 Okay, the recording is on. Good morning, Rowan, welcome to 308, our course on Revelation Daniel. Let's take a moment to pray and then we'll get started. Could one of us please lead in prayer for the class? Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you under the name of Jesus. We thank you for this day. We thank you for your new mercies and your praise upon us on the stages. God, I just give this class into your hands as we are about to learn about the book of Daniel and Revelation. But I just pray that Holy Spirit will be with us as the pastor explains the topics and all of which the things to us, God, you help us to understand with God so that we will know the meaning of the scriptures and the meaning will bring revelation into our heart and that it will transform our life and it will help us to be a blessing to others, Jesus. God, I just give all my classmates over here. I bless them all in the name of Jesus. Help us to have a good Wi-Fi connection throughout the session and whatever we do, let it be done for your glory, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen, thank you, thank you. All right, so just to introduce this course and we will get started today. In our second year course on the end times, the objective in our second year course was to give us an overview of the end times, to look at the sequence of events and also to look at the signs of the times. So that was the focus in the second year course on the end times. We did not, you know, go into detail. We did not necessarily go into detail into the books of Daniel and Revelation and other other references. We, it was more, second year was more of an overview. And so with that in mind, that background, in this course, 308, what we want to do is to go to read the passages, especially in Daniel and Revelation and explain, you know, explain, help us understand what has been written. Now, there are many prophetic scriptures. For example, we have Isaiah, prophet Isaiah, the book of Isaiah has a lot of prophetic scriptures. Zechariah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Joel, all of them have a lot of prophetic scriptures and as well as other New Testament passages. The reason we picked Daniel and Revelation is because these two seem to be the most difficult to understand, right? There's a lot of imagery, prophetic, seem very complicated, looks very complicated. So what we are going to do is we're going to actually read through the prophetic scriptures. We'll start up with Daniel and then we will get into Revelation and read the passages and then help us understand the scriptures. And while we're doing that, we will cross-reference other passages, right? So we will focus on Daniel and Revelation, read through that primarily. And as we're doing, we can cross-reference other passages, right? So that's our goal. And the goal really is to read the text and try to understand the text itself, which we did not do in our second year. And the other thing is we will first do Daniel and then we will get to Revelation. Although this course title is Revelation and Daniel, I think we should, the way we will do it is we'll do Daniel first, then we will go through Revelation first by verse, right? Simply because that's the chronological order as well. And understanding Daniel will then give us better understanding of all that is said in Revelation. Okay? So I've just put out the content for Daniel. I've put out the lecture notes, which is an outline of what we will cover. And as we read the scriptures and do go to the lectures, you're most welcome to ask questions. There may be things that we discuss which may not be in the lecture notes. So it's important to just be part of the class because different people will ask different questions and it'll open up different things in the text which I may not have captured in the outline of the notes. So the notes have been posted. And I've also given two reference books. It's not mandatory. You're not going to be questioned on the content in the reference books. Reference books are just for your reading. I'll just to look at what other people have written. One of the things that I like about the reference books is that they capture a lot of historical information which we don't have to go and research, right? They have already done the research for us. And so it's easy for us to say, okay, this was the history. This was what happened. These are all the kingdoms that were there. These are the approximate dates. So you can always go to the reference books anytime you want to get that kind of information. I've tried to summarize that in the lecture notes. I've put that in a summary form. But if you want more historical information, a background, those things, the books are available. You can go to it. But I will not be asking any questions for any of the exams from those reference books. It's more for learning as well, okay? So we're getting started with Daniel today. We'll spend quite a few weeks on Daniel, chapter by chapter. And then we will, once we're done with Daniel, we will go into revelation. So let me share the lecture notes on Daniel and we'll get started. Yeah, so I've given you that. As usual, we'll, towards the end, I'll just give three assessments, break