Well, it's a wonderful joy to be with you tonight, to be back here at Rock Lake Baptist Church. And I am Paul Scharf, representing the Great and Historic Ministry of the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. We're here in the area, actually located in Columbus, so not far away. And thank you, Pastor, for allowing me back. I'm really looking forward to this time with you this week and next. And we're going to be talking about Hanukkah, light in the darkness. As Pastor mentioned, and as you testified, we have lots of ground to break about this. I'm just going to give you a very quick introduction and update to our ministry tonight. Invite you to check the table in the foyer. have a number of copies of the current issue of our flagship resource that I'll leave with you there, Israel My Glory magazine, which has gone all over the world. As of next month, which begins at midnight, it'll be 80 years that the magazine has gone to people on all seven continents. And so we invite you to take that and read it. And I'll say just another quick word about that in a moment. Here is our statement about the Friends of Israel, our mission. The sun never sets on our ministry. We have people working all through the world. Especially pray for those working heroically in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. You can find lots more about that on our website at foi.org. Here is my webpage for our ministry within the Friends of Israel. By the way, my wife, Lynette, who you saw is not with us here tonight, but you can just pray for her and for her ministry, and hopefully she may see you with me next week. See you with me next week, okay? But here is my webpage where you can find all of my resources that are always available to you on sermonaudio.com. And through that page, we have an app if you'd like to install that and stay in touch with our ministry. And an even greater way to do that, to stay in contact with us, would be to sign up to receive our weekly email newsletter. So on the back table in the foyer, if you will sign the sign-up sheet there, first of all, you'll get a free subscription to the magazine. We'd love to have you do that for the next year. Then you will be on the Friends of Israel's contact list, but more importantly for us, you'll be on our contact list. And if you sign and provide your email and provide your consent, you will be on our email list. And we'd love to have you do that. I know people are busy. You have lots of things coming in, but we'd love to stay in contact with you if you're interested. We have several kinds of cards on the table, including our prayer card. Above all, ask that you would pray for us and for our ministry. And with that short introduction, we'll get right into our topic for this evening, which is Hanukkah Light in the Darkness. Someone said, Hanukkah, I'm not sure if we should, why should we be bringing Hanukkah into the church, you know? Is this something we should be dealing with? Well, I wrote an article about that called The Hanukkah Hangup, and I invite you to read it. It was from last year during this holiday season. And it also provides many of the details that I'll be covering. a synopsis of them in written form so you can go back over many of the things that we've talked about. But let me say this, in our time together, we're not going to be talking about cultural customs, traditions, holiday dishes and gift-giving and things like that. We could talk about that for many more hours than we have and think about the Jewish world and the customs that have developed, the traditions around Hanukkah. We're not even going to touch any of that. We're only going to be talking about the scriptures. Hanukkah is in the Old Testament, it's in the New Testament, and it has ramifications for the prophetic future. And so we're going to be thinking about those very important things. And I hope when we're done, you'll agree with me that our problem isn't we know too much about Hanukkah, it's we don't know anything about Hanukkah. Someone has said that in our sector of the Christian world, our weakest area is church history. And I believe that to be true. Compared, thankfully, we know a lot more in our Christian circles about other areas like the Old Testament and the New Testament and theology than we do about church history. It's our weakest area, but that's still not a good thing that it's weak, and it's especially not good that we're weak oftentimes compared with other Christians of other sectors of the Christian world. But if our knowledge of church history is weak, I would say our knowledge of intertestamental history almost a black hole. I mean it is almost non-existent. And yet this is such an important time, what we call the 400 silent years between Malachi and Matthew chapter 1. When we turn our Bibles to Matthew 1, we're stepping into a world that we need to understand that God was fashioning for those 400 years. You know what he was doing for those 400 years? He was working all things after the counsel of his will. He was working all things for the good of those who love him. He was working all things for that fullness of time when he would send forth his son into that world that he was fashioning for those 400 silent years. This is a very important time. And one of the major events during that time, or series of events, leads to the celebration of Hanukkah. So we're going