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How to Pray for Our Nation - Part 2 of 2

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• All right, let's open our Bibles again to the book of Daniel chapter 9, and we'll just begin by reading the first four verses. I'll take a few moments in review, and then we'll head from there and try to finish this message that we started last week. So this is the second part on how to pray for our nation. So look in Daniel 9, verse 1. "In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem."

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• "And I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication with fasting in sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession and said to the Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep his commandments."

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• Now, I pointed out last week that we must be taught how to pray. And I even stated the fact that there might be particular petitions and particular supplications in which we must be taught to pray as well. So I could ask you several questions. Have you ever been taught to pray for our nation? Have you ever been taught to pray for revival? Have you ever been taught to pray for divine justice? Have you ever been taught to pray the imprecatory prayers as they are revealed in the Scripture? And certainly there is a place for those imprecatory prayers. In fact, you will find them all in the book of Psalms as well as in the New Testament and other passages as well. So last week I pointed out two very important points.

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• The first one, if you will remember, was the foundation of Daniel's prayer. Now I pointed out how the foundation of his prayer indeed was the Word of God, because he was quoting from Jeremiah, and he was also quoting from Moses as well. And so the point was our prayers must be founded and grounded upon the Word of God, which is of course the Word of Truth. And the Scripture is called the Word of Truth in 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 7, Ephesians 1 and verse 13, and in 2 Timothy 2 and verse 15, and in James 1:18. So everything has to be grounded and founded upon the Scripture. Now, I want you to hold Daniel 9, but if you will turn in your Bibles to the book of 1 John chapter 5, I want you to look particularly at verses 14 and 15. 1 John chapter 5, verses 14 and 15. Look at what the Scripture says.

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• "And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." So here's a good question. Since the Scripture says this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He hears us, we know that we have the petitions that we desire of Him. So here's the question, how do we know the will of God? And the answer is, the will of God is revealed in the Word of God. I hope you remember that passage, Deuteronomy 29:29, where He said, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things which He has revealed belong to us and our children, that we may do them." So He is telling us very plainly that if we ask anything according to His will, and we know that will is revealed in His Word, then we know that God hears us.

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• And if we know that He hears us, we know that we have those petitions that we've desired of Him. So it's very important that we ground and found our prayers in the Word of God. The second thing I pointed out last week was the fervor of Daniel's prayer. Daniel was sincere. He was genuine. He was devout and he was eager for the will of God to be accomplished in his people and in his nation. Daniel was not praying some cold, indifferent, dusty prayer. No, his soul was on fire and he eagerly desired to see the end of the captivity of his people and also the restoration of the nation that God would go on to bring. And he also demonstrated his genuine desire through fasting as well as sackcloth and ashes. We could say humiliation. So his humiliation then was evidenced by putting on of sackcloth and ashes. And of course, his fasting did indeed refer to the fact that he was eager for the word of God. And he was eager in the sense that his prayers were intensified by his hunger.

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• And every time he felt a hunger pain, it would make him cry out even more for God. And I pointed out that there were three types of fasting in the Bible. There's the absolute fast, which means you do without water and food, but no more than three days without water. Then there's the normal fast where you drink water and you do without food, which can go up to 40 days. And then, of course, there is a partial fast, which Daniel did, where he said, "I ate no pleasant food or dainties. My meal," he said, "was pulse and water." So he ate peas and drank water. That was called a partial fast. So those three types of fasting there.

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• Now, everything about his prayer demonstrated his humiliation, demonstrated his brokenness and his contriteness. So let me give you two passages. The first one is this, Psalm 51, verses 16 and 17. We don't necessarily have to put on sackcloth and ashes, but we do have to have a broken and contrite heart. So in Psalm 51, in verse 16, David said, "For thou desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." So God is going to listen to and God is going to receive a broken and contrite heart. That is what the sackcloth and ashes represented. And the second verse is found in Isaiah 57 and verse 15. "For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the heart of the contrite ones and revive the heart of the humble." So one thing that God requires of

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• us is that we do indeed have a broken and contrite heart. Now what is going to give us humility is when we remember who God is and we remember who we are. First of all, God is the Father and we are His children. God is the Creator and we are the creatures. God is the Lord, the Master, the Sovereign, and we are the sinners. We are the servants. So as children, we may come to our Father asking. As creatures, we may come to our Creator seeking. And as sinners, we come to Him begging in humiliation, in contriteness, and in brokenness as well. So today, I want to come to the third main point, and that is the fullness of Daniel's prayer. So when you analyze Daniel's prayer, you may not only see its fullness, but also the depth of its spirituality.

