We're going to read God's Word together. I'm going to invite Philip up, who's going to read for us Daniel chapter 9.
! If you've got a church Bible, it's on page 746.
Daniel chapter 9.
In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, by descent of Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans.
In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the words of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet,
must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years.
Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
I prayed to 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.
We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled.
Turning aside from your commandments and rules, we have not listened to your servants, the prophets,
who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our fathers and to all the people of the land.
To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day to the men of Judah,
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to all Israel, those who are neared and those who are far away,
in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you.
To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.
To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him
and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws,
which he set before us by his servants, the prophets.
All Israel has congrressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice.
And the curse and oath that are written in the law of Moses, the servant of God,
have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him.
He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us,
by bringing upon us a great calamity.
For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem.
As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us,
yet we have not entreated the favour of the Lord our God,
turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth.
Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us.
For the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done,
and we have not obeyed his voice.
And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand,
and have made a name for yourself, as at this day we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
O Lord, according to your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem,
your holy hill, because of our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers.
Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us.
Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant,
and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord,
make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate.
O my God, incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and see our desolations,
and the city that is called by your name.
For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness,
but because of your great mercy.
O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive.
O Lord, pay attention and act.
Delay not for your own sake, O my God,
because your city and your people are called by your name.
O Lord, I have now come to give you insight and understanding.
At the beginning of your pleas for mercy, our words went out,
and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved.
Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision.
Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city
to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin,
and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness,
to seal both vision and profit, and to anoint a most holy place.
Know, therefore, and understand that from the going out of the word
to restore and build Jerusalem,
to the coming of an anointed one, a prince,
there shall be seven weeks.
Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again
with squares and moat, but in a troubled time.
And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off
and shall have nothing.
And the people of the prince who is to come
shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
Its end shall come with flood,
and to the end there shall be war.
Desolations are decreed,
and he 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.
And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate
until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.
We are in the book of Daniel one last time before the Advent season starts,
and it's a good chapter to end on, Daniel chapter 9 for now.
And Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
are in Babylon, that ancient city.
And this whole book has been about how they show us
what it means to be faithful when being a faithful believer is risky,
and what it means to follow God in a place where you are in the minority,
in a city where you are in the minority.
And this is a place where if we were to update it to modern language,
people would say that the faith of Daniel is outdated and silly and traditionalist,
and we live in a not dissimilar time.
So it's been a really important book, I think, for us in 2025 in the city of Edinburgh.
Now, one of the things we have not talked about this whole series
is why they are in Babylon.
We've barely mentioned it, and this is really what the prayer is about,
why they are in Babylon at all.
And so for 400 years, God's people, Israel,
which were split into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom,
Israel and Judah, they did not put God at the center of their lives,
and they followed after idol, after idol, after idol.
And really, they lived as if they were already in Babylon.
They worshipped Babylonian gods for hundreds of years before they ever got to Babylon.
And so what happened is God gave them to Babylon.
He gave them what they really wanted, and that was to be polytheists and idolaters.
That's the life that they had lived.
And so in this prayer, just if you notice verse 5,
we turned aside from your commands.
We did not listen to the prophets.
That's verse 6.
Verse 7, all of Judah, all of Israel disobeyed.
So there's just references to that 400 years of following idols.
Even verse 8, our kings, our princes, and our fathers all disobeyed.
And so God was really patient, and for centuries and centuries,
He showed mercy to them, and then eventually they were disciplined.
And so this is a story of their discipline,
that they were disciplined by God for following idols.
Now Daniel was a teenager when they went to Babylon.
He was exiled as a young teenager in 605 BC,
and that means that Daniel was not a part of that.
He was not a part of the 400 years of worshipping idol after idol.
And so when we get there,
Daniel's a man who hadn't done those things,
like the fathers and the princes and the kings.
And then in the book of Daniel, unusually for the Old Testament,
Daniel never has a fall story, a failure story.
So you think about great David, King David.
He was great, but he had several major failure stories.
