Daniel 8: 1-8 the Ram and the Goat

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Good morning. If that's working. Wow, people must have heard we were going into Daniel 8.

This is, we will launch into Daniel 8 today. And this is one of the things, one of the chapters of the

Bible that the critics really hate because it is prophetic and it is so accurate.

And I'm going to give you a little prophecy here. So, and the elders have already promised me that they won't exercise church discipline.

So Mike, if I said to you that I had a dream last night and your house had a vacancy sign on it and a giant ram with all of its legs churning destroyed your house and you returned to devastation.

And then two weeks later, somebody in a Dodge pickup went through your house in four -wheel drive when you weren't home.

You'd say, wow, that was pretty accurate. And that's a foolish, silly pretend imitation of what

Daniel did. And when we get into this, we'll see that he prophesied specific things about nations and they came true in great detail.

And the critics can't, that's one of the reasons that they say the book of Daniel was written in the second century.

These things are too accurate to have been predicted one, two and 300 years before they happened.

So let's open in prayer and then we will start into the book of Daniel 8. Lord, we thank you that you wrote this book to give us the tools to serve you and to honor you and to have comfort and to have hope and to know that you are sovereign and you are in control.

We look to these words this morning to give us wisdom by your Holy Spirit and to give us a plan of action for being obedient to you today.

Lord, we know that you control the outcome of history, that everything that is falling apart, as Jim has said, is falling apart exactly on schedule.

And we trust you for that. Help us be about the business of ministering to those who don't know the truth and who need it.

And we'll thank you in Jesus name, amen. So Daniel chapter eight, let's read the whole chapter.

We'll start there and get some full -blown context and then we will dive in.

This is actually on page 1152. You never thought we were gonna get there, did you? Daniel chapter eight, the vision of the ram and goat.

In the third year of the reign of Belshazzar the king, a vision appeared to me,

Daniel, subsequent to the one which appeared to me previously. And I looked in the vision and it came about while I was looking that I was in the citadel of Susa, which is in the province of Elam.

And I looked in the vision and I myself was beside the Ulai Canal. Then I lifted my gaze and looked and behold, a ram which had two horns was standing in front of the canal.

Now the two horns were long, but one was longer than the other with the longer one coming up last. I saw the ram budding westward, northward and southward and no other beast could stand before him nor was there anyone to rescue from his power.

But he did as he pleased and magnified himself. While I was observing, behold, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground.

And the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. And he came up to the ram which

I had seen standing in front of the canal and rushed at him in his mighty wrath. And I saw him come alongside the ram and he was enraged at him.

And he struck the ram and shattered his two horns. And the ram had no strength to withstand him. So he hurled him to the ground and trampled on him.

And there was none to rescue the ram from his power. Then the male goat magnified himself exceedingly.

But as soon as he was mighty, the large horn was broken. And in its place there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven.

And out of one of them came a rather small horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east and toward the beautiful land.

And it grew up to the host of heaven and caused some of the host and some of the stars to fall to the earth and it trampled them down.

It even magnified itself to be equal with the commander of the host and it removed the regular sacrifice from him and the place of his sanctuary was thrown down.

And on account of transgression, the host will be given over to the horn along with the regular sacrifice and it will fling truth to the ground and perform its will and prosper.

Then I heard a holy one speaking and another holy one said to that particular one who was speaking, how long will the vision about the regular sacrifice apply while the transgression causes horror so as to allow both the holy place and the host to be trampled?

And he said to me, for 2300 evenings and mornings then the holy place will be properly restored.

And it came about when I, Daniel, had seen the vision that I sought to understand it and behold, standing before me was one who looked like a man and I heard the voice of a man between the banks of Uli and he called out and said,

Gabriel, give this man an understanding of the vision. So he came near to where I was standing and when he came,

I was frightened and fell on my face. But he said to me, son of man, I understand that the vision pertains to the time of the end.

Now, while he was talking with me, I sank into a deep sleep with my face to the ground and he touched me and made me stand upright and he said, behold,

I'm going to let you know what will occur at the final period of the indignation for it pertains to the appointed time of the end.

