A Prayer for a Troubled Nation

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Transcript:

Well, tonight we’re going to be in Daniel chapter 9, Daniel chapter 9. We’re getting close to the end of the book of Daniel. It seems like we’ve been in it for months, and we have, but it seems like we’ve been in it longer than we have because of interruptions on Sunday nights, but we’re getting close to the end.

And as I prepared to study for Daniel chapter 9 for this week, my first impulse is to do what I’ve done before, and I’ve preached on Daniel 9 a couple of times. My impulse was to do just as I’ve done before and kind of skip over everything in the beginning as Daniel prays, as Daniel talks to God, skip over all of that and get to the prophecy part there at the end, because there’s a really fascinating prophecy in Daniel chapter 9 that seems to spell out exactly when the Messiah would come. That it wasn’t an accident of history that Jesus was born when he was and that he was crucified when he was.

There’s a prophecy of 70 weeks that takes place at the end of this chapter and we might talk about it next week. There’s a prophecy of 70 weeks at the end of the chapter that indicates weeks of years, which means groups of seven years. So this whole 70 weeks prophecy is about a 490-year period from the time when the Jews are allowed to leave their captivity until the Messiah comes, which is really 483 years, Jewish years, which I think comes out to something like 478 of our calendar years.

The suffering of the Messiah puts it right at the time around 30 AD that Jesus would have gone through the crucifixion and resurrection. Then there’s a seven-year period left at the end that fits quite nicely in with the discussion of the tribulation and revelation. And we can talk about that later on.

But before I did that, I just kind of glanced over the beginning of the chapter again just to re-familiarize myself with it. And I thought, you know what, I’ve really done a disservice to myself to skip over this part in the past to get to the prophecy because there’s something really important that happens in the beginning of Daniel chapter 9. And we don’t want to skip over that prayer.

As a matter of fact, if you’ve studied Daniel chapter 9 at all on your own, it’s probably been to look at the 70 weeks prophecy. You’ve probably done like I did and skipped over that prayer. But there’s some important things that happened in that prayer.

See, this whole series on the book of Daniel has been focused on looking at Daniel and the other Israelites as they were in captivity in this pagan country that rejected God and how they would walk with God even though they’re walking in Babylon. And what it looked like, this tension between what God calls them to do and what they’re kind of being pressured to do by the society around them. And my thought all along has been, that looks like our world.

I mean, the fashions have changed. The language has changed. The food has changed.

The technology has changed. but we’re still very much in that same situation. We are citizens of another kingdom who are nevertheless stuck walking in a kingdom, in an empire that is not our own and that is very much hostile toward our king, just like they were.

And so I feel like there is some relevance to the book of Daniel when it comes to trying to live as a Christian in the worldly Babylonian times that we live in today. And so I think it’s a mistake to just scan over this and miss the prayer that Daniel prays here, because he prays for his country as they’re in the middle of this captivity. At the time that he writes this in chapter 9, since chapter 6, we’ve kind of skipped around to different time periods.

And where they place this is in the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, the seed of the Medes. So what has happened here, this is after the Babylonians themselves. God used Babylon to come and take Judah, the Israelites, into captivity, take them into exile as a discipline for them, but then God uses the Medes and Persians to come in and discipline the Babylonians.

So what we’re looking at is the time period after the writing on the wall, after Belshazzar is killed, and after Darius has become king, And Darius is the one that you’ll remember from him being tricked into throwing Daniel into the lion’s den. It’s during this time that it says in chapter 9, verse 1, In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans. Chaldean is another word for Babylonian.

So basically, he came in and took over the Babylonian empire, and he was made ruler of everything that had belonged to the Babylonians. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by books the number of years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And so he understands from reading the prophecies of Jeremiah that took place before the captivity and at the beginning of the captivity, saying that God was going to allow the Babylonians to overrun them and take them into captivity and it was going to last 70 years.

And Daniel says, I recognize that. And so recognizing that for 70 years his country was going to be disciplined at the hand of the Babylonians, for 70 years they were going to face this indignity, they were going to face this suffering, they were going to face this exile, he’s coming to terms with it, and instead of getting angry, instead of trying to devise a plan to give the Babylonians and the Persians as good as they get, instead of trying to figure out something he can do on his own, realizing that they’re going to be there for 70 years, and realizing what a mess his country is in, Daniel turns and prays to God. And I could very easily leave the message off there and let you draw your own conclusions about what we as believers need to do.

