Heaven is coming. Your land is coming. But in this world, we will have tribulation. Daniel had his fair share of tribulation. Sometimes I think we forget as we get into Daniel and as we see him in the court of Nebuchadnezzar that how he got there.

He got there as a slave, as a captive, who was a young man who was taken from his homeland, taken from his parents. In all likelihood, they were killed, and here he is in a foreign land with a foreign people and a foreign culture surrounded with a foreign religion, foreign language. But he purposed in his heart. Purposed in his heart to follow the Lord and the Lord used him. And I'm sure he had some ups and downs where you read about one of them there in Daniel six.

He ended up down in a lion's den. He didn't stay there long. The Lord raised him up. Here in Daniel eight, we're going to read of some of the tribulations of the nation of Israel even after their return. Brief history for background at the end of Daniel five, Babylon is conquered by Cyrus the Great, the Persian.

And the Persian Empire takes over the territory that was once Babylon and actually expands upon it. And Cyrus is the one, Isaiah foretold by name, hundreds of years in advance, that he would send some of the Jews back to Jerusalem to rebuild it. And we're told at the beginning of the book of Ezra that that actually came to be. As we who believe the Bible is God's word are not all that astonished by. Prophecy after prophecy, God gives and it happens just as he foretold.

Why? Because, well, he's God and he knows what's coming next. So they went back under Cyrus and later Darius to rebuild the city, the temple, Nehemiah, the walls. And and then after a time, another ruler comes on the scene. His name is Alexander the Great and he conquers for Greece or Macedonia that which was once much of the Persian Empire and expands upon it.

We're going to read about those two empires, the Persian and the Greek empires in the chapter this evening. But at the beginning of the Persian Empire, the Jews go back, they rebuild Jerusalem. They have a not exactly a peaceful time doing that. There are people that surround them that do not want them to rebuild their city. There is someone in the capital of Persia who named Haman who tries to have them completely exterminated from the kingdom and God intervenes there through Esther.

And after that, things get a little bit easier for Israel for a little while, but they get really hard for Israel here as we'll see later in Daniel chapter eight. And again, God spells all this out in advance in the days of Daniel. And it does have, I do believe, does correspond a little bit to what is going to happen yet during the tribulation period. For this man we're going to read about, this little horn in Daniel eight, is very similar to the little horn in Daniel seven. The little horn in Daniel seven is the Antichrist.

The little horn in Daniel eight is a man named Antiochus, and he is a type, so to speak, of the Antichrist in how he persecutes Israel in his day, which is during the latter part of the Greek empire just before Rome takes over and around a hundred and seventy, a hundred and sixty BC. And then Christ obviously comes about a hundred and sixty, one hundred and fifty years later. So, that's just a little setting there. So, Daniel chapter eight verse one, I'm going to keep reading. I'm going to come back and we'll talk about some different things.

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. So, Daniel, I don't know when Daniel actually sat down and wrote this out but the vision he's talking about he had while Belshazzar was still king of Babylon in the city of Babylon. So, this was before Persia conquered the city of Babylon, before the handwriting on the wall is when Daniel actually received this vision. And I saw in a vision and came to pass when I saw that I was in at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in a vision and I was by the River Ulai.

Then I lifted up mine eyes and saw and behold, there stood before the river a ram, had two horns were were high, two horns and the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. So I'm gonna jump ahead a little bit to this here map and give you an idea of where, let's see here. All right. Let's expand on just a little bit more. That's as big as it gets.

Okay. Alright. Right here is the coast, Mediterranean Coast. Israel is right in here. If you can see that green light pointer there.

As you come across the desert, you come over into what is Iraq today in this area, this is the Persian Gulf. So here is Iraq, and then modern day over here, Iran, And right here is the city of Susa. It is referred to both as Susa and Shushan. The two are the same city. When Daniel is receiving this vision, Susa is a still rather insignificant city in a province called Elim in the same general area of the world as Babylon and Nineveh, the capitals of the Syrian and Babylonian empires, all in the Middle East.

