Happy New Year. Today's creature reading is from Daniel chapter 9, 1 to 19. Daniel chapter 9, 1 to 19. In the first year of the Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, by descent of the Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Cardians. 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 desolation of Jerusalem, namely 70 years. Then, I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and plea for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong. and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of our land. To you, O Lord, belongs 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, in 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 have 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 not sinned against him. He has confirmed his words which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us by bringing upon 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, And therefore, the Lord has kept ready, the calamity 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. And now, O Lord our God, who brought us, 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. O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy hill, because of our sins and for the iniquity 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 servants and to 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 ears and hear, open your eyes and see our desolations in 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. Oh Lord, hear. Oh Lord, forgive. Oh Lord, pay attention to and act. Delay not for your own sake. Oh my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, grant us your wisdom to listen and understand your words properly. May you pour out your grace upon our hearts to know how far, deep, and wide your love is for us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Let me ask you a few questions on a topic of prayer. In what posture do you pray to God? You kneel down or you just lay down on your bed and pray. Second, when you pray, what names of God do you call upon? I usually pray, I just call Heavenly Father, but how about you? Gracious Father. There are so many names you call. Third, if you pray every day, what is the main content of the prayer? Just food or clothes or anything about your friend's illness. Four, have you ever fasted in prayer? I did two days and then I stopped because my head was really dizzy. During intercessory prayer, how many people are on your prayer list and what is the range? Just family or community or for nations or worldwide? Sixth, why do we pray when we know that God's plan will be executed? It is okay not to ask these questions, but when we ask about questions for ourselves, we begin to doubt. And we just be, just about our prayer life, is it really desirable before God? Is my prayer is really desirable before God? As we welcome the year of the 2022, We want to encourage our church family in prayer. During the next three weeks, we will be preaching thematic sermons on the topic of prayer. I will give you the first sermon today. There are many points to learn and think about on topic of the prayer, but I would like to introduce four points found in today's passage. In order to understand the text correctly, I will briefly explain the background of today's text. When Daniel was about 15 and then 17 years old, a teenager, and it was 605, 605 BC, before Christ, he was taken by King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, as a captive. As you know, A teenager time should be fun and filled with inquisitive studying about what they are curious about and dreaming about their future. However, it didn't happen to Daniel in that way. He was a person who witnessed the destruction of the nation with his eyes and heard it screaming with his ears and experienced it with his whole body. He was already faced with a life-changing experience as a teenager, but regardless of the prior training or past experience, the key point was that Daniel put his faith first. If you question today, Daniel, and what is your priority, what is your first value in your life, then he would definitely say that my first value, my priority value is my relationship with God. He put his faith first in his life. Daniel was well known as a faithful person who feared God. In fact, Daniel was mentioned in the book of Ezekiel as someone who was righteous before God. In the book of Ezekiel, there are only three people mentioned as righteous before God, Noah and Daniel and Job. Those of you who have read Daniel chapter six will know that in the last years of his life he was a man of prayer who opened door to Jerusalem three times a day and prayed even though he knew that it was forbidden to pray to their God other than the king due to the conspiracy of the prime ministers. Even though he was thrown into the dens of lion, he did not forsake his faith in God. Today's text refers to the time when the Babylon Empire was destroyed. It is B.C., before Christ, 539. And Darius, son of Ahasuerus, was appointed as a king of the Chardians region under the commission of the King Cyrus of the Persian Empire, who has conquered the area. From 605 B.C. when Daniel was taken as a captive to 539 B.C., the Babylon Empire was destroyed. It is 66 years past. Assuming that Daniel was taken as a captive at his age of 15, so 15 plus 66 years, it is 81 years. In this chapter, chapter nine, when Daniel pray, Daniel was at least 81 years old. Daniel decides to retire. Did Daniel decide to retire at this time and say go just buy a yacht and then just go to some warm country and then just enjoy his retirement? No, he did not. Still he was a prime minister at the same time he was captive. Even then the word of God was still in Daniel's hand. His eyes were reading the words and his heart was completely towards God. Then the Holy Spirit opened his eyes and gave him the grace to understand the words of the prophet Jeremiah which we have now as a book of the Bible, Daniel perceived the truth of the word and prayed. That is main story of the today text. First point, perceiving the will of God from the scripture, the beginning of the prayer begins with the perceiving the word of God. This is from book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 25 to 12. Then after 70 years are completed, I, here is I as God, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of Chardians, for their iniquity, because theirs are lower, making the land an everlasting waste. Also Jeremiah 29, 10 to 14. For thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare, not for