I Dare You: Be Shocked! - Part B

Knowing that every person around you will one day die and go into eternity. How should you feel? Knowing that the gate to heaven is narrow, Jesus said, and very few enter into it.

How should that make you feel? The way I see it, we can't continue to be complacent and indifferent and yawn our way through life and just go about daily business. As Christians, we can be confident in our future with Christ when we die.

But what should we do here on earth for those who don't know him? Today on Connect with Skip Hightaker, Skip challenges you not to be complacent, but to get busy winning souls for Jesus. But first, we want to tell you about an exciting resource that will strengthen the soul of your marriage. We have an exciting resource to help strengthen your marriage so it can thrive no matter what your circumstances. It's The Marriage Devotional. 52 days to strengthen the soul of your marriage by Levi and Jenny Lusko.

And we'd love to send you a copy as thanks for your gift this month to grow the ministry of Connect with Skip. How do you figure out what's going on underneath your marriage? You ask about it. So when was the last time you've checked in with your spouse? And a little pro tip, Jenny and I, our marriage counselor, for what it's worth, she told us to never, ever, ever do the check in during date night.

And this has been revolutionary for us. We used to just literally have a fight every single date night because that was our check in. One of us would be dumb enough over appetizers to go, well, what's going on in your house? Which is usually code for, please tell me the five things I'm doing wrong this week. You know what I'm saying? And so now, I'm pushing the cauliflower away because I'm feeling hot and angry. And then we get in this big fight.

And she goes, oh, gosh, you're doing it wrong. Date night's joy. Date night's fun. Just keep it light.

Put a pin in stuff that's going to give you stress on the date night, but you got to have the check in too. Great marriages are made, not born. And this devotional journey will be the encouragement your marriage, not just any marriage, needs to flourish. So we cling. We cling to God. We cling to our spouse. We cling to the local church because we're vines. And we want our marriage to be like a fruitful vine in the heart of our house.

In the marriage devotional, 52 Days to Strengthen the Soul of Your Marriage, Levi and Jenny will point you to God's word and help you experience a depth and beauty you may have never thought possible. We'll send you a copy of this powerful resource as thanks for your gift to expand Connect with Skip Heitzig to reach more people in major US cities. Yours for a donation of $50 or more. Just call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash offer.

That's connectwithskip.com slash offer. OK, let's turn to Daniel 8 as we join Skip. Follow me here. God reveals himself. He reveals truth to humanity.

He wants us to have information. He does it in two ways. He does it in creation. We call that general revelation. The heavens declare the glory of God.

The firmament shows his handiwork. The second is called creation. Special revelation. The same psalm says the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul. So in the world and by the word, those two places, God reveals himself to humanity. He reveals the truth. You say, OK, I know that. So what?

Here's the so what. No one can plead ignorance any longer. Even the world, even an unbeliever, God says in Romans Chapter 1, God has revealed himself in creation so that they are without what? Excuse. They have no excuse. God has given enough information just in the world he created for people to wake up, look around, smell the flowers and go, something, someone must have made this.

They're without excuse. God reveals himself in the world and by the word. Take it a step further. We live in a day and age where anybody who's interested at all in spiritual truth can find it. Virtually every biblical resource you can get for free just about on the Internet.

Any historical data, any information, any Bible commentary. So the problem is not lack of information. If people are unaware, one of three things is going on. Number one, laziness. Number two, indifference.

Whatever. Number three, they just flat don't want to hear it. Now what I've always been concerned with is this incredible spiritual illiteracy among Christians.

Listen to this. Only 19% of Protestants know that salvation comes through faith alone, not by works. That's shocking. 45% of Protestants, 45% can't name the four gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The people in my generation still think it's John, Paul, George and Ringo.

A different fab four. Only 55% of Protestants know that the golden rule is not one of the Ten Commandments. A married couple came in to see an Episcopal pastor.

True story. They had a teenage son and they had a list of questions their son wanted answered. So they made an appointment with the pastor. First question on the list that their son wanted to know.

