Through the Bible with Les Feldick
LESSON 2 * PART 2 * BOOK 82
THE LAST MESSAGE TO DANIEL – 2
Daniel 11:32 – 12:13
Okay, once again it’s good to have everybody back. You had your coffee break. We’ll pick right up where we left off in our last thirty minutes, and that’ll be in Daniel chapter 12 and verse 1. For those of you joining us on television, again, how we thank you for your letters. My goodness, the descriptive letters that we get of how you watch the program and how you make the coffee and how the dog gets excited, the canary gets excited—we get all these descriptions of people watching our program. But the main thing is they’re learning, and that’s all we can ask.
We just got back from a long trip, and it is the same every place we go, “I watch you every morning.” Well, when they watch every day, then that tells me they’re interested. If they just watch now and then, ah, they’re just filling in time. So for those of you out there, again, we just appreciate you so much for your prayers, your financial help, and, of course, your letters. Okay, back into Daniel.
Daniel 12:1a
“And at that time (In other words, we’re dealing with this final seven years.) At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince who standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble,…” Now, I’m glad we looked at those two portions back in Jeremiah and Zechariah in the last half hour. How a time of trouble it is indeed going to be for the Nation of Israel. It will be–
Daniel 12:1b
“…such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered,…”
All right, now before we go and see what the Lord Jesus Himself said about it, turn back with me to Psalms chapter 2. While you’re doing that, I’m going to put a makeshift, shortened-up timeline on the board. I’ll put it over here hopefully where you can get it on the camera.
Remember that we’re coming up out of the Old Testament with all of these prophecies concerning all this, and, of course, it led up to His rejection after three years. Then according to all these Old Testament prophecies—see, that’s what I have to constantly remind when I use this timeline. This is the Old Testament timeline. Then Christ would ascend back to Glory according to Psalms 110 verse 1, where it says “come sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” Well, you see, shortly after that, these seven years were supposed to open up divided in half—three-and-a-half and three-and-a-half—and then that would trigger the Second Coming of Christ. Not the Rapture but the Second Coming of Christ.
Now you see, when you look at it in this light, you have to ask the question then, so far as we’re concerned, what’s missing? Well, the Church Age! This calling out of the Gentiles. Well, why? Well, you see, the Church Age was totally unknown to all biblical writers except the Apostle Paul. Now, people don’t like that, and I say it carefully. But it’s a fact. That’s why Paul is always saying “Behold, I show you a mystery.” A secret.
Well, who kept it secret? God did! And you all know Deuteronomy 29:29 by now, “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God, and those things which are revealed belong unto us.” What’s the word revealed mean? Something that’s been kept secret has now been revealed.
All right, so the Church Age is still a secret. All through these Old Testament prophecies you won’t see any sign of it whatsoever. This is the format. Now, have you got Psalms chapter 2? We’ve used it thousands of times, I think, in the last years, but here it is again. Down to verse 4, when mankind, Jew and Gentile, Romans and Israel, have rejected the Messiah—they’ve crucified Him.
Psalms 2:4
“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.” Then verse 5, after they have rejected Him.
Psalms 2:5
“Then shall he speak unto them (That is the human race, but Israel in particular, because they are the most responsible.) then shall he speak unto them in his (What?) wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.”
But, what’s going to follow in verse 6? The King—the King and the Kingdom, that part of Scripture, like I say all the time, most of Christendom knows nothing of. That after Christ has been crucified, rejected, ascended up to Glory, He’s going to wait whatever time He knows it’s going to take until the Tribulation is ended, and He will return and set up His Kingdom.
All right, now then, stop at Daniel chapter 12 once again, because if you’re like me, you’ve already forgotten what we talked about two minutes ago. Daniel 12 verse 1, the last half of the verse.
Daniel 12:1b
“…there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: (That is from 2,000 B.C. when Abraham was called.) and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” In other words, the believing element.
All right, now jump up to Matthew 24 and see how perfectly Daniel agrees with what the Lord Jesus Himself says. Matthew 24 and we’ll start at verse 15. And, again, verses that we use over and over—24:15. And remember, this whole chapter of Matthew 24 is Jesus unveiling the horrors of these final seven years. Starting with verse 5:
Matthew 24:5
“For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” Well, we’re already seeing the beginning of those kinds of deceptions with all the false teaching that is rolling upon the human race.