evil. to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. And 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 I will restore your fortune and gather you from all nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I send you into exile. Biblical scholars speculate that Daniel read this passage. He might truly confirm that Babylon was also the object of God's judgment. Babylon will eventually perish as God commensioned through the prophet Jeremiah. When he perceived this truth, truth of the 70 years and the truth about the Babylon empire will be perished, he would come to the conclusion that God would send his people to Jerusalem within a few years. Daniel, who perceived the truth, did not call a meeting with the elders for a strategic meeting. Hey guys, I perceive something. Let's gather together, I want to inform this. No, he did not. As one commentator just put it, Daniel was then prime minister of the Medo-Prussia, a Persian empire, and had full support from the King Darius. So there were numerous reasons he would think that, oh, maybe now I become prime minister, this is time that I go to King Darius and then ask him and show him these 70 years so that he can let us go. But he, the Bible, today Bible records that Daniel went to the prayer. Truly, when a person reads the word of God and perceives the will of God, a person naturally goes to the place of prayer. If any of you do not know how to pray and what to pray according to God's will and plan, I encourage you to read the word. A mirror clear as crystal, the moment we face His face, His word, our complicated thoughts disappear and God's clear vision will begin to appear and we will go to the place of prayer in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Second point, de-attitude, earnest prayer. Perceiving the will of God led Daniel to earnest prayer. This is verse three and four. Then I turned my face to the Lord, seeking him by prayers and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord, my God, and made confession. The literal translation of the first part of the verse three is as follows. Ba-etana, et. I gave my faith to the Lord. At the beginning of Daniel's prayer, he gave all his nerves, all his power, and all his strength, and all concentration towards God as if he was seeking God's grace, only seeking God's grace with all his heart. To whom? Was he giving all his attention? Adonai ha Elohim, praying to the Lord God, who is the absolute sovereign of the universe and who has all powerful power. The Hebrew word tefillah, translated as a prayer in verse three, means intercessory prayer. The tahannunim, which translates as please, supplication, today's passage, means original verbs, meaning bending down. I want to show here, but you cannot see me, but when you're bending down, and this is the same posture as Prophet Elijah did, is when he prayed for, after drought, for the rain. He just knee down, and then his head was in the thigh that much. You shrink your body, whole body, and just asking. as a servant, and you're waiting, Master's voice, and that much Daniel, 81 years old man, just pray to that posture. Almighty God, and then come before, Daniel absolutely denies himself before Almighty God, and comes to the place of prayer. and as a representative of the nation, he bowed down with earnest heart and raised his hands and confessed as he prayed for the nation. Regarding the attitude of the prayer, just one commentator just commented, it resonate my heart throughout this past week. We pray in order to receive God's answer. Unanswered prayer is an empty prayer. Many people pray to God, but few expect an answer. When prayers are answered, there are many people who think, that is very unusual. Why? It is because we pray, but rarely receive answers. However, this is not because God does not listen to prayer, but because the attitude of prayer is not correct. As one commentator put it, Daniel came up with an attitude that was truly pleasing to God from the beginning of the prayer and perceiving the Word of God to the attitude of the prayer. And what was the content of his prayer? Third point, true repentance. prayer in chapter nine is composed of the repentance prayer, verse four to 15, and supplication, 16 to 19. Within today's text, I will focus on the words of the repentance used in verse five. As a reference, and I found the 19 expression relate to the confession of sins from verse five to 15. And this is verse four to six. I pray to the Lord, my God, and made a confession saying, O Lord, the great and awesome God who keep covenants and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. We have sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants and prophets who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all people of the land. Let's examine verse five. In verse five, the first person plural, we, was only used once. So we, we have sinned. And then just, they cut it off the pronoun. but in original Hebrew language, so we cannot feel much of the nuance of the sentence. But in Hebrew text, the subject to be is continuously mentioned to each verb as a suffix in Hebrew text. Hatanu, here nu is we. Hatanu, beawinu, vehir sha'unu, u maradeunu. We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly, we have rebelled. In chapter nine, Daniel emphasized the sin of the community by using pronoun we or us 55 times. In chapter nine, he using first plural noun, just pronoun we or us 55 times. Through the various words, Daniel confessed to God that the Israel community had truly sinned before God. Sinned, hatha, literally means to go astray. It referred to seeing a negative sense of the deviating God's ordinary. Done wrong, awa, is a crime in our sense as a hardened heart against God. Acted wickedly, rashom, means that to do something wrong. It is actual act which is a crime in external sense that goes against God. Rebelled, marat, directly opposed and blaspheming God. Throughout the repentance, Daniel confesses all kinds of sins committed by Israel through a gradual discretion of the transgression. On the one hand, before captive, God once expressed this to the people of Israel, who did not know shame. This is from Jephaniah, chapter two, verse one. Gather together, yes gather, O shameless nation. Did the Israelites community feel shame after deportation? Still, there were people among the Israelites who did not feel shame, blaming their ancestors, pointing out their ancestors. I didn't wrong. Because of my ancestor, that's why we came here. And then blaming leaders. They didn't lead us very well. That's why we came