20: World News & Prophecy - Daniel 11:33-39

[Darris McNeely] ​​Good morning, everyone. We're back in our class here, and we are going to go back into Daniel 11 today and talk a little bit more about some topics that we talked about in the last class and then move on back into the flow of the story of Daniel 11, which has a lot of history and certainly Bible prophecy. I think it might be good to just review one particular thought here with you and for everyone that is watching this later online. I'd like to go back to Daniel 5 and kind of the key foundational thought that this class is built on and that is the type of man Daniel was, not only his character but also the gifts that God gave to him that allowed him to stand out, be an instrument in God's hands at that time in the court of Babylon and not only foretell history but be a person of integrity that the Gentile rulers called upon.

And in Daniel 5 is the story of Belshazzar's feast on the last night of the kingdom of Babylon where the handwriting on the wall comes in. And the Queen Mother comes in and says, "Look, call in Daniel. He once was a counselor. You've kind of shunted him off to the side."

Daniel 5:11 She says, "There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the Spirit of the Holy God; and in the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him."

And the astrologers and the magicians and sorcerers of Babylon all had to take a backseat to Daniel because he had light, understanding and wisdom. He had God's Spirit working with him to help him to discern the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar and his own dreams that God gave to him and to be able then to stand as these other messages that we're now kind of in the middle of in Daniel 10, 11 and 12 are delivered to him by an angelic messenger that lay out the whole course of history ahead of time.

And so Daniel deals with history. And as we go into the book of Daniel as we have learned in these classes, it's important that we understand the history of Israel and the Bible history that we have there and what other history comes from secular sources about Israel, but also the history of Babylon and Persia and Greece and Rome, these great empires that rose around the time and interact with the people of God within the story of the Bible.

And so it necessitates us getting into history. And what we're endeavoring to do is the same thing that Daniel did, and that is to understand history from a biblical point of view or from God's point of view. And to Daniel, it was not history, it was his reality. Babylon was his reality. He'd been taken captive by Babylon. He was uprooted from his comfortable home and put off because of what was happening as a current event. Think about it that way.

And he was wanting to understand why. It'd be like us understanding if we were carted off captive to some other distant land in our day and our homeland was taken over, what happened? Why? Well, that's where he was. But in addition, Daniel then was called in to interpret future history, which is what prophecy is through the dream that he interpreted about Nebuchadnezzar and the image plus his own.

And so he's seeing future history. So we come into the scene today as we read the book of Daniel and we're reading history. And it goes way back and we think what's the relevance of it? And well, the obvious relevance to us is it's connected to the Bible and to God's purpose and plan overall. And so understanding it helps us to understand not only the flow of history and this slice of the world history, but also the future of our world and of our time as we understand biblical typology, type and anti-type, an early occurrence or partial fulfillment, then a final fulfillment at the end of the age.

And we're seeking to understand that and it really requires us to be able to not only have a basic understanding of some of these historical events, coupled with a respect for the Bible, God's Spirit guiding us because we're seeking to make application in our own life. And it's applied history, we could say "applied prophecy" in that there's a practical application for us. And ultimately, the practical application of prophecy is to have a changed life, not a smarter set of notes in your Bible or your notebook or whatever about this whole topic.

The applied prophecy that we really do want, as I've shown you, is a changed life, a conviction that God is bringing the world ultimately to judgment—and that includes us. And therefore, we are to live righteously today and with the knowledge that we've been given of God's way of life, God's laws, knowing that there is a judgment coming upon the world. We are under judgment today, but it deals with the whole story of salvation God is unfolding, and we have a part in that right now.

And so this is very practical. This is very important. So kind of with that, let's go back and talk for a few minutes a little bit more about this event surrounding Antiochus Epiphanes, otherwise known as Antiochus IV. And in my jargon, "Darth Vader of the story," this large, looming, dark figure that imposes himself upon the story here in Daniel 11 and upon the Israelite history. He takes up a lot of space in the book of Daniel.

