Well what I want us to do tonight is to look into a passage of Scripture, the 11th chapter of Daniel, which gives us the most details of any Old Testament passage concerning the things that will take place during the 70th week of Daniel's 70 week prophecies or as we have talked about in the past, it is also referred to as the Tribulation. So we're going to look at this and we're going to marvel at the amazing details that are included in this passage and that's the title of the message, Amazing Details. Daniel chapter 11. So hopefully you're opened there in your copy of God's Word and I hope you've got something to write down because what we see of getting into the first verse is the continuation of a conversation that an angel is having with Daniel and in verse number one of chapter 11, the angel says that he stood up to confirm and strengthen Michael, the guardian angel of Israel, in the days of Darius the Mede which would've been back about two years prior to what's happening here in this conversation, back when Babylon fell to Persia so this is a reference to something that had happened a couple of years ago back when there was a transition of power when Persia conquered Babylon. So there's a lot there just in that first verse which is really a continuation of chapter 10. It speaks about a spiritual conflict in which this particular angel, who's speaking to Daniel, claims to have come to the aid of Michael. An angel helping another angel. A junior angel, you might say, coming to the aid of Michael the guardian angel who stands watch over God's people in Israel and this is said to have happened in the transition from Babylon to Persia when the Persians took over. Why would there be conflict between these two heavenly angels and a demonic angel at the time of transition when Babylon succumbed to Persian invasion? Well I'll tell you, one of the reasons that I would speculate is because God was going to use the Persian kingdom to be a blessing to the exile Jews. Remember, it was King Cyrus of Persia who, after conquering Babylon where the Jews had been exiled for 70 years or a portion thereof, it was King Cyrus who gave the decree of mercy to allow the Jewish exiles to begin returning to their homeland to start restoring it and rebuilding it from the ruins performed by Nebuchadnezzar. So the point is this, that it's no wonder there would be spiritual conflict between angels and demons right at a time of transition of power from Babylon to Persia because Satan certainly anticipated that God was going to use the Persian kingdom to let the displaced Jews go home and he did not like that. Even though the stripping of the Jews from their homeland was performed at God's permission as He enabled Babylon to strip them from their homeland. In other words, the land had been vacated because of God's judgment. God wanted the Jewish people to return because He knew that's where they belonged but for every day they were stripped from their homeland and for every day that the city of Jerusalem lay in ruin, you know Satan and all of the territorial demons around the holy land must have had a heyday for those 70 years that the Jews were out of there land and now Persia's going to allow them to begin returning in three different migrations to begin reconstructing the destroyed temple and restoring the city of Jerusalem, its walls and its residences within. So no wonder there was spiritual conflict that happened right around the time of 539 BC. That's all tucked into verse one of chapter 11. What I want you to understand is that the spiritual warfare that we're introduced to in the 10th chapter that we looked at last week is all about the conflict between angels of light and darkness, whether it is in the heavenly realm or whether it is within earth's atmosphere over the Middle East, the spiritual conflict is all about God's plan for Israel. That's why, in a book like Daniel, where the whole message of Daniel is about God's plan for Israel, that is why we have an insight that is perhaps unrivaled in the New Testament in Daniel 10 that shows us the reality of these territorial demons that come into conflict with angels that are sent from heaven to do war and to do God's business but who are intercepted by demonic opposition. To me, the 10th chapter is one of the most fascinating chapters in the whole book. When you think about it, back when King Cyrus allowed the Jews to start returning, 42,000 of them or so began making their pilgrimage back to reestablish the Jews' presence in their homeland and this was going to be a long, drawn out process of rebuilding and now, with only the first wave of exiles having gone back and two years have passed and Daniel is still wondering what the future of the Jewish people is going to be, we're getting an idea that this time of rebuilding was of crucial significance. It was important to God and it was important to the plan of God and I'm gonna tell you why, because guess what? The nation of Israel, including a reconstructed temple, needed to be in place. There needed to be reconstruction and restoration from the destruction of Babylon in order for God to send His Son into the world to Israel where a temple would be standing around which His ministry would revolve. The Jewish people needed to be back in their homeland with a rebuilt temple in order for Jesus, who would be born a Jew, of the Jews, to the Jews, to be sent into the world. So if you