Truth Matters: God's reply to Daniel

Welcome to Truth Matters!

The Saturday Edition with Dr. Cheryl Davis. Today's lesson from the Book of Daniel takes us into the 9th chapter and Daniel's prayer and intercession for the Hebrew people in his beloved hometown of Jerusalem. It's a compelling and fervent prayer that exalts the name of the Lord and confesses the historic sins of his people.

The prayer is also a plea for the Lord's mercy to relieve the suffering of his people and restore the dignity of Jerusalem. The Lord answers Daniel's prayer immediately and dispatches his prayer. Daniel attaches the angel Gabriel with his response. However, demonic forces patrolling the airspace over Greece and Persia and fearing God's answer blocks Gabriel's pathway to earth for 21 days. Gabriel not being able to penetrate the blockade returns to heaven seeking help from the archangel Michael. Michael quickly deploys heaven's special forces to clear Gabriel's pathway to Daniel. Daniel, hearing God's answer, falls ill with the news of the devastation that will come upon earth and especially Jerusalem in the 8th chapter. End time. Here's Dr. Cheryl Davis with God's reply to Daniel.

Hello, I'm Dr. Cheryl Davis. I hope you have been enjoying our prophetic series within the chapters of Daniel and finding the key to the answers of end time events. And really the Bible is so plain, none of us are without excuse and understanding what will happen in the end times and the importance of spreading the word and spreading the gospel at a time such as now. On our last series, we were in chapter 8 where Daniel was given a vision mainly about Greece that ended with a description of the antichrist or the future antichrist, but as we know that Antiochus Epiphanes was a forerunner for the antichrist in which we are anticipating. It was so graphic that it caused Daniel to faint and he was sick for days because of what he saw would happen to the Jews and his people in the future. Now we come to chapter 9. The time frame is the same time frame historically as the end of chapter 5. Historically Babylon had just been defeated and Daniel had been promoted during the reign of King Darius the Mede.

Daniel is in his late 80s by now. Moving on into the chapter and verses 1 through 2. In the first year of Darius the son of Ashiwarius and of the lineage 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 specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem. As we know Daniel at this time specifically is still reading the word and the word that he had was the writings of Jeremiah before they went into captivity. As we know Jeremiah was very specific.

