Daniel CH. 9 — Daniel 9

0:00 Okay. Daniel chapter nine. In the first year of Darius, the son of Hashuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books, the number of the years specified by the word of the lord through Jeremiah, the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. Then, I sent my face toward the lord god to make request by prayer and supplications with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

0:30 And I prayed to the Lord, my God, and made confession and said, oh Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant and mercy with those who love him, and with those who keep his commandments. We have sinned and committed iniquity. We have done wickedly and rebelled even by departing from your precepts and your judgments. Neither have we heeded your servant, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us, shame of face, as it is this day to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off, in all the countries to which you have driven them because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against you.

1:23 O Lord, to us belongs shame of face to our kings, our princes, our fathers because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness that we have rebelled against him. We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws which he has set before us by his servants the prophets. Yes, all Israel has transgressed your law and has departed so as not to obey your voice. Therefore, the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us because we have sinned against him, against God.

2:03 And he has confirmed his words which he spoke against us and against our judges who judged us by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities and understand your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept the disaster in mind and brought it upon us, For the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which he has... Which he does, that we have not obeyed his voice.

2:43 And now, o Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and made yourself yourself a name, as it is this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all your righteousness, I pray, let your anger and your fury be turned away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy mountain. Because of our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people are reproach to all those around us. Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of your servant and his supplications, supplications and for the Lord's sake cause your face to shine on your sanctuary which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and see our desolations in the city which is called by your name.

4:32 Therefore consider the matter and understand the vision and then Gabriel goes into the wonderful vision of the seventy weeks. But I would like to share a few remarks before we spend the remainder of our time in prayer. In the beginning of that chapter we see that Daniel was acquainted with God's purposes as revealed in scripture. He had clearly been a study, a student of the book of Jeremiah so he knew what God was doing. He realized that Israel was facing the judgment of God.

5:12 Those of... Many of you know that this congregation is part of what's called the assembly movement and we as a movement used to be known as the people of the book but not so much anymore and that's simply because we don't spend as much time in the scriptures. I know we're familiar with Daniel and Hosea and Jonah but there's 10 or 11 other minor prophets that I don't know very much about. I could give you maybe some of the key words or thoughts but the bottom line is we're not spending time in the word. Daniel spent time in the word and he had a spiritual perception of of the lord's plans.

5:59 And if we are spending time in the word, it's gonna give us a heightened spiritual sensitivity, of course, that will be more in step with what god's plans are. I'd like to read you a paragraph from a book that I received recently, it's actually about the book of Daniel and this fellow makes his remark, just a short paragraph, when Daniel perceived the future prospects for his people, he became deeply exercised in prayer and supplications. Daniel was no fatalist. The knowledge of the unchanging purpose of God did not cause him to sit back and say within his heart, all will be fulfilled, whatever God has predestined will be carried out. No, he began to pray and confess sin and cast himself and his beloved people upon the mercy of Jehovah.

6:50 We too have a responsibility toward the unsaved and toward all the saints. The word of God read and meditated upon will ever produce concern for the present condition. True supplication and prayers, the outcome of the exercise produced by this diligent reading and consideration of the divine will and that will is revealed to us in the scriptures so we need to be in the scriptures to give us spiritual sharpness and perception. If we know the mind of God then we can pray the will of God. But let's look at several of these components of this prayer quickly before we spend some time in prayer.

8:19 Daniel acknowledged that he and his fellow countrymen had not listened to the prophets. That could be true of all of us. Have... Of all of us fully listened to and obeyed the word of God? No.

8:35 We still stumble in many ways. Verses seven and eight talks about righteousness belonging to God but open shame to us. I know we are all by faith united to Christ but we still have spiritual responsibilities to live a holy life, to be involved in the local church, to love one another, to care for one another. Daniel in his prayer talks about the the law of Moses and the and the... Let me let me see how he put that.

9:15 The as is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us. In Deuteronomy, the Lord says to Israel, if you follow me and obey me things will be good but if you forsake me and reject me things will not be good. That's my rough pair of phrase. And here we see Israel had been in Babylonian captivity for the better part of seventy years and Daniel had the perception to realize that period was coming to a close and he was seeking the Lord's face about what would come next. Verses thirteen and fourteen just reminded me that we're good at messing things up and the problem with that is we fix try things ourselves.

10:10 We like to say, well I guess all we can do is pray, we probably should pray sooner. One habit I've been trying to make is when I'm with somebody in conversation instead of saying well we'll have to pray about that sometime, take the time to stop right then and pray about it rather than praying about it later. One of the reasons that Daniel has confidence is because he knew God had delivered his people out of Egypt and in our own lives we have seen how God delivered us at different times so that is another encouragement for prayer. To just summarize, Daniel's prayer is characterized by humility, confession of his sin and the sin of others and an earnest desire for God's merciful intervention. And I would suggest that largely sprang from Adam's...

11:13 Daniel having spiritual eyes and ears. So what happened as a result of Daniel seeking God in prayer? This is one of the most amazing prayers to me, Daniel poured out his heart to the Lord and what was the answer? The answer was the coming of the Messiah. The details about the coming of the Messiah which had been promised from the time of Abraham and before that in Abraham's seed all the world would be blessed.

11:45 That was that was the answer to this prayer. That was a that was a big answer. That was a huge answer. Toward the end of those verses I read, it the scriptures say, while I was speaking in prayer... Well, as Daniel was praying the answer was already coming.

12:40 Hebrews eleven:six, Without faith it is impossible to please God. Those who come to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him. I've made the remark to some of you at different times, we are all as spiritual as we wanna be. Think about it. Are we diligently seeking him, the one who rewards those who do?

13:07 And another blessed thought before we go to prayer, look at what Gabriel said to Daniel, for you are greatly beloved. God knows each of us by name of course and everything else about us and I would say that he loves to hear us come before his throne to talk to him just as parents appreciate their children coming to them to even make requests to them. We're just like our kids, like to go to the Lord or to our parents and ask for stuff the Lord loves to to give stuff, to give blessing, but according to his will. Well I'm not sure exactly how the remainder of this hour will work but I'm trusting some of the men will come on up who are interested in joining in prayer. I'll share some of these requests with you and you can review them, and I'll just open with some prayer, and then you guys can have a few minutes to look at these so that you can not have to read them as you're trying to pray.

14:23 Any other written requests? There's eight of them here, couple other men wanna come? And of course, share the beauty of praying together as the lord is at work in us. I have a couple here from the Limpert family, Dan Limpert just returning to God, his salvation and for his brother Jack, for his protection as he serves in the armed forces.