Well, let's look at Daniel chapter
11. Daniel chapter 11. Now, in chapter 10, we saw a
marvelous thing. We saw the gracious preparation
of God for Daniel. He prepared Daniel. for this
vision of the future. This vision that we're going
to begin looking at here in chapter 11 goes all the way to the end
of the book of Daniel. One vision. Chapters 10, 11,
12. Chapter 10 being the preparation. If you've had an opportunity
to read Daniel 11, you'll agree with me. It's a very difficult
chapter. Very difficult. But what it speaks
of generally and basically is the conflicts and the warfares
of earthly kings, earthly nations, during the 400 years between
the Testaments, from Malachi to Matthew. You know, often we
call those years 400 years of silence, but they're really not
400 years of silence for two reasons. Number one, we have
Daniel chapter 11. That's what he's telling us, the history.
of those 400 years, generally speaking. And we know, as one
old fellow said, he said, without Christ, history is a mystery.
But with Christ, we see history as His story. And that makes
all the difference in the world. So what you have here is a struggle,
here on Earth, of earthly kings, earthly despots, tyrants, nations,
During that 400-year period between the Testaments, all culminating
in the coming of the Messiah, and that's what Daniel chapter
12 is about. In fact, this chapter 11 is sandwiched
in between that vision of the 770s that Daniel had, which spoke
of Christ coming into the world at God's appointed time and how
he would How he would accomplish redemption for the people of
God, eternal redemption in Christ, by the blood of Christ, by the
righteousness of Christ, the God-man. How he would confirm
the covenant, how he would work his sovereign will in all things. He's been doing that all along.
He did it during those 400 years of silence, as we call them,
and he did it when he came, and he's doing it now. And he'll
do it eternally. And then Daniel had that great
vision of Christ that's very similar to Ezekiel's vision in
Ezekiel chapter one and John's vision in Revelation chapter
one, the glorified Christ in his priestly garments, the mediator,
the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
the warrior king, the warrior priest. And then Daniel, he'd
seen the sin and the apostasy of his own nation, he'd seen
their ultimate destruction because of their rejection of Christ,
and it took everything out of him. He saw his own sin, too.
He said, my beauty, my strength left me when I saw the glory
of Christ. That's the way every sinner,
when God the Holy Spirit gives you a saving vision of Christ,
you don't come away proud, you come away humble. realizing that
you have no hope of salvation, no hope of righteousness, no
hope of forgiveness, but by the person, the glorious person,
and the finished work of Christ. Daniel saw that there's a great
spiritual warfare behind the scenes of human history, Earth's
history. There's a warfare in the highest. Paul described it
in Ephesians chapter 6 like this in verse 12. He says, we wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, and against
spiritual wickedness in high places. You see, our battle as
a church, as the pillar and ground of truth, as the redeemed of
the Lord, is not just with human opposition, but it's with demonic
opposition, satanic opposition. And it's a spiritual battle.
That's why he said there, Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter 6,
the only way to fight that battle is to put on the whole armor
of God. And each piece of that armor has something that's directly
related to and comes from the glory of Christ in our salvation. Paul also wrote about it in 2
Corinthians chapter 4 when he spoke of Satan's goal. If our
gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost, in whom the God
of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not,
lest they should see the glory of God in Christ. How do we combat
that? Well, behold, God sends His Spirit
to open our minds and our hearts to see the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in Christ. And Satan cannot come against
Him. He's a done devil, as one old fellow said, because of what
Christ accomplished at Calvary. Daniel has seen that Christ,
look back at Daniel chapter 10, Verse 21, and here's what the
angel, the messenger of God, said to Daniel when Christ sent
this angel to show Daniel this vision. He said, now I'm going
to show you what is noted in the scripture of truth. I'm going
to show you what's written, Daniel. I'm going to show you what's
set in concrete by the predetermining, predestinating counsel of Almighty
God. This is written. Actually, actually,
it wasn't even written down in paper and ink yet, because Daniel
wrote this afterward. But it was written in the book
of God's purposes, that sealed book that only the Lamb that
was slain could open. We've been studying about that
in Revelation 6 and 7 in our Sunday school. That's that sealed
book. That's the book of God's decrees.
