In our focus on Daniel, I’ve entitled this message God the Sovereign Savior and Judge, and I’m going to attempt to preach through Chapter 8 this morning and we’ll see how it goes as we dive into this grand chapter that goes just directly after Chapter 7. Remember Chapter 7 was as massive outlay of… of all of history, and now we’re diving into this chapter. If you’ve been watching the news lately, you would have seen an increased rise of anti-Semitism in the world. There’s an anti-Jewish refrain happening on a tremendous amount of media. Nationally, people are rallying, especially from a muslim background and proclaiming their open hatred towards Israel.
Satan, by the way, is called the great accuser is also called the tempter, the deceiver, the murderer of God’s people. And to that this morning I wanna add this term, the persecutor of God’s chosen people, Israel. Satan is behind a lot of what’s happening here. In Revelations 12: 13… Revelations Chapter 12, gives us a picture of how Satan interacts with the world through world history, and one of the things that we read in verse 13 of Revelations 12 is that when the Dragon saw that had been thrown down to the earth. He pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child, and here it reveals Satan’s last effort to destroy Israel. The dragon here being satan. The woman Israel and the male child, the Messiah.
Now when you read through the Bible, you will discover a whole number of attempts of Satan trying to destroy Israel. In Egypt, Pharaoh tried by seeking the death of all of Israel’s male children.
The Syrian empire nearly wiped-out Israel as they conquered all the northern tribes, and they’d come up to… to surrounding Jerusalem, and God… had God not prevented it, he would have succeeded.
We read about that in Isaiah 36 through 39. How God then sends an Angel to protect Israel, killing. I don’t know. It’s over 100,000 Assyrians in one night.
In the book of Esther under the Persian Empire, Hannah sought thought the death… sought the death of the Jews and through God’s Providence and Esther they were saved.
In AD70 The Romans killed more than a million Jews. Jews were being persecuted and crucified the Roman Catholic Church taught that the Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Christ and in the sense that is true. But the Romans were also responsible, but ultimately God was responsible. He caused the death of his own son so that you and I can have salvation.
In 1096, in the first crusades, the Knights were unleashed or unleashed waves of anti-Semitic violence in France and even massacred many Jews.
And 1290 onwards, many Jews were expelled from various countries. In 1492, with the Spanish Inquisition, many Jews were expelled. Many were killed.
Martin Luther initially expressed positive feeling towards the Jews, but later began to hate them over their rejection of Christ and the gospel and his views served as the foundation for Nazi ideology, which later led to the holocaust.
In 1882, the Russian Empire enacted widespread anti-Semitism and the pogroms, stripping the Jews of the land, causing many to emigrate and killing many.
It’s in the Second World War, Satan’s man, Hitler killed 6,000,000 Jews.
Satan hates God. Satan had… hates God’s chosen people – the Nation of Israel.
And our passage this morning, zooms in or focuses upon Satan’s people in history, or Satan’s men and history. And specifically, it focuses on another one of Satan’s men, a persecutor of God’s people and this man’s name was Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and we’re going to zoom in and focus on this man.
In Chapter 7, you may recall, the focus was on the anti-christ kingdom and the anti-christ, and then it gets replaced, ultimately with Christ’s Kingdom.
In Chapter 8, The focus is then upon this Greek king Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
In Chapter 5, we remember Belshazzar’s days were numbered.
In Chapter 7, we learned that the anti-christ’s days are numbered.
And in Chapter 8 we once again learn that even Antiochus’s days were numbered.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes, served as a precursor to the future Antichrist.

But it also serves to show that in the end, God will rescue his people. God will sovereignly limit the persecution of his people, and God will ultimately bring justice in His Kingdom. His Kingdom will rule forever and ever.
The passage that we’re looking at, and I want us to have a look at specifically passages. In this passage, we’re going to see a vision of Antiochus IV Epiphanes that displays God as Saviour Sovereign and Judge for His people.
On the next clip, what we’re going to notice is, as we look at those passages – can we just go to the next one – you’re going to see that verse 1 and 2, the vision of Daniel that we see in verses 1 and 2 we see in verses 15 through 19, the vision being interpreted.
We see the vision of the ram in verses 3 and 4, and then verse 20, the ram explained.
We see the vision of the goats and in verse 5-8, and then the goat explained in verse 21-22.
We see the vision of the Little Horn and verses 9 through 12, and then the little horn explained in 23 through 25.
And then the vision, the vision of limitation in verse13-14, and then there’s responses to the vision – verse 26-27.
And so, as I dive through the sermon, you’re going to find me going between these passages. So, I will be preaching 3 and 4 and then suddenly 15 and 19.
Why?
Because I’m giving you the divine interpretation of that actual passage. What’s wonderful is when you have a commentator who is Gabriel, you’re not going to argue with that commentator because he’s giving us the very words of God. And so, let’s have a look at our propositional statement.
Next point.
So, I’m going to give you 5 truths concerning the vision of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, that displays God as Savior Sovereign Judge… A Sovereign, And Judge for His People.
Next point.
And so, these five points – and verse 1-2 and 15-19 will be the vision of Daniel’s scene and its explanation:
Then the vision of the ram – verse 3-4 and its explanation in verse 20.
The vision of the goat – verse 5-8, and its explanation in verse 21-22.
The vision of the Little Horn verse 9-12, and its explanation in verse 23-25.
The vision of its… the visions limitation verse 13-14 and the responses of the people.
And so, things are a bit confusing. Just hold on to your seat belt. There is a single point that you need to take away from the sermons. So, if you get lost, try and get back to those passages. But you’re going to be going to and fro in the Bible. Hopefully…If you don’t have a Bible, you’d look up there, or otherwise you’re in the scripture. One finger on the scripture as we go through the explanation of these things.
So, we’re going to have a look at the first point. It’s a vision of Daniel….