Doctrine For Difficult Days

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

Then, before he even finishes his sermon, the New Testament writer ends the quotation. Why? Because the first part applies to Christ’s first coming, and the rest of it applies to His second coming.

You see, in the Old Testament we can point out several places where Isaiah did not make the distinction, but in the New Testament we have that division made for us so we’ll not make the mistake of thinking the Book of Daniel has an interval between the first and second comings of Christ. It does not, my beloved, for that is not the theme of any of the Old Testament prophets.

Now let’s turn our attention to the Gospel of Luke, where the Lord Jesus Christ makes the division for us:

So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-21)
We are told that He turned to Isaiah 61 and quoted:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

That’s verse 1, and that’s where He was quoting. I read on, “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord….” Well, that’s where He closed the book, and He sat down and said, “This has been fulfilled.” But He hadn’t finished the sentence, because in Isaiah 61:2 we see that the sentence continues, “and the day of vengeance of our God.” Why did Jesus omit that? Because it wasn’t being fulfilled at that time. You see, Isaiah had put the first and second comings of Christ right together, and our Lord separated them. That’s what He did in the synagogue that day.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

Jesus read only the part which He was fulfilling. Well, won’t the rest be fulfilled? Yes, when He comes again. You see, the first and second comings of Christ are a subject of the Old Testament, but they are put together. When you come to the New Testament, you find both the first and second comings, but by that time the first coming is history. It’s no longer prophecy.

All during the first coming of Christ, from His birth to His death, His resurrection and His ascension, the Gospel writers made it clear that all was done in fulfillment of what the prophets had written, but a great deal of prophecy mentioned in the Old Testament has not yet been fulfilled. It concerns His second coming to this earth. It looks to a day that’s in the future when He will come again and establish His Kingdom on this earth. The interesting thing is that His coming again is repeated over and over again in the New Testament. I have been told that it averages one verse in every twenty-one verses, although I have never myself checked to see if this is accurate.

However, suppose you got a letter from, say, your uncle in Iowa. He writes to you, “Well, the weather is so bad back here, I think I’m going to come out and visit you where it’s nice and warm.” And suppose he wrote about one hundred lines, and every twenty-one lines he would repeat, “I’m coming out to see you.” Well, when you had finished the letter, you would start getting the guest room ready, wouldn’t you? You would say, “My uncle is sure coming to see me because in a letter of a hundred lines, he said four times that he is coming!” Likewise, friend, when you read the New Testament you certainly find out that Jesus is coming back again because it’s repeated again and again.

Then we have another confirmation. Did you know that when Christ came the first time, there were at least 330 prophecies in the Old Testament concerning it? All of these were literally fulfilled when He was here among us, and they are so quoted in the New Testament. Now, friend, that is a remarkable thing! That in and of itself ought to alert any intelligent-minded person to say, “This Book goes back thousands of years and gives prophecies concerning the coming of a certain person and keeps pyramiding them up until there are 330, and all of them were fulfilled accurately and literally. There must be something supernatural to a book like that.” I don’t care what anyone says to the contrary, it is not humanly or scientifically possible to turn out a book like that!

I’m told that by mathematical law, when you prophesy something, you have only a fifty-fifty chance of its being right. Now suppose the weatherman says that on New Year’s Day, the day of the Rose Parade in Pasadena, it’s going to rain. Well, he stands a fifty-fifty chance of being right, because it’s either going to rain or it’s not going to rain — we all know that.

Now suppose he also says that it’s going to start raining in the morning, and if he’s right, believe me, friend, there are going to be a lot of folks getting wet in Pasadena. Wait just a minute though. He might be right, but he now stands only a 25-percent chance because he has put in another uncertain element, and every one he adds reduces his chance by one half. If he had a fifty-fifty chance before, now he has a 25-percent chance.

Then suppose he says it won’t quit raining until late afternoon. That will ruin the football game, so if he says that, oh my, it’ll be bad, and if he’s accurate it will be worse. But he will surely qualify as a pretty good weatherman despite the fact that he has only a 12-1/2-percent chance of being right.

