Daniel 11 (Con't)

So if we were to look at what's in the world, that's the theme of the museum, and we had all the light, and we had all the very best light.

That's all it has. We've got a lot of great stuff here.

It really is. So if we open up the word of prayer, then we can write, Oh, my. Oh, my.

OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK.

And I'm going to read 29 through 35.

I think we left off at the end of Verse 28. It says, and at that point in time

He will return and come into the south. But this time will not turn out the way that it did before.

For the ships of Ctenh will come against Him. Therefore, he will be disheartened and will return and become enraged at the

Holy Covenant. He will take action. So he will come back and show regard for those who forsook the

Holy Covenant. Forces from him will arise and desecrate the sanctuary, fortress. They will do away with the regular sacrifice and they will set up the abomination of desolation.

By smooth words, he will turn to godlessness for those who act wickedly toward the Covenant. But the people who know their god will display strength and take action.

Those who have insight among the people will give understanding to the many. They will fall by the sword and by flame and by captivity and plunder for many days.

Now when they fall, they will be granted a little help and many will join with them in the hypocrisy.

Some of those who have insight will fall in order to refine, purge, and make them pure until the end time because it is still to come at the appointed time.

So last week, we got to the well -known figure,

Antiochus IV.

This was God manifest. This is who he thought he was.

When he took power, he said his name Epiphanes Theos, which means

God manifest. But he had a name given to him by those around him called

Madman. It's a play on words.

Actually, it goes from Epiphanes to Epiphanes. I don't think they walked up to him and said, hey, you're a madman.

He was an absolute tyrant. We're fixing to get into those details.

Antiochus was part of what empire? Remember from last week? Seleucid.

Seleucid Empire. These would be the ones that would be the pain in the rear end for the people of God.

We're fixing to walk through that. This is very detailed. It says, we ended up where he had captured one of the

Ptolemy kings and put him in prison. We're going to try to get him back. One of the last things we talked about, there were two of them sitting at the table making opportunities to take advantage of one another.

Then it said in verse 28 that he would return to his land with much plunder, but his heart would be set against the

Holy Covenant, and he would take action and then return to his own land. Remember, he had gone into Egypt to try to take over the

Ptolemy Empire. He had taken much ground. When he returned, he went back through Jerusalem.

This would have been around 170 to 169. As he went back through, he then set up his own high priest in Jerusalem.

If you don't take my word for it, go look at 1 Maccabees 1 and 2.

You can also look at Cambridge Volume 7, and you can get all the other details.

I'm giving you the cliff notes, Murphy. He goes back through Jerusalem. He sets up his own high priest.

There was one there that was a sympathizer with him at one time. His name was Jason. That's a weird name for a

Jewish man, but it was Jason. Jason was paying tribute to him. Another man comes along by the name of Menelaus, who was not part of the priestly tribe.

He was not a Levite. He told Antiochus, I can give you more money. So we know that Antiochus is on the take for cash.

He said, okay. He puts him in place. Now we have unrest inside Jerusalem because we have a high priest that's acting as a high priest that ain't supposed to be in that position, and they're on the take.

At the same time, when Antiochus and his father were in there, they begin to Hellenize Jerusalem.

What did it mean to Hellenize Jerusalem? Making it Greek. Does anybody know one of the first things they did in Jerusalem when

Antiochus set up some standards in Jerusalem? What he did? Anybody know anything about world history?

He set up a gymnasium. Anybody know what the word gunah means? Not gunas, that's woman, but gunah.

Gymnasium. Where did we get gymnasium from? They acted naked. What did they do? They played the games of nakedness. That's what they did.

Well, what did that do to Jewish law? It desecrated the law.

You had men, young men, out there doing Greek games in the buff.

That's what they were doing. So now you have these fighting against...

I'm just going to use this. Better, actually, because that doesn't really...

Because that really doesn't come until you get to Jesus. Traditional Jewish tradition. So you have the

Greeks and the traditional Jews fighting with one another, and this is all going on within the city. Not fighting as in actually taking up arms with one another, but there is a cultural divide.

