Well, good morning. Welcome to
our continuing Bible class in studying the book of Daniel.
And we're going to be in chapter 11 today. But chapter 11 is really
just a continuation of chapter 10 and this messenger of the
covenant that appears to Daniel in this vision. And it actually
goes on through the close of the book of chapter 12 and the
end of Daniel. in our Bibles. Just by way of the way we look at Daniel, a
couple of things keep coming to mind. One of the good things
to remember is the dividing of time because it talks about that
in the Book of Den. Times and times and dividing
of times and this many weeks and that many weeks and basically
we can do away with all that if we remember just one thing
that our pastor often states. Someone is coming, someone is
here, someone is coming back. And all those elements we find
in the book of Daniel, parts one and two are in Daniel chapter
nine, which segues us into another
important thing to remember that in Daniel chapter nine, Daniel
was praying And he said, you know, I knew by the books the
number of years of the captivity should be about over with. So
he set his face to praying to God and he was wondering how
that was going to occur and what was going to manifest itself
in there. So he prays and God sends him the messenger of the
covenant. And Daniel says, I'm pretty concerned about the end
of the captivity. The Babylonian captivity is supposed
to be over in 70 years. And you know, the angel never
says anything about that. He says, I'm going to tell you
about the end of captivity of sin. And then he goes on to say,
we're not worried about the 70 years of captivity, 70 weeks
and Messiah the Prince will be here. And then after three score and
two weeks, he'll be cut off, but not for himself. Someone's
coming. Someone's here. And Daniel had
that vision of that. And then when we get to chapter
12, it talks about the someone coming back. And he tells Daniel,
hey, this stuff's going to happen. Most of it, not in your lifetime.
But it's happening. And so fear not. It's going just
exactly the way God has ordained. It's going just exactly the way
God has purposed everything for the redemption of the church.
And, you know, many people, they kind of take all this stuff and
try to drive a spike of fear through the hearts of people
and to convince them to come to Christ through a fear of,
oh, all this bad things are going to happen. Someone's coming. Someone's here.
Someone's coming back. Or in the Bible it says, and
then the last time or the last ages someone is coming back.
And 1 Peter, if you turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 9,
we'll do what Norm says. We're going to really be in Daniel
11, but hold your finger there and we'll march over to 1 Peter. And we'll look at 1 John 2, just
one verse there. But in 1 Peter 1, 19 says, but
with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and
without spot, who verily was ordained before the foundation
of the world, someone's coming, but was manifest in these last
times for you. So he says the last times are
now. And I want to stress that we
have these three periods. The someone's coming period,
the someone's here period, and the someone's coming back period.
And the someone's coming back period is called these last times. And the gospel writers always
put it in the now tense. It wasn't like, here's some stuff
that's going to happen in the future that you should be aware
of and that you should be afraid, very, very afraid of. 1 John 2, verse 18, he says,
Little children, it is the last time. And as you've heard that
Antichrist shall come, not the boogeyman like we think of in
movies and stuff. And he says, even now there's
many antichrists. And all that means is somebody
that's against Christ. Anti means against, and Christ,
we know what that means. So, whereby we know that it is
the last time. And boy, from the minute that
he stepped foot on the planet, and even before, that we had
the two camps. We had the division. We had those
that God gave a new heart to, that the Spirit revealed Jesus
to them. Cain and Abel, we often refer
to that. One brought a first sling of
the flock that showed that lamb without blemish and without spot
that Peter talked about. And the other one brought his
work of his own hands and a cane, and the Lord didn't have respect
for that. And he never did get why. He was never brought to
an understanding of why that. The Lord told him, It's not the
right thing. So as we move along here through
Daniel, and we're going to read just the last couple of verses
of maybe chapter 10, just so that we get the flavor that this
is a continuation of this narration by this, the messenger of the
covenant. So Daniel, he's 80 plus years
old at this point. He dies, he was about 90 years
old when he died and he was in Shushan, the palace in the province
of Elam, it says, when he died. And so he's getting close to
the end of his time on earth. And he's been used in a mighty
way to proclaim the gospel to even now. And every time that
he brought a petition forward that he was concerned about,
the Lord gave him like way more information than he was requesting,
and it was more As we mentioned about the the
70 years captivity wasn't he said that's That's just a picture
Here's the here's the real problem and it's not 70 years of captivity
and it's the 70 weeks and in Messiah the Prince and that's
the real the real issue of So you receive this information
from someone is coming to someone's coming back. And the messenger
is always clear that these events are future to Daniel. And again,
the other important thing that I'd like you to remember is that
the word to Daniel was always, fear not. Here's some things
that are troubling. And, you know, wars, great wars
were fought during this from the beginning of time. And they're
not pretty. And as Nora's been going through
judges, they slew the Midianites. And on and on and on it goes. So he tells him, fear not. And the other thing that he tells
him that's so important for the church is, you're greatly beloved. looks at you and says, you're
greatly beloved, fear not. And so again, we're beginning
chapter 11, and let's go there in the scriptures now, and we'll
back up to chapter 10, just for a few verses here. Let's start in verse 18. Chapter
10, verse 18. Then there came again and touched
me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me.
