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The Antichrist and the "Little Horn" of Daniel in the Judgment Hour
William Diehl
Many assume that the rebellion of the Maccabees was blessed by God and that the book of Daniel was given to the Jewish people to encourage them in this rebellion. The frequent rebellions of the Jewish zealots in Jeremiah's day against the Babylonian Empire and on down through the inter-testamental period were NOT blessed by God. God had clearly declared that the nation of Israel and Judah were going to be dominated by foreign powers until the coming of Him "whose right it was" to reign, the Lord Jesus Christ. This was the purpose of the giving of the book of Daniel. The nation of the Israel was to submit and to wait for God to act for the salvation of His people.
Any prophet who told the people to rebel was a false prophet. The rebellion of the Maccabees was in direct violation of God's instructions to accept the yoke of foreign rulership until the time of the Messiah. Daniel is clearly told that even though the 70 years of captivity of the Exile were ending, there would be yet another 7X70 years of dominance by foreigners. This is what made Daniel so ill and discouraged and in mourning to understand the "vision" of the end times. God was revealing the fact that in Christ, the Anointed One, the purposes of God were going to be fulfilled "to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy." Dan 9:27. To suggest that Daniel was written to encourage the people to fight the foreigners is diametrically opposed to the true intent of the book of Daniel and is to play into the hands of the Jesuit Counter Reformation invention of Antiochas Epiphanes as the real meaning of the "little horn", rather than the Papacy.
It is true that both Daniel and the early Christian Church believed that they were living in the "time of the end" when they hoped that God was about to re-establish His kingdom in the earth. But God showed Daniel that the vision and the time was for many years after his era and that he would rest in the grave until the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy of Daniel 9.
God also showed John in the Apocalypse that there would be a long delay in his expectations of an immediate establishment of the kingdom in the earth. John is told to take the scroll and eat it and that the scroll would be sweet in his mouth and yet bitter in his belly. Thus showing him that the church must yet preach to many nations, tongues, and peoples.
Paul by the time he wrote to the Thessalonians especially understood that there would be a delay in the coming of the Lord until pagan Rome, which restrained the development of the Papacy, was removed and taken out of the way so that the Man of Sin, the Mystery of Iniquity could develop and then be destroyed by the brightness of Christ's coming. Clearly God was not going to destroy the earth until both the Mystery of God and the Mystery of Iniquity could fully develop and reveal the fruits of the two trees. When the iniquity of Satan's kingdom is fully developed and seeks to totally eradicate Christ's Bride, the Church from the face of the earth, then God will intervene because, "It is time for thee, LORD, to work for they have made void thy law." Ps 119:126.
God's purposes know neither hastening nor delay. He however progressively reveals his purposes to His people in His own good time and as His people need to understand His purposes. He gives grace to meet our needs today, not to meet tomorrow's needs. We walk by faith and not by sight, and thus we walk in the full assurance that He gives light for us to know where to place our next footstep. He knows the end from the beginning and there are no surprises with Him. As we near the gates of the city, "knowledge will increase" to sufficiently guide us into the harbor, though not without "much tribulation".
We serve a living God who saves to the uttermost those who are saved by grace alone through faith alone in the sinless life and atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
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