Fulfilled Prophecy (Daniel 7-8) Evidence for the Bible pt3

we've been asking the question has God spoken as we're going through a series looking at evidence for the Bible and we'll be looking at a whole bunch of different things the first one that we're looking at is prophecy to show that God has spoken so this is the issue of prophecy this is really the fingerprint of God I mean information that could not have just come from the mind of man at least no reasonable person thinks that this comes from the mind of man two weeks ago we looked at the false prophecies from jehovah's witnesses we looked at them from Mormon sources actually specifically Joseph Smith the Prophet original prophet and founder of Mormonism we looked at their false prophecies because I wanted to show the contrast of Biblical prophecy - fake prophecies so that hopefully it hits home wow this is impressive you know because sometimes we we see what's what's amazing and we don't recognize the value of what we're looking at last week we looked at Ezekiel 26 and the destruction of tyre the city of tyre and how Alexander the Great fulfilled like in neat detail exactly what was stated about casting the city into the ocean and all this kind of neat stuff this week we're gonna look at some prophecies in Daniel will be in Daniel probably next week as well but we're gonna look at Daniel 7 and we're gonna look at Daniel 8 Daniel chapter 7 and 8 and some specific prophecies that Daniel made about future kingdoms that were coming so let's let's just read Daniel chapter 7 verse 1 it says in the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head while on his bed then he wrote down the dream telling the main facts Daniel spoke saying I saw in my vision by night and behold the four winds of heaven were stirring up the Great Sea and the four great beasts came up from the sea each different from the other now we're interested in these four beasts these four beasts are the subject of the prophecy the first one the first was like a lion and had eagle's wings I watched till its wings were plucked off and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man and a man's heart was given to it and suddenly another beast a second like a bear it was raised up on one side and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth and they said thus to it arise devour much flesh those are the first two beasts and then in verse six after this I looked and there was another like a leopard which had on its back four wings of a bird the Beast also had four heads and Dominion was given to it so there's these consecutive beasts Dominion is like when you were dominating and I am I am in charge I am in control so this beast is told you're the boss you're the new boss and all three of these beasts are bosses one after another they're very boss as it were first now if I I'm gonna skip forward there's a there's a fourth beast but we're not gonna focus on that because that's a future prophecy not yet fulfilled we're focusing on fulfilled prophecy here so in verse 15 there is interpretation given more details about these beasts so I Daniel was grieved in my spirit within my body and the visions of my head troubled me I came near to one of those who stood by me and asked him the truth of all this so in this vision in this dream he sees what ends up being probably an angel right so he told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things so what does it mean because just by itself that's probably not enough data but here we have the interpretation given so it's unmistakable what this is about verse 17 those great beasts which are four are four kings which arise out of the earth but the Saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever even forever and ever and that's talking about the the later part of the prophecy not yet fulfilled so we're not focusing on that so therefore Kings that's the interpretation key that's the important thing we're told ahead of time these are four kings so let's look at these four beasts knowing that they're four kings the first beast was like a lion forgive my photoshop skills which I lack with eagle's wings it was like a line and had eagle's wings but then the wings were plucked and then it was made to stand like a man tada and it was given a heart like a man it was given a man's heart now that word can be translated art or mind they looked at that the heart as also a place of thought as well so so the heart or the mind it's given this of a man now this line now that's that's the details now let's look at the interpretation we know it's four kings this lion is clearly to us Nebuchadnezzar contemporary with Daniel Daniel knew Nebuchadnezzar he worked with him in his kingdom were for him really and this line is Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon he's actually referred to as a lion by name in Jeremiah chapter 4 verse 7 in ezekiel 17 3 so you've other prophets who referred to nebuchadnezzar as a lion lions were were common in babylonian art in fact the ishtar gate which nebuchadnezzar built here's a picture of it as they uncovered it actually had lions on it lions were also on the walls of the city and there was a trail of lions heading from the Ishtar Gate into one of the temples of the city lions were also found on the palace walls so a lion for Nebuchadnezzar seems very appropriate the wings represent majesty and dominance they're actually specifically the wings of an eagle so you've got the lion the king of the beasts and the wings of an eagle the king of the birds so you've got the king and Nebuchadnezzar had this massive world empire and it was really in a lot of ways it was the first of its kind he was he's even some people calling the first world ruler and you're like world ruler well yes of the of the human-occupied known world at the time this was pretty much this was it it was it was massive he was the the lion I can sit down wherever I want stand up wherever I want do what I want I'm the king but the prophecy says that his wings are plucked