Daniel in Exile Part 13

Let's pray and we're going to get started.

Lord Jesus, again, as we open your word, we ask the power of your Holy Spirit to help us to rightly understand this

difficult portion of scripture so that we can take heed of what you have warned us ahead of time about

and that we may be keen on the devil's strategies to attack the church and

undermine the gospel.

And we pray, Lord, that we would not fear the Antichrist, but that we would fear you and so that we might share

eternity with you rather than eternity with him.

We ask in Jesus name.

Amen.

All right.

So today we get to talk about the Antichrist, which is a lovely topic, by the way.

You know, and if you hear like ominous music in the background, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, you know, you know, like a

horror movie, something kind of stuff, you know, just ignore it.

The Antichrist, when he shows up, the man of lawlessness, when he shows up, it's going to be just a

mess.

And Christ has given us all of this ahead of time.

I kind of look at it this way.

If the man of lawlessness were to show up like next Thursday, why Thursday?

Because it's always the least expected day.

If the man of lawlessness shows up next Thursday and all of a sudden it's illegal to be a Christian and publicly worship Christ

and stuff like this, do you think I'm going to stop?

I'm not going to stop.

And if the Antichrist gets really upset and decides to make an example of me, I'll basically say,

you know, it's really funny that you're saying all these things and you're forbidding all these things, because this is exactly what God said would happen.

Don't you think you should be concerned for yourself because your end isn't a good one.

I've seen the end of the book.

It's terrible what happens to you.

So, and as for me, I'm in Christ, I'm never going to die.

So go for it.

You know, Christians can die well and with that kind of defiance.

So as we were looking through the book of Daniel, we noted last week that, and

we looked at the commentary and we're going to continue to look at the commentary to help us understand that this

character that begins to be described in verse 36 of Daniel 11 is in

fact not Antiochus Epiphanes.

The subject has changed and the timeframe has changed two things completely.

And what we'll do along the way is we'll also take a look at this commentator's excursus on

the Antichrist and the Lutheran confessions.

Because when we talk about Antichrist, we have to recognize that Antichrist, his spirit, his

activity has been present in the church since Christ's ascension.

And there's still a future kind of pinnacle event where the man of lawlessness himself,

a singular man of lawlessness shows up.

The two are both true.

So when Lutherans say, along with other confessions, by the way, Presbyterians say the same thing,

that the office of the papacy is the office of Antichrist.

It's not saying that a specific Pope is the Antichrist, but the actual office

itself, which lords itself and puts its authority over the church and replaces Christ, because what

are the Popes claiming to be?

The vicars of Christ.

But that office itself is an Antichrist office and is in accord with the activity of the

Antichrist.

So as when we kind of look at this, you know, people, it always cracks me up when you get like these,

you know, premillennial eschatological people, you know, you think of, you know, how Lindsay's late great planet earth

and all the nonsense that went along with that, but always fascinates me when somebody is,

these people are constantly trying to play the game of pin the tail on the Antichrist.

Okay.

Is it the current guy who's the prime minister of Turkey?

I mean, he's a bad dude.

And so there's a lot of people thinking, well, maybe it's Putin.

Putin, maybe he's the Antichrist.

Okay.

You guys are like ignoring like an important bit of this.

The Antichrist is a religious figure.

Okay.

He's also a governmental figure, but he's a religious figure first and foremost.

And he exalts himself within the temple of God.

And we're gonna explain what that is too.

And exalts himself to be God within the temple of God.

So when we put all the pieces together, you know, eschatologically, we can see that the activity of the

Antichrist is present now and has been present for the entire two millennia that the church has

been around and will have its final culmination in the manifestation of and

revealing of who this man of lawlessness is, the one that Daniel's prophesying here.

Actually, Daniel wrote down the prophecy.

If you remember, it's Jesus, who's the one who gave him this.

So we get the idea.

So let's continue with the commentary because I'm finding this commentary to be helpful.

Okay.

So in verse 36, let me read out verses 36 to 39 from Daniel 11.

And the King, Ha -Melech, shall do as he wills.

He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every God.

And he shall speak astonishing things against the God of gods.

He shall prosper till the indignation is accomplished.

For what is decreed shall be done.

He shall pay no attention to the gods of his fathers or to the one beloved by women.

He shall not pay attention to any other God, for he shall magnify himself above

all.

He shall honor the God of fortresses instead of these, a God whom his fathers did not know.

He shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and costly gifts.

Okay.

He shall deal with the strongest fortresses with the help of a foreign God.

Those who acknowledge him, he shall load with honor.

He shall make them rulers over many and shall divide the land for a price.

Now, a nice thing about this is that having kind of a fresh start at this, addressing this

topic singularly, rather than on the heels of the greater teaching on

Hebrew, not Hebrews, but Daniel 11, we're able to have, you know, we're able to kind of look at this with fresh

eyes and with the fresh eyes, we can begin to see the shape of the deeds and

the sin of the man of lawlessness of the Antichrist himself.

So, here's what our commentator says.

So, the ominous note is sounded by the opening sentence.

The King, Ha -Melech, will do as he pleases.

