Revelation; Project complete, index, summary

reply to post by troubleshooter

Thank you for letting me know.
I look forward to seing what your reactions are when you return

This product contains no Rapture

I've argued elsewhere that the function of Revelation is to promote and encourage the "patient endurance of the saints", during a time of tribulation.
If this is the case, then any thought of the kind of "Rapture" which would remove the Church from the experience of tribulation would be completely out of place.
The whole idea runs counter to the reason for the book's existence.

I made a point of not using the word in these discussions.
In any case, there was no occasion for me to introduce the subject. I was following the text,chapter by chapter, and never come across any passage that was clearly teaching it.

The word "rapture" is borrowed from the teaching of Paul, describing the moment when "we who are alive" are "caught up" to meet Christ (1 Thessalonians ch4 vv15-17); but Paul is clearly teaching about what happens "at the Lord's coming". Which, in Revelation, means chs 19&20.

The argument for an earlier "Rapture of the church" can sometimes be a little circular.
"The Rapture takes place at the end of ch3"
How do you know?- I ask
"You must have noticed that the Church disappears from Revelation after that point. There's no mention of it."
I notice nothing of the kind, I say. I see the church in ch7, getting sealed. I see the church in ch11, worshipping around the altar and witnessing for Christ. I see the church in ch13, coming under the persecution of the Beast. How can you be so blind as to miss the presence of the church all the way through the book?
"Ah, but those people are not the church"
How do you know? -I ask.
"They can't be the church, because the church disappears at the end of ch3",
That's what I mean by "circular".

The "Rapture" teaching is unhelpful,because it distracts the church from settling down for the long haul of "patient endurance".
If it's combined with the practice of date-calculation, and the event fails to take place on the expected date, then it also becomes a faith-killer.
Its a teaching which offers the short-term excitement of anticipation, but the excitement comes at a cost.

reply to post by DISRAELI
I would like to thank you for your hard and enduring work ,it must have been a challenge, it is very nice work easy to fallow. i will be reading this at least once a day, For i did have doubts, but now i know, thank you for lighting the torch, so i could see once again, the light.

reply to post by bekod

Thank you for those encouraging comments.
If it's able to help other people, then the work is definitely worthwhile.

Thank you again for your hard work, diligent research and thoughtful reflection, my friend. Your index thread will be a favourite of mine for a long time to come.

I agree with you on the likelihood of Rapture, and the continued presence of the Church during the time of tribulation -- the Two Witnesses are a clear indication that the work of the faithful is not done until the very end.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
-- 2 Peter 3:9

He'll stick with us until the end, and he'll want us to do the same.

reply to post by adjensen

Thank you for that comment.
And you draw attention to that word "patient" again- this time, patience on God's part, as the epistle quote points out.

reply to post by adjensen

Further to my first response; I can't help recalling, in this context, 2 Timothy ch2 vv12-13;
"If we endure, we shall also reign with him;"
But if we have shortcomings- "He remains faithful"- PISTOS MENEI- "for he cannot deny himself"

Similarly, Mark ch13 v13 remarks;
"He who endures to the end will be saved".
Matthew places this comment earlier in the life of Jesus, in Matthew ch10 v17.

And also, curiously, it is exactly the same verb in 1 Corinthians ch13 v7, where it is said that it is Love which "endures all things".
The implication is that love- including the love of God- would be an essential ingredient for spiritual survival in a time of persecution.

In relation to "faithfulness", interms of "reliability";

In ch3 v14, Jesus is called the "faithful and true witness", and also the "Amen".
Paul has a comment which is very relevant to that.
On the subject of not vacillating in his plans, he observes that his word to them has been definite, "as surely as God is faithful". For, similarly, Jesus Christ is not vacillating;
"In him, it os always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why we utter the Amen through him, to the glory of God"- 2 Corinthians ch1 vv17-20

My critics

"Those who beset him round
With dismal stories,
Do but themselves confound;
His strength the more is."

