Daniel 8: Persevere No Matter What

And as the pressure to conform to the world is ramping up and up and up, now is the time to look in our souls and ask, “Have I really denied myself and taken up my cross to follow Jesus, or am I just playing church?”

Hold fast to Christ and never give up, no matter how hard the world pressures you to conform.

That is where we are going today from Daniel 8.

What does perseverance look like and how do you have it?

How do you have a heart so zealous for the Lord that there is nothing you want more than to glorify Him?

But first, we need to understand the vision.

And then after going through the whole vision, we are going to come back and make two pointed applications for how this vision applies to us today even though the events of the vision took place thousands of years ago.

Let’s start with point number 1...

I. God Judges Covenantal Apostasy

Daniel 8:1 In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first.

This vision comes to Daniel two years after he had the vision from chapter 7.

And in this vision Daniel saw a ram with two horns. These are verses 3-7.

One of the horns was greater than the other and this ram charged westward and northward and southward.

He was so strong that no beast, no kingdom, could stand before him, and this ram became great.

And as he was looking at this ram, a male goat came up from the west and ran across the face of the whole earth without its feet ever touching the ground.

And this goat had a horn right between its eyes and it charged the ram and ran at him in his powerful wrath.

He struck the ram, cast him down, and trampled him to death breaking both of the ram’s horns.

After this the goat becomes very great. Greater than the ram. And then when he was strong, when he was at the height of his power, the great horn in between the goats eyes was broken, and out of the goat came up four other horns that grew toward the four winds of heaven.

What in the world is going on here? There’s a goat. There’s a ram. They’re fighting each other. What is this vision all about?

Thankfully God tells us.

God sends an angel, Gabriel and in verse 16 says, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.”

So Gabriel says Daniel 8:19-22 Behold, I will make known to you what shall be at the latter end of the indignation, for it refers to the appointed time of the end. As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia. And the goat is the king of Greece. And the great horn between his eyes is the first king. As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power.

So the ram is the kingdom of Medo-Persia.

That’s why one horn was greater than the other. The Persians were greater than the Medes.

And the goat is the kingdom of Greece and the horn between its eyes is its first king, Alexander the Great.

That’s why the goat raced across the face of the whole earth without touching the ground.

Alexander conquered the whole world in just about 10 years. Incredibly fast as if he was flying through every kingdom and territory that stood in his way.

But then, when he was strong, at the height of his power he was broken. Alexander died as a young man very suddenly.

And out of his death, four horns came up instead.

When he died, Alexander only had an infant son, and so no one who was ready to rule his kingdom.

This led to four of Alexander’s generals vying for power.

Alexander’s kingdom was divided into four smaller Greek kingdoms.

Cassander took Macedonia.

Lysimachus Thrace and Asia.

Seleucus Syria.

And Ptolemy Egypt.

That’s why Daniel says four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power.

Now remember, Daniel is prophesying this hundreds of years before it actually happens.

God is Sovereign over History.

Isaiah 46:9-10 I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.

This is what we talked about last week. When you read world history you’re really reading His Story.

Nothing that happens in the world is an accident.

It might be a rough and windy road but history is just God’s plan working itself out, and we know how the story ends.

Every tongue will confess and every knee will bow at the feet of King Jesus.

We don’t need to be scared or wonder what God is doing. I will accomplish all my purpose.

We need to always be looking at the world through Kingdom eyes and asking ourselves, “How am I seeking first the Kingdom? How am I living on mission to bring glory to the name of Christ?

But that’s not the end of the vision. The heart of the vision comes with the Little Horn that rises out of the 4 lesser horns in verse 9.

The Little Horn

Daniel 8:9-12 Out of one of them came a little horn, which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land.

The glorious land is the Land of Israel, so when this Little Horn makes itself exceedingly great towards the south, east, and glorious land, that’s God’s way of saying it became the ruler of those lands.

And if you remember from chapter 7, a Little Horn, biblically, is not limited to one particular individual.

The Little Horn in Daniel 8 is part of the kingdom of Greece, while the one in Daniel 7 belonged to the kingdom of Rome.