We've already studied that he's the little horn of Daniel 8 and 9. He is a king here and now in Daniel 11. We begin to read about him as a "vile person who comes in and takes the kingdom." And he, as a result of the events we discussed in the last class, where he has introduced Greek Hellenistic culture into Jerusalem and seeking to assimilate those people into being Greeks—the Jews—and many of them going over to that, compromising, while others were not, it creates a tension within Jerusalem and Judea that he is able to exploit as he himself suffers a setback.

And last time we talked about how he had basically had to tuck his tail and run out of Egypt when the Roman general, Popelius, drew a circle around him. We had our actors do that on the stage with you last time and basically tell him, "Look, you're going to leave. You're not going to take over Egypt. This is Rome. We're coming. This is the kind of the grocery store, the breadbasket of the world right now and we need this and please go home. And oh, by the way, make up your mind that you're going to go home before you leave this circle I'm drawing around you or it's war."

And Antiochus did leave, but on his way then back home to Antioch, up in Syria, up in here, he goes by Jerusalem and he vents his full fury upon the Jews, going in and creating this event called the "Abomination of Desolation" where he desecrates the temple. He forcibly forbids the Jews to keep the Sabbath and obviously the Holy Days and other aspects of the law and the way of God. He forbids the mothers to circumcise their male babies when they're born, and all of this is done at the point of a sword.

And there is a great abomination. And what he ultimately does—the key thing to the abomination of desolation—is his offering of a pig upon the altar in Jerusalem, desecrating it, spoiling it, and most feel setting up within the Holy of Holies, the innermost part of the temple where there were no images of God but where, you know, originally in the first temple—and whether it was there in the second temple or not, we most, I think, recognize that it was not—the Ark of the Covenant with the tablets brought down by Moses from Mount Sinai. That was in the first temple but not in the second temple. But you still had the Holy of Holies.

And what most feel that he did was to erect a statue of the Greek god Zeus in that Holy of Holies, which was a common practice for them to do. And further desecrating this temple, this holy spot that had been rebuilt and designated for honor—the honor of God. And that cuts off the sacrificial system for more than three years. We talked about how ultimately they came back in in December of 164, I believe. Hope I got that date right. And they cleaned up the temple and rededicated it at that time after this, what is called the "Maccabean Revolt" and the effort there.

Now, I want to at least let you know—and again, those online—the booklet that we have in the Church, United Church of God, The Book of the Middle East and Bible Prophecy covers a lot of this material as well and other aspects of the Middle East. But there is a section in there on the "Abomination of Desolation." And you can read that to go into a lot more detail. There are quotes there from the book of Maccabees to tell the details and the background to this time that I'm not going to take all the effort to go into.

But what Daniel 11 tells us is that it was a time of great stress and turmoil and tribulation—and a type of the end time tribulation of three and a half years that is prophesied to come at the time of the end. There's one Scripture I should turn to and just remind you of, and that is Matthew 24 and verse 15, where Jesus Himself pointed to this event as not only a historical type but showing that there is an end time fulfillment. And this is where Bible biblical typology comes in. And this is one very prime example of biblical typology. Matthew 24:15—this is the Olivet Prophecy where Jesus has been asked by the disciples, "What will be the signs of your coming and of the end of the age?" in verse 3. And He begins to go through this. We will come back when we're in Revelation chapter 6 later, next semester on this, and go through more. But He comes down to verse 15.

Matthew 24:15 He says, "Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet," the very one we're studying here spoken of in Daniel 11:31 as well as in chapter 8, "when you see that abomination standing in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains."

This is a very specific prophecy and it deals with the end of the age. But it shows that what happened historically with the time of Antiochus Epiphanes was a forerunner, was a type, and it was a bad time for the Jews in Jerusalem and Judea. But He's saying—He's now putting this into the context of the time of the end, which is speaking about a greater global time of trial and tribulation. And we will again go into more detail of that as we go through Revelation 3.

And so there will be an event in Jerusalem and obviously some type of sacrifice will be going on in Jerusalem under certain circumstances that it's very clear about—and it will be stopped. And something will create this abominating presence again. And there will be armies surrounding Jerusalem and those that are there are to flee to the mountains. Again, very specific. How that plays out in our future, God knows. There is a warning to those that are there to get out.

