Daniel Chapter 12 Verse 4a

• “But you, Daniel, shut up!” HA! That’s what the Bible says! Right there, you can read it too! After this awesome life. All this revelation and wisdom…prophecy and detailed, specific vision after vision…hey Daniel…shut up! Isn’t that just ridiculous! But this happens every day man! Bible verses being abused or taught completely out of context to the detriment of the students!
• Matthew 7 is the most famous right, “Well doesn’t the Bible say judge not lest ye be judged!?” Of course it does, but finish the verse! “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged…” So cool to keep going, check this out…”And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
• Where in any of that did Jesus say to leave the speck firmly in place man? He didn’t! You are to work with your brother to remove that irritant but you first! THAT’s the entire message behind that verse set…you first! You want her to respect you more, then respect her. You want him to love you more, then love him. You want them to stop being so cruel and hard and bitter…well check it, if you weren’t cruel and hard and bitter yourself then you’d be able to take it man and serve them through it…
• “Oh but that’s not removing their speck!” Um actually Biblically that is a perfect strategy…1 Peter 3:1 says, “Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word (cruel, hard, bitter), they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives.” Precisely how Jesus won us…what drove me to my knees…that although I had done so much against Him, He had given everything for me…
• But I just brought up another powerful example we see in the Bible that is so often used so very wrongly…it’s Ephesians 5. Many men out there cling to Ephesians 5:22…”Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.” But that’s as far as we get in our thinking because that’s as far as we are taught typically. But look at Ephesians 5, not just the spec of Ephesians 5:22…
• It starts out with the direction for all of us to be imitators of Christ. Walking in love…walking as children of the light, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord…in other words, growing. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as a fool but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Be filled with the Spirit…speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord…LOOK, if you’re not willing or can’t or don’t do those things then you have no right to claim the upcoming verse, verse 22…how is it that you can pick and choose man with such ferocious determination?
• But check out the kicker, what comes next, what most men and many teachers miss to their demise…Ephesians 5:20-21, the verses RIGHT before verse 22, “Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ SUBMITTING TO ONE ANOTHER in the fear of the Lord!” 1 Peter 3:1, “Wives, LIKEWISE, be submissive to your own husbands…” Do you hear it? Do you see it? The implication you men…YOU FIRST!!!
• If you don’t walk in that then Daniel 12:4 is for you when your decay comes to light, “shut up!” Man we have got to be careful to search the scriptures properly and to find out the mind of Christ. This mind of, “bow down ‘cause you’re the woman and I’m the man!” That is the very spirit of Anti-Christ! That is what Satan tried to do…what did God do…He humbled Himself!
• Other good ones real quick before we move on…John 14:27. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid…terrible when misapplied…because if you’re chillaxin in sin then you best be terrified! No no sleep well, everything will be ‘ire…NOPE…Psalm 46:1, “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble…” A murderer can claim that verse as he or she is hiding from the police. See what I’m saying? Watch out man that the flesh and this world and the enemy doesn’t teach you to indulge your flesh…

