We are in the middle of our January Intensive looking at the book of Daniel. We’ve come tonight to Daniel chapter 9. So take your Bibles or your Daniel journaling booklets – which, it’s such a fantastic idea, isn’t it? We should try and make sure we have plenty of copies of every book that we study together in our bookstore for you going forward. I think that would be a real encouragement to many of us. Daniel chapter 9. If you’ll notice, the first verse tells us that the regime change predicted in the previous chapters has now taken place. Belshazzar, in whose court Daniel has been serving, Belshazzar has now seen the writing on the wall, Darius the Mede has now swept in, conquering Babylon, and replacing Belshazzar as king. Daniel is now an 80-something year old man, still serving in the royal court.
You will remember from chapter 6 verse 11 that it was Daniel’s consistent habit to pray three times a day toward Jerusalem. And here in chapter 9, we meet Daniel once again on his knees. That, I think, is worth noting before we go any further. Kings have come and gone; empires have risen and fallen and new empires have now taken their place. But while the circumstances have changed dramatically, all around Daniel the fundamental rhythms of his walk with God have remained steady and constant. His well-established prayer habits that we glimpsed in an earlier chapter in the court of Belshazzar, they are the same habits that he maintains now under Darius, because in the end, it is not the court of any earthly king that commands Daniel’s primary loyalty; it is, rather, the throne room of the court of heaven. What unfolds for us in chapter 9 then is a remarkable record of this man’s prayer, along with the divine answer in the form of another visitation by the angel, Gabriel, and a final and challenging and frankly much debated prophecy made by Gabriel in the concluding three verses. It’s a frustration of mine that this chapter, which has so much to teach us in the first twenty-three verses, is sort of dominated in the popular Christian mind by the interpretation of the last three verses. Although I will say, as a preacher, it’s a lot of fun studying the first chunk of it and then I rather feel like the train comes off the track in the last three verses so as we work through all of this, just great ready. Things are going to go along nicely and then they are going to get really tough right at the end, just while you are about to fall asleep! So I’m going to need a little extra push when we get closer to the end to give some attention to some very challenging verses at the end of the chapter.
So here’s the structure, that three-fold structure we can give the three headings to. Verses 1 through 19, a praying man. Then 20 through 23, a listening God. And 24 through 27, a coming King. A praying man, a listening God, and a coming King. Before we read the chapter – we won’t read it all because we have a lot to talk about tonight, I’ll try and summarize some of it in the interest of time; I trust you’ve had an opportunity to read it before you came – but let me pray and then we’ll read God’s Word.
Father, we cry out to You for Your help. Please send us the Holy Spirit. We have had a long day. We are in the middle of a busy week. There are many demands upon us. We feel the fatigue of weary bodies and tired minds, but we long to hear from You, and so give us the assistance of the Holy Spirit, ears to hear what You would say to the church that Jesus might be magnified and we might be edified. We ask it then in His name, amen.
Daniel chapter 9 at verse 1. This is God’s Word:
“In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans – in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.
Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, ‘O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.”
And then in verses 6 through 15, Daniel tells us first that the people of Israel have not listened to the warnings of the prophets about coming judgment upon them if they did not repent. And in particular, they had turned deaf ears to the covenant curses stipulated in the law of Moses that would befall the people of Israel if they wandered into idolatry and rebellion against God that would climax in exile. And that is the situation in which God’s people now found themselves in exile in Babylon. We pick up the reading again at the sixteenth verse. Here is the conclusion and the climax of Daniel’s pray:
“‘O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.’
While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, ‘O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.
Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.’”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy Word.
The 19th century southern Methodist preacher, E.M. Bounds once wrote that, “God’s Word is a record of prayer, of praying men, and their achievements, of the divine warrant of prayer and of the encouragement given to those who pray. No one can read the instances, commands, examples, multiform statements which concern themselves with prayer without realizing that the cause of God and the success of His work in this world is committed to prayer. That praying men have been God’s deputies on earth; that prayerless men have never been used of Him.” I think Daniel would have agreed with those sentiments entirely. “The cause of God and the success of His work in this world is committed to prayer. Praying men have been God’s deputies on earth.”