well they are plucked and then he is made to stand like a man and he's given a man's heart which could also like a semi translated a man's mind now this is actually recorded this event according in Daniel chapter 4 if you go to Daniel for some of you know the story Nebuchadnezzar was exalted with arrogance and pride he's like look at this great Babylon which I have built look at this awesome nation that I run I am awesome basically as the short version of his long speech about how great he is and then God says no and he has brought low in fact he becomes mad he becomes crazy for seven years Nebuchadnezzar is basically wandering around crazy still technically the king but he's not really accomplishing much so they're probably just kind of like pandering to him like like some nations have done when they've had a crazy monarch and it's like just keep him happy you know and so he's like this for seven years his hair grows out long his nails grow out like claws I mean he's just it's like he's a beast and then it clicks and he suddenly comes to his senses and he realizes god is great it's not me and because he's lost everything he's had everything and lost everything he sees how futile it all is and then he gains what a man's heart wisdom he gets set up right so he's he's like a man he's no longer just like this ferocious lion dominating the world but rather he's he's like a man so now you might say Mike that's not prophecy and you're right that's not really prophecy because these these things happen contemporary to Daniel he lived with Nebuchadnezzar so he experienced him he he talked with him he watched this descend into madness in fact he was there even when Nebuchadnezzar was gone and the next king came in so that's not prophecy but you know what it is it's a pattern of interpretation that we will follow as we look at the other Kings so we're given one that's really easy to figure out the lion very easy to figure out within the context of Daniel so that as we look at the other beasts we can click and go okay it's gonna be this type of thing it's gonna follow this pattern so let's look now at the second beast the second beast was a bear the bear actually is the the next Empire the next Kingdom to come take over after Babylon not long after Nebuchadnezzar Babylon is conquered by the medo-persian Empire now they had a good long strong empire from 539 to 331 BC and they take over the Babylonian Empire now they're in control now they're in charge you may have heard of a guy named Cyrus the Great Cyrus the Great was the founder of the Persian or medo-persian Empire it actually it started out a certain way see Medea this land they were dominant and Persia was just sort of a satellite or a region within Medea they were in charge the Medes are the Empire and control the purges are subjective to them when Cyrus comes into power he actually takes over their empire rouse their King and becomes the king of the Medes and the Persians and then they sort of switch roles one becoming subjective to the other so they this this is the bear raised up on one side now Daniel AIT's gonna verify this information because it'll give us more details but the Bears raised up on one side that's one of the details of it remember Medea was the overlord of the Persians Cyrus came in he flipped things he took over the Persians slowly rose to power in 546 he took the capital of Medea and he declared himself the king in fact three years later when he was able to give himself this official title he declared himself the king of the Persians so he had the Persian and we call it now the medo-persian Empire but it went like this here's the meats here's the Persians as they're under the meat and then they're still one Empire but the Persians take over and later on the Persians speak of the Medes as like second-class citizens so this is the medo-persian Empire this is the bear now the bear seems to represent their sort of style of doing things they sort of the lumbering just almost clumsily just reckon everything in their way and that's kind of how the Persians did it the bear has three ribs in its mouth hey Bible teacher not tech guy so much but yes it's three ribs in its mouth and the number three well this probably represents the three major nations that the medo-persian Empire took over which was Babylon Lydia and Egypt and there are three major nations that they actually conquered and took over establishing their empire beyond just the walls of Persia it was told to rise devour much flesh this phrase arise devour much flesh I think is saying okay we have the king we have the Babylonians the lion and then now we have the bear now it's your turn arise now it's your turn take over so he's got those uh those ribs those are the three countries that he took over and then we get to the third beast the third beast the third beast was a leopard with four wings this would actually someone else do this but I took it and the leopard is the next major world empire these are consecutive world empires there was nobody in between that was the world empire it was just went from Babylon medo-persia into Alexander the Great's empire the Greek Empire Macedonian Greek Empire 336 to about 323 and that's not just that's that we're looking at his time of ruling specifically that's how long Alexander the Great ruled he came in power when he was twenty years old and he controlled the empire he expanded it and he took over very quickly very very quickly he conquered his entire empire in just that period from 20 years old till he was 33 in 13 years keeping my nevikov Nezzer sieged tire for 13 years one city Alexander conquered his whole empire in that time and a lot of it towards the latter end he just blasted through and spent the majority the time just consolidating Greece before he moved on so this is the ideas okay now you're next you've got four wings that speaks of speed just like the creature the leopard speaks of speed it's all about speed it's all about how fast he does it not like the lion I like the bear you know