Pleading and Prophecy (Daniel 9:16-25)

Kootenai Church

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Good morning. Welcome to Adult Sunday School, CUNY Community Church.

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We will be continuing our study in Daniel chapter nine, and we're getting to the

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Top Gun section. You've all, you know, we've, the character development's important, but it's the battles you came to see, so.

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No, not really. All of God's word is marvelous. And we will be looking, we'll be starting at verse 16 and see how far we can make it this morning.

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Let's pray. Father, you are righteous and altogether just in everything you do.

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You have lifted up and you have put down. Throughout history, your name has been made great. There have been those who have blasphemed it, and you have made that right.

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We would be among those who would lift your name up in everything we do, whether it's through prayer, through our actions, through how people see us.

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Lord, we pray that this church and this body would be a blessing to you, would lift you up, would honor you, would make your name great in this world.

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That is what Daniel was doing, and that is what we would seek to do. Well, thank you for this morning. We ask you for your insight into your word, that you would teach us, help us to continue our walk, make it more appropriate, more exact, and more devoted to you.

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And we'll thank you for all you're doing in this church. In Jesus' name, amen. So we're going to,

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I wanna keep contextual precision to a max. We're gonna read the whole chapter again from one through 27.

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It's on one through, yeah, 27. And it's on pages 1154, 1155, and 1156.

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So if you need a page number. Daniel chapter nine. In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the

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Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the

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Lord to Jeremiah, the prophet, for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years.

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So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek him by prayer and supplications with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

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And I prayed to the Lord, my God, and confessed and said, alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant and lovingkindness for those who love him and keep his commandments.

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We have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from your commandments and ordinances.

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Moreover, we have not listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers, and all the people of the land.

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Righteousness belongs to you, O Lord, but to us open shame as it is this day, to the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all

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Israel, those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the countries to which you have driven them because of their unfaithful deeds which they have committed against you.

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Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers because we have sinned against thee.

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To the Lord, our God, belong compassion and forgiveness for we have rebelled against him, nor have we obeyed the voice of the

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Lord, our God, to walk in his teachings which he has set before us through his servants, the prophets. Indeed, all

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Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, not obeying your voice, so the curse has been poured out on us along with the oath which is written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, for we have sinned against him.

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Thus, he has confirmed his words which he had spoken against us and against our rulers who ruled us to bring on us great calamity, for under the whole heaven, there has not been done anything like what was done to Jerusalem.

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Excuse me. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come on us, yet we have not sought the favor of the

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Lord, our God, by turning from our iniquity and giving attention to your truth. Therefore, the

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Lord has kept the calamity in store and brought it on us, for the Lord, our God, is righteous with respect to all his deeds which he has done, but we have not obeyed his voice.

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And now, O Lord, our God, who has brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and has made a name for yourself, as it is this day, we have sinned, we have been wicked.

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O Lord, in accordance with all your righteous acts, let now your anger and your wrath turn away from your city,

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Jerusalem, your holy mountain, for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers,

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Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all those around us. So now, our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his supplications, and for your sake,

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O Lord, let your face shine on your desolate sanctuary. O my God, incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and see our desolations and the city which is called by your name, for we are not presenting our supplications before you on account of any merits of our own, but on account of your great compassion.

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O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, listen and take action for your own sake. O my

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God, do not delay because your city and your people are called by your name. Now, while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people,

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Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God in behalf of the holy mountain of my

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God, while I was still speaking in prayer, then the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, came to me in my extreme wariness about the time of the evening offering.

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And he gave me instruction and talked with me and said, O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you insight with understanding.

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At the beginning of your supplications, the command was issued and I have come to tell you for you are highly esteemed. So give heed to the message and gain understanding of the vision.

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70 weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.

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So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild

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Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and 62 weeks, and it will be built again with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.

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Then after the 62 weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing. And the people of the

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Prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary and its end will come with a flood.

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Even to the end, there will be war. Desolations are determined. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week, he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate even until a complete destruction.

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One that is decreed is poured out on the one who makes desolate. So last week we finished up with verse 14, verse 15, excuse me.

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And so we watched and read as through 12 verses, Daniel poured out his heart in confession and description of God's mercy,

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God's character, description of the sins. And I'll probably cover a couple of things multiple times as we go through this.

