God Loves… Himself

In the last Newsletter an effort was made to picture the belief systems of human beings. The two pictures were a web and then of a pile of wooden pegs. The bottom layer of pegs consisted of thick pegs and there were only four of them. On top of those pegs was a board and on that board were even more pegs with about eight. With each layer the pegs were more numerous until there were many pegs. Each peg represented a belief. On the top layer it is very easy to change a belief because it is not really attached to other beliefs and has no major impact on the belief system as a whole. The closer one got to the bottom the more difficult it becomes to change a belief or a peg because more and more of the other beliefs or pegs rest on and depend on those bottom pegs or beliefs.

The point is to picture what must happen in conversion and to use this as what may be happening in many churches. A truly converted person is one where the bottom pegs have been removed and replaced with core convictions about the true God in Christ. A person that prays a prayer and has a moral change of some sort may have many pegs removed and changed, but the bottom pegs are still the same. That person is not a new creature in Christ but is the same old person that has changed a few beliefs and a few things. Even if the person has changed many beliefs, the core beliefs or the beliefs that a person operates on are the same. People strongly resist having a core belief changed because all of life and love will have to change.

Let me use even another picture. The basic idea of this picture came from a book named Belief & Acceptance and was written by Jonathan Cohen who at the time was an Emeritus Fellow of the Queen’s College, Oxford. He is trying to show us that a person can have many beliefs but not all of the beliefs are accepted. In other words, human beings are those who constantly believe things and really don’t need to make choices about them. If I walk outside I will believe it is sunny or cloudy without even trying. It is virtually automatic and is simply how God has made people. But a belief that is accepted is one that takes root in the person and, biblically speaking, it is a governing factor of the heart. It is an operating principle of the soul. It is the most basic and foundational belief and love of the soul. All other things will be and are dominated by that belief and love.

Scripture teaches us that man can only have one master at a time and if he attempts to have two he will hate one and love the other (Mat 6:24). This teaches us that the heart of man is ruled by one dominant love at a time. We can have many beliefs that do not threaten or have much influence on our dominant love so they are in the belief system but they have no effect on other beliefs or life. However, to accept a core belief requires for that belief to fit with my chief love. If a belief does not fit with my chief love, then it will be rejected with many excuses while reasons will be found because it is actually hated. What Scripture calls a chief love Cohen refers to as a dominating thought. While he does not say that his beliefs were developed with or without Scripture, it certainly pictures Scripture. Unregenerate people are dead in their sins and trespasses and are governed by a love for self and a hatred for God. The regenerate person is one that is controlled and constrained by the love of Christ. When a belief comes in to a person that threatens the chief love which is the dominating belief, the dominating belief will dominate all other things and will find some reason to get rid of all other beliefs. What we love the most will dominate all of our other beliefs and will find excuses or reasons to hang on to our real and chief love.

Now, let us look at a church in light of these analogies or pictures. A church is not an organization or a business, but it is the body of Jesus Christ. No matter the organizational structure the real church consists of those people who are united to Jesus Christ and He is united to them. The true believer has Christ as his or her life and all else will be dominated by the life of Christ and love for Christ in the soul. The unbeliever, regardless of how religious s/he is will have all beliefs dominated by a love for him or herself and hatred (though not necessarily recognized as such) for the true God. A church cannot have true peace or true unity as long as there are people in leadership without a true love for Christ that dominates all the other beliefs. A church cannot have true peace or unity as long as there are several people whose beliefs are dominated by a love for things and people other than Christ. What happens is that some of the people have a basic or core belief of love for Christ that dominates all other beliefs while another group has a basic or core belief that has a love for things that is hatred for Christ. Another option is all the people have a basic or core belief that leads them to hate Christ and spiritual things. As long as their chief loves do not conflict too much, they can get along fine. Surely this makes it obvious why evangelism must be biblical and it must look to seeing people become new creatures in Christ before they join the church.

For a church to seek true revival which is the life of God in the church through Christ, it must begin to seek God for a sight of its core and dominating beliefs and loves in order to seek the Lord in truth. If the dominating love of a person is not God, then all the religious things that a person does is not out of love for God but a love for self. If the dominating love is self, then a person will do all out of love for self. II Timothy 3 show this: “For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.” The modern professing church is full of things like this. These things are accepted in the professing church today and if not many of these things are easily hidden. They can even be baptized with verses of Scripture. But despite their religious outside, those things do not come from love for Christ.

When the church has people that are lovers of self, those people are dominated by a love for self and so the things of the church and of God are dominated by self. All the things that this person does are done from a dominating love for self rather than a love for Christ. There can be many things that can be opposed in the church and in committees that is a love of money in disguise. But whatever is done is dominated by a love for money rather than a love for Christ. A professing church that has many or even but a few lovers of self in the midst is a church that has a lot of squabbles and a lot of tension going on in some way. What many churches need is for many of the members to be converted so that the church as a whole can seek God in the unity of truth and love.

The results that we are seeing in the churches in the United States that come from a lack of true, biblical evangelism and discipleship is truly a massive departure from Christianity. The Pharisees were incredibly religious. They read their Bibles, memorized a lot, and they did a lot of something they called prayer. But their dominating belief still came from love for self displayed in doing what they did for the honor they obtained from others. A love of self as the dominating love is not inconsistent with a lot of Bible studies, prayer meetings, orthodoxy, and socially good works. If our evangelism only gets people to pray a prayer and our discipleship consists of getting people to doing religious things and outwardly good things, we have failed miserably. What must happen is for the beliefs that are pictured by the very bottom pegs or the belief that must dominate everything else and that must be Christ Himself.

It is not inconsistent with a dominating love of self rather than for Christ for people to desire some form of revival or desire for God to move. A dominating love for self can still desire to be part of a church which increases in numbers. But for true revival to happen and for God to come down, people must begin to seek the Lord for broken hearts and to be broken from all of their dominating loves and beliefs that are not of Christ Himself. When Scripture speaks of a belief in Jesus Christ, it is not speaking of a belief on the upper or even the middle tiers of pegs. It is speaking of the deepest belief and convictions of the soul. It is speaking of a belief that dominates all other beliefs and all other loves. Throughout the Gospel of John many people came to some sort of belief or faith in Christ. Very few of those people were actually converted. The rest went away when the hard teachings came from the mouth of Jesus. What happened to all of those that believed? They believed when it was convenient to believe or when the sight of a miracle made them believe something about Him. Others believed when He gave them free food. But their root beliefs and dominating loves were never changed. So when a tough teaching of Jesus came and certain demands were made upon them, their dominating love of self overcame any belief they had in Jesus. So they walked away.

In America we have many positive messages about what Jesus will do for people. Many hear that and believe in some way. In other words, the churches are being filled with people who are like those who believed in the time of Christ but fell away when the hard teachings come. So if they are in a church where there are no hard teachings or spiritual demands made upon them, they can continue in their delusion and religious practice while their dominating belief and love is self rather than Christ. II Chronicles 7:14 tells us to humble ourselves (emptied of self), pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways. As long as people are dominated by a love for self, they are full of self and so are not humbled. When they are full of self their prayers are to self rather than God and they seek themselves rather than His face. If they are full of self, all that they do will be wicked because of seeking self in all. If the dominating love is not changed, there will be judgment rather than true reformation and revival.

As we look at some things that the churches must do in order to be churches that are seeking God, we have looked at how a church must become one that seeks God Himself first and foremost. It must not seek all the church things and the things of self; it must seek the presence of God. This is not something that comes easily if we think God is there to serve us. Even more beyond our strength is what is necessary to seek God. We must seek Him from the heart and with true love or we are not truly seeking Him. What this means is that we must seek God for hearts to seek Him. It means that we must repent of the sin that comes between us and Him. A church that wants to seek God must determine to seek God regardless of the discomfort and change. It must be willing to do things that it is not doing and it must stop things (even good things it thinks) that it is presently doing. As the church seeks God it must realize that the light will shine upon it in ways that require change. Some of those ways are not comfortable.

How people come to believe things and then the ways they hold on to those beliefs is a matter of great interest and speculation. One philosopher has dealt with this to some degree and has held that what we believe is likened to a web of belief. If we think of our beliefs as a web that is held together and each belief is dependent to a greater or lesser degree on other beliefs, we have something of a picture of how we develop beliefs. Another picture of that would be to look at all of our beliefs as resting on pegs which rest on pieces of plywood. The bottom layer of pegs would be larger and smaller in number. Let us think of the bottom layer as having four large pegs. There would be a two foot square piece of plywood laying on that. On top of that piece of plywood are eight pegs and then a larger piece of plywood. On top of that there are sixteen pegs and a piece of plywood. This goes on until one has a piece of plywood at the top with hundreds of very small pegs.

