Spiritual Warfare in Daniel 8
Daniel chapter 8. And I’d like to read chapter this morning.
In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first. 2 And I saw in a vision; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai. 3 Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. 4 I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great. 5 And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. 6 And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. 7 And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. 8 Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. 9 And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. 10 And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. 11 Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. 12 And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered.
13 Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? 14 And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.
15 And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. 16 And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. 17 So he came near where I stood: and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision. 18 Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground: but he touched me, and set me upright. 19 And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be. 20 The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. 21 And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. 22 Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. 23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. 24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. 25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft 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. 26 And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days. 27 And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king’s business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.
Let’s just bow in prayer. Dear Heavenly Fathers who have come before you this morning, this was a very disturbing vision for Daniel to see. And Lord, help us to understand what he saw and the significance of it in relation to our lives and even what is happening in the world today. Lord, help us to realize who’s in control. And Lord, help us to understand and learn from the vision of Daniel. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
It’s interesting as you look at chapter , we see a little horn arise out of the Grecian king. But this little horn is different from the little horn that we saw in chapter 8. The little horn we saw in chapter was a prelude that net horn rose out of the horns that were in the Roman Empire, the revised Roman Empire.
And that horn would come and it would take over of the kingdoms of the , and it would really take over control of the earth, and it would really be the picture of the Antichrist. Yes, this is a type of the Antichrist, but it is not the Antichrist. Daniel is giving prophecies which show some interesting things.
I want you to understand, no other religious system in the world speaks prophetically. This book is filled with 30% prophecy. When Daniel is speaking these words, this incident occurs at a later date.
And you have to pay attention because everything doesn’t always go chronologically in the book of Daniel. Because we’ll see a section and then Daniel will go back before that section and God will appoint, for example. He’s giving us an overview and now he’s speaking specifically of events that are going to happen.
And the events that are going to happen are dealing specifically with of the beasts that Daniel saw in his first vision. They’re dealing with the Medo-Persian Empire, which first appeared as a bear, and we saw that in chapter . He’s dealing with the Grecian Empire of Greece, which appeared in chapter as well. I want you to understand the timeline a little bit because it helps you to understand the significance of God knowing the future.
And as God could foretell the future dealing with the nation of Israel and the kingdoms of the Medes and the Persians as well as the Greeks. God can foretell the future in the last days when he deals with us and the events that we’re seeing. Daniel’s vision here, it tells us when it occurred.
This vision occurred in the third year of the reign of the king Belshazzar. A vision appeared unto me. The kingdom of Babylon had not been destroyed when Daniel received this vision.
It was in Belshazzar’s third year. We saw that one of the other visions was in his first year, but he had not been destroyed. We also saw earlier that in the beginning of Daniel where he showed the events that led to the destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians.
But as I mentioned, that was an immediate picture. Now we’re looking at pictures into the future and we jump ahead of where Daniel was at the beginning of this book. The prophecy that Daniel is giving is going to occur years after Daniel lives.
One of the amazing things about this prophecy is that it is so accurate that many people that want to reject the Bible say, well it couldn’t have been written by Daniel. It had to have been written by people like in the first century B.C. because it’s too accurate. And later on in this book you’re going to see that he even gets more specific than he does in this dream.
Now I want you to take a look at some of the things with me this morning. It talked about two kingdoms. The first kingdom was a ram and this ram had two horns, but one horn was larger than the other horn and it rose up later than the first horn.
This was an accurate example of the Medo-Persian Empire. The Persians didn’t come to power until a later date. They had a joint kingdom with the Medes, but initially the Medes had greater authority.
But the Persians rose to greater authority at the end of the kingdom. And they were the ones that had the greater kingdom, the greater say in the kingdom at the end of it. And we see also that there were directions that Daniel gave that this ram went.
The ram, it says, went north, south, and west in conquering. And if you look at the specific directions he gives in the order, that’s the exact order that the Medes and the Persians conquered. They did not conquer anything to the east.
They didn’t go to India. They didn’t go to China. They didn’t go east at all, but they only went west, north, and south.
Initially conquering to the west, and then to the north, and the Assyrians, and then to the south, and they conquered the Egyptians. That’s exactly what was foretold by Daniel, is what their order of conquering would be. But as they conquered, there was another kingdom that arose that was more powerful.
And this kingdom attacked from the west. And this kingdom, it says here, was a goat. And it was a male goat.
And it came and it had a very distinct horn. Now, this male goat attacked from the west, this ram. And its distinct horn was where its power came from.
The male goat would align with the Greek kingdom. And we see that Alexander the Great inherited the kingdom from his father, Philip. But Philip of Macedonia never really conquered or sought to establish a conquering kingdom.
