January 11: Daniel 9:1-19

The Confession of the sin of God’s people (verses 5-15)

This involves the recognition and confession of a long history of disobedience and failure. This also involves the recognition of the resultant consequences of such disobedience. These consequences are the result of ignoring God’s mercy, ignoring God’s law, and ignoring God’s promise of judgment. What long history of disobedience do you see in us that would cause God to withhold His blessing?

Notice the length of this portion of the prayer in comparison to the other portions. It is obvious by the length of confession that Daniel has pondered the situation and is seriously seeking God’s mercy.

Notice the words Daniel uses to describe the sin of his people.

• Sinned—to miss the mark, to go astray
• Done wrong—from the root “crooked”, to bend, twist, distort
• Acted wickedly—habitually and willfully
• Rebelled—openly and obstinately refused God’s will, God’s Word, God’s ways
• Turning aside—another way of describing how they had rebelled by going their own way rather than God’s way
• Not listened—reminds us of the Isaiah vision, where the people had ears to hear, but refused to hear

Notice the consequences Daniel acknowledges as the result of disobedience.

• Open shame
• Curse and oath
• Calamity

“But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’ Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’”

(2Ch 7:19-22, ESV)

APPLICATION

Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994) wrote a book entitled Sodom Had No Bible, where he sought to help America see her need for God. He insinuated that God would have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, if He didn’t bring judgment on the sin of America.

It’s easy in a morally declining culture to see it as morally degenerate and ourselves as morally superior. We must recognize the consequences of sin in our midst and confess it before a holy God. We must treat sin as seriously as God does. We must acknowledge that there are no small, insignificant sins. God will judge sin, but He is longsuffering, merciful and forgiving, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

In Romans 1:24-32 the Apostle Paul outlines what it looks like for God to give a culture over to their sin. He mentions this phrase three times in this section (verses 24, 26, 28). The passage seems very descriptive of our time. But there is hope. The power of the gospel is effective. Revival is possible. The sincere prayers of a penitent people will be answered. God is faithful!

Some of my favorite quotes from Leonard Ravenhill:

No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere.

Prayer is not an argument with God to persuade him to move things our way, but an exercise by which we are enabled by his Spirit to move ourselves his way.

Most Christians pray to be blessed. Few pray to be broken.

In revival, God is not concerned about filling empty churches, He is concerned about filling empty hearts.

The Church right now has more fashion than passion, is more pathetic than prophetic, is more superficial than supernatural.

“There are three persons living in each of us: the one we think we are, the one other people think we are, and the one God knows we are.”