The Power of Humble Prayer | Daniel’s Example | Daniel 9:1-27

Show Notes

Episode 682:
In this episode, Chris and Jeff dive into a discussion of Daniel's prayer and the prophetic revelations he receives. As they explore Daniel's prayer, Chris highlights the significance of Daniel's humility and his role as a representative for his people. Daniel's prayer is a heartfelt confession of the sins of his people, acknowledging their disobedience and the consequences that have followed. Chris emphasizes the rarity of such humility, especially in acknowledging collective guilt and the righteousness of God's judgment.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, good morning everybody. We are Chris and Jeff and we're the Bible Guys. And today we are wrapping up the Book of Daniel and we're reading. The last chapter today, Daniel, chapter nine. Yes, and Daniel is gonna go out with a blaze of glory. He prays for his people and he tells us about Jesus. Yeah, which is amazing. It's gonna be awesome. Yeah. But before we do that, we're gonna go ahead and jump right into a segment that Desiree for Fun has placed on our what do you call this a show sheet? Is it? And today is guess the word? So it's just like taboo. It's like taboo. I'm gonna have to guess or I'm gonna have to say you guess. I'm the guests. We have done this in a long time. Yeah, and I haven't been the guesser in forever either. Yes. So here's what we're gonna do. If you're watching on YouTube, We're gonna put the words that I'm not allowed to say on a screen to see if you guys could. There's a lot of words you're not allowed to say, Chris, that we won't put on the. Screen, but specifically for this game, for the game. Okay, are you ready? Yep? First one, the best part about Thanksgiving is the next day leftovers. Yes, yeah, I wasn't. Allowed to say fridge, microwave, old tupperware, or food leftovers. Okay, okay, bigger type of alligators are called crocodiles, and shorten that multiple plural crocs. Yes. Oh, the shoes, Yes, I. Wasn't allowed to say shoes, ugly, holes, plastic, or company. Good job. Okay, how about this? My daughter Tory bought me a mug and if you scan every day, it tells you today. Yes, it tells your dad. Joke. I wasn't allowed to say pun, grown, laugh, corny, or father. See I pay attention, Chris. Yeah, okay, ready for this. You're gonna love this one. Okay, Okay, what is this called a burp? There? It is? No? I did you can't use sound effects on taboo? What you're not allowed use sound effects on taboo? Oh? Come on, I get an a for effort on that one. Okay? That was It was gross? Though it was We're sorry all of our listeners out there. But I wasn't allowed to say mouth loud, soda, excuse or rude. Okay, so I just bur I'm gonna love this one. You should command No, really, yeah, I can't. Huh. All my brothers can, so how about this. All my brothers can, really, you know that about your brother? All three of my brothers can, but I cannot. I was raised right under what circumstance or you're not to under what circumstance would a gentleman need that skill? That's true, that's true, which is why there's no reason why you shouldn't have it. I never got Disney's characters are Donald and Daisy Duck? And what sound do they make? Quick? Yes? Wow? I was not allowed to say job duck, I said sound. I said the word sound, I said, said yes, I lost that one. I thought I was so clever. Oh that was what you got me there too. That's what's bad about it. I mean you got right up to the without the word sound. Yeah said noise? I get said noise? Yeah, Yeah, I forgot. I thought I was so clever with the whole. Disney's Donald and I think you were clever that. I was allowed to say duck, sound, waddle beak or pond? Okay, so I said sound. I'm so sorry. We get four to five and I'm the loser in that one. Yep. Well that was a riveting segment. I know people are like, oh, please keep going. Yes, yes, only she only gave us five only five? Yes, okay, well that's it. Well good we raced through that one. Yes, we are super skilled. Well if the if the podcast thing doesn't work out for us, maybe we could start playing taboo online. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know. What I was going to say, is you know, speaking of only five, there's only nine chapters in Daniel? Is there there's only nine chapters? Okay? Yeah? Is that right here? Which has nothing to do with only five? Yeah, but only as the word only. Okay. So we are in Daniel chapter nine and Daniel is praying for his people, and this is a really interesting passage to me, very interesting both segments. So it's kind of divided into two pieces. But this first piece, see if you figure out what it is that I think is so interesting. It says it was the first year of the reign of Darius the Mead, the son of a Hazarus who became king of the Babylonians. During the first year of his reign, I Daniel learned from reading the word of the Lord as revealed to Jeremiah the Prophet, that Jerusalem must lie desolate for seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and fasting. I also wore a rough burlap and sprinkled myself with ashes. I prayed to the Lord, my God, and confessed, Oh Lord, you are a great and awesome God. You always fill your covenant. Fulfill your covenant, and keep your promises of unfailing love to those who love you, and obey your commands. But we have sinned and done wrong. We've