Now
that I’m beginning to grasp the significance of various things being sealed
with God’s number seven, I find myself growing in my awe and wonder at the
sovereignty of God over all the things his people could ever face in life and
in death. No matter what we go through, if it is sealed with “7”, it means it will turn out the way
God’s plans and purposes have ordained its completion. This is why we do not
live by sight of what the enemies of God do, but by faith in what God says.[3]
One
thing that struck me this morning is that the SEVEN of God is a seven of LOVE.
The seven is not merely emphasizing God’s SOVEREIGNTY, but it is emphasizing GOD’S
sovereignty. That means it is the sovereignty of the God revealed in Scripture.
It is the sovereignty of all that God is in every way he is.
God’s
servants can rejoice in our suffering, not because we are right and our opponents
are wrong, but because God is sovereignly working out his loving plans to bring
all his people into the likeness of his Son.
Instead
of looking at what we see people getting away with; we look to God who will do
a complete 7 of everything. We wait for
Jesus because he is not only watching over us, but also carrying out what must
soon take place.[4] God is not idle, as though he does not know how to handle our
situation; he is working for his glory and honor and praise so that his
children have every reason to rejoice in him.
Somehow,
this led me to the book of Daniel. I have been troubled by the apparent
connections between the prophecies in Daniel and Revelation because I have not
had any confidence-building thoughts about what to do with them. However, God
had something much more edifying in mind for me and so brought these two
witnesses together in a very uplifting testimony to my heart.
I
suspect that the most well-known segment of the book of Daniel is about Daniel
and the lions’ den. As I looked this up in Daniel 6, I was amazed to discover
that the connection between Daniel and Revelation was very clearly staring me in
the face. Daniel was going through a period of great trouble, as he was part of
the utter defeat of his people, and their experience of captivity. Today we
would call Daniel a Prisoner of War.
Daniel
was now in the difficult situation of being a POW in a land that worshipped
idols while he was devoted to worshiping Yahweh, the Creator of all things. To
continue worshiping God in such a nation was literally life threatening, just
as is later described in Revelation. Political leaders actually conspired
against him, hoping to have him executed for his worship of God. This is also a
strong theme in Revelation. When Daniel was thrown to the lions, he experienced
the kind of situation that Revelation refers to as the work of that terrible
roaring lion[5], also known as the red dragon[6], who is the constant enemy of God’s children.
When
Daniel escapes the Lions’ den without harm, it is not a declaration that God
always rescues his children from physical harm, or even death. It is a living
illustration of God’s 7, his
sovereign lordship over every government, every King, every edict, even a law
as binding as one made by the “Medes and Persians”.[7] He made Daniel a testimony to God’s deliverance so that every
generation of believers, including all those who read of such similar perils in
the Revelation, would remember that God is sovereign over all things no matter
what they look like.
It
is our appreciation of God’s sovereign purposes that enables us to understand
that our brother James could glorify God when he was put to death by the sword,[8] and Peter could glorify God when he was miraculously delivered out
of jail.[9] The same picture is replayed further along in church history when
John Hus was burned at the stake in 1415 because he worked to get the Bible
into the common language of the people, while, a hundred years later, Martin
Luther’s work of getting Bibles into the hands of the people was a major
contributor to the Protestant Reformation. What is clear throughout Scripture
is that God’s children can glorify our Father in both life and death.
All
this brought me to the realization that the number 7 in Revelation, first given to us in reference to the “seven
churches”,[10] also sealed the experience that Daniel was going through. The book
of Daniel takes place during what is called “the
captivity,” and the captivity has a number on it. It is the number 7!
11 This whole land shall become a
ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy
years. 12 Then
after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that
nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste. (Jeremiah 25)
God
decreed that the captivity would be marked by a 7. God works in sevens because it is his number. The captivity
would be 70 years because it would be completed according to God’s timeframe.
It would not be a Babylonian King who determined when he would release Israel
from their captivity. Neither would it be the Israelites deciding when their
discipline was over. The captivity would last as long and short as God said because
it was serving God’s purposes.
The
book of Daniel was written in the midst of a season of great tribulation that
had God’s seal on it. It was sealed with his 7 in order to radiate hope to his disciplined people that it would
end precisely at the moment God had determined it would be complete. Daniel
enduring faithfully through this season of tribulation is exactly the way we
need to walk through the kinds of experiences described in Revelation. God is
sovereign over everything that is happening, so we put our faith in him and his
sovereignty over all that is taking place in the world.
Daniels’
example is not primarily about God rescuing him from the lions. It is about his
faith in God that enabled him to continue publicly worshiping his heavenly
Father even while he knew it could end in death. Right now, there are servants
of Jesus Christ who are being put in prison camps, disowned by their families,
living under the constant threat of violence from extreme religious groups, and
even being put to death. At the same time, there are servants of Jesus Christ
who are publicly declaring Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior without immediate
threat to their lives or their livelihoods.
The
point is that, “For to me to live is Christ, and
to die is gain.”[11]
If we live, we must live to the glory of Jesus Christ. If we are in danger of
dying because we make Jesus Christ known, that is gain because we will be
present with the Savior we love, which, Paul said, “is far better.”[12]
Because the
church is sealed with God’s 7, every
child of God can confidently live for Christ no matter how the red dragon roars
at us to scare us into silence. Whether we glorify God in life or in death is
part of God’s sovereign 7. Paul gave
us such a good example because he glorified our Lord and Savior in his life, in
his suffering, and in his death. Why? Because, he said, “…I am not ashamed, for I know
whom I have believed, and I am
convinced that he is able to
guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me.”[13]
Knowing “whom” we have believed, means the One True God
revealed in the Bible. Knowing this God means that we will trust him to look
after us as we do all he has entrusted to us.
© 2012 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, Canada, V1K
1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
[1]
Genesis 2:1-3
[2]
Revelation 21:9
[3]
Romans 10:17
[4]
Revelation 1:1
[5]
I Peter 5:8
[6]
Revelation 12
[7]
Daniel 6:8
[8]
Acts 12:2
[9]
Acts 12:6-19
[10]
Revelation 1:4
[11]
Philippians 1:21
[12]
Philippians 1:23
[13]
II Timothy 1:12
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