The Time of the End

Well, I invite you to turn to Daniel 11.

We pray:

Lord,

Make the Book live to me, O Lord,
Show me yourself within your Word,
Show me myself, … show me my Savior,
And make the Book live to me.[1]

For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Well, beginning in verse 36, we come to arguably the most difficult section of what is a challenging chapter in a, frankly, daunting book. And I can say it no clearer than that. In the time that we have—and it is a brief time in the evening hour like this—what I offer to you is my best attempt at tackling this passage as of this evening, as “I get by with a little help from my friends”[2]—or actually, with “a lot-tle” help from my friends.

It was quite humorous this week. At one point, I was in conversation by way of email with Sinclair Ferguson. And in the course of the email, he was identifying the fact that one of our mutual friends—an older man by the name of Alec Motyer, who’s now ninety and the foremost evangelical historical scholar in Britain in the twentieth century—he was telling me in his email how wonderful Alec Motyer was, and how he had benefited greatly from Alec Motyer’s ministry, and how he remembered, even when he was between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, hearing Alec Motyer preaching from Galatians chapter 6. All of this came in an email.

And then, later on in the week, I had occasion to be on the phone to Alec Motyer, seeking to get a little encouragement from him. And at one point in the conversation, I said to him, “Alec, I’m at Daniel chapter 11, and I must have read it fifteen times, and I’m no better off now than when I read it the first time. What should I do?” And there was a long pause, and then he said, “Well, do you have that terrific book by that that Scottish fellow? What’s his name? He’s back in Scotland again.” I said, “You mean, Sinclair Ferguson?” He said, “Oh, yes! That’s the one. That’s the book that you need.” I said, “Well, I have that book.” I said, “But I’ve used it for ten of the chapters. I can’t keep using it all the way to the end.” He said, “Well, no. I think you must go on. Just go on.” And so, I’m going on. All right?

Now, as we near the end of our studies in Daniel—and the end is definitely in sight—it’s important that we keep the big picture in view—if you like, the melody line that runs all the way through, which goes essentially like this: the promise of Daniel is that our sovereign God, who has delivered and does deliver, will deliver his people from opposition, from persecution, and from the extreme persecutions that will come at the very end of time. His promise is that he will raise his people from the dead and that they then, with countless millions, will reign with him forever in his glorious kingdom. And as Daniel writes to the folks who are the initial recipients of the letter, he writes about matters which are phenomenal, which are daunting, which are perplexing, and which, as we saw this morning, he’s prepared, at least on a couple of occasions in the course of his book, to acknowledge that, quite frankly, he doesn’t understand.

God’s promise is that he will raise his people from the dead and that they then, with countless millions, will reign with him forever in his glorious kingdom.

Now, this morning we said that verses 21–35 were focused on the historical character Antiochus Epiphanes. We also tried to help one another by pointing us in the direction of secular history so that we could see that what is prophesied here is actually recorded in secular records as having taken place. But now that we come to verse 36, we face a question that runs through all of the commentators. And the question is: Does verse 36, “And [this] king,” still refer to Antiochus Epiphanes, who has been the focus of our attention for the last fifteen verses? And if it doesn’t, does it refer to someone else? And if it refers to someone else, to whom does it then refer?

Now, you perhaps, if you were paying attention, noted that I apparently misquoted verse 36 when I began to read. Because in the ESV, it begins: “And the king shall do as he wills.” I read it as “Then the king shall do as he wills.” I did that because that’s what it reads, how it reads, in the King James Version, and I think it is a more helpful and more accurate point that is made. Because I take it that what is being pointed out is that it is introducing us to another person, to another king—indeed, to another period of time.

Now, again, you’re sensible people. You must examine the Scriptures on your own. But I’m going to take it that from 36 on, we’re introduced to some period of time between the days of Antiochus Epiphanes and the end of history as we know it. All right? So all the way along, we’re going all the way to verse 35, and the prophecy is concerned with all these different things, and I’m suggesting to you that… And there’s disagreement over this, as some say that verses 36–39 are still Antiochus. Some say that it is someone… It goes all over the place. But for me, I’m going to take it that what we have here is an indication of the very Antichrist who is the picture at the end of the age.

Now, I say that because it is consistent with the way in which, in verse 31, you have that phrase, that famous phrase, “And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate.” This notion, from 36 on, is consistent with the way in which Jesus makes use of Daniel 11:31 when he’s speaking to his followers and recorded in Mark 13 and in Matthew 24. This is Jesus in Matthew 24: “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand)…”[3] And it’s almost as if he recognizes that Daniel himself, who was the writer, didn’t fully understand.

