Prophecy

Only once in world history has an entire generation served as a picture of a future generation. The apostle Paul said this was true for the generation alive during Israel’s Exodus from Egypt (1 Cor. 10:6, 11). The events of that generation were “types” (or pictures) of events during the…

The Seven Mystic Figures vision makes a slight change to the timeframe of the first two judgment visions. They concentrated on the “great tribulation” Jesus predicted in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:1–3, 21, 34; Rev. 7:14). This vision focuses on the entire generation of Jesus’s life on earth. It begins with…

666 conjures up mystical images of evil. That fact that 666 is the sum of the numbers on a roulette wheel, or that the Aryan Brotherhood uses it in tattoos, or that Apple, Inc. used it as the name of a wicked computer virus does not surprise us. Many Christians…

If I were John Bunyan, author of the famous Pilgrim’s Progress, I might write an allegory about Mr. Inmillennialist traveling through the book of Revelation with four companions, Misters Premillennialist, Dispensationalist, Postmillennialist, and Amillennialist. At the end of the third vision, they would say to him, The first six trumpets…

This post deals with the “two witnesses” John describes in Revelation 11. We are publishing it on Oct. 31, 2017. This day marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg. This act started the Protestant Reformation. We will recognize this historic…

One proof of a good theory is its ability to suggest answers to difficult problems. We have seen how our prophetic model—inmillennialism—does this in Hebrews. We are now applying this framework to John’s visions in Revelation. The complications increase here due to the many prophetic images in this book, but,…

In this post, we continue applying our prophetic model—inmillennialism—to John’s third vision in which he hears seven trumpets. The sixth trumpet and the following interlude pose several difficulties. Speaking of Revelation 11, which describes this part of the vision, Alan F. Johnson says: Some have considered this chapter one of…

In our last post, we began showing how Inmillennialism can account for the signs in Revelation’s third vision (i.e., of the seven trumpets). Some of them have kernels of physical reality inside John’s figurative language. Others continue long-standing prophetic traditions where the figures portray God’s judgments against Israel. Let’s resume…

Trumpets of tribulation appear often in the Scriptures. In John’s third vision of the Revelation, seven trumpets announce the “great tribulation” in the land of Israel (Rev. 1:9; 7:14; cp. Matt. 24:21). In AD 30, Jesus said this time of tribulation would come in his generation (Matt. 24:34). John, writing…

The year is AD 66. Nero Caesar has banished John, the last living apostle, to the Island of Patmos “for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Nero, who sometimes wears the skin of a beast while performing despicable acts of torture, has been murdering Christians…