How to Face the End of the World

Well, good morning, everybody. My name is René. I'm another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. It's great to see you here this morning. Well, today we're going to do something a little different. We are going to look at how to face the end of the world. The end of the world. That's just fun to say.

And one of the things we're going to do is we're going to look at some end times Bible prophecy. And right now there's about 12 of you. Your heart just leapt because you're going at last. That is my favorite part of the Bible. I watch YouTube videos on this all the time. And others, your heart just sank and you're thinking, oh no, I just can't understand that stuff. It's boring and not relevant. Whatever side you're on as far as end times Bible prophecy is concerned, or if you're in the middle somewhere, and you never think about it, you are really going to find this extremely relevant.

We've been in this series that we call Courage in Chaos. These several chapters, chapters 7 through 12, are filled with prophecies about things that are still future to Daniel. Things that'll happen in the next few centuries and things that'll happen at the very end of time that are still future to us as well. Now, in those days, when you talked about the apocalypse or the end of time, the way you talked about it culturally was filled with metaphor and all kinds of mythological creatures. There's dragons and horned beasts and mystical numbers that have other meanings. In their culture, that is how they talked about the end of the world. It's a whole genre of literature called apocalyptic literature.

So just for fun, I was thinking about this as I was doing sermon prep and kind of got stuck at a dead end when I was writing my sermon. I thought, when the end of the world arrives, how would our media report it? In our culture. Because everybody's got a completely different angle.

Some possibilities. The Wall Street Journal: End of world fuels expectation of dismal job report. Congress out of time to resolve shutdown. These get better. BuzzFeed would do an online poll: It's the end of the world. What's the last Taylor Swift song you're listening to? It's time to go is going to be stuck in my head forever.

People magazine would do a special issue: How the Stars Are Preparing for the End. Nicole and Keith to reunite. Armageddon, Jennifer's final heartbreak. Macy's would have a big ad: Our final one-day sale. Shop now or never. And then finally, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, world slated for redevelopment, local activist planned protest, rail-trail debate expected to continue.

The end of the world, it seems like it is a pop culture fixation right now. Post-apocalyptic shows like The Last of Us, Silo, and Fallout. The New York Times earlier this month, Are We Headed for Apocalypse? This book says it's a one in three chance, and there's always a new rapture prediction. Some of us remember May 21st, 2011. A month ago, there was another rapture alert.

After church the other day, an 11-year-old boy and a 40-something man came up to me, independent of one another. They both said essentially the same words. All this end times talk has gotten me to the point where I'm so scared of what's going to happen next that I can't even sleep. And I thought, those are the two who told me about this. I bet they're not alone. But is that how God wants you to feel about the future? Or does God want you to feel something other than fear? Let's find out.

Grab your message notes. I want to talk about what do you do when the bad news feels relentless? Because even if you never give a thought to the end of the world and the distant future, probably there's so much bad news today that it's overwhelming. I love this cartoon by Will Santino. You know, you've heard the saying, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. He's trying, but sometimes there are just too many lemons. Ever feel like that? You open your news app in the morning, too many lemons.

This is how the prophet Daniel felt. In this series, we've been looking at the book of Daniel. He has made a lot of lemonade out of a lot of lemons that have come his way. His whole life is like a timeline of chaos. Remember, it starts roughly 600 years before Christ. Jerusalem falls. Jewish captivities are dragged to Babylon. Daniel serves six Babylonian kings. Then the Persians conquer Babylon. And then he is thrown to the lions. He survives, but then he gets four future visions that are bewildering.

As I said, the last half of Daniel is filled with real nightmare stuff, multi-headed animals and churning seas producing huge beasts, and the Son of Man and the Ancient of Days into heaven. He foresees the Greek empire rising, and then the last judgment of the whole earth. Daniel is seeing all of this unfold and is completely freaking out. And I have heard several sermons in my decades as a Christian and as a pastor on the details of this vision and what do these prophecies mean and so on. They tend to be very analytical and dry. But when you are actually reading them in the book of Daniel, they're not analytical. They are emotional. And they're all about how Daniel does not like this and doesn't understand it and can't take it. Like after the first vision, he says, I, Daniel, was worried, and the visions that went through my mind frightened me. And then even after an angel explains it, he says, I, Daniel, was very afraid. My face became white from fear, but I kept everything to myself. And then after the next vision, I, Daniel, became very weak and was sick for several days after that vision. Then I got up and went back to work for the king, but I was very upset about the vision and I still didn't understand what it meant.

