Click here to download the sermon.
Recap of the sermon from July 24th (Daniel 9:24-27):
1. Daniel’s understanding that the Babylonian exile of Israel was about to end caused him to ask several questions: What would happen after that? What about the Messiah and the Kingdom? How and when would God’s promises (Abrahamic, Palestinian, and Davidic Covenants) be fulfilled? What about the people of Israel, the city of Jerusalem and the Temple? God sends the angel Gabriel to give Daniel a panoramic view of the future of Israel. In Exploring the Old Testament, the author writes: “God told Daniel through the angel Gabriel that it would be seventy weeks of years [490 years] before God would remove all sin, bring in everlasting righteousness, anoint the holy temple, and fulfill all prophecy (9:24). During this period, Jerusalem would be rebuilt, the anointed Messiah would come and be cut off, and then the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed, and the people would undergo great persecution and war (9:25,26). In the middle of the last week of years all worship at the temple would be halted. But by the end of that week, the one who desolated and persecuted the people of God would be defeated.”
2. To understand this passage it is essential to understand verse 24. This passage specifically concerns Daniel’s people and the city of Jerusalem. J. Dwight Pentecost writes: “This prophecy, then, is concerned not with world history or church history, but with the history of Israel and the city of Jerusalem.”
3. This passage predicts the coming of Messiah (and His rejection and death) some 483 years from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem by Artaxerxes (Nehemiah 2:1-8) in 445-444 B.C. Thus the Kingdom would be delayed.
4. Daniel 9:27 contemplates the Seventh week of Daniel, also called the Tribulation. The seven years begins with the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and the Antichrist. All throughout Israel’s history they had a tendency to trust in earthly alliances instead of in the Lord. We are not unlike Israel in this area. As several writers expressed it. “How prone we are to choose earthly alliances, confederacies of the world and the flesh, instead of God’s gentle way.” ”We recite: ‘Some trust in chariots and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God,’ we boast that our God is able to deliver us; but in an emergency we go to Egypt for help….It ought to embarrass us to ask help from this world.” By nature it is easier for people to trust limited human resources than God’s inexhaustible supply….are you trusting others to do what only God can—and will—do on your behalf?”
Monday, July 25, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
A Glimpse of the Future
Click here to download the sermon, which is just less than 45 minutes in length.
Recap of 7/17/11 (Daniel 9: 20-24)
1. Daniel had a habit of prayer, especially at the times of the morning and evening sacrifices which Israel would have been observing had they still been in the land. Though they were in exile in Babylon (and Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed at this time) Daniel still observed these as appropriate times for adoration, praise, and prayer requests. Worship for Daniel was a thing of the heart, not just going through the motions. God’s repeated accusation against His people is that they just went through the motions of worship, without a heart commitment (See Malachi 1 for example).
2. The issue of Israel’s restoration to the land, but more importantly restoration to the Lord, was so important to Daniel that he took an extended time in prayer. God rewarded his diligence by sending the angel Gabriel to give him the answer to his prayer. In the words of Dr. Ronald Gibson, “Some of the deep things of God only come with an investment of time.” Yet so often in our lives we do not give spiritual issues sufficient time, we are too busy with so many things. We can be so busy that we lose our way spiritually. Again, Dr. Gibson warns against what he called “the danger of the barrenness of busyness in God’s work.” We can even substitute business in God’s work for building intimacy with Him.
3. Dr. James M. Gray (early leader of Moody Bible Institute for over 30 years) said this about this passage: “What mystery is shrouded in these verses! The nearness of heaven, the interest of God in the petition of His people, the nature and ministry of angels, the divine estimate of the saints, who can fathom these things?”
Recap of 7/17/11 (Daniel 9: 20-24)
1. Daniel had a habit of prayer, especially at the times of the morning and evening sacrifices which Israel would have been observing had they still been in the land. Though they were in exile in Babylon (and Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed at this time) Daniel still observed these as appropriate times for adoration, praise, and prayer requests. Worship for Daniel was a thing of the heart, not just going through the motions. God’s repeated accusation against His people is that they just went through the motions of worship, without a heart commitment (See Malachi 1 for example).