Here's the question. What's that guy doing hanging up there on that plus sign? And these are church people.

These are church people. God wants to reveal himself. The question is how eager are we to get the revelation? I'll ask a fundamental question.

Boil it down to its irreducible minimum. Do you expose yourself to what God reveals as much as you expose yourself to what the world dishes out? That's the question. God's all about revealing himself. Are we eager to receive it? So that's the vision God reveals. Let's look at what it means, the interpretation.

Verse 15. Then it happened when I, Daniel, had seen the vision and was seeking the meaning that suddenly there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice between the banks of the Uli, that's the river in the vision, who called and said, Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.

So how cool is this? The angel Gabriel comes and gives him the meaning of it. So he came near where I stood. And when he came, I was afraid and fell on my face.

Ouch. But he said to me, understand, son of man, that the vision refers to the time of the end. Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground, but he touched me and stood me upright. And he said, look, I am making known to you what shall happen in the latter time of the indignation. For at the appointed time the end shall be. The ram which you saw having two horns, they are the kings of Media and Persia. And the male goat is the kingdom of Greece. The large horn that is between its eyes is the first king.

That's Alexander the Great. As for the broken horn and the four that stood in its place, four kingdoms shall arise out of that nation, but not with its power. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their fullness, a king shall arise having fierce features who understand sinister schemes. His power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. He shall destroy fearfully and shall prosper and thrive. He shall destroy the mighty and also the holy people. Through his cunning he shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule, and he shall exalt himself in his heart. He shall destroy many in their prosperity. He shall even rise against the prince of princes.

But he shall be broken without human means. And the vision of the evenings and mornings, those 2,300 days, which was told is true. Therefore seal up the vision, for it refers to many days in the future. So Daniel gets help by heavenly interpreters.

They tell him what this is all about. That large horn, that's the first king of Greece. The horn is broken. That's Alexander the Great.

We discussed that last time. The horn was broken on June the 10th, 323 BC, when Alexander the Great died in Babylon at age 33. When he was on his deathbed, people around him said, what are we going to do with your kingdom? He said, give it to the strong.

Didn't give him any information. Didn't say who the strong, how many the strong, how the strong. He said, give it to the strong and then, boop, he's dead. So there was an argument until finally they settled it, and it was divided into four sections. Four sections, four horns. His four generals took his kingdom. Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus.

Those are, I'm not speaking in tongues, those are the names of his four generals. And they divided up the kingdom. So Cassander takes Greece and Macedonia, the kingdom of Alexander and his father originally. Lysimachus takes Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, and the ancient Thracian Empire. Ptolemy takes Egypt down south, North Africa and Arabia. And Seleucus takes Syria and Babylonia, what is north and east of Israel.

So they're divided up. Four horns, four generals, now four kingdoms, four dynasties for years to come that rule. But in verse nine, we're told about a small horn that grows up out of one of these horns. In verses 23 through 26, we're told about his personality, his persecution of the Jews, et cetera. Almost universal agreement, scholars agree that this little horn refers to somebody called Antiochus IV. Antiochus IV, he was the eighth in line of the Seleucid kings who reigned from 175 BC to 164 BC. That little horn, Antiochus, becomes a model of the nitwit, Antichrist, who will come at the end of time. Let me give you just a little brief history perspective. Alexander the Great had a dream to unify the world.

Isn't that a wonderful dream? We are the world. He's the first guy that thought that up. He wanted to bring all the world together in unity by making everybody just like him. Sort of like every one of us.

There'll be unity in this house if you think just like I think. Except he did that worldwide. He wanted to make everybody Greek-speaking and Greek-cultured, Hellenize them. He failed.

He died at age 33. His four generals tried. Seleucus the Syrian in particular, his fourth general, he failed. But, as I mentioned, that eighth king in the Seleucid dynasty named Antiochus IV succeeded in unifying the world against the Romans that were trying to push in who eventually would take over. He unified the world except for one group of people that was really stubborn.

