Daniel’s Night Vision / A Pentecostal
Perspective
Daniel 7:9-14
Daniel’s life in the courts of kings began as a Hebrew
exiled from his culture and the land of his culture. The old cliché “You can take the boy out of
the country, but you cannot take the country out of the boy,” fits Daniel’s
story. He begins this journey as a teenager
and endures it well over eighty years.
At the beginning he was made to become a eunuch in the service of king
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.
Consequently, he had every right to be bitter and
resistant to his oppressors; in contrast, he took on an “excellent spirit”
(Daniel 5:12). I believe this excellent
spirit developed in Daniel under these pressures; refusing to succumb to his
present conditions, Daniel chose to honor those who had dishonored him, as he served
them with the spiritual gifts God had given him (Daniel 2:23). This lifestyle as a paradigm became his
cultic nature as he practiced the presence of God with his devotion to God in
prayer.
It is in and out of these devotions that Daniel’s spiritual
abilities came into being; it is as we live in the presence of God that His
presence lives in us. It is not a
surprise to a Pentecostal that these visions were apocalyptic in nature. We believe revelation hinges between the
scripture and divine encounters with God. Daniel’s story evidenced these two and
gives us a full panoramic view of how the presence of God practiced in the life
of a believer, invades this carnal world with a spiritual kingdom that is
covertly in control over all things.
As a result, his story reveals that He is God when
everything is going right, and He is God when everything is going wrong, and
that if we will press into His presence, His presence will press into where we
are. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done
in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
As we live in the awareness of God at the same time being
totally aware of our earthly surroundings, His world and our world come into
view as He sees it. It is in this
devotional discipline that I believe Daniel’s deep spiritual encounters through
dreams and visions took place. More
importantly, I believe this is where his holy living took place and how his
cultic values for that living were established in his actions and reactions.
In our text, the heavenly Father appears to Daniel as
the Ancient of Days. His eternal position on the throne of heaven is evident in
the middle of this vision; He is the God of our “was, is, and is to come.” His presence encompasses all that has ever
been, all that is, and all that is to be.
In other words, there is nothing that has happened, that is happening,
or ever will happen that happens outside of this place. God sees every evil and righteous event on
earth from the footstool of heaven’s throne (Isaiah 66:1).
The voice that spoke to John said, “…and I will show thee things which must be hereafter” (Revelation
4:1). He began by showing him what is consistent or constant; he too sees God
on His throne. We cannot encounter His
presence as Daniel did and as John did without experiencing a measure of the
“was,” “is,” and “is to come” in God. If
we are to have a peak into the future as Daniel did, then we must be in
fellowship with what is both constant and consistent. We must be willing to
forgive in the place of bitterness, willing to honor those who dishonor us, and
willing to be faithful to the cultic values squeezed out of relational devotion
to God.
As with Daniel, it does not matter what court we may be
standing in; Our God and our King from heaven will eventually win over all
evil, and until then, we must live our lives out of His presence. He is the eternal King with a kingdom, that
which shall never be destroyed.
