Are We There Yet? Daniel 12:1-3, 5-13 - Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

If you’ve ever traveled with children, you have been asked “Are we there yet?”

I can’t imagine how many times my sister and I asked our dad that question when our family traveled to Florida by car to visit my grandparents.

It took nearly three days, which is like an eternity to children, and probably two eternities to our parents. There’s nothing to do but sit and stare out the window. We would’ve loved to have the handheld devices today’s kids enjoy, because the best we had was the car’s radio. 

Photo by Joseph Corl on Unsplash

 Now that I’m older, I’m asking God “Are we there yet?” In other words, are we close to the end times? For some preachers and authors, the answer is a resounding yes.

The only problem is that every generation has believed the end was near, including those who lived before the birth of Christ.

Take, for example, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego who witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem, saw thousands of their kinsfolk murdered, and had the Promised Land taken away from them. Then, there was what Daniel calls “desolating sacrilege,” which refers to King Antiochus IV Epiphanes, one of the successors to Alexander the Great, defiling the second temple by building an altar to Zeus and outlawing the practice of Judaism. Incidentally, Jesus warned his disciples of another desolating sacrilege, which was the destruction of the third Jerusalem temple by the Roman general Titus in 70 A.D. Surely, it must have felt like the end was near.

Click here to read the Scripture text

During the years leading up to the Reformation, up to fifty percent of the population of Europe died during the Black Death. Recently, there’ve been two world wars, the atomic bomb and the subsequent Cold War, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Covid-19 pandemic, and most recently, the very real prospect of all-out war in the Middle East between Iran and Israel (which is foretold in the Book of Revelation). It sure seems as though biblical prophecies are unfolding right before our eyes. But the very same was true 2,500 years ago. So if not now, then when? Unfortunately, I cannot say.

Even though the angels tell Daniel that their prophecies will be fulfilled in a highly specific number of days, we can’t take these numbers and map out future events.

That being said, the Scriptures’ end time prophecies have a timelessness about them. They create a sense of urgency about the coming of God’s Kingdom that no one can afford to ignore. You don’t have all the time in the world to repent and be turned to God. God’s Kingdom is happening now. Eternity is just around the corner. Time will end. And we can take comfort in that.

The end-time prophecies of Daniel, Revelation, Jesus, and others assure us that chaos and the suffering will end. In the meantime, God will come to you to make you strong, and lead you on the paths of righteousness. Remember Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. These people loved God more than life itself. Even though they lost their homes, their families, and their identities, they did not lose hope. God was closest to them when they were in the fiery furnace and the lions’ den. God made their trials and tribulations into the pathways to salvation.

God gives you faith so that you can see his future kingdom beyond today’s trials. God gives the gifts of prayer, worship, Scripture study, and Christian fellowship to bring what is eternal into your time. These are the ways God strengthens you so that when you are in the fiery furnace or a lions’ den, you can experience God as Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-Nego, and Daniel did. Faith is the miracle that is not dependent on circumstance. Faith is how we taste God’s eternity in time.

Sadly, we still seek career success, material possessions, thrilling experiences, and the envy of our friends and neighbors. All these things are temporary. They are worthless from the standpoint of eternity, and the time you spend on them is wasted, unless you use them for the sake of God’s eternal purposes. God’s future Kingdom arises on the foundation of today’s good works and acts of faith.

For us, the question “what will our witness be?” is far more important to us than trying to pinpoint where we are on the end-times timeline. Daniel’s numbers are not clues that tell us when the end will be, because that is something we cannot know. Whether Jesus will be returning tomorrow or in a thousand years, the fact remains that our time is short. Our lives are temporary. So are our trials and tribulations. But God is not.

And God will act right away to deliver you in your trials, so that you can bear witness to others in their afflictions. Even when you find yourself on the desolate, lonely road of suffering, you can move forward with confidence that your salvation is just beyond the horizon.

For God is here today, and God’s salvation is happening right now. Even if tomorrow brings chaos and suffering beyond our worst nightmares, God will still be God. And God will provide everything we need to be his witnesses if God’s Kingdom is truly what we seek.

“So you, go your way, and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of the days.”