The ram which you saw with the two horns represents the kings of Media and Persia and the shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece and the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king and the broken horn and the four horns that arose in its place, four kingdoms which will arise from his nation, although not with his power.

And in the latter period of their rule, when the transgressors have run their course, a king will arise, insolent and skilled and in Krieg and his power will be mighty, but not by his own power and he will destroy to an extraordinary degree and prosper and perform his will.

He will destroy mighty men and the holy people and through his shrewdness, he will cause deceit to succeed by his influence and he will magnify himself in his heart and he will destroy many while they are at ease.

He will even oppose the prince of princes, but he will be broken without human agency and the vision of the evenings and mornings, which has been told is true, but keep the vision secret for it pertains to many days in the future.

Then I, Daniel, was exhausted and sick for days. Then I got up again and carried on the king's business, but I was astounded at the vision and there was none to explain it.

So in this section, in this chapter of Daniel, we're gonna see prophecies relating to the great sweep of history and then prophecies relating to specific time periods.

And as you see at the very end, Daniel got an interpretation, but he wasn't completely satisfied with it.

There are still things that he did not completely understand, it says he was exhausted. And this had to be a time of terrible trauma for Daniel because part of what was going on was he was seeing prophecies that were predicting horrendous difficulty for his people, the

Israelites. And remember what happened to Jeremiah when he predicted some of the things that were gonna happen to Israel?

He was given an overnight stay in a mud hotel. Oh, come on,

I fought that one up on my own. At any rate, Daniel knew that the Israelites didn't take well to being given prophecies about horrendous things happening to them.

So that may very well be part of the reason, although he was a man of principle. He wouldn't keep it quiet for that reason, but it would be something that was upsetting.

So let's look at the introduction to Daniel 8 here. From here to the end of the book of Daniel, Daniel returns to the

Hebrew language. From Daniel 2, verse 4, to chapter 7, verse 28, the text is in Aramaic, the native language of the political nation that Daniel served in ostensibly the second position behind Nabonidus.

Belshazzar promised him that position in chapter 5, verse 16. So there would have been Nabonidus, Belshazzar, and then

Daniel in the line of succession. The last five chapters of Daniel deal strictly with the nation of Israel and the upcoming events surrounding that nation.

Thus, it is appropriate that the language would be changed to Hebrew, the language of the nation that he is speaking to.

Daniel's vision here is an overview of the second and third empires, the Medo -Persian and the

Greek empires. The key leaders are mentioned in the general interview, in the general overview of these two kingdoms.

At the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, it becomes more detailed.

This king, identified as the Little Horn in chapter 8, is a precursor to the type of the Little Horn in chapter 7, the

Antichrist. Chapters 8 through 12 deal with the Israelite history, even though Gentiles are involved.

So in his commentary, Walvert explains it this way. He says, the first of Daniel's own visions recorded in Daniel 7 is a broad summary of the times of the

Gentiles with emphasis on the climactic events culminating in Christ's second coming to the earth.

Beginning in chapter 8, Daniel's second vision focuses on the rulers of the empires of Persia and Greece and their relationship to Israel and the

Jewish people. Under the Persian government, the Israelites returned from captivity to rebuild their land and their city,

Jerusalem. Under Grecian domination, in particular, under Antiochus Epiphanes, the city and temple were again destroyed.

When we go to Daniel 9, when we get to Daniel 9, we will see Israel's history from Ezra and Nehemiah to the installation of the

Messiah's kingdom at the second coming of Christ. So this will be preceded by the great trouble for Israel.

In chapters 10 and 11, deal with the events surrounding the relationship of this Persian, of the

Persian and Greek empires to Israel. And then in the final portion of Daniel, chapter 11, verse 36 to chapter 12, 13, deals with the revived

Roman Empire, Israel's deliverance, and the end of the age. The Babylonian Chronicle, which was discovered not that many decades ago, reveals that Nabonidus began his reign in 556

BC. Belshazzar became a co -regent. Remember, Nabonidus decided to go to Tima and begin his building project for the moon god.

And so he left essentially the capital city unoccupied by the king.

So Belshazzar became his co -regent. So Belshazzar became co -regent in 553

BC. The vision of chapter seven occurred in 553 BC, Belshazzar's first year.

