Steadfast Faith | The Book of Daniel | Week 12
Series: The Book of Daniel | Week 12
Text: Daniel 11:2-45
God is in control even when our world is in chaos.
Daniel 11 traces a whirlwind of emperors, campaigns, and betrayals—not to feed curiosity, but to spotlight the unshaken sovereignty of God amid human chaos. The charge is clear: resist compromise, refuse panic, and live with the long view—trusting the King who will bring history to heel and vindicate His people. Trials may scorch for a season, but they never script the final word.
Here’s a thought: Charles Spurgeon assures us, “When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.”
Get Smart is an American comedy television series, parodying [imitating] the secret agent genre that had become widely popular in the first half of the 1960s with the release of James Bond films. It was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, and had its television premiere on NBC on September 18th, 1965. It stars Don Adams (who was also a director on the series) as agent Maxwell Smart (Agent 86), Barbara Feldon as Agent 99, and Edward Platt as The Chief. Henry said that they created the show at the request of Daniel Melnick to capitalize on James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, “the two biggest things in the entertainment world today.” Brooks described it as “an insane combination of James Bond and Mel Brooks comedy”.
The show features an ongoing struggle between KAOS and CONTROL. According to Get Smart Fandom, KAOS is an international organization of evil (as it is repeatedly called) bent on world domination. KAOS was founded in 1904 in Bucharest [Episode #38: “Hoo Done It”] but is a Delaware corporation for tax purposes [Episode #59: “A Man Called Smart, Part 2”]. By 1923 it had grown large enough to hold a convention in Atlantic City [Episode #22: “Smart the Assassin”]. “KAOS” is a play on the word “chaos” but is not an acronym.
Their leader is known as Mr. Big, although this appears to be a descriptive term rather than an actual title, and at least two different men have been referred to as such [Episodes #1: “Mr. Big” and #26: “Hubert’s Unfinished Symphony”].
Only once has an individual been seen identified as Chief of KAOS, equivalent to the Chief of CONTROL. This was when the two chiefs attended the funeral of Yohan, a double agent who worked for both KAOS and CONTROL [Episode #85:“Die, Spy”].
Who is in control when our world is in chaos? Let’s look for some answers in Daniel 11:2-45:
2 Now then, I tell you the truth: Three more kings will appear in Persia, and then a fourth, who will be far richer than all the others. When he has gained power by his wealth, he will stir up everyone against the kingdom of Greece. 3 Then a mighty king will appear, who will rule with great power and do as he pleases. 4 After he has appeared, his empire will be broken up and parceled out toward the four winds of heaven. It will not go to his descendants, nor will it have the power he exercised, because his empire will be uprooted and given to others. 5 The king of the South will become strong, but one of his commanders will become even stronger than he and will rule his own kingdom with great power. 6 After some years, they will become allies. The daughter of the king of the South will go to the king of the North to make an alliance, but she will not retain her power, and he and his power will not last. In those days she will be handed over, together with her royal escort and her father and the one who supported her. 7 One from her family line will arise to take her place. He will attack the forces of the king of the North and enter his fortress; he will fight against them and be victorious. 8 He will also seize their gods, their metal images and their valuable articles of silver and gold and carry them off to Egypt. For some years he will leave the king of the North alone. 9 Then the king of the North will invade the realm of the king of the South but will retreat to his own country. 10 His sons will prepare for war and assemble a great army, which will sweep on like an irresistible flood and carry the battle as far as his fortress. 11 Then the king of the South will march out in a rage and fight against the king of the North, who will raise a large army, but it will be defeated. 12 When the army is carried off, the king of the South will be filled with pride and will slaughter many thousands, yet he will not remain triumphant. 13 For the king of the North will muster another army, larger than the first; and after several years, he will advance with a huge army fully equipped. 14 In those times many will rise against the king of the South. The violent men among your own people will rebel in fulfillment of the vision, but without success. 15 Then the king of the North will come and build up siege ramps and will capture a fortified city. The forces of the South will be powerless to resist; even their best troops will not have the strength to stand. 16 The invader will do as he pleases; no one will be able to stand against him. He will establish himself in the Beautiful Land and will have the power to destroy it. 17 He will determine to come with the might of his entire kingdom and will make an alliance with the king of the South. And he will give him a daughter in marriage in order to overthrow the kingdom, but his plans will not succeed or help him. 18 Then he will turn his attention to the coastlands and will take many of them, but a commander will put an end to his insolence and will turn his insolence back upon him. 19 After this, he will turn back toward the fortresses of his own country but will stumble and fall, to be seen no more. 20 His successor will send out a tax collector to maintain the royal splendor. In a few years, however, he will be destroyed, yet not in anger or in battle. 21 He will be succeeded by a contemptible person who has not been given the honor of royalty. He will invade the kingdom when its people feel secure, and he will seize it through intrigue. 22 Then an overwhelming army will be swept away before him; both it and a prince of the covenant will be destroyed. 23 After coming to an agreement with him, he will act deceitfully, and with only a few people he will rise to power. 