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• So let me tell you something about confessions. First of all, Daniel said in verse 4, he made his confession. Confessions are not always cast in negative terms. There are positive aspects to confessions as well, and you're going to see in Daniel's prayer a positive in his confession as well as a negative. So if you look in Daniel 9 verse 4, here is the positive. He said, "And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep his commandments." That's the positive. Now here's the negative. "We have sinned and have committed iniquity and done wickedly and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments." So the positive then relates to God's faithfulness and the negative refers then to the sins of the people. Now, Daniel said, "I made my confession." The Hebrew word for confession is the word Yadah.

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• It not only means to confess, it also means to laud and to praise. So when one is confessing positively, that is acknowledging God's righteousness and holiness and faithfulness and goodness, at the same time, we are lauding and praising Him. We're giving Him honor and glory as well. Negatively, when we make our confession, that is when we are acknowledging our sins, the sins of others, the sins of our rulers, the sins of our people as well.

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• And these should be characterized by humility and godly sorrow. I mentioned this before but I'm going to mention it again in light of the word confession. When you get to the Greek New Testament, the Greek word for confess is homologeo. You'll find that in 1 John 1:9, which most every Christian can quote, where the Word of God said, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So the word confess, homologeo, is made up of two Greek words, homo, which means one and the same, and lego, which means I say.

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• So the point I want to emphasize right here is this. Confession of our sins is not just simply mouthing our sins. It's not just simply saying, "Well, I stole from Brother Ron. Lord, please forgive me. Maybe I can get something from Steve next week, too." No, no, no. A lot of people are eager to confess their sins, but all they do is mouth them. All they do is enunciate them. When you think of the word confess, it's homologeo. It literally means that you say the same exact thing that God says about your sins. It means that you take God's attitude, that you see things the way God sees things. So if I did steal 50 bucks from Brother Ron, and that means this, if I really genuinely confess that sin, I would also repent of that sin because I now see that sin as God does, as wicked, wrong, vile, hateful, and a violation of His law. So that means if I agree with God, I not only confess to Him, I go back to Brother Ron and I ask his forgiveness and I return his 50 plus the ratio that God demands, depending on how I stole it and what I did to get it.

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• Because in the Bible, there is a restitution demanded either twofold, fourfold, fivefold, or even sevenfold in some instances. So, no one ever really confesses their sins until they take the same attitude that God takes concerning those sins. So, I want you to note that Daniel does exactly this in this chapter. So, if you look in Daniel chapter 9 and verse 8, he does this concerning himself, his people, the rulers, their princes, and their kings. Notice Daniel 9 in verse 8. He says, "O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee." Now, if you will notice verse 8, "O Lord, to us," and then he says, "to our kings, our princes, our fathers, because we have sinned against thee." Now look in verse 20. Daniel chapter 9 again, he says, "O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive"—that's verse 19—"O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake. O my God, for thy city and thy people are called by thy name." And while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin—now look—"and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain my God."

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• So he said, "I was confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel." Now Daniel is making his confession and I told you I want you to see the fullness of this confession. So there's actually three parts to the fullness of this confession. The first one I want you to see is covenantal faithfulness. Covenantal faithfulness. So covenants are an agreement usually between a minimum of two individuals, and sometimes many, many more. When we think about covenants, we can automatically think of the Adamic covenant, the Noahic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and I hope we can also think of the covenant of grace, or the everlasting covenant. But when Daniel is speaking of the covenant here, he's talking about the Sinaitic covenant particularly, that covenant that the children of Israel entered into with God at Mount Sinai.

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• Now, God gave to them His law, His ordinances, His judgments. Look in your Bibles, if you would. Hold Daniel chapter 9, but look in your Bibles to the book of Exodus chapter 24. Look if you would please at verse 3. Exodus chapter 24 and verse 3. "And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments, and all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words which the Lord has said will we do." Now skip down to verse 7. "And he took the book of the covenant and read it in the audience of the people. And they said, All that the Lord has said, will we do and be obedient." So notice, if you would, the people now have agreed to obey God's law.

