The Last Battles

Sermon Transcript

I’ve been thinking about death more recently with a couple members of our church losing parents, and I was talking with an unbelieving friend about it who said something like, “yeah I guess this is just what happens, one generation dies, another comes, then that generation gets old, dies, the next comes, and the cycle continues.” Certainly that is how the present age appears, and while we can also note progress in things like life expectancy, there still seems to be a kind of never-ending cycle that we’re all destined to go through every 70-80 years.

 

Today we’re wrapping up our study of the book of Daniel on Sunday mornings, and throughout Daniel we’ve also seen cycles. We’ve seen a cycle in the life of God’s people: Their faithfulness is tested, they persevere, and in the end, our God exalts them. Think of Daniel rejecting the king’s food all the way back in chapter 1, but then ending up stronger than all his peers. Think of his friends refusing to bow down to the king’s image, getting thrown in a fiery furnace, but then coming out unscathed, while their accusers ended up consumed by the fire. Think most famously of Daniel refusing to stop his prayers, getting thrown to lions, and also coming out unscathed, while his enemies were eaten by the lions. We’ve also seen a cycle of kingdoms, especially four kingdoms: Babylon, with whom the book begins, Persia, with whom the book ends, Greece, who is still to come when the book was written, and then a mysterious fourth kingdom that’s never named. In each kingdom, there’s a king who rises to power, who then is chopped down: Nebuchadnezzar becomes great, but is then humbled, Persia rises to power like a ram, but then is trampled by a goat. In the third and fourth kingdoms, we see proud kings rising up especially against our God and his people, only to come to an end. Does the cycle just continue like that forever, or is there an end, and what is that end? Well today we come to the end, the end of the book of Daniel, and the end of the cycle. Today we finally come to the last battles, and their end: Deliverance for God’s people. This cycles of the present age will not go on forever. Rather, though wars will come, our God will deliver us. Therefore, be strengthened in his love, stand firm and act, and wait for the final deliverance.

 

Be strengthened in his love

 

The vision on which these chapters focus takes place during the third year of Cyrus king of Persia, who is probably the same person we’ve seen called Darius the Mede throughout this book and will see again in the first verse of chapter 11. Verse 1 tells us that the word revealed to Daniel in that year was true, and it was a great conflict. So up front the text is telling us what this vision is about: A great conflict. But the first conflict in the passage is the one that leads up to the vision and takes up the whole of chapter 10, the conflict between Daniel and one or more angelic beings.

 

The angel was an impressive figure as verses 5-6 describe him. He wore fine linen, a belt of gold, had a body like beryl, a gemstone, a face like lightning, eyes like flaming torches, arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and a voice that made you feel like a whole crowd of people was yelling at you. The idea is that those who dwell in the presence of God’s glory also begin to reflect such glory. Like our God, angels are spiritual beings who do not have a material body, but also like our God, they can appear in a material form, as in this case. So the conflict of chapter 10 between Daniel and this angel is not because Daniel is trying to fight the angel; it’s because Daniel is afraid of the angel, and the angel has to work to convince Daniel not to be afraid, so that Daniel will actually listen to him.

 

So Daniel says in verse 8 that when he saw this glorious angel, no strength was left in him. He says his radiant appearance was fearfully changed, and he retained no strength. He was awestruck, dumbfounded, and cast down in the presence of such glory. Throughout scripture this is the ordinary response of humans when they encounter an appearance of God or one of his angels that reflects his glory. But look at what the angel says to Daniel in verse 11: “O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.” Psychologist Jordan Peterson talks about how lobsters either stand upright or crouch down in one another’s presence based on the confidence of the lobster. If a lobster gets in a fight and loses, he tends to go into the next encounter crouched down, rather than standing upright. His ability to stand upright is based on a sense of his power in comparison to the other lobster.

