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Collierville First Baptist Church
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Good evening.
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(Congregation Laughing)
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So glad that you're here tonight. Take your Bible.
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Turn to Daniel chapter nine. We are making our way through Daniel.
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We're gonna slow down next week though.
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All right, let's pray.
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Heavenly Father, I thank you for the men and women in this room. I thank you for the opportunity we have to open the scripture and to study what Daniel the prophet wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
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I pray that our hearts will be open. I pray that we would receive what we study tonight as the literal word of the living God. I pray you teach us, I pray you train us, I pray you draw us closer to Jesus by being here tonight. And I pray, Lord, that you would conform us to the image of Jesus. We love you. We thank you for your grace and mercy. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
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All right, chapter nine of Daniel
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is a super important chapter in this book.
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Now, I know that all the chapters in here are important.
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I'm not diminishing any of the chapters of Daniel, but I'm telling you this one is really important.
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It's sort of the first part of Daniel, the major part is Daniel's prayer.
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And this is an amazing prayer.
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I love that the Bible includes Daniel's prayer, it includes Paul's prayer. And we can learn a lot by studying the prayers of the great men of God, okay?
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And then when we get to verses 24 to 27,
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it's one of the most important prophecies. In fact, Dr. Gablyn wrote this, I've got it in your notes here, you can follow along
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on page one, the prophetic message Gabriel,
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the angel Gabriel brought from the throne of God to Daniel, we'll see that in verses 24 to 27,
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is perhaps the most important, not only in the book of Daniel, but in the whole Bible.
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The clear understanding of it is indispensable
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to every reader of God's word.
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That's why we're gonna slow down next week.
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We're gonna take our time with verses 24 to 27.
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And he goes on to say, who wants to know God's purposes concern the future. In the few verses which contain the words of Gabriel, events relating to Jewish future history are predicted. The return of the Jews from Babylonian captivity, the rebuilding of the city in time of distress,
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the coming of Christ in humiliation, his death, the destruction of the temple, the city by the Romans, the desolation and wars which were to follow, all of this pre-written in this great prophecy we find in verses 24 to 27. The final end of the time of the Gentiles, the great eventful week of seven years is revealed in the last verse.
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Now don't miss next week, okay? If you miss next week,
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then it will sort of hamper your whole understanding of the book of Daniel.
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Now Daniel spent much time looking into the prophetic meanings of the bears, the rams, the goats, the lions, the leopards and the horns. Listen, the symbols that you find in the book of Daniel are very important symbols, all right? Now we've been explaining those symbols as we've gone along. But can you imagine Daniel? Daniel the great prophet of God, he receives these visions
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and I'm sure his head must have been spinning with all the symbols he's trying to figure out exactly what they meant and how they played out in history.
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And what would he do? What would he do? How could he handle it? Well, he did two things. Number one, he dove into the word of God.
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He dove into the word of God. By the way, when you face complex issues in your life, may I suggest to you that you do exactly what Daniel did.
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Dive into the word of God, find the scriptures that relate to the issues you're facing,
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study them and then he did a second thing.
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Not only did he dive into the word of God, but he prayed.
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So we're gonna spend our whole time tonight looking at Daniel's prayer.
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We would do well to follow Daniel's example.
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Now, I would imagine that you like me have faced moments in your life when you have faced complex situations and you had to make a decision.
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You cannot not make a decision. You gotta make a decision.
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And I know that you like myself want to make sure that I find myself right smack dab in the center of God's will.
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Well, to do that, we have to dig into the word of God,
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not in a frivolous, superficial way, but we've gotta dig into the word of God and we've gotta pray. We gotta really seek the face of God in prayer.
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Now, this chapter contains a record of Daniel's prayer. In fact, verses one to 19, it is all about Daniel's prayer in chapter nine.
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Listen, the covenant name of Yahweh is used in this chapter seven times.
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The covenant name Yahweh is not used anywhere else in the book of Daniel, never.
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So you say why? Why is the covenant name for the Jewish people Yahweh found in the book of Daniel seven times and in this chapter is found seven times.
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Well, this prayer is all about a prayer for the Jewish people.
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And with the Jewish people,
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I think you can see it would be very applicable for Daniel to use the name Yahweh, the covenant name for God. Remember, that's the name that when Moses was in the wilderness
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and he came to the burning bush, remember that?
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The children of Israel were in Egyptian bondage
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and he came to a bush in the wilderness that was burning, but it was not burning up.
