Daniel 29: We Don't Know Everything

Good morning, church family and those who are our guests today. Whether you’re in the room personally or online, thanks for being here this morning to worship the Lord Jesus!

If you are a guest with us for the first time today, thanks for choosing to visit the Eastern Hills church family! We would like to be able to thank you for your visit and to pray for you, so if you wouldn’t mind, please take a moment during the sermon to fill out a visitor card, which you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you. If you’re online, you can let us know about your visit by filling out the communication form at the bottom of our “I’m new“ page. If you’re here in the room today, you can get that card back to us in one of two ways: you can put it in the boxes by the doors at the close of service, or I would love the opportunity to meet you personally, so after service, you can bring that card to me directly, and I have a gift to give you to thank you for your visit today.

Many might not realize this, but perhaps the largest active ministry that we have here at Eastern Hills is our school. Eastern Hills Christian Academy started in 1973 as a preschool and daycare, and now runs all the way through 8th grade. Both of my daughters went to EHCA for their entire education until high school, and both really benefitted in so many ways from learning in our school. Many of our teachers and families are church members as well, and we also have a volunteer board of church members who oversees the school. It’s such a blessing to get to use our facility so thoroughly, when many church buildings sit largely vacant for most weekdays. So I would just like to say thanks to all those who make Eastern Hills Christian Academy work. You are serving in such an important way!

Announcements

I have two announcements before we get into our message this morning.

First, we are beginning this week to take up our annual offering for State Missions. Let’s watch a video about this year’s State Mission Offering theme from the BCNM Executive Director, Steve Ballew. Our goal as a church is $13K. We receive this offering in the months of September and October every year. Pray and ask the Lord how He would call you to give to this important offering in 2024.

For my second announcement, I’d like to invite everyone in the church to put Prayer Meeting on September 11 on your calendar. We are about to enter into our church vision framing process with Auxano. Over the next 9 months or so, a team of 12 of us will meet with Clint Grider, our Auxano representative, in order to seek to know and understand the will of God for Eastern Hills by taking a look at our culture, context, and community; evaluating our ministries; and to make plans for the future direction of the church. But what we as a team desperately need from the church family right now is prayer. So we’re going to take Prayer Meeting on September 11 to spend focused time in prayer for the vision framing process as a whole body. We will meet here in the sanctuary from 5:45 to 6:30 pm to pray fervently for the team, for Clint, for the church, for our community, and for the future. I’ve written more about this in this month’s Informer. Plan to be here on the 11th to pray as a church for this endeavor.

Opening

This morning is our last message in the book of Daniel. We’ve been focused on Daniel since the beginning of the year, with just a couple of breaks. Last week, we looked at The Hope of Glory from verses 1-4 of chapter 12, seeing the incredible promises that that passage contains, including the clearest promise of bodily resurrection and eternal destiny found in the Old Testament (v. 2). Daniel was instructed to preserve the vision for later times, to be revealed as God takes history to the end He has planned for it.

This morning, we will close with the last part of Daniel’s vision, which was really more of a conversation. So as you are able, please stand in honor of the reading of the Word of God as we turn to Daniel 12 in our Bibles or our Bible apps. I will begin reading in verse 5:

Daniel 12:5–13 CSB

5 Then I, Daniel, looked, and two others were standing there, one on this bank of the river and one on the other. 6 One of them said to the man dressed in linen, who was above the water of the river, “How long until the end of these wondrous things?” 7 Then I heard the man dressed in linen, who was above the water of the river. He raised both his hands toward heaven and swore by him who lives eternally that it would be for a time, times, and half a time. When the power of the holy people is shattered, all these things will be completed. 8 I heard but did not understand. So I asked, “My lord, what will be the outcome of these things?” 9 He said, “Go on your way, Daniel, for the words are secret and sealed until the time of the end. 10 Many will be purified, cleansed, and refined, but the wicked will act wickedly; none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand. 11 From the time the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. 12 Happy is the one who waits for and reaches 1,335 days. 13 But as for you, go on your way to the end; you will rest, and then you will stand to receive your allotted inheritance at the end of the days.”

PRAYER

And so we come to the end of the book of Daniel. I have to admit that I came into Daniel knowing a lot less about the book than I now know. I had the first six chapters pretty much down, as most who have read them do. They’re a pretty straightforward narrative of the life of Daniel and his three Hebrew friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, and some of the things they experienced in captivity in Babylon, as well as the ways that God used them to reveal His glory to the kings Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius. The narrative makes the first part easy to remember, easy to digest, easy to apply.