he's through just zooms out there and takes over that was what was remarkable about Alexander the Great that's why we call him great is because he was so fast at what he did is Muhammad Ali of the ancient world sort of now we read about what this guy did to the city of Tyre took about seven months for him to accomplish his siege and destruction of the city of Tyre build a causeway you might get the impression that he did this sort of thing everywhere he went but actually what happened is people just bowed down and gave in especially after hearing about the stuff that he was doing in Tyre they just yield it he went from tyre down to Egypt and just took it over he went out to the east and just took over he was known for marching his troops for days on end so that the enemies couldn't consolidate their land and get ready for war he was just like I'm gonna get over there before you're ready for me he would chase the enemy and he wouldn't let his troops rest and he kept pushing him and pushing him and pushing him and pushing him and so this is what he's known for is his speed it's what he did there were four heads on this beast while Alexander the Great's empire after after he died was given to four different generals for different generals and these four men took over and split the empire into four pieces and so this actually now all this is fairly impressive I think is really interesting right I mean it really ties legitimately to actual history but as we continue and we get into Daniel 8 we're gonna see that there's way more details and those seven and eight when you put them together comprise this really detailed account of ancient history so we're talking way past the time of Daniel way past the time of Nebuchadnezzar that this stuff happens Dominion is given over to him so again we have the first Empire the second the third and now another phrase that refers to he's in control now now this is the fourth beast we're gonna skip because that's future prophecy again it's really interesting but it's not the subject for tonight Daniels second vision Daniel 8 we're gonna spend the rest of our time tonight in Daniel chapter 8 he has another vision in the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me to me Daniel after the one that appeared to me the first time I saw in the vision and so it happened while I was looking that I was in Shushan in the Citadel which is in the province of Elam and I saw in the vision that I was by the river a lie then I lifted my eyes and saw and there standing beside the river was a ram he's gonna see two creatures this time a ram which had two horns and the two horns were high but one was higher than the other and the higher one came up last I saw the RAM pushing westward northward and southward so that no animal could withstand him nor was there any that could deliver from his hand but he did according to his will and became great now that's pretty much the major chunk of the vision there but then we begin to get the interpretation of this later on in the chapter so I'm gonna skip forward to that in verse 20 the RAM which you saw having the two horns they are the kings of media and Persia specifically named specifically names so the RAM we already know who this is in fact this corresponds to what animal was in the last vision the bear so now we have a ram the bear that was lifted up on one side now we have a ram that has two horns and one's higher than the other but it came up last these are the kings of Medea and Pierre and Persia Medea was already very big at the time of this prophecy and was in the process of joining with Persia when Daniel was alive it was just in that process of happening Persia was relatively small here's the RAM one horns - she's pretty much so which I go with the man so it did the RAM was the medo Persian empires empire from 539 to 330 BC that's that's the timeline of this Empire again there are two horns the two horns are Medea and Persia Medea and Persia one of the horns came up last that's Persia Medea was in power first Persia was a client state and then it rose to power and actually ended up becoming the namesake with the Persian Empire later on is what its ends up being called so it's higher which means it's higher in prestige it's above the other the horns will represent Kings and represent forty's and so the authority of one is higher than the other so it's pretty interesting stuff now as we continue and as I was considering suddenly a male goat came from the West from the West across the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground it's going so fast and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes then he came to the RAM that had two horns which I had seen standing beside the river and ran at him with furious power and I saw him confronting the RAM he was moved with rage against him attacked the RAM and broke his two horns both those horns Medea Persia they're both broken by this there was no power in the RAM to withstand him but he cast him down to the ground and trampled him and there was no one that could deliver the RAM from his hand therefore the male goat grew very great but when he became strong when he became strong the large horn was broken and in place of it four notable ones came up toward the four winds of heaven we're also given an interpretation of what we just read here so let's skip forward Daniel 8 verse 21 and the male goat is the kingdom of Greece it's the kingdom of Greece and the large horn that is between its eyes is the first king as for the broken horn and the four that stood up in its place for Kingdom shall arise out of that nation but not with its power now this is detailed explanation so you can't mistake it it's the kingdom of Greece is the Medes and Persians there'll be this power thing that happens between the medo-persian Empire then the Greeks are gonna come in destroy and take over the medo-persian Kingdom and it's going to be this this horns gonna be the first king who ever is considered the first king of this new Empire they're