Daniel had many fine characteristics: courage, consistency, refusal to compromise truth. Above all, he was a man of prayer. In chapter 6 we read of him praying regularly three times a day as was his custom since early days (6:10). No doubt this was the secret of the other qualities. This is what the Christian is to be above all: a man or woman of prayer, a spiritually-exercised person. In the situation we find in Daniel 9, Daniel is evidently an exercised man — desperate for the Lord to revive and restore His people. It is now the first year of the kingship of Darius the Mede in Babylon. Belshazzar is defeated (see 5:30-31). The prayer that is recorded in the 9th chapter arises from Daniel’s concern about the terrible position of the people of God in his day. When will the ‘captivity’ from over 40 years earlier end? The Lord had spoken of this through Jeremiah (v 2). Jeremiah was a contemporary with Daniel, though never exiled. Will the Lord not hasten deliverance? Do we not feel that way in our day? We are in a sort of spiritual ‘captivity’. We will therefore be greatly helped by Daniel here.

1. Approach – Seriousness before God (v 3)⤒🔗

We live in a shallow sort of age. It touches us all. Why do we lack power? Is it not a want of seriousness before the Lord, especially in prayer? Look at Daniel: ‘prayer and supplication with fasting, sackcloth and ashes’. Does this seem remote? Christ speaks of fasting in His sermon on the mount (Matthew 6:16-18). One thing that the practice of fasting brings home to us, however little it comes into our lives, if at all, is seriousness before the Lord. And when there is such seriousness — as we see with Daniel here — you would expect to see a humbled, penitent, prayerful people. As for Daniel, he fasted in sackcloth and ashes. He sets aside the material things for a season, to focus on the more important and central. He is aware of the greatness of God (v 4). How great God is! How awesome! He is One who keeps His word. And that cuts both ways: blessing for obedience, humbling yourself before Him, and curses upon those who deny Him and live in disobedience to His word. How do we properly come to the Lord?

Always with reverence, with humility; with a recognition of His greatness, and a confession of our sinfulness and unworthiness. When we come to God as we ought we recognise Him for who He is (as Daniel does here). You recognise that He is righteous (see vv 7, 14, 16); and you recognise (thankfully) that He is merciful and forgiving to the penitent (vv 4, 9, 18, 19). Here’s the truth: the more we recognise and know the character of God, the more we must be serious before Him.

2. Confession – Seriousness about Sin←⤒🔗

Daniel is under no illusion about sin. In so much of modern Church-life there is lightness in this matter too. But sin is an offence to God. Sin is any breach of His commandments, or any failure to observe them aright. We are born in sin and shapen in iniquity. We are as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags in the Lord’s sight. See how Daniel confesses sin. What, this good man? What had he done that was so bad? Ah, but he was not light about sin. He knew his heart. The people had transgressed the Word (vv 5, 8, 11). They had rejected the prophetic message (v 6). They had been unfaithful (v 7), had rebelled (v 9), had been disobedient (v 10), had been prayerless (v 13), had been impenitent (v 15). What a catalogue of deficiencies. But is Daniel laying it on too thick? Oh, no. It is shameful (v7, 8), it is disastrous (v12), it is an affront to God and His holy Word. Sin will bring a people down when it is open and unrepented of. We can get so insensitive to sin in its real seriousness, especially when we are part of a society in which low moral and spiritual standards prevail. Or maybe we blame the wicked one because after all he tempts us so strongly. But notice here how Daniel speaks of the ‘captivity’ being from the Lord (vv 7, 14). This is what He thinks of our sin! So what must we do? Confess — repent — mortify — forsake. But you notice that it is not as if Daniel happily prays about ‘their’ sin – the sin of these other people — and is happy to distance himself from them. Not at all: ‘we have sinned and done wickedly’ (vv 5, 15). That is the cry of an exercised soul. He does not exclude himself. It’s true, isn’t it, that we quickly recognise the deficiencies of others, but as for ourselves, well, we are not so aware of our own shortcomings, because our sins don’t seem so bad when set against the tenor of the times? But we must be serious before God; and we must be serious about sin. Otherwise how will we expect the blessing of the Lord and a deliverance from our ‘captivity’?

3. Petitions – Seriousness in Pleading←⤒🔗

Jesus urged His followers: ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you’ (Matthew 7:7). We have, too, Paul’s exhortation: ‘Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God’ (Philippians 4:6). With what result: the peace of God will flood your souls (v 7).

Notice here, how appealing Daniel is: His praying is full of appeals to the Lord. He appeals for the Lord to act according to His will, as He has done in the past; he appeals for mercy; he appeals for the Lord’s anger to be turned away. We find all this in vv 15 and 16. How suggestive for our own praying! That we might be a people who would appeal to the Lord in like manner, for our situation, and for our land, and in our day. You notice that in his appeals this is first; ‘Turn away thine anger from us’ (v 16).

He pleads for revival in the church. That, essentially, is what we have in verse 17: make thy face to shine on thy sanctuary, which is desolate. Send revival, or reformation. What a great need we have of this in our day! What a great need in congregations and denominations!

But why should He give us what we ask? Because we are so good and deserve it so much? Because we pray so well and after all, we have all the right doctrines and practices? No, no, no! Why? For His name’s sake (v 18). For the Lord’s sake (vv 17, 19). In other words, on account of what Christ the Saviour and Mediator has done.

What a cause we have to take a leaf out of Daniel’s book here. Here is the right approach: reverence, repentance, humbling ourselves before the Lord. These are to be daily exercises. Are we languishing in spiritual activities and fruit? We look at Daniel and we learn what it is to be humbled as we ought before the God of Heaven, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, before Christ Himself. Here we are in need of a turning of our captivity. Here we stand in need of reviving and refreshing from the presence of the Lord. The way forward? See Daniel and learn.

It is said that the man who took over in the mission work in China after Hudson Taylor was trying to analyse a particular problem. Whilst working in two villages in China he found that the one in which he worked and lived was not doing very well; whereas there was great blessing in the other village across a range of hills and in which he was less often present. His reflection on the problem before the Lord showed him the answer: Though spending much time in preaching and counselling and teaching in his own place he prayed much more for the other place. He concluded that there were four basic elements in a successful work: (1) pray; (2) pray; (3) pray; and (4) share the word. We could do nothing better than set our faces, like Daniel, to seek the Lord, with humbled, penitent hearts. Plead with Christ — ask, seek, knock — until He is pleased to hear from heaven and send great blessing as floods upon the dry ground. ‘It is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you’ (Hosea 10:12). ‘And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem (His church) a praise in the earth’ (Isaiah 62:7).