Sunday, February 20, 2022 AM

To Sunnyside Baptist Church this morning. We are glad that you're here to worship with us today. As we get started this morning I'll start with a few announcements. Our evening service is tonight at 530 here at the church.

Come back for that. Looking ahead to this Wednesday the 23rd meal at 545. So come to share in a meal together and then at 630 we'll have prayer for the adults and the tag program for our kids. And then looking ahead to next Sunday we'll have the Lord's Supper together next Sunday morning.

And then next Sunday evening Truth Group is scheduled to meet. So that's for the young adults in our church after the evening service. Related to that if you are able to help not just next Sunday but throughout the year with helping to supply a meal for Truth Group it's really not difficult.

They don't require anything elaborate or fancy. They'll eat about anything but you can do something like fast food or a sandwich tray that's store-bought. But it needs to feed about 20 to 25 people and young people.

So that gives you an idea of how much maybe you need to get. You can even turn in your receipts to the church office and you'll be reimbursed for that. But it's just a way for you to minister to those those kids and Josiah and others that are helping out with Truth Group there.

There's even a if you look in your bulletin a link in there that you can go sign up for those throughout the year. Also we're continuing to do Operation Christmas Child gathering those things. There's a box out in the lobby so we're in the winter months you can get some cheap hats and gloves and little things to pack in those shoe boxes.

All right any other announcements this morning? Okay before we open in our time of prayer and preparation for worship I want to go ahead and read our fighter verse for the week and meditate on that as you prepare your heart for worship today.

Psalm 103 verses 11 through 14. For as high as the heavens are above the earth so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As a father shows compassion to his children so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame he remembers that we are.

Dust. You pray with me. Father I thank you and praise you for your great love.

And mercy. As Kyle shared out of your word Psalm 103. As high as the heavens are above the earth so great is your steadfast love. So great is your steadfast love. What a blessing to know your steadfast love.

Bless the Lord. O my soul and all that is within me bless your holy name. Father may the worship of your people this morning be a blessing to you. A blessing from our soul to you. May you delight in your people this morning as we worship you.

As we sing your praises. As we declare your goodness and as we preach your word. May we be led by your spirit and may our voices and our hearts be united in a singular voice that just brings you praise and glory and honor this morning.

In Jesus name.

Amen. Would you stand with me for our call to worship. We're gonna finish.

Chapter 74 in the book of Psalms this morning. We'll start with verse 19. Read with me together. Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beast. Do not forget the life of your poor forever. Have regard for the covenant for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.

Let not the hand-trodden turn back in shame. Let the poor and needy praise your name. Arise. Oh God defend your cause. Remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day. Do not forget the clamor of your foes.

The uproar of those who rise against you which goes up continually. And we're gonna sing this very passage in our Psalms for worship hymnal page 74 B. Yet God my king brings forth. We'll sing.

Verses 9, 10, and 11. Scripture reading comes from the book of Isaiah chapter 16.

We're continuing in the oracles against the nations. If you're curious the parallel passage to this is Jeremiah chapter 48. Isaiah chapter 16 verse 1. Send the lamb to the ruler of the land from Sila by way of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Zion.

Like fleeing birds, like a scattered nest, so are the daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon. Give counsel, grant justice, make your shade like night at the height of noon. Shelter the outcasts. Do not reveal the fugitive.

Let the outcasts of Moab sojourn among you. Be a shelter to them from the destroyer when the oppressor is no more and destruction has ceased and he who tramples underfoot has vanished from the land. Then a throne will be established in steadfast love and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David, one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness.

We have heard of the pride of Moab, how proud he is of his arrogance, his pride, and his insolence. In his idle boasting he is not right. Therefore let Moab wail for Moab. Let everyone wail. Mourn utterly stricken for the raisin cakes of Kir Hereseth.

For the fields of Heshbon languish and the vine of Sibma. The lords of the nations have struck down its branches which reached to Jaser and strayed to the desert. Its shoots spread abroad and passed over the sea.

