Antichrists Far, Near, and Right in Front of You

Hello my name is JD and I am not the president of the Southern Baptist convention and all and all God's people said Amen amen I will tell you this serving in that role last three years I was one of the greatest privileges of my life. It was almost 2 years, but I gotta go this year because of COBIT in lockdown habit to be able to serve in that capacity for these three years to be able to support and stand behind our missionaries, just like the ones we commissioned here a moment ago at our Capitol Hill campus support or church planters to be able to serve them and many others around the country and that way was when the greatest privileges of my life the last three years, but I will say is been along 30 years. The past three years and it is great now to jump in with renewed vigor back to my favorite ministry role outside of course, husband and daddy. My favorite ministry role being your pastor, I never stop being your pastor course but now I can do so without as much distraction that in so anyway I'm very excited to dive back into the book of Daniel, get your Bible this weekend and hope you do open it to Daniel chapter 7 and eight. I know some of you thought that we were disconnect, fade out at Daniel after chapter 6 because he figured I was just too scared to deal with all the weird stuff that Daniel gets into in the chapters and I will admit to you that the second half of the book of Daniel is a bit bizarre, and it can be a little intimidating.

Daniel has these dreams about beasts and dragons, and the antichrist. In end times and I know the honest. I know some of you really really love that stuff, right. This is be honest, who in here is really really excited to get in all the prophecies raise your hand. Okay right right say space safe space who wishes we just stop the chapter 6 is what you end up you will notice my hand went up both times. Okay, I've told you that in the church that I grew up in. We L love end times prophecy or annual prophecy conference was our best attended event of the year and are pastor made rapture jokes like there was no tomorrow they go. We had sharks we had sharks and Sunday school classrooms that showed us you know what world leaders represented by different bees which with FDR between Jimmy Carter and in all these kinds of things you'll I've heard that there are two surefire ways to fill up a church. One is to preach a series on sex and the other is to preach a series on the in times it makes me wonder if I preach the message on the question.

Will there be sex in the end times what might happen. It might be something worth considering. But today not to talk about that, by Daniel seven and eight hi, let me encourage you in case you end up just a little overwhelmed. Over the next bit next week or two. Me encourage you to persevere in this lesson 25% of your Bible is prophecy 25% for every one mention of Christ first coming.

There are more than eight about his second to this is very important.

There's a lot of Bible space devoted to it and I think it's good to be helpful and I think it's going to be good. What you recall how the book of Daniel is set up number the first half of the book chapters 1 through six chronicled the adventures of four Hebrew immigrant teenage boys seeking to live faithfully in the midst of a hostile culture.

Babylon where they had been taken captive and Daniel shows us how it is possible to not only survive in such an environment, he shows us how we can thrive. Those first chapters. I pointed out to you are written mostly not in Hebrew. But there written in Aramaic, Hebrew, was the language of Israel. Aramaic was the language of Babylon, and Daniel wrote this chapters in Aramaic because the focus is on shining out.

They are in Babylon will chapter 7 is shipped back to the Hebrew language because these prophecies are specifically given to God's people to prepare them for the future are not so much messages for people out there as they are for us in here that you will notice that up until now the dreams in the book of Daniel had been given to pagan kings and Daniel has been the interpreter now. Daniel himself is the dream are and gave all the angels to be the interpreter. These prophecies are for God's people for you and for me to teach us how to look at the future if we are going to shine in the present loneliness ask you just consider okay which of these two words best characterizes your attitude toward the future right now. This morning I would be stressful or peaceful. Are you the kind of person who is just always depressed about what's going on. You are addicted to cable news you are cussing at the anchor person you are always griping to everybody your small group, your family, your kids about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket and always depressed about the world were leaving our kids write more about this. Are you the kind of person who finds themselves hating. I mean hating those who voted the other way, particularly if they call themselves Christians in your like how could anybody be so dumb you're always patrolling them and leaving them nasty messages. Some of you listening to our podcast like I do that to you. Yes I am under the Chinook and I love you for it. But are you the Person that does that. She is just so obsessive in your heart or are you the kind of person who what when you're concerned about the future.

You certainly should be on that you still have a sense of optimism about what God is doing and get this you can even love those who voted the other way. You might strongly disagree with them but you find yourself still able to love them in a word in a word. What word characterizes your outlook on the future.

Would it be stressful or peaceful. The reason I asked that question is because Daniel's prophecy makes the difference between those two attitudes we left off in Daniel six and Daniel was over 80 years old now. Daniel seven really jump back a couple decades to Daniel in his mid 60s now warn you there is a lot of detail in these chapters. Daniel's dreams got bears and flying leopards with wings and talking horns in a chariot with wheels of fire and we first read all of it. You're concerned that Daniel might need to get drug tested your, service came from but what I want to show you is that running through all these myriad details is a very simple, easy to follow message that just weaves its way through it. So just hang on okay and don't get overwhelmed at the details. It's going to be a lot and at some points today regarding what is going on right just hang on promise I will make it simple for us at the end. Okay a total Thursday service in reading these chapters remind me of that Disney World ride. It's a small world and not that ride is in many ways an assault on your senses right me everywhere you look there are things spanning an individual, small scenes in different themes and sounds coming at you from every direction you feel like a bug on the musicale right but through it. There's a river that just moves gradually through and there's one dominant song was being played all time and if you just sit still and not get out of the boat. I promise you, you make it out and guaranteed you will be singing that song in your head for the rest of the day to the point that you might have to go see a psychiatrist to make it stop right that's how Daniel chapter 7 and eight is the case. Daniel seven verse two Daniel said in my vision at night I was watching and suddenly the four winds of heaven stirred up the great sea for huge piece came up out of his seat sees always a metaphor the Old Testament for the world. Okay, I am bistro metaphor for support for governments for huge piece came up from the sea, each one different from the other rights of look at it for world kingdoms represented by the speech.

