Daniel and the Boys in the Band by Brian E. R. Limmer - HTML preview

Introduction

The Greatest Question of All Time

What is one question humans have been asking since the dawn of civilisation? Without a doubt, it must be, ‘Who is in charge around here?’ Mankind asked the weather, and the weather replied, ‘I Am’! The parent asked the crying baby, and the baby bawled louder, ‘I Am’! The citizen asked the leader, and the leader raised his sword and said, ‘I Am!’ World leaders strut their mightiest armies on the parade ground, asking the world, ‘Who is in charge?’ And the world answers back with an earthquake or a tsunami, saying ‘I am’!

The race for the greatest world army began when the ark was opened and the people came out. God reminded them, ‘Spread out and replenish the whole earth’. Nimrod moved eastward into the vale of Babel and said to the people, ‘We will camp here, keep together now, and we will build a name for ourselves.’ Out of Nimrod came a pattern for world leaders that still exists today. Notice how the techniques of Nimrod are still the basic techniques of dictators today.

Nimrod (semantic: “to rebel”) was the first person after the flood to be called ‘a mighty man’. He was a mighty hunter ‘before the Lord’. But something changed because he decided later to oppose God by setting about to establish a kingdom called Babylon. Later, the famous hanging gardens made it the world’s first ‘must visit’ site for the rest of the world. Nimrod expanded his kingdom base by spreading from there to build new cities including: Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar, into these cities, only his closest followers were allowed to live. Nimrod was a despot with an enormous ego, brilliant communication skills, and subtle negotiating skills. He started out well, as many dictators do, but turned his popularity into a power base later. His power turned into idolatry and greed. He kept his power by military might and unspeakable cruelty. He first stood up to God when God said “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”⁷. Nimrod instead, sought to unite the people in one place by building the great Tower of Babel. ‘This great project must reach into Heaven’⁸. He convinced his people, and united them under the famous slogan, ‘Make ourselves Great’, (MOG), which only reveals Nimrod’s ambitious and prideful nature. His massive ego craved glory, hoping to have an everlasting monument to himself⁹. His was the seed that continued along time and inspired following boastful kings of Babel and Babylon¹⁰. Nimrod exemplified self-dependence and arrogance, attempting to build an empire that exalted wealth, and human ambition over divine obedience without shame. One source suggests that “Nimrod was undoubtedly the first powerful, charismatic hero figure of the ancient world ¹¹. Whatever, he was the first person after the ark to set himself up as a demigod.

An Antichrist in Every Age

Daniel and the prophets will draw our attention to a later Antichrist. Our modern thought line will immediately think of a person, but Nimrod shows the Antichrist as a motivation, a movement, a rebellion under a spiritual drive. By its nature and determination, it will personify again and again in history in other leaders. Antichrist literally means Pseudo-Christ, meaning anyone who will impersonate Christ while opposing everything Christ stands for. Anti-God might be a better term. The spiritual drive here is the driving force behind Nimrod. Later Antichrist’s will have a specific objective to deceive the followers of Christ, but the force behind them, by other names, is the same. The underlying desire to de-thrown God reoccurs in all history, and table-one gives a list of other names by which he is recognised in scripture.

Because the first recognition of the Antichrist by the church came in the form of the Roman soldiers who destroyed the temple, many make a case from scripture pointing to the clay feet on the statue in Daniel, that the Antichrist will be a second rising of the Roman Empire in the last days. But the principal here is, that there is an Antichrist spirit behind many nations or rulers who opposed Christ, so Antichrist can come in many forms of nation or leader. As a point of conjecture, the Roman consul that destroyed the temple was the 10th legion which was not Roman but a conscript of Assyrian soldiers, they were not Roman.

Chapter-three will explore the detail, but when Isaiah prophesied, ‘Elijah will come to proclaim the Messiah’, he spoke of the spirit, character, mission, mannerism, and characteristics of Elijah. These characteristics reappeared in the person of John the Baptist to announce the Messiah has come. Isaiah did not know his name when he prophesied, but he recognised the spiritual character behind the person. Jesus recognised John the Baptist was synonymous with Elijah.

So it is by way of introduction, we must not only see the historic events but the spiritual motivation and direction behind them. Because we have been introduced to a spiritual war being waged behind world events, we need not be looking for one person. To see the person without the spiritual battle is not to see at all. There will be many physical manifestations of the Antichrist, the beast or the false prophet because the motivation and character behind them will be revealed in many people. Our task is not to announce, pinpoint or predict a person, but to recognise the driving power behind a person when we meet them.

Table 1: Opposing God’s right to rule