Exploring My Strange Bible - Faithfulness in Exile: Daniel Part 5 - Resurrection Hope

Episode Date: February 26, 2018

This episode is a reflection on Daniel Chapter 12 (the last chapter of Daniel) and how it culminates the dreams and visions that Daniel had in the chapters previous to that. Ultimately, this chapter is really a meditation on the hope of the resurrection and new creation. We even explore the roots of the resurrection and new life throughout the Old Testament.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right. Well, in this episode, we are going to conclude this five-part series of teachings on the book of Daniel. And this is a reflection on the last chapter of Daniel, chapter 12, and how it culminates the dreams and visions that Daniel had in the two chapters previous to that.

So it's kind of a way of summarizing and bringing the book to its culmination. and bringing the book to its culmination. Ultimately, it's a meditation on the hope of the resurrection and new creation, which is the hope held out for God's people at the end of the book of Daniel. So we'll explore all of the roots of those ideas of resurrection and new life throughout the Old Testament and bring it all together. So there you go. That's Daniel, this meditation on hope for the future that motivates faithfulness in the present.

At the end of this teaching, I talk about how the teaching series that's going to follow from it is a series of teachings on the resurrection theme in the New Testament. And that's true. When I was a pastor at Door of Hope and we were moving through Daniel, we did a whole series on the resurrection life after that. On the podcast, this podcast, that series has already been released. It's a five-part series of episodes earlier that we did called Resurrection as a Way of Life. So you can find those teachings there if you haven't listened to those. They really flow nicely from the book of Daniel. But there you go. That's all set up. Let's dive into the end of the book of Daniel and learn about resurrection hope together.

So we've, for a couple months now, been sitting and story this book among the Hebrew prophets. It's a story you'll recall about four friends, Israelite friends, one especially, Daniel, who the book's named after. And they're taken against their will as prisoners into Babylon when Jerusalem was first captured by Babylon. And the whole book's about this struggle, the struggle of God's people to be faithful to their God, living in a foreign land and living in Babylon in particular, a land that in the Bible has become this archetype, this image of humans unified in rebellion against God and of exalting our own national kingdom identity

up to the heavens and stamping it with divine authority. And God's people, no matter what kingdom they find themselves in, are called in the book of Daniel to resist, to resist the temptation to define our identity by whatever nation or kingdom that we live in, but rather to give our first allegiance to God and to his reign over the world that holds all kingdoms and nations accountable. So Daniel has been put to the test for this faithfulness. We've been watching in these stories where his life's on the line.

He's persecuted. He's made fun of. The dominant culture that he lives in not only doesn't respect him, but is hostile to his beliefs and his way of life. So I trust it's fairly self-evident to you why we would study a book like this and why this is relevant to followers of Jesus through all ages in no matter what kingdom or nation God's people find themselves in. But there is something about being a follower of Jesus in the West and in the United States that's in this paradox, right, of a state of still claiming to be, you know, something to do with Christianity and God and country, but at the same time being fully

post-Christian, at least in its main urban centers. And here we are on one of them on the West Coast. And so what does this look like for God's people to live in Portland and live in the West what does this look like for God's people to live in Portland and live in the West when it's its own mixed up version of Babylon? So what we're going to do today is consider the last kind of section of chapters. You'll see the poster of the Bible Project poster that we've been using as kind of a map to walk our way through the book. The first part of the book was all about Daniel and the friend's faithfulness despite hostility and persecution. But they don't give in. They resist the temptation of Babylon. But then, through the second half of the book that we've been exploring, Daniel starts having these dreams. And the dreams are the focus of the story. And that's kind of this top cascading set of boxes here. And the main vision at the dreams are the focus of the story. And that's kind of this top cascading set of boxes

here. And the main vision at the center of the book is chapter seven, which is hard to forget once you read it because it's just full of monstrous beasts with horns and that eat and devour people. Do you remember that one if you were here? It's kind of hard to get those images out of your head. And that's why those images are there, to arrest you and to make you never forget them. Because Babylon and the kingdoms of the world are depicted as these violent beasts that crush the innocent, that are violent and murderous because they've exalted their nation and empire to the place of God. And so Daniel's big question, of course, is how long are the kingdoms of this world going to do what they do and act like Babylon and kill and murder the innocent and so on?

And the answer that he got wasn't great news for him. He actually thought that he would get to go back to Jerusalem in a wheelchair and that he would go back and that God was going to confront the beast in Babylon and bring it all down. and that God was going to confront the beast in Babylon and bring it all down. And what he discovered, this was last week, in chapter 9, was that the sin of Israel runs much deeper and is seven times worse than he imagined. And that the whole story of Babylon and the violent beasts in the kingdoms of this world, that whole story is going to play out seven times longer than he first imagined.

