Well, we're here. I don't know if you all thought we'd ever get here, but we're at the end of Daniel. I want to tell you, I've never preached through Daniel before, and I preach from Daniel, but I've never preached through it, particularly chapters 7 through 12. But I've been blessed by my study of it and encouraged by the message of it. And the supreme message is God is in control. He's on His throne. Again, once again, as we started this study, the most important one in the book of Daniel is the true and living God. And by the way, that happens from Genesis to the Revelation. All through Scripture, the most important one that is being revealed is the true and living God in types and shadows in the Old Testament and in reality in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, We're going to pick up verse 4 again. We kind of concluded with that last week. We're going to pick up verse 4 and go through verse 13. Now I want to answer some of your questions. times and times and a half and times the three and a half years, what does that mean? The 1,290 days, what does that mean? The 1,335 days, what does that mean? I'll tell you what I think it basically means, but I'm not going to give you a literal specific meaning of those things, because I don't think that's the point. Let me just say this here, those numbers and those figures basically are telling us that God has set out certain things and there's limitations to them and there's periods where he works and he continues to work and It's kind of I think it's really an indefinite time that God is portraying here, but he is in control of that time I think that's the most important thing for us to think about and remember so if you're able to stand as we read these verses verse chapter 12 verses 4 through 12 13 But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase. Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, one on this bank of the stream and one on that bank of the stream. And someone said to the man clothed in linen who was above the waters of the stream, how long shall it be till the end of these wonders? And I heard the man clothed in linen who was above the waters of the stream. He raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven and swore by him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time. And that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end, all these things would be finished. I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, O my Lord, what shall be the outcome of these things? He said, go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed in the time of the end. Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand. And from the time that the regular burn offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolation is set up, there shall be 1,290 days. Blessed he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days, but go your way till the end and you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of days. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you, Father, that you have given it to us as you have intended. You're conveying to us what you want us to know. Some were like Daniel. I raised my hand with Daniel. Some things I don't understand. But Father, I move past that and I trust you. I trust who you are. I trust your faithfulness to your word. I trust your love revealed to us in your son. I trust that you are reigning on your throne. In spite of all that's going on in this world, Father, we thank you that you're on your throne and the Lord Jesus is at your right hand and he's bringing all things under subjection to his feet. And you have given him all power in heaven and on earth and under the earth. Therefore, Father, we can go into this world and make disciples. So, Father, we thank you for your promises. We thank you for your purposes. We thank you, Father, for your power. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. First of all, I want us to look at this final command that the Lord gives to Daniel. And this is in relation to Daniel and basically his ministry, I think. He has spent over 70 years in exile. He's at this time probably easily 85 years old or older. He most likely was around 15 years old when he was taken into captivity. So all you math geniuses, that makes what? 70 and 15 is what? 85. So he's at least 85 years old. I started to go somewhere I don't want to go. About an 80-year-old. But. This final command is to shut up the words. So God's prophecy and revelation to Daniel is coming to an end as far as being revealed to him. What's going to take place in this prophecy is not going to come to an end at this time, but he's telling him to shut up the words. And the idea is to guard and preserve and protect these words. You know, people have a safety deposit box. What do you put in your safety deposit box? Things that are important. You know, the deed to your house. And I think this is part of what God is saying to Daniel. Because when we get to Revelation, there's a scroll which I believe is the title deed of all creation. And as you read Revelation there, the angel is saying no one is worthy to open up this title deed And so John begins to weep because no one's found, and then he's told to have courage because there is one. There's the lamb that was slain is able to open up this title deed. And so what God is saying to Daniel is shut up these words because they're going to be preserved until they come into reality along God's