Daniel chapter 8, the Word of God. In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first. And I saw in the vision, and when I saw, I was in Susa, the citadel, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in the vision, and I was at the Ulai Canal. I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great. As I was considering, behold, a male goat came from the west across the face of the whole earth without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came to the ram with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal, and he ran at him in his powerful wrath. I saw him come close to the ram, and he was enraged against him. and struck the ram and broke his two horns. And the ram had no power to stand before him. But he cast him down to the ground and trampled on him. And there was none who could rescue the ram from his power. Then the goat became exceedingly great. But when he was strong, the great horn was broken. And instead of it, there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven. Out of one of them came a little horn, which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land. It grew great, even to the host of heaven. And some of the host and some of the stars it threw down to the ground and trampled on them. It became great, even as great as the prince of the host. And the regular burnt offering was taken away from him. and the place of his sanctuary was overthrown. And a host will be given over to it, together with the regular burnt offering, because of transgression. And it will throw truth to the ground, and it will act and prosper. Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the one who spoke, For how long is the vision concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate? and the giving over of the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot. And he said to me, for 2,300 evenings and mornings, then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state. When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it, and behold, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice between the banks of the Uli, and it called, Gabriel, Make this man understand the vision. So he came near where I stood. And when he came, I was frightened and fell on my face. But he said to me, Understand, O son of man, that the vision is for the time of the end. And when he had spoken to me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face to the ground. But he touched me and made me stand up, and he said, Behold, I will make known to you what shall be at the latter end of the indignation, for it refers to the appointed time of the end. And for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia. And the goat is the king of Greece. And the great horn between his eyes is the first king. As for the horn that was broken in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power. And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit, a king of bold face, one who understands riddles, shall arise. His power shall be great, but not by his own power. and He shall cause fearful destruction, and shall succeed in what He does, and destroy mighty men and the people who are the saints. By His cunning He shall make deceit prosper under His hand, and in His own mind He shall become great. Without warning He shall destroy many, and He shall even rise up against the Prince of princes, and He shall be broken but by no human hand. The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now. And I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days. Then I arose and went about the king's business, but I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it." The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this text before us. It is a hard text and we ask especially tonight for your help in understanding it, applying it, profiting from it. Indeed, holding these words close and holding them on until a time in which they are most especially needed. For we know, O Lord, there are times coming when your church will need these promises. And so we pray, Father, that these would be established in our minds, that the broad strokes of this text would be very clear, and that we would take from it what you want for us to take from it tonight. We ask for this, from your help, in Jesus' name, amen. My mind went to some strange places this week as I was preparing for this sermon. And one of those places was thinking about the social life of chickens. Chickens have a very interesting social life and social order. Perhaps you've heard of the pecking order of chickens. Some of you probably have witnessed this firsthand where in a group of chickens, any group of chickens, there is a pecking order. And this is somehow mysteriously, in God's ways, in chickens' minds, established early on, and every chicken knows his place. Every single hen, every single rooster, they know their place. The top rooster knows that he's the top, and the lowest on the totem pole, the little hens waiting for their feed, they know their place. And if anyone gets out of line, if any one of those chickens gets uppity, they get pecked. Or worse, sometimes they actually get killed, but usually they get a little peck just to put them back in their place. And so there's this marvelous lesson that we can learn from nature in this regard, that there is an order to the created order. There's an orderliness to it. There is a hierarchy that needs to be respected. And of course, you know where I'm going with this, because at the top of the pecking order in