 Okay. The recording is on. Welcome, everyone. And good morning to all of you. Thank you for joining the Class BC 308 Revelation and Daniel. This is our first lecture, actually, after almost a month of the college reopening. I apologize for all the breaks and for us not getting started earlier. But we will do our best to cover all that we are supposed to cover and have a wonderful time. Okay. Let's please pray together and get started. May I request somebody to pray with us as a class and we'll start. Anyone can pray. Can I pray? Yes, Siddharth, please. We believe in Jesus' love. We thank you for this day for all your good works in us love. Lord, as we are studying the book of Revelation and Daniel, let the revelation of Lord Jesus Christ be revealed to us. But we thank you for all things. Let everything become easy to understand and receive. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Amen. Okay. So we are ready to start our course on Revelation and Daniel. So what we're going to do is quite straightforward, which is we're going to read verse by verse the prophetic scriptures, Daniel, and then Daniel and Revelation. You can just read it and then we're going to understand what the scriptures are teaching us. So you remember in our second year, we did a course on the end times. There in that course, we were giving an overview, an outline of the sequence of events, the timeline of events. So that was our objective in that course. We couldn't necessarily go into verse by verse and read everything and explain everything. But that course served a purpose in helping us set out some sort of a sequence of events. And say, okay, this is how we see the end time events unfolding. So that that course served that purpose. And also to answer some questions about, you know, when would certain events take place and the signs of the end times and so on. But in the course that we're doing now in the third year on Revelation and Daniel, our objective is to actually read the text and then try to understand it. I don't know if my mic went off. Okay, you can hear me, right? Everyone can hear me. Okay. So although in the course, you know, we call Revelation and Daniel, we'll study Daniel first and then you will come into Revelation. And we agree to focus on the prophetic scripture. So in the book of Daniel, there is a little bit of historical record. We will not be reading those portions. We'll be mainly focusing on the prophetic part of the book of Daniel, the prophetic scriptures. So we'll be reading those prophetic scriptures and then understanding them. And it is very, very amazing, right? So let's get started. I will share the notes and then we will, you know, read the scriptures together. We will read the... I have to open the PDF. We will read the scriptures together and go through it, go through Daniel chapter by chapter. So let me share. All right. So Revelation and Daniel course objective is very simple. We need to read through Daniel, read through Revelation and then we will connect a few other passages. You know, we'll connect passages from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Zechariah. We will connect them to Daniel and Revelation as we read through. Okay. So that's what we will do. And I've shared a few reference books. These are, again, quite detailed. If you're interested in reading, you're welcome to read them. So let's get started with the book of Daniel, a little bit of introduction background. Daniel. In other words, the name Daniel means God is judge. And he was there about 600 years before Christ. So he ministered around that time and he, Daniel lived to be, lived very long. So about 18 some years. And what is interesting is Daniel's life record in the book of Daniel starts from the time when the Jews were taken out of Jerusalem and they were brought into Babylon as captives. So this was under Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who conquered Jerusalem and he took people away to Babylon. So Daniel's life begins with that captivity being deported, taken out of Jerusalem. And then he lives actually through three different empires. So there was the Babylonian, the Medes and the Persians, three different empires. So he lives through them. And so there is a little bit of historical information recorded for us in the book of Daniel. But the book of Daniel, especially the second part of the book focuses mainly on the visions that God had given Daniel. And these visions were about future events, about things to come. Now very interesting is even the Lord Jesus in Matthew the 24th chapter, he referred to Daniel the prophet and he referred to what Daniel spoke about. And we will see this. And Jesus quoted from Daniel chapter 9 in Matthew 24-15, Daniel chapter 9, 26 and 37. So the Lord Jesus himself quoted from the book of Daniel. He pointed out what Daniel prophesied and he said, you know, when you see that happen, you know, the end is near, you know. So the Lord Jesus, if you want to say it, validated, authenticated Daniel's prophecy. That is amazing. That is amazing. Now about that time period itself, there were prophets who preceded Daniel, that is Isaiah and Jeremiah. Isaiah the prophet, he prophesied that, you know, he prophesied about the fact that Israel, the Jews would be taken away into captivity. And he also prophesied that some of these Jews would serve as officers. If the king of Babylon, Isaiah also prophesied about the fact that the Jews would be sent back to Jerusalem, the land. He called by name King Cyrus, who was the Persian king who issued the decree that the Jews should go back to Jerusalem. So Isaiah, preceding Daniel prophesied about the whole captivity and the return to Jerusalem, he prophesied. Jeremiah