Daniel Chapter 12 Verse 4

• We’re going to see in a minute, in verse 8, that Daniel simply did not understand this huge revelation that started all the way back in Chapter 10. If Daniel didn’t understand then you can expect no one else did either and so that is the meaning of the words or the prophecies of this book being shut up, sealed until the time of the end when folks will run to and fro, (a possible picture of world travel), and knowledge shall increase.
• Now check this out…not only have we broken this book down verse by verse in a very simple way to the point that to us it is certainly NOT shut up and certainly NOT sealed, but also, this bit here about knowledge increasing…our generation is seeing something that no other has…
• We are living in the “Information Age.” 80% of the world’s total knowledge has been brought forth in the last decade and 90% of all the scientists who have ever lived are alive today!!
• Buckminster Fuller (Coolest. Name. Ever.) created the “Knowledge Doubling Curve”; he noticed that until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. By the end of World War II knowledge was doubling every 25 years. Today things are not as simple as different types of knowledge have different rates of growth. For example, nanotechnology knowledge is doubling every two years and clinical knowledge every 18 months. But on average human knowledge is doubling every 13 months.  According to IBM, the build out of the “internet of things” will lead to the doubling of knowledge every 12 hours!!
• Just the sheer volume of knowledge is astounding in today’s world…in 2013 the Internet was estimated to be 5 million terabytes (TB) of which Google had indexed roughly 200 TB or just .004% of its total size. Knowledge hasn’t increased a little so that we can sit here and say, “well maybe this right here is talking about us…” No! Knowledge has exploded!! BUT with all of this increase in knowledge…what’s happening to wisdom? Is that increasing?
• We can launch men and women into space, land on other planets in search of knowledge, only to deny the God who made the universe. In the face of technology capable of delving into the universe's very depths, we use it instead to attempt to gain satisfaction from soulless gadgets. In the face of knowledge that would astound Socrates and Aristotle, we instead use it to perfect brain-dulling drugs, drink, tobacco, and fast food.
• When God asked Solomon what gift God could give him, Solomon did not ask for knowledge. He asked for wisdom. In the face of all the richest blessings of knowledge this humanity has ever possessed, we have forgotten to ask for the key gift: wisdom in how to use it. Knowledge has surely increased. Yet we are not smarter, because we have left God out of the equation.
• Knowledge ain’t the end-all man…Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1:5, “Add to your faith virtue…a pure heart man seeking after the very heart of God…and then add to that virtue, knowledge, yet that’s not the end…to knowledge, self-control, to self-control, perseverance, to perseverance, godliness, to godliness, brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness, love”…agape man! Love. Unconditional love…love that loves NO return…love that gives and refuses to receive back…love like God does man…like Christ loved the church man…THAT is the end-all…not knowledge, knowledge was way behind in Peter’s pack…
• And so as knowledge has increased, what has wisdom become? Foolishness. To walk in the Word and commandments and example of God Himself…to follow Jesus Christ…as knowledge has exponentially exploded…is now foolishness. But, take heart man, God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise…Paul wrote in 1 Corinthains 1. We read that and blame our foolishness on it…but what Paul was really doing was dissing the world…because the word is an idot!
• And so we, you and me, us…we are uniquely qualified in our generation, the generation of the return of Jesus, to stand upon this verse and look up knowing that the return of the Lord is so very near…

Daniel Chapter 12 Verses 5 – 7

• So Daniel is still on the riverbank that we were introduced to all the way back in Chapter 10 and just like we talked about then, there are multiple beings here in this scene. We zero in on the one that is clothed in linen, who was above the waters…and it’s true that these heavenly folks don’t identify themselves but we developed the thought and looked at the details to the point where we arrived at this being a Christophany, an Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ and just one more supporting detail is given here…He’s described as being above the waters…so what does that mean? What’s the picture? He’s walking on the water…pretty neat…(side note - Haters will see you walking on water and say it’s because you can’t swim)
• And one angel says to Him, when? His reply with arms lifted high to heaven…a time, times and half a time…or the second half of the Great Tribulation and then the holy people, the Jews, will be on the very brink of total termination and right before that, all things will be finished…Jesus, Revelation 19, will step on this planet again and put a stop to it all…

Daniel Chapter 12 Verses 8 – 12

• These numbers are a bit confusing although they both get quite close to the three and a half year mark. One is 3.58 and the other is 3.71 (considering the Jewish 360 day year). The first seems to point to the midpoint of the Great Tribulation while the other seems to point to the end of the Great Tribulation however we don’t really know what these numbers mean, Bible scholars are divided…here’s what it says to me. God has stuff planned to the detail level!

Daniel Chapter 12 Verse 13

• Second time we have see the angel say this to Daniel, “Go your way…” In the original language, this is actually not a call to movement physically like, “go away.” It’s a call for Daniel to move on from his questioning…go on and walk it out, just trust in the Lord and rest will come…and that’s our call…the same call Daniel faced, the same call we will see Joshua face and the same call we face tonight…go on and trust Him!