Lord, I don't know how to pray really, but I do lift up these children before you. I think of my own children in this room. I think of how many of the children are here who have godly parents, but yet they themselves are still in Babylon. They still do not know you. And dear Lord, I pray by your divine grace and mercy that you would look upon our children with compassion and have mercy upon them.

We do not plead our parenting or our righteousness. We have nothing to offer you to warrant your grace. We pray that you would speak to them even today in the sermon. I pray that you would encourage parents today, strengthen our faith in You, help us to not trust in ourselves, but to trust in You, the living God. This we pray in your son's name, amen.

All right, if you have your Bibles, turn to Daniel chapter 9, and we're going to look at Daniel's prayer, how he prayed for his people, the Israelites, and we want to make application of how to pray for our children. Before we get into how to pray for our lost children who are in Babylon, I want to tell you a little bit about my family and my parents, my brothers. I don't doubt in my heart that I have the best parents who've ever lived. I really feel that way, and that may be an exaggeration, but not to me. My parents are godly.

My dad is one of the godliest, sincere men I've ever met. He's one of the most passionate preachers I've ever heard. He was a man of prayer, and such a man of prayer was he. I've always saw him on his knees. It wasn't uncommon for me to see him praying.

In fact, my mother tells a story that when she first married my dad, my dad when he prays, he prays out loud. He doesn't know how to pray in his mind or in his heart. So when he even has his private prayers, they're vocalized. And so she would say when they first got married that first year, he would be on the couch on his knees praying, and she would walk in the room trying to pass into the living room, into the kitchen, and then she would hear my father pray, and she would stop because she wanted to be reverent. He's praying, but my dad doesn't know how to pray short prayers either.

And so he kept on praying and praying and of course he's praying out loud and she would just sit there and day after day as was going on finally she realized I will never get anything done if I have to sit here and wait for him to pray so she learned that he's just gonna be praying and she would go about her business And that wasn't unusual because that wasn't just at the first years of their marriage. My experience growing up is I would see my dad on the same couch. I'm sure it's not the same one, but another couch. And he would be praying through the day and sometimes late at night, and I would have memories of waking up and going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and there is my dad, and he's praying. And I could hear what he's praying, which was amazing testimony.

And often he was praying for me and my brothers, my two older brothers, praying for our salvation. And what an impact that was upon my life. And my mother is the most sweetest, meekest, humble, pious women you would ever meet. I don't ever remember my mother ever getting angry. Ever.

Growing up, she was always patient and meek. Of course, my parents are not perfect, but we grew up with family worship, daily family worship, going to church. A wonderful family, Godly family, ideal family. In fact, it's hard for me to even live up to their example. But let me tell you about my two older brothers.

James is the oldest, I'm the youngest. James, of course, made a confession when he was young and was baptized when he was young, but when he got in his teenage years, he went astray. And by the time he was 17, 18, 19, he was uncontrollable. Under the best parenting, my oldest brother rebelled. He began to drink, he began to do drugs, to the point that my father kicked him out of the house.

After he was 18, he wasn't obeying the rules of the home, and my father kicked him out. And they lost contact with my brother. I didn't talk to him for two or three years. We didn't even know where he lived, what he was doing. We learned later that he moved out of state.

No communication. That grieved, as you could imagine, my parents, and it confused me. A couple years later, the middle child, the brother right above me, Jason, did almost the exact same thing. He got into the wrong friends, and eventually he too had to be expelled from the house. Devastating, confusing to me as the younger child, but devastating.

And So you have two prodigal sons in a godly home, two prodigal sons. Sadly this is not an isolated experience among Christian families. Among Christian families. Even the best Christian parents do not always see their children converted. This is the case for multiple families in the church I pastor.

We have adult children that are estranged from their parents. They won't even communicate to their godly mother and father who pray for them daily. I had one pastor friend who said that his son was so hateful to him. The time he moved out of the house, he forbid his father, he forbid him to ever bring up God. He says, I hate God.

Don't ever bring him up to me again. And maybe you're here, maybe you're here this morning in your, when you're younger, you're a new parent, you wanted to raise your children up and then nurture and admonish the Lord. You had this kind of idea that your kids would be saved at an early age and it's going to be just a sweet family, a sweet experience. And some of you have that, and we thank the Lord for that. But others, you think, what did I do wrong?

How did I mess up? You know, you begin to wonder what's wrong with my parenting, or You're devastated, and even now, and I'd imagine, in fact I almost know for certain, for you who have adult children who are living in Babylon, who are held captive by the world, they're enslaved to Babylon. I know that is your number one prayer. That is the thing that keeps you up at night. That's the thing that grabs your heart and grieves your soul.

