Sermons 2024

Sermon Outline
At Just the Right Time, He Comes!
    I.    At that time of trouble as has never been before (these days right now!), Michael has come as God’s special agent to protect us.
    II.    At that time in the future he knows to be right, Christ himself will come to deliver us.

Sermon
Intro: Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Old Testament Lesson of Daniel Chapter twelve, verses one through three.
Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Can you remember a time in your life when you were afraid because you were by yourself and you needed someone to come to help you? Maybe you were lost in the store. Maybe you were scared of the thunderstorm and needed mom or dad to comfort you. I am sure that you were hoping that someone would get there soon. People look for and love heroes, especially when they’re in need of protection or need to be rescued. Even fictional (super!) heroes fascinate us. In our text for today, we hear of a hero even stronger than any superhero that comes to save us. Who is that hero? How does He save us? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you. 

At Just the Right Time, He Comes!
I.
The Book of Daniel is a book about struggles, battles, and war. Daniel arises at a time when God’s people are taken into exile in Babylon, a thousand miles from home. The first six chapters of the book are the history of God’s people as they were taken and lived in Babylon. Daniel became an advisor to King Nebuchadnezzar by interpreting the king’s dream. He was thrown into a den of lions for continuing to pray to the true God. His friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were cast into a fiery furnace for not bowing down to an idol. But the triune God, the Ancient of Days, was with his people as they fought their battles against the old evil foe and the world around them. These men were heroes of the faith, bright shining stars for the Lord!

The second six chapters of Daniel describe more battles that God and his people would fight. These chapters are prophecy. Most of Daniel’s prophecies are in symbolic, picture, language. We see many of the same pictures in the Book of Revelation: strange creatures, symbolic numbers, battles between spiritual forces in heaven and on earth.

Thus, the Book of Daniel is divided into two distinct sections: one historical and the other prophetic. Some of the prophecies had immediate fulfillments in the decade and centuries that followed Daniel, while there were also prophecies that had in mind an even greater fulfillment. Such is the case before us in our text, looking ahead to when Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead. Today we look at the last battle in the Book of Daniel.
Daniel says, “And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time” (v 1b). He’s describing a time that will take place just before the last judgment. It’s a struggle for the children of God living in a world ruined by sin. It’s a world that hates God’s message and hates God’s messengers. The people of God also struggle as they wrestle with temptations and with the weakness of their own sinful flesh. We speak of this troubling time between Jesus’ first coming and second coming as the “end times.” Everything before Christ was preparation. Christ came and brought fulfillment to God’s Law and promises. Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification. And now things are being brought to a close for the final fulfillment: the deliverance of Christ’s people as he is coming again and will take us to be where he is. We will live eternally with him.
Every generation thinks it’s going to be the last generation because every generation thinks society can’t get any worse than it already is. And yet the world continues to get further and further away from Christ and his Word. When we look in the newspapers, on the internet, on TV, we wonder: Where has the love for God gone? Where is the concern for one’s neighbors? We are pilgrims in an unwelcoming and unholy land.
To look at the world as it is today and ponder how much worse it will get between now and Judgment Day is a frightening thought! It’s going to get worse, says our text, such as never has been. This is a prophetic statement. Our Lord has allowed his prophet to peer down the corridors of time before Judgment Day. And what Daniel sees is horrific. The Hebrew word translated “time of trouble” that Daniel uses contains the idea of getting squeezed in on every side, almost like being squashed in a vise grip. Are you feeling like that today?

Jesus echoed Daniel’s warning about those last days: “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short” (Mt 24:21–22). Today, Jesus’ word rings ever true. There are wars and rumors of wars. Our nation is losing its way. It doesn’t respect life in the womb or before the tomb. More and more people lambaste Christian teachings, wanting to silence us, and religious freedoms are being taken away. It’s all happening just as foretold, a time of unparalleled trouble, a time of all-out opposition to God, a time of false prophets and persecution, of famines and earthquakes. Trouble is all around us and in us. When pressured, the light of our faith life sometimes flickers to dim.

How can we get through this mess called “life”? God gives Daniel the answer—an answer that was as good back then as it is now. God has given us more than a prophecy of doom. He gives us a promise of deliverance. “At that time,” he says, “shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people” (v 1a). Michael is the only archangel specified in the Bible. He is the general of God’s army of angels, which protects God’s people from the forces of evil in the world, from the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Michael serves as God’s special agent to keep his people from the devil’s plans and purposes. In these last troubled times, in the midst of it’s-only-getting-worse troubles of this world, the Lord, our Emmanuel, remains present with his people. He is here to save! We will not be abandoned. The Bible repeatedly calls on us to remain faithful unto death because that final time of reckoning is definitely coming. God promises that there will be a time of final and ultimate deliverance.

II.
All is not doom and gloom. “But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book” (v 1c). Daniel is seeing the final deliverance on the Last Day. In the midst of a world gone mad, God reminds us that he will deliver us. Through faith in Jesus, we belong to the people of God, and we will be saved. At the last trumpet call, in the blink of an eye, God’s angels will gather up all of his people. Not one left behind. It’s a breathtaking picture God gives: Jesus coming down out of the clouds with the archangel shouting the command for all to appear before the Christ. At his call, the graves give up their dead, and body and soul are reunited.
That trumpet call of God, that voice of the archangel, will bring about the resurrection of all flesh. “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some t14o everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (v 2). “Many” here is all inclusive. The word Daniel used is better translated “the multitudes, everybody.” There will be a perfect restoration of our bodies so that they are imperishable, no longer subject to the effects of sickness, suffering, and death. And those bodies, our bodies, will be reunited with our souls.

Then the judgment will commence. All will be gathered before the throne, both believers and unbelievers. On that throne will be Jesus, our Savior. He was given that position by his Father as the Redeemer of all mankind, the One who gave his life on the cross for the sins of all mankind, all those gathered before him on that day. Those who do not believe in him as their Savior and Lord awake to shame and everlasting contempt—which is hell, eternal separation from God, a place of suffering and pain with no joy, only sorrow.

“And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (v 3). Whoever believes in Jesus will be saved. Where he is, there they will be also, at home with him forever in heaven, where there will be no more suffering, pain, tears, or death. There they will shine like the brightness of the heavens and sing God’s praises together with the angels. Here is the source of courage we need to face our own death and the source of comfort we need as we mourn the deaths of our family and friends who loved the Lord.

Jesus Christ is no masked marvel or secret superhero. Although he came once veiled in flesh, he wasn’t covering up his identify but revealing it: a true man of humility who bleeds like us and bled for us. He comes to us today through the preaching of his Word, the splashing of Baptism’s water, and the eating and drinking of his body and blood in Holy Communion. He isn’t covering up his identity but revealing it. Jesus is invincible, unstoppable, miracle, solving our deepest spiritual need (sin’s guilt) despite our weakest of physical handicaps, mental disturbance, or emotional breakdown. Jesus will come soon on the Last Day (a date only the Father knows). We are ready, whenever that day is, because He is with us to protect us and is coming to deliver us. “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20). 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.