The question is vital. When will the Last Days – this spiritual terrible battle – begin and end? How long must God’s people endure? Daniel 12:7 The man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, lifted his right hand and his left hand towards heaven, and I heard him swear by him who lives for ever, saying, ‘It will be for a time, times and half a time. When the power of the holy people has been finally broken, all these things will be completed.’ Note the solemnity with which these promises are spoken.

What causes the most pain by far to Christian pastors, parents, and friends? Seeing a loved one fall away from the faith.

Jesus promised over and again that this would happen. But if this lessens the shock it does not remove the heartache which keeps us awake at night.

Yet we know that the temptations of the world, and the trials of living as Jesus’ disciples, make us all prone to falling away from him.

We must to be prepared and strengthened for these trials. We need to be encouraged to keep going. Daniel 12 does that.

Daniel 12:1a ‘At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then.

“At that time”, “a time of distress”, refers to the Greek-Persian war shown to Daniel in the chapter 11 vision. This was the kinetic manifestation of the far greater spiritual conflict that would engulf the world in the “Last Days”, the time between Jesus’ ascension and return in final judgment, the time in which we now live.

Chapter 10 showed us Daniel’s devastated response to this revelation, and how the LORD strengthened him. In chapter 12 the LORD continues to explain the vision in order to comfort Daniel.

Michael is apparently a powerful angel whose name means “Who is like God?” In chapter 10 he helps the Messiah and here we are promised that he will strengthen all of God’s people during the unparalleled distress of the Last Days.

Daniel 12:1b But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.

Though the distress is severe God promises to deliver his people: the same word (מלט, mālat) describes Lot’s escape from Sodom and David’s escape from Saul.

Who are God’s people? Those whose names “are found written in the book.”

The fact that God’s people are named in a book goes back to Moses who prayed “blot me out of your book which you have written” (Exod. 32:32) – in other words “condemn me instead of Israel.” Jesus urged his disciples to “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). John saw that “anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:15).

The Sovereign LORD, who decrees all that happens in his creation from beginning to end, must also decree who will be rescued from sin and granted everlasting life. (The doctrine of election is a subset of the doctrine of divine sovereignty.) This decision is depicted as God writing their names in his book. What God writes cannot be unwritten. Our salvation rests ultimately in the invincible will of God.

Amidst the fury of spiritual warfare God’s people can rest assured that their names are indelibly written in his book of life: he has determined to save us and “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39).

Now the LORD describes his return in final judgment, the end point of the Last Days:

Daniel 12:2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.

The grave is not our final resting place. Just as Jesus “awakened” Lazarus from his tomb he will awaken every person who has ever lived from their grave for final judgment and sentencing (Rev. 20:13).

This doesn’t imply “soul sleep.” At the moment of death our spirits are plunged into conscious torment apart from the LORD, or raised into conscious paradise with the LORD. This begins the “intermediate state”, after which our bodies will be awakened and reconciled to our spirits for final judgment.

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