From start to finish, the book of Revelation is addressed to the “seven churches of Asia,” and they do not fade from the picture in the later sections of the book. While it may include a larger audience, Revelation is first and foremost a message for those seven assemblies, and the significance of its visions cannot be understood apart from them.
Continue reading “Revelation’s Recipients”
In the third chapter of Revelation, Jesus promises to “keep” overcoming saints in the city of Philadelphia “from the hour of trial” that is coming upon the “inhabitants of the earth.” A comparison with similar passages demonstrates that this “hour” refers to the time of judgment when those whose names “are not written in the Lamb’s book of life” experience the “second death” in the “Lake of Fire.”
Continue reading “Kept from the Hour”
Final judgment scenes occur several times in Revelation. The sevenfold series of “seals,” “trumpets,” and “bowls of wrath” all culminate in the final judgment, and each time it is punctuated by terrestrial and celestial upheaval. And these three “judgments” are in addition to the one that occurs as the “Great White Throne of Judgement” when the wicked are cast into the “lake of fire.”
Continue reading “Multiple Judgments?”
In the book of Daniel, on the eve of the city’s conquest by the “Medes and Persians,” King Belshazzar gave a feast “for a thousand of his lords” and “tasted wine” from the sacred vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had looted from the Temple in Jerusalem, thereby disrespecting the God of Israel while also praising the false gods of Babylon.
Continue reading “Babylon Then and Now”
Insights into Bible Prophecy 