this universe is the Lord God Almighty. And if we get uppity, if we start to forget our place, He'll give us a little peck. Or worse, if we won't learn our lesson. Well, this passage is very clear. It shows the pecking order of God and it shows these kings of the earth, these mighty men of the earth with all of their armies and wealth and glory and All that stuff. Thinking that there's something. And every king that we see in these successive kingdoms gets a little more arrogant and a little more aggressive. Each one of them thinking that they're better than the next. But ultimately they all have to submit to the top rooster. They all have to submit to the pecking order. Because God is going to put them in their place eventually. No matter how much damage they do, no matter how much they threaten the people of God, no matter how much harm that they even do to the people of God, they will be put in their place eventually. And God's people will be vindicated and restored. And so this text really is the pecking order of the universe. The cosmic pecking order, if you will. And it's glorious as we look at it tonight. Let's think about this text here. We saw Daniel's first vision, which was three years before this one. That was the first year of Belshazzar. This is the third year of Belshazzar. So we're actually going chronologically back into the time when Babylon was still in charge. Babylon was still the top kingdom. But this is when Daniel had the dream. And the third year, of course, of Belshazzar is something that you can actually go back in history and see. And in this year, this particular year, the Medo-Persian Empire was rising. And they actually defeated Greece that year. It's an interesting fact. The Medo-Persian Empire defeated Greece, but what's interesting is this text records the opposite. It records further in the future when those roles are reversed. So it's very, very, there's a lot of, it's a complicated thing, but we're gonna try to keep it as simple as we can. So the first dream Daniel had, he was greatly alarmed at what he saw. This one, he's devastated. He's totally undone. And perhaps one of the reasons for this is that it gets very specific. Because in this one, well, the first vision was a grand overview of history. Chapter 7, it's a grand sweeping overview of history. This one speaks to the immediate future of the people of Israel. The immediate future of nations such as Medo-Persia, Greece, and Syria. It covers a period of time from about 350 BC, which was at the height of the Medo-Persian Empire, to 164 BC, in which the Syrian Empire, the Seleucid Empire, was in charge. That's going to be the highlight, the focus of this sermon, and particularly their king, who is the little horn here. So in Daniel's second vision, let's look at verses 1 and 2 for a minute just for context. It says that the vision was again in the third year of King Belshazzar, but notice where he's placed. In the vision he sees himself not in Babylon, but he sees himself in the capital of the Persians in Susa, which is modern-day Iran, which is 200 miles away from Babylon. So in the dream, in the vision, he sees himself sort of from the perspective of the Medes and Persians. Okay, so he's kind of getting a glimpse of their perspective now. What's coming for them? And what he's going to see is that Medo-Persia is great, but they're not as great as they think they are. They're going to be surpassed. The kingdom that surpasses them is great, but not as great as they think they are. And the one that comes after that is even worse. But again, God is going to show them who is the boss. So as we look at this, each of these new kingdoms that we see, these three particular kingdoms, they're all great in their own way and they all get increasingly aggressive and vicious. And each one is bigger and stronger than the last. But each one, their pride goes to their heads and God humbles them. We're gonna see that very clearly in this text. So we're gonna see tonight the main idea. God rebukes the proud ambitions and overreach of sinful man, particularly rulers, and shows that in every case God has the last word. So God rebukes the proud ambitions and overreach of sinful man and shows that He has the last word. So let's look together at this text. I want to ask you to keep your Bibles open and work with me through the text. We're going to go pretty quickly. Let's begin at verse 3. Let's just jump right in. We're going to see Daniel's vision of a ram with uneven horns. The vision of the ram with uneven horns. So first of all we see the ram in verse 3. He's on the bank of this canal in Susa, the Persian capital. He has two horns, not unusual. Most rams have two horns. But this one is unusual in the sense that one horn is higher than the other and the higher one came up last. Just hold that thought. Notice also his actions. He's charging in every direction. He's just aggressive. And it says, no one could rescue from his hand and he did as he pleased and became great. Now this little phrase, he became great, appears over and over in this passage. Became great. They became great. They became great. Now, usually what this means is they became great in their own minds. Particularly the little horn. He became great in his own mind. But they are great. And the repetition of this phrase emphasizes that, and I'll quote one commentator, it's about power and conflict. Each ruler thinks that they are great and they become increasingly aggressive and ambitious. And each one is surpassed by the next. And each one of