And Solomon was very great, but in the end he worshipped lots of false gods.
Abraham was very great, but he has at least three fall stories.
Daniel never has one.
Very unusual for the Bible.
So he's this teenager who never worshipped idols,
and he's a man in this narrative that's presented without a failure story.
He's full of integrity and wisdom and hope.
He's a model of what it looks like to live in a city that thinks faith in God is silly.
And, you know, if you want to know what it means to know God and follow God
in a place where it's difficult to do that,
we've got these examples like Daniel and Esther and Ruth and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
that really show us how to do that in the Bible.
Yet, in Daniel 9, this prayer,
he pleads for the redemption of every one of the people that got him into exile.
And he prays really for Jerusalem, and the prayer is all about the restoration of Jerusalem.
Verse 16,
Let your wrath turn from Jerusalem.
Let sacrifices be restored in Israel.
Daniel knew, like the whole Old Testament, that as Jerusalem goes, so goes God's people.
So you can really tell how God's people are doing in the Old Testament by the condition of Jerusalem.
And so he pleads for Jerusalem and its restoration here in this prayer.
But even more notable, faithful Daniel, what does he say?
We sinned against you.
Faithful Daniel, a model of integrity, says, I bring my confession.
And, you know, see, Daniel had every right to be bitter,
every right to be angry about what they had done to get him into exile.
Sixty-six years in this passage, we learn from verse 1,
he's been in exile, now under Darius in 539 BC.
And for sixty-six years a slave.
And he says, Lord, forgive me.
And that means that Daniel is such a model of spirituality.
He had never had an ounce of moral superiority,
even though he was a man of integrity.
And really what we can say is in this prayer we learn his humility.
And this is a prayer that teaches us about spiritual formation.
That's really what it's about.
What does it mean to be so shaped by the Holy Spirit,
formed your spirit by the Spirit,
that you've been consistently, deeply changed your whole life
to the point where you can pray like that?
And Daniel's a model of spiritual formation,
as is Esther and Ruth in similar books.
We, in our philosophy of ministry here at St. C's,
and in our vision statement,
we have the language spiritual formation.
A lot of times we like language like that,
but don't really know exactly what we're getting at or what it means.
And all it means is that spiritual formation
is the recognition of a process of change
that has to take place in the Christian life.
And it's a change from where we used to not desire God
in the life that God calls us to,
and we're learning to grow into desire.
So spiritual formation is all about desire.
Jonathan Edwards, the great American theologian and pastor,
he said the Christian life is growing affection for God over time.
So a heart full of longing for God.
St. Augustine very famously said,
spiritual formation is the slow reordering of disordered loves.
So what he meant by that is we love the wrong things in this life.
Spiritual formation is the slow change of desire,
loving the right things.
Daniel, what we have here in this chapter
is Daniel's spirituality, spiritual formation.
All right, it's phenomenally unsurprising
what we learn here.
Let me give you three principles of spiritual formation
from Daniel's life that are for us.
Very simple, so basic, fundamental, so important.
Number one, first we learn from Daniel
to immerse yourself daily in God's Word
until it moves you to pray.
So Daniel teaches us first,
immerse yourself every day in God's Word
until you desire to pray.
So he's been here 66 years in the city of Babylon.
And in verse 2, he says,
I discerned in the books.
What are these books that he's looking at?
They are the scrolls of what we now call the Old Testament.
So Daniel is scouring the scrolls of the Old Testament
as far as he has them so far in history.
And he's looking for something.
And what he's looking for is,
when will this exile be over with?
That's what he's looking for.
And he finds it in the Jeremiah scroll.
But very simple,
the first thing to learn
is how do you live in a city
where the idols of Babylon are all around you
and you are for this place
and you love Edinburgh
and you want to see the good,
the common good,
all throughout this land.
And yet,
the idols of the city
don't get into you,
don't get into your heart.
You're for Babylon,
but Babylon doesn't get into you.
And how do you do that?
And the first thing we learn is
by believing that when you open the Bible,
God is speaking to you.