And so a heavenly messenger is sent to try to explain what it means to him and calm him down. And so I'm going to try to explain it to you right now. Now you can find, as I implied, a lot of different ideas on YouTube or whatever about what all these apocalyptic prophecies in the Bible mean according to people today. But what I am most interested in is how did the Jews and Christians in the time of Jesus in the first century understand these visions, which were centuries old to them already?

And we know they had opinions because they were fascinated by them. These visions of Daniel are mentioned all over their literature. They're mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The famous first century Jewish historian Josephus, who was writing a history of the Jews for the Romans, writes extensively about how the Jewish people back then were obsessed with these prophecies in Daniel and how they understood these prophecies in Daniel and how they formed the cultural, political, and religious imagination of the people in the first century. And this is important because it helps us understand the formation of Christianity.

So let me just do a quick lightning round summary of them. And if you feel overwhelmed with detail and alarmed, that's good because you are feeling what Daniel felt, all right? Because they just come at him like a waterfall. So here it is. The first vision is of four beasts, which represent four empires, understood by people in the time of Jesus to represent Babylon and then Greece, which splits after Alexander the Great and then Rome. And they all fight and they all eventually fail. And then these wars continue until the very end. And then at the very end of time, Daniel 7:13, and there before me was one like a what? Son of man. Say son of man with me. Son of man.

What is the term that Jesus Christ used most frequently to refer to himself? Son of man. If you ever wondered, why does he call himself son of man? He is tying himself back into these prophecies in Daniel; he sees himself as this figure coming with the clouds of heaven. He was given glory, sovereign power, authority. All people's nations and languages worshiped him. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom that will never fail or be destroyed.

So that is the first beast's vision. Very scary. And then Daniel gets more visions that are equally weird. There's a flying goat. And perhaps most frightening of all, there's math. Yes, he has a vision of 70 times seven weeks, which were understood to be symbolic of 490 years. And it's like a countdown clock that starts, the vision says, from the year that the decree will be given to rebuild the temple. And we know historically that happened in 457 BC. From that year to the arrival of Messiah, this vision says will be 490 years, which would place it right around 33 AD, the time of Jesus, which Josephus says is why most of the people in first century kingdom of Israel were expecting a Messiah to show up.

But then the vision says something very strange. It says the Messiah is killed. Daniel 9:26, the Messiah will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing, and a ruler will arise whose armies will destroy the city of Jerusalem and the temple of Jerusalem. And we know historically this happens in 70 AD. But wait a minute. So these visions end with the Messiah killed, Jerusalem destroyed, the temple destroyed again. The end. Now, later, Daniel gets another vision with slightly better news, but Daniel hasn't seen that vision yet. This is the end of the vision. So basically, he says, too many lemons. No more visions. Chapter 10, verse 2, I, Daniel, had been in mourning for three whole weeks. I ate no choice food, no meat or wine touched my lips, and I used no lotions at all. This tells you something about how elite Daniel was. I was so sad I didn't even moisturize. That's how sad I was.

And then a giant glowing messenger from heaven is sent to Daniel to calm him down. This does not have a calming effect. Daniel describes him: his body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude. One person talks, and it sounds like a crowd. So would you be calmed down if this being appeared to you?

Who was this? Some think it was an angel. Interestingly, later in the Bible, in Revelation, the book of Revelation, chapter 1:14, John sees a vision of Jesus and the description is almost exactly the same. So it's clear that the early Christians saw this as a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ to Daniel. So whoever it was, Daniel says, gazing at this great vision, I had no strength left. My face turned deathly pale and I was helpless. I heard the man speak, this multitude, you know, sounding voice. And when I heard the sound of his voice, I fainted, and I laid there with my face to the ground.

