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It is that it is that time in the rhythm of the church year, when we

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turn our attention to the end times to the apocalypse if you will or to

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Judgment Day.

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And whenever I think about Judgment Day, I don't know why

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but I always go back to many years ago to my Greek, professor at

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Bethany, Lutheran college professor, Glenn 

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Reichwald.

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And Professor Reichwald would always refer to the day at the end

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of the semester of final exams in Greek class as Judgment Day.

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I guess he was trying to instill a little bit of fear into our hearts.

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We didn't need to have any more fear instilled into our hearts

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actually, but I guess that's what he was trying to do so that,

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hopefully, we would study harder and maybe pass the exam.

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Well, it is true that the end times are often spoken of, in fearful

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terms.

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Even the word apocalypse, the word apocalypse means Revelation where

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we see the consummation of God's grace, where God's plan of Eternal

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salvation is revealed

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its, it's brought to fruition. But it has taken on a new meaning

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in everyday discourse, this word Apocalypse of something very bad

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very negative. The dictionary calls it

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the essential meaning and it talks about a biblical apocalypse as a as a

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very bad or very sudden event, a great disaster that causes great harm

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and destruction and loss.

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But in our reading today from Daniel chapter 12, we see a little bit

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of a different picture.

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Daniel paints, a little bit of a different picture because the purpose

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of Daniel's writing is to give us hope to give us optimism.

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It's to be a hopeful picture at least for the faithful of where the

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world is headed.

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We all know that the Book of Daniel is a book about faithfulness.

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When we think of Daniel, the man here he is

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he was hauled off against his will off to a foreign country

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a strange country, forcibly. A land of strange customs.

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A land with capricious Kings, a myriad of false gods, temptations all

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around.

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And he was indoctrinated for three years in the ways and the customs,

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and the beliefs

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of the Babylonians and yet, in spite of all of that

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he refused to turn his back on the God

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he had worshipped all of his life, the creator of Heaven and Earth.

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Daniel on the one hand, was a great administrator and a prophet

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recognized by the king,

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he served the king. And eventually he was given power over the entire

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Kingdom.

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But on the other hand, he also in his life faced betrayal and sabotage

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and persecution and threats of death.

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He was condemned to a horrible death. And

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yet.

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he refused to give up on his God.

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To me

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the story is amazing

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when you think of the strength of his faith.

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It would have been so easy to give in to the allures of the grandeur

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of the kingdom of Babylonia at the time and he was in charge of it

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all. How easy I think this is the worst temptation he faced to give up

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on God how easy it would be to to fall into the trap of thinking that

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these things are the most important in life, to let your guard down,

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could have made things so much easier for himself.

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He could have taken advantage of his fame

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and his success, he could have made himself wealthy by fitting in, with

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all of those people around him.

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He could have secured for himself, a life of luxury or at least an

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easier life, all the power in that Kingdom had been

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given to him. Think of the temptation?

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You know, the saying power tends to corrupt absolute power corrupts

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absolutely.

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But he resisted the temptations of the world.

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He resisted the temptations of the power that he possessed.

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I think he's an example to all of us who so easily give in to those

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kinds of temptations who so easily want to use power or use

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possessions or some other display of grandeur or glory

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that we might think we possess sometimes even if it's at the expense

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of others,

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Daniel's faithfulness is a testimony to those of us living in a world

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that always tempts us to demure to hold back on our faith to just make

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things a little bit more comfortable for ourselves.

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But when I say that Daniel is a book about faithfulness.

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There's an even more important faithfulness that we see in this book,

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much more important.

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And that is the faithfulness of God.

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It was God's faithfulness after all

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that gave Daniel the power to be faithful.

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God, Daniel was faithful because he knew that God was and always would

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be faithful.

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Even when Daniel faced the Lion's Den

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he knew

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he had no choice.

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He could not renounce his God.

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And I don't believe that Daniel knew for certain that he was going to

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be rescued from that mortal death

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in the Lion's Den.

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I mean, we know it just doesn't work that way.

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I don't believe that he knew that. Yet

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he was not going to give up on his God.

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Daniel remained faithful and refused to bow down and worship the king

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because he knew that no matter what happened

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ultimately God's purpose would be achieved. And that there was a higher

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reward that no matter what would be his

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 because God is faithful to his promises.

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Daniel knew that death is not the final enemy death in this life.

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Now

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he didn't know, of course, the Apostle Paul, but he knew, I think some

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of those things.

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I'm fact

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I'm sure of it.

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That Paul talked about that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor

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principalities nor powers nor things present, nor things to come nor

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height nor depth nor any other creature, would be able to separate him

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from the love of God.

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Which was his in the promised Messiah.

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And that is what we hear about in today's reading.

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Which takes us to the last days, the end times the apocalypse,

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if you will.

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In this passage, it says that in those last days, there will be a time

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of trouble something worse than ever seen before. That things will be

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so bad

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that the Angel, Michael will be sent to help protect and help

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strengthen God's people in the face of these trials and tribulations

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so that they would remain faithful.

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Daniel here

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the prophet doesn't go into all kinds of detail

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like we hear about from Jesus when he talks about Nations rising up

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against Nations.

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And brother against brother, and father, against son, and son against

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father, and famines and a blood

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red moon, and stars falling from the sky.

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He simply says there will be trouble like never seen before.

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But while there is trouble ahead and the purpose of this passage, I

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believe is to show us that while there is trouble ahead

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there is triumph, too.

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The point of these verses is to demonstrate the love and the mercy and

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the grace of God, even before the end of the very first verse of these

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three little versus here.

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He says, but at that time, your people shall be delivered.

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While there will be fearsome things about the end.

