From His Heart

I want to ask you: what's it going to take for you to really get serious about prayer, about seeking God with all your heart, and giving undivided attention to the Lord? I’ve noticed with people is they're halfhearted about seeking the Lord. I'm talking about Christians being halfhearted about seeking the Lord until the bottom drops out.

Do you look out and see the disaster all around us and what kind of a world we're going to leave behind to our children and our grandchildren? You say, "God has called me to stand in the gap. God has called me to get right. God has called me to pray."

Larry Nobles: In the Old Testament, the poster child for prayer is Daniel. Daniel is probably one of the most righteous, godly men who ever lived. Even more to the point for today's lesson, he was a man of prayer. In Daniel chapter nine, he shows us what it looks like when repentant people return to God in prayer.

This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Thank you for joining us today for the fourth message in Pastor Jeff's five-lesson series, Soul on Fire: God's Plan for Revival. The lesson today is part two of Returning to God in Prayer. It's a convicting message that will remind us all of what a privilege we have as Christians to call on the Lord in prayer, knowing that He hears us and will provide exactly what we need.

This series, Soul on Fire, is our gift of thanks to you for your support this month to From His Heart of any amount. You can find out more when you go to fromhisheart.org. Turn now, if you can, to the book of Daniel. We're in chapter nine, and Pastor Jeff now will show us why we should return to God in prayer.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: I want you to notice three discoveries—three things that Daniel did that you and I can do and that you and I must do if we're going to return to the Lord. First discovery: we get serious. Daniel is serious. Look at verse three: "So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes."

Daniel is not praying a ho-hum prayer. He was serious. God does business with those who mean business. One of the things we desperately need in America today and in our lives today is to get serious about seeking the Lord.

Second discovery: not only do we get serious, we get reverent. Daniel got reverent. Verse four: "And I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed and said, 'Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps His covenant and loving kindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments.'" This is the beginning of his prayer. It starts with worship. He is reverent before the Lord.

Thirdly, we get right. Daniel is going to show us how to get right with God. When you have wandered away from Him, how do you get right with Him? Remember this: 70 years in captivity. Why were they in captivity? Because they had sinned against God. They were grossly idolatrous and grossly immoral.

Daniel is rehearsing all the sins of the people and sins in his own heart that he had to confess. He says over and over, "This is what we've done. We have sinned. We've rebelled. We haven't listened. We've acted wickedly. We've committed iniquity. We've turned aside from following You." We get right. Daniel was getting right, and he was interceding for the people.

When you get right and you intercede for the people, you honestly and fully confess your sins and repent. That's what it means to get right. You honestly and fully confess your sins and you turn away from those sins. How did they sin against God? With all the different synonyms that he uses, we get a pretty clear and important picture for us to have in our minds.

Number one: they refused to listen. How often do we refuse to listen to God? This is what it says in 2 Chronicles chapter 36, before Nebuchadnezzar came in in 586 BC, tore down the wall, and destroyed Jerusalem. That wasn't a minor thing; it was a major thing. There's a whole book in the Bible called Lamentations. That's Jeremiah writing down the gut-wrenching experience of watching Jerusalem get destroyed.

This is God's city. The temple of Solomon is where God dwells. To see it all just wiped out by pagans was brutal. This is what the Lord says: "Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem from 597 to 586. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet who spoke for the Lord."

"He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear allegiance by God. But he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord God of Israel. Furthermore, all the officials of the priests and the people were very unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they defiled the house of the Lord, which He had sanctified in Jerusalem."

"And the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. But what did they do? They continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people until there was no remedy."

Proverbs 29:1: "A man who hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly be broken and that without remedy." God says you're going in the wrong direction. I need you to go over here. And you stiffen your neck. No, I'm going to go where I want to go. Eventually, a man who hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly be broken. God says, "I've had enough. I am God. You go My way or you're not going to be able to go anymore."

They refused to listen. God was so gracious in giving them prophet after prophet. "Turn around, turn around, turn around." But they blew Him off. What was the term a few years ago? "Talk to the hand." He says, "We have turned aside," in verse five, turning aside from Your commandments. That literally means we've turned off. We've just turned You off, God. We don't listen to You anymore.

In Isaiah's day, they said, "Speak to us pleasant words. Prophesy to us illusions. Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel." We don't want to hear about God's holiness. We don't want to hear about God's commandments. Just tell us how good we are. Tell us how much God loves us. Tell us how much God wants to bless us. Tell us how special and precious we are.

We've refused to listen and we've refused to respond. All this calamity has come upon them and they didn't respond. Look at verse 13. Daniel says, "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."