And so it all sets us up for the last set of visions. And the question, it's the same question we've been asking the whole series, is what hope is there? For Daniel's point of view, he's sitting in Babylon, as violent and oppressive an empire as there's ever been on planet Earth. And what's his hope? Like, why should he get up every morning and still try to be faithful to his God and resist the influence and the pressure of Babylon? Why should we have hope? Like, what hope is it that's going to motivate you and I to resist the call to define our identity by America or by whatever country that God's people find them in

and to give our allegiance first and foremost to King Jesus, which will, by the way, as we've discovered, make us very incredible citizens, the best citizens who seek the peace and the prosperity of Babylon. But all the same, it's precisely because our allegiance isn't to Babylon, it's to the king of all kings. And so what hope do we have? And let's get, I mean, let's get very frank. You know, last Sunday morning, you know, I'm like walking here last Sunday morning, and I'm reading the news about the shooting, you know, at Pulse nightclub last week. And we prayed about that, and some of us, you found out about what happened here first last Sunday. And we've been watching just the horrible tragedy and the ripple effect of that unravel

around the world. And precisely why it's so tragic is because it's not the first thing like this. And by God's grace, it won't happen again, but we should be prepared that it won't be the last thing like this that happens. And so what on earth would inspire Christians to believe that this isn't going to get any better, or that there's any hope for our world? And that's exactly the place that Daniel's at at this point. It's exactly the place that we find ourselves. And it's why these strange ancient visions of the Hebrew prophet still speak to us today. So I invite you to turn to Daniel chapter 10. And we're just going to dive in.

This is actually a really, really long, detailed vision. We're not going to read all of it. We couldn't do it if we wanted to. But I'm going to touch us down at the key points to help us get the big picture here. Daniel chapter 10. So in the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a revelation was given to Daniel. That's his Hebrew name. Remember his Babylonian name spelled out there for you? Tongue twister. Belteshazzar. Belteshazzar.

Its message was true. It concerned a great war or conflict. The understanding of this message came to him in a vision. And at that time, I, Daniel, I mourned, I grieved after the vision for three weeks. So he has this dream, the vision that he's going to go on to describe, and it's so disturbing to him that he can't, as we're going to see, he enters a state of mourning and grief for three weeks, which means I ate no choice food, no meat or no wine touched my lips, and no lotion. No lotions until the three weeks were over. Now, it's kind of universal, these signs of grieving. No food, meat, or wine, but the lotion. Dry skin is a sign of mourning, I guess. I don't know.

I don't use lotion very much, but I know some of you really like your lotions. So anyway, no lotion, clear universal sign of grief and mourning. He's going to describe the beginning of the vision that bothered him so much. It's remarkable. On the 24th day of the first month, I was standing on the bank of the river Tigris. And I looked up and there before me was a man. He was dressed in linen with a really nice belt of gold, gold from Ufaz, you know it? Those belts of gold from Ufaz?

They're nice, they're nice. That's what he had around his waist, and his body was like topaz, his face like lightning, eyes of flaming torches, his arms and legs like gleaming burnished bronze, and his voice was like the sound of a multitude. You encounter such a being, and how do you feel about your life at that moment? I, Daniel, was the only one who saw the vision. Those who were

with me didn't see it, but such terror overwhelmed them that they got out of there and fled and hid away from me, maybe because he was going into convulsions or something. So there I was alone, having this great vision. I had no strength left. My face turned deathly pale. I was helpless, and then I heard him start speaking, and as I listened, I collapsed into deep sleep

with my face to the ground. Holy cow, what an intense experience. I hope this never happens to me. Never, ever, ever. That sounds terrifying. As we've been going through Daniel, it's funny. He's had a number of these visions, and there's a number of characters in the Bible. These are very rare experiences when people have these,

but when they do, they're pretty remarkable. About a month ago, I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and I didn't have my glasses on, which means I'm flying blind. Everything's just shapes, you know, blurry, and especially in the dark, you know. But we have this rocking chair in our room, and the night before, we had done laundry, but, you laundry, but it was late and we didn't want to fold it, so we just heaped it on the rocking chair. And so I get out of bed, and I don't have my glasses on. But it's muscle memory. In the middle of the night, you don't need your glasses.

