Angels and End Times Part 4

Good morning, welcome to Kootenai Community Church Adult Sunday School. Let's open in prayer. Father, we look forward to your word this morning. It is full of everything that is needed for life and godliness in the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is actually full of him himself and we are grateful for that. This morning we look to you for illumination, for understanding, for this difficult but exciting part of Scripture. We thank you that you have given us your word.

We thank you that you have made it, you have protected it for so many centuries so that we might have a clear picture of your heart for us. We thank you for that in Jesus name. Amen. So a couple of things.

Refine, reform, purge. Refine, purge, reform. Refine, purge, make pure. One of those verses or words, that's what we're going to be thinking about as we go through this section. Because throughout your lifetime, God is always working to refine, to refine you.

Actually, let me put it in the proper order here. I've got it written down here. It's in verse 35. To refine, to purge, and to make pure. So God wants to refine your life, to purge the things that are unnecessary out of your life, and to make you pure for him, as it talks about in Ephesians.

And he's doing that to the church too, but he does that to individuals, and by that happens, how that, and through that, the church is refined, purged, and made pure. So we'll be thinking about that. That's going to be kind of in the back of our minds as we're going through this section of Daniel.

We're going to be in chapter 11, verse 28, is where we'll start, but I'd like to read from verse 20 through verse 35. I intend to make it to verse 35 today. If we don't, we don't. But we're going to give it our best shot.

Daniel chapter 11, starting on page 1159, verse 20. And if you look at your verse list, verse 20 speaks of Seleucus for Philopator from the north. That's one of the kings here. Then in his place, one will arise who will ascend an oppressor through the jewel of his kingdom.

Yet within a few days, he will be shattered, though neither in anger nor in battle. And in his place, a despicable person will arise on whom the honor of kingship has not been conferred. But he will come in a time of tranquility and seize the kingdom by intrigue, and the overflowing forces will be flooded away before him and shattered, and also the prince of the covenant.

And after an alliance is made with him, he will practice deception, and he will go up and gain power with a small force of people. In a time of tranquility, he will enter the richest parts of the realm, and he will accomplish what his fathers never did, nor his ancestors.

He will distribute plunder, booty, and possessions among them. And he will devise his schemes against strongholds, but only for a time. And he will stir up his strength and courage against the king of the south with a large army.

So the king of the south will mobilize an extremely large and mighty army for war, but he will not stand for schemes will be devised against him, and those who eat his choice food will destroy him, and his army will overflow, but many will fall down slain.

As for both kings, their hearts will be intent on evil, and they will speak lies to each other at the same table, but it will not succeed, for the end is still to come at the appointed time. Then he will return to his land with much plunder, but his heart will be set against the holy covenant, and he will take action and then return to his own land.

At the appointed time, it's an important phrase, the time is at God's appointment, not at man's. At the appointed time, he will return and come into the south, but this last time it will not turn out the way it did before, for ships of Chitim will come against him.

Therefore, he will be disheartened and will return and become enraged at the holy covenant and take action, so he will come back and show regard for those who forsake the holy covenant. And forces from him will arise, desecrate the sanctuary fortress and do away with the regular sacrifice, and they will set up the abomination of desolation, and by smooth words he will turn to godlessness those who act wickedly toward the covenant.

But the people who know their God will display strength and take action, and those who have insight among the people will give understanding to the many, yet they will fall by sword and by flame, by captivity and by plunder for many days.

Now when they fall, they will be granted a little help, and many will join with them in hypocrisy, and 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 left off with the two kings sitting at the same table lying to one another, which never happens in this day and age, but their ends, they wanted their own plans, and so they lied to each other, and they tried to make them come to pass.

But verse 27 ends with that phrase, for the end is still to come at the appointed time. No matter the schemes of men, how intricate and incredibly well-planned they are, the appointed time is always going to be of God.

And so whether it was at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, during this period in the 160s BC, or in the end times, everything will come at the appointed time of God. And remember this, at that time, the study of Scripture will yield to those who live in that time the insight necessary to understand what is coming.

We may not see it clearly here today, because we're not there, but those who are in that time, the Scripture says, will have insight, and they will understand. And so when we try to understand and predict these things ahead of time, we get ourselves into trouble, don't we?

Stick with what the Scripture says, and you will do very well, you will do very well. If we happen to live in those times, they will be exciting, God will give insight, and those who have insight, it says some of them are going to fall, they're going to fall.

Good people will be swept away in the tides that come with the destruction that Antichrist will bring. And that's just the way of the world, but their reward is sure, their reward is sure. Verse 27 says, as for both kings, their heart will be intent on evil, and they will speak lies to each other at the same table, but it will not succeed, for the end is still to come at the appointed time.

