{"id":18420,"date":"2017-12-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-10T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/daniel-045-wars-are-determined-part-1\/"},"modified":"2017-12-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-10T06:00:00","slug":"daniel-045-wars-are-determined-part-1","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/daniel-045-wars-are-determined-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel 045 – Wars Are Determined (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[72],"series_event":[467],"sermon_service_type":[472],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18420","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-daniel","series_event-daniel","sermon_service_type-main-service","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Daniel 045 - Wars Are Determined (Part 1)","sermon_date":"20171210","sermon_month":"12","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":5234,"sermon_slides":5242,"sermon_mp3":5244,"sermon_id":"121017102263","series_or_event":467,"service_type":[472],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":72,"chapter_and_verse":"11:5-12","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nWars are Determined\n\n12-10-17\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Daniel 11:5-12\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lesson 45\n\nGood morning everybody.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take our Bibles if we could and open them to the Book of Daniel, Daniel 11:5.\u00a0 The title of our message this morning is Wars are Determined.\u00a0 As we\u2019ve been continuing to move through the Book of Daniel we are in that final section of the book, chapters 10-12 which gives us the final vision that God gave to the prophet Daniel.\n\nWe\u2019ve seen chapter 10 verses 1-3, the setting of the vision.\u00a0 Probably the most important thing to understand about the setting is (I have it there at the bottom of the screen) this took place in the third year of Cyrus.\u00a0 The year would be 536 B.C.\u00a0 Once again you might want to commit that date to memory because as I\u2019ll be showing you as we move into chapter 11 Daniel sure knows a lot of things before they happen in Daniel 11.\u00a0 Many of the things that Daniel speaks of in Daniel 11 wouldn\u2019t happen for centuries historically.\u00a0 The Messenger arrives from heaven to give Daniel the vision; the messenger explains what the vision is about and what took the messenger so long to get there, something called spiritual warfare.\n\nAnd then beginning in Daniel 11:2, really through the end of the book, is the vision itself. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve been working our way through beginning last week.\u00a0 The first part of the vision, verse 2, we studied the last time, concerns Persia, the empire that Daniel was serving in when this vision was given.\u00a0 Some very interesting information about Persia would happen.\u00a0 Daniel is told of these things before they occur.\n\nAnd then the vision moves away from Persia to the next empire that would come to power.\u00a0 It would be an empire called Greece and verses 3-4 give some astonishing prophecies about Greece.\u00a0\u00a0 It talks, without mentioning his name, about an individual named Alexander the Great who would come to power around 331 (roughly), if you look very carefully there at the bottom of the screen you\u2019ll see Alexander\u2019s eyes blinking every once in a while, you\u2019re not seeing any illusions or anything, it\u2019s really happening.\u00a0 And I have to say that kind of thing because one time I was teaching a Bible study in the Dallas area and some buy walked in and he had had some problems with alcoholism and those kind of things and I had to assure him he wasn\u2019t having some kind of flash back or something.\n\nSo Alexander the Great dies and he has no heir and we saw how verses 3 and 4 predict how Alexander the Great\u2019s empire was divided into four amongst his four generals.\u00a0 Cassander took Macedonia, Lysimachus took Thrace and Asia Minor, Ptolemy took Egypt and Seleucus took Syria which would include, part of it any, the land of Israel.\u00a0 That\u2019s what it all looked like.\u00a0 Daniel, of course, saw these things centuries in advance, in 536 B.C.\n\nCassander and Lysimachus sort of fall off the radar screen at this point.\u00a0 The whole focus, and there\u2019s so much focus here you\u2019re going to be tired of the focus by the time we get to the end of Daniel 11, but the whole focus here is the Ptolemies down south, otherwise known as Egypt, and the Seleucid dynasty up\u00a0 north, otherwise known as Syria.\u00a0 Why are they the most important?\u00a0 Because Cassander and Lysimachus, in the west, have no connection to Israel.\u00a0 The Ptolemies and the Seleucids do for the next several centuries of history and that\u2019s why they are the subject of Daniel\u2019s prophecies.\n\nAnd what follows then is a section of Scripture that I was praying that the rapture would happen before we got to this section because it\u2019s one of the areas of the Bible that really requires the most amount of study and it\u2019s sort of difficult to navigate your way through it, as you\u2019re going to become a victim of that in just a minute.\n\nBut what is happening here in verses 5-20?\u00a0 It is the history of warfare between two dynasties.\u00a0 Those two dynasties are the Ptolemies of Egypt in the south and the Seleucids of Syria in the north.\u00a0 In fact, those two dynasties in Egypt will take on the name, King of the South, Egypt; King of the North, Syria.\u00a0\u00a0 And it\u2019s a record of how the Seleucids up north and the Ptolemies down south fought each other for about 150 years. \u00a0From these various generals came forth dynasties and these dynasties, as we\u2019re going to see, did not exactly cooperate with each other.\u00a0 That\u2019s why last week at the end of Daniel 11 and verse 4 it talks about how Alexander\u00a0 the Great\u2019s empire was weakened from that point on, because a house divided against itself cannot stand.\n\nSo beginning in Daniel 11 and verse 5\u00a0 you have a history lesson in advance that\u2019s going to begin with 323 B.C.\u00a0 Why is that date significant?\u00a0 Because that\u2019s the date of the death of Alexander the Great and the division of the Grecian empire.\u00a0 And the vision is going to extend all the way to 175 B.C., roughly 150 years.\u00a0 Why does it end in 175 B.C.?\u00a0 Because the focus will change in 175 B.C.\u00a0 The focus will be a man who will arise from the Seleucid dynasty; a man named Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus the IV.\u00a0 He then will become the subject of Daniel\u2019s prophecies in verses 21-35.\u00a0 Why does he get so much attention?\u00a0 Because he is a prefigurement of someone that will start to be discussed beginning in verse 36, a man called the antichrist.\u00a0\u00a0 The coming antichrist and what he will do, we\u2019ve already had a dress rehearsal of him in the form of this man, Antiochus Epiphanes.\n\nBut before we get to that we\u2019ve got to study verses 5-20, the history of the warfare between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids.\u00a0\u00a0 And there\u2019s the list, look at that.