it down, basically covering the content. There'll be open book, open scripture exam, so don't have to memorize things. All right, so let's get started with Daniel. Right, so some interesting things about Daniel. All of these things that we are going to be looking at in the book of Daniel, historically took place somewhere between 605 to 535 BC. So somewhere in that ring of Daniel may have lived to about 80 plus years of age. And so he lived a long life and he served in that period of time. We're going back about 600 years before Christ, all the way to about 500 years before Christ. And it was also the time, as we are all familiar, it was also the time of the Babylonian captivity. So Nebuchadnezzar had come and attacked Jerusalem, attacked Israel, the city was destroyed, temple was destroyed, Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king had taken several of the Jews into exile, into Babylon, and Daniel, along with several of the young people, were also taken into exile into captivity in Babylon. And we know the story, we're not going to necessarily read the first few chapters, chapter one of Daniel, we'll skip that. We're going to read only the prophetic parts of the book of Daniel, but we know the story, how Daniel was selected to serve in the courts of King Nebuchadnezzar. And what is interesting is that Daniel served in four different kings, the Nebuchadnezzar and Belchazar, the Babylonian kings, Darius, the Mede, and Cyrus, the Persian. So three different empires, the Babylonians, the Medes, and then the Persians. So you can imagine that while in Babylon, the authority transitioned from different empires, the Babylonian empire, they were in power, they were overthrown by the Medes for a short period of time, the Medes were in power, the Medes were overthrown by the Persians, and they were in power. And Daniel was serving under three different empires, four kings, two of them were Babylonians, four kings, but three different world empires. So that's very interesting, because he must have been a person of great caliber to be kept in, to be maintained in his position even when the empires changed. So Daniel, you come and you serve us, you have to be selected by a different empire, a different king and say, you come and serve me. And then when he was overthrown, another Persian king came, Cyrus, you come and serve me. He must have been a person of great caliber to serve there. So he's not just an ordinary man, the hand of God was really upon him. That is from his service perspective, but from a prophet perspective, what we can say is the Lord Jesus, himself referred to Daniel as a prophet, which is very powerful in Matthew 24, as Jesus is giving the signs of the end times, he says, even as we're spoken by the prophet Daniel, when you see the abomination of desolation coming into the temple. So Jesus is actually quoting Daniel, and he refers to Daniel as a prophet. The Lord himself is recognizing Daniel as a prophet. Isaiah, he prophesied in Isaiah 39 verse seven. We can turn the end of this, look at it very quickly. Isaiah 39 is, Isaiah was prophesying about the coming judgment, the coming captivity, stating that the king from the north, Nebuchadnezzar would come and take these people of a captive. And then he said, Isaiah 39, seven, that some of your sons will be taken and they will serve as eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Isaiah 39, seven. So eunuchs, they're not referring to being officials of people who are serving in the court or in the chamber of the Babylonian king. So Isaiah prophesied that some of the Jews will be taken captive and some of them will be given positions of authority in the kingdom or in the court of the Babylonian king. And Daniel was one of them fulfilling that prophecy. Now, of course we know they were, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego also brought him later and they were serving, they could have been others, but Daniel was actually a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that they're going to be serving under the king of Babylon. And Jeremiah prophesied about Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian captivity and the fall of Babylonian empire. And Daniel saw all of that fulfill. He saw the prophecies of Isaiah. He saw the prophecies of Jeremiah being fulfilled. And in fact, it was the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah that prompted Daniel to pray and intercede in Daniel chapter 10, which we will look at a little later on. So Daniel was very aware of the prophecies of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. He had understood them and he was also waiting for the fulfillment of that 70 years of captivity based on which he prayed and said, God, it's time for us to go back. So he prayed. The purpose, so we know Daniel is among the major prophets. The purpose of this book, Daniel, is not only to record the history of Israel, part of very important part of the history that they were taken away into captivity and to show how God was with his people during the captivity. But the purpose of Daniel is much more than a historical record of what happened during the captivity. It is a very powerful prophetic book. In fact, most of the content