Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - When Your Faith Is Shaken | The Writings | Daniel 9

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

What is at the foundation of a confident faith? Do you trust in your own faith or in God? What do you do when doubts creep in? In today's episode, Jeff looks at Daniel's prayers in Daniel 9 to find hope in the midst of a shaken faith. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Daniel 9

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. When your faith is shaken, where do you look for confidence? Some people look to the religious track record to elicit a sense of confidence in life. How am I doing with my spiritual disciplines? Have I kept up with my Bible reading plan and my habits for prayer? Other people look in a different direction.

They look to their emotional sensations as a metric for confidence. How do I feel about my relationship with God? Am I happy, sad, lonely? Now, of course, spiritual disciplines and emotional awareness, they're important, vital parts of the journey of faith. But when our faith is shaken, are those the best places to look for confidence? Where do you look for confidence when your faith is shaken? Now, that might be a hypothetical question for you right now, maybe things seem fine and you feel more stable than shaken. Or maybe you're not following Jesus just yet and wouldn't say that you have an act of faith to be considering right now. But you do wonder to yourself, what do these Christians do when doubt or dryness or isolation creep in? But what I do

if I decided to follow Jesus and end up with a shaken faith? Maybe this isn't a hypothetical question for you, though. It could be a very live issue. Perhaps your faith is being shaken because of a personal sense of suffering or distance from God. Or it could be because of something broader than that. For many, the uncertainty of our age with political division and turmoil and uncertainty, they shake the foundations of our lives and our faith. Where do you look for confidence when your faith is shaken? For many of us, the ninth chapter of Daniel is going to give an unexpected picture of what a confident faith looks like. We'll come to find that when your faith is shaken, the biggest, most important question is not about how confident you are in your faith. It's about who your confidence is in.

It's less about the strength of your faith and more about the source of your faith. Let's set up our time with some context for Daniel 9. The events in this chapter take place shortly after the events of Chapter 5 historically, when the Persian Empire overthrows the Babylonians. So Daniel reads the words of the prophet Jeremiah and sees that the time of exile for God's people is nearly finished. Quick history nerd moment here for a second. This is about one year away from Cyrus's decree for the exiles to return to Jerusalem.

We read about that in the last two verses of second. Chronicles. Now, this chapter of Daniel features two distinct yet related parts. There's a prayer of confession that Daniel gives, and there's a vision that he receives. Now, it's possible to take these two scenes in isolation, but we're going to see how they actually fit together, and they give us a humble, honest perspective for considering the best foundation for confident faith. As we prepare to encounter Daniel 9, let's slow down, and refocus our hearts and minds through prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of life and breath, and thank you for the goodness and the power of your word. Jesus, help us abide in you as we engage with

your truth in this moment. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in the book of Daniel. And as we read these words, let these words read us and restore us. In Jesus' name, Amen. So let's start by looking at Daniel's prayer of confession, and beginning in verses four and five. Let's just get into the Bible. Oh, 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. These two verses really set the tone for the entire prayer of confession from Daniel. As you read the rest of the prayer here, the confession here, you can't help but notice the ongoing contrast between the faithlessness of God's people and the faithfulness of God.

Now here's a fun note that amplifies the point here. The name Yahweh in our English Bibles, that's capital L-O-R-D, God's covenant name, his covenant name that communicates his commitment to his people. That name, the Lord, Yahweh, only shows us. up in this chapter within the book of Daniel. And it shows up seven times in this chapter. Daniel's taking pains to emphasize the confidence that he has in the Lord's covenant love for him and for his people. Verse 18 clarifies that same truth. We read this, for we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. That's all great, but

let's pause and remember who's talking here. It's our friend Daniel. Daniel stands out as an exemplary figure who lived faithfully in the time of exile. This guy is at a varsity level of spiritual disciplines, of character formation, and allegiance to Yahweh. He has lived out some serious righteousness in his life. But his righteousness is not the foundation of his confidence before God. at this pivotal moment as he's anticipating return from exile, he's actually adopting a humble posture of confession and repentance. So the focus here is not really on Daniel or on the people of God. It is on God himself, on his steadfast love and his commitment to his people. So back to

our question, where do you look for confidence when your faith is shaken? Well, from Daniel's prayer, we see that confidence isn't based in our righteousness. but in God's great mercy. Now, don't get me wrong, Daniel's faithfulness matters. It matters a lot. That's a big theme in the entire book of Daniel. But his faithfulness is simply the fruit of a life rooted and the bedrock foundation of God's faithfulness.

