Daniel Lesson 51

Tribulation – Daniel 11:40-12:1

So far in our study of Daniel we have arrived at the last section of this book that deals with the climax of history. This climax of history is not designed just to satisfy somebody’s intellectual curiosity; the climax of history is to show the great lie that man can succeed apart from God does not work. And even though the Christian church will be raptured before Jesus Christ returns, this does not mean that this passage does not apply to us today. This passage shows us that the sin nature of man, when finally let loose without God’s restraining grace will eventually result in the formation of the beast, the final most anti-God man who has ever walked the face of this earth, and the final most anti-God social order that has ever been erected in man’s history. All this is to show us that these same tendencies exist today, they exist in each one of us in our souls by virtue of the doctrine of the fall. Because we are fallen, we are depraved and underneath the veneer of morality there lurks the deceitful heart that is desperately wicked.

This man who will eventually ascend to political leadership will on the surface be very moral and ethical. He will have many areas of human good. He will not be some sort of an inebriated drug addict; he will not be some sort of a pimp that everyone is condemning and looking down at. He will be an individual who has (quote) “community respect,” and therefore very much more liable to deceiving those who are trying to decide the right issue.

The argument of this whole section of Daniel is to show you that you cannot evaluate the details in your life apart from a picture that encompasses all areas. You cannot judge a detail without knowing the big picture. You’ve got to get away from the area to see where things are headed, where things are going. And Daniel provides this; it gives us an ability to go outside of history, move back on history and come to some conclusions about where history is going and we can therefore understand cause and effect in a better way than citizens who are untrained in Scripture. Believers who have Bible doctrine in their soul ought to have much, much greater discernment at the polls; much, much greater discernment in making decisions in running government in all areas besides just the local church.

Looking from the standpoint of Scripture we can see cause/effect. We can see why, for example, we have things like New York City and their financial disaster, because we have a situation in Scripture where wealth can only be generated by man’s labor; it cannot be legislated by some sort of a union strike for higher wages for less production. That is not the way to generate wealth; that only inflates the currency and deflates the value. So Daniel is a book that looks on the end time and gives us the big picture and from that we can look at the small details of our lives.

In Daniel 11:36-39 we have had the outcome of the beast. We have seen that when this man ascends into prominence world wide he will have certain characteristics which we have studied; he will be basically amoral, not immoral, just amoral. Already we as a country have moved in the area of foreign policy into an amoral position, for it is no longer as Solzhenitsyn says, it is what is right and what is honorable, it is what is convenient that counts. We did this unofficially before but now we apparently are doing it as a matter of official policy. We have seen that this man resorts more and more on power for security. The object of man always has been for happiness and security apart from God. And the beast will be one individual who promises security and can only deliver by using tremendous military power.

Now we want to review some passages that we’ve studied before on the nature of this kingdom that we may understand what’s going to happen in Daniel 11:40. So turn to Daniel 2:43, we’ll look at one of the passages having to do with the quality of the kingdom, the fourth and final kingdom of history. “That whereas thou saw iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men; but they shall not cleave [adhere] one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay,” not literally clay but “with ceramic.”

The idea in the fourth kingdom in Daniel 2:43, the “seed of men” being mixed has to do with demeaning nationalism; it is a destruction of nationalism and the mixing of the seed of men is an attempt to breed one human culture by intermarriage. That is, various tribes of men, you have the three sons of Noah, Ham, Shem and Japheth; each one of these men are progenitors of great tribes in history whose job it is is to develop and function and make their contributions to the human race. There is no such thing as an inferior tribe or race; there are some degenerate ones because of their rebellion against God’s Word but it has nothing to do with their racial background, it has to do with their rejection of Christ. But you have these three segments of the human race and from these you have, according to Deuteronomy 2:8, some seventy sub-tribes of men. These seventy sub-tribes of men will [can’t understand words] though not necessarily, through intermarriage and so forth and develop their own culture.

