DANIEL 9 PRAYER AND PROPHECY2011 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Daniel 9 Prayer And Prophecy

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You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2011. Here's, we start in Daniel chapter 9. Daniel's explaining to us the background and the circumstances that led him to his prayer and then that led to the prophecy that he was given by the Lord through the angel Gabriel.

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And so the circumstances, the background is, he says it was the first year of Darius. Now we've talked about Darius before in Daniel chapter 6. We are introduced to this guy named Darius and that was the account of Daniel in the lion's den.

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And if I could back up for just a moment and we'll lead up to who Darius is. Daniel is, of course, an Israelite. And he was part of the Jewish people who lived in Israel. He lived in the region of Judah, in the city of Jerusalem. And he was part of the Jewish people who lived in Israel.

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But Jerusalem and the nation of Judah had been in rebellion against God for many years. And as a result of their rebellion, God sent them prophets to warn them, and they didn't listen to the prophets. And so he sent more prophets, and they didn't listen to them. And so after a couple hundred years of the people ignoring God's warnings by the prophets...

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God finally said, okay, there's nothing else I can do. I'm going to bring some severe discipline. And God brought King Nebuchadnezzar to the nation of Judah, to the city of Jerusalem, and allowed Nebuchadnezzar to conquer Jerusalem and take the survivors captive back to the land of Babylon.

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Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the nation of Babylon and so he conquered Jerusalem, he conquered the nation of Judah and he took back the survivors to Babylon. Daniel was one of those survivors and so he was carried away captive with the rest of his brethren.

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And he's been in Babylon at this time for about, I think, 60 years. And so he's been there for quite a while. And he's been used by the Lord in various different capacities. But Babylon was ruled by King Nebuchadnezzar. And Daniel was raised up within the ranks of the government during Nebuchadnezzar's reign. And Nebuchadnezzar died and he passed the kingdom on to his son who passed the kingdom on to his son. And

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down onto a guy by the name of Belshazzar. We talked about Belshazzar in Daniel chapter 5. And Belshazzar was kind of the last king of Babylon before it was conquered by another nation. It was the Medo-Persian Empire that conquered the nation of Babylon.

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The Medo-Persian Empire was led by a man named Cyrus. And he was able to conquer Babylon without really a big fight. They were able to divert the river and sneak into the city and overthrow the city without having to try to tear down the walls or anything like that. They snuck inside and conquered it that way. Well, Cyrus, as he conquers Babylon, he appoints

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A guy named Gubaru to lead the region of Babylon. And that guy named Gubaru is most likely the person that we know in the scriptures as Darius. In Daniel chapter 6, Daniel chapter 9.

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That's who's referred to there. It's the Medo-Persian Empire has now conquered Babylon and they've set up this guy, Darius, over the region of Babylon. And so he's responsible for the region and again he's referred to as Darius, which is probably a title more than a name.

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And so that's who Darius is. He's the king of Babylon placed there by Cyrus, the Persian. And it was, Daniel says, in the first year of his reign. And so that places this event, this occurrence here at 539 B.C.

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539 is when the Medo-Persian Empire conquered Babylon. Darius is set up here in the region of Babylon. Sometime during that first year of Darius, he is reading through the scriptures and then is going to go into prayer as a result of what the scriptures declare. And so he tells us there in verse 2 that he was reading the scriptures and he understood by the books of

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The number of years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet. And so Daniel is reading the scriptures and he's reading...

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Some words that were written by Jeremiah. Now, there's a couple places he could be reading from. In our Bibles, we refer to it as 2 Chronicles 36. And you can look there at verse 20 and 21 where it's recorded that Jeremiah declares that Jerusalem will be destroyed for 70 years.

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Also in the book of Jeremiah, in chapter 25, as well as some other places, but chapter 25, verses 8 through 12, Jeremiah there declares again, specifically, that Jerusalem will be conquered and will lay desolate for 70 years. And so, Daniel is reading either Jeremiah's...

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the prophecies of Jeremiah, or he's reading 2 Chronicles, the history of the kings. Either way, he's reading about the prophet Jeremiah and how there was this declaration that the land would be desolate for 70 years.

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And so then in verse 3 it says, Then I set my face toward the Lord to make requests by prayer and supplications. And the majority of chapter 9 is Daniel's prayer, what he prays in response to understanding this. Now what's happening here is Daniel's recognizing, Hey, Jeremiah said it was going to be 70 years that we'll be in captivity.

