Antiochus and the Antichrist - Part 1

Going tonight for the study of prophecy should involve more than just your mind, Daniel, for example, today on Turning Point. Dr. David Jeremiah Wright explains that when it came to interpreting his visions, David became both intellectually and emotionally involved. Continuing his series in the book of Daniel, the handwriting on the use David to introduce today's message Antiochus and the antichrist. All right to jump into this really interesting section of Scripture just a moment in the eighth chapter of Daniel. Well it's time for us to get started talking about this tyrant's name is Antiochus epiphanies was find out what the Scripture says about Daniel's prophecy that we been studying in the eighth chapter is to the effect that there is an after Christ coming and if you remember the plan that we outline the eighth chapter is built around three people to people of historical significance, and one prophetic individual. There are three people in this chapter we need to understand there is no notable horn. He is also referred to in this chapter is the great horn use Alexander the great, great, great leader.

He illustrates for us the power of the coming Antichrist is followed in the text by that one who was referred to in verse nine as the little horn and the little horn, according to our understanding is a reference to someone who grew out of Alexander's empire. Let's go back for just a moment and review where we have come to remember that we mentioned that there were four prophecies concerning Alexander and his empire that have literally been fulfilled. The first one had to do with the route to his conquest. He came from the west over the face of the earth, and he touched not the ground. A reference to the rapid way in which Alexander became the conqueror of the world in just 12 years. He gain control over the whole world so that at the age of 33 he was the world ruler. We also looked at the prophecy from these first verses concerning the reputation of the King is called the notable horn and the great horn. The word horn means ruler or King and Alexander certainly was a great King, the son of Philip of Macedon, one of the great great men who ever lived in 12 years became the world ruler, and 33 years of age there was anything left for him to conquer all the prophecy also talks about the ruling of the Medo Persian Empire. In verses six and seven and we discussed that this one came against the Medo Persian Empire and totally obliterated. According to the text stamped upon it and destroyed it. That's exactly what happened.

We talked about the remarkable death of this King Scripture says that at the moment of his strength when he was strong he would be killed, and Alexander when he was 33 years of age was taken out by God. And then last we looked at the reorganization of Alexander's empire. The Scripture says that after Alexander were to die that his empire would be divided among four they would not have his power but his kingdom would belong to them in history records that some 20 years after Alexander's death after a great deal of infighting among his generals. The kingdom was divided in four Cassandra took part of it was something just a part of it. So Lucas took part of it and Ptolemy took the rest how we come to the ninth verse and we read in verse nine that out of one of them out of one of those kingdoms ruled over by one of those kings came forth a little horn, I was going to learn about another man and this man according to the prophecy came out of one of the kingdoms ruled over by one of Alexander's general as we look back in history we now know that that was so Lucas kingdom. He came out of the Seleucids. The Scripture records them in verse nine as a little horn, which grew exceedingly great. He came from insignificance and he became great he came toward the South and toward the east and then toward the pleasant land is Israel and great even to the host of heaven and cast down some of the host of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them, and he magnified himself even to the principal host and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away in the place of his sanctuary was cast down that when you go back in history and you read the historical sources that are available concerning that. In history, let me say to you that some of them you may have. If you happen to have a do a version of the Bible which has a section in it called the Apocrypha and in that apocryphal section. There are two books called first and second Maccabees and those two books are the history of the inter-testament. The 400 silent years from the end of the Old Testament to the new and those two books record many of the events that were going to talk about. Now they are not inspired and that they are not Scripture, but they are accurate history of the period of time and they are also supported by historian Josephus and when we lay these sources down we can get an accurate record of the literal fulfillment of the prophecy we just read the prophecy is fulfilled in a person. History knows is Antiochus epiphanies Antiochus epiphanies his name means Antiochus the knees.

Antiochus God manifest Antiochus the great one of God now according to history. He was given to the persecution of people as we read in the prophecy he began. First of all by going in different directions away from Jerusalem and Egypt when he was on his way to conquer the world. He was stopped by the armies of Rome in fury and frustration. Antiochus epiphanies turn his forces away from Egypt and marched up through the maritime border of the Mediterranean.

He was filled with anger because he couldn't do what he wanted to do and so he vented his anger by taking his army to Jerusalem and sacking the city. Historians tell us that during that march against Jerusalem Antiochus epiphanies killed some 80,000 you and he took 40,000 of the people and sold them in the slavery.

He also plundered the temple he took the golden altar of incense and stood before the Intervale he decided to destroy the Jewish religion for ever and to substitute for Greek worship and Greek culture. Notice what the Scripture says, verse 11, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away in the place of his sanctuary was cast down. Instead of the feast of the Tabernacles Antiochus epiphanies decided that he would celebrate in the temple, the feast of bacchanal you worshiping Bacchus, the God of pleasure in wine. He forced the Jews to observe the Saturnalia worshiping Saturn using harlots in the temple for those feast day. He forbade the observance of the Sabbath.