There's another historical fulfillment of this that is understood in the year 69 to 70 AD when Jerusalem is surrounded by the Roman armies at that time and the city is besieged. There's actually a story—we take as true from Josephus, a Jewish historian—that about, I think it was Pentecost on 69 AD, a voice was heard, a disembodied voice was heard in the temple: "Get thee hence."

And the church in Jerusalem, the church that we're studying in the book of Acts, they heard about it, if not heard it, they left Jerusalem at that time. And they actually—we know this from history—the church crossed the Jordan and they went to a place over in what is today the country of Jordan, a place called Pella. And they stayed there. So the church left Jerusalem before it was surrounded by the Roman armies and all escape was cut off.

And that's an interesting story. But this recording by Josephus of a voice saying, "Get thee hence," is a part of the record of the history of the time. I personally have no doubt that it happened, and that God warned His people then to leave Jerusalem. And so there was kind of a typical fulfillment and the anti-type of this as well. Now, some scholars look at—they look at Matthew 24, they look at 70 AD—and they think that that fulfills everything.

And it doesn’t. Jerusalem was destroyed and certainly the second temple then was destroyed. But there are aspects of the prophecy that did not completely—were not fulfilled at that time. And Revelation points us to other events at the close of the age. And so we’ll talk more about that when we get into the book of Revelation. But Jerusalem was surrounded and destroyed at that particular time. So this abomination, going back to the time of second century BC and what Antiochus wrought upon the Jewish people—Daniel’s record of it here—tells quite a story along with the historical record of the Maccabees, the books of Maccabees.

Daniel 11:32 And the events that were there at that time, it mentions here that “those that know their God will do great things. The people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.”

And I talked a little bit about that last time in some of the exploits that were conducted under the family of Mattathias, who was the original priest who kind of ran his sword through a Greek soldier that came to his village. I mentioned last time—I should correct myself—that it was Judas Maccabees who did that. Judas was a son of Mattathias. Mattathias was the original, the patriarch of the family who kind of instigated that by killing the Greek soldier and basically said, “To the hills, boys,” and they caught up around him this great revolt called the Maccabean Revolt. Judas Maccabees, one of his sons, then kind of led that and took it over to the fulfillment of it. And that’s the name that is on the handle oratorio Judas Maccabees, that portrays that story.

But people fled. People hid in caves. There are stories of, you know, Jewish clans holed up in a cave and being essentially barricaded there and fire started by the Greek soldiers that come in, and asphyxiating and killing, you know, hundreds of people hiding in caves because they won’t come out and they won’t submit to the Greeks. There are also stories of “those who know their God,” it says here in verse 32, “and carry out great exploits”—not only the Maccabees, but also there are the pious Jewish leaders of the time. And I've talked to you about this group called the Hasidim that are forerunners later of the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and even the Essenes of the New Testament period. But originally, the pious ones were this one single grouping of the Hasidim. During this time—the Greek War, the revolt—they go among the people by groups, these Hasidim, and encourage people to remain faithful, to remain loyal.

And so when you read in verse 32 here of people who are strong, that's not just the Maccabees that are out with their swords and their axes like a bunch of Scottish Highlanders defending the honor—which is what they did—but it’s also spiritual sustenance and encouragement given by the pious Jews who have not compromised with the Greek culture. And they go among the people, encourage them, “Hey look, continue to keep the Sabbath. Don’t give in. God is working through this in some way.” And so they survive.

The great story of that period that culminates in their retaking of Jerusalem is that Judaism survives. The Jews survive. And of course, that’s important to the biblical story because of the story to come, which is the birth of Christ. There has to be a family of the lineage of David for those prophecies to be fulfilled. And also you have the setting then for the New Testament church. So God’s plan and purpose is not thwarted by Antiochus and the Greek armies, as bad as it is. The nation survives. Even modern skeptics who have been atheists and they look at history—they look at this story—they give credit to the Maccabean Revolt and this whole story that I’ve told you because they know that through it, Judaism, where the Jewish people survived. And they—I’m trying to gather from the depths of my brain—this Christopher Hitchens. Christopher Hitchens, who’s dead now, but for, you know, a few years ago he was a prime atheist and a very vigorous, likeable atheist. I used to watch him and listen to him. And you kind of liked the guy, but he didn’t believe in God and he argued against all this.