So these were Ptolemy VII and the one who was called Ptolemy and Antiochus. Antiochus lied to Ptolemy, Ptolemy lied to Antiochus, and both of them end up coming to their own end. So in verse 28, we begin to see the starting of the tie-up of this section with Antiochus Epiphanes.

We're going to hear about him through verse 35, and then at verse 36, it changes. The tenor of Daniel changes, the verbiage undergoes a little bit of a change, and we're talking about a future king. And not that the first part hasn't been exciting, but that will be exciting too.

Let's face it, and it's okay, there are sections of scripture that you read through them, and maybe at the time you don't get much, but God has planted that word in your heart, and he will bring it to seed, bring it to fruition, I should say, as necessary.

But reading through the Chronicles sometimes is not as exciting as reading through the book of Acts, and it's okay to say that. It's not blasphemous to say that. So the reason I'm saying that is because that's my daily reading has been through the book of Acts lately, and I forgot how exciting that book was.

But this section of Daniel, where it turns, and Antiochus is done away with, and we move into, again, in verses 36 through the end of the chapter, actually through the end of the book, speaking of the end times, and Antiochus, or the Antichrist, that becomes both sobering, exciting, and in some respects, terrifying.

And it had to be terrifying for Daniel to know that his people were going to go through these difficult times. This was not going to be a cakewalk for Israel. It was going to be very difficult, and he knew it.

And those were some of the reasons why he spent a lot of time on his knees and weak, and the angel had to strengthen him so many times. His people were going to be refined, purged, and made pure, and that's always difficult.

So then in verse 28, then he will return to his land with much plunder, but his heart will be set against the holy covenant, and he will take action and then return to his own land. Again, with incredible specificity.

Remember, naysayers don't believe this could have been a prophecy because it's so accurate. Had to be a guy who wrote it after it happened. It's just too accurate, but it was a prophecy written hundreds of years before it happened.

So with remarkable divine specificity, the angel continues the predictions. Antiochus 4, or Antiochus Epiphanes, failed to take Egypt, the south, but he did return to his homeland with much plunder. He took a lot of booty back with him.

On the way, he committed great atrocities against the holy land, against the Jews, whom he hated very much. He hated them with a passion. As a result of this hatred, the scripture says his heart will be set against the holy covenant.

He read the books. He knew what the most difficult for them. This is the same as what you read in the meaning in 1st Maccabees 115. Remember, Maccabees is a reasonably good history, but it is not scripture.

It's not the canon of scripture, but it's good history. In 1st Maccabees 115, which refers to all things religious and especially the religion of Yahweh, says this, and they made themselves uncircumcised and forsook the holy covenant and joined themselves to the heathen and were sold to do mischief.

These were those who forsook the holy covenant. These were Jews who thought they could help God out by making certain prophecies come to pass. They forsook the holy covenant. They walked away from their heritage, and they joined these wicked heathen, I guess you would call them, as what they would have called them back then, what the pious would have called them.

So Antiochus 4, at this point, began some of his vicious depredations against Israel. One of the first things he did was he invaded the secession of priests, the secession of the priesthood of the Jews.

Reynolds Showers, in his commentary, details this. He says this, although he had not conquered all of Egypt, Antiochus did take much wealth from it to carry home to Syria. Before this Egyptian campaign, Antiochus had removed Jason as high priest of Israel and replaced him with Menelaus.

Menelaus had sought this position by offering Antiochus higher tribute money. This is in 2 Maccabees 4, 23 through 27. While Antiochus was fighting in Egypt, Jason heard a false rumor to the effect that Antiochus was dead, that Antiochus Epiphanes had been killed.

He then raised the Jewish force and attacked Jerusalem to overthrow Menelaus. Menelaus beat back the attack, but as Antiochus returned home through Israel, he determined to teach the rebel Jews a lesson for even trying this, teach the rebel Jews a lesson.

He slaughtered many Jews, sold many into slavery, plundered the temple of its valued contents, and carried the sacred things of God to Syria. This is recorded in 1 Maccabees 1, 20 through 28, and 2 Maccabees 5, 5 through 21.

This showed his personal contempt for Israel's covenant relationship with God, as portrayed here in verse 28. It says that he will take action and then return to his own land, but it said his heart will be set against the holy covenant.

His heart was set against what he knew the Jews wanted to do, what their desire to worship their God entailed, and he did as much as he could to destroy it. So at this point, Antiochus having secured Menelaus as the high priest, he continued home.