Therefore I weep with the weeping of Jaser for the vine of Sibma. I drench you with my tears, O Heshbon and Alila. For over your summer fruit and your harvest the shout has ceased and joy and gladness are taken away from the fruitful field and in the vineyards no songs are sung, no cheers are raised, no treader treads out the wine and the presses.

I have put an end to the shouting. Therefore my inner parts moan like a liar for Moab and my inmost self for Kir Hereseth. And when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself on the high place, when he comes to his sanctuary to pray, he will not prevail.

This is the word that the Lord spoke concerning Moab in the past. But now the Lord has spoken, saying in three years, like the years of a hired worker, the glory of Moab will be brought into contempt in spite of all his great multitude and those who remain will be few and feeble.

This morning I want to pray Psalm 2 in response to this passage. Would you pray with me, Psalm 2? Why do the nation's rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.

He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, As for me, I have set my king in Zion, my holy hill. I will tell of the decree.

The Lord said to me, You are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

Now, therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Amen.

You may be seated. Our next song on our song service this morning is our regular.

Hymnal, page 364,. My Jesus, I Love Thee.

We give you thanks. Thank you for bringing us back together again. We may rejoice in the resurrection of your Son from the dead as we share together in worshiping you, rejoicing in your truth, and encouraging one another in the light of Christ.

We do pray that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit today, that your will in heaven would be the amen in our hearts. And as we look at your word today, I pray that you would speak clearly and directly to us by the power of your word, through your spirit, that you would have your way in us.

That as we get a clear view of your Son, Jesus Christ, in this word, that we would look like him in this world. We pray these things for his sake. Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Daniel chapter 9.

Daniel chapter 9, where we have been learning a lot about prayer, looking at the prophet Daniel, how he approaches prayer, why he comes to the Lord in prayer, and how he's approaching the whole matter.

As we have acknowledged amongst us, we have, none of us as saints, outgrown our need to learn about prayer, to grow in the grace of prayer. And particularly in Daniel chapter 9, we find Daniel in a humble posture, confessing.

Confession is the backbone of our prayers, wherein we say what God says, that we agree with God about how things are, that we lay everything out before him and tell him how it is, not according to our word, but according to his word.

And in Daniel chapter 9, we learn that Daniel has been reading the Bible. He's been searching the scriptures, and he has found particular encouragement in the prophecies of Jeremiah, where God has promised that after 70 years of Babylon's dominance, after 70 years of exile, that God would bring his people back to the land, restore them, and the worship of God would restart.

With this promise in hand, Daniel turns his face to the Lord and begins to pray. I invite you to stand with me as I read Daniel chapter 9, verses 1 through 10, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, by his Holy Spirit, through his prophet Daniel.

In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications with fasting sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession and said, O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant and mercy with those who love him and with those who keep his commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity.

We have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from your precepts and your judgments. Neither have we heeded your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings and to our princes, to our fathers and to all the people of the land.

O Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us, shame of face, as it is this day. To the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off, and all the countries to which you have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against you.

O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him.

We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws, which he has set before us by his servants, the prophets. Yes, all Israel has transgressed your law and has departed, so as not to obey your voice.

Therefore, the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses, the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against him. And he has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster.

For under the whole heaven such has never been done, as what has been done to Jerusalem. This is the word of.

The Lord. Praise be to God. You may be seated. Some of us, and you probably know.

Who you are, are really bad at making apologies. There's a multitude of ways to sabotage your attempt at making an apology, and sometimes you begin like this. Well, I'm sorry you got upset. Bad start.

You could try, well, I don't know why you got so upset, but I forgive you for your overreaction. It's even worse. You might try a famous quote, to err is human, to forgive is divine. But such an approach is not likely to heal the breach, and the reason is quite simply a refusal to acknowledge what actually happened.

And that, of course, is what confession means. You know, do more than teach your children to say, sorry. Say no. Tell them what you did. Confess what you did to injure your sibling, how you wronged somebody else.