rebelled against you and scorned your commands and regulations. We've refused to listen to your servants, the prophets who spoke on your authority, to our kings and princes and ancestors, and to all the people of the land. Lord, you are in the right, But as you see, our faces are covered with shame. This is true of all of us, including the people Judah and Jerusalem, and all Israel, scattered near and far wherever you have driven us because of our disloyalty to you, Oh Lord, We our kings, princes and ancestors, are covered with shame because we've sinned against you. But the Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him. We have not obeyed the Lord our God, for we have not followed the inset diruction he gave us through his servants, the prophets. All Israel has disobeyed your instruction and turned away, refusing to listen to your voice. And so now the solemn curses and judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured down on us because of our sin. You've kept your word and done to us, our rulers, exactly as you warned. Never has there been such a disaster has happened in Jerusalem. Every curse written against us in the Law of Moses has come true. Yet we've refused to seek mercy from the Lord our God by returning from our sins and recognizing his truth. Therefore, the Lord has brought upon us the disaster he prepared. The Lord our God was right to do all of these things, for we did not obey him, Oh Lord, our God, you brought lasting honor to your name by rescuing your people from Egypt in a great display of power. But we've sinned and are full of wickedness in view of all your faithful mercies. Lord, please turn your furious anger away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy mountain. All the neighboring nations mocked Jerusalem and your people because of our sins and the sins of our ancestors. Oh, our God, hear your servant's prayer. Listen as I plead for your own sake. Lord, smile again on your desolate sanctuary. Oh my God, lean down and listen to me. Open your eyes and see our despair. See how your city, the city that bears your name, lies in ruins. We make this plea not because we deserve help, but because of your mercy. Oh Lord, here o Lord forgive. Oh Lord, listen and act for your own sake. Do not delay, oh my God, for your people and your city bear your name. Then he says, I went on praying and confessing my sin and sin of my people, pleading with the Lord, my God, for Jerusalem and his holy Mountain. As I was praying, Gabriel, whom I had seen in the earlier vision came swiftly to me at the time of the evening sacrifice. Explain to me, Daniel, I've come here to give you insight and understanding. The moment you began praying, a command was given, and now I'm here to tell you what it was. For you are very precious to God. Listen carefully so that you can understand the meaning of your vision. A period of seventy sets of seven has been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish their rebellion, to put an end of their sin, to atone for their guilt, to bring an everlasting righteousness, to confirm the prophetic vision, and to anoint the most holy place. Now listen and understand. Seven sets of seven plus sixty two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until a ruler, the Anointed One comes. Jerusalem will be rebuilt with streets and strong defenses, despite the perilous times. After this period of sixty sixty two sets of seven, the annoying One will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing, and a ruler will arise whose armies will destroy the city. In the temple, the end will come with a flood and a war, and its miseries are decreed. From that time to the very end, the ruler will make a treaty with the people for a period of one set of seven. But after half this time he will put an end to the sacrifices and offerings, and as a climax to all its terrible deeds, he will set up a sacrilegious object that causes desecration until the fate decreed for this defiler has finally poured out on him. There you go, wow, Well, this is definitely two very different moments here, Yeah, very different. And so one is a prayer and a confession really just a big apology and acknowledgment, and he's speaking on behalf of I mean, honestly, his whole people, right is he's speaking on behalf of his ancestors, on behalf of you know, everybody, and acknowledging consequences for disobedience and not acknowledging profits. And then the next moment it shifts in verse twenty where the angel Gabriel shows up and gives a very on the surface sort of a confusing vision, right, I mean, because it's hard to understand you have to admit, like a period of. It's less hard for us on this end of it. Yeah, for Daniel and his end it's easy. It's very difficult, yes. Very difficult. Yes, after this period of sixty two sets of seven, so sixty two times seven, right, Holy Christmas, so four hundred something years whatever, it is, right, that's pretty crazy. So but yeah, but at the same time it's it's pretty awesome. Right. So on the front end, let's deal with the prayer first. So he's praying as a result of reading the Book of Jeremiah, which he acknowledges is the word of the Lord. Right, But Jeremiah was written during his lifetime, isn't it amazing and amazing? So Jeremiah wrote about it before Jerusalem was destroyed, and was perhaps alive when Daniel was born. But