in the book of Daniel is prophetic in nature, not historical in nature. There is a lot of history like Daniel was. This happened and this happened, this happened. Yes, of course, there is historical information about what happened to God's people. But more than that, the purpose of the book of Daniel is prophetic. God is revealing 500 years before Christ what is going to happen at the end of times, actually throughout history and then at the end of times. So it's a very prophetic book. There is prophecies that are near term fulfillment, meaning which were fulfilled starting from the time of Daniel and on into several hundred years following Daniel. And there is also prophecy about the very end of times which would happen at the end of the church age. We're talking specifically about the antichrist and the tribulation, what will have happened there and beyond. So there is near term prophecy and there is also long term prophecy which means prophecy towards the end of the church age and leading on into the millennium. So the purpose of the book of prophecy is primarily, the purpose of the book of Daniel is primarily prophetic. And of course, if it is a prophetic book, there will be a lot of revelatory nature character in the book. So what is very interesting is just like the book of Revelation the prophetic information is given in a lot of strange pictures or imagery. So throughout the book of Daniel, as we look, it's not direct information, the prophetic information, it's not direct, it's given in the form of images. Starting from chapter two, we'll look at it. He sees an image of a big statue and God is giving a meaning of that. Chapters seven and eight, he sees the image of many beasts, different kinds of animals, strange animals and all of that has meaning. And so a lot of the revelation given in the book of Daniel is given through prophetic imagery. So that is one reason why the book of Daniel is a little difficult because it's not direct. It's not saying this will happen and this will happen and this will not. Instead of saying that images are coming, I see a beast, I see another beast and I see a fourth beast. Oh, what does all this mean? It had been so much simply if you said, this will happen, this will happen, this will happen, this will happen. So the revelatory character of the information given to us is in these strange images, which make it difficult generally for people to read and understand. But what I want to highlight and which we will see in the book of Daniel is in every instance, the interpretation is contained and I shouldn't say in every, but in almost every instance, the interpretation is contained within the book of Daniel itself. In some cases, we will cross the reference other passages to understand, to get the interpretation. But in almost every instance, the interpretation of these prophetic images is contained within the book itself. That means you just read on, keep reading and you will understand, right? So the first time we look at the images is that what does this mean? I don't understand, okay, keep reading because the interpretation is given in the book of Daniel itself. And therefore, even though the revelatory character through prophetic images is quite difficult or strange, the good thing is the interpretation is contained within the book itself. And that's all we have to do is look at the read and this is the interpretation, okay? So that's how we are going to understand the book. In some cases, we will cross reference outside the book to understand the images. Now, just as information, most of the book of Daniel, like all the other parts of the Old Testament, what is in Hebrew except for the portion, oh, sorry, the chapters two to seven, that portion is written in Aramaic. The reason being Daniel was in Babylonian captivity and they used, they were using the language of the Babylonians there at that time. So that portion is written in Aramaic, the language of the Babylonians, the rest of it is written in Hebrew. So that's an interesting part of the book of Daniel. Traditionally, when people approach the book of Daniel, they look at it in two parts, one to six, which is primarily historical, seven through 12, which is primarily prophetic. So, you know, but within one through six itself, there is prophetic information which we will also look at, but that's generally how they approach it. Or if people want to look at it from a language perspective, they'll say, okay, chapters two to seven is one portion because that was written in Aramaic, chapter one, and then the rest of it, chapters eight through 12 in Hebrew, so they can divide them in three parts based on the language. All right, for us, for our study, the divisions of the book is not necessary. We are looking at the prophetic book itself. What I do want to remark or just point out is that a lot of people, I mean, I say a lot of people, I'm talking about secular people, people outside the church, they are very skeptical, very doubtful about the book of Daniel because they cannot accept that such accurate and such detailed prophecies were made ahead of time and they actually happened because Daniel, while he was serving under the Babylonian kingdom, while serving under the Babylonian