On the Interpretation of Revelation

Joel 1:15 and 2:1 claim that the Day of the Lord is "at hand," and yet even if we understand the Day of the Lord to be the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD,

No, actually the "day of the Lord" spoken of in Joel (and elsewhere in the OT prophets) was speaking often of immediate temporal judgment against either Israel or the enemies of Israel. Peter, under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, applied Joel prophecy to the events of Pentecost in Acts 2. But in neither case is there some requirement to place the "at hand" to mean an undetermined, already multi-millennia time period from the giving of the prophecy. That is a supposition of the futurist.

The word translated “obey” or “keep” is tereo, which can mean either to guard (as when Yeshua prayed that God would “keep,” or protect, His disciples from the Evil One[6]) or to observe and follow, where we are told to obey the commands of the Father and the Son respectively.[7] Both are applicable here.

"Obey" is the primarily meaning with respect to the Word of God. We are not told to "guard" ("tereo") the Word. We are told to obey it. "I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world; Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me, and they have kept Thy word." "If anyone keeps My word, he shall never taste of death." There is another word "phulasso", that is more in line with your suggestion, and used that way "O Timothy, guard ("phulasso") what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called "knowledge "--" "Guard ("phulasso"), through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you."

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years,

This "God time" verse is probably one of the most misused verses in the futurist arsenal. There is nothing in the context to suggest that when God says "at hand" or "near" or "the things which must soon take place" (Rev. 1:1) He really means some undetermined amount of time in the future. Otherwise we are left to all sort of hermeneutical gymnastics. E.g., that the "thousand years" of Rev. 20 is really only 1000 days in our time, or perhaps 365,000 years depending on how one does conversion according to "God math".

"Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender, and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near ("eggus", cf Rev. 1:3);"

Are we really to believe that the expectation Jesus is putting forth here is that when a farmer goes out and sees the leaves coming on his trees that summer is actually (in "God time") thousands of year in the future?

This is the sort of interpretation the futurist relies on all over the place. If this is where your "midrash" leads you, then you can have it.

No I have not confused Dodd with Cobb. If you follow Dodd and his disciples' eschatology and Bultmann and his disciple's (Conzelmann) eschatology to their logical conclusions of necessity you wind up with a Jewish apocalyptic (Jesus)who either sees in himself the consummation of the kingdon now and not future so that everything that is happening is unfolding or he is a man who was mistaken about the consummation and it is still in process. Either way, the Jesus of these men is not the Christ of the Bible, omniscient, omnipotent and sovereign over the past, present and future.

I don't know about your own Christology but I assume from your comments about the Old Testament prophets you follow the Jesus the Jewish apocalyptic theory and that therefore all prophecy in the New Testament has been consummated in Jesus or not part of the New Testament message but belongs to Judaism.

If I'm wrong or have trivialized your position in any way I apologize. Our friend Buggman has spent many hours in research and study to write this book. You have said you once worked in publishing so you know the sacrifices he has made. He has graciously offered to share some of his findings with us for our critique. We may disagree with his conclusions and he needs to hear them for his own editing or preparing his defense. What he doesn't need and what is not profitable for all who are following this thread is a dismissive attitude. That is not helpful. You appear to have studied eschatology. Your observations about your findings would be helpful to the discussion and might be enlightening to all of us, but that can only be done by asking appropriate questions, giving our opinions as opinions and respecting each others opinions.

I know, I know, I have the book.

Thank you for the ping to your post!

IMHO, speculation about prophetic Scriptures can cause a lot of dissension precisely because many try to obtain meaning with the mind instead of the Spirit. If prophesies were meant to be clear, they would have been written that way. Instead, like the parables, prophesies speak to the spirit, and thus are largely concealed from the mind.

I submit that the book of Revelation is vital to whole of Scripture. It affirms and magnifies the deity of Christ, the meaning of life, the purpose of this creation, this heaven and earth - and the next heaven and earth. It discloses God's righteous punishments and rewards.

It assures many of us - it unsettles some of us.

I submit that those who are unsettled by the prophesies in Revelation probably ought to spend more time in the Gospels and contemplating the meaning of life and creation - and then try reading it again - casually, not with a magnifying glass.

I really haven't meant to cast aspersions, just helping to save you from yourself.

Okaaaay . . .

Eschatology, no matter what denomination or sect you belong to, is extremely difficult. For instance, not only must the history and belief of the Jews be contrasted and compared to the Christian, but the eschatology of the nation of Israel must be understood as well as the eschatology of the individual believer.

I think you over-complicate it. Frankly, while studying the historical beliefs of both the Jews and Christians (and I've done both, particularly in the ante-Nicean Church fathers) is interesting and sometimes edifying, neither is nearly as important as studying the Scriptures themselves. 95% of this work is simply comparing Scripture to Scripture and proposing some solutions on how the prophetic Scriptures fit together.