24 When the richest provinces feel secure, he will invade them and will achieve what neither his fathers nor his forefathers did. He will distribute plunder, loot and wealth among his followers. He will plot the overthrow of fortresses - but only for a time. 25 With a large army he will stir up his strength and courage against the king of the South. The king of the South will wage war with a large and very powerful army, but he will not be able to stand because of the plots devised against him. 26 Those who eat from the king’s provisions will try to destroy him; his army will be swept away, and many will fall in battle. 27 The two kings, with their hearts bent on evil, will sit at the same table and lie to each other, but to no avail, because an end will still come at the appointed time. 28 The king of the North will return to his own country with great wealth, but his heart will be set against the holy covenant. He will take action against it and then return to his own country. 29 At the appointed time he will invade the South again, but this time the outcome will be different from what it was before. 30 Ships of the western coastlands will oppose him, and he will lose heart. Then he will turn back and vent his fury against the holy covenant. He will return and show favor to those who forsake the holy covenant. 31 His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation. 32 With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him. 33 Those who are wise will instruct many, though for a time they will fall by the sword or be burned or captured or plundered. 34 When they fall, they will receive a little help, and many who are not sincere will join them. 35 Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time. 36 The king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been determined must take place. 37 He will show no regard for the gods of his fathers or for the one desired by women, nor will he regard any god, but will exalt himself above them all. 38 Instead of them, he will honor a god of fortresses; a god unknown to his fathers he will honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and costly gifts. 39 He will attack the mightiest fortresses with the help of a foreign god and will greatly honor those who acknowledge him. He will make them rulers over many people and will distribute the land at a price. 40 At the time of the end the king of the South will engage him in battle, and the king of the North will storm out against him with chariots and cavalry and a great fleet of ships. He will invade many countries and sweep through them like a flood. 41 He will also invade the Beautiful Land. Many countries will fall, but Edom, Moab and the leaders of Ammon will be delivered from his hand. 42 He will extend his power over many countries; Egypt will not escape. 43 He will gain control of the treasures of gold and silver and all the riches of Egypt, with the Libyans and Nubians in submission. 44 But reports from the east and the north will alarm him, and he will set out in a great rage to destroy and annihilate many. 45 He will pitch his royal tents between the seas at the beautiful holy mountain. Yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him. NIV
Steadfast faith embraces:
God’s Sovereignty (Daniel 11:2-20)
David Guzik concludes:
Daniel 11 is one of the most complicated chapters in the Bible - because it gives such amazingly specific prophecy that was later fulfilled in the rise of later kingdoms that ruled over the Promised Land.
The prophecies of world events and how they affect the Beautiful Land of Israel are so specific that skeptics of the Bible brush them off as being written after the fact. Incredibly, Daniel recorded this description and explanation of what was to come more than 500 years Before Christ!
We start here in Daniel 11:2 because verse 1 fits the previous account. Remember that chapters and verses as we know them in the Bible were not in the original text. The first English Bible to use chapters and verses as we have them today was the Geneva Bible in 1560 (from ChristianityToday.com).
This messenger from God, probably the archangel Gabriel, started explaining this vision to Daniel in chapter 10. We could spend several hours diving into the details of this vision, but let’s try to summarize and hit some highlights.
The time predicted in Daniel 11 took place during what is known as the Intertestamental Period - the roughly 400 years between the close of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the beginning of the New Testament. The Bible does not contain books written during this period, but the apocryphal books of 1st and 2nd Maccabees record its history.
The angel predicted that there would be three more kings in Persia and then a fourth, far richer than all the others. Darius (under Cyrus) was followed by Cambyses (530-522 B.C.); Gaumata (522 B.C.); Darius I (522-486 B.C.); and Xerxes (486-465 B.C.), who was the richest king of all due to his conquest and severe taxation (from Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary).
The scene shifts to Greece in verse 3, starting with a mighty king who will do as he pleases, a fitting description of Alexander the Great. Even though Alexander the Great is such a prominent conqueror in human history and ruled for more than 12 years, Daniel refers to him only in passing because he did not affect the Jewish people as much as these other leaders. The Jewish historian, Josephus, lived in the first century A.D. and wrote about Alexander visiting Jerusalem and treating the Jewish priests and the temple with great favour.
Here’s a fun fact. What do Alexander the Great and Kermit the Frog have in common? The same middle name.
Alexander died suddenly in 323 B.C. at the age of 33. Some historians believe someone poisoned Alexander, while others say he died of malaria or other natural causes. As a result of his death, his officers ruled over the four parts of the divided empire. Even though there were four divisions of the Greek kingdom, the angel speaks about two of them (from Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary). The first king of the South, or Egypt, was Ptolemy I Soter (323 to 285 B.C.). Historians call this the Ptolemaic dynasty. One of his commanders in verse 5 refers to Seleucus Nicator (311 to 280 B.C.). “At the end of some years” refers to the time around 252 B.C. The daughter is Berenice, daughter of Egypt’s Ptolemy Philadelphus (285 to 246 B.C.). The king of the North refers to Antiochus II Theos (261-246 B.C.) of Syria.
