Daniel 12

Okay. Daniel chapter 12. We are at the end of the series. That's a long series, isn't it? It's twelve chapters in twelve sessions and I want to thank you guys for sticking in there.

I hope that you've grown as well, that you've been challenged by God's word. It's an amazing book and I've said it many many times, but it's just such an encouragement and it covers so many topics and aspects of life. Yeah. We're going to wrap it up and the great thing of Daniel chapter 12 is that it just wraps up so spectacularly. It's got so much hope in this chapter. If you remember, this time last year, I remember I was in Geelong, still studying there, and there was a lot of talk back then about the rapture.

Do you remember that guy that said, you know, at May, I think it was 05/21/2011, Jesus was gonna come again and he'd find all the Christians and he'd take us back to heaven and so on. He was a guy called Harold Camping and he's an engineer in the US. And he, you know, he had carefully calculated all of Revelation's symbols and everything and he had nailed it. He had nailed it down to May 21. Well, it didn't happen, did it?

We're still here. But there's, you know, there's a lot of talk about the end times and the apocalypse and all this sort of stuff. Two years ago, there was a movie that came out, maybe three years ago now, called 2012. It had Kevin Spacey in it, I believe, and it was all about the end of the Mayan calendar. You know, and how in December of 2012, this year, the Mayan calendar stops and that's also gonna cause some catastrophic apocalypse and the world's gonna implode in on itself.

Now, you know, before you run out and get, build yourself a bunker and buy all the baked beans you can from Coles, whatever we we think of all these things, we have to really also have a good idea of what the Bible tells us about the end times. And the interesting thing is whether you're a spiritual person or not, the fact that some crazy guy like Harold Camping and the 2012 apocalypse gets so much publicity, I believe, is that, you know, whether you believe in God or the spiritual realm or anything, people really care about the future. People are really really interested in what's going to happen to the human race. And we want to know if there is a hope. And if there is a hope, what is that hope?

So we're going to be continuing and we're going to be looking at something of this in chapter 12. And if you remember, what I said last time, this is part of a long prophecy that starts in Daniel chapter 10, goes right through to Daniel chapter 12. And so for the last two weeks, we've looked at how this prophecy has developed. But by the time we come to Daniel chapter 12, we start seeing the angel describing a future which is evidently quite removed from the immediate context of Daniel and of the Jews and of the Greeks and the Seleucids and the, you know, Ptolemaic armies and so on that was talked about in the previous chapters. We move to a language that is symbolic.

We move to a language that is ethereal. It has the qualities of heaven, of being otherworldly, of being supernatural. If you have your Bibles, let's open to Daniel chapter 12 and we're going to read that together. Daniel chapter 12 brings us to the crowning point of the book of Daniel. All the threads that have been introduced right from the beginning have been carried along the book, you know, starting in the narratives, starting with the story of the lion's den and the burning fire and so on, right through the prophetic sections of Daniel.

And all these threads that were started there join up in Daniel chapter 12. Early in the book of Daniel, the subject of the kingdom of God was introduced. Remember that? Remember in chapter two, Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the mysterious statue and the this mysterious stone that is fashioned without human hands. It strikes the statue made up of four different metals and it puts an end to all human kingdoms and it grows and it commences God's kingdom.

Now this stone is none other than the kingdom of God whose coming will terminate earthly kingdoms and inaugurate a new world order, a time of peace and prosperity for all God's people. Then it moves along, and in chapter seven, we find the four kingdoms of chapter two are replaced. Instead of four metals, they are now four beasts. In chapter seven, however, two new elements are introduced, two new threads. The first one is the little horn, the Antichrist, the one who sets himself up against God, the one who successfully opposes God and His people.

But we're also introduced to the Messiah. Remember him? The one that is brought into the presence of the Ancient of Days and who is given authority and power and glory to rule over the kingdom. He comes and he overcomes all obstacles in God's kingdom. Now while the success of this little horn, of this Antichrist, and the suffering of the saints is shown to precede the coming of the kingdom of God, this individual is ultimately destroyed and the promised kingdom is granted to the saints.

Then we move on to chapter eight and chapter 11 and we see that this little horn extends his kingdom. He grows it and it moves into the beautiful land, Daniel describes it, into the holy land. And this little horn overcomes some of the hosts of heaven, and he exalts himself. And he equates himself. He believes that he is the Messiah.

He comes and he, what's the word, he demolishes the daily sacrifice. He sets up an abomination that causes desolation in the temple. And once again, the kingdom of God will take place, we see in Daniel chapters eight and eleven, only after the rise and the fall of a wicked but powerful king who opposes God. And then, last week, we saw another reference of this Antichrist and the termination of the regular sacrifice, the abomination that causes desolation.