He was so worried about the things of this vision. And he strengthened
me, and he said, O man, greatly beloved, fear not. Peace be unto
thee. Be strong. Yea, be strong. Jesus always wins. You don't
have to be worried that you're going to have to take care of
this issue because I'm going to do it, Jesus said. He strengthened
me. And he said, O man greatly beloved,
fear not. Peace be unto thee. Be strong,
yea, be strong. And when he had spoken to me,
I was strengthened. Isn't that what the gospel always
does to us is when we read the gospel and we look into God's
word and how he loves us and how all the things that he'd
done for us in the covenant of grace, we're strengthened. And he said, let my Lord speak,
for thou hast strengthened me. He's like those in Norm's going
through the book of Acts. When the Gentiles heard the gospel,
they said, we would hear more of this. Then said he, knowest thou wherefore
I am coming to thee? And now I will return to fight
with the prince of Persia. And when I'm gone forth, lo,
the prince of Grecia shall come in it. That's just a kind of
biblical code words for God is working, just like he said, In
Cyrus, in Isaiah, you know, my servant Cyrus, I'll cause him,
I'll give him a heart to do my business. And just like we find
in all the kings that he said, I'll have this. I'll have the
Assyrians come, and I'll have the Babylonians come, and when
they're done, then I'll punish them for even though they're
punishing my people, when they get done doing that, I'll punish
them. And so he says, I'll return to
fight with the prince of Grecia. And when I'm gone forth, lo,
the prince of Grecia shall come. So he's telling him all these
future events. Alexander the Great's going to
come after the Medo-Persians and Cyrus. But I'll show you
that which is noted in the scripture of truth. So right there, it's
in the Law of Moses. Jesus says, search the scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they
that testify of me. And he's saying, I'm going to
tell you that which is noted in the scripture of truth. And
there's nothing that holdeth with me in these things but Michael,
your prince. Boy, isn't that true? There's
probably billions of people in various assemblies today, and
not very many of them are getting the scripture of truth. We looked on the news this morning
and we saw that the Biden administration leaked Israel's plan to attack
Iran. Nothing about the gospel in there.
Just be very, very afraid because all these things that they conjure
up out of these scriptures. But that's probably the sermon
topic today is the Middle East disruptions that are going on.
But that's been going on for since they came out of Egypt.
So nothing new there. So now we're moving on to chapter
11, and this angel that has been talking, and he says, you know
why I come to thee, and he starts telling him, and I'll show you
that which is noted in the scripture now, and he says, and also I
in the first year of Darius the Mede, even I stood to confirm
and to strengthen him according to the purpose of God. And now
I'll show thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up
yet three kings in Persia, and the fourth shall be far richer
than they all. And by his strength, through
his riches, he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.
And a mighty king shall stand up, and that shall rule with
great dominion and do according to his will. And when he shall
stand up, his kingdom will be broken. and be divided toward
the four winds of heaven, and not to his posterity, nor according
to his dominion, which he ruled. For his kingdom shall be plucked
up, even for others beside those." Boy, you know, it's a good thing
he told Daniel. He says, be strong, fear not. I got it. This is all
working according to my foreordained purpose. But Daniel's going,
Oh, this is, there's a lot of stuff going on here. And in the
end of years, they shall join themselves together for the king's
daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make
an agreement, but she shall not retain the power of the arm,
neither shall he stand nor his arm, but she shall be given up.
