I had a privilege to be led by the Spirit to have an evening stroll with Prophet Daniel. After I have walked through the first chapter of the Book of Daniel, I began to understand why Prophet Daniel was able to see the end time events though he was from the dispensation that was before the cross. As I walk again through this spiritual memory lane, let me show you the insight that I have been blessed with…
Daniel
1:1 ~ In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
1:2 ~ And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god. And he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.
This Jerusalem can represent our church or even every individual because we are all the temple of the Holy Spirit. This Jerusalem is a place where the Lord gathers us together corporately and imparts us with His gospel of grace. As we all have been enlightened by the Lord and have been set apart by the message of grace, we are in this world and yet, not of this world.
Though we are in this world and yet not of this world, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is here all the time to besiege our Jerusalem. The meaning of this word “besiege” is to surround a place with arm forces in order to capture it or force it to surrender. As such, king Nebu is here, constantly throwing us with the Babylonian teaching which is the teaching of the mixture of grace and law. As he has some of the vessels of the house of God, this king Nebu is able to mix the teaching that is from the Lord with the teaching from the world. He will also besiege our Jerusalem with the teaching based on worldly value, humanistic value and the teaching from the Tree of the knowledge of the Good and Evil. This is a coalition party that appears in the first part of the verse from John 10:10… The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy.
Daniel
1:3 ~ And the king spoke to Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs that he should bring some of the sons of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the rulers;
As I walked on this verse, I discovered that those who help king Nebu to dispense Babylonian teaching, teaching with a mixture of grace and law, teaching that is full of human sentiment, worldly value and from the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, king Nebu gave them a very beautiful title call the “master of his eunuchs”. Hmmm … What a title! I would never want to be a eunuch! Praise the Lord, as I look at the ministry that my Lord has given me - ministry of dispensing pure grace, my King of kings, Lord or lords, crowned me with a title called royal priesthood. What a contrast between these two kingdom!
Daniel
1:5 ~ And the king gave them the portion of a day in its day from the king's food, and the wine which he drank, even to rear them three years, so that at their end they might stand before the king.
This was a dark avenue... as I stepped onto verse 5, we can see that the initial motive of teaching Daniel and gang with the language of the Chaldeans had turned into a spiritual conspiracy. King Nebu had instructed the master of his eunuchs to serve them with king’s food and wine…Hmmm… what a spiritual conspiracy.
In our Lord’s Table, He serves us with bread and wine. Our Lord serves us with the food that is from His finished work at the Cross – His own broken body and His blood. His finished work was the end of the old and beginning of the new. Our Lord’s Table ushers us into the New Covenant where the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Our Lord’s Table ushers us into His righteousness which is through the path of faith not by work because everything had been finished by Him at the Cross. He leads people into rest.
As king Nebu did not know the mystery of the cross that had defeated him completely, for if he would have known, he would not have sent our Lord to die on that Cross. As such, he can only serves the food and wine that is before the cross full of rituals and religion ceremonies. His table is full of condemnation that is based on do and don’t, right or wrong which misleads people to end up working for their faith. Therefore, King Nebu’s table ushers people into the path of righteous by work with performance orientated doctrine.
Daniel
1:8 ~ But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the king's food, nor with the wine which he drank. So he asked permission of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
As I was in this avenue, although there were four young men among them, I overheard only Daniel resolved not to defile himself with king Nebu’s food and wine. At this instant, I was prompted to realize that as we have all been enlightened by the Lord with the pure gospel of grace, we too, need to make a decision not to be defiled by king Nebu’s food and wine. Making such a decision is a very personal thing as when we came to our Lord while we were still sinner, we too, have to make a personal decision to accept Him as our Saviour. The Spirit also enlightened me to realize that towards the end of this book, we could find only Daniel was able to prophecy the end time events but not his friends. In a few avenues down this verse, we will be able to see clearly why Prophet Daniel was able to see the end time events under his desperation.
Daniel
1:9 ~ Now God had caused the official to show favour and mercy to Daniel.
In this verse, I witnessed the Lord granting Prophet Daniel favour and mercy in respond to his resolution. We all know very well that favour is grace. As for mercy, the Spirit prompted me to understand that the word mercy is written here because Daniel was under the dispensation of law whereby Christ had not been glorified yet. If this is in our dispensation, this mercy would be replaced by righteousness because of the Cross. This insight immediately reminded me of my favourite verse from Romans 5:17… Wow...!
Daniel
1:12 ~ I beg you, try your servants ten days. And let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink.
With the favour (abundant provision of grace) and mercy (gift of righteousness) from God, Daniel asked for vegetable to eat and water to drink instead of king’s food and wine. Wow… this is the most beautiful avenue of all…
In the original Greek, vegetable means seed, while water symbolized the Holy Spirit. Seed by itself is the final stage of a plant life and a seed is a finished product. A picture like this immediately reflects a seed as to the finished work of Christ. If we do not plant this seed, a seed remains a seed. If we plant it, it will grow into a tree and bears multitude of fruits. Likewise, if we do not depend on the Finished Work of Christ, our spiritual life can never grow and not to mention bearing fruits of the Spirit stated in the Book of Galatians.
This is the reason why this avenue is so beautiful… The Spirit began to show me the parable of a sower in this avenue. We could never sow a seed on the stones (law), because when it came up it became dry and dead because it had no water (Holy Spirit is not a witness of law). We could not sow the seed by the path and a path is a picture of mixture of soil (grace) and stone (law) which means Babylonian teaching. The seed was crushed under foot, and was taken by the birds of the air and ate it up. We could not sow the seed among the thorns (worldly and humanistic teaching) because when the thorns came up with it and it had no room for growth.
A seed is to be sowed into good soil (grace), with a lot of moisture (witness by the Holy Spirit) and with no stone (law) but full of "organic" fertilizer called dung. This dung is our self-righteousness as defined by Apostle Paul in the Book of Philippians. Likewise, this revelation reflects the finished work of Christ can only work well in the environment of pure grace, with the anointing of the Holy Spirit where believers have already counted their self-righteousness as dung.
With the above insight, I was amazed to realize that during Prophet Daniel’s dispensation, he was actually feeding on the Finished Work of Christ with the anointing from the Holy Spirit and under the favor and mercy of God. No wonder He was a great prophet who could see the end time events! I began to realize that as for our dispensation of grace, when we look back and fix our eyes on the Finished Work of Christ, we too can understand the mystery that was hidden before the foundation of the world!
It was a wonderful spiritual stroll... I have discovered the key to unveil the mystery that was hidden before the foundation of the world. This key is the finished work of Christ… and only His Finished Work works because even in the Old Covenant, the Finished Work of Christ applied to father Abraham's insight when he offered up Issac at Mount Moriah and now through Prophet Danial's resolution.
We who are under this grace dispensation, have to resolve to partake nothing but His Finished Work!
