Prayer and Promise

Series on Daniel

III. The Consummation

B. Anointing of the Holiest

1. The Prayer, Text: 9: 1-23

Title: Prayer and Promise

Introduction

As we have seen, beginning with chapter 8, God is showing Daniel the future history of the world as it relates to His people. In chapter 8 we saw the prophecy of Antiochus and the abomination of desolation, that terrible persecution of the Jews and destruction of their worship which was to take place around a century and a half before Christ. Now we move forward in history to the time of the Messiah Himself. The end of chapter 9 contains perhaps the greatest prophecy of all Scripture. Nearly everyone agrees it is a prophecy of the Messiah but there are many interpretations of its language and details so that it is in some respects very clear but in others very puzzling. Before we come to that prophecy we need to look at the prayer of Daniel for which the prophecy is an answer. this is one of the most wonderful prayers of Scripture in itself and it gives us significant insight into the nature of prayer. I don’t know whether it makes prayer more or less mysterious, but it surely gives us a major insight into what prayer is, and I submit to you that prayer is in its purest form nothing but a promise of God found, freed and fulfilled. From this perspective it is one of the most wonderful experiences we can have.

I The Promise Found

If you want to pray read your Bible. Much too often our prayers are born out of our experience, and more often than not out of desperation. This is totally man-centered. It’s no wonder we are not as effective as we would like to be., or we don’t derive the satisfaction that we should in prayer. Read your Bible, pray over your Bible. John Calvin said of Daniel, “Although he was an interpreter of dreams he was not so elated with confidence or pride as to despise the teaching delivered by other prophets,” and so in Jeremiah Daniel read, “It will come to pass,when seventy years are completed, i will punish the king of Babylon and that nation …for their iniquity.” A prophecy, a promise, a prayer on the lips of Daniel. This is what we learn in verses 1-4, In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom—in the first year of his reign, 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. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed. Daniel was a man of prayer because he was a man of the Word. Just look at the numerous references to the Scriptures in his prayer in verses 5-14, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, 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. “Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah and people of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. O Lord, we and our kings, our princes and our fathers are covered with shame because we have sinned against you. The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you. “Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you. You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us great disaster. Under the whole heaven nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem. 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. The Lord did not hesitate to bring the disaster upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does; yet we have not obeyed him. Note the references to God’s covenant, commandments, precepts, law, words and judgments. These are identified as spoken by God and the prophets and given, presumably in writing, by the prophets who spoke in His name, and written in the law of Moses. Daniel was a man of the Word. In the epistle of James chapter 5 verses 16-18 we read, The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. James is speaking about the prayer of faith in this place and if prayer requires faith, then where does faith come from? Paul tells us in Romans 10:17 that faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God. In other words Elijah was an ordinary man who believed the promise of God because Deuteronomy 28 says God would close the heavens in response to the disobedience of his people. Elijah simply believed what God had promised and said let it happen in answer to my prayers. Dear friends, prayer is a promise found. It is also a promise freed.

II The Promise Freed

How is the promise of God written upon the sacred page liberated into our experience and translated into action? We see this too in Daniel’s prayer. There are three things that are instrumental to this process of freeing God’s promise to work.

A Prayer

Daniel recognizes the importance of prayer. Notice how he seeks the Lord, in fasting, sackcloth and ashes. He does this in spite of the obvious fact that what he is praying for has been decreed and is certain to come to pass. A lot of people waste time worrying about why they should pray if God has a plan and He is carrying out that plan with inevitable, inexorable certainty. The answer is simple but profound. God ordinarily employs means to accomplish His ends and one of the means is prayer. The promise is freed not simply because Daniel prays but because he prays knowing that God is sovereign and that the promise is an incentive to prayer. Your mind may stumble over this and it may rebel against such a difficult thing, but consider the alternative and you will be driven to the truth. If God has not promised something where do you get the faith to pray a believing prayer? Where is the prayer of faith? You can’t do it because faith is not something you generate. It comes from the Word of God. God is not honored unless we approach Him with an understanding of His sovereignty. This frees the promise to work.

B Penitence

The promise is also freed by Daniel’s recognition of sin and confession of sin. He does not approach God in prayer by saying, “Do I really deserve this?” Daniel ransacked the Old Testament vocabulary as he described and confessed Judah’s failure including their sin, wrong, wickedness, rebellion, turning away, not listening, unfaithfulness, transgression, disobedience; and its consequences. The question of whether we deserve afflictions may cross our minds at some point, but it is offensive to God on the occasion when we come to Him in prayer. Daniel says that this captivity is something that we deserve. Every problem of life falls into the same category. You never ought to come to God and say anything but that we deserve this because we do. Self-righteousness must go out the window, for humility and acknowledgement of God’s righteous government is essential to free the promise.

C Preservation

The third and last thing that frees up the promise is Daniel’s recognition that God is a faithful covenant God. His mercy and grace once given are not withdrawn. The mercies of a covenant God preserve us. They give us everything we need for life and godliness. Daniel’s praying was dominated by a sense of the character of God especially as that is revealed in his righteousness. The righteousness of God is his absolute integrity, His conformity to His own perfect glory. In His relationships with his people this takes the form of His faithfulness to His covenants with them. In that covenant relationship He has promised to be their God and to take them as His people; He has promised that they will enjoy blessing as they themselves respond to His covenant love in faithfulness, but judgment should they respond to Him in unbelief, ingratitude and disobedience. In verses 15-19 Daniel’s use of the word righteousness means God is faithful, He doesn’t change, His covenant doesn’t change, His promise doesn’t change. “Now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong. O Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our fathers have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us. “Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, O Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. 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 you 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.” All of this is based on God’s revelation of Himself, on His name, on His reputation. If we don’t think about these things and if we don’t insist on them in prayer then God is not honored and the promise is not freed. So we have three things that Daniel does and we must do to free the promise of God: submit to his sovereignty, confess our sin and his complete fairness, and affirm his covenant love which does not change. Then what happens when the promise has been found and freed? It is fulfilled.

III The Promise Fulfilled

We see the import of these first two points when we realize that God already knows what Daniel is going to say before he says it. Gabriel has left wherever he was to come to Daniel at the beginning of his supplications as we learn in verses 20-23, 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 I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. He instructed me and said to me, “Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the message and understand the vision. You see what God cared about was that Daniel prayed in the right way, with the right heart attitude as I have outlined it. The attitude of our prayers is more important than the content. Or to put it another way the importance of the content is that it expresses the right attitude. You see that Gabriel says that Daniel is greatly beloved because he, like David, is a man after God’s heart. David was a foolish sinner but he submitted to God’s sovereignty, confessed his sin and God’s complete fairness, and affirmed God’s covenant love. In His longsuffering with His disobedient people God had sent prophets to summon them back to covenant faithfulness. Their exile was the result of their indifference to His warning and a fulfillment of the covenant curse. We become a people after God’s heart if this is our attitude. The picture you get here is that God cannot resist. The promise works because of the kind of prayer that is offered which depends on the character and Word of God. Furthermore. as we have read, Daniel is given understanding. True prayer always produces understanding. It does not always produce the answer we would like. Daniel is praying for the restoration of his people to the land of promise. This will happen God says, and the rebuilding will take place, but, and this is a big but, the real restoration will not happen for 480 some years until Messiah comes. In the intervening period there will be terrific suffering as we saw from chapter 8. This is a disappointment by earthly standards but Daniel is at peace because he understands his place in God’s plan and the place of his prayer in that plan. Dear friends, if we want to pray as David and Daniel prayed then let us realize that prayer is a promise of God found, freed and fulfilled.