The first verse four was like a lion, but it had Eagles wings. I continued watching until its wings were torn off. It was lifted up from the ground, set on it's feet like a man given the human mind, this is Babylon it's Babylon the wings getting torn off represent God, humbly Nebuchadnezzar by making them go insane your member this and eat grass like a cow for seven years, after which seven years he's lifted up off the ground and is given the human mind which represents him coming to his senses and his conversion, we saw all this in Daniel chapter 4.

Remember verse five. Suddenly another beast appeared a second one that looked like a bear. It was raised up. It was larger on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth.

It was cold get up, gorge yourself on flesh. This bear represents the Medo Persian Empire which conquered Babylon. That's the three ribs there in its mouth. That's what we saw in chapter 5 right that the fact that the bear is larger on one side than the other represents the fact that that Persia, in the Medo Persian Empire. Persia was bigger than the Medes and eventually we would take over and it would just be the Persian Empire verse six.

After this, while I was watching suddenly another beast appeared 1/3 these.

It was like a leopard with four wings of a bird on its back it had four heads, and it was given dominion. This third animal represents Greece under the leadership of Alexander the great. The fact that it's a leopard with wings is supposed to communicate the speed at which Daniel is prophesying. Greece would overtake the world and by the way Alexander conquered the world by the time he was 30 years old. He was an incredible warrior maybe maybe historians say on the greatest conqueror the world is ever known.

In fact in 323 when Alexander conquered Persia which is prophesied here.

He brought with him the Persia, only 35,000 soldiers. Persia had a standing army of 100,000. Yet Alexander one magnificently Persia in that battle lost 20,000 soldiers and Alexander only lost 100, and Persia.

By the way, was on their home turf. They were defending so chances are, they had the advantage of point is Alexander the great is the leopard with wings before wings that become four heads is a prophecy that Alexander's kingdom after he died would be divided up between four generals. And that's what happened. By the way, after Alexander one and he died there was a bitter power struggle between four generals, which were to talk about here in a minute. Verse seven. After this, suddenly, 1/4 beast appeared frightening and dreadful and incredibly strong with large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed, and trampled with its feet. Whatever was left. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had 10 horns. This fourth beast is Rome who would conquered the Greeks. It is iron teeth which represented Rome's incredible strength. It's got 10 horns got a weird imagery. What is that all about horns in the Bible almost always represent power the horn. The ability to do damage that makes sense right to raise your hands. Raise your hands if you have an animal living in your home raise ran okay yet anyone home what some of those animals being dog bunny hamster I fish some of you still have Not Sure Why but Anybody. Anybody Have a Pet in Their Home with Horn. Typically, the Answer Is No. Now There Might Be Somebody at Our Alamance Campus That Just Raised Her Hand, but We Typically Avoid Annals of Heart about. We Love You Guys. By the Way, Right Might Not Think of Some Animals That Have Horns Bowl a Ram Rhino Dangerous Animals. What Happens When an Animal without a Horn like Your Money Runs up against an Animal with a Horn like a Bull Will Typically Horn Is Going to Win Every Single Time to These Horned Nations Represent Concrete Nations, Who Were Able to Subdue and Bring Damage.

See, This Is Not Hard at All Will Make Sense Right Now.

So Far, This Vision Is Tracking along with Nebuchadnezzar's Vision of the Statue in Daniel Two of the Four Kingdoms You Remember That the Statue, the Head of Gold in the Body of Silver, Work Your Way down.

This Vision Is Tracking Right along with That It's Just Using Animals As a Metaphor Instead of the Different Kinds of Metal but Then Verse Eight, a New Detail Gets Added Write Something New Verse Eight. While I Was Considering the Horns, Suddenly Another Horn Little Horn Came up among Them.

In Three of the First Horns Were Uprooted before It.

And Suddenly, in This Horn, There Were Eyes like the Eyes of a Human Mouth That Was Speaking Arrogantly Out Of Rome Comes a Little This Is Our First Prophecy of the Antichrist Notice. Daniel Says That This Little Horn.

The Antichrist Has Eyes like the Eyes of a Human like the Eyes of a Human Means They Seem Human. But When You Look into. Then You See Something Something Different, Something Dark or Something behind Those Eyes. Think of One of Those Scenes in a Horror Movie Where You Look into the Killer's Eyes and You See Something Not Human. You See Something in Their Eyes That Is Demonic.

He Had Eyes That Seem like They Were Human but They Were and He Had a Mouth That Was Speaking Arrogantly Boasted and Blasphemed against God. Now Let's Move on to the Vision of Chapter 8 Because It's Going to Come at This Exact Same Thing Is Coming from a Different Angle. Then I Want to Draw Some Conclusions for Us from Both Visions Okay to Hang on and We Are Chattering This Time.