Because I think this is a message that, this prayer sends a message to us that instead of being mad at the Babylon we were made to walk in, and being angry and trying to figure out how to win, how to defeat them, Maybe we need to deal with God about where we are. But I’m not going to leave the message off here because there’s some things I want to explain to you. He starts this prayer, really in verse 3, and he says, I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

He is serious about this. It’s not just, well, God bless Israel. God help us to get out of this predicament.

Now, he is serious about the things he’s praying. He said, I set my face unto the Lord God. He is determined.

He’s determined that he’s going to talk to God, that he’s going to deal with God about the situation. He’s talking about prayer and supplications. He’s begging.

He’s asking. There’s fasting involved. He’s missing meals and taking that time and energy to spend the time with God.

Now, I can count on one hand the number of things I will miss a meal for, and most of us are the same way. When I’m willing to miss a meal, it’s serious business. I mean, we’re talking the baby’s coming and there’s no time to eat a sandwich.

We’ve got to get to the hospital. We’re talking that serious. So for him, for me to miss a meal, it’s got to be something serious. And he says, dealing with God should be one of those things.

We should, from time to time, deny ourselves the things that comfort us and instead focus that time and that energy on dealing with God. And he’s talking about sackcloth and ashes. When they were repentant, when they were repentant and they were seeking out God, they would clothe themselves basically in burlap, and they would cover their faces with ashes, with dirt, as a sign of humility before God.

So again, this is not just a passing prayer, God bless Israel, God help us out. He was getting down to serious business of heavy lifting with God in prayer for his nation. And he says in verse 4, and I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep his commandments.

Now, this is the first part of the prayer, and we’re going to see this repeated, or at least this concept repeated in a few other verses. The very first thing he does is he praises God. Now, sometimes you get in a predicament as an individual, as a family, as a church, as a community, as a nation, whatever it is, and when we pray to God, we’re not immediately looking for things to praise Him for.

As a matter of fact, it’s usually, oh, woe is me, things are so terrible. And we’re not looking at the things that there are to praise God for. And let me tell you this, no matter how dark the circumstances are, there is always something to praise God for.

In the darkest circumstances and different times of my life, I can look back on those times and say, I was not thankful for those circumstances. I was not thankful for the things that I went through. But I can look back on those circumstances, and I can praise God because he walked through them with me.

I can praise God because it could have been so much worse than it was. I praise God for what he’s brought me through. And so Daniel looks at God, and as he’s praying and he’s making confession, he addresses this to the Lord.

He says, great and dreadful. Now, we know that word dreadful. I got dreadful service at the restaurant the other day.

It’s not a good thing. For him to call God dreadful, and when this was translated 400 years ago, the way the English language worked. Dreadful was not bad, just like terrible was not necessarily bad.

It meant awe-inspiring. So he’s talking about God, and he’s acknowledging his power, and he’s praising him, that he’s looking at God not as just somebody who maybe he can do something for me. He’s looking at God as being the one who spoke the very earth into existence and at whose words the very mountains tremble.

And he’s acknowledging the awesome, incredible might and majesty of God. O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him. He’s talking about the mercy of God.

He’s talking about God’s faithfulness. He’s talking about God being one who keeps his covenants. In other words, God is a keeper of his promises.

How many times had he made a covenant with the nation of Israel, and Israel hadn’t followed through on their side of the deal? More times than I care to count. I mean, that’s pretty much the point of the Old Testament.

One of the major points, I should say, of the Old Testament. You’d be hard-pressed to find a book of the Old Testament where the Israelites weren’t welching on their end of the deal that they had made with God. The whole, I will walk with you, I will be your God, you will be my people thing, they very rarely held up their end of the bargain.

And most of us would have looked at Israel if we were God, and after about the second or third time, if that, we would have said, forget you, done with you. But God’s a keeper of his promises. And they were unfaithful.

No matter how many times they were unfaithful, God was still faithful to his promises. Now, part of those promises were to discipline them. Part of those promises were to call them out and punish them when they ran astray in hopes of bringing them back.

But God was still faithful to love Israel, to have a plan to prosper and to restore Israel, even in the midst of trial. And Daniel could look at that and see that, you know, oh, woe is us, we’re in this captivity 70 years, it’s going to be awful. But the fact that God said it’s going to be 70 years tells you that God has something at the end of that 70 years. God’s not going to let the suffering go on forever.

God still has a plan. And so he’s praising God for being a God who keeps his promises, even in these times of trouble. Keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep his commandments.

He goes on and says something like this in verse 7. He says, righteousness belongs to thee. He’s talking about God being righteousness, of God being righteous.

In other words, he’s not looking at God and saying, this is not fair, how could you do this to us? He’s acknowledging that everything God does is right. And I’ve used the example before of, I believe it was David Frost. Richard Nixon told David Frost that if the president does it, it’s not illegal. Yeah, no, that’s not how that works.

