Dearly Loved (Daniel 9)

Introduction

At the start of the third verse of Thomas Kelly’s hymn, Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted, we sing these words [1]:

Ye who think of sin but lightly nor suppose the evil great 

here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate. 

Sin is often and by many viewed in this light manner. We think nor feel the gravity of our sin. We used phrases like, I messed up, or I fell short again to describe our sin. We think the answer is simply to do better the next time. 

But sin is more serious than this. In his Concise Theology, J.I. Packer [2] sums up sin this way: 

“Sin may be comprehensively defined as lack of conformity to the law of God in act, habit, attitude, outlook, disposition, motivation, and mode of existence.” 

Sin is a direct assault against God in our rejection to conform to the ways of our Creator. But I think part of the problem with our diminishing of the seriousness of sin is that we seek to compare ourselves to others around us. We think to ourselves, sure we are bad, but we are nowhere near as bad as those over there. We are good comparatively to the rest of the world. 

This is a dangerous way of thinking of our sin. For the seriousness of seeing our sin is not found in comparing ourselves to one another, it is found in comparing ourselves to the God who Created us in his own image. It is found in measuring ourselves according to his law, a law that he has made known to us to expose the fullness of sin within our evil hearts.

For when we begin to measure ourselves to this God in all his splendor of glory and holiness, we begin to feel the weight of our sin. We become like Isaiah in saying, “Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips.” And still more, it will hopefully lead us to praying to the LORD in making confession and petitions as we see from Daniel in Daniel 9 this morning. 

So then, please turn in your Bibles to Daniel 9 as we prepare to hear from the word of the LORD. If you do not have a Bible, you would be helped by taking out the Red Bible there in your seats and opening it to Daniel 9 which can be found beginning on page #886.

This will be our 9th sermon in the book of Daniel, having worked our way a chapter at a time through this Old Testament book. And as we have, one theme continues to play as we make our way through, God is the Most High and he alone will reign forever for he alone causes kings to rise and fall.  

We have seen this play out in a variety of ways. God has revealed this to us in Daniel by his delivering of his people in the more well known stories in Daniel. For God delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego from the fiery furnace. And he too delivered Daniel from the lion’s den. But God did not only deliver, he humbled. God humbled both Nebuchadnezzar there in Daniel 4 and then Belshazzar in Daniel 5. 

Then in Daniel 1 in the start of exile, in the vision of Daniel 2 with the statue, in Daniel 7, and last week in Daniel 8, we have seen God being the God over human history. His giving prophecy through Daniel of what will happen and then it is carried out in the way the LORD has orchestrated it. From the rising of those who oppose God to their downfall. 

And now as we come to Daniel 9 this morning, we are going to continue to see this reign of God over all history. For as Daniel 9 opens, Daniel reads of the promise of God concerning the exile. A reading that will lead to his praying and his confessing of sin as Daniel’s eyes are turned to the LORD. Let’s then hear this word of the LORD from Daniel 9….

Main Idea: The promises of God are to both shape our prayers and sustain our hope, promises that culminate in God’s Promised Messiah.

God Shaped Prayer

God Sustained Hope

I. God Shaped Prayer

Daniel 9 opens in V.1 by telling us that the setting here is during Darius the Mede’s first year as king over the realm of the Chaldeans there in Babylon. And it is during this first year, that as Daniel is reading a scroll of the Scriptures that is circulating, a scroll from the prophet, Jeremiah, that he is able to perceive the length of time of the exile in Babylon. For it says there at the end of V.2, “according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely seventy years.” 

The part of Jeremiah that Daniel was likely reading is from Jeremiah 29:10, ““For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.””

Therefore, with the exile having begun in the year 605 BC, and it now being 539 BC, 66 years of the 70 have now been completed. The time of the exile’s end is drawing near. 

Two brief applications here. First, note how Scripture was regarded as the word of the LORD from a very early period, even before the fullness of the canon of the Bible was completed. Daniel here already is recognizing Jeremiah’s words as the word of the LORD, acknowledging its authority. 

Second, note how Daniel, even in exile, was devoted to the intake of Scripture. We must never neglect this most practical application for us to be a people who regularly open our Bibles to read and study these words from the LORD. It is by the words in this ancient book of the Bible that our God has chosen to speak to us, both then and now. Furthermore, it was in the reading of this word from the LORD that Daniel’s heart was encouraged and ignited to turn to this God in prayer. 

