I do know otherwise. Revelations is written in the apocalyptic style popular in the Hellenistic world at that time. Revelations is not to be taken lteral in the sense that 666 on the forehead means a tattoo will be branded with the number 666 on the forehead, etc. You actually do need a decoder ring of sorts for Revelations.
For argument, I'll pretend you're right.
And I'll lay out in a line--maybe a colorful graphic time line--all the umpteen dozen folks who claim that THEIR AND ONLY THEIR decoder ring is accurate.
And then I'll walk away alternately shaking my head and sighing and alternately laughing my head off.
And when God wants His Church to know such details, specifics and even nuances--HE WILL BE VERY WELL ABLE TO MAKE IT CLEAR TO ALL WHO KNOW HIS VOICE. I haven't seen it happen yet. It could happen most any week, it seems to me.
Interestingly, FWIW: i then went immediately to this email:
Meekness - The Key to Revelation
Art Katz / www.benisrael.org
Apr 11, 2003
The key then to apostolic or prophetic seeing and the receiving of the revelation of the mysteries of God is found in Ephesians 3:8,
To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.
In other words, all true seeing is given to men like Paul, who indeed see themselves as the ‘very least of all saints.’ Paul is not being deferential and polite, and making the kind of statement that a chamber of commerce speaker would make. He actually saw himself as this. He was the apostle to whom was afforded such visions that God had to give him a thorn in his side, lest he be exalted beyond measure for the magnitude of the revelations that were given him.
We must not, however, pass by apostolic character, which is to say, the deep humility, the authentic meekness and the Christ-likeness of the apostolic or the prophetic man. If the man is the thing in himself, then it is more than his knowledge. It is his very life; it is his character; it is his knowledge of God; it is what he communicates as one who comes to us out of God’s own presence.
This statement, ‘the very least of all saints’ was Paul’s actual, stricken, heartfelt consciousness of how he unaffectedly and continually saw himself before God.
It is a remarkable irony that the deeper we come into the knowledge of God, the more we see ourselves as less. Instead of becoming more exalted by the increase of our knowledge of God, the further down we go in seeing how abase and pitiful we really are. It is a contradiction and a paradox, and it is a paradox to be found only in the faith.
Authentic meekness or humility is not something that one can learn, emulate, or pick up at school. It is the dividend of God out of the measure of actual, real relationship with Him. It is the revelation of God as He is and the unutterable depths of it, that bring a man to this kind of awareness of himself. The revelation of what we are is altogether related to the revelation of who He is. The two things then necessarily always go together.
Then I (Isaiah) said, ‘Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts’ (Isaiah 6:5).
This is the prince of prophets, Isaiah, speaking here. The foundation of the church, as we have said, is the revelation of God as He in fact is. That is the foundation. It is not as we think Him to be, which is more often than not a projection of the way we would like Him to be, especially when we have chosen to celebrate one attribute of God and ignore another.
The key knowledge is the knowledge of God as He is, both in judgment and in mercy, and the foundational men to the church are those who can communicate God in that knowledge. Paul had this
knowledge because he saw himself as the ‘least of all saints,’ and saw himself as the least because he had this knowledge.
The Lord Jesus Himself was absolute. He used language in such a fierce and uncompromising way; He overthrew moneychangers’ tables. Was He meek even while He was violent and offensive? This act set in motion the things that eventuated in His death. How do we reconcile the act of violence that Jesus performed and the meekness of God?
When we think of meek, we think of lamb-like, quiet and deferring. This is an aggressive act, and yet we are saying at the same time that it is meek. Meekness is total abandonment to God; all the more in an act or a word that would give an impression to the contrary, and lay the obedient servant open to the charge of a reproach for being violent, or being angry, or being too zealous. If God wanted to be violent and we withheld Him because it contradicts our personality, disposition, or preference, then we are putting something above and before God, namely, our own self-consideration.
A true prophet will not relent nor refrain. He cannot be bought or enticed into being ‘one of the boys.’ He shuns the distinctions and honors that men accord men. He necessarily has to or there would be a compromising of what he is in God. He is scrupulous in character and will never use his position to obtain personal advantage. He is naturally unaffected, normal and unprepossessing in appearance and demeanor, despising what is showy, sensational or bizarre.
He is not necessarily the man that is going to be wearing the hairy garment. He may be wearing rather a three-piece suit! He will not call any attention to himself by externalities. He is the thing in himself, in the depth and the pith and marrow of his being because of his communion with God and his history in God. The false will always lack meekness, but it is the indistinguishable sign of the authentic prophet, and also the quintessential character of God.
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