And as a result of the reign of this evil king, many saints are persecuted and die. So in chapter 11, we saw that the Jews who first heard Daniel heard in terrifying detail about all that would happen to their people, all that would happen to them. They were told about the rise of Greece. They were told about the Persians. They were told about the battles between the Seleucids and the Ptolemaic armies.

They were told about the rise and the fall of Antiochus, the king who killed 80,000 Jews in one go. But Daniel, however, showed us that the power of God lies in the fact that he holds the future in his hand. That he can foretell how history is going to pan out. And before anything of this even seemed possible to Daniel, God sent an angel to him to explain what would happen. And that gave the Jews so much comfort.

So much comfort that their God is a God who controls time and space. He knew what was going to happen. And as we went through Daniel, we saw that, you know, those theological passives, those magical words that came up every now and then, showing that God was orchestrating, God was guiding the course of human history. That nothing was a surprise to him.

That he raised up leaders and he deposed leaders at His core, at His will. That ultimately history is meant to meet His purposes. We saw that God is preparing something. God is preparing something. And so this is where the amazing truth of Daniel chapter 12, the last chapter of the book, is revealed.

The hope of all those Old Testament Jews was in this: the resurrection. The resurrection. The faith of the Old Testament saints included the assurance that they would one day be brought back to life by a powerful working of God. You know, we read in chapter 12, verses two to three, this: "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake. Some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.

Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever." What we find here is the ultimate, the ultimate hope for God's people. How could the Jews of that time be comforted in knowing that they would be killed? How could the Jews who were in that situation, who had the prophecy of Daniel in their hands, how could they be comforted in their situation? It was with the knowledge and the understanding that God would win.

It was in the hope of the resurrection and the hope that one day God would restore life to those who had put their trust in Him. You see, Daniel chapter 12 gives us one of the very rare glimpses actually of the idea, the concept of the resurrection in the Old Testament. There's a handful, only a handful of references of the resurrection in the Old Testament. It's all through the New Testament. And so this is a very significant passage for us to understand.

The resurrection, like I said, is all through the New Testament. But when it comes to the Old Testament, we actually find a really great insight into the theology of the resurrection. It gives us valuable teaching. The first thing we see about the resurrection in this passage, the first thing we see about the resurrection is that it is the vindication of God's people. That God restores life.

That God vindicates them. But also, that God provides justice to those who have rebelled against Him. It's a double edged sword. God vindicates those who have died, those who have succumbed to death, but he also provides justice against those who have rebelled against Him. The prophet Daniel was a godly man, if you remember.

And from the first time we're introduced to him as a young guy in chapter one, to this point of chapter 12, Daniel was a man faithful to God. And he faced death on several occasions, but he did not deny his faith or his convictions. He prayed for his people and for their restoration. And he interceded for them, but only to find out that ultimately, Israel's restoration would be a distant one and that it would come much longer after his death than he thought. But in God's final revelation to Daniel, when he was 90, His final words to Daniel, He spelled out the way in which the triumph of evil men and the suffering of the saints and the holy people would actually contribute to God's fulfilment of His plans and His purposes.

Beyond this, God assured Daniel that he, along with all mankind, would be raised up on the final day. And some would be led to eternal life and others to eternal contempt. And the resurrection of the dead, however, was a logical necessity in order for divine prophecy to be fulfilled. The absolute hope of the resurrection of the dead, we find in Daniel 12, and the teaching of it is that it leads us, it leads Christians to godly living. It is the basis for why we do what we do.

Do you understand that? The saints, the believers here are encouraged to live godly lives because they know that even if they are killed for their faith, God will raise them up from the dead and give them eternal life. Give them an allotted inheritance for their faith. They are also encouraged when they see wicked men persecuting the righteous and seemingly getting away with it. Because these men and these women who have done these things to them will also be raised from the dead.

They're not getting away with this. They will also have to come before God and give an account to Him. The good who died undeserving deaths will be given eternal life. But the wicked who killed undeserving people will be given eternal punishment. What better truth to end the prophecy of Daniel than the resurrection of the dead?

For the sinner, the doctrine of the resurrection is the basis for fear and repentance. But for the believer, for those who belong to God, the doctrine of the resurrection is the basis for hope. In every generation, in every era when Christians have been under attack, when they have been persecuted, when they have been killed, when they have been hunted down, during those times, the longing for this hope, this hope in the resurrection saturated their thoughts. It saturated their thoughts. During the times of the slaves in America, the African Americans sung, you know, those spiritual hymns.

