Sealed Till the Time of the End

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Sealed Till the Time of the End

MP4 Video - 1080p (143.1 MB)
MP4 Video - 720p (51.63 MB)
MP3 Audio (1.12 MB)
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How often have you wanted to know the end of the story before understanding the plot?

Transcript

[Darris McNeely] How often have we wanted to understand the end of a story before we’ve really understood the plot, the purpose, and the characters of the story or the book that we are reading? You know, Bible prophecy is like that. We often want to know when Christ is going to return. We want to know what are going to be the sequence of the end time events and all the great details there. And that’s part of the story, but there’s a lot before we get there. There’s a lot to understand in terms of God’s purpose and God’s plan.

I’ve just finished teaching the book of Daniel to a group of students at the Ambassador Bible College. It’s been fascinating to go in depth again through that awesome prophecy of Daniel. Daniel covers the territory from the 6th century B.C. all the way to our day and into the future to the actual coming of Jesus Christ. And in between, Daniel receives visions, understanding of dreams – he has encounters with angelic beings, as he seeks to understand God’s purpose of his day and what was happening in his world and what God was doing, and God gives him this fantastic overview of world history and Bible prophecy.

But Daniel comes down to the end of the book in chapter 12 and verse 4. And for all that God has given to him, he still doesn’t understand it all. He’s still seeking. But God says to Daniel, “Daniel, shut up the words, seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” (Daniel 12:4) The book is sealed. Daniel doesn’t have total understanding of everything that he has seen. We look back from our perspective today, we can fill in a lot of the gaps, but again, we still can’t fill it all in. And yes, knowledge has increased in this modern age and modern world in many, many ways, in terms of the technology, the understanding of mankind, about life, the universe – and yet, when it comes down to the basic elements of the purpose of life, the meaning of life, there’s still a big knowledge gap. And that is what we need to understand. God’s word gives us that knowledge. And God doesn’t give us all of the understanding about the end of the story – what He wants us to do is focus upon the plot, the purpose, the very meaning of our life. And when we do that – and Daniel can offer us even insights into that, as well as certainly the rest of the Bible, then we will be ready to understand and be prepared for that which is to come and the actual events that will wrap up this age, and preparation for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

The apostle Peter in 2 Peter made a comment that as we understand all of these things are going to come to pass, he said, “What manner of persons should we be in all manner of godliness and holy conduct?” (2 Peter 3:11). When we get that right, then we will be prepared for whatever God has in mind as He then opens up the final understanding of all the events leading up to the end of the age and the coming of Jesus Christ.

That’s BT Daily. Join us next time.

Comments

  • jmparkhill
    Interesting in Bullingers Companion Bible. He states the following: "run to and fro: or, apostatize. The Hebrew shut = to rove, turn about, despise. Hence, to do despite (Ezekiel 16:57; Ezekiel 28:24, Ezekiel 28:26). But if we spell sut with (= S), instead of with (= Sh), the meaning is to swerve, turnaside, apostatise, "those who turn aside", or revolters (Psalms 101:3. Hosea 5:2); as in Psalms 40:4 (5), "such as turn aside to lies". So the Oxford Gesenius, p. 962 (these are the only occurrence of sut, unless Daniel 12:4 be another). The dots over the letter making it (Sin = S) and (Shin = Sh), formed no part of the inspired primitive text, but were added by the Massoretic scribes, and with the vowel points were gradually introduced into the Hebrew text. The Septuagint, Swete"s edition, vol. iii, p. 572 (A) reads heos an apomanosin = "till many shall have gone raving mad".
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