Now, I said that the events of Hanukah happened in be ... well, they happen after
the Hebrew Scriptures. And they happened before the New Testament, so it's only
celebrated in the New Testament. But, it is actually prophesied in the Hebrew
Scriptures. And the one who prophesies it is the prophet Daniel. That's why we're
in Daniel. Daniel prophesies these events, of Antiochus and the abomination.
Interesting. It goes on in Daniel 12, if you look at verse 5 and 7, it says
how long is this gonna last? ... It says it will be for a time, times and
half a time. In other words, it's interesting because that, what that, what
that comes out to is time, a year. Times, two years. Half a time, half a year.
What does that add up to? Three and a half years of abomination. Three and a half years of,
of the enemy. Now what is that? Is that familiar? It should be familiar if you're
a student of prophecy. Because that, in prophecy, is a three and a half year
period. A three and a half year period called the, it's ... the Great Tribulation.
In the Tribulation. And here's what it says. Matthew 24, verse 15 says this.
Messiah said when you see standing in the holy place the abomination
that causes desolation spoken of through the prophet Daniel, let the reader understand.
So here he's saying when you see the abomination. What abomination? Daniel
spoke of both what happened at Hanukah and also what's going to happen
at the end times. In fact what happened in Hanukah is a shadow of what's gonna
happen in the end times. In fact if you put them together you put Hanukah
together with the book of Revelation it's amazing. Hanukah is saying there,
what happened then, there was an idol set up in the temple. Well there's going to be
another temple in Jerusalem. And the Bible says in prophecy it's going to be
desecrated. It's going to be defiled. When you see the abomination, well that's what
already happened but it's going to happen again. But in order to happen
again you have to have a Temple. That's why what I just read to you at
the beginning is significant. Because in Israel there are societies ready
to build the Temple. Now it cannot happen without a miracle of God. But God has
done everything else. He's gonna do that too. So here, so the events of Hanukah
are opening a revelation of the end times. In Daniel 9 it says, same book,
it says Messiah will come. And then it says, then it says the Antichrist will come.
The people of the prince who shall come shall destroy the city. Well that's
the Romans, so there's gonna be another world reader, leader who's gonna come
at the end. And he is going to the Antichrist. It says Verse 27, of Chapter 9 of Daniel,
it says this. He will confirm a covenant with many for seven, for one seven,
or seven years. In the middle of the seven, the middle of the seven years, he will put an end
to sacrifice and offering. He will set up the abomination that causes desolation
on the wing of the temple. So here it is again the abomination, which is spoken of
by Daniel, but it ... it was already foreshadowed by this guy Antiochus.
He says he'll do it in the middle of seven. What's the middle of seven years?
What's seven divided by two, you math geniuses? What is it? Three and a half! Again it's three and a half!
When you open up Revelation it says in Revelation, it says the woman fled into the desert
to a place prepared for her by God, for how long? 1260 days. How long is that?
Three and a half years. Book of Revelation. It says
in the Book of Revelation, the Holy City will be trampled down for 42 months. How long is that?
Three and a half years. All that, it's putting it all together. So you want
to understand endtime prophecy, understand Hanukah. And we are living
in the end times. Israel is back as God said. The world is focused on Israel. The world
is focused on Jerusalem. We are watching an apostasy, which we'll get into as well.
That's all prophesied in the Bible. For leading up for the end times. So it is
crucial that we know the signs of the times. ... Hanukah is kind of giving the,
the blueprint, the playbook of what happens, for evil, but also what we, how we
are to respond to it. So we, so now we're going to look at how this, what this says
for us now. It says in the account of Hanukah, remember what
I told you, it didn't just happen. It was already apostasy going on. Before it ever
happened. The book of Maccabees actually records
that the priesthood, the ministers, they were actually corrupt. They were actually
leading this. It says they bought the position with money. And they started
bringing in all the ways of the Greeks. They started taking the temple money,
giving it to all these other purposes. And it says that it was under that and
it says it was so intense that, that they, that they were, these people who should
have been defending the ways of God were the ones, were the most guilty of it.
The priests it says were, were no longer intent on serving the things of God.
They were, they were putting everything into sin. Corruption. Allowing the evil to come in.
You know the Bible says, I mean you know, the Bible speaks of the abomination
of desolation. Well we already have a sign of what happened 2,000 years ago,
the shadow of it. Well he went in. He desecrated the Temple. He also, he also
pillaged the Temple. But you know what? It didn't just happen like that.
The original story in Maccabees, it says the king dared to enter into the holiest
Temple in the world and the high priest served as his guide. So in other words
the high priest of Israel was an accomplice in the desecration
of the Temple. He took the holy vessels with polluted hands. He, all that. But he was
led by the priest. So what is the principle for the end times? What does it tell us?
What does it reveal about the end times? It wasn't just forced upon them.
They let the enemy in and then came the ...
And here's the revelation. The Antichrist isn't just gonna come. Just as Antiochus didn't just come.
He's not just gonna come. The door was open for Antiochus. And the door is
going to be open for the Antichrist. The Antichrist will not just come. He will be
prepared for. Messiah, he's the anti-messiah, Messiah, false messiah,
Messiah, the real Messiah didn't just come. ... was prepared for, in a good way.
It was God preparing the purposes.
Well, the antichrist is coming. The enemy will prepare the way. But by whom, not just the enemy.
First the priests. Now what would that relate to today? Who will prepare
the way? That would be the church. That would be ministers. The apostate church.
If the church falls from God, the whole world goes. If the church goes, the world goes.
If the churches go, the culture goes. To find out how you can receive more
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