But he wrote and talked about the fact that this very event actually saved the Jews. And without that, we wouldn’t—they wouldn’t have, you know—wouldn’t be around today.

Well, inadvertently, Christopher Hitchens was, you know, acknowledging in his own way—I don’t think he knew this—but he was basically pointing to God’s providence, God’s salvation, even in a physical sense of His people, the covenant people, through that for His eternal purpose. And so that’s a little bit more of the background to this event and also pointing to the future and what is taking place. So with that, let’s go to and pick up the story here in verse—let’s go, let’s pick it up at about verse 33. If you’re reading from the handout that I gave you, you can do that. That’s fine. And we will start to go through this at this time and setting it up for what begins in verse 40 and events at the time of the end of the age.

So we’re in this second century BC period, and that’s kind of the flow of the story here down through verse 32. And if you’ll look in the notes, the notes basically say that at this time there is a shift that we begin to make into New Testament times. So we kind of fast forward a couple of hundred years.

Daniel 11:33 “Those of the people who understand shall instruct many; yet for many days they shall fall by sword and flame, by captivity and plundering.”

We interpret this to be that period of the preaching of the gospel, the church age. So we’ve moved from the middle of the second century BC into the first century AD as we understand and interpret this particular section as the flow moves. ​​And certainly Christians were martyred in the first century and subsequent centuries as well, but through the preaching of the gospel many were instructed as well. But persecution upon the people of God here is referenced, which is almost a continuing feature.

Daniel 11:34 Says, "When they fall, they shall be aided with a little help," God's Spirit helping to remain faithful in the face of adversity. But "many will join them by intrigue."

The church has always had false prophets among them. We see throughout the book of Acts—actually beginning with Simon the Magician. We'll be into his story here in just a short time as we're going through Acts where he seeks to buy the Holy Spirit. And there are continual admonitions throughout Acts and also some of the other aspects of the New Testament warning against false people, false teachers, false prophets that would join by intrigue and come in among the church.

Daniel 11:35 Says, "And some of those of understanding shall fall, to refine them, purify them, and make them white, until the time of the end; because it is still for the appointed time." Now verse 35 is an important verse to pause on for a moment because we have here a reference to the time of the end. And it says, "until the time of the end," there will be understanding. "Those of understanding will fall, to refine them, to purify them, and to make them white." We're talking about righteousness and being made righteous through trial, through overcoming, which—as we will get into the message to the churches in Revelation—we see that this is a prime focus of Jesus upon His church. And white is a symbol of righteousness prophetically here.

And so it's perfectly reasonable to understand verse 35 beginning to take us from the time of Christ and His teachings, the apostles and the church, and what will continue until the time of His return, His second coming, as the church is refined, as the church overcomes. One of the things we'll see in Revelation 2 and 3 and what Jesus says to each of the seven congregations that are the focus there: "He who overcomes, I will grant..." And there are various aspects of a reward for each of those seven congregations, which they can cumulatively apply to all of the church. But overcoming and reward is the message—this refinement, this purification—"until the appointed time," which would be one's death or the second coming and the first resurrection to make people spiritually white or pure.

And so what begins in verse 35 then, is my point—and this is what we need to understand—continues. All right, so verse 35 sets us into the New Testament—let's call it the New Testament period—and it says "to the time of the end." All right, if the time of the end—let's just draw a horizontal line there—that's the return of Christ, all right? That’s the end of—let's call that the end of human history and the beginning of God's reign on the earth, but Christ’s return. All right, riding with chalk today is getting on my nerves.