also prophesied about Nebuchadnezzar, he prophesied about the 70 year Babylonian captivity. So these are people who preceded Daniel. So when Daniel came along, he knew what these prophets had spoken, what they had spoken, you know, he knew. And that was part of his prayer, as we will see later on in Daniel 9 and 10. Daniel prayed that, you know, what Jeremiah prophesied that at the end of 70 years, the people should be sent back to Jerusalem. Daniel would pray those prayers. Like I said earlier, Daniel served in four different kings or three different empires. The Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, they are the Babylonians. They are Darius with the Medes and then Cyrus with the Persians. Three different world empires or four different kings. These two kings were from the same empire, the Babylonian empire, Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar and Darius and then came Cyrus. So he served in these four different kings. So that's an amazing thing that a Jewish man would have a very important position in the empires of these kinds of kings that they would respect him and hold him in high regard. Just again, as part of the background, Daniel, its place in scripture. It's the last book among the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, major prophets. The purpose of the book of Daniel is both historical and revelatory. It is historical, records what happened to the Jewish people while they were in captivity in Babylon and a little bit about what happened during that time. But most of it is revelatory in character, meaning it is speaking about future events. It just records the prophecies or the visions God gave Daniel about things to come, starting from his time on way into the future, into the millennium and beyond. So it's a huge time span that God gave Revelation to concerning about. Okay, let me just say I think somebody raised a hand or something. Say, go ahead. Sorry, Pastor, sorry to bother you. I was just going to ask that what was the basis of Daniel being a major prophet? What was the basis for minor and major? Is it the content of the prophecy or? Yeah, so we would look at it from two things. One is the content of what they prophesied and it's also the significance of their prophetic ministry. So when you look at Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel, we see that, of course, the content of what they prophesied like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel prophesied and foretold of many things. Two examples. If you look at Isaiah, he speaks about the birth of the Messiah, the death of the Messiah. He speaks about the millennium. He speaks about new heavens and new worlds. I mean, it's all, you know, so there's heavy content in their prophecy. Secondly is also the significance of the ministry. These men, the ministry spanned large periods of time. Like we were saying, Daniel, he lived well into the 80s and, you know, if he, the prophetic experiences began from his early youth, as you will see in Daniel chapter two, and then went on to, you know, maybe a span of almost 50 years, 50 to 60 years. So these were very significant prophetic ministries unlike all the minor prophets who, you know, not only the content of what the prophet was small, but they were there for very brief periods of time prophesying at particular junctures, mainly when the Jews were sent back to the land, when they were involved in the rebuilding of the temple, as in the case of Zechariah and Haggai and so on. And then towards the end of just before the start of the 400 year silent period, that's Malachi. So they were very brief in their prophecies. So, and there were mainly, many of them were mainly calling Israel back into repent back to God. You don't find too much other than Zechariah. You don't find too many of them pointing way out into the future to foretell coming events. So you find that difference in the content of the prophecy. Thank you, Pastor. Thank you. All right, good question. Let's go back now to just the introduction. We're doing an introduction to Daniel. So the other interesting thing about Daniel, which is actually the interesting part of the Old Testament is that there is a portion of the book of Daniel in the originally written in Aramaic. The rest of the entirety of the Old Testament is in Hebrew. But there is a portion in Aramaic and that entire Aramaic portion is in the book of Daniel, Daniel chapters two to seven between two and seven. And the reason is because that was the language used by the Babylonians. And that was a time period when the Jews were in exile. They were living there with the Babylonians. And so that part of both historical and prophetic, mainly historical content and a little bit of prophetic content is captured in Aramaic in the language of the people among whom they were living. So that's kind of an interesting note about the Old Testament. The entire Old Testament is in Hebrew. There's a small portion, Aramaic, and that small portion is in the book of Daniel, chapters two to seven, simply because that was the time the Jews were living in exile in Babylon. And that was a language that is being used at that time. Some just interesting ways of looking at the book of Daniel, you know, generally speaking, and this is very easy to observe is that the book of Daniel, the first six chapters in the book of Daniel are more historical in nature. That means this is what happened while Daniel and his friends were in exile in Babylon and this is what happened to the people. Okay, historical. There is, of course, some prophetic, which we will see in chapter two, very important. But then the second half of the book of Daniel, chapter seven to 12 is fully prophetic