Now, let me just quote to you, actually, from the ESV Study Bible, because I think it might be helpful:

Daniel 9:27 tells of the abomination of desolation. Several times in Jewish history it was thought that this prophecy was being fulfilled—most notably during the days of the Maccabees when Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid king, ordered that an altar to the Greek god Zeus be constructed in the temple.

That was 167 BC.

He also decreed that swine and other unclean animals were to be sacrificed there, that the Sabbath was to be profaned, and that circumcision was to be abolished.

With threat of people’s lives, incidentally. They were killed for continuing these things.

But Jesus clarifies that the complete fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy [is not embedded back there in 167 BC but actually] will be found in (1) the Roman destruction of the temple, in a.d. 70 and (2) [in] the image of the Antichrist being set up in the last days,[4]

vis-à-vis 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation chapter 13.[5] All right?

So, I’m suggesting to you that what we’re going to take for the time being as the frame of reference is in keeping with what Jesus was saying himself. And you’ll remember when we studied Mark chapter 13 how jolly difficult it was and how we said that the telescoping of events in these prophetic passages is really hard to get a handle on—a bit like hill walking. We’ve used the metaphor frequently, haven’t we? You walk in the hills, and as you head up, you think that if you go another hundred and fifty yards, you’re going to be at the top, only to reach that top and find that there is another top beyond the top, and sometimes it goes on forever. And when you read these things, one of the difficulties in it is the very telescoping of things. It happens not only in the passages in Matthew and in Mark, but you find it in Revelation, and you definitely find it here in Daniel.

So, I take it that verse 36, this king is not Antiochus. If it isn’t, then who is it? Well, if you’ve done any of this kind of study in the past, you know that historically he’s been identified as all kinds of people and things. So, for example, Calvin believed that this king was emblematic of the Roman Empire—not simply an individual but an entity. Others throughout history have said that this fits Muhammad. That’s what they said. Because the animosity and the vitriol leveled against the people of God was embodied in that kind of way. And, of course, the Reformers—Calvin, Luther, and the rest of them—said that it looked very, very, very much like the papacy as they looked at what was going on.

Now, all of these things are part and parcel of people’s attempts at saying, “Well, what do we have here in verses 36–39?” If what we have is the embodiment, if you like, of evil opposition to God—evil opposition to God personified—then it’s no surprise that various figures throughout history should have been viewed as fitting the description. So the prototype, if you like, as we said this morning, in Antiochus Epiphanes has then been re-represented throughout history, vis-à-vis Mussolini, Hitler, the pope, whoever you want to come up with. But eventually, it forms up in an individual. Here we have, says Alec Motyer, the eschatological personage of whom even Antiochus is but a pale reflection. Here we have the ultimate rebel, the Antichrist, the man of sin. And what is then described in the verses that follow tie in with that designation.

Now, we’re not going to work our way through it painstakingly, but just notice what we’re told of this king. First of all, he will “do as he wills.” He will do as he pleases. In other words, complete autonomy, complete self-absorption.

Now, this picture is not new to us, because we’ve seen, if you like, charcoal sketches of this kind of thing as we’ve gone through Daniel already: “Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, [the] pipe, [the] lyre, [the] trigon, [the] harp, [the] bagpipe, and every kind of music, … fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and [do] good. But if you do[n’t] worship, you[’ll] … be cast into [the] burning fiery furnace.”[6] That, of course, is Nebuchadnezzar and his golden image. When you go into chapter 4, you find the same kind of self-absorption and preoccupation: “And the king … said, ‘Is[n’t] this [the] great Babylon, [that] I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?’”[7] All of these things, if you like, pointing forward to this final picture: “He [will] exalt himself,” he will “magnify himself above every god.”

Now, this is one of the reasons I don’t think it’s Antiochus. Because Antiochus, as much as he had a fat head and put his picture on his coinage, nevertheless, he still worshipped Zeus, and he was concerned that others in his kingdom did the same thing. This character has no concern for any other god himself. He is, if you like, god, and he will “speak astonishing things against the God of gods.” But you will notice that he will only prosper until “the indignation,” or the wrath, “is accomplished; for what is decreed shall be done.” And that, again, as we saw this morning, is just one of these little hints in the text to remind the reader that God is sovereign over these things.