Daniel resolves to stand in the breach and to plead with God on behalf of his exiled people, and so notice here in the first place in verses 1 through 19 a praying man. Daniel is a praying man. Five things I want you to see about Daniel’s prayer here. Let me just list them and then we’ll take each in turn. Five features of Daniel’s prayer – response, reverence, repentance, reliance and requests. Response, reverence, repentance, reliance and requests.
Response, first of all. Daniel has been reading his Bible, hasn’t he? Verse 2, “in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.” Nebuchadnezzar had taken Daniel captive, do you remember, about 14 years of age, 68 years previous to this point, and Daniel, now in his eighties, has come across this promise from God made to the Babylonian exiles in Jeremiah 29:10-14. This is Jeremiah to the exiles, or God through Jeremiah:
“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”
These are the words that Daniel has discovered in his Bible study as he is working through the holy Scriptures, and he’s in Jeremiah and he stumbles upon these words. And they must have sent a thrill of electricity down Daniel’s spine. God was promising there was only about two years left on the clock before the exiles will get to go home. Jeeremiah indicated God would bring the exiles back to Judah, and more than that, there will be a spiritual awakening, a stirring of renewed spiritual fervor among the people of God. “They will seek Him and find Him when they seek Him with all their hearts.” Return and revival – that was the promise.
But as Daniel looked around Babylon under Darius the Mede and he scrutinized the spiritual temperature of his fellow exiled Jews, there really was no sign of the fulfillment of this promise coming to pass. He has the unconditional promise of God and he has the distinctly unpromising circumstances of life in Babylon – and now what is he going to do? Some of us might find the combination of the unconditional promise and the unpromising circumstances too potent a concoction to overcome. Too potent, a disincentive. After all, if God has promised to do it, He will do it, and my prayers, surely my prayers are irrelevant. And on the other hand, as I look at my situation, I just can’t see how these promises could ever be fulfilled, so why bother praying? I wonder if you’ve felt a bit like either or both of those from time to time? Isn’t it amazing how our wicked hearts can use almost the opposite sentiments to excuse our lack of prayer, to validate our prayerlessness? On the one hand, we can appeal to a sort of exaggerated confidence in the sovereignty of God. “He doesn’t need me to pray. He’ll do it when He’s good and ready.” And so we don’t pray. And then on the other hand, and sometimes at the very same time, we harbor deep, unacknowledged doubts that God is really able to do anything about our difficult situation, and so what’s the point of praying; it’s just wasted words, surely. Don’t we find in the unconditional promises and the unpromising circumstances lots of excuses for our perfunctory and half-hearted prayer lives?
But you’ll notice that Daniel has entirely the opposite reaction. Daniel looks at the spiritual condition of the Jewish people and it breaks his heart and he looks at the promises of God and it drives him to his knees. Crucially, the promise of God here does not render the place of prayer for Daniel irrelevant. In fact, the promise of God provides the foundation and the impetus, the driving engine of prayer in Daniel’s life. It enables Daniel, it should enable us, to pray with boldness in faith. This is the secret now of believing prayer – praying in faith. It’s not looking into yourself and seeing, “Do I have enough faith to really believe that God will do this thing despite all the circumstances?” No, no, no. The prayer of faith looks away from self to the promise of God and says, “God has said it. I trust Him. I believe His Word and I take my stand on His holy promises.” If you want to learn how to pray, let the promises of God direct you. That’s what Daniel does.
And so when God says, “After seventy years the exiles will come home,” Daniel takes that as a warrant to pray that God will do in fact what He says He would do. When the Scriptures promise that people from every tribe and language and nation will one day be brought to know the Lord Jesus and be gathered into His kingdom and be found around the throne of God and of the Lamb, worshiping and praising Him forever and ever, that is reason to plead with Him for the global spread of the Gospel and for the work of our missionaries all over the world. God has promised to make it so, and so press Him to keep His Word. That’s what Daniel is doing. When Paul says, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord,” there’s a promise that you can bring to Him when you are struggling and fearful and doubting. “Nothing, not my circumstances, not my sins will ever drive a wedge between me and my Savior. O God, help me to know it and believe it and feel it and live in its light.” When Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things that you need will be added to you also” there is a promise to plead. “O God, give me grace to put Your priorities first in my life and then keep Your Word to me about my daily bread and about all these things I need. You promised.” Plead the promises of God. Let the engine of your prayers be filled with the fuel of the promise of God. That is precisely what Daniel is doing. His prayers are a response, first of all, to the Word of God.