Do you see that when you add 330 of those, you’ve pretty much eliminated any human being’s ability? Humans might guess right sometimes, but they can’t guess right all the time. The weatherman may guess right sometimes, but even with his mathematical and scientific gadgets, he misses it a great deal.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

I sort of feel a kinship to the person who posted this sign on the bulletin board in the General Motors plant at Detroit a number of years ago. It’s a statement which has always interested me:

According to the theory of aerodynamics and as may readily be demonstrated through wind tunnel experiments, the bumblebee is unable to fly. This is because the size, the weight, and the shape of his body in relation to the total wingspread makes flying impossible. But the bumblebee, being ignorant of these scientific truths, goes ahead and flies anyway. And he makes a little honey every day.

I am a little amused when I hear people say today that the Bible is an unscientific book. Well, for an unscientific book, it sure has hit the nail on the head as far as prophecy is concerned. The skeptic is going to have a lot of trouble, explaining those 330 fulfilled prophecies if he disbelieves the Word of God.

The Bible’s greatest proof is the abundance of prophecies concerning the first coming of our Lord Jesus, a specific person, all of which have been literally fulfilled. The prophet Micah told the place of His birth — that He would be born in Bethlehem, and He was born in Bethlehem. The same is true of the events surrounding His death. Seven hundred years before He was born, the Old Testament prophesied where and how these things would happen! It’s a marvelous thing! In fact, it’s the most amazing thing imaginable to see Christ’s first coming so literally fulfilled. I think the normal, natural conclusion would be that His second coming will be just as literally fulfilled. And beloved, He is coming again some day. That’s one of the great themes of prophecy.

Two other great themes of prophecy are the nation Israel and the Gentile nations. We won’t discuss them here, though they make excellent studies.
 
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The Prophets and Priests

Now I want to turn our attention to the subject of the prophet himself. These men whom God raised up to relay His message of future things were a special group, but they actually were men of like passions as we are. The Scripture says:

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. (James 5:17)

He was not any different, friend. But God raised up such men, and in matters other than their prophetic office and the writing of Scripture, they erred. Moses made a terrible mistake by killing an Egyptian who was beating one of the Hebrew slaves. He shouldn’t have done it. However, when Moses wrote the Pentateuch — that is, the first five books of the Old Testament — he didn’t make any mistakes at all.

Back in the old days when the pulpit was standing true to the Word of God, there traveled over America a man by the name of Robert Ingersoll giving his famous lecture, “The Mistakes of Moses.” The interesting thing is that after a few years, there was a certain preacher who apparently had a real sense of humor. He would follow along Ingersoll’s trail, and after Ingersoll had given his lecture, the next night this man would come to town and give his lecture titled “The Mistakes of Bob Ingersoll.”

You see, friend, the folks today who say Moses made mistakes neglect to tell us in what area they are talking about. He made mistakes, but not in writing the Pentateuch. On the wilderness journey he made the mistake of losing his temper and striking that rock more than he should have, but he did not make a mistake when he recorded it because he was writing by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The prophets, therefore, were men of like passions as we are.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

This is how prophets came to be: In the period following the leadership of Joshua, after the nation of Israel entered the Promised Land, the priesthood failed. But after the failure of the priesthood, God raised up judges, and many of the judges also belonged to the priesthood. Then, after the judges had failed and the priesthood had failed, God raised up the kings, and along with the kings God raised up prophets to be the mouthpiece for God to the kings. Many times, by the way, a prophet was a member of the priesthood. That was true of quite a few of them — the last prophet in particular, John the Baptist.

Over the years the kings became exceedingly corrupt, and God’s prophets delivered God’s message of rebuke and warning to them as well as to the people. Therefore, in the Word of God these prophets who spoke out were not only foretellers but they were forthtellers; that is, they spoke for God. In fact, that’s the great difference you have in the Word of God between the priest and the prophet.
 
