What the Bible Really Says About the Antichrist — Daniel 8 & 11

Welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a 30-minute walk through the Scriptures, teaching in-depth Bible truths that change people's lives. Now, here's your host, Les Feldick. It's good to see everybody here in the studio, and as we like our television audience to realize, we put four of these programs together in an afternoon, and consequently, it's very informal. You'll notice the coffee cups, and we'll take 30 minutes, take a break, and we come back and produce another 30 minutes, and so we just have a full afternoon. And again, we like to make mention of the fact that Oklahoma City is now part of our audience on Channel 69. They have just made me aware of that, and so we like to welcome our Oklahoma City friends to our program. Also, we always like to make mention, and it's amazing that yet people are not quite aware that all of the programs that we've produced, beginning back in Genesis 1-1 up until the present, are available on videotapes. We've put, what, 12 programs, six hours together on a videotape that we can sell, and we've got a table of contents, in case you don't want all of them. If you'll just write to us, we'll gladly send that to you. And also, the first 12 hours, and now the second 12 hours, have been transcribed from the tape into the printed form. So, we have what we call booklet one ready, as well as booklet number two, and Sharon is working, I guess, on number three. And it's amazing, but folks are enjoying the booklets, and we appreciate that. All right, now then, enough for announcements. Let's get right back into where we've been talking, and that is prophecy. But before we go back to Daniel, at least for you here now in the studio, I'd like to have you go back with me quickly to 2 Peter chapter 1. And here is my reason for spending as much time in prophecy as I do. Now, I don't like to ever get on a hobby horse and just ride one thing until it's ridden to death. I don't teach prophecy simply because it's sensational or exciting, and although it is, but we simply like to teach prophecy on the basis of these verses of Scripture. And this is why I wanted to start out with them again this afternoon, or this evening, wherever you happen to be when you're watching the program. And that is in 2 Peter chapter 1, beginning with verse 17. Peter writes, for he, that is Christ, of verse 16, he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Now, of course, Peter is making reference to the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. And that's when the voice from heaven spoke, remember, and Peter, James, and John were struck with such awe at the events that were taking place. I mean, it was just beyond human comprehension as Christ was transfigured and made glorious right before them, and then to hear the voice from heaven and all that. But now Peter goes on to say, verse 18, and this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount, that is the Mount of Transfiguration. But now verse 19. Now, here's my reason for spending as much time in prophecy as we do, where Peter says we have also a more sure word of prophecy. You know what Peter is really saying? As exciting and as thrilling and as revealing as that Mount of Transfiguration experience was, yet Peter says we've got something that even proves all of these things more than that. And what is it? Prophecy. See, now read on. A more sure word of prophecy where unto you do well when you take heed. In other words, pay attention to these prophetic utterances as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts, knowing this first. Knowing. See, now that word knowing in the Greek is more emphatic than what we normally think of the word knowing. It's not just a casual acceptance of something, but it's a bona fide knowledge without any doubt, without any question. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. In other words, you don't just take one verse and try to twist it out of shape and make it say something that it doesn't. You leave everything in the context. And I trust that that's what people realize how I teach. I hope I'm never guilty of lifting something out of its context and make it say something that the Lord never intended to mean. So, no Scripture is of private interpretation. And then here's the reason. Verse 21, for the prophecy. Now, he's referring back primarily, of course, to the Old Testament. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but here's how it came about. Holy. Now, the word holy means set apart. Holy men of God spake not as they dreamed it up, not as they had remembered what they had heard around a campfire or what had been handed down from generation to generation. But these holy men of God spake or wrote as they were moved or carried along by the Holy Spirit. Now, what is all this telling us? Every one of us will run into someone once in a while and say, well, I don't see how you can believe all that stuff. After all, why do you think that the Bible is more right in what it teaches than the Koran or the Book of Mormon or anything else that they may say is their guideline for doctrine? Well, I'll tell you why. There is no other book written under heaven that makes prophetic statements like our Bible does. Hundreds, yes, thousands of years before they happen, but they all come true, and what hasn't come true will come true. And so always remember, this is our reason for teaching prophecy is to show beyond a shadow of a doubt that this book is the Word of God. And if prophecy that has been spoken and fulfilled to the last jot and tittle as much of the Old Testament already has been, then we have no reason to doubt that the rest of it will be because the same God that