 With that said, we're going to be looking at chapter 9 here in the book of Daniel. And because we're having Communion tonight, I wanted to make sure that I left ample time for us to be able to enjoy Communion without me rushing through the study. And so what we'll do today is we're going to be dividing Daniel chapter 9 into two segments. We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 19 tonight, then next week, God willing, as we gather, we'll pick up at verse 20 and go to the conclusion at verse 27. And so today, we're going to be looking at Daniel's prayer, Daniel's prayer that's found here in the book of Daniel chapter 9, and it's found in verses 1 through 19. Actually prayer is found in verses 3 through 19, but we'll be looking at verses 1 through 19 as we continue our series through the book of Daniel. So I'm going to read to you out of chapter 9 verses 1 and 2, and we'll get into our study. And as is my normal way of doing things, for you to understand basically what is taking place, I'm going to lay a foundation for you. It's going to take a while to do. And then I'm going to pick up on the prayer in verse 3 and go to and conclude at verse 19. So we'll look at verses 1 and 2, give a prolonged introduction and foundation and then move into verse 3 and speak of the prayer of Daniel. So Daniel chapter 9, beginning at verse 1, verses 1 and 2, in the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that he, that God, would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And so we'll look at verses 1 and 2. Again, I'm going to lay a foundation for you, give you some information and remind you of a few things that we've already looked at. And then we'll move into verse 3 and look at his prayer. So what we have, here's your introduction in chapter 9. Chapter 9 reveals to us what is called the third vision of Daniel. The third vision of Daniel. The first vision that we have that he recorded for us was found in chapter 7. The second vision that is recorded for us is chapter 8. And so here we are in chapter 9 and once again, we have a third vision. And so chapter 9 begins by referring to a prophecy, a prophecy that had been recorded by a prophet by the name of Jeremiah. Now Jeremiah prophesied in Israel from 627 to 580 BC. Jeremiah, in his prophecies, revealed a judgment. He revealed that God was going to bring a 70-year judgment on the nation of Israel, and that he was going to do that through Babylon. If you take notes, Jeremiah chapter 25 verses 10 and 11 says, I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. And this whole land shall be desolation and an astonishment. And these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. And so Jeremiah had prophesied that it would be a Babylonian captivity that would last 70 years and the Lord brought the judgment upon Israel. And the reason God brought judgment on the nation of Israel is basically because he disregarded his law. You see, God had made a statement, God had actually warned them that if the nation were to reject his law, he would bring judgment. In the Old Testament book of 2 Chronicles chapter 7 verses 19 through 21, this is when Solomon had dedicated the temple. In that point, in that place of scripture, God said, if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I've given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, and then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. This temple will become a heap of rubble. All who pass by will be appalled and say, why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple? People will answer because they have forsaken the Lord, the God of their ancestors who brought them out of Egypt and have embraced other gods, worshipping and serving them. That is why he brought all this disaster upon them. And so when the dedication of the temple was taking place, and Solomon had prayed that God would bless the temple with his presence, God had warned them, as long as you keep my commands, my presence will be with you. But when you forsake my commands, I will bring judgment upon you. And so they had broken his law. And God, being true to his word, brought judgment. What had they done? Well, specifically, again, for those who take notes, they had disregarded what are called his land sabbaths or the sabbatical year, which was, and I'll read the scripture to you in a moment, but it's related to the resting of the land every seven years. They had disregarded his land sabbath, and they also had entered into idolatry. Now, the land sabbath was to allow the land to rejuvenate itself, to regain its fertility. They would work the land for six years, but let it rest the seventh. And so that was called a land sabbath or a sabbatical year. And what it was intended to do was to allow the land to rejuvenate itself because it was being over farmed, but it also taught Israel to rely on the Lord. And what they would do in that year of sabbath is they would rely on the Lord by taking that which was produced naturally on the land. You see that in Leviticus chapter 25, verses six and seven. In Leviticus 25, three through five, it says this, it says, for six years, sow your field. For six years, prune your vineyards and gather their crops, but in the seventh year, the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. And so God had warned Israel to observe the year of land rest, but they had not. Again, in Leviticus 26, 33 through 35, he said, I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies. Then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it. And so the result of them not observing that particular law was that they were exiled to Babylon for 70 years. Second Chronicles 36, 20 and 21, he carried into exile to Babylon the remnant who escaped from the sword. They became servants to him and his successors until the kingdom of Persia came to power. The land enjoyed its sabbath rests. All the time of its desolation it rested until the 70 years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah. And so one, they had not observed the sabbath rest, but they also entered into idolatry. There's a question Jeremiah asks in chapter two verse 11. Has the nation ever changed its gods? Yet they are not gods at