How to Pray for a Nation (Part 1)

TEXT -- Daniel 9:1-8.

Tonight, by the grace of God, I want to commence a series of messages titled "How to Pray for Our Nation" based on Daniel chapter 9: 1-19. We probably do not need to be reminded of this fact, but our nation is in desperate need of prayer, repentance, and revival at this time. Over the next few weeks, we will delve deeply into this passage of Scripture, and learn what made Daniel's prayer for the nation of Israel effective as well as how we can take the principles we learn and apply them in praying for America. Because of the length of this passage, we will only take a few verses at a time as we learn from this passage.

Tonight, I want you to focus your attention on verses 1 - 8. Verses 1 - 3 serve as an introductory paragraph that tell us the context of Daniel's prayer. Daniel, along with the people of Israel, is in exile in Babylon. It is almost 70 years since the exile had begun and Daniel is moved to prayer after he is reading Jeremiah's prophecies which indicate that the exile is nearing its end.