Daniel 12:4-7
The Time of the End ~ Part
2
Pray
Intro
√ The time of the end
Chapter 12 concludes the Angel’s message to Daniel regarding his (Daniel’s) desire to know and understand the meaning of the vision that he saw.
“Now I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision refers to many days yet to come.” ~ Dan. 10:14
As such it provides us an overview of what the End Times…
The Tribulation
The Resurrection
The Kingdom Age
…will look like, and the timing of some of the key events in the End Times.
√ Encouragement
You’ll remember that up to this point in the Angel’s message to Daniel has been pretty depressing!
So far all he’s heard about is very long period of time in
which his people, the Jews, and his nation,
…get trashed!
But good news is forthcoming! In chapter 12 Daniel gets the good news that…
His people & his nation will be delivered!
He and those who are faithful to God will be rewarded!
So, Daniel finds comfort and consolation in the promises of God to make all things right at the end of time!
√ This week
The Angel tells Daniel that the End Times will be characterized as a…
Time of Knowledge
Time of Tribulation
Let’s look!
Time of Knowledge (vs. 4)
Dan. 12:4 “But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”
√ Shut and sealed
Verses 1-3 look forward to the time of the End and what will happen to the righteous and the wicked.
Vs. 4 brings us back to the present, Daniel’s time, tells him how to respond to what has been revealed to him of the future.
Very important because the events described to Daniel would come to pass long after his pilgrimage.
It would be very tough for him to go about the Lord’s will for his life in his day…
…after being shown the end of human history!
So, God gives him instructions on how to conduct himself, the Angels tells him to…
“Shut up the words, and seal the book”
To shut up the words implied that the words should be kept safely until the time when they were needed.
To seal the book has the double sense of authenticating (i.e. a signet ring) the message and preserving it (i.e. only opened by the one with the legal authority).
The point is that Daniel had been given information that would be important to those living in the End Times…
…but was of little practical value to Daniel and his contemporaries.
Ex. Directions
If I plan a trip to
…but I’m not going to spend time pouring over them now ~ I’ll do that when the trip is closer.
In the same way, Daniel is to put the information away until the time that it will be useful.
√ Until the end ~ vs. 4
That is, for the generation that would experience the events of the End Times this prophecy would be indispensable!
At that time the book would be unsealed, or understood.
That is, what was a mystery to Daniel in his generation would be fully understood by the righteous living in the last generation.
Ex. Hind sight is 20/20!
People today can look back over history and see how God’s prophetic plan has unfolded.
But to Daniel, and the rest of the Old Testament prophets, it was difficult to comprehend how what they saw or heard would come to pass.
A helpful illustration is to view prophecy as a look over a mountain range…
…the prophet can see the peaks extending to the horizon, but he can’t see the valleys between.
So Daniel could see the main events and persons like peaks extending to the end of time…
…but the valleys, how these things would work out, he was not able to see.
However, those who will be alive in those days will understand because they can read the signs of the times as described by Daniel coming to pass all around them.
Ex. Jesus’ admonition to His generation to read the signs of the times (Matt. 16:1-3)
Ap. Watch and be ready!
While the Lord told Daniel to shut and seal the words of his prophecy and not think about them…
…Jesus told His disciples to be alert and to watch lest they be caught unaware.
Matt. 24:42 Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.
Many believe then that while the Angel’s words to Daniel apply specifically to those who live through the Great Tribulation (the time of the End)…
…there is also the thought that the “End Times” began with Jesus’ return to heaven and will conclude with His Return to Earth.
So, we who are alive today should have a better and more complete understanding of God’s prophetic plan.
Therefore, we ought not to take the Angel’s words as instruction to ignore prophecy as something that cannot be understood…
…rather, we ought to like Daniel, study God’s word with the goal of understanding His plan and our part in it.
√ Time of knowledge
The last part of vs. 4 has caused some confusion…
“many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase”
The Angels is describing a characteristic of the time of the end.
Many take this prediction as being fulfilled in modern travel (run to and fro) and the rapid increase of information “the Information Age” (knowledge shall increase).
Others have understood it to indicate that people in the last days would be searching after knowledge….
…rather than speaking of rapid forms of transportation.
"The idea is that people would run about trying to find answers to important questions, especially in reference to future events." (Wood)
Or,
"The correct sense is that 'many shall search it through and through,' and that as a consequence 'knowledge of the book itself shall be increased.' " (Newell)
I think that the context of the verse, God’s instructions to Daniel to “shut up and seal” the book…
…favors the second interpretation, that is, that people in the End Times would understand what Daniel could not.
