To the evidence in Daniel:

Remember the gap idea first. As in Daniel’s visions, as in the 490 years, chapter 11 is moving along smoothly when suddenly we jump thousands of years and wind up nearly in the Millennium. Do you remember when you first read this passage, knowing nothing of history? Did it not seem to you a smooth narrative that told the life story of an ancient king? The translators blocked our thinking by making a chapter division at the end of chapter 11. We went on glibly to 12, thinking a new story was starting. But it was the same event. The Tribulation, the judgment, the resurrections, tied irrevocably to the story of the ancient king.

Troubling. But the scholars assured us that two kings were being described, one that just looked like the other one, but was a different man. But what if it is the same man?

Historically we know that Antiochus did fill the role of king of the North. The Spirit has brought us to the geographical portions of the understanding, and we must stay with that. He is called a king in verse 27. He is never called in the prior section “king of the North”, just a king. So why should he not still be called that in verse 36? Could not the Spirit, the angel, the prophet, have been clear with us that a change in identity was intended?

Is there a change? Or is there an exaggerated capability of the same old Antiochus, who is troubled with the Jews and their God? Antiochus, the first king in history to assume and announce his own deity on the common coinage of his day. Antiochus, a madman who cares about power and property and money. Is he not the same, yet empowered differently from verse 36? Why must he be a different man?

Finally in verse 40 “the king of the North” is mentioned. It is possible to read this verse in two different ways. One could say Egypt attacks “the king”, then the (same) king, that is “the king of the North” attacks Egypt. Or one could imagine that by this time in history, the “king” (antichrist) has graduated from king of the “North” to world dictator, and both the South and the North attack him, but to no avail, for he is Satan-empowered.

Yes, now, whether the title “North” applies or not, he is acting, not as one of the four original horns, but as the “fifth” or “little” horn. It is not until “the latter time of their [the four horns’] kingdom” that the “king” with fierce features arises, the little horn.

He has arisen in our text now. Same man. Re-grown. Re-planted. Dead and resurrected. Infested with Satan himself. Of the fourth but the fifth. In Revelation, the “eighth” but one of the seven. New, yet old. Never been here before, not like this, but lived in a similar body centuries before. King of the North, but maybe graduated to King over all. The old “manifested one” seeking to be “God manifest in the flesh” as the Enemy he hates so passionately, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The enigma has been with us all these centuries. They mystery itself helps to solve the mystery. The fact that it seems so unexplainable but sits there unchanging should tell us to accept it like it is. God Himself, knowing how difficult these things are for us to understand, could have carefully explained the gap, the repeat of history, the preservation of lives, but He allowed the mystery to remain hidden in this text and that, assuring that most will not solve the riddle.

His plan and the course of the war that ends all wars is laid out from verses 38 to 45. There is an indication that things military will be his god. He will be attacked by Egypt and perhaps Syria. He will retaliate with great force and take over other countries. Some will escape, some will not. From the east and north come rumblings of approaching trouble, perhaps China and Russia in a united front, as they often are. In a last mad dash toward world conquest he arrives, perhaps, at Armageddon. But his time runs out. He is unceremoniously picked up “by the scruff of the neck” and thrown by King Jesus into his eternal home far from the love of God.

I have not covered in detail the dealings of antichrist in our future because that is not the purpose of this present work. Much of what could be said would be speculation anyway. I have desired to specify who Scripture has highlighted as the man of sin. In chapter 11 of Daniel I believe it is clear that the Spirit led Daniel to review in prophecy pre-Roman history so as to show us one man, an evil man, a man who desired but never obtained world prominence. A man who passed off the scene for many centuries but who returned, invigorated by demonic power to finish in the end time what he began earlier: the elimination of the Jewish people, and the enthronement of himself in the place of all gods.

Chapter 12 paints the added touch we need to complete this picture. The angel relates to Daniel that it is at the time of the reigning of “the king”, that the unparalleled time of tribulation occurs, spoken of also by Jesus as the forerunner to His own approach.

Finally in the book of Daniel, the prophet himself needs attention. He is told to seal the book until the time of the end, in response to his many questions about the future. I am not sure how Daniel and the Spirit sealed this work but it is a fact that men through the ages have not had access mentally to it. It has been literally a sealed book. Incomprehensible. Under attack. Rejected. Until recently, as more and more people get a grasp of what this book really means. That could only mean that the time of the end is upon us, for that time was to be the time when the sealing would be over, and the book made available (12:9).

Lastly there is a question of timing, after which the book abruptly ends. The phrase “time of the end” blends into verse 10 and lets us understand that from the time of the abomination of desolation, the event we have been tracing at Jesus’ advice, coupled with the taking away of the daily sacrifice, which happens at the same time, until the very end of all the suffering, shall be 1290 days, a little over three and one half years. In forty-five more days, something blessed happens. By then, are we in the Millennial reign, at the wedding banquet, the Coronation? And by then, Satan is punished, the world is liberated, we come into our own.