Daniel 11. I'm not going to read the whole passage right now, but I do want to pray for us, so let's pray before we open the Word. Father, Your words are before us. Your words are before us. How privileged we are Lord, we pray we would not take this for granted that once again You have given us another week, another Lord's Day, to put the Word of God before our eyes. And we pray our hearts would not be hardened as Hebrews 3 says. We pray, Father, that we not be that our hearts not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, but we pray that as exhortations are given, Lord, You would persevere us to the end. And so, Father, use this passage, this very unique, hidden, unknown passage. Lord, open it up to us. Illuminate it. And give us life through it. We pray it in Jesus' name, Amen. Well, this is part two. If you remember last week, I said we're kind of in a three-part series here at the end of Daniel because chapter 10, 11, and 12 are all one vision that Daniel's getting. from the Lord. And so we're in part two of that. And Daniel 11 is very unique because it's in the middle of this vision. And it's tempting because of the density of it and a lot of things that are going on here to just want to give this surface level overview of kind of what's going on and not actually get into the details of the text. I resisted that urge this week, and we are going to get into the details of this text. I will not read the whole text right now because there's 45 verses here and it took me about 15 minutes to do that, so if I read it all and then we talked about it and read it again as I'm preaching, we would be here a long time. So I will read it as I preach through it, as we go, like I did last week. And really, preaching it is not easy. It's one of those chapters, you read it, some of you, I'm sure, read this before you came here, and you're like, okay, should I read that again? I mean, is it gonna be better the second time? What's going on here? It is hard to figure out what's being said here. It is extremely tedious. And if any of you have ever questioned my commitment to expository preaching, note, I preach Daniel 11. Always remember that. Our pastor wants to continue to exposit and not skip chapters. It was tempting to skip this when my week started out reading one Old Testament scholar in particular, H.C. Leupold, who talking about Daniel 11 said this, I don't see how anyone could ever use this for preaching. That's not an encouraging way to start your week getting ready to preach a chapter. And my soul was encouraged quickly after that when I read another scholar, Old Testament scholar on Daniel, who said this. His name is Ian Dungan. He said he was a lot more optimistic. He said, if your Christian life moves from daily triumph to triumph as you effortlessly grow in your knowledge of God and victory over sin, then you probably can skip this chapter. However, if you know what it is to struggle and fail when you attempt to obey God, then this chapter is designed for you. And that's more hopeful, isn't it? And Leupold, the first man I mentioned, I can understand his skepticism. When you take a position like I take, I think it's the right way to view this, that everything in this chapter has already been fulfilled. We're literally just reading history here regarding Israel. So when you look at a bunch of dense history that was happened a long time ago to the Jewish nation, you think, how is that relevant for a sermon? How does that justify a full sermon? And so I get that. I understand that. And especially when we self-reflect a little bit and think, okay, we are products at some measure of a me-centered generation where we come to the Bible and we think, well, what does it say to me? How does this relate to me, right? And we want everything to have an immediate application to us. And I thought, I was about to title the sermon this morning, or this evening, I was going to title it, The Most Irrelevant Chapter in the Whole Bible. And then I was going to try to spend the whole time showing us how relevant it actually is, because this is more relevant than we probably think. Church, do we believe that this whole book, front to back, is relevant for Christians today? What does it say in 2 Timothy 3.16? All scripture is God-breathed and what? Profitable. Profitable regarding what? Just knowledge of history? No, it says profitable for training in righteousness that the man of God might be adequate and equipped for every good work. So I think Daniel chapter 11 is a blessing to us because it will train us for good works. Even weird historical passages like the one we're going to look at today, I believe, have practical benefit for our lives. I was joking with a pastor friend of mine, he pastors in Pace, Dan Adams at Redeemer Church, last week, because they just started a new series in the book of Ruth, and they just finished Daniel, studying through Daniel as well, and then they did 1 and 2 Timothy before that, and there's another Old Testament, or 1 and 2, I'm sorry, Samuel. And I'm like, brother, you love the Old Testament, don't you? And he was saying, his answer was, the whole book is good. And that's a very simple response, but yet I wonder how many Christians really believe that this whole book is good. Not true. I'm not asking is it true. Is it good? Is it profitable? Is it worth your time to get up every day and study it? And to gather with the people of God and sit here for an hour? Is it that? Is it good? And earlier this, on Monday, I was at our kid's school, and