A Prayer of Confession

Daniel 9:1-19 Pg. 746

Introduction

What an individual is in secret, on his knees before God, that he is and no more.

If this is true, who are you? What is your prayer life like? Do you pray?

Given all of Daniel’s great gifts and abilities, his prayers may be the predominate feature of His life.

Frequently the book of Daniel presents Daniel’s prayers to us

We first got a glimpse of Daniel’s prayer life in Chapter 2 when he sought God’s aid and protection from the violent whims of Nebuchadnezzar

When God granted Daniel’s request, he immediately went to Him in a prayer of thanksgiving and adoration

We saw it again in chapter 6 when he refused to cease his normal pattern of daily prayer, even when it meant his certain death

Now we see it again in glorious detail in chapter 9 as Daniel calls out to God for mercy, acknowledging his and his nations sins and seeking forgiveness

Thesis: God causes His people to call out to Him for mercy, and He freely forgives those who trust in Him

Outline:

Revelation

Confession

Petition

Revelation

Daniel 9:2 “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, seventy years.”

We see here that Daniel was personally reading the scriptures

A few things of note.

First, it is of some interest that by the time of Daniel, the book of Jeremiah was already considered by God’s people to be God’s Word.

No one needed to make it authoritative, it didn’t need centuries of acceptance before it could be deemed authoritative. Even a generation after it was written, without any council, or Pope, Daniel was already seeing Jeremiah as special revelation.

God’s people recognize God’s Words because, as our confession states, the authority of the Holy Scriptures obligates belief in them

Second, this was undoubtedly a part of Daniel’s normal religious exercises.

Surely he knew the words of Moses, spoken in Deut. 8:3, and then later spoken by the Lord Himself, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Being a man of letters, and having access to divine texts, Daniel did not take the scriptures for granted, but he studied them.

Daniel’s reception of divine revelation leads to prayer

And his study of the scripture led to seeking the Lord in prayer, as it often does

vv. 2-3 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, seventy years. Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy

The scriptures and prayer go hand in hand.

As our eyes read the words, our mouths should be uttering words of prayer.

The same spirit that wrote the Words of scripture dwells in us and makes communication between God and man possible.

God the Spirit speaks to us in His Word and then in turn causes us to speak to Him in prayer

This is why devotional times, quiet times, or whatever you call them are an important part of the believer’s life

They do not take the place of corporate worship, but even so, the Spirit enables us to worship Him in Spirit and in truth, and He changes us as we read and pray His Word.

This is why our services are full of both Word and prayer. Both are essential elements of true worship

If you find your prayer life lacking, it may be because your time in the Word is deficient.

If you find your time in the Word is deficient, it may be because your prayer life is lacking.

Confession

Daniel’s prayer here is one of confession and petition.

True religion requires two types of confession: First, the confession of what we believe about God, creation, ourselves, salvation.

This is why we recite the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed every Sunday. This is why we’re a confessional church

But true religion also requires the confession of one’s sins

The acknowledgement of one’s sinful state before God, an agreement with Him about the sinfulness of our sin, and a acknowledgment of specific sins committed

Praise God

Daniel 9:4 “I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments,”

Daniel 9:7 “To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness

Daniel 9:9 “To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness.

Daniel 9:14 “the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done.”

It is vitally important for us to regularly confess what we believe about God

First, it is what we were made to do. God is great, and His greatness must be proclaimed to all His creation

The Word tells us that if we don’t do this, then even the rocks will cry out.

God has poured into us His strength and mercy, and grace, and power so that those things would pour forth from our mouths

Second, we have the memory of a goldfish and must continually be reminding ourselves of what is true.

And there is no greater truth than the truth of who God is

Third, the World must know the truth concerning God. His greatness, His righteous demands, His infinite love, His free grace.

When we confess these things we remind ourselves and brothers and sisters and we teach the world that Christ is king and He deserves all love and obedience

Acknowledge Sin

Christian’s confess what they believe, but they also confess what they have done

And we see that the lion’s share of this prayer is taken up with Daniel’s confession of his sins and the sins of his people.

Their sin of rebellion and faithlessness

Deuteronomic History

Deuteronomic history is viewing the history of ancient Israel through the lens of the Covenant given to them in Deuteronomy.

