Back in 1975 Christian author Hal Lindsay made a fortune off of his wildly popular best selling book, The Late Great Planet Earth where he milked the book of Revelations for all kinds of wild claims and predictions. If I can recall, he made claims that the writer (supposedly John the Disciple), saw modern warfare machines in his visions, but could only explain them in his limited scope of the time so when “locusts” is mentioned, he was really seeing Black Hawk military helicopters and such. I think he also pointed to the book of Zechariah (or is it Ezekiel?) in the Old Testament where that writer speaks of something that leads him to believe the writer was “seeing” in his vision, a nuclear holocaust.

Today the Left Behind series are making a killing off the gullibility of people again using the book of Revelation. I think the books have become the biggest selling books of all time or somewhere near there. To me, this proves quite clearly that you can fool countless people using fear and misinterpretation because people will believe what they’re told if packaged under the guise of “God said so.”

So what is the book of Revelation about? Some historical background would help a great deal something most people are too lazy to even look into. Most people don’t even know that the book was initially REJECTED as a book to be included in the Bible because even the superstitious religious leaders of 1,500 years ago thought the book was too wild to be believable but it eventually made the cut and has been used since then by end time fanatics to scare the masses while making quite a bit of people VERY rich.

The Jews were living in great tension with the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago. Fanatical Jews (Zealots, Siccari) were walking about the place raising fears that the world was coming to an end and because it was, the Messiah was soon to arrive and his arrival would bring about the complete and total destruction of the hated Roman Empire - the evil empire. One group, the Essenes, were so convinced, they pack up and left the city (Jerusalem) and moved to the desert and became an esoteric sect of monks, purging and purifying themselves and awaiting the arrival of the holy one.

From the Jewish community came about another sect known as the Christians. Carried over by some into their system of belief was a general hatred for the Roman Empire. Jerusalem was seen as the city of God while Rome was the seat of Satan and all things evil. The Christians, however, believed Messiah had already come and gone and was set to return while their Jewish counterparts were still looking for him. The Jews were eventually humiliated in a war with Rome, their city and temple destroyed and inhabitants killed or carted off into slavery and/or exile. The Christian Jews experienced suspicion and persecution from Roman emperors prior to and after the destruction of the temple in A.D 70. Their leaders like Paul and Peter, or people writing under their names encouraged the Christian community to take their persecutions in stride and to continue obeying Roman law.

Despite these warnings, as with any group, there were still the radical ones and one of these must have been the writer of the book of Revelation. The book is wildly vivid and symbolic and for good reason. It was apparently written at the height of Christian persecution under the Roman emperor Domitian and because suspicion no doubt was very high, code language had to be used. The writer wrote the book with the expressed purpose to show that God was still in control, regardless of the current persecution. He tried to show that the world was at its final stage and that at such a stage great wonders and signs would occur that would lead up to the destruction of Babylon, a code name for Rome. He depicted Rome (under the code name of Babylon) in symbolic form as a harlot that fed off the blood of saints and driven by a spiritual force behind the scenes known as Satan. He went to great lengths to scandalize Rome and to show that she was ripe for destruction by an angry God and that Jesus would be proven to be the victor and exalted one over the devil and his cohorts, a savior who was soon to come to rescue his remaining people from their troubles, one who would wipe away all their tears and create a new heaven and a new earth for their eternal bliss, but was this something that was to occur in HIS day or well into the future?

The answer is right in the very FIRST verse of the book, something most people completely miss or ignore.

Quote:

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants— things which must shortly take place . And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John,…

- Revelation 1:1

It is VERY clear that the author was TOLD (so he says) that the things which he was about to write were going to come to pass in a short period of time. In fact, he writes it to them because the details were going to affect THEM as there would have been NO need if they were not. Time and time again the book he repeats the alleged words of Jesus where Jesus supposedly says, Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me. In chapter 2 he (the writer supposedly speaking for Jesus) tells the Church of Thyatira to hold fast to what they have until HE (Jesus) comes. As far as we can tell there is no such church anymore in existence and Jesus never came as promised.

So when people are running about the place with their heads spinning around talking about the book of Revelation this and that you might want to actually think a bit. The book is so convoluted with details so wide open for interpretation and filled with stuff of fantasy, anybody can draw any kind of conclusions from it and call it “truth.” Perhaps you can use the backyard bunker for better use like, a place to watch Sunday football in peace and quiet.