there was a woman who, she attended, her and her husband attended the church for a while, a year or two ago, and ended up joining another church. But she came up to me and she said, I just want you to know I finished the second year reading through the Bible. And when we were attending your church, you had challenged everyone to read through the Bible every year. And she said, I took you up on that challenge, and I just finished my second year reading through the Bible. And the first thing I thought when she told me that was she believes that this book is good. That's proof. It's important, guys, that we dig down and build some convictions regarding Scripture. I mean, I don't know what's been going through y'all's minds in the last few weeks as you've been looking at stuff regarding our nation. I doubt anybody here is clueless as to regard to what's going on. You know, you look at the news. You're seeing riots, you're seeing revolts, you're seeing all kinds of things that you just kind of scratch your head, and there's a lot of Christians that are opening the Bible right now and they're going, how does this relate to that? Where's the connection? And here we are, just minding our own business, studying through the book of Daniel, and we happen to land upon Daniel 11, which speaks so relevantly to everything going on in our nation. There's a lot here. There's a lot here. And there's a lot in the background of this as well, not only in this chapter, but I did a lot of study in Jewish antiquity this week to get some of the backstory here, and it is tedious. Dave Gamble said something interesting. He said, Daniel 11 is so challenging that all the characters should have been given team jerseys with names and numbers so you could keep track of everyone. because there's kings, and royal family, and nations, and events, and political wars, and there's so much happening. And so I thought, I've got to find some way to get some clarity to us. And so I broke it into three categories, and I'm going to put it under three names of significant people that are mentioned in this passage. The first is Alexander the Great. which we've studied in Daniel already. The second is Antiochus Epiphanes, which you've studied already in Daniel. And the third is someone named John of Gisgala, which we have not studied, and that'll be the third point. So as you can see, this is going to be a different sermon. We're going to go through it with those three historical figures and build it out from there. That is what this chapter is about. Now, as we get some context here, remember that all of these things we're about to read are being spoken to us from a certain person. I argued last week, I don't believe this is an angel, merely an angel speaking to Daniel these things. I believe there is good evidence to say that this is a pre-incarnate Christ who is speaking to Daniel, and Daniel is in a point of discouragement. If you'll remember, they were given permission to go back to Jerusalem out of exile, given permission, they're told to go, and then a new edict is put in place that forbids them to go and do the Lord's work, to go reestablish the temple, to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, and Daniel's discouraged, and he's wondering, how are we gonna get in there and do this? And so I believe Christ himself comes to strengthen Daniel. And so verse two, it says also, and to show him the truth. And so there is truth here before us in chapter 11. And for us, this is a historical truth because these events have already happened. For Daniel, this is prophetic truth because these things that he is hearing from Christ have not yet happened. And so let's look at it, verse two. It says, I will show you the truth. Behold, three more kings shall arise in Persia, that is after Cyrus, and a fourth king shall be far richer than all of them. When he has become strong through his riches, he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece." And that's under Xerxes I in 486, 467 BC. And then verse three says, And I think this is Alexander the Great, we call him, he's called mighty here. Then a mighty king shall arise who shall rule with great dominion and do as he wills. And as soon as he has risen, his kingdom should be broken and divided into four winds of heaven, but not to his posterity, nor according to the authority in which he ruled, for his kingdom should be plucked up and go to others besides these. So I believe this is Alexander the Great. We've already studied him in chapter eight, if you'll remember. that sermon I preached from my office when we had a big COVID outbreak and I preached Daniel 8 from there we talked about Alexander the Great and here he is again Daniel 11 verse 4 it says as soon as he has arisen his kingdom shall be broken and divided into four winds of heaven so I think this is Alexander the Great for two reasons the first is is that it says, after he is arisen, his kingdom shall be broken. So there's a quick rise to power and a quick downfall, which matches him. Remember, Alexander the Great was studied under Aristotle as a boy, and he became a general at 21, probably plotted his own father's murder to become the leader in Greece. and he conquered the whole known world. So we're talking Asia all the way into India, all the way into Europe and the Middle East in five years. By the time he's 26 years old, he's risen to power, conquered the world, and then he's killed. And then we know that from history and scripture that his kingdom was divided into four kingdoms