The identical wording for this arrogance do and literally according to his pleasure was

also used for the characteristic arrogance of the kingdom of Persia represented by the

ram in Daniel 8 .4.

So, if you remember in Daniel 8 .4, we saw the ram.

I saw a ram charging westward and northward and southward.

No beast could stand before him and there was no one who could rescue from his power.

He did as he pleased and became great.

Okay.

So, regarding the Antichrist, in the same way that Alexander the Great was totally

unconquerable and did whatever he wanted to do, the man of lawlessness will be the

same.

Okay.

And I like how the commentator points out that this is an ominous note.

Okay.

Because if you are not prepared for this, you are going to

foolishly think that you can somehow thwart him.

Okay.

And that is ridiculous.

Okay.

You'll note that the smart, the biblically astute who know their Bibles, if this guy shows

up, there ain't nothing we're going to do to get rid of this fellow.

The best thing you can do is pretend that you're a cockroach and scurry and find a hole and hide in it.

Okay.

That's about the only way you can write out this period of time.

Okay.

So, note that he will do as he wishes.

That's spoken of Alexander the Great was also Antiochus III.

However, those statements came within the descriptions, but this very first statement

about the eschatological king, he is chiefly characterized by his willful

arrogance.

Unlike those other kings, his arrogance is characterized as primarily

religious in nature.

Okay.

So, I always tell this story, you know, so back when Barb and I first got married, we lived in Seattle

and that was an interesting place to live.

And I worked at a startup bank called Pacific Northwest Bank and their

offices were at 1111 Third Avenue in Seattle, which is right across the street from one of my

favorite skyscrapers in the whole world.

It was formerly called the Washington Mutual Building, but it's at 1201 Third Avenue and the architecture on that thing is just

brilliant.

Anyway, there was a fellow who was a Vietnam vet because it shows you there's not a lot of those guys left, but

there was a Vietnam vet who would every month get his disability check.

Okay.

And this is a guy and his disability check was a substantial amount of money

every month.

And the reason being is because he was a paraplegic.

He was actually wounded in battle and had no ability to use his legs.

But what ends up happening with a lot of GIs, you know, veterans who come back and they

have PTSD and they're wounded and stuff like this, this guy was practically a homeless person.

But once a month, he would come in to our bank in order to cash his check.

Okay.

And so he comes in and he always liked to strike up a conversation with me and talk

about this, some of the strangest things, but he led off our conversation one month.

He said, do you think that Nancy Reagan is the antichrist?

And I went, what?

Because it had just been revealed somewhere around that time on the news that Nancy

Reagan was into psychics and would consult people who are

into just weird kind of astrology and stuff like this.

And so he was an honest question.

Is Nancy Reagan the antichrist?

Well, I think we can pretty much say no to that right now.

Nancy isn't with us at the moment.

But I like what Stephen Elliott said, just say no.

I like that.

Man, you're showing your age, Stephen Elliott.

You're showing your age.

So just say no.

That's clever.

I like that.

I'm stealing it.

I tried to explain to him that I didn't think that Nancy was the antichrist, but I don't think I really got through to him, but that's a whole

other story.

So anyway, so you're going to note that the antichrist, this man

of lawlessness, this eschatological king, his arrogance is chiefly

and primarily focused on the religious aspects of it.

Now he does become a global political leader, but his primary

initiation, if you will, into the world scene is as a religious figure.

So this king will be a religious figure and his power will be exercised in ways that pervert and

profane what is godly instead of challenging the geopolitical order as other

kings' actions did.

Antiochus IV was a foreshadowing of this eschatological king because Antiochus IV was

the only one of the Hellenistic kings whose actions directly corrupted and prevented the

biblically -based worship of God in Israel.

So the reason why Antiochus Epiphanes stands out then is because that's the one that

went after the temple worship, that corrupted things, that offered a sacrifice

of a pig on the altar.

So you'll note that that's why he's he's focused here.

And so you get a note then, type and shadow is in a Jewish context.

The fulfillment is in a Christian context, not a Jewish, okay?

Because Christ has come, right?

All right, so he prevented biblically -based worship.

However, the other acts of Antiochus IV mentioned in chapters 8, 9 through 14 were primarily

geopolitical in nature.

So the main characteristic of this end -time king is that he elevates himself over

every other god to usurp the one true God.

He speaks wonderful things, ostensibly divine words against God,

making him the same as the little horn in the vision of Daniel chapter 7, okay?

And I won't explain how nifal participles work in Hebrew, but this nifal

participle occurs in Daniel only in 824.

And the nifal feminine plural participle occurs a total of 42 times in the Old Testament.

In the 39 of these instances, it is used as a noun for the wonderful, miraculous, salvific acts of

God.

In 824, it refers to God's salvific actions through his Old Testament means of grace, the temple and its liturgical rites.

But here it refers to the Antichrist's deceptive words, which are crafted in order to supplant God's word.

But note here, the Antichrist's words are designed to supplant

God's words, to get rid of God's words.

Now, if you were to think then is that these actions of the Antichrist, when he shows

up, are already at work in the church, you can see the spirit of

Antichrist at work in those churches where God's word is being supplanted with

false traditions and practices and doctrines and things like this.