This Time the Vision Is about Eight to Horned Ram and a Goat Were Basically the Ram Gets Pulverized by the Growth Chapter 8 Verse Five Only Find Myself Here.

We Are Your Goat Came toward the Two Horned Ram and Rushed at Him with Savage Fury. He Struck the Ram and the Ram Was Not Strong Enough to Stand against Him.

Now My My Research Assistant Who Is a Duke Grad Saul in This a Clear Prophecy He Said about You and See You Sport Demise at the Hands of Mike's Assessment Is the Ram Gets Pulverized by Coach K Who He Said Was the Goat. I Told Him I Didn't Think That Was the Main Point of the Passage, Though I Appreciated His Attention to Detail Not Note the Two Horned Ram Is the Kingdom of the Medes and the Persians to Orange Representing Each Side of That and the Goat Is Alexander the Great and Again Was One of the Most Successful Conquerors.

The World Has Ever Known.

Verse Eight in the Mail Goat Acted Even More Arrogantly When He Became Powerful. The Large Horn Was Broken and for Conspicuous Horns Came up in Its Place, Pointing toward the Four Winds of Heaven from One of Them. Verse Nine a Little Horn Emerged and Grew Extensively toward the South and the East, and toward the Beautiful Land Is a Very Important Detail Will Come Back to Okay Southeast a Beautiful Land for 16 Daniel Said I Heard a Human Voice Calling Me Calling Gabriel Explain the Vision to This Man so Gabriel, the Angel Approached Where I Was Standing When He Came near. I Was Terrified and I Fell Face down Son of Man. He Said to Me, Understand That the Vision Refers to the Time of the in the Shaggy Goat Represents the King of Greece, and the Large Horn between His Eyes Represents the First King Alexander the Great Verse 22.

The Four Horns That Took the Place of the Broken Horn Represent Four Kingdoms That Will Rise from That Nation, but without Its Power at This Alexander I Told You Died in His Early 30s. Most Scholars Say of Alcoholism. The Large Horn Was Broken Right When He Died Was a Vicious Power Struggle between His Four Generals Greatly Weakening Greece's Power.

Greece Would Never Be What It Was under Alexander the Great by Flakes. Daniel Wrote All of This over 200 Years before Any of It Happen. It Is Amazing in Its Specificity of Prophecy, Verse 23 near the End of Their Kingdoms. When the Rebels Have Reached the Full Measure of Their Sin. A Ruthless King, Skilled and Intrigue Will Come to the Throne. His Power Will Be Great, but It Will Not Be His Own. He Will Cause Outrageous Destruction and Succeed in Whatever He Does, He Will Destroy the Powerful, along with the Holy People He Will Cause Deceit to Prosper through His Cunning and by His Influence, and in His Own Mind He Will Exalt Himself, He Will Destroy Many in a Time of Peace. He Will Even Stand against the Prince of Princes, yet He Will Be Broken, Just Not by Human Hands. Out Of Those Four Horns of Greece, a Ruthless Small Horn Would Arise Who Would Be Especially Cunning and Violent and Especially Vicious toward God's People Will Sure Enough, around 170 BC Couple Hundred Years after Daniel Wrote This, a Man Named Antiochus Epiphanies Arose from from One of the Four Sub- Kingdoms of Greece and Set out on a Violent Campaign of Conquest for Himself. I Showed You in Verse Nine. On That Verse Nine, Prophesied That This Little Horn Would Aim His Conquest of the South in the East, Which Would've Been from Greece's Perspective. Egypt and Israel Israel to Beautiful Land.

It's Been Referred to and That's Exactly What Antiochus Did Specificity of This Prophecy Is Amazing and As Daniel Prophesied in Daniel Eight I This Rule Was Ruthless. Antiochus Epiphanies Has Been Called the Hitler of the Old Testament He Murdered.

For Example, 80,000 Jews in One Day upon Entering Jerusalem Old Women Pregnant Women Kids Everybody He Issued Coins in Israel with His Image on the Front of the Coin That Read King Antiochus God in the Flesh. And to Top It All off, He Set up His Statue in the Holy of Holies, Where the Ark of the Covenant Had Been the Holy Place of God. He's at His Statue and Made the Jews Worship Him Right There in the Holy of Holies and Each Swine Flesh Right in the Middle of the Temple. It Is Almost Impossible to Describe the Offensiveness of This to the Jews. It Was Complete and Utter Blasphemy against God, the Lowest the Bottom of the Worst Thing They Can Imagine Scripture Calls It the Abomination of Desolation and Then Out Of Nowhere. History Tells Us That Antiochus Epiphanies Developed a Stomach Virus Went Insane and Died Just like Dana Predicted He Died Not by Human Hands. By God's by the Way, A Lot Of These Events That I'm Telling You Are Recorded in the Recall, the Apocrypha, Which Is That Little Section of Books That Catholics Have in the Bible, Which Is Why the Bible Is Heavier Than Yours between the Old and New Testaments.

Those Books Are Not Scripture and Have Never Been Regarded by the Church at Large As Scripture Right, It's Just That They Got Some Good History and Then to the River History.

