The Danielic Imperative, Episode 22

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June 30, 2019

In this episode, we give thirteen examples of invalid assumptions that inform many ancient and modern eschatologies, and the Scriptural answer to them. The episode serves as a summary of the first 21 episodes and a prelude to the next 21 and beyond.

00:02: I do a podcast. I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone.
00:13: When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the air and combating the air.
00:24: We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make,
00:30: I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.
00:37: We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style. I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing.
00:57: It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible. Jesus said,
01:07: Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.
01:13: As opposed to, Blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness. It is on.
01:23: We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. Okay, welcome back to our listeners and we appreciate you very much.
01:33: Thank you so much for listening and for your encouragement. We get your emails and messages and we're glad you're out there.
01:39: This is episode 22 of the Danielic Imperative, a podcast dedicated to the analysis of the
01:45: Danielic timeline as a foundational precept of New Testament eschatology. Through the prophet
01:51: Daniel, the Lord revealed to us a timeline of the people of God. And six centuries later,
01:58: Jesus and his apostles reveal the future using explicitly and implicitly Danielic language from the timeline revealed to Daniel.
02:06: And it is imperative that Christians understand that timeline in order to understand God's plan for his people.
02:12: Much of what Daniel, Jesus, and John foretold has already come to pass. But that does not mean that I'm advancing a preterist eschatology here.
02:21: Some of what Daniel, Jesus, and John foretold is yet future. But that does not mean
02:26: I am advancing a futurist eschatology here. If we were to speak of this podcast in terms of the taxonomic hierarchy, that is, family, genus, and species, we could say that this podcast began as a summary of an approach to eschatology that is in the family of Christian eschatology, but neither of the genus of preterism that places the rise of the
02:49: Beast of Revelation 13 prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, nor of the genus of futurism that places the rise of the
02:57: Beast of Revelation 13 in our distant or near future. The eschatology we espouse here is of the genus of historicism, in which the empires of Daniel's visions rise and fall in succession.
03:10: Babylonian, Medo -Persian, Greek, Roman, followed by Roman Catholicism, the fifth empire of Daniel's visions.
03:18: However, while we are of the family of Christian eschatology and of the genus of historicism, we are a unique species in that we place the rise of the
03:27: Beast of Revelation 13 much earlier than others. Seventh -day Adventists, among others, identify
03:33: Roman Catholicism as the Beast of Revelation 13 and place its rise in 532
03:39: AD, a date loosely related to the Decree of Justinian declaring the Bishop of Rome to be chief bishop of all the churches, indicating the
03:47: Pope's rise to ecclesiastical power. Some of our Reformed brethren identify Roman Catholicism as the
03:54: Beast of Revelation 13 and place his rise in 800 AD with the crowning of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III, indicating the civil power of the
04:02: Pope. We, too, identify Roman Catholicism as the Beast of Revelation 13 but instead place his rise in the latter part of the 4th century, that is, in the late 300s
04:13: AD, almost 150 years earlier than even the Seventh -day Adventists do and more than 400 years prior to other
04:20: Reformed eschatologists. The significance of the historicist school is that it identifies properly
04:26: Roman Catholicism as the Beast of Revelation 13, but the weakness of the other species within the genus of historicism is that, by placing the rise of the
04:35: Beast as late as 532 AD and 800 AD, they legitimize many of the demonic doctrines that arose well in advance of that.
04:43: As our listeners have learned in our podcasts, we identify the flood of air that came from the mouth of the devil in Revelation 12 -15 as the sudden and stepwise eruption of Roman Catholic doctrine at the end of the 4th century.
04:56: This is why the primacy of the Pope, the primacy of Rome, Mary's perpetual virginity,
05:02: Mary's sinlessness, baptismal regeneration, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the
05:08: Mass, veneration of relics, veneration of the cross, votive candles, prayers for the dead, prayers to the dead, clerical celibacy, and so on, all originated in the latter part of the 4th century.
05:20: They are demonic doctrines of which we are warned, not only in Revelation 12, but also in 1
05:25: Timothy 4 -1. And remarkably, just when all these doctrines emerged, the
05:30: Roman Empire fragmented into its final configuration of 13 dioceses and uprose
05:36: Roman Catholicism as the successor of the Roman Empire, claiming to hold the seats of three of those dioceses, fulfilling the great apostasy prophesied by Paul in 2
05:46: Thessalonians 2 -3. We will get into that a little more in this episode, but the point is that the
05:52: Roman Catholic religion has been around since the latter part of the 4th century, and because of those historical roots, the
05:58: Roman Catholic religion has been very successful in making the historical argument, namely, that because she can trace her roots back to the latter part of the 4th century, why not just assume that she was the dominant religion for the three preceding centuries, and therefore must be the religion established by Christ?
06:15: That is the approach of her historians and apologists, and I'll just say it bluntly, Preterists, Futurists, and most
06:22: Historicists fall right into that trap. If you believe Revelation was largely fulfilled before the fall of Jerusalem, then the
06:30: Church survived a beastly persecution in its early days and emerged, tested, and tried as something that looked very much like Roman Catholicism until the time of the
06:40: Reformation. If you believe Revelation will be fulfilled in our future, then the
06:45: Church appears to have been largely Roman Catholic through the Reformation and has just been divided since then, and in some cases, the theory is that we will need to reunite with Roman Catholicism to fight off some future beast of Revelation 13.
06:58: And if you are a Historicist who believes Roman Catholicism is the beast of Revelation 13 and arose either in 532
07:05: A .D. or 800 A .D., then you place the great apostasy anywhere from 150 to 400 years after the development of the heretical doctrines
07:14: I mentioned the primacy of the Pope, Mary's sinlessness, baptismal regeneration, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the
07:20: Mass, and so on. And that means by placing the rise of the beast either in 532 or 800
07:26: A .D., you end up by default including those heretical doctrines in the teachings of Christ's Church prior to the apostasy.
07:33: In fact, you end up making Rome's argument for her. I have used him before, and I'll return to him here to provide an example of exactly this error.
07:42: E .B. Eliot is an excellent example of a Reformed eschatologist who considered the rise of the
07:47: Church as a Roman political entity with the power of the civil sword to be the triumph of the
07:54: Church of Christ. In his 1846 Horae Apocalypticae, Volume 3,
08:00: Eliot saw the rise of Christ's Church to rule the Roman Empire as its new leader as the fulfillment of Revelation 12 .5,
08:07: a man -child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. In his words, the
08:14: Church of Christ rose first to recognition as a body politic and then very quickly to the supremacy of the throne in the apocalyptic world, i .e.,
08:23: the Roman Empire, a throne which, as thenceforth Christian, might consequently thenceforth, just like Solomon's, be designated as the throne of God.
08:32: Again, that's E .B. Eliot, Horae Apocalypticae, Volume 3, from 1846.
08:40: E .B. Eliot's affirmation of the Church as a Roman political entity with the power to wield the civil sword prior to the apostasy of Roman Catholicism plays right into the hands of the
08:50: Roman apologist. It makes it sound like Roman Catholicism was the nominal expression of the
08:55: Church in the early centuries, and the Great Apostasy, several centuries later, was just an aberration of that.
09:02: In reality, the nominal expression of the Church of Christ was completely bereft of any trappings of Roman Catholicism, and the truth is that Roman Catholicism itself is the great apostasy, and we can place that apostasy with considerable precision because we can identify the rise of the
09:20: Roman Catholic era in accordance with Revelation 12, along with the rise of the little horn of Daniel 7 in the latter part of the 4th century.
09:28: As we have shown in this podcast, Daniel's prophecy of a 13 -way division of the Roman Empire foresaw that the little horn would claim 3 of the 13 and rise up among the remaining 10.
09:40: The 13 -way division of the Roman Empire occurred no later than 381 A .D., when the empire was divided into 13 dioceses, and by 382
09:48: A .D., Roman Catholicism had claimed for itself Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch as the three seats of St.
