Well, howdy is Ashley Chase here, the executive director of Real Faith Ministries, which I get to run with my parents' pastor Mark and Grace.

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I'm super excited. New decade, new year. Let's open a new book of the Bible.

Amen. If you've got a Bible, go to the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. And as you are finding your place in God's Word, let me just remind you, I don't know if you are aware of this. It's an election year.

Is anyone aware of this? Spoiler alert. It's going to get real noisy in the news. There's going to be a lot of conflict.

People are going to freak out and here's what's going to happen. Number one, people will be fixated and focused upon that which is seen.

I want to go behind that and beyond that through the book of Daniel to show you that which is unseen.

Behind the world that we see is a world that God rules and reigns. There is a reality in the presence of God with angelic beings that are just Israel as the world in which we live as human beings.

Daniel is going to reveal all of that to give you hope and to give you courage so that you keep your faith in a world that's lost its mind.

Number two, what's going to happen during this election cycle? People will be pulled, particularly believers, to veer toward the right or toward the left.

Some of you are feeling that tension. Let me say that my whole prayer and goal is in opening Daniel not to pull you left or right, but to pull you up.

To allow you to see all of human history and nations and kings and kingdoms and elections and politicians and decisions from the perspective of Jesus Christ, king of kings, Lord of lords, so you can live your life, kingdom, down.

That's exactly what we are doing with this series. Now to set the backdrop, you will, as we are in, Daniel, learn a lot about a place called Babylon.

You know it's a bad place when the Rolling Stones name an album after it. That's how you know it's a bad place, right?

What happens in Babylon is recorded in Daniel, and I need you to see Babylon as two things, and this is one of the interpretive keys and clues to the book of Daniel.

Daniel is an ancient story about a man who is in an ancient culture and nation called Babylon, but behind Babylon is a spirit.

A demonic counterfeit to the kingdom of God. The storyline of the Bible is that whatever God creates Satan counterfeits.

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