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Some of it is because I forgot I covered it before, but some of it is to firmly make a point about something.

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And you have to guess which is which. No, I'm just kidding. So Daniel has again and again confessed.

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Now it's my opinion, and I believe it's substantiated by some of the things he says later, that this is a summary of his prayer.

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I believe his prayer lasted at least several hours, if not more. He poured his heart out for a long period of time.

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And God, interestingly enough, in verse 23, we will see, sent the answer at the beginning of the prayer.

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And by the time he was finished in the evening, Gabriel shows up. So in verse 14,

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Daniel reminds both himself and his readers that God keeps calamity in store for the times when his people will not obey him, will perniciously continue to disobey.

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And he brings that calamity righteously to correct them, to punish them, to turn them.

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Verse 15, and now he says, he reminds of another incredible victory that Jehovah Yahweh had perpetrated on the

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King of Israel. He said, you brought your people out of the land of, excuse me, the King of Egypt. You brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and made a name for yourself.

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That's one of Daniel's concerns, is God's name. That's a major concern of Daniel, is God's name, God's glory,

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God's reputation, if you will. And then he reminds everyone, we have sinned, we have been wicked.

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And so we looked at that. For 12 verses, he's been doing nothing but confessing, praising, and considering what

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God has done. And I think that that was probably several hours that this is a summary of, but that's just my own speculation.

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Just let's make sure that you're not saying, I'm not saying that's what scripture says, that's what I think. Verse 16 is where the page turns, if you will.

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I wished I'd been smart enough to put that on a different page so I could actually, it would be visual, but it's in the middle of the page.

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So in verse 16, Daniel turns to an actual request, an actual supplication, after,

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I believe, several hours of prayer. So here's verse 16. He says, O Lord, in accordance with all your righteous acts, let now your anger and your wrath turn away from your city,

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Jerusalem, your holy mountain, for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all those around us.

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Now, remember what's in Daniel's mind. He's been reading Jeremiah. More than likely, when you read,

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I know what I read, and I'm reading a section, and it reminds me of something that I read in a former book, I go there.

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Jim's really good, excellent about that. When it says something in the New Testament that quotes the Old Testament, well, guess what?

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For the next seven months, we're gonna be studying the Old Testament. Good thing, it's a good thing. It provides the context that only scripture can give.

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So Daniel's thinking he's reading through Jeremiah, and Jeremiah stipulates it's 70 years, and Jeremiah based his prophecy on God's character, on God's statement that if you do not follow the

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Sabbath rest, period, every seven years you let your land rest, I will take you off the land.

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I will punish you, and I will restore the land. I will let it have its rest. So all of that's in Daniel's mind.

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There's rests, there's periods of sevens, periods of years, periods of time. There's the promise of God of a 70 -year restoration.

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And so Daniel's thinking in his mind, I think I'm within a few years of that. It depends on when the captivity officially started, because God's specific.

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So he prays, in accordance with your righteous acts, only here, after all of this acknowledgement and recognition of God's greatness does

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Daniel finally ask for something. So even though God's anger was righteous, Daniel does not disagree with that.

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He is asking that Yahweh would turn his wrath away from the city of Jerusalem. Now he says, not just for their own sake, he will say, but because for the sake of the name of God, he knows that God has made this promise, and in order for God to maintain his righteous name,

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Daniel doesn't have to worry about that, but he repeats it, do it now, do it soon, so that everyone will see that you follow your own prophecies.

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So Daniel spent much time in prayer and blessing and confessing iniquity. And I believe that this is a good thing to remember as we pray, this must come before supplication, before request.

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We need to know about ourselves. Sometimes it's just reciting and thinking through that will help you focus on what it was that caused the problem in the first place.

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I did see something, it was kind of cute this morning. You know, the what would Jesus do thing.

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Well, what we really need to do is it's a much longer acronym, and is you ought to remember that Jesus would have never gotten himself in this place in the first place, in this condition in the first place.

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But it's like 33 letters, so nobody's, that's not a bumper sticker, that's not bumper sticker worthy. So Daniel is reciting these things and thinking through what caused this.

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Everything that happens in God's economy has a cause, a cause and effect. Israelites didn't get sent away to Babylonia just because an angry

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God had nothing to do that day. It was based on God's promises and God's word throughout history, as recorded in Moses and recorded in the

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Pentateuch and as recorded in earlier prophets. So now he asks for mercy.