God Shaped Prayer is ignited by God’s Promises

Daniel 9:3-19 is a lengthy prayer by Daniel unto the LORD. A prayer that is started from these promises of God that he had read from Jeremiah about the number of years of the exile. God’s promises ignited prayer.

Prayer is not merely a time of making our requests, our wants, our wishes known to God. Prayer, as we see here in Daniel 9, is to be rooted in the very word of God. For as we will see, in this prayer of Daniel that flows from V.3-19, it is a prayer for God to bring about these very things he has promised. This both shows Daniel’s trust and expectation of God to do what he says he will do, as well as Daniel’s heart to be united to the LORD’s. 

For when our prayers begin to pray what God has promised and what it is he says, it is a sign of our growing in godliness. That our hearts and our desires are drawing closer to the Lord. Something that we see with Daniel’s prayer here in V.3-19.  A prayer full of confession and petition.

God Shaped Prayer Confesses Sin in Light of God’s Glory

First his prayers start with confession in light of who God is. We see this in V.3-15. Daniel here goes back and forth with looking at who God is and then how he and those with him have sinned and rebelled against this very good God. 

And to start this prayer of confession, we see that as Daniel prayed and pleaded for mercy, he did so with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. These all were part of the regular norm for those under the Old Covenant in Israel. The sackcloth and ashes were to be signs of an inward reality of grief over the sin they were confessing. 

Now, under the New Covenant which has come by the blood of Jesus, we as Christians are not called to this kind of manner of sackcloth and ashes. In fact, when we fast, we are instructed to wash our faces so that no one can see that we are fasting (Matthew 6:16-18). 

And yet, even still, we are a people who are called to this kind of confession and fasting in light of our sin. But notice how this confession starts, it starts there in V.4 with God. Daniel not only calls upon the name of God by his covenant name, יְהוָה, but he acknowledges the goodness and faithfulness of this Covenant God by saying, “he keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” 

Daniel starts his confession by acknowledging who God is. Beloved, part of good and right confession unto the LORD starts with this reality that we confess sin before a good God. I think too often we approach confession to God reluctantly out of obligation and duty in wanting to avoid his anger. Godly confession is very much aware of God’s anger, but it more importantly is fixed on God’s goodness and our failure to keep our end of the covenant. Which is where Daniel turns in V.5-6…

Where God had been faithful to the covenant promises, Daniel acknowledges he and the whole of Israel were unfaithful. That they failed to keep the covenant by walking in ways contrary to their God. Walking in the ways of sin and doing wrong and acting wickedly and rebelling. And even when warned by God’s prophets, the people failed to listen. 

As confession continues, at the start of V.7, Daniel acknowledges that to God belongs righteousness. The purpose in this statement is to show that he truly believes that God kept his promises to Israel. He was faithful even in warning them. But Israel failed to listen and because of this failure, Daniel moves to drawing out that open shame belongs to them. Shame in their exile, shame because of their treachery against the covenant and faithful God. Shame because they sinned against the LORD (V.8).  

As is evidenced there in V.9, Daniel acknowledges that this sin is against the very one to whom mercy and forgiveness belong. That this is the one whom they have disobeyed and transgressed against. 

Furthermore, what has happened has followed the warnings of God that were given in the establishment of his covenant. For while as put in V.12, the punishment was severe and nothing like it, it was carried out just as God had promised in the Law of Moses. Multiple times in the Law of Moses, blessing and curse were promised depending on whether one heard and obeyed or not. 

First, there is Deuteronomy 11. Throughout, the LORD is telling Israel that they are to love him if it is to go well with them, that if they fail, his anger will consume them. In Deuteronomy 11:26-27, the LORD puts before them a blessing and a curse. A blessing if they obey, a curse if they do not obey. 

This is then repeated in Deuteronomy 28. Blessings for obedience are given there in Deuteronomy 28:1-14. And curses in verses 15-68. These two alone are the summation of the law. And time and time again Israel was being pointed back to these as they were urged to listen and obey. And so Daniel acknowledges that God was faithful to his word, while they failed to listen. For instead of listening and turning from their iniquities, that is their sin, they continued in it. And so, God carried out his word as he promised.  

The final plea of confession comes in Daniel acknowledging that he and the people collectively have sinned against the God who had delivered them. 

Beloved, may our prayers be filled with such God-centered confession in seeing how serious our sin is because we realize exactly whom we have sinned against. Beloved, if you are in Christ, if you are a Christian, our sin is not merely against others. When we continue in our sin, we are sinning against the very one who shed his blood on our behalf in order to rescue us from the bondage of sin. Therefore, let us be those who are quick to go to God in prayer and to confess our sin, both individually and corporately as the whole of the church. 