think about the whole rebuilding process that the Persians allowed to commence with Cyrus's decree, it's no wonder all this spiritual combat between demons and angels was taking place because really all of this was going to culminate in the coming of Jesus into the world. Now there is a great evangelical scholar who is very well-written in biblical commentaries and this is what he says about this whole episode, Dr. Gleason Archer in the Expositor's Bible Commentary. He says knowing that such a development, which by that he's referring to the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Knowing that such a development could lead to the ultimate appearance of the Son of God as the Messiah for God's redeemed, Satan and all his hosts were determined to thwart the renewal of Israel and the deliverance of her people from destruction. And I thought that was worth sharing with you as a quote from his commentary on Daniel because what he was saying is that perhaps Satan understood the reality that this rebuilding effort was all God's plan to get the Jews back into the homeland where 500 years later, prophecy would be fulfilled and most especially, redemption would be carried out through the shed blood of Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb. Now along that line, let me just say this. If their restoration, the Jewish people's restoration to their land from their exile in Babylon, now under Persian control, if that was to prepare the way for the first coming of Christ then think with me about what happened in 1948 when they reappeared as a nation after almost 2000 years of oblivion. Is that not equally a preparation for the second coming of Christ? So God regathered them from Babylon and the places to which they had been scattered in the sixth century before Christ and He began drawing them back from the places of exile to set the stage for the first coming of Christ and now what have we seen? That after 70 AD, when they were scattered by the Romans and ceased to exist as a nation, that in 1948 were reborn as a nation. We, in the middle of the last century, many of you who are watching tonight, you were alive when that happened but those of us who are alive today, my generation, anyone who's able to watch the news, seeing Israel as a vital force in the Middle East and as a strong country with America's backing, this is proof that God is once again, through restoring His covenant people, preparing to reveal His Son the second time just as He restored them to reveal His Son the first time. If there was intense spiritual activity surrounding the return of the exiles in 539 BC, imagine what kind of spiritual activity there is going on there now as the stage is being set for the return of Jesus Christ to set up His kingdom on the earth. I'm telling you, newspapers and television stations, and social media won't report on the spiritual activity because those things can't be seen with physical eyes. The kinds of things we read about, chapter 10, where territorial demon spirits, hovering around and being assigned to regions around the holy land and certainly to primarily Islamic nations where those territorial spirits are coming into conflict with the heavenly angels who are working and doing God's business to prepare Israel for the final scene of the antichrist domination and the return of Christ to set up His kingdom. Back here in chapter 11, as Daniel is understanding what this angel is saying, although it's not referred to in this passage, 50 years after the time that we're reading here in Daniel 11, there would be a plot devised in this kingdom of Persia that is now in control by a man name Hamon and Hamon would concoct a plot to annihilate the entire Jewish race. 50 years from the time of this exchange between the angel and Daniel. This plot was going to be hatched during the reign of a Persian king named Ahasuerus or as he's also called, Xerxes. But God used a Jewish young lady named Esther who was chosen by King Ahasuerus to be his wife because he got tired of his old wife and had her dealt with and those are the kinds of things, when you see happening, you say what is holy, what is sacred, what is godly about a king getting rid of his wife because he doesn't like her and then picking a young Jewish girl to be his new wife? Let me tell you what that's called. It's called the providence of God. It's called the sovereignty of God. It's called that you and I can't always make sense of crazy things that happen but there's a God in heaven Who is on His throne and He is working all things to their rightful conclusion and God used the unfortunate circumstances of a king getting rid of his wife to marry this young Jewish lady, He used all of that because He was going to use Queen Esther to intervene and to foil the plot of Hamon and in so doing, she saved the Jewish race from extinction. Why would I throw that in there if that's not even part of my passage? I'm gonna tell you why, because if we read in chapter 10 about these demon spirits, prince of Persia, prince of Greece, so forth, and these angel spirits like Michael and these other unnamed angels coming into conflict and if we read about that happening then, when the transition between Babylon and Persia took place, imagine the kind of angelic and demonic activity that was taking place in the heavenly realm over Persia when God was setting the stage for Esther to intervene as the new wife of the king to