This morning I want to continue our study through Daniel and we’re going to be looking at Daniel chapter 12 again. And I specifically want to look at verse 4. Daniel chapter 12, verse 4. But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even to the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Let’s just bow in prayer. Heavenly Fathers, we come before you this morning, Lord, I pray that you just help us to understand what Daniel was sharing through the book that he has given to us. What your Spirit revealed to him. Had him write down and record. And what is being opened before us in these last days that men have wondered at for literally hundreds of years. And Lord, we’re seeing it. Lord, help us to understand what these words mean. And help us to understand not only the responsibility that’s been laid before us, but the great privilege that you’ve given to us to live in the day in which we live. And Lord, help us to take advantage of that. And Lord, may we be used by you to bring glory to your name. And to proclaim the truth of your word. And to share with others the hope of salvation that is found in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Speak to us through your word, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. In order to understand this verse, I’d like to have you turn with me to another prophet.
The prophet Amos. A lot of times, this particular verse, when it is preached on, it’s looking at what is happening in the world economically. What’s happening in the world knowledge-wise.
What’s happening in the world with inventions and creations and different things like that. People running to and fro. You’ve heard many messages probably brought about, Now you’ve got Elon Musk even wanting to take people to Mars.
And when my dad, who was born in 1912, was born on a farm in North Dakota. They farmed with horses. They had no cars.
It took a couple of hours to drive the horses and wagon to town to buy groceries. Now in a couple of hours, you can be to Minneapolis in an airplane and on the next plane to wherever you’re going. But is that what it’s talking about in this verse? When it’s talking about knowledge increasing.
Is it talking about the things that we see? We have a giant data center that’s going in up north. There’s data centers going in all over the countries. One can look prophetically and say, That makes sense because the Bible says in the last days they’ll know everything about us.
They’ll be able to control us. And how do you do that without having all the data recorded somewhere? And we’re also seeing, as it says in the last days, There’s going to be the ability to shut off and turn on your ability to buy and sell. That couldn’t have been done ten years ago.
But it can be done even today and is being done in China. And once all the data centers are in and the Bitcoin system is in, the electronic currency, They’ll be able to do that. Is that what it’s talking about? I think Amos gives us an insight into what was happening in the nation of Israel.
Which is sadly to say happening in the church of Jesus Christ today. If you go with me to Amos chapter 8. Amos chapter 8. What was happening in Israel when Amos was called? Israel was a northern kingdom. Amos was a sheep raiser from the south of Jerusalem.
The southern kingdom. But God called Amos to go up to the north To where they were sacrificing to the false gods that Jeroboam II had established. And this people that were the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The ten tribes that were in the northern kingdom. Had forgotten the God of Israel. And for the most part, the majority of them had embraced the false gods.
The gods of all the nations around them. And all the wickedness that was involved with those false gods. They had allowed the world to impact them instead of God to lead them.
Now I want you to see what the Lord told Amos. He says,
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God,
that I will send a famine in the land,
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord:
12 and they shall wander from sea to sea,
and from the north even to the east,
they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord,
and shall not find it.
Amos 8:11-12
But behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of a hearing of the words of the Lord. This was what had come to the northern kingdom of Israel.
And was shortly to come about a hundred years later to the southern kingdom of Judah. God was going to send a famine of words and a thirst for the hearing of God’s word. The nation was supposed to be taught by the Levites.
The Levites had no territory of their own, but they were given what is referred to in Scripture as suburbs. That is plots of land outside the cities of the other eleven tribes of Israel. And the Levites were instructed to be a witness, to be like Christians are in the world today, salt and light to the nation of Israel.
They were to be there, to be the ones that would be instructing the people about God’s word. Also out of the tribe of Levi would come the priests. And the priestly order would be in Jerusalem, offering the sacrifices, helping the people to understand in depth what it meant to look to the coming sacrifice, the Lamb of God, the Messiah that had been promised.
This was their responsibility. But we know from God’s word that the grandson of Moses had put himself out for hire in the northern kingdom of Israel to the tribe of Dan to lead false worship to a false god at a false place. Two generations from Moses.
What happened? Well, it’s interesting. If you read on, it says in verse 12, And they shall wander from sea to sea, from the north even to the east. They shall run to and fro, and seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.
You see here the same words that are used by Daniel. They shall run to and fro. They shall go everywhere, all across the land of Israel, seeking someone who can teach them the word.
But they won’t find it. Now, if you go back to Daniel, Daniel is also told right before he gave this, or right after, that he was to seal up the book. The first part of verse 4. But thou, O Daniel, shut up thy words, and seal the book.
