Our Lord God, we come now to you, and we’re eager to hear this, your word. Lord, we come to sit at your feet and to be still and to listen. And we pray, our gracious God, help us to settle our souls and focus our hearts and minds at this time of us to receive from you. It is for all these that we yearn and long, and so we ask. Once more, dear Lord, open our eyes and our hearts that we might accept by faith all that we hear, and that it may change our lives and our hearts to the end, Lord, that we would be transformed into the image of our Savior, Jesus Christ. For it’s in His name that we pray. Amen. And all God’s people said, Amen. All right. Daniel 11, starting at verse 29, the remainder of this chapter. At the time appointed, he shall return and come into the south, but it shall not be this time as it was before. For ships of Kittim shall come against him and he shall be afraid and withdraw and shall turn back and be enraged and take action against the Holy Covenant. He should turn back and pay attention to those who forsake the Holy Covenant. Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular burnt offerings. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate, and he shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant. But the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. And the wise among the people shall make many understand, though for some days they shall stumble by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder. When they stumble, they shall receive a little help. And many shall join themselves to them with flattery, and some of the wise shall stumble, so they will be refined, purified, and made white until the time of the end, for it awaits the appointed time. And the king shall do as he wills. He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak astonishing things against the god of gods. And he shall prosper till the indignation is accomplished. For what is decreed shall be done. He shall pay no attention to the gods of his fathers or to the one beloved by women. He shall not pay attention to any other god, for he shall magnify himself above all. He shall honor the god of fortress instead of these. The god whom his fathers did not know, he shall honor with gold and silver and with precious stones and costly gifts. He shall deal with the strongest fortresses with the help of a foreign god. Those who acknowledge him shall return, shall load with honor. He shall load with honor. He shall make them rulers over many and shall divide the land for a price. At the time of the end, the king of the south shall attack him, but the king of the north shall rush upon him like a whirlwind with chariots and horsemen with many ships. And he shall come into the countries and shall overflow and pass through. He shall come into the glorious land and tens of thousands shall fall, but these shall be delivered out of his hand, Edom and Moab and the main part of the Ammonites. He shall stretch part of the Ammonites, stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape. He shall become ruler of the treasures of gold, silver, and of all precious things of Egypt. And to Libyans and the Kushites shall follow in his train, but news from the east and the north shall alarm him, and he shall go out with great fury to destroy and devote many to that destruction. And he shall pitch his palatial tents between the seas and the glorious holy mountain, yet he shall come to his end with none to help him. So for the reading of God’s word, may he indeed now add his blessing upon it as we work through this text. Well, we come to Daniel 11 this morning, and again, we come again to the theme that we’ve seen throughout the book and its many awesome expressions. And that is that even though it appears that anarchy and confusion rule, indeed, God is in control. God is in control. All of history is God’s history. It’s his plan. It’s his history through and through. And that theme is dominant as well in the last vision here, in these last two chapters. The vision fills in many of the details, the historic details between Daniel’s other visions as we look at this. And in this vision that he’s seen, this last vision, vast periods of time have been covered, right? A multitude of centuries. And we see that what’s been covered is future that’s near to Daniel’s time and also very distant future that we read about. And this last vision covers much of the time in between as well. And so particularly it deals with the kingdoms, right, surrounding the people of God, rising and falling, the rising and falling kings and empires, particularly the Persians, the Greek, and the Romans. And this isn’t new to us. We’ve seen and pointed out often that redemptive history and prophecy specifically deals with multiple horizons as we look at Scripture. and try to discern what’s going on there. Many passages of Scripture like these in Daniel deal with the close, near, immediate future and also distant future. Think of something like a book like the Prophet Joel. Remember, he prophesied regarding the near and close restoration of Israel after the plague of the locusts in Joel 2 and 3. And then it also took looks to the future, looks out to the future events of the Pentecost, right, which happened hundreds of years after Joel’s prophecy there. And in a similar fashion, Daniel’s vision deals with the immediate history after the reign of Cyrus, who ruled in Daniel’s day after Babylon fell. And it telescopes into the distant future, to the end of history, to the resurrection, to the final judgment, as we’ll see in this text and in the final chapter, Daniel 12. And it’s very important to see when we look at this, that God places before Daniel the hope of the resurrection, the hope of the resurrection. And so as we’ve looked, and now we’re at