So what are you to do? What are we to do when our children are enslaved to Babylon? Now, I'm aiming this directly to the parents who have adult children. My children are not yet adults, they're still in the home, But this is still applicable to all of our children. I want you to even think about how to pray for your lost children, even if they're young.

But I'm aiming this precisely to those who have adult children who are actively rebellion, who are actively rejecting Christ. Many of our young children who are lost right now, they're still receptive to the gospel. They may even pray prayers, Lord, save me in family worship, and we're encouraged by that. But what do we do when they cease to pray for salvation? They don't even want salvation and they reject God.

They reject your parenting and they don't want you even to talk to them about God any longer. What are we to do? Well, you say we're to pray and that's right. Sometimes all we can do is pray. When we can't get into the heart of our child anymore, we can at least get into the heart of God.

But in this chapter, Daniel chapter 9, we learn how Daniel prayed for his people, for the Israelites that were in captivity. And we learn two things. So I have two points. How not to pray for your lost children. And the first point is, the first subpoint is do not pray apathetically.

Because some of you, understanding the Reformed theology and the sovereignty of God, you may begin to think, Well, God is sovereign. There is this thing called election. You believe in election, as I do, and there's already the eternal decrees of God on the ultimate destination of my child. Therefore, Why pray? I've prayed all my life for them for 20 years, 30 years for my child, and yet they're not saved.

Maybe I just need to lower my expectations, right? I need to quit stressing so much because it's hard to be agonizing all the time. I just need to trust the Lord, and maybe they're not elect, and so I just need to settle in on that. I need to not be so stressed all the time about praying. And so we grow weary in well-doing and we begin to become apathetic.

But we don't see Daniel praying apathetically here. We see him reading Jeremiah and learning that they're going to be let loose in 70 years, and he's doing the math. He says, okay, it's 70 years. It's a done deal. Why even pray?

He could have read the Scriptures we see in verses 1 and 2. In the first year of Darius, the son of Aserastris by a descent of Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the book the number of the years that according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet must pass before the end of the desolation of Jerusalem, namely 70 years." So he's reading the Bible and he does the math. He says, well, the Bible's right. I believe in the Bible. This is going to happen.

So I'm just going to wait, watch, see what God does. Why did he not read the Scriptures and become apathetic? Because he already knows what God's going to do. You see, he did not allow, Daniel did not allow his belief in the sovereignty of God to lead him to become apathetic. Instead, look what he does in verse 3, then I turn my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

Wait, that's too much, Daniel. Just pray a little prayer. You don't have to plead, beg. You don't really need to fast. You know, that's too radical.

That's too extreme. You're taking this too seriously. What's his ashes? That's insane. You see, he didn't just pray, he pleaded, and he did just plead, he fasted.

So what are we to do when we see our children go off into captivity? Remember Moses, the word came to Moses by God Himself, hey, get away, I'm going to separate you and destroy these people. And Moses could have said, whoa, that's the Word of the Lord. Can't change that. No, you didn't see Moses respond in such a way.

He began to plead. He began to intercede. What about Hezekiah? The word came to Hezekiah that he was going to die. What did Hezekiah do?

Well, that's the word of the Lord. I believe in the sovereignty of God. Hezekiah did do that. He turned his face to the wall and he began to cry out for mercy. In both cases, God heard the prayers.

You remember Eli? The word came to Eli, your children are going to die. I mean, Eli had the opposite response. Eli didn't pray much for his kids. He didn't do much parenting to his kids.

And here comes the word of the Lord, hey, your children are going to die. Eli goes, well, what seems good to the Lord? And he said, well, he believed in the sovereignty of God. Well, what about Moses? And what about Hezekiah?

What if Eli would have said, hey, hey, Lord, no, this is my children. Please no. So don't be an Eli when you think about your children. Be a Daniel. Plead for them.

Don't become apathetic. For them. Don't become apathetic. I know one family that had this vacation scheduled, a family vacation, but one of their older sons rebelled and left the home, went into the world, and forsook their earlier profession. What did this family do?

They said, wait a minute, this is going to sound radical. They canceled their vacation. This is this was no time to relax and they had a family fast and brought their friends in to come and pray and plead. And they committed themselves, we're going to plead and plead until the Lord hears us. This should be our attitude to your children.

And I know your heart is there. I know my heart is there for my children. So we should not pray apathetically. We should pray passionately and desperately. So don't pray apathetically.

