Prayer is not to change the mind of God. For God already desires the best. Did you know that? Did you know that God desires the very best for you? You don't want to change his mind about that, do you?
Prayer is to line you up with His will. Which is already the best. Yeah. Welcome to Grace to You with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.
John Knox was not a soldier, a politician, or aristocrat in his native Scotland yet the most powerful person in his country, Mary, Queen of Scots, said she feared this pastor's prayers more than all the assembled armies of Europe. Strong testimony to the power of prayer, power that you can take hold of for the benefit of your loved ones, your church, and unbelievers, you know. The question is, how exactly do you pray with such power? Do you need to use specific phrases? Will God answer a short two-minute prayer?
Do you need to pray longer, maybe for an hour or more? Is there a time requirement for prayers to be effective? John MacArthur answers those questions in his series called Elements of True Prayer. And now with today's lesson, here is John. We're going to be looking at the ninth chapter of Daniel.
Daniel chapter 9. And really, it's not so much a preaching as it is a teaching chapter. In fact, the whole book comes across that way in many places. Not so concerned to Exhort you. To proclaim to you, as I am to just share with you the things that flow from this marvelous text.
If we were to back up to chapter 6, a familiar chapter in the book of Daniel, where we find Daniel. In the lion's den. And if we were to go prior to the lion's den to see what really brought him there, we would find ourselves in verses 10 and 11. And there we read this.
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.
as he did previously. Then these men assembled and found Daniel. Praying. and making supplication. before his God.
We find then in chapter 6 Another one. of the elements of Daniel's great spiritual strength. Daniel was committed to prayer. I'm sure you've heard many messages on prayer. probably more than you care to hear.
Probably wondering whether you have not got it all down so well that the rest of it is strictly. unnecessary. And yet, it seems that no matter how many messages we hear or how many messages we deliver. There's always a convicting Factor. In another one.
because we never really feel like we pray as we should. When we study the book of Daniel again and again, chapter by chapter, we find. unfolding in a very unassuming way. the marvelous traits of the character of Daniel. And one of them has to be prayer.
He understood that prayer was living in the presence of God, and nothing could change that. Not the threat of death. Not the threat of the loss of reputation or place. Nothing. Prayer was a vital link with God.
He was kind of like Jacob, you know. When Jacob wrestled with the Lord, and it says in Genesis 32 that he would not let God go. until God blessed him. He hung on. Till he knew the blessing of God.
Well, Daniel was that way. Daniel prevailed in prayer against The Edict of the King. He prevailed in prayer in chapter 9 in the midst of what he saw as a crisis situation in the life of his beloved people and nation. And we see in chapter 9, the first 19 verses, the prayer of Daniel. It is the only prayer of Daniel, really, of any substance that we have, and it is a masterful one.
And we see from verse 20 through 27 the answer. But for now, I want us to see the prayer. Because I want us to see The wonder. of this marvelous Intercessory prayer. As Daniel, the man of God, calls upon the God he loves and trusts.
This prayer in, as I say, an unassuming way, becomes a model prayer for us. It isn't that Daniel offers it as that. It isn't that it becomes instructive for us in and of itself. It is that its very example becomes a model for our praying. And Daniel was living a life that was literally flowing in the vein of prayer constantly.
D.L. Moody said, Those who have left the deepest impression on this sin-cursed earth have been men and women of prayer. End quote. Robert Murray McShane, that great man of prayer. Said, a great part of my time is spent in getting my heart in tune for prayer because prayer is the link that connects earth to heaven.
to heaven. Dr. Guthrie, an old saint of God who lived a century ago, said. The first sign of true spiritual life is prayer. And it is also the means of maintaining spiritual life.
Man can as well live physically without breathing as spiritually without praying.
Now, if it's true, as D.L. Moody says, that the people who have made the greatest impact on the earth would be people of prayer, then we would expect Daniel to be a man of prayer. And if prayer is as normal as breathing, we would expect again that Daniel's life would be a life that flows in prayer. And that is precisely the case. And as we look at the ninth chapter again, we're going to see the pattern of Daniel's praying.
as it becomes a model for our own intercessory prayer.
Now frankly folks We have two basic problems when it comes to prayer. Number one, we don't do it enough. True. And so the Bible again and again and again says Continue in prayer. Pray without ceasing.
The second thing is, we don't know what to pray for. And that's why Romans 8 says. Though we do not know what to pray for because of the infirmity of the flesh, the Spirit makes utterance for us. In other words, we have two problems: we don't pray enough. and we don't know what to pray for.
