Daniel 9 verses 1 through 19. Here, for this is the word of the Lord. In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, by descent Amid, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years. Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking Him by prayer and pleas for mercy, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. 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, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled. Turning aside from Your commandments and rules, 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. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out upon us because we have sinned against him. He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us. Yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Therefore, the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done. And we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, Let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. Oh my God, incline your ear in here. Open your eyes and see our desolations and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. Oh Lord, hear. Oh Lord, forgive. Oh Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not for your own sake, oh my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. Thanks be to God for His holy word this morning. In the Reformed tradition, our order of worship is based on a dialogue. There is a conversation going on between God and His people. There is a call and response that is present throughout our worship service. God calls us to worship by His Word, so we respond with confessing our sins, invocation, that is calling on His name and acknowledging Him, then singing His praise. We hear his word again and again throughout the service as he speaks to us and so we respond with confessing our faith in his word, praising him for his revelation and prayer, laying our petitions before his throne and interceding for one another. This is sort of what we see going on in Daniel. In the last two chapters, seven and eight, God has spoken to Daniel. He revealed his word to Daniel and what was about to take place in the future, and Daniel would respond the only way he knew how. He prayed. He prayed. He was in a dialogue or a conversation with God. Today, we will consider how Daniel prayed in order to shed more light on how each and every one of us ought to pray in light of what God has revealed to us. But before we get there, let us consider what is most obvious in front of us. Our timeline has sort of been all over the place. In chapters 1 through 6, we made our way through the reign of three successive kings, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, then Darius the Mede. But beginning in chapter seven, we went back to the first year of King Belshazzar, where Daniel was given the first vision of the beasts, the Ancient of Days, and the Son of Man. In chapter eight, we skipped the second year to his third year of his reign, where Daniel was given the vision of the little horn, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Now we find ourselves in either two places. We either skipped over the reign of Cyrus and the vision he would receive in chapter 10 to the first year of the reign of Darius the Mede or He is speaking of Cyrus and Darius collectively as one reign. That's usually how they're taken as the Medo-Persian Empire together. So we presume that this is 26 years. after Daniel was given the vision of the ram, the goat, and the little horn, who would persecute God's people and desecrate God's temple in Jerusalem. The angel identified the ram as the Medo-Persian Empire, who would be conquered by the goat, which was the Greek Empire. In our current timeline, that was a prophecy to be fulfilled in the future. But today in our text, in the first year of Darius the Mede, something significant has just occurred in light of the visions that was given to Daniel in chapter seven and eight. The visions were beginning to come true. Babylon has just been conquered by the Medes and the Persians. King Darius and Cyrus has just taken the place of Belshazzar. And what is important to consider here is Daniel's response to these events. It was prophesied in both visions that he received, and so like the good student of the Bible he was, he turned to the Scriptures. He turned to God's Word. In other words, he didn't just rely on the visions that were given to him. He went to the Scriptures to search, to study, and then to submit to God's sovereign providence. He went to the place in the Scriptures where the visions and the events that were taking place were prophesied. And this would confirm that what God revealed to him, which was what he was writing down for us today, was in fact God's Word as well. Daniel, you can say, interpreted Scripture with Scripture. And this proves that the scriptures are thoroughly and completely consistent with one another. So Daniel would have went to Jeremiah chapters 25 and 29, where these events were prophesied a generation earlier, describing how the desolation of Jerusalem would last for 70 years. It says in Jeremiah 25, 11 to 12, the whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. Then after 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste. Then later in chapter 29, verse 10, for thus says the Lord, When 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place, namely Jerusalem. This is what would happen during the reign of King Cyrus. So the promise of the Lord that he will judge Babylon and bring back his people to Jerusalem after 70 years informs the background to Daniel's prayer. His prayer is a response to God's promises in His Word. He is praying that God would fulfill what He has promised in His Word. Now, think of the content of your prayers. What informs and dominates your prayers? Is it God's Word? Do we pray for God's promises to be fulfilled? I sense that a lot of times our prayers are often rushed or trivial, consumed with self-interest. We thank Him when things are good and cry for help when things are bad, but how often do we remember God's promises in our prayers? Not that doing either of those things are wrong, but do we ever anchor our prayers in the promises He has made to His people throughout the Scriptures? Remember some of these promises. He has promised that if we confess our sins, He would forgive us our sins. He has