Verse 29, and then I'll ask if there's any questions. At the appointed time, again that phrase, at the appointed time, God is sovereign over everything, and Daniel is reminded by the angel. At the appointed time, Daniel, this is all coming at the hand of Yahweh, he will return and come into the south, but this last time it will not turn out the way it did before.

It won't go as well as it did the first time. It seems that Antiochus discovered this coalition between the brothers and invaded Egypt yet again in 168 BC, determined to break up the alliance of the two brothers.

He had left Ptolemy Philopator in charge at Memphis, not Tennessee, but it appeared from the way things worked out that the two brothers had betrayed him. God had appointed this time for him to return to Egypt, but this campaign would be different than the campaign in 170 BC.

The first campaign was somewhat successful, but this one would not be successful at all. It would not turn out the way it did before. And it says, and here it says, for, in verse 30, for ships of Chitim came against him, therefore he will be disheartened, verse 30, and return, will return and become enraged at the holy covenant, and take action, so he will come back and show regard for those who forsake the holy covenant.

Those who believe and follow the scripture will always enrage unbelievers. It is a a detestable thing to them in any age, whether it was 168 BC or 2023 AD. Those who truly follow the scriptures, who believe they are true and take them to heart and obey God will always enrage unbelievers.

And there's nothing we can do about that except preach the gospel, so maybe some of those unbelievers will become believers. So when you accidentally bump a button, stuff happens. Rome sent a contingent of Roman soldiers from Cyprus with Popilius Lanus in trireme ships, this is what they look like, the ships look like, to stop Antiochus.

So Rome is getting involved now, this is kind of in the fledgling early days of Rome's empire building. Antiochus was told to leave Egypt, he stalled for a time. Lanus drew a circle around, he stood him up in front of the contingent of soldiers there and he drew a circle around him in the sand, and here's what he said, he said, you either decide to leave Egypt or fight Rome before you leave that circle.

And that had to be humiliating, standing in front of everybody, Antiochus had to make that decision. So dejected and bitter, Antiochus just left Egypt and on the way home, so in regard for those who hated Israel, for those who forsook the holy covenant, for those who hated Israel and lived in Israel, he vented some of his anger and hatred on Israel.

The idea is that he actually would have looked around for Jews who were called by the pious Israelites, forsakers, forsakers in quotes, if you say it. There were followers and forsakers, and the forsakers were the ones who understood the scripture and forsook it in order to, well, we'll talk about that.

These are Jews who had already turned from God's law, he found a group of them led by Menelaus, as mentioned earlier, and they helped him desecrate the temple, helped him damage and ravage Israel. The very own people of Israel helped Antiochus ravage Israel.

That's pretty hard to swallow. Any questions or comments about those three verses? Yes, purposely went through, purposely went through. These rebel Jews needed to be taught a lesson, and so I'll take time out of my travels and beat them up, is basically what happened.

Forces from him, verse 31 says, will arise, desecrate the sanctuary fortress and do away with the regular sacrifice, and they will set up the abomination of desolation. Now, the abomination of desolation, I think we've talked about it before, this is an abominable thing that is done in the temple and we'll read about it here.

So Antiochus Epiphanes was successful in combining with wicked Jews to desecrate the temple fortress and to do away with the regular sacrifice, eventually setting up what the Jews called the abomination of desolation, and this is detailed again in the non-canonical but historical book of 1st Maccabees, verses 41 through 50 of chapter 1, and here's what it says.

Moreover, King Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people and everyone should leave his laws, so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king. Of course they would.

Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, which was of the Greeks, he had become enamored of the Greek religion, consented to his religion and sacrificed unto idols and profaned the Sabbath.

For the king had sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah that they should follow the strange laws of the land and forbid burn offerings and sacrifice and drink offerings in the temple and that they should profane the Sabbaths and festival days.

So the object, let me stop there, the object was to profane every celebration the Jews had. He was going to comprehensively defile their religion so that they knew he was in charge and his hatred for them would be very evident.

And pollute the sanctuary and holy people, set up altars and groves and chapels of idols and sacrifice swine's flesh and unclean beasts, that they should also leave their children uncircumcised and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation, profanity, profaning.

To the end that they might forget the law and change all the ordinances and whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said should die, he should die. And what is it about it when we begin to, when those in the church begin to follow the ways of the world, there's only two directions to go, continue down or back up if the Lord should get a hold of your heart and change you.

And so it becomes worse and in any age until those who were in the church are the greatest enemies of those who are still in the church. There was a famous quote ascribed to Marcus Tullus and I can't remember exactly how it goes.