and they that brought her, and he that begat her, and he that
strengthened her in these times, but out of a branch of her roots
shall one stand up in his estate, which shall come with an army,
and shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north, and
shall deal against him, and shall prevail, and shall also carry
captives into Egypt, their gods, and with their princes, and with
their precious vessels of silver and gold, and he shall continue
for more years than the king of the north. So the king of
the south shall come into his kingdom and shall return into
his own land. But his son shall be stirred
up and shall assemble a multitude of great forces, and one shall
certainly come and overflow and pass through. Then shall he return
and be stirred up even to his fortress. Then the king of the
south shall be moved with caller, and shall come forth and fight
with him, even with the king of the north. And he shall set
forth a great multitude, but the multitude shall be given
into his hand. And when he hath taken away the
multitude, his heart shall be lifted up, and he shall cast
down many ten thousand, but he shall not be strengthened by
it. for the king of the north shall return and set forth a
multitude greater than the former and shall certainly come after
certain years with a great army and with much riches." This is
kind of a lot of stuff to take in, but he says it's all going
to happen and none of the ones that are being spoken about here
ever last very long. The only one that lasts very
long is Messiah, the Prince. But he that cometh, in verse
16, he that cometh against him shall do according to his own
will, and none shall stand before him. And he shall stand in the
glorious land, which by his hand shall be consumed. And he shall
set his face to enter with the strength of his whole kingdom
and upright ones with him. Thus shall he do, and he shall
give him the daughter of women, corrupting her. But she shall
not stand on his side, neither before him. And after this shall
he turn his face into the aisles, and they shall take many. But
a prince for his own behalf shall cause the reproach offered by
him to cease. Without his own reproach he shall
cause it to turn upon him. Then shall he turn his face toward
the fort of his own land, but he shall stumble and fall and
not be found. And then shall stand up in his
estate a raiser of taxes in the glory of the kingdom. But within
a few days he shall be destroyed, neither in anger nor in battle. In his estate shall stand up
a vile person." He's just saying, here's what's all this stuff's
going to happen. They're never going to last. They just get
replaced by one more worse person than the last person. And you
know what? It's going to take somebody pretty
vile and pretty ugly to take Messiah the Prince and cut him
off. It's just going to take that.
And all these things are just a prelude to that. He shall enter
peaceably upon the fattest places of the province. There's been more harm done from
that very sentence. People coming in and peaceably,
hey Norm, let's get together and let's have a conflab. Let's have a get together and
we'll have a Bible thing and we'll all be in agreement over
free will or stuff that's not the gospel. And Norm says, I
know you're coming peaceably, can't do it. We're going to stick
with the scripture of truth. But that's how they work. They
come in peaceably, the fattest places of the province, and he
shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his father's
fathers. He shall scatter among them the
prey and spoil and riches, and he shall forecast his devices
against the strongholds, even for a time. Again a limited scope
of when they're in power. And he shall stir up his power
and courage against the king of the south with a great army
and the king of the south shall be stirred up to do battle with
a very great army but he shall not stand for they shall forecast
devices against him and yea they that feed on the portion of his
meat shall destroy him. Boy they They're connivers, all
of them. I was looking all these kings
up. He lived two months, and he was
assassinated by his brother. And then his brother was assassinated
after he killed off all his kids and cousins and uncles and anybody
that could take over his throne. He had them killed, and then
somebody killed him to take over. If one doesn't believe in the
fall, you don't have to read very much of this to get a glimpse
of it. These kings hearts shall be to
do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table. Two kings
coming together, and they're both going to tell each other
lies. Oh, yeah, I'll be your friend for life if you protect
my northern flanks. And the other one says, no, I'll
be your friend for life if you'll cover my southern flanks. And
they're both saying, as soon as his back is turned, I'm coming
for him. Their hearts shall be to do mischief,
but it won't prosper. Verse 27, For yet the end shall
be at the time appointed. They have their time appointed
by God Almighty. He sets up kings and causes them
to do whatsoever He will according to His purpose. and then shall
he return to his land with great riches and his heart shall be
against the holy covenant and he shall do exploits and return
to his own own land and in the time appointed he shall return
and come toward the south but it shall not be as a former as
the latter for as the ships of chittim or that would be cyprus
as we look no in modern day parliament the island of cyprus part of the Macedonian Greek
culture. They shall come against him and
he shall be grieved and return and have indignation against
the holy covenant. So shall he do. He shall even
return and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy
covenant. And arms shall stand on his part,
and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away
the daily sacrifice. And they shall place the abomination
that maketh desolate. And do such as do wickedly against
the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries. But the people
that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits. And they that understand among
the people shall instruct many." They're going to be preaching
the gospel. yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, and
by captivity, and by spoil many days." You know, sometimes that's
a hard thing to reckon with, is that if you went into Norm's office
and looked up on one of his bookshelves, you'd come across Foxe's Book