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• Now, someone is going to say, "Well, that's in the Old Testament." Well, let me tell you this. The word covenant and the word testament are interchangeable. You talk about the Old Testament or the Old Covenant, then you also talk about the New Testament or the New Covenant. So it doesn't matter really which covenant you're talking about. You have to ask this question. Who was it that was faithful in all of the covenants?

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• And the answer is God Himself. And so Daniel in Daniel chapter 9 is confessing the covenantal faithfulness of God first and foremost. So if you look back at verse 4 of Daniel 9, he said, "And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep his commandments." Now, if you'll skip down to verse 12, notice this again.

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• "And he hath confirmed his words which he spake against us and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil, for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come upon us. Yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth. Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all of his works which he doeth, for we obeyed not his voice." So we're talking about the faithfulness of God, covenantal faithfulness. Arthur W. Pink made this remark concerning the faithfulness of God, and he was speaking on Psalm 36 in verse 5. Here's what he said. "What a word is Psalm 36 verse 5. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens and thy faithfulness unto the clouds. Far above all finite comprehension is the unchanging faithfulness of God."

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• Everything about God is great, vast, and incomparable. He never forgets, never fails, never falters, and never forfeits his word. To every declaration of promise or prophecy, the Lord has exactly adhered. Every engagement of covenant or threatening, he will make good. For God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. Hath he not said, or hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

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• Numbers 23 in verse 19. And so the Bible does emphasize the faithfulness of God. God is indeed the faithful God. One of the verses that I memorized years ago was Deuteronomy chapter 7 in verse 9. Where the Bible says, "Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations." But note the Bible said, "He is the faithful God." I like 1 Corinthians chapter 1 in verse 9, where he said, "God is faithful."

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• "who has called you into the fellowship of his dear Son." God is faithful, who has called you into the fellowship. And then you get into 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 24. The Bible says, "Faithful is he who calleth you, who also will do it." Now, I have to tell you about 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 and verse 3. "But the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you and keep you from evil." Notice if you would, "the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you and shall keep you from evil." Have you ever really prayed and asked the Lord to keep you from evil? Wow, we pray "deliver us from evil" in the Lord's Prayer. But you know, there was a man in the Old Testament. I think you'll find it in either 1 Chronicles 4 or 2 Chronicles 4, but his name was Jabez. And the Bible says, "But Jabez was more honorable than all of his brethren, and he prayed, 'Lord, I pray that thou would bless me indeed, that thy hand would be upon me, that thou

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• wouldst enlarge my coast and that thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it might not grieve me.'" And the next verse says, "And the Lord granted him his request." So we can ask the Lord to keep us from evil that it might not grieve us. But I would suggest this then, we also pray and ask the Lord to keep us from evil that we might not grieve Him. Wow. In 2 Timothy chapter 2 in verse 13, the Bible said, "If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful. He cannot deny himself." Now there's a verse that I want to call your attention to, and it practically illustrates the faithfulness of God. So that's Philippians chapter 1 in verse 6. Now I want you to listen to it and think about this with me.

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• "Being confident of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you will also perform it on the day of Jesus Christ." Being confident of this very thing. Wow. Wait a minute, being confident in this very thing. What are we confident about? Well, that we're going to reach heaven. We're going to reach the presence of God the Father. Being confident in this very thing, that He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. In other words, once God has begun a work in us, He's not going to drop us. He's not going to let us fall by the wayside. He is going to continue that work until the Lord Jesus Christ returns and we will be His. Being confident. Why are we confident? Because of the faithfulness of God. We're confident that God's going to finish the work which He began in us. Wow. That brings me to another passage, Lamentations 3:22 and 23, which I've quoted many, many times. What does the Bible say in that passage?

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• It says, "It is the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed, because His compassions, they fail not. They're new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness." And I do love that hymn. "Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see." He goes on to say, "All that I've needed, thy hand hath provided." When you stop and think about how God gives us life, how God gives us breath, how God gives us food, how God gives us ability, how God gives us the opportunities to work, everything we have comes from God. Now, God is faithful. Now, listen to me. He's not only faithful in His promises. He's also faithful in His punishments. So if you look in Daniel chapter 9, Daniel chapter 9 in verses 13 and 14. Look what he says. "As it is written in the law of Moses"—ha ha, just like God said—"all this evil has come upon us. Yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth. Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil and brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth, for we obeyed not his voice."