kingdom, he is prophesying all the next three and four empires that are going to come. So Ethel's king Nebuchadnezzar, and we will see this in chapter two, after you, this empire will come, which we know as the Medes and the Persians, then after that will come another empire which we know as the Romans, and then after that this will happen. So people outside when they look at it and they say, no, no, no, no, it can't be, so it's not possible somebody to tell, basically he's writing history in advance, he's telling all these empires are going to come in advance and he speaks about Alexander the Great and he talks about, sorry, I missed out the Greek kingdom, so Medes and Persians, then the Greeks, then the Romans. So the Greeks, he talks about the leader of the Greek empire and how he's going to increase and so on and so forth and what will happen to that empire. In such detail, with such accuracy, people questioned that Daniel actually wrote this and they come up with other theories that this was written later on by somebody else and given ascribed it to Daniel. So they questioned the genuineness of this book and so they reject its inspiration, its detailed prophecy, its miracles, they argue about the language and so on and so forth. So that is there, but for us, historically, we know conclusively that Daniel was a real person, he actually existed in that time period and that these scriptures have been ascribed to be given to, the revelations have been ascribed to be given to Daniel and be recorded for us by Daniel and the Lord Jesus himself. When he referred to the book of Daniel, he himself said, don't you know what Daniel, the prophet Daniel wrote, right? So he is recognizing the authenticity of the scripture and that it was actually given by the prophet Daniel himself. So we are not shaken by these allegations, we understand that people outside the church find it difficult to accept such prophecy that this could be prophesied in such accuracy and such detail, but that's their problem, not ours and so on. About the interpretation, like I said, one key thing to keep in mind is almost all the prophetic language, the interpretation is contained within the book of Daniel. So we will stay with that, we don't have to add our own interpretation, no. Stay with the interpretation that is already given in the book of Daniel, stay with it. And the, as we go a little later, in chapters 11 especially, chapter 11 is also a very difficult chapter, we will come to it later. Because it is near-term prophecy as well as long-term prophecy put in one chapter, right? So that is where it makes it difficult, meaning you need to understand the timeline. In one chapter, there is immediate near-term prophecy, he was prophesying about what's gonna happen to the different kingdoms, and then he shifts to what is gonna happen at the end of times, which kind of leads into chapter 12. So that transition we need to pick up. And just keep in mind that when Daniel was writing these prophecies, he was not writing in chapter and verse, right? We find it difficult because, hey, there is chapter 11 and suddenly in the middle, he's talking about near-term things and suddenly in the middle of the chapter, he's going to the end of times. Well, for us it becomes a problem because it is put in chapter 11. But while Daniel was writing and speaking, recording these prophecies, he was not writing, this is chapter 11, this is chapter 12. No, he was giving the revelation as he was receiving it and he had here recorded it. And so for him, it was clear. All these things are happening. Then God says, this will happen at the end of times. So that interpretation, the timeline is something we have to understand from outside the chapter and verse perspective. And I'll explain it when we come to chapter 11, right? Another comment about the theology, the book of Daniel is so amazing in its theology because, and we will see this in chapter seven, that the book of Daniel is actually unveiling to us the triune God, the Trinity of the Triune God. Daniel chapter seven, Daniel has a vision and he sees the ancient of days. We would refer to this, to this person as God the father. And then he sees one like the son of man, we would say, that's God, the eternal word, the Lord Jesus, God the son, right? And so it is so clear in Daniel seven about the triune God, the ancient of days sitting on the throne, the son of man being ushered into his presence and then all authority and dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth being given to the son of man and to the saints of the most high. So just imagine what a vision that is, Daniel chapter seven, he is seeing the triune God. God the father, God the son, the Holy Spirit, of course is giving Daniel this ability to see this vision and he's also seeing the saints of the most high. And he's seeing what God is going to do, the kingdoms of the earth are being given to the saints of the most high is amazing, amazing. And it is from this book, Daniel chapter seven, that the Lord Jesus uses the title son of man. So when Jesus is walking on the earth, he starts talking to his, you know, the people are following him. You will see the son of man referring to himself now as the son of man. Now for