\u00a0 [Kings of the south: Ptolemy I, 325-285,\u00a0 Ptolemy II 285-247, Ptolemy III 247-221,\u00a0 Ptolemy IV, 221-220,\u00a0 Ptolemy V, 203-182. Kings of the north: Seleucus (Nicator), 312-281, Antiochus (Soter), 281-261, Antiochus Theos, 261-246, Seleucus Callinicus, 246-226, Seleucus III 226-223, Antiochus III (Great) 223-187, Seleucus IV (Philopater) 186-175, Antiochus IV (Epiphanes 175-164)]\n\nYou say are going to work through all of those names.\u00a0 Well, not all ov them, about\u00a0 80% of them, and we\u2019ll be making reference to that chart as we go.\u00a0 And over and over again as this warfare in advance is described there is a reference to the beautiful land, the land of Israel that these two powers will violate over and over again.\n\nYou\u2019ll notice that the Seleucids and the Ptolemys are located in and around Israel and so they become the subject and the other two generals and their dynasties disappear from the radar sceeen.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because of something God said in the Book of Ezekiel, chapter 5 and verse 5.\u00a0 God says, \u201cThus says the Lord God, \u2018This is Jerusalem; I have set her at the center of the nations<\/u>, with lands around her.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Ezekiel 38:12 says virtually the same thing of Jerusalem, it talks about those who will invade the city and the nation in the last days, \u201c\u201cto capture spoil and to seize plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places which are now<\/em> inhabited, and against the people who are gathered from the nations, who have acquired cattle and goods, who live<\/u>\u201d this is Israel \u201cat the center of the world<\/u>.\u201d\n\nThe nation of Israel is only about the size of Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, probably about 1\/19th<\/sup> or so of my native state of California; the nation of Israel looked at as in the way of progress by the world community.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not how God things.\u00a0 When God looks at the city of Jerusalem and He looks at the nation of Israel He sees them dwelling at the center of the world.\u00a0 That\u2019s where His redemptive program largely began and that\u2019s where human history, until the establishment of the kingdom age will end.\u00a0 Isarel and Jerusalem, in the eyes of God, is a BIG deal, and BIG is capital B-I-G with eight eclamation points or nine or ten after it.\n\nAnd I cannot tell you how alleviated and contented I was this week when the President of the United States moved, or put plans in place to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the historic capital of the Jewish people.\u00a0 [clapping]\u00a0\u00a0 Did you know that in every embassy in the entire world the embassy is located in the capital of that country.\u00a0 Why should it be any different for the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. Tel Aviv, on the Mediterranean coast, is a wonderful city, I\u2019ve been there a couple of times but it is not the historic capital of the Jews.\u00a0 Jerusalem is!\u00a0 You say where are you getting that from?\u00a0 Read 2 Samuel 5 sometime; 3,000 years ago, before Islam even came on the scene, in the 7th<\/sup> century A.D., all the way back in 1,000 B.C. David, in 2 Samuel, chapter 5, made Jerusalem the capital of the nation of Israel.\n\nAnd I believe this, and some of you may disagree with me but that\u2019s okay, I\u2019ve got the microphone right now. \u00a0[Laughter]\u00a0 God has raised up the United States of America for many different purposes but one of its purposes is to help the nation of Israel.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not forget that it was the Founder of the United States of America, the father of our country, George Washington, who in a letter to the Touro\u00a0 Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, after he visited that synagogue, and you can go there to Rhode Island and see this, I visited it, I\u2019ve been there myself, it\u2019s all set up like a museum, George Washington in the historic letter that\u2019s been quoted in about three Supreme Court opinions basically told the Jewish people that, by way of paraphrase, you\u2019ve been persecuted everywhere you\u2019ve lived but it\u2019s not going to be that way here in the United States of America.\u00a0 You are going to be able to worship God as you please, on your own terms.\u00a0 He actually uses biblical language,\u00a0 you will sit under your own fig tree and no one will make you afraid.\n\nAnd we wonder why God has blessed the United States of America\u2014it\u2019s because of that action, because Genesis 12:3, God says I will curse those who curse you of Israel and I will bless those who bless you.\u00a0 [Genesis 12:3, \u201cAnd I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.\u201d]\u00a0 George Washington gave to the Jewish people a gift they\u2019ve never had in human history\u2014religious freedom and religious toleration and exemption from persecution and bigotry just because they\u2019re Jewish.\n\nAnd let\u2019s not forget\u2026 fast forward for a minute to Harry Truman, sometimes known as the cussing Baptist, who was among the first, if not the first to recognize the nation of Israel as a nation when the nation came back into existence in 1948.\u00a0 When you actually study the information about this what you learn is that Harry Truman was raised in the Baptist denomination and a Baptist home and he knew exactly what the Bible taught related to Cyrus of Persia, who we made reference to many times in our study through Daniel, who recognized the Jewish people and allowed them to return to their own land.\u00a0 Harry Truman largely saw himself as a modern day Cyrus.\n\nAnd let me mention someone else to you, Richard Milhous Nixon who virtually is demonized today, I\u2019m not defending everything that Richard Nixon did but I know this much: in what is called the\u00a0 Yom Kippur War, 1973, he got a call from Golda Meir, in the middle of the night\u2014we need help, we need armaments, we need resources.\u00a0 She had tried to work through Henry Kissinger, a Jew himself, Kissinger\u2019s response was well, let the Jews bleed for a while.\u00a0 So she picked up the red phone and went right to the President of the United States; Richard Nixon picked up the phone in the middle of the night and what he heard in his mind was stories that his mother told him as a child concerning the Book of Esther.\n\nAnd I\u2019ve been at least twice to the Nixon Memorial, they\u2019ve got his house set up there in Southern California exactly the way it looked, the Bible there on the desk, the dresser, the table, and Richard Nixon recounts how his mother, a devout Quaker, would read to young Richard every single night from the Word of God.\u00a0 And he recounts how one time she was reading to him from the Book of Esther and she stopped right in the middle of that Bible study, almost like a prophet, and she said \u201cRichard, if you\u2019re ever in a position of power to help the Jewish people I want you to do that.\u201d\u00a0 Which is what the Book of Esther, as you know, is all about.\u00a0 From the Book of Esther and the miraculous survival of the Jewish people we have the Feast of Lots, sometimes called Purim.