Now what I am saying may sound tedious, dull, or simply inapplicable to a local church. My hope is that you will hang on and see just how applicable this analogy is. The whole pile of pegs we shall refer to our belief system with each peg signifying an individual belief. It is not hard to replace a peg on the top row as it has almost nothing to do with the pegs around it and underneath it. However, as one goes down levels of pegs to pegs that are larger and hold more, it would take more and more to replace those pegs. A peg at the top may be a belief that it is 40 degrees outside and when we are told that it is actually 38 degrees we will believe that and no major change is involved. A peg on the very bottom may be a belief that God created the world. That is a belief that has effects through all of the other beliefs and a massive number of beliefs would have to be changed in order to change that one peg.

What we believe and how we come to have new beliefs can be pictured by those things. It is not hard to convince people of things that require no change. But think of all the beliefs that must be changed or must have some effect if some really foundational belief is changed. Thus we see why people are so resistant to a change in their fundamental belief system. It is not just one belief that must be given up, it is many beliefs and some of those beliefs are very important to them. Coming to Christ requires a whole new belief system in that the very foundational beliefs must be changed and that will influence all the other beliefs in some way too.

For a church to change its way of doing and its way of thinking requires a lot of lower level pegs to change. For a church to do this would require most if not all the people that the church consists of to change. In other words, one cannot just change a document to change something, but the belief systems of the people have to be changed. There are some people that some change will require a massive amount of change. If we look back at the web analogy, all of their beliefs are hanging together and support each other. To them it feels like they will fall from the web and have nothing if they change from one belief to another. There are some beliefs that require so many other beliefs to change that it takes a long time for those basic beliefs to change.

We can also look at the very bottom pegs that uphold the whole stack of pegs as all being centered upon God or centered upon self. If the very foundational pegs are those that are focused on self, then all the beliefs that are above them will also be all about self one way or another. There may be beliefs about God that are on the second level, but those beliefs about God will be determined by beliefs about self which are at the foundational level. On the other hand, if the beliefs about God are the very supporting or foundational beliefs then the beliefs about self will be determined by beliefs about God. What we simply must understand is that our beliefs all fit together to make up some form of system or whole and that some of those beliefs are foundational. That is vital.

The importance of the previous discussion about webs of belief and of differing levels of pegs that support other pegs may seem rather silly to some. It is a rather long analogy to make a point. Our belief about conversion is a belief that is foundational for many other beliefs in the local church. We simply must go to Scripture and prayer in order to get this belief correct. If we view conversion as when a person prays a prayer or walks an aisle, then we will say things in order to get the person to pray a prayer or walk an aisle. The person can do those things from a belief from an upper level of pegs and still retain self as the god of his or her life. If our belief about conversion is wrong then church membership will reflect that as well. If our belief about conversion is wrong then there will be false conversions, false assurances, false membership, false hopes, false teaching, and a false witness to the world. Being Reformed in doctrine will not change those things either if the doctrine is just poured on the top of our pile of beliefs. A God-centered doctrine derived from Scripture must be the foundation of all of our beliefs.

The Scripture tells us that conversion is a person becoming a new creation in Christ (II Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Eph 2:10). The analogy we are using with pegs would then picture this as the foundational pegs being replaced with news ones and all the old ones being replaced or used in a different way. Notice, then, the tremendous difference this makes in the church. If the focus is simply to get people to pray a prayer or walk an aisle that will most likely just have to do with the upper pegs with the bottom ones left alone. If the focus is on a new creation, that has to do with the very bottom pegs that support everything else. The bottom pegs cannot be changed without a massive influence on the ones above them. When a person becomes a new creation in Christ, it is easy to see that this is a person that brings a God-centered focus into the church. When a person becomes a religious person with self as the real supporting pegs that determine all things, it is easy to see that this is a person that will serve self in the church.

We can see, then, how important it is to the true life and practice of the church to be diligent about the nature of true conversion in both how it practices evangelism and in how it receives and retains members in the church. If a church has many unbelievers in it, will God be dwelling there? The Gospel must be proclaimed in such a way that converts are found in the way of discipleship and are expected to be true disciples of Christ. A Christian is nothing more and nothing less than a disciple of Jesus Christ. If a person is not a disciple of Christ, then that person is not a Christian. The Great Commission does not tell us to go out and evangelize, but it tells us to make disciples. That is a very important point in evangelism. We are not to evangelize in a way where discipleship is an option, but to evangelize in a way where a person is not even considered a Christian if s/he is not a disciple. Perhaps it should teach us that those who profess a faith must be thoroughly instructed in the doctrines and practices of Christianity to see if they are true followers in Christ.

True evangelism cannot be separated from the rest of the Scripture on discipleship and becoming new creatures in Christ. To go back to the analogy, the only way a person will become a true believer is if the bottom and foundational pegs of belief are changed. If our evangelism is focused on the upper pegs, we are not looking for the person to become a new creature in Christ and so one that is following Christ. We would also be practicing evangelism in such a way that people who express some belief in Christ will come into the church as an unbeliever. The church would then be greatly diluted and weakened when this happened.

If churches truly want to seek revival, then one step would be to go back and study the doctrine of conversion. Churches must begin to look at membership as something truly important rather than just a formality and a number to turn in to others. Seeking revival in truth is not just something that is attached to some high levels of the pegs; it is something that must be at the roots of the church. God will not dwell with those who have sin in their hearts and He will not dwell in the hearts of unbelievers. The effort must be for the church to be reformed (that is used in the older use of the word which referred more to the turning of a church to God in all of its ways) from the bottom up. A church cannot seek revival in truth unless it is seeking it from the bottom up. The very foundational beliefs of the churches must be built around God, His Word, and true discipleship. If our evangelism is not built on God Himself, His Word in truth, and be done in the context of discipleship, then the church will be built upon the foundational beliefs of self. Self will be king, the Word of God will be twisted to self, and self-centered people will be called believers based on self as well. True revival in the church will only happen when instead of using God and the Bible for the reasons and purposes of self, we seek to submit to God and bow to all He says in the Bible. That is the difference between a true church that is filled with new creatures and one that is ruled by self.

In the past several weeks we have gone through a portion of the book of Daniel to look at his heart in prayer and how it instructs us. If we think that we can just repeat the words of Daniel without having the heart of Daniel and that is enough in prayer, we have missed the whole point. True Christianity is an issue of the heart and not just the outward actions. If our hearts have not been changed and the very life of Christ is not our life, we have not been converted by and to Christ. We have also seen two testimonies of people who went along thinking for years that they were converted when in fact they were not. Could it be that the professing Church has many people in it that are saying the words of prayer and yet do not have hearts that mean the words? Could it be that many people are in conservative, orthodox congregations and are still lost? Could it be that the modern church is virtually set up in ways that make it easy for people to be deceived and to deceive themselves?

The reason that it sounds so plausible that so many people are deceived in the professing Church is because the professing Church is desperately weak and has no impact on the nation. Our theology has been greatly weakened and we have been turned over to pragmatic approaches. Evangelism appears to be the method of church growth and financial support rather than the means of displaying the glory of God. We can ask a simple question and ask what the devil would do if he wanted to deceive the most people possible. I believe the answer is that he would try to convince people of teachings and practices that were close to the truth but keep the life of it out. In this way he could deceive those who practiced it and yet to those on the outside it would appear false. In this way the professing Church could keep going and thinking it was making gains while it was in fact continuing a great deception. In this way the professing Church would not impact those around them in truth and it would be diluted with unbelievers itself. That would lead to a greatly weakened church (Mat 5:13-14).

A resolution was presented in the last year or so at the national convention of the SBC. It was a resolution that was intended to encourage local churches to only count those members who really attended and could be counted as true members. Another thing that we need to consider is how many of those who attend are really converted. A former president of the SBC was reported as saying several years ago that he thought that perhaps as many as 70% of members in the SBC were not converted. It is easy to smile at that and think that he was speaking to other churches and other people, or perhaps that he was simply having a bad day. But what if he was correct? What if that percentage is correct or perhaps even an understatement? One thing that would mean is that there are a whole lot of people who have prayed a prayer, been baptized, were accepted into membership, and yet are still lost.

If all that has been said is correct or even to a great degree correct, then what we must come face to face with is that the local church can be a place where many people are being deceived. In 1970 John Warwick Montgomery authored a book that was published under the name of Damned through the Church. It is a very provocative title, but not as provocative as the one he wanted. Could it be that the title of Montgomery’s book is in fact descriptive of much that is going on in our day? But again, it is so easy to think of it as always being the other guy. It is hard to think of it as being the place where I attend especially if it is conservative, orthodox, good programs, and perhaps even growing numerically. Why do people attend church in our day? Are many being lulled to sleep by the church as they attend for all the wrong reasons?

Montgomery quotes Stanley High who in 1937 wrote and article on why people go to church for the Saturday Evening Post. The Readers Digest condensed the article and ran it in their publication as well. He gives us five reasons to attend church: “(1) He likes the preacher; (2) He finds it convenient; (3) Habit impels him; (4) He “gets something out of it,” specifically, (a) historical perspective, (b) reverence for “a person that is bigger than we are,” and (c) morality; (5) He “gets along better” as a result of church going.” This list can be looked at for the things it says and for the things it does not say. How many people attend a church just because they like the preacher? Liking the preacher personally does not mean that Christ has saved these people. People attend a particular church because it is convenient rather than because it is a church that preaches Christ. People attend church out of habit rather than out of love for God. People attend church because they get something out of it rather than meet God. People attend church because things go better rather than going to hear the living God speak in His Word.

