God’s Word for You
Daniel 10:12-13 Angels and their warfare
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, December 31, 2025
12 Then he said to me, “Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come with words for you.
While the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10), the fear that Daniel felt was terror. The sound of the Lord’s voice “like the roar of a multitude” (verse 6) and the knowledge of his own sin were too much for the prophet. But the Lord touched him (verse 10) and spoke to him (verses 11-12), and Daniel got up from flat on his face to crouching on his hands and knees and finally to standing, trembling, before Christ. “Do not be afraid” was a comfort to the prophet, not just some kind of traditional greeting, but a real reassurance that his life, body and soul were not in mortal or eternal danger on account of this meeting.
The Lord’s encouragement continued: “From the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words have been heard.” The sinful heart that knows its sin might be overwhelmed by such words. No, not me, Lord! I am unworthy of your attention! Like Isaiah, I am a man of unclean lips! Do not crush me on account of “the cravings of my sinful nature, and for following its evil desires and thoughts!” (Ephesians 2:3). But the Lord is not proclaiming the law here. He wants his servant Daniel to know that his faith has been accepted by God as righteousness, and that it is as much his intention to do God’s will out of faith than the actual limping, failing things that Daniel has done that God has noticed.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once said, “Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked,” meaning that the intent of a crime must be taken into consideration as well as the actual damage of the crime. And God shows his supremacy even over such wisdom by showing that even the intent of a good work is noted by him, over and above the actual act, which by itself may appear to be unworthy, faulty, insignificant, or even not actually done at all.
To this man, this fearing prophet, the Word of God came with words. But he also wanted to explain something about the unseen world and the battles that rage there.
13 The prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me twenty-one days. So Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there against the kings of Persia.
This verse reveals many things about the angels that might otherwise be unknown to us. Obviously there is opposition to God’s will and to God’s plan. The evil angels do whatever they can to ruin, thwart, or at least delay God’s will from being put into action. But we’re already ahead of ourselves. There are three classes of angels: Angels before the fall of angels, and then after the fall, good angels and evil angels. Mostly we are concerned about the good angels who were confirmed in their holy state after the fall, also called “the elect angels” (1 Timothy 5:21). There are various titles given to them. Cherubim (Genesis 324), Seraphim (Isaiah 6:2), thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities (Colossians 1:16), archangels (or at least one archangel, 1 Thessalonians 4:16). Here, the Lord tells Daniel that there are also princes and kings (perhaps) among the evil angels. And Paul uses the titles “rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). While there is an implied difference between angel and archangel, we can’t say for certain whether any of the other titles of angels imply a hierarchy or simply different roles within God’s invisible realm.
The struggling of angels with one another, that is, evil opposing good and evil opposing even Christ, is an unknown kind of struggle. When Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness, their sparring was not physical but the struggle of faith over temptation—or so Satan thought. It was actually a contest of Christ’s holy righteousness over temptation. But when the angels comfort God’s people, whether Abraham or Moses or even Jesus after his temptation, it usually seems to be with spiritual comfort, although when the Angel of the Lord visited Hagar, he also showed her a well of water that saved her life and the life of her son after he comforted her with words (Genesis 21:19).
Angels are not impeded by physical obstacles, as we see when an angel visits Peter in prison without having to pass through walls of stone or doors with bars (Acts 12:7). Yet they can interact with the corporeal world, since that very same angel woke Peter up by striking him in the side (Acts 12:7), and as the angels grabbed Lot’s family to pull them out of the house in Sodom before it was destroyed (Genesis 19:16). So here again we cannot say for certain what the unseen battles are, or whether angels could possibly hurt one another; they certainly cannot destroy or kill each other, for this cannot happen to a spirit. But they can cause suffering, since the evil angels will suffer and be punished in hell (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6).
Yet after all this, my opinion (based on the temptation of Jesus more than anything else) is that the battles of angels and demons are spiritual battles of faith and perhaps the reason and obedience of the angels. And by delaying one another, the good angels keep the evil demons from tempting humans at certain key times. But the final punishment of the demons and the devil are a certainty. Nothing that they do now under the arch of time will improve their final judgment—yet they could, as sinful men can, make their final punishment all the worse by the things that they do.
May the demons and you, too, Satan, if you should ever read this paragraph, be made aware of that, and tremble with fear over what my Lord Jesus Christ has in store for you. Nothing will make anything go any better for you; and this is from me, who as a boy once tried to intercede with God on your behalf until I learned that this was not possible, and that your judgment is already pronounced (John 3:18; Genesis 3:15).
But what God, our God, has in store for us, his people, is nothing but forgiveness, restoration, joy, peace and everlasting rest through Jesus Christ our Lord, who comforts us in every trouble with his powerful word. “The Lord rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me” (Psalm 18:17). Therefore we trust in him always.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.