he was saying, hey, Jerusalem's going to get wiped out. The Babylonians are going to come and get us, the Syrians are going to wipe us out. Right, He wrote all these things, and then Daniel knew about it. And then in Jeremiah's prophecy it said that they would be exiled for seventy years. Well, how old was Daniel now? He's in his eighties. This is the first year of Darius, so it means he's eighty one if he was fifteen when he was hauled away. Yeah, is so this has been sixty six years. We do know that. Sixty six years. So he knows he's coming very close to that seventy year window. I think on one side, he's hoping he lives long enough to be able to see them not be exiled anymore, right, And then the other part of it is he knows they're coming to the end of what God had said, and he just wanted to make sure, okay, we're good, right, And he's confessing the sins of the whole nation, not only his own, but you know he was he was royalty. You know, That's what Nebu Kenezer did is hauled away all the royal young men, and he hauled away all the princes and he hauled away, right, and so that's who got taken to Babylon. So he would have been part of one of the royal families. And he's confessing sin for the whole nation, saying, God, hey, you were right. Sure he was a princeman to get hold off for. It, said that that was the first in the book. I thought what it said was fine young men who are good looking and knowledgeable and sharp and skilled, and then we will make them princess. Ye know, it took it said in the very first chapter. It said that they took the princes of huh Of. So it could be that Daniel was royalty. He would have been one of the royal families. Yeah, oh, I never, I never. I don't think I quite underderstood that part. Let me see, you're there, Yeah, I'm getting there. See this is fun. Yeah, keep going. Okay, so I will say this so Daniel, Yeah. Here you go, keep going, It says he here in verse three, chapter one. Then the king ordered Ashpin as his chief of staff to bring to the palace some of the young men of Judah's royal family and other noble families who've been brought to Babylon. Oh so either way he had nobility. Yeah, so he was either a noble family or a royal. Son of a gun. Yeah, yeah, I get that wrong in my brain. And so he acknowledged the fact that he was. He had he had influenced responsibility over the people, right for sure. And so he's confessing the sin of the people. If nobody else will, I will, and then he tells God you were right for doing it. It's very rare that you find somebody who has suffered because of their sin or the sins of others and then telling God you did the right thing, right, talking about humility. Yeah, yeah, you're right about that. You know, to acknowledge your own mistakes or even the mistakes of your people. It's just, hey, no wonder why, you know, we get what we deserve, Like, no wonder why. It's it's sort of like a statement that we would say, you know, taking God out of schools, right, You remember when we grew up. You know, and and we remember during. Our lifetime when when it was you know, separation of church and state and and and all of a sudden no more pledge of allegiance and no more under God, and all these kinds of different things, and we might say, hey, you know, it's no wonder why our schools have gotten the way that they've gotten, and our families have breakdowns, and we can make an observation around our nation and say we sort of deserve it. We could speak on behalf of our people. And that's what Daniel's doing, right, yeah, it's very rare you find a person who, you know, the Bible says God opposes the proud, and he gives favor to the humble. I've never known a humble person that wasn't able to acknowledge their mistakes. And I know a lot of gifted, talented people who cannot acknowledge the fact that, hey, that was wrong or and then he is acknowledging and we're guilty about it. We feel bad about the fact that we have done those things right. So he's acknowledging his own guilt, he's acknowledging the guilt of the people. He's acknowledging that God was right and they were wrong, and that kind of humility. The byle says God gives favor. And it turned out it took seventy years to get a prayer like that right. And I'm not saying that Daniel was prideful. I'm saying that Daniel realized, Okay, you know what, we're coming to the end of what God had said, and I'm going to agree with you, God, you were right. So just recently, probably within the last what four or five weeks or so, do you remember me referencing a quote from the book by Bill Hivels. He wrote, descending into Greatness. Yes, yeah, yet yeah, And we're talking about pride. Remember during the Silent Killer series, And do you know that that book changed my entire life. Because I, for some. Reason, I'm not sure that I really got that lesson of humility. It's what I needed, right, So growing up I. Need a lot of things growing up, right, I needed a lot of things. You were run a wild. I was running while yeh. But I think one of the things that I didn't realize it was like this appropriately said. It was a silent killer of my life. And I became a youth pastor. And you know when somebody grows up and they have a lot of attention on them and maybe they're gifted or whatever, you know, you. Sort of get full of yourself. And I just remember my boss at the time, he was a really good friend