With an understanding of the Mosaic covenant as it is given in Deuteronomy, all the events in Israel’s history make sense.

Twice, Daniel references the curses that are written in the Law of Moses.

Daniel 9:11 “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.”

Daniel 9:13 “As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us;

God had promised, almost a thousand years before Daniel’s day, when Israel was first constituted as a nation, that if they rebelled against Him, they would be cursed

If they sought the gods of the nations, they would be given over to them.

The covenant that God entered into with Israel in the wilderness was conditional. God said, “obey and worship me and live, disobey and worship Idols and die. Obedience with blessing or disobedience with curses.

Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,”

Of course, almost as soon as Israel took possession of the land they chose death and cursing, over and over again.

But God warned them what would happen to them if they took that path in Deut. 28.

Deuteronomy 28:15 ““But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.”

Deuteronomy 28:36–37 ““The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away.”

Deuteronomy 28:41 “You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity.”

Deuteronomy 28:49 “The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand,”

Deuteronomy 28:52 ““They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you.”

The Babylonian captivity should not have bee a surprise to anyone

Especially since, as Daniel says in v. 6, God had sent his prophets as covenant prosecutors to remind them of their covenantal relationship with YHWH

The people sinned, and they paid the price

And so Daniel confesses the great sin of his people before the Lord. And we can learn several things from his confession that ought to help us as we seek to confess our sins to the Lord

He does not seek to minimize their sin

He doesn’t make excuses, he doesn’t point out the sins of others, he doesn’t take solace in the fact that their sins could have been worse

He is completely honest with the Lord and owns it

Daniel 9:5 “we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.”

Lament

He is in anguish over their sin and laments in fasting and sackcloth and ashes

Daniel 9:3 “Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.”

The sin of Israel cause grief of soul within him. He is not flippant about it, He is not saddened by the consequences of their sin so much as he is saddened that they have broken covenant with their God

Shame

He feels appropriate shame as we all should when we transgress God’s law

Daniel 9:8 “To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.”

It is a shameful thing to turn to oneself instead of God and to serve the creature rather than the Creator

The contrast between the righteousness of God and the faithlessness of the people is stark in this prayer

Daniel 9:4–5 “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.”

Daniel 9:7 “To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame

Confession is so good for the soul. It elevates God to His rightful place and humbles us to ours

Confessing the Sins of the Church

What we read in Daniel 9 is a corporate, not a private confession of sin.

On behalf of all of the people of God, Daniel is confessing their sin to Him, whether he himself was guilty of it or not

And so ought we to be involved in corporate confession

We do this every Sunday morning, but we also ought to consider the ways in which the Body of Christ at large is in sin and how we can confess that to the Lord

The Sins of the Church

According to the Ligonier state of theology, Half of American evangelicals think that God learns and adapts to different circumstances

65% of evangelicals think that everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God

More than half of evangelicals believe that God accepts the worship of Islam and Judaism

Almost half of Evangelicals believe that Jesus is not God

The conservative, Bible believing, spiritually minded wing of the church is worshipping a false God

This is exactly what landed Israel in captivity

What is more, the church is full of rank immorality

The evangelical church is full of divorce, sexual immorality, abortion, fraud, embezzlement

Our behavior is barely different from the pagans around us. Just as Israel’s behavior resembled that of the pagans around them

Our corporate gatherings look more like a Super-bowl halftime show than the congregation of saints worshipping the Most High God

Instead of preaching Christ and faith and repentance and forgiveness, we are preaching self-help, self-care, and self-love.

God forgive us

It no wonder our nation is in a mess, the church has led it there.

We act as though the increasing paganism in our society is an unstoppable force that we have been powerless against, but paganism in our society has increased, in large part, due to the sin of the church.

The church in America, due to its sin, is entering into its own Babylonian captivity.

And though we at GBC are not personally guilty of these sins, and though we, as a congregation have labored to call the church to repentance, still, we must confess the sins of the body of Christ, of which we are a part, and plead with God for forgiveness.

Petition

After clearly, openly, and honestly confessing the sins of his people, Daniel has not yet finished

Because confession is not complete without petition

Daniel does not only acknowledge the sins of Israel, but He pleads with the Lord for mercy and begs forgiveness

But without an ounce of presumption.

