God’s Word for You

Daniel 11:44-45 The end of Antichrist

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, January 27, 2026

44 But reports from the east and the north will terrify him, and he will go out in fury to destroy and completely annihilate many. 45 He will pitch his royal tents between the seas and the beautiful holy mountain. Yet he will come to his end, with no one to help him.

Traditionally, the “reports from the east” are seen as the rise of Islam in the east in the seventh century, but this could also include many eastern religions that deny Christ. Hinduism embraces reincarnation. This idea transforms so easily into video games where the gamer gets to “go again” if his character dies that many pastors are finding that our Catechism students have been led to believe it is part of the Bible’s teaching.

Other eastern religions include Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Sikhism, Jainism, Shinto, and others, all of which reject Christ and the offer of the forgiveness of sins through faith. Between them, Hinduism and Buddhism have about as many followers today as Islam. Although Christianity has the most followers in the world, we cannot deny that a great many Christians are subject to the teachings and guidance of the Antichrist, and therefore there is always more work to do. If the true church remains small and goes largely unnoticed by the world, this is no reason to breathe a sigh of relief. The command of Christ is to go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel, using baptism and the preaching of the word of God to make disciples.

Returning to our text, “reports from the north” are traditionally taken to be those reports from the north that would most upset and even terrify the Antichrist. This is surely the Lutheran Reformation. Beginning in 1517, the Catholic monk and priest Martin Luther (also a Doctor of the church, teaching at the University of Wittenberg) became concerned about abuses in the church. He wanted to debate about the lack of any Scriptural basis or pastoral usefulness of indulgences (the 95 Theses), and he began to raise concerns about many other abuses in the Catholic Church such as allowing the clergy to get married. None of the representatives sent north into Germany by the pope were able to stand up to Luther’s theological points. His hope to reform the church ended when the pope attempted to excommunicate him, but he fell under the protection of an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick III the Wise, who refused to arrest Luther or to hand him over to Rome. This was the beginning of the Lutheran Church, and although other groups began to break away from the Catholic church after this (the Church of England, the Calvinists, the French Huguenots, and others) the purest Gospel remains within the confessional Lutheran Church. If this writer sounds proud of this fact, understand that it is really only the humble realization of the truth of the Scriptures held up as what we call “the ruling rule” over all Lutheran teaching. It is by the grace of God that we find ourselves in this little corner of the Christian Church, and we cannot thank God enough that because we have the pure Gospel, we have the assurance and confidence of forgiveness, peace, the resurrection, and eternal life. We do not have a mere hope, or a reliance on the merits of human beings living or dead for this, but the certainty that we are saved by Christ alone, and that it is by his merits alone that we will stand before God on judgment day.

But our text assures us that Antichrist will not. He will come to his end, and be judged and condemned. What will God’s judgment be of a minister, a pastor, a priest, a bishop, a cardinal, or a pope, who leads a little one into the sin of doubt and despair over his or her sins? What does Jesus say? “If anyone causes even one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!” (Matthew 18:6-7).

Our dogmatician Adolf Hoenecke ends his instruction about the Antichrist with these words: “Our thesis proceeds to mention in particular that the Antichrist will be judged. That is a correct inference since along with the devil (Matthew 25:41; Revelation 20:10) also the devil’s henchman, the Antichrist, must be judged and condemned. More than that, it is also expressly revealed: ‘The Lord Jesus will overthrow the lawless one with the breath of his mouth [that is, his Word] and destroy him by the splendor of his coming’ (2 Thessalonians 2:8), and again, ‘The beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the lake of fire and of burning sulfur’ (Revelation 19:20).” (Evangelical Lutheran Dogmatics Volume IV p. 284-285). To Hoenecke’s conclusion I would only add, with humility and as a response to those who might argue that the pope proclaims the Lord Jesus in his preaching and teaching, that Jesus also says, “Many will come to me on that day, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:22). It is on account of this judgment that Dante says, “I have told you this to make you grieve” (Inferno, XXV,151), and why he had the sign above Hell’s entrance inscribed with the words, “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’intrate,” which means, “Abandon every hope, who enter here” (Inferno III,9).

Therefore, rejoice that you know Jesus and rely on no other for your forgiveness. For the grace of God and the merits of Christ are like the equations in mathematics that multiply numbers by zero. Anything brought into such an equation equals zero; nothing at all. And so it is when men try to bring along other merits into their judgment before God. Anything brought along even with Christ makes the equation zero; they have nothing to stand before God with that will help. But when we stand with Christ alone, we stand with everything we need. Our house is built upon the rock (Matthew 7:25).

O for a thousand tongues to sing
my great Redeemer’s praise,
the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of his grace!

He breaks the power of cancelled sin,
he sets the prisoner free;
his blood can make the foulest clean;
his blood availed for me.

To God all glory, praise, and love
be now and ever given
by saints below and saints above,
the Church in earth and heaven.

Charles Wesley (1739)

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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