Well, it’s the first of November, and two days from now one of the most contentious Presidential elections in our history will, perhaps, be decided.
I read a newspaper article this week that said that not only Americans but even the people of other nations are anxious about what will be happening in the United States of America in this election—specifically that there was a great deal of angst in Germany as this nation which has been the foundation and anchor of the free world, and the major party in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is experiencing division, tumult and uncertainty like never before.
As our nation, and even the nations of the world, stop to see what happens this week in our nation, what difference can we, as Christians, make for good or for ill? Certainly, many will encourage us to vote to have an influence on the highest office in what we like to call the greatest nation of the world.
But is there a way we can even have a greater influence for a good outcome in these tumultuous times?
Daniel’s example tells us there is a way we can be life-changers, world-changers, and it’s through prayer, the kind of prayer that Daniel the prophet used to change his world--the world of some 2550 years ago.
What kind of prayer was that? It’s a biblically-inspired, humble, holy confession & intercession that’s heard by the Most High.
It was now the first year of King Darius of the Medes and the Persians, 539 B.C. stretching into 538 B.C. It had already been a very tumultuous year. Kingdoms had been in conflict. A great kingdom, the Kingdom of Babylon, had fallen. A new king and kingdom had come to power, the Kings of the Medes and the Persians. It was also likely about the same time that Daniel spent a night in the lion’s den because of his devotion to prayer, praying three times a day at the very risk of his life.
And it was during that time that I believe his prayer was used by God to change the course of his nation and the nations.
Apparently, Daniel had been busy reading the Scriptures, and he was reading the scroll of the prophet Jeremiah. Now Jeremiah was a contemporary of Daniel’s, but probably about 40 years older. Daniel and Jeremiah had both lived in Judah before Nebuchadnezzar had invaded and deported Daniel to Babylon. But they had lived 500 miles apart ever since, and now some 67 years later, the scroll of Jeremiah’s writings, regarded to be the very inspired Word of God, had made it to Babylon, and Daniel was reading it. We need to remember that these Old Testament saints didn’t have Bibles like we do today. The Old Testament consisted of scrolls of various Old Testament books as we call them today, and they were often found in the temple or in synagogues, and so weren’t nearly as available to everyone as they are today. But Daniel had managed to obtain a copy of the scroll of Jeremiah, and as a godly man was studying this revelation of God given within his own generation with the reverence that regarded it as the very Word of God. Daniel, of course, is now an old man, 80 some years old, Jeremiah has likely passed, but God’s Word was still living and active as Daniel read it. And what Daniel read that day was indeed a revelation so extremely relevant to the very circumstances he and the people of Israel now found themselves in. He and the other exiles had been in exile for now 67 years. He wondered if and when they might ever return to their homeland and Promised Land of Israel. And He found the answer in two places in the scroll of Jeremiah, what we now know as Jeremiah 25:11-12 and Jeremiah 29:10-14.
I’d like us to take a moment to look at Jeremiah 29:10-14 this morning, because what it says is so important in motivating Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 9. This is what Daniel read, of course, in the Hebrew. “For thus says the Lord, when seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you, to bring you back to this place.” Wow, there it was, the promise that after 70 years God would bring Judah back to its place in the Promised Land. But God goes on, in verse 11, and what He says motivates Daniel to pray as he prayed in Daniel 9: “For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, “and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you; declares the Lord, and I will bring you from the place where I sent you into exile.”
So notice both the promise and the process. The promise was that Judah would return from exile, but the process required prayer. Verse 12 indicates that the return would happen when there was prayer, intense prayer, the kind of prayer that involved seeking God with all your heart, and then, and then only would He be found by Israel.
Well, Daniel quickly did some calculations and realized the return of Israel to the Promised Land was only three years away. But there was something missing. No one had been seeking God in prayer in the way that God said would be necessary. And so Daniel did the only logical and godly thing for a godly man, he decided to take responsibility to do so himself on behalf of the entire nation. That’s why we read his response in verse 3. He began to pray, and to pray with all his heart.
And that’s our first point this morning. This was a biblically-inspired prayer. Daniel was praying as a direct result of, and as instructed by the Word of God. He was praying exactly when and how God told Israel to pray at this critical juncture in its history.
