Understanding the Rise of the Antichrist in the Years Before the Tribulation Begins

you're about to watch a session from the maranatha global bible study of the prophecies of the book of daniel if you're watching this on youtube either on the fai youtube channel joel richardson's youtube channel or a bootlegged version of this we just wanted to make you aware that on the fai app which is available on all major platforms and all major app stores on the fbi app is a ton of content that doesn't make its way to youtube that's exclusive to the app so if you want more free resources to go deep in the word together go download the fai app maranatha we hope you enjoyed this session [Music] welcome back to our maranatha global bible study of the prophecies of daniel today we're jumping back into daniel chapter 11. but before we do i want to look at two passages that are i'm assuming somewhat familiar to you before we work our way through daniel chapter 11. today we're going to be in daniel 11 verse 21 through 31. if you remember our outline that we did two sessions ago when we went through daniel chapter 11 and 12 we did a three-part outline of this section the first part is what happens before the final tribulation which is verse 21 through 31. from verse 31 to chapter 12 beginning of chapter 12 we have the details of what happens during the tribulation and then from chapter 12 on we have what the details of what happens after the tribulation of those days so before during and after today in this session we're going to be looking at the before but before we do so before or before i want to look at two passages just so that we have it in our mind the first is revelation chapter 13. now we're going to spend a lot of time in the book of revelation later this year so we're going to go through this in detail but at this present moment i want to just read chapter 13 and to for you to see in our last session we looked at what i would call the need to normalize the teaching of the antichrist throughout scripture because he's actually a very one of the most notable and conspicuous figures in the bible is actually the final beast the final antichrist it's not like he gets a mention here or mentioned there he's all over the old and the new testament there's so much information about him and we need to understand that information i want to read chapter 13 to you just so you can see the scope of this thing in john while he's on the island of patmos he has a vision and encounter about the details of the generation of the lord's return and in it he sees the rising of the little horn now in verse 21 of daniel 11 we're going to see how it emerges in very geopolitical terms it's very let's say very stark cold factual historical it's very there's no symbolism involved but i want to jump to revelation to give you kind of the symbolism of it because it's detailing the exact same thing just from different different different vantage points but it's the same moment okay so we see in chapter 12 verse 7 a war arose in heaven michael and his angels fighting against the dragon the dragon and his angels fought back but the dragon satan's defeated there was no longer any place for them in heaven and the great dragon was thrown down that ancient serpent who is called the devil and satan the deceiver of the whole world he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him and i heard a loud voice in heaven saying now the salvation the power and the kingdom of our god and the authority of his christ have come for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down who accuses us day and night before god they conquer him by the blood of the lamb the word of their testimony and they love that not their lives even unto death then it says this in verse 12 therefore o heavens rejoice in you who dwell in them but woe to you o earth and sea for the devil has come down to you in great wrath because he knows his time is short so revelation 12 details a great conflict that breaks out in heaven the forced eviction of satan from heaven and in his position of authority you know in the book of job satan comes in and has a conversation with god remember in the book of ephesians where paul says our struggles not with flesh and blood but with powers and principalities in heavenly places he would say later in to the corinthians he would say hey guys the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers meaning satan right now has not been cast out of heaven he has authority in heavenly places okay that's the whole reason that there's conflict in the heavenly places is because he has authority and he has latitude to rome he has a latitude to do things he's on a leash he's god's devil it's not as though he can just go operate as a free agent do whatever he wants he is restrained he does have to ask permission it is granted to him to do things and to not do things but what happens in the great tribulation at the beginning of the great tribulation is satan is cast out of heaven cast down to the earth now this is the moment that he takes up residence in the body of the antichrist so now chapter 12 gives us the context war in heaven satan cast down to the earth great wrath time is short that's the context now chapter 13 verse one we're skipping a big part in verse chapter 12 but we just i just want to get to this i saw a beast rising out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads now sometimes we see these symbols we go oh no and you get scared symbols i don't know what they mean don't worry scripture interprets scripture you don't need to know what it means the bible tells you what it says i saw a beast rising under the sea with ten horns and seven heads with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its head and the beast that i saw was like a leopard its feet were like a bears and a mouth was like a lion's mouth and to it the dragon satan who was cast down gave his power and his throne and great authority he so satan gives the antichrist the beast gives him his power his throne and his authority that's heavy one of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound but its wound was healed and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast the whole earth marveled that doesn't mean that every human being on the planet is going to worship him it means that the whole earth is going to be caught up into this drama and people are going to witness it and he will be a dividing line for all the peoples of the earth doesn't necessarily mean we what we see from