The Story’s Epilogue
Posted by Pastor Pat on January 23, 2009
Where do we go from here? Because the story exceeds the boundaries placed on it, it engulfs everyone and everything that lies in its path. God wrote every detail into the story. He knows what will happen before it happens simply because He is God. There is only one book that gives us “the rest of the story.” It is found almost exclusively in the book of Revelation. The Book of Revelation is notably apocalyptic literature. This means it uses symbolism to communicate its thoughts. The meaning is not in the symbol but in what the symbol represents. “It is literature born out of crisis and was a means of addressing that crisis to a religious community.”(http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/phd/depriest/1defined.html) This means the intent of the literature was to explain present conflict and provide immediate hope. The book of Revelation is remarkably singular in its purpose. Chapter 1 verse 1 opens with the following statement,
1 “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, 2 who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near” (Rev. 1:1-3).