The Priest Speaks to God

You see, the priest and the prophet are on a two-way street: One is going one direction and the other is going the opposite direction. The priest is one who goes to God for man; the prophet is one who comes from God to man. In other words, the priest has no business issuing a message at Christmastime or at the first of the year. He is not to come from God with a message to man. That’s the business of the prophet.

The priest is to represent a man before God — that’s his business. In fact, that’s the way the Scripture puts it in Hebrews:

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. (Hebrews 5:1-2)

This is the definition of a priest. He is taken from among men, and he is to go on behalf of men to God.
 
The Prophet Speaks for God

Now the prophet goes in the opposite direction, and here is God’s definition:

So the Lord said to Moses: “See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.” (Exodus 7:1)

In other words, God said to Moses, “You are going to be as God to Pharaoh. And the one who will speak for you will be Aaron, and he is going to be your prophet.” This tells us that the prophet is to speak for God.

In the earlier chapters of Exodus, we get a little more light on this subject of the prophet. When God called Moses to go to Pharaoh to obtain the release of the people of Israel,

Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11)
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

Now here is a fellow who, forty years before this, had taken things into his own hands and had murdered an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave. And when it was known, he had to leave the country. But after forty years of training in the backside of the desert, poor old Moses doesn’t want to go to Egypt and deliver his people — because he realizes he cannot do it. And that is exactly what God wanted to teach him. And, beloved, that is what God wants to teach you and me.

Our difficulty today is that we have too many people in the church who think they can do it. My, I hear from a great many people who tell me they want to serve God, and it’s amazing how many gifted individuals we have in this country today — that is, according to their letters. The pastors, the singers, and the missionaries — they all are outstanding, according to their letters. Well, they are the very folks, friend, you don’t want to use, because if anyone thinks he is able to be used of God, he is wrong. But if you feel you cannot be used of God, you are the very person God is looking for. Remember, it took Him forty years to get Moses to that position.

Now Moses said he could not do what God asked of him. And God said to him:

So [Aaron] shall be your spokesman to the people. And he himself shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God. (Exodus 4:16)

There is the picture, you see. The prophet was God’s mouthpiece.

Now let’s see what the New Testament tells us about the prophet:

For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:21)

When you read this statement about holy men, you may get the impression that I was wrong a moment ago when I said that they were men of like passions. And of course it wasn’t I, but James who said it, and it would seem that James and Peter are in contradiction, for James says the prophets are men of like passions as we are, and Peter says they are holy men.

What does Peter mean by holy? Well, holiness here has no reference to innate character. Holy actually means “that which is set aside for God.” For example, in the tabernacle there were vessels which were used there, pots and pans, and they were called holy. Why were they called holy? Was it because they were unusual and were made of a little better quality material than the others? No, they were exactly like the others, no different from the pots and pans used in the homes. Well, then, how were they holy? They were holy because they were set aside solely for the use of God. And anything that is set aside for the use of God is holy, my friend. And that is what holiness means primarily.

Now I must agree that if anything is going to be set aside for the use of God, it ought to have a character different from that which is ordinary, but I’m trying now to get at the meaning of the word. And I do believe that God pays some attention to the innate character of an individual. In fact, I know He does, especially of those who are His own. In fact, God exercises a great deal of intelligence in this particular matter. For instance, suppose you were in danger of dying out on the desert from lack of water, and you walked and walked and walked, and finally you came to a spring there in the hot desert. Lovely, cold water was bubbling up. And you saw two cups there. One was a gold cup, highly ornamented. Oh, it was a lovely thing and must have been very expensive, but it was dirty. Then you looked at the other which was an old, white, crock cup, even broken on the side. Oh, but it was clean, shining there in the desert air. Which one would you drink out of?
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

Well, give God credit for having as much sense as you have. He will take the clean one also. That which is dedicated to His use is called holy, my friend. And the men whom He chose were holy in the sense that they were set aside for this particular service of being prophets of God. That was their business.