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And Daniel, remember, he was one of those who was taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar. He knows how long it's been. He realizes it's almost been 70 years. Our time is almost up. We're going to be released soon to go back and rebuild Jerusalem. And because he learns this, because he recognizes this from Jeremiah's prophecies, he begins now to pray.

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Now as we look at this prayer of Daniel here in chapter 9, we learn some really good lessons about prayer that we can take to heart. And so the first thing that we can learn from Daniel's example is to read the scriptures.

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to read the Bible. If you want to be able to pray like Daniel prayed, first of all, we need to be in the Word of God. Daniel was reading through, he learned some things about their situation, and so he uses that to begin to pray. And the same for you and I, that you and I, we need to be involved in reading the Word of God.

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And as we're reading the Word of God, it's not just, okay, got through that chapter, close the book, on to my day. But read it and then pray about it. And pray, what does this mean for me, Lord? What does this mean for my life? What do you want to speak through these things? And we need to take the things that we read about and then take them to the Lord in prayer.

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And so we learn from Daniel this example of reading the word and then praying through those things that we've learned and those things that God has spoken. You know, the Bible declares that when you pray according to the will of God, that you know your prayers will be answered. In 1 John 5, verses 14 and 15, it tells us this. And

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And so when we look at those promises of God, when we read through and see what God has declared, and then we pray according to those things, we can have a lot of confidence as we pray according to the will of God that those prayers will be answered. And that's what Daniel is doing here. He realizes God has declared it's going to be 70 years.

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And so he begins to pray for the people and the release of the people and the rebuilding of Jerusalem because he knows this is God's will. And it's almost time for these things to be fulfilled. And so we can read the word of God and then we can pray according to those things that we have read. Well, going on now in verses 4 through 6, we see the beginning of Daniel's prayer. It says this,

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And I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession and said, O Lord, great and awesome God who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him and 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.

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Now as we go on in looking at this prayer, we find Daniel confessing to the Lord. He's confessing the sins of the people to the Lord.

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First of all, there in verse 4, we find him declaring that God keeps his covenant. The people of Israel are not captives in Babylon because God failed somehow. The people of Israel are captives in Babylon, not because God did not keep his covenant, but because the people did not keep the covenant. The people were not faithful to the Lord.

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And so Daniel recognizes, first of all, he says, it's not your fault that we're here, God. It's not your fault that we're in this situation. But we have put ourselves here. How? Well, he tells us in verse 5, we have sinned and committed iniquity. We have done wickedly and rebelled. This was the condition of the nation of Judah. The people of God had sinned and rebelled against God.

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They had turned away from the Lord. And you can kind of see a pattern here. First of all, they sinned. Then that led them to departing from God. And then that led them to not heeding the warnings that God was giving through the prophets. And that's always a pattern that happens. Whenever a person begins to involve themselves in sin, it will lead to departing from God.

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There's no other way about it. A lot of times Christians think, well, I can just play with this sin a little bit. You know, there's grace. But if you continue in sin, it will always lead you to depart from God. And that's what happened to the nation of Judah. They participated, they practiced sin, and it led to them turning away from God.

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And as they continued in that condition of turning away from God, even when God sent warnings, we read through the prophet Isaiah. We read through the prophet Jeremiah. We saw time and time again, continually, prophet after prophet, years upon years, God was crying out to the people to turn back to Him.

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But they didn't. They did not heed the warnings. Why? Because they continued in sin, which led them to depart from God. And as they continued in that condition of turning from the Lord, they were not receptive to the prophets. They didn't want to hear. They didn't want to listen. They didn't want to pay attention to what God was speaking through the prophets. And let that be a warning for all of us.

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We think sin is, you know, no big deal. We can handle it. But the reality is, if you practice sin, if you continue in sin, it will lead you to depart from God. And if you stay in that condition, God will send you warnings. He'll send you signs. He'll work miracles. But you won't even care. You won't even pay attention because you're persisting in that rebellion against God.

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And so Daniel is confessing to God, this is our condition, Lord. We're not here because you failed. We're here because we sinned and we departed and we did not heed your warnings.

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Now as Daniel is praying these things, of course we look at Daniel's life and we know he didn't do these things. He didn't sin and depart from God and not heed the warnings. But he's praying for the nation and he's praying on behalf of the nation and that is exactly what the nation did.