Instead, a Little Horn describes a type of ruler.

Someone who embodies all the the power and wickedness of any Beastly Empire that rages and rebels against God.

So a Little Horn, by a biblical definition, would be any tyrant who makes themselves equal with God and persecutes God’s people.

That’s why they are a Little Horn. They make themselves big, they make themselves great as God, but compared to God they are very small.

And that’s exactly what this Little Horn did.

Verse 10.

It grew great, even to the host of heaven. And some of the host and some of the stars it threw down to the ground and trampled on them. It became great, even as great as the Prince of the host.

When it says And some of the host and some of the stars it threw down to the ground and trampled them, that verse is explained in verse 24 he shall cause fearful destruction and shall succeed in what he does, and destroy mighty men and the people who are the saints.

So the Little Horn tears down other rulers and kings and persecutes the saints.

Then the Little Horn becomes great, even as great as the Prince of the host. That is: God himself.

Now this doesn’t mean the Little Horn was actually as great as God.

Literally this verse could be translated It even magnified itself to be equal with the Prince of the host (NASB) or It acted arrogantly even against the Prince of the host (CSB).

The idea is the Little Horn raises himself up against God himself.

Verse 25 says in his own mind he shall become great. Literally that’s in his heart.

So in the pride and arrogance of his own heart, the Little Horn makes himself equal with God.

And the Little Horn makes war on God.

He persecutes God’s people, and he takes away God’s worship.

He takes away the sacrifices of the Temple and desecrates God’s sanctuary. He throws God’s truth to to the ground and drags it through the mud.

That’s why it says And the regular burnt offering was taken away from him, and the place of his sanctuary was overthrown. And a host will be given over to it together with the regular burnt offering because of transgression, and it will throw truth to the ground, and it will act and prosper.

Well who is this Little Horn?

We know he comes out of the 4 lesser horns, so he’s Greek.

And in verse 23 Gabriel says that he is a king of bold face, one who understands riddles....His power shall be great—but not by his own power; and he shall cause fearful destruction and shall succeed in what he does (Daniel 8:23-24).

So he is a king of bold face. One who is hard. Unyielding. Determined. One who can’t be stopped.

He understands riddles which means he is a master of deceit and cunning to get what he wants and as a master, he is not easily deceived by others. He’s formidable.

That’s why verse 25 says By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand.

All of these descriptions make the Little Horn none other than Antiochus Epiphanes or Antiochus IV.

Antiochus was a king of the Seleucid empire, one of the four kingdoms that came out of Alexander the Great’s kingdom who ruled from 175-164 BC.

Originally, Antiochus was not in line for the throne.

The king before Seleucus IV (187-175 BC) died and Antiochus came on the scene.

Antiochus’ brother Demetrius was actually in line to rule but when Seleucus died, he was a prisoner in Rome.

So Antiochus comes and says he was going to rule on behalf of his brother, and when Demetrius got out he would take over the throne.

But Antiochus actually had other plans and he used this time to get a loyal following and when he was strong enough, he pulled off the mask and took the throne for good.

That’s why he was a master of riddles and prospered by his cunning and deceit just like Daniel says.

(Bruce Gore, YouTube, 26. Antiochus Ephiphanes and the Maccabees, 5 min 30 sec).

And Antiochus was a monster. One of the most wretched tyrants that ever ruled over the people of Israel.

He took for himself the nickname Epiphanes which means “God made manifest” believing that he himself was God in the flesh making himself equal with God.

But the Jews called him Antiochus Epimanes which means “madman” or “insane one” because of the terror he brought on the Jews (MacArthur NT Commentary: Matthew 24-28, 34).

Historically, you have to understand what was going on that drove Antiochus to do what he did.

Remember, there is more than one kingdom in the world and they are all vying for supremacy and power.

To make that happen, Antiochus and other Greek kings, wanted to unify their kingdom by forcing everyone in their kingdom to adopt Greek culture, philosophy, and religion through something called Hellenization.

Hellen is a word that means Greek, so Hellenization means the Greek-izing of the world.

