Daniel Chapter 9 Verses 1 – 2

• This statement that Daniel makes, "I, Daniel, understood by the books," that statement alone to me is astonishing. Why? The books that he is talking about are Jeremiah and Isaiah and we’ll get to what they say but think about this for a minute…

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• No pain, no real work involved…you just gotta want it man. Not so with Daniel. He’s had some daunting visions right? The last two chapters were during the Babylonian reign where Daniel was met head on with the vision of the four beasts and then the vision of the Ram and the unicorn goat. One left him greatly troubled and the other, as we saw last week, physically ill…

• It’s been years since then, at least 10 as we open up Chapter 9 tonight and so what do you think Daniel has been doing for the past decade? Searching…no doubt! On a quest man to figure these things out and so he’s digging, reading, studying, learning…putting the puzzle together man…why? Because he is moved!

• That’s precisely why we study. Why we make time each and every day to sit down and eat a spiritual meal…not because we have to, not because we’re good little altar boys and girls and that’s what we should do…no! Because I am moved! The thing I glimpse, the truth I hear…if I consider it, lay aside the deal of the day, the clutter of my crowded life…if I just consider one spiritual truth, one scriptural nugget…everything has to change! There are real things going on here…more that I may even perceive…guess what? I have to know!

• It’s like God saying, "Hey Matt, we need to talk…" and me saying, "ok, yea let’s do that…when its convenient….at a later time…." Not my wiring man! I can’t stand that! I want to dig it out right there…gotta know! Can you imagine the conversations with Daniel after the visions that he has seen? He’s staring off at the corner or something when you’re talking to him about the brick seller or the something…"Um, Daniel…hello McFly!?" Not there!

• He’s preoccupied…for ten years now. No commentaries, no Blue Letter Bible, no Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, no New Testament! He only has half the story anyway in whatever parchments he has! No synagogue to go learn corporately at…he would go home to pray, remember? And so he’s reading one morning, one day, one night and he reads Jeremiah 25:11.

• Jeremiah was a contemporary of Daniel and written just before Babylon came and took Israel by storm…and man how clear is it there in Jeremiah 25? But Daniel says, "books." I believe Daniel considered this scripture with Isaiah 44 and 45 where Isaiah, in the 8th century BC, 200 hundred years before Daniel or any of this that we have seen throughout our study in Daniel, calls out Cyrus by name! And proclaims that Cyrus will release the Jews back to Israel…

• So here Daniel is, in the first year of Darius the Mede which means who really is in charge? Yep, Cyrus the Persian! Boo-Yea! You think Daniel said that when he grasped the scriptures? Do you? Man I have! HA! What about when he met Cyrus for the first time?? (Huge wide open mouth smile stare) "Um this guy is a creeper," Cyrus must have thought!

• Anyway, so when did Nebuchadnezzar take Israel into captivity? Around 605 BC…when did Babylon fall to the Medes and the Persians? Around 537 BC…so when is it now, as Daniel writes this? Somewhere around 536 BC. What’s 605 BC minus 536 BC? About 69 years! So Daniel knows…the seventy years is about to be up!

• Why 70 though? The seventy years was because the Jews had been dwelling in the promised land since the time of Joshua, or 490 years. Another way to state 490 years? 7 times 70 or 70 instances of 7 years. God had told them in the law that every seventh year they were to let the ground rest. The ground is to have a Sabbath year. Don't plant anything in the seventh year. Just in the sixth year, gather up and what you gather in the sixth year will be enough food to get you through the seventh year. You can eat that which grows of itself, but don't till the land, don't plant the land. Let it just grow of itself in the seventh year.

• Sort of a plant rotation of crop kind of thing that the farmers have realized now is so very valuable practically, good for the land and all. Now they had been in the land for 490 years, but they had not obeyed the commandment of God. They hadn't given the ground the Sabbath. Why? Because surely they know better! This ground just sitting here ready to grow some awesomeness…"I think God made a mistake…"

• You know what strikes me. The whole time the same nation was making sacrifice in the temple, worshipping God, praying at the appointed times during the day, holding their feasts and fasts in accordance with the law and thinking that they’re all good…then what happens…disaster…The ground hasn't rested in 490 years. So God says, "Okay, you don't give it its rest, I'll give it its rest. I'll put you out of the land for seventy years and the ground will just get its whole Sabbath." So you divide the 490 by seven and you come to understand the seventy years that the ground had been robbed of seventy different Sabbaths. So God says, "Look y’all, I commanded it…it must come to pass, one way or the other…"