But all right, jump up to verse 15 to get the parallel, if I may use the word, the parallel with Daniel 12 verse 2. Now the Lord Himself says:
Matthew 24:15-16
“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, (That is the anti-Christ going in and defiling the Temple.) spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) 16. Then let them who be in Judea flee into the mountains:” Because of the coming holocaust. But the part I want you to compare with Daniel is verse 21.
Matthew 24:21
“For then (when we get to these final three-and-a-half years) for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, (That is at zero, or in the first century, A.D, 29, however you want to put it.) no, nor ever shall be.” Looking all the way down the corridors of time to the end, there would be nothing to compare with these final three-and-a-half years.
Now, what makes me have a heart-stop is when I read this and then think of Hitler’s Holocaust. See, that was down the pike 1900 and some years from the time that Jesus spoke this. But even that will pale into insignificance compared to these three-and-a-half years. You and I cannot comprehend it. And yet we can’t diminish it, because it’s what the Book teaches.
All right, now coming back to Daniel chapter 12, it will be a time like there has never been before, except for those who had become believers, or will in God’s own knowledge, His pre-knowledge, foreknowledge. All right, but now verse 2, and we jump into something that Daniel probably deals with more specifically in this last chapter of his prophecy than all the Old Testament put together. Because, see, you don’t have a lot of reference to the resurrection in the Old Testament. Now, there’s enough that we know that they believed it. They understood that there was an afterlife. But to understand resurrections as we can see now in chapter 12 and then jumping into the New Testament, the Jews just didn’t have a handle on it. All right, verse 2:
Daniel 12:2a
“And many of them that sleep in the dust…” In other words, that have died physically. Now maybe I’d better qualify. Why does the Scripture speak of the physical death as sleep?
Now, I’m going to make you aware of some of the cults that speak of soul-sleep. No. We don’t believe in soul-sleep. The soul never sleeps. It never loses its consciousness, because the soul was created after God Himself and God doesn’t sleep. So get those two concepts separate. The soul never dies.
The soul and spirit never sleep, but the body that dies does. It sleeps. Why? Because the day is coming when God’s going to awaken it. So it’s not gone, like a dog’s. It’s, again, that intrinsic created being of God in such a way that He can call it back to life. So, it’s correct to call physical death, sleep, but don’t ever speak of the soul-sleep. Now, did I make my point? Did I make it clear? The soul never dies; the physical body does. And we can call it asleep, because it’s going to be awakened again, see? It’s not final.
Daniel 12:2a
“And many of them who sleep in the dust of the earth, (In other words, they’ve died physically, all the way since Adam. And what’s going to happen to them?) shall awake,…” See, that’s the whole teaching of resurrection. Now, most of the religions of the world—all your Oriental religions and all that—they don’t speak of resurrection. They speak of attaining a higher level of coming back in reincarnation. But to be resurrected? Not a one that I know of has any dealing with that, only our biblical concept. All right, now let’s read on. So, many of them who have died physically will awake.
Daniel 12:2b
“…some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3. And they that shall be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”
All right, now let’s jump all the way up to John’s Gospel and see, in the words of the Lord Jesus Himself, that very same concept. John’s Gospel chapter 5, now this is the beauty of Scripture: the more you study it; the more you compare Scripture with Scripture, the more parallels that you can draw, the more believable it becomes. And the scoffer can scoff all he wants. And you know why he scoffs? They never read it. They never read it. They scoff about something they know nothing of.
You know, I think I shared it on one of the previous programs. I don’t watch much television, but I happened to catch when Bill O’Reilly on FOX was interviewing Ted Turner. And, of course, you all know Ted Turner has CNN. So Bill is kind of jabbing him a little bit, and he said, “Ted, if I understand you correctly – you hate FOX news.” He says, “I sure do.” “How can you hate something that you never watch? Because you never watch FOX do you?” He says, “Never!” “Well, then how do you know what you’re hating?”
Well, you know it’s the same way with Scripture. If they’ve never studied it, how can they hate it? If they’ve never studied it, how can they scornfully scoff at it? It really becomes ridiculous, doesn’t it? But all right, now look what the Lord Jesus says and compare it with what Daniel wrote—that those who are asleep in the dust shall be awakened, some to glory and some to everlasting contempt. Now here’s what Jesus said about it, John’s Gospel chapter 5 verse 28.
