Biblical Prayer

Daniel chapter nine. And I'd like to begin this morning by making this claim. As we enter into this month of prayer, as we think about it, I want to begin with this thought that an intimate prayer life needs to be based on a proper understanding of God. An intimate and effectual prayer life needs to be based on a proper understanding of God. If you've been a Christian for a while and if you've had any discussions with non-Christians or skeptics, one of the common objections to Christianity is that God is considered to be a very fickle, angry, punitive God, especially in the Old Testament.

For some people, that's where they push back and say, "I will never be a Christian because of this God." Other Christians, whether they would agree to this or not, view God almost as two different entities. They have an Old Testament God and a loving, gracious New Testament God, an angry Old Testament God, a loving New Testament God. They'll never preach from the Old Testament about God. They'll preach from the New Testament about God.

Perhaps you've wondered that yourself. Perhaps you've read some passages in the Old Testament and thought, "Man, how does this fit in? Is this the heart of God? Do I serve a God like this?" This morning, we're going to look at a situation in the Old Testament where there was a real circumstance where you could be excused for being very disappointed and even angry with God.

Be very disappointed with this God. We're going to look at Daniel chapter nine, and we read of a situation of God's people having spent decades in a foreign land, stripped of their inheritance that God had promised them as a blessing to them, as a sign of His approval, as a sign that He is their God. They were in the land of Babylon, their arch nemesis who had destroyed their temple where God resided, where they came to worship God. This nation of Babylon, this empire had overtaken their capital city, the hub of their religion, their pride and their joy. Jerusalem was no more.

For sixty years, for sixty years they were in this situation. Before we get to Daniel nine, why would God do this? That was the question. Would God allow this? Why would He do this? Who is God?

That was the question that was begged. Is His nature fickle? Is it angry? Let's have a read of Daniel nine, and we're going to read from verse one to verse nineteen. And we'll see that it's a prayer of Daniel.

Daniel is a believer in God, a prophet of God, and this is his prayer. Daniel chapter nine, verse one. 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, "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. Lord, 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 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 favour 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.

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 favour 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 Lord, my God, do not delay because Your city and Your people bear Your name." So far, the reading. You can feel the emotion, can't you, in that? We paint a picture or we get a picture of the context of what's happening here.

This is the first year of the new king Darius, in May, roughly May, where the Israelites had been in exile for sixty years. We see that Daniel has counted those years and he realises, and as he's reading through scriptures, interestingly enough, the prophet Jeremiah has already at that early stage been considered scripture. He's reading through the book of Jeremiah and he discovers that there would only be seventy years of exile before the Lord would bring them back. And so in reading this, Daniel realises the end is close and he's going to start praying for this. He's going to start asking God to restore Israel again, to bring them back to Jerusalem.

You find it in Jeremiah 25:12 and Jeremiah 29:10, this promise. Jeremiah 29:10 says this: "This is what the Lord says, when seventy years are completed in Babylon, I will come to you and fulfil My good promise to bring you back to this place." It's as clear as day. Seventy years and then I'll bring you back. What I want us to look at in these verses, however, is the biblical concept of prayer.

What is prayer for Daniel? What does that look like and how can that inform us in our prayer life? Well, the first thing we see is that Daniel prayed according to the promises of God. Daniel prayed according to the promises of God. He prayed according to his knowledge of who God is based on those promises.

Daniel prayed with great knowledge of God. He knew who God was based on scripture. He knew exactly what God had done for his ancestors in Egypt, what God had promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob. Daniel knew the covenant. Daniel knew what God had promised to his forefathers: "I will be your God, you will be My people, and I will look after you."

He makes several statements about the character of God. Have a look. If you have your Bibles, have a look. In verse four, these are statements of fact of who God is: "O Lord, the great and awesome God."

God, regardless of our situation, I believe that You are great and You are awesome. And I believe this because I've seen it in the past. I know that this is true. Verse seven: "Lord, You are righteous." You are righteous.