under him. Four kingdoms in Greece, And that's the reference here, that his kingdom shall be broken and divided into the four winds of heaven. There's no scholarly debate here. This is talking about Alexander the Great. And what's crazy is, Alexander the Great wasn't to be born yet, when this is being said, for well over 100 years. This is prophesied before he's born. And speaking of prophecy, go to verse 6. We have another prophecy here fulfilled at 250 BC about Ptolemy II. He's called the King of the South. If you keep seeing that in this passage, that's southern Egypt. And there's a little story here about his but his daughter, Bernice, who was sent to marry Antiochus I. Antiochus was to divorce his wife, that was the plan. Laodice was to inherit her sons. This plan fell apart, and she discovered the plot, and so she had her husband and her stepson poisoned to death. And then that same year, her father died in Egypt. So that's what it's saying here in verse six when it says, he who fathered her and supported her in those times. And she was succeeded by Bernice's brother, it says someone from her own family. So again, in verse six, we have prophecy being fulfilled about these interpersonal relationships between royal family hundreds of years before it's happened. And this is probably a good time to point out something else. Once you see this, you can't unsee it, and it kind of opens up the passage. I'm going to read part of this. Listen for the word shall. S-H-A-L-L, shall. Listen as I read a few verses here. Let's start in verse 5. It says, Then the king of the south shall be strong. But one of his princes shall be stronger than he, and shall rule, and his authority shall be a great authority. After some years they shall make an alliance, and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement, but she shall not retain the strength of her arm. And he and his arm shall not endure, but she shall be given up, and her attendance he who fathered her and who supported her in those times. And from a branch from her roots, one shall arise in his place. He shall come against the army and enter the fortress of the king of the north and shall deal with them and shall prevail. He shall also carry off to Egypt their gods, their metal images and their precious vessels of silver and gold. And for some years he shall refrain from attacking the king of the north. Then the latter shall come into the realm of the kingdom of the south and shall return to his own hand. I'm gonna just pause there. You can hear shall repeatedly said in chapter 11, the word shall is used 120 times about events that are going to happen well over 100 years later. shall. We know that's not a lightweight word in scripture, especially when someone from heaven is using it regarding things that shall happen. This king shall be born and he shall do this and this king shall react in this way and this person shall plot this event this way and they shall react this way and they shall. Every move is calculated and predicted and prophesied hundreds of years before they're happening, not just among God's people, but even in the nations, pagan Gentile nations, everything is prophesied. This is actually why liberal scholars don't believe that Daniel wrote chapter 11 for this very reason. Because they said there's absolutely no possible way you could predict with this much accuracy all these events hundreds of years before they happened. So Daniel couldn't have written it. It had to be written by someone who was watching these things take place. And so secular scholarship doesn't even accept that Daniel could be the author. For us as believers, we say if God spoke the world into existence, he can tell us about few hundred years of future events. This isn't a problem for a Christian. But but amazing. Amazing. Look at verse 12, even though the heart posture is prophesied. Look at this. When the multitude is taken away, his heart shall be exalted. The heart is even prophesied the exact posture of the heart. Proverbs says the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it according to His will. You think, how sovereign is God? He is so sovereign. He doesn't just move people's hearts in the moment. He's prophesying and telling, this king's heart will move like this hundreds of years before that king's even born. It's shocking. when we look at the sovereignty of God. And look at verse 13. For the king of the north shall again rise a multitude greater than the first, and after some years shall come on with a great army and abundant supplies. And guys, I don't know, do y'all ever read portions of Scripture and just pause and go, a multitude of soldiers shall arrive? I mean, we're talking hundreds of thousands of young men here. Hundreds of thousands of young men will rise up and fight in a war, leaving their young wives and children behind, going out blindly to fight a battle that likely they don't even understand what they're fighting for. This is the history of our world. These young men, oftentimes young boys, going out to fight wars, to fight battles, They're blindly leading some power-hungry dictator and just throwing their lives. Pick up a sword, go fight for the honor of your country. You just read these passages and you think, countless lives lost for what? For what? I mean, who knows these people's names? Who remembers them? They were born, they lived, they died, and they're literally forgotten, thrown into a statistic that says 70,000 fell by the sword that day. That's it. And I'm not saying that it's wrong