All the mourning, brokenhearted men of God in the Bible had one thing in common: They identified with the sins of the remnant!
They never prayed like the publican, “Thank God I am not like others.” They mourned over the adultery, treachery and compromise but humbly prayed, “God, I am also guilty.” Not guilty of those gross sins, but of falling short of God’s glory.
Ezra prayed, “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens. . . . All that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass . . . behold, we are before thee in our trespasses: for we cannot stand before thee because of this” (Ezra 9:6, 13, 15). “Now when Ezra had prayed, and when he had confessed, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God” (verse 10:1).
Nehemiah prayed, “We have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned. We have dealt very corruptly against thee” (Nehemiah 1:6-7).
Daniel also identified with the sins of God’s people. He prayed, “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments: neither have we harkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. . . . I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people” (Daniel 9:5-6, 20).
These were all holy men, blameless before God. They were not compromising or mixing with the world. Still they stood in the gap, confessing the sins of the people as well as their own.
If you follow in the same path as these men and determine in your heart as they did to seek the Lord—fasting, praying, weeping, mourning for sin—it will have the same effect on you. God’s hand will touch you, and He will send His word to you. You will share the very heart of God and enter into His glorious presence. And once there, you will understand how far short of His glory we all have fallen.