17: World News & Prophecy - Daniel 10:1-20

[Darris McNeely] All right, we've come to chapter 10 in Daniel. And with chapter 10, we begin the final countdown to the end of the book. What begins in chapter 10 then carries into chapter 11 and chapter 12. So we have chapter divisions here, but it's one seamless revelation, one seamless episode. That is that begins as it says in the first verse…

Daniel 10:1 “In the third year of Cyrus, King of Persia. A message was revealed to Daniel whose name was called Belteshazzar.” So this would put us in the year 536 BC, third year of Cyrus, 536. Remember, Babylon fell on 539. He says, “The message was true, but the appointed time was long. And he understood the message and had understanding of the vision.” 

So we are nearing the 70th year of Daniel's captivity, which is why he's got his mind on the 70-year prophecy of chapter 9, which we studied there. Daniel is an old man. He is in his mid-80s at this point. We started the book of Daniel with him being very likely a 17 or 18-year-old. Now he's in his mid-80s. And he has lived through the time of the Babylonian period, the hostile takeover of Persia. He's been in the lion's den and out. He's been accused and wronged. He's been demoted, promoted, in and out of favor. And now he's at a point where the fellow captives of the Jews who were in Babylon for, let's say, most of them, not all, have returned to Jerusalem. All right, so we are a few years after the decree of Cyrus in Ezra, chapter 1. You've studied Ezra and Nehemiah. And you remember that in Ezra 1, Cyrus makes a decree once he takes over Babylon for the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the temple. That's the story of Ezra, Nehemiah, and some of the minor prophets.

And so Daniel didn't go. So this is what we can discern from the first verse here, is that Daniel was too old to go back. He probably knew he couldn't make the journey. And if he did survive it, he probably was not going to be of any practical use because the return was to rebuild. And there were ruins to deal with. That was a young man's work. Daniel didn't return home, but he has likely heard of the disruption to the work of the Jews in the city of Jerusalem by the surrounding peoples.

You study that again in Ezra and Nehemiah. And he's worried. What does that mean? He's worried about them and his fellow Jews. Now keep in mind, we learned in the prayer that he gave in the first part of Daniel 9, this great intercessory prayer of his care and concern for his fellow Israelite or Jews. But now he's left. He didn't go back. Now, just one side point, not every Jew that was carted off to Babylon remained there. Or I mean returned to Jerusalem. Many did remain. And in fact, through the centuries down into modern times, there's been a Jewish presence in Iran.

I don't think there's anything there now with the political condition in Iran, feeling toward Israel, state of Israel, etc. But the Jews of that captivity that were relocated here, and then as the generations went on, there was a presence there. But there was also a presence of Jews that eventually dispersed throughout the world. And why wouldn't they go back to Jerusalem here from Babylon? Well, it's a very practical reason.

They were told, I think it's in Jeremiah 29, they were told to build homes in Babylon, put down roots. And so when you put down roots, that's not just a home and some land that you get attached to, but then you have children, and then you have grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You're going to leave them? No. Many of the Jews, they too were too old to go back, and they had roots, and they didn't want to leave their families. So a lot is in the mix that you have to just understand about humans that keep this from happening. But Daniel is concerned about what's going on in Jerusalem. And this is why he then is mourning in verse 2. 

Daniel 10:2 He said, “I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks.” Which means he's going back into another period of fasting and prayer, meditation, eating the minimal amount of food. He said, “I ate no pleasant food, no meter wide, and came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all till three whole weeks were fulfilled.”

He didn't put on any old spice, all right? He didn't have a steak and a bottle of wine, probably ate just a bare subsistence diet. Very simple. Enough to keep him alive, keep his energy up. And for three weeks, he was preparing himself. He's had enough experience to know that when he sets his mind to understand something about God and God's purpose, things happen. You know, if we are ever in a situation where we want to understand something about what God's doing with us, what's going on around us, to set ourselves to a period of reflection, study, prayer, fasting even, would not be a bad idea. We'd be following in the footsteps of Daniel here.

But if we do it, expect an answer. Don't expect somebody to come and appear an angel or anything like that. But do it in faith and it would be the right thing to do. And God works with us in many different ways to bring us to help to understanding of various things. So He's preparing Himself for understanding as He's looking at a message and understanding a message and the time. 

