A Covenant Lawsuit Based on Daniel’s Prayer for His People in Daniel 9
O Sovereign Lord, as I continue to languish in nearly unceasing agony, grief, sadness and lamentation over what appears that you are in the process of pouring out in judgment upon your children in America, I turn my face to you, O Lord Jesus, seeking you in prayer with loud cries and pleas for help in the form of grace and mercy.
♰ Transcendence
O Lord, you are the great and awesome God of the Universe, who faithfully keeps your eternal covenant of steadfast love and faithfulness with those who love you and keep your commandments by trusting in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation!
And yet most of us in America don’t want you! Most of us reject you and your “so-called” Good News! Why? – because we Hate You with a Violent Hatred! We want our independence from you! And we have set the course of our lives on fire to do everything in our vain and empty power to try to crush the awareness of you out of existence! Oh, what complete and utter folly! Please forgive us!
♰ Heirarchy
We have not listened to the voice of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is your ultimate and eternal Word, and who is your final and definitive communication to us as your Prophet, Priest and King. What suicidal folly it is for us to ignore him – for he is the only one who willingly suffered and died on the cross, and was buried, and was raised on the third day, in order to willingly receive the just punishment that we rightly deserved for our sins in order to atone for our sins and to fully satisfy your righteous anger at our sin, and – at the same time – as a part of what some call “the great exchange” – to give us your perfect righteousness in exchange for our sin, and thereby purchase the fulfillment of all of your glorious promises to those who love you! What a glorious salvation! How Wonderful! How Marvelous! What a Friend we have in Jesus!
Yet we in America have long sinned and deliberately done wrong, and acted wickedly in rebellion against you, relentlessly turning aside from your command to obey your Gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. Please incline your ear and hear our cries for help! Please have mercy on us!
♰ Ethics
To you alone, O Yahweh, belongs righteousness and honor, but to us belongs open shame, as at this day it belongs to all the inhabitants of America – because of the treachery that we have committed against you over many hundreds of years. And much of that evil continues and flourishes all the stronger even to this very day!
We rush in to embrace every conceivable kind of evil, starting with exchanging your glory for created things, living as though you don’t exist, treating you and your name like trash, ignoring your commands to rest, dishonoring parents and all other structures of authority, anger, meanness, ugliness, hatred, wickedness, strife, envy, jealousy, murder, abortion, sexual immorality, lies, stealing, theft, laziness, deceitfulness, materialism, consumerism, injustice, ignoring poverty in the midst of plenty, racism, entertainment, hero-worship, pride, selfish ambition, self-authentication, self-independence, self-preoccupation, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, self-promotion, self-absorption, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement, self-exaltation, yea, even to the fictional reign of the so-called “kingdom of self,” SELF! SELF! SELF! and ultimately abject atheism and outright persecution of Christians.
All of us in America have transgressed your laws, first merely in the form of individual and personal sins, but now these rebellions of the individual heart are brazenly endorsed and codified by our nation’s political leaders and elected representatives into national law as a matter of civil and constitutional right, for which we should all be utterly ashamed. So we now have also turned aside from you in a formal corporate way, refusing to hear or obey your voice as an entire nation, thus prompting your righteous judgment against us as an entire nation that hates you. Please hold back your hand!
Ah Sovereign Lord, to us belongs all this open shame, and it belongs especially to our governments, to our elected officials, but also to ourselves, and to our fathers, and to our children, and to our children’s children, and even to your church – because we all continue to sin boldly, even proudly, against you. We are so entrenched in our rebellion that we do not even know how to blush!
To you, O Lord our God, belongs mercy and forgiveness, which we so desperately need – because we have rebelled against you, and we have not obeyed your voice by walking in your ways, which you set before us long ago in your written Word by and through your Incarnate Word.
And now the covenantal oath and curse that you gave us, and warned us about, and promised, early in your Word is being poured out upon us in all your righteousness – because we have sinned against you. You have many times confirmed your words that you spoke against us, and yet we continue to rebel and deserve your judgment, and now you are ready to bring upon us a great calamity. As it is written in the scriptures, all this calamity is rightly about to come upon us, and yet we still have not in wisdom entreated your favor by turning from our iniquities and running back to you in repentance after gaining insight by your word of truth.
Therefore, O Lord God, you have rightly prepared the calamity and suffering you are about to unleash upon us, for you are a righteous God in all the works that you have done – because we have not obeyed your voice. And now, O Lord our God, you who have made a glorious name for yourself, who brought your people up out of the land of slavery in Egypt with a mighty hand, and who rescued your people again from captivity in Babylon, and who raised your Son our Lord Jesus from the dead, are ready to pour out your righteous judgment and condemnation upon us – because we have sinned against you boldly and wickedly.
♰ Future Relationship Continuity
O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, we beg that you would turn away your righteous anger and wrath from your children in America, so that we will not become a shameful by-word among all the wicked unbelievers around us who hate you with open rebellion, scorn, ridicule and even violence. May the wicked not dance upon our graves in their ludicrous and delusional idea that they have somehow achieved victory over you!
How long, O Lord, will you allow the wicked to boldly mock you with scorn and derision? Arise, take up your cause against your enemies and destroy them!
Now therefore, O God, please listen to the prayers of your servants and our pleas for mercy, and – for your own sake, O Lord, for your own sake, and not for our sake – make your face to shine with eternal blessing upon your church, which appears so desolate. O my God, please incline your ear and hear our cries for mercy. Please open your eyes and see our desolations – for we are called by your name. We do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, which is essentially zero, but because of your great Steadfast Love and Faithfulness, which fill the skies!
O Lord, please Look! Hear! Pay attention! Grieve! Forgive! Arise! Defend your Cause! Destroy the Wicked! Save your Children! Act quickly! Please do not delay, O my God, for your own sake – because your people are called by your glorious name!
Daniel 9 Prayer for His People (Daniel 9:1-19)
1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.
3 Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. 7 To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. 8 To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. 9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him 10 and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. 11 All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him. 12 He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. 13 As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. 14 Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. 15 And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
16 “O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because, for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. 17 Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. 18 O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. 19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”
11 Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house he successfully accomplished. 12 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, 14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.