Everything You do is right. Verse nine: "The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving." These are all statements about who God is, His knowledge of God. Lord, You are merciful and forgiving. Verse fourteen: "The Lord does not hesitate to bring the disaster upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything He does."

This is a prayer based on intimate knowledge of who God is. Daniel knew that God is righteous, meaning that He does what is right all the time. Daniel knew that God is merciful and forgiving. Daniel knew that God is powerful, that He's awesome, that He's able to bring out an entire nation from slavery in Egypt out into freedom.

Daniel knew who God was because he knew what? He knew the Bible. Remembering and appealing to the character of God, friends, is biblical praying. Remembering and appealing to the character of God is biblical praying. Reminding Him of how He's acted in the past, reminding Him of His acts of great mercy, of great forgiveness, of great power, comes across over and over again in the Bible.

Why could the people of Israel? Why could Daniel trust in this God that He would bring them out of this difficult situation, this seemingly impossible situation? Because at one time, at one time at least, God had done this before. Why is it that God will forgive our sins, Daniel asks? Because He is merciful and just and He forgave Israel their sins in the wilderness. Why will God do what is right?

Because He is always right. He does what is right. An intimate prayer life, our life of prayer, a prayer that is effective is one that is in line with God's will because we know who God is. We know what God's will is because we know who God is. We know His character.

And so when we pray, we bring back memories. We should go and hunt those memories. We should go and hunt those memories of what God has done in His word, what He has promised about Himself in His word and say, "God, I ask in my situation that this happens. Oh, God, I thank You that You are doing this because You are a God who loves. You are a God who forgives.

You are a God who acts powerfully." We can pray for our non-Christian friends to become Christians because we know that God is a missionary God. He went to Abram, a Gentile, heathen, idol worshipper in Chaldea, early day Babylon. He got him, rescued him before he even knew who God was. We can pray for our non-Christian friends because this is the God we serve.

He is a missionary God. We can ask these things from God because we know His character, because He has revealed so graciously this character to us. And friends, that gives us the greatest power in prayer. The second thing is we know what it looks like to come to God in biblical prayer because we know our place before an awesome God.

We know our place before an awesome God. Prayer that is in line with God's will is essentially humble. It is essentially humble. Daniel knew his place before an awesome, just, holy God. This is a prayer that understands the brokenness and imperfections of human beings when compared to the holiness of this God they serve.

In particular, Daniel knew that it was sin, his sin and his people's sin that had brought them into this place of being separated from God's blessings. You would have been thick to have missed it. It came over through and through: "It was our sin. It was our sin."

Verse five: "O Lord, we have sinned and we have done wrong." Verse seven: "Lord, You are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame." Verse nine: "The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving even though we have rebelled against Him." God, it is our sin. It is our brokenness.

It is our imperfection that has caused us to be in this position. And isn't it almost refreshing how honest this prayer is? And I wonder if it's not refreshing because our prayer life doesn't really look like this. Daniel never says it was our forefathers' fault, which was a common objection if you read the other prophets of that time. We blame our forefathers for their sin and now we're stuck in Babylon.

Daniel says it was our prayer. I'm included in that. It was our sin. We deserve to be here. We can be so arrogant sometimes in our thought life, which flows across into our prayer life, can't we?

God, give me this job. I deserve it. No, you don't. God, give me a wife. I deserve it.

No, you don't. If we really believe that everything we have is purely a gift of grace from God, nothing we have, nothing we desire, we deserve. In fact, every heartbeat that you have is a gift of God. None of us here, if we were ever to have a heart attack, could will ourselves into having another heartbeat in a regular time. We couldn't do that.

Every single heartbeat is a gift of God. No amount of deserving, no amount of willpower is going to save you from a failed heart. Friends, when we understand that everything we have is a grace gift of God, our prayer life can't help but be affected. A prayer life that understands that we are broken, we that rely fully and wholly on God's grace is a prayer that is grounded in humility. It is always grounded in humility.

