July 16: PROPHETIC PARALLEL #7
And at that time your people shall be delivered, Every one who is found written in the book. Daniel 12:1c
Our brother Daniel makes a direct connection between being delivered and being written in the book. The original Hebrew word translated delivered is elsewhere translated escape (11:41,42). The picture that comes to mind is of the Israelites. Just after being saved out of Egypt, they find themselves “between a rock and a hard place” because Pharaoh and his army came after them in ferocious pursuit. Flanked by steep mountains and facing the Red Sea, they were in dire need of an escape route, to be sure! Daniel is assured by the angel that a time is coming for rescue, deliverance, escape! [Daniel’s] people, faithful Jews of the Old Testament and faithful Christians of the New Testament, are singled out as individuals: Every one who is found written in the book.
This connection between rescue and having one’s name in the Book of Life is also found in Revelation 13, stated by John the Revelator in the negative: All who dwell on the earth will worship him [the beast], whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. (vv.8,9) Before our world was created, it was agreed within the Godhead that the Son would take on human flesh, live as the perfect Example to humanity, and die in the place of sinners (Romans 3:23). Immanuel, God with us (Matthew 1:23) has always been Plan A for the rescue of mankind from sin and death. There is no “Plan B”. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Resisting the beast’s mark will be requisite for being written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Prophetic parallel #7 between the last passages of Daniel and Revelation 13 is the interweaving of the themes of deliverance and being registered in the Lamb’s Book of Life. The tempter is working feverishly in these last days to negate every precept of God’s word. Like any temptation that people need to actively resist, the mark of the beast (Revelation 13:16; 14:9-11) will be presented to the world as beneficial and good. In fact, in the eyes of the world, it will be deemed evil to go against it. None of us should think that we are above the possibility of deception by the enemy of souls. If he could deceive the sinless pair who first walked the earth, those of us living 6000 years down the road of sin are even more susceptible to the wiles of the devil, which is exactly why Paul tells us to put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:11). God’s written word is both a helmet (for protection from wayward thinking) and the sword of the Spirit that we may be well prepared ahead of the enemy’s attacks. Think of Genesis 1:1. Could Moses have possibly known that in 1844 a theory of evolution would be launched upon the world, gaining a stronghold on Christians to such an extreme that it is now being taught as fact in many Christian seminaries? Centuries earlier, as Daniel prophesied, man attempted to alter the Ten Commandments (see Daniel 7:25). You can be sure that Satan will exploit chinks in our armor long before we know they are there. But now, we are responsible to overcome such error! (see Acts 17:30) If we desire to do so, the Holy Spirit stands ready to come to our aid. Jesus said:
He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. Revelation 3:5