August 26, 2026
Whatever Believers Have to Endure
Whatever believers have to endure, God will not forsake them. The mighty Archangel Michael stood up for God’s people. God will always have a way for His people to survive and thrive. His people may not understand all that is transpiring, like Daniel, who did not understand what was happening. But he knew that he could trust the God of the heavens, and we can, too.
A Question Daniel Leaves Us With
Daniel did not understand everything being revealed to him. Yet Daniel 11 gives us an extraordinary picture of human conflict unfolding across generations.
Kings rise and fall. Kingdoms fight against kingdoms. Alliances are made and broken. People maneuver for power. One conflict leads to another, and events continue long beyond Daniel’s own lifetime.
As I thought about all of this conflict, I found myself wondering about a different question:
Where does all of this begin?
Daniel shows us what conflict can look like when it reaches kingdoms and nations. But centuries after Daniel, a New Testament writer asks us to look beneath the armies, rulers, and political struggles and consider where conflict begins.
His name is James.
James — Where Do Wars Begin?
James asks a striking question:
“Where do wars and fights come from among you?”
— James 4:1 NKJV
After reading Daniel 11, that question almost seems written for the lesson before us.
James points to the desires and struggles within people as the source of conflict among them.
Daniel has shown us conflict on the enormous stage of history.
James brings us back to the individual.
Daniel shows us what conflict can become.
James asks us where it begins.
And once James asks that question, we can follow it even farther back—almost to the beginning of the Bible itself.
Genesis — Before There Were Kingdoms
Long before the kings and armies of Daniel 11, there were two brothers.
Cain and Abel.
Cain became angry, and before he acted upon that anger, God spoke to him:
“Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?”
— Genesis 4:6 NKJV
God confronted what was happening within Cain before it became violence.
But Cain did not master what was growing within him.
He killed his brother.
There were no opposing kingdoms, armies, or thrones to seize, but there was the human heart in conflict.
The first murder recorded in Scripture happened within a family.
What James describes centuries later was already visible near the beginning of the biblical story: what takes place within a person can eventually become conflict between people.
And as generations multiply, conflict can grow from brother against brother to nation against nation.
By Daniel’s time, we see it written across kingdoms.
Daniel — Conflict Across Kingdoms
Now Daniel 11 looks a little different.
Behind the kings, battles, alliances, betrayals, and struggles for power are human beings.
The scale has changed dramatically since Cain and Abel.
The human heart has not.
Daniel sees conflict moving across generations and kingdoms, much of which he cannot fully understand.
Yet Daniel knows the One who stands above all of it.
He trusts the God of heaven.
And that brings us to another remarkable place in Scripture.
Because Daniel did not get to see the end of the story.
We do.
Revelation — The End Daniel Could Not See
The Bible begins with humanity losing the peace and fellowship of Eden.
Soon afterward, brother kills brother.
From there, Scripture records families divided, peoples at war, kingdoms rising and falling, and generations living with the consequences of sin.
But the Bible does not end there.
Near the end of Revelation, John hears:
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men…”
— Revelation 21:3 NKJV
God will dwell with His people.
Then comes the extraordinary promise of Revelation 21:4:
“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death…”
— Revelation 21:4 NKJV
The death that entered the human story near the beginning of Genesis does not survive the end of Revelation.
From Genesis to Revelation
There is a remarkable thread running through these passages.
Genesis shows us conflict entering the human family.
Cain’s anger becomes violence against his brother.
Daniel shows us what human conflict can become.
The struggle that once appeared between two brothers is now seen across rulers, generations, and kingdoms.
James asks us where it begins.
He takes our eyes away from the battlefield for a moment and turns them toward the human heart.
And then Revelation shows us where the story ends.
God dwells with His people.
Daniel did not understand everything he was seeing. He could not look forward and see the entire story as we can today.
But he knew enough to trust the God of heaven.
Perhaps that is one of the lessons for us as well.
We will not always understand what is happening around us. We may look at conflict in our families, our communities, our nation, or our world and wonder where it is all going.
But we have something Daniel did not have.
We can open Genesis and see where the story began.
We can stand beside Daniel and watch kingdoms rise and fall.
We can listen to James ask us to examine our own hearts.
And we can open Revelation and see where God tells us the story is going.
We may not understand everything that is transpiring.
But we know the God of the heavens.
And we can trust Him, too.