You've done that trip many times. I can do it with my eyes closed. And so I get up and I go around the bed and I am walking by the rocking chair and I, you guys, the way we had tossed the laundry on the chair across, there's a window right behind it, and it was the perfect outline of a human body. And I, you know, it was like three in the morning and I, you know, so I'm only half with it, you know, and it was like three in the morning, and I, you know, so I'm only half with it, you know. My body did something that it never really does. It was just, it was the fight or flight thing, just took over my body. It wasn't conscious, because I thought there was a man sitting in a rocking chair, and like, I don't remember anything. What I remember is that,

seeing it, and then what I remember is I'm like over on the other side of the room going like this in the middle of the night. Adrenaline, that whole thing. So maybe that's like what he experienced. I don't know. Have you had those experiences before? Where it's like some false alarm of a scare, but your body responded before your mind did. You guys know what I'm talking about? It's freaky. And to think, you know, there's a man in a room, and I just, anyway,

it really doesn't have anything to do with anything, except I resonate with this, and maybe some of you can connect with a similar experience. So what goes on, we won't read it in detail, it's quite long, is his encounter with this being, because he didn't see laundry on his rocking chair. He's actually having this connection with an angelic figure. And so he discovers why the figure's there, and the angelic figure then is going to unfold this vision or insight, this revelation to him. And it begins in chapter 11, verse 2.

So go forward with me to there. So the being speaks to Daniel and says, Now then, I tell you the truth. Three more kings will arise in Persia. Then a fourth who will be far richer than all the others. When he's gained power by his wealth, he will stir up everyone against the kingdom of Greece. Then a mighty king will arise who will rule with great power and do as he pleases. And after he's arisen, his empire will be broken up and parceled out to the four winds of heaven, and it won't go to his descendants,

nor will it have the power he exercised, because his empire will be uprooted and given to others. How you doing? So what you're reading is a description, that statue that Nebuchadnezzar had a dream about that was a symbol of the train of kingdoms that will flow from Daniel's time and then after Babylon and on. That strange vision about the beasts and how the first beast was Babylon and then the beasts are symbols of this train of kingdoms to come after.

Finally, Daniel has a vision that's not about animals. No animals in this one. What this vision reads, it's the same story. Starting with Babylon, and then the empire that came after Babylon in Daniel's lifetime was Persia. And it's this vision. All these visions are really about one thing. They're about the beast of Babylon, right? The violent beast of Babylon that Daniel

had to survive and resist. Babylon's not the end of the story of Daniel's day. Rather, human kingdoms are going to come one after another after another, and they're all basically going to be the same, right? They're going to exalt their own national identity to the authority of the gods. They're going to redefine good and evil, and they're going to succeed by violence and the death of the innocent. And Daniel learns here that Babylon's not the first and not the last. It's the course of human history. And so here we find out, not in symbols, but the names of the kingdoms, right? So after Babylon comes Persia. And then we're told after Persia, there's going to be another kingdom after Persia. What did we read? Greece. Yeah. And we're

told of a particular mighty king who makes the kingdom of Greece huge and powerful. Who are we talking about here? Okay, let's just stop. So some of you are history nerds, and you love this stuff. And so you're going to love this for a few minutes. Some of you aren't, and you're going to be bored by this for the next few minutes. But just hang in your captive audience at this point. Well, I suppose not. You could leave whenever you want, but I think you'll find this interesting.

Keep an open mind. So Alexander the Great, he's the clear king referenced to, the mighty king who rules with great power. He, within his young lifetime, right, before his mid-30s, came from Macedonia and Greece and did the largest military expedition that the world had ever seen up to that point. And Alexander the Great's kingdom went all the way, you know, from like Greece and that part of southern Europe, and it spread all, all the way. He made it past the Middle East and on down into Egypt and beyond. And so he built this huge empire, all in one big expedition, and then he died of a fever at the end of it. He never actually got to rule this huge piece of territory that he had conquered. And so what we're told is that his

descendants won't rule over it. Rather, it'll get broken up and given to others. So here's the flow of the vision here. These are the beasts that Daniel dreamt about. It starts with Babylon, then Persia, then Greece, and then come a train of what are just called lesser kings. These are the horns of the beast from chapter 7. And these horns, or excuse me, kings here are called two kings in particular. There's this in the vision that goes on from here. There's the king of the south, the king of Egypt, and then the king of the north, which is the king of Syria and, you know, capital city down in Egypt and Cairo and the capital

city up in Syria. And basically what you read in this vision is a description of the history of Middle Eastern military politics after Alexander the Great, on down through the 300s BC, through most of the 200s BC. That's quite detailed. And it's like soap opera-like too, because there's all these like political marriages and so on and sex scandals. It's fascinating actually, right? But it all goes down and the vision all culminates into these events that we know can locate in history quite well with the arising of this figure called the King of the North, this like super bad guy. And here's what the king of the north is going to do. He's depicted as the uber bad guy, super bad guy. Look down at verse 31. This is about this king of the north.

His armed forces will rise up and desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Temple, what city are we talking about? Jerusalem. So there's going to be this king of the north, and he's going to come, and he's going to come attack Jerusalem, take it over, and take over the temple, and stop all the sacrifices, you know, that the priests, Israelite priests, were offering there. And then what's he going to do? Well, then he's going to set up the abomination that causes desolation. With flattery, he'll corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will resist him. So what this is describing, it's a very clear event in history.

