THE TIME OF THE END

CHAPTER 12 Lecture 13

This final chapter connects intimately with that which has gone before. " At that time," that is, at the time of the rise of the Antichrist and the overthrow of the Assyrian or King of the North, "shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy [Daniel's] people." There is very likely a close connection here with what we have recorded in the twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation. There John sees war in heaven. The dragon and his angels fight to maintain their place in the upper air, where they may have access to the presence of God, that Satan the accuser, or adversary of Zechariah chap. 3, may still resist the Jews, a remnant of whom will have turned to the Lord. But the time having come when God will act openly on their behalf, Michael and his angels are sent to expel the Satanic hosts from the heavens. Defeated above, the devil turns to vent his wrath upon the remnant, the seed of the woman, Israel, who

is seen in the beginning of the chapter, and "from whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came." He and His Church, together represented in the Man-child, having been caught up to God and to His throne, there will no longer be found on earth any rightfully bearing the name of Christians, But the fulness of the Gentiles having come in, the Jews will be grafted back into their own olive tree, and to them will be committed the testimony for the Time of the End. Against this remnant-company all the malice of the devil will be directed. "And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time:" but at that time Daniel's people shall be delivered (not all who were Jews by natural birth, but); everyone that shall be found written in the book." These are they whose names are written in the Book of Life of the slain Lamb, from the foundation of the world; and for them the earthly kingdom has been prepared.

Tested by the proclamation of the everlasting gospel on the one hand, and the placing of the abomination that maketh desolate on the other, there will be a national and religious awakening on the part of those who have so long been sleeping among the dead. The second verse does not, I believe, speak of an actual physical resurrection, but rather of a moral and national one. "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. "It is the same kind of language that is used both in Isaiah 26:12-19, and Ezekiel 37, to describe Israel's national and spiritual revival. For centuries they have been sleeping in the dust of the earth, buried among the Gentiles. Their awakening will have taken place at last: but while for some it will be to everlasting life and blessing in the glorious kingdom of the Son of Man soon to be established, for the apostates it will be to everlasting shame and contempt because of their submission to the Beast and the Antichrist.

Then shall the wise (that is, the teachers among the remnant, the same class who are referred to in the latter part of verse ten) "shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever.'' While these words refer primarily to the faithful of Judah in that day, we also may find encouragement and cheer in them. "He that winneth souls is wise; " or as the Revised Version puts it, " He that is wise winneth souls." May ours be the wisdom that leads us so to walk as to commend the gospel of Christ to all with whom we come in contact, that thus we may be in very deed winners of souls, turning many to righteousness.

Daniel was told to shut up the words and seal the book, even to the Time of the End. This is in marked contrast with the message of the angel to the apostle John, at the close of the book of Revelation. " And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand." The present age or church period is looked at as being but a moment, so to speak, in the ways of God, Messiah having come and been rejected by Israel, the next thing in prophetic order is the Time of the End. If this dispensation be lengthened out a little longer, it is but an evidence of God's long-suffering to sinners, being not willing that any should perish; but that all should turn to Him and live. Throughout the New Testament, the end is always looked upon as having drawn nigh: therefore, through the book of Revelation, the seal is removed, as it were, from the book of Daniel, and the latter prophecy is found to be the key to the former. The fourth verse closes with the statement that "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Could anything more aptly set forth the chief characteristics of these last days? Men seem to have a perfect mania for traveling from place to place; and human inventions of all kinds are pressed into service to accelerate and make comfortable those who thus run to and fro. Coupled with this we. have the ever-widening diffusion of the productions of the press, so that knowledge of all kinds is indeed increased. May we not see in these, things one evidence that we have almost reached the special prophetic period denominated as the "Time of the End'?

From the fifth verse to the end of our chapter we seem to have a kind of an appendix. The writing of the " scripture of truth," which the angel began to unfold in the beginning of chapter eleven, was concluded in the fourth verse. What follows gives additional light as to times and seasons. The awe-inspiring being, described in chapter ten, is still with Daniel; but two other angels appear on the scene also, one standing on each bank of the river. One of these speaks to the man clothed in linen and asks: "How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? " He is evidently referring to the Great Tribulation; and he inquires its actual duration. The answer is given, with great solemnity, that it shall be " for a time, times, and a half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished." This agrees with the times given, in chapter 7:25, during which the Little Horn was to be permitted to speak great things against the Most-High, and to think to change times and laws. At its expiration the judgment was to sit and his dominion be taken away. This is of course the pre-millennial warrior-judgment described in the nineteenth chapter of Revelation. The angel's declaration that "when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be fulfilled," refers undoubtedly to this Little Horn's violent persecution of the remnant, to be followed by the manifestation of Messiah.

Daniel tells us that he heard but understood not. Through, the book of Revelation we need not be perplexed as he was, for God has now unfolded all this, in order that we may more fully enter into His ways. The prophet was told to go his way; " For the words are closed up and sealed till the Time of the End." In that time, "many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand."