to be thinking about these things and I invite you to consider their importance. And by the way, Hanukkah is a message for our time, for our day. And I trust you'll see why as we go. Hanukkah falls on the 25th day of Kislev, which is roughly December on the Hebrew calendar. Does that ring a bell with anyone, 25th of December? Okay, we're a rough crowd here pastor. Nobody said you know they're afraid to smile or laugh or anything, okay? All right, you know we've got a great group, but the 25th of Kislev Israel has a lunar calendar So that floats on the calendar in relation to where it falls year to year. I'll say more about that in a second by the way, I'll be quoting from some accessible resources here that will provide some facts and and figures to correlate with what I'm saying. Here in the ESV Study Bible, just a brief synopsis. Notice some very important points come out of it. An eight-day feast, this is Hanukkah, the eight-day feast of dedication. Hanukkah means dedication in Hebrew. It's the feast of dedication. It's also called the Festival of Lights because light is such an important integral part of the celebration. But Hanukkah, as I said, it's a message for our time right now. It's a message about whether are you dedicated or compromised. Are you dedicated or undecided? And I think we serve one who said, you're either for me or what? Against me. And by the way, an opponent came against Israel in the 160s BC and said the same thing. And we're going to run into him tonight. Okay, it celebrates the rededication of the Jewish Temple in December 164 BC. We're talking about events that happened roughly from 170 to 164 BC, the middle of the second century before Christ. Don't get hung up when you see at least one of my slides has the date of December 165 BC. Because these chronological issues are difficult and they're different opinions, and we aren't going to try to solve that here. We're going to basically go with 164 and let the scholars fight it out of which year is the best. We know the events are true. That's not in question. It's just a matter of looking back and sorting through the dates. But what happened in 164 BC? The temple had been desecrated by the Seleucid ruler, keep this man on the sticky side of your mind, Antiochus Epiphanes IV. A couple of years earlier, in 167 especially, December, he desecrated the temple. And so Hanukkah is a remembrance of what happened Among the Jewish people in response to all that of course Micah is not writing about Hanukkah or even prophesying about Hanukkah When he writes much earlier, but the verse certainly applies and you see the Hanukkiah candles Which we'll talk about there with the verse do not rejoice over me my enemy when I fall I will arise when I sit in darkness the Lord will be a light to me and Hanukkah is the festival of lights as we'll see now. What about Hanukkah This year it's from December 18th to the 26th. That's perfect timing. I'm gonna be speaking about Hanukkah all December Hanukkah as I said it floats when it on our calendar kind of like Easter and So some years. It's you know kind of Swallowed up by Thanksgiving and things like that, and it's it's done early this year. It's just perfect and for us. It overlaps with Christmas, it overlaps two Sundays, and we have time to talk about it, plan and prepare. You have time to pray and think about reaching out to a Jewish friend in preparation for Hanukkah this year. And by the way, I would encourage you if you have a Jewish friend, and I hope you do, that you can say to them with a totally clear conscience, I hope you'll agree with me by the time we're done, Happy Hanukkah. And at the Friends of Israel, one of the major outreaches we have at this time of the year is to give out Hanukkah baskets to our Jewish friends as a little token of our love and concern for them. Well, Hanukkah, the festival of lights, what about Jesus with regard to Hanukkah? Do you know Jesus celebrated Hanukkah? We're going to see that in John chapter 10, Lord willing, next week. There's a couple of radio programs from the Friends of Israel I have up on my sermon audio page that you can hear much more from two years ago in a discussion that was held. Mitch Treisman said, Hanukkah is a wonderful time to present the gospel. We really can see and learn of Christ in Hanukkah. Chris Katalka said there wouldn't be a Christmas. This is from a separate program done last year. And he's our radio Bible teacher on our weekly radio program. Chris said there wouldn't be a Christmas without Hanukkah. I wonder if you've ever thought about that. We'll see how that can be. Jesus in the Gospel of John, he didn't speak these words at Hanukkah. He spoke them at the Feast of Tabernacles. in the fall before his coming death and resurrection. But in the Jewish mind and culture, Tabernacles and Hanukkah sort of blend together, kind of like our Thanksgiving and Christmas. So what he said there was still reverberating when they came to celebrate Hanukkah. By the way, Hanukkah is not a biblical feast. It's not ordained in the law. It's not in Leviticus 23. It commemorates something that happened. as we've already seen in the intertestamental period. However, it's prophesied, the events we'll see are prophesied to occur in the Old Testament. But Hanukkah, partially because of the time of the year as Jewish people have gone into the Western world, such as our country, has