Growing Spiritually - Daniel 9
What would you say if someone walked up to you and said: “You seem like a strong Christian. How can I grow spiritually?” What would you say?
There was a point in my life where I may have said you need to listen to this preacher, read this author, you need to have this emotional experience, or attend this year’s big conference.
Maybe you’ve gotten this sort of advice. The problem is if you’re not careful you can feel like you’re running on a hamster wheel! Because this year’s great preacher will always be outdone by the newer better preacher, your recent emotional experience will never be as profound as the following one, and this year’s conference will never be as good as next year’s bigger better conference.
There’s nothing wrong with listening to different preachers, not all emotional experiences are wrong, and there are a lot of wonderful conferences. The problem arises when we expect these things to fast track our spiritual growth.
We walk into conferences at about a spiritual level 2 expecting to leave a spiritual level 10. I’m joking obviously, but there is a nugget of truth tucked in there. We expect these things to accelerate our spiritual growth.
But God uses his ordinary means of grace to progress spiritual growth. The ordinary means of grace are God’s Word, the sacraments (which are the Lord’s Supper and baptism), and prayer.
When someone mentions the ordinary means of grace, we’re simply saying it’s through God’s word, the sacraments, and prayer that He ordinarily saves and deepens believers’ faith.
Has God ever worked through extraordinary ways? Absolutely! But those are, of course, the exception, not the rule.
This is true today and it was true thousands of years ago during the life of the prophet Daniel. What we ultimately see in Daniel 9 is God using His word and prayer to meet with Daniel.
Read the Word of God (vv. 1-2)
The passage begins with Daniel reading the book of Jeremiah. After Daniel gives some chronological detail in verse 1, he says in verse 2, “I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.”
Jeremiah prophesied the fall of Babylon in Jeremiah chapters 25 and 29. This was significant to Daniel because he thought that when Babylon was destroyed as a nation, the people of God would be able to return to the Promised Land.
That’s why he stresses the fact that the Babylonians are no longer in control. He speaks of Darius the Mede, someone who may have ruled over the nation of Israel on behalf of the Persian empire. And so Daniel thought that Israel’s return to the Promised Land was imminent. But he recognizes that one thing must take place prior to their return to the promised land: repentance.
Jeremiah makes it abundantly clear that once Israel repents for their unfaithfulness to God they’ll return to the promised land. And of course Daniel recognizes that this has not taken place yet. Israel has not repented. And this breaks Daniel.
But the key that we need to see here is that everything that takes place in this chapter, Daniel’s prayer and ultimately the prophetic word he receives from the Lord begins with him seeking the Lord through the Scriptures.
Daniel opened God’s Word in order to understand what he was doing! Notice what Daniel didn’t do. He didn’t open the Scriptures because he wanted to learn how to be a better version of himself.
The late R.C. Sproul said that people often treat the Scriptures like a Magic 8 Ball. Remember those? It would say things like, “As I see it, yes. Ask again later. Better not tell you now. Cannot predict now. It is certain.” And of course, if you didn’t like what it said you’d just keep shaking it!
Sadly, many people approach the Bible like a Magic 8 Ball desiring cryptic answers from it. But we don’t come over top of God’s word, telling God what he’s supposed to do - rather we come under it and submit ourselves to it. You see, God doesn’t serve the Christian, the Christian serves God. Isn’t that why we go to church? To worship God?
It’s through the Scriptures we learn about God and His holy will. The reformer Martin Luther famously said, “He who wants to hear God speak should read Holy Scripture.” Reading the Scriptures is hard work. There are portions, like the end of this chapter, that are difficult to understand and require effort - but hearing from God is always worth it.
Pray to God (vv. 3-19)
The book of Jeremiah drives Daniel to cry out to God over his conviction for Israel’s sin. That’s why he says in verse 3 that, “[He] turned [his] face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.”
Daniel is grieved because he understands Israel’s return to Jerusalem is dependent on their repentance. The seventy years of exile was God’s judgment on Israel for their sin of unbelief.
Daniel’s prayer is really wrapped up in his understanding of God’s covenantal relationship with the people of Israel. That’s why he is so cognizant of the blessings of covenant keeping and curses for covenant breaking. But really he is acknowledging Israel’s inability to keep it’s covenant with God. That’s why the essence of his prayer is one of repentance.
He says in verses 10 and 11, “we have rebelled against [God] and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him.”
And then in verse 13, “As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth.” God never abandoned Israel, rather, they abandoned God. And because of that they experienced the judgment of God. And Daniel knew that.
But notice that in Daniel’s prayer he never questioned God’s goodness. Rather, he understood Israel to be culpable for all the bad stuff that happened to them. Look at what he says in verse 14, “Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice.”
Your sin can do one of two things to you: it can either help you recognize your need for a Savior or it will harden your heart.
It’s clear from Daniel’s prayer that he felt the weight and reality of Israel’s sin. It’s really interesting when you read his prayer, how many times he says “we.” In fact, he says, “we” 10 times. Daniel never distances himself from the sin of Israel. He never said, Lord forgive them.
He includes himself in Israel’s sin. He recognizes his own guilt before God.
One of the major things that separates Christianity from all the other world religions is it’s view of mankind. The Bible teaches that everyone is born into sin. In other words, everyone is bad. There’s no other world religion that teaches that. Isn’t it true that people think they are generally good? Their good outweighs their bad.