\u00a0 And so when Nixon took this phone call in the middle of the night that\u2019s the first thing that came to his mind and he said in his conversation to Golda Meir, I finally realize why I\u2019ve become President of the\u00a0 United States, to help the Jewish people.\n\nSo we have George Washington, we have Harry Truman, we have Richard Nixon, and what just happened this week is catastrophic, not in terms of a catastrophe but in terms of something good.\u00a0 It\u2019s seismic, it\u2019s an earthquake, where Donald Trump, now the President of the United States, has recognized that Jerusalem is the historic capital of the nation of Israel.\u00a0 That\u2019s what\u2019s happened.\u00a0 And what you have to understand is this was denied by the world community since 1967.\u00a0 In 1967 in what\u2019s called The Six Day War, June 5, 1967 a war of self-defense, unprovoked by the nation of Israel, the city of Jerusalem in its totality fell under Jewish sovereignty and Jewish control.\n\nAnd it has taken 50 years for the world community, a leader of the world, like the United States, to recognize that yes, it is true, Jerusalem belongs to the nation of Israel.\u00a0 Why do they deny it?\u00a0 Because of a 7th<\/sup> century A.D. pagan religion called Islam.\u00a0 Islam, although the word \u201cJerusalem\u201d is not mentioned a single time in the Quran, believes Jerusalem is their third holiest site, it is where Mohammed allegedly ascended back to Allah on a stead or a horse.\u00a0 Do you know what the horse\u2019s name is?\u00a0 This stuff is so unbelievable I can\u2019t make it up!\u00a0 The horse\u2019s name is Barak.\u00a0 [Laughter]\n\nAnd so ever since that point in time Islam has said Jerusalem belongs to us and they\u2019ve put the world community in such fear that nations have not wanted to recognize Jerusalem as the historic capital of the nation of Israel.\u00a0 In fact, the United States Supreme Court, 2015, in a case called Zivotofsky v. Kerry, you can look it up, indicated that a passport that has Jerusalem stamped on it does not need to say Israel because after all, we know that Jerusalem is a disputed city and we don\u2019t want to upset the Muslims, we don\u2019t want to cause World War III, we want to make progress in terms of the so-called peace process.\u00a0 And President after President\u00a0 after President has talked about, including George W. Bush, talked about moving America\u2019s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and no one has done anything about it until now.\n\nI don\u2019t know what you think about Donald Trump but I just want to say that what he just did is of historic implications.\u00a0 And he put the United States of American in so doing into her prophetic destiny, I believe.\u00a0 He followed right in the footsteps of George Washington, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon and now we\u2019ve got part four where the historic capital of the nation of Israel has been recognized.\u00a0 \u00a0And isn\u2019t it interesting how now the leader of the Philippines is thinking about doing the same thing.\u00a0 All it took was one domino to follow.\u00a0 And isn\u2019t it interesting that the nation of Israel got control of Jerusalem in 1967 and yet it was unrecognized as their capital.\u00a0 We\u2019re now at the very end of the year 2017; why would Trump be pushing for this to happen at the end of the year in the year 2017?\u00a0 Do you have your calculators out?\u00a0 Subtract 1967 from 2017; what number do you get?\u00a0 You get the number 50.\u00a0 What\u2019s the significance of that.\u00a0 Read Leviticus 25 some time.\n\nLeviticus 25 indicates that the Jews were to be released from their debts on the 50th<\/sup> year.\u00a0 Now I don\u2019t know if you agree with my Bible study approach today or not, I\u2019m not sure I agree with it but the fact of the matter is it\u2019s not an accident that he wanted to do this prior to the end of year 50.\u00a0 You say well Andy, if you talk like this don\u2019t you know you\u2019re going to cause a nuclear war\u2026 I don\u2019t know if I have that much power.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you know the President is going to cause violence?\n\nLet me ask you a question\u2014every time the nation of Israel concedes land, like the Gaza Strip for example, like the Temple Mount, going back to 1967, has that lessened violence?\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, the opposite is true; the nation of Israel gave back the Gaza Strip which in the Bible is referred to as Philistia, to the Muslims.\u00a0 You know what they did in 2005?\u00a0 They had one election.\u00a0 Do you know who they voted into power?\u00a0 Hamas. And today they use that as a beachhead to launch rocket after rocket into the land of Israel.\u00a0 In fact, I was on my connections just this morning looking at the internet and that\u2019s what\u2019s happening even now as I speak.\u00a0 From Gaza they built what they call tunnels of terror underground to continue to attack the Jewish people.\u00a0 In fact, my wife and I were in Israel when those young teenagers coming home from school were kidnapped.\u00a0\u00a0 You might recall that story.\n\nNow I don\u2019t know what you agree with me about this or what you believe but I just want you to recognize that we are living in monumental times.\u00a0 I believe Donald Trump and what he has done is has placed the United States of America back into the stream of diving blessing.\u00a0 And it\u2019s so interesting, as I watched his speech very carefully, it lasted about nine minutes, and what did he have in the background?\u00a0 He had Christmas trees.\u00a0 Are we aware of the fact that the prior administration would not celebrate Christmas.\u00a0 We call it simply a holiday because we don\u2019t want to be offensive.\u00a0 And here is the President of the\u00a0 United States in front of these Christmas trees sending out Christmas cards acknowledging Christmas, signing a piece of paper which gives or moves, factually it hasn\u2019t happened, legally it has, America\u2019s Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.\u00a0 He\u2019s fitting into the blueprint of George Washington, Harry S. Truman, Richard Nixon, and I\u2019m so excited about this I can hardly control myself.\u00a0 So I say to myself, we\u2019ve got to make a Facebook live video about this.\u00a0 So we go into the office to make a Facebook live video and there\u2019s so much interruption in terms of Wi-Fi connection we had to cut the video off.\u00a0 So we had to keep the staff over and start the whole thing over at 5:00 o\u2019clock.\n\nSo we did the whole thing, it was a short video, it only lasted two hours, and I was so excited when I got home to post it I hit the wrong button and the thing deleted.\u00a0 [Laughter]\u00a0 So I\u2019m on the phone with all these tech people, can you get this back.\u00a0 And the answer is no, once you delete a Facebook video it\u2019s gone.\u00a0 So I\u2019ve got no one to talk about this with but you and so \u2026 [Laughter] I wanted to work this into the sermon. \u00a0[More laughter]\u00a0 The staff doesn\u2019t know this but they\u2019re going to be called today to stay behind the church and we\u2019re going to make the video all over again.\u00a0 Well, they may not want to go with that but we\u2019re going to make that video one way or the other.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think the devil wants this message to get out.\u00a0 You say well, what does that have to do with your sermon?