Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Can the Bible be understood, just as it reads? Can a simple, uneducated person understand the Book of Revelation as he reads it? Or has our heavenly Father, Source of all wisdom, "sealed" that last Book so that we common folk need some university-trained scholars to explain it to us?
These are serious questions, because common sense tells us that scholarship of itself is not evil. But common sense also tells us that there is a vast amount of confusion about Revelation in the so-called scholarly world. You can't read very far into the Bible without meeting up with warnings against it:
"Take heed that no one deceives you," says Jesus, "for many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many" (Matt. 24:4, 5). Paul tells of a vast satanic conspiracy to corrupt the teachings of Jesus within the church: "After my departing savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things" (Acts 20:29, 30).
He refers to Daniel's inspired prophecy of a "falling away ... first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God" (2 Thess. 2:3, 4). That's Daniel's simple "little horn" prophecy of chapters 7 and 8.
Now, what about the common man? Has God remembered him, to save him from being confused and deceived? Suppose, for example, there is a family huddled in the war-torn ruins of their bombed home, reading the Bible by candlelight. They are impressed as they read the Gospels that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, the Savior of the world, that the Bible is the authentic Book of God; can they understand Revelation? Can they recognize who "Babylon the great" is (Rev. 14:8; 18:1-4)? Can they have a confident first-hand grasp of saving truth?
That last Book of the Bible says "Yes!" "Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, ... the time is near" (1:1-3). Believe that promise as you read Revelation!
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 29, 2003.
Copyright © 2016 by "Dial Daily Bread."