On the broad points of the eschatological scenario, the Scripture is pretty clear, despite all the muddying of the waters that some scholars like to do. There will be a time of increasing "birth pangs"--wars, famines, earthquakes, unrest, immorality, etc.--followed by the Man of Sin, the person we commonly call the Antichrist, proclaiming himself to be God in God's Holy Place. He will persecute God's people, both the Christians and the Jews, but before he can completely destroy them, the Lord Himself will come on the clouds of the sky to gather His Church, seal the faithful of Israel, and inaugurate the Day of the Lord, during which His wrath will be poured out and He alone will be glorified. This same scenario is given and expanded upon by Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, Yeshua Himself (the Olivet Discourse and many of His parables), Sha'ul, Kefa (Peter), and Yochanan.

On many of the specifics, I agree that it is less clear, and there are many details that I don't think we are meant to know until they actually happen--but which we are commanded to "keep" the Revelation and other prophetic Scriptures in our hearts so that we will recognize them when they do occur.

Having worked in publishing, I have to wonder who you intend for your audience to be.

Messianics and evangelicals, primarily. In point of fact, I already have a publisher interested in my book, and from the response I've gotten here on FR, I'd say that having an audience won't be a problem (though I doubt I'll ever hit the NYT bestseller list). And in answer to your other question, no, I've never published a book before (outside of small-print stuff when I was in college).

However, even if I had no audience, I wouldn't call the time I've spent on this book wasted. In point of fact, I started on this project simply for self-study to understand the Scriptures better. It was when I started showing my rough notes to people to get feedback, ideas, and corrections and many of them asked me to turn them into a book that I started fleshing them out, always in prayer and humility, ready to change my positions as I discovered new things in the Scriptures that contradicted or changed the direction of them.

It's been a wonderful experience, and if I never published a word, not one minute would have been a wasted moment--because in studying Revelation, I have come to a far deeper understanding of all the Scriptures, both prophetic and not.

Now, if you have specific nits to pick with what parts of the book that I've posted here that you are ready and willing to back up with Scripture and logic, I'm ready to listen. But if you're whole goal is to simply discourage me with "pious chatter" about how difficult the subject is, or how hard it is to get published, I'm sorry, but I've got better things to do with my time than to try to convince you that I'm "worthy" to write this book.

I remain convinced that endless speculation on the end times detracts from Christian life and mission. What if all the things we see today are not "signs of the end" but rather invitations by God to DO SOMETHING about what is happening?

Too many Christians are wrapped up in end times things and see all these terrible things and refuse to address them because they figure "Well its just the way its supposed to be in these last days." Some even rejoice over the pain and brokenness they see because they care only for bugging out at the "rapture".

At the end of time Jesus in the Gospels clearly states that the difference between the sheep and the goats has nothing to do at all with those who may have successfully guessed the actual time of his appearing and the surrounding circumstances (and EVERYONE to date has been wrong) but rather if we did what he asked to the "least of these..."
In addition in the parables of the wise servants it is those who are found doing the master's will who are rewarded and not those who have have hoarded what the master gave them in anticipation of his return.

Writers like Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsey have done great damage to the faith by playing on people's fears and telling stories based on a very flawed vision of faith (dispensationalism) while making themselves very rich. Imagine if all the millions spent by Christians eager to digest this spiritual junk food would have instead been given to church planting, feeding the poor, or helping those in need! Imagine if all the energy spent on bad guesses about the end were given to the work of spreading the Gospel! How different would our world be?

It's for this reason the Eastern Orthodox churches have never used Revelation in the cycle of liturgical readings. In the wrong hands, and most of the hands are wrong, the book is all sound and fury signifying nothing. Yes it is Canon and has been accepted by the Church as God inspired but it is DEFINITELY NOT for the spiritually immature.

No, actually the "day of the Lord" spoken of in Joel (and elsewhere in the OT prophets) was speaking often of immediate temporal judgment against either Israel or the enemies of Israel.

No they weren't. Take Isaiah 13, for example: Even if you apply that to the fall of Babylon to the Persians (and as I show in the later chapters of my book, if you simply compare what Isaiah and Jeremiah wrote prophetically to history, there's no way that they fit), you've still got a 200+ year gap.

No, the Day of the Lord is a very specific eschatological period in which Adonai alone--not the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, or Romans--would be exalted (Isa. 2). It is the time of His wrath poured upon the whole earth (Isa. 34). While we might see partial fulfillments, or dress rehersals, or remez, in history, the final fulfillment has never yet taken place.

Peter, under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, applied Joel prophecy to the events of Pentecost in Acts 2.

