Two prophets. Two angels. Two opposite instructions.
Daniel gets his vision and the angel tells him: "Shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end" (Daniel 12:4). Why seal it? Because it wasn't for him. "Seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now" (Daniel 8:26). Daniel had been handed a 490-year timeline for the Messiah (Daniel 9:24), and even that was too far out for the book to stay open. Then the angel tells him something personal: "Go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days" (Daniel 12:13). In other words, Daniel, you will die before this. You won't see it. Seal it.
John gets his vision and the angel tells him the exact opposite: "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near" (Revelation 22:10). Not "seal it for a distant generation." Don't seal it, because it's close. And notice John knew how to seal something when told to. Twelve chapters earlier he was told to "seal up what the seven thunders have said" (Revelation 10:4), and he did. The "do not seal" in chapter 22 is deliberate. It's the whole point.
Now hold the two side by side. Daniel's book was sealed because the fulfillment was roughly five centuries out. John's book was left open because the fulfillment was "near." And yet the popular teaching says John's prophecy has now been running for two thousand years and counting. Four times longer than the one God said was too far off to leave open.
Do we really believe that?
It gets stronger. Revelation doesn't just give the opposite instruction; it goes back and re-stages Daniel's scene on purpose. Daniel saw a figure over the waters lift both hands to heaven and swear "by him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time," and then the book was sealed (Daniel 12:7–9). John sees an angel standing on sea and land lift his hand to heaven and swear "by him who lives forever and ever… that there would be no more delay," and the book in his hand is open (Revelation 10:2–6). Then the angel says why: "the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets" (10:7). Same oath. Same posture. Daniel's book sealed for a distant day; John's book open because the delay was over. Even the clock is the same. The "time, times, and half a time" Daniel was told to seal shows up again, unsealed, in Revelation 12:14. Revelation isn't a new prophecy with a two-thousand-year fuse. It's Daniel's prophecy with the seal taken off.
And the angel who gave Daniel the 490-year clock in the first place? He's named. Gabriel (Daniel 9:21). He came to Daniel "at the time of the evening sacrifice." The next time Scripture shows him, he's standing in the Temple at the hour of incense telling Zechariah the forerunner is on the way, and then telling Mary the Messiah is (Luke 1:11–19, 26–33). The angel who started the clock came back to announce it had run out.
Here's the thing: God knows how to say "far off." He said it to Daniel. He said it through Ezekiel, and then rebuked the people who assumed it: "The vision that he sees is for many days from now, and he prophesies of times far off. Therefore say to them… None of my words will be delayed any longer" (Ezekiel 12:27–28). If God wanted John's readers to understand "this is for a generation two millennia from now," He had the vocabulary. He used it with Daniel. He didn't use it with John. He said "soon" (Revelation 1:1), "near" (1:3), "quickly" (22:7, 12, 20). Those are the words the Bible uses for near, and they're the same words Jesus used when He said "the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15). Nobody thinks that one meant twenty centuries.
One more contrast the text hands us. Daniel was told plainly he would rest before the end came. John? Jesus said of him, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?" (John 21:22), and He had already told the disciples that "there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom" (Matthew 16:28). Daniel was told he'd miss it. John was told he might live to see it.
So maybe the problem isn't the text. Maybe we inherited an assumption, that "at hand" means "someday," and read it into every page. That assumption has a history, and it's a lot younger than the book.
I'm not asking you to take my word for it. I'm asking you to take the two angels at theirs. Seal it, it's far off. Don't seal it, it's near. Then ask yourself which of those two instructions the church has actually been following for two thousand years.