This is where you get the Hellenists or Greek speaking Jews in acts.

Hellenization was the way kings would try to make everyone in their kingdom adopt the Greek way of life.

Well obviously the Jews were a threat to that and so Antiochus hated them.

He outlawed Judaism and threatened to kill anyone who did not obey.

The book of Maccabees which are not part of the Bible like the Catholics, or if you really want to be spicy like the papists want to believe, but they do give a pretty decent history of this time in Israel.

And in 1 Maccabees 1, Antiochus ordered everyone in Israel to stop offering sacrifices to God, ignore the Sabbath and other religious festivals like Passover, to build altars to idols and offer sacrifices to false gods including pigs and other unclean animals.

To leave their sons uncircumcised and even eat unclean foods so that, and this is a quote, they would forget the law and change all the ordinances (1 Maccabees 1:41-42, 44-50).

Antiochus wanted completely obliterate the Jewish religion and snuff out the true worship of God.

He would kill tens of thousands of Jewish men, women, and children at a time, and then sell tens of thousands more into slavery.

Here’s one example:

1 Maccabees 1:56-61 The books of the law that they found they tore to pieces and burned with fire. Anyone found possessing the book of the covenant, or anyone who adhered to the law, was condemned to death by decree of the king. They kept using violence against Israel...According to the decree, they put to death the women who had their children circumcised, and their families and those who circumcised them; and they hung the infants from their mothers’ necks.

Like I said, Antiochus was an absolute monster who terrorized the people of God.

And just like Daniel says he will will take away the regular burnt offering and overthrow the sanctuary or God’s Temple.

In 168 BC there was what Daniel calls the Abomination of Desolation where Antiochus slaughtered a pig, the most unclean animal imaginable for the Jew, on the altar of the Temple and made the priests eat its flesh.

He set up an idol of Zeus, turned the Temple into a pagan brothel where Gentiles would profane God’s house with sexual immorality and pagan sacrifices.

The Temple was absolutely desecrated and made unclean. And it stayed that way for three years.

Daniel 8:13-14 Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the one who spoke, “For how long is the vision concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate, and the giving over of the sanctuary and host to be trampled underfoot?” And he said to me, “For 2,300 evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.”

2300 evenings and mornings is a like saying 2300 nights or dark days and it amounts to basically a little over 6 years.

Precisely the amount of time Antiochus terrorized the Jews starting with the removal of Onias the high priest in 171 ending with Antiochus’ death and reconsecration of the priesthood in 164 BC.

Between 168-165, Antiochus left soldiers in Judah to carry out his reign of terror and during that time, the Temple remained unclean.

No sacrifices, no worship, no nothing.

Eventually a man named Judas Maccabees, which is the Syrian word for Hammer, led a revolt against the Syrians, kicked them out of Jerusalem, and rededicated the Temple on December 25 in 165 BC with the Feast of Dedication mentioned in John 10:22 and what the Jews celebrate today as Hanukkah.

Antiochus died shortly, thereafter, by no human hand as Daniel said.

God Himself killed Antiochus and 2 Maccabees 9:5-10 tells us that the God of Israel struck him with an invisible blow.

He was seized with pain in his bowels and his body was eaten by worms while he was still alive.

His flesh rotted away and the stench was so great that his whole army was terrified.

After this, the Temple was restored to its rightful state just as God had promised.

And its an amazing vision. God get’s it exactly right. Of course he does. He’s the one holding all things together.

But why does God put this in the Bible? What does God want us to take away from it?

Even Daniel is told The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now (Daniel 8:26).

For Daniel it wasn’t going to happen for a few hundred years and for us its already been a couple thousand.

What does God’s Word have to say for us today?

The key has to do with transgression.

Verse 12 And a host will be given over to it together with the regular burnt offering because of transgression, and it will throw truth to the ground, and it will act and prosper (Daniel 8:12).

God allowed Antiochus to do all that he did because of Israel’s transgression. Because of Israel’s sin.

And verse 23, the Little Horn rose up when the transgressors reached their limit (Daniel 8:23).

Or in other words, when they were at the height of their sin.