timetable. And also seal the book. Again, this idea of preserve in an altered state and not to hide. God is not trying to keep this from us. Now again, like Daniel, some of these things we don't understand with clarity. I think the general picture we can understand. The main things I think I'm going to try to talk about this morning and emphasize this morning, we can embrace and understand. But God, you know, Paul uses the word mystery in the New Testament. And this mystery isn't something that God does not want us to know. This mystery is something that we cannot know until God takes the initiative to bring revelation to us. And even as we sang that third song, I know not how the Spirit moves, convicting men of sin, revealing Jesus through the Word, creating faith in them. That's the work of the Spirit, as the Gospels proclaim. That's what I was alluding to in my opening prayer. God brought people into my life. that shared the gospel with me. And probably I wasn't even aware they were sharing the gospel with me. They were teaching the word of God to me. And the spirit moved in my heart and brought that light and illumination to understand what was being taught to me. I was talking to somebody about this a couple weeks ago. I don't remember who I was talking to. But I don't, you know, I've been in church all my life. I was in the incubator for nine months, you know. I doubt in my 70 years of living, I doubt if I've missed, I'm going to be really overestimating this, I doubt if I've missed six months of Sundays in my entire life. I doubt if I've done that. Even when we were in seminary and I'd get off work at 6.30 in the morning, first when I went to seminary I took a security guard job and I worked all night. I'd get home on Sunday morning at 6.30 and it was just Chris and our two oldest at that time. And we'd get up, go to Sunday school, go to church. because that's what you do. And I didn't use my work schedule to keep me from going to church. So I've been in church all my life, but I still need the gospel. I still need the spirit to open up my heart to the gospel. And so what God is saying to Daniel, I'm not trying to hide these things from you. You just need to seal them up and shut up these words until they, in my timing, they're gonna be revealed and they're gonna be manifested. Now some of this, and some interpret these 1,260 days and the 1,335 days, they refer those back to Antiochus Epiphanes IV. He reigned and terrorized Israel for about three and a half years before God. put a bug in him and killed him with a virus. So it might apply to him, but I really think these numbers are saying God has a set period of time as he carries out his redemptive purpose, and things that are going on are limited by his authority and by his purposes. So the final command, shut up the words, and by the way, that's the message of this book. We're not to add anything to it, we're not to subtract anything from it. You know, you can study the history of how these 66 books came to be and how they were canonized. The word canon comes from Latin, where it just means standard. And so it was several hundred years after the time of Christ before the New Testament was canonized and these 27 books that we believe are the word of God were officially kind of recognized by the church. But they were being used and they were being understood as authoritative way before that. But part of the point is, if you would pick up Josh McDowell's book and read his section there about the process of how our Bible came together, one of the points he makes is, I want to know what I'm going to die for. I want to die for the Word of God. I don't want to die for a false gospel or a pseudo-gospel. You understand what I'm saying? So that was part of the motivation of canonizing, recognizing these 27 books as Truly the Word of God. Now the 39 books of the Old Testament were already pretty much recognized prior to the time of Christ. That's what Jesus used. That's the Bible he had, the Septuagint. And that's what he taught his disciples. Read Luke 24. One of the last things Jesus did before he ascended was to go through the prophets and the Psalms and the law and say, all this is talking about me. And so God has brought his word to us. Alan was making a comment earlier about being up at the University of Illinois yesterday. And I guess it was high school day or something, some kind of thing going on. And they had all kinds of booths. And there were a bunch of churches there. And he said a lot of the mainline churches, all at their booth was affirmation of homosexuality and gay pride and all this kind of stuff. Why would they do that? Because they have rejected this as authority. That's why they've done it. And anytime we begin to see the Word of God as less than the Word of God, we're on a slippery slope of going down and departing from the faith. And so that's what God is saying to Daniel. Shut up these words and seal this book. Because the words of this book, not just this last vision, but the entire prophecy, they're true. And you can look at chapter 8, 26, 10, 2, 12, 3, the affirmation that what God is saying is true. Now why would it be true if God is saying it? Because He's the truth, right? He's the truth. That's what Hebrews says. One of the things that God cannot do is lie. Now we can do that because of our fallenness. Those that belong to Satan and the kingdom of darkness can do that. Jesus said he's been a liar from the beginning. That's