Getting Started
with the Book of Daniel
The Time of the End
“But thou, O
Daniel, shut up the words, and seal
the book, even to the time of the
end: and many shall run to an fro,
and knowledge shall be
increased.” (Daniel 12:4, KJV)
If a chart were drawn showing the
increase of knowledge on Earth during
the past twenty-six centuries, the
line would slowly rise until it
reached the nineteenth century. Then
the line would suddenly curve upwards
because knowledge has dramatically
increased during the past two hundred
years. In fact, I have heard it said
that the half-life of knowledge today
is about five years. If this
statement is true, this means there
will be twice as much knowledge in
five years! How can the doubling of
knowledge continue at such a rapid
pace, and furthermore, who can absorb
all of the knowledge that is current?
There is so much to learn and life is
so short!
School, by definition,
is a series of progressive classes.
For example, basic arithmetic is a
prerequisite for Algebra I, and
Algebra I is a prerequisite for
Algebra II, and Algebra II is a
prerequisite for Calculus and so on.
This progression in learning is
necessary because knowledge in
mathematics is additive in nature. A
student must have a working knowledge
of basic arithmetic and algebra before
he* can understand calculus. Bible
prophecy is similar to mathematics.
The Bible student must understand
certain fundamental concepts before
he can appreciate the larger issues
presented in Bible prophecy.
Many people think
Bible prophecy is merely future
telling. This definition is terribly
inadequate. Bible prophecy
encompasses the study of an infinite
God and His mysterious ways. Bible
prophecy has been unfolding for the
past 6,000 years and it reveals the
actions and plans of God as nothing
else can. Bible prophecy proves that
God is deliberate and purposeful in
everything He does. Bible prophecy
not only reveals the foreknowledge of
God, it also reveals the plans of
God. Bible prophecy has much to say
about the future, but there is little
in the future that has not been
witnessed in times past. This is the
beauty of Bible prophecy. Almost
everything that God plans to do in
the future, He has done at various
times in the past. This is why Bible
prophecy is an encompassing study of
an infinite God and His mysterious
ways.
______________________
- In
this study, for the sake of
brevity, the pronoun he
is used in certain situations
to identify both genders,
male and female.
______________________
Why Now?
Daniel was told that
knowledge would be increased at the
time of the end. (Daniel 12:4) True
to His word, God has granted mankind
more knowledge during the past two
hundred years than during the past
two thousand years! Why has He done
this? Perhaps God planned from the
beginning to populate the world with
as many people as possible at the
time of the end. If so, one could say
that God has controlled the
population of Earth through
knowledge. We know that the resources
necessary to sustain life on this
planet are limited, and access to
these resources was impossible until
the nineteenth century. Now that
knowledge has been given to mankind,
access to these resources has brought
about a population explosion. For
example, the industrial revolution of
the nineteenth century produced
mechanical machinery of various
types. As a result, farming equipment
and agricultural techniques were
developed which allow a small number
of people to be feed an
ever-expanding global population.
Transportation and commerce moves
food and supplies to distant places
and this translates into larger
numbers of surviving people. Advances
in medicine also contribute to a
longer life span; thus, the
population of Earth increased because
people lived longer and their
offspring survived longer. Railroads,
freeways, ocean-going super tankers,
telephones, banking, energy and
computers enable businesses to
flourish so that the physical needs
of billions of people can be met.
Think about this: The expansive
infrastructures of our world are
built upon knowledge and technology
that did not exist a mere two hundred
years ago. Consequently, the
population of Earth has now passes
the six billion mark and experts say
it will exceed nine billion by 2050.
Evidently, this is what God planned.
He appears to be crowding this planet
with people at the time of the end so
that He might populate Heaven with
the largest number of people
possible!
Knowledge of Bible
Prophecy Necessary for Salvation?
When people say,
“I don’t need to understand
Bible prophecy because it has nothing
to do with salvation,” they are
right in a limited sense. Many
generations of people have died
without understanding apocalyptic
prophecy. However, there is a
profound difference between past
generations and the last generation.
A time is coming when prophetic
understanding will have everything to
do with salvation! (As it did in
Noah’s day.) The final
generation will experience a series
of tests that no other generation has
faced. This is why God warns us in
the book of Revelation about the mark
of the beast and the importance of
receiving the seal of God.
By increasing our
knowledge of His Word and His ways,
God has made the plan of salvation so
simple that any searching person can
understand it. However, God offers
more in the Bible than the basics of
salvation. (Hebrews 5:11-6:1) God
offers to explain Himself. People
who truly love God and deeply
appreciate His generous offer of
salvation want to know everything
they can about the One who first
loved us! A life of discovering a
loving God never ends. He is the most
interesting subject in the entire
universe. If the plan of salvation is
interesting to study, Bible prophecy
is even more interesting because the
fulfillment of salvation involves a
series of prophetic events!