While I've been writing a series of threads on Revelation, I found particular encouragement from the criticism coming in from non-believers. It made me feel I was on the right track.

Obviously many unbelievers are simply uninterested in religious matters. This being ATS, they often feel the need to write in and say so.
Thus, on the subject of Satan falling from heaven, Saabacura observed;

Who gives a rat's A* wheter he fell from the heaves or the sky...

Since the subject held no interest for them, they felt that work on it was a waste of time.

Baloney wrote
You are looking WAY too much into this all...

vjr1113 wrote;
I've got a question, do you think your over-thinking...

While Prevenge observed;

IMO your efforts are complex, yet fruitless these mysteries of revelation are going over your head...

And jontap

you put a lot of work into this, but honestly it's all just fairy tales, hate to say it but it is

That was another comon theme, viz.questioning the value of the material I was using;
Thus MessiahToothFairy;

Sorry to have to reveal this to you, but your source of reference is a fictional book that is simply a copy of predated stories...

MessiahToothFairy has since been banned.

Similarly aorAki;

Seriously, it's a fable, a made-up story...Oh, what backward people we are, relying on tales from the dim mist to guide us

And LilDudeissocool;

I hate to break it to ya, but Revelation is all kite crypt

Another one who "hates to do it"? What is this irresistable force that drives people to do things against their will?
In the case of DarkRedSoda, it was obviously inspiring the writing to something verging on poetry;

Woe to the paranoid superstitious commoners whom [sic] know no better than to entertain superstitions of fiction as if they are non-fiction...
Woe to you; for your lack of study you are rewarded with fear and false hopes...

Excuse me, "lack of study"? I've just been told that I was doing too much study. Make up your minds, guys.

They began giving me advice;

Reevster wrote;
Give it up already with all this religious baloney

RobertAntonWeishaupt wrote;
Put aside the Bible and start looking at the reality of the world around you

EnactedEgoTrip wrote;
Please do yourself a favour and stop believing in something so literally that you cannot prove, and has been proven incorrect time and time again.

EnactedEgoTrip has since been banned.

Yes, I get the message "Give it up. Stop doing it"
When I showed no sign of taking this advice, a note of exasperation began to creep in.
Thus Zamini;

Enjoy the little pit you have dug for yourselves while it lasts, knowledge fills any gap, and the world is moving towards dismissing your royal fairy tales...
ATS is a place for denying ignorance...Right now, your ignorance is being denied.

Sorry, that mantra did not work. I'm still here.

Most touching of all was the plaintive query of dyingsun;

Are you done yet?...All you actually do here is scare people who believe in what you say

This objection needs to be placed in context. This was in November, at the height of the great frenzy of Nuclear War/False flag speculation. The forum was being swamped with suggestions that we were all to be blown to radioactive particles in a couple of days. And in the middle of all this- I was supposed to be the one who was "causing fear"?
dyingsun seems to have registered for the purpose of making that complaint, and hasn't been seen since.

All the above have been very helpful to me in maintaining my determination to continue, and I'm very grateful to them.




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Severest critic

But my severest critic has undoubtedly been Michael Cecil, the one who wrote;

I must say that I am quite amazed at your ability to talk at such length about things of which you have absolutely no Knowledge whatsoever.

Yet, in some respects, he has a high opinion of me;

He is very,very, very, very, clever.
Seriously.
I fully suspect he has additional thousands ("their name is legion") of the thoughts of the "thinker" about the Revelation of John.
But does he have any Knowledge of the Revelation of John?
Of course not.
But if you want to entertain yourself with the thoughts of the "fallen" consciousness about the Revelation of John, have at it.

I was so taken by this grudging and evidently sincere endorsement that I was tempted to incorporate it into my signature.

