Daniel 10 (Con't)

Mike, will you open us up with a word of prayer? I will. Holy Father, we thank you for this day.

We thank you for your love for us. We thank you for the blessing that you've given us in this first day of the week to gather together as your people.

We pray that you bless our time as we study your word. Bless our brother as he brings it. We pray that we will have hearts that are ready to receive and we pray that you would use it to inform us more to the image of your son, our

Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen. Amen. I'm going to turn my ringer off.

I just heard it go off. Right.

Daniel chapter 11. It's going to begin in verse 2 and I'm going to read to verse 35 and then we'll start walking through it.

It says, now I will tell you the truth. Behold, three more kings are going to arise in Persia.

Then a fourth will gain far more riches than all of them. And as soon as he becomes strong through his riches, he will arouse the whole empire against the realm of Greece.

And a mighty king will arise and he will rule with great authority and do as he pleases.

But as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom will be broken up and parceled out toward the four points of the compass, though not to his own descendants, nor according to his own authority, which he wielded for his sovereignty will be uprooted and given to others besides them.

Then the king of the South will grow strong along with one of his princes who will gain ascendancy over him and obtain dominion.

His dominion will be a great dominion indeed. After some years, there will form an alliance and the daughter of the king of the

South will come to the king of the North and will come to the king of the North to carry out a peaceful arrangement.

But she will not retain her position of power, nor will he remain with his power, but she will be given up along with those who brought her in and with those who sired her, as well as the one who supported her in those times.

But one of those descendants of her line will arise in this place and he will come against their army and enter the fortress of the king of the

North and he will deal with them and display great strength. Also their gods with their metal images, their precious vessels of silver and gold he will take into captivity to Egypt and he, on his part, will refrain from attacking the king of the

North for some years. Then the latter will enter the realm of the king of the

South, but will return to his own land. His sons will mobilize and assemble a multitude of great forces.

One of them will keep on coming, overflow, pass through, that he may again wage war upon his very fortress.

The king of the South will be enraged and go forth and fight against the king of the North. Then the latter will raise a great multitude, but that multitude will be given into the hand of the former.

And when the multitude is carried away, his heart will be lifted up and he will cause tens of thousands to fall, yet he will not prevail.

But the king of the North will again rise with great multitude than the former and after an interval of some years, he will press on with them with a great army and much equipment.

Now, in those times, many will rise against the king of the South. The violent ones among your people will also lift themselves up in order to fulfill the vision, but they will fall down.

And then the king of the North will come, he will cast up a siege ramp, he will capture a well -fortified city, and the forces of the

South will not stand their ground, nor even their choice's troops, for there will be no strength to make a stand.

But he will come against him and will do as he pleases, and no one will be able to withstand him.

He will also stay for a time in the beautiful land with destruction in his hands. He will set his face to come with power on this whole kingdom, bringing with him a proposal of peace, which he will put into effect.

He also will give him a daughter of women to ruin it, but she will not take a stand for him or be on his side.

Then he will turn his face to the coastlands and capture many, but a commander will put a stop to his scorn against him.

Moreover, he will repay him for his scorn. So he will turn his face toward the fortress of his own land, and he will stumble and fall, and he will be found no more.

Then in his place, one will arise who will send an oppressor through the jewel of his kingdom.

Yet within a few days, he will be shattered, though not in anger nor in battle. In his place, a despicable person will arise in whom the honor of kingship has not been conferred, but he will come in time and tranquility and seize the kingdom by intrigue.

The overflowing forces will be flooded away before him, and it will be shattered, and also the prince of the covenant.

After an alliance is made with him, he will practice deception. He will go up and gain power with a small force of people, and in a time of tranquility, he will enter the richest parts of the realm, and he will accomplish what his fathers never did, nor his ancestors.

He will distribute plunder, booty, possessions among them, and he will devise his schemes against strongholds, but only for a time.

He will stir up his strength and courage against the king of the south with a large army, so that the king of the south will mobilize an extremely large and mighty army for war.

But he will not stand, for schemes will be devised against him. Those who eat his choice food will destroy him.

His army will overflow, but many will fall down slain. As for both those kings, their hearts will be intent on evil.

They will speak lies to each other at the same table, but it will not succeed, for the end is still yet to come at the appointed time.

Then he will return to his land with much plunder, but his heart will be set up against the holy covenant, and he will take action and then return to his own land.

And at the appointed time, he will return and come to the south, but this last time will not turn out the way it did before, for the ships of Katim will come against him.