It will always come from a place of humility. So biblical prayer is knowing our place, our condition, our situation before this God who is holy, powerful, righteous, awesome. The third thing we see is that biblical prayer knows about grace. Biblical prayer knows about grace.

It knows what it means. Listen to what Daniel says or prays for, at least, for his people, right? If you ever wanted to hear Paul in the Old Testament, read these verses. Daniel says, "Now our God, hear the prayers and petitions of Your servant. For Your sake, O Lord,

look with favour on Your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, O God, and hear. Open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your name. Listen to this: We do not make requests of You because we are righteous, but because of Your great mercy."

Jews in that time didn't believe, I don't think, faithful Jews didn't believe that they could win God over by their good actions because of Your great mercy, God, not because of our requests, not because of our goodness. A humble prayer life knows what grace is and prays accordingly. Daniel understood the concept of grace. Grace is receiving something that you completely and utterly do not deserve. Grace in its purest and truest form is something that will astound us.

Friends, grace in its purest, most unadulterated form will always astound us every single time. That's why I can preach the gospel every single Sunday, and I can be moved to tears every single Sunday. Grace astounds us every single time. Grace in its truest form will never go unnoticed. That's why I feel I can always preach it and people will still be moved by it.

Our hearts will still be warmed by it because it will never go unnoticed. And Daniel had his eyes fixed on this grace. He knew that grace is something that comes to us despite ourselves. Tim Keller in his book "Prodigal God" talks about how Jesus taught this concept of grace to His people. Keller explains that Jesus often taught that it's the humble that are in the kingdom of God and it's the proud that are out.

Why? Keller says the people who confess that they aren't particularly good or even open minded are the ones moving towards God because the prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know you need it. The prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know you need it. The people who think that they are just fine, thank you very much, are the ones moving away from God. And then Tim Keller quotes this.

He says, "When a newspaper posed this question, 'What's wrong with the world?' the Christian writer G.K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a letter in response. And he simply said this: 'Dear Sirs, I am. Yours sincerely, G.K. Chesterton.'" What is wrong with the world?

I am. For someone who has grasped the message of grace in the gospel, your prayer life will forever be changed. And then lastly, a fourth point. The fourth and final point of biblical prayer is the hope that our faith rests on. That is not simply knowing what grace means, but knowing what it does.

After Daniel prays this prayer of great confession, of great humility, of throwing himself upon the mercy of God from verses one to nineteen, we find in verses twenty to twenty-seven the result of this prayer. Daniel writes it. This is what happened as a result of this prayer. He says that the angel Gabriel came to him. "As these words were still on his lips, the angel Gabriel came to him," and he gave him a message of hope.

Verses twenty-four will just summarise it. The angel said to Daniel, "Seventy sevens are decreed for you and your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy." Angel Gabriel comes to Daniel and says there's a time coming where this sin that you have confessed will be atoned for. It will be cleared.

It will be dealt with once and for all. Seventy sevens would need to pass from the time of Daniel's prayer till this event would happen, he says. Now friends, you may have a different perspective on end times to me. You may have a different perspective on prophecies of Daniel. I want to warn us that we should be intellectually humble when we deal with these prophecies and we should hold them loosely, but I want to share with you something that astounded me in this passage.

We could view this "seventy sevens" as just symbolic of perfection. God uses symbols of the number seven often to replicate perfection. God is known as the triple seven. He is perfection, right?

So "seventy sevens" could mean that in the fullness of time, God will fix this situation. But there's an amazing coincidence, if you want to call it that, that "seventy sevens" translated in Hebrew is seventy times seven years, equates to four hundred ninety, right? Now, that's great. I can see you can use your calculator. But coincidentally, when Daniel was praying this, it was about five hundred years BC before Christ. In this time, Gabriel says, verse twenty-five, the anointed one would come.