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We also find out from verse 20 that Daniel at the same time is confessing his own personal sins to the Lord during this. And so again, what we have in Daniel's example as we learn about prayer is confession of sin. First of all, we need to be involved in the Word of God and be praying according to what we're reading. But then also, as we come before the Lord, we need to confess and recognize our sinful condition, our sinful practices.

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and to confess those to the Lord for forgiveness. And so that's what Daniel does. Going on in verse 7, it says, O 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, and all the countries to which you have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against you,

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Here we have Daniel declaring what belongs to God and what belongs to us or what belongs to the Jewish people. What belongs to God?

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He says, righteousness belongs to the Lord. What does that mean? Righteousness is rightness. What he's declaring again is, God, you are right. You've not done anything wrong. What you do is right and perfect and just. That's what belongs to you. Now then he says, well, what belongs to us? To us belongs shame of face.

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What belongs to God? Righteousness. What belongs to us? That's to the Jewish people, but it applies to us as well. What applies to us is shame of faith. We don't have righteousness. We can't claim to be righteous. The scriptures declare very clearly that we all sin and we fall short of the glory of God. We are not righteous. There is none righteous, no not one, Isaiah says.

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None of us are righteous. What belongs to us? Not righteousness, not perfection, but shame. Shame because we all know that we missed the mark. The scriptures tell us we missed the mark. We don't measure up to righteousness. Our conscience tells us we missed the mark. We don't measure up. What belongs to us? What's rightfully due to us? Shame. Shame. Daniel is recognizing this is appropriate. This is right.

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This is what belongs to us. Why? Because of the unfaithfulness that we've committed against you, Daniel says. Because we're unfaithful to the Lord. Shame on you if you're unfaithful to the Lord. That's the condition of all of us without Christ. That's the condition of every single human being that's ever lived. Shame on you because of your unfaithfulness to the Lord. That's what belongs to us. What belongs to God is righteousness. Righteousness.

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Also what belongs to God though in verse 9, this is important. He says, "...to the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness." So God is righteous, He's perfect, He's holy in everything He does. And to us, shame because we don't measure up and we're not obedient and we're unfaithful. But if that was the end of the story, we'd be in a world of hurt. We'd be in trouble. God's righteous, we're not, we're dead.

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But that's not all that belongs to God. What also belongs to God is mercy and forgiveness. And so even though shame belongs to us, even though, he says there in verse 9, we've rebelled against Him, God is merciful and He's forgiving. And He gives us second and third chances and fourth and fifth and on and on.

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He gives us opportunity to turn to Him. He makes provision for us to be forgiven and to receive His mercy and grace. And so Daniel here is declaring these things and they're really astounding. These are really deep when you consider what it means that God is righteous and holy and we are shameful. We have no hope of reaching Him, no hope of removing this shame from us.

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But God is not just righteous, He is also merciful and forgiving. And although we've rebelled against Him, and although we've messed up and blown it, and although shame belongs to us because of our unfaithfulness to God, God makes provision for us, specifically through Jesus Christ. He makes provision for us through the cross to receive His mercy and

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and forgiveness, to be washed clean, to have the shame removed, to have the guilt taken care of, so that we can have right relationship with God. Well, what I see here in Daniel's example is him glorifying God. That's what we can learn as we seek to grow in our prayer. We need to read the Word, we need to pray accordingly. We need to be confessing our sin, but we also need to be glorifying God, recognizing God, You're awesome!

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And I'm nothing. That's what it means to glorify God. Lift Him up. Declare He is worthy. And also recognize our own condition. That we're not worthy. What belongs to us? Shame. What do we deserve? Judgment. Because we are unfaithful to the Lord. There's none righteous, no not one. We have salvation, not because we're great, but because God is great. We have salvation because of what God has done for us.

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And so in our prayer, we need to glorify God, to remember who He is, to remember His greatness and our littleness.

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Going on in verse 10, it says,

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Verse 1.

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Therefore, the Lord has kept this 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. Here as Daniel continues to pray, we find him honoring God's word.

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He's recognizing, he's giving honor to the word of God, the things that God has declared. And he's saying, God, what has happened to us is exactly what you said would happen in your word. It's exactly what you declared would take place. God, you have honored your word. Daniel is recognizing. You see, God declared in the law what would happen if the people turned away from God and disobeyed him.

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you can read Deuteronomy chapter 28, 29, and 30, where God declares, look, here's my law, here's my commands. If you do them, here's what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to bless you. A few of you will be able to chase a thousand. Your fields are going to just yield abundant crop. I mean, you're going to be blessed big time. But if you disregard my word and you disobey my commandments, the opposite is true. Just a few of your enemies will be able to chase thousands of you.