The God who works all things after the counsel of his own
will. And this angel says in verse 21, Daniel, I'm going to
show you that. It can't be changed. This isn't
conditioned or contingent upon man. But he also assured Daniel
of something before he gave him this vision. It's a disturbing
vision. He assured him, he said, verse
21 of chapter 10, Now Michael is the Lord Jesus Christ. And
as I said earlier, this vision is sandwiched in between these
assurances. of salvation and glory that are
given to Daniel, a sinner saved by the grace of God through Christ.
Between that assurance in chapters 9 and 10, and this one over here
in chapter 12, look at verse 1 of chapter 12. And this is going to be speaking
of Christ coming on the scene in His incarnation, in His earthly
ministry. And He says, and at that time
shall Michael stand up. That word Michael, you remember,
means one who is like God, or one who is God. He said, "...the
great prince which standeth for the children of thy people."
That's substitution there. Did you know that? That's satisfaction
and imputation there. No angel, no mere angel can do
that. There's one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. We have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And this is one
reason I read Psalm 46 back there, when he talked about God is our
refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. You
know here in Daniel chapter 10, in verse 21, when the angel says,
there's none that helpeth with me in these things, but Michael
your prince, I want to make this point very clear. What he's saying
is Daniel, you need help in this matter. But the kind of help
that Daniel needs is not the kind of help that false religion
would tell us. You know what false religion
says about God helping us, don't you? You remember the saying,
God helps those who help themselves. That's not the kind of help you
need. That's not the kind of help I need. That's not the kind
of help Daniel needed. The kind of help that I need
and you need and Daniel needed is the help that one who has
no strength You remember what Daniel said back up in verse
8 of chapter 10? He said, when I saw this great
vision, I was left alone and there remained no strength in
me. That's the kind of help I need.
That's 100% help from the Son of God. So if the gospel to me
or to you is God helps those who help themselves, I'm going
to tell you something, we're doomed creatures. But thank God
that's not it, and that's not what the psalmist in Psalm 46
talks about. And you notice there, he talks
about it, Psalm 46, verse 6, you don't have to turn back there,
but he talked about the heathen raging, the kingdoms were moved.
He talked about wars, God makes wars to cease unto the end of
the earth, breaks the bows, the spears, burns the cherry. We're
gonna be reading about spears, wars, not literally spears, but
wars and conflicts and all of that. God's in control. And this
is what he's going to show Daniel. Yeah, the kind of help that we
need is sovereign grace. Sovereign mercy. We don't need
just a nudge toward heaven. We don't need a fan to fan the spark of good that's
in us, because we don't have any good in us. That's what Daniel
said when he saw the vision of Christ. He said, I've got no
goodness, I've got no strength. I need somebody to, as Hannah
prayed, reach down and lift the beggar off the dunghill. That's
right. And in all this, Daniel is assured
of three things here. He's assured, first of all, that
Christ is in total control of the history of nations. Do you
realize that? I know we gripe and we complain and we look and
we listen and we learn and we read and we wish this was that
way and that was this way and all that, but let me tell you
something. Christ is in control of the history of nations. That's
what he said there in verse 21. I'm going to show you what's
been written in the eternal decrees and purposes and will of God.
God works all things after the counts of his own will. And Daniel,
he's been shown some disturbing things and there's more to come.
But listen now, this is not a world out of control. God's in control. There's a struggle on earth and
there's a struggle in the heavenlies behind the scenes, but Christ
has won and he's going to win the victory. Second thing that
Daniel has learned out of all this so far is that Messiah will
come and do his great work and nothing's going to stop it. Nothing
is going to hinder or trip him up or stop Christ. The will of
men won't do it. The power of men won't do it.
The evil of men won't do it, will not hinder God's purpose
to save His people, His sheep, His elect, His church through
Christ. Christ is coming. Chapter 12
assures us of that. We've already been assured of
it. Whatever goes on on this earth between nations, between
kings, all their conniving, cheating, all their sin and their depravity,
their murder, all their plundering, everything, no matter what they
do, Christ is coming and He's gonna be right on time. in the
fullness of the time. And then the third thing, and
I like this, and I want you to understand, is that last line
of chapter 10 when he says, but Michael, your prince. Daniel,
he's not just a prince. He's the prince, but he's not
just the prince, he's your prince. My question to myself and to
you tonight as we Read through these things. Is he my prince?