And it's basic
and it's simple
and it's classic
reformed spirituality
because it's biblical spirituality.
But you've got to be a person
who opens the Bible
and believes the Word of God is here.
And that you have conviction
that when you open the Bible,
God is speaking into your life.
And that's exactly what we see here in Daniel.
He opens the scrolls
and he knows that when he reads them,
he's hearing from God.
And what does he hear?
He hears from the Jeremiah scroll
and he's probably reading Jeremiah 25 and 29.
And there we learn that
Jeremiah prophesies
that Babylon would capture Judah
and then after 70 years
would send Judah back to Jerusalem.
And so he learns here,
we're told,
that it's going to be 70 years
until he gets to go back total
to Jerusalem.
So in the year 536,
Cyrus sends the Judahites
from Babylon back
to Jerusalem.
This is the year 539.
So he's about three to four years away
from this.
And so that immediately leads him
then to say,
70 years,
I need to pray.
I need to ask God
to do this
to actually fulfill
what he's said.
And the text,
the way it puts it
is that Daniel discerned
or perceived
the 70 years in Jeremiah.
And so there's this sense
that he understood something
of what was happening
but not all of it.
Because later,
Gabriel comes to him
and we'll get to this
at the end.
Gabriel comes to him
and explains the vision
of the 70 years,
the prophecy in detail
that would be absolutely impossible
for him to ever know.
Now let's,
basic and simple spirituality again.
Daniel believes that
when he opens God's word,
God is speaking to him.
And we learn here
that Daniel believes
that he is able to discern
or perceive
what the Bible says.
And it's just to say
that the Bible
is clear enough
to be discerned
and believed.
And when Gabriel comes
to explain the vision,
we learn
that there are depths
to the Bible
that only God
and his angels know.
And there are caverns
in a good way,
so deep in Scripture
that we will never
get to the bottom
of them in this life.
And that's why
you can come to the Bible
and say,
this is clear enough
for me to understand
what it means to be saved.
And I can come back
to the Bible
over and over and over again
and realize
that there are depths here
that I have yet to penetrate.
You might have had
this experience
where you,
if you've been in the church
your whole life,
you read the Bible
your whole life
and then you come
maybe listen to a preacher
or you meet with somebody
and you read the Bible
with them
and you start to see things
in the Bible
that you've never seen before.
And you say to your friend,
I've read this passage
so many times
and I've never seen that.
And it's because
the Bible is perspicuous.
It's clear.
It can be discerned
and perceived.
And there are depths
to it so deep
that only God
truly knows the bottom.
And that's exactly
the experience
that Daniel has here.
But he believes
that when he opens
the Bible
he is reading God's Word.
So let me put it
in the simplest form.
2 Timothy 3.16
All scripture
is breathed out
by God
and profitable.
And I just want to ask you
this morning
do you believe that?
Are you believing
that Monday to Saturday
that when you open
God's Word
the scripture
is breathed out
by God
and speaking
directly to you
and directly into your life
because the Bible
tells us it really is.
Now
that is at the heart
of biblical spirituality
but you may come today
and say
I've been reading
the Bible
and I don't feel that.
I don't
when I open the Bible
most days
I don't feel
like it's breathing
on me
and breathed out
by God.
And the one thing
I want to say
about that today
is that
part of the reason
for that is
we have to learn
to discern
what the Bible
is teaching
in order to fully
experience the breath
of scripture.
Jesus in John
chapter 5
he comes to a group
of religious leaders
and he said
you keep searching
the scriptures
because you think
there you will find
eternal life
and they
bear witness
about me
yet you refuse
to come to me
to have eternal life.
Now Jesus
is saying something
so striking
and that's
he's saying to them
the reason
you're not able
yet to discern
the scriptures properly
is because you've yet
to realize
they are all about me.
And in Luke 24
he comes to his disciples
and he tells them
in the law of Moses
the Torah
the first five books
and the prophets
most of the books
of the Bible
Old Testament
and the writings
like Daniel
it says that Jesus
spent days
explaining to them
how it was all
about him.
