Daniel 12:13 “Rest”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹³And you go to the end and you will rest and you will stand to your lot to the end of the days. 

And so, here we are. Daniel 12:13, the last verse of this wonderful book, the Lord’s last recorded words to our friend Daniel. I have been trying to simply ruminate on these words, to let them sink deeply into my soul. That is in part because I am so loathe to end my study of this book. I’m loathe to end these frequent visits with this man who has taught me so much and who I have come to admire deeply. If I seem to babble on, it might be because I simply don’t want this all to end. 

It’s interesting to me to note that the Lord used this very man Daniel the first time He ever “touched” me. I know I’ve related this before, but, since I’m deliberately procrastinating my conclusion, I’ll relate it again. The very first time I remember the Lord’s “touch,” I couldn’t have been more than 4 years old. My brothers and I were attending a Vacation Bible School in our little bitty town.

I clearly remember a lady had out her flannel graph and was telling us the story of “Daniel in the Lions’ Den.” All I remember is that I liked the little cut-out picture of Daniel and just being told the story. But, what struck me most was the lady herself. There was a kindness and gentleness and love about her that just seemed to glow in my little heart. I know now what it was. It was Jesus. She was a real born-again woman who sincerely loved us, who loved me, and that day, Jesus reached out through her, and through this Daniel, and touched my heart.

As I sit here today, Jesus is that exact same glow in my heart. I like Him. He makes my heart happy. I want to know Him, for Him and this same gentle kindness to be a part of my life. Even as I think of our Daniel, he still lights that same glow, that exact same happy feeling in my heart. I like him. I want to be like him—just like that lady.

Little could I have ever imagined that, near the end of my life, I would spend some ten years studying Daniel’s book, very slowly enjoying every verse, every word, sometimes even every letter! At this point, there is no doubt in my mind that he has been the single greatest influence in my life -- on who I am, on the kind of believer I am, on how I see God Himself -- than any other single person (besides my parents, of course).

Looking at this final verse, it strikes me that (as usual) it is packed with meaning. First, it starts with the Hebrew word “you” – second person singular pronoun. As I have pointed out before, in Hebrew they seldom ever speak pronouns like this. The pronouns get absorbed into their verbs. When they are expressed, it is for emphasis. So when the Lord says to him, “You…,” He is clearly and deliberately speaking to Daniel himself,

This reminds us all that a relationship with God is personal. He is not the Deist’s god who lives out there somewhere and is just sort of everyone’s god in general. No. He is your God. He is my God. He is, at the exact same time, the God who knows and cares for every single living thing in this world. “The Lord is good to all and His tender mercies are over all His works. He opens His hand and satisfies the desires of every living thing.”

As this elderly Daniel stands here beside the river, his God is the God who has known him his whole life, who has walked beside him, helped him, taught him, used him in ministry to others. The two of them know each other well. Daniel is a man whose own eyes have seen angels, talked to them, heard and seen for himself incredible visions of human history right down to the end. He’s been a man who has spent his entire adult life faithfully meeting the Lord in prayer and studying diligently in the Word. He’s asked many questions, right down to verse 8 just above us: “I heard but I did not understand, so I asked, ‘My Lord, what will the outcome of all this be?’”

And what are these final words to this Daniel? “As for you, go [your way] until the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to [receive] your allotted inheritance.” In Hebrew He says simply to Daniel, “Go.” From verse 9 to 13, the Lord does not answer his question, rather just throws in more mysterious prophecies, then tells him, “Go.” If you and I would pause to ponder that single word, we’ll realize this is simply a part of knowing God. Deut. 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this Law.” The plain simple fact is that His thoughts are not our thoughts. “As the heavens are high above the earth, so are His thoughts above our thoughts.”

To know God is to know much. Jesus promised us, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” As I’ve studied the book of Daniel and all his prophecies, it has amazed me what a blessing it is for us believers – to actually know the flow of human history right down to the end of this world we live in. From the Bible, we know much about even our own personal lives, what is right, what is wrong, what we should do and what we shouldn’t. However, there is always much we don’t know!

Part of walking with God for a lifetime is to accept that simple little truth, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God.” I can pray and study and ask and ask and ask, but there will always be things I just don’t understand. As I face those things, what does the Lord tell me? “Go.” I have to give up and just do what I do know.

It was massively helpful to me when I learned that Jesus really did mean it when He said the two Great Commands are to love God and love people, that all of the law and prophets comes down to those simple commands. Paul had learned that and told the Galatians, “All that matters is faith expressing itself through love” (5:6). Where that is massively liberating to me is precisely when I’m confused, when I feel like I really don’t know “what’s up.” I can always come back to reminding myself, no matter how much I don’t know, if I make it my goal, to the best of my ability, today to simply love God and others, then when I lay my head down at night, I can know I succeeded.