While it is true that High wrote his article over seventy years ago, human nature has not changed. Human beings will still find selfish and man-centered reasons to attend church and then rely on their attendance and some behavior modification to rest in for their salvation. Some might even have the name of Christ on their lips on occasion, but He is not in their hearts and they rarely think of Him at all. Others may speak of Christ a lot but not know the biblical Christ. In their case they have a god of their imagination and simply use the correct name. In cases like those attending church can contribute to being damned through the church.

If a church is going to seek the living God in spirit and truth, it must get beyond its man-centeredness and fear of men in order to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Each church must realize that there may be some deceived people in the congregation and perhaps many. For a church to repent of its man-centered ways and return to God will require a time of searching hearts. There is no way to God but through Jesus Christ (John 14:6). Going to church does not save and doing all the activities and programs will not save a soul either. A person must have Christ or that person will perish (John 3:36). If the church does not warn people of this, then no one will. When the church will not call people to examine themselves or warn people that they may not be converted, the church has stopped seeking God and has become a place that contributes to the deception of others. The natural heart will rest on many things but Christ alone and will go to great lengths not to truly repent. The natural heart hates God and is at enmity with Him. If we are nice and easy to get along with in all cases while we speak easy things to hear, people will not hear the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. They will just want to hear more easy or nice things.

One reason can be pointed at as a major flaw in many sections of the professing Church in our day. It is a misinterpretation of the Great Commission. In the latest SBC Life magazine the first article was a call for a Great Commission Resurgence. Here is one representative quote from that article: “When you win less people to Jesus, you are drifting from the Great Commission.” In this article the Great Commission was interpreted as going forth and evangelizing and winning people to Jesus. That is the typical interpretation of the Great Commission. But what the Great Commission actually commands is to go forth and make disciples. It does not command the Church to go out and get people to say a prayer and count them as converted, but instead it commands them to make disciples. It also does not command the Church to have a discipleship program, but instead it commands it to make disciples. Evangelism is always done in the context of discipleship or it is not grounded in Scripture.

Is this important? If we take it to mean evangelism only we ignore what it is really commanding. Another reason is that if we focus on evangelism apart from discipleship we will have a lot of false believers. In the Gospel of John many believed and followed Jesus until they heard His hard teachings. We see this in John 8:31: “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine.” What is required to be a true believer is for one to continue in His word. If a person does not continue in the word, then that person is not a true believer as we see over and over in the Gospel of John. When the professing Church practices evangelism outside the biblical command to make disciples, it is not practicing what the Bible commands and becomes an instrument of deception. Going to church can hurt you if the Word of God is not preached in truth.

If you are thinking through this you will see a real problem in the professing Church of today. It practices evangelism apart from biblical discipleship. It takes people into its membership who have been “evangelized” according to a modern man-centered method rather than discipled in a biblical fashion. This essentially declares a person saved. It then teaches that person that s/he is eternally secure no matter how they live. It will not preach or teach things that would awaken a person to his or her lost condition because that is why people leave the church. What would the devil want us to do again? He does not care if people attend a church where they are not truly taught the Bible and evangelized in a biblical setting. In fact, he encourages that sort of thing. He would encourage those people to be taught that they cannot lose their salvation when in fact they are not saved to begin with. He would encourage preachers and teachers to water down the message to keep people comfortable in their unconverted state. In other words, what happens when the fox runs the henhouse? A church that wants to follow the Great Commission as it is given in the Bible will practice evangelism in the context of discipleship as the Great Commission states. The goal is not to get people to pray prayers; it is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. The goal is not to get great numbers in a building; it is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Those that will not seek to make true disciples demonstrate that they are not disciples of Christ who commanded them to make disciples. Perhaps the false interpretation of the Great Commission reaches far and wide. It is far easier to go around and give a little message to people than it is to deal with their sin and urge them on to follow Christ in truth as true believers do. A church that does not practice the plain teaching of Scripture can contribute to the damnation of those who attend.

If we take Scripture as our guide and spiritual things as what determines good and bad, then we must recognize to an increasingly greater degree that God is judging this nation. Until we recognize this we will be blind to what has really going on in the United States. Until we recognize that the hand of the Lord is upon the professing Church in judgment we will be blind as to what it will take for true repentance and restoration. Until we begin to see the depths of our sin against God we will not know how to confess to Him and repent from that sin. As long as we continue in our pride and self-reliance we will not see that our very practices of religion are against God. The Pharisees and the legalists would not be humbled and broken from their self-reliance and self-effort in order to seek God in truth and love. They would not be broken from their traditions in order to receive the truth of God as found in Scripture. What was the heart of their problem? They had been turned over to a hardened heart and were in a downward spiral into idolatry and the worship of self. Instead of receiving the truth of God as set out in Scripture they twisted that truth to fit their own wicked (though devoutly religious) hearts. They were blinded to the nature of their hearts and actions because they no longer looked to the true God for all things.

15 “And now, O Lord our God, who have brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for Yourself, as it is this day– we have sinned, we have been wicked. 16 “O Lord, in accordance with all Your righteous acts, let now Your anger and Your wrath turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become a reproach to all those around us. 17 “So now, our God, listen to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplications, and for Your sake, O Lord, let Your face shine on Your desolate sanctuary. 18 “O my God, incline Your ear and hear! Open Your eyes and see our desolations and the city which is called by Your name; for we are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion. 19 “O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people are called by Your name.” (Daniel 9)

Christianity in modern America is mocked and made fun of seemingly on all fronts. True Christianity is also mocked by many within the confines of the professing Church. We can interpret that in many ways and we can respond in many ways. One response would be to increase our amount of outward activity and think that God is blessing that. But how can an increased activity that is not from the true God bring His blessing when He is against a lesser amount of activity because it is not done out of a true love for Him? What we must see is that the professing Church has become a reproach to all those around us because of sin. The reason that the professing Church is the object of jokes from so many is because of sin. Instead of blaming the comedians and the intellectuals for their reproach and disdain, we must know that our sin has caused the Lord to withdraw His hand. This requires a biblical approach rather than one that the Pharisees would be happy with.

We must know that sin separates us from God and for Him to return to His people in power and glory sin must be truly repented of. Nothing less is absolutely necessary for God to return to the Church. The Church has simply turned from what it is supposed to be doing to a focus on itself in gaining numbers, money, and influence. But of course the name of God is used in those things and so it is said that it is for Him. Rather than all of that, however, the Church is to be salt, light, and then the pillar and foundation of the truth. When the Church is not being those things in truth, the society and culture has no salt to preserve it from corruption and no light to shine on the pit it is about to fall in. It will also have no foundation of truth to build on so of course it will rush headlong into grievous error. The real problem in our nation is not politicians (though that is a massive problem) but the professing Church. The problem we have with lying and corrupt politicians is a symptom rather than the real cause. The real cause is the professing Church and its idolatry.

Daniel knew the real problem in his day and it is the same problem as our day. It is the presence of sin and the absence of God. The problem, therefore, cannot be dealt with by activities and massive planning. It can only be dealt with by God. We cannot manipulate God to return to us. We cannot weep for false reasons and expect God to return. What we must do is deal with our hearts in truth and seek the throne of grace for grace. After all, what do we think we are seeking at the throne of grace? Do we seek grace for selfish reasons or the grace that exalts the glory of God? Daniel knew the heart of the issue and so he set the blame at the door of Israel which is exactly where it belonged. But he also knew that God must return and that God will only operate on the basis of grace. God will not return to a church for any reason or motive other than grace.

Notice how Daniel sought God in verses 15-19. Read the text again and note how he uses words like “Your” and “Yourself” over and over. Daniel was thoroughly God-centered in his thinking and praying. Notice also how Daniel prayed to the Lord for His sake and His name’s sake. In other words, Daniel loved God more than anything else. The reason his heart was for his nation was because his nation was God’s people. The reason his heart longed for Jerusalem is because it was God’s city. Do we ache for the Church today? Do we have inward pain over the fact that the professing Church is being mocked and made fun of? Is our pain over the fact of our own shame or the fact that we who bear His name have become a reproach? Do we love God enough to cry out to Him in prayer pleading with Him to return to His people for the sake of His name? When the professing Church is mocked, God is the One that is really being mocked. Do we hurt for His name or for our own? Do we love Him more than ourselves or not? No one can offer a class or write a book that will change our chief love. God alone can take our hearts and turn them to Himself so that the life of Christ will dwell in our souls and shine out.