But the second half of the book—the apocalyptic part of the book—this part has been much more difficult. It’s been exciting, though! The study that has gone into this sermon series has been strenuous, and I’m better for having done it. I’ve learned a TON, and I pray that all that I’ve learned and attempted to preach from this part of the book has been a blessing to all of you.

However, I also have realized that in a way, the closing of the book of Daniel might leave us… unsatisfied. There’s all of this incredible prophecy connected with the history of Israel, and as we look back on it, we can see with amazing clarity how God revealed to Daniel the truth of what was coming in his people’s future.

And then comes the part that we haven’t experienced yet. Don’t get me wrong—the prophecies about the antichrist and his demise, the tribulation and its ultimate end as the kingdom of God breaks through, and the promised resurrection are all wonderful, especially when we tie them to the promises in other passages like we see in Malachi and Revelation. However, we as people are pretty naturally curious. And not only that, but we generally want to know what’s coming, what to expect—because we feel like we have some semblance of control if we do.

So when we come to the end of the book, and we come away feeling a little bit like Daniel in verse 8. We’ve heard, but have not understood. We want to understand, but we just can’t, because we don’t have all the information, and we won’t have all the information until what we’re reading about has happened.

So we must walk by faith, confessing that we don’t know everything, accepting that we won’t know everything, and choosing to live in the hope of the things that we do know. Those will make up our three points this morning as we finish this wonderful book.

1: We don’t know everything.

There’s an old saying that says that the person who thinks they know everything has a lot to learn. We laugh at that because we know that it’s true. None of us knows everything because we’re finite. We can’t see things the way God sees things. We can’t know things the way God knows things. We can neither see nor control the future. But we’re not alone in that, as we see in the first part of our focal passage:

Daniel 12:5–7 CSB

Daniel is kind of snapped out of listening to (or being shown by) Gabriel following his instruction to Daniel in verse 4. And Daniel again looks around, and sees that two new angels have appeared, one on either side of the river. Remember all the way back to the beginning of this vision experience in chapter 10 verse 4 that Daniel is standing on the banks of the Tigris river. I know… that seems like so long ago, doesn’t it? It’s still the same vision from chapter 10.

Recall from that last message in July that Daniel had been praying and fasting for his people, likely because he had received the news that although the Hebrews had been allowed to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, the work had been stalled by problems and pressures in the area. So he was greatly concerned for his people, which is why he was given this vision.

So these two angels appear on the opposing banks of the Tigris, and one of them asks a question of the “man dressed in linen who was above the water of the river.” Do we remember who this Person is? We met Him back in chapter 10 also:

Daniel 10:5–6 CSB

5 I looked up, and there was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of gold from Uphaz around his waist. 6 His body was like beryl, his face like the brilliance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the gleam of polished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude.

I argued that this is God the Son, and His appearance made Daniel literally pass out. Even though Daniel hasn’t mentioned Him since verse 9 of chapter 10, God the Son has apparently been there the entire time. The angels address Him with a question: “How long until the end of these wondrous things?” (v 6) They are referring to the things of the very end—the rise of the Antichrist and the subsequent Great Tribulation before the end of the end. The word here translated as “wondrous” means “miraculous, extraordinary, or astounding,” but that doesn’t mean that they are necessarily good things.

One of the things that I really appreciate about this passage is the fact that the angels have to ask the question. Why does this encourage me? Because it is clear that they don’t know the answer! Fascinating that there are things that the angels don’t know, but that they want to know. And those curiosities are about what will happen here on earth:

1 Peter 1:10–12 CSB

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who prophesied about the grace that would come to you, searched and carefully investigated. 11 They inquired into what time or what circumstances the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating when he testified in advance to the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you. These things have now been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—angels long to catch a glimpse of these things.

Back in Daniel, the Son raises His hands in the form of an oath, showing that what He was about to say was absolutely true, swearing by the name of the eternal God—the strongest statement which could be made to assure the hearer of the veracity of what was being said. And He confirms what we have already seen: that this time of great difficulty would be for three and a half years: “a time, times, and half a time.” We still don’t know when that time will begin, so when it will end is still something that we just don’t know. There are aspects of the end times that remain mysterious, even with all of the detail that Daniel had been given, and that’s okay. We don’t have to know all the details before we believe.