become one of the two major Jewish holidays of the year, along with Passover, the two most widely celebrated. feasts that they observed today. But Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. We could say that he is the light in the darkness, the light of Hanukkah. I think by the time we're done. We want to share that message with our Jewish friends. Bruce Scott has a wonderful book on the Feasts of Israel, published by the Friends of Israel. He said it was not an accident that Jesus chose Hanukkah as the time to proclaim his deity there in John chapter 10. We'll get to that next week. Alfred Edersheim, great book, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, a wonderful Jewish Christian scholar of the 19th century. This is an amazing quote, this could be a whole sermon in itself, but we'll just gloss over it quickly. He said that he who purified the temple and was its true light and brought the great deliverance, speaking of course of Christ, this is interesting, he said he spent the last anniversary season of his birth Now we're not going to get into that issue beyond this, but it's interesting. He believed Jesus truly was born at this time of the year that we celebrate it, at this time of the year that Hanukkah is celebrated. I think there's good evidence for that myself. That's not our purpose here, and it's not a major point, but he's saying that he spent that last birthday season, if you will, at the feast, the feast of dedication in the sanctuary, shining into their darkness. And that seems most fitting. And we'll see that Jesus took that occasion to say, I and the Father are one. Now, as you see pictures of the Hanukkiah, the Hanukkah menorah, it has nine candles. We'll come back to that later. Normally a menorah has seven candles, three on each side with a center candle. At Hanukkah, there's four and four for the eight days of Hanukkah. Steve Herzig of the Friends of Israel says the candles What they do is they use the center candle to light the other eight day by day, cumulatively, until all eight are glowing. The center candle is called the shamash or the servant candle. What a picture of Jesus, our servant. And I hope that you want to be like him also in this regard, especially that he came not to be served, but to serve. He came all the way from heaven to earth to give his life a ransom for many. Well, that's a quick introduction. Let's dig into Hanukkah in the Old Testament. Did you know Hanukkah is spoken of? Well, I should say the events that bring about the celebration of Hanukkah, they are prophesied in the book of Daniel very explicitly, first of all, in chapter 8. Now, this is a difficult section, and we will not answer every question tonight in the time that we have. But I hope that you will take what we consider here and build on it in your own life in days to come, even in years to come. Search the scriptures and see if these things are so. As Paul told Timothy, consider what I say. May the Lord give you understanding in these things. We'll do our best to go through them here beginning this evening. In Daniel chapter 8, Daniel is revisiting prophetically here through a vision he receives, a subject that begins in the book of Daniel chapter two, the kingdoms of the world, the rule of man from Daniel's day to the end of history. From man's perspective, a glorious statue glimmering in the sun, head of gold, Babylon, chest and arms of silver, Medo-Persia, belly and thighs of brass, Greece, legs of iron, feet of iron and clay, Rome and revived Rome. We come to chapter seven and we see the same kingdoms from God's heavenly perspective. They're like natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed. A winged lion, a bear raised up on one side, a winged leopard, indescribably horrible beast, and then finally the Roman Antichrist. We come to chapter eight and we see two of these kingdoms again, particularly with reference to the nation of Israel. We see the ram for Medo-Persia this time, picturing it, and a he-goat picturing the Greek Empire. Now something important to keep in mind, a principle that we find when we go to Revelation, you don't have to turn there, Revelation 13, when John is given a revelation of the final Antichrist kingdom of Rome, we find that it has all the components of the four kingdoms that were revealed to Daniel. And it has, you know, it's like a leopard, feet like a bear, mouth like the mouth of a lion. And Daniel also tells us in chapter 7, in discussing these things, that these kingdoms, they have their dominion taken away, but their influence continues. It's cumulative. It continues like a telescope pulling out. You see effects of Babylon continuing in Medo-Persia and then into Greece and then into Rome. So the life kind of continues on in its impact through the succeeding empires. Now, why is that important? Well, because we're going to look at a Greek king who has much in common with the future Roman Antichrist. Okay? In fact, they have so much in common that sometimes some interpreters confuse the two or disagree on which is which. in the verses we're going to be considering this evening. Let's look at Daniel chapter 8 and we begin in verse 8 and we see a male goat who was very great but when he became strong the large horn was broken. And this male goat who was just absolutely overwhelming in his coming across from the west, verse 5, across the surface of