Well, good morning to everyone. It's that time of year where the sun shines in, eh? I thought maybe that tree, when it leafs out, I think we'll be done with that. It was good to see all of you this morning. We are in Daniel 8, continuing through our study in the book of Daniel.

And I'd like to begin this morning by asking you to turn to Romans chapter 8. Romans 8 at verse 18. Paul writes in the book of Romans, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. Because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.

And not only that, but we also, who have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope. But hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, Paul is encouraging the believers in Thessalonica as well. He says, I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words.

In John 14, Jesus says to his disciples, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

When you think of prophecy, what comes to your mind? When you think about the visions of Daniel, as Mark was even reading our text this morning, the seeming complex details that Daniel foretells, what thoughts do you have about prophecy? My brothers and sisters, I want you to understand something about biblical prophecy. The passages that we just read in Romans 8, 1 Thessalonians 4, and the beloved passage in John 14 are all prophecy, promises of what will come in the future.

Prophecy is God telling us what is going to happen in order to prepare us, but most importantly, to give us hope, and we are saved in this hope, saved from doubt and fear and worry. We sometimes get uncomfortable talking about prophecy. In the midst of a study of a book like Daniel, we may think, well, this is all very difficult to understand. It's a little foreign to me, and who knows what it really means and how it will play out. 

What I want you to understand as we come to Daniel 8 this morning is that God gives us prophecy for our encouragement, and to help us to persevere through the challenges and sufferings of our time in this world. Prophecy in the Bible confirms to us that God is in control, that he knows the end from the beginning. This is truly amazing and wonderful, and we see it fully on display in the book of Daniel. 

But prophecy also gives us great encouragement and produces in us perseverance. In 8:25, we just read, he said, if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. How can we have hope for what we do not see? That's faith. But how can we have faith? Only by revelation, only by prophecy about what is to come. 

We may sometimes be hesitant to study, to think about, to sort out prophetic scripture, but let me ask you, where would you be without it? If God told you nothing about the future, if we did not have the promise of the rapture, the second coming, no John 14, no words from Jesus in Matthew 24, no concept of how evil the world would become, how men would wax worse and worse, how the church would be hated and persecuted, and we would die for his name.

No promise of deliverance, of a final kingdom, of Christ's righteous rule on this earth, of a new heavens, a new earth, of heaven itself. If you knew nothing about that, where would we be without prophecy in this world? Just not knowing anything about how it would all work out and how God is in control and what he has promised us concerning the future. That'd be a pretty bleak picture. 

We'd be confused and frightened, worried about all the things going on around us. And I want you to think about this truth to get this truth from the book of Daniel. Think about John 14 and 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5 and all the great promises of God for us for the future. And think about how those truths encourage you, sustain you, cause you to persevere and hope and believe.

How many times have you thought to yourself or said to a brother, Jesus is coming again. Jesus will make all things right. Jesus told us it would be like this. The world hated Jesus, so it hates his people. Just a few more weary days and then, right? What if you didn't even know the then? Where would that leave you? Prophecy is our great encouragement, my friends. 

And the book of Daniel, his visions, these great and profound prophecies were given for this express purpose to God's people Israel in the time of Babylon and Daniel to encourage his people, to let them know what to expect with unbelievable detail and perfect fulfillment in history. And these things would sustain them. And the promise of the coming kingdom and the salvation of Israel would give them hope. 

These things are a bit confusing at times for us because they are not promises for us, about us, or given to us. John 14 is given to us, for us. 1 Thessalonians 4 is directly to the church. Daniel's prophecies are for Jerusalem, for Israel and concern the times of the Gentiles, the rule of the nations over Israel and the final deliverance and salvation of that nation and God's will for his glory in the setting up of his kingdom on earth. 

But what an encouragement they were to Daniel and to his people and how they must have sustained Israel through the times of Greece and Antiochus Epiphanies, as we're going to see this morning, and how they will be fully and finally fulfilled in the time of Antichrist and the second coming of Jesus at the end of the tribulation time for the salvation of Israel and the establishment of the kingdom. 

Think of prophecy in this way and praise God that he tells us the end from the beginning. Let's look at our text, Daniel 8, verse 1. In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, to me, Daniel, after the one that appeared to me the first time. I saw in the vision and it so happened while I was looking that I was in Shushan, the citadel, which is in the province of Elam and I saw in the vision that I was by the river Uli.

Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and there standing beside the river was a ram which had two horns; and the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward, northward and southward so that no animal could withstand him, nor was there any that could deliver from his hand; but he did according to his will and became great. 

And as I was considering, suddenly a male goat came up from the west across the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground, and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. Then he came to the ram that had two horns which I'd seen standing beside the river and ran at him with furious power. And I saw him confronting the ram. He was moved with rage against him, attacked the ram, and broke his two horns. There was no power in the ram to withstand him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled him, and there was no one that could deliver the ram from his hand.

Therefore, the male goat grew very great, but when he became strong, the large horn was broken, and in place of it, four notable ones came up toward the four winds of heaven, and out of one of them came a little horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east and toward the glorious land. And it grew up to the host of heaven and it cast down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground and trampled them. 

He even exalted himself as high as the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down; because of transgression, an army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifices, and he cast truth to the ground. He did all this and prospered. 

Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the certain one who was speaking, how long will the vision be concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot? And he said to me, for 2,300 days, then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.

I've given you five points on your outline: first, setting the context; second, the ram; third, the goat and the prominent horn; fourth, the four kingdoms; and fifth, a view to the end. 

Well, as we come to Daniel's vision in chapter eight, we must first set the context because this is really interesting and vital to our understanding of this prophecy. In Daniel 8:1, it says, in the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, to me, Daniel, after the one that appeared to me the first time. 

I saw in the vision and it so happened while I was looking that I was in Shushan, the citadel, which is in the province of Elam, and I saw in the vision that I was by the river Ulai. Well, we're now in the third year of Belshazzar, and this is a time of great volatility in Babylon. Abonidas has departed, remember, moving his base of operations south and leaving Belshazzar in charge in Babylon. He's not a good king; he's not able to rule.

We know from back in chapter five that Cyrus was coming soon to take Babylon and establish the kingdoms of the Medes and the Persians. This is Daniel's second vision, he says, the first being the beasts of chapter seven representing the four kingdoms of men. 

Just a note here for our understanding and encouragement, in chapter 2, verse 4, Daniel began to write in Aramaic, the common or universal language of that time in that region, and he continues to write in Aramaic until the end of chapter seven. The reason for this is that the visions of Daniel two and of seven are picturing the great kingdoms of the Gentiles and their dynasties on earth. 

These visions and the words Daniel wrote communicate to a broad audience that the one true God is in control and he will come with his king, destroy all the kingdoms of men, and set up his eternal rule on earth. We see something similar, I think, sort of shocking in the book of Jeremiah; there's only one verse in the entire book of Jeremiah written in Aramaic. The entirety of the book is written in Hebrew, but Jeremiah 10:11 is written in Aramaic and it says this: thus you shall say to them, the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens. It's a message to those Gentile kings and those kingdoms as it is in Daniel.

So we see this interesting detail that chapters two, verse four through seven are in Aramaic and now in chapter eight, Daniel goes back to the Hebrew because these prophecies that we're looking at beginning in chapter eight are now directed specifically at Israel and Jerusalem to tell what would come for their preparation and their encouragement. 

So it says in verse two, I saw in the vision, and it happened while I was looking that I was in Shushan the citadel, which is in the province of Elam, and I saw in the vision that I was by the river Uli. Now Shushan was about 225 miles east of Babylon, literally in the middle of nowhere. Daniel was transported there in the vision, and this town was of no significance in the time of Daniel during Babylon when he had this vision. 

It'd be like saying I was standing in the middle of the national forest near Clam Lake, and everybody'd say Clam Lake, what does that have to do with anything, right? Maybe you can get a bad coffee there at that gas station; that's about it. Well, that was Shushan, Nowhereville, but the prophecy before us, the vision, first concerns Medo-Persia and then Alexander and Greece. 

After his victory over Babylon, Cyrus made Shushan the seat of government for the Persian empire. It became the winter residence of the Persian kings, especially Darius I, and was also the starting point of the royal road to Sardis. Under Darius, the city was rebuilt and expanded, incorporating its ancient Elamite and Babylonian foundations into a major administrative and ceremonial center. 

