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

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,