\u00a0 Basically nothing!\u00a0 [Laughter]\n\nBut it is interesting to me that Ezekiel describes Israel and Jerusalem as the center of the nations.\u00a0 And we\u2019re just living in times that to me are mind numbing in terms of their velocity.\u00a0 Things in terms of the end time calendar are not slowing down, they\u2019re accelerating.\u00a0 And God always told us to keep your eye on Israel and keep your eye on Jerusalem and I hope you\u2019re paying attention to this because it\u2019s a BIG deal, capital B, capital I, capital G.\u00a0 What did I say, eight exclamation points, nine exclamation points.\n\nSo Cassander and Lysimachus \u00a0drop off the picture and now we are moving into just a focus on two generals; the Ptolemies and the Seleucids\u2026.\u00a0 By the way, I should explain this, that\u2019s why I wore my tie today.\u00a0 You say where did you get that bodacious tie with the star of David on it?\u00a0 Israel is the Lone Star State; did you know that?\u00a0 [Laughter]\u00a0 And at the bottom it says \u201cPray for\u201d what? \u201cthe peace of Jerusalem.\u201d\n\nSo Cassander and Lysimachus drop off the map, the Ptolemies and the Seleucids come into orbit or come into focus.\u00a0 We are moving into this section, verses 5-20, to a key transition that\u2019s going to begin in 198 B.C. under a man named Antiochus III, just before Antiochus IV, because Antiochus III is going to gain dominance over Israel.\u00a0 The Ptolemies will sort of move out of sight and the Seleucids will come into focus.\u00a0 Why the focus on the Seleucids?\u00a0 Because of these two dynasties, the Seleucid dynasty is more significant; the Seleucid dynasty is more important because from the Seleucid dynasty will come Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus IV.\u00a0 Antiochus IV is a prefigurement of the coming antichrist.\u00a0 So that\u2019s sort of the trajectory of this history lesson which contains within it a lot of details.\n\nSo we are interested then in the Seleucid dynasty; that\u2019s how it started, with General Seleucus under Alexander the great, taking us to Antiochus Epiphanes IV, who becomes a prefigurement of the coming antichrist because after the Holy Spirit reveals a lot of information about that man, Antiochus, the Holy Spirit will then leap forward beginning in verse 36, to a discussion of the anti-Christ yet future.\n\nFor those of us alive at the end of the year 2017 we are living in between the end of verse 35 and the beginning of verse 36.\u00a0 You say well Andy, how do you know that verse 36 and following is going to happen?\u00a0 Because everything prior to verse 35 has happened!\u00a0 Everything prior to verse 35 has happened with unmistakable clarity and detail.\u00a0 So why would the Holy Spirit change horses in midstream.\u00a0 Why would the past prophecies come to pass is in real time in history but everything beyond verse 36 would not.\u00a0 That just doesn\u2019t make any sense logically.\u00a0 So we are living in this staggering time where the antichrist is\u00a0 yet future and we already have a prefigurement of Him in\u00a0 Antiochus IV, Epiphanes, but we can\u2019t get to him until the Syrian Seleucid, northern kingdom gains descendancy and we can\u2019t understand how that happens until we navigate our way through verses 5-20.\u00a0 As I mentioned before, history here is very selective and non-comprehensive.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit is not writing a book like you would have in a biography or a comprehensive history which covers every detail.\u00a0 It\u2019s only focused on specific details related to the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem because the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem is at the center of the earth.\n\nIn fact, that word \u201ccenter\u201d is interesting; it\u2019s translated in Hebrew from Ezekiel 5:5 and Ezekiel 38:12, it\u2019s translated the navel of the earth.\u00a0 Another way of saying it is the bellybutton of the earth, the bellybutton being the center of the body.\u00a0 As far as the Creator God is concerned the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem is like the bellybutton in the body; it\u2019s the center of everything.\n\n[Ezekiel 5:5, \u201cThus says the Lord GOD, 'This is Jerusalem; I have set her at the center of the nations, with lands around her.\u201d\u00a0 Ezekiel 38:12, \u201cto capture spoil and to seize plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places which are now inhabited, and against the people who are gathered from the nations, who have acquired cattle and goods, who live at the center of the world.\u201d]\n\nAnd it is interesting to me that the prophet Ezekiel prophesied that the bones would come back together and form a human skeleton and the body.\u00a0 Ezekiel 37:11 says \u201cthese bones are the whole house of Israel,\u201d and Ezekiel predicted that these bones would come together, making a great rattling noise. \u00a0[Ezekiel 37:11, \u201cThen He said to me, \u2018Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say,\u2019 'Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.\u2019\u201d]\n\nWould you say that that rattling noise is reverberating today?\u00a0 What\u2019s everybody talking about, including this pulpit?\u00a0 The movement of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.\u00a0\u00a0 Everybody is talking about it; that\u2019s what God said would happen, it would come together with a great rattling noise and Jerusalem herself, Zechariah 12:3, would become a cup of trembling that causes the nations to stumble, to trip, to fall backward.\u00a0 [Zechariah 12:3, \u201cIt will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.\u201d]\n\nToday as I speak all around the world this is all they can talk about\u2014Jerusalem, once a cup of trembling, has now become even more a cup of trembling as now one of the greatest super powers on earth has recognized that Jerusalem belongs to the Israelis, not the seventh century historical revisionism of Islam.\n\nWhat is at stake in verse 5-20?\u00a0 What is at stake here as we study these verses is history in advance; that\u2019s what\u2019s at stake.\u00a0 The things that Daniel speaks are so unbelievably accurate that the people that know this section of history the best, the liberals, they don\u2019t believe Daniel could have written this.\u00a0 I mean, how could he have known all of these things with these myopic kingdoms and battles 700 years in advance.\u00a0 Well, we have an answer for that, don\u2019t we. God who is omniscient and knows the end from the beginning, told Daniel what would happen.\n\nBut what if\u00a0 you reject God and you reject supernaturalism, you reject the idea that we have a Creator and a Redeemer who knows all things?\u00a0 What do you do with verses 5-20?\u00a0 Well, let\u2019s just pretend that Daniel didn\u2019t really write this; let\u2019s make Daniel a history lesson not written by the real Daniel.\u00a0 They call that the Maccabean pseudepigrapha theory.\u00a0\u00a0 Say that five times fast.\u00a0 Pseude\u00adpigrapha is a false writing; Maccabean is this wasn\u2019t written in the Persian times; this was written in the Maccabean times, between the testaments.\u00a0 That\u2019s what\u2019s at stake.