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And your crops aren't going to produce, or they'll produce, but others will come and take it away. And God also declares there, if you continue in that rebellion, I'm going to bring a nation from afar, and I'm going to bring them to you, and they're going to conquer you, and they're going to take you away, and Jerusalem is going to be left desolate. God declared all in advance, ahead of time, what would happen if they obeyed God, and if they disobeyed God.

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You remember in the book of Joshua, in Joshua 23, as Joshua is coming to the end of his life, he tells the people, he calls them all together and he says, listen guys, you know that not one of God's words have failed. Everything he promised failed.

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has been fulfilled in bringing the people of God into the land of Israel and driving out the nations before them. Joshua recounts the history. He tells them, remember, God knocked down the walls at Jericho. He led us in. He drove out the inhabitants before us. He allowed us to be established. He's blessed us greatly. And all of those things are exactly the way that God said they would happen.

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Not one word has failed, Joshua tells the people. But then he goes on to give a warning. He says, but don't be deceived, don't be confused. If you turn away from God, not one word will fail. That is, those things that God has promised, He fulfilled. As you've been obedient, He's blessed, He's done a great work, He's fulfilled it. Not one word has failed. Now if you turn away from God, those things that God has promised for those who are disobedient, not one word will fail.

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God confirms His words. Daniel says that there in verse 12. He has confirmed His words. God will confirm His word. He will fulfill His word on both sides. Now, of course, what do we want? We want God to fulfill His word and bless us whenever we've been good. But when we turn away from God, we want God to just show us grace and not...

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bring any of the destruction that he has also promised as a result of sin. But that's not how it works. God will fulfill his word. When they would follow the Lord, when they'd be obedient to him, they'd be blessed. When they would turn away and disobey, they would be cursed.

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Not one word failed, Joshua said, and not one word will fail if you turn away from the Lord. Well, where Daniel is now is the result of the people turning away from God and not one word failed. God did exactly what he said he would do. He brought a nation from afar, conquered them, led away the captives, left the place desolate. And so God honors his word. He's faithful to his word.

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And what we see Daniel doing is honoring God's Word and recognizing, God, this isn't too much. This is just exactly what you declared ahead of time. This is exactly what you said would happen. Now, in talking about this disaster, it's the fulfillment of the Word of God. It's the fulfillment of what God said. But I feel the need to point something out because it comes up frequently within the church. Disaster does not mean...

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there is disobedience. In talking about this disaster, it's clear from the word and from Daniel's prayer here, the disaster that the people of God are experiencing at this time in Daniel is as a result of their disobedience to God. And that leads many people to jump to that logical conclusion. Okay, people disobeyed God. God brought disaster. Therefore,

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Anytime there's a disaster, it must have been a result of disobedience. Now that's some very bad logic. And that's jumping to conclusions that God has not set in place. Just because there's disaster does not mean there's disobedience. Although disobedience will bring disaster, that's not the only cause of disaster. And so we need to be very careful. There's times where some of...

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God's children are beat down by others within the church. And I'm not just speaking generally. Listen, I know of cases personally that have happened in my family. I know of cases that have happened within this church where people have been told, this happened in your life, must be the result of sin. And what we find is the repetition of the book of Job. You remember the book of Job, right?

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Now, Job's disaster was not the result of disobedience. In fact, it was the opposite. It was the result of his righteousness. God says he's righteous. There's none like him. He's blameless. And yet this disaster fell upon him. But what did his friends do? His friends came and said, there must be some kind of sin in your life, Job. You better repent. If you repent, God will fix all this.

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And for us, you know, being involved in the Word of God, we can look at things that go on, you know, Channel 40 and those types of things, name it and claim it. We can laugh at those things. And yet, there's still that tendency, even in our own hearts, to look from the outside on a situation, on a disaster that's happened and consider there must be some kind of sin. We can be so like Job's friends. Now, in the case that Daniel is referring to here, it definitely was a result of disobedience.

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But we cannot assume that just because there's disaster, there had to be disobedience. We live in a fallen world and disasters happen to all of us. Some of them we bring on to ourselves by our rebellion against God. But some of them are just the result of living in a fallen world that needs to be redeemed, that needs a Savior. So, if I hear about any of you telling Cisco he must be in sin, prepare to...

