Behold: The Antichrist

Daniel 11:36-45

We are very much aware of the fact that the Middle East is the center stage of world history. And that’s never been more true than today, when the war of Israel and Iran involves missiles flying into a dozen neighboring countries and the world’s economy held hostage by a 20 mile wide waterway.

Now as you study Biblical prophecy, you find out that as you move into the end time Israel is going to be in league with and under the control of the west, just as we see today. And as you come into the end times of prophecy, a western confederacy will be dominated and ruled by the Antichrist. And he will confirm and finalize an already existing peace pact with Israel so that they will be protected by this western confederacy.

Now in this section of Daniel’s prophecy, he gives us the scenario for this final holocaust. It’s really remarkable. It’s incredible. It’s astounding. It’s amazing. It’s miraculous that God should break down piece by piece, blow by blow the unfolding of this final great holocaust. And that you and I, of all of the Christians of all time and of all of the Old Testament saints, should be alive in the day when we can see all of these things on the horizon. What an incredible time to be alive.

In the first 35 verses of chapter 11 we saw the prediction of several world leaders in detail, and today we can look back and see how they all came on the scene exactly as was prophesied. Now as we approach verse 36, we leap across centuries to the final king, Antichrist, and we meet him in verses 36-45. We’ve seen the Babylonian era, the Persian, the Greek, and now we see the final form of the Roman era rise again from the ashes of history. And this amazing figure will have all the evil power of every evil ruler of history combined and more. He is the counterfeit Christ who finalizes a pact with Israel – a covenant peace plan that I believe is very likely in the works right now in the form of the Abraham Accords and Trump’s Board of Peace. The President is pushing for peace and for even more nations to join the growing chorus of countries signing on to the plan, and he is doing so in spite of the majority of logical military voices that reason that only bombs will make a difference.

Eventually the Antichrist enters the picture and promises to protect Israel. And then in the middle of the 7-year tribulation, he breaks that pact. He desecrates their temple. He blasphemes God and precipitates the holocaust of Armageddon, which is ended by the final return of Christ. And that is not a return in the sky like the rapture 7 years previous, but a touchdown in the end zone of this life. He will usher in His kingdom reign on Earth.

Now beginning in verse 36, there’s a sharp break. It is introduced to us at the end of verse 35. “Even to the time of the end,” that’s the key phrase. Up to this point, the prophecy has dealt with history past. Now we come to a different scene, history future, the time of the end.

v. 36        The indignation which is to be accomplished is the final outpouring of God's wrath. And so we sweep across thousands of years of history to the final world ruler. There are three things to see about him tonight: His character, his conflict, his condemnation.

First his character, what will he be like? Here he’s called simply the king. But this particular figure has several titles in the Bible. In Daniel 7, he is the little horn. In Daniel 8, he is the king of fierce countenance. In chapter 9, he is the prince that shall come. In 2 Thessalonians 2, he is the man of sin and the son of perdition. In Revelation 13, he is the Beast.

Now all of these refer to the same personality, and here he is called the king who does according to his will. Now the angel gives us several facts that indicate his character.

First of all, his character is marked by prerogative. In other words, he makes all the decisions. He does according to his will. He is an absolute sovereign; he is an absolute dictator. He will rule alone. He will rule with utter selfishness and self-will. He will rule in a self-centered and self-energized approach, and behind the scenes moving it all along is Satan who possesses him. One writer said he will come to the world with the baptism of hell. He will have full demon cooperation. He will establish an absolute world monarchy, and his credentials for pulling it off will be his ability to do signs and wonders and powerful miracles to deceive people. He literally rules the world, and in his ruling the world becomes the protector of Israel, because everybody is against Israel: Think about it - Russia, the east, the Arab world, apparently even the south, a coalition of Africa. Sadly, even many in America are now turning their backs on God’s chosen people.  But overall, the west will be Israel’s protector.

It is true that there are other rulers. Revelation 17 says there are ten kings [horns in Daniel], but they are puppet kings under this one. Revelation 13 says he has a cohort called the false prophet, but the false prophet just simply does his bidding. You may ask, “Well what about the kings of the south that attack him? What about the king of the north that attacks him? What about the kings of the east that attack him?” Oh yes, there will eventually be a fomenting revolution against his sovereignty, but that’s only after his sovereignty is established. So he has prerogative; he makes all the decisions. He rules the world. Every man on the globe, in order to function in human society according to Revelation 13, will have to take the mark of the Beast.

Secondly, he’s characterized not only by prerogative but by pride. He will exalt himself and magnify himself above every god. The Antichrist will be an absolutely atheistic, irreligious figure, setting himself above every god. Paul makes this same point, in 2 Thessalonians 2 he says, “He will oppose and exalt himself above all that is called god or that is worshipped so that he as god, sits in the temple of god, showing himself that he is god.”

He devours the false church in Revelation 17 when the Bible says, “He consumes the whore, the harlot.” He lets Israel exist in their temple for a time, and then suddenly in the middle of the tribulation he devastates the place, commits the abomination of desolation, and desecrates the temple and the holy people and starts to slaughter them. And before he’s done, two out of every three Jews will die. So he gets to the place where he then sets himself up as the god of gods right in the temple.

And that leads us to the third thing. He is not only a person of prerogative, and proud, but thirdly, he is profane. It says, “He shall speak marvelous [astonishing] things against the God of gods.” He is a blasphemer without equal, and in Revelation chapter 13 we find the same thing, he will blaspheme in ways that are without precedent.

Revelation 13:5-6

⁵ And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. ⁶ And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

He is the very mouth of hell. He tries to change God's moral laws, Daniel 7:25 says [turn]. He attempts to change the standards that God has set.

