The Church of Jesus Christ in the western world
has been heralded for its many strengths, but
there is an area of weakness that is of great
concern in the contemporary western church. That
is the weakness of our prayer life. The consequences
of this weakness are all too apparent. Worldliness
is rampant in the church. There's a compromise
of convictions and accommodation to the fads,
the movements and the lifestyle of the pagans
around us. Prayerlessness also has resulted in
powerlessness. There is in too many of us an
empty profession. Words we have but words which
do not affect our lives in the priorities that
we make, the choices that we have. And there
seems to be in altogether too many professing
Christians a form of godliness without its reality.
Prayerlessness inevitably results in ungodliness,
where life is lived essentially independent of
God, where God is segregated to some appropriate
place in our lives, while the mainstream of life
goes on without His personal and meaningful involvement.
Our study in Daniel chapter 9 begins with a record
of a written prayer of this man of God who lived
in a culture not unlike our own. This remarkable
man who in so many ways gives us an example here
gives us an example of personal prayer. One that
ought to humble us and challenge us in our own
practice of this discipline. Daniel chapter 9
is not a how -to kind of instruction, but it
is a marvelous stimulation, I hope, to our own
practice of prayer. It seems to me that here
in these early verses of the chapter we enter
into that upper chamber that we studied about
last week in Daniel chapter 6. Where Daniel went
three times a day to pray with his windows open
toward the West toward the city of Jerusalem
his home You recall that he is living in the
city of Babylon hundreds of miles to the east
He was carried away as an exile there as a young
teenager about 15 years of age now. He's in his
80s It seems that we enter into that room where
he spends his time with God and we look over
his shoulder. We listen to his words as he kneels
to pray. Remember that Daniel was alive at a
very significant time in history. History was
in the making. The most powerful empire in the
known world at that time had just fallen. Babylon.
And Daniel is now one of the leaders in the new
empire. the empire of the Medes and the Persians.
Daniel knew the significance of the hour in which
he lived. And as a result of that, he was a man
who was fervent and effective in prayer. I believe
that our need today is not only to understand
the times we're living in, but it is to be a
people of effective prayer as God sovereignly
turns the pages of human history. And end time
events are on the horizon. Daniel begins by giving
us some historical background of his situation.
He says, in the first year of Darius, the son
of Ahasuerus of Median descent, who was made
king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans. And so
we know that this was 539 -538 BC. During that
first year, the Darius reigned over the new empire.
Darius, you remember, is a title that means a
royal one. Darius was probably the person named
Guberu, who was a Median general under Cyrus,
the king of the Medes and the Persians. Because
Cyrus needed to have somebody in charge over
this newly conquered territory of Babylon, he
established Darius Guberu as his viceroy, his
personal representative. During this time, Daniel's
thoughts were focused on God's word as he served
Darius in a very highly respected office. Indeed,
something similar to a vice presidency of the
empire. In the midst of his busy schedule, Daniel's
thoughts were not focused primarily upon his
responsibilities as one of the commissioners
of the land. But Daniel's thoughts were consumed
with the Word of God. Now there is particular
reason for that as he explains in verse 2. In
the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed
in the books the number of the years which was
revealed as the Word of the Lord to Jeremiah
the prophet. for the completion of the desolations
of Jerusalem, namely 70 years. And so he tells
us that as he was studying the Word of God, particularly
the writings of the prophet Jeremiah, he came
to some portions of Scripture that spoke to the
present condition of the Jews, that is their
captivity by Babylon. Let's turn to the book
of Jeremiah and look at one of the passages that
Daniel was meditating upon as he lived in this
first year of Darius and his reign over the Medes
and the Persians. Jeremiah chapter 25, let's
look in verse 8. Remember these words were penned
a number of years before 539 BC. Jeremiah was
probably killed about 40 years before this. And
so these words are written before that and indeed
before the time that the Jews were actually carried
into Babylon. He says in verse 8 of Jeremiah
25, Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, because
you have not obeyed my words, behold I will send
and take all the families of the north, declares
the Lord, and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them
against this land and against its inhabitants
and against all these nations round about, and
I will utterly destroy them and make a horror
and a hissing and an everlasting desolation.