And then, don't just say, sorry. Confess what you did, and then ask for their forgiveness after you've confessed. You have to confess your sin, confess its impact on the one harmed. If you have no acknowledgment of the estrangement, how can there be a reconciliation?

Daniel is praying here in verses 5 through 10, and he confesses the sin and the shame of his people. He's laying it out before the Lord. He's using God's own terms to describe what happened, the nature of Israel's rebellion, and their current low shame under God's retribution.

He's about to plead for God's mercies. He's about to plead for that second opportunity to go back to the land, and rebuild the temple, and to reestablish the worship of God there upon Mount Moriah. Before he does, before he does, he confesses the sins of the people.

That is absolutely vital for the restoration and the deliverance of God's people, because it's going to be according to God's Word. What is he even asking for, except the promises of God that are in God's Word?

He's asking for God to keep his Word. So what's the best way to begin? By using God's own words to describe what it was that happened. If our hope is that God would perform what he has promised, that he will love us as he has said, let us use his own words to describe how it is that we have gone astray.

We have been saying repeatedly that the theme of chapter 9 in Daniel is this, that God's covenant faithfulness, that he loves his people based upon who he is, and not who they are. God's covenant faithfulness, that he keeps all of his promises for the glory of his name.

His covenant faithfulness manifests, it shows up, it appears, it is demonstrated in Christ for all the saints, no matter if they lived in the old covenant, or they live in the new covenant. We've been talking about Daniel's prayer, it is an old covenant prayer, as he has set his face to the West, looking to where God had promised to set his name, in the temple, in Jerusalem.

Of course, the temple is destroyed, and Jerusalem is laid waste, but Daniel still knows what direction to point his face, as he, by faith, takes hold of the shadows of Christ, for there was one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

But it is an old covenant prayer, he's praying about Israel's unfaithfulness, and Israel's covenant breaking, and he is confessing, and he is putting himself in a humble posture before the Lord, fasting, and covering himself in sackcloth and ashes.

And he begins, not with his own misery, but he begins by praising the character and the nature of God. He begins with God, and then moves to his own situation, situation of his people. And he becomes very specific in his prayers, in verses 5 through 10.

We've established the priority of confession in our prayers, we need to confess, let us begin by confessing the glory of God, but what else? How else do we pray? What comes next? Honesty. Honesty with God about who we are, and what we've done.

Honesty with God is essential for confession. And it may seem kind of odd for us to encourage each other today, in light of Daniel chapter 9, to be honest with God. Good luck not being honest with God.

I mean, doesn't he already know everything? Doesn't he know us better than we know ourselves? By the same token, we may consider why it's kind of odd to pray at all. I mean, doesn't God already know how great he is?

Why do we have to tell him? Doesn't God already know how needy we are? Doesn't God already know the terms of our relationship? But prayer is not informing God about those details of which he is already fully aware.

That's not the need for honesty. It's not about us making sure that God is fully up to speed on the issues of our lives, as if he is distracted or detained. Truthfulness in our prayers, honesty in our confession, is about our worship of God, about our reverence unto God.

Will we say what he says? Will we value what he values? Will we seek that which he desires? Do we make his glory as clear as we make our own shame? After all, we're the prodigal who left. We're the sheep that strayed.

Coming home to the father and coming back to the shepherd does not... we're not bringing anything that he doesn't already know. We're not going to tell him anything he doesn't already know. What are we saying, then, in our confession?

We are expressing, through our confession, our desire to remain home, to remain in agreement with God, abiding with him. That's why confession is so important. But what are we going to say? Well, Daniel's confession is structured in a very particular way.

Very often we find the structure in the Old Testament is called a chiasm, where you have a series of concentric parallels. You have the bookends, which rhyme by theme. They have the same ideas, sometimes the very same words.

And then another parallel moves in, and they echo each other, then another, and then right at the heart of the chiasm is the big idea, the main thought. And we have that here today, so I want to follow through that structure.

