The pharmaceuticals as well they have finals this week and leave like right the last day of school So they may be in a little stress getting there And mom and dad won't be stressed at all now, especially that we know they're gonna be sharing the gospel with drunk and tourist the other thing should be just fine
Thanks John glad my kids are younger We're in our last week in the book of Daniel and And so we're in Daniel chapter 11 and we're going into chapter 12 and Did we look at that before we do just a I don't you know, I don't think I told Paul to announce this But you know don't think we announced the last service either is this Tuesday we have our Presbyterian meeting here at our church. We do this every couple months and It's the pat churches from the simple Florida region gathered together the reason I mentioned that is Tuesday We're having a speaker come down as a good friend of mine named Jeff White who passes the church in Harlem and is doing a lot of work There's really innovative and bringing the gospel to kingdoms and renewing Harlem and he's gonna be speaking here Tuesday morning And I know you have jobs and different things with some of you can slip away I think if you worked out work your time and you're invited to come for the worship service and in hearing him speak It's I'm always challenged by him and so Encouraging if you have the opportunity to come out Look at the young man in this picture Nice young man isn't he he just looks there joking around with his sister around Christmas time kind of a all-american kid Type a boy that you'd probably want your son to hang out with and if your daughter has to date boys Then I guess you could go out with him and just say you know a good a good guy Seems like he's had a good time. He's happy. The question is how did a happy young man like that turn into this man Timothy McVeigh Because that was Timothy McVeigh as a young man. This is Timothy McVeigh now Here he was a young man happy enjoying his family and now when he is a man who's a mass murderer. This is a man who who Killed a lots of innocent people including babies and considered the death of the babies to be just collateral damage How does a person go from being the all-american boy to being a murderer who seems to show no remorse for the people he's killed? How does that happen? That's the subject of this week's Newsweek magazine. You see the cover there of Newsweek That the covers title is evil what makes people go wrong and It's a it's a chilling discussion of evil. No usually think of evils being monsters and people who are no like Hannibal Lecter type So just the evil beyond imagination what this study shows though is they came to a more Chilling conclusion about evil and that is that the people who do evils people like Timothy McVeigh Ted Bundy, John Wayne, Gacy are not these hideous monsters. What's more chilling about them is? They're normal. They're a lot like us In fact, the article goes on to say this it says in their search for the nature and roots of evil Scholars from fields as diverse as sociology Psychology philosophy and theology are reaching a far more chilling conclusion Most people do have the capacity for horrific evil they say the traits of temperament and character from which evil springs are common as flies on carrion in other words There's a bit of Timothy McVeigh in all of us. There's a bit of Ted Bundy in all of us It's much easier to deal with evil if you can demonize and look at this monster type person and say how did they get to be so evil and Distance ourselves from them. But what's even more chilling? Is there they're they're like us. They're normal They're human beings and the article goes on explain why this is so chilling because an evil is not limited to the fused to the monsters Then that means if it's as pervasive as it's in everyone then what hope do we have the good will actually overtake evil? How do we know that evil won't overtake? I mean overtake good and what hope is there that will ever be rid of it that justice will ever come? It's a very despairing thought. In fact, it's so despairing as the writer concludes the article It's an amazing admission the way the writer concludes the article. She says she says that we cannot study evil too much We can't try and figure it out because we try to figure out evil and understand it will be drawn to the conclusion that evil is Is in a sense predestined and it's destined to happen. There's nothing we can do to stop it in other words Sure, he thought isn't it? The world is evil. We're evil and there's nothing even we can do about it Now, what do we do with things like that? How do we deal with evil as you look at the world and see the evil that a human's perpetrated against one another? How how do you have any hope that good will triumph? How do we know that evil will not overcome? Now when your life's going well, it's it's very easy to be optimistic But when someone violates you when someone hurts you and when you see violence happening Then where do you go for help when it appears that evil has the upper hand? Well as we conclude our study the book of Daniel Daniel learns about the darkest moment in world history in human history It's as a time in which it appears that evil has overtaken and good no longer has any hope And the middle of this darkest moment he gives us a final reason to hope Daniel checkered 11 beginning with verse 36 This is the word of God The king will