Lord of the Future (Daniel 12:1-13)

And this coming Advent season starting next week, we're gonna go through the old classic passages in the New Testament on the incarnation and the birth of Jesus. So I just want to encourage you to be thinking of someone to invite to church with you. This is a good time—there's gonna be no Bradford weirdness during the holidays this year, no Book of Revelation, nothing scary for Advent this year. This is a good time to invite someone to our church.

We encourage everybody in our church to be thinking of someone in your life, a neighbor, a coworker, and invite them to come worship with you during the next few weeks as we celebrate the first coming of Jesus and, of course, every Advent season looking forward to his second coming.

With that in mind, we're gonna look at Daniel chapter 12. And as Danny said earlier, we're having some projector issues this morning. I was gonna make you read this with me, but because of the size of the font on the screen, I'm gonna let you follow along as I read it.

At that time, Michael, the great prince who stands watch over your people will rise up. There will be a time of distress such as has never occurred since nations came into being until that time. But at that time, all your people who are found written in the book will escape. Many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, some to disgrace and eternal contempt. Those who have insight will shine like the bright expanse of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness like stars forever and ever. But you, Daniel, keep these words secret and seal the book until the time of the end. Many will roam about and knowledge will increase. Then I, Daniel, looked and two others were standing there, one on this bank of the river and one on the other. One of them said to the man dressed in linen who was above the water of the river, how long until the end of these wondrous things? Then I heard the man dressed in linen who was above the water of the river. He raised both his hands toward heaven and swore by him who lives eternally that it would be for times, time, and half a time. When the power of the holy people is shattered, all these things will be completed. I heard but did not understand. So I asked, my lord, what will be the outcome of these things? He said, go on your way, Daniel. For the words are secret and sealed until the time of the end. Many will be purified, cleansed, and refined, but the wicked will act wickedly. None of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand. From the time the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be one thousand two hundred ninety days. Happy is the one who waits for and reaches one thousand three hundred thirty five days. But as for you, go on your way to the end. You will rest, and then you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance at the end of the days. — Daniel 12:1-13

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Engagement and the Second Coming

So we have great news as a family. This fall, another marriage engagement for one of our six boys, and we could not be more excited about the young woman who's coming into the Bradford family with our six sons, and also the wedding coming this summer. But it's really struck me as we have been talking to our son and his fiancée just how much work that engagement is. A lot of people want to get engaged, but not a lot of people look back with a lot of fondness on being engaged because engagement is hard.

Already, they've had to think about securing a venue and getting a date and the guest list and sending out save-the-date notices and finding out where everybody's gonna stay. And they haven't even thought about the cake, the DJ, the dress, the tux, the invitations, the musicians, the flowers, the honeymoon, the gift registry, the table decorations, the dance music, a thousand other little decisions.

I always tell couples when we're doing premarital counseling: if you can get through engagement and all the planning, you deserve to be married at the end of this because it's exhausting. People look forward so much and are so excited about getting engaged, but no one looks back with fondness. If you're married people, you've never heard anyone say, "I loved being engaged because it was so hard."

Now engagement is an analogy the Bible uses over and over to speak of the second coming of Jesus. We look forward to the marriage supper of the lamb, the final event that's about to come. And let me just set this in the context of the first century. This is how first century weddings went, and I want you to hear some of the language that's used to describe the second coming of Jesus.

So a first century wedding went this way. First, a groom proposes marriage to the bride and her family. Now, against what most people think, first century marriages were not arranged marriages by families.

The bride did have an opportunity to say yes or no whether she chose to accept this groom. But once there was an acceptance, this is what happened. There was an accepted proposal. The groom would return home to his parents' house. He would go prepare a place for her. Literally, he would build a room on the side of the parents' house where he and his new bride would live together with his family. So he would go back to his parent home and begin construction. And the father of the groom was the one who finally determined whether that construction project was complete. So the groom didn't know the day or the hour that he would be done with his construction project, only the father who would give the final okay on the construction. And when that happened, the groom would return, usually at night, and usually at a time to try to surprise the bride. And the bride and her attendants would be waiting and watching because they knew how this goes, and they'd be waiting for the time that this groom would show up. Nobody knew when, and there would be a big party, and they would accompany the bride and the groom back to the parents' house. There would be a wedding there. There'd be a celebration. Does any of this sound familiar? This is the language the Bible uses over and over to describe the second coming of Jesus.

