Well, good morning again. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your church. and because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen. In Matthew 21, Jesus famously curses a fig tree for failing to produce fruit and instantly the tree withers. The disciples are amazed at this and they ask Jesus, how did the fig tree wither at once? And Jesus answers them. Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, it will happen. Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith. Beloved, that last phrase, whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith, has been one of the most misused verses in the entire Bible. I've shared with y'all before how I was heavily influenced by the four square church early on in my faith. And other than the emphasis on tongues, I can't think of a verse that was used more than this one. Now, I think our more charismatic brothers and sisters are well-intentioned. They believe God is all powerful. They believe that he's all good. And they believe that he loves his children and he wants to give good gifts to them, all things that we affirm. Unfortunately, I think in their ignorance of how to read and interpret and apply the whole counsel of God, they cause a lot of doubt and pain in the lives of God's people. I've lost count as to how many people I've met with who are depressed and doubting God's goodness and love for them because he hasn't answered their prayers. Parents who have lost or never born children. Spouses who have watched their beloved wither away. People on the brink of death because of a terminal illness. Through tears, they wonder if God loves them because he hasn't heard their prayer. Do they have faith, they wonder. What are they doing wrong that God wouldn't keep this promise in Matthew 21? I've talked to people who have walked away from the faith in part because they've been taught this is how prayer works. And when it doesn't, they're furious with God for allowing them or their loved ones to suffer. Now, we're not gonna unpack Matthew 21 today, but we are going to see in our friend, Daniel, a model prayer. Not a misinformed shoot from the hip kind of prayer, but a prayer so informed by the Word of God that Daniel's prayer conforms to God's person and promises. And therefore, he can pray knowing he will be heard. So my hope for us then is that by learning to think more biblically about prayer, we too can pray even for mountains to be moved as it were and we'll be able to do so without wavering, without doubting God's goodness to us or his love for us. So saints of Reformation Covenant Church, if you're willing and able, I invite you to stand to honor the reading of God's most holy word from Matthew chapter 23. And Daniel 9, hear God's word. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and yet you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And now Daniel nine. In the first year of Darius, the son of the guy who I'm not going to try to say his name, Artaxerxes, 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 Yahweh 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 peoples of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open shame, as it is 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. Skipping down to verse 15. 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 of 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 unrighteousness, or 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. This is the word of the Lord. Oh God, add your blessing to the reading and the hearing and the preaching of your word and grant us all the grace to trust and obey you and all the church said. Amen, please be seated. Now I know a lot of churches prefer topical sermon series and wouldn't dream of boring everyone by walking through books of the Bible a chapter at a time, but even churches that are generally convinced of exegetical sermons take a break from those sermons during summer because of how often people travel. But because we're stubborn, We've not only kept up our chronological journey through the major prophets, we've continued to walk through one of the most controversial books in the entire Bible and not in chapter order. You're welcome. If you were here two weeks ago, if you have a really good memory, you will recall that we were actually in Daniel chapter six, where we saw Daniel defy the governing authorities by continuing to pray in public get thrown into a lion's den, and then be raised up by God most high. And so then how are we in chapter nine? Well, we're going chronologically. You've not heard that word at all over the past several months. But I say it every week because it's important that we remember that the Bible is written in a particular historical setting. and it's virtually impossible to understand what's being written apart from the historical setting in which the events are taking place. And so instead of treating the prophets like psychics and fortune tellers and giving you prophecy updates, we've really pressed home that these were men of their times, speaking to the people of their time about the events of their time. Now there are and we've seen texts and prophecies about things that are far off to them. And we're gonna look at some of those next week, but the text tells us when that's the case. So we don't have to guess. The timestamps in the book of Daniel are not inconsequential. They give us a context in which to contemplate what we read, and if we don't pay attention to them, we run the risk of being irresponsible