 

Well here, Daniel is crouched way down in the presence of this angel, and that’s exactly the natural response. This angel goes on to reveal that he’s been engaged in a battle in the spiritual realm against an angel who fights for Persia; if you think of this in terms Peterson calls a “dominance hierarchy,” the angel is way higher up the hierarchy than Daniel. But the angel tells Daniel to stand upright, not because Daniel is actually a strong lobster and he just needs to believe in himself, but because Daniel is so loved, and he needs to believe that. The weaker lobster could stand upright in the presence of the stronger if he knows the stronger loves him, and so Daniel can stand upright in the presence of the glory of God because part of the message the angel relays to Daniel is that God loves him, and loves him greatly.

 

Daniel struggles to believe this though, and how many of us can relate to that? Once the angel spoke these words, verse 11 tells us Daniel stood up trembling. Then the angel tells him to fear not, and Daniel’s response? He turns his face to the ground. Then finally, once again in verse 19 the angel addresses him as the man greatly loved, tells him once again not to be afraid, pronounces peace upon him, and tells him to be strong and of good courage. Then finally Daniel was strengthened and said, “Let my Lord speak, for you have strengthened me.” Daniel’s about to get a vision, and it’s going to get wild. There will be intense wars and intense suffering for God’s people in this vision. This vision contains the last battles, the climax of all the wars we’ve seen prophesied in Daniel, a greater tribulation than any fiery furnace or lion’s den. So before God gives him the vision, God wants Daniel to know that he loves him, that in these wars, though there will be mighty forces arrayed against Daniel and his people, God will be for him, so that Daniel will have the strength to bear what’s in the vision.

 

Saints, what will give you the strength to say with Daniel, “Let my Lord speak?” What will give you the strength to bear whatever God says to you, however hard it seems? Naturally we are all afraid to say that, and understandably so. Some part of us knows that if we really just listen to what God says, if we really just open the Bible and don’t try to make it say what we want it to say, but read it looking for what the author intended to say, the Lord is going to correct us and perhaps even condemn us. So what do we do? We keep our distance, perhaps by avoiding the Bible or the church in which it is proclaimed, or perhaps by only engaging at a very surface level, enough to get some comforts, but not enough to learn what God is really like, and what God really says, because we’re so afraid that if we did, it wouldn’t end well for us.

 

And again, the fear is natural. If Daniel saw this glorious angel with a face like lighting and eyes like flaming torches and was just like, “What up?” we can safely assume that he’d have received a different response. God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. We who are so unlike this glorious, majestic, utterly pure, utterly good, utterly holy God, have no right to presume upon his love. Daniel’s not strengthened in this passage by engaging in therapeutic self-talk—he doesn’t tell himself that he is greatly loved. God tells him he’s great loved, through his messenger. And God has sent an even more glorious messenger to tell us that we are greatly loved, brothers and sisters, for God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). Are you cast down before the presence of God today? O soul, are you weary and troubled, no light in the darkness you see? There’s light for a look at the Savior, and life more abundant and free. How can you know you are greatly loved? Look to the cross, and by faith in Christ, stand upright in the presence of God. He loves you. As Wesley described it in his great hymn, “Bold I approach the eternal throne, and claim the crown through Christ my own. Amazing love, how can it be, that thou my God shouldst die for me?”

 

Our God loves us so much that he’s committed to keeping after us, even when we struggle to believe the love that he has for us! The angel of the Lord kept coming after Daniel even when Daniel kept turning away. God knows you’re going to have a hard time really believing the love that he has for you, so he keeps sending his Holy Spirit into our hearts to testify with our spirits that we are his children, like an adoptive parent who has to keep proving to their adopted child that they really do love them, because the child is so prone to doubt it. Will you stop doubting it? Eventually, Daniel did, but if we go on refusing to believe it, if we go on crouching down and avoiding the presence of God, that becomes its own sin, the sin of unbelief, a stubborn refusal to accept the love of God on his terms, because he says so. Don’t reject so great a comfort. Don’t think your unlovability somehow hinders the infinite, omnipotent love of God from reaching you. If you are in Christ today, you are greatly loved.