Antiochus was God’s judgment. God’s discipline for Israel’s covenantal apostasy and faithlessness.

And this is where we are going to get into the two applications this passage has for us today.

One application is ethical - what we do.

And the other is theological - what we believe.

But they aren’t independent of each other. They work together.

The theological application is the launch pad that drives and motivates our hearts, minds, souls, and strength to actually live out the ethical application of what God commands us to do.

Let’s start with the ethical. Point number 2...

II. Do Not Conform to the World

Let’s frame it up.

Antiochus Epiphanes was God’s judgment against his people. Antiochus did what he did because of Israel’s transgression.

And we just said that their transgression that provoked God’s judgment was their own covenantal apostasy and faithlessness.

What is apostasy?

Its knowing the truth and turning your back on it. Its turning your back on your faith. Renouncing God and going the other way.

But to apply this to us today, I want to zero in on that and can sharpen the edge to see if we can bring any clarity to what their transgression means for our lives today.

Let’s go back to Daniel’s day. This was hundreds of years before Antiochus.

Israel was already under judgment. They were in exile for breaking God’s Covenant.

And after 70 years of exile, Cyrus king of Persia freed Israel from Babylon and sent them back to the Promise Land to rebuild the Temple that Babylon had destroyed in 586 BC.

And they did, but if you read through Ezra, Nehemiah, Malachi, and Haggai, Israel let other stuff get in the way.

They neglected rebuilding the Temple and sought after their own interests (Haggai 1:2).

Malachi even talks about how they offered God blemished sacrifices and treated the worship of God as a wearisome chore (Mal. 1:12-14).

And just a few years after rededicating the wall and the Temple after it was all rebuilt and recommitting themselves to the covenant, Nehemiah comes back in Nehemiah 13, and finds out they had fallen again from the love they had at first.

The Temple and the Sabbath, the sign of that the people were walking in the Covenant, were being neglected all over again.

They had just come out of Exile for some of the exact same sins, and here they are again doing the exact same things just a few years later.

There were some good years and some bad, but overall Israel was not zealous for God and His glory.

They were Lassie-faire.

So what was their transgression? We said covenantal faithlessness, but that’s a pretty theological way to say it, so lets just call it what it is.

They were lukewarm in their faith.

They lived for themselves instead of God and His glory.

Do you see how this starts to hit home for us today?

What about us? Are we zealous for Christ? Consumed with zeal for His Name and His glory?

Are we red hot for the glory of God? Or are we content to just coast through life and give God our scraps as long as its not too much work?

Who are you living for?

And here’s the danger for us today.

Do you know where a lukewarm faith will eventually get you? Outright apostasy. That’s exactly what happened to Israel under Antiochus Epiphanes.

Israel neglected the covenant and the glory of God, so by the time Antiochus came around, they were ripe for Hellenization.

Remember, Antiochus wanted to solidify his power by forcing the Jews to embrace the Greek way of life and forsake God.

To adopt Greek culture. Greek religion. Greek food, values and tradition.

And many did.

As soon as the pressure ramped up, they were all too happy to abandon God and go the way of the world.

1 Maccabees 1:41-43 Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, and that all should give up their particular customs. All the Gentiles accepted the command of the king. Many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath.

Some gave into apostasy because they were threatened with death if they didn’t, but others went along because they wanted to fit in with the world.

Being Greek made you in. Made you accepted. Part of the culture.

The four kingdoms that dominated the world were all Greek.

They had all the philosophy. Power. Human wisdom.

All the cultural comforts and pleasures.

Being a Greek was the cool thing to do!

Whether its the carrot or the stick, that’s how the world is always trying to pressure you.

To make you walk away from Christ and conform to the pattern of the world.

And we face that kind of pressure today.

Sure. Its not as extreme as Antiochus. Not by a long shot.

No one’s getting thrown in jail or being killed for their faith.

But the world is still pressuring you to renounce Christ and abandon the Word of God.

They hate God. To be friends with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4).

Carrot or stick, all of it is designed to make you get up on Christ or at least shut up about Him.

