Tuesday June 16, 2015

Read Daniel 9:1-19

When someone makes a promise to do something for you, do you:

a) Take them at their word and believe that they will do it,

b) Believe it when you see it – you are sceptical at best, or

c) Dismiss it as a lie – you don’t trust them to keep their word.

Everyone at sometime in their life will experience being let down by someone. For example, parents let down their children to be at their special event because something happens that means they can’t keep their word. Therefore, we are usually sceptical about people making us promises. Some people are usually reliable and can be trusted – it is out of character for them to break their promise. Some people rarely keep their promises – they have every intention but are not disciplined within themselves to fulfil their promises. But what about the promises of the Lord, are they reliable?

Before the people of Judah and Jerusalem were taken into exile the Lord promised: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfil my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. (Jeremiah 29:10) And again: “‘The days are coming when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their forefathers to possess’, says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 30:3)

Did those people in exile in Babylon take these words God promised through Jeremiah and believe them? I imagine some people thought Jeremiah was talking through his hat and didn’t trust God’s Word. But Daniel was a man who trusted God’s word spoken to Jeremiah. When the exiles had been in Babylon for close to seventy years Daniel turned to the Lord and began to pray for its fulfilment. We read in Daniel 9:2 – “In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.”

Here were the actions of a man who trusted God to keep His word and to fulfil it. His prayer is telling. It shows us that Daniel understood why the people from Jerusalem and Judah had received God’s judgement and accepted it. He confessed that God is always faithful to His word and had warned His people from the beginning that if they listened to Him and obeyed His word that they would be blessed by God and live in peace, but if they did not listen to God’s Word and disobeyed Him, then the “curses and sworn judgements written in the Law of Moses (v11)” would be enacted.

The Lord Jesus has promised that “whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16)”. We also have God’s Word that “this same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back. (Acts 1:11)” Jesus Himself said, “I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am. (John 14:3)”

Jesus’ return is just one of the promises God made and we can believe His promises or not. It is OK to admit that we find it hard to accept them so long as we are genuinely seeking God’s answers from His word and trying to sort it out. But ultimately we must come to believe them to be true and trust God. It is the believer who receives eternal life. Some things are beyond our present understanding and we need to believe but keep on searching God’s Word for understanding.

Like Daniel, we want God’s to be praised and His word trusted.

Prayer:

Using today’s passage and the reading notes spend time in prayer.

Adoration:

Confession:

Thanks:

Supplication:

·  Praise the Lord for His word and ask that you may grow in understanding it and trusting it.

·  Pray for your cell group to nurture each other’s trust in God’s word and growth in understanding to be secure in Christ Jesus.

·  Pray for the missionaries your church supports that they will have wisdom in sharing the Scriptures with the people they serve.

 Discussion Questions For Families and Groups

1. How sure are you about the promises of God—especially about Jesus’ coming again to take believers to be with Him in heaven?

2. What does the Bible say about people who do not believe? What verses of Scripture do you have to back up what you are saying?