Guess who they were? The Jews. They're not going to give up God. They're not going to give up their worship.

They're not going to capitulate to the Greek modern philosophy. So he had a hard time with them. Antiochus gave himself a name.

Get this. It's been found on coins from that era. He wrote Theos Antiochus Theos Epiphanius. Theos is what? God. Theos Antiochus Theos Epiphanius.

I am God, manifest, most glorious. He did not have a problem with self-esteem. He tried to completely eradicate the religion of the Jews. On one occasion, he attacked Jerusalem and killed 80,000 Jews in one battle.

Sold 40,000 of them as slaves. He plundered the temple. He ended the sacrifices in the temple. He dedicated the temple to Zeus and commanded everybody to worship Zeus. He took a pig, sacrificed it on the altar of sacrifice, spread the juices of that pig around the temple.

That's a way to desecrate it. And that was known as the fulfillment of Daniel. This chapter, the Jews said this is what was predicted, the abomination that causes desolation. Antiochus stopped the Sabbath from being celebrated. He burned Hebrew scriptures.

He cast truth down to the ground, it says. And he forbid Jewish parents from circumcising their male babies. There are several stories about this.

I'll give you one. One story says two Jewish women decided to defy the orders of Antiochus Epiphanes. By the way, he called himself Antiochus Epiphanes. The Jews called him Antiochus Epimanes, which means the madman, the netcase. But on one occasion, two Jewish women defied Antiochus' order and they circumcised their children on the eighth day, their male children. Antiochus found out, went into their homes, killed the babies in front of the mother's eyes, tied the baby around the neck of each mother, marched them through the whole city to the city wall and then threw them over to their death.

That's the kind of a guy he was. How long did this desecration last? Take a guess. 2,300 days. It's recorded in history. From September 6, 171 B.C.

to December 25, 164 B.C. How did it end? How did the desecration end?

Actually, you already know the answer to that. Every year around December 25, what do Jewish people celebrate? Hanukkah. Hanukkah is about this. You see, what happened is there was a guy named Judas Maccabeus, part of the Maccabean family. Their father was named Matthias and there were five boys and they started a revolt and in 164, on December 25, 164 B.C., they managed to overcome the Syrians, rededicate the temple back to God. According to the Jewish legend, when they were lighting the lamps for the temple, the menorah, they found a cruise of oil that would only last one day in the burning of the lamps.

According to the legend, miraculously, that one cruise of oil lasted not one day but eight days and that's why today, still, Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days, celebrating the dedication and the cleansing of the temple. Now, let me throw in another principle before we finish this chapter and close our message. God reveals truth. Not only does God reveal truth, He wants us to know what to do with that truth, how to interpret that truth. You see, the images in the vision that Daniel saw only meant one thing.

Medo-Persia, Greece, and kings. It didn't mean three things, it didn't mean five things. It wasn't like Daniel got a vision and said, well, what this vision means to me is, nobody can, can you imagine somebody coming up to Daniel and hearing this vision and says, well, you know, Daniel, that's your interpretation, but my interpretation is this and that. So, it's a wrong interpretation.

Am I right? It only means one thing. 2 Peter 1, no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation.

So, here's my challenge. Be students of the Word and seek to discover its true meaning. Every text in Scripture has only one true interpretation. Now, there are some disputable texts, hard to understand this or that.

For the most part, it's straightforward. What the original authors designed the original recipients to understand, that's what it means. It doesn't mean three things. Well, that's your interpretation. There's only one true interpretation, revealed by language and context and grammar and background and unity of Scripture. So, be open and hunger for God's revelation, but to interpret it rightly.

Two things that'll help you do that. Daily devotional time. Do you have a daily devotional time where you carve out time to expose yourself to the truth of God's Word? Number two, a small group. Men's ministry has small groups. Women's ministry has small groups.

We have connect groups around the community. Get together and discuss the Scripture. That will help you in not only hungering for the truth, but rightly interpreting the Word. So, we've looked at the vision. We've seen the interpretation. Let's look at the last verse and close the reaction. This is what Daniel felt.