Why? You are the light of the world. And the reason the world hated Jesus was because His light exposed their works as evil, and that’s the same with us today.

If Satan and the world can get rid of a Christian witness, no one is confronted with the holiness of God, and everyone can just hold on to their sin.

And so they do everything they can to make you put a basket over the light.

To be embarrassed, shrink back, keep quiet, or worse, give in entirely and just go the way of the world.

And here’s the temptation. You boil the frog in water. Right now the stakes are pretty low, so we think its just a small compromise.

I’m not denying Christ.

I would still die for my faith.

But Jesus said faithful in little, faithful in much.

If we shrink when the stakes are low, what makes us think we will stay faithful when the stakes get high?

I’ve said it before. Your devotion to Christ is not measured by how much you’re willing to give up before you compromise and cave into the world.

Its measured by how little.

Dying for your faith is the greatest price you can ever pay. I’m not diminishing the saints who gave their lives for Christ.

What I’m saying is how much is that death worth if the first time you ever stood up for Christ was a last resort?

Say you have two professing believers at a company and one of them gets fired for not putting a rainbow flag in their cubicle or pronouns in their email signature, and the other just went along.

Which one took up their cross and followed Jesus?

That’s what I’m saying? How much is our holiness and the glory of Christ worth?

This is why you need to abide in Christ. Feed on the word. Pray that God would strengthen your faith. Set your mind on things above. Bring all of your life into submission to Christ.

Because a lukewarm faith will lead you to apostasy.

Hellenization has not stopped. Its just got new branding and a different way of life its trying to mold us into.

Will we give into the culture of the world?

Will we go along to get along to fit in and avoid persecution?

Or will we stand firm and follow Christ no matter the cost.

Perseverance is a necessary fruit of your faith and salvation. Without it no one will be saved.

And if anyone walks away from Christ it will bring a worst judgment than Antiochus Epiphanes. It will bring the eternal wrath of God.

Hebrews 10:29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?

And I have to warn you. If you are here today hearing this gospel.

You are a sinner. You have rebelled against God and deserve his wrath and judgment.

But God in his love sent His Son Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for you sins.

To take the wrath you deserved. And He rose again three days later and ascended to the right hand of the Father in glory as King of kings and Lord of lords.

And if you would just believe in Him and confess Him as Lord of your life, God promises you would be saved.

If you reject that gospel, you are committing a form of apostasy all your own.

By being here, hearing the good news, God is giving you and amazing gift. He is letting you taste the goodness of Christ.

But if you reject Christ, you trample the blood of the Son of God underfoot and you will face greater judgment for hearing the gospel and rejecting it.

Why face the wrath of God? Will you not believe and be saved? Be forgiven of all your sins and washed clean by the blood of Christ?

Let today be the day. Follow Christ and make Him the Lord of your life.

And for all believers. Don’t cave to the pressure of the world. Live for Christ!

Romans 12:1-2 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Will we be conformed to the world or will give all of our life to God in spiritual worship?

Will we follow Jesus and live out God’s good and acceptable and perfect will no matter the cost?

The world will pressure us. It might get hard.

But that pressure is in God’s own sovereign hands and has been ordained to the day. 2300 evenings and mornings.

God told Israel about Antiochus hundreds of years in advance to put still in their spine, and give them hope to keep going even in the darkest of days, knowing it will not last forever.

Every Little Horn will be broken and Jesus said do not fear those who can kill the body but the soul. Fear God who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28).

Our call is to hold fast to Christ and stay faithful to Him no matter the cost.

But that’s going to take more than just grit and a plucky attitude. We need a theology of the glory of Christ can keep us going in the darkest of days.

And that’s point number 3...

III. Christ Is Worthy of All Your Life

Daniel 8:27 And I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days. Then I rose and went about the king’s business, but I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it.

This vision made Daniel sick. When it says I was appalled, literally Daniel says he was desolated.

Why? Because this is not the way its supposed to be.

Put yourself in Daniel’s shoes or one of the Jews that would read Daniel for the first time.

You’re in Exile. You’re sitting there in Babylon, under God’s judgment for your sin.