to fight wars or battles or be a soldier. There is certainly a necessity for that at times. What I'm saying is we need to know why we do what we do. Romans 14.7 says, none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord, so that whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. Guys, if we're not living and dying for the kingdom of God, what are we living and dying for? If we are living for one fallen kingdom, one sinful earthly kingdom to rise and another to fall and gain power over the other earthly kingdom, what are we doing? But this is the history of the world and it is not Jesus's kingdom. Jesus says in Matthew 18, when they come to him, Pilate asks him, are you the leader of the Jews? Are you the king of the nation of Israel? And he says, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered to the Jews, but my kingdom is not of this world. And guys, many of you know Augustine wrote the City of God. He had watched all the bloody wars in the Roman Empire and just seen the carnage and the loss of lives and just, And he wrote City of God, and in that famous book, it's one of the most famous books on government and politics still to this day, but he talks about the city of man and the city of God. And he says what characterizes the city of man or the kingdom of man from the kingdom of God is that the kingdom of man is advanced through bloodshed and violence. And the kingdom of God is advanced through self-sacrifice. and through a message of victory. Evangelion, that's what gospel means. A declaration of victory. It is not the same kingdom. You say, where are you getting this in the passage, Pastor, about the Messianic victory? I'm not getting it from chapter 11. I'm getting it from chapter 12. and we'll get there next week, but that's where this goes. It gets right into the messianic rule of Christ and his kingdom. This chapter is depressing, I'll just say it, because all it is is the kingdom of God being attacked and persecuted and thrown down and beat up by the kingdom of man. That's what it is. And that's why we have to mention the second figure, Antiochus Epiphanes. And for sake of time, I'm going to skip us over some of these verses here with his persecution against the Jews, and we'll start in verse 30. It says this, he shall be enraged and shall take action against the Holy Covenant. So he's persecuting the Jews, those who hold to the covenant, and he's drawing near to him who? Look at what it says. He shall pay attention to those who forsake the Holy Covenant. So he's drawing to himself apostate Jews who forsake the covenant. These are Jewish zealots who he entices to come to gather to himself with words of flattery, it says in verse 32. Which I see a striking parallelism between prosperity preachers in our day. Self help type preachers that use flattery and self exalting language to draw false converts to themselves and give people a false hope. That's what Antiochus Epiphanes is doing in Israel. And it says in verse 31, forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular burnt offering. They shall set up the abomination that makes desolate. Now remember, Antiochus Epiphanes, many of you haven't heard that name before, until maybe Daniel chapter eight when we talked about him, because he's not in a typical history book. You're not gonna go to public school reading your history book about Antiochus Epiphanes because he's not significant on a global, worldly scale, but he is if you're studying history of Israel because he's mainly mentioned in Scripture because of his violence and his hatred toward the people of Israel. He made circumcision illegal. I'm getting much of this information from Maccabees. 1st Maccabees gives a lot of Jewish history and it says women were put to death for having their children circumcised. Their infants were hung by their necks. He brought idols and temple prostitution into the temple. He killed those with copies of the Old Testament scriptures. We saw this in Daniel 8 verse 12. He says he will throw truth down to the ground. It's in 2nd century BC, and it says again in the Maccabees, the book of the law that they found, they tore to pieces and burned with fire. Anyone found possessing the book of the covenant and anyone who adhered to the law was condemned to death by the decree of the king. So any Jews who are actually holding to the promises that God gave to Israel, dead. 40,000 of them, according to historians, were killed under Antiochus Epiphanes. He even called himself God in the flesh. He called himself Antiochus Theos Epiphanes. He wrote it on a coin. Theos Epiphanes. That's how he wanted to be remembered. And then this very significant phrase in verse 31 that says the abomination that makes desolate. This is referring to when he brought a pig, which you know pigs were very unholy for a Jew. He brought a pig into the holy of holies. and sacrificed a pig to Zeus in Jerusalem in the temple, desecrating the temple of God. And that was in 167 BC. And you just think, Could you be any more evil than that? And then you read on in this passage, and it actually doesn't get less evil, maybe it increases. Verse 36-45, all the scholars say there's a transition that happens here, and I think they're right. Verse 36 onward, I don't think we're dealing with Antiochus Epiphanes anymore. I think there's another person being talked about here. Even though it doesn't say a name, it seems that there's someone else because Antiochus Epiphanes didn't do some of the things it says here. Let me just tell you the