Heaven Rules: What Difference Does It Make?

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Please remain standing, and I’d like us to just lift our hearts in prayer for a moment.

We’ve just affirmed that the Lord Almighty reigns! That’s a statement of faith. I wonder, for some of you tonight, if it was a sacrifice of praise to sing those words? Maybe you know it in your heart, you know it in your theology, but in your life it doesn’t necessarily feel that He is reigning over every circumstance.

You know, it’s easy to sing while we’re gathered here, but back where we live and work it doesn’t always seem to be true that, The Lord Almighty Reigns, right? 

So, Lord, we come and just give our hearts to You—weak and frail and sometimes doubting, as we are—to say we do believe that You are the Lord Almighty and that You reign and rule in all of this world. Would You give us deeper faith and hearts to affirm and to counsel our hearts according to that truth as we move through these hours together? We give You thanks in Jesus’ name, amen.

Thank you, you may be seated. You know, sometimes two little words are all that it takes to trouble our hearts or to frighten us, overwhelm us. Think of some of those phrases: power outage, car repairs, work layoffs, pandemic spikes, treatment options, family trouble, election results, crime rates, rising inflation. Is your blood pressure going up yet? (laughter)

Just two words, yet they can wreck your day, right? They can fill us with anxiety and fear. In fact, what are two hard words that you have faced in the past weeks or months? Think about them, two words that aren’t comfortable words, aren’t easy words. Maybe just even write them down there in your folder, your program. Jot them down. What are two hard words you’ve had to face recently?

Well, this weekend, I want us to ponder another two-word phrase—simple, powerful, two words. We’ve already talked about them: Heaven rules. We’re going to see this weekend that Heaven rules is a grid through which we can view everything else in our lives and in our world. 

In these two words I have found a world of comfort and hope and courage and perspective, and I believe that the same can be true for you as well. We see this theme woven all the way through the Scripture. 

It’s especially prominent in the book of Daniel, where I’ve been parked for the last couple of years. The events in the book of Daniel took place more than 2700 years ago, but the message of this book is timeless! 

So, I’m going to ask you to turn in your Bible, or scroll on your phone, to the book of Daniel. I want you to see and hear with your own eyes and ears what the Word of the Lord is going to say to us tonight.

This message is timeless, but it’s also incredibly timely for much of what we’re experiencing in our world today. The phrase itself—Heaven rules—is found in the book of Daniel chapter 4, verse 26. Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon: “Your kingdom will be restored to you as soon as you acknowledge that Heaven rules.”

It was just a few years ago when that phrase leapt off the page at me. I’d read it many, many times before, but: “Heaven rules, Heaven rules, Heaven rules! Your kingdom will be restored to you as soon as you acknowledge that Heaven rules!” Two words. I want this to become a reflexive response for you.

In fact, just turn to someone who is sitting on either side of you and say, “Heaven rules!” (response) Say it to someone else. (Heaven rules.) I can’t hear you! Say it again! (Heaven rules.) I love that! 

I want you throughout this weekend as you’re talking with people—strangers, getting on the elevator with somebody—let’s just have those words reverberate throughout this convention center: Heaven rules! We’re going to affirm it, and we’re going to deepen our conviction about it in our hearts. 

Now, it’s not just enough to say those two words; it’s not just enough to know them in our heads. But believing that Heaven rules will transform the way that you think about everything. It will transform the way that you live!

Robert, my sweet husband, and I have just looked at each other, I don’t know, maybe thousands of times over the last couple of years—through COVID, through cancer, through ups and downs and . . . my goodness! . . . the news reports at night. We’re looking at each other and we’re going, “Honey, Heaven rules!”

Tonight I want to talk about Heaven rules, what difference does it make? What difference did it make to Daniel to know that Heaven rules, and what difference does it make to us? I want to start with five snapshots from the book of Daniel. 

We’re going to do like a fast run through parts of the book of Daniel, through the lens of Heaven rules, kind of a 30,000 foot view. I wish we could just take the whole weekend and soak in these passages, but we’re just going to give snapshots.

Then we’re going to look at five timeless truths about Heaven’s rule that we see in the book of Daniel. And then we want to close by asking, “How will our lives be different if we truly believe that Heaven rules? How will your life be different if you believe that Heaven rules? 

So let’s start with five Heaven rules snapshots from the book of Daniel, and let’s start in Daniel 1, and here’s the first scene. I’m going to call it Babylon Rules (or so it seems). 

Scene #1: Babylon Rules! (or so it seems) 

Daniel 1:1: 

In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem [the capital city of Judah] and laid siege to it. The Lord handed King Jehoiakim of Judah over to him, along with some of the vessels from the house of God. Nebuchadnezzar carried them to the land of Babylon, to the house of his god, and put the vessels in the treasury of his god. (vv. 1–2)

Now, here we have two powerful rulers and two opposing nations. From a human perspective, when you read just that opening paragraph, you’re saying, “This was a really bad day for King Jehoiakim of Judah!” And you’re thinking, “This was a really great day for King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon!” 

So what happens? God’s people are crushed! They’re humiliated by the Babylonian empire! But it’s not just these two kingdoms and these two rulers; in fact, it’s not mostly about those two kingdoms or those two rulers at all.

