INTRODUCTION
If you have suffered a little brain strain from the past couple of weeks of diving deeply into the prophetic meanings of Lions, Bears, Rams and Goats (most of them with strange horns growing everywhere), we have a break today. We are going to focus on prayer.
This is a prayer of confession and confession IS good for your soul. Most of us are much better at excusing our sins and mistakes than confessing them. We are quick to point out other peoples’ mistakes, but we have a hard time admitting we have blown it. Here are some actual excerpts from insurance companies where individuals explained why they had an automobile accident:
“Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree that I don’t own.”
“The other guy was all over the road and I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.”
“In my attempt to kill a fly, I ran into the telephone pole.”
“I had been driving my car for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident.”
“The pedestrian had no idea which direction to go, so when he hesitated, I ran over him.”
“The telephone pole approached my car at a rapid speed, as I swerved to get out of its way, it hit me.”
“I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and drove over the embankment.”
Daniel 9 is one of the most important chapters in the entire Bible. The first part of the chapter contains a marvelous prayer of confession and repentance. We’ll call this section Daniel’s prayer. The last four verses deal with what many scholars believe to be the most strategic prophecy in all the scriptures. Next week we’ll look at Daniel’s prophecy.
We are going to learn some important principles about prayer by examining Daniel’s prayer. As we begin this message, let me ask you a very personal question: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your personal prayer life?
John Owen, a Puritan writer, said: “What an individual is in secret on his knees before God, that’s who he really is, and no more.”
Dr. S.D. Gordon wrote: “The greatest thing we can do for God and man is to pray. It is not the only thing, but it is the chief thing. The great people of the earth are the people who pray. I do not mean those who talk about prayer; nor those who say they believe in prayer; nor yet those who can explain about prayer; but I mean those who take time to pray. They have not the time. It must be taken from something else...It is wholly a secret service. I often think that sometimes we pass some plain-looking woman quietly slipping out of church. When we hardly give her a passing thought and we do not know or guess that she is the one who is doing more for her church, and for the world and for God than a hundred others who claim more attention, because she prays, truly prays as the Spirit of God inspires and guides.” (Quiet Talks on Prayer, p. 12)
If God uses this message to challenge your heart to pray more, then you’ll have a chance to do something about it before you leave this building. We are enlisting prayer warriors to spend 30 minutes per week in our Intercessory Prayer Ministry. As you leave, there will be places at each exit for you to volunteer to take a 30-minute time slot to pray. We have many more needs than we have people to pray for these needs.
Today, I want us to learn some important truth about effective praying from Daniel. Here are six characteristics of Biblical praying:
WHEN YOU PRAY THE BIBLE WAY–YOU WILL:
1. PRAY ACCORDING TO THE WORD OF GOD (vs. 1-2)
Daniel 9:2. “…in the first year of his reign [Darius], I, Daniel understood from the scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.”
Daniel had a copy of some of the books of what we call the Old Testament. He was able to read prophecy and understand it literally. That is what we are doing today with Daniel’s prophecy. What did Daniel read that caused him to understand that the captivity of the Jews would end after 70 years? Jeremiah 29:10-12. “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.”
Daniel understood the Word of God spoken through Jeremiah and he understood his current time. We know he had been taken captive in 605 B.C. and this was the first year of Darius’ reign, 538 B.C.; so we know Daniel has been in captivity for 67 years. He recognizes his people are only three years away from returning to Jerusalem. He also realizes they are not spiritually prepared, so he is driven to his knees in prayer, simply from reading and understanding the Word of God.
Andrew Murray wrote: “Little of the Word with little prayer is death to the spiritual life. Much of the Word with little prayer gives a sickly life. Much prayer with little of the Word gives emotional life. But a full measure of both the Word and prayer each day gives a healthy and powerful life.” (With Christ in the School of Prayer, p.161)
Some people don’t understand the dynamic connection between God’s Word, the Bible and prayer. In God’s Word, He tells us what He is going to do and then he tells us to pray that it will happen!
I find many people are very confused at this point. They say, “Well, God is going to do it. There is nothing for me to do, so I’ll just sit and watch it happen.” Then when nothing happens they think God must be faithless to His promise. But God is not faithless to his promise; rather, it is because man has not responded to the part God gives him. One of the things we have been learning in this series is that prayer is God’s way of involving us in the program He sets out to do.
