“Built to Last!”

A Sermon Based Upon Daniel 7: 1-16

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

2nd Sunday of Epiphany, January 19^th, 2014
2014 Winter Bible Study Sermon Series, 3/4 

“To him was given dominion and glory and kingship that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.  His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.” (Dan 7:14 NRS)

Six Flags Over Georgia is one of the South's favorite amusement parks.   Thousands of people visit there each year. The park is dedicated to the six political nations that at one time or another ruled the piece of real estate we call Georgia.  The Spanish flag unfurled its colors first in the Georgia sunshine, until the French troops moved in.  Next it was the British who flew their proud flag by ousting the French and colonizing Savannah.  But the American Revolution came and the year 1776 saw yet another banner flapping in the breeze atop the Georgia flag poles. This blue and red Georgia flag waved until the states united under the Constitution.  Next an embattled nation killed brothers and burned cities settling a family quarrel with Georgia under the flag of the Confederacy.  This dispute settled, a new flag was raised and saluted. It is the sixth flag, the stars and stripes of the United States of America!

The rise and fall of political nations ruling over one piece of ground is not unique to Georgia.  History is cluttered with the ruined wreckage of fallen empires.  There is an area along the Rhine River in Western German has switched sides between France and Germany since before Roman times.  In this area, some towns in Germany look more French than German, and some towns in France, like the great city of Strasbourg, look more German, than French.  Workers in Greece unearthed the remains of twelve cities which existed at different times belonging to different tribes of people. Each city was built atop the ruins of the former city.   In Mexico City there is a famous plaza of three cultures.  In one spot a tourist may stand and see the ruins of an Indian temple destroyed by the conquering soldiers of Spain.  Next to this ruined temple is the rubble of the Spanish government house.  It was destroyed when the Mexican Revolution won the prize of independence.  In this plaza now stands the Mexican House of Government. If you drive up to Morganton NC, you’ll find newly discovered remnants of Spanish rule in N.C, after the Indians, before the British, before the American Revolution and before the Confederacy and the current United States of America.  The ground underneath our own feet holds a story of empires, coming and going.

There are some modern day prophets of doom who feel that the current American empire is fast approaching destruction or conquest.  They point to the decay of the family, crime, a poor economy, welfare, political corruption, and citizens spoiled by "soft" living.  These are symptoms, they say, of a diseased and dying nation.  "Any nation that can build machines that won't crack up but cannot build men and women who won't crack up is on its way out," someone has stated.  Weekly we read or hear in the news of murders, crime, people pushing the limits of morality, and of pure stupidity or evil, like the husband who forced his wife to have a face lift and then drowned her in the bathtub.  Or like a Congress or Senate who can't get anything done or a Health Care system that seems to be in shambles?   No wonder it takes approximately one million sleeping pills to lull America to sleep each night!  

Yes, kingdoms do rise and fall.  Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Spain, France, England, Germany-they all have had their heyday.  Now it is the Soviet Union that has last fallen and the question is will the final ‘super power’ called the United States be next?  In this world of short-lived kingdoms is there a country, a culture, a people whose values are universal, and whose kingdom will last?  Is there no nation that can be looked to for justice and mercy, love and brotherhood?   Today's Bible text claims to show us a vision of such a kingdom that will last and it reveals one like a human being who will lead it.  It is a kingdom that will never pass away.

WHICH KINGDOM?

Today we’ve come to the second part of Daniel that has been confusing to many.   The first part of Daniel contains hero stories; but this second part contains visions about a coming Kingdom and coming King---who is like no other king who has ever ruled on the face of the earth.   But before we get to the rise of that Kingdom, Daniel gives us strange kingdoms which are symbolized by animal like powers of a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a final beast that is so monstrous, it cannot be expressed any known form.  This fourth beast is ‘exceedingly terribly’ having ‘great iron teeth’, with 10 horns and then grows another.   These Beasts represent great ruling Kingdoms in Daniel’s day,  the kingdoms of the Babylonians, the Medes, the Persians, and Greece.   Although some Prophecy preachers would include Rome, we can be certain that the most terrible Kingdom in Daniel is “Greece” because it is named so no less than three times (8.21; 10.20; and 11.2).  What is most important for us today, however, is not to get side-tracked in debates about historical or prophetic details.   The aim of Daniel’s vision is to point us toward this Kingdom that ‘never passes away’.   Daniel does not make much of any of these Kingdoms and nor should we, except to draw out attention to the final Kingdom, the one will be determined by the one seated on the heavenly throne.    As the text tells us in verse 7:9 "As I looked thrones were placed, and one that was the Ancient of Days took his seat."  What is still most curious is how this vision of the coming, final, kingdom upsets Daniel, even after he gains an interpretation of it (Compare Daniel 7: 15 with Daniel 7:28).