do as he pleases He will exalt him magnify himself above every God and will say unheard of things against the God of God's He'll be successful until the time of wrath is complete for what has been determined must take place 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 he will exalt himself above them all Instead of them he'll honor a God of fortresses a God unknown to his father She he will honor with gold and silver with precious stones and costly gifts He will attack the minis 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 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 them with chariots and cavalry and great fleets of ships he will invade many countries and sweep through them like a flood who will also invade the beautiful land Many countries will fall that eat him Moab and the leaders of Amman will be delivered from his hand He will extend this power over many countries Egypt will not escape He will gain control of the treasures and gold and silver and all all the riches of Egypt with the Libyans and Nubians in submission But reports from the east and the north will alarm him and he will set out in a great rage to destroy in annihilate many He will pitch his royal tints between the seas and the beautiful holy mountain yet he will come to us in and No one will help him This is God's word and as we look at this final section of Daniel We're gonna look at two points our first point is number one. We should expect opposition. We should expect opposition Here Daniel learns of a king who will become he'll be exceedingly evil This is an incredibly wicked person that the most wicked person to to rise into power and he's won They'll later be referred to in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul as the man of lawlessness John the gospel writer and his letters will call him the anti-Christ and he will be a man who doesn't worship traditional Religions who will not worship the gods of his fathers who'll say unspeakable things about the goddess scripture he will be Man just filled with evil in fact he'll elevate himself above all gods and say Speak of himself as being supreme and he will worship none of these guys instead it says he will worship the god of fortresses Which is a way of saying that he's gonna worship war he's gonna war is going to be his god He's going to give his silver and his gold to making war and to obtaining power and so here We have a man who's incredibly evil incredibly powerful and incredibly violent and and war is his god and through his god of war He's gonna seek to bring everyone else into submission the southern kingdom will try to oppose him And he will squash the southern kingdom with his overwhelming power He'll go in and he'll conquer Israel he'll then move further conquer Egypt and conquer all of northern Africa and there He'll bring it into submission and with his great power in his wealth and he'll continue to make war But then you'll hear a disturbing report from the north and the east and and bothered by this he'll return back to Israel to the land of Palestine And on his way he'll be in such a rage that he'll annihilate everyone in his path And there he will set up his camp between the sea and the holy mountain and there he will set up his camp and there will be the final battle The last conflict the final conflict and they'll be there that what revelation calls Armageddon and it is there that he will meet his in Now Daniel does not give us a lot of details about this figure this evil one this anti-Christ In fact all the scripture gives us a sort of a sketchy portrait of him and in fact It doesn't tell us a whole lot about these events of the end about the battle of Armageddon or or any of these sorts of things In fact, there are there are not a lot of details there But because they were so intrigued by this that it leads to a lot of speculation and so over the centuries many people tried to figure out Who is the anti-Christ and so it's been a great discussion and you can go on internet chat rooms and chat to your hearts content and It's been going on for thousands of years the early church was convinced that it was Nero and on the emperors And they certainly looked like anti-Christ what they did to Christians and then later on during the Reformation the Protestants said it was the Pope and the Pope in response Well actually not in response before that said it was Martin Luther and so they kind of cancel each other out or each the anti-Christ Then this century people have accused each other being the anti-Christ and people tried to figure it out and we've had Hitler We've had Stalin we've had Proust Jeff we've had Gorbachev we've had Ronald Reagan and of course we've had Bill Clinton and so And you know and all these different figures and then of course it's been the great subject of fiction writing and you can make a lot of money just by saying Nikolai and and sell some books and so There's a lot of speculation and it's a lot of fun and it can be you know very intriguing and different things But the fact is the scripture really doesn't give us a lot of information and if there's one thing is Christians that We ought to be doing approaches subject like this we ought to be approaching it with an incredible level of humility looking at the Past record of the past 2000 years for past 2000 years people have been speculating and obviously for 2000 years They've been wrong because all these anti-Christ have come