Good evening. Does everybody remember Joe the plumber from a few years ago? I'm getting strange looks from young people. So Joe the Plumber was, during the 2008 election, became a political figure. He was just an ordinary guy who'd gotten some kind of discussion with then-Senator Obama. But he was just an average guy, right? That was kind of the point, was this average Joe was getting involved in political commentary. And as time has gone on, As we get further and further away from the old days, we see more and more of that. More and more ordinary people are becoming famous because of things like YouTube and reality TV. Tonight we're going to talk about somebody who is not an average Joe. Daniel was a giant in Christendom. But the things he did that made him a giant were simple. There's stuff that we can do, at least in this prayer that we're going to talk about tonight. Simple, ordinary actions that any average Joe can take, and yet it allowed him to do things that were amazing, like surviving the lion's den unscathed. Some background on Daniel. He was a prophet during the Babylonian exile. in the 500s BC when Judah, the southern kingdom, was exiled to Babylon. And during that time, there were several turnovers of power, but Cyrus the Great, when this prayer was written, Cyrus the Great united the Median and the Persian empires, and then they overthrew the Babylonian empire and created the biggest, the greatest power the world had ever known. It extended all the way from Greece and Egypt to India, for those of you who like geography. And the timing, I don't know about you guys, but when I think about Daniel, I have this vision of some like 18 year old kid, but when this prayer was written, he was actually over 80 years old. So just some history there. All right, with that being said, let's just jump right in. So we're going to start in Daniel 9. I'm going to read verses 1 and 2, and then we're going to jump over to Jeremiah for a second, and then we'll jump back into Daniel. So for those of you in a pew Bible, we're going to start on page 746. 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. So let's jump over to Jeremiah 25, 12, that's on page 652 of the Pew Bible, and read what it is that he was talking about. Excuse me, we're going to read Jeremiah 25, 11, and 12. This 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. So that's what Daniel was talking about in verses one and two. Now let's get back over, we're gonna go back to Daniel nine and pick up at verse three. Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and please for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession saying, Oh 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 and hear. 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. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you that in spite of all the craziness going on in the world, everything we see on TV, everything we hear on the radio, that we can find peace in you. Tonight, we, your people, come before you seeking your wisdom in your word. Lord, help us to find it. Give us hearts to hear how to prepare for prayer, and may we seek you like Daniel did. In Jesus' name, amen. So about 10 years ago, my family and I, we were members of a PCA church in Yulee, Florida, which is near Jacksonville, for those who aren't familiar. And we were in a home group, much like we're in a home group now, and we had a couple that was in our home group there, and they were wonderful prayers. There was nothing fantastic about their appearance. They were not particularly well-educated. They were not charismatic people. They were just average Joes. They were just like anybody else here. But they prayed some of the most humble prayers I, at the time, had ever heard. And when I heard them pray, I thought to myself, man, I want to learn to pray like they do. And I get some of that same feeling here now at our Vesper service. Some of you all pray in ways that I hear it, and I was like, man, I want to learn to pray like these different people pray. And I love that in our Vesper service, we come together at different stages of life, different ages, different levels of sanctification, and lift each other's burdens up. And regardless of where we are, regardless of where we stand in our sanctification or how old we are, God hears all of it. And I get, again, those same feelings when I read this prayer of Daniel. It is a wonderful prayer. I wrestled a bit with preparing for this, because in reading it, there's a lot to cover, but I found it very convicting. And I say that because the things that Daniel does well are things that I fail at regularly. There's no fire from heaven here, right? It's just a prayer. It's not novel or extraordinary, but rather simple and important, but it tugs at my heartstrings. And much of what I'm going to talk about tonight, you're going to say, ah, that's not new, Nick. I'm just reminding you to do things you already know you should be doing, and that's a good thing. Daniel does it very well. It's also, for those of you who remember a few weeks ago when I talked about Jonah, and just like I said, the things that I fail at, Daniel does well. The things that Jonah failed at, Daniel does well. A lot of that is the same stuff. So Daniel excels at prayer. One disclaimer, as I said, I fail at a lot of this stuff. I am speaking to myself here just as much as I am speaking to all of you. I pray that I can learn to pray like Daniel does. So I'm going to talk about three points tonight under the heading, Prepare for Prayer. The first is, be in the Word. The second one is, know God's concerns. And the third is, search out and lament sin. So that first one, the first way to prepare for prayer is to be in the Word. The first way to prepare for prayer is to be in the Word. Shocking, right? You're all amazed that I'm saying, get in the Bible. What we see here, if we read, let's read verse 2 again real quick. 