Period of the Maccabees

[00:00:00] I might just say that this period is in actual fact found within the word of God, and it is within the book of Daniel that it is found first of all. Daniel, chapter two. [00:00:16] And verse 44. [00:00:32] And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. Just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure. [00:01:10] Then in Daniel, chapter seven. [00:01:15] Daniel, chapter seven, verse eight. [00:01:20] Daniel, chapter seven, verse eight. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes, like the eyes of a man, and a mouth, speaking great things. [00:01:47] Verse 20. [00:01:50] And concerning the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn which came up before which three of them fell, the horn which had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things, and which seemed greater than its fellows, as I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them until the ancient of days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the most high. And the time came when the saints received the kingdom. [00:02:27] Verse 24. As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them. He shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings. 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 of the law. And they shall be given into his hand for a time, two times and half a time. [00:03:01] And then if you will, turn to chapter eight, verse 23. [00:03:13] Chapter eight, verse 23. And at the latter end of their rule, when the transgressors have reached their full measure, a king of bold countenance, one who understands riddles, shall arise. His power shall be great, and he shall cause fearful destruction, and shall succeed in what he does and destroy mighty men and the people of the saints. By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand, and in his own mind he shall magnify himself. Without warning, he shall destroy many, and he shall even rise up against the prince of princes. But by no human hand he shall be broken. [00:04:00] And then chapter eleven, verse 21. [00:04:12] In his place shall rise a contemptible person to whom royal majesty has not been given. He shall come in without warning and obtain the kingdom by flatteries. Armies shall be utterly swept away before him, and broken, and the prince of the covenant also. [00:04:36] And from the time that an alliance is made with him, he shall act deceitfully, and he shall become strong with a small people without warning. He shall come into the richest parts of the province, and he shall do what neither his fathers nor his fathers fathers have done, scattering among them plunder, spoil, and goods. He shall devise plans against strongholds, but only for a time. And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army. And the king of the south shall wage war with an exceedingly great and mighty army. But he shall not stand, for plots shall be devised against him. Even those who eat his rich food shall be his undoing. His army shall be swept away, and many shall fall down slain. And as for the two kings, their minds shall be bent on mischief. They shall speak lies at the same table, but to no avail. For the end is yet to be at the time appointed. And he shall return to his land with great substance, for his heart shall be set against the holy covenant, and he shall work his will, and return to his own land at the time appointed. He shall return and come into the south. But it shall not be this time as it was before, for ships of Kittim shall come against him. And he shall be afraid and withdraw, and shall turn back and be enraged and take action against the holy covenant. He shall turn back and give heed to those who forsake the holy covenant. Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the continual burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate. He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant. But the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. And those among the people who are wise shall make many understand. Though they shall fall by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder for some days, when they fall, they shall receive a little help, and many shall join themselves to them with flattery. And some of those who are wise shall fall to refine and to cleanse them, and to make them white until the time of the end. For it is yet for the time appointed. And the king shall do according to his will. He shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every God, and shall speak astonishing things against the God of gods. He shall prosper till the indignation is accomplished. For what is determined shall be done. [00:07:20] And then verse twelve. Lastly, chapter twelve. I'm so sorry. Chapter twelve, verse one. At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince, who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble such as never been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, every one whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament. And those who turn many to righteousness like the stars, for ever and ever. But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book. Until the time of the end, many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased. [00:08:21] Now, this evening we come to a brief survey of the actual history of this intertestamental period in which we are going to dwell, particularly upon the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees. [00:08:49] As the rubber bull was the last of the royal princes of the house of David to take any office. [00:09:01] The actual throne of David had become vacant when King Zedekiah was taken into captivity, into exile in 586 BC, after Zerubbabel, who was governor of Judah when the remnant returned to Jerusalem and to the land in 536 BC. After the Rabbabul, there was no rightful or legal king or prince in the land in Judea until Christ was born. This can never be overemphasized right away from the rubbable up here. [00:09:49] From this point here to this point here, there was no legal or rightful king or prince ruling Israel. All those who ruled in that period were either those who, according to God's law, shouldn't have ruled, that is, they belong to the priesthood, or they were heathen, gentile kings, or a terrible mixture such as Herod himself, who, as we, you will remember, last week, was half idumean, half nabatean, that is, half an ishmaelite and half an edomite, and also married to a jewess. That was his only redeeming feature. [00:10:34] And apart from the rubbable, there was absolutely no legal rightful heir or prince in Israel until Christ was born. When Christ was born, he was born in the direct line of descent from David and was therefore the actual legal rightful heir to the throne of David. [00:11:11] That's rather wonderful. In this long period, instead of the king or prince, the high priests became the rulers, disobeying the law, which said that the king was never to act as a priest and the priest was never to act as a king. But the high priest, in fact, became both civil and religious rulers. They combined both civil and religious spiritual authority into one. This was an altogether new feature in the life of God's people. It had never happened before, even when Moses ruled Israel, Aaron, his brother, was high priest whilst he was actual ruler or leader. [00:12:03] Malachi