and it's amazing. It's like we said, looking way into the future, all the way into the millennium and beyond. So it is very easy to divide the book into these two parts. Just by looking, just when you read through the book of Daniel, it becomes very obvious there's historical part and then there's completely prophetic part in the book of Daniel. Now, other people, you know, just for information, other people may divide the book in different ways. So we can definitely look at other ways to divide the book. Like we said, they can do it as an, okay, Daniel one is an introduction. Daniel two to seven is the dynamic part of the book. Daniel three is, I mean, the third part is really talking about Israel, the nation of Israel and in relation to the Gentiles. That's one way of looking at it. One way of dividing the book because the prophetic part of the book is specifically dealing with Israel versus other world empires that are going to come and what God is going to do. So, so you can divide the book in that way if and some people may do it like that. But the easiest way to divide it is just with the obvious way. Chapters one to six are historical, seven to 12 prophetic, very simple, and it's very, very apparent when we read the book of Daniel. Now, again, just a piece of information is the book of Daniel was never questioned. The authenticity of the book of Daniel was never questioned up until the third century AD. That means when you come in to 300 years later, you know, and so people knew the authenticity of the book. They accepted it because, hey, historically it is very authentic. All the historical details are valid and, you know, things that were said were valid, but there were people and maybe they did it intentionally. We don't know the motivation who attacked the book. You know, sometimes people intensely attacked the Bible. They want to disprove the Bible and try to create things. So most notable of the attacks against the book of Daniel came around the third century when there was a pagan plutonist who claimed that, you know, this book was forgery, not genuine. Trying to question its authenticity in terms of the, you know, it's being part of the Bible. They shouldn't be rejecting the detailed prophecy saying, no, no, you know, it's not possible for somebody to prophesy like this in such detail. Therefore, it is just somebody who wrote it backwards, you know, prophecy is telling history in advance. So he couldn't accept the fact that there's such amazing detailed prophecy. So he said, no, no, no, this is somebody writing retrospectively and claiming it to be prophecy. Things like that are rejecting these miracles that we see in the book of Daniel. We know how the Jewish people, their lives were preserved multiple times in the time of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, not refusing to bow to the golden image and the fire and the Daniel and the lion's den, just rejecting that these things have actually happened. You know, questioning these things, trying to point out problems in language and text and claiming historical inaccuracies. But none of these things have stood, you know, what I'm just saying that they were an attempt was made to question the book of Daniel. But none of these things have stood. They've all been disproved and rejected. So nobody actually holds to these attempts. Now, the biggest challenge is, I mean, with the book of Daniel is the interpretation. Because especially when we come from when you come into the prophetic part, everything, I should say, almost everything is given in very figurative language. And the figures, the pictures that I used are not what we are normally accustomed to. As we all are aware, if you've read Daniel, the prophetic images that he sees, you know, like a lion and a bear and a ram and a goat and all those pictures is very difficult when you read it in the first instant. And it's like, what is he seeing? You know, what is all this? But actually, the keys to understanding all of this is in the book of Daniel itself. That's the beautiful part. And that's what we're going to see that actually these things are not difficult to understand. Because in the book of Daniel itself is the interpretation of these difficult images that the pictures that Daniel records. So when we read about these images, we shouldn't be alarmed. We just have to read it very carefully, because in the text of the book of the scriptures in Daniel, there is the interpretation of what these images are. So that's the approach we are going to take. We recognize that interpreting Daniel at a surface level seems very difficult. But we also recognize that the meaning, the interpretation of all of what Daniel is seeing is right there in the book itself. And it's very, very interesting. Now, the advantage we have today is we have additional scriptures, meaning we have what, of course, as in Jeremiah before Daniel, they wrote, we have those scriptures. We have what others wrote, Zechariah, and then we have what Jesus said. Then we have what Paul the Apostle wrote in Thessalonians, and then we have what John received as in the book of Revelation. So we have such a big advantage that subsequent to Daniel, there was more prophetic scriptures, more prophetic scriptures have been given to us. And we can put all that together and interpret the book of Daniel. So we have a big advantage and we must learn to do that. And when we do that, things become very, very clear. We have a lot of scripture to put together and understand the book of Daniel. So we are not going to interpret the book of Daniel only by the interpretation given within the book, which is very clear. But we're also going to see additional prophetic utterances concerning