and gone and so so in some sense We have to look at this and say is this what Daniel intended the Daniel and ten for us to start applying that label to every person We don't like and obviously not he didn't write this two and a half millennia ago for that sort of thing He wrote it so that we would be prepared for evil opposition that evil opposition is going to come and it's going to be intense And we ought to be prepared for it Jesus said that in the last days there will be many false pride in me false Christ John says in his letter and John's the only one uses the term anti-Christ He says that there will be an anti-Christ but then he also says but there are many anti-Christ and so what we seem to be picking up In this image of Scripture is that there is this one embodiment of evil that comes at the last day But between now and then there are many anti-Christ who seek to oppose the kingdom of God and the work of God and and we see this clearly In the in the writings of John first John chapter 2 verse 18 says Dear children, this is the last hour and as you have heard that the anti-Christ is coming even now many anti-Christ plural have come this is how we notice the last hour They were at from us, but they did not really belong to us for if they had belonged to us They would have remained with us, but they're going so that none of them belong to us So John says it's the last hour and you've heard that the anti-Christ singular the anti-Christ is coming but he says But right now there are many anti-Christ That have already come John is saying this is the last hour John wrote this 1900 years ago and so the last hour then is the period between The first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ these are the last hour the last day And he said a characteristic of the last hour in the last days is that there are many anti-Christ There may be one final embodiment of it But we're always going to be facing anti-Christ and the characteristic of the anti-Christ is one who denies Jesus Christ He says it's the second John verse 7 Many deceivers who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ are coming in the flesh and have gone out into the world Any such person is the deceiver and the anti-Christ So those who denied Jesus Christ are the anti-Christ Now what's the point the point is that we as Christians should expect opposition to the work of God That should not surprise us. We should expect opposition We should expect that the world and all of its forces to work against the people of God We should not expect it to be easy We should not expect it to be easy. We should expect to face opposition and Chapter 12 verse 1 Daniel is warned then the last days will be accompanied by a time of distress more intense than any other time in history And so what we're saying is as the kingdom of God advances Opposition is going to advance as well now. That's just makes sense from what we've already read in Daniel What we see happening on earth is in a sense an out working of a battle a spiritual battle in the heavenly's and as the gospel Advances the spiritual forces that are at work are going to be Intensifying against it and so the more the gospel advances the more intensely opposition and so as we see the kingdom of God Advancing we find that it's being violently opposed just as Jesus said being opposed violently by violent men And so what we're finding then as at the last days grow and we've on the gospel spreads that the opposition grows even more intense And so we should expect them there to be difficulties and we should expect opposition Now this goes against what we would like to think We would like to think that you know if I'm doing the work of God If I'm in the will of God then God is going to bless me and therefore if I'm doing what God wants then God is going to clear the path And we'll know that God's hand up is upon us because he's opening up the way before us and so what we look for then It was that sort of thoughts we're looking for sort of an ease We know God's in a will because God's gone through and cleared out a path And so we're expecting things to be easy But Daniel is saying though that that's not the case that those who are faithful to God will be punished by the antichrist But those who are not faithful to God will be rewarded and so in other words, you should expect the more innocents faithful yard to God the more intense the opposition Suffering an opposition are part and parcel to the Christian experience And that's why it's important to realize you cannot judge whether or not a course of action you're taking is correct By the absence or the presence of opposition because something is difficult doesn't mean it's wrong Because you're finding hardship doesn't mean you're on the wrong course In fact, it may mean you're on the right course because what we're seeing is there's antichrist that opposes the work of God and every turn in and every path So first John for three tells us that the spirit of antichrist is already at work in the world and that means That the spirit of antichrist has been at work since the foundation of the church opposing the church opposing everything that's gone on And so we've seen many antichrist and Tychus epiphanies that we've learned so much about in the book of Daniel was a type of antichrist Nero and the emperors clearly were antichrist and what they did to the to the early Christians Hitler Stalin these aren't our