09:57: Peter, by then the three metropolitan cities of the three dioceses of Italy, Egypt, and the
10:03: East, or Oriens. So, to summarize, the rise of the Beast of Revelation 13 did not occur prior to the fall of Jerusalem, which is the preterist position, it will not occur in the future, which is the futurist or dispensationalist position, and it did not occur in 532
10:21: A .D., which would be the Seventh -day Adventist historicist position, or in 800 A .D.,
10:26: which would be the classical historicist position. It should be placed in the latter part of the 4th century, and we have demonstrated historically why it cannot be placed anywhere else.
10:36: There is simply no other possible date for the rise of the Beast. So that brings me to the point of today's podcast.
10:43: Why trust me? Why set aside the dispensationalist, preterist, futurist, and late historicist positions in exchange for this one?
10:52: I will grant that it is new, in the sense that it has not been proposed before, and I'll grant that it is unique.
10:59: In fact, I don't know of any eschatologist who has ever proposed what I am proposing. But it has something none of the others have, and I'll say this as delicately as possible.
11:09: It's scriptural. And therefore, it is not really new. In fact, it is quite ancient.
11:17: Trust me, I know how that sounds, but I want to take the opportunity to make the case for that claim.
11:23: And in the end, anyone who proposes something like this, which would require that we abandon all other eschatologies, is obligated to prove it from the scriptures.
11:33: And because the Word of God is not both yea and nay, such a person would be obligated to disprove the others from the scriptures too.
11:41: So let me make the case. The listener, as always, is free to examine these matters for himself, and to put it bluntly, to decide whether my claim originates from arrogance or from passion.
11:52: So I want to walk through the scriptural case one point at a time, and let the listener decide for himself whether the preterist, futurist, or late historicist position can be reconciled to the scripture.
12:05: I understand that every eschatologist who comes down the pike comes preaching that everybody else got it wrong.
12:13: And, to that degree, I am no different than any other eschatologist. But, I'll let the scriptures speak to this point.
12:21: Let me walk through 13 points in which other eschatologies fail to adhere to what the scriptures teach.
12:30: Let's start with point one. The narrative of Daniel 7 points to a 13 -way division of the
12:36: Roman Empire, not to a 10 -way division. In our very first episode in this series, we addressed the universal assumption that informs every other biblical eschatological system, namely, that Daniel had foreseen a 10 -way division of the fourth empire of his visions, and the antagonist of Daniel 7 uprooted three of the ten horns and came up among the remaining seven to rule over the earth.
13:03: That has been the universal assumption since the early church first started writing commentaries on Daniel, and it was the position of the
13:10: Reformers, and it is the universal assumption of modern eschatologies. The problem, as we have noted several times since then, is that when the
13:18: Beast arises in Revelation 13, he still has ten horns. And when the
13:24: Beast and the horns make war against the Lamb, the Beast still has ten horns with him.
13:30: We know with certainty that the little horn removed three, Daniel 7, 8, 7, 20, and 7, 24 tell us this, and we know with certainty that the
13:39: Beast still has ten horns with him after he rises, Revelation 13, 1, and still has ten horns with him even as he makes war with the
13:48: Lamb, Revelation 17, 12, and 16 tell us this. Thus, because the scriptures cannot contradict, the only possible solution is that there were 13 horns to begin with, and the little horn removed three of the 13 and came up among the remaining ten.
14:05: This becomes even more clear in Daniel's description of his vision, in which he says from the beginning that this is just a summary.
14:12: It is not the complete vision. And he doesn't say that about any other vision in the book, but for Daniel 7, he starts by saying, this is a summary.
14:23: And if you look closely, that is what you will see. Each successive empire is simply described in the condition it was just prior to the rise of the next empire.
14:33: And we know from his other visions or experiences that each empire has a major disruptive event in it, and each one is described after that disruptive event.
14:42: The vision of the Babylonian empire is described through and after the humiliation of Nebuchadnezzar because the lion is set back on his feet like a man and a man's heart is given to it.
14:53: That's Daniel 7, 4. The Medo -Persian empire is described as already lifted up on one side.
14:59: That's Daniel 7, 5. And we know from chapter 8 that that refers to the transition to the
15:05: Persian part of the Medo -Persian empire, and the Persian part came up last, according to Daniel 8, 3.
15:11: The Greek empire is described only after it has already been divided four ways. That's Daniel 7, 6.
15:17: And no mention is made of Alexander. And the fourth empire is described only after it has been divided and three of the first horns have been removed.
15:26: And please note, not only does Daniel never say that the first horns were ten in number, he also never says that the little horn removed three of the ten horns.
15:36: And back in Daniel 2, when the empires are described as the statue, the statue is never described as having ten toes.
15:44: And here is the sum of the matter. If your eschatology requires a ten -way division of the fourth empire of Daniel's visions and requires that the little horn antagonist of Daniel 7 uproot three of the ten horns and come up among the remaining seven, your eschatology is inconsistent with the scriptures.
16:03: The fact is, the future Daniel had foreseen was one in which the Roman Empire would be divided into thirteen dioceses.
16:11: And his summary of the visions simply describes the condition of the empire when the little horn had already claimed three of the thirteen horns, but had not yet risen to rule over the remaining ten as the successor to the
16:22: Roman Empire. The thirteen -way division occurred no later than 381 AD. Since we know the council of Constantinople refers to the diocese in their final thirteen -way configuration, referring to Egypt as a diocese rather than as a province at the
16:38: Council of Nicaea. And in 382 AD, Bishop Damasus of Rome claimed
16:43: Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, the three metropolitan cities of the three dioceses of Italy, Egypt, and Orient, as the three seas of Peter and rose up among the remaining ten
16:54: Asia, Pontica, Thrace, Macedonia, Dacia, Pannonia, Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain.
17:02: Thus, the thirteen -way division of the Roman Empire was completed by 381 AD, and Roman Catholicism claimed the three seas of Peter in Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch in 382
17:13: AD. If you listen to Roman Catholic apologists and popes, that is known as the prerogative of the three
17:20: Petrine seas, or what the popes call a sea of one, established by Peter in three places.
17:26: That is what Daniel had foreseen, and that means the uprooting of the three horns occurred in 382
17:32: AD. And in fact, Daniel had seen thirteen horns, but only described the division after three had been removed.
17:42: And that leads me to my next point. Point number two. The narrative of Daniel 11 was revealed to us in a single frame of reference.
17:51: Early in this series, we pointed out that the little horn antagonist of Daniel 7, or Roman Catholicism, the
17:57: Beast of Revelation 13, is not the King of the North identified in Daniel chapter 11. We were compelled to do so because it is a widely held assumption that even though Daniel 11 is written about the fall of the
18:09: Medo -Persian Empire and the rise of the Greek Empire, parts of Daniel 11, verses 21 to 39, and all of verses 40 to 45, appear never to have been fulfilled in history, and therefore must refer to a future antagonist, and the assumption generally is that that antagonist must be the little horn of Daniel chapter 7.
18:31: This has resulted in an almost universal assumption that Daniel must have shifted his frame of reference in the middle of the vision, even though there is nothing in the text to suggest that he had changed it at all.
18:41: And yet that shifting frame of reference has historically governed our interpretation of the vision. The reason for the unscriptural assumption on the shifting frames of reference is pretty simple.
18:52: By examining the historical records on the division of Alexander's empire, it appears that his generals split the kingdom four ways.
18:59: Lysimachus took inland Asia Minor and Thrace to the north. Ptolemy took Egypt to the south.
19:05: Seleucus took Syria to the east, and Demetrius took Macedonia to the west north, south, east, and west toward the four winds of heaven, as it says in Daniel 8 .8
19:14: and 11 .4. I call that the Alexandrian frame of reference because it is centered on Alexander's divided empire.
19:22: From that point forward, however, Daniel proceeds to describe a series of wars that took place between the king of the north and the king of the south, and based on the original frame of reference, we should have seen in history a series of wars between Lysimachus to the north and Ptolemy to the south.
19:38: Instead, the historical record appears to diverge immediately from the prophetic record, and we find instead a series of wars not between Lysimachus and Ptolemy, but between Seleucus and Ptolemy, that is, between east and south.
19:51: And that's the problem. Instead of seeing in history a series of battles between north and south, as Daniel had prophesied, we found a series of battles between east and south, between Syria and Egypt.