popular view and then the view I took. I took a minority view on this. The popular view is that this is talking about an end-time Antichrist, which could be right. If any of you think that's what this is talking about, you may be absolutely right. The reason why many think that is verse 40. It says, So they say, well, this seems like this is happening at the end of time. This seems like this could be an end time antichrist. Maybe, it's very possible. I don't think that's what it's talking about. I have a more minority view. When it says time of the end, I think that that's actually referring to the end of the old covenant, the end of the Jewish era. And so that this man has arisen right there before Jesus came. and that these events are happening with a different man, a man that I will call John of Gishelah. Anybody ever heard of him? Probably not. Again, his Antiochus Epiphanes is similar. Unless you know first century Jewish history, you would not have heard of this man. We watched a documentary, me and my kids the other night, or me and Noah, And it was about the siege of Jerusalem right there at the end of when Jerusalem was tore down, the temple was tore down, and John of Gershkula, he was a main proponent of that. He was involved in this war. And so we know quite a bit about him from Jewish historian Josephus. He says in the Jewish wars that John of Gershkula sought godlike power among the Jews and took upon himself the title sovereign monarch. which I think at the very least, he's gotta be a contender for what this passage is talking about because verse 36 says, he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every God and shall speak astonishing things against the God of gods. So this man has no regard for the God of Israel and he's even the one who was guilty of murdering the high priest in 66 AD. Verse 37 said, he shall pay no attention to the gods, plural, of his fathers. Now if you've got an ESV, I've got to say something quickly about this. I love the ESV, but I think they get it wrong here. You see the plural lowercase gods. That's the word Elohi. It's used 398 times in the Old Testament. And when it's used, it's always used in relation to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. And so to translate it lowercase, little gods, I don't think is accurate. The KJV gets it right. They say, neither shall he have regard for the God of his fathers. And so I think this is a Jewish man. Whoever this is talking about is a Jew. And so that limits the choices of who this is describing. It also says that he has no regard for the one beloved of women. And this is interesting, I had to search this out for a while. The KJV actually translated the desire of women. And that's somewhat of an ambiguous phrase, but Josephus tells us about John of Giskola that actually he, He was continually being approached by the Romans. The Romans were continually trying to kill him in a band of Jewish zealots. These Jewish zealots were continually trying to overthrow the Roman Empire and claim Jewish liberty. And John of Gisela is this main leader. He became known for leaving the women and children behind. as he would go into one village or the other. They were left behind. He gave permission to his men, his band of soldiers, these other Jewish zealots, to do unspeakable evil to the women, and just things I simply won't repeat. Josephus said in Jewish violence, a work that he wrote, he said, John and his band of Jewish zealots, inclination to plunder was insatiable, as was their zeal to murder the men and rape the women. It was sport to them. And then lastly, and this is most significant why I take this view, verse 40 says, he shall come into the glorious land, that's Jerusalem, and tens of thousands shall fall. So I believe this is talking about the fall of Jerusalem, the siege of Jerusalem that happened right there at 70 AD when Jerusalem fell, the temple was destroyed. I believe John of Gishkul was there defiling the temple. He was in the city of Jerusalem when Jerusalem fell and he was actually stationed in the Holy of Holies, in the temple. and he was defiling the temple in the same way Nebuchadnezzar did, in the same way Antiochus Epiphanes did, John of Gishgalah was doing unspeakable evils in the very temple of God. And so I think he is the one being described here. And you go, okay, we've got these three men, Alexander the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes, John of Gishgalah, who are they? And I think they are antichrists with an S on the end, not the Antichrist, Antichrists. You remember in 1 John, it says, many Antichrists have come. And he wrote that in the first century AD. So that means before that, many Antichrists had come, which I think in his mind is Alexander the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes, John of Gishgalah, Nero, others, many Antichrists. have come. Look at 1 John 2.18, if you would, flip over there quickly. It says, children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so I do think there is an end time Antichrist, but he says, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. Guys, it is the last hour. You say, is the end near? We are in the end times. And many antichrists have already come. And I want to just end tonight saying three responses to antichrists that God's people have back then and now. There will be three ways that everyone will relate to the antichrists that have arisen or will arise in the future. I'm going to get this first one from 1 John 2.18 if we stay there for a