• So that’s the 70 years…why the 70 years of desolation for Jerusalem…and Daniel has figured it out so he starts packing…and realizes maybe how much not only the people had withheld from God…but how much he himself did as well…Now that’s a tough mirror talk…most don’t go there…but Daniel is unlike most…and it drives him to fall apart before God…

Daniel Chapter 9 Verses 3 – 4a

• I wonder why the disciples bothered Jesus with the question they asked in Luke Chapter 11. "Lord, teach us how to pray?" Why not just know the Word…what we just read, what we’re about to read, a model prayer…unbelievably humble and powerful…why not just read the word man…Jesus must have thought for a moment of His disciples, "why do you not know the scriptures?"

• Same for us. "Lord what do I do? What should I say? How should I handle this? What does this mean?" The answers are all right here! Why not just know the word man? Romaine, Chuck’s assistant for many years used to handle all of the counseling. Couple’s counseling, single’s counseling, whatever. And when someone would schedule an appointment and meet with him, he’d hear them out for a few minutes, hear what’s going on…and he would simply and always say, "Are you reading your Bible every day and are you praying every day?"

• If they said no then the session was over right then and there. "Go and read your Bible every day…pray every day…and come back in a month." Folks hated him for it but how spot on he was! The answers are here man…to all of those questions and how much more powerful and performance-full will it be when God speaks directly to you through His word…and you listen…that is a life change…counsel is counsel…take it or leave it man.

• I’ve been counseled and advised and encouraged and taught many times and many things by many Godly people…but the summation of who I am is by God’s grace alone…God teaching me and if I don’t speak with Him, how can He lead me? If I don’t learn His word, how will I ever know what to do? What this means? What’s really going on? Sure you can tell me…but at the end of the day…what’s really going to have power in my life…is my walk man…

• Getting taught is wonderful. Learning good truths is very profitable. But a personal walk with Jesus. A daily commitment to being a real believer…that will provide the solution and God Himself will be your guide, your Counselor…and the testimony of Jesus Christ and His love and His truth and the hope that is found only in Him…will simply surge man…

• "Why axe Me, y’all," Jesus probably thought…read the Word man…

Daniel Chapter 9 Verses 4 – 12

• This strikes a reality chord for me because Daniel says, "To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness," in other words, He’s got ‘em! Yet then he goes on to use words such as curse and disaster…That is a striking contrast with ultimate practical application.

• It’s true…mercy, forgiveness…God gives them freely. According to Psalm Chapter 1, blessing, strength, righteousness and life…these are all things that God gives…according to 2 Timothy 1:7 God freely gives to us love, power and a sound mind…eternal intelligence and yet Daniel cries out…the delivery has arrived…and its curse and disaster. Why? Because God is not good? Just the opposite actually! Because He is good and in Him is no shadow of turning!

• The answer is found in Psalm 18:26 and 2 Samuel 22:27. Psalm 18:26 says in one translation, "With the pure You will show Yourself pure, but with the perverse You show Yourself a Wrestler, or a Contender." 2 Samuel 22:27 says the exact same thing…And so Daniel realizes and we realize what? It’s on us man. Our calamity, our disasters…our broken relationships man, our strife…and what is required? Repentance! Surrender to God’s heart in the matter lest the aftertaste continue to be absolute disaster…because the Word of God will remain.

• Daniel is about to go home. 70 years he’s been in Babylon. It’s all he knows now. And it has dawned on him why he has been robbed of his homeland his entire life…simple unbelief manifested in disobedience…

Daniel Chapter 9 Verses 13 – 19

• The fervent prayers of a righteous man avails much James would later write…teach us how to pray the disciples asked…here it is…God, how great and awesome You are, You know what I’ve done, I confess it openly to You now…I take responsibility for what has happened, I turn from my sin…O Lord hear, O Lord forgive, O Lord move upon my life…from here on, I will be called by Your name…

• That is the prayer that in faith will press folks forward and many times will cause them to escape the curse and avoid the disaster entirely…because God is rich in mercy man and in a moment can and will and is entirely ready to turn everything completely around for anyone, ANYONE, who would have the courage to give an honest assessment of the mirror in the shadow of the cross of Christ.