20:03: Thus, to fix that glaring problem with Daniel's compass, eschatologists have traditionally assumed that Daniel changed his frame of reference in verse 5 to one centered on Jerusalem, making
20:14: Syria the northern kingdom and Egypt the southern kingdom. I call that the Judean frame of reference because it is centered on Judea.
20:22: That, at least in the short term, appears to fulfill Daniel's prophecy of a series of battles between north and south, after the division of Alexander's empire.
20:30: But even under that Judean frame of reference, the historical record diverges yet again from the prophetic record, and we find in verses 40 -45 another series of wars that do not appear to have happened in the historical record.
20:43: So eschatologists have traditionally assumed that Daniel must have changed his frame of reference again, this time to one centered on the future location of the
20:50: Little Horn of Daniel chapter 7. I call that the eschatological frame of reference because it is centered on an unspecified location of a distant future antagonist.
20:59: So, in order to understand Daniel 11, we have traditionally started in the Alexandrian frame of reference, as clearly described in Daniel 11 .4,
21:08: then switched to a Judean frame of reference in Daniel 11 .5 to keep Daniel's compass properly aligned, and then switched again to an eschatological frame of reference sometime later to accommodate the rest of the chapter.
21:20: The question is, were we authorized to add the extra frames of reference? Of course not.
21:26: Daniel said nothing of them, and there is nothing in the text to suggest them at all. The additional frames of reference are unscriptural, and yet they have governed almost all eschatologies, ancient and modern.
21:38: The solution, however, is quite simple. The battles described between the King of the North and the King of the
21:43: South, started in Daniel 11 .5, occurred between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, as the historical record plainly shows.
21:51: But they occurred after Seleucis had invaded inland Asia Minor and Thrace, and had taken it away from Lysimachus at the
21:57: Battle of Choropedium in 281 B .C. From that point forward, for generations, the
22:02: Seleucids lived, loved, and reigned in Asia Minor and Thrace, and thus became King of the North.
22:08: The subsequent battles between the Seleucids and Ptolemies occupy much of Daniel's vision in chapter 11, and as long as the
22:15: Seleucids occupied inland Asia Minor and Thrace, Daniel kept referring to them as King of the
22:20: North. But Daniel 11 .18 describes a battle in 190 B .C., when the
22:25: Roman army defeated the Seleucids at Magnesia and banished them forever from Asia Minor and Thrace.
22:31: From that point forward, Daniel never refers to the Seleucids as King of the North again. He continues describing the wars between the
22:38: Seleucids and the Ptolemies, but after Daniel 11 .18, he stops calling the Seleucids King of the
22:44: North, but continues referring to the Ptolemies as King of the South. And this tells us something extremely important about Daniel 11.
22:52: There had been no change in the frame of reference at all. Daniel's narrative on the wars between North and South does not begin until after Daniel had foreseen that the
23:01: Seleucids would take the Northern Territory. So when he described the battle between North and South, it really was fulfilled in battles between Seleucids and Ptolemies.
23:09: Not because Daniel had changed his frame of reference, but rather because the Seleucids had changed their location and now occupied the
23:16: Northern Territory. And therefore we conclude from the Scriptures that the titles King of the
23:21: North and King of the South are territorial and not dynastic. The truth of Daniel 11 is not that the
23:27: Seleucids are King of the North and the Ptolemies are King of the South, but rather that whoever occupied the
23:33: Northern Territory is King of the North, and whoever occupied the Southern Territory is King of the
23:38: South. But eschatologists have historically interpreted Daniel 11 as if the titles were dynastic.
23:44: Thus, the Seleucids have been understood incorrectly to be Kings of the North because they were
23:49: North of Jerusalem, when in fact they were only Kings of the North when they occupied Asia Minor and Thrace, the
23:56: Northern Territory, in an Alexandrian frame of reference. And they stopped being called Kings of the
24:01: North as soon as they were kicked out of Asia Minor and Thrace, and went back to governing Syria alone.
24:08: Again, there was no need for a new frame of reference, as the original frame of reference was working just fine.
24:14: And that is our second point. If your eschatology requires additional frames of reference in Daniel 11, in order to make
24:21: Daniel's prophecies align with the historical record, then your eschatology is inconsistent with the scriptures.
24:27: And that brings us to the third point, which is the boundary between North and South in Daniel 11. Point 3.
24:35: The boundary between North and South in Daniel chapter 11 is the Taurus Mountains that run along the southern coast of Asia Minor.
24:42: This may seem like an insignificant point, but it is of tremendous consequence. Historically, when
24:49: Daniel 11 is being read through an Alexandrian frame of reference, in which North, South, East, and West are relative to Alexander's divided empire, the boundary between North and South is considered the
25:00: Mediterranean Sea. In that frame of reference, Asia Minor is North and Egypt is
25:06: South. When Daniel 11 is being read through a Judean frame of reference, the boundary between North and South is
25:12: Judea itself. But scripturally, the boundary between North and South is actually the Taurus Mountains.
25:18: This is evident not only from the fact that when Lysimachus was king in Asia Minor and Thrace, he controlled only the land within the
25:25: Taurus Mountains and Thrace in Europe. He did not control the land along the southern coast of Asia Minor.
25:32: That territory was controlled by the Ptolemies, the king of the South. I provided a lot more detail in my blog entry,
25:39: The Bounds of Their Habitation, but the point is pretty straightforward. The Taurus Mountains form a natural and imposing boundary.
25:47: As such, when Alexander's empire was divided four ways, Lysimachus had gained control of inland
25:53: Asia Minor and Thrace in the North, and the surprising evidence from history is that the Ptolemies controlled not only
25:58: Egypt, but also the entire southern coast of Asia Minor. Indeed, that makes the entire southern coast of Asia Minor part of the southern kingdom in Daniel's visions, not the
26:08: North, as has been traditionally assumed. We have scriptural confirmation of this as well in Daniel 11, 15, which reads,
26:27: If we were constrained to the Judean frame of reference in Daniel 11, we might look for the
26:33: Seleucids in Syria to invade a city south of Jerusalem in Egypt as the fulfillment, because it says the king of the
26:39: North shall come, and the arms of the South shall not withstand. The historical fulfillment of this prophecy in Daniel is typically interpreted as the siege of Sidon.
26:49: Most of the commentaries identify the siege of Sidon as the fulfillment of Daniel 11, 15, but it can hardly qualify as the fulfillment because, even in the
26:58: Judean frame of reference, Sidon is north of Jerusalem, not south of Jerusalem. And as we know from our previous point, south always refers to the land that is geographically south in an
27:09: Alexandrian frame of reference. But Sidon was geographically east in that frame of reference, being part of the
27:14: Seleucid possessions from India to the Syrian Sea. So what was the fulfillment of Daniel 11, 15?
27:21: Well, it is surprisingly easy and consistent with what we know of the northern and southern territories at the time.
27:27: The Seleucid kings controlled inland Asia Minor and Thrace, the northern territory, and came south and sailed along the southern coast of Asia Minor, the southern territory, and captured
27:37: Ptolemy's fortresses that dotted the southern coastline and, in fact, cast up siege works in the effort to capture
27:43: Choricesium, the fortified promontory in the Bay of Pamphylia. And what that tells us is very significant.
27:50: The boundary between north and south in Daniel 11 is neither the Mediterranean Sea in an Alexandrian frame of reference nor Jerusalem in a
27:58: Judean frame of reference, but is the very formidable mountain range the Lord placed along the southern coast of Asia Minor.
28:04: And not only is this established in the scriptures as the boundary between north and south by Daniel 11, 15, as well as in Daniel 11, 40, which we'll show in a moment, but also it is so obvious to the naked eye that even the
28:16: Greek geographer Strabo in his geography takes note of it. For the
28:22: Taurus stretches in a straight course with the sea that begins at the pillars and divides all
28:28: Asia lengthwise into two parts, thus making one part of it northern, the other southern.
28:34: That's Strabo's Geography, Book 2, Chapter 1, Paragraph 1. I'm not suggesting that Strabo is authoritative at all.
28:43: It is in fact sufficient that the scriptures identify the Seleucid campaign along the southern coast of Asia Minor as a campaign by the northern kingdom against the southern kingdom.
