Faith and Hope How Daniel waited in faith for an answer

Welcome to episode 126, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 126. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are a frequent flyer, you know that I have decided over the last probably week or so that I was going to start every episode with that. I apologize for not starting every episode like that. I looked at the Apostle Paul's— all of his epistles, just about every one of them started with that greeting. And I thought it was so good. And if Paul thought it was that good, then why would we not do it? Well, let's dig into the lesson today. I told you we were going to talk about Daniel, and we are going to talk about Daniel. We're going to talk about the prophet Daniel, and it's in the book named by him. He wrote a book with his own name on it. But we're still talking about the childlike faith, and then ask and keep asking, seek and keep seeking. Knock and keep knocking. It's where we just be persistent. And I just want you to see how Daniel was persistent. And this is the exact same writer. Remember, the Holy Spirit is the author. God is the author of the Bible. But this is the same writer. This is the same person talking about two separate times that he prayed. And I want to pick it up in Daniel 9:20. Now while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God, for the holy mountain of my God. 17:10 Yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, who I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering. 17:11 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand. 17:12 At the beginning of your supplication the command went out, and I have come to you; for you are greatly beloved: therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision. Now I want to go with the same guy, Daniel, but I want to go to chapter 10 and verse 2. In those days I, Daniel, was mourning 3 full weeks. I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all till the 3 whole weeks were fulfilled. Now on the 24th day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, that is, the Tigris. And I want to skip to Daniel 10:10, same chapter, same writer. Suddenly a hand touched me, which made me tremble on my knees and on the palms of my hand. And he said to me, O Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you. While he was speaking this word to me, I stood trembling. Then he said to me, Do not fear, Daniel, For from the first day that you set your heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days, and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone with the kings of Persia. Now I want to stop there, and this is not a teaching on prayer, and this is not a teaching prophecy or visions or anything like that, or revelation or the end times. What I wanna use, I wanna use this, and that's what a lot of times this lesson is teaching, where Daniel is praying and he's getting the vision and he's getting the prophecies. What I want you to see is I want you to see that Daniel prayed one time and got an immediate answer, even after he was still, while he was still praying, It was a long prayer, but while he was still praying, Daniel got the answer. And then the second time, it took him 21 full days. He prayed and fasted, didn't eat any meat, didn't drink any wine, didn't— no wonderful food had gone into his lips. So he, he had kind of cut himself off of good stuff and was just trying to reach out and try to take hold of God. And this in In our example, the ask and keep asking, seek and keep seeking, knock and keep knocking. Daniel was getting after it. This is what getting after it looks like in the spirit. Daniel just shut his body up and he's waiting on the answer from God. And I'm gonna go take you back to that Frank Peretti book, This Present Darkness, where there was angels and demons in the spirit realm, but the book was revolving around a community. And the reason I'm bringing that book back up, one, it fleshed up prayer, but it also fleshed up the spirit realm. And when I read things like Daniel, when Gabriel comes and talks to Daniel, then I kind of see— I mean, this is a real live being, this is a real live angel. And I think sometimes when we're thinking about the answer, when God answers, he sends an answer every time we pray. But I want to turn this to faith if I can, because prayer is a communication And if you don't believe that God is answering you, you're gonna stop believing for the Word. And I just want you to see, if you hadn't figured it out yet, that there's opposition in the spirit realm. You have an enemy, and he comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. And I understand that we have the Holy Spirit, but I also believe that we have to use our faith. The just shall live by faith., and we have to learn what that faith is. And I think if we stop or shut down or we don't actively fight against our enemy, I think our enemy knows the rules probably better than we do, and he will just overrun us. And I think sometimes in my life, I've just kind of— now, I submit myself to God, resist the devil, and he'll flee. But while I'm submitting to God, in James 4:7— and many people I hear misquote this saying, "Resist the devil and he'll flee." No, the first step is submitting yourself to God. Then you resist the devil, then he'll flee. And resist is not saying, "Dear devil, please leave me alone. I, I really would like it if you don't bother me anymore." Jesus said that from the time of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of God suffers