It happened in the 160s BC. It was the king of the north. He was a Syrian king named Antiochus. If you're a history nerd, you can go read all about this in the books called First and Second Maccabees, which are ancient Jewish texts from precisely this period. And so Antiochus arose. He took over Jerusalem. He made it illegal to be a practicing Jew in Jerusalem. And anybody that he caught reading the Torah or observing traditional Jewish practices, he would catch them, put them in prison. He set up a big idol to Zeus, his god, right in the temple.

He cleared out the temple and then he rededicated the temple to his god, Zeus, sacrifices to it. And then the most horrifying part of the story that we know about from many historical documents that the vision points to is that Antiochus would bring up one Jewish person a day and force them to bow down to Zeus. And if they didn't, he would do something to mutilate or torture them in public in the temple courtyard until the Jewish people would finally give in. And the horrible stories are told in 1 and 2 Maccabees. That's what's being described here. And what Daniel's seeing here is that his experience under Babylon, right? His experience of the lion's den, his friend's experience of not bowing down to the idol and being thrown into the fiery furnace, his experience was just the beginning of the long history of God's people and the blood of the innocent being shed and trampled on by the beastly kingdoms of this world. And so the fact that the visions, the beasts, all of the visions

and the dreams are strange, I grant it to you, but they have all been pointing forward to this event in history. It happened in the 160s BC. And this king Antiochus was viewed as like the new Babylon. We see in these events here of Antiochus and what the visions are, we see why the book of Daniel is what it is. This Jewish community that underwent intense suffering in their own city in Jerusalem at the hands of this guy, clearly to these people the book of Daniel became a source of hope. The stories of Daniel resisting in Babylon and remaining faithful became the source of

inspiration for the people that underwent this terrible, terrible suffering. Now, here's what's interesting, is that the book of Daniel points to these events, but if you reflect back on what the book of Daniel is doing, if all of the book of Daniel was doing was pointing to these events, after the events were passed, why did anybody keep reading it anymore? Like the visions are fulfilled. But Jewish people kept reading and recognizing this book of scripture because was Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar the first violent empire to rule the world ever? Was it the last? Was Antiochus, who did this to Jewish people in Jerusalem, was he the first violent ruler beast? No, no, was he the last? The Jewish people continued to experience oppression under the empires. And actually it was after Antiochus,

then some Egyptian rulers came again, then some Jewish rulers who actually became really horrible, and then the big bad empire in Jesus' day. Who's that? Who? Rome. And we know that the early Christians read and reflected on the book of Daniel as not just referring to the past,

but as referring to their own day. I don't know if you remember, we read chapter 7 about the beast. And remember how we read the story of Jesus on trial before the high priest. And what did he call himself before the high priest? Do you remember? He called himself the son of man, getting trampled on by the beast. Implication being, who's the beast? Who's the beast now for Jesus? It's the rulers of, it's the Jewish rulers of Jerusalem. He's taken the portrait of the beast

in Babylon and he's applied it to Jerusalem. It's exactly what you see going on in the book of the Revelation, the last book of the Bible, where you have John, the visionary, writing a letter to seven early, I guess I need more coffee, clear, seven, right? To seven churches living in what we call modern day Turkey. They were facing immense persecution by the Roman Empire. But Rome is never mentioned. Rome is never mentioned in the book of Revelation. Instead, if you've ever been brave enough to read the book of Revelation, who's the big bad guy in the book of Revelation? It's a savage beast called Babylon.

Are you with me? Who's become the new Babylon? Rome. And so what the book of Daniel's doing, what Jesus is doing, what Revelation is doing, these beasts, these visions, these big bad kings, Babylon,

these are filling out a pattern of the human condition. And what Daniel's getting a vision into here is that it's really bad for him. And it's going to be really bad for these people living in Jerusalem. But it's just one piece of the tragic human story of human beings individually giving into evil and then getting together corporately and magnifying their evil. And when broken humans get together and gain power, you get a violent beast,

savage beast, that will protect its own but kill everyone else in the name of the beast. That's the vision. And it's an image of the human condition. It's an image of human history. And what Daniel sees is it's not going to stop, it's going to keep going. And so he is deeply disturbed. He stops eating, dry skin, the lotion, but now you know why. He's so disturbed by this vision. He's disturbed because he knows that the world will continue to be a place where things like what happened at Pulse nightclub last week happened. It's the world we live in. And so the question for Daniel is the same question for us, is what hope is there? What hope is there? And at the conclusion, he is given hope. Go to chapter 12 with me. And this is where the vision turns the corner. That king, the king of the north, he's going to face ruin,

just like the beast in the other visions. He's going to face his own doom and destruction. But that in itself is not a whole hope. We're hoping for much more than just the destruction of the bad guys. Something else needs to happen to bring justice and to heal and rescue our world. And that's what the hope Daniel receives right here in Daniel 12. We read, at that time, Michael, it's the name of one of those creatures that he saw that I thought was sitting in my rocking chair. So Michael, the great prince who protects your people, he's going to arise.