And secondly, don't pray your own righteousness. Don't plead your righteousness before God. Look at verses 4 through 6. Daniel identified himself with the sins of his people. Look at what it says in verse 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. We, we, he identifies himself with his people, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and your rules. 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." Now wasn't Daniel a godly man from his youth? How come Daniel say, hey, they, they are our fathers or our kings. Yeah, they, but not me.

They have rebelled against you. Why did Daniel say we? We have done these things when he was a righteous man. You see, we do not need to plead our own righteousness when we pray for our children. One, because Daniel knew that his righteousness was of no value when it come to deliverance of Israel.

His own personal righteousness had no grounds to merit the salvation of the rest of the people. Your righteousness, no matter how godly you are or how good of a parent you may be, your righteousness has nothing to do with the salvation of your children. You're not saved by works and your children are not saved by your works. Don't plead your righteousness. And secondly, your connection to your children, though you may have a godly impact upon them and God uses your parenting and God uses the admonition, the nurture of the Lord that you have given to your children as means, That is not the basis or the warrant of anyone's salvation.

Your connection to your children is more of an organic connection, and your children got their depravity from you. Your righteousness is not organically inherited to them, but your sins were. And see, Daniel knew that he was connected to Israel, and therefore he knew he could not plead his righteousness. He identified himself with the sins of his people. And Martin Lloyd-Jones in his wonderful sermon on praying for revival, spoke of the text in Genesis where Moses prays, and Martin, Lord Jones says, when we pray for the revival of our nation and our land and of our city, we need to identify ourselves with them.

We need to not distract ourselves as if, hey, it's just them and not us. We have enough sin to have added to the equation. None of our lives are without sin. None of us are able to go, hey, we deserve the salvation of our children for how we've lived. So we don't need to pray our righteousness, nor do we need to pray when we pray for our children, our parenting.

It's not a good argument to say to God, God I did everything right. We did family worship, I prayed for them daily, I admonished them, I corrected them, I protected them from all these things. I had the right rules. I was balanced in this area. I was good here.

You think that is a very good argument to take to the Lord? No. We should do the best we can. And I'm not saying God doesn't use parenting as a means. Even preachers can't plead before God, Lord, I'm a good preacher, save the church, the children of the church.

We have no right to mercy. We have no grounds to plead for mercy based upon us or our parenting. We should never, Christians should never be proud parents. I've lived long enough to see some parents who thought that their children would be automatic Christians by the protection that they put around their home, only after 20 years to be devastated when it didn't turn out the way they thought it was going to be turning out. And if you're here and all your children are converted, praise God and we're thankful for that.

But thank the mercy of God. It's the mercy of God. It's not necessarily because you're better parents than those who have wayward children. So we don't plead our righteousness before God. The third thing we shouldn't do when we pray for our children is pray their righteousness.

We see in verses 7 through 14 that Daniel identifies that Israel deserves captivity. And we may be thinking to ourselves, Because we're parents, we like to think the best of our kids. My child has a good heart. My child means well. And even as parents with young children, your child's heart, my child's hearts, are desperately wicked.

Foolishness is bound up in their hearts. Instead, we should confess the sins of our children before God. We need to be honest before God. And this can be hard and humbling for parents. I mean, we need to be in sackcloth and ashes, not with proud looks when we plead for our children.

Notice how Daniel pleaded for Israel. Look at verse 7. "'To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as it is 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, and all the lands in which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you, to us, O Lord, " verse 8, belong open shame, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers, because we have sinned against you, to the Lord our God belongs mercy, forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he has set before us his servants, the prophets." Look at verse 11, all Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. So when we pray, pray something like this, Dear God, My children have not obeyed You.

My children have not listened to Your commandments. They have rejected Your Savior. They have turned away from our instruction and our teaching. They have rejected the instructions that we've given to them in family worship, and they have gone after their own ways. Unto us, unto us belong shame and disgrace.

Fourth, don't plead that the calamities that are befalling your children. You know, sin is, the wages of sin is difficult, the way of the transgressor is hard, and your adult children are facing calamities because of their lifestyle. Don't plead that that's unjust. That's not fair. Yes, your prodigal child may be living in the pigpen, but the pigpen is not unjust.

The calamities that are befalling our adult children are warranted. You see, Israel's captivity was completely warranted. Look at verse 11 and 12. And the calls and the oath that were written in the law of Moses, the servant of God has been poured out upon us because we have sinned against him. He has confirmed his words, which he has spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us by bringing upon us a great calamity.

The Troubles that our adult children may be facing are in the calamities, the captivity. That's the just reward. It's the consequences of their sins. And we may be tempted to think that what they're enduring is greater than what they deserve. You see in verse 11, Daniel says, for under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem.

