Word of Salvation – Vol. 50 No.33 – September 2005

 

The Answer to Daniel’s Prayer

Sermon by Rev J De Hoog on Daniel 9:20-27

Scripture Reading: Daniel 9:1-19

Suggested Hymns:  BoW 133; 134; 247; 20; 390

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s turn today to the answer to Daniel’s prayer as recorded in Daniel 9. Last Sunday we considered Daniel’s prayer itself, and we saw it as a very good model of how to pray. Now let’s consider the answer that God gives.

We understood last time that Daniel’s great concern in this prayer is with God’s honour. Of course he wants his people to be set free, of course he wants his beloved city Jerusalem to be rebuilt. But his chief concern is not finally with these things. The thing that really energises his prayer is his burden for God’s glory. Daniel wants first of all that God’s name and God’s reputation should be honoured in the world. And because his thinking is saturated in Scripture, so he knows that God’s name and honour will be upheld in the world as he keeps his promise and restores Israel to their Land after seventy years in exile.

Now how does God respond to this great and fervent prayer of Daniel’s? The first thing we are shown in this passage is that God is indeed the hearer of prayer. In fact, God hears your prayers immediately, the moment they are uttered.

In this case, God’s answer comes to Daniel even while he is still praying! We could easily call this prayer of Daniel’s “the interrupted prayer”. Verses 20-21, “While I was still speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy hill – while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice.”

Daniel reports the swiftness of God’s response. He is amazed at how quickly God answers! God always hears your prayers immediately. Even if his answer often seems long in coming, he hears them immediately.

Is not this an amazing thing! Think about this reality for a moment. You are here on earth. You are only one of the millions of God’s people scattered on the whole of this planet. God is in heaven, on his throne, surrounded by ten thousand times ten thousand angels, with all those of his people who have died before now in his presence praising him. Amidst all that, God hears your prayers in such detail and with such attention that it was as if you were the only person occupying his attention at that moment. And God does that for every single one of his people the world over. How awesome God is!

And you know, all this is possible because of what Jesus Christ has done. Jesus Christ, your Saviour, has given you access to God. He stands at God’s right hand, and he intercedes for you. Prayer is possible for you because Jesus Christ has made it possible.

Is not this an amazing thing?! You have access to God himself in prayer, and he listens to you and hears your prayers! When you think about that, can you neglect your prayers any longer? Can you be satisfied with half-baked mumblings of the same old words over and over again? Can you remain content with a weak and intermittent prayer life that bears almost no resemblance to Daniel’s prayer?

I ask myself these questions just as much as I ask them of you. I ask these questions in this way because these questions so often describe my experience. I am often weak and powerless in prayer. Isn’t it terrible, that we have such a God who hears our prayers immediately and who always answers them according to his perfect will, and yet time and again we neglect our prayer and make all kinds of excuses for not persevering in prayer. Hear the encouragement and the challenge of these words from Daniel, and commit yourself to perseverance in prayer!

First then, God is the hearer of prayer – he always hears your prayers immediately.

Now we need to get on to the actual answer that God gives to Daniel’s prayer. Gabriel has come to tell Daniel God’s answer. Verse 23, “As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed.” So what is the answer? It is contained in the prophecy of the seventy sevens in verses 24-27. Let’s read the verses again and then make sense of them.

“Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy. Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens’ and sixty-two ‘sevens’. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.”

An important thing to remember is that these verses contain the answer to Daniel’s prayer. Daniel knew from Scripture that the seventy years of exile and punishment prophesied by Jeremiah were nearly over. God’s Word told him that God was about to act to free his people from exile and to cause Jerusalem to be rebuilt. And so Daniel prays fervently that God will indeed do what he has promised to do.