violence and the violent take it by force. When we get after Satan in Jesus' name, we've gotta do it with authority. We gotta do it like we know we're on the winning team. And I think that if he can intimidate us, he will. And part of the, and I don't know how it all works. I'm telling you, I don't have this all figured out, but I do believe that we need to get after it and we need to keep getting after it. And this picture in Daniel, sometimes the prayer is answered immediately, like in Daniel 9, and sometimes it takes 21 days with prayer and fasting to get our answer. And maybe it's just because we're all wrapped around the axle and we're all kind of tied into the world system. Maybe if we use the prayer and fasting, we'll get disconnected to the world and our flesh, and then we start listening to the answer. Maybe, and I think it— this is true, that God is answering us right now because in Daniel there, he wasn't— they didn't have a born-again spirit. So that was Old Testament prayer answering, and we're in the New Testament now, and we have the Holy Spirit. He will never leave us nor forsake us. So the Holy Spirit is there, or with us, all the time. And I believe our biggest challenge is actually hearing the answer. And that's why we got to get in the word. That's why we got to read and kind of get an idea on how God does things. And how, you know, if you, if you don't read and see that God sometimes takes a minute to answer you or takes 13 years to get the answer, you would think that God is waiting or that waiting on you to do something. No, it may not just be the right time yet. And Abraham was 86 years old when he had Ishmael and did not hear from God again until he was 99. That is 13 years, and that's a whole lot longer than 21 days. And Daniel fasted 21 days, but I want you to see in Daniel 9 and 10 that it pretty much— God answered immediately. As soon as Daniel prayed, God sent the answer. And I believe that is still the exact same response when God hears us pray. I believe the answer is yea and amen, and I think that God answers every prayer. Sometimes, you know, that Garth Brooks song, "Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers." Sometimes the answer is no. I'm all right with that. And I don't know how I twisted faith and hope and love and grace, and now we're talking about prayer. But I'm telling you, this is a big topic. And when you start trying to deal with faith and hope and grace, you're going to have to— if you don't incorporate prayer somewhere or voice activation to where you're speaking the Word of God and you're believing, you are unwavering faith. You have to say it and keep saying it and keep saying it and keep saying it and keep commanding it to come forth. And sooner or later, because if it's in the Bible, it is a promise from God, and sooner or later it will come to pass. You just have to not let go. Well, I can honestly tell you that this wasn't where I thought I was going to go with this lesson. But Daniel shows us that God listens. And I, I love the fact when I tell you that God— you are God's favorite— I want you to hear how the angel replies to Daniel in Daniel 9:23. At the beginning of your supplications, the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved. Therefore Consider the matter and understand the vision. That's 9:23. And then 10:19, and he said, O man greatly beloved, fear not, peace to you, be strong, yes, be strong. So when he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, let the Lord speak, for you have strengthened me. And before you start thinking, well, you know, that's Daniel, it's not me, it's not Greg Ryan, or it's not Jim, or whoever you are listening to this podcast, I want you to listen to Jesus' words. This is in red, and it's in Matthew 11:11. Assuredly I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist, but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. So I want you to think about what Jesus was just saying when he was talking to John's disciple. Actually, he wasn't talking to John's disciples. John's disciples had left. And he was talking to the crowd, telling the crowd how— what a big deal John the Baptist was. He said, 'Assuredly I say, among those born of women,' that is, everyone that has been born up until this point, 'there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist.' So David, King David, Daniel, Moses, Abraham— he put all of those people below John the Baptist with this one verse. And he then says, he ends it, but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. So you and I have more power, or we have more authority, than John the Baptist had, and that's because we're in the New Testament and we have a different set of rules. But let's stop right here and we'll pick this up on the next episode. God, I thank you so much for the person listening to this podcast or this episode. And I pray in Jesus' name that you would just lead them into all wisdom, help them understand the truth that you were trying to teach through me. And God, I thank you for opening up your word. I thank you for your word. I thank you, Jesus, that you are the word. Holy Spirit, I thank you that you'll never leave us nor forsake us. So you're right there. Help us, lead us into all truth. Help us to understand, Lord, as we try to bring this teaching and this lesson together, help us to understand how important faith and hope and love and prayer and grace and your word is. God, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

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