Then, notice his reverence as he goes about the business of prayer. Verse 3, David turned his “face to the Lord God, seeking him.” – that’s interesting. Pause there for a moment. Daniel is seeking pardon for sin. He is seeking the restoration of Israel’s fortunes and their return from exile and the renewal of worship and the rebuilding of the temple and the lifting of God’s judgment upon them. He is seeking all of those things, but more than that, back of all that, Daniel is seeking the Lord Himself. This is the ultimate purpose of all true prayer in the end. It’s not magic, you see. An attempt to perform ritual obeisance in order to leverage what you want from the hands of a reluctant deity. That’s not what prayer is. And prayer isn’t supremely about the stuff that we want. Prayer is about knowing God, meeting Him, having Him Himself.
And then notice the cries of his heart and of his lips are accompanied – do you see this in the text – by fasting, sackcloth and ashes. Sackcloth and ashes were the traditional Jewish symbols of mourning and of repentance and of heartbreak. Fasting in the Old Testament scriptures often accompanied both morning and urgent prayer. In the age in which we live today in the new covenant, sackcloth and ashes are no longer a part of the way believers are to express themselves. Jesus says in Matthew 6:16 and following, “When you fast, do not look gloomy. When you fast, anoint your head, wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others.” But importantly, did you hear how Jesus put it? Well He’s saying sackcloth and ashes and ritual mourning and an external show, that shouldn’t be a part of how we approach these things any longer. He’s still saying, “When you fast…” When, not if.
Disciple of Jesus, when last did you fast? Has it ever crossed your mind to fast? Fasting is in Jesus’ expectation an ordinary part of Christian discipleship, accompanying especially urgent heartfelt prayer. It’s a vivid way to express how deeply, desperately we are longing for God’s answer in this particular situation. More than our need for daily bread, we are crying to God to hear and answer our prayers. That’s what fasting is saying. When last did you fast as you prayed? Have you ever felt so exercised as you prayed? Have you ever felt so exercised about a matter for prayer, so burdened for the honor of God, so concerned about the salvation of men and women that obtaining the answer of heaven was more fundamental and necessary to the welfare of your soul than daily bread was to your body’s sustenance and maintenance? That’s what was happening in Daniel’s life as he thinks about the needs of God’s people. His heart is breaking to such an extent that more than words were necessary. His heart was longing for God more than his body longed for daily bread.
And then look carefully at his form of address as he begins to speak to his God. There is intimacy here, isn’t there? Familiarity. A certain confidence. A directness of appeal that tells us Daniel is not a stranger to prayer or to spiritual fellowship with his God. And yet there is no flippancy. There is holy awe mingled with adoring praise. You see that in verse 4? Look at verse 4. “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” I suspect that in many cases our prayer lives would be greatly enhanced by lingering longer than we typically do over the names and attributes, words and works of God, simply adoring Him and honoring Him before we rush on to ask Him for the stuff that we want from Him. We likely can measure how far we are really seeking God as Daniel says he was doing, and not just seeking His benefits, we can likely measure how far we are seeking God by how much we give ourselves to reverent adoration and praise whenever we turn to Him in private prayer. Make it a discipline when you start your regular devotions to begin with thoughtful, intentional, Scriptural praise.
Response. Reverence. Thirdly notice the bulk of the prayer is taken up with the work of repentance. In verses 4 and 5, Daniel faces squarely the fundamental issue. God keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His covenant, keep His commandments, but Israel has sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from Your commandments and rules. They’ve not listened to the warnings of the prophets, verse 6 and again in verse 10. Verses 11 through 14, Daniel acknowledges they even forgot the fundamental threatened discipline God said He would send against His wayward people in Leviticus 26:14-39 and Deuteronomy 28:15-68. God told them there would be an incrementally severe pattern of discipline and judgment as He labored to get through to them in their rebellion and bring them back, and it would reach its climax in exile. Their enemies would sweep in and take them away from the land. And now Daniel says, “God has kept His word, as He always does. God has been faithful to His promise; not now a promise of blessing but of real judgment because of their sin. Daniel is unflinching in identifying the sinfulness of his own sin and the sin of his people.