all. But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols. My people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols. Has the nation ever changed its gods? What do you think? We see that even in our day, don't we? Has the nation changed its gods? Absolutely. Well, in the case of Israel, judgment came. The Lord dealt with them. Judgment happened. Though judgment occurs, God also has promised mercy. You find that in Jeremiah 29, 10 through 14. It says, thus says the Lord, after 70 years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me. When you search for me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I've driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I caused you to be carried away captive. You're gonna go into 70 years of captivity, but I will bring you back is this promise. In wrath, God remembers mercy. So Daniel was taken captive in 605 BC. It is now 538 BC. It's approximately 67 years later and the time promised by the Lord through Jeremiah is finally approaching. And so what happens is Daniel is revealing something to us. We'll be looking at this now. He's revealing to us his trust, his trust in God, but here's something if you wanna know something about following the Lord, his trust in God as revealed by his trust in God's promises. His trust in God is revealed by his trust in God's word. And that's what we're gonna be seeing here because as he's reading through the word of God, it says in verse two, as he's reading through the word of God and he's looking at the book of Jeremiah, that brings him peace and that brings him hope. Again, it says in verse two in the first year of his reign, I Daniel understood by the books. When he says understood by the books, he's speaking of the scripture, understood by the books, the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolation of Jerusalem. Where did his hope come from guys? It came from the word of God. That's where your hope always comes from by the way. It will always come not by some encouraging friend. It won't come from any other source other than the word of God. And that's where it came to him. He's reading through Jeremiah. And as he reads, he sees that God had made a promise of restoration and that God would accomplish 70 years in the desolation of Jerusalem. And as he's reading that and realizing that the time is about to come, he begins to pray. In verse three, I set my face toward the Lord God to make requests by prayer and supplications with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord, my God made confession and said, oh Lord, great and awesome God who keeps his covenant and mercy with those who love him and with those who keep his commandments, we've sinned, committed iniquity, we've done wickedly and rebelled even by departing from your precepts and your judgments. Neither have we heeded your servants to prophets who spoke in your name to our kings and our princes to our fathers and all the people of the land. Oh Lord, righteousness belongs to you but to us, shame of face as it is this day to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which you have driven them because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against you. Oh Lord, to us belongs shame of face to our kings, our princes, our fathers because we've sinned against you to the Lord our God, belong mercy and forgiveness though we've rebelled against him. We've not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws which he set before us by his servants to prophets. Yes, all Israel has transgressed your law and has departed so as not to obey your voice. Therefore the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses, the servant of God have been poured out on us because we've sinned against him. He has confirmed his words which he spoke against us and against our judges who judged us by bringing upon us a great disaster for under the whole heavens such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities and understand your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept the disaster in mind and brought it upon us for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which he does though we've not obeyed his voice. Now a Lord our God who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and made yourself a name as it is this day. We've sinned, we've done wickedly. Oh Lord according to all your righteousness I pray let your anger and your fury be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers Jerusalem your people are reproached to all those around us. Now therefore our God hear the prayer of your servant and his supplications and for the Lord's sake cause your face to shine on your sanctuary which is desolate. Oh my God, incline your ear and hear open your eyes see our desolations and the city which is called by your name for we do not present our supplications before you because of our righteous deeds but because of your great mercies. Oh Lord hear, oh Lord forgive, oh Lord listen and act. Do not delay for your own sake my God for your city and your people are called by your name. What a beautiful prayer, what a beautiful prayer. I remember when I prayed that prayer, no, all right. Notice how he begins in verse three I set my face toward the Lord God to make requests by prayer and supplications. And so what happened as he was reading the word of God as he was reading the prophet Jeremiah he was moved to pray and he was moved to fast. And as he began his prayer, I want you to see this. Notice how he begins, he made a confession of sin. Now we're gonna look at that in a moment but let's think about prayer and some of the aspects of prayer because as I was going through this and as I was preparing my heart I began to think of how prayer is so common in our own minds that sometimes we generalize it to the degree that we may miss some things that the Lord would have us to know about prayer and how it is when we pray and those kinds of things because it's been said that prayer in its most basic form is simply communication with God and as believers as those who have trusted in him as believers we have access to God and we've been given as Christians we've been given access to God through Jesus Christ his son, right? No one comes