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Would you please turn away your wrath? And he knows what that means. That means they get to go back home if he turns away his wrath.

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It's not just a simple thing. And that, how many of you have moved across country? Did you have a vehicle?

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Oh, you moved on foot. Yeah, you probably had a vehicle, a moving van, you probably had help, you had highways, not the same.

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586 BC, 535, 534 BC. So this is not a simple thing that Daniel's asking for, but it's an important thing.

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Verse 17, so now, our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his supplications and for your sake, oh

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Lord, let your face shine on your desolate sanctuary. Why would he want God's face to shine on the sanctuary?

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Because if the sanctuary comes back to its former glory, then it is a picture and a pointing to the glory of Yahweh.

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That's why Daniel would want that. Daniel here continues to request that God hear his prayer for God's sake and for the sake of the desolation of the sanctuary.

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He's not asking for something for himself. He's asking for something for God and for God's people. So fashion your prayer is what

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I took from this, some of it, so that because you understand how important it is to bring glory to God, even your supplication and your request would do that, that it wouldn't just bring you success, bring you health, wealth, et cetera.

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It would bring God glory. Daniel now begins a series of requests.

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He has set the stage showing God that he understands the importance of confessing first, listening second, and then requesting.

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All of this is done for the sake of the Lord himself. In the previous verse, he asked God to turn away his wrath.

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That was verse 16. Here he asked God to do something positive. That is to let his face shine on a sanctuary that has been desolated for at least 70 years.

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Even here, Daniel's prayer is for others and not for himself. Verse 17 is a clear picture of his concern for God and for the people.

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So any comments or questions on those two verses? Verse 18, oh my

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God, continuing his request, his supplication, incline your ear and hear.

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That's a beautiful picture, especially when you get my age and you can't hear stuff.

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I find myself inclining my ear all the time. What was that? Pardon me? But this is a picture of a benevolent father leaning over to listen to his child's supplication in love and in concern.

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God, Daniel knows this. "'Open your eyes,' he says, "'and see our desolations and the city "'which is called by your name.

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"'For we are not presenting our supplications before you "'on account of any merits of our own, "'but on account of your great compassion.'"

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It's God's compassion that will finally be used, by which he will be moved to restore

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Israel. So Daniel decries his own and his people's merit. They have none. I think it's important that when we present the gospel, that we point out that nobody, that the person we're presenting the gospel to, however delicately or unabashedly you have to present it, that they have no merit of their own, that they've broken the law.

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This is Daniel's understanding. He and the people of Israel have no merit of their own for which to make this request.

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But he prays that God would answer his prayer as a demonstration of his great compassion, again, lifting up God's character.

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So don't be afraid to cry out to God repeatedly for mercy. Remember the story Jesus told of the importunate widow in Luke chapter 18?

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And the judge says, "'I don't fear man or God, but she's gonna keep coming. "'She's gonna wear me down.'"

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Now, I'm paraphrasing. You might've guessed that. That's not how God is.

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That's not saying that God is like that judge, but keep coming back. Daniel keeps coming back.

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So not that God becomes weary of hearing you, but that he has told us to seek him earnestly in this way, here and in the

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New Testament. There's a reminder here again. Daniel asks not based on any claim Israel might have and no claim that he had.

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He asks based on God's mercy, as all requests must be made for no man truly deserves

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God's mercy. And I think as a believer becomes older and more mature in Christ, the more you begin to realize that.

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Well, why did he even choose me? I haven't got anything for him, nothing.

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This is such a bad deal, God. What are you getting out of this? And sometimes it takes years of maturity before you realize that.

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This is a part of the attitude of prayer that's necessary for one to be in a proper relationship with God as they pray, that God will deal his compassion based on his character.

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So seek to know the character of God as you're praying. Now he cries out. This one,

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I don't know if he did this out loud. Sometimes I have found myself when I was in prayer, deep prayer for other people,

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I began without thinking about it, talking out loud, speaking out loud, well, talking is out loud, thinking out loud,

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I guess. Oh Lord, hear, oh Lord, forgive, oh Lord, listen and take action for your own sake.

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Oh my God, do not delay because your city and your people are called by your name. Why don't you delay? Because the city that's called by your name is not reflecting your glory right now.