has given us a glimpse of the corrupt and compromised condition of the priesthood at the beginning of this era. You remember in our studies in Malachi how we dwelt upon the character, the corrupt and compromised character of the priesthood. In those days, with few exceptions, it continued to deteriorate until the Amos and caiaphas of the New Testament where it really touched bottom. So corrupt did it become that the high priesthood was more or less sold to the highest bidder on more than one occasion, so worldly and so far removed from God's idea of the high priesthood that we shall find that there were actual times when some of the priests bribed the gentile rulers to actually make them high priests. [00:13:14] We can say, in actual fact, that the high priesthood became a veritable tool of Satan more than once during these years. Over this period, and especially after Alexander the Great's death, Palestine became the cockpit of the struggle between Syria and Egypt. Both of these factions in the greek empire wanted to control Palestine. For them, Palestine was important not only because the control of Palestine, of Judah meant, to a certain extent the control of all the Jews of the dispersion that was one point. The other was that many of them of the important trade routes and highways went through Palestine and they wanted to control them. So poor little Palestine became the arena of a battle, of a struggle between two kingdoms within the greek empire. [00:14:23] Above and beyond all this, whether it was the corruption of the high priesthood, the disappearance of the royal line, of the house of David, or the struggle between Egypt and Syria continually for Palestine, one time going for Egypt, another time going for Syria. Above and beyond all this, it was the period when the enemy's, Satan's essential and supreme objective was the hindering and frustrating of the Messiah's coming. Satan had only one single objective, and that was to stop the coming of Christ. [00:15:18] Nothing else mattered. Satan wasn't bothered about the jewish people. He wasn't bothered about Egypt. He wasn't bothered about Syria. He wasn't even bothered about the high priesthood. What he was bothered about was the coming of the Lord Jesus. [00:15:36] And therefore his one great and supreme objective was by every means at his disposal to somehow frustrate that appearance. [00:15:52] Everything in his armory was thrown into a tremendous battle to nullify the purpose of God. [00:16:06] Now, this is the period we are talking about. This is the period we're going to look at a little more fully. That's why there was an Antichrist. Why do you think there is an antichrist? What is the idea of the Antichrist? Well, the Antichrist is as well the consummation of all the energy and intelligence of Satan, the very flowering of it, the very climax of it, in order to somehow frustrate the purpose of God, to undo the design and counsel of God. [00:16:47] Thus this whole period which we are commencing to look at this evening, was a battlefield, touching depths of utter darkness and wickedness and satanic cruelty never before known even in the history of God's people. And they had seen some pretty terrible times in Egypt and Babylon. But now there was a touch, depths of utter darkness and forsakenness and suffering that they had never touched before. And let it be said, they were also to touch heights of pure faith and heroic martyrdom and suffering and triumph through God that had rarely ever been reached in the whole history of the people of God. It is largely forgotten by christian people that the maccabean period was more glorious than any time since the time of David. [00:17:59] Just because it's not seemingly within the word of God does not mean to say that that is not truth. [00:18:07] It was a tremendous period which must have rejoiced the heart of the Lord as he saw for the first time a people not only weaned away from idolatry, not only observing the law from the heart, but with a living, dynamic faith that meant they were prepared to die in their thousands rather than submit to Antichrist. [00:18:33] This is the period that we are dealing with by every means available. [00:18:42] Satan sought to make it impossible for God to act. Now, I mean those words. I mean them. This is the whole, the key to this period. By every means available to him, Satan sought to make it impossible for God to act. He sought to so complicate the situation, so compromise it, so heathenize it, so somehow or other make it well. [00:19:13] God himself had got to give it up. He'd got to step back and say, I can't do anything. I can't do anything. How did he do it? This is the way he did it. [00:19:23] He compromised the priesthood and the high priests, making them tools of Satan instead of God, so that those who represented the people before God and God before the people became the very tools of Antichrist, the very traitors to the covenant of God and let the flowing of wickedness, one of them, Menelaus, actually led the Antichrist into holy of holies and showed him the very holy vessels for him to take away. That was the kind of thing that happened. Satan worked insidiously and consistently until he got the priesthood into his hands and made them the very weapon at the very heart of God's work and people and temple. He made them the very weapon for himself. [00:20:13] Those who were the weapon of God became the weapon of Satan. And then his purpose was. One of his other means was to hellenize the people of God through greek influence, through greek thought, through greek culture, through greek, the greek language, through greek dress and fashions. Hellenized them, in other words, hedonized them, make them lose their distinctiveness, get away their separation, destroy it altogether, so that they just became like the people around them. They talked like the people around them, they acted like the people around. They dressed like the people around them, they ate like the people around them in every way. They just lived the life of the heathen around them. This was his other great weapon. And this is the period when all the forces of greek influence were let loose upon the holy land in one great dry of Satan to so compromise the people that God would give them up altogether. [00:21:17] It goes much farther than even I am able to say. What he was trying to destroy was the distinctiveness of the people of God and the testimony of God amongst them. Here was that candlestick of pure gold. Here was the testimony amongst the nations. And Satan's objective was so to destroy that destiny. The Messiah couldn't come. There was nothing for him to come to. There was no pure line even for him to come off. It would be so hellenized, so heathenized that it was impossible. This was the objective of Satan. Another one of his means was to corrupt the worship and service of God by greek philosophy and greek religion, so that the more refined and cultured amongst the people of God began to introduce new ideas. After all, they said, we must be broad minded. [00:22:15] Jehovah is, after all, Jupiter amongst the Romans and Theos amongst the Greeks. Therefore, let's be broad minded about it. To us he is Jehovah, to them he is Jupiter and theos. Then let us worship him as Jupiter, theos, Jehovah. Quite simple. [00:22:35] Let us corruption of worship so that instead of the pure