So using this as a basis, the vision of chapter eight occurs in approximately 551

BC, which is about 12 years before Belshazzar's feast that we read about in chapter five, which was 539

BC, the feast that they had on the day that the Persians took the city. It was customary to place

Daniel 8 very close to the fall of Babylon prior to the discovery of the Babylonian Chronicles. The discovery of those chronicles changed all that.

It was then that it was discovered that Belshazzar was the co -regent because they didn't even have clear evidence that Belshazzar existed other than scripture, which we know it's true because that's what scripture says.

But the secular world discovered a second witness, if you will.

They discovered that Belshazzar was co -regent with Nabonidus and that when that sometime king left the capital to promote his building project for the

Babylonian moon god, Walbert says this again. He says, there is therefore no support for placing

Daniel 8 near the downfall of Babylon as was the customary chronology before the chronicle was discovered.

A .L. Oppenheim points out that Belshazzar was officially recognized as co -regent while also the crown prince.

He cites two legal documents dated in the 12th and 13th years of Nabonidus, the

King and Belshazzar, same name, same guy, a variation of Belshazzar, the crown prince for which in cuneiform literature.

This confirms beyond question both the role of Belshazzar as co -regent and the dating of this vision before 539

BC, the date of his death. It also indicates the probability of the year 551

BC as the date of the vision, which was the sixth year of Nabonidus as well as the third year of Belshazzar as Daniel says.

So with that as an introduction, let's look at verse one. In the third year of the reign of Belshazzar, the king, a vision appeared to me,

Daniel, subsequent to the one which had appeared to me previously. So this vision is somewhat different than the vision in chapter seven.

It appears that it was happening to him while he was awake. It also occurs as he states, subsequent to the one which appeared to me previously, which is the vision of chapter seven.

It's actually several years later. Both visions occur before the events of Daniel chapter five.

As mentioned before, before discoveries confirmed that Belshazzar did indeed exist, liberal critics assume these events occurred just before Belshazzar's blasphemous feast.

On the basis of the Babylonian chronicle, it is now known that Nabonidus began his reign in 556

BC. And apparently he became co -regent as we've previously mentioned in 553 BC. Nabonidus took residence at Tima as brought out in chapter five.

Belshazzar previously had served other royal capacities beginning in 560 BC. Accordingly, if the vision of chapter seven occurred in 553

BC, the vision of eight occurred in 551 BC or 12 years before the feast and the fall of Babylon.

So this is the book of Daniel. Here we go. This is the capital city we're gonna see

Daniel talks about in the vision. Any comments or questions about verse one? Verse two.

I looked in the vision and while I was looking, I was in the citadel of Susa, which is in the province of Elam.

And I looked in the vision and I myself was beside the Uli Canal. So here's the capital and Susa and then the royal city.

And then there's the Uli Canal. That canal was about 900 feet wide. And it joined two of the rivers there, which

I did a whole bunch of research on the rivers and who'd have thunk in a couple thousand years that they've changed the names of them.

I couldn't track them through. I finally tracked them through history, but it was very interesting to discover that today they have different names.

We'll look at those just for fun. So this is the city of Susa. And there is some debate as to whether Daniel was in Susa physically or just in the vision.

Some believe he was in Babylon physically, but was transported to Susa in his vision. And actually either works, but so it's technology getting the advantage of me again.

Either works, but we'll have our own opinion here in a bit. Ancient Susa is about 150 miles north of the

Persian Gulf and about 225 miles east of Babylon. Approximately 10 years after this vision,

Cyrus had control of the city. He did not have control of the city right now. This isn't what the city, this is prior to that.

The site of Susa is in modern Iran, whereas the Babylon, whereas the site of modern Babylon, or Babylon is in modern

Iraq. Let me say that again. The site of modern Iran, whereas Babylon is in modern

Iraq. Elam was the name of the province where Susa stood when Daniel wrote this book, not necessarily when he had this vision.

When Medo -Persia overthrew Neo -Babylonia, Susa became the capital of the Persian empire. 80 years after Daniel had this vision,

Susa became Esther's home. 107 years after, it was the city from which

Nehemiah departed to return to Palestine, as told to us in Esther 1 .2 and in Nehemiah 1 .1.