And there's going to be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of the nations till then. The train of Babylon's and beastly kingdoms, it's all going to keep going throughout history. We're still living in it ourselves. But it's all going to come to a culminating point and an end. At that time, your people, everyone whose name is found written in the book, will be delivered. So the persecuted ones of God's people, the innocent blood crying from the ground,

God's going to bring down the beast of the human kingdoms, and he's going to vindicate or deliver his people because God's been taking notes of all this. Babylon thinks they have carte blanche to do whatever they want in human history, but actually they're accountable to someone much greater than themselves. So is Nebuchadnezzar, so is Antiochus, and so is every kingdom that's come since then. So God's been taking notes. And then in his notes, he knows those who are his, those who have been trusting patiently, waiting, like Daniel, for the fulfillment of God's promises.

And when this time comes, they are delivered. What does that mean? What does it mean that God's people are delivered at the end? Well, look at the image that's given in verse 2. There are multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth that are going to wake up. that are going to wake up. Some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. So the deliverance that's going to come when the story's all told is the downfall of the beast.

But then those who are sleeping in the dust, God's going to deliver his people. What does that mean? It means those who are asleep in the dust, God's going to deliver his people. What does that mean? It means those who are asleep in the dust are going to wake up. Now, let's recognize the metaphor when it's staring us in the face. This is not referring to people who went out east of the Cascades to the high desert to take a nap on the desert floor. Are you with me?

It's way, way more profound here. So we're talking about people who are asleep in the dust. To a Jewish reader, it's very clear. Very clear signal being fired here because this is echoing the language of page three of your Bible. echoing the language of page 3 of your Bible. When humanity gave in to

the mysterious, dark, evil temptation of that serpent on page 3 of the Bible, something dreadful happened. Humans declare their autonomy, their independence from God. They want to

define good and evil for themselves, apart from God's wisdom and guidance. And the whole thing just unravels. Of evil being unleashed into the world in humans and through humans and closely connected to evil is death. And so God informs the humans on page three of the sad consequences of their rebellion. And here's the key line in Genesis chapter three. Cursed is the ground because of you, humans. Through painful toil, you'll eat food from it all the days of your life. By the sweat of

your brow, you'll eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken. For dust you are, and to dust you return. So the tragic consequence of humans declaring independence from the source of life itself is consigning ourselves to death by our declaration of independence. And so what humans used to experience in this imagery of the garden on pages 1 and 2

is the creation just giving us abundance. It's like a fruit. Fruit orchard is the image of paradise here. Because you just walk around and food drops into your hands. That's the image on pages one and two. But now the humanities rebelled. Our relationship to creation gets fractured. And now we face resistance

and we pour most of our time and energy into trying to get resources and food to survive out of the ground. And that whole process begins our sad return to the what? To the dust. As we're made of dust, we return to the dust. So in the biblical story,

evil in and through humans is closely connected to death and sleeping in the dust. Right? We could take a tour up to the cemetery that's between 20th and Belmont and Stark, up the street here. And we'll look at a whole huge field of people sleeping in the dust. And it's a reminder to us. It's a very visceral experience. When someone you love dies, it's a reminder to us. It's a very visceral experience. When someone you love dies, it's death.

It's physical death, but there's also this rift and fracture of a relationship with someone you love and that you care about. There's a death there, too. And it's this violation of the things that seem so most meaningful to us in life. Love and relationships are the very things that are shattered by death. And so in the biblical story, if God is going to deliver his world from the evil and hell that we've unleashed upon it, ultimately what we're talking about is the defeat of death. If God's going to remove and defeat evil from his world, he's going to overcome the power

of evil and death itself. That's the story, that's the hope of Daniel right here. Do you see that? And there will be some people who wake up to everlasting life. Those who have been trusting in God's promise, those who have humbled themselves and have resisted the seduction of the serpent and of Babylon. But then there are also others who arise to everlasting shame and contempt. In other words, whatever happens at the end, it's not some surprise that you never saw coming. What happens at the end, our destiny,

follows out of the trajectory of a whole life leading up to that point. And if the whole of my life has been a declaration of independence against God and of contempt, then that's precisely the future that I will inherit in whatever life is beyond this point here. And that's the hope that Daniel has. The hope that there will be final justice and the hope for the death of death.

