This morning we will be returning to the book of Daniel for our final time. We will be closing out our study in Daniel this morning by looking at the final chapter of Daniel, chapter 12. As you’re turning there in your Bibles or on the apps on your phone, let me provide some context real briefly before we jump in since it’s been a few weeks since we’ve been in the book of Daniel.

The text that we will be studying today, the final chapter in Daniel, is the final part of the final vision and the longest vision in the book of Daniel. In chapter 10, if you remember, we were introduced to this final prophetic vision. Daniel was the standing on the banks of the great river Tigris in chapter 10, in the third year of King Cyrus. Then he was greeted by a couple of celestial figures along the way. One of who then proceeded to offer Daniel this prophetic vision of events that lie ahead and his future and for the future of the church.

Then when we jumped into Daniel 11, a few weeks back, we heard the content of that prophetic vision. We learned of two kingdoms in particular the Seleucids in the Ptolemies who would follow both Persia and Alexander the Great. These two kingdoms would play a tug-of-war, as it were, with God’s people for the next few centuries. Often making life back in the Land of Promise miserable for the Jews in Judea.

Then one of these kings from the north, Antiochus Epiphanies, would initiate a particularly heinous reign of terror over God’s people for about 15 years or so, until in God’s providence he too would come to an end. Then finally in verse 36 of chapter 11, all the way until the end, we heard of another figure one who would be even more dreadful than Antiochus Epiphanies. The so-called Antichrist who would arise both and Daniel’s future and also in our future at the end of the age to unleashed tears against the church.

When chapter 12 opens, the chapter we are studying this morning, that final time of the Antichrist is still in view. It’s a time of trouble like nothing that’s preceded. It’s a time of great anguish for the church, but also as our texts teaches today, a time that will culminate in resurrection glory.

So, with that brief orientation to our text in mind, hear now the word of the Lord from Daniel 12:1-13, as always, I’ll be reading out of the ESV.
12 “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. 2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. 4 But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”
5 Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, one on this bank of the stream and one on that bank of the stream. 6 And someone said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, “How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?” 7 And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream; he raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven and swore by him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished. 8 I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, “O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?” 9 He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end. 10 Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand. 11 And from the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days. 12 Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days. 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 12:1-13, ESV
This is the word of the Lord.

Ever since the so-called Age of the Enlightenment, around the eighteenth century or so, one of the consistent narratives that’s permeated our thinking in western civilization is that our age is an age of progress. There’s no problem that can’t be solved, no question that is ultimately unanswerable in our world when we set out and apply our rational human faculties for the questions at hand.

At present there may be plenty of problems to be fixed in our world and plenty of questions that at present do not have an answer, but just give it some time, as this constant narrative goes, and the collective muscle of the human mind can fix the currently unfixable and answer the currently unanswerable.

Yet in contrast to this common narrative that we encounter in this world, that independent human autonomy can solve any riddle on the horizon. One of the consistent lessons that we’ve learned throughout our study in Daniel is that God’s people are in fact a wholly dependent people. There are things that we would not know had it not been for the revelation of God. We are subject at every turn to the providence of God. Was it not for the powerful protection of our Lord and God the church would be destroyed by the kingdoms of this world?

Friends, we are a dependent people. People who are dependent on God’s wisdom, dependent on God’s revelation, dependent on God’s power. One of the implications of all of this is that sometimes we have to be content when God, in his wisdom, leaves us with unanswered questions.

This is one of the lessons that Daniel, in fact, has to learn in this passage before us this morning. Ever since the first dream that Daniel was called to interpret back in Daniel chapter 2, I know it’s been a while, so I’ll remind you. It was a dream with this large image that was made up of four metals, and then this large stone came down out of heaven, and shattered that that image, and then the stone expanded the fill the whole earth.

Well ever since that dream the Lord has slowly expanded Daniel’s understanding and expectations for the future of kingdoms and for the future of the Kingdom of God. As each subsequent vision we’ve encountered a Daniel has come and gone, it’s been for Daniel and for us in a sense, like layers of an onion being peeled back one after another after another.