gonna do this pretty pretty specific here the goat represents again the Greeks they began their empire in 336 I didn't put an inn date because it kind of depends on how you count it did it into Alexander's death do you continue counting when the empire splits but but right about that time 336 that's when he comes in and takes over here's an actual coin from ancient Macedonia that has a goat on it because the goat was tied with Macedonia see Alexander wasn't just a Greek he became the king of the Macedonians and then he helped consolidate the Greeks and then move forward as the Greek ruler to take over Egypt and tyre of course we learned that Palestine move into Persia and all that he was a Macedonian they were symbolized by goats in fact his son was named Alexander aigis which means goats or son of the goat interestingly and a good name right the first Macedonian King that they ever had was said in legend to be aided by goats and some you know Macedonia and goats go together so he it's appropriate that the Greeks are connected with goats here in this in this vision the one horn that it has the single horn is a specific ruler that rulers Alexander the Great he was really the first king of this Empire he established the Empire the goat is set to fly fly without touching the ground from the West which is if you can put your Mediterranean map in your brain they would be in the West compared to Israel and compared to Persia they're flying from the West to come and take over and destroy the Persian Empire it's said that they ran the this goat will run right over the rim just destroy the ramp just wreck break the horns and the RAM will have no power to resist and this is exactly what happened in about three years he conquers Persia what yeah boom your mind about as much time as it takes for his troops to march across this place it just runs right over and goes straight through and breaks the horns and takes over their power and it says in the prophecy that when this king is strong when he becomes strong he'll be broken Alexander from 20 till he was about 32 years old he ruled over the Greeks and built this amazing empire this massive empire and then died very quickly of malaria or something like that there's debates about how exactly he died probably malaria he was 32 years and it was June 13th 323 BC he had plans to invade Rome and Carthage he was planning on moving forward and just expanding his kingdom and keeping and keeping it going when he was dying they asked him Alexander who do you leave your kingdom to Weiser on his deathbed and Alexander he was kind of a jerk okay he was not it's not a good guy he was not someone you want to hang out with he was successful at killing people and taking their land pretty much but he says to them - in response to the question who will you leave your kingdom to Alexander says to the strong and dies you can imagine this did not create the most stable environment for the people trying to take over after he left and so it ends up being that after Alexander the horn is broken after he dies that his kingdom is split into four pieces like we said with the leopard the four heads those four notable horns that come up are the four separate kingdoms that come out of his initial Empire that didn't last as it says itself didn't last beyond his death very much he says to the strong well the strong ended up being four generals these four generals split up his empire into four pieces Cassander he ended up getting Macedonia in Greece Lysimachus he got Thrace petha Nia and most of Asia Minor and seleucus got Syria and the area east of Syria including Babylon we call his the seleucid empire and that actually lasted longer than the other two and then another one that lasted longer was Ptolemy you just ignore the PIA Ptolemy all right now Ptolemy well you can say that if you feel like it Ptolemy got Egypt and probably Palestine Arabia and petraea and so we've got they're taking over you see basically the orange and the purple or the two were going to be most concerned about because the other two didn't really stick around for too long but these are the four generals I mean think about the the exactness of this prophecy there'll be Kings they'll come from this area they're gonna take over it'll be like this type of warfare that's going to happen they as soon as he gets strong as soon as he got to his height of his power he like went through little pause he was going around consolidating his power and then he dies and what it split into four this is this is exactly as it was prophesied in Daniel but let's read on there's more in Daniel 8 verse 9 it says and out of one of them remember there's four horns that come up out of that one horn so we're still talking about the goat we're still talking about the Greek Empire split up into these four out of one of them one of those four came a little horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south toward the east and toward the glorious land and it grew up to the hosts of heaven and it casts down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground and trampled them he even exalted himself as high as the Prince of the host and by him that daily sacrifices were taken away in the place of his sanctuary was cast down we will go back over all this so we're just gonna read it and then it gets it in your mind because it's a lot to take in all at once and this is again we're gonna talk about this a little horn and that's it for tonight so hang in there you're doing good first time because of transgression an army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifices and he cast truth down to the ground he did all this and prospered then I heard a Holy One speaking and another Holy One said to that certain one who was speaking how long will the vision be concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot and he said to me for 2300 days then the sanctuary shall be cleansed in this sanctuary shall be cleansed so the sanctuary is referring to the temple the Jews temple it'll be