28:52: But it is significant that the most famous geographer of the Greek era also notices the same thing, the
28:57: Taurus mountains separated north from south in an Alexandrian frame of reference, which leads to my next point.
29:05: Point 4. The last six verses of Daniel 11 do not refer to a future invasion of Egypt by the little horn of Daniel 7, or the beast of Revelation 13, but in fact were fulfilled prior to the rise of the
29:17: Roman Empire to succeed the Greek Empire. Once it is understood that king of the north and king of the south in Daniel 11 are geographic rather than dynastic, belonging to the occupants of the northern and southern territories and not to a particular dynasty, and further that the boundary between north and south in Daniel 11 is the
29:35: Taurus mountains, the last six verses of Daniel 11 are shown to describe an apocalyptic battle between the occupant of the northern territory, north of the
29:44: Taurus mountains, and an occupant of the southern territory along the southern coast of Asia Minor. By this time in the narrative, which is 67
29:52: BC, Rome is still a republic and the fragments of Alexander's empire are still being plucked up by various people, and Rome is still a republic and has not yet risen to the stature of an empire on the world stage.
30:05: It is still the Greek period of Daniel's visions. The Roman Republic had long since gained ownership and control of inland
30:12: Asia Minor and Thrace, and is therefore now king of the north in chapter 11, verse 40. And there is another kingdom firmly in control of the southern coast of Asia Minor, and their headquarters is the fortress of Choricesium in the bay at Pamphylia.
30:26: I am speaking, of course, of the pirate kingdom of Pamphylia, which had been threatening Rome's grain shipments from Egypt, and in fact, had struck already on the
30:34: Italian peninsula. The Roman Republic commissioned General Pompey to put an end to the pirate menace with ships and armies, and no sooner had he done so than he received news that two kings to the north in Asia Minor within the
30:47: Taurus mountains and to the east were threatening Rome's interests. He was entrusted again by the
30:53: Senate to engage those two kings, and conquered them just as readily as he had handled the pirates.
30:58: Thence he conquered every territory from Syria to the Red Sea, except Edom, Moab, and the
31:04: Chorices parts of Amman, and in his final conquest before returning to Roman triumph, he even pitched his royal tent at the
31:10: Temple Mount between two seas, when the Jews made their last stand against him in Jerusalem. But alas, such a great man who had conquered most of the known world was assassinated without a fight.
31:20: As we noted in our series, that is the fulfillment of the last six verses of Daniel 11, and they were fulfilled in the period between 67 and 48
31:29: BC. Julius Caesar became the first emperor of Rome shortly thereafter. Daniel 11, in fact, is related solely to the period immediately following the fall of the
31:39: Medo -Persian Empire and records the future rise of the Greek Empire under Alexander, the divided
31:45: Greek Empire under his successors, and the wars that plagued the remnants of the Greek Empire until the rise of the next empire in succession.
31:52: As I have noted here, Daniel 11 is narrated in a single frame of reference in which North, South, East, and West are fixed relative to Alexander's divided empire.
32:02: The titles King of the North and King of the South refer not to any particular dynasty, but instead only to those who occupy land that was either
32:09: North or South in an Alexandrian frame of reference, and the boundary between North and South is the
32:15: Taurus Mountains, as demonstrated by both Daniel 11 .15 and Daniel 11 .40. And on that note,
32:22: I'll simply say that if your eschatology requires a shifting frame of reference in Daniel chapter 11 in order to understand his vision, then your eschatology is unscriptural because it involves a change of reference frame that Daniel does not give to us in the scriptures.
32:38: And that leads us to our next point. Point 5. Daniel 11, 21 -39, refers to Antiochus IV, a
32:46: Seleucid king, and his evil persecution against the Jews from 175 to 163
32:52: BC. Now, as simple as that sounds, it is going to lead us to what is probably the most bitter eschatological pill that any of our brethren will ever have to swallow regarding our early historicist position.
33:05: But there is no way around it, and the matter presents itself rather succinctly. If the whole chapter of Daniel 11 was written in a single frame of reference, and it was, and Daniel 11 verses 1 -20 has already been fulfilled in the fall of the
33:20: Medo -Persian Empire, the rise and fall of Alexander the Great, and the four -way division of his empire, and the succeeding wars between the
33:27: Seleucids and the Ptolemies until the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC, and it has been, and Daniel 11 verses 40 -45 has already been fulfilled in the period from 67 -48
33:39: BC with General Pompey's apocalyptic battle against the pirates of Panfilia Bay, and King Tigranus of Syria, and King Mithridates of Pontus, and it has been, then everything in between, that is,
33:52: Daniel 11 verses 21 -39 has already been fulfilled too. That seems like a rather innocuous statement until you realize that Daniel 11, 21 -39 has to do with Antiochus IV of the
34:04: Seleucid line. Historically, some eschatologists have been unwilling to assign the entire period to Antiochus IV, and assumed some of it must refer to the little horn of Daniel 7 and the beast of Revelation 13, because first,
34:18: Jesus makes reference to the abomination of desolation as a future event, that's Matthew 24 -15 and Mark 13 -14, and second, under the shifting frame of reference, parts of Daniel 11 are assumed to refer to an
34:30: Antichrist Roman antagonist, rather than the Greek antagonist, to whom the text plainly refers.
34:36: But once it is established that the entire chapter occurs under a single frame of reference in the Greek period of Daniel's visions, and we show that the beginning of Daniel 11, that is verses 1 -20, and the ending of Daniel 11, verses 40 -45, are already fulfilled, the middle of the chapter is a matter of simple inspection.
34:56: And that simple inspection shows that it was fulfilled in its entirety under the reign of Antiochus IV. And that means
35:02: Daniel 11, 31, which refers to Antiochus IV defiling the sanctuary, taking away the daily sacrifice, and placing the abomination that make it desolate, and the
35:12: Jews restoring Mosaic worship, all took place between 171 and 164
35:17: BC, and is already behind us. That's right, it means the abomination of desolation was erected in the temple under the
35:25: Greek period, and was fulfilled long before Jesus was even born, and longer still, before he even referred to that abomination in his apocalyptic discourses in Matthew and Mark.
35:36: As hard as that may be for some to believe, it is nevertheless scriptural, and I'll just say for emphasis, if your eschatology does not allow for Daniel 11, 21 -39, to occur under the
35:48: Greek empire, as the plain reading of it obviously requires, then your eschatology is not scriptural.
35:55: But it gets worse, as we show in our next point. That is point six. The 70 weeks of Daniel 9 is not a messianic prophecy.
36:05: So here's the challenge. Most eschatologies, and I mean Preterists, Futurists, and Historicists, in some way, take the 70 weeks of Daniel 9 to be a messianic prophecy fulfilled in some way by Christ.
36:19: After all, the 70 weeks of Daniel prophesies that it will take 70 weeks to make an end of sin, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy.
36:32: And in the 70th week, shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself, and sacrifice shall cease, the sanctuary shall be trampled, and the abomination of desolation will be set up.
36:42: Given Jesus' reference to the abomination of desolation in Matthew and Mark, you really can't ask for a prophecy to be more messianic than that.
36:50: And it is not just Daniel 9. Daniel 8 also refers to the trampling of the sanctuary and the end of the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation.
36:58: And Daniel 12 refers to the trampling of the sanctuary and the daily sacrifice being taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up.
37:06: Much of this is taken by many eschatologists to refer to an event that occurs at the time of Christ or shortly after his earthly ministry.
37:14: And yet we can show from Daniel 8, 11, and 12 that the pollution of the temple, the trampling of the host, and the abomination of desolation in fact occurred under the
37:23: Greek Empire, just where you'd expect to find it on a plain reading of all the passages related to it in Daniel 8, 9, 11, and 12.
37:33: It is simply a Greek event, not a distant Roman or messianic one. The plain words of Scripture show
37:39: Daniel 8, 9, 11, and 12 being fulfilled under the period of Greek rule. And therefore the abomination of desolation, the end of sacrifice, indeed, the entire 70th week of Daniel is shown from the
37:51: Scriptures to have taken place prior to Christ and therefore cannot be a messianic prophecy. And that's what makes this so hard to say to my friends, but it is true.