antichrist, but one day there be a final embodiment of antichrist He'll be worse than all the others, but still in the meantime we face antichrist and the story of the church Is the story of opposition difficulty persecution and suffering? Thank for a moment of church history. Let me give you a cliff note version the founder murdered Okay, start off with Jesus put only cross murdered what happened to his disciples He had 12 one of them was entered by the devil and betrayed him that spiritual opposition the other 11 of the other 11 What we know from tradition is that John is the only one who died a natural death But he did so as a prisoner exiled on the alley in a patmos not exactly an easy life the other 10 all died Death to martyrs the early Christians besides the apostles what happened to them? Fed to the lions why because they were not faithful to God God didn't bless them. No They're fed to the lions because they were faithful to God Nero what did he do with the Christians? He used them as torches in his into light light up Rome Why because the Christians weren't faithful to God? No because they were faithful to God Go on through a history the council of NYSEA in the 4th century. There are 318 people there gathered They are the ones who ended up writing the NYSEAN creed that some of you might be familiar with of the 318 people Only 12 of them had not lost an eye or lost a limb or walked with a limb due to persecution that they suffered for the sake of being Christians Did they suffer because they God was not blessing them? No, they suffered because they were faithful to God Suffering and persecution has always been a part of the Christian life. Go to the Reformation just before the Reformation John Hus and Prague Burned at the stake for preaching the gospel later on John Wickliffe translates the Bible into English and for that after he died They brought up his bones and burned them as scattered as ashes John Knox who founded the Presbyterian Church Was as synops as a slave on a galley ship as a galley slave rowing in there for years because he was defending the rights of the gospel And and you go all the way through the history of the church That is that of suffering John Bunyan. How did he write Pugans progress? Because he's a Baptist minister thrown in prison for being well a Baptist minister and he's thrown in prison And that's how he had all the time to write Pugans progress the church is always faced opposition and so we should expect Opposition we should expect the advancement of the kingdom of God to be opposed to be difficult We don't expect the kingdom of this world simply to step aside and so and so we should not be discouraged when you see Opposition to think maybe I'm on the wrong path. Maybe it's not the right direction Maybe this isn't where we should go. Not at all the presence of opposition is oftentimes a confirmation Not always but oftentimes a confirmation So we should expect it, but that's not only thing we should expect we should expect opposition But that's always should expect we'd leave here depressed That I mean obviously there's got to be more to it than that and there is point two is we should expect victory We should expect victory Chapter 12 verse 1 At that time Michael the great prince who protects your people will arise There will be a time of distress such as not happen from the beginning of nations until then But at that time your people everyone whose name is found written in the book will be delivered Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake some to everlasting life others to shame and everlasting contempt Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever But you Daniel close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end many will go here and there to increase the knowledge It's a God's word But Daniel finds out is that God is not going to abandon his people He is not going to desert them. Yes, they're gonna face opposition Yes, there will be hardship, but God is not going to leave his people high and dry You read in 121 that everyone whose name is written in the book of life will be saved God is not going to lose any of those for whom Christ died none of them will be lost Even those who have already died will not be left in defeat They will rise to everlasting life while those who are opposed to God will rise to what ever lasting contempt and so What we see then is that there will be opposition, but the bottom line is in the end the battle belongs to the Lord I think what tends to happen is when we face opposition when we face hardship we face suffering There's a tendency for us to get discouraged and we begin to question Am I on the right course, but you're more so where is God? Is he real? Is he for me or is he against me? Is this all true and is the suffering worth it? Should I put up with all this I should I this is no fun being persecuted Why bother suffering for the cause of Christ wouldn't I be better off just dropping the whole thing and those are the type of questions The Christians have asked through the ages and as Christians have asked those through the ages when persecution has come It's served as a winnowing effect on the church many have fallen away because they said no It's not worth it. It's not worth the pain. It's not worth the sacrifice It's not worth the suffering and so the question is why should we endure pain and suffering for the cause of Christ? Well, the reason is what he shows us