The Second Coming and Daniel 12

And today, as we pick up the book of Daniel, we're going to look at the second coming of Jesus. For some of you, this is maybe the first time you've heard this material—this hope of God's future wedding with his people and the celebration and the feast that is. For others of you, this is old hat, but my hope for you is that while we live in this engagement time, a time which, like for my son and his fiancée, is a time of a lot of waiting and a lot of working, my hope is that this will sustain you. This will encourage you.

So, again, today, this is the last sermon we're doing in the book of Daniel. Daniel 12 is the only chapter of the book of Daniel that's future for us. Now, there have been a bunch of chapters of prophecy. Chapters seven through 12—the first part of the book, versus chapters one through six, are all stories about Daniel and his companions in exile. Chapters seven through 12 switch over to prophecy. But most of those have to do with prophecy that for Daniel and his friends was near future—past for us, near future for them, from the years May to about seventy AD. And this is the only section that is distant future. Distant future for them, distant future for us.

Now what's interesting about this book is it is so accurate. I talked about this last week as God being the Lord of history and how chapters two, seven, eight, and eleven all give extremely specific predictions of what was to come in the near future for Daniel, past for us. And it's so accurate that a lot of people have said, surely this was written much later. I mean, how could this have been written in the fifth century BC? How could they have known what was to come?

And I want to just say the reason I believe that this is actually dated in the fifth century is it's said in the voice of the fifth century and because of the purpose of this book. This purpose of this book was to help us today, the people in the distant future from Daniel, because we can look back and see God's faithfulness over those prophetic sessions right there that, for many of us, are like ancient history. You know, the Greek empire and the Seleucids and the Roman empire and Media-Persian—all these things that you're like, "Yeah, I guess I've heard of this in history class." But it's meant to give us confidence. If God has been faithful in the past, then we can trust him for the future.

Now if that's not clear, let me put it this way. If your mama made you dinner last night, and she made dinner last week, and she made dinner last month, and she made dinner last year, then you can trust your mama for dinner tomorrow night, and you can trust your mama for dinner next week and next month and next year. That's how this works. It's looking and saying, this is written for us to give us assurance that God is not only in control of past history in such a specific way, but also the future and what is to come.

I want to ask you to sit with that for a moment. How many of you are anxious and worried about the future? Man, right here, I get worked up. I get really wrapped around my head. Anybody like this? You know, about tomorrow, about what's gonna happen. This is what we can know. The unchanging and unchangeable God who made dinner for us in the past is good for dinner in the future, and we can trust him. And then there's gonna be a great banquet. There's a big dinner coming.

So back to Daniel 12. This chapter reads very much like the New Testament book of Revelation. It's like a mini Revelation all in one chapter, and it tells us three things.

What is coming? I'm glad you asked. What is coming is super important, and not just super important for people who love studying the minutiae of the Bible. Not just super important for people who love to know biblical prophecy, not just for Bible nerds, but important for every person in the room because it answers the biggest longings of your heart and the biggest tensions of our lives.

What this tells us—what is coming—addresses directly the frustrations we experience day to day: the frustrations we have with other people, the frustrations we have with ourselves, the frustrations we have with our work, the frustrations we have with life in this world. Why do I say that? Because this picture of the distant future tells us that the world is breaking down. The second law of thermodynamics famously says everything's falling apart. Things are breaking down over time. And we know this intuitively. Our bodies are aging. Erosion happens on our planet. The things that we make fall apart and break. And it's frustrating for us to live in a world like this, where things don't work, where I don't work, where my relationships don't work.

Don't you want things to be made right? Don't you want it all to be fixed? How is it going to be fixed? The answer of knowing this part of the Bible, these prophetic sections about the distant future is: it can't be fixed. You can't fix it. So this is important for you individually.

Think about this. Self-discipline's great, but no amount of self-discipline is going to actually fix your life. Exercise is great, and dieting is great. No amount of dieting and exercise is going to reverse the aging process that every person in this room is facing, is dealing with on a day-to-day basis. Knowing yourself, understanding your relationships, understanding why you do what you do—very important—is not going to fix your relationships entirely. No amount of planning for the future can prevent all the chaos of living in a fallen world.