The lie, if you like, and the pursuit of the lie, it takes on monstrous dimensions. What is the lie? Well, it’s the lie of the devil in Genesis 3: “The only reason that God has told you this about this tree is because he knows that you will be like God. You don’t have to listen to him.”[8] And the great appeal of that is an appeal which runs throughout all of history. And each of us has a temptation to megalomania, to our own degree and in our own little context. And here, in this moment of great animosity, this character is revealed. “He shall pay no attention to the gods of his fathers, or to the one beloved by women.” In other words, he’s the greatest. He combines blasphemy with inhumanity, and they are revealed in this horrible figure.

It’s no surprise, is it, that this kind of notion that has run throughout Daniel has been described in beastly-like activity? The individual has often been described as a beast, whatever that beast might be. And here, in the blasphemy of the person and in the inhumanity of the person and in the magnifying of himself, you find these things.

The little phrase, incidentally, “the one beloved by women” is variously translated. And I’ll just let you know that there are a number of notions as to its derivation. Some suggest that it is a reference to Tammuz, who was a pagan deity, and women were really drawn to it. That may be. Some think that all that is being said is that this individual, this evil character, has absolutely no regard for women at all.

When I read it, without any background to this, I thought something differently. And when I went and checked, I found out that my thought was not original. And this is what I thought: there’s nothing more basic to human life—both biologically, psychologically, emotionally, physically—than the male-female distinction that lies at the heart of humanity. And in the text, originally, there is at least the possibility of the inference that what is being described here in terms of this individual—that an individual who finally embodies anti-God in his world and opposes the church will be an individual who has no interest whatsoever in the foundational elements of God’s creative order as it relates to sexuality. Again, you’re sensible people. You can figure it out.

Then we’re told that he will “honor the god of fortresses instead of these.” In other words, power and might and control are his great deifying feature. Warfare and political favors combine in order to draw people around himself, and he will then deal in this realm. And those who are prepared to “acknowledge him,” verse 39, “he [will] load [up] with honor.” Remember, we saw the recurring notion of flattery as it ran through the text, earlier in the day. It made me think of certain political figures in the twentieth century whom everybody described as very, very nice, if you ever met them—tremendously nice, very nice. Never met anybody who didn’t like him. Didn’t meet anybody… Even if they were politically opposed to them. It’s amazing the power of flattery. It’s amazing. And this evil empire is not simply identified by an animosity that comes at you with all of the intentions of aggravation but actually may be sustained and developed, making rulers over many and divvying up the prizes for a price that he will charge.

Then we come to verse 40: “[And] at the time of the end…” Now, this phrase, again, as you go back through your text, you will find it. I take it that it refers to the last period before the end of time. “At the time of the end”—the last period before the end of time, before the end of history as we know it. I find that a very difficult thing to get my head around. I find it a perplexing notion—the idea that there will be an end to history as we know it, that it will come to an end. Because you don’t think of things really coming to an end. You think of your life eventually coming to an end, but history itself, as we know it, being wrapped up—that God will eventually intervene, as he’s done before, and will bring everything to a complete denouement.

Now, this is where it gets really, really hard for me. And I’ll just tell you this and then illustrate it for you. “At the time of the end, the king of the south shall attack him, but the king of the north shall rush upon him like a whirlwind.” What is this? And “with chariots and horsemen, and with many ships.” Well, if we’re going to read this literalistically—right? Literalistically. Not just literally but literalistically. Then we have to face the fact that chariots and horsemen and ships will be the weapons of conflict in the last days. Right? So that although we now are dealing in weapons of mass destruction, although the idea of the end of the age is conceived of, and understandably so, in our minds in terms of our contemporary grasp of the world, if we take this passage literalistically, then we have to conclude that in these final battles at the end of the age, it’s actually going to involve horses and chariots and ships.

Now, you’re sensible people. Figure it out for yourselves. I don’t think it’s likely. It might be. Because, you see—and here I’m going to quote my big brother—such an interpretation “fails to see that prophetic visions view the future in terms of the contemporary.”[9] “Prophetic visions view the future in terms of the contemporary.” So, for example, if thirty years ago we’d talked about how it was going to be, and people would communicate with one another, and we would say, “And they’re going to send these amazing faxes to one another, and there will be faxes,” and if you go back another eighty-five or ninety years, “And there will be telephones and so on,” and then we wrote about that into the future, the people who are now living in our age says, “Faxes? What’s a fax?” Right? “And telephone’s where you put money in.” But that would be the only way that you would convey the future in contemporary terms. And presumably, that’s what’s happening here.