Is he your prince? Your savior? Your lord? Are you
submitted to him as the only way of salvation and righteousness
before God? So then we commence with chapter
11. As I said, it's very, very difficult. A lot of history here. I'm not
gonna go into a lot of detail on this history. If you're interested,
get you a biblical history book. Well, I'll tell you right now,
if you've got John Gill's commentary, he goes in, you know, if any
of you ever heard of John Gill, he goes into a lot of detail
on it. Some of it's really interesting.
What you're going to find is that the truth, the simple truth,
and we're gonna, we're just gonna, I'm gonna start through it and
I'm gonna stop and show you some things that I believe that that
the Holy Spirit has intended for us to get out of this for
our good and the glory of God. But not all commentators and
historians agree on who, what, and where, and why, and when.
You know, they'll differ. Some as to who this represents
and what time this happened. That's not important, though.
We know the general time of it. I'll show you most of that. But
if you do, if you're really interested in the gory details of history,
and that's okay, understand this now and I'll show you something
here. Look at verse 1. He says, also I in the first
year of Darius the Mede, even I stood to confirm and to strengthen
him. This is the angel, the messenger
of God who pointed Daniel to Christ once again. And he's standing
to confirm Daniel and to strengthen Daniel. I'm about to show you
something that is amazing. And he says, and now I will show
thee the truth. The truth. I'm going to tell
you the truth. Well, God the Holy Spirit is
the spirit of truth. Any messenger of God is a messenger
of truth. Christ himself, he said, I am
the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh under the Father
but by me. The church is the pillar and
ground of truth. What he mainly is going to show
us in chapter 11 is the truth about man. And here's the first
thing that you can mark down about Daniel chapter 11, whether
you understand or know all the details or not. What you have
here in this history concerning what the truth is about man is
what all history says about man, is that we fell in Adam, ruined
by the fall. This is a great picture and testimony
of the sin and the depravity of fallen man. It's the weakness
and the failure of fallen man. Here you're going to see kings
and princes and empires. We've already seen them throughout
the Old Testament. And yet it's all an abject failure
because of the sin and the depravity and the ignorance and the darkness
and the unbelief of man. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Every empire Every kingdom, every
dictator is a living, walking testimony to the fact that the
wages of sin is death. That's what chapter 11 is about.
That's part of it. And that's the truth. There's
none righteous, no not one. There's none that doeth good,
no not one. There may be pockets of morality
and religion mixed in with the history of man. There may be
even some human wisdom, even some progress in the things of
this world, inventions or whatever, medicine, whatever, but it's
still an abject failure as to man rising above sin. He can't do it. Rising above
himself, he can't do it. You may not know all the details.
You may read this chapter and study history, and you may think
you know the details, and then there may be somebody who'll
come along and disagree with you about the details, but here's
one detail you better never miss, and that is if salvation is going
to come to a sinner, it's going to be by God's free, sovereign
grace in and by the Lord Jesus Christ, period. There are keys
here so that we won't lose the main message by getting bogged
down in the details. All these evil kings embody the
spirit of Antichrist. They're opposed to Christ. They're
opposed to God and His way, His commandments, His gospel. Every
one of these evil kings embody the spirit of Antichrist. But
here's the key. Christ will defeat Antichrist
and he'll defeat all evil. Now you want to know the title
of this message? I purposely held back on it. I want you to
turn to Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3. This is
the title of tonight's message and it will be the title of Sunday
night's message, Lord willing, if we make it to Sunday. Part
one and part two, because I'm gonna divide this up. But let me give you the title
of this message. Rising Above It All in Christ. Rising Above It All in Christ. Now the Lord told his disciples
that you're in the world, but you're not of the world if you're
in him. And we look at the world and
from our human viewpoint it seems like a world gone crazy, a world
gone wild, a world in chaos. We think about things that are
going on in our own generation that are just awful, awful, awful.
Governments and laws. And we don't have any politicians
who have any notion of what spirituality really is and what the gospel
really is and who have the spiritual guts to stand for the Word of
God. All of that. You see, we see
that. What do we have to do? Well,
we've got to rise above it. That's what we have to do. We
have to rise above. Now, how are we going to do that?