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Feel my wrath, okay? He's a righteous man. It's a result of living in a fallen world. Bad things happen. We face them. We go through them. We have to endure them. And God's with us every step of the way. Don't assume that disaster means there's some kind of disobedience. Now, on the opposite side of that, let me just tell you, disobedience will bring disaster every time and without exception.

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So don't entertain it. Don't practice it. Don't continue on in disobedience. God tells us the result of sin is death. When we practice sin, when we engage in sin, when we disobey God, it brings death and destruction into our lives.

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Moving along, chapter 9, verse 15, it says, And now, O 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 have sinned, we have done wickedly.

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Verse 18.

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Oh my God!

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Incline your ear in 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. O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, listen and act. Do not delay for your own sake, my God. For your city and your people are called by your name.

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Daniel concludes this prayer with a little bit of intensity here. You can hear it in his words, this anguish. He's crying out, Lord, hear, Lord, please forgive. God, show mercy to us. And in doing so, he's being very careful to base his request upon God and not upon the people.

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He's basing his request, God, you are righteous and for your righteousness, deliver us and heal us and forgive us. God, for your sake, he says. In verse 16, he says, for your righteousness, or according to your righteousness. Then in verse 17, he says, for the Lord's sake, cause your face to shine.

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For your sake, God. He's basing his request not upon the people. He's not saying, God, we're so wonderful. You ought to save us. God, look how faithful we are to you. You should deliver us. No, he's looking at God. He's saying, God, you're righteous. Lord, for your own sake, forgive us. Restore us. Heal us. In verse 18, he says, not because of our righteous deeds, but because of your great mercies.

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He says, look, we're asking this, God, not because we're righteous, not because we're good, not because we do good deeds, but because of your great mercies. This is a great example for us in prayer. Base your requests to God upon him, not upon ourselves. Now, how many times do we do that? Lord, I've been so faithful to read your word. Please bless me. Please give me this job.

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I've been so faithful in Sunday school. I've been so faithful in reading the Word. I've been so faithful in sharing. We look at our lives, we look at the good things that we see or that we think we're doing and we say, look God, I've been good. You should bless me. Daniel's very wise here. He's recognizing, Lord, not because of our righteousness, but not because we've done good, first of all, because we haven't,

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But secondly, Lord, do it because of your great mercy. Do it because you're righteous. Do it for your namesake. He says there in verse 19, he says, for your own sake, because we're called by your name. We have your name attached to us. And so God, for your namesake, because we're your people, deliver us, heal us, restore us. He's basing his request. He's crying out to the Lord based upon his request.

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God's nature, who he is, how perfect he is. Well, as Daniel is crying out to the Lord, we get to see a response. God sends the angel Gabriel to share with him some insight. Look at verse 20. It says, It says,

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Now while I was speaking, praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God, yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering.

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And he informed me and talked with me and said, O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand. At the beginning of your supplications the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved. Therefore consider the matter and understand the vision. Now Gabriel is sent to Daniel in response to his prayer. And God sends Gabriel to give him some insight on the things that are going to come.

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To tell Daniel, Daniel, I've heard your prayers and your prayers will be answered. Daniel's specific function here in chapter 9 is to help, I'm sorry, Gabriel's specific function is to help Daniel understand. And you can see the process that goes on here. Back in verse 2, Daniel's reading the word. Then verse 3 onward, he's praying through those things that he has just read. Now in verse 23, he's

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Gabriel tells Daniel to consider these things. And then in verse 23, he says that he would understand. I'm sorry, yeah, it's verse 23. He says, therefore consider the matter and understand the vision. And so you see this process. You read the word, you pray through it, you consider the matter. Or maybe we would say to meditate on it, to ponder it, to spend some time thinking about it.

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The things that you've read, the things that God is speaking, and then the end result is understanding. Sometimes people get the impression that, you know, I just come up here and I open the Bible and then I just start teaching it. But, you know, there's preparation that goes into it. Because I don't read these things and then just understand them. Nobody does.

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It takes some investment. It takes some reading of the Word. It takes some prayer. It takes some time to consider the matter, to work through these things, to meditate on them while seeking the Lord for insight and understanding. And then, as we do that, God brings understanding. And I share that to encourage you, just because you read a portion and it doesn't make any sense, don't give up. Let it be a good challenge for you.