This is true on a corporate level as well. No amount of urban planning, no amount of environmental programs, no amount of government overhaul, no amount of better education are really going to make it all better. And it's really helpful for us to remember this because we want it all better. But the reality is this world and you have to be remade and recreated. A new heavens and a new earth and a new you—a recreated one.

What's Coming: Breakdown Before Renewal

Before that happens, this chapter tells us things are going to get worse before they get better. That's not a surprise. If you're paying attention, second law of thermodynamics: if things break down, they're going to break down some more. What's broken is going to get more broken until it reaches a crisis point, like your car, like your body. Things are going to break down. It's going to get worse.

There will be such a time of distress as never has occurred since nations came into being until that time. — Daniel 12:1

Aren't you glad to know that? You know, if you know a blizzard is coming—this is very Raleigh—we love to be ready. We love to have the salt and the milk and the bread and whatever else you need to survive two days inside your house. We love to be prepared for things. And so this is a tremendous gift of God to you, that he would make you prepared up here for things not going well, for the blizzard coming, and you aren't surprised then when the big flakes start falling from the sky.

There will be a lot of people, though, who are confused. It says here, "Many will roam about, knowledge will increase," but later it says, "None of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand." There are lots of people who don't know Jesus who will be trying to figure it out. Why is this world like this? Why do things keep breaking down? Why are there more problems in our world and things not getting better but seem to be getting worse? Well, you have insight from God. This is what God says. Things are going to break down.

When this comes, though, God tells us he is going to make things right—and so right in the end that they make up for all the wrong, and they make up for all the sad, and they make up for all the broken and all the mess. This is so much part of God's allowing what happens because he is so much going to make it better.

What does Daniel see here? There will be a moment to come when those who are dead—it says asleep here—will rise from the dead, a general resurrection for all people. There will then be a judgment of all people.

Many who sleep in the dust, those who are dead at the time, will awake, some to eternal life, some to disgrace and eternal contempt. — Daniel 12:2

Some will be alive at that time, some will be dead. That's why it says many. All will go though to face judgment. All will go to face God's righteous judgment. In other words, there is a division coming at the end of history. It's not a division, though, between good people and bad people, nice people and mean people, people who are optimists and people who are pessimists. The division it says here are between those who have their name written in the lamb's book of life and those who don't. Those who know Jesus and those who don't.

All your people who are found written in book will escape. — Daniel 12:1

Will escape what? Escape disgrace and eternal contempt. All those who know Jesus, who follow Jesus, who trust in Jesus, not in their own merit or goodness or righteousness or niceness or any other things, all those who trust in him and know him and follow him, those names who are written in the book of life will be resurrected to eternal life.

What Is Eternal Life?

Now can we talk about eternal life for a second? Because I know eternal life, that's not something a lot of people are excited about. Eternal life doesn't just mean we live forever. Can we put up this cartoon? This may be hard to see in the back. Courtesy of Gary Larson, The Far Side. I love this. Here's a man, an iconic image of eternity. I love how Gary Larson captures this for us. Here's a guy. He's clearly in heaven floating on a cloud. He's got his wings and his halo and says, "I wish I'd brought a magazine." Eternally bored.

You know, when you tell your kids about life after death, I think that a lot of them think about church, and I get it. They're like, yay. Sundays with the bald pastor. Wow. That sounds really fun. And some of you are exactly the same because you grew up in this. You're like, really?

So can we talk about eternal life? There is a quality to the eternal life that is to come that you better not miss. And this passage holds up something so beautiful and compelling to me.

Those who know him will shine like the bright expanse of the heavens, and those who teach many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. — Daniel 12

What does that mean? There is a way that eternal life is going to make you such an incredibly new you and such an incredibly complete you, and honestly, such a happy you, and such a glorious you that I can say it's a youer you, that the only way we can describe this is as bright as the expanse of the heavens like stars shining forever and ever.

You know, this is a weird thing to describe, but we use some terms like this. Have you ever heard someone describe a bride as glowing or a new mom as glowing? Unless you think this is all just about women. There's one person in the Bible who's described as glowing, a dude. Moses goes up on the mountain of God in Exodus, and he experiences the presence of God in such a dramatic way that it describes his face as glowing. They had to make him wear a veil. It was really uncomfortable for everybody else. They were like, what in the world? But there was something in that moment where he is experiencing the presence and the joy and the fullness of God in such a way he can only be described as glowing. And that's what we see here, this kind of brilliance, this kind of glory.