To say, oh, just because I did it makes it right, only works with one person, and it’s not Richard Nixon. it’s the Lord God Almighty and if God does it it’s automatically right but wait a minute it doesn’t fit into this box of my understanding it doesn’t matter whether I understand it or not God cannot sin God cannot lie God cannot do wrong and so if God does it then it automatically it’s right whether I understand it or not it says righteousness belongs to God in verse 9 he says to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness he’s talking he’s praising God for his merciful and forgiving nature And so he goes through and he begins this prayer praising God even in times of trouble. Do we start our prayers off with praising God usually even in the good times?

Not necessarily. We get straight into what do I want and God what can you do for me today? And certainly in times of trouble we go right into God I need this.

Or God how could you let this happen to me? When our nation is in trouble. When our families are in trouble.

When our churches are in trouble. We turn to God and we say fix it. We don’t start out with, you are so amazing.

Let me just think about all the things you’ve already fixed. Let me recount and remind myself for just a minute all the things you’ve already done for me. And let me stand here in awe of what you’ve brought me through and what you’ve given me that I didn’t deserve.

And I mean that in a good way. Not, oh, I didn’t deserve this suffering. No, I deserved worse than this suffering.

And you gave me grace and you gave me mercy and you gave me blessings that I didn’t deserve. I think it says something about the character of Daniel and the mindset of Daniel. that in the midst of trouble like the Babylonian captivity that he would start out his prayer with praising God.

I think there’s a lesson in there for us. But he moves on from that and he next admits his nation’s sin against God. Again, it’s not, oh, this is so unfair.

And God, the Babylonians are worse. No, he admits his own nation’s sin. Oh, God, you should let us slide because the Babylonians are worse and the Persians are worse.

We hear that today. We hear that today in our own country. What I did is okay because the Democrats are worse, because the Republicans are worse.

We point fingers at Hillary and we point fingers at Trump and nobody wants to take responsibility for the wrong that they’ve done. And we as Christians point fingers at the culture and say they’re worse and we don’t want to acknowledge where we’ve fallen short of God’s standards. We don’t want to acknowledge where we’ve refused to take a stand.

Well, Daniel didn’t try to play that game with God. Daniel said, oh, we’ve been wrong big time. And in verse 5, he says, we have sinned.

And that more or less sums up the next six verses of this. We have sinned. Not God, look at how bad the Babylonians are.

We. Because I know we’re God’s chosen people. I know we’re Israel.

We have sinned and have committed iniquity. We’ve fallen short of your standards and have done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from thy precepts and thy judgments. He says, we’ve looked at all the things you told us, and we totally ignored them.

Now, was Daniel personally guilty of all of that? Daniel was a sinner, but Daniel was also a devout man who tried to follow God. And a lot of Israel’s problem that led to things like this was idolatry.

It was what we’d look at and say it’s the big stuff. It was, oh, the king has allowed pagan shrines to be built in the palace. Oh, they’re building high places in the mountains where people can go and burn incense to the gods of child sacrifice.

I mean, horrible, horrible things were happening. But even at that, Daniel doesn’t say, they’ve done, they have sinned. Others in my nation have sinned.

He says, we have sinned. He owns it. Because even though Daniel was one of the more devout people in his nation, he still recognizes he’s fallen short of God’s standards.

And we could say, well, there’s so much sin that goes on. We still have fallen short of God’s standards. And we need to own that when we talk to God.

There needs to be confession when we pray to God. You know, he already knows what we’ve done wrong. We might as well just admit it.

And I find myself second-guessing myself a lot in prayer, saying, God, this is what I want. Wait a minute. Is that really true?

Because you know whether that’s true or not. God, this is what I’m trying to do. Wait a minute.

You know my motives. So let’s just take a second and check here and see whether I’m being really honest. God already knows the good and the bad and the ugly. So we might as well just admit it to him.

And Daniel takes that step of confession and owns it on behalf of himself, on behalf of his nation, and says, We have sinned, we’ve rebelled, we’ve committed iniquity and wickedness, we’ve departed from your precepts. He says in verse 6, Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants, the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. He says, And when we messed up, you sent people to try to get our attention, we still didn’t listen.

And by the way, before it sounds like I’m being too hard on Daniel, I don’t mean that at all, Daniel was one of the prophets that God sent to get their attention even in the time of captivity. And I’m not saying that Daniel was a wicked man who joined in with Israel’s sins, but I’m saying he recognized he had some sin of his own and so he was part of the problem. But he says, you’ve tried to get our attention, we didn’t listen.