In fact, under Artaxerxes or Ahasuerus in the book of Esther, we see that Esther sat on her throne in Shushan. It was later from Shushan where Nehemiah lived, and he would be sent from there to rebuild the wall and the temple in Jerusalem. So, Shushan was nowhere in the time of Daniel, nothing going on there, but in the vision, in the prophecy concerning the Persian kingdom, Shushan was at the center of everything. This is just a fascinating detail in the accuracy and meticulous nature of God's Word. 

So He was in Shushan by the river Uli. Now the word translated river here is never used of a river anywhere else in the Bible. It's a peculiar word, and what we find is that this river was actually a man-made canal. The Uli Canal was built in the ancient city of Susa in the province of Elam, now part of Iran, primarily to supply water to the royal citadel and surrounding areas while also serving as a defensive barrier. 

It was 900 feet wide and it connected two rivers, so man-made in that time, 900 feet wide. I don't know what it took to do that, but they didn't have excavators, I don't think. So a unique word for a unique river; actually this is a man-made canal. And this is where Daniel was in the vision. You see, all the details were yet future to Daniel, but perfectly accurate to the coming kingdom of Persia. 

So this is our context. Now onto the vision and the ram, verse 3. Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and there standing beside the river was a ram who had two horns; and the two horns were high, but one higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. The ram was pushing westward, northward, and southward, so that no one could withstand him, nor was there any that could deliver from his hand, but he did according to his will and became great. 

Now this is a vision of the yet future Medo-Persian empire, and we see again, as we saw with the bear lifted up on one side and the three ribs in his mouth, that the one side of the kingdom would become more powerful and take over the reign, conquering to the west, north, and south, and become the largest kingdom of this time. It's the Persians who would become dominant, as we see much later with Artaxerxes as detailed in the book of Esther.

Now verse 5, and I was considering suddenly a male goat came from the west, across the surface of the whole earth. Here's another animal, a male goat, coming at the ram, not touching the ground, coming very quickly. He attacks the ram, the ram breaks his horns, the ram cannot withstand him. He grew very great, it says, but when he became strong, the large horn was broken, and in place of it, four notable ones came up toward the four winds of heaven. This is the kingdom of Greece. And the first king is none other than Alexander the Great. 

Now at this point, in case you're wondering if I'm making all this up, or if it is in question, the four kingdoms described in Daniel 2 and chapter 7, as we've talked about, now in chapter 8, how do we know that these are Babylon and Medo-Persia and Greece? I mean, when Daniel wrote this, we're hundreds of years before Alexander and a nation of Greece. How do we know that's what this means? Look at verse 20, Daniel 8:20. I find this truly profound. 

The ram which you saw having two horns, they are the kings of Media and Persia. Well, that's easy to understand. And the male goat is the kingdom of Greece. The large horn that is between its eyes is the first king of Greece. And for the broken horn and the four that stood up in its place, four kingdoms shall arise out of that nation, but not with its power. 

What's that tell us? You're going to have this mighty king, Alexander, in Greece conquering the whole world, then he's going to be broken. Four kings rise up, but they don't have the power that Alexander had. They don't have the dominance, kind of split up. So I just think it's really important for us to think about what God is telling Daniel so far ahead of time with such tremendous detail here. 

So we see we're on the right track. We see Alexander, who conquered the world by the time he was 33 years old, it's said that he wept because there was no more world to conquer. It was with great speed that he conquered. He died young, just before his 33rd birthday, and his kingdom was divided to his four generals. And this becomes important to us in the book of Daniel. 

These are the four kingdoms that arise and will become intricate to our understanding of the rest of the book of Daniel and the prophecy of the end times concerning especially the king of the north and the Antichrist, as we will see in great detail when we get to chapter 11. 

So this vision is of the ram, Medo-Persia, with Persia becoming the dominant kingdom, and then we see Alexander in Greece conquering and taking over and eventuating in the four kingdoms of Greece, Macedon, Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucid Syria, and Pergamon. So we see amazing detail here in the vision, and these things were yet far in the future for Daniel. All of the prophecies of the Word of God come to pass in perfect detail, and we can trust them.

Now what we see in the rest of this vision is a type with a view to the end. In verse 9, it says, out of one of them, now this is out of the four generals of Alexander who established the kingdoms, it says, out of one of them came a little horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, toward the glorious land, and it grew up to the host of heaven, and it cast down some of the hosts, some of the stars to the ground, and trampled them. 

