God Answers Prayer for Forgiveness
June 26, 2016
Scripture: Daniel 9:20-27
I. God forgives sin by atoning for it.
A. Daniel prayed for God to forgive (vs. 19). And God sent Daniel an answer to his prayer through the angel Gabriel (vs. 21). Daniel’s prayer for the forgiveness of God’s people, however, would not occur immediately. It was going to take time. The time period talked about in Daniel is discussed in weeks. Seventy weeks is mentioned in vs. 24, 7 weeks and 62 weeks is mentioned in vs. 25, and one final week is mentioned in vs. 27. These weeks in Daniel 9 are not 7 calendar days. Most Bible scholars think that these weeks actually are more like years.
B. In Daniel 9:24 God says in order to forgive Israel he was going to need to take six actions: He will finish transgression, put an end to sin, atone for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, seal both vision and prophet, and anoint a most holy place. To atone for sin means that God offers a sacrifice so that we sinners can be reconciled to Him as the holy God. We know from the New Testament that the sacrifice God offered was Jesus on the cross. Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that we might be saved.
II. God forgives sin by a Messiah.
A. The word Messiah means anointed one. The first anointed one mentioned in Daniel 9 is found in vs. 25 where we read that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince there shall be seven weeks. This prince is likely Cyrus who ends the seventh week by allowing the forgiven Jews to go home and rebuild the temple (Ezra 1:1-4). But this was not the ultimate end of Daniel’s prayer. So, there is a second anointed one, a second Messiah, mentioned in Daniel 9 that would come within Daniel’s seventy weeks.
B. In vs. 26 we read that after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. This Messiah is Jesus. He was cut off in that he was crucified on the cross. Even though he was the King of the Jews, he was killed and left with nothing. And yet his death did not accomplish nothing. The death of the Messiah Jesus accomplished all six of the actions described in vs. 24. Jesus was the ultimate answer to Daniel’s prayer for the forgiveness of sin, and he arrived on the scene after Daniel’s 69th week in Daniel 9.
III. God forgives sin by a new covenant.
A. Jesus’ sacrifice is the only sacrifice we need to be forgiven by God. This promise of forgiveness is a major part of the promise of the new covenant in power to live a righteous life. When did Jeremiah 31:31-34. The Messiah makes a covenant in Daniel 9:27. Because of the new covenant we Christians are forgiven, we know God, and we have the this new covenant begin? Do you remember what Jesus said at the Last Supper in Matthew 26:27-28: “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”?
Application:
Receive the forgiveness of sin by faith in Christ’s blood.
Sources:
The prophecy of Daniel
Commentaries on Daniel by Tremper Longman III, Iain Duguid, and Joyce Baldwin