Going God’s Way - Daniel 12

Notice the end of chapter 12, God tells Daniel, “go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.” Literally, God says to him, “journey” or “walk on” to the end at which time you will be able to lie down and settle at the place of your inheritance. Over these past three and half months, we have followed Daniel’s journey, from teenager taken captive to Babylon to old man under Persian rule. 

Like so many others throughout the OT, his experiences foreshadowed Jesus who was to come. Jesus told his disciples that the OT Scriptures pointed to him. This includes the book of Daniel. Yes, Daniel was a sinner; he had his struggles as we all do. But his life pointed to Christ. For instance, Daniel was unjustly sealed in the lions’ den with the potential of death; Jesus Christ was sealed in a tomb having endured the reality of death. Daniel emerged from the den of lions by the power of God, and his life was saved. This pointed toward our Lord who emerged from the tomb to immorality, saving His people.

Daniel was special; throughout this book it’s obvious that he was blessed to see things that most people never see. He had a unique role in the history of redemption. God revealed many things to him; God showed him great things. But for all God said to him, there were many things left unsaid. God did not reveal everything to Daniel. For all the questions answered, there were questions remaining. For all Daniel was made to understand, there were many things he did not understand. 

And all of Scripture teaches us that life with God is that way. In Deuteronomy 29, Moses writes, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” The secret things, the things concealed by God. God tells us many things, but he does not tell us everything. 

Do you remember the old saying, “That’s for me to know...and for you to find out.” We don’t like information withheld from us. Some of you may remember the old TV commercials for the National Enquirer gossip tabloid. They put these magazines at the grocery store check-out where you can’t help but see them, because they understand what their slogan states: “Enquiring minds want to know.” 

Of course, much of what they reveal is false. With God, however, everything He conceals is true, but it’s not His will for us to know all things. This is hard for us though, and we naturally grow frustrated by what God conceals from us.

In Genesis 3, we see how the first man and woman fell into sin as they attempted to gain knowledge that would make them like God. They wanted to know all God concealed. As a result, you and I naturally question God. We don’t naturally trust Him or want to do things His way. We want to go our own way. So we need a Savior who could do all the words of God’s law and trust Him in our place.

Jesus Christ did this. He represents His people before God and represented His people in life, death and resurrection. You could say that in all things, Jesus went God’s way for those who go their own way. He went God’s way perfectly for those whom He would save. 

If you and I would be followers of Jesus, we must go God’s way as well. For those who are born again, there is help to go God’s way. There is power. We are able. But God’s way requires rejecting sin and bringing glory to God with our lives.

How can we do that? We learn more about that here in Daniel 12. On page 6-7 in the WG you can find two things we must understand to God’s way. As we go God’s way, we must draw strength from what is clear, and we will need faith for what is unclear. Going God’s way requires obeying God in what He reveals and trusting Him with what He conceals. 

Now, chapter 11 ended with a prophecy of who the NT calls the Antichrist. We learn some things about him, as we saw last Sunday, and we see where he exists in God’s timeline. By his influence, things in the world and for the church will go from bad to worse. But he will “come to his end,” verse 45 says, and here we learn about his fall.

Notice verse [1] “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people.” “Prince” is a title used repeatedly in Daniel to refer to angels and demons, these beings who battle in the spiritual realm and influence the physical realm in which we live. Michael was mentioned earlier, in chapter 10. Hebrews 1 in the NT states that angels are “ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.”  

Angels help the people of God. As the war between good and evil escalates in the physical realm, it will be escalating in the spiritual realm as well. Jude 9 and Revelation 12 in the NT mention Michael as well. We learn that he is an archangel or chief angel. Incidentally, Michael and Gabriel, whom we read about earlier today in Luke 1, are the only two angels named in the Scriptures, but there are many, serving to protect the people of God. 

We understand that they are actively at work. A couple weeks ago, when we read from 2 Thessalonians 2 during worship, we saw the apostle Paul’s statement that something or someone is “restraining” the Antichrist. Paul could be referring to these archangels and the armies they command. 

Look again at verse 1. At the end of time, there will be “a time of trouble such as never has been since there was a nation.” But God’s people will be delivered. Those whose names are “written in the book,” the book of life. Revelation 13 calls it “the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.” 

The names listed are those saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Revelation 17 tells us that those names have been listed in the book “from the foundation of the world.” Those whom God foreknew He also predestined, not because of good works but by grace. 

And verse 2 describes the resurrection of the dead. “Those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Everlasting life with God is a reality; everlasting damnation in hell is also a reality. The apostle Paul describes that final day in this way in 1 Thess. 4: “the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”

Daniel is learning of that great event, the second coming of Jesus Christ, the final destruction of sin and death, and God’s glorious renewal of the heavens and the earth and of His people. God gives Daniel a glimpse. 

But notice the orders Daniel receives, verse 4, “But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end.” Daniel was to write down these things for future generations, that they would be preserved, kept for us, made clear for us, so that we understand the future and can be made strong for our journey, Because until that time, people will be searching for answers. You see the end of verse 4: “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

We live in the Age of Information. The internet and digital media have changed the world. Knowledge has increased; the amount of content grows by the minute. But where is the knowledge of God? Non-believers look everywhere for answers to help them make sense of their lives and the world. But believers will look to the Word of God. The faithful find the answers in what God has revealed and made clear.

Do you look to God and draw your strength from Him during these confusing times? The Proverbs of Scripture say, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” To go God’s way, to journey with Him, we must look to Him to interpret the times and to understand life. 

Each day, you wake up; you can go God’s way, or you can go your own way. Proverbs 14 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” You and I have to stand on the things that clear in God’s Word. God has “granted to us all [we need for] life and godliness through the knowledge of Him.” 