Well, we want to try to be better than everybody else. Well, go
ahead, but you're not going to rise above it that way. Salvation
is not by works. You say, well, I've got to get
religious. Well, get religious, but you're not going to rise
above it that way. How are you going to rise above it all? How
did Daniel rise above all this that was given to him? How did
the prophets of God, the people of God, rise above all this?
Well, look at Colossians 3 and verse 1. Here's how. This can
be like a parallel text to what I'm going to read tonight in
beginning chapter 11. It says, if you then be risen
with Christ. Are you risen with Christ? That
means if you are, that means He died for you. If He didn't
die for you, you won't be risen with Him. That's what the scripture
teaches. But if you're risen with Him,
that means He put away your sins. He justified you by His blood. And you have a righteousness
that answers the demands of God's law and justice, the imputed
righteousness of Christ. Now, if that's the case, seek
those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. There's my acceptance right there
in Christ. There's my holiness. He's my
righteousness. He's my eternal security. He's
my surety. Keep my heart, my mind, my affections,
my will fixed on Christ. Set your affections, your mind
on things above, not on things of the earth. That's why I keep
telling people when we study Revelation, study Daniel, don't
interpret the Bible through history. Do it the other way around. See,
there are some details in Daniel 11 that I think are pretty clear
because of what the Scripture says, not because of what the
newspaper says. but because of what the scripture
says and so he says not all things therefore you are dead I'm dead
to sin, I mean sin cannot condemn me and though Satan may be able
to harm my body if God allows him to do it he cannot touch
my soul I'm safe in the refuge of Christ And your life is hid
with Christ in God, rising above it all in Christ. Now go back
to Daniel chapter 11. Daniel chapter 11. He starts out here. He says in
verse 2, And now will I show thee the truth. And he says,
Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia. Now that's the Medo-Persian Empire.
And he says, and the fourth, there's going to come a fourth
king in Persia. He shall be far richer than they
all. And by his strength, through
his riches, he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia,
or Greece. He's going to stir up all against
Greece. Now first of all, This doesn't,
you know, a lot of historians will say, well, see there, that
disproves the Bible because there were more than three kings in
Persia. Well, there were. But there weren't but four that
had to do with biblical prophecy. And Daniel is given a vision
of these four kings of Persia who had something to do with
biblical prophecy. The others didn't. They were
there. God used them for his purposes
too. But these four that he mentions here have something to do with
biblical prophecy. One of them was Cyrus. That was
one of these kings. You remember it was Cyrus who
issued forth the decree for Judah to go back to the homeland and
rebuild the temple. And he's mentioned in 2 Chronicles
and he's mentioned in Ezra chapter one. So he's significant in biblical
prophecy. And these four kings, these three
kings, but there's a fourth one. And he's gonna rise up and he's
gonna be richer and more powerful than them all. Well, who's he
talking about? Well, I believe he's talking
about a king named Xerxes. You probably heard that name.
If you don't know him by that, he's the same one in Esther who
is named Ahasuerus. Esther, the book of Esther. He had a son later on, and Nehemiah,
the prophet, became his cupbearer. We're going to look at that in
a minute. But here's what's happening now. This is, you know, Persia
was that ravenous bear that Daniel saw in Daniel chapter 7. And they made their headway through
the occupied world by conquering, by plundering other nations,
and this last king, Xerxes, he was the most powerful. And he,
let me tell you something, he set his sights to do battle with
Greece, the country of Greece. And he fought several battles
with the country of Greece. You might know one of them from
history called the Battle of Thermopylae. That's where there
were 300 Greek soldiers who stood against the army of the Persians. It was hard. They were very difficult
to defeat. The Persians defeated them, but
they were very difficult. But this last king, he came against
Greece, and it says in verse 3, "...and a mighty king shall
stand up that shall rule with great dominion and do according
to his will." And it says here, "...and when he shall stand up,
his kingdom shall be broken." He's talking about Alexander
the Great here. Now let me say something to you detailed historians. If you do, go study this stuff.
You're going to find that some of these events didn't happen
right one after the other. Alexander came later than this
last king of Persia. But the reason that Alexander
came against Persia so angrily and so ferociously was because
of what this king did. And that's what the Bible's teaching.