And one of the ways
maybe the Bible
isn't yet coming alive
this could be the case
in your life
is because you've yet
to see
you've yet to grow
as much into
the Christocentric
nature
of scripture
that the Bible
is actually
all about Jesus
and it's not only
that it points to him
but it all flows
back out from him.
It's like
looking at a bicycle wheel
and if you think about
imagine a bicycle wheel
the outer rim
of it
is like the books
of the Bible
and there are
all those spokes
you know
running into the center
in and back out again.
And at the very center
of that wheel
is the center
that holds it all together
and gives it life
makes it possible
and that is Jesus.
That's what he says there.
So you can
the scriptures
can come alive to you
they really are
God's word
they can come alive to you
when you discern
that Jesus is the point.
He's the center
the meaning
the habitus
that you go into
and back out of again
to understand the whole.
John Lennox
is a famous
Christian public intellectual
that many of us know about
and I was reading
recently how he was
preparing
he told the story
of preparing
to preach
at one of his friend's funerals
and this friend
had been with him
at Cambridge
and they were students together
and they were mathematics
students at Cambridge
and they were in
a department
mathematics
at that time
where they were
actively told
if you want to survive
in this world
you must make sure
no one thinks
that you're a Christian
you must suppress
the faith
very Babylonian
in that way
and he was sitting
at the deathbed
of his dear friend
who survived that
with him
and he said
what do you want me
to say at your funeral
and this is what
his friend said
encourage the people
to do what we did
when we were students
together
tell them
read the word
of God together
discuss it
think about it
pray about it
and wait on God
until his face appears
now
if you're not there yet
his advice was
get somebody
to read God's word
with
pray about it
discuss it together
and wait
until God's face appears
and basic
biblical spirituality
is right here
it's
get your head
get your heart
get your mind
get your eyes
on the Bible
until it leads you
to prayer
so that's what
happened secondly
in Daniel's life
he then turns to prayer
and again
this
Daniel 9
needs a sermon series
not a one off
okay
so we can only be
cursory here
he says here
that prayer
is seeking
the face of God
and that's what
we have to learn today
is that
reading the Bible
until it leads us
to prayer
is basic spirituality
and then when it
leads us to prayer
prayer is seeking
him
his face
is actually the language
here in Hebrew
so
in verse
back to verse 1
this is at the time
of Darius
and that means
that we're backwards
in chronology
to the time
between Daniel chapter 5
and Daniel chapter 6
this is before Daniel
had gone into the lion's den
this vision
and this prayer
and in that chapter 6
right before he's about
to go into the lion's den
it says that to prepare
for that
he got on his knees
with an open window
facing Jerusalem
to pray
three times a day
as was his custom
and so in the
when you read the book
you just simply realize
that Daniel prayed
habitually
three times a day
and he prayed
very much
in the midst
of crisis
as well
and we learn
from Daniel
the call
and the invitation
to spiritual formation
that it requires
habitual prayer
and especially
praying in crises
and that's exactly
what happens here
so
what does that look like
for him
he had read
Jeremiah 25 and 29
and he had heard
God say there
70 years
and then you'll get
to go back
to Jerusalem
it's been 66 years
and so he immediately
starts to pray
and you can think
of a moment
like verse 17
where he says
Lord make your face
shine on your
desolate sanctuary
Jerusalem temple
restore the temple
and then he says
for your own sake
now over and over
again in the prayer
he says that
do it for your sake
Lord
do it for your sake
and what he's saying
there is
you promised
in Jeremiah
the scroll
to lead us
back to Jerusalem
and restore the temple
and so do it
make good on that promise
and you see
in this prayer
he's holding
intention
to realities
number one
that's that
God has determined
everything that will
come to pass
in history
and he
in the Bible
even sometimes
comes and says it
in 70 years
the temple
will be restored
that's a promise
and then Daniel
turns in the prayer
and now says
okay well do it
do what you said
you're going to do
and so in the Bible
you've got this
tension
where God has determined
all that comes to pass
and prayer
prayer changes history
prayer works
prayer changes the world
and both of those things
fit together