the end times, which further clarifies what is given to us in the book of Daniel. Another interesting observation in the book of Daniel is the theology, the revelation of God that we see in Daniel. We see throughout the book how God was at work in and through the Jewish people. From the very first chapter, we begin to see how God imparted knowledge and skill to these four Hebrew boys, Daniel and his three friends. God is at work. We see how God reveals. God is revealing something to a pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar, in a dream. How God empowers Daniel to interpret it. We see Daniel himself revealing, receiving visions. We see God bringing supernatural protection in chapter four and chapter six to these Hebrew boys. We see in Daniel chapter seven an amazing picture of the throne room that explains, or I would say, that reveals to us the Trinity. We see Daniel says, I see the ancient, and we will read it later on. I see the ancient of days, God the Father. I see the Son of Man, God, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Word. And of course, it's the Holy Spirit in Daniel, giving him this vision. So we see the Trinity revealed to us there in Daniel chapter seven. The theology of the book of Daniel is amazing. It's actually unveiling God to us at the ancient of days. We see the Son of Man and the Holy Spirit giving this revelation. So when the Lord Jesus comes and he begins his ministry and he begins to use the term Son of Man in the minds of the Jewish people. It's a very powerful thing because for them, that's the term Daniel used to talk about the one who stood next to the ancient of days and to whom all the authorities in the kingdoms were given. And here comes this carpenter from Nazareth, and he's referencing himself as Son of Man. So it shocks the Jewish mind. How could somebody use that title that Daniel used for someone in the Godhead along with the ancient of days to whom all the authorities are going to be given? And Jesus keeps saying, when you see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, when you see the Son of Man coming in the glory of his kingdom, he's talking to himself and he's referencing Daniel seven, the Son of Man. So the theology in the book of Daniel is really powerful. And then you come to Daniel chapter 12. He talks about God sitting as the judge and everybody standing before God. So there is this unveiling of God in the book of Daniel through both the historical and the prophetic scriptures. And it's beautiful just to trace all of that in the book of Daniel. Now, a little bit about the history that we're going to see in the book of Daniel. Now, for us, it is history, but for Daniel, some of it was still future. So Daniel was living, let's say, he started off his life in ministry somewhere here. Okay. So this was when Daniel was alive initially initially, and of course he lived through the need of Persian Empire. So before the Babylonian Empire, there were the Assyrians. The Assyrians had come and they'd attacked the northern part of Israel and they'd gone. So Israel at that time was divided into the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, which was just basically Jerusalem, Judah. So the Assyrians had come and attacked the northern kingdom. The Babylonian Empire. So the Assyrians then were overtaken by the Babylonians, the Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar. He came down south. He came to Jerusalem and he attacked Jerusalem. That's the time we read about Daniel being taken along with the other Jewish people taken captive to Babylon. They're there, which would be modern-day Iraq and that region around Iraq. Now, what happened was after the Babylonians, so Daniel prophesied. So Daniel is living in this time, Babylonian time, and God is giving him vision about the future empires. So, and we will see that today in Daniel chapter 2. Daniel foretells in Daniel chapter 2 that the Babylonian Empire will be overthrown and will be overtaken by other empires, the Medo-Persian. So he foretold this, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and then the Roman Empire. Let me just highlight this here. So Daniel, while living here during the Babylonian Empire time, he prophesied ahead of time about the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. Now, Daniel never lived to see this. That means he died during the Persian Empire. So he lived to see what happened. He lived to see the Medes take over. He lived to see the Persians take over and then he died. He never saw the Greek Empire. He never saw the Roman Empire. Now, for us, it is looking back at his history, but when Daniel was prophesying, he was speaking into the future. So he spoke ahead of time and he prophesied about these coming empires. Even foretold what would happen to the Macedonian, the Greek Empire. He foretold that this empire was going to be divided into four pieces. It happened exactly. He never lived to see that, but it happened exactly. And he spoke ahead of time about the Roman Empire and so on. Now, for us, looking back, we can put this down and say historically this is what happened. But what is amazing is Daniel, living in the time of the Babylonian Empire, he looked ahead and he foretold all these things and more and more. Which we will look at. Okay, so this is very interesting. Now, we've put this down here as history, but remember Daniel spoke about it looking into the future. Now, of course, in looking at this, the Empire, the Division of Empires, we take a dispensational view. We look at them and understand the unfolding of Daniel as time periods and which we will explain how these time periods are divided. And we will talk about historical time periods, meaning