How you guys doing? That's the hope. Now here's what's interesting. Notice there hasn't been anything here about heaven. In terms of your hope is to die and then leave and go away to some other world that's not physical. Do you see that?

It's like not even part of the picture here. If we're talking about people waking up from the dust of death, where are they waking up? They're waking up in a world. And if it's a world where death itself has been removed and undone, it's a world where God's good purposes, the world that he made good and that we've turned bad, is precisely the world that he wants to redeem. And so very closely connected to this is the biblical hope of the Hebrew prophets that when God reverses death itself,

he will remake and rescue and redeem his whole world. I would like to now read from you one of my favorite poems in the entire Hebrew Bible. It's one of the most beautiful, profound descriptions of this hope, but not just for Daniel, but for the whole of creation. Can I read it to you? Thank you. It's from Isaiah 65. And here's how Isaiah puts it when he thinks of the whole universe waking up from the dust of death. He says, look, I will create new heavens and a new earth.

The former things won't be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people. I didn't say this, but I presume this is God speaking in the poem here. So when God thinks of the universe reborn, he describes it as a new heaven and earth. Heaven and earth, sky and land, it's a biblical, just basic vision of the world that we're living in. There's something up there and there's something down here. Heaven and earth. It's everything. And do you even have a category for what it would be like to live in a heaven and earth where

death and evil have been undone? Can you imagine that? Like it's hard for us even to have reference points about what that would even mean to inhabit such a world. And so he just goes for the strongest language you could imagine. It's the way that you and I experience the world compromised by evil and death. He calls it the former things. The universe reborn that God wants to create as he defeats evil and defeats the Babylon and the beast and the serpent, like he just says, basically just think about we're just starting new, a whole new deal. But as he goes on to describe that something new, it's going to sound very similar. There's overlap between the heavens and earth that you and I inhabit right now. So there's something central about Jerusalem, and that has to

do with, sorry, this is a whole other rabbit trail we can't get into, but Jerusalem's where the temple is, which is already where for the Israelites, heaven and earth overlapped, God's space and human space. And so that becomes the center, the temple, out of which the new creation radiates. And the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. It gets better. Next one. Never again will there be in it an infant

who lives but a few days or an old man who doesn't live out his years. You know, this is great. This is clearly a poetic figure of speech, but you'll get what it's trying to communicate here. The one who dies at 100 will be thought of as a mere child. The one who fails to reach 100 will be considered accursed. Now, it's poetry.

Are you with me? It's poetry. Do you get what these poetic images, it's not trying to give you a literal description of like lifespans, right, in the new creation. Do you get what the images are saying? You remember old Sam? He only lived to a hundred, you know. Man, everybody else is living for billions of years, you know. That's the idea here. It's the idea when God's own eternal creative life permeates every molecule of the universe. Our concept of long life now is just blown out of the water by the categories of God's eternal life permeating the world.

But it's a great image here. People will plant, build houses and live in them. They'll plant vineyards and eat their fruit. And some of you are like, yeah, I kind of already do that now, you know. And so, well, then that makes you a minority in the history of the human race because the majority of people who have built houses haven't always been able to dwell in them. And they plant vineyards and then

somebody else eats their fruit because our world is full of Babylons, isn't it? Right, the way human history goes is you build something and then somebody else invades your land and kicks you out and then takes it over. That's human history. No more of that. You build a house, you get to live in it. You plant a vineyard, you get to eat from it. No longer do people plant, build houses, and others live in them, or plant and others eat. Last paragraph. This is my favorite line.

For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people. Have you been to the Redwoods? So will be the days of my people. Have you been to the Redwoods? If you've had the good fortune of going to Jerusalem and go to the Garden of Gethsemane, the traditional spot, there's a Catholic church there now, and you go into this garden and you can look at these half a millennia old olive trees. Do you get it?

So the reference point of the poet here is the oldest thing they can possibly imagine. These ancient, ancient trees. And they say it's like that. A universe in a human community permeated with God's eternal life. You can liken it to one of the ancient trees. That's the image here.

For my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. The wolf and the lamb will feed together. The lion will eat straw like an ox. The whole food chain goes vegan. And you get the, so one thing it's poetry, but you get the image, right? The violence and the death that we see in our world, there's something very disturbing about it. It's a part of the food chain and how it works now. But there's also something about death overall, and especially human death. It seems to violate something about who we are as humans. And whether, I don't care whether you're an atheist or whether you're a religious person,

death really messes with you. There's something about the human psyche that is shattered by the reality of death. And for those who are able to make peace with their death, it's usually, it's been through a long process of struggle. And so imagine a world where creation itself is so permeated with God's created life that the most violent creatures become non-violent. That's the image of the poem here.

