God’s Word and Prayer - Part 1

Welcome to Turning Point in Daniel's prayer in chapter 9 is one of the most powerful passages of Scripture with principles that you can apply to your own prayer life. Jeremiah examines the privity equals amounts the pics then begins to unpack those principles as he continues his series. The handwriting on the role as was today's message God's word and prayer were ever you open the Bible, you don't have to read too many pages before or after that you don't run into prayer in some way hearing Daniel when you get to the ninth chapter is Daniel's prayer and is his masterpiece as you are the announcer say and were studying this prayer, not just for the prophetic impact that it can have on our life but also for the personal impact learning about prayer as we study this magnificent prayer, study God's word together. Leonard Ravenhill is a great man of God who has written a number of books on prayer and on revival in America. In one of his writings. Dr. Ravenhill has written that the Cinderella of the church today is the prayer meeting.

He said this handmaid of the Lord is on love and on wound because she is not dripping with intellectualism nor glamorous with the skills of philosophy, neither is she in chatting with the tiara of psychology. She wears the homespun's of sincerity and humility and is not afraid to kneel. He went on to write the poverty-stricken as the church is today in many things.

She is most stricken here in the place of prayer. He wrote we have many organizers but few agonizes. We have many players and payers, but few prayers. We have many singers but few cleaners lots of pastors but few wrestlers many fears few tears much fashion but little passion many interferes, but far too few intercessors. Many writers but few fighters failing here. We fail everywhere.

That's hard to take because it's true and if you don't think it's true. Take some time to drive across this vast land of ours on Wednesday and Thursday night and try to find a good hot well attended prayer service where people have come together to pray down the blessing of God upon the church and upon their ministry. Ravenhill has mentioned later in his writing that we seem to have lost the historical faith of our fathers and we have substituted the hysterical faith of our fellows is right when we lose touch with God. The best we have to offer is what we can find around us. That's why when we come to a passage on prayer we better listen, because here God has something to say to us that can change that decay in our lives and in our church.

It's convicting, and it isn't easy and there are things that were going to learn and say that we wish were not said we didn't have to listen to and that I really didn't have to say. But God has said it, and if were to be his messengers. We must take his message and carefully convey it as it is given to us in the Scripture, I will become to the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel we need to understand first of all, that it is not chronologically in order we been saying that as we approach the second half of the book of Daniel because it's true.

Daniel is not put together. Chronologically, the first half of the book is history.

By and large the second half of the book is prophecy and if you study the book carefully, you discover that at the beginning of most of the chapters we are given the timeline that helps us put together work belong and as you open your Bibles to the ninth chapter, you discover that we are now in the Medo Persian Empire, for it is the first year of Darius, the son of a hash awareness of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans.

It was in the first year of his reign that Daniel prayed this prayer. The chapter does not come absolutely chronologically after chapter 8 if we want to lay it down next to a chapter where it belongs. It fits better next to chapter 6 for if you turn back in your Bibles to the sixth chapter, you'll notice that at the beginning of the sixth chapter were told it please Darius to set over the kingdom and hundred and 20 princes who should be over the whole kingdom and of course Daniel is set up as the premier in that country under Darius the Mead and now we come to the ninth chapter. Daniel says it was during the first year of Darius rain that he prays this prayer, so chapter 9 belongs with chapter 6 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've looked at the historical personages of Alexander and Antiochus epiphanies we seen all this dovetails together in the future and were all wrapped up in that prophecy and then all of a sudden become 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.

It's fame 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, knowing 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 Lowe's 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 is Daniel open 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 eight 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 servant, 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 was sound of the millstones in the light of the lamp. This whole land shall be of desolation and in horror. 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 and I will bring upon that land. All my words, which I have pronounced against it, even 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 and I will recompense them according to their deeds. According to the works of their own hands and 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 toward 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. He's now in his 80s.

We can trace it chronologically back to 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 grade 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 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 miss 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, let 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. Now let me show you an illustration of that back in the book of Ezra turn in 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 versus 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 into the evening sacrifice.

In other words hear the people 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 and 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 old Lord here all 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 in the defer not means and don't not doing what I want to tell you to do it and 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 Godzilla do it. Why should we pray, I mean isn't it a waste of time if we read the book God to do this.

Why waste your time praying all that 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 he's 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 him 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 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 as well. There are 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 in this whole different way of looking at it is that somehow when we pray God draws us into his will, and we don't change God's will is much as God changes our will to be in conformity to his that's a wonderful lesson on prayer and I hope you will not forget that as you continue your own prayer life tomorrow and finish up these first four verses in Daniel chapter 9 and get on to the rest of the chapter, which is really it's one of the most exciting chapters in the Bible. The Bible scholars tell you Daniel two and Daniel nine are two of the most important prophetic chapters in all of the word of God and were right in the middle of it.

I'm glad you joined with us and are going along for this teaching torque as we move through the book of Daniel and will see you tomorrow for more information on the Jeremiah series. The handwriting a little, please visit our website where we offer freeways is the monthly magazine Turning Points and email devotional today at 010/right Jeremiah thoughtful/right wing company is the last out in Israeli inside a time.

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Your choice of Jeremiah go/right you. I'm very good. Join us tomorrow as we continue the handwriting on the Turning Point. Jeremiah, thanks for taking time to listen to the friend he's in question