Five Prerequisites
The study of Bible
prophecy forces the student into a
theological corner. This occurs
because the student has to reconcile
his conclusions on prophecy with
everything he knows about God into
one harmonious theology. Notice how
this process evolves: Some people
support the doctrine of a
pre-tribulation rapture with the idea
that God will not allow Christians to
suffer wrath during the Great
Tribulation. (1Thessalonians 5:9)
These people claim a pre-tribulation
rapture is consistent with the
experiences of Noah, Lot, Rehab, etc.
What do Noah, Lot and Rehab have to
do with the Great tribulation?
Actually nothing. “But,”
they say, “if Noah, Lot and
Rehab were saved from God’s
wrath, God will save Christians from
His coming wrath.” (Luke 21:36)
This use of logic and a few
“proof texts” demonstrates
how certain prophetic conclusions are
reconciled within a theological
framework. Even though I do not
believe the Bible teaches a
pre-tribulation rapture, this example
demonstrates why prophetic
conclusions and theological beliefs
are inseparable.
It is almost
impossible for two people to discuss
the prophecies of Daniel and
Revelation if they arte not in
agreement on essential Bible
doctrines. I have found five
essential doctrines in the Bible, and
they are easy to remember because
they can be associated with the
letter “S.” The essential
doctrines are: Salvation by faith in
Jesus Christ, the Second Coming of
Jesus, The Sabbath rest of Jesus, the
State of man in death, and God’s
use of parallel Sanctuaries. These
five doctrines are prerequisites for
a study of Bible prophecy. Two
examples demonstrate the reasons for
the conclusion. First, if a person
does not understand the state of man
in death, then portions of Daniel 7
and 12, Revelation 6 and 20 will make
no sense. If a person is judged at
the time of death and he immediately
goes to Heaven or hell, why are there
a resurrection and a white throne
judgment at the end of the 1,000
years in Revelation 20 for those who
were previously burning in hell?
Second, if a person does not
understand God’s use of parallel
sanctuaries, he cannot understand the
casting down of the censer at
Heaven’s Altar of Incense.
(Revelation 8:5) One has to
understand the services at the earthy
Altar of Incense before he can
understand the services at the heavenly
Altar of Incense. Again, certain
prerequisites are necessary to
understand Bible prophecy. This
relationship will be identified at
various places in this study and you
will be referred to the Bible study
room for further study on the five
essential doctrines.
Four Rules: Trash or
Treasure?
There are hundreds,
maybe thousands of books on Bible
prophecy and most of these books do
not agree on the meaning of Bible
prophecy. This diversity of opinion
leads many people to conclude that no
one actually understands what Bible
prophecy says. If Bible scholars
cannot agree, how can lay people
supposed to decipher the meaning of
prophecy? This is a good question.
Perhaps you should be warned that
this study perpetuates the tradition,
because it does not agree with
thousands of books already written on
the subject. Why, then, should
another study on Bible prophecy be
written? This study was written
because I have stumbled, through
God’s generous grace, into a
discovery of four rules of
interpretation that allows Bible
prophecy to be understood just as it
reads. In days to come, this
discovery could prove to be more
profound than a cure to AIDS! Of
course, time will tell whether my
discovery is trash or treasure, but
nevertheless, I am excited about the
new end-time story that springs from
the Bible prophecy, because a
significant part of the story is
about to take place!
Apocalyptic Prophecy
Points to the End of Sin
Because Bible prophecy
is much more than future telling, the
books of Daniel and Revelation offer
a lot more than an explanation of how
the world will end. These two
prophetic books reveal the ways
of God. Furthermore, Bible prophecy
serves many purposes, and its
ultimate purpose is a revelation of
God’s love for man. The five
essential doctrines explain why
our world is in a fallen condition
and Bible prophecy explains how
and when God will rescue
mankind from the curse of sin.
Many people are
surprised to learn that
Revelation’s story does not end
with the Second Coming. Actually, the
story continues for 1,000 years after
the Second Coming because
Revelation’s story is ultimately
concerned with something larger than
the end of the world as we know it.
