We finish our journey through Daniel with chapter 12, a passage that points beyond the difficult events of history toward the hope of resurrection. Daniel contains plenty of numbers, visions, kingdoms, and prophecies that can tempt us to spend our energy trying to calculate exactly when and how the end will come. But Daniel’s message points us somewhere more important: this life is not the end. The resurrection is at the center of Christian faith, and Christ’s resurrection is the first fruits and promise of our own. We may not know the when, where, or how of the end, but we do know how Jesus calls us to live today—to love, serve, forgive, worship, and remain faithful. So go your way. Have hope. Don’t let anxiety about the future consume you. The story is bigger than this moment, and ultimately, God wins.
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Well, good morning, friends. It’s good to be with you on this Friday morning. I hope you’re doing great and doing well.
We’ve got a big weekend ahead of us here in Starkville. Sunday is going to be a little different around Historical First. I’m going to be preaching in our modern service, our Connection Service, which means I’ll be down in the CLC, our gym area.
So if you’re in the Starkville area and you’re looking for a more intimate, modern worship experience, we’d love for you to come worship with us in the CLC. I’ll be preaching down there.
And in our traditional service, my good friend Brennan Hallford, who is the associate pastor at Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church in downtown Jackson, will be preaching. Brennan is a great guy and a great friend, and we’re excited to welcome him here to Starkville.
And, of course, it’s football all over the area this weekend. I hope you have some big plans for tonight and tomorrow. And then, on Sunday, I hope wherever you find yourself, you find a place to worship.
We’d be honored if you worshiped with us here at Historical First.
Now, today we’re going to finish Daniel.
And just a little housekeeping: starting Monday, we’re going to move back to the New Testament.
I had somebody text me and say, “Hey, it would be good to walk through 1 and 2 Timothy.” And I thought, you know what? I haven’t done Timothy in a while.
So starting Monday, we’ll walk together through 1 Timothy and then 2 Timothy. And we’ll see how we’re feeling after that. We may even bump on over and do Titus and Philemon.
So I’m leaning toward doing all of the pastoral letters. That’ll be fun. I haven’t studied those in a good while.
But today, we finish Daniel 12.
And Daniel 12 gives us another prophecy, but this one focuses on something really important:
the resurrection.
Let’s read part of it.
Daniel is told that there will be a time of anguish, but that God’s people will be delivered. And then we get this incredible statement:
“Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life…”
And later Daniel is told:
“Go your way and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of the days.”
Now, Daniel gives us some more dates and numbers here. Three and a half years. Twelve hundred ninety days. Thirteen hundred thirty-five days.
And, as I mentioned earlier in Daniel, we can spend a whole lot of time trying to figure out exactly what all of these numbers mean.
My Wesley Study Bible notes point out that these numbers may reflect variations in calendars and ways of counting time. There are different interpretations of them.
And that’s really the point I want to make today.
We’re not supposed to figure out the exact date.
Daniel is told that these words are sealed until the time of the end.
And I think about how much energy Christians have spent trying to figure this stuff out.
My first paying job out of college was at Lifeway, the Baptist bookstore. I started in the stockroom, eventually managed the stockroom for a while, and I loved my time there. I met some great friends, and it was a great experience.
And because I worked there, I got to see a lot of Christian retail.
And this was back in the 1990s, when Christian music was huge and all the bands I loved were everywhere.
And, of course, this was also when the Left Behind books were absolutely everywhere.
Books, movies, all of it.
And you can go back before that. In the 1970s and ’80s there were all kinds of books and movies trying to figure out exactly when the end was going to come.
People have been doing this for a very long time.
And you know what?
The world has always been ending.
Go read 1 Thessalonians. There were people in the early church who were so convinced the Lord was returning immediately that they apparently stopped working.
The church has been trying to figure out the end of the world for two thousand years.
And Daniel says, essentially:
Go your way. Rest. Be faithful. Your reward will come.
I think about the time and energy we spend trying to figure out things we are never going to know when there are things Jesus has actually told us to do.
Things like loving our enemies.
And honestly, it’s a lot harder to love someone who votes differently than you than it is to speculate about when the world is going to end.
It’s a lot harder to love someone who has a completely different perspective than you.
That’s the hard part.
The hard part isn’t trying to piece together all the numbers in Daniel 12.
The hard part is actually living like Jesus.
The hard part is loving people.
The hard part is forgiving people.
The hard part is serving people.
The hard part is being faithful when it’s difficult.
So I think there’s a temptation when we talk about the end of the world to get so caught up in the when, where, how, who, and what that we miss what Scripture is actually trying to tell us.
And what Scripture is trying to tell us is this:
This life is not the end.
There will be a resurrection.
And that is the bigger truth here.
The resurrection is at the very center of our Christian faith.
Paul says that if Christ has not been raised, then our faith is empty and we are to be pitied.
The resurrection matters.
Jesus was raised from the dead, and his resurrection is the first fruits of our resurrection.
The idea of first fruits in the biblical world was that the first portion of the harvest was offered as a sign and guarantee of the harvest that was still to come.
So Christ’s resurrection points toward our resurrection.
We will be raised.
And we’re not simply talking about becoming disembodied spirits floating around forever.
Our bodies matter.
God created our bodies.
Our bodies are good.
So take care of them. Paul reminds us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.
But this physical life is not the end of the story.
As C. S. Lewis famously put it, we have never met a mere mortal.
Every person you have ever encountered has an eternal future.
Think about that.
Every person you meet today matters eternally.
And I think that’s why understanding life in light of eternity changes the way we live right now.
The stresses, worries, fears, doubts, and anxieties that consume so much of our attention—they are real. I’m not pretending they aren’t.
But they are not ultimate.
They are passing.
They are fading.
Because something better is coming.
And I think that is the ultimate truth we should take away whenever we start talking about the end of the world.
Don’t get consumed by trying to figure out the calendar.
Don’t spend all your energy trying to decode every number.
Don’t live in fear of what tomorrow might bring.
Hold on to what you do know.
God wins.
Death will be defeated.
Sin will be defeated.
Everything that destroys us and separates us from God will ultimately be done away with.
And, as Revelation tells us, God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
That’s what matters.
That’s what matters.
So go your way.
Be faithful.
Serve.
Love.
Forgive.
Worship.
Take care of the people God has put in your life.
And have hope.
Because this life is not the end.
The resurrection is coming.
And ultimately, God wins.
That’s what matters.
Hey, thanks for being with me through our time in Daniel. We’ve made it all the way through.
Have a great weekend. Find a place to worship on Sunday, wherever you are.
And on Monday, we’ll pick up with 1 Timothy.
See you then.
Thanks.