is that ultimately We have to trust God that God is going to provide for his children Ultimately our suffering will be worth it ultimately what we receive is better than what we lose The book of Job is about suffering you're familiar with the book of Job you know what he went through how His children were all killed how his wealth was taken away how his health was taken away and you find Job Stitting there on a pile of ashes Covered with boils and great pain and discomfort his wife comes up to him and says Job Get a clue curse God so they don't kill you put you out of your misery. He obviously hates you anyway Just go ahead and get it over with and so Job is obviously Miscible in this incredible testimony of faith as he sits there in his misery. He says this He says though he slay me Still I will trust him Though he slay me Job saying even if God kills me, I will trust him. How can he say that? He can say that because he knows that God is a good God who does not abandon his children Ultimately justice will prevail. He says it because he trusts God look at what Daniel here's in verse three Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever That those who remain faithful to God who trust in Jesus Christ are gonna be like the brightness of the heavens and those who lead people to Christ He's setting me like the stars in the heavens and it gets this incredible promise He says yes, you will endure suffering Yes, you'll endure hardship. Yes, it will be difficult but in the end in the end you win There's a lot of talk about in times revelation. Who's the any Christ? When's the great tribulation happening? Is there a rapture or what's that all about and there's all sorts of speculation? But you know one thing all Christians agree on when you read the book of Revelation and you read the book of Daniel the bottom line is this God wins God wins and that's where Daniel's pointing us to there will be time of suffering but in the end we know how the story ends and That is we win now Now what do we do with all that? How do we deal with this? What are we supposed to take away what this does for us? Is it gives us a sense of peace? We can live at peace regardless of the circumstances Now it tells us that there's meaning and purpose to our lives We live in a generation today where people are beyond cynical Boomers were cynical the people that followed boomers are beyond cynical They can reach the level of cynicism because they look at life and they say what's it up They only ask the question you more what's it all about because they've already come to the conclusion It's not about anything. It's a joke. It's a it's just those series of random events I mean and if you've been taught the life began with nothing It's big bang and it's gonna end in nothing with another big bang or something of that sort Then if it begins with nothing and ends in nothing then what do you have in the middle? Well nothing It says nothing and so if you've been taught this all your life then of course there is no story through life Then life is simply a series of random events earthquakes happen. That's life hurricanes. That's life You have a baby. That's life. You get married. That's life. Get cancer. That's life. Everything. Well, that's life It just doesn't mean anything. It's just a series of events. There's no story to it What Daniel shows us is that there is a great story that the God is the author of history and he's writing a story And it's a story about God glorifying himself by bringing a people to himself where God sets his love upon a people and And he goes to great lengths to rescue them and save them and he does not abandon them Even when he gets to the darkest hour the victory still belongs to him He gives us a story and if there's one great story that means that our lives our stories Fit in that story and that they have meaning and purpose that that my life then this pain in the suffering that I endure or the good things That I enjoy are not just random events but are they're part of the great story that God is telling than they have meaning and they have Purpose and so we look at this and we say then I know how my story ends. I know how the story ends It ends with God winning victory and that gives us hope and what Daniel shows us then Because the story ends it doesn't matter how bad it gets between now and the ending We know the ending and make it dark and make it so dark that it looks like evil is going to win and make it so dark That it looks like goodness is going to be eradicated from the earth But we know even then that the victory still belongs to God and so we can relax There's still time left for God to win the game. I'm a basketball fan and I love March Madness I love the NBA playoffs and I just I could sit there all day and watch basketball It's just to me it's just fun and I remember 1995 a playoff game. I will never forget It was the Indiana Pacers against the New York Knicks and they were in Madison Square Garden And those are your basketball fans probably remember this the score was 106 to 99 the Knicks are ahead there at home and there's 8.9 seconds left now You don't have to know a lot about basketball to know those that no one baskets were two points at the most three points There's 8.9 seconds left if you score basket the other team gets the point There's no way to come back from a 6-point deficit with 8.9 seconds left You can't win games over people started filing out it's