his nature. That's his language that he speaks. Because the word will come to pass according to God's timetable and God's purposes. So what that says to us, as much as what's going on in Israel right now or in Ukraine Wars that are going on that we don't know about in South America, in Africa. Tribes and individuals going at each other and all kinds of stuff that goes on in the world that we don't even know about a lot. God is still on his throne and he's gonna carry out his eternal purpose. Read the first chapter of Ephesians. He's gonna carry out his eternal purpose in his way, in his time. And as I read last week from Isaiah 55, his ways are not our ways, his thoughts are not our thoughts. So we have to trust his character and who he is. But here's this faithful covenant witness. And this is a majestic, really a majestic scene here. It seems like the vision that Daniel's been having and being revealed to him is kind of fading. And all of a sudden he sees a man on the bank that he's on of this river. Now, earlier on it tells us it's the Tigris River, but in this chapter it's just referred to as a stream. And that word in Hebrew is generally used to designate the Nile River. But we already know this is the Tigris River. Why would God have Daniel use this word that has reference back to the Nile River? Well, where's the Nile River? Egypt. Who once were in bondage in Egypt? The people of God. And who did God raise up to deliver and redeem those people? Moses. And then in Deuteronomy 18, beginning, I think, in verse 15, God said to Moses, I'm going to raise up, or the people, I'm going to raise up a prophet like unto Moses. And when he shows up, you better listen to what he says. When John the Baptist comes on the scene in John's gospel, chapter one, and he's baptizing, one of the first questions that the delegation from Jerusalem asked the baptizer is, are you the, that, what? Prophet. They were looking for this prophet. And John said, no, I'm not that prophet. Jesus is that prophet. He's the one like him. Just as Moses was used by God to redeem and deliver his people, this picture of this one, you've got a man here on this side of the stream, you've got a man here on the other side of the stream, and then you've got the man that's clothed in linen. which we shared earlier, I believe it's the Lord Jesus Christ, a Christophany. This is a picture that you have in chapter one of Revelation, how Jesus is dressed. But where's he at? He's hovering over the waters, okay? So there's this majestic scene of revelation of the true and living God manifested in this pre-incarnation, this Theophany, or this Christophany, I think it's Christophany. of the Lord Jesus Christ hovering over the waters. And one of the angels, I think these individuals are angels, asked the question, how long shall it be till the end of these wonders? And I heard the man clothed in linen who was above the waters in the stream, he raises his right hand and his left hand. Now, when you take an oath, anybody been in court Of course, they don't do it much anymore, I don't think. Put your hand on the Bible and raise your right hand and say, I solemnly swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me who? God. In our secular society today, a lot of places eliminate that. But here, he raises his right hand, he raises his left hand. That's an emphasis of the solemnity of this oath that's about to be taken. And so it's a majestic scene, but it's a sacred oath that's about to happen because this is an oath that God is declaring. We go back to Genesis 15 when God made a covenant with Abraham and told Abraham, take these animals and cut them in half and lay the carcasses each half here and That was the picture of a covenant relationship that the two individuals would enter in between these halves of the carcasses and enter into covenant, and would say that if I break this covenant, may I be like these animals that are dead. And as we read that, Abraham falls asleep. He spends his afternoon, I guess, driving off the vultures and birds that want to come to these carcasses. And I guess that wore him out. He was 75 years old, you know. And so he falls asleep. And who enters into this center? God does. And what Hebrews says, when God could not swear by, because you always swore by someone greater. That's why you put your hand on the Bible, so help me God. You always swore by someone greater. Because there's no one greater than God, the writer of Hebrews says, he swore by himself. And so here's a subsequent picture of that, that the Lord Jesus is raising his hand and giving his oath. And what he swears, he says, he raised his right hand, his left hand toward heaven and swore by him, Who lives forever, who can that be? Has to be the true and living God. Who lives forever, that it will be a time, times, and half a time, and then that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end, all these things will be finished. So he swears by himself. Now you can read In chapter 2, verse 20 through 23, Daniel is recognizing who God is. Let me just go ahead and read these real quick. This is when God is giving, well, the hit squad comes to Daniel to kill him like the rest of the Magi, because they could not tell Nebuchadnezzar his vision or dream. And so he said, if you don't do it, I'm going to tear you limb from limb. And so the guards coming to Daniel to tear him limb from limb. And he says, give me a chance. Let me ask my God if he'll tell me what this is, what's going on. Then the mystery, verse 19, was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. And Daniel answered and said, blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and set kings up. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with him. To you, O God, my father, I give thanks and praise for you have given me wisdom and might and now made known to me what we ask of you for you have made known to us the king's matter. And then subsequently Nebuchadnezzar praises God after Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are delivered. And this is what he says, King Nebuchadnezzar, to all the peoples, nations, and language that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied to you. It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me. How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation. And then when Nebuchadnezzar is restored from his seven years of madness, at the end of days, I, Nebuchadnezzar in chapter four, verse 34, lifted my eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me and I blessed the most high and praised and honored him who lives forever for his dominion is an everlasting dominion. His kingdom endures for generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing. He does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand and say to him, what have you done? And then Darius, after he throws Daniel in the den of lions, he makes this. Then King Darius in chapter six, verse 35, wrote to all the people, nations, and languages that dwell on all the earth, peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree that all my royal dominion People are to tremble and fear before the God of Daniel. We need a dose of that in America. For he is the living God, enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed. His dominion shall be to all to the end. He delivers and rescues the works he signs and wonders in heaven and on earth. He who saved Daniel from the power of the lions. That's who swore to himself that these things would happen. So it's a solemn oath because of who swore it. It's a significant oath that what this prophecy is revealing. Again, I think reading from Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, the words from Darius, is that God is on his throne. And it's a salvific. When I use this in PowerPoint, it says, it underlines, it says it's a misspelled word. And they don't believe the salvific is a word. It means salvation. And God's purpose is redemption. I mentioned a month or so ago that my basic orientation is not dispensational. My orientation is covenant theology. that God had established a covenant within the Godhead between the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, that the Father would son the Son, the Son would come and secure salvation, and the Holy Spirit would apply that salvation to all who believe. And that God brought that covenant relationship to Adam, gave him an opportunity of obedience, a covenant of works. Adam failed in his obedience. God didn't give him a whole list of commandments. Didn't even give him 10. He gave him how many? One, and Adam failed. And so we all fell into sin, and by one man's sin we've all died. And so God gave a promise in Genesis 3.15 that he would send one who would be the seed of Eve, who would crush the serpent's head, though the serpent would bruise his heel. Because God, again, one of the most important words in the book of Daniel is covenant. That's the whole emphasis of chapter 7, is that God, Yahweh is His covenant name, He is a covenant God. And Adonai is Almighty God, so Almighty God is a covenant God, and He is now entered in, and we'll see this in just a moment, a new covenant through the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, this new covenant brings salvation. The old covenant brought damnation. The old covenant brought condemnation. The old covenant says demands complete obedience and we fail and subsequently it brings condemnation and it brings death. The new covenant brings life because it still has the demands of righteousness, but who kept those demands? The Lord Jesus, it's his righteousness, okay? So that's where his salvation. Now some final observations. Beasts, kings, and nations, they're gonna rise and fall. I was thinking about this this morning. For my entire life until 1989, all I knew was the Soviet Union. Communism. Came into, lasted 70 years. Basically came in 1919 in the revolution. and lasted until 1989. We had the impression, I had the impression, you know, some of you are too young for this, but many of you are not. We had these drills when I was in grade school. If the sirens went off, you got underneath, you didn't run out to the hallway, it wasn't a fire, it wasn't a fire alarm, it was an alarm, a nuclear alarm. And so supposedly you were supposed to get under what? your desk, you know, and that was going to protect you, you know. But, you know, we grew up and we just thought, well, this beast, this bear of Russia is just always going to be here. But as Daniel said there in chapter two, God raises up kingdoms and he puts kingdoms down. So these beasts, Now, I talked about in this prophecy, they're going to rise and they're going to fall. Kings, dictators, presidents are going to rise and going to fall. That's going to be reality until the king comes back. And the kingdom of Christ is promised. Again, that's the whole point, I think, of chapter 7. I told you my subtitle in