The confession of sin does two things. Number one, It brings about a forgiveness, but it also frees God to chasten without any inequity.
Now, he doesn't have any inequity, but it makes public the demonstration that the punishment is deserved. Welcome to Grace to You, featuring the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Ever wonder why the Bible tells us to bring our requests before God and to pray at all times? I mean, God is omniscient that is, He knows all things.
He knows exactly what you need before you even ask him.
So the question is: what can our prayer requests really accomplish? Can they persuade God to do something He hasn't already decided to do? Consider those questions as John MacArthur looks at one of the most practical examples of prayer in Scripture. The title of John's current study, Elements of True Prayer.
So now with today's lesson, here is John. Daniel chapter 9 presents to us a great insight into prayer. First 19 verses are a prayer prayed by Daniel to the Lord on behalf of the people he loved. the people of Israel. Prayer has many facets.
Many facets. I've been trying to point out to you that Prayer is primarily Communion with God. It's not really so much designed for us to get things as it is to get in on things. That is to identify ourselves with the Lord. and with his causes and his purposes.
Prayer is entering into his presence. Prayer is companionship with God. Prayer is Desiring to identify with God's person, God's plan, God's power, and God's. Purpose. And we've been looking at this great prayer of Daniel.
He knows what the plan is. It was revealed to him in the book of Jeremiah as he read. He knows what God is preparing to do. He knows the situation. And it isn't that he's asking for something beyond that, it's just that he wants to identify with God in what God has already promised to do.
He just wants to be where God is. and be a part of God's plan. And on behalf of the people of Israel, he intercedes, and in effect. The one request in the entire 19 verses appears in verse 19. And it's really simple.
O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, hearken and do. And the main issue is: do it, Lord. You've already said you were going to do it.
You've already planned to do it. You've revealed in your word you're going to do it. And I just want to come along to say, do it. I just want to identify with that. And Lord, if it means forgiving your people, then do that.
and bring to pass the conclusion of their chastening.
Now in this wonderful prayer There are 18 verses before he gets to his petition. 18 verses of heart preparation. 18 verses of intercession on the part of Daniel for his people. And I have pointed out to you that there are eight elements that mark genuine intercessory prayer. There are eight elements that mark genuine intercessory prayer.
We see these eight as we flow through this wonderful prayer. It becomes a model for us, in fact, one of the very best in all of the Old Testament. Let me remind you of what we've already learned and go through the first few of these principles that we have examined in the past. Number one, Prayer is generated by the Word of God. Verse 2 tells us that while he was reading the book of Jeremiah, he was prone to pray.
Our prayer life proceeds from the intensity of our study of the Word of God. As we hear God tell us his plans, we respond. We might say then that the first principle, prayer is generated by the Word of God, is simply that we seek to know God's plan. That's where it begins. And we get into the word to find out what God is going to do so we can pray intelligently.
Secondly, We said that prayer is grounded in the will of God. It is generated out of the Word of God, and it is grounded in the will of God. We seek not only to know God's plan, but to see it fulfilled. We're not trying to change God's mind. We're trying to identify with what He already wants to do, which is best.
Thirdly, We've learned that prayer is characterized by fervency. Prayer is a passionate involvement in the matters that concern the heart of God. Prayer not only seeks to know God's plan, Not only seeks to see God's plan fulfilled, but it seeks to see God's plan fulfilled at once. There's an earnestness. There's a passion involved.
Fourthly, then, we also saw that True intercessory prayer, genuine prayer, is marked by self-denial. It is realized in self-denial. We see the fervency in verse 3, and we see the self-denial in verse 4, where he says, I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession. He doesn't come and say, you need to do this for me because I have a claim on you. He doesn't come and say, I have a right to demand this out of you, God.
He comes and says, I'm a sinner, and in effect, he says, I don't have a right to demand anything. Prayer is at the very beginning a recognition of our own unworthiness. And a sense of self-denial. And so prayer seeks to not only know God's will, not only to see it fulfilled, not only to see it fulfilled at once, but to see it fulfilled no matter what. That costs me.
