Lechem Panim #91 "The Prayer of Daniel" (Daniel 9) Pastor Cameron Ury

Greetings! Welcome to the show today. Last week we talked about one of my favorite heroes, the prophet Daniel; an amazing man who had an amazing impact on everyone who had the privilege of falling under his influence, from the lowest servant to the king himself; and there were multiple kings he served under. And he did so during a very difficult time; a time when God’s people were in exile. And you will remember that one of the things that set Daniel apart form everybody else was his prayer life.

Intro to Daniel 9— And so today I want us to take a look briefly at the first half of Daniel chapter 9 and see if we can draw some insight into how Daniel prayed and why His prayers proved to be so effective. Daniel, who is an old man at this time, over 80 years old, is serving under Darius (the king of Persia). And he is pouring over the scriptures; particularly over Jeremiah, who had written prophecies concerning Israel’s upcoming captivity in Babylon. And Daniel comes across Jeremiah 29:10-12, which says…

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.”

Just Three Years Away!— And Daniel begins to think, and is beginning to do the math, “Huh...wait a minute. That puts our captivity around about 67 years. Let’s see.....year 605 to 538....yeah that’s right. Well, wait a minute....that would mean our captivity is almost over!” And just imagine his excitement. Never before has he come across a passage of scripture that has gotten him this pumped; this shaken with joy. “My God, are you telling me that we are going to be free in three years? In three years I may get to set foot in Jerusalem (Your city) once again!” And he immediately starts praying. And we will get to his prayer in a minute. 

Praying Scripture— But let me ask you, do you ever have difficulty knowing what to pray? Sometimes when you start praying (I know I have experienced this) you kind of have writer’s block. You think to yourself “If I only knew where to begin.” Well here it is interesting to see that Daniel begins in the scriptures. And his prayers have strong content and amazing power because they flow out of his meditation on the Word of God. 

Meditating on The Word— Now some of us, when we make our new year’s resolution to “read the Bible more” start by trying to bulldoze through a large chunk of scripture. And when we get to the end, we feel pretty good about the amount of scripture we covered, but (honestly) we didn’t get much out of it. Why? Because we didn’t take the time to meditate on the Word of God. It’s much better to read a shorter passage of scripture and meditate on it. We need to let it’s roots sink into our minds and hearts throughout the day.

The Cow and The Cud Illustration— Dawson Trotman illustrated Biblical meditation by comparing the way cows {(who have 4 stomachs)} get the cud on which they chew: 

A cow eats grass as it grazes early in the morning. When the sun gets hot, it will lie in the shade of a tree, and through the use of a unique elevator system it will bring up the grass from one stomach and thoroughly masticate it. When this is finished, it will put it into another stomach, having gotten from it everything possible in the way of nutrients.

Chewing the Word— That is how we need to meditate on the scriptures. Just like Daniel, we need to be willing to stop and chew the cud. And when we do, we will discover such blessings from God’s holy word that our lives cannot help but be transformed, because we have allowed God the time to make that scripture personal to us and our own individual situations. Have you ever noticed a difference in your life when you didn’t get much into the Word a particular week? And you felt dry and weak, lacking the power of God because maybe you did not take the time to chew the cud? Daniel really kept the disciplines of prayer and meditation at the forefront of his life. Not only did he pray three times a day, but he took the time to chew on the Word of God. And I think that is key. He says in verse 3…

Daniel 9:3 (ESV)— 3 Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

Daniel’s Mourning— Now picture this. Daniel (a high official) takes off his beautiful royal robes and jewelry and clothes himself with “sackcloth and ashes”, both of which were visual ways of demonstrating to God his need for Him and his willingness to conform to the will of God. And interestingly, our season of Lent begins for many Christians with this symbolic use of ashes. And Lent is also a time when many people give up certain things (a form of fasting) in order to outwardly demonstrate a repentant heart as we anticipate Good Friday. It is a way for us to humble ourselves before God. Now whether or not you fast from something during Lent or receive the ashes or not, nevertheless, humility is always key when it comes to entering in to the presence of God.

What is Humility?— But what is humility? Some of us have been taught that it means we have to convince ourselves that we are garbage in comparison to everyone else. But if Christ has called you clean, and has adopted you as His child, who are we to put ourselves down? Should we put down what God has glorified? I don’t think so.