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• I hope you remember that chapter in the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 28, where you have the blessings and the curses. Verses 1 through 14 happen to be the blessings, and 15 through the end of that chapter happens to deal with the curses. And of course, in the first part of that chapter, God says, if we obey Him, all of these blessings will overtake us and come upon us. So as long as we're obeying God, here's what He's saying. My blessings will chase you down, knock you down and fall all over you. You can't outrun them. Okay. When you get to the curses, it's just the same thing. If you do not obey, all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. In other words, these curses will knock you down, chase you down, knock you down, fall all over you, and you can't stop them. Now with that in mind and what we just read in Daniel 9, I want you to look in your Bibles to the book of Zechariah, which happens to be the next to the last book in the Old Testament right before Malachi. You have Zechariah and I want you to look in Zechariah chapter

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• 1 if you would please. Zechariah chapter 1 and I want you to note what is said beginning there with verse 2. Zechariah chapter 1 beginning there with verse 2 and we'll read through verse 6. Here's the Scripture. "The Lord had been sore displeased with your fathers. Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Turn you unto me, saith the Lord of Hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord of Hosts." The Lord says, if you repent, become obedient, God said, I will return to you in blessing, but you have to repent. Now look at what he said in verse 4. "Be not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Turn you now from your evil ways and from your evil doings. But they did not hear nor hearken unto me, saith the Lord. Then he asked, Your fathers, where are they? The prophets, do they live forever?" Now look in verse 6. "But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers?"

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• "And they returned and said, Like as the Lord of Hosts thought to do unto us according to our ways and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us." In other words, you cannot outrun the promises of God. You can't outrun the punishments of God either. You see, the child of God will also have to confess in his chastisement the same thing that David confessed in Psalm 119 in verse 75. He said, "I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in thy faithfulness hast afflicted me." He said, "In your faithfulness, you chastised me. In your faithfulness, you whipped me when I needed a whipping." So God then is faithful to His covenant.

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• He's going to bless those that obey Him, and He's going to curse those who disobey Him. You cannot have blessings with disobedience. The only thing that comes with disobedience is curses. So now we see covenantal faithfulness in this confession, and the covenantal faithfulness is on the part of God. Here's the second thing that you've got to see in Daniel's confession, and that is Daniel confessed covenantal failure. The failure, of course, was on the part of the people. So if you look in Daniel 9 and verse 5 again, he makes this clear. But I want you to pay close attention to this verse because look what he said. "We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments." Now I want you to see everything that he says happens when you depart from God's precepts. What's he say? We have sinned. We've committed iniquity, we've done wickedly, we've rebelled. All of those things are included when we depart from God's precepts. So how many times have we as individuals departed from God's precepts?

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• How many times have we as families departed from God's precepts? How many times have we as a church departed from God's precepts? How many times have we as a society departed from God's precepts? How many times have we as a nation departed from God's precepts? If you want a pretty good idea of that last question, just take a gander at Washington, D.C. Also look at our state capitals as well and see how we have turned as a nation and as a state from the precepts and the principles laid down from our founding fathers. This used to be a Christian nation. Now, a Christian nation does not mean that every individual in that nation is a Christian. All the phrase a Christian nation means is that it is run by Christian and biblical principles and precepts. We no longer have those principles and precepts.

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• What we have done today is the same thing that Israel did in the Old Testament. We have departed from God's precepts. We've departed from His principles and we've transgressed and we've committed iniquity and we've sinned and we have rebelled and the failure is on our part. So if you look in Daniel 9 and verses 7 and 8, look at this. He says, "O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day, to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to all Israel that are near and that are far off through all the countries where thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they've trespassed against thee." Now look in verse 8. "O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee." So I want you to note now in this passage before us, Daniel once again is confessing God's righteousness and God's faithfulness. There is no failure on His part. The failure is on the part of the kings, the princes and the people.

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• We have transgressed God's law. We have trespassed. So he says, "To us belongs confusion of faces," or confusion of face. May I ask you, what is confusion of face? I could say, "Well, look at Steve. His face looks confused. He doesn't know which way to go." Well, that's not what we're talking about. The Hebrew word for confusion is the word Bosheth, which means shame. You've seen someone who is ashamed. We call it shamefaced. Drops his head. Refuses to look around because he's been caught in his sin and he is shamed. I want you to listen carefully. Confusion of face also means more than just being shamed, because it is also translated in our Bibles as a shameful thing. Well, what in the world is a shameful thing? If you'll hold Daniel 9 but turn back in your Bibles to the book of Jeremiah chapter 11 and look if you would please at verse 13. This is a very important truth. Jeremiah chapter 11 and look if you would please at verse 13. Look at what the Bible says. "For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods."