Moreover, I will take from them the voice of
joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the
bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound
of the millstones and the light of the lamp.
God essentially says here, I am going to turn
out the light among my people. And this whole
land shall be a desolation and a horror, and
these nations shall serve the King of Babylon
seventy years. Then it will be when seventy years
are completed, I will punish the King of Babylon
and that nation, declares the Lord, for their
iniquity in the land of the Chaldeans, and I
will make it an everlasting desolation. And I
will bring upon that land all my words which
I have pronounced against it." And so God foretells
through Jeremiah that the people of Israel will
be captive to Babylon for 70 years. And when
the 70 years are up, God will then judge Babylon
and will release the Jews from their captivity.
Well now Daniel is living in the day when Babylon
has been judged. The king of Babylon has been
killed. Belshazzar was killed. And now he is
living in the times of the Medes and the Persians,
and there is a man named Cyrus who is reigning.
Undoubtedly, Daniel was aware of what Isaiah
the prophet had written as well in the 44th and
45th chapters of his book, when he named Cyrus
150 years before he was born. to be the one who
would come and grant that the Jews go back to
their homeland. Daniel was aware of all of this.
The Word of God was filling his mind and it caused
him to pray. Now as we go back to the book of
Daniel, let's see how this man of God prayed
as we see his prayerful response to what the
Word of God has been teaching him. Verse 3, So
I gave my attention to the Lord, the Lord God,
to seek him by prayer and supplications, with
fasting, sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed to
the Lord my God, and confessed, and said, Alas,
O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps
his covenant and lovingkindness for those who
love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned.
committed iniquity, acted wickedly, and rebelled,
even turning aside from thy commandments and
ordinances. And so in his response, as he begins
to pray, Daniel first adores God. He says, oh
God, you are the covenant -keeping God. And for
the first time in his book, he now employs that
special covenant name of God, Yahweh. The name
the Jews would not pronounce. It is signified
in our English translations by all four letters,
L -O -R -D being capitalized. To this point he
has used the name Elohim, or Adonai. But now
he brings in the special name of God. The name
that says, I will keep my covenant with my people.
The Lord, Yahweh. And he prays to this one. He
adores him. He blesses God that he is long -suffering,
that he is loving in his kindness, that he keeps
covenant. By the way, the only basis for prayer
is the faithfulness of God. The loving kindness
of God. The fact that God keeps his covenant
when he gives his word. And Daniel begins by
adoring God for that attribute about himself.
But then he proceeds immediately with confession.
And he says, oh God, we have sinned. And he uses
four terms in verse 5 to try to express the feelings
in his heart about the way the people of Israel
have acted toward the Lord. He says we've sinned.
That is, we've missed the mark. We have wandered
from the path that you've laid out for us. He
goes on to say we have committed iniquity. That
is, we have engaged in conduct that is crooked
and distorted in your eyes. He says we have acted
wickedly. In other words, we have carried out
premeditated evil. We knew what we were doing
and we carried out wickedness in your sight and
furthermore he says We have rebelled the idea
is we have defied your authority We have defied
your authority we have revolted we have rebelled
against you Now, having explained how he has
sinned, he explains further by saying, look in
verse 6, moreover, we have not listened to thy
servants the prophets who spoke in thy name to
our kings, our princes, our fathers, and all
the people of the land. Notice what he says,
we have failed to listen to the word of God.
Lord, we have ignored your word and we have turned
against those who have spoken it to us. We have
sinned by succumbing to the idolatry of the nations
around us. Instead of being your people in the
midst of a polytheistic pagan world, instead
of being faithful to the covenant that you have
given to us, we instead have become like them.
We have become idolaters, he says. We have become
immoral like the nations. We have accommodated
ourselves. We have compromised what you have
intended for us to be in the world. And so he
very openly and transparently confesses and acknowledges
the sins of his people. Therefore they richly
deserve, says Daniel. the judgment that God brought
upon them. The terrible loss that was theirs
in the captivity when they lost not only their
nation, but they lost the temple with all of
its instruments, that vessels that had been set
aside for the service of God. They lost their
priests. They lost their families. They lost
their material possessions. They lost their freedom.
