Daniel 12: A Pattern and a Promise
Because this is a book for all ages and all peoples, studying the book of Daniel can really have you following rabbit-trails all over the place as Pastor Brandon mentioned last week, so you have to always bring yourself back to the thought, this scripture is here for a reason, to teach me, to encourage me, to train me in righteousness, to bring hope and a promise, not just for flexing my intellectual muscles or making me proud of my charted timeline of the prophetic 490 years [70 weeks] or the correlations between the anti-Christ and current world leaders.
What is important to the Lord, is your relationship with Him and your relationship with the Father. Find what He is saying to you every time you study the Word. And we want to find what He is saying to us in Daniel 12.
Before we dive into Daniel 12, I want to bring us back through the whole book of Daniel to see a pattern and a promise.
There is an obvious pattern in Daniel of his life and his friends' lives in captivity in chapters 1-6 and his visions and prophecies in chapters 7-12, but I want to look at a deeper pattern that has given the jewish people hope throughout the ages and can give us hope for the future.
Chapter 1 back in 2 Kings 24 the Israelites have been attacked by Babylon, plundering the temple and capturing the Israelites including Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The chapter tells of their struggles to continue to trust and serve God but also to have hope in captivity. Daniel and his friends are wise and capable and pressured to give up their jewish identity, but they stay faithful and are exalted for it…
Chapter 2 The King of Babylon has a dream that only Daniel can interpret. The dream is about a statue which represents babylon and it is destroyed by a rock. Daniel lets him know that there will be a train of kingdoms following babylon that will be struck down and one day all kingdoms will be humbled under God’s Kingdom.
Chapter 3 The Fiery Furnace again, refusal to worship the statue, they are delivered from death and exalted.
Chapter 4,5 Nebuchadnezzar’s Pride and Belshazzar’s Pride. Two kings are both filled with pride because of their imperial positions, Daniel tells them both that they need to humble themselves and both Kings arrogantly resist. Nebuchadnezzar is stricken and becomes like a beast of the field but then he is humbled and his humanity returns to him and he’s restored, his son Belshazzar doesn’t humble himself and he’s killed that very night.
—These draw from Genesis 1-2 and Psalm 8 —
Humans are given the authority to rule over the the beasts of the field and the birds of the air on God’s behalf as the royal image of God but when humans rebel and make themselves God, they become less than human like violent beasts who will face God’s justice.
Chapter 6 This time Daniel is being persecuted and thrown into the Lion's Den where he trusts God and refuses to worship an earthly king as God and is saved.
Chapter 7 Now here is Daniel's Dream about 4 beasts explained by an angel, each beast signifies a kingdom with an arrogant king including a superbeast with lots of horns with one horn in particular that represents an especially arrogant king who exalts himself above god and persecutes God’s people, then the ancient of days comes on the clouds and exalts the son of man striking down the superbeast.
All the stories in this section fit together.
1,3,6 Offer hope to God’s suffering people. Stay faithful in the midst of suffering. Don’t yield to the arrogant world that is anti-God. Stay faithful in the midst of suffering.
4,5 the reason for the suffering is because human kingdoms have rebelled against God and have become beasts.
2, 7 and so these visions encourage patience that God’s people are to wait, for him to bring his kingdom over our world and vindicate their suffering but it raises the question about when God is going to do that???
Chapter 8 Daniel has a vision of a Goat and a Ram with many horns, one of which attacks Jerusalem, exalts himself above God and then is destroyed by God. We now know this to be the Medo-Persian Empire and the Greek Empire.
Chapter 9 Daniel is puzzled so he studies the book of Jeremiah which says the exile will only last 70 years, and he’s getting older and the 70 years is almost up. So he asks God to fulfill his promise soon. But the angel says, Israel’s sin has continued so Israel's exile and oppression will last 7 times longer [490 years].
Chapters 10-12 Daniel is deeply disturbed and he has one more vision, Persia, Greece, and Alexander the Great, and a bunch of lesser kings all leading up to this King of the North who will invade Jerusalem, set up idols in the temple and exalt himself above God and come to ruin.
What does that refer to: dual fulfillment [or many many fulfillments]:
WE KNOW THAT THE Syrian King Antiochus Epiphanes IN 160s BC did this and was certainly “anti-” christ!