Now, on to the next scene, the vision. In verse 20, we're introduced to a new scene in Daniel 9. So God responds here to Daniel's prayer with an apocalyptic vision delivered by the angel Gabriel. And before sharing that vision with Daniel, Gabriel lays down something vital for us to see in verse 23. Here's what we read. Gabriel tells Daniel, at the beginning of your pleas for mercy, a word went out, and I have come

to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision. Notice the point of these introductory words from Gabriel. The vision here is coming to Daniel because he is greatly loved. This vision is a response of God's covenant love, and it's meant to lead to understanding. So whatever happens here is not meant to confuse Daniel or confuse us, but to give him and to give us confidence. And let's just pause really quickly and talk about that word apocalypse, apocalyptic literature and language.

For many of us, that word conjures up. images of a zombie takeover, an alien invasion, or maybe even an epic action movie featuring Honnold Schwarzenegger. Now, those are interesting things to think about, but if that's our first thought when we think about an apocalyptic vision, we should pivot. The word apocalypse means to reveal. So this vision, it's meant to reveal reality, to show Daniel, show God's people and show us what's really happening amidst the movements of power and change throughout world history. This is a picture of reality for times when life and faith are shaken. Apocalyptic visions like this, they aren't meant to confuse us or to create a detective-like

curiosity when we look at the news headlines. They're meant to comfort and encourage the faithfulness of God's people when life is uncertain. So what reality is revealed in this vision? Gabriel describes a period of 70 weeks or 707s that God's people will endure in the future. And a quick heads up here, this vision in Daniel 9 is one of the most complex and debated passages of the Old Testament among faithful biblical scholars. For example, there are various interpretations on what the 70 weeks or the 77s, what they mean. Some say that to describe historical events leading up to and during the time of Jesus,

while others emphasize that the timeline here might be figurative connected to the sense of completeness in the number seven throughout the Bible. Now, if you want to dig into the different views of the timeline here and the vision, I encourage you to spend some time in a good study Bible to analyze each perspective in a way of the pros and cons. But here's one big takeaway that emphasizes the point Gabriel's trying to make. And the key is to see the connection between Daniel's prayer and the vision, how they go together. Now, regardless of how you interpret the timeframes here, the big idea is that the times are appointed by God. I say that again, the big message here. Remember how you interpret the times or the timelines. The big point is that the times are appointed by

God. The events of history are not arbitrary or unintentional or haphazard. God is on the throne. And if we miss this, we miss the entire point. Remember, Gabriel started by telling Daniel that he's greatly loved and he wants him to understand reality. So what is that reality? In response to the faithlessness of God's people that Daniel confessed, God is still the one true king who is perfectly faithful. even when life, even when history, even when faith is shaken, he's on the throne. He wears the crown. And because he wears the crown, our confidence is safe if it's in him. Now, this is not just a nice, warm, fuzzy idea for religious people to think about. This is not a platitude. For followers of Jesus, this is a promise that is worked out in human history, pointing to God's

wavering faithfulness when King Jesus died on a Roman cross. Let's think about the cross for a moment. The cross of Jesus is such a striking subversion of how we think about confidence and power. Rome used the cross as a shameful object of torture to display its fearful power over the empire. It was a method of using fear to establish confidence in Rome's might. On that very object of Rome's power, Jesus revealed a far greater, far more ancient power as his love defeated sin, death, and evil forever, not by dominating his enemies, but by dying for them, out of love. In that moment, when it seemed like God's throne might be vacant, his throne was actually victorious. The point's this. Ultimately, our confidence is in the one who wears the crown. In Jesus,

who wore the crown of thorns for us and reigns now with the crown of victory as the king over all things. What are the things that are shaking your confidence in God today? Making you question, making you uncertain. Daniel 9 gives us the freedom to name those things, to face them, and yet at the same time to not respond by turning to ourselves for confidence. Instead, our confidence is in the one who wore the crown of thorns, and where's the crown of victory today? Lord Jesus amidst the uncertainty of our days and our times,

and the areas where our lives and our faith are shaken, help us to find our confidence in you, your power, your love, your kingdom, your crown. We need you. Come, Lord Jesus.