You don’t need all the answers to follow Jesus. Enough is clear not just to know about God, but to know Him deeply and personally, to be assured of His love and His power and His divine plans. Enough is clear to trust and obey. Enough is clear in God’s Word, even when things are unclear in our lives and the world. And for those things that are unclear, we will need faith. Look with me at this next part of Daniel.

In his vision, Daniel sees these two other figures, one on each side of the river. Chapter 10 told us that the whole vision was given to Daniel as he stood on the bank of the Tigris River. At the start of the vision, he saw “a man clothed in linen.” This may have been an archangel; some speculate that it was Jesus himself. We don’t know for sure. But here in verse 6, one of those standing by the river asks “the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, “How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?”  

Good question! Who wouldn’t want to know that? “The man clothed in linen” raises his hands like a minister does when he pronounces the benediction at the end of public worship. We raise our hands as if taking an oath. We declare publicly that God will do what He says He will do. The man in linen is giving His word on how long it will be until “the last hour” as the apostle John calls it. 

He says, “for a time, times, and half a time.” That phrase was stated back in chapter 7. It’s not entirely clear, but scholars think that here it refers to a certain period of destruction by the Antichrist (“a time”), followed by a more intense period of Antichrist destruction (“times”), and then a period after that which is cut short by the coming of Jesus (“half a time”). 

Notice the rest of verse 7, “when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished.” This is helpful, but the amount of time is still unclear.  We’re looking for dates, times. Can you be exact, Lord? This is why Daniel says, “I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, “O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?”

 Last week, someone mentioned to me after worship, after I spoke at length about the Antichrist, that they shudder to think about what future generations - their own descendants in particular - will have to endure. Often you’ll hear, in political rhetoric, the hope that our children will have it better than we do. That’s a common desire, and a good one. This time of the final Antichrist, and the build-up to it, will be increasingly bad. 

Things will get worse. The Lord God Almighty has decreed it to be just as he has decreed which names will be in the book of life. Daniel’s questions are the same questions we all ask about suffering.“How long?” and “How bad?” And do you see here -- for the answers Daniel received from Godin the course of his life, he gets no answer here to those questions.

The man in linen says, in verse 9, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.” There is no good reason for anyone to claim they can tell you when Jesus will return. The answer is among the secret things of the LORD our God. 

But we do know that until that time, verse [10] Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand.  Those who know God will look to Him and they will endure. Those who don’t know God will participate in the evil, growing increasingly confused and frustrated by what they observe in the world. As we approach the Last Day, the world will make less and less sense, but those who are in Christ will understand it. 

And then Daniel is given more piece of information, seemingly as encouragement, but it isn’t entirely clear. The information backs up from the end of time, once again to the time of Antiochus IV and to the desecration of their temple in 168 B.C. Notice verse 11, “And from the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up there shall be 1290 days.” 

Here is something more specific, but still unclear. This number of days could be rounded off, it could be symbolic, it could refer to the worst of that time of persecution by Antiochus. Most likely it is symbolic, which is typical of apocalyptic writings such as Daniel and Revelation. 

We do know for sure that the terrible time of Antiochus would be a specific number of days, obviously known and predetermined by God. And in the same way, the persecution by the final Antichrist will be a finite number of days sovereignly determined and controlled by God. And so we come first circle from when we began the book of Daniel. 

This was the theme that we spoke of at the beginning of our study. The Lord reigns. We must hold on. We must endure. We must not give up. Notice verse 12, the man in linen says, “Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days.” In other words, hold on until you can’t hold on anymore, and then hold on a little longer. Because with the Lord’s help, we will endure. We will be strong. We can draw strength from what is clear, and we can go God’s way. 

This is why he tells Daniel, verse [13] “But go your way till the end,” journey to the end, “and you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.”Jesus Christ holds a place for those who are made righteous in Him by grace through faith.

From time to time in worship, we will sing songs written by Sandra McCracken. One of my favorites by her is called “God’s Highway.” These are the first lines: My feet are strong, my eyes are clear / I cannot see the way from here / But on we go, He knows the way / And in His arms, He keeps me safe. / Fear not, keep on, watch and pray / Walk in the light of God's highway.

Sandra has said that she wrote the song during a very difficult time in her life and that she was trying to express her pain in her lyrics. But her songwriting partner pointed out that often in the old spirituals they were singing not about where we are, not “my feet are tired and I’m in a fog,” but “my feet are strong, my eyes are clear,” this way of singing ourselves forward. In other words we must have faith for what is unclear in life. Have you been looking to the Lord in faith regarding all the confusing and unclear things in life, all the questions to which you have no certain answer?

It takes humility that we can only access if first we have humbled ourselves at the cross. Andrew Murray was a South African minister and writer in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Among his works is a little book called Humility. In it he says this: “Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue. And so pride, or the loss of humility, is the root of every sin and evil...Nothing can be our redemption but the restoration of the lost humility, the original and only true relation of the creature to its God. And so Jesus came to bring humility back to earth, to make us partakers in it, and by it to save us...He humbled himself to become a man.”

What does Christmas mean? It means humility came to earth -- in a person. Last week in worship we read that Jesus Christ took upon Himself “man’s nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof.” Do you know what that means? It means that while still being fully God, Jesus became a regular guy. “Yet without sin.” He was fully man and fully God. Therefore He could represent us as one of us, but He was the only one who could stand before God on our behalf. He drew strength from what was clear and trusted the Father with what was unclear to Him. And he is our worthy Savior who reigns and rules over us as we go God’s way.

Bow with me in prayer.