Welcome to I Dare You a series through the book of Daniel with Skip Heitzig.
Daniel Chapter 11; let's pray. Father, we have exalted you and lifted our hearts in worship, and what a rousing session of worship it was. How thankful we are that we have joy that is firmly fixed in you. And thank you, Lord, for the outlet to express it. But now, Lord, as a second part of our worship we calm our hearts before you, and we want to hear what you have to say. You've heard what we've had to say; now we want to hear what you have to say. And we pray that our minds would be very attentive and our hearts would be totally open as we discover the reason that this is given to us, in Jesus' name, amen.
I had a history professor who loved to quote that famous George Santayana quote. You know, the one that says, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." And I think my history professor, like, almost every class would say, "Those who fail to learn from history"—and we all go—"are doomed to repeat it." We all knew it very well.
But I think it happens to be true, and I think it happens with just about every generation. Have you noticed that every generation thinks that they're, like, the most unique singular generation that has ever lived? And they're going to do things so totally different than their parents did it—and then they grow up, and they have kids, and often those patterns are repeated over and over again.
A girl came up last night after church, a teenager, with a tie-dye T-shirt. [laughter] And I'm thinking, "I should have kept that tie-dye T-shirt from the seventies." It's just funny how things sort of circulate over and over and over again. Well, sadly, that can happen with national history as well.
One author wrote what he called a bird's-eye view of the cycle of men and cultures. Listen if this sounds familiar: "Typically cultures go from bondage to spiritual faith; and then from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and then from dependency back to bondage."
No wonder God told his people in the Old Testament to remember what he had done. Deuteronomy, God said, "And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these many years." Daniel, chapter 11, is to us historical; most of it has already happened. The last ten verses are yet to happen, but for us it's pretty much we're looking backward, we're remembering what has happened in history. And it's about wars and oppressors, most of whom you have never heard of before unless you have studied these periods of history; otherwise you're going, huh?
It's like the kid in school who was getting bad grades in history and his buddy said, "How come you're flunking history?" And he said, "Because the teacher keeps asking us about things that happened before I was born." Yeah, that's what history is.
Now, these things are all history to us, but for Daniel they were all yet future. Now, let me just sort of catch you up here. As you recall—and I'm so glad that you've been following us in our study on Daniel, because a lot of this won't be new, you'll get it. Daniel had been reading the prophet Jeremiah, which said that Israel will be captive by the Babylonians for seventy years. And the seventy years was up, so he dropped to his knees. And Daniel prayed that they would return and be strengthened and rebuild and become a glorious city once again.
But it never really happened. Yeah, they returned, but just a small group returned; less than fifty thousand the Bible tells us. The great majority of the children of Israel remained back in Babylon. They had become so complacent, so comfortable, so paganized, they didn't want to disrupt their lifestyle and go on a mission trip to the Holy Land, so they stayed. And those who went were unsuccessful: they didn't reestablish the monarchy, and the work came to a screeching halt. So, Daniel once again in chapter 10 hits his knees, and he mourns, and he prays, and he fasts for three weeks, and finally the answer comes.
The answer comes and it wasn't an answer that he expected. The answer is: "Daniel, seventy years being captive in another place has been very, very difficult, but the chastening of Israel will not end with the seventy-year captivity ending. There's going to be more pain and suffering and sorrow and purging all the way through history, up to the very end; in fact, all the way up until Messiah's kingdom. And that's the answer that we're getting here in chapter 11.
Now, let me give you a lens with which to view this chapter. And, again, I'm glad you've been with us so far in Daniel, because you'll remember Daniel, chapter 9, and the whole prophecy on Daniel's Seventy Weeks where the angel said, "Seventy weeks of years are determined for your people, and for your holy city." Chapter 11, verse 1 through 35 are prophecies that fit within the first 69 weeks of years, or the 483 years that we've already told you about. The last part of chapter 11, verse 36 through 45, deal with events, conflicts that will happen in Daniel's Seventieth Week, or the great tribulation period.
Now, I just want to give you a note here, sort of a warning. It's a very detailed chapter. In fact, get this, in 35 verses there are 135 predictions that have been fulfilled; one hundred thirty-five very detailed, minute, unbelievably detailed prophecies that have already been fulfilled. Now, because of this, because of that fact that I just said, this is why the book of Daniel has been attacked by the critics.
