Sermon Snippets

Daniel 9 is one of the most debated chapters in the entire Bible.

As I prepared for this Sunday after a wonderful vacation, I found myself pulled in different directions. The chapter is certainly one whole unit but I felt constrained to preach it as an entire passage.

The first part (and majority) of the the chapter deals with Daniel fervently seeking God's face after realizing the prophesied time of captivity is about to come to an end (vs.1-19).

God responds to Daniel's prayer by revealing more of his future plan through the angel Gabriel in vs. 20-27. This revelation of things to come, which revolves around 70 'sevens', has inspired thousands of pages of commentary.

So much attention has been given to the interpretation of this latter part of the chapter, I felt conflicted about the potential of how one all-encompassing message might neglect what makes up the majority of the chapter. In the end, the best option became cutting the passage into two parts.

The first sermon, on 9:1-19, can focus on Daniel's prayer of confession and repentance.
The second, on 9:20-27, can focus on the fascinating end-times descriptions.

So that's where we are going this week and why.  More related to the sermon itself, after the jump.



Daniel offers an extended prayer of confession and repentance in Daniel chapter 9. It's incredible to think that even what we have recorded is just a summary of his prayer, as verse 21 seems to indicate he'd been praying much of the day up until the evening sacrifice.

The call to 'repent' appears throughout Scripture from Job 36:10 to Revelation 2:5. It was a vital part of the call to recognize Jesus as Messiah during his ministry (Matt. 3:2, 4:17). But what is involved in repentance and what does it look like?

Greek and Hebrew experts can tell you that the original words involved a change of mind that leads to a change in behavior. But more effective than a lexical definition is the example of Daniel.

Daniel's prayer of repentance is focused on who God is and who mankind is. Repentance smells of desperation and tastes the stark reality that God has the absolute right to punish sin. 

I fear all to often I (and we) forget to take our sin seriously. It's like the grounds-keeping I do at my house. There are plenty of weeds and overgrown plants, especially in our backyard. A few times a year, I'll go through and do some landscaping so things look acceptable. If I do the hard work of digging to the roots of the unwanted plants, I know they will not regrow. So many times I take the easy way and just take my weed-eater to the tops of the plants or pluck up the surface parts of the weeds so the appearance looks better. While that's one way to make things look better, the roots still exist and guarantee more work in the future.

Likewise, true repentance will get at the core of our hearts and lay it all bare before the Lord to let him consume the dross and refine the gold.