defiled and then it will be cleansed and in the latter time of their Kingdom when the trends this is now we're moving up if you notice we're in verse 14 at the end of this slide and then we're moving into verse 23 so we're we're looking forward again he gets an interpretation he gets a little bit more data so we're skipping to that part Daniel 8:23 and in the latter time of their Kingdom when the trends dressers have reached their fullness a king shall arise this is the little horn having fierce features who understands sinister scheme we're getting the style of this king his power shall be mighty but not by his own power he shall destroy fearfully and shall prosper and thrive he shall destroy the mighty and also the holy people that would be who yeah we talk about the Jewish people here right this is the host we're talking about these are the people that he's coming against so this prophecy specifically about a persecutor of the Jews through his cunning he shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule and he shall exalt himself in his heart he shall destroy many in their prosperity he shall even rise against the Prince of princes God but he shall be broken without human means and the vision of the evenings and mornings which was told is true therefore seal up the vision for it refers to many days in the future that vision of evenings and mornings is the 2300 days detect in the Hebrew says 2300 evenings and morning's we translated as days so maybe we referencing Genesis where we read there's evening in morning and then the first day the evening a morning a second day maybe a reference to that or could be reference to the to the sacrifices the temple because they had sacrifices in the evening and in the morning but anyways there's 2,300 of them okay now let's take a breath we're gonna look at how this prophecy was fulfilled in the life of one horrible individual named Antiochus Epiphanes or Antiochus the fourth is his real name he gave himself the name of PIFAN 'is he lived about 215 to 164 BC we know his death time 164 for sure 215 is a guest when he was born he was a king of the Seleucid Empire so Alexander the Great's Empire broke into four pieces to the west you're on your side of the lis okay so I'm trying to help you with her okay so in the east you had the Persians that area that was taken over by Alexander became the Seleucid Empire generals to Lucas took it over he is one of his not not a descendant necessarily who deserved the throne but one of his descendants came and took over he arose from the Seleucid horn is what I'm saying and we have that in verse 9 where it said ow of one of them came a little horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south toward the east and toward the glorious land toward the south that's Egypt and Antiochus or Antiochus depending how you want to pronounce it doesn't matter to me this guy was the first of his Seleucids to actually take over Egypt he actually successfully conquered Egypt and that was kind of a big deal he mainly did it so he could rob them because that was his big thing wherever he went he took your money he was all into plundering he was into plundering and financing whatever else he had going on other things he also was powerful that's to the south to the east and so that would be in the land where he he actually starts out he's powerful in his own land and also even extending his borders and fighting people on that side on the east and also the glorious land now the glorious land will be Israel this is clear I mean you can't read the Bible without coming to the conclusion that Israel is the center of the earth you know as far as prophetically speaking absolutely Israel as the center and the glorious land the beautiful land the wonderful land the promised land and the most beautiful city or most wonderful city of course Jerusalem so he's going to be powerful toward the glorious land he will he will come in and attack Israel what he did not threaten was Rome in the West and it's interesting that there's no mention of him going towards the West he's a little horn he's a little guy he was really short Antiochus was only three feet - no I was kidding that's a lie funny no he it's not that he's short rather little meaning he was a small stature of small power but then he boasts great things he becomes powerful he came from a place of smaller stature in fact he was not supposed to be the king he was not next in line he was not in line at all he was not supposed to be the king of the Seleucids it's kind of interesting how it happened so he's I'll come back to that in a little bit but he's he's made notable but he comes from that small stature he gains power through schemes it says verse 23 and 24 a king shall arise having fierce features who understands sinister games like the esses in there it just fits you know word painting as it is his power shall be mighty but not with his own power or it's not power that belongs to him so he gains power but it's it's he's a usurper in a sense he takes what doesn't really belong to him and then he exercises that power it's not he doesn't own that power but yet he uses it so let me tell you a little little bit about his background so loses the fourth he was the king at the time before Antiochus became King now what happened was that would be his brother and what happened was there was conflict between them in Rome and sort of as insurance they took Antiochus as a prisoner to Rome sort of you know keeping him close at hand like an insurance policy against the seleucid empire because the rome was sort of the big power in the land at this time well Antiochus worked it out so that his his his brother so Lucius the fourth his brother actually traded Antiochus for Demetrius his brother's son who would have been next in line to be the King so Antiochus through some deal-making works it out where his his nephew gets traded for him as Nephi goes into into Rome and he's now in bonds he's now you know probably treated well he's a political prisoner of