the end of Daniel, we must see and acknowledge that the theme of Daniel ultimately finds its center, its focus, in Christ, right, in Christ. And so we, of course, know this because Christ himself said this very thing from his own mouth on multiple occasions, John 5, John 12, Luke 24, and elsewhere. All Scripture speaks of me. All Scripture speaks of me. And so in the theme of Daniel, if this theme is that despite all appearances, even in the midst of turmoil and chaos and hardship, that God is still in control, And God ties Daniel’s hope to the resurrection. And we know that it’s by Christ that this resurrection takes place. This tells us that it’s Christ upon whom Daniel must fix his hope, right? It’s Christ upon whom Daniel must fix his hope. And so, therefore, for us, We can see and know, brothers and sisters, that the resurrection of Christ tells us that surely God is sovereign, surely God is in control over all of history, over all of history. And we, as well, are to fix our hope on Christ, even today, especially today. And so we see this also, you know, when we look at the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 1, it says that the Son, that it’s through the Son that God made the world, right, Hebrews 1, 2. And more specifically, what it says is that Through the sun, God made the ages, right, the ages. And so God made time itself in which the world exists, right? It’s the stage for redemptive history. And it will be good to remember these several points as we come close to the end of this history from Daniel and beyond to which he points. And we need to do so because this last vision is like a huge big jigsaw puzzle, right? Many, many, many pieces. And there’s so much detail here that can be, it can be overwhelming. But like the puzzle, if we keep the box top, the puzzle, in front of us, we’ll do better, right? It’ll help us out. And part of that is that all history is God’s history, and Christ’s resurrection is central to all of it. And so we see in chapter 10, the intro from last week to this vision, Daniel, recall, is mourning and lamenting as he prays, and he’s grieving, you recall. Why? Because of the smallness of the restoration going back to the land after the decree of Cyrus. And it seemed more like a small drip of God’s people returning. It wasn’t a great return to the previous glory, nor better than the previous glory. When they returned, they were few in number, The temple was a fraction of its former glory, and there were troubles for them all along the way, right? It wasn’t this mighty outpouring of the Spirit that Daniel longed and waited for and expected and prayed would come. And so Yahweh, the covenant Lord, sends his angel to show Daniel, verse 2, the truth, right? Show Daniel the truth of history. And there’s great correspondence here to this truth that was given back in chapter 8 of Daniel, when he saw, remember, the visions there, a ram that represented the Persian Empire, and a goat with a great horn representing the Greek Empire, and that great horn representing Alexander the Great. and this great horn was broken, and it says four more came out of it, representing the division of his empire after his death. And this vision gives much detail about the two parts of that former Greek empire to the north and the south, Syria and Egypt, and that they would directly affect the people of God in the promised land, because the promised land is sandwiched in between. And many theologians, as they look at this text, look at these chapters, they call them very tedious. because of all the detail, all the detail. And this is understandable when we try to keep track of all that’s going on and all the details. You almost need a scorecard to keep track of what you’re doing or what’s going on. We’re going to look at these details, and I’ll try to stick to a very basic summary of these things and the history of it all as we look at the horizons of this vision. And then we’ll see that the point of praise, what that is for us, the point of praise, the doxology for God’s people even today. And so we’ll look at the details, and then we’ll look at the doxology. First, the details. And the details that we’re going to see historically that was shown in the vision, right? And some of these details, these characters, or these empires, recall are Persia and Greece, Egypt and Syria, Antiochus IV, and the Antichrist to come, right? These are the things we’re going to look at. In all interspersed with the historical events that are going on, Daniel’s vision spoke of here. as we work through this chapter. First, Persia, right? You recall that Daniel, we find him there in Babylon, and it’s been conquered by the Medo-Persian Empire. And we read in verse 2 that it says, three more kings shall arise in Persia. It says, culminating in a fourth who, it says, shall be far richer than all of them and who shall stir up all against the kingdoms of Greece. The book of Esther tells us who this is, this was Xerxes, the son of Darius, who we’ve already heard about. Darius of Persia, known as the enemy of Greece. And that’s what we come to next, Greece in verses three and four speak of Greece and it says, mighty king who shall rule with great dominion and do as he wills. And this of course is that reference to Alexander the Great. And it goes on in our text, but as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom shall be broken and divided towards the four winds of heaven. And this is a reference to the fact of history is describing that came long after the vision. And it’s about the reality that Alexander had no heir to whom to leave his empire. And so as a result, his empire is divided into four parts to his generals. The entire books are given to the history of the Greeks, dealing solely with the Greeks. The Lord in