What does that mean? Daniel does not give us all of the in-depth details that you can find in the book of Revelation about the same time period that Daniel is speaking of. He’s to seal the book with what he’s been given, and he’s to shut up what is said, and he’s to stop, but it’s not that it won’t be revealed. Because God says there’s coming a time where the people are going to want to know.
But the problem is, like the nation of Israel, they’re not going to know where to find it. I want you to stop and think about the day in which we live. I mentioned at the beginning of the message this morning, we live in an amazing time.
Do you realize that there are Christians that have spent their whole life wondering what it would be like to live in the last days? I firmly believe we’re living in the last days. I firmly believe, as you look at the events around us, the circumstances that have been put in place by really Satan’s people in the world to bring about a one world government, a one world economy, and a one world religion which the Bible speaks about, which Nimrod is the only one that really attained that for a short period of time at the Tower of Babel, and then God scattered the people amongst the nations. And they created nations as He scattered their languages.
But not since the time of Nimrod have we had what we have today. Men have tried to do that throughout history. You can look at there have been dictators throughout history who have tried to conquer the world.
I was just listening to a man who was going over some of the dictators and the amazing difference that we have in America that God allowed where we don’t have a dictator. Each one of us has a choice and each one of us has a voice. Although it’s becoming weaker and weaker as people in our country are yielding to a power to deliver us instead of seeking to take advantage of the privilege God has given you.
As you look at these men that have been dictators, the closest other organization that has ever really spread and gained worldwide control is England. There was a time when England said the sun never went down on the areas controlled by England. And it didn’t.
If you looked at a world map at that time, they controlled countries in Africa, they controlled countries in Asia, they controlled countries in Europe. They had the colonies in the United States, but the time was not ready for the day in which we live. The time is now.
But I want you to understand the seriousness of the hour when it comes to the church and understanding the day in which we live. What has happened to the church? The church has no understanding of truth. I’m not saying every church, I’m not saying every pastor, I’m not saying every congregation, I’m not saying every believer, but I’m saying the church as a vast number and majority is embracing philosophies of the world that will open up and allow the Antichrist to enter in and all these one world events to occur.
And the church is helping it. Most of you probably don’t know about an event that happens once a year in Israel and it’s called Christ at the Checkpoint. It happens in Bethlehem and they have a conference.
And they go there and they show there’s really not that much difference between Christianity and Islam. We really cannot be critical of people as Christians. And Christ in the Checkpoint, since it started, it’s resulted in the percentage of Christians and many of these are Christians in name that are in Bethlehem being such a small percentage you can hardly find them, where Bethlehem used to be one of the strongest Christian cities in all of Israel.
Today it’s been taken over by Muslims and terrorists. How could that happen? I want to give you some other things that are happening. You know something interesting? If I said, give me some of the strongest Christian states in the country, some of the strongest states that are there for righteousness and truth and values that are based on the Bible, I bet you you’d come up and you’d say, Florida and Texas! You want to know what’s happening in Texas? The Muslims are taking over Texas.
Plano, Texas is being taken over by the Muslims. The Muslims have a plan to take over Florida as well. The Muslims take over the bigger cities.
Do you realize the mayor of New York is a Muslim? He wants to institute Sharia law. Sharia law stands directly in opposition to everything that’s in this book. And yet people today can’t speak about Muslims because they’re accused of being persecuting religion.
I want you to know Islam, their goal is to take over the world. They want to embrace the Antichrist. So what do we do? Well, first of all, the Lord said, He told Daniel, you’re not going to see everything here, but it will be evident.
In the last days, people are going to run to and fro trying to find answers. Do you realize today, young men, especially in America, are looking for answers. They’re tired of kowtowing to the world’s philosophy that they are to be effeminate, that they’re not really men.
But you know where they’re looking? To the Roman Catholic Church. You realize more young men today are converting to Roman Catholicism than they’ve ever done. Why would they look there? They’re running to and fro to find answers, and Roman Catholicism gives them a structure, but it doesn’t give them the truth.
And at the same time, you’ve got Bible-believing and teaching churches that say they stand for truth, but embrace critical race theory, which has become one of the Southern Baptists things that they have voted to do. Or, they embrace Calvinism, which is fatalism, much like Islam, and really does not demand that every man choose this day who you will serve. Will you serve the gods that have gone before you, or will you serve the true and the living God as was given the challenge to the nation of Israel shortly before he just lost his name and died? Today, it’s like how close can we embrace the false gods and still say that we’re Christians? So people are going to and fro.
They want answers of what’s happening in the world today. I venture to say that probably the last couple of years, well, ever since COVID, you’ve probably had people ask you more than once, do you know what’s going on in the world? And this is on believers. What an opportunity for Christians.
