By Harold C. Perdue
Everyone likes a winner. Think about any sport. A favorite team will pack the stands for every game when the team is winning. Let them go into a slump, and the fans begin to stay away.
The Dallas Cowboys are one example. A few years ago Cowboy tickets were at a premium. So few were sold the past season that almost no games were locally televised. Then, remember the Houston Oilers. A few years ago, a handful of diehard fans echoed in the Astrodome. With a couple of winning seasons, the crowd noise is so great that opposing teams are confused. Everyone likes a winner.
The players on those winning teams are the objects of pictures and articles, while the players on losing teams are seldom noticed. Everyone likes a winner. We like winners not only in sports, but in most every area.
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Reading
Daniel 7:14, I was struck by how much we all like to go with the winners. Listen to the prophet's words:
his dominion is an everlasting dominion
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.
(
Daniel 7:14 RSV)
The Book of Daniel was written in a time of hopelessness, directed to a people who had been defeated in war and exiled from their homeland. As realistic as Daniel is, this book is not one of doom and gloom. It is a paean of hope. Daniel was born some six hundred years before the time of Christ. All around the little land of Palestine great world powers, with armies, weapons, and aggressive dreams, marched across the earth and continually threatened every nation.
Nebuchadnezzar became the king of Babylon and overthrew the Assyrian empire. Then he marched on Jerusalem. The Babylonians defeated the Hebrews as they defeated the Egyptians in 605 BC. Daniel was one of those taken captive to Babylon. In that foreign capital, the man of God became a government servant for his captors, and a prophet for his own people.
If there ever was a time and a circumstance that should have defeated the hopes and dreams of a people, it was the time of Daniel. Yet, the message of Daniel is a word of hope, a word of encouragement, a dream of a winning future. Daniel saw that the Time of the Gentiles was not permanent. Although the Hebrews would be dominated for years by foreign powers, Daniel had faith that God would at some future time establish a new everlasting kingdom.
For Daniel, the God who directs the forces of history had not deserted His people.
Daniel 7:14 is the concluding verse in a description of God's new world. His vision of a Messiah, coming to bring a new kingdom to reality, is the picture of a winner. God is a winner who will not fade from sight, whose kingdom will never be destroyed.
What a word of hope for us! Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of that ancient dream. His kingdom shall prevail! The community of those who trust in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ shall not be destroyed, and it shall not pass away.