SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/7/2013
10:38 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The kingdom
of Satan
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Dan. 7:8, 11-12, 21-26
Message of the
verses: “8 "While I was contemplating the horns,
behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first
horns were pulled out by the roots before it; and behold, this horn possessed
eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering great boasts.
“11 "Then I kept looking because of the
sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking; I kept looking until the beast
was slain, and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire. 12
“As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life was
granted to them for an appointed period of time.
“ 21 "I kept looking, and that horn was
waging war with the saints and overpowering them 22 until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was passed in favor of the saints
of the Highest One,
and the time arrived when
the saints took possession of the kingdom. 23 "Thus he said: ’The fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on the
earth, which will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the
whole earth and tread it down and crush it. 24 ’As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings
will arise; and
another will arise after them, and he will be different from the previous ones and will
subdue three kings. 25 ’He will
speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One,
and he will intend to make alterations in times and in law; and they will be
given into his hand for a
time, times, and half a time. 26 ’But the court will sit for judgment,
and his dominion will be taken away, annihilated and destroyed forever.”
As we look at each of these kingdoms
we see from verse twelve the following: “but an extension of life was
granted to them for an appointed period of time.” As the first kingdom was destroyed some of
the things that were found in it will be passed on to the next, and so on down
the line. In this section we are talking
about Satan’s kingdom which will culminate in the last part of the last kingdom
through the person that is known as antichrist who is described as the “little
horn.” This kingdom is described in
Revelation 13-19, and will end with the second coming of our Lord to rule upon
the earth after He destroys this kingdom.
This kingdom will actually fight against God and His saints, but will be
destroyed.
The ten horns (Daniel 7:7-8; 24;
Revelation 13:1; 17:3, 7, 12, 16): “7
"After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a
fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; and it had large
iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its
feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had
ten horns. 8 "While I was
contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up among
them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it; and
behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering
great boasts.
“24 ’As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom
ten kings will arise; and
another will arise after them, and he will be different from the previous ones and will
subdue three kings.
“1
¶ And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming
up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten
diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names.
“3
And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman
sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and
ten horns.
“7
And the angel said to me, "Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery
of the woman and of the
beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. 12
"The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but
they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour.
“16
“And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the harlot and
will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up
with fire.”
As
we look at these verses we see that in the “last days” there will arise a
kingdom that will have ten nations in it and out of these ten nations will come
the antichrist who will slowly take over these nations and it looks like three
of them will not want to go along with him and so he will “pluck out” these
three kings or leaders of this new kingdom and take over. Many think that the E. U. is the forerunner
of this, but now that there are more than ten nations in it that may not be the
case, but God is actually in control of all of this and when the time is right
there will be a ten nation confederacy that antichrist will emerge from. One of my earlier Pastors use to say that we
as believers are not looking for antichrist, but Christ who will return to take
His bride to heaven to be with Him.
The little horn (Daniel 7:8, 11,
24-26):
“8 "While I was
contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up among
them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it; and
behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering
great boasts.
“11
“Then I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which the horn
was speaking; I kept looking until the beast was slain, and its body was
destroyed and given to the burning fire.
“24 ’As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom
ten kings will arise; and
another will arise after them, and he will be different from the previous ones
and will subdue three kings. 25 ’He will
speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One,
and he will intend to make alterations in times and in law; and they will be
given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time. 26 ’But the court will
sit for judgment, and his dominion will be taken away, annihilated and
destroyed forever.”
In
his last sermon on Daniel chapter seven John MacArthur answers the questions
that the disciples of Jesus ask Him in Acts chapter one: “6 So when they had come together, they were
asking Him, saying, "Lord,
is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?’” Jesus answered “"It is not for you to
know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority.” As far as the exact date in history when this
will happens no one knows except the Father as Jesus says in verse seven as
Acts chapter one, but we can know the sequence that is given in the book of
Daniel and played out in the book of Revelation. The following is a quote from
this sermon I am speaking about given by John MacArthur, near the end of it as
he reviews some of the points he was making in the sermon: “That leads me to the final point. The Kingdom of Christ follow a divine
judgment for the great persecution by the final ruler of the final phase of the
final kingdom of the nations. What have
we said then? First the kingdoms of the
nations. Then the final form. Then the
final ruler. Then his final
persecution. Then the final judgment. Then the Kingdom of Christ.” All of these things will take place before
Jesus Christ sets up His Kingdom on the earth and rules from Jerusalem for 1000
years.