them is surpassed by the next. And so forth. So this repetition really drives home this point of this is the way of history. This is just the way of sinful man. He hasn't really learned his lesson. Particularly sinful rulers. Ungodly rulers. So this ram, he's aggressive, self-confident, self-satisfied. He thinks he can do whatever in the world he can do. Well, who is he? Verse 20. We're gonna jump back and forth. Look at the interpretation of this verse 20. There's no mystery here. There's no ambiguity in these interpretations. God wants you to know who this ram is. It's quite clear. The ram that you saw with the two horns, these are kings of Meda and Persia. This is the kingdom that would conquer Babylon. This was the rising power when Daniel was in the kingdom of Belshazzar. And they were coming. And they would rule the world just as Babylon did. The two horns are the two kings. The first was Darius the Mede. He lasted for about two years and he died. And then his co-regent, Cyrus the Great. The great Cyrus, the king that you read about in other parts of the Bible. He became the king and he reigned for much longer. He was a great king, no doubt. So as we look at this, I think this is a helpful comment, helpful insight by Ian Duguid. He said this, the pagan nations here depicted as monsters in chapter 7. Kids, how are they depicted here? They're depicted as hideous monsters in chapter 7. Here they're depicted as barnyard animals. That's interesting. He's stripping away the mystique here. He's stripping away the fear factor. As aggressive as Cyrus was, to God he was just a little lamb or a little ram. So this is the first vision. Second vision, beginning in verse 5, the vision of the goat. The goat. Verse five, and as I was considering, he said, behold. Now just pause, I love the language of this, because here you can just picture Daniel looking at this ram, just, wow, this is impressive, he's marveling. And then God shifts his focus, but you haven't seen my goat. He shows him his goat. This new challenger, he's the male goat, the he goat, and with one conspicuous horn, So the Hebrew here is it's a prominent horn. It's a notable horn. It's a mighty horn. Right in the middle of his forehead. That's a bit odd. But one commentator explained this and I thought this was helpful. He's perfectly positioned to strike the ram with two horns. Right between the horns. And he does. This he-goat is extremely swift. Look at verses 6 and 7. He came from the west, across the face of the whole world, without even touching the ground. Now if you recall, last week in chapter 7, this particular king was depicted as a leopard with four wings. You know, if you think a leopard's fast, how about a leopard with four wings? Really fast. So this king is swift in his action. He is absolutely blinding fast. And it says that he struck the ram, broke his two horns, and cast him down. And not even content with that, he trampled him into the ground. So very impressive, this goat. And like the ram before him, no one could rescue from his power, even better than the last. So like Cyrus before him, no one can stop him yet. Verse 8, however, says this, that single horn was broken. And from that single horn, four other horns grew up. So kids, you're getting the picture, right? You're starting to see the pattern. Horns equals kings. Animals equals kingdoms. Their horns equals their king. So what we have is one king, one mighty king, very conspicuous king that is, but he is broken eventually. And then four other ones come up, but not as strong as the first. So that's the vision. What's the identity of the goat? Well, go back to verse 21. Now go all the way down to verse 21. The angel is giving the interpretations. And it's very, again, there's no mystery here. The goat is the king of Greece. And the great horn between his eyes is the first king. Who is that? It's a household name, really. Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great is being predicted here. many years before He even is born. Think about the power of the Scriptures. The power, the predictive power of God's Word. Is this not impressive to you? You ought to be extremely impressed by this fact that God is predicting these epic world powers, these epic world events, hundreds of years before they even take place, and He's predicting them with such precision. This is so impressive to me. So we have Alexander the Great here himself being predicted in the scriptures. And humanly speaking, if I can say this, he was the GOAT. He was the greatest of all time in some ways. He was this amazing military strategist. He was this awesome leader who inspired his men, who fought at the head of his armies, who conquered the known world all the way to the borders of India in like 10 years. all before the age of 33. I mean, that's an impressive figure. Reading about his campaigns, it says this, in 334 BC, Alexander the Great launched an attack on Persia with great speed and with only 35,000 men. Alexander's forces plunged through the Granicus River, attacking Darius's 100,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 horsemen, killing 20,000 and losing under 100 of his troops. Astonishing! God's hand clearly on this man. Although he didn't worship God. By the way, he lost only 100 troops. Victories would be over the next two years. Secure his rule in the Near East. These are years 332-331 BC. And Alexander's mission was to Hellenize the world. He wanted to make the world Greece. And by the way, God used that as well to set the stage for, to set the