Life in a Broken World
July 17, 2016

Scripture: Daniel 12:4-13

I. God answers the how long question about our broken world.

A. Daniel 12 took place a few years after the Jewish people had been allowed to return home to Jerusalem from Babylon after 70 years in order to rebuild their homes and their temple. The people rejoiced to go home. But it seemed after a few years that nothing had really changed. They still had the same old problems and trials. So the people wondered, “How long before our expectations of real change and healing are realized? How long will we be broken?”

B. Daniel is told to “shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” (vs. 4). The Word of God was sealed not so that the words would be kept a secret but so that the words would be stored safely for future generations of God’s people to read. God’s Word is the place where the wise seek and find God’s truth. But the wicked look for wisdom elsewhere. Amos 8:11-12: “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.”

C. The numbers in Daniel 12:7, 11 and 12 can be confusing for us. How do they help us understand how long we will suffer and how do they help us in our suffering? First, they help us understand that our suffering in this broken world is limited by God’s mercy upon us. God doesn’t give us a complete period of suffering of 7 years. He cuts our suffering short to 3 ½ years. The numbers in Daniel 12 also tell us that the timing of the end of our suffering is known precisely by the Lord. The trials will last for 1,290 days (vs. 11) and not a day longer. The number of 1,335 days in vs. 12 helps us understand our responsibility is to persevere. We need to persevere a little longer than we think we should have to. And we need to trust God.

II. God answers the how question about our broken world.

A. God not only answers how long our suffering will last. He also answers the question, “How will the end come?” The answer God gives is surprising. God says in vs. 7 that the end comes, “when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished.” God’s people are persecuted and go through trials, and as a result of that persecution and of those trials God’s people have their faith in God tested and purified (vs. 10). 1 Peter 1:6-7: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

B. Our hope then lies in what Daniel was told in the last verse of his book in Daniel 12:13: “But go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.” Daniel is told, “Go your way till the end. Live out your life. But don’t live with despair. Live with hope. Persevere in your faith. Why? Because you have an incredible inheritance coming for you (Daniel 12:2-3) in the new heaven and new earth that God will create.”

Application:
Bring your brokenness to Jesus so that He can heal you and fix you.

Sources:
The prophecy of Daniel
Commentaries on Daniel by Iain Duguid and Tremper Longman III