Daniel Series Week 3 - September 27, 2026

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

As you know, what we've been doing the last three weeks, uh, this is the third week, we're studying the book of Daniel.

And let me just tell you this.

I've been looking at this and talking with Janet some about it, and uh I mentioned this at the other service.

Um this time period, if you go look at that big timeline chart in that room out there in the lobby area, you'll notice that this is an incredibly significant period in human history right here.

Daniel was captive was captive to the Babylonian Empire.

So we've talked about they took over uh Judah and they and they took groups of captives and all of that.

And this is a period of time where the world literally changes and knowledge explodes exponentially.

And not just that, libraries and the and and the incorporating of knowledge, the capturing of knowledge, all of that is exploding in phenomenal ways.

How many of you remember Pythagoras?

Or if I said Pythagorean theorem, that's enough.

I won't ask you what it is, but we remember it, right?

Pythagoras and Confucius studied and wrote and spoke during this time.

Aesop wrote Aesop's fables during this time.

Daniel lived during the transition of time from the Babylonian Empire to the Medo-Persian Empire, and he projected exactly when that would happen, and he prophesied through the work of God when the Greeks would take over, and Alexander the Great, and the explosion of knowledge that happened then.

It's during that period we would refer to the time of Esther and Nehemiah in Scripture when Hippocrates and Plato and Socrates wrote and taught and all of that.

This is all going on in human history.

But we remember all those names.

But I just want to tell you as we come to the end of the book of Daniel, I firmly believe at that time in history, as we look back, the book of Daniel is the greatest book written in the human race at that time.

It is greater in wisdom and knowledge than all of the combined work of all of those men we've talked about.

The political thought and understanding that's developed as you read through the book of Daniel and the understanding in the context of transitions of regimes and all of that, you learn that God is the one who institutes the governments of men, not leaders or kings or legislatures or whatever.

You learn integrity and all of that and how that flows and how you work through the course of government and human relationships and all of that.

And also, Daniel prophesies about the transition of government and time in that period of time moving forward, but he also prophesies through the direction of God.

He prophesies about the end times and in a vision of eternity.

And so as we finish our study today on navigating as a Christian in secular culture, I want to show you the third element.

And I believe these work together.

We started the first week when we saw that Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they determined in their hearts to stay true to God and not defile themselves with secular culture.

And so that determination we talked about is vital to how we navigate through life.

And it is based on a faith in who God is.

And last week we looked at Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and being thrown into the fire as an example of our faith carries us through that.

We also got to enjoy the bunny song.

Now we're going to add the third element of that, and that is the necessity of a vision of eternity.

And it is vital to understand that for us as believers, the reality of what eternity means to us is integral to how we do life today.

God has given us a clear picture and promise of the hope of heaven, of the reality of hell, and that should shape our behavior.

And I think here in Daniel you capture that.

So what I want to do is go to the last chapter of Daniel.

And we'll talk for a moment about how all that unfolds, but really I want to talk today about what that vision of eternity means for us as we are walking through life in a secular culture.

And you see, I believe here, a promise that God gives Daniel, how it helps Daniel navigate through all the secular cultures that he navigated through.

I want you to look with me here in Daniel chapter 12, and let's read this chapter very quickly.

Daniel 12 · chapter mention

Now, some of this is technical, some of it, you know, is kind of, but what we're doing is understanding to get to the end to answer the question how a vision of eternity shapes our life here on earth.

Here's what the Bible says in verse 12.

At that time, Michael, the great prince, who stands watch over your people, will rise up.

Now, Michael, we have learned, is an archangel of God.

The word angel simply means messenger.

And so God has been speaking to Daniel through a number of ways, including sending Michael to give him some of these messages.

And so, Michael, we also understand here, who stands watch over your people.

One of his roles is to be a guardian angel, if you will, in our current vernacular over the people of God, over the Israelites.

He says, and he gives this prediction there will be a time of distress such as has never occurred since nations came into being until that time.

But at that time, all your people who are found written in the book will escape.

Many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, and some to disgrace and eternal contempt.

Those who have insight will shine like the bright expanse of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.

But you, Daniel, keep these words secret and seal the book until the end of time.

