Daniel Chapter 11 Verse 29

• The prophecies are specific. Given to us in the most intricate of details, almost like it is entirely foreknown by the angel. Here’s the comforting part. The fact that every Christian MUST take into account lest we lose heart when the storms of situations beat down…the angel does know. Every scene. Every conversation. Every decision. Every moment to moment thing that will occur as this circumstance of Israel’s trouble unrolls in the future…comforted yet? Me either.
• How does the angel know? Who told him? Who showed him? Who explained it all to him just as he is explaining it all now to Daniel and Daniel is explaining it all to us? The answer is obvious right? God the Father. Outside of time, seeing every detail of every life, even yours, even mine and knowing precisely how He intends to fashion this cog and spin this gear to bring about a future and a hope for His children.
• That is comforting! Because the storms are real and they are tumultuous…have you ever been in a rain storm or a snow storm that is so thick that you are genuinely scared as you drive down the road at 10 miles per hour? Unable to see even the white lines on the road? Life is just like that sometimes but here, this verse, as we open our text tonight and as we are about to see a time of incredible trouble upon the nation Israel…we see this phrase, “At the appointed time…” You see that implies order. That implies a plan…that comforts me in such a way that doesn’t necessarily remove the fear…I’m a sheep and my very nature is unfortunately fear…but God has given me a new nature as well…a nature that thrives off of hope in the midst of fear and a nature that closes its eyes behind the wheel in the storm and trusts in daddy…
• You ever see those baby car seats with the little steering wheel? (Slow down! Pull over! I can hear that horrible music!) You know that’s us? Dad is driving, we just think we are. Sometimes in our insidious stupidity we kick Him out of the car and climb our dirty diaper behinds into the driver’s seat…and end up wrecked…I did that once. Jim had gone into the bank, or maybe it was my mom…I must have been 8 or 9…they left the key in the car…I ended up on the curb and in BIG trouble!
• The point is that without the storms that we are simply NOT ABLE to make it through, we never get a good honest look at the steering wheel that’s in our hands…we never see that it is small and yellow and plastic with a little red button in the middle…And so where you’re at right now…could it possibly be…that this is “the appointed time?” I would offer you hope tonight…yes indeed. God has not forsaken you or left you or disregarded you…He is spinning the gears, introducing the cogs…
• Careful you don’t become a cog in someone else’s story on your own accord…walking according to your own whatever man, apart from the will of God…we find in scripture and we often say, “God will never leave you nor forsake you,” yet contextually in the scripture to whom is that promise given? First in Deuteronomy to Israel or “governed by God.” Then to Joshua, then once again quoted by the writer of Hebrews…but to the one who forsakes God we read in Romans 1 that God says, “I will give you over…I cannot force you to not be forsaken…”
• When Jesus became sin for me what was His cry from the cross? “I am forsaken!” Right? And so look, you demand to play the harlot on God, His very nature of love compels Him to not approve it, not even allow it, but to suffer it man…Maybe you’re where you’re at right now because you have forsaken the commands of God…taken His way and made it optional…and yet you’re full of confusion and frustration and even anger towards God because folks keep telling you that God will never leave you not forsake you…but what if you’ve left Him? Forsaken Him?!
• Tough thought I know but one we must face…back to the text…

Daniel Chapter 11 Verses 30 – 31

• Here the angel is speaking with acute detail about the ruler we left off with last time…Antiochus IV or Antiochus Epiphanies. A clear and powerful Old Testament “type” of the Anti-Christ to come and yet also a historical fact. As is this statement made by the angel…Remember this ruler was unlike the others before him…he took the throne illegitimately, by murdering his older brother and then he took the empire by storm but not by military force…rather by intrigue. Devising plans and distributing wealth…he becomes the people’s champion (The Rock – WWE HA!) just as the Anti-Christ will be…
• And here the angel mentions what actually transpired in about 168 BC when Antiochus Epiphanies goes into the Jewish Temple, puts in place a statue of Zeus and then slaughters a pig as sacrifice which was an abominable animal to the Jew…this led of course to the Maccabean revolt…check out the next verse…

Daniel Chapter 11 Verse 32

• After Antiochus did what he did a Jewish priest named Mattathias killed a Hellenistic Jew who stepped forward to offer a sacrifice to an idol. In the Jewish law this was precisely what was to be done but the Jews were under Seleucid rule and so he fled with his five sons to the wilderness. One of his five sons Judah Maccabee or Judas Maccabeus led an army against the Seleucid Empire but he didn’t march out against them…it was as the angel says here…great exploits…
• Guerrilla warfare was their strategy and they did achieve victory culminating in what the Jews now celebrate as Hanukkah…THAT is a cool story…real quick > Following the Maccabean victory over the Seleucids, the victors could only find a small jug of ceremonial oil that had remained uncontaminated by the virtue of a seal. There was only enough oil for one day’s worth of light in the Temple Menorah and that was a major issue. The light signified the presence of Yahweh…it took about 8 days to create correctly new oil but this one jug of oil miraculously lasted for eight days!!! Awesome. Great exploits…

Daniel Chapter 11 Verses 33 – 35

• Now we shift to an entire parallel. What we’ve been reading really leans towards Antiochus. Now what we will read is true precisely of both Antiochus and the coming Anti-Christ.

Daniel Chapter 11 Verses 36 – 37

• Interesting there…this speaks of a new religion. A new god…primarily himself but we do see additional deistic types in the Revelation account of the Anti-Christ right? The Beast and the False Prophet. And also this has led many to believe that the coming Anti-Christ will be homosexual as the angel tells Daniel that “he shall not regard the desire of women.”

Daniel Chapter 11 Verses 38 – 45

• The situation sounds almost impossible as we read through. Folks being overwhelmed, countries being overthrown…lands not able to escape. Fury and destruction fueling annihilation but what we see is that he, Antiochus Epiphanies as well as the coming Anti-Christ…they lose man. God promised deliverance to His people and He delivered…Antiochus was overthrown. God has promised deliverance to His people from the coming Anti-Christ. He’s already proven what He’s going to do…and that is deliver upon His promise…and just like all evil, Antiochus, the Anti-Christ as well…will come to his end, and no one can help him.
• You know what, if you’ve chosen evil, forsaken God, commoditized Jesus…His ways are an option for you, when they fit into your convenience…no one can help you either…even God cannot force Himself upon you.   You have to make the decision for you…to follow truth…to be a Christian and to not be forsaken.
• Now as you read ahead into Chapter 12 for next week, don’t get all confused…the angel is not unrolling the story chronologically…he’s simply giving the details to Daniel contextually…so when you look ahead and see the time of trouble and then wonder why the Anti-Christ met his demise in Chapter 11, obviously you know there is a contextual reason and that the angel is completing the picture for Daniel rather than walking through the prophecy as time zero, time one, time two, time three and so on because there can be no Great Tribulation without the Anti-Christ present no matter what Trib-camp you hail from…so just know that and we’ll get into Chapter 12 next week…