“Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, THAT YOU MAY LEARN IN US NOT TO THINK BEYOND WHAT IS WRITTEN, that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other,” (1 Corinthians 4:6).
Bible interpretation among Christians is a lot like going on a whale watch. When a hump appears, everyone runs to that side of the boat. From the cold war until 2001, the big suspect for Antichrist had to be a Russian. (And I still hear this from time to time.) But after 9/11, the leading suspect became Middle Eastern. Possibly a Jew. And unfortunately, the latest results of both the U.S. and Israeli elections have only served to strengthen this paranoia.
Yet, Daniel 9:26 is blunt: “And the people of the prince who is to come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.”
God gave His people a historical marker —the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and its temple— in order to help us identify the future Antichrist. According to Daniel, the coming prince would be descended from the same people responsible for Jerusalem’s destruction. Who were these people?
The destruction of Jerusalem and its temple was carried out in 70 A.D. by the Roman army under the leadership of the Roman general, Titus, son of the Roman emperor, Vespasian. So the Bible is letting us know that Antichrist will be of Roman or European descent.
But some “scholars” stretch this plain meaning by suggesting that Daniel is pointing to a possible Middle Eastern ethnicity of some of the individual soldiers of the Roman army! They go beyond the plain meaning of prophecy in order to fit their narrative of a Middle Eastern antichrist! To this I say, God is not a fool. He does not lead His people down rabbit trails. Prophecy is there to enlighten us, not confuse us.
In Daniel 2, God laid out in succession the four major world empires that would dominate His people, from Daniel’s time onward. The four empires were portrayed as a great image: Babylon was the head of gold; Medo-Persia, the arms & chest of silver; Greece, the belly & thighs of bronze; and Rome, the legs of iron and feet of iron & clay. Each metal represented one of the four empires — less precious than the preceding one, but tougher in strength.
Iron is the strongest metal in the Bible. By characterizing Rome as the IRON kingdom, God was letting us know that no other kingdom would be able to match its inherent strength— until the coming Messianic kingdom of Jesus Christ! At that time, the “stone cut out of the mountain without hands,” will strike the image on its feet of iron & clay and topple it— breaking the image into dust-like particles which are blown away with the wind!
In Daniel 7, God showed us the same four empires portrayed as beasts: Babylon is the winged lion; Medo-Persia, the bear; Greece, the four-headed leopard; and Rome, the terrible destructive beast.
It is out from the fourth beast— ROME— that a nation beginning as a “little horn” will arise. “And suddenly in this horn there were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth that was speaking arrogantly,” (Daniel 7:8). A ruler would rise out of this nation. He is Antichrist.
Four times in Daniel 7, the Bible makes note of the arrogant, boastful speech of this ruler: “a mouth speaking pompous words” (v. 8); “because of the sound of the pompous words which the horn was speaking” (v.11); “namely, that horn which had eyes and a mouth which spoke pompous words, whose appearance was greater than his fellows” (v. 20); “He shall speak pompous words against the Most High” (v. 25).
“Pompous” means arrogant, pretentious, self-important, smug, superior, bombastic.
The Bible has instructed us not to go beyond what is written. Going beyond Scripture— whatever the motive— is dangerous. It leads to pride, and pride leads to a fall.
On the other hand, we should pay close attention to what IS written within the word of God. Ignoring what has been written, can also be dangerous. It can leave us vulnerable at a time when we need to be watching very, very closely.
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