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It was not being destroyed at all and it caught his attention and God spoke to him out of the bush
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and Moses did several things. God said, I want you to go to Egypt and I want you to be the deliverer for my people Israel.
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I want you and Aaron to deliver them from Egyptian bondage.
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And Moses made excuses.
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He said, who am I? Who am I to do something like that?
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And then finally, here's another excuse. He said, well, when I go, Moses said to God, when I go, what am I gonna say when they ask me who sent me?
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And God said, you tell them that I am has sent you. I am that I am has sent you. Okay, Yahweh. So name Yahweh, the covenant name of God. And so we find that in this prayer, this name Yahweh is used seven times. Now look at verses one and two.
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In the first year of Darius,
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the son of a hazardous, a median descent who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans.
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Now the Chaldeans is Babylon. Okay, so you've got Darius who's made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans. I believe that this is a clear indication that Cyrus had placed Darius over Babylon to be the ruler of Babylon under Cyrus. Remember it was Cyrus who gave the edict that the children of Israel could go back to the promised land. Okay, now this timestamp right here is very important.
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The first year of Darius, very important.
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Now I put some dates here and just follow along with me. Daniel was probably carried away to Babylon
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in a partial deportation in 605 BC. 605 BC.
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Then 19 years later, 586 BC, Nebuchadnezzar came with his army
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and Babylon took the Jewish people captive and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.
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And then the first year of Darius the Mede was 538 BC. Now we know that from extra biblical sources.
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You see, they kept records back in those days. And so we know that the first year of Darius was 538 BC.
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That was 48 years after the destruction of the city in 586 BC.
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But since Jeremiah had spoken of the people serving the King of Babylon for 70 years, and we'll go get to that in just a moment,
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Daniel probably counted that 70 year period. The countdown began in 605 BC when he was deported to Babylon. Okay, and if that's the case, within 67 years out of the total 70 years had gone by, you see Jeremiah prophesied that yes, Babylon would take the Jewish people captive
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and the captivity of the Jewish people would last for 70 years.
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The term seven is very important.
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Oh, we get over here in verses 24 to 27 and basically it's seven sevens, okay.
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And excuse me, 77s. And then seven is the perfect number in biblical understanding.
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So remember when Nebuchadnezzar was judged by God, he was judged by God that he would be an animal for basically seven years, right? So seven is all through here.
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Now, look at this.
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The termination of the captivity was only three years away. Can you imagine how excited Daniel must have been? He's been serving there in Babylon now, the Medo-Persian Empire for 67 years.
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He's probably in his 80s, okay. He went to Babylon in his teenage years. Now he's in his 80s serving there for 67 years, but he finds out as he begins to dig into the scripture
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that there's only three years until the Jewish people go back to their homeland, go back to Jerusalem.
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Can you imagine how thrilled he must have been?
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Now, notice this.
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In verse two, verse two of Daniel chapter nine, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel observed in the books.
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Now, what do you mean by the books?
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The books were the scrolls.
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The scrolls of the, I don't know how many scrolls he had. He probably had the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, but we know that he had the scroll of Jeremiah
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because he began to dig into the scroll of Jeremiah, the prophecy that God gave him.
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The Bible says in verse two again, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel observed in the books the number of years,
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which was revealed as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years, 70 years.
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Now, that's a very important point in our study.
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Now, Daniel believed the Bible.
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He believed the Bible he had, the same book of Jeremiah that we have in our Bible, he had in probably in a Hebrew scroll.
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Daniel believed the scriptures. In this case, he believed the prophecy of Jeremiah,
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that the Jewish people would only be in captivity for 70 years, 67 years of that time had already passed. There was three years left until the Jewish people would be allowed to go home and Cyrus would make that declaration.
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Now, Daniel dug into the word of God to find answers
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to the dilemma of the captivity of God's people.
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Notice Jeremiah 25, 11 and 12.
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This whole land, the land of Israel
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will be a desolation and a horror.
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And these nations will serve the King of Babylon. Look at this, 70 years. You ought to underline that in your notes, 70 years.
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Then it will be when 70 years, underline 70 years again, then it will be when 70 years are completed, I will punish the King of Babylon and that nation declares the Lord for their iniquity in the land of the Chaldeans and I will make it an everlasting desolation.
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Now look at Jeremiah 29, verses 10 to 12.
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For thus says the Lord, when 70 years have been complete, underline 70 years.
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Thus says the Lord, when 70 years have been completed for Babylon,
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I will visit you and will fulfill my good word to you
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to bring you back to this place, back to what place?