minute. He says, Then it says in verse 19, Interesting transition here. They went out from us, but they were not of us. That's not talking about the antichrist, that's talking about people in the local church. They went out from us because they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would not have continued with us, or they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might be complained to all that they are not of us. So antichrists arise, and what is the result? People leave the church. and don't come back. They have gone out from us because they were not of us. That happened in ancient times. That happened in Jewish life. And it happens in the church today. When an antichrist arises, what they inevitably do, well, they will begin to persecute the people of God. They will begin to set up new laws that prohibit Christian morality. or any standard of righteousness that is biblical. So that if you hold to that standard of righteousness, you will be persecuted. There will be consequences. And so many who don't want to endure those consequences will leave the church and will team up with the world and will buy into all the ideologies and belief systems of the world and they will go out from us because they were not of us, 1 John says. That happens. It happened in Jewish times. It happens sadly today. It purges the people of God. It is a sad, it is a real reality. Here's the second response to antichrists and the persecution that follows. Secondly, there are always those who profess to be advancing the kingdom of God, but who want to do it with violence. In this time in which we're studying, this ancient time in Israel, there were pro-Cilician Jews. I won't get into who those were. They were trying to overthrow Egypt. You can imagine Egypt was quite pagan, right? They didn't like Jewish morality. They were very pagan and secular in their ideas. And there were groups of Jewish zealots who said, let's overthrow the Egyptian Empire. Egypt had some bad connotations for the Egyptians. They probably wouldn't like the Egyptians. Well, it's one thing to not like them or to think harshly of them, it's another thing to violently try to overthrow them. And that's what happened. We even see that in this text, it says in verse 14, in Daniel 11, Verse 14, in those times, many shall arise against the king of the south, that's Egypt, and the violent among your own people, that's the Jews, shall lift themselves up in order to fulfill the vision, but they shall not fall. So they said, we'll advance the kingdom of God through violence against Egypt. And then it's interesting. I don't have time to unpack this, but later as Rome comes onto the scene, you have numerous bands of Jewish zealots. Jesus dealt with some of them who wanted to take the kingdom by force through violence. And they also did not have regard for the law of God or the coming of the Messiah or any of these things. They just wanted to overthrow Rome and establish Jewish freedom. I'm sure feeling very justified that they were doing God's work. And guys, there is nothing new under the sun. Ian Dungett, again, the commentator on Daniel, he gives wise counsel. He says, this is an important lesson for all of us to learn from this history. The kingdoms of this world often seem overwhelming in their power to accomplish great things. A power that can easily bring Christians into a state of depressed submission or seduce them into trying to use the world's power to do God's work. Some Christians seem to believe that they can hasten the coming of God's kingdom by achieving certain political goals. Yet, at the end of the story, for all their vaunted power, the kingdom of this world can neither destroy God's work nor establish it. They are merely tools in the hand of a sovereign God who is able to declare the end from the beginning because He alone ultimately controls the affairs of men and nations. So antichrists arise. They bring persecution on God's people. When that happens, some go out from the gathered people of God because they are not part of the gathered people of God. And the persecution reveals that reality. Others decide, we're not going to stand for this persecution. We're going to keep our liberties, all of them, even ones that aren't necessarily even related to scripture. And we will fight for that violently. And they will join groups, militias, and different type of violent factions in the name of Christianity or Judaism to try to take the kingdom by force. And then lastly, what this passage I believe calls us to is a type of courageous and godly resistance. So we'll call this a Christian response to antichrist and persecution. Look at verse 32. He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant. So that's talking about those who with flattery fall away. But then it says, but the people who know their God shall stand firm. Knowledge of God enables you to stand firm. Guys, some of you have probably bought into the lie, whether you realize this or not, that studying and gaining knowledge of God and knowledge of His Word is somehow just for your mind. You see the practical benefit. Those who know their God will stand firm. You mark it down, you will not see a Christian. And I'm not just talking that everybody has to be a theologian and have a doctrine in theology. But I'm talking about someone who must open the word and believe the words here. That will have a practical outworking in the days to come when persecution arises. And you will not endure what is to come. Because look, if you have no