The Obedience of the Faithful: Daniel 12:5-13

In the end, Daniel is obedient and faithful.  I’m sure he had his flaws, and he needed God’s salvation just as much as anyone else.  Yet, he is near the top of the list of people in the Bible who do as God asks without questioning the Lord.  He is a model for obedience.

As the book of Daniel closes, the message is hard to discern.  The message is hard for Daniel to discern, too.  He readily confesses that he heard but did not understand.  Some things are not meant for our understanding in the moment.  There is a time and a place for understanding, but we are not necessarily meant to understand everything.

What we can learn from this text is there will be a time when the power of God’s people will be shattered.  The world will come up against God’s people and take away their power.  The world will eventually want nothing to do with God or His ways.  The world will desire to take God’s power for themselves and pretend they can do what God does.

There will also come a time when the challenge the world brings against God and His people will end.  God only allows rebellion to exist for so long before bringing it into check.  God is patient and God is willing to forgive rebellion when there is proper repentance involved.  God, however, will only take unrepented rebellion for so long.  We can look at His treatment of His own people as an example.  God allowed His own people to go into exile because they refused to repent and bring themselves back in line with God’s ways.

When Daniel seeks to learn more, Daniel is told to go on his way.  This is not a place God wishes to give Daniel full understanding.  Daniel’s head had been filled with many great images and declarations of the future.  If Daniel had been given the full understanding, there would not have been any surprise or interest when God’s Word came true.  By telling Daniel to go his way, the people who live after Daniel dies can feel the wonder and surprise of living in the fulfillment of God’s Word.

It should be no surprise that Daniel doesn’t argue.  He doesn’t understand, and it would be natural for him to want to understand.  He has been able to interpret dreams and vision, how could he not want to understand this vision of the future God had given to him?  At the same time, Daniel has been obedient his whole life.  Every time God has told him to do something, he has obeyed.  Now, as an old man, Daniel obeys once more.  Daniel listens to the voice and goes his own way.  The words were for him to write down and store up for the proper time, but the wisdom of the words would remain with God until history makes the message clear.

In the end, Daniel is obedient and faithful.