2. The issue of Israel’s restoration to the land, but more importantly restoration to the Lord, was so important to Daniel that he took an extended time in prayer. God rewarded his diligence by sending the angel Gabriel to give him the answer to his prayer. In the words of Dr. Ronald Gibson, “Some of the deep things of God only come with an investment of time.” Yet so often in our lives we do not give spiritual issues sufficient time, we are too busy with so many things. We can be so busy that we lose our way spiritually. Again, Dr. Gibson warns against what he called “the danger of the barrenness of busyness in God’s work.” We can even substitute business in God’s work for building intimacy with Him.
3. Dr. James M. Gray (early leader of Moody Bible Institute for over 30 years) said this about this passage: “What mystery is shrouded in these verses! The nearness of heaven, the interest of God in the petition of His people, the nature and ministry of angels, the divine estimate of the saints, who can fathom these things?”
Monday, July 11, 2011
A Model for Prayer, Part 3
Click here to download the sermon.
Recap of 7/10/11 (Daniel 9: 4-19)
1. Daniel was well practiced in prayer; according to Daniel 6:10 it was his practice to pray three times a day. Because of this he was prepared for this moment in his life. The Daily Walk Bible asks this question: “How well do you pray ‘on the spot?’ Have you learned through practice and persistence to communicate often and long with your heavenly Father? Standing side by side with Daniel’s confidence in God was his communication with God. The two are inseparable, for to trust God is to talk to Him, and to talk to God is to trust Him all the more. We must be practiced in prayer so that we are ready for prayer in times of confusion, doubt, trial, discipline.
2. Daniel’s prayer, by the numbers:
-4 Parts (Adoration, Confession, Acknowledgment of God’s rightness in His actions, Request)
-4 Themes from Evangelical Commentary on the Bible: (Israel’s rebellion against God, the Law, and the Prophets; God’s righteousness, especially in judgment; the Fulfillment of the Curses of the Law – Deuteronomy 28:1,15,49,64; and Hope in God’s grace and mercy) (Evangelical Commentary on the Bible)
-4 Predications (1. That God forgives and restores—if He didn’t Daniel would have no reason to pray; 2. He and Israel are in a relationship with God; 3. God is a merciful God; and 4. His concern that the world would take God seriously, His name and reputation would be restored.)
-3 Contrasts (God is righteous, the people are sinful; God is merciful, the people are rebellious; Contrast between God’s law and the lawlessness of the people).
3. “Daniel realized he could not urge on God any merit of His nation for they had forfeited all claim to divine mercy. They lacked any ground of merit on which to beg God’s favor. The only basis for Daniel’s approach to God was his earnest desire for the Lord to glorify Himself by displaying the riches of His mercy and grace in pardoning and restoring His guilty but repentant people.” (Dr Gleason Archer)
Recap of 7/10/11 (Daniel 9: 4-19)
1. Daniel was well practiced in prayer; according to Daniel 6:10 it was his practice to pray three times a day. Because of this he was prepared for this moment in his life. The Daily Walk Bible asks this question: “How well do you pray ‘on the spot?’ Have you learned through practice and persistence to communicate often and long with your heavenly Father? Standing side by side with Daniel’s confidence in God was his communication with God. The two are inseparable, for to trust God is to talk to Him, and to talk to God is to trust Him all the more. We must be practiced in prayer so that we are ready for prayer in times of confusion, doubt, trial, discipline.