And then, fifthly, we said that true intercessory prayer is identified with God's people. It's not selfish. I mean, if it's just denied itself, it won't be selfish. It won't be grasping and possessive for its own goals. And we see as we looked at verses 5 down through 14 how many times he says, We and our and us.
and all Israel. And again and again, he is saying, I want to encompass all the people of God, all of us. This is our problem. Minister to us. The essence of true intercessory prayer is that it's bigger than any individual.
That when we really pray, self has been set aside and we are lost in the needs of others. And we reminded you of 1 Samuel 12, 23, which says, God forbid that I should sin in ceasing to pray for you. And so we might say that true intercessory prayer not only seeks to know God's plan. Not only seeks to see it, Fulfilled, not only seeks to see it fulfilled at once, not only seeks to see it fulfilled at once, no matter what it costs me, but seeks to see it fulfilled. for the sake of others.
For the sake of others. It isn't, Lord, please do this because I'd like to have it so. It's please do this because you're people. would be blessed. And then sixthly, True intercessory prayer is strengthened in confession.
It is strengthened in confession. Look at verse 30. Or rather, three, I'm sorry. Verse 3 and then 20. Verse 3, I set my face to the Lord to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
and prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession. Verse 20. And while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sins of my people Israel.
Now throughout the whole thing there is a sense of confession. Confession is to say the same thing that God is saying about your sin, to agree with God that your sin is your sin. As Dan was praying tonight, he acknowledged before the Lord his sin and the sins of his people. And he was really saying, Lord, we thank you that you've already forgiven us, but we confess these things. And that's essential in true prayer.
True prayer enters into the presence of God with a sense of God's absolute holiness, and so it's willing to acknowledge its own sin. When you go to an important occasion and you may be not properly dressed for it, you get very apologetic. You know, I've had that happen to me. I've shared with you sometimes when it happens. I remember the first time at uh I was at a Moody Pastors Conference.
I wasn't a speaker. I just went to be refreshed in my heart, and I had been doing something that afternoon, and I was casual, and I had on a Mickey Mouse shirt. Normally, I don't wear a Mickey Mouse shirt around important places, but I thought I'd slip in the auditorium and hear the final message at night. President got up and said, Is John MacArthur in the audience? If he is, I'd like to have him come up and lead us in prayer.
That was the first and last time I wore a Mickey Mouse shirt. at a pastor's conference. There I was in my Mickey Mouse shirt. And of course Yeah. It's funnier the longer you think about it.
That was long ago when I was young and foolish. But What was Obvious in my mind afterwards was, I just kept apologizing. I don't know why you asked me to pray. I'm sure if you knew, you would never have asked me up here. I didn't belong up here.
I wasn't properly dressed. I just was out of place. And you stumble and bumble and fumble around because you know you didn't belong there.
So attired. And that is very much the essence of what confession is in prayer. It is going into the presence of holy God with a recognition that you're not properly suited to be there. Except by virtue of the righteousness of Christ which has covered you. And certainly, in view of that, there ought to be a setting aside of all sinfulness.
As one writer put it, before he ever could Beseeched the Lord on behalf of anything, this was how he began his prayer. Give me a horror of sin, a dread of its approach, a deeper repentance. Help me to chastely flee it and jealously to resolve that my heart shall be thine alone. Plow deep in me, great Lord, heavenly husbandman, that my being may be a tilled field, the roots of grace spreading far and wide, until thou alone art seen in me, thy beauty golden like summer harvest, thy fruitfulness as the plenty of autumn. In other words, the preparation of the heart before the request.
Paul had such a deep sense of sin. In Romans 7, he speaks of it. In 1 Timothy 1:15, he calls himself the chief of sinners, one who was totally unworthy to preach. Confession was a daily part of Daniel's life too, and it is a part of anyone's prayers. And I really feel that that's just another good reason for the Lord's table, because to prepare ourselves for the Lord's table, we must confess our sinfulness.
And in so doing, And confessing sin, we then open up the potentiality for full fellowship in prayer as well. Confession. was a part of the daily life of Daniel, as I said, and yet There were times when special confession was needed. Just because Daniel confesses his sin right here doesn't mean that he never did it before. It doesn't mean he waited until big events to do it.