The citadel was the palace, the royal residence, and it had strong, so this is what it looked like.

This kind of locates thing. Can you see that? I guess it's not as, maybe if I, this has a magnifying glass, doesn't it?

That doesn't really help. Well, at any rate, that's the location right there. It seems to be the consensus among commentators that Daniel was actually in Babylon and was only in Susa in the vision.

This very thing happened to Ezekiel. Let's look at Ezekiel 8, verse one through three.

It came about in the sixth year on the fifth day of the sixth month, as I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judas sitting before me, that the hand of the

Lord God fell on me there. Then I looked, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of a man from his loins down and downward.

There was the appearance of fire, and from his loins and upward, the appearance of brightness, like the appearance of glowing metal.

He stretched out the form of a hand and caught me by a lock of my head, and the spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the idol of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located.

So Ezekiel had this very thing happen to him. He had a vision, and God took him in that vision to a different geographical location for the duration of the prophecy.

Approximately 100 years later, Nehemiah refers to the capital, to Susa, as the capital.

But this was not known in Daniel's time. So there's the first part of the interesting aspect of this prophecy, that Daniel knew it was a citadel, that it was not known in that time.

The fact that Daniel noticed a citadel gives credence to the fact that this is a prophecy. Had Daniel lived in the second century

BC, he would not have had to give this kind of detail to the location of the city. Elam may not have even been a province of Babylon in 551

BC. Daniel never did say that Elam was a province of Babylon. It most likely belonged to Media prior to the downfall of Babylon.

The site of Susa is in modern Iran, whereas the site of Babylon is in Iraq. Elam was the name of the province where Susa stood when

Daniel wrote this book, not necessarily when he had this vision. This is from one of the commentaries I use.

When Medo -Persia overthrew Neo -Babylon, Susa became the capital of the Persian Empire. 80 years after, as I mentioned earlier, it became

Esther's home. The Ulai Canal was close to the city of Susa, and it was a 900 -foot -wide connection between the rivers

Choaspis and Kopratis. There's the palace in Susa as it's been restored today.

So this vision was significant that Daniel had heard things that he could never have known about without divine intervention.

Again, from Walbert's commentary, he said, in a word, Daniel found himself projected in a vision to a canal beside a town little known at the time and unsuspected for future grandeur, yet destined to be the important capital of Persia, the home of Esther, and the city from which

Nehemiah came to Jerusalem. Beginning in 1884, the site of Susa, then a large mound, has been explored and divulged many archeological treasures.

The Code of Hammurabi was found there in 1901. The famous palace begun there by Darius, Darius I, and enlarged by later kings, that's that one we looked at earlier, and enlarged by later kings was found there.

Remains of its magnificence can still be seen near the modern village of Shush, which is remarkably similar to the word

Susa. This unusual setting, as described in detail by Daniel, became a stage on which a great drama was portrayed in symbol, describing the conquest of the

Second and Third Empires. So that's the introduction that Daniel parlays for us to what's going on there.

So there's the province of Elam and Susa, and the rivers aren't shown on that map.

So then Daniel says, in verse three, I lifted my eyes and behold, a ram which had two horns was standing in front of the canal.

Now the two horns were long, but one was longer than the other, with the longer one coming up last.

So the ram corresponds to the Medo -Persian ascendancy. It had two horns, one representing media, and the other which grew longer after some time and represented the

Persian nation, which came to control in that particular union of two nations.

So this corresponds to the arms and breast of silver in chapter two and the bear in chapter seven, which had one side higher than the other.

Further, the two horns clearly show that the critics were wrong and that Daniel did not teach two succeeding empires with his reference to Darius the

Mede, but rather one empire with one portion being more powerful than the other after some time.

History clearly shows that it was the alliance of the Medes and Persian that proved irresistible for 200 years of conquest after the fall of Babylon.

For 200 years, they conquered and laid waste to that area and then rebuilt in many cases.