This cultural divide, I think I mentioned this last week, even followed itself all the way into the Book of Acts because you had the

Hellenistic -speaking Jewish women who weren't getting fed by getting the proper care that they were supposed to get.

So what did they do in Acts chapter 7? Anybody remember right offhand? They started where we see...

There actually weren't deacons yet, but that's where we see the beginning of it. They needed people to serve tables.

They chose the men of the Holy Spirit. But it still had to do with this schism here.

Now, remember, he has already gone through Egypt trying to capture more land from the

Ptolemy Empire. That brings us to verse 29. At the appointed time, he will return and come into the south.

Okay, here it is. Antiochus Epiphanes is going back to the south.

What was the south? Egypt, yeah.

It was Egypt. So where is he going back? He's going back to conquer more land. So he mobilizes, he returns, and he comes back to the south, to Egypt.

But this time, it will not turn out for the way that it did before. Okay? It's telling us right now that, hey, every time else he's been through Egypt, what has happened?

He has gained more power. He has conquered more land. He has taken over more regions.

So this time, it's saying in this prophecy, it ain't going to work out that way. And it tells us exactly why.

Why? Because ships of Katim will come against him, therefore, and he will be disheartened, and will return and become enraged at the

Holy Covenant, and he will take action. So here's what happened. You can read this in Greek Historia Polidius.

Here's what happened. As he is coming back through Syria, coming back from his own territory, he comes back through Jerusalem, making his way to Alexandria.

That was the goal, to conquer Alexandria. And why? And where was Alexandria? Don't say

Virginia. Don't do it. Antiochus didn't make it that far. It's the capital of Egypt.

Capital of Egypt. So as he is on his way there, he has already captured

Memphis. Where's Memphis? Don't say Tennessee. It is in Egypt.

So you understand. You see he is making increments of land. And he's on his way to Alexandria.

He takes Alexandria. What happens to the Ptolemy Empire? What's that?

Falls. And who's it become now? Seleucid Empire, which means now he's got all of Egypt.

He's got all of what we would say modern -day Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia.

So what happens is, the two feuding Ptolemy brothers decide, hey, let's give a call.

We're going to send a text message to Rome. We need some help. Remember, Rome helped him out.

Ptolemy's one time before. The ships of Catim are the Roman Empire.

So what happens is, or the Roman Republic. What happens is, he gets just outside of Alexandria in a suburb called

Eleusis. And lo and behold, he sees a delegation of Rome coming.

Where did Antiochus, what was he raised at in his teenage years?

Rome. Remember, his daddy gave him his collateral for his war debt.

So he sees these ships coming. Hey, these guys are coming to see me. Maybe they're going to embrace me with open arms.

Because one thing that Antiochus IV did do, he paid back all of his daddy's war debt.

So there was no converse. It wasn't like they were coming to say, hey, we're coming to take you back because you didn't pay your debt.

He paid all his debts. He paid all of his dad's debts back. His war indemnity was paid for. It was done.

He sees those ships coming across. Hmm, maybe they're going to greet me. What's going on?

This guy, a general, a delegate, comes out, walks out. His name is Pompilius.

Read Polybius. Pompilius comes up to him, and he says, you're going to take your stuff, you're going to turn around, and you're going to go back to Syria.

And everything that you gained right here in the lower Egypt area, you're going to leave it here, and you're going to go back.

He said, I think I need to talk about that, think about that with my war cabinet for a minute.

And Polybius, with Antiochus standing right here, not really standing here, he takes a stick and makes a circle around this tyrant, ruthless king.

He said, you ain't going nowhere. You're going to give me a decision before you step out of that circle.

That's the line in the sand. He said, it makes no difference to Rome whether you make war or you make peace.

You going home. That's when, remember, in 190, at the

Battle of Magnesia, that changed Rome's, I'm sorry, with Battle of Cannae, that changed

Rome's position on making peace with anybody, which means they don't make peace, they offer it, and if you don't want it, we will stomp you like mud in the street, and that is exactly what they just told

Antiochus. And Antiochus, being humiliated, said, okay,

I can't beat Rome, so I will head back. And it tells us exactly what happens when he heads back.