John 5:28
“Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, (Well, now that’s 2,000 years ago. But 2,000 years is nothing in God’s eyes. So, it’s still out in front.) for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves (everybody from Adam to the end that has lived as a human being and died) shall hear his voice.” Not all at once. Not in just one resurrection, but over the period of resurrections they’re all going to be brought forth. All right, now here He divides them, verse 29.
John 5:29a
“And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life;…” Now we’ve done this before. When the Scriptures speak of human beings doing good in God’s eyes, what have they done? They’ve believed. I heard it over here. They have been people of faith. From day one it’s faith, and that is the key. Hebrews says “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” All right, so men of faith, whatever dispensation, will come forth in the resurrection of life. But those who went out into eternity without faith are going to come unto what? The condemnation.
John 5:29b
“…and they that have done evil, (no faith) unto the resurrection of condemnation.” So, here you have Daniel and John in his Gospel in perfect accord that the day is coming when every human being will experience resurrection, some to life eternal and some to eternal doom. All right, come back to chapter 12, again, for just a moment. We’re on verse 3.
Daniel 12:3a
“And they that be wise…” Those who had the wherewithal to believe what God said. You know, that’s the smartest thing a person can do, isn’t it? It is to become a child of God. In whatever dispensation, whether it was Adam and Eve or whether it was someone since then, or whether it’s today or whether it’s in life to come, or in time to come, this is the smartest thing that a human being can do.
Daniel 12:3
“And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; (In other words, as they are in God’s presence.) and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.” In other words, there’s our encouragement to be a soul winner.
All right, verse 4, we’ll shift gears here a little bit, and we’ll come back to resurrections later in the chapter. Now verse 4:
Daniel 12:4a
“But thou, O Daniel, (Now remember, how old is he? Oh, he’s about 90. He’s almost pushing 90 or a little over. He’s getting right up there, and he’s never going to get back to the Promised Land in this life.) But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end:…” Now that sounds odd, doesn’t it? But think about it. Was there any need in God’s wisdom to be talking about prophecy 2,000 years ago? Well, of course not.
God knew it wasn’t going to happen. So there was no real need to have an understanding of it. But you see, as I pointed out in, I think, the last taping. When you go back to the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah was prophesying and preaching and proclaiming to the Nation of Israel of his day in 700 B.C. that the enemies were coming, and that if Israel did not turn from their wickedness they would be hearing foreign languages in their midst—in other words, occupying troops. And over and over he’s warning Israel of the coming Babylonian invasion. I think I said it in the last taping. My, it sounds as if it’s going to be in another month or two and they’ll be here. How long was it, remember? Hundred years. It was a hundred years before it happened, but it happened. And that’s why I’m saying the same way here. We may think these things are way out in the future, but it’s going to happen.
All right, but now, so far as understanding end-time prophecy that God in His wisdom knew that from Daniel’s day until these things would actually come to pass would be 2,700 years. Well, it was really no need for it. So, how did God program it? Well, I’m still going to stick to that hundred years, and we’ve been doing it in our seminars from time-to-time. I have a series of three or four nights’ lessons, “The Signs of the Times.” When the Lord said in Matthew—you can discern the red sunset and know it’s going to be fair tomorrow, but you can’t understand biblical signs. Well, we have the same thing today.
Now God has opened these prophetic books, and since about 1860-1865 there’s been an increase in the knowledge of prophecy things. But it wasn’t necessary until then. So, most of Christendom knew absolutely nothing of end-time events. Now, they did for the first few years after the Temple was destroyed. But it faded off and these things were moot. But now just stop and think. How many of the things that we see are indicating that we’re coming down to the end? And now we’re, I like to do it this way, like a snow ball rolling down hill.
So when I do this, that’s what’s in my mind. I just see that old snowball picking up snow as it’s going along. All right, the further down it goes, the faster it goes and the bigger it grows. This is what we’ve got with the end-time scenario which these people back here and all the way up until about 1860—none of them knew anything whatsoever.
Now, you’ve got to realize that most of your mainline denominations and all of Roman Catholics to this day are not taught anything of end-time. Nothing. All you have to do is just talk to any of these end-time denomination people. Now, I don’t mind naming them, because they will admit it just as fast as I will. You take all the mainline reformation churches—the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Christian Reforms, and the Methodists, the Congregationalists and probably others—go up to any one of them and ask them about the Rapture, ask about the Tribulation. You know how they’ll look at you? Like we old cowmen say, “like a bull at a new gate.” How am I going to handle this? They don’t know a thing about it. Now there are a few that are starting to wake up. But for the most part they know nothing of end-time prophecy, because they are still keeping the Book closed.