Any comments on verse three? Verse four, I saw the ram budding westward, northward, and southward, and no other beast could stand before him, nor was there anyone to rescue from his power, but he did as he pleased and magnified himself.

The budding of the ram was symbolic of the conquest it was making.

West, Syria, Lydia, Ionia, Thrace, and Macedonia. North, that's the rivers, but at any rate, you can see some of these areas there.

North, toward the Caspian Mountains, the Oxus Valley, and Scythia.

South, Babylonia, Palestine, Egypt, and Ethiopia. And having come from the east, it overwhelmed kingdom after kingdom, largest empire up to that point in world history.

Nothing could stop the onslaught of the Medo -Persian army. The kingdom grew and grew, and it glorified in it, it gloried in it.

I suppose what worldly kingdom wouldn't do that? Cyrus and Cambyses were the main architects of these conquests.

So the ram was especially important for the Persians. The guardian spirit of the Persian empire was portrayed as a ram in those days.

When the Persian king went into battle, he carried the head of a ram. So also in the ancient world, different zodiac signs represented various nations.

Ares, the ram, stood for Persia, and Capricorn, the goat, was

Greece, stood for Greece. And this was well understood by the nations. Verse five, while I was observing, behold, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground, and the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes.

Corresponding to the brass belly and thighs in chapter two and the four -winged leopard in chapter seven, Greece, coming from the west of Medo -Persia, began its conquest as Daniel sees in his vision.

Coming after his father, Philip of Macedonia, of Macedon, Alexander the

Great crafted very possibly one of the greatest military campaigns of all time. He was 22 years old when he began subduing nations in rapid order.

And the speed and the intelligence he displayed and the craftiness and the military design was previously unheard of in the ancient world.

He came, so verse six says, he came up to the ram that had two horns which I had seen standing in front of the canal and rushed at him in his mighty wrath.

That was supposed to be there. Things got moved. The rivers got their names changed too.

So that's kind of a depiction of what happened there. Okay, backing up.

He moved so fast, conquering 11 ,000 miles of territory from Greece to India in eight years, that he is portrayed as a male goat coming from the west over the surface of the earth without even touching the ground.

You see how accurate these prophecies are? The horn which is noted as being conspicuous is a representation of Alexander.

So now it's over 3 ,000 air miles from, one of these maps has that.

There it is. It's over 3 ,000 air miles from Macedon to the border of India.

And when you take into consideration the fact that he had to scurry all over the area he conquered, it was an amazing feat to do this.

At the height of his reign, his empire swelled to one and a half million square miles, an area about 42 % the size of the

United States. It was during this melee of conquering that Alexander became convinced that he was a god and started requiring his soldiers to bow down to him, which resulted in numerous revolts, because there were probably not a few people who knew he wasn't a god.

The final part of the verse here, and rushed at him in his mighty wrath, references the fact that Alexander's Greece, after having been mightily mistreated by the

Medo -Persians, enacted their revenge with great wrath. The Medo -Persians had sent several campaigns against Greece and they were vicious in those campaigns.

And so some of this reconquering, or this conquering, was in revenge, was in retaliation for how the

Grecians had been treated. Verse seven, I saw him come beside the ram and he was enraged at him, and he struck the ram and shattered his two horns, and the ram had no strength to withstand him.

So he hurled him to the ground and trampled on him, and there was none to rescue the ram from his power.

So just traveling that distance on horseback would take somewhere between 130 and 150 days if you didn't wanna kill your horse.

And now take into account the ancient warfare and the fact that it wasn't just straight across, it was all through the towns, conquering, setting up camp, besieging cities, subduing them, setting up a garrison to control them, moving on to the next one, just battle after battle after battle, because he was bent on conquering everything that he could ride to.

Needless to say, this was unparalleled in history. Alexander inherited a highly disciplined army that his father

Philip had trained. Philip had also introduced a new method of fighting called the Macedonian phalanx, which was run in an army surplus store.

I'm sorry, you're just stuck with it. This stuff interested me. This method of fighting survived centuries, and even after the

Roman armies conquered Greece, it was still a utilized tactic.

It was almost impossible to defeat when it was on the offense. Normally, speaking of getting back into Daniel, that was my little side trip.