It says, for the Schizocratine will come against him, therefore he will be disheartened. Well, why was he disheartened?

Because he was just embarrassed by the Roman Republic. Pompilius. It says he will be disheartened, and he will become enraged at the

Holy Covenant. So on his way back from just the suburb of Alexandria, he comes back through Jerusalem.

As he comes back through Jerusalem, comes back through there, he lays waste to the city.

He takes action. Read it, 1 Maccabees, it begins in chapter 1, goes all the way towards the end.

As he goes through there, he ransacks the temple. He pulls off the gold.

He takes the implements, the candlestick, the gold plates off the front of the temple, everything.

He just goes in there. And actually, it says, in three days, once he gets there, in three days, 40 ,000

Jews are killed in Jerusalem and surrendered to him. 40 ,000. You've got to remember, he had already put in place to Hellenize Jerusalem.

Is he mad? Well, of course he's mad. He didn't gain the territory that he wanted, but he already had.

Remember, it already told us up in chapter 28 that his heart was set against the Holy Covenant. Already set.

There's probably about a two -year period of time. If you read when you're, if anybody wants to go out and do their homework, you want to read

Maccabees, it's not going to say 168 B .C. I think it says in the 141st comes through Jerusalem, it's in the 143rd year of the

Greek Empire, which would have been the Seleucids, because if you back that number up, that starts at 313, and 313 was actually the beginning of the

Seleucid Empire. And then the next time he comes back through, it's the 145th year, and that's when it gets bad.

That's when this happens. I guess I'm just thinking why.

So he wanted to... Well, it tells us why if we get to the end of it. To refine, purge, and to get out who?

The Hellenizers. What did they do? Man, I hope we can get to this part today.

But what did they do? They compromised. They compromised with Antiochus and all of his policies.

I should read it. It says that there were some renegade Jews that they came to, and it says, hey, look, they came to the people of the city and said, what we need to do, we need to make peace with this man.

Ever since we've tried to work, we've had nothing but calamity. Why don't we just do what they ask us to do so we can live in peace?

So what did the renegades and the Jewish turncoats want to do?

Hey, we just want to be accepted by the culture. That's all they wanted to do. But then you had other ones that said, no, we're not going to do that.

And they fought against that culture. But at this time, when they came in, he laid waste to the city, and 40 ,000 people died in three days.

It is at this time, and I'm getting a little ahead of the text, but it would be at that time, he comes in, he desecrates the holy sanctuary, he comes in, he sets up the abomination of desolation, which we have already heard of back in chapter 9, except that is an abomination of desolation that takes place at 70

AD. This is one that actually takes place in 167, 168, okay?

Now, for those of you that were here when we did chapter 8, this is a parallel passage to the little horn of chapter 8.

Remember it said, hey, there was this, remember the shaggy goat that was supercharged, air -paralleled goat that flew across the earth, it came into the ram, slammed into the ram, knocked it on the ground, trampled it down, and then you had this unicorn goat, that unicorn goat, that big horn fell down, four horns popped up, one of those horns came up more prominent than the other, and it persecuted the people of God.

Go back and read chapter 8. Do some homework. Go back and read chapter 8. This is the parallel passage that God had given to Daniel some 15 years prior.

And remember, after Daniel heard that, he was sick for many days. Chapter 8.

Sick. Why was he sick? Because he saw this is what God's going to have done to His people again.

To the covenant people. They're going to be persecuted. They're going to be punished. They're going to be...

God's going to let a wicked ruler come through and judge them. You know what's interesting about when you look at before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586, you see some vision in the book of Ezekiel where God, He's got four angels fixing to go in there, and He's going to...

Obviously, those angels represent the Babylonian armies, and they're going to lay waste to the people of the city.

But in Ezekiel chapter 9, He tells one angel, You know what I want you to do?