fulfilled the first 90 percent of prophecy is the God that's going to finish the last 10 percent. Now, all that is just to show why we like to spend as much time in prayer. Now, the only reason we're spending it in this particular case is we've been coming up through the Old Testament. Now, come back with me to Daniel, if you will. Back to Daniel, and let's go all the way back to chapter 8, which we skipped as we came through. But remember on our sojourn up through Scripture, starting with Genesis, we've just been coming right on up, unfolding our timeline, and consequently, since Daniel is in captivity under the Babylonian empire, we stop there in our progressive revelations. But of course, Daniel is a book of prophecy, and so he is dealing almost entirely in his whole book with events that would happen to the Gentile world. Now, back here in chapter 8, just to show you how accurate prophecy has been, it's already been fulfilled, you'll notice that starting with... Oh, right at verse 1. I'm going to hit this as quickly as I can because we've got so much to cover. But here in verse 1, the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared unto me, even unto Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first. And then he goes on to say in verse 2, how he saw a vision way out there in Shushan, which was on the Tigris River, the capital of the Medean Persian empire, now remember. And then I lifted up my eyes, verse 3, and I saw, and behold... Now, in this vision, he's going to see the unfolding of the rather immediate history. Not the long-term yet, but the immediate. All right, read on. I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, there stood before the river a ram. Now, first thing everybody does is envision some horrible-looking creature with some kind of a horrible pair of horns, when in reality, now again, go back to a statement I made several weeks ago, three books of our Bible were written outside of the land of Israel, remember. All three of them are mostly prophetic, and all three of them deal primarily with Gentile prophecy. Daniel is one. He writes from Shushan out there on the Tigris River. Ezekiel is the other one. He also writes from the captivities, and then the book of Revelation is the third one, when John the Revelator wrote from the Isle of Patmos in exile. Now, none of those three books were written in Israel, all written by Jews, of course, and they all write concerning Gentile prophecy, but they also all three write in symbolism. Now, the symbolism here, of course, is that the ram was always indicative of the Mede and Persian empire. In fact, their coins would have the ram's head on them. The crown of the king of Medes and Persians had the likeness of a ram, and so there's no doubt from history and archeology that Daniel is seeing the vision concerning the empire of which he was a part, the Medes and the Persians, which designated the two horns. Now, the horns in Scripture always refer to kings or the top guy in control. Now, remember that, because you get to the book of Revelation, you're going to see this leader with 10 horns. Well, all it is is a government with 10 distinctive heads or presidents or kings. All right, now then, the Medes and Persians are the two horns, the two kings, and the one, of course, was the father of Cyrus Astyages or something like that it was pronounced, and he was the one horn, but his son Cyrus became so much greater and pushed the empire out further that Daniel sees it as the greater of the two horns. That's all they are, two kings, the father and the son. Now, as the Medes and Persians then begin to expand their empire, now this is history, it all happened. And as they expanded out, of course, they enveloped the land of Israel, and they took, of course, the city of Jerusalem down into Egypt. But here in verse 4, I saw the ram pushing westward and northward, see, it's an expansion of the empire, and southward so that no beasts or no other empires might stand before him. Neither was there that could deliver out of his hand, but he did according to his will, and he did great. See, I mean, they were the greatest empire on the earth at that time. And then verse 6, history, but it's in symbolic language. And he came to the ram that had two horns. No, I'm sorry, verse 5. And as I was considering, behold, a he -goat came from the west. Now, get your direction straight there in the Middle East. The Medes and Persians are coming from the east, from the area of the Tigris and Euphrates River. They are moving around the north side of the Mediterranean Sea, and now here comes a power from the west. Gonna meet him head on, all right? And it's a he-goat. Now, we also know from archeology that the Grecian Empire, Alexander, their emblem was the goat. On their coins and in various other emblems and so forth, they recognized them as the he-goat, all right? So this he-goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth and touched not the ground, and this goat had a notable horn, one. Now, what was Alexander the Great? Well, he was a conqueror of one. He wasn't a consortium like the Medes and the Persians were. He alone raised up out of the Grecian Empire. So this is the goat, and he had a notable horn between his eyes. Now, verse six, and he came to the ram. Now, what have you got? Have you got a fight between two animals? No, a fight between two empires. And so the Grecian Empire is gonna ram head on into the Mede and Persian Empire. And, of course, we know from history who won. Well, the Greeks did, and Alexander overran the Mede and Persian Empire and took his all the way to the Ganges River, if I'm not mistaken, and became the then greatest empire on earth by the time he was 33 years old. 33, and he had accomplished. Now, he