Now in America you have kind of an American tribe, we have many, many different groups of people coming to this country but the net result is that after a while you tend to develop an American culture. And the result is that we have a unique thing; we have certain things that are American and anti-European and they can’t be combined. That’s just the way we are as Americans and we’d be foolish to deny it and try to mimic the fact that we’re Europeans when we’re not; we’re of a different culture. But in the end times there will be a tendency to amalgamate all cultures in one. And that’s this mixing of “the seed of men” and will be characteristic of the end time schemes of the antichrist to make up one world culture, mass internationalism.

Now Daniel 7:23, another passage that deals with this fourth kingdom. In chapter 7 the fourth kingdom is pictured as to its moral tone. All the kingdoms of men are pictured as animals, except the fifth kingdom, and the reason that all these kingdoms are pictured as animals is that when man tries to solve his social problems apart from God’s Word, and the Lord Jesus Christ, he always creates a sub-human situation. And the last kingdom, the fourth kingdom to reign in history, has manmade features to it. It’s made, it says in verse 23, “The fourth beast shall b e the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms,” there’ll be a uniqueness about it all, “and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.”

Notice in Daniel 7:19 what that beast looked like, he “was diverse from all the others, exceedingly dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and its nails of brass [bronze],” now iron and brass are obviously not parts of a usual animal; they are metals that are worked by man. And verse 19 is telling us that in the fourth kingdom it will be the most vicious human society ever made because it is manmade. It is more and more artificially constructed, artificially engineered, and with the result of tremendous human interference into natural social process, you will have the greatest monstrosity that the human race has ever seen.

And it says further in Daniel 7:24 that “out of this kingdom” at the end times, “ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise,” so in spite of its much flaunted unity, there will be ten political subdivisions of this kingdom all across the globe. These are not the ten nations in the European economic community, for the reason that they’re all European; this is world wide, these ten. These are ten sub-kingdoms all over Asia, Africa, and so on. Verse 25, “And he will speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change the times and the laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” Three and a half years; so this verse teaches that this last kingdom will arise and be most vicious for three and one half years, and it would be more vicious for a longer period except for the fact of God’s grace to protect man’s existence.

Daniel 8:25, a further characteristic of this last kingdom. “And through his policy also he shall cause deceit to prosper in his hand, and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many; he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes, but he shall be broken without hand,” means he will be brought down supernaturally. So this teaches that this kingdom will be supernaturally destroyed at the end time. There will be some sort of an unspecified supernatural destruction. The Bible hints at what’s going to happen but does not tell us in detail.

Now Daniel 9:27, another feature of this last kingdom. This feature says “He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week;” he is the head of the kingdom and for one week means for seven years there will be a peace treaty between the antichrist and the state of Israel; not all Jews, it says “many,” not “all” because there will be a small faithful remnant, loyal to the Word of God who will see the handwriting on the wall and understand this treaty has no part and parcel with them, and they will reject any cooperation of the Israeli government in working through this treaty. “… and in the midst of the week he will cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease,” so the midst of the week will be three and a half years, so we came to that same figure.

So out of all these passages here’s what it looks like when you put it together. There will be a time of tribulation seven years long, actually three and a half years called the great tribulation; seven years will be started by a treaty between the antichrist and the state of Israel. This treaty will go for three and a half years and then be broken, and then history will go on for three and a half more years and then Christ will come again. That’s the picture and outline of the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now prior to this point, because of the doctrine of the immanency of the rapture, the Church will be mysteriously evacuated from history. We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, we just know there’ll be an instantaneous resurrection of the dead and a transformation of the living saints at some point prior to this point, at some unknown time. And the Church will be removed from history so we can be in heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ as He starts to execute the judgments upon the world. The Church will be removed, it says in Revelation 3, from the hour of testing that shall come upon the earth. It doesn’t say it shall be saved through the testing, it says we will be saved from the time of testing and the only way that verse can be interpreted literally is the Church will be removed from history. So therefore we believe in the pretribulational rapture. The removal of the Church is technically called the rapture of the Church and the Church will then be raptured prior to the tribulation. The pretribulational rapture! So much for the large outline, now we are prepared to go to Daniel 11:40.