God Shaped Prayer makes God Glorifying Petitions

Of course our prayers are not only to be a time of confession. It is time to make petitions too. Petitions being that of requests or pleas to the Lord. And that is what we see next in Daniel’s prayer in V.16-19. 

Daniel makes petitions to God, asking him to turn his anger and wrath away. He petitions that God would hear his prayer for mercy. He petitions that God would make his face to shine upon Jerusalem, his holy temple and grant favor. He makes a petition for God to hear them and not to delay in acting. 

But notice what these petitions are rooted in. They are petitions rooted in a desire for God’s glory. 

We see this first in V.16 with how Daniel starts, “O Lord, according to all your righteous acts.” Daniel seeks to petition God to let his anger and wrath turn away from his holy hill in Jerusalem for the sake of his righteousness. Then again in V.17, a petition for God to hear their prayer and plea for mercy for God’s own sake.

This is then further clarified in V.18-19. God’s righteousness, his name’s sake are tied up in his city and his people. And so, as they go, so goes the righteousness and the glory of God’s name. And so, Daniel, for the sake here of God’s name asks him to pour out his mercy upon Jerusalem, upon the exiles that are tied to his name so that he may be glorified as not only the Sovereign LORD, but the merciful LORD. 

Daniel’s petitions are rooted in a longing not for his glory or Israel’s glory, but God’s glory. 

Beloved, as you give yourself to prayer, whose glory are you seeking? Your own glory or God’s glory? Our prayers truly have a way of revealing much of our theology and much of our hearts. In his commentary, Sinclair Ferguson puts it this way, “Prayer is an expression of what we know of God and of ourselves. In public we may successfully disguise the truth about ourselves but not in private prayer—or in the lack of it.” [3]

Let our prayers turn more Godward, conforming us more to our Sovereign LORD and his likeness. For it is this God who is our only hope. 

II. God Sustained Hope

Hope that comes first in the confidence that there is a God who hears and answers prayer. First look at the coming of God’s messenger there in V.20-22. Gabriel, one of the angels of the LORD, appears to Daniel to give him further understanding and further insight about the end of the exile and much more. But before he does, he tells Daniel that from the beginning of his prayer, the LORD heard and that Daniel is greatly loved. And therefore let him consider this word from the LORD. 

There is hope, because as we pray to God we can be sure that he hears us and answers us. Even you who seem to grow weary in the midst of your pleas for God to hear and answer, do not for a moment think that it is that God is not a god who hears prayer and answers, keep pleading turning more and more to the LORD until either the LORD answers your prayer or he reshapes your prayers to fit more in line with his will. 

To what end though does Gabriel give Daniel understanding? Daniel is once more told of what is to come in the coming of 70 weeks or more literally as the footnotes indicate, 70-7’s which are unfolded there in V.24-27. 

Now, let it be noted that many have said these verses are the most difficult in all the Bible to understand. And with that comes a variety of views. And I’m going to try my best to make sense of these verses for us. 

First, in verse 24 with this seventy weeks being decreed about your people and your holy city. Seventy weeks that are to do 6 things.  (1) finish the transgression, (2) put an end to sin, (3) atone for iniquity, (4) bring in everlasting righteousness, (5) seal both vision and prophet, and (6) to anoint a most holy place. 

Then in verses 25-27 these 70-7’s are broken up into three parts, in the first part of V.25 you have the seven sevens, in the second half of V.25 you have the 62 weeks, then the final seventieth seven in V.26-27. 

This seventy-sevens then comes to 490 years, and the question is whether this is a literal or symbolic 490 years. I think we can argue it is meant not to be taken in the strictest literal sense. And the reason for this is that this kind of counting was given in the law from Leviticus 25:8-12. And there a multiplication of seven weeks of years results in 49 years with the fiftieth year meant to be a jubilee. A jubilee was a time of release and freedom. 

One commentator, and I think he is correct, argues then that the seventy-sevens here point to an ultimate jubilee. An ultimate jubilee that will bring about the end of sin as atonement is accomplished once and for all. [4] An atonement that would then come in the anointing not of a place, but a person. 

The first period is mentioned there at the start of V.25 in the first seven sevens when the word goes out for Jerusalem to be restored and the coming of an anointed one. A word or decree that comes about through Cyrus, the Persian King who many think is the same as Darius the Mede, being of a Median father, but a Persian mother. Alas we do not have time to dive into that. 