was also known in history as a general who was conquering with such swiftness. He would move his armies with a speed that the then known world knew nothing of. He would take chances. He was almost reckless in the chances that he would take, but he always seemed to come out, and he never really lost an army. And so it was unique to Alexander the Great's military campaign. So I think the word that shows that in verse six, and many of us might miss, that as this he-goat came, he ran. See, there's the indication of his swiftness, his speed. And he ran unto him in the fury of his power. Now, people read this, and all they picture, you know, is a couple animals in a wild animal fight of some kind, and all it is is two empires. Now, you say, well, where do you get it? Well, just move across the page, at least in my Bible, to verse 20. And as I've said so often, the scripture always does its own interpreting. We don't have to. And now in verse 20, it says, the ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Mede and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia. Plain, isn't it? No, no mistaking that. And the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king, Alexander the Great. Now, that being broken, in other words, you know what happened to him. He died, probably of alcoholism, at the young age of 33. And as we've spoken before, we've taught before that great empire, that Alexander the Great set up in such speed, was immediately divided between four of his generals. And so it was a quadrangle, you might say now, of an empire divided between four. So now that Alexander the Great, in verse 22, is broken, he's off the scene, four stood up for it, four kingdoms. In other words, it's the division of the great empire. The four divisions will stand up out of that nation, but not in his power. In other words, no longer in Alexander's. Then verse 23, and in the latter time of their kingdom, of these four generals, in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences shall stand up. Now, this is an interesting little quirk of scripture and of prophecy. This little king that is spoken of here as being so fierce and of being so powerful, on the pages of secular history, he wasn't even enough to amount to more than a paragraph. But he was a king who went down to Jerusalem and utterly persecuted and put under tremendous pressure the people of Israel. And so in God's plan of things, he becomes a prime player. But other than that, he's just a little blip on the radar of history. But let's look at this man because he is a picture now. He is a type of the last man of fierce countenance. He's a picture of the Antichrist. And so this is the only way we can look at these descriptions of this Antiochus the Great, is that the very same descriptive words connected to him are also descriptive of this man of sin. And that's what I'm going to try and wind up in this half hour possible. The biblical descriptions of this world ruler that is coming on the scene, we think before too much longer. All right, so now then, if you'll come down to verse 24, still speaking of Antiochus in the history shortly following Daniel's visions. And it all happened, even though Daniel foretold it several years before, it was all fulfilled. Verse 24, his power shall be mighty, not by his own power, and he shall destroy wonderfully. In other words, beyond human comprehension, the things that he would do. And he shall prosper and practice and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. See, he came down and persecuted the nation of Israel. Verse 25, through his policy also, he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand. In other words, he's going to be successful in his little area of history. And he shall magnify himself in his heart. See, now this is all indicative of what the Antichrist is going to be like thousands of years later. And by peace, he shall destroy many. In other words, he's going to be a political manipulator. We're going to see that in a little bit. Now the man Antichrist is going to have such charisma. He's going to have the world just literally licking out of his hands because of his charismatic personality. All right, this fellow was able to do the same thing. And he shall also, verse 25, stand up against the Prince of Princes. Now that's capitalized. So he's going to actually stand up in the face of God and try to fight against him. But he shall be broken without hand. Well, then he ends the vision. Now I'd like to have you come on over all the way to chapter 11. And now Daniel brings this same personality, this Antiochus the Great out of Syria, who, like I said, was just a blurp on the radar of history. But yet in biblical analogy, he is an important character because he foreshadows the Antichrist. All right, now then, verse 21, Daniel is, without realizing it, Daniel is leaping 2,500 years of history and brings us to this end time individual, verse 21, and in his estate shall stand up a vile person. Here's one of his descriptions. He's a vile person to whom they shall not give the honor of the king. In other words, there's not going to be a great landswell of voting for this guy, but he's going to come in with subterfuge. He's going to come in with intrigue and political maneuvering. All right, read on. But he shall come in peaceably. In other words, he's not going to have a violent overthrow, but by political maneuvering, he's going to bring himself to the top of the heap. And he shall come in peaceably and obtain the kingdom or his rule by what? Flattery. See, he's going to say what people want to hear, and he's going to get away with it. He's going to be a liar because that's his very makeup. He's going to say whatever needs to be said to attain his