You’ve been ripped out of the Promise Land, where God had promised to bless you and give you rest from all your enemies, and here you are living under your enemies with three more Beasts still to come.

And you read Daniel 8 and it makes you sick to your stomach.

After the Exile, after you’ve go back to the Land, after the Temple’s been rebuilt and God’s brought you out of judgment and into his favor and blessing…nothings changed.

The Little Horn comes because of transgression.

Even after exile, even after everything Israel went through, they are still the same.

That’s why Gabriel calls this the time of the end and the end of indignation. Its God’s wrath and indignation against His own people for their sin.

But what happened to God’s promises?

Jeremiah 31 talks all about God bringing His people back out of exile.

Jeremiah 31:3-5 I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again I will build you, and you shall be built...Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit.

Jeremiah 31:8 Behold, I will bring them from the north country [that’s Babylon] and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth.

Jeremiah 31:12 They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more.

Jeremiah 31:14 My people shall be satisfied with my goodness.

Jeremiah 31:28 “And it shall come to pass that as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring harm, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, declares the Lord.”

Well what happened? Why was God destroying them and judging them? I thought he promised to bless them?

God did not change His promises.

God is not a man that he should lie (Num. 23:19).

It was the depth of people’s sin that provoked Him to judgment. When the transgressors had reached their limit Daniel says.

And here’s where we can zoom out and get a big picture view of this passage. Why did God put this in the Bible?

Of course the Old Testament Saint would’ve been encouraged to stay faithful no matter what.

We’ve already looked at that. Knowing God was sovereign and in control and that the Little horn would be broken in the end would put steel in their spine and encourage them to keep going in the dark days ahead.

It would also drive a resolve in them to hold fast to the covenant and not contribute anything to the transgression that would bring the wrath and indignation of God.

But there’s a bigger picture of what’s going on.

God gave Daniel this vision, God wrote this passage, God sent Antiochus to prepare people for the Messiah.

To drive in them a thirst for Christ that could not be quenched or forgotten.

Think about it. The reason Israel went into exile is because they were sinful from the heart.

And after the exile, they were still sinful from the heart.

Even the exile could not fix it. If you were a Jew, you would think you’d learn your lesson.

You mean we are going to do the same things again? We are going to provoke God’s wrath and judgment again, even after all this?

Is it always going to be this way? Is it always going to be a cycle of sin and judgment over and over again?

Everything about Daniel 8 screams we need the Messiah!

We need God to send the one to save us from our sins, take out our heart of stone and give us a heart flesh that loves God and loves His Law.

Without Christ, our sinful hearts will always provoke God to a time of indignation.

We need the Savior and the King that God promised because there is nothing else that can save us.

And that is how this passage proclaims the glory of Christ.

We are sinful from the heart and the only one that can save us is Him.

Without Christ we are destined to suffer God’s judgment.

But Jesus kept the covenant, he kept God’s Law, when every single one of us broke it.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And if we are guilty at just one point of the Law, we are guilty of all of it and deserve condemnation and death.

But Jesus became a curse for us. He paid our debt of sin, and as the Covenant Keeper all the blessings and promises of God are ours in Him.

You know why you will never be under God’s indignation? Because of Jesus.

Not your obedience. Not your good works.

All because of Him.

That’s why Christ is worthy of all your life.

Because of Him, we will never face God’s indignation or wrath ever again. He did it for us.

What did he say?

Luke 4:18-19The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Not the time of wrath or indignation. But the year of Jubilee.

The year of God’s blessing, grace, and salvation where every debt is forgiven and all the slaves go free.

When that is our view of Christ, when we behold His glory like that, the Savior and King who showers us with all of God’s blessings and eternal life and rest forever and ever and ever because God’s favor doesn’t depend on us or our obedience but only on Him...

That is the Savior who can give us an invincible faith.

One that wants nothing but to glorify Him and stand firm no matter what temptation of sin or pressure from the world might come our way.

That is a Savior that is worthy of all our life.

Hold fast to Christ and never give up.

2 Corinthians 1:20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

Hebrews 13:12-16 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

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