But let’s look at some of those that have been accused of being anti-christ throughout the years.
Nero, whose name added up to 666.
Emperor Constantius in the 300s AD who persecuted the church.
Pope Leo the tenth was accused of being the antichrist by Martin Luther
Napolean Bonaparte
Adolf Hitler for obvious reasons
JFK because he recieved 666 votes at the 1956 democratic convention
Henry Kissinger who was a middle east peacemaker of Jewish ancestry
Mikhail Gorbachev who was a world leader from a country in “the north” and had a mark on his head that kind of looked like a six
Pope John Paul the second who recovered from a serious gunshot wound after an assassination attempt
Ronald Wilson Reagan who has six letters in each of his first middle and last name, plus recovered from a wound that seemed fatal.
Barney the Dinosaur, who was creepy.
Barack Obama
Bill Gates 3
The World Wide Webb
Artificial Intelligence: deception, claiming to be better than God, will not follow the God of his fathers, will not be attracted to women, etc…
Or Some future Anti-Christ just before Jesus returns again.
In a sense they are all right. The book of Daniel offers hope to all generations, past, present and future.
Jesus used the book of Daniel, quoting it and reasoning from it to describe Jerusalem’s leaders in His day.
The Apostle John adapted Daniel’s visions in the book of Revelations to look forward to the end times.
And we use Daniel to see hope in the midst of apocalyptic end times nonsense that we see in the news every day.
All generations reading the book of Daniel are also living the book of Daniel because there is a pattern and a promise. Human beings become beasts when they exalt themselves above God, they redefine right and wrong and don’t acknowledge God as King.
But you Christian, stay strong in your faith to God, pray and believe and you can have hope in the midst of suffering because one day God will confront the beast, whether it is a temporary beast or the beast at the end of the world, whether it is your own life or the life of your nation. He will rescue His people by bringing His Kingdom over all nations and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord.
So, for every generation this book speaks a message of hope that motivates faithfulness.
And with that all in mind, let’s look at Daniel chapter 12.
Daniel 12:1-12:13
The Time of the End
12 “Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued. 2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. 3 And those who have insight will shine like the glow of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. 4 But as for you, Daniel, keep these words secret and seal up the book until the end of time; many will roam about, and knowledge will increase.”
5 Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others were standing, one on this bank of the stream and the other on that bank of the stream. 6 And someone said to the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, “How long will it be until the end of these wonders?” 7 And I heard the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, as he raised his right hand and his left toward heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time; and as soon as they finish smashing the power of the holy people, all these events will be completed. 8 But as for me, I heard but did not understand; so I said, “My lord, what will be the outcome of these events?” 9 And he said, “Go your way, Daniel, for these words will be kept secret and sealed up until the end time. 10 Many will be purged, cleansed, and refined, but the wicked will act wickedly; and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand. 11 And from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. 12 Blessed is the one who is patient and attains to the 1,335 days! 13 But as for you, go your way to the end; then you will rest and rise for your allotted portion at the end of the age.”
As we talked about in the first half of the book of Daniel, he had a lot of wonderful qualities, he was bold in his faith and consistent in prayer shown in the lion’s den, he was a man of fasting and denying himself, showing God was in control, he had a “genius wind” about him, a gift for administration and leadership, and he was also a captured person, his country was not his own, his allegiance was to the God of Israel, not to Babylon and he longed for the Babylonian captivity to end. With all this in mind, God gave him visions of what would happen, and it was a lot. And, we have walked through history seeing that these very specific detailed prophecies have happened just the way God said through Daniel, culminating in the person we call the anti-Christ where we have seen partial fulfillment throughout the centuries in the great villains.
Think about this, you can either be pro-Christ or anti-Christ. When we study Antiochus Epiphanes, or Stalin, or Hitler, Saddam Hussein or Artificial Intelligence we might notice all sorts of similarities between what scripture says about the anti-Christ and start checking off boxes thinking we have found them, but the world didn’t end, but God can say something to us: check this out in 1 John 2:18-27
18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life. 26 I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. 27 But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.