Daniel 10:4 “Now on the 24th day of the first month, as I was by the Great River, that is the Tigris.” 

This is the Tigris River that runs down through here. The Euphrates is the lower line here. The other Great River in this part of the world is the Tigris River. So that tells us that He's still in Babylon and had not gone back there. So He's by the river, the Tigris River.

Daniel 10:5-6 He said, “I lifted my eyes and looked and behold, a certain man clothed in linen whose waist was girded with gold of Uphaz, his body was like barrel, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnished bronze in color, and the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude.” 

So He sees a certain man. All right, so it's obviously a divine figure. And when you look carefully what is described here in verses 5 and 6, there's similarities to what we will read in Revelation 1 about the appearance of Christ, of the resurrected Christ, when He appears to John on the island of Patmos in Revelation 1, which has led some to speculate that this certain man was the pre-incarnate Christ who appeared to Moses, to Abraham, Isaac, etc. Others have that it's an angel, an angelic figure though not named. Some think that it's Gabriel. I lean toward that. I don't think that it's the pre-incarnate Christ or the word here because of what happens and what is described subsequently in the struggle by the divine figure with two powerful demons. And that doesn't fit Christ. Christ may wrestle all night with Jacob, but we don't have any other instance, nor should I think we conclude that the one who became Christ, the word, wrestled for any length of time with the demonic world in a situation like this. So I lean toward Gabriel or another figure here, another divine figure that appears to him. 

Daniel 10:7 Daniel says, “I alone saw the vision. For the men who were with me did not see the vision, but a great terror fell upon them, so they fled to hide themselves.” 

There must have been some phenomena, some physical manifestation, sound, light, or perhaps just a change in temperature or presence of feeling of a presence of something, plus Daniel's astonishment when his eyes looked and he saw it and he probably had a kind of a reaction to it. Whoever else was with Daniel didn't see what he saw, but they saw his reaction and could have somehow experienced some other type of, some aspect of phenomena connected with this. That's something to consider as a possibility in this. So he's left alone. So this is going to be focused only upon Daniel in this way. 

Daniel 10:8 He said, “Therefore, I was left alone when I saw this great vision. No strength remained in me, for my vigor was turned to frailty in me and I retained no strength.”

So just the physical reaction to it, innervated him, shocked him at this point. Keep in mind he's already weakened somewhat by the period of fasting. And now at this he has no strength, he says. 

Daniel 10:9-11 “Yet, I heard the sound of his words. And while I heard the sound of his words, I was in a deep sleep on my face, with my face to the ground.” So he's just kind of laid out, sprawled out, prostate there. “Suddenly a hand touched me, which made me tremble on my knees and on the palms of my hands.” So he comes up to kind of a half raised position. “And he,” the divine figure, a certain man of verse 5, “said to me, ‘O Daniel, may I greatly be loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright. For I have now been sent to you.’” And so he explains that he's been sent. “And while he was speaking this word to me, I stood trembling.” 

So he gets back, he must then get back on his feet, but he's rather weak and he's fearful. We could only imagine looking at something like this. Daniel's, this is not the first instance of Daniel having a vision and the appearance of a divine figure, but he still, in a sense, not used to it where he just takes it for granted and would say, hey, would you like a cup of tea? Can I have a sit down? Let's talk. The sight just blew him away.

Daniel 10:12 “And he said to me, ‘Do not fear Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard. And I've come because of your words.’” 

Interesting statement. From the first day that you set your heart to humble yourself, you were heard. You know, we might pray for a long time for something, a few weeks, a few months, maybe a few years. And we, because we don't see an answer, we might think, God has not heard me. Something's wrong with me. Or we might accuse God. God, you don't answer. Are you really there? You know, something like that. There's a lesson from this, and that is a principle of prayer being persistent, staying with it. Christ had a parable about that in Luke 18, the persistent widow before an unjust judge. We have to do that with prayer. If it's important enough that we need an answer and we're taking it to God, then we keep taking it to God. Maybe a health issue. It might be a problem with a relationship with someone, a marriage, with a child. You might pray years for that. You may have to fast about that. You may have to set your mind a little bit stronger to God. It says here that in verse 12, you set your heart to understand. Daniel determined somewhere in his mind, I've got to understand what's happening, where we are, and the plan of God and the purpose of God, how this return of the Jews and the setback of the city not being completed, the trouble they're having, what all this means.