If we are not praying in some way like Daniel, the problem is not in our words themselves but our hearts. We can train our mouths to say the right words, but our words are not our prayers. Our true prayers are the desires of our hearts. Even when our words are correct our deepest and truest desires are being lifted up to God. When our words do not reflect our hearts, our hypocrisy is there for us to see and it is certainly in the presence of God. We try to deny what is true of our own hearts and perhaps get involved in a flurry of activity to fool ourselves and hide the truth. However, no one can ever hide the truth before God so all we are doing is fooling ourselves.

This prayer of Daniel should produce within us a serious examination of our own hearts and motives. It should also produce a serious examination of our prayer lives. We say we have a prayer life, but is there true life to our prayers? Is the only difference between a conservative prayer and another kind of prayer in our day the words? When we pray is our heart what is truly seeking the Lord and crying out to Him? Can we in all honesty pray to God to act for His name’s sake? Is that truly the desire of our hearts? Is our deepest concern about dying churches the fact that His name is the real issue? Is our deepest concern for starting churches the manifestation of the glory of His name? Do we practice evangelism and do all the things we do out of a true love for Him or for other reasons? I dare say that no matter what else happens until we begin to cry out to the Lord from the depths of our soul with longing desires for His name we will not see the presence of God in the professing Church or in our nation. Israel spent seventy years in captivity which was what God had said would happen. When Daniel saw that in Scripture he began to pray. His true love and desire, however, was for the name of God.

Let us take another look at Daniel 9:17: “So now, our God, listen to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplications, and for Your sake, O Lord, let Your face shine on Your desolate sanctuary.” What was the sanctuary desolate of? It was desolate of God and of people at that point. But the sanctuary was desolate of God before it was desolate of people. What would happen if the people came back and it was still desolate of God? They would still be left in the sin of their hearts and be given over to religious ritual. What does it mean for the face of the Lord to shine on His desolate sanctuary? If His face is shining on His sanctuary, then He has returned to it and His presence is there. It is something like Moses who did not want to go without the presence of God. The professing Church must begin to check its motives and intents and to seek the Lord for the presence of the Lord. Our hearts must be turned from thinking that our activities please God in and of themselves. God is only pleased in our activities if the source is from His wisdom, the power is His grace, and the motive is His love. That does not happen apart from the presence of God. The first priority of any church is to seek the presence of God. If the presence of God is not with that church, all that it does is likened to wondering around in the wilderness with no guidance or provision from God. Is the greatest desire in our hearts for the face of the Lord to shine upon us? If we don’t truly have that desire, it shows that a great darkness has set in on our hearts. Let us not pray primarily for our nation unless we are praying for the Church. Let us not pray primarily for the Church unless we are praying for our own hearts. But let us learn that we not truly praying unless we desire the presence and glory of God in our hearts, in the Church, and also in the nation. Let our hearts be given over to seeking the presence of God that we may truly pray. If our hearts and desires are not for God, even our righteous act of prayer will be as filthy rags.

In our day the professing Church of the living God is really the “church of self.” The church is not thought of as the dwelling place of God in Christ, but as the place where people go to feel better and get help for various things. The “church” is thought to be the building and the place where therapy in various forms is available. It is the place where one goes to be internally massaged and to get various bits of information on how to feel better and live a better life. One way to feel better about life is to think of God as very focused on helping people and their self-perceived needs. Another way is to make people feel that God is on their side and eternity will be wonderful because God loves them. While this is one way to get the buildings full of people, it is a completely different picture of God than that of the Bible. In our day we think that God should send a revival because of our problems. In the Bible God was called upon to come down because of His own name’s sake. After all, that is how Jesus taught us to pray when He told us to pray for God’s name to be hallowed as our primary desire in prayer.

Daniel 9 shows us the heart that is needed to seek God for true revival. We can utter the proper words and think we have prayed, but our hearts must be turned back to God so that the proper or correct words will be the expressions and desires of the heart. In the modern day as we are wrapped in the blankets of self-esteem and fed from the bottle of self-love we think of God as focused on us and as salvation being God’s efforts to save men from hell as being His primary intent. As long as we continue with that type of thinking and focus, we will continue in our idolatry of self and our eyes will be on men rather than God. We will continue to think of men as the focus of God rather than the great need of man to be focused on God. If God is focused on men, then to be like God we must have the same focus. However, the Great Commandment rings out with the beautiful words that human beings are to love God with all of their hearts, minds, souls, and strengths. This is beautiful because God loves Himself that way and His love for Himself as triune is seen in Christ who loved the Father with all of His being. God does not command us to do His commands in our own strength but He commands us to do what we cannot do on our own so that we will see that we must have the life of Christ in us in order to keep His commands. The command to love God is beautiful because God Himself shares His love with believers so that they may keep that command. This should encourage us to seek the Lord for hearts to love Him in such a way that we will pray for revival in a way that He is the focus rather than ourselves.

15 “And now, O Lord our God, who have brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for Yourself, as it is this day– we have sinned, we have been wicked. 16 “O Lord, in accordance with all Your righteous acts, let now Your anger and Your wrath turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become a reproach to all those around us. 17 “So now, our God, listen to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplications, and for Your sake, O Lord, let Your face shine on Your desolate sanctuary. 18 “O my God, incline Your ear and hear! Open Your eyes and see our desolations and the city which is called by Your name; for we are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion. 19 “O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people are called by Your name.” 20 Now while I was speaking and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God in behalf of the holy mountain of my God. (Daniel 9)

We see a method of prayer in this passage and yet we see the need for God to give us hearts to really pray in this way. After all, love for God is the true language of prayer. We see a principle at work in I Kings 18:36-27: “At the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and I have done all these things at Your word. 37 “Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that You, O LORD, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again.” In this passage we see that Elijah wanted his prayer answered so that it would be known that God is really God. But even more, he wanted his prayer to be answered so that people would know that God had turned their heart back again. God does not move until He begins to turn the hearts of His people back to Himself. Judgment is when He hardens the heart, so when God is going to give Himself to a people He turns their hearts back to Himself.

The truth of that text is simply stunning in its God-centeredness and our own self-centeredness is revealed. Elijah desired for his prayer to be answered so that people would know that God was the true God and that this would show that God had turned their hearts back to Himself. Elijah was not just a showboat in this contest with the priests of Baal, he was there praying and seeking the glory of God and the honoring of His name. Where is a man like Elijah today that really and truly desires the glory of God more than anything else? Where are the people today that hunger and thirst for God to show Himself as God so that others would know God and His workings? We want God to bless us so we can go on with our lives of ease and think of God’s blessings as focused on those things. We are focused on ourselves and pray without changing our focus. We pray for the church because we are involved with it and because we want to be on the winning side. But where are the hearts for God to be truly glorified in the Church? Sure we use the words about the glory of God, but is that really our chief love and desire in our prayer?

Daniel had a heart like Elijah. He started off his prayer (Daniel 9:15) and noted the true and deepest reason that God had brought the Israelites out of Egypt. The deepest reason that God had brought the Israelites out of Egypt was to make a name for Himself. This is seen in what God said at the time as well. It is what moves and even provokes true prayer. As God’s deepest reason for bringing the people out of Egypt, this should tell us of our deepest reason to praise Him and to pray to Him.

Exodus 7:5 – “The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.”

Exodus 9:16 – “But, indeed, for this reason I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth.”

Exodus 10:2 – “and that you may tell in the hearing of your son, and of your grandson, how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I performed My signs among them, that you may know that I am the LORD.”

Exodus 11:9 – “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that My wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”

The short version of these statements is that God brought His people out of the land of Egypt to manifest His name and glory to the Israelites, the Egyptians, and the world. He made a covenant with the people to be their God and they were to be His people. God brought a people out of Egypt to be a people that His name and glory would be displayed through, but instead they rebelled and did not live for His glory but for their own ease and comfort. Scripture gives us the idea of sin in differing ways, though they all agree that sin is against God. Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” 1 John 3:4 tells us that “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.” The law is only kept in love and love must come from God and manifest His glory. Another way to put these two concepts together would be to say that we are to love God and so manifest His glory. When we sin, however, we do not love God and so His glory does not shine in and through us.

God saves sinners to the praise of the glory of His grace (Ephesians 1:6) and “so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). As God brought the Israelites out of slavery and Egypt to the glory of His name, so God saves sinners from the slavery of sin to the glory of His name. As sin was defined by breaking His law and not exalting His name, so sin is defined by not doing all to the glory of His name (I Corinthians 10:31). When the Lord visited His people with judgment and sent them into captivity, their hearts needed to be turned to Him and they needed to begin to love and pray for His name’s sake as Daniel did. So now we must begin to see that we look to ourselves in terms of wisdom and strength to do what is best for us. Our hearts must be turned from all of that to looking to what glorifies the name of God.

We must begin to see God’s reasons for acting and then look at our own hearts. Do we really love God enough to desire His glory most of all in the salvation of our children, spouses, families, workplaces, friends, and in the world? Are we so man-centered in our prayers that God’s glory is but an afterthought if even that? Revival will not happen in our nation or churches until God changes our hearts and we are seeking Him as our chief love. Daniel shows us the pattern, but God alone can turn our hearts and give us true love to seek Him in prayer.