This “something” is the
elimination of the sin problem. If a
person looks into Revelation to
merely foretell how the world will
end, he will miss the best part of
the story because God’s greatest
problem is the presence of sin within
His universe. God’s
solution to the sin problem has cost
the Father and the Son everything
They could give. Consequently, a
correct understanding of the sin
problem is a prerequisite for
understanding Bible prophecy. Bible
prophecy indicates God will
ultimately eliminate sin and
annihilate a large number of people
whom He deeply loves. Even more,
Bible prophecy reveals that God will
be fully justified in the eyes of His
subjects when He does this! This is
an incredible story that has many
dimensions and it takes some effort
to understand it.
An Omnipotent Jesus
The books of Daniel
and Revelation declare an omnipotent
Jesus. Jesus is the centerpiece of
apocalyptic prophecy. He is Sovereign
God and He oversees the final events
of Earth from His throne during the
time of the end. (Daniel 7:13,14;
John 1:1-14; Matthew 26:64; John
5:23; Revelation 1:8; 4,5) A great
war is about to begin. At this very
moment, two kings are preparing for a
war that will determine the fate of
everyone living on Earth. Jesus and
Lucifer are extremely powerful and
they have legions of angels at their
command. A declaration of war has
existed between them for thousands of
years. For the past 6,000 years,
human beings have been trapped in a
cosmic drama between Christ, the king
of righteousness and Lucifer, the
king of evil. To Jesus, we are
objects of greatest affection. To
Lucifer, we are targets for
destruction. Like it or not –
believe it or not, the last
generation to live on Earth will be
caught in the middle of a
no-holds-barred spiritual and physical
war that will take place between
these two great rulers. The Great
Tribulation will become The Great
Divide of the human race. God will
test the people of earth to see who
will stand on the side of
righteousness and who will capitulate
and unite with the forces of evil.
Because the coming war is both
spiritual and literal, the Bible
predicts the inhabitants of Earth
will see the physical appearing of
both kings. Lucifer, the prince of
this world (John 16:11; Revelation
17:8), will gloriously appear first.
Later, Jesus the prince of
Heaven’s host (Revelation
19:11-21), will majestically appear
in the clouds of glory and Jesus will
destroy Lucifer (the Antichrist), and
his followers with a single command
that comes out of His mouth! (This
command is represented as a sharp
sword in Revelation 19:15,21)
The books of Daniel
and Revelation tell a drama that
involves truth and lies, death and
resurrection. The presence of sin
caused God to do things that He would
have not done otherwise. If sin had
not occurred, Jesus would not have
died for sinners. If Jesus had not
died at Calvary, the universe would
know less about the depths of
God’s love, because the death of
Jesus on Calvary demonstrates what
Jesus was willing to do for man before
He created Adam and Eve. Jesus knew
our parents would sin before He
created them, but His foreknowledge
did not keep Him from creating them
nor did He predispose Adam and Eve to
sin. They were created with a
powerful tendency to live in perfect
harmony with their Creator. But, they
chose to sin of their own free will,
and God chose of His own free will to
deal with the lemon of sin by
converting this tragic event into
lemonade. Because of His love for
man, Jesus went to His death in order
that we might have life. It is
incomprehensible that Jesus was
willing to perish forever so that
Adam, Eve, and their offspring might
have the opportunity to spend
eternity with His Father. What love!
What amazing grace! Because God is
love, the rise of sin produced an
opportunity for the Godhead to reveal
their true character of love. Of
course, the Godhead did not need
sin’s presence to reveal their
infinite love for their creation.
However, sin happened because
God’s children have the power of
choice. The Godhead used this
misfortune to expose their souls
before a whole universe so that every
thoughtful observer might understand
the righteousness and fairness of
God’s government and God’s
ways. Because we live in darkness of
degeneracy and sin, we need spiritual
eyesight to understand a host of
things that we cannot physically see.
(1 Corinthians 2:12) For this reason
Jesus has sent the Spirit, the Spirit
of prophecy, to guide us into
an understanding of prophetic truth.
(Revelation 1:9; 19:10; John 16:13)
When Bible prophecy is properly
understood, the entire Bible
harmoniously declares a loving God,
an unbelievably generous offer of
salvation, the promise of victory
over sin, a resurrection to eternal
life, and the final annihilation of
sin with all its harmful
consequences. This is wonderful news
that everyone should understand! This
is why this complete study was
written. The books of Daniel and
Revelation tell us the present world
order – which groans under the
curse of sin – is soon to end
and a new-world order is about to
begin. The book of Daniel closes with
this encouraging words: “Blessed
is the one who waits for and reaches
the end of the 1,335 days [for he
shall behold the Lamb of God without
experiencing death].” (Daniel
12:12, insertion mine)
In several studies
following this introduction, some
segments will be quite lengthy in
nature due to the amount of
information that will be presented.
And now:
Daniel Unlocked For
The Final Generation