And so he's having this vision of this city that, I guess, at this time rather insignificant. Along this little river called Ulai, which is where the city of Susa rests, that is going to become the capital city of the Persian Empire, but isn't that yet. But it will become in a generation or two the capital city of Persian. So when you read about Esther and when you read about Nehemiah, where are they? Well, they are in Susa or they're in Shushan, in the capital city of Persia.

So continuing on verse three, then I lifted up mine eyes and saw and behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns. Two horns were high, one was higher than the other and the higher came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward and northward and southward so that no beast 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. And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came up from the west on the face of the whole earth and touched not the ground.

The goat had a notable horn between his eyes 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. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler, anger against him, and smote the ram, and break 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. 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 the heaven. 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.

We'll come back to that later, but the pleasant land is a euphemism for Israel. Okay? It waxed great even as the host of heaven and it cast down some of the hosts and of the stars to the ground and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host that is the host of Israel and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away. That is the sacrifice at the temple.

Let's see, was it? And the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And a host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression and came, cast down the truth to the ground and it practiced and prospered. That is this king and his kingdom prospered. Over the children of what?

Israel in the pleasant land which would be Israel or Canaan. Verse 13, then I heard one saint speaking and another saint said unto the 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 underfoot? So how long is this gonna continue that Israel is going to be oppressed in this manner and the worship and sacrifices of the temple terminated. Verse 14, he said unto me, unto two thousand and three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. That is reconsecrated and therefore reusable again.

Verse 15, it came to pass when I, even I, Daniel, had seen the vision and sought the meaning, then behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, remember that's the river in his vision, which called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. So this is our first introduction to the angel named Gabriel, which his name means man of God. In the scripture, again, we see Gabriel when it comes to the birth of Jesus Christ. He is the one that brings the message to both Mary and to John the Baptist's father Zechariah.

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, oh son of man, for at the time of the end shall be the vision. Now as he was speaking with me, I was in deep sleep on my face toward the ground, but he touched me and set me upright. 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. Again, we're there's a connection between what is happening in this vision, what will happen under Antiochus to Israel before the time of Christ, and eventually what will happen to Israel during the latter half of the tribulation at the hands of the antichrist.

Okay? Continuing on. Verse 20. The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. Okay?

So that there's no doubt, God spells it out, the ram represented by the bear that's lopsided in Daniel seven is the kingdom of Media Persia. Now, the Persian Empire, the Medes and Persians are on the rise at this time, but Babylon is still the prominent kingdom in the world. So but moving on, verse 21, and the rough goat is the king of what? Grecia or Greece. The great, the rough goat is the king of Greece, is the, yep, And the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.

First king of the Greek empire, Alexander the Great. Now, this is century couple centuries before Greek rose in power, before Alexander the Great was born. Yet, here we have it. God is speaking concerning the Medes and Persians and then the Greek empire and the first king. Verse 22, now that being broken, that horn was broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation but not in his power.

Four kingdoms, the horn will be broken, the king will be will die, and the kingdom will be split into what? The four. Okay? So the four horns represent four kingdoms that shall arise from the Greek empire after the death of the great horn, the the one horn, who we know from history is Alexander the Great. Moving on.

We'll come back to that. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressions are come to full, a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. And he shall destroy wonderfully and shall prosper in practice and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. The holy people would be Israel.

And through his policy also, he shall cause craft or deceit to prosper in his hand. He shall magnify himself in his heart and by peace shall destroy many, not not only by military might, but by cunning diplomacy and politic. He shall destroy many. He shall also stand up against the prince of princes, but he shall be broken without hand. The prince of princes, I do believe, is a reference to Jesus Christ.