That's all the actions of the spirit of Antichrist.

So, the Antichrist then is designed to supplant God's word through

which salvation comes to his people.

So, clearly this figure's words against the true God are designed to replace the wonderful

acts of God that redeem his people and which are God's alone.

Interestingly, Theodosian translates this word in 1136 with

hup -er -og -og -ka, arrogant things, a word used by Peter and Jude

in their description of false teachers that will arise among Christians.

So, Peter warns in 2 Peter, also false prophets arose among the people, just as among you there will also arise

false teachers who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them,

bringing upon themselves swift destruction for by speaking arrogant things.

Again, here's the Greek word hup -er -og -ka, of futility, arrogant things

of futility, they entice by desires of the flesh and by sensuality, those who barely escape

from the ones who live in error.

Jude uses a similar language to speak about such people.

For certain men, they sneak in secretly, who were written about long ago

for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into

licentiousness, and they deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.

These men are grumblers, they're malcontents, they follow their own lusts, their

mouths speak arrogant things.

Here again, hup -er -og -ka, flattering people for the sake of gaining an

advantage.

So, the prophecy given by Daniel by the divine man predicts the coming of an eschatological figure, whose

words will be the epitome of such arrogant, false teaching

that is disguised as divine words.

And we have words like that already in the church by false teachers.

So, Daniel is also told that this king will prosper, pay attention to this,

he will prosper until God's anger against him is completed.

In other words, he's going to succeed.

This is why whenever I get to a section like this in scripture, I remind Christians of,

remember what it was like when you were young and you played flag football, or you played football with the kids in the neighborhood,

right?

And what would you do?

Your team would get into your huddle and your team captain or your quarterback would say, okay, all right,

Roseborough, I want you to run a post, I want you to run out here, and then at 15 yards in, I want you to cut in and I'm going

to throw the ball to you.

And everybody else, you know, do these things, right?

So, Christ in the huddle here is letting us know something, okay?

The job of true Christians during this time is to

lose, okay?

Do you understand our job, okay?

Because this guy, nothing's going to stop him.

Absolutely nothing except for Jesus himself, okay?

So, he's going to succeed.

He's going to prosper until God's anger against him is completed.

Since God has determined that his actions should run their course, God wants his actions to run their course.

St. Paul calls this eschatological figure, the man of lawlessness, and

describes him in terms parallel to 11, 36, and 37, and

notes that it will be Christ who will end his power.

The apostle explains the prophecy given to Daniel.

So, this is from 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, and this is wonderful.

I like the way he's put this in here.

So, Paul says, let no one deceive you in any way for that day, the day of the Lord, will not arrive

until the apostasy comes first and then the man of lawlessness is revealed,

the son of destruction.

He opposes and exalts himself above everything called God.

Note, what 2 Thessalonians is doing here is paralleling and expanding on

what Daniel has written here in 11, 36 through 39, okay?

So, he opposes and exalts himself above everything called God or that is worshiped so that he takes

his seat in God's temple, displaying himself as if he is God,

and then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the spirit

or breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the epiphany of his perusia.

That's actually how the Greek reads in that.

His, the man of lawlessness coming then is by Satan's working with every kind of miracle and

sign and false wonders, and with all deception of weakness for those who are

perishing.

So, note, Satan's activity within the church to twist up the scriptures and teach false doctrine then,

that is all the activity of Satan doing the foundation work preparing the way for the man

of lawlessness.

Now, this then requires us to do a slight excursus here because this is where a

lot of people get tripped up, okay?

And we'll, I'm going to pull up Accordance here and I'm going to do a search in the New

Testament temple, and I'm going to look in the epistles in

particular, okay?

All right, let me shorten everything up and I'm going to look outside of the Book of Acts because we need to see

how New Testament theology works out concepts regarding the temple.

So, in 1 Corinthians 3, Paul says this, do you not know that you,

you are God's temple?

All right, now, this is going to be an interesting thing here.

Who do not know, second person plural,

perfect active indicative, do y 'all not know that y 'all

are God's temple, okay?

My Greek students, pay attention to the second person plural here, okay?

When Paul writes, he's not saying that you as an individual are God's temple.

He's saying that we, all of us Christians together, we are God's temple and that

God's spirit dwells in, where?

In whom?

In y 'all, okay?

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him for God's temple is holy

and y 'all are that temple, okay?

So, note here in Paul's theology, and note this is Holy Spirit inspired

Theanoustas theology, okay?

That the temple isn't referring to the temple in Jerusalem.

The temple is the church.

The temple is the church.

And then you can even then make the argument that individually as Christians, we have the Holy Spirit

dwelling in us and each of us as Christians, our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

But now let that permeate what is going on here.

In second Thessalonians chapter two, it is very clear that the

man of lawlessness, he will take his seat in God's temple.

Now, let me ask you this.

Are you ready?

The Old Testament temple is a type and shadow of Christ.

The fulfillment is Christ.

If the Jews in Israel build a temple today, will that temple be God's temple?

No, it will not.

Therefore, it can't, this text does not refer to a

rebuilt third temple in Jerusalem.

It's referring to the visible church.

So, you'll note, where does the Antichrist arise from?