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Back to the place that God promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the land of Israel.
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You know, I've started reading through the Bible again.
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Philip was telling me he and Sharon started early. I started last November and I finished and I've restarted reading through the Bible again.
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And I tell you, it is a fascinating thing
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to see how the word of God is put together.
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How God makes prophecies about things that will happen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, even millennia in the future.
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And it always comes true.
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It always comes true.
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So when 70 years have been completed for Babylon, now why did God send them to Babylon in the first place? You know why?
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Because they rebelled against God. They failed to obey God. They failed to take God seriously. They began to worship idols.
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I tell you that ought to be a shot across the bow of America. Now we're not a covenant nation.
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Israel is a covenant nation. We're not a covenant nation.
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But the Bible says that there is only one God.
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There is only one God, ladies and gentlemen.
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There's not multiple gods from multiple nations. There is one God.
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And the Bible says the nation that believes in this one God is blessed, blessed. And look at us today.
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Look at America today.
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We have shaken our fist in the face of the living God so many times it is unbelievable.
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It's unbelievable.
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And God's the same yesterday, today and forever.
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God does not take kindly to people or nations
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rejecting Him and rejecting His word.
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Man, every day after I have my quiet time,
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I go to Fox News and I just wanna see what's happening.
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And I'm telling you, I go away and I'm shaking my head.
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I can't believe some of the stuff
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that I'm reading on the news.
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It is uncanny, it's unbelievable.
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I tell you what I'm doing and I hope you join me. I'm praying for the leaders of this nation.
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I'm praying that God would open their eyes
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and if they keep their eyes closed, I'm praying that God would take them out of office.
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And He put people in office who are sensitive about God's word and believe in God's word and are willing to do what God wants us to do and that we would be a nation that would follow the Lord our God.
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Look at Jeremiah 29, 10 through 12 again. Verse 11, "For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the Lord, "Plans for welfare and not for calamity
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to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you." And God said, "Look, I don't wanna destroy the nation of Israel." In fact, God made a covenant with Israel. I can tell you this, on the day that Jesus comes again, the nation of Israel will still be here.
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Nobody's gonna destroy the nation of Israel. You know how I know that? Because God says in His word that as long as the sun rises
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and the moon is up there in the sky, there's gonna be a nation of Israel.
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There's gonna be a nation of Israel.
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And God says, "I'm gonna bring you back to your land."
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And He did. After 70 years, after Cyrus gave the declaration
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that the nation of Israel could go back to their land, they did and they began to rebuild. I wish I could tell you that it turned out great.
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I wish I could tell you that there were no more hiccups, but I'm telling you there were some major hiccups.
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And then in AD 70, after they had rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jewish people had rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. In AD 70, the Romans came and they destroyed Jerusalem.
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And they destroyed the temple.
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And Israel was dispersed across the nations
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for 2000 years basically, 2000 years. They didn't have a homeland.
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Then on May the 14th, 1948,
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the nation of Israel became a nation again. And they went back to their homeland.
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And through miracle after miracle, God allowed them to defeat their enemies. They were vastly outnumbered.
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And they didn't have the weapons that their enemies had. I'll tell you that you read about it. There were some actual miracles that took place as God gave His people back their homeland.
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Now, the next thing on the horizon is the coming of Christ.
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It's the coming of Christ.
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Now look at this.
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Daniel believed in the reality of biblical prophecy. Hey, I've been preaching through Matthew chapter 24, biblical prophecy.
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And I'm gonna be honest with you, I believe biblical prophecy. I believe that when God says something is going to happen, it's going to happen, okay?
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My struggle is I'm wondering how many people who listen to biblical prophecy today really believe it's true.
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Because listen, if they really believed it was true, it would change their values. It would change how they handle their time, how they handle their finances, how they raise their kids. It would change a lot. If they really believe biblical prophecy.
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I read something, Vody Baucom said, let me see if I can get this right.
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He said, if I teach my son to keep his eye on the ball,
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but I don't teach him to keep his eye on Christ, I have failed as a father.
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Boy, what a statement.
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What a statement.
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So I hope and pray that all of you and those watching live stream, I hope and pray that you can say with Daniel that you believe Bible prophecy.
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But I'm telling you it's true.
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Now, I want to read to you something that John Lennox said.
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You see Bible prophecy is verifiable proof that the Bible's true.
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That you can trust the Bible.
