Verse-by-verse through Philippians (Conclusion, 4:21-4:23)

Four chapters, 104 verses, 65 lessons. We’ve seen that even though this was a very personal letter that Paul wrote to this one church, what he said can be applied to any church, even to this day. Just to kinda speed-dial through the first 103 verses, in chapter 1 Paul starts out showing his affection for this church that he loved so dearly. He lets them know that the one and only desire of his heart is that Christ be preached. In chapter 2, He exhorts those of us in the church to be united as one body, and to be humble and to consider the needs of others as being greater than our own needs. Then he launches into one of the most well-known doxologies in Scripture. The word “doxology” means “speaking of the glory of God.” And he uses the example of Christ—the eternal God who became a slave—to encourage us to serve one another so that we may show the world the glory and grace of Christ.

Chapter 3 warns us to avoid those who would teach salvation by works. And for this he uses himself as the example, that he was a man who was well-known, well-respected and admired by all of Jewish society. But he looks back and sees that all of his earthly accomplishments were a pile of rubbish, and that the only thing he desired now was to go forward, reaching for the prize that Christ has laid up for all the saints. Chapter 4 shows us a disagreement between two ladies in the Philippian church, and he tells them to, basically, “Knock it off and get along with each other.” We don’t know what the fuss was about because, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter—whatever the dispute, it was bringing reproach upon the church. Then, we find what so many people are searching for today—the secret of true contentment. PSST—It’s in Christ Jesus.

So now, we come to the last few verses in Philippians, and when we get to the last few verses of a book in the Bible like, for example, Romans 16, I commend you to Phoebe…receive her in like manner…Greet Priscilla and Aquila…Andronicus, Julius…Tryphaena and Tryphosa… "OK, that’s done!" But when we actually get down into the text—knowing that these words were given to Paul by the Holy Spirit—when we see the background it shows why these words are important.

Philippians 4:21-23—21 Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren who are with me greet you. 22 All the saints greet you, but especially those who are of Caesar's household. 23 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

When we talk on the phone to our family who may be living a long ways off, how do we usually end the conversation? “Tell everybody we said ‘Hi!’ You remember Johnny Smith? He says ‘Hi!’” Paul ends many of his letters in this manner. 2nd Corinthians 13:12-13—Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. Romans 16 is full of greetings from the saints to the saints. 2nd Timothy 4:19—Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Titus 3:15—All who are with me greet you. Greet those who love us in the faith. And here, Philippians 4:21—Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. Paul is urging us here to make every effort to, basically, speak to one another.

What happens to a church when no one speaks to each other? And what happens to someone who happens to drop in to visit that church? Well, in the case of the little church mom took me to when I was a child, the congregation gets split up, you have this little clique over here and that little clique over there—what happens to the people who don’t join any of these little cliques? Then, on the other hand you have those people that are always looking for pennies. What do I mean by that? They're checking the shine on their shoes. They keep their eyes glued to the carpet, thinking, “Don’t look up, don’t make eye contact. Someone might see and want to talk and—oh drats! Pastor saw me! Hey Pastor, how ya doin!” Then you have the people who shake your hand, they talk and laugh with you, and once they turn around they tell their wife/husband “Can you believe that person? I heard that one time they…” That’s not greeting people.

On the other hand, our friend in the front row here, for example. Have you ever seen him not shake someone’s hand? You’d think you were standing on the San Andreas Fault. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus.

Then Philippians 4:21b-22—The brethren who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, but especially those who are of Caesar's household. Now, you can call me Lucy—because I've got some ‘splainin’ to do. If you recall, when we started this study, we started in Acts 16. We looked at the start of the church in Philippi. The first convert was a woman named Lydia and the ladies who were with her. The next convert was…anybody? The Philippian jailer. Philippi—and I promise, this is the last time you will hear me say this for a long time—Philippi was a colony of—who? Many military officers who retired were encouraged to settle their and flood it with their Romanism.