But the Son adds some information here about this end of the end for Daniel: He says, “When the power of the holy people is shattered, all these things will be completed.”

We need to keep in mind that Daniel’s chief concern when he was fasting was to know what would happen to Israel. And here, he is told. Israel—the holy people—will have their power “shattered.” The prophet Zechariah spoke to this future in chapters 12-14 of the book that bears his name:

Zechariah 13:8 CSB

8 In the whole land— this is the Lord’s declaration— two-thirds will be cut off and die, but a third will be left in it.

Zechariah 14:2 CSB

2 I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem for battle. The city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be removed from the city.

This certainly sounds like a people who have had their power “shattered.” It’s only then that the Jewish people who remain will cry out to God for help, repent of their sins, and believe in Jesus as their Messiah:

Zechariah 12:10 CSB

10 “Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the house of David and the residents of Jerusalem, and they will look at me whom they pierced. They will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and weep bitterly for him as one weeps for a firstborn.

It will take their near complete annihilation for them to turn to Christ, but when they do, God will act for their defense, and He will do so decisively.

Zechariah 14:3 CSB

3 Then the Lord will go out to fight against those nations as he fights on a day of battle.

I could go on about this promise that the Jews will turn to faith in Christ, but what I would encourage you to do is to spend some time reading Zechariah 12-14 and Romans 11. God is not done with the Hebrew people or with the nation of Israel. They will play a significant role in the end times, though for now, they resist and reject the truth of the Messiah:

Romans 11:25 CSB

25 I don’t want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you will not be conceited: A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

Sadly, the reality is that the Hebrew people have missed the very One that they have been looking for. Just like we don’t know everything about the end times, we also don’t know everything about God’s plan for them. But one thing that we can be certain of about Israel—they need Jesus. By ourselves, in our flesh, we’re all powerless against our true enemy—sin. Jesus came to defeat that enemy through His own death to pay for the penalty of sin. He didn’t deserve to die like we do. He is the only One who is worthy of “power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing,” (Rev 5:12). But we think that we can manage on our own, apart from Christ… as if somehow, all roads lead to heaven. “Surely, I’ll be okay,” we think. “There are lots of people worse than me.” You might be right. But there isn’t a sliding scale of who receives eternal life and who doesn’t. You don’t have to be better than the next guy. To deserve salvation, you have to be as good as Jesus… you have to be perfect. So we can either manage to be perfect every moment of our lives from the very beginning, or we can believe in what Jesus has done to save us, trusting in Him to save us. H.C. Leupold said it this way:

Strangely, man is so set on trusting in himself and depending on his own power that, unless that power is reduced to a helpless minimum, he will refuse to put his confidence wholly in the good Lord. Only after we have been rendered weak are we capable of becoming truly strong.

—H.C. Leupold, Leupold Old Testament Commentaries: Daniel

We don’t know everything. But we can know that, because the Bible tells us so. And we, like Daniel, would probably LIKE to know everything. But more than the fact that we don’t know everything, so it appears in this passage that we also aren’t meant to know everything.

2: We won’t know everything.

At least, we won’t know everything this side of heaven. I wish that I could tell you that if you study hard enough, or pray hard enough, or listen to enough really good sermons and podcasts, then you’ll reach a place of full understanding. But that would not be true. Daniel heard, but did not understand. Even for someone as special as Daniel, there are things that he would never know:

Daniel 12:8–12 CSB

8 I heard but did not understand. So I asked, “My lord, what will be the outcome of these things?” 9 He said, “Go on your way, Daniel, for the words are secret and sealed until the time of the end. 10 Many will be purified, cleansed, and refined, but the wicked will act wickedly; none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand. 11 From the time the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. 12 Happy is the one who waits for and reaches 1,335 days.

Daniel, still true to his focus on the Hebrew people, asks the Son not about when these times would begin and end (a question already asked and answered, though not understood), but about what would come for the Hebrew people thereafter. He wants to know what will happen after the end, a request that makes perfect sense given the context. He’s heard about the end several times, and he had just been told that some will rise to eternal life, and some to disgrace and eternal contempt (12:2). What about those who hadn’t died yet? What does “eternal life” look like? How awful is the “eternal contempt” that faces those who do not receive eternal life? And still: what does this look like for Israel specifically?

