Daniel 11:

Wars, Casualties, and the Last Battle.

I want to tell you what we know of the story of an Olympic champion – a young woman called Berenice, (Bearer of victory) who won the equivalent of gold at the Olympic games in 256 BC. She was of royal descent, the daughter of Ptolemy II of Egypt. Four years later, she was taken to Egypt’s northern border with the Seleucid empire, destined to marry Antiochus II days later. She brought the possibility of peace between the two empires and a considerable dowry with her. Antiochus divorced his first wife to marry her. She had one son, but by 246, she and her son were dead, murdered by supporters of Antioch's first wife.

That’s the story that Daniel foretold in verse 6 of chapter 11. It's a story repeated over and over again: the story of people, individuals, who are treated as nothing more than pawns in the great games of politics and war. When Bashar Assad of Syria was recently asked

Aleppo - Public Domain image

whether he can sleep at night knowing about the suffering of children in Aleppo and other theatres of war in his own country, he laughed, assured the journalist that he sleeps just fine, and remarked “this is war, not charity”. When German storm troopers were hunting down the Jews of Warsaw, they found a wee Jewish girl named Zosia, who had bright, sparkling eyes: one of the soldiers remarked, her eyes were like diamonds and would make two lovely rings, one for him and one for his wife. In an orgy of unspeakable cruelty, her eyes were torn out; a few days later she was taken to a death camp.

Whether in wars, or acts of terror, or company takeovers, economic downturns or government cutbacks, all too often there are little people, women, children, people with disabilities or with few resources, who become the collateral damage. Berenice reminds us that in the midst of wars and political crises, there are real people getting hurt.

And Berenice reminds us that God knows about all the twists and turns of history. Remember she was a real person. Like the mighty king of v. 3 (Alexander the Great), the king of the south (Ptolemy's empire in Africa) and the King of the North (the Seleucid Empire based in Syria) the wars between these two powers (verses 11-20) and the contemptible person (Antiochus Epiphenes , v. 21) who desecrated the temple (v. 31) it was all written in the book of truth. It all happened. Even that fact that some of the Jews compromised with Antiochus, while others stood firm against him. (v. 32) God knows all of that in advance.

And God knows about our history. He knows about the millions slain in World War 1 (750,000 from the UK, 1.1m from France, 1.7m from Russia) He knows about the fact that there has not been a single decade of peace in the century since then. British troops have been deployed in conflicts ranging from Ireland, Palestine and the Middle East, Suez, Aden, Kenya, Eritrea, Korea, the Falklands, Bosnia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. God knows about Hitler; about Saddam and Assad and Putin; he knows about Trump and the dangerous rise of right wing extremism that is happening in the Western world. He knows about the school kids abusing Hispanic students in Bend, Oregon yesterday and those in Detroit chanting “Build the wall!” The whole of history is God's book of truth. He knows. And as verse 1 – linking us with the previous chapter – reminds us, back of evil stuff is the evil one; behind our human struggles is a spiritual battle.

So why does he allow it? Why do things happen that treat little people as disposable? Why did he allow what happened to Zosia? Why does he allow millions to die in wars? Why does he allow a holocaust or ethnic cleansing or ISIS? But God answers with silence. Bishop James Jones asks “What sound would God make? And if he did cry out who would be able to stand the sound of his wailing.”

Ron Wallace says “History is foreknown but in such a way as to allow for human choices.” But why give us these choices, knowing what we would do with them? Ravi Zacharias, an Indian Christian whose ministry has been devoted to finding answers to some of these difficult questions says this: “The supreme ethic God has given to us is the ethic of love...which places value on the other person.. but you cannot have love without weaving into it the freedom of the will. If your are compelled like some machine to a certain decision, you can never love.” God's silence is the silence of one who created us for love, created us with free will, and who sees the world he made racked by a spiritual battle.

And there's something else... if Daniel was written by someone else after the Maccabean revolt, that someone didn't know his history that well. In verses 31ff we are told about things that didn't actually happen to Antiochus – or anyone else. Suddenly, the clear fulfilments run out. Whereas the chapter up to verse 35 is all about things that have actually happened, the rest of the chapter tells of things that we are still waiting for. So the “king” in verse 35 is a different person. Antiochus desecrated the temple, but he never turned against all the Gods of his own people. He didn't turn against the gods of his ancestors or the “one desired by women” (probably a god called Tammuz who was thought to die and rise again every year and for whom the women would “Mourn”.) There is no evidence that Antiochus came again to invade Judea, Egypt or North Africa. In other words, this bit is still to happen. The King that Daniel is talking about here, is the Antichrist or “man of lawlessness” (2 Thess 2. 3)

We can't really figure out what all the details of this section mean. Like the prophecies in the earlier verses, they would be recognised when they were fulfilled and not before. I believe it is the same here. We're not meant to figure it all out – and if we try we will probably get it wrong. But what we do know is that a figure will appear who will be the great final enemy of the people of God. And that he will come to his end, with no-one to help him. Defeated, gone, his supporters wiped out, no-one to help him.

1. There is warfare. All the rubbish that happens in our world, all the oppression, all the violence and terror, all the suffering that comes to individuals, is part of an ongoing, cosmic battle.
2. That battle will eventually reach a climax of godless evil, violence and greed. The world isn’t' going to start becoming a nicer place so that Jesus come and can set up his Kingdom. It's going to get worse, until Jesus comes back to set up his Kingdom. We need to be ready for that. Like the Jews in the time of Antiochus we have the choice between, selling out to the enemy or firmly resisting him (verse 32) the people who know their God will firmly resist him.
3. And in that warfare, the enemy will be defeated. His end will be brought about by the glorious return of the Son of God from heaven. When Jesus comes back and the enemy is defeated, all that is evil, all that is bad, all that is brutal, frightening, oppressive will be swept away for ever. There will be no more crying, because the old order will pass away. Jesus will make all things new. That's the triumph and the victory that we await.

And what happens to Berenice, or Zosia, or you or me, has as its context, not only the power of God, or our choices, or the spiritual battle. It also has as its context, the coming final triumph and victory of Jesus. In the 1300's lived a woman who wanted to devote her whole life to prayer, so had a tiny cell built for her in the wall of the Church of St Julian in Norwich; so she became known as Julian of Norwich. She lived and prayed through a time of upheaval, and is famous for her statement of faith, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

© G Lilly November 2016