Measured Against the Greater— I think Phillip Brooks said it best when he said, "The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is." 

Looking To The Cross— And you know, he’s absolutely right. What we ought to be thinking about is the greatness of God and how small any man’s righteousness is by comparison. Don’t puff yourself up; but be humbled by the fact that no matter how Holy God has made you, it was your sin and my sin that held Christ to that cross (which is part of what Lent is all about). 

Wrestling With God— The next thing we can learn from Daniel concerning prayer is that he prayed with intensity. We see in verse 3 that Daniel pleads with the Lord. And that word “plea” in Hebrew means “to wrestle”. So Daniel wrestles with God, similar to the time when Jacob wrestled with God in a physical sense in Genesis chapter 32. And verse 4 says, “I prayed to the Lord my God...” The Hebrew word “prayed” is an emphatic imperative that denotes extreme intensity.

Avoiding Vain Repetition— So many of our prayers are just vain repetitions…Many of us are like the little boy who said his prayers one night and got confused with his rhymes, “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.” What?!

Have you ever prayed to God a ritualistic prayer without ever stopping to think about what you were praying. We need to take our prayers a little more seriously. Daniel’s prayer was filled with urgency and fervency. Ten times he says something like, “O, Lord” or “O My God.” The word “O” is actually an untranslatable word that represents a groan. Romans 8:26 says that 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 when you prayed?...

People Groaning for Us— I can testify that the only reason I am where I am today is because I had godly parents and grandparents faithfully praying for me in and throughout my life. God heard their groans for me and He answered them. And the same to you who are listening today. Many of you are followers of Christ today because there were faithful Christians (maybe your mom or your dad, your grandparents, or somebody like that) who were willing to groan and plead about you to the Lord. And there are more people yet to be touched by Christ’s Gospel of salvation and a transformed life who are going to be touched because you (when the time and opportunity presents itself) are going to groan before the Savior for the salvation of their souls.

The next thing Daniel does is he confesses sins specifically. He says in verses 4-5…

Daniel 9:4-6 ESV— [4] I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, [5] we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. [6] 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.

Faithful Daniel Identifies With Israel— Now what is interesting to me is that Daniel is actually one of the Jews who has remained obedient to God and has been faithful to keep His law in and throughout His whole life. At every single point at which he is tested, he has proved faithful. Yet he still identifies himself with his nation of Israel and recognizes that he is part of a community that has lived in rebellion against God.

You see, he takes responsibility. He not only admits that his nation is at fault, but is willing to take some of the blame on their behalf. Now I have heard a lot of preachers who stand up and speak about the evil that is going on in our country. I am one of them. But how often do you see a Christian who is willing to admit that he/she is partially to blame? Sadly you don’t see that too often. No, we as Christians are often too busy playing the blame game rather than accepting fault, confessing it before God, and asking Him for healing not just for our nation, but for us specifically; because it is often our sin that is at least a contributing factor to the problem.

Confessing— But what Daniel is demonstrating is that confession must remain a constant element in our prayers. If we lose our ability to confess (and not just confess general sin, but specific sins in our lives), then we will lose our ability to recognize, deal with, and turn from the sin that is in our lives and be, as the scriptures say, Holy as He is Holy. We have to repent. We have to confess and be willing to come clean with our sin before God.

Expect God to Answer— Now the last element of prayer that Daniel demonstrated is so obvious, but should never be taken for granted; and that is that when we pray, we ought to expect God to answer. Because He always will. When Daniel prayed, he received an answer even before he finished prayer. And there have been times in my life (and I am sure yours as well) where that has happened. But that does not always happen. Sometimes you pray and pray and pray, but nothing seems to happen. And this can be a real struggle for a lot of people. It is sometimes hard to continue praying for something or someone when, after a long time of praying, nothing happens. There are people I have prayed for for years who have still not received Christ. And if we let it, that can discourage us. 

He Will Answer— But even when our prayers don’t get answered right away, we must persist and not cease in praying because God has promised to hear and answer our prayers.

1 John 5:14-15 (NIV)— 14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

Let us have that confidence today and pray faithfully, so that we might see God move through our prayers in amazing ways. Amen.