You’ll notice the contrast between God and the people in verse 7. “To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame.” Verse 8, “To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. 9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.” Repentance, I hope you can see this in the text, repentance is not just feeling bad; it’s not even saying “sorry.” That’s not repentance. Repentance isn’t just confessing your wrongdoing. Repentance requires a facing and an owning of the sinfulness of your sin as a sin against God Himself along with a wholehearted resolve to turn from it. Remember David’s words in Psalm 51:14, “Against You, You only have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight.” He has committed adultery, murdered Uriah the Hittite, but “Against You, You only have I sinned.” He’s not denying he has sinned against his people, against Bathsheba, against Uriah, but he understands that the sinfulness of his sin derives from the fact that it transgresses the law of God and is ultimately a contradiction of the very character and will of God.
Daniel faces all of that here in all its variegated ugliness. God’s people have heard and yet neglected the covenant curses threatened in the law. They have disregarded the warnings and the calls for repentance that God Himself had sent them in His mercy in the prophets. Like rebellious toddlers, they had stuck their fingers in their ears as God had called to them again and again and again saying, “La-la-la-la! Not listening! Not listening! I’m going my own way. I’m doing my own thing.” How like us they are. But God is faithful, verse 12. “He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us.” God always does what He says, including bringing threatened discipline. And that means, dear friends, that we dare not play chicken with Almighty God. You cannot dodge the discipline of heaven. Do not play chicken with God. You will lose. Own your sin and repent.
Response. Reverence. Repentance. Fourthly, reliance. Look at the beautiful language of verse 9. “To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him and have not obeyed His voice.” The ESV that we use here at First Presbyterian Church doesn’t actually translate it; it’s awkward in English. But the words “mercy” and “forgiveness” are plurals. Literally Daniel says, “To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses.” In other words, mercy and forgiveness are not a one and done deal. Praise God that that is so. His patience with us doesn’t run out. He never comes to us, you know, like Peter did coming to Jesus saying, “How many times do I have to keep forgiving these people? As many as seven times?” You remember what Jesus said to Peter. “Not seven times, but seventy-seven.” He wasn’t saying, “Okay, seventy-seven, on the seventy-eighth you can quit. No more forgiveness.” That’s not what He was saying. He was saying, “I want you to forgive until you can’t remember how many times you’ve done it. I want you to forgive and keep forgiving. I want forgiveness to be your mindset, the basic frame and orientation of your heart.” And Jesus calls us to that because that’s how God is toward us. In the Gospel of His grace, there are mercies and forgivenesses with our God.
And look again at verse 9. Don’t miss the logic of the verse. “With Him are mercies and forgivenesses, for” – there’s the logic word, the reasoning word. What would you expect to follow that word “for”? Daniel’s giving us a reason for God’s constant readiness to show mercy on top of mercy and forgiveness on top of forgiveness. Why does He do it? “For, that’s what He’s like,” we might say, and we’d be right about that. That’s not what Daniel says. Look at it. It’s stunning. “With Him are mercies and forgivenesses, for we have rebelled against Him and have not obeyed His voice.” God is so profoundly bound in covenant love to His wayward, recalcitrant people that He matches our daily rebellion with new morning mercies and our many refusals to obey with ever fresh forgivenesses. This is Daniel’s version of Paul’s great declaration in Romans 5:20, “Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more.” Beloved, the grace of God is more than a match for your sin.
Some of us fail to repent because we think God is slow to forgive. We think we’ve outlived our welcome in His presence. We worry that our sin puts us beyond His grace, so ashamed. But friends, let me say if that is how you think, the first thing you need to repent of is your miserly view of the mercies of God. Your patience with others may quickly run out, but His patience with you never fails. Your inability to forgive yourself might hold you every day in a prison of shame and guilt, but do not project your dysfunction onto God. With Him are mercies and forgivenesses. Whenever sinners turn to Him, they find mercy and forgiveness matching their need. So turn to Him. Turn to Him. Daniel’s turning to Him, not running from Him. He’s not hiding away. He’s running to God, pouring out his repentance to HIm because he knows, “with my God are mercies and forgivenesses. Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not harbor His anger forever. As far as the east is from the west, so far will He remove our transgressions from us.” Do not hold back a single moment longer, not a second longer. Run to Him. Pour out your heart, your guilty heart. Cry for mercy. He has forgivenesses of every shape and size, tailor made to fit your heart.
