Daniel's Prayer | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 9, 1879

Daniel's Prayer.

AMONG all the prayers which are offered to our Heavenly Father, he has honored some few by giving them a place in his word: some very short ones, like that of the publican, but all models after their kind. Daniel's prayer is a model of the large-heartedness of a man who lives in the life of God more than in his own, and has God's interests more at heart than his own. He tells us (verse 20) that he was “praying, and confessing his sin and the sin of his people Israel, and presenting his supplication before the Lord his God for the holy mountain of his God.” Here was a man whose life was so faultless that his bitterest enemies could not find a flaw, unless it was that he loved God too much. He was called by God the “man greatly beloved” (chap. 10:19), yet it was this man who lay low before God in confession for himself and his people.

How was it? One reason was that the purer the atmosphere becomes, as we live in more close and unbroken communion with God, the less can we tolerate a speck of dust upon us, and that which we once saw not to be sin becomes intensely hateful. Another reason was that Daniel's inner life was not for himself; he lived for God and for God's people. He was a part of Israel; their sins were his sins, their shame his shame. He realized, by the unselfish love of his heart, the Christian principle, we are “every one members one of another” (Rom. 12:5), and undoubtedly he drank into the same spirit with Paul, when he said (2 Cor. 11:29), “Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?”

It is humbling to us Christians, when we find a man of the old dispensation carrying out in his life a principle which was not in his days revealed in the word of God, while we, who have our Lord's example and his teaching, and that of the apostles, live so often a life of self, even in spiritual things, making our own joy or our own progress the end of our being, instead of “bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ.” Gal. 6:2. We are ready to condemn the sins of others, and to rejoice, like the Pharisee, that we are not as other men are. But who among us is humbled and crushed under the sins of others, so as to bear on their hearts the sins of their church, their family, their town, their nation?

Then Daniel was well aware whether or not he was in the presence of God, for he was before the Lord his God; and he prayed, not for himself, but for “the holy mountain of his God.” And it was a time solemnly set apart, with “fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.” And he addresses God thus: “O Lord, the great and dreadful God [or wonderful God], keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments.” Verse 4. Thus his first thoughts in prayer are of God's faithfulness, as though he would steep his soul in the character of God before he made one request before him. Then he makes a full confession: “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled.”

He makes no excuse; on the contrary, he cuts away all shadow of excuse from under the feet of his people, acknowledging, “Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name.” Then he draws a sorrowful contrast, but, oh, how just! “O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day.” And he repeats the same in the eighth verse, adding, “To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him.” It was an uncompromising avowal—confusion of face, no power, no right to look God in the face; and he adds that this confusion belongs “to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.”

“Yea,” he continues, “all Israel have transgressed thy law.” There is no exception made in his own favor, or that of his companions in Babylon, or of any of the good kings or prophets which had been before him. “Therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him. And he hath confirmed his words which he spake against us.” (See Lev. 26:14–39; Deut. 28:15–68.) Daniel seems all through his prayer to have it at heart to justify his God, as though he would say, “We have nothing to say for ourselves, we had nothing else to expect; thou hast but been true to thy word, thou couldst not have done otherwise.”

“Under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth.” Probably Daniel, who prayed three times a day with his window open toward Jerusalem, had never ceased to pray for that beloved city; but, taking his place now as an intercessor for his nation, he comes down to their level, and makes no distinction between himself and them, for in his prayer he was Israel, and not Daniel.

It was something of the same spirit which actuated Paul when he said, “Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law, . . . that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” 1 Cor. 9:20–22. Paul lost sight of Paul to gain souls, and Daniel lost sight of Daniel to intercede for and bear upon his heart his nation's sins. Oh, how few there are among us who have anything like this largeness and nobility of heart!

“Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth; for we obeyed not his voice.” It is touching to see how he maintains that God is righteous; there is not a shade of blame cast on him. Having thus fully taken the place of the guilty on behalf of his people, Daniel begins to urge his petition: “And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten thee renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain,” etc.

According to thy righteousness. How could this be? If God was righteous to judge his people, could he be also righteous to forgive? Daniel would not that his God should cease to be just. But he remembered the promise of Lev. 26:40–45: “If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers,” “if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: then will I remember my covenant,” etc. Thus the prophet could plead the very word of God in favor of his people. “Now, therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake.”

Never for a moment does he forget that the object of his prayer is the glory of God. He maintains God's cause all through, and this is the essence of prayer which prevails. He goes on, “O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name; for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies.” Why are there so many unanswered prayers? The Lord himself shall answer: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.” John 15:7.

The love of God's name abode in Daniel, and his words, and thus his prayer was an emanation of the Spirit of God. “O Lord, hear; O Lord forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.” There was no personal plea in the whole prayer; he urged nothing on behalf of his people but their guilt and God's promise. No wonder that while he was speaking the answer came, and that such a prayer was not left unheard.—Selected.