Normally, goats have two horns, but this one had, as Daniel said, one conspicuous horn between the eyes, and it has been surmised that this referenced the idea that the horn was of unique intelligence, and so Alexander was.

He was opposed by much larger armies and greater financial resources, but his ability to develop successful military tactics and tactics against specific areas allowed him to subdue the

Medo -Persian kingdom in about three years. Walvard recounts the historical facts. Daniel then watched the goat attack the ram, the

Medo -Persian empire, that he had seen by the Uly Canal. An unusual feature of the goat's attack was its fury, borne out by history.

The Persians had attacked Greece earlier. Now it was time for Greek retaliation. The Medo -Persian empire disintegrated to the point that it had no power to stand before the goat.

Alexander who crushed it into the ground. All of this was fulfilled dramatically in history. The forces of Alexander first defeated the

Persians at the Granicus River in Asia Minor in May 334 BC, which was the beginning of the

Persian empire. A year and a half later, the Battle of Issus occurred in November 333

BC, near the northeastern tip of the Mediterranean Sea. Persia's power was finally broke or finally broken at Gaugamela near Nineveh on October 331

BC. So Alexander had embarked on a journey of conquest, and this is what

Daniel saw in his vision. The series of prophecies is so remarkably accurate in conspicuous detail that it has consistently prompted liberals through liberal critics throughout history to denigrate it as history rather than prophecy.

Now don't worry, we're going to get into the meanings of the prophetic stuff, but it happens later on,

Daniel asked the question. We'll talk a little bit about it here. So verse eight, then the male goat magnified himself exceedingly, but as soon as he was mighty, the large horn was broken.

And in its place there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven. So no sooner had

Alexander achieved his vast empire than he died suddenly at the age of 32 on June 13th, 323

BC. There are numerous theories about his death. Suggestions include malaria, typhoid, alcohol poisoning, or assassination by one of his rivals.

History records that he suffered agonizing abdominal pain and a raging fever. It was also reported that he developed a progressive symmetrical ascending paralysis.

His body began to become paralyzed from bottom to top and rendered him completely immobile.

All this aside, I mean this is gonna be some historical fact here, but when God decides somebody's done, they're done.

But when he wants to continue to use them, he will continue to use them. All this, add to this the fact, okay, so he developed this progressive symmetrical succeeding paralysis during the illness that killed him.

Add to this the fact that history records that his body did not decompose for about six days from his death.

That's one of the reasons where some of his followers began to think that he was a god. Well, his body eventually did decompose.

That's a pretty crummy god, but you know, a six -day god, I guess, until they prepared him for burial.

So here's some other historical evidence just that I believe adds to the story of Alexander. He, in 10 short years, did more than most military leaders ever have, ever will.

And God allowed that to happen, and then God needed him to stop, and so he stopped. Alexander the

Great first fell ill during a days -long series of parties, during one of which he collapsed, complaining of searing pain in his back.

One likely apocryphal account claims that this incident occurred directly after he attempted, when challenged, to drink an entire crater of wine in one sitting, which would be about six quarts, so a gallon and a half of wine.

I'd drown over that. It would be like a punch bowl, and it was typically filled up that way.

After 10 days of intense fever, his soldiers were brought in to see him one final time. He was immobile, as it mentioned by this paralysis.

He could no longer speak, but he struggled to raise his head and gave each man a greeting with his eyes. When Alexander was declared dead on June 13th, theories began forming.

Had he been poisoned, sabotaged? Had he been killed by drinking too much wine? Centuries later, modern historians gave their own opinions.

Perhaps he had contracted malaria. Perhaps it was pneumonia or typhoid fever. Maybe he really was murdered.

None of these theories, though, could ever explain what happened next, as reported by Plutarch. Alexander's body did not decompose.

It did not show typical signs of decay. His body, although it lay without special care in places that were moist and stifling, showed no sign of such destructive influence, but remained fresh and pure.

So during the six days that passed before the body was prepared for burial, no physical change occurred. Today, we have probably an explanation, and I found this interesting.

His freshness, the bodily freshness, surviving six days later, relies less on the supernatural, him being a god.