Visible Christianity.

Visible Christianity.

And you'll note that this is absolutely in accord with what we see.

Then the lawless one will be revealed.

His, the man of lawlessness is coming, is by Satan's working with every kind of miracle

and signs and false wonders.

Where are these false miracles, false signs and wonders taking place today?

In the visible church.

You just have to sort this out.

You think of Todd White, you think of Benny Hinn, Ken

Copeland.

These guys are the forerunners of the Antichrist and their activity and their false

signs, false wonders and false prophecies are taking place where?

Not in the Jewish temple, they're taking place in the visible body of Christ.

The Antichrist is legitimately, first and foremost, a pseudo

-Christian.

And all of this deception that I've been covering on fighting for the faith for the past two decades

is preparing the ground for the arrival of the man of lawlessness.

And the first place he comes up from is the church.

That's the temple it's referring to.

All right.

Okay.

Now, let me see here.

Yes.

So, John Palletto, this is Andrew Steinman's Concordia Commentary put out by CPH.

That is correct.

Okay.

If our job is to lose, then how should I pray?

God help.

I'm going to run for my life and pray that God makes it so that I don't get caught.

And then if I get caught, I'm going to pray that I die well.

Yeah.

What?

Isn't it true that there will be real Christians on earth when Christ returns?

So not everybody will die.

Right.

So here's the thing.

Many Christians are going to be martyred during that time when that guy shows up, but not all Christians will be martyred.

So note this, there will be some who will be alive when Christ returns, but not many.

So, you know, I might get so old, it might take this guy too long to

show up.

If I'm too old, I'm just not going to try.

Go ahead and kill me.

You'll do me a favor.

But you get the idea.

Yes.

What is the fleeing to the mountains?

That's a different thing altogether.

That's a different thing altogether.

All right.

So Lily says, I wonder if the false prophets, I'd like you, I like the way you spelled that, uh, Lily, P

-R -O -F -I -T -S, prophets and false prophets of today are just conditioning us to believe false

words for God so that when the real thing comes on the scene, people will be so used to the

confusion that they will just believe it without questioning.

Hashtag my truth, your truth, any God, anything goes.

Yep.

That's right.

Lily, you're absolutely right.

I think a good way to think about it is this, is that when the man of lawlessness shows up,

Sid Roth's, it's supernatural.

We'll claim it's Jesus.

Um, the, uh, the TBN will go wall to wall with

coverage focusing in on this guy.

Uh, Michael Brown will be explained to us how he really is Jesus.

I mean, that's what we're talking about here.

Okay.

That's the, and here's the thing.

I will be labeled an uber hypercritic, not worthy of living for daring to speak

out against this fellow.

Okay.

That's how this is going to go down if I'm alive.

Cause I, again, I don't know when this is all going to take place, but all I can say is this, you guys better be

paying attention because in church history, the apostasy that we're seeing right now in the, in the church

today, it's, it's unprecedented.

Okay.

The very words of Christ warning us that in the days before his return, immediate return, there will be many false Christ and

false prophets.

Have you noticed that's today?

Okay.

That that's that we're, we're looking at it right now.

So we're getting closer.

But again, I don't have, I don't have the due date, so I couldn't tell you when it's going to happen.

So I would be surprised if it's not in the next hundred years, but I mean, that's my best guess, you know, you know, a hundred

years, thankfully I won't be here for that many.

So, all right.

So yeah, you, you got the idea then.

And Lily says, I think he'll be likable guy by the world standards.

Yeah.

Even the world's going to worship him as God.

Okay.

The world's going to love this guy, love him, love him.

It's going to be the best.

Yeah.

Naya says some years ago, a neo -Pentecostal pastor in Brazil built a new temple of Solomon's in Brazil.

Why?

Why?

What a waste of money.

Okay.

Okay.

So PCR will truly become an underground radio, much like resistance during World War II.

I know, I know that's what we're about, but distribution

will be challenging because I'm sure that whoever this man of lawlessness is, he's going to control the internet.

And you think about it, being able to control the internet is like within people's grasp now, thanks to AI.

Okay.

They don't need humans to watch out for stuff.

They can crawl stuff with AI now and find everything that's being said and going on.

So it should be lovely.

It's going to be fascinatingly fun.

And if you've read the book of Revelation, the primary way in which Christians will die is beheading.

So that's a fast way to go.

So yeah, that's a way to go.

Smiley Joe Osteen will have nothing on this guy.

Right.

You're right.

Okay.

And Smiley Joe Osteen will think it's Jesus too.

So, oh, it's going to be a mess.

Yeah.

It's just, it's just remember again, I'll make the reference.

Cause I think it's the best reference.

Ghostbusters.

Okay.

Where they're trying to explain to him how big the Twinkie is.

Okay.

And they're saying it's going to be cats and dogs living together, you know, stuff like it's just going to be total chaos.

That's what we're talking about.

It's a big Twinkie coming.

Okay.

So now note then this king will not favor the God of his fathers.

The phrase God of his or our, or your fathers occurs 45 times in the old

Testament and is always description, a description of Yahweh.

Therefore, this king will come from among the people of God.