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When God said, think about this, 700 years before Jesus was incarnated in the virgin womb of Mary,
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Isaiah the prophet wrote about it. He said a virgin will conceive.
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Guess what? A virgin conceived.
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And he talked about the birth of Christ and who Christ would be and what Christ would do. You go over to Isaiah 53, 700 years before Christ was incarnated and there is a vivid description of crucifixion, the crucifixion of the Messiah.
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Ladies and gentlemen, it's true.
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And every time you find a Bible prophecy and then you find the fulfillment of that Bible prophecy, it strengthens our faith and belief that the Bible is absolute truth without mixture of error. Do you realize there's no other holy book in all of creation that has predictive prophecy in it? But God said, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. God says, I'm gonna put myself on the line here and I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen before it happens so you'll know that everything I say is true.
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Listen to what John Lennox said.
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He said, quoting 2 Timothy 3.16, "All scripture is breathed out by God."
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It's God-breathed, He's inspired.
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Now think about all scripture.
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Now I'm talking about Old Testament narratives like Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, all of those are God-breathed.
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Psalms is God-breathed.
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The prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, God-breathed, Daniel, God-breathed, Ephesians, God-breathed, but I'm telling you, biblical prophecy is God-breathed. It's true.
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And it's gonna happen, if you read it, it may not have happened yet, but I can tell you it's gonna happen.
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You can go to the bank with it. So here's what John Lennox said.
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John Lennox said, "All scriptures breathed out by God claims the New Testament," 2 Timothy 3.16.
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We should therefore, listen to this, we should therefore expect corroborative external evidence from history, archeology, and related disciplines, but in the end, the word of God will authenticate itself by being perceived to be the word of God by what it says, by its inner coherence and ring of truth.
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I'm telling you, when you bring your Bible to church,
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you're bringing the word of God to church. When you get up in the morning and you read your Bible, you are reading what God says to us. It's God's word.
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And so it's interesting,
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I go to several Christian sites just about every day,
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and I'm reading more and more about archeological discoveries
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that corroborate what the Bible teaches.
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Here's what's interesting.
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These scholars, they say, "Well, in no way that this could have happened," and then they find an archeological discovery and it confirms the Bible and it makes the scholars look like nincompoops.
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It really does. They got egg all over the face, over and over and over again.
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Now look, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I know that.
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Don't need you to tell me that, I know it.
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But I'm telling you what, I believe the Bible.
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If I believe it in there, I believe it.
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And I'm going to do exactly what I sense the Bible is telling me to do and be the kind of person the Bible tells me to be.
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Now, where was I? All right, in Daniel 9.3, look at this.
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So I gave my attention to the Lord God
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to seek Him by prayer and supplications with thanksgiving, sackcloth and that. So now remember what Daniel did.
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He faced all of these visions, his head spinning. He knows there's three years until the nation of Israel are gonna be allowed to go back to the promised land. He knows that because God promised it.
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And so what does He do? He devotes Himself to digging into the prophecy of Jeremiah. He devotes Himself to prayer.
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Okay, now, verse three. So I gave my attention to the Lord God
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to seek Him, the word seek.
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When you see that word seek, what do you think of?
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I think of passion.
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Do you remember when you were growing up and you played hide and seek? Remember that?
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And you would seek those folks that you were trying to find.
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I mean, you'd look in every nook and cranny around your house or outside and you're trying to find them. You're seeking them.
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Well, every time I see the word seek, I think of passion, passion.
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In Jeremiah 29, 13, God says, "You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart."
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So Daniel gave his attention to the Lord God.
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He was not full of distractions, okay? Remember, it's the first year of King Darius.
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Let's just imagine that already, Daniel's been thrown in the lion's den, God gave the lion's lockjaw and they couldn't eat him and he comes out and he's made a strong ruler in the kingdom under Darius. Darius had great respect for Daniel.
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And sometime after that, he has this moment when he begins to dig into the word of God and seek God.
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So he said, "I gave my attention." That literally in the Hebrew, it means I set my face.
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I set my face to the Lord God.
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And notice the word Lord. The word Lord is not capitalized. That is the word adonai.
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And it literally means boss and master, owner, ruler, sovereign.
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That's what it means, he's Lord. You come to the New Testament in Romans 14, verse nine, Paul wrote, "For to this end, Christ died and lived again that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living."
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Jesus is Lord, he's Lord.
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Now, not only was God able to hear Daniel's prayer because he's Lord, he's boss and master, he's sovereign over all creation,
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but he has the power to direct world affairs and world history in order to answer the prayer that Daniel is praying.