“And at the time of the end” that refers to the tribulation, “at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind,” now we already studied the fact that Ezekiel 38 and 39 is not in view in Daniel 11:40; that describes a prior invasion from Russia into the Middle East that will be through the nation Israel and will be stopped by a series of natural catastrophes that will destroy Gog which is the code name for Russia in the Scripture, Gog and Magog, they will be destroyed and this will leave the world’s political environment open to one-world government; prior to this time you’re going to have competing spheres of power but when Russia is out of the way, then the beast who comes out of the European community, though he doesn’t rule just over the European community, he himself physically as a person comes out of European culture, then he will be able to take over the world. And Ezekiel 38 and 39 clears the way for him. After he ascends power and after he makes his treaty at the beginning of the tribulation he has a period of world peace and then at the end this world peace begins to break up because remember, peace that is grounded on human viewpoint and not divine viewpoint will always destroy itself. There is no peace apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. And any peace that is built apart from an agreement on the basis of God’s law order, upon the basis of His Word is going to fall and cave in, always has, always will. That includes peace within a marriage relationship, peace within a family relationship and peace between nations. The same principle always applies.

All right, “at the time of the end,” this is at the end of the beast’s reign toward the end of the tribulation. Actually, though we can’t be dogmatic, this probably occurs halfway through. This is the triggering event that set up those terrible, terrible last three and a half years. “At the time of the end the king of the south shall push at him; and the king of the north,” now up to this point all interpreters of the book of Daniel always agree, wholly and completely, that the king of the south is Egypt; that’s always the way it’s used, it’s used in no other way, you can’t get any other interpretation for the king of the south. That’s always the way it occurs in the book of Daniel. But somehow, when interpreters hit this verse they always want to make the king of the south bigger than just Egypt and make it to include all sorts of things. We’re not going to do that, we’re going to stick with the way the kingdom of the south is and all other references in Daniel.

This is a local regional conflict between the world government of the antichrist and the area of the Middle East; significant, but even the beast, Satan’s genius, cannot bring peace to the Middle East. And his kingdom just gets going and collapses. All up to this point have looked forward, this finally is the answer, finally we have global peace, and no sooner do men say that but that the peace begins to crumble and where geographically does world peace crumble but the Middle East. The Middle East is always the anvil on which many hammers are broken and this is the example; this is the ultimate end. The king of the south will be arising by Egypt, probably Libya and Ethiopia, the countries in northeastern Africa against the world government.

They will “push at him,” the idea of pushing is the imagery of two bulls and it’s a metaphor of military activity. So there’ll be an invasion from the south into Israel. Why is the word “him,” “at the time of the end the king of the south shall push at him,” “him” means that because the beast has politically aligned himself with the state of Israel by attacking Israel they attack him. So that’s why the king of the south, who is Egypt, begins to attack “him.” Then it says “the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind,” “like a whirlwind” is all one verb in the original language and it means storm, it’s a storm wind. We have used in military parlance that same vernacular, when you think of the German storm troopers, blitzkrieg warfare, rapid motion, mechanized infantry, armor, that kind of war, it’s storm troop type thing, so here’s the word, they will storm against him. And the king of the north in this case is what he has always been, just like the king of the south, and that is the Seleucid area up north of Israel, which would include what is now Turkey and Syria. Russia has already been knocked out of the picture by this time. You have Egypt moving northeastward into Palestine. You have the king of the north coming down from the Golan Heights, Syria, Turkey. And because the antichrist has made a treaty with Israel an attack against Israel is an attack against him.

Notice what is says in the middle of verse 40, “he will come against him with a storm, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships,” the word for “chariots and horsemen” was used for the shock troops in the ancient world, it’s a picture of rapidly mobile forces. The word used here for chariot is used in modern Israel for the word for ride, and it would refer to mechanized infantry and armored units; that would be the corresponding thing in modern day. Notice too the tactics of verse 40 at the end time, utilized conventional war, and that is a very significant thing. Though there may be modern weapons that answer to the horses and chariots the tactics are still those of conventional war on down until the return of Christ. Why that is we do not know, except for the fact that more sophisticated weapon systems probably will not work in the turmoil of the tribulation. When you have geophysical catastrophe upon geophysical catastrophe you’re going to see situations where sophisticated electronic equipment is going to fail, so commanders will have to degrade their arsenals to weapons that are reliable and conventional warfare will be the norm and for maybe other reasons other than just the geophysical tribulation period.