38:02: If your eschatology requires that the 70 weeks of Daniel be fulfilled in the person of Christ, then your eschatology is not scriptural.
38:11: Not one New Testament speaker or writer saw the 70 weeks of Daniel fulfilled in Christ. Not one, which is an amazing omission, considering the almost universal assumption that the 70 weeks is a messianic prophecy.
38:25: And that means one of the core tenets of Christian eschatology, held by almost every single early church medieval reformed and modern eschatologist, lacks even one apostolic affirmation.
38:37: And that leads us to our next point. Point 7. The 70 weeks of Daniel is a
38:42: Mosaic prophecy, not a messianic one. We won't belabor the point very long on this one, except to say that according to Leviticus 26, the
38:51: Lord said that if the Jews worshipped idols, violated the Sabbath, and did not reverence His sanctuary, He would punish them.
38:58: In fact, if you read the book of Jeremiah, that is exactly what He comes announcing. And what is more, in Jeremiah 25 and 29, the
39:06: Lord says He will subject the Jews to 70 years of punishments because of their sins on those points, which is straight out of Leviticus 26.
39:14: But Leviticus 26 also says that if after being punished, the Jews still failed to repent of worshipping idols, violating the
39:21: Sabbath, and desecrating the sanctuary, the Lord would multiply their punishments sevenfold. And in fact, in Daniel 9,
39:29: Daniel acknowledges that the desolations had come to them in accordance with the Law of Moses, that's Daniel 9 verses 11 and 13, and further that He had been studying the words of Jeremiah about 70 years of punishments, wondering when they would end.
39:41: And in the process, He confesses that the Jews still had not repented. And right on cue,
39:47: Gabriel shows up and talks with Daniel not about 70 years of punishments, but about seven times 70 years of punishments.
39:55: A sevenfold punishment, straight out of Leviticus 26. And that means Daniel 9 is a prophecy based on the
40:02: Law of Moses, not the promise of a coming Messiah. In fact, everything Gabriel says would happen at the end of the 70th week, including making an end of sin, bringing about reconciliation, restoring perpetual righteousness, and anointing the most holy, are all things that God said would or should happen if the
40:20: Jews repented under the original 70 years of punishments, in accordance with the Leviticus 26 protocol, as I have discussed earlier in this series.
40:30: And so I'll say the hard thing again. If your eschatology assumes that the 70 weeks of Daniel is a messianic prophecy, then your eschatology is unscriptural.
40:40: And that brings me to my next point. Point eight. The 70 weeks prophecy is not a continuous 490 year prophecy, but rather is divided into three separate prophecies totaling 490 years.
40:55: One of the things that has confused millennia of eschatologists is the rendering of Daniel 9 25 that says from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build
41:04: Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, etc. That sure sounds messianic until you realize that Daniel had been reading
41:13: Jeremiah. And Jeremiah says that the Lord promised in the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar to rebuild and restore
41:19: Jerusalem. The 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar is 586 B .C. And seven weeks, that is 49 years later, in 537
41:29: B .C., Cyrus came in accordance with the prophecy of Isaiah which says, Cyrus, he is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, thou shalt be built, and to the temple thy foundation shall be laid.
41:44: Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him.
41:51: That's Isaiah 44 28 -45 1. The Messiah the Prince in Daniel 9 25 was referring not to Messiah the
41:59: Prince as in Christ, but rather to an anointed ruler, King Cyrus the Lord's anointed. Another part of the prophecy that has confused millennia of eschatologists is the translation that says after three score and two weeks shall
42:12: Messiah be cut off, but not for himself. That's Daniel 9 26. That sure sounds messianic until you realize that Nebuchadnezzar was raised up in 605
42:21: B .C. to punish the Jews, and three score and two weeks, that is 434 years later, in 171
42:28: B .C., the high priest Onias III was murdered under the reign of Antiochus IV, and under the
42:34: Levitical rite, a high priest is an anointed. The literal rendering is more accurate.
42:40: After three score and two weeks shall an anointed be cut off, having nothing. It refers to the persecution of the good
42:46: Jews, as more and more of the disobedient Jews became secularized leading up to the 70th week. Thus, the
42:52: Messiah who is cut off but not for himself, after 62 weeks in Daniel 9 26, is not
42:58: Christ the Messiah, but rather an anointed high priest, Onias III who was murdered.
43:04: Another part of the prophecy that has confused millennia of eschatologists is that the 70th week describes someone confirming a covenant and putting an end to sacrifices, as Daniel 9 27.
43:15: And Gabriel himself says that the 70 weeks are given to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to anoint the most holy, as Daniel 9 24.
43:25: That all sounds messianic until the 70 weeks is understood in the context of Leviticus 26 under which the
43:33: Lord punished the Jews for 70 years for failing to reverence the sanctuary, and having failed to reverence the sanctuary all those 70 years, the
43:39: Lord multiplied their punishments sevenfold. Everything that happens after the 70th week is what the
43:45: Lord promised would happen if the Jews repented after 70 years, which in fact is what would have happened if the
43:50: Jews had simply repented in the first place without requiring any punishment at all. In that context, the 70th week simply describes the conclusion of the punishments, and the grand conclusion was that the
44:01: Lord would cause someone to come and convince the bad Jews to agree, that is, covenant, to forsake their religion, and having that same antagonist desolate the sanctuary until the good
44:11: Jews finally repented of the evil that had been done by the Jews. And the way they repented was to rededicate the sanctuary and reverence it, including according to Exodus 40 verses 9 -10, the anointing of the altar and the tabernacle, both of which are most holy.
44:27: Thus, the most holy was anointed, they made an end of sin by repenting, they introduced everlasting righteousness, that is, the perpetual righteousness by restoring the
44:35: Mosaic order, and therefore the anointed in Daniel 9 -24 is not Christ at his baptism when the
44:42: Holy Spirit descended on him, but rather the most holy tabernacle and altar, which were anointed by the
44:48: Jews on the first Hanukkah in 164 BC, after being liberated from the tyranny of King Antiochus IV.
44:55: Thus, the 70 -week prophecy is actually three separate prophecies about an anointed ruler,
45:01: Cyrus king of Persia, who was to come in 537 BC, an anointed high priest, Onias III, who was murdered in 171
45:09: BC, and an anointed altar at his rededication, that is, at Hanukkah in 164
45:14: BC. It is a traditional interpretation to make all three anointings refer to Christ, but the text says something very different.
45:23: And that is all to say that the 70 weeks are not only a 7 -fold multiplication of the 70 years that Jeremiah prophesied, in accordance with Leviticus 26, but they are also divided into three separate prophecies of 7 weeks, 62 weeks, and 1 week, as the text plainly indicates.
45:39: With the 70th week following, quite noticeably, the 62 weeks, not the 69.
45:46: And thus the prophecy was not about one single messianic anointed person, but rather three different prophecies involving anointing.
45:54: In fact, that is what the scriptures say in Daniel 9 24. The common English rendering is 70 weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, or 70 weeks are decreed for thy people and thy holy city.
46:07: But in the original, the term is divided, as in 70 weeks are divided, into three sets of weeks.
46:14: That is not my personal interpretation, but a fact from the text itself, for in the context, the 70 weeks are indeed divided into three sets of sevens.
46:24: And once divided, the prophet never returns to calling them 70 sevens again. 70 continuous weeks of years for a 490 year prophecy is man's tradition, but it is not what the text says.
46:36: And just to remind the listener, it is not I, but the text that puts a hard brake after from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild
46:44: Jerusalem unto an anointed ruler shall be seven weeks. The original Hebrew says that, and the earliest
46:51: King James translations recognized it, as do some modern translations. The text of scripture simply does not add the 7 to the 62, and it certainly does not say from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build
47:02: Jerusalem unto an anointed ruler shall be 69 weeks. It is not I, but the text that says that the 70th week occurs after the 62 weeks, not after the 69.
47:15: Indeed, as soon as Gabriel multiplied the 70 years of punishments into 70 weeks of punishments, he immediately divided them into three sets of weeks, neatly separated into three separate anointings that have nothing to do with Christ, but everything to do with the fulfillment of a
47:31: Mosaic law about punishing the Jews until they repent. And so I'll say the hard thing again.