daniel 11 and other passages many people depose him they hate him they not everyone throws in it's not as though it's like the whole world throws in with the antichrist and then the christians say no we won't bow the knee no there's a lot of resistance in the nations a lot of opposition we'll study that in the coming days they worship the dragon for he had given his authority to the beast and they worshipped the beast saying who is like the beast and who can fight against it so there's this air of invincibility that he has the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words and it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months three and a half years it opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against god blaspheming his name and his dwelling that is those who dwell in heaven also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them here's another reason why it's important we have a functional understanding of who the antichrist is what he's doing and why god is allowing it it's another reason why we don't believe in a pre-tribulation rapture the idea that jesus is going to take us out while the world suffers the wrath of the antichrist no we don't suffer the wrath of god jesus bore that for us drank the cup to its dregs we don't have to worry about the wrath of god ever but we will face the wrath of satan we will face the wrath of the antichrist that's a very important point we need to be prepared for it and any teaching that says that we won't be here for it we're absolved from it exempted is a false teaching it will be granted to the final beast to make war on the saints and he will exercise that authority and authority was given to it over every tribe and people and language and nation and all who dwell on the earth will worship it everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world and the book of the life of the lamb who was slain if anyone has an ear let him hear if anyone is to be taken captive to the captivity he goes if anyone is to be slain with the sword with the sword must he be slain here is a call for the endurance and the patience and the faith of the saints the whole theology of the rising of the beast is a call for the endurance and the patience of the saints this whole message is all about the patience and endurance and the faith of the saints this is an exhortation not to get your charts and graphs about the end times right this is an exhortation for patience this is an exhortation for endurance this is an exhortation for faith god is calling us to be a people of endurance to be a people of great patience and to be a people who are aware that he will grant authority to this man to conquer us now what's interesting here in verse chapter 13 it says he was given authority to conquer or to overcome the saints but in chapter 12 what we read is that it's granted to us authority to overcome him so here's the thing how does he how does the beast overcome the saints he makes war on them and slaughters them how do the saints overcome and conquer the beast how we follow in the footsteps of our crucified messiah we bear the cross so we overcome by being slaughtered he overcomes by doing the slaughtering and in the end god will use all of that to separate the sheep from the goats and to bring condemnation upon the head of those who spill the blood of the saints and the saints will be rewarded therefore the call to the nations is don't throw in with that man because you will have to drink the cup of wrath and fury if you throw in with him and if you throw in with the saints you need to be aware of this you're going to need endurance you're going to need patience you're going to need faith faith living faith not cultural faith not borrowed faith not academic faith not intellectual faith but living faith born of the spirit that gets us through these days shining bright like stars in the midst of this great darkness now matthew 24 we're not going to read it because we've covered it a lot in other sessions but matthew 24 also deals with this exact same moment jesus says in 24 15 in matthew when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet daniel flee jerusalem so we see that it happens in jerusalem we see that it's 42 months long and we see that the saints are attacked in a savage brutal campaign for their annihilation we also see in chapter 12 that he also goes after the woman he goes after israel and we also see that he goes after the harlot babylon which we'll talk about in subsequent sessions so he attacks the church he attacks israel he attacks the harlot babylon we also see that he attacks egypt the state of israel and the nations that throw in with israel which i suppose is one of the reasons why he's going to have to eliminate egypt because egypt is one of the only countries in the middle east who have a formal pact with the israelis which means this anyone who throws in with israel is going to face the wrath and the fury of this man so on the nations like egypt throw in and they're going to face fury because they're standing with israel in a political or an economic way the harlot babylon is facing his fury because the harlot babylon is aligned with the with israel for economic reasons now if they're going to face this fury because of economic reasons think about the fury that we will face because we're standing with israel for covenantal reasons with that said let's jump into daniel chapter 11 verse 21 and see how far we can get in this session verse 21 this is the first verse in daniel 11 and 12 that describes that begins to introduce the emergence of antichrist in his place so it's talking about a former individual who is taken out in verse 21 it says this in his place shall arise a contemptible person to whom royal majesty has not been given he shall come in without warning and obtain the kingdom by flatteries so one of the things we're going to be looking as we go from verse 21 to verse 31 is we're looking at the details the historical geopolitical details of the context of his emergence onto the world scene so we're just going to go through it and acknowledge each point and and and think about them and consider each one let's start with this the first one is in his place meaning this the final antichrist this is also going to help us discern who the final antichrist is because there's there will be a debate in speculation is this guy a messiah figure is this guy a deliverer a hero or is he a devil incarnate there's going to be lots of competing ideas and opinions in that day and