SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/22/2013
10:26 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Intercession: Praying for God’s Mercy PT-3
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Daniel
9:5-15
Message of the
verses: We begin our third SD in
this second main section of Dr. Wiersbe’s outline on the ninth chapter of
Daniel, remembering that this is one of the great chapters in all of the Word
of God, for in it we see, not only one of the greatest prophecies in all of the
Word of God, but also one of the great prayers recorded in all of the Word of
God.
Confessing Sin (Daniel 9:5-15): “5 we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled,
even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. 6 “Moreover, we have not listened to Your
servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our
fathers and all the people of the land. 7 "Righteousness belongs to You, O
Lord, but to us
open shame, as it is this day-to the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem
and all Israel,
those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the countries to which
You have driven them, because of their unfaithful deeds which they have
committed against You. 8 “Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes and our
fathers, because we
have sinned against You. 9 “To the Lord our God belong compassion and
forgiveness, for we
have rebelled against Him; 10 nor have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk
in His teachings which He set before us through His servants the prophets. 11
"Indeed all Israel
has transgressed Your law and turned aside, not obeying Your voice; so the
curse has been poured out on us,
along with the oath which is written in the law of Moses the servant of God,
for we have sinned
against Him. 12 “Thus He has confirmed His words which He had spoken against us and against our rulers who ruled us, to bring on us great
calamity; for under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what
was done to Jerusalem. 13 "As it is written in the law of Moses, all this
calamity has come on us; yet we
have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our iniquity and
giving attention to Your truth. 14 "Therefore the LORD has kept the
calamity in store and brought it on us; for the
LORD our God is righteous with respect to all His deeds which He has done,
but we have not
obeyed His voice. 15 "And now, O Lord our God, who have brought Your
people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for
Yourself, as it is this day-we
have sinned, we
have been wicked.”
The first thing I want to write about this morning is the
highlighted words or the personal pronouns in the section above. I count ten times the word “we” is used in
these verses and six times the word “us” is used along with words like all and
our. The point that I want to make is
that Daniel is including himself in the calamity that has happened to
Israel. I have mentioned in earlier SD’s
from the book of Daniel that there does not seem to me any of Daniel’s sins
mentioned in the Word of God, similar to Joseph. This surely is not common in the OT, for many
of the sins of the saints are mentioned in the OT and Paul points out that
these sins that were mentioned are for the benefit of the saints in the NT so that
we will not commit them too. Now we want
to talk about why Daniel would include himself in the sins that caused Israel
to go into captivity. I truly believe
that Daniel knew that he was a sinner before God and I think that this is why
he includes himself. The Apostle Paul
wrote the book of Romans and in that book he lays the ground work to show that “All
have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” He does a masterful job in showing that there
is none righteous before the Lord as we all have sinned; we all have missed the
mark of perfection before the Lord. Only
Jesus lived a perfect life as a human being on this earth, and that is why He
was the only One to take all of our sins upon Him on the cross to pay for them,
and then die for our sins but that is not the end for after being buried for
three days God raised Him from the dead to show that He was satisfied for His
payment of our sins. In order to have
the great exchange that God offers us as explained in 2 Corinthians 5:21 “For
He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him.” Get
that? Jesus became sin for us, the One
who knew no sin or committed no sin, so that in the grace of God we receive His
righteousness so that we can stand in front of God in perfection and enter into
His heaven. Daniel knew this truth and
therefore he included himself help causing the problem Israel was in.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “God doesn’t have to wait for the
entire nation to repent and cry out for mercy; He will start to work when He
hears the believing prayers of one faithful intercessor.” Daniel surely was on faith intercessor.
We can also see from this prayer that God had been
greatly patient with the nation of Israel, His covenant people, but finally,
because of His Word had to send them into captivity, something Daniel realizes
as he prays the prayer to the Lord.
There was nothing that Daniel had to stand on as far as goodness for his
people, but only on the great mercy that God offers. “15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent
word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on
His people and on His dwelling place; 16 but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised
His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose
against His people, until there was no remedy (2 Chronicles 36:15-16).”
There was great consequence for the nations rebellion as
verse eight speaks of “Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes and our
fathers, because we
have sinned against You.” Israel became
a people who covered with shame, and the also became a scarred people. The movie “Fiddler on the Roof” speaks of
Israel being scattered, as the movie takes place in (I think) Russia, and shows
that the Jewish people were actually still being disciplined for what they did
to Jesus when He came to be their Messiah and they rejected Him. We will get to this part of the prophecy in
Daniel at a later date as Daniel actually for tells of this coming. Other consequences were having enemy soldiers
in their beloved city of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the temple. It is no wonder that they were ashamed of their
sinfulness.
In an earlier SD on Daniel nine we looked at a passage
from the book of Leviticus that spoke of what would happen if Israel sinned
like they did in order for God to take them out of their country. “Leviticus 26:40-45 “40 ’If they confess
their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness
which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility
against Me- 41 I also was acting with
hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies-or if
their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they then make amends for
their iniquity, 42 then I will remember
My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and My
covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. 43 ’For the land
will be abandoned by them, and will make up for its Sabbaths while it is made
desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making amends for their
iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My
statutes. 44 ’Yet in spite of this, when
they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so
abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the
LORD their God. 45 ’But I will remember
for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of
Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the
LORD.’" This tells exactly what
happened to Israel because of their sin.
Dr. Wiersbe writes:
“But there was something even worse than the sins that brought divine
punishment to Israel. It was the refusal
of the Jews to repent and confess their sins even after being taken captive! They spent their time praying for judgment
against Babylon (Ps. 137) rather than seeking God’s face and asking for His
forgiveness. God’s will for Israel in
captivity was outlined in Jeremiah 29, but the Jews didn’t always follow
it. Daniel’s approach was biblical: ‘For the Lord our God is righteous in
everything He does’ (Dan. 9:14), NIV).
Why would He bring His people out of Egypt and then allow them to waste
away in Babylon? Daniel knew that God
had purposes for Israel to fulfill, and so he reminded God of His past mercies
(vs. 15).” When we get into the
prophetic message of this chapter we will see some of those purposes.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: There are times
when God gives me tests and there are times when I am being disciplined for
sinful behavior. God tests but Satan
tempts, and that is good to remember. I
pray that the Holy Spirit will give me insight into when God is testing me and
when Satan is tempting me, and when I am being disciplined for sinful behavior,
so that I can confess it to the Lord.
Israel did not realize that they needed to confess their sins before the
Lord, and as Dr. Wiersbe says all they wanted was release from Babylon.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to see me through the physical
problems that I am facing at this time.
Memory verses for the
week: 1 John 5:13a, and Titus 3:5a.
These things I have written…that
you may know that you have eternal life.
Not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Barnabas” (Acts 13:4).”
Today’s Bible
Question: “What was the shortest of the
Pauline epistles?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/22/2013 11:50 AM
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