Daniel 11 assigns only two verses to what’s going on in Greece, what happened to Greece. And so it’s God’s history and he will accomplish his will, right? He brings kings and kingdoms to rise and to fall, but his king and his kingdom shall last forever. The next place we come to that have direct impact on Judea and the people of God’s people going back there, they were parts of Alexander’s kingdom that had broken up to the north and to the south, as I said, Egypt and Syria. And those verses that follow, verses 4 to 35, we read about them. It’s quite detailed history, and I’ll try not to be too tedious, as some theologians say, but we read about them. And in Egypt, it’s the Ptolemies rule over Egypt and the Seleucids over Syria. And in these verses, we read about the generations of these kings and these peoples. Verse 5 says, the king of the south, right, that’s a reference to Ptolemy I, shall be strong, but one of his princes shall be stronger. then he and shall rule and his authority shall be great authority. Verse six goes on to speak of Ptolemy II. After some years, they shall make an alliance, and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north and make an agreement. And it’s very interesting historically, this is what happened. This Ptolemy II in 250 BC gave his daughter, Bernice, if you remember your history, to be married to Antiochus II of history. He gave them to be married, this arrangement, this political arrangement. And they agreed that the son of these two would become the king of Syria. Verse six goes on. And so when we look historically, Antiochus here was already married, but he put this wife out for this marriage agreement with Bernice. But after a few years, Bernice’s father Ptolemy died. And once this happened, Antiochus divorced Bernice and took his first wife back. Well, as we know from history, she didn’t look kindly upon this. We know from history that that first wife was not able to forgive or to forget what Antiochus had done, but rather she poisoned him and Bernice and their son. that she killed, and had her son installed as ruler, and this was Seleucus II. And if you’ve ever read about any of the Greek classics, you’ll know that they are very much like the mafia, right? Revenge killings, a cycle of killing to avenge the death of another, right? They killed one of my family, I’m going to kill one of theirs, and it’s an endless cycle. And I know it’s an anachronistic analogy, but you get the point, right? History is like this as well. So we go on and we see that Ptolemy III avenged his sister Bernice’s murder by attacking the Seleucid Empire and by capturing and killing that first vengeful murderous wife. And verse 8 says that this Ptolemy, Ptolemy II, enjoyed the spoils of war and a period of rest. But eventually, verse 9 goes on to say, the king of the north shall come into the realm of the king of the south and shall return to his own land. This, of course, is the next Seleucius, Seleucius II. About eight years later in 242, he unsuccessfully counterattacks Egypt. But his son, like their father, in verse 10 says, His son shall wage war and assemble a multitude of great forces, which shall keep coming and overthrow and pass through. One of these sons was Antiochus III now, right? In the description of Gideon in verse eight, when it says that he shall pass through, it’s talking about going, again, from Syria in the north to Egypt in the south and passing through, what, the promised land. History tells us that eventually he brought Judea under the rule, Seleucid rule. And in response, verse 11 tells us, the king of the north moved with rage and came out to fight and he shall raise a great multitude. And this king of the south at this time is Ptolemy IV, and in 217 BC, he defeated that Antiochus, Antiochus III. And verse 12 tells us that his heart shall be exalted and he shall cast down tens of thousands, but he shall not ultimately in the end prevail. And he did not, because verse 13 tells us, Back and forth, back and forth, the cycle goes on. Verses 15 to 7 tells us about the Antiochus III’s military power, the military might of this Antiochus. It says in verse 16, “…stand in a glorious land with destruction in his hand.” History tells us that after Ptolemy IV died and Ptolemy V comes along, he came to the throne at age, do you remember, age four. He’s four years old. And Antiochus III wanted to take Egypt by marriage again, right? A marriage arrangement, like Ptolemy II had tried to do by giving his daughter, Bernice, to Antiochus. But verse 17 tells us this. He shall bring terms of an agreement and shall give him the daughter of women to destroy the kingdom. But it shall not stand or be to his advantage. And perhaps in this whole affair, historically, the most popularly well-known figure, character in this history, other than Alexander the Great, is the daughter of Antiochus betrothed to this four-year-old Ptolemy V. It was whom, do you know who it was? Cleopatra, Cleopatra. But Cleopatra becomes smitten with Egypt and therefore this plan of Antiochus will not stand or be to his advantage, verse 17 tells us. So Antiochus turned, verse 18 says, his face to the coastlands, captured many of them, but a commander shall put an end to his insolence. Indeed, he shall turn his insolence back upon him. Right, and so about 192 BC, there’s not gonna be a test, just trying to give you the history. Antiochus III invaded Greece. He invaded Greece, which at this point was part of what? The Roman Empire. Right? That was a bad idea. His army was crushed and he fled across the Aegean Sea to Asia Minor and he was crushed again. And Rome was so angry with him, they implemented a huge tax on him. And so it says in Daniel, he turned his face back toward the fortresses of his own land and traveling through