| IN THE HANDS OF TYRANTS |
| Daniel's visions portray history as one bestial empire after another. |
| "The king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods." 11:36 |
 |
| Josef Stalin, head of the USSR from 1924 to 1953, murdered millions. His supporters knew that the slightest slip would lead them to the executioner. Of 1,966 delegates to one Party Congress, Stalin had 1,108 - all Stalin supporters - arrested and killed. Of the 139 Central Committee members, 98 were shot. In spite of this, the nation virtually worshiped Stalin. He had made himself a god. Every public park displayed his statue. Every newspaper published lavish tributes daily. For one of his birthdays, an entire museum in Moscow was stripped so it could be filled with his birthday presents. He was called Father of the Peoples, the Greatest Genius in History, the Shining Sun of Humanity, the Life-giving Force of Socialism. He was not the first, nor the last, of his kind. Increasingly, it seems, totalitarian leaders promise everything - and demand everything. They brutally dispose of anyone who opposs them. Hitler, Stalin, Amin, Mao, Khomeini . . . the list grows longer. A Single, Cruel King Daniel's visions predicted such tyrants. History, in these visions, is one terrible empire after another. Each is stronger but more bestial than the last. The focus narrows (in 8:23-25 and 11:21-45) to a single, cruel king. Most scholars agree the description matches Antiochus IV of Syria. An obscure tyrant who ruled a century and a half before Jesus, he was the Jews' worst enemy in history, until Hitler. Antiochus, never totally victorious against archenemy Egypt, |