Look at this. And I, Daniel, fainted and was sick for days. Talk about being shocked.

Afterward I arose and went about the king's business. I was astonished by the vision, but no one understood it. Why was this his reaction? Why was he shocked?

Because he could see what was coming down the pike for the Jewish nation in the future. Shocked him to the core. He didn't go, oh, seen it before. Actually, he had seen it before and it shocked him as well. Remember, Daniel was a captive.

He was a teenager when the Babylonians came in, put him in shackles, killed families, burned the temple, destroyed the city, and off to Babylon he went. And now he's being told in a vision that's going to happen again. And again, ultimately in the end of times.

Daniel is shaken, shocked. Question. Knowing what you know about the future, how should you feel? Knowing that every person around you will one day die and go into eternity, how should you feel? Knowing that the gate to heaven is narrow, Jesus said, and very few enter into it, how should that make you feel? The way I see it, we can't continue to be complacent and indifferent and yawn our way through life and just go about daily business. Real quickly as I close, there are four things that the study of prophecy should produce in you.

Four things. I left little blanks in your worship folder outline for you to fill them in right now. Number one, confidence in God. As you study prophecy and then you see it fulfilled, that should bring in you a confidence in God. You discover, man, God knows the details about Alexander the Great and Seleucus and Antiochus IV, and it's written about in detail, God knows the details of my life too. Jesus said, the very hairs of your head are numbered. Be confident in God's promises. Second thing, it should produce in you a cleanness of lifestyle, cleanness of lifestyle, also known as holiness.

There's always a relationship between studying prophecy and godliness. My mom had to just say one thing to me every day to get me in line. She'd say this, your dad will be home soon.

Got the message. It produced in me a holy fear or a happy anticipation, depending on my relationship with mom at the time. Your dad will be home soon. Jesus is coming soon.

All of this should produce a cleanness in lifestyle. Third thing, comfort and sorrow, comfort and sorrow. The Bible doesn't just predict a coming leader. It predicts a coming Lord, a coming kingdom, a coming reunion with those who have died before us who are believers, a coming distribution of gifts and rewards. Jesus said, let not your heart be troubled.

I am coming again. I know that it's sad to lose people by death, but as it has often been said, you don't lose something when you know where it is. Knowing prophecy brings a comfort and sorrow. Fourth, and we close and to the point, a conviction for service. Studying prophecy should produce in all of us a conviction for service. We should be shocked enough by reading this to get busy about winning our friends, family, and neighbors to Jesus Christ.

C.S. Lewis said, we all reach the future at the same rate, 60 minutes per hour. Sometimes stops for no man. Imagine how shocked some people are gonna be when they stand before the judgment bar of God and he says, depart from me. I never knew you. They'll be shocked. Imagine how shocked they'll be when the books are opened, the announcement is given, your name isn't in the book of life.

It's too late, you're not coming in. Shocking. So my challenge is let us get shocked first by that. Let's get astonished by that potential future and win them out of darkness. I dare you, be shocked. People aren't shocked anymore.

This should shock us. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series, I Dare You. Find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Right now, here's Skip to share how you can keep these messages coming your way to connect you and many others around the world with God's Word. The book of Daniel shows us just what it means to stand for God against the pressures and demands of the world. And our goal is to come alongside friends like you to encourage you to keep following Christ no matter what the world tells you to do. That's why we share these faith-building messages. And today, you can take action to ensure these teachings keep reaching you and so many others worldwide. One major push this year is for Connect with Skip to grow its reach into more major U.S. cities, and you can help make that possible with your generosity.

Can I count on your support? Here's how you can give a gift today. into several books of the Bible to gain new insights. Just search Skip Heitzing in the YouVersion Bible app. Next time on Connect with Skip Heitzing, Skip begins a message all about the prayer and the life of Daniel. Make a connection Make a connection At the foot of the cross And cast all burdens on His Word Make a connection A connection Connect with Skip Heitzing is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.