chapter seven was, Looking for the Antichrist in All the Wrong Places. I believe verses 24 through 27 is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ as the new covenant maker that brings the new covenant that brings salvation to us. And so the kingdom of God is promised, and we know now, see a lot of ways Daniel was looking forward to this, But we know now because Christ has come, Jesus said, the kingdom of God is at what? Hand. Repent and believe the gospel. The kingdom of Christ is now. Now, in overall picture of all creation, God's always been on his throne. He's always been in charge. But now the Lord Jesus Christ has come and brought this kingdom that's referred to in chapter 2. where all these beasts are revealed to Nebuchadnezzar. And that fourth beast was a beast of iron. And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed. Nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end. That's going to happen when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back. And it will stand forever. That's the new heaven and new earth. Just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand and it broke in pieces, the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain and its interpretation sure. This stone that the builders reject is the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's going to be like this great mountain that's going to crush every other kingdom. That's one of the things we must learn from Daniel. Struggles that we have with figuring out what three and a half years is, what 1,265 days are, or 1,335 days are, is that God has established his kingdom. This kingdom is now. And Christ is reigning where? Two places, in a sense. In our hearts, and at the right hand of the throne of God. So when you, you know, when we're devastated and hear these horrible things that are happening, In Israel and in Ukraine, someone said war is hell, and that's probably an apt description of it. The wicked will act wickedly. Lost people act like lost people because they are what? Lost people. Sometimes we want to superimpose our understanding of righteousness and morality upon others. Now, in a general sense, through history at various times, I think it happened to some degree in America. I was talking to the police officers Wednesday night when we found somebody in the church and I called the police. Half a dozen cops show up, and I drive over. And I was talking to one guy. I said, I passed the church in Illinois that was established, first church I passed in Illinois, Zion Hill, out in the country between Centralia and Salem, Illinois. And it was established in 1860, not as old as Antioch, but 1860. And they never locked their doors until it was about I think it was 1982, because there had been burglaries in some of the other churches in the countryside where things were being stolen. And so finally there was a decision that was a very heart-rending decision to lock the doors to the church. And this church, the doors were open until they stole the sound system. Yeah, so we lived in a world that you could leave your door open because there was a influence of the gospel upon a nation, but we're way past down the road from that. Wicked people will act wickedly. Read the first proverb. Read Psalm 10. Wicked people will act wickedly. Again, 1 John 5, the whole world is under the evil one. He's the little G God in this world, the little P prince, the power of the air. He's the instigator of pornography. He's the instigator of hatred. He's the instigator of materialism. He's the instigator of all these things that are contrary to the gospel. And wicked people will act wickedly. But the righteous will be established. that some of these last words, it repeats them from previously recognizing them, we touched on them before. Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand. And those who are wise shall understand. By the grace of God, as God opens our heart to the gospel, He's bringing the revelation. He's bringing the revelation of our lostness, of our sinfulness. See, I never would have came to Jesus if the Holy Spirit hadn't convicted me of my what? My sin, my fallenness. When I was a church kid, I went to church every Sunday. Sunday night. Wednesday night. We had RAs, Royal Ambassadors. I was in RAs. We had GAs, Girls Auxiliary. I tried to join GAs, but they wouldn't let me. Revival meetings. We used to have two-week revival meetings. It started on Sunday morning and go a week, go through that next Sunday morning, and go to the next Sunday morning. Every night, twice on Sunday. We were in church. My sister had cerebral palsy. She could not walk by herself. She could not feed herself. She was confined to a bed, a wheelchair. Or my aunt, my one great aunt, bought her this little miniature recliner that my sister would sit in. So on Sunday morning, my mom, my brother, and I would go to church. And my dad would stay home and take care of my sister. Sunday night, my mom would stay home, take care of my sister. My dad, my brother, and I would go to church. My sister was never an excuse for us not to go to church. But I still need the gospel. I still needed the Holy Spirit to open up my heart to my lostness, and He did. I can take you to Clay School in North St. Louis. I can take you on the playground. I can take you within a circle of this platform here where the Holy Spirit nailed me as a seven-year-old boy and convicted me of my sin. And Him worked in my heart until I don't know if it was a month later, several weeks later, I just know that one Sunday morning, I knew I needed to trust Jesus, and I did. And that was back in December of 1960. The righteous shall be established. So let's finish here. Verse 13 is an important verse. But go your way till the end. in chapter 8, after Daniel has this vision of the terror of Antiochus Epiphanes IV. The last verse of chapter 8. And I, Daniel, was overcome by and laid sick for some days. Then I rose, and I rose, I rose, and went about the king's business. And I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it. But I arose and went about the king's business." The last word in Daniel is, go on your way to the end. We're to live for Christ. We're to obey Christ. We're to be about the king's business. 