He knew that he didn't have the complete answer from the 70 weeks prophecy is what I would assume. That's my personal thought on that, among other things. And so he wanted to understand. Remember back in chapter 5, we pointed out more than once in our class, when Daniel was called back in to interpret the handwriting on the wall, the Belshazzar's feast, the Queen Mother came in and said to the king, you've got a man in your kingdom of light, wisdom, and understanding like that of God. Your grandfather used him. You need to use him. Call him in. And they did. And he gave the answer. But light, wisdom, and understanding was what Daniel had. He had that because he obeyed. He had that because he kept God's word. He kept God's law. He respected God. He loved God. All the things that you and I have in common and should, as we develop a relationship with God, now years later here, he still has to set his heart to understand, to understand.

And he has to have a humble attitude. You know, Daniel could have thought by now, you know, God, look, you gave me the ability to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dream. You gave me a vision of four beasts out of the field, out of the sea. You brought me out of a lion's den. Hey, I'm pretty good. I got a few stripes on my sleeve, God. I put in the time. But you don't see that with Daniel. Tenure experience didn't seem to cloud the fact that he was still humble. He had to humble himself and keep doing what he had done since he was 17 or 18 years of age. You and I never get to a point where we're so good, so righteous, so many years in the Church, etc., that we don't have to go through the basics. Continue to read the Word of God, even when we've read it a hundred times. Study the Proverbs. Look at the Gospels. Remind ourselves of the Gospel of the Lord. You know, the conflict between Jacob and Esau and the sibling rivalry there. We never stop learning about any part of the Bible. We never come to a point where we've built up enough record with God that we can coast. That's the Daniel that you see here.

He said, so he wanted to understand and he humbled himself. And the divine being is saying, your words were heard from the beginning. But still, it took three weeks. Now, we're going to find out why it took three weeks here in the next verse. But just note here in verse 12 an attitude of mind that can teach us something about a relationship with God. So in verse 13, but this is why I didn't get here. 

Daniel 10:13 “The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days, three weeks, period of time. Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me.” 

So here's Michael mentioned. He was at Gabriel and the two angels. Michael will be mentioned in chapter 12 again. A great prince who stands up for your people, it says in Daniel 12.1, one of the chief princes. So Michael, Gabriel, among a top here grouping of divine beings. We have a booklet on angels that brings out what is in the Bible and what we know about the angelic beings. And Michael here is described. And if this is Gabriel, I'll just go ahead and call on Gabriel, assuming that it is. And I could be wrong, but we'll just put a name to him. He said, Michael came to help. This is one of the reasons I don't wouldn't say that it's pre-incarnate Christ who is here because he would need any help, all right, in this. Much less, I'm not sure that he would even be and held up for one nanosecond on that.

Daniel 10:13-14 But anyway, “He came to help me before I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.” Note that, all right. We are in the Persian period. This is the third year of Cyrus. “And I was left alone there.” And so remember, the setting is just the third year of Cyrus, which is 536. “But I was left there with the kings of Persia, and I've come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days, where the vision refers to many days yet to come. 

All right. Now, let's just go let's just go ahead and read on. I'm going to come back to that verse. 

Daniel 10:15-21 “When he has spoken such words to me, I turned my face toward the ground and became speechless,” back on the ground again. “Suddenly, one having the likeness of the sons of men touched my lips, then I opened my mouth and spoke, saying to him who stood before me,” so there's more than one divine being here. “‘My Lord, because of the vision, my sorrows have overwhelmed me, and I've retained no strength. How can this servant of my Lord talk to you, my Lord, as for me? No strength remains in me now, nor is any breath left in me.’ Then again, the one having the likeness of a man touched me and strengthened me, and he said, ‘O man, greatly beloved, fear not, peace be to you, be strong, yes, be strong.’ And so when he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, ‘Let my Lord speak, for you have strengthened.’ Then he said, ‘Do you know why I have come to you? And now I must return to fight with the Prince of Persia, and when I have gone forth, indeed the Prince of Greece will come. But I will tell you what is noted in the Scripture of truth. No one upholds me against these, except Michael, your Prince.’”