So this Philippian jailer probably—and I ain't gonna take a bullet for this—he probably had some military background. If that is the case, then he probably heard about The events recorded in Acts 16 took place around 52 AD. The story was still going around about that group of crazy soldiers who couldn’t even guard the tomb of a dead Jewish rabbi in the land of Palestine, and that fell asleep and let the disciples of that dead Jewish rabbi steal the body (Matthew 28:11-15). What dead Jewish rabbi am I talking about? And here is this jailer in Philippi, guarding some of the newer followers of this dead Jewish rabbi, and suddenly, at midnight, what happens? This jailer sees the power of the God that these guys worship.

Now, let’s consider this also—Paul wrote Philippians during his first arrest by the Roman government, about 62 AD. During this confinement, he was chained to either one or two Roman soldiers. Now, when the Philippian jailer got saved, chances are he continued his employment as warden of that jail. Do you think he might have led some of his guards to Christ? And do you think that when a soldier brought a prisoner to that jail, that either the jailer or one of his guards may have shared the gospel with that soldier? Now, the soldier(s) that Paul was chained to, they became Christians at some point—either by Paul’s preaching or by hearing it from the jailer or one of the guards at the jail. Either way, these guys wanted the church at Philippi (specifically, the employees of the jail) to know that they had a bond—that bond was Christ. And it is significant that these soldiers guarding Paul became Christians.

As I said before, Paul probably wrote Philippians in about the year 62 AD. At the time, the emperor of Rome was Nero. It was during Nero’s reign that the first persecutions of Christians took place. Adam Clarke says,

“Nero was at this time emperor of Rome: a more worthless, cruel, and diabolic wretch never disgraced the name or form of man.”

It wasn’t always like that. In fact, during the first few years after Christ’s death and resurrection, the church was pretty much ignored by Rome. Furthermore, Tiberius, who was emperor at the time of the crucifixion, received a report from the governor of Palestine—a fellow by the name of Pontius Pilate—that Pilate had ordered the crucifixion of a local rabbi, and that this rabbi died within hours of being crucified, and that a band of soldiers charged with guarding the tomb of this rabbi reported seeing a great being roll the stone away from the tomb, and that this rabbi got up and walked out of that tomb. Hearing this, Tiberius went to the Roman senate and said, “Hey, let’s make this guy a ‘god’.” The senate—which had the final say on who was named a ‘god’—said, “Eh, not so much.” The fact that we have written history of Tiberius receiving this report from Pontius Pilate is a very strong piece of evidence for the historical fact that Jesus Christ was a true historical figure.

Now, I tend to think—and this is simply my opinion—that it was God who persuaded the senate to deny this request. For this reason—God did not want His Son to be lumped in with a bunch of false pagan ‘gods’. Besides, Christ would have probably been relegated to the lower class of ‘gods’ that were known as the ‘minor gods.’ They may have made Him the ‘god of gardens’ or something. Think about how different history would have been if this had been approved. There would have been no persecution of the church; there would have been almost no way to distinguish the true worshippers of Christ from those who simply worshipped Him A ‘god’.

So early on, the Roman government was not really too concerned about this little movement called “The Way.” It was just a silly bunch of Jews following the teachings of their dead rabbi. To Rome, they didn’t seem to be too much different than any of the other religions that Rome tolerated. They had their little teacher, they believed some things that were kinda strange—you know, humility and self-sacrifice and so forth—but this “Way” didn’t seem like that big of a deal. We see this fact in Acts 25:14-19—When they had been there many days, Festus laid Paul's case before the king, saying: “There is a certain man left a prisoner by Felix, about whom the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, when I was in Jerusalem, asking for a judgment against him…when they had come together, without any delay, the next day I sat on the judgment seat and commanded the man to be brought in. When the accusers stood up, they brought no accusation against him of such things as I supposed, but had some questions against him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus, who had died, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.” What Festus was saying here is that the only “crime” Paul was being accused of was simply about words and disputes about religion. No serious crime in the eyes of Rome.