I was going to look that up this morning and you know how that works out. And it goes something like this. A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within.

An enemy at the gates is less formidable for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely. His sly whispers rustling through all the alleys heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor. He speaks in accents familiar to his victims. He knows the scripture and he wears their face and their argument. He appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.

He rots the soul of a nation. He works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city. He infects the body politics so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.

That traitor is the plague. And that is true in the church as well. It's those who claim to follow the scripture, but do not, but harbor hate in their heart for God that are the most difficult, the most horrendous and the most hard on those who stay.

They tear your heart out when you see it happen. It just rips you apart when you see that kind of thing happen. And again, that's a quote that's supposedly ascribed to Marcus Tullius Cicero. There's not clear indication that it was, but you know, it only happened several thousand years ago.

So how can we be sure? So Antiochus had spent time in Athens and had become familiar with and dazzled by Grecian customs. He was intent on forcing those customs on the Jewish population. He declared the regular ceremonies of Mosaic law illegal.

People who tried to follow them were given the death penalty. That's what it comes to, by the way. Once you can't, when a rebel group, when I say rebel using that term loosely, when people who are intent on following the scripture will not do it, well, there's only one recourse in order to make the others follow, and that's to kill the ones that set the example.

So he made the death penalty, that for which you would, what you would suffer if you followed Yahweh's customs. Many died. Antiochus erected an altar and or a statue of Zeus, Zeus Olympius in the temple itself.

It was a, excuse me. It was put in the place of the brazen altar so that the Jews would be forced to worship this Greek God rather than the God of their fathers. The desolation of the temple was both the horrifying desecration itself and the fact that now no one would come to worship there because of the destruction, the chill that would be put on those who wished to truly worship.

They would have been forced to do something else. They couldn't come to the temple anymore. One commentator describes it this way. Antiochus ordered his general Apollonius and a contingent of 22 ,000 soldiers into Jerusalem on what he claimed was a peaceful mission, a mostly peaceful mission.

However, when they were inside the city, they attacked the Jews on a Sabbath when the Jews were reluctant to exert themselves. Apollonius killed many Jews, took many Jewish women and children captive as slaves, plundered the temple and burned the city.

Antiochus objective was to exterminate Judaism. Make no mistake. That's what those kinds do. They want to exterminate what they detest, to exterminate Judaism and to Hellenize Palestine. Consequently, he forbade the Jews to follow the Mosaic law and he did away with the Jewish sacrifices, festivals and circumcision.

This is detailed in the non-canonical book of 1st Maccabees 1 in 44 through 54. He even burned copies of their law. He burned their Bible, burned the Torah. As a culminating measure, he installed an image of Zeus, his Greek god in the temple, and he erected an altar to Zeus on the altar of burnt offerings.

And that comes from 2nd Maccabees 6 -2. This was not the first time such sacrilege had been committed. King Ahaz had set up an adulterous altar in 2nd Kings 16, 10 -16. And King Manasseh had installed images of pagan gods in 2nd Kings 21, 3 -5 in the first temple.

Then Antiochus sacrificed a pig, an unclean animal, to the Jews on the altar. This happened on December 16, 168 BC. The Jews referred to this act as, quote, the abomination that caused desolation, close quote.

It's important that the words are read that way. It caused the desolation of the temple, it caused the desolation of worship, and it caused the desolation of the keepers of the covenant. It was desolating.

Since it polluted their altar and made sacrifices to Yahweh on it impossible, Antiochus further ordered his Jewic subjects to celebrate his subsequent birthdays by offering a pig to Zeus on this altar.

And another commentator said this, Jesus Christ indicated that another similar atrocity would befall the Jews in the future, Matthew 24, 15, and Mark 13, 14. By the way, this is John Walvoord speaking, this is not me quoting, this is not me interjecting.

By the way, he says, Jesus Christ's explicit reference to the prophet Daniel being the writer of this prophecy in these verses should be proof enough that Daniel, rather than a 2nd century writer, wrote this book.

Let me stop there. Jesus sanctioned this as a prophecy of Daniel. We need no other, well actually we don't even need that, we just read the Old Testament which was written by God. That's true. But Jesus said, this is what Daniel said, this is what Daniel did.

There's one other thing that Jesus sanctioned when he talked about marriage, actually there's more than one other thing, but for our purposes this morning, marriage is between a man and a woman. Also, he authoritatively sanctioned the concept of creation, the sixth day creation.

But back to this commentary. By the way, John Walvoord says, Jesus Christ's explicit reference to the prophet Daniel was the author of this prophecy. So, this is not me quoting, this is not me interjecting.