No 11

(Daniel 9: 3 to 19)

Daniel, the statesman is one of the most powerful examples in the Bible of a person whose total dependency was of God. His prophecies are the most far-reaching in the entire Bible; we saw them in several studies: #’s 30, 35, 38, 48, and 49. Ezekiel, his contemporary used his name 3 times in his book and Jesus Himself used him as a reference in the Gospels of Matthew and Marc. So someone with such credentials must have a strong prayer life otherwise he would not have been used of God so much.

As it turns out, Daniel penned the strongest intercessory prayer in the entire Bible in the above mentioned verses in his book. Nothing bad is said about Daniel anywhere in Scripture and yet, he counts himself among his people when he confesses all the sins of the nation. “And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:” (Daniel 9:3); he was very serious about this prayer, as the text indicates. Beginning in verse 5, we count the words we, us or our no less than 37 times as Daniel pleads God in favour of his people, Israel. In verse 19, we see the object of his prayer “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God:” Basically, all Daniel wanted was that God hear, forgive and do what He promised to His people. What was this promise?

That they would return to the land of Israel and once again become His cherished people; as we know, He kept His promise.