save the Jews from being exterminated by the wicked Hamon. So there's a conflict that we read about in verse number 13 of chapter 10 where there was the standoff between this heavenly angel and one who is called the prince of Persia. It even says that Michael eventually got involved and it helps us to see the kind of invisible activity that takes place between these spirit forces and then as we saw in a prophetic revelation given to Daniel, the satanically inspired leader, some of you remember his name, Antiochus the fourth, Epiphanes, this was revealed in the eighth chapter of Daniel. It was revealed to Daniel in the sixth century BC but he didn't come on the scene, this Antiochus Epiphanes, until Daniel was deceased around 370 years after that prophecy, around 164 BC, and I wonder when we read the prophecy but also looked at history and what all Antiochus Epiphanes did to the Jewish people, to Jerusalem, to the temple and so forth, wonder what kind of spiritual activity there was going on in the heavenly or in and around Jerusalem at the time he was committing all those abominations. You say what is the point you're making? I'm trying to drill the point home that just like we see glimpses of in chapter 10, this kind of stuff continued to go on because it concerned the program and plan that God has for His people Israel. We're even going to see in chapter 12 next week that there will be angelic activity primarily through Michael, the guardian angel of Israel, during the time of the great tribulation when things turn in such a hostile and terrible way against Israel. So what does this mean for us today? I'm gonna tell you what it means for us today. Don't just look at what you can see. Too often we draw our conclusions by merely what our physical eyes can see. There are invisible realities that lay back of the physical things that we witness. Another lesson for us today is this. Do not just listen to what you are told. Why? Because there's what you're being told by someone you can see or by something you can read but we are foolish not to recognize that there are invisible forces in the spiritual world that are behind the flow of information in our earthly world. This is one of the reasons why people can be so swept up by trending news or by some unfortunate current event or series of current events. People can be so easily whipped into a passionate or emotional frenzy to the point that they lose their ability to reason and they dispense with what really matters and they lose sight of the fact that there are spiritual forces behind the flow of the information that is controlling and manipulating human behavior and there's something else I wanna say tonight. We need to be careful not to just think about the now. What this passage and this entire book teach us is this, that while we are fixated on the current and the now and what we feel and what we see and what we hear, all of these things have to do with now and in the immediacy of the moment, there is an expediency to join in and what I'm seeing today, it makes me very thankful I've never engaged in social media because you're seeing things being set, the stage is being set with a race to like something or to join in the movement or a race to condemn something that people believe is worthy of condemnation and your virtue or your vice is judged by a culture based on how quickly you join in to thumbs up something or how quickly you chime in to condemn something that is deemed culturally or socially unacceptable and what I'm saying is don't just judge something in the now. There is a future to which the now is leading and all of this has to do with these spiritual forces and spiritual realities that we have a glimpse into in the book of Daniel. So what I want us to do, that was a long journey, a long traverse from just chapter 11 and verse one which spring-boarded me back to chapter 10 but what I want us to do is to just give you some good news that we are simply going to gloss over chapter 11, verses 2 through 35 and here's a summary statement that I wanted to put on the screen. Daniel 11:2-35 is the angel's prophetic preview of events that would take place in Israel from this time, which is the time in which Daniel was hearing the angel make this revelation, until the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. So from this time, which is around 537 BC, until 164 BC. If you've read through those verses, you'll be thankful that we're just kind of glossing over them but what I want you to understand is, in those verses from which the title really is derived for the sermon tonight, Amazing Details, there are so many precise and intricate details that are given in this prophecy by the angel to Daniel about things that would happen from Daniel's time all the way to this king who would come and desecrate Jerusalem that we now know through the benefit of history was Antiochus Epiphanes, the details are given with such specificity that many liberal scholars have claimed that there is no way under heaven that this could've been written in Daniel's day to reach ahead in time over 300 years and to predict so many specific things that would happen which literally came to pass in such a way, you would have to check each one of them off as they were happening up until the time Antiochus Epiphanes entered Jerusalem and took his wrath out on the Jewish people. What do the liberal scholars say then? They say well, if