We live in a dangerous world and in a dangerous nation. Our nation continues its slide into debt and into economic chaos. Behind all of this, however, are real spiritual issues. The commandments of God are absolute and inviolable laws written into the code of the very fabric of the universe because God is. There is no person or place, regardless of whether the person professes belief in God or not, where the commandments can be broken with impunity. Every sin is punished immediately in one sense in that the heart is hardened and the person is turned over to more sin. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). God’s wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. When a politician, a CEO, or an accounting firm does something that is dishonest, the ramifications will be felt far beyond the immediate area at some point. The waves may not be felt right then and there, but they have started and the waves will spread out. Our nation is beginning to see this even now. The book of Romans (in 2:5) tells us that “because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” Sin will always have consequences both now and for eternity.

It is my opinion that the United States has been under the wrath of God for a long time. We look at the economic crisis and we know that something is going on. We look at the prison systems and the crime reports and we know that our nation is caught up in selfish and vicious act of crime. We can look at the drug traffic and all the crimes connected with that and we know that there is a void in the hearts of people and the love of self and of money has taken over. We look at the pornographic industry whether in print or in film or on the internet and we know that men and women are given over to filthy lusts of passion and of greed. The abortion industry is also doing well if you judge them in the realm of finances alone. What we must understand, however, is that all of those problems are symptoms of a much larger problem. If you listen to some people, the underlying problem of much of the problematic behaviors is the lack of economic hope. Others tell us that people received scars when they were young and were not loved. There are many answers given and there is perhaps some merit to them all, but underlying those answers is one major issue. The professing Church is the real problem.

God’s overall plan involves the Church. When religious men and women try to function apart from the church, they are not functioning according to the design of God. However, what we must see is that the Church is to be salt and light in the society (Matthew 5:13-14). The Church of the living God is to be the pillar and support of the truth (I Tim 3:15). The problem with society is that the professing Church for so long has refused to be salt, light, and the pillar and support of the truth. If you take the salt out of meat without refrigeration, the meat will putrefy rapidly. Our society in the United States has done just that because the professing Church is no longer salt. If you take light out of a society, then the people of that society will walk in darkness and will not know where they are going (John 8:12; 12:35). The people in the United States are walking in darkness and they do not know where they are going because the professing Church has hidden its light. If you take the very pillar and support of the truth out of a society and culture, then that society and culture will collapse under its own weight. The United States is collapsing in many ways because the professing Church is no longer standing up and preaching the truth of the living God. Instead of preaching and standing for the truth, it is caught up in church growth movements and all sorts of programs and activities that entertain the people while the nation is dropping into the pit. The problem in the United States is not primarily the world, it is the professing Church.

The professing Church has been infiltrated with liberalism under many guises, but liberalism is seen by its reticence to supernaturalism in all realms. The professing Church has been infiltrated with humanism which is seen by the focus on human beings rather than on God Himself. There is no true love for another human being apart from love for God primarily in all things. The professing Church is so busy with itself and its programs and seeking of money that it does not have time to be salt, light, and the pillar of the truth any longer. After all, if we preach the truth not as many people will come and we will not have enough money to fund our programs. If we try to be salt and light we might come across as judgmental and legalistic. Some of this must be seen in that we are simply more afraid of what other human beings will say about us than we are with pleasing God and being what He has called the Church to be. Paul tells us that there is only one Gospel (Gal 1:6-10) and at the very least implies that one reason it is not preached is that people try to please men rather than God. He tells us very clearly that if he (and therefore us) tried to please men he would not be a servant of Christ. We must listen to that.

What does our nation really need? Is it a financial plan that will keep the banks going longer, a president that will function a little better, or perhaps a better justice system with better laws? All of those things are only symptoms of the real problem. Our attempts to fix those things will do nothing about the real disease and will only be putting band-aids on massive bullet wounds. Our nation will only be turned around if the Church begins to be the Church. Our nation will not be turned around until the Church sees true revival and begins to be salt, light, and the pillar of the truth. Our nation will not be turned around as long as the pulpits are filled with moral talks and wimpy dealings with sin, nor by a few nice talks about Jesus saving sinners from hell. We must have preaching from the pulpits from men who believe the Word of God with conviction and will deal with sin as sin against the living God and with the Gospel as the one and only Gospel. Anything less is treason against the living God.

There are books galore on how to preach to fill the pews and how to do church in order to get the crowds in and the dollars flowing. Okay, but where is God? We can have all of the programs in the world to get the people in and have skimmed milk (at best) flowing from the pulpits so people will not be offended and leave. The money may even be flowing in, yet where is God? We are so quick to say that God is acting when outward material things happen according to our hope. But where is the presence and power of God in the souls of people? The only thing that will turn this nation from its rush into the pit is God Himself. If He chooses to do this it will be the Church that He works through to do so. But God is not in the Church unless the Church is seeking Him for Himself. God is not in the Church that is not willing to be salt and light. God is not in the Church unless it is going to be the pillar and support of the truth. Our ministers must know the Word of God better than they know methods and polls so that they can declare the Word of God to people about what it takes to please God rather than trying to please men.

The professing Church in the United States must learn from Daniel what it must do. It must learn this:

“Righteousness belongs to You, O Lord, but to us open shame, as it is this day– to the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of their unfaithful deeds which they have committed against You 8 “Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. 9 “To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him; 10 nor have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His teachings which He set before us through His servants the prophets. 11 “Indeed all Israel has transgressed Your law and turned aside, not obeying Your voice; so the curse has been poured out on us, along with the oath which is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, for we have sinned against Him. 12 “Thus He has confirmed His words which He had spoken against us and against our rulers who ruled us, to bring on us great calamity; for under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what was done to Jerusalem. 13 “As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come on us; yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our iniquity and giving attention to Your truth. (Daniel 9:7-13).

We must learn to look at the judgment that is being shown upon our nation and know that God is righteous. We must know that all the heresies and sins that the professing Church has tolerated is really sin against God. Open shame belongs to us and we have been unfaithful to God. We have feared what people would say about us and we have tried to be gracious to them and appear as non-judgmental. We have stopped preaching the truth of God and have tried talking people into things. We have denied the commandments of God and have become moral relativists. We have set His law aside and in doing so we have not obeyed the voice of God and as such the curse of God has been poured out upon us. Some will read these words accuse the writer of reading too much into the Old Testament. However, the character of God never changes. Let us also remember the book of Revelation and the horrifying words that were sent to the churches there. Their lampstands were about to be removed! We simply must wake up from our paralyzing slumber and our love affair with the world. We must see that revival is not just nice to talk about and offer so-called prayers for it in a lazy, half-hearted way. The very Church itself depends on it and so does our nation. We must be given over to aching hearts for the sins of the professing Church and our nation. We must seek the Lord to grant us repentance and to come to us in His power. We must do this earnestly or we will not do it at all. Has the Lord turned us all over to hardened and cold hearts? Unless we are awakened to seek Him earnestly, we have been turned over to hearts that have no real feeling. If that is the case, both the professing Church and our nation are doomed. We must pray for hearts to pray. It is not an option.

Daniel 9:3 – “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, ‘Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, 5 we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. 6 Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land.'”

We have been looking at Daniel 9:3-6 and trying to glean from it aspects of prayer and life that will benefit churches that are truly looking for God Himself rather than religious activity to keep people busy and make them think that they are happy. Verse 3 has a key to true prayer in that Daniel gave his attention to the Lord God to seek Him. It is possible to seek most anything else but God in outward forms of religious prayer as we use His name. True prayer is always a seeking of God for Himself and His presence first and foremost. Daniel sought God by prayer and supplications with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. These outward things were means to help him focus on what he really needed to do which was to seek God.

We have noted in previous newsletters that in seeking God Daniel confessed his sin. Sin is what separates from God and it must be removed. Sin brings guilt and the guilt must be removed so that a perfectly just God could return to His people. The presence of unrepented sin is also in the soul and must be repented of for God to return. There are several aspects of sin that we can refer to as the essence of sin, but one important essence is that all sin is against God. David taught this in Psalm 51:4 and Daniel repeats that thought in 9:7. The unfaithful deeds of the Israelites were committed against God. It may be true that a believer is forgiven and will not perish in hell for his or her sin, but it is also true that sin is the reason that God withdraws His face from the believer or a church. If any individual or group of people desire to have the presence of God in their midst, that person or group of people must learn to confess sin and seek God to grant them repentance of it. While we are told that we must simply believe that our sin is gone and it is, that is not how the Bible looks at it. Sin must be removed by the blood of Christ and God Himself must grant forgiveness and His presence in our soul according to His own will. God is not obligated to forgive us no matter the words we say. We must learn to seek Him by confession and repentance.

Daniel uses four words for sin here. He is not satisfied to confess sin in the general, he uses four words to get at how bad it really is. He wanted to be thorough and not just get by. If you want to use Strong’s numbers to track these down, the word for sinned is #02398, the word for iniquity is #05753b, the word for wickedly is #07561, and the word for rebel is #04775. The word for sinned has the basic meaning of to miss or go wrong. The word for iniquity basically means to do wrong. The word for wickedness has the basic meaning of to act wickedly, and the word for rebel has the meaning of being rebellious. This may sound simple and straight to the point, but this should help us see the true nature of sin and why we must see our sin and repent of it if we any expectation of God returning to His people in the professing Church and working through them.