Sometimes I feel so confused, I almost don’t know what to do. The Lord says, “Go.” I’m personally stuck right now in this awful murky world, hanging between my entire life of full-time work and this strange, scary, uncertain world called retirement. Part of me so wishes I could just give it all up and stay home. However, work is really all I’ve ever known. I love my job. I love the people I work with. It seems like to me that my engineering is the main place the Lord has used me all down through the years. How can I give that up? What am I giving it up to? I want Him to use me. I want to do all the good I can for other people for as long as I remain here on earth. If I do retire, where am I going?

All those questions frankly terrify me right now. I feel horridly confused and uncertain what to do. So what am I to do today? “Go.” “Love God, love others.” “Whatever you do, wherever you are, whoever you’re with, just make it your goal to love God and others.” I have to believe, as I do that, somehow He will make it all clear. I just don’t get to know “it all” ahead of time. I simply have to “Go.” That is what Daniel was told and that is what the Lord tells you and me. Daniel didn’t get all his questions answered and neither will you and I. That is simply part of serving and knowing this mysterious, infinite God we call Jesus! And note again, Daniel is an old man. He’s been walking with God for something on the order of 90 years! And what does he still have to accept as his answer from the Lord? “Go.”

Note again, though, the Lord’s kindness. For this very elderly man, what else does the Lord tell him? “…You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to [receive] your allotted inheritance.” “You will rest.” You see we are still listening to a very personal relationship. The Lord tells him, “You will rest.” Daniel has heard the Lord’s plans for the human race far into the future. But what about him? The Lord tells him, “You will rest.” He is going to die. The older we get, the more inviting that thought becomes, however, for each of us, it isn’t just “You will die.” The Lord says, “You will rest.”

What an incredible kindness! As it says in Job 18:14, for the human race, death is “the king of terrors.” Hebrews 2:15 describes humans as “those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” As I pause and ponder on the Lord’s words, “You will rest,” I’m struck by the thought that I take this for granted. After some fifty years knowing the Lord, I have come to take it for granted that I don’t fear death! I’ve got to live my entire adult life seeing my own death as actually something good. It isn’t “death;” it’s rest.

Interesting. Rest. Yes, that is exactly what my heart sees. Life is hard. It is very hard. Yet, as a believer, from the very bottom of my soul, I see death as simply a transfer – a transfer from this world of constant stress and worries and frankly unbearable workloads, into a world of perfect beauty and all things good. Of course that’s what I see. That’s what the Bible teaches us. Our souls hang on those words, “They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain…” (Rev. 21:3,4).

In fact, I feel exactly what Paul describes in Phil. 1:22-24, “Yet what shall I choose? I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.” In our minds, like Paul, the only thing “bad” about death is the people we leave behind. I love being a husband and a father and a grandfather. I love all the people I work with. I live to do them all good. Yet death takes all of that from me.

As I sit here typing, if the Lord were to suddenly appear and say, “Okay, Don, you’re done here. Time to come home,” that would be a glorious relief. Yet, my first thought would be, “But, but, but…what about Joan? She needs me. What about my kids and grandkids? I really don’t want them to have to sit through a funeral! What about all my family and friends who might not know the Lord? I was hoping maybe somehow, someway, Jesus could use this confused, bungling idiot to touch them.” Huh. It seems I’m also “torn between the two!”

Just so it’s said, the one thing I’m sure we all still “fear” about death is the pain. We’d all like to just die quietly in our sleep and slip away to meet the Lord, but we’re also aware we could die of cancer or get creamed by a semi. For that, we just have to trust the Lord. He said, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (Ps. 116:15). Who knows? Maybe believers don’t feel pain when they die. Wouldn’t surprise me—even if we’re creamed by a semi!

All of that aside, yes, I take it for granted that I actually see death as “rest.” Where do I get that from? The Bible. Just like Daniel, what the Lord calls me to is not “death,” but rather rest. What an incredible kindness! In my heart of hearts, I need to not take that for granted. It’s just one more thing I can thank our wonderful Lord for. I’m so glad my friend Daniel got to go to his rest. He suffered so much. His whole life he suffered, torn from his family and forced to serve as “head of the warlocks” under the wicked kings of Babylon and Persia! His faithfulness through all of that inspires me. Yet, I’m glad it ended for him and he got to go to his rest.