In other words, all these previous chapters he's been giving him about heaven and hell and the rapture and all this stuff that will unfold and all that deal, he literally tells Daniel, keep these words secret and seal the book until the end of time.

And that phrase is used to what we would refer to as the end times, or when Jesus comes back and starts unfolding all this.

Now he describes what earth is going to look like between Daniel and the end times.

Many will roam about and knowledge will increase.

Knowledge will increase.

First of all, roam about.

That means they'll travel all over.

All over the world.

Janet and I enjoyed the summer we watched the miniseries around the world in 80 days, right?

I mean, you can do it in 80 hours now.

And you can get anywhere quickly, anytime.

Knowledge will increase.

Listen to this.

Daniel is forecasting in a time when knowledge was exploding and they're capturing knowledge, and we're moving into that time of Hippocrates and Socrates and Plato and all this kind of stuff.

The libraries in Greece and all this business is about to come, and he says knowledge will increase.

Let me give you this just fact here.

Incredible prophecy of God's word.

In 1900, historians estimate that at that time the knowledge that they knew of and had been captured scientifically in history and all this kind of stuff, that they expected it to take a hundred years for that knowledge to double.

When I graduated from high school in 1983, yeah, I see some of y'all calculating.

I'm 61.

Don't hurt yourself.

I'm 61.

When I graduated from high school in 1983, the rate of knowledge doubling had become 18 months.

Now what they tell us, people who are estimating these things, the rate of knowledge is doubling at the rate of 12 to 24 hours in a day.

It's incredible the picture God gives us through Daniel, the future.

Verse 5, then I Daniel looked, and two others were standing there, one on this bank of the river and one on the other.

He's now giving this, God is speaking in this vision.

One of them said to the man dressed in linen, who was above the water of the river, How long until the end of these wondrous things?

In other words, when is this going to happen?

When's it going to unfold?

Then I heard the man dressed in linen, who was above the water of the river.

He raised both his hands toward heaven and swore by him who lives eternally that it would be for a time, times, and a half time.

Now clearly that's not a date.

That's an apocalyptic description that is somewhat confusing on purpose.

When the power of the holy people is shattered, all these things will be completed.

I heard, Daniel says, but I did not understand.

So I asked again, my Lord, what will be the outcome of these things?

In other words, when is this going to happen?

And God says to him, Go on your way, Daniel, for the words are secret and sealed until the end of the time.

The second time we've heard that.

Many will be purified, cleansed, and refined, but the wicked will act wickedly.

None of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand.

In other words, those who are walking by faith will understand what God is teaching, and those who are wicked will not.

From the time the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days.

Happy is the one who waits for and reaches 1,335 days.

We'll talk about what that means in a minute.

But as for you, Daniel, go on your way to the end.

That was the end of your life.

Then you will rest.

That's a euphemism, for you will die, because all men and women die.

Humans die.

And then you will stand to receive your allotted inheritance at the end of the days.

Another version says destiny, your allotted inheritance.

In other words, he tells Daniel, listen, don't worry about when all this happens.

What I want you to know is you go about and you live your life as I've instructed you to live it until your last day.

And when you die, I want you to know that because you're my child and you have placed faith in me, you will rise again, and you have an allotted inheritance with me in heaven forever.

And he gives Daniel a vision of eternity that shapes his life.

Now here's what I want you to do.

I'm going to give you five factors, five elements of a vision of eternity that shape our future.

Now, the first one is this the first element of the vision is the fact of eternity.

Now he gives Daniel facts about what's going to happen.

He describes not when, but what, and he gives him the what will happen.

Now, I don't have time in one sermon, it'd be confusing to try to grab all that, pull it through it together.

So what I want to do is just give you an encapsulated vision of what our church teaches, right?

So I'm going to put this up on the screen, and this is kind of a map or a timeline, if you will, of what it looks like.

And I want to refer to you, kind of the words that would track along with this in the document, What We Teach.

You can pull it up on our website when you go to About Us and it gives you what we teach.

And our church has studied this, leaders in our church, and several years ago voted on this.

And so here's what happens it says, also as to the means and methods God will use to accomplish these things, we rely on a literal interpretation of the scriptures and their grammatical and historical context.

And then he describes what you see on this map.

The pre-tribulational rapture of the church, and you see the rapture.

How cool is that right there?

