The Future According to the Book of Daniel   269 

The question asks the length of time of this severe persecution of the 

Church. The Church suffers greatly in the centuries leading up to this time, 

but this particular time is the greatest suffering that the Church on earth will 

ever experience. This time of great suffering is the Final Passion of the 

Church. It begins when the Antichrist, having become one of the ten kings, 

defeats three of the other kings. One of those three kings is the king  of the 

strength,  that is, king over the last region on earth where Christianity is 

tolerated. Once he is defeated, the Church s suffering increases significantly. 

The beginning of this suffering, therefore, coincides with the start of the 

Antichrist s reign over nearly the whole world. 

This length of time is called  from evening until morning  because it is  a 

time of darkness. In other words, this is the length of time from the 

beginning of a time of darkness (the Antichrist s reign) until a time of light 

(the Return of the true Christ). The length of time is 2300 days, that is, about 

77 lunar months. (The calendar in use at that time will be the Islamic lunar 

calendar.) The length of 2300 days is also about 6 and 1/2 lunar calendar 

years. 

{8:15} But it came to pass, when I, Daniel, saw the vision and sought 

understanding that, behold, there stood in my sight something like the 

appearance of a man. 

{8:16} And I heard the voice of a man within Ulai, and he called out and 

said,  Gabriel, make this one understand the vision.  

{8:17} And he came and stood next to where I was standing, and when he 

approached, I fell on my face, trembling, and he said to me,  Understand, 

son of man, for in the time of the end the vision will be fulfilled.  

{8:18} And when he spoke to me, I fell forward onto the ground, and so he 

touched me and stood me upright. 

{8:19} And he said to me,  I will reveal to you what the future things are in 

the earlier tribulation, for the time has its end. 

The tribulation is divided into two parts, the first from A.D. 2009/2010 to 

2039/2040, the second tribulation occurs in the A.D. 2430 s. The first 

tribulation includes World War III, when the Arab forces invade and 

conquer Europe and part of Africa, and World War IV, when the allied 

nations free the occupied lands from the Arab forces. 

{8:20} The ram, which you saw to have horns, is the king of the Medes and 

Persians.