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So Daniel is about to close this prayer and he does it with an anguished pleading for the Lord to hear, forgive and take action.

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So it's an excellent way to close a prayer if indeed the prayer is closed here. Again, I think this is a summary, but nevertheless, this looks like the beginning of the end of this prayer and we're gonna have an angel end it for him.

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One commentator noted the fact that in verses 15 through 19, Daniel ceases using the covenant name of God, Yahweh, and uses only

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Adonai and Elohim. The implication is that Daniel is recognizing God's absolute sovereignty over himself and over Israel.

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So he closes this prayer passionately and yet humbly. He has four specific requests.

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He wants the Lord to hear, hear his prayer, and I would suggest too, it's not in the text, but there had to be more than just Daniel praying for this.

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I would be certain that Daniel had a men's group or something, a group of people whom he met with in the synagogue, outside of the synagogue.

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There were more than just one person here praying today on this particular day for God to bring the people back into Israel.

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And so, now I lost my place. Oh, he closes his prayer humbly yet passionately.

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He has four specific requests. So he says, hear, forgive, then he wants the Lord to take action and he wants the

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Lord to avoid delaying. So those are saying the same things almost.

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So Daniel is giving us a good example of a method of praying for, if there's methodology involved, of praying to God.

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Seek, seek, seek, and seek again. And yet even here, where Daniel pours out the true desire of his heart, it is still for the glory of God.

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Jerusalem and all the Israelites are known to be the people of Yahweh. And by God taking action here, he will vindicate himself as the great

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God that he is. So this is Daniel's desire. And of course it should be ours as well. He still wants this prayer to be answered so that God will be glorified, especially among the heathen.

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Well, actually, maybe I should say, I just realized that, maybe more, especially among the

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Israelites who have been a wayward people for so long. Does this, some of this sound like what's going on in our world today?

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I mean, are we rebellious? Are we walking away from God? Do we ignore his prophets?

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I mean, as a nation, it's the same material happening over and over again in history.

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And to me, it's remarkable that God shows so much. I mean, he's got a big thumb. It would probably be really easy for him to just go, let's start again.

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But he doesn't do that. I don't mean to joke about this. Even this prayer though, has been attacked by the critics who postulate that Daniel copied it from a common source that was also used by Ezra in the year 166

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BC, because the critics always postulate that this is a spurious, not prophetic book.

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I don't know, some of the critics, most of the critics are unbelievers, but there are some believers, quote unquote, who criticize it this way.

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And I would ask them, if it is, then it's being presented to us as a biblical prophetic book of the

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Bible. What other parts should we not trust? This was written 500 years before Christ, give or take, and it is a prophetic book exactly as it's portraying itself.

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So they believe that they had a common source, and it was also used by Ezra, Nehemiah, and Baruch.

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Baruch? Baruch. The arguments are convoluted. I read through some of them, and as I got through the end of the argument,

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I was looking kind of like this, what did he just say? So I would read it again, and it was worse.

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And it's just, I think it sounds like some of the arguments I made to my parents when I was trying to defend something that I had done, that was just really dumb, and stupid, and idiotic, and all those things.

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I'm not gonna repeat them, because I confess to you, I couldn't make enough sense of some of the arguments to repeat them to you in a fashion where I could communicate to you.

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They basically just said, well, it was copied because it was, and the copiers were copying the copies because copies can be copied.

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You wanna make that face with me? Okay. So it's really very simple.

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The arguments are convoluted and specious, but they're answered by simply recognizing that Daniel wrote first. Ezra, Nehemiah, and Baruch.

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Baruch? Anybody here wanna help me with that? Baruch? Okay. Baruch, you don't wanna help, huh?

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I see that now. They had all had Daniel before them when they wrote their respective books, but more importantly, there were liturgical, common prayers that were used in the

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Pentateuch times and in the father's times and in the prophetic times. It wasn't uncommon for kind of a, not a,

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I don't wanna call it a default boilerplate prayer, but there were some things that would be followed specifically and carefully as you were praying so you wouldn't forget to note some things in your prayer, to bring some things to your own attention, to bring some things to God's attentions, and that's not a bad thing.

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Liturgical, step -by -steps prayers were not uncommon. Further, one of the issues is people who confuse the idea that Daniel's 70 weeks is the same as Jeremiah's 70 years, but Daniel actually distinguishes between these two time periods.