He says, O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces as at this day to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and unto all Israel that are near and that are far off through all the countries whither thou has driven them because of their trespasses that they have trespassed against thee. He says, righteousness belongs to you. You’re always right, but we’re in confusion.

We’re in confusion now. We’re scattered now because we allowed ourselves to be in spiritual confusion before. Oh Lord, to us belong with confusion of our face.

Verse 8, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. Again, he owns it. He says, our kings, our leaders, the people we followed, they sinned, and we went right along with them.

We went over the cliff with them. Our fathers, our ancestors, they did what we knew was wrong, and we followed. We went over the cliff with them.

We’ve sinned against thee. Verse 9, he says, to the Lord God belong mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him. Again, he calls it what it is.

It’s not a mistake. It’s not an error in judgment. He calls it sin.

Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws which he set before us by his servants, the prophets. He admits his nation’s sin against God. And when we look at the condition of the world around us, when we look at the condition of our nation, when we look at the emptiness of our churches, when we look at the coldness of people’s hearts toward God, do we ever stop and take ownership of our own sins?

See, there’s nothing wrong to pray God fix this, fix them. But we need to be reminded that we are sinners ourselves. And every day, every day we let God down.

Every day we disappoint God. Now the difference is that you and I, if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ this evening, if you’ve trusted in Him and been born again, You are someone who disappoints your father with your sin, but he stands there willing and ready to forgive. And you haven’t lost that relationship with him because of your sin, but the fellowship is not quite what it needs to be.

And we have the opportunity. We don’t try to hide it. We don’t try to blame somebody else.

We own it, and we confess it, and the fellowship is restored. And maybe instead of just focusing on the wickedness of the world outside, I need to take stock from time to time and say, God, I’ve fallen short. and God before I ask you to fix them, clean me up because I’ve sinned.

I’ve fallen short. And he doesn’t just admit that he’s sinned, that his nation has sinned. He actually agrees with God about this sin.

Because sometimes there’s a tendency to say, well, yeah, I did that. But here’s why I did it. We do that, don’t we?

Nobody else? Nobody’s ever said, well, but officer, what you don’t understand was I didn’t see the speed limit sign. Officer, I was distracted.

I had a child in the back needing to go potty, and we were in a hurry. Yeah, and that’s just one example. But we do that.

Well, it’s okay that I did it because. No, no, he doesn’t try to justify it. And he doesn’t try to say, well, this is why it’s okay.

God, we had our reasons. He agrees with God. He gets on the same page with God about it.

He says, Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice. Therefore, the curse is poured upon us. and the oath that is written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, because we have sinned against him.

He said, there’s a consequence for disobedience that was spelled out long ago. We knew what the consequence was, and we did it anyway, and you rightly gave us the consequence. He’s agreeing with God that what they’ve done is wrong and deserves to be punished and to be disciplined.

And he had confirmed, excuse me, tongue-tied. Do you ever get to looking at the text in the Bible and the lines start moving around? and they start flowing together.

Verse 12, let’s try this again. And he hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us and against our judges that judged us by bringing upon us a great evil for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. He says there’s never been anything quite as dramatic as what’s happened in Jerusalem.

And he says, you know what? We were warned because you didn’t just tell us under Moses, you confirmed your word to us. We knew where this was headed.

God had sent prophet after prophet after prophet to get their attention, and they had not responded. He says, as it is written in the law of Moses, this evil has come upon us. He says again, the crime and the consequences were spelled out in the law of Moses.

There’s really no plea here. There’s really no justification of, God, this shouldn’t have happened to us. He’s just saying, I deserved it.

We deserved this. All this evil has come upon us. Yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth.

He says, if we had just, at one of these warnings, if we had just once and for all turned toward God, if we had just admitted our sin, if we had just repented, if we had just sought the Lord’s forgiveness, we wouldn’t be in this situation. So he’s not blaming God. He’s not trying to justify what Israel has done.

He’s agreeing with God. Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil and brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth.

For we obeyed not his voice. He said, we brought this on ourselves. He said, God saw this.

God told us what was going to happen. God brought this evil on us. And by the way, when he says evil, he’s not talking about moral wrong.

He’s not talking about satanic things like we would call evil. He’s talking about the trouble that came on them. And he’s saying, we brought this on ourselves.

I was admonished early on in my short teaching career by one of the more seasoned teachers there at the Christian school when I would say to a child who was out of control, okay, you’ve got detention, or I’m going to give you detention, or I’m going to give you a demerit, or whatever it was. She pointed out to me, you’re not giving that to them. They know what the rules are.

