Pages

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Today in Revelation ~ "Daniel and Revelation: Two Witnesses"


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

 

No comments:

Post a Comment