It's not giving you a day-by-day chronological order of things. It's just like back there in
Daniel chapter 9. You look back at Daniel chapter 9 and verse
26, he's talking about the three score and two weeks that Messiah
would be cut off. In other words, when Christ began
his earthly ministry, in three and a half years he was crucified. And because of what happened
there in the Jewish community, and because of their unbelief,
and because of how God had used them for all that time in the
Old Testament, God brought judgment down upon them for their part
in that crucifixion. And that's mentioned here in
verse 26. He says, Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself,
and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy
the city and the sanctuary. That's talking about 70 years
later when Rome came. But when Rome came and destroyed
Jerusalem in the temple, but that happened as a judgment against
the Jews because of their part in the crucifixion of Christ
Now again, I always caution people when I mentioned that don't don't
get puffed up and proud and say well those Jews they cruise we
did to The kings of the earth the Gentiles and the Jews were
all responsible in that way We esteemed him not, you know, Isaiah
53, but go back to Daniel 11. I Alexander the Great. Now, one
of the things that is prominent about all these kings is in some
way, to some degree, at some time, they all labeled themselves
as God or as gods. Xerxes, Alexander, they thought
they had some deity in them or that they were deity. And that's
the spirit of Antichrist. He sets himself up as God in
some way, some form, some fashion, to some degree. So you see that
there. But Alexander the Great, he thought
himself to be God, and he moved with anger toward the Persian
Empire. And notice it says there in verse
3 that he did according to his will. Now here's something you
need to stop and notice. God, what's that saying? It's
that God let him have his way. And here's what I think we need
to take away from this whole thing on that issue. Do you realize
that the worst thing that could happen to any of us is for God
to let us have our will and our way? Think about it. People today
say salvation is basically by the will of man. The Bible teaches
that the will of man is just as fallen as his affections,
as his mind, and every way is in bondage to sin. Man will not
come to Christ. Man will not bow to God's way. Man wants his own way. Cain.
What happened to Cain? God let him have his way. What
was his way? The way of death. There is a
way that seemeth right unto man. The way there, it's a way of
destruction, a way of death, Proverbs. Oh Lord, don't let
us have our way. Teach me thy way. We sing at
him something. Teach me thy way, oh Lord. And
what is God's way? It's the way of Christ. It's
the way of grace. It's the way of mercy. It's the
way of the blood. It's the way of the cross. It's
the way of righteousness in Christ. Twice it's mentioned here that
he let these kings have their way. He let them all have their
way, just like he let Pharaoh have his way. But it's mentioned
here twice. The Bible says in Romans 9 and
verse 16, it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but it's of God that showeth mercy. I don't need my way, I
need mercy from God in Christ. My way's the wrong way. Well,
I read there in verse four, look at this, he says, and when he
shall stand up, Alexander, his kingdom shall be broken. Alexander,
he was cut down at about 33 years old. And it says, shall be divided
toward the four winds of heaven. His kingdom was divided into
four segments under four generals, north, south, east, west. And
not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion, which he ruled.
He didn't have anybody to succeed him out of his family. And listen,
it says, for his kingdom shall be plucked up even for others
beside those. In other words, in other words,
his kingdom just went to the four winds. And it became divided. But I want you to notice something
here historically. This is significant. Out of all
this, here's Alexander the Great who thought himself to be God.
He was puffed up, he was proud. He probably conquered more territory
than any of these conquerors. But God, in his sovereign goodness
and wisdom, he overruled Alexander's evil and used it for his own
glory. You know, through Alexander, the Greek influence, spread all
over the known world at that time, over the Middle East even. You say, well, what's so significant
about that? Well, what was the original language
of the New Testament? Greek. Why? Why not Why not some
other? Well, because of the Greek influence
through Alexander. God took that and he overruled
Alexander's evil. And you know what he did? He
used it to get the gospel out to the world, out to the Gentiles.
In fact, it's common in the New Testament to refer to the whole
Gentile world as Greek. Give you an example, Romans 1
and verse 16. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation
to the Jew first and to the Greek also. He's not just talking about
people lived around Macedonia and in between Italy and France. He's talking about the Gentile
people. God has an elect people out of every tribe, kindred,
tongue, and nation. When Pilate, when Christ was
crucified and Pilate had the sign made, behold the King of
the Jews, it was written in three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin because of the Romans. But Latin became a dead language.