And so as we examined this Pattern of praying. It'll give us something of a vision of one man's fervency. and the character of one man's intercession.
Now, I remind you that last time we noted the background. Look again at verse 1. and just want to refresh your mind. In the first year of Darius, The son of Ahasuerus of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books The number of the years concerning which the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet.
That he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem. It is the first year of the Medo-Persian Empire. Babylon has fallen. Belshazzar's feast has already taken place. The Medes and the Persians have taken over.
Cyrus is now the great world monarch. Perhaps Darius is nothing more than a title of honor that refers to Cyrus. But it is the Medo-Persian Day. Darius or Cyrus Sits on the throne. He is not only the king of Persia, but he has been granted Status as the seed of the Medes, in order that he may be approved by both those peoples who come together in this empire.
And he absorbs not only the Persians and the Medes, but the realm of the Chaldeans, which is the Babylonians. And so he brings together a world empire larger than Babylon, greater than Babylon. in power and might. And it is in his first year that Daniel finds himself reading the books. As I mentioned last time, there's no doubt in my mind but that the Jewish people, the people of Judah who were in exile, had managed to take with them into exile some of the writings of the Old Testament.
Obviously, they had the book of Jeremiah. which was written and destroyed and then rewritten again, as Jeremiah tells us. But among the books that they had, which they read from in their exile, were. The words of Jeremiah. And as Daniel was reading in verse 2 from Jeremiah, He came across the prophecy that the desolation of Jerusalem would only last for about 70 years.
And that struck Daniel. As a very significant reality, because he knew. That he had been in captivity for nearly 70 years by now. The best educated guess might be that he'd been there at least 67 years. He was a man beyond 80 years of age.
And he knew that when God made a prophecy, God's prophecies came to pass. And so he knew that Jeremiah said it would be 70 years, and when he read that in Jeremiah and knew that, at least in his case, 67 had already gone by, he knew the time was imminent. And so does Daniel pray. And as he prays, We find Eight. Elements of true intercessory prayer.
emerging flowing out of this marvelous prayer. And as I say, they are not explicitly taught, they are implicitly found. They are not the purpose of the prayer, and yet they become for us a very good purpose because it helps us to see. What is included in proper intercessory prayer? True intercessory prayer is generated by the Word of God.
We go to God. Primarily as a response. to his word acting on our hearts. And I shared with you that I know this from my own personal experience. That the times of my most faithful prayer are the times that I am receiving the word of God.
In fact, week by week as I sit and study the Word of God, I find it impossible for that to be a one-way street. I am not able to hear God speak without responding back to Him in prayer. And it becomes a conversation. And Daniel's prayer was like that. Verse 2 says, Aye, Daniel.
understood by the books. And then in verse 3, and I set my face. Unto the Lord God to seek By prayer. The praying grew out of the understanding of the Word of God. You might think at that point, as we said last time, that Daniel wouldn't have anything to pray about.
He'd just sort of throw it on the sovereignty of God and say, All right, God, you're going to do it in 70 years, then do it. and leave it at that. But Daniel knew That's somehow fitting into the sovereignty of God. Is the choice of man. It's like salvation.
The Bible says that God has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. The Bible tells us that we are elect according to his foreknowledge and predestined to be redeemed. The Bible tells us that God knows them that are His. The Bible tells us that God said, I have much people in that city that I want you to reach, affirming that he knew who they were. In other words, God has chosen us.
And yet our salvation is also dependent on the fact that we make a choice, isn't it? Daniel knew that God's sovereignty would come to pass, but not without the response of human choice. And so, in view of God's sovereignty, Knowing that there must be a human acceptance. A writing of the heart for God to end the chastening. He begins to pray.
Not unlike the Apostle John in the book of Revelation, who, hearing the word of God, Behold, I come quickly, says even so, come, Lord Jesus. He lines his prayers up with what he knows God will do. And I guess you might say that that's the character of every single amen in the Bible. For amen means so let it be. And when we say to God, bring it to pass, let it be, we are simply affirming that God's will will be done.
And realizing that man must line his heart with God. to know the fullness of that accomplished purpose. Prayer then. Is necessary, even though God is sovereign and absolute and will do His will. And so Daniel sets about to pray.
Knowing that somehow the rightness of the human heart has to fit into the sovereign act of God.
Now, if you study the Bible, you find that. Over and over again, the Bible says, watch unto prayer. Watch unto prayer. Jesus said it repeatedly. Peter says it, watch unto prayer.
And what they're talking about there, basically, is look at what's happening. Perceive what's going on. Keep your eyes open. Be specific about what you're praying.