But when God answers his prayer, Daniel is told that he must not focus so much on the seventy years of Jeremiah’s prophecy. Rather, he should focus on the seventy ‘sevens’ of Gabriel’s prophecy. Yes, the exile is about to end. Yes, the temple and the city will be rebuilt. The seventy years are over, God’s purpose for Jerusalem will be fulfilled after the seventy years. But Daniel, understand that this fulfilment is only a partial one. This fulfilment is only a temporary purpose of God. The temple and the city only have a temporary function in God’s plan. The seventy years will see God’s temporary purpose come to fulfilment. But look beyond the seventy years, Daniel. Look to the seventy ‘sevens’. God’s greater and eternal purpose for his people will be worked out in the seventy ‘sevens’.

What then, do these seventy ‘sevens’ mean? The seventy ‘sevens’ are seventy indefinite periods of time. The seventy ‘sevens’ are explained in these verses in the following way:

Verse 24 covers the entire period of 70 ‘sevens.’

Verse 25 divides the first 69 ‘sevens’ into two periods, seven ‘sevens’ and 62 ‘sevens’. The city of Jerusalem will be rebuilt during the first seven ‘sevens’. The 62 ‘sevens’ that follow are the period between the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the coming of the Anointed One, the Messiah, whom we know now was Jesus Christ. He will come during the final ‘seven’.

Verse 26 speaks about what will happen during the final ‘seven’ in rather indefinite terms.

Verse 27 describes the final ‘seven’ in more detail.

We need to concentrate on two things: how the overall purpose of the seventy ‘sevens’ was fulfilled, and how the prophecy regarding the final ‘seven’ was fulfilled.

What is the overall purpose of the seventy ‘sevens’. Verse 24 tells us. It mentions six purposes, and these six can be divided into two groups of three – three negative purposes, and three positive purposes.

The three Negative purposes:

To finish transgression;

To put an end to sin;

To atone for wickedness.

The three Positive purposes:

To bring in everlasting righteousness;

To seal up vision and prophecy;

To anoint the most holy.

When Jesus Christ ascended into heaven at the end of his earthly ministry, every single one of these six results had been fully accomplished. When his work was completed on that day in Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago, the purposes of God mentioned to Daniel 500 years earlier were fulfilled.

You see, here is the great and significant thing to see. Jesus Christ is the final answer to Daniel’s prayer! Remember how Daniel had ended his prayer. “O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.” God answered Daniel’s prayer. He answered it in a temporary way by freeing his people from exile in Babylon and enabling Jerusalem and the temple to be rebuilt. But it was all only temporary. God finally and permanently answered Daniel’s prayer by sending Jesus Christ into the world to defeat death and sin and to set his people free. The Lord listened! The Lord forgave! The Lord heard and acted! The Lord sent Jesus Christ to be our Saviour.

Look at the six purposes mentioned in verse 24. Consider the first three, the negative purposes. Gabriel uses three words to describe our sinfulness – transgression, sin and wickedness. Gabriel says transgression will be finished. The words mean that the sin which has up till now lain open and naked before God as a festering wound will now be sealed up, shut in, hidden away as if it no longer exists. Gabriel says sin will be put an end to. The words mean that sin will be removed from sight, permanently put away. Gabriel says wickedness will be atoned for. The words mean that wickedness will be paid for and fully pardoned and forgiven. The first three purposes of the seventy sevens express what Christ has done in taking away your sin and my sin. His work abolishes the curse which has separated man from God.

Jesus Christ has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and there is no longer any condemnation for me because I trust in him. Can you say that? The seventy ‘sevens’ have been completed, and you can know its blessings through faith in Jesus Christ.

Consider the second three, positive purposes. The seventy ‘sevens’ will bring in everlasting righteousness. Together with the taking away of sin is the bringing in of eternal righteousness, of being right with God forever. Do you trust in Jesus Christ? If you do, then you already have eternal life. Eternal life doesn’t start when you die. You are already right with God now, and you will be right with him for eternity. This is what eternal life means.

The seventy ‘sevens’ also result in the sealing up of vision and prophecy and the anointing of the most holy. The prophetic revelation of the Old Testament ends in Christ. He is God’s final word (Hebrews 1:1 ff), in him all the promises of God find their “Yes” and “Amen” (2 Cor 1:20). All Scripture points to him, and with him the need for further revelation ends. And all this is achieved by the most holy one, the anointed one, Jesus the Christ, the Messiah.

