Prince of Persia and Daniel might have passed from this life never having received his answer.

Jesus taught us that we must keep praying and we will receive our answers. (Luke 18:1) In this case He made His point with the parable of the unjust judge. Interestingly, this is one of the two parables Jesus used to say what the kingdom of God is not like. The other one is the parable of the midnight visitor in Luke 11:5-8. He follows that parable with the very familiar "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Luke 11:9) What most people miss in that statement is the present tense. We miss the literal meaning because we do not really think in literal terms. We think of the present tense being, for example, "I ask." That is actually the participle , for any of you who might be interested. The present tense is "I am asking." In the present tense things are happening right now. Jesus is really saying, be asking, be seeking, and be knocking. When we have the attitude of continuously doing those things, we will see results.

A religious spirit wants to throw up barriers to our being able to hear from God. Anything will do. Prayerlessness is good. Perhaps unanswered prayers are better. They foster discouragement and contribute to a lack of faith. Bad theology or bad doctrine will keep us from praying in faith. We have all heard that God answers prayer in three ways, yes, no, and wait. Let us make this very simple and very scriptural. "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us." (2 Corinthians 1:20) Where do you see no or wait in that verse? We will try one more verse just for emphasis. In John 16:23, Jesus tells us, "...Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you." Perhaps we missed it, but there does not appear to be a no or a wait in there either. We could go on, but we see no reason. How can it be that easy? Hint: there are no theologians involved here to confuse things. Call this "simply scripture". We have often said the newest Christians have the best theology because the church (the lack of capital letters there is intentional) has not had a chance to mess them up yet. God is waiting to answer prayer. He is not looking for reasons to not answer prayer. However, a religious spirit would like to convince us He is.

We have one other ploy of a religious spirit to expose here. A lack of love inhibits our ability to minister to the Lord and to others. It is,in fact, sin. Sin blocks our vision of what God is saying and doing. Jesus told us the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God and the second is like it, love our neighbor. (Matthew 22:37-39) Simply walk in love toward everyone. I run a substance abuse recovery program. I work with drug addicts and criminals. This is a great group of guys. How can I say that. Love covers all sins. (Proverbs 10:12) I simply choose to walk in love toward them. That is not to say I do not get aggravated on a regular basis and have to correct them. I even love them enough to make them follow the rules. I looked in the mirror a few times today and discovered I am still human. Walking in love is a decision we can all make. Let us encourage you all to make that decision today.