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So finishing up the prayer, what a great example this prayer is to us. It's a man, this is from a man who prayed three times a day with his face toward Jerusalem, and he had a system of prayer that included confession, praise, acknowledgement of responsibility, a desire for relief based upon the character of God and the merits of God alone, and the ability to demonstrate the world, to the world, the glory of God.

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So this is a reasonably good pattern, and I'm beginning to kind of work my prayer life over a bit as I think through this.

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I don't wanna say we have to have some sort of a checklist on our refrigerator, but it's not a bad idea as you're looking through and you see how a godly man prays is to emulate that kind of praying.

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Confession, praise, reiteration of confession, acknowledging responsibility, desiring a restored relationship with the

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Trinity and an opportunity to show to the world the incredible glory of God. I think all of us should be about that, showing to the world the glory, the marvelous wonder of God.

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So any comments about that prayer? We're finally finished with the prayer. You've been praying for that, haven't you?

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Good. So now, Daniel says, verse 20. Now, while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people

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Israel and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God on behalf of the holy mountain of my God. So he's opening up an explanation of what's coming next now.

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Daniel is interrupted in his prayer, I think. I don't know if he was done or if he was interrupted or if there's a combination of those that he was interrupted but Gabriel knew he was done.

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I suppose that's one of the questions I'm gonna have on my refrigerator checklist to ask when I get there. And here we see that he does include himself in the confession of sin.

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Even though scripture does not mention any failings in the life of Daniel, he knows what they were. And during this time of prayer, he has made a confession of them.

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All of the verbs used in this chapter are in this verse regarding Daniel's activities during his prayer, speaking, praying, confessing and presenting a supplication.

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All those verbs are used regularly throughout the prayer and they are in this verse. Each of the words denotes an aspect of Daniel's time in prayer.

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The word translated as speaking comes from a root word which means to arrange. And so the writers in here, this will especially appeal to you.

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He arranged things in a logical, careful manner. Do you want to pray and not forget stuff?

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I can't tell you how many times I've gotten up and later on in the day, I went, I forgot all about that.

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Well, it's okay to just go right to prayer then, but it would have been nice if I had remembered it before. I believe

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Daniel had a system where he had organized thoughts on what he was going to pray for. That's just an idea

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I have. So Daniel was thinking through what he had to say and attempting to arrange his prayer in logical progression.

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The word translated as praying comes from the idea of to judge, to intercede. So in his prayer, he had to think about what was good and what was bad.

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What Israel had done, what God had done. He was judging all the way through that prayer in a proper manner. Or judging in the

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New Testament version of Creno, of connecting things and disconnecting things.

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Looking at what was right, what was wrong, what needed to be changed. The word translated as confessing bespeaks the idea of holding one's hands out and even wringing them during the confession.

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Wringing his hands, so guilty. It's something that we should always recognize that we are guilty before God.

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Grateful that he paid for it, that his son paid for it. Bemoaning personal failures. And finally, the word translated as presenting my supplication speak of falling down and in treating the favor of someone, in this case,

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Yahweh. So those four verbs are used throughout the prayer and they are in this summary. He also notes that his prayer was truly on behalf of God, on behalf of the holy mountain of my

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God, he says at the end of this verse. On behalf of God, specifically the holy mountain of God, which is in Jerusalem, the temple.

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In his prayer earlier in chapter 16, verse 16.

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Don't read rule number one, don't read exactly what you've written until you've read it once before. That he prayed in verse 16,

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Daniel equates the holy mountain of God with the city of Jerusalem. He's specifically thinking about the temple mountain. I shouldn't have interrupted that thought.

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So he knows that his prayer was on behalf of God, specifically the holy mountain of God. In his prayer earlier in verse 16, he equates the holy mountain of God with the city of Jerusalem.

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He's specifically talking about the temple mount. That will become important later on in the 70 week section.

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70, yeah, 70 week section. So while Daniel was speaking here, by the way, and we will see this a little bit later,

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Gabriel was on his way. Pray, he already knows what we need.

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As everyone in here is well -taught, you know it's for us. It's for us to think it through and to be on our physical or imaginary knees before God seeking his face.

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So we will see that from verse 23, God launched the answer to Daniel's prayer at the very beginning of his prayer. This is funny too, because this is an aside.