there's no zero sum game
it's 100% true
and 100% true
and that's all
that's here
it's all throughout scripture
one writer
described it like this
and I had this experience
last Saturday
so it was very helpful
to me
where at 6.30am
7am
on a Saturday
my one day off a week
which is relative
6.30
7am
a child comes to the bed
and says
you said
on Tuesday
you would take me
swimming today
and what did he say
he said
now I'm here
to see to it
that you make good
on your promise
right
now I am not God
far away from that
and that means
that I am regularly
disappointing
to my kids
and they come
and they say
make good
on the swimming promise
and I say
I have a lot
to do today
and we're probably
not going to go
and
in the same way
and in a holistically
different way
prayer is coming
in childlike
dependence
and awe
to a God
to a father
who has already said
he's made the promise
and then you come
and you say
now do it
and that's exactly
what Daniel's doing here
you said 70
make it that way
Lord
but
unlike us
God will do it
and he did it
and that's exactly
what prayer is
the heart of prayer
here in this passage
the language
is the language
in verse 3
and that's
where he says
it says that
Daniel
lifted his face
to God
to seek
the face of God
so the text says
seeking him
in prayer
but the actual
Hebrew says
sought his face
and that's the language
all throughout
the Old Testament
why
because
prayer is
intimate
and relational
you lift your face
to God
to seek his face
and it's this idea
of this face
to face
with the living God
now listen
Daniel believes
that when he opens
the Bible
he hears
from God
and then he believes
that he can lift
his face to God
and look at God's face
and they have a face
to face conversation
he believes that
that is
the reality
the heart of prayer
do you believe that
that you are having
a conversation
with the living God
because he's conversed
with you
by scripture
and then you're turning
and giving your face
to him
as he gives his face
to you
in prayer
and that's exactly
what prayer is
and Daniel
very much believes
that's fundamental
to spiritual formation
and biblical spirituality
in his life
and in our lives
as well
and it's
here
it's accompanied
with these acts
of self-denial
so he fasts
he puts on sackcloth
and pours ashes
upon his head
we don't do that anymore
but I just want to note
that the fasting
we do
and spirituality
real spirituality
is accompanied
by acts
of self-denial
and fasting
is one of them
but the sackcloth
and the ashes
was really about
this whole Bible idea
of posture
and prayer
and so all throughout
the Bible
people get on their knees
to pray
in 1 Timothy 2
in the New Testament
Paul says
men of the church
when you pray
lifting holy hands
in the air
now
the Bible says
that the physical body
is important
in prayer
and that posturing
your body
teaches your soul
how to pray
and we don't lift
holy hands in prayer
here in our church
but that's culture
that's not
the Bible says
it all the time
that the body
is so important
to train the soul
and these acts
of self-denial
and fasting
and getting into the word
and then coming to prayer
is all the basics
of what it means
to have spiritual formation
in your life
and Daniel
really lives by that
and believes that
that is why
he's a man
of faith
and hope
and wisdom
and integrity
throughout the whole
of this book
and today
if you're feeling
stale
in spiritual formation
I just want to say
simply
that God
when you come to Jesus
the spirit
breaks the power
of canceled sin
in your life
it makes you able
to change
able to be transformed
and then says
now go work out
your salvation
with fear and trembling
not go get your salvation
but go flesh it out
be changed in your life
and that's just to say
that spiritual formation
is not automatic
and so if you feel
like you're not growing
and your life
your spiritual life
is stale
it's important to hear again
and see Daniel's example
that spiritual formation
is not automatic
it takes acts of self-denial
and discipline
and habitual prayer
and habitual scripture reading
and coming back to the word
this is never something
that distances you
from the justification
of forgiveness
that you have in Jesus
no not at all
never
and so you may be
I'm far away today
from acts of self-denial
from spiritual formation
in my life
being meaningful
that's
and all this is today
is an invitation
by King Jesus
to say
come back
come closer
draw near
you're forgiven
you're saved
now work out your salvation
with fear and trembling
now one way
he teaches us to do that
is through prayers
of confession
and so this whole chapter
is mostly a prayer of confession
