“And now I will show you the truth. Behold, three more kings shall arise in Persia, and a fourth shall be far richer than all of them. And when he has become strong through his riches, he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece. Then a mighty king shall arise, who shall rule with great dominion and do as he wills. And as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom shall be broken and divided toward the four winds of heaven, but not to his posterity, nor according to the authority with which he ruled, for his kingdom shall be plucked up and go to others besides these. – Daniel 11:2-4

The goal of this devotional is not to get into the nitty gritty of the prophecy details. It is to see the main threads that run through the whole of this book to get to the main idea Daniel has for his readers and what he expects them to do about it – the intended response. From that, we can learn how we should understand this book in our context and how we can best respond to its message.

Again, though in much greater detail, we see the rising of evil kings and them facing off against other evil kings and rulers with the faithful to God seemingly at the bottom of the food chain of life. The end of the chapter (verse 45) finally shows that the worst of the evil kings will meet his end. So we see throughout all of Daniel’s visions, this idea of many rising evil kings, but for them all (even the really evil one) to meet their end at the hands of the God of gods. Evil will not win in the end.

That said, a lot happens in the 45 verses of this chapter, which constitutes a lot of time. In other words, there is a lot to endure before the end. Whether you choose to read this as prophecy that relates to the kings of Daniel’s time (Medes, Persians to Rome) or as end time prophecy, the same idea runs clear; there will be a lot of evil to wade through before the King of kings reigns. Endurance is a must if we are to survive through the evil.

Whether you look at Daniel’s situation (exile), the waiting of the Israelites for the coming Messiah, or everyone since then that trusts in Jesus, we are all waiting for the end of evil and for the King of kings to come quickly and put an end to the injustice. Endurance is what is called for and the first half of the book (Daniel’s stories) set us up for that.

Daniel shows us what true faithfulness and endurance look like. He is our model, our inspiration to living a righteous life that endures until the end. It makes perfect sense that he would be the one telling us what we will have to endure. It is a good ting that we can lean on Jesus, the One who emptied Himself of His power and took on the nature of a servant as we seek to persevere through this difficult times. 2020 is a perfect microcosm of this idea of endurance. So hang on and trust the One who invented time. He will see us through.