And even better, it's not just about the wolf and the lion. You remember that serpent on page 3 of the Bible? What's he eating? He's eating dust. The dust of defeat. So what became the symbol of humanity's tragic fate because of our embrace of evil, dust, sleeping in the dust. The one who's at the source of it all will itself eat dust. So powerful. They'll neither harm nor destroy on all my holy

mountain. How you guys doing? Isn't that a beautiful poem? So this is the hope. The hope of Daniel, the hope of the prophets, of the storyline of the Bible, is not about life after death, about some non-physical place for where you go after you die. It's what one creative New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright, he puts it, it's the hope of life after life after death, which is the hope for a life here. A life in this world, because this is the world that God declared good. And he loves this place. And he loves the humans who keep ruining it. And he will not tolerate what we're doing to each other and to his world. And it's going to come to an end at some point. And that end is just a new beginning. And for those who humble themselves before God

and trust in his promise, what is hope? What is the hope that Daniel has when it seems like Babylon wins the day? And it's this bold hope in the resurrection of the dead. It's this bold hope for renewed creation that Babylon and the beast, the beast that's in us, doesn't get the last word.

That's the hope of the Hebrew Scriptures. Now here's the thing. You can read this in Daniel. You can read this in the prophets. And here's, if I were to try and draw on a picture, the way, and some of you have seen me make this drawing before on a whiteboard, that I don't have anymore. And it's a real problem for me.

So I need to figure out a solution to that. But I will figure it out. But here's the drawing. Here's Daniel. Here's the old creation. It's the world. It's this age. It's where the beast and Babylon and all of that.

And what God's going to do is bring some point where the beast is defeated, where death itself is defeated. And we just read opening up a whole new creation and resurrection life. And as far as you can tell from the Hebrew scriptures, from Daniel, it's just a clean cut between those two. But here's what's interesting, and I suppose you could say this is where our series on the book of Daniel is ending, and this is where our series for the whole rest of the summer is beginning right now, is that you turn the page into the New Testament, and it's all this language, all these ideas being played out, but in a way that surprised everybody. Because Jesus of Nazareth comes on to the scene announcing that the great hope of Daniel has arrived. Let me just read the words

for you in the next slide here. Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. The time's come, he said. The kingdom of God has come near. Here it is. It's the final day. Repent and believe the good news. Jesus said that he was the king, that he was here to confront and defeat evil, and that's precisely what he did.

But what? He didn't do it by going into Rome and kicking out the beast, did he? Did he go slaughter the enemies that represent the beast? No, what he did was he would encounter individuals who had death riddling their skin through disease or the way that death had riddled their bodies through whatever, all kinds of screwed up body parts and sickness.

And he would encounter them, and all of a sudden, the life of the new creation would heal this person. That's how he confronted death and evil. He went up to people who had been written off by the Israelite Jewish communities of his day, and those are precisely the people that he reached out to, right? The prostitutes and tax collectors. And they are definitely those who are going to wake up to shame and contempt when we all wake up from the dust.

And Jesus says, well, what if they were to receive an invitation to become a part of God's family and receive a hand of grace? And then all of a sudden you see these prostitutes and tax collectors and they're coming to life as new kinds of humans because of their interactions with Jesus. And Jesus starts these like feasting celebration communities that are celebrating the life of God's love and God's kingdom. And Jesus says this is the kingdom of God. This is what it looks like when Daniel's hope touches down

and starts to take over the world. And then in the ultimate act of Jesus confronting evil, he goes to Jerusalem, all right, and he ends up in a conflict with the leaders of Jerusalem, all right. He ends up before the Romans. And what he does is he confronts evil and death and in his mind defeats it precisely by letting evil and death defeat him

through the hands of the Jewish leaders and of the Roman leaders. Jesus defeats the beast by letting the beast trample him and destroy him. Why did Jesus do that? Because he had this bold hope, this bold hope that as the embodiment of the God of Israel, he would take the pain and the tragedy and the consequence of the beastly history of humanity and take it all into himself and let it destroy him and take him to the dust because of his confidence in this God's creative love and power to defeat death, to bring about the death of death

and to bring his world into new creation. And so the paradox, what nobody saw coming, and where the New Testament invites us, you and I right here, to see as our hope as we stand in the same place of Daniel, is that something happened on Easter. Like something happened in the empty tomb and in the resurrected Jesus that Christians stubbornly insist change the world.

Even though Rome kept on doing what Rome's doing and there have been oppressive human kingdoms, mixed bag kingdoms all the way up to our own day, Christians stubbornly insist that something happened when Jesus rose from the dead that the new creation started right here in the middle of the old one. And what the New Testament invites us into is this hope that the kingdom of God and that the new creation, it's here, right here.