They're Not Scripture That Okay but A Lot Of the Stories Are to Be Found in That Little Enter Test a Mental Group to the Apocrypha. One Is It Safe to Say That Antiochus Epiphanies Was the Specific Fulfillment of This Prophecy, but but Let Me Show You Something Really Interesting about How Later Bible Writers, Including Jesus, Sweetness, Prophecy Because It Teaches Us a Couple of Very Important Things about Prophecy What You and I Are Supposed to Do with It and How It Applies to Us Today in Raleigh-Durham, Chapel Hill, in 21st Century America Okay. First, Even Though the Events of Daniel Eight Were Clearly Fulfilled by Antiochus Epiphanies. Watch This. Both Jesus and the Apostles John Paul All Who Live, Some 200 or so Years after Antiochus Epiphanies. Both of Them Use Daniel 82.2.

Something Still in the Future. Mainly, the Rise of the Antichrist. Even Though Antiochus Epiphanies Clearly Fulfilled the Prophecy. Jesus, John and Paul All Use Daniel Seven and Eight to Point to Something That Is Still yet to Come. In Fact, You Could Say That the Entire Book of Revelation Is Built on the Prophecies of Daniel Seven and Eight Which Leads Us to Our First Point Is Writing Things down Number One the Prophecies about the Antichrist Are Already Not yet Fulfilled the Prophecies about the Antichrist Are Already Not yet Fulfilled for Many Prophecies in the Bible There Is Both a Mere Fulfillment and a Faraway in the near Fulfillment Gives You a Picture or a Type of the 41 and A Lot Of Times, Old Testament Prophets Talk about Both Fulfillments As If They Are One. Even Though We Get Closer to Them.

You See That They Were Separate. Think of It like This. If You've Ever Been to the Rocky Mountains.

You Can Stand on One Peak and Look off into the Distance at What Looks like a Faraway Mountain with Two Peaks, but If You Were to Travel to Them, You Would See That in between Those Two Peaks That Look to You like They Were Part of One Mountain Are Actually Individual Mountains Whose Peaks Are Separated by Distance of Dozens of Miles from a Distance They Look to You like One Other Actually Separated by Great Distance. That's What Old Testament Prophecy Is like the Bible Presents These Peaks Together, but There Is a near Fulfillment and a Faraway Antiochus Epiphanies Was a Picture of What the Ultimate Antichrist That Was Coming What He Would Be like to Be Just One Example of This in Scripture.

When the Apostle Paul in Second Thessalonians 2 Talks about the Future Antichrist Listen to How He Describes It in Terms That Are Very Similar to Daniel Eight Very Obvious What He's Borrowing from. Listen to What He Says. Paul, by the Way Is Answering the Charge to the Thessalonians That That the End Is Artie, That the Antichrist Is Artie Been Here. Verse Three Whichever This Looks like the Second, the Zoning Super Three Don't Let Anyone Deceive You.

He Says Anyway and Hasn't Come That They Will Not Come Unless the Apostasy Comes First, and the Man of Lawlessness. That's His Name for the Antichrist Is Revealed, the Man Doomed to Destruction. He'd Antichrist Opposes and Exalts Himself above Every So-Called God or Object of Worship, so That He Sits in God's Temple, Proclaiming That He Himself Is God, the Coming of the Lawless One.

The Antichrist Is Based on Satan's Work. He Has the Eyes of a Man to the Doctor Something Else Work There Working Every Kind of Miracle Signs and Wonders That Serve the Life the Lord Jesus Will Destroy Him with the Breath of His Mouth, and Will Bring Him to Nothing.

At the Appearance of His Coming. You See That That Is All. Daniel Eight Imagery a Future Antichrist Is Coming, Paul Says, and He Will Do All the Things That Antiochus Epiphanies Did by the Way Was Very Interesting Is That the Temple Was Destroyed in 70 A.D. and Has Not Been Rebuilt yet. There's Been Talk of Rebuilding the Temple, but There's Been No Follow-Through but Passages like This One. Imply That It Will Happen Eventually and That the Antichrist When It Is Rebuilt. The Antichrist Will Aim for It and See Himself There. My Point Is That the Prophecies of Daniel Seven and Eight Are Both behind Us and before Us.

Antiochus Was the First Fulfillment and the Antichrist Is the Ultimate Fulfillment Right in the First Fulfillment. Antiochus Set Some Patterns Which Are to Be Fulfilled by the Second One Which Leads Me to Your Second Point, Which Might Be Even More Important Than the First Number Two in Every Age, Including Even Especially Ours the Spirit of the Antichrist That Is Satan Spirit Is at Work Which You Notice How the Apostle John Talks about the Antichrist in This This Prophecy. First John 218 Children Children. It Is the Last Hour. Now His Last Hour and As You Have Heard That Antichrist Is Coming, Even Now Many Antichrists Have Already Come, Even Though in Other Words, the Ultimate Antichrist Is Still Coming, the Spirit of Antichrist Is Already Here, Which Means That We Can Learn from What We See in These Chapters We Can Learn What to Expect in Our Age Did You One Example of This in Scripture Jesus Mark 14 Jesus Took the Prophecies of Daniel Seven and Eight and He Applied Them to His Trial, Right before He Was Crucified. Even Though Jesus Lived Hundreds of Years after Antiochus and Thousands of Years before the Antichrist Would Come.

Jesus Said to the Pharisees to the Sanhedrin You Guys Are Playing the Role of the Beast and Antichrist in Daniel Seven and Eight and I'm Playing the Role of God's People and He Said That Again Even Though He Was Hundreds of Years Separated from Either Antiochus or Antichrist, Which Means That You and I Can Take the Principles of Daniel Seven and Eight and We Can Learn about What Our Enemy Is Doing in Our Age That Make Sense and He Said What Would Those Things Be. I See At Least Three Things He Severs Teach You about What Antichrist Is up to Chapter 7 Verse Five Terms in Verse Five Says That He Aims to Devour Much Flesh.