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• O Judah, they were idolaters. "And according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem, have ye set up altars to that shameful thing"—that Bosheth—"even altars to burn incense to Baal." In other words, the shameful thing would be Baal. The shameful thing would be an idolatrous altar. Mmm. Wow. So they were shamed. They had confusion of face because they were an idolatrous people.

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• Now, listen to me very carefully. What we fail to understand is this. When we depart from the principles of God, when we depart from the precepts of God, we always descend into idolatry. You say, "Well, I'm not going after another god. I'm not going after some strange—I don't know." No. No, you don't have to. Whenever you depart from the precepts and the principles of the Word of God, what you're doing in essence is this: you're dethroning God and enthroning yourself. You're saying to God, "I don't want your law. I don't want your precepts. I don't want your principles. I want my lust. I want my desires. I want what I will. I want my way." And when you reject God's law, when you reject God's principles and God's precepts, it's so that you might establish your own. So whenever you depart from God's precepts and God's principles, you are in idolatry. This is why. And Daniel is confessing covenantal failures. We have failed. We departed. We are guilty. Now, there's a third thing I want you to see, and that is covenantal faults.

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• Not only covenantal faithfulness, covenantal failures, but now covenantal faults. And let me tell you how I'm using the word fault. I could look at Steve and say, "It's your fault." Steve could look at Ron and say, "It's your fault." Ron could look at Don and say, "It's your fault." When we use the term like that, what we're saying is this. Steve is responsible. Ron is responsible. Don is. We're all responsible. If it's someone's fault, it means they are responsible. So in Daniel chapter 9 while he's making this confession, he is saying everything that has happened to us is our fault. We brought this censure, we brought this judgment upon ourselves. We have failed. We have sinned. We stand condemned. Now here is another instance of where we can see the difference between the faithfulness of God and the faithlessness of men. Do you know what God does? God, in His faithfulness, always warns His sinning, errant people. He's faithful to His covenant. I want you to look in your Bibles, hold Daniel 9, but go back if you would please to 2 Chronicles chapter 24. 2 Chronicles chapter 24 and let's look there at verse 19. 2 Chronicles 24 verse 19. Look at this. 2 Chronicles 24 verse 19. Here it is. In fact, He says very clearly,

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• "Yet he sent prophets to them to bring them again into the Lord, and they testified against them, but they would not give ear." They would not listen. Wow. Look, if you would, to 2 Chronicles chapter 36. 2 Chronicles 36 beginning there with verse 15. "The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up a time and sending, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place." So when God is going to have compassion upon a people, He always sends preachers. He always sends His messengers. But look what happens. Verse 16. "But they"—that is the people—"mocked the messengers of God"—note if you would please that messengers is plural. There was more than one. "But they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words"—and his is singular, which refers to God's words because all the messengers were doing were bringing God's words. "So they mocked the messengers of God and despised God's words and misused his prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against them, till there was no remedy." So God then in His compassion sends His men, His

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• messengers to warn the people. Stop doing this. Don't go this direction.

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• Now, if you will turn right over to the book of Jeremiah, I want you to look in Jeremiah chapter 7 to begin with. Jeremiah chapter 7. And notice, if you would, how plainly this truth is enunciated. Jeremiah chapter 7. And let's begin reading there with verse 22. Jeremiah 7 verse 22. God says, "For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, concerning their offerings or sacrifices. But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people, and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you."