Because there is another, unseen kingdom and Ruler throughout the pages of not only the book of Daniel, but the whole of Scripture. In fact, look at verse 2: who handed Judah’s king over to the king of Babylon? Who was it? The Lord (Adonai). 

You see, it looked like King Nebuchadnezzar was the one who humbled and crushed King Jehoiakim, but it was the Lord who handed over His own people to the King of Babylon.And what we’re going to see unfolding in the book of Daniel—and in all of Scripture—is really a battle between the Lord God Almighty and the false gods of this world. In Daniel, it’s the false gods of Babylon.

So what looked like a human defeat for the people of God was actually the work of a wise, sovereign God who is behind and over everything that is going on here on earth. God is always working out His purposes in this world for the glory of His name.

In the book of Daniel, those purposes include, first of all, disciplining His own people who had forsaken Him. It also involved revealing Himself as the Lord Almighty to pagan kings and people.

Now in verses 3–4, we see that the king ordered young men to be brought to Babylon from Judah. They were the cream of the crop. They were deported forcibly from their homeland. They were conscripted by Nebuchadnezzar to serve him and advance his agenda, and the king immediately set out to make them dependent on him rather than on their God. Verse 5 says, 

The king assigned them daily provisions from the royal food and from the wine that he drank. They were to be trained for three years, and at the end of that time they were to attend the king.

Now, in the rest of Daniel, we hear very little about most of these young men. Maybe they saw this as a good career opportunity, maybe they felt they had no choice but to go along with the King’s plan. Maybe, as many other Jews did, sadly, they assimilated into the Babylonian culture, they settled in, they became at home in Babylon. 

But among all those young men, there were four—four!—who knew that Babylon was not their true home and that the gods of Babylon were not true gods. Now, we know that these four men were young teens at the time. I understand we have, four hundred teenagers signed up here. Teenagers, raise your hands; I want to see you!

Thank you for being here; we love you guys! We’re so thrilled you’re here! We’ll be praying for you tomorrow during the teen track. You’re going to love it! But, teens, can I just remind you as you hear this story and read the book of Daniel, God didn’t choose old people to accomplish His purposes in this book. He chose teenagers who started their young lives, before they reached adulthood, by planting their hearts in the Word and the character of God. There are ways God wants to use your life to accomplish His purposes in this world.

Listen, there were lots of other teens who came from Judah to Babylon, but you never hear about them again. We don’t know what they were doing. Maybe they were partying, maybe they were having fun, but they were not swimming against the tide. The ones who swam against the tide, they’re the ones we’re reading about tonight. 

I want to be reading about you. I want to be hearing about you, years from now because as a teen you said, “I’m going to follow Christ. I’m going to believe that Heaven rules!” Yes, let’s pray for those teens and believe God for that!

Verse 7 says that, 

The chief eunuch [this is the guy in charge] gave them names; he gave the name Belteshazzar to Daniel, Shadrach to Hananiah, Meshach to Mishael, and Abednego to Azariah.

So what did he do? He stripped them of their Jewish names, and each of their Jewish names included as part of their name a variation on the name of God, Elohim, Yahweh. He stripped them of those names and gave them pagan, Babylonian names that had nothing to do with their God.

He was wanting to change their identity, to change their loyalty, so they would be loyal to him and his gods and not to their God. So here’s the king, he’s the boss. He believed he was the supreme king and that Babylon ruled, but these young men knew better. They knew that their God was the supreme King and that Heaven rules!

Slip down to the last verse of chapter 1, verse 21; it’s an interesting sentence here; I love this. It says: “Daniel remained [in Babylon] until the first year of King Cyrus.” You say, “What’s the big deal about that?” 

Well, once you study the history of Daniel, you realize that there were nearly seventy years from the time that Daniel was taken into captivity until Cyrus became king. He was going to be in Babylon for a very long time—the rest of his life, seventy years!

Now, when you’re a teenager, you’re not thinking about what it’s going to be like in your eighties. I’m going to tell you, it comes faster than you can imagine. Am I right? (laughter) But seventy years!

And during those years, one powerful king after another sat on the throne. Empires rose. Empires fell. Daniel faced one crisis and one challenge after another. He was in exile; he was a foreigner in Babylon. He was a servant of the State. He worked for evil rulers and corrupt governments.

He was the object of jealousy, palace intrigue, sinister plots against him, maniacal, narcissistic rulers. Does this sound like anything modern day? (laughter) He was persecuted for his faith, yet through it all, through all those years, all those changes, all those ups and all those downs, he served faithfully in a pagan environment.

And through all of this, God was faithful to him in that very pagan place, protecting, providing, directing, sustaining and delivering. Now, we go to chapter 2, and I want to give you a second snapshot. I want to call this one . . .

Scene #2: The Statue and the Stone (Daniel 2)

Let me just summarize it for you this way: Nebuchadnezzar had a disturbing dream, but the next morning he couldn’t remember what the dream was. He just knew it was a very bad and hard dream, so he ordered his officials to tell him, “What is the dream and what does it mean?” Well, of course, none of his officials could do that, because, how can you tell somebody else what they dreamed?! The king went ballistic! He was given to fits of rage. But we know that God gave Daniel supernatural wisdom to tell the king the dream and what it meant. 