One last thing to note is the Lord promising Daniel, “…and then at the end of the days you will rise to [receive] your allotted inheritance.” Remember Daniel was a Jew. It was enormously important to them that they had an inheritance in the Promised Land. As a boy, Daniel would have just assumed he was going to marry one of those cute Jewish girls, have a family, and live out their lives on their “allotted inheritance” there in Israel. Yet at probably about 15, he was ripped away from it all and forced to live out his earthly life in the epicenter of evil – Babylon.

We probably utterly fail to realize how painful that was for our Daniel. Yet, what are the Lord’s last recorded words to him? “…and then at the end of the days you will rise to [receive] your allotted inheritance.”

“No, Daniel. You’ve not lost everything. In fact, the very things you wanted most are at this very moment awaiting you in glory!”

So what are we to do? “Go.” Live our lives. Take care of our people. Pray. Do all the good we can for all the people we can for as long as we can. And then what? “You will rest, and you will rise to live out all your wildest dreams…forever.”

Daniel’s life (and death) are recorded for us “upon whom the end of the ages has come” that we might be encouraged to love and worship and serve the same wonderful God, and do it all in the comfort of knowing, no matter what, there is a beautiful future in store for each of us!

Daniel 12:12 “Waiting”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹²Blessed [is] the one waiting and he will arrive at days of one thousand three hundred thirty and five.” 

The NIV translates this “Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1,335 days.” What a delicious little cordial is this verse! It’s one to pop in your mouth and just let it swirl around while it slowly releases its delectable sweetness!

“Blessed is the one…” Perhaps we read those words so often in the Bible, we lose sight of their enormity? They are recorded again and again from cover to cover and, remember, perhaps the most famous sermon of all, the “Sermon on the Mount,” begins with Jesus telling us over and over, “Blessed are the…”

Our God is a God of blessing! Our faith is not about slavish rituals, worshiping a far-away god you’re not sure you can trust. It’s about blessing. It’s no mistake, one of the most basic songs of the Christian faith is “Jesus loves me; this I know…” Jesus loves me. And what’s another one? How about, “Count your many blessings, name them one by one…”

Blessing. Our God is about blessing. Even as I sit here typing, these thoughts just swirl in my head and I find I don’t want to leave them! I’m hearing Steven Tyler singing, “I just wanna hold you close, feel your heart so close to mine; And just stay here in this moment, For all the rest of time…!” Where are the words? How can I say what it means to literally swim in this love-life we call “knowing God?” Sitting here in this glow, enjoying this inexpressible sweetness, nothing else really matters.

David exclaimed, “Because Thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee!” “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”

Blessing. And then…in what do we find all this blessing? “Blessed is the one who waits…” Waits. Waiting. As I’ve been pondering on this little verse, I’ve been thinking a lot about this “waiting” business. “Blessed is the one who waits…” If we back up a second, I think we’d all have to admit, we don’t like waiting. Maybe that is primarily an American problem? We always want everything right now. We pray, “Lord, give me patience,” then add, “And I want it NOW!”

However, with the Lord, as is so often the case, we find ourselves waiting. Someone once said, “Whatever the Lord does, He seems to do it slowly.” There in the Garden, He told Adam and Eve He would send “the seed of the woman” to “crush the head of the serpent.” If the two of them were anything like us, they probably thought their firstborn son would be that Messiah to save their now broken world. Little could they have imagined that some 6,000 years later, we would still be praying, “Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!” We’re still waiting!

How many times have we each prayed urgently for things, only to find ourselves having to remember Jesus told us, “Men ought always to pray, and not give up!” Probably like anyone else readying these words, I have prayers I’ve been praying for 40 years and still waiting for God’s answer. It’s wonderful when we pray for things and see the Lord answer almost immediately. He does do that…just not usually.

But notice – the blessing is in the waiting. “Blessed is the one who waits…” I even like the fact that, in Hebrew, “the one who waits” is an articular Qal participle. You could translate it “the waiting one.” I need to ask myself, am I a “waiting one?” As the Lord watches me and listens to my prayers, does He see a “waiting one,” or does He see an impatient, discontent man who, in truth, will not be happy until he gets what he wants?

Even concerning things I see as urgent, can I simply content myself to express those matters to God, then wait for Him to answer – as the song says, “In His time”? What this verse in Daniel would teach us is that the real blessing is not always having our prayers answered, but rather in the waiting for it! Daniel has been teaching us throughout His book that “the Most High rules in the nations of men.” Even as I sit here typing, it is making perfect sense. If, as we’re waiting, we’re also trusting (and learning to trust), we are in reality finding one of the greatest blessings of all – just to be confident in God and leave it all in His infinitely wise and loving hands. We’re learning to be still.

