Weighed and Wanting - 4

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The Bible says that Daniel prayed fervently doesn't fervently describe your proof that I don't. Jeremiah examines his policy office point is for living your fight more effective introduces message of God's word and prayer. There is nothing like watching someone pray or hearing them pray to learn how to pray. I'm sure all of us have gained knowledge about praying from listening to others today and listen to Daniel pray on the weekend edition of Turning Point spiritually. The ninth chapter of the book of Daniel is one of the greatest Old Testament prayers. It is, in essence, on par with Matthew six and with John 17. It is one of the truly great prayers of the Bible in many respects.

It's like an oasis in the middle of the desert.

We have been doing our very best to unravel all of the prophetic truth of the antichrist. In chapter 7 and eight we have looked at all the truth about the coming king of fierce countenance, and we've seen how he fits into the tribulation. And we looked at the historical personages of Alexander and Antiochus epiphanies we seen all this dovetails together in the future were all wrapped up in that prophecy and then all of a sudden we come to the ninth chapter and we have, in essence, 19 verses of the prayer. In fact, if I ask you why is the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel, a great chapter and if you know anything at all about the Bible and its history. You will probably tell me it's great because the prophecy of the 70 weeks is recorded at the end of the ninth chapter, verses 20 to 24 but I want you to notice something that that prophecy which gives this chapter its frame is two times shorter than the prayer which precedes it. I really believe that we cannot understand the prophecy and its significance beginning of the 20th verse until we get into the prayer of verses 1 to 19 for Daniel is first of all, praying, and then he's writing this prophecy for the future that were going to study the prayer not necessarily as instruction on prayer, for it is not that it is an illustration of prayer is not exhortation on praying. It is an example of what praying ought to be. In fact, I discovered as I read the Bible that we don't have a great deal of exhortation and instruction on praying we just have a lot of prayers that have God sanctioned upon them, and as we read them we discover how we ought to pray that's true in the New Testament. It's true here in the old Daniels prayer is a masterpiece and were going to discuss together some of the principles of prayer that are illustrated by his praying. The first thing I want you to notice as you read this prayer of Daniel is that it is a prayer that is motivated by the word of God. Principle number one life-changing prayer dynamic prayer is always prayer that is motivated by the word of God.

Notice what Daniel says in the first year of his reign. I Daniel understood by books. The number of the years concerning which the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet that he would accomplish 70 years, and the desolation's of Jerusalem and I set my face on the Lord. When Daniel went into captivity with the rest of the Jews.

He did not have a copy of the Bible like we have today.

First of all, obviously, there was no New Testament and vast portions of what we now know as the Old Testament were not available but one thing we know is this that when Daniel went into captivity he had some portions of the Old Testament and part of the portion that Daniel took with him was the writings of Jeremiah the prophet, perhaps in two different scrolls.

The book of Jeremiah and his other writing the book of Lamentations. Jeremiah ministered in the time just previous to the captivity of the people of Judah. He was the last prophet to call out to those people to repent before the judgment of God fell upon them. Isaiah had prophesied many years earlier and they would not listen. But right up until the very last moment Jeremiah cried out against the sin of Judah and called them to repentance. But they would not they were all carried away into captivity and I have to believe that when Daniel was in his 85th or 86th year he was having his personal devotions in the book of Jeremiah and as he read something jumped off the page into his heart that motivated everything were going to study in the first 19 verses God like to suggest to you that I know what Daniel had in his devotions before he prayed this prayer I will show you what it is turning your Bibles to Jeremiah 25.

As Daniel opened the scroll to read and to share time with God.

I don't recall the quiet time or what he called it, but as he was having his devotional time reading the Scripture. He opened his scroll. And in the 25th chapter of the book of Jeremiah. We began reading at the eighth verse. I know this is what Daniel was reading therefore thus saith the Lord of host because you have not heard my words. Behold, I will send them take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servants and I will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about, and I will utterly destroy them and make them in horror and that his saying and perpetual desolation. Moreover, I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness and the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride and the sound of the millstones in the light of the lamp. This whole land shall be of desolation and in horror the Daniel know anything about that. Well he lived through almost 70 years of it from the very beginning. Daniel had watched as the song had been taken out of the hearts of his people as they hung their harps on the willow and cried out for the day when they could go back to Jerusalem, he saw there captivity take the very life out of their Jewish culture and history. Daniel wept with his people. During all of those years.

But that's not the part of the prophecy that caught Daniel's attention for the last part of verse 11 is what got Daniel's attention and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon, 70 years, and it shall come to pass 170 years are accomplish that. I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and I will make a perpetual desolation's and I will bring upon that land. All my words, which I have pronounced against Eve and all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah have prophesied against all the nations.

For many nations and great kings shall make slaves of them.