We are told that the holy men of God “spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” You will remember that we dealt with this in the chapter on inspiration. The word here for moved is a nautical term. Its actual meaning is the picture of a sailing vessel. The sails have been run up, and the wind gets into those sails and bellies them out and pushes that little ship forward. It is carried along by the wind, you see.

Likewise these holy men, these men set aside for the use of God, were carried along by the Holy Spirit as they served God. And that is the reason we believe that whatever they wrote was inspired. I mean by this that the Word of God is without any error at all and that God is able to communicate to you and me today exactly what He wants communicated by having used these men because, as they wrote Scripture, they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

This does not mean that God in some way or other infringed or impinged upon their personalities. He did not. These men, as they wrote, fully expressed their personalities. If one normally used certain cliches, he used them here. And if another had a peculiar way of writing, which each of them did, then he would use that. In other words, the wonder of the Word of God is not that God picked up these men like you would pick up a series of colored ball-point pens today, writing with this one and putting it down to write with another. God didn’t pick up Isaiah and write with him and then use Jeremiah, then Ezekiel, then Daniel. That wasn’t it at all. God was able to take these holy men who were absolutely committed to Him for His use, and God was able to use each man’s personality. The Spirit of God was able to use them in such a way that He gets through to you and me today the exact thing that He wants to say.

And if God were to say it again today, my friend, He would say it just like Isaiah wrote it. He would say it just like Daniel wrote it. Why? Because that’s the way God wanted to say it, and He never changes.
 
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Three Offices of Christ

Now the very interesting thing is that the Lord Jesus Christ holds three offices. He is Prophet. He is Priest. He is King.

His office as Prophet was first mentioned by Moses, who said:

The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst. (Deuteronomy 18:15)

Moses was a unique prophet, by the way. When Miriam, and even Aaron, spoke against Moses, feeling that they also were able to speak with a prophet’s authority, God gave Miriam a good dose of leprosy to let her know that Moses was the one He had chosen as His prophet. He was “My servant Moses.” While it’s true that God will speak through others — and has and will — Moses was different. He was unique. God had given him a special message, and He talked to him face-to-face. And the Lord Jesus Christ is a prophet like Moses whom God raised up.

When Christ came to this earth, He came as a Prophet. He came forth from God with a message to mankind; in fact, He was that Message: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). All that the Father told Him to do, He did. As He said, He came to do the Father’s will. And He was the revelation of God:

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared [exegeted] Him. (John 1:18 )
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

Christ has led God out into the open. He’s brought Him out where men could see Him, for He is the revelation of God to man. He is a Prophet.

But He went to the Cross. Actually He went to the Cross as a Prophet. That was God’s message to man, God’s love story to man. “God so loved… that He gave His only begotten Son,” and that’s the message that He came to bring to this earth, the message of redemption and release, if you please.

He went back to heaven a Priest. If Jesus Christ were on this earth now He would not be a priest. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews was very careful to make this clear. He says He would not be a priest because the priests in that day belonged to the tribe of Levi. And according to the Mosaic system, that’s the way it should be. But our Lord Jesus Christ is a “priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:6), yonder in the heavens. When He rose from the dead and went back to heaven, He became our Great High Priest. And that is His ministry today. He’s the Great High Priest, ministering to His own here upon this earth.

He is as busy today, friend, as He ever was when He walked over those Judean hills and along the Sea of Galilee, down the streets of Jerusalem and by the side of the Jordan River.

He’s the Great High Priest who has entered the Holy of Holies for those who are His own, and we come to God through Him. He is the only way to God. He is making intercession for us, and He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

Not only is the Lord Jesus Christ a Priest today; He is coming someday as the King. That is the message which will go forth again. Elijah will give the message the next time, and the message is the same as the message of John the Baptist: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The Kingdom will be at hand because the King will be coming. And the next time He will come in power and great glory to execute judgment on all unrighteousness and to put down all iniquity and to establish His Kingdom.

He is a Prophet. He is a Priest. He is coming as the King of kings and Lord of lords.