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Let it be an opportunity for God to demonstrate to you how much He loves you. Notice it says, For you are greatly beloved, Gabriel says to Daniel. You are greatly beloved as well. Did you know that? You are greatly beloved and God wants to give you understanding into His Word. But here's what it takes. It takes some time to read, to pray, to consider. And as you read and pray and consider,

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God will give you insight and understanding into His Word. And that's for you. That's for me. That's for all believers. Because we're greatly beloved. God wants us to know. And so here God sends Gabriel to help Daniel understand. He says, man, I love Daniel. He's reading my Word. He's praying. I want him to know. I want him to understand what's happening, what's going to take place. And so He sends Gabriel to give him insight. And what does Gabriel share with him? He says,

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Well, that's the remainder of chapter 9, verse 24. It says this, "...70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy."

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Verse 2.

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And after the sixty-two weeks, Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with the flood. Until the end of the war, desolations are determined. Verse 27. Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week.

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But in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abomination shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation which is determined is poured out on the desolate. Now God sends Gabriel to give Daniel understanding. And then you read verses 24 through 27 and you go, well where's the understanding? What does that mean?

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It's not as difficult as it sounds. Now, we've spent some time in this when we were going through the book of Revelation. We referred to this a lot. There was one Sunday that we actually looked specifically at this portion. So I'm not going to go into all the details that are here, but just try to break it down pretty simply for us.

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In verse 24, Gabriel declares, Daniel, here's what you need to know. There's 70 weeks that are set aside for your people. That's for the nation of Israel. There's 70 weeks that have been determined for them. 70 weeks of plans that God has for Israel.

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Now when he refers to a week, he's not referring to seven days. The word week is actually just a unit of measurement. It can be seven of anything. Like we use the word dozen, right? Dozen is not just for donuts. It's also for food.

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It's also for bagels. It's also for, you know, whatever. It could be a dozen anythings. In the same way, the week could be days. It could be years. It could be any measurement of time. So we understand this to be referring to

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70 sets of 7 years. Or altogether, that's 490 years. And so Gabriel says, Daniel, there's 490 years that have been set apart for God's plan for the people of Israel. 490 years are left in God's plan for the people of Israel.

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And what is He going to do in those 490 years? Well, I put it together. You've probably seen it before. God's to-do list. That's what's found there in verse 24. These six things are God's to-do list. This is what He's going to accomplish within that 490 years. He's going to finish the transgression.

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Now as we look at that, we understand that's not finished yet, right? Transgression still happens. It still takes place. He's going to make an end of sins. We understand that's not yet done. He hasn't finished that, so that's still left for him to do. To make reconciliation for iniquity. Now that is something that God has done. How did he do it? By sending his Son. And Jesus Christ at the cross says,

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accomplish the reconciliation for iniquity. And so that's been taken care of. That's been accomplished. Next on the to-do list is God is going to bring in everlasting righteousness.

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We have not yet seen that fulfilled either. He's going to seal up vision and prophecy. We've not yet seen that fulfilled. And then He's going to anoint the Most Holy. And we have not yet seen that fulfilled. So, here's God's to-do list, what He's going to do, these six things in this 490 year period.

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One of them has been fulfilled and completed. The rest are yet to be completed. He will complete them, of course, but the final period or the final time has not yet been accomplished.

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And so verse 24, we find there's these 70 weeks or 490 years. Here's the, here's, we start in Daniel chapter 9. Daniel's explaining to us the background and the circumstances that led him to his prayer and then that led to the prophecy that he was given by the Lord through the angel Gabriel.

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And so the circumstances, the background is, he says it was the first year of Darius. Now we've talked about Darius before in Daniel chapter 6. We are introduced to this guy named Darius and that was the account of Daniel in the lion's den.

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And if I could back up for just a moment and we'll lead up to who Darius is. Daniel is, of course, an Israelite. And he was part of the Jewish people who lived in Israel. He lived in the region of Judah, in the city of Jerusalem. And he was part of the Jewish people who lived in Israel.

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But Jerusalem and the nation of Judah had been in rebellion against God for many years. And as a result of their rebellion, God sent them prophets to warn them, and they didn't listen to the prophets. And so he sent more prophets, and they didn't listen to them. And so after a couple hundred years of the people ignoring God's warnings by the prophets...

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God finally said, okay, there's nothing else I can do. I'm going to bring some severe discipline. And God brought King Nebuchadnezzar to the nation of Judah, to the city of Jerusalem, and allowed Nebuchadnezzar to conquer Jerusalem and take the survivors captive back to the land of Babylon.