The Aims to Devour Much Flesh. They All Is Not Hard to Believe Right to the Last Hundred Years. The Last Hundred. How Do You Look at Things like the Holocaust and Just Chalk All of That up to Merely Human Evil or Political Maneuvering. Adolf Hitler Flunked Out Of Art School and Develop Some Nationalistic Leanings and Coupled with His Insecurity. Next Thing Is More Than 6 Million Jews Started Catching There's Something in That More Than Human Cruelty More Than Political Posturing and Has the Eyes of a Man behind It Is Something Demonic and You Say, I Thought to Naïve out to Your Nights If You Think That What Is behind That Is Just Just People That Don't Quite Know How to Do to Live with Others. That's Not What's Going on That Kind of Savage Is Something That Eyes McCune with Something to Hide till the 20th Century, Saul Saul so Much Moral and Technological Advancement Did Not.

It Was Still the Bloodiest Century in History That Nice, Even Ones You Don't Know about like 1915 the Turks in the Region of Turkey Came to Believe That Armenians Were Also Living in That Region Right Clicking to Believe That They Were a Problem and They Said April 24 As Armenian Liquidation Day and on That Day, Murdered 600,000 Armenians in One Day in Cold Blood. The Japanese Declared a Black Friday during World War II When Japanese Troops Went through Alexandra Hospital in Singapore Bayoneted All the Patients of the Doctors over Nurses. All the Kids Everybody 1932 Joseph Stalin Executes over 10 Million of His Own Countrymen in and Starve to Death Another 7 Million to Enforce Grain Quotas.

Many Got Mouth and Tongue Pull Pot Kim Jong-Il the Hutus into Season in Rwanda. All This Is within the Last Hundred Years.

We Go to See This.

It Has the Eyes of a Man, but It Is so Much More Can We Not See Satan at Work Today in Our Own Country in the Abortion Industry or the Slave Trade That Still Goes on with the Myriad Places around the World and Some in Our Own Country Where Oppression Is Celebrated and Religious Liberty in Basic Human Dignity Are Denied. I'm Telling You the Spirit of Antichrist As the Eyes of a Man but Is Much Worse, Has As Its Aim to Devour in a Flash in Data Age. In This Age and Every Age to Come. The First Thing Is Easily Destroyed Much Flesh and I Would Say That's True Today As It's Ever Been.

Second Cabaret Verse 25 He Will Cause Deceit to Prosper through His Cunning and by His Influence Noted to Be Super Good at It, and in His Own Mind You Will Exalt Himself.

He Questions God's Word.

That's Deceit and He Exalt Managers of the Two Agendas That Are Much Flesh. So Deceit Exalt Men, That Means He Is at Work Everywhere Trying to Get You to Question God's Word. He Is in University Classrooms Using Entertainments and Entertainment Studios Using Newspaper Offices and Boardrooms and Magazine Offices and Social Media Platforms Making People Question God's Word and Puffing up Our Obsession with Ourselves and If You Love Social Media to Mike about Exalting Yourself. That's His like That I Am Nothing Invented Understand That He Is Loving It. I'm Not Saying You Should Go Try to Cast the Demon Out Of Your Professor Your Boss or Your Phone I Not Seen Any of Those Things I Just Say That There Is a Supernatural Power at Work in the World Trying to Deceive People against God, and You've Got to Recognize That These Are Not. I'm Just Questioning What the Bible Says about Sexuality and I'm Trying to Find Myself Know You're Not Dabbling with Help Your Exalting Yourself You Are Putting Your Thoughts above God's Thoughts. Your There Are Two Paths There Is the Path of Truth That Comes from Jesus and There Is the Other Path Would You Do What Is Right in Your Own Eyes.

This Is God's Word That He Gave It Comes down from Heaven and Exalt God Humbled Yourself before It, Because the Only Other Path Is the Path of the Antichrist Where You Decide What's Right for You and You Exalt Yourself. So in Our Age We Can Expect to Encounter the Spirit of Antichrist and Those Are the Three Things I'm Telling You That He's Gonna Be Doing. He Always Has Been Doing and Will Do Ultimate Fulfillment and Antichrist Himself Is That You Can Expect Those Things until the End of History Is Not to Get Any Better If Anything Is Worse Is a Less Depressing Source. I like Him of This Church. This Way for This Awesome Sermon Is Really Good News to Okay Number Three, or Even in the Age of Antichrist. The Ancient of Days Still Rules Even in the Age of Antichrist.

