The Prayer Life Of Daniel Series

Hello oh GodTHE PRAYER LIFE OF DANIEL

Annual Sermons: Vol. 6 No. 20 Text: Daniel 6:10

Concord Baptist Church: 1992 (Father’s Day) Bob Marcaurelle: Pastor

For info : [email protected]

In 539 B.C., Belshazzar ruled Babylon and the world. But God had had enough of his wickedness, and was sending Darius and his armies to topple him. At a wild, drunken party, the hand of God appeared and sobered the whole crowd up by writing strange words on the wall. Daniel the prophet, a Jewish slave who grew up in Babylon, now in his nineties, was called in. Fearless before his captors he read the words, "You are weighed in the scales and found wanting." Then he told the King God would take his kingdom from him. For this interpretation Belshazzar had offered him the rank of third in command with all its wealth. Daniel's reply? "Keep your gifts, give them to someone else." (Daniel 5). That very night Darius and his storm troopers put Belshazzar to death. Daniel could not be bribed or bought.

And Daniel couldn't be bullied either. When Darius took over, he liked what he saw in Daniel and made him and two others, the governors of the land. Daniel's ability angered the other two officials so they looked for a way to discredit him before the King. Finding no flaw in him and no mark on his record, what a com¬pliment it was when they said, "We will never be able to make a charge against this man Daniel unless it is connection with the laws of his God" (Dan. 6:5).

They knew Daniel would obey God no matter what. Knowing Daniel prayed to God three times every day, they had Darius issue a decree that no one pray to anyone but him for 30 days and anyone who did would be fed to the lions. They made him "God For A Month" and he liked it. And what did Daniel do? Our text tells us, "When Daniel learned that the decree had been signed, he went home. He went upstairs where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, as he always did" (Dan. 6:10). He did this openly, for all to see. What a man! What a model for fathers and all men. In his nineties, as he had always done, he stood like a giant oak surrounded by scrubs. He could not be bought by the King's threats. With convictions deeper than life itself he would face a den of lions rather than give in to a godless man.

The secret of such a man is always to be found in his God. And the God of such a man is never a theological abstraction but a living Person in whom he lives and moves and has his very being. And the living relationship to God of such a man is always the fruit of much prayer. Show me a man of much faith, with his soul abandoned to the will of God, who can neither be bribed nor bullied and I will show you a man who has paid the price to learn how to get hold of God in prayer.

Weakness and wickedness in the Christian can always be traced back to prayerlessness. We may pray in emergencies; we may pray when we feel like it; and we may have fleeting moments when we think of God; but if we don't give time and energy and thought and "blood-sweat-and-tears" to spend quality time with God, we will be weak and wicked and worth very little to God. So today, let's look through those three windows into the soul of a true man of God and see the prayer life that made him strong. And let us do more than look. Let's put what he had and did into our lives. First, like Daniel, we need. . .

I. A PLACE OF PRAYER

Jesus tells us to have a "closet," a private, spe¬cial place for prayer (Mt. 6:6). Daniel's upper room, with windows toward the West, toward the holy city where all God's promises would one day come true, was Daniel's holy of holies, his special place of prayer. I know we can pray any place and any time. I know that every inch of ground can be praying ground. In the factory, in the furrow and in the front room we can call upon the Lord. But if we are to become masters in the art of prayer, if we are to make prayer a regular habit, if every day we seek to get our souls in contact with the Lord, then we need a special place, a private place, a holy place of prayer.

A layman I know has a certain lonely stretch of road on his way to work that is his "praying ground." Coming there he invariably draws near to God Who draws near to him. Dr. Criswell told his congregation he had a rug beside his bed that no money could buy. Why? It is his holy special place of prayer. For me it is a chair in my study. There, away from distraction, looking out at the forest, I can pray better than anywhere else on earth.