it's impossible that Daniel could've heard an angel predict all of these events that would take place over 300 years with such amazing detail, then it obviously stands to reason that not only the whole of Daniel but specifically chapter 11 had to have been written 400 years after Daniel's time which means it would've been written with all of those things that happened in history in hindsight which means it would have been penned though written as history having taken placed, it was penned as though it was prophecy that had not yet taken place. If the liberal scholars are right who are alleging that, especially verses two through 35 but they say this about a lot of other passages in Daniel, that there's no way it could've been written in Daniel's time. Daniel could've never written down so many things that would come to pass the way they came to pass with such perfect precision. So if the liberal scholars are right, that what we're reading in chapter 11 could not have been written before these things happened the way they happened, it means that Daniel is a forgery because it means that someone who wrote it 400 years after the life of Daniel signed Daniel's name to it which makes them a fraud. I'll tell you what else it means. It means the whole book and in particular chapter 11 is just a sham because it means it was written deceptively to appear as prophecy which is predictive when in reality, if it was written after those things happened, it's nothing but history which is descriptive. So it's either descriptive from a retrospective point because it had already happened or it is predictive and it was given to Daniel before it happened and I'm telling you, I'm going with predictive, it's prophetic. I reject the notion that Daniel was written 400 years after the time in which the real Daniel lived and here's who's on my side and the side of conservative evangelical theologians and scholars. Jesus is on our side. I should say we're on Jesus side because in Matthew chapter 24, Jesus attributed the book of Daniel to the prophet Daniel. Need I say more? Can y'all tell I'm getting a little bit excited about all of this? So my point tonight is this. We're not gonna look into all of those verses. I would encourage you, if you have a study Bible, to go through and read it and read the study notes or if you have a commentary on the book of Daniel or want to purchase one, it would be for those who really love to dig into the details of history. But if we fast forward from Daniel's time to 164 BC when Antiochus Epiphanes, the king of Syria, appears on the scene. Remember with me that he was revealed to Daniel although Daniel didn't know his name, he was revealed in that vision that Daniel had of the goat that conquered the ram and if you'll remember that whole vision that he saw, the goat symbolized Greece. The goat had a long horn coming from the center of its head and the horn fell off the goat's head which symbolized, we believe, from the history that would unfold later, the death of Alexander the Great who was most probably the greatest military conqueror in history. With the breaking off of the horn of the goat's head in Daniel 8, four other horns appeared which symbolized prophetically what would come to pass in history which is that the Greek empire, led by Alexander the Great, would be subdivided among Alexander's four generals. Once again, the liberals claim there's no way this whole goat vision could've been given to Daniel because it is so specific. Everybody would know that the kingdom that conquered Persia was Greece and that the long horn on top of the head, that represents a powerful person. That had to be Alexander because he led Greek to prominence and then, as history unfolded, when he died, his kingdom was subdivided geographically and divided among his four generals. How could that have been revealed before it happened? I'll tell you how, because God is the God of prophecy Who knows the end from the beginning. So it was from one of those four horns which symbolize the four kingdoms that resulted from the Greek empire, it was from one of those four horns that a little horn was growing and we know that that was Antiochus Epiphanes from the horn of the Seleucid Dynasty because Seleucus was one of those four generals. So if you don't mind, I'd like you to turn back to the eighth chapter with me. I'm not gonna put these verses on the screen tonight but I want you to turn back to chapter eight and we'll look in verses eight through 12 of Daniel chapter eight. Back at the vision of the goat conquering the ram. Daniel says the male goat grew very great but when he became strong, the large horn was broken. We just talked about that, that would be fulfilled. This prophetic vision would be fulfilled in the fourth century BC by the death of Alexander. In place of it, four notable ones came up toward the four winds of heaven. Well, that was fulfilled when his four generals subdivided his kingdom into four regions. And out of one of those four horns came a little horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land which is the holy land and it grew up to the host of heaven and it cast down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground and trampled them. We believe that symbolized the Jewish people. Verse 11. He even exalted himself as high as the prince of the host and by him, the daily sacrifices were taken away and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. Because