So he passes out cold onto his face. Boom. I was thinking this reminds me of the only time I fainted in public. I had just met Lori in grad school, and I really wanted to impress her. We're walking across campus and we see a sign that the Red Cross is doing a blood drive. Now, some of you know I have a bad needle phobia, but Lori does not. And she says, oh, look, the Red Cross is doing a blood drive. Let's go donate. Such a good cause. And I think, you really like her. You want to impress her. You can do this. And I said, okay, let's go. That's such a good cause.

We get in line. The way they did this then, you get to the first tables, they register you. Then you get to the next table where they do a little pinprick on your finger with this little thing called a lancet, just to get your blood type. Then you go to the next station. You lay on a table. They put in the tube. You donate the blood. You get orange juice and a sticker that says, I donated. So Lori's all done. She's drinking her orange juice, applying the sticker, and suddenly she hears a chair crash and sees everybody running over to the very first table, and there's a man sprawled out on the floor.

And she says, oh no, what happened? And a nurse running over stops and tells her, oh, some guy passed out at the table before the lancet even hit his fingertips. And Laurie thinks, what a loser, and looks closer, and it's me. Eventually, they gave me a sticker too; it said I tried. It's like wearing a sticker that says undesirable boyfriend. Now we did get married, but not until four years later. In this one way, I relate to Daniel because he says, a hand touched me. He's coming to here. It set me trembling on my hands and knees, very much like the Red Cross nurses did for me. And he said, Daniel, you who are highly esteemed, consider carefully the words I'm about to speak to you. Stand up, for I have now been sent to you. Daniel's thinking, another vision? No. And when he said this to me, I stood up trembling and I said to the one standing before me, Master, I am upset and afraid because of the vision. I feel very weak. How can I, your servant, talk with you, my Lord? My strength is gone. I can hardly breathe. Find somebody else for these visions.

See, Daniel was overwhelmed because these visions of the future that he was receiving have a pattern. There's a little hope, there's some good news, but then there's bad news again. Every single time there's another beast. And you know what? I'm no prophet here, but the same thing now. Are you waiting for the day you turn on the news and it's only good? That's just never going to happen until the return of Jesus. So the question is, how do you handle life in the meantime?

Again, the man who looked like a man touched me and gave me strength. And then, do not be afraid, you who are highly esteemed, he said. Peace, be strong now, be strong. And this is the verse that I really want to drill down on today. I want to untangle every phrase of this verse because every single one of these phrases is still spoken in the New Testament to all believers today. This is God's message for you. Write this down. When the bad news seems endless, there's always another beast crawling up out of the waves. What does the angelic messenger say? Number one, refuse to indulge fear. Refuse to indulge.

Fear, the messenger from heaven tells Daniel, don't be afraid. Did you know that a form of the phrase, don't be afraid, is in every single book of the Bible? Like Jesus says, do not let your hearts be troubled. Do not be afraid. Do not let. At some point, your fear is about what you are letting, what you are allowing. And specifically these days, I would say, are you letting people that you follow or watch or read about influence you to be fearful? Some of you are addicted to the news or to social media feeds or blogs that induce nothing but fear and anger in you. And I totally get this because sometimes I wonder if I am a news addict. I mean, seriously, That's not a joke. I don't do social media anymore because it was just a time sink, but my news app has just replaced that. I'm on my news app constantly.

And some days, I could paraphrase Daniel: I am upset and afraid because of the news. I feel very weak. Now, why do I do that? Well, I was thinking about this and I have a theory. Right now, we are living with high levels of uncertainty about our future, just like Daniel was in this part of the Bible. And of course, uncertainty leads to anxiety. Now, our natural tendency to cure our anxiety is to seek more information. Because typically, we feel like if I'm anxious about something, like fear of flying, for example, I'm going to get information, and that's going to reduce my anxiety and decrease my uncertainty because I'll be more certain about what I'm likely to experience and about the safety of aircraft and so on. That works with things like fear of flying, but it doesn't really work with fear of the future, because how much information can you really get?

I mean, Daniel was the most informed person on the planet about the future. God tells him what's going to happen and even when it's going to happen, and does any of that lessen his anxiety? No. What helps Daniel's anxiety is not information. What helps him is certainty about the love of God, reassurance about his love. And that brings us to the second point. I need to realize I'm beloved of God. And I love how Trent emphasized that in our worship today.