The Ancient of Days Still Rules Me Take You Back. Daniel Seven and so You What Daniel Says in the Midst of All These Prophecies Always Prophecies of Darkness and Chaos and Judgment Later. Verse Nine Chapter 7 Is Not Watching Thrones Were Set in Place in the Ancient of Days Took His Seat. His Clothing Was White like Snow in the Hair of His Head like Why This Rule's Throne Was Flaming Fire, Its Wheels Were Blazing Fire, a River of Fire Was Flowing, Coming out from His Presence. Thousands upon Thousands Served in 10,000×10,000 Stood before Him. The Court Was Convened and the Books Were Open Here Is God in the Midst of All This Chaos and Darkness Calmly Coming to Take His Place and Just As Judge by the Way, I Love That Name the Ancient of Days First Thing in Here a Minute How It Reminds Me of a Phrase That We We Parents Use on Our Kids When They Try to Pull Something over on Us Parents Know What I'm Talking about Right When My Teenage Girls Comes up to Me and Says That That's a Just for Illustration Purposes. Is There a Way to Get That Didn't Out Of the Front Fender of the Car and I Say What You Do and They Said I Never Said I Wreck the Car As a Kid. What I Say Parents. I Wasn't Born Yesterday and What I Mean by That I Mean I've Been around the Block for A While and I Know How These Things Go, and I Can See through Your Roots. We Tell Our Kids. I Wasn't Born Yesterday, God Leans into the Backseat of Human History Is That the Daniel I One Morning All, Nothing Gets by Him. Nothing Surprises Him. He Never Learns Anything. He Never Misunderstands Anything. Nothing Ever Catches Him off Guard Rights Never Dawned on You That Nothing Is Ever Dawned on God.

There's Never Been a Time That He Was Not Fully in Charge. His Hair Is White, like Snow, Which Means He Carries the Authority and the Wisdom of the Ages Is Closer. White like Wool, Purest Wool, Which Means That He and His Heart Is Pure, He Is Wise and Righteous Altogether without the Slightest Lot of Imperfection Is Thrown Blazes in Fire Which Means It Consumes All before It.

He Alone Is Worthy to Judge the Nations, and That's What He's about to Do Some Sitdown Little Horns Greatness Is in the Room. There's a Great Game of Thrones Going on Here Right Game of Thrones Might Make for Trashy TV but It Is Not What's Happening in Human History. God Is in the Room and the Judge Is about to Speak, by the Way God's Throne Has Wheels and There on Fire You. How Cool Is That Mike Is like a Big Trick out Monster Truck Looking Sort of Thing. Maybe, Maybe, but What What That's Communicating. Listen, Is That the Ancient of Days Is Not Stationary Is Not on Involved in Things on Earth Separated from Us by a Great Distance Know His Throne Has Wheels.

He Goes to Where His People Are.Not to Leave His Throne or Authority to Get There.

It Is Interesting to Look at How All the Events That Daniel Predicted Here in Daniel Seven and Eight Which Again Seems so Dark and so Chaotic at the Time How We Can See Now How They All Worked out Perfectly for the Advancement of God's Purposes to Imagine How Dark It Was to Lift the Beast Chapters As These Kingdoms Conquered and All the Things Received and You Had to Look up If You're Initialing to Say God Have You Forgotten Us Forever.What Is Going on, Can Be Extinguished, but Generally When Persia Took over Babylon Juneau Persia Actually Rebuild Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple Paid for Entirely Something That That All Jews of the Time but Would Never Happen Again. Cyrus Paid for Jerusalem to Rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple Would Be Crucial for Jesus's Ministry. Then God Raised up Grace and Greece United the World under One Trade Language Coin, a Greek, Which Made It Easier for the Gospel to Spread Rapidly throughout the World to the Writings of the Apostles Because Now You Had One Common Language for the First Time in History That Connected People. Then God Raised up the Romans, Who Would Build a System of Roads That Made It Possible to Transport the Gospel from Place to Place.

Paul Summarized All of This in Galatians 4, but by Saying When the Fullness of Time Had Come When the Fullness of Time to Come. Then God Brought Forth His Son. In Other Words, in All This Mess. God Was Creating a Situation. Perfect for the Coming of the Messiah and Perfect for the Spread of Salvation around the World. The Point Is God Dies Everything Everything Everything for His Purposes and Mortgages. That's True of Your Life to What He Does in the Big Picture He Does in the Small, the Good, the Bad, It's All for His Glory.

He Is at Work in Every Disaster. Every Dark Chapter of Your Life Moving His Church Forward and Moving the Gospel Forward in Her Life Not Heard a Story This Week on the Heart Is a Register This Week That Reminded Me so Much of That. It's a Story of How I Got in Dawson Trotman Started a Ministry Called the Navigators Not Much. Y'all Haven't Heard about the Navigators but It Had a Big Impact on Me and Had a Big Impact in This Church in the in the in the Late 1930s, Dawson Trotman Was Working at a Texaco Gas Station in Lomita, California. You Just Escape Going to Jail and in the Process He Gotten Saved. He Knew Almost Nothing about the Bible, but He Just Wanted to Start Studying.

And so We Started Ministering to Young Sailors Who Were Stationed Nearby Who Frequented His Gas Station. He Explained It in His Testimony and He Told Them That He Was Convinced That If They Would Trust God like He Did, God Could Save Them Just like He Saved Him with Those Two Sailors Called Two More Sailors and They Begin to Do This Little Bible Study in the Service Station Garage at One Point, Dawson Said He Told Them That He Believed God Believed in His Heart God Wanted to Use the Five Then the Change in the World's Biographies against Caselli Cummings Really Just for Sailors and Me and Two of Them Were There More for the Free Food Than They Were for the Bible Study Anyway and I'll Talk about How God Is Going to Use Them to Change the World Will Eventually Beat the Other to Get Saved and These Foresail Are Say Dawson Dawson If You Will Quit Your Job at the Gas Station. We Will Donate Each Donate Part of Our Salaries to Make You a Missionary to Our Ship Courses Are Sailors. They Didn't Have Any Money Either. But but but Come on Our Ship.

