When my youngest son Austin was in the third grade I received a notice from his school that the money in his lunch account had all been used. That really annoyed me. I had just put enough money in his account to last a long while. Yet, here is this notice that more money is needed. Is it just me or when your kids are in school you feel like an ATM machine as a parent. Anyway, here is this notice asking for yet more money. I wasn’t happy about that and I began to make up a story in my head based on a series of assumptions.
Obviously Austin had gone on some kind of a school lunch spending spree. He eats breakfast at home. Why would he eat breakfast again at school? How many cookies are the school lunch workers allowing him to purchase? I had questions that were all based on a bunch of assumptions. I decided that Austin’s foolishness needed to come to an end. I was going to get to the bottom of Austin’s lack of financial responsibility and teach him a lesson. When I asked Austin why his lunch account was out of money I didn’t ask kindly. I was annoyed, confused and already had a story in my head as to why I was right. Austin told me that there was this other student, often picked on by other students, that didn’t have enough money in his account to eat breakfast or lunch. Austin told that student that he could use his lunch account so that he could get breakfast and lunch. That was why his lunch account got low so quickly.
That was not what I expected. It is a humbling thing as a parent when you apologize to your own children. I was proud of my son, told him so, and felt horrible about all the assumptions I had made about him. I had been a real jerk. That is what assumptions often do. They turn us into jerks that cause pain and confusion.
Similar things happen when it comes to the book of Revelation. One of the most ridge assumptions about the book of Revelation is that it is a chronological roadmap of the future. The assumption is that Revelation offers a telling of a sequence. If we can figure out when these events are going to happen then we have a shot at knowing what will happen in the future. For many this is one of the assumptions about the Book of Revelation. That Revelation was written for some future people or more specifically a future group of Christians so that they might know when the end is happening. Revelation is a roadmap to the future for those that can see the roadmap clearly.
What if Revelation doesn’t want to be a roadmap to the future? What if Revelation wants to do something different? What if the questions we are bringing to the book of Revelation are simply the wrong questions? For a moment let’s take the assumed Revelation roadmap out for a test drive. Revelation chapter one tells us that John the Elder or Seer is on the island of Patmos. John tells us that Jesus makes an appearance and tells him that he has a message for the seven churches in Asia Minor. In chapters two and three we are told what the various messages are for the seven churches. In chapter four John is given a vision of heaven where he sees twenty four Elders bowing down to the “one seated on the throne” along with four living creatures calling out “‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”
In chapter five we see the “one who sits in the throne” holding a scroll. John tells us that what is happening is emotional for him. John starts to cry because nobody has been found who can open the scroll. As John is crying, one of the twenty four Elders tells John that the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah” can open the scroll. What John sees is a lamb who has been slain standing in the throne room and the place erupts in cheers. Everyone in heaven worships the lamb as well as the one who sits on the throne because they are equals. In chapter six the lamb begins to open the scroll by breaking the seals. The first four seals are the four horsemen. The first horseman is bent on conquest. The second takes away peace. The third destroys economies and the fourth brings death. In chapter six the fifth seal is opened and the martyrs in heaven cry out to God asking how long God will wait until he avenges what happened to them. God lets them know that it will be a while longer. A few more verses into chapter six and the sixth seal is opened. When this seal is opened we are told that there is a great earthquake. The sun turns black, the moon turns blood red and one third of the stars in the sky fall to earth.
Let’s pause for just a moment. We have all had elementary school science class (right ?). In elementary school science class we learned that the sun is really a star. While the sun looks near it is really far away and large. In fact our sun is so large that you can fit over one million earths into the sun and still have room left over. What would happen if just one star fell to the earth? Just one star would totally destroy the earth. The above passage suggests that more than one star hits the earth. If that were to actually happen it is safe to say that the earth would be totally destroyed. Here is a problem with our assumed roadmap of the future. We are at the end of the world and we are only in chapter six. There are more chapters to go and here we are at the end.
Revelation 6:14 “The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.”