But when Alexander came to power, he was years old. People who’ve studied military history and examined military tactics, say Alexander is the most brilliant military mind that has ever lived. And it gives a description here of this goat as it attacks.
It attacks with collar. What does that mean? It attacks with real anger, and it attacks to destroy. Well, there was events that had transpired prior to Alexander taking over the kingdom, where the Medes and the Persians had done things that had upset Philip and the Greeks.
And Alexander remembered, and he was going to go and destroy the Medes and the Persians. And you can go back and look at world history, and you can see some of the great battles that were fought between the Greeks and the kings of the Medes and the Persians. But when Alexander came to power, he was so powerful and moved so fast that no one stood in his way.
The description given in the vision that Daniel saw, it was a goat that didn’t touch the ground. That was showing the speed with which this goat moved. It literally flew.
And that was what Alexander did when he conquered his kingdom. The kingdoms that lay before him. Alexander came, and the Medes and the Persians, a lot of people think, well, they probably were at the end of their kingdom, didn’t have much power.
When Alexander fought against the Medes and the Persians, they had a million foot soldiers. It was not just a little tiny army. It was a major, they had held the major part of the world.
They had gone and captured what had been Babylon and all of its territories. And like I said, first they went west, then they went north, and then they went south. They captured all the then known kingdoms of the world, except Greece.
And when the Medes and Persians came to power, Greece wasn’t a giant kingdom. It was a bunch of city-states that oftentimes warred against each other. In the Bible, when you read about Thessalonica, you read about Corinth, you read about Athens.
These were all city-states who had kings and oftentimes warred against each other. Under Alexander, he caused these states to unify and become one under his direction. And then he attacked the Medes and the Persians to the east.
His power was unequivocal to any man that had ever been establishing a kingdom on earth at that time. But Alexander was not defeated by a man. Alexander was, most people believe in looking at dates, that he’s probably years old when he died.
So he took his army from the time he was to , or roughly years. And he conquered everything from what is today Greece, all the way over, and he made it as far as India. When Alexander also had one problem, he was an alcoholic, and he saw that there was no more lands to conquer.
He had no meaning for life. A lot of people believe that he died because of his alcoholism. Alexander did leave children and a wife, but he also left four generals.
These four generals are referred to in Daniel’s prophecy as four kingdoms that rise out of the one kingdom when the horn was broke. When it says the horn is broke, the strength of the kingdom is destroyed. Horns in scripture refer to strength.
And so when Alexander’s horn on this goat, which was a symbolic of Greece, was broken, when his strength was broken, the kingdom had not the power that it once had. And there were four generals that they decided to split up his kingdom amongst the four of them. These four generals were Cassandra, and he took Macedonia and Greece.
Lysimus took Asia Minor and Thrace. We don’t really hear of those two kings much, we don’t hear any more of them in scripture at all. But the last two generals and their kingdoms we hear quite often.
Both in the history of Israel, also in other prophets, and in Daniel. We read about the Seleucids and the Ptolemies. Seleucids took Syria and Babylon and the kingdoms surrounding Babylon.
The Ptolemies took Egypt, Israel, and the island of Cyprus. Now one of the things that you’re going to see when we look at prophecy, is Daniel talks about the fact that these two kings were at war with one another. And out of these kingdoms, out of one of the Seleucid kings, came a king by the name of Antichus Epiphanes.
And this is the king that is the little horn that rises up out of these four kingdoms. And Antichus Epiphanes is a type of the Antichrist. Everything in his character is like what the Antichrist will be like.
Except instead of just one small region of the world, the Antichrist will have influence over the whole world. But Antichus Epiphanes, when he came to power, the scriptures tell us in what we just read, some of his characteristics. It talks about, first of all, his personality.
His personality was that which he was fierce, he was sinister, he was deceitful, and he was cunning. This man lied and had no problem lying. It was one of the main things that he did.
And when he came and took over and defeated the Ptolemies and gained control of what is Israel, he lied to them continually. And his goal was to, first of all, transform Israel and make it Greek in thought. The same thing that the world wants to do today.
If you look at what’s happening in our school systems, look at what’s happening in the colleges, look what’s happening on entertainment, television, music. What they want you to do is transfer your thinking from being a people that think with God and truth as your base, to think of really the things of Satan and relativism and the anti-truth, if you would, as the thing that would govern your life. That was this man.
He came into Israel, and the people in Israel were still worshipping at the temple. They were still offering sacrifice. They were still praising the God of the Bible.
And he came in and desired to transform their thoughts so it was that of the Greeks. That they would honor men more than God. And that their gods would not be gods at all, but they’d be idol worship.