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The point is that God will be faithful to his people.

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Daniel speaks here about the wise who in the end will shine like the

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brightness of the sky above.

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Who are the wise?

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Well, they are those who of course, have grasped wisdom from above. It's

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not a 

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 worldly wisdom having to do with human Affairs, but it's about those

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who are wise unto salvation.

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That is the message of God's grace, and forgiveness, and mercy, the

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gospel of the Messiah, whose, whose atoning sacrifice restores fallen

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humanity, and brings us back into peace with God.

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Those who are wise are those who recognize their situation, their

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impurity.

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They know of the danger circumstances they are in. And those who are

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wise are those who have despised of their own strength and works and

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have trusted in the work of Jesus on their behalf.

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This is true wisdom, and they are described as shining as bright as

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the sky

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in the resurrection. Those who are wise shining as bright as the sky

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in the resurrection.

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But there's even more here.

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And this is where you come in.

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Because Daniel says that those who lead many to righteousness will

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shine like stars forever.

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Those who lead many to righteousness will shine like, stars forever.

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Now, certain this certainly this applies to any Christian who by his

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or her testimony of life, in words, brings glory to God and the

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knowledge of the Gospel to many.

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But I think in a very real in a very direct sense, it applies to the

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teachers of the church who lead the church in bringing the gospel to

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the world.

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That's what it's talking about here.

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There is an important missiological component here

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I would say.

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As I read this short passage in the promises of the third verse.

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In me, it stirs up a sense of urgency.

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As we prepare for, and as we wait for the coming of Christ, we see

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here that the world is heading for a day, when people's fate will be

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sealed.

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Those who have believed, will inherit eternal life and those who have

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not will inherit shame and everlasting contempt.

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To me, this seems to indicate that there should be a sense of urgency.

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We should have a sense of urgency about making the message of the

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Gospel, known far and wide.

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I remember many years ago when I was on the faculty at Fort Wayne and

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we were starting to talk about building a new library.

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And so they hired a couple of couple of different architectural firms

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to share some ideas with us.

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And as a faculty, we got to look at some of these ideas.

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And so one architect came in who was asked to show how he thought the

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library could look and fit in with the architecture of that campus.

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And he brought a model.

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A model of what he thought would look good and fitting.

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As a part of that model, this guy looked like Andy Warhol, by the way,

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it's that's beside the point doesn't mean anything about it.

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But to me that meant meant he must be pretty creative.

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So he as a part of his model, it included a plaza and also a clock

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tower.

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And on that clock tower, there would be four faces, four clock faces

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facing north, south, east and west. And

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as I looked at that and I was kind of thinking about it.

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I thought, you know, this really must have some symbolic meaning.

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So I talk to the architect.

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I said, you know, I think that there's some symbolic you Architects do

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stuff for a reason, you know, they think of the symbolism of what

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they're designing, right?

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So I said, you know, I think that there's some real powerful symbolic

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meaning here.

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I would say that what you're probably thinking is one is that there is

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a clock which indicates that time is fleeting, time is fleeting.

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And the time of Christ's return is coming. And then the fact that it's

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on a tower with four faces in all directions, to me seems to indicate

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that the gospel goes out to all the world to the four corners of the

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earth.

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Time is fleeting and its four corners of the earth.

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That's a gospel proclamation of the Gospel

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far and wide.

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That's what I thought.

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I thought it as pretty clever

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and so I mentioned this to him what I thought and he said no, it's

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just a clock tower.

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I still think it was a clever thought and every time I see a clock

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tower of four faces, I think about that.

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I would say that it was the observation was valid with or without a

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clock tower of four faces. As we race on in time

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to that day

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when Christ will come to judge.

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I hope that we would send, we would feel a sense of urgency. First

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an urgency to remain faithful, like, Daniel did. In the face of all

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of the temptations and the trials and the troubles that we have to put

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up with. So that we are counted

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among the wise that Daniel mentions. We do this, of course, by

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attending to the word, the spirit, working in the word.

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But it seems to me that we would also have an urgency about the task

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of leading others to righteousness as Daniel describes it.

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In fact, it's so important here that Daniel speaks here of a special

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client kind of Glory for those who do so they will shine like the

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stars of Heaven.

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Recently, someone was speaking to me about his church body, a Lutheran

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Church body,

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a sister Church of ours.

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Not the Lutheran Church, Missouri, Synod, although maybe it could have

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been.

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But as he was describing his church

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he, he used a word that kind of struck me, made me feel bad in a

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sense.

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He said, to his church was lethargic.

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I could not help but think about Revelation and the Church of

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Laodicea, which was neither hot nor cold, which was lukewarm.

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And God said he would spit him out of his mouth or vomit him out of

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his mouth

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actually.

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It was kind of sad to hear that.

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But my prayer is that God would cure me and all of us of our lethargy

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when it comes to leading others to righteousness because it is such a

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wonderful, wonderful privilege that we have.

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But in the end, it's not of course just about our faithfulness.

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It's about a faithfulness that is much greater than anything

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we could ever generate.

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It's about a faithfulness in a God.

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It's a faithfulness of a God, whose love and promises are Eternal and

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unbreakable.

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Even when we fail miserably. Who promises to protect us in the upcoming

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time of trouble. Who in promises to empower us

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us in our lives and in our Ministries and who will deliver us on the

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last day so that we will shine like the sky and the stars in heaven.

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Yes,

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the book of Daniel is about faithfulness Daniels faithfulness, for

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sure, but even more

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so about God's faithfulness in whom we can trust in Jesus name.

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Amen.

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And now May the peace of God, that passes all human understanding

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guard, your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

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Amen.