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. 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. Now Daniel is having a vision of what is what is going to come to be in the next several hundred years, the rise of the Persian Empire, the rise of the Greek Empire, the death of the great leader of the Greek Empire, the four kingdoms that will come from it, and a great leader which will come out of one of those that will oppress the children of Israel, stop the sacrifices for twenty three hundred days before he finally himself will die broken without hand as it is put at the end of verse 25. And Daniel, well, he doesn't know a whole lot about Persian.

He doesn't know anything about Greece probably. So this is hard for him to digest or understand. I mean, what does this mean? But we have the privilege of history because most of what is being discussed here to us, to him was future, but to us is what? To us is history.

So let's cover the history real quick. To some of you, this might be more interesting than others. To me, this is awesome. I love history. I like prophecy.

I love history. So, the ram. The ram standing on the banks of the river having two horns, we know is the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. The taller horn came up last. The Medes and the Persians allied themselves together.

The Medes were at first stronger, but later the Persians got stronger and conquered the Medes and took over the kingdom. So that's why the smaller horn that came up last grew into the taller horn. The capital of the Persian Empire is the city of Susa, where Daniel sees this ram in his vision along the riverbank at the city. And as mentioned earlier, when we get into the Persian Empire and we see Esther, Nehemiah, and Ezra, we realize that this is indeed the capital city of the Kingdom Of Persia. Persia conquered to the North, the South, and the West.

So if you look on the map up here real quick. Okay? So down here is what we call Egypt. Here is the Arabian Peninsula. Right here is Canaan or Israel.

Up here is what we call today Turkey. Over here is Iraq and Iran by the Persian Gulf, and over here further you get to India. So, on our map, we saw that Susa to get my pointer working again. I keep playing with alright. Susa is right in here somewhere in between on the border of Iraq and Iran north of the Persian Gulf.

So it's called the Middle East and the kingdom of Persia started over here in this section and then it moved to the North and it moved to the West and it moved to the South conquering these lands. So it conquered Turkey, what's called Cilicia in Asia Minor up here. And then it conquered the land of Israel, the area of Israel, and then it conquered Northern Egypt. So it says it moved to the North, the South, and the West. Well, that's because it was already in the what?

The kingdom started in the East, so the kingdom was already in the East. So therefore, it moved to the West conquering these these nations and these these places. The vestiges of its ancient empire exist today as Iran. Iran is ancient Persia. Matter of fact, that area, that kingdom was known as Persia until 1935.

In 1935, the Persians lived there. The rulers were Muslim, changed the name from Persia officially to Iran. And so up until 1935, what we call Iran was actually still known as Persia. And Daniel saw this vision before the handwriting on the wall. So, when Daniel saw that handwriting on the wall and knew that it was actually Persian that was written on the wall, it all came together in Daniel's mind.

All of it was about to what? It was about to happen, the beginnings of what he saw in this vision as Persia was going to come in and take Babylon. And then we have the goat. Okay? So Persia was around for a while.

We talked about them sending, Jews back to Jerusalem, rebuild, and all of that under, Cyrus and later, Darius and Artaxerxes in the time of Esther. But the Persian Empire gave way to the Greek Empire and to Alexander the Great. And up there on the screen, again, we have a map of the land that was conquered by Alexander. This is you see Italy, see this little this is the boot of Italy right here. So this is part of the lower part of Greece here, and Alexander did not conquer westward, he moved eastward.

Okay? Alexander's main purpose was to conquer Persia. Okay? He was not happy with the Persians. The Persians were not were not friends of the Greeks.

They didn't treat the Greeks well. And so, he wanted to conquer the Persians. So he moved not west, he moved to the what? He conquered to to the East, which is mentioned here in our passage as well, that the goat moved to the East against the kingdom of Persia and stomped it to the ground and destroyed it. And that's exactly what Alexander the Great did in only a decade or two.

He conquered all of that all of that territory and defeated all of the armies of the Persians expanding upon it in in some places. Let's see. Somewhere I have my my book here. I want to read from page one sixty. This is David Jeremiah's book.