And so, that understanding—that understanding—requires the recognition of symbolism. And as soon as anybody mentions symbolism, somebody gets really upset, because it sounds like, “Oh, symbolism! That means you’re not taking it literally.” No, I would be taking it literally, but not literalistically, if, in point of fact, this is representative of that which was conceived in that time. Because even among the people who favor a generally literal interpretation of this passage, it’s not uncommon—and you’ll know this if you’ve studied this kind of stuff—it’s not uncommon for the kingdom of the north to be interpreted as one of today’s superpowers. Okay? So someone will say, “And the kingdom of the north is…” And then, depending on who the flavor of the month is, they say, “And this is… They’re coming from the north, and there was someone on the east, and that was the Soviet Union. But they got disbanded, so we’ve moved it now to the north, to North Korea, and this is North Korea.” And you hear them on the television all the time. And if you’re sitting listening to it, you go, “Where did that come from?” And actually, I think it came from a fertile imagination. It’s not difficult to do.

And so, the kingdom of the north is then interpreted as a superpower, and that kind of interpretation then has tanks instead of chariots. And if you’ve ever read, for example, an old book like The Late Great Planet Earth, you know that the locusts have become helicopters, and so it goes on. And you read the book, and you said—I did when I was a teenager—“Who said the locusts are helicopters? How do you come to that?” “Well,” you say, “you’re doing the same thing here.” No, I’m not saying it’s anything. I’m just saying this: that such an interpretation, like superpowers and tanks, already assumes that the language is understood symbolically and not literally. Otherwise, how do you get to a superpower from “the king of the north”? How do you get to a tank out of a chariot? Because you’ve actually said what I’m suggesting is the case.

Now, this is where it gets really tough, if you didn’t think it was tough before. And this is where you’re going to have to be really patient with me and with everybody else that you don’t like and with whom you disagree over these things. Because what then follows here is just completely bewildering. Because you have these earthly powers jockeying for position. Opposition to this individual only exacerbates this dark, furious character who is “to destroy and [to] devote … to destruction.” And the battle is pictured, once again, in terms of ancient geography. How else are we going to understand this? I suppose, absolutely, for what it says: “And tens of thousands shall fall,” and they will “be delivered out of his hand,” and “Edom and Moab and the main part of the Ammonites.” Okay.

Now, who were Edom, Moab, and the Ammonites? They were enemies of Israel. All right? The “glorious land” at this point was Palestine. After Christ’s coming, the national and geographical boundaries of the kingdom were exploded, because Jesus was sending his followers out into all the world to make disciples of all nations so that the company that would be put together, that would be assembled, that would be opposed by the Antichrist, would be the church. And where would the church be? Not somewhere near Egypt. The church would be in the entire world, all over the place. And the focus of the Antichrist’s perspective would be on the people of God.

Therefore, when we study this, we have to do something with it. Edom, Moab, and Ammon were enemies of Israel. That, I take it, is why he would not be opposing them. Because, if you update it to what I’m saying, the Antichrist is not going to attack the enemies of the church. The Antichrist will not attack those who are attacking the church. Those who are attacking the church, those who are the enemies of the people of God, will be the allies of the Antichrist.

Now, verses 42 and 43 tell us that almost nothing is able to stop him as he moves ahead: “He shall stretch out his hand against the countries, … the land of Egypt shall not escape. He[’ll] become [a] ruler of the treasures” and so on, “and the Libyans and the Cushites shall follow in his train.”

Now, loved ones, I’m well aware of the fact that it is more than possible to take this as is. And you, again I say to you, must deal with it as you choose. But you must notice that the big issue that is conveyed to us is that at the end of the day, when he pitches himself, in the context of animosity, to the people of God, all of a sudden, unexpectedly but definitely, he will “come to his end,” and there will be “none to help him.”

So, to the extent that we stand far enough back from it to say, “Okay, well, we can disagree over Edom, and we can disagree over chariots and so on, but what can we not disagree on?”—we cannot disagree on the fact that the animosity, the vitriolic hatred, against the people of God will reach a final, cataclysmic reality before the end of time—before the resurrection of the people of God, before Jesus wraps things up. And that, again, we have anticipated as we’ve gone through the book. In chapter 7, remember,

The court [will] sit in judgment,
 and his dominion [will] be taken away,
 to be consumed and destroyed to the end.
And the kingdom and the dominion
 and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven
 shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High.[10]

The exact same emphasis that you find when Paul is answering the questions of the Thessalonians. Two Thessalonians and chapter 2: “And you know what is restraining him now,” the Antichrist, “so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he[’s] out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth.”[11] You understand: literalistcally, literally. To take that literally does not mean that Jesus is going to breathe on the Antichrist. To take that literalistically is to suggest that he will. To take it literally is to understand the figure of speech. I hope that makes it helpful to you. And “the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.”[12]

