God’s Word for You

Daniel 11:42-43 No fellowship with Antichrist

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, January 26, 2026

42 He shall stretch out his hand against nations, and the land of Egypt will not escape. 43 He will rule over treasures of gold and silver, and all the wealth of Egypt. Libyans and Cushites will follow in his footsteps.

Here we are shown that near the end, the Antichrist will change from a defensive posture to taking the offensive, attacking other nations openly. Antichrist will become an important world power, able to wage war against the most powerful nation or nations of his time. When the Angel spoke to Daniel, Egypt was still one of the great world powers, and he uses them to illustrate his point: “The land of Egypt will not escape.” For while we would say today that Egypt, although an important nation, is hardly a world power in the same way that the United States, China, Germany and Japan are important world powers. Yet for Daniel, this was different. “Any interpreter would have to conclude that Egypt symbolized a major world power.”

The phrase “stretch out his hand against” is not uncommon as a way of saying someone seized something: property (Exodus 22:8), plunder (Esther 9:10), tools (Job 28:9), or even people (Genesis 37:22). Here it shows the Antichrist seizing lands (as the verb is also used in Obadiah 1:13, where both lands and wealth are implied).

Another translation question is in verse 43. What is meant by “(follow) in his footsteps”? This is just one word (mits’ad, “step, course of life”) with the preposition “in.” RSV and ESV have “in his train” (that is, the vassals and courtiers of a king). NIV has “in submission,” which captures the right application and also, I think, the flavor of the word. The EHV has “within his grasp,” which seems to draw on a different idea but remains within the meaning of the context. The Greek translation has “in his people/crowd” which fits the idea of “in his train.” The idea of the sentence is that when the world power (Egypt) falls to the Antichrist, even its vassal or allied kingdoms (Libya and Cush) will either follow suit or also fall into submission along with Egypt. Where the Antichrist puts his feet, they will put their feet. The way he conducts his life, they will conduct their life. The way he has rebelled against God, they, too, will rebel, because they follow along after him in all of his ways.

This is the danger of trying to force fellowship ties between church bodies when those ties are not based on any agreement of doctrine. It cannot be a coincidence that some of the books of the Bible that describe the work of Antichrist are also among the books that teach us the doctrine of church fellowship (1 John, 2 John). Fellowship ties cannot be based only on things such as geography, the desire of leadership, or on commonly held outward practices. Such a fellowship can only be forced and never truly agreed upon.

There must be complete agreement on the teachings of the groups in question, or else there will inevitably be a shattering of the unity, like a China plate splintering into many pieces, never to be completely mended. For what John says about the Antichrist is true of any ties of fellowship: “Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. He denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22). This is a prime example of a barrier to any true fellowship within the church. And the phrase in the middle of that verse is: “Such a man is the Antichrist”!

Again, John warns: “Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God” (1 John 4:3). This, too, must be a barrier to any true fellowship, since it reduces the divinity of Christ. It makes Jesus unable to forgive sins, to atone for sin, or to speak with the authority of God. Two groups that disagree on that cannot ever hope to be truly in fellowship. And how does that verse end? “This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already at work in the world” (1 John 4:3).

And in a similar way, 2 John 1:7 warns about “Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.” This means there were and still are those who deny that the man Jesus came from the Father, and that he was only “possessed” by the spirit of the Son of God and does not remain the Son of God today. They, too, are to be recognized as “the deceiver and the antichrist.” Churches that base their unity on anything apart from true doctrinal agreement have only a tiny scrap of security, so fragile, “only enough security to make their fellowship accursed.”

Since Jesus warns us against false Christs and false teachers who “will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect” (Matthew 24:24), we can understand why so many people “follow in the footsteps” of such a deceiver.

The sin we have to repent of here is therefore the sin of being lax in our vigilance. We ask God to forgive us, and to help us to study his word and the Bible’s Christian doctrine more and more deeply so that (1) we glorify God by loving and studying his word, (2) we expose the errors of sin and misunderstanding in our hearts, and re-align our own faith, thoughts and living with God’s holy will, and (3) we arm ourselves with a renewed knowledge of his word in order to help fend off the attacks of Satan, of the Antichrist, and of our friends and neighbors who have been caught “following in his steps.”

And after all of this, we remember to praise God for sending his Son Jesus Christ into the world to forgive us, for we know and we fully trust his forgiveness. This grace was not brought on by any of our doing, but purely out of his love and compassion for us. Praise God’s holy name forever and ever!

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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