When Daniel receives his personal dreams about the fourth Gentile kingdom that precedes the Divine Kingdom,
he was around age 68 - 70 years old. He was at least 80 years old, around the year 538 B.C., when he learns
of what would be known as "Daniel's 70th week" (Dan 9:20-27).
By this time, he served under the first two Gentile kingdoms: the Neo-Babylonian and the Medo-Persian. As the
only unrecognizable empire prophesized by Daniel, the fourth Gentile empire was portrayed as militarily strong
and not uniformly united (Dan 2:40-43). An angel would inform
Daniel that this kingdom was different from all other kingdoms, devour the whole earth, and crush it
(Dan 7:23).
In Revelation, the apostle John describes the Gentile kingdom that precedes the Divine Kingdom
as "Babylon the Great, The Mother of Harlots, and Of the Abominations of the Earth"
(Rev 17:5). This identification of the fourth empire is
confirmed by the loud voices in heaven rejoicing when the seventh trumpet sounds, "the kingdom of the world has
become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ" (Rev 11:15).
What the angel describes figuratively as "Babylon," the apostle John would describe in the
words of Jesus as “the world."
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love
of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and
the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also
its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
(1 John 2:15-17)
The fourth Gentile Kingdom, Babylon the Great, represents the world, a secular culture that
denies the existence of God and sin; it is a life motivated by pride and power derived by human achievement.
To learn more about this, see the article
The Four Kingdoms Before the Divine Kingdom