to the father Jesus said but by me Jesus Christ is our mediator and so we go through our high priest Jesus Christ as we pray to the father and so access has been granted to us because of the blood of Christ that was poured out on our behalf to washes of our sin and to make it possible for us to have a communication a relationship with God through what is called prayer in the Old Testament you have God making various promises to those who pray Jeremiah 33 verse three call into me and I will answer the I'll show you great and mighty things which thou know as not it's an invitation call into me I will answer you and so God gives us an invitation to come to him you see a similar kind of thing in the New Testament in the book of Hebrews in chapter four verse 16 for example where it says let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need there's an invitation that has been given to us by God to approach him and a confidence that we have because of Jesus Christ his righteousness and the forgiveness of our sins through him so we can now approach the throne of grace because of Jesus Christ and so prayer is between the father and his child when you read your Bible you're gonna see that in scripture there are various forms of prayer I'm not gonna go through all of them there were several of them but I'll remind you of a few things that relate to prayer as I developed this one of the things about prayer is that when you're approaching God in prayer it's actually an act of worship when you're approaching God in prayer it's an act of worship because you're worshiping God for who he is when you look at these verses for example we're worshiping God verse 14 because of his righteous works when we approach him in prayer there's an act of worship because in verse 15 it speaks of his mighty hand in verse 16 that verse speaks of his righteousness in verse 18 speaks of his mercies and so because he's righteous he's mighty, he's merciful that gives to us some insight into what it's like to approach the throne of God to obtain mercy and help in our time of need because God is approachable and as we do so and pray very often what we also do is we're giving him thanks for all that he's done when you pray I would encourage you by the way when you're having your time with the Lord and you're praying and speaking to him remember to thank him for how good he's been to you many people sometimes, well many of us forget in many ways it's like I just have such needs I forget to say God but how good you've been you've answered so many prayers how many prayers has he answered for you so many of them, so many and you say oh I don't remember the ones he's answered I only know the ones he didn't answer shut up cry baby aren't you glad that he sometimes said no you ought to be, you ought to be because if God answered all of my prayers I'd be married to the wrong woman because I used to say that, I used to say God give me her in Jesus' name I claim her, I read somewhere you would say all I need to do is ask and it's mine no I'm grateful I thank God for the unanswered prayers so the Lord has his will we come to him with thanksgiving we approach his throne with a confidence but we pray according to his will and as we do so the Lord has a way of making sure that his will is what he's done and so we have this heart of thanksgiving like it says in Psalm 100 verse four enter his gates with thanksgiving enter his courts with praise gift thanks to him, bless his name and so we come to God and we pray we lift up our thanksgiving but we also make our supplications to him you see that in verse 18 where he speaks of making supplication that the word supplication as he's applying it here in this prayer is to humbly plead with God with humility it is to plead with him and Philippians in the New Testament chapter four verse six Paul said it like this he said be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God and so you come to the Lord and you supplicate you ask him humbly you plead you beg with him, beg to him humbly God I have a brother who's very sick Lord I have a marriage that's on the rocks Father I have a child who's not doing well Lord my health is going down the tubes I don't know what I'm going to do God I'm going to lose my job Father I can't pay my bills how many times have you I how many times have we approached the throne of grace asking for mercy but pleading with God for his help and that's what we do so prayer is not only just remembering who he is and how powerful he is and it's not simply the attitude of thanksgiving being aware of the fact that he hears and does respond but there's also this time of pleading with God and saying God I just I need your help Lord I don't know what I'm going to do and I frankly I just have to just drop it on your lap Jesus because I don't know even how to pray Paul speaks concerning how there are times when our prayers we don't even know the right words he says this to the Romans and he says that the spirit actually intercedes on our behalf making groanings that are unutterable there are times that the spirit of the Lord actually is working within you saying the things you don't know how to say aren't you glad that you have that ability there are times when I've prayed the Lord and my prayers have been as simple as just God you know, God you know there have been times and I didn't have the words I didn't know how to speak I didn't know how to put into words the things that I was going through or experiencing I didn't even know how to ask but I did know that he knew and seeing that he knows the words that have yet to be even formed on my tongue he knows all things there have been many times when I've simply said to the Lord Father you know, God you know and one thing I can say about the Lord is we can trust him because he loves us and Daniel is praying and there are certain ingredients that you see in his prayer but in this particular situation and I want to highlight something here because in this situation as he's praying he's offering a prayer of confession and repentance now when I was in Bible college I had a professor his name was Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Mitchell was teaching us through the book of