In each vision both he and we are plunging deeper into basically the same ethics of history, and how things are going to unfold for the church. In each vision Daniel sees something more. He sees more about the future conflict, more about the future evil and wickedness that would assault God’s people, more about the spiritual horizon and spiritual forces that are actively at work behind the scenes, and more about God’s works of providence over all of these events and figures that would transpire in the days ahead.

Daniel’s been exposed, we’ve seen, to a great deal and when chapter 10 opened up, all of that left him actually physically and emotionally exhausted. Remember he fainted at the prospect of seeing one more incredible vision being unfolded for him.

On the other hand, all that Daniel has been privy to, all he’s been exposed to, we see in our text this morning that he still has questions. He still has questions about the future. There’s still more that he wants to know, more details he wants to know if they will be revealed to him. Yet there are some matters, in the wisdom of God, that even Daniel will remain in the dark about. As Deuteronomy 29:29 says,
There are secret things that belong to the Lord our God.”Deuteronomy 29:29, ESV
There are things that are not for Daniel, nor are they for us to know. Yes, much as been revealed to Daniel and friends even more has been revealed to us as a new covenant people. Yet there are still some things for Daniel, and by extension some things for us, that we will not know at present.

So how do we move forward when that’s the case? How do we move forward when we, in our pilgrimage, have unanswered questions that can only be answered by God? Our big idea this morning is this While some things are not for us to know, we are called to go our way as a dependent people who are none the less known.”

We made along to know, for instance, the answer to that all-important question of lament; how long, O Lord, how long? We want to know when God is going to step in to make everything in the world right for once. One truth that we have to fall back on is that even though there is much that we don’t know, we do know that we’re dependent on a God who knows us in Christ and that’s enough.

Our three points we are going to unpack are these;
1. The Lord Knows His People
2. The Lord Knows the Times
3. The Lord at Makes Known to Us our Calling
The Lord Knows His People
Bear in mind once again that when chapter 12 opens, Daniel’s angelic convoy is still closing out that prophetic vision that swept through all of chapter 11, remember that really confusing one that we encountered a few weeks back. In particular he’s closing out that part of the prophetic vision that was concerned with the grand finale of history.

We read a lot in the opening verse of our passage about “the time” or “that time” or “a time of trouble”. Really from verse 36 of chapter 11, all the way until a verse 4 of our chapter today, the time that is specifically in view is this time of the end. This is the time of the so-called Anti-Christ, a time after Daniel, a time after Antiochus Epiphanies, a time after Rome, and a time after us. It is a time of terror, a time of unparalleled wickedness, when this dreadful figure, whoever he is, will do his worst against the kingdom of God and her citizens.

Fortunately, we already heard at the end of chapter 11 that this figure whose clothed in the symbolic garb of Antiochus Epiphanies, will in fact come to an end. This Antichrist will not proceed from terror to victory, and that’s good news. The Lord would put an end in an instant to his exploits.

What does this grand finale mean for us, for the church, that’s endured even to the point of death of bloody reign of this figure? Well this is what the opening verses of chapter 12 are concerned with answering. In these opening versus we learn that even though the saints may be subject to the ravages of the kingdoms of this world. Also, that the time of the end is indeed a dreadful time to the church in its earthly constituency. We are dependent upon a God, friends, who knows his people and therefore our plight is not in vain. We have not been abandoned, nor have we been forgotten.

This comes out specifically in three ways in our text. So, first, notice in verse one, that were introduced once again to this figure Michael. Michael is the same angel who back in Daniel chapter 10, when the vision was introduced, was said to have gone into battle against the prince of the kingdom of Persia. In the same context he’s referred to both as the chief princes and then more specifically as your prince.

Now it seems as if Michael has an important role to play in the scriptures as a warrior of sorts for the Kingdom of God. In the New Testament we see the same kind of thing. In the book of Jude for instance, Michael is said to have contended with Satan over the body of Moses at one time. Apparently as Jude looks back to the days of Moses, he tells us of an unseen spiritual face off of sorts where Michael stood guard in a protective posture between Satan and Moses.