Therefore, he will be disheartened and will return and become enraged against the holy covenant and take action.

So he will come back and show regard for those who forsook the holy covenant. Forces from him will arrive, they will desecrate the sanctuary fortress, they will do away with the regular sacrifice.

And then they will set up the abomination of desolation. By smooth words, he will turn to godlessness, those who have act wickedly towards the covenant.

But the people who know their God will display strength and take action. Those who have insight among the people will give understanding to the many.

Yet there will be many will fall by sword and by flame, by captivity, and by plunder for many days.

Now when they fall, they will be granted a little help, and many will join with them in their hypocrisy.

Some of those who have insight will fall in order to refine, purge, and make them pure until the end, because it is still yet time to come at the appointed time.

Got clear enough, wasn't it? The reason why I stopped at 35, because there is every scholar believes, and I'll get into this whenever we get to 36, there is a shift from 36 to verse 2 of, or verse 1 of chapter 12.

And there's a shift to another individual, which we'll get into that once we get there.

So, what we're fixing to do is somewhat tedious. In order for us to understand what has actually taken place, we have to remember,

I said last week, these are the four world empires, come on, these are the four world empires that Daniel never deviates from.

Remember, chapter 2, these were, can you see, everybody see? These were the ones that were given to Nebuchadnezzar as what would be the world powers.

Now, it is a five kingdom scheme. We're not gonna deal with the kingdom of Messiah yet. I do believe that's what's come, that's what take place at the end of chapter 12.

So, but we'll deal with that when we get there. But these are the four, the kingdom scheme that has always been in Daniel's mind.

And it happened from the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Remember, Nebuchadnezzar had some crazy dream. He, nobody could tell him what it was.

He wanted to tell all the fakes. Look, not only are you gonna tell me what the dream is, you're gonna have to tell me its interpretation.

And they said, nobody can do that. Daniel prayed and he says, hey, I'm gonna tell you what you actually dreamed. He saw the

Colossus. And what, you may remember what the, what the head was? What were the, what were the metals?

Gold. What's that? Gold. All right. Not only was it gold, but later in the book, in chapter seven, what was the animal that it was connected to?

It was a lion. It was a lion. Remember, he goes from being, he gets more, you have what's called progressive parallelism.

What happens is, as he continually gets these visions, they're progressing in a parallel.

What happens? So when he got the Colossus, it was gold, but when he gets to seven and eight, it's actually a lion. What was

Persia? Silver. You may remember what the animal was this one was?

That was the bird right there. No, this one, this was a bear. You may remember what significance of the bear.

What happened? He was kind of humped up on one side. And what was

Greece? That bronze. You may remember what this guy was here?

It was a leopard. It was a supercharged.

Remember, the leopard would wane. You may remember what the Roman one was?

Iron and clay. Iron with a mixture of clay.

And remember what this animal was? That was the hybrid. Hybrid beast. Yes. Why do they call it hybrid?

Because if you go back and you read, it says this is like no other beast. It had teeth like lion.

And it basically had these qualities in one empire.

And it was ruthless. It actually doesn't even call it, it just says it was a wild, fierce beast. Because there's no animal to describe it.

And as each one of these is conquered by its next one, they envelop a lot of their tactics, their religions, a lot of that.

As a matter of fact, I do believe the reason why the fall of the

Greek empire had a lot to do, if you know anything about Alexander the Great, as he conquered

Persia, he loved Persian women. And he began to, at the later part of his life, although it was very short, 33 years, he began to dress like the

Persians. He began to embrace a lot of the Persian stuff. His commanders did not like that.

His actual command, he made his commanders marry Persian women and they weren't with it. They wanted to Hellenize the world.

And we'll get into that here shortly. Well, maybe. Their goal was to Hellenize the world, not engulf each success of people that they conquered.

So it was like, I guess Christians marrying Christians. I mean, I guess what my point is is like the bottom line, they know that if they were to -

They want to Hellenize the world. They didn't want any Persian influence.

They wanted to Hellenize the world. And actually we're going to get to a person who his intent was to kill anybody who was not going to be

Hellenized. So each one of these, this is the scheme. He never deviates.

I have to make sure you understand that. So that as we get towards the end of the book, you go, wait a minute, this isn't talking about some 2 ,000 years later revived

Roman Empire that's going to come with this figurehead. Cause that would never have been in the mind of Daniel.

Daniel is getting a message here that says, this is the scroll of truth. And it's dealing specifically with the holy people and the holy city.

Okay? So, good enough. We'll start right here in verse two.

