Daniel Chapter 11 Verse 1

• This statement really belongs at the end of Chapter 10. This is the angel’s final comment on his cooperation with Michael. Recall the first year of Darius the Mede was the year that Babylon fell to the Medes and the Persians and the angel says that he himself established and strengthened Darius. Odd statement for sure because we are not told how…
• But also odd because was Darius righteous? Was he saved? Was he a Jew? Was he a good guy? Was he a good leader? I believe the answer is no to all of those questions…yet God established his position and authority on earth none the less, right? Obviously so! Man just like Paul wrote in Romans 13…the powers that are in place have been ordained by God…and the implication…whether good rulers or bad rulers…doesn’t matter…let every soul be subject to the governing authorities…hard truth but truth nonetheless…
• Speaking of truth…

Daniel Chapter 11 Verse 2

• Now as we get into this, consider…no other chapter in all of scripture gives us such an awesome exhibition of God’s power to foretell the future. What we will study in this chapter we see as history but to Daniel, and when this chapter was written, all of these specific details are still yet to come to pass…
• The three coming kings of the Persians we know well through historical and Biblical record…the first, a dude named Cambyses who took the Persian kingly title of Ahasuerus and we find him in Ezra 4:6. The second, Pseudo-Smerdis who took the title Artaxerxes and we find him in Ezra 4:7-23 and finally Darius Hystaspes which is the Darius recorded for us in Ezra 4:24.
• Then the fourth, the most significant as he would be greater than all of the others and stir up the entire nation against Greece. We know this king to be the wealthy and mighty Xerxes who took the kingly title of Ahasuerus and this guy is the one we read of in the Book of Esther.
• Xerxes really did stir up all against the realm of Greece. He assembled an army of 3 million men and then teamed up with Phoenician Carthage to sack Greece…take it by storm and invade it but when they attacked…well the Greeks are good fighters you know…two different major battles, one at Thermopylae and the other at Salamis and both were crushing defeats for the Persians…
• To the point that the entire empire was humiliated really. I mean Greece was tiny in comparison to the Persian Empire and so this broke the spirit of the Medo-Persian Empire in a way because as history tells us that Empire went on for another century and a half and other kings came into play but none of them worthy to be mentioned in this prophecy…
• Eventually the day would come and it did come when Greece would shellac the Medo-Persian Empire under the leadership of Alexander the Great and the Empire on life support would be put out of its misery! And here he comes…

Daniel Chapter 11 Verse 3

• Alexander the Great, that’s that dude right there!

Daniel Chapter 11 Verse 4

• Alexander the Great never lost. Within a dozen years of conquest he had brought Asia, India, and parts of Africa and Europe under his sway by military siege. He never met a foe he could not conquer, a city he could not subdue, a people he could not subjugate…except for himself. His sin exacted its toll…he could conquer the world but what good is it if you lose your soul? He died the death of an addict…he died a loser man…
• His empire collapsed and was divided. In the decade after his death we see a gruesome scene of a power struggle. His half brother Philip Aridaeus succeeded him but he was murdered along with his wife Euridice and guess who instigated the hit? This is sick…Olympais…Alexander’s mother.
• Then Alexander’s illegitimate son tries to rise to power, his name is Hercules…which happens to be my nickname…no its not…L, but the generals of Greece would not recognize his authority and so he ends up being murdered as well along with his mother Barsine who was Alexander’s former mistress…
• Then Alexander’s wife Statira was murdered by Roxane who was another of Alexander’s wives! Roxane’s son then makes a play, his name was Alexander Aegus but again Olympias conspires with Cassander one of the generals and that dude is off’d. See this? Why read murder novels? Why watch 24 or whatever for your juicy plot thick conspiracy rich stories? Just study the Bible right!!!?
• Within 15 years of his own death, none of Alexander’s family remained alive….crazy! Just as the Bible says! His entire kingdom will be uprooted! The implication? The terrifying truth that I’m sure Alexander would refuse responsibility for? He murdered all of these people! The blood is on him for his sin man! For his pride! For his death at 32 from the bottle man! His whole family pays the price!!! Do you see that? Man that is heavy on my heart…
• What if he had been a good husband? What if he had been a good father? I can tell you this…at the very least, his family would have lived…

Daniel Chapter 11 Verse 5

• The king of the south refers to Ptolemy Lagus who was one of Alexander’s successors. He had founded an entirely new dynasty in Egypt. Meanwhile, back in Babylon, one of Alexander’s generals, Seleucus Nicator was appointed vice-regent of Babylon but was quickly driven out by the ambitious Antigonus. So Seleucus goes on down to the south and knock knock knock, can you help a brother out, becomes a prince of Ptolemy.
• Now Ptolemy and Seleucus go up against Antigonus and whip him - restoring power to Seleucus but gaining for this guy regency over Cappadocia, part of Phrygia, upper Syria, Babylon, Mesopotamia and the Euphrates Valley…so just as the prophecy said, the king of the south was strong, but one of his princes was stronger. The Selucid kingdom was greater than the other three put together!
• Now, that setting lays a historical foundation that is pin point accurate in terms of following this prophecy…to the point that if we break it all down then we will be in this chapter for 3 months and bored out of our gourd with historical details...that’s how in depth and specific this prophetic chapter is…So, I don’t plan to cover the details…

Daniel Chapter 11 Verse 6

• The two characters we just met have some sons, so some time passes and one of the daughters of one of the sons, Berenice is her name, does precisely this…the marriage originally incites peace but later, a couple of more kids in the mix, another marriage, war breaks out again…and this prophetic history becomes utterly cluttered with interminable war between the north and the south…
• And let me tell you this is some clutter…some soap opera stuff…real quick…the king of the south fights against the king of the north. Antiochus II, Ptolemy, another one, in the south until Ptolemy has a good idea…I’ll offer Antiochus my daughter along with a Benz (a big dowry), with some terms, and that will make peace…
• The terms…divorce your wife Laodice and declare your children illegitimate! And he does it! Wow, but after Ptolemy dies, Antiochus renounces the terms, remarries Laodice BUT Laodice doesn’t trust him and so she does what? Murders him! SHHHHHEEEESH! “These are the days of our lives!” And this is just the tip of the iceberg…see why the details will take so long? This is why you can make a show called 24 and have it span 10 seasons!!!!

Daniel Chapter 11 Verses 7 - 13

• Back and forth, back and forth. No peace no peace no peace generation after generation after generation. Kids and grandkids and great grandkids wrought with stress and hate and murder and war…why? ALEXANDER THE GREAT! Wasted his life man…and the ripple effect, the downstream decay…All. This. Death. All. This. Greed. All this betrayal. All this pain.
• What if he had just been a good father…a good husband? We have this evil worm inside of us…a heart worm…that whispers in our heart’s ear and entices us to do our own thing…to sin...telling us that God’s ways are handcuffs on the wrists of our inner party boy…but just look at one man’s work product…because he listened to that lie…
• Jesus said in John 10:10 that the enemy comes only to steal, kill and destroy. Your flesh, your sensual pangs, your emotional urges when given reign over your thoughts and over your mouth and over your hands and over your feet will pilfer you, slaughter you and decimate you and I’m not willing to watch it happen to me as it did to so many others in my family tree on down to the roots…Jesus continues and says BUT I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly…
• People, Matt, mirror man…God loves you so very much, that He gave His all, do you really believe that His ways as commanded in His Word in terms of how you are to respond to that love…will chain you? That is a ridiculous notion man…God’s ways are described as the perfect laws of liberty man and walking in the Spirit, allowing the Spirit to guide your behaviors and rule over all of your pangs…not only will that bring you into a wondrous intimate personal relationship with God through the cleansing blood of Jesus and the filling of the Holy Spirit…but it will also lead to life in a ripple effect throughout your own life and the lives to come as a result of yours…
• You’re only too far gone if you stay away. Jesus simply says come. Come and I’ll take care of the rest…