Nero was emperor at that time, but he had not yet become the wicked, depraved wretch that we read about in history. In fact, Nero allowed Paul to preach the gospel openly when Paul arrived at Rome (see Acts 28:16-31). But, eventually, this movement called “The Way” started growing and gaining more influence, causing Nero to become much more hostile to those of “The Way.” So, to make sure that these people understood who the “real ‘god’” was that they were to worship, Rome would send troops from one city to the next, and bring together all those of “The Way,” and order them to burn incense to the Caesar. They kept getting the same response. “No.” Nero didn’t cotton too well to that. And it was at this time that Nero went around the bend, so to speak. The historian Eusebius, in his most famous work, The History of the Church, says this about Nero’s turn:

1. When the government of Nero was now firmly established, he began to plunge into unholy pursuits, and armed himself even against the religion of the God of the universe.

2. To describe the greatness of his depravity does not lie within the plan of the present work. As there are many indeed that have recorded his history in most accurate narratives, every one may at his pleasure learn from them the coarseness of the man’s extraordinary madness, under the influence of which, after he had accomplished the destruction of so many myriads without any reason, he ran into such blood-guiltiness that he did not spare even his nearest relatives and dearest friends, but destroyed his mother and his brothers and his wife, with very many others of his own family as he would private and public enemies, with various kinds of deaths.

3. But with all these things this particular in the catalogue of his crimes was still wanting, that he was the first of the emperors who showed himself an enemy of the divine religion.

4. The Roman Tertullian is likewise a witness of this. He writes as follows: “Examine your records. There you will find that Nero was the first that persecuted this doctrine, particularly then when after subduing all the east, he exercised his cruelty against all at Rome. We glory in having such a man the leader in our punishment. For whoever knows him can understand that nothing was condemned by Nero unless it was something of great excellence.”

5. Thus publicly announcing himself as the first among God’s chief enemies, he was led on to the slaughter of the apostles." (Eusebius, The History of the Church [Book 2, Chapter 25, sections 1-5], G.A. Williamson translation, page 104).

So when we see Paul tell us that all the brethren greet you, especially those of Caesar’s household, this is no small thing. These folks—whether they were family or servants or soldiers under Nero’s command—were risking their lives and their livelihood and even the loss of everything they owned—by confessing Jesus Christ as Lord, rather than declare "Caesar est dominus"—“Caesar is Lord.”

Finally. Finally!! Philippians 4:23—The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. Some translations say The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. The difference between these phrases, in the Greek, is very small and it could be either one. The grace of God is a curious thing. When we consider the holiness and the perfection of God, and when we realize that we deserved nothing less than His holy eternal wrath because of our many rebellions against Him—the fact that he sent His own Son to die for us is the most wonderful display of His grace.

One of my favorite passages in all of Scripture is Romans 5:6-9 (NLT)—When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's judgment. It’s like this—suppose I break into your house. I come in with a gun and a knife and baseball bat, smash out your windows, tear up your furniture, hold you at gunpoint and terrorize your family and smack your kids around and kill your brother right in front of you. I get arrested, go to jail, sentenced to death. No retrial, no appeal, no overturning the verdict. All of a sudden, you stand up and say, “Judge, I've talked to my son, and he will sit in that gas chamber so that fellow can go free.” Everybody would call him a lunatic. They'd shout, “Are you out of your mind? You're gonna let your son die for that blankety-blank that did that to you and your family?” Everybody would be in an outrage!!

It wouldn’t make sense to us, would it? We’re human, we need to get revenge. Well guess what? That’s what God did when He sent His Son to pay the price for all the times you killed someone with your words or committed adultery with your thoughts or worshipped other gods by your actions. We committed a countless number of crimes against God, and we deserved death. But the Son of God stood up and said, “Father, I'll die so they don’t have to.”

I found these words that were written by a lady named Frances Havergal. They're from a hymn she wrote called “Light After Darkness.” She wrote it in 1879, and it is based on Psalm 46:10, but I think the words apply to this whole letter that Paul wrote to the Philippians.