All right, go to a Roman Catholic. I don’t care who he or she is and ask them, do you know anything about the Rapture? I had a fellow the other day, had never heard the word. Had never even heard the word, let alone knew what it was. And that’s typical, because they have never considered end-time prophecy. And, of course, primarily because one of the early church fathers, and I put this on a program several months back.
Origen, O-r-i-g-e-n, one of the early church fathers was the first one to promote replacement theology. And of course the reason was, Origen lived after A.D.100, around A.D.135 AD. He, of course, had witnessed the destruction of the Temple, the destruction of Jerusalem. and the dispersion of the Jews. And the Jews were already all around the then-known world. Well, he came to conclusion that God was all through with the Jewish people and that in time they would assimilate and disappear. Now that’s why we call it replacement theology, because the Church was supposedly picking up what Israel dropped.
Well, it was one of the most awful, awful things to come out of the early church fathers. Because this is the reason, now, that all of your mainline Protestant denominations coming out of Roman Catholicism in 1511 never heard it. Never considered it. Until this very day.
All right, but it’s the same way with a lot of other things. God kept the lid on technology. Until when? Again, the late part of the 1800’s, then all of a sudden you have all of your inventions, one after another. The steam engine, the telephone, the telegraph, electricity, of course, and then by the time you get to the turn of the century, you’ve come to the airplane, the automobile. Now you’re downhill. Now technology just starts rolling until we get past World War II, and now up into our own lifetime the advent of the computers.
My, I think I was sharing with one of my classes on the road the other day. Do you know how big a computer was back in 1970? It filled a room. Almost this size. Now they’ve got it in their shirt pocket. Same power. Same ability. And I happened to have a fellow in one of my audiences who had worked with computers in 1970, and he said, “Les, you are exactly right.” He said, “When I first started working in the computer business, it took a room almost as big as this one to do what our little hand-held does now.” Well, just image how technology in the secular world has been unrolling. And in the biblical area? Now we have an understanding, we have resources that, up until the turn of the century, they never had and they never used. So, all these things are just exactly as the Scripture shows. See, we didn’t read the last half of verse 4.
Daniel 12:4b
“…close up the book even to the end: (Then there’s a colon and the last half says–) many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”
Now, I think most people always just think world’s knowledge. No. Biblical knowledge—an understanding of the Scriptures like has never been before. And it’s because God has now opened the understanding that we can discern these things that folks a hundred years ago had no possibility of understanding.
Now, in the two minutes we have left, I’m just going to pursue this a little further. As we are now seeing the signs of the times: this tremendous increase in biblical understanding; biblical outreach, as well as in the secular world of the inventions and the discoveries. Now, I read in a scientific journal about three or four years ago, and we’re seeing evidence of it already. You know what the big push in all of our research laboratories is? To make everything smaller. Smaller. Smaller. Smaller.
That’s why we have now come from a computer that fills a huge room to a little outfit in our shirt pocket. And the same way with all these other things, the cell phone. My goodness, I know the first cell phone Iris and I had was a box that big that set on the floor. But now, here it is so small the kids just hold it and, there again, they’re texting. And I read another article. They’re getting addicted to it. And how in the world can a kid learn anything if all he’s doing is asking his friend, “What are you doing.” And the friend texts back, “Nothing.” Then five minutes later, he texts his friend, “What are you doing?” And he texts back, “Nothing.” But, you see, the brain is sleeping. That’s what worries me. These kids are going to find nothing in all this punching of their cell phone that’s going to prepare them for the future. Oh, well, I’m getting on a soapbox.
But anyway, look at all the things that are snowballing just since 1900. The New Age Movement. Now, you see, the New Age Movement, except as the Ancient religions—but to actually pick up tidbits from the New Age phenomena and put it into a modern scenario was unheard of until about the 1890’s and a gal by the name of Alice Daily. Then after 1900 others picked up her thinking, and it’s also been snowballing. Right now the biggest push in our big churches in the cities is a movement as New Age as you can get, but under the disguise of evangelicalism, and it’s called the Emerging Church. Look out for it. It is as dangerous as anything can be. What they’re really trying to show is that they want to bring all of Christendom back under the umbrella of Roman Catholicism. That’s what it really amounts to. And we’re hearing it in our travels. That especially in these larger churches in the cities these people are coming in with the doctrine of what they call The Emerging Church. And, beloved, it’s as dangerous as anything can be.