Look at Daniel 2:31–35: 

“Your Majesty, as you were watching, suddenly a colossal statue appeared. That statue, tall and dazzling, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was terrifying. The head of the statue was pure gold, its chest and arms were silver, its stomach and thighs were bronze, its legs were iron, and its feet were partly iron and partly fired clay.

“As you were watching, a stone broke off without a hand touching it, struck the statue on its feet of iron and fired clay, and crushed them. Then the iron, the fired clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were shattered and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors.

“The wind carried them away, and not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” 

I want to tell you, ladies, that that paragraph is the story of human history, right there. The statue represented a series of world powers, starting with Babylon, and then others yet to come. We see the human race always trying to build the kingdom of man, but we see God intervening in human history—without human hands or help—to set up another kingdom. 

One day, His kingdom will crush every earthly empire through Christ the Stone, the Living Rock, and the whole earth will be filled with the glory and the worship of our great God! (applause) Amen! 

I want to show you a third scene, it’s in Daniel chapter 3, and we’re just doing highlights of these. Mary is going to take us deeper into this chapter tomorrow morning. I just want to say a little bit about it. But, as you get to Daniel 3, I’m going to call this scene . . .

Scene #3: All Worship King Me (Daniel 3)

That’s Nebuchadnezzar’s theme song, “All worship King me!” Now, Nebuchandnezzar clearly missed the point of his dream in chapter 2. He builds this obscenely huge statue and commands all his subjects all around the world to worship it, but we know that the three Hebrew young men refused. 

And when they did, Nebuchadnezzar was furious! Because people who think they are sovereign rulers cannot bear to be crossed; they can’t bear to have their authority challenged. So the king had them thrown into a fiery furnace to be incinerated 

But look at those three Hebrew young men, teenagers remember? There’s no sense of terror or panic. There’s this quiet confidence. Why? Because they knew that their God was the true and living God, unlike the gods of Babylon. They knew that their God was more powerful than the king who thought he was all-powerful. They knew their God could save them from the king’s wrath. 

Now, they did get thrown in the furnace. They were willing to die to be loyal and faithful to their God. But God sent a deliverer into that fire to rescue His faithful servants (many believe that Deliverer was the Son of God Himself). The courage and the worship and the obedience of God’s servants in that time of trial resulted in praise and honor and glory to the God of heaven—and that’s the ultimate point, the ultimate reward, the ultimate end of affirming and believing and living that Heaven rules. God gets glory, and the gods of this world are dismantled. Okay, turn with me to Daniel chapter 4. Here’s a fourth scene, and I’m calling this one . . .

Scene #4 – The Proud King Loses His Mind (Daniel 4) 

Nebuchadnezzar was a proud, self-made man. As far as he was concerned, there was no need for God. He was blind to his need, but mercifully, God broke into Nebuchadnezzar’s sense of independence and control and got his attention. Listen, God will do whatever it takes to get your attention and mine. And when He does, don’t resist it. Thank Him for loving you enough to show you that you are not God, that He is God!

God gave Nebuchadnezzar another dream to warn him of the danger he was in, and in this dream he saw a massive tree! It was magnificent; it was beautiful, and it was visible to all the earth. This tree provided abundant food and shelter for every creature on earth.

And then the dream took a dramatic turn. An angelic messenger from God decreed the destruction of the mighty tree. Look at verse 14 of Daniel 4: 

“[This angel] called out loudly, ‘Cut down the tree and chop off its branches; strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit.’”

No longer would this tree provide shelter or food for birds, for animals. It would be reduced to a stump that would be shackled. The tree would no longer be supreme; it would be subject to the elements.

And we know as we study this chapter that the tree represented a powerful man who thought he was more powerful than God. He would be stripped of his greatness. He would lose his mind, and he would live like a brute beast for seven years.

Now, we know that this dream applied directly to Nebuchadnezzar—it’s pretty clear as you’re reading the passage. But it wasn’t at all clear to Nebuchadnezzar! Proud people have a hard time seeing the truth about themselves. 

So Daniel helped him out. He boldly explained the meaning of the dream to the mighty king; he made it personal. Look at verse 22. Daniel said, 

“That tree is you, Your Majesty. For you have become great and strong: your greatness has grown and even reaches the sky, and your dominion extends to the ends of the earth. . . .

“This is the decree of the Most High that has been issued against my lord the king: You will be driven away from people to live with the wild animals. You will feed on grass like cattle and be drenched with dew from the sky for seven periods of time, until you acknowledge that the Most High is ruler over human kingdoms, and he gives them to anyone he wants. . . .

“Your kingdom will be restored to you as soon as you acknowledge that Heaven rules. . . . Therefore . . . separate yourself from your sins by doing what is right, and from your injustices by showing mercy to the needy. Perhaps there will be an extension of your prosperity.” (vv. 22, 24–27)

Let’s stop there for a moment. God mercifully gave the king a whole year to repent, but he refused. That’s what we see in the rest of this chapter. You see, pride is a way of thinking that says, “I rule. I’m in control. ‘My kingdom come, my will be done.’” 