of mine, one of my best friends at the time, Chuck. And Chuck told me he looked at me and he said, I have a book for you that you need to read. And you know what he was really saying. He was saying, like, you need a very big dose of humility. And I didn't I would have never guessed at the time, I would have never seen it in myself. And I remember, I'm not kidding. I remember the moment that I was. Told that I was. I was lifting tables and I was stacking tables against the wall, and he went into his office, got the book, came out and it's just a thin little book, and he gave it to me and he said, you need this. And I just remember thinking being hit and struck with like what does he mean? And then when I read it, it on me that if it's true that this is what I need, that means that everybody that knows me thinks that I'm prideful, or every that knows me most likely understands that this is what I need. And I remember just being so humbled just by that fact, right, and and honestly it was a turning point for my life because I remember thinking, Oh, my goodness, like like this is a this is a. Pretty big deal to Jesus. Yeah, it's a big deal. Yeah, Well, thank goodness he gave you that book. Otherwise we would have never been able to see the man sitting before us today. Right, I am the humblest ever. Yeah, who could imagine? Yeah, no way remember having those same kind of those same kind of epiphanies as well. Yeah, so yeah, but do you feel like do you feel like you sort of grew up the same way like you know, you said you were always sort of the star kid. And yeah, yeah, Well for me, my freshman year of college, I got in big trouble, almost got kicked out of school, and that was the first time it dawned on me and maybe I'm not what I think I am. And then I got expelled twice from two different Bible colleges. And then I almost quit ministry completely between my junior and senior year, and then God pulled me back, but at that time it was in a really humbled situation. And then I got fired from my second church and my third church that I worked at. So those are, you know, again because of my one because of my wilful attitude, and the other one just because my pastor didn't understand church planting. So that was that. But yeah, so those were I kind of got it beat out of me a little bit. So you can learn things from reading a book, or you can learn things from Paine. Pain brings change. Pain will force you to change, so then you have the other part. I've definitely been humbled the other ways, you know. So then the next half there that verse twenty, Oh my goodness, he starts talking about the seventy weeks. And so let me just read a note here. You need a life application study Bible for these kinds. Of things, or a similar study Bible. No, get the Life Applications stand No, I like the ry read. It's okay. If you want a neutral Bible, get the Life Advocation of the Bible. Ok So, I'm joking. You get whatever one you want, but I like this one, and I think you're dumb forgetting anything else. So Daniel nine twenty four to twenty times joking. That company needs to pay us. I know they don't give us a dime. They don't give us a dime. They did send me a free Bible. Did they really? How do they find out about it? I don't know. Some one of the vice presidents sent it to me. That's not true, it is true, sitting on my desk. Well, then you did get paid. Yeah, I didn't get paid. They got a free Bible. That's payment. Okay. So it says it says each day of these seventy weeks, which seventy sets of seven may represent one year. The Bible often uses round numbers to make a point, not not to give an exact count. For example, Jesus said we're to forgive seventy times seven. He didn't mean a literal four hundred and ninety times, but that we should give abundantly. Similarly, some scholars see this figure seventy weeks as a figurative time period. Others interpret this time period as a literal seventy weeks, or because they would say one year for each day or whatever, maybe four hundred and ninety years, observing that Christ's death came at the end of the sixty nine weeks. Jesus died four hundred and eighty three years after this chapter was written. Wow, that's pretty cool. Roughly, one interpretation places the seventieth week as the seven years of the Great Tribulation, still in the future, right, That's why it mentions the first half is pretty good, and then the second half he sets up the of the seventh Yeah, the abomination, the desecration there in the temple, right, And it says consequently, the number would symbolize both the first and the second comings of Christ. Jesus died in the sixty ninth week, and then he will return in the seventieth week, and we are living in the gap between those two. That appears to be the meaning of this. But he's prophesying that Jesus would come because he mentions the anointed one, right right, this one that comes and establishes God's kingdom. I have to make a statement here, and this is This may not be a popular statement with a lot of our listeners, but do you know that most of the time, and I'm not saying all the time, I'm saying most of the time, when people try to make the math work down to the last numeral, it's almost always sort of wrong, like. Oh, sure, you know what I mean? Like like people will be like, okay, and if you take the four and divide the two and carry the you know one, and