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Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the nation of Babylon and so he conquered Jerusalem, he conquered the nation of Judah and he took back the survivors to Babylon. Daniel was one of those survivors and so he was carried away captive with the rest of his brethren.

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And he's been in Babylon at this time for about, I think, 60 years. And so he's been there for quite a while. And he's been used by the Lord in various different capacities. But Babylon was ruled by King Nebuchadnezzar. And Daniel was raised up within the ranks of the government during Nebuchadnezzar's reign. And Nebuchadnezzar died and he passed the kingdom on to his son who passed the kingdom on to his son. And

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down onto a guy by the name of Belshazzar. We talked about Belshazzar in Daniel chapter 5. And Belshazzar was kind of the last king of Babylon before it was conquered by another nation. It was the Medo-Persian Empire that conquered the nation of Babylon.

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The Medo-Persian Empire was led by a man named Cyrus. And he was able to conquer Babylon without really a big fight. They were able to divert the river and sneak into the city and overthrow the city without having to try to tear down the walls or anything like that. They snuck inside and conquered it that way. Well, Cyrus, as he conquers Babylon, he appoints

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A guy named Gubaru to lead the region of Babylon. And that guy named Gubaru is most likely the person that we know in the scriptures as Darius. In Daniel chapter 6, Daniel chapter 9.

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That's who's referred to there. It's the Medo-Persian Empire has now conquered Babylon and they've set up this guy, Darius, over the region of Babylon. And so he's responsible for the region. And again, he's referred to as Darius, which is probably a title more than a name. And so that's who Darius is. He's the king of Babylon placed there by Cyrus, the Persian. And

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And it was, Daniel says, in the first year of his reign. And so that places this event, this occurrence here, at 539 BC. 539 is when the Medo-Persian Empire conquered Babylon. Darius is set up here in the region of Babylon. And sometime during that first year of Darius, he is reading through the scriptures and

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And then he's going to go into prayer as a result of what the scriptures declare. And so he tells us there in verse 2 that he was reading the scriptures and he understood by the books the number of years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet. And so Daniel is reading the scriptures and he's reading...

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Some words that were written by Jeremiah. Now, there's a couple places he could be reading from. In our Bibles, we refer to it as 2 Chronicles 36. And you can look there at verse 20 and 21 where it's recorded that Jeremiah declares that Jerusalem will be destroyed for 70 years.

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Also in the book of Jeremiah, in chapter 25, as well as some other places, but chapter 25, verses 8 through 12, Jeremiah there declares again, specifically, that Jerusalem will be conquered and will lay desolate for 70 years. And so, Daniel is reading either Jeremiah's...

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book, the prophecies of Jeremiah, or he's reading 2 Chronicles, the history of the kings. Either way, he's reading about the prophet Jeremiah and how there was this declaration that the land would be desolate for 70 years.

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And so then in verse 3 it says, Then I set my face toward the Lord to make requests by prayer and supplications. And the majority of chapter 9 is Daniel's prayer, what he prays in response to understanding this. Now what's happening here is Daniel's recognizing, Hey, Jeremiah said it was going to be 70 years that we'll be in captivity.

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And Daniel, remember, he was one of those who was taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar. He knows how long it's been. He realizes it's almost been 70 years. Our time is almost up. We're going to be released soon to go back and rebuild Jerusalem. And because he learns this, because he recognizes this from Jeremiah's prophecies, he begins now to pray.

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Now as we look at this prayer of Daniel here in chapter 9, we learn some really good lessons about prayer that we can take to heart. And so the first thing that we can learn from Daniel's example is to read the scriptures.

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to read the Bible. If you want to be able to pray like Daniel prayed, first of all, we need to be in the Word of God. Daniel was reading through, he learned some things about their situation, and so he uses that to begin to pray. And the same for you and I, that you and I, we need to be involved in reading the Word of God.

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And as we're reading the Word of God, it's not just, okay, got through that chapter, close the book, on to my day, but read it and then pray about it. And pray, what does this mean for me, Lord? What does this mean for my life? What do you want to speak through these things? And we need to take the things that we read about and then take them to the Lord in prayer.

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And so we learn from Daniel this example of reading the word and then praying through those things that we've learned and those things that God has spoken. You know, the Bible declares that when you pray according to the will of God, that you know your prayers will be answered. In 1 John 5, verses 14 and 15, it tells us this. And

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And so when we look at those promises of God, when we read through and see what God has declared, and then we pray according to those things, we can have a lot of confidence as we pray according to the will of God that those prayers will be answered. And that's what Daniel is doing here. He realizes God has declared it's going to be 70 years.

