Reading: Daniel 10-12
Posted:  September 24, 2014


Daniel isn't a long book, we finish it today; but it is packed with detailed information on future events.   Most of what is written here seems to have already occurred.  A brief history lesson is in order....(Oh, how I wish I had paid more attention in history class!)

Alexander the Great brought Greece to global dominance while he was still young.   No one could stand against Alexander and his forces.  Then, at the height of his military career, Alexander dies.   His kingdom is divided up among his four generals.  Two of those generals are identified here as the "kings" of the north and south.   Their kingdoms are passed to members of their family, who battle back and forth for several hundred years, exchanging territory, and pretending to be friendly, yet plotting against each other.   Toward the end of this time a leader by the name Antiochus Epiphanes IV was reigning as "king" in the north.   (the northern kings were Selucids, and the southern kings were Ptolemies, named after the original generals).  Good ole' Antiochus Epiphanes decides to desecrate the temple in order to subjugate the Jews.  He smashes the altar, and offers swine in the holy place, fully aware that the people will be devastated.   I guess his plan was for this to "break their backs" and to demoralize them, but it had an opposite effect.  There was a rebellion that led to a brief period of independence.   Then Rome stepped in and we are ushered into the time of Christ.

Here's the point.   Everything that Daniel said about the two warring kings happened exactly as he was told.   God knows the future.  Nothing is going to happen that he is unaware of.  He knows who is going to lose their temper, and when they are going to lose it, and what they are going to do because they lost it.   He never wonders, He never worries, He is always in control.

Then Daniel relates some strange and wonderful things that don't fit with what we know of Israel's history.   He begins talking about the Antichrist, and we know it's the Antichrist because the details don't fit with Antiochus E.     Since everything that God has already told us has been proven true, we have no reason to doubt the rest of the revelation.  

The end will come, and it seems that 3 and one half years are going to be part of that future event in some way...just as they were part of the past event.    Some Christians will be tortured and lose their lives...it will be quite brutal for a time.    

For me, it sounds exactly like what is going on in the Middle East even as we speak.

Looking forward,


PR