the whole earth, is none other than Alexander the Great. Alexander, you may remember from history, conquered the whole world and then he sat down and wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. and he died a broken man at age 33. And there's a poem about that. Christ and Alexander died at 33, comparing Alexander with Christ our Lord. But we find here in verse eight, that after the death of Alexander, and this is over many decades, that his kingdom is divided into four. It's divided into four sections. And the two that are important for our purposes here tonight are the King of the North, the Seleucid Empire, the Syrian Empire, and the King of the South, the King of Egypt, the Ptolemies. And these kingdoms are important, particularly all the way through the end of history in biblical prophecy. And out of verse 9, out of one of them, this is the Northern Kingdom, the Seleucid Kingdom, the King of Syria, the King of the North, came a little horn, which grew exceedingly great toward the south, that's Egypt, the Ptolemies, toward the east, and toward the glorious land, the holy land of Israel. This is Antiochus Epiphanes IV. He's a ruthless man. He comes to power out of all kinds of just circumstances, he's absolutely unconcerned for the lives of whoever it might be. However he can come to power, however he can maintain power, that is his purpose in life. And so it says in verse 10 that it grew, this horn grew up to the host of heaven, and it cast down some of the hosts and some of the stars to the ground. Stars are from the days of Joseph all the way through Revelation 12, picture the people of Israel in the scriptures. Daniel 12.3 says, those that are wise will shine like the brightness of the stars. And so stars and the host of heaven picture the Jewish people and their luminaries and ultimately the Messiah himself, the Lord himself. And so again, sharing some quotes from Some good, easy to find resources here. The Moody Bible Commentary says his trampling of the stars refers to Antiochus's brutal persecution of the Jewish people. Note the dates. Again, we're going to go with these dates, 170 to 164 BC. What did Antiochus do? Well, notice verse 11. He even exalted himself as high as the prince of the host. And by him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. Antiochus blasphemed Christ, MacArthur's study Bible says, to whom ultimately the host of Jewish people sacrifice, and to whom the sanctuary belongs. 12 because of transgression an army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifices and he cast truth down to the ground he did all this and prospered and Here ESV study Bible says Antiochus was a tyrant Who tried to unify his kingdom by forcing all of his subjects to adopt Greek cultural and religious practices now? Here's something he did both similarly and different from Alexander the Great. Alexander had conquered the world, but he had sort of a magnanimous approach to his subject nations. He would allow them to continue their culture, their religion, as they had practiced it, and tried to make friends in that regard and have a peaceful empire. Antiochus wanted to be like Alexander. He wanted to rule the whole world. But he said the only way to do it is to bring everyone in complete subjection to his will, and to what he wanted to do. So he wanted to Hellenize, is the word, or Greekify, we might say, all of his subjects in every way, their culture, their religion, their traditions. Does this start ringing any bells with you? Remember Acts chapter 6? when the church needed deacons because the Hellenistic widows had a complaint against the purely Jewish widows. You see the world of the New Testament is being formed during these 400 silent years, during these events that are so vitally important to our understanding, ultimately, the New Testament. And so, here's what happened. Let's finish reading the text and then we'll go back to this slide. Verse 13, I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to that certain one who was speaking, how long until the vision be concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot? And he said to me, for 2,300 days, or literally evenings and mornings, like Genesis 1 and 2, then the sanctuary shall be cleansed. So that's a little over six years. There's our 170 to 164 BC. What did Antiochus do during this time? He banned circumcision. He ended sacrifice at the temple. He deliberately defiled the temple by sacrificing a pig on the altar, December 167 BC. He wanted to expand, by the way, and do this in every synagogue in Judah to show his dominance over the people of Judah to show, again, that the Jewish religion must cease. It must be all Greek culture. It must be all about Antiochus himself. He burned copies of the scriptures. He slaughtered those who remained faithful to the true God. And, in fact, he even went so far as to print coins or to create coins with his imprint, and he put on the coins the name Theos Epiphanes. Theos Epiphanes. Now, if you're, if maybe some of you have been part of a tradition where you celebrate Epiphany in January, that's the coming of the wise men to see Christ, and that's the idea of the revealing of Christ. The unveiling of Christ at his epiphany. Well, epiphany, Antiochus was called Epiphanes, and he used the word Theos, Epiphanes. God manifest. Does that ring a bell with you? You see why maybe 150 plus years later