Daniel’s reliance on God’s grace reaches its high water mark in verse 18. Do you notice verse 18, how he puts it? “O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.” That’s the essence of a heart of true repentance, isn’t it? It cuts out all pretended righteousness of our own. It comes to God in the rags of our sin, with no boast, no excuse, no mitigating circumstances and no arguments at all but one – mercy. Mercy. You are a God of mercy. Be who You are for sinners like me. Give me mercy. “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling. Naked come to Thee for dress; helpless rest on Thee for grace. Foul, I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die!” That is the spirit and tone of Daniel’s prayer and this is the reliance on mercy that always procures the pardon of God. When last have you come to God like that? Have you ever come to God like that? He is calling you to come to Him and find that He is a God abounding with mercies and forgivenesses for you.
Response. Reverence. Repentance. Reliance. Finally, Daniel’s reasons – we’re still at point number one, by the way! Don’t get too excited! When the preacher says “finally,” you know he doesn’t mean it! Reasons. Number five, reasons. Daniel comes to God with arguments, doesn’t he? With persuasive, compelling reasons why God should forgive. Let me read them again in verses 16 through 19 and just see if you can pick out as I read the repeating emphasis of Daniel’s requests. Verse 16 through 19:
“O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”
Do you see Daniel’s argument? Why should God forgive His people and restore them to the land and rebuild and renew the temple and its worship? Why should He show mercy? “For Your own sake. The city called by Your name. Because of Your great mercy. Delay not for Your own sake, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name.” Here’s the compelling Gospel logic of Daniel’s prayer – God’s honor is on the line. God’s name is exposed to disrepute should He let His covenant people fall beyond recovery and fail to do what He has promised to do in His holy Word. Daniel reminds God, God is God. He reminds God that God is God and he pleads the character of God and the name of God and the reputation of God.
Brothers and sisters, we must learn to press God for His mercies and His many forgivenesses and to press as our principle argument that God’s name and honor and glory are on the line. He has, after all, promised. He sent His Son to procure the pardon that you need. He bled and died to give to all who come to Him mercy and forgiveness. And how will He therefore not give that forgiveness to us when we ask it? Will He allow His name to be so dishonored by letting His promises fail? You can plead and press the name, the honor of God. It is the guarantee of Your pardon and acceptance before Him. God will never accept you for your sake. You don’t come to Him pleading your name, your reputation. “Look what I’ve done! I’m hot stuff! Look at me!” He will never, He will never accept you for your sake, but He will never fail to accept you for His own sake. He’s given His Son for you and He will not fail to be faithful to His promise. So first of all, a praying man.
Now in the second place in verses 20 to 23, a listening God. A praying man, now a listening God. Daniel’s prayers are interrupted by the arrival of the angel, Gabriel. We met Gabriel in the previous chapter. Gabriel has come to bring Daniel understanding of God’s answer to his prayers. And do notice the timing of his arrival. In verse 20, Daniel says, “While I was still speaking and praying, Gabriel came to me.” Verse 23, Gabriel himself tells Daniel, “At the beginning of your pleas for mercy, a word went out and I have come to tell it to you.” The inference is that no sooner has Daniel begun to cry to God than God proclaimed the answer. It is a pagan idea of prayer that we have to somehow pester God into giving us what we want. Badgering Him and browbeating Him into action just to get us off His case finally. That’s a pagan approach to prayer.
Persistence in prayer is absolutely a Biblical duty, but do not think that the reason for the delay in an answer to your prayers coming indicates that God isn’t listening or that He has failed to provide an answer. No, no, remember Psalm 139 verse 4. “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.” Remember Jesus in Matthew 6 verse 8, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” God’s delays, His “Not yets,” even His “Nos,” they do not reveal a lack of care for you as you cry to Him. In fact, they reveal His care because they are aiming at your holiness, though not always at your happiness, your immediate happiness at least. They aim to teach us to walk by faith and not by sight. They aim to wean us from the world and make us long for the world that is to come. They aim to strengthen the muscle of faith, to keep us praying until the answer finally comes.