And so, here it is a unique story in all of my life. And we are given a bit of an insight into the real headlines of history, news, and events, that there are behind-the-scenes, powerful spirit beings who are involved at the highest level of nations like Persia, like Greece. Everyone agrees that this is describing the spirit realm of both the demonic realm of Satan and his fallen angels, and the spiritual realm of God and His angels. And here we are given an indication that over great kingdoms like Persia, like Greece, there are powerful archdemons, can we call them, that rule and reign and control the events of these large kingdoms. We're at that level of the Persian kingdom and the Greek kingdom, which we've already studied here in the book of Daniel. And we're given an insight into what really happens. Daniel would have given us more than God somewhere would have given us more in terms of what this means and how's that translated into the events of history. But if you will hold your place here, I'll just quickly go over to Ephesians chapter 6, a well-known scripture to us where Paul says something about the spirit world. Ephesians 6.

He begins in verse 11 to talk about the whole armor of God that we are to put on, that we might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. And then verse 12 is the key verse we want to look at. 

Ephesians 6:12 Paul makes this point, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” 

And therefore, we need the whole armor of God to fight. He goes on to talk about that. But Ephesians 6:12 and verse 11 tells us that the real power that we fight against is not each other. It is not the government if it persecutes. It is a spiritual battle. It is powers and the rulers of the darkness of this age, the demonic realm. We haven't covered in this class yet. We haven't covered the doctrine on Satan. This would have been a good week to do it. It is the week of Halloween when we're doing this class this year. But when you search all the scriptures about Satan, the fallen angels, the demonic realm, there's a lot that we know. And these two passages tell us quite a bit and are extremely important, can never be taken for granted and overlooked in terms of what it says about the world. Now you go back to Daniel 10 and these two princes of Persia and Greece that have withstood the messenger from God coming to Daniel with whom they're now going to have to go back and fight again. 

First it was the kings of Persia. Now he's going to be joined by the prince of Greece. Again, this is telling us that behind great empires, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, China, Soviet Union, other large human empires that have swept across the pages of history, the Huns, the Goths, out of the Asian steppes, and many, many more that we could talk about that have seriously influenced world history and civilization, both prophetically and beyond the biblical record. There are spiritual powers behind them. Some of the stories that I've collected through the years are fascinating and interesting in terms of this very thing. I've talked with you about the story of Constantine coming over here, the Roman emperor in the early 300s who founded a second capital of Rome and calling it Constantinople. Today it's known as Istanbul. There's a story of Constantine laying out the plan of the city. You have to understand the Romans, when they went into build a city or even to build a camp for their legions, there was a plan and there was a consistent plan. And a Roman city that they might start from scratch had a consistent plan from city to city across the empire. That's another feature of the brand called Rome. Wherever you went into a major Roman city, you knew you were in a Roman city because it looked like a Roman city. All right? If you go into what kind of a clothing store you go into or if you go into Target, you know you're in Target, right? Why? Colors, layout, design, that's called branding. All right? In the Roman world, if you walked into a major city that was of Rome, you knew it was Roman because it looked like Rome. The way that even the streets were laid out, the utilities, everything. Buildings had a look. Constantine laid out his city of Constantinople. There's a story that he is basically walking with a measuring stick and he's got his groupies behind him and he's walking and laying out where the walls are going to be.

And he's walking and he's walking and he's walking. And it was a big city, still is. And the story is that one of his lieutenants behind him said, how far are you going to go? To which Constantine said, as far as the man in front of me tells me to go. And they looked and he didn't see anybody. This was Rome, fourth beast, Satan's power.

Did it happen? It's part of the legends of history. There's another story. This is the time it deals with Rome and the Huns coming down in the fifth century to attack Rome under, and their leader is a guy named Attila. You ever heard of Attila the Hun? The scourge of mankind. He's marching down the Italian peninsula. The Pope goes out to meeting with the Bishop of Rome at this point. And Attila's coming down and the Pope, go ahead and call him the Pope, he doesn't want Rome burned. So he goes out to have a meeting with Attila. And there's pictures of this, not that anybody was there and took a picture of it, but I mean, there's paintings of years later of this. You can Google it and they'll do it now and see this, of Attila setting and the Pope setting. Actually, I think Attila is coming with his man, his army, and the Pope setting on him kind of a throne. His Pope's always set on a throne. Attila turns back. He agrees after talking with the Pope to withdraw from the city and not go into Rome and attack it. And when asked by his lieutenants, Attila, why didn't we take it? He said, because of the two figures that I saw above the Pope. Two divine figures, carrying swords. The painting picture that I've seen have two angel-like warriors with swords hovering above the Pope. 