B. H. Liddell Hart, one of the prominent military thinkers of our time, has written a classic work that has run through several editions called Strategy; every officer somewhere along in his training, in squadron school or infantry school or later on in war college, somewhere along your career you read B. H. Liddell Hart’s classic work, Strategy, it’s the bible of military strategy. And in this book, the 1954 edition of it, remember 1954 was when we exploded the hydrogen bomb, in the 1954 edition the preface to his volume, B. H. Liddell Hart said that the west or the east will never use strategic nuclear weapons; he made a flat out prediction that conventional warfare will be resumed and the reason is because it’s easier to work with, and there’s problems that he goes into, he has a whole chapter on why. But so far that prophecy still holds, there has not been a major nuclear exchange.

So at the end we find infantry, mechanized infantry, armor and ships. Where the block of Syria and Turkey is going to get its ships we don’t know, unless they fall heir to what is left of the Russian navy after Ezekiel 38 and 39. Remember the Russian navy has most of their ships, or did have, in the Black Sea just north of Turkey and Turkey will then fall heir to that naval resource. Of course now most of the Russian ships are all over the Atlantic because Congress has stripped our navy and as long as these policies go on we weaken ourselves. So we have from the north that comes in the form of armor and ships.

“…and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.” Now who is it that’s entering into the countries, “overflowing and pass over.” This is the whole crux of the interpretation. The word “he” must either refer to the king of the north or the beast. In the context, verses 36-39 what has been the subject? The king of the north—no, it’s been “the king.” “THE king,” now if you look carefully at verse 36, up to that point we were talking about Antiochus Epiphanes; we got to verse 36, I said there was a break in the text. There was some sort of a break. When that break occurred we moved into the future; even the liberals who hold that this book was written after the facts and all the rest of it, will tell you over and over again that from verse 36 on this book doesn’t make sense, nothing in history corresponds to verse 36 and following, it just doesn’t fit, Antiochus isn’t doing these kind of things and it just is out of whack. But we take it as prophecy, that this refers to a future time, and “the king” is the first use of that word with the article.

Up until this time you’ve had the Hebrew word melek, and this word has been in conjunction with the king of the south, the king of the north. But here it changes and in the original there’s a ha on the front, ha melek, the article, and so it’s talking about one specific king, ha melek. What king? The ultimate king, the antichrist. So from verse 36 on down to verse 40 the subject has not been king of the north, king of the south, it has been ha melek, the king, period. Now verse 40 indicates that this one king is struck from the top and from the bottom of the map, he’s pinched off in Palestine. And it says then that he, in verse 40 at the end, “he shall enter into the countries” is the same “he” that is indicated as an objective preposition at the top of verse 40 as the “him,” that is the subject of the verb, “shall enter” at the end of verse 40 is none other than “the king.” So this reports the military counter response by the beast; as he is hit from the north and from the south he undertakes a military counter response of coming from the west and thus begins the final maneuvering that God is going to work to bring all the kings to Jerusalem.

You see, something’s got to happen in world history to get everybody assembled around the city of Jerusalem. So even though these kings don’t think that’s what they’re doing, that under God’s great overall sovereignty that’s what’s slowly happening; they don’t even know this is happening, but God as He works slowly His plan out in history is bringing all these kings, so that everybody will be around Jerusalem when Jesus Christ returns. There will be a political representative from every nation on earth that will personally observe the Lord Jesus Christ descending on the Mount of Olives. Christ will descend, and when He descends it’s not going to be just somebody’s back yard, it is going to be right smack in the military camp of the armies of the world.

Now, when Jesus Christ gets to the Mount of Olives, when He touches it, that means that something has to happen to bring all the armies to that place. And here is the maneuver; see up to this time the beast has been in the west, he has probably had his capital in Rome or some European city and that’s where he’s ruled the world from; but now through the little, apparently innocent, rebellion that’s occurring in the Middle East he is going to move his whole capital over right to the city of Jerusalem, and apparently also build a world center are Babylon, or at least occupy that in a stronger way than he had before because the Bible also says that the city of Babylon will be revived, the ancient city of Babylon will be revived and be in operation at the time of the last days. So the city of Babylon will be restored, if you want a real estate investment, buy some land there, the price will go up; I won’t guarantee you’ll be around to realize your investment…..

The beast will then respond with his military, “and shall enter into the lands,” at the end of verse 40, “the lands,” now what are those lands. Well, the lands would be Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and so on, all the countries associated with the king of the north. He is going to go in there and it says he “shall overflow and pass over,” which is an idiom used over and over again in Isaiah and Jeremiah for absolute complete military destruction. He is going to clean out that whole area, obviously offended by the fact that these people have not held the line in his great world government, offended because they have chosen to rebel against him, he is going to physically destroy them.

Daniel 11:41 indicates how far that this will happen, “He shall enter also into the glorious land,” obviously he was going to strike in the north, he’ll probably have to strike down into Israel, not against Israel but he’s just going to have to go there to occupy Israel, probably land an amphibious landing here and then more north. So he’s going to occupy “the glorious land” which is none other than Israel. So at the end time you then have the antichrist coming from Europe, going over to the Middle East, clearing out the area that has rebelled to the north, and occupying Israel. It is perhaps this occupation of Israel that leads him to break the covenant that he had previously made with Israel. “… and many countries shall be overthrown,” so he will be victorious, “but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.” Remember those three spots, this is a so-called free zone that will not be occupied by the antichrist at the end time. We don’t know why but for some reason he will not consider it important that his military forces occupy that free zone. This is considered to be a safe zone at the end times and is actually going to be in prophecy God’s provision for believers of that day. God is very interested in saving a remnant and this free zone will be the place where they will flee to.

So the antichrist comes into Israel and destroys these lands except Edom, Moab, and actually it says “the choicest of the children of Ammon,” the leaders of the country of Ammon. Now where is Ammon? What’s the capital of modern day Jordan but Amman and it’s because the word is the same, Ammon, Amman, and the capital city of Jordan is named after the tribe of Ammon. So the modern country that corresponds to Edom, Moab and Ammon is the modern state of Jordan. At least the western part of the state of Jordan will escape the antichrist’s activities and occupation at this time.

Daniel 11:42, “He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.” So he will move in to the south after he destroys these countries to the north, conducts his invasion around this area, then he’s going to move south and take on the countries to the south, clean out the rest of the Middle East revolt against his world government. “He shall stretch forth his hand” means to invade, extending his power into these countries. “the land of Egypt shall not be for an escape,” literally, in other words, the conspirators from this Middle East coup will try to flee to Egypt. While he is invading here the refugees from this war are going to flee down to Egypt, but the Hebrew says Egypt shall not become a place of refuge. A refuge from what, for who? For the people that are fleeing his northern campaign.

Daniel 11:43, “But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.” He shall have “the precious things” of three countries, Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia. These are the three countries that corner Africa; you have Egypt, Libya to the west, and to the south you have Ethiopia. So the entire northeastern corner of Africa will be dominated, and notice what it says, “he will have power over the gold and the silver,” which must mean that in the final days Egypt is going to become a wealthy country. Egypt today is not a wealthy country. So something economically is going to happen in the state of Egypt; we can tell from this prophecy that before the end Egypt will become wealthy. So also will Libya. Maybe this is going to be by future oil discoveries or something, we don’t know, but by the end these countries will be well off.

No sooner, however, does the man go down with his power into this area, having conquered and subdued up here, he comes into the south, he subdues down here, while he is down here in this campaign, Daniel 11:44, “But reports [tidings] out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.” So while he’s down in Egypt he’s going to get reports through intelligence that there’s a threat, a military threat again coming down from the north and now from the east. What those forces are are spelled out in the book of Revelation; the kings of the east are probably the Oriental powers spoken of in Revelation 16. So for some strange reason now the Middle East blowup at the end time starts like a magnet, sucking the countries of the world to the vortex of history, which will be Jerusalem. Now they won’t think this, but the Bible predicts that there will be demonic power that infiltrates the minds of world statesmen toward the end days, and it will cause these statesmen to make peculiar decisions. The decisions will be all oriented on grasping the Middle East. The Middle East will rise in importance as time goes on.

So we have in verse 44 a reverse, he does a 180 and starts moving back into the northeast area which is none other than Palestine, because he’s going to meet with the kings of the east heading west, and this new threat from the north. Now here is where history repeats itself and here’s why the Bible makes this correspondence between the antichrist and Antiochus Epiphanes. I spent on time going through the details of Antiochus Epiphanes; I read some stories about him, how he went down there, the Roman legionnaire came and they threw the ring around his feet and said you will decide whether you’re going to get out of here before you step out of that circle. If you remember when I went through all that history I said something happened; something happened to Antiochus’ mentality, because while he was in Egypt and had the face down with the Roman Empire right here, when he started coming back with his armies, that is when he wiped out the Jews. It was then that he inaugurated the sacrifice of pigs on the Jewish alter; it was then that he told the Jewish mothers I’m going to kill everyone of you mothers that dare circumcise your baby son; it was then that he said all you Jewish males, I’m going to tear up the scrolls of your sacred Scripture, it was then that he said you Jews will not eat your special diet. Something flipped upstairs with Antiochus Epiphanes after he had that showdown with Rome, and it happened in Egypt, and it manifested itself when he came back from Egypt.

Now look at how history repeats itself; the antichrist comes in to defend the nation of Israel from the enemy, he goes down into Egypt, and it says these tidings cause him shock, it’s the same word used back earlier for Antiochus Epiphanes, he’s shocked down in Egypt, and like the prior Antiochus Epiphanes, this future man, he too will retrace his steps back northeast and when he comes back into Palestine after having been thwarted this way, he is going to be vicious in his prosecution of his policies in Israel. That’s why it says, “he shall to forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make many away,” and the word “make many away” is a special Hebrew technical word, charem, this is the word from which we get harem, but it’s a hard “h” and it means to make holy war, dedicate everything for destruction, men, women, children, the land, the trees, the orchards, the vineyards, everything will be destroyed. Now something slips with him in the same place that had happened to Antiochus Epiphanes. And in the same vicious manner he will come back with this mental attitude. And we know he’s coming back, not just to strike at the kings of the east and not just to strike at that threat from the north but to also strike at Israel because of the next verse.

Daniel 11:45, “And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.” “He shall plant the tents of his royal headquarters,” literally. So now we have, as the scene draws to a close of history, we now have the Russians knocked out, they’re up north destroyed, we have the Syrians destroyed, we have Egypt and northeast Africa destroyed, we have the occupation from the west of the beast, we have a further invasion coming down from the north, we have an invasion coming in from the east, we have the beast setting up his command post in Jerusalem; all the armies of the world gathered together for the battle for “the great day of the Lord God Almighty” it says in the book of Revelation. This is how God in His sovereignty pulls strings, we don’t know how He does it, He does it without affecting volition, without rendering man non responsible, but somehow men are brought together and they’re going to be brought together face to face with Jesus Christ.

So he plants a tent, his encampment, his command post, “between the seas” that’s between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea, “in the glorious holy mountain” is Mount Zion, and “he will come to his end, but none shall help him.” That’s a summary verse of the next verse; there should not be a chapter break here, we go directly on to Daniel 12:1, “And at that time,” this explains the end of the previous verse, remember Hebrew gives you a summary verse and then it gives you details of how that summary verse is fulfilled. Your summary verse is “he will come to his end,” how? Because “at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of Thy people, and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.”

Question: what is it that activates Michael? The “time of trouble” here is going to begin at this last three and a half years, so apparently Daniel 11 is the trigger for that last three and a half years of hell on earth where everything becomes evil and there’s “a time of trouble,” it says, since the flood, because it says “such as never was since there was a nation” existed, and the first time nations are mentioned is after the flood, so since the flood there’s never been destruction of this magnitude on the face of the earth before. It’ll just be unique history, never before experienced. “…at that time thy people shall be delivered,” something activates Michael. What? Now if you paid attention earlier in the book of Daniel what did I say about those angelic powers that operate in history? What does this book keep on telling us? That the intercessory prayers of the saints, your prayers, activate angelic powers that you can’t see but that manipulate and work in history to bring strange things about… strange things about.

Now at this point we deduce from our previous study that Michael begins his activity because at those last three and a half years one of the greatest revivals in this history of Israel breaks out and you have a maximum number of Jews who trust the Lord Jesus Christ. Something, either it’s the shock of seeing that temple desecrated, but something in the horizontal way stimulates these people to trust in Christ and they begin to trust, more and more, one here, one there, then ten here, then ten there, then a hundred, then thousands begin to trust and there’s a mass revival begins.

If you’ll turn to Hosea 5:15 we’ll see some of the dynamics behind Michael standing up. As Michael stands up Michael begins to work things in history to save the last remnant of believers, particularly Hebrew believers, those are the ones in the fore view of this prophecy, though there will be Gentile believers too. In Hosea 5:15 God makes a prediction upon the nations; “I will go and return to My place, till they acknowledge their offense, and seek My face; in their affliction they will seek Me early.” Now what do you think that’s a prophecy of? “I go and return to My place,” and I will not come again until they, the nation Israel, “till they acknowledge” Me. Obviously that’s a prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was rejected officially by the nation and He says in this prophecy I will stay away from this planet until Israel acknowledges me nationally; it doesn’t mean every Jew, it means nationally they will accept the decision for Christ.

Hosea 6:1, “Come, and let us return unto the LORD,” this will be the prayer that will be prayed in the last days by the nation, “Come, and let us return unto the LORD; for He has torn, and He will heal us; He has smitten, and He will bind us up. [2] After two days will He revive us; in the third day He shall raise up and we shall live in His sight.” So toward the end, as this revival climbs and climbs and climbs and climbs, finally a national confession is made in the last three days of the tribulation. That will happen in the fall of a year; it will happen exactly on the day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, because the spring part of the Jewish calendar has already been fulfilled. Christ died on the Passover, He rose on the day of Firstfruits, and the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost. But the Jewish calendar is made of two parts and the fall part has never been fulfilled; the glory of the trumpets, Yom Kippur and the Feast of Tabernacles; nothing has ever happened on those days, except the war that happened in 73 but that’s not a fulfillment. Yom Kippur will be the day in which something clicks with the nation; what the day of trumpets is going to be we don’t know, it will be some call or something, and at Yom Kippur the rabbis, the heads of the state of Israel, will then trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and within the three day period, within a seventy-two hour period Jesus Christ will appear in the heavens and return. So this is how intimate Christ’s relationship is to history based on Israel’s reception or rejection.

Now to show what it means, though, because here obviously Christ is going to come, early in that revival Michael begins to stand up for people. To show you what Michael is doing we’ve got to turn to another apocalyptic scene, Revelation 12. Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel and Zechariah are apocalyptic books. You’ve got four books of the Scriptures that are called apocalyptic. That means they’re written in symbols to be understood only by believers knowledgeable in Bible doctrine. The apocalyptic books are deliberately written not to be understood by the world. This is a hidden message that is only to be understood by believers, by the people who are on the inside. Apocalyptic books are deliberately written to confuse every person who would look into the Scriptures for his own intellectual curiosity.

Revelation 12:1, here’s how history is pictured apocalyptically. In the passage I’m about to read some of this has already happened, but I want you to notice as we read this, see if you can think how much of this has already been fulfilled. Then think back to how it was fulfilled and you’ll get an idea of what the apocalyptic writer sees history like. “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven—a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. [2]And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. [3] And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. [4] And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. [5] And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.”

Now up until verse 5 that’s all happened, that is past history. Since we know past history, now that gives us a control to understand how these people in the apocalypse view history. What is this talking about? It’s talking about the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ; who is the woman? Israel. And she is pictured as this woman, the wonder in heaven, it’s pictured [can’t understand words] because John’s watching this play out on the screen, he’s up there and he sees this woman, but she’s a symbol of Israel, the wife of Jehovah. And she’s pregnant with the Messiah, and she delivers the Messiah, but there appeared another wonder in heaven, John says, I looked up in the sky and I saw a red beast, that’s Satan, having ten horns and so on, and “his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven,” and that’s a reference to the fact that Satan has one-third of the angels on his side. That for some reason, back in time past, which we do not know, don’t know all the details, all Scripture reports is that one-third of the angelic realm are allied to Satan. This is where demons come from and so on.

He took these, and he “threw them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered, to devour her child.” Think back to the Christmas story, what on a human plain, forgetting all those images, what on a human plain, if you were a newspaper reporter would you have seen the first Christmas? You’d have seen the virgin birth and you would have seen hostility to the Messiah on the part of Herod. And what did Herod do? He waited around for a while and the second year he decreed that every child be destroyed. Herod was going off his rocker and secular historians tell you this, he killed his own son, he was crazy, he just goes bananas at that point. He becomes a demon-possessed man. He becomes an agent of Satan.

Notice what it says, the dragon stood in front of that woman, ready to destroy her child. What was Satan doing? What was the instrument? Forgetting the symbols for a moment, what were the actual historical instruments of satanic destruction? The fourth divine institution, the state, under a madman, Herod. That was Satan’s instrumentality for the persecution of the Lord Jesus Christ. A satanized governmental administration, that’s the instrument. And so it wasn’t a literal dragon, the dragon was a symbol for a government that had led by a Satan-inspired man. That’s the answer to the symbol. Now let’s go to verse 5 and look at something else.

Revelation 12:5, “And she brought forth a male child,” she was successful, “and her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne.” There’s the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the child made it. Now from verse 6 you have the Second Advent. It skips to the future.

Revelation 12:6, “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. [7] And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, [8] And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. [9] And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. [10] And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. [11] And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” And it goes on to describe the rejoicing.

So what is all that symbology talking about? In Daniel, Michael at that time stands up to defend his brethren. What is happening? At that three and a half year period all of a sudden everything starts again. Between verse 5 and verse 6 you have the whole Church Age in this prophecy, just zapped out, he doesn’t even deal with it because again when you deal with prophecy you’re dealing with history and primarily not in the unseen realm but the seen realm that has to do with the nation Israel in apocalyptic literature. So the Church Age is skipped. Verse 6, “the woman fled into the wilderness,” who is the woman? That’s the remnant of Israel, the faithful Jewish remnant. The faithful remnant flees. Where do they flee? Into the wilderness. Where did you just read that the antichrist is going to create a free zone? Edom, Moab and the chief part of Ammon. So there’s going to be a free zone in that area. That area is a wilderness and they are all going to flee there. And notice what it says, she will flee into “a place prepared by God.” So all the chaos, the tremendous chaos of the political environment in the last time, God’s sovereign hand takes care of His own, and there’s a place, a free zone of refuge created, “that they should feed her there.”

Now what does Michael do to stand up for his brethren, here’s what he does, verse 7. At that time there’s the most fantastic angelic conflict man has ever seen. Whether there’s going to be geophysical manifestations we don’t know, but at that point Michael bumps Satan to the earth; that means that Satan command post can no longer be in the angelic council mentioned in 1 Kings 22 and other passages, he is no longer in the kind of angelic council that runs the universe, Job 1, Job 2, 1 Kings 22 and other passages. From this point on Satan is confined to the planet earth, and that’s what makes hell on earth. Historians and men have never seen what’s going to happen in those last three and a half years; we think we’ve got problems, wait till Satan himself is here to aggravate, to agitate, to control men himself personally, not just demons but himself here, then you will see fantastic things that will occur. Now it says that this [can’t understand words] and then later on it talks about how he will be destroyed.

Let’s turn back to Daniel and just note one thing in closing. Daniel 12:1, “Thy people” it says, “shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” Every born again Jew of that period will be delivered physically, not just spiritually, physically. And they’ll be delivered in this area of Ammon, the south end of the Dead Sea, Edom, Moab and Ammon. I’m going to show some slides of that area so you can see what it looks like and get an idea what it looks like the area where the born again Jews shall flee. That’s the wilderness; you have seen where prophecy will be fulfilled; you have seen how prophecy is going to be fulfilled. You have seen that God is a sovereign God in history, that He is going to see that prophecy is fulfilled. Your question is: are you going to respond to His Word or are you going to rebel against Him. Either way, the Word will come true.