worship of God in spirit and truth, there was something horribly mixed, so that it was no longer the worship of God, but it had become the worship of the God of this world instead. And the people who thought they were worshipping the Lord. Were, in fact, bowing down before evil spirits. [00:23:02] So we could go on. And we could go on. And we could go on. Another means that the devil used. Was to press God's people into one of two extremes. [00:23:13] One was into the extreme of legalism to press them. So far, the true people of God. So far in their concern for the word of God, in their concern for the law of God, in their concern for pure doctrine. That they got into the trap. Where they thought they were fulfilling the law of God. And in actual fact, they were nullifying it. Their lives were a form of godliness. Which denied the power thereof. They had a facade, but within it there was nothing. It was like a whited sepulcher. In which rested dead men's bones. That's all. [00:23:53] Those dear people were a mighty force in the days of the Maccabees. But later the enemy had pressed them into the very people. That became the Tool of Satan to crucify the Christ. [00:24:04] These very people who were out to preserve the law of God and the word of God. And the purity of the spiritual life of the covenant people. Became the tool by which Satan could crucify the Lord of gLory. And the MEssiah of their own covenant. [00:24:24] On the other side, the OTher ExtremE is just as terrible. [00:24:29] He pressed them to subjectivism, in other words, to becoming so concerned about their own spiritual experience. That they had no time to serve anyone else. They had no time for the world outside. No time for the Heathen, no time for the GEntile, no time for the Oppressed or the burdened. They were only concerned with their own experiences, the Essenes. And he pressed them and pressed them. A great movement of God. In which, more than any other movement. The true spiritual content of the covenant was discovered. They were pressed and pushed so that they became monastically exclusive. Withdrawing altogether from life. And being pressed into little groups that became rather irregular. And rather excessive and rather unbalanced. These were the means that the devil used everything in his armory, everything at his fingertips. That he might somehow or other make it impossible for. For God to fulfill his purpose. He went further. [00:25:42] He created within the very promised land itself. Gentile centers of greek culture. [00:25:53] The Decapolis that we mentioned last week. All that federation of ten great cities. All came into being at this time. What was the idea? Some people said to me that they didn't feel there was anything of the word of God. The word of God in last week. And maybe they're right. But let me tell you this. [00:26:13] That those cities of the Decapolis that we mentioned last week and other hellenic cities stand as a tremendous point of instruction to us. [00:26:27] Right within the very promised land. Satan did his work of creating completely gentile hellenic centers from which he would undermine the whole life of the people of God. And he did it so that as the jews began to see the education, greek education, greek fashion, greek sports, greek life, so they became enamored of it. It was. It was. It was the old heathen within and amongst the people of God, the undoing of them. Another little attempt of the enemy to work, make the whole thing. This was his great objective. Make the whole thing. The land itself, the people themselves, the Temple itself, the priesthood itself, if possible, the very royal line of David, make it such a compromised mess that God would have to give the whole thing up. [00:27:44] But God triumphed, and the stone not made with hands cut out from the mountain, hurtled out of heaven, to fulfill the redeeming purpose of God and to smash, in the end, Satan and the kingdoms of this world into pulp. [00:28:13] And that's what this period is all about. [00:28:17] In other words, this period of the Antichrist of Antiochus Epiphanes was the greatest maneuver of the devil to destroy the coming of Christ. And it failed. [00:28:31] It miserably and utterly failed. [00:28:36] Now, I said I only hoped that the seeding would be able to interpret these things, because this is exactly what is happening amongst us as the people of God. It is exactly what is happening amongst Christendom. In Christendom today, in so called Christianity today, the very same forces are at work only in a far more terrible way. And the end is going to be just the same. A period when, somehow or other, this man of sin will appear as the last, the last great attempt of Satan to outmaneuver God and to destroy the very coming of the messiah, to somehow or other, make it impossible for God to allow the Lord Jesus to come back, wrecked the people of God, smashed the church into smithereens, caused the christians to go back on a large scale. On a large scale, so that the love of the many shall wax cold and there is no faith when he comes. [00:29:37] All these are the things that the enemy is seeking to do. [00:29:44] Has not, therefore, this period a tremendous amount to teach us who await the messiahs final appearing? [00:29:55] Can we not see that this period in which we are living today, in 1966, is a battlefield and will become so with ever growing intensity? [00:30:12] For it says that the devil will come down to the earth knowing that his time is short? It speaks of demonic spirits pouring out upon the earth to deceive and delude the peoples and the nations in order that there may be a preparation for the coming of Antichrist, this man of sin, at the end of world history. Is it not clear to us that Satan is seeking to frustrate that coming, attacking the true church in every possible way? Remember this, that now it is the true church that corresponds to the people of God under the old covenant. And now the enemy's objective is to attack the covenant people, the new covenant people, in such a way that he can frustrate and nullify the purpose of God and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. [00:31:22] I say we are living in tremendous days. What is this attack centered on? It is centered on the unity of the true church. It is centered upon the distinctiveness, the church, its functioning, its testimony amongst the nations, its development, its building up its completion. I am convinced that whoever is the last stone that will be added to the true church of God, there will be a terrible battle over that one before they are finally added and the end comes. [00:32:03] Well, dear child of God, we know that by every means available, Satan works to undo the work and purpose of God. But listen, God will win. [00:32:18] There is absolutely no shadow of a doubt about it. [00:32:24] When Satan has done his worst, when the antichrist is absolutely supreme, when you can't even buy or sell without his mark, either in your right hand or on your forehead, then I tell you, God will triumph. When the harlot rides upon the beast, when the false prophet has deluded all the nations and all the peoples, then still God will triumph. [00:32:53] Satan will never outmanoeuvre God. [00:32:57] God will outmaneuver Satan. And just as in this period he did his worst, he brought out his most evil and most terrible things and was