Promises of God

Do you believe the Bible? Most of us say yes. But practically do you really believe all the promises that God has given? Do you trust that God will help you as promised in Isaiah 41? Daniel believed God and what God had promised. God gave Daniel many visions of the future as a consequence (Daniel 9:23).

Daniel 8 details a vision of a ram and a goat and a small horn that grows up later.  Daniel was so overwhelmed by this vision that the angel Gabriel was sent to interpret it for him. Gabriel explains that in a time future to Daniel, Greece would overtake Persia; this happened with the conquest of Alexander the Great. Gabriel also revealed that in a time even farther into the future, another king would rise who would destroy the holy people and set himself up to be as great as the Prince of hosts.

This king, depicted in the vision as a small horn that grows to prominence, was first fulfilled in Antiochus Epiphanes around 170BC, about 400 years after Daniel.  Antiochus was a cruel ruler, so determined to ensure loyalty in his subjects that he abolished Jewish worship in Israel and desecrated the Jewish Temple by removing the altar and offering swine sacrifices to Zeus upon it. His desolation of the Temple lasted three years to the day when the Maccabean Revolt swept through the land, and its leader Judas cleansed the Temple. The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah is actually a celebration of this event.

Many scholars believe Antiochus was a foreshadowing of the coming antichrist who will make his “stand against the Prince of princes” (Daniel 8:25). Many of the descriptions this ruler found in Daniel 8 also apply to the coming man of lawlessness from 2 Thessalonians 2,  so let us be ever watchful.

Daniel 8 shows us that God’s word is true and can be trusted to be fulfilled down to the last letter. God gave Daniel a vision of the future and told him to write it down for those who would come after him. He has fulfilled it partially in Antiochus and he will fulfill it fully in the coming Antichrist.

If we can trust God to fulfill the major prophesies in the Bible, why do we not trust him to fulfill all the promises of the Bible? Do you believe that He will help you as He promised to do in Isaiah 41:13? God makes many promises just like this one in the Bible. Spend time in the Bible and see the promises God has made to you. I challenge you to spend time alone with God and pray these promises back to Him. He longs to show you how He will bring about what He has promised.