Look at this. The next thing this heavenly being says to Daniel, do not be afraid, you who are highly esteemed. Now, generally, I use the NIV. That's a translation of the Bible, called the New International Version. But occasionally, as you've probably noticed, I use other translations. And this is one example why. Personally, I think that highly esteemed here in the NIV is a weak translation. It sounds like I'm eyeing you for a promotion, young man. You are esteemed.

I think other translations capture the emotion of the original word much better. In the King James, “oh man, greatly beloved.” The NASB, “you who are treasured.” The Living Bible, “God loves you very much.” And again, this is all spoken to you as well. Did you know the word beloved is used nearly 70 times in the New Testament to refer to all believers? Think of what it would do to your daily freakout level if you really, really believe that this was true. Look at Zephaniah 3:17.

The picture is that God is a loving papa and you're like a newborn baby in his arms. He will rejoice over you with great gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will exult over you by singing a happy song. Picture a new parent and the love just radiating down to that little child.

To help you picture that, I have some photos. Here's my daughter-in-law, Anna, with her two little ones, my two little granddaughters. There's three-year-old Willa and seven weeks ago, brand new newborn Heidi. Or my son-in-law, Jordan, pardon me, with little newborn Owen. There's so much love just radiating out from these parents, isn't there? Well, in that verse, the imagery is you're like the little baby. The little baby doesn't do anything to earn or deserve love, right? All it's doing is pooping and eating and sleeping and spitting up, but the parents, that doesn't affect their love in any way. And God is the one cuddling and kissing you.

I love what Henri Nouwen says. We forget so quickly that we are God's beloved children and allow the many curses of our world to darken our hearts. Therefore, we have to be reminded of our belovedness and remind others of theirs. A pastor named Trevor Hudson has a great question. Does the truth of your belovedness reverberate throughout your being? How do you get it to do that? Truthfully, I can really get all the information I really need from the news in about 15 minutes max. But then I need to change my focus from the never-ending apocalyptic type imagery that's on the news to my father's unconditional love and his loving arms that are holding me. So how do I change my focus?

Well, to help you, on page three of your notes, I put 10 more Bible verses, just like we did last weekend. And these are organized according to the categories of the sermon this week. I really encourage you to try something. Write these out in your own hand on three by five cards or something. Why three or five cards? Because then you're not on your phone, tempted to jump to the news apps or whatever, and take those cards with you wherever you go and feed your faith and not your fear. Like the Bible says, perfect love drives out fear. Because when you really believe that, then you can, number three, rest in God's hand.

The messenger from heaven says to Daniel, peace. And Jesus says it to his disciples the night he's betrayed, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. He says, I give it to you. It's a gift. You say, well, then why don't I feel peace all the time? One of the most well-known yet least practiced parts of the Bible from Philippians: Don't worry about anything, right? Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all that he has done. I've actually been trying to practice this the last few days. Imagine a pastor actually practicing what he preaches.

What I've been trying to do is simply do the two things it talks about. Tell God what I need whenever I feel myself getting stressed about something. Verbalize it like not just, I'm feeling weird, anxious—why? This, be very specific. And then thank him for what he's done in the past. Like, God, thank you for the way you gave us a great acts of kindness day. Thank you for that great sunset. And what's been happening? Exactly what's promised. Then you'll experience God's peace, which exceeds anything that we can understand. Instead of letting all the things that worry you run around like a hamster on a wheel over and over in your brain, you give them to God, and he gives you peace.

So refuse to indulge fear. Realize I'm beloved of God. Rest in his hand. And finally, receive his strength. Daniel is told, be strong now. Be strong. And scholars say this isn't a command like, be strong, buckah, be a man. This means receive this strength from me. Be strong. Kind of like strength is radiating out from this being. In verse nine, Daniel says, When he spoke to me, I was strengthened. And I said, speak, my Lord, you have given me strength. The strength, again, it came as a gift from God. And again, repeated in the New Testament for all of us, Paul says, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

The apostle Paul, who wrote this, lived a very scary life, but he was not scared because he absolutely believed that Jesus Christ would give him the strength that he needed. Now, I just want to fast forward to the end of the book because I told you Daniel gets one final vision that's better news: Resurrection.