Similar is the implication of the statement.

He will honor a God whom his fathers did not know.

Since the people who know their God is in 1132 refers to believers in the one true God of Israel.

Some commentators see this as an indication that the antichrist will be Jewish.

However, this phrase is not an ethnic identification.

It is a religious one.

It indicates that the eschatological king will come from those whose ancestral tradition is to worship the one true

God.

Thus in Paul's term, he takes his seat in God's temple arising from

among faithful believers.

Okay.

Cross -reference first John two, they went out from us, but they were not of us.

They had, if they had been obvious, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain that they are not all of us.

Okay.

And that's in the context of the greater discussion on the antichrist in first John.

So this king will not favor normal human marital relations, nor any God, because he will make himself greater than

all.

Now here's the thing.

The apostle Paul clearly prophesized something regarding the antichrist.

And let me find it real quick here.

One Timothy.

Um, all right, now watch this.

First Timothy four, the spirit, the Holy spirit expressly says that in the

later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits

and the teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars, whose consciences are

who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created.

This is a standout right here.

Who forbid marriage?

Why have you noticed that the world legitimately has lost its mind regarding

marriage?

Okay.

In fact, let me, let me show you something.

I gotta, I gotta grab this real quick.

And, um, I'm going to open up my notes.

I need my notes database.

Check this out.

This is one of the most frightening things I have seen in a long time.

All right.

Hang on a second here.

Um, and let me reshare my screen.

Okay.

From the current affairs magazine, a magazine of politics and culture from the United States.

The, the, the headline is why we should abolish the family.

All right.

Listen, listen to this.

The family is a conservative project that limits human flourishing.

The family must be abolished by Lily Sanchez.

Okay.

Let that sink in.

Okay.

Okay.

Let, let, let the sink in.

We got to get rid of the family.

And if you get rid of the family, where, where do you start?

Well, you start with forbidding marriage.

And why, why would people want to forbid marriage?

This is a very specific reason why Ephesians chapter five, I think does a really good job of

explaining it.

Okay.

Um, hang on.

I got to get to that part.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church

and gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with

the word.

And then he says this, okay.

Um, for one does not want, no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it

just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is profound and I'm saying it refers to Christ and the church.

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself.

So the idea here is, is that marriage itself reflects the

love that God has, that Christ has for his bride, the church.

And even the marriage union itself is a type and shadow of the union Christ

has with his church, with his beloved.

And so marriage at its core is a reflection of the

love of Christ.

Why does Satan hate it?

Okay.

Satan hates marriage because it looks and smells just like Jesus's love.

Okay.

And this is why he goes after it.

So the institution itself is prophesied will be

forbidden.

Okay.

Now I want you, I want you to think about this.

Okay.

The day is coming and there's no way to stop it when all of us who are presently married

will be forbidden from being married.

We will be declared by the state to be not married, which would turn every

single human relationship where there's a union into an adulterous, sinful, sexual relationship.

Right?

Okay.

You just think about it.

This is the kind of stuff that is designed to provoke God to wrath and anger,

to draw him out and to bring him back, to put an end to all of this.

And Satan knows full well.

Okay.

So all of the gender bender, weird stuff that's going on right now, this is all precursor and laying

foundation for the eventual outlawing of marriage itself.

And here's the thing.

Had I said this 10 years ago, people would have thought I was extreme, but I'm

saying this today and everyone's sitting there going, yeah, I can see it because we're not that many steps away

from it.

Right?

Okay.

We're just, we're this close.

It's, we're getting closer by the minute.

All right.

Now let me come back then to our commentary.

Okay.

So note then talking about the man of lawlessness, the Antichrist that's

revealed, at least what's revealed about him in Daniel 11, his arrogance renders him

incapable of loving, of the loving devotion that is required by both marriage and true piety.

He personally is not married and does not rightly honor the one true God.

And as a king, he imposes this disdain for marriage and his dishonorable view of God upon his

subjects.

Wow.

Okay.

So some interpreters claim desire of women.

It refers to Jewish women's desire to bear and give birth to the Messiah to support this theory.

They note that in the other occurrence of the noun in construct, the following

genitive is always subjective.

This is kind of a, I'm going to kind of miss this excursus because I think that's kind of a, you know,

it's, it's, it's not really the point here.

So what is this God of fortresses?

A God, a God his fathers did not know.

It is temporal power as signified by fortresses.

This will be the thing that he values above all else, making it power, his

God, he will honor temporal power because it will provide him with the things that

fortresses provide a way to protect his power, a means of defense, a

place of security.

Ironically, fortresses is used most often in the old Testament as a metaphor for God himself as the

strength, protection, and salvation of his people.

When the King rejects the God of his fathers, he will seek to use temporal power

to replace what only God can supply.

Therefore, this eschatological King will deal with other temporal threats, fortified fortresses, with the

help of a foreign God, which is the God of fortresses, the God whom his fathers did not know.

That is, instead of relying on God and his word as a fortress to protect him, the

means of grace through which Christians find security and victory, he will rely upon temporal power to deal

with the powers of this world.

Therefore, he will honor those who acknowledge him and his power.

And for that price, he will give them power in this world over people in territory.