So verse 35 points us to what? To events that begin and then project to the time of the end. But we're not technically at the time of the end. Now, you could jump ahead to verse 40 and see that at verse 40 of Daniel 11, there's another event that—and we'll come to that in time—“At the time of the end the king of the South shall attack him.” So that's another marker of the time of the end. But we're told here in verse 35 what begins. And so there's an age-long cumulative message that begins here with verse 35. And this is what the church has really understood and taught for many, many decades—to understand what begins here in this form.

But the other matter that begins has to do with Rome. And I've got this picture here of an emperor being worshipped on his throne as divine. This idea of emperor worship becomes very important here. Worship of the emperor as a god. And that is a key theme in the time of Christ, the apostles and the church—the period of the Roman Empire that is being talked about here—and what is then bequeathed by the empire to the church, the false church, and subsequent revivals of that empire through history through first the Holy Roman Empire and then other iterations of Rome, as we have already studied in Daniel 7 and we’ll go back into in Revelation 13 and 17 more.

This worship, if you will—this religion, this false Christianity that is first begins very small in the apostasy of the elements of the early church, false teachers—but then with the timing, coupled with the emperor worship, has a culmination when Christianity is legitimized.

So let’s read a few more verses here just to kind of get the flavor of what is described.

Daniel 11:36 Ssays, "Then the king shall do according to his own will: he shall exalt and magnify himself above every god, shall speak blasphemies against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the wrath has been accomplished; for what has been determined shall be done."

So verse 36 then introduces this. It mentions the king and we interpret this to be referring to the king of the North. The king of the North, all right, who is now symbolized by the Roman emperor. Hence the picture here. Not a Greek king like Antiochus Epiphanes. There has been a shift, all right? Now get this. This is important. There has been a shift made historically. Up to this point, we have identified the king of the north with the Greeks, right? Under which general of Alexander did the king of the north flow from? What was his name? "Seleucus," the Seleucid Empire. This empire largely centered to the north of Jerusalem. That's been the king of the north in the book of Daniel 11 up to this point.

But now with verse 36, we are saying that this king is "Rome." All right? It's no longer Greek out of Athens or the remnant of the Greek empire. There's been a shift as we understand it historically and prophetically in this story. All right? And might as well go ahead and deal with this right now. Can I do that right now? Let's go ahead and read a few more verses here and we'll come back to that. Just understand this particular shift. And as Daniel is talking here about this king, the same qualities are still there that have been with Antiochus. And frankly, those kings of Greece that preceded Antiochus Epiphanes, his own family, the Seleucids, as they began to think about themselves and their rule and who they were as their power grew and this whole story. But now Daniel is describing that this king, which is the king of the north, but it has shifted historically to "Rome," still has the same grandiose vein, divine magnification, where they speak blasphemies against the "God of gods," magnify themselves against every god (little "g"), while they are seeking to be worshiped. And this becomes a defining factor of the Roman emperors from the time of, you know, most definitely of "Augustus," this first Roman emperor of the empire that we've discussed already, Augustus. He is called the "divine Augustus," and I've mentioned how he has even been looked upon as the savior of Rome, or "Soter," and a savior, and we will see this develop more in the book of Acts. And even while he was alive, he was looked upon as divine, but when he died, then they say he ascended to divine status to the heavens. Actually, his predecessor, "Julius Caesar," they said the same thing about him, that when he died, there was kind of an omen that went through the sky at the time of his funeral, and they burned his body, and they said, "You know, there he goes. There goes Julius up to, you know, join the gods."

And Augustus was the same way, but it was this idea of emperor worship that now is gripping the emperors of the Roman Empire, now an empire, and its impact as the false church develops here, and what is determined here. These verses are speaking to that. It says, let's say.

Daniel 11:37 "He,"again, the Roman emperor, "shall regard neither the gods of his fathers," that is, we think the old Roman gods, okay, "Jupiter, Apollo," all of them, "of his fathers, nor the desire of women,"which could be talking about their homosexuality, because many of them were, or that they exalted themselves against the Babylonian god called "Tammuz." In Ezekiel chapter 8, you see the prophet is given a vision of women in the temple in Jerusalem, worshiping the Babylonian god Tammuz. There's a whole story behind that, and Easter worship, etc., that we won't go into. But this Roman emperor exalts himself above all of this past and doesn't regard any god here going on in verse 37. "For he shall exalt himself above them all."