There is a contrast in this verse between God and the Israelites. God keeps His covenant and lovingkindness with those who love Him and keep His commandments. This is seen in the New Testament as well when Jesus said in John 14:15 that “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” He goes on in verse 21 to say even more: “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” We must be careful about the cause of love in this text, but we can at least see the link between loving God and God’s disclosing Himself to people. A people that desire God to disclose Himself to them must pursue God in love and keeping His commandments. The Greatest Commandment is to love God and the other commandments are only kept in love.

Without going into distinctions and similarities between the Old and New Covenants, we can at least know that God is the same God and that love for God will always involve keeping His commandments. There is no seeking of God apart from keeping His commandments and there is no love for God apart from keeping His commandments. God comes to those that love Him and keep His commandments and His love is with those people and He discloses Himself to those people. This is a vital point to make. The New Covenant promise is that God would live in His people and work in them to keep His commandments. Part of this work is that only true believers know God and love Him (I John 4:7-10). Only true believers know God in truth and so receive the love from the God who is love. But it is more than just receive the love of God; it is to have this God who is love live in those people and for the Spirit to bear the fruit of love in and through those who have Christ.

In Daniel 3 we see that God kept His covenant, yet the Israelites did not. God kept His lovingkindness, yet the Israelites did not. The covenant and lovingkindness of God were with those who loved Him and kept His commandments. The same is true today. In the New Covenant the love and mercy of God is in and on those who love Him and that very love for Him is from Him. While the Old Testament covenant people were cast off for breaking the covenant, the New Covenant people are in a covenant that God will work in them so that they will not be finally cast off. However, the New Covenant people are still in a relationship with God. They must submit their hearts and wills to Him in order to be His instruments of glory in this world. When they sin, the Lord withdraws and turns them over to hearts that are growing harder. The closeness is not there and the power and love of the Lord are not present with the people. They are turned over to their own devices.

Daniel draws the contrast out for us to see. We need to take a solemn warning from this. Instead of keeping the covenant with God to love Him and keep His commandments; the people missed the goal and went wrong (sinned). In going wrong they actually did what was wrong (iniquity) which broke the covenant. In breaking the covenant they acted wickedly and this was rebellion against God Himself in turning aside from His commandments and ordinances. All that is not in love is wickedness and rebellion against God. Then in verse 6 he confesses that they had not listened to the prophets. What is so bad about that? Prophets spoke in the name of God and indeed spoke the words of God to the people. It is a wicked thing not to listen to God and to actually turn from keeping His commandments. It is not that the people had totally turned from their religious practices, but they had turned from God in their hearts. They did not love God and when they did not love God they were wicked people who did not seek the Lord. They broke the covenant and in doing so they were rebels who deserved death.

In all sin there is a turning aside from the commandments and ordinances of God. We say we want God and yet by our turning from the commandments of God we show we don’t love the way His glory shines through us. The Ten Commandments are reflections of His own holiness and self-regard and when we turn from them we are turning from that which God’s glory shines in. When we turn from the commandments we turn from the way God works Himself in His people and then shines His glory through them. “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” When we turn from the commandments of God we are covenant breakers in that in the New Covenant it is God who works the love and strength in us to do them.

The professing Church in America has assuredly sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled. It has turned aside from His commandments and ordinances. It is not listening to those who truly preach the Word of God and it does not love God and is not keeping His commandments. Is there any reason to think that God is with those who are rebellious against Him and who are sinning against Him? Is there any reason to think that God is with those who do not love Him and keep His commandments? Remember from John 14:15, 21 that God dwells with those who love Him and keeps His commandments and discloses Himself to them. Is there any reason why God should be present with those who take His name today but are seeking the world and numbers rather than Him? We must learn to see the true signs of the absence of God and of the presence of God.

Daniel 9 tells us some of the basics we need to know to return to the Lord and how to seek Him. We must confess our sin in truth and we must see it for what it really is. It is rebellion against God and it is acts of wickedness and hatred against Him. We should not expect the glory of God to dwell in and among us when we are turning from Him like that. It is not confession of sin alone that will cause God to return and disclose Himself to us; it is a true repenting of those sins that have come between us and God. We cannot just turn from outward sins and get busy doing outwardly good and religious works. We must repent of sins of the heart and pray for God to show grace and return in power to our souls. Let us also not think that repentance is something easy that is done without pain in the soul, but instead the professing Church has much sorrow and contrition that must take place. God only dwells with the contrite. Let us learn from Daniel that we need to take sin seriously and to seek a true repentance from all the worldly and religious things we love in order to love Him in truth and keep His commandments from the heart.

In the last newsletter we looked at Daniel 9:3-6 but primarily asked why we need to confess our sins in prayer when seeking the Lord. We will continue with the same thought but with a different focus this week. We know that we are to confess sin, but many times we don’t really think about why. We recognize that we have sinned and know that we need to be forgiven, but many times we have a wrong idea of what forgiveness really means. If the professing Church in America and beyond is going to truly repent and seek the Lord, it must learn what it means to seek the Lord for forgiveness. The confession of sin is at the heart of this.

Daniel 9:3 – “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, ‘Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, 5 we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. 6 Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land.”

The text shows us that the primary thing that Daniel is doing is seeking the Lord. Part of seeking the Lord is to confess sin. God does not need to hear us admit that we have sinned, so we know that confession of sin is for another reason. But it is so easy to go astray. Last week we pointed out that confession must come from the heart. What we must avoid is the practice of confession that is of the mouth or intellect only. But why is that important in this context? Why is it so important to confess sin and to really have the heart broken for the sin we are confessing? It is because of the nature of forgiveness. In other words, we must confess sin from the heart because we must be really forgiven of sin as it really is. But there is even more to the story. Unless we deal with what forgiveness really is, we will not grasp what true confession really is and why we need to seek the Lord Himself.

We can imagine a person that says s/he is seeking the Lord. This person confesses sin in an intellectual fashion but has no real sorrow for the sin and does not see it as all that bad. This person simply knows that s/he has violated the commandments of God and is guilty. This person has heard that if sins are confessed and followed by believing what God says about confessing sins then those sins are no longer held against you. Nothing has really happened in the heart and all that is done here is perfunctory and goes no deeper than the mind and a few beliefs. The person might even have affections in the heart if s/he thinks that hell has been avoided, but that is based on nothing but self-interest. But again the whole thing seems more like a transaction or like one is manipulating God to forgive him or her. If we simply admit that we have done something wrong in order to escape punishment, then something is terribly wrong with this picture. It seems to be, however, the majority report in the modern day.

The real issue is whether we are seeking the presence of God in our hearts and in our midst or whether we just want to escape hell and some external judgment by seeking God. By “seeking the presence of God in our hearts” I am meaning something that is real. It is to seek the very presence of God Himself to fill us with Himself. If we seek God in order to obtain something from Him, then we are not seeking God but ourselves. We must seek God in accordance with His holiness, love for Himself, and His glory, or we are not seeking God but self. Confession of sin and seeking forgiveness in the believer must always have a higher purpose than simply to escape punishment. If not, the very confession of sin is idolatry and sin itself. We are to have no other gods before Him and we are not to have any idols. Yet if we go to God and our love for ourselves is seen in the desire for God to serve ourselves rather than to display His glory, we are our own god and are in service of an idol. We can get very intense in our efforts to escape punishment, but that does not mean that we love anyone but ourselves.

It should be clear that our confessions must be motivated by love for God and His glory to be true confessions. In our day we have turned even our confession of sin into a self-centered act which in our minds has relegated God to something less than He is. It has been told that a famous atheist who scorned of God was dying. Someone asked him if it turned out that God really did exist would God forgive him. The man purportedly said this: “He must, it is His job.” If that man’s reply is wrong then so is the way God is treated in much of religion today. We think that forgiveness is something that God must do as long as we confess to Him and admit we have done something wrong. While many say that God is sovereign, they certainly don’t apply it at this point. God is not obligated to forgive sin. He does not have to do so and there is nothing a human being can do to bring God under some form of obligation to forgive sin. God is perfectly holy and just even if He does not forgive sin. If we would meditate on that for a while, it might change our thoughts and practices of confession of sin.

God knows human hearts with perfect understanding. Can our unfelt confessions that come over lips moved by cold hearts be seen as true confessions? Are our confessions any better than some religious ritual that an utter pagan utters to an idol? If we really believe that the true and living God will simply gloss over our sin because we have said some words, then we are not in the worship of the living God in truth but have idols in our own imaginations. Our cold and perfunctory confessions that we think will automatically bring forgiveness are nothing but the reflections of idolatrous hearts. If we think that our cold and perfunctory confessions will bring the presence of God back to our congregations, then our hearts are so hard and cold that we must begin to cry out to God to break our hearts so we can confess our sins in truth. Our hearts are open and naked before God and He knows when we truly confess or when we are trying to use religious practices for selfish purposes.