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And so he begins to pray for the people and the release of the people and the rebuilding of Jerusalem because he knows this is God's will. And it's almost time for these things to be fulfilled. And so we can read the word of God and then we can pray according to those things that we have read. Well, going on now in verses 4 through 6, we see the beginning of Daniel's prayer. It says this,

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And I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession and said, O Lord, great and awesome God who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him and 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.

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Now as we go on in looking at this prayer, we find Daniel confessing to the Lord. He's confessing the sins of the people to the Lord.

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First of all, there in verse 4, we find him declaring that God keeps his covenant. The people of Israel are not captives in Babylon because God failed somehow. The people of Israel are captives in Babylon, not because God did not keep his covenant, but because the people did not keep the covenant. The people were not faithful to the Lord.

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And so Daniel recognizes, first of all, he says, it's not your fault that we're here, God. It's not your fault that we're in this situation. But we have put ourselves here. How? Well, he tells us in verse 5, we have sinned and committed iniquity. We have done wickedly and rebelled. This was the condition of the nation of Judah. The people of God had sinned and rebelled against God.

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They had turned away from the Lord. And you can kind of see a pattern here. First of all, they sinned. Then that led them to departing from God. And then that led them to not heeding the warnings that God was giving through the prophets. And that's always a pattern that happens. Whenever a person begins to involve themselves in sin, it will lead to departing from God.

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There's no other way about it. A lot of times Christians think, well, I can just play with this sin a little bit. You know, there's grace. But if you continue in sin, it will always lead you to depart from God. And that's what happened to the nation of Judah. They participated, they practiced sin, and it led to them turning away from God and

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And as they continued in that condition of turning away from God, even when God sent warnings, we read through the prophet Isaiah. We read through the prophet Jeremiah. We saw time and time again, continually, prophet after prophet, years upon years, God was crying out to the people to turn back to Him.

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But they didn't. They did not heed the warnings. Why? Because they continued in sin, which led them to depart from God. And as they continued in that condition of turning from the Lord, they were not receptive to the prophets. They didn't want to hear. They didn't want to listen. They didn't want to pay attention to what God was speaking through the prophets. And let that be a warning for all of us.

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We think sin is, you know, no big deal. We can handle it. But the reality is, if you practice sin, if you continue in sin, it will lead you to depart from God. And if you stay in that condition, God will send you warnings. He'll send you signs. He'll work miracles. But you won't even care. You won't even pay attention because you're persisting in that rebellion against God.

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And so Daniel is confessing to God, this is our condition, Lord. We're not here because you failed. We're here because we sinned and we departed and we did not heed your warnings.

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Now as Daniel is praying these things, of course we look at Daniel's life and we know he didn't do these things. He didn't sin and depart from God and not heed the warnings. But he's praying for the nation and he's praying on behalf of the nation and that is exactly what the nation did.

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We also find out from verse 20 that Daniel at the same time is confessing his own personal sins to the Lord during this. And so again, what we have in Daniel's example as we learn about prayer is confession of sin. First of all, we need to be involved in the Word of God and be praying according to what we're reading. But then also, as we come before the Lord, we need to confess and recognize our sinful condition, our sinful practices.

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and to confess those to the Lord for forgiveness. And so that's what Daniel does. Going on in verse 7, it says, O 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, and all the countries to which you have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against you,

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Here we have Daniel declaring what belongs to God and what belongs to us or what belongs to the Jewish people. What belongs to God?

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He says, righteousness belongs to the Lord. What does that mean? Righteousness is rightness. What he's declaring again is, God, you are right. You've not done anything wrong. What you do is right and perfect and just. That's what belongs to you. Now then he says, well, what belongs to us? To us belongs shame of face.

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What belongs to God? Righteousness. What belongs to us? That's to the Jewish people, but it applies to us as well. What applies to us is shame of face. We don't have righteousness. We can't claim to be righteous. The scriptures declare very clearly that we all sin and we fall short of the glory of God. We are not righteous. There is none righteous, no not one, Isaiah says.

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None of us are righteous. What belongs to us? Not righteousness, not perfection, but shame. Shame because we all know that we missed the mark. The scriptures tell us we missed the mark. We don't measure up to righteousness. Our conscience... We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.