and there's so much in it
again we need a series
but just notice what he says
he said verse 4
I made confession
verse 5
we have sinned
we've done wrong
we've acted wickedly
we've rebelled
we've turned aside
verse 6
we didn't listen
verse 7
we are people of open shame
there are lots of different words there
for rebellion against God
every one of them means something different
lots of ways to sin against God
and then four times in the prayer
verse 7 is notable
he talks about God's righteousness
now for us as modern people
we say the word righteousness
and we don't say the word righteousness
you know we don't use that word
if we do use that word
we mean it as a pejorative
so we would say
you know
she is very self-righteous
he is very self-righteous
but in the Bible
righteousness is a relational term
and what it
you could translate it into
modern language like this
you do right by me
that's righteousness
it's relational
so four times he says
Lord
you sent us into exile
into Babylon
and I'm here today
in my confession to say
you did right by us
that's a very hard thing to say
but he said
when you judged us
it was righteous
it was right
you did right by us
and then
two times he says
you are righteous Lord
and in your righteousness
it belongs to you
to now show mercy
and forgiveness
now in this prayer
there's this tension
where he says
you are the righteous God
and you did right by us
to send us into exile
and judge us
and then on the other hand
you are the righteous God
and you do right
by forgiving
and showing mercy
and you say
well what is it
how could it be both
at the same time
how do you fit
those two pieces together
there's a real tension there
Paul Kingsnorth
is a famous English writer
that some folks here
will probably know
he's just published
a new book
that's been very well received
critically
and it's called
Against the Machine
it's really about
the spiritual cost
of modern technocracy
a life of technology
that we live
but Paul Kingsnorth
wrote this famous essay
called
The Cross and the Machine
and in it
he tells his own testimony
really
and he says that
as a teenager
he believed in science
quote
that's how he says it
and he would
he thought Christianity
was very silly
and he grew up
in rural English parish
and he did attend
the Anglican church there
sometimes
but he says that
as a teenager
he and his pals
would go parish to parish
into the Anglican
little parish church
and they would open
the visitors books
and they would write
not very nice things
into the visitors books
so that on Sundays
people would flip the pages
and find not very nice things
on Sunday mornings
to the point where he said
after a while
they would return
and find there were no longer
any visitors books
at the churches
so that
he said
that's what I thought
of Christianity
later in life
he was reading
a friend of his
by the name of
John Moriarty
and he read
in John Moriarty's
book
a man who also said
I believed only in science
he said
it struck me
John Moriarty
wrote this
I believed only in science
I thought
Christianity
a myth
and then he writes
until I was ruined
shattered into seeing
only prayer
became big enough
for me
and then Paul
Kingsnorth
reading Moriarty
as an unbeliever
says
Moriarty wrote
this line
and it changed my life
the story of Christianity
is the story of humanity's
rebellion against God
he said
the one line
that changed my life
the story of Christianity
is the story of humanity's
rebellion
against God
and he said
I had never thought
of that before
he told
he said
Moriarty taught me
that humanity
is a history
of rebellion
against God
and Christianity
is how God fixed it
and then he writes
this is the truth
I would later surrender to
and today Paul
is a Christian
this is a prayer of confession
and what Daniel says
the man of integrity
the man of faithfulness
who was sent into exile
because of other people's sins
said Lord
I too
have sinned
and every single person
here today
no matter where you are
spiritually
what religious background
you may have
what you believe in
you need confession
you need to get it
off your chest
we all do
and the Bible says
we all need to confess
to God
and to other people
our sins
and our debts
and if we don't do that
the Bible tells us
our bones are going to rot
Psalm 51
it hurts
to not be able to confess
and this man of integrity
knew
this prayer
just simply says
the history of humanity
is the history of rebellion
against God
and the story of the Bible
is how God fixed it
and that's the tension
in the prayer
so how can Daniel say
Lord we deserve this
and you do right
to forgive us
what?