47:37: If your eschatology assumes that the 70 weeks of Daniel is a continuous 490 years, or has a 69 week period that is a continuous 483 years, or has a 69 1⁄2 week period that is a continuous 486 1⁄2 years, then your eschatology is unscriptural, for the scriptures make no reference to such a period.
48:00: The 70 weeks are divided in the scriptures and should be rendered in accordance with those divisions, which leads to my next point.
48:07: Point 9. The abomination of desolation to which the scriptures refer in Daniel 8, 12 -13, 9 -27, 11 -31, and 12 -11, and the abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel the prophet, as mentioned in Matthew 24 -15 and Mark 13 -14, was actually a statue of Jupiter, and it was erected in the temple on the altar in 167
48:32: BC by Antiochus IV, 200 years before Christ mentioned it in the gospel accounts.
48:39: This at first might seem counterintuitive because in Matthew 24 -15 and Mark 13 -14, Jesus appears to be referring to the 70th week of Daniel's prophecies as a yet future event.
48:50: After all, he said, When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place, whoso readeth let him understand, as Matthew 24 -15, which sure sounds like a future fulfillment of Daniel's 70th week, right?
49:07: But upon closer inspection, Jesus did not say the holy place, but rather a holy place, and in Mark he simply said standing where it ought not.
49:17: It is not Jesus, but rather the translator who has implied the placement of the abominating desolation in the temple as a future event.
49:25: For it is the translators who have added the definite article to make it say stand in the holy place.
49:32: In reality, Daniel foresaw the abomination of desolation standing on the most holy altar, and Antiochus IV fulfilled that prophecy by installing a statue of Jupiter on the altar in the tabernacle.
49:45: Every Jew of Jesus' day knew what the abomination of desolation was, and Jesus simply tapped into that cultural knowledge to convey to the
49:53: Jews that the placement of a statue of Jupiter in a holy place where it ought not be was to be the harbinger of doom for Jerusalem and the nation of Israel.
50:01: And sure enough, within ten years, Emperor Gaius Caligula ordered statues of Jupiter to be placed in every temple of the empire.
50:08: The Jews refused to place it in the temple, but some young rascals in the city of Dor installed it in a synagogue in the days of Claudius Caesar, which would be the early 40s.
50:19: From that point forward, things went south in Israel with famines, earthquakes, lawlessness, murders, and the desolation of Jerusalem, and essentially the end of the
50:27: Jewish nation. In other words, Jesus was not saying that the 70th week of Daniel had not yet been fulfilled, or that the abomination would be finally placed in the temple, in accordance with Daniel's prophecies.
50:38: Rather, he knew that it had already been fulfilled and a statue of Jupiter had long ago been placed in the temple as the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecies.
50:47: Jesus' audience knew that too. That is how they would be able to understand the significance of his words, that the return of the statue of Jupiter to Israel, and even seeing the statue of Jupiter installed in a holy place, would be the beginning of the end of the
51:00: Jewish nation, and it certainly was. And so, I'll simply say that if your eschatology requires that the 70th week of Daniel was a prophecy that was future to Christ, or requires that the abomination of desolation must be placed in the temple after Christ, then your eschatology is not scriptural, for Jesus does not say that the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet would stand in the holy place, but rather that it would stand in a holy place.
51:30: And further, there is no apostolic testimony suggesting that the 70th week of Daniel is about Christ at all.
51:35: But everything Daniel said would happen under the Greek empire already happened, and everything Jesus said would happen within one generation already happened as well, including the abomination of desolation returning and standing in a holy place, not in the holy place.
51:51: Which leads me to my next point, point 10. Everything Jesus said would happen within one generation occurred within one generation, including
52:02: Jesus' visible bodily return on the clouds. This, of course, is a tough pill to swallow too, but we encourage our listeners to read
52:10: Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, and tell me if Jesus appears to be saying that he would return bodily on the clouds within one generation.
52:18: Of course he does. The plain reading of the text indicates exactly that, and the angels in Acts 1, 11 assure us that Christ will shortly return.
52:28: This same Jesus, which has taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
52:35: And Jesus said it would be within one generation, and its significance would be in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem and the arrival of the heavenly kingdom
52:43: Jesus had come announcing. As he said in Luke 21, 31, So likewise ye, when ye have seen these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.
52:54: And Mark 13, 29 says the same thing. So ye, in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.
53:05: Jesus said he would return on the clouds within one generation, and the angels confirmed it at his ascension.
53:11: And James said it was near, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. That's James 5, 8.
53:17: And John said it was imminent, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass.
53:27: Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him. And they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.
53:35: Even so, Amen. That's Revelation 1, 1 and 7. In fact, we even have two eyewitness accounts of it from the historians.
53:46: Josephus, in 75 AD, describing the events prior to Jerusalem's destruction wrote,
53:53: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable nature, as to deserve such signals.
54:03: For before sun setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds and surrounding the cities.
54:12: That's from Josephus, Wars of the Jews. And Tacitus, a
54:17: Roman historian, writing in AD 115, described the events prior to Jerusalem's destruction by saying,
54:23: Prodigies had occurred, in the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict of glittering armor. That's Tacitus, Histories, Book 5, verse 13.
54:33: Indeed, everything Jesus said would happen within one generation actually happened, including his visible bodily return on the clouds.
54:42: However, most eschatologies have no way to account for it, and therefore we have largely written it out of our eschatologies.
54:48: And those that do include his early return within one generation account for it in a form of preterism, in which
54:54: Christ's return to destroy Jerusalem is conflated with Christ's return to destroy Antichrist, which makes
55:00: Nero, the Antichrist of Revelation, something that we will show to be impossible momentarily. But for now,
55:06: I will simply say that if your eschatology does not account for Christ's visible bodily return on the clouds within one generation, then your eschatology is unscriptural, for the scriptures abound with such claims.
55:19: I know it is a hard pill to swallow, as we have spent literally millennia trying to understand why he did not return to judge the earth as he seemed to have promised, which leads to my next point.
55:29: Point 11. Jesus refers to two returns, one that occurred within one generation to destroy
55:36: Jerusalem and set up a heavenly kingdom that was not of earth, and one to return to earth to destroy the kingdom of Antichrist, at which point he will set up an earthly kingdom and rule the nations with a rod of iron.
55:48: Now, we have already mentioned this several times in our series, but we will mention it again briefly here to make a point, but without so many details.
55:56: Listeners who want to get the full details on our position can go back and listen to episode 18. The mistake that is often made by eschatologists is to read the second chapter of Daniel and assume that the stone that strikes the statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream is
56:09: Christ at his incarnation, and that stone strikes the statue once, crushing all the empires together, at which point the stone grows up and fills the entire earth.
56:19: That is a mistake. When read carefully, the stone of Daniel chapter 2 strikes the statue twice, first in Daniel 2 .34,
56:27: when it says that it strikes the feet alone, breaking only the iron and clay feet to pieces, and then in 2 .35
56:35: it strikes again, breaking the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold, and grinding them to powder.
56:41: Those are two separate strikes, one directed against the fourth empire of Daniel's visions, that is,
56:47: Rome, and one directed against the fifth empire of Daniel's visions, that is, the little horn of Daniel 7, or the
56:53: Beast of Revelation 13, which is depicted both in Daniel 7 .12 and Revelation 13 as a single empire representing the essence of all the preceding four empires.
57:05: Those two strikes are depicted in Daniel 2 .34 and Daniel 2 .35. Those two strikes are also represented in Daniel 7 .11,
57:13: in which there is a first judgment against the fourth beast alone, the Roman Empire, leaving the fragments of the empire intact, such that the little horn is allowed to rise among the remaining ten, and a second judgment in Daniel 7 .26,
57:25: in which the dominion of that little horn is utterly destroyed. Those two strikes are also depicted in two scenes in Revelation 5 -8, in which the
57:33: Lord takes His throne and begins to open the seven seals, which contain punishments directed against the Roman Empire, and in Revelation 17 -19, in which the
57:41: Lamb overcomes the beast and the ten horns with Him, and casts Him into the lake of fire. Again, two separate judgments, the first directed against the fourth empire, causing it to fragment, and the second against the fifth empire, utterly destroying it from the face of the earth.
