Proclaiming to be God
Happy Chrismukkah.
This year Christmas and Hanukkah fall on the same calendar day, December 25th. This helps to emphasize, and remind us that historically and biblically, there are strong connections between these two events. In fact, did you know that Hanukkah made Christmas possible? One can rightly say that these two events form part of the same continuing story, though they are separated by some 175 years.
The story of Hanukkah is about a group of Jewish priests, the Maccabees who rose against a Syrian army led by Antiochus Epiphanes, who literally closed down the Temple in Jerusalem. Without the Temple, Jesus could not come to fulfill certain prophecies, one of them found in Malachi 3:1 which says: And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the Lord of hosts. This verse is cited in Matthew, Mark and Luke. The messenger is John the Baptist, and the Lord is Yeshua. However, in order to have this prophecy fulfilled, the Temple had to be restored and cleansed. This is when Hanukkah made Christmas possible.
But there is an even stronger connection which brings us to see how the events of Hanukkah are so much like what Israel and the world are experiencing today, and now more than any other time in history.
How is that? During the events surrounding Hanukkah, the Jewish people were preparing the land and the Temple for the First Coming of the Messiah. Because of this, they were experiencing much persecution, with widespread antisemitism. They were at war as the forces of evil rose to prevent the coming of Jesus. Today we find the same scenario as the Jewish people are also there in the land of Israel to prepare it for the Second Coming of the Messiah. They are also experiencing much antisemitism with wars in the land, persecution and spiritual opposition.
Have you ever wondered why the Jews today are now in the land of Israel in a state of unbelief? The government barely mentions God and the religious parties are far from an “only Scripture” approach and instead they lean on the Traditions of the Elders as their basic tenets. Israel became a nation in 1948 to prepare the land for the end time prophecies. Part of that preparation includes the construction of the Third Temple with the aim of fulfilling many Hebrew Scripture prophecies and ushering in the Second Coming.
And what is more pertinent and most amazing is that the person who tried to stop the First Coming of the Messiah, the villain of Hanukkah, Antiochus Epiphanes, shares many prophecies with the one who will try to stop the Second Coming of the Messiah, that is the Antichrist. Daniel chapter 8 speaks of both these times and men. Each tried and will try to annihilate the religion of the Jewish people, but both, respectively, did not and will not succeed. Yeshua came, born at Christmas time, and He will come back at the end to establish His Kingdom. This is what Hanukkah and Christmas celebrate.
And so let us briefly see how this Syrian commander tried to stop the First Coming of the Messiah. His actions are a foreshadow of things that will soon come upon Israel. This we find in the book of 1Maccabees. It says that at one point, Antiochus sent letters all over Israel saying, “49 To the end they might forget the law (of God), and change all the ordinances. 50 And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said, he should die.”
This would cause them to forget the Word of God. Let me ask you a question, what would be an effective way to separate Israel from her God? The answer; separate a believer from Jesus, by depriving him of the Scriptures, by adding or altering it so that it becomes unrecognizable. Without the Scriptures, we will lose track of our Creator and begin to model a god after our own image and likings.
Didn’t Yeshua say that man shall not live by bread alone but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God? Today, this very Word is what the antichrist will try to eradicate. This is why commemorating the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) is getting even more relevant year after year as we make our way to the end times, a period evidenced by a rise against the fundamental principles of the Bible.
But see how the devil inspired this man; you will recognize the antichrist in him. His full name is Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The word Epiphanes means God manifest. He literally thought he was God incarnate and how appropriate to give himself such a title just before the Messiah was to be born in Israel. By calling himself God, he diminished the importance of the genuine and true incarnate Son of God. He had thought so much of himself that the Jews changed the name of Epiphanies to Epimanes which means mad – calling him Antiochus the mad man.
And it seemed that Antiochus set a new trend for it was around this same time when the title Son of God was adopted by the Roman emperors. Even the emperor at the time of the Yeshua Augustus, used the name son of God. There in the gate of the city of Ephesus these words were written, “The Emperor Caesar Augustus, son of god and high priest’. This is the same title as the one Yeshua held. We can see how history was manipulated to either prevent acknowledgment or diminish the importance of the person of Yeshua.
Who else in the future will pretend divinity? Paul tells us that the Antichrist will do the same thing in the future third Temple, the one not yet built. We read in 2Thessalonians 2:4 that when he will desecrate the Temple, he will oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God, the One Who is worshiped, so that he, the Antichrist sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
This is the ultimate arrogance, the very thing, that his father the devil also took on for himself, as we read in Isaiah 14.14 which says, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Isa 14:14
At the midpoint of the tribulation, when he takes his seat in the Temple and publicly proclaims that he is God, it will be his moment of glory, or so he thinks.
This blasphemy is what Daniel called the Abomination of Desolation and Yeshua took the same term and applied it to the Antichrist to come, for both the Antichrist and Antiochus share the same prophecies of religious intolerance and violence.
This is what Yeshua said concerning the Antichrist in Mark 13: 14 where He gives a direct warning to the people who will be in Israel at the time, Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place let the reader understand, then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.
The Abomination of Desolation that Jesus is referring to is the moment the Antichrist will enter in the Third Temple. He will then proclaim that he is God. This is what the Abomination of Desolation is; while Antiochus desecrated the Temple by offering a pig on the altar, the Antichrist will sit and say that he is God. This is how far reaching into the future the events of Hanukkah are.
Click Here for the Teaching: Christmas in the Shadow of Hanukkah