the Jewish people are going to be reticent to accept someone who says, I'm God manifest in the flesh. Because they were very much sensitive to that issue ever since the days of Antiochus. And we'll think about that next week. But Antiochus is saying, I'm God in the flesh, is what he is saying. Theos Epiphanes. The Jewish people turned it around and called him Epimenes, the madman. All right. But let's finish here in the book of Daniel chapter 8. Verses 23 through 26, here we have a description in terms of now the explanation of the prophecy that's been given. And this is a difficult passage, and some in our pre-trib circles would say this describes the future Antichrist instead of Antiochus. I think it has to be one or the other. But let's, for our purposes tonight, let's go with the idea that it describes Antiochus and not the future Antichrist, although he is a, he typifies the future Antichrist. But notice what happens in verse 23. In the latter time of their kingdom, this is the Greek kingdom of verse 22, in the northern kingdom, in the Seleucid Empire, Notice this little term here, when the transgressors have reached their fullness. And I've said that Hanukkah is a message for our time. Does it ever feel to you right now, over these last couple of years, like the transgressors are beginning to reach their fullness? This happened in history, in Judah's history in terms of the effects of Antiochus back here in the middle of the 2nd century BC. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to Judah up until that time. Sadly, it's not the worst thing that will ever happen in Judah when we consider the prophetic future. And in the prophetic future, we know there really will be a day when the transgressors reach their fullness. And it seems to me like our culture is speeding there as fast as it can get. They just want all the restraints taken off. I'm talking about our politicians, our Hollywood stars, our athletes, when they speak about these things. They want the restraints off. They don't want to break. They just want to accelerate. And the Bible says there'll be a day when the restraint will be gone. 2 Thessalonians 2. The Holy Spirit, working to restrain evil today through the church, he will, in the sense that he came in a special way to be with the church on the day of Pentecost, he'll leave in that same way at the rapture of the church. He'll still be omnipresent, but he won't have that particular role, and the restraints will be off. And that's what mankind wants in his rebellion. And that's what was happening in this day of Hanukkah. The transgressors were reaching their fullness and a king shall arise having fierce features who understands sinister schemes or someone said brilliant blasphemies. His power shall be mighty but not by his own power. He shall destroy fearfully and shall prosper and thrive. He shall destroy the mighty and also the holy people. Through his cunning he shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule. And he shall exalt himself in his heart. He shall destroy many in their prosperity. He shall even rise against the prince of princes, but he shall be broken without human means." Antiochus died an insane man of a mysterious disease that is described in the, what we call, the apocryphal books of Maccabees. It's just the most horrendous death almost you can imagine that just struck him mysteriously and he just evaporated after a horrible suffering. Well, let's go to our other major passage and we're going to be stopping pretty much here tonight with this. Hopefully we can make it through some of Daniel chapter 11 verses 21 through 25 though. Let's start in verse 20 then shall arise in his place. This is story about a large context here that we don't have time to cover But verse 20 is one of the great politicians verses of the Bible. Did you know that? It shall arise in his place one who imposes taxes I Think if you have the Old King James, it says a razor of taxes How many have met him? Anyone? Oh, you will someday if you haven't yet. Okay. One who raises taxes on the glorious kingdom. Well, notice in his place, verse 21, comes Antiochus Epiphanes, the manifest one that they call the madman. What is he going to do? He's going to invade Egypt three times, the Ptolemies, the king of the south. All right. In his place comes Antiochus this vile person to whom they will not give the honor of royalty He shall come in peaceably and seize the kingdom by intrigue with the force of a flood Talking about him going down to Egypt now in 170 169 BC they shall be swept away from before him and be broken and also the Prince of the Covenant and After the league is made with him. He shall act deceitfully for he shall come up and become strong with a small number of people For sake of time, I'm going to skip reading these verses, and I encourage you to take your study Bible, your commentary, and read them carefully. Look line by line at some of the fulfillment. Remember, this is prophecy written by Daniel in the 6th century BC of things that will happen in the 2nd century BC, but it's like reading a historical record. It's so complete. in terms of the accuracy of the inspired prophecy that Daniel gives. And he's talking all the way down through verse 26 about the Antiochus Epiphanes conquering Egypt in his first foray into Egypt in 170, 169 BC. Now, our slide takes us, summarizes more than that all the