Now listen to me. The only way you can watch and know what to pray for is when you know what the Word of God says about what you're seeing. See. You must perceive the world and its events, the church and its events, the people of Israel and their events. You must be able to see what's going on in the light of the Word of God, or you do not understand God's purposes in history and you cannot pray intelligently.
And so we watch not only the scene around us, but we watch the Word of God to determine how carefully and properly we are to pray. In Nehemiah chapter 1. Nehemiah Says in verse 11, O Lord, I beseech thee. Let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant. and to the prayer of thy servants who delight to fear thy name.
And prosper, I pray thee, thy servant, this day. and grant him mercy in the sight of this man, for I was the king's cupbearer. What was he praying about? What was he praying about? He got word that the city of Jerusalem was in ruins.
So what? Why did that make him pray? Because he knew that the city of Jerusalem was God's beloved city. And what he saw was filtered through the knowledge of the Word of God, and it brought him to his knees. We will never be able to understand what's going on unless we understand it in the context of the Word of God.
And as we see the Word of God, as did Daniel, who saw the scene around him, the captivity, the chastening, the time of Judah being in Babylon and now under the Medo-Persian domination, a time when they were subjugated under paganism. He could only analyze what was going on and where it was going when the word of God opened to him and he saw that it was to be 70 years, and that sprung him into prayer.
So, the better we understand God's word, the better we are able to understand the scene, and the more our prayers are going to conform with what God has in mind. Intercessory prayer, then, beloved, is generated by God's Word. People of the book are people of prayer. Apart from the Word of God, our prayers will find their way into shallow and meaningless verbiage. Secondly, Intercessory prayer is not only generated by God's word.
It is grounded in God's will. And he knows this in verse 2. And he says, Jeremiah says, 70 years, and I say to you, Lord, in verse 3, That's what I'm going to pray about. And down in verse 19, he says, Lord, hearken and do it, and defer not. In other words, God do what Jeremiah says you're going to do.
Do your will. As we saw last time, that is essentially the heart of. All prayer. If we ask anything, says 1 John 5, according to his will, we know he hears us and we have the petitions we ask of him. His will.
His will. The disciples' prayer says, Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy what? Will be done. Prayer is not to change the mind of God.
For God already desires the best. Did you know that? Did you know that God desires the very best for you? You don't want to change his mind about that, do you? Prayer is to line you up with His will.
Which is already the best. You say, what if I don't know his will?
Well, that's where Romans 8.26 comes in. What a promise. What does it say?
Well, there's three verses there you ought to understand because they all go together. This is what they say. Likewise, the Spirit also helps our infirmity. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought. Boy, is that the truth.
You know what God's will is in every situation? I don't. I mean, if I study the Word of God, I know what it is in some cases. I know God's will is that people be saved. I know God's will is that they be set apart under the Spirit of God, filled with the Spirit.
Ephesians 5, 17, and 18. I know God's will is that you abstain from all sexual immorality. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 3. I know God's will is that you be submissive to the powers that be that are ordained of God. I know God's will is that in everything you give thanks, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.
I know God's will is that you suffer for well-doing and not evil-doing. I know a lot of things that are God's will. But I don't always know. But when I don't know and I don't know how to pray The Spirit Makes intercession for me in a language which cannot be uttered. This is not utterable groanings.
This is not ecstatic speech. This is unutterable. This is a divine communion between the Spirit of God and the Father. And the Father who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. When I don't know the will of God, the Spirit does.
And in my behalf, the prayers ascend. Isn't that tremendous? And that's the reason we know that all things work together for what? Good. Not just random.
But because the Spirit of God is interceding for us where we have no knowledge of his will. In my life, I want one thing in my prayers, one thing and one thing alone, and that is I want God to do His will. Because he loves me. and his will is best. That puts God in his rightful place.
Prayer is generated by the word of God and grounded in the will of God. Thirdly, It is characterized by fervency. Verse 3. I set my face unto the Lord. God?
And I told you that the idea of setting his face was resoluteness, commitment. intensity to seek by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
Now fasting in sackcloth and ashes went along with deep Heart felt Prayer. There were many things that the Bible says accompanied Fervency. If you study your Bible, you'll find the following things: sackcloth, sitting in ashes and putting them on the head, as in Job chapter 2, shaving the head, Job 1, smiting the breast, Luke 18, crying, 1 Samuel 1 and many other places, throwing dust on the head. Tearing garments, fasting, sighing, groaning, loud crying, sweating blood, agonizing. A breaking heart.