You know, I love being your pastor. It is a privilege to be a pastor in this church. I love serving here, but I long to see you glow. Each one of you, I long to see you shine like the brightness of the expanse of the heavens. Like stars forever and ever because my life and your life is so marked by sinning and suffering.

I can't remember who coined this phrase, but be kind. Everyone you know is carrying a heavy load. Man, I think that's really true. I wish I could write that over the doorways out front—that would define the way we greet one another. Because your life and my life is so marked by confusion, unawareness, sadness, momentary joys, lots of pains. And I see you weighted down. There is such an immense burden to being a human, isn't there? A fallen person living in a fallen world. Pain, disappointment, worry, frustration, curse and death.

But I can't wait. Can you imagine the people sitting around you without any of the sin and suffering, the burdens dropped, all of it released. I can't wait to see what you are like glowing with the joy of the risen savior and being with the one who is the very source of your life and knows you and loves you that completely, that kind of freedom and joy. I can't imagine in the new heavens, new earth, we're actually going to want a magazine. I think we'll be in awe of one another and especially of him. Happy and free in a way we've never known.

God's Judgment

One more word about the future. I know when I speak about a division, a judgment, that that's really unsettling for us. We don't like that language. God judging. It sounds like God is being cruel. God is being mean. God is being vindictive.

But what we see over and over in the Bible is God revealing on the outside what's been true all along on the inside of every person. That's what judgment is. God revealing the direction of a person's life—whether it's a person who knows Christ, loves Christ, follows Christ in that direction, or does not. That's what's revealed in the judgment. It's not "gotcha." It's, "No, this is what's been the reality all along."

It'd be like this. If I said, "Hey guys, this afternoon, huge party in Wilmington. Everybody go get in your car. Go to 40. Let's head there." So you get in your cars—your little metal boxes—you drive to 40. Some of you get on 40 West, and some of you get on 40 East. Some of us are gonna make it to the party because the direction our lives are headed, the direction we are moving in, is the right direction toward the end result. The other direction—if you get on I-40 West—you will never make it to Wilmington. You will go to all kinds of other places, but you will not make it to Wilmington where the party is.

And we want, as a church, we want everyone to be at the party. But what's coming in the judgment to come is just a revealing: Is your life headed on I-40 West or East? Are you moving toward God and the things of God? Do you love him and know him? Is the gospel that's been planted in your life taking root and bearing fruit in you? This is the division coming in the future.

And so this morning, of all days, I can say this to you. You got an invitation in the mail. You got an invitation. It came on 11/26/2023. You heard the invitation: "Come to Jesus. Follow Jesus. Make your life about trusting him." This is the way to be with him in the future. Please trust in him.

When Will This Happen?

Second question: What's gonna happen? When is this all going down?

Now this has been the question everybody wants to know ever since Jesus talked about this, and people are like, "When's this gonna happen?" And he's like, "Nobody knows. Just the Father in heaven. Nobody knows the day and the hour."

So when's this gonna happen? Daniel says this in verse 6:

How long until the end of these wondrous things?

And the answer he gets back is really odd. Did you notice this? The really odd answer:

It will be for times, times and half a time.

Daniel's like, "Wow. Thanks. That was really helpful. Really clear." It's like Yoda speak, isn't it? Right? Purposely unclear.

So Daniel, of course, says in the Hebrew version, "Say what?" In verse 8:

What now? I heard, but I did not understand.

No kidding, Daniel. So he gets another answer just as weird:

From the time the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be one thousand two hundred ninety days.

Now, those two answers go together. Those two answers fit together. It is an intentional paradox. It's an answer to the question, "When is this all going to happen?"

The first answer—the Yoda answer—"times, times and half a time"—is intentionally ambiguous. Lots of people try to figure this out. It is intentionally ambiguous. Nobody has a watch or a calendar that says "times, times and a half a time." It is intentionally made for us to go, "Don't really know if that's millennia or months. Not sure what's going on there." It's a purposeful mystery.