A doctor in 2018 proposed that he had developed what's called Julian Barr syndrome, which would answer, it was an autoimmune disease, which would answer for all the symptoms, including the progressive paralysis, and more than likely, he didn't die, but he went into a coma, and his breath was so shallow that when they embalmed him, he died.

I understand embalming is pretty hard on the body. So that's the current theory, just I thought you might find that interesting, as I did, but he was a man who thought he was a god, and the important thing to remember about men who think they are gods, when they finally come to their end, it will be made completely and clearly apparent that they were not a god.

This is going to happen with the Antichrist. He's going to declare himself a god, and for three and a half years, well, actually, for longer than that, but for really heavily in three and a half years, he's going to look like a god to whoever is alive at that time.

If they're listening to this, he's not a god. He's going to die, and the Lord Jesus Christ will remove him from power, summarily.

Any comments or questions before we end this up? However he died, the work that he was scheduled to do by the sovereign god of the universe was finished.

The large horn was broken, and was replaced by four horns that bore towards the four winds of heaven, and remarkably accurate prophecies that Daniel had here.

I'm going to have to back up so you can see. These are the four kingdoms that came out of, came out of Daniel, or out of Alexander.

There's another representation of them. Anyway, it was over 20 years before the kingdom was effectively and properly divided up.

Current scholarship agrees that his four generals succeeded to power. Seleucus possessed

Syria. He possessed Syria, Babylonia, Southern Asia Minor, and the

Iranian Plateau. Ptolemy took Egypt, Cyrene, Cyprus, Palestine, and many cities on the coast of Asia Minor, over on this side, over on the western side.

Back to Seleucus, he possessed Syria, Babylonia, Southern Asia Minor, and the

Iranian Plateau. That would be more in the middle. And then

Lysimachus took over, took control of Thrace, Bithynia, and Western Asia Minor, and finally,

Cassander ruled over Macedonia and Greece proper, up in the upper section up there.

There was also a fifth contender, a general named Antigonus, but he was swiftly defeated so that the four winds of heaven prophecy was completely accurate, even with the historical pressures that were going on at the time.

When God decides to organize, well, since God had decided to organize this part of history in this way, it had to fall out this way.

But it fell out through the historical happenings that occurred, and when we look back on it, it is such an incredibly accurate prophecy that I can understand unbelievers, and that's what liberal critics are, they're unbelievers, deciding that this was a history book and not a prophecy book.

It had to be, because it was too accurate. Strikingly accurate prediction from Daniel, that Alexander's kingdom would be divided into four sections.

Now, we'll see later, this is kind of a, I drew a little arrow up there,

I measured it. I couldn't find anything online, it's probably there, I just didn't know how to search for it. They gave me the actual length of Alexander's kingdom.

So I used a little math, and it worked out. So there's the division of his kingdoms, and then this was the phalanx, okay.

There, how did I not find that one? So here's the division up in a more, showing modern kingdoms.

So Seleucus owns what is now Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Ptolemy, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Cassander owns

Greece, and Lysimachus owns that northern section there. Those are the four kings, and as we get into the middle of Daniel chapter eight, he'll develop more of this in great detail, especially later on in 150, 160

BC, when Antiochus Epiphanes invades the temple and perpetrates the abomination of desolation at that time.

So any questions or comments before we close? Okay, let's close in prayer.

Lord, thank you for this time in Daniel. I pray that it was instructive, that we would see that men are but men, and that across the great sweep of history, they act, but only inside of your providence, only inside of your sovereignty.

We know that as today, and so we trust you for the things that are going on here. You have said that prophecy is a comfort to us, and indeed, it is a comfort when we look at the prophetic statements of Daniel and the other prophets and see that you brought them exactly to pass.

We know this to be that you will be sovereign and all that you say will happen, but seeing it happen in scripture is a comfort to us, and seeing it happen in history is a comfort to us and reminds us that your will will be done, and so we thank you for that.

We look forward to the rest of this morning in worship as we lift you up as the great sovereign God of the universe, and thank you for that in Jesus' name.

♪ I'll be raised with Christ ♪

Jesus lives ♪ No more to die ♪

Jesus lives ♪ And so shall I ♪