Greek went on. That was a common, see how God
uses these things in history? And through that, Timothy's father
was a Greek. Luke was a Greek. Titus was a
Greek. The gospel went out. And who would have known back
during this time, this is future for Daniel, who would have known
at that time that that's how God would use this to his glory
and for the good of his church. Who would have known? God know. What did he say? I'm going to
show you, Daniel, that which is in the scripture of truth,
that which is in the decree of God. Now look at verse 5. Now it starts off here, it says,
The king of the south shall be strong, and one of his princes,
and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion. His dominion
shall be a great dominion. 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." Now, all through
this, especially from verse 5 to verse 20, you're going to hear
about the king of the north, and you're going to hear about
the king of the south. Now, you remember Alexander's kingdom was divided into four
segments, north, south, east, west. The east and the west didn't
have much to do with prophetic history as recorded here, but
the north and the south did. Who was in the north? Well, that
was Syria. That was a group of kings called
the Seleucids. We'll talk about them later on.
And then who's to the south? Well, Egypt was to the south.
That was the Ptolemies. So what you have here, south,
that's Egypt. You know what Egypt represents
in the scripture? That's bondage. That's where
the Hebrew children were when Moses led them out of bondage.
And it says here in verse 5 that one of his princes, that's one
of Alexander's princes, refers to one of the other generals,
that's the one of the north, that's Syria. The great enemy
of Israel. So what you have, you've got
these two kingdoms constantly fighting, the north and the south,
and you know who's in between? Israel. They're in between. And
there's a constant battle, a constant conflict, a constant fight between
these two kingdoms, and they fought over Israel, and during
this time it went back and forth. Israel went back and forth. Just
about every time the people of Israel made a bad choice and
they ended up being enslaved. And that's again another picture
of the depravity of man. And so from here to verse 20
we have these power struggles between the kings of the north
and the kings of the south, the Seleucids, in the north, the
Ptolemies in the south, Syria, and Egypt. And like I said, if
you want to read the real details of it, read John Gill. Get you
a Bible history book and you can see it there. But look at
verse 6, it says, and in the end of the years, at a given
time, they shall join themselves together. What he's saying is
there's going to be a point in time where the north and the
south come together in an alliance. And the way it's going to happen
is one of the kings, one of these kings is going to give his daughter
to be married to the king of the south. The king of the north
was going to give his daughter to marry one of the kings of
the south or the king of the north. So you can get confused
with these things easily, can't you? But the daughter is going
to marry one of those kings. And he says, the daughter of
the south shall come to the king of the north. So that's what
it shows you, the daughter of one of the kings of Egypt. going
to marry one of the kings 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 what he's saying there is that alliance
is not going to last seems like there's going to be a little
time of peace there between those nations israel still in bondage
now but it's not going to last that peace And then he goes on
down. Now, I'm not going to read all
of this, because you can read it yourself. But I want to show
you some points here. He talks about their struggles.
There's more struggles between the north and the south. And
again, sometimes Israel's on the... or just about all the
time, they're on the wrong side. But look at verse 11. It says,
"...and the king of the south shall be moved with color," that's
anger, and shall come forth and fight with him, that is the king
of the north, even with the king of the north, and he shall set
forth a great multitude, but the multitude shall be given
into his hands." In other words, that multitude is going to be
given into his hands. Now who gave it? God did. So what do you have here? You have another testimony to
God's sovereignty. Now in all of this, In all of
this, what is the Lord doing? He's preserving His people, Israel,
even in their bondage. Until what? Until Messiah, the
Prince, comes. That's the whole purpose of it.
That's what He's doing. The people of Judah are not going
to be utterly destroyed yet. Now, Daniel knew they were going
to be destroyed. He saw that in the vision of
the 77's. But not yet. It's not going to come through
Egypt. It's not going to come through Syria. It's going to
come at another time, later on, after Messiah comes. And here,
in this proportion, in verse 11, the South won, but the North
came back again, and there was continual war between Egypt and
Syria, with Israel in the middle, Israel always making the wrong
choice. And look at verse 14. It says,
"...and in those times there shall many stand up against the
king of the south." In Israel, now, he's talking about here.