of transgressions, an army was given over to that horn to oppose the daily sacrifices and he cast truth down to the ground. He did all of this and prospered. So in that vision of a little horn coming from one of the four which we believe as time unfolded would be fulfilled in Antiochus Epiphanes. When you look back with the advantage of history, he fulfilled every one of those. So when you skip down, when the angel Gabriel starts interpreting this vision, you go down and you look at verse number 21 of chapter eight. Gabriel says the male goat is the kingdom of Greece. The large horn that is between its eyes is the first king, we know that was Alexander the Great. As for the broken horn and the four that stood up in his place, four kingdoms shall rise out of that nation but not with its power and in the latter time, look at that, the latter time of their kingdom when the transgressors have reached their fullness, a king shall arise having fierce features who understands sinister schemes. His power shall be mighty and on and on it goes. What I want you to understand is going from the description in the vision of the little horn that desecrates the glorious land, when Gabriel starts interpreting it, he goes from explaining the meaning of the large horn, the four horns, the little horn but then in verse 23, he says in the latter time and there we have one of those dual fulfillments where it goes prophetically from prophesying Antiochus Epiphanes, now Gabriel does that whole dual fulfillment gap thing where he says in the latter time and there we have one of those instances where we have the Antiochus Epiphanes who, when he dawned on the scene of history, he would be the first fulfillment of that little horn from one of the four horns on the head of the goat symbolizing Greece. He would be the type of antichrist but when Gabriel is explaining it, most probably without Daniel even knowing it, when Gabriel got to verse 23, he says in the latter time, there's that unforeseen gap where he jumps to the antichrist. So what we see is in this whole Daniel chapter eight vision of this Antiochus Epiphanes, when it gets interpreted, we see that God has in mind a forerunner of the antichrist before Jesus ever came and the antichrist himself who will appear before Jesus comes again. I just wanted you to see that there was this whole dual fulfillment gap thing and Antiochus Epiphanes and the antichrist. Type and anti-type. So what now I want us to do is go back to Daniel chapter 11 and when we look in Daniel chapter 11, what I want you to understand is that same pattern that we just looked at. Bear with me. In chapter eight, we just looked at this vision Daniel had that symbolized a leader who would come to desecrate Jerusalem but we believe that included in that, when Gabriel interpreted it, he reached ahead and dropped another leader in there and there would be an unforeseen gap between first and final, between Antiochus Epiphanes, 164 BC, and the antichrist of the last days. What I'm wanting you to know is that same concept of Antiochus Epiphanes, gap of time, antichrist recurs in chapter 11. Write this down, Daniel 11:29 through 35 prophesies Antiochus Epiphanes. Again, this is an interpretation because Antiochus Epiphanes, he's not named in this prophecy but it seems inescapable to conclude that it could be anyone other than he. So Antiochus Epiphanes is prophesied in verses 29 through 35 but in verses 36 through chapter 12 and verse four, it jumps to the antitype of the fulfillment of the type which is the antichrist of the last days. You've got Antiochus Epiphanes revealed first in the prophecy of chapter eight and the antichrist revealed later. Initial fulfillment, dual fulfillment, gap. Then here in chapter 11 same thing. You have Antiochus Epiphanes revealed first. Antichrist revealed last. Gap in the middle. But it's all wrapped into one prophecy. So the gap in chapter 11 occurs between verses 35 and 36. You can even put a little mark in your margin between verses 35 and 36. This is one of those unforeseen gaps that we've talked about thoroughly in this time. Now what I want us to do is pick up in verse 36 of Daniel chapter 11. It says then the king shall do according to his own will. He shall exalt and magnify himself above every god, shall speak blasphemies against the God of gods and shall prosper till the wrath has been accomplished for what has been determined shall be done. So if we believe that this is both now, just underline the word then because then indicates where the gap is. Then the king shall do according to his will. We believe the king spoken of in verse 36 is now the antichrist. It is so important that we grasp these things now because remember, when you study the book of Revelation, we're going to go back so many times in reference to the book of Daniel. You'll be so glad even if you haven't grasped a lot of the things in Daniel although you've tried and you've listened to these messages. Let me tell you something, I feel so led to say this right now. God's Word, Jesus told a parable that the Word is like seed that the farmer goes out and sews in the field. What you need to understand is when you're listening and you're learning and you're hungry, even when you don't comprehend these things, the seed is still lodged in your heart. It's there. And what will happen is many times, seed has to sprout before you see the little