Before we speak of the second bear—the second beast of war who was to foment Gulf War II—I want to explain more about spiritual warfare itself. Most people do not know much about it. Those who do are often limited to warfare on a more personal level which is popularly called “deliverance ministry.” This has more to do with individuals being delivering from demonic oppression on earth, rather than with warfare in the heavens.

Daniel 10:5 says that an angel was sent to Daniel after he had fasted for three weeks. After describing the angel’s appearance, verses 12 and 13 read,

¹² Then he said to me, “Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words. ¹³ But the prince of the Kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia.”

Continuing in verses 20 and 21, we read,

²⁰ Then he said, “Do you understand why I came to you? But I shall now return to fight against the prince of Persia; so I am going forth, and behold, the prince of Greece is about to come. ²¹ However, I will tell you what is inscribed in the writing of truth. Yet there is no one who stands firmly with me against these forces except Michael your prince.”

We are not told why or how the prince of Persia was able to prevent this angel from reaching Daniel with the word. Verse 21 seems to imply a shortage of troops. It is almost a lament that no one could come to help him. I believe that this angelic “shortage” has a direct correlation with the shortage of intercessors on earth, whose angels join the battle when they engage in spiritual warfare.

The Prince of Persia was not the ruling monarch in Persia, but was a spiritual entity ruling in a dimension that ran parallel to the earthly nation called Persia. In terms of cause and effect, the spiritual is the cause, while the earthly is the effect. The earthly things that we see and feel are the results of spiritual conditions and events that remain largely hidden to our human perception. Like the veil between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, there is a veil that prevents our souls from seeing into the realm of spirit. Only the mind of our spirit can see these things clearly.

But this does not mean that the realm of spirit is nonexistent, as many “scientific” or “rational” people think. Their denials will not make it go away. It will only ensure that they will not understand the spiritual causes of physical things in the universe.

King Cyrus of Persia was probably unaware of the spiritual forces that shaped his decisions, decrees, and his very destiny. The “prince of Persia” was the spiritual entity that stood behind all of the reigning monarchs of Persia. At that particular time, it was Cyrus (Dan. 10:1).

Likewise, Michael was Israel’s prince (Dan. 12:1) and also Daniel’s prince (Dan. 10:21), because Daniel was the primary leader of Judah during the captivity. Michael had been the prince of Israel and Judah since the early days of the Exodus. As I will show in chapter 3, Michael had become Israel’s chief angelic prince after they worshipped the golden calf. Michael is the angel of resurrection—not only the resurrection of individuals, but also the resurrection of Israel as a nation.

A third player who was yet to enter into the battle was the prince of Greece. This spiritual prince was destined to manifest in the earth through Alexander the Great, who was to come to power 200 years later and who would conquer that part of the world. He was pictured as a leopard in Dan. 7:6 and was the third empire of the succession of empires leading to the Stone Kingdom of God.

Finally, there is the nameless angel who appeared to Daniel. He is described but not named. Most people assume that this is Gabriel, simply because it was Gabriel who appeared to Daniel in 9:21. Many have called Gabriel the messenger angel. But this is meaningless, because all angels are messengers.

It is my belief that the angel in Daniel 10 was Peniel, whose name means “the Presence of God” or “the Face of God.” I will give my reasons in the next chapter. Peniel is the natural enemy (counterpart) to the prince of Persia, even as Michael is the natural enemy of the Red Dragon (Rev. 12:7).

Through spiritual warfare, I have learned that each archangel has its own specific assignment and calling. Part of this means that a spiritual archprince can only be bound by an archangel. God’s archangels are of equal rank with Satan’s archprinces. Each angel or archangel has its assigned duty and calling, based upon the word that is in him. Each archangel has his counterpart on the other side and alone has the calling to bind him. To do this in any other way is unlawful.

We learned this the hard way in July 2001. We had been engaged in spiritual warfare and had used the archangel Peniel to bind the archprince Theos. Theos was able to lodge a complaint in the divine court against us, simply because we had violated this spiritual law.

Up until that time, I thought that we could bind any archprince as long as we used an archangel. But then we discovered that each archangel had been given authority over a different archprince. To lead men and angels in spiritual warfare of this type, we had to know the specific parameters of each archangel’s authority. Not everyone needs to know these things, but those called into positions of leadership have to be trained to know such things. This is why God does not call everyone to lead others into spiritual warfare.

The archangel Peniel was given authority over the prince of Persia—not the one called Theos. For this reason, it was Peniel who was fighting the prince of Persia in Daniel 10. Peniel could not defeat the prince of Persia at that time, because Peniel’s time had not yet come. As I will show in the next chapter, Peniel was prevented from bringing people into the experience of the feast of Tabernacles after the Israelites worshipped the golden calf.

Peniel is the archangel of the Feast of Tabernacles, and Daniel was living during the Passover Age, which extended from the first Passover under Moses to the final Passover where the Lamb of God was slain on the cross.

Neither could Peniel be released during the Pentecostal Age, which extended from 33 to 1993 A.D., a total of 40 Jubilees.

Peniel was finally released in 1995, as I will show in the next chapter, before dealing with the second bear of the 1986 vision.