Daniel is acknowledging, hey what is befalling us? This calamity has never been seen before in the whole history of this world. But he doesn't go, we don't deserve this. Look at verse 13, as 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. 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." We deserve what we are enduring.

This is our just reward. Your children, my children, do not deserve salvation. They don't. Let us not be deceived if you're an unconverted child listening to me. You do not deserve God's grace.

Don't pray with apathy. Don't pray with self-righteousness. If you're going to pray for salvation, don't claim that you deserve salvation. Don't claim that you don't deserve the calamities that are befalling you. Take responsibility.

Confess your sins. Be as the one who goes into the temple and he beats his chest and says, Oh Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner. Now we may have a godly family and we may have some little bit more self-righteousness than the world. We may look a little bit different than Babylon because of our natural restraints that God has put on us because of our parenting. Those who parent us, maybe we're kids that have a little bit more morals and values, a little bit more decent, but let me tell you, there's more separation between you and God than you and Babylon.

You're closer to the wicked children that do not have any knowledge of God. You're closer to the pagans as lost children. You're closer to pagans than you are to the saints, no matter if your life is a bit more decent than theirs. If you're going to plead for salvation, you've got to come to the end of yourself. You've got to realize that you don't deserve it, that you're a wretched sinner.

So don't plead righteousness. Don't plead apathetically. But how should you plead if you're lost? And if you're a parent, how should you plead for your children? We see in verse 15 through 16, plead for Mercy.

Mercy. Look at verse 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, O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from the city Jerusalem, your holy hill. Because of our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. So plead, plead, God, please turn away your anger.

Remove your anger from my children. You see, this is the most compelling prayer to take before the living God. We see this contrast throughout this prayer, and it's the most beautiful thing that we can pray. Verse 7, to you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open shame. Verse 8, to us, O Lord, belong open shame, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers, to the Lord, our God, belongs mercy and forgiveness.

Verse 18, oh 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. This is the prayer we pray, Lord, not because of our righteousness. To us belongs shame and disgrace. To us belongs sin.

And to us belongs judgment and captivity. That's what we earn. That's what we merited. That belongs to us. But to you, O Lord, belongs mercy, forgiveness, and grace.

Remember the fair Phoenician woman when she came to Jesus? She was pleading not for herself, but for her daughter. And she says, Lord, have mercy upon me. And she's identifying with her daughter. Her daughter and her are so connected that she says, have mercy upon me.

And she didn't plead, oh Lord, you've got to do this because my daughter's really a sweet child and I've really been worshipping God all my life. Please have mercy upon us. No, she says, Lord, just have compassion upon me. We'll take the crumbs. We'll Take the grace unto you as forgiveness, unto you as mercy, unto you as salvation, unto us as damnation.

So plead for mercy. That's the first way to pray. Second way to pray is plead for God's glory. We see this in verse 17 and 18. Daniel appealed to God's glory in verse 17, now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy and for your own sake, for your own glory sake, if you would.

Oh Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. Oh my God, incline your ear in here. Open your eyes and see our desolation and the city that is called by your name. So he's appealing this amazing appeal. It's like, Lord, Your name is upon this city.

And for Your own namesake, for Your own glory, have compassion upon Your city and upon Your people. This is the way Jehoshaphat prayed. He appealed to the glory of God when the destruction was imminent and he's playing for God to deliver them from the enemies as your name is in this place. Do this for your own sake. You have an invested interest in helping us.

This is the way Hezekiah prayed as well. He prayed that, Lord, do this for your own glory. Glorify yourself. This is the way Abraham prayed. Remember when he got the word that Solomon Gamorra was going to be destroyed and he says, surely you're a just God and you wouldn't destroy the righteous and the wicked together.

He appealed to God's righteousness. Now you may be thinking, well how do I plead for the righteousness of my kid? I don't have any righteousness. My kids don't have any righteousness of their own. So how do I appeal to God's glory by connecting righteousness with His glory?

Well, maybe we don't appeal to the righteous judgment of God, but God is glorified and exalts Himself to show mercy. The glory of His grace exalts Him. What it says in verse 18, for we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. God loves to be compassionate. God loves to be merciful.

He does not delight in the death of the wicked. He doesn't take pleasure in judgment and calamity and captivity. He doesn't take delight in sending our children to hell. You know what he takes delight in? What pleases the Lord?

What he's happy to do? What exalts his glory? He puts a premium not on necessarily His judgment, though He is just. He puts a premium on showing grace and mercy. He'd rather have mercy than He'd rather have mercy than judgment.

God is bent towards compassion, and God loves to give us more abundantly than what we could even imagine or think. So when we pray, we have hope. We're not, we're not, you know, our children are outside of our influence. I don't have a word. I don't have a way to communicate to them.