He even exalted himself as high as the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. Because of transgression, an army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifices, and he cast truth to the ground. He did all this and prospered. 

Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to that certain one who was speaking, how long? How long is this going to last, this desolation, this ending of the sacrifices? He said to me, for 2,300 days, then the sanctuary will be cleansed. 

One of the generals of Alexander that rose to power was Antigonus, and he controlled Macedonia, Syria, and parts of Asia Minor, and within a hundred years of Alexander, this region was taken over by Seleucus Nicator, you may have heard of him, and this man is important to us because he's the first of the kings of the north, again which we'll get to in Daniel 11. 

But about a hundred years after this rose a man to power in the Seleucid dynasty, a small horn named Antiochus Epiphanes. He was the eighth king of the dynasty, ruling from 175 to 164 BC. He's a prominent figure found later in Daniel 11:21 where it says, and in his place shall arise a vile person to whom they will not give the honor of royalty, but he shall come in peaceably and seize the kingdom by intrigue. 

He would become one of the greatest persecutors of Daniel's people, Israel. We see in our text that he starts out as a small horn but grows great, conquering from Syria in three directions: south in Egypt, east, Medo-Persia, and then toward the glorious land which is Judea. 

His goal was to Hellenize the Jewish people and the whole region, to make everyone Greek in religion and culture, and from 167 to 164 he brutally persecuted the Jews. Verse 11 in Daniel 8 says, he even exalted himself as high as the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. 

An army was given over; he persecuted; he prospered, and they said this would last for 2,300 days, then the sanctuary shall be cleansed. Antiochus called himself Epiphanes, Theos Epiphanes, God Manifest. The people called him Epimenes, which means crazy man. He set himself against God; he proclaimed himself to be a god, he began a brutal persecution of the Jews, banning their sacrifices, defiling the temple, removing the high priest, setting up a pagan cult. 

He forbade the Jews to celebrate the Sabbath, to circumcise their children, or conduct sacrifices in the temple. Now this all led to the Maccabean revolt, as Judas Maccabees was able by guerrilla warfare to establish some independence from the Seleucids. He was able to cleanse the temple in 164 BC, establishing religious freedom and some autonomy for Israel again, and this is what is celebrated still today in the festival of Hanukkah, right? 

So Antiochus was this little horn that we see in our text; the 2,300 days were fulfilled in his reign of terror until the temple was cleansed by the Maccabees. But Antiochus also serves as a type, a picture of what is ultimately to come in the end.

In the interpretation given to Daniel by Gabriel, later in chapter 8, verse 19, we see this: he said, look, I am making known to you what shall happen in the latter time of the indignation, for at the appointed time the end shall be. If you look at verse 23, it says, in the latter time of their kingdom when the transgressors have reached their fullness, a king shall arise having fierce features who understand sinister schemes. His power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. 

He shall destroy fearfully and shall prosper and thrive. He shall destroy the mighty and also the holy people. Through his cunning he shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule. He shall exalt himself in his heart. He shall destroy many in their prosperity. He shall even rise against the prince of princes, but he shall be broken without human means. 

What's that mean? He shall be broken without human means. In the vernacular, God's going to whack him, right? He's not going to die of a heart attack. He's not going to die from cancer. He's not going to die getting run over by a chariot. He is going to be taken out by God, whoever he's talking about in these last times at the end. Antiochus serves as a type of the Antichrist who will come in full force in the tribulation time for Israel. 

Some of these words in our text certainly could be applied to Antiochus as he serves as this picture of the Antichrist, but it is the final evil ruler who sets himself against the prince of princes, Jesus, and who will be taken out by supernatural power, broken without human means. This was not true of the death of Antiochus, but certainly we read that it will be true of the Antichrist. 

So this vision propels us to the end times, what will happen at the end, Gabriel says. What will happen in the latter times when this fierce king arises, the end of the times of the Gentiles and their domination over Israel? And those amazing events we see when God brings the final day of the Lord, raises up the Antichrist to chasten his people and turn them in faith to Jesus, and then punishes Antichrist and his rule, destroying forever the kingdoms of men in His Second Coming and establishing His kingdom on the earth. Amazing events in the kingdoms of men are foretold in this vision.