Forever Changed!



Daniel 7:15-28
http://www.esvbible.org/Daniel 7:15-28

Daniel now approaches one of the angels who have been witnessing the vision of the 4 (actually 5) kingdoms along with him, asking for an interpretation. Angels are also used to help John understand the visions he has of the End Times.  (See Rev 1:1; 10:5–11; 17:1–18; 21:9–22:6). We’ve already discussed most of the interpretations of Daniel’s vision already, so we will instead focus on Daniel’s reactions to this remarkable scene.

He says of himself, “I was greatly troubled in spirit” and “the visions . . . disturbed me.” Place yourself into Daniel’s shoes. Should the Lord grant such an experience to you chances are it would be quite disturbing. Just the appearance of one angel would be enough to undo me for a long time. And in fact, we are such a cynical people that we might even try and explain such an event away entirely and most certainly if we told anyone, they would not believe us and may even take action to get us some “professional help.” At least Daniel does not doubt that his visionary experience is real. At the end of the chapter, we learn what Daniel has decided to do about his vision. “Here is the end of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts greatly alarmed me, and my color changed, but I kept the matter in my heart.” He keeps the entire thing to himself, although he has a definite physical reaction (“I was deeply troubled . . .my face turned pale”). An encounter with the living God is life changing – always. Instead of assuming we are a little crazy, maybe it would serve us well to look for those times when God enters our lives and stirs things up a bit. Our face may “pale” as well, but we will be forever changed and that is rather exciting!

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