For we need to see how Cyrus was clearly prophesied to be the means to bring about this restoration. We see this first in Isaiah 44:28 where Cyrus is said to be a shepherd and to fulfill God’s promise in restoring Israel. A second passage in Ezra 1:1-2 shows the fulfillment of this. For there, the LORD stirs Cyrus’ spirit in his first year and he makes the proclamation and writing for Jerusalem to be rebuilt, including the temple. Therefore this first sevens is likely that of a period running from the decree of Cyrus in 538 BC until the completion of the temple in 515 BC or even the finishing of the walls as well in 444 BC. 

Next comes the 62 weeks in the second part of V.25. A period that likely comes during the days of Nehemiah to that of Christ. And while these numbers may not measure up exactly to the dot, they match up pretty well with this period. As well as the fact that during this 62 week period, we see the temple having been rebuilt to the fullest end, hence the mention of squares and moats. But this period was a troubled time. A time that included the terror of Antiochus IV who we looked at last week in Daniel 8. 

Cyrus was the one who acted to liberate the Jews from exile. Yet, he was not the final deliverer. For after this 62 sevens is completed, another comes. The final sevens comes. And in it we have a unique structure in V.26-27. 

For in the first part of V.26, we are told an anointed one will come and be cut off and have nothing. But then is dropped before being picked up again in V.27 showing that he, this anointed one, shall make a strong covenant with many for one week and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. 

This being contrasted then with the other pair at the end of both V.26-27. For at the end of V.26 we are told that the people of the prince shall come and destroy the city and sanctuary, that the end will come with flood and war. That these desolations are decreed. Then at the end of V.27, that the one who makes desolate will come on the wing of the abominations, that this is poured out on the desolator. 

Working backwards then, we need to consider Jesus’ own reference to this desolation in his own day. In Matthew 24 we see that Jesus warns his disciples that there is a day coming in which not one stone will be left upon another of the temple (Matt 24:1-2). A day in which he calls the abomination of desolation (Matt 24:15). An event that is then fulfilled in AD 70 with the destruction of the temple, yet again. A destruction that came by Titus, a Roman ruler. Yet, it was because of the transgression of the prince’s people, the Jews. For the Jews had rejected God’s Messiah King who had already come. And so, as with the exile, their disobedience, their transgression led to the destruction of the temple. The prince’s people led to the destruction of the temple. The Jews in their rejection of the Messiah King brought the destruction of the temple. 

And while this might seem a stretch to some, is not it this Messiah King then who is this anointed one of V.26-27? Is he not the one who has come to bring an end to sacrifice and offering by becoming the once and for all sacrifice as he was the anointed one who was cut off, having nothing as he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted? As he was nailed to a tree. As he became a curse taking on the very shame of what sinners deserved. 

Beloved, this 70-sevens is not about the end of times. It is centered on how God answers Daniel’s prayer by showing him how he will show mercy and forgiveness. How he will show it more abundantly than Daniel could imagine. For the LORD was going to bring restoration. Restoration not by the renewing of Jerusalem or a temple. No, a restoration that comes through his anointed one, Jesus. One who makes a way for sin to be brought to and end, for iniquity to be atoned, to bring about everlasting righteousness. And for a better anointed place in a new and better kingdom. A kingdom where God reigns. Daniel 9 and the seventy sevens are about the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, God’s anointed one to bring about the fullness of his mercy and forgiveness to those who will come and trust in this Messiah King.

There are some of you here who need to see the weight of your sin this morning and see God’s remarkable plan to redeem sinners like you and me. A redemption that comes by our hearing these words of the LORD and repenting from our sin and coming to trust in Jesus and him alone to put an end to sin and atone for iniquity. Friend, understand this and believe today. Make today the day of your salvation. And join in the song of praise for God’s glorious redemption. 

For the application for us as Christians is to sing, to marvel at the goodness of this God who has been faithful to his covenant promises in pursuing a people for himself. A people to restore from the curse of sin and death despite our iniquity, our wickedness, our lawlessness, our rebelliousness. We are to be those who are to marvel and praise him forever and ever. A people singing, and how can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood? For died he for me who caused his pain. Amazing love, how can it be?

Let’s pray…

Endnotes [1] Hymn: Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted, Verse 3.

[2]   J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1993), 82.

[3]  Sinclair Ferguson. Daniel: The Preacher’s Commentary. (Nashville, TN, Thomas Nelson Inc, 1988) …

[4]  Mitch Chase. Daniel: ESV Expository Commentary Series. (Wheaton, IL, Crossway, 2018.) 126.