Michael and I agree that my approach involves "thinking", and that his approach does not.
As a result, he dismisses my conclusions as nonsensical;

I would suggest that he try reciting these things in a monologue on Saturday Night Live.
I would probably be able to laugh enough for the entire audience...
Such nonsense is merely representative of the kind of nonsense that has been vomited up by the "beast of the earth" consciousness of the "thinker" for almost 2000 years now.

He also objects that "thinking" does not produce beauty;

There is no poetry, no music, no geometry, and no beauty in your interpretation

I questioned this claim. I suggested that the concepts themselves were beautiful. Yes, indeed. Did not Keats write;
"Beauty is truth, truth Beauty; that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know".
But the appeal to Keats had no effect. I suspect that Michael has more affinity with Shelley.

But the real key to the difference between us is this question of Knowledge.

In order to understand the Revelation of John, one must have- duh- a revelation

Anyone who attempts to "interpret" or "explain" the Revelation of John is claiming to have received a revelation

I don't agree that this is necessary.
If I set out to interpret a speech in one of Shakespeare's plays, I'm not claiming to be Shakespeare, I'm not even claiming to be a playwright. I'm just claiming to be a student of language.
Similarly, Revelation is a deliberate attempt to communicate in written language. So explaining the book involves trying to grasp what the writer means by the words he's using. It's an exercise in understanding language.

So I made no claim to have received a "revelation" of my own.
Whereas Michael told me, at one point, that he was the "only individual in human history" qualified to speak on these matters.
There were times when he seemd to identify me as the chief opponent in his cosmic drama.

I understand your efforts at providing your "explanation" as determinedly and specifically opposed to my efforts to diminish the loss of life that will result from people following the thoughts of the "thinker" rather than the Revelation

Hardly "specifically". I started this project long before you had arrived on the scene.

But I had no idea just how personally he was taking things, until this point was reached;

The Revelation of John has been my constant companion for almost 36 years...
It is almost as if the Revelation of John is my wife.
And Disraeli is touching my wife.
My goal here is not just to destroy this thread.
My goal is to stop Disraeli from touching my wife.
You will probably not understand what I mean by this unless you are married

This is the kind of difference that cannot be bridged easily.
Obviously I cannot accept the claim to exclusive rights on this book.
But I have carried through this project in faith and in good faith, and I believe that the work has been honourable.

"This topic does not belong on ATS"

Obviously, I've chosen to set out a series of discussions on the book Revelation on this forum.
Therefore, I need to defend this action against the above objection, which was made by one of the critics already named.

In fact, the case can be made very easily.
I begin with a definition.
This is the rubric found at the top of each thread, describing the scope of the "Prophecies and predictions" forum.

"This forum is for the discussion of published clairvoyant predictions from contemporary psychics and "prophets" as well as ancient prophecies and prognostications".

From this definition, the following argument can be made, with impeccable syllogistic reasoning;

1) There is a place on ATS for the discussion of ancient prophecies.
2) BUT Revelation is an "ancient prophecy".
3) THEREFORE there is a place on ATS for the discussion of Revelation. QED

(Incidentally, my impression of the last twelve months has been that there has been a decline in the discussion of the "ancient prophecies" element of this category. Not just Revelation, but also the "rival" prophecies like Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce. Is this, I wonder, because a younger generation are less interested in people writing before their own time? But I can't help noticing that the preferred sources now seem to be film scripts, TV scripts, cartoons, products of the music industry, anything on Youtube- in short, anything that doesn't involve much reading. If this is the case, it looks like a disturbing trend for the future of the world, because a generation which reduces its reading is also reducing both the quantity and the variety of the information which it is capable of absorbing.)



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Originally posted by DISRAELI
Severest critic

But my severest critic has undoubtedly been Michael Cecil

Sometimes I miss crazy old Michael -- I periodically run by his blog to make sure that he's still alive, and I bought a copy of his book (how could I not? He specifically prohibited me from doing so! ) but have only been able to get through a bit of it thus far (it's not unlike his posts here, although a little less rambling and angry.)