context for the Greek New Testament going out rapidly over the whole known world. And so God used Alexander the Great unbeknownst to him in multitudes of ways. And here we have God predicting his appearance and his downfall, verse 22. And from the horn that was broken, four others arose, but not with his power." So after 10 years at the head of the Greek armies, he died. 32 years old. Died of malaria. A mosquito took him down, probably. One of the greatest rulers that ever lived. Died of malaria. And after he died, he was replaced. He had four generals, and the four generals that were directly under his command took over four kingdoms, and they split those four kingdoms, and they ruled them as kings. But they were not the same as Alexander the Great. They were not as impressive as he was. I like what Ian Duguid says here as well. He said, Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great, two of the greatest military leaders and most important kings in history, but both are a mere footnote in Daniel 8. The large majority of the time is focused on this third figure, the little horn. And you might wonder why that is, but I think the reason why that is, why Alexander and Cyrus are footnotes compared to the little horn is that the little horn's impact was so devastating and God cares so much for His people that He focuses on the little horn. Now we need to get to the little horn now. This is the third vision now. Look at verse 9. So we've seen the vision of the ram and the goat and now we see the little horn and the first thing that we see about this little horn is he is exceedingly proud. Verse 9, one of them, one of the four horns of the he goat came a little horn which grew exceedingly great. There's that phrase again. He grew exceedingly great towards the south, towards the east and towards the glorious land. Now I'm just going to intermingle interpretation at this point. So a lot of the text that comes later I'm just going to weave it in here. There is almost unanimous agreement about the identity of the little horn. He is an individual called Antiochus IV. Antiochus Epiphanes was his full title. And we need to know who he was. You might go, well, who in the world was that and why should I care? Well, you really should care and it's important. So let me give you some background here. And I don't want this to be, it's not a history lesson. This is a sermon, but I do need to give some background on who he was. So after Alexander died, Judea came under the control of Egypt, the Ptolemy kingdom. And Egypt was basically ruled by Rome. Antiochus III, or Antiochus the Great, he defeated the Egyptians in 198 BC, but he did not fully take control of Egypt. He wanted to. He wanted Egypt. But he couldn't get it. He couldn't take it from Rome. Rome was stronger. He ended up dying. Antiochus III died. His son, Antiochus IV, this is the little horn, he took control of the kingdom. He snatched it away from his brother. His brother was the rightful heir, but he weaseled his way, he wormed his way into the throne. He was a good politician, very cunning as the text says, very clever, and he He ended up leading the Syrian empire. He had an interesting way of leadership. He heavily taxed his subjects to fund his opulent lifestyle, his feasts, his parades, and he would often scatter generous gifts to the people. He was a zealous Zeus worshiper as well. He supported vigorously the temple of Zeus. And this is interesting. He later became convinced that he was Zeus or the incarnation of Zeus. He gave himself a title, Epiphanes. And Epiphanes means the appearance of God or manifestation of God. And he put that on their coins. So he began to have delusions of being a divine person. Does this sound like an Antichrist to you? This sounds like an Antichrist to me. The people actually made fun of him. They called him Epimanes, which is a play on words and it means madman. And he was that. But he actually claimed to be God. That's very important. Not a wise thing to do, kids. The text says Antiochus grew exceedingly great. Now I think you should read between the lines here in his own mind. He became exceedingly great. He invaded Egypt, which was again under Roman rule. History goes like this. He goes into Egypt. He wants to take control. He comes face to face with a Roman general. The Roman general says, soldiers draw a line around Antiochus in the sand. Circle around him in the sand. He said, Antiochus, you're not leaving that circle until you tell us what you're going to do. Are you going to go to war with Rome or are you going to go home? Well, he was humiliated in front of his men and he says, yeah, I'll go home. So he went home, but he was enraged. And what he did then was he took out his rage and anger, according to history, he took out his rage and anger on guess who? Poor little Israel. He took out his rage and fury on Israel. The text tells us as such. It says, the little horn grew strong over the glorious land. The glorious land is in other places. Ezekiel chapter 20, verse 6, verse 15. The glorious land is Israel. He grew great over Israel. In other words, he wanted to bully Israel. That's the idea. So they became a target of his rage. It says in verse 10, this is his pride again, it grew great, even to the host of heaven. Now the host of heaven, I think, the reference is basically the people of God. But he also talks about throwing down some of the stars, which I think is a reference to the rulers of Israel. He did that. He actually expelled all the priests and he replaced the priests