And this is the idea behind the emperor worship that we see developing, and it has a huge impact on the story in Revelation. So what I'm saying is I want you to remember the magnitude and the impact of the Roman emperor being worshiped as a living god, because that impacts the early church. And we'll see that in the book of Revelation. And it is really, I think, understood, and I think we've got the proper understanding of this here in these verses as he describes what begins to develop with this idea of emperor worship, and then becomes really ensconced in the church when the emperor "Constantine" in the fourth century AD adopts Christianity, making it the official religion of the emperor. He becomes the first Christian emperor. We've talked about Constantine, and he is a very, very large figure in the whole story of Rome and Christian history. But then as this develops, this whole system, once Rome falls in the year 476, and the church survives and takes on much of the aspects of the civil structure of the Roman Empire. We'll talk about that in Revelation 13. There is this continuing worship and adoration, and a lot of it was transferred to the church and to the papacy of the church. And so, verse 38, it goes on.

Daniel 11:28 "In their place, he shall honor a god of fortresses." He, being the Roman emperor, will honor a god of fortresses and a god which his fathers did not know. “He shall honor with gold and silver and precious stones and pleasant things. Thus he,” again, later emperors and successor kingdoms, “shall act against the strongest fortresses of religion and the state with a foreign god.”

And we interpret that to be that little "g" god there, verse 39, the papacy, which derives its imagery from Babylon and the mystery religions of Babylon as they assimilate out of Babylon and percolate through Persia and the Greek empire and eventually wind up in Rome, embodied in the Roman Catholic Church there.

Daniel 11:38-39 The latter part of verse 38 says, "And a god which his fathers did not know, he shall honor with gold and silver and precious stones and pleasant things." So the pope and the emperor working together in this way. Verse 39, "Thus he," later emperors will act against the strongest fortresses, and where he covered that, "to rule over many and to divide the land for gain."

The story of the church and state that develops out of the fall of the Roman empire into modern history and these various revivals is a fascinating story. We actually were working on a booklet on that over some articles that were written years ago by one of our elders, "Melvin Rhodes," who wrote a series of articles about the church and state that we serialized in our publication for a number of years. We put those together, and at some point we hope to put together a booklet that will tell that story that verse 39 is actually talking about of the division for gain and land, the intrigue of politics and religion that mixes together with church and state from the time of the fall of Rome and the revivals of these various heads and horns of Daniel and Revelation on these beasts and that story down into our modern age. It is a story that can be documented, and when you understand that history from the biblical perspective, it does open up a great deal of knowledge about Daniel and Revelation, but also how the world has worked and how the world is at this particular time.

So that takes us through verse 39. I won't go into more of the details of that, but it brings us down here to verse 40, where, "At the time of the end." So as I conclude here with this class, again, another fire hose, I recognize that, but this information is fairly well laid out, I think, for you. What I want to leave us with is an understanding that this king that we're talking about beginning in verse 35 has shifted from the Greek king to the Roman. And while it is, we're going to come back to verse 40 and this king is going to be called the king of the north. We do interpret these as the same. The king of verse 35 is still the king of the north. Some other interpretations have it that that is a different king, a third king. And I've looked at those arguments as they've come to us in previous discussions and as I've read them from other interpreters. And we've never, never accepted that. Personally, I don't accept it as I look at the story today. I think that when you look at the context of Daniel 11, the king of verse 35 then is also the same king we've been studying called the king of the north. And that when we come down to verse 40 and we find that the king of the south makes an attack against the king of the north, we are talking about the same king. So the king of verse 35 is the same king as verse 40. That has been our traditional teaching going back many, many decades in the church. And personally, I think that is a correct one from history, which I will attempt to show you when we return in our next class and talk a little bit about that at the beginning before we launch into that to verse 40 because it can be a bit challenging.

We say that at verse 40 that the king of the north becomes not only Greek but now Roman. Actually, we say it with verse 35. Why do we say that? What's our basis for saying that? We'll talk about that in the next class.