They lost everything. And Daniel says in essence
here, God, we deserved it. And the judgment that
you have brought upon us, we richly deserved
because we have sinned in your sight. He acknowledges
now in verses 7 through 14 the shame of the people.
There is a line of teaching that is going out
these days that says that the people of God should
never be ashamed of anything. That it's wrong
to shame. Well, I want you to know that God doesn't
agree with that. There is a time for even the
people of God to know shame. And Daniel acknowledges
here, righteousness belongs to thee, O Lord,
but to us open shame as it is this day. He says
in verse 8, open shame belongs to us, O Lord,
to our kings, princes, our fathers, because we
have sinned. against thee." You see, God had
promised His people material blessings. He had
promised them military victories. He had promised
to them national greatness if they remained faithful
to the covenant that God had established with
them, but they hadn't been faithful. And now
instead of knowing greatness and prosperity and
blessing, they knew humiliation and shame. And
when their name was spoken, it was with a hissing
sound, the sound of despite. People laughed at
them and mocked them as the people of Yahweh,
because look what their God had done to them.
They were ashamed because of their sin. It's
interesting that Daniel did not place the blame
upon God for what they had experienced. Daniel
here fully accepts the responsibility for the
tragedies that had come upon them. He acknowledges
that it was the chastening hand of the Lord which
they deserved. He says in verse 9, Nor have we
obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk
in his teachings which he set before us through
his servants the prophets Indeed all Israel's
transgressed thy law and turned aside not obeying
thy voice So the curse has been poured out on
us Along with the oath which is written in the
law of Moses the servant of God for we have sinned
against him Daniel seems to go back here to the
book of Leviticus back to the book of Deuteronomy
And he brings forth in his prayer the fact that
God promised blessing when the people obeyed
and God promised curses when the people disobeyed.
And it was a covenant which the people gladly
accepted and they said, we will abide by the
terms of this covenant. And now they have disobeyed
and the curses of God have come upon them. And
Daniel does not point back at God and say, God,
why are you doing this to us? He says, God, this
is exactly. What we deserve This is what you
said would happen to us if we disobeyed How often
the natural man blames God for tragedies Blames
God for disasters Unwilling to acknowledge the
fact that evil consequences exist in the world
Because of the evils of man's heart and the evils
of man's deeds We cannot blame the consequences
of sin upon God God warns us in advance sin results
in this When we sin and get this we cannot look
back at God and say it's your fault We have to
acknowledge God we deserve what we're experiencing
He goes on to say in verse 12, thus he has confirmed
his words which he had spoken against us and
against our rulers who ruled us, to bring on
us great calamity. For under the whole heaven
there has not been done anything like what was
done to Jerusalem. I'd like you to turn back
for just a moment to the book of Second Chronicles.
And look at the seventh chapter of the book of
Second Chronicles where we have a record of a
conversation between God and Solomon. Solomon,
the great son of David, as you recall, built
the temple in Jerusalem. The temple that now,
in Daniel's day, has been ransacked and left
in ruins. When Solomon built it, it was a temple
that was glorious. And God's glory came down
and filled the place, and sacrifices were offered
to the Lord. And Solomon prayed to the Lord.