The answer he received in verse 9 was not a rebuke: “Go on your way, Daniel...” Essentially, “Daniel, you just keep doing what you’ve been doing.” Daniel wasn’t going to see personally all that led up to the end. He had already been informed of that fact. The rest of the story was still “secret and sealed,” and would be until the time of the end. The truth would remain veiled, but was going to be preserved until the appropriate time. He didn’t need to know the specifics. God had it all under control, so he could just go and live the rest of his life.

But he was told how it would be revealed: That there will be a purifying, cleansing, and refining that takes place, as Daniel had been told at the end of chapter 11:

Daniel 11:35 CSB

35 Some of those who have insight will fall so that they may be refined, purified, and cleansed until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time.

Zechariah, speaking specifically about those in Israel who would be alive at the onset of the Great Tribulation, said something similar:

Zechariah 13:9 CSB

9 I will put this third through the fire; I will refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’, and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’ ”

And while the hardships leading up to the end will have that result for those who have insight into the truth, those who are wise...not so for the wicked—those who refuse to submit to the Lord. They will continue to act wickedly, even when facing the judgment of God against the sins of humanity. The book of Revelation shows that this is what will happen. Faced with the judgment of God over and over again, the wicked will refuse to repent, refuse to bow down, refuse to submit:

Revelation 9:20–21 CSB

20 The rest of the people, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands to stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see, hear, or walk. 21 And they did not repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.

Revelation 16:9–11 CSB

9 and people were scorched by the intense heat. So they blasphemed the name of God, who has the power over these plagues, and they did not repent and give him glory. 10 The fifth poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues because of their pain 11 and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they did not repent of their works.

They will still be committed to the destruction of the influence of God in the world, even as He brings a just and deserved judgment upon it. This is all that Daniel needed to know. Those who are wise will understand, while those who are wicked will not.

Finally, Daniel is given a little more information than he had. He’s told that from the time that the antichrist stops the daily sacrifice in Jerusalem (which I believe will coincide with the start of the Great Tribulation), and sets up the abomination of desolation, there will be 1,290 days, and the one who waits for and reaches 1,335 days will be blessed or happy.

1,290 days is one month longer than 42 months, using the ancient way of counting a month as 30 exactly (which we still do in our vernacular), so one month longer than the time, times, and half a time referred to in verse 7, or the length of months of the antichrist would rule in Revelation 13:5. And 1,335 days is exactly 45 days (a month and a half) longer than that.

In all the commentaries that I read, and in all the other research that I did, for this message, I did not find a satisfying answer to the question of what these two numbers mean. One commentator took what I believe to be a very weak stab at answering the question, but that was it. So I was a little frustrated by that.

But isn’t the point that there are some things that we just won’t know? I take these numbers to be an encouragement to Daniel and to us, even though we don’t grasp the entirety of God’s plan. They tell us a few things, even with the hiddenness of the specifics behind them. First: given that Daniel was told to “go on [his] way,” and he will be told to do so again in verse 13, which we will see in our last point, we can see that he’s called to faithfulness. So are we. It doesn’t really matter how long we are called to be faithful. Also, these numbers are finite—they are a fixed amount that tells us that there will come a time that things will be finished, and in the overall scheme of things, it’s not that long of a time. To put it in perspective, the first health order for COVID went into effect 1,633 days ago. 1,290, or even 1,335 days, is not that long.

What we need to accept is that God is not required to give us more information than He’s given us. There are just some things that we will not know, because we will not be informed about them. We’re called to be alert, watchful, and prayerful:

Mark 13:33 CSB

33 “Watch! Be alert! For you don’t know when the time is coming.

1 Corinthians 16:13 CSB

13 Be alert, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong.

Colossians 4:2 CSB

2 Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving.

1 Peter 4:7 CSB

7 The end of all things is near; therefore, be alert and sober-minded for prayer.

We are like the first disciples in the beginning of the book of Acts.

Acts 1:6–8 CSB

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

They asked Him the question about the end, and He told them that it wasn’t for them to know. Instead, they were going to be given the Holy Spirit, and then would have a task to do until the whole world hears. We carry on that task still today, because of the hope that we have in what we do know.

3: We hope in what we DO know.