One may wonder why Daniel’s reading of Jeremiah would lead him to pray and confess and plead with God for mercy.

He knows and trusts that the Words of Jeremiah are true and that the exile is on the eve of its expiration

Even so, He goes to God in prayer.

If God has already said He is going to do it, why ask Him for it?

Do you go to God and pray for things He has already promised to give you?

I hope you do

This is one of the reasons that we so often struggle and are cold in our prayer life. We presume upon God.

We don’t ask of God, “give us this day our daily bread” because we don’t know if He will give it to us. We ask Him for our daily bread knowing that He has already promised to provide us all that we need.

Do you think its a waste of time to ask for things God is going to give you regardless?

Do you think its a waste of time to confess your sins to God because He knows them already?

Do you think it unnecessary to plead for forgiveness because you’ve received it in Christ already?

Daniel knew the exile was about to end, he knew his sins were forgiven, yet he confessed and he sought forgiveness anyway, because he did not presume upon the goodness of God.

If you struggle in your prayer life, if you feel like you just don’t have much to pray for, just start with the most obvious things you can think of

Ask God that he would preserve your life throughout the day

Ask that He would keep make you productive

Ask that He would protect your family and grant them health

Tell Him He is God and there is no one like Him

Tell Him you love Him and are grateful for His gifts

Thank Him for your sleep last night, thank Him for your breakfast in the morning, thank Him for your spouse and your health, and your knowledge, and the warmth of the Sun

We have all these things because He has provided them to us, We will keep them only if He decides to preserve them for us

We do not have enough time in the day to praise God for all the obvious things we know He is, to thank Him for all of the obvious gifts He has given us, to ask forgiveness for all of the obvious sins we have committed, and to request all of the obvious things we need

We ought to set aside times throughout the day, like Daniel did, in which we can focus on prayer

And then we ought to pray all throughout the day whenever blessings or sins or needs or praise comes to mind. IN this way, we will truly pray without ceasing.

Pray like Daniel. Pray that you will receive the things God has already promised. Thank God for the things you don’t think you need to

And in this way our lives will be enriched by a constant communion with God, a deep gratitude for blessings, a reverent fear of sinning against Him, and a trust that He is the one who provides all we need.

Recalling Past Deliverance

Daniel petitions God for forgiveness and deliverance, recalling that God has done it before and He can do it again

Daniel 9:15 “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.”

So we also ought to call to mind God’s mighty works as a source for comfort that He can and will work again

Based upon the Kindness of God

Daniel Pleads for forgiveness based on the character of God as one who is kind and merciful

Daniel 9:18 For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.”

He is not merely an angry old man in the clouds, but His mercy and kindness and compassion and love are greater than any other

And He is willing to forgive

Based Upon the Reputation and Glory of God

Daniel 9:17 “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.”

All that God does is for His own glory, not primarily for our sakes. His glory was bound up in the fate of His chosen people, Israel.

Would He allow the nations to say that YHWH had been overpowered by the gods of Assyria and Babylon? Or would He restore His people and His temple and His glory in Israel?

Based upon the Righteousness of God

Daniel did not come seeking forgiveness based upon his merits, his good deeds, his good behavior

He didn’t think that maybe he and the nation could make up for their past rebellion

v. 16 O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away

v. 18 we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy

He came seeking forgiveness, not because of his righteousness, but because of the righteousness and mercy of God

These are the bases on which we come to God to plead for mercy

Recalling His past deliverance in our lives

Has He delivered you once? He will do it again

Appealing to His vast stores of kindness, compassion, and mercy

There is no need to run from God in fear. You will find true mercy and compassion nowhere else but in Him, and He is eager to bestow it upon you when you come to Him humbly and in faith

Pleading that He would Uphold His own glory in your deliverance

Our salvation is not about our salvation.

It is about God displaying His glories in saving us. His mercy and power and grace and justice.

Trusting in His righteousness, and not our own

God’s righteousness in Christ is the only thing that enables mercy, and those who trust wholly in Him and His righteousness will obtain mercy and forgiveness

We will never merit forgiveness, we can’t

But Christ can, and He has. In Him alone can forgiveness be found.

You need forgiveness. Go to God, plead for it on the basis of what Christ has done, and you will receive it.