Daniel begins by identifying the sinners, begins by identifying the one who has done the wrong. Verse 5, he starts off this way, we have sinned and committed iniquity. We have done wickedly and rebelled.

That bookend in verse 10. We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants, the prophets. He says, we, we, we. He says, us. You see, in the Old Covenant, there were two partners.

There was God, and then there was Israel, the nation of Israel. And in the Old Covenant, the consideration was who was in Israel and who wasn't. But Israel was simply a shadow of the one who is to come.

And now, of course, the question is different, isn't it? It's not about who is in ethnic Israel, political Israel, cultural Israel. The question is, and who is in the one who fulfills Israel? Who is in Christ?

Are you in Christ, or do you remain outside of him? In the Old Covenant, there was God, and there was Israel, the shadow of Christ, pointing to the hope of Christ. But on the day that God chose Israel and raised his hand in an oath to the children of Jacob in Egypt, he said to them, I am the Lord your God.

And God made them promises. He promised to bring them up out of bondage, out of Egypt, to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey. And he was faithful, and he kept his word, all his promises.

But Israel was not faithful. God was loyal to this stubborn and rebellious people, but they were not loyal. Did any other nation ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire on Sinai, like Israel did, and still live?

Did God ever go and take for himself a different nation by signs and wonders for himself? Wasn't it to Israel that God revealed himself? And yes, despite all of this, despite all of this, the current covenant estrangement that Daniel feels at this moment is due to Israel, not to God.

God had not failed. God had not sinned. God had not done wrong. Israel had. God could not be blamed for anything. He had been far more than generous. Other nations like Egypt and Assyria and Babylon could be blamed and had been blamed by various Israelites, but these had not broken covenant with God.

Israel had. Israel was guilty. Israel had to come clean. Israel must confess her guilt. And so Daniel speaks up and says for the whole group, we, we, we, us. The finger is pointed back. The collective first person, we're at fault.

Honest confession of the sinner is essential. Honest confession of the sinner is essential. Those who are in all actuality to blame must be identified. Do you recall the horrible job that Adam and Eve did at that?

So God made everything and made it very good, perfect, abundant, generous, amazing. And Adam and Eve sinned and began to blame God and others. When God confronted Adam, what did he say about what he had done?

He said, the woman that you gave me. Wow, that was fast. He blames his wife and God at the same time. Can't be my fault. When God confronts Eve, she's like, oh, the serpent you made, right? This is a really bad attempt at confessing what happened.

They, having strayed from God's Word, they're no longer using God's words to describe what it is that happened. The actual culprit must be confessed. Now, in the old covenant, Daniel's doing the right thing.

He's confessing Israel. Israel has done wrong. Thus, Israel is suffering the, the judgment that we deserve. In the new covenant era, we are promised that our dealing with God is not through Israel, but through Christ, who is the fulfillment of Israel.

And thus, our dealing with God is based on our personal responsibility, rather than a corporate covenant keeping. Because Christ has come, a big change has occurred. Jeremiah 31 verses 29 through 34 tells us that a big change has occurred.

No longer will the fathers eat sour grapes and the teeth of the children be put on edge. That's the image. Of course, that happened in the old covenant, wherein Manasseh filled Jerusalem with blood, his 52 years of tyranny and, and bloodshed and the, and the murder of all those infants given to the false God, Molech, and the destruction of the righteous.

The punishment upon Israel for Manasseh's sins, for the wickedness that Manasseh brought into the life of Israel, did not fall during Manasseh's time or his, his son's time, or even his grandson's time, but later on it fell.

You see, you see that the fathers ate sour grapes and in the teeth of the children were put on edge as God dealt with Israel as his shadow mediator of the covenant. But now it's different. Now it's different in the new covenant.

We don't have that anymore. We deal with God, not through covenant blessings and cursings brought about through Israel and whether Israel's being faithful or not. We deal with God through Christ, Jesus Christ, who doesn't have ups and downs and good days and bad days, but he is perfectly faithful in all of his ministry.

