is
the strange part--"the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me,
resisted me, one and twenty days: but Michael, your prince, came to help
me, and I was free to come to you with the answer to your prayer."

Please notice four things that I think any one reading this chapter will
readily admit. This being talking with Daniel is plainly a spirit being.
He is opposed by some one. This opponent plainly must be a spirit being,
too, to be resisting a spirit being. Daniel's messenger is from God: that
is clear. Then the opponent must be from the opposite camp. And here comes
in the thing strange, unexpected, the evil spirit being _has the power to
detain, hold back God's messenger_ for three full weeks by earth's
reckoning of time. Then reenforcements come, as we would say. The evil
messenger's purpose is defeated, and God's messenger is free to come as
originally planned.

There is a double scene being enacted. A scene you can see, and a scene
you cannot see. An unseen wrestling match in the upper spirit realm, and
two embodied spirit beings down on their faces by the river. And both
concerned over the same thing.

That is the Daniel story. What an acted out illustration it is of Paul's
words. It is a picture glowing with the action of real life. It is a
double picture. Every prayer action is in doubles; a lower human level; an
upper spirit level. Many see only the seen, and lose heart. While we look
at the things that are seen, let us gaze intently at the things unseen;
for the seen things are secondary, but the unseen are chief, and the
action of life is being decided there.

Here is the lower, the seen;--a group of men, led by a man of executive
force enough to control an empire, prone on their faces, with minds clear,
quiet, alert, persistently, ceaselessly _praying_ day by day. Here is the
upper, the unseen:--a "wrestling," keen, stubborn, skilled, going on
between two spirit princes in the spirit realm. And by Paul's explanation
the two are vitally connected. Daniel and his companions are wrestlers
too, active participants in that upper-air fight, and really deciding the
issue, for they are on the ground being contested. These men are indeed
praying with all prayer and supplication at all times, in the Spirit, and
watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication, and _at length
victory comes_.

<u>Prayer Concerns Three.</u>

Now a bit of a look at the central figure of the pattern. Jesus lets