Y'all see that?

Because I'm high tech, right?

Rapture of the church, right?

Happens.

And it begins, uh, is followed by a seven-year tribulation, and that's what we refer to at times as the Great Tribulation.

And so when you're studying all that seals and trumpets and vials and bowls and all that business, that's all unfolding right there in the Great Tribulation.

Then the premillennial return of Jesus Christ, right here.

Jesus comes back and he brings all of us with him.

Now the rapture is the church, those who are saved, and in heaven during that time, here we are unfolding how we have lived on this life.

It is such a beautiful thing when the bride of Christ, as Scripture says, is reunited with the bridegroom Jesus.

It is such a joyous reunion that the Bible describes it as a marriage supper of the Lamb.

He picks one of the greatest, most joyous events you could ever have to try to describe for us in our finite minds the beauty of what it means to be with Jesus.

And so here you have that great tribulation.

And then Jesus comes here, and there's a great war where Jesus conquers all the enemies of God.

They are sent off with hell to a place of holding, and we have what's called the millennium right there.

And that is a thousand-year reign where Jesus is literally reigning here on the earth, and life looks like how God envisioned it to look like from the beginning.

And then you have the final judgment.

The Bible says in the book of Revelation, Satan is loosed, and you have this final judgment of sin, the devil, demons, his followers, all that.

They are sent to hell for an eternity, and we live forever, as the Bible says, in the new heaven and the new earth.

Again, our document says, after the thousand-year reign comes, the great white throne judgment, and then the new heaven and new earth, which will be the dwelling place of the saints, where they will enjoy forever fellowship with God and one another.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, having fulfilled his redemptive mission, will then deliver up the kingdom to God the Father, that in all spheres the triune God may reign forever and ever.

And I encourage you to use that document when you can.

And so here's what Daniel is a part of that.

Now, I'm not going to go through all the details of all that again and how it happens, but here's what I want you to know.

It's important enough that we have some of our best Sunday school teachers teaching a class on Wednesday night for this semester and the next semester to teach in detail that.

I mean, it's a terrible thing.

So what Jesus is saying is at the midpoint of this tribulation, what will happen is there will be some horrific event where the evil leader of the world, the Antichrist, will do something so blasphemous to the temple and the worship of God and all of that that it ushers in an increased level of horror for the three and a half years that remain before Jesus returns.

And that 1,290 days, that's three and a half years.

The 1,335 days, you wait and you reach that end, that's when Jesus, we've done the battle right here, and Jesus is sorting it all out and setting up his kingdom.

So he reaffirms here.

Now let me just say this.

This is what we believe as a church and all that.

But there is a lot of issue that goes into that.

There are people who in our church and other churches that we love who believe it unfolds a little bit differently than that, and that's okay if somebody believes that a little bit differently.

Here's what we do not disagree on.

We do not disagree on the final judgment that sin will be punished and hell is real.

And we agree completely that God's people who've been saved by Jesus will live with him for an eternity in heaven.

And God gives the reality of heaven.

That's the first thing you need to know about a vision of eternity is that heaven is real and hell is real, and it will happen.

It will happen.

Vision element number two.

God gives us the reality of eternity, but he does not give the timing of its beginning.

It is important for us to understand that Revelation, Daniel, when you read through Zachariah and prophecies there, all of that is not given to tickle our minds and our imaginations.

It's not given there for us to try to figure out when it's going to happen and all of that.

It is given so that we know it will happen, not when it happens.

In fact, the Bible says very clearly here, twice in this passage, go your way, Daniel, because that has been shut up and sealed until the end of time.

You are not going to know when it happens.

And that teaching is consistent throughout Scripture.

Let me give you from Acts chapter 1.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

This is at the end of Jesus' ministry.

It's directly before he ascends to heaven.

He's meeting with his followers, and they all come up to him.

And they said when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, are you restoring the kingdom of Israel at this time?

They're still struggling on heaven and Israel and all that.

So what they're asking is, when's this going to happen?

And Jesus said to them, It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.

So it's important for us to understand that we must spend our time under the reality of heaven, not trying to figure out when it happens.

Now it's highly important, and the first element of a vision of eternity is that heaven is real and hell is real, and we know that from the teaching of Scripture, and that's why we're investing all the time we're investing on a Wednesday night class with some of our best Sunday school teachers, helping us understand this in great detail.

