Revelation

Been some time on posting anything on Rev.  From time to time I want to remind anyone, why I started blogging.
I maintain that "something" occurred over the course of our lifetimes and although I can't identify quite often what that "something"  is, I do know it's robbed us of basic communicating and comprehension skills. 

When it comes to God's Word, the culprit of that "something"  is in our being so accustomed to proof texting the Bible while strip mining it for daily applications, that by the time we do get around to reading it, it's worth has become so fuzzy as it seeks a home in our brains, filled with nonsense. 

Solution. 

Get rid of the nonsense.
Easier said than done, I'm an example of that.
My main desire is to give an account, in this blog, of what occurs as one goes thru this attempt at de-cluttering my mind as to grow and love God's Word in context as I read. 

Revelation (only after the rest of Bible read) is a great place to start.
I was blessed to have found a way to go thru this book and
1) read it slowly
2) find all the places in Scripture where  what I'm reading occurs & compare.
3) consider all, and I mean all, the possibilities of what this could mean
And then..
(now it gets tricky) 

Now that I've read it and compared it and now know all its possibilities, here's where I'm told "make a decision, what do you believe" 

So I reach in my bag of world view, I keep in the theology section of my doctrine closet and all that is housed in my house of human wisdom. 

Now if I had no clue as to what God thinks about human wisdom, from places like Job or Romans or Jeremiah, I'd be fine. 

But like a dummy, I had to go and read it, so I'm not fine.
 Christians will say, I can't make up my mind or I'm anti doctrine.
 Non Christians will say one needs to check there intellect at the churches door. 

Trying to convey contextual verse by verse reading of God's Word to many is like trying to put a rope around a gust of wind. 

I am in what most think, is difficult scripture, chap 11 in Revelation and what's ahead ain't much easier.
When human wisdom is applied to this, it all falls apart. 

But when God's nature is revealed, as seen from Genesis to Jude, we can take that right into the book of Revelation and nothing changes. 

Up to now, chap 11, God's mercy is on full display yet if one had told me that ten years ago, I'd be saying what many are saying of me right now. 

I'm sure this mercy gets lost in all the imagery.
Thanks to a proof texting mindset, consistency gets lost as well.
For example, God's consistent use of the nation isreal. Wow! Talk about a lost concept. 

If by the time one gets to the end of reading God's Word, hasn't figured out a few obvious things, they may wanna read it again.
Things like :
-how much God hates sin
- mankind is forever suppressing what they know to be true and we daily invent new ways to suppress it.
-mankind is at war with God th the minute we're put here and an element of our default mode is we hate God
- the magnitude of God drawing us to Him, God waits, is long-suffering, the magnitude of His sacrifice, the magnitude of what awaits us, the magnitude of what we were saved from.
- how small we are apart from Him and how rich we are in Him. 

All this, in our Bible's concluding book.
How sad is it people think it's a book where God "wins."
Nonsense! Like it's some kind of game. 

I'm sure to get into more of this (out of this world language) as I proceed into what will occur, when God finally judges this world, but I'm not fearful. (ok, maybe a little)
But the consistent nature of God from Gen to this book of Rev is what I most wanted to convey here. No book of the Bible is a stand alone book. God is the same ,His  methods are the same.

Whereas the Law was given to reveal and prove that mankind can not keep it, thereby needing a Savior, the point of Revelation is to give prove that no matter what, without God , we reject Him.
All this gives might and weight and power to what God accomplished on the cross. Please do not miss this. 

So to anyone who won't mind many others looking at them strange, I'd encourage them to get their Bible's and 

TryReadNit - in context.