November 27, 2012
Daniel and Revelation: Two Witnesses
Last
night I went to bed troubled with the thought that the prophecies of the book
of Daniel were quite significant to understanding the prophecies of the book of
Revelation. The popular methods of handling these prophecies are totally out of
my league, so I went to sleep with a feeling of weariness about having to try
and figure out such things.
This
morning God connected the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation in quite a
different way than I imagined, and yet in the way that shows how God will
always use his word to interpret his word. What I learned was that, the
emphasis in using Daniel to interpret Revelation is not on the similarity of
some of the prophecies, but on the similarity of the experiences.
Daniel
is a beacon of hope to present day believers because it shows a real life experience
of Jesus’ servants going through the same kinds of hardships as are described
in Revelation. Daniel’s faithfulness in serving God even under threat of death
is exactly what the book of Revelation is getting at.
As
we go through Revelation and see the troubles that God’s servants will face, we
are called to look at how Daniel and others went through their trials with
exemplary faithfulness. They were not heroic. They were not different than God’s
servants can be today. They trusted God and persevered through their trials.
If
any of us are struggling through trials and can’t quite understand how the
visions and symbols of Revelation are intended to help us, look at how Daniel
endured in his trials, how he was unashamed to make his worship of God public
even while knowing it would land him in a lions’ den.
So,
if you find that your faithful obedience to Christ keeps you always aware that
you could get into trouble at a moment’s notice, the books of Daniel and
Revelation are two witnesses that God’s servants come into the full experience
of salvation by persevering until the end, whenever our end may be.
© 2012 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, Canada, V1K
1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
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