All of these thoughts even flow right into the rest of the verse. In this specific case, what are we “waiting” for? To reach the end of the “1,335 days.” What on earth is that? We don’t know. So, not only are we waiting for something from the Lord…we don’t even know what we’re waiting for! Now that’s TRUST. And what does that trust mean for us? Back to the start of the verse – blessing. It is the blessing of that wonderful, quiet, joyful confidence that our Father has it all under control. We can just sit in His big, loving lap and watch our world go by. The faith of a child.

Blessing in waiting. Daniel learned it, then wrote it down in hopes you and I might learn it too! God give us hearts to hear.

Daniel 12:11,12 “When They Happen…”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹¹And from the time the regular [sacrifice] is caused to be taken away and [the] abomination of desolating [is] given, [there will be] one thousand two hundred and ninety days. ¹²Blessed [is] the one waiting and he will arrive at days of one thousand three hundred thirty and five.” 

As I approach the end of this wonderful book, my mind is swirling with thoughts I’d like to record. I’m not sure even where to begin – so I think I’ll just do that -- begin.

Cryptic. One of the things which has deeply impressed me from this study through Daniel is how much of Bible prophecy is exactly that: cryptic. Notice above in my “fairly literal” translation, all of the places where I’ve included the [-----] words. Those are places where there simply are no Hebrew words to translate. I’m “adding” those words, attempting to render the sentences at least somewhat intelligible.

Sometimes that is simply Hebrew. It honestly is about like Chinese to our American minds. I’ve said before, to me, Hebrew is like a short-hand language where you “had to be there.” To us, it takes a LOT of “reading between the lines.” It is a picture language which just doesn’t say enough to satisfy our technically precise American English brains.

So that presents a very real problem when we resolve to totally understand prophecies and turn them into our rigid systems and timelines. The very language itself is one of our biggest obstacles. Then there are so many passages like the one before us. Several times we’ve run into the timeline of 3½ years or 42 months or 1,260 days. Now, all of a sudden, we’re told something about 1,290 days and then another reference to 1,335 days. For what?

We’re not told. All we know is that the Lord promises a blessing on those who “wait for and reach” the end of those 1,335 days. We’re not told. Let me say it one more time: We’re not told. I’m belaboring this particular point because, for the last 2,600 years since Daniel, theologians and “scholars” have been proffering their opinions what these “days” are about. If you read what they say, after a while it is almost laughable. Time itself has rendered most of those opinions laughable.

If those “scholars” had simply (humbly) offered their opinions and ideas what it was about, we could easily dismiss what they wrote. The problem is, so many of them wrote (and still do) with an iron-clad certainty. If we read our “scholars” of today, their “iron-clad” assertions often sound quite reasonable and believable. What I believe the Lord has taught me is to try to keep a measure of humility in my own prophetical opinions.

My heart has been deeply blessed to study Daniel’s prophecies and then especially to see how it all plays into the book of Revelation. The two books really are Daniel Volumes I & II! I feel far more aware of the Lord’s plans for the ages. If anything, I’m even more convinced our traditional “Pre-Trib/Pre-Mill” understanding is correct. However, I’m now far more keenly aware how wrong we might be. Once again, our commitment needs to be to those prophetic Scriptures themselves, not to our “neat and tidy” little system with it’s timelines and interpretations.

Daniel 12:11,12 are case in point. We can be absolutely confident of a blessing on those who “wait for and reach” the end of the 1,335 days.” Even in Hebrew, that is very clear. What exactly will happen in those days, the truth is we simply don’t know. We’re not told. Just so it’s said, I like the interpretations of men like Roy Beacham and John Whitcomb. They suggest that, after Jesus returns, ending the Great Tribulation, the world will be such a mess, it will take time to clean it up and get things organized for the Millennial Kingdom and Jesus’ 1,000 year reign. The “1,290” will be some sort of significant 30 days, then the “1,335” will add an additional 45.

Makes perfect sense to me. Seems very reasonable. My “system” says I think they’re right. However, the humility that I hope Daniel has taught me would remind me to hold those opinions and my “system” with open hands. It will all play out exactly the way the Lord intends, not necessarily the way I think. As Jesus said, “I’ve told you these things beforehand, so that, when they happen, then you’ll believe, then you’ll know…”

I’m intrigued by the Lord’s promised blessing on those who “wait,” but I think I’ll turn off my spinning head for this morning and take up those thoughts in another post.