But there is encouragement here, especially for those of us who have prayed long and hard and the answer hasn’t come yet. There is encouragement here, isn’t there. At the beginning of Daniel’s pleas for mercy, “The word went out.” God heard him. God heard him although the answer didn’t come immediately. Do not let a delayed answer foster hard thoughts of God in your heart, making you think He won’t listen or that He isn’t interested in you. No, no, the divine “Not yet” or even sometimes the divine “No” has God’s good designs for your eternal welfare always in view, as mysterious and impenetrable to us as that sometimes can be. But whatever the delay, be sure that like Daniel, your cries are always heard in the court of heaven. Notice the wonderful comfort that comes to Daniel along with Gabriel’s expressed words to him about the reasons for the delay. He’s finally come to tell Daniel the answer, even though he’s been praying for some time, and he assures Daniel that “You are greatly loved.” Greatly loved. There may be a delay, but child of God, you are greatly loved. Do not misread the “Not yet” or the “No” of heaven for a failure of love. No, no, Psalm 56 verse 8, “You have kept count of my tossings and put my tears in Your bottle.” All of your cries are always heard in the court of heaven.
One more thing about this scene to notice before we move on. Verse 21, Daniel says Gabriel came to him while he was praying. Look at this language – “at the time of the evening sacrifice.” Now you will remember, every morning and evening in the temple there was a burnt offering made. There were sacrifices. The so-called evening sacrifice actually happened about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. That’s when Daniel was praying, when Gabriel showed up. It doesn’t seem like an especially significant detail at first glance. It would be very easy to skip right over it as you read through the chapter, just a mere marker of the time. Until you remember, that is, that the temple was burned down in 587 BC. There hasn’t been a single sacrifice offered on an alter to the Lord there for fifty years. Daniel himself was taken into exile when he was only about fourteen, and so it’s been more than sixty-five years since he’s even seen an evening sacrifice. “But for all those years,” as Ralph Davis beautifully puts it, “Daniel still tells time liturgically.”
There’s a word in Scots-Gaelic, which I will almost certainly butcher, so apologies to my Gaelic speaking father-in-law back home who will likely listen to this. It’s pronounced something like “————.” As I understand it, it has no direct English equivalent. It means something like “homesickness; a heart yearning for a place and a people.” There’s a joke about men from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Lewis is still a largely Gaelic-speaking community. The joke is that a man from Lewis would be homesick for heaven. He would be homesick in heaven, rather; not homesick for heaven. He would be homesick still in heaven, longing for Lewis. “—————” – the ache for home, for the way things used to be, for heritage and people.
That’s something like what Daniel is experiencing here, except his heart aches for the worship of God, for the means of grace, for the gathering of God’s people around the now-ruined altar in Jerusalem. Isn’t that striking? The dominant note in this whole section of the chapter focuses our attention on the listening God who hears Daniel’s prayers and answers him. But isn’t it worth noticing that the person God is listening to is someone who loves the ordinary means that God has ordained to allow him to draw near. Daniel aches and longs for them. He shapes his life around them. He even marks time by them. I think that challenges the all too common individualism of much contemporary evangelical piety that puts priority on our private individual devotional walk with God and tends to minimize the role and importance of the public worship of God and the means of grace He has ordained in the assembly of the saints on the Sabbath Day. But Biblical Christianity longs for the worship of God’s house. It understands that there is an intimate, organic connection between our own walk with God all the week long and the public means of grace – not now the morning and evening sacrifice in a temple – but the Word and the sacraments and prayer that God has appointed for our spiritual nourishment on the Lord’s Day.
So first of all, a praying man. Then secondly, a listening God. And now, here’s where I’m going to ask you to dig a little deeper, pull out that last remaining reserve of a little modicum of memory left in the drive there, and give me your attention for this last section because it’s challenging, as Daniel is told by Gabriel about the coming King. Daniel, remember, has been meditating on the seventy years of exile that Jeremiah predicted would soon come to an end, actually right on schedule they came to an end when King Cyrus decreed the return of the exiles to Judah. But now he is told, verses 24 through 27, now he is told he really ought to make the horizon of his longings much larger, reaching not just to the end of seventy years of exile but for seventy weeks, literally seventy sevens. Probably not even meaning 490 literal years but seventy sets of seven periods of an undisclosed duration.