So, you see, He’s the great theme and subject of the Word of God, whether it be prophetic or any other way, and He is a Prophet Himself. My, how important that is! That is something that needs to be examined, and He needs to be exalted today. He is King of kings; He is Lord of lords; He is the Great High Priest today entered into the heavens. But He is God’s Prophet. He came to speak for God. He came to reveal God. And yonder on the cross you have Him revealing redemption for mankind.

You see, we are looking at the most glorious Person in the world. When you look at prophecy you look at Him. You have to look at Him, for He is the subject of prophecy, He’s the spirit of prophecy. The Man of the ages, the Man of eternity, the Man of all times, the Man not just of this year, but the Man of the past and the present and the future, and that’s the Man Christ Jesus, the Son of Man who someday will come in the glory clouds of heaven. He is the Prophet, God’s Prophet, and He is the subject of prophecy, if you please.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

The Prophetic Office

Now I want you to notice that the prophetic office actually begins in the Old Testament with Samuel, and it extends to John the Baptist. For instance, we find in the Book of Acts Simon Peter’s statement concerning Samuel:

Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. (Acts 3:24)

When Peter was preaching his second sermon, he referred to Samuel and all the prophets that followed him. So Peter was referring to the prophetic office itself, although there were prophets before Samuel. Moses, as we have seen, was an earlier prophet. But actually the office of prophet begins with Samuel and concludes with John the Baptist.

Will you notice this very carefully, for it is important. I’m going to say something that may sound a little strange, but don’t dismiss it until you check it with the Word of God. John the Baptist is not a New Testament character. He’s an Old Testament prophet. That’s what he is! He is the one who brings down the curtain on Old Testament prophecy. It was Jesus Himself who said:

But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. (Matthew 11:9)

John was an outstanding prophet, our Lord was saying.

You see, all the prophets had spoken of the coming of Christ, and that’s what Peter said in his second sermon. Beginning with Samuel, they all told of these days. And then John the Baptist came. He was the forerunner of the Messiah, and he said, “I’m not the one you think I am. I’m just a voice crying in the wilderness,” and his message was, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Now John the Baptist never preached about the church, friend. No, he didn’t. It wasn’t his office; he was the last of the Old Testament prophets. And his office was very, very important. As our Lord said, there was none greater:

“Did you go out to hear a prophet?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he was a prophet all right, but he’s greater than a prophet. He’s outstanding. He’s unique,” Jesus said.

Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist. (Matthew 11:11)

Now the great question arises, how could the people back in those days know whether the prophet who was speaking to them was accurate or not? After all, it’s all right for Micah to come along and say Jesus is going to be born in Bethlehem, but that wouldn’t happen for about seven hundred years. Today we can look back at the historical record and see that it was fulfilled. We can understand that Micah was an accurate prophet, but how did the people in his day know?
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

Well, the interesting thing is that every prophet who prophesied in Israel had to give a local prophecy — that is, he had to predict something having to do with the immediate future and immediate circumstances. This is the reason that in all of the prophetic books you find so much that is local, so much that is practically contemporary. It was something that would take place shortly and did take place shortly, by the way.

It was true of Isaiah. You will recall that Isaiah prophesied the virgin birth, and he looked down the ages seven hundred years into the future as he spoke also of a suffering Savior. How did people in his day know that he was accurate? Well, he had to prophesy something locally, and it had to be fulfilled. So when there were 185,000 Assyrians camped outside Jerusalem (Isaiah 37:36), all of them with bows and arrows, and some of them trigger-happy, Isaiah made a prophecy that they would not enter the city of Jerusalem and that not even one arrow would be shot over the wall (Isaiah 37:33). Well, if some half-drunk Assyrian soldier had pulled an arrow out of his quiver, put it in the bow, and just looked out into the darkness and let the arrow fly, and if that arrow had fallen inside Jerusalem, Isaiah would have been declared a false prophet. But it turned out exactly as Isaiah had predicted!