we need to know what is the measuring rod to determine whether this individual because there's going to be right now there are antichrists on the earth but not the antichrist so first john says in first john 2 there's many antichrists now but there's coming a final singular capital a antichrist so how do you determine the do who who he is we see this in verse 21 he's going to come into the place of someone else he's going to take someone else's place who is eliminated now in a historical plane this actually happens someone the antiochus epiphanes took the place of the people who preceded him now that is a foreshadow of what will happen in the middle east in the generation of the lord's return in the same way that antiochus epiphanes emerged in the syrian debacle of his generation we're also going to see a world leader emerge from the area of syria turkey lebanon iraq that part of the world is where he's going to emerge from we see this he's a contemptible person he's a very hateful violent he's contemptible there's no royal majesty to him given he's not of royal stock no one knows who he is it's not as though you know muhammad bin salman is emerging right now in saudi arabia because he's of royal stock he's of the family well what is what what daniel's saying is the the final beast emerges and he has no royal status no one knows who he is he emerges out of the shadows no majesty there's no majesty there's kind of a corollary here of jesus's incarnation and the incarnation of satan and the final beast you know in isaiah 53 there's no royal majesty given to him there's nothing attractive about him it's he's bruised and broken there's nothing there's nothing majestic about this crushed suffering servant in the same way there's nothing majestic about the final beast he shall come in without warning and obtain the kingdom by flatteries to come in without warning means it's going to happen very quickly there's no warning it's not as though he got elected in something's going to happen the context will be set there's going to be a rug pulled out and he's going to emerge very quickly and he's going to obtain the kingdom by flatteries which means he's going to lie manipulate and pull strings and conspire to obtain the kingdom the coalition of nations that will comprise the final beast empire verse 22 armies shall utterly be swept away before him and be broken even the prince of the covenant armies being swept away and being utterly broken means military conquest that's very swift very violent seemingly invincible because this military campaign is going to be the context that everyone begins to say who can make war with him i mean if you're saying who can make war this may be saying he can't be opposed he's he's going to win he's breaking armies and there there's going to be sizable armies and military forces they're going to be swept away before him he will break them he will break them as we get further into it it says that egypt for example is totally decimated by him we know from isaiah chapter 19 a very brutal passage an amazing passage but also a very brutal passage egypt is broken by this man egypt suffers immense violence savagery brutality from this man in this generation in the generation of the lord to turn verse 23 and from that time that an alliance is made with him he shall act deceitfully and he shall become strong with a small people okay so now we're talking about an alliance a pact a treaty an agreement a memorandum of understanding is established with this man and nations as he's breaking other nations and other armies the the parallel here would be adolf hitler you know he sweeps through poland and he begins to pummel france and what happens other nations decide well look who can make war with him you know bulgaria bulgaria decides well i can't look what happened to the other countries that tried to resist him he broke them it was like a stick over his knee he just broke them so what are we going to do we're going to throw in with them are we going to be broken by him there's conspiring behind the scenes what's taking place is from the time that an alliance is made he shall act deceitfully so he's deceiving people and saying i'll give you this i'll do this i won't do this just like it off hillary deceived people broke armies and in a blitzkrieg campaign he swept across the continent the same thing's going to happen in the generation of the antichrist he's going to sweep across north africa in the middle east and the mediterranean basin and he's going to break armies and in the breaking of these armies he's going to be deceiving people and this is very interesting he shall become strong with a very small people so it's not as though he's mustering the greatest military force in the world he becomes the greatest military force in the world but he has no majesty no royal descent he comes in without any warning and he just takes full control of the middle east he sweeps through the middle east and decimates it verse 24 without warning he shall come into the richest parts of the province he shall do what neither his father's nor his father's fathers have done scattering among them plunder spoil and goods he's plundering land and possessions he's taking the most prosperous areas and commandeering him he shall devise plans against strongholds but only for a ton he's devising plans against strongholds in other words he's trying to eliminate opposition military forces and bases in the region trying to eliminate opposition he's making plans to eliminate the forces the strongholds the military power structures that are opposing him which means this guys because i think sometimes we've you know kind of pop cultural eschatology has kind of painted the antichrist as this literally invincible man that everyone worships and everyone loves him you know he brings peace to the middle east and everyone loves them yay he's great that's not the way the bible depicts the antichrist it's a very divisive man who's deceiving and crushing opposition which means this people are opposing him so you ask well dalton what's the deal with this whole false peace thing i thought that i thought the whole thing is the final antichrist brings false peace isn't that true yes and no meaning it's not as though he comes onto the scene as this humanitarian saying hey let's let's stop pete you know in the middle east might is right meaning if you have the will and you're willing to go in you have might you're you're gonna assume control and power that's just the way of the middle