Two other time-prophecies complete the book. The Great Tribulation, we know from other passages, commences when the daily sacrifice shall be taken away and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, as foretold in verse 11. This is the verse, and not the thirty-first verse of

chapter eleven, to which our Lord refers in His great prophecy in the 24th chapter of Matthew.

Now we have just seen that the tribulation is to last for a time, times, and a half; equivalent to three and a half years, or twelve hundred and sixty days. But in this eleventh verse we learn that from the beginning of this tribulation, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. The extra thirty days will, doubtless, be devoted to the purging out of the kingdom of all things that offend and do iniquity, though the Lord will appear, on behalf of the remnant and for the destruction of the Beast and Antichrist, at the expiration of the twelve hundred and sixty days. A longer period yet is given in verse twelve: " Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred five and thirty days." Some have suggested that this would carry on the time to the celebration of the first millennial feast of tabernacles, as in the 14th chapter of Zechariah. At any rate it clearly points us on to the full establishment of the kingdom in power and glory.

Till then Daniel is told to go his way, but the promise is given him, " Thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." It is not likely that the prophet lived very much longer, as he would be an aged man at this time, probably past ninety years, and perhaps well on to a century old. Soon he was called from a scene in which he had lived to see many of his own prophecies fulfilled. His life began in the land of Judah. He died an exile, though honored and respected, in the land of the stranger. He held positions of trust and confidence under Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, and possibly Cyrus. He saw the rise and fall of Babylon, the head of gold, and the lion with eagle's wings. He beheld the sudden rise and accession to supreme power of the silver breast and arms, the ferocious bear that raised itself upon one side. During its season of domination, he passed away, to rest, not in unconscious sleep, but in Abraham's bosom: there to wait with all the

faithful till the voice of Michael the archangel shall be heard, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him; for of Old Testament saints, it is written that "they without us shall not be made perfect." Answering the assembling-shout of the Lord in that hour of triumph, Daniel's body shall rise from its unknown grave, in glory and incorruption; and he shall take his place with Him for whose sake he had borne reproach so often in his life of faithful devotion to God; and thus he " shall stand in his lot," in the place appointed him, after all his works have been manifested at the judgment-seat of Christ.

He will behold the rise and destruction of the last Beast, dreadful and terrible, in its ten-horned condition. He will see the once-rejected Stone fall from heaven in judgment upon the feet of the image of " the man of the earth; "he will see the Son of Man coming, as" a Lamb that looked as though it had been offered in sacrifice," to receive from the hands of the Ancient of Days the seven-sealed scroll of the title-deeds to this world. And among that holy number of crowned priests who prostrate themselves at nis feet, none will join more loudly or more understandingly in the song of redemption and glory than the one-time captive who "purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself." When the King of kings rides forth, clothed in a vesture dipped in blood, Daniel will follow in his train, an intelligent witness of all His ways in judgment, concerning which he once heard but understood not. In the kingdom of glory to follow, he who, of old, had stood before kings, will stand in the presence of the Prince of the kings of the earth, in the lot appointed him.

And in that day, all, from the beginning, who have esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of earth, all who have been content to suffer for righteousness' sake, all who have witnessed the good confession, will reign in life with Him who was once upon earth the Arch-sufferer, the most misunderstood of all that noble race " of whom the world was not worthy."

These things are all written in " the Scripture of truth." The day of their fulfilment is at hand. The Judge standeth at the door. Soon the mighty and glorious miracle that will close up this age of grace and introduce the coining hour of trial, will be performed by omnipotent power. I refer to the resurrection of the dead in Christ and the translation of the living saints. Not one will be left behind: for God has ordained that, just as the flood of old could not take place till Noah and all his household were safe in the ark, so, not one seal of the book to be taken by the Lamb can be broken, not a trumpet blown, not a vial of wrath poured out, till all the redeemed of this dispensation, with all the saints of the past, are safely gathered round the Lord in heaven.

Each believer may truthfully use the solemnly precious words of Dr. Bonar, as his own:

"I murmur not that now a stranger

I pass along the smiling earth;

I know the snare, I dread the danger,

I hate the haunts; I shun the mirth.

"My hopes are passing upward, onward,

And with my hopes my heart has gone;

Mine eye is turning: skyward, sunward,

Where glory lightens round yon throne.

"My spirit seeks its dwelling yonder;

And faith foredates the joyful day,

When these old skies shall cease to sunder

The one dear love-linked family.

" To light, unchanging and eternal,

From mists that sadden this bleak waste,

To scenes that smile, forever vernal,

From winter's blackening leaf I haste.

"Earth, what a sorrow lies before thee!

None like it in the shadowy past;

The sharpest throe that ever tore thee.

Even though the briefest and the last.

"I see the fair moon veil her luster,

I see the sackcloth of the sun;

The shrouding of each starry cluster,

The three-fold woe of earth begun.

"I see the shadow of its sunset;

And wrapt in these the Avenger's form;

I see the Armageddon-onset;

But I shall be above the storm.

"There comes the moaning and the sighing,

There comes the hot tear's heavy fall,

The thousand agonies of dying;

But I shall be beyond them all."

The great tribulation cannot begin while the members of Christ's body are still upon the earth; for the Lord says to the Church of this dispensation: " Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth " (Rev. 3:10). This applies to all Christians; for one who does not keep the word of Christ's patience is none of His.

