Informed Prayer
Daniel 9:1-19
9-20-09
Intro
Jer 29:1-14
“Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the remainder of the elders who were carried away captive -- to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2(This happened after Jeconiah the king, the queen mother, the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem.) 3 The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, saying, 4 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. 6 Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters -- that you may be increased there, and not diminished. 7 And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace. 8 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. 9 For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the LORD.
In 605 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and took some of the Jewish people back with him to Babylon, a land currently known today as Iraq. Among those captives was a young Jewish prince, about 15 years old, named Daniel. Shortly after that the great prophet, Jeremiah, had sent this prophetic word to the captives in Babylon. He told them to settle down there and make a life for themselves; make the most of their situation; build houses; establish businesses; raise a family. They would spend most, if not all, of their lives there. It was not an ideal situation by any means. God’s judgment was on their nation; and that judgment would not be reversed. There were preachers among those captives that prophesied something different. Their prophecies were exactly what the captives wanted to hear. Their message was much more positive. They were saying that God would intervene for His people very soon. God would bring down the evil Babylonian Empire and bring His people back to Jerusalem. Look again at Jeremiah’s words in verse 8. For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. 9 For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the LORD.
How do I judge a message from the Lord? The danger is that we would judge it based upon egocentric criteria—how does it make me feel at the time? Does it sound good to me; is it what I was hoping to hear, etc.? None of these people wanted to hear that they would spend the rest of their life in Babylon. Yet that was Jeremiah’s message to them.
Does the preacher tailor his message to what the crowds want to hear; or does he tell them what God is saying? If he’s a good politician, he’ll tell them what they want to hear. That will make him popular. If he’s a prophet, he’ll tell them what God is saying. Sometimes that is a comforting, encouraging word and people are very happy to hear it. Sometimes it’s a word of warning and correction and most people will not want to hear it. John the Baptist’s word to King Herod did not gain him a promotion. Herod cut his head off instead. Stephen’s word to the Sanhedrin was not what they wanted to hear. There were times in Jesus’ ministry when the crowds welcomed His message. There were other times when the crowds left because of His message.
Now in verse 10 comes the good news and the bad news of Jeremiah’s message. The good news is that God will visit them and bring them back to their homeland. The bad news is that it will be seventy years before it happens. Given the average lifespan during that time, that could be disappointing.
10 For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.”
Daniel had obeyed Jeremiah’s instruction to settle down and make a life for himself in Babylon. He had become an influential statesman there. Now he is an old man in his late eighties. He has probably read this passage many times over the years. But this time something wonderful strikes him. Verse 10 “ For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.” He realizes that the seventy years are almost complete.
Today I want to build upon last week’s message. Our text again is Dan 9:1-3 “In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans -- 2 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. 3 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.”
I. So here is Daniel looking two realities: the word and the world.
He is looking into Scripture and seeing the will of God for His people. It is God’s will at this time for Jewish captives to return to their homeland and for Jerusalem to be rebuilt. It is God’s will for His people to be profoundly blessed. That’s what he sees in the Bible. In contrast to that, He is looking at the circumstances of Jerusalem and of these captives. Nothing in those circumstances would indicate that Jerusalem is about to be rebuilt. Between those two realities there was what John White calls “an intolerable tension.” A vast disparity exited between what is promised in the word of God and what is being experienced in the circumstances of life.
Daniel’s prayer is birthed out of that intolerable tension.
