Last week I did a first talk on Daniel’s prayer of confession. I’m going to assume that you can roughly remember what I talked about last week. That might be a mistake, but even if you can’t, I don’t think it should be too much of a problem for following my talk today.
At the end of last week’s talk, we reached the point where Daniel acknowledges that God is a great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. There is, however, a teensy-weensy problem. God’s people have not kept God’s commandments. Daniel is going to say sorry – and we’re going to look at how he says sorry.
So, let’s dive in! We’re only going to look at verses 5-10. That won’t take us to the end of Daniel’s prayer, but I think it’s more profitable to focus on these verses than to try to do the whole prayer. I don’t intend to do all of it. Next week we’ll go on to one of Paul’s prayers and that will conclude this short series on prayer.
I'm going to pick out a number of key words and phrases.
1. (v.5) ‘we have sinned…’
After addressing God, ‘O Lord, the great and awesome God’ and so on, Daniel says, ‘we have sinned…’
Daniel’s opening three words (after addressing God) are a great example to us. Daniel is matter-of-fact. He doesn’t beat about the bush. He says what he wants to say directly and clearly. ‘We have sinned.’ In other words: ‘We are in the wrong.’ On behalf of the Jewish people, Daniel pleads guilty. He knows his people are guilty. He can’t deny it and he doesn’t try to. The only hope he has is that God will be merciful. The starting point to obtain God’s mercy is to say sorry.
There’s an example for us here. Most of us are not very fond of saying ‘we have sinned.’ If we get something wrong, we tend to blame someone else or look for an excuse. We don’t like to take it on the chin. But Daniel takes it on the chin.
If we have committed sin (and we all have) there is no other way forward. We are guilty before God and we have no means of making ourselves righteous. The only way to a restored relationship with God is to say sorry. We have to swallow our pride and say sorry and mean it.
2. (v.5) Rebelled, turned aside (elaborating)
In verses 5 and 6, Daniel elaborates on what the Israelites got wrong, and in verses 7 to 10, he shows how sorry he is.
Let’s look first at verse 5. Daniel mentions about six ways the Israelites got things wrong. Some of the words and phrases Daniel uses are quite similar. For example, he says, ‘we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly.’ We get the picture that Daniel isn’t confessing a minor misdemeanour, like a parking offence. Look at how Daniel continues: ‘we have … rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.’ ‘Rebelled’ means consciously and deliberately rejecting God’s authority. ‘Turning aside’ means consciously and deliberately choosing a different path. The Jewish people had deliberately turned from God.
There is an example for us here. If we’re going to confess our sin to God we should not simply say, ‘Oh God, I know I have committed sin. Please forgive me.’ We have to indicate to God that we know what we have done, and that we’re sorry for it.
3. (v.4,5) Commandments
Before we move on from verse 5, notice this word ‘commandments.’ Daniel talked about commandments in verse 4 and he talks about commandments again in this verse.
A while back I was listening to a Christian TV channel. Someone described the Bible as a guidebook. I was a bit annoyed! I now see there is even a version of the Bible called ‘The Guidebook.’
It’s true that the Bible is a guidebook. But it’s much more than a guidebook.
Suppose you took the ‘Health Protection (Coronavirus) REGULATIONS 2020’ and put them in a cover with the title ‘Health Protection GUIDELINES.’ That would be confusing, wouldn’t it? Guidelines are optional; regulations are mandatory.
There’s a warning here for us. If a book is only a guidebook it’s up to us if we follow its guidance or not. We don’t need to say sorry if we don’t follow it. It’s true that the Bible contains guidance. But the Bible also contains God’s commandments. God’s law is not optional. If we break it, we need to say sorry.
4. (v.6) We have not listened
Let’s continue to verse 6. Daniel has confessed that his people, the Jewish people, had deliberately turned from God. Now he elaborates a bit more.
Daniel says, ‘We have not listened to your servants the prophets.’
It’s hard to over-emphasise how important this is. Someone might say that sin is breaking God’s law and there is a sense in which that is certainly true. But it isn’t what sin is according to the apostle John.
John explains what sin is in one of his letters. It will help if you turn to the chapter. It’s 1 John 3. In verse 6 John says, ‘No one who abides in him [that is, Jesus] sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.’ ‘No one who abides in him sins’?! That’s astonishing, isn’t it? Surely everyone sins?! How can we understand it? It might give you a clue that ‘sin’ isn’t what you think it is. If we continue, the passage gets even more astonishing. In verse 8 John says ‘Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil.’ Wow! Do you commit sin? Would you accept that you’re a child of the devil?
The key to understanding what John is saying is in verse 4. John says, ‘Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.’
Here we have a definition of what sin is: ‘sin is lawlessness.’ John Stott, who I suppose many of us have heard of, called this the clearest and most revealing definition of sin in the New Testament.
I suggested a moment ago that someone might define sin as breaking God’s law. But the apostle John’s definition is different to that. He wrote, ‘sin is lawlessness.’
What is lawlessness? The dictionary says that ‘lawlessness’ means ‘contempt and violation of law, manifestations of disregard for law’.