And he began to change the things that he did. He began to build gymnasiums, which are not like our gymnasiums. But they were places where they would go and meet and partake of ideologies and discuss things and philosophers.
And he turned them away from the Bible. But when he couldn’t turn them fast enough, he deceived them into thinking that he was there to help them when really he was there to destroy them. And so we see that this was his personality.
It’s going to be the personality of the Antichrist. And guess what? It’s the personality of the world. It’s Satan’s personality.
Jesus called Satan, what? The father of lies. And so Satan was the inspiration behind this man. And he came and his personality is one of deceit and cunning.
His power. He possessed great power. Later on in the book of Daniel, you will see how he gained victory and control over the Ptolemy’s areas in Egypt.
It was through deceit, and then tricking them, and then destroying them with his strength. He had no value for life and he didn’t really care about alliances. It was all about him.
And so he possessed great power and he would take over the kingdom of the Ptolemies in Egypt and Israel. And when he did, he had no value of life and he slaughtered all that would stand in his way. His prosperity.
He was prosperous from a world’s perspective. He would thrive to gain wealth and power by whatever means of deceit he needed to do. And his prosperity, he declared himself that he would be the king of the world.
And not only that, he declared himself to be God. He had a coin printed that had his head on it and it declared that he was God. And the whole world was to use this currency.
It never happened because he was killed by God before it could have happened. But that’s what his goal was. Not only that, we see that his persecution, he persecuted Israel.
Later on, he sought to tear down all forms of worship that made reference to the blood sacrifice of the lamb. If you go to the Jewish and read in Jewish history, they would sacrifice lambs, goats, bullocks, but one thing they never would sacrifice is pigs. Why? Because pigs were considered to be unclean, and they were an animal that the Jewish people were not to have anything to do with.
This man stopped all the sacrifices of the animals that God had told them to sacrifice, and instead went in and changed the altar from an altar that had the instruments that were used to worship God. He took all those instruments out and replaced them with instruments to worship Zeus, the god of the Greeks. And then he took a pig and sacrificed it on the altar to Zeus.
This isn’t only disgusting, it is so irreverent, and he did it on purpose, because he hated them. He hated the Jews and he hated their God. He hated our God.
It says that God punished him. Later on, it talks about the fact of his punishment, and there’s historic accounts of how he died. Even though at the time that he was doing this, the Lord raised up the Maccabees, and the Maccabees went in and cleansed the temple, the Maccabees did not kill Antiochus Epiphanes.
God judged Antiochus Epiphanes, much the way he judged Herod when Herod declared himself to be God. It says that Herod’s innards ran out. Same thing happened to Antiochus Epiphanes.
He died a horrible death, a judgment from God. No man took his life, God took his life because of who he was. Why did God give this vision to Daniel, and why did Daniel record this? This same philosophy, this same belief, this same worship of Satan, is coming in the last days, when the Antichrist comes.
The amazing thing is, he will hate God just as much as Antiochus Epiphanes hated God. He will hate the Jewish people as much as Antiochus Epiphanes hated the Jewish people, and he will hate the whole worship service that they have. Now I want to tell you, have you stopped to think, why was he so bent on destroying the temple and destroying the sacrificial system the way that God had established it? What was the sacrificial system that had been given to the Jews, where was that leading? It goes all the way back to when Adam sinned.
And after Adam sinned, God took the skins of two animals and clothed Adam and Eve. He covered them with these animal skins. This was showing Adam and Eve what was to happen, that their sin couldn’t be covered by themselves.
It had to be covered by the Lord. And not only that, the scriptures tell us, there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood. Now ultimately, God had given a promise to Adam and Eve of the coming Messiah, who would come and crush the serpent’s head, and the serpent would bruise his heel.
But when the serpent crushed this, when the coming seed of woman would crush the serpent’s head, salvation would be found in what he had done. Everything that you see in the laying out of sacrifices, even when you go to Abel, Abel, it says, gave a sacrifice that was acceptable to the Lord. He offered a blood sacrifice on an altar that wouldn’t have been a beautiful altar, but it was built according to God’s standards.
And the sacrifice was made pointing to the fact that Abel needed a blood sacrifice to cover his sin. But this was only a temporary covering because he was looking forward to the one that had been promised to his father Adam. Now you fast forward to the time that Moses is in the wilderness, and they set up the tabernacle, and they have the sacrificial system put in place, and all the sacrifices that they’re doing, it’s all pointing ultimately to Jesus and the cross.
The way they do it, the things that are involved. When Jesus comes, he came that he who was without sin could become sin for us. That he could shed his blood, that our blood didn’t have to be shed.