Not only does he exercise prerogative, pride, profanity, but verse 37 tells us he’s perverted. And the angel shows us three things which normally men hold dear, which are just normal natural responses to human behavior, but not him. He is perverted in the very basics of human behavior.

Men normally have an affinity for and a respect for the gods of their parents, their ancestors, some sense of respect. Not him.

Neither does he regard the desire of women. Now this is a very difficult one to interpret. It could mean that he’s a homosexual; that could very possibly be the meaning. He has no normal desire for women. He has no capacity to love a woman. He has no interest in loving a woman. Some people think it means that he has none of the gentleness, none of the graciousness, no mercy, nor does he appreciate any of what women bring to society and give to children. I think what it’s saying is he has no capacity for normal affection for a family. He has no capacity for normal affection for a wife, a mother, a sister. He’s perverted.

And thirdly, he doesn’t regard any god. You don’t have to travel very far around this world to find out that most people believe in god, some kind of god. You just watch where they turn when they get into trouble. All across the globe men invent religion. Everywhere, they believe in the supernatural. Even atheists change their mind under certain circumstances. This man does not. He is utterly irreligious. That’s a perversion of normal human response. He has no family love. He has no love for women. He has no love for god of any kind. He is perverted. Now let me tell you something, the world is ready for that kind of leader.

It wouldn’t bother anybody today that a leader didn’t have a normal relationship to a family; 40 years ago they wouldn’t have considered him. It wouldn’t bother anybody today if the man happened to be perverted in his sexual life.

And God isn’t important anymore in our society. We’d take an atheist, especially if he pretended to be religious. We’re ready for this.

So he’s characterized by prerogative, pride, profanity, and perversion. Fifth, by power. He will have power. He will magnify himself above everything, the end of verse 37.

How can he do this? How can he pull it off? Verse 38: “But in his estate,” or literally Hebrew, “in its place.” In the place of what? In the place of normal human desires for family and women and God. In its place, he will honor the god of forces. That Hebrew word is used six times in this chapter: Verse 2, verse 7, verse 10, verse 19, verse 31, and verse 39. And every time it means a strong place, a fort, a force. And it has to do with military power. In place of normal affection, he will exert a perverted worship of military power. He’ll demand control [the mark].

Chapter 7, verse 23 of Daniel, it says that when he comes he will devour the whole earth, this is the final form of the Roman Empire, “devour the whole earth, tread it down and break it in pieces.” Boy, he is gonna have power. That’s why he can magnify himself above all, because he’s gonna have military power. Unquestionably, he’ll have the intimidation of nuclear weapons and AI powered ruling technology, and whatever else, ie germ warfare or whatever. He will honor the god of forces. “Even a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honor with gold and silver and precious stones and pleasant things.” In other words, he takes all of the silver, all of the gold, all of the precious stones, all of the desirable things to build a war machine. And war is expensive, isn’t it? It may be that he captures the riches of the world to fund his war machine.

Verse 39          He’s gonna take the earth, and then everybody who honors him he’ll apportion out a large portion of the land. He’ll divide his spoil. He’ll give two things: Positions of leadership and possessions of land. He’ll cause them to rule, verse 39, and divide the land for their reward.

So what he does is obligate those that he conquers to himself and thus sustains their loyalty. And he’ll be sitting on top of the whole pile. So we see his character.

Next, his conflict. V. 40: You know what that is? That’s a revolution. Holding such a massive global empire together is an impossible task. Even hell can’t pull it off. This is an insurrection.

Ezekiel 38 tells us about the Russian army that comes, the king of the north, and an African coalition from the south. They have then let their defenses down, as they’re protected by this great world ruler. And when Russia comes, she won’t come alone. Verse 5 names “Persia.” [Iran.]

In the next 3 verses we see that the Antichrist is winning the battles. And then something happens in verse 44. What’s going on? They’re gonna regroup. He wins again. After all, he has Satan on his side, and hell is cooperating.

And verse 45: The Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea are the seas that would be known to Daniel. “Between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea in the glorious holy mountain.” And what mountain is it between those two seas? It is Zion, the place of the temple, the city of God. This is when he sets himself up as god.

Look at the end of verse 45, the third point, his condemnation. “Yet,” I like that word, don’t you? “Yet he shall come to his end and none shall help him.” That’s all it says. Revelation 6-19 happen right here, the worst of God’s wrath is poured out, and in the end Jesus Christ comes out of the sky with a sword going out of his mouth with which He slays the Antichrist and his hordes. You see he’s no match when he meets God's true king. He may have been a match for the king of the north, the king of the south and the kings of the east, but he’s no match for the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is at this very point that Israel looks upon Him whom they’ve pierced and are redeemed. They’ve already had 144,000 special Jews giving them the message all through the first three-and-a-half years. And finally, they believe it.

Here’s a great lesson of all of this:  God controls everything. Is that great? All of history has been under the control of God. Every detail, every ruler. Ahasuerus, Alexander, Antiochus the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes, everybody in between, Antichrist, all carrying out his will within the framework of his plan. I’ll tell you, it’s a comforting thing to know that history is His story, that the whole thing is in his hand. I don’t even worry about it.

“My Father’s ways may twist and turn. My heart my throb and ache.

But in my heart, I’m glad I know he maketh no mistake.

My cherished plans may go astray, my hopes may fade away,

but still I’ll trust my Lord to lead for he doth know his way.

Though night be dark and it may seem that day will never break,

I’ll pin my faith, my all in him. He maketh no mistake.

There’s so much now I cannot see; my eyesight’s far too dim.

But come what may I’ll simply trust and leave it all with him.

For by and by the mist will lift and plain it all he’ll make.

Through all the way though dark to me, he maketh no mistake.”