Objection: Daniel Got a Vision from God and Immediately Fainted and Got Sick

Daniel 8:27:
And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king’s business, and was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.

Given that so many other objections can be proved invalid, it is amusing (but not excessively so) to see the straws people will grasp at to try to disprove divine healing being for all.  In this case, the objector reasons that even a great man of faith like Daniel, even just after getting a powerful vision, could fall victim to weakness and sickness.

Getting such a revelation from God can “shake you up” in a way that has nothing to do with the devil’s brand of sickness.  Paul went blind and didn’t eat or drink for three days, but that wasn’t because the devil put sickness on him.  You can read other accounts of people who were not sick but fell over because of the power of God in the discussion Why Do People Fall Over in Healing Lines?

What does the Hebrew word for sick mean here?  It DOES mean sick in most cases, so we can’t answer the objection that way.  However, if you read Daniel’s other encounters with God, you can see that a powerful manifestation of God’s presence was physically overwhelming for him.  But that doesn’t mean that Daniel had the flu or something.  If the flu tries to get on you, you would not shrug and say, “Oh well, Daniel got sick so I guess I have to be sick too.”

Jesus certainly did not go around telling people that they had to be sick like Daniel – He went around healing all who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38).  He is the same today.  Daniel wasn’t oppressed by the devil.

If you were even to claim the verse in question as a reason for you to have to tolerate sickness, let me ask you a question – what great revelation did YOU just get from God?  (The revelation that I pray that you will get is the revelation that Jesus paid for your healing!)