57:56: And upon inspection, those two strikes in Daniel 2, and those two judgments in Daniel 7, and those two scenes in Revelation, in fact, involve two separate returns, which the gospel writers, the apostles, and the
58:07: Lord Himself have indicated to us in the scriptures, namely, that the coming of the Lord to judge
58:12: Jerusalem and to set up His heavenly kingdom is soon, as in Matthew 24, Mark 13,
58:18: Luke 21, Revelation 1, and James 5, and the coming of the Lord to judge Antichrist and the nations and set up His earthly kingdom, which is not soon, as in Matthew 25, 2
58:29: Thessalonians 2, 1 Peter 3. The first return absolutely would happen within one generation, and the second absolutely would not and could not happen within one generation, and in fact, could not happen until after the man of sin had been revealed and had exercised his dominion over the earth as the fifth empire.
58:48: Listeners who want to hear more about those two returns may wish to return to episode 16 of this series, but to our point, if your eschatology only allows for one strike of the stone in Daniel 2, and only accounts for one return of Christ on the clouds, then your eschatology is not scriptural, for the scriptures not only depict two strikes of the stone, one against the
59:08: Roman Empire causing it to fragment, and one against the Antichrist, utterly removing him from the face of the earth, but also depict two returns of Christ, one to judge
59:18: Jerusalem and set up a heavenly kingdom, and one to judge Antichrist and set up an earthly kingdom, which leads me to my next point.
59:25: Point 12. There is no earthly empire of Christ until he returns to judge Antichrist.
59:31: This one is a hard pill to swallow for a simple reason that we explain in episode 19. Because almost all eschatologies understand
59:38: Daniel 2 to represent only a single strike of the stone against the statue, and that the stone is taken to represent
59:44: Christ's incarnation, almost all eschatologies therefore lend themselves to the perception that when the stone fills the whole earth, it is a prophecy of the rapid rise of the church to civil power over the earth.
59:56: Under that paradigm, Daniel 2 .35 would mean that after Christ came and conquered all the previous empires at his incarnation, the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth, and by and large, from a secular or Roman Catholic perspective, that is exactly what appeared to happen.
01:00:12: After Christ came, the church filled the whole earth and eventually even appeared to rule over it. Even reform eschatologists make the mistake of thinking that the stone that filled the whole earth in Daniel 2 .35
01:00:22: was the church rising to civil authority as the successor to the Roman Empire, as we mentioned in our introduction today.
01:00:30: That assumption is a very big mistake. But when we understand that Daniel 2 .35 is actually the second strike of the stone, the significance of that error comes to light.
01:00:40: Daniel 2 .34 is the first strike that merely fragments the Roman Empire to prepare for the rise of the little horn of Daniel 7, which is the beast of Revelation 13, while Daniel 2 .35
01:00:50: is the second strike that absolutely obliterates the dominion of the little horn. Between those two strikes is the fifth empire, the ungodly empire of Roman Catholicism.
01:01:00: Notably, Daniel says the saints receive a kingdom during the fourth empire, as Daniel 2 .44, and they certainly do.
01:01:07: But Christ assured them that the kingdom that they were about to receive was heavenly, not earthly, and what is more, the stone does not grow up and fill the whole earth until after the second strike of the stone.
01:01:18: It does not fill the whole earth after the first strike of the stone. In other words, the saints receive a heavenly kingdom upon Christ's first return on the clouds, and the saints receive an earthly kingdom upon Christ's second return on the clouds.
01:01:31: That same reality is represented for us in Daniel 7, in which the saints receive a kingdom during the fourth empire, that's
01:01:37: Daniel 7 .18, but do not receive a kingdom under heaven until after the little horn, the fifth empire is destroyed.
01:01:45: That's Daniel 7 .27. To put it simply, during the period of the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's statue,
01:01:51: Jesus set up a heavenly kingdom that was not of earth, and in the period of the toes, the Antichrist set up an earthly kingdom that was not of heaven.
01:01:59: Then when Christ returns to destroy Antichrist, the kingdom of Christ fills the whole earth, and the saints receive a kingdom under the whole heaven.
01:02:07: That's right. There is no earthly kingdom of Christ until he first destroys
01:02:12: Antichrist upon the second strike of the stone, and between those two strikes is the earthly dominion of Antichrist, or what the secular world, and unfortunately much of the ecclesiastical world, thinks of as the church.
01:02:25: Hopefully our listeners can grasp the weight of the erroneous assumption that there is only one strike. If there is only one strike of the stone, then
01:02:33: Roman Catholicism is that stone that filled the whole earth, which would make Roman Catholicism the earthly empire of Christ, for after the fourth century it rose up and ruled over all nations.
01:02:44: But if there are two strikes of the stone, then Roman Catholicism is the Antichrist, for it is not
01:02:49: Christ but rather Antichrist who enjoys earthly dominion after the first strike. Christ does not enjoy earthly dominion until after he destroys
01:02:57: Antichrist at his second return. That's the difference we face. One strike, as tradition has dictated, and Roman Catholicism must be the earthly empire of Christ.
01:03:08: Two strikes, as the scriptures say, and Roman Catholicism is Antichrist, and then
01:03:14: Christ takes up his earthly empire when he returns to destroy the little horn of Daniel 7. The single strike tradition is an illogical and unscriptural assumption with eternal significance for those who look to Roman Catholicism as the stone of Daniel 2.
01:03:28: And it is easy to see why so many Protestants make the wrong decision and return to Rome. And so I'll say the hard thing again.
01:03:35: If your eschatology requires earthly civil power of Christ's kingdom prior to his return to destroy Antichrist, then your eschatology is not in accordance with the scriptures which teach that Christ has no earthly civil power, nor do his saints have civil power until his second return.
01:03:52: If your eschatology only takes one strike of the stone into account in Daniel 2, then your eschatology is not in accordance with the scriptures which teach in Daniel 2 that the stone strikes twice.
01:04:03: And that leads me to my final point today. Point 13. Jesus did not come announcing that the kingdom of God had arrived, but rather that it was near and would arrive soon within the generation.
01:04:16: We covered this in a lot more detail in episode 19, and we encourage our listeners to go back and listen to it for more details.
01:04:22: But here is a simple summary to jog your memory. John, Jesus, and the apostles went about preaching that the kingdom of God was near.
01:04:31: They did not go about preaching that the kingdom of God was here, or that it had arrived. It had not.
01:04:38: In fact, when Jesus spoke of what would happen within one generation famines, earthquakes, false
01:04:43: Christs, false prophets, and the destruction of Jerusalem, he said, when his audience would see these things take place, it would mean that the kingdom of God is near, even at the doors.
01:04:54: That's Matthew 24 33 and Mark 13 9. And when you see these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.
01:05:03: That's Luke 21 31. The gospel accounts confirm that when
01:05:08: Jesus was born, lived, died, and was resurrected and ascended to heaven, the kingdom of God still had not yet arrived.
01:05:16: If those future events were to indicate that the kingdom of God was near, even at the doors, then the kingdom of God had not yet arrived when
01:05:24: Jesus was preaching. The kingdom of God was still future to him. So, when did the scriptures say the kingdom of God would come?
01:05:31: The scriptures tell us. Daniel 7 says that the saints of God would receive a kingdom in the period of the fourth beast, that is, in the
01:05:39: Roman period. This is Daniel 7 verses 17 to 18. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall rise out of the earth.
01:05:48: But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.
01:05:55: But Daniel 2 is even more specific. Daniel 2 says that the saints would receive the kingdom in the iron and clay period, that is, in the period of the feet of the fourth empire.
01:06:06: And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men.
01:06:12: But they shall not cleave to one another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. And in the days of these kings shall the
01:06:20: God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
01:06:30: That's Daniel 2 42 to 44. In the days of those kings refers to the period of iron and clay, and refers to the stone striking the statue in the feet of iron and clay.
01:06:42: The stone refers to the kingdom of the saints, and notably that stone does not arrive until the period of the feet.