ends. All right, verse 22, and the arms of a flood shall be overflown from before him and shall be broken. Yea, also the prince of the covenant. In other words, he's to this antichrist, this one that's coming on the scene, and he's going to sign this treaty with Israel with flattery, the promise of peace and prosperity, but he's going to turn on them. He's going to turn on them, and he's going to bring in violent pressure upon them. Well, now come all the way over. Like I said, I just want to hit a few of these. Verse 36 now, chapter 11. Now, verse 36. And the king, in other words, this world ruler coming on the end time, and the king shall do according to his will. He's going to finally get to the place he'll have almost absolute power over the whole world. Now, when I say the whole world, stop and think for a minute. If you're aware at all of what's going on in the world, if you read your weekly news magazines and so forth, the word that you're hearing more and more is global. Aren't you? The global economy, global politics, global religion, global currency. It's worldwide, and everything is being prepared for the coming in of this world leader. Now, you take our whole social security system. That's not the mark of the beast. Don't worry about your social security number, but I'll tell you what it is. It's the forerunner. It's getting the masses of people ready to be subjected to a central power who is going to control them with a number. And that's the mark of the beast. And of course, believers won't have to worry about it. We're not going to be here. But for the world that's here, they're all going to have a number. Now, even today, with the exception of only a few nations in the third world, do you realize that almost every nation on earth has a social security system? I didn't know that until just a few weeks ago. And that social security system, you see, prepares everybody for understanding that they can't make a move until they have that number. You just stop and think what we Americans can do without a social security number. Nothing. You can't drive your car. You can't enroll your kids in school without a social security number. You can't do anything. You can't file your taxes. You can't pay your taxes without a social security number. Well, that's just a foreview of what's coming. All right. And this man is going to do according to his will. Verse 36, now. He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every God. Now, you ought to remember, this guy is going to be the very tool of Satan. And what has Satan's big lie, according to all that I've taught now, ever since we came up from Genesis, what is always Satan's big lie? What is the lie? You can be like God. See, now this guy is believing it concerning himself, that he is greater than God. He is God, and then read on, and he shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished. In other words, when the tribulation ends and he goes to his doom. Now, I think there's a lot of controversy amongst Bible scholars, and I'm not one. I don't claim to be a scholar. I'm not a theologian. I'm just a teacher. I was thinking the other day, you know, there's thousands of them out there that are just like I am, Sunday school teachers and what have you. And that's why I don't pretend to be anything more than that. But we just want to teach the word on a level that everybody can understand. And thrilled my heart when I hear that even kids run when they hear that our program is coming on the television and they plop down in front of it, like one dad told me. He said, my kids sit and watch yours like most kids watch the cartoons on Saturday morning. Now, I don't know what he meant by that, but we trust that they're learning from it. And so we try to keep everything as simply as we can so that even these kids, 10, 12, 14 years old can understand what we're saying. All right, now read on verse 37. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers. He will probably be an apostate. I think an apostate Jew. Others say he's going to be an apostate Gentile from Christianity. But since Israel is going to accept him and almost take him as their Messiah, I personally think he'll be an apostate Jew, but we're not going to argue that point. So he will honor the God of forces, not the God of his fathers. Now verse 38. And a God whom his fathers knew not shall he honor with gold and silver and with precious stones and pleasant things. In other words, another, I think, indication that he's not going to worship the God of Abraham or the God of the children of Abraham, but he's going to worship Satan, which will be, of course, the prime mover. Now, I'm not going to have time to finish everything I wanted to, but now if you will come back quickly with me again to Matthew 24, where we were last program just before we left the air. You remember in Daniel chapter 9, that 25th verse, I think it was, when Daniel says that this man, the prince that's going to come out of the revived Roman empire is going to sign a seven-year treaty with the nation of Israel. And this seven-year treaty is going to run its course according to prophecy. But Daniel says in the middle of that seven-year treaty, he's going to turn on Israel, as we've already seen back there in chapter 8, and he's going to set himself up as God to be worshipped as God in the very temple in Jerusalem that will, of course, by that time be rebuilt. And so again, now in Matthew 24, I want you to see how that Jesus puts his stamp of approval upon what Daniel wrote. Verse 15, when you therefore, now he's talking to the 12th, he's talking to the nation of Israel, when you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place. What's that say? Daniel said he would come in and he will.