We must get rid of the notion that prayer is a way God has given us of making Him work for us. Most of us think of prayer that way. We feel we have needs. We have something we want done, something we find to be beyond our ability to handle with our own strength, so we rely on the promises of God. We come before Him and say, “You said you would do ‘whatever I ask,’ now, and this is what I want you to do.” In that approach we are really saying God is a kind of heavenly bellboy; that when we push the prayer button He is to show up and take orders for what we want Him to do. But that is to totally misunderstand the nature and purpose of prayer. No, prayer is God’s way of involving us in what He intends to do.
This is how you ought to pray: You should always pray with an open Bible and an open heart. As you read what God is saying, you start doing what He tells you to do. How can you know you are praying according to God’s will? Do you just ask for whatever and then add on the end, ‘If it is your will?’” That’s such a faithless way to pray. The way to know with absolute certainty you are praying according to God’s Will is to pray according to God’s Word.
Let me give you two examples: First, you have a friend or a family member who doesn’t know Jesus. How can you pray for them? You pray for them to be saved and you know you are praying God’s will, because God’s word says in II Peter 3:9, “God is not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” Well, won’t God save this person whether or not I pray? I can’t answer that. But remember, God’s plan is often not put into action until His people pray.
Example two: You are having trouble in your marriage. Do you pray for a divorce or for your marriage to be healed? What does God’s word say? Jesus said in Mark 10:9 “What God has joined together, let not man separate.” That settles it. Now I know marriages fail because people are sinful. One of the messages I’ll preach in May is “Is there Life After Divorce?” and the answer is yes. But, be very careful you never say, “I prayed about my marriage and I felt that God wanted me to divorce my mate.” You want to pray according to God’s will? Pray according to His Word. Also, you will:
2. PRAY WITH HUMILITY: IN ATTITUDE AND ACTION (vs. 3)
Daniel 9:3. “So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.”
Daniel takes off his beautiful oriental robes and jewelry and robes himself in a simple gown of rough burlap, and then he takes ashes and covers his head and body. The term “sackcloth” is used 46 times in the Bible. It is often combined with “ashes.” These were symbols of deep grief and mourning. When a loved one died, the mourner wore sackcloth, a rough, irritating garment of the coarsest material. The pain and irritation of wearing that garment spoke of the inner pain the person felt. It’s like when people today wear black for mourning; they are saying the color has been robbed from their life because of their grief.
Spreading ashes on the head was more of a statement of guilt. When you are covered with ashes, you don’t feel clean. Ashes represent something burned or lost. It is a symbol of deep repentance. Many Christians who follow the liturgical calendar observe Ash Wednesday and have a small smudge of ash rubbed onto their forehead. This is to prepare themselves for 40 days of preparation and repentance before Easter (Ash Wednesday is always forty days before Easter, not counting Sundays) In the Bible, the penitent person often covered their entire body with filthy ashes. Basically, when you put on sackcloth and ashes, you aren’t comfortable, and you don’t feel clean. It is an outward symbol of your inner pain and agony.
Fasting is another act of humility that enhances prayer. When you refrain from eating food or certain foods for a period of time, it must be done with a prayer goal in mind. As you forego food, it reminds you pray for your specific prayer burden. It also teaches you to say “No” to your bodily appetites, which is a good exercise for all of us.
Some one once told me they became a Baptist because we didn’t believe in fasting. By the looks of many of us, we do a lot more feasting than fasting. Baptists are known for their motto: meet, greet, and eat.
I heard a funny story of some children who were asked to bring a symbol of their faith to kindergarten for show and tell. The little Jewish boy brought a Star of David. The little Catholic boy brought a rosary. The little Baptist boy brought a casserole. That’s cute, but in reality, many folks in this church have learned the value of regular prayer and fasting. It’s not just a Catholic thing and it’s not just an Old Testament concept. It is an act of humility that God notices and rewards according to Jesus. It’s just not something we talk much about. We must be careful these acts of humility are never done to impress others. Jesus said in Matthew 5:16-18, “When you fast, do not look somber as the as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full…But when you fast, put oil on your head [wash and fix your hair]; and wash your face so that it does not appear to men that you are fasting. And your father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”
Our humility should be on display for God only, not for human observation. When we are humble before God, others will see our humility, but we aren’t doing it for their sake, it’s for God. Have you ever put on sackcloth and ashes? Have you ever fasted? If you have, don’t tell me, or you spoil it. But if you wonder why your prayers don’t seem to be getting past the light bulbs, perhaps you should try humility.