east it's the way of history the way of the world if you're strong you win so what's happening is this peace that is being established is not because he's a good guy it's not because everyone loves him the peace is because of his strength and his fury he just broke armies and swept through the region the peace is not going to be the kind of it's going to be the kind of peace that's under the third reich kind of peace meaning we have reich we have peace because the reich is now in control of poland did poland that wasn't peace this this this whole peace framework we need to understand the reality of it it's going to be violent it's going to be incredible war it's going to be mounting opposition to his tyrannical conquests verse 25 he shall stir up his power and his heart against the king of the south with a great army i believe this is egypt for a number of reasons both from pat reasons in revel uh daniel 11 and 12 which we'll look at later and also from other passages like isaiah 19 and other passages isaiah 16. many other passages i believe that the king of the south and the king of the north joel goes into this in previous sessions if you haven't watched them yet but the king of the north and the king of the south is the antichrist leading a campaign and conquest of the great army of a coalition of nations against egypt to crush egypt because egypt is opposing the antichrist they're not throwing in with him which is really interesting on a contemporary geopolitical frame today is that egypt is a very unique country in the middle east they're in they were the first to cut a deal with the israelis you know they're right now they're fighting hamas just like israel is in the gaza strip they're in a you know it's a it's a it's a weird thing they're more they're closer to israel than they are other muslim countries in the middle east i believe this is one of the reasons why they're going to bear the brunt is because egypt has a lot to lose if israel collapses so egypt is going to throw in in support of the state of israel when these days begin to bubble up because egypt like jordan for example jordan and egypt can't afford for the israeli intelligence the israeli military to go away why because they're going to have a crisis on their hands if they don't have the israelis propping them up and the reality is today guys whether you're aware of it or not there's a growing number of arab countries in the middle east who are relying on their partnership with the israelis for their countries to remain stable today if the israelis pulled out all of their everything out of jordan jordan would collapse overnight and the same could be said of egypt egypt it can't afford for the collapsing and the conquest of the state of israel they can't they can't afford it they need to throw in with israel which means they're going to go up the go blows with this final antichrist who wants to see the extermination of the jewish people and the destruction of the state of israel and the liberation of jerusalem pray for egypt so he's gonna he's gonna stir up his power and his heart against the king of the south of the great army the king of the south shall wage war with him with an exceedingly great and mighty army so egypt goes yeah we'll throw into the ring let's do this so they meet and they clash king and a wage war the exceedingly great mighty army but he will not stand for plots shall be devised against him so there is a conspiracy to eliminate the leader of egypt at that time you know today in egypt the the president is the former general and after the carnage of the arab spring and mubarak and morsi the army took control of the country so whether this ends up being a president prime minister or whether it ends up being the commanding general who's still essentially governing the country from a military from military law which is really what happened in the wake of the arab spring so today you essentially have the egyptian army is really the one governing the country in the united states we have our government we have our military the government governs and the military defends well in egypt the military is governing not just defending even those who eat his food shall break him which means there's going to be betrayal within his own ranks there's going to be a defection and a coup within his own within his own inner circle they're going to defect and throw in with the antichrist his army shall be swept away and many shall fall down slain the egyptian army will be swept away and many will be fought will fall down slain and as for the two kings their hearts shall be bent on doing evil they shall speak lies at the same table but to no avail for the end is yet to be at the time appointed and he shall return to his land with great wealth the antichrist but his heart shall be set against the holy covenant and he shall work his will and return to his own land okay so he emerges somewhere in the middle east he leads a military conquest against the king of the south which we have reason to believe that that is egypt for a number of reasons it's the best contender if we had to say for certain we can't say for certain that it would be the king of the south but all things considered given that that's the only country described in the prophets that bears the brunt of the antichrist directly in the final tribulation it's safe to assume that the king of the south is most likely egypt so these are preliminary science guys the tribulation hasn't even begun yet did you catch that we're not even in the tribulation yet why because the abomination of desolation has not yet been set up we're dealing with in verses 21 through 31 we're dealing with the the preliminary events that lead to the tribulation but we're not in the tribulation yet so we see he emerges he's not from royal stock he uses deception and statecraft to commandeer and to obtain a coalition of nations and then he launches out into his first military conquest against the king of the south he sweeps armies away he devises plans to destroy opposing military factions and powers in the region he attacks egypt he breaks egypt he breaks the army of egypt then he retreats back to his own land this is where the tables begin to turn where the tide of history begins to go out he goes back to his own land and begins to conspire about the invasion of israel because his heart is moved with rage towards none other than the holy covenant the holy covenant is the covenant that was made to abraham in the book of genesis the phrase holy covenant the