Light after darkness; gain after loss.
Strength after weakness; crown after cross.
Sweet after bitter; hope after fears.
Home after wandering; praise after tears.
Sheaves after sowing; sun after rain.
Sight after mystery; peace after pain.
Joy after sorrow; calm after blast.
Rest after weariness; sweet rest at last.
Near after distant; gleam after gloom.
Love after loneliness; life after tomb.
After long agony, rapture of bliss –
Right was the pathway leading to this!

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

Jesus Christ is Lord.
Amen.

Systematic Theology--Lesson 9 (Doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ, part 1)

The first of our last two studies in our Systematic Theology. Since this week and next will be our last two weeks in this study, we will be talking about the last things. The end times as they are called. There are people who spend years studying these things. What we’re going to do over the next couple weeks is to take a step back in order to look forward. Remember those 3-D puzzles that you put up to your nose and suddenly those little dots turn into Mickey Mouse, or the Eiffel Tower? Some people tend to do that with Revelation. They see this one little dot and all of a sudden your Social Security number is the Mark of the Beast. Meanwhile, they ignore the other hundred little dots that make it impossible for that to be true. We’re not going to go real deep into end-times prophecy because we could get bogged down in so many details that we’d be spending three weeks figuring out who the third toe of the Great Beast is going to be. Today we will look back at an OT prophecy about the endtimes, then next week we can plunge into deeper water.

First, we will look at The Emphasis on the Second Coming of Christ.


Did you know.....prophecy occupies 20% of Scripture? God spends most of His time preparing us for something before He actually does it. He knows that we foolish humans need a clue or…a hundred. He spent 4000 years preparing mankind for the Messiah—and many people who actually saw Him and heard Him still missed Him.


Did you know.....There are 1527 Old Testament Scriptures that talk about His second coming. Not only was God getting the people ready for the FIRST time Messiah would come. He was getting them ready for when He would COME BACK. One of the clearest is Zechariah 14:2-5—For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then YHVH will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south. Then you shall flee through My mountain valley, for the mountain valley shall reach to Azal. Yes, you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Thus YHVH my God will come, and all the saints with You. Another clue in here about the Trinity. Is it going to be the Father’s feet that will stand on the Mount of Olives? Whose feet will it be?

Did you know.....one out of 25 verses in the New Testament refers to the 2nd coming of Christ?
Did you know.....next to faith, the subject of Christ's second coming is the most dominant NT subject?
Did you know.....there are 8 times as many prophecies about Christ’s SECOND coming as there are about His FIRST.
Did you know.....over 50 times we are exhorted to be ready for Christ’s return. Not to LOOK for His return. Don’t bother LOOKING for it. Nobody knows when it’s going to happen. But be ready for it. Do firemen try and predict when the next house fire’s going to be? No. But are they ready for when they get a call to a house fire? Don’t bother looking for it because it’s going to come like THAT. Be ready for it—because it’s going to come in the blink of an eye. Luke 12:45-46—“But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the [other] servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.”

We were all young once, weren’t we? What happened if mom and dad left us alone in the house? We did exactly what we were supposed to, didn’t we? What happened if mom and dad came home early? We got a whoopin. Or we at least got grounded. That’s nothing compared to what will happen to those who are not ready when Christ returns. Look at what He says He will do. See, the first time Christ came, people heard Him and saw Him, they had three years to decide whether He was real. Next time—in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

Next, The Essentials of the Second Coming. First, Man’s Kingdoms. Let’s take a look at Daniel for the remainder of our time today. In Daniel 2, we find that the young man is an interpreter of dreams, much like Joseph in Egypt back in Genesis. And the king at the time was a man named Nebuchadnezzar. He was a pretty powerful guy. In fact, Daniel refers to him as a king of kings. Not to be confused with Christ, THE King of ALL Kings. Nebuchadnezzar was a king who ruled over other kings. And here is Daniel, a man who loves and serves God with everything he has, serving under this king whose rule stretches for literally, thousands of miles in all directions. The Babylonian empire stretched from Iran and Iraq on the east, through Saudi Arabia, over to Egypt and Ethiopia, up through Israel and Jordan and Syria, into Turkey and up into what we now call southern Russia. Yet this most powerful ruler on earth is having a horrific dream that will not let him sleep at night. So he calls his magicians and seers to interpret his dream. “O king, tell us what your dream was!”