here. blaming all the kings so they are righteous before God. So to make them as they are right but they are wrong. But did Daniel separate himself from the shameless people when he prayed? Did he separate himself from the sins of kings and sins of the leaders and the sins of the people? No he didn't. Just as our Lord Jesus Christ bore all the shame at the cross, Daniel also identified their shame as his own shame as a representative of the nation. That's why Daniel was confessing the sins of Israel in first person plural, not first person singular point of view. Fourth point. When Daniel prayed, he relied on God's character, God's good character. Daniel truly tries to exalt the name of God, concerns about God's reputation. In chapter nine, Daniel used three names of God. Adonai, the Lord, Elohim, God, Yahweh, the Lord. This name appears in eight times. So Yahweh, this name, appears eight times in chapter nine of the entire book of Daniel. Daniel only used this Yahweh name this chapter nine. And as you can see, verse three, Please look, verse three. Then I turn my face to the Lord God. Here, the Lord God is Elohim. Sorry, Adonai Elohim. So here, the Lord start with a capital L, but rest of the word is just O-R-D, is just lowercase. But verse four, I pray to the Lord. Here, Lord is Yahweh, capital L-O-R-D. All the capital is L-O-R-D. So he using this Yahweh, verse two, four, eight, 10, 11. 13, two times verse 14, and then 20, so eight times, the Lord. So you can see now from when you read the Old Testament, you can differentiate. This Lord with a small capital is just Adonai, but with a capital, all capital, which means Yahweh. Why is he using this? Jehovah refers to God as a faithful covenant fulfiller. Elohim refers to God, refers to Almighty God. Lord, Adonai, means that God is the one who has absolute sovereignty over the created world. Therefore, it is said that these titles of God reflect that when Daniel prayed, he intentionally prayed to God that he using these names intentionally, asking, and then just asking that Lord, we bring our repentance at the same time. Lord, you know, we know, you keep your covenant. We know that. I know you, Lord. You promise and you keep the promise. He intentionally using this God's name. Besides God's name, Daniel exhorts God's character throughout the chapter. Great God, Godot, awesome God, God who keeps covenant, steadfast love, righteous God, merciful, and forgiveness. Through the entire prayer, we can feel Daniel wholeheartedly exalting God's name with all his heart. Most of all, what was truly wise was that Daniel not only depends on God's good character in his prayer, but also deep trust in God who keeps his covenant. After 70 years he believed in God who would send the Israelites back to their homeland as promised. Hebrews, this is book of Hebrews 11.6, and without faith it is impossible to please him. Here he is God. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Daniel was a man who trusted God's promise and character. Lastly, I would like to end the sermon with an answer to the question of why we should pray. Although we know that God will keep his covenant and he will accomplish all the works. This is from the book of Ezekiel, chapter 36, 37 to 38. Thus says the Lord God, this also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them, to increase their people like a flock, like the flock for a sacrifice, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts. So shall the waste city be filled with the flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord. The God of covenant would restore and renew never the least, as a commentator mentioned. God does not do good things carelessly or thoughtlessly. He does not do it until the people want it. This is why each one of us have to pray. As I already mentioned in Jeremiah, When we pray, Sovereign God listens to our prayer and then He fulfills. And then when people saw that, wow, God listens to our prayers, God answers our prayers, then yes, you are my Lord. Yes, you are our Lord. Then they know. here as here, then they will know that I am the Lord, the Almighty God. This is how God works. When you pray, Sovereign God listens, he works, and he answers. When he saw, we praise God, and we recognize him as our Lord. Yes, you are my Lord. It is written by Jewish historian Josephus. The last king of Babylon, Belshazzar, who had a feast with the utensils of God's temple and brought God's wrath, was killed by King Cyrus of Persia that night. Persian army searched the whole city and castle and went to one of the high-ranking room. They found an old man in novel cloth and standing calmly. This old man just called this King Cyrus and then just showing him and then just please listen. And then King Cyrus and then I say that this old man said to this King Cyrus that I know that you already are coming. So listen this word. This is from Isaiah chapter 45 verse one to three. Thus says the Lord to his anointed to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him, to lose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed. I will go before you and rebel the exalted places. I will break in pieces the door of the bronze and cut through the bars of iron. I will give you the treasure of darkness and the hordes of the secret places that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name." King Cyrus, who was moved by these words of the prophet Isaiah, ordered the return of the captives. And we don't know the history, but the historian Josephus confessed that. Because Daniel showed these prophets just words, Isaiah. That's why King Cyrus commands all Israelites come back to their homeland, Jerusalem. Adonai Elohim. Lord God is omnipotent. Omnipotent Father who leads history without a single error today. Prayer is a starting point of this sovereign God's work. Today, Holy Spirit gently invite us to a place of prayer to participate His grandeur of the redeeming history. So let us pray. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know through the words given us today. We thank you for fulfilling your promise by sending your son, Jesus Christ, to pay our sins at the cross. As we begin the new year, make us hold tight on your words and lead us to go up in prayer with a humbleness and a reverent heart before you until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, please work among us here at Tent, where the name of Jesus Christ is engraved, so that the gospel of the Lord can spread in and through us to reach our neighbors and the world. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.