That we could have eternal life, and we did not have to face judgment. Antichrist epiphanies spit in the face of God and said, your sacrifice means nothing to me. Your son means nothing to me.
I’m going to do it my way. And I’m going to declare I’m God. I want you to understand something.
Which philosophy is prevalent in our world today? If you look at, our kids are being taught in the school system, there is no absolutes. In essence, there is no final authority in God. They’re being taught Jesus doesn’t matter.
Every other religious system in the world does, but not the sacrifice of Jesus. Everything that antichrist epiphany stood for is what the world stands for. It’s what Satan’s plan is from the beginning, and it’s his plan at the end.
But guess what? He knows his time is short, and his plan is going to fail. It’s interesting that as you look at this, Daniel foretold and he said that he was in the palace in Shushan. The Medo-Persians hadn’t established the kingdom, they didn’t have a kingdom yet, and Shushan, because Daniel was still in Babylon, Shushan would become the palace of the Medo-Persians, but it wasn’t when Daniel saw this vision.
There was a canal that he saw that was, he called it a river, but it’s really a canal that the Medo-Persians had dug from one river to another river where the two rivers connected in Shushan. That canal had not been dug by the Medo-Persians because their kingdom didn’t exist, but it would be. Everything that Daniel saw in his vision came about just as he saw it, even though it was years later.
That’s because God knows the beginning from the end. God revealed to Daniel what was going to happen. Why was Daniel so distressed, so distressed that he became ill when he saw this vision and had it explained to him? Because he saw the horror of how the Jewish people were going to be treated.
He saw the horror of the sacrificial system, how it was going to be denied, and ultimately he understood, even though he did not have a completely clear picture of the coming Messiah, when he would come or how he would come, but he understood that this was an attack upon the plan of God, and it bothered him greatly. Well, there’s going to be more detail on this as far as specifics when we get later on in Daniel’s prophecy, but one of the things you see is this could not possibly be the Antichrist that is coming at the end of the age. Because it says that this man would stay in power, it was going to be , days.
The Antichrist is only going to be in power when he does all of these things in the last three and a half years of the Great Tribulation. , days is six years. This was a different person at a different time, but with the same philosophy.
What do we need to learn from this? What should our attitude be? Daniel looked on what was happening, the events that were going to come with horror. He was greatly disturbed, he was upset because he saw this man had no regard for life, he had no regard for God’s people, he had no regard for the Lord. What did Daniel do? His whole life he had stood for God’s truth.
His whole life, even though he was faced with choices of if you keep praying to your God, you’re going to go into the lion’s den, and according to men, you’ll have no choice and you’ll be killed. But he didn’t stop praying. Because his loyalty, his service, his devotion, his understanding, and his commitment was to the Lord, not this world.
One of the sad things you see today is many people that name the name of Christ, their commitment isn’t to Jesus. They’re committed more to the things of this world than they are to Christ. Do we understand what we’re facing in the last days? And you should understand it from two perspectives.
One is that the Lord said he’s going to return for us and we don’t have to face judgment, he’s going to take his bride home. But also do we understand the consequences that the world is facing of those who do not accept Christ? And are we disturbed as Daniel is disturbed? Do we have a heart where we want to preach the gospel and share the gospel with those who don’t know it so they can come to know Jesus is their Lord and Savior and be set free from this enslavement to sin and this idea that somehow it’s better to follow the ways of the world and Satan than it is to follow God, even as a Christian. These are sobering lessons, but there also should be lessons that fill us with tremendous hope because if God could tell Daniel in a vision what would happen years later, he can tell John in a vision what will happen in the last days and he will tell, as he told John in that vision, there was wonderful things that would happen and await the church of the living God.
There’s a new heavens and a new earth, and prior to that, there’s the millennial kingdom of Christ where those who are Jesus’s will rule and reign with him on this earth as we see this earth when it is ruled with righteousness, what it is really like. And then will come the new heavens and the new earth where we shall live for eternity with him. What joy should fill us in knowing that as Daniel was given a vision that came true, the same things are true for John in the other visions that Daniel was given about the end times.
May we be filled with hope, and may we be filled with compassion, and may we be filled with the desire to serve and do the will of the living God. Let’s just close in prayer. Lord, I pray that you would just help us to understand these things.
Help us to look back in history and see this evil, evil, wicked man. But Lord, may we see that throughout history, Satan has raised up men that have taken this philosophy, but you’ve dealt with them, and you’ll deal with the last Antichrist as well. Lord, thank you for your redemptive hand, and thank you for sending your son to redeem us and that the day is coming when you shall call us unto yourself.
May we long for that day when righteousness and justice and truth and love shall reign. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.