allowed to go to the farthest extent he'd ever been allowed to go in cruelty and wickedness and suffering, tribulation, when he had done all, when he had spent all, God arose. [00:33:30] And the fact of the matter is, dear child of God, that the Lord Jesus came at due time, not 1 minute before, not 1 minute late, he was born. [00:33:46] He came absolutely on time, the time foreordained and predetermined by God. The Lord Jesus Christ came exactly on time. And he'll come again exactly on time. Only the father knows the hour, but he'll come. Because, dear child of God, the victory is the Lord's because the battle is the Lord's. [00:34:14] The fact of the matter is this. This is a battle in which you and I are joined the victor. [00:34:25] Now that's tremendously encouraging, isn't it? I hope so. [00:34:31] We're dealing with a very dark period, and if you're not a child of God, well, may you fear, because we are dealing with a period when, well, it's nice to think that the world is going to get better and better and better. But the word of God doesn't say it's going to get better and better and better. It says it will get worse and worse and worse. [00:34:50] And therefore we know exactly what we are facing now. Dear child of God, let us remember, just as God spoke through Daniel, and there was that dear old godly man, that old white haired statesman sitting in Persia in exile, scribing away as the Lord showed him vision after vision and gave him word after word. And no one understood what he was talking about at all. [00:35:18] But in the days of the Maccabees, they understood what Daniel was talking about, for he had ministered to their own day and time. And in some glorious and wonderful way, they knew that God had predicted what was about to come in detail for their encouragement. So that in those terrible days of tribulation, when it seemed to them that the bottom of life had dropped out altogether, they had in fact, they had in fact, the very word of God for their comfort. Why do you think that there is much of Daniel left for us? Why do you think there is Matthew, chapter 24. Why do you think there is two Thessalonians, chapter two? Why do you think that there is the whole of the book of revelation? Do you not realize that you and I may 1 day pass through the darkest period that this world has ever passed? [00:36:20] We shall go through days of tribulation if, if we are in the last days, such as has never been known from the very beginning of this world. [00:36:31] Which means that these days we are considering pale into insignificance beside it. [00:36:38] Don't you see that God has prepared us already with a book which he says is sealed up to the time of the end? Blessed is he that readeth the and understandeth it itself. [00:36:49] Yes, because it's sealed up for the time of the end, so that in those days of terrible persecution, the clasps are unlocked and the saints understand what they're going through. Unfortunately, an awful lot of theologians have tried to force the clasps down through the years and have written volume after volume upon these two books. And I can't say myself that it may have been so great a help in the sense that we have so many conflicting ideas about what is going to happen. But the fact remains this, that the period we are talking about recorded in Daniel, chapter eleven. No one has any question about. Even those who don't believe their Bible have no question about it. All they say is this. It was never predicted. It was written up afterwards. [00:37:40] So remarkable and detailed a prediction, is it, of a whole period of years, a century or two, that the only thing they could say was they found it incredible to believe that it could be predicted. It must have been, they said, written up under the guise of prophecy after the events. But, my dear friend, if they had only one chapter or two, it may be some small clue as to the extent and fahrenheit of the tribulation that we shall pass through, that we have a book or two. [00:38:20] They were comforted by a chapter or two. We have a book or two, so that when those days come, we've got these things there for us, and we shall comfort one another as we go through them by the remembrance that the last word is with God. [00:38:45] One thing that I think will become precious to every one of us is the fact that the Lord Jesus title is amen. [00:38:53] The amen of God. [00:38:57] The last word, the ultimate final word. Word is God's word. And that word is Jesus Christ himself. [00:39:12] So the last thing is not the gas chamber or the concentration camp or the forced labor camp or martyrdom or suffering or persecution or Satan. [00:39:26] The last word is Jesus Christ. [00:39:31] Well, that's wonderful. [00:39:33] Well, so much. Now, let's look at the period itself for a little while. [00:39:38] First, let's. We'll divide this period into three. We will divide it into what we call the pre maccabean period, and then we'll deal with the maccabean period. And then we'll deal with the post maccabean period. First of all, the pre maccabean period. Not a lot that we're going to say about this. We're going to survey it very quickly, but there are one or two lessons that we can learn from it. This pre Maccabean period extends from the end of the Old Testament canon to the rise of Antiochus Epiphanes, that is, from 445 BC to 175 BC. This is what we call the pre Maccabean period. [00:40:22] Now, this was, in fact, a very interesting pEriod. It's a period that covers 270 years, and it was characterized first by Egyptian influence, the ptolemies of Egypt, and then by Syrian influence, the Seleucid dynasty of Syria. [00:40:45] From the latter, Antiochus epiphanies arose. It was from the Syrians he Came. It is an interesting period in that it is the story of the evil ones in Syria. Hideous, consistent, quiet attempts over many years to corrupt God's people, to destroy their distinctiveness and to frustrate God's purpose. Now, it is very interesting that the devil always goes the easy way about things, like many of us. And the first thing he does is to see if he can undermine us without any great frontal onslaught. And this period of 270 years was the period in which the enemy tried quiet, consistent, insidious attempts from all angles to undermine the spirituality and the life of God's people. My dear friend, dear child of God, never forget this. Even when you're not conscious of the devil. He's around all the time working for our downfall. All the time working to undermine our spirituality and our life in Christ. The only answer is to abide in him. When we abide in the Lord by the power of the spirit, then we are safe. It is when we are outside of the Lord, when we become lax, when we become careless, that the enemy gets us. [00:42:20] It is very interesting here that the great weapon that the devil used was hellenism. Now, hellenism, in fact, is a marvelous thing. There are tremendous things about greek thought, greek philosophy, greek culture, which we all respect. [00:42:39] So you see, here is our first little lesson this evening. The devil used something which was very good. [00:42:46] There were many very, very good things about it. [00:42:50] Things that have come down to us now. We all accept. [00:42:54] So the enemy used hellenism as his great weapon. It was not so much a frontal attack, but from within that he made his