Daniel and he a marvelous teacher a great Bible scholar and as he was sharing with us he said something I've never forgotten let me share it with you he said in the book of Daniel you never find a sin attributed to him you don't you never see it saying and Daniel stubbed his toe and cussed I mean you never see a sin attributed to Daniel it's not that he didn't sin of course all have sin fall short of the glory of God all because of our human nature we are all by nature sinners so I am not saying and my professor did not say that Daniel was a perfect man he simply said this and it has impacted me I was 23 years old when I heard this and it has impacted me all these years since hearing it and that was very simply that Daniel may not have had a sin attributed to him but Daniel as a righteous man identified with those who were sinners because he starts saying several times we have sinned we have sinned keep that in mind because sometimes we can fall prey to self righteousness where we begin to ask questions like how could you do something like that? Have you ever said that or even thought that? How could you do something like that? Well, they can do something like that because I can do something like that why is that? Because I am still a person who battles the flesh and because there are circumstances sometimes and conditions sometimes that lend themselves to me making bad decisions and a long time ago the Lord began to teach me and hopefully he's taught us no, you're no better than that other person there never forget that they fail and so do you and Daniel's a great example of this because even though there's nothing here in scripture that ever points to a sin he committed yet he begins by saying we have sinned against you notice how it says in verse three I set my face toward the Lord God to make requests by prayer and supplications, fasting, sackcloth, ashes those are all signs of mourning I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession and said, oh Lord great and awesome God who keeps his covenant and mercy with those who love him with those who keep his commandments we have sinned and committed iniquity we have done wickedly and rebelled even by departing from your precepts and your judgments he didn't isolate himself but he identified himself as somebody who was very capable of being exactly what he was praying about this is what has been called a model of a model prayer of confession and repentance again in verse five he said we have sinned, committed iniquity done wickedly, rebelled when he uses the word sinned we have sinned that word sin means to miss the mark to miss the goal or path of what is right what is proper we have sinned we've missed the mark when he uses the word iniquity the word iniquity means to be twisted it even speaks of perversion and being unjust when he uses the word wickedly we've done wickedly the word wickedly speaks of doing something that is morally evil when he says that we've rebelled we have voluntarily rejected your law and your commands and that's what he's saying we've sinned, committed iniquity done wickedly, rebelled even by departing from your precepts and your judgments we have disobeyed you notice verse six neither have we heeded your servants the prophets who spoke in your name to our kings and our princes to our fathers and all the people of the land we have disobeyed those whom you appointed to speak for you we have rejected what they have to say we are rejecting the words of your prophets we refuse to listen to you through their word that you gave to them to communicate to us we would not listen to those whom you appointed to speak on your behalf and as you read this and you hear this you say to yourself we say to ourselves yeah that was pretty stupid of them to do that they should have listened right Jeremiah had warned them Isaiah had warned them you know so many had given warnings God through his word and by his law had warned them it's all there and when the prophets like Jeremiah would stand up and say 70 years are determined for desolation they refuse and so we today we say man they didn't listen but guess what neither do we neither does the church even today and I've discovered after many years of ministry I can begin first with myself how I've had difficulty hearing when God speaks a word of conviction to me but I can also speak as a servant of the Lord as a pastor of a church as a teacher of the word how many times people have refused to hear what the Lord is saying through his word listen when God's word is rightly divided and rightly presented we need to remember that it is the Lord by his spirit who is speaking to us we need to remember that remember a moment ago we just saw in verse two how Daniel said that he was going through the word and Jeremiah who is God's prophet had spoken a word that he received well even so when the word of God even in our day is being divided the word of God is anointed by God inspired by God and when rightly divided and presented is the voice of the Lord speaking to his body of the church that's what it is in Matthew in chapter 10 verse 20 Jesus said it is not you who are speaking it's the spirit of your father who's speaking in you and so the Lord when his word is rightly divided and we're listening to it or reading it ourselves that's really the voice of the Lord speaking in Hebrews 13 verse seven it says remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you consider the outcome of their way of life imitate their faith and so what was going on then as he's confessing it I have to be real with you when I say it continues to do so today God had spoken clearly but they rejected the message and in rejecting his message they rebelled and came under judgment he says in verse seven oh Lord righteousness belongs to you but to us shame of face as it is this stage to the men of Judah to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel those near and those far off in all the countries to which you have driven them because of the unfaithfulness which they've committed against you oh Lord to us belongs shame of face to our kings our princes our fathers because we sinned against you the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness that we have rebelled against him so he's continuing his prayer and he's simply saying God you're righteous we deserve everything that has happened to us we cannot blame you in verse nine when he says to you belong mercy and forgiveness he's appealing to God's mercy on behalf of the people so he's intervening he's interceding on their behalf God be merciful and he says in verse ten he goes we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws which he said before us by his servants of prophets yes all Israel has transgressed your law and has departed so as not to obey your voice therefore the curse of the oath written in the law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us because we have sinned against him and he has confirmed his words which he spoke against us and against our judges who judged us by bringing upon us a great disaster for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem we've rebelled against God and God you brought judgment God you have been true to your word you've done what you said you would do notice how he says in verse twelve he confirmed his words which he spoke against us and against our judges he confirmed his words when you look in Joshua chapter 24 verse 20 it reads if you forsake the Lord and serve for in God's then he will turn and do you harm and consume you after he's done you good now though we are under the grace of God and isn't that a sweet thing to know we're under God's grace though we are under the grace of God that doesn't mean we can get away with things it doesn't mean that sometimes we seem to think that we we can simply because we've been saved by grace I I think of the scripture that speaks concerning God's discipline Hebrews 12 6 and 7 the Lord disciplines the one he loves he chastens everyone he accepts as his son endure hardship as discipline God is treating you as his children what children are not disciplined by their father there are times when when you may be going through something and I know this isn't pleasant for the moment but I'll share it with you anyway that you may be going through something and you begin to think God doesn't love you anymore you know sometimes what you're going through is because God loves you God is disciplining you and you may not like it and who does discipline for the moment is not pleasant you know but afterwards it yields up what is called the peaceful fruit of righteousness of those who have been exercised by it I'm being chased by the Lord whom the Lord loves he chastens he's Alice therefore scripture says in repent and so sometimes you may be going through something and you may think that it's because God doesn't love you but in fact what it is as God's chasing he's spanking you why is he spanking you because he loves you now I'm not saying go home and say God beat me today I'm not saying that I'm simply saying that that's part of the way that the Lord does deal with you why because if he didn't deal with you then the writer of Hebrews in the same chapter that I was just quoting out of chapter 12 the writer of Hebrews would say if he doesn't discipline you that that's because you're not his child he disciplines you because he because he's your father he disciplines you because you are his child sometimes we may do something that really deserves a good spanking and uh... and we don't understand it so we try to get out from underneath the the chastening I I am constant remember a conversation I had over forty years ago now with a young woman that I used to know at one time been part of our fellowship and she approached me and she said to me pastor could you pray for me I said of course what can I pray about she says well I slept with a guy and I think I'm pregnant and I asked her I still remember asking her what do you ask me to pray for what is it do you want me to pray for because in fact what you was asking me to pray for was for her not to be pregnant now is that the proper thing I should have prayed for oh god may this baby vanish disappear have its personal rapture what am I supposed to pray for and so I had a conversation with her about that and I said listen what what we will pray for is that the Lord will give you wisdom in how to deal with this but I also will especially pray that you will become aware of the fact that sin has repercussion that you reap what you sow and that when you sow to the flesh from the flesh you will reap corruption and you need to be aware of if you enter into a relationship that is not sanctioned by God that you ultimately may have a price you paid that you didn't bargain on and so instead of asking me to pray that somehow you not be pregnant perhaps we ought to pray that you get right with God because that's the real problem we have right now because if you were right with the Lord you would want to honor him and you would honor him with your body and your spirit which belong to him which means that you would avoid fornication and you would yield your body to Christ as a living sacrifice to be used by God for his service that's what I'm going to pray for but not that a baby miraculously disappears from your womb because if you're pregnant you're going to have to deal with your pregnancy now that may sound cruel but I don't think that it was what I was trying to do was encourage her to repent and do the right thing before the Lord you can't just magically wish away the deeds of the flesh and not expect the Lord to chase in you and sometimes people get mad at God because they think God is treating them unfairly when in fact God is simply true to his word he's keeping the promise he made to us that he would chase in us that he would deal with us why? because he's our father so what's the best thing to do? the best thing to do is do your best to follow the Lord as his word declares and walk in his spirit that's what Christians do anyway, amen that's what we're supposed to do is walk in his spirit that's the key I know that sounds simplistic but that's the truth and so here he's speaking to us and all and he's making this prayer to God and we're reading it rather and he goes on in verse 13 and he says as is written in the law of Moses all this disaster has come upon us yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities and understand your truth therefore the Lord has kept the disaster in mind and brought it upon us for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which he does though we have not obeyed his voice God is true to his word and God has brought this upon us and we haven't repented you see the Lord had no options he had to bring judgment because God keeps his word and it's our fault he's saying we've brought this upon ourselves we're reaping the consequences and verse 15 he says now oh Lord our God who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with the mighty hand and made yourself a name as it is this day we have sinned we have done wickedly so he's made his confession of sin he's recognized God's righteousness Israel has deserved what has happened but now he begins to move towards asking God for his mercy you see in the past God you have been merciful to us please be merciful once again you delivered us from Egypt please deliver us once more even though we have sinned verse 16 oh Lord according to all your righteousness I pray let your anger and your fury be turned away from your city Jerusalem your holy mountain because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers Jerusalem and your people are reproached to all those around us now therefore our God hear the prayer of your servant and his supplications and for the Lord's sake cause your face to shine on your sanctuary which is desolate oh my God incline your ear and here open your eyes and see our desolations and the city which is called by your name for we do not present our supplications before you because of our righteous deeds but because of your great mercies oh Lord here oh Lord forgive oh Lord listen and act do not delay for your own sake my God for your city and your people are called by your name what a beautiful prayer and what a beautiful way for him to close remember Solomon when I had read the prayer of Solomon and the response that God had given to him and in that response God had said people will be appalled when they see the temple well Daniel is saying that when God restores him it's going to reveal how great God actually is because the restoration is going to resulting glory to God once again Israel is going to be able to be there in Jerusalem make sacrifices to him and so in taking away Israel's reproach God will be seen by the world as merciful he says in verse 18 we are not righteous but you are merciful and then he says in verse 19 here oh Lord forgive oh Lord listen and act and do not delay this prayer of confession and repentance this request for restoration is the kind of prayer God delights in answering and because Daniel lived a holy life and because Daniel with humility confessed on behalf of the people including himself and because Daniel had a knowledge of the mercy of God Daniel was able to approach the Lord and say God on behalf of Israel I pray that you would move I pray that you would restore us I pray that you would act and I pray that you would do it soon and these are the things that are going to move the Lord and we're going to see this next time we get together that's moving the Lord to answer I would encourage all of us and I'll close with this because we're going to have communion now I'll close with this one when you look at the life of Daniel you can look at his life and you can say Lord I'd like to have a faith like Daniel I'd like to live a holy life that's one thing too when you look at him confessing sin and realizing that he really doesn't have a recorded sin but identifies with those who have sinned God I want to have a humble life I never want to be a person who thinks of myself more highly than I ought to think help me to be help me to be humble help me to be humble God has a way of humbling me guys he humbles me all the time I don't like it I was at a prayer meeting for the city the cities of Chino and Chino Hills and there were five or six pastors who had been invited to pray and I was the closing pastor to pray at this particular city prayer meeting and so all these guys are going up and they're praying and it's wonderful and all of that and so I go walking up and the fellow who was MCing says and now we have and I was standing up to the side they're ready to go up and pray to close he says and now we have and he looks at his notes and he says to be honest with you I don't even know his name sorry I don't have your name down here and the Lord says you're important aren't you he has done that to me so many times I laugh now I do I laugh now it's happened so many times I don't know your name that's okay listen there's only one name that needs to be known and that's the name of Jesus that's the only name that matters anyway right if you he reminds me of that all the time I had to change my name to Jesus just so that so my name would be remembered you can call me chewy but you know humility God has a way of keeping you humble you never think of yourself as better than you really are never and so we know that but we also know that we should trust in the mercy of God do you want to be used by the Lord live a life that is separated live a life that has humility and live a life aware of the mercy of God and when you pray because of those realities you're going to learn how to pray according to the will of the Father not trying to dictate what he'll do but trusting that whatever he does will be best because there used to be an old TV program you can still see him on some of these old shows and he knows best and he does your Father always knows best so trust your Father and so that's why you come to him and you humbly say God I'm a sinner but you are merciful on behalf of my friends and on behalf of myself Lord forgive us restore us show yourself strong on our behalf and as you do we pray for the glory of your grace to the watching world and they will know that these people are people who are blessed by their God in a land of barrenness in a land that is filled with idolatry may we stand in this land as bright and shining lights in the midst of the darkness may we show the light of the Father through our humility and dependence on you God help us and I think that Daniel's prayer is still appropriate for us today