Now in 2 Chronicles chapter 7 verse 12, the Lord
appears to Solomon at night and said to him,
I have heard your prayer and have chosen this
place for myself as a house of sacrifice. If
I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain,
or if I command the locusts to devour the land,
or if I send pestilence among my people, All
of these things were things that Solomon said,
God do this if we get away from you. Send us
pestilence, send us locusts. Shut up the heavens
that there be no rain if your people disobey
you. So God says, now if I do these things, and
my people who are called by my name humble themselves
and pray, and seek my face and turn from their
wicked ways, then will I hear. from heaven, and
will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Now my eyes shall be open and my ears attentive
to the prayer offered in this place. Now I have
chosen and consecrated this house that my name
may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will
be there perpetually. And as for you, if you
walk before me as your father David walked, even
to do according to all that I have commanded,
you will keep my statutes and my ordinances,
then I will establish your royal throne as I
coveted with your father David. But, verse 19,
if you turn away and forsake my statutes and
my commandments, which I have set before you,
and shall go and serve other gods and worship
them, then will I uproot you from the land, my
land, which I have given you. And this house
which I have consecrated for my name I will cast
out of my sight. And I will make it a proverb
and a byword among all the nations. And as for
this house which was exalted, everyone who passes
by it will be astonished and say, why has the
Lord done this to this land and to this house?
And they will say, because they forsook the Lord,
the God of their fathers, who brought them from
the land of Egypt. And they adopted other gods
and worshiped them and served them. Therefore,
he has brought all this adversity on them. Another
statement of what God ahead of time told his
people. If you obey me, there is blessing. If
you disobey me and forsake me, I will judge you.
Daniel now has experienced that judgment. He
has lived through the whole 70 years. And the
time has come for his people to be restored.
Daniel knows what year it is. He knows that the
time is nearly up, that almost 70 years have
been completed, and so he appeals to God as he
concludes his prayer. He appeals to God for pity.
He says, now, O Lord our God, who has brought
thy people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty
hand and has made a name for thyself as it is
this day, we have sinned, we have been wicked,
O Lord, in accordance with all thy righteous
acts. Let now thine anger and thy wrath turn
away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain.
Because of our sins, the iniquities of our fathers,
Jerusalem and thy people have become a reproach
to all those around us. So now, our God, listen.
Listen to the prayer of thy servant and do us
supplications for thy sake, O Lord. Let thy face
shine on thy desolate sanctuary. O my God! Incline
thine ear and hear. Open thine eyes and see our
desolations and the city which is called by thy
name. For we are not presenting our supplications
before thee on account of any merits of our own,
but on account of thy great compassion. O Lord,
hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, listen and take
action. For thine own sake, O my God, do not
delay, because thy city and thy people are called
by thy name." Notice how he phrases this. He
says, God, it's not because of anything on our
account. It's not because of merit on our behalf.
But, O Lord, because of thy name, because that's
city Jerusalem over there. because these people
who are in captivity are called by thy name.
O Lord, for thy sake, listen, hear, and turn
away your anger. Restore your people. What an
emotional appeal he makes. To allow a permanent
dislocation of the people would bring reproach
to the Lord. The pagans would conclude that their
God was incapable of delivering them. They would
never believe in the God named Yahweh, the God
of the Jews. So he appeals to God for pity. We're
going to see how God responded to Daniel next
week as we turn to one of the most interesting,
complex, and I would dare say, relevant prophecies
in the book of Daniel. Daniel's intimacy with
God allowed him to understand the times. You
see, he was in the Word. He knew the meaning
of the fall of Babylon. He knew what Cyrus being
on the throne of the Medes and the Persians signified.
He understood the times. And because he understood
the times, he was a man of prayer. I want to
say to you in conclusion today that our need
is not merely to understand the times. That's
important. What is happening in our world today?
You and I are living in historical times. As
we see Europe in the Middle East in a turmoil
unlike it has ever been in, in thousands of years.
As nations are positioning themselves anew, I
think what we're going to see when all of this
is done, positioning that will lead directly
to the tribulation and the rise of the Western
Confederation of Nations and Antichrist and the
things that the Bible prophesies to happen in
the last days. We are living in historic times
and we need to be in the Word of God. so that
we understand the times we're living in. But
we need more than that. We need to be men and
women of prayer. We need God to pour upon us
the Spirit of prayer and supplication. In Daniel's
prayer life, he was disciplined. It says that
he gave attention to the Lord. In his prayer
life, he was fervent. He supplicated with God.
