WEEK 33 | Daniel 9:15–19
God Experience & Fellowship –– In our last lesson, you prayed a personal confession and during group time prepared what we might confess as a body of Christ. This lesson you will pray a personal petition and then prepare for your group’s corporate petition to the Lord. After our Thanksgiving Break, your group will gather to pray through what all prepared and then celebrate what God has done and will do with food and fellowship.
When Daniel prayed, he prepared to meet with the Lord by fasting and wearing sackcloth and ashes. His heart posture was one of humble active dependence on the Lord. Your group can discuss different ways a person could prepare to posture his or her heart before you gather to meet together with the Lord.
Day 1 Father, open my eyes to see the truth in Your Word that I may know and love you more deeply.
Missional Mediators & Prayer –– Our mission is to lead our city into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church. As you engage in the texts of this lesson, I want you to identify yourself as a leader. You may not have the title or position of an official leader, but as one who knows the Way and the Truth and the Life, you are a leader in our city filled with souls distant from God. But you do not lead alone. The apostle Peter, personally trained by the Lord to begin and lead the Church, describes our corporate role in this way ––
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9–10
In the Bible the priests represented God to the people and the people to God and foreshadowed the Mediator to come. In our church and in our city you serve as a mediator.
What is our identity in Christ as mediator?
What is our royal “job description”?
What should motivate our proclamation?
As a member of the royal priesthood of believers, why should you pray?
Knowing you are called lead in this way, what should you be praying about?
Enjoy a time of prayer with the Lord in light of this text.
Days 2–3 Father, open my eyes to see the truth in Your Word that I may know and love you more deeply.
Moses, a Missional Mediator Who Prayed –– Both Moses and Daniel served as faithful leaders whom God used as mediators during a time when Israel was in rebellion against God. Daniel’s prayer in chapter nine bears remarkable resemblance to Moses’ prayer here in Numbers. As you read, consider why this might be and what you can learn from Moses about how to confess to the Lord and petition Him on behalf of the people in our church and city.
1. In the wilderness, the Israelites rebelled against the Lord many times. But the story you will read is the proverbial straw. Read Numbers 13–14:10. Write the gist of the situation.
2. Now read Moses’ conversation with the Lord. Mark wherever you see Moses, Israel’s first mediator, interceding with great wisdom and some vehemence (passion/fierceness/guts!) for this stiff–necked nation with the Lord.
11And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? 12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, 14 and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people. For you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. 15 Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, 16 ‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’ 17 And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, 18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ 19 Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.”
Then the Lord said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. 21 But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, 22 none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. 24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. Numbers 14:11–24 ESV
3. The Appeal and the Verdict
What are Moses’ key strategic points as he appeals to the Lord to spare Israel?
What is the Lord’s verdict? Why is this His verdict?
Day 4 Father, open my eyes to see the truth in Your Word that I may know and love you more deeply.
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. 16 “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. 17 Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. 18 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. 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 9:15–19
Observing Details Directions –– As we did last lesson, we are going to observe details differently. I hope that observing details this way in Daniel’s personal prayer will stir your reverence for God and His Word and lead us to praying ourselves with reverence for God and His Word.
Reminders: 1) As always, you should notice the W’s: the who, what, when, where, and how details. 2) Only observe details: “just notice.” Do not begin interpreting what those details signify.
Example ––
3 Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
I notice that when Daniel heard the exile would soon be over, Daniel turned his face to God. The diction box states this means Daniel “gave his face to God.” I notice Daniel next sought the Lord God by prayer AND by pleas. The word “pleas” is plural, so Daniel pled for many mercies. During this time he did not eat or wear his customary clothing of one who served a king. He would have been hungry and the sackcloth and ashes would have irritated his skin. This is how he sought the Lord.
OBSERVE DETAILS
How to Read Your Bible –– Notice how I underlined the “cause” words in these verses. Consider how these introduce Daniel’s reasons for appealing to the Lord.
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate.
4. 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.
5. 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.”
INTERPRET
Ask: Why did the author choose to include these details and use these words?
1. Daniel shifts from confession to petition with the words “And now” in verse 15. But notice Daniel does not give his official petition until verse 16. Why do you think Daniel reminds God of what He did during the exodus from Egypt?
2. What repeated reason(s) do you notice that Daniel shares with the Lord to justify why the Lord should hear his prayer?
3. What similarities do you see in Moses’ and Daniel’s prayer? Consider that Daniel knows how the Lord answered Moses.
Day 5 Father, open my eyes to see the truth in Your Word that I may know and love you more deeply.
Introduction –– Daniel’s confession was long and his appeal to the character and works of God frequent. His confession was one short sentence: “Let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill.” Even as Daniel verbalized this petition, he couched it in confession and continual appeals for God to act for HIS name’s sake.
Personal Petition. Recall your confession from Lesson 32. With this in mind, write your personal petition. It does not need to be the same petition as Daniel’s.
Corporate Petition. Review the list of corporate confessions your group brought to the table after reviewing Revelation 2–3. Write your idea(s) for at least one corporate petition you want your group to bring before the Lord in light of our confession. Send your group a picture of your written petition below.
November Prayer Requests for the Church
“For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy” Daniel 9:18
1. Our Spiritual Growth: Ask God to cultivate humble and repentant hearts within us, revealing our personal sins and our shared need for His mercy. Pray that He would deepen our dependence on Him, lead us to seek His forgiveness, and strengthen our trust in His faithfulness rather than our own righteousness
2. Christmas Services: Ask God to prepare hearts to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas – the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. Ask Him to give us opportunities and boldness to invite others to our Christmas services, soften hearts to receive the gospel, and bring many to experience the joy and hope found in Christ alone.
3. The Persecuted Church: Ask God to comfort persecuted believers who experience loneliness and isolation. Pray that He would remind them they are not forgotten or alone, strengthen their sense of belonging to the global body of Christ, and encourage them through the prayers and support of fellow believers.
God’s joy and strength to you,