Dr. Michael Youssef, pastor and author of more than 50 books, introducing this episode of Leading the Way Audio. For many years Bible critics have said disparagingly, the Bible is just a book that is full of contradictions. Well, it's just a book that is inspired just like Shakespeare's writing is inspired. But you can confidently point them to Daniel chapter 11. And there you can see history being foretold hundreds of years before it happened. And that should solidify your confidence in the Word of God.
Many view the Bible as irrelevant, outdated content far removed from real life challenges of today. Welcome to Leading the Way. On this audio episode, Dr. Youssef guides you into the incredible and challenging life of Daniel by way of his series called Discover the Power of One. You'll see how Daniel's life of faithfulness provides a practical example for living a Spirit-filled life in current culture. Now, if your situation allows, join Dr. Michael Youssef in Daniel chapter 11. And as you do, let me remind you that leading the way is listener supported, relying on your prayers and generosity to minister right here in this area and to expand reach around the world. Learn ways that you can stand with Dr. Youssef, including becoming a frontline mission partner at ltw.org.
Right now, though, listen with me as Dr. Youssef begins today's episode. I want you to turn with me to Daniel chapter 11. We saw Daniel praying there by the River Euphrates because he was in exile from his hometown in Jerusalem to Babylon. And there he was praying for three weeks. And we saw in the last message that as a direct answer to his prayer, the pre-incarnate Christ came to him in person and began to speak to him. As a direct result of this righteous man's prayer, the pre-incarnate Christ privileged him to allow him to look through the eternal telescope lens and see the future in the next 600 years before it happened.
Because that's what Daniel chapter 11 is all about. It is history before it took place. It is history before it happened.
Let me summarize it very, very quickly for you. The Babylonian empire was destroyed, now the Persian empire is on top. And so the pre-incarnate Christ comes and says to Daniel that the fourth king after the present one, which is Cyrus, is going to be extremely rich king, is going to be very wealthy king. Not only that, that he's going to use his considerable wealth to expand the Persian empire all the way to Greece. Hundreds of years later we know that the fourth king was Xerxes.
The Jesus, the Christ predicted with accuracy, absolutely, because he writes history before it happens. Xerxes invaded the well-known world at the time, all the way to Greece. But the Persian empire was not to stay in glory forever. The pre-incarnate Christ told Daniel that the glory of Persia is going to give way to the glory of Greece, which will be led into prominence by a young man. You and I know him from history as Alexander the Great. Verse 3 of Daniel 11 predicts with precision the coming of Alexander the Great.
And it refers to the future expansion of this young man. And how he will die in Babylon, not in his home, Greece. And he's going to die at the prime of his life. And you and I know that Alexander the Great died at the age of 32. Not only that, but the Lord foretold Daniel that none of his sons will succeed him in the empire. Alexander the Great had two sons.
Both were killed in their early life and did not inherit the kingdom. Justice was foretold hundreds of years before. Then 12 of Alexander's generals were going to squabble among themselves. And they tried to divide the empire among themselves.
That will be followed by a considerable period of time of plotting and counter plotting and scheming and counter scheming. And eventually the empire that Alexander the Great has conquered is going to be divided by four families into four regions and four sections of the world. Justice was foretold in verse 4 of Daniel chapter 11, well before it happened. Then in verse 8 you see that the Lord told Daniel ahead of time that the king of the south, which is Egypt, and was ruled by that time by the Ptolemies, who was one of Alexander the Great's general, that they will eclipse the king of the north, another general of Alexander the Great, Syria, and controlled Syria. Seleucus was his name. But after a period of time they're going to form an alliance. Who would have God said that?
And we know that they were intermarried between the Seleucus in the north and the Ptolemies. And I know some of you are already looking at me and said, Michael, what in the world are you doing? Give me a history lesson. This is very important.
Listen, listen, listen. And all happened as the pre-incarnate Christ told Daniel is going to happen down the history. Then the Egyptian rose to power, as we see in verse 8, predicted with precision.
And they are going to eclipse the Syrians. And we know from history Ptolemy, Eurygetus, attacked Seleucus in Syria and took over his treasures. And then you look at verse 11, there it predicts that the Syrians are going to retaliate again and defeat the Egyptians. In fact, we know from history that happened exactly the year 240 B.C., several hundred years from the time the pre-incarnate Christ told Daniel. In fact, Cleopatra siding with her husband against her father is enumerated here in verse 17 of Daniel chapter 11. Each detailed prediction of the word of God happened exactly in minutest details.
