This is my feeling on what is happening today. There is probably a better word to pick than 'feeling' but that is all that it is....a feeling. It's not that the book of Revelation is being revealed in that we can identify beasts and judgments. I am in the same place on those things that I have been for a long time. I can speculate here and there....but there has been no great revelations other than 1948....and the establishment of Israel as a state....as the beginning of the beginning of the end of the end times. I actually like the way I structured that sentence. It was that year and that event as John MacArthur once phrased it...."God had put the world on notice."
I'm trying to think of an analogy. I'm literally pausing. I guess that's the way that I write at times. I've got one. There was an acclaimed movie in 1966 that starred Steve McQueen....the Sand Pebbles. It takes place in China in the mid-1920s. Just a regular seaman in the navy....but an engineer....by that I mean that he was in charge of the running and maintenance of the engine in the gunboat. It's a film about Gunboat Diplomacy. He transfers to this gunboat at the beginning of the film....asks for permission to come aboard and all that....but before he even stows his gear away he wants to see the engine. He stands there and just looks at it for a few minutes.....at this valve or that piston....and finally talks to it. I'm probably getting this wrong....it hasn't been that long since I last saw the film....but as I remember it he looks at the engine and says....."Hello....I'm Jake Holman." He understood how it works. They were going to get along fine.
That is how I think that the wiser pastor/teachers are starting to look at Revelation. They don't know how it is going to operate tomorrow. They are not solving ancient mysteries. There will be surprises....troubleshooting so to speak....but they know how God put it together. The seals and the trumpets and the bowls and the beasts are starting to make sense. There is less speculation with these men but more patience and comprehension albeit with great apprehension. The grid....or the motherboard if you will....is becoming a little more clear. There is less scratching the head....and more observation....making rounds so to speak....checking for vibrations....listening for a sound that should not be there.
It's like the training is finally kicking in....and the real job is about to start. I want to bring up one part of Revelation from chapter 18. There is a 'city'....a bad city...."a habitation of demons, a prison for every foul spirit and a cage for every unclean and hated bird."
The whole world got rich through the existence of this city. An angel from heaven shouts...."Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues"....plagues which will come in one day....in one hour...."For in one hour such great riches came to nothing"....and everyone in the world were found "weeping and wailing" because of this city Babylon's demise.
Now....we don't know what that city is....what 'Babylon' means. There are plenty of clues....but at this time those clues seem to be more for exercising our discernment more than solving the puzzle. What I'm trying to put forth in this post is simply that we should be ready for this city....expectant might be a better word....whatever it turns out to be....to fall quickly....and that the world will not be the same.
There are books out there that will identify that city....and a number of 'cities' so to speak have been identified. Most will find that they were wrong....but some may find that they were right....but even for those whose guess turns out to be right....it would be more the probability that someone is right....than calculation. Although we are told in one verse....Revelation 13:18...."Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast."
Veils are being lifted. There is no hurry....because to God....as 2 Peter 3:8 tells us...."....do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day"....His timing is perfect....and His training of us is perfect....if we want that training....even as we struggle to see clearly in that training....and if we look to the coming of Jesus Christ....ready to rejoice....because we know that the engine of this world is about to burnt out.