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I always just thought stuff in heaven was instantaneous. You know, like Star Trek. You know, they just beamed

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Gabriel down. Well, apparently it's not. Apparently it's not. And this is an interesting verse.

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God sent Gabriel and it took a little bit of time. I'm thinking, now this is just my thinking.

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This is not what scripture says. Several hours, probably, because I believe that's about how long Daniel was praying.

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I don't know when he started, but he prays clear till dusk. So, boy,

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I jumped around a bunch there. So you know now that there's no beaming down in heaven. So while Daniel's speaking,

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Gabriel's on his way. And he says in verse 21, while I was still speaking in prayer, then the man

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Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, that's an interesting statement, came to me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering.

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So the interruption by Gabriel is not necessarily unwelcome. Daniel identifies him as the man

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Gabriel, most likely to link this appearance with the appearance in chapter eight, verse 16, in the vision previously.

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Daniel is identifying Gabriel as a man, but just noting that he appeared in human form. He's not saying he was a man, just noting that he appeared in human form.

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So the first two visions of Daniel occurred about two years apart, but 13 years ago.

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The second vision was 13 years ago. So this is instructive for us. Then the man Gabriel, whom

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I had seen in the vision previously, this is the 13 -year -old vision. So Daniel is not identifying

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Gabriel, I said, as a man, but noting that he appeared in human form. So the second vision was 13 years ago, and this gives us a connection to that second vision of a period of 13 years.

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So it's for reader comprehension. So the construction translated, came to me in my extreme weariness, is a very difficult section to translate.

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Not that I'm a Hebrew, I'm not, but I do know that the construction looked at the, you know, they have the

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Hebrew words in the exact word of each, and I could see the difficulty that the translators had.

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The King James translators render it as the angel flying swiftly with the words for swiftly coming from a root, which means to be weary.

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So if you do a lot of things swiftly, you get weary. So there's a connection there in the

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Hebrew thesaurus, if you will. The roots of both words in this phrase refer to the idea of weariness, both words.

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So here is a likelier translation, not that this isn't a good one, but Gabriel was dispatched at the beginning of Daniel's prayer and came to him while Daniel had been praying a long time and had grown weary.

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It sounds much better in the Bible, but that gives you the general sense of it. Daniel had been praying a long time.

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The angel didn't get weary, Daniel was weary. And the angel was dispatched.

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Daniel continued to pray. When the angel got there, Daniel had wearied himself in prayer. To me, that's a good prescription for some good prayer, if you can get weary in it.

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The idea of extreme weariness gives credence to the idea that Daniel had been praying a long time.

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And most likely the 16 verses of this chapter are a summary that is easily understood when one realizes

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Daniel was spending a great deal of time confessing. In the text, we see that he was confessing various sins and wickedness.

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Most likely he fleshed those out in the original prayer. He would have known the history of the

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Israelites. Some of it he was involved in, not that he did the sins, but he was involved in the captivity.

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We see that he was confessing various sins and wickedness. He probably named all of these things, or at least most of them.

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He also most likely named a number of the wonderful characteristics of God. A study of the 10, there's more than 10, but 10 attributes.

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I've had a favorite study of mine, was the 10 attributes of God. It's just fun and refreshing to go over that from time to time.

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So the four words in verse 20 indicate that much could have been said about each subject. Much could have been said that we talked about, speak, pray, supplicate, et cetera.

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The words translated as came to me is a word meaning to lay the hand upon. So if you are in deep prayer and your eyes are closed and I sneak into the room and say, hey

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Rick, how you doing? I think the angel Gabriel didn't want to startle Daniel. And he walked in and he put his hand on his shoulder.

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That's just my impression. That the word for the translation here gives room for that.

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It means to lay the hand upon, to touch. Most likely refers to the fact that Daniel was deep in prayer with his eyes closed and the angel didn't want to startle him.

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So he touched Daniel softly to make him aware of his presence. We don't know when Daniel started praying, but it lasted until the evening offering.

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We don't know the exact time of the evening offering, but the translation is from a word that means dusk.

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So it was at the very end of the Jewish workday. Ezra and Psalms make this clear.