Because the critics came along and still come along and this is what they say, "Well, there's no way that anyone could know that kind of detail before it happened, so it must have been written after it happened. After all those things were fulfilled, that's when it was written." Because the critics can't figure out any other way.
They certainly can't believe in a God who writes the Bible or who knows all things. They certainly can't believe in the integrity of Daniel who had impeccable character, and now they have to discredit Jesus Christ who called Daniel a prophet. So, they're making Daniel a liar, Jesus a liar, and they're saying there's no way this could happen.
What we have in Daniel, chapter 11, is the marvelous demonstration that history is merely His story, and that for God, telling the future isn't any harder than knowing the past. Now, I'm going to give you a crop-duster view of this chapter. We're going to fly over and just top some of the trees. But talk about a soap opera—this chapter is it.
Now, I've given you in your worship folder today an outline with dates and names, because I know that nobody's going to remember all these names or dates, so it's here for you. And if you want to go into all of the incredible detail and research on your own, have at it. I want to give you a crop-duster's view, because otherwise we'll be here for weeks.
But I have divided up this chapter of what I'm going to give you this morning into four sections; four sections based upon four different peoples or people groups. Number one, regents of Persia—it's not in your outline; I'm giving it to you orally—regents of Persia or the kings of Persia that are mentioned. Number two, the ruler of Greece, which is Alexander the Great; number three, rivals north and south; and, finally, the rogue of Syria; those are the four sections that we'll briefly look at.
Let's begin with Persia, because that's where the chapter begins in verse 1. "Also in the first year of Darius the Mede, I, even I, stood up to confirm and strengthen him. And now"—this is the angel speaking to Daniel. "And now I will tell you the truth: Behold, three more kings will arise in Persia, and the fourth shall be far richer than them all; by his strength, through his riches, he shall stir up all against the realm of Greece."
Now, we typically don't think too much about angels in our daily life. We don't think about them protecting us or ministering to us. We don't give angels really much of a thought. I do, because I married one, but other than that we typically, we typically don't. [laughter] But the truth is Scripture tells us that God (Hebrews, chapter 1) sends angels to those of us who inherit salvation to serve us; or as it says, "To serve or minister to those who inherit salvation," Hebrews, chapter 1.
Did you know in the Bible out of 66 books, 34 books mention angels: 17 in the Old Testament; 17 in the New? They're spoken about 103 times in the Old Testament, and 165 times in the New Testament, and we have already seen last week that there was conflict in heaven between demons and angels that affect what happens on the earth. We should think about that more often.
A pastor was preparing a sermon for his small congregation, and someone said to him, "Why do you work so hard when your message will be heard by so few?" And he said, "Ah, you underestimate how large my audience will be; if angels are looking, nothing that is done is trivial. I'm doing it for the glory of God and in the presence of all those witnesses."
Well, verse 1 and 2 tell us that there's going to be three kings followed by a fourth who's going to be very wealthy. The truth is there were more than four Persian kings, but the angel is picking out a section of four at a very crucial, key period of time, and then it focuses on the fourth. The first king that is predicted is a guy by the name of Cambyses who was the son of Cyrus.
The second king was named—get this—pseudo-Smerdis because he was an imposter. He looked so much like Cambyses, he actually made people believe that he was him, and that's how he got on the throne. It was all by trickery; it was all by being an imposter. Third, is a guy by the name of Darius I Hystapes, and fourth is somebody you know, King Xerxes or Ahasuerus.
You're looking at me, like, "I know him?" Well, you know him if you've ever read the book Esther. He is the king that is featured prominently in the book of Esther, the one that he brings Esther into his company with, that's King Ahasuerus or Xerxes. Very wealthy and had the largest army in the ancient world.
He massed an army of 2.5 million men plus naval ships, and with that he attacked Greece, history tells us. He crossed over the Hellespont and at the Battle of Thermopylae waged war against the Grecian Empire. He lost the war, he lost the battle, but it so angered the Greeks that they waited and waited and waited for revenge. One 150 later they got their wish.