You see, they had a way of testing a false prophet. According to the Mosaic Law this is what they were told to do:

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, “How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?” — when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. (Deuteronomy 18:20-22)

If a prophet wanted to make a prophecy and he said, “This is of the Lord,” they would put it down on the bulletin board and say, “All right, we’ll just wait and see if it happens as you said it.” When things failed to happen as the false prophet predicted, God said, “That prophet shall die.”

Now let’s look at another prophet. More than a century after Isaiah, suppose Jeremiah had made the statement that the Babylonian army would not capture the city of Jerusalem and would not even shoot an arrow into the city — well, Jeremiah would have been a false prophet if he had said that. But the interesting thing is, Jeremiah did not say that. Jeremiah, on the contrary, said, “Nebuchadnezzar will take Jerusalem, and he will destroy this city.” And history bears out the accuracy of that prophecy.

This was the test, you see, that was made. And many a prophet lost his life by prophesying falsely. It wasn’t healthy in Israel to be a prophet unless you really were God’s prophet.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

Now Daniel was a prophet in a heathen court, a gentile court. Would the Mosaic Law apply to him? Yes, it did. Although the Gentiles didn’t apply it, the Jews did. You will remember that Daniel is the one who interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, and it did come to pass exactly as he said it would. In fact, his prophecies were so accurate that even when he was an old man, the queen mother told Belshazzar, the reigning king of Babylon, “You call for Daniel. He can tell you what these things mean.” Even in a pagan culture they knew that Daniel was God’s prophet.

So, you see, the prophets were pretty well vouched for in the day in which they prophesied. And in our day we have an airtight way of testing the Old Testament prophets because, as we said, one of the greatest proofs that the Bible is the Word of God is this matter of fulfilled prophecy.
 
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The Anchor Book of Prophecy

The Book of Daniel is the anchor book of prophecy. It is a book that has been seriously questioned and rejected by the critics, and we’ll say a word about that in a moment. But Sir Isaac Newton made this statement: “To reject Daniel is to reject the Christian religion.” And I do not know how better to put it than that.

In the Olivet Discourse, our Lord quoted from the Book of Daniel, and in Matthew 24:15 He called him “Daniel the prophet,” saying,

When you see the “abomination of desolation,” spoken of by Daniel the prophet….

Paul speaks of “the man of sin.” And if you are going to know anything at all about the “man of sin,” you will have to turn back to the Book of Daniel for amplification and clarification of this term.

Daniel has borne the brunt of the attack on the Bible by the critics. Some time ago someone wrote a book titled Daniel in the Critics’ Den. And by the way, Daniel has suffered more in the critics’ den than he ever did in the lions’ den. The lions never touched him, but the critics have been ruthless, especially the extreme higher critics who insist that the Book of Daniel was written at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees, about 170-166 b.c. Well, you see, that makes quite a difference because many of us believe the dating of Daniel begins in 606 b.c. and concludes in 536 b.c. So to move him way up to 170 b.c. is quite a move, it’s over four hundred years, and four hundred years is bound to make a difference in the life of any of us. And so we find that the extreme higher critic has attempted to discredit Daniel by this method.

Why do they do that? Well, they have to do it to get rid of the supernatural. You see, the Book of Daniel is one of those remarkable books of the Bible in which a man predicted the future in such detail and outlined it so clearly that it almost takes your breath away — so much so that when the unbelieving critic comes along, he has to say, “Well, it cannot be prophecy. This manuscript had to be written after it was history.”
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

Daniel mentions the four great world empires in chapters 2 and 7. These great world empires are the only great world empires that there have been, friend, from that day to this. And you and I are living at the time of the fourth great world empire. It has fallen apart, but Daniel says it will be put back together again.

And isn’t it interesting that even if they do want to move the writing of the Book of Daniel to 170 b.c., there still would be a whole lot which has happened since then that the critics would have difficulty explaining because Daniel had outlined it so clearly. The thing is, we believe it was written by the Daniel who is mentioned back yonder in the court of Nebuchadnezzar, beginning at about 606 b.c.