\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting to me that those who study this the most, that are motivated by liberal anti-supernaturalism are the first people to want to change the date because they know what\u2019s at stake.\n\nIf you had meant that this was written in which date I had\u00a0 you memorize, 536 B.C., then what you\u2019ve got \u00a0\u00a0in front of\u00a0 you is a book that reveals things before they happen.\u00a0 And if verse 35, up to verse 35 actually happened and we are living in between verses 35 and 36, and verse 36 and everything that follows it into chapter 12 is going to happen as well.\n\nThis information can quickly turn into, if you\u2019re not careful, a very tedious and boring history lesson.\u00a0 There are parts of the Bible that are like that and so when I run into sections like that I usually go to commentators who have what are called homiletical\u2026 now homiletical means preaching, preaching suggestions.\u00a0 How do you turn something like this from a boring history lesson into something that really relates to people\u2019s lives.\u00a0 How do you turn this information into something that people hear on Sunday that they can apply on Monday?\n\nSo I pulled out one of my faithful commentaries, commentators, H. C. Leupold, and he has after every chapter preaching suggestions and I wanted to see what he said about chapter 11, and this is what he said.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t occur to me very much.\u00a0 He said, \u201cThis chapter might be treated in Bible classes but we don\u2019t see how it could be used in a sermon or for sermons.\u201d\u00a0 So this is not going to give people the liver-quiver of the day. \u00a0And so his suggestion is don\u2019t even preach on this.\n\nAnd I share this with you because I believe that this type of mentality, and this is from a very standard conservative older commentator, this very mentality I believe is largely what is destroying the modern day church.\u00a0 The church of Jesus Christ is being destroyed through modern day preaching methodology.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because modern day preaching methodology gets its mindset of what should be done from the Greeks.\u00a0 The Greeks were the great orators.\u00a0 The Greeks were the ones that would put pebbles in their mouths as they went down to the river and give their speech because they figured if they could do a good speech with a pebble or two in their mouth think how good it\u2019s going to be when they give it without the pebble in their mouth.\n\nAnd so what has developed is what is called homiletics preaching, three points and a poem; they like to introduce all kinds of sociological data indicating that your average attention span is 20 minutes so don\u2019t preach over 20 minutes.\u00a0 And in fact, I took several homiletical classes during my seminary years and I noticed that many of them do not have doctorates in Bible, do not have doctorates in New Testament, Old Testament, they are coming from environments where preaching methodology is what they\u2019re emphasizing. and they bring that into Christianity.\u00a0 And as you stand before these professors and give your preaching they start to mark you down if\u00a0 you don\u2019t do something.\u00a0 I was marked down because I didn\u2019t establish emotional proof; I have no idea what that is to this day, emotional proof.\u00a0 Too many references to the Bible, another point off.\u00a0 Oh, you know, you didn\u2019t have an application for this and an illustration for that.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t have your four points and a poem, another point off.\u00a0 See that?\n\nSo we\u2019ve bought into this Greek mindset of preaching and what did Paul say in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0[2 Corinthians 2:1-5, \u201cAnd when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. [2] For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. [3] I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, [4] and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, [5] so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.\u201d\n\nHe said I did not come with the oratorical pizzazz of the Greeks. \u00a0I didn\u2019t come with persuasiveness of speech.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the Greeks have.\u00a0 Rather, I came with a display of the Spirit\u2019s power.\u00a0 And I share this with you to let you know why so much is being chipped away from and removed from modern day preaching in terms of biblical content, because there are certain parts of the Bible where the fact of the matter is you\u2019re not going to get your five points, or three points and a poem here.\u00a0 I can\u2019t teach this with a nice illustration for each point.\u00a0 It is history; it\u2019s history in advance but some of it can be very tedious, yet I am determined to teach this material.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because of what Jesus said, \u201cMan shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.\u201d\u00a0 [Matthew 4:4]\u00a0 \u00a0Wouldn\u2019t that include Daniel 11:5-20, that God put there.\n\nAnd then Jesus, in Matthew 5:18 says, \u201cFor truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter <\/u>or stroke of the pen shall pass from the Law until all is fulfilled.\u201d\u00a0 Jesus Himself, God incarnate, said this:\u00a0 Every word in the Bible is there because God put it there.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter if it personally relates to some level of need in me or not, God put it there, that makes it important.\u00a0 God said it, I believe it, that settles it!\u00a0 And it\u2019s not just the words, it\u2019s the strokes of the pen which make up the letters.\u00a0 The strokes of the pen were put there by God; the strokes of the pen make up the letters, the letters make up the words, the words make up the clauses, the clauses make up the sentences, the sentences make up the paragraphs, the paragraphs make up the books, Genesis through Revelation.\u00a0 The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible!\n\nPaul, in the Book of Acts, chapter 20 and verse 27 says this: \u201cFor I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.\u201d\u00a0 2 Timothy 3:16 says, \u201cAll scripture,\u201d not some, \u201call Scripture,\u201d wouldn\u2019t that include Daniel 11, \u201cis inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 You have to move into chapters like this and deal with them although sometimes it requires more mental work because God put these chapters here; God put these words here.\u00a0 God even put the smallest strokes of the pen here as well.\n\nSo here is our list that we\u2019re going to be walking through.\u00a0 Notice that the list begins with Ptolemy, General Ptolemy who started the Ptolemy Dynasty, and Seleucus I who started the Seleucid dynasty.\u00a0 Notice, if you will, Daniel 11:5, \u201cThen the king of the South will grow strong, along with one of his princes who will gain ascendancy over him and obtain dominion; his domain will be a great dominion indeed.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0Now for each of these I have put together the key bullet points of how this prophecy was fulfilled.\u00a0 The King of the south, Ptolemy I, initially joined with Seleucus I of the Seleucid Dynasty but he broke away.\u00a0 And as he broke away he made the nation of Israel part of his empire.