At the end of this time of seventy sets of seven, three things will happen. Look at verse 24. First, our sin will be dealt with decisively. Negatively, God will finish the transgression, but an end to sin, and atone for iniquity. Positively, He will bring in everlasting righteousness. The final, decisive, once for all deliverance for the people of God from sin’s dominion and power would at last arrive. Complete and final atonement will be provided. A righteousness that will last forever will be given. Then secondly, the prophetic word will reach its climactic expression. This period, Daniel is told, will result in the sealing up both of vision and prophet. I take that word “to seal up” there to indicate the final completion and fulfillment of visions and prophetic ministries that had come before this point. And finally, it will be a time, Daniel is told, to anoint a most holy place.
All three of those things can only refer, of course, to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God’s once for all provision for sin was made, rendering obsolete forever the sacrifices and atonement rituals of the temple. He will be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In Jesus, all previous revelation will find its fulfillment in the past. “At different times and in different ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,” Hebrews 1:1 says, “but in these last days, He has spoken by His Son.” Jesus is the final Word. And in Jesus, a new most holy place has been anointed. The temple curtain, remember, was torn in two. The way into the holy of holies to meet with God has been provided and opened in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Sinners, any sinner may now draw near to God in Jesus. He is the true temple, the tabernacling of God in our midst, full of grace and truth.
Now remember, all of this is in answer to Daniel’s prayer, and it’s far beyond anything that he had been anticipating. Right? His horizon, as he was praying, reached only as far as a couple of years ahead, the end of the seventy years of Jeremiah’s predicted exile. But Gabriel comes to tell him of a new age of forgiveness and atonement and revelation and worship that Messiah Himself will usher in. If Daniel had been excited in verse 2 by his discovery in the book of Jeremiah, Gabriel’s revelation here must have knocked his socks off. You’ll notice verses 25 and 26 essentially give us the timeline for all of this to take place. “Here’s the schedule,” Gabriel was saying. “From the going out of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of the anointed one, a prince.” Now, alright, the ESV says, “There shall be seven weeks” and then it inserts a period. Do you see that? And starts verse 26 – “Then, for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again…” and so on. Everybody see that in the text? That gives us the impression that this anointed one – by the way, that word “anointed one” is the word “Messiah.” The anointed one, the Messiah, will come at the end of this first period of seven sets of seven. And then, there’s a quite distinct set of separate period of sixty-two sets of seven after which, verse 26 says, “The anointed one, the messiah, will be cut off.”
Now on that reading, it’s really difficult to see how these two anointed ones could be the same person given the time difference. But notice in the ESV there’s a footnote, footnote 5, marked there halfway through verse 25 which offers a different, I think superior reading that resolves the problem. It reads, “From the going out of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of the anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.” And then it starts a new sentence. “It,” the temple, “shall be built again,” and so on. In other words, the appearance of the anointed one, the Messiah, will occur at the end of this whole period of seven plus sixty-two weeks. That is, He will arrive in the final week of this whole seventy week timetable that Daniel is describing.
The first seven weeks likely refer to the period of the various decrees of Cyrus and Artaxerxes that allowed the exiles to return in waves under Ezra and Nehemiah to do the great work of rebuilding the temple and the city of Jerusalem. And then for sixty-two sets of seven, all will be relatively quiet in the land of promise. The temple will be restored, though Daniel says, “in troubling times.” But then at the end of that longer segment of time, “Messiah will be cut off and shall have nothing.” The word “cut off” is used of the death penalty in Leviticus 7:20. Isaiah 53:3, “The Messiah will be cut off from the land of the living.” Daniel’s talking about the cross. Gabriel is telling him about the cross. The cross is going to rob Messiah, the Lord Jesus, even of the garments from His back and He will cry out in dereliction and abandonment, “My God! My God! Why have You forsaken Me?”
The reference to “the people of the prince who is to come” almost certainly is a reference to the Roman army that will march in, and as verse 26 says, “they will destroy the temple and the city,” which took place in AD 70. They will sweep through Jerusalem like a flood, Gabriel says, and desolations will result. Now verse 27 is closely parallel to verse 26, so look at verse 26 again. You’ll notice the first half speaks about Messiah being cut off and the second half about the destruction of Jerusalem. And the same pattern reappears in verse 27. The first half speaks of Messiah making a strong covenant with many. You’ll do this for one week, that is, for the last period of the seven. This is the final, climactic week of the total seventy weeks. Daniel is talking about the new covenant in Christ’s blood that He will make with His people. The final week is the week in which we now live, the age of the new covenant. This is the seventieth week – the whole period between the first and final coming of Jesus Christ.