What is true forgiveness of sin? It is when the sin that stands between God and the soul is removed and God is now dwelling in the soul. This is a point that must be driven into our souls. Forgiveness is not just intellectual, but it is the return of the living God to human souls. In the Garden of Eden sin meant that Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden where they walked with God. Isaiah 59:2 tells the issue: “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.” Deuteronomy 31:18 makes the point in a different way: “But I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they will do, for they will turn to other gods.” The phrase “hide My face” is throughout Scripture as a punishment, yet when God turns so that His people will see His face and behold His countenance that is what was thought of as truly good. Sin is what keeps God turned from a people and sin is what keeps God from returning to a people.

True forgiveness is not just an intellectual act of the mind of God, but it is for Him to return to His people. Thus we can see how this impacts our confession and how this should influence our seeking of God. Confession of sin is not just babbling of words in a religious manner, it is striving for a heart that is broken from its sin and sees how horrible sin really is. This is a heart that is confessing sin in its pursuit of God Himself and it knows that its sin is the real problem. The heart that loves God and desires His presence in the soul will turn against itself and cry against itself for its true love which is God. Confession of sin then takes on a sense of urgency and certainly of a spiritual reality. When true confession is uttered to God, it comes from a heart that knows and feels the weight of its sin and so is far removed from a perfunctory utterance of the lips. This is a heart that is truly seeking God Himself and desires for God to dwell in its soul. Oh that the churches would wake up to what it means to seek the Lord and to desire His presence to dwell in them. If only we would be turned from seeking ourselves in our religious practices to seeking God for His presence and His glory. We must understand that if we are going to see God return to His people (which is true forgiveness) in power and glory it will take much pain of the heart. We must be turned from a slight dealing with sin and be turned to repenting of it regardless of the pain or cost.

In the text of Daniel 9 we can read it as if he was cool and calm and simply began to confess sin in a monotone voice. But let us read the rest of the chapter and book and we will know that the above is not a description of Daniel at all. He was a man who was blood earnest in all that he did. Here was a man that loved Israel because it was the nation that God has set His glory upon. He knew that the sin of Israel had to be forgiven in order for God to return and His face to shine on His desolate sanctuary (Dan 9:17). The sanctuary of the Lord is very desolate in our day. There can be a lot of religious activity and great numbers of people crowding to places of religious excitement without the presence of God being there. Many times it appears that people mistake activity and excitement for the presence of God as the Israelites did. But when God comes or is about to come people get very serious about the sins of their hearts and begin to devote themselves to seeking God Himself. It begins with true conviction of sin and then a true confession of sin. It continues with a true seeking of God. Without a true turning from sin in the heart, there is no true seeking of God. God is not manipulated by our words, but He must work true confession in our hearts. If we have even a slight desire for God to turn His face back to us in our day, we must start where Daniel started. We must begin to confess our sins, but we must learn to seek the Lord to work a truly broken heart in us in order to truly forsake sin and to seek His face. If we try anything less than this, we are kidding ourselves at best. Most likely it will be that we are deceived and God’s judgment will continue.

The focus of this article will remain with Daniel and his seeking the Lord God in prayer and supplications. As we have tried to press before, it is God Himself who must be sought in prayer or we are praying to ourselves. The acts of fasting, sackcloth and ashes that Daniel mentioned were outward acts of self-denial that pointed to the inner need to die to self in order to seek the Lord. We might also mention that these times of seeking were not limited to a few minutes here and there, but were to be the whole of life. What is called prayer in our day is really prayers for self and the desires of self. But Scripture teaches here and in other places that self must be denied in order to pray. When Daniel prayed to the LORD his God, he confessed sin.

Daniel 9:3 – So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, “Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, 5 we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. 6 Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land.”

What we need to ask ourselves is why Daniel confessed sin. We are told today that if we confess our sin we will be forgiven. That is a causal relation from saying words to forgiveness and is a system of works for forgiveness. If all we need to do is to admit that we have sinned in order to be forgiven, then forgiveness for sin is contingent on saying the words. Surely something deeper is intended. First, what does the word confess mean? The meaning is obvious from looking at the word. It consists of “con” and “fess.” The prefix “co” points to working together or doing something in accordance with a standard or in accordance with another. The word “fess” means to acknowledge. In the past people “fessed up” when they admitted their guilt. If we take the parts of the word and put them together, we have the biblical idea of admitting or acknowledging a crime against God which is sin. But does “co” mean more than that? We are to acknowledge sin in accordance with what God says it is. In a court of law the charge is read against the defendant and s/he is asked to admit guilt or not. If the defendant confesses to the crime, s/he has to confess in accordance with the charges against him or her.

True confession of sin, therefore, is to acknowledge that our sin is as God says. It says that God’s view of sin is correct and that I am guilty of violating His cosmic law and stand guilty before Him as a lawbreaker that deserves eternal wrath for my sin. David’s confession in Psalm 51 shows this. He confessed that his sin was against God and God alone (Psalm 51:4). God is the One that is wronged by sin. The text shows this: “Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.” When a defendant is ready to confess or acknowledge guilt, the punishment for the crime is set out so that the defendant can know the punishment or the crime being confessed to. David confessed his sin and since his sin was against God in the ultimate sin he then says that God is just and blameless no matter what He does with David.

It is imperative that when seeking the face of God that we do not blow off sin as a minor thing. Our sin is against God Himself and to really deal with it requires that view. We can shed a tear and admit that we are sinners to a degree, but for us to seek the face of God requires that we deal with our sin in all of its hideous ugliness. It requires that we deal with our hearts and lives as in the presence of God. It requires us to seek God to give us a deeper knowledge of our sin. If we do not seek to know our own hearts and a deeper understanding of sin as against God, then we do not truly desire God for Himself. In one sense true confession to God is to take God’s side against ourselves and plead with Him to glorify Himself in our case. Ah, some say, surely that is going too far. Why would God want to make us feel bad? The greatest thing God gives to people is Himself. Unless we are broken from our sin which He hates He will not come and dwell with us. When God opens people’s eyes to the horrid nature of their sin, He is acting in accordance with the greatest mercy possible.

We see that from the very beginning Daniel sought God and therefore he confessed his sin and the sins of the nation. By definition sin leads to God withdrawing His face and presence. If sin is the reason that He turns His face, we can only seek the presence of God by turning from sin and by seeking Him and His face. This is why they had times of national mourning in the Old Testament and in the early days of the United States. Time was set aside for national mourning and repentance in order to seek the face of God. Dealing with sin is no easy issue and we have been led astray if we think it is. Dealing with sin is dealing with our own sin, pride, and hard hearts. God judges sin by turning people over to hard hearts and pride, so if we are going to be turned from it we must see our sin and deal with it as it is. When God deals with sin, He brings sorrow and contrition for sin. How many spouses have heard glib apologies that the other person did not really mean? They were obviously not genuine.

What is one real difference between a genuine dealing with sin and one that is not? It has to do with what is going on in the heart. The heart can have a sense of sorrow that is real just over the issue of being caught. That is not having sorrow for the sin itself but is having sorrow for the consequences. Many people within the visible Church have sorrow for sin in the sense that they have been caught and in the sense that they are facing eternal torment in hell. They have a sorrow based on selfish considerations. True sorrow for sin is when we have sorrow because we have sinned against God Himself. True sorrow for a believer is realizing and then having the sense of shame and sorrow in the presence of God because that sin has offended his or her Beloved.

Another reason that God is merciful in showing us our sin and bringing contrition over it is that humility is necessary to receive grace. God is opposed to the proud and He will crush them. If God does not humble a soul, He is opposed to it as His enemy. Pride is a sure sign of being a child of the devil who is pride incarnate. Humility, on the other hand, is the emptiness of self and the pride of self. It is Christ who was perfectly humble and then humbled Himself to go to the cross. Pride is to be like the devil while true humility is the emptiness of self and a false pretense to humility and then to have the life of Christ in the soul. Humility is absolutely necessary to pray in a way that is seeking God Himself. Without humility we will be doing nothing in our prayers but praying for self. We must have the emptiness of self or we will be full of self and seek self while we say we are seeking God.

We must be careful and not limit this to the physical action of using words that sound like humility and words that sound like we are praying for God’s sake. This requires a deep work of the Spirit in our hearts. This is not something that will happen in five minutes and in our spiritually degenerate age is most likely not going to happen without a longer period of seeking the Lord. In order to really seek the Lord, our hearts must be broken and we must become people that truly desire emptiness of self so that we can truly seek the Lord. He has told us that we will find Him if we seek Him with all of our hearts and souls. “But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul” (Deut 4:29). What will it take to seek the Lord with all of our hearts and souls? It will take a lot of dealing with our own hearts and souls. We have to deal with our pride and self-centeredness. We have to deal with our self-love. We have to deal with our own self-seeking. Seeking the Lord is not something that can be done like turning on a switch, it can only be done when we begin to deal with our own hearts from their very depths.