What an opportunity to say, I know what’s going on. Satan wants to take over the world. This is exactly what it said in Scripture.
Daniel was told to close the books, but they’d be opened again. And John opened up and gave all the details in the book of Revelation about things that would come in the last days. We’re seeing them all happen.
Go to the Middle East today. John had never seen a drone in his life. But look at some of the things that he says are going to be used in battles.
It probably would be his description of what it was if he was seeing drones and missiles. If you look at what’s happening in Israel today and then what’s happening in the church, the whole book of Daniel deals with one nation on earth that’s at the center of the book. Israel.
It’s not the United States. It’s not Great Britain. It’s not Russia.
It’s not even any of the Arab nations. It’s not the Persians. It’s not China.
It’s Israel. Go to the book of Ezekiel. What nation is at the center of the book of Ezekiel? Israel.
Go to the book of Revelation. What nation is at the center of the book of Revelation? Israel. Yet today, many churches don’t want to talk about Israel.
Many churches want to abandon Israel. Many churches teach that Israel shouldn’t even be a country. That Israel isn’t the real Israel of the Bible.
Even though my Bible says God was going to call them back. He was going to hiss. And the people would come from being dispersed all over the world.
It wasn’t the Norwegians. It wasn’t the Swedes. It wasn’t the Germans.
It was the Jews. What happened? God hissed. And they’re coming back.
To where? Israel. The land that He had given them. That is His land.
It’s not the Arabs’ land. It is not the UN’s land. It is not the United States or President Trump’s land.
It is God’s land that He entrusted to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the descendants of Jacob that would be like the stars of the heavens. And they’re referred to as Israel because God changed Jacob’s name to Israel. Israel is exactly where God said it would be.
And it’s exactly in the position in not only history but in world events that He said it would be in the last days. And He said the whole world would end up coming against Israel. Again, I apologize.
I should have put up the map so you could actually see Israel in comparison to the Muslim countries. And it’s a joke. It’s a joke that they want to wipe Israel off the map.
They have all the land. Why do they need this little speck of land that’s the size of New Jersey? There’s people running to and fro around the world trying to figure out why, why, why, why does the world hate Israel? I can tell you why they do. Because God loves it.
And Satan hates it. And who does the world identify? And who is the world led by? It’s not God, it’s Satan. Even though Satan cannot do a thing unless God allows it.
So today, in churches, we’ve got churches. My wife and I went and heard some of the best messages on prophecy in Israel given by the head of the Evangelical Free Denomination. His name was Dr. Olson.
It had to have been 30 years ago at Bethel Evangelical Free Church. Today you will not hear prophecy preached at that church. Most Evangelical Free Churches, many Baptist churches, Methodist churches are long gone.
Lutheran churches were never there unless you were a free Lutheran or a Lutheran brethren. But they never talk about prophecy. And they don’t want to talk about Israel unless it’s in disparaging terms.
You know where they belong? Checkpoint in Jerusalem. That’s what those people believe. Israel shouldn’t be there.
Christians should embrace Islam. And people are running to and fro trying to find answers. I want you to understand you have the answers.
This book has the answers. You need to be there to proclaim the truth to people when they ask. The rapture could occur tomorrow.
We should be prepared. But until we do, he says, that we are to be here to be light and salt. So Daniel says, it’s told by the Lord, seal the book even to the time of the end.
Guess what? I think the book’s being opened up. How long was it supposed to be sealed? Till the time of the end. You don’t hear many messages brought about the rapture, the second coming of Christ, the great tribulation, the persecution of Israel, and Jesus returning to the Mount of Olives to save Israel from a world that’s going to annihilate her.
Yet everything is putting into place. Now, how does that impact us in a practical way? We’ve got an election coming up. You can vote early this next week and vote the real elections coming up a week from Tuesday.
Do you know what the people that are being elected to office believe? If you don’t, you better find out and you better vote. I want to tell you what the school board in Fargo has done over the last 40 years.
You can vote early this next week, vote the real elections coming up a week from Tuesday. Do you know what the people that are being elected to offices believe? If you don’t, you better find out, and you better vote. I want to tell you what the school board in Fargo has done over the last 40 years.
40 years ago about, my wife and I found out the Fargo School District was promoting drugs, sex, situational ethics, and relativism, and teaching it all as fact to ninth graders. 40 years ago, might have been 35, we went along with some other people and started a committee. We went and talked to the school board, talked to the superintendent, showed him exactly what it was, what it was trying to do, how it was trying to undermine the values that were being taught in our churches, and being taught that our nation was founded on.
We got the book kicked out, but there was a non-godly man who was the head of North Dakota Education, superintendent of public schools. He just took the system and put it in every public school under a different title. That’s how long it’s been going on.