 

And you’ve got to know that, because there are wars ahead. This angel has already revealed that there is a spiritual battle going on in the spiritual realm that involves the inhabitants of the earth, and the vision he’s about to give Daniel is only going to show us more of that. If every time persecution and suffering come into your life, you receive it as an indication that God is against you, you are woefully unprepared for what is ahead. Where will you get the strength to persevere through hardship, and not only persevere, but persevere while boldly proclaiming God’s word? Remember that Daniel is a prophet—he doesn’t get this vision, this word for himself—he gets it so that he might proclaim it to the people, and write it down, as he has here for us to read. I think of some of you brothers who I’ve asked to preach a sermon here at one of our prayer service or morning services, and how nervous some of you have admitted to being. Again, that’s natural; who rightly understands the weight of proclaiming God’s word to God’s people and doesn’t get nervous? But if everyone who feels that anxiety gives into it, there will be no more preachers of God’s word. Where do we get the strength to proclaim God’s word? From the same place Daniel did: The love of God. As you know and believe the love he has for you, as you listen to what he says, you gain the strength not only to listen, but to proclaim. Be strengthened in his love.

 

Nonetheless, listening does come first, and that’s what Daniel does next. So let’s look at the word the angel gives him, where we’ll see that since wars will come, we should stand firm and act.

 

Stand firm and act

 

The revelation proper begins in verse 2 of chapter 11, and from verse 2 to verse 4 there’s a very brief description of the history to come between Cyrus’ days and the days immediately following the reign of Alexander the Great. We have predicted here what we know happened historically: Alexander the Great’s kingdom was divided four ways after his death. Two of his four successors were particularly prominent, though: Ptolemy to the south, primarily in Egypt, and Seleucus to the north, ruling over the land that formerly belonged to the Babylonians and Persians, today the land occupied by nations like Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Verse 5 begins to then narrate the wars between these two kings and kingdoms, referring to them as the king of the south (Ptolemy and his successors) and the king of the north (Seleucus and his successors). Again, the history is predicted here with stunning accuracy, and you can look at a chart like the one in the ESV study Bible to see how what the verses predict here corresponds with events that occurred in history.

 

But why would any of that matter to Daniel or his people? Is God just showing he can predict the future, like revealing who’s going to win the Super Bowl before it occurs? No, God is revealing this to Daniel because these wars will involve God’s people and God’s land. Verse 14 speaks of a time when the violent among Daniel’s people will lift themselves up in order to fulfill the vision, but they shall fail. This seems to refer to a time when God’s people ally themselves with the Seleucids, but lose in battle to the Ptolemies, the king of the south. Instead of standing firm and acting as God’s people, some of the violent among Israel acted as the king of the north’s people, and it didn’t end well for them. God’s people must be willing to fight in God’s battles in God’s way, or it will end poorly for us.

 

But the war also involved God’s land. Verse 16 says that when the king of the north does eventually get victory, he will stand in the glorious land, with destruction in his hand. This is a vivid prediction of the Seleucid victory in the land of Israel, Daniel’s homeland, the land God promised to give to Abraham and his offspring, the land that is glorious because our God himself had made his dwelling place there in the temple and given it to his people. The Seleucids gained control over the glorious land in 198 BC. But that king of the north at that time who stood in the glorious land with destruction in his hand was just a forerunner to the king of the north we meet in verse 21, a king we’ve already met in the book of Daniel: Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

 

Let’s just briefly summarize the description of him: He’s called a contemptible person, he obtains the kingdom with flatteries, not by proper descent, he will sweep away armies, even the prince of the covenant, probably a reference to the high priest of Israel at the time, others will ally with him, he shall act deceitfully, he shall become strong, stir up his power, his heart shall be bent on doing evil, he shall be enraged and take action against the holy covenant. His forces shall profane temple and fortress, take away the regular burnt offering, and set up the abomination that makes desolate, and he shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant. Antiochus was a powerful, evil ruler, who didn’t just fight over God’s land like the kings before him, but went right after God’s people, and ultimately, against God himself.