Jesus said, “No one is good except God.” Deep down we all know that before God we are not righteous.
A good person that makes occasional mistakes doesn’t need to be saved. A bad person who sees their sin knows that he needs to be saved. An innocent person doesn’t need grace or mercy but a guilty person does and we’re all guilty.
Look at verse 19. “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.” Daniel understood that his only hope and Israel’s only hope was if God acted. God was going to have to do something.
In many ways that’s exactly what prayer is: it’s acknowledging your utter dependence on God. Isn’t it true that we are absolutely dependent on God for everything? If we can’t control small things like whether tomorrow will be a good day or bad day, why would we ever think we have any control over the big things, like the eternal souls of our children?
We are all completely dependent on the Lord and prayer is simply a means of expressing that dependence. If you don’t pray it’s probably because you don’t think you need God. Prayerlessness reveals your self-reliance.
When you recognize your own spiritual helplessness you’ll go to the Lord in prayer. And so God sends Gabriel to Daniel to help him understand what he read in Jeremiah.
Hear from God (vv. 20-27)
There is a lot of debate over these last few verses - particularly verses 24-27. How do we understand all these weeks? There’s 70 weeks, 7 weeks, and 62 weeks. There are tons of timelines that seek to explain exactly what’s going on here.
Here’s the basic issue in these verses: Daniel thinks that the 70 years that Jeremiah prophesied of are coming to an end and the Jewish people will soon return to the Promised Land.
God sends Gabriel to Daniel to tell him that he doesn’t have the full picture. Due to Israel’s failure to repent, the exile is going to be extended. The people of God will not be restored to Jerusalem for another 70 weeks, which is another way of saying 490 years.
It’s important to look at the 70 weeks as an undefined period of time because the number 7 is symbolic for completion. The 70 weeks can be translated literally as, seventy sevens. It seems that the number 7 is being emphasized.
In other words, God is telling Daniel that Israel will continue to remain in exile until he is finished dealing with their sin. Also verse 24 uses very broad language.
Look at verse 24. “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.”
God is telling Daniel through Gabriel that before all the good stuff can happen to Israel, the bad stuff has to finish running its course. But then verse 25 mentions 7 weeks and verse 26 mentions another 62 weeks. 69 weeks when you add them together - a total of 483.
I think that the first anointed refers to the Persian king Cyrus who allowed the Israelites to return to the promised land and it’s roughly 483 years from him to the ministry of Jesus Christ who is the second anointed referred to in verse 26.
That’s the key that you need to understand from verses 24-27. The debate over these verses centers around how to count the weeks because everyone understands that these verses refer to Jesus Christ.
It’s Jesus Christ that makes a strong covenant through his sinless life, sin atoning death on the cross. It was Jesus’s perfect sacrifice that ended the Old Testament sacrificial system referred to in verse 27.
Sometimes it’s easy to miss the forest through the trees. It’s easy to get so wrapped in trying to understand the timeline and calculate the years, that you might miss who it points to - Jesus Christ.
Here’s what we need to see: God revealed Christ to Daniel through his word and prayer.
I probably need to put a caveat here to say that just because you read your Bible and pray to God doesn’t guarantee that you’ll have some sort of supernatural experience. It doesn’t mean this is the recipe for an angel to visit you. But I believe the principle to be true: God reveals himself to us through His Word and prayer!
I should probably mention another caveat: this doesn’t mean that every time you read your Bible and pray that you’ll have some sort of incredible spiritual experience.
Daniel was really thinking too simplistically. He thinks they need to repent in order to return to the promised land and God says, no you need to repent and turn to me so I can take away your sins. Daniel was asking little questions but God revealed the answers to big questions.
God generally reveals himself through ordinary means.
You see, reading God’s word, prayer, and the sacraments is how the living God reveals himself to us. That’s why you do it! You do it to get a glimpse of God!
It’s worth mentioning that all of the means of grace occur within the context of church. We read and preach God’s word, we pray, and we administer the Lord’s supper and baptism.
Between the pandemic and our increased digital connectivity people are really asking: do we even need to physically go to church? And the answer is a resounding yes! It’s true you can pray and read your Bible at home - but God has ordained the Lord’s Supper to be administered in the church. It’s a shared meal that celebrates Christ and the common union believers have in him.
But why is it so hard? Why is it so hard to consistently read from God’s word? Why is it so hard to spend any significant time in prayer? Why is it so hard to consistently make it to church? Is it because we expect too little from God? We don’t believe that anything is going to happen, we don’t think anything is going to change.
I had a friend that owned a restaurant and when he got engaged his fiancee was thrust into the business. And apparently at one point while she was working in the restaurant she got hungry and tried to pay for food. And he caught her and was like you don’t need to pay for anything here - because everything here is yours!
Aren’t we like that before God? We’re trying to buy bread when he’s trying to give us a bread factory.
We need to expect more from God. We need to desire more from God.
Jesus said, “which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
But in order to receive from God you have to trust in Christ. Jesus is the Word manifest, and we have to pray through his name in order to hear from God. We get to see Christ through the Scriptures, prayer, and the sacraments.
Do you want to see him? Do you want to encounter him?
This is how you grow spiritually but it’s also how you get saved. It’s through these means of grace we experience the power of God unto salvation.
Let’s pray.