The Resurrection of the Just and the Unjust

Daniel 12. Pg. 750

Introduction

We come to the end of the book of Daniel

It has been a joy to study these familiar stories and not so familiar prophecies

To get to know our brother Daniel and to learn from his wisdom, courage, and piety.

In this book we have learned the importance of prayer

We have seen the might and sovereignty of God

We have been taught that God will always protect His people, even when it seems like there is no hope

We’ve learned “that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.”

Election Year

That God humbles the proud but gives grace to the humble

That the holy war in which we are engaged is on a cosmic scale, involving men and women, angels and demons, nations and empires

We’ve learned that the enemies of God hate true worship, and though they will seek to pervert it and destroy it, they will never ultimately succeed.

We’ve learned that sometimes the people of God are disciplined by Him for their sins so that they might return to Him.

We’ve learned that God can stop the mouths of lions, turn kings into beasts, overturn empires, reveal the future to His people, send angles to do His bidding, and rescue His own from the fiery furnace.

Thesis: And this morning, as we look at this final chapter, we will learn that God’s people suffer long, but in the end, their vindication will be glorious.

Christ’s Protection

The Final Resurrection

Two Important Questions

Context

You will remember that chs. 10, 11, and 12 are all a single unit finishing up the book of Daniel.

The 3 chapters together recount Daniel’s final vision in which an angel comes to him in ch. 10, revealing to him the demonic struggle that is currently taking place.

In ch. 11 Daniel received the substance of the message. Persia would give way to Greece, Greece would be broken into 4 kingdoms

Two of these kingdoms, the kingdom of the north and the kingdom of the south, would battle with one another for centuries with Israel caught up in the middle of it

Finally, a great king, Antiochus Epiphanes would arise who would bring great persecution to God’s people, dismantling the levitical cultic system and setting up in its place pagan worship

The abomination that brings desolation.

That brings us to chapter 12

Christ’s Protection

Right off the bat, in v. 1 we see the work of God in protecting His people

Daniel 12:1 ““At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.”

Israel will suffer for a long time. Under Canaanites, Persians, Seleucids, Egyptians, Romans

But Michael will arise and deliver them.

“Michael who has charge of your people”

Here Michael is called the Great Prince

We’ve seen princes before in this final section of Daniel

The Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece

Michael is the Prince of Israel

The Princes at War

In Ch. 10 we saw the angel, presumably Gabriel, locked in battle with this demonic Prince of Persia

They were evenly matched for weeks until Michael came and helped Gabriel

What a comfort it would have been for Daniel to know that the princes of the nations of this world were incapable of standing before the prince of Israel?

God protects His people

And at the end of verse one, we see that God’s people will finally be delivered through the efforts of the Great Prince Michael

Christ will always protect His People

In ordinary ways

Sometimes, God protects us through very ordinary means

A prescription drug, a police officer, the kindness of a friend, an airbag or a seat belt

We are to take stock of the kindness of God in using these ordinary means in our lives.

He works by miracles, but His work is no less His work when He works by ordinary means

God protects His people in natural, unspectacular ways.

In extraordinary ways

But often, as we see here, God protects us via supernatural and spectacular means

He sends His angels, His mighty princes to do battle for us.

In fact, I think God does this for us far more than we know, because often, the supernatural working of God through His mighty angels appears to us to be rather ordinary and natural.

The author of Hebrews says that some have unwittingly spent time with angels (Heb. 13:2)

Psalm 91:11 “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”

If we only knew how involved these mighty incorporeal beings were involved in caring for our welfare

Perhaps we would be less anxious about our wellbeing

Protection may not always look like we think it will

God does not protect all of His people from everything

We don’t preach the prosperity gospel here

He often delivers us from sickness and loss and ruin, and we should ask Him for such things

Yet, there have been many Christians who have suffered death, martyrdom, persecution, sickness, famine, and loss

Hugenots

Slaughtered by the tens of thousands by the French catholics on St. Bartholomew’s day

Syrian Christians

Millions enslaved and massacred and subjugated by the muslims in the middle ages

Ancient Israel

Destroyed by the Babylonians. Persecuted by the Seleucids. Massacred by Antiochus Epiphanes

Did God fail to protect these?

God does not always protect us from death

God protects the lives of His saints until the moment He determines to take them out of the World

God is merciful to bring some of us home before old age.

The question is not, will I die? Of course you will. God will not protect you from death. It is something we all will experience.

The Question is, how will I die? Will my death mean something? Will I die well?

Everyone has to die, not everyone gets to die well.

Don’t spend your life seeking to live forever. You’ll never achieve that goal

Spend your life seeking to die well. Prepare yourself for death.

God does not protect His people from death.

But in His kindness, He protects His people from meaningless death.

God protects His people so that their deaths mean something.

Precious in His eyes are the deaths of His saints

Preservation of the Saints

But more than that, God protects His people so that their death is not the end

So that death will not have the final say.