you divide that by. You know, do you know what this means? That means that next Tuesday Christ is gonna come, right, And it's and it's like and it's like, listen, I I appreciate the Bible obviously as much as the next Bible scholar, right I I obviously think it's divine, and I think that there's so much in here that we have yet to discover, right, And so it's it's illumination, it's it's divine, it's when God reveals he does it through his word. I understand all that, and it's there for a reason, and I respect it. But so many times when people try to do math, and I've even had guys say, do you realize the second letter of every word if you add it up and you take the number of the alphabet. Have you heard these kinds of things? Sure? And he goes and then that equals seven seven seven, which is God's perfect number. Isn't that amazing? And I'm like, and I'm like, I'm listening to these little videos, and I'm going, come on, man. Come on. God is complex enough to have done all those kinds of things behind the scenes. Sure, But He's been very clear that the clear written words on the page is what you're responsible for. Yes, not discovering all the secret codes, right, you're responsible for living out I had somebody get on me about not preaching more about all those secret things. Yes, And I said, are you doing the clear things? Because I don't see you living out the clear things written. Jesus said to who much is given much is required, right, So you want more mystery and you're not even doing what you can clearly reading the book, right dude, Right? So are the is God complex enough to have all this hidden code? Absolutelysolutely? Am I responsible for it? No? He hid it right, right, But I am responsible for It's clearly written. He said, love God, love people. Right, he says, go tell everybody about Jesus. Yeah, right, that's what he tells us to do. But I think that this is really great. Let me just say this verse twenty six and twenty seven. It talks about there's going to be these sixty two sets of seven and then the anointed one will be killed and then appearing to accomplish nothing, and then a ruler is going to rise, so armies destroy the city and the temple. Right, so the annoyed one will be Jesus. He was killed. That's a prophecy of the fact that Jesus would die, and then the end will come with a flood and a war, and his miseries are decreed from that time to the very end. So this now is nations just fighting as nations. This flood is not a water flood, it's an overwhelming of the nation, and then the leader will make a ruler make a treaty with the people for a period of seven years. That's now the Great Tribulation, right, that's what it's talking about. So if you read the notes, there's been much discussion on the numbers, times, and events of these verses, and there are three basic views. Number One, the prophecy was fulfilled in the past at the desecration of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes in one sixty eight sixty seven BC, and then it was filled again, fulfilled again after Jesus the Anointed One dies because the temple got rebuilt, which had been exciting for Daniel to hear, because there's a temple in this prophecy, and the temple was gone while Daniel was alive. He'd been destroyed, so he's excited about this. It gets rebuilt by King Herod, and then it was destroyed after the Anointed One dies by Titus the Roman general in eight seventy eight d wow. And then a million Jews were killed then too, And then the end of it that last seven years is still to be filled in the future under the Antichrist. Jesus talks about it. Matthew chapter twenty four, which Revelation talks about it as well. So those six or seven verses have three fulfillments that happened with Daniel or before Daniel, right after Daniel. I'm sorry, it happened right after Jesus, and it's going to happen at the end. Wow. And then I gotta tell you it's pretty cool. I'm proud to know you, buddy. Well, those notes were there, I know, but if you know the history Antiochias and years was part of that. But I'm not sure I could have pieced that together in that way. That was awesome. Hey, let me let me let me go ahead and do a Chris observation before we go, because we're definitely running time. Here is the version over twenty three. It's one of my favorite moments of this whole chapter. He says, He said, Gabriel said, the moment you began praying, a command was given. Now I'm here to tell you what it was before. You were very precious to God. So think about this. What is it like to be so precious to God that when you pray. The moment you start praying, God gives a command to Gabriel on your behalf Because you've started praying because you're so precious to God, and so you think to yourself, well, that's Daniel. He's the elite, he's above everybody else. But that's not true, right, God, God looks down and knows everybody who prays. And there are so many different times. And actually, I think I have a story where I think this actually happened to me too, So I think I think it's just a great reminder that every person who continually serves God faithfully is that precious to God. And you see it. He's humble, he confesses his sin, he acknowledges God as God, and then when he prays, God hears me. That's great. All right, Well, we're definitely pass our time and we'll see you next time, hopefully on the Bible. Guys,