To reconcile these two realities Daniel has to do one of two things. On the one hand he can do what we are so often tempted to do: simply adjust his understanding of the word to fit the circumstantial reality. That is the prevalent approach in most of Christianity today. Christians look at God’s promise to heal; but they don’t see people being healed. So they develop a theology that says, “God no longer works miracles; that stopped with the apostles.” They look in the Book of Acts and see people speaking in tongues; but they’re not speaking in tongues. So they conclude that tongues are not for today. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to do that. Life just goes on as it was. Daniel could have saved himself some serious prayer and fasting by simply playing a little mind game. Well, the Bible says 70 years; but those are probably not literal years. Seven is the number for completion; so it probably is just symbolic. It probably means after the correction of Israel is complete God will restore Jerusalem. Daniel could have resolved the disparity between the written revelation of Scripture and the realities surrounding him by just changing his interpretation of Scripture. That’s one way to resolve the tension. But that’s not what Daniel did. The other way to resolve the tension is to pray for experience to line up with the word. God has said that Jerusalem will be restored after 70 years; God I ask you to bring that about; bring the promise to pass. So Daniel humbles himself and prays the prayer we have in this chapter. One obstacle to God’s will being accomplished is the disobedience and rebellion of God’s people. So what does Daniel do? He gets the ball rolling in that direction. He begins to ask God’s forgiveness for their disobedience. He identifies himself with the nation. He humbles himself and prays. And some circumstances begin to change. First, God moved upon a pagan ruler named Cyrus to make a decree for the temple to be rebuilt. Ezra 1:1-3 “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying,
2 Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. 3 Who is among you of all His people? May his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel (He is God), which is in Jerusalem. 4 And whoever is left in any place where he dwells, let the men of his place help him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, besides the freewill offerings for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.”
(2) Then God raised up a Jewish prince in Babylon, named Zerubbabel to lead an expedition to Jerusalem to rebuild the altar there.
(3) A second expedition to rebuild the temple was led by a Jewish priest named Ezra.
(4) God stirred up Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of the city.
It all happened in answer to prayer. Somebody had to feel the tension between what is and what ought to be according to the word of God. Somebody had to pray the “what is” into alignment with what God had promised. Daniel did that.
Is there a difference between what the church ought to be according to Scripture and what it is today? That difference should be the subject of prayer. Is there a difference between what our nation is becoming and what it ought to become? That difference should be the subject of prayer. Is there a difference between the victory I’m living in and the victory that’s mine in Christ? That should be a subject of prayer.
Prayer deals with this tension between the promise of God and the reality people are experiencing. Prayer is laying hold of God’s promises and applying them to the situation.
We need to be a people of the word and a people of prayer. The more we saturate our minds with the word of God the better equipped we are to pray according to the will of God. The more we nurture our relationship with God through prayer, the more clarity we receive in our understanding of God’s word. A people of the word and a people of prayer: Studying the word, without a prayerful relationship with the Lord, results in dry intellectualism (lots of facts with little application). Praying, without being informed by the word, can lead to praying amiss or fanaticism.
When the deacons were chosen in Acts 6 the apostles made this commitment to the church. “...but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” That has to be the priority of the church. That is the primary calling for church leadership. That is what keeps the church on track. “...we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
II. How did the word of God inform Daniel’s prayer?
A. Scripture gave direction and focus to his prayer.
Daniel knew the will of God because he was reading and studying the word of God. Had he not studied the prophecies of Jeremiah, he would have not known that it was God’s will to restore Jerusalem after 70 years. He would not have been able to pray with such confidence that God would do that. The word gave focus and direction to his praying.
Revelation in the Bible is usually not as specific to our circumstances as it was here for Daniel. In this case Daniel was given the timing of what God intended to do. What we usually draw from Scripture is broad principles that inform our prayers. I know to pray for peace because Jesus is the Prince of Peace. The more I understand how God brings His peace into a situation the more effectively I can pray for peace. The better my prayers can line up with God’s way of resolving a conflict. I know to pray for a person’s salvation because the Bible teaching very specifically that God doesn’t want anyone to perish but that all would come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). So I know it’s appropriate to ask God to grant repentance. 2 Pet. 3:9 tells me God wants that person to come to repentance and 2 Tim. 2:5 tells me God gives repentance.
In our text, Daniel knew God’s will for a situation. Therefore, he could specifically pray for God’s will to be done; he could ask God to fulfill the revelation he had received.
But, what should I do if I don’t know the will of God for a particular situation?
(1) I should ask God for wisdom in how I should pray. James 1:5-6 “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
(2) I should pray in accordance with the general will of God as revealed in the Bible. My prayers should line up with God’s character and His purposes.