plant peeking its head from the crack in the ground. So you need to understand that so many of these things that might have been complicated for you to comprehend, that seed is in there and I am so excited to think about the prospect of your future study of prophecy and all of a sudden, something from Daniel you didn't understand but like seed was lodged in your heart, it's going to sprout and that little tender seedling is going to shoot a little stalk out of the ground and you're going to realize, oh, I've heard this before. We looked at that in Daniel. That is so wonderful about how the Word of God works and how the Holy Spirit will reach back into your heart and take something you didn't even think you understood when you heard it and even went back and studied it and didn't understand it. The Holy Spirit will add the understanding and then He will apply the Scripture you didn't even understand to a Scripture you're studying in the future. He'll connect the dots, light will come on, you'll say hallelujah, Thine the glory. Isn't that awesome? God is so very good. So I just wanna list some characteristics from verse 36 of the antichrist. Write down self-willed. You can underline this in verse 36, says he'll do according to his will. That means he'll be an unaccountable renegade. Not only self-willed but he'll be blasphemous. Verse 36 said he'll exalt himself, magnify himself, he'll speak blasphemies, underline that, against the God of gods. He'll be blasphemous. It also says he'll be prosperous which means he will be successful. He will have momentum. The wind will be to his back. He will rise to fame and notoriety and we'll see in other passages, he will have a charismatic persona. But as verse 36 prophesied that he will prosper till the wrath has been accomplished, look at verse 36 in your own copy there of the word, for what has been determined shall be done. Write this down. He will face a determined end. So he's going to be self-willed, unaccountable, unchecked, he's going to be blasphemous, looks like he's getting away with maligning and misusing the name of God and desecrating holy things. He's even gonna be prosperous. But he's going to come to a demise because it has been appointed, you got that? Say appointed. Now let's look in verse 37, chapter 11. He shall regard neither the God of his fathers nor the desire of women nor regard any god for he shall exalt himself above them all but in their place he shall honor a god of fortresses and a god which his fathers did not know he shall honor with gold and silver, precious stones and pleasant things. Thus he shall act against the strongest fortresses with a foreign god which he shall acknowledge and advance its glory and he shall cause them to rule over many and divide the land for gain. So I wanna give you just a list of characteristics from verses 37, 38, and 39. You can write these characteristics down but you can also go back if you want to and just underline in the verse where these come from. Number one, irreligious. You see that in verse 37. He shall regard neither the god of his fathers. After it says the desire of women, nor regard any gods. So not the god of his fathers nor any god, irreligious. He will lust more for power than romance. It says in other words, he won't have, his lust for control and power on the worldwide stage will mean more to him than a family commitment. His political lust will mean more to him than romance or family priorities and then, write this down, he will establish a cult of personality. In verse number 37, underline it, he shall exalt himself above them all. So think about it. He gives no regard or honor to any god, any religion for that matter, but what does he do? He puts himself in the place of a god. He makes himself a god. The end times under the reign of the antichrist will be centered around worshiping him. It will be a cult around his person and then, according to verse 38, his god will actually be power. You look at in verse 38, it says in their place, the place of gods, he will honor a god of fortresses. This is a reference to political and governmental and military might so what the prophecy is revealing here in this passage from the angel is that this man's god, he's going to ask everybody in the world to make him their god but his god is actually going to be the concentrated political and military and governmental power that he has in his grip. So his power is going to be accomplished through governmental and military means and it even speaks of gold and silver there in verse 38, this refers to the fact that he is going to amass great wealth and fortune as the means for fueling his military power. Now do you see why I call this Amazing Details? This is giving us the greatest profile of the antichrist that we have in the Bible. The greatest profile of the antichrist. But then in verse number 39, write this down, he will generously reward his allies because it says here, look in verse 39, he shall cause them to rule over many. What that means is he is going to divide different territories up for those who are loyal to him. He will cause them to rule over many. He's going to give political favors to those who pledge their loyalty to him and do him favors. He's gonna divide the rule up among those who pledge their allegiance to him and along that line with the rewarding of power is territories, he's going to reassign territories based on allegiance. Underline