So, what is it that upsets Daniel so much that his spirit is “troubled” and why does this vision “terrify him”?   Many prophecy preachers today like to scare people with their predictions about the end, but here the prophecy preacher, Daniel himself is the one who is frightened, confused and upset?  Maybe this is what really happens when a preacher tells the truth?  The same kind of thing happened to Isaiah, when the wrote in Isaiah 6:1: "I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up."  Right after that Isaiah gets this terrible feeling and cries out, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" (Isa 6:5 NRS).   When people really see God’s vision for the world, you don’t get excited and shout Hallelujah, but it get a sick feeling and you start feel lost.   That’s is the true burden of telling the truth.

Atop the state capitol building in Philadelphia is a statue of William Penn, the founder of the state of Pennsylvania.  Some years ago the state legislature passed a law saying that no other building in Philadelphia could be built higher than the William Penn statue.  Today that law still stands. In all the city of Philadelphia there is none higher than William Penn!  God's throne is like this, too! High and lifted up! Thrones have always been high and important.  There will always be the thrones of Alexander, Pharaoh, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, and the White House. But none will ever be higher than the Great White Throne of God!  Men strained to lift their thrones to the heavens by building the great tower of Babel, but they failed.  Satan, the fallen angel, even tried saying, "I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God; I will set my throne on high." (Isaiah 14:13). He too has failed.  God’s kingdom is the only Kingdom that is worthy to endure.  All earthly kingdoms will rise and they will fall, including the one where we live.   It’s not what I want to tell you, but it’s what I have to tell you and it makes me feel a queasy about my 401 k right now!   But the truth is the truth----only God's heavenly throne and its surrounding kingdom will exist unconquered and forever!  No Kingdom will endure like God’s

WHO RULES?

Daniel’s vision allows us take an even deeper look at the nature of this kingdom that is built to last.  In verses 13 and 14 it says, "One like a son of man came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom... His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed."  Who is this "human one", this man who receives this kingdom that is built to last?  Who is this “son of man” who comes before God and receives power to rule forever?   In the New Testament, it is Jesus who raises his hands and says, hey, look here this is me!   The “Son of Man” or “Human One” was Jesus’ favorite designation of himself.   This might shock some of you, but Jesus almost called himself “Son of God” (but his friends and enemies did, and he didn’t refute it), but Jesus preferred Daniel’s more visionary title, “Son of Man”.   You can find it as his most important self-designation spread out over all four gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.   In the most interesting passage, Matthew chapter 24, right after Jesus mentions the symbolic ‘desolating sacrilege’ in  Daniel, that is set up by the final earthly rule (Matthew 24:15), Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 24: 30: ““Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see 'the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven' with power and great glory.   And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Mat 24:30-31 NRS).   It is in this moment, that Jesus seems himself, his ministry, and his return as the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy and the one worthy to receive God’s eternal kingdom through his death and resurrection by God’s power.   This throne or right to rule is not given to Jesus because he came to lord over people, but because “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mar 10:45 NRS)!” Jesus does not earn the kingdom, force the kingdom, nor build the kingdom, but the kingdom is given to him, handed over to him, because he is the only one worthy to rule God’s kingdom that is built to last.

When the Soviet Union fell apart back in 1989, Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany was heard to exclaim, “Marx is Dead, Jesus lives!”  When Daniel envisions the final Kingdom, none of those terrible, monstrous animalistic kingdoms remain.   There is no Babylonian, Median, Perian, Greek or Roman empire left.  There is no Soviet Union, no England, no China nor any United States.   You won’t see any name like Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, or Caesar.  Nor will you see a name like Stalin or Lenin, nor Hitler.  Where is Napoleon? Where are Alexander the Great,  Chairman Mao, or Khrushchev? There is not even a Washington, Churchhill or Lincoln or Kennedy, or Regan.   As Lincoln himself said during the Civil War; “Let’s not pray that God is on our side, but let’s pray that we are on God’s side.”  The hope of the world is not “God bless America”, nor “God’s blessing on Israel, but the hope of the world is when America, Israel, or any other nation, blesses the true God.   Where are the dictators and presidents, the emperors and kings? They have died or they will die. They are in their graves or they will be.  But look here where Jesus Christ is, this one who died, buried, resurrected, and now comes again at the end!   Here he is, standing before God in perfect favor, “this beloved Son in whom he is well pleased”, receiving dominion forever over a kingdom that, as the Bible says, "Shall not pass away, shall not be destroyed."

