Daniel 7:25
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Good evening. I want you to think first this evening about some important dates. Think back through your life, some important dates. Now, I don't mean romantic dates. I mean calendar dates, and dates which ushered in for you a season of blessing. So then what you're thinking about, maybe you're thinking about your wedding day. Maybe romantic dates might be relevant, I don't know. Maybe the birth of your children.
Maybe it's the day you started a job that you really liked. And maybe it's the day you moved here to Louisville. I assume you enjoy living here. And maybe, and hopefully, it's the day that you joined Third Avenue, if you remember here. Days which ushered in a season of blessing. But equally, there'll be dates in our lives, won't there, that brought about trouble for us. Trouble and difficulty. And those dates might be etched on our minds too. Maybe the death of a loved one.
Maybe a medical diagnosis. Maybe the beginning of a period of financial hardship. Maybe a period of conflict. When those times come, sometimes we have to make adjustments in our life, don't we? If you have a medical diagnosis, maybe the doctor tells you, well, you've got to do this and that. Every day you've got to take this medicine. They change our patterns of life. But what if someone were to tell you, with a period of hardship, hey, it's going to be okay.
It's going to end. That medical condition you've got is going to go away. That period of financial hardship you're going through is going to stop because you're going to come into some money. That would be incredible, wouldn't it, to have that confidence, to have that assurance that even though there's trouble, it will come to an end. Well, I think that's somewhere the sense of the passage that we're going to look at this evening. Because you see, for the Christian, there is no promise that suffering in this life will come to an end like that, as I just described.
But there are promises in the Bible that periods of trouble generally for Christians will one day come to an end and they will come to an end on the day that Jesus returns. So if you have a Bible, please turn to page 745. The text for this evening is from Daniel chapter 7, verse 25. It is on the front of the bulletin, but it's one of those evenings where we're probably going to need a bit more than just that one verse. So if you could turn to page 745, Daniel chapter 7, And I'm going to read verse 25.
God's word says this. He shall speak words against the Most High and shall wear out the saints of the Most High and shall think to change the times and the law and they shall be given into his hands for a time, times and half a time. Well, I'll explain some of the details of that text in a minute. But for now, I think the main idea of this text this evening is this.
That Christian, trouble is normal, but it is temporary, and so endure it. Christian, trouble is normal, but it is temporary, and so endure it. And we're going to look at this text in two points. Point number one, trouble is normal, and point number two, trouble is temporary. So first, trouble is normal, point number one. Now, I'm going to give you some very, very brief context of Daniel 7.
There isn't time to go into absolutely everything that's here. So I'm just going to tell you, I think, enough that we'll need to know for this evening. So Daniel 7 is a vision, all right? it contains a dream, and it contains the dream's interpretation. Daniel is the one receiving the vision, and it's an angel who is speaking in this dream. Now, the dream contains four beasts. They're described in the early part of the chapter 7. I haven't got time to go through all of them, but they correspond to the four kingdoms that Nebuchadnezzar dreams of in chapter 2.
So you can go back and read chapter 2 if you want to recap those. And just briefly, these kingdoms are thought to be the Babylonian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and then the Roman Empire. And out of those four beasts that are portrayed in this dream, a special emphasis is given to the fourth. You can see that down if you look down at verse 7, I think. The fourth beast is terrifying, it's dreadful and exceedingly strong.
And so scholars think that that beast might represent the Roman Empire. The beast has got iron teeth and it's got ten horns and is known for devouring and stamping on God's people. And then we get this detail in Daniel chapter 7 verse 8, where the ten horns are described and then among them comes up another horn, a little horn, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots.
As we have this fourth beast, this terrifying beast, it's 10 horns and then just this little extra horn that comes up and consumes three out of the 10. And we're also told there in verse 8 that this little horn has eyes like a man and mouth speaking great things. And we're told later in the chapter that the horn speaks arrogant words against God and his people. And the fascinating thing is that this horn, this extra little horn described in Daniel chapter 7, is thought to be the same character that we encountered in our sermon this morning.
Brandon talked about the man of lawlessness or the Antichrist from 2 Thessalonians 2. Now why is that? Well, if you look at Daniel chapter 7, verses 21 and 22, let me just read those verses. They say, as I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them until the ancients of days came and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom. So the reason why those two characters are equated is because they're appearing at the same time.
As we heard this morning from Brandon, that the man of lawlessness will appear right before Jesus' return. And this horn in Daniel 7 is making an entrance again right before the day of judgment. And that's why those are thought to be the same thing. So we learnt a bit about this character, the man of lawlessness, the horn, the antichrist. We're going to use all those things interchangeably. But in this text in Daniel, we learn a few more things about the activities of this character.