They Said Because We Talk to Our Capt. and He Said That You Can Start a Bible Study on Our Ship.

When He Does That in Six Months Later There's Been 100 Conversions on That Ship and Twice That Many. Meeting Regularly on the Deck of the Ship for a Bible Study That They Called the Navigators the Name of That Ship Was the USS West Virginia and Just A Few Months after the Bible Study Really Got Going.

The USS West Virginia Was Redeployed to a Place Called Pearl Harbor Where It Was Sunk on December 7, 1941, with All the Sailors Now That Sounds like an Unbelievable Unspeakable Tragedy Right and Was but All Those Sailors in the Navigators Bible Study You Survived That Attack Got Redeployed on to Other Ships Because Their Ship Was Sunk in by the End of the War There Were 800 Ships That Had Bible Studies Led by the Navigators within Those Young Men Come Back to the United States and under the G.I. Bill.

They Were Spread out into Universities All across the Nation and They Began Leaving Bible Studies on Campus That Were Similar to the Ones They Learn Dawson Trotman, the Navigators and Not Resulted in the Formation of Groups like Inter-Varsity and Campus Crusade in a Presentation. Years Later, Dawson Trotman Was Talking to an Audience about His So-Called Ministry Success and He Said the Need of the Hour Is Just a Believe That God Is God and Just to Believe That He's the Ancient of Days That He Sits upon the Throne and He Will Be True to His Purposes in All Times and All Places and He'll Be True to Us If We Are True to Was Well God's Calling to Us Today. He Told His Audience.

Listen God Calling to Us Today Just to Recognize That Our Circumstances, Their Circumstances, As Difficult As They May Be As Hard As They May Be to Understand. They Do Not Counteract the Internal Truth That Our God Sits upon the Throne and Does What He Intends to Do.

St. God Is Doing the Same Thing in Your Life and Bring a Book Right Now.

By the by Getting John Piper Called Providence and Dr. Piper Demonstrates throughout the Bible. He Shows That That God in All These Situations Is up to Hundreds and Hundreds of Things in the Lives of the People in the Bible and at Any Given Point.

They Are Only Aware of One or Two of Them, but Is Working in All of Them Is Working All Ventured to His Purposes. He's the Ancient of Days and Even Better, Even Better.

Daniel Tells Us in before Last One.

One Day He Says One Day the God Who Rules over the World Is to Come Rule in the World Because I've Heard It Said Verse 11, I Watched I Watched Then Because of the Sound of the Arrogant Words the Horn Was Speaking As I Continued Watching and Suddenly One like a Son of Man Was Coming with the Clouds of Heaven.

He Approached the Ancient of Days and Was Escorted before Him. He Was Given Vivid Given Dominion and Glory and a Kingdom, so That Those of Every People, Nation, and Language Should Serve Him.

His Dominion Is an Everlasting Dominion That Will Not Pass Away in His Kingdom Is One That Can Never Be Destroyed in One Day, the God Who Is Working in History Invisibly Will Come to Assume the Throne.

Personally and in That Moment the Power of the Antichrist Will Literally Evaporate in Front of Him. Paul Says in Second Thessalonians.

We Read Earlier That Jesus on That Day Will Destroy the Antichrist with Just the Breath of His Mouth. John in the Book of Revelation Says He Does It with Just a Word, Just a Word. All Daniel Says about the Defeat of the Antichrist That Happens Not by Human Hands Number That Is Broken but Not by Human Hands for Antiochus.

It Was an Invisible Stomach Virus That Killed Him. What What What What What Mighty Armies Could Not Do God Accomplish to a Microscopic Virus. The Defeat of the Ultimate Antichrist That Happened to a Stomach Bug.

Of Course It Happens through a Dead Man Walking Out Of a Grave, Because God Spoke down from Heaven and Says You're Dead and All Human Ingenuity in All of Human Technology Can Change That but I Can Change in One Word Arrives and It Happened Not by Human Hands and Have Been Entirely by God. Jesus Was the Messiah Who Came to the Lion and the Bear and the Ram and the Goat of the World's Kingdoms with Their Mighty Horns of Power Not Here's the Irony Herein, the Horn of His Own, Every Wanted to Write to Come Is the Largest Dragon but Instead He Came Is What a Lamb Land That Have a Horn Came into the Ring and He Didn't Come with a Horn Power Note He Allowed Himself to Be Gored by Those Vicious Animals That Would Happen Because He Was Weak He Was Doing Because He Was Voluntarily Choosing to Die for Our Sin Is to Be Wounded for Our Transgressions and Bruised for Our Iniquities Did This Happen to Meet Satan Had to Meet San and Austin Had to Die to Forgive Us of That We Can Be Redeemed and Saves on the Winnie Overcame Satan's Power We Would Be Destroyed along with Them to See through That Death and Resurrection. He Broke Satan's Power so That the Word of the Gospel Now Is Mightier. All the Horns of Oppression and All the Chains of Captivity.