(3) I should expect the Holy Spirit to help me pray according the will of God. Rom 8:26-27 “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”
When I do that I may find myself praying in tongues; I may find myself groaning in travail; I my find myself praying prophetically. The assurance we have is that God will help us get in sync with Him in our prayers. Often when we give ourselves to prayer about something, we get insight while praying. So we begin with the more general and are enabled by the Holy Spirit to gravitate toward more specific requests.
B. Scripture also gave content and terminology to his prayer.
When we fill our hearts and minds with the Word of God, we are resourced with content for verbalizing prayer. If our minds are saturated with Scripture, then that will overflow into our prayers. Let me illustrate this in Daniel’s prayer here.
Dan 9:4
"O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments....”
Those words flow out of a knowledge of Deut 7:9-10
"Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments....”
Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple used similar terminology.
Verse 5 “we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. 6 Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. 7 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.”
Deut 4:27
And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you.
Verse 8 "O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. 9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.”
Ex 34:6-7
6 And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.
Verse 10 “We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets. 11 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.”
Deut 11:26-28
"Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today; 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today,
Verse12 “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.
13 "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. 14 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 does, though we have not obeyed His voice. 15 And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, as it is this day -- we have sinned, we have done wickedly!”
Ex 3:20
“So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My wonders which I will do in its midst; and after that he will let you go.”
Verse 16 "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 for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all those around us.”
Ps 48:1-2
“Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised In the city of our God, In His holy mountain. 2 Beautiful in elevation, The joy of the whole earth, Is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, The city of the great King.”
Verse 17 “Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord’s sake cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate.
Num 6:24-26
"The LORD bless you and keep you; 25 The LORD make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you; 26 The LORD lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace."’
Verse18 “O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.
Jer 25:29
“For behold, I begin to bring calamity on the city which is called by My name.”
Verse19 “O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name."
1 Sam. 12:22 “For the LORD will not forsake His people, for His great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to may you His people.
Let me illustrate this from a New Testament prayer. Turn with me to Acts 4:24-29
Verse 24 “So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: ‘Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them,’”
Neh 9:6
You alone are the LORD; You have made heaven, The heaven of heavens, with all their host, The earth and everything on it, The seas and all that is in them....
Verse 25 “who by the mouth of Your servant David have said:
’Why did the nations rage, And the people plot vain things? 26 The kings of the earth took their stand, And the rulers were gathered together Against the LORD and against His Christ.’ That is a quotation from Ps 2:1-2.
Verse 27 "For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together 28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done.”
Isa 53:10 provides the foundation for that part of the prayer.
Verse 29 “Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, 30 by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”
So the Bible gives us not only concepts to be prayed, direction for our prayers so that we pray according to the will of God. But it also gives use terminology for our prayers. It helps us put into words the burden on our heart. I’m not saying that all we pray is Scripture. That’s obviously not the case. But Scripture can bring substance in our prayers and make them weightier. In prayer we can take the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, and use it in spiritual warfare.
Conclusion
I want to encourage you to hide God’s word in your heart. Use what you have. Whether you know a lot of Scripture or only a few verses, let that bring content to your prayers. Sometimes it’s a good idea to just take a passage of Scripture and pray its content.
Come back with me to Jerm. 25:10 and we’ll close by doing that.
10 For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.
Lord my times are in your hand. You have a plan for my life and you have perfect timing in that plan. I ask you to direct my steps according to your wisdom.
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
I thank you that your thought toward me are thoughts of peace and not evil. I thank you that you are for me and not against me. I thank you that you are giving me a future and a hope—that you are arranging circumstances for my best interest. Thank you for loving me and planning out my future for me.
12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
Lord, I set my heart to seek you. I love you with all my heart. You’re the delight of my life and center of everything in my life. I call upon your name this morning. I thank you that you hear me when I pray. I thank you for your presence in my life.
14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.”
Lord, I thank you that you deliver me from evil. No weapon formed against me will prosper. You are restoring my fortunes the way you restored Israel in Daniel’s day. You are setting me free from every bondage. You are removing limitations off my life and bringing me into higher ground. Lord I want to live closer and closer to you every day.
Invitation
Richard Tow
Gateway Foursquare Church
Nixa, Missouri
www.GatewayNixa.org
