The Daniel Prayer - Session 9 - Prevailing In Prayer...Answered Ultimately

The Church of Divine Guidance Sunday Morning Adult Bible Study Group studying the book The Daniel Prayer:  Prayer That Moves Heaven And Changes Nations By Anne Graham-Lotz.  


James 5:16 (NLT2) ¹⁶  Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. 

The Daniel Prayer is born deep within your soul, erupts through your heart, and pours out on your lips, words created by and infused with the Spirit of God quivering with spiritual electricity. It’s really not an everyday type of prayer. It’s a prayer birthed under pressure. Heartache. Grief. Desperation. It can be triggered by a sudden revelation of hope. An answer to prayer, a promise freshly received, a miracle that lies just over the horizon.

Study along with us by getting a copy of the book by clicking this LINK or the image of the book in the study notes. 

In last week's session we learned that Daniel's prayer was answered immediately.

Daniel 9:20-23 NIV While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy hill— while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. He instructed me and said to me, “Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision:

In this session we’ll see that Daniel got an immediate answer but it wasn't the ultimate answer. 

Daniel prayed that God answer Jeremiah's prophecy.

Jeremiah 29:10-11 NIV This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord , “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

But he never saw the ultimate answer.  Yes they would go back to Israel and Jerusalem but the ultimate answer wouldn't come until after a bunch of sevens and seventies. 

Daniel 9:24-27 NIV “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.  “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him. ”

We went through the weeks thing in our study of Daniel in 2014, The Prophecies of Daniel - Is The End Near - Session 5 (http://faiththeevidence.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-prophecies-of-daniel-is-end-near_5.html).

As we learned in our Daniel study that prophecy came to pass before Jesus’ birth.

Because the Daniel Prayer is a cry for freedom. Anne is certain that the ultimate answer is Jesus.

Galatians 5:1 NIV It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

2 Corinthians 3:17 NIV Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

John 8:32 NIV Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

As the people in Daniel’s day were enslaved by the Babylonians. People today are enslaved.  The devil has bound them in chains of sin and selfishness and lust and greed. Everybody's enslaved  men and women, old and young, every nationality, language, and culture, So we should, like Anne be compelled to pray that all people everywhere would be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

Jesus announced His ministry to the world, not just the Jews, when He read from the scroll on the Sabbath in Nazareth. 

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

Luke 4:16-18, 20-21 NIV He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:   “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,  because he has anointed me  to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners  and recovery of sight for the blind,  to set the oppressed free,  Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Then He told them that if they didn't believe Him others, Gentiles, world.

Luke 4:22-27 NIV All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.  Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ ”   “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.  I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land.  Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.  And there were many in Israel with leprosy  in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

And they wanted to kill Him.

Jesus died to break our shackles of bondage to sin.  He rose from the dead to open prison doors that we might enter into the real freedom of abundant, eternal life in His Name. He ascended to God’s right hand of authority and power where even now He is praying, His own High Priestly Prayer over us.

Romans 8:34 NIV Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

At this moment, He is working to build the New Jerusalem for us as a Heavenly Home where we will dwell with Him forever.

 John 14:1-4 NIV“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God   ; believe also in me.  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going.”

And one glorious day He will return to judge and rule the world. One day the nations of the world will become the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ!

 Revelation 11:15 NIV The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.”

Anne’s profound statement “The Daniel Prayer moves Heaven and changes a nation as one person at a time fully embraces Jesus . . .” goes to the heart of what we talked about in our study “Prayer Does It Make A Difference”. We agreed that quite often prayer energizes us to act.

Shadow of the Almighty and Through Gates of Splendor—about Jim Elliot ,a man who wanted to be part of the ministry that points to the ultimate answer, who died on a mission to deliver the gospel to natives in Equator. These two biographies expanded his ministry by challenging a new generation to take the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth.  And in 2006 a movie was released, End of the Spear, that chronicled the successful, continuing effort to reach the natives of Ecuador. Heaven was moved and the Aucas, as well as many others in remote areas of the world were radically, eternally changed. 

Let's talk about what I think is an amazing story.

Azzam had been born and raised a Muslim but had been having dreams of Jesus. He had sought out his Imam for answers, but the man had violently berated and beaten him. When his mother discovered he was having Jesus dreams, she commanded him to leave the home for his own protection and never come back. He did. He walked miles and miles, quite sure his father would be unable to find him.
     
 But he was wrong. His father was a powerful warlord who located him quickly, and sent Azzam a package. When Azzam opened it, he was shocked and sickened to find his mother, cut up into small pieces. A photograph had been included inside the plastic bag. It was a picture of his mother kneeling in front of two men who had their knives raised over her. The day Azzam opened the “package” is the day he embraced the Ultimate Answer as he committed his life to Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
     
This is where the story gets even more incredible. Because Azzam sought out the two men who had butchered his mother. He told them that he forgave them. He told them that Jesus loved them and that He could forgive murderers. The two men, Mahdi andYasin, embraced the Ultimate Answer and claimed Jesus as their Savior. Then they confided to Azzam, “As we killed your mother, her last words were, ‘Jesus, Jesus, I love You.’
        
Without a doubt, Heaven has been and is being moved by these radical followers of Jesus. And while Somalia has yet to be changed, it will be. One heart at a time. Because the Ultimate Answer to the Daniel Prayer . . . the Ultimate Answer that moves Heaven and changes a nation is not politics . . .
     
Or education.
Or a strong military.

Or nuclear weapons.
Or religion.

Or a particular denomination.

Or better organization.
Or capitalism.
Or socialism.
Or radicalism.
 Or more jobs.
 Or more money.
     
 The Ultimate Answer is Jesus!

ANSWERED SPECIFICALLY

When we believe that we are being led by God to do something that we believe is impossible we want to make sure we pray about it often asking for a sign.  Now we have to make sure that the sign is from God so we need to get bery specific, like Gideon.  We know the story of the angel, who some say was a theophany or a pre-incarnation appearance of Jesus told Gideon he would save his people.  

So Gideon prayed specifically by laying out a fleece...twice.

Judges 6:36-40 NIV Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.  Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

We have talked about being specific in prayer so we know that we should always be specific and persistent . 

Have you ever had an experience similar to Anne in laying out a fleece.

What difference does the prayer of one person make? You will never know until you pray. So . . . pray! Now!

So don’t just pray the Daniel Prayer. Become part of the Ultimate Answer to it by embracing Jesus fully. Then give Him to someone else by sharing the Gospel. Heaven will be moved. Our nation and world will be changed. One person at a time. For the glory of His Name!

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