convictions regarding who God is and what he's revealed here, and then you know you're about to suffer for it, but you don't really care about what it says anyway? Why would you not just buy into what the world's saying? Why would you suffer financial loss? Why would you lose a job? Why would you have any type of potential physical consequences come to you if you have no regard for the God that you're standing for anyway? It won't happen. You will cave, but those who know their God will not. They will stand firm, it says. And Eliot's commentary says, while the large mass of people become obedient to the persecutor, there is a party of true believers remaining who are strong. Or rather, they confirm the covenant and they succeed in their attempts. Such people existed in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Similarly, in all times of persecution, there will be a remnant, though it will be very small, which will remain firm to their covenant with God." And it doesn't just say that we'll stand firm, it actually adds another word. It says they will take action. And that's the ESV, the New American Standard and the Holman Standard both say, take action as well. But let me read a few other literal translations how they translate this. The people that know their God will stand strong and do exploits. That's the KJV. New King James, the people who know their God shall stand strong and carry out great exploits. And American standard says, the people who know their God shall be strong and do exploits. So it's not only just a standing kind of, I'm just going to stand here and not do the bad thing. There's some sort of proactive push forward of righteousness into the darkness and hostility. And we know that's the case because of the context. Verse 33, it says this, the wise among the people shall make many understand. though for some days they shall stumble. And I don't think that's regarding sin. It says stumble by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder. So the stumbling is referring to the suffering under the hostility of the state. When they stumble, they shall receive a little help and many shall join themselves to them with flattery. those that fall away. And some of the wise shall stumble so that they may be refined and purified and made white until the time of the end where it still awaits the appointed time. So you say, why would God do this? I mean, maybe you step back and you go, why would God even allow antichrists or dictators that would set up certain rules and laws and steal our freedoms and bring suffering into our lives? Why would God do that? There's the answer. so that they would be refined and purified and made white until the coming of the end. You want to make it to heaven? You actually want to make it to heaven? There's things in our lives, guys, that have to be purified. There's ways that we hold on to this world so tightly we don't even realize right now. But you know what reveals that? Persecution. Laws that make you go, am I going to obey God or man? Am I going to suffer the loss of my job here? Or am I going to obey God? And your faith is purified. And God works good in our lives through it. We don't hope for these things, but this is the way that God has ordered His world and these things have been prophesied. So, let me sum those up one last time. Right now, as things begin to change in our country. And I don't think this is just related to presidential changes. I think there's a lot of things beyond just presidents that are bringing about a whole new America. But as that happens, there are some that we love deeply, who right now, they profess the name of Jesus. Five years down the road, they will not be. They will not be gathering in churches. They will not be claiming the name of Christ because they don't want to suffer what it's going to take to do that. Those days are quickly upon us. Others will want so badly to hold on to the old America in our context that they will join violent militias. They will join zealot groups that will seek to, with violence, claim these American freedoms in the name of Jesus. and those type groups have always arisen. And then lastly, I believe, what I want to call us to is to clothe ourselves in Christian character so that we will endure the persecution coming, stand firm while seeking to advance His kingdom and righteousness on this earth and calling many people into a kingdom that will not fall. Amen, church. Let's pray for the help from the Lord. Lord, this is a chapter we would never just study and think deeply on unless we were just working through this book, so we thank You for this providential moment to think on this passage. And Lord, I don't know the ways that You might help us through it personally, but I pray as a church, Lord, Lord, help us not to waver in our love for You. Lord, that we would hold to Your Word. That we would dig deeper convictions about who You are and what You call us to. And that we would not be taken away into the world. That we not be taken into groups and into causes that are not about Your kingdom work. Lord, give us discernment. We need great wisdom and discernment on these matters. There's so much more that could be said. And so help us as we navigate these things, but keep us on the straight and narrow, hard path that leads to life. And let us not move into the broad path that is easy and that leads to destruction. Lord, we thank You for Your Son, who is our salvation and is our victory, and has paved that way for us. We pray it in His name, amen.