2. Daniel’s prayer, by the numbers:
-4 Parts (Adoration, Confession, Acknowledgment of God’s rightness in His actions, Request)
-4 Themes from Evangelical Commentary on the Bible: (Israel’s rebellion against God, the Law, and the Prophets; God’s righteousness, especially in judgment; the Fulfillment of the Curses of the Law – Deuteronomy 28:1,15,49,64; and Hope in God’s grace and mercy) (Evangelical Commentary on the Bible)
-4 Predications (1. That God forgives and restores—if He didn’t Daniel would have no reason to pray; 2. He and Israel are in a relationship with God; 3. God is a merciful God; and 4. His concern that the world would take God seriously, His name and reputation would be restored.)
-3 Contrasts (God is righteous, the people are sinful; God is merciful, the people are rebellious; Contrast between God’s law and the lawlessness of the people).
3. “Daniel realized he could not urge on God any merit of His nation for they had forfeited all claim to divine mercy. They lacked any ground of merit on which to beg God’s favor. The only basis for Daniel’s approach to God was his earnest desire for the Lord to glorify Himself by displaying the riches of His mercy and grace in pardoning and restoring His guilty but repentant people.” (Dr Gleason Archer)
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
A Model for Prayer, Part 2
Click here to download the sermon.
Recap of 7/3/11 (Daniel 9:3,4)
1. Prayer energizes our work, our worship, and our walk (for example, prayer is an essential part of the abiding life of fruitfulness spoken of by Jesus in John 15).
2. Biblical prayer is relationship-oriented, not results-oriented. God is our Father and wants us to come to Him with our needs, joys, weaknesses, hurts, etc.
3. Eugene Peterson describes prayer as “the means by which we get everything out in the open before God.” He teaches about prayer that we should:
-pray our tears (prayer for that which makes us cry, keeps the balance between self-pity and suppressing our emotions)
-pray our doubt (Doubt is not sin. It is an essential element in belief. No mature faith avoids or denies doubt. Doubt forces faith to bedrock.)
-pray our death (Psalm 90:10,12 – death is inevitable, we must seek God’s help to live wisely and live well)
-pray our praise
-pray our sin (we must confess not just individual sins, but the tendency to want our own way, the demand to our right to ourselves, the tendency to go away from God)
-pray our fear (“The world is a dangerous place. Prayer brings fear into focus and faces it and affirms God’s presence in it.”)
-pray our hate (“Prayer, we think, means presenting ourselves before God so that he will be pleased with us. We put on our ‘Sunday best’ in our prayers. But when we pray the prayers of God’s people, the Psalms, we find that will not do. We must pray who we actually are, not who we think we should be.”)
-pray the Scriptures (turn God’s Word into prayer)
-pray for our enemies
Recap of 7/3/11 (Daniel 9:3,4)
1. Prayer energizes our work, our worship, and our walk (for example, prayer is an essential part of the abiding life of fruitfulness spoken of by Jesus in John 15).
2. Biblical prayer is relationship-oriented, not results-oriented. God is our Father and wants us to come to Him with our needs, joys, weaknesses, hurts, etc.
3. Eugene Peterson describes prayer as “the means by which we get everything out in the open before God.” He teaches about prayer that we should:
-pray our tears (prayer for that which makes us cry, keeps the balance between self-pity and suppressing our emotions)
-pray our doubt (Doubt is not sin. It is an essential element in belief. No mature faith avoids or denies doubt. Doubt forces faith to bedrock.)
-pray our death (Psalm 90:10,12 – death is inevitable, we must seek God’s help to live wisely and live well)
-pray our praise
-pray our sin (we must confess not just individual sins, but the tendency to want our own way, the demand to our right to ourselves, the tendency to go away from God)
-pray our fear (“The world is a dangerous place. Prayer brings fear into focus and faces it and affirms God’s presence in it.”)
-pray our hate (“Prayer, we think, means presenting ourselves before God so that he will be pleased with us. We put on our ‘Sunday best’ in our prayers. But when we pray the prayers of God’s people, the Psalms, we find that will not do. We must pray who we actually are, not who we think we should be.”)
-pray the Scriptures (turn God’s Word into prayer)
-pray for our enemies
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