God’s protection has to do with more than our mere physical, earthly, temporary lives, it has to do with our spiritual and eternal lives

And that is the protection we see from Michael in this text

God will not allow His people to be lost

He is the author and finisher of our faith

Those in whom He has begun a good work He will carry on to completion

No power of Hell nor schemes of man will ever pluck you from His hand

He will bring you all the way home

This is the doctrine of the preservation of the Saints

There is no one that has come to saving knowledge of Christ who will lose that saving knowledge and be lost.

God does this through His ordinary means; preaching, prayer, the sacraments, the fellowship of the saints

But also through supernatural and sometimes angelic means

The Final Resurrection

As we move into vv. 2-3 we see the resurrection of the just and the unjust with far greater clarity than we do in any other portion of the OT.

Daniel 12 presents us with that great human division that is present throughout all the scriptures.

Wheat and tares, sheep and goats, Jew and Gentile, Believer and Unbeliever, Just and Unjust, Righteous and Wicked

These are the only two kinds of people there are in the world, there is no third kind.

And there are, therefore, only 2 destinies.

Eternal pain or eternal glory

Of the Just

We first see the resurrection of the Just in v. 2

English Standard Version Chapter 12

many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life

These are Michael’s people.

They are the ones with their names written in the Book

These are the wise ones from v. 10, they are those from the previous chapter who stood firm and took action because they knew their God

These are men like Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego who refused the king’s meat who refused the king’s religion, who refused the king’s threats in order to be faithful to the God of Heaven.

These are they who will purify themselves, make themselves white and be refined in v. 10

They are the wise who will come to understand in v. 10, they are those who will turn many to righteousness in v. 3

In other words, these are God’s people. Those bought with the blood of Christ.

They are called the Just because they have been justified.

These are all those who trust in Jesus for their salvation, who have cried out to Him for pardon and have received it.

Glory

And they will be raised from the dead to everlasting life.

They will shine like the stars in heaven

In the OT, stars are often angels, and I think the meaning here is that we will be transformed into beings as glorious as the cherubim and seraphim.

Job 38:7 “when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

Brothers and sisters, we will go through the first death, our bodies will return to the dust

But we will be raised just as our savior was raised

And we will receive Everlasting and unending glory before the face of our covenant God

Of the Unjust

But not so for the wicked.

They, like us, will die. They, like us, will be raised on the last day.

But unlike us, they will not be gloriously transformed

They will not be crowned with honor. There will be no everlasting delights and joys

Isaiah describes well what their resurrection will be like.

Isaiah 66:24 “their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.””

They shall be raised to shame and everlasting contempt v. 2

Ceaseless sufferings under the everburning wrath of God

Satan from Milton’s Paradise Lost. “Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.”

The true antichrist state of mind.

God’s people will be vindicated

God’s Enemies will be punished

Gospel Call

In which category will you find yourself at the end of time?

Will your name be written in the book? Will your dead and decayed corpse be brought to life again for you to enter body and soul into everlasting glory?

God has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem fallen men and bring them to Himself so that, even though we die, we will live again.

The Apostle John tells us that Jesus is everlasting life, and Jesus said that he will give everlasting life to His own.

Ask yourself, do you belong to Christ? Are you trusting Him for true life? Can you honestly look at your life and say that it is the life of one who has given themselves to Christ?

Or are you an enemy of Christ, masquerading as a Christian?

Do you tell yourself you’re saved to ease the fear in the back of your mind?

The fear of death and what comes after, the fear of the final judgment?

Do you tell yourself you’re saved, or have you cried out to God for salvation?

Do you know that you need saving, do you know that He can save you, do you know that He will save you if you seek His forgiveness?

If you do not, and if you have not, you will be in the second category of people.

You will be resurrected, yet not to everlasting life, but to everlasting contempt and shame and misery.

Don’t be that person, run to Christ, seek His forgiveness, He is the only chance you or I have.

How Long, O Lord?

Of course, when one reads this passage, several questions come to mind

Namely, when will these things take place?

And what exactly are these things?

Incidentally, these are the two questions that are explicitly asked in the text

One by an angel, one by Daniel himself.

How Long?

The angel asks, How long will it be to the end of these wonders? in v. 6

He is not necessarily asking how long until the final resurrection, he is asking how long until the end of the events prophesied in Ch. 11

Persia and Greece and Syria and Egypt

How long until the end of the suffering of God’s people?

How long until the destruction of their enemies?

How long until Michael rises up to defend Israel?

What will it be like?

What will the outcome of these things be? v. 8

What will happen to God’s people? How will these things come about?

Daniel is never given an answer, but rather, he is encouraged to endure.

Timing

The angel, on the other hand, he is given an answer

And the answer probably leaves us with more questions.

Time, Times, and half a Time

He asks, how long?

First, in v. 7, The being in linen hovering above the waters lifts both hands and swears by Him who lives forever and ever.

We only see this type of thing happen one other time in scripture and that is in Deut 32:40, when God Himself swears by Himself who lives forever

Perhaps this is a manifestation of the divine Being Himself?