and the answer is
in the final
very brief
vision here
and that's this
the third principle
we've got to learn today
is true prayer
is in the name
of the prince
how can you
how can you pray like that
because it has to be
in the name of the prince
and today
are we going to solve
the vision
at the end of this passage
62 years
one week
70 years
70 weeks
the answer is no
because this passage
needs a series
and
but let me do a flyover
to say this
in verse 20
Gabriel comes to Daniel
and says
your prayer has been heard
you are greatly loved
I don't think we can
over stress
over explain
or
push
what that must have
meant to Daniel
a man who's been living
in exile for 66 years
to hear an angel of God
say
you are greatly loved
the comfort that must have been
and so
to express that
he explains
Jeremiah's
prophecy
of 70 years
now
Jeremiah's prophecy
was going to be fulfilled
four years after this
Israel was going to turn
Judah was going to return
to Jerusalem
but in the prophecy
there's a complex
set of numbers
and if you read
the commentators
what they tell us
very helpfully
is that
Jeremiah's 70 years
is being listed
in the prophecy
as 70 weeks
times 7
so another way
to read it is
this angel Gabriel
is talking about
70 years
times 7
490 years
and then
there's numbers
like
62 weeks
and 7 weeks
and 1 week
and all of those
if you add 62
and 7
and 1
and I'm not good
at mathematics
but I know
that that equals 70
and so when you read
through you'll see
all these numbers
but all the numbers
if you go through
carefully
just simply
reiterate 70
70
and this is
figural language
and here's what
the figural language
is doing
it says
what does it say
at the end of the period
of 70 times 7
this fullness of time
this creation number
what does it say
did you
did you see the language
I will
verse 24
put an end
to transgression
a full atonement
an everlasting righteousness
an anointed one
a prince
will come
that's the word
messiah
in Hebrew
and it says
that prince will come
and he will be cut off
that's the language
of execution
from Isaiah 53
you see what
this prophet
it's very detailed
it's very complex
but what it's really
talking about
is that in the fullness
of time
the prince would come
and so when Daniel says
Lord you're right
to send us into exile
and you're right
to forgive us
how
and the vision says
because there is
a full atonement
coming
the prince
Jesus Christ
the one who would be
cut off
the one who would be
executed
and it's by the power
of that future prince
in his death
that Daniel
in that moment
could say
now make right by us
forgive us
like you said you would
why
because he's saying
God look forward
to the prince
who is to come
and we today
look backward
and that means
this morning
when you see
this vision
and that it's actually
about Jesus
you can realize
that every single time
you pray
in Jesus name
it is not just
an angel from heaven
that God sent
to Daniel
to say
you are greatly loved
when you
listen
when you say
when you pray
and say
in Jesus name
you need to know
what that comes with
and here's what it comes with
you can hear
God saying to you
in that little phrase
you are greatly loved
when you pray
in Jesus name
it is the pronouncement
that you are greatly loved
God sent the prince
from heaven
so that when you make
confession
you can say
Lord
you're right
to judge me
and Lord
you are right
to forgive me
how
not by me
but because God says
I will not punish sin twice
and in the prince
he already did
every single one of us
today needs confession
how do you enter
into the Christian life
by confession
how do you live
the Christian life
by confession
Jesus says
Lord
our
to say
our father
forgive us our debts
every day
as we forgive others
the heart of spiritual formation
is confession
and God says
I will show you mercy
plead with him
this week
don't miss a day
without confessing your sins
today even
let us pray
Father
we pray
Lord have mercy
we plead for mercy
forgive us
our debts
as we forgive our debtors
our bones hurt
we deserve
your righteous judgment
yet we
are right
to be forgiven
because Jesus Christ
was condemned
and so
we make our plea
we make our confession
this morning
entirely on his basis
and we pray that in Jesus name
Amen