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. Daniel's studying Jeremiah, he's studying another prophet, and for those of you who are not history buffs, it was right beforehand. Jeremiah was right before Daniel, so they're almost contemporaries. If Daniel, who speaks to God, who when he prays has angels come and respond and shut up the mouths of lions, if he is reading the Word, how much more should we be reading the Word? It's also interesting that he calls Jeremiah scripture. Like I said, this just happened. They didn't have a big conference and people come together and decide all this stuff. This was right afterwards. But he recognized that Jeremiah was a prophet and had God's words and calls it scripture. And how does he follow it up? He doesn't follow it up by going home and thinking about it or, like I said, having a conference. He follows it up with A prayer that is full of allusions to other Bible chapters, excuse me, books. His allusions to Leviticus, to Deuteronomy, to Exodus, to Psalms, and as I already said, to Jeremiah. There's five different books at least that that he is alluding to in this prayer. And so, how did he do that? How does he get so many biblical sources in this one prayer that we read right here? It's possible that he memorized all of it. He may have had a great memory and memorized all these different things and incorporated that into his prayer. Maybe he did a bunch of research. Maybe he did some studying. Maybe he planned it all out. Maybe Daniel had a large Dead Sea Scroll collection and he went and sifted through things. Maybe he wrote it out. Maybe Daniel took time and wrote out this prayer going through the different scriptures from place to place and trying to figure it out. It could have been any of these. Truthfully, I don't know how Daniel knew all these different Bible sections, all these different words. What I do know is that everything that he said here required him to be in the Word. Daniel was in the Word. Matthew Henry had this to say about the topic, and we could throw in there the rest of Scripture as well, not just Jeremiah. He was a great politician and Prime Minister of State to one of the greatest monarchs on earth, and yet could find time to converse with the Word of God. The greatest and best men in the world must not think themselves above their Bibles. So is Daniel the only scripture that we find that quotes other scripture? Obviously the answer is no. Everybody knows that, but I'll give you some edifying numbers just in case you're wondering. So the New Testament quotes the Old Testament over 300 times. And I didn't count them myself, but I found a credible source that said that Jesus quoted the Old Testament 78 times. And that's just what's written down, right? There's a lot more that could have been in there that he was speaking about that didn't get written down. So if the Bible quotes itself, if the New Testament quotes the Old Testament 300 times, Jesus is doing that 78 times, if the Bible does something that much, that's something we should take note of, right? We should be in our Word just like the Word is in the Word. It's important. What about Christ? What does Christ say about it? If we go to John 15 7, He says, If His word abides in us, we should be giving His words back to Him in prayer. In Matthew 6, 7, and 8, Jesus says, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." So if Daniel was in the Word so much, and the Bible itself talks about the Bible so much, and Christ quotes it, and tells us the benefit of the Word abiding in us, shouldn't we take it to heart? Shouldn't we be studying and memorizing? Shouldn't we be in the Word before, during, and after prayer? George Mueller discovered the benefits of this. For years, he tried to pray without the Word, and his mind wandered, much like, I find, mind does. And then he started with the book, and he turned the book into prayer as he read, and for over 40 years, he was able to stay focused and powerful in prayer. Piper says, where the mind isn't brimming with the Bible, The heart is not generally brimming with prayer. So, just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that spontaneous prayer is a bad thing. If you're driving, I hope you don't have your Bible out reading it while you're driving. Please pay attention to the road. In the Vesper service, we have limited time here. I'm not saying you shouldn't look up Bible verses, but sometimes you don't have a lot of time to go digging through and find the right thing. But how much research and study do you do before maybe going to court? What about before you buy a computer or a car or a house? How much time did you spend studying before you picked a career or a college or a cell phone or a gun or Christmas presents? How much effort do you put into a project for school or for your job? If you spend time, like I do, preparing for all these events that have no eternal significance, how much more time should we be putting into the Word, preparing to go before the God of the universe? Which leads me to my second point. The second way to prepare for prayer is to know God's concerns. Now really, this is an application of the first point. If you are in the Word, if we are living by the Word, then we know God's concerns. And we see this with Daniel. Daniel has been in the Scriptures, and therefore he knows what God cares about. David wrote Psalm 51 after the prophet Nathan confronted him regarding his affair with Bathsheba. Let's flip over to Psalm 51 and see if we don't see some parallels. That's on page 474, for those of you who have a pew Bible. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth, in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise, for you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure, You see, Daniel knows the heart and concerns of the Lord because he has been in the Word. He has been through scriptures like Psalm 51. In Daniel's prayer, he calls for mercy, just like David does in Psalm 51. Daniel confesses sin, just like David does. He knows that God does not despise a broken and contrite heart. Just like David does. He knows that in Psalm 25, for example, David recognizes that God cares about his own name. In verse 11 of Psalm 25, David says, Daniel knows that God is concerned with His covenant and His commandments, and he shows us that in Deuteronomy 7, 9. Daniel knows the scripture, but he also knows what the scripture means. He knows the concerns of the Lord. Therefore, he approaches the throne of grace concerning not his own interest, but God's interest, those of the Lord. So I'm going to give a disclaimer now. Daniel does benefit if God stops the exile. So he's praying to stop the exile. There is benefit there for Daniel, but we don't hear about that. He's not talking about the benefit for him. He's talking about the benefit for God and His name and His people. It's not that he's being a used car salesman. No offense, Kenny. It's not that he's being greasy. He's not being sneaky. He's just praying about what matters most. He's praying about what God cares about. Daniel shows us what it looks like to live out the words of Psalm 37, where David says, Daniel's desire is God's desire, because Daniel knows God's desire, because he delights himself in the Lord, because he seeks the Lord in the Scriptures, because he is deliberate in his approach to his own sanctification and to that of Israel. Which brings me to my third point. The third way to prepare for prayer is to search out and lament sin. The third way to prepare for prayer is to search out and lament sin. Daniel searched out sin and confessed. And so should we. Listen to these excerpts from Daniel's prayer. In verse 4 he says, I made confession. Verse 5 and 6, 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. Verse 7, Because of the treachery they have committed against you. Verse 8, We have sinned against you. Verses 9 and 10, We have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God. Verse 11, All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. We have sinned against him. Verse 13, We have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. We have not obeyed His voice. We have sinned. We have done wickedly. In case you weren't counting, that's confession of sin in 11 of the 16 verses of this prayer. Daniel's prayer is full of confession. This is the same man, like I already said, that lived through the lion's den unscathed. And he went to the lion's den because of conviction to live out his life in the way that he was convicted to pray. God listens to Daniel's prayers and responds, and we should take note. If we went further than we read and went to verse 23, we see that Gabriel is sent to respond to this prayer. In verse 23, he says, When someone gets a response to prayer like this, we should probably take note of it. I don't know about you, But as far as I know, Gabriel has never come and said anything to me. And if I saw any angels at all ever, I was definitely unaware. I imagine everybody here is probably in that same category. So when we see a response to that, it's like a knock on the door. Hey, wake up, pay attention. This is important. We should pray like Daniel prays. But his lament, it's more than words. He takes physical action as well. He displays his lament. Verse three says, I think we read this and gloss over it. This takes preparation. Daniel didn't fast by just not eating while he prayed. I haven't had a bite since I got up here. That is not fasting. I read the prayer in a few short minutes. That isn't fasting. And the sackcloth and ashes that it talks about, that wasn't Daniel's normal attire. He wasn't just going about his normal daily routine and did those things. He had to think about it ahead of time. He had to plan. He planned and prepared to pray, and in doing so, he knew there would be mourning and lamenting over the sin that he had searched out. This prayer ranks among the best in the Bible, and it points us to Gethsemane, where we find our Lord also prepared Himself to pray. Daniel went to the lion's den. for following His custom. Jesus goes to Gethsemane to pray, which Luke 22-39 tells us was His custom. Daniel was in the scriptures, and that is what prompted him to pray. Christ knew the scriptures and was the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, and knew from the prophets, and because he's God, the pain that lay before him. Daniel researched and pursued the concerns of the Lord, which benefited him as well. Jesus knew the concerns of the Lord and sought to please his father, even though it meant a painful death and separation from God. Daniel sought out and lamented his own sin and that of Israel. Christ lived a sinless life and yet bore the wrath of God as a punishment for the sins of many. Daniel was a great man, someone we should absolutely emulate, but he was just a shadow of the perfect Christ that came after him. Let's pray. Lord God, help us to be more like Daniel. Help us to be more like Christ. Help us to prepare for prayer by being in your Word. Help us to start in your Word and to seek out your truth and your desires. Help us to seek out and lament sin. Lead us to the cross and help us to live lives that recognize the dependence we have on your grace. In Jesus' name, amen.