of Martyrs, which is a big old book that thick, full of fine
print, about all the people that have died preaching the gospel, and that
wouldn't recant, and that were tortured and slain. And while
that's not pleasant to think about, in God's purposes, sometimes it happens and He just
views it as, you know, the precious is the
death of His saints to Him. But He looks at it as just a
crossing over. and not as we would look at it. And what Paul said, well, to
be absent with the flesh means to be with Jesus, and that's
better. But right now it's necessary for me to stay here and take
a lot of abuse and preach the gospel. And so we have that issue. And the king shall do according
to his will, verse 36, and he shall exalt himself. That would
be new. And magnify himself above every
god, and shall speak marvelous things against the god of gods,
and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished. For that that
is determined shall be done. Messiah, the prince, is going
to be cut off. You by wicked hands. have taken
and crucified the Lord of Glory. According to the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have done this. Neither
shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women,
nor regard any God, for he shall magnify himself above all. That's
just self-absorption. I'm the one. I'm it. But in his estate shall he honor
the God of forces. and a God whom his fathers knew
not shall he honor with gold and silver and precious stones
and pleasant things. Thus shall he do in the most
strongholds with a strange God, whom he shall acknowledge and
increase with glory, and he shall cause them to rule over many,
and shall divide the land for gain. And at that time of the
end shall the king of the south push at him, and the king of
the north shall come against him like a whirlwind with chariots
and with horsemen, many ships, and he shall enter into the countries,
and shall overflow and pass over. And he shall enter also into
the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown. But these
shall all escape out of his hand, even Edom and Moab, and the chief
of the children of Ammon. He shall stretch forth his hand
also upon the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of
silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt. And the Libyans
and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps. But tidings out of
the east and out of the north shall trouble him. Therefore
he shall go forth with great fury to destroy and utterly to
make away many. And he shall plant the tabernacles
of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain,
yet he shall come to his end and none's going to help him.
So that's kind of the end of chapter 11 and it continues on
over here in chapter 12 and it goes on and at that time shall
Michael, he goes on through the close of chapter 12. So So we're going to cover some
of these things because it's just this against that against
this against this king, that king, north king, south king,
east king, west king, this aisle, that aisle. But remember that
It's all according to God's purpose to establish things coming up
to the things of the Roman Empire that come to pass in 70 AD. And before that, the Messiah,
the Prince being cut off. This narrative turns to an expansion
of what were in the previous visions in Daniel 11 to the The character in chapter 11,
this vile king that comes into play, his name is Antiochus Epiphanes. And he eventually comes to power. And he was a Greek king who schemed
his way to the top. He sold his brother. He says,
hey, you know what? If you go down to Egypt and surrender
yourself, I think it was Egypt. They want me to come down there
and be a hostage. But if you'll go in my place, I'll watch over
the kingdom for you while you're gone. Because his brother rightly
was the rightful king. And his brother says, I love
you, brother. Sure, I'll do that. And when his brother was gone,
he says, it's all mine now. Antiochus IV, Epiphanes, or the
Magnificent One, or the Illustrious One, I think that word means.
And the Jews kind of, as they sometimes
do in the historical narratives, they changed it from Epiphanes
to Epimanes, which means the madman. So they kind of made
a play on words out of his name. a slur against him. So we have
the three kings in Persia, with the fourth that's richer by far
than the other three. And of course, the three kings,
we have Cyrus, who continued to rule after the death of Darius,
or Darius in 486 BC, and his son Cambyses, and Darius Hystapyses,
And according to Gil there were six more kings in Persia who
reigned for a period but had little really little to do with
the Jews so they're not mentioned really much in the histories
or the referenced in the Bible and these kings are not named
here they're just saying this king and that king of the north
and the history shows us who those really were. The fourth
king Xerxes who was richer by far than the other three was
the son of Darius the Mede and his wife Atosa which was the
daughter of Cyrus. and that mentioned there in Daniel
5.31. And in the purpose of God, Xerxes
amassed an army of several million. He conscripted people from different
nations, and he amassed this huge army including a league
with the Carthaginians, and he began an unprovoked attack on
the cities of the Grecian Empire, and part of that you might have
read about in the Battle of Thermopylae where the Persians came against
the the Greeks and the 300 that stood in the gap there at Thermopylae
and held them off for a prolonged time. And this provocation caused
Alexander to rise up against the Persians
and continue on in conquering most of the known world. And
in Daniel 11.3 says, a mighty king shall stand up that shall
rule with great dominion and do according to his will. And
when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken and shall be
divided toward the four winds of heaven and not to his posterity. So, he died at a pretty young
age and his four generals, his kingdom was divided up among
his four generals. And so, They, one of them had the Macedonian
area and one of them had Asia and one of them had Egypt and
they just kind of took all that he conquered and divided it into
four and ruled over that. And it happened that after Alexander,
he's the son of Philip the Macedonian who came out of that land of
Cyprus, of Chittim, had smitten Darius the king of Persians.