modern-day Turkey, looting temples so he could pay this tax imposed upon him. And verse 9 says, And so later, while he was looting a temple of Zeus, a mob attacked and killed him. Verse 20, And so his son, Seleucus IV, sent one of his men to do so, to Jerusalem, to loot. But history tells us that this man had a vision, a dream of angels attacking him, so he refused. And he poisoned Seleucus IV, who died, but verse 20 says what? But not in battle, right? But within a few days he shall be broken, neither in anger nor in battle. There’s a lot going on here, a lot of years, a lot of detail. And the thing is, it fits so precisely with those years of these kingdoms that many, many liberal, unbelieving scholars and historians, even some believing, conclude, well, Daniel must have been written after these things, right? How could it be so accurate with history so long before? It was written so long ago. But it was written so long ago. And it fits so accurately because God is God’s history. It’s God’s history. He is sovereign. It is part of God’s providence. His most holy, wise, and powerfully preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions, as our catechism says. There is a great testimony here in these events alone to the authority and inspiration of God’s Word, right? And so we praise Him for that, for His Word and His power and His might and sovereignty and His providential working, His plan through redemptive history to accomplish salvation of His people. And so when we think about this, we take a breath and step back. We just worked through in these handful of verses, very rapidly, three and a half centuries, right? Verses 2 to 20, 19 verses, We’ve zoomed through 355 years on triple speed, and then history comes to a crawl in verses 21 to 35. It’s like listening to an audio book or a podcast on three times speed and then dropping it down to half speed, right? It sounds silly both ways, but you get velocitides to the speed that you’re listening. And I thought of making the analogy to changing speeds on a record player, you know, from 35 to 40, 33 to 45 to 78, that’s probably a tad dated. But you get the point, right? 355 years in 19 verses, and then the next details of history are the 12 years of Antiochus IV’s reign in 15 verses, right? So you have 355 years in 19 verses, and then 12 years in 15 verses. Slows way down. In Antiochus IV, or Antiochus Epiphanes, It says, he’s referred to in verse 21 of Daniel 11, a contemptible person to whom royal majesty has not been given, who shall come in without warning and obtain the kingdom by flatteries. Right? Antiochus IV was released in a prisoner exchange, and he heard about his brother’s death, that he’d been murdered. Seleucus IV, and he gathers an army, and he marched east to take the throne of that empire. And what was his dynasty like? Verse 22 says he was successful, right? Armies shall be utterly swept away before him and broken. Verse 23 tells us he was deceitful. From the time that an alliance is made with him, he shall act deceitfully. But verse 24 tells us that it would last only for a time. He would renew the war of the north versus the south, Verse 25, he shall stir up his power and his heart against the king of the south with a great army. Again, verse 25, he’ll be successful. The king of the south shall not stand against him. And he will show his deceit once more. And verse 25 also tells us, for plots shall be devised against the king of the south. But when Antiochus and the Egyptian king came together to work out peace, verse 27 describes this long before, they shall speak lies at the same table, but to no avail, for the end is yet to be at the time appointed. A while later, Antiochus would, verse 29, return and come into the south, but it shall not be this time as it was before. Verse 34, ships of Chittim shall come against him, and he shall be afraid and withdraw. This is when the Roman ships sail to Egypt with a decree from the Roman Senate demanding that he abandon his attack on Egypt. And Antiochus was actually confronted in person by a Roman general who drew a circle with a stick, drew a circle around where he was standing, and he told him, you choose before you leave this circle whether you’re going to attack or you’re going to listen to us and stop. And Antiochus, of course, the brave man that he was, he bolted, right? He ran. And in verse 30 says that he shall return back and be enraged and take action against the holy covenant, right? And this rage, he took this out upon Israel, slaughtering and enslaving tens of thousands. Verse 31, forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate. And this is historically what happened. He outlawed Sabbath-keeping, he outlawed circumcision, and the scrolls of the Old Testament on the threat of immediate execution. In response, some would forsake the Lord, but others would cling to the Lord. In verse 32, he shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. Much, much history, many years, many details. We have just one more to go in the detail to address before we turn to the doxology of this chapter and the message. But let’s again remember what we started with and remind ourselves of the very layers or horizons that we find in Scripture, in the types and shadows, in the prophecy and the visions. Our city here being the city that it is, I can’t really point to hills, let alone mountains as examples. But most of you, many of you probably have traveled and seen real mountains somewhere or surely seen pictures. And from afar, you’ll recall, as we look at the mountainscape, we see simply the mountain. It’s flat in appearance. But as we get higher and we get closer, you see that there are actually multiple mountains and vast distances between them. History’s like this, right? The Old Testament prophets