and making applications that hurt people instead of help them. Verse 1 of Daniel 9 tells us that we are in the first year of Darius, a mead. If you remember, this is the same Darius we met in Daniel 5, who took over after the Lord killed the wicked King Belshazzar and gave Babylon into the hands of the Medo-Persians. This is the same Darius who made the proclamation that there needed to be 30 days to flatten the curve. And this is the same Darius Daniel defied in chapter 6 by going into his room opening the windows toward Jerusalem, getting on his knees and publicly praying to Yahweh, as was his custom, we were told. The fact that Daniel tells us here in chapter nine that it was during the first year of the reign of that Darius that he turned his face toward Yahweh and prayed makes you wonder if we're getting an insight into the very prayer that got Daniel thrown into the lion's den. In this first year of Darius, Daniel tells us in verse two that he perceived in the books the number of years that according to the word of Yahweh to Jeremiah that must pass before the end of the desolations was 70 years. The Babylonians first came to power in 608, and this is Darius' first year to reign, 538. I see y'all doing math, like carry the one, take away. It's 70 years. And so, because Daniel believed Jeremiah, he knew the end of Judah's exile was coming. If you remember, Jeremiah taught Daniel and Ezekiel. And after they had been taken into exile, Jeremiah sent them letters. They actually refer to each other in each other's letters. Perhaps even portions of this book, one true prophet to other true prophets. Jeremiah sent them the promises of God that included everyone's favorite out of context verse. Jeremiah 29, 11. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you, to give you a future and a hope. But unlike evangelicals, Jeremiah sent the verse in context. right before that feel good verse, and it does feel good. God says his plan to give them a future and a hope was only going to come after 70 years of Babylon's reign. Yes, he's going to prosper them, but that prosperity is going to come after he levels their entire city, destroys their place of worship, and has them taken captive by a foreign nation for 70 years for their idolatry. It's kind of cool to think a verse we hang in our bathrooms, which is kind of funny if you think about hanging that verse in your bathroom. That's the same verse that gave Daniel hope for 10, 20, 50, 70 years. Daniel is ready for God to keep his promises. You see, it's faith in God's promise that led Daniel not just to expectation, but to prayer. You see, Daniel believes what we should all believe. God ordains all things that come to pass. He ordains all the means by which those things come to pass, and He ordains that prayer is one of those means. And so like Daniel, we pray in accordance with the promises of God, trusting that God hears our prayers and He acts according to His will. I remember when we were trying to help the church in Dallas move from a more Arminian understanding of God to a more biblical understanding of Him, and every once in a while, someone would hear us use the words predestination or sovereignty, and they would accuse us of being Calvinists. And so we'd ask them, what do you mean by that? And they'd confidently tell us, well, Calvinists believe God predestined everything. So Calvinists don't believe in evangelism and Calvinists don't believe in prayer. And so we would play dumb and say something along the lines of, man, that's terrible. We don't believe anything like that. I guess we're not Calvinists because we believe in evangelism and we sure believe in prayer. So Calvinist or not, Daniel believed what we believe. God makes promises in his word and God keeps his promises. God ordains the end, God ordains the means, and one of the means is prayer. So we pray. We pray in accordance with the Word of God and trusting His promises. We pray choosing to believe that God is good and He loves us despite what it might look like. We pray confessing that we don't deserve His charity, and yet we pray thanking Him for not merely His mercy, but for His abundant grace. It's with all of that we pray. And then we ask whatever we want, because we want what God wants. That's a model prayer. That's a prayer we see in the Psalms. That's a prayer we see in the Lord's Prayer, and that's a prayer that we're gonna unpack here in Daniel. Now, if you struggle with prayer, you can write something down that's helped me over the years, and I'm sure you've heard of it. A-C-T-S, act. A, adoration. C, confession. T, thanksgiving, and then S, supplication. Now this isn't a magic formula. Okay, and not all prayers have to be structured this way for God to hear you, but generally speaking, these are all the elements that you see in the prayers of the Bible, particularly the Psalms. And so when you learn to pray this way, you'll find yourself relating to God in a healthier way, and that's gonna change you for the better. We'll see, this is how Daniel prays. First, he, A, he adores God for who he is and who he's revealed himself to be. And we've actually said this verse like six times already this morning. In verse four, Daniel adores God in highlighting his attributes. Oh Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. From the outset, Daniel's prayer is rooted in the word and character of God. Even after having been in exile for 70 years, after never having been married, never having kids, always feeling alone and attacked, Daniel's