THE EXIT FROM EXILE (Daniel 9:1-19)

If you are exiled and saddened by losses due to past choices you now know are the cause, Daniel's prayer gives the combination needed to unlock the way out. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, today we're going to be in Daniel chapter 9, the first 19 verses. Daniel is taking a pause here in his prophetic visions in order to pray. And I want to talk to you about why. I've called this the exit from exile. The best way I know to introduce what I'm about to say is simply to say to you that if your life is one where you feel displaced or disoriented, and largely due to sins that you now regret, and you feel as though things are not going well, this may be a strong word of encouragement to you. To set the stage for Daniel chapter 9, we have to go back about 350 years before Daniel's time to King Solomon, where King Solomon is dedicating God's new temple. He stands before all Israel, lifts his hands to heaven, and prays in 1 Kings chapter 8, Lord, if Israel sins and an enemy carries them into exile, and while there they repent with all their heart and soul and plead with you toward this house, then hear their plea and forgive their sins against you. Lo and behold, by the year 605 BC, Judah, the southern kingdom, was exiled to Babylon. Now the concept of exile is pretty foreign to most of us. You might think of the German soldiers gathering up the Jews in order to take them away to the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. Exile meant forced deportation, separation from one's family, abuse, slavery, prison, and even death. Those exiled had to serve the offensive purposes and godless values of an alien culture. Exiles often felt disoriented, despair, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress was common. The trauma of exile led to the loss of a sense of identity and a desperate search for belonging. Exiles are often made to question or abandon their spiritual, moral, and political beliefs, their national identities would be called into question. The reality, most people ever exiled in history never came back. But you see, God promised Judah an exit from exile. This is very, very rare. How would they exit? And when? Where was the door out? In Daniel 9, verses 1 through 19, Daniel is pointing the way out. It's almost as if he's giving us a combination lock code with five moves, and it will unlock the path home. The first of those codes would be in verses one through four, and I'm simply allowing the scripture to bubble this up from within as we look at this. But the first of these moves is simply to go to the scriptures. That's verses one through four. Now Daniel's going to set the time frame. In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasawaris by descent, Amede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans. Daniel 9 and verse 1. Now simply to pause to say that on October 12, 539, you may remember this. Cyrus the Persian killed the Babylonian king Belshazzar and installed his deputy, Darius the Mead, to rule over the realm of the Chaldeans. We learned this back in Daniel chapter 5, verses 30 and 31. Actually, since the king's reign is counted by the end of his first year, it's probably more likely 538 rather than 539, but no big deal. I want you to notice what happens, though, at this time. In the first year of his reign, 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. Verse 2. So in other words, Daniel was studying the books. What are the books? These would be the scriptures. Specifically, he has a copy of Jeremiah, and he read it. And Jeremiah said in chapter 29, This is what the Lord says, when seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. By 538 BC, the time of Daniel 9 in verse 1, 67 of those 70 years had already passed. Daniel was saying, Hey, the time is about up. And he turns to the Scriptures to be able to understand this. You know, the Scripture tells us a lot of things. It reminds us maybe why we are suffering. It tells us that God does not want to doom us to perpetual exile, that he gives a way back. Scripture coaches us on the way back. It tells us God loves us, that he promises to forgive us, and he wants to rescue us, but we're to ask for it. Daniel prays in Daniel 9 and verse 3. Then I turn my face to the Lord, God seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. In other words, Daniel sees from the scriptures what they did to put themselves in exile. He sees how greatly he has offended God. And to show his remorse and to center himself on God, he doesn't eat for a season. He fasts to show his sorrow, humility, and ruin. He dresses in burlap, smears ash on his face. All of this was to show that he was completely undone. Scripture drives him to humiliate himself, to humble himself, and it drives him to prayer. In verse verse 4, he says, I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession saying. Let me pause here to say that we already know that Daniel is a man of prayer. We've learned this in Daniel chapter 6. But he is the first of his people to offer the intense soul-searching prayer that Solomon prayed 350 years earlier for God to hear. And he fervently prays to be freed from sin's burdens, but also that their hearts may make a full return to God. The first thing that has to be done if you're going to get the exit path from exile is to go to the scriptures. Secondly, and this begins in verse 