I want you to go out and I want you to put a mark on the heads of all those I don't want killed. That's what

He said. You know what happens in Revelation? The same thing happens. He says, wait a minute, we've got to seal these people so that these people stay protected by the judgment of God.

You know what God did not do at this time? He didn't protect anybody. These people that died of the 40 ,000 were those that were traditional

Jewish people that wanted to hold to the Mosaic legislation, that wanted to hold to the Mosaic law, dietary laws.

When Antiochus came in, he said, you can't circumcise anymore. You can't have dietary laws anymore.

You can't sacrifice anymore. You can't do anything Jewish anymore. If you're going to do that, I'm going to kill you.

And he put men in places to do that. He put men... He put

Syrian officers in place to keep that regulated. So that's what happened. If you read Maccabees, I don't know how you do this.

This seems a little weird. Think about this, men. They had men trying to remove the marks of circumcision from the sphere of their life.

How do you do that? That's how scared he had these men when they went into the city.

So now, it says in verse 29...

I'm sorry, verse 30. It says the Holy Covenant that he will go back and show regard for those who forsook the

Holy Covenant. So those that became the Hellenizers, who did Antiochus show mercy to?

What's that? Yeah, the turncoats. The compromisers.

The ones that wanted to be part of the culture. Okay, it says that he showed regard for them.

Because why? Because they forsook the Holy Covenant. Then forces from him will arise that will desecrate the sanctuary fortress, that will do away with the regular sacrifice, and that will set up the abomination of desolation.

It's at that point that he sacrifices swine blood on the altar, and he has desecrated the temple, and it is now unclean until it can be rededicated to God.

It says by smooth words, he will turn to godless, those who act wickedly towards the covenant.

But the people who know their God will display strength and take action.

King James, what does yours say? Be strong and do exploits. I like that better. I think the

New King James says that as well. Does the New King James say that? That sounds cooler, don't it? They do great exploits.

Now, here's what happens. If it's those who know their

God, are these compromisers or non -compromisers? Non -compromisers.

Who? Non -compromisers. Okay. Moedin. About 18 miles out between the coast and Jerusalem, there's a city.

There's a Syrian guard there making people offer sacrifices to Zeus or whoever swine.

And there's a man standing there by the name of Matthias. And the Syrian guard says, it's your turn.

Obligations to the Syrian empire and Antiochus. He said, I ain't doing that.

The guy behind him. Let's move out of the way, Matthias. I'll take care of that. And he sacrifices a pig, throws it on there.

You know what Matthias does? Matthias grabs his weapon, then kills that apostate

Jew and then turns around and he kills the Syrian guard.

That's bad news. This man has five sons.

John, Eliezer, Judas, Simon, and Jonathan. These men then come alongside of their father and begin a revolt against the

Seleucid empire. This one is called

Judas Maccabeus. Judas Maccabeus. Maccabeus meaning hammer.

They believe that that's how he handled those who bothered him.

It was like a hammer. I did read one other historian said it's because his head was shaped like a hammer.

But it's like, that's a little odd. I don't know if we can dig up his body and see if his head looked like a hammer.

But what we do know about Judas is he took no prisoners with the

Seleucid empire. He led a revolt. Him through his father. If I remember correctly, all of these die in battle except for Simon.

And he becomes the last, if I remember correctly, in 141. He becomes the last of the

Maccabean leaders who liberated and kept order in Jerusalem.

So for three to three and a half years these men fought against Antiochus and his subjects.

It's cool like this. You can read him. He sees whom he believes was Antiochus Epiphanes coming in on a royal elephant.

As they were coming in, remember we were talking about the elephants last week coming in on a royal. He runs up thinking it's

Antiochus and runs his spear up through the guts of that elephant in an attempt to get

Antiochus off so he can kill him and in doing so the elephant crushes him.

But dude, they fought. And they fought valiantly. These are the kind of dudes you want on your side.

They did guerrilla warfare all over Judea. All over trying to exterminate the

Syrian empire until they got to Jerusalem. And when they got to Jerusalem, that's what they did is they got

Antiochus out. They liberated the temple complex.