And verse 27 goes on to say, “For half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering.” That’s better translated, “in the midst of the week he shall put an end to sacrifices.” So as a consequence of His sufferings, having made a new covenant, having been cut off, a consequence will be that sacrifices and offerings in the temple will be rendered once and forever obsolete and ended. And soon, the temple itself will be destroyed when Titus Vespasianus and his legions march into the city, AD 70. This is the second part of the verse that speaks about those who, someone who comes and makes desolate. That’s Titus. And the desolation in view is the destruction of the temple in AD 70. Jesus talked about this in Matthew 24:15. When He did, He wasn’t talking about the future antiChrist who would set up a statue of himself in an imagined, rebuilt temple sometime in Jerusalem in years to come. That’s a complete misunderstanding of the Biblical data. He was speaking about the coming destruction of the city by the Romans, some forty years from the moment He was telling His disciples about it.
Now what are we to make of all of that? Why is that even important? Well remember that Daniel’s eyes were focused on the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s seventy years. He wanted to see Israel restored, he wanted the temple rebuilt, he wanted the worship of God renewed. That’s what he had been praying for and fasting and longing for. And God is going to fulfill those promises and answer those prayers, but God wanted Daniel’s eyes to be fixed on something grander and fuller and greater still. Fixed not on the temple with its symbols and its types and shadows that will pass away, but fixed on the reality to which they all pointed. He wanted Daniel’s eyes, just as He wants your eyes, to be fixed on Jesus Christ, His person and work, His death and resurrection, His glorious accomplishments. All the forgiveness for which Daniel has been praying depend, actually, on the coming and the cutting off of this anointed one who will bring all the need for temple sacrifices to its final conclusion by offering Himself once for all an atonement for sin.
There are many good and worthy things for which we are called to pray – the planting of churches, the conversion of our covenant children, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the preaching of the Word, the sanctification and preservation of God’s people, for the protection of Christian marriages, for courage to bear faithful witness in a hostile world. There are many, many urgent and important matters for which to pray, and pray and pray and pray for all of them. But God sends His angel to Daniel to lift his chin and to look a little higher still, a little further beyond those nearer needs to the greatest need of his heart and our hearts. Gabriel came to fix Daniel’s eyes on Messiah Jesus, and that’s where we are to look also.
There are some schools of Christian interpretation who get very hung up on these seventy weeks. They think that they map for us the very end of the world. Now look, I might be wrong in my interpretation; I don’t think I am, but I might be. They might be right; I don’t think they are, but they might be. But I have found it a rule that it is never safe to trust an interpretation of holy Scripture that does not do what Gabriel does with Daniel here and cause us to fix our attention on Christ, on His cross, on His covenant, on His promises. If the result of an interpretation of Scripture is to have you glued to your newsfeed rather than to the Gospel of grace, you’ve got it wrong. Ask yourself then, as the week grinds on, “What are you most longing for?” Is it the resolution to a family crisis? Is it a promotion at work? Is it material provision amidst financial difficulty? Is it rest amidst all your weariness? Healing from all your sickness? None of those are bad or wrong or inappropriate. Pray for them. Pray for them. God is merciful and glad to give them; very often He is. But what do you want most? Most? Daniel 9 is meant to teach us that Jesus is the pearl of great price. Long for Him. Look for Him. Fix your eyes on Him. Ask God to give you a desire to know Him and trust Him and serve Him and follow Him and listen to Him and be thrilled by His glory and goodness and grace. Pray to know Him better.
So may the Lord make us a praying people, may we find Him to be our listening God, and may we all fill our eyes with the King who has come, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s pray together.
Father, Thank You, thank You for giving us patience and endurance through a challenging passage. Please, please O God, rivet our gaze not on ourselves, not even finally on our circumstances, though we are to pray through the challenges that in Your providence You have ordained for us, but O, train our gaze longest on Christ. Give us, as a church, and give to each of us a longing for Him to know Him, to trust Him, to serve Him, to please Him, to rest on His promises and on His finished work. Lift our chins to look beyond these nearer needs of ours to the deepest need of our souls and to the only one who can meet them, the Lord Jesus Christ. Give us Him, please, for we ask it that He might be glorified. And so we ask it in His name, amen.