Jesus Christ was the great and final answer to Daniel’s prayer. He perfectly fulfilled the purpose of the seventy ‘sevens’ that God had ordained for his people.

Now there is one more thing to see from this passage. Verses 26 and 27 describe what happens during the final ‘seven’. The final ‘seven’ is the time during which the Anointed One comes. It is the time of Jesus Christ. Two things are described in these verses. The first is the death of Christ, the anointed one. The second is the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, which actually happened about forty years after Jesus ascended to heaven.

The death of Christ is set forth in verse 26. “After the sixty-two ‘sevens’ the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing.” The words “cut off” describe the death penalty. They remind us of the words of Isaiah 53:8, “He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.” “…the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing.” Literally, these words, “will have nothing” read “there will not be to him”. Jesus Christ was utterly rejected. He was rejected by his own people, the people of Israel. John 19, “‘Here is your king,’ Pilate said to the Jews. But they shouted, ‘Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!’ ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ Pilate asked. ‘We have no king but Caesar,’ the chief priests replied.” He was forsaken by God. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In the hour of blackness there on the cross, he had nothing, nothing but the guilt of your sin and mine. He was cut off, for the transgressions of his people.

The destruction of Jerusalem is described in the words in verse 26, “The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.” You see, eventually Jerusalem, Daniel’s beloved Jerusalem, which will be rebuilt, will again be destroyed and desolate.

See how significant this is. Think about the chapter as a whole. Daniel had understood that the seventy years of captivity were nearly over. So he had fervently prayed and asked God to keep his promise and to act. Daniel had meant by his prayer that the Lord should restore the temple and Jerusalem. This is what Daniel thought would best honour the Lord and vindicate his name and reputation. And the Lord had acted in exactly that way, he had restored Jerusalem and the temple.

But all that was only temporary. The full and final answer was in Jesus Christ. And the full answer in Christ meant that the temporary answer had to be destroyed. Jerusalem rebuilt, the temple rebuilt, were not God’s final answer. Eventually they would be destroyed. And people who still clung to the old temporary way, who hung onto the shadows and rejected Jesus Christ to whom the old temporary ways pointed, they would be destroyed along with the old temporary things.

Now here is the point. Everyone who trusts in Jesus Christ will experience all the purposes of the seventy ‘sevens’ in their fullness. If you trust in him, your sin will be completely removed, it will be totally abolished and you will gain eternal righteousness.

You see, Jesus Christ is that Anointed One who was cut off that verse 26 talks about. He was cut off from the land of the living. But he did not stay dead. He rose from death. In fact, he died, he entered death, so that he could defeat it and bring in the everlasting righteousness that verse 24 speaks about.

Those who rejected him, those who clung to the old ways of Judaism in his day experienced the horrors of the destruction of Jerusalem forty years later. A million people were killed, and unspeakable horrors and crimes were committed against the Jews.

But even that horror of the physical destruction of Jerusalem is only a picture of what will happen to all who reject God’s one and only and final way of salvation. Judgment came to the Jews who rejected Christ when Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70. Destruction came to those people who clung to Judaism when its time was over. But fearsome judgment will come to all who cling to anything apart from Jesus Christ.

You see, here is the great message of Daniel chapter 9. God has heard Daniel’s prayer. The seventy ‘sevens’ have been completed, the results that God designed for the seventy ‘sevens’ have been perfectly brought about through Jesus Christ. So believe in him and trust in him. For if your trust is in anything else, if you are clinging to any other form of meaning and purpose, then the only thing that awaits you is judgment and destruction of the most terrible kind. Hear God’s urging today, and cling to Jesus Christ alone, for in him transgression is finished, an end is put to sin, wickedness is atoned for, vision and prophecy are sealed up and everlasting righteousness is brought in. In him, Daniel’s prayer, “O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act!” is finally and fully answered.

Amen.