01:06:48: Thou sawest till a stone was cut without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and break them to pieces.
01:06:57: That's Daniel 2 34. In other words, Jesus insisted in his preaching that the kingdom of God had not come yet.
01:07:05: As he continued in his preaching, he used the imagery of Daniel 2 34 to 35, the two strikes of the stone, to indicate that his earthly ministry occurred during the period of iron legs, but that the period of the feet was right around the corner.
01:07:19: This is Matthew 21 43 to 44. Therefore I say unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation, bringing forth the fruits thereof.
01:07:29: And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken. But on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
01:07:38: That reference to a stone breaking someone upon a first impact, and then grinding him to powder upon a second impact, is a reference to Daniel 2 34 to 35.
01:07:48: And Jesus made reference to the kingdom of God being taken from the Jews and given to another nation in that context.
01:07:54: That is, in the context of the feet of the statue. Jesus' message was that the kingdom of God had not yet arrived, but that it would arrive very soon.
01:08:04: In a Danielic context, that means the period of the iron legs was about to end, and the period of the iron and clay feet was not far away.
01:08:12: And that means that Jesus was preaching in the period of the iron legs. We will revisit that concept when we return to the seals and trumpets of Revelation.
01:08:21: But for now, the point I am making is simple. If your eschatology requires that the stone striking the statue refers to Christ's incarnation, and with His incarnation came the promised kingdom of God, your eschatology is unscriptural.
01:08:35: Jesus insisted in His earthly ministry that the kingdom of God still had not arrived, and would not arrive until well after His death and resurrection.
01:08:44: And to return to the point of our series, that is why it is so important to understand the Danielic timeline. If you believe
01:08:50: Jesus came announcing that His kingdom had arrived, and that His arrival in earthly ministry was the fulfillment of the stone striking the statue in the feet, then your eschatology is unscriptural.
01:09:00: The stone would strike the statue in the period of the feet, but Jesus came preaching in the period of the iron legs.
01:09:07: So that gets me back to my original point. At the beginning of this episode, I asked, why trust me?
01:09:13: Why set aside the dispensationalist, preterist, futurist, and late historicist positions in exchange for this one?
01:09:20: Well, you don't have to if you don't want to, but just consider this. It is not
01:09:25: I, but the scriptures that say that there are still ten horns remaining after the little horn has already removed three.
01:09:32: Therefore, it is not I, but the scriptures that point to a thirteen -way division of the Roman Empire.
01:09:37: A ten -way division is just tradition. It is not I, but the scriptures that reveal
01:09:43: Daniel chapter 11 in a single frame of reference. The assumption that Daniel changed his frame of reference throughout chapter 11 is just a tradition.
01:09:51: It is not I, but the scriptures that point to the Taurus Mountains as the division between the northern and southern kingdoms of Daniel 11.
01:09:59: It is not I, but the scriptures that portray the battle between the king of the north and the king of the south occurring in the
01:10:05: Greek period prior to the rise of the Roman Empire. Making Daniel 11 40 -45 to refer to a future conflict related to Daniel 7 or Revelation 13 is just a tradition.
01:10:18: And because the beginning of Daniel 11 and the end of Daniel 11 encompass the whole of the bronze period of Daniel 2 or the leopard of Daniel 7 or the he -goat of Daniel 8, it is not
01:10:28: I, but the scriptures that say that the abomination of desolation occurred under the reign of Antiochus IV in the period of the
01:10:34: Greek Empire. The belief that the 70th week of Daniel would be fulfilled in Christ's future or in our future is just a tradition.
01:10:43: It is not what the scriptures teach. And because the abomination of Daniel identified in Daniel 8, 11, and 12 clearly occurred under the
01:10:50: Greek Empire, then the prophecy of Daniel 9 and the 70 weeks is clearly not a messianic prophecy but is fulfilled under a mosaic construct, as Leviticus 26 would have indicated.
01:11:01: Making Daniel 9 a messianic prophecy instead of a mosaic prophecy is just a tradition.
01:11:07: It is not what the scriptures teach. And it is not I, but the scriptures that have literally divided—that is the word
01:11:13: Gabriel used— divided the 70 weeks into three separate prophecies of 7 weeks, 62 weeks, and 1 week.
01:11:21: Adding them together in search of a 69 -week period or a 70 -week period is just a tradition.
01:11:27: After all, it is not I, but the scriptures that say that the 70th week occurs after the 62, not after the 69.
01:11:35: And thus, it is not I, but the scriptures that identify the statue of Jupiter as the abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel.
01:11:43: And it is not I, but the scriptures that say that the abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel would return to Israel, but not to the temple, as a harbinger of Israel's doom and Christ's visible bodily return on the clouds to judge
01:11:56: Israel. The assumption that Jesus was saying the 70th week of Daniel was still future is just a tradition.
01:12:02: It is not what the scriptures teach. And it is not I, but the scriptures which say that Christ would return twice, once prior to the rise of Antichrist to judge
01:12:11: Israel, and once after the rise of Antichrist to judge the little horn of Daniel 7. The idea that Christ will return only once in the distant future is just a tradition.
01:12:21: It is not what the scriptures teach. And it is not I, but the scriptures that say that the saints of God do not receive an earthly kingdom until after Christ's second return.
01:12:31: And it is not I, but the scriptures that indicate that Christ was preaching during the period of the iron legs, and that the period of the feet was not far away, and that the destruction of Jerusalem would occur in the period of the feet, as an indication that the heavenly kingdom of Daniel 2 had finally come.
01:12:46: Now, I could keep on going. There is a lot of tradition in our eschatologies, and that tradition has largely nullified the explicit statements of the scriptures, which is why, for a long time, the plain meaning of the scriptures has been hidden to us.
01:13:01: But, I also realize that every eschatologist comes saying the same thing. That is, that everybody else got it wrong, and they should listen to him.
01:13:10: So, I'm not going to press the matter any further than that. Those who want to hear the implications of the eschatology
01:13:15: I espouse are free to continue listening, and I'm not going to hold it against anyone if they stop. It's the beauty of the podcast format.
01:13:23: So, where do we go from here? Well, it is time for us to use the Danielic timeline to understand the book of Revelation, and we're about to dive in headfirst.
01:13:32: In the coming episodes, we'll be identifying the prophetic ministry of the two witnesses of Revelation 11, it is already behind us, and the seals, trumpets, and bowls of Revelation, seven seals, six trumpets, and five bowls are already behind us, and we'll be identifying the false prophet and the image of the beast of Revelation 13, as well as the mortal head wound identified in that same chapter.
01:13:54: But, in our next episode, before we get to the prophetic ministry of the two witnesses, we're going to address the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and what
01:14:01: Jesus said would be the indication that it was time to leave Judea. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus told his listeners that they should flee
01:14:09: Judea when they saw the statue of Jupiter again, and as we have shown, that happened in the early 40s
01:14:15: A .D. But in Luke, Jesus told his listeners that they should flee Judea when they saw
01:14:21: Jerusalem surrounded by armies, and that did not happen until 70 A .D. with the siege of Titus, just before Passover that year.
01:14:28: So what accounts for the 30 years between the arrival of the statue of Jupiter in the early 40s, and the siege of Jerusalem in 70
01:14:37: A .D.? Why would Matthew and Mark say that the Jews should flee Judea 30 years earlier than Luke did?
01:14:45: Well, actually, Luke says, And when you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.
01:14:55: Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains. That's Luke 21, verses 20 -21.
01:15:00: And as it turns out, Jerusalem was compassed with armies much, much earlier than when the
01:15:06: Romans arrived. In fact, it happened at the same time that the statue of Jupiter had arrived in Israel, and it wasn't
01:15:13: Roman armies that Jesus was talking about. And that's where we'll pick up next time. For those who don't want to listen any further, we love you, and we're glad you listened this far, and we appreciate you joining us in the battle to defend the gospel of Jesus Christ.
01:15:26: And for those who are still interested in the eschatology I'm teaching, buckle up. It's about to get really, really interesting.
01:15:33: You've been listening to episode 22 of the Danielic Imperative, and we appreciate you listening.