But most of us do that. We don't deal with our sin on a daily basis. We tend to stack it up until we hit the fan, so to speak. Until we arrive at communion, or until a disaster comes, or we're about to lose our job, or we don't know what's going wrong in our life, and then all of a sudden we get very. Confessional.
Daniel confessed to sin all the time, but still there were times in his life when great events faced him when there was a greater sense of sinfulness. We find it in the Old Testament, for example, in Leviticus 16:21, it says on the day of atonement, Yom Kippur, that great day when the sins of all the nation for the year were atoned for, that was a day of tremendous great confession. Not instead of daily confession, but in addition to. In 2 Chronicles 29 and verse 6, when Hezekiah saw God bringing a great revival, there was in response to that a tremendous outpouring of confession. In the ninth chapter of the book of Ezra, verses 4 to 15, we find again when God's word revives the hearts of people in preparation for God's moving in their midst and doing mighty things, there was great confession.
In chapter 1 and in chapter 9 of Nehemiah, we see the same thing. And of course, in Matthew 3, as John the Baptist arrives and he declares the Messiah is coming, he calls for the people to confess and repent and bring forth fruits of repentance. Jeremiah, of course, when he cried out about coming judgment in the third chapter, the eighth chapter, the 14th chapter, and again in Lamentations chapter 1, Jeremiah says, God is coming, and because God is coming, you need to prepare yourself by the confession of your sin.
Now we note that that's exactly what happens in verses 5 to 14. Notice verse 5: We have sinned. have committed iniquity. have done wickedly, have rebelled. Verse 6: Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants, the prophets.
Verse 9. To the Lord God, or the Lord our God, belong mercies and forgiveness says, though we have rebelled against Him, neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants, the prophets. Yea, all Israel has transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice. And so repeatedly does he speak. of their sin.
This is confession. And all through The prayer. Over and over again comes the confession.
Now, what is he doing?
Now listen to this. Daniel is in effect saying this. We deserve the judgment we're getting. Agreed, acknowledged, affirmed. I'm not denying it.
And that is a wonderful thing. Confession as many fruits One, it's simply an acknowledging of my sinfulness so that the Lord can purify me. But two, it is an acknowledgement of my sinfulness so that when God chastens me, I admit that I deserve it. When we confess our sin, we free God to chasten us with no thought of inequity or injustice. Let me give you an illustration.
Turn to your Bible to Joshua chapter 7. Joshua. Chapter 7. Sixth Book. in the Old Testament.
Joshua said to Achan, Verse 19, Achan, you remember, was Guilty of stealing things. From Jericho? God said, when you go in and take the city, don't take anything out of the city. And he went in and stole a bunch of stuff and brought it back and buried it in his tent. And Joshua confronted him about it.
The Lord had made it very obvious that he had done this. And so he said, My son, Joshua seven, nineteen. Said the Achan. Give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession unto him. And tell me now what thou hast done.
Hide it not from me. And Achan answered Joshua and said, Indeed, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done. And he went over the details. When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonish garment, 200 shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels' weight, then I coveted them and took them, and behold, they are hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it. Joshua sent messengers.
They ran to the tent. Behold, it was hidden in his tent, and the silver was under it. They took them out of the midst of the tent, brought them unto Joshua and all the children of Israel, and laid them out before the Lord. And Joshua and all the children of Israel with him took Achan, the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had, and they brought them unto the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us?
In other words, your sin has affected the whole country, the whole people. The Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones and burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day.
So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the name of that place was called the Valley of Trouble. That's what Achor means unto this day.
Now listen. If somebody was reading through the book of Joshua, And you read the story of Achan minus verses 19 and 20. You'd say well now What kind of a god? is going to do that. That is severe.
I mean, everybody died. Every animal died. They burned up his tent. Every remnant of the man's life was eliminated. It wouldn't make any sense.
And you might think God unjust. and inequitable. If you didn't read verses 19 and 20. He confessed. He said, I have sinned.