They got all of the Syrians out of Jerusalem and they set up the new dedicated temple which would new sacrifice, new priest just like the

Mosaic legislation required and that's where we get

Hanukkah. I don't even know how to spell Hanukkah. That's where Hanukkah comes from.

It's the dedication of the temple. Now, I think it was on the 15th day of the month of Kislev in 168 is when

Antiochus did the abomination of desolation on the temple. This is celebrated every year on the 25th of December which is the 25th day of Kislev because that is, it's interesting how that coincides with Christmas.

That is when it was rededicated. It was on the 25th of Kislev three years later. Three years later, the temple was dedicated and liberated from Antiochus and all of his policies.

Antiochus was ran out, went back. It says, where are we at?

Those who have insight among the people will give understanding to the many and they will fall by the sword and by flame and by captivity and by plunder for many days.

It's talking about the war that took place in those times. Verse 34. Now when they fall, they will be granted a little help and many will join in with the hypocrisy.

Meaning that some of those during that time did come alongside and fight with Antiochus because they were Seleucid sympathizers.

Verse 35. Some of those who have insight will fall in order to refine, purge, and make them pure until the end time because it is still to come at its appointed time.

So, these men, answer your question Mike, did he have a temper tantrum?

Sure. Was he angry because he was leaving Alexandria with his tail between his legs not being able to conquer what he wanted but his heart had already been set on destroying the

Jews. His job, as he saw himself, was to Hellenize the world.

Okay, that was his goal. Now that that hasn't happened, he turns his heart against Jerusalem and does whatever he can to exterminate them.

And it says the reason for him doing that was because these men fighting against him was going to cause much bloodshed and it was going to weed out the wheat from the tares.

Basically. Is God obligated to do it the way we think he should do it?

No. That's how God chose to do it. And he tells us specifically right here why he did it.

To purge and to make pure until it's still to come at the appointed time.

Meaning, look, this is what's cool. Once again, we heard this back up earlier in the chapter in verse 27.

Nothing's going out of the plan of God. He was going to continue to do what he was going to do until the appointed time.

This is going to continue until when? Until God's appointed time.

This is all going according to God's plan. If we're trying to think like Daniel, God, this is what you want done to your people.

Again. Remember, Daniel is seeing the beginning of the restoration.

Right or wrong? Yeah. Now, was he somewhat sad that things were not...

Remember, at the beginning of this chapter, he was sad. Why? What was our conclusion?

He was sad because things didn't really look like they were going as they should have.

As soon as they had gone back into Jerusalem, they had run into what? Opposition. Opposition.

And he was praying. They had not yet observed the Passover. They had not yet put the temple up. The altar had been put back up at this time, but nothing else.

And he was mourning for three weeks. Well, now, here it is.

He's seeing another vision of, hey, this is going to be a time of quote, restoration and prosperity for the people of God under the

Persian Empire, but when the Greeks come, man, it's going to get really bad again.

It's going to get really bad again. Well, why is it going to get really bad again? Because you've got compromisers.

Compromisers. Let me ask you something. Can you serve

God and compromise? No. Do we all compromise to a certain degree at times in our life?

Of course. So when I'm sitting here, don't think I'm blowing a horn saying, hey, I got it together. We're all, apart from the

Christ, we're all utter failures. Okay? I don't care how good of a husband you think you are. I don't care how good of a mother you think you are.

I don't care how good of a father or wife or whatever. Apart from Christ, we are utter failures because we can never meet that standard.

But our goal in life is through the power of the Spirit, through knowing our God and knowing who

He is, we are to do great exploits, which is to stay faithful. Part of that faithfulness is when we do compromise, what do we do?

Repent. Yeah, repent. And go back to the first works. We'll see that.

And when we get to Revelation, they had left their first love. Hey, I can even say right here, these people that compromised and became turncoats to the

Holy Covenant, what did they do? They had certainly left their first love. This prophecy is given to Daniel to give to his people, to tell them those who know their

God should be encouraged to remain faithful. And those who have a desire to compromise to be warned that you will suffer the judgment of God.