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Now, I wrote a little statement here.
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This old prophet of God, he's in his 80s, was more powerful on his knees
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than Darius was on his throne.
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I can't tell you the power
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of a spirit-filled anointed believer on his knees or her knees crying out to God.
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Martin Luther, the great reformer stated, God does nothing but an answer to prayer.
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Prayer is one of our greatest resources as believers, but I don't know about you, but one thing that the enemy tries to do in my life is to lessen my effectiveness in prayer.
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The enemy wants me to spend time doing frivolous things rather than spending time in prayer.
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But I'm telling you, if we would do what Daniel did,
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if we would set our face on God
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and begin to pray with fervency, seeking the face of God,
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there's no telling the miracles that we could see in our lives.
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Now notice, the Bible says that, so I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek him by prayer and supplications, and look at this, with three things, fasting, that means he gave up meals. He was so dead set on seeking the face of God and finding an answer to the dilemma he was facing
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that he gave up meals in order to seek God. See fasting means you give up a meal or meals in order to spend time in prayer.
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That's the basic definition of fasting.
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Now, and then sackcloth.
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Do you remember burlap sacks? Do you remember that?
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Dr. Horn does, many of you do.
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Basically, it's like Daniel took off his royal attire because he was high up in the government there in Medo-Persia, and he gave up his royal attire and he put on a burlap sack.
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Have you ever, can you imagine, you've rubbed up against a burlap sack before, haven't you? It would not be the most comfortable attire you've ever worn in your life, I assure you.
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So he's given up a meal, a meals, and he's wearing a burlap sack, very uncomfortable, scratchy. And then it says this, and ashes, and ashes.
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So he's sitting in ashes, he's covering his head with ashes. It's a sign of mourning. It's a sign of seriousness. Let me tell you, Daniel took this moment very, very serious, very serious.
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Now, he was grieved over the sin of the people of Israel
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that they had shaken their fist in the face of Yahweh.
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And as a result, they had been in Babylonian exile for 67 years, but there was hope.
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There was hope.
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Now, Daniel was 100% dependent upon God.
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Let me ask you, when you pray, do you come before God as a humble servant?
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That's what Daniel did. Hey, look at chapter nine again, and to skip down to when the angel Gabriel showed up with Daniel, look at this, verse 20. Here's what Gabriel said.
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This is an angel now, okay? It's not a human being, it's an angel. Now, while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, this is Daniel talking right now, and presenting my supplication for the Lord God in behalf of the holy mountain of my God. Now, what's the holy mountain of my God? It's Mount Zion, it's Jerusalem.
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And verse 21, while I was still speaking in prayer,
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then the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, came to me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering,
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and he gave me instruction and taught with me and said, notice what Gabriel said to Daniel.
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He said, "O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you insight with understanding.
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At the beginning of your supplications,
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the command was issued,
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and I've come to tell you," look at this, here's what Gabriel brings a message from heaven to Daniel,
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for you are highly, you are highly esteemed,
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so give heed to the message and gain understanding of the vision.
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What does that mean, he was highly esteemed? It means he was highly esteemed in heaven.
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God had high esteem for Daniel because he was a man of God,
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because he took God seriously, because he was grieved over the sin of the people of Israel and over his own sin.
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He was grieved 32 times in this prayer.
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Daniel identifies himself with the sin of the people of Israel.
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He doesn't say you, he says we, over and over and over and over again.
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And as a result of this desire he had for the glory of God, he desired the glory of God more than he desired the next meal.
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As a result, he was highly esteemed in heaven.
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I pray to God that everybody in this room, everybody watching live stream,
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that you are highly esteemed in heaven.
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Why can't we be?
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Honestly, why can't we be?
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If we emulate Daniel's heart,
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we can be highly esteemed in heaven. (Congregation Applauding)
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Now, Daniel was called by God to be a prophet.
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But let me tell you something,
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the calling of God was one thing,
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but Daniel's living up to that call was something totally different.
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And if we live the way the Lord wants us to live, if we embrace the values that he wants us to embrace, if we deny ourselves, let's go to New Testament, if we deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow Christ, we can be highly esteemed in heaven.
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You know what?
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I have no desire to end my life with a goal of being rich.
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I don't care a bit, think about it.
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I love to give, I love to give to the cause of Christ,
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to the, Darlene and I gave to St. Jude Hospital the other day. You know why I gave?
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Because when Zach was two years old, two years old, she took him back for a checkup because he runs some fever.