1 John 3, 3, every one of us that has this hope that one day Jesus is going to return and we're going to see him and be like him. Everyone that has this hope purifies himself even as he is pure. We're not to sit around and wring our hands by the headlines. Now you can study eschatology all you want, but don't let that be your sole focus. Be your focus on how can I live for Christ today? How can I honor Christ today? What God was telling Daniel, though you don't understand all this, though some of it has made you sick, though some of it has made you fearful, Go on your way to the end, because the promise is, you shall find rest. What did Jesus say in Matthew 11? Come unto me, all you that labor and heavy laden. When do we labor and when are we heavy laden? Well, for me, it's today. It was yesterday, and it's gonna be tomorrow. Because wicked people act wickedly, this world is upside down. My flesh rebels against the spirit. A battle is going on every day. And Jesus said, come to me, all you are weary and heavy laden. And I'll do what? I'll give you rest." He said, take my yoke upon you. And what else did he say? Learn of me. That's part of what's saying here. The wise will understand. The wise will continue to learn. We need to continue to grow in our understanding of the word of God. If you want to know God, the true and living God, you better know his word. It's not your imagination. It's not the God you want Him to be. It's not some God that some guy on TV may be portraying. You better get in the Word. If you want to know God, know His Word. He says you're going to find rest. And you'll stand in your allotted place at the end of the day. When Jesus comes back, we're going to be in our allotted place. We're going to be With him for all eternity, we're going to enjoy the new heaven and new earth for all eternity. But he says, go on your way, keep going. Get in the fight. Run the race. Get in the field and labor in the field. Go on your way. Go about the king's business. So these are the things I want to remember about Daniel. God's on his throne. The kingdom of Christ is gonna crush every other kingdom. We have to be about the king's business and we can trust the character of God and the purpose of God to fulfill what he has intended for all creation. And we have a great God who is reigning and ruling and we can find peace in that. That's why I read that one passage from Ezekiel. God said, I'm going to make a covenant of peace. We can be at peace. You know, we saw this in Mark. I never had this thought before until I was preaching through Mark, as we saw that year ago or so, whatever. When the disciples were in that boat and the storm was raging and they're terrified, experienced fishermen that are probably in a boat that at least a couple of them made with their own hands, been on the Sea of Galilee many times and been in storms many times, but this storm they were fearing for their life and where was Jesus? He was down sleeping. I never had this thought before until I preached that passage here. Maybe the best thing to do was to go down and lay next to Jesus and go to sleep. Because Jesus knew that nothing was going to happen outside the Father's will, and He was at complete peace in the midst of the storm. That's what God offers us as we recognize who He is, as we pursue Him, as we go on our way, as we go about the King's business. That's what God offers us. It's not a fairy tale. It's just not preacher speak. It's reality. Read Philippians 4. The peace of God will guard your heart. That's a military term of centuries around a perimeter. The peace of God will guard our heart. Thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, who trusts in thee. God, Lord Jesus told Daniel, go on your way. You're gonna find rest. Go on your way. One day you'll stand in your allotted place. Let's pray. Father, thank you for being who you are. You could be nothing else. Thank you, Father, for your love, your grace, your mercy. Thank you for your holiness. Thank you for your righteous judgment. Thank you, Father, for your eternal purpose of redemption. Thank you, Father, for the gift of your Son, the Lord Jesus, who laid down his life for his sheep. No one took it from him. He laid it down freely. He had the power to lay it down and the power to take it back up. Thank you for the Holy Spirit. who brings to us and applies to us all the finished work of the Lord Jesus. Who is the one that works, that calms our fears? Who is the one that manifests that peace, that passes understanding? So Father, thank you for your goodness. Help us, Father, to go on our way and to be about the King's business. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.