 

Joe Sprinkle, a biblical scholar and commentator on Daniel, summarizes some of Antiochus’ actions this way: “He commanded Israel to build altars to idols in the temple sanctuary, allowed prostitution in the temple precincts, abolished the Sabbath and sacred festivals, and demanded that Greek religious festivals be adopted instead. He forbade the regular sacrifice to the Lord as well as other Jewish offerings. He made continuing to practice Judaism punishable by death. Children who were circumcised were killed, along with their families.” It’s hard for us to really fathom just how abominable these actions were. Politically it would be like Kim Jong Un capturing the White House and using it to enslave Americans and traffic prostitutes while also slaughtering thousands of citizens. Religiously it would be like a Satanist getting the job of pastor in this church and turning these services into dark, satanic rituals.

 

And we can see the spirit of Satan in the description of Antiochus: He obtains his kingdom not because it’s rightfully his, but through flattery, a tactic Satan used with the first humans: “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Others ally with him, he becomes strong, he traffics in deception, and he attacks the people of the covenant. Think of how Pharaoh in the days of Moses ordered all the firstborn children of Israel to be killed. Think of how another still to come from Daniel’s time, Herod, tried to kill the rightful king, Jesus Christ, by ordering all the firstborn males of Israel to be killed. What were they doing? Attacking the people of the covenant. And, in such times, some of the people of the covenant are led astray. When a guy like Antiochus is in power, if you want power, or even if you just want to be safe, you are going to have to ally yourself with him, and so verse 32 tells us that he will succeed in seducing with flattery those who violate the covenant.

 

But, verse 32 ends by saying that the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. Those who stand firm and take action are those who know their God. The opposite of those who violate the covenant is not just those who keep the rules of the covenant—it’s those whose keeping of the covenant proceeds from a true knowledge of their God. It’s one thing to know about God; you can learn a lot about God from growing up in church, reading the Bible, or asking ChatGPT. But if that’s as far as your knowledge of God goes, you are not going to be one of those who stands firm and takes action in the face of persecution. You are going to be one of those who violates the covenant and is seduced with flattery by the evil one. To stand firm and take action, you must know your God, and the only way to know him is to draw near to him through faith in our savior, Jesus Christ, and not to do so just once, at the point of conversion, but to draw near to him daily, meditating on his word, believing the love that he has for you, responding to him in private prayer, and gathering with his people. Have you let knowledge about God replace knowledge of God? That’s the basic difference between a Christian and a church attender. It’s been said that being in a church gathering doesn’t make you a Christian any more than being in a garage makes you a car. I know a lot about the 17^th century theologian John Owen, but I don’t know him. I’ve never met him. And many, myself included, who become Christians, explain that the change occurred when they went from knowing about God to actually knowing God. If you are here today and you are not a Christian, that’s what it would mean for you, and that’s what would happen if you would confess yourself to be a sinner in the sight of God, and turn from your sins to receive and rest upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation. If you’d like to talk more about it, please do grab me or whoever brought you after the service.

 

It’s hard to stand firm and take action in the face of a threat like Antiochus, but that’s what those who know their God will do. They know their God is more powerful than Antiochus, and they know he loves them. And furthermore, our God has given them leaders to help them understand this. So verse 33 tells us about the wise among the people who shall make many understand, though they too will face the sword and the flame, in order that they may be refined, purified, and made white, until the time of the end. In fact, when God’s enemies come against God’s people with the sword and the flame, it’s often the leaders of God’s people they go after first. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered (Zech 13:7). So one of Satan’s devices to destroy Christ’s church is to attack his shepherds, and we know the stories even in our city over the past few years of pastors who have disqualified themselves from the ministry and brought shame on the name of Christ. Truth in advertising: Mark and I, the pastors here, are of the same nature as those men. Would you pray for us, that the Lord would lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil?