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They say Ezra 9 5, but at the evening offering, I arose from my humiliation, even with my garment and my robe torn, and I fell upon my knees and stretch out my hands to the

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Lord my God. Ezra talks about the evening offering. In Psalm 141 verse two, may my prayer be counted as incense to you before you, the lifting up my hands as the evening offering.

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So he compares the passion of lifting up his hands to the beauty of the evening offering that God, that evening offering remember was for God.

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It was just for his delight is what it was for, the morning and the evening offering. Verse 22, he gave me instruction and talked with me and said, oh

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Daniel, I have now come forth to give you insight with understanding. So Daniel is now given instruction, a word that means to separate mentally or to distinguish.

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So Gabriel is going to help him understand some of what is coming for the Jewish nation in the years to come, in the days and in the years to come.

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Gabriel is going to give Daniel wisdom and understanding of that wisdom. This is a marvelous thing that's gonna happen here.

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And we've got plenty of time to at least get partly way through verse 23. So any questions or comments before we dive into the 70 weeks?

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Okay, at the beginning of your supplication, the command was issued and I have come to tell you for you are highly esteemed.

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So give heed to the message and gain understanding of the vision. I believe that Daniel was highly esteemed because of his devotion to Jehovah, to Yahweh and his devotion to the people.

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Another man that I know, I personally know went to be with Yahweh, went to be with the Lord yesterday.

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A man who is highly esteemed. I knew Bruce, I'm not gonna launch off into this, but not that I equate him with Daniel, but he was a man for the ages,

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Bruce was. And so all of us have known someone like this, something like this. Daniel was beloved of God.

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That's what he says about those who have trusted him for salvation. That's what he says about them.

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So the beginning was likely in the early part of the day. Daniel's preparations for prayer started well before the early part of the day with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.

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If you remember, it may have even started the day before, but at least early in the day. So the command was issued, most likely refers to the information coming in the next several verses, the command was issued.

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The word translated actually means word, it means tidings or report and message. And as the word is translated later in this verse, the fact that Gabriel states,

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I have come, mitigates that against this being a vision, it was more likely an actual interaction between Daniel and the angel.

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I can't say that categorically, but it's my belief that this was not a vision, that a physical being walked into the room, touched him on the shoulder and said,

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I'm going to tell you what's going to happen. So it would have been a sit down with an angel, if you will. Why was it done this way?

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Scripture says it was done because Daniel was greatly beloved or highly esteemed as this translation states.

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The word means precious. It means beloved. Daniel was dearly beloved of God. Now, Gabriel tells

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Daniel to carefully pay attention to what he is about to say. So before going further, something needs to be said about the 70 year prophecy of Jeremiah, which was a literal 70 years.

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The Israelites began their trek back to Jerusalem very soon after this prayer and time. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah detail the returns as do

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Haggai, Zechariah, and to some degree Malachi. Ezra starts with the decree of Cyrus and the captives begin the return to Jerusalem, Israel, just as the book of second

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Chronicles ends with that. So Ezra fleshes out the decree of Cyrus in the first few verses.

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I think this is where our first, there we go.

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This thing just wiggled. Ezra chapter one, verses one through six. Now, in the first year of Cyrus, the king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the

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Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing saying, this is what

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Cyrus says, thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

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Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him. Let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the

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Lord, the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem. By the way, this is still a misunderstanding that this heathen king has of Jehovah.

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Yahweh is not just in Jerusalem. He's right there in that guy's kingdom. But at any rate, this is

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Cyrus's decree. Every, verse four, every survivor at whatever place he may live, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill offering for the house of God, which is in Jerusalem.

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Then the heads of father's households of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites arose, even everyone whose spirit

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God had stirred up to go, stirred to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem. All those about them encouraged them with articles of silver, with gold, with goods, with cattle, with valuables, aside from all that was given as a freewill offering.

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So there's a group of people who decided to go back and there's a count, and there are numerous counts throughout the

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Old Testament books. And then there was the people who were gonna stay, who gave them money to finance the trip and finance the rebuilding.

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Those are both talked about here. So now not all of the Jews returned. Some had become satisfied with where they were.

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Would to God that his church stops being satisfied with where they are. They most likely did not want to return to a devastated country and rebuild cities and homes.

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This wasn't just a simple home going. This was going back to a country that had been lying fallow for 70 years because of the disobedience of the

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Israelites. Walls were torn down. The temple was destroyed. The houses were destroyed and burned.