things that have already happened. And we'll talk about time periods to come, which are out in the future. So we find both time periods or dispensations in the book of Daniel, and we will explain that as we read through. Now, the same historical information. I'm giving a little bit more information here, which you probably have seen. We saw earlier in our second year course, that means just to know what these people did because we will find that some of these things, there's all historical information just for us to, just as information, that some of these things were actually foretold. So what Alexander the Great, the Macedonian or the Greek Empire, what would happen to him? Daniel foretold that. The Seleucid Empire and what they would do, Daniel foretold that. We will read in Daniel's chapter 11 in quite detail. He foretold that. It's interesting to have this historical information. Remember that Daniel was prophesying or having visions. It is all out in the future. Today we can look back and say, hey, Daniel spoke about it around 500 BC. And here, about 160 BC, those things actually happened. Okay. So what happens to this Alexander the Great Macedonian Empire? What happened during the Seleucid Empire? Daniel foretold that is of interest to us. Okay. So now we're ready. That was quick introduction to Daniel. Now we are ready to actually begin reading the book of Daniel. And we're going to go through it chapter by chapter. I'd like to request everybody to be involved. Any questions as far as the introduction is concerned, before we start reading Daniel chapter two? Any questions, please? Everybody with me so far? Okay. Okay. All right. Feel free to ask any questions. All right. So now let's go to, let's open our bibles. We need to keep our bibles in front of us. We're all going to read the scriptures. Daniel chapter two. And we're only going to focus on the prophetic portions of scripture. We're not going to read the historical part. Those are stories many of us are familiar with. So in a chapter two, we're going to start from verse 31 till verse 49. So just as a background, Daniel chapter two, Nebuchadnezzar wakes up one day and he realizes he's had a dream. Problem, he doesn't remember the dream. So he sends word saying, hey, he calls all his wise men and Daniel was and his friends among the wise men in the court or Nebuchadnezzar says, you have to tell me what my dream was and you have to give me the interpretation. And otherwise, all the wise men are going to be killed. We know the story. So Daniel, that's where Daniel steps in. He tells the captain or the captain of the army. Well, say, hey, just give me one night. I'll be back with the answer tomorrow. So that night, Daniel and his friend and the three friends, they all go and pray and God reveals it to Daniel in the night and Daniel goes back to Nebuchadnezzar the next day. And he tells the king the dream and then he helps the king with the interpretation. And that's where we're going to pick up in Daniel chapter 2 verses 31 to 49. Maybe we'll just, you know, to read three verses each. We'll just go through this quickly. Three verses each. Daniel chapter 2 verse 31 to 49, please. Let's read. Your Majesty looked at it before you stood a large statue and enormous dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold. It's just an arms of silver. It's belly and thighs of bone. It's legs of bone. Sorry, it's legs of iron. It's feet partially of iron and partially of baked of clay. Yeah. Verse 34 next 34. While you were watching a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It stuck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. You want me to continue? Somebody else could read the next three verses. Thank you, Shri Kumar. The whole statue was crushed into small pieces of iron. Clay, bronze, silver and gold. In the wind blew them away without retreats. Like a chair from a trashy floor. But the rock that marked the statue down became a great mountain that covered the whole earth. That was a dream. Now we will tell the king what it means. Your Majesty, you're the greatest of the kings. The God of heaven has given me a sovereign, sovereignty, power, strength and honor. Next three verses, somebody please. Thank you, Asha. And wherever the children of man dwell, or the beast of the field and the birds of the heaven, he has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold. But after you shall arise another kingdom, inferior to yours, then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron. Inasmuch as iron break in pieces and shatter everything. And like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. Yes. Verse 41 onwards. Thank you. Appreciate it. Just as 41 says, just as you saw that the feet and toes were part of big clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom. Yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with big clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united anymore than iron mixes with clay. Thank you, Serene. And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to the people. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it broke in pieces, the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, the gold and the great God had made known to the king, what will come to pass after this? The dream is certain and its interpretation is sure. The king Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face, prostrate before Daniel and commanded that they should present an offering and incense to him. Thank you. Next 47, 49, somebody please. The king answered unto Daniel and said, Offer truth it is that your God is a God of gods and the Lord of kings and the revealer of secrets. Seeing you could reveal this secret, then the king made Daniel a great man and gave him many great gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon. Then Daniel requested of the king and he said, Shadrach, Meshach and Abidnego over the affairs of the province of Babylon but Daniel sat in the gate of the king. Thank you. So very interesting. Now what is revealed in Daniel chapter 2 becomes the basis of all that's going to come in the succeeding prophetic revelation in the book of Daniel. So this is like the outline and then based in the succeeding chapters five, six, seven and so on. Addition, more information is being added to this and things are being expanded, elaborated. So understanding chapter 2 becomes like the starting point, the foundation for the rest of the book of Daniel. Now it is very simple. So what does he see? Let me just share the notes here so you could follow along as I talk. He sees, so Daniel reveals to Nebuchadnezzar because God revealed to Daniel that he sees this big image, the head of gold. Then the top part, the body part is silver. Then the lower part, the belly and the thighs of brass and so this is in verse 32, thighs of bronze, legs of iron and then the feet is iron and clay, loosely mixed. Now iron and clay cannot hold together very easily. It cannot hold together so it's loosely mixed and then there are of course two feet, ten toes and then there's a huge rock but it is not cut off by human hands. That means it is from heaven, it's not from earth. It's not human, it's divine. It's not earthly, it's heavenly. And that stone comes and it crushes this whole image completely crushes it and this rock becomes a huge mountain. Okay, so that's the dream Nebuchadnezzar had. Everyone with me and I think we'll have a little picture of this somewhere in the notes but that's the picture. Gold, silver, bronze, feet of iron, toes, iron and clay mixed, legs of iron, feet are unequally mixed, ten toes. Rock, not made by hands, comes from heaven, crushes all this and becomes a big mountain. That's the dream. Now Daniel interprets the dream. What are some of the things we see revealed to us here in chapter two? What we see revealed to us is Daniel interprets and says, he's talking about kingdoms, he's talking about empires because he says, king, that head of gold is you. So Daniel says this, verse 38, you are this head of gold, you. But after you will arise another kingdom, verse 39. So each part of this image represents a kingdom and an empire. Now obviously an empire is made up of kings and rulers or emperors. So what Daniel is saying is the head represents the Babylonian empire. So when he's pointing to Nebuchadnezzar, he's not speaking specifically of just him as an individual because the rest of it we know, he's talking about kingdoms, empires. So therefore the gold part of this represents the Babylonian empire. And then he says, these other parts are representing empires that are going to come after you. So the silver, the chest and arms of silver are representing another empire. Now Daniel does not specify what that empire is. That will come in succeeding chapters. So this is like an outline. As we progress in the book of Daniel, he begins to specify who's going to come. But right now it's like an outline. So he's saying there's going to be another empire. That's verse 39, another kingdom. They'll be inferior to you, but they're going to overthrow the Babylonian empire. They will rise up after the Babylon. And then there'll be another one, which represents the bronze, the belly and the thighs of bronze. Now I have mentioned who these empires are and the dates. That's because we know it now. But in Daniel chapter two, as Daniel was speaking, he didn't know who these were and he didn't mention them by name, but we know it and then it comes later on in the succeeding chapters. But we can put it down now because we have the information. So he says there's a third kingdom, a third empire made of brass. That's the Greek empire. Then there's going to be a fourth empire, legs of iron, very powerful. As you will see in the subsequent chapters, Daniel says that empire's going to be very powerful. It really expanded. Then what will happen is after that, there'll be feet of iron and clay loosely mixed, feet of iron. Iron represents the Roman Empire. So there is a mix of the Roman Empire with clay. Clay represents all the other mixed races. So they're going to mix into mingle. So today when you look at Europe, Europe is like this. It belonged to the Roman Empire predominantly, but now it's all mixed. It's all loosely held. There's a mix of what was belonging to the Roman Empire with all the other peoples. So it's a loosely held region, iron and clay. From there will come 10 leaders, 10 toes. You'll see later on here in Daniel 2, it's referred to as 10 toes. In other places, the same is referred to as 10 horns or 10 kings. You'll see this later. But the 10 toes, right now we're looking at it, 10 toes. And then he says, in the days of these kings, verse 44, interesting, now he's giving us a clue about the timing. In the days of these kings, when these 10 leaders are rising from this region, that is loosely held as a mix of iron and clay, in the days of these kings, something is going to happen. A rock from heaven is going to strike. That means there's going to be an invasion of this heavenly kingdom. And it is going to overpower all previously held kingdoms and he says God himself will set up his kingdom on the earth. That is the kingdom of the Messiah. I know it's supposed to be a break time. So let me pause here and just think about this and we will come back to and just continue this and take up any questions. So 10 minutes, we'll be back. We'll continue with this. Thank you.