He says, now I'm going to tell you the truth. Interesting. This is whom I believe is the pre -incarnate Christ.

And he has to let him know, I'm going to tell you the truth. I don't think for one minute that Daniel thought he was going to lie to him.

Okay? He says, I'm going to tell you the truth. Behold, three kings are going to arise in Persia.

Who's in power right now? Daniel's, this is, he's talking to Daniel. Who's in power? Cyrus. Yeah, same guy.

Cyrus. And I'm going to have to put the

B here because there's a difference between him and Darius the

Great. So I just, there's a number of Darius's along the way. And I just want you to make sure when I put Darius the Mede, Cyrus the

Great is not Darius the Great. Cyrus the Great is Darius the Mede. Okay? All right.

His rule was roughly 550 to 530.

Okay? He's telling Daniel, there's going to be three more men that will arise after him.

The next one would be Canbises. He would rule from 530 to 522, if I remember correctly.

Then you would have a very insignificant dude that comes along, and he has a couple of aliases.

You have Bardia. These are aliases, okay?

Smyrnas. And one in history, if you look, most likely the name you will see will be

Gumata. And he only reigned for one year.

It is believed, not that this, this is not in, in this guy's aliases because one killed the other.

We really don't know what happened, but these are the same person. Only reigned for one year, very insignificant, and didn't do a whole bunch.

But who arose after him was Darius the

Great. And he ruled from 522 to 530.

486. He said, three more kings are coming.

Will arise in Persia. But then it says, the next part of that verse, it says, but then a fourth will gain more riches than them all.

And as soon as he becomes strong through his riches, he will arise the whole empire against the realm of Greece.

Anybody have any idea who this person might be? Yes, sir.

Xerxes. Better known as, who do we know this person as? Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus.

Yep. And he comes along in 486. And you might correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he, 424?

And that's when Artaxerxes comes along, is that right? Yeah, we're out there. Little brain, so it's all up here, okay?

Somewhere around there. He, Xerxes reigned. Now, this is not saying that only four kings are going to come after what

Daniel said, what he's telling Daniel. Because there are many that come after him. You have Artaxerxes. You have

Darius II. You've got Darius III that comes along and actually gets leveled by Alexander the

Great, okay? This is specifically, he's giving you information that's telling you what's going to take place because he's trying to give us an understanding that Greece is coming.

Remember, in the previous chapter, what did he say he had to go do? Remember, Greece, was Greece significant at this point in history?

Anybody know about world history? No, they're not. They didn't, as a matter of fact, there was nothing that they had that was of any value.

They didn't have anything. It's not like they had a bunch of minerals or they had stuff that people wanted.

There was just, we don't understand why Xerxes would want to rise up and go into it other than he just wanted to expand his empire.

And that is ultimately what he wanted to do. But he wanted to expand his empire because his dad, this dude, failed miserably in 490.

His dad wanted to go in and conquer Greece, failed. And failed very bad.

Because at this point, Greece was all city -states. There were conglomeration. They failed miserably.

And in doing so, when he dies, Xerxes comes to power and says, you know what, I'm gonna go back in there and I'm gonna go, this was at 480, he's gonna go back in.

And we know, for those of you that have been in here before that were early on, what battle took place that made movies over in 480?

The Battle of Thermopylae and Artaxerxes. That was also ones where they actually, the

Persians were popped pretty hard, okay? So Xerxes says,

I'm going to go back into the land. I'm gonna go back in and we can't, he's gonna cross the

Hellespont and he's gonna go in and he's gonna start conquering Greece. Athens falls.

We'll just let you know, that's what happens. So, so he's gonna stir up Greece. In doing so, okay, when he goes in and does this in 480, it causes the rise of the

Macedonians, which is what would eventually be the Grecian Empire.

So, you have Xerxes raising up the hostility towards Greece.

That then sets the stage for Philip of Macedon. Philip of Macedon would be

Alexander the Great's dad, okay? What happens is when he comes to power, all of those city -states, now there is some, obviously there's some time frame here, about 50 years, maybe, 60 years.

There's some infighting within, between Macedonia and Greece, but then they find out that Philip of Macedon, as he comes to power as a general and is put in Macedon as king, that this guy's actually a pretty smart guy militarily.

Not only is he smart militarily, he will go, and as he goes into lands, he would offer terms of peace before he ever laid waste to the city, which

Alexander the Great often did as well. He would go in, offer terms of peace, and if you didn't make terms of peace, then he would lay waste to your city and make you a pile of rubble.