attack. In other words, later in the maccabean period, he made a frontal attack and said, the people are got to adopt greek ideas and greek fashions and dress. This time it wasn't what he did was this. He captured here one there, one there, another here another. And he just captured them for Hellenism. And in quietly, through these people of God, he began to spread the ideas through the whole land. In other words, make the boat so rotten underwater. [00:43:48] That it will only need a few shots, not even fired at it, and it will sink. [00:43:54] That was the idea. Let the boat rock within. [00:43:59] And then all we'll have to do is fire a few shots and the thing will turn turtle and go down. [00:44:06] This was the devil's first great attempt. [00:44:10] He sought to do it by hellenising cities. Now, this is the period last week we talked about when all many great cities became hellenized. They became great centers. I'm talking now about jewish cities, the cities of the people of God. Not just purely gentile new cities, but cities that were already belonged to the people of God. They became hellenized, building gentile cities altogether gentile in the land as centers of Greek thought and culture, corrupting the rulers and the priesthood with Greek ideas. This is when the SadDucees began. And the SadDucees were Hellenists. The Pharisees were jewish Jews. But the Sadducees were hellenized Jews in a sense, in the sense that they were the rulers, they were the Aristocrats. They were the nobility of the land, and they wanted to be with it. They felt that somehow or other you'd got to be with the Times in which you were living. There was a great wind of change blowing through the whole of Judea. And they had got to be with it. Mustn't be old fashioned, narrow, prejudiced bigots. We must be with the new idea. So the sadduceean no and priesthood were wholly with it. And the enemy's idea was compromised. The spirituality of God's own, their life, their service, their worship, corrupt the royal seed, if possible, by these processes. [00:45:39] As I've said, the end was to make it impossible for the Messiah to come. [00:45:44] Thus this period is the story, on the one hand, of worldliness, compromise, satanic deception and satanic alliance. But on the other hand, it is the story of spiritual reaction. And those spiritual reactions were wonderful in this period. Grew up the group called the Hasidim, the pious ones, out of which came both the Pharisees and the Essid. These people that God used to keep a pure spiritual life amongst the people of God. They grew up as a reaction to these forces of worldliness that were coming in everywhere amongst the people of God. Some of the high priests were devoted and godly men who really knew the Lord. Simon the just here was the leader of the Chassidim, the pious ones. And then Onias III was the leader of the Pharisees. These two men were very godly men indeed. And there were others, too, that were godly. There were those who were absolutely evil. There was Simon II. He's not there on the board. But Simon II pocketed all the taxes and became very, very wealthy. So that his family became a really wealthy family. With investments everywhere, all through ill gotten gains. Then there was Jason, whose actual name was Joshua, but he preferred the greek name. So he changed it to Jason. And he is the arch traitor jewish history. For he was the one who linked up with Antiochus Epiphanies and brought in so much evil. And also Menelaus. I mentioned these two although they're actually in the maccabean period, because they came at the end of the pre maccabean period, this gentleman won the high priesthood by running off to Antioch to see Antiochus Epiphanes and putting down a whole sack or two of shekels and saying, will that buy me the high priesthood? And he got it. Then later, and also he was going to pay so much each year, so he sent this gentleman. Strange thing is, he was the brother of Onias III, who was such a godly man, which shows that in one family there can be such a godly person and such an evil person. [00:48:30] Here Jason sent Menelaus with the tribute money, and Menelaus put down a few more sackfuls of shekels on the table in front of Antiochus epiphanes and outbid Jason. And Jason was removed from the high priesthood, and Menelaus became high priest in his stead. Now, that just gives you some idea of the corruption that there was in the high priesthood. They didn't look upon it as a calling from God at all. It was just a professional thing, a position of authority and power. The struggle between these two forces in this period, purity and compromise, heaven and earth, the spirit and the flesh, grew in intensity like a rumbling volcano till it erupted in the Maccabean period. Now, that brings us to this second period, which began here with the rise of Antiochus Epiphanes in 175 BC, and lasted till Pompey took Judah, Judea for Rome in 63 BC. That's what we call the actual Maccabean period. And this period lasted for 112 years. [00:49:53] Now we come to the person of antiochus epiphanes, whose policy and character dominates the WHOLE of this period. [00:50:07] Antiochus Epiphanes, who has become the arch, type and symbol in the whole of the Bible of the Antichrist, was a remarkable personality and character. Now, I hope you will listen as carefully as you can, if you're not too tired, because I believe that this gives us clue after clue to the identity, the personality and the character of becoming Antichrist. And I think you're in for a few shocks over this gentleman. [00:50:40] He was a remarkable personality and character. He was not, as some people think, a tyrant. Dark, foreboding, given to periods when he just simply went out of his mind, as some more recent dictators and antichrists have been. He was, in fact, known everywhere for his affability, his geniality, and he was generally liked and popular, particularly among the cultured. [00:51:21] He was very much liked in Rome he was even more liked in athens. The esteem and affection of AthenS he won by his democratic ways and by the gifts that he continually made to them, building them temples, other buildings all over their city. They made him an honorary citizen of Athens, no mean honor. And they also made him master of the mint. [00:51:58] So you can get a little idea of what type of person he was. He was also a good soldier, and he was an able administrator. When he became king of. Of Syria as Antiochus IV, his avowed policy was to unify all the different nations and races within his kingdom through the dissemination of greek culture and greek thought. Now, that's very, very important. [00:52:32] He was not a fanatical religionist at all, but an enthusiastic believer in hellenic culture and civilization, with a deep, genuine concern for the unity of his kingdom, for the social well being and development of his peoples through hellenism. He believed that not only could the whole greek empire be reunited, unified, but the whole of the Mediterranean and the whole of Asia could be brought into that unity through the simple propagation of greek culture and greek ideals. [00:53:22] Now, that's all very good, isn't it? [00:53:25] You can well understand that if a gentleman rose up today talking about unity, which is all the theme everywhere at present, we might well guilt. This was perfectly right. Here's someone who