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Antiochus had been working on it. Numerous kings had been working on wrecking this area of the world, and they had done a great job.

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The truly faithful, however, made the journey back in Ezra, and Ezra, excuse me, made the journey back, and Ezra chronicles much of that.

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13 years later, Nehemiah returns to supervise the building of the walls of Jerusalem.

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Ezra was a priest scribe, but Nehemiah was a civil officer, a cupbearer to the king. He obtained a military escort to return to Jerusalem.

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He was governor for 12 years in the land. He received no salary. He acquired no lands, and he had his servants work on the wall, and he fed in his home, often up to 150 people a day for their work on the walls of Jerusalem.

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Haggai details the second year of Darius and some difficulties in Israel, including crop failure and the tendency of the people to build great homes for themselves and neglect the temple.

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Haggai was a call back to faithfulness to Yahweh. He started his work, Haggai the prophet, in the sixth month of the second year of Darius, while Zechariah began in the eighth month of that same year.

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He also called the people back to faithfulness to Yahweh. Malachi was the last prophet of the

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Old Testament. He spoke as his message reveals after the temple had been completed with regular services restarted.

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He spent his time rebuking the people for intermarriage and for withholding the tithe, among other things.

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So the fact is the Israelites did begin their return from exile 70 years after being taken captive, and the rebuilding of the temple, which was started not long after the return to Israel, paused and then restarted 70 years after the destruction of the temple.

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God's word was accurate in everything that it prophesied. So now we have Daniel, who has prepared himself through much prayer, fasting, and supplication, ready to receive one of the most important prophecies, if not the most important prophecy in the

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Old Testament. I thought we would make it farther than this, but we've got, we're gonna get there, maybe before the

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Lord returns. If you would like to read through the last four verses, 24, 25, 26, 27 of Daniel chapter nine, but do it and look at some of the prophecies in Jeremiah and some of the things that Haggai said,

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Zechariah said. It's been a really, just a marvelous time for me as I begin to start really connecting some of the

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Old Testament books better than I ever have. I'm still a long ways from having them well -connected, but when you look at the prophets of this time and how they were still calling the

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Israelites back to true faithfulness to Yahweh, it's an indication that men are so fickle, but Yahweh, God is firm in his purpose and he will carry it through.

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So when we look at the 70 weeks in Daniel chapter nine, verse 24 starts, 70 weeks have been decreed. When we look at the 70 weeks,

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I wanna promise you a couple of things. I'm gonna stay true to scripture. I'm going to,

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I'm a literalist. I believe that unless we are told otherwise, that I believe in literal interpretation.

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And in my studies, I've discovered that I knew far less about this than I should know. So I apologize for that.

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There are probably people in here who know more about Daniel than I ever will know, but I'm an eager learner.

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And I believe that this book has been understood well since the first centuries after Christ.

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It's not like there's something new I'm going to give you. There's nothing new under the sun, remember that.

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But I hope that as we study this, we will find God is faithful in everything he says, as we know he is.

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We will find that he is merciful. We will find that he is astoundingly accurate in everything he says.

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I don't, I wish there were better superlative adjectives, just perfect, perfectly accurate in everything that he says, and that it is our job to discern that and to learn.

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So before we close, are there any questions or comments? We almost made it to the first slide.

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That's gonna be the first slide. And we're gonna cover things as much as I can following Daniel's idea about prayer in a systematic manner.

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And we're going to try and touch on different aspects of all the chapters, other books, and look at Scripture as a whole.

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But Daniel is fundamental to an understanding of the prophecies later in Scripture, earlier in Scripture, and in the

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New Testament. Well, that's later in Scripture. So thank you for your patience.

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We will get to the battles, the Top Gun battles next week. Let's pray. Lord, all of your word is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that we will have everything we need to follow you, to honor you, to lift you up, to glorify you, to make your name known among men, and make your name great.

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And if there's anything this country needs today, it's a return to understanding how great Yahweh is, and that his love is available should people turn to Christ.

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Father, this morning, we thank you for this section of Daniel, for the prayer especially. It gives us an idea of how we can more effectively pray.

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There's always things to learn about how to pray, how to seek your face, how to honor you, and how to lift you up.

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So we ask you, Lord, that you would inculcate those into our lives as needed. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your faithful servants to come who are going to expound it.