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• "They hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward. Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day, I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising early and sending them. Yet they hearkened not to me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck, and did worse than their fathers." Faithfulness. God sent these messengers. If you would turn right over to Jeremiah chapter 35. Then we're going back to Daniel 9, but look in Jeremiah chapter 35. Notice if you would please verse 15. Notice if you would verse 15. Jeremiah 35. God says, "I've sent also unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Return you now every man from his evil way and amend your doings and go not after other gods to serve them, and you shall dwell in the land which I've given to you and your fathers. But you have not inclined your ear nor hearkened unto

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• me." So they would not listen. Now with these verses in mind, go back to Daniel 9 and this time I want you to look at verses 5 and 6. Look at this. Daniel 9 verses 5 and 6. Daniel says, "We have sinned and have committed iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments. Here it is. Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. We would not listen. We would not hear." Now I want to remind you of something. I would encourage you when you get home to read Amos chapter 4. And when you read Amos chapter 4 you're going to find all the things that God sent upon these people to bring them back to Himself, but they still would not listen. They wouldn't listen to the prophets. They wouldn't listen to the preachers and they certainly would not listen to His judgment. He said in Amos chapter 4,

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• "I sent famine, yet ye've not returned unto me, saith the Lord. I sent drought, yet ye've not returned unto me, saith the Lord. I sent pestilence, yet ye've not returned unto me, saith the Lord. I sent war, yet ye've not returned unto me, saith the Lord." Hmm. He said, "I've been destroyed some of you as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, yet ye've not returned to me, saith the Lord." And then he says this, "Because you will not hear, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel." The Lord God not only sent prophets and preachers, He sent His chastisements. He sent His judgments. Judgment after judgment was afflicted upon Israel, yet they would not hear. I hope you're beginning to understand that we are stubborn and rebellious and hard-headed people. Wow.

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• In other words, there's not much difference between us today and these people in Daniel's time, Jeremiah's time, Moses' time. We just refuse to listen. So here's my question. In light of Daniel's confession, how do we pray for our nation today? Well, I'm going to give you four truths. Very simple. How do we pray for our nation today? First of all, we must confess the absolute righteousness and faithfulness of God. Whatever we get into, God is faithful, God is just, God is righteous. We have to confess the absolute faithfulness and righteousness of God. Secondly, we must confess and acknowledge our own personal sins, trespasses, and transgressions. It would do me no good to try to confess Steve's sins if I'm not willing to confess my own sins. So we must confess our own sins. Thirdly, we must also confess and recognize that we do not deserve the least of God's mercies. Think about that.

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• Look at the nations in history that have bitten the dust. Where did Assyria go? Babylonian Empire. Roman Empire. Look at all the nations that have gone down the drain. We have to confess that we violated God's law and we do not deserve the least of His mercies. Fourthly, we must throw ourselves upon the love, mercy and grace of God and beg for His forgiveness. We must throw ourselves upon the great love, mercy and grace of God and beg for His forgiveness. I want you to see this in Daniel chapter 9 and let's begin reading there verse 16. I want you to watch this. Follow me very closely. Look what Daniel confesses.

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• "O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city, Jerusalem, thy holy mountain, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and all thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us." In other words, it's our fault. We accept responsibility.

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• Now look in verse 17. "Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant and his supplication, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate." Look at this phrase, "for the Lord's sake." Hmm. Now look at verse 18. "O my God, incline thine ear and hear; open thine eyes and behold our desolations and the city which is called by thy name. For we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousness, but for thy great mercies. O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake. O my God, for thy city and for thy people are called by thy name." Now, I want you to note. He says, "It's not because of our needs. It's not because of our distress." Yes, we are needy people. Yes, we are distressed. It's not because of our suffering. No, no, no. No, he said, "O Lord, hear us for thy name's sake. For thy great name's sake, Lord, do this for thine own sake." Here the questions that have to be asked and they're very, very simple questions. Do we wish to be delivered from our distresses and our sufferings as a nation, or

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• do we wish to be delivered for God's honor and God's glory? It's true we are in need. It's true we're in distress. It's true we're suffering. But that is not the basis. Do we really want to see this nation changed for God's honor and glory? For the fullness of His kingdom? Now Ron is a few years older than I am, not much, but I'll guarantee he can testify the same thing I can testify, and that is this. This nation has changed immensely since I was a boy. And if I'd known any better when I was a boy and could think about it, it would have probably changed immensely from 100 years previous to that.

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• All I'm trying to say is this. Do we wish to be delivered because of the problems that we're facing? Or do we wish to be delivered for God's honor and God's glory? Are we just trying to get out of distress and suffering? Are we really genuinely wanting God to be honored and glorified? Daniel made his confession and he said, "We don't deserve to be delivered." That's what he said. And "Lord, don't hear this for my righteousness' sake or our righteousness. We don't have any. Just hear it for your own sake. Do this for your great name's sake. Not for us." So, let me try to make some applications. I want you to think with me. First of all, Daniel's supplications were based upon the mercy, the grace, the righteousness and forgiveness of God. It was not that the people needed those things—they did need those things. It was not just that they were suffering—they were suffering. It's not just that they were distressed—they were in distress. But he says, "We don't have any righteousness and we don't have any merit.