only time that's used in the bible it's used a lot it's always always always always without exception always in reference to the abrahamic everlasting covenant the oath made to the fathers he is moved by hatred of the holy covenant that's why he's doing what he's doing verse 29 at the time appointed he shall return and come into the south but it shall not be this time as it was before so he goes to another blow with the south but it's not the same this time round two is different verse 30 for ships of kittim shall come against him so this is mediterranean powers most likely there's references of this being cyprus the island of cyprus and mediterranean powers this is naval powers from the mediterranean coming against him ships of katim will come against him he shall be afraid that's interesting and will withdraw and he shall turn back and be enraged so he goes to attack egypt then mediterranean powers naval powers oppose him and then he withdraws because he's afraid because he can't take them on presumably this is probably western european power saying no no we can't afford for the whole middle east to kick off world war three we're not ready for this we need to send in troops to end this thing so if you don't back down we have vested interest in these countries that you're breaking right now we have military and economic alliances with these countries we're not going to allow you to do this now if we cross-reference this with ezekiel 38 and 39 we see that this man comes from what is modern-day turkey area and he cuts alliances with libya and other nations in north africa and pulls them into a coalition to level the invasion from the north from the north so he's coming into the south which presumably then if we put these pieces together what we're looking at is an antichrist coming out of the turkey syria area who cuts alliances and deals with north african middle eastern countries to throw in on an invasion of the land of israel look at what it says he shall be afraid and withdraw and shall turn back and be enraged and take action against the holy covenant he shall turn back and pay attention to those who forsake the holy covenant guys within four verses or something like that we've heard the phrase holy covenant three times that is significant don't breeze past that his heart is provoked with rage because of the holy covenant it says that he withdraws and comes back in fear but his heart is stirred up over this issue of the holy covenant and then he pays attention to people who forsake the holy covenant which means this he's giving himself and his resources to people who want to do violence against the holy covenant meaning this is where he's you know adolf hitler at the final days of his life instead of trying to secure his empire he did what he gave all of this attention to the annihilation of the jews this delusional obsession to destroy them the same thing is happening here he's pulling people into his orbit who are going to throw in on violating or forsaking the holy covenant doing violence against the holy covenant because he himself is moved with rage against the holy covenant if i did pick a phrase to define the motivations of the antichrist it would be that rage against the holy covenant it's the satanic obsession with covenant you know when god elected chose jerusalem and gave it to his son i believe that in the councils of heaven when lucifer at the very beginning heard this this is when the envy was provoked because election is what stirred up the controversy because covenant is about election you choose a people you choose a land a specific place and you declare this will be here that is what attracted the satanic opposition was covenant which is why the great tribulation is none other than satanic opposition to covenant this is our last verse we're going to look at verse 31 forces from him military forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and the fortress and they will take away regular burnt offering so now we're talking about jerusalem we're talking about the temple mount we're talking about his actual presence in the profaning the temple means he desecrates the temple which means there must be a temple being that will be rebuilt in order for him to desecrate it here it is and they shall set up they the antichrist and his military forces they will set up the abomination that makes desolate at that moment in verse 31 the great tribulation begins everything from verse 21 to verse 31 is context setting which leads to the tribulation one of the reasons why daniel 11 is so important a lot of prophecy describes and details what takes place during the tribulation very few passages describe what pla takes place before the tribulation we want to be aware of it because like moses and aaron leading up to the days of the exodus a lot of the impact of their proclamation was not in the signs and the wonders but in the fact that they were saying what comes next and this is a reason why we want to understand these events because a massive reason why they'll be such a great harvest and in in gathering of people from every tribe tongue and nation in this time is going to be because of the clarity of the saints who are describing what will happen next for me i care about this because of the faithful witness component this isn't just so i can go okay i got my chart and my graph correct now i can go on with my life now we want to go deep in this and feed ourselves on this information so that we are usable in those days to bring many into fellowship with the father and with the son being grafted into the global body of christ at the end of all things in the generation of the lord's return so just a recap and then we'll bring this session to a close verse 21-31 details what happens before the tribulation in our next session we're going to pick up in verse 31 and go through into daniel chapter 12 which describes what takes place in the great tribulation incredible detail in these passages and then in our next session we're going to look at what takes place after the great tribulation thank you guys for watching if you're watching this on the app thank you guys for using the app if you're watching this on another platform like youtube or vimeo or some bootlegged version somewhere else i want to encourage you download the fbi app and you can get this and a lot more resources there thank you guys for watching bless you and maranatha

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Length: 38min 56sec (2336 seconds)

Published: Thu May 28 2020