Charles Spurgeon said, “Proud prayers may knock their heads on mercy’s lintel, but they can never pass through the portal. You cannot expect anything of God unless you put yourself in the right place, that is, as a beggar at his footstool; then will he hear you, and not until then.”
3. PRAY WITH INTENSITY, BUT WITH BREVITY (vs. 3-4)
Number three, when you pray the Bible way, you will pray with intensity, but with brevity. Remember in verse 3 Daniel said he pleaded with the Lord? That’s a Hebrew word suggesting “to wrestle” like Jacob did with the angel in Genesis. Then Daniel 9:4 says, “I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed.” The word for “prayed” is an emphatic imperative—it denotes extreme intensity.
So many of our prayers are just vain repetitions of the same-old-same-old. Many of us are like the little boy praying his prayer one night who got confused with his rhymes and he said, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep...If he hollers let him go...eeny, meeny, miney, mo.” Some of our prayers are so dull and lifeless we could just say, “Dear Lord…yadda, yadda, yadda.”
This was a prayer of urgency and fervency. Ten times Daniel says something like, “O, Lord” or “O My God.” The word “O” is actually an untranslatable word that represents a groan. Romans 8 says when we are praying in the Spirit there are often groans that can’t be uttered. Have you agonized in prayer? Have you wrestled and groaned in prayer?
James 5:16 “the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (NKJV) But notice, for a prayer to be intense, it doesn’t have to be lengthy. We can read this entire prayer of Daniel in about two and a half minutes. That ought to teach us that prayers don’t have to be long to be effective. The Lord’s Prayer that Jesus prayed in John 17 the night before He was crucified can be read in three minutes. The Model Prayer, sometimes called the Lord’s Prayer Jesus taught us to pray can be spoken in less than 30 seconds.
Nineteenth century American Evangelist D.L. Moody didn’t care for long public prayers. At his citywide crusades, a local pastor was always asked to give a public prayer. If the prayer started going to long, Moody would interrupt the pastor and say to the congregation, “While Brother so-and-so catches up on his prayer life, we are going to continue with the service!” Word soon got around, and there were few long prayers after that!
4. CONFESS PERSONAL AND NATIONAL SINS - SPECIFICALLY (vs. 4-13)
The main thing we can learn from Daniel’s prayer is that we must confess person and national sins, specifically. Let’s join Daniel in his prayer closet and listen in on his prayer. Here is a man in his mid-80s, kneeling in sackcloth. His head and body has been polluted with filthy ashes; he has been fasting. We picture him on his knees, as was his custom. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was weeping as he began to pour out his heart to God in verse 4: “Oh Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands [prayer should always start with praise stating God’s glorious character]. We have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.”
He doesn’t make excuses; instead he admits the nation of Israel has gotten what it deserved. Look down to verse 13: “Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth.”–This is a prayer that needs to prayed in America today!
Then his prayer concludes with a crescendo of intensity as he asks God to act. Look at verse 18. “Give ear, O God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of your because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O, Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear Your Name.”
Personal Sins
When you read Daniel’s prayer you notice his confession is both personal and collective. He speaks about his sin and he joins the group as he says, “We have sinned.” He didn’t say, “Oh, Lord they have sinned.” Have you ever noticed how easy it is to confess other peoples’ sin?
Daniel recognizes he is part of a group punished by God for their collective sins. When one football lineman jumps off sides, the entire team is penalized. While Daniel may not have been personally responsible for the sins that caused his people to be penalized into Babylon for 70 years, he took responsibility. Have you taken personal responsibility for your sins?
We are much better at making excuses than confessing sin. We live in a “no-fault” culture where you can get “no-fault” insurance, and a “no-fault” divorce. The mantra of our modern culture is, “Hey, it’s not my fault.” We have come up with pretty names to excuse our sin. What we call an “affair,” God calls “adultery.” What we call “a little weakness,” God calls “wickedness.” What we call “a mistake,” God calls “madness.” Proverbs 28:13 says, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”
Do you spend time regularly confessing your personal sins to Jesus or do you spend more time concealing your sins from others? You say, “I can’t think of any sins right now.” Just start guessing...and you’ll be right every time. If you can’t think of any, try confessing the sin of prayerlessness for our nation. Samuel said, “God forbid that I should sin in ceasing to pray for you.” (I Samuel 12:23) That’s a sin. Have you confessed and repented of the sin of not praying for your church and your nation as you should?