Thus, the eschatological King will be like Antiochus IV who foreshadowed

him.

Both use temporal power and both attack God, his people, and divine worship

through which God grants salvation and eternal security to his people.

However, Antiochus was primarily a geopolitical figure who used his

status to attack the religious institutions and practices of the Jews.

The eschatological King primarily will be a religious figure who will use his religious

position to wield temporal power.

This is exactly how Paul describes the Antichrist, the man of lawlessness, in 2 Thessalonians

2.

It also fits the description of the Antichrist as the beast in Revelation chapter 13.

So, with this understanding of the eschatological King, it's now possible to see the type of parallel that

the revelation that Daniel draws between Antiochus and the Antichrist.

They are mirror images of each other.

The first being a geopolitical figure who stirs up problems of a religious nature.

The second being a religious figure who stirs up problems of a geopolitical nature.

So, they mirror each other.

And so, he kind of gives us how this works.

So, Antiochus IV, the geopolitical figure occupied in warfare.

The eschatological King, a religious figure preoccupied with temporal power.

Antiochus uses his political power to attack God's people and prohibit and pervert God's

ordained worship, institutions, and affairs and practices.

The eschatological King, because of his abuse of religious authority, which he yields in geopolitical affairs, he

is attacked and becomes involved in warfare.

Again, just mirror images of themselves, but the themes are identical.

Okay.

So, continuing on.

The King's final days, the end of the eschatological King.

The time of the end is an expression that occurs four times in Daniel's vision.

Just as it was used in 817 to signify the time when the period prophesied in that vision would end,

so it is also used here to indicate the end of the period covered by the divine man's words.

In the case of this vision, it is the end of the world at the return of Christ, since the

timeframe of this vision ends with the resurrection.

So, note here, Daniel 12, verses 1 through 3, the world has

ended and then there's the resurrection.

So, you can say the time of the end clearly is pointing to the return of Christ and the general resurrection of the

dead.

Therefore, 11 verses 40 to 45 speaks of the end of the eschatological King

immediately before the parousia, the return, the visible return of Christ, to be followed by the

bodily resurrection.

Thus, Daniel 11, 40 to 45, is parallel to Revelation 20, 7 to 10, and

Daniel 12, 1 to 3, is parallel to Revelation 20, 11

through 15.

So, let's do a little bit of work on this, shall we?

All right.

So, let's read now Daniel 11, 40 to 45, and then we'll take

a look at the parallel passages and see how they parallel identically.

So, at the time of the end, the King of the South shall attack him, but the King of the North shall rush

upon him like a whirlwind with chariots and horsemen with many ships, and he shall come into countries and

shall overflow and pass through.

He shall come into the glorious land, and tens of thousands shall fall, but these shall

be delivered out of his hand, Edom and Moab, and the main part of the Ammonites.

He shall stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape.

He shall become ruler of the treasures of gold and of silver and the precious things of Egypt, and the Libyans and the Kushites

shall follow him in his train, but news from the East and the North shall alarm him, and he shall go

out with great fury to destroy and devote many to destruction, and he shall pitch his palatial tents between

the sea and the glorious holy mountain, yet he shall come to his end with

none to help him.

At that time, now we'll go into 12 also, at that time shall arise Michael, the great

prince who has charge of your people, and there shall be a time of trouble such as never has been since there was a

nation till that time, but at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found

written in the book, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to

everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt, and those who

are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, and those who turn many to

righteousness like the stars forever and ever.".

Okay?

So there's, there's, there's, that's the beginning portion of this.

So you can kind of see that this, this, and this man of lawlessness guy, he comes to a pretty swift

end, and none is able to help him.

So let's then take a look at the parallels, which requires me to come back to

this.

Hold on a second here.

I'm going to scroll down here.

All right.

Let's see here.

I, what am I looking at?

I want to see the, where was I?

I went too far.

Hang on.

Here we go.

So we just did that.

So let's take a look at our cross references then.

So we just read out 1140 to 45.

Okay.

And then we're going to note this, the parallel to this is Revelation 20 verses seven to 10.

So let's take a look at that.

So we can kind of see how it plays out.

Revelation 20 verses seven to 10.

Okay.

And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison.

We'll come out to deceive the nations that are the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog to gather them for battle.

Their numbers like the sand of the sea, they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the

saints and the beloved city.

But the fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were,

and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

I think that's, that's a pretty clear parallel to what we just read.

Okay.

And then the other parallel is, so we read Daniel

12, one to three, the parallel then is Revelation 20 verses 11 to

15.

And then I saw a great white throne and him who is seated on it from his presence,

earth and sky fled away.

No place was found for them.

I saw the dead great and small standing before the throne and books were opened.

Then another book was opened, which is the book of life.

And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.

And the sea gave up the dead who were in it.

Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them.

And they were judged each one of them, according to what they had done.

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

This is the second death, the lake of fire.

And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

So you can see here, then you can understand Revelation apart from Daniel.

The two have to be read together to kind of put, put the puzzle pieces together in a

way that makes sense so that you're not kind of led astray by fanciful misinterpretations, right?

Okay, so let's come back here.