Also, I will recompense them according to their deeds. According to the works of their own hand that if you turn over to chapter 29 there's another verse in 29 verse 10, which may have been supplemental reading. That night for thus saith the Lord, after 70 years are accomplish that battle and I will visit you and perform my good word towards you and causing you to return, even unto this place. Daniel is in his 80s near 80 in his early 80s to mid 80s. Depending upon how old he was when he was taken captivity and if you remember we imagine from what we could study that he was probably 15 years of age 14 or 15.

These now in his 80s. We can trace it chronologically back of the book and is reading the prophecy of Jeremiah and he knows as he calculates the years that he's been babbling that almost 70 years have come to pass, since he was carried away captive with the people and as he reads that prophecy.

It gets hold of his heart because he begins to realize that the time for the return of his people to Jerusalem is drawing near and he does not know if we can understand this properly, whether or not the time is calculated from the first deportation or the second or the third. Remember, there were three phases. Daniel and his friends were taken in the first phase and so he's trying to think in his own mind as he prays when those 70 years will be accomplished, but he knows one thing it's getting close and it's almost time for God to redeem his people. It's almost time for God to come and take the Jews back into their land, and when Daniel read that prophecy so got a hold of his heart that he fell upon his knees and he began to pray, say, isn't it true that when we really come to grips with prophecy, and to have that kind of effect on us. You know what happened so many times we get into prophetic studies and we want to run around all these conferences and we compared this man's view with that man's view we want to lay his chart down along his chart and he's got a new and exciting way to understand beast of chapter 2 and all that sort of thing and we get caught up in the exercise of understanding prophetic truth and we missed the whole point of prophetic truth is that enough to drive us to our knees even as it did in fact if you remember at the end of the eighth chapter when Daniel finished having his vision of the king of fierce countenance for me just remind you that Daniel is accustomed to getting involved with the truth of God said in verse 27 and I Daniel fainted with six certain days afterward. I rose up and did the king's business and I was astonished at the vision but not understood.

When I read about Daniel.

I discovered that here was a man who was intensely involved with God's truth and when he read what God had to say he couldn't stay the same. His prayer was motivated by the word of God not let me show you an illustration of that back in the book of Ezra turning your Bibles back to Ezra.

I discovered that prayer is always around when the word of God is being read and understood before the people in the book of Ezra and the ninth chapter, verses four and five. We see this relationship again. Ezra is reading the word of God before the people that I want you to notice what happens and there were assembled on to me every one who trembled at the words of the God of Israel because of the transgression of those would been carried away and I sat appalled unto the evening sacrifice. In other words hear the people would come together for the reading of the word of God and the word of God is red now come to verse five and at the evening sacrifice. I rose up from my happiness at having torn my garment in my mantle. I fell upon my knees and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God that prayed. Prayer motivated by the word of God. I've had young people come to me and say pastor Jeremiah when I have a quiet time. What should I do first to pray first and then read the Bible or should I read the Bible first and then pray well let me just give you a little advice that comes right out of the pattern of the word of God. I think it's always proper before we open the Scripture to bow ahead and very briefly asked for God's blessing and insight into the text. But if I understand the priority of the word of God. Prayer grows out of God's word, and so when we read the word of God and we study it, we come to grips with what it means, we find within us a prayer being formed that will take the word of God and pray it into our very experience. Daniel teaches us in this passage of Scripture that true prayer life changing prayer dynamic prayer is motivated by the word of God. If you want another illustration to look up at your leisure. Look at the eighth and ninth chapters of the book of Nehemiah and you will find the same plan and priority system. There the second thing we notice as we look at this prayer is that prayer is not only motivated by the word of God. It is measured by the will of God is a very strange thing happening in this passage of Scripture that you cannot understand unless you really look at it and diligently try to comprehend it. In the second verse of the ninth chapter as Daniel is reading the book of Jeremiah.

It says here that he read concerning the accomplishment of the 70 years of the desolation's of Jerusalem. In other words, Daniel read in the book of Jeremiah that God was going to keep his people in captivity for 70 years and then he was going to release the other very strange thing happens. As he reads what God is going to do. He begins to pray that God will do what is going to do.

I don't know if that bothers you, but that bothers me. The fact if you want to see it capitalize look in the ninth chapter of the 19th verse. He gets to the end of his prayer in Daniel's prayers this all Lord hear our own Lord forgive all Lord Harkin all Lord do and defer not. In other words, Daniel is saying, Lord, I know what it says in Jeremiah that you're going to do and I want to tell you, God, do it and then defer not means and don't not do it.

Lord, I want to tell you to do it not not doing what what you said you going to do. That's what I want you to do that was his prayer.

Say wow that's really strange. We've got to do it. Why should we pray, I mean isn't it a waste of time if we read the book, God's will to do this. Why waste your time praying all let me tell you something people here at this juncture is one of the most tremendous principles about prayer.

