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Daniel prayed to God for the return of his people to their own land. In Daniel’s prayer for his nation, he confessed his own sins using the pronoun, “we” throughout. Daniel knew how to pray. As he prayed, he fasted and confessed his sins, in (Dan. 9:3-19). (In verses 9: 11-13), he mentioned the blessings and curses shown in (Deut. 28). God had given the people a choice of obedience to blessings or disobedience to the curses. The purpose for their affliction was to turn the people back to God.
When Daniel prayed, he asked for God mercy, but not for His help. Daniel knew that God’s people had done wrong and they deserved punishment. While Daniel prayed and fasted, a war was going on in the heavenlies and a heavenly being appeared to Daniel in (verses 10: 5,6), “Behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz. His body also was like the beryl lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.” The book of Hebrews tells us that God’s angels are all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who will be heirs of salvation.
Daniel alone saw the vision of the angel, but the men that were with him, though they did not see the angel, were possessed of great trembling, so that they fled to hide themselves, vs. 8. Daniel was left weak although this was an angel of low rank, a lieutenant in the forces of God. When Daniel was stopped by a major angel of the forces of Satan, he could not go on with his mighty ministry until God sent a ministering angel to his aid. Daniel caught a glimpse of a supernatural battle between good and evil in verse 10:13. The angel had to fight against the Satanic Prince of Persia and the Satanic Prince of Greece. The demonic powers had tried to stop the answer of Daniel’s prayer from getting through. This supernatural battle proves that even though the devils tried to stop his prayer, angels were warring to bring the answer. Daniel’s weapons were repentance, fasting, faith and prayers.
Daniel became one of King Nebuchadnezzar’s most trusted advisors. This important promotion angered the other administrators. In jealousy, they convinced the King to make a law that outlawed prayer to any other god other than the Babylonian image that the King had made for them to worship. Daniel disobeyed this law and continued to pray in front of his window daily to his sovereign Lord. As a result, he was condemned to a lions’ den where God shut the mouths of the hungry lions.