It was not, now I lay me down to sleep, I pray
the Lord my soul to keep, kind of praying with
Daniel. He opened his heart to God and he prayed
with a fervency and an intensity that is lacking
in our western church and its prayer life. When
he prayed, he prayed with humility, with sackcloth
and ashes, not the clothing of the vice president
of Medo -Persia. but with sackcloth, ashes upon
his head. He was not demanding of God like those
who tell us that we're to name it and claim it
today and make God nothing more than the servant
boy of Christians. Daniel understood that that
is a false idea of prayer and of God. He humbled
himself before the great God, the God of his
people. And as he prayed, he prayed with a big
picture. Daniel didn't pray that his comforts
would come through. He didn't pray for his own
safety. He didn't ask for his own personal desires.
Do you notice that? There is a time for that
kind of praying, I know. But what we need today
are people who understand the times and know
how to pray with a big picture in view. Daniel
goes back to history. He prays regarding what's
happened among his people. He prays regarding
what needs to happen among them. Daniel prays
with a big picture. Does that describe your prayer
life? Disciplined? Intense? Humble? Big picture
praying? Or do words like routine? dull, without
zest, even non -existent. Describe your prayer
life. Chuck Swindoll said, Daniel's example shows
us that the saint who advances on his knees will
never have to retreat. Daniel was a man of prayer.
It is the praying person who makes the greatest
impact in the world. The praying person. Not
the rich. Not the one who holds the office. Not
the powerful. Not the famous. But it is the praying
person who prays like Daniel prayed. D .L. Moody
said, those who have left the deepest impression
on this sin -cursed earth have been men and women
of prayer. The first sign of true spiritual life
is prayer. And it's also the means of maintaining
spiritual life. Man can as well live physically
without breathing as spiritually without praying.
But I want to call upon you to be today, whether
you're a teenager or you're a grandparent. Whether
you're married with kids or you're single. I
want to call upon you to be a Daniel in your
prayer life. I want to call upon you to join
the core of Daniels who would be in time prayers,
who would know the significance of this hour,
and would be able to get on his or her knees
before God and cry out to Him. But I fear that
too many of us rather than being fervent in prayer,
are just busy and stressed out and running here
and there, socializing a lot with each other.
We're more aware of the TV schedule than we are
of the times in which we live. We know more about
the latest movies that are being offered out
there than we do about what the Word of God says
about the days of the end times. We're making
more and more money. We're buying more and more
things and all the time we are accommodating
the culture compromising to be like the world
which is going to hell and which is passing away
and the need of the hour is for Daniels. I urge
you to become a Daniel. To become a man, a woman
of the Word. To turn aside from goals that are
merely for this life, as good as some of those
goals can be. And to set your priorities rather
upon the things of eternity in your prayer life.
To become a person who grasps the significance
of the hour and who will humble himself. and
pray and seek the face of God and turn from His
wicked ways that God may do the work in His people
that He needs to do. Would you bow with me please?
This is a message this morning that Satan did
not want you to hear. I hope you've heard it.
I hope that despite the fact that you may not
have got as much sleep last night that you would
like to have gotten, or that maybe your morning
hasn't gone as smoothly as you hoped it would,
that nonetheless the Spirit of God has arrested
your attention for this hour, that you are challenged
to be a Daniel in your prayer life. Will you?
Will you determine to discipline yourself to
be in the Word? For it's the Word of God that
tells us how to pray. Will you discipline yourself
to be a woman of prayer? A man of prayer? Will
you pray with fervency? Will you pray with humility?
Will you pray with the big picture in mind and
ask God to awaken His church in this hour? Oh
Lord, we are a sinful people. We have grown so
accustomed to the world around us with its ungodliness,
its wickedness. It's perversion that our hearts
have grown insensitive to you. And we have substituted
being busy, even busy in church things, in fellowship,
in doing good things that we have forgotten the
most important, to be a people of the book, to
be a people of prayer. Forgive us. and heal us.
Oh Lord, restore us. Be merciful, be patient,
and bring to us as a people the people of Grace
Church. Bring to us a new commitment to prayer.
To be like Daniel in our hour as you are making
history in the world. In Jesus' name we pray.