The message that Daniel received from God as the last word recorded in the book must have been a great comfort and blessing to him. It tied together the fact that he had lived his life by faith, and what his eternal future holds. And we have that same hope:

Daniel 12:13 CSB

13 But as for you, go on your way to the end; you will rest, and then you will stand to receive your allotted inheritance at the end of the days.”

Daniel was told to “go on [his] way” again, but this time the Son added: to the end, not meaning the end of time (which is referenced at the end of the verse), but to the end of his way. The way that Daniel had lived to that point, as we have seen throughout the entire book, was the way of faith. He trusted God when he was taken captive into Babylon as a teen 70 years earlier, deciding to risk his life instead of defiling himself with the king’s food and drink. He preserved his life and the lives of others through praying and listening to God when faced with Nebuchadnezzar’s first vision of the great statue and the Rock that would fill the earth (the very Rock that was speaking to him here at the end!). He undoubtedly was an example to his three friends, who faced the fiery furnace with stalwart determination to not bow down to an idol. He served the kings of Babylon honorably, being willing to give both Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar the truth that they didn’t want to hear when they needed to hear it. He defied the edict of Darius, continuing to pray only to the Lord, trusting in the Lord in the face of being thrown into the lions’ den, which ended up bringing praise and honor to the name of the Lord when he was delivered. He just kept walking in faith, even as he received visions that terrified him because he didn’t understand them, though he obediently recorded them so that we could study them today.

And now, here at the close, he was told that he would rest—he would die—but that even that would not be the end. As promised in verse 2 of this chapter, he would be one to rise to eternal life, and receive the inheritance allotted to him when time was done. Even Daniel’s “end” would not be the end of Daniel!

And so we have to ask ourselves the question: what does this mean for us?

First, it means that we can cling to hope in the things that we do know. Jesus made it clear that He has a plan, and that plan includes those who belong to Him being with Him forever.

John 14:1–4 CSB

1 “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also. 4 You know the way to where I am going.”

We have hope for eternity, just like what Daniel was promised. That hope was purchased for us by our Lord through His sacrifice, so that if we belong to Him through faith, trusting in His death and resurrection for our salvation and eternal life, then salvation and eternal life are ours!

But in the meantime, like Daniel we are called to “go on [our] way—” living our lives in faithful obedience, looking forward to the future even as we follow Jesus today.

I’ve quoted Sinclair Ferguson’s commentary on Daniel many times throughout this series. To be honest, I really enjoyed it. I didn’t always agree with him, but he brought a really good perspective. His perspective on this point demanded that I quote him one last time:

This is the constant application of all biblical eschatology. In one form or another, every New Testament passage that points to God’s future plans carries with it the application: “Therefore, since all these things will be … what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and Godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God?” (2 Pet. 3:11).

—Sinclair Ferguson, The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 21: Daniel

To more fully quote the passage that Ferguson references:

2 Peter 3:10–13 CSB

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed. 11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, it is clear what sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness 12 as you wait for the day of God and hasten its coming. Because of that day, the heavens will be dissolved with fire and the elements will melt with heat. 13 But based on his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

We hope in what we do know. What we’ve been promised. And that promise should stir us up toward love and good works as we see the day coming, as the author of Hebrews wrote:

Hebrews 10:23–25 CSB

23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

This is our time, church! We are to hold on in faith and trust, trusting in Christ, encouraging each other toward this as well, and doing so more and more as we see the signs of the end of the times, because we know the day is always drawing nearer. We are to call the lost to faith, the faithful to obedience, and both to hope through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Closing

And so we come to the close of our look at the book of Daniel. I pray that this has been a fruitful study for you, and that God has used it to challenge, encourage, strengthen, convict, and bless you. I know that He has done those things for me through it.

Invitation to trust Christ

Church membership

Baptism

Repentance or other commitment (ministry)

Prayer

Giving

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Deron Knoner text

Bible reading (2 Chronicles 8, Ps 58)

No Pastor’s Study tonight for Labor Day

Prayer Meeting finishing look at Solomon’s prayer for wisdom in 1 Kings 3.

Starting next Sunday: 10 weeks in the book of Philippians

Instructions for guests

Benediction

1 Thessalonians 5:14–21 CSB

14 And we exhort you, brothers and sisters: warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 See to it that no one repays evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good for one another and for all. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray constantly, 18 give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 19 Don’t stifle the Spirit. 20 Don’t despise prophecies, 21 but test all things. Hold on to what is good.

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