Remember what we saw last week?  Back and forth, back and forth…all this fighting and war and betrayal and murder between the north and the south.  The Selucid Empire and the Ptolemy Empire?  And all because of what?  Or should I say, whom?  Alexander the Great!  Wasting his life in foolishness.  Pursuing the satiation of his flesh, (which by definition is an impossibility), rather than being a good Grecian leader, a good husband, a good son, a good father.  And his foolishness unleashes a flood of generations of suffering.

Reminds me of a story I heard a long time ago.  A true story of two different fathers.  Around 40 years ago, Yale University conducted an extensive seven-year study on how a person’s actions in life effect the lives of his or her children. This study was focused around the lives of two men: Max Jukes and Jonathan Edwards. Max Jukes was an Atheist that believed in the abolition of laws and rules. Mr. Jukes formed an organization called the Freedom Movement that preached free sex, no laws, no formal education and no responsibilities. Jonathan Edwards was known by all as the "disciplinarian". Not because he disciplined his children harshly, but because he was a self-disciplined man. He became a preacher that believed in leading by example. He authored two books on the subjects of physical fitness and kindness. Mr. Edwards later became involved in teaching people to be responsible for their daily actions. Both of these men were chosen for their diverse beliefs, but also because they both fathered 13 children. Here are the legacies they left behind…

Max Jukes had, (at the time of the study), 1,026 descendants.  300 were convicts, 27 were murders, 190 were prostitutes and 509 were alcoholics or drug addicts.  Jonathan Edwards had 929 descendants.  430 were ministers, 314 were war veterans, 75 were authors, 86 were college professors, 13 were university presidents, 7 were congressman, 3 were governors and 1 was a Vice-President of the Unites States!

What’s not recorded, (what’s probably not even able to be recorded), is the affect these two individual lives had on folks outside their families.  All we have here are folks included within the family.  What about wives?  What about husbands?  What about friends?  What about co-workers?  From two men, thousands either served or sabotaged.  Thousands man…the way you live, the way I live…matters.  Moment to moment, day to day man…don’t be deceived.  We aren’t getting away with anything…not the most minute detail of the most insignificant hidden sin…

The sin of not being there dad.  Every night that little one is tucked in bed alone by mom when you could be there yet you choose to work, yet you choose to game, yet you choose to grab a drink with the team after work…the enemy is thieving from them.

The sin of bitterness mom.  Every morning that you allow yourself to continue the grudge from the day before, every time that you allow that remark that later you wish you hadn’t of said to slip out in front of the  little ones…the enemy is destroying their little hearts.

You friends, you sons, you daughters, every time you do just enough to keep folks off your back rather than serving them as unto the Lord…lies are being sewn in your heart man…and generations will suffer…I wonder do you believe that?  Alexander the Great didn’t…yet all of his descendants, his sons, his daughters…15 years after his own selfish death…dead…

Now…dads, every night you could be away yet you stay and gently lead your family…moms every minute you determine to submit to the Holy Spirit and forgive…sons, daughters, friends, every instant that you give your all for the glory of God and the betterment of your fellow man…in REAL service to your family and to your friends…you are bringing life!  Manufacturing it man like a factory!  Thousands of moments of pure joy and real love from what?  Your one single daily, sometimes momentary decision to live love…

The scene we saw last week was gruesome.  Murder, theft, betrayal, war…all these things didn’t have to be…if Alexander had never lived…isn’t that amazing?  Man that weighs heavy on my heart all the time.  Not only a wasted life for one man…but for his entire family…yet I am encouraged by a man such as Jonathan Edwards and determined to love my wife…to love my kids… and to set the conditions for their future faith and success in it!!!

Daniel Chapter 11 Verse 14
•    Now remember, this prophecy was fulfilled in all of its detail yet we won’t spend our time proving that.  I will mention the facts but not dive too deeply into the minutia of the history.  You’re welcome to do that in your own time of study.  But the verse we just read, the forces of the south, the Egyptian Ptolemy armies had spread their influential rule northward and had ran right into whom?  Israel, yes.  And so Israel was ready to push them back and so they actually welcomed the assistance of Antiochus III from the North but once the king of the south was defeated and the rule of the Ptolemies was pushed out of Israel, the plan backfired and Antiochus III turned from liberator to destroyer of the Glorious land…
Daniel Chapter 11 Verses 15 – 17
•    So Antiochus III defeats the Ptolemy southern empire by force but is rejected by the people and unable to establish a Nebuchadnezzar type rule in that region…(where he would set up a regent of sorts).  So he comes up with a plan, seen this before, to give his daughter to the King of the South as a bride…this actually happened quite often in those days…
•    The idea was to gain permanent influence through the marriage and eventually control Egypt…literally this marriage happened.  Her name was Cleopatra…not the one depicted in all the movies, this was her great great great grandmother.  She married Ptolemy V of Egypt but Antiochus’ plan now backfires because Cleopatra was unfaithful to her husband as Daniel writes, “she shall not stand with him, or be for him.”  In the end the plan really didn’t work out for Antiochus or Ptolemy…
Daniel Chapter 11 Verses 18 – 19
•    After the disappointing effort through the daughter, Antiochus III turned his attention towards the areas of Asia Minor and Greece (the coastlands). He was helped by Hannibal the famous general from Carthage. But a Roman General, Lucius Cornelius Scipio, defeated Antiochus in Greece.  So…Antiochus planned to humiliate Greece but was humiliated instead. He returned to his former regions, having lost all that he gained and died shortly after this defeat and this poor loser Antiochus III had an inglorious end. Daniel writes, “…but he shall stumble and fall, and not be found.”  Needing money badly for his treasury, he resorted to pillaging a Babylonian temple and was killed by enraged local citizens…just as Daniel had written hundreds of years prior…details baby!!
Daniel Chapter 11 Verse 20
•    So next up, Seleucus III.  Assassinated by his brother, Antiochus IV whom we also know as Antiochus Epiphanies…and this guy is different than all the others…one who takes the empire by intrigue…makes deals and betrays…deceives and enters places peaceably but then ferociously turns on all those who would be in league with him…this guy is an Old Testament type, a picture, a prophetical description…of the coming Anti-Christ.
Daniel Chapter 11 Verses 21 – 28
•    Notice, we just read, with a small band of supporters he seizes the empire by intrigue…and he disperses the spoils among the people, gaining their political support by devising his own plans…several times in what we just read we see this picture of plans being devised…and as armies come against him, his strategies and political games provide triumph for him…yet we see his heart being stirred up towards violence and damage there at the end of verse 28 and as we wait until next time to finish out this chapter, we’ll see a fundamental parallel shift to show us, to give us details about the One World Leader that is coming…
•    But one thought as we close…I wonder would these men, these kings that swapped daughters and were killed by their families and wasted their days chasing riches and empires that they’d never rule…would they still have been such losers if they had known?  If someone had warned them?  What if they read Daniel’s Book?  It was available to them…
•    The real question on my heart…would I?  I have this book right in front of me…this book that says if I sow to the wind then I reap the whirlwind…if I waste my days then my tomorrows will be as horrifying as a tornado sweeping my own home away…this book also says that if I sow to the Spirit then I will reap everlasting…life will be given, through me…to my wife, to my children, to my church, to my workplace, to my home…will I still die a loser?  I pray not…and I pray, neither will you.
•    I pray that you would find wisdom.  Wisdom cannot be taught…it can only be caught.  It is the art, the act, the awareness and awakening of hearing truth and getting past agreeing with it and arriving at living it…