way down to verse 28. Let's go down there. Verse 27. Here's another one of the great politicians verses of the Bible. Are you ready for this one? Both these king's hearts shall be bent on evil, and they shall speak lies at the same table. Okay, the great verse for politicians. Well, it's talking about Antiochus and the king of the South. But it shall not prosper And Daniel says, notice with the end of verse 27, for the end will still be at the appointed time. You know what that end of verse 27 means? It means God is working all things for good to those who love him. It means he's working all things after the counsel of his will. It means he has the whole Sorted arrangement completely under his sovereign care. Nothing's out of control. Nothing's out of place at all He is directing all things toward that day when in the fullness of time he will send forth his son Into the world and the whole world will be an expectation for it just as in our day as we're I believe preparing and seeing the stage being set for the second coming of Christ and And dear friends, it might seem like the whole world is falling apart. As my friend, Dr. Andy Wood says, things aren't falling apart, they're just falling into place. He has the whole ordeal absolutely under control, just as he did then. And Antiochus, to summarize here, verse 28 and 29, using our slides, He's unsuccessful in his second and third attacks on Egypt. And in fact, in his third and final attack, Rome, which is on the political horizon here and wanting to dominate the world, sends ships to attack him, verse 30. And he's going to be grieved and return in rage against the Holy Covenant and do damage. Let's look at our slides here to kind of summarize all this. Because of that, as he goes back through the Holy Land, he vents his anger on the people, the people of the Holy Covenant. Notice MacArthur's study Bible. He struck Jerusalem's temple, profaned the sacrificial system, massacred 80,000 men, took 40,000 prisoners, sold 40,000 as slaves, and squelched a Jewish bid to depose his own designated Greek high priest, Menelaus, who he set up in the Temple of God in Jerusalem. This is where he does all the terrible things we saw earlier in Daniel 8. He dealt ruthlessly with the Jews, destroying 80,000 men, women, and children, ESV Study Bible says. Plundering. And a Roman fleet from Cyprus, as we see in verse 30, thwarts his attack on Egypt, leaving him in this desperate state, and he takes out his rage on the Israelites in his path. Dr. Victor Buchsbassen was a great scholar and early leader of the Friends of Israel, wrote a wonderful book called The Gospel in the Feasts of Israel. Listen to what he says. To crown his infamy, Antiochus invaded the Holy Temple, carrying away the golden altar, the candlesticks, the golden vessels, and other sacred treasures. In Moody Bible Commentary says he would prefigure the future Antichrist doing away with sacrifice and committing the abomination of desolation, dedicating the Holy Temple to Zeus and offering a pig on its altar. Now we're gonna get to a stopping point right here in just a moment. Stay with me very clearly for just the last point because this is why Hanukkah is so important for our time. Notice what he's going to do, verse 30. He's going to do damage. He's in rage against the Holy Covenant. He's coming back and venting all his frustration on the people of Judah. So he shall return and show regard for those who forsake. Holy Covenant. He is wise and smart enough to see he's trying to pick off the uncommitted, the undecided, the compromisers of Judah. And by the way, it really helps to do that when you start carting off tens of thousands of people into slavery and toward their death. A lot of people compromise very quickly. And we're going to see, however, there were some who didn't compromise. These are the people who, verse 32, who know their God and shall be strong and carry out great exploits. We're going to see this tiny little minority that are strong in the face of this tremendous evil, and they're going to win the victory. In fact, we're going to see a little old priest named Mattathias, who's at the end of his life, and Antiochus is going to be sorry he ever messed around with this little old priest, and his five sons, the Maccabees, and a middle son named Judas Maccabeus. And by the time Judas gets done with Antiochus, there won't be anything left of Antiochus or his army. And by the way, the victory is so magnificent that for centuries, every Jewish household would want nothing more than a boy named Judas. Judas the Hammer. the son of Mattathias, and their revolt eventuated in the spectacular cleansing of the temple in 165 BC. We'll have to pick up there next time, finish our thoughts in Daniel. There's another potential Old Testament reference to Hanukkah in Zechariah 9. We'll skim past that and I'll let you look at that and search the scriptures on your own. We'll pick up there and think of Jesus celebrating Hanukkah when he's here on the earth in the New Testament. Father, I pray that you will use these words to bring glory to yourself and to increase faith in each of our hearts, for we know that faith comes only by hearing the word of God. Help us to appreciate the history behind Hanukkah and to be better prepared to greet our Jewish friends at this important time of the year. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.