Verse 3, "Then a mighty king shall arise"—now he's waging war, verse 2, against Greece, "Then a mighty king shall arise, who will rule with great dominion, and do according to his will. And when he has arisen, his kingdom shall be broken and divided toward the four winds of heaven, but not among his posterity nor according to his dominion with which he ruled; for his kingdom shall be uprooted, even for others besides these."
Virtually every Bible commentator will say this refers to Alexander the Great. Now, we've already seen him highlighted in previous studies on Daniel in chapter 7: the Grecian Empire was represented by the leopard with four wings; in chapter 8 by the goat that came from the west, rapidly coming with a notable horn which broke off and four horns grew in its place. So, we're familiar with this kind of prophecy. This is the king; so we have the regents of Persia followed by the ruler of Greece.
Now, something about Alexander, he really was pretty great. He stands out in history as one of the most remarkable military leaders, and these verses describe him perfectly. In 332 BC he seized the entire Persian Empire; within ten years get this within ten years he conquered the world. He was king of the world by age thirty-three. He had conquered from Europe all the way to India. And when he finally went to Babylon, and his troops were exhausted, they couldn't go on any further, he was drunk one night and he wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. He'd done it all. That was the night he died.
And you'll notice what it says in verse 4, "His kingdom will be broken up and divided toward the four winds of heaven, but not among his posterity." You know, Alexander the Great had a half brother who was mentally retarded. He had an illegitimate son, and he had a baby born to him posthumously; that is, the girl was pregnant, then he died, then the child was born—all three of them were murdered. He had no posterity. And as it says, the kingdom won't go to his posterity, but be divided toward the four winds of heaven.
What happened is a battle ensued, and an argument ensued, and they had to decide how they're going to divide up his kingdom. So, they divided the kingdom among the top four generals of Alexander the Great: Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy and Seleucus. The spelling's right there in that nice, little outline I gave you. Let me tell you how it was divided, because this is important.
Cassander took Macedonia and Greece, the kingdom of Alexander's father; Lysimachus took Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey and the Thracian Empire; Seleucus took Syria and Babylonia; and Ptolemy (spelled with a P and then a T) Ptolemy, the fourth general, took Egypt, North Africa, and Arabia. That's how the kingdom was divided. So, we have in chapter 11 the regents of Persia, the ruler of Greece, now we come to the rivals north and south.
Now, if you'll look at your Bibles, beginning in verse 5 all the way to verse 20 is the longest section in the chapter. That's because the kings north and south are kings that directly affect Israel. Now, they all directly affect Israel, because Alexander took over the world, the Persian Empire had taken over the world. So, they all affect Israel, because they were in charge of them, but I mean directly affect Israel, because we're dealing with a nation north and south of Israel.
By the way, geography in the Bible is all relative toward Israel. When I was a kid, I remember in school the teacher showed us a world map, a map of the world. You know what country was right in the middle? America, that's what we think of ourselves. We're right in the middle; we're it. On God's map Israel's right in the middle. In fact, he says as much, Ezekiel chapter 5 verse 5, God says, and I quote, "See I have set Jerusalem in the midst of the all the nations that are around her." In other words, it put Israel right smack-dab in the middle.
That's why in the Bible north, south, east, and west are always relative to the nation of Israel. That's why in Jewish writings like the Midrash and the Mishnah there are sayings like this one: "The land of Israel is at the center of the world; Jerusalem is at the center of the land of Israel; the temple is at the center of Jerusalem." That's their way of saying, "The temple in Jerusalem at Israel is the navel or the epicenter of the planet."
So, because you have Israel here, and you have kings up here, and kings down here, and Israel is sandwiched in between and will get the brunt of all their battles, so much is given in this section.
Let's look at a snippet. Verse 5—now another quick warning, you're going to read over and over again in this section—and we're only going to look at a few verses—"the king of the north," "king of the south"; "king of the south," "the king of the north"; "the king of the south," and it goes on and on. It doesn't refer to one king necessarily, but a dynasty of kings. Whoever happens to be ruling in the north at that time is the king of the north; whoever happens to be ruling in the south is the king of the south. It's a dynasty. Seleucus the general established the Seleucid Dynasty: Syria, the north. Ptolemy established the Ptolemaic Dynasty: Egypt, down in the south.