 

And would you join us in seeking God’s wisdom so that you can also help others understand? I praise God that I see many of you, both men and women, seeking God’s wisdom with the goal that you would be able to teach it to younger believers, whether through Bible studies, studies of systematic theology, discipleship groups, Sunday seminars, podcasts, and a host of other ways you are seeking God’s wisdom. That’s what we will need for the battles to come if we are to stand firm and take action in the face of them. Yes, if you really get involved in the battle, if you really start to teach others God’s Word, it will mean more encounters with opposition, but recognize that even these things our God takes and uses for your good! Even these things we don’t have to fear!

 

Did you catch that? Verse 35 says some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified, and made white. There the stumbling is probably not a reference to stumbling into sin, though the Lord can refine us through that too, but stumbling under the sword and flame, captivity and plunder, as in verse 33. That’s how you stand firm and act when the battles come. You don’t see them as evidence that God is absent, or worse that God is against you; you know your God, you know he loves you, and so you see even the sword, the flame, the captivity, the plunder, as grace, as his love coming for you to refine you, to wean you off that love of the world to which we are so prone, and to attach your hope even more firmly to the one kingdom that is not of this world. And the text tells us in verse 35 that our God is going to keep right on doing that “until the time of the end.” He’s not done that good work he began in you saints, and he won’t be done until the end.

 

Although this vision of Antiochus was future to Daniel, it is now far past to us, but even to us, the time of the end, the appointed time, as verse 35 calls it, has not yet come, and verse 36 begins to shift gears and tell us about that time. In that time there should be another king, much like Antiochus, but even worse. Where Antiochus replaced the worship of Yahweh with the worship of Zeus, this king is going to exalt himself and magnify himself above every god. Verse 37 tells us he’s not even going to pay attention to the gods of his fathers, let alone to our God! And writing to Christians in his day, after the first coming of Christ, the apostle Paul tells us that this king is still in our future, who he calls the “man of lawlessness” (2 Thess 2:1-4). If you thought Antiochus was bad, this is telling us there is a worse king still coming, before whom we too will need to stand firm and act. Wars will continue, and it is still through many tribulations that we must enter the kingdom.

 

How then, can we stand firm and act? We can stand firm by not letting ourselves be led astray by his flatteries. As we read here that he shall come into the glorious land and set himself up as the object of worship, so we read in the New Testament of how Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, and comes into the church, so that it is from the midst of the churches that the false teachers will go forth to try to lead God’s people astray (Acts 20:29-30). Know your God, be strengthened in his love, and hold fast his word, handed down to us in scripture, so that you cannot be led astray, even by all power and signs and wonders, all things the Bible tells us false teachers and Satan will do (Matt 7:22-23, 2 Thess 2:9). And act, not by taking up the sword or trying to use the government to suppress false teaching. Act by contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, rebuking those who contradict it, and being willing to lose your life if that’s what it costs.

 

That’s how Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley stood firm and acted in their day. Latimer and Ridley were bishops in the church of England in the 1500s who realized just how far falsehood had spread in the church of God, and who therefore proclaimed the word of God revealed in scripture. Do you know what happened to them? Mary Tudor, the Queen of their day, known to us as Blood Mary, ordered them to be burned at the stake, if they would not recant. They did not recant, and so the day came for them to be burned at the stake, and Mary had them burned side by side. They did not act by fighting against the sentence, and they did not act by trying to get Mary burned at the stake instead of them. Instead, Latimer turned to Ridley as the flames were lit, and said, “Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

 

We are not currently being burned at the stake for our proclamation of the gospel, nor has the man of lawlessness predicted in the New Testament yet come, but these passages are in the Bible so that we won’t look at our circumstances and think the battle is over. It’s not! So we don’t let Jesus’ church get overrun by falsehood. We don’t let the worship of God get overrun by entertainment or empty ritual. We stand firm, and we act, because ultimately, we believe our God will deliver us. And therefore, finally, as you stand firm and act, wait for the final deliverance.

 

Wait for the final deliverance

 

Chapter 11 ends with these words of comfort after many words of tribulation: “Yet he shall come to his end, with none to help him.” The conflict is real, the battles are real, but at some point, they will end. Chapter 12 then begins by talking about Michael, the great prince who has charge of God’s people. This is one of the few angels whose name we get in the Bible, and we see that it’s his role to fight for God’s people in the spiritual battle happening in the unseen realm. There shall be a time of trouble in that day, we read, but then God’s people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.

 

So that’s not promising deliverance for all those who claim to belong to God’s people or who appear to belong to God’s people—remember there will be those who violate the covenant and are seduced by the deceiver. But those who remain faithful to the end, even if the world totally ignores you, you can know this: Our God has your name written in his book, and he will not forsake you. Rather he will deliver you, and we see what that deliverance looks like in verse 2: Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. The deliverance is not deliverance from death, but deliverance through death. Those who have died will rise, and those who are wise, and those who followed the wise, will rise to everlasting life, whereas those who rejected the covenant and those who actively made war against it like Antiochus, will rise to shame and everlasting contempt. This is the last day, the day of justice. Remember that Antiochus was described as a contemptible person; well often in this life those who are contemptible are honored, while those worthy of honor are hated. Not in that day, brothers and sisters; in that day, the contemptible will be raised to shame and everlasting contempt, whereas the honorable will be raised to everlasting life.

 

How then will you be raised in that day? There is no middle option, no third way. Some rise to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Some violate the covenant, others stand firm and act. And in verse 10 of chapter 12 we see it again: Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. Notice neither of them start pure. The difference between those who rise to everlasting life and those who rise to shame and everlasting contempt is not that those who rise to everlasting life are good people while those who raise to everlasting contempt are bad people. The difference is that some purified themselves, while others continued in their wickedness. None of us were born pure; it’s why no one had to teach you to lie, steal, or hit as a kid. But our God has made a way for us to be purified.

 

He not only demonstrated his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, but he took all the defilement of our sins and placed them on Christ. Jesus Christ is the temple, the dwelling place of God, in whom the whole fullness of God dwelled, who was then profaned by dying a cursed death on the cross. He is the one who stood firm and acted for our salvation by offering himself as the true and greater burnt offering that we needed. And though he then was buried and slept in the dust of the earth, he was the first to rise to everlasting life, and promised that the day is coming when those who are in the tombs will hear his voice and rise (John 5:28-29). When you turn from your sins and believe in him, all your sins are forgiven, and his Spirit goes to work in you to purify you from the sins that remain. It’s in him that the impure become pure, and it’s in him that God’s people will be delivered.

 

To stand firm and act, the first action you must take is to trust Christ. The only way to truly know and believe the love that God has for you is to receive it through him. And then, while standing firm on the solid rock of Christ, while acting to contend for his truth, we wait. For how long? That’s the question of verse 6, and an answer is eventually given in verse 11: From the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1290 days, which is about 3.5 years, the amount of time we know the burnt offering was taken away under Antiochus. But Antiochus is not the last king. How long will it be that tribulations continue, how long until when they intensify under the last man of lawlessness, how long once he comes? To this we must give the answer of verse 9: The words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end. But we know verse 12 is still true: Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1335 days, the days beyond the 1290, those who persevere, and wait patiently for their deliverer.

 

We are a waiting people, brothers and sisters. Christ has died, Christ has risen, but we still wait for Christ to come again. Let us not, then, try to get our best life now. Let us not try to avoid hardship and tribulation by dialing back our allegiance to Jesus and attaching it instead to whoever seems powerful in our world today. Let us rather know and believe the love that God has for us in Christ, and be strengthened by it. Let us press on to know our God more deeply. Let us receive even the tribulations he sends as instruments in his hands to purify us until the end. Let us stand firm and act with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, and love not our lives, even unto death. And let us wait with patience for the day that we will hear the voice of our Savior, and rise from the tombs, to shine with him in the kingdom that will have no end.