Table of Contents
World History Explained – Part 6
World History Explained – Part 6 is based on the book of Daniel, specifically Chapter 12. We will refer back to some of the verses listed below in Daniel 12, as well as other Bible references that help explain these concepts.
"1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
3 And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.
4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
5 ¶ Then I Daniel looked, and, behold, there stood other two, the one on this side of the bank of the river, and the other on that side of the bank of the river.
6 And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?
7 And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.
8 And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?
9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.
10 Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.
13 But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days."
Daniel 12:1-13 KJV
Michael Stands Up!
In Daniel 10, Michael came to help in the battle for the mind of a king. Here in Daniel 12:1 He does something entirely different. He stands up.
A priest stands to minister and sits when the work is finished…but a King rises to act! When Michael stands up, He rises from His work of mediation in the sanctuary above. His pleading for sinners is over. Probation has closed.
“When the third angel’s message closes, mercy no longer pleads for the guilty inhabitants of the earth.”
Ellen G. White · The Great Controversy, p. 613
And then: “there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time.” Notice carefully what God does not promise! He does not promise that His people will miss the trouble. He promises: “at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.”
Delivered through it, not excused from it!
A Resurrection Before The Resurrection
Verse 2 says “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
Read that again…it says many, not all! And it has both the righteous and the wicked rising at the same moment. That cannot be the resurrection at the Second Coming, because at that resurrection all the righteous rise, and the wicked stay in their graves:
"5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection."
Revelation 20:5 KJV
So Daniel 12:2 is describing a special, limited resurrection that happens just before Jesus appears. Who is raised? Those who died faithful to the last warning message…and those who put Him to death:
"7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen."
Revelation 1:7 KJV
“All who have died in the faith of the third angel’s message come forth from the tomb glorified, to hear God’s covenant of peace with those who have kept His law. ‘They also which pierced Him’ (Revelation 1:7), those that mocked and derided Christ’s dying agonies, and the most violent opposers of His truth and His people, are raised to behold Him in His glory.”
Ellen G. White · The Great Controversy, p. 637
Caiaphas will see the One he condemned coming in the clouds of heaven!
The Book Was Sealed…Until Now!
Verse 4 is one of the most important verses in the book: “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”
This is usually quoted as a prediction of motor cars and aeroplanes. But look at the context! The running to and fro is in the book. The knowledge that increases is the knowledge of this prophecy, and it was to increase at the time of the end…which is exactly what happened in the great prophetic awakening of the 1800s!
“But that part of his prophecy which related to the last days, Daniel was bidden to close up and seal ‘to the time of the end.’ Not till we reach this time could a message concerning the judgment be proclaimed, based on the fulfillment of these prophecies.”
Ellen G. White · The Great Controversy, p. 356
“As we near the close of this world’s history, the prophecies recorded by Daniel demand our special attention, as they relate to the very time in which we are living.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 547
The Wise Shall Understand
Verse 10 explains why two people can read this same chapter and one of them sees nothing at all: “Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.”
Understanding prophecy is not a matter of intelligence, education or cleverness. It is a matter of character! God does not hide these things from the unlearned…He reveals them to the surrendered!
The 1290 And 1335 Days
Verses 11 and 12 add two more prophetic periods, of 1290 and 1335 days. On the same year-day principle that unlocked the 2300 days and the seventy weeks, these are 1290 and 1335 years.
Both of them begin in 508 AD, when paganism was taken out of the way…thirty years before the papacy was set up in 538. From there the arithmetic is clean. 508 + 1290 brings us to 1798, the very year the papal supremacy was broken, which is exactly where the 1260 years of Daniel 7:25 also end. The two periods start thirty years apart and finish together!
“Counting back, then, 1290 years from 1798, we have the year 508, where it has been shown that paganism was taken away, thirty years before the setting up of the papacy.”
Uriah Smith · Daniel and the Revelation (1904), p. 314
And the 1335 years run from that same starting point: 508 + 1335 brings us to 1843.
So what is the blessing promised to the one who “waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days”? Look at what was happening in 1843! The great second advent proclamation was going to the world with a power that modern times had never seen. The book of Daniel had been unsealed, the light on prophecy came to a head, and men and women everywhere were being stirred to look for their coming Lord. That was the blessing…and the people who received it were the ones who were still waiting when it came!
Now let me be straight with you about one thing, because the man who worked this dating out was straight about it himself. Scripture does not fix the starting point of these two periods the way it plainly fixes the seventy weeks in Daniel 9. The 508 date is reached by reasoning back from 1798, and Uriah Smith said so plainly:
“The testimony concerning this period, like that which pertains to the 1290 years, is very meager.”
Uriah Smith · Daniel and the Revelation (1904), p. 314
And here is something worth seeing with your own eyes. This is the chart the Millerites themselves published in 1843, and it works out these very periods in the bottom corner…508, 1798, the 45 remaining years, and 1843. They were not reading history backwards. They printed this before the disappointment, not after it!
That honesty is a strength, not a weakness! A prophecy does not have to be held with a clenched fist to be true. Hold the 2300 days and the seventy weeks like iron, because God spelled those out. Hold the 1290 and the 1335 firmly, but with an open hand…and never let anyone tell you that admitting the difference is unbelief!
Stand In Thy Lot!
The last words ever spoken to Daniel are not an explanation. They are a promise:
“But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.”
Daniel never did get to see how it all turned out! He was an old man, he had carried these visions for a lifetime, he had asked and been told “the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end” (verse 9)…and God simply told him to go his way, rest, and be raised at the end.
“Before his life labors closed, he was given the blessed assurance that ‘at the end of the days’—in the closing period of this world’s history—he would again be permitted to stand in his lot and place.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 547
That is the promise every faithful believer dies on! You will not see the end of the story from here. You will rest…and then you will stand!
The End Of The Matter
Six articles ago we started with a young captive in Babylon who refused the king’s food. We end with an old man being told to go and rest. Between those two points, God laid out the rise and fall of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, the work of the papacy, the cleansing of the sanctuary, the close of probation and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ…and every single part of it that history has already reached, history has confirmed!
“From the rise and fall of nations as made plain in the books of Daniel and the Revelation, we need to learn how worthless is mere outward and worldly glory. … Only that which is bound up with His purpose, and expresses His character, can endure.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 548
The God who told Daniel what Alexander would do, three hundred years before Alexander was born, is the same God who has promised to come back for you!