That's what they did. Well, Philip of Macedon then was able to get the city -states of Greece into one group and say, look, let's push back against the

Persian Empire, and that is what takes place. Then, that would lead to the rise, if anybody wants to write that down, this would be the time to do it, because I'm fixing to get rid of it.

That would lead to the rise of the Greeks. First, this would be,

I'm gonna put Macedonia here too as well, because that's not quite, he has to overthrow Greece, which he will do, which would be

Philip, Philip the Great. He then gets all those city -states of Greece together and says, hey, we're going to be fine, we're gonna push back.

They then go against Darius III. Darius III, I'm sorry, Darius III, have a clash with him.

He then is then assassinated in 336.

Who's put in place? Just, everybody should know this. Who's put in place? Who's put in place when he's assassinated?

Alexander. So when you mention Darius III, is that like?

Hang on just a second, I'm fixing to answer something. Go ahead. I think this might answer your question. Is that Xerxes's son?

Yes, well, it's Artaxerxes. You gotta remember, you have a list from Xerxes, you have

Artaxerxes, Darius II, another Artaxerxes II. Then you have Darius III.

You have a number of Persian kings that still come after. Now, some of them are insignificant. He's not giving us an exhaustive timeframe.

Gotta understand, we're looking at, if you just look at verse two, you have about 150 years, maybe, worth of history that's put in one verse.

What chapter? 11. 11. You're talking about the rise of the

Persian Empire and then the fall of the Persian Empire. Well, no, that's 219 years because the

Persian Empire was 219 years. So here's what happens. Alexander, he raises up the hostility of the

Greeks. Alexander the Great comes to power in 336. He has to handle some problems at home.

He gets that. Then he starts his campaign across the

Hellespont River. He knocks Darius the Great's brain crooked. I'm sorry,

Darius III knocks his brain crooked and sends them at the

Battle of Granicus and then he sends them on. And that was in 334.

In 331, he lays waste to the Persian Empire. It's over. Persian Empire is done right here.

And this is the rise of the Persian Empire. I mean, the rise of the Greek Empire. Okay? Very short, though.

Very short. Anybody remember how long his campaign crossed the, when he conquered the whole world?

12, he was 33. 12 years. Well, think about that. That's not,

I mean, the older you get, you go, man, 12 years is the blink of an eye. 12 years. Now, there was a lot of bloodshed.

So, in 331. It's the rise of the Greek Empire. Yep, Greeks are now a world superpower.

It says in verse three, and a mighty king will arise and he will rule with great authority and do as he pleases.

That is this guy here. Who rises out of the Greek Empire and overthrow,

I mean, just runs loose through the, from basically Macedonia all the way to the

Indus River, it's Alexander the Great, and he has his will wherever he goes. Matter of fact, even the city of Tyre seemed to be impregnable because nobody could capture it.

If you go read the book of Ezekiel, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege of the city of Tyre for 13 years and could never overthrow it.

God used Nebuchadnezzar as a scourge against the king of Tyre, okay?

And he couldn't overthrow it. But when Alexander comes along, you know what Alexander would do? He overthrows the city.

Not only does he overthrow the city, but they also had, Tyre had an island off the coast, and anybody know what he did in history?

He flattened the city, and then he used the rubble to build a causeway all the way out to the

Tyre island so he could kill those people. Imagine you're watching this take place.

You're seeing your city, where you thought you would have safety at this island, and he is taking your city that he has destroyed, he's building a causeway.

You see it coming, there ain't nothing you can do. There's nowhere for you to go. That was

Alexander the Great's tactics. It says that he will do as he pleases, but as soon as he has risen, the kingdom will be broken up and parceled out towards the four points of the compass, and not to his own descendants, nor according to his own authority which he wielded, for his sovereignty will be uprooted and given to others beside him.

So here's what happens. Alexander the

Great has some generals. It's broken up into four key places.

You have Ptolemy, I'm gonna have to leave this one blank for just a second, because what happens is it's kind of antiquitous.

You know these, or these were? Seleucid. Not yet, that's why I gotta leave this, because I'm gonna show you how the

Seleucid Empire came into power, but you are correct, it is gonna be one of those. You have Cassander, Issymicus.

He takes Macedonia. He takes

Thrace, and Asia, what we call Asia Minor.

Ptolemy takes Egypt, and what happens here is

Antigonus takes, basically, the Syrian area. Inside Ptolemy, he takes what we would say, we'll just use this, because this is gonna be a central location,

Jerusalem, okay? Or if you wanna say Palestine, although that's reading more back into the, because Palestine was not the name of it, to understand, takes the area of Jerusalem, Israel, okay?