his audience, the Jewish audience, they recognize this title. It is a title used by Daniel and Daniel chapter seven to whom? To the being right next to the ancient of this to whom all the kingdoms of the earth has been given. And here is Jesus saying, he's using that title for himself is in, you know, in, for example, many examples you can see, when Philip calls at Daniel and at Daniel says, you know, you are the son of God. And what this is, you will see the son of man coming in the clouds of glory. So he's referring to himself as a son of man and he uses the title over and over again for himself and the people are amazed because this is a sacred title. There's a title that was used by Daniel to the one next to the ancient of dates. And Jesus is using that for himself. So in terms of the theology that's being revealed, it is amazing. Another amazing part of the theology revealed in Daniel is in chapter nine, which we will see is that Daniel exactly prophesied about the crucifixion of the Messiah, Daniel nine, 23, 24, 25 he says, you know, after 483 years from the time of the decree issued by Cyrus to go and rebuild Jerusalem, the Messiah will be killed, the olive. Messiah, Messiah, the anointed one, he will be killed. And you know, in that same context, which we will study, we will study this passage in detail. He says, why will the Messiah die? He's going to die for the sins of the people. You know, so the whole substitutionary work of Jesus is captured in just two or three verses in Daniel chapter nine. Now we know Isaiah prophesied a lot about the Lord Jesus, Messiah, Isaiah prophesied a lot. But what I want to point out is that in the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter nine, 23, 24, the cross, the Messiah, the purpose of his death is actually revealed, Daniel chapter nine. So again, a very important aspect of theology is contained in this prophetic book, very powerful, very, very amazing, right? So we will look at all of these in detail, but I'm just, this is just an introduction, just overview, right? Now, just a little bit of history so that we understand what happened. We must, just to keep in mind the sequence of the different kingdoms that transitioned, we are primarily talking about in and around the Mediterranean. So if you look at, if you imagine the world map today, we're talking about all along the Mediterranean where Israel is and Lebanon, Syria and Turkey and getting over into, if you go a little west to the eastern part of Europe, and if you go a little south, it's the northern part of Africa, if you go a little east, we're coming into the western part of Asia. So in that region, all around the Mediterranean, that is a history we are interested in with reference to the book of Daniel. And that region saw transitions of different empires. There were the Assyrians approximately, and these are all approximate dates because we historians reconstruct history which took place more than 100,000 years ago based on whatever findings that are there. So they kind of reconstruct the dates and so on. So all dates are approximately, we think that this is when this would have happened. So the Assyrians from 880 BC to about 612 BC then came the Babylonians, then the Medes and the Persians. Now usually the Medes and Persians, they are clubbed together because the Medes were a much smaller empire and they were very, very short lived and they're very connected to the Persians. The Persians were the most stronger and the more powerful. So they took over immediately after the Medes, but Medes and Persians are clubbed together very often. Then came the Greek Empire, which we understand, we recognize, we are quite familiar with Alexander the Great, the Macedonian or the Greek Empire. And then what happened is, again, Alexander the Great had a very short time and when he died at a very young age, his kingdom was divided into four parts and governed by four of his generals, army generals that took place. And then subsequently in between, we will mention here later on, there were transitions with smaller, smaller empires happening, but the next big major empire was the Roman Empire, which came on the scene around 60 BC and went on through 143, 1453 AD. But within the Roman Empire, there was also a division that took place to be referred to it as the Western Empire and then the Eastern Empire, which continued on much longer. The Western Empire dissolved around 476 AD. So there's this information for us to keep in mind, historical permission. Now, just keep in mind also that historians, how they view these empires could vary and how they interpret things would vary, but in general, these are the empires that existed or transitioned in and around the military union over that time period. Putting it in the same information, I'll just put in a little bit more detail in the table form. We know that Israel, they came, they settled in that region around the land of Canaan or referred to and then later on, Israel itself was divided as the Northern Kingdom, the Southern Kingdom. The Southern Kingdom basically had one tribe, Judah. The other tribes were part of the Northern Kingdom. The Assyrians came, they came and they really attacked the Northern Kingdom of Israel. They captured that part. They also attacked Judah, but they didn't, were not able to overthrow Judah fully, but that happened when Nebuchadnezzar came. The Babylonian came, kingdom came and he overthrew Jerusalem and Judah destroyed the temple, the walls, and they were taken into captivity. 