And the prophecy of Nebuchadnezzar’s great fall . . . By the way, mental illness is nothing new. It can have various causes, but in this case, it was the king’s pride that stripped him of his senses and his reason and his rationality—his pride. 

The prophecy of his fall was fulfilled, but ultimately this was a good thing, because the discipline that God placed on him brought about his repentance, his humility, and his restoration. It led him to this conclusion. . .

Look at verse 37, the last verse of Daniel chapter 4. It talks about,

The King of the heavens . . . is able to humble those who walk in pride. 

Boy, when I read that, I realize there’s some Nebuchadnezzar in all of us. I can never get past that phrase without saying, “God is pointing His finger at my heart!” The King of the heavens is able to humble me if I walk in pride.

Heaven always gets the final word. If we refuse to humble ourselves under His mighty hand, we will force Him to humble us. Pride and self-sufficiency: that is the pathway to certain ruin. Humbling ourselves, acknowledging Heaven’s rule: that’s the pathway—it’s always the pathway!—to restoration and wholeness. 

Now, let’s turn over to Daniel chapter 6. (I hate to skip chapter 5, but I’m going to do it.) I’m going to give us Scene #5, the last scene we’re going to look at in Daniel; it’s called . . .

Scene #5–A Night with the Lions (Daniel Chapter 6)

Daniel lived in an environment that was hostile to God and to His followers. Daniel’s wisdom and his godly life did not win him human praise; in fact, it made him a target of the enemy. And in the short term, it seemed that a holy, obedient life did not pay off. Have you ever felt that way in your school, in your workplace? 

Knowing of his faith in God, Daniel’s adversaries attempted to bring him down by having the king make a royal edict outlawing prayer (because they knew Daniel was a man of prayer) for thirty days to anyone other than the king. Anyone who dared to defy that irrational, irreversible decree would be destroyed. And in this moment it looked like Darius [who had become king] and his officials were supreme.

But Daniel knew who the true King was; he never forgot that over all these decades serving in the palace. He knew the One to whom he owed his ultimate loyalty. Yes, he would serve the kings faithfully, but he would not let them take the place of God.

He knew his fate and his life were not in the kings’ hands, but in God’s hands. He knew that God was more powerful than the king. He knew that God hears and answers prayer, and he knew that the safest place he could be—even once that edict was signed and sealed—was on his knees in the presence of God. That’s what gave him courage to keep on praying to his God.

Notice, he didn’t start his prayer life at this moment of crisis. He already had a prayer life! Scripture says in Daniel 6:10 that he went into his home, his room, as was his habit, and he opened his window and prayed toward Jerusalem.

This is the picture of a man who believed that Heaven rules! And true to King Darius’ edict, hewas thrown into a den of lions where his opponents expected him to be mauled to death. But you know the story. His life was supernaturally preserved by God. At the end of this story, the king ends up honoring Daniel’s God. 

And so, in the end Daniel was honored by God, and those who sought to ruin and destroy him were themselves destroyed. Five snapshots of Heaven rules in the book of Daniel. 

Now I want us to take a few moments and look at five timeless truths about Heaven’s rule found in the book of Daniel. I’m going to give them to you, I hope you’ll get the key points and then that you’ll do your own soaking in the book of Daniel—and the rest of Scripture—to see where these appear.

Five Timeless Truths about Heaven's Rule from the book of Daniel

1. Heaven rules over all things—big and small.

He is God Most High. He sovereignly ordains and oversees the macro events of our world as well as the micro details of our lives.

The macro: 

• Heaven rules over all history, past, present, and future. 
• Heaven rules over the geopolitical affairs of our world—over presidents and prime ministers, over kings and queens, over dictators and despots, over elections and political parties.
• Heaven rules over the world of economics. 
• Heaven rules over the world of nature, weather patterns, storms. 

There is no “Mother Nature.” Heaven rules over all of nature! He regulates the seasons. He controls the temperature on earth to make it habitable for humans. God keeps the sun exactly the right distance from the earth in order to sustain life and keep us from being burned up! Heaven rules in the macro.

But Heaven also rules in the micro:

• The details of our personal lives: the loss of job, unexpected bills, our car breaking down. 
• How are you going to afford to retire? (Something you teens aren’t thinking about yet, but you will!)
• That unfulfilled longing for a godly mate, or for a child. 
• The details of miscarriages or stillborn babies. 
• Hurts and wounds that you carry that no one else knows about—how others have wronged us. 
• Health issues. 
• Relational challenges—prodigal children, an inattentive mate, an unfaithful husband. 

Heaven rules in the micro from tiny splinters to life-threatening surgeries, from coughs and colds to cancer, from the economy to elections and earthquakes, from earth-shattering news in our world to life-altering events in our personal worlds. Heaven rules!

Now, Heaven rules is not a glib or superficial sentiment. It’s not a fatalistic view of the very real difficulties and heartaches of life in this world. But here’s what it is: it’s a deep, settled rest and confidence that He knows it all, He orders it all—our world, our days, our steps—and He can be trusted with it all. Number one, God rules over all things big and small.