of the temple with Zeus. Priests to Zeus. So he grew great over the host of heaven, over the people of God, over the leaders, and it says he even grew great against the prince of the host. That's a not so subtle way of saying that he actually is now challenging God himself. He's stepping up in the ring and saying, God, let's go. So this is the pride of this figure. It is unimaginable, but this is where he was. This is what man is capable of in his sinful nature. So he's challenging God to a fight. Not a good idea. So like the ram and the goat, he thinks himself great. He thinks he's like God. He thinks he's at the top of the pecking order. What's God gonna do about this? This is Antiochus IV. This leads to great wickedness. Great pride leads to great sin. Verse 11, second part. What does he do? The regular burnt offering was taken away and the sanctuary was overthrown. And the host will be given over to it together with the regular burnt offerings because of transgression. That's an important phrase. And it will be thrown to the... truth will be thrown to the ground. So Israel had never experienced persecution like this up until this point in history. This is why God, I think, focuses so much on this figure because they had never seen evil approach them like what happened to them. I'll give you a taste. It's a horrible story. 167 BC, Antiochus sent his army to pillage, massacre, and ruin Israel. He's said to have killed 80,000 people. and enslave another 80,000. He had a program of forced paganization in which he abolished temple worship. He installed a statue of Zeus in the Holy of Holies and directed his pagan priests to offer sacrifices to Zeus, which was also Antiochus, according to him. He sacrificed a pig on the holy altar of God and sprinkled the blood everywhere in the temple. He sent royal ambassadors to every city. This is how aggressive he was. He sent ambassadors to every city to require the people to sacrifice to the Greek gods. And if they wouldn't, they would be executed on the spot. Elderly, women and babies. He outlawed Sabbath keeping and circumcision. Again, those who would violate this law would be executed on the spot. All ages, men and women. You might ask, why in the world would the Lord God allow this scum to do these kinds of evil things? Well, verse 12 tells us, because of transgression. Because of transgression. Now, there are a lot of debate about whose transgression is this? I think the very best way to understand this is the transgression of Israel. It was Israel's sin. This is pretty clear when you look at the context around Daniel chapter 9. At the end of this vision, verse 27, Daniel is devastated by what he hears. He's so appalled. It's crushing to him. It's perplexing to him. Immediately after this vision, what happens? Chapter 9, verse 14, we see him praying for repentance for the wickedness of Israel. And so in a very strange way, God has tied the wickedness of Israel, their idolatry, to the wickedness of Antiochus. Antiochus is a response to the wickedness of Israel. It's a disciplinary action to Israel. But Antiochus is, of course, not absolved from his wickedness himself. So there's this strange connection between Israel's transgression and the transgressions of Antiochus IV. So we've seen Antiochus' pride in this vision, we've seen his wickedness in this vision, but we also thankfully see his downfall. Verse 13, Daniel in his vision overhears a conversation. He hears two angels talking and surely this one angel asks the question that Daniel's asking. How long? How long is the vision concerning the regular burnt offering and the transgression that makes desolate and the giving over of the sanctuary and host to be trampled underfoot? How long will we have to endure this? I think that's the question you and I would be asking too. It's the question. that is asked by people of God in every age under this kind of wickedness, under human tyrants, under antichrists. And there are many antichrists throughout history. Psalm 13 exemplifies this question. How long, O Lord, will you forgive me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take my counsel in my soul? and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer, O Lord my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemies say I've prevailed over him. Lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. And I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. So even in the midst of this absolute crisis, absolute terror, there is hope in the people of God because we know God loves us. We know He's made a covenant with us that He will never break. And so we have hope that He will save us and we have hope that we will sing and rejoice in Him. But in the midst of it, it's very difficult. This is a hard word, isn't it? This is a hard passage, but it's a necessary passage because when God's people enter into these kinds of circumstances, we need this word and we need these promises to hold on to. So, as we look at this, the answer to the question, how long? The second angel answers it, for 2,300 evenings and mornings. then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state." Now, I would be here a long time if I really got into the literature on this particular prophecy. There's a lot of different takes on this, but I think the best one is very simple. 