Daniel 7-9; Psalm 135
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These chapters of Daniel today and the visions he was given are
once again writings that I will return to when I study the book of
Revelation. “Understand that the
vision concerns the time of the end.” (8:17)
In the midst of these chapters, however, is an amazing prayer from
Daniel. He knows from the prophet
Jeremiah that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. Several years before the 70-year period
is over, Daniel begins to pray.
This is no weak half-hearted, oh-God-help-us-prayer. Daniel says, “So I turned to the Lord
God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth
and ashes.”
I will never forget the image my pastor created in a sermon on
prayer a few years ago. He used this
verse: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the
door will be opened to you. For
everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks,
the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)
On the platform at church where Bret Nicholson was teaching, he
had a door. He said the type of
prayer Jesus was talking about here was not just this weak tap on the door and
then just give up and walk away … it was this pounding and beating on the door
over and over without stopping. I
will always remember the difference between him just barely knocking on that
door on stage and him pounding on it like he was a desperate man that had to
have that door opened.
Daniel is pounding on the door. In his praying he praises God, he confesses sins, he tells
of great things God had done before, and he asks God to hear and to act. Daniel, this great man of faith and
noble character, also takes on the sins of his people as his own. He says, “we have sinned and done wrong,”
“we have turned away,” “we have rebelled,” “we have not listened.”
And my favorite part: “We do not make requests of you because we
are righteous, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, listen!
O Lord, forgive! O Lord,
hear and act!”
Whatever it is that you need to be pounding on the door for the
Lord to answer, you can use Daniel’s words in prayer … Lord, not because we deserve it or because of anything we’ve done, but
because you are so good and merciful, and because You said to ask, seek, and
knock … O Lord, listen! O Lord,
forgive! O Lord, hear and act!
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