2. No earthly power or kingdom will last forever. Only God’s kingdom is forever.

We’ve just witnessed the passing of Queen Elizabeth II after an unprecedented historic seventy-year reign! If you saw the committal service at Windsor Chapel, you saw that moving moment when the sovereign orb and the scepter and her crown were removed from the top of her coffin to be passed on to her successor. People thought she was going to live forever. She lived for a very long time, but no earthly power or kingdom will last forever.

The kingdoms of man rise and fall: good men, bad men, good queens, bad queens. Only God’s kingdom is indestructible, and one day it will crush every earthly kingdom that rejects His rule, and there will be an end to everything that opposes God and His people.

In fact, speaking of the end, that’s a recurring theme in Daniel’s prophecies. As you read the book of Daniel, look for those words: “the end.” What we learn is that all history is moving toward a divinely-predetermined end, which will take place exactly when and how God has ordered.

As believers, when the forces of evil seem to be winning and we see wicked powers setting themselves against God and against His people, we feel weak and helpless at times. But we take courage and we persevere in hope, because we know that their success is short-lived.

We know that God, our God, will have the final word. At the appointed time when Christ returns, He will triumph over every enemy, and He will reign forever, with no rival. Heaven rules! 

3. In the end, God will deliver all His people, and He will destroy all His enemies. 

Listen, that’s the end of every human life in the universe in all of history: destruction or deliverance. God will deliver all His people and destroy all His enemies. Those two verses in Psalms 34:19 and 21, tell us this: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous . . .”

You say, “Oh! When I signed up to follow Christ, I didn’t know I signed up for many afflictions!” We did. 

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. (v. 19 ESV) 

You say, “Well He hasn’t delivered me!”. . . yet. He will, out of every one, every affliction! But look at verse 21: 

Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. (ESV)

Those who had orchestrated Daniel’s downfall were destroyed in the very trap they had set for him while Daniel was supernaturally delivered. Now, in Daniel’s case it happened in one chapter.

It doesn’t always happen that way—the deliverance or the destruction. It mostly doesn’t happen that way in our lives, but it will happen. In God’s way and in His time, He will rescue all those who steadfastly trust in Him, but He stands against—He resists—those who resist Heaven’s rule. 

I know in an audience this size, there are some in this room who, in your heart (nobody else may know it) you’re resisting God. I want to tell you, your arms are not long enough to box with God. You won’t win! 

This is our hope, this is our confidence, in a world bent on the kingdom and the rule of man. That agenda will not end well, and those anti-God rulers who oppress others today will one day be utterly destroyed. And one day, God’s people who are now being oppressed and threatened will reign with Christ forever. Heaven rules! 

4. Heaven’s final victory is sure, but between now and the end, there will be war between the kingdoms of man and the kingdom of God. 

We live in a world that has set itself against God and is carrying out Satan’s bidding. We see deeply disturbing things all around us and sometimes feel overwhelmed, sick to our stomachs, or just plain exhausted by it all! 

In Daniel chapter 8 Daniel was given some terrifying revelations of the future, and they left him undone; his strength was sapped. But he never allowed himself to become paralyzed by those overwhelming visions, nor did he become obsessed with trying to figure out what all they meant, or try to fix or change all the broken systems that they represented.

So what did he do with all these visions that left him weak kneed and wobbly on his feet? He was terrified; he had no strength! What did he do? Daniel 8:27—I love this sentence!—he says, 

Then I got up and went about the king's business.

God had just shown Daniel these awesome but terrifying visions about what’s going to happen at the end of time! And what did he do? He went back to work—in Babylon, serving a pagan king! Yes, the burden of what he had just seen was weighing heavily on him, but he knew that all this was only temporary and that Babylon and all other earthly kingdoms yet to come would eventually come to nothing. 

In the meantime, he faithfully went about the work that God had given him to do in the king’s service, knowing that ultimately he was serving the King of Heaven.

Ladies, you and I have been placed here by God, and we are supposed to serve Him wherever He has put us, keeping our hearts firmly planted in His eternal Kingdom while we endure the difficulties. We cling in faith to the One who has promised that one day all things on earth will be redeemed and be made new!

By the time we get to chapter 12 of Daniel, Daniel is an old man; he’s an octogenarian. I’ve heard we have a few women in their eighties who were brought by their daughters to this conference. I don’t know where you are, but God bless you! I’m so thrilled you’re here! Daniel was your age by the time we get to chapter 12. 

An angel said to Daniel, “As for you, Daniel, go on your way to the end.” (12:13) Now, Daniel had been told a lot of mysteries, a lot of prophecies, that commentators still are not sure exactly what they all mean. But the angel said to Daniel, “As for you, go on your way to the end.”

Here’s what Daniel was supposed to be doing in his eighties: not giving up, not checking out, but keeping on. He was to go on living as a faithful servant of the Lord in a foreign land . . . all the way “to the end” of his life.

Some of you older women—sixties, seventies, eighties (I don’t know if we have anybody in their nineties here)—it’s not a time to check out until the Lord takes you home, and then there’s no checking out there! (laughter) Go on your way to the end. . .