Why? Because history is his story. You can take history books and you can superimpose them on Daniel chapter 11 and you will get the clearest picture of the foreknowledge of God that is revealed in the word of God. And there are two things now I want to tell you, okay?
Two things. Number one, Daniel chapter 11 should solidify our confidence in the Bible, the word of God. Secondly, Daniel chapter 11 should solidify our confidence in the sovereign control of God. First, if you read Daniel chapter 11 very carefully, it should solidify your confidence in the Bible as the word of God. For many years Bible critics have said disparagingly, oh the Bible is just a book that is written by men who are bigots. The Bible is full of contradictions. The Bible is just another religious book.
Well, it's just a book that is inspired just like Shakespeare's writing is inspired. But you can confidently point into Daniel chapter 11 and there you can see history being foretold hundreds of years before it happened and that should solidify your confidence in the word of God. The Bible is none other than God-breathed book. The Bible is none other than God's self-revelation book. The Bible is none other than truth-revealed book. The Bible is no other than an infallible word of God. The Bible is none other than God's incarnate word. The reason so many people make these disparaging remarks about the Bible is in most cases they've never read it. They've never bothered to go to the trouble of studying it and check it out and test it and yet they have the audacity to attack its credibility. They have never bothered to honestly examine the Bible and yet in blissful ignorance they use words like, oh the Bible is just full of mythology and myth. Let me illustrate to you. If you have a friend who always told you the truth no matter what, always, every time she said something, you check it out and it is the absolute truth.
What are you going to do with that friend after a while? He's not going to be bothered to check it out. And I guess some of us who have known the Bible to be the truth and we checked it and verified it over and over again, after a while we don't. If a person truly seeking, if a person genuinely want to know, examines the book of Daniel chapter 11 and compare it to history and will come to a conclusion that the Bible is no other than the word of God. If they're honest, because the Bible is not accurate only 97% of the time or 3% of the time, the Bible is accurate 100% of the time. And Daniel chapter 11 fortifies and solidifies our confidence in the Bible as God's own word. Secondly, Daniel chapter 11 fortifies and solidifies our confidence in the sovereignty of God.
I know there are even Christians who have a question about the sovereignty of God. And I want you to listen to me very carefully please. I often hear people say, the future is out of control. The future is out of control. And I want to say, it may be out of your control, it may be out of my control, but it's not out of God's control because history is His story. Most modern historians today will tell you that history is without meaning, that history is without purpose and we are drifting like a feather in the wind, but that is not so. In reality, history is bringing to pass what God has already decreed.
Did you get that? History is bringing to pass what God had already decreed. I know some of you are saying, well, Michael, wait a minute, wait a minute. If that's the case, then how can you justify the Hitler's of this world? How can you explain the Saddam Hussein's of this world?
Who murdered people and killed people, tortured people? How can God be in control of history and let's all this happen? Good question. I'm glad you asked it.
I want to answer it. Listen to me. While Satan is loose in the world, there will always be evil in the world. While Satan is loose in the world, there will always be evil in the world. But as far as God's children are concerned, evil can never thwart God's purpose. Evil can never frustrate God's will. Evil can never overcome God's plan. Evil can never have the upper hand. On the contrary, as far as those who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, God turns the evil in the world into their good. Joseph had a bunch of brothers, eleven of them all together.
They hated him, they envied him, they resented him, they wanted to kill him and then one of them said, let's have pity on him and just sell him into slavery. We'll get rid of him that way and then we'll tell our daddy that a fierce animal ate him and devoured him and here's the blood and here's his coat. Evil. Evil brothers. God in heaven did not sit there and said, oh my, what am I going to do now? I had a plan for Joseph. I gave him dreams. All those boys, they really thwarted my plan. I can't do anything about it now.
No, no, no, no, no, no. God worked their evil into good and he praised Joseph as the prime minister of the superpower of the day. It's in the book. In Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, chief emperor. His officials came to him out of hatred, out of bitterness and out of envy of Daniel and his three friends.
They want to get rid of them. They wanted to destroy them. God didn't sit there and say, oh my, what am I going to do? Nebuchadnezzar is such a powerful guy.
No, no, no, no, no. God gave them victory in the midst of evil plan. When you read chapter 11 of the book of Daniel, as the pre-incarnate Christ tells Daniel what's going to happen in the future, who's going to be where and who's going to do what and all these details, you've got to notice that the name of God was never once mentioned. God is in control of history. God is in control of the future.