Joel's sign of the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars is a common theme in Scripture. It also happens to be one of those junctions that enables us to line up the various prophecies on the same timeline:

A Comparison of the Cosmic Disturbance References in Prophecy
Isa. 13:10-13	Isa. 34	Joel 2:31	Ps. 18:7-17	Rev. 6:12-17	Mt. 24:29-31
"Therefore I will make the heavens tremble . . ."					". . . and the heavenly bodies will be shaken."
". . . and the earth will shake from its place . . ."			The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because He was angry."	"There was a great earthquake."
Isa. 13:10-13	Isa. 34	Joel 2:31	Ps. 18:7-17	Rev. 6:12-17	Mt. 24:29-31
"The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light."		"The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful Day of the LORD."		"The sun turned black as sackcloth, and the moon as blood . . ."	"The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light . . ."
"The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light."	". . . all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the fig tree."			“. . . and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree . . ."	". . . the stars will fall from the sky . . ."
	"All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved and the sky rolled up like a scroll."		"He parted the heavens and came down . . ."	"The sky receeded like a scroll, rolling up . . ."
Isa. 13:10-13	Isa. 34	Joel 2:31	Ps. 18:7-17	Rev. 6:12-17	Mt. 24:29-31
". . . at the wrath of the LORD Almighty in the day of His burning anger."				"The the [inhabitants of the earth] hid in caves . . . [crying] hide us from the . . . wrath of the Lamb!"	"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn."
			"He reached down from on high and took hold of me . . . He rescued me from my powerful enemy . . ."		"And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather the elect from the four winds . ."

But could this event be the darkening of the sky that happened at Yeshua’s crucifixion, as many preterists suggest based on Ac. 2:17-21? No. Obviously, all the wars, rumors of wars, false prophets, famines, earthquakes, and Abomination of Desolation had not happened in the last 48 hours of Yeshua’s life. Just as obviously, the exact same event would be described in Revelation decades later as yet future. In Acts, Kefa is citing the presence of the Ruach HaKodesh as a fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. He then recites the entire prophecy to get to its end, “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of Adonai shall be saved,” from which he launches his sermon.

And now, I need to run to lunch. I'll get back with you in a bit.

I am not questioning the canonical status of the book of Revelation. I am merely stating a historic fact. The book was accepted into the canon but there were some who had misgivings about it precisely because within decades of its writing its passages were already obscure.

And yes the end of history is part of the Faith but even the Apostles were told that precise information about this was not available to them (Acts 1:7)and the Church has wisely maintained a respect for the reality of Christ's return while avoiding dogmatic statements about one scheme or another.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread and to date every person who has posited a scheme regarding the end times other than an affirmation that Christ will indeed return, judge, and rule have one thing in common. They are all wrong and many, like Adventists, the Watchtower, and others are down right dangerous. How many churches have been senselessly split by end times quarrels?

Frankly Jesus affirmed that we would always have tribulation, at some future date it would be worse, and sometime he would return to judge and rule. That's it. Anyone with a more precise scheme is simply guessing and as long as they state that they are okay. The Church Fathers were wise to address this in the Creed and leave the details in the realm of pious theologizing.

So what is more important, attempting to pin down that which the Apostles themselves were not privy to or doing the work of God in the world? Jesus himself provides the answer when he states quite clearly that the difference between the sheep and the goats is not whether we guessed his return accurately but rather whether we were serving the "least of these..." in His name. The faithful steward is the one who is surprised by the master and found to be doing the assigned work not the one who hoarded all he had in anticipation of an eventual return.

That's again why I say spend the energy on reading and living what is found in the Gospels first and the other things will take care of themselves. Only until I have mastered the Sermon on the Mount will I have the maturity to speak on the Apocalypse.

While we might see partial fulfillments, or dress rehersals, or remez, in history, the final fulfillment has never yet taken place.

If you're going to utilize rabbinic presuppositions, you may find youself off the mark on the understanding of Scripture. The rabbinic approach, not unlike that employed by modern Christian liberals, is to discover the deeper, hidden meaning of the text. No every text has a "deeper meaning". It's pure presuppostion to suggest that it does.