In fact, it will help you understand some of the things about prayer that you may not understood. You see, God knows his plan, and even when he reveals his plan to us. He expects us to pray over that plan. God's time is about up for these people, and he now reveals that to Daniel. But when Daniel gets the truth about that which God is going to do. He falls to his knees and he begins to pray in the will of God that God will do what he says is going to do now.

The Bible says if we ask anything according to his will, he will do it does not say anything to us about spending some time trying to discern from Revelation what the will of God is. Sometimes I get the impression even for my own prayers that I've misunderstood the meaning of prayer.

Prayer is not to get God to change his will. If you really believe that the will of God is perfect, then why would you want them to change it, but we labor along that prayer trying to get God to change as well. From what we think is going to do when our prayer really ought to be motivated out of our deep understanding of what the will of God really is. I know many of you have the opportunity of hearing Josh McDowell and his tremendous message on getting it out into the light. Josh said that when we pray, sometimes we pray about what we want, but by our very active praying we get that out into the light of God's will and the light of God's word and as we pray about it sometimes, and are very active praying we discover when we get it out into the light.

What God's will is or isn't about that very thing that he illustrates that tremendously and that message you see the will of God will never lead you contrary to the word of God.

So when your prayer is motivated by the word of God, and you understand what God is said then you get to the place where you know how to pray and you can pray what God is already said to be his will.

There a lot of folks I know who go to prayer not to ascertain the will of God, but to ask him to do that on which they have already fully set their minds they come to God with their will and they try to get God's will to blend in with their prayer is not a device for getting our wills done through heaven, but it is a device that God's will may be done on earth through us and that's why when we read the Lord's prayer and the disciples prayer. We are told to pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done and when Jesus is praying in the garden. He's praying.

Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. Prayer is not getting God to adjust his program to what we want. Prayer is adjusting our lives to the revealed will of God.

So in essence, when we pray it isn't God who changes but it's us and maybe we been looking for change at the wrong end of the cycle.

That's what Daniel is doing here you see he's gotten God's will. And now he begins the pray in behalf of his people that his people will come into a conformity with the revealed will of God so that God can do what he already said he's going to do that we get caught up. The stress between what God's sovereignty is and what man's responsibility is I can ever solve that problem for you.

I can just tell you that what God is determined to do.

He is determined to do and then he tells us to pray that he will do what is going to do and that's exactly what Daniels done. Jeremiah says this is what God's going to do an Daniel praise God do it and don't not do it. That's true prayer. Prayer is motivated by the word of God and prayer is measured by the will of God say, let me ask you something.

If you read in the Bible that something is outside of the will of God, should you pray about it. Well let me ask the question again because you don't seem to be too sure if you read something in the word of God, and God says it's not his will. Should you pray about it. That's the biggest waste of time in Christendom praying about things a daughter. He said we shouldn't do that have so many young people come to me over the years that I've been in the ministry here comes a young gal and she's a really neat galaxy is about ready to get married but she's got hooked up with a guy outside of the faith in the Lord and she comes in Jesus, pastor, would you talk to me about my relationship. I really wish you would perform our wedding. And so I opened the Scripture.

I talked to her about being unequally yoked together and what God said about how we should do that and inevitably I've had young people say to me, but pastor Jeremiah.

I have prayed about this and I have real peace in my heart. Now I don't know what you got in your heart but I know it is and peace from God. It's probably infatuation and love with love outside of the revealed will of God. You see, it is never right to pray about that which God has already said is wrong muzzle just save your energy will do any good. God is going to change his mind as far as I know we had written another Bible beside the one we got our hands. It's only one I've got. Prayer is motivated by the word of God is measured by the will of God.

Let's take one more show. Prayer is manifested in our walk with God.

Other two things about Daniel's life that come into focus when we examine his praying, let me just give you two words you can handle this truth on first of all we learn about his frequency of prayer and secondly we learn about his fervency and prayer. Prayer isn't just something we do at a point in time. Prayer is a part of our total life and being.