promised to give us peace that the world does not know. He has promised to be with us to the end of the age and to walk with us even in the valley of the shadow of death. He has promised that He would complete the good work that He has begun in us. He has promised to sanctify us, in other words. He has promised to deliver us, even in death, and to bring us into His presence where He will wipe away every tear that we shed in this world. Do these promises lay a foundation for your prayers? So let us now consider Daniel's prayer. Here, the structure of Daniel's prayer is similar to how Jesus taught his disciples to pray in what some call the Lord's Prayer, the Padre Nostra, or the Our Father. I prefer calling it the Disciple's Prayer. Although it is in a different order, there are striking parallels. First, there is the calling on and hollowing of God's name in verses three to four. This is what we call invocation. We're invoking his name. Then second, there is the confession of sin in verses five through 15. And thirdly, we see his plea that God would deliver on his promises in verses 16 through 19. And what you will notice throughout this prayer is that he is not just seeking his own comfort or just the forgiveness of sins. It is not just a prayer of intercession. He intercedes for God's people, of course, but he also prays that God's kingdom would come. So this prayer is not just a prayer of self-interest, but it is also for the glory of God. First, let us consider Daniel calling on God's name. If we remember back in chapter six, Daniel would pray on his knees three times a day in his upper chamber or apartment with his windows open toward Jerusalem. It was open toward Jerusalem because that is where the promised land and the temple were located, and more importantly, it is in the land and the temple that God's glory resided. It is in the temple where sacrifices were made for the forgiveness of sins as well. But since God's people sinned and rebelled against him, he withdrew his glory presence from them. So once again, Daniel turned his face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer. And the first thing you'll notice about this prayer is that it is urgent and serious. Now this is something that we should all learn from today. If only we took our own personal sins more seriously. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because of the seriousness of his people's sins. And to demonstrate the grief that Daniel was experiencing, he made pleas for mercy with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. This was to signify that he was mourning over the sins of God's people and all that was destined to take place in the 70 years. So Daniel turned to God and made confession. And he does so first by acknowledging that God is great and awesome. He begins and ends his confession with ascribing to God that he is great and awesome, and how it was this God who brought his people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand. So this God is not only great and awesome, but he is also a God who keeps covenant with his people. In fact, for the first time, Daniel uses the word LORD, all caps, to refer to the covenant-keeping Yahweh eight times here. This is how God revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush, the I am who I am. He is the one who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments. That is an unwavering love, a love that will not change because He is who He is and He will always remain so. But we know all too well that as human sinners, we are not like Him. Those who were to love and keep His commandments didn't. love, and keep his commandments. So this means that despite all the repeated acts of rebellion that his people have committed in her history, God remains a loving and forgiving God reflected in the covenant he made with his people. So Daniel now calls on the unchanging Lord, all caps, who loves his people with an unchanging love, to hear his cry on behalf of God's covenant people in response to the promises found in his covenant. He intercedes for his people. So secondly, let us consider Daniel's confession of sin to God. Although Daniel is not a priest in that he doesn't offer sacrifices on behalf of God's people, he still interceded for them as a prophet. As a prophet, he was responsible not only for bringing the word of God to the people, but he was also responsible to pray to God for the people. Specifically, the prophet is to pray for their repentance and that the Lord would forgive them when they turn to him. And Daniel doesn't approach this prayer self-righteously. He identified himself with the corporate body of Israel as the entire nation sinned against God. He identified himself with God's people and their sins. This is similar to what we do when we corporately confess our sins together in the worship service. Even if we're not aware of particular sins mentioned, The hope is that we are made aware of our sinfulness in that confession, so we're not looking down at others around us. Daniel here includes himself in the list of sinners. Now, this is the difference between Daniel's lament and Jesus' lament when he wept, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing. Jesus there was lamenting as the sinless Lord of Israel, while Daniel confessed Israel's sin as a fellow sinner. Some would argue, well, Daniel said it, but he really didn't mean it. He was a remnant of Israel, only confessing Israel's sins as a nation. He didn't really sin with the rest of Israel. He was just identifying with Israel. But he is not as guilty or as bad as the rest of Israel. But that is not what he said. He said, we have sinned and done wrong and wickedly and rebelled. Later on in verse 20, Daniel said, while I was confessing my Sin. I hope that when we confess our sins corporately, that we're not just saying to ourselves, I'll say it with everyone else, but it really doesn't describe me all that well. I'm not that bad. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. We all are. And so Daniel confessed that he and the people of God have sinned against a loving and gracious God. In practice, their character reflected the exact opposite of the character of God. In fact, they rebelled by turning away from God. This is repeated throughout this confession that they turn aside from God's commandments and rules. They have not listened to the prophets who spoke to them in the name of the Lord. They have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws. Instead, they have transgressed his law. And there were consequences. These consequences were prophesied in Deuteronomy 28 in the blessings and curses. That is why Daniel said that the curse and oath that are written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out upon us because we have sinned against him. He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us by bringing upon us a great calamity, for under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. After Jerusalem was besieged by Babylon, Daniel confessed here that God's people still didn't learn their lesson. They continued in their rebellion despite being disciplined by God. He said, yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us. although the people of God were to reflect the character of God, yet they failed. One repeated theme throughout the Old Testament is one that I have repeated often throughout my pulpit ministry, and that is God's people failed. Israel failed in the old covenant arrangement set up by God through Moses. The character of the kings grew Increasingly worse, the religious leaders became corrupted. The people received the teachings of false prophets and killed the true prophets. Mind you, this still applies to God's people today. Although there were many benefits and good things that came out of what some people call Christendom, and that is a time when Christianity was the norm in society, Yet Christendom and all who were involved failed. It failed. And let us not make excuses or try to justify the sins of the past by speaking it away or trying to cover it up. That does no one a favor. God's people have sinned and failed throughout her history. And by acknowledging this, are we playing the accuser? Was Daniel playing the accuser when he was acknowledging the truth, when he didn't cover it up? Well, no. The difference between the accuser and Daniel, and hopefully in us, is that the accuser accuses God's people so that God would judge them. But we are honest and confess our sins because we are seeking God's favor and that he would restore the joy of our salvation. If we continue in sin and we feel no guilt about it, that is a bad sign. Now, although God's people failed in the old covenant, what stands out in the new covenant is that Christ has not failed. Christ has not failed. Every hero, each remnant of God's people, from Noah to Abraham to Moses to David to Daniel and his three friends, they all in some way reflect the character of Christ our Savior. Yet at the same time, they all failed in some way or another. They never lived up to the standard of God's law, unlike Christ. Every child of God, should be confessing their sin the way Daniel confessed it here. We're all included in this confession, and we all deserve the same wrath described here as well. The only way we are freed from the wrath of God is when Jesus becomes our head representative, the one who paid the ultimate price on our behalf, and who continues to intercede for us, just like Daniel, but much greater, as he sits at the right hand of the Father. So today, it is in his name that we seek the mercy and forgiveness of God. And what we see in verses seven through nine, and the closing of the confession in verses 14 through 15, is the contrast between God and his people. Listen to what he says in verses 14 through 15 first. For the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done. and we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord our God, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly." You get the sense that Daniel is not trying to make excuses for sin, nor is he trying to justify sin. He recognizes the reality of sin in the life of believers and the reality that God is not like us and we are not like Him. This is what the religious leaders of Jesus' day tried to ignore. In every dialogue between our Lord and those who sought to kill Him, there was an absence of self-awareness on their part. There was an absence of confession of sin. in their self-righteousness. They couldn't confess that they had sinned and done wickedly. That was what was missing on the part of the religious leaders. Legalism deceives people into believing that all the good works they have done is what appeases God. Then it leads us to ignore our own sinfulness. Again, in verses seven through nine, he contrasts what belongs to God versus what belongs to God's people. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness. But to us, open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near, and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God, belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him. We need to be honest with our sins. Trying to cover them up or justify our sins does no good. We need to be honest, individually, corporately, as a local, regional, national church. We need to recognize where and when we have failed. But despite all that the people of God have done against the Lord, Daniel appeals to God, who is all just, but who is also all merciful and forgiving. The God who keeps covenant promises. So thirdly, let us consider how Daniel made his pleas to God. Deuteronomy 28 prophesied that God's people would rebel and be driven out into exile where they would whore after foreign gods. But let us not forget Deuteronomy chapter 30, where it says, and when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice and all that I command you today with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you. and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you." So Daniel turned to the Lord, confessed his people's sin, and pleaded with God that he would fulfill this promise given in Deuteronomy, which was repeated later on in Jeremiah, chapter 25 and 29. He called on the Lord, appealing to the Lord's righteousness, that he would turn away his anger and wrath from Jerusalem. And instead he called on the Lord, appealing to his mercy and for his own sake, that he would shine his face upon or show favor on his sanctuary, which was desolate. He is calling for God's presence to return to the temple. He calls on the Lord to recognize the desolations of God's city, God's kingdom on earth, so to speak, and how it was ransacked. In other words, he was