Persevere to the end

Being a father

Many of you may know that Stephen Goring, the new pastor at the local Christian Reformed Church, has recently had his first child with his wife Nicola.

As I was talking with him about it recently, I was reminded of my experience of this initial period of fatherhood. Now I will admit straight up that particularly in this initial period it is the mother who has it the toughest. Not only are they the only ones able to do the breast feeding, but there is a lot of other things happening for them, particularly with all the hormones running through their bodies.

But that being said, it is also an amazing time for the father. I used the word amazing, but the truth is, I’m not sure what the best word should be to use, because it is incomparable to anything else that you go through. It’s actually this mix of love of a type you’ve never really experienced before, thrown in with a severe case of helplessness and a bit of nerves for good measure.

You know at that point that you want to care for that child for the rest of their life, but while that feeling is really strong, you don’t really know what it even means.

And that starts the journey known as fatherhood. One that I’ve quickly realised that the moment you think you’ve got it figured out, it all changes.

The truth is however, that this journey of fatherhood closely resembles the journey of life that each of us face, no matter where you are in life. How often to you think you are getting a bit in front, only to fall back again. It can often feel like you take one step forward, but two steps back.

Link to Daniel

This morning on Father’s day, I’m going to finish our journey through the book of Daniel.

In it, we will briefly look at chapter 11 - I say briefly, but it is by no means a brief chapter.

I will explore a few of the aspects of this chapter shortly, but essentially it looks at what is going to happen in the few centuries following the time of Daniel. In fact, we will see how it goes into quite a lot of detail of the constant to and fro-ing of various kingdoms, with God’s people essentially being tossed around in the process.

You see, this turbulent journey that each of us are on is nothing new.

While the specific circumstances will differ for each of us, and for some it will be harder than others, but for all of us there is a long journey.

The Big Question

And so the question I want to explore today is how do we continue when there is so much uncertainty.

I want to keep this much broader than just fathers, but if I bring back to fathers just for the moment, we could ask the question - how do we keep being the best fathers we can be when we know that our children are going to grow up and make their own decisions anyway?

Exploring the passage

Well, by choosing to look at three chapters, we have a lot to cover, so we better dive in and have a look at it.

First, for those who haven’t been with us for the series, Daniel is set in the period of time when Israel had been sent into exile in Babylon.

Daniel, as a young man had in fact been part of the initial wave of Jews being forced to Babylon. Throughout the book we’ve seen how Daniel and some of his friends managed to live in a foreign land.

The final three chapters effectively represent the final episode of activity we see during this time.

In fact we’re told that we’re in the third year of Cyrus King of Persia, which from other parts of the Bible, and indeed other historical sources, we know means that a group of Jews have actually gone back to Jerusalem under the leadership of Ezra.

We know that many Jews stayed back, and obviously it would seem Daniel was one of them. We’re not told why he stayed back - maybe from the deduction that he must be in his 90’s by now, he decided to stay back because of age, although that is pure speculation.

Now to paint the picture just a little further for us now, in the immediate couple of chapters that precede this one, Daniel receives some fairly spectacular visions. Visions which we use the term apocalyptic, due to the nature of them and their subject matter.

As we’ve looked at them in the last few weeks, we’ve seen how they relate to things of the future, and as I’ve said a number of time, we would do well to not be too precise about their exact meaning. That’s because they set up a general pattern in which we can expect into the future. That pattern being one of a time of increasing trouble but with God having the final victory.

This final episode in many ways continues the same sort of pattern, however in some respects it actually does become more precise - and I’m going to show shortly how chapter 11 reads almost like a history.

Initial vision

But first looking at chapter 10 which sets the scene we see that Daniel receives a vision. Now as far as I can work out, the vision that is described in verse 1 is not actually explained to us other than the fact that it concerns a great war and that Daniel was able to understand it. It would seem that this vision from verse 1 is different although related to the subsequent vision that we get later on.

Whatever the precise nature of it, however, we know that it results in Daniel mourning for three weeks, in which time he severely restricted his diet.

Well, verse 4 seems to take us to the end of that three week period, and Daniel is now sanding on the banks of the Tigris river.

Now you might recall that this river was one of four rivers named way back in . And so there is a lot of significance with it.

Anyway, Daniel is standing there, and he looks up to see an amazing vision.

There is a man clothed in linen and above the waters of the river. (Now for those who like to follow closely to the passage to see if what I am saying is true, you may wonder, where am I getting this idea that he is above the waters of the river - I’m actually taking that from the description given in chapter 12 which seems to complete this episode.