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• We don't have any standing before you." And you know something? Even as saved believers, we still have no standing in and of ourselves. Our standing is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Which means when we come to God in prayer, we don't come to God trying to make bargains with Him. We come to Him based upon the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because our standing is in Him.

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• And so we have to learn to pray like Daniel. We have nothing and we don't. Everything we have is in Jesus Christ. The second thing is this. We must learn to confess and agree with God concerning our sins and our wickedness. We must try to develop the same attitude that God develops concerning our sin. Our flesh loves sin. But once you come to God's realization that He says in Jeremiah chapter 44 in verse 4—I want you to listen what He said—"Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending, and saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing, which I hate." God hates sin. If we can ever get to the point where we hate sin, we will be to the point where we really genuinely love God. Because let me tell you something, you can't really love God without hating everything that's contrary to Him. So it is true confession, which is a true agreement with God, that we learn to hate sin, we learn to hate our sin, we learn to hate the sin of others, we learn to hate the sin of our rulers.

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• We learn to hate the sins of our nation. It's only in agreement with Him that we learn to hate sin, which is opposed to God. It's impossible to love Him without hating all that is contrary to Him. Listen, if you would. Psalm 97 in verse 10. "Ye that love the Lord hate evil." Ye that love the Lord hate evil. If you love the Lord, you will hate evil. How about this one? Proverbs 8 in verse 13. "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogancy and the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate," says the Lord. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. And when you get to Amos 5 in verse 15, God says, "Hate the evil and love the good." You can't love the good without hating the evil.

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• Now, here's the whole point. If we're going to pray for our nation, there has to be a starting point. If you don't start, you're never going to finish. What's that old Chinese proverb? The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. And that is true. So you have to determine in your mind and in your heart that you're willing and you're going to confess your sins, the sins of our rulers as well as sins of our nation. And we're going to ask God

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• to do something in us and in our nation for His honor and His glory. Not because we need it—we do need it. Not because we're suffering—we do suffer. Not because we're in distress—we are in distress. But we don't deserve anything in and of ourselves. And the only thing we deserve is more justice and more judgment. But we need to learn to pray, "Lord, do this for your own sake. For the glory of your great name, for the advancement of your kingdom, for the fulfillment of your word, for the edification of thy people, for the glory of thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ." In other words, "Lord, do this for your honor and your glory and the way you've ordained and the way you've decreed. Do it for your own sake." Hmm. When we get to that point, I think we could honestly, genuinely say we're praying for our own nation. But we must start.

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• I'm afraid—I just wrote a man earlier this morning, answered his letter. I want you to turn in your Bibles one last passage. Psalm 118. Psalm 118 and you can put a little star by this if you want to. Psalm 118 verse 8. You know what that is? That's the middle verse in the Bible. Look what the middle verse in the Bible says. "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man." And the next verse is very close to it. "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes." I don't care how good a man is. Our confidence should be in the Lord. And I'm going to tell you something, folks. Man is not going to save us. If we're ever saved, it's going to be God in His grace and mercy. The Constitution is not going to save us. If we're ever saved, it's going to be God in His grace and mercy. It's better. It's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.

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• Let's start by really seeking the Lord for this nation. For our Lord's sake, for His honor and His glory. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we bow to thee. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your truth. Teach us to pray, O Lord. Teach us to pray for ourselves. Teach us to pray for others. Teach us to pray for our rulers. Teach us to pray for our nation. Teach us, Lord, to pray for your honor and your glory. In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray. Amen. Any questions or comments? All right, Mr. Ron. I took a lot of notes because this nation certainly needs to— Yes, sir. That's a fact. Amen. Amen. Anyone else? Frank, anyone on your end? No, Pastor.

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• It's just a sobering message. Amen. Amen. Well, let's have one more prayer and remember to pray for each other and Lord willing, we'll be back next Sunday. Father, help us now as we are dismissed. Thank you for the safe trip, safe travel mercies. Lord, please give it to each one. And we ask your continued blessings in the name of Jesus Christ, whose name we pray. Amen.

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• so so

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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-05T19:47:30Z