Steven Crotts, (from whom most of this message originates), says that College students have a habit of writing on bathroom walls. (High school students do too for that matter.)  In one particular bathroom on Emory University's campus there is quite a penciled debate going on as to who will eventually rule the world. "Karl Marx will bring us a new day and a new society'" wrote one thinker. Yet another enthusiast wrote, "Where there Is hope, there's dope." And another, "justice comes from the barrel of a gun." "Dare to struggle, dare to win. Students for a Democratic Society," penciled another radical.   Down low on the wall however, some young rebel had drawn a tiny cross and beside it these words, "Fools, the real revolution began two thousand years ago on Christmas day when a little heavenly lad came down to get God back his ball that sin stole away!" Yes! That's it! The kingdom that lasts belongs to Jesus.  The whole world will not finally be saved until the territory still held by the enemy is returned to its rightful owner.   My friends, the real revolution did not begin under the red star in 1916, nor did it begin under the stars and stripes of America in 1776.  No, the greatest revolution began under the star of Bethlehem.  But humans don’t understand this.   The U.S. Marine emblem shows an American bald eagle holding the world in its claws.   Wrong answer.  The Russians ruble pictures the world with a hammer and sickle struck across it.  Wrong answer again.  According to this text today, it is the “Son of Man”, Jesus, who is the only one who is fit to rule have the world placed into his hands.   

When we were children, we used to sing a song about Jesus and how He ruled the world. Let's sing it now--will you? "He's got the whole world in His hands." HE'S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS. (Repeat 4 times)….. Then we are supposed to sing: HE'S GOT YOU AND ME, BROTHER, IN HIS HANDS and the final phrase goes: HE'S GOT THE KINGS AND THE NATIONS IN HIS HANDS.   I hope you still believe in the words of that childhood song and I hope you sing this last verse too. This world and its kingdoms belong to Jesus.  In this world of political ups and downs, only in Jesus did God’s kingdom come near, and only when it is finally and fully turned over to him, will we have a kingdom that is built to last.

"HOW WILL GOD RULE?"

The only matter left open in the book of Daniel is ‘when’:  When will all people serve him?   When will God finally and fully give the kingdom into the hands of Jesus—the human one?   When will the gospel vision of the “Son of Man coming with clouds and in great power and glory” be fulfilled (Mark 13: 26)?    The book of Daniel ends with a promise that is confusing for us, though was probably clear to Daniel’s first readers, “From the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that desolates is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred ninety days.  Happy are those who persevere and attain the thousand three hundred thirty-five days…” (12.11-12).  Also, right here, already this 7^th chapter, Daniel gives us a calculation for the end using the term “for a time, two times, and half a time” (Daniel 7.25).   

I don’t know about you, but when theologians start given doing math, calculating dates, or giving methods of prophetic interpretation, you had better watch out.  Especially when those dates have long come and gone, and still nothing ‘final’ seems to have happened, someone is going to put their hand on the Bible and declare they have it finally figured out.   But Jesus didn’t do that; at least he said, that not even the “Son” knows the day or the hour and also said, “you don’t know either” (Mark 13: 32-33).  I’m not going claim to know either, but we’ll get to these numbers next week, but for now, let’s focus on what Daniel’s vision tells us early on. He does not get so specific about ‘when’, but he is very specific about ‘how’ God’s final kingdom will come to be established “on earth as it is in heaven.” 

Again, look at verse 14, where Daniel sees in his vision that “To him is given dominion, glory and kingship that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (vs 14a).   Here is a beautiful vision the Book of Revelation will pick up later and adding a vision of a ‘seventh angel’ blowing the final trumpet so that "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever." (Rev 11:15 NRS).  In other passages in Revelation, the same Kingdom is revealed, which will conquer all other kingdoms, not by human might, but by death, suffering, and by the “word of their testimony” through the “blood of the lamb” (Rev. 12: 10-11; 17: 12-15).   Whereas Daniel is speaking of God’s kingdom coming to rule when worldly “Greek powers” come and go; Revelation continues this hope after the worldly “Roman powers” come and go.   In both Daniel and Revelation, the keys to the Kingdom are handed from God to the Son of Man and then finally and fully to the “holy ones of the most high” (Daniel 7:27) who have stood faithful, even though they were “worn out” (Daniel 7.25) or “suffer” (Rev. 2.10) because of the evil powers of this world.   This image of the kingdom being handed over to God’s “saints”, continues in the Book of Revelation, as the 144,000 stand on the holy mountain to rule with their ruler Christ (Rev. 14.1ff).  But who are they, and how does the kingdom finally and fully come through these ‘holy ones of the most high’?