Historians call this the Seleucid dynasty.
God was in control over those four centuries of battles between the South and the North (summarized at gotquestions.org). These conflicts set the stage for the coming of the Messiah. The Pax Romana (Latin for “Roman Peace”) is a roughly 200-year-long timespan of Roman history which is called a golden age of increased and sustained Roman imperialism, relative peace and order, prosperous stability, dominant power and regional expansion. Some historians call The Pax Romana a “miracle” because there had never been peace for so long before. The peace and growth of the Roman Empire provided unprecedented opportunities for transportation and communication. As a result, the Gospel of Jesus Christ could spread to the four corners of the then known world.
Joni Eareckson Tada concludes:
Nothing is a surprise to God; nothing is a setback to His plans; nothing can thwart His purposes, and nothing is beyond His control. His sovereignty is absolute. Everything that happens is uniquely ordained by God. Sovereignty is a weighty thing to ascribe to the nature and character of God. Yet if He were not sovereign, He would not be God. The Bible is clear that God is in control of everything that happens.
Do we feel conflict and tension in our world rising to uncontrollable levels in our world? We can take heart, knowing that God is sovereign. God is in control even when our world is in chaos.
Steadfast faith embraces:
God’s Sovereignty
Our Suffering (Daniel 11:21-45)
Kings of the South and the North are rulers based in Egypt and Syria. The focus of Daniel 11 is Antiochus Epiphanes, the ruler of Syria from 175 to 163 B.C., who was known as one of the cruellest tyrants in history. Antiochus gave himself the name “Epiphanes,” which means “illustrious, manifestation,” for he claimed to be a revelation (epiphany) of the gods. His critics called him Antiochus Epimanes (the Mad or the Insane One), a wordplay on Epiphanes.
The historian Polybius, a contemporary of Antiochus, referred to the king as Epimanes. He told many tales of Antiochus’s drunken eccentric behaviour, including sneaking out of the palace to feast at parties with commoners and play his flute. Apparently, he was such a bad musician, or just such an annoying buffoon, that most people fled the parties (frombiblicalarchaeology.org).
Why was the cockroach asked to leave the party early? She was being a pest.
Antiochus Epiphanes was best known for his encouragement of Greek culture and institutions. His attempts to suppress Judaism brought on the Wars of the Maccabees. He committed his worst offence against the Jewish people when he replaced the temple sacrifices. Attempting to loot the temple a second time, Antiochus tried to buy off Jewish officials and stop the daily sacrifices.
With the abomination that causes desolation, he sacrificed a pig to the Greek god Zeus, but the Jews resisted. The Maccabean Revolt ensued in 167 B.C. and found mixed success with some help from the Romans, who eventually occupied the land.
Antiochus did whatever he wanted – for a time. He chose the Sabbath as a day to worship him. He went far beyond his predecessors in arrogance. He did not rely on the pagan gods but his own financial and military might. You could say that Antiochus Epiphanes foreshadows one who is to come that will show more arrogance, yet as verse 32 prophesies, “The people who know their God will firmly resist him.” The King James Version translates this as “the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.”
Verse 40 provides some challenges. Some would argue that the Romans who conquered Syria would become the king of the North (the Seleucid dynasty), defeating the king of the South (the Greek king in Egypt or the Ptolemaic dynasty) and the rest of the Mediterranean world. The Romans would go on to destroy the temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Our modern Western minds like to have events in chronological order, but it seems that verse 40 telescopes or jumps ahead through the ages to the time of the end. The rest of chapter 11 and chapter 12 describe what will happen in the time of the end. Another king of the North will surpass Antiochus Epiphanes in pride and blasphemy against the God of heaven and earth at the time of the end. While the spirit of the antichrist is alive and well today, the Antichrist will rebel through what the Bible calls the beast and have his way for a season.
“The seas” in verse 45 refer to the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea. The glorious holy mountain refers to Mount Zion, the site of the temple in Jerusalem. The fate of this wicked king of verse 36 is sealed at Christ’s second coming as described so powerfully in Revelation 19:11-21:
11 I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. 13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. 14 The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. 15 Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. 17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, 18 so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great.” 19 Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army. 20 But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. 21 The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh. NIV
If anyone promised you that life would be smooth and rosy if you chose to follow Jesus, they were misinformed. Jesus warned us in John 16:33 that we will have trouble in this world. But He went on to promise, “Take heart! I have overcome the world.” The angel warned Daniel there would be more pain and suffering coming for his people. Followers of Jesus Christ will also go through pain and suffering. Thankfully, we can look beyond such trouble with hope to when Jesus returns in His glory to win a convincing victory over the powers of darkness!
Charles Spurgeon, the English preacher from the 1800s, assures us with these words, “When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.”
Do we dread the idea of suffering? Will our faith survive and even thrive when times get tough? We can if we keep our eyes on the Lord and His long-term plans!
Steadfast faith embraces:
God’s Sovereignty
Our Suffering
God is in control even when our world is in chaos.