In other words, we can be absolutely confident that the Antichrist will end not with a bang but with a whimper. He won’t go out with a bang. Eventually, he will be completely neutralized. Why? Because God is God. Because Christ is King. Because he’s working everything out according to the eternal counsel of his will.[13] And when we find ourselves immersed in the details, which is fun to do, and staying up late at night arguing the pros and cons of different interpretations, which is also quite fun to do, we have to make sure that we don’t miss the wood for the trees or the trees for the wood—that Daniel was not writing this so that a group of people in December of 2015 on the east side of Cleveland could get involved in these really esoteric discussions with one another about the intricate details of the end of Daniel 11. He was writing it in order that the people in his day, who were being hammered, who were being devastated, who were tempted to believe that the whole thing had gone south on them and that there was no future for them—he was writing to them in order that they might be assured that this God, who by his purposes had brought them into the extremity of their exile and who by his goodness had brought them out into the opportunity of rebuilding, was the same God who was going to bring to fruition the promises that he had made, and finally in the one who was to come.

We can be absolutely confident that the Antichrist will end not with a bang but with a whimper.

And when that one came, he was then opposed. He was then crucified. He was then buried. But God raised him up. The Spirit was poured out on the church. The church sets out to do what it’s to do. And what happens? Immediately, persecution. Immediately, hatred. Immediately, the church is opposed. Stephen is stoned.[14] What’s happening? It’s all Genesis 3. It’s all the continued struggle between that which God has ordained and that which is in opposition to him. And at the most fundamental and basic level, it is the struggle in each of our hearts. Because by nature, we want to be our own god. We want to have absolute autonomy. We want to be able to decide what we’re going to do, with whom we’re going to do it, when we’re going to do it, and we don’t want anybody, no God, telling us anything at all, and certainly not from that book the Bible. So the spirit of the antichrist is endemic in the heart of man—that which has been charcoal-sketched throughout the book reaches this full, horrible, Technicolor portrait in the person of the one who is to come.

But again, I go back to my favorite hymn for the evening, which we’re not going to sing: “So be it, Lord…”

So be it, Lord; thy throne shall never,
Like earth’s proud empires, pass away:
[Your] kingdom stands and grows forever,
Till all [your children] own [its] sway.[15]

And it’s for that reason that we do what Jesus said to do. We’re not here to revere his memory. We’re here to celebrate his presence. We’re here to affirm his resurrection. And we desperately need God to enable us and help us as a church as we seek to live out what it means to hold to these things with confidence, with conviction, and yet with a genuine sense of compassion so that others might come to love Jesus too.

Father, we want to ask for your help as we absorb this material, not just now, in these moments, but as we read our Bibles and as we pray and as we think. We realize, Lord, that there are all kinds of different perspectives on these things, and we’re glad that we can think them out. We’re glad, too, that we can acknowledge that there’s no shame in saying that we don’t know, or that in certain cases we’re not sure, or we’re not absolutely clear, or we would like, perhaps, to have the opportunity to think again and to change our minds. Affirm within us, Lord, as a church just how vitally important it is for us to turn our eyes upon Jesus, to “look full in his wonderful face,” so that “the things of earth” might “grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”[16]

Come, Lord Jesus Christ, and invade our hearts and invade our church afresh so that we might believe what we should believe and behave as we ought to behave, and so that others might come to belong to you as a result of all of that. To this end we pray. In Christ’s name. Amen.

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[1] R. Hudson Pope, “Make the Book Live to Me.” Language modernized.

[2] John Lennon and Paul McCartney, “With a Little Help from My Friends” (1967).

[3] Matthew 24:15 (ESV). See also Mark 13:14.

[4] ESV Study Bible, Matthew 24.15n.

[5] See 2 Thessalonians 2:4; Revelation 13:14.

[6] Daniel 3:15 (ESV).

[7] Daniel 4:30 (ESV).

[8] Genesis 3:5 (paraphrased).

[9] Sinclair B. Ferguson, Daniel, The Preacher’s Commentary 21 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2002), 221.

[10] Daniel 7:26–27 (ESV).

[11] 2 Thessalonians 2:6–8 (ESV).

[12] 2 Thessalonians 2:8 (ESV).

[13] See Ephesians 1:11.

[14] See Acts 7:54–60.

[15] John Ellerton, “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended” (1870).

[16] Helen H. Lemmel, “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus” (1922).