And I think this is the point where I think we should probably just take a brief look

at the excursus.

We're not going to read this in its entirety.

There's a very specific part of the excursus on the Antichrist that I think is super

helpful for us.

And that specifically relates then to how, what is the

activity of the Antichrist itself?

And here, Dr. Steinman points something out, the marks of the Antichrist.

This is on the treatise in the power primacy of the Pope in the Lutheran confessions.

And I want you to listen to how this, how this, this, this works.

So John makes it clear that the Antichrist, there are many little Antichrist already here, and

they're all kind of heading towards the big one.

So Antichrist in a generic sense, okay?

This includes the ones doing the prep work in preparation for the big guy himself.

The Antichrist promotes false doctrine that conflicts with the gospel of Christ,

especially the central article of the true faith, justification for Christ's

sake by grace alone and through faith alone.

And the Antichrist claims the right to change doctrine established by Christ.

Okay?

That's one of the hallmarks of Antichrist.

And here's the thing.

Everybody out there who's twisting the scriptures right now, they're doing the work of the

Antichrist because they're changing established church doctrine that's found in the scriptures.

Okay?

The Antichrist institutes forms of worship that conflict with the gospel.

Okay?

Let me give you example since we're in Lent.

What medieval Rome did with Lent totally conflicts with the gospel because what do

they say?

If you don't eat fish on Friday, that's a mortal sin and you go to hell if you die.

Right?

Okay?

They took a pious practice that actually has some legitimately interesting theological implications, and they

turned it into a mandatory tradition and threatened you with the fires of hell if you don't

do it.

Okay?

So what gets lost there, that's a form of worship that conflicts and contradicts the gospel

itself.

Okay?

I would note then that, so you have that fellow running around, I forget his name right now, but running around claiming

that he has, God gave him the revelation of the courts of heaven and that we have to file lawsuits in the courts of heaven.

Okay?

Well, why would I need to file lawsuits in the courts of heaven because Christ has bled and died for all of my sins?

The devil has nothing to accuse me with.

Right?

So that the doctrine of the courts of heaven, that new doctrine in the charismatic NAR churches, conflicts

with the gospel.

Right?

Okay?

Antichrist rules in the church.

He assumes the supreme right to forgive or retain sins in this life and even claims jurisdiction

over the fate of souls after this life.

He is primarily a ruler in the church, although he claims to exercise temporal power as well.

And then the antichrist makes himself out to be God by usurping the authority and prerogatives of God

himself.

He is unwilling to be judged by the church or anyone else and fiercely persecutes any who

dissent.

Okay?

How many of you have come out of churches where when you challenge them with the scriptures regarding their false doctrine,

they refuse, they fiercely refuse to listen to you and even persecuted

you for daring to question God's anointed and then they kick you out.

Right?

I recently had a conversation with a few people who came out of a very

well -known megachurch in Texas.

If I told you the name, you'd recognize who the pastor is.

And since they didn't give me permission to share it, I can't give you the details, but this fellow

was on staff and the very, very, very famous megachurch pastor that a lot

of you would know who he is.

He derogatorily referred to that fellow as the Bible guy.

He wasn't saying that to compliment him.

He was the Bible guy and eventually they kicked him out.

They legitimately kicked that guy out for being the Bible guy.

Okay?

Who's ruling in that church?

The antichrist, right?

Okay.

You get the idea here.

And of course the Roman Catholic church and the council of Trent, they anathematized.

If you believe in salvation by grace through faith alone, apart from works, the council of

Trent says you are anathema.

Okay?

Anathema means you're damned.

So note that the Roman Catholic church has as official dogma, if you actually believe what the

Bible says, that you're saved by grace through faith as a gift, that you are damned.

Okay?

If that isn't a doctrine of antichrist, I don't know what is.

I cling to that gospel so much.

I mean, the

blasphemy here is just beyond belief.

Now there was a part in here where he's quoting Philip Melanchthon.

Let me read just a little bit.

Antichrist is depicted in Daniel as the little horn in chapter seven and as the evil eschatological king of the North

in 1136 to 45.

The antichrist is foreshadowed by Antiochus the fourth Epiphanes,

the Seleucid king who fiercely persecuted the Jewish people in the second century BC.

Antiochus the fourth is depicted as the little horn in Daniel eight as the king of the North in 1121 to

35.

He has some similarities to the antichrist, but there's also significant differences.

And so he should not be equated or confused with the antichrist.

In Daniel seven, the prophet sees the antichrist as the little horn on the fourth beast.

This horn speaks great things against the most high, wages war against the saints,

wears them out, seeks to change the times and the law.

That is God's word and the means of grace and the divine worship.

At the coming of the son of man, the second advent of Christ, this beast with its horn suffers a fiery

judgment and is destroyed forever.

This visionary depiction of the little horn is in harmony with the new Testament passages about the antichrist.

He was present already in the apostolic age.

Listen, the antichrist has been with us the whole time.

Okay.

Okay.

You know, we're talking about, you know, the spirit of antichrist and remains active throughout the church age.

And he intensifies his warfare against the church as the time of the end draws

near and is destroyed at the return of Christ.