Hebrews tells us a lot about that, but look at Daniel. He kneels here in the disaster that is brought about by the sins of his forefathers. Aren't you glad that the new covenant is blessedly different from the old, that in the new covenant, every member will have God's law written upon their hearts, that each one of us will follow Jesus Christ as the standard, but still the principle is the same.

The sinners must identify themselves. Who is at fault? Jesus gave us an example of that in his parable about the Pharisee and the publican. Perhaps you remember that. The Pharisee goes to the middle of the temple and, and I think there's a good snicker here, and prays to himself.

Says he prays to himself about how awesome he is and how well he does and how he's not like horrible sinners like that tax collector, that trader, that publican over there in the corner. The publican for him's, for his point, for his part, he is off in the corner unwilling to lift up his head.

He's beating his breasts and he's praying, oh God, be merciful. The Greek word means propitious to me, a sinner. He said, I'm the sinner. So what are you saying? And Jesus says that one of those men, namely the publican, went home justified, right with God, at peace with God.

So sinners be honest with the Lord in confession. We must throw off the snares of this culture of victimhood. You are not the victim. We are the villains and we must have a Savior. Christ is our Savior.

It's me. It's me. It's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Not my father, not my mother, not my sister, not my brother. It's me. It's me. It's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer, standing in the need of the forgiveness of my sins.

And the sins are confessed. Daniel says, we have sinned and committed iniquity. We have done wickedly and rebelled. Verse 10, he says, we have not obeyed. Verse 10, he says, we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants, the prophets.

You ever wonder why the Bible has more than one word for sin? Why so many? Because God is precise. It matters to him. Why did God make more than one animal? Why did he make more than one terrain? Why did he make more than one star?

Why did he make more than one planet? God is precise. We have more than one word for sin. The word sin, the word iniquity, the word wickedness, the word rebellion, the word straying, the word disobedience.

Daniel is confessing the sins of the people and he's in sackcloth and ashes. He has set his face to the Lord, but he's not interested in just glazing over the problem, skimming over the issues. He's not interested in using man-made euphemisms like, oh, God, you know, we had some problems and issues.

We made some mistakes. He's not going to use man-made words that cover over the realities of sin. He lays one stroke along another to paint an accurate picture of Israel's sin, and this is not a pretty picture.

They have missed the mark. They have perverted the path. They have troubled their souls. They have raged against God. They have withdrawn from hope, and they have refused to hear. They have failed to keep the Sabbaths and the feasts, and they have worshiped the false gods.

They believed the false prophets. They insisted upon breaking God's law. They settled for the appearance of peace and persecuted the prophets of God, especially those prophets that told the nation exactly how they were breaking the covenant through their idolatry and their immorality and their injustice.

When you get to the New Testament, the apostles will sometimes go on a little list of sins. Why not just say, sin? But they list the sins, one after another, this kind of sin, that kind of sin, this kind of sin.

Jesus stated specifically his woes against the false teachers. What are we taught in the scriptures that sin is to be confessed specifically in light of God's holy concerns. It is true that God made Christ sin on our behalf, and it is also true that he bore our transgressions, and the sins that God had passed over previously were laid upon Christ.

And blessed is the man in Christ whose sins are covered by the blood of the Lamb. So to honor Christ, let us confess our sins. Is this not what we are directly told to do? The apostle John says in 1 John 1 verses 8 through 10, he says, you say that you have no sin, you deceive ourselves.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But listen, if we confess our sins, if we confess our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, if we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and his word is not in us.

So we see the need to confess our sins if we want the forgiveness of God, not only the forgiveness, but the cleansing of God, to make us right with him and right with one another, to bring us out of the despair of sin into holiness.

But we must confess our sins. Name them what God names them. The Bible is full of the description of what sin is. Use God's words to describe what goes on in your heart and in your life. And of course, I've just pointed to the next part of our confession.