He not only forbade the reading of the Scriptures, but he burned every copy of the Torah, he could get his hands on. It was absolutely forbidden for any of the Jews in the city after Antiochus epiphanies to control the practice anything Jewish on the penalty of death. He did everything he could do to desecrate their religion and destroy it forever. One great general by the name of Jason under the leadership of Antiochus epiphanies decided that he would set up some great games right outside the temple. Nothing wrong with that Maccabees called the game the discus game.

I don't really know what that was.

Maybe something like the discus in our track meets these days.

Anyway they set that came up right outside the temple and the Scripture says that they forced the priests of the temple to practice and to engage in those games that doesn't seem like much of a problem. Most good clergymen I know need to get a little exercise during the lunch hour, but if you know anything about Greek culture. You know that in that particular culture of the Olympic great games were practice ends are nakedness and so all of the people who participated in that game were stripped naked, including the Jewish priests and all those who were part of the Jewish worship Antiochus epiphanies force the Jews to observe all of his feast days and bad.

The institution of circumcision history records in the book of Maccabees that there were two mothers who because of their deep commitment to their Jewish culture determined to circumcise their boys when Antiochus heard about it. He took the babies and kill them, hung them around each mother's neck marks the women through the city streets of Jerusalem up to the highest wall and among them babies and all headlong over the wall and second Maccabees and also in the book of Josephus represented the dramatic story of a mother who had seven sons who defied Antiochus law the little horn first Antiochus cut the tongs out of these boys mouth and then before their mother's eyes fry these boys to death. One of the time on a flat iron. Then they murdered the mother. This is just a short vignette of the long history of agony under Antiochus epiphanies.

Is it any wonder that the Jews who hated this great ruler changed his name to Antiochus epiphanies, which means Antiochus the madman. For indeed he was, that in first Maccabees 144 to 50. He writes concerning his purposes and their clear and the king. Antiochus sent letters by messengers on the Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, that they should follow the foreign customs of the land and keep burnt offerings and sacrifices and drink offerings out of the sanctuary and that they should profane the Sabbath and the festival days and pollute the sanctuary and praise and build altars and idle temples and sacrifice winds/and unclean animals and that they should leave souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation to the end that they might forget the law and change the ordinances what Antiochus epiphanies was trying to do was to strip the Jews of every semblance of their Jewish faith. When the Scripture speaks of the desecration of the temple. It speaks of the moment when Antiochus walked into the sacred place of the Jews with the sow and he slit the throat of the sow and sacrificed a big on the altar of the Jewish people, and then he took the juice from that animal, and he literally sprayed all over the inside of the temple.

Everything that was holy to the Jews had sows blood all over the Bible speaks of that as the abomination of desolation.

Can you think of anything more horrible to a Jew than to have their sacred place, profane by the blood of an unclean animal.

In fact, the most unclean animal, the Jews would ever know that was Antiochus and that was the vision that God gave to Daniel concerning him is recorded in the first few verses that we just read and I really believe that Daniel visualized that in his mind much more vividly than I've been able to tell it to you.

He saw what was going to happen to his people in a future time as Antiochus the madman came to rain into rule as the leader of the Greeks and profane the people and so is Daniel is thinking about that disease visualizing what's happened. We read in verse 13 that he heard one saint speaking and another St. set onto that certain saint who spoke how long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifices and that the question it would come to your mind if you were of Jewish sainted Jewish patriarch you saw in your mind's eye of vision concerning the desolation that we just described wouldn't you ask in your own mind how long can God let this go on. How long will the Lord allow such a terrible thing that happened to his holy place. Daniel's vision now reveals how long this time of persecution will last for he heard one saint or an angel speaking and another asking him how long the time would be. And the answer was under 2000 and 300 literally. The Hebrew word means evening and morning on morning and evening.

The thought is that there would be 2300 such evening warnings before these atrocities would cease now. Scholars differ in their understanding of that terminology. If we take the 2300 evenings and mornings to represent morning sacrifice and evening sacrifice in order to get the number of days with the divide in half and that's 1250 days that falls more naturally into the 3 1/2 year. Not exactly if we keep it as 2300 days then that's the seven-year. But either way you can see how easily it is to lay that in over the tribulation.

In the future for dealing with the same basic time.

Daniel said as he saw these atrocities in his mind. His question was how long can God let this happen and God said to his vision. The days are numbered.

He won't let it go on forever.

Now let me tell you how it ended this one of my favorite stories. It's not in the Bible, but it's a great history story. There was living in those days of priest in a place called molten town just outside of Jerusalem. The priest name was Matt of bias and he was patriarch of patriarchs, as far as the Jewish people were concerned, and he literally grieved over the sorrow of his people.

Modifiers had five boys John Simon Judas Eliezer and Jonathan.

One day an emissary from Antiochus came to modem where metafiles live and he was coming to make the Jews in that city bow down before the altar of Jupiter, the Greek God when a Jew came to worship Jupiter metafiles looked on him and the agent priest must've thought he was Moses in Egypt, for he slew the Jew and then when he got done killing the Jew he killed the officer that made you bow down and the Maccabean revolt was on well metafiles died soon after that is an old man, but he passed the torch of his revolt onto his sons. He gave the torch of liberty revolution to Judas who was his third son, and if you've ever read Jewish history. You know all about Judas Maccabeus, whose name means Judas the hammer. What a patriot he was and Judas the hammer was the Jew, who would ultimately bring to an end.