4 through verse 6, you have to admit your part. I want you to notice what Daniel prays. He says, O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. By the way, always praise God before asking anything. But then quickly admit sin, as he does in verse 5. We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turn aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants, the prophets. Notice all of the ways he says it. We've sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, rebelled, turned aside, have not listened. He piles on the words, and he says, We have. Who are the we? The we are who the prophets have spoken to. It's not only the previous generation, but also Daniel's generation. The prophets spoke in your name, Daniel goes on to say, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, to all the people of the land. In other words, he's saying here that all of us have sinned in all kinds of ways. Three hardest words to say in the English language, I think, are I have sinned. The longer we say I've done no wrong, the longer exile lasts. It takes Judah seventy years to admit guilt. Now Daniel is a godly man, but he still confesses sin, the sins of the nation. But he also identifies with Judah. He does not say it's their fault. I'm not like them. I'm separate. He includes himself. He's part of the problem. Not all, but part. Now as Daniel prays, he also is very careful to do the third move on this combination lock, and that is to avoid blaming God. This is verses seven through eleven. Daniel separates his or their part from God's part. It's not that God made them that way. Daniel doesn't say, God, you could have helped us more. What does he say? Look at verse 7. He says, To you, O Lord, belong righteousness, but to us open shame. As at this day to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, and all the lands to which you have driven them because of the treachery that they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness. For we have rebelled against him 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 turn 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. In other words, to God belongs righteousness, mercy, and forgiveness. To us belong shame, treachery, rebellion, disobedience, transgression, and a refusal to listen to God. The law repeatedly warns of curses for disobedience. The number of scripture references in the law that do this are impressive. And Daniel says, these curses belong on us, our rulers, our leaders, our fathers, our whole city, our whole state, if you will, our entire nation. David says in Psalm 119, verse 175, I know, O Lord, that your laws are righteous, and in faithfulness you have afflicted me. He understands that God is right in what he has done. He's not blaming God. As a child, I used to get mad at my parents because they spanked me. I was a lot like Ralphie in the Christmas story. I always hoped that I would go blind because of some kind of soap poisoning, some kind of thing that they did in punishing me. But as an adult, I have learned that what my parents were doing was good and right. Their discipline was just and beneficial. They were doing what was best for me. So in order to have this exile exit to our exile, you have to first go to the scriptures. Second, admit your part. Third, avoid blaming God. And fourth, and this is so important and difficult, connect your suffering to sin. Verses 12 to 15. Daniel now prays that God only did what he warned he would. In the law, God repeatedly warned Israel of their disobedience, and that this would bring upon them a curse, and that he would scatter them to foreigners and to their enemies. And Daniel is saying, This, what we're experiencing right now, is that. It's that which you said would come to pass. This would happen. Verse 12, he goes on to pray. It's almost as if he's mixing teaching with prayer. He says, verse 12, he, he being God, has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. 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. Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and 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. And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for yourself, as at this day we have sinned, we have done wickedly. You see, God's intent in the Babylonian exile is only going to be achieved when Judah admits their sinfulness. And God's intent in any exile is achieved when we connect our suffering to our sin. When we see how many times God has warned us, when we admit how right God has been to punish us, despite his punishment, we have not pursued God's favor, turned from sin, gone back to God, or gained insight into his truth. In exile. That you know the path out only when you stop minimizing and justifying or blaming our sins on others or circumstances. We see that our sins have created our problems, period. Our sin ruptures our relationship with God. It's no one's fault but my own. And that relationship with God is only repaired and restored by our contritely turning from our sin back to God with our whole hearts. We confess our sin, we turn from it, and we turn back to God. Now finally, one more move on this combination lock, and that is verses 16 to 19. Rely on God's name. Now this may sound strange to us, but I'll put it all together. You'll see this as I read these verses. Daniel says, O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to make his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name, for we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear, O Lord, forgive. 