5. God knows the answer to the questions: “How long will this last?” and “How’s all this going to turn out?” 

Those are questions that Daniel asked (you can read about it in chapter 12). In times of distress, we ask those same questions: “How long is this going to go on? How’s it going to end?” Now, it’s not wrong, I don’t think, to ask those questions. But at the end of the day, if God doesn’t choose to answer our questions, we have to trust that, what?Heaven rules.

God knows exactly how long this will last. Every event in heaven or on earth operates on His timetable, and He controls the game clock! When He says, “It’s time!”, the “buzzer” will sound for the end. God places a limit on how far and how long His enemies can exert their power, and we trust that He will sustain all those who trust in Him all the way to the end! 

In the last half of Daniel, Daniel is given several visions. In the first half of Daniel, he’s interpreting visions that God gave to other people. In the last half of Daniel, God gives him a number of visions, and these visions are a glimpse into God’s plan for the unfolding of history and nations from the time of Daniel all the way to the end of human history.

Those visions included fierce wars and persecutions against God’s people. I think a lot of people never read the last six chapters of Daniel because they’re hard plowing. The first six chapters, those are the stories, and we learn those in Sunday school. Nobody ever read those latter chapters when they were in Sunday school as kids!

But you need to read them; you need to study them; you need to get to know them. Here’s how I summarized those visions of the span of human history when I was journaling in my study through Daniel: 

• Powerful rulers
• Aggressive, arrogant
• Truth trampled.
• Lies prevail.
• Saints persecuted.
• Sanctuary profaned.
• How long?!
• God knows. 
• Evildoers overthrown. 
• Sanctuary restored. 
• God wins. 
• The end. 
• Heaven rules . . . Forever! 

And that’s the story! So here’s the question: do we really believe that Heaven rules? Do we live as if earth rules or Heaven rules? Do we live as if mankind rules or God rules? How will our lives be different if we truly believe that Heaven rules?

I want to give you several takeaways to ponder. This list could be much longer, but here are some ways that our lives will be different if we truly believe that Heaven rules:
 

1. If we believe Heaven rules, we will seek to have clean hearts.
We will resolve, as Daniel and his friends did, to live as holy people of a holy God (Daniel chapter 1) rather than assimilating into, fitting into, the culture around us. We will cheerfully obey God’s Word. We will confess our sins; we will forgive those who sin against us. We’ll have clean hearts.

2. If we believe Heaven rules, we will have clear heads—sound minds, sound thinking—about ourselves, about our world, about our God, about how to live as His children in this world and in the culture around us.
Nebuchadnezzar was proud. He wanted to be his own most high god, and he ended up losing his mind. Those who acknowledge Heaven’s rule over their lives will be humble. They will have a right view of God and of others and of themselves. They will be able to think clearly and wisely in confusing times. 

3. If we believe Heaven rules, we will remain calm when our world is chaotic and unhinged and spinning out of control—as it is today and as it was in Daniel’s day, or so it seemed.
Whether it’s in our personal world that’s going crazy or the larger world and culture around us, we won’t panic. We won’t despair when it looks like the enemies of God are winning, when hard things happen, when our freedoms are threatened, or our comforts are removed

Daniel worked for some angry, violent kings and at times his life was threatened. But He didn’t panic; he didn’t stage a protest; he didn’t plot a coup to overthrow the government, because he understood that Heaven rules. And so in the face of danger (and I believe much greater danger is going to come in our times than we’ve already seen), he was resolute. He was calm. He was fearless. He prayed. Daniel chapter 2 tells us “he responded with tact and discretion” (2:14). 

Oh, you can tell who believes that Heaven rules by who goes crazy and who’s calm in times of trouble. Rather than living with perpetual outrage against the culture or the people around us who wound us and disappoint us, we will be people of hope. We will see every crisis as an opportunity for the powerlessness of the gods of this world to be exposed and the power and the greatness of our God to be displayed! We’ll be calm.

4. If we believe Heaven rules, we will be confident in God’s control, His timing, and in the ultimate outcome.
We won’t feel that we need to control or manipulate the people or the circumstances around us. I love that old hymn “This Is My Father’s World”:

This is my Father's world,
O let me ne'er forget,
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, [say it with me]
God is the ruler yet.

Be confident in God’s control.

5. If we believe Heaven rules, we will be people of courage.
Yes, there will be unrest, conflict, and distress in this world, as there was in Daniel’s world. But Daniel 11:32 tells us that those “who know their God” will not give way to fear. They “will be strong, and they will take action.” There will be times when they are overcome by their enemies,, but even that, God will use to purify and refine and bless them. 

If we believe Heaven rules, we’ll have courage to stand for Christ. We’ll have courage—teenagers, women in the secular marketplace, women living in families with unbelieving family members—to swim upstream against cultural trends and demands that are contrary to God. We won’t give in to pressure or compromise or conform. We won’t give in to pressure to bow to the gods of this world. We’ll be people of courage.

6. If we believe Heaven rules, we will communicate with God.
That’s a “c” word. I needed a “c” for saying, “We will be praying people!” as Daniel was. Rather than ranting about the evil influences and influencers in our day . . . (And I’ve seen some of you do it on social media. I know who you are!—I don’t really know who you are, but I’ve seen a lot of Christians doing it.)