They sung songs like "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, coming forth to carry me home." In absolute squalor, in absolute hardship, these Christians were singing for God to come back and get them. They were singing for God to bring about the resurrection. If you're a South African today and you've experienced South African culture, you'll understand the struggling and the pressure that many Christians face around them in South Africa. And you'll be interested.

I was interested when I discovered that, you know, one of the big songs, one of the big Christian hymns at the moment is a song. In English, these are the lyrics: "Our King is coming. Hallelujah. Trust in Him. Hallelujah.

Our King is coming. Praise His holy name." It's everywhere. That song is everywhere. It's one of the biggest Christian songs at the moment or for the last five years.

Every church is singing it. And it's Christians just pumping it out because they live in a world of so much pressure and suffering and strife. In every generation, you can go and look at your history books. In every generation where Christians have suffered, and I'm sure it's the same in China, they sing "God come back for us. Come and take us home."

And so we see here that the resurrection is a vindication of God for those suffering Christians. They will receive everlasting life. And those people that are oppressing them, those people that are killing them, they will have to pay an account before God. The second thing we learn about the resurrection, the hope of Christians is that God cares deeply about this world. If we understand the resurrection, we understand how much God cares about this world.

And then it obviously flows on to us. If God cares so deeply about the world, then we should as well. The message of the resurrection gets preached every Easter. Right? Every Easter Sunday, we hear about the resurrection.

And we hear about Jesus and His resurrection, about Jesus who was the forerunner, who was the first man to be resurrected into this new everlasting life. He is our forerunner. Jesus is the first human being to have this eternal life. But there are many people today that are sceptical about this resurrection, that are sceptical that this wasn't a historical event. But the thing is, and this is what I tell people when I talk to them about this, that even if they don't believe this, they should want to believe it.

They should want to believe it. Most of them, these people that I talk to, care very deeply about justice for the poor. They care very deeply about alleviating hunger and disease, about caring for the environment. Yet many of them believe that the material world was caused by accident, by chance, and that the world doesn't have any meaning because it will eventually burn up under the sun. They find it very discouraging that so few people care about injustice, but they fail to realise that their own worldview undermines any motivation to make this world a better place.

What's the point? Why sacrifice for the needs of others if in the end nothing I do will make any difference? If the resurrection of Jesus happened, however, if the resurrection that's talked about in Daniel chapter 12 really will happen, then that means there is an infinite hope. And there's infinite reason for us to pour ourselves out for the needs of this world because it does matter. This world does matter.

In a sermon, a pastor called, is also a scholar, wrote, "The message of the resurrection is that this world matters. That the injustices and the pains of this present world must now be addressed with the news that healing, justice, and love have won." If Easter means Jesus Christ only raised in a spiritual sense, then it is only about me and finding a new dimension in my personal spiritual life. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good news for the whole world. Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence, and degradation are endemic.

God is not prepared to tolerate such things. God has a plan. God has a purpose. And with all the energy that He possesses, He is going to implement victory over everything. "Take away Easter," he says, "and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring the problems of the material world.

Take away the resurrection, and Freud was probably right to say Christianity is just wish fulfilment. Take away the resurrection and Nietzsche was probably right to say Christianity was just for wimps." But friends, the truth is that the resurrection cannot be taken away from Christianity. It is at the centre of our faith. In the resurrection, we have, because of Jesus Christ, who said of Himself, "I am the resurrection, and I am the life."

In that resurrection, we find true meaning and purpose. We find true meaning and purpose. Because of the resurrection, we understand that injustices won't be tolerated. It cannot be tolerated. Because of the resurrection, we know that justice must prevail because God will ultimately level out the scales of justice.

Therefore, we as Christians must stand against injustice. God is a God who will have His justice. So we must stand against the Joseph Koenis. We must stand against the Bashar al-Assad of Assyria. Christians must stand against sexual abuse of children and families.

We cannot be complacent because we don't serve a limp wristed complacent God who just lets things slide, who has no control. We cannot let injustices and wrongdoings or sin be passed off as grey areas or too difficult or as social norms. And we can't stay quiet because we don't want to sound judgmental. Because in the resurrection, we see that God doesn't let injustices go unchecked. He won't pass over those things.

He will deal with them. And if it matters to God, Daniel chapter 12 says, it matters to us. May God give us the courage to speak up, to stand up, and not to compromise, but to instead lay our life down to see justice done in this country, in our situations, in our cities, in our families.