2,300 days, a morning and an evening being taken as a day, is likely six years and four months. And roughly, this covers the time from the murder of the high priest, Onias III, when Antiochus had him killed until the temple was restored in 164. Now, we don't know all the historical details about this, so it's not as clear as we would like, but that's a pretty good guess. Big picture? It's quite a long time. Quite a long time God's people, God's believing, faithful people in Israel will have to endure. this hideous beast of a man. As I said, this is a hard message. And it reminds me, if you've ever read Lord of the Rings, my children and I are reading it in the evenings. We're almost through. We've been reading this for a long time out loud. We're almost through. But there's this wonderful thing that happens early on in the book when this hobbit, Sam, is given a gift by this elf queen named Galadriel. And this elf queen knows this terrible journey they have to go on and all the things they have to face. And this elf queen, Galadriel, gives Sam this little gift. It's a little vial of light. And whenever he pulls out this little vial of light, it illumines everything and it causes the evil to shriek back in fear. You remember he pulls it out, the massive spider, and the massive spider is drawn back. But to me this text is like that vial of light. It's useful when you are in the deepest, darkest times. And you pull this out and you rely on these promises. Because it's going to be hard. God does not sugarcoat the truth. He's not blowing sunshine in our ears here. He's telling us that these things are going to happen. He's saying that to this age and indeed this passage is relevant for us because we will also perhaps face an Antichrist ourselves. So, verse 23. He says it's going to be 2,300 evenings and mornings. It's going to be a while, okay? You need to buckle in. Verse 23, the angel gives a last glimpse of the final fate of Antiochus. He says, this king of bold face, whose power shall be great, not by his own power, but he says, in his own mind, this one with delusions of divinity, he will be ended, he says, and he shall be broken, but not by human hand. Now this is intriguing. Because here's the little horn, this mighty king who has terrorized God's people for several years. God is going to take him out. How did that happen? In 168, around 168 or 167, there was a revolt called the Maccabean Revolt. You've heard of Judas Maccabees. He was a great hero in Jewish history, a man who fought for Israel and rebelled against Antiochus. They weakened his power. They did not completely defeat him. In 167 BC, the Parthian king took advantage of his weakness and attacked him as well. And then Antiochus led his forces into battle. This was the beginning of the end for him. He had some initial successes against this foreign king, but he ended up getting pushed back when he tried to take the city of Persepolis, and he was pushed back, and on his way back home he died in the wilderness. And it's worth reading. This is one of the rare times you'll ever hear me reading from the Apocrypha. But it's worth reading because this is a historical account of the end of this king, this Antichrist. And let me read just a little bit from it. This is from 2 Maccabees chapter 9. It says, About this time Antiochus retreated in disgrace from the region of Persia. Again, it says he entered the city of Persepolis and he attempted to rob the temples and he was pushed back. And he's on his way out. It says this, So again, taking out his anger on the Jews. Yet the condemnation of heaven rode with him, because he said in his arrogance, I will make Jerusalem the common graveyard of Jews as soon as I arrive there. So the all-seeing Lord, the God of Israel, struck him down with an incurable and invisible blow. For scarcely had he uttered those words when he was seized with excruciating pains in his bowels and sharp internal torment. A fit punishment for him who had tortured the bowels of others with many barbarous torments. Far from giving up his insolence, he was all the more filled with arrogance. Breathing fire in his rage against the Jews, he gave orders to drive even faster. As a result, he hurtled from the speeding chariot and every part of his body was wracked by the violent fall. Thus he who previously in his superhuman presumption thought he could command the waves of the sea, and imagine that he could weigh the mountaintops in his scales, was now thrown to the ground and had to be carried on a litter, clearly, now this is a little humor, clearly manifesting all the power of God. The body of this impious man swarmed with worms, and while he was still alive in hideous torments, his flesh rotted off, so that the entire army was sickened by the stench of his corruption. Shortly before, he had thought that he could reach the stars of heaven, and now no one could endure the transport of the man because of this intolerable stench. It ends this way. There's more but it ends this way. So this murderer and blasphemer, after extreme suffering such as he had inflicted on others, died a miserable death in the mountains of a foreign land. Thus ends the life of Antiochus IV. It's very interesting as you look in history. He died of this very strange ailment of being infested with worms in his body to the point where he rotted from the inside out. This is gross, I know, but this is the death of the Antichrists. Galerius the Emperor died this way. Herod the Great died this way. Herod Agrippa died this way. And there are some who think, and I think there's something to this, that Judas Iscariot died this way too. It's a hideous, horrible death that seems particularly pointed towards antichrists, tyrants. It seems to be the touch of God upon