Verse 5, "Also the king of the south," that's Egypt, that's the Ptolemaic Empire, "shall become strong, as well as one of his princes; and he shall gain power over him and have dominion. His dominion shall be a great dominion. And at the end of some years they shall join forces, for the daughter of the king of the south shall go to the king of the north to make an agreement; but she shall not retain the power of her authority, and neither he nor his authority shall stand; but she shall be given up, with those who brought her and, and with him who begot her, and with him who strengthened her in those times."
Here's the deal: the Ptolemaic dynasty down south grew stronger quicker, but not for very long. Eventually, eventually the northern kingdom, Syria, became also very strong and there was tension between north and south. To ease the tension an alliance was made. Now, the way alliances were made in those days is one of the kings would give his daughter to the other king as a wife, because now that's gonna mean we're going to treat each other good. And you hope that works out; sometimes it would be more drama than it would be peace, but that was the idea.
So, that's what happens here. The guy down south Ptolemy Philadelphus gives his daughter Berenice to the king of Syria named Antiochus Theos. Now, the only problem is the king of the north is already married. He has a wife. Now, he is given the daughter Berenice, this young, beautiful girl as his second wife. No problem, he's the king. He divorces his wife, marries her. Well, his wife doesn't think too highly of that, kills the new wife and her attendants, and poisons her husband. So, the whole alliance falls apart like this verse predicted.
Now, the rest of the verses we're not going to be looking at. We would be here for weeks and weeks and weeks unraveling all of these pieces and showing you how they fit historically. I think you get the gist of it. It covers about 150 to 200 of history. But there's a couple of verses I want to show you why this is important.
Verse 16, "But he who comes against him shall do according to his own will, and no one shall stand against him. He shall stand in the"—what—"Glorious Land." What land would that be? Israel. "With destruction in his power." Verse 20, "There shall arise in his place one who imposes taxes on the glorious kingdom," again, a reference to Israel, "but within a few days he shall be destroyed, but not in anger or in battle."
What I want you to see is the reason so much is talked about here is because all of the intrigue, all of the conspiracy, all of the wars, all of the bloodshed between north and south have Israel in between them. So, when one king wants to attack the other king, they have to go through Israel. So, for hundreds of years Israel would be sandwiched between the hammer and the anvil getting beat up, beat up, beat up by these kingdoms.
Now, this happens for years and years until—until one particular king—and he is written about and given more space than any other single individual in this chapter. One northern king in particular, the eighth in that line or that dynasty of the north, the eighth Seleucid king by the name of Antiochus IV; which takes us to the fourth and final division, the rogue of Syria.
Verse 21, look at this: "And in his place shall arise a vile person." How would you like to have that as your introduction? "A vile, despicable, wicked person"—ta-da! "To whom they will not give the honor of royalty"—notice—"but he shall come in peaceably, and seize the kingdom by intrigue."
Verse 21 to 24 described Antiochus IV's rise to power. He was an illegitimate king; he had no right to reign. He seized the throne by flattery. In fact, that's how he kind of ruled. He would see cities he wanted or people he wanted, and he would come with all hearts and flowers and be sweet, always with the end game of taking them captive and being in charge. That's how we got to the throne.
In fact, he called himself—ready? "Theos Antiochus, Theos Epiphanes," which means loosely translated, "I am god most glorious manifest." He had no self-esteem issue as we have said before. That's the name he gave himself, Theos Antiochus, Theos Epiphanes; actually, he was Creepus Maximus. [laughter] He called himself Antiochus Epiphanes, the illustrious glorious one; the Jews called him Antiochus Epimanes, the madman, because of what he had done to them.
Verse 25 through 28 describe his retaliation with Egypt, a peace treaty was signed, and it was broken; both rulers actually broke it. But look at verse 29 now. Let's get into this. "At the appointed time he shall return and go toward the south," so, he's up north moving south, "but it shall not be like the former or the latter. For ships from Cyprus shall come against him; therefore he shall be grieved, and return in rage against the holy covenant, and do damage. And so he shall return and show regard for those who forsake the holy covenant."
Now, by this time the Ptolemies down south were so sick of Antiochus that they called upon a new superpower looming in the west called Rome to help them. Rome sent a fleet of ships from the island of Cyprus who met Antiochus IV down just outside of Alexandria, Egypt, and they warned him strictly, "If you go to battle against this kingdom, you're going to also go to battle with us, Rome. We're going to be allied with them and we're going to take you down."