And you will see that in Daniel prayer is the very fabric of his life. First of all, Daniel said that when you read this prophecy from Jeremiah out of the Scriptures that he set his face before God and begin to pray and will be first read that here in the ninth chapter, it seems bit unusual, but it's not unusual go back in your Bibles to the six chapter let's find Daniel on his knees again. There's one little thing in the 10th verse of chapter 6 that sometimes we pass over quickly, but it is testimony to the frequency of Daniels praying now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed. He went into his house and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem. He kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, and that's where we usually stop we say good old Daniel. What was he a plucky guy. He was under indictment from the king and so you know what he did. He went into his house and he opened his windows and he prayed three times a day just know say take that King but you know that's really not what the text says the key to what Daniel did on that day is wrapped up in that last phrase he kneeled on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did previously or one translation puts it as he was in the habit of doing Daniel's prayer life was marked by the frequency of his praying in his walk with God. Prayer was a part of his daily habit with the second thing that really comes to the front in this ninth chapter and with this we may not get any further is Daniel's prayer was also marked by fervency. Verse three says I set my face onto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplication's fasting in sackcloth and ashes. Daniels praying wasn't like ours, he didn't see God as a divine bellhop to getting whatever he needed in a moments notice. He didn't just bopping in front of God and say his thing and leave Daniel was fervent in prayer. Let me remind you that the book of James tells us that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much fervency you know what it means to be fervent in prayer we see if I can illustrate it for you. I want you to think back in your Christian experience to the moment of the greatest crisis you've ever experienced as an individual via physical, mental, emotional, whatever it is your Christian now and you face that crisis and you pray, how did you pray, but I got this here need should be neat if you could do some about it. I don't take too much time Lord we just want to run this via in the Lord. If you do some of the great thanks Lord or did you call out to God, almost with groanings that cannot be uttered. I've gone through the Old Testament and I found that in the Old Testament culture. There were certain things that accompany fervent prayer. I just like to run down the list because it will help you to understand the emotional involvement of an individual who is praying fervently for the will of God to be done.

First of all, in this passage we learned that sometimes fervent prayer was associated with sackcloth. The garments of morning Job chapter 2 tells us about one who prayed fervently sitting in a Nash pile and putting ashes on his head.

Job chapter 1 says that praying fervently was accompanied by shaving off the hair of the head. In Luke 18 we read of one who prayed fervently smiting his breast, and in other places in the Bible we are told that sometimes praying was so agonizingly fervent that it was accompanied by crying, by throwing dust on the head by tearing garments by fasting and sighing and groaning and sweating blood and agonizing and breaking of heart and pouring out one's heart and making clothes and making sacrifices. Some hours we examine our prayer lives seem to fit into that context today, fervent praying. I want to take just a moment and talk a little bit about praying and fasting. As you read the Bible you discover something that really ought to get your attention. Jesus fasted the apostle Paul fasted in the Old Testament early church leaders, and in the Old Testament. Isaiah the prophet Daniel Esther David Hannah Elijah, Ezra, Nehemiah Zechariah and others fasted when you read church history discover that Martin Luther fasted John Calvin fasted John Knox fasted John and Charles Wesley David Brainerd George Mueller Reese Howells and many many more. In fact, I've read many of the biographies of the great men of the faith, and I've hardly found one who didn't practice fasting. We don't talk much about that today. I need to be very clear that we are not commanded to fast in the New Testament. Whatever we have in the New Testament about fasting is not commanding us to do it but instructing us that when we do it, were supposed to do it a certain way, not as an outward expression of our piety, but that does not do away with the fact that sometimes fasting gets at this matter of fervency and are praying. It is a time in our lives when we say no to our physical wants and desires and we prioritize the spiritual realm within us, and I'm going through the Bible and discovered that there are many times when fasting occurs where we can put it into operation in terms of really being able to focusing on the spiritual dimension of life. For instance, sometimes in the Old Testament, they fasted because of private problems sometimes fasting took place in the Old Testament because of public disasters, sometimes in the Bible they fasted because of personal grief second Samuel 12 sometimes, in perplexity over a situation such as in Daniel chapter 6 verses 18 to 20, sometimes fasting took place in penitence over sin sometimes because of pity for friends sometimes in perplexity over the will of God.

I believe it or not. I told you all about.

Not because I want you to start fasting. That's not the point. The point is that fasting is simply one measure, indicating the fervency that is important in our relationship with God. I really don't believe God is enamored with our emotional S uninvolved relationship with him if we really believe what we say we believe if were not willing to get involved when you pray, you need to pray fervently that's all I want to say. The effectual fervent prayer want you to do something for me this week. It's a very simple assignment won't hurt anybody.

I want you to pray. That's it, just pray, read the book. See what God would tell you to pray about prayer is motivated by the word of God. Find out what God's revealed will is in praying back to him and say do it, Lord. And don't not do it and then get involved frequently, and fervently talking to your God see what happens. We hope you enjoyed today's tuning fund weekend edition with Dr. David Jeremiah to hear this. Another Turning Point programs to get more information about this ministry. Simply download the free tuning point marble after smart device or visit our website David Jeremiah photo/writing that David Jeremiah.org/Freudian can also do Turning Point television Fredia channel 72 Sunday mornings at night and I CCTV Sundays at 630. I am on Friday afternoons one. We invite you to join us again next weekend is Dr. David your marsh is another powerful message from God's word here on Turning Point, weekend edition thanks for taking time to listen to on the non-decent Christian media that I said hello