Sermon Tone Analysis

License and Registration

This is me.

My Driver’s License.

Anyone spot any problems?

Picture.

Address.

Weight.

Expired license.

There is a time limit… at which point the cops will pretend they don’t know who I am.

The airlines won’t let me board.

In fact, I’m in the last month, I’m already there.

There is a deadline looming… and whether or not I have my ID up to date is about to become a big deal.

Fortunately, in this case it’s pretty easy to do the math.

I have just over two weeks to get this sorted out… though I may already be past the point where they can get it out to me in my hand in time.

There is another deadline looming.

The Apocalypse and the Tribulation, the end of days, the end of time.

Now, I don’t think that is happening tomorrow… but it sure could happen soon.

So it’s good to know what we can know and make sure that we are ready.

And God gave Daniel some inside info.

Daniel - the Final Vision

Seventy weeks?

Seventy Sevens, more literally.

Maybe this is leading up to the first coming of Jesus, and the beginning SUPER fits.

In fact, it is pretty close.

This first “seven” of sevens, 49 years, would be around the right timeframe from the the command to Nehemiah to rebuild the temple and the successful completion.

What’s more, the next sixty-two sevens, if they are years, that is 434 years.

It’s very close to the revelation of Jesus, the Messiah, anointed at his baptism, declared and celebrated in the triumphal entry as the Messiah, the Son of Man… and then but off.

It’s hard to make the math quite perfectly fit though, it seems about 20 years off.

Some folks have done some creative calendar math to make it work but…

There’s a bigger question on the final week.

Because (verse 27) he makes a strong covenant (Jesus presumably)… which fits with many coming to faith, and there’s the abomination of desolation, and the the “decreed end.”

That sounds like end of the world stuff… but that didn’t happen seven years from Jesus crucifixion.

Some have proposed a “gap” theory, that there is a 2000+ year gap between the first 69 weeks and the 70th, God was focused on the Israelite people, for around 2000 years, then the Gentiles, and then back to restore and save Israel in the final seven years and then… game over.

But scholars have worked over these numbers over and over with a goal.

Understanding… and maybe predicting the end.

On to Daniel 12.

The end of the same dream he had in the third year of Cyrus.

After verse 11 reads like the history of life and times of Antiochus…

The near fulfillment of this prophecy of anti-Christ… but a shadow of the one to come.

In Daniel 12 it becomes clearer that there is an end fulfillment.

This part gets a bit weird.

A message to the folks in the midst of this tribulation.

Daniel asks the glowing guy (Gabriel):

This phrase gets used a bunch in revelation.

A time, times, and half a time.

“Time” was used with Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2 to mean a year.

So… maybe 3.5 years?

That’s kind of how John uses it.

And then the end.

What’s more:

Almost, don’t worry about it, this part is for those people in the final days.

1,290 days is like 13 days past 3.5 years.

So maybe a more precise number than before… or a call to really press through.

Then 1335 days, now we added another 45 days.

Like the BEST blessing is even just a little bit past.

And folks speculate, maybe that’s the inaugural day of Jesus 1000 year kingdom, and it takes him a bit to get the government set up???

I don’t know.

But I don’t think these numbers are for us… they are for those in those days.

If I ever enter those last days, and I get through 1,290 days… man I am going to be SO pumped for those final 45 days.

The hardest part is over… here comes glory.

Because the beginning of chapter 12 is the BEST part of all of it.

This is the part that speaks to Daniel, that speaks to you and me.

This is PURE gospel - good news.

The Good News

You and I are not in the final days.

Not in those last 3.5 days.

Is there persecution against either Christians or Jews “not since ever Israel was a nation?”

Nope!

Revelation captures this as a war in the heavens, Michael vs. the great Dragon.

Clearest indication in the whole OT of bodily and eternal resurrection from the dead.

What the Pharisees and Sadducees argued about?

This was the best proof text.

There are other supporting ones.

This was always God’s plan, more fully revealed through Jesus and his apostles… but always the plan from day 1.

Because who’s going to most need this information?

People in the midst of it all.

But he says this to Daniel at the very end, the last words of the book of Daniel:

Name in the Book

Daniel is given this assurance: he has his allotted place.

I’m going to assume, in the tone, that it’s the “good place.”

Ie: Daniel’s name is in the Book of Life.

This metaphor comes from the “Book of Citizens.”

If you’re name is on the “membership rolls” of the city than you get all the privileges of a member.

If not, you don’t.

Daniel’s in his 80’s, and in a period of history not famous for long life spans.

He’s likely very interested, and rightly so, in where he’s at.

He’s about to “go to sleep.”

This is his last vision.

Is he headed to “awake to everlasting life” or to “shame and everlasting contempt?”

The Ancient of Days is on the throne.

Jesus wins.

You win too.

Is your name in the Book?

How do you know?

Or, as Jesus told his disciples:

Earthly power?

Temporary.

Spiritual or even magical power?

Temporary.

The most important thing: is your name written in the Book of Life?