believes in reunity, in reconciliation of everything, in somehow or other stopping these petty wars that grow into great world wars in which millions and millions lose their lives. Can't we somehow other disseminate some kind of universal culture which will transcend all these petty differences and reunify the whole thing? This was the policy of Antiochus epiphany. [00:54:07] It was a noble policy, or so it seemed. [00:54:11] It was a cultured, well thought out policy. [00:54:19] Now, the Jews, especially the Jews in Palestine, with their utter, distinctive set apart in every way, even when they settled amongst the Gentiles, were his great problem. [00:54:42] In all the other nations and tribes in his kingdom, no one withstood Hellenism. They accepted it. It was upper class. [00:54:55] It was a greater culture, a higher culture, a better standard, a greater social standing. But these Jews, they resisted. They were so superior. They were set apart somehow, or they were distinctive. And furthermore, they wouldn't even touch the thing. [00:55:16] At least many of them. That was his problem. Indeed, they completely frustrated his policy. [00:55:26] Whilst the Jews remained true Jews, there was no hope of success for Antiochus Epiphanes policy. [00:55:37] There is the crux of the problem, and it's not quite so simple as perhaps first we think, and nor will the Antichrist policy be quite such a simple thing, as many people think that in a single moment of time they would be able to distinguish him. How do you think he's going to delude the nations? How do you think he's going to become one of the greatest and most popular of all people? This was Antiochus Epiphanes. He came to the zenith of his power by popularity and by a policy which appealed to universally to people. [00:56:16] Their refusal, the refusal of the Jews to worship idols or even admit other gods as being in existence, their rejection of greek philosophy as heathen, their food laws, their distinctive dress and conduct, their horror of intermarriage, it all spelt trouble for Antiochus epiphanes. Indeed, to him, some of their objections were pure old fashioned obstinacy and stubbornness. [00:56:52] It was unreasonableness gone mad. [00:56:56] After all, he reasoned, and this is true, not just fantasy. After all, he reasoned, surely they can eat a few unclean food soak, or what makes them unclean? Said Antiochus epiphanes, some garbled version of myth or legend from their past. [00:57:15] Why can't they give up these strange ideas of food, laws and dress? Why do they. Why are they so afraid of playing games naked? [00:57:26] Are they afraid of the human body? [00:57:29] Seemed to him that it was positively stupid. Stubbornness, obstinacy, unreasonableness that they should reject idols, he understood. But there were many other things that were not to be understood so easily, and pressure had got to be brought to bear upon these stubborn, fanatical bigots that were ruining the policy. This so broad minded and policy. [00:58:02] This was the challenge which AntioChus meant to answer and conquer. [00:58:09] He was greatly encouraged by not a few children of God ready to welcome his policy and to cooperate with him to the Full in the carrying of it out. [00:58:28] This made the Others appear all the More unreasonable. [00:58:33] And this will be the same situation we shall find ourselves in one day when a large majority of Christendom is wedded to this theme. [00:58:43] And when they adopt the policy and they're prepared to carry it out and cooperate in every way, we appear, just over old fashioned phonetics, just people who are bigots that belong to the past, that are just the kind of people that are so narrow minded, they've got twisted minds, and they'll twist other people's minds. This is the idea about them. After all, these people are good people. [00:59:08] They're broad minded people. Why can't you be like that? [00:59:14] AntioChus believed not only in the worship of the greek gods, and particularly of ZeUS or Jupiter, but also he believed in the worship of himself as the visible manifestation of Jupiter. And that's why he has this name, Epiphanes, which just means manifest in actual fact before it. Full. His full title was Antiochus IV, God manifest. [00:59:43] It was his full title, but it was shortened to epiphanies. It was some wags who later on changed his name to epimones and called him the madman rather than God. Manifest. His plan, therefore, was to eradicate the children of God and their life from off the face of Palestine and to colonize the whole land with hellenized people. He was Clear EnOugh, clear sighted enough to recognize that this people were not going to yield. So the only way was to bring power and force to bear on them, to make them yield or eliminate those who refused to. [01:00:29] He began by removing OniAs III, who was a very godly and devoted high priest and governor, and put in his Place JASON, who was already a leader of the hellenized People in JUDEA. He was, in fact, an Apostate JEw and thoroughly ready to carry out the policy of antioChus. He went all the way to Antiochus to tell him that he agreed with his policy and would like to see it carried out in Judea. When he placed the money on the table and asked if he could become high priest, the deal was done because Antiochus wanted to see his policy carried out in Judea. And here was the man to do it. Now, Jason started by building a Greek gymnasium in Jerusalem. Now, this may not surprise you or shock you at all, but it certainly shocked all the people of God because the Greeks were in the habit of conducting all their games, start making. And no jew ever dreamt of such a thing. They thought it was the most thing to a plank naked. And when young priests in the temple rush through their duties in order to go to the gymnasium, strip off their priestly robes and appear naked in front of hordes of gentiles. And Hellenistic Jews infamily shocked the people of God. This was the kind of thing that was happening. And then again, perhaps I ought not to say this, but it shows you just how far it goes. They were so ashamed, some of them, of circumcision that they underwent surgery in order to hide it, the very mark of the covenant people they were prepared to forgo. This was the kind of thing that began to happen. [01:02:28] He introduced greek fashions, greek dress, and many of the more hellenized Jews began to worship Zeus in the temple as Jehovah, and Jehovah as Zeus and Theocus. [01:02:42] A little later, hearing in Egypt, whilst fighting in a battle that in which he was victorious, that the people in Judea went wild with rejoicing over his rumored death, returned on the conclusion of the campaign very suddenly to Jerusalem in a fury. [01:03:06] And this began the actual tribulation coming upon Jerusalem. Suddenly he marched in, just as if he was coming in on a goodwill mission. But as soon as they were within the gates, they met him, thousands of the people who had not expected it. And he plundered the temple, profaned the temple and plundered it, and instituted a barbaric military governor over Jerusalem and Judea. Shortly afterwards, he began to really put his plan for the eradication of the life of the people of God into effect. In 168 BC, by royal decree, all the distinctive characteristics of God's children were to be removed on pain of death. [01:04:02] The law was publicly burnt in the forecourt of the Temple. That's the first five books of the Bible were publicly burnt. Every single copy that could be found was added to that bonfire. An army of 20,000 soldiers entered Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, marched into the temple and profaned it. And all the services and sacrifices were forbidden. [01:04:30] The continual burnt offering stopped on that day in fulfillment of the prediction of Daniel. In Daniel, chapter eleven, Nehemiah's walls were destroyed. Those walls that have cost so much to build, they were burnt with fire and destroyed, except for the actual foundations which are still with us to today. [01:04:54] Jerusalem was to be turned into a greek city state by law. [01:05:00] Pagan altars were erected in every marketplace and pagan rites. [01:05:09] God's people had to participate in pagan rites at those pagan altars. Whenever called upon to do so, they had to go through the streets in honor to the God Bacchus, with ivy trailing from hand to hand. All kinds of things they had to do. In 167 BC, one year later, by royal decree, circumcision was forbidden. And one of the great stories was of two jewish women who had their children circumcised. And when it was discovered, the children were bound round their neck and they were taken through the city and thrown over the walls. [01:05:49] It was on pain of death. No one was to circumcise their children. Sabbath observance was forbidden, and even the reading of the law was forbidden. On pain of death, no one was spared, and the land literally ran with blood. [01:06:11] As people refused to obey these decrees, many of them, they read the law, they observed the Sabbath, and they circumcised their children. Immoral orgies took place in the temple itself, and a whole company of harlots was instituted in the holy place. Place. [01:06:35] Jews were forced in the streets to eat pork and unclean foods. [01:06:43] Toward the end of 167 bc, the persecution, the most devilish in the whole history of God's people, to systematically wipe out the people of God, culminated in the erection of an altar to Jupiter over the brazen altar in the temple. Now this is what Daniel calls the abomination of desolation. This is what the Lord Jesus calls the abomination of desolation. Moffat translates it. The appalling horror when you shall see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. Let him that readeth understand. Let him that is in Judea plead to the hills. And so on and so on and so forth. [01:07:37] The abomination of desolate. What was the abomination of desolation? It was a statue of Jupiter or the earth, and an actual altar erected on the top of the altar of burnt offerings. And upon it was offered roasted pork, swine's flesh, just in order to desecrate the whole thing in the eyes of God's people. [01:08:04] The Hebrews knew Jupiter as Baal, so to them it was even more horrifying that on the altar there was a statue and an altar erected to Baal. [01:08:19] In fact, it had become impossible to be a true jew anymore. The alternatives were simple. You either died or you compromised. There was no neutrality and there was no in between. And this is exactly what's going to happen in the end of this age. There will be no alternatives. You will either die. You can't sell or buy unless you've got the number, unless you're registered. You either die or you are compromised. And this was the only alternative offered to the people of God. Many of the Jews compromised and went along with the measures. Others possibly passively resisted. Others died in open opposition. [01:09:10] This, the worst period of this. This tribulation lasted three and a half years, which is exactly what Daniel said it would. It would last a time, two times and half a time, and it had lasted exactly three and a half years. Now, it is very interesting that this figure, three and a half, appears again and again and again in a period of seven. [01:09:38] In a period of seven. [01:09:40] The actual overall persecution was in fact six years in all. The really intense and terrible part of it lasted just over three years. Now this is a figure which, if you study the word of God, you will find comes up again and again in connection with the last great tribulation. Whether in fact it will be just exactly three and a half, we don't know. But I mention it to you as a very real and great interest, the really active opposition. And here we shall end this evening began with an old man, an old white haired man in his eighties, a most godly and devout priest, who lived not very far from Jerusalem in a place called Modin, who slew in righteous anger both the greek officer and the apostate jew, who were offering on a pagan altar in the marketplace of his hometown a sacrifice of swine's flesh. They had called the whole population together. [01:10:50] And because he was the best mole, his name was Mattathias, or Mattathia, because he was the best known and most popular of all the people, the most renowned, they asked him if he would offer, but he refused to do SO. And when he refused to do so, an apostate Jew stepped forward and offered to do so. Whereupon Mattathia slew the Greek officer and the apostate Jew, even though he was in his eighties, and cried out, let him. That is for the law of God and the covenant flee. [01:11:25] And so they fled to the mountains. He and his five sons, all remarkable men, they fled to the hills of Judea, and thousands joined them. And thus BEGAn one of the most glorious epochs in JeWISh history, in the history, in fact, of the people of God. For as the guerrilla army centered in the hills and built up its forces in the hills, so God gave to it the most remarkable military successes. Success after success after success. It also had some tragedies. Mattathiah died the same year that this happened. And his son, Judas Maccabeus, took over and led the forces. A thousand people fled from Jerusalem. And when the armies of Antiochus found them on the Sabbath, they told them to come out. But they said they would not because it was the sabbath. They fell upon them and slaughtered the whole thousand men, women and children. [01:12:39] This was the kind of thing happening everywhere. The stories of heroic endurance and martyrdom are, in fact mentioned in Hebrews, where it says, some, wanting a better resurrection, were prepared to endure torture and suffer death rather than deny. [01:13:03] And there is the story of the woman, the old lady with her seven sons, who had to watch while each one of them was racked on a wheel until they died in agony, each given the opportunity to recant, and each one refusing until her last, younger son, a twelve year old boy, died. And then the mother died on the wheel herself. There is another story which has become one of the great epics of jewish history, of elier's other priest, an old 90 year old man who died, also roasted alive. [01:13:38] All kinds of things happened in this barbaric. Three and a half years, which Daniel said would be a time such as never had been since the beginning, Mattathiah and his five sons led a crusade. And thus began what we call the era of the Maccabees. We don't even know what the name Maccabees means. It's generally thought to mean the hammer. [01:14:07] The family name of the. Of Mattathiah and his sons was the Hasmonians. And we. I expect most of you