You are either for Christ, or against Him. You either believe that He is the perfect, sinless, fully-Divine, fully-human Son of God, who died in our place to pay the penalty of sin and redeem us for eternal glory with the Father . . . or you do not. In that sense, everyone is either Pro-Christ or Anti-Christ. Anyone who rejects Jesus outright or denies His divinity by denying that He is indeed the Christ is, therefore, an antichrist. And as John says, there are many. They don’t all perform terrifying demonic miracles. They simply deny Jesus, and walk away (v. 19).
This does not mean that antichrists are harmless, though. John says in verse 26, there are those who are trying to deceive the saints. They may not try to persuade anyone to worship Satan. But there are many ways to reject Christ and encourage others to do the same. False religions are antichrist. To affirm Buddha, or Krishna, or Zoroaster is to deny Christ. The absolute materialist, who denies the existence of any god, denies Christ. To claim Jesus was a great moral teacher, but not the Son of God is to deny Christ. Even to affirm the continuance of the Mosaic law and the remaining need for sacrifice for sin would be to deny Christ.
So we are encouraged to abide in Christ, be pro-Christ! Now, there is still an actual singular antiChrist powered by Satan at the end that will bring what we call the tribulation on the world leading to Armageddon… However, consider that God can be talking about multiple things at once. He is so amazing that world events on the biggest timeline possible AND your individual life can be talked about at the same time.
When I was 15, I was anti-Christ and I had to die to myself and not be that anti-Christ anymore and be born again into life that is only from Jesus Christ. Now, I can be pro-Christ! There is hope, just like Nebuchadnezzar, who was arrogant and exalted himself and was antiChrist and could repent, you and I can repent too and be changed and forgiven and become pro-Christ. There is hope!
So far in talking about the end times, we’ve not said anything about “the Rapture.” and I don’t want you to be uninformed about it. So, if you aren’t familiar with the word rapture, it comes from the verses in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
The greek word used in verse 17 and translated “caught up together” is harpazo and the latin version of that is rapturo where we get the word rapture from. So when read in latin this was referenced as the Rapturo and has then been translated into english as the Rapture. Now, in the common use of a word like rapture we would usually mean that someone who is enraptured with something is all revved up emotionally, so in some ways rapture isn’t really a good interpretation of this. The word harpazo in the Greek means a snatching, to grab something quickly without warning. So a better thing to call this would be The Snatching, but we call it the Rapture with a capital R and it has come to mean this specific future event.
Now, here is a thing you need to know and be careful about it bible study, actually two things, one is that when people tell you that they know when the rapture or any other end time event will happen, they are false. Jesus specifically states that no one knows this but the Father.
Secondly, when people are extremely sure that the rapture will happen before what’s called the tribulation or the great tribulation, that is what they think either through their own study or through hearing people they trust say it. It is not that clear in scripture whether the church will be snatched up before the antiChrist, mid-antiChrist or at the end of the anti-Christ, and we can’t be sure that every Christian will be snatched up, there are a lot of question marks for me when it comes to the rapture.
We Should Not Place Our Hope in the Rapture
The thing we can be sure of is that although the spirit of antiChrist has been in the world all along and there have been many antiChrists, there will be a specific AntiChrist with a capital A at the end and Christians will need to endure and stay strong in God and have hope, and blessed are those that endure till the end. And the Jews will be persecuted once again and many many many will be killed, but there will be a resurrection and a final judgment and all will stand before the throne and when you stand in front of that throne either Jesus will say, I took all this one’s sins on me, let him or her into everlasting life or He will say this one, I never knew him or I never knew her. That is what we can be sure of. We are to have our hope in that day, in the resurrection and the judgment, not in the rapture.
So don’t be constantly searching for when will the rapture happen. Have faith that the resurrection and the final judgment will happen. Ask forgiveness from God and put on the righteousness of Jesus Christ who suffered and died for your sins so that you can be washed clean and you can have hope in the promise that on that day, His righteousness will be counted as your righteousness and all the suffering will end. That’s the gospel and that’s the pattern and the promise in the book of Daniel.
If you need anything at all, prayers, just to have someone to talk to, we have people that will be up at the front during the last song that want to stand with you, pray for you and help you in whatever way we can.
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