√ The End Times
Here’s what we can discern from his vision about the End Times, there is a…
Coming world ruler who utterly opposes God & His people.
Coming world religion, based on the worship of that world ruler and his image ~ the abomination of desolation.
Coming a time of Great Tribulation for
Coming world war were the world ruler is defeated by the Messiah ~ Jesus.
Deliverance for the people of God after the tribulation followed by the resurrection of the righteous unto honor, and the resurrection of the wicked unto judgment.
Awesome! But, I want to know when it’s all going to happen!
Time of Tribulation (vs. 5-7)
Dan. 12:5 Then I, Daniel, looked; and there stood two others, one on this riverbank and the other on that riverbank.
Dan. 12:6 And one said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, “How long shall the fulfillment of these wonders be?”
Dan. 12:7 Then I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever, that it shall be for a time, times, and half a time; and when the power of the holy people has been completely shattered, all these things shall be finished.
√ Time of tribulation
Apparently there were two other Angles with the main Angel (Gabriel?), and one of them asks the question that I want answered…
“How long shall the fulfillment of these wonders be?” ~ vs. 6
To which Gabriel answers…
“…that it shall be for a time, times, and half a time; and when the power of the holy people has been completely shattered, all these things shall be finished.”
English please! We understand a “time, times & half a time” to mean 3 1/2 years by comparing the Angel’s words with the parallel prophecy in Revelation 12.
Rev. 12:6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
That is, 3 1/2 years (360 days ~ per Jewish & Babylonian)
Note the description of the same event of Rev. 12:6 in Rev. 12:14…
Rev. 12:14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.
Additionally this period of 3 1/2 years is mentioned in …
Daniel 7:25 describes it as the period that saints are given into Antichrist’s hands.
Daniel 9:27 describes it as the period between the breaking
of Antichrist’s covenant with
Daniel 12:7 describes it as the duration of "the time
of trouble" for
Revelation 11:2 describes it as the period that the holy city will be tread underfoot by Gentiles.
Revelation 11:3 describes it as the period of ministry for the two witnesses.
Revelation 12:6 and 14 describes it as the period that
Revelation 13:5 describes it as the duration of Antichrist’s authority to rule, persecute and blaspheme.
So, we interpret Gabriel’s words in Daniel 12:7 to mean that the Jewish people, “the holy people”, (the “Woman” of Rev. 12)…
…will flee into the wilderness for a period of 3 1/2 years to escape the Antichrist during the last half of the Tribulation.
Ap. Where will they go?
Many suggest that the Jewish people will find refuge in the
ancient rock city of
…because of this hint in the Old Testament!
NKJV
Micah 2:12 “I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob,
I
will surely gather the remnant of
I will put them together like sheep of the fold,
Like a flock in the midst of their pasture;
They shall make a loud noise because of so many people.
Old KJV
Mic. 2:12 I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men.
“Bozrah” means “sheep fold” and in every other instance where it is used in the Bible it is translated “Bozrah” because it refers to a city…
…the city of the Nabateans named
√ The End
At the end of the 3 1/2 years (last half of the Tribulation), we’re told that the Jewish nation will be wiped out…
“and when the power of the holy people has been completely shattered, all these things shall be finished.” ~ vs. 7
That’s hard to believe in light of the great victories that
Yet, God says that is what will come to pass so it must be true!
Brings up an interesting question, why would God allow His people to suffer defeat at the hands of the Antichrist?
I’d suggest that is the only way that the Jews as a nation will turn to their Messiah!
Speaking of those Last Days God spoke through Zechariah that…
Zech. 12:10 “And I
will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of
It would seem then that the Antichrist and the Tribulation are the tools of discipline that God uses to remove the veil over the eyes of His people that prevents them from seeing Jesus.
Ex. Yom Kippur War
After the 6 Days War in 1967 the people of
The people took the credit and the glory for the victory that God gave them.
But, on October 6, 1973,
…Yom Kippur ~ the Day of Atonement!
In the first 2 days the Arabs rolled over the Israeli army
and looked like they were ready to march into the heart of
“But God…”
The Jewish people cried out to God and He stopped the advance of both the Egyptian and Syrian armies!
By the time the a cease fire was called on October 20th the Syrians had been pushed completely out of the Golan…
…and the Egyptian army had been cut off from
The point is that many of the Jewish people who lived through those two wars recognized that it is only by God’s power that they won.
Yet, they still don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
Perhaps it will take another conflict, a war that they cannot win and in which they are forced to flee from their Promised Land…
…to bring them to call out to Him Whom they have pierced!
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