And that teaches us something. The kind of prayer that God hears is the scripturally inspired, scripturally-patterned prayer—prayer which is in accord with God’s Word and God’s will. The reason God heard Daniel’s prayer so immediately is Daniel claimed this promise by God that anyone who at this point sought God with all his heart in prayer would find God. And so that’s exactly why Daniel got such an immediate response, an immediate supernatural answer to his prayer. God had already promised it. God had promised it in His Word.
So, let me ask you a question. Do you pray in response to the Word of God? Do you seek out promises in the Word of God to claim for yourself? Do you pray in accord with the Word of God? Do you even perhaps memorize the prayers of Abraham, Moses, Daniel, David, Jesus and Paul found in the Scriptures as a pattern for your prayers? When you do, you pray with the power and authority of the word of God. You pray the kind of prayer that God hears. You pray life-changing, and sometimes world-changing prayers, for just such a time as the tumultuous times we are experiencing in our nation.
So Daniel determined that he was going to pray with all his heart. What did that look like for the Old Testament saint? The picture is painted for us in verse 3. Daniel writes, “So I gave my attention to the Lord to seek Him”—notice those words. They’re the very words found in Jeremiah 29:10-14—“to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.”
Daniel clearly dedicated himself to seek God in the most humble way possible, not only with prayer and supplications, but with all the accoutrements that befit humility and the confession of sin, and repentance before God. He did so with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. Fasting is always associated with seeking God with all your heart, devoting yourself to prayer—not even taking time for your necessary food. It’s a sign of extreme devotion to prayer and to God. Sackcloth and ashes in the Old Testament were a sign of grief, sorrow over circumstances, and especially sorrow and repentance over sin. Daniel, being a student of the Torah, or Pentateuch, knew without a doubt that Israel had come to experience God’s discipline because of its great sin. The Law, the Books of Moses, had made it clear from the beginning that God’s covenant people could experience either his blessings or His cursings, blessings for obedience, or cursings for sin and disobedience. This was clear from both Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28-30. Because of Israel’s continuing and unrepentant sin, God had cast it out of the Promised Land. Leviticus 26:32-33 predicted what would happen if Israel fell into sin, and one of the ultimate punishments would be the devastation of the Promised Land and the exile of the Jews. Leviticus 26:32-33, written by Moses 900 years earlier, for instance, says, “ I will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it will be appalled over it. You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become a waste.” So Daniel clearly understood that sin was the issue, that because of Israel’s unrepentant sin this fate had fallen upon the nation. Jeremiah 29 had made it clear it was time to pray and repent. That had yet to happen among the exiles, so Daniel humbled himself to pray and repent on behalf of the nation, with every fiber of his being.
Now, notice, this is no casual prayer. He’s not praying as he’s slumbering in bed, or busy about some other activity. No, he dedicates himself fully to this prayer—with all his heart—as Jeremiah had predicted. Yes, God hears our prayers according to his will wherever we pray them, but God had specifically said the prayer that would be heard in these circumstances were prayers prayed with all their heart. And so Daniel dedicates himself to pray intensely by fasting, and mourning—the sack cloth and ashes were signs of mourning, commended in the book of Joel as exactly how those who are repentant in Israel were to represent their sorrow unto repentance. And so you want to pray life-changing, even world-changing sorts of prayers, then tangibly humble yourself in prayer.
No doubt Daniel knew of the prayers and fasting of Moses and Elijah and how God showed up on their behalf. And in my own experience, I’ve found that God shows up often when you fast and pray in this dedicated fashion. I’ve found that God has often shown up supernaturally in some unexpected fashion on the seventh day of my fasts—that’s God’s number. More than that, one of the greatest supernatural revelations I experienced was when, on the seventh day of a fast I prayed according to the exact pattern of Moses’ prayer in Exodus 33-34, and God spoke to me that day, answering my prayer, as I had the words, “My presence shall go with you” echoing again and again through my mind. Then there was yet another sign of His presence manifested later that same day.
So you want to experience God? You want to experience grand answers to your prayers? You want to see life-changing, and even world-changing things happen? Tangibly humble yourself in devoted prayer as Daniel did.