\u00a0 That\u2019s what Daniel is seeing here in Daniel 11:5.\n\nNotice verse 6, the prophecies skip, now we\u2019re talking about Ptolemy II, [285-247] and Antiochus I [281-261] seems to be skipped and now we\u2019re talking about Antiochus Theos [261-246] and\u00a0 you see the dates for each of these members of these various dynasties.\n\nLook at what this says; it\u2019s very interesting, Daniel 11:6 says, \u201cAnd at the end of some years they shall join forces for the daughter of the king of the South shall go to the king of the North to make an agreement.\u00a0 But she shall not retain the power of her authority and neither he nor his authority shall stand but she shall be given up when those who brought her and with him who begot her and with him who strengthened her in those times.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 What happened here?\u00a0 In order to cement the relationship between these two dynasties something happened in history that Daniel saw.\u00a0\u00a0 He saw Bernice, the daughter of Ptolemy II married Antiochus Theos; Antiochus Theos, in order to make this work had to divorce his current wife, Laodice, and the deal was once Antiochus Theos married Bernice any children that the two of them begat as a result of that union would be heir to the throne.\n\nAnd I believe that this is what Daniel is seeing in advance here in verse 6. It says, \u201cAnd at the end of some time they shall join forces for the daughter of the king of the South shall go to the king of the North to make an agreement.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s how you entered into agreements in biblical times, internationally.\u00a0 Typically the princess or the daughter of the king was offered to the other king that you were making the agreement with and people say well why did Solomon have so many wives.\u00a0 Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.\u00a0 And we think well what was he doing , was he doing the Hugh Hefner lifestyle, I mean, what\u2019s going on here.\u00a0 And that might be part of it but really what was happening is Solomon was entering into alliance after alliance after alliance after alliance, after alliance with foreign powers.\u00a0 And he was gaining the benefits of it through all of these princesses who became his wives and his concubines and you know what they brought into the land of Israel, these foreign princes who became his wives?\u00a0 They brought in their pagan gods.\u00a0 And this is why Solomon, late in life, went astray; he was no longer following the Lord wholeheartedly as his father, David, had done.\n\nAnd God, in the Book of Deuteronomy, over and over again says do not enter into an alliance with a pagan power.\u00a0 In fact, the United States Constitution, which is largely built on concepts found in the Bible (I\u2019ve written a whole book on that if you\u2019re interested) has within it a provision where our nation can\u2019t enter into a treaty with another nation unless two-thirds of the Senate ratifies the treaty.\u00a0 The treaty power by nature in the\u00a0 United States is a deliberately cumbersome instrument in arrangement.\u00a0 And folks, I can document this, our Founding Fathers quoted the Bible more than they quoted any other single source.\u00a0 And the two-thirds treaty concept of Senate ratification is right out of the pages of God\u2019s Word.\n\nIn fact, George Washington, in his farewell address, as he was leaving office, and by the way, as you probably know, they wanted to make George Washington king because of his popularity.\u00a0 He said no, I don\u2019t want to be King George Washington because we just left a King George, did we not, in England.\u00a0 Do you want another example of what we left on American shores?\u00a0 And so he went back to what you\u2019re supposed to do, you go back to normal life, you go back to farming and today people are so intoxicated with power that once you get them in office it\u2019s a miracle to get rid of them.\u00a0 George Washington could have been king.\u00a0 Do we understand that?\u00a0 He could have been King of the United States and he turned it down. And as he was leaving, in his farewell address he said beware of foreign entanglements and encumbering alliances with other nations; be very leery of that.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the origin, if you will, that mindset is the origin of two-thirds Senate ratification for a treaty; the whole thing.\u00a0 You can see what went wrong with Solomon.\u00a0\u00a0 I believe that\u2019s what the Founding Fathers were largely thinking of when they put these ideas together.\n\nSo you\u00a0 have this arrangement, Bernice, the daughter of Ptolemy 2 married Antiochus Theos; Antiochus Theos had to divorce his wife to get this to work, Antiochus Theos did something he probably shouldn\u2019t have done because \u201chell hath no fury like a woman scorned,\u201d Amen!\u00a0 Antiochus Theos brings back his former wife, Laodies if I\u2019m pronouncing that right, when Ptolemy II died.\u00a0 And Laodies came back with a vengeance; she poisoned Antiochus Theos, she poisoned Bernice, she poisoned the children of Bernice and Antiochus and this is largely what is being reflected here in verse 6 when it says \u201cbut she shall not retain the power of her authority.\u201d\u00a0 And those that Bernice initially brought from Egypt, they were killed as well.\u00a0 And as you look at verse 6 very carefully it says, \u201cand neither nor his authority shall stand but she will be given up with those who brought her, and within him who begot her, and within him who strengthened her in those times.\n\nI don\u2019t know how\u00a0 you feel about this but it\u2019s remarkable to me that Daniel could have known these things so far in advance.\u00a0 And at this point Laodies who did all of his poisoning, who did she put on the throne?\u00a0 She put on the throne Seleucus Callinicus and I know you are going to be e-mailing me all week to correct me with my pronunciation, Seleucus Callinicus, who became the ruler of the north, and we just made it through verse 6.\u00a0 Well then what happens?\n\nGo down to verses 7-9 and here Daniel is prophecies change, he\u2019s now focused on Ptolemy III and this guy that just came to power in the north, I believe, that I just described, Seleucus Callinicus, and notice what verses\u00a0 7-9 say:\u00a0 \u201cBut from a branch of her roots one shall arise in his place who shall come with an army and enter the fortress of the King of the North and deal with them and prevail.\u201d\u00a0 Verse 8, \u201cAnd he shall carry their goods captive to Egypt with the prince and their precious articles of silver and he shall continue more years than the King of the North.\u201d\u00a0 Verse 9, \u201cThen the King of the North shall come to the King of the South but he shall return to his land.\u201d\n\nWhat happened is the brother of the poisoned Bernice, Ptolemy III, and isn\u2019t it interesting if you look at the beginning of verse 7 it says, \u201cBut from a branch of her roots,\u201d so it\u2019s sort of acknowledging that Ptolemy III would be somehow connected genealogically to this Bernice who had been poisoned.\u00a0\u00a0 The brother of the poisoned Bernice, Ptolemy III conquered the King of the north, Seleucus Callinicus, and\u00a0 you see that in verse 7, \u201cshall come with an army and enter the fortress of the King of the North and deal with them and prevail.