HEELCATCHER

Wow, where do you start with Daniel 9? It is probably the most prophetically rich chapter in the whole Bible. In fact, one Bible scholar called Daniel 9 “the backbone of prophecy.” The prophecy of seventy weeks (9:24-27) provides a timeline for world history and confirms that the prophetic clock centers on Israel. As Dr. Ben Albert taught us last year at CBC, “When it comes to biblical prophecy, watch Israel.”

But the part of Daniel 9 that catches my attention this morning is Daniel’s prayer. It is a model for us as we pray for our own nation today. I like what John Walvoord said about Daniel’s prayer:

While God honors the briefest of prayers, as the experience of Nehemiah 2:4 indicates, effective prayer requires faith in the Word of God, proper attitude of mind and heart, privacy, and unhurried confession and petition. Daniel’s humility, reverence, and earnestness are the hallmarks of effective prayer.

What basic points can we learn from Daniel’s prayer?

1. Effective prayer begins with God’s Word. Daniel was actually reading Jeremiah’s prophecy in 25:11-12 when he was compelled to pray. Jeremiah had prophesied that Israel would go into captivity in Babylon for 70 years. Daniel had been in Babylon for 67 years at this time (so he is probably 80-85 years old) so he realizes that the end of the prophecy is near. This realization drives him to his knees.

God speaks through His Word. Daniel responds in prayer. This is a great example to us. Sometimes we don’t know how to pray. If we begin to see prayer as a response to God’s Word then we can gain guidance in our prayer life. Start off the day reading God’s Word and then pray back to God the things that He teaches you through His Word. God speaks. We respond.

2. Effective prayer must flow out of our hearts. Prayer is not mechanical. Certainly there are times that we pray when we don’t necessarily feel like praying. But even in those times, prayer should be a reflection of the burdens and concerns of our hearts. As Charles Spurgeon once said, “Our prayers are often cold because our hearts are cold.” When Daniel reads God’s Word about Israel, here was his response: I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes, and I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession… (9:3-4a).

Daniel was serious. He did not have to be cajoled into prayer; it was the automatic response of his heart. He was so broken and burdened for his nation that he dropped to his knees and pleaded for God’s mercy. I wonder why I don’t pray that fervently for our nation. It probably begins with the load of distractions that divert my passion and numb my heart. Lord, renew the hunger in my soul for You and Your glory.

3. Effective prayer acknowledges God’s holiness and our sin. Daniel spends the first half of his prayer confessing the sin of his nation. We have sinned…we have rebelled…we have ignored Your word…we deserve to be ashamed…we have been unfaithful…we have not obeyed Your word…we have no excuse. Daniel did not point the finger at other people. He included himself in his prayer. Though Daniel had been faithful to the Lord, in his heart he still knew that he was not blameless. He was also part of the problem.

It is too easy for us to point the finger and blame the woes of our nation on a host of other people. We will never know effective prayer if we don’t see the sin in our hearts, if we are not broken over our own sin, our own unfaithfulness. The problem with America does not start with them…it starts with me.

4. Effective prayer asks God to act based on His glory and righteousness not our comfort and preferences. Daniel has specific requests for God. Let Your anger be turned away…hear my prayer…cause Your face to shine on Your temple…incline Your ear to me…see our desolations. Hear, Lord! Forgive! Listen! Act! Do not delay!

Daniel’s prayer is both humble and bold. He pleads for God’s mercy and asks for quick action. And the basis of his prayer is not “because of our righteous deeds but because of Your great mercies” (9:18). God wants us to ask. He wants us to come boldly before His throne. But He also wants us to ask in humility with a passion for His glory not just a desire to get what we want so that life will be easier for us.