in verse 39, divide the land for gain. So think about it. He's gonna give out rule to his cronies and then he's going to be willing to alter geographical territorial boundaries for those people to rule over. He may even create new districts and new national borders in order to create jurisdictions for those who pledge their loyalty and who always do his bidding. Listen to me, he will be a satanically inspired political animal. So now what I want us to do as we kind of land the plane is I want us to look at verses 40 through 45. At the time of the end, the king of the south shall attack him and if you think about if he's in the area of Israel, the king of the south most likely is referring to northern African countries. Perhaps even embodied in the nation of Egypt. The king of the south shall attack him and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind. Many scholars, by the way, believe that the king of the north may refer to Russia and some type of Russian alliance because longitudinally, if you just take a map and look at Jerusalem and draw a line straight north, it would go right to the heart of Moscow so the king of the south shall attack him, the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind with chariots, horsemen, and with many ships and he shall enter the countries, overwhelm them, and pass through. He shall also, we're talking about the antichrist, enter where? The glorious land and many countries shall be overthrown but these shall escape from his hand, Edom, Moab, and the prominent people of Ammon and we'll talk about those countries at another time. He shall stretch out his hand against the countries and the land of Egypt shall not escape. He shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver and over all the precious things of Egypt. Also the Libyans and Ethiopians shall follow at his heels but he's gonna get news on his phone, news from the east and the north and the east may refer to Asiatic peoples. Perhaps that's some type of Chinese led coalition. He's going to get news from the east and the north shall trouble him. Therefore he shall go out with great fury to destroy and annihilate many. Where's he gonna stop while he's angry and in a panic because those who had been loyal to him are now turning on him. Verse 45, he shall plant the tents of his palace between the seas and the glorious holy mountain yet he shall come to his end and no one will help him. Now if you didn't capture any of the other things that we just talked about, that last part's the best. He shall come to his end. No one shall help him. By the way, when it says he's going to set up the tents of his palace, his headquarters of operation, between the seas many scholars believe that between the seas means between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. If you look on a map, what's between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea is Jerusalem. But the angel says he will set up his tents, the tents of his palace, between the seas, plural, and the glorious holy mountain and that is where the angel in the prophecy leaves him before he is destroyed. The prophet Zachariah fills in the blanks in chapter 12, verses two and three where God says behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem and they'll do so because of the antichrist. It shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples, all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces themselves though all nations of the earth are gathered against it. And then when you jump to chapter 14 of Zachariah's prophecy, God says for I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. The city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as He fights in the day of battle. What I'm telling you is that Zachariah chapter 12, verses two and three, Zachariah chapter 14, verses two and three are parallel passages with Daniel chapter 11 and verse 45 because the antichrist will have his armies there to vent wrath against Israel. You will have alliances and military forces converging from every geographical direction into what the book of Revelation tells us will take place in the valley of Armageddon and it says just in the moment when it looks that Israel is about to be wiped into oblivion, the Lord Himself will descend and will protect His covenant people and will smite the Gentile powers under the reign of the antichrist or who have been lured because of their opposition to the antichrist into the holy land, they'll all be wiped out by the One Who comes back to conquer and establish His reign on planet earth. Remember, you may not be comprehending all of this tonight or in the previous 18 weeks of our study but you listen to me before we pray. All of these things are like seeds and they are in your heart to stay and God is going to cause those seeds to sprout for the rest of your spiritual journey on earth as you remain a devoted student of Scripture. We'll have one more lesson in Daniel next week. Let us pray. Father, thank you for the privilege of studying Your Word tonight. Thank you for hungry hearts that want to know the truth and help us to look beyond what we see with our eyes, what we hear with our ears to realize there are spiritual forces at work that we don't see and that we often don't think about when we listen and then, Lord, help us not to just focus on the now but to realize that the now is pointing to the future. In Jesus' name, amen.