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 And as he came he took strongholds; those strongholds, I believe, are described at the beginning of verse 8, he shall also carry away their goods captive to Egypt with their princes and their precious articles of silver and gold.\u00a0 And the counterattack by Seleucus Callinicus would be to no avail.\n\nAnd you see that in verse 9 , the king of the north shall come to the king of the south but shall return to his own land.\u00a0 The counterattack would be fruitless and this is the very thing that Daniel is describing.\n\nTake a look, if you could, at verse 10, now the focus shifts to Seleucus III and Antiochus III and notice verse 10, \u201cHis sons\u201d plural, \u201cshall stir up strife and will assemble a multitude of great forces, and one shall certainly come and overwhelm and pass through, then he shall return to his fortress and stir up strife and will assemble a multitude of great horses.\u00a0 And one shall certainly come and overwhelm and pass through, then he shall return to his fortress and stir up strife.\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting that Seleucus\u00a0 Callinicus had two sons.\u00a0 We know that from history.\n\nNow look again at verse 10, \u201cHowever, his sons\u201d plural \u201cshall stir up strife.\u00a0 One son was Seleucus III, who died in battle.\u00a0 The other son is Antiochus III and this is the throne taken by Antiochus III, that\u2019s what\u2019s being described here.\u00a0 Antiochus III would become, according to this prophecy, and did become a powerful king of the north.\u00a0 Antiochus III took several cities in Israel from a man named Ptolemy Philopater and if you look at verse 10 that seems to be what it\u2019s describing, and one shall certainly come and overwhelm and pass through.\u00a0 [Daniel 11:10, \u201cHis sons will mobilize and assemble a multitude of great forces; and one of them will keep on coming and overflow and pass through, that he may again wage war up to his very fortress.\u201d]\n\nAntiochus III brought the kingdom of the north to the very border, to the very doorstep, if you will, of the king of the south.\u00a0 It\u2019s sort of hard to validate that\u2019s exactly what happened unless you have some kind of expertise in this area of history.\u00a0 And it is interesting to me to note that those who do have this expertise are the first to tell you Daniel couldn\u2019t have known this so many centuries in advance.\n\nWe go down to verses 11 and 12 where now the focus is on Ptolemy IV or Philopater who I just mentioned earlier and Antiochus the Great, or Antiochus III, and take a look if you could at verses 11-12.\u00a0 It says, \u201cThe king of the South will be enraged and go forth and fight with the king of the North. Then the latter will raise a great multitude, but that multitude will be given into the hand of the former.\u201d\u00a0 Verse 12 \u201cWhen the multitude is carried away, his heart will be lifted up, and he will cast down tens of thousands to fall; yet he will not prevail.\u201d\n\nAntiochus III, who was defeated, as we saw a reference to in the prior prophecy, recovers from his defeat and you see that recovery, I think, largely being explained in verse 13.\u00a0 I got a little ahead of myself because we\u2019re still in verses 11 and 12, so let me restate that.\u00a0 The victories of Antiochus III aroused Ptolemy IV and if you look at the beginning of verse 11 it says, \u201cThe king of the south shall be moved with rage.\u201d\u00a0 Ptolemy IV then enters into a major battle with Antiochus III.\u00a0 Antiochus III is favored and if you take a look at the beginning of verse11 it indicates that and it says, \u201cand go out and fight with the king of the North,\u201d who shall muster a great multitude.\u00a0 [Daniel 11:11, \u201cThe king of the South will be enraged and go forth and fight with the king of the North. Then the latter will raise a great multitude, but that multitude will be given into the hand of the former.\u201d]\n\nAnd yet who prevailed in this whole thing?\u00a0 Not Antiochus the III but Ptolemy IV.\u00a0 Look at the end of verse 11, \u201cbut that multitude shall be given into the hand of the\u201d enemy.\u00a0 In other words, the side that was supposed to win didn\u2019t win.\u00a0 And that happens a lot with God, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 God says something and\u00a0 you would think the favor would go to one side because they have more power in a certain area and God says they\u2019re not going to win, these guys over here, the under dogs are going to win.\u00a0 And God does this over and over and over again in history to show that he is the one that\u2019s in control.\u00a0 It\u2019s sort of like when God made certain prophecies in the Book of Genesis concerning Jacob and Esau, and He says there \u201cthe younger shall serve\u201d the\u201d what, \u201cthe elder.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, it says that about nine times in the Book of Genesis, \u201cthe elder shall serve the younger.\u201d\n\nIn the Ancient Near East it never worked that way because they were once called the rights of the firstborn.\u00a0 And God reverses history in sovereignty over and over again and what you discover, and you can track this right on through the Book of Genesis with character after character after character, going to Noah\u2019s three sons, going to Cain and Abel, going to Jacob and Esau.\u00a0 Nine times this happens where the favor did not go to the older, like culture said, but it in fact went to the younger.\u00a0 Why does God keep doing that?\u00a0 Because He wants to show that don\u2019t fit Me into man\u2019s mold; once you put Me into a mold, God says, I am coming out of that mold.\u00a0 And so Ptolemy IV prevailed, end of verse 11, Antiochus III escaped with his very life, but is granted peace by Ptolemy IV.\u00a0 Ptolemy IV should have crushed the king of the North but did not do that because he chose to live a life of ease.\u00a0 You see that in verse 12, \u201cwhen he has taken away the multitude his heart will be lifted up.\u201d\u00a0 [Daniel 11:12, \u201cWhen the multitude is carried away, his heart will be lifted up, and he will cause tens of thousands to fall; yet he will not prevail.\u201d]\n\nIsn\u2019t it interesting that God many times puts things in our path and He says I want\u00a0 you to deal with this now!\u00a0 And we don\u2019t because we don\u2019t want to be inconvenienced and so what it is we are supposed to deal with gets bigger and bigger and bigger and comes back and bites us.\u00a0 This is exactly what happened with Ptolemy IV he should have crushed the king of the North.\u00a0 But he did not do it and instead decided to live a life of ease.\u00a0 It reminds me very much of what God said to the generation under Joshua when they entered Canaan.\u00a0 What did God say?\u00a0 I want you to take all of these Canaanites and I want\u00a0 you to eradicate them.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t say I want you to enroll your children in the Canaanite schools.\u00a0 He says I want you to homeschool your children, I want you to teach them My values and I want you to go into Canaan and I want you to eradicate every single Canaanite.\u00a0 And by the way, I want you to kill off the children\u2026 WOW!\u00a0 And I want you to kill off the women\u2026 WOW!\u00a0 And I want you to purge them completely out of the land of Israel.\n\nAnd you say well, if that\u2019s what God said then how is Christianity any different than Islam?\u00a0 Let me explain something.\u00a0 That was a onetime command that God gave for a specific circumstance.\u00a0 With Islam it\u2019s an open ended command that has never been reversed; in fact, consistent Muslims and fundamentalist Muslims practice that command right now as I speak.\u00a0 But today if a Christian practiced that command they\u2019d be violating exactly what Jesus said in the New Testament.\u00a0 That was a one-time command God gave.\u00a0 And think of the trouble the nation would have been spared from if they just did what God said.\u00a0 But you go into the Book of Joshua and you see that they won a victory but they let this people group settle, and this other people group over here they left alone.\n\nYou get into the Book of Judges and it\u2019s the same thing; they left this group alone, they left that group alone, they left that group alone and contrary to the commands of God, and what happened is as is predicted in the Book of Judges, these people became a thorn in the side of the nation of Israel.\u00a0 They seduced the nation of Israel into idolatry and you have in the Book of Judges 300 years of the cycles of discipline; 300 years is a long time.\u00a0 America has only been in existence a little over 200 years.\u00a0 Think of being under the discipline of God for 300 years, and after the Judges era ended that gave way to a grand total, including the Judges era, 800 years of history, of constant idolatry and it got so bad that the nation of Israel, prior to the Babylonian deportation,\u00a0 just prior to the unfolding of the Book of Daniel as we\u2019ve been studying it, was sacrificing their own children into a fire to satisfy a god named Molech.\u00a0 You would think it could never happen and yet it happened.\u00a0 And thus God had to send the nation of Israel into the 70 year captivity to purge them of this sin.\n\nAnd you go back to the beginning and you go back to what God said to do and how the whole course of the nation, how the whole destiny of the nation would have been something different if they had dealt with the problem right then and there.\u00a0 This is what happened to Ptolemy IV, he did not crush the enemy when he could have.\n\nAnd may I just say to you, that\u2019s probably, or could be what\u2019s happening in your life as I speak.\u00a0 There could be some area that God says over and over again deal with this!\u00a0 I\u2019m convicting\u00a0 you of it, I\u2019ve given you the power to deal with it and we let it go and we let it go and we let it go and finally the problem that we thought we had control over becomes so big that it comes back at\u00a0 us in a frightening way and actually damages or destroys our ministry, our career, our reputation.\n\nLook at all of these things that are happening today in the secular world, regarding sexual harassment, and men in media or in work places saying inappropriate things to women, making inappropriate suggestions, entering into adultery in many cases.\u00a0 And you look at these careers that have been exposed and destroyed because of this and I wonder way back when if there was not some sort of nudge of conscience that said you need to deal with this problem and if you let it go unchecked you\u2019re not going to master it, it\u2019s going to master you.\n\nLet me tell you something, beloved, about sin.\u00a0\u00a0 You can\u2019t negotiate with sin!\u00a0 The nature of sin is so big and so profound and it\u2019s so damaging you can\u2019t negotiate with it, you can\u2019t satiate it, you have to kill it off, under God\u2019s resources, in daily life.\u00a0 And if you\u2019ll deal with that now I think the course of your whole life will be different.\u00a0 Have you thought recently about what God said to Cain, who was contemplating murder in Genesis 4:6, \u201cThen the LORD said to Cain, \u2018Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?\u2019\u00a0 [7] If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, and its desire\u201d that\u2019s power, \u201cits desire is for you but you must master it.\u201d\u00a0 What if Cain had taken\u00a0 his murderous rage for his brother and under God gotten those sinful emotions under control?\u00a0 The first murder in human history wouldn\u2019t have happened.\u00a0 Cain would not have been driven from the presence of the Lord.\n\nSo my exhortation, just by way of application, looking here t Ptolemy IV is whatever it is in your life deal with it now,\u00a0 under God\u2019s power.\u00a0 And I was hoping we\u2019d get through verse 20 today, it doesn\u2019t look like it\u2019s going to happen.\u00a0 So we will pick that up next time.\n\nIf you\u2019re here today and you\u2019re sort of drifting in or listening online, because you\u2019re doing the religious thing, it\u2019s highly likely you could be unsaved, unregenerate.\u00a0 And so our exhortation to you is to respond to the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit has been sent into the world to convict us of our need to trust in Christ alone for salvation.\u00a0 There\u2019s only one sin that sends someone into a Christless eternity; it\u2019s dying and never having trusted in the Messiah, Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Jesus entered human history, He died on a cruel Roman wooden cross 2,000 years ago to pay a debt that we could not pay through our own strength.\u00a0 He has resurrected from the dead to demonstrate who He was, prior to His resurrection and ascension he said \u201cIt is\u201d what? \u201cIt is finished!\u201d\u00a0 Everything necessary to bridge the gap between God and man has been satisfied in Christ.\u00a0 We simply receive what He has done as a free gift and the only way you can receive a free gift in God is by faith, for the Bible says, \u201cWithout faith it is\u201d what? \u201cimpossible to please God.\u201d\u00a0 [Hebrews 11:6]\n\nOur exhortation is that you, if you\u2019re listening, unclear of this do what the Spirit is prompting\u00a0 you to do, which is trust in the provision of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Shift your confidence away from\u00a0 yourself and your good works to gain right standing before God, into what Jesus and Jesus alone has done.\u00a0 And if that\u2019s something you have done or are doing then on the authority of the Word of God you\u2019ve just changed your eternal destiny.\u00a0 If it\u2019s something you need more information on I\u2019m available after the service to talk.\n\nShall we pray.\u00a0 Father, we\u2019re grateful for this section of Scripture and these seemingly endless battles, but we\u2019re grateful that You included this section of Scripture, even though it\u2019s a little bit more difficult to navigate through and understand.\u00a0 We ask that You will continue to be with us as we work through this.\u00a0 Bring these things to life by way of application as we\u2019re going to be making some deliberate applications next week, and help us to absorb these applications and to walk with You this week as a result.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 name, and God\u2019s people said\u2026 Amen.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t