Listen, if we believe Heaven rules, rather than ranting about all that evil around us, we will intercede for those people, those rulers, those negative evil influencers. We will believe that God can change the hearts of the most proud, ungodly leaders, as He changed Nebuchadnezzar’s heart in Daniel’s day. We’ll be praying people.
 

7. If we believe that Heaven rules, we will be content to wait patiently for God to work and to move, content to serve faithfully wherever He has placed us in the meantime.
We don’t have to be restless and striving and chafing, because we know the end of this story, and we know it’s all good!

8. If we believe that Heaven rules, we will crown Christ as King and Lord of every area of our lives.
Did you see that moment when Queen Elizabeth’s coffin was passing by Buckingham Palace and all the people from the staff who had served with her for all those years were lined up outside the palace? As the hearse with the coffin passed by her loving subjects, what did they do? They bowed; the women curtsied. We will bow before Him. “Yes, Your Majesty!” We will worship Him and crown Christ the King of every area of my life. God’s going to speak to all of us in different ways this weekend, through His Word, through His servants. 

When He puts His finger on something in your heart—I don’t care if you’re the woman in her eighties or you’re the youngest teenager here or somebody in-between—will you say, “Yes, Lord!”? Will you let Him change you? Will you surrender to Him? Will you bow before Him? Will you say, “Yes, Lord; yes, your Majesty!”?

Last year at the Revive Our Hearts Revive conference, we shared a video produced by the Revive Our Hearts team. It was the story of a dear friend whose life is a beautiful example of what it means to believe that Heaven rules. Tonight I want to share with you again just the first few minutes of that video. If you turn to the screens, here’s Colleen Chao.

Colleen Chao Video:

Singing: Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side.

I was thirty-four when I married and then almost immediately got pregnant. When I was thirty-five, I had my son Jeremy.

Waiting so long for marriage, and then to have a child later, has been part of this grieving process, part of what I’ve had to wrestle through. To be faced with this terminal diagnosis and go, “But I don’t get to finish this motherhood task. I’m going to be interrupted midstream.”

We’ve always been very honest with Jeremy, very upfront, very transparent from the first diagnosis to this one. So I told him what the doctors had said, that it’s Stage IV, and I gave him the timeline. I just said, “What a gift! God’s given me the gift of some more time with you.”

Jeremy Chao: Yeah, it was very hard. Like, Stage IV cancer is very tough, and I was just really sad.

Colleen: We chatted a little, and then he walked out of the room, and I heard him weeping. So I went into the bedroom and curled up next to him and just comforted and cuddled him, and he just wept. Jeremy’s story requires that I go before the task is finished . . . and there’s going to be glory in that. 

Singing: Through stormy ways leads to a joyful end.

Man, at eighteen years old I had the world on a string! I was so ambitious and driven, and it was good stuff! But it was so full of “me” still. Before my first cancer diagnosis, I would just constantly get comments like, “You look so young for your age!” I think subconsciously, I put stock in that. 

Nancy: Would you welcome Colleen Chao? 

Colleen, when you were here last year, you didn’t know if you could possibly be here this year or if you would be in Heaven. You were praying that the Lord would let you live to Jeremy’s eleventh birthday, and the Lord let you see that. We’re so thrilled you’re here! (applause)

A lot of people have been praying for you, a lot of these people. In fact, I was talking to Pastor Chris Brooks not long ago and he said, “That woman who spoke last year, how’s she doing? We’ve been praying for her!” So, I know these women would love to hear just a brief update on how you’re doing. How’s your health? Tell us where you are. 

Colleen: Well, it is such a miracle and a gift to be here a year later! It’s been an intense year of treatment. What we’re doing is just using as many different kinds of treatment to hold off the cancer that’s been found all over my body, and buy some time. That sounds a little weird, but that’s what God has allowed the treatment to do so far.

We’ve done rigorous chemo and surgery and hormone treatment and then maintenance chemo. But at this point, my physical heart can’t sustain the maintenance chemo much longer. It’s not functioning like it should, so we’re having to make some difficult decisions.

But I just feel like God has held together these days, because He has more good works prepared for me beforehand that He wants me to do before He calls me home.

Nancy: And this woman has been doing every good work God is giving her to do before He calls her home. In fact, you have just written a book that we didn’t think was going to get here in time, but it got here yesterday from our friends at Moody Publishers. Tell us what it’s called, and just give us a glimpse into what that is.

Colleen: It’s called In the Hands of a Fiercely Tender God: 31 Days of Hope, Honesty, and Encouragement for the Sufferer. I just wanted to write a gentle book for those in the darkest days, to feel God’s presence and His goodness. 

It’s a brief little book that was such a joy to write. It made me appreciate Nancy, who has authored a lot of books! I was like, “Nancy, how do you do this over and over?!”

Nancy: Colleen is an amazing writer; her emails are amazing! This book is going to be such a gift. Colleen flew in with her friend from California yesterday and got to her room. Did you sign the books last night? 