They Try to Put on to Let Me Let Me Close with Two Applications, One for the Church and One for for Those You Who May Still Not Know Who Jesus Is Really Should Not Surrender Fully to Him for the Church Seeing the Secret behind History of Heard It Said May Not Keep Me from Pain, but It Will Keep Me from Panic I Might I Might I Might Experience Fear from Time to Time but I Never Need to Fill. Frantic, Why Because the Ancient of Days Is on the Throne in the God Who Rules over History Promises a One-Day Common Rule in History Is Moving Everything in the World and Everything in Your Life and in My Life Is Moving Everything to That Answer Be Encourage Friend Encourage St. Every Setback Is Ultimately Going to Be Used for the Advancement of His Glory. Cancer Broken Marriage Wandering Child. The Chronic Pain. The Frustrating Lack of Promotion in Your Job God's Good Hand Is in All My Love Got to You Might Feel like You Been Abandoned, but It Is All Flowing by the Gracious Hand of God. And When the Fullness of Time Has Come in Your Life You Will See That God Has Brought Forth from It.

His Son Jesus Church We Have Something to Do in the in the Meantime in between Antiochus and Antichrist That Is We Preach the Word of the Gospel.on This Great Timeline. We Live in an Age of Mercy and Light. When God He Says Desires All Men Everywhere to Be Saved and Come to the Knowledge of the Truth When He Promises Us That He's Given Us His Spirit and Told Us That Greater Is He That Is in Austin Even Is in the World That No Weapon Formed against Us Will Prosper in All Those Who Rise against Us Will Fall That All Authority Has Been Given to Him in Heaven and on Earth. Therefore, We Should Go and Make Disciples of All the Nations. This Is the Age of the Church Is Our Moment between Antiochus and Antichrist. It Is Our Moment to Spread the Gospel Is What Were Supposed to Be Doing Is How Our Success Will Be Judged. Were We Doing the One Thing We Were Supposed to.

And That Is Letting All Nations Hear the Gospel. That's the Application for the Church. Here's One for You Still Don't Know Jesus Personally Reviewed Not Submitted Fully to Him. The Goal of Our Enemy through the Antichrist.

Although Antichrist Is to Devour Flesh and Destroy Things.

That's What Is Been Doing Some of You Be Honest with Yourself. You've Chosen a Path Because You Thought of Bring You Happiness but Instead Asserted to Devour You Exactly What He Wanted and It Looks so Good, There's Just a Register. If You Want That You Will. God Says on This Is Where It's at.

Devour You Management Deceiving You What Your Market down the Spirit of the Antichrist to Make It Progressively Harder You to Be a Christian. The World Is Going to Get A Lot Worse before It Gets Better in the Liens and the Bearers of the World with All Their Cunning in All Their Deceit Are Going to Oppose You. If You Are Looking for the Affirmation of the World Are Never to Find. I'm Not Saying There's Not Good People in All These Different Things, but Not to Get It from the Academy, You're Not Gonna Get It from Entertainment. You're Not Going to Get It from the New York Times or CNN. Again, I'm Not Citizen of the People to Work with Those Things. I'm Just Saying That the Spirit of Antichrist Is Taking the World Away from God and If You're Trying to Get the Affirmation of the World That Is a Fools Errand Is Never to Come. There Is a Reckoning That Is Coming That Is Separate and False Christians Have Committed Christians from True Christians. Questions Were You Going to Be Where You Because What It Means to Come to Jesus Is That You Say I Don't Really Pay Attention Anymore What Everybody Else Says Because I Live for an Audience of One. I Know the Ancient of Days. I Know That He's One of the Book Is on the Look of My Friends, Looking at People around Me. I'm Looking at Him All This, Talk of the End Scares You Have Really Good News You Give Yourself Fully to Jesus Right Now the Heart Enough to Improve Yourself or Fix Yourself and Memorize the Bible Just Come from You Admitting That You Can Save Yourself. I Can't Save Myself and I Need You to Do All the Saving and Thereby Submitting Yourself Fully to His Authority That Right Now You Can Were Jesus, I Need You to Say Because I Can't Save Myself the Lord Jesus I Surrender Fully. You Will Financing Christ Is a New Creation. We Confess Percentage before Just to Forgive Us Our Sin, One That Is in Christ Need Not Fear Anything Else You Can Be in Christ. Right Now You Choose to Surrender to Him and Receive Him. If You Never Have Much about Your Heads All of Our Campuses. If You Will. My Talking to Right Now Right Now Right Now You Need to Surrender to Jesus. Not Magic Words Is Not Ceremony but If This Represents the Attitude of Your Heart.

Pray with Me. If You're Ready to Surrender Jesus the Lord Jesus I Surrender. Surrender Fully Receive You As My Savior. I Know I Can't Save Myself. I Need You Say Believer Who Is God Put in Your Heart Right Now That He's Here This This Afternoon. You Have a Conversation with Them Because That's Our Job Is Why We Are Getting a Look at Some Chapter of Your Life Are You Been Upsetting God or Wonder What He's Doing and Say I Believe in the Darkness of This Chapter, I Believe That You Are Sovereignly Working Ancient of Days to Bring All for Your Part and Honestly Need to Set for a Moment What the Holy Spirit Minister This Word in Your Heart Set There for Mom and Let the Holy Spirit Speak You Obey What He Says in an Animal or Worship Teams, If You Prayed a Prayer to Begin That Relationship with Jesus's Text Work Ready.

Re: 81 33933 Were Ready 33933 Sit Here for A Few Moments and a Worship Team, Elitists Deleted from Your