Then in Revelation 12 we learn that Michael and his angels war with Satan and his angels in Heaven emerge victorious from that struggle. While there are a couple other references in the New Testament that may elude to Michael, there’s much in all of these references that nonetheless remains somewhat enigmatic. So, we don’t want to speculate far beyond what the text indicates. But Daniel clearly wants us to know as an opening verse here that there is one who in God’s providence stands for the church.

The author of Hebrews tells us Michael, like all of the angels, are ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation, sent out for the sakes of a likes like you and me. At the very least that’s encouragement that in this long and winding road of suffering that we often travel, and in particular what the church will have to navigate in the so-called time of the end, that God’s elect traverse these perilous terrain with great divine assistance. Assistance that may remain unseen, but assistance that is none the less real.

Second, we also learn in our texted that while the church has this great spiritual assistance in our present sojourn and in our future sojourner, we also we learn that we are kept secure in this sojourn. Again, we read in the second half of verse one, “but at that time”, again this is the time of the end, the so-called time of the Antichrist, “your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.”

This is a reference to the so-called Book of Life, that elsewhere in scripture is called the Book of Remembrance, or in Revelation the Lamb’s Book of Life. Where the names of all of God’s elect, those who truly belong to Jesus, are written down and sealed and never forgotten.

Even though records of our individual influences in this world may fade from the memory of generation to generation that proceed us long after we are gone. We learn that in God’s courts, friends we are never forgotten.

Dale Ralph Davis, a commentator I’m indebted upon for my study in Daniel comments on this that while this might be a literary figure, because of course we know God doesn’t actually need a physical book to remember those who are his, it’s certainly not a literary filler. Because we who have been known before the foundation of the world are also kept secure in these Heavenly rolls that cannot be erased. Jesus tells us in Luke’s gospel that above everything else, above anything we might accomplish in this world, even the things we might accomplish in ministry by the help of God’s Spirit for the kingdom of God, we should rejoice primarily in this, mainly that our names are written in Heaven. Friends know that in Christ we are a known people. A people who are held secure by the one who has bought us with a price.

Then finally, these two rich assurances that open up Daniel 12, culminate in a third. Namely, that we who are guarded in Christ by spiritual forces, that at present we cannot see by sight, and we who are forever known by Christ, will one day be like Christ. Not the sense that we will be divine or anything like that, but rather in that we too will be privy to a resurrection life of glory. When Christ appears 1 John 3:2 tells us, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.

Christ’s resurrection, we look back upon is the first fruit of our resurrection. Our resurrection promised is a consequence of his resurrection. Friends, the great comfort in all of our present sufferings and in all of the future sufferings that the church will have to endure, particularly at that time, is this; even though our bodies may waste away through the ravages of a sin and death and the devil, they will one day be raised, and together with all of creation, restored in glory.

The great trajectory of comfort that the church is steaming towards is that of resurrection. When one day our flesh, raised by the power of Christ, will be reunited with our soul and made like Christ’s glorious body. That’s directly out of the Heidelberg Catechism which calls that our great comfort to look forward.

Yet at the same time, for all the good news that we truly have to cling to in these opening verses of Daniel laid out for us, we also hear a somber and dreadful note too. Even the wicked, that is those who have allied themselves with the kingdoms of this world, will experience a resurrection too. Not a resurrection to everlasting life, but rather a resurrection to everlasting shame and contempt. It is what the Book of Revelation calls the second death.

Of course, this is a doctrine that many in our world find abhorrent and objectionable. Even many Christians protest that this doctrine of hell as an everlasting destiny of torment is something that a loving people cannot stomach. Yet as difficult is this doctrine may be for many in our world to accept, and maybe even for some of us, this is a doctrine we must insist upon because the Bible insists upon it and holiness of God demands it.

Instead the primary question all of this should press us to ask both ourselves and one another isn’t whether the Bible teaches something that clearly it teaches, but rather what kingdom are you allied with? Friends are you willing to suffer reproach, humility, and shame for the Kingdom of God because you know, as the author of Hebrews puts it, that you yourselves have a better possession and abiding one? Are you willing to live a life of dependents on the Son of God because you trust his promises are good and true and worth it and that in Christ you are known and loved by the God of the universe, even as we may experience contempt of the world at present.