She signed one hundred copies of this book, so if you go to the Resource Center, the first hundred people to get that book will have a copy signed by Colleen. Thank you for doing that! Colleen, as we think about Heaven’s rule, what does that mean in your life right now while you’re going through terminal cancer and a lot of human weakness and pain? What does Heaven’s rule mean for you right now?

Colleen: I’ve told you this. I love that this has been on your heart, because it’s been such a ministry to me, everything that you’ve written and spoken about it [Heaven rules]. And Heaven rules means that this suffering matters, it infinitely matters, because this is where I find more of Jesus.

This is where I go to greater depths of His love, and that gives me something to pour out to others. It also means that this suffering doesn’t have the final word, God does. He gets the final word in this!

He is transforming every pain, every grief, every loss, every long sleepless night. He’s transforming that into beauty. It makes me think of what the apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:17, where he says that this is “light and momentary affliction” (CSB).

Facing death, in the great scheme of eternity, is light and momentary. It does not feel like that most of the time! But that’s the reality of it. He’s transforming all of these things into something so good and so beautiful. So much joy and reward is ahead that Paul calls it “absolutely incomparable”!

I firmly believe that we need resurrected bodies because we can’t handle the goodness that’s coming to us! We’re going to have new bodies to bear all the goodness and all the pleasure that God has stored up for us!

So with my finite mind, I’m dealing with these infinite realities. I’m living in a lot of mystery. I’m living with a lot of unanswered questions, but that is exactly where I go deeper with Jesus. It presses me into Him. It helps me experience His love. It helps me understand that He is infinitely better than long life! He’s infinitely better than a beautiful, healthy body.

He’s infinitely better than being alive to watch my son—my joy!—grow up. He’s infinitely better than getting to live a long life and grow old with my husband. These are things that are so precious to us here, but Christ is so much better, and I’m living in the reality of that.

It makes me think, too, of how Paul says [2 Corinthians 4:2], “We always carry the death of Jesus in our bod[ies] so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our bod[ies]” (2 Cor. 4:2). That’s why I just celebrate so much what Nancy is teaching. The beautiful book she’s written on this, Heaven Rules, this is our hope, that God always changes death into life! 

Nancy: Amen! Thank you. (applause) If you aren’t too afraid of germs (if you are, that’s okay), just take the hand or touch the shoulder of somebody next to you, and let’s just pray for our sister.

Oh Lord, how we thank You for the beauty of what You’re doing in and through this woman’s life—cancer is not king and cancer does not get the final word. But Christ is King, and You are ruling and reigning and making something deeply beautiful and eternal out of this pain, out of the suffering. 

Thank You that this precious woman would take these days away from her husband and her son whom she loves so dearly; that she would take the time to write this book and another one she is working on. I just don’t see her giving up or sitting down or saying, “I stop. I quit!” But she’s being faithful all the way to the finish line. 

So in this journey, in the mystery, would You give her joy? Would You strengthen her and sustain her? Would You satisfy her deeply with Your steadfast love? Thank You for how she is using this journey to point us to Christ, who is our ultimate end and comfort and hope in life and in death. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen! 

Nancy to women: The way that I want to encourage you to affirm that throughout this weekend . . . In the main hallway outside this room, you’ll see several large banners on the walls and some markers with them. I want to encourage you to find the time this weekend to go over and get a marker, and write this sentence: “Heaven rules over_____.”

And you fill in the blank. What’s one area of your life, or that you see in our world, and you say, “I believe that Heaven rules over even this!” Fill in the blank. Maybe it’s a broken marriage, a wayward child, a health issue, a financial crisis, an upcoming election. “Heaven rules” . . . over what? And then just sign your name. By signing your name you’re saying, “I believe that Heaven rules!”

The pastor that I grew up under for many years as a child and a teenager is a man named Dr. Bill Hogan. He performed Robert’s and my wedding seven years ago. He’s now eighty-eight, and he’s got serious health issues. His body is failing and his memory is fading. 

His wife Jane and I text often. She’s updating me on what’s happening. We’ve come to sign our texts this way: “Heaven rules. Jesus is near.” 

Two days ago she sent me a text that said, “Bill and I both have COVID and are sick. The caregivers are afraid they’ll be infected. I pray that I can do all the things they do to care for Bill—empty the urine bag, assist him as he gets in and out of his wheelchair, plus diaper changes.” And she said, “I am content. Jesus is near.”

Listen, we’ve talked about how Christ our Savior is high and lifted up. He’s powerful, and He rules from Heaven! But this Ruler is also tender and personal and kind, and He draws near to us in our distress. You can trust Him! I want us to just take a moment tonight to express that. Would you stand with me as we pray?

What’s that sentence you want to write or that you need to write? Think about it as you’re just lingering before the Lord in this moment. “Heaven rules over_____.” What’s in your blank? And would you just say, “Lord, I believe it.”

Oh Lord, I don’t know how the women who are standing here tonight with me, or watching on the livestream, may have finished that sentence. Maybe it’s some small things, some big things, matters of life, matters of death. But how we thank You that Heaven rules and that Jesus is near! We look to You, O Christ, and we affirm that You alone are our steadfast hope, our comfort in life and in death! And all God’s people said . . . Amen!

All Scripture is taken from the CSB.