Daniel was not only willing to confess his sins; he was willing to repent, that is, to change his behavior. There can be no true confession without repentance. They are spiritual Siamese twins that can’t be separated. If you think you can continue to sin and then just run into God and say, “Oops, sorry I did it again. Please forgive me.” Then you don’t understand the holiness of God.
National Sins
Not only is Daniel’s prayer personal and collective, true confession always starts with the general and then proceeds to the specific. Daniel said in verse 5 “we have sinned and done wrong.” That’s general. Then he gives some specific examples of how they had done this: “we have rebelled, we have turned away from your commands and laws…we have not listened to your prophets…All Israel has transgressed your law [we have stepped over your line] and turned away, refusing to obey you.”
Then Daniel goes on to admit the reason they are in such a mess is their own fault. He didn’t shake his fist in God’s face and say, “Lord, why are you being so mean to me?” Where did we ever get the idea that we could simply pray a prayer of “blanket confession?” “Oh Lord, forgive all my sins and forgive the sins of my nation while you’re at it. Okay, amen, that’s done.” It’s important to get specific with God, because in confession you aren’t informing God of your specific sins, you are agreeing with God specific things that you have thought, done and said are wrong. In the model prayer when Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our sins,” He wasn’t teaching us a formula for confession. What was the next line? “As we forgive those who trespass against us.” He was teaching us we do not have the luxury of holding unforgiveness in our hearts if we ever need the forgiveness of God. We must confess our sins specifically to God, whether it is our personal sin or our national sin.
The circle of confession should be as large as the circle of the sin
In other words, your personal, private sins don’t need to be confessed to anyone but God. You don’t have to air your dirty laundry to a priest or another person if the sin is personal. However if you sin against another person, you must confess the sin to that person as well. A good example is if you have gossiped against another person; confess it to God and to that person.
The national sins of America are public sins we need to confess publicly. Daniel’s prayer became a public prayer–we are reading it today–because it involved the national sin of Israel’s rebellion.
Daniel recognized his people, the Jews, were guilty of sinning against a holy God and he fell to his face to confess this sin and to beg for God’s mercy and forgiveness. That’s exactly what we need to do for our nation.
We have watched with horror over the past forty years as we have seen the continual decline of moral and spiritual values in America. Unless there is a real revival, America will become like Great Britain–a post-Christian nation, totally secular where churches are mainly used for events like weddings, funerals and coronations.
It’s easy for us to point the finger at the decision of the Supreme Court in 1966 to remove prayer and Bible reading from public schools and it’s easy to point our finger at Washington politicians and talk about the widespread immorality. But folks, the problem isn’t in Washington, the problem is within the human heart of every one of us.
Chuck Colson said, “I spent the first half of my professional life in politics and public service...I really believed that people could be changed by government being changed. But I never looked beyond government into the hearts of people...But when I became a Christian, I gained a new perspective on the actual influence political structures have on the course of history. I began to see that societies are changed only when people are changed, not the other way around. America’s crisis is not political, it’s moral and spiritual.” (Against the Night, p. 11)
In other words, confession and repentance must start on your street before it will happen on Pennsylvania Avenue. Judgment must begin at the house of God before it will fill the streets of America. We need to be Daniels today and confess our personal and national sins and seek God’s mercy for our nation.
After confessing Israel’s sins, Daniel cried out to God for mercy. Daniel refers to Jerusalem as a reproach to all the nations. America has become an international “reproach” in our time. We are no longer known for decency, goodness and fairness, but for violence, pornography, rock music, drugs and sexual immorality. Several years ago, Billy Graham said, “If God does not judge America for her sins; He will owe an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah!”
When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities. He prayed a prayer that lasted a little over 60 seconds, but it enraged many of the members of the Senate.