But the second answer is a math teacher answer—an exact number, a precise number: one thousand two hundred ninety days. Now, in apocalyptic literature, we don't know if that's meant to be taken exactly literally or if that's just a big number. But it's a precise answer, a math teacher answer.

So if you grew up in a dispensational church, this is where you get the dispensationalism from, just so you get this: seven and a half years. They go, "Oh, one thousand two hundred ninety days, that's three and a half years. Times, time and half a time, that must be like another three and a half years. And they add those together, and they're like, 'Oh, that's seven years.' You get your pro and pre—pre, post, and mid-trib." Anybody familiar with this? Okay, a couple of y'all. You know this stuff, right?

But the problem with that is that's not how this is meant to be understood. That's a Google Maps study, not impressionistic painting. Remember, that's how we look at apocalyptic. Rather, the two contradictory answers go together. They're not meant to be added up.

When's this all going down? It's a mystery—Yoda answer. God knows precisely—that's the math answer. God knows down to the day. God knows, and it's not very satisfying. It's not very satisfying. I bet Daniel felt that way too, because God doesn't want us to know exactly when. He wants for his bride, as we read in the New Testament, to be ready, to be moving toward him, to know that he's gone away to prepare a place for us, and he will come back to finish. He will come back to bring us home.

So the real question that all this points to is how we wait. What we have is a very clear vision of what is to come, a very unclear vision of when it will come, but then this: how? How do you wait? This is waiting time. It's like engagement. A lot of working and waiting. Nobody's nostalgic for this time, but it's an important time.

And Daniel gives us kind of some rock solid handholds for what we do with this time that we're in right now. Three things: rest, remember, remain.

Rest

First, rest. Listen to the instructions:

Go on your way, Daniel, for the words are secret and sealed until the time of the end. But as for you, go on your way to the end. You will rest, and you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance at the end of days.

Man, such great words for worriers. Rest. Knowing the future is meant to give us rest. It's meant to give us a relief and not a burden. So fear for the future, worry about what's to come—that's not the purpose of this prophecy. Rest is the purpose. It's like the old hymn that says, "I know who holds the future"—that kind of rest. You don't have to worry or fear because everything that's going to happen is a part of God's plan.

There's a common theme in Christian circles: "Because of my bad choices, I've gotten my life off of plan A, and I'm somehow on plan C, D, or F at this point. I've done things. I've said things. I've purposed things that have somehow ruined my own life. What's going to happen now?" No. No. No. No. No. The God of the future who holds all your purposes can use even the terrible choices of your life. You can rest in his sovereignty. You can trust him.

I know that you can do all things and no purpose of yours can be thwarted. — Job 42:2

Many are the plans in the mind of a person, but it's the purpose of the Lord that will stand. — Proverbs 19:21

Even if you make bad choices, you don't have to live in fear of "I've ruined it." Rest. Rest in a God who holds your times.

Remember

Second, remember. Listen:

The wicked will act wicked. We know the wicked will not understand, but those who have insight will understand.

If you know this God, trust in him, rest in him, and remember. Take the insight that he has given you and apply that to your daily situation. To remember is to take what you know of God and hold it in front of your vision as you look at the circumstances of your life. It's to take what you know of who God is and hold it right in view in front of you. It's like something on the windshield that you can always see as you look at what's in front of you.

One of the problems that we have as human beings is spiritual amnesia. Short-term memory loss, or as I said a couple weeks ago, leaky hearts. You know, like a colander that you use for draining pasta, or a sieve, or however you call it in your house, a strainer. It doesn't hold any water, and we put the promises of God in that strainer all the time, into our hearts, and they just seem to leak out.

This is why one of the big words of the Bible over and over is remember. Remember. We're told to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. We're told, "Remember, you were a slave in Egypt. Your God redeemed you." "Remember the Lord's works." "I remember your ancient wonders. I reflect on all that you have done. I meditate on your actions." "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth." And he took the bread, and when he broke it and gave thanks, he said:

This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance.

To remember is to take what we know of God and hold it in our vision as we look at the world and we look at ourselves.