The desecration that Antiochus epiphanies had wrought upon the temple.

He won the victory over Antiochus and he won the independence for his people, and we still today in our culture see the results of his great victory.

Let me explain what I mean in the story as Judas Maccabeus went back in the cleanse the temple in 164 BC, the first thing that he wanted to do was to find oil to light the lamps in the temple and according to tradition the ceremony that would we consecrate the temple would take eight days. But when he only found one cruise of oil.

He knew he didn't have enough the last call that period of time, but tradition says that that one cruise of oil lasted not only for the first day, but it lasted throughout all day that day when that event took place was the 25th of kids live or 25 December. Our time for eight days. The Jewish people celebrated that feast of reconstruction and dedication of their temple. It meant more to the Jewish people that even the dedication of Solomon's Temple meant they call that feast.

The feast of Hanukkah and today around our Christmas time. If you know Jewish people and you have Jewish friends they might greet you with a happy Hanukkah on the first day of Hanukkah. The devout Jews light a candle and on the second day they light a second one, and so on, until finally on the eighth day. There are eight candles burning. It is a sign of victory deliverance and dedication, and it goes right back to this period in history that were studying the book of Daniel. When Judas Maccabeus Judas the hammer went back into the temple, and he re-consecrated and rededicated and cleaned out all the evidences of Antiochus epiphanies treachery and the Jews had a few years of peace for Roman domination came to take over that feast is also called the festival of lights. If you know Jewish history. It is the memory of the discovery of the oil for the temple lamps and the Jews commemorate that glad day of repossession of the temple by placing candles. I heard a story about the persecutor of the Jews in Russia. One day he asked you what he thought the outcome would be if the wave of persecutions continued, and the Jew answered the result will be a feast. He said Pharaoh tried to destroy the Jews and the result was the Passover, Haman attempted to destroy the Jews and the result was the feast of pure Antiochus epiphanies try to destroy the Jews and the result was the feast of dedication just try to destroy us and will start another feast. It's sort of an interesting way that God has demonstrated throughout history, the special place. These people have his heart. Now, as we have looked at this chapter very quickly. We've covered vast segments of history from the leadership of Alexander who demonstrates for us the power of the coming Antichrist and Antiochus epiphanies who demonstrates for us the cruelty of the coming Antichrist.

We now come to the 23rd verse where we see the final person and he is the one toward whom all of this prophetic information is pointing there's no purpose to talk about Alexander if he doesn't represent something else in the future. There's really no information about Antiochus epiphanies that will do us any good unless as we see through him we see out into the future to a person who will be somehow like him. And when you take all of the power of Alexander and all of the cruelty of Antiochus epiphanies and you magnify that 100 times. You haven't even begun to approach what the antichrist is going to be like when he come sometime in the future now let me just say this before we look just briefly these last few verses God prophesied from Daniel concerning Alexander and what he said happened, how did it happen figuratively, spiritually or literally God prophesied concerning Antiochus epiphanies in words. We can all understand, and history validates the prophecy was Antiochus epiphanies a principal was he a force on influencer concept. He was a person and just as surely as the prophecies concerning those two men of history came to pass in women. The prophecy concerning the king of fierce countenance was mentioned in verse 23 will literally come to pass and the stage is being set. Even now it's amazing how God allows the Scripture to be so accurate and periodically mirrors folks in the New Testament with people from the Old Testament. Did you know that, for instance, Joseph was a picture of Jesus.

And when you study Joseph's life.

There are so many comparables to the life of Jesus on this earth. So that's when the reasons why you should study the whole Bible not just the New Testament. And don't forget, tomorrow will continue our discussion of Antiochus epiphanies and how he is a prototype of the antichrist.

We would love these portions of Scripture because so much of what is there in the old record of Daniel has been proven to be true in history that we now can document since it was written.

Did you know that's one of the reasons why skeptics and critics like to do what they call late date, the book of Daniel.

So what they do is they say the book wasn't written until after all these prophecies were fulfilled. So there's nothing supernatural about of it all we know better.

We know when Daniel and we know it is a supernatural back to study it more tomorrow. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah series.

The handwriting on the old, please visit our website David Jeremiah adult/radio we offer two free ways to help you stay connected monthly magazine Turning Points and Dell daily email devotional sign up today at David Jeremiah adult/radio that's David Jeremiah adult/radio when you do, be sure to ask you a copy of David's helpful and encouraging you both ounces to questions about living in the last times its use for gift of any amount you can also purchase the Jeremiah study Bible and the English standard version of the new international version as well as stable large print in the new King James useful lugs and articles by Dr. Jeremiah David Jeremiah adult/radio titles join us tomorrow as we continue the handwriting on the wrong Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah on to non-peace and Christian