Now Daniel provides for us a summary of exactly what he prayed. And what we find here is that He confessed and interceded for others—especially his nation Israel. So that’s our third point this morning with respect to the kinds of prayers God hears. Confess and intercede specifically for others. But before Daniel confesses the sin of his nation over the centuries, he recalls and praises God for his righteousness and compassion in dealing with Israel. He justifies God in all that He has done, even though Daniel has suffered because of it, and he confesses that Israel is rightly to blame for all that has come upon it.
Verse 4: “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.”
Now there are two things to notice here. First, in reviewing and praising God for his awesome goodness, his covenant-keeping ways and his lovingkindness—his faithful love—for those who love Him, the very standard of righteousness and holiness is brought before David. Often it takes a review, even a praising of God for his holiness, justice, righteousness and love before we develop a clear sense of our sin, and mankind’s sin, in contrast to God’s perfection.
The second thing to notice is that Daniel is acknowledging that what God has done to Israel in letting it be defeated, and then exiled, is in accord with God’s covenant with Israel—the Mosaic Covenant. God had promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience, and this exile, and the destruction and desolation of the Promised Land were signs of God’s faithfulness to that covenant. He did, ultimately, exactly what He said He would do if Israel persisted in disobedience. Nevertheless, He praises God that His lovingkindness, His hesed sort of loyal or faithful love is still available for those who love Him and show it by keeping His commandments. In other words, it’s not God’s fault that all this has happened to Daniel and Israel. God has simply been faithful to the covenant with Israel, so all this has happened. It is Israel who has been unfaithful. And so now comes the confession.
Verse 5: “We have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from your commandments and ordinances.”
Now what’s interesting here is that Daniel is really much more of a victim of other’s sins than his own. He was only 15 when the exile began. Though I’m sure he was a sinner like the rest of us, we don’t see a single instance of his sin anywhere in Scripture. And yet he was here willing to identify with the sin of the nation, and take some joint responsibility for it, in order to seek God’s forgiveness and blessing upon the nation.
Now, we might ask, in our individualism, how this makes sense. Daniel was not personally responsible for the sins that he confesses. And yet, he was part of a group or a nation of people who had sinned in this way. I think we often forget in our individualistic culture that God not only deals with individual people, but he also deals with people as part of groups of people. He deals with families, and he deals with nations as a group. It’s apparent that he does so here in his judgments with respect to Babylon and Media-Persia and the Jewish people. And so it is appropriate for us even as individuals who may not be personally responsible for the sins of the group of people whom we are part of to also confess and ask forgiveness for the sins of the group or nation we are a part of. That’s why it is appropriate for us to pray and confess the sins of our nation. Though we may have not individually participated in an abortion or homosexuality, we are a part of a nation who has legalized both. Therefore, it is appropriate for us to confess the sins of our nation as though they are our own, to use the word “we” in confessing those sins before God and interceding on behalf of our nation.
And so Daniel confesses the sins of his people Israel and intercedes for, that is prays for or on behalf of Israel, at the same time. He knows the problem is the sin of his people, and that they have yet to confess their sins, and so as a representative of those people, and probably as the most highly-placed person of Israel in terms of political power, he represents them to God in prayer in abject humility, repentance and confession.
And in verse 5 he lists all the ways they’ve sinned—they’ve sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled. How? By specifically turning aside from God’s commandments and ordinances found in the Scripture, and the Old Covenant. In verse 6, he notes that God sent prophets in His attempt to dissuade Israel from their sin, who spoke in God’s name to the people, and then he mentions expressly those who refused to listen—our kings, our princes, our fathers, and all the people of the land. All the people of the land, all those especially in authority, had refused to listen to God’s attempts to win them back to obedience to the Law.
In verses 7 and 8 he again ascribes righteousness to God in all these things, but open shame to all the kings, princes, fathers and people who disobeyed God. In verse 11, he specifically mentions the curse which has been poured out upon Israel, a reference to those provisions of the Law in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28-30 which promised a curse for disobedience. And he again recounts in the final verses of his confession and intercession how all this calamity that had come upon Israel was because of their rebellion, and because in all of that, Israel, according to verse 13, had not yet sought the favor of the Lord their God by turning from their iniquity and giving attention to God’s truth.