And when he said that. He admitted that he deserved to die. For the wages of sin is what? Death. And it goes all the way back.
In the day that you disobey, God said to Adam, you shall surely what? Die. Man who is in sin, says Ezekiel, shall die. In other words, the confession of sin does two things. Number one.
It brings about a forgiveness, but it also frees God to chasten without any inequity.
Now, he doesn't have any inequity, but it makes public the demonstration that the punishment is deserved. I think it's a good point, people, because we tend to wonder why things don't always go the way we think they ought to go. Listen, if you got what you deserved, you'd been dead long ago.
So would I. The very fact you take another breath is the grace of God.
So we have to acknowledge our sinfulness. Free God from any thought of injustice. Look back for a moment at 1 Samuel chapter 4. 1 Samuel 4. We've looked at this passage sometime in the past, and I'll just remind you of it.
The Philistines and The Israelites were having a battle. They had them all the time. And the Israelites were losing. They were really afraid, and so somebody said, You better go get God. They hadn't paid any attention to God for who knows how long.
And so they decided to get God.
Well, God was represented by a little box known as the Ark of the Covenant.
So they sent for the Ark of the Covenant. And they said, Get the Ark of the Covenant down here. And in the early part of chapter 4, around verses 4, 5, and 6, in come the guys carrying the Ark of the Covenant, the little box on the poles in the backs of the. Priests, and they come in with it. Then what happens?
Philistines are afraid in verse 7 and said, God is come unto the camp. Woe unto us. They say in verse 8: Woe unto us, who should deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. And so they really panicked.
Here was God.
Now, of course, they were idolatrous, so they thought this was their idol. This was just a little box as a representation of God, but it stood for God's presence. And of course, the Hebrews were thrilled. God has arrived. The victory's ours.
They thought God was a utilitarian genie. You rub him a little and say, Do your thing, and he does it. But he wasn't. They had not lived a righteous life and God was not about to come to their rescue, and so the fighting went on in verse 10, and Israel lost. That's a switch.
Not only that. The Philistines stole the ark. They ran off with the little box. If you think that's trouble for Israel, you don't know the story. That's trouble for the Philistines.
Now they've got God on their hands. Verse 1 of chapter 5 says that the Philistines took the Ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it to the house of Dagon. They had a God named Dagon, and Dagon was half fish and half man in his representation. And they figured this is the God of the Israelites.
We'll stick it in the house of our God, and we'll have two gods.
So they put it in there, and of course they came back the next day, verse 3. And there was Dagon, falling on his face, bowed down before the ark of the Lord. God doesn't tolerate any competition. And so they wondered what happened. It says they picked up Dagon and set him in his place again.
Couldn't figure out how he tipped over. Must have been a localized earthquake. They arose early the next morning, and Dagon was fallen on his face again to the ground. Only this time, both the palms of his hands and his head were cut off, and only a stump was left. And God was saying, I put him where I wanted him, don't lift him up anymore.
And by the way, verse 5 says nobody ever worshiped Dagon anymore. I guess not. Who wants to worship a loser? And verse 6 says, And the hand of the Lord was heavy on them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them and smote them with, and now you have all kinds of translations.
Some of your Bibles say hemorrhoids, that's got to be the worst translation of all.
Some of them say emerads, it sounds like a flower. The right translation is tumors. All of a sudden they got tumors. And they had tumors in their internal parts. Verse 9 talks about their secret parts.
It means they're internal, buried deep in them. They started getting tumors.
Well, the people of Ashdod said, look, could you get rid of that box? It's bringing us terrible plague.
So they took the little box over to Gath. You remember Gath? There was a... Tall man from there by the name of Goliath.
So they took it to gas and everybody in gas got the same thing.
So the people said, take it to Ekron. It's going from city to city in Philistia. Took it to Ekron, same thing happened there. And the Ekronites cried out and said, Get that thing out of here. And so now they decide to have a meeting of all of the mines of the land so they can figure out how to get it back where they got it.
Because two things began to happen. The people who didn't get the tumors died in a plague that was brought by mice, something like a bubonic plague or a black death, and people were dying all over the place. The ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines, chapter 6, says for seven months. Seven months. And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, What are we going to do to the ark of the Lord?