These people were faithful Jews. Faithful.

They died for their faith in Christ. I'm sorry, their faith in God here.

They died because they would not go to Antiochus' policies.

They would not be a sympathizer to the Greek culture. They would not abandon their circumcision.

They would not abandon their dietary laws. They died. But then when the war happened, it didn't matter.

Antiochus was going to do whatever he could to get rid of the Jews. And these men did great things.

Every one of them, like I said, other than Simon, died in battle. So, like, was it just the five sons and their dad, or did they build up?

People would come alongside. Yeah, I mean, it'd be like, hey, if any type of insurgents, you get some guys that got some intestinal fortitude, then you have other men that are encouraged by that.

And what do they do? They go, oh, right, I'm not going to have to do this on my own. I actually want to see...

Look, there was always men in other cities that were faithful to God. I mean, how do we know that?

Look what happened in Moedene. You had a faithful man who says, I'm not going to desecrate nor be unfaithful to Yahweh by doing this.

You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to kill you for asking me to do that. Now...

Wait, so Moedene is Matthias? Moedene is a city. Okay, so Moedene is a city, and Matthias is the guy that...

Matthias is the... He was a priest. That is the priestly tribe. That's why these men go in and rededicate the temple, because they are priests.

They were in the line, and they did. Yes, matter of fact, it goes from...

The insurgents started about 167 to 160, would be the

Maccabean Revolt. But once they took it, the Maccabees ruled up until about 141 to 140.

And then after that, you would have what was called the Hasmonean Dynasty.

Takes over. And they go until... the siege of Jerusalem by Rome.

So once... What's that? This happened before... This would be... All BC. All BC.

All BC. All BC. They start liberating, and they start the revolt in 167.

Okay? Completely eradicated around 160. It wasn't until 63

BC. Okay? It wasn't until 63 BC that Jerusalem wound up, but become subject to someone else.

So because of Matthias and his sons and the Maccabean Revolt, for nearly a hundred years, they ruled themselves.

They ruled themselves. You remember what happened when Cyrus sent them back?

He sent Zerubbabel back with everything that he needed to build the temple. Everything that he needed. All the funds.

He sent a decree out. Whatever they need, you give it to them. We're going to pay for it. And immediately they got back.

They started intermarrying, and when Ezra went back, he got a recommissioned decree to do what

Cyrus said to do, but then he got one also to go back. You rule your people.

Y 'all rule your own city. You be self -governing, and if people don't obey the laws of Yahweh, you can put them to death.

So you've got to remember, under the time of Cyrus, up into the Persian Empire, they pretty much ruled themselves.

It wasn't until the Greeks came along that they began to start to become subject by the first under the Ptolemies and the

Seleucids. So you can see what God was doing. He was trying. Not trying. He was weeding out the false.

So when they did that for nearly a hundred years, and this is just for historical wrong and then laid siege through Pompeii in 63 and then took the city.

That's when it happened and they became under the Herod some 37, 36, 37.

That's when Herod comes into power and put him by Rome after that. So it was to purge and make pure those people.

Now, that brings us to verse 36, and we've got probably about eight minutes, and we're going to give you some background.

Any questions before I go on? Timeline again? Anybody? Did you want a timeline last week?

Where do you want me to start at? You said how things fall in. Oh, I was just saying that with Rome.

You explained it really well. Okay. Just Rome being kind of coming in.

It kind of was like a republic and then they would go to them. They're almost like mercenaries in a sense. They just needed help.

Yeah, they needed help, and they knew that they had the navy to do that, to block him off.

They did it once before. It worked. They did it against Antiochus the Great, if you remember.

They did it against Antiochus the Great. They said, hey, maybe this will work again, and they did. It worked. It cut him off.

Look, they did not want Antiochus to Hellenize the world. Look, Rome, even when they would conquer lands, when we get into certainly, well, we'll get into part of it at the end of this chapter in 12, but when we get into the book of Revelation, man,

Rome was very sympathetic to other religions.