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And the pediatrician in Tupelo said,
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"Now tell me, your dad and your brother died with leukemia, right?" And Darlene said, "Yes."
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He said, "I think you better carry Zach to St. Jude Hospital and get checked for leukemia.
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I'm telling you, we were crushed."
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And we brought him to St. Jude Hospital.
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And I had to send Darlene out of the room, they did a bone marrow on a two year old little boy.
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And I held him down and they stuck that needle in that bone and they pulled out some bone marrow. He screamed, looked at me like, "Dad, what are you letting them do to me?"
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And praise God, it came back and it was mononucleosis. It was not leukemia. And he got over and he's here, he's living, doing great.
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I tell you, that was a touchy moment for us.
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I'm telling you, we cried out to God.
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Nothing took the place of crying out to God. We believed that God could heal our son. We believed that God could do whatever God wanted to do.
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And so they didn't charge us a penny to do that with Zach.
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So every once in a while, we send some money to St. Jude
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because I love what they do.
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I'm telling you, the vast amount of our giving goes to the church and to the cause of Christ by far.
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Now, so Daniel was 100% dependent on God.
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When you pray to you come as a humble servant,
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you can't strut into the presence of God
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and expect God to hear your prayer, much less answer your prayer.
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Do you pray with passion?
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Are you specific and biblical in your request?
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John Piper wrote, I quote, "Daniel's prayer begins with the Bible.
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"It is saturated with the Bible.
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"Phrase after phrase comes right out of scripture.
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"There are allusions to Leviticus and Deuteronomy "and Exodus and Psalms and Jeremiah. "The prayer brims with a biblical view of reality "because it brims with the Bible."
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Again, Piper wrote, "Where the mind isn't brimming "with the Bible, the heart is not generally brimming "with prayer."
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On Tuesdays at four o'clock,
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I'm normally on a prayer call with a group of pastors.
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And sometimes there's three, sometimes there's eight on this call or more.
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And we pray for each other. We pray for the city of Memphis.
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We pray for revival.
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And sometimes I sit back and I'm amazed at listening to those guys pray. There are some great prayers on that prayer call.
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And I've noticed that their prayers are saturated with scripture, with scripture.
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Can I just make a suggestion? If you ever find yourself in a moment in your spiritual life where you feel like your prayers are not getting above the ceiling
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and you're just not hitting on all cylinders spiritually,
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I've found my way to get out of a rut.
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Okay, you know what a rut is, don't you? It's a grave with both ends knocked out.
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That's supposed to be funny.
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(Congregation Laughing) Ha, y'all are too serious.
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And so when I find myself in a rut spiritually, here's what I do.
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I take a passage of scripture,
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like I'm reading through the Bible again.
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I'll take a passage of scripture that I'm reading
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and I'll read it and then I'll come back and I'll pray it to God. I'll take the scripture and I will turn it into a prayer
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and I'll pray it to God.
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I have found that in my life, maybe not yours, but in my life, that is the quickest way for me to get out of a spiritual rut, okay?
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To pray, read scripture back to God.
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Now, look at verse four. I gotta hurry.
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Oh my goodness.
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Verse four.
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Here's what Daniel said. "I prayed to the Lord my God
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"and confessed and said, "'Alas, O Lord,
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"'the great and awesome God "'who keeps his covenant and loving kindness "'for those who love him and keep his commandments.'"
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You say, "I think that one important part "of our prayer life is adoration."
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Do you understand what the attributes of God are?
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This one verse is jam-packed full of the attributes of God.
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Now, the word Lord, where you see Lord all in all caps,
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that's a translation of the Hebrew word Yahweh,
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the covenant name for God.
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And this name emphasizes the personal nature of prayer.
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Yahweh was about to be asked to keep the covenant promises he had made to Israel.
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And then Daniel addressed Yahweh as my God, my God.
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Specifying Yahweh as my God also emphasized the fact that Daniel had rejected the false idols of Babylon.
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He had rejected them. In Daniel's mind, there was only one God, one God,
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and that God was Yahweh.
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Genuine prayer mushrooms out of a deep abiding relationship with the Lord God of heaven.
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Take your Bible, just flip over to John 15 for just a moment.
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John 15, John's gospel chapter 15.
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The word abide appears over and over in the first 11 verses of chapter 15.
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And I want you to notice verse five. Verse five is my life verse.
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My life verse.
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If you abide in me and I abide in you,
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excuse me, verse five. I am the vine, you are the branches, who abides in me and I am him, he bears much fruit for apart from me, you can do nothing.
