“It will throw truth to the ground, and it will act and prosper.”
Daniel 8:12
John is the last living Apostle. As he nears the end of his life he looks at the world around and sees evil increasing. He writes, “every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already”. John recognizes the spirit of antichrist, (denying that Jesus is God) is growing in the world. We see this same spirit in the age we live in.
In the Old Testament Daniel received a prophecy of a wicked man that would arise 350 years after Daniel lived. This man hated the people of God. He would make it his purpose to destroy a nation just because of its religious practices. This man was so evil that he is considered a type of the most evil human that will live, the Antichrist. In fact this man is often called the antichrist of the Old Testament.
How he went about persecuting Israel is instructive to us for like John, we see this spirit begin to form around us today. Daniel tells us that one of this man’s acts is to throw God’s truth to the ground.
In the historical book of I Maccabees it is recorded of Antiochus Epiphanes, “The king also sent edicts by messenger to Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, directing them to adopt customs foreign to the country, banning burnt offerings, sacrifices and libations from the sanctuary, profaning Sabbaths and feasts, defiling the sanctuary and everything holy, building altars, shrines and temples for idols, sacrificing pigs and unclean beasts, leaving their sons uncircumcised, and prostituting themselves to all kinds of impurity and abomination, so that they should forget the Law and revoke all observance of it.” It also states that “On the fifteenth day of Chislev in the year 145 the king (Antiochus Epiphanes) built the appalling abomination on top of the altar of burnt offering; and altars were built in the surrounding towns of Judah and incense offered at the doors of houses and in the streets. Any books of the Law that came to light were torn up and burned. Whenever anyone was discovered possessing a copy of the covenant or practicing the Law, the king’s decree sentenced him to death.”
What can we learn? Satan’s first temptation in the Garden of Eden cast God’s truth to the ground. Satan told Eve God could not be trusted, His word was false and was not to be believed. Why is God’s word so important? Because it is the evidence of God’s character. When God says it, His word will always be true. (See why God tells us to let “our yes be yes and our no, no”?)
There are many ways to cast God’s word to the ground. It can be accused of being evil and causing a lack of tolerance between
people. That is happening today. It can be kept out of the hands of he people like Antiochus Epiphanes did. That is done today by taking the Bible out of schools and government. The major way it is to cast to the ground is to mock and despise it as out of date, ancient and irrelevant. It is said to be written by men, not God. Again, that is in full force today. Understand that attacks on the Bible are demonic. There is no other way for people to know God or for believers to be transformed into the image of God than through God’s word. Short of Jesus coming to earth to save us from our sin there is no greater treasure than the gift of God’s word for it is how we come to know Him. Do not unite with Satanic attempts to demean God’s word. Honor it, treasure it, read it, obey it. When it is under attack do not deny it. It is the “power of God unto salvation.”