As John Owen puts it, “No man shall ever Behold the glory of Christ by sight here after if he does not by some measure behold it by faith here in this world.” So what present, what king do you behold? What king do you find a lovely and good and righteous? What kingdom are you serving?
The Lord Knows the Times
That’s the first point, the second is this, know that the Lord also knows the times. The God we serve knows not just us, but also knows the times in which we live. So, notice that when we turn to verse five in our passage, the context slightly shifts a little bit and we’re returning to the original setting of Daniel 10. Daniel he’s back on the banks of the Great River Tigris and as he surveys his surroundings, I would imagine taking in all of the perplexing details that he just heard pronounced throughout Daniel chapter 11, and maybe a little bit speechless too, not quite sure what to say to all of that or what to do.

He’s helped out a little bit by another angel who poses a question that no doubt is on Daniel’s mind too. We read, “How long shall it be until the end of all of these wonders?” How long until these future events of trouble, of resurrection, and of the consummation of God’s kingdom transpire? How long until this pregnant pause of suffering and sin and death is finally at one point rectified? How long does a church have to hold on until resurrection?

To this question that’s asked by why someone, presumably one of the angels who is standing nearby, this man in the linen who we encountered in chapter 10 as well, raises both hands as if taking an oath. Typically, in the Old Testament the taking of an oath would be accompanied by the raising of one hand not two. So, the raising of two hands is significant here.

It’s as if this celestial figure is saying that the answer, he’s about to supply is doubly sure, because he speaks not just for himself but also primarily for God. The answer that he supplies to this question hanging over Daniel mind, and maybe even hanging over ours, one of the primary questions that characterizes biblical laments, mainly how long oh Lord, is it that God’s people would have to wait for a time, times, and half a time.

Well that cleared everything up right? Well not really. So, what in the world is the angel referring to here? What effect does this period of time denote? Like most perplexing things that we encounter in Daniel, you’re going to find actually a lot of different answers proposed to this riddle of time, times, and half a time.

Some tend to see in this reference a limited period of suffering in which the church suffers horribly at the hands of the Antichrist, just before the end. In other words, some restrict this time period, however long it actually is, to a period of time that was covered between verse 36 of chapter 11 and verse 4 of chapter 12. That’s a possible and valid interpretation.

But other seeing this reference not a particular span of time restricted just to the very end, but instead a period of time that covers the entire “inner advent” period of time. That is the period between Christ’s first coming and his second coming, a longer period of time.

It seems to me that this is the best way to understand this reference. Case in point, this in fact how the Book of Revelation understands this enigmatic reference of time, times, and half a time. For instance in Revelation chapter 12 we learn that when Christ ascended on high after he accomplished everything that he accomplished in his incarnation, and Satan subsequently was cast down to Earth from Heaven, the church is pictured in Revelation 12 as both being pursued on Earth by Satan but also nourished and protected by God for a time, time, and half a time. In context it’s a pretty clear reference to the inner-advent period of time, this time between Christ’s first coming and the second coming.

Interestingly in the very same context in Revelation chapter 12, the same block of time, times, and half a time, is also marked as a period of 1,260 days. It’s the same thing, just saying it in a different way. Just as virtually all commentators of Daniel agree that 1,290 days in verse 12 really covers the same span of time as that time, times and half a time in verse 7, well so too in Revelation the 1,260 days covers the same span of time as time, times, and half a time in Revelation. Putting it back together, these are all references it seems to this inner advent period of time, this time between Christ’s first coming and second coming.

Moreover, just as Daniel of is told in verse seven of our passage that this span of time will all wrap up, we are told when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end. We learned it in Revelation 11, one chapter earlier from the chapter I just reference, that the church bears witness they herald the gospel among the hostile world for what’s called 1,260 days.

When that time comes to an end, the church is martyred by a beast like figure and then the end comes. So, taking all of this together, it seems that these references that Daniel hears, various time references time, times, and half a time, and 1290 days, are all references to the inner-advent period of time.