Page one sixty. It says, when Alexander decided to take down the Medes and the Persians, he came with 50 with sorry, with 35,000 troops from the West, crossed over the Hellespont and defeated the Persian army. He swept on south and took Egypt, Tyre, and Gaza, and then he retraced his steps through Syria and met an enlarged Persian army for the third time, then he did just as the scripture said, he threw them to the ground and stomped on them and the Medo Persian Empire was wiped out just as predicted. It is interesting to note that according to David Jeremiah, the goat had been a symbol for the Greeks long before the time of Alexander. And this is this is not necessarily accurate history by any stretch of the imagination, but the goat was already identified with the nation of Greece before the time of Alexander.

He wrote, this is one of the most amazing passages I've ever read in the prophetic word. First, the identification of the goat is not difficult. The Grecian Empire followed that of the Medo Persians. The first Greek colony was established by an oracle, quote unquote, that sent a goat for a guide to build a city. The goat came to the region of Greece and in gratitude, the goats leading of the for the goats leading them in the right direction, they called the city Aegea, meaning the goat city.

The name of the sea upon whose shores the city was built was called the Aegean Sea, meaning the goat sea. So, in between Turkey and Greece, cross crisscrossed by Paul many times in the New Testament is what sea? The Aegean Sea, the the goat sea. Okay, that's what Aegean means. So, I thought that was mildly interesting anyway.

And so we have Greece here represented by the goat. Of course, as noted earlier, the large horn was broken prematurely as Alexander became deathly ill and died in his young thirties and, leading the leadership in crisis in the Greek, empire. The horn was what? That horn was broken, and Alexander died. I just liked a few things he had to say in here I found interesting.

Two hundred years before Alexander died, God described in the minutest detail exactly how history was going to be written. A story that was told when Alexander was on his way to Jerusalem. So this was a story. This isn't scripture. That when Alexander was on his way to Jerusalem to conquer the city, one of the Jewish priests gave him a copy of the book of Daniel and said, you've gotta read this.

You're in here. Alexander read the prophecy and it was said that he got down on his knees and worship. However, he did not save himself from an early death just as it was foretold. Now, that's not scripture. Who knows if that happened or not?

But it could have because Daniel was already written two hundred years before Alexander conquered the Greek empire and then died in his early thirties to illness. This left his great empire in crisis without an heir, and so it was divided among its four military generals. It wasn't divided easily or quickly. It took a while. But eventually, the empire was divided between these four military leaders.

Their names were Cassander, Antigonus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy. So up here on the screen, this and the brown over here, that was ruled by Seleucus. So Seleucus and his descendants ruled this area to the east. Right in here, this green part, which is today Turkey and all the way down to the southern border of Israel, that was Antigonus that took over that territory. Down here to North Africa and Egypt, that was Ptolemy.

His descendants controlled that region. And then this little kind of purplish area and dark purplish area, this up here, that was Cassandra's territory. He didn't last very long. He dwindled in power pretty quick. But initially, these four divided up the Kingdom Of Greece in around February.

Okay? So two hundred and some years before Christ, the kingdom was divided up. And the descendants of these men ruled these areas. Okay? That's where we get to verse nine again.

So look in verse nine again. Out of one of them came forth a little horn. So not the big horn, but remember the big horn was broken and then four horns took the place of the big horn on the goat, which was Greece. And then you see from one of those four horns, you see another little horn coming up. I I grew up in in deer country.

I didn't do a lot of deer hunting, but but I've seen many of a rack of deer antlers. And you've got big horns and you then they grow little horns out of the big ones. And so here's the picture. You got these four horns. You got this little horn growing out of the fourth one.

Just to give you a little heads up, the little horn is coming out of this one over here, and that's the Seleucid Empire, that part of Greece. His name is Antiochus. We'll get to him in a second. So verse nine again, and one of them came forth a little horn which waxed exceeding great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. Okay?