And I want us to look at those together. So we're in verse 25 now, which is our verse for tonight. So first, this character speaks words against God. Verse 25, he shall speak words against the Most High. So this character is out to deceive God's people. That's his primary objective. He might have many more weapons in his arsenal in his war against the saints, against Christians. But it appears that his words are the most powerful.
And so when this character arrives in human history, whenever that is, if we're alive, we can expect a deluge of lies, a deluge of untruths about God. So that will be right before Jesus returns. We may not be alive to witness that moment. but as is common in biblical prophecy these things are all happening earlier as well even if the fourth beast represents the roman empire it's thought to represent more than that it's thought to represent ungodly governments that rebel against god and so we are faced with plenty of lies and untruths about god in our own day even if the man of lawlessness hasn't arrived yet, we can still see some of his work in the early stages. We reminded this morning in the sermon that to counter lies and deception against God, we have to intake God's word as his people.
And so friends, the test will be whether we can recall what God's word says when we're faced with these untruths. So let's just think about some untruths that we might face in our lives. Think about all those advertisements, those commercials that we see on the TV. Things that propagate the lie that the material world is all that there is. That happiness and satisfaction can be bought through possessions.
They can be bought off Amazon. So Christian, will you remind yourself when you encounter that lie Will you remind yourself of God's truth? And maybe specifically what Jesus says in Matthew 6, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. We want to face these untruths about God with his words and we're not always going to be doing that here in church, but we'll be doing that out there in our lives.
What about the lie of the sexual revolution? that anything goes, as long as you love each other, everything's fine. So friends, as you encounter that lie in the workplace, at school, on the internet, will you recall what God said at the beginning? That marriage is between a man and a woman and is the only context for sexual relations. We must encounter these lies with God's words.
So that's the first thing, the Antichrist, the man of lawlessness, speaks these words against God. But second, notice verse 25, that he wears out the saints of the Most High. The saints, of course, are describing Christians, and so maybe he's doing this with these lies. Maybe they're worn out, they're keeping on hearing these untruths about God that they know are false. Or maybe even he's using other weapons at this point. Maybe there's physical intervention in view here.
But whatever this character is doing, the point is that Christians are having to endure trouble and hardship over a long period of time. It's not just one incident. But there's a constant barrage of attack. Much like a country that's experiencing a prolonged war would have to just endure those missiles, those bombs, just constantly. to me this doesn't feel very much like 21st century america but i'm sure if we asked different brothers and sisters around the world perhaps in in some of the countries that our members are going to even this week they may describe themselves exactly like this we're just worn out with this constant attack and so brothers and sisters what should our posture be as we maybe in America have to await this further hardship and trouble.
And I wonder maybe we need to adjust our expectations. Because biblically speaking, trouble for Christians is normal. All through the Bible, God's people are persecuted. It's actually rare to have periods of peace. Periods without persecution, also historically speaking, very unusual. And so friends, we should prepare ourselves for difficulty ahead. And I think particularly in these areas relating to sexuality and gender. I'm sure you've encountered difficulty in those areas already, in your workplaces, in your schools. And there'll be more, I'm sure, in the future, in this country and in other countries too. And overall, my friends, we must not get comfortable.
The Bible says, and even here in Daniel, that God's enemies are waging war against the saints. We're in a conflict. We're in a battle. We might not be right on the front line, as some of our fellow Christians are around the world, but one day we might be. And even if we're a few rows back from the front line, we're still engaged in a spiritual battle. And I wonder whether that needs to change some of the ways in which we even relate to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.
I sometimes feel that the default position with talking with someone is, well, life is just going well, like everything's going well, job, church, school, everything's good. Actually, maybe our default position should be actually that being a Christian is hard. Being a Christian is hard, facing these hostilities, facing opposition. When I'm sharing the gospel, which I hope I am, I'm facing opposition. And maybe we should share more of that with each other. And we should be standing together as brothers in Christ, not just saying how good life is going, but sharing our difficulties, sharing our struggles, sharing our injuries, our battle injuries, that we might be able to heal each other with the truths of God's word.