In order to seek the Lord from the heart the heart has to be cleansed. We have sinned against the Lord and we have been turned over to hardness of heart. We have sinned against the Lord and He has withdrawn His face from us. Our hearts have been turned over to pride and self-centeredness. We have practiced the externals of Christianity out of love for self rather than love for God. We have gone through the motions of Christian acts and yet our hearts are cold and hard. There is no program that we can come up with and there is nothing we can do of ourselves to force God to give us true repentance and to turn His face toward us again. Our hearts stand against us and down deep we like our external comforts and religion more than we want the pain of dealing with our own sin and our own hearts. This is also part of the judgment of God. We prefer Bible studies that fill our heads with knowledge rather than those that deal with our own wicked hearts and are a step to seeking the true and living God. We prefer to pray for the bodily illnesses of our 122nd cousin than to deal with our own sin and cold hearts in prayer meetings. We prefer to pray for people’s temporal welfare rather than their eternal welfare. We prefer to pray for people rather than to pray for God’s name to be exalted and glorified in the advancement of His kingdom. What is our problem? We have proud hearts that are hardened by our selfish desires for our own physical and spiritual comforts. With desires for self like that, we desire God for our comfort rather than desiring broken hearts in order to desire and seek God. Unless our hearts are truly broken and humbled we will not truly seek God in prayer and we will continue our downward spiral. Until we are ready to deal with our hearts and God in truth and reality, our personal prayers and our prayer meetings will be no better than those of the Pharisees. They sought themselves in prayer, but so do we. We must learn to seek God Himself rather than to seek Him for things, even religious things.

We are looking at what it will take for the professing Church to awaken to what it is and primarily to God Himself. Part of the spiritual judgment that is upon us now is that we lack true spiritual understanding and God has turned His face from us. The presence of God and the power of His Spirit have been replaced by activities and programs. But the only way to return is to seek the Lord in prayer for Him to turn His face back to us.

Daniel 9:3 – So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, “Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, 5 we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. 6 Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land.”

In previous newsletters we have looked at how we are to give our attention to the Lord God to seek Him. Prayer is not just tossing words into the air toward the heavens, but it is to seek God Himself. Prayer is to be a communing with God in worship, adoration, confession of sin, and praise. Indeed we are to have supplications or requests, but our requests would be a lot different if they were part of communing with God and seeking His face. When God turns His face from a people, they are left to themselves and so they seek themselves. A religious people that seek themselves will use God’s name and do many outwardly good things in their seeking of themselves and their own name and honor. But true prayer is centered upon God, His glory, His kingdom, and His will.

In Daniel 9 we see that Daniel gave his attention to the Lord God in order to seek Him. He sought God by prayer. While this has been noted before, we cannot be reminded of this too many times. True prayer only occurs when it is seeking God Himself. It is not when people use the name of God or ask God for things, but true prayer is only when God Himself is sought. Prayer is how we are to seek God. A person or a church that does not pray is not a church or a person that is seeking God as He has set out in the Bible. It is true that people will say words and say a lot of words for the health of other people and perhaps ask God to save other people, but that is not a sign of true prayer either. True prayer is when people seek God Himself in their prayers. Making this point has been highly repetitious, but it must be drilled in our heads and hearts because true prayer is rarely seen. We have learned to say words in our so-called prayer meetings and yet not seek God. We can go into our meetings with cold hearts and no real love for God and say certain religiously acceptable words and leave feeling good that we have prayed. We have not prayed when we have done that but rather God is even angrier for our idolatrous prayers. Instead of seeking Him for Himself we seek Him for what He can do for us or in order to make ourselves feel religious.

Daniel also sought God by fasting. The last newsletter ended on this subject. Fasting is a way of humbling self to seek God rather than a way to earn anything from Him. God operates on the basis of grace alone and our works cannot possibly earn anything from Him. Fasting is part of what people do when they desire God more than anything else. They begin to humble themselves in order to seek Him. They desire the presence of God more than their food rather than thinking this will earn anything from Him. The sackcloth and ashes are external signs of seeking God and of mourning. The sackcloth provides a level of discomfort to the flesh as a person walked forcing them to think of their physical discomfort as a reminder of the spiritual trial they are in. The ashes were a sign of mourning. But we must be very careful at this point. The humanistic way of looking at this will do nothing but lead us to works and external things. Daniel did these things as means to seek the Lord.

How can sackcloth and ashes help us seek the Lord now? Physical discomfort is not meritorious before God, but the discomfort is to remind us to seek the Lord from the heart. Our minds and hearts are so prone to wander and so sackcloth was used to bring physical discomfort to help people to focus on seeking the Lord. The constant chafing was to be a constant reminder to pray. But why pour ashes on yourself? It was also a physical reminder that the soul that is seeking God is a soul that needs to mourn. The ashes did no good in and of themselves but they were to point to the person mourning for sin and also to bring others to mourn as well. Outward physical things can help remind others as well. We don’t need to use those things in the same exact ways now, but something that can remind us would be of help. Perhaps a rubber band or an object that constricts the skin would remind us to focus on what we must be focused on. Perhaps a smudge of dirt on our hand would tell us that we must mourn. If any person or church is truly serious about seeking the Lord, something will be done to keep our minds focused.

The text then guides us (v. 4) to the words of the prayer. Notice again that Daniel prayed to the “LORD my God.” The object of prayer is not ourselves and not anything or anyone else. We are to pray to God. But Daniel prayed to YAHWEH which is the name of the covenant God of Israel. It was the name of the God that was given to Moses when he was sent to tell Pharaoh to let God’s people go. It refers to the self-existent God who has no need at all. Everything about YAHWEH comes from Him and all of His motives and desires are from Himself and for Himself. But it is not just to the covenant name of God that he prays, but he prays to “my God.” We can pray to YAHWEH as the God of Israel without having bowed in submission to Him as my God. True prayer is not just words with the name of the true God, they are words to a personal God as well. YAHWEH was the God of Israel in the sense that He made covenant promises to them and took them for His because of His own name’s sake. But the few that truly loved God bowed in utter submission to Him and He was now “my God.”

It should bow our hearts to consider this one phrase. This refers to a God that is willing to be called upon in a personal way and calls upon people to submit to Him. It is so easy to use the name of God in prayer, but to refer to Him as “my God” refers to our submission, our acknowledgment of His utter Lordship over us, and the fact that we are His to do with as He pleases. It also refers to a personal God. “My God” refers to one that is truly God over me. True prayer begins in the heart and it does not just look to an impersonal God out there who is bigger and stronger than we are, but it starts with a bowing of the heart to “my God.” It is much the same as Jesus taught us to pray to “our Father who is in heaven.” We can just use those words, but if those are the words from a heart that knows the God behind the words they are used in reference to the God who has sent Christ and has reconciled His children to Himself by the blood of the cross. They are no longer just words, but are expressions of hearts that know this God. We can see something of the heart in this when doubting Thomas saw the wounds of the risen Lord and then said “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). It was a pronouncement of his belief and his submission to the risen Lord of all. In much the same way we must learn to pray with a submissive heart to “my God.”

Daniel started his prayer with confession, but before he got to the actual confession he worshipped. It is true that these are more words that some might think God would be impressed by, but Daniel was praying to His God. He states what is in his heart and that was that his God was the absolute ruler (Lord) who is the great and awesome God. In light of the sin he was about to confess, he needed to pray in worship and recognition of who God really is. This great and awesome God keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments. But the Israelites had not loved God and kept His commandments. Rather than that, they had been wicked and had rebelled against Him by turning aside from His commandments.

Here is a lesson for individuals and churches across the land. We must learn that part of a true seeking of God is confession sin. It is true that all believers are in the New Covenant, but the New Covenant involves keeping the Law of God because of the life of God in the soul of the believer being worked out in love. When a believer violates the commands of God, that shows that the believer is not walking in the Spirit and that God is not working and His life in the believer in the same way. It is utterly vital in prayer to confess sin to God. Daniel confessed the corporate sin of the nation. We must learn to confess the corporate sin of the local church and of the Church in larger terms. Let us not think that God is as individualistic as we are. We sin because we are sinners, but also because we are parts of groups of sinners. Local churches sin when they allow wicked people to join and when they do not practice church discipline on those who are in sin. The church brings guilt upon itself by sinning against God when these things happen. Each person cannot just begin to confess his or her sin and call it good, but the whole church must confess the corporate sins.

We must learn that if we are going to truly seek a holy God that is always faithful to His own glory, we must confess our sins. It will not do just to state them and go on our way, but we must seek the Lord for hearts that mourn for both our personal sins and our corporate sins. Instead of looking for bigger buildings and programs, we need to be on our knees crying out to God for our sins. The professing Church is under judgment because of its sins and it must learn to mourn and confess those sins before God will turn His face back to us. We are deceiving ourselves if we think it will happen in any other way. May God give us all broken and mourning hearts.