There's a standard. In Daniel chapter 9, the last part of verse 5, verse 6 says, even by departing from your precepts and your judgments, neither have we heeded your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings and our princes and to our fathers and to all the people of the land.

And you pair that with the last part of verse 10. We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants, the prophets. So every biblical description of sin assumes the standard of God's word.

What is the mark that was missed? From what does the divergent path leave? There is a peace that has been despised. There has been a king that has been defied. There's a hope that has been abandoned. There's a message that has been ignored.

When we confess that we are the sinner and here are my sins, we do so according to God's standard. It's his light that shows us who we are and what we have done. Israel did not hold Isaiah's oracles, nor heed Jeremiah's warnings.

Israel despised Amos and they ignored Micah. Israel stopped caring about Moses. The word of God had come by the prophets of God, but it was ignored, abandoned, rejected, and so the kings ruled wickedly and the priests served profanely and the people groaned under the covenant curses that God said he would bring.

What standard had they decided to live by? The standard proclaimed to them by the false prophets, whom Jeremiah said, here is their message summed up. Peace, peace, but there is no peace. Falsely proclaiming that all is well, all is well, when it wasn't well.

It's not whether we're going to live by a standard, but which standard. It's not whether, but which. Which standard are we going to apply to our lives? By what standard are we going to pray to God and make our confession?

God's word is the standard for God's image. What happened? God made man in his own image and what was the very first thing he did? He gave his image his word. We must confess sin, so what is sin? What is the standard of God's word?

1 John 3, 4 says, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness and sin is lawlessness. The law of God is the expression of his holy character given to those made in his image to live in reflection of who he is.

And so sin is that which is against the character of God. Sin is that which is against the character of God expressed in the law. Sin is lawlessness. And Jesus Christ is the end of the law, the talos of the law, the goal of the law unto righteousness for all who believe.

He is the standard. As we live today, everything now hinges on whether or not we submit to his reign. Whether or not we submit to Christ. That's what it all comes down to. As Kyle prayed for us from Psalm 2, will we do homage to the son?

Will we bow the knee, kiss the son, and be blessed by finding refuge in him? There are many standards out there today, and most of those standards are changing by the minute, if not by the month. If we confess to a different standard, then we're not going to be in agreement with God.

Our sin will likely be seen as far less sinful, or we will perhaps confess sins that God never called sin. If we will not have Christ as Lord, we will have the tyranny of a thousand lords. If we will not have God's ten commandments, we will have the tyranny of ten thousand commandments.

The standard of God is a blessing. And then, not only does Daniel confess the sinner and the sin and the standard, but he also confesses his salvation. In verse 7, it begins this way, O Lord, righteousness belongs to you.

And then in Daniel 9, 9, To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him. So, although Israel is corporately a sinner, and a sin greatly, breaking God's standard, Daniel yet hopes that even the one who is offended, God himself, will save them.

Because God is right, and does right, and makes the wrong into the right. And God is merciful, and that he is forgiving. So, God not only defines what is right, he does what is right. Not only does he expose what is wrong, but he makes the wrong to be right.

And he possesses all mercy, and all compassion. And he shows tender love to the undeserving. And he pardons sin. And he releases his hold upon the transgressions of sinners. And he removes them far from himself, as far as the east is from the west.

And had not God shown those qualities to Israel in every generation, and had not the God of Israel always done right, how often had he shown his mercy to an undeserving nation, demonstrating his forgiveness of their sins, passing over the sins committed.

So, Daniel confesses the sins of Israel made clear by God's standard, but then he also confesses the goodness of God, made evident by the very same standard. And in the contrast, in the very contrast of the holy and good God, with sinful and wicked man, we find the hope that such a perfect God is a wonderful Savior.

That man's rebellion has not changed God. That man's rebellion has not overwhelmed him, has not overcome him, has not exhausted his mercy and forgiveness. And at the same time, we may see the problem clearly.