Part I ~ Lesson 1 of 6 – The Secret of Understanding Revelation

The Sequence of Endtime Events

Equipping God's Saints (Followers of Christ) through the prophecies of the End Times …

Our next sequence of lessons is broken into 5 Parts. These lessons will be answering the most frequently asked question:

What is going to happen, and When?

Now that we understand the Seven Trumpets; understand the USA in the Bible and the Four Beasts of Daniel; understand the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; understand World War III; understand the Holy Roman Empire Reborn; etc, we will now see how everything will line up.

In these next several lessons I am going to try and answer that question for you. I will not just be speculating or guessing, but will actually take the Bible scriptures and credible evidence to establish very good proofs.

Dear Ones, we are living in the time of the end. Jesus spent Matthew 24 speaking great prophecies that are repeated in Daniel, Revelation, and other scriptures in the Bible. Understand This ... This generation is the generation Jesus spoke of in Mattew 24:34 when He said:

“Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”

It's given to us to understand, or God would not have written it. In the Book of Revelation, He told John the things to write and the things not to write. If God didn't want us to know it, He kept John from writing it. If He allowed John to write it, then that indicates to us that God wanted us to know it. The minds of this generation are understanding what the Bible has to tell us. The prophecies are unfolding before our eyes. Those who have ears to hear, let him hear.

If God wanted us to understand all these things, why did He put it in such symbolism?

Jesus always taught in parables and the disciples became frustrated with Him. The asked Him, “Why do you always teach in parables?” [A parable is a story that reveals truth to one person while veiling truth from another person.]

Matthew 13:11 says:

“He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you [speaking of the believers] to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them [speaking of the wicked] it is not given.”

God veils what He has to say so that only those that seek, find. If we are nonchalant, a no caring person who doesn't really hunger after the truth, we can live right through these prophecies. They will go right over our heads.

That's what happened at the First Coming of Jesus Christ. They had at least 100 specific prophecies of His First Coming. He fulfilled every single one of them in the most incredible detail, whether you talk about that He had to be born in Bethlehem; that He had to flee to Egypt to save His life; that He had to be born of the tribe of Judah; that He had to be sold for 30 pieces of silver. The exact amount of money was given in the Old Testament 600 years before the event. Not only that, but what would be done with the money was also prophesied.

The point is, they had about 100 prophecies of Jesus Christ's First Coming. We have about 1,000 prophecies of His Second Coming and they are all coming to pass right now.

The problem is this … Most of us have lived through several of these Trumpets and we don't have a clue. They lived through the prophecies and they still crucified the Messiah who fulfilled every one of them. As we go through the sequence of the endtime events and we acquire this understanding, it is so critical to all of us that we not miss the Second Coming. They missed the First Coming ~ we don't want to miss the Second Coming. It's wonderful that God has made His prophecies available to us in His Word, the Bible.

Scripture tells us that this is the time to be teaching prophecy to people. Daniel 11:33 says:

“And they that understand among the people [referring to the time of the end] shall instruct many ...”

Scripture tells us what Jesus had to say about the written prophecies. Jesus said in John 13:19:

“Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.”

Prophecy can make us understand that the Word of God, the Bible, can be depended on. It can be trusted.

There have been so many books written about the Book of Revelation. Some of them vary, radically, one from the other. God did not give us the Book of Revelation just to tantalize us. He gave us this book for someone to understand.

There are a couple of secrets to understanding the Book of Revelation. Many people think that no one can understand it; that the Book of Revelation is not for us to understand. Daniel 12:8-9 says:

“And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?

And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.”

We need to realize we are in that time, right now. We are the people of the time of the end. That is why we can understand things, now, that other generations have not been able to understand.

There are many questions that people have regarding the prophecies of the Bible. I am going to try to answer many of them here. We are going to discuss the structure of the Book of Revelation. We will deal with the Seals, the Trumpets and the Vials. We will deal with the Great Tribulation and the Wrath of God. These are two seperate events and we will discuss the difference between them. We will deal with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. We will wrap this all up in a Timeline of the End Times as we see how all this meshes together.

The most asked question is:

What is going to happen and when?

What will the sequence of the events be?

All these things are rooted in scripture. We can prove so many things. As we approach the end time, the closer we get, the clearer we can see.

There are two major secrets to understanding the Book of Revelation.

Revelation 1:19 says:

“Write the things which thou has seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;”

A lot of people think the Book of Revelation is all futuristic. This scripture plainly tells us that there are three categories:

1. The things that thou hast seen
2. The things that are
3. The things that shall be hereafter

John recorded the things he saw; the things he experienced:

He saw a vision of Jesus Christ. He saw Him as the Ancient of Days, His hair was white as snow, His eyes as flames of fire.

Then in Revelation Chapters 2 and 3, there were messages given to 7 churches that existed right then. Some people have made these messages to the churches prophetic, however, I personally do not think these messages are prophetic because at this point ~ John is recording “the things which are”.

There were 7 churches existing in Asia Minor. [That's what it was called then. Today it is called Turkey.] John, at the time, was on the Isle of Patmos maybe 50 or 100 miles off of the coast of Asia Minor. He was in exile for preaching the gospel. God chooses in this time to give him messages for those 7 churches.

History tells us that John did not die on the Isle of Patmos. He escaped the exile, returned back to Asia Minor and became the overseer of these 7 churches.

These were 7 messages written to 7 churches that existed at that time. John delivered those messages when he came out of the exile to those 7 churches.

Moving to the third category ~ The things shall be hereafter ~ Revelation 4:1 says:

“After this I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.”

The first big key to unlocking the Book of Revelation is that at Revelation 4:1, we move into the prophetic part of Revelation. Once you understand that, it opens up a tremendous amount to us because some people have thought that the entire Book of Revelation is prophetic. If you take that view point, it can be very confusing.

People have theorized that each of the churches in Revelation Chapters 2 and 3 represent a segment of the Church Age and that we are the people of the 7^th church, the Laodician Church.

Starting with the Ephesian Church Age that ran for 100 - 150 years. The message to the Ephesians was, “You have left your first love.” It goes all the way through the 7 churches until it culminates at the 7^th church, the Laodician Church Age. The message to the church of Laodicia was, “You are rich; increased with goods; have need of nothing. Therefore, I would that you were hot or cold but because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth.”

Many people believe that the Laodician Church is the church of the end time. I don't see any basis for that because you can take any of the messages to any of the other churches and preach to any of our churches today. You can easily preach to them, “You have left your first love.” This is something so easy for all of us to do. So to say just the Ephesians had that problem and we don't have that problem would be totally erroneous.

You could have preached to churches in Paul's day the message to the Laodicians, “I would that you were hot or cold but because you are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth.”

Yes, these messages apply to our churches, today. It is critical that we don't leave our first love, or are lukewarm and indifferent.

That's the theory of Revelation Chapters 2 and 3, but in my opinion, there is no solid scriptural basis. And it's only a theory because they have overlooked Revelation 4:1, which begins the “hereafter” part.

Moving forward, we will discuss the prophetic part of the Book of Revelation.

Resources: The anointing of the Holy Spirit and God Almighty, of whom I am accountable to. I have prayed diligently and am led to follow and support the teachings of Pastor Irvin Baxter from Endtime Ministries and his teachings of Understanding the End Times. I encourage you to visit his website at endtime.com.