Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
…and in that time your people will be delivered, the all of a one being found written in the book. 2And many from ones sleeping of ground of dust will awake, some to lives of ages and some to reproaches, to abhorrences of ages. 3And the ones being wise will shine like the shine of the expanse, and ones making righteous the many as the stars forever and ever.
I’ve been studying these verses for some time and just trying prayerfully to let their meaning soak into my soul. The message of these few words is so deep, so profound, it feels like they barely penetrate my stony heart. They ought to be atom bombs! I want them to be, so I keep dragging my feet and lingering over them. In a sense, I still feel they are too far away, that somehow they need to hit me harder. However, I am going to record the thoughts that do strike me. Sometimes, it’s only as I type that the Lord seems to clobber me with the truth I need most to see.
So, here goes. I want to say our Daniel has been a glowing illustration of the words from verse 3: “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” I looked back and saw that I have been working my way through his book off and on for nearly ten years now. I feel it has been my great privilege to drink deeply from Daniel’s wisdom, and he has profoundly led me into levels of righteousness – spiritual growth – far beyond anything I’ve ever known. In my heart, Daniel will always “shine like the brightness of the heavens.” He has certainly been a “bright star” in my sky!
For many years now, I have owned Proverbs 13:20, “He who walks with the wise will be wise,” and I feel walking with my friend Daniel has blessed me exactly in that way. I’ll certainly never be as wise as him, but, following him around has allowed me to at least “eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table!” I’m really going to miss him. I suppose that’s another reason I am kind of dragging my feet – I don’t want the book to end. I still feel I have so much to learn from him. I want to worship God like he did. I want to be brave like he was. I want to love people the way he did. The good news is that all of that is wrapped up in Jesus Himself, so to know Jesus better and learn from Him is to learn what made Daniel who he was. Still, Daniel himself has become a wonderful friend and I’ll always wish I could learn more from him. Maybe he’ll be one of my teachers in heaven. Wouldn’t that be awesome – to be able to learn from him forever!
This isn’t the first reference to “them that are wise.” In 11:33-35, the angel said, “Those who are wise will instruct many, though for a time they will fall by the sword or be burned or captured or plundered. When they fall, they will receive a little help, and many who are not sincere will join them. Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time.” Later in 12:9,10 he says, “Go your way, Daniel, because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end. Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.”
Isn’t it encouraging to know that, here in Daniel’s book, the Lord only sees two kinds of people in the world – the “wise” and the “wicked.” Simply to be a believer is to be counted in God’s eyes as being among the “wise!” In spite of all our (many) short-comings, to have bowed our knees to Jesus and to have embraced His blood-bought redemption makes us “wise” in comparison to the rest of this world – compared to those who blunder on and one day rise to “everlasting shame and contempt,” to spend eternity in a devil’s hell!
It's hard to believe I’ll shine at all. Maybe sort of lightly twinkle once every thousand years or so? However, our wonderful Savior ensures that we will all nevertheless “shine like the heavens.” He is so kind. He began a good work and He will continue it.
As many have noted, chapter 12 is definitely an epilogue of sorts to this angel’s message which Daniel recorded as chapters 10-12. However, I think it also a fitting epilogue to the whole book. What do I mean? This is one of the places where my mind jumbles, but I’ll try to work it out. First of all, as I have tried to emphasize all these years, this is not just a book about prophecy. Daniel has not just taught me about the future. He’s taught me how to live today. This is a book about a believer working at his job and simply living his life. Daniel himself shows us again and again how to live our day-to-day lives in a very, very dark world.
I have learned so much from him about simply living as a believer. The fact is, we all live in a very, very dark world. I have said for years, if us believers don’t live our faith at our jobs, where will we live it? We spend at the absolute most maybe six or eight hours a week at church. We spend forty, fifty, maybe even sixty hours a week at our jobs. At those jobs is where we rub elbows all those hours with the very people who desperately need to see Jesus. As has been said, you and I may be the only Jesus many, many people will ever know.
Daniel’s everyday life, from a fifteen or twenty year old youth to an at least eighty-some year old man, is a model of what even a New Testament believer ought to be. Consider this passage – from that New Testament: Titus 2:9,10: “Teach workers to be subject to their bosses in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.” “…so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.” The old KJV translated it, “…that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.”
Our work lives can (should) actually adorn the Gospel! I sit here as a believer today because of a man who came to work and lived Jesus right in front of my eyes. He never said a word. He just lived Jesus. He adorned the Gospel. He made it attractive to me. I suppose it’s no surprise that here in the latter years of my life, I was also greatly blessed by another man who lived his faith at work – Daniel.
That is all so important. It grieves me to the depths of my heart that the modern American church teaches almost nothing about truly living. My pastor now does occasionally connect his teaching with people’s jobs, however, I can count on one hand that number of times I’ve heard that from any pulpit in some forty-five years. That said, I move on to the second thing I want to observe why I myself see this chapter 12 as an epilogue to Daniel’s book.
These three simple verses reveal to us the engine that made Daniel what he was. Consider again, “…at that time … Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” Like Daniel, we believers live (or should) with one eye on this world and the other on eternity. As important as this world is, what truly makes it important is eternity.
Why should we strive to live and work in a way that “adorns the doctrine of God our Savior in all things”? Because – read those three verses again – this world is but a passing vapor. We and every single person around us will live forever. Rather, I should probably say, some of us will live forever, others will die forever. Forever. Paul draws the two together in that familiar verse, “And whatever you do, do it with all your heart, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Col. 3:23,24).
We live today because of tomorrow. That, in itself, is to be wise, yes? Eternity is what makes life in this world matter. If we are all just a bunch of overgrown amoebas spinning around in a world that exists only by chance, then what is the point of anything? Paul said it two thousand years ago – then we might as well “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” You could be Mother Theresa or Adolf Hitler. What difference does it make – if we live and die and that’s it? However, a wise person would stop and consider: No, I know in my heart that somehow I will live forever. Then the next question is where and why? And how did I get here to begin with? And who’s running this show anyway?
Daniel’s book has answered all of those questions, along with showing us how to live in this world as one of those people who will thereafter live forever. As he has said over and over, “the Most High rules in the nations of men.” All of this and, in a sense, his entire book gets wrapped up in these few simple words: “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”
As Daniel has taught us, who we are and how we live in this world is very important, but here we see clearly that the engine which should drive us is that very wise realization that we all live for eternity.
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