I was suitably creeped out by his "DISRAELI is touching my wife" line, though. *shivers*

Thankfully, the interpretation of scripture is open to all thoughtful people, not just those who obsess on it for three decades, seemingly to the point of insanity.

reply to post by adjensen

He may have stopped posting, but I don't think he's gone away as a reader.
He was "on ATS now" only last night, according to one of my old threads.
I wonder what he's looking for.

Holy crap Dis...must've taken you a long time to do this.
I haven't read it all yet, it's gonna take some time.
I would like to thank you in advance for your dedication and commitment to this subject. Living in the times that we do, teachers like you are welcomed. Have you done or considered doing this with the book of Daniel? Daniel 11:33-35 reminds me of you!

Originally posted by cloudwatcher
Living in the times that we do, teachers like you are welcomed. Have you done or considered doing this with the book of Daniel? Daniel 11:33-35 reminds me of you!

Thank you for those comments.
I'm the son of two teachers, and the grandson of another one, so I feel it's in my "bloodline". Helping somebody to understand something is always a very satisfying feelimg.
As far as the indices themselves are concerned, the actual typing took more time than the preparation.
The real work was in the forty weeks of doing the original topics.

I'm not sure what happens next. I think the "calling" was more to the interpetation of Revelation, which has been on my mind for a couple of decades, than Daniel. If I was doing Daniel, I would have to find an explanation for "one thousand, two hundred and ninety days", and I still haven't worked that out yet.

All right, what went wrong?

I mean, specifically, what went wrong with the thread "4 Horsemen-Running".
Was it the title?

The two threads on this theme were originally going to be called "4 Horsemen-Why?" and "4 Horsemen-How?", which accurately reflected the relationship between them.
The first was to be about God's motives for sending these events.
The second was to be about how the events would be experienced, what they would look like..
Then, at the last minute, the second title was changed to "Running"- not exactly "sensational", but trying to convey some sense that it was a dynamic episode.
The result- by one standard of measurement, the least popular thread in the whole series.
Was it that parts of the argument were running against currently popular views? But that's happened in a number of these discussions, without having quite the same effect.

I noticed that another member with a different view of things went off to the Theology forum to start a thread of his own, and I saw the irony of the fact that he copied my title for the purpose. It had slightly more success, but not much.

For indexing purposes, my own version of "4 Horsemen-running" has reverted back to its original name.
I still think it's a good thread. Doesn't deserve to be the neglected child of the family.

"Must soon take place"

The first verse of Revelation says that it has been sent by Jesus to show his servsnts "what must soon take place".
How is this statement to be reconciled with the fact that two thousand years have elapsed?
I briefly suggested an answer at the beginning of "Fear Not".
It rests on the assumption that John is addresing two audiences at the same tme, namely the church of his own time and a church of the future.
Each would be experiencing their own crisis of persecution, and God's promise of intervention (which is the function of this book) would need to be fulfilled twice.
So in one sense "soon" relates to the promise of intervention for the church of John's time, and that promise, arguably, has been fulfilled.
Whereas, in other sense, it relates to a crisis which has not yet begun, so the promise does not yet fall due.

Tree of Life

It should be noted that I have my own, idiosyncratic, understanding of the "Tree of Life" theme, which appears in ch2 and ch22.

The two trees in the Garden, the "tree of the Knowledge of good and evil" and the "tree of Life".
Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from the tree of Knowledge.
But they were not forbidden to eat from the tree of Life.
The obvious implication is that they did eat from the tree of Life (what would have stopped them?).
Then, when they fell into sin, God removed them from the Garden with the express purpose that they should not [continue to] eat its fruit.
(This is not the usual understanding of the "tree of Life", but the usual understanding creates logical tangles which this one avoids)
So they were denied access to Life and became subject to death- they were demoted, as it were, from "Life" to "life".

So the promise of the fruit of the tree (which is fulfilled in ch22) is an offer to restore what was lost to them by sin.