And he basically tells them, “If you're such great wizards, you tell me what it was.” But God told Daniel what the dream was. Here is the dream, Daniel 2:32-35—“You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome. The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” Daniel, who was born some 600 years before Christ, and died about 530 BC, served under some of the most wicked—yet most powerful—kings in the history of planet earth. Daniel has told Nebuchadnezzar, “I know what you have been dreaming; now I'm going to explain it.” This image, this dream, was of course about the various kingdoms who would rule on earth at various times in history. The first four have, at our point in history, come and gone.

The first was The Babylonian Empire. And in verses 36-38, he explains it. "This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold." Babylon was an empire known for its vast wealth of gold. And here, Daniel is telling the king that he is the mightiest of all the rulers of the earth at that time. That who gave him his power? In verse 37? "The God of Heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory." Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn’t Babylon one of the most wicked and corrupt and despicable empires to ever exist in history? What was it that they did to the people of Israel? In fact, Daniel wrote this book during this 70-year period when Israel was captive and slave to Babylon.

Why would God give a man like Nebuchadnezzar such power? He did it to punish Israel for their disobedience. We Christians, in this country, think that God owes us a president who believes like we do. But make no mistake, God will raise up an authority to persecute His people when they go astray. It has happened before; I believe it is happening now. The church in America is drifting away from the truth of Scripture to serve physical needs at the cost of the gospel. So, God is punishing her by giving her what she wants. And one day, and it will happen again when God takes His hand off of men’s evil hearts and lets people do what they desire to do and this world falls into chaos and wickedness and death—much like Babylon.

Next there was the breast and arms of silver. The Medo-Persian Empire. Verse 39a. "But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours..." This second kingdom was not as glorious—in man’s terms—as Babylon. Yet Persia—or as we call it today, Iran—defeated Babylon in the year 538 BC. And in terms of land ruled, was larger geographically and in terms of wealth than Babylon. So what does this “inferiority” refer to? It was said by one man that “The kings of Persia were the worst race of men that ever governed an empire.” As wicked and evil as the Babylonians were, the Persians were even worse. And militarily, they suffered some very embarrassing defeats. The most famous being depicted in the movie “300” that came out a couple years ago. It told the story of Persia trying to invade Greece at a place called Thermopylae. A battle in which it took over a million Persians--and not a little treason on the part of a Greek local--to defeat a force of about 5000-7000 soldiers. It wasn’t just the 300 Spartans; they had a couple hundred from here, 1000 from somewhere else. None the less, it was a rather humiliating effort on the part of the Persian king Xerxes.

The Persian Empire was seated, primarily, in what we now call Iran. Off the top of your head, can you think of any crazy, out-of-his-mind, whack-job lunatic that is running around Iran right now? What kind of love does he have for Israel? Any ties with Russia? So there’s the head of gold and the breast and arms of silver.

Next we have the thighs of bronze, a reference to The Grecian Empire. They were known for their bronze. Here’s the thing about bronze. Is it a pure metal? No. It’s copper, and usually mixed with tin, or some other metal. And as such, the fact that bronze represented Greece is actually kind of interesting. For one, they used bronze in their weapons and their armor, and for good reason. Unlike iron, bronze only oxidized on the outside. It did not allow the layers underneath to fully rust. So not only was it easier to mold and shape, it was more durable--although it’s not as pretty and shiny as silver or gold. The Grecian Empire was known for their excellence with weapons and warfare.

And while they were rather wealthy, they really prided themselves on their military prowess. The most famous Grecian general was, of course, Alexander the Great, who was more famous than his brother Alexander the.....Eh-Not-So-Much. He lived from 356-323 BC, he was educated by Aristotle, and his goal was, quite literally, world domination. And during his rule, the Grecian Empire stretched from Greece in the west to as far east as the Himalayas.