And then they drew a circle around him in the sand and they said, "You better make your decision before you leave the circle." So they publicly humiliate him. Now, he's in a corner, puts his tail between his legs, and goes back home. Now, he's going from south to north, if he's going back home from south to north, what land does he go through? Israel. What city does he go through? Jerusalem.
Now, verse 31, here it is, Antiochus now humiliated, as it says, and enraged, heads toward home. Verse 31, "And forces shall be mustered by him, and they shall defile the sanctuary fortress," that's the temple in Jerusalem, "and they shall take away the daily sacrifices, and place the abomination of desolation there." There it is. Now, every time from here on when we read about the abomination of desolation this is the primary reference. What Antiochus Epiphanes did is what someone else is going to do coming in the future—the abomination of desolation.
Here's what happened historically: Antiochus placed soldiers around the temple area forbidding people to worship, forbidding people to sacrifice. On one Sabbath he sent his soldiers to the city of Jerusalem to kill as many babies as they could find. On another occasion they went to the city of Jerusalem to kill as many women as they could find.
He made idolatry mandatory, erecting a statue of Zeus, killing a pig on the altar of sacrifice, forcing the Jewish priests to eat pork, sprinkling the juices of the pig all around the temple, desolating it, desecrating it. And then he made nudity public, taking what he called athletes and parading them nude in full view of the Temple Mount area—just totally in a filthy manner desecrating the temple.
And verse 32, "Those who do wickedly against the covenant he shall corrupt with flattery." "Those" are those who helped him do it, who were actually Judean Jews. "But the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits." It's always been one of my favorite verses of Scripture. I didn't really know what the context was until much later. I'll tell you what it is in a moment.
"And those of the people who understand shall instruct many; yet for many days they shall fall by the sword and flame, by captivity and plundering. Now when they fall, they shall be aided with a little help; but many shall be joined with them by intrigue."
Those who aided with a little help, those who trust their God and do great exploits is a reference, I believe, to the deliverers who would come: a group of Hasmonean priests led by Judas Maccabeus who revolted against the Syrians and reestablished proper worship in the temple. That is still celebrated to this day in the Jewish feast of Hanukkah. Hanukkah is all about driving out Antiochus Epiphanes and the Syrians, and reestablishing worship on the temple.
So, poor Daniel, man, he's like eighty-six years of age and he's mourning and weeping because Israel isn't the glorious nation and capital like it once was. The people have gone back, but only a few, and the work has stopped, and he's praying and mourning and fasting.
And the angel comes, and he goes, "I've got your answer, Daniel. You're probably not going to like this, but the seventy years of captivity are up. But there are more conflicts yet to come. Because after the seventy years will come a Xerxes, and then an Alexander, and then rivals between two kingdoms for a couple hundred years till eventually an Antiochus Epiphanes will utterly obliterate your people, and that will happen all the way to the end."
Now, by now I hope you're wondering, "Why would God allow all that to happen?" I know Daniel was thinking that. And so verse 35 tells us, "And some of those of understanding shall fall, to refine them, purify them, and make them white until the time of the end; because it is still for the appointed time."
"Daniel, God is going to use this suffering." Would you agree that nothing is effective in driving people to God like suffering; nothing gets our attention, nothing drives our eyes upward? I know we hate it. We'd all vote against it if we could eradicate suffering in all of its forms today, but God uses it. And that's why Peter said in the New Testament, "The trials of your faith have come so that your faith—more precious than gold, though refined by the fire—may be proved to be genuine."
Now, I want to close with a question: Why the detail? You gotta understand, of all the chapters of Daniel, I was least excited about teaching this one until I got into it. Why the detail? Why this king and that king and this—all these detailed events? Three reasons: number one, to highlight the survival of the Jewish people. They shouldn't exist. They have been hassled and hounded; they should be out of existence, but they exist. Jewish survival is miraculous.
Here's just a sampling of history: 50,000 Jews were killed in Seleucia; 20,000 died in Caesarea by the Syrians; Antiochus Epiphanes killed 80,000 on this event that I told you about, sold 40,000 as slaves, and took 40,000 as prisoners. In 70 AD the Romans entered Jerusalem and killed 1,300,000 Jews. The emperor Constantine outlawed Jews, killing them, cutting off their ears, dispersing them. In the fifth and sixth century Jews were forbidden to hold public office in Europe, and over 60,000 were killed.
