Daniel 12:8

And I heard, but I understood not.

The Aspect of the Times

I. CONTEMPLATE SOME OF THESE WONDERS--THE CALAMITIES OF THE CHURCH.

1. It is a wonder that the Church of God should be exposed to calamity.

2. That they should sometimes be so great and overwhelming.

3. That they have come visibly from the hand of God, and are accompanied with evident tokens of His displeasure.

4. The duration of the calamity is often another wonder.

5. And it is a wonder that the Church’s calamities produce so little effect. Now proceed to specify some particulars in our present situation which furnish ground for anxious wonder.

(1) It is a dark and portentous spot in our sky that the progress of knowledge should be accompanied with so much infidelity and irreligion.

(2) Another ominous cloud is the engrossing attention to politics, and the indifference or aversion shown to religious privileges amidst the struggle for those of a civil nature.

(3) Another is that those who had so long pleaded for a national reformation of religion should have abandoned that plea at the very time when Providence seemed to present the opportunity of prosecuting it with some measure of success.

(4) Another, that a spirit of determined hostility against the religious establishments of the country should have displayed itself at the very time when a revival of evangelical religion began to make its appearance in them, and internal exertions were making to reform their abuses.

(5) Another, that the late revival of evangelical doctrine should have been followed and checked by enthusiastical extremes.

II. THE EXERCISE AND CONDUCT BECOMING TO US IN CONTEMPLATING AND ENQUIRING INTO THESE WONDERS.

1. Such enquiries should be conducted with holy adoration of the doings of God.

2. With deep humility.

3. In the exercise of fervent prayer.

4. With firm faith in the preservation of the interests of religion, and the deliverance of the Church. (T. M’Crie D.D.)

The Reservations of God

Who can be so perplexing as God? “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing.” We think we have got an answer when we have got a reply. There is a great sound of thunder in the air, but what it all means not even Daniel can tell Yet the thunder is very useful; the thunder is the minister of God. There are mountains that have never been climbed; if they had been climbed they had been vulgarised. The pinnacles of the church were not made to be stood upon. Daniel asked a question and received all these words in reply, and no man knows what they mean. There they are, and they are useful every one of them. Who would be without the mystery? Who would have an earth without the sky? it would not be worth having. Yet the earth is underfoot and comparatively manageable; we can dig it, plough it, put stones into it with a view of putting up a house which the earth will always try to cast out; for the earth does not like masonry, the earth does not like to be violated. But the sky no man has touched. The sky is the best part of us. We get all our vegetables out of the sky, though we think we do not. All the flowers are out of the sun, though we think we planted them. So easily may we be misled by half-truths and by mere aspects of facts! Yet we cannot do without astronomy. We may have it as a science, it is not every mouth that can pronounce long words, but we must have it as a sovereign and gracious effect. What, then, have we to do? We have to do three things. First we have to attend to the practical. Many men have been trying to make out the meaning of the twelve hundred and ninety days who have never kept one of the commandments. If we are to understand the apocalypse we must first keep the commandments. If we would enter Heaven we must keep the commandments first. Do the little which you do know. “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” O thou foolish soul, trying to make out the meaning of the twelve hundred and ninety days, and forgetting to pay the wages of the hireling, forgetting to cool the brow of fever. Then, secondly, we are not to deny the mysterious. The Bible will always be the most mysterious of books. Why shall it always be the most mysterious of writings? Because it contains God. No man can find out the Almighty unto perfection. He cannot be searched or comprehended or weighed in a balance or set forth in words and figures. So long as the Bible tabernacles God it will be an awful sanctuary. Then, in the third place, we have to learn patience. Personally, I am waiting for God’s comment upon God’s words. There are many persons who have handled the Bible indiscreetly. They have been keen in finding discrepancies and contradictions; they have busied themselves about signatures, they have asked whether Moses signed this, and David signed that, and Daniel signed the other; and they have got up a post hoc case in favour of the Bible. On the whole they have come to think that possibly bits of it may be inspired. I have not reached any such conclusion. All I know of it, in the mater of conduct, and elevation of soul, and prospect of salvation, is inspired enough for me; and as for the parts I do not understand I am waiting, and perhaps when God comes to read it to me I shall find that, not God, but the critics have been wrong. (Joseph Parker, D.D.)

Searching into the Deep Things of God

I once heard Mr. George Muller say that he liked be read his Bible through again and again, and he liked specially to read those portions of the Bible which he did not understand. That seems rather a singular thing to say, does it not? For what profit can come to us if we do not understand what we read? The good man put it to me like this: he said, “There is a little boy who is with his father, and there is a good deal of what his father says that he comprehends, and he takes it in, and he is very pleased to hear his father talk. But sometimes his father speaks of things that are quite beyond him, yet the boy likes to listen; he learns a little here and there, and by-and-by, when he has listened year after year, he begins to understand what his father says as he never would have done if he had run away whenever his father began to talk beyond his comprehension.” So is it with the prophecies, and other deep parts of God’s Word. If you read them once or twice, but do not comprehend them, still study them, give your heart to them, for, by-and-by, the precious truth will permeate your spirit, and you will insensibly drink wisdom which otherwise you never would have received. (C. H. Spurgeon.)