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Now look at verse seven. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. Whoa, what a prayer promise that is.
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And abiding relationship with Jesus mushrooms
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into amazing spiritual power through your prayer life. Okay, so listen, if your prayer life is gonna rise to the standard that it needs to rise to, you have to understand who God is. You have to have an intimate relationship with God. You have to know who God is. You have to know the attributes of God.
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Look what Daniel said here. He said, he calls him the great and awesome God.
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So he understood something about God, didn't he? Who keeps his covenant and loving kindness for those who love him and keep his commandments.
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Righteousness belongs to thee, O Lord.
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He knew that God was perfect in all his ways.
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To the Lord our God belong, compassion and forgiveness. Aren't you glad that God is a compassionate and forgiving God?
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So he understood who God was. He had an intimate relationship with God and it fed right into his prayer life.
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Now, the second part of this prayer is not only adoration, but confession.
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Six different aspects of Israel's sin are set forth in verses five and six. Look at it.
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He said they had sinned. That means to miss the mark. They committed to iniquity, which means to bend or twist or pervert. They had acted wickedly. They had rebelled. They had turned aside. They've not listened to Yahweh's prophets. What an indictment against people. Now, do you understand why God judged the covenant people of Israel by sending them into exile for 70 years?
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I mean, they had really blown it. But probably no greater humiliation could come upon a nation
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than that of being conquered by another nation
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and having its citizens expelled from the homeland.
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Now, look at Daniel 9, five to 14.
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Notice what Daniel said.
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He didn't say you have sinned. He said, we have sinned, committed to iniquity,
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acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from your commandments and ordinances. In other words, Daniel's praying now, he's like, oh God.
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We have flat out rebelled against your word.
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We've sinned.
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Verse six, moreover, we have not listened to your servants of prophets.
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God sent prophet after prophet after prophet to warn. Jeremiah warned the nation of Israel before they went into exile over and over and over again. And they didn't pay any attention to Jeremiah the prophet.
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In fact, they tried to kill him. Verse seven, righteousness belongs to you, O Lord, but to us, open shame.
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As it is this day to the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel,
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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. Now, why did God drive them out of the nation of Israel? Why did He drive them out of their homeland? Because they had been unfaithful to God.
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Verse eight, open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes, our fathers, because we have sinned against you.
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To the Lord our God, verse nine, belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against it. In other words, when Daniel prayed this prayer to God, he didn't pray as if Israel deserved anything from God.
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He knew that the only hope that Israel had
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was the grace and mercy of God.
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That's all we've got, folks.
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Verse 10, nor have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in His teachings, which He set before us through His servants, the prophets.
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Verse 11, indeed, all Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, not obeying your voice,
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so the curse has been poured out on us. You realize, I got to thinking about something, it just hit me.
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Jeremiah wrote out his scroll, his prophecy,
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and the king took his scroll and threw it into the fire and burned it.
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And then Jeremiah wrote it out again.
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That's the kind of prophet that Jeremiah was. He wrote it out again.
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And somehow, I guess they made some copies,
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and Daniel had a copy of the scroll of Jeremiah.
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Verse 11, indeed, all Israel has transgressed your law, turned aside, not obeying your voice, so the curse has been poured out on us. Hey, Daniel called it a curse.
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They've been cursed by God.
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And for 70 years, they would toil in Babylonian exile.
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Verse 12, "Thus, He has confirmed His words, "which He had spoken against us."
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And against our, do you see what Daniel's saying there?
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God's word came true.
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God confirmed His word.
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He always confirms His word.
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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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As is written in the law of Moses,
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all this calamity has come on us.
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Yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our iniquity and giving attention to your truth.
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Therefore, the 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 it. For do you realize in Leviticus, and I think Deuteronomy,
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God speaks to the covenant people of Israel. He said, "If you keep my covenant, I'll bless you."
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But He says, "If you break my covenant, I will curse you."
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And that's why they were facing what they faced. But there was hope on the horizon, right?
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Within three years, within three years, they'd be going back to Israel.
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Now, I think one of the things that troubles me is there are a lot of believers
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who believe that because you're saved,
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you don't have to deal with sin in your life anymore.
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We had the Lord's Supper Sunday,
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and we talked, remember there were three verbs, remember, repent, renew, right?
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Repent, you realize that the Lord's Supper was not given to unsaved people.
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The Lord's Supper was given by the Lord Jesus so that believers just like me and you could remember His death.