They know what the consequences are. She said, you need to tell them that they have earned detention. It’s a subtle difference, but it cuts out on a lot of that.

That’s not fair that middle school students like to engage in. Yes, I’m sorry, it’s not fair that you treated me and the rest of the class in such a way that you thought you were above the rules and earned this detention. I agree it’s not fair, but it’s on you.

You were the one who was not fair. And that’s sort of the approach that Daniel’s taking here with God. We earned this.

You didn’t give us this punishment. We earned it because we knew what your rules were. We knew that all you wanted was our complete devotion.

God did not destroy the nation of Israel. God did not send people in to conquer the nation of Israel. God did not collectively spank the nation of Israel for every little thing that they did wrong.

He dealt with the people as individuals for the stuff that they did wrong. The times that God stepped in and collectively spanked the nation of Israel were the times that they embraced other gods. The times that they said, we’re going to serve Baal, the god of storms. The times that they said, we’re going to bow down and worship trees.

The times that they said, we’re going to bow down and worship Molech, and we’re going to sacrifice our children in these bloody rituals. We’re going to burn our children alive. And God said, not on my watch.

And so for those who ever look at the Old Testament and say, well, God was so brutal. What do you think God was trying to put a stop to? Because the stuff God was trying to put a stop to was unimaginably cruel and evil and wicked. And it’s when they did those things that God stepped in in ways like this.

And so he agrees with God about the nation’s sin. Folks, that’s one of the ways that I have described the word repentance in the past because the word repentance has been misused. There’s this whole debate over the role of repentance and salvation.

And I don’t think there’s any need for the debate because one side is saying, well, repentance, you have to repent. That means you’ve got to get your life cleaned up. No, no, if you could clean your life up, there’d be no need to come to Jesus and there’d be no need for the cross anyway, if you could clean yourself up.

You can’t clean yourself up enough to come to God. And that’s why Jesus had to die on the cross. Repentance is not cleaning your life up.

Repentance is a change of mind. That’s what the word literally means in the Greek, is a change of mind. And so the way I have described the word repentance, that means, yes, I’m still a sinner, but now I hate it where I used to revel in it.

And now I realize it’s a problem that needs to be fixed and dealt with instead of just enjoying it. And so the way I have described repentance is it’s agreeing with God about sin. And it doesn’t mean my sin has stopped.

But I’m now agreeing with God that this is a problem. And that He’s right. And these things that I want and these things that I sometimes do are wrong.

And He’s right to step in and chasten me. That’s repentance. It’s agreeing with God.

And that’s what Daniel’s done here on behalf of his country. He’s agreed with God about their sin. But it’s not just that.

If he had left off there, I mean, it says a lot about Daniel’s character, but we start getting into where he finally, after he’s dealt with God, after he’s confessed, after there’s been repentance, then he gets around to, God, can you please help us? Because he says in verse 15, And now, O Lord our God, that has brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and has gotten thee renown, as at this day we have sinned, We have done wickedly. He’s pointing back to all the things that God’s done for him before, and I submit to you this is part of continuing to praise God no matter where you are.

He says, some of us still remember how you’ve taken care of us in the past. Some of us still remember how you led us out of Egypt. In verse 16, he said, O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem. He says, according to your righteousness, Do what’s right, but I beg you to turn away your wrath.

He’s praying and he’s pleading for God’s mercy for his nation. Let your fury be turned away from thy city, Jerusalem, thy holy mountain, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. He said the people look at us and we’re a reproach.

The other countries look at us and they laugh at us and they mock us. And by the way, when the other countries in the Old Testament that were around them would mock Israel. They weren’t just making fun of Israel.

They were making fun of Israel’s God. Because they were saying, oh, see, you were conquered by the Babylonians. Your God’s not so tough after all.

In verse 17, he says, Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate for the Lord’s sake. He said, not even for us. Yes, we ask you to have mercy on us.

We want you to spare us. but he said not even just for us, but for your own glory. We want to see your glory proclaimed in the temple again.

We want to see your sanctuary. We want to see your sanctuary that’s desolate be restored to worship. We want to see the offerings being done.

We want to see the incense being offered. We want to see the priests going in and acknowledging that you are who you claim to be. We want to see the blood go into the mercy seat.

We want to see all these things happen, and we want to see the name of God be praised. in our land again. And so he says in verse 18, Oh my God, incline thine ear and hear, open thine eyes and behold our desolations.

Now, he’s not saying this because God can’t see or God hasn’t been listening, but he’s just pleading with God to have mercy. And the city which is called by thy name, for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousness, but for thy great mercies. This is so important.

He says, we don’t come to you with these requ

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