What's it going to take? Your city is totally destroyed. You've been ripped from your homeland and taken 900-plus miles to Babylon. They change your name. You were Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, and now you're Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Everything is turned upside down. Everything you love has been destroyed. Does that not cause you to turn your heart back to the Lord?

Yet we have not sought Your face. We have not sought the favor of the Lord. The favor of the Lord is the face of the Lord—*panim*. Now, here's what we seek with God. We seek the blessings of God. We seek the things that God can do for us. Here's America in a nutshell: we want the blessings of God, but we don't want the ways of God.

"God, just give us Your blessings, but then get out of the way." It's like having some rich friend who is somebody you're using. You invite him to dinner to pay the bill, but then you're like, "Hey, why don't you just pay it up front and then get out of here because we don't want you here anyway? We just want you to pay for it."

God's not going to pay for it. God's not going to be treated like an old shoe. We seek His face. 2 Chronicles 7:14: "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways." My face, not My hand, but My face. We have refused to respond to God. We are covered in shame.

He says it twice in his prayer: "Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes, our fathers because we have sinned against You." Open shame, the shame of face. We are so embarrassed for what we have done.

Larry Nobles: We'll continue to explore this truth with Pastor Jeff in just a moment. Does prayer make you tired? Does your faith tire you out? Many believers today feel spiritually tired, distracted, or distant from God. Yet God desires for us to revive our hearts and draw closer to Him.

In Pastor Jeff's series Soul on Fire: God's Plan for Revival, he shares how you can experience a revival of God in your life by returning to your first love through repentance, prayer, and obedience to His word, and how you can spread revival to those around you. This encouraging series is our thank-you gift for your support to From His Heart this month as we continue to proclaim the life-transforming truth of God's word around the world.

To get your copy of Soul on Fire, call 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org and request it by name. You can request it on CDs, DVDs, an MP3 download, or on a USB flash drive. So thank you very much for supporting From His Heart, and we trust that these programs will continue to be a blessing to you. God bless you as you help us bring true revival to lives everywhere. Now, here's the conclusion to part two of the message Returning to God in Prayer.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: You get a shame of the things in your life. When you see people get arrested for something horrible and terrible and they have them on camera, they take their coat or their hands and put it over their face. They don't want you to see their face because they're ashamed. I remember years ago when Jim Bakker got arrested for the PTL scandal. He was crying, he was in handcuffs, and he grabbed his coat to put it over his face to hide his face.

Shame is not a good thing, but it's good that you feel shame when you do shameful things. Jeremiah, in Jeremiah chapter six and chapter eight, has the same verse. He said, "Were they ashamed because of all the abomination they had committed? They were not ashamed at all, and they did not know how to blush." Do you know how to blush?

Thirty years ago, if you were living with your girlfriend or your boyfriend, you didn't want people to know that. You were ashamed of that because it's a shameful thing. Now people don't think anything of it. Fifty years ago, when welfare first started, if people were on welfare or food stamps, they were ashamed to say, "I'm taking government assistance." They wanted to get off as soon as possible because they wanted to earn their way.

Now, it's like a job of being on welfare. "How many kids can I have so I can get more welfare money?" Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had committed? They weren't ashamed at all, and they did not know how to blush. Daniel knew how to blush and Daniel was ashamed on behalf of the people.

Shame when you do shameful things is right, just like guilt when you are guilty of sin is a right emotion, and you must respond to that. Covered in shame, deserving of the calamity upon us. Verse 14: "Therefore the Lord has brought the calamity in store and brought it on us, for the Lord our God is righteous with respect to all His deeds which He has done, but we have not obeyed His voice."

God told them this is what's going to happen. Just a little aside: how did God come up with 70 years for their captivity? Because God had given them a law, and that law said every seventh year, let the land have rest. Don't plant and don't farm it; just let it rest. "I will provide for you, but let the land rest."

They didn't do that. They said, "Well, that's just dumb. We can't do that. We're farmers, we got to farm." So they just kept plowing the land year after year, just blowing off God's commands. It says in 2 Chronicles 36 that when God brought them into captivity, they stayed for 70 years until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths.

God took note of the fact that for 490 years, you have not obeyed Me one time. So I'm destroying the land of Jerusalem and Judah. I'm pulling you guys into captivity and the land is going to be desolate for 70 years until the land enjoys its Sabbaths. They were deserving of the calamity, and we're deserving of the calamity that's coming upon us.

Our country is falling apart at the seams. Immorality is just run rampant. You have transvestites that are ushered into positions of authority in our government. A person who is a biological male that thinks he's a woman and dresses like a woman and acts like a woman has serious problems. It doesn't mean they're a horrible person; it just means they have serious problems. You don't give them the keys to the government.