When it comes to praying for our nation, we should be bold. We should be specific. But we should also examine our hearts and ask, “Why do I want what I am asking? Is it because I want to see God’s glory manifested and His gospel proclaimed? Or is it because I simply don’t want to face difficulty and I want life to be more comfortable for me?” Certainly none of us want to go through trials or difficulties but if the bulk of our prayers are centered on our own comfort then we shouldn’t expect God to answer. It is when we delight ourselves in the Lord that He gives us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4). It is in seeking His kingdom first and foremost that all these other things are added unto us (Matthew 6:33).

Lord, I realize that my heart is so far from the heart of Daniel. Grow me. Deepen my faith. Clarify my focus. Renew my love. Give me a passion for Your glory.

We are less than three weeks from a major election in our nation. Keep reading through Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 9 and let it be a guide for you as you pray for our own nation the next 19 days.

I don’t want to be a Pharisee.

Self-righteous. Legalistic. Prideful. Cold. Mistaking tradition for God’s truth.

The Pharisees were the perennial critics of Jesus during His ministry on earth. You say the word “Pharisee” and most people with a smidgen of Bible knowledge automatically think “legalistic, hard-nosed, narrow-minded religious dude.” Well maybe not the “dude” part.

But the Pharisees were not “bad guys,” at least not in the minds of many people in Jesus’ day. The Pharisees were a conservative religious group that tried to maintain Jewish identity in the midst of Roman occupation. They may not have been personally liked by the average Jew but they were generally respected and even admired for their religious devotion and conservative values.

I remember taking a trip to Israel in the late 90’s. Our Jewish tour guide, Nimrod (yep, that was his name), took us to one of the Decapolis cities near Galilee. He began to explain what was going on in Jesus’ day. The Romans were building cities around and within Israel designed to infiltrate and influence the Jewish people with Greco-Roman culture. Thus, not too far from the synagogue where the people could hear the Old Testament Scriptures read each Sabbath, there might be a Roman theatre or bathhouse that exposed the people to the more progressive, cultured, and sexually loose Roman lifestyle. The Romans were no fools. Instead of directly contradicting Jewish mores, they sought to entice the average Jew to a more Roman way of thinking and living…especially the young people.

The Pharisees were appalled at the luxurious, licentious lifestyle of the Romans and they did everything they could to shield themselves and their children from such an influx of immorality.

Putting myself in the Pharisees’ shoes, I was shocked to discover that they actually fit me quite well. As a parent in our current culture, I find myself thinking in many ways like a Pharisee.

But I don’t want to be a Pharisee.

I don’t want Christ’s love to be replaced by legalistic self-righteousness. I don’t want to preach morality over the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don’t want to lose the joy of the Spirit for the judgmentalism of a critical spirit.

But if I try too hard to avoid being a Pharisee, I might end up becoming a Corinthian.

Super-spiritual. “Enlightened.” Prideful. Smug. Mistaking tolerance for God’s love.

The Corinthians were an early group of believers in Jesus Christ. As the gospel spread out from Palestine, the Greeks began to hear it, consider it, embrace it. But coming to Christ did not immediately change their mindset. They still often thought and lived like Greeks. Intellectual, cultured, elite, morally “progressive,” sexually free. The apostle Paul had to write several letters to the Corinthian church to correct their thinking, to challenge their lifestyle, to confront their “tolerance.”

Flee from sexual immorality! All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:18-19)

The Pharisees missed the gospel in the midst of their self-righteous legalism. The Corinthians misused the gospel in the midst of their self-gratifying liberty. The Pharisees externalized sin. The Corinthians ignored it. The Pharisees became critics of culture. The Corinthians became condoners of it.

That’s the challenge that I face in this present generation.

Engage in the cultural war and I find myself losing a part of my heart. I see people as enemies to be defeated rather than people who need Christ. I become like a Pharisee struggling to preserve old fashioned American identity in the midst of an invasion of Hollywood’s values. I become a foe of the world. And I forget the beauty of grace…that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of which I am chief. 

But endorse the cultural flow and I find myself losing a part of God’s holiness. I see sin as a minor thing that needs to be redefined for more modern times. I become like a Corinthian downplaying sexual immorality and losing my identity as a follower of Christ. I become a friend of the world. And I forget the ugliness of sin…that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of which I am chief.