He's talking about that in Israel that there'll be many who will
fight and be destroyed. Egypt and even Syria, they slaughtered
many people in Israel. But look at the next line in
verse 14, it says, "...also along with that The robbers of thy
people shall exalt themselves to establish the vision, but
they shall fall." In other words, they're going to do this in fulfillment
of the prophecy. Who are these robbers? Well,
some people say that's referring to the kings of the north and
the south that come against Israel, but I believe it's referring
to another segment of people because that also there means
a separation. There's another group of people
whom he calls robbers. Robbers of the people. What's
he talking about? I believe he's talking about
people who have either infiltrated Israel and became part of that
nation and then turned against them, or Israelites who had turned
traitor. Now I want to show you an example
of this before I close tonight. I want you to go back to the
book of Nehemiah. Go to Nehemiah chapter 2. And
I want you to realize something. As you're turning back to Nehemiah,
understand that you're going forward in history from Daniel.
Nehemiah was after Daniel. And this king at the beginning
of Daniel's vision there, that fourth Persian king, it was his
son, or his grandson, some say, that was mentioned here in Nehemiah
chapter two, this Artaxerxes, and I want you to see something.
It says in Nehemiah chapter two, look at verse one. It says, it
came to pass in the month Nisan, or Nisan, in the 20th year of
Artaxerxes, the king. That wine was before him, and
I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been
before time sad in his presence." So, Nehemiah is the king's cupbearer. This is either the son or the
grandson of that fourth king that Daniel mentioned first.
And what he's saying, I hadn't been sad before him, Nehemiah
had heard, you know, they had gone back to rebuild the temple
and rebuild the city, and Nehemiah had heard that it wasn't going
well. And he was sad. And he wanted
to go back and head up the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. Remember
when we studied the gates of the walls? That was in Nehemiah.
And Nehemiah wanted to go back. So look at verse 9. Now, Artaxerxes
let him go back. But look what happened. He says
in verse 9 of Nehemiah 2, he said, Then I came to the governors
beyond the river and gave them the king's letters, that is from
the king, Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen
with me. Now look at verse 10. And when
Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard
of it. Now these were foreigners who
had moved in to Judah, to Jerusalem. And they had become citizens.
And it says, when they heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly
that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children
of Israel. So I came to Jerusalem, was there
three days. These fellas didn't want somebody
to come in here who had on their mind and heart the welfare of
the people of God. They had another agenda. They
had another way. They were promoting themselves,
you see. What do we have here? We have, again, the spirit of
Antichrist. Look over at verse 17 of Nehemiah
chapter two. He says, then said I unto them,
you see the distress that we're in, how Jerusalem lieth waste
and the gates thereof are burned with fire. You see, they're not
building the city. They're not building the walls and the gates.
He says, come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem that
we be no more a reproach. Then I told them of the hand
of my God, which was good upon me, as also the king's words
that he had spoken unto me. And they said, Let us rise up
and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.
See, Nehemiah was inciting the people to do what God commanded
them to do. But look at verse 19. But when Samballath the Horonite
and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Gershom the Arabian heard
it, they laughed us to scorn. and despised us and said, what
is this thing that you do? Will you rebel against the king?
Then answered I them and said unto them, the God of heaven,
he will prosper us. Therefore we his servants will
rise and build, but you have no portion, nor rite, nor memorial
in Jerusalem. You have no part in the blessings
of God. Christ concerned. and the concern
of his ministers is always for the glory of God and the welfare
of his people not their egos not their agendas not even their
preferences but the egos and the agendas
and the preferences of evil men who call themselves leaders and
call themselves pastors what does God called them, here in
Daniel, robbers of the people. It's not necessary they're robbing
you of money, they may rob you of esteem, they may rob you of
unity and peace and quietness within the body of Christ, but
they're robbing just the same. Christ said when he identified
himself as the door To the sheepfold, he said, all that have come before
me are thieves and robbers. And I believe that's who Daniel's
talking about over here in Daniel 11, verse 14. You think about
that. It's an amazing... The spirit
of Antichrist will always seek to hinder the welfare of God's
people and the unity of God's people. They have another agenda. They promote another purpose.
And those within Israel who will make an alliance with Egypt to
protect and get gain for themselves, that's who Daniel's talking about.
He said to establish the vision. That's the prophecy of the apostasy
of the religious leaders. You know, you might find it interesting,
much later on in that 400 year period between the Testaments
came out of that the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And they were
thieves and robbers. It's a good description of those
who use religion for their own gain, for their own purposes,
for their own agenda. It's the spirit of Antichrist. Well, we'll close there and pick
up there next time. All right.