70 years there, there were transitions from the Babylonian to the Median Persians. Towards the end of the 70 years, the Persians took over, Cyrus was the Persian king, and as soon as he came into power, he issued a decree for the Jews to return to Jerusalem, go rebuild this temple and rebuild the city. And that took place under, we are familiar with Zerugapal, Nehemiah, Ezra. So during that time, the temple was rebuilt, the walls of the city was rebuilt, Jerusalem was restored. About that time, Alexander the Great came into power over through the Persian Empire. He came into power and then at the fall of the Greek Empire, there were smaller empires that are kingdoms, I should say, who were acting in that region around that time. The Seleucid Empire, and Daniel prophesied about these, which in Daniel 11, Seleucid Empire, as well as the northern and the southern parts of this kingdom, which Daniel prophesied about. Then the Jews revolted against them. There was opposition, they tried to overthrow this empire during that time, and Daniel prophesied about this as well. So this is just a little history to keep in mind as we journey through the book of Daniel, and we will see all of these things in the book of Daniel as Daniel foretold or wrote about these world empires. All right, before we dive into chapter two and start reading the text and understanding the text, any questions on the introduction? So this is just giving us a little background. Any questions on the introduction? You don't have to memorize all of this, it's just to know the context before we start reading the scriptures. Any questions? Go ahead, please. Levega? Yeah, it is just something that has been confusing me for some time about, we all know that there were three stages of deposition, starting from 605 AD up to around 586. The only challenge I used to have, but now maybe I have an answer for, is the counting of the 70 years. When we see there is a political deposition and religious deposition, political is the one which happened in 605 AD and religious is the one that went to the destruction of the temple in 586. So I don't know if that assumption is right, but it has been, it has taken me over a decade to find out what that one really means, because usually people, some commentaries will say deposition of 586 and yet we know that the deposition started in 605. So I don't know if you take on that is pastor. Thank you. Yeah, good question Collins. And the way I resolve these in my mind and for example, I mean, you've highlighted one example, the 70 years of captivity. There is another challenge, which in the book of Daniel, so we'll see the 483 years that Daniel prophesied when he talked about 69 weeks. So like this, the way I resolve it is one, all dates that are given by historians are only estimates. Nobody knows like exactly for sure, because it is all a reconstruction of history from our time today. So we are sitting here approximately 2000 years, this side of the cross and plus then they're going back to another 500, 600 years before the cross. So literally we are sitting about 2500 years after things have happened and we are trying to reconstruct the dates, the year, right, so the best anybody can do, any historian can do is come to some sort of an estimate using archaeological findings, findings of artifacts, books, literature, whatever is recorded. So they put all this thing together and they say, okay, this archaeological thing must have been from 550 BC, that must be from here. And so therefore, an estimated year. It's not accurate. Nobody knows for exact, nobody knows exactly, sure. So there could be a variation, maybe 15 years, 10 years, 20 years, because the best is it's only an estimate. So that's how I resolve these things in my mind. Yeah, the Bible said 70 years, so it would have been exactly 70 years, but from which year till which year, there is always, those things are an estimate because we are trying to reconstruct back in according to a calendar time, so on. So I don't struggle with it too much, simply because I know that even for the best historian, they can only come to some sort of an estimate, nobody knows accurately because the calendars were not necessarily kept away, we are keeping it and so on. So that's how I resolve all those issues in my mind. And I just say, yeah, I'm gonna say 70 years, 70 years is exactly what happened from which year to which year, it's just a lot of variation, doesn't matter. Okay, any other questions? Okay, so what we're going to start off with is in Daniel chapter two, and we will go for our break, come back and we will pick up, we will start with Daniel chapter two, which is basically the dream which Nebuchadnezzar had, which Daniel was able to narrate the dream and give the interpretation, and it's just amazing, one amazing, amazing introduction to the prophetic content of Daniel. So we'll go for a break and we'll come back at 11 Indian times and get this started. Thank you.