Daniels looking forward to the time of the end, but little does he know that this time doesn’t come in an instant. It would begin with Christ’s resurrection and it would end and culminate in our resurrection when Christ comes again on the clouds.

While this seems to be what these periods of time denote, there’s also a much more basic point being made in all of this, to which those of you who are a lost saying amen. You see, whatever time period these references ultimately signify on the timeline of redemptive history, we learn in all of this that the times are limited. Three and a half is only half of seven, a biblically recognize universal number for completeness. Even though we may not know how many years these references correspond to, the God who changes times and seasons certainly does.

The reason this first reference is repeated later in terms of 1,290 days, is very simply to communicate that this same period of time, in the words of one commentator, is predetermined by God down to the very day when it all ends. In God’s providence, friends, our Lord has the timing of events down to the day, down to the to the minute, and down to the second.

That’s good news, that we serve a God who controls the times, a God who knows the times, and a God who sovereign over all the times.

Now even though we have much more revelation than Daniel had, and we have a clearer idea, I think, than Daniel about what these periods of time denote, because we have later revelation, we have the Book of Revelation in fact that help us out with this. Though like Daniel we still don’t know the answer to this all-important question, how long? That question in one sense still evades us all. We don’t know when Christ is ultimately going to come again on the clouds to wrap it all up and make everything right. We don’t know how long the church is going to have to hold on, and how much blood is going to be still in the process.

Again, we do serve a God who certainly knows. A God who is sovereign over every time and season. A God who gives us grace to endure in these times of trouble that he calls us to walk through, who in the fullness of time sent his son to set these last days in motion.

Noticed once again in verse that Daniel is given instructions, after he hears all of these perplexing and alarming portents to, quote “shut up the words and seal this book until the time of the end.” Know at face value that might seem as if Daniel is being commanded here to lock up everything has been prophesied, to hide it away on the shelf, let it collect some dust, because these are secret matters that no one should be permitted to read or engage until the time of the end.

Some have made that point, but I don’t think that’s what this means. In fact, there is good reason to understand these instructions to mean that the words of this prophecy should be preserve, kind of what it means to shut up and to seal. To preserve these words so that they can be read and studied by all. But while people can certainly have access to these words of prophecy and Daniel’s day and beyond and read them and engage them and study them. The content of them really won’t be understood or grasped until many years later.

So yes, keep it, know that it’s authentic prophecy from God, but in Daniel’s day and beyond they’re not really going to be able to understand it until the mystery that Daniel pretends is revealed in the fullness of time at the end of the days. When Jesus accomplished his work and was raised and ascended into the heavenly places, one thing we do know that Daniel’s contemporaries didn’t understand or couldn’t understand, is that now these last days, which are firmly in God’s hand, have been set into motion.

Going back for a moment to the Book of Revelation, and humor me again if you would, near the beginning of that book we see a vision in Revelation 5. Where after accomplishing his work on Earth, Jesus stand in the throne room of God in the Heavenly places. As he approaches the one who is seated on the throne, he’s handed a scroll. In the chapters that follow he breaks the seals that hold the scroll together one by one by one.

Many people say, commentators agree, that he’s enacting the last days. Understand that there still much that we do not understand in this world, about our present suffering, about this time of the end. Yet we do know that Jesus, the same Jesus who gives us resurrection hope as the first fruit of our resurrection, is the same Jesus who with the Father and the Spirit is infallibly in control of the times in which we live.

He’s already, as Revelation attest to and the New Testament attest to, inaugurated these last days and one day he’ll put an end to our present sojourn and bring us home to glory. Until that time, what we do? Well we wait. In the last part of our passage, in verses 9 through 13, we learn how were called to wait in these last days.
The Lord makes Known Our Calling
So, the third point is the Lord makes known our calling. So, Daniel wasn’t given an answer to this question that he really might have been itching for. He is offered something. In verses 9 through 13 he was issued marching orders to heed in the meantime, simply put, go your way go your way. In a view of the kaleidoscope of assurances that Daniel, and by extension the church, have to cling to as this time of the end draws near, the calling is very simply to get on with a life of faithfulness. Don’t worry about when, after all that’s not for you to know.