The Messiah rules over any empire on the planet. Sounds like good news, but Daniel's still freaked out. When's it going to happen, he asks, and what am I supposed to do with this information? And here's the very last verse of the book of Daniel: As for you, Daniel, go your way until the end. You will get your rest. And at the end, you will rise to receive your reward. I love that because what this angelic messenger is saying is, here's the way it's going to go. You keep doing your thing. Your choices have been good. You got good character, Daniel. You keep doing your thing. Then guess what? Then you're going to die. And then you're going to be resurrected. And then you'll receive your reward.

That's really all you need to know. I mean, I'm good with that. Are you good with that? I love this. And here's the thing. You don't even have to be fuzzy about whether you will rise and be rewarded. Because the consistent teaching of Daniel is that it's all about where you place your trust. Isn't that a theme of Daniel? You can place your trust in human empires and their rulers, which inevitably go bad and inevitably don't last and are not secure. Or you can place your trust in the Lord, the Messiah, the only King who lives forever. And that's who Jesus clearly said he was.

So is your trust in him? How do you face the end of the world? All this uncertainty about the future. Catherine Marshall wrote about being on an airplane once, and through the windows on one side of the plane, she sees this amazing, beautiful sunset. But out of the window on the other side, all she sees is a storm, dark and threatening. And she said, it felt like God was telling her, Catherine, that's life. As you go on your journey, you're not in control of where the plane is headed or even when it's going to land. That's the pilot's job. That's not your job.

Until then, there will be frightening dark clouds and there will be beautiful sunsets, and you can choose what window you're going to look through. You'll have more or less joy based on what window you choose to look through along the destination because there'll be good times and bad times all along the way. But the ultimate destination rests in God's hands. Of that you can be certain.

And that's the big idea of Daniel: God wins, whether over fiery furnaces or empires or lion's dens or the future, God wins. And that's the window I choose to look through, amen?

Now, next weekend, we're going to be doing our celebration weekend as we wrap up the series. And I have a request. I would love to hear from you about how you've specifically been inspired by the story of Daniel. Also, what acts of kindness your small group did or your family did. I'd love to share photos of your small group or your project. So send all of these things to me at rene@tlc.org.

Many people have told me this has been such a meaningful study. Why? Has it helped you with a specific anxiety or maybe at work or at school? I'd love to know, so I can share some of those stories next week. Now I'll close with this. Maybe you walked in a little bit shaky today. Maybe a lot shaky. Think again of the angel's message to Daniel.

And here's what I would like us to do. Do you remember how Daniel described this heavenly messenger's voice as sounding like a great multitude, right? One being talking and it sounds like a crowd somehow. Wouldn't it be fun to hear that? Well, I think we can because we kind of got a great multitude here today. So why don't we read this verse out loud together, and I want you to hear, listen to it. And imagine the angel saying these words to you. And there are people here right now who really need to hear these words. So you are ministering to them as you speak these words.

So let's all read this together. The words of this heavenly messenger to Daniel and to you. Here we go. Don't, wait, wait, wait, wait, stop, stop. Say it like a heavenly messenger. Who knows? This guy is so intimidated by me, he just passed out. And so you got to speak this with kindness, but also some authority. All right, here we go. Don't be afraid. God loves you very much. Peace be with you. Be strong, man. Be courageous. God's words for you.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, there are many here today who need hope, who are uncertain. There are things that we can control, but there are some things that are just out of our control, and that can lead to anxiety. And so I pray that we would hear this message from heaven as your message to us, that we would hear you say to us daily, don't be afraid. God loves you very much.

Peace be with you, be strong and encouraged. And Lord, it's on our hearts to pray specifically today for our dear beloved friends, the Pizarro family, at the one-year mark of Julian's passing. And we pray that they too would hear those words resonating in their souls, that they would know you love them very much and you are ultimately in control. And we thank you for your continued blessing on our Spanish congregation as well.

And finally, Lord, I just want to say if anybody needs to settle the issue of who they are trusting in, Empire or you, may they do so now and say, like Daniel, Lord, I do not understand all this. Sometimes I feel very weak and very afraid. But I place my trust firmly, not in empire, but in you, specifically in the one called the Son of Man, who, as Daniel saw, reigns forever in the Messiah, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.