because that's another thing the man of law does he wears out the saints and third he seeks to change the time and the laws see that in verse 25 he shall think to change the times and the law these are likely references to the the Jewish festivals and the Old Testament law but in our own day we could I'm sure see this in terms of things like religious freedom the curtailing of religious freedom, the banning of church gatherings in some countries. And what we see a lot, I think, in this nation is the calling of what is evil, good. Yeah, we don't currently see this in one figure, that the man of lawlessness has not arrived yet. But we do see it, don't we, all over the world, as various governments, including our own here in America, seek to change what God has established. And so what should our response be? Well, we can certainly seek to change policies
through our voting, through our democracy, through political parties and groups. We can certainly help the victims of unjust policies. But what's our primary weapon, friends? It's prayer. It's prayer. We must pray. It's why we pray every Sunday morning for those in authority. This morning, if you were here, Brandon prayed for Andy Beshear, the governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. And if you listen to our pastors praying those prayers for those in authority, what do they often say? They say, we pray that they will know the difference between good and evil that they will act justly that they will act righteously using the authority that God has given them not authority that they've obtained themselves and so those who are against God may well seek to change things they may well succeed in changing things but they may not
notice how the text says he shall think to change the times and the law so there may be opportunities here for Christians using prayer and other means to influence our governments so three things the man of lawlessness does and that's the conclusion of our first point that trouble for Christians is normal it's part of the territory of being a Christian but secondly and finally trouble is temporary so our verse says that the saints will be given into the hand of this character in verse 25 at the end they shall be given into his hand for a time times and half a time so i want you to notice two things about this first who is the subject of the words the verb given who does the giving who gives the christians the saints into the hands of this antichrist man of lawlessness well i think it's god's it's the implication is that it is god who
does the giving there that is under his sovereign control that he allows the man of lawlessness to have christians for a time but secondly what does this phrase a time times and half a time mean it's used twice in daniel here and in chapter 12 i think and it's also used once in the book of revelation. Now, I've read technical answers as to what it means. I'm not going to repeat them right now. I will tell you if you're interested afterwards. But basically, it means a limited time.
We'll just leave it at that. It means a limited time that what this indicates is that the period of persecution that the man of lawlessness introduces is limited. It's limited. It's curtailed. And what comes next? Well, what comes next is the return of Christ. So what should we take from the fact that it's a limited time of persecution? Well, like we heard this morning, it should serve as an encouragement. It should serve as an encouragement to us as Christians that whatever trouble we're facing, whatever hardship we're going through in the Christian life, whether it be persecution or otherwise, it's limited.
It will end. It's temporary because the day that Jesus returns has already been set. It's not just being delayed and delayed and delayed indefinitely. No, God has set this day already. And it will usher in eternity. And so whatever persecution that we as Christians are having to endure or our fellow brothers and sisters around the world are enduring, It will be nothing, friends, compared to the eternal bliss that is ahead for us all if we're trusting Jesus.
I'm sure you've seen that children's illustration of the long rope. It's used in the illustration to talk about eternity. And the person doing it will often just get up this long rope and then would just say, well, the very end of the rope, this is your life. That's where your life ends. And then the rest of the rope is eternity. And even that is a limited illustration because obviously eternity is forever. And so we can endure persecution and trouble because God has given us eternal life.
And so friends, I think the specific truth, the limited time span of the rule of the Antichrist can speak even into the situations that we're facing now. As we've said, the Antichrist is not here yet. He will come before Jesus returns. But even now, we can think about how this applies to us. So maybe you have plans to go overseas. You have plans to be missionaries, to spread the gospel in maybe places where Christians are actively persecuted. Brothers and sisters heading off even this week to such a country.
How can you go with confidence? Well, you can go with confidence, my friends, because the time of persecution is limited. and eternity awaits. Maybe you're facing hardship at work or at school for your Christian faith. You get sidelined. You get talked badly to. You get called names. You get ostracized. How can you endure that kind of attack? Well, my friend, you can endure it because the time of persecution is limited.
Jesus on the cross has secured a victory already he's defeated the powers of darkness he's destroyed sin and death so we can face trouble and hardship as a christian because we know that the time is limited and if you're here this evening and you wouldn't call yourself a christian i want you to know even from this text that we've looked at that being a christian will not be easy it won't be there'll be trouble you will encounter opposition and hardship for your faith but brother sister it will be temporary there is an eternity which will be one for you if you put your trust in jesus and if you accept his sacrifice on the cross for your sins so brother sister put your trust in jesus have your sins forgiven be on his side and not the side of the antichrist so what's the date that we should remember most in our lives well all those dates that you thought
about at the beginning are good but i want us to focus on the date that jesus will come back now we don't know when it is but it's set it's in god's calendar already so friends let's look forward to it and be ready and let's be willing to face hardship and trouble because we know that he is surely coming back let's pray our father we pray that you may comfort us with these truths this evening lord help us to face hardships and trouble with confidence lord help us to remember that the time of persecution is limited and that one day you will put everything right when Jesus returns. We ask these things in his name. Amen.