This is a paraphrase of a quote out of 1st Maccabees chapter
1 verse 1. And it happened that after Alexander
son of Philip the Macedonian who came out of the land of Shittim
had smitten Darius king of the Persians and Medes that he reigned
in his stead the first over Greece. And then it says the queen of
the south, this turns out to be the daughter of one of those
generals named Ptolemy, will move north and she married
Antiochus king of Syria, king of the north, and the father
of Antiochus epiphanies called the killer of Jews. He slew like
40,000 in three days. and he was called a flatterer,
and he brought about worship of Jupiter into the temple. And
in Daniel 11.6, at the end of the years, they shall join themselves
together for the king's daughter of the south shall come to the
king of the north and make an agreement. But it's not going
to stand. So the king of the north, Antiochus
the Great, the father of Antiochus Epiphanes, he conquered through
Samaria and down into Egypt. So that's recorded in Daniel
11.5. So the king of the north shall come and cast of him out
and take the most the most fenced cities and the
arms of the South shall not withstand, neither his chosen people, neither
shall there be any strength to withstand." Daniel 11, 5. So
in verse 21, we have the rise of Antiochus Epiphanes, this
flatterer, this evil guy, this killer of Jews. And even though
he does all that, he flatters them into just worshiping Baal
and idols and the Greek gods. Daniel 11, 21, And in his estate
shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the
honor of the kingdom, but he shall come in peaceably and obtain
the kingdom by flatteries. And with the arms of a flood
shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken. Yea, also the prince of the covenant. He forms an agreement with the
king of Egypt, Ptolemy Philater. And again, both of them scheme
against the other to control. Remember I told you they kind
of have a meeting, it's recorded in Daniel. They'll come together
and have a truce and a meeting and say, I'll watch you if you
watch for me. And meanwhile, they're both saying,
I'm just waiting for the opportunity to invade and to the scheme to
control it all. But the Bible says it all comes
to nothing. In Daniel 11, 27, both these
kings' hearts shall be to do mischief. but that shall not
prosper. The ships of Shittim, Macedonia
is called Shittim in the Apocrypha. And this is kind of the beginnings
of the Roman era. Antiochus, by lies and flattery,
leads multitudes of Jews into further flagrant idolatry. And
that's what says in Daniel 11, 32. And later on in 63 BC, the Roman
general Pompey conquers Jerusalem and its surroundings. And the
Romans deposed the ruling Hasmonean dynasty of Judea that was in
power from 140 BC. And the Roman Senate declared
Herod the great king of the Jews in 40 BCE. So all this is coming
about. piece by piece. It's like a giant
jigsaw puzzle that God has foreordained and worked out. And we just can't
imagine all of the pieces of the puzzle that have to do with
it. I know it was a long reading
and there was a lot of this back and forth and this king does
that and everything. But the important thing to remember
in all that is that somehow God is working it for the redemption
of the church. There's not just a bunch of random
things going on here that don't have anything to do with anything
other than just a bunch of greedy guys trying to conquer each other. Each one of those things is a
cog in the wheel of redemption in the Lord's plan. After threescore
weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself. And the
people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and
the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto
the end of the war desolations are determined. So, various kingdoms
under men continued to reject God and the Messiah until the
time appointed the Santiacus Epiphanies. He set up Jupiter
worship in the temple and did away with the, he sacrificed
a pig to Jupiter on the altar there. And then later on we had
the revolt of the Maccabees in 164, I believe it is. And they
regained control of Jerusalem and the temple from that. vile person. And then they did
what they call, they had the cleansing of the temple and they
remade all the implements and they did everything over and
got it all cleaned up and they reestablished the sacrifices
and all the things that they were supposedly in the law of
Moses. And they celebrate that, what's
that holiday? this festival of lights that comes from that cleansing.
That's a celebration of that cleansing of the temple from
the Maccabees. But that goes on until Jesus is on the scene. And then he says that's the sacrifice
will be done away with because there's no more need for sacrifice. The Passover lamb was there. So we'll stop there. And next
time we get together, Lord willing, we'll conclude with Chapter 12. What a remarkable verse. I like the very end. And I like the NIV translation. As for you, Daniel, go thy way
till the end. You will rest. And then at the
end of the days, you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance. What a wonderful way to conclude
that, to give you an expected end. It's not just a bunch of
random stuff. So until next time, my friends,
be free.