course but now Antiochus is back in the land then solutions the forth gets murdered gets assassinated but not by Antiochus by some other guy Antiochus he then uses deal-making to take the throne the rightful heir is in Rome where he was not allowed not that long ago in fact probably in the same room he was in in Rome so he then takes over and he uses the help of the king of Pergamum you manie's the second and he proclaims himself co-regent with another error another SaLuSa an infant at the time co-regent right with an infant so we know who's really in control but he does this to try to legitimize his position so the rightful heir is in Rome he doesn't take he doesn't try to get him back no no he declares himself his king with the co-regent later he has this infant murdered he has the infant killed so that he can take the throne for himself so he or did he not understand sinister schemes yeah absolutely I mean he didn't take the throne like Cyrus Cyrus came in and he took over the Persian throne he killed the king and took his spot said I'm the king like this isn't a sinister scheme this is just brute force but this was different this was this was all scheming and plotting and planning later on when he takes Egypt he doesn't actually take the capital of Egypt exactly he sort of makes himself co-heir co-regent with the king of egypt who he's related to so that the Romans wouldn't get upset and come in and cause damage to him because of him expanding so he works he works the politics he's a politician he's a politician he would he would probably do well in our current political environment so he definitely understands sinister schemes this is the kind of thing he does also toward its toward the end of the Seleucid Empire as it says in verse 23 in the latter time of their Kingdom it's Antiochus he took over at the towards the end it was when the Seleucids were beginning to be in decline Rome again is a more dangerous power than the Seleucids are at this point in time and after his time shortly after his death they lost Israel by 130 BC not long after he died they lost all the lands west of the Euphrates and when the Rome Romans finally came in in 64 AD and they took over what was left of the crumbling pieces of the Seleucid Empire it wasn't even an empire anymore so he really comes in and his kingship is sort of the tipping point to say and now the Empire starts to fall apart after him so it's in the latter time of their kingdom that prophecy also fits Antiochus Epiphanes or Antiochus the 4th now let me read to you Daniel 8 vs. 9 or I'll just take you verse 10 here says and it grew up to the hosts of heaven and cast some of the hosts and some of the stars to the ground and trampled them this probably caught your attention you're like angels did you somehow attack angels well if he did we wouldn't really probably have any sort of historical say he did or didn't I'm not sure how he could but actually I think in Daniel this reference is Jews not angels because in Daniel 8 24 in the same chapter in the interpretation it says his power shall be mighty but not by his own right he'll destroy fearfully he shall prosper and thrive he shall destroy the mighty and also the holy people the holy people and in Daniel 12:3 it says those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament the Stars and those who turn many to righteousness like the Stars forever and ever so it compares people to stars in the same context of the same book so in this prophecy the stars of heaven are probably referring to the Jews keep in mind a little horn reached up to heaven pulled some of the stars down and trampled them this is all very symbolic so probably referring to his attacking and destroying the Jews the Jews in particular so Antiochus Epiphanes let's look at some more details his persecution of the Jewish people he hated the Jews he literally wanted to destroy either the Jews or at least Judaism he tried to end the religion of Judaism which if he was successful would mean that there would be no Christianity of course I think there's good reasons why that couldn't happen but he persecuted Jewish people he told them there'd be no more tolerance most of the Kings would tolerate other religions it made it easier to get along in your kingdom it made it easier if you like Alexander the Great I want to sacrifice in every temple I find I want to give honor and obeisance to all the gods so that I can more easily you know gather the people together under my banner but not Antiochus note he was not interested in any of that he destroyed copies of the Torah and commanded that they would all be burned to destroy the Jewish Bible get rid of it entirely he forbid people to do what was written in the Torah he said you can no longer obey the Torah he sold the high priests position twice twice once to a guy named Jason who came in and was basically trying to make the temple and all that happens there more Greek and then to another guy Menelaus and this guy was even worse so bad that the people revolted against him and he was putting pagan altars and stuff like that in the temple so he sold a position interestingly Jason went and bought the position from a sum of money he was a brother of the current high priest and he bought it he bought the position from anti and then he sent a messenger to pay some money to Antiochus and that messenger of malice he paid more bought the position out from under Jason it's just it's just a crazy situation of the things that went down he commanded the Jews specific things Jews you are now commanded to eat pork yeah he commanded the Jews to eat pork to not circumcise their children to worship and sacrifice to Zeus or die he was going to stamp out and destroy the Jewish beliefs and religion and people their culture if at all possible he killed 40,000 Jews in just a two-day period of time his persecution of the Jewish people was intense intense he was the BC Hitler I mean he just wanted to ruin to ruin and destroy the Jews didn't call him Antiochus Epiphanes they called