Now
back to the subject of the “little horn.”
Dr. Wiersbe explains that this little horn is none other than antichrist
and then goes on to say: “The Greek
prefix anti can mean ‘against’ and ‘instead
of.’ The final world ruler will be both
a counterfeit Christ and an enemy who is against Christ. John described the appearance of this ‘man of
sin’ (2Thess. 2:3) in Revelation 13:1-10.”
John
MacArthur describes the antichrist in five ways: 1. He is a political genius as seen in Daniel
7:8. 2. He is an intellectual genius, he
is brilliant. Look again at verse eight
and in verse twenty where we see Daniel speaks about his eyes and MacArthur
says that “his eyes refers to insight.
They refer to intelligence, mental ability.” 3. He will be an oratorical genius. As we look back at Hitler we know that people
would just sit around and listen to him speak for he had this type of
oratorical genius, but antichrist will have even more of it. We have been fooled in this country by a man
who reads a good speech on a teleprompter.
4. Antichrist will be a military genius as seen in verse
twenty-three. He will end up devouring
the entire earth, and we can think of what Jesus said about what profit a man
would have if he inherited the whole earth, but lost his soul. This will surely be true of antichrist. 5.
Antichrist is a commercial genius. In
Revelation chapter eighteen we can see the kind of economic system he set up
from Babylon as all the peoples of the earth are crying at its
destruction. 6. The last thing MacArthur
has to say about antichrist is that he is a religious genius. Remember we have been reading about him as
having a mouth that speaks boastfully, well he will eventually destroy the
religious system that is on the earth and has been on the earth since Cain
brought his wrong offering to the Lord, (a man centered religion), and will
make himself out to be god and all of the people of the earth will believe that
he is god, except those who do not receive the mark of the beast, for they will
have the mark of God.
As
I conclude this section I want to quote Warren Wiersbe who writes: “The scenario seems to look like this. Antichrist will be leading one of the ten
confederated nations in Europe. He will
overcome three other nations and, with the help of Satan, move into becoming the
world dictator. At first he will appear
to be friendly to the Jews and will sign a seven-year covenant to protect them
(vs. 9: 27). The signing of that covenant
is the signal for the start of the last seven years of Daniel’s seventy weeks
outlined in Daniel 9:24-27. This period
is generally known as ‘the Tribulation’ and is described in Matthew 24:1-14;
Mark 13:1-13; and Revelation 6-19.”
We
know that after three and a half years antichrist will then break the covenant
with Israel and make himself out to be god and will wage wars against the Jews
and the saints of God and will then plunge the world into total war which will
end at the battle of Armageddon where just before the world is totally destroyed
the Lord Jesus will return to earth with His bride, the saints of the Church
age and the people who are waging war against each other will turn their
weapons against the Lord who will quickly end the battle as He puts His foot
down on the Mount of Olives where He ascended into heaven as described in Acts
one. The war will be over and Christ wills separate the sheep from the goats
and put the goats into hell along with Satan, antichrist, and the false
prophet, and that will be the end of antichrist forever.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is
comforting to know that the Lord is in charge as I see the nation that I love
begin to crumble all around us. God has
a plan for all of this and I must trust Him to work out His plan in my life
along with His plan for our country.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to trust the Lord to guide me in all
of the decisions I have to make each day.
Memory verses for the
week: Review of 2 Peter 1:1-2
1 Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus
Christ,
To those who have received a faith of the same kind as
ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: 2 Grace an
peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Theophilus.”
Today’s Bible
Question: “Why were the children of
Israel taken into captivity?”
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
9/7/2013 11:59 AM
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