Antigonus takes the Syrian area. Well, what we're fixing to read is how the rise of this empire, which will be the king of the north and the king of the south, okay?

That's what we're fixing to get into. So, these become, it's broken up into the four winds, right?

Of the compass. These guys become really insignificant, because that's not the location in which

God, it, what is God's central location of the world in redemptive history?

Jerusalem. You're correct. That is correct. So, we'll just say here, if Jerusalem's here, kingdom of the north,

Egypt winds up being, did I say north a minute ago? I think I did. This is going to be the south, because what's south of Jerusalem?

Africa. Egypt, correct. Yeah, Egypt. What's north of Jerusalem or Israel?

Would be Syria, which, like you said, Mike, would be the rise of the

Seleucid Empire. These are the details in which God had gave Daniel.

Maybe it's me, okay? But this stuff's in the Bible, and it's absolutely amazing.

Hey, and just don't take my word for it. Don't take my little pea brain for it. There is no argument among conservatives or liberal scholars as of to what this is.

Zero. Zero debate. The problem is, when did the, their argument is

Daniel, no way, shape, form, or fashion could have predicted this two, three, 400 years before it happened.

That's the thing. They said there's no way it could have happened. So the details are not in question.

It's, when did Daniel get it? Was it in, did he write it in 534, or did somebody else write it after the

Maccabean Revolt? And the egg -headed liberals would say that dudo

Daniel. The second Daniel came along and wrote it. But there is no historical evidence to say that Daniel wrote it after the

Maccabean Revolt because the canon was closed when? The Old Testament canon.

400 years before the Maccabean, or 300 years before the Maccabean Revolt ever took place.

So, now. So it was the Maccabean before Jesus was born?

Yes, and that actually comes up towards the end of the, around verse 35, or 32 through 35.

So, it says in verse five, then the king of the south will grow strong along with one of his princes.

So here's what happens. Ptolemy takes Egypt. One of, what is it, somebody read it to me.

What does it say? One of his what, princes? Does that what it says? It does?

It says one of his princes grows strong. What happens is

Ptolemy has a general. He grows strong and goes, you know what?

I can whip this guy. Goodbye.

The guy's name that was his general was Seleucus.

This is the beginning of the Seleucid Empire. And what happens is now we don't have to worry about any of the four queens of the earth.

They become insignificant. Now we have the rise of the king of the north and the king of the south.

You will have a line of Ptolemies. Actually, you know what? I could probably put it over here.

How much time? What do we got? All right. Because it is in much detail that it shows you how the rise of this

Seleucid Empire, which really becomes a huge pain in the posterior for the people of God, huge.

So you're gonna have Ptolemies I and then you're gonna have

Seleucus, a whole list of Seleucuses and Ptolemies.

You're gonna have cool names like, say in our case, we go like Ptolemy I, Seleucus II.

They didn't have names like that. They didn't do like Junior and Senior and the third. Those are relatively modern additions.

They had cool names like Ptolemy Soter, Ptolemy the

Savior. They had cool names like Antiochus Theos, Antiochus the

God. But this guy will have two sons.

He will have Seleucus and Antiochus and then just to let you know, there's just gonna be a bunch of these, okay?

A bunch of these and a bunch of these Ptolemies. We're gonna have a bunch of them.

So as we walk through and we won't get through maybe a couple of them this morning.

So as Seleucus grew strong, he overthrew Antigonus.

He takes over Syria area, okay? So now you basically have the rise of the

Seleucid Empire against the Ptolemy Empire. And he's gonna say in verse six, but the king of the south will grow strong.

Along with his prince, he will gain ascendancy over and obtain dominion. Okay, that's what Seleucus did. He gained dominion over that land.

His dominion will be a great dominion. But after some years, they will form an alliance and the daughter of the king of the south will come to the king of the north to carry out a peaceful arrangement.

Clear enough, right? You see, you may see what's happened.

Can I just make sure, are they all still like Greeks? Yeah. Yeah, all the

Lysimachus who took Thrace, Cassander was the general that took over Macedonia.

He actually handled things while Alexander the Great was gone, so he just kind of rolled into power there. Ptolemy was a general,

Seleucus was a general. So all those were Greeks. So now what you've had, like I said, it said the

Greek Empire splintered into four empires because nobody was there to take, to fill

Alexander's position. Nobody had the power, nor did anybody have the brains to do what he did.