So that would be the land of of Israel. Okay? He magnified himself even to the prince of the host and by him the daily sacrifice was taken. If you look over on your right, not on your right, but in your Bible to the next page, it says in verse 23, and in the latter time of their kingdom when the transgressors are come to the full, the king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences shall stand up. His power shall be mighty, but not by his own power.

He shall destroy wonderfully and shall prosper and practice and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. This is that little horn. Now that little horn represents actually two people. The more direct, fulfillment is in this person, his name is Antiochus Epiphanes, that we'll read about in a minute, And but also in the person of the Antichrist that is yet to come. The Antichrist will try to finish what Antiochus started.

So Antiochus Epiphanes, he is Antiochus IV. He is ruler of the brown section there. His name means Antiochus God Manifest. So that's his name for himself. And that's what he became known by the Greek people.

Essentially, he is calling himself a Messiah. He is God manifest in human flesh. That is what he is claiming to be. Now not not the God of Israel, not the Messiah of Israel because he is a pagan king, But he is basically claiming to be God in human flesh. He thought to conquer the world and make it Greek, but failed when confronted by the armies of Rome to the West and so changed course.

And went south taking Israel, the pleasant land and parts of Egypt from the Ptolemies. He sacked, invaded, and laid waste to Jerusalem and is estimated that he killed more than 80,000 Jews and carried off 40,000 in slavery. He was a terrible terrible person to the Jews, but he wasn't finished. For some reason, this man Antiochus, and it all plays into the the plan and of God for the nation of Israel, For some reason, became obsessed with stamping out the monotheistic faith of the Jews, killing many thousand more for refusing to turn from their faith in God to the paganistic rituals of Greece. He vandalized and he desecrated the temple.

He slew a pig inside of the temple and he sprayed the walls and the furniture with the blood of a pig. And he, made sacrifices to his pagan gods in the temple. This is what this man did. He declared that any Jew that followed that circumcised their children or made sacrifices to the Lord would be slaughtered and would be killed. So, I'm going read here from January.

There it says, he killed I already said that. But to kill the Jews was one thing, but destroy their face was another. Antiochus decided to substitute Greek worship and culture for the Jewish religion. Instead of the Jewish feast of the tabernacles, he brought into the temple the feast of Bacchanalia, worshiping Bacchus, the God of pleasure and wine. He forbade the observance of the Sabbath and reading of the scripture, even burning every copy of the Torah he could find.

The Jews in the city were forbidden to practice anything Jewish on penalty of death. So remember, this is 200, three hundred years after Daniel gave this what? Prophecy concerning this man who would come out of this kingdom, who would come up against Israel, who would stop the sacrifices in the temple for how long? Twenty three hundred days. So, we know from history, Antiochus came up against Israel.

He did this to them. And we also know that the worship in the temple and the sacrifices ceased for guess how long? Twenty three hundred days. From January to January, Israel was under the oppression of Antiochus and they were not allowed to worship the Lord. But in January, a rebellion sprung up following the son of a priest named Judas Maccabeus.

Maccabeus is not his last name. It is a title which means Judas the Hammer. He is a priest along with his brothers led a revolt against Antiochus and after much bloodshed, the Hebrews took back the temple and cleansed it and rededicated to the worship of the Lord. Now, don't read that in the scripture. That's because we don't have scriptures.

There was no prophet of God between Malachi and John the Baptist. But this is what took place in between Malachi, was March and some BC, and the time that Jesus Christ was born. There were books written called the Books of the Maccabees, which are clearly not scripture, but they do contain a good bit of history of this time period. In all, the temple was out of commission for twenty three hundred days just as Daniel foretold. In the process of reconsecrating the temple, the priests sought to relight the lamps, the, you know, the seven candle lampstand in the temple.