But in none of that are we ever to spend our time wasting our time, spending all this time trying to figure out when, when, when, and all this kind of stuff.

That's not what it's there for.

Now, God does give us a picture of the environment of what it will look like in that time.

He warns us about the struggles and the structure, and Jesus goes into detail of that in the days of Noah and all this kind of stuff.

It's what Daniel's talking about, and he briefly hints at in verse 4 when he says, listen, knowledge will uh, or he says that um uh that many will roam about and knowledge will increase.

Now that is not just a picture of being travel, but it's kind of the idea that we're running around chasing our tails trying to learn all this and figure this out.

I want you to just think about our culture for a minute.

How do you get to the days of Noah?

How do you get God's description of that?

Remember, Noah, the days of Noah are so bad God sent the flood and started over and all that.

And he's describing that it'll be this terrible time of evil and expansion of evil and all that.

How do you get that?

How do you get that?

Well, first of the way you get that is people don't believe in the reality of heaven and hell.

We live in a culture today where there are philosophers and all that that they believe that this life is all there is.

That's all there is.

And then when you die, you're done.

So you might as well get all you can and can't all you get, can't take it with you, use it all now.

There are also people, theologians, liberal theologians, that we would not agree with in Scripture, where they think, you know, love wins and everybody goes to heaven, and after it's all sorted out, it's alright.

Other people believe there's Things like a holding tank over here and like you mediocre or whatever, they go in there and we can pray and light candles and do all this kind of stuff and win them out of that.

There's none of that is accurate.

None of that is biblical.

People from the beginning of time, every human culture, from the very beginning of time in every epoch of time on every continent, have always asked and struggled with the question, what happens after we die?

Why do you think there are pyramids in Egypt?

It's because they had this weird view that what would happen is there is some afterlife and all of that, and so what we do here we can take with us over there.

And so they mummified the, you know, the king, the pharaoh, or whatever, and then they put him in this big tomb, in this car sarcophagus, and they were protecting his body for the afterlife.

And then they put all this food and all this jars of wealth and all this other stuff in there with him, so they could take it with them.

And then he took his live servants and they sealed them up in this tomb, and they eventually died in there serving this mummy because they believed afterlife they would go with him and become their servant.

I mean, there's all kinds of weird views of what happens in the future.

And there are modern religion faiths that believe that.

There are faiths that knock on your door that believe if you and your wife get married in a certain committed ceremony in some place, then what'll happen is, and you're godly and you work your way into eternity, you're given a planet, and you are spending the rest of eternity populating your planet.

And Jesus was one of those that populated a planet.

He was not the son of the living God and the means of salvation that we believe.

And there's all these weird views of history, and so God is giving us an understanding of that this is what happens.

Then it happens because as we're talking about that explosion, knowledge and all that, you think about AI and its effect.

In the last five years, AI has radically altered the workplace, and we've only begun that.

But here's what's happening knowledge is increasing, but wisdom is not increasing.

Right and wrong in an understanding of that, and human culture is not increasing, it is deteriorating.

And why does that happen?

Well, here's an example.

Knowledge is increasing.

You would think with knowledge we would learn more, we would get better, we would become more moral, we would solve all these issues in the world.

But what happens is we understand as knowledge increases, wisdom decreases.

You live in a culture now where people are inundated with knowledge and facts and all of this, but what is deteriorating is the ability to process that much information.

And we're seeing that AI is an example of that.

Now, I'm not knocking AI, it's a great tool.

I get it, right?

But here's what I'm telling you.

The education world in the last five years has been turned on its ear.

And they are struggling mightily with what to do because people are pulling up information and writing a paper in 90 seconds that they don't understand from information they haven't processed and they don't know how to put together a paper or an argument.

And now what happens is the ability to critically think and analyze is being swamped over with the flood of information.

And because it's easy, people are going into the workplace and let's take an office environment.

You can crunch some numbers and make a thing and it'll do all this.

It used to take five people to do, and now you can do it in five minutes.

But now there has to be somebody with a brain who can think, who understands what information matters, what doesn't.

How do we make a strategy?

How do I process this, and how does it become something meaningful?

And they're telling us that college students are graduating now with a farther gap in their ability to function in the workplace than ever before because the capacity of information is flowing at such a rate that we are not learning how to think and we can't keep up, and now we just randomly pick this and that and do that, and that's how we end up with people who don't think, people who don't understand, people who don't research, people who can't evaluate words like Daniel and how all this happens and process spiritually what's happening.

People can make up any kind of theory or process or idea that they want to.

Because chat GPT or Muse or whatever else crunched a bunch of information and they don't know how to think and process, and so they're lost.

That's how these things happen in our culture.

And Jesus warned us this is what it's going to look like.

But here's what's so important about this time that we understand we are not given this information that he gives Daniel to figure out when it happens and spend our time figuring out what happens.

It is our time to believe the reality of what will happen and it shape our behavior.

Vision element number three is this the reality of eternity is judgment and hell for those who reject God's plan of salvation.

Don't care what Muse tells you, God's word makes it clear.

Someone will pay for your sin.

You will pay for your sin unless you trust in Jesus who went to the cross and paid the price for you.

The reality of eternity is the resurrected, redeemed life in heaven with Jesus for those who have trusted in his redemption.

God specifically tells Daniel, you go your own way and you live for me, and your body is going to die.

But, son, I want you to know because you have trusted in me, that you have an allotted inheritance.

You will be resurrected and spend an eternity with me.

And Scripture makes very clear that there are two results that will happen.

There are two places for eternity that every single human will spend.

You will spend an eternity in hell if you have not allowed Jesus to pay the price for your sin.

And hell is real.

It doesn't matter what Nietzsche or Sarcha or somebody else thought.

It doesn't matter what some philosopher came up with.

It does not matter some bogus, logical whatever.

God is love, so gee love must win, and God loves people too much to send them to hell or whatever.

God is too holy not to judge people and send them to hell.

But God's mercy and love means that he, in the form of Jesus, went to the cross and paid the price for his holy judgment himself on the cross, so you wouldn't have to.

And heaven and hell are real.

And that's what God is teaching Daniel, and he speaks through John in the book of Revelation, when he speaks to other prophets like Zechariah and Isaiah and Jeremiah and all these other people, what's happening, we understand, is that heaven and hell are real.

And it matters that they're real far more than it matters when it unfolds.

The question is not when, but the question is, what have you done with the truth of the reality of heaven and hell?

Vision element number four is this.

The warning of hell and the promise of heaven are not for our speculation or to build our knowledge base.

It's not there to discover fascinating things that are fun and cool.

The vision of eternity is to shape our behavior here.

It means something that there is hell.

And God gives us descriptions of hell so we would understand how horrible it is, and it would motivate us not to get calendars and commentaries, but to take that person that God's put in our life that is on their way to hell and motivate you to go tell them about Jesus.

That's what it's there for.

He tells Daniel, Go your own way, go to the end, be faithful to the end of this.

God begins giving Daniel visions of the future in chapter 2, and he's unfolding all of this.

And the reason that God is doing that is because Daniel is his man, and it's key what God is going to use Daniel, and he is building Daniel's faith to be faithful all the way through this journey.

And Daniel's vision of the future and eternity is a part of what gives him the faith that he gives to go into the lion's den and not move away from following God.

His determination.

It continues to grow throughout the course of his life because he knows heaven is real.

And just as Paul would say in Romans chapter 8, when he faces lions, he faces 90-foot statues, he faces all of that persecution and these changes of these governments, he believes what Paul writes down for us in Romans 8 when he says, I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels or principalities, whatever government I am, am in, whatever I face, and then he puts a zipper clause on that, nor any other created thing can separate me from the love of God which is found in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

How could he say, death nor life will separate me from the love of God which is found in Christ Jesus?

Because he believes in eternity.

It increases his faith.

He knows that heaven is real.

He knows that Jesus died on our cross to pay the price for our sins so that we could spend an eternity with him.

He knows that Jesus accomplished that for us, and he taught us about all that so that we would be motivated here in this life to live in light of eternity.

Again, let's go back to that question in Acts chapter 8, verse in chapter 1.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

They asked him, and he said, It's not for you to know, and then he said this, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

He tells us the same thing he told Daniel.

You go about your life and you live in faith, trusting in me in light of eternity.

That's what he's telling us.

This factual reality of heaven that is taught here is vital to our faith and it calls us to change our behavior and do things that we know are going to happen and do them now because of how it's going to unfold.

That's why we spend the resources that we have this summer to teach us.

Why I'm spending time on this, because we need to know that heaven is incredibly awesome.

When you read Revelation and you study some of that and the beauty of heaven and the new heaven and the new earth, then you understand in Philippians chapter 1 why Paul says, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

Man, it's better.

When we're facing an illness or a journey or a death or we have a lost one who's just gone to heaven, listen, it matters if we understand that heaven is there.

And Paul literally says to die is gain.

And then he sort of gets on to the church he's writing to and he says, Listen, I can't wait to be with Jesus, but I'm hard pressed in the middle of this.

As awesome as heaven is, y'all need me to still keep teaching y'all.

And so I'm not really sure which one I want to go to.

Listen, that's a man whose eyes are on heaven, who's living for eternity.

He is saying, Listen, whatever I do here resonates in eternity, but it's so awesome, I can't wait to get there.

Man, it ought to give us an incredible confidence that Jesus will come back and he will take us home to be with him.

You may get in a friendly discussion with somebody over coffee about this or that, but listen, no one disagrees with this fact who is a student of the Word and who believes in Jesus Christ, Jesus is coming back to take us home.

Period.

That's what Jesus said in John 14 when he says, Listen, let not your heart be troubled.

If you believe in God as Daniel did, Daniel believed that he would be resurrected.

He believed that he would spend an eternity with the righteous.

Just as they placed faith in Daniel's word and Daniel's example and Daniel's teaching, Jesus said, If you believe in God, believe also in me, Jesus.

Because Jesus is the accomplishment of the promise that Daniel was relying on.

Jesus is the one who came to make heaven real for us.

If you believe in God, believe also in me, Jesus.

And then he says, In my father's house are many mansions.

He is casting the vision for eternity for them.

Some of these men will be put to death for preaching the gospel.

John will be in prison on some ratty island out there for preaching the gospel where God gives him the view of eternity that he gives them.

But Jesus is casting for them this vision.

In my father's house or many mansions, why does that matter?

Because Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled.

Because I am going to heaven and I'm going to prepare a place for you.

And then Jesus says, it would only make sense if I'm going to prepare a place for you that I would come back and receive you to myself.

That's what we're talking about.

We're talking about the fact that the reality of heaven shapes our perspective and our behavior here.

Let not your heart be troubled because eternity is real.

Neither death nor life nor angels or principalities or things that are present or things that might come nor any other created thing can separate you from the love of God which is found where in Christ Jesus.

Let not your heart be troubled.

And the ultimate reality of that is I'm going to my Father's house and I'm going to prepare a place for you.

And I'm going to come back and receive you again.

Daniel, he says, go your way, then you'll rest.

But you have an allotted inheritance in heaven with me.

It changes our behavior here, knowing what will happen then.

The Bible tells us in Peter, 1 Peter, the man, one of the men sitting there, when Jesus said, I'm going to prepare a place for you and I will come again.

Through Peter, he teaches us.

Listen, God is not slacking his promise.

Just because he has hesitated, it seems to us like he has hesitated, he's not come back yet, to him, a thousand years is as a day.

So it's only been a couple of days God's been up there waiting for us to sort this out.

And then he says, He has hesitated, he has waited to return because it is the depth of his heart for every person to have the opportunity to be saved.

The only reason that this has been delayed is because he is waiting for more people to come to faith in Jesus because he wants them to spend an eternity in heaven.

He has not told us the date because I know how we are.

I mean, we try to plan events that you Baptists sign up for.

And if we give you a deadline of signing up on October 4th, most of y'all are signing up on October 3rd, and a third of you are calling us on October 5th to ask us if it's too late.

Am I wrong?

And if God told us Jesus is going to come back on October the 29th, 2026, it's about October 15th when we'd start making a list of people we want to tell Jesus because we only have a few more weeks left.

And he has said, listen, I will come back and the rapture will occur like a thief in the night.

There'll be a shout and the trumpet and the dead in Christ shall rise, and we who remain will be caught up in the air, and I'm not telling you who it is, because you ought to live every single day of your life in anticipation that it's today.

And we ought to have a motivation and a passion.

If Jesus comes back tonight, that person that I love, they are only going to go to hell because they climbed over my testimony and telling them to come to Jesus.

What do you think it means when he says it's not for you to know?

But you get yourself surrendered under the power of the Holy Spirit, and you be a witness to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.

Why do we take missions offerings?

Why are we buying Bibles in Nigeria and India and Africa?

It's because people need Jesus and He's going to come back.

And it's real that He's going to come back.

And heaven is awesome and hell is horrible.

And people need to be rescued with the good news that Jesus saves.

I'll start preaching if I don't move on.

Vision element number five.

The promise of heaven matters deeply here in this life.

It matters deeply.

Again, why does God give us the reality and the facts of eternity?

Because it matters.

It matters.

Why are we as Christians fascinated with that?

Well, at one level, we're fascinated about it because it is our hope of heaven.

And we are called to eternity and to look to heaven.

And why do we study that?

Why does God give it to us in so many books?

Including Daniel and Revelation, because he wants us to be encouraged about the reality of heaven, and he wants us to live in light of the reality of heaven.

It should stir us to live for eternity.

Daniel, you will rest, but you shall stand in your allotted place.

That should change who we are.

It should change how we give, how we pray, how we invite people to church, how we come to church, how we serve, how we relate to the people around us.

It should give us a priority that your love list is the most important thing in your life.

Because Jesus is coming back.

What we give for missions and what we do and all of that, it matters.

Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth.

We can't support enough.

We can't pray enough.

We can't go enough.

We can't tell enough.

But in the tyranny of this life and the tyranny of the urgent, we get swamped, we get distracted, and we lose our way.

But if this week you'll get up every morning and you'll thank God for heaven, you'll pay attention to the promise of Daniel, you'll figure out a little bit more about the promise of heaven, and you'll cast an eye on what will resonate for eternity.

If you will see what God told Daniel, those who have insight will shine like the bright expanse of the heaven and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars in the sky forever and ever.

If you'll live in a light of eternity, God will do things in your life.

He'll show things, he'll reveal things, he'll walk with you, and he'll carry you through things that you never thought.

Because you'll know the truth of what it means to be saved.

Why don't you bow your heads as we close?

And listen, if you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, we take time and we do a lesson like this because and we cast the vision for eternity because we want you to know that we do not want you to spend an eternity in hell.

Jesus stepped out of heaven and he died on the cross for your sins, so you wouldn't have to pay the price for your sins.

He rose again, conquering death and sin.

And when you place your faith in him, when you trust him to be your Savior, when you give your life to him because he gave his life for you, he will forgive you and you will now have an allotted place just like Daniel.

You will rest in the promise that Jesus said, I've gone to prepare a place for you, and you will have a place and you will know that Jesus is coming back for you.

Not them in a generic way, not you in a generic way, but you as a person when you give your life to Jesus.

I'm gonna close in prayer.

We're gonna stand and sing a verse or two.

It's an opportunity for you to step into this journey of giving your life to Christ, of trusting in him.

Of just, it means you take everything you've been, you are, and you ever will be, and you give it all to Jesus.

It's his life now, it's not yours, but he'll do more with your life than you can ever imagine, including making it eternal in heaven.

We're not here to goad you into something or convince you to do something.

But the Holy Spirit has spoken through his word.

If you'd like to be saved, come.

We'll pray with you, we'll celebrate with you, we'll schedule your baptism, we'll we'll explain what all that means.

If you're not ready, but you have questions, come here or find me after the service.

Make an appointment.

Let's have coffee, let's talk through it together, we'll give you some more scripture, we'll walk that journey with you.

Whatever it is you need, it is our desire to help you see the reality of heaven.

Lord, we thank you for today, and we thank you for this teaching of Daniel and your word.

And I pray that you'll use it to help us in a convinced way put our eyes on heaven and eternity.

I pray it'll encourage someone who might be struggling through a moment because they know.

And I pray, Father, that it will break our hearts to have a greater passion to share the good news that they do not have to spend an eternity in the reality of hell, but can spend it in the reality of heaven.

Pray these things in Jesus' name and all God's people said.

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith First Baptist Church.