What Daniel and Revelation agree upon is that the Kingdom of God will come finally and fully when it comes from God, ‘the Ancient of Days’ through Christ, ‘the son of man’, and is handed into the hands of God’s faithful people for the saving of the peoples of the whole world.   In other words, the kingdoms of this world do not become God’s kingdom finally and fully, until God’s kingdom is received finally and fully by God’s holy people who serve for the sake of the whole world.  All the way back to Daniel’s vision the “kingdom” comes so that “all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.”   The kingdom does not come until God’s people are ready to suffer and to serve for the sake of the kingdom and for the whole world.  

Here we need to remember something important that the New Testament echos later, when it says that the end will not come ‘until the gospel of the kingdom is preached throughout the world…. (Matthew 24:14).  In other words, the kingdom does not come until everyone is invited.  It is a Kingdom not just for the ‘holy ones’, but it is a kingdom that is put into the hands of the holy ones for the sake of all peoples, all nations, all languages.  Isn’t that what the Bible means when it says:  "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."   God is not the God of Americans only or even Christians only, but He the God of all peoples, nations (which means pagans), and languages.   He is God of Mexicans, the Italians, the Russians, Chinese, and Eskimos. His kingdom is for all and it is handed into the hands of those who trust Christ for the sake of the whole world.   Isn’t this the truth even children sing, when they sing:

JESUS LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN,

ALL THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD.

RED AND YELLOW, BLACK AND WHITE,

THEY ARE PRECIOUS IN HIS SIGHT.

JESUS LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD.

Several years ago, a pastor was sitting at a banquet table during a Christian conference.   Most of the people present were whites.  A number of black Christians entered and sat down to eat with them. This disturbed a lady sitting next to the pastor and she got up and left.  After the meal the pastor found her sitting on the porch sulking. "I refuse to eat with 'Negroes," she said angrily. "Why?" the pastor asked. They're God's children just like you."  The pastor went into a long conversation about race, the Bible and love. Still she said she'd never, never eat with a 'Negro' Christian. So the pastor turned to the book of Revelation and showed her where God will one day give a great banquet at the end of the world. Jesus will be there along with every Christian who has ever lived. Now, this means that people of all races, social backgrounds and educations will sit and eat with Jesus. "If you don't want to eat with black folks, what are you going to do at that banquet?" the pastor explained: "There's only one other place to go if you refuse to eat with Jesus and his family.  You have to go to Hell!"  (This story was told by Steve Crotts). 

But the question of Daniel’s vision is not only are you a loving Christian, but are you also a serving Christian? Do you love God with all your mind, emotion, will and body, and do you love your neighbor, yourself, earth and the environment which is where the kingdom will be established?  Have you ever given God your mind to think through? Have you given Him your lips to speak with? Have you given Him your hands and feet to work with? Is your career for the glory of God? Or are you indifferent, selfish, and lazy about what God is doing in this world?    

A soldier wanting to have some fun entered a barracks and yelled, "I'll give ten dollars to the laziest man here! All but one fellow jumped up and immediately began to argue how lazy they were. However, that one sleepy recruit still in bed drawled, "Just roll me over and slip the money into my back pocket."  When the church is too much like that young and lazy soldier, the kingdom will never come.  God will not turn his kingdom he gave the life of his son for, into the hands of lazy people like that.  

 Brothers and sisters, I'm afraid that the delay of the kingdom is too much because we too much like that lazy soldier. God has recruited us to fight in His army.  But most of us are sleepy and lazily passing time in our spiritual bunks. We want God's gifts.  We'll take all His benefits!  "Just roll me over and stick your blessings in my back pocket!"  But if we shirk our Christian responsibility to evangelize, to seek justice, to minister to the needs of others, how can God hand the kingdom over to us?   Where not Jesus' last words to His Church” "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  And teach them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matt.28).  Need I remind you that this commandment and commission cannot be fulfilled if we are lazy or asleep?  It cannot be fulfilled by lazy half-hearted or selfish believers!   God will only give a Kingdom that lasts to a people who are ready to go to work and whose faith endures because it is built by the very God who has transformed them from snoozers and loosers to workers and winners.  Amen.