They didn't care what you worshipped. They didn't care what you worshipped. They wanted you to pay your taxes and don't be in conflict with our policy of keeping peace.

That's all they wanted you to do. Now, we often think of, you know, emperor worship and all that.

Emperor worship was not at the time of Christ. Okay? A lot of times that's what's in our brain is, oh,

Julius Caesar and Octavian, Augustus and Tiberius had a desire that they were making people bow down and worship them.

That is not what was happening at the time of Christ. That didn't come until later. Now, were there bits and pieces and places within the

Roman Empire that that took place? Yes. But it's not, I mean, contrary to popular belief, it was not needed for emperor worship, believe it or not.

That's how far out. Verse 36.

Every scholar, okay, knows there's a shift here.

There's a shift in who is this person. Some think it's

Antiochus. Some think it's his continual campaign.

I do not. Some people believe this shift is now going to send us to the end of the age and that this is speaking of the

Antichrist. I don't hold that position either. And there's a few reasons why.

One, it says, this king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god, and will speak monstrous things against the god of gods.

This is speaking of a person that's going to do different things, some similarities to Antiochus, but some differences.

One reason why I'm going to say that this is not

Antiochus is it says in verse 37, it says, he will show no regard for the gods of his fathers or for the desire of women.

What does the New King James say? Does it say god or gods of fathers? God. God? Okay.

This is a Hebrew linguistic thing that needs to be addressed.

I like the New American Standard. I think they erroneously translated god to gods.

And here's why. The word Elohim, the word

Elohim is a plural noun. Okay?

Just want you to understand, it is plural. But when you're translating from the Hebrew, in order to see whether this stays plural or singular, depends on the verb that it comes with.

So in Hebrew, you have plurals, you have, a weird one, you've got duals, and you've got singulars.

Plurals, duals, and singulars. In there. And depending on when this is a, the word is just a plural noun.

Okay? It's just how it is. Depending on whether this is going to be translated god or gods depends on the verb that comes with it.

So, the verb that comes with it is no regard. That is a singular verb.

Everybody follow me? Understand? So this word that is translated gods in the new

American standard, I think is actually incorrect because of the

Hebrew, it should be god. It should be.

Okay? Lowercase, god, yeah. I'm fixing to get to that.

And then we've got to go. I'll probably have to review some of that so you can follow my train of thought next week. The reason being is where it says he will have no regard for the gods of his father, that's why

I think the new American standard is inaccurate, I should say, and that the new King James, what does the

ESV say? Gods. Gods? Or god? Gods. God?

Gods. Okay. It should be god. Here's why. Seventy -one times in the whole

Bible the god of his fathers is used. Okay?

Sixty times. Sixty times. In the

Old Testament it's used. Every time that phrase is used it's talking about the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

So, if it says that he will have no regard for the god of his fathers, then what does that say about this man?

He's Jewish. He's a Jewish man. So that means the person in view from verse 36 through verse,

I think two or three, of chapter 12 is a

Jewish man. Okay? Jewish man. And there are some other things that just don't fit the context to being

Antiochus. You're going to see this constant. There's going to be a king that comes from the north.

And then there's going to be a king that comes from the south. Well, if it's the king that's coming from the south, can

Antiochus come against himself? Right? Where is Antiochus from?

He's the king of the south. So, once again, if the person that is 60 times the only time it's used, you would have to say it would be the only time it's been used differently, which you don't have any warrant to say that this man is

Jewish, then that means this is talking about something that takes place where?

Here. Within Jerusalem. So, self -willed king is

Jewish. Some say it's here.

Some say Antichrist. I say it's next week.

Dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. And you just guaranteed everybody coming back. Keith, would you pray for us?

Yes, sir. Father, thank you for Brother Mike and for his leading us in study, and I pray,

Lord, that we would continue to grow in our understanding of the book of Daniel and our understanding of these prophetic events, and Lord, that you would use this to draw us closer to you.

I pray now as we go into worship that we would be prepared in our minds and in our hearts to sing out to you, to give to you, to receive from you, and to learn from your