It started 2,000 years ago with Jesus. But it overlaps with the rumblings and the violence of the old world. And we're in this time of the now of the kingdom, but it is not yet completed. That's the whole vision of the New Testament hope of resurrection and new creation. It's kind of like this. This is my best analogy.

And it's not a very good one, but it's the best I could do at the moment. It's like bedtime at my house. Bedtime. So here, and for the life of fathers and mothers in the room of tiny kids, here you go. Life is a hamster wheel, isn't it? Oh my gosh. It's mind-numbing at some points, but it's also a lot of fun and rich at the same time somehow. But so bedtime. So what happens every day is I get home from work and Jessica's here. Here you go. With our two little cavemen. And so I take them and that's awesome. That's great. Legos, dirt tackling, wrestling, dirt pit in the backyard. Whole deal. It's great. But then our kids go to

bed around 7.30ish every day. And we found that they flourish when we honor that timeline and they become beasts when we don't honor that timeline. But bedtime, I don't just snap my fingers and they're instantly asleep in bed. Oh, no. No, no, no. If we want to get them in bed by 7.30-ish, the train leaves the station at 6 o'clock. And that's because it starts with dinner, and specifically the latter half of dinner, which is always the vegetable battle of like getting the broccoli or cauliflower into them. And then right after dinner, it's bath time. And then that's its whole obstacle. Like they know, like posting, all right, buddy, let's get ready for bed. Let's get into the bath, you guys. But there are so many obstacles to overcome between

us and them asleep in bed. And so they get into the bathtub and they're taking baths together. They're in that phase. It's super fun. Except of the battles for the best bath toys that happen and the tears over that and the water prevention battle of making sure that water stays actually in the tub and not outside of the tub. There's that whole thing. Then after that, there's the drying process, which usually involves chasing them around the house to try so they don't create puddles everywhere they go. Then there's the jammy battle. Is it the shark jammies or the striped jammies or the teddy bear jammies, right? And then actually getting those jammies onto them. Then it's the selection of the bedtime books, right? Which is also, there's like a voting

process and it doesn't usually work very well. But then there's that. Then there's the reading of the bedtime books. Then there's the sleeping inside the bedrooms. And so then, you know, tag team, Jessica and I, we double team it and we go there. But then there's the getting into the bed and all of that process. There's the songs and the prayers. Then there's the, I have too few blankets. I have too many blankets. Where's Rabbit? Where's Lambie? You know, I can't find Ducky anywhere. Where's my water bottle? Then there's that. And then finally, right, they're laying in bed. And then there's the one to two times they come out of the room because they have to go to the bathroom again or whatever. And there you go. 7.30ish comes. But no, it's not over yet because our house is a disaster

because two hurricanes lived in our house all day long. And so then there's the whole process of like re-cleaning the entire house and the mopping because of the throw up that happened here. You know what I'm saying? So we collapse. We collapse on the couch at 8.30. It's been over two hours since we've started bedtime. Are you with me? The end was never in doubt. They will go to bed. That was very, that was certain from the moment I started putting broccoli in their mouth and being like, okay guys, they're getting ready for the bath. That's when bedtime started. But the time lag between the certainty of bedtime and the full reality and completion of bedtime, it's quite a long process.

It requires the utmost of endurance and patience and conflict resolution. Are you with me? So that's my best analogy. I'm not sure it's the best one, but that's it. That's what we're invited into. The hope of Daniel that becomes the reality of Jesus and the kingdom that he brings

is that something changed for the whole world on Easter morning. Something started there. The kingdom of God, eternal life, the new creation, like actually touched down in the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus. And the rebirth of our world depicted in those poems is as certain as Jesus walking out of the tomb, as a little walking, talking bit of new creation. walking, talking bit of new creation. But we're in this, as we've discovered, long, long period of now but not yet. And to follow Jesus and to have hope, to keep the hope of Daniel, it's about keeping hope of living in this in-between period. This is so important because what you hope for shapes what you live for. This is so important that we're hope for shapes what you live for.

This is so important that we're going to take the whole rest of the summer to just sit in this. And we're going to let Daniel kind of set the trajectory. And we're going to explore the majority of what the New Testament has to say about living life as if the new creation really arrived with Jesus. So just a quick, here you go. Here's the rest of the summer. It's going to be a whole series on the life of the resurrection right now. We're going to look at different depictions of the Easter stories in John and Luke. We're going to look at Peter's writings. We're going to look at Paul's writings, at the book of Acts, and finally the end of the book of Revelation. And this is not about pie in the sky.

This is about embracing and expecting to find new creation and hope now, right here in the midst of the old one. All right, you guys, thank you for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible, and I hope this has been a helpful series for you. The book of Daniel is so powerful, holds out such a message of hope and endurance for God's people across the world today. We're going to start a new series with whatever comes next, and you'll find out what that is when it happens. So cheers.

Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.