Wright prayed, “Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance. Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good’ but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it Pluralism; We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle; We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery; We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare; We have killed our unborn and called it choice; We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable; We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem; We have abused power and called it politics; We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition; We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression; We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. We ask it in the name of Your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen”
That’s a brave, bold prayer. But it’s the kind of prayer all of us need to be praying. When was the last time you confessed to God the national sins of immorality, abortion, and racial discrimination? Revival won’t come to this land until we start confessing our personal and national sins to God.
5. ASK FOR GOD’S GLORY–NOT YOUR GAIN (vs. 15-19)
Notice verse 17. Daniel says this prayer is “for your sake.” So many of our prayers are what I call “Polly-want-a-cracker-prayers.” We come to God and basically say, “Gimme, gimme, gimme!” Daniel prayed this prayer for the return and rebuilding of his nation. And did you know, Daniel died before these events were fully implemented? We have no record he ever returned to the Holy Land of his childhood. He wasn’t praying for himself, He was praying for God’s glory.
James 4:3 says, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” Could that be one of the reasons why your prayers are ineffective? You are always just bringing a grocery list to God saying, “Go down the aisles of heaven and fill my basket with these particular blessings.” Try praying with the glory of God as your goal, not your personal gain.
6. OFTEN RECEIVE AN ANSWER BEFORE YOU FINISH (vs. 20-23)
Finally, when you pray the Bible way, you will often receive an answer before you finish. That’s not always the case. We are going to see in Chapter 10 the answer to prayer is sometimes delayed. But many times when we pray, God answers us before we get up off our knees. That’s what happened here.
Look at verse 20. “While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy hill—while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man [he’s an angel and ordinary angels most often appear as men] I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me [the Hebrew word is na-ga which means ‘to reach out and touch’] in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice.”
Wow! He had not gotten to the end of his prayer before a soft hand touched him, and he looked up, and there stood Gabriel in the form of a man. That was quick! So Daniel must have thought, for it was much quicker than Daniel expected, for as soon as ever he began to pray, the word went forth for the angel to descend. The answer to prayer is the most rapid thing in the world.
Isaiah 65:24 gives an amazing promise. God says, “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.” That is a specific promise as to how God will respond during the millennial reign of Christ, but it speaks of His ideal model for our prayers now. We know light travels at 186,234 miles per second. Because the sun is 93 million miles away, it takes the light of the sun eight minutes to arrive here. The prayers we pray and the answers to our prayers are faster than that–they travel at the speed of thought. Before Daniel could even get up off his knees, Gabriel was there with an answer to his prayer. We will look at the answer next Sunday. But the point I want to make is we often receive the answer to our prayers while we are still praying! Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever gotten on your knees to ask God for guidance and direction and while you are asking Him, the answer comes?
God always answers prayer. Sometimes the answer is “Yes,” sometimes it is “No,” and sometimes it is “Wait.” But He always answers prayer.
This passage is where we get the idea for the chorus that we sang earlier: “While I was praying – somebody touched me, it must have been the hand of the Lord.” Can you say, “While I was praying, somebody touched me?” If you can’t, you need to study this prayer of Daniel and start praying the Bible way.
CONCLUSION
We need a revival in America in the deepest way. What’s the answer to the teenage drinking and driving problem? Revival. What’s the answer to violence and crime? Revival. What’s the answer to fractured marriages where husbands aren’t the spiritual leader of their home? Revival.
The problem is not with the pornographer, the bootlegger, the casino, or the drug pusher. God never said anything about those folks repenting. He said, “If my people which are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face...then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (II Chronicles 7:14)
In times of prosperity and plenty it’s hard to imagine God’s judgment could fall upon us. Tough times may jar us to repentance; good times lull us to sleep. Once again, we should learn from our history. The early part of the Nineteenth Century was a time of unprecedented growth and prosperity in America, and then suddenly our nation was thrown into the bloody Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was both a student of the scriptures and his culture. Listen to his words as he issued a “Proclamation of a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer:”
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers wealth and power as no nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten the gracious hand, which preserved us in peace; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of God’s redeeming and preserving grace - too proud to pray to the God that made us. ... It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power to confess our national sins and pray clemency and forgiveness upon us.”
Would you like to change your world? Change your personal world? Change your family world? Change your national world? The very best way to do it is to pray. Daniel prayed this prayer and God answered it.
Are you willing to become a Daniel and pray and confess the national sins of our society? That’s the only hope for real revival in our land.