Is He Christ? Is He Michael, is it both?

Then He says, it will be a time, times, and half a time before the wonders are ended.

We saw this same phrase in Daniel 7:25

How long a period is a time? How long is times? Is it two times or multiple more times? How long is half a time?

Then he goes on in vv. 11 &12 to talk about 1,290 days but then adds 45 days to make it 1,335 days

What is going on here?

I think that, on the surface level, this is referring to a period of around 3.5 years of intense suffering during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes

But I think that on a deeper level, this signifies an indefinite amount of time of intense suffering which the people of God will suffer through the ages.

An indefinite period which is cut short by the intervention of God because God controls all time and events in time.

It is a prophecy that the reign of terror of Antiochus or Herod or Nero or Mohammad or Mao or Stalin or Castro has an end date, and the people of God will outlast it.

The end of the Babylonian captivity did not end Israel’s trials. They continued for centuries longer than they thought that they would. But God here promises here that they will not gone on endlessly.

We don’t know how long the enemies of God will continue their blasphemies and abuses, but it will not be forever.

Suffering will continue indefinitely until the Lord brings it to an end,

But He will bring it to an end

Suffering

Every one of us has, is, and will continue to suffer.

Christ promised us that in this life we will have tribulation

He said that we will be required to take up our cross and follow him.

Christ suffered, each of His apostles suffered, and so we suffer.

We are sick, we are weak, we are sinful, we are mistreated, we are abused, we are anxious, we are in pain, we are depressed, we are tired, tired of the suffering

And so we understand on a deep level this question that the angel asked

How long? How long until the end of suffering?

It was the same question David asked in Psalm 13.

How long, O Lord? Will you hide your face forever? How long will my enemies exalt over me?

How long will I deal with this illness?

How long will I deal with this mental anguish?

How long will I suffer this loneliness, this depression, this anxiety?

How much longer can I hold out against the attacks of the Evil One?

How long will I fight against this oppressive sin?

How Long, O Lord?

Indefinitely. Until the Lord brings it to an end

The answer God gives us is the same answer He gave to Daniel and the Exiles here in Daniel 12.

For some time yet we will suffer

Longer than we want, perhaps longer than we expect, but not forever

Purification

And as we suffer, we need to know that it’s not for nothing.

V. 10 says that many will purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined

If you recall from Ch. 11 v. 35, it is the wise who are purified, refined, and made white, but through stumbling by the sword and fire and plunder and captivity

It is through suffering that we are purified. It is through suffering that we are made more like our glorious savior.

Because He suffered. He was put to death, He was plundered of all His possessions, He was made a captive, He faced the fire of God’s wrath.

You may ask yourself, is the suffering worth it? Is the suffering worth the refining and purification and holiness that comes as a result?

Yes.

And when we see Him face to face we will say, a thousand times yes

This is why the apostle Paul says to count it all joy when you face trials of various kinds.

Endure

Perseverance is rewarded.

Eternal life awaits beyond the days and months and years of suffering in this life. So Daniel and his readers are encouraged to endure the hardships.

I was reminded last night that the Florida heat will not continue forever

The long cold winter does not go on into eternity, but spring comes.

And the Spring is that much better for the harshness of the Winter

Brothers and sisters, we must endure the harshness of this present Winter.

It may go on longer than we want, longer than we expect, but it is not forever

And the Spring that will come will be glorious.

Keep the end in sight. Endurance is possible with the end in sight.

And our end is Christ

Every day one step closer. Until finally we receive our reward.

Conclusion

I want to end by meditating briefly on this last verse of the book of Daniel

Daniel 12:13 “But go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.””

Daniel asks, “What will be the result of these things?”

His question is never answered, but he is told in v. 13

“you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.”

Daniel had suffered long.

He was taken from his homeland as a boy, separated from his family

He was threatened with execution for not worshipping Nebuchadnezzar’s idol, he was thrown in the lions’ den for faithfully praying

He anguished over the suffering of his people in captivity and even after their return to the holy land

Besides this, he was now an old man and was suffering all the pains of a failing body

But then he hears these words.

You shall rest

Your labors are over. Your battles have come to an end. Your pain extinguished. Your suffering is finished.

What a welcome word.

So too will you, Christian, find rest.

The suffering you experience is not forever, in the words of Paul, it is a light momentary affliction.

When your life comes to its end, and you cross that river, you shall receive an eternal rest.

But we can take hold of that rest even now in our union and communion with the Lord Jesus.

As we look to that day, knowing He has accomplished it for us, we can bring that future rest into our present toiling.

In Philippians, the apostle Paul called this current rest, “being content in every circumstance.”

And we can be content knowing first, our current suffering is making us white.

Second, our current suffering is a mere blip on the radar compared to the eternity of happiness to come

You Shall stand in your allotted place at the end of days.

We will, like Daniel, stand in our allotted place at the end of days.

We will stand Before the Lord of Glory. Basking in His radiance, and we will know fully then what we trust today, what Christ knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that our God is worth the suffering.