One of those stories from history. Is it true? Well, I'll leave it for you to figure out. There are all kinds of stories like that about the spirit world influencing battles, some to the good that benefit mankind. But I don't have time to get into those. And so, is there something going on behind the scenes that we don't see? Yeah, I think so. I think this is what Daniel 10 is telling us. And would, were we to know, you know, translate that down into our modern time. Look, the demonic spirit world influences politics, culture of any society over which they have dominion, powers as Paul says. And what does that mean for us today? Here's what it means. You and I need to look very critically with biblical eyes at our world we have today. The last four to five years, we have seen a complete upheaval and change of moral sexuality, politics, technology, and culture and society that boggles my mind. And I've seen a lot. You may think it's normal. It is not. It is not normal. Take my word for it, right? We didn't grow up in the world, anywhere near the world that we have to deal with now. Transgender is demonic. Don't sugarcoat it with anything other than demonic. 

And the people that they may, I think there's a mental illness there that people now, you know, deal with, you know, they label it as some new sexuality. This is what we're dealing with, of cultural changes and same-sex marriage and the whole LGBTQ revolution and things that are taking place that are against the order of nature, number one, but are of the influence of the demonic world. And we have to understand that politically as well. There are, you know, and wars and, you know, what caused Putin two and a half years ago to come roaring out of Russia into Ukraine at that point? No, it was not because Joe Biden was president, Donald Trump wasn't. Okay? All right? That's the convenient explanation. But something of that nature and that magnitude, wars between nations, that's something happening spiritually. Now, I'm not going to translate this into American politics right now. I'll leave that for other people to get into. But politically, with things that shape our world, we have to understand what Daniel 10 is telling us, that there are spiritual powers that have a dominion over certain regions, ethnicities, nationalities, and the events there. And so, without getting too buggy about all aspects of politics, culture, everything, popular culture even, just let's just say, leave it at this. A word to the wise is that we take what we're told here, Daniel, and we come to understand that what's happening around the world are things that we just don't see. There's more than what we see. To this world, to history, and especially to the current time. And we can navigate it as a result with the armor of God. That's another story there for a Bible study or whatever, but we don't need to fear it. Daniel didn't fear it. His armor was to devote himself to God and to understand this, but this is what is taking place. Now, I want to go back to verse 13 and make a comment here just to help us understand something about the record at the time of Daniel. The phrase is said here in Daniel 10 verse 13 by the angel.

Daniel 10:13 “I have been left alone there with the kings of Persia.” 

I was left alone there. Some commentators on the Scripture, one in particular, a much older commentary called the Kyle Delish commentary has a reflection on this verse that I think should be noted. I think there is something to it. They certainly recognize that this world, the conditions of this world is very plain that there is an angelic influence there. But as the Kyle Delish commentary interprets this expression, I was left there with the kings of Persia. They interpret it to mean that a victory of significance was won against the demonic force, the forces. It does say the king, the chief princes are the kings of Persia, multiple, more than one. As I said earlier, there were more than one, you know, after Cyrus, there were many. And we see them as part of the biblical record, Azarius or Xerxes with Esther, Darius, whoever he was with Daniel here, and others. And the Kyle Delish interprets this to mean that not only Cyrus, but the kings of Persia that succeeded Cyrus throughout the length of the Persian Empire, in a sense, were not influenced by this demonic prince of Persia.

All right? That's how they interpret that. That in a sense, that influence was removed. And therefore, that explains the good press that Persia gets within the Bible. Remember, Cyrus issued the decree for the Jews to return to Jerusalem. Ezra 1:1. All right?