The superintendent before the one that we have now was willing to violate North Dakota law. North Dakota law says that if a child comes to school and that that child wants to identify as he’s a boy, and he wants to identify as a girl or a girl, and she wants to identify as a boy, that the school must immediately notify the parents that that is going on, and they must attempt to stop it. That was the law.
He said, we’re going to not follow that law, because it’s better off for the child that they be able to identify with whatever they want to be. And for a while under his leadership, there was even litter boxes in some of the bathrooms, because they might want to identify as a dog or a cat. We have a new superintendent.
I believe he’s got his head on a lot better. I don’t know what his personal beliefs are, other than the school district he came from didn’t do those things. But we still have school board members who believe that’s the thing you should do.
They believe nothing out of the Bible should ever be taught in public schools. They believe biblical principles should not be taught in public schools. But yet, they will bring Islam into the schools.
And Islam wants to take over our country. Just ask the people in Texas. Just ask the people in Florida.
Just ask the people in Minneapolis or those in New York City. And they want to be able to teach our kids Islamic principles, but we can’t teach the Bible, even though the public school system was initially using the Bible as one of its tools to teach with. That’s how far we’ve come as a nation.
There are school board candidates that want to bring back biblical and righteous and truth to the school so that our kids can actually learn, instead of being brainwashed. But they won’t make it if nobody votes. The last election for mayor in our city and for city commissioners, we have a city, it’s about the population of Fargo, it’s over 100,000.
You know how many people elected the last city commission and mayor? Under 3,500. Under 3,500. Christians said, oh, it’s not my place to vote.
I don’t know who to vote for. We have a candidate for mayor. I don’t know if she’s got a personal relationship with the Lord, but I do know one thing.
She wants to hold to biblical values and she wants to get rid of handing out drug needles and drug paraphernalia for free to drug addicts. She would rather see a program set up where we can get them off drugs instead of encouraging them in their habits. But you won’t get elected if Christians don’t vote.
You’ve got other candidates that stand exactly opposite in values to her. And guess what? Their people will come out and vote. How do we be salt and light? We don’t just hide.
When you leave this church building, the only place you worship God is not inside the doors. It’s when you leave, your whole life you should be worshiping God. And people should see the Lord in your life.
They should see your righteous character. They should see that you’re different. And you should have an answer, as Peter says, you need to have an answer for the hope that lies within you.
And that means especially as we draw to the last days and people are running to and fro trying to find answers and can’t find them because the Lord said, I will cause a drought to come because the people don’t want it. There’s a drought in the church. People are dying of thirst in the church and outside.
They’re turning to Roman Catholicism. They’re turning to Islam. They’re turning to Mormonism.
Instead of this book. And we have to be the ones that proclaim where they can find the real answers. God is opening up understanding in the last days.
I want to just close with the last sentence where it says, Daniel says, and knowledge shall increase. I’ve shared with you things that I have seen happening in our world, in our nation, just briefly. Didn’t go into specific details.
You can get all kinds of details on how these are going to be used to bring about just what the Bible said, a one world government, a one world religion, and a one world economy. And it will cause to be ushered in a one world leader, the anti-Christ Satan’s man. How is knowledge increased? The Christian’s knowledge should not only be increased in the ability that I can now have a miniature computer in my pocket, even though I’m not very good at running it, but it’s there.
I’ve got all kinds of tools that I didn’t have before. That’s not, I believe, what he’s talking about. Knowledge will be increased as to what the day is in which you’re living.
You are living in the last days as God has outlined it in His book. It shouldn’t be a day of sorrow. It should be a day of joy because it’s one day closer to the Lord’s return to gather His bride unto Himself.
It’s one day closer for Jesus to come back and establish His kingdom on earth and bring justice once and for all. It’s one day closer to the great rightful judgment where all mankind shall be judged and the new heavens and the new earth shall be established. It’s one day closer.
But is that our hope? Or is our hope, can I really cut 10 strokes off my golf game? We need to understand the day in which we live. And we need to see the knowledge that God is opening up before us. And we need to grasp hold of that knowledge.
And we need to seek to find those that can impart that knowledge to us. And we need to share that knowledge with others. Let’s just close in prayer.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for the opportunity that you’ve given to us to study your word. I thank you for the fact that you gave Daniel this great insight into what would happen in the last days. And Lord, I thank you that you told him that people would be running to and fro.
Knowledge would increase. As the books had been shut since his time, but now they’re going to be open. And the revelation is going to come.
What is the revelation? The revelation of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Lord, help us to be a people who want to proclaim that truth. This we’d ask in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Daniel 12:1-4