Then we have the legs of iron, this being The Roman Empire. This was the number one superpower that ruled and reigned during the time of Christ. They occupied Israel, they set up their own governors over this little piece of land that was, to them, no more than just another victim of their superiority. And they did, in fact, conquer and crush nearly every army that got in their way. “Inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces.” The Roman Empire did indeed rule over many of the lands which had once been held by Babylon, and by Persia, and by Greece. In fact, at the height of their power, Rome controlled all of Greece. They conquered every nation that bordered the Mediterranean Sea, to the extent that they called it Mare Nostrum, literally, “Our Sea.”

There was a long period of peace under Roman rule, and that was referred to as Pax Romanus, meaning "Roman Peace." Of course, the only reason there was peace during this time was because they submitted to Roman rule rather than be obliterated. Kinda like a protection racket. You know, when Louie the Hammer shows up at your business and tells you, “Hey, ya know, if you wanted to pay us $1000 a month, we’ll make sure nobody burns down your store. Ain't dat right Rocco!” Back then it was, “Pay your tribute to the Caesar, and we’ll make sure that no little band of miscreants attacks your homes.”

Rome ruled with an iron fist. There was not a lot of mercy when it came to worshipping the Caesar. It was like Islam is today. The word Islam means “submission,” and many people—especially those who have their head in the sand—have bought into the lie that Islam is a “religion of peace.” Well, it is, so long as you don’t go ticking off the local Imam, and you don’t say or do anything to offfffend the Muslims. If you do offend them, then things won’t be quite so peaceful. But, if all of us dirty kafirs and infidels pay our dhimmi tax to make sure that nothing happens to, say, the World Trade Center or the Pentagon—then it will be a religion of peace. And although we do not have a Roman Empire right now, we can still see the influences that Rome made on our education, our language, and many other areas of our lives.

Which, in fact, brings us to the feet of this statue, The Revived Roman Empire, in verses 41-43. Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. This also refers to a Roman Empire, but one which has not come yet. This empire will not be come about by military means, but it will come about from nations trying to make peace with one another—not out of a desire for peace, but for what they can get out of it.

Most of these countries would probably have had no prior agreements or foreign relations before signing a bunch of treaties that will make them all buddy-buddy with each other. But what’s gonna be the problem with these treaties? “As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.” Melt some iron, throw in some clay, let it cool and what’s gonna happen? Yeah, it's gonna fall apart into a big old pile of stuff. And in much the same way, you'll have countries like Iran making a treaty with Pakistan; China with India; Great Britain with Syria, and so on and so forth. Everybody making treaties with everybody else. One problem—these nations won’t mesh. They’ll kinda get along, but just on the surface. They will need some kind of mediator between them to keep peace with each other and with the nations they hate already. And who will be that one that will keep peace between all these nations? The one we call "The Antichrist."

You see, the real Christ did not come to bring peace on earth. He came to bring a sword (see Matthew 10:34-35). This false Christ will come, and he will bring peace between all nations—but they will make war with God. So this antichrist will rise up during this time, and bring peace, and as a token of that peace, he will give his number to anyone who will take it. And so long as you have that number, you can go one about your business, you can buy and sell. But if you don’t.....you're going to die.

Now, real quick, I do want to bring Israel into this, and if we’re not careful we could take up more time than we have. Suffice it to say, these nations won’t want anything to do with Israel. For a time, anyway. But this Beast will make a treaty with Israel, let her carry out her sacrifices in the temple, and he will in fact occupy the temple in Jerusalem as though he is God (see 2nd Thessalonians 2:4). I don’t know the exact timeframe this will take place, but it will happen. Because, as we have seen so many times, if God says something is going to happen, is it going to happen? If you want to know what’s gonna be in the newspaper tomorrow, read your Bible today.

So that’s Man’s Kingdoms. That kinda sets us up for next week. We’re not done with Daniel. Next week we’ll use Daniel to study The Messiah’s Kingdom—singular. We will see that He is the stone that dashes this whole bloomin’ statue to bits. That while He builds kingdoms up, He also tears them down once He’s done with them. And we will see what the fate of this antichrist will be. I'll give you a hint—be glad you ain't him!