They sought to relight it, but they only had oil for one day. This is how the story goes. Again, this isn't scripture. They only had oil for one day, but they needed them it was gonna take eight days in order for them to reconsecrate the temple. And as the story goes, the oil that was only enough for one day lasted for how long?

For eight days. And the temple was reconsecrated and the sacrifices started again and Israel started to recover from the travesties that took place. Once again, under another dictator, under another gen one, another king that wanted to destroy the Jews, destroy the people, destroy their faith, but you can't destroy the people, the nation of Israel, if they're being protected by who? By God. So once again, Satan tried and Satan failed.

Jesus Christ was yet to be born in Bethlehem, just a few miles from the city of Jerusalem where much of this took place. Today, the Jews still celebrate the rededication of the temple. In Jesus' day, it was called the feast of dedication or the feast of lights. Today, it's celebrated by the Jews as does anybody know? Hanukkah.

Hanukkah is the feast of lights. That's what Hanukkah means and it's the celebration of this event where the Jews took the temple back from Antiochus Epiphanes. Jesus went to Jerusalem to celebrate this feast in John 10 and verse 22. You read about he went to the the Jerusalem during the time of the feast of dedication and that is that same time period because Jesus was born a hundred and fifty years after this event actually took place. So, they were celebrating this in Jerusalem.

I thought this was interesting comment he made in here. He wrote, I heard a story about a persecutor of the Jews in a country that was at one time behind the iron curtain. He asked one of the Jews who had been tortured, what do you think will happen to you and your people if we continue to persecute you? Oh, the result will be a feast, replied the Jew. Pharaoh tried to destroy us, and the result was Passover.

Haman attempted to destroy us, and the result was the feast of Purim. Antiochus Epiphanes tried to destroy us, and the result was the feast of dedication. Just try to destroy us and we'll start another feast. Now, that may be a bit of overconfidence on the part of the Jew. However, there is one person we can count on and that is the Lord.

And of his church, he said the gates of hell will not, what, will not prevail against it, will not prevail against it. And even in the end times in the book of the tribulation, the book of Revelation, you'll still find reference to the nation of what? Israel. Where where is Jesus gonna return to? The Mount Of Olives and the temple.

And he's gonna rule from there for a thousand years. God isn't done with Israel yet. Not because they are so worthy of it, but because he chose them. And though they may be unfaithful to him, God cannot be unfaithful to himself and the promises that he has made to them or the promises that he has made to us. And at every attack of Satan to try to destroy Israel, to destroy destroy the plan of redemption of mankind, to try to stop the Messiah from coming into the world, Satan always fails.

Israel carries on. Most importantly, the seed of Abraham Jesus Christ lives and he lives at the right hand of the father of heaven and he lives in the heart of every believer who has put their faith in him. Antiochus died not by the hand of man as Daniel foretold, but as of some terrible illness. And then eventually, the Greek empire crumbled altogether and gave way to Rome. Now, while the antecedent of this prophecy is made very clear in history, there are many characteristics, particularly in these last verses, that not only pertain to Antiochus, that pertain to the the antichrist who is yet to come.

He will be cunning. He will be powerful. He will speak great things. He will deceive many. He will attack Israel and he will have them on the on the run.

But he will lose when Christ returns. And we with him. Let's pray. Dear heavenly father, thank you Lord for your word, for the prophecies that we read therein and for the vantage point that we have today that David didn't have. We can look back and see how this prophecy was fulfilled step by step by step hundreds of years after Daniel gave it.

Lord, strengthening our faith to know that the prophecy that is yet future to us will be fulfilled in like manner. We know that we can trust you, and we know that we are on the winning side because Jesus has conquered death, and Jesus has conquered sin and Jesus has conquered Satan and his minions and his dictators and his antichrist and his false prophets, and we're on the winning side. Lord, remind us of that, And we pray that we would be the light in this day that we should be to tell others about Jesus that they might be on the winning side as well. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen.