Unstable Gods and Unstable Kingdoms

Introduction

I’ve always loved history and geography, I suppose its because I love context so much.

I like to know where I am, and one can only ever know where one is in relation to other things, geographical and temporal.

I like to know where I come from, where the ideas I hold to come from.

And of course, a knowledge of history gives one a good indication not only where one has come from, but also of where one is going

But regrettably, most people find history dull and boring, not worth their attention or investigation.

They imagine that it has only to do with long dead people who have no bearing on their lives today.

Those who find history boring would probably find Daniel 11 somewhat boring and dull as well.

I hope you are not one of those people who finds no value in the study of history.

Because history is nothing more than the record of God’s glorious providential working in this World

The Ancient Greek Historian Thucydides said that history is wisdom taught to us by examples.

As we learn what happened in the past, we learn the lessons of the past.

As we get to know history’s great men and women, we become a little bit more like them.

And as we learn the history of God’s people, we begin to see the patterns of how God deals with His people, in strength, wisdom, grace and love, knowing that the things He has done in the past, He can and will do again.

In this passage in particular, we learn that no matter how difficult and dangerous and dismal things may seem, God is in control, and He will always see His people through.

We see in this history the lesson of Psalm 2

Thesis: The nations set themselves against the Lord and His anointed, but He will terrify them in His wrath while blessing all who take refuge in Him.

Read vv. 30-35

Nations will rise and nations will fall, the Church of Christ will stand through it all

Today it is popular for interpreters to see in this text a prophecy of the events just prior to the return of Christ,

We will see that this is simply not the case.

However, as we read of the experiences of the people of God in the 3rd and 2nd century B.C., we would do well to remember that the experiences of the people of God echo throughout the the ages even unto our experience today

History Foretold

What is fascinating about the history we see unfold here in Chapter 11 is that it is all told before the fact.

That is, Daniel is shown the rise and fall of the greatest nations in history before they take place.

The angel is showing Daniel what God is going to do in future history

Today, we will see dozens of important historical figures, mostly kings, none of them named, but all of them obvious with a cursory knowledge of classical antiquity

We will se them warring against one another in massive history shaping events, with God’s small remnant of Israel caught up in the middle of it all

Context

You will remember in chapter 10, Daniel goes before the Lord in prayer for his people when the an angle comes to bring him this message.

The Jews had three years prior, after 70 years in captivity, been freed to leave Babylon and to return to Jersualem to rebuild the city and the Temple.

But in the three years since their emancipation things had not gone well. They had been attacked and harried by their enemies in the land and were struggling to repair the ruins of their promised land.

Because of Daniel’s prayer, God sends an angle to reveal Israel’s future, but the angle had to fight tooth and nail against the Prince of Persia, who was a demon, to get to Daniel.

It was only after the archangel Michael came to intervene that the angel was able to come deliver the message.

So, ch. 11 then is the content of the message, the answer to Daniel’s prayers for his people, and a window into what God’s people could come to expect over the next few centuries

It is not pretty.

Persia and Greece (vv. 2-4)

In vv. 2-4 the angel presents to Daniel the first phase of history as it will unfold.

Four Persian Kings (v. 2)

The Persian king reigning at the time of the vision was Cyrus the great, liberator of Israel.

A man referred to as the Lord’s Messiah a century earlier in Is. 45.

The next 3 kings after him were Cambyses, Smerdis, and Darius I respectively

The fourth then to arise was Xerxes the first, Xerxes I a powerful and competent, yet somewhat erratic king

He is the Ahasuerus of Esther. The one who raised a massive army against the small independent Greek states of Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and the like.

This is why v. 2 tells us that he will stir up his whole realm against the kingdom of Greece

He is the king who was heroically opposed by King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.

But eventually his plans were thwarted and he failed to take the Greek mainland, though he was successful in subjugating many of the Greek lands in Western Anatolia

And thus was decided the first clash between the global East and the global West

A Mighty King Shall Arise (v.3)

The Greeks never forgot the Persian invasion

And 150 years later, a mighty king arose who took vengeance on the Persians

After his father, Philip II, united all of Greece under one banner, Alexander the Great marched his own armies east into the Persian lands.

Alexander the Great

Ascending the Macedonian throne in 336 B.C. at the age of 20

He Conquered Persia and its last king Darius III by 330 B.C. just 6 years later

He went on to conquer almost the whole known world, from Egypt to India

Indeed he did rule with a great dominion and he did do as he willed, as v. 3 says.

Died in 323 B.C. at the age of 33

The Four Winds

Alexander’s almost impossibly successful reign was cut short

so that v. 4 says that “as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom shall be broken”

And then what happens, it is divided to the four winds

We saw this in chapter 7 represented by the leopard with four heads and four wings

Again we saw it in chapter 8 represented by the ram with the four horns that spread out toward the four winds.

And indeed after Alexander’s death, his empire passed to his four generals who established their own Hellenic kingdoms

Cassander — Macedonia

Lysimachus — Thrace and Asia Minor

Seleucus — Syria

Ptolemy — Egypt

Lets just take a moment to marvel at the precision and accuracy of this prophecy that Daniel received hundreds of years before the fact.

North and South (vv. 5-20)

As we get into vv. 5-20 we get into a second phase of the events prophesied

The Majority of the prophecy is then taken up with the see saw back and forth between the Seleucid dynasty in Syria (the kingdom of the North)

And the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt (the Kingdom of the south

These two kingdoms are important to Daniel and to the Jews because Judea sat smack dab on the border between the two kingdoms

For the entirety of the third and second centuries B.C. The small remnant of the kingdom of Israel passed back and forth between these two great powers

vv. 5-20 without naming names, tells the story of the conflict between these two nations in some detail

And I will also relate this history in some detail for several reasons

First, because this the Word of God and my job is to explain to you what it is saying

It does us no good to skip over portions of scripture that we think are boring

Second, it is not boring. These are events which Daniel sees centuries in advance with incredible accuracy and detail.

As we read this and understand what is being prophesied, we witness the miracle of God’s special revelation in making the future manifest to Daniel and to any who would read his writings.

Phase I

Ptolemy I took control of Egypt directly after the death of Alexander in 323 B.C. He is the king of the south in v. 5

Seleucus was given control of Syria and Babylon but fled to Egypt under the protection of Ptolemy when his throne was threatened by another one of Alexander’s generals.

Seleucus is the first king of the North

Seleucus and Ptolemy banded together to reclaim Seleucus’ kingdom in the battle of Gaza in 312 B.C.

But not long after this the two had a falling out over who would control the region of Palestine

In the middle of which sat, the holy city of Jerusalem. The homeland of God’s precious people

Phase II

They tried to smooth things over with a dynastic marriage which we read about in v. 6.

Ptolemy II gave his Bernice in marriage to Antiochus II

But then Antiochus II reconciled with his first wife Laodice who almost immediately turned around a poisoned both Antiochus II and Bernice.

Thus v. 6 says she will not retain her power

But her brother Ptolemy III, one from her roots as v. 7 says, came to power in Egypt and went to war against Seleucus II

All the kings of the south are Ptolemy. All the kings of the North are either Seleucus or Antiochus

He was successful against Seleucus II and was even able to invade Antioch, his capitol city, and carry off his idols.

We read about this in v. 8.

Phase III

Vv. 11-13 relate the battles that raged between Ptolemy IV and Antiochus the Great who, after initial defeat at the battle of Raphia in 217 B.C. came back with a greater army and wrested control of Palestine from Egypt.

V. 14 gives us the first explicit reference to the Jewish people during this period

The violent men are probably a reference to the different factions in the city, the hellenizing Tobiads who supported the King of the North and the more traditional Oniads who supported Egyptian control and opposed the Hellenization of the Seleucids.

in V. 16 we see Antiochus the Great come into the glorious land with great destruction, probably a reference to the war he brought to the region

V. 18 relates Antiochus the Great attempting to control Egypt by giving his daughter, Cleopatra, in marriage to the Egyptian king. V. 8 says that it does not accrue to his advantage because Cleopatra turned against her father and sided her her husband.

The commander of v. 19 that turns Antiochus’s insolence back on him is Lucius Cornelius Scipio, the Roman consul who defeated him twice in Greece and sent him back to his homeland.

Phase IV

This then brings us to the great king of the North who takes up the rest of the chapter.

We’ve come across this person before in Daniel’s visions.

In Chapter 8 he was the blasphemous little horn that grew out of the head of the Grecian Ram

He is Antiochus IV Epiphanes

The Great King of the North (vv. 21-45)

In Daniel 8 he is called a king of bold face

Here, in v. 21 he is called a contemptible person.

He named himself Theos Antiochus Epiphanes (Antiochus, God Manifest)

Much of the policy of his forebears is pursued. We see that he continues to war against Egypt with some success, which v. 24-27 indicate

But v. 28 is revealing. Here we see that he becomes particularly aggressive against the people of God in that his heart is set against the holy covenant.

And then, in v. after being thwarted in his designs against Egypt, he takes his fury out on Jerusalem as his heart is enraged against the holy covenant.

He sets up an abomination of desolation in the temple of YHWH.

It is said that he erected a statue of Zeus there and sacrificed pigs to it.

He brings sword against the Jews and fire and captivity

He was truly a wicked and cruel tyrant.

It is said that during his reign 40,000 jews in Jerusalem were put to death when they dared to oust the false priest that he had put in the temple.

Antichrists (vv. 40-45)

There is a bit of a difficulty here however when we get to vv. 40-45.

Up until this point the prophecy has been nothing but detailed and accurate.

And I have left probably half of the detail out for the sake of time.

All the political intrigue, dynasty marriages, battles, and successions that are prophesied in Ch. 11 can find a historical corollary.

But vv. 40-45 do not accurately describe Antiochus, none of these things are historically true of him.

So, was Daniel right about everything but these last 5 verses, or does he begin describing someone else?

Many scholars see here in vv. 40-45 a reference not to Antiochus Epiphanes, but to the one that Antiochus Epiphanes foreshadows, the antichrist.

The man of lawlessness from 2 Thess. the great antichrist from 1 John.

Frankly, I will have the humility to say, I don’t know exactly to whom it is referring.

I tend to think that Daniel’s vision begins to widen in scope at this point to speak in apocalyptic terms of all future antichrists, culminating in that antichrist, the man of lawlessness.

And we see in v. 45, in all of his terror and might and cruelty, he will come to an end just like every other king that came before him with none to help him.

Standing Firm Against Raging Enemies

The Instability of the Kingdoms

One thing that we can see from these historical events is that pagan nations are unstable nations because they have unstable gods.

The demons that they worship are not all powerful, they are not all wise, they war with and against each other, and most importantly, they war against God.

For these reasons, they cannot last, they come in with a bang and go out with a whimper.

Yet they do a lot of damage in the intervening time.

This is what we’re seeing today in our own world.

As the West has abandoned Christianity wholesale and has turned back to the demons of paganism, the world we inhabit has become far more unstable.

Stability and peace are only achievable long term for the nation whose God is the Lord.

Demons at War with The People of God

Remember the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece From Ch. 10

Prince of Syria and Prince of Egypt

A cosmic War which stands behind human conflict

The Refining Fire of Suffering

Persecution

Daniel 11:36 ““And the king shall do as he wills.

Antiochus slaughtered God’s people by the thousands because they dared resist his attempts to pervert the true worship of God

Tyranny never goes well for the people of God. Wherever tyrants rule, whether they be kings or a corrupt oligarchy of technocrats, the people of God suffer bodily and spiritually and true worship is threatened

The Jews stumbled by sword, flame, captivity, and plunder (v. 33)

This is a recurring reality for those who worship YHWH in a world that hates Him.

Stumbling, suffering, purifying

But curiously, the suffering is not a curse. It is not an unmitigated disaster.

Because those suffering are suffering for the Lord.

And in their suffering and stumbling, they are refined and purified and made white.

Daniel 11:35 “and some of the wise shall stumble, so that they may be refined, purified, and made white, until the time of the end, for it still awaits the appointed time.”

Our Lord told us that we are blessed when we suffer for righteousness sake

And James says

James 1:2–4 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

And the author of the letter to the Hebrews says,

Hebrews 12:11 “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Brothers and sisters, we will likely encounter suffering at the hands of tyrannical men and women who hate our king, as millions of our forebears have experienced.

Count it all joy. You are blessed, you are complete, lacking nothing. You are being refined, purified, and made white.

Think for a moment.

Daniel prays to the Lord God gives him a message that things will get much worse for several more centuries

Several more centuries to be refined and made pure.

Standing Firm

Antiochus doesn’t come in murdering at first. He comes with smooth words and incentives

His desire is to make the Jewish people Greek people. To remove their cultural heritage and their religious identity and replace it with pagan cultural and religious identity.

Daniel 11:32 “He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.”

It’s only after he encounters resistance by some that the slaughtering begins

Slaughtering and seducing. Carrot and stick.

Tyrants reward wickedness with one hand and punish righteousness with the other

The same strategy is used against the church today, and unfortunately, so many are vulnerable to it.

The goal is to get us to become like the world. We can keep our names and out titles and our buildings, so long as we are, in essence, like the pagans around us.

Think of the United Methodist Church and the Episcopalian Church in America

Antiochus gets in the holy city because some inhabitants let him in

In v. 30, after being thwarted in his expansionist designs, Antiochus Epiphanes turns back to Jerusalem and he “pays attention to those who forsake the holy covenant.”

In v. 32 he flatters them and seduces them.

They let him into the city and grant him honors and power to do as he wishes so that, in v. 31, they cooperate with him to set up the abomination that makes desolate in the Temple.

These Jewish leaders were compromised by the enemy and they let him into Zion

And after they let him in, enormous damage was done, not only to their worship, but to their very lives.

Some things never change.

Today, it seems like we are suffering a similar catastrophe.

We are ever in danger of capitulating to our godless culture. We surrender on this issue here, and that issue there until our churches are indistinguishable from the world.

We open our gates wide and allow the enemy to march right into the church and set up their own worship in our temple.

Many of our leaders in the evangelical Christian world have been seduced and flattered by the enemy, they have been compromised, they have let open the gates of the church so that every worldly ideology would enter in and pervert our worship.