prayer begins with him adoring his covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. His adoration of his God grounds him in the goodness of God before he says anything else. He then confesses. See, not just private sins, but corporate sins. There are guys who say, you don't confess other people's sins for them, and you don't confess sins you didn't commit yourself. Now I get that they're trying to push back against the virtue signaling prayers of our day, and Jesus rebukes those kinds of prayers too, but corporate confession of corporate sin is entirely appropriate. It's something that we see prophets, priests, and kings do over and over again when approaching God. And so we follow their example every Lord's Day. After we are ushered into the presence of God and adore His majesty, we immediately confess our sins, personally and corporately. We give you time to confess your specific sins specifically, but we also confess our general sins generally, something that Daniel does here. He is a part of the people of God. And in Daniel's day and before his day, verse six was true. He confesses, we have not listened to your servants, the prophets who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, all the people in the land. Now we have no reason to think Daniel himself didn't listen. In fact, this prayer after 70 years of Babylonian rule is evidence that Daniel himself did listen and did obey God's word. And yet like a good prophet turned priest, Daniel sees himself as a part of the whole who did not listen. And so he confesses accordingly. Now, There's an element of his confession if we notice that he isn't just confessing that he's guilty of sin. Daniel actually does what virtually every modern day counselor will tell you not to do. Daniel owns shame. In verse eight, Daniel acknowledges, to us, O Yahweh, belongs open shame because we've sinned against you. Now, there is a shame, before we break this down, that you might feel that you don't have to feel. Some of you have had horrible things done to you by wicked men, and you might feel tempted to feel personal shame because of their shameful act. Know that their sin and shame in that act is not your sin and shame. And you do not have to feel shame for something that was done to you, even if it was full of shame. But that's not what we're dealing with here. Contrary to popular belief, if and when we do that which is shameful, we actually should feel ashamed. And when we look at the way in which the church as a whole is behaving, we should feel ashamed. To us belongs open shame. If we shirk that shame, we are blatantly rejecting the clear testimony of Scripture. And no matter how humble we want to sound, we are self-righteous and we are arrogant if we avoid the shame that belongs to us. Avoiding shame does not bring deliverance. In avoiding shame, we are lying to ourselves about ourselves and about God. No thoughtful Christian who is immersed in God's Word would encourage you to avoid feeling the shame you should feel when you do something shameful. Rather, along with the Holy Spirit-inspired authors of Scripture, they should tell you, you should absolutely be ashamed of yourself. But rather than run from your shame, run to God with it. In your shame, with heavy burdens of guilt and shame, run to God. Don't avoid it and run from it and sow some fig leaves over it. Let your shame be shameful so that it might drive you to Christ. It is only in Christ where you find grace and mercy that you need to deal with shame. And once you've done that, once you've come to God with those heavy burdens, once you've confessed your sins and the guilt and the shame that comes with them, then not only can you be free, you must be free. For you to do something shameful, confess it to God, and still feel shame is unbelief. That kicked me in the chest the first time I read that. One of the things I love about the spiritual depression book our folks are going through on Thursdays is how Martin Lloyd-Jones hammers home the point that if God says you're forgiven, then you're forgiven. You have to choose to believe in the sufficiency of Christ's atonement for your sin so that you can be free of unbelief. To choose to dwell in your shame of which you've been forgiven is to choose to believe that your sin is greater than the Savior. And that's shameful. So run back to Jesus. If you've done something shameful, if you've confessed your sins, trust that God is faithful and just to forgive you all of your sins and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. So after confessing, thank Him. Once you've adored Him and confessed to Him, thank Him for what Daniel says is true of Him in verse nine, that to the Lord our God belongs mercy and forgiveness. even though we've rebelled against Him. Daniel does all of this before ever asking God anything. Now again, this isn't the only way to pray and you don't have to do in the particular order for it to count, but generally speaking, this is how we should pray. Adore God, confess and thank Him. And then having done that, our posture to ask things of Him will be a better posture. Because in having done all of that, we'll be more likely to make our supplications in light of who God is and who we are. If we adore Him for His goodness and His wisdom and His love for us, If we confess that we don't have a right to anything and we thank Him for giving us infinitely more than we deserve, then we'll be content to ask what we're going to ask because we'll freely submit our will to