Let’s take another stop. What would happen if every mountain and island were suddenly removed from their places? For starters it would be incomprehensible. Life on earth could not exist with every mountain and island removed. This is the end of the world yet we are in chapter six.
Revelation 6:15-17 “Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”
This passage describes what a lot of people would call judgement day. The day when the earth and all time and all things come to an end. Here we are in chapter six judgement day is happening. If Revelation is supposed to be a chronological roadmap of the future, that lays out the proper sequence of events, that leads to the end of everything then why are we ending the world in chapter six?.
Chapter six asks a question. Who can withstand all of these catastrophic events? Chapter seven is the answer. In chapter seven we see a great crowd of people. The great crowd are those who can stand. Chapter eight ends in silence as another seal is broken. Things are quiet for a bit and then trumpets sound and everything just breaks loose. An abyss is opened up, and there are locus flying around and all that leads up to chapter ten.
In chapter 10 we see a mighty angel with one foot on the land and one foot on the sea. The angel has a little scroll and he tells John to eat it. John says that the scroll was sweet to eat but not so good on the stomach. Sounds like the prophet Elijah. Then there are two witnesses who die like Jesus.
Revelation 11:15-18 The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.” 16 And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying: “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. 18 The nations were angry, and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and your people who revere your name, both great and small—and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”
Here we are in chapter 11 and the world has now ended two times. In fact the world will end again in chapters 14, 16, 19 and 20. Counting it all up Revelation will describe the end of the world, at minimum, seven times. Could it be that Revelation isn’t a chronological roadmap to the future that ends with the world being destroyed. Maybe we should be asking ourselves if we are trying to get Revelation to do something that it is not interested in. Maybe the book of Revelation is way more interested in other issues. Perhaps our assumptions were wrong.
Revelation 12:1-2, 5 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. . . . 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”
Chapter twelve starts off with a pregnant woman who is about to give birth. The quote in verse five is a quote from Psalm two. It is a reference to the promised Messiah. Who are we talking about here? As you might have easily figured out, we are talking about Jesus. Who is this woman and what is going on? We are talking about Mary, the birth of Jesus and the city of Bethlehem.
Revelation 12:3-5 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.
Many people enjoy decorating their homes during the Christmas season. For some of their Christmas decor includes a nativity scene. I know a family that used to set up a minimum of 20 different nativity scenes in and around the outside of their home every Christmas. They had large light up outdoor nativity scenes and tiny hand carved wood nativities. This passage from Revelation is suggesting that if you have a nativity set you might want to consider adding a big red dragon.
Revelation wants to reveal something to us. That night in Bethlehem, when Jesus was born, it was not a silent night. There were forces at work that we can’t see with the naked eye. On that night there was a red dragon looking to score something for his team. This raises a question. If Revelation is a chronological roadmap of the future and Revelation 12 is about the birth of Jesus, then how does that fit into the often assumed roadmap? Before chapter twelve the world ended about two times and yet here we have an alternative telling of Jesus’ birth.
At some point we have to ask ourselves if our assumptions about Revelation match up with what Revelation wants to talk about. If you take the Bible out of context you can make it say anything and you can make a lot of money doing it. But if you keep the Bible in context then all of the sudden not only have our questions changed, not only does it challenge our assumptions, but it reveals a completely different target.
We assumed that Revelation is out to predict. We assumed that the goal of Revelation was to speak to a future group of people. We assumed that Revelation was a roadmap to what would transpire in the future. In many ways all these assumptions turned many well meaning Christ followers into jerks and caused hurt and pain in people's lives. Not to mention missing out on the
What if Revelation wants to talk about things that are happening here and now? What if Revelation wasn’t written for a future special group of people? What if Revelation wants to challenge you and I in the here and now? What if Revelation’s goal is transformation? One of the reasons why I think Revelation gets pushed off into the future is because we don’t want to have our thinking and assumptions challenged. It is easier to imagine that Revelation is speaking to some future people and not to you or I. Revelation is offering us some good news in the midst of difficult times. The problem is we assume that Revelation is talking to somebody else.
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