So it splintered and they fought against one another to try to gain control, and it went on for years. Okay, it says here, after some time, there will be an alliance and the daughter of the south,

I'm sorry, the daughter of the king of the south will come to the king of the north to carry out a marriage. So Ptolemy says that he's gonna go to the king of the north and he's gonna do what, what does it say?

A political marriage. So he gives his daughter, he has a daughter, her name is

Bernice, he's gonna give her to Antiochus II, okay?

Just like in all political marriages, try to keep peace, quit fighting, hey, I'll give her my daughter and things will be hunky -dory.

And like in the French Revolution time and England and all that, remember, those kind of things happened.

We don't do that anymore. I mean, think about even King Solomon. You know, a lot of his wives were given for political and gift purposes.

It wasn't like he sent out to get 300 bridezillas to his harem, a lot of them were given to him.

So what happens here is Bernice is given to Antiochus.

Huge problem, though, huge problem. Antiochus II is already married.

He's married to Laodicea. We know what city that's named after, Laodicea.

He basically divorces her for the younger, hotter wife. I mean, come on, with more benefits, more territorial reign.

Well, she's unhappy about that. Yes, sir, question? Okay, yeah, okay.

So she's unhappy, told him he dies. Her daddy dies.

He said, you know what, I don't need her anymore. I want my old wife back.

Now that he's dead, the alliance is over. So he divorces Chick, okay, and is gonna reinstate her.

She has a son, Seleucus II, he's got a cool name.

He's got a real cool name. Seleucus Calcanesprogon, it means the triumphant bearded one.

I was like, I like that name. So she has a son. What she does is because she's still mad at this guy, she poisons her, kills her and her son.

Okay, I mean, look, I can give you the books. You wanna go, this is for real. And not only she poisoned her, she's still a little bitter and sore.

She poisons him too, dead. So Seleucus Calcanesprogon comes to power.

Now that's the new guy. Problem is, she has a brother. This is in the text.

This is Jerry Springer. Huh? Oh man, we're running out of time. I need about seven more hours to get through this.

Ptolemy the third, Ptolemy the benefactor. That's his sister.

He ain't with it. He's like, you know what? I'm gonna go across here and I'm gonna whip them.

And what he does, he raises up. Let's see, where were we at here? Verse seven.

But one of the defendants of her line will arise in his place and will come against the army of the fortress of the king of the north.

So what happens? Her brother says, I'm gonna avenge my sister's death. He raises up his army.

He comes over to Syria, gets into their territory. He then takes over,

I think he takes over Antioch Falls. He takes over it.

They then somewhat come to an agreement. They sign a 10 -year peace agreement with this guy.

And what's interesting about him is, and we gotta go. You would think this guy would have died in battle and he didn't.

Under that 10 -year peace agreement, he dies in a riding accident. Rides a horse and dies.

Yeah, yeah. So the Jerry Springer show will continue next week.

But this is what's in the text. Hey, like I said, if you don't wanna take my word for it, I gave y 'all a list of $8 ,000 or $12 ,000 worth of books last week in my library that y 'all can look at.

I mean, you can, there is no, like I said, there is no debate of the historical accuracy to what has taken place in this prophecy.

It's, the argument is there's no way Daniel could have wrote it when he did. And if we, not if, since we believe in predictive prophecy and we know that there's a

God in heaven that arranges everything and he uses means to carry out his purposes, okay, then we don't have a problem with that.

But over the next two weeks, that's probably how long it's gonna take to get through some of this, I will show you why

God went through great detail to give this to us to Daniel and why he went through our great pains of trying to understand it, because it is important.

Look, every detail prophetically that God gives is important, there's a reason.

Look, the person that pops up on the scene that will persecute

God that this is leading up to, God is giving his people marker points. Look, when you see this, this is coming.

When you see this, this is coming. When you see this, this is coming. And why is it to do that?

Well, one, it's to warn those who are going to be turncoats and be apostatized from Yahweh to tell them don't do that.

But then for those that are faithful, it's for them to go, you know what? God will still be faithful to his people.

You be faithful to the covenant, God will be faithful to his people. That's the reason, and as we get to that, you'll see that God then uses the

Greek empire to sift out the fakes. And what does

God do all through history? He sifts out the fakes, usually through persecution.

All right, we gotta go. We gotta listen to Andy preach. You'll pray for us, Bert, please? Father, we do thank you again.

As Micah said, you have all things in order. You have all things in place.

And for us to trust that is what we need to do. What was