Now this man is described with some pretty amazing features. The interesting thing here is that this description is really close to the vision of a man that Ezekiel has right back in , and it is also really close to the description that the apostle John sees in the island of Patmos which we get in the first chapter of Revelation. In this last reference, it is made clear that the person that is in view is none other than Jesus Christ himself - and while some people may offer other suggestions, I think it is fairly clear that what Daniel is viewing now is the second person of the Holy Trinity.

Now you might think that such a vision would be very empowering, however like others in the Bible who have vision of the almighty, we see Daniel overwhelmed by the experience.

Indeed from verse 7 he has an angel helping him, and it is just beautiful to read how this angel just places these gentle touches on him and gently encourages Daniel which helps him to keep going.

I’ll briefly come back to this later, but this little picture of the angel gently encouraging Daniel is very similar to what we need to get through the struggles of life.

Spiritual battle

Before we then get into the main part of the new vision, which comes in chapter 11, verses 12 to 14 of chapter 10 gives us a little insight to the spiritual battles that rage that generally speaking, we are unaware of.

You see this angel references these last 3 weeks in which Daniel has been troubled by his initial vision and his subsequent diet and self-imposed restrictions.

We then learn that during this three week period, this heavenly being, who some speculate might be Gabriel based on his appearance in chapter 9 (although there is no real evidence for this), has been detained by someone referred to as the prince of the Persian kingdom.

Now we don’t actually really know who this prince is. Some have tried to link it to actual physical princes associated with Persia, although I think it is clear that what is in mind is actually a spiritual being.

This little glimpse shows us just how serious this spiritual battle is.

We quite rightly assume that God is in control, and I’m certainly going to be arguing that very point shortly, but this doesn’t mean that there are not real struggles that come with it. The enemy is real and there are real consequences to them.

In this case, the chief angel Michael, has to come and rescue this unnamed angel, and it is only at that point that he can come to minister to Daniel.

We have to be careful and not see every delay as some spiritual battle going on, however it is interesting to think that sometimes there is far more going on then we realise.

Chapter 11

But then we come to chapter 11, which it would seem is the message given by this unnamed angel.

A chapter like no other

It should be noted that this chapter is really like no other chapter in the whole bible. While it is lumped together with the section known as apocalyptic, it i actually a bit different in that it isn’t relying on metaphors.

In fact many people point out how much it reads like history. So much so, and given the accuracy of it, many people don’t think it is prophecy at all, but rather something written in the 2nd century BC after it all happened and just disguised as prophecy.

I’m not going to get into all the details of this debate (we’d be here all day if I did), but it is worth noting that even some evangelic scholars who have a high regard for prophecy and the Bible have concluded that it is actually a 2nd Century document.

While I recognise some good points on both sides of this debate, at the end of the day, based on my high regard for the inerrancy of scripture, I’m going to assume that it is what it seems to be, that is, a prophecy given in the 6th Century BC prior to it occuring.

(I’m happy to discuss the ins and outs of the argument afterwards if you are interested).

The battles

Now if you have your bibles in front of you, you probably realise that chapter 11 is quite long, and you might be worried that if I decide to go through this bit by bit then we’re going to be here a long time.

Well don’t worry, I’m not going to do that. If you’re keen to get all the little bits of detail, then come and see me afterwards and I can give you a print out of a commentary that does this for you.

What I will do is show the main thrust of what is happening.

At the start of the chapter you’ll see Persia and Greece named. After this, references become a little more vague, but by referencing other history documents we can quite clearly know who is being referred to.

Essentially, we skip over Persia very quickly other than noting that there will be four kings after the first (which is Cyrus).

We then also get a brief reference to Alexander the Great in verse 3, with the focus on the chapter mostly on what happens once his kingdom gets divided among the four generals.

As you can see on the map on the screen, while there are four areas, two make up the bulk of the area, and certainly the bulk of the area in which the Jews were concerned. Those two are what this passage refers to the kingdom of the North and the kingdom of the South. The north is the Seleucids and the south is the Ptolemies.

Now these two kingdoms really battle it out for power, and this chapter goes into quite a lot of detail - the detail in which I’m mostly going to skip over. But it is this detail which if you care to study it, you can see just how close it fits with what we know from history.

Antiochus

The whole thing does however culminate with someone who is described as a contemptible person in verse 21. Now if you were here when we looked at chapter 8, you might remember my discussion on a man called Antiochus IV Epiphanies, who was a Seleucid ruler (that is, the northern kingdom), and he severely persecuted the Jews.

Well, it seems quite clear that this is the person in picture starting in verse 21. Verses 21 to 35 then give us quite a bit more information about what he gets up to.

However, once we get to verse 36, everything starts to get a little tricky as we sychronise what we know from history with the prophecy.