him Antiochus Epiphanes which means Antiochus the madman the crazy man and he was he was crazy there are also specific prophecies that he fulfilled about the temple specifically about the temple interestingly let's read some of those because of transgression an army was given over to the horn that be Antiochus to oppose the daily sacrifices there were daily sacrifices in the temple that was the place for daily sacrifice it didn't happen everywhere it happened at the temple and he counts truth to the ground he did all this and prospered then I heard a holy one speaking another one holy one dah-dah-dah how long will the vision be concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot and he said to me for 2300 days then the sanctuary shall be cleansed so that this is all about the temple he's gonna stop daily sacrifices there will be like a desolation some some some horrible thing that makes the temple desolate and then it makes it unclean because in 2300 days then it will be cleansed so there's a prophecy about the stopping of sacrifices a defiling of the sanctuary and then a specific short period of time till it is then cleansed that's interesting also it says in verse 23 that he shall even rise against the Prince of princes speaking of that that his his exaltation will come against God directly he will directly attack the god of the Jews he will come against this guy so as I said specifically about the temple he sold the high priests position he did that twice he plundered the temple he went to the Treasuries took the money out trying to use it to finance his other his other things that he had planned he did put a stop to the daily sacrifices we don't know what day this happened we just know that he did we don't have a date on it he slaughtered and commanded to be slaughtered pigs on the holy altar of God in the temple it was just to spit in the face of the Jewish people and of course in the face of God he even put an icon of Zeus in the temple and then he had sacrifices to zeus in the temple in fact I'm showing you so far I've showed you one side of a coin that has his his face on it here's the other side of the coin when you see this coin from Antiochus it actually on the flip side there's a picture of Zeus and the coin it says king Antiochus God manifests bearing victory the picture is that of Zeus carrying Nike on on his arm there on his hand that's Nike he's carrying and she's the goddess of victory he Antiochus connected himself with Zeus he called himself an incarnation or an appearance of Zeus Zeus of course in these mythological you know they would come and go and come and come and when Kings could attach themselves as an incarnation to help them gain power we're not talking here about something like what Jesus said this is a different kind of Mythology thing going on but this is what he did and then he did what he said where God is worshiped in the temple will be the place where Zeus who is connected to me in my opinion will be worshipped he exalted himself against the Prince of princes against God pretty crazy pretty crazy so he put up altars to Zeus in many places and he commanded the people of Israel to to give obeisance to Jesu so there you go he'll rise even against the Prince of princes and he said to me verse 14 for 2300 days then this sanctuary shall be cleansed and of course later in verse 26 the vision of the evening evenings and mornings which was told is true therefore seal up the vision for first in many days in the future in Daniels time this would have been hundreds of years into the future Antiochus was much much later of course so many days in the future now I don't have I'll just give you the disclaimer I don't know the exact 2300 days because we don't have enough data right now to put that together but let me give you what we do have K the Maccabee in Revolt was a result of these these commands in fact judas maccabees this guy right here that's a photograph and he was called judas maccabees that's not his last name Maccabees he means the hammer it's called Judas the hammer and so he is related to pastor Nathan hammer here at Hosanna obviously but what Judas did was he was a military leader you see his father Judas his father he was told whose name for some reason escapes me right now it wasn't Matthias was it non it was some Mattathias something like that but his father was a priest of the priestly class and he was living in a town not too far from from Jerusalem he was told you at your town you have to sacrifice to Zeus and he's like no way and one of the men in his town an Israelite said I'll do it Judas his father stabbed the guy and killed him and then they thought now we're in trouble they were like so then they fled to the hills and thus began the Maccabee and revolt and they started rebelling against Antiochus and against his laws and against his rules and this revolt ended up being ultimately successful Judas his son one of his sons was the military leader of the family that's why he's called the hammer this started in 167 BC it involved a lot of guerrilla warfare all kinds of different tactics because they were totally outnumbered and so they used all kinds of in guerrilla warfare to to defeat the enemy you can actually read about this in the book of first and second Maccabees these are not biblical books but they talk about this event and some of it might be somewhat exaggerated but it's really interesting reading it really is and you're just you to cheer for cheer for the good guys you know eventually they retook Israel and they actually made it independent they ended up losing heated up losing the Land of Israel they cleansed the temple and that happened on December 25th 164 BC this is still commemorated this event of the cleansing of the temple with a Jewish festival by the name of Hanukkah Hanukkah yes and so the festival of lights has to do with the date the eight days of the cleansing of the temple the time it took to cleanse the temple ritually so that they could begin sacrifices again so we know that