The Little Horn Series

This is a proud arrogant man who denies Jehovah God. More than likely he will deny the deity of Jesus Christ, His claim to be God’s Son, and His death and resurrection. After all Jesus’ deity is the main stumbling block that all other religions refuse to believe.

E. Wages War Against the Saints

The second thing we can learn from these verses about the antichrist is that he will wage war against and oppress the saints of the Most High. So in order to understand this portion of the vision, we need to know who the saints are that he is going to wage war against.

Now, this is where we need to be very careful about rightly dividing the word of truth, that we talked about before beginning this series. Because depending on who you believe the saints are, you can get radically different interpretations of the other events of this vision. Which in turn would change the interpretations of other related prophecies dealing with the same topic.

Some people claim that the saints mentioned here are the saints of the Church. After all, throughout the New Testament the term “saint” is used mainly to refer to the born-again believers in Christ. Thinking that the saints in Daniel seven are the Church is a reasonable assumption unless you rightly handle or divide God’s Word.

Remember I’ve told you repeatedly that the Church was a hidden mystery to the Old Testament prophets. Daniel could not see the Church from his point in history, and God did not reveal the existence of the Church until the New Testament. Daniel could only see what was happening to his own people and how the surrounding Gentile nations affected them.

So, these saints can’t be a reference to the Church. No, these saints are the righteous Jews. The antichrist, when he appears, is going to wage war against and oppress the Jewish people.

There are some other reasons we know this is true. First, the antichrist or little horn comes out of the ten-horned empire, and this empire is an actual earthly empire. It will literally exist on earth. It’s not a spiritual empire. All the other empires (Babylon, Greece, Rome) were earthly, so it’s reasonable to say that this Last Days Empire will be earthly as well. This means that the war the antichrist will wage will also occur on earth. This means that it is impossible for the saints mentioned here to be referring to the Church because we will not be here to see this empire and the antichrist come to full power.

When we were talking about the Colossus, I told you I put a mental division between the feet and the toes because I believe the Rapture of the Church will occur before the ten king Last Days Empire appears on the scene. I believe we can see it coming and forming, but we’ll be gone before it comes clearly into existence and power.

Just like with the Colossus, when we look at this fourth wild beast, we need to realize that the Church of true believers will be taken out to be with the Lord before the appearance of the ten horns and therefore before the antichrist appears to wage war on the saints. So you see, it’s impossible for the Church to be the saints Daniel speaks of. Therefore, the saints must be Jews.