vinsight4u said in post 297:
Daniel 11:13 "...after certain years..." v16 "...shall stand in the glorious land, which by his hand shall be consumed."
So is this king of the north going to be the final transgressor, so later the vile person can rise as the king of fierce countenance/the little horn?
Possibly, for after an Iraqi Baathist General who could lead the defeat and occupation of Israel and Egypt mysteriously disappears from the scene (Dan. 11:19), the Antichrist, who could be an Arab, could arise peacefully out of Lebanon (from the modern city of Tyre: Ezek. 28:2, cf. 2 Thes. 2:4), and he could take up the mantle of Baathism and vow to (in his words) "complete the great work of Arab liberation and unification". The 1st thing the Antichrist could do once he's given control (Dan. 11:21) of a Baathist confederation of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and a "United Palestine" (i.e. a defeated Israel), is to perform a very small and localized attack against an army of ultra-Orthodox Jews holed up in the walled Old City of Jerusalem and led by a false ultra-Orthodox Jewish Messiah (Dan. 9:26a, 11:22). They could have managed to hold off the first Baathist attack even as it overran the rest of Israel, because the walled Old City of Jerusalem is considered holy to the Muslims, and so it's not to be bombarded or destroyed. The Antichrist could manage in some way to take the Old City without doing it much harm.
Then, instead of executing all the ultra-Orthodox Jews and their false Messiah, the Antichrist will do an amazing thing. He will "cut" a peace treaty with them and their false Messiah (Dan. 9:26a, 11:23), permitting them to keep a 3rd Jewish temple (Rev. 11:1) which they will have built on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, and to keep control of the Old City, for at least 7 more years (Dan. 9:27a), so long as they give up the outer court of the temple (Rev. 11:2a) to the Muslims so that the Muslims can rebuild the Al Aqsa Mosque on the southern end of the Temple Mount and resume worship there. By this peace treaty, the Antichrist could present himself to the world as (in his words):
"A reasonable man, a man of peace. I am no Hitler. I do not desire a second Holocaust. I am willing to give the religious Jews in the Old City seven years to show that they are willing to live peacefully with others, that they are different than the Zionist Jews who have just destroyed the world with their nuclear weapons".
And if the Antichrist gets flak from his fellow Baathists for letting the ultra-Orthodox Jews keep the Old City, he could explain to them privately that (in his words)
"It's all a temporary ruse, meant to keep world opinion off guard while we consolidate our position". The Baathists could consolidate their position by becoming so well dug-in, and so well equipped and advised militarily by the Russians (in the name of "Arab self-determination"), that a U.S. counter-attack to "restore" (i.e. to take back) Israel and Egypt could fail, and leave the Baathists in control, and in a position to extend their power over all the rest of the Arab nations. For if the Baathists defeat Israel, they will be hailed by the Arab masses as magnificent heroes, so that the Baathists could have no problem persuading the Arab masses to support them. And the Baathists could justify their defeat of the Egyptian military regime, and then their subsequent defeat of other regimes such as in Jordan, by railing against them as being (what they could call):
"These vile cronies of the Americans. These cronies pretended to be for the Arab people while in fact they were taking American bribes in the billions, completely selling out our Palestinian brothers to the endless cruelties of the Zionist occupation, and keeping you, the great majority of the Arab people, in poverty. These cronies, like the Zionists themselves, were the American bulwarks against our glorious Arab unification and return to world power. Join now with us, the Baathists, that we might bring about the long-awaited Arab Renaissance, the long-awaited Arab Resurrection [the Arab word 'Baath' can mean 'Renaissance' and 'Resurrection'], that we Arabs might all rise up together and unite, from Oman to Morocco, into one great United Arab States, one great Arab Empire, shaking off completely all the shackles of the West, placed upon us so long ago, and return to our former glory as we had during the Middle Ages, when we were far superior to the West".
The Baathists could also rail against the kings and sheikhs of the Arab Gulf States for (in their words)
"hoarding the huge oil wealth given by Allah to all the Arabs, and keeping the Arab masses in poverty and subjugation to Western interests". The Baathists are socialist, and so could call for the distribution of the Arab oil wealth to the Arab masses (Dan. 11:24). In this way, and by their defeat of Israel, the Baathists could easily turn the masses to their side in every Arab nation.
During the first few years of the peace treaty, the Antichrist could employ Baathism as the means by which he will gradually and peacefully put together a United Arab States, or Arab Union, stretching from Oman to Morocco. Once he has accomplished this, he could then begin to downplay Baathism & start speaking of "world peace and the unity of mankind". He could convince an oil-thirsty European Union to let the oil-rich Arab Union join it, thereby forming a massive Mediterranean Union, which he could manage to peacefully gain control of and use as his base of power to eventually exert his hegemony over the entire earth (Rev. 13:7b).
Then, only some 3.5 years after making the peace treaty, the Antichrist will break it, attack the 3rd Jewish temple in Jerusalem, stop the daily Mosaic animal sacrifices offered in front of it, and sit in the temple and proclaim himself God (Dan. 11:31,36, Mt. 24:15, 2 Thes. 2:4). He will then rule the whole earth by the power of Lucifer (Satan, the dragon: Rev. 12:9) for 3.5 years (Rev. 13:4-18, Dan. 7:25, 12:7, Rev. 12:14), or 1,260 days (Rev. 12:6). The return of Jesus Christ from heaven (Mt. 24:30, Rev. 19:11-21, 1 Thes. 4:16) may not occur immediately after the 1,260 days of the Antichrist's worldwide reign are over, but could occur 75 days later, on the 1,335th day after the Antichrist and his followers set up the abomination of desolation (possibly a standing, android image of the Antichrist) in the holy place of the 3rd Jewish temple (Dan. 12:11-12, 11:31, Mt. 24:15). The 75 days could be taken up by the vials of God's wrath which will be poured out on the Antichrist's worshippers (Rev. 16).
When Jesus returns, he will completely defeat the Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of the beast) and the False Prophet (Rev. 19:20, 2 Thes. 2:8), and he will have Satan bound in the bottomless pit (Rev. 20:1-3). Then the returned Jesus and the bodily resurrected church (including those in the church who had been beheaded by the Antichrist) will reign physically on the earth for 1,000 years (Rev. 20:4-6, 5:10, 2:26-29, Ps. 66:3-4, 72:8-11, Zech. 14:8-21).