The ruler, they call Him, would come and there will be seven sevens and sixty-two sevens, and after the sixty-two sevens, the anointed one will be cut off and will have nothing. It is in this time verse twenty-four states that there will be an atonement for wickedness. Where else, my question is, in the end times does atonement for sin happen? It doesn't. Because there was only ever one sacrifice made once and for all.

And we have the prophet Isaiah who prophesied this in Isaiah 53:4: "Surely He took up our pain and He bore our suffering. And we considered Him punished by God. We considered Him stricken by Him and afflicted. But this one was pierced for our transgressions. He was cut up for our iniquities.

The punishment that brought us peace, punishment that brought us salvation was upon Him, and by His wounds, we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us have turned to our own way, yet the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Friends, that is a definition of atonement, and that is about the anointed one that would come. I believe what happened here is that God said to Daniel, "Yes, seventy years will come and I will send you guys back. I've made that promise, but your sin still hasn't been dealt with.

I will relent, I will restore, but I need to deal with this properly once and for all. Believe it or not, in Daniel nine we find the prophecy of Christ coming, someone that would deal with this once and for all. And what I think we see here is that biblical prayer is casting our hope upon this great truth of God's grace, of God's forgiveness, of God's ultimate sacrifice and atonement for us. The vindictive and the fickle God of the Old Testament, you won't find in Daniel nine. And Daniel knew this God and he prayed according to this God's character.

He knew that God is a God of mercy and grace. And we see that not only did God overlook the terrible sins of Israel and restore them and bring them back after seventy years according to His promise, but five hundred years later He sent Jesus, His son to die. But not just for the sins of Israel, but for the world. His mercy, His grace, His character has been shown in that moment at its most glorious, at its most superb in that death and that resurrection of our saviour Jesus. So we can pray and we should pray according to the knowledge of who God is, His character, who He has shown Himself to be in the past.

We should pray and come to Him humbly knowing our position before this God. We should come understanding what it means to have grace, that He is a God of grace, but then friends, we should have great hope that He is a God of grace. And we have seen this grace, we have tasted this grace ultimately in Jesus Christ. Hallelujah, friends. Let's pray.

Almighty God, we do humbly draw to You this morning. Father, even from the beginning of this service, we could sense, Lord, as we heard Your truth sung and proclaimed to one another, that we do come in a state of surrender, that we can only come as we are, Father, because we are broken. We are imperfect. Father, our shame is very great. And yet Father, we come with a great hope, an almost absurd hope that the God of the universe, the God who is awesome and powerful will hear us, that He will incline His ear to us, that He will draw near to us as we draw near to Him.

Father, I pray that You will convict our hearts by the power of Your Spirit about how our prayer life looks, how we do draw near to You. Father, what we ask for, what we intercede for, what we thank You for, Father, that we may pray first and foremostly according to who You are, not what we are, not what we hope to be, not what we think we deserve, who You are, first and foremost, that we may adore You for that. But Father, then in confession and thankfulness and in supplication, Father, that we may bring our needs and our thanksgivings, our gratitude before You as well. Father, as we journey this month in prayer, Father, as we as a church journey in our walk with You, our discipleship of You, as we commit ourselves to relationships of just simply reading Your word together, Father, as we do these basic things right, I pray, Lord, that You will give us motivation and urgency, that You will not let us go, that You will not let us fall into old habits. Father, that we may do what is right, that we may do what You have commanded of us according to Your word.

Father, thank You lastly for Your Son Jesus. Thank You for this great promise that we find so many years before He came, that a time would be coming that it was all going to be okay, that it would all be fixed, that You would ultimately win the battle. Father, thank You for this great hope. We place our identity and self-worth in this. We rejoice in that.

We gain great pleasure in that as well. Thank You, Lord, that we may be with You forevermore and enjoy Your presence for eternity. In Jesus' name, we pray all these things, and we thank You in His name. Amen.