I have a great illustration here. I did not come up with this one. It's like when you see a roach in the corner of the room. You see a roach in the corner of a room, and you can't forget that there's a roach in the room. You know that there's a roach. Okay, I'm the only person who's ever seen a roach in a house. I'm so sorry to offend you all this morning. But you see a roach in the room and you're like, "I can't sit here while there's a roach in the room." Unless you think I just made this up—this is a Tim Keller one. But biblically speaking, this is what the means of grace are like for us. I'm comparing the means of grace to a roach. Right? Because the means of grace—worshiping on Sunday with God's people—is meant to be like us seeing the roach in the room. It helps us know: God's right here. He's with me. When we read our Bibles and we pray, you know, I know some of y'all say, "Oh, I grew up with that. It feels so legalistic." That is not what we read our Bibles and pray for every day. We do it like the roach in the room—to remember God is real. Take what you know of him. Have it be set in your vision.

You can't forget the roach. Doing the spiritual practices, fellowshipping with God's people, being in community with one another—these are meant to be things like the roach in the room. We remember it's like right there. Can't forget that. This is why we do these things. This is why we come around this table every week. It's why we sing songs. You don't do this anywhere else except for happy birthday. But this is what we do because we have leaky hearts. We need to remember.

Rest, remember. Last one: remain.

Now, the math teacher answers in this passage. There are two numbers. Did you notice this? From the time the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there'll be one thousand two hundred ninety days. But then it also says, happier is the one who waits and reaches 1,335. One thousand three hundred thirty five is bigger than one thousand two hundred ninety. What's the point? Hey, persevere. Stay on. This is one of my greatest longings for our congregation—that you would remain. There's a lot of "I don't know anymore." And my call to you is to remember and remain. Persevere, endure. Hang in there, people. Hang in. What is to come is so worth it.

How do you do this? Let me close this way. Eyes on the prize, my friends. Eyes on the prize.

There will come a day when my son, who just got engaged, is married, and this engagement time will be a distant memory, worrying about table decorations. Never think about it again. There will come a time for you, if you're a believer in Jesus, when the worries of right now, the physical pain that you're in, the sadness that you're walking through, the stress that you're under—this will be a distant memory. When we are perfected and perfect with the perfect one in the new heavens and new earth, when all is put to rights, when, as C.S. Lewis calls it, this life—the shadowlands—is a distant memory. We will be with him.

I know this is hard for you to believe right now, but this is what Scripture holds out to us. These promises:

Our light and momentary trials are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. All creation is waiting eagerly for the future day when God will reveal who his children really are. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, the trumpet will sound. The dead in Christ will rise incorruptible, and we will be changed. For now we see only as a reflection in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I will know fully even as I'm fully known. — 1 Corinthians 13:12, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, Romans 8:18-19

This is the joy to come. This is the glory to come.

But for now, in this time of working and waiting, one of the things we need to exercise is our imagination. How do you do this? If you're going on a trip, you watch Rick Steves' videos. If you're about to be married, you read bridal magazines. If you're gonna have a baby, you post the ultrasound photo on your fridge. For Christians, these weird parts of the Bible that you skip over, the apocalyptic stuff—this is a gift for us. It's reminding us there is a future hope, and it is certain. More certain than the next breath. And it is to come.

For me, it's always reading the C.S. Lewis books—the last one, The Last Battle. Because the last battle is the story of the end of the world of Narnia. But it's an end that's a beginning. We gotta remember, y'all. The end is a glorious beginning.

So I'm gonna close. This is one of my favorite quotes. I'm gonna read this for y'all, and then we'll come into worship:

"You do not look so happy as I mean you to be," said Aslan, the Lion.

Lucy replied, "We're so afraid of being sent away again, Aslan. You have sent us back into our own world so often."

"No fear of that," said Aslan. "Have you not guessed?" Their hearts leaped, and a wild hope rose within them.

"There was a real railway accident," Aslan said softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are, as you used to call it in the shadowlands, dead. The term is over. The holidays have begun. The dream has ended. This is the morning."

And as he spoke, he no longer looked at them like a lion, but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them down. And then for us, this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them, it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page. — C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

Now at last, they were beginning chapter one of the great story, which no one on earth has ever read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that the story of the end for us is really the story of a new beginning. I thank you for my brothers and sisters gathered here this morning. Lord, would you fix our eyes and our hearts on you? Train us, Father, for the hope that is ours to come. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Let's respond to God's word in song together. Would you stand with me?