A pouring out of one's heart, rending of the heart, making oaths, making sacrifices. Many things in the Bible are indicated as those things that accompany fervency in the heart in prayer. And so we see Daniel in that fervent, fervent praying. He's really committed to it. He's really pouring out his heart.
Like Hannah. who in pouring her heart out would not eat. Because there was no taste for food. As in Esther. Chapter 4, I think it's in verse 16.
Go gather all of the Jews. who are present in Shushan. And fast ye for me. says Esther, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I also and my maidens will fast likewise, and so will I go in unto the king.
Which is not according to the law. And If I perish, I perish. Fervent prayer. We find it in Luke chapter 11 again. In the wonderful story that our Lord tells in Luke 11, verses 5 to 10, just reminding you briefly of it.
And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend who shall go unto him at midnight and say, Friend, lend me three loaves? And a friend of mine in his journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. That's how they kept warm.
I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because his importunity or his constant knocking, he will rise and give him as much as he needs. And I say to you, ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened. Under you. In other words, God responds to fervency.
Brooks said years ago, As a painted fire is no fire, a dead man is no man, so cold prayer is no prayer. In a painted fire, there is no heat. In a dead man, there is no life. In a cold prayer, there is no omnipotency, no devotion, and no blessing. Cold prayers are as arrows without heads, swords without edges, birds without wings.
They pierce not. They cut not. They fly not up to heaven. Cold prayers do always freeze before they get to heaven. Oh, that Christians would chide themselves out of their cold prayers and chide themselves into a better and warmer frame of spirit when they make their supplications to the Lord.
And so Daniel prayed fervently. Number four, it is realized in self-denial. It is realized in self-denial. Verse four. And I prayed unto the Lord, my God.
And made my confession.
Now, stop right there. The heart of all true prayer. Mark this, people. The heart of all true prayer is an initial awareness that you don't even belong there to begin with. You see?
I mean, you don't even belong in the presence of God. You don't have one thing in and of yourself to commend you to him. And so where does he begin? with that recognition. I made my confession.
Why'd you do that, Daniel? Because I knew that I didn't belong in his presence. And especially if I were to drag some sin there. Contrast that with the prayer of the Pharisee. In Luke 18.
Who says, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men. Why I fast and I give tithes and So forth and so forth. And God didn't even hear that prayer. in terms of an answer. A response.
Because it was self-righteous. Self-seeking, self-confident. And so Daniel begins with a recognition. That he doesn't belong there. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur.
John's current series is titled Elements of True Prayer.
Now friend, John talked about two main problems today, and they are not praying enough and not knowing what to pray for. Those issues raise a fundamental question. How do you know you're praying the way you should? Here's how John answered that question several years ago. A very simple answer to that question is that you need to pray the way Jesus taught us to pray.
You remember that the disciples said to our Lord, on more than one occasion, by the way, teach us to pray. How are we to pray? And in response, our Lord gave them a structure for prayer. We call it the Lord's Prayer, but it is not the Lord's Prayer because it includes this statement: forgive us our trespasses. And obviously, the Lord doesn't pray that, it's the disciples' prayer.
and it has all of the elements of true prayer. If you learn to pray through the structure of the disciples' prayer, you're praying the way the Lord wants us to pray.
Now, I want to help you a little bit with that.
So, I want to tell you about a book called Alone with God. The title Alone with God. This is a book that will put you in touch with those critical elements of prayer that our Lord gave us. The essence of prayer, of course, is speaking to God. And speaking to God as the sovereign of the universe with all the resources, and at the same time as our Father.
Who is in heaven. With intimacy and loving communication. That's right, friend. John's book called Alone with God answers questions like why is prayer so important? And if God knows everything, why should you tell Him your requests?
It will help you experience the blessing of prayer the way God wants you to. To pick up your copy of Alone with God, get in touch today. Call us here at 8005 GRACE. or go to our website, gty.org. Alone with God costs $10.50.
Shipping is free. This is a great book to review every time you feel yourself struggling to pray. It also is great to use in your Bible study group. The title one more time, Alone with God. order your copy, call 855 Grace.
or visit gty.org. That's our website, gty.org. And while you're there, take advantage of all the resources there that can help take you deeper into God's Word than ever before, including 3,600 of John's sermons available for free download. And to make it easy to hear those sermons wherever you go, download the Grace to You app for your mobile device. To learn more about the Grace to You app and to take advantage of the Sermon Archive, go to our website gty.org.
Now, for the entire Grace to U staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378. And be here next time when John MacArthur shows you how to experience the power of prayer as you may never have before. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time. on Grace to You.
