Guard Us Waking Oh, Lord, And Guard Us Sleeping

11.7.21 Daniel 12:1–3

1 Then at that time, Michael, the great prince who stands over your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress that has not happened from the first time that there was a nation until that time. At that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. 2 Many who are sleeping in the dusty ground will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame, to everlasting contempt. 3 Those who have insight will shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who bring many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever.

Guard Us Waking Oh, Lord, and Guard Us Sleeping

Daniel talks about many who are sleeping in today’s text. You would think going to sleep would be something most would look forward to. Yet going to sleep can sometimes be a scary thing for some.

If you know you aren’t going to sleep well, or if you tend to have nightmares, you might not like going to bed at night.

If you live in a rough neighborhood, you might fear that your house will get broken into.

Sometimes children are afraid of the dark. One of the night time prayers includes the phrase, “If I should die before I sleep.” It’s kind of a scary prayer for a child to pray, to think about dying in your sleep and never waking up.

Anesthesiologists are very cognizant of the fact that people don’t always wake up from the sleep that they are put under.

So yes, sleep can be a scary thing. God compares death to sleep. This too can be scary, even with the euphemism. We are going someplace we’ve never been before, to an unknown world. We weren’t created to die. The body was not meant to be separated from the soul. It is usually a painful thing to die, as your body parts break down and stop working. Most of us still want to stay awake in this world. Yet we shouldn’t be terrified of sleep when we think of where we are going, not when God says we get to sleep with Jesus. This is what Daniel wants to focus us on today, especially on the Final Day, on Judgment Day, when we get to wake up.

Judgment Day is kind of a scary looking thing in some senses. Jesus will come with angels. He talks about having a winnowing fork in His hand. He talks about bringing fire on the earth. Some will cry to the mountains to fall on them. Some people have their bodies burned and spread in the ocean in hope that their bodies will not be raised from the dead. Their version of “heaven” is a simple lack of existence in death.

Back in Paul’s day some people were afraid that they had somehow missed Judgment Day, but he assured them that nobody would sleep through it. Nobody will fail to wake up. Daniel says, Many who are sleeping in the dusty ground will awake. We know from other Scriptures that “many” is actually ALL. Paul wrote HOW we will be woken in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” The same voice that raised Lazarus from the grave will wake up the world.

The question is, what will you wake up to find? A dream come true, or a nightmare scenario? Many who are sleeping in the dusty ground will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame, to everlasting contempt. The first option is the Christian dream come true, that you wake to everlasting life. This is what God wants and what Jesus died for, life! God is a God of life! He loves life! We have this life inside of us now, when we live with the knowledge that God loves us and died for us. Even as Jesus was dying, He was doing it to conquer death and bring life! He was speaking life and hope into the thief on the cross. In heaven we get to live with Jesus forever, where your body has no sign of death, and there is no fear of it in any way. How FREELY you could live and truly ENJOY food and drink when there were no fears of drinking too much or feeling like a pig afterwards! How wonderful it would be to REJOICE without any fear of hitting a bad note or embarrassing yourself. NO shame or worry that someone is judging you! No jealousy over your happiness. Only life, and an ETERNITY of it!

The only other alternative is the nightmare. You rise to everlasting shame and contempt. What a terrifying thought! Imagine God bringing up all of your sins in your life, and everybody publicly hearing everything you’ve done. The thoughts, the words, the actions, all being drudged up and exposed to the world. Then it mentions “contempt,” which can also be translated as “abhorrence.” If you think this world is full of contempt, just think of what hell would be. Everybody hates everyone and everything. And what is worse? God ends up abhorring you too! What a nightmare to wake into!