A Word in Season: For Your Name’s Sake (Daniel 9:17-19)

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I've always considered the prayer of Daniel chapter 9 as one of the most rich and striking examples of prayer in the whole scripture.

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I am struck by the way in which Daniel weaves together different elements of revelation.

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The whole prayer is in some respects a series of quotations seamlessly woven together to create this penetrating declaration of need, this heartfelt confession strikingly from a man who himself is proverbially righteous and yet enters into the need and the circumstances and the sins of the people on whose behalf he's pleading for, a man who is taken up primarily with the glory of God.

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And nowhere does that come to greater prominence than the conclusion of that prayer.

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Let me read it to you in verse 17 and following of Daniel 9. Now therefore our

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God hear the prayer of your servant and his supplications and for the

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Lord's sake cause your face to shine on your sanctuary which is desolate.

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Oh my God incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and see our desolations in the city which is called by your name.

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For we do not present our supplications before you because of our righteous deeds but because of your great mercies.

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Oh Lord hear, oh Lord forgive, oh Lord listen and act.

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Do not delay for your own sake my God for your city and your people are called by your name.

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What is Daniel's great concern in this prayer? It is primarily for the

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Lord's glory among his people and when he pleads that God would hear and forgive and listen and act, it is not first and foremost for the sake of his people but because God in covenant with his people, having set his love upon that people, having called his people by his own name,

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God's honour and glory in that sense rests on and is displayed by and in his people.

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And so Daniel comes to the Lord and he pleads with him, not on the basis of the righteous acts of the people, for they have nothing to plead in themselves, but because of the mercy of God and for his mercy's sake and because of his concern for the honour of his name,

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Daniel desires that the God of heaven and earth would look in favour upon his sinful people and forgive them and restore them.

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And I suggest to you that that is precisely the way that we should be praying, yes in these days but indeed in every day.

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We have no righteousness of our own to plead but we can plead the everlasting mercy of God and we should be, not least in these days as we consider what is taking place, not just in the world at large but in the churches to which we belong, we should be praying that the

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Lord would hear us, that the Lord would forgive us, that the Lord would listen and act for his mercy's sake and because he has set his glory in his church.

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If we desire that God would be honoured in the world, if we want the Lord to be magnified among us, our first concern has to be that God for his name's sake would deal in mercy with his own people, would take away our sins, would flush out all unrighteousness, would restore and revive us and would equip us for the glory and honour of his name and his reputation in the world.

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And if we are going to do that we can't plead on the basis of what we are, we can only plead on the basis of who and what

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God is. So if you are seeing anything of desolations in the church of Jesus Christ, if you are seeing anything of sorrows and miseries, if you are seeing our frailties and our weaknesses, our transgressions and our sins, then for the sake of God's honour plead with him that he would forgive us, that he would restore us, that he would listen and act in merciful might and that he would make his name a praise by establishing his people for the glory of his name.