Antiochus stopped sacrifices we know the date that they began again the difficulty is counting back 2300 days from December 25th 164 and then we go we're not sure what happened on that day it's possible that sacrifices stopped on that very day it's possible that that was the date when the the previous High Priest but you know who who was the rightful High Priest before the high priesthood got sold he was murdered he was assassinated it may have been on that very day but we don't have the exact date of his death we just have a year and so it makes it hard to tie in the 2300 days and I don't want to exaggerate anything when it comes to Scripture or or anything for that matter so we don't we don't know for sure it's certainly feasible that 2300 days represents the days from the time of the stopping of the sacrifices until they started again that's quite possible then in Daniel 825 we get how this guy goes down through his cunning he shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule and he shall exalt himself in his heart he shall destroy many in their prosperity he shall even rise against the Prince of princes but he shall be broken without human means so if Antiochus died through being assassinated through a battle through a rebellion of some kind then this prophecy would fail but he actually died in 164 BC not in battle not assassinated he just suddenly got ill and died we're not sure what the illness was maybe they didn't know either he just suddenly got ill and died and the world rejoiced the horrible guy he was Antiochus fits this like a glove nobody else that I'm aware of in history fits this like a glove but he does towards the end of the Seleucid Empire arises the little horn through scheming he comes to power he puts an end to the sacrifices he raised he raises himself up like he's God comes against God comes against the Jewish people all the stuff even how he dies all these little details there's even more but we for a sake of time I'm not giving you every possible thing to say so by way of review Daniel 7 and 8 correctly predict the medo-persian Kingdom and it's particular x' Alexander the Great's conquest and the style of his military victories the division of his empire into four pieces the specific region of Antiochus the fourth how he would rise what he would do how he would die the desecration and cleansing of the temple and this is why critics in response to Daniel because there's a lot more prophecies we haven't even got to yet in Daniel this is why they attack the date of Daniel and say it wasn't written until 165 175 BC that's what they say so next week I'm actually gonna feel like I've got to do this with with with Daniel because like for Ezekiel they don't attack the date of Ezekiel they just say it wasn't fulfilled which is silly when you look at the passage with Daniel they attack the date so they agree that these do correctly predict these specific events and they go and that's proof it was written in the time of the Maccabee in revolt so we're gonna tackle that next week I won't spin the whole week on it it won't take a whole service to tackle that so we'll probably also look at some other prophecies of Daniel maybe Daniel 9 that's what I'm looking at doing in the 70 weeks prophecy which is pretty nifty if you ask me and and that even if he wrote in 175 BC he couldn't have predicted you know through human means the stuff that was gonna happen 200 years later so so that's pretty exciting all right well that's it for today so let's let's pray thank you guys for being patient and I will put this stuff up on YouTube I will put the powerpoints up there so you could always review it some other time you can link a friend to it as well if I were you as he goes through this prophecy thing I would consider taking just one or two of these prophecies not all of them one or two that you go I really like that one and listen to it once or twice three maybe even four times get it sort of in your pocket where you can restate the main points to a friend on the street who's got one or two prophecies because that will be your your crowbar that opens the door so then just sharing the gospel of Jesus with them so I really like that like they just one or two you're not gonna know it all I have to study to be able to deliver this stuff you know I don't just have it off-the-cuff I have I have Ezekiel 26 off-the-cuff because I've spent the time to try to get it I've got Psalm 22 off-the-cuff here's the two that I try to have ready ready to go you know I could open the Bible and just say hey look at this but so I'd recommend you do that pick one or two of the things that we're going through and have that ready for whoever you share with and we'll just be that better equipped let's pray father we thank you for your word for the fact that you've given us reason to believe that you have spoken that we look and we say wow I don't know how to explain that except that you've spoken and then your word takes this place in our hearts and our minds as the truth of God communicated wonderfully to us in such a beautiful and amazing ways Lord we can't wait til we get to the prophecies about Jesus till we get to even more evidence that unity of the Bible the archaeology and all that kind of fun stuff it's just it's amazing Lord so we pray that we just be equipped and our confidence would be strong in your Holy Word and we would be able to stand against the wiles of the enemy because we have put on the belt of truth in Jesus name Amen

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 83,327

Keywords: Daniel, fulfilled prophecy, proof of God, proof for God, evidence for God, evidence for the Bible, reason, history, how do I know the Bible is God's word?, why should I believe the Bible?, Why should I trust the Bible, prophecy in Daniel, Daniel 7, Daniel 8, Mike Winger, Bible Thinker, BibleThinker, Winger, antiochus, antiochus epiphanes, maccabean, Jewish prophecy, Bible prophecy

Id: VfQCgNLV6Rw

Length: 50min 46sec (3046 seconds)

Published: Wed May 11 2016