This tells us something very critical about getting answers to our prayer. We can’t expect to get answers to our prayers until we deal with the one thing that often separates us from God, so that he will not hear our prayers. We need to deal with our sins, the actions and attitudes that put God off. By His holy nature, He cannot bless those who are committed to evil. Until we confess and repent of our sins, He will not hear our prayers. As Israel often put it, He will turn His face away from us. Isaiah 59:1-2 puts it this way: “Behold, the LORD’S hand is not so short
That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.”
So we want to pray life-changing, even nation-changing prayers. The first order of business is to confess our own sins and even the sins of our nation, if we’re praying for our nation. And as we represent our group of people, and our nation, as we confess sins on their and our behalf, the example of Daniel here in Daniel 9 promises us that God will hear.
Do you confess your sins to God as a matter of habit, before you pray? Do you, as you pray for our nation in this difficult time, confess the sins of our nation so that God might hear and save?
Yes, third principle this morning for the prayer that God hears—life-changing prayer. Confess and intercede for others. Confess the sins of your group of people and intercede for them in this way.
And then make your requests. Only now does Daniel begin to ask for God’s blessing. Only now does he engage in what we call petition—asking God to lift his anger from Israel and return His blessings to Israel.
And as he does so, he employs something that both Moses and Daniel and other wise and Godly men have done through the angels. He asks God to bless Israel for the sake of God’s own reputation. He asks God’s blessings for God’s reputation’s sake.
He begins in verse 15 by reminding God that He has mercifully delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage in the past, and so he can do so again. And then he makes that request beginning in verse 16: “O Lord, in accordance with all your righteous acts, let now your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain, for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become a reproach to all those around us. So now, our God, listen to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplications, and for your sake O God, let your face shine on our desolate sanctuary.”
Notice, having confessed and repented for the sin of His people Israel, he now asks God to lift his anger and wrath from Jerusalem, and then to let his face shine on their desolate sanctuary—a reference to the temple which had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar 50 years earlier. But notice a concern he smuggles into these prayers—not only for the people, and for the sanctuary, does he pray, but he prays “for your sake, O Lord.”
Then he makes it clear that Israel does not deserve this. That it’s only on account of God’s mercies, his compassion that this might come about, because God will forgive their sins, when those have been repented of. Verse 18: “O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolation and the city which is called by Your name. Now that’s an important point—the city of Jerusalem was called by God’s name. In other words, God’s reputation depends on what happens to Jerusalem and His temple there. God is concerned about His reputation and His glory among the nations, and this is a huge issue, and motivation for God to act. So Daniel is saying, now that I, on behalf of the nation, have finally confessed and repented of our great sins, act, not because of our righteousness, but because of your mercy, to restore your people, your city and your sanctuary.
And he concludes with an impassioned plea in verse 19:—O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action for your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people are called by your name.
Well, God was so pleased with Daniel’s prayer that He did not delay in this one respect. He sent His angel Gabriel, while Daniel was still in prayer, to tell him that he had been heard, and to give him a revelation about Israel’s future, as we have read.
But more than that, history demonstrates that God heard Daniel’s prayer and answered on behalf of the nation. For I believe it was because of one man’s prayer, Daniel, that God moved Cyrus the King of the Medes and the Persians, to issue a decree that very year to permit the exiles of Judah to return to the Promised Land. And beginning in 536 B.C., under Zerubbabel, the first 50,000 of them did.
Daniel’s prayer was indeed a life-changer, even a world-changer. It was what God needed to hear, and what Israel needed in just such a tumultuous time as 538 B.C. when kingdoms were in conflict, and things were changing. Prayer, one man’s godly prayer, changes the world for the better--all because Daniel prayed in a way that pleased God, a way that incited God to act immediately on his behalf, on his people’s and on God’s behalf and restore Israel to its land.
What kind of prayer was it that Daniel prayed? It was a Biblically inspired, humble, holy confession and intercession that was heard on High.
You and I can pray that way. And what better time than now!
