Lesson 27: Response to Prophecy

Jeremiah 25:11-12 – “This whole land [Israel] shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the LORD, making the land an everlasting waste.”

In our last lesson we see Daniel doing exactly what we must do to understand what God wants to tell us or show us in His prophecies. He was reading the “book” – in this case the book of Jeremiah. The Bible as we know it today was not yet complete for Daniel, and each of the individual books (Book of Moses, Book of the Kings, probably the Book of Isaiah, and certainly the Book of Jeremiah) were separate scrolls. Since each was hand-written, they were expensive and therefore great treasures for those who could afford such “books.” Daniel spent time reading and learning from God through them, and then He spent time in prayer talking with God about what he had read.

As we often do when we also read the Bible and pray, Daniel suddenly became aware that a wonderful prophecy was about to be fulfilled for the people of Israel. He could count the years he had been in captivity in Babylon – and here the word of God said he and his people were about to be released! Daniel could have gone to his people to shout the good news, but instead he turned to God in prayer.

Daniel’s prayer was, first, one of confession of sin. Praying in “sackcloth and ashes” was the outward sign that the person knew they deserved nothing from God, that they put aside every bit of pride to put on humility and repentance before God.


Second, Daniel’s prayer was for God to do exactly what He had promised – to turn His wrath away from Jerusalem – verses 16-19. Why would Daniel need to ask God to do what He had promised to do anyway? He did so because what he truly wanted was the same thing God wanted: he was praying for the will of God to be done. How often do we only pray for what we want, rather than seek to know what He wants to do and ask Him to do His will? Jesus’ command to us in Matthew 6:33 is that we seek His kingdom and His will first, and then He will supply all our needs.

We want to work and spend our life here on earth doing what pleases us. God wants us to work and spend our life here doing what He asks of us. We understand our earthly employers caring for us by giving us wages for what we do; but God goes much further. He gives us what we need for life here and trains us for our eternity with Him!

Third, God answered Daniel’s prayer by sending Gabriel to give Daniel far more than he had asked for! We continue this in our next lesson.

*How have you seen God answer your prayers differently than you expected?