Let me focus on these words, intensifies his warfare against the church as the time of the end draws near.

As we get closer and closer to the return of Christ, the intensity and

ferocity and multiplicity of false Christ, false prophets, false

doctrine, it's going to practically swamp the church.

Okay.

In fact, I would argue it effectively has already done that.

Okay.

So in 1136 to 45, the divine man describes to Daniel, the antichrist as the eschatological

king of the North who considers himself to be divine.

He will exalt himself and magnify himself over every God.

Similar to the little horn, he will speak wonderful things that are polemical against the God of gods.

He will prohibit marriage and not favor desire of women.

Instead of honoring God and the scriptural truth, he will value temporal power and honor a God of

fortresses.

He will carry out a quest for temporal power by means of great wealth with gold, silver, precious stones, highly prized

things.

And those who obey him, he will give great honor and make them rule over many.

He will set himself up in the church represented by the beautiful land and the beautiful holy

mountain.

Yet at the return of Christ, he will come to his end and there will not be one to help him.

The history of the interpretation of these and other Old Testament texts about the antichrist begins in the intertestamental

period.

Already in the medieval period, some Roman Catholics interpreted antichrist as the papacy.

The Lutheran confessors agreed with this view, which was over 300 years old by the time of the

reformation.

So you're going to know, the Lutherans didn't invent that idea that the office of the papacy is the office of antichrist.

That actually was, Roman Catholic theologians were already saying that 300

years before Luther.

Okay.

So the Lutheran confession speaks several times of the antichrist with most of the

references clustered in the apology of the Augsburg confession, the small called articles, and the treatise on

the power and primacy of the Pope.

The confessions include references and connections to Daniel's prophecy.

We might've expected they would refer to the depiction of the antichrist as the little horn, but they include no citations

of the little horn.

This may be due to Luther's explanation of the little horn as Muhammad or the Turk.

I don't think he was right, by the way.

The confessions instead focus on 1136 through 45 and refer specifically to

36 through 39.

They probably also allude to chapter 1138

and 43.

However, most biblical interpreters, interpreters, interpreters, did I say that right?

Interpreters.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know.

They have understood that there is a close connection between the little horn and Daniel and the King described in

1136 to 45.

The confessors may have been aware of that connection, even though they did not explicitly cite the little horn.

Another likely reason why the confessions concentrate on Daniel 11 rather than Daniel 7 is that the

little horn's activity is described in more general terms in Daniel 7, whereas 11, it is much more

specific in its description of the eschatological King.

The Lutheran confessions recognize that the new Testament speaks of one particular man of lawlessness.

I always like to remind my friends who do not believe that, that the Lutheran confessions do that.

Okay.

Who opposes God in whom the confessions call the antichrist and that the new Testament also speaks of multiple

antichrists, which it does.

The apology defines these antichrists as false teachers.

However, that in itself does not adequately explain either the confessions use of Daniel 11

or their identification of the antichrist as the office of the papacy.

To understand these, we must first understand what the confessions view as the primary characteristics of the antichrist set forth in

scripture.

So we've already kind of laid that all out, but let me read this, this quote from

Philip Melanchthon from the apology of the Augsburg confession.

In the computation, he's writing against the Roman Catholic computation against the

Augsburg confession.

In the computation, our opponents wring their hands over the desolation of the temples

and the altar standing unadorned without candles or statues.

They call these trifles the ornaments of the churches.

Daniel describes a vastly different desolation, ignorance of the gospel.

The people were swamped by many different traditions and ideas and could not grasp the sum

of Christian doctrine.

Who among the people has ever understood our opponent's doctrine of penitence, yet this is the principle doctrine

of the Christian faith.

So what Melanchthon is describing is that in the Roman Catholic church,

their man -made doctrines, the cumulative effect is that it swamped

people's thinking so that they were unable to grasp the

gospel itself and actually ever get at a right understanding of what is

sound biblical Christian doctrine.

That is continuing to this day, not only in Rome, but in evangelicalism and in the

charismatic movement and all this kind of stuff.

So you get the idea, but that's the strategy at this point, and it's working beautifully.

And I say that with lament, but it's legitimately working very well at

keeping people from understanding the gospel at all.

I can't even begin to tell you.

I mean, you guys, in your fellowship time, you discuss these things, and I've talked with many of you, how you

spent years, decades, so much time in churches, and you never knew your Bible.

You never knew sound doctrine.

How many of you people are attending my catechism classes, and this is the first time you were ever taught

the basics of the Christian faith in any kind of systematic way?

But the thing is, you were very busy in your false churches, but you were being swamped

so that you could never actually have time to really learn the truth about what the scriptures

teach.

That, again, is all prep work for the Antichrist.

Okay, all right, so I'm going to jump off here.

Yeah, I'm going to jump off here, and Stephen Elliott, for the sake of fellowship time, which we didn't have it

in between, I'm going to make you the host, and if you guys would like to stay

on and chat, then you are able to do that, and I'm going to go shovel out

and get rid of all the snow in my driveway.

Pray for me.

If you don't see me in a couple of hours, then call in the rescue dogs.

So, all right.

Peace to you, brothers and sisters.

Lord willing, we'll see you next time.