God's. Thy will be done is not a cold resignation that keeps us from getting our feelings hurt when God doesn't answer our prayers. Thy will be done is a humble request for God to answer our prayers in whatever way is best for us, for whom we're praying, and for all the people that the infinite ripple effect of our prayer will touch. When we pray, we can pray asking and trusting that God will either give us what we ask for in prayer, or he will give us what we would have asked for if we knew everything he knows. Now in Daniel's case, he knows God's revealed will is to grant Babylon 70 years of power and then to remove it before bringing his people back into the land. And Daniel knows that because Babylon has fallen, the next thing God wants to do is bring the people back. And so Daniel asks for that. Even though Daniel knows God makes and keeps his promises, even specific promises, Daniel still prays because he knows prayer is one of the means by which God promises to keep his promises. And actually next week, we're gonna hear that an angel started to move the minute Daniel began to pray this. In verse 16 through 19, Daniel's prayer again shows that he knows and trusts God's word and his prayer is a prayer of faith. Daniel has been in exile most of his life and he's likely going to die in Babylon without seeing an answer to this prayer and yet he still intercedes for the glory of God and the good of others. We've said over and over again how wise Daniel is and how he's drunk deeply from the Word of God. And this prayer is more evidence of that, for his prayer models the prayer of one of the wisest men who ever lived. In his upper room, with the windows open, Daniel prays toward Jerusalem and a destroyed temple. in accordance with Solomon's dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8, 420 years before this day. Hear what he said. When your people, Israel, are defeated before the enemy because they've sinned against you, and if they turn again to you and acknowledge your name and pray and plead with you, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your people, Israel, and bring them again to the land that you gave their fathers. If they sin against you and you're angry with them and give them to an enemy so that they're carried away captive to the land of the enemy, Yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they've been carried captive and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, we have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly, let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant and to the plea of your people Israel, giving ear to them whenever they call on you. This supplication of Solomon's foreshadows Daniel's prayer. Wise men pray according to the word of God. And both Solomon's prayers and Daniel's are lifted from God's word in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. We're not gonna turn there, but there he declared that if his people violated his laws, particularly his Sabbaths, then he would give them over to their enemies and their enemies would rule over them. That's exactly what happened. That's what happened then, and frankly will continue to happen every time God's people turn away from Him. When God's people forsake His law, they will be given over to their enemies so that the Lord might discipline them and bring them back to His self, even if it takes multiple generations for Him to do it. Godly intercessors recognize this and they pray accordingly. That's how Moses prayed. That's how Solomon prayed and Daniel prayed. And RCC, that's how we pray every Sunday. Every Lord's Day, we have a prayer of confession and a prayer of supplication. Our great prayer is a prayer of intercession on behalf of this church and the church and the entire world. When we pray after we've adored Him, after we've confessed to Him and after we've thanked Him, we make supplication to Him. Supplication that He would be glorified because His glory is good for the world. And that's exactly how Daniel prays in verses 17 through 19. Oh God, listen to the prayers of your servants. Lord, in your mercy. We didn't make that up, guys. The church has been praying that for millennia. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. Make your face to shine upon us that we may be saved. Incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see. We don't present our prayers to God because of our righteousness, but because of His manifold mercies. Beloved, we know God is good and He loves to show mercy to a thousand generations for those who fear Him. So we ask God to not only forgive our sins in His mercy, but forgive the sins of the world. Save not only us, save the world. Turn everyone to you so that they might see what we get to see, a glorious God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. That's how we pray. That's how we're gonna continue to pray until we die and until our kids die and until their kids die, until God hears our prayer of adoration and confession and thanksgiving and supplication. for His glory and the life of the world. Amen? Let's pray. Our Father, we have heard wonderful things out of Your Word. We praise You for revealing Christ by promise and shadow in the Old Testament, and for revealing Him as the fulfillment of all these things in the new. Give us Your Spirit so that we might understand these words and the fullness of Your truth as You have revealed Him to us in the person and work of Jesus, who with You and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.