His name was never mentioned once. And then I began to pray, I said, Lord, what's going on here? With all the wars and the plotting and the marriage and intermarriage and the alliances and all the things that are going on in this period of history, which is about 400 years, the name of God is never mentioned, not once. And probably most of the people at that time didn't even bother to ask why. To them, it appeared that God is irrelevant. There's no need for them to know God, they're the powerful emperors, they're the powerful conquerors, they're the powerful kings.
Never bothered to ask. Where's God in all this? Where's God? God is the one who's foretelling the future. God is the one who's a narrator and he doesn't have to mention his name.
I want you to hear me write. Sometimes in life, you and I go through tough times. Sometimes in life, you and I go through our own private Gethsemane. You and I in life, sometimes we go through pain, sometimes we go through puzzling circumstances, through difficult circumstances, inexplicable circumstances, and we may be tempted that God is not there and we ask the question, where is God? Where is God in the plan in my life? Where is God?
Oh, beloved friend, listen to me. God is there. He's telling the story. He's telling your story. He's controlling events in your life. He is bringing good out of evil in your life. That is how he works for those who love him. He will take bad events, evil events, wrong events, and just not gloss over them and say, oh, they're good. They're not good.
They are lousy. But he takes those lousy things and he will turn them around and he brings good out of them. That's what he's doing. That's where God is. And you look at this passage, look at this chapter and you get overwhelmed with the history of these kings and the Antichrist and all these alliances and even the Jews who have been the subject of the entire Old Testament. The Jews, God's chosen people who have been the focus of Old Testament history, they're not even mentioned once in this chapter. Here's the plan of God for 400 years, not a word about the Jews. He said, wait a minute, you know, what's going on, Lord?
What's going on? You see, to the world at that time, they were of no measurable significance as far as these powerful guys are concerned. But even these events that we see the pre-incarnate Christ foretells Daniel, even these events were proceeding according to God's perfect schedule for the Savior to be born. God was orchestrating events in history to the point until there is a common language spoken by most of the people who lived on the known world at that time, the Greek language, so that when the gospel is preached, people will understand it and they will respond to it. When was the Savior born? God was orchestrating all these events for the Romans to come in and dominate the Greek culture and they come in and they begin to build roads connecting the entire empire so that people can travel easily, so that preachers and evangelists and apostles and disciples can go from city to city preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Only when these roads are finished, the Savior is born. God was right on schedule and he is on schedule for you, my beloved friend. History is his story and the reason believers should be optimistic and fearless, the reason believers should be forward-looking and not discouraged and despondent is because they know that their heavenly daddy controls the future. And when you are sure that your daddy controls the future, even in the uncertain times, even in the difficult times, even in the rough circumstances, even when you sense God is not there, even when you go through confusing time in your life, you are not confused because your daddy controls the future.
Thomas Edison, and there on a February night of December 1914, this inventive genius lost all of his laboratories in New Jersey to a fire, a fierce fire that wiped out all of – it took him years to develop. And you would think this man would become distraught, you would think this man would become discouraged. You think this man says, man, there's no hope, I can't get all that back again.
No, on the contrary. The next morning after the fire, Edison was 67 years old at that time and he walks through the still smoldering rubbles of those buildings that housed many of his most important projects and here's what he said, listen carefully, there is great value in disaster for all our mistakes are now burnt up. Isn't that wonderful, isn't that wonderful, thank God we can start again. That is the confidence of which the child of God faces the future. That is the confidence with which the child of God welcomes whatever comes in the future. Worldly kingdoms will plot and scheme but then they will crash and burn but God protects his own. Worldly kingdoms will rise and fall but God has you in the palms of his hands. Listen to what Isaiah said, chapter 40 verses 22 and 23. He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretched out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them like a tent to live in.
He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. Our Heavenly Daddy is in control of the future because history is his story. Thank you for making time in your day for Dr. Michael Youssef as he passionately proclaims uncompromising truth on this episode of Leading the Way Audio. Connect further with Dr. Youssef in Leading the Way at ltw.org or call us, speak with a ministry representative in the call center, 866-626-4356. Before I say goodbye, a quick thanks to those of you who make Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef possible right here in this area and all around the world. Do remember that Leading the Way is listener supported. Dr. Youssef relies on God's provision from those blessed by listening to his teaching and those holding similar passions to reach the world with the message of Jesus. So if you've stood with Leading the Way in the past, thank you.
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