them. So here you have these fools. They shoot for the stars, but they land in the gutter every time. This is God's judgment. Now, this passage ends, verse 26 and 27. It says, Daniel, when he heard all these things, he was overcome. He lay sick and appalled and did not understand it, meaning the dream. It's very clear to me that what he's appalled by is the revelation that it's the transgressions of Israel that leads to these things. We see his prayer in chapter 9 of repentance in light of this revelation. And it's interesting because it seems that Israel's sin becomes the opportunity for Antiochus to rise and attack God. Israel's sin becomes the opportunity, historically, for Antiochus to rise and attack God. And amazingly, God the Father allowed this man to do it for his own mysterious purpose. Now, as I was meditating and thinking on this, I'm not sure that the text is intending this to go this way, but it might. But it certainly makes my mind think about the cross. Because it was our sin. that led to the cross. It was our sin that led to our Savior being attacked, God Himself being attacked and indeed murdered on that day. The greatest, most heinous, evil, wicked, vile crime that ever was committed by man was the murder of our Savior on that cross on that day. And it was our sin that put Him there. It was our sin. There's a strange mystery in that, isn't there? But God did this for His own glory, didn't He? As hideous and horrible as the cross was, the death of our Lord Jesus, sinless God-man, it led to great glory. Indeed, Jesus called it His glory. Chapter 12 of John's Gospel. It led not only to His own glory, but the salvation of His people. And surely this event, this attack of the Antichrist upon the hosts of heaven and upon God himself actually did some good to God's people as well. Those who are truly believers were surely in some mysterious ways helped by God in the midst of it all. And so brothers and sisters, what can we take away from this text? As I said before, it's a hard text. It's the kind of text you hide away and that you need in those darkest hours. You have to remember, if you face an Antichrist or you face some persecution like this, you have to just remember how this ends. You remember and you hope that you are going to sing to God and you are going to be saved. But it might be hard. It might be rough sledding. And so brothers and sisters, just a couple of thoughts as we close. It was our sin that brought about the ultimate transgression. The cross of Jesus Christ, it was our sin that put Him there. An astonishing attack upon God and the murder of His Son. And Jesus Christ became our transgression, didn't He? He became our sin. He embodied our sin and He bore the wrath of our sin for us. And so we ought to thank Him for that and praise the Lord that we will not face that same judgment. And then lastly, as we think about this, The most despicable act that ever occurred in human history, the death of our Lord Jesus, was turned into a marvelous victory, because without the death we would never see His resurrection. And as He does in Himself, He also does for us. As we who trust in Him, we are dead now to our sins and are alive in Him. And He turns our sorrows, our sufferings into victory. And He turns our sorrows into opportunity for us to glorify Him. And I'll leave you with this last thought. I'll leave you with this last thought. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. And another irony here. You have an Antiochus IV who declared himself to be God manifest. This is the pride of man on display. But the reality is much more interesting because you see God says that it is truly the people of God. The humble, persecuted, downcast people of God who manifest the glory of God. Listen to what he says. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 7. And we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. The glory of God is not manifested in these pompous, arrogant, loud-mouthed kings. The glory of God is manifested in humble, Faithful, simple believers, who though they are persecuted and ground down, we bear the life of Jesus in us. We are God's manifestation on earth. As amazing as that sounds, this is the truth. And so when we are persecuted, it is an opportunity to glorify God, no matter what happens. So this is a hard text. We hold it in our pockets, like that little file of light that Sam carried in his chest, and we bring it out when it's dark. But it's a difficult text, and may the Lord bless it to you and to me as we go forth. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for this text. It is a difficult text. It is in many ways a hard word for us, but Lord, at the same time, it is your word. and we know that it is useful and right. And so we thank you tonight, most of all, for our Savior, the one who bore in himself the penalty and punishment for our sin, who became sin for us, who became transgression for us. And we thank you, Father, that because we are united to him and have new life in him, that no matter what the enemy does, no matter if we are crushed or persecuted or pressed down, that we will rise again. and that through it all we will manifest your glory with your help. And so we pray for peace, Lord. We pray that you would keep at bay the proud and foolish leaders who would assume these sorts of powers. But we pray also, Lord, that if they come, that your church, that we would be faithful. Thank you for this good word, and we pray that it would be a blessing to us now and in the future. In Jesus' name, amen.