Actually, most of the Book of Daniel has been fulfilled, although I think the most important part is yet in the future. Now when you have a book that outlines four great world empires, and three of them have already come and gone — and the fact of the matter is, we’re way up into the fourth empire — you have a pretty good reason to believe the rest of it will be fulfilled exactly as it is written.

And the same thing would be true with the seventy weeks of Daniel. Since sixty-nine weeks have been fulfilled right to the letter, I consider those are pretty good odds. I know practically nothing about racing and betting, but I know enough to realize that when you can get odds of sixty-nine to one, you really have something! And here is a book that I am betting on, because the odds are sixty-nine to one. And with odds like that, you can’t lose, my friend.

That makes the Book of Daniel a remarkable book, and conservative scholarship has always accepted the early dating of Daniel because there has been a good, sound, scholarly basis for it. The historical character of the man Daniel and the prophetic character of the Book of Daniel have given a real basis for it. Let me give you several reasons why we know that the Book of Daniel goes back to the early dating.

The Septuagint is a translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into the Greek language. It was produced approximately one hundred years before Antiochus Epiphanes lived, and it contains the Book of Daniel! So obviously, the translators back there had the Book of Daniel long before the days of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Josephus records an incident involving a high priest by the name of Jaddua. Alexander the Great was making his attack upon Jerusalem, and the high priest went out to meet him and to have an interview with him. The priest showed Alexander the Book of Daniel and pointed out to him where Alexander was mentioned there. And Alexander the Great — who had a reputation for destroying every great city that he captured and building a new one — did not remove one stone from another when he came to Jerusalem but actually went to the temple and worshiped the living and true God!

Why? Because Alexander the Great had been shown the Book of Daniel where he was so clearly identified that it made that kind of impact on him. And Jerusalem is one of the few cities that Alexander the Great did not destroy. Do you know what the date was? 332 b.c.! What happens to the critics’ viewpoint that the Book of Daniel was written in 170 b.c.? Evidently they must be wrong about that date.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eschatology

And then may I say to you that the final evidence I have — and as far as I am concerned I don’t need any better evidence than this: The Lord Jesus Christ called him “Daniel the prophet.” I’ve already given you that quotation. And you can be sure of one thing, since our Lord put His seal of approval on Daniel the prophet, I personally will take His word over and against all the critics! And by the way, they have very shaky evidence for the position which they take. They are hard-put to get rid of the supernatural, but they continue to try. They will not accept it.
 
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Prophecy in Today’s World

There is today a great controversy concerning prophecy that has nothing to do with believing or not believing the Bible, because the controversy is among those who believe the Bible to be the Word of God, and it’s a matter of interpretation. But the interesting thing is that you and I have moved into a cycle today where people in all walks of life are beginning to pay attention to prophecy, and they are turning to it. Even Charles Hodge, in his great Systematic Theology, mentioned the fact that though he gave very little space to prophecy, he predicted a day would come when men would spend more time in the study of this subject.

Well, this century has seen two world wars and many lesser conflicts along with the Cold War. We’ve seen the Great Depression and several recessions. The atomic bomb followed by nuclear arms have brought fear to the hearts of mankind everywhere. No man knows what a day will bring forth.

My friend, today no one dares to say that the world is improving. No one is daring to say today that we’re going to have utopia tomorrow. There are too many gangsters and terrorists about who have a nuclear bomb in their hip pocket. We’re living in a day when the human family is looking into the future with fear. But there is one thing which is quite sure today: The child of God has a more sure word of prophecy.

Prophecy, especially in the Books of Daniel and Revelation, is not something merely to excite your imagination or to arouse or satisfy your curiosity or, somehow or other, to tickle your intellect. The purpose of prophecy is to improve your life, and it will, you see, if you and I have the right viewpoint of it. Daniel was a real man of God. He walked with God, and he was separated unto God. He was a man of prayer, and that’s what prophecy does for you.

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CONCLUSION...