The earthly history of the Church will end when " the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch The angel and the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." Thenceforth we shall be forever with Him.

But upon our departure to heaven the great clock of prophecy will again begin ticking off the times and seasons, and from the people of Israel a remnant will be born again; and, gathered out from the mass, they will become the Lord's witnesses on earth in the Time of the End. A brother beloved I has likened the course of time to a railroad speedway. Sometimes I have been traveling on the railway on an ordinary way, train, with certain local stops to be made according to schedule. But a special has been sent out behind us, and we have been shunted on to a side-track till the special, or the limited express, has gone by. Then the signals direct us to once more get on to the main line and complete our regular course. Israel may be likened to the way-train, running along through the course of the years, according to prophecy. But when Messiah appeared and they knew Him not, but crucified the Lord of glory (at the expiration of the 69 weeks of chapter 9), they were turned off upon the side-track, and they have been waiting there ever since, while the Special of the dispensation of the grace of God, the limited Church-express, has been going by. When it has passed on, and left the main-track clear, God is going to give the signal, and the old Jewish way-train will take to the track again, fulfilling the balance of its schedule according to the seventieth week of the prophecy above referred to, and in fact all the prophecies that have to do with the Time of the End.

Those of us who are saved by God's sovereign grace are on the Church-express, and are to be a heavenly people throughout the Millennium and to all eternity. Israel after the flesh are the earthly people; but they have forfeited all title to blessing through disobedience. Still God is determined to carry out His Word to give them a place of special privilege on the earth; so, He will renew a remnant of them by His Holy Spirit and His word, and will cleanse them from all filthiness and own them as His own once more. They will have their inheritance here upon the earth; but the Church and the Old Testament saints will have theirs in heaven.

So, all these dates the times and the seasons that we have in Daniel and Revelation, have nothing to do with this present period, while the Church-express is going by. They are part of the official schedule for the Jewish way-train, and will direct its movements when the limited Church-train has passed on to glory. There is no time-table issued for the Special. No one can say when it will get by; but I feel very certain that, if you want to get aboard, you will have to do so soon, for everything points to a change of dispensations very shortly. None are aboard that train save those who have been cleansed from their sins by the precious blood of Christ, and sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Are you certain that you are numbered among them? Do you know that you have been born from above and that you are now a possessor of life eternal? You cannot afford to be uncertain in regard to these things. They are too momentous, too solemn and serious for you

to go on from day to day hoping everything will turn, out all right in the end, when, in reality, everything now is all wrong so far as you are concerned, if you are out of Christ, a stranger to the grace of God. What folly to trifle with. matters of such grave importance trembling in the balance!

If unsaved, and yet desirous of becoming a Christian, listen to the message my Lord bids me bring to you. He says: " If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved; for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Let me couple with this a verse in John's first epistle: " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Now observe carefully: In these two Scriptures there are two confessions God is calling upon every soul to make. First: Confess your sins to God. Then: Confess your Saviour to men. Is it not simple? As a poor lost sinner you are invited to come to the God you have sinned against, owning your guilt in His holy presence. When you thus come, He promises full forgiveness based upon the finished work of His beloved Son, who upon the cross bore the very sins you confess and, in your room and stead, endured the judgment due them. Believing tins, resting on the testimony of the unchanging word of God you can turn to your old friends and former companions and say: " I now own the Lord Jesus

Christ as my Saviour, and my Lord! " And He declares: " Whosoever therefore shall confess

Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven." Think of it: Confess Christ here, and He will confess you there. Deny Him here, and He will deny you

there!

Oh hasten to make the two confessions that will give you title to say: " He hath clothed me

with the garments of salvation." Then, when Daniel stands in his lot at the end of the days,

you too will stand in your lot among the redeemed company who will follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. But if you persist in refusing Christ, if you go on denying His name, and die in your sins, you will have to stand in your lot before His judgment throne, to hear

the words of doom: " Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels; I know you not." Awful words, these.' Oh, that they may never be spoken to you!

With this I close these studies in the book of Daniel. We have seen, in these lectures, how wonderfully prophecy has been corroborated by human historical records as to the past. Surely

it has impressed us with this fact, that not one word that God has spoken shall ever fall to the

ground. "He will not call back His words." All that is written will be fulfilled both as to Israel and the Church, as to God's people and the nations, and as to each individual soul, whether saved or lost. " Heaven and earth shall pass away," declared the Lord Jesus, " but My word never! " To keep His word is to live. To refuse it is to die eternally! Let not Satan persuade any that God will be better than His word: He will fulfil it to the letter; though man may think otherwise, and hope for mercy apart from Christ.

" The man may think that all is well,

And every fear be calmed:

He lives. he dies, he-wakes in hull,

Not only doomed, but damned."

To the Christian, the book of Daniel must ever be a precious and soul-stirring record of the love and care of our gracious God, who always watches over His own for blessing, no matter how dark the night, and who has given us the sure word of prophecy as a light shining in the gloom, until the day dawn and the Daystar arise in our hearts.