There are dangers on both sides of the tightrope.

Hate Pharisees and I might be a Corinthian. Hate Corinthians and I might be a Pharisee.

Love God. Love my neighbor. Hate sin. Weep for the world. And I might just be in the Spirit.

I woke up to the news that 71 people had been shot at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado. 12 of them have died.

How do you process such news?

12 people dead. I can only imagine moms, dads, friends, sisters, brothers, children all impacted forever by one senseless act of violence. Many in the hospital fighting for their lives or recovering from injuries. Bodies damaged. Minds scarred. Families mourning. Relationships gone. Lives never the same.

It makes you feel helpless. Nauseated. And strangely numb.

Unfortunately such events are becoming all too common. Maybe we are just hearing about them more. We are bombarded daily with the worst of the worst, the sickest of the sick, instantly, via multiple media outlets, from all over the globe.

Our world is shrinking and our heart seems to be shriveling up with it.

The motives of the killer will be examined, dissected, and evaluated. Probably no one factor can be blamed. A person who callously plans and randomly kills innocent people has to be irrational and unstable to begin with. Thus discerning exact motives is impossible and proposing simple answers is inappropriate. Ban assault weapons. Sure, there is a case for that. But would it have stopped a person who also had apparent knowledge and use of other weapons and explosives as well? Increase security. Sure, but where does such security stop? We can’t police everywhere nor stop every violent act. Arm everyone in society? Well, for every life saved, there may be more caught in the crossfire.

The debate about guns will certainly enter the picture but it will only be scratching at the surface, treating the symptoms rather than addressing the disease.

Ultimately it was a human mind that planned such an elaborate, cold-hearted attack. And it is the human mind that has to be addressed.

This man was sick but, in examining the initial details, also so “normal.” Nothing sinister seems to lie in his past. He had no previous police record. No apparent addiction to drugs. No real cause of vengeance to exercise on a group of people in a movie theatre. He just acted…almost as if he was part of the movie itself.

We seem to be a society losing touch with reality. We are so immersed in entertainment that the lines between fantasy and real life are constantly blurred. And when kids grow up exposed to an endless feed of violent games, violent shows, and virtual worlds, it is naive to think that there is no long-term impact on their minds. In many “games” today, young people play out killing people one by one with the most realistic of graphics. For an unstable mind, it can’t be a far leap to make it reality.

I remember reading excerpts from the trial testimony of Anders Breivik, the man who massacred 77 people, many of them teenagers, in a pre-meditated killing spree in Norway. He testified that he sharpened his skills and deadened his conscience by playing violent video games 16 hours a day for months at a time. His testimony was chilling because it was so matter-of-fact. So divorced from reality. So detached from the tragedy of innocent young lives snuffed out like they were part of a sick video game.

Again, there are no simple answers. Banning a video game or protesting violent movies is not the solution. But when you have a society with a steady breakdown in the family, a devaluing of life, an appetite for virtual violence, a growing sense of boredom and discontent, a love for notoriety, an absence of moral boundaries, and limitless exposure to methods of killing and destruction, then you have the makings of a “culture of death.”

As a society, we reap what we sow.

The book of Proverbs warns us bluntly: Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life (4:23).

The things that go into our minds do not just disappear. They work deep into our thought processes, affect our perception, numb our consciences, and flow out into our words and actions. It is a slow process which means no one piece of input can be pinpointed or blamed…and no one can really notice the changes in their heart. But the steady drip of virtual violence, entertaining immorality, and glorified self-gratification works into one’s bloodstream, poisoning the mind.

And a poisoned mind can eventually spill out into destructive actions, into needless tragedies that destroy innocent lives.

I pray for the victims of this tragedy…the critically injured, the recovering, the families and friends of the slain…and I pray for myself, my children, and the society in which we live. May we wake up to the Light of truth, honor, virtue, purity, and grace before we experience another dark night.