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. So David, or rather Daniel, finally asks for forgiveness. He does not ask God to turn away his anger because we've been good, but because he is good. He asks God to hear his pleas for mercy for God's own sake. You see, God wants to forgive, he wants to reverse our situation. But he will only do so because he himself is good, his mercy is great, he's eager to defend his name. And Daniel understands that God wants to show himself gracious, merciful, and forgiving. God, forgive us and restore us to make your own name great. I want to take some time to pull this together and help us to see the application here and the connection to our own experiences. Because I believe that though we do not refer to this this way, it's often the case that we experience exile today on a personal level. Let me show you how. This is our world. All of those things. And unbeknownst to us, and maybe sometimes even known to us, sin quietly erodes our world away. Until one day it all falls in. We lose our health, our marriage, our family, a job, a house, a child, or host of things that our lives and security were built on. And once these things are lost, they don't come back. They're irreplaceable or replaced with what's inferior. And so we moan deeply about our loss, realizing that our own weaknesses and our sins created our hardship. We grieve and ruminate with deep regret. We hardly have enough energy to face our new reality. This is exile. It's a time when we're captive. It's a time when our lives are scattered to the four winds. We're spiritually far away, and maybe geographically as well, and relationally. We're marooned, isolated, alone to face hard consequences due to our own sin. And we long for what our sins gave up. Our infidelity may have cost us our marriage, our dishonesty may have cost us a job, our lack of self-control may have cost us a cherished relationship. We are, as it were, in the doghouse, and we can do nothing to get out. Nothing is ever enough. Nothing reverses our fortunes. How do you get back? Where is the exit? If you are in exile and won out, Daniel chapter nine gives us the combination code. Number one, search the scriptures. Number two, humbly admit that your sins created the hardship you now face. Number three, go to God in humility. Stop blaming him. Number four, assume his faithfulness. And number five, expect God to honor his name. Daniel does this. Daniel got on his knees with sackcloth and fasting and pleaded for the welfare of others at age 85. Now he himself would likely never go back home. But he knew God's promises. Again in Jeremiah 29, God had said, You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and will bring you back from captivity, from exile. You say, but I have prayed. No. Have you prayed this way? The way that we're looking at in Daniel chapter 9?

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SPEAKER_00 22:00

See, I think we misunderstand prayer. We think of prayer as somehow getting God to align with our purposes and follow suit. The better way to understand prayer might be an analogy from waterskiing. Water skiing is easy if you stay in the boat's wake. But out of the wake, you're more likely to fall. Prayer is not asking God to line up his boat with your course. Prayer is you're finding out where God's boat is headed and you're staying in its wake. God will not change a situation just because it's unpleasant for you. It may not be your situation that needs to be changed as much as you need to change. And God will change the situation once you change. We're so shallow about this. It's kind of like the mom with her young children at a grocery store. Her baby was in the infant seat in the shopping cart, but four-year-old Tommy, he's bouncing off the walls. He's touching all this stuff. Mom's trying to get him to stay out of things. And keeps saying to his mom, like a little parrot, Mommy, when we're through, can we go to Burger King? Ten times she says, No. Then she says, No, you're acting up too much. Well, Tommy kept keeps pleading. And mom finally put her foot down. She said, No, and that's final. And Tommy squinted in thought and then said, Mommy, if you'll just take us to Burger King, I promise, I'll start my life all over. You know our prayers can be like that. Shallow, simplistic, selfish. Change is hard. Harder to change than maybe what we realize. The heart turning to God is it's tough. You say, but I I I don't pray very well. Who does? Daniel's prayer, I think, though, is a model from a man matured in the faith by seventy years of exile. And God does not expect you to get all the words right, but he does expect a right heart. The honest cry of a hurting person is better than the hollow words of an expert prayer. You see, the power of prayer is not in the prayer, but it's in the one who hears the prayer. James 5 16 says, Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Praying poorly with honesty is better than praying insincerely with eloquence. And exile teaches us that prayer is no time for fancy, phony words or fluff. Exile strips all that away. It is then that we come back to God in sackcloth and ashes. And we never ever complain about how to come back. We are just thankful that there is a way back.