The words are shut up and sealed and even though there will be one found worthy to break open the seals and enact these last days, which Jesus is already done, Daniels calling and our calling is simply to wait for the promises of God to be fulfilled, and for God and God alone to make all things right. In one sense this might seem for us like an entirely anticlimactic ending to Daniel, in light of everything that we see in Daniel’s life and especially everything we seen it Daniel 7 through 12.

Amidst all of the these terribly frightening forces raging in the Heavenly places, that both Daniel and the church have been privy to see in these visions and in view of the terrible forces that will one day unite together against God and his kingdom, just before the end. Our calling it may seem even perplexing because it’s so ordinary.

It’s a simple calling of faithfulness and dependence on the king who was so bought us and the kingdom to which we presently belong. Sinclair Ferguson put it like this he says, “The biblical response to the promises of God’s coming kingdom is always live for that kingdom now, recognize his reign now, be obedient now, fulfill your present responsibilities now.”

As we prepare to depart from Daniel and to go our way in view of all of these things, may that ethos of faithfulness that Daniel impresses upon us be our ethos as well. Go to work, change diapers, finish your homework, and more importantly come together as a church in as much as we’re able to do in these weird times, to receive the diet of God’s word as a people wholly dependent upon God to be strengthened in whatever seasons lie ahead.
Application
As we prepare to wrap up and go our way, depending on the God who controls times and seasons and who knows us intimately in Christ Jesus, what else should we take away from this text? Well, here are three applications or takeaways.

1. Rest in God’s revelation. In verse four we come across this perplexing statement on the last days where we read, “many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall increase.” It’s not entirely clear what this prophecy points, but there are reasons to believe in view of Amos 8, which is probably was lying in the background to this text, that this is a summary for us of the futile pursuit of knowledge that characteristic of the last days.

In other words, many in these last days will pursue knowledge, they’ll run to and fro to acquire truth. While they may grow in all kinds of knowledge, knowledge that may be beneficial for a variety of purposes and endeavors, their search for meaning and for the substantive answers of life that are only encountered through God’s revelation, will evade them. They will not understand.

However, we, the people of God, are called not to find spiritual insight and spiritual truth by anxiously running to and fro is autonomous people who frantically search under every rock for answers to the big stuff of life. We are called to be a people dependent on God’s revelation. We are called to rest in God’s word and to trust his plan for bringing all things to right.

We may not have every question answered, but when it comes to what we need to know for the life, we will have understanding and the answers that we most desperately need to get on with things.

So that’s the first application, rest in God’s revelation because that’s enough.

2. Don’t expect glory to come from the kingdoms of this world. As enamored, friends, as we might be by the aesthetics of this world, by the various to displays of power that this world presents, by the promises that this world offers, nothing in this world can bring dead things to life. Nothing in this world can raise what’s a perishable to imperishable glory. Nothing in this world can cure the sin sickness that corrupts hearts and minds.

So, while we may enjoy many good things in this world, and I hope we do, don’t imagine that anything could be a panacea or a cure-all to the deepest needs that we have. Nor to give us the glory that only the kingdom of God supplies through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and all who are found in him. That’s the second application, don’t expect glory to come from the kingdom of this world.

3. Know once again that in Christ you are known. We worked through Daniel, we’ve been exposed too much. We’ve seen the spiritual vistas of the last days and we glimpsed ahead to the time of the end, and yet there’s much that we do not know. Much that we simply trust God to work out.

For all that we do know and all that we don’t know, we know that in Christ we are guarded, we are known, and we are preserved for an eternity of fellowship with the God who has known us before the foundation of the world, redeemed us, adopted us to be his own, and who will one day bring us into everlasting glory.

Let’s pray.

All mighty and gracious God, we thank you for your word. We pray that as we encounter it, and especially if we encounter some of these enigmatic things that we don’t quite understand, that we would nonetheless be content to rest in what is abundantly clear. Mainly that you know us, that you know the times and seasons, that you make known to us our call. And that one day you will put an end to all of the suffering and tears that are shed in this fallen world, this life under the sun and you will bring us home. May we rest in those things as we encounter your word as we feed on the revelation that you supply. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.