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And in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, which was written to a Christian church,
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the Bible talks about the importance of repenting, of being clean before God, before you take the Lord's Supper.
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Listen, in Proverbs chapter 28 verse 13, the Bible says, "If we conceal our sins, we will not prosper.
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But if we confess and forsake, then we'll find compassion."
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That verse has always captured my attention because there's a little nuance here in the Hebrew language.
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If we conceal our sins, we will not prosper.
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When you put a negative knot in front of prosper in the Hebrew language, it pictures a rotten piece of cloth, a rotten piece of cloth. What do you do with a rotten piece of cloth?
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You chunk it, it's good for nothing.
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It rips and it's good for nothing.
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And what a picture.
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Now let me say something.
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I think what that verse is saying,
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if you're not willing to forsake your sin,
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there's no need for you to confess your sin.
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Think about that.
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If you're not willing, I heard a sermon when I was at New Orleans Seminary by Jack Taylor.
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He came and he preached a sermon on Proverbs 28 13.
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That one verse.
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He had two points.
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He said, "Point number one, when it comes to sin, admit it.
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Point number two, when it comes to sin, quit it.
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Admit it and quit it." But you can admit it if you're not willing to quit it, there's no need to admit it, right?
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I mean, I wish I could help people understand how seriously God takes sin in our lives.
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Listen, if you're a born again believer, Jesus spilled his blood so that you could be forgiven.
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We cannot play around with sin.
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We're playing with fire.
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All right, we got to hurry on here.
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All right, look at verses 15 to 19, page eight.
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And here's what Daniel prays. "And now, O Lord our God,
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who had brought your people out of the land of Egypt." So it's interesting, Daniel goes back to the time when God delivered the covenant people of Israel from Egyptian bondage.
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"And now, O Lord our God, who had brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have 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.
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Let now your anger and your wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy Mount." You realize that basically you could take the Bible
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and there are basically two cities that capture the essence of the whole Bible,
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Jerusalem and Babylon.
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Jerusalem and Babylon.
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You read about Babylon in Revelation.
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One is wicked, the city of God, one's the city of man.
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"O Lord in accordance with all your righteous acts,
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let now your anger and your wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem." It's his city.
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Your holy mountain.
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Your lives when Jesus is coming back, he's not coming back to America.
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He's coming back to Israel.
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His feet are gonna land right there in Israel.
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That's where the millennial kingdom will be based out of Israel with Jerusalem as its capital.
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Verse 17, "So now our God listened to the prayer of your servant and to his supplications for your sake O Lord." Notice he's praying for God's sake, for God's glory.
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Let your face shine on your desolate sanctuary.
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You know what he's praying?
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In verse 16, he's praying for the restoration of Jerusalem. In verse 17, he's praying for the rebuilding of the temple.
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Look at verses 18 and 19.
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"O my God, incline your ear and hear,
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open your eyes and see our desolations in 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." We have no merits God, none.
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But on account of your great compassion.
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O Lord hear, O Lord forgive,
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O Lord listen and take action. Verse 19 is like a staccato culmination of this prayer. He prays for things quickly. O Lord hear, O Lord forgive, O Lord listen and take action for your own sake. You could just sense the passion of Daniel.
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O Lord for your own sake, O my God do not delay because your city and your people are called by your name.
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(Pages Rustling)
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I'm gonna close with David Jeremiah's quote here on page 10.
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"Prayer is coming to the word of God,
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discerning what God is doing,
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finding out his will and then praying that he will help us focus our attention
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so that we are right smack in the middle of his will."
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So to boil it all down,
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it's all about God's glory for Daniel.
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Okay, that's gotta be the basis of our prayer lives.
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Daniel said it's for your sake O God. It's for your glory. It's so that your name will be great among the nations.
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But notice this, the two things we began with,
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when Daniel faced a complex, confusing situation,
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he did two things.
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He dug into the word of God and he prayed.
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That's how I want us to end tonight.
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I wanna encourage you.
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When you're trying to figure out what's going on in your life, dig into the word of God and pray.
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Father, in the name of Jesus,
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I pray that we would learn from Daniel
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how to really pray.
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I pray we'd learn from Daniel how to dig into the word of God
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and let the word of God just absolutely
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saturate our prayer lives.
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Well, we know how important reading the Bible and praying is.
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And I pray Lord that you would help us to dedicate ourselves to you, to reading your word and to praying
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in Jesus name, amen. Thank you and God bless you.
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