Tell us in what way we shall send it to its place. Where does it belong? Let's get it back. And they said, If you send away the ark of God of Israel, send it not empty. Don't send it back empty.
But by all means, return him a what? Trespass offering.
Now, I ask you a simple question: To what does a trespass offering admit? Sin? Those pagans, in their pagan mentality, at least realized that it was their fault that this was happening to them. You see? And they weren't waving their fists like Revelation 16 when the people in the future tribulation are scorched with fire and they curse the God of heaven and blaspheme his name.
No, no. They were saying in effect, boy, we have offended that God and we better make it right. We're getting what we deserve. And so they said, Well, we're going to have to make some kind of an offering. And they said, What will it be?
Verse 4. They said, Send him back five golden tumors and five golden mice.
Now, that is what's known as a votive offering. The pagans very often did this. They replicated the disease. Or the plague. In clay or wood or metal, and offered it to the god as an affirmation that they knew the plague came from that deity.
And so they molded golden tumors and golden mice, speaking of the plague. And then it says in verse 5, you shall give glory unto the God of Israel. And perhaps he will lighten his hand from you and your gods and your land. In other words, they said, you've got to admit it's your fault. And beloved, this is one of the very essential elements of confession.
Confession isn't a flippant thing. It is a recognition that you have offended holy God. And if things aren't right in your life, It's because you have brought it upon yourself because God is righteous and must react against unrighteousness. True? It's only His grace that keeps us from being consumed.
Now back to Daniel.
So Daniel is praying a prayer of confession. And he acknowledges that the captivity, the 70 years, and all the judgments and punishments. are deserved because of the sins of the people. The end of verse 15, I think, sums it up. We have sinned.
We have done Wickedly. Verse 60, O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city, Jerusalem, thy holy mountain, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. It isn't anybody's fault, but... Our over. You're listening to Grace to You, featuring the Bible teaching of John MacArthur.
The title of John's current study is Elements of True Prayer. You know, when you think about the communicating you do on a daily basis with family and co-workers and people from church, whoever, it's not one-sided, it's back and forth. The question is, does that also apply when we talk to God? As we communicate with Him, is He also communicating with us? Here's how John MacArthur answered that.
Well, certainly the Lord communicates with us through His Word. That is his self revelation. But I think there is a sense in which God communicates with us in our prayers, and that is by His answer. We can't expect to hear his voice, although there are lots of people today talking about listening for the voice of God. There are no guarantees.
uh that you're actually hearing God in that kind of mystical exercise. But God does communicate back to us with His answers to our prayers. And it is important, therefore, that we know how to pray as we should. The pattern for our prayer is to follow the disciples' prayer. the familiar words, Our Father who art in heaven, and so forth.
I've put all of those things, the elements of that prayer, which is the structure for all our prayers, in a book called Alone with God. This takes a phrase-by-phrase look at the disciples' prayer, the model for how we pray. The book, again, alone with God. Start to pray effectively and see the answers that God has for those who pray faithfully. It also has a built-in study guide to use in a group study.
That's right, friend. You can apply the principles from John's book every day when you pray. It has helpful insights for thanking God for His many gifts, asking Him for wisdom, interceding for others, and more. To order your copy of Alone with God, get in touch today. Call us here at 855 GRACE.
Or place your order at our website, gty.org. A Loan with God costs $10.50. Shipping is free. Again, call 855 GRACE. or go to gty.org to order.
Let me also suggest John's book titled At the Throne of Grace. It pulls together about 50 prayers that John led his congregation through during worship services at Grace Community Church. At the Throne of Grace isn't a book of officially sanctioned prayers. It's not a script to follow or an instruction manual on how to pray. Instead, it's a devotional book that can give you direction for your own prayers.
It costs $15 and shipping is free. To place your order for At the Throne of Grace or for the book Alone with God, call 855 Grace. or go to gty.org.
Now for the entire Grace TU staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You Television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378. And be back Monday as we continue John MacArthur's series that is helping you put into practice the elements of true prayer. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on grace to you.
