Turn Away Your Anger LORD!
REVIVAL COMES when we care more about the LORD’s reputation than our own. A blunt exposition of Daniel’s prayer in 9:15–19.
It’s true. Western churches are appallingly weak. We should be redwoods, lions, fortresses, Cassius Clay in 1960. Instead we are daisies, quails, retirement villas, Mohammed Ali in 2016.
We may measure the weakness of today’s church by putting it alongside two of the great ages of Gospel power and growth: the Early Church and the Reformation Church.
By the power of the Spirit the first Christians strode intrepidly into the world and shook it hard. They preached in streets and public squares, synagogues and lecture halls. They gave their bodies to be beaten, whipped, stoned, and crucified.
They split their world asunder, converted vast sections of society, and altered the trajectory of history. Onlookers were dismayed: “These men have turned the world upside down!” (Acts 17:6b)
Three thousand were added on the day of Pentecost. The number grew to five thousand after the arrest of Peter and John. Every day people were saved (Acts 2:41, 47; 4:4). In less than three centuries they turned the mighty Roman Empire from paganism to Christianity.
Then like stones from David’s sling missionaries were flung into the known and unknown world. West to Spain and the British Isles. North across the Russian steppes. South into Africa. East into India.
The Reformers wrought similar upheaval. Martin Luther’s theses and pamphlets were a great sledgehammer cleaving Europe asunder. Calvin’s Institutes were an earthquake. John Knox’s sermons were a trumpet blast that woke up a nation. Thousands gave their bodies to be tortured, hanged, and burned alive. Whole cities and nations were won from the dead hand of medieval Roman Catholicism to a living faith in Christ.
Fast forward to 2025. Too many churches today huddle in comfortable theatres to be entertained. Christians risk little more than a scalded tongue as they sip lattes in airconditioned foyers.
Many churched children walk away and less are won to replace them. The world gives us barely a thought. Tom Wright was said to have commented that “wherever the early church went it started a revolution, but wherever the vicar goes, someone offers him a cup of tea.” That says it all.
Do we want to recover the power of the early and Reformation churches? We must backtrack and find the right path, the path from which we wandered. The arrow must be drawn backwards before it can fly forwards. J.C. Ryle said it: “He must dig down very low if he would build high.”
This means learning from another devasted church: Judah in Babylonian and Persian exile in the sixth-century BC.
Remember how the nation had fallen into idolatry and disobedience. After centuries of God’s patience and prophetic warnings, and even after watching Assyria destroy the northern tribes of Israel in 722 BC, Judah refused to repent.
Moses had warned Israel about the consequences of disobedience:
Deuteronomy 28:64–66 The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. 65Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.
King Solomon had reiterated this warning at the dedication of the Temple:
1 Kings 9:6–9 But if you or your descendants turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, 7then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. 8This temple will become a heap of rubble. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, “Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?” 9People will answer, “Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshipping and serving them—that is why the Lord brought all this disaster on them.” ’
Finally, in 586 BC, God sent King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians to punish stiff-necked Judah. They surrounded Jerusalem in an horrific two-year siege. They sacked the city and broke and burned the Temple to ash. They captured King Zedekiah and slew his sons before him. They put out his eyes and dragged him in bronze chains along with the other elites of Jerusalem to exile in godless Babylon.
Daniel’s Prayer
The prophet Daniel lived among the exiles. Daniel 9 records his prayer of confession and repentance. This prayer must become our prayer.
Daniel 9:15 Now, Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong.
The LORD had redeemed his people once from slavery; he has the grace and power to do it again. Though his people have shamed themselves, his name stands untarnished.
After magnifying the LORD’s grace and greatness Daniel confesses Judah’s sin and wickedness. Note the first-person plural.
We have sinned (חטא, chātā): we have “missed the goal or path of right and duty” and “incurred guilt” (BDB). We have been walking on the wrong path. We have done wickedly (רשׁע, rāsha).
Daniel 9:16 Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us.
Daniel knows that Jerusalem’s wickedness richly earned God’s anger and wrath, that God acted righteously to punish the city. So “In keeping with your righteous acts” means either “turn aside your anger in a way that maintains your righteousness” (Rom. 3:25–26), or “turn aside your anger in a way that upholds your good and righteous attribute of grace and mercy.” The fact that Daniel refers back to the Exodus suggests the latter sense, without precluding the former.
Jerusalem’s downfall made it the object of general derision but Daniel does not care about the city’s reputation. We deserve the world’s scorn! Daniel is concerned only with the reputation of God’s name.
This must be our number-one motivation for revival: not our standing in the world, but God’s. Not our glory, but His. Daniel is fierce and emphatic about this:
Daniel 9:17 Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, Lord, cause your face to shine upon your desolate sanctuary.
Note the humble urgency. Petition (תחנון, tachanūn) “emphasizes not merely the act of asking but the posture of the petitioner – contrite, earnest, and conscious of unworthiness.”
Note again what motivates Daniel’s prayer, for whose sake he longs for restoration: “for your sake, LORD!”
The English desolate derives from the Latin solus, “alone”, and well-captures the Hebrew shāmēm (שׁמם), which speaks of “ruin, emptiness, and stunned silence . . . a solemn witness to the moral, emotional, and spiritual cost of sin.”
Daniel 9:18 Incline your ear, our God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.
Daniel uses bold anthropomorphisms: “Open your ears and hear. Open your eyes and see.” Drowning men are not polite. Howls for help are not wrapped in niceties. Real prayer is urgent, brave, immoderate, presumptuous.
The noun desolation (שׁממה, shemāmāh) occurs fifty-eight times in the Old Testament and is especially prominent in the warnings of the writing prophets. The desolation of Jerusalem distresses Daniel.
Yet again he is emphatically theocentric: “Restore Jerusalem because your name is written on it!” He appeals not to his rights and desserts – he had a right to nothing but desolation and he deserved nothing but hell – but to God’s mercy and undeserved favour.
Mercy translates racham (רחם), the word for womb. As the mother’s womb cherishes and protects her unborn child, so God cherishes his wayward people. His mercy is great.
Daniel 9:19 Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.’
Verse 19 is a tightly compressed reiteration of verse 18. It is an SOS, a mayday, the final gurgling cry of a drowning man already gulping the salty billows.
Yet still the cry is not for self-preservation. Daniel cries out for God! Revival will come only when we care more about the LORD’s reputation than our own.
“Hallowed be thy name!”
The great J.I. Packer put it in one:
Revival is the visitation of God which brings to life Christians who have been sleeping and restores a deep sense of God’s near presence and holiness. Thence springs a vivid sense of sin and a profound exercise of heart in repentance, praise, and love, with an evangelistic outflow.
Our churches are weak. The way forward is back. Back to a heartfelt cry of confession and repentance. Back to a burning passion for the glory of God’s name.
Restore us LORD! For the sake of your name.