Nigel Pollock spoke this morning from Daniel 7: knowing the end transforms how we understand the present. God has revealed the end of the story for us: we know how history will wrap up. How does that change the way we live in the present, how we live out the dream.
Daniel has a dream which is recorded for us in Dan 7. Daniel’s dream has parallels to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Dan 2. Both dreams are about successive kingdoms and about God’s Reign. The headlines are that earthly authorities are transitory but God’s Reign, through God’s King, is eternal and unassailable.
In Daniel 1-6 the friends have lived through and won some battles. But what happens when those battles aren’t ‘won’? Daniel 7-12 is not like the first 6 chapters: it is thematically compiled prophecies/dreams/material which helps us understand what Daniel learned through his years in exile; what we also need to learn.
Daniel sees God as the ‘Ancient of Days’ before whom the ‘Son of Man’ comes as an eternal and universal King. The hope is of a Kingdom over all kingdoms – a new Reign under an Eternal Ruler. God will rule and reign. Our hope is not ethereal and unreal: our hope is to live and serve the King for all eternity. A new heavens and a new earth: a new reality under the Real King.
God reveals the end to Daniel. He sees what he won’t live through but must life for. Daniel sees that through the crumbling of earthly kingdoms, through the turmoil of history, God’s appointed servant – The Son of Man – Jesus Himself, will rule and reign as the eternal king. History itself will one day come to an end and at the end we will see what has been in place since the beginning: that God rules eternally as King, Judge, Saviour.
How does Daniel respond? He responds in repentant and hopeful prayer in Chapter 9. In that prayer Daniel makes it clear that the letter to the exiles written by Jeremiah (Jer 29) is what has framed their understanding of God’s action in history. Jer 29 is all too often given as a little encouragement in the face of personal disappointment BUT Jeremiah is writing about BIG encouragement that God is at work over a long period of time. Daniel: 70 years down the line, 70 years of exile living behind him, 70 years of waiting prescribed by God responds in obedience to God’s Word and get’s on his knees: seeking after God as God had commanded 70 years earlier.
How we respond is determined by how we perceive the urgency of what is going on. Daniel’s prayer is repentant because of the sin which has characterised the response of God’s people. Daniel’s appeal is to God’s glory: to God’s purpose, to His holiness, to His honour. The confidence in the prayer arises out of what God has said, in who God is, in how He has revealed Himself.
God honours His Name according to His faithful Word. Prayer is our response to God’s faithfulness – prayer is not a lack of action BUT the correct action in response to God.
In Dan 12 we see that Daniel does not understand it all but God gives him insight into the end. God’s plan is to fashion a people for Himself: a people that God will prepare, purify and preserve. God’s judgement will fall on the wicked, on those who refuse the honour of God. There will be a time delay – but there is great certainty.
The last words, the last instruction to Daniel:
“Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1,335 days. As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.” Dan 12:12-13
WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!
Wait with hope. The more we have invested in this world the harder it is to wait with hope; precisely because the things which we treasure know entangle us in the affairs of today. Those who are most excited about the coming of the end are those who have the least in this world; they are those who have the most hope in Jesus.
Knowing the end transforms how we live – because we are living as those who wait with hope.
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Romans 12:12
Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
Ephesians 5:15-16
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