In her recent book, Shepherds for Sale, Megan Basham reveals that many evangelical leaders and institutions have been manipulated, used, bribed and in some cases captured by leftist political organizations whose designs are to move the conservative evangelical church in a more progressive direction on issues like homosexuality, climate change, immigration, and race essentialism.

One of these leftist political action groups even had an initiative that they called “rent an Evangelical” in which their aim was to leverage the influence of well known, and well respected evangelical leaders to push Christians to the left.

Merritt

“The World is watching”

That statement revealed a deeply ingrained conviction that what mattered most to that man in conducting the business of the church was not the honor of our Lord, but rather, the flattery of the enemies of Christ.

He did not say, “God is watching.”

He did not ask, “What does our God require of us?”

He reminded us that we must be concerned with what the enemies of our Lord think about our actions and our decisions.

That man was a captured man. The sticks and the carrots of the enemy were effective on him. He was the kind of leader who would let open the gates to Antiochus Epiphanes.

Indeed a man who had already let the gates of the church open to all manner of dangerous and worldly thinking

As long as we have such leaders and pastors we will be vulnerable, and our worship to the Lord will be perverted and corrupted by the neo-paganism of our day.

Just as the Worship of Israel was perverted by the abomination that makes desolate.

Stand Firm

Some Judeans were taken in by seduction and flatteries. They violated the covenant of their God.

But those who knew their God, they stood firm. v. 32

Do you know your God?

This is why Theology matters. It bolsters us against the attacks of the enemy.

Good theology steals the spine. Good theology strengthens Zion

Do you know your God?

Do you know Him as Creator, as Pure Act, as Triune, as Necessary Being, as Infinite, as Sovereign as merciful and gracious as terrifying?

Do you know Him as the One who will by no means clear the guilty but will show steadfast love and kindness to the one who loves Him?

It is not enough to know these things at a theoretical level. We must know our God personally so that we fear Him.

We must know Him in His beauty at a deep level so that we love Him.

God fearers and God lovers stand firm against the rulers of this evil age because they know the One who should be feared.

And his name is not Antiochus, His name is YHWH

Take Action

But the God knowers in Zion did more than stand firm. They took action

And this is what so many good godly people miss today.

We’ll stand firm all day long against the evil arrayed against us.

We’ll never back down off of biblical truth and biblical principles .

But that’s all we do, we stand there and do nothing to push back against the great evil in our midst.

Christians, it is not enough to stand firm, we must take action. We must be willing to march forward for the cause of Christ.

We must be willing to take the truth of God’s gospel and His law into the darkest places of our world and wage war against the lies and wickedness that abide there

For the Jews under the tyranny of the Seleucids, this looked like armed revolt against their wicked and tyrannical overlords.

That is not what our battle looks like right now. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are spiritual.

We are armed with prayer, with the Scriptures, and with the Spirit of our God and His truth to do battle against demonic and spiritual forces in your local library, in your high school, at your county commissioner meetings, before the abortion mills, on social media, and in the ballot box.

How has God called you to take action?

Has He called you to the mission field? Has he called you to ministry? Has He called you to politics of some form? Has he called you to parenting, to education, has He called you to finance those who are taking action?

Today’s Antiochus

We do not live under the cruelty of Antiochus, but our enemy still prowls around like a roaring lion

He is still at work and he has been very effective at making the church ineffective

Stand up, stand firm, take action.

Our King is Supreme

We are able to withstand our enemies because Jesus is our king and He is greater than all the kings of this world

The government which rests upon His shoulders Is superior to all other manmade governments

His kingdom brings peace, and justice, and plenty, not war and famine and chaos

Because, while Antiochus Epiphanes is a pretender, and an antichrist, and though there are antichrists in our day, our King Jesus truly is God made manifest

He is to be worshipped, He must and ought to do all that He wills, because all that He wills is righteous and true and merciful and glorious

And He will reign over His people in Zion, and in Syria, and in Egypt and Babylon and Rome and Greece and in every land on this globe until His glory covers the earth as the waters cover the sea

Would you not serve Him? Would you not give of yourself for Him? Would you not delight in receiving from Him forgiveness and protection and vindication and peace and joy?

These are the inherent rights of those who belong to Him.

But to those who are enticed by the flatteries of the kings of this world, those who reject the Lordship of Christ, those who

Conclusion

Syria raged, Egypt tottered, Rome said, ‘let us burst their bonds apart.’ They all set themselves against us and against the Lords anointed.

They dared to abuse the people of God. In their arrogance they sought to destroy the true worship of God among men.

God held them in derision, He terrified them in His wrath, and now, they are no more.

And so for every single one of our enemies.

But as for our God, He has set His king in Zion. And He reigns, Jesus God made manifest.