That was the Israelites’ situation. They had not listened to God’s word. They had committed the sin that is the real sin. When Daniel confesses the people’s sin, he understands what the key sin is.
Daniel’s confession is an example for us. Maybe some of us need to reflect on whether we might have fallen into that sin, the real sin of not listening to God, of disregarding his law, and if we have, say sorry.
5. (v.7,8) To us
At the beginning of his prayer, Daniel said ‘WE have sinned.’ Daniel wasn’t primarily confessing his own sins. The Bible considers Daniel to be one of the most righteous people who ever lived. He probably didn’t have too much to confess. But Daniel confesses the sin of the Jewish people, of whom he is a member.
Let’s move on to verses 7 and 8. Daniel says twice, ‘to US belongs open shame.’
Let’s reflect on the ‘to us.’
To a degree, this is a difficult thing for us as 21st century westerners to feel. We live in an age of individualism. We think, ‘I’m responsible for my actions and you’re responsible for your actions.’ I don’t feel that I am responsible for what we all do or have done. But I said, ‘TO A DEGREE, this is a difficult thing for us as 21st century westerners to feel.’
In reality, we should be able to feel collective responsibility. It comes up all the time.
At the end of last year, Russia was banned for four years from all international sporting events. Some Russian athletes thought it wasn’t fair. Why should clean athletes be punished for what others had done? But the members of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which gave the ban, obviously believed in the idea of collective responsibility.
It happens all the time that one part of an organization gets something wrong and the entire organization is affected. In 1995 one person’s action caused Barings Bank to collapse. In 2015, the Volkswagen emission scandal emerged. Only a small group of Volkswagen employees knew what had been going on, but the entire company and shareholders suffered the consequences. Earlier this year, Manchester City was banned from UEFA club competitions for two years. The directors and accountants overstated the club’s sponsorship revenue, but the entire club will suffer if the ban is upheld.
So, we should get the idea that we are actually not as individual as we might imagine. We’re connected. What I do affects you and what you do affects me.
This is exactly what scripture teaches. Paul teaches that Christians are a body. He writes that, ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together.’ Paul doesn’t say explicitly that if one part of the body falls into sin, it will affect the entire body, but that’s a logical conclusion.
We can see a very clear example of this in the Old Testament, in Joshua 7. I’ll just read verse 1.
But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. And the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.
Do you see? One person, Achan, took some things. But the verse considers that ‘the people of Israel broke faith.’ They all shared in the guilt. At the end of the verse we see that the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel. One person sinned, but the whole people of Israel suffered.
So, both in everyday life and in scripture we’re used to the idea that a group of people is a connected entity.
Daniel saw himself not simply as an individual but as a member of God’s people. Whatever they had done, he was a part of. He couldn’t disconnect himself. ‘WE have sinned,’ he says. He doesn’t push the blame somewhere else.
There is definitely a lesson for me here, and perhaps for many of us. I don’t feel part of a body of Christians in such a way that I want to say to God, ‘WE have sinned.’ But Jesus taught us to pray, ‘Forgive US OUR debts…’
If I want to pray more like Daniel, then this is an area I need to correct in my prayer life.
6. (v.7,8) Shame
What is shame? It’s a painful emotion we get when we realise that we’ve done something wrong or embarrassing. We don’t usually think of shame in a positive way. We associate it with fear, embarrassment, humiliation, disgrace, remorse.
We hope that we will not have cause to feel shame. But if we commit sin, we SHOULD feel shame. Peter denied Jesus three times. How do we suppose he felt afterwards? I imagine he was intensely ashamed. It’s a normal reaction, and it’s a healthy one if it leads us to do something.
A person will only feel shame if he believes he’s done something wrong.
Daniel, and indeed the Jews in general, knew very well that they had done something wrong. God had punished them. Jerusalem was in ruins, the Jews had been taken into captivity, and the land was virtually desolate.
I doubt that Daniel had much to feel personally ashamed of. But as part of a people which had collectively abandoned God, he felt intense shame.
This is an aspect of Daniel’s prayer that I find very challenging. I rarely feel shame for what the body which I’m a member of has done. I don’t feel any great responsibility for what others do. But I think Daniel’s attitude is correct and my attitude is deficient.
Conclusion
When we get something wrong, we need to say sorry to God. We can’t make amends for sin. Good deeds don’t balance out sin. The only way to fix our relationship with God is to say sorry. Daniel’s prayer is a great example of how to do that. Is the way we say sorry similar to the way Daniel said sorry?
Daniel’s said sorry to God straightforwardly.
He was specific about the areas the Israelites had got wrong.
He recognized that God’s word contains commandments. Commandments have to be obeyed!
He specifically mentioned not listening to God. We understand from 1 John that lawlessness, meaning disregard or contempt of God’s law, is the only true sin. Daniel knew where the heart of the offence was.
He saw himself as part of a body. He recognized that he shared responsibility for what the body had done.
He felt shame.
For me, these last two points are the most challenging. I rarely feel a sense of responsibility for what the larger group has done, and I rarely feel shame. These are areas I need to give attention to.
Simon Bartlett
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Boscombe, Bournemouth, 5th July 2020
