One of the big questions people have when they try and read the Book of Revelation is, “Why would God make this so hard to understand?!”

Unlike what many Bible commentaries report, Revelation was written very early on after Christ’s death and resurrection, not just before the Bible’s completion. John wrote this last book of the Bible as sort of an instruction manual for the “tribulation saints” who will suffer through the upcoming tribulation period.

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“John is carried into that future time period (through visions and revelations), writing for some people in that day,” explains my preacher, Richard Jordan. “I remember, many years ago when I taught the Second Coming scenario with some people (at a Bible conference) and they went home and read the Book of Revelation and came back the next day and were mad as could be at me because they said what I told them wasn’t anything like what’s in Revelation

“But that’s because they were trying to read Revelation like you’d read a novel or a phone book or something. They didn’t know how to read it. They were all mad because it wasn’t all just laid out; they couldn’t just get it.

“I went home thinking, ‘What’s the problem?’ Then I remembered the passage in Matthew 13 where the disciples ask the Lord, ‘Why do you put this thing in dark sayings that are all figurative and symbolic?’ and He answers them, ‘Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven but not unto them; to them it is not given.’

“The reason God SIGNified the book—putting it in signs—is because every sign in the Book of Revelation is understood and interpreted by what’s back in (the Old Testament and Four Gospels).

“He concludes the Bible with a book in the prophetic program that is sort of an outline upon which this (former) time period can be fleshed out with the new information.

“So, who is it in the Bible that requires this kind of teaching? I Cor. 1:22 says, ‘The Greeks seek after wisdom but the Jews REQUIRE a sign.’ If God had written it all out in plain language, you know what Israel would say? ‘Can’t be right! It ain’t it!’ ”

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John was on the isle of Patmos when he was commanded by a “great voice, as of a trumpet,” to: “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.”

“In Chapter 22, beginning at verse 6, is a prologue and a conclusion. John actually sees what’s in Chapter 2:21 in the vision, and then after he’s seen it, God says, ‘Write down what you saw,’ and at the end of the book, John says, ‘What I just wrote down is what I saw.’

“So, when he writes Chapter 1, he’s already seen the vision. God says, ‘Go write down what you saw when you were in the day of the Lord—all those events, write ’em down now. Write what they are; put it clear. Don’t misunderstand anything. Write down exactly what it was you saw and then write down the next thing that you saw; the next thing that’s gong to come.’

“Now, people argue about how you should read Revelation. Is it sequential? Or is it repeated trips? But the revelation is going to lay itself out and when you read through it; you’re going to go through ‘the day of the Lord.’

“There are some places where you’ll go through something and then come back to it, as if to say, ‘You got that? Come back here and let’s start and do that again.’ So there is some overlap; some looping back in places, but it’s really a story of the whole thing.

“You know, when you watch a movie, or read a novel, often there are little flashbacks. You get flashbacks because, if this is going on here and something else is going on here, you have to tell it sequentially. But what is in Revelation is an orderly presentation of the events in this latter part of the Day of the Lord.

“We know from Chapter 19:10, that the ‘testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.’

These are prophetic events John saw that now he’s going to write down, and there’s a blessing for people who read this.

“My experience about people in studying prophecy is that most people study it in a very shallow manner. If anybody can understand prophecy, its people who rightly divide because we know it’s not about us, so we’re not always trying to make it be about us.

“We’re not trying to look for the ‘mark of the beast’ in your Social Security number, or some chip or barcode in your hand. We know the ‘mark of the beast’ isn’t anything we’re going to face. It’s a future thing out there we’re not going to deal with.

“So, not only aren’t you worried about, ‘Is it this, this, or this?’ but you don’t get caught up in all the sensational, hyper-nuttery where really you just go bonkers and are driven nuts.

“You don’t let somebody steal your money by trying to sell you books to tell you what’s going to happen and all that stuff. You get over it all and then you’re able to kind of relax and say, ‘Well, okay then, let’s see what it really is.’

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The whole of the Book of the Revelation is about the Day of the Lord, not simply about the 70^th Week of Daniel (in the tribulation). The Day of the Lord, which begins before the 70^th Week, includes the Millennium goes all the way out to the Great White Throne Judgment.

“There is a prophecy in the Word that is called ‘the great and terrible day of the Lord’ when Christ comes to reclaim the planet and the universe, and that is a particular phase of this larger day,” explains Jordan. “The day of the Lord is the day in which His word is what’s going to be what rules the day.

“Now, when it says ‘day,’ the first time you come up with a concept of a day in the Bible is Genesis 1, and it says the evening and morning were the first day. Well, that verse tells me something—a day has at least two parts. An evening and a morning.

“So when I think of the day of the Lord, I immediately know there’s going to be more than one part to this day. It’s going to have different phases to it.”