praying, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Listen to our shorter catechism as it answers. in Shorter Catechism 102. What do we pray for in the second petition in the Lord's Prayer? Answer, in the second petition, which is, thy kingdom come, we pray that Satan's kingdom may be destroyed, and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it, and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened. Daniel closes his prayer with the words of a humble servant, recognizing once again the difference between God and his people, and he gives reason why God ought to hear his prayer. It was for his own glory. It says this, for we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. Oh Lord, hear. Oh Lord, forgive. Oh Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not for your own sake, oh my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. See, the reflection of who God is and his character was to be found in God's people, but because of their sin, the reflection became just a shadow in the past. And in fact, Israel will never be the same again. Their light will always be dim. But God would not leave the world without a witness to himself. His kingdom and his glory would be manifested about 500 years later in the word who became flesh and dwelt among us. And it says, we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. His glory would shine brightest in the Lord Jesus Christ, who fulfilled what God's people failed to fulfill throughout her history, even down to today. Daniel was just a shadow of the one who was to come. Daniel, like Christ, presented himself as a representative of God's people, turned to the Lord in prayer and confession. The Lord would hear his cry and after the 70 years were completed, the Lord would bring his people back to Jerusalem through the Gentile king, King Cyrus. He would once again deliver his people by his mighty hand. So we should ask ourselves a few things. Do we ever pray acknowledging first the greatness of our God? Do we ever pray acknowledging, first and foremost, the greatness of our God? God is able to deliver us because He is all-powerful. I think we often pray little prayers because we're afraid of being disappointed, but remember how our Lord taught us to pray, thy kingdom come. That's a big prayer. That's an immense prayer. And remember, Daniel would never see his people return to Jerusalem. He would die in Babylon. But even in death, God would deliver him into the heavenly city of Jerusalem. We ought to always pray knowing that because God is great, He is able to deliver. Most importantly, He is able to deliver us from sin. He is able to sanctify us completely. So this should be our constant prayer, that we be made holy, that we be made more holy, more like Himself. See, God is not devoted to your comfort as much as He is devoted to your holiness. So we ought to pray that we are made more like Himself. but also we ought to acknowledge. We ought to acknowledge His grace and mercy. He is a loving and forgiving God who keeps covenant with His people. Let us remember His covenant fulfillment when He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to live, die on a cross, and be raised for us. Jesus Christ is the guarantee of our forgiveness, and He is the guarantee of our holiness. Every week when we receive the benediction at the end of the service, we are sent out in His name. We have been sealed with His name. So we go out in His name, with His name upon us, so that we would reflect Him in the world. So let us pray that we would reflect Him in the world. So be in the practice of confessing your sin. But the question is, how do we approach God's throne when confessing our sins? Is it just out of duty? With little acknowledgement of the holiness of God? Do you acknowledge how by your actions, you demonstrate how much you are not like Him? Do you pray like the Pharisee? acknowledging the actions of other men without acknowledging the holiness of God, saying, God, I thank you. I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. I believe we're approaching a time in the church where there will be self-righteousness running rampant? Or do we pray like the tax collector? God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Some would say, well, yes, but the tax collector must have repented. I believe he did. But that doesn't mean he spent the rest of his life praying like the Pharisee. I'm not like other men now. Now that you have saved me, No, the tax collector's prayer ought to be the Christian's constant prayer. That's why we confess our sins every week. So take time for self-reflection. Pray that God would reveal your sinfulness in light of his word and his standards of holiness, in light of who he is, not in light of what other people do, but in light of who he is. Pray that God would increase your hatred for sin and your love for Him. Pray for true repentance, but also pray for the repentance of others in the church. We can't ignore the sins of others in the church, especially when they sin against us or against God. But also we ought to pray that they would come to know God's forgiveness in Christ? Because what is our usual response when someone sins in the church? Do we gossip? Do we allow anger to drive our motivation to confront them? Or is our motivation for the glory of God and the good of others? God sent Jesus into the world to save sinners. It's that. our motivation for praying for and confronting others? Do we pray for repentance and forgiveness? Remember, the person in the church who may have sinned against you is still a child of God and can be used by God despite their sinfulness. Because we don't intercede for others for our own comfort in this world. We pray this way for the sake of God and his kingdom. We pray for his kingdom to come and be manifested in some way among his people in the church, so that we would live in this world in our various callings, reflecting God our savior. God sent his son into the world to die and to save sinners. That's our motivation, because that is how he chose to bring about the kingdom of God. Paul said, He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things, all things to fulfill this prayer? So can you pray the prayer of our Lord Jesus as a disciple, trusting him alone for your forgiveness? Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.