Here is Daniel's prayer for the restoration of Jerusalem, and the vision of seventy 'sevens' and how, by the traditional evangelical view, the prophet's eyes are lifted to Calvary and Christ's six accomplishments there.

How the prophet's prayers, longing for knowledge, and self-abasement before God, are rewarded by the most detailed prophecy of future events in the Bible. Here also is insight into the unseen spiritual warfare involving a principal demon and the victorious Saviour.

This astonishing chapter falls into three parts: first, detailed prophecy of events up to 175BC (all fulfilled and here summarised); then the tyranny of Antiochus toward Palestine; then the end-times acts of Antichrist, now being fulfilled before our eyes in church and state.

Here is the climax of persecution of the church by Antichrist, cut short by the return of Christ. We look at the church militant, the future glory, and the significance of the symbolic time to the end, with the encouragements and lessons for the church.