could only see the one mountain, if you will, from afar. They saw history in visions like these of their time leading to the end with no spaces in between. But God’s fuller revelation in the New Covenant takes us up closer to see that actually there’s time in between what Israel experienced until Antiochus and the end. between the Lord’s first and second coming. And we must remember this because the passage, as we get to the point where we are now, moves without pause from Antiochus to a future Antichrist who comes after, verse 35 says, the time of the end. 35 goes on, and some of the wise shall stumble so that they may be refined, purified, and made white until the time of the end, for it still awaits the appointed time. And then verse 36 to 45 are quite interesting, because none of the things mentioned there fits Antiochus IV, so it must be another. This is speaking of a future Antichrist. We read about this man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2. And this Antichrist in Daniel 11 is described as a king with religious heirs. It says, He’s described as a militarily powerful king, defeating, it says in verse 40, the king of the south, like a whirlwind with chariots and horsemen and with many ships. Then verse 41, he shall come into the glorious land, right? Ruling over what? The treasures of gold and of silver and then all the precious things of Egypt and the Libyans and the Cushites. But once again, it closes that he would come to his end with none to help him. There’s so much in these verses, but what is the doxology here? This seems like a dry history lecture, I fear. But what’s the doxology here? What are we to praise our God for from these verses? Well, for one, we must notice glaringly throughout the terminus of the kings, right? All of the kings of the earth’s ambition, climbing to power and for reputation and stature, what happens to all of them? They all died, they all perished. And for all of it, the cycle goes on and on and there is no rest. They come and they go and they come again. No rest, no peace, no life, no lasting kingdom. Because we know, brothers and sisters, that these things come only, they’re only found in Christ alone, right? Only in Christ alone. There is only one king, the king of kings, whose kingdom will never pass away, who alone brings rest and gives life and gives peace, true peace, not as the world gives. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. And for all who are in him, place their faith in him and unite it to him, there is peace. There’s now no justification, I mean, no condemnation for those who are in this Christ, this Lord. And then second notice, the temporality of the kings, right? Those despot kings are non-lasting, they are but temporary. Their oppressions are only but for a time. We read again and again, and then they fall. And throughout this text, we see this, that it is the Lord God who raises up and brings down. He is the one who sets the places and the times of these kings and these kingdoms, and through and in it all. What are we to do as the people of God? What were they told in this vision? The people of God who know their God, the people who know their God shall stand firm, it says. Stand firm. Stand firm, O people of God. And, you know, in the honesty of our own hearts, you may be asking, how is that? How, Pastor Tony, do I stand firm? How do I stand firm under the stuff of my life? I can barely get up, let alone stand firm. And most of you know that very often I feel the same way. It’s pretty easy to say stand firm, it’s much harder to do. And in the weakness of my own flesh and my own heart, when we know that we can’t stand firm in our own strength, we come to the best place that we can be. The best place, because it’s only then that we must look to the strength of another, look to another’s strength. One who can and did and will continue to stand firm. Ephesians 6 says, be strong in the Lord, in the Lord and in the strength of His might, right? Or otherwise put, be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of His power. Because it’s only on the power of the Holy Spirit residing in you that you can in any way accomplish this and pull this off. But if and when this is the case, He can in you as the people of God. And because of that, we can stand firm in Christ. We are mighty and powerful spiritually. Our bodies can be broken down and we can suffer, but the spirit residing in us, we can pray. We can pray, brothers and sisters, and that is mightily powerful. And if anything else, this is a call to prayer. So that’s the second thing. And we can also remember, lastly, that was the third thing, the telos of the true King, the true King, the end goal of the true King. We know the macro picture, the big picture. We know that God is sovereign. We also know that God is a good God. And we must know these two things to have any hope or assurance or comfort or rest. He is sovereign and He is good. He is in control from the start to the finish and all the details in between. And that, brothers and sisters, is most glorious. And it’s a most glorious reason to be moved to praise, to doxology, and to thanksgiving and comfort and hope in our lives. Even in this pilgrim land, he knows he’s in control and he loves his people. Remember Romans 8, right? He works all things for the good of those who love him, who’ve been called according to his purpose. Oh, what a wonderful promise, dear people of God. And oh, what a wonderful Savior we have in our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who came, lived, died, and rose again for us, his people, that we would have life. And so let us praise this great King that we have and glorify his name and let us live for him. Let us live our lives for him, this one who died and rose for us. Amen.