But that's the world in which we live. Romans chapter one says God's given us over to a reprobate mind. We don't know the difference between girls and boys. We need to pray. We honestly and fully confess our sins and repent, and we humbly and boldly ask for forgiveness and restoration. Daniel says, "God, this is it. This is where we are." He's confessing his own sins and the sins of the people.

Then he says in verse 16: "O Lord, in accordance with all Your righteous acts, let now Your anger and Your wrath turn away from Your city, Jerusalem, the holy mountain. 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."

"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 merit of our own, but on account of Your great compassion." The Lord, the Lord God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth.

He picks up on that again: because of Your great compassion. "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." He pours out his heart to the Lord. He confesses all his sin. He turns from that sin and asks God for forgiveness.

He does it boldly. He does it in faith because God says if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We can be forgiven for all our sin, no matter what we've done. I was reading about Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer. He was killed in prison, but he professed faith in Christ before he died.

When you think about the things that he did—kidnapping, raping, mutilating, and eating boys—you think there's no way that guy could ever be saved. The blood will never lose its power. No matter what you've done, you can be forgiven and cleansed from that if you will get honest, get serious, and get right. Come before the Lord, confess your sin, and cry out to Him.

Luke chapter seven is one of my favorite stories where the prostitute comes to Jesus and she weeps at His feet. She is so broken over her sin. She had become a dirty plaything of dirtier men, and she had done terrible things. But she broke down at Jesus' feet and she repented. She poured those tears out on Jesus' feet.

Simon the Pharisee said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman this is who's touching him." Jesus knew what kind of a woman she was. Jesus said, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven because she loved much." And then He says to the woman, "Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."

Me? I can go in peace? With the things that I've done and the stains that I have on my heart, I can go in peace? Yeah, because the blood of Jesus, God's Son, cleanses us from all sins. If you will repent of your sin and come to Him, He will forgive you. That's the gospel. But it starts with prayer. It starts with the prayer of repentance.

I want to ask you: what's it going to take for you to really get serious about prayer, about seeking God with all your heart, and giving undivided attention to the Lord? I'm talking to myself; this is a question for all of us. What's it going to take? You know what I've noticed with people is they're halfhearted about seeking the Lord until the bottom drops out.

Until their spouse comes home one day and says, "I don't want to be married to you," and then it's like, "Oh no, I need God." Until you go to the doctor and he says you have stage three cancer. Is that the way you want to do it with God? God brings disaster in my life and then I'll seek You? Or do you look out and see the disaster all around us and say, "God has called me to stand in the gap. God has called me to get right. God has called me to pray."

Washington is not going to do anything to help us. It's God's house where the people of God, when we get right with God, God does something. I want to invite you to pray. Our steps are open to prayer. We need to pray and we need to get right in our hearts.

We need to pray with David: search me, O God, and try my heart. Show me what's inside. Convict me, Lord, of any sin that is in there that I've pushed in the dark recesses. I need to get that out into the light so that I can be forgiven, so that I can walk in the light with You.

Larry Nobles: Perhaps today's lesson has reminded you that you have some hidden sins. At least you think they're hidden, and you need to admit them to God and let Him convict your heart so that you can find the abundant life that He created you to have. We pray today's lesson has revealed to you what is in the dark and brought you into the light.

The lesson today was called "Returning to God in Prayer." It's one of the hallmarks of the Christian life. The lesson is one of five in the series Soul on Fire: God's Plan for Revival. This also reveals that a key hallmark of abundant life is holiness.

1 John chapter one, verses five and seven, says, "God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." That verse also reminds us that a clear sign that we are drifting in our relationship with the Lord is that we become slack in our attitude toward sin.

By contrast, living the abundant Christian life means that we fight hard against the darkness of our heart and seek to walk in the light each day. If you'd like help in learning how to have your soul on fire, this series can dramatically help. It's our gift of thanks to you for your support to From His Heart this month of any amount.

You can receive yours in the format of your choice when you call 866-40-BIBLE or go online to fromhisheart.org. By the way, we want to invite you to visit our website every day where you can hear a daily Real Hope Minute, and also sign up for the Real Hope email encouragement letter that you'll get in your inbox every Friday morning. Or you can download a free MP3 of any broadcast you may have missed.

I'm Larry Nobles and we sincerely thank you for joining us today on From His Heart. We're trusting you'll want to be back next time for the lesson, "Do You Really Want to Be Revived?" Next time, we'll open God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His heart.