He was known as the weeping prophet but he was also very specific and accurate as to the future captivity of Babylon and he was accurate. Daniel believed that and he had the book of the law, he had the Torah, but he also most likely had copies of Jeremiah's writings. Specifically he had a letter to the captives written by Jeremiah in chapter 25 and 29. So let's get into some of that writing from Jeremiah. If you turn to Jeremiah 25 verses 8 through 11. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts because you have not heard my words behold I will sin and take all the families of the north says the Lord and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon my servant notice he calls Nebuchadnezzar my servant and will bring them against this land against its inhabitants and against these nations all around and will utterly destroy them and make them an astonishment a hissing and a perpetual desolation moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness and the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride and the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp and this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. So Daniel had this information that they would be in captivity for 70 years serving king Nebuchadnezzar. In Jeremiah 29 he writes a letter to the captives he says now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the remainder of the elders who were carried away captive to the priest the prophets and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon. This happened after Jeconiah the king the queen mother the eunuchs the princes of Judah and Jerusalem the craftsmen and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the hand of Elasa the son of Shapan and Gomeriah the son of Hilkiah and Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon saying thus says the lord of hosts the god of Israel to all who were carried away captive whom I have calls to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon build houses and dwell in them plant gardens and eat their fruit take wives and beget sons and daughters and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands so that they may bear sons and daughters that you may be increased there and not diminished and seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive and pray to the lord for it for in its peace you will have peace for this says the lord of hosts the god of Israel do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed for they prophesy falsely to you in my name I have not sent them says the lord for thus says the lord after 70 years are completed at Babylon I will visit you and perform my good word toward you and cause you to return to this place for I know the thoughts that I think toward you says the lord thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart I will be found by you says the lord I will bring you back from your captivity I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you says the lord and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive so Daniel has been reading Jeremiah's writings all throughout captivity and is looking at the time that he has been in captivity and looking at the time that Jeremiah is saying that they should be in captivity so let's move on to verses three and four to see how he prays for their release and praise to the lord for an answer then I set my face toward the lord god to make requests by prayer and supplications with fasting sackcloth and ashes and I prayed to the lord my god and made confession and said oh lord great and awesome god who keeps his covenant and mercy with those who love him and with those who keep his commandments notice that Daniel often prayed with prayer fasting sackcloth and ashes there is a fervency to his prayer that god would do what he said he would do there are tremendous principles about prayer in these passages god knows his plan even when he reveals his plan to us he expects us to pray over that plan we read in first john 5 14 through 15 now this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us and if we know that he hears us whatever we ask we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him prayer is not to get god to change his will if we really believe the will of god is perfect then why would we want him to change it our prayers should be prompted out of our deep understanding of what the will of god is I want to say something very important there are a lot of people who go to prayer not to ascertain the will of god but to ask him to do what they want and I'm guilty of this myself I can't say that I'm not but there are a lot of people out there who go to prayer not to ascertain the will of god but to ask him to do what they want our biggest waste of time in Christianity is praying about things that god has already said that we should not do you know are any of you listening to me today guilty of that absolutely our biggest waste of time in Christianity is praying about things that god already said that we should not do it is never right to pray about that which god has already said is wrong god doesn't change his mind about right and wrong Daniel prayed frequently and he prayed fervently we know that he prayed three times a day regardless of the circumstance whether it was death or not we've seen that already in the chapter of Daniel and we also know that he prayed fervently by putting on sackcloth ashes as well as fasting fasting promotes fervency in our prayer we already have examples of those in the bible that fast you know jesus fasted after he was baptized he went into the wilderness and fasted paul fasted isaiah daniel esther david hannah elijah ezra nehemiah as well as zachariah fasting promotes fervency in our prayer fasting seems to be a lost art these days i do know that some pentecostals still do fast but fasting appears to be a lost practice fasting is a measure of our fervency that is important in our relationship to god let's move on to verses 5 through 10 we have sinned and committed iniquity we have done wickedly and rebelled even by departing from your precepts and your judgment neither have we needed your servants to the prophets who spoke in your name to our kings and our princes to our fathers and all the people of the land oh lord righteousness belongs to you but to us shame of face as it is to this day to the men of judah to the inhabitants of jerusalem and all israel those near and those far off in all countries to which you have driven them because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against you oh lord to us belong shame of face to our kings our princess and our fathers because we have sinned against you to the lord our god belong mercy and forgiveness though we have rebelled against him we have not obeyed the voice of the lord our god to walk in his laws which he set before us by his servants the prophets notice daniel uses the word we quite often though nothing is recorded of any evil acts or shortcomings of daniel we know that he was still a sinner he identified himself with the sin of his people this is a perfect example of intercession much like abigail interceded for nabal to david in first samuel 25 24 abigail was not even around when nabal disrespect to david but she took on his iniquities upon herself i want to talk a little bit about corporate guilt which is addressed in the book the handwriting on the wall when we talk about pastors and churches and dr jeremiah says a very important point about corporate guilt he says there's nothing that you are capable of doing that i am not capable of doing we are in this together not one of us can sin without it affecting the other until we can get it as daniel did a sense of corporate guilt before god we will never have holiness within the church as god wants us to have it's true that there is no sin recorded of daniel but obviously he was a sinner he was a very righteous holy man the more devout a person is the deeper his love for god and commitment to christ the greater will be his sense of sinfulness i want to talk about examples of sinfulness do we struggle with confession of our sins who listening has a problem saying i am wrong oftentimes if we've been saved for a long time or been serving god for a long time or go to church regularly becomes a way of life and therefore we think we're righteous really we're not you know i was just having the conversation today that our flesh has no memory it rises up daily doing the same thing and it's really hard to crucify it but we have to work to do that but you cannot truly praise god and be self-centered daniel interceded for the jews on behalf to god and put on their sins for his that's the sign of true love and true compassion and true servanthood moving on to verses 11 through 19 the bible says yes all israel has transgressed your law and has departed so as not to obey your voice therefore the curse and the oath written in the law of moses the servant of god have been poured out on us because we have sinned against him so basically daniel is saying here we know why we are in captivity because in the law of moses and in deuteronomy moses predicted that they would go into captivity and so he says the curse and the oath written in the law of moses has been poured out on us he's saying the bible is being fulfilled and he has confirmed his words which he spoke against us and against our judges who judged us by bringing upon us a great disaster for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to jerusalem as it is written in the law of moses all this disaster has come upon us yet we have not made our prayer before the lord or our god that we might turn from our iniquities and understand your truth he's saying even though all of this has been fulfilled even though this disaster has come upon us they have not made their prayer of repentance therefore the lord has kept the disaster in mind and brought it upon us for the lord our god is righteous and all the works which he does though we have not obeyed his voice and now oh lord our god who brought your people out of the land of egypt with a mighty hand made yourself a name as it is this day we have sinned we have done wickedly oh lord according to all your righteousness i pray let your anger and your fury be turned away from your city jerusalem your holy mountain because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers jerusalem and your people are reproached all those around us now therefore our god hear the prayer of your servant and his supplications and for the lord's sake cause your face to shine on your sanctuary which is desolate in the modern world we use maps and navigation systems to chart our travel into unknown places likewise in the divine and prophetic world the scriptures of the old and new testament are god's roadmap for life and a guide for the elect of god into the millennial age where jesus and righteousness shall prevail and the good life shall endure forever the view that daniel was given in god's answer to his prayer is not a pretty picture as it shows the great evil that shall be released upon earth during the end time and most especially the devastation of jerusalem and persecution of the holy people during the tribulation years this coming time in history will be dreadful and horrific causing much suffering agony and global destruction but god will shorten this time for the sake of his people as a new era dawns quickly with the return of jesus you can be a part of this new kingdom by welcoming jesus christ into your life making him lord and savior if dr davis and her staff can help in this decision please contact her by email at cheryl davis at project truthmatters.com truth matters is a ministry of the truth project