In 633 AD with the rise of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, Jews were slaughtered even to this day. The crusades of the eleventh century, the Christian crusades, the motto was, "Kill a Jew and save your soul." Many of them were slaughtered in the name of Christ. In 1350 the black plague in Europe happened, Jews were blamed for it, and half of them were killed because of it. In 1492 in Spain when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, 80,000 Jews were pushed into the sea; most of them died by exposure.
World War II, the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime exterminated 6 million Jews in a Holocaust. There is no reason they should exist, but they exist because of this angelic keeping that goes on in heavenly places. Queen Victoria asked her prime minister, "Show me one thing that proves the Bible is true." The prime minister said, "The Jew, madam, the Jew."
Second reason the detail is given is to highlight the similarity of the Antichrist. We're going to read next week in the last ten verses of this chapter about somebody else who is coming, and Antiochus Epiphanes is the prototype of that Antichrist. That's the second reason. Here's the third reason and I close with this: because it highlights the sovereignty of God. I love it when the Bible shows off God's track record. And we see 135 predictions fulfilled that are mentioned in 35 verses—that's God's trademark.
In fact, so often in the Old Testament God says to the false gods, "I can do what you can't do. I'm going to predict this, this, this, and that; can you do that?" "Uh, no." "Can any of your false gods make the kind of predictions I can make." "Uh, no." So every time God fulfills a promise that he has made or a prediction that he has made, it should cause us to well up with faith.
Every tomorrow has two handles: the handle of anxiety; the handle of faith. Most of us like to grab the handle of anxiety: "I don't know what's going happen! I don't know what's going to happen!" Okay, so you don't know what's doing happen—so what. Every time God fulfills a promise that he makes, it should move us toward that handle of faith, because the thinking person will say this: "If 135 prophecies that verifiable are found in 35 verses, then I think the rest of what he says is also going to happen—like Jesus is coming back, and like the kingdom age is going to come, and heaven is a real place,"—that's what it should make us think. [applause]
And, yet, some will say, "Yeah, I've heard this before. I've heard these warnings for years—'Jesus is coming. The end of the world is coming.' My grandmother used to think that." Well, baby, your grandmother was right on. It is coming; it is happening.
There was a man who wanted a barometer that he saw in a store, beautiful wood and brass. And he thought it would look good on his mantle, so he ordered one, had it shipped to his home. He unpacked the barometer, looked at it, and he was so disappointed. He thought, "It's defective," because the needle was stuck on the section of the barometer reading "hurricane." He goes, "Aw, this stupid thing; it doesn't work, " put it back in the box. Had to go to work, so he wrote a quick letter, was going to mail it on the way to the city where he worked.
When he drove home that night, the barometer was gone. Not only the barometer was gone, his house was gone that had the barometer in it. Yeah, it was right—a hurricane came. The angel who spoke to Daniel, his needle was right on; storm after storm after storm would hit Israel. And there is a storm yet to come on the horizon, talked about in the last section of this chapter that makes everything that we have briefly considered this morning nothing more than child's play, what Jesus said is the worst period of time that has yet to hit planet earth.
Here's my question: Can you come to church week after week, and sit sermon after sermon, week after week, and see God's power demonstrated in his Word like this and remain unmoved? Because if you can, I pity you, when you see such verifiable evidence of the omniscience and power of God in prophecy. It's absolutely amazing. It should cause us to bow and worship and relinquish control to this Sovereign One.
And, Father, that's where we end. We end with that amazement. Unfortunately, many will fail to learn from history, and, unfortunately, they are destined to repeat it. But I pray for us, we your people, that by the insight given to Daniel through this angel, a direct revelation from heaven that we have considered just briefly today and we have seen how amazing you are. And to worship you should be so second nature to us, because you are so awesome; really, there's no human word to describe, we fall short. But in closing this service, we close it as we began it-thanking you and worshiping for your great love for us, in Jesus' name, amen.
For more teachings from Calvary Albuquerque and Skip Heitzig visit calvaryabq.org.