A lot of what is said, particularly after verse 40 does not seem to match what we know of Antiochus. For instance, verse 42 says he will extend his power over many countries, however this is not known from history.

Now some people who have a low regard for the Bible and understand this being a 2nd Century BC document, suggest that the previous verses were history written in the guise of prophecy, and this is then just the authors attempt at actual prophecy, but he just gets it wrong.

I don’t think such an explanation is satisfactory, therefore we need to dig a but further.

Now possibly, we could look at various solutions such as maybe there is something from history that we have misunderstood - for instance, maybe Antiochus did in fact have further military campaigns that we are unaware of.

However this part of history is actually quite well documented so it seems quite unlikely.

I believe the better solution is to see the person who is being described as a type of Anti-Christ, that is, a figure who can be expected as the last days before the return of Jesus.

In favour of such a view you can see how verse 40 starts with the phrase “at the time of the end”. Now admittedly, that is a little vague as it could just refer to the end of the north and south kingdoms as they were.

However, the idea that it actually is referring to the very end, or the end of the current age as we know it, is supported by what is described in the start of chapter 12 which I’ll look at in just a moment, where we clearly seem to get a view of the final resurrection.

In some ways, I don’t think we should be surprised by the loose transition from speaking of events in the few centuries between the Old and New Testament and the final end times figure.

I don’t want to get too caught up now in exploring this final figure, and particularly don’t want to get caught up in speculating on specific people contemporary to us now - believe me, if you look on the internet, you can find lots of this kind of speculation.

Rather I just want to highlight for the moment the way in which we can expect political upheaval to continue right up until that last moment before Christ comes again.

The final moment

Which brings me to chapter 12. Now if you’ve spent quite a bit of time looking in the Old Testament, I dare say that you’ve probably realised that there are very few verses that specifically talk about the resurrection of the dead.

Certainly the fact that the dead will rise when Christ comes again is well established in the New Testament, but in the Old it is almost non-existent.

There are some passages in Isaiah and the Psalms that allude to such a thing, but they are a little unclear.

That being said, it is generally considered that there is only one passage that clearly teaches about this resurrection of everyone in the Old Testament, and that is right here in .

Just look at verse 2. It says: “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt”.

Back on the river

I’ll come back to this concept but lets just complete our very brief sojourn through these three chapters.

You see, starting in verse 5 we finish the words of the angel, and now we see Daniel again standing on the banks of the Tigris river. This time there are two angels, one on either side, and the figure that we’ve established as Jesus is above the waters.

We then get a glimpse of a heavenly conversation about how long this will take.

The answer is a very vague, time, times and half a time.

If you go down to verse 11 and 12 then you will see that a specific number of days are mentioned, which as you can imagine have caused endless speculation - something which I don’t intend to enter into now.

Essentially, like the time frame that we considered back in chapter 8, it suggests that the turmoil will continue, but not forever. There is an end in sight.

How we approach life

Well, I know I’ve skipped over this very rich material, but I want to draw it back now and consider the question that I asked earlier.

The question was, how do we continue through life when there is so much uncertainty?

The quick answer to this question which I believe these 3 chapters gives is: we need to persevere because even though it’s going to be tough, it is most definitely worth it!

These chapter certainly don’t pretend that everything is going to be smooth sailing. Indeed we see a very real and very dangerous spiritual battle raging - but we also see angels that are ready to help us when needed.

Let’s just go back over the chapters quickly to dig just a little deeper.

Back in chapter 10 we saw the troubled spirit that Daniel had following the initial vision of a great war.

Our knowledge of angels are actually quite limited, but what we do know is that they are very real. Our experience with them in the physical realm is generally very hard to be definite about.

As it says in : “…some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it”.

The chapter then looked at the spiritual battle

As we persevere, we can know that while there is a spiritual battle raging, these same spiritual forces in the form of angels can provide us comfort.

The other aspect I want to draw on from these chapters is the hope for an end.

And the thing that this chapter gives that the previous chapters in Daniel have, is such an amazing picture of the end. One which as I mentioned before would fit very nicely in the New Testament.

Just look at the words of “those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.”

And this here is really the call for us. Our job is just look to the wisdom of God His righteousness - and when we do, we know that no matter what this world throws at us, no matter how hard or tough nothing is going to stand in the way.

As I come to a close I want to consider the words of Paul in his letter to the Romans. In his climatic chapter 8 he ends with the words:

Romans 8:35-39

Romans 8:35–39 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

As we think of life’s journey, with all its ups and downs, know that it i worth the perseverance because we have a God who will always love us and has a wonderful reward waiting for us.

Let’s pray...