And then the other significant king and the other ones are Xerxes. They deal with Nehemiah, letting him go back and reinvigorate the people. When you come to the story of Esther, you have Azarius or Xerxes who is entreated by Esther. You know the story. And she is instrumental in foiling the plot by Haman to commit genocide or a holocaust against the Jews. So, when you look in Ezra, Nehemiah, Isaiah, Daniel, Esther, at the story we have of the Persians and the Bible, they get good press. And Kyle Delitz interprets that to the removal of this demonic influence during that period of time. I think there's something there to consider here in overcoming the princes of Persia. And it doesn't apply to the prince of Greece or the prince of Rome yet to come or any other empire. But I think that's something to consider. But anyway, that's out of the Kyle Delitz commentary. Now, one other thing I want to make a point about in regard to it says, the angel says that when he must return, verse 20.

Daniel 10:20 “I must return to fight with the prince of Persia and when I've gone forth, indeed, the prince of Greece will come, the prince of Greece.” 

So we have two powers. Now, we know these powers from Daniel 7 and Daniel 2, Persia and Greece. All right? Let's just keep this map up here. I have another one. Well, I do. Yeah, here's another map to look at. All right? This is kind of a general map dividing the world into Europe and Asia. For Greece, read Europe. Prince of Greece, read Europe. Because that's really, I remember in the other class, we talked about Pope Benedict XVI's interpretation of Europe. I didn't go into all that in the detail, but his interpretation of Europe is what begins here in the Mediterranean primarily from Greece westward. And his interpretation, that was Europe, classically. And if you look at what, really what was being said, Europe and the Roman Empire, all of this light color here was the Roman Empire. And Ratzinger makes a comment I didn't really talk about here, how that when Islam came on the scene in the eighth century, Islam cut this off and made an artificial distinction between Persia or Asia and Europe. And I think what Ratzinger is really saying is, hey, we've always interpreted, we Romans, we Roman Christianity, we've always interpreted Europe or Greece as all of this. But it was only Islam read Prince of Persia, this part over here.

And by extension, all Asia, they came along and they made an artificial distinction. Now, why do I bring that out? Because in Daniel 11, we're going to read about this King of the North represented by Europe is attacked by the King of the South representing a power from this region, which today we can only interpret as a Muslim or Islamic power. That's the only sound interpretation today for the King of the South. That King of the South will push against the King of the North. The King of the North will retaliate and come into the Holy Land. We'll get into that in Daniel 11. Prince of Persia, Prince of Greece, King of the South, King of the North. When you look at these two broad distinctions that we have from the Bible, from the book of Daniel about these powers, in the broadest sense, this is what we're dealing with. And so the final trigger point of world turmoil for the tribulation and the events leading to the time of the end we will get into in more detail come as a result of a conflict between these two powers. Are they ruled by the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece? 

Who in Daniel 10, they somewhat seem to be allied against the angels of God in this particular instance sent to give Daniel a message. But we read in other places about the division of Satan in his own house and will conflict at a higher spiritual realm level be behind what it comes across in Daniel 11 and events in the future. You bring that down into Israel today, the state of Israel, embattled against Iran, which occupies the center of the ancient Persian Empire. They're not Persians in them. The Iranians are not the total Persians at the time of Daniel. But they do occupy this and they are at the center of this Islamic power that wants to push Israel into the sea. And frankly, they want to take over Europe and they want to take over Claremont County, Ohio too, or wherever county you come from and Australia. They'd like to have Australia too. They really would. You just have to read their writings and that's what they want. And the state of Israel is now right now pushing against that and making some inroads in recent weeks against this power, but it's still there. And that power, Iran, is involved in Europe right now.

They are supplying Russia with arms to attack Ukraine. And Western powers are attacking that. So we've got a king of the South in Europe right now pushing, if you will, in a localized war in Ukraine as they have supplied arms to Russia. The world's a dangerous place. A lot of things are happening. And when you understand the basics of Bible prophecy as we have here in Daniel, you can make connections to realize that we're living in some times that could be putting us on the cusp of ultimately some of these biblical events. But Daniel 10 is giving us an insight into how this works at the spiritual level. So that sets up the lengthy prophecy that begins now in chapter 11. And in our next class, we're going to go into that and take quite a bit of time to go through it. I'll give you a handout that breaks it down verse by verse with a commentary as to how that meant historically and in the time of the end. And you will have the joy of your experience here in ABC of going through Daniel 11. And you will know at the end of it more than you ever knew there was to know in the 11th chapter of the book of Daniel.