you know it's games over Not this time Reggie Miller steals the ball shoots boom boom boom eight points in 8.9 seconds They win the game. It was incredible. It was it was the most amazing basketball game I have ever seen you expect that sort of thing to happen to pee we basketball well 8 points They point 9 seconds probably not but you don't expect that sort of thing to happen To the pros it was incredible and what it shows is the game ain't over till it's over and what the story of Daniel's telling us that it doesn't matter how dark it gets It's not over till it's over if there's 8.9 seconds left in the history of the earth guy can still pull it out and he will The victory belongs to the Lord what that means then when he starts getting dark And I think the world is coming to the end and it looks like evil is going to end. There's a sense in which you can say I know the ending. I've seen this movie I know what happens next. I know it's going on going on And there's a sense in which we have peace and what that does to us also is it gives us a sense of peace in the way that we live our lives because it gives us the ability to live with Contentment We spend so much of our energy trying to give our lives meaning of purpose and happiness and we look at life and we say if I'm going to be Happy if I'm going to have meaning if I'm going to have purpose then I'm going to have to grab it and when I grab it I got a hold on to it because if I lose it I'm going to lose my purpose and I'm going to lose my happiness and so if we attain wealth we cling to our wealth and we're afraid that we're going to lose our wealth because with it will lose our happiness. If we obtain success we're fearful that we might lose our success so we cling to it and so you know when the stock market is going well we're relaxed. Now last year I thought we'd all be millionaires by the time we retired. This year I think we're all going to be working after we retire because you look at that and you begin to get anxious. Last year the job market was pretty secure. Now all of a sudden the job market's a little sketchy out there and we start to get up tight because we think oh no what's going to happen to me. But when we begin to realize that yes there are dark days ahead but in the end we'll be shining like the stars. He said okay I can endure the dark days because I know what happens in the end I can make it and it gives us a sense of Contentment. The Apostle Paul wrote about this he said I've learned to be content with all things whether I have plenty or whether I'm in want I can be content with all things whether I have a lot or nothing why because I can do all things through him who strengthens me. He knew the end of the story and there's a sense of which we can have contentment and peace no matter what storm is going on because we know how the story ends. Many people would call John Coistra a genius. He graduated from the top of his class began working for the power company by age 27. He was the vice president. He had bought one house, paid it off, sold it and bought another bigger house. His new house was right across the street from Geno Polucci. Geno Polucci owns a Chung team and Geno's pizza. So in other words John Coistra had pretty much moved up in the world when you live in the neighborhood of someone like that. But he was 27 years old, had the world by the tail, rich, powerful, moving up quickly but he was also very fearful and very afraid, incredibly insecure. And because of his insecurity he held on to everything very tightly. He wouldn't let his wealth go, he wouldn't let anything go because he was fearful of losing everything. At age 27 he got the bad news. All of his fears were realized. He went to the doctor, the doctor said it's cancer. Here's a man who's fearful of losing everything, who just got the word that he's about to lose everything. He's going to die. But it's something interesting happened to Coistra at that point. Instead of being fearful suddenly he was liberated. And because of that that he was liberated no longer was he afraid of losing everything because in a sense he knew he already was going to lose everything. And the last report that I heard was that he was still alive, still has cancer in his poor. I dirt poor from what I heard. He no longer lives in exclusive neighborhood. He no longer lives in fear. But he's happier than he ever was when he had all his money. And the difference is that now Coistra not saying you have to do this to be happy but now Coistra is a missionary and he realizes that the only thing that he ever needed to be happy was Jesus Christ and that's all that ever took. He's finding his security in Christ not in his possessions and it's given him an incredible sense of peace. When we begin to realize that our hope and our happiness is in the kingdom of God and not the kingdom of this world it allows us to be secure no matter what's going on around us. And of course we see this in Jesus Christ where the right of Hebrews tells us let us fix our eyes on Jesus the author and perfect of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from simple men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Christ endured opposition he faced anti Christ people they killed him and yet we see what has happened to him how he's risen victorious and that's our hope as well. Jesus said in this world you will have trouble but take heart I have overcome the world let's pray.