have heard this name mentioned sometime. The Hasmoneans. Well, these men nearly all died in battle. First, Judas Maccabeus died. He won many victories, and then he died in battle with the Syrians. His brother Jonathan took over and led the victorious armies on from success to success and became high priest. He died. He was the next of the. Of the brothers and the youngest of the brothers. Simon took over. And it was Simon who led the Maccabees to victory. [01:14:49] And for the first time since Solomon, the people of God were a sovereign people, owing to the owning no one as lord. In other words, you see, from Zerubbabel, they were under the Persians. From here, they were under the Greeks. [01:15:15] Then later they were under the Romans. Before that, they were vassals to Egypt in Josiah's day. Before that, they had been vassals to Assyria or Babylonia. But now, in this period, for this brief period from 152 one, between 152 and 142 and 64 bc, Judea became a sovereign state for the first time in a thousand years, a thing that the people of God had dreamt about and longed for and desired. And many wondered whether the Messiah would come in this time because it seemed to them so utterly wonderful. Antiochus Epiphanes died in 165 BC in a battle in media, much to the relief of everyone in Palestine. [01:16:20] I think really we have to say that the Maccabees recovered nearly all the territory that David ruled and have given us one of the most stirring stories in the whole of the history of the people of God. [01:16:37] Now, I am personally convinced that the time of the end, if we shall be found in it, will prove to be one of the most stirring, most triumphant and glorious epochs in the whole history of the church of God. For it is unlike the Lord to give his people up in that period when all Satan is let loose, when darkness and evil are on every side. It will not be my might nor by power, but by his spirit, that we shall not only have understanding of the times, but we shall do exploits. [01:17:28] And in that day, we shall have supernatural equipment to meet supernatural forces. I am convinced of it. So we end this evening here. Next week we will deal wholly with the word of God. What I intend to do is this. I intend to go back to Daniel and take this story of Antiochus now from scripture and step by step see what does the Bible tell us about this man, Antichrist. [01:18:02] For you will see here in this chart that in Daniel we have this little horn. [01:18:12] In Daniel two, if you will read it for next week. In Daniel two and Daniel seven, we have two visions of the whole of the history of the Gentile period. [01:18:23] We have Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. Gold, the image of gold, silver, brass, iron and clay, and the four beasts, the lion, the bear, the leopard and the monstrous beast. Now when we come to this monstrous beast, here, we are introduced suddenly in the story is this that is called the Little Horn. [01:18:53] The Little Horn. [01:18:56] When we come to the next vision, Daniel eight, we have a vision of two beasts, the Ram and the he Goat. And now this red line, you will see, it deals only with this period of time, not the whole period of the Gentiles, but the period of Persia and of Greece. Then we have an extended dealing with the little horn. And this time we discover that a little Horn is Antiochus Epiphanes. The time before it couldn't have been Antiochus Epiphanes because it's dealing with Rome. And Antiochus Epiphanes was in the greek era. So it seems as if the spirit of God is trying to explain to us who this coming Antichrist is, what he is like. So he takes up Antiochus Epiphanes to explain what this little hall at the very end of gentile history will be like when we come to the next vision. In Daniel ten to twelve, we have the history of the Antichrist, and now we have only the little horn dealt with. So it is very interesting. First we have the whole period dealt with and the little horn mentioned. Then we have only half of the period mentioned, and the little horn dealt with a good deal more. And then the last vision, here we have the whole thing on the little horn, the Antichrist. [01:20:19] Then when you come to revelation 13, the one great beast and the lamb beast, I don't know if you've ever noticed that, but it is a beast that speaks, that looks like a lamb, has two horns like a ram, and speaks like a dragon. It is the lamb beast, the one great beast and the lamb beast. And we find this is modern civilization at the end, because this great beast is a mixture of all the others. It is a mixture of lion, of bear, of leopard and the monster all in one. And we find, therefore, I put this here and gone on with a line here as if it should go over there, you see, because it is our era. [01:21:06] We are in this. And then we have here the false prophet, the lamb beast, the lamb beast is the false prophet. And I put underneath that with the Antichrist, the dragon, the beast, the false prophet and the harlot, and under that, the man of sin. Now, I don't know. It's rather a lot for you to do, but if you could read just a few of those visions a little for next week. I think that now we've talked about this man in Tyrkas Epiphany week, we will talk about what we can learn from this period for ourselves and what we can learn from the personality and policy of Antiochus Epiphanes in the light of the coming Antichrist. Because I think all of you are aware that the great cry in the political sphere, in the economic sphere, and in the religious sphere is reconciliation, reunity, unity, is the cry. [01:22:11] It is remarkable to me that the Antichrist is characterized by a policy of reconciliation and reunification, which means that we people of God, with our distinctiveness, without separativeness, with our inability to be part of this world system, are going to be characterized as old fashioned bigots that have got to be broken and removed. If this policy is to succeed and war is to be banned, we shall be made to seem to appear to be the people who create war, who create mental homes, who create disease by our twisted ideas and our dark, somber view of life and the hereafter, and so on and so forth. Well, don't be afraid. We have a victorious lord in heaven, and he's on the throne. And the wonderful thing about it all is if you read the visions, there's a little word that says, until. [01:23:20] And it comes again and again. Until the ancient of days came, until. Or the other word is but. [01:23:32] And so it tells you the darkest story. And then it says, but. [01:23:38] But. And the but is glorious, because every time it says, he shall be broken. And that without remedy shall we pray. [01:23:52] O Lord Jesus Christ, how glad we are that thou art beyond the reach of the evil one. And how glad we are that when this man of sin appears at the end of this era, whether we are there or not, thou wilt slay him with the breath of thy mouth. [01:24:10] Lord Jesus, we worship thee, the king of kings and the lord of lords. And we thank thee, Lord, that thou hast written these things in thy word for our admonition and instruction upon whom the ends of the age have come. [01:24:28] O Lord Jesus, wilt thou by thy spirit make us a people instructed, make us a people wise, that we may know our God and may be enabled, Lord, in those days to stand, and we ask it in thy name.