In fact, they don't listen to me anymore. I feel so hopeless. Listen, you're just as hopeful today as you was when they were just a child. Because your hope was never yourself. Your hope was never your parenting.

Your hope was never that you would do it just right. Your hope was never in your righteousness. Your hope never was in you. You see, it's impossible to save your children, and we know that. We know that we can't save our children.

If we could, We would circle this globe seven times on foot if we knew that by such an effort our children would be secured in heaven. We would do it. We'd all do it. How many times have you talked to your children passionately in family worship and you brought your child separately and you looked in them eyes and you pleaded with them, son please, why are you not saved yet? Why are you yet running from the Lord?

And you give them the gospel for the hundredth billionth time and you look in their eyes and you want to take the gospel that's in you and the faith that's in you and you want to in loving it in a most compassionate way shove it and cram it down their hearts. Right? But you know you're speaking to their ears, but they have no ears to hear. You're looking into their eyes, but they have no eyes to see. It's that I can get into their mind, but I have no ability to get into their hearts, because they're dead.

And our children who are lost are just as dead as pagan's children's that are lost. There's no degrees of deadness. And we've realized after years of parenting that we have no power to regenerate. We have no power to give ears to hear. But let me give you encouragement.

Though we can't, though it is impossible with man, all things are possible with the living God. We are not without hope. Don't become apathetic because there's just as much hope for your lost children today as there was 10 years ago. Things got worse, yes, but God's grace is still the same. And this brings me to my final point of how to pray, and this is so important.

It seems so basic, but it's so important. Pray like Daniel, pray with faith. Look at verse 19, oh Lord, hear, oh Lord, forgive, oh Lord, pray, pay attention and act, delay not for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. I mean, he's reading the Scriptures, he's got this great precious promise that deliverance is coming. So he's praying passionately.

He's fasting. He's desperate. But he's not hopeless. And brothers and sisters, I tell you, if you're grieving and you're thinking about your child right now, you're thinking about your son right now, you don't know where they're at, or you're concerned about them, I'm going to give you great hope. There's hope in God.

And God's sovereignty is no reason for you to become apathetic. I once met a person, his father was a very famous person, and I was asking him about his father, which I've always wanted to meet, And he was talking about his brothers being lost. I was surprised by that. And this is what he did. It shocked me.

He went, but God's elect. And he kind of did this. God, we believe in election. And he kind of just seemed okay with that. Just kind of like, oh, Nothing we knew about that.

That wasn't Daniel's posture. You see, God uses means, and He does use parenting. You've sown seeds in your child's heart for years, And in any moment God can take those family worships that seem to be benign, all that training that you've done that seems to be useless. At any moment God can take something you said or maybe the collection of all your prayers, the collection of all your instructions, and in any moment quicken the Word, the Gospel in their heart and bring them to salvation. And not only does God use your parenting as a means?

Now, that's not the warrant, that's not the ground. We don't plead that before God. But God does use that. And God can use it at any moment He so chooses. But He also uses your faith.

God has chosen to use instruments, and prayer is an instrument into grace. Prayer is a means in which God uses to save people. I don't think there's ever been a soul saved that hasn't had a prayer involved. And so the prayers of parents are powerful. Let me close with going back to my brothers.

Going back to my brothers, James, my oldest brother, for years was into drugs, the lifestyle of rebellion. He lost his job. He moved out of state, lost his job. My father had lost contact with him. It was like seven or eight years after the fact.

And one day my father's testimony, my dad's testimony was he's out on the front porch on the swing and he just broke down in tears and began to pray modestly and fervently for the salvation of his son. And said in the middle of his prayer he had a peace come over his heart that God had heard him, that God has heard my pleas. I kid you not, as soon as the prayer was over, he gets a phone call. James, dad, my dad's already weeping because he knows what he's going to say. James says, Dad, the Lord just saved me.

A couple years after that, Jason, my other brother, I was already surrendered to preach. I was already in training for pastoral ministry, I woke up in the middle of the night, and that's not my custom to get up at three in the morning, randomly. But I woke up with a huge burden on my heart, and I got on my knees next to my bed, and I cried out for Jason. And I pleaded, Lord, have mercy upon him. The next morning, Jason calls me, Jeff, you're not going to believe what happened to me.

What happened, Jason? The Lord saved me. What happened? When did this happen? Last night at 3 o'clock.

You can pray. You've trained your children, you've discipled your children, you've loved your children, you continue to love them, but your work is not yet done. You still have a great instrument, in fact one of the greatest instruments God has given us, the prayer of faith.