It's apparent from the contexts that "day of the Lord" has primary reference to the immediate temportal judgment that God meted out on Israel and her enemies. E.g.,:

The word of the Lord came to me again, saying, "Son of man, prophesy and say, 'Thus says the Lord God: "Wail, 'Woe to the day!' For the day is near, Even the day of the Lord is near; It will be a day of clouds, the time of the Gentiles. The sword shall come upon Egypt, And great anguish shall be in Ethiopia, When the slain fall in Egypt, And they take away her wealth, And her foundations are broken down. "Ethiopia, Libya, Lydia, all the mingled people, Chub, and the men of the lands who are allied, shall fall with them by the sword." 'Thus says the Lord: "Those who uphold Egypt shall fall, And the pride of her power shall come down. From Migdol to Syene Those within her shall fall by the sword," Says the Lord God. "They shall be desolate in the midst of the desolate countries, And her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are laid waste. (Ezekiel 30)

Whether or not this somehow "hints" of a final "day of the Lord" or not is the debate at hand. But it cannot be assumed. Nevertheless, the primary teaching has to do with the immediate temporal judgments. That is the case in virtually all places where the phrase is used in the Bible. The context in large part dictates the meaning.

Joel's sign of the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars is a common theme in Scripture.

The "sun, moon and stars" had other meaning in Scripture besides the literal cosmic entities.

"Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, "Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me." "

"Then he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem, and those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven. "

"Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars."

Wouldn't your midrash prompt you to look beyond physical entities for the deeper meaning?

It also happens to be one of those junctions that enables us to line up the various prophecies on the same timeline:

Only if they are intended to exist on the same timeline. What in your midrash would lead you to this presupposition?

BTW, lining phrases up in a chart as you have done from various prophecies to demonstrate a timeline seems awfully "Western" in its approach to me.

The rabbinic approach, not unlike that employed by modern Christian liberals, is to discover the deeper, hidden meaning of the text.

But not at the expense of the p'shat, the plain meaning. The plain meaning must be understood first before you get into remez, drash, and sod. As I said in the intro, I have no objection to the idea that Revelation has a preterist and historicist remez built into it (ignoring the dating issue when it comes to preterism, since Revelation was plainly written 20+ years after the destruction of the Temple), but the p'shat is plainly futurist, which is why all of the early Church fathers who were closest to the time and person that saw it written understood it that way.

Ditto on the Day of the Lord passages. There are remez galore in them, but the events plainly described have never taken place in history. For example, here is a section from one of the appendixes in which I address the issue of Isa. 13's fulfillment (please pardon any errors or typos, as I have not finalized it yet):

It has often been asserted that Isaiah 13 has already been fulfilled in history. In fact, Josh McDowell uses this as an apologetic proof in his Evidence That Demands a Verdict. However, there are several verses within this chapter that have no fulfillment in history. For example, v. 5 says that an army will “destroy the whole country.” Cyrus certainly did not destroy the whole country, nor did Alexander. Both conquered it intact. The closest one can come to finding this fulfilled in history is some of the wars between the Romans and the Parthians and Persians—none of which involved the Medes destroying Babylon as per v. 17. Rather, Babylon simply faded away in importance after the city of Selucia was built on the Tigris, resulting in Babylon's loss of trade.
McDowell seems to be aware that this verse and the others I will examine in a moment have no literal fulfillment in history, as he cites no verse after 19 as being fulfilled. But even within the part of the prophecy he cites, we find several problem passages:
v. 7—“Because of this, all hands will go limp, every man's heart will melt.” While this verse certainly applied to Belshazzar and his court (who literally saw “the handwriting on the wall”), the majority of Babylon were not recorded as being in fear when the Medes and the Persians attacked them. This same fact applies to vv. 14-18. When Cyrus took Babylon, he did so in such a way that most of the population didn't even know that they were conquered for three days after he took the royal palace!
v. 12—“I will make Man scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir.” No such massive depopulation took place during the attack of the Medes and the Persians (see. v. 17). Again, the destruction of Babylon only took place much later, and then was only the result of gradual decay and the movement of the population to a city just twenty miles to the north.
v. 19—“She will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flocks there.” It is no secret that Saddam Hussein has spent the last twenty years and hundreds of millions of dollars rebuilding Babylon, albeit largely as a tourist trap. Therefore, it cannot be said that no Arab has "pitched his tent" in Babylon.
Given that all of the above passages have no fulfillment in history, we must regard Isaiah 13 to be a prophecy of the future—or at best, a prophecy with a partial past fulfillment and a complete future fulfillment, like Daniel’s prophecies of Antiochus. In fact, v. 9 ties Isaiah 13 to the Day of the Lord (see Isa. 2:2-22, Amos 5:18-27, and 2 Th. 2:1-4), which Sha’ul indicates is a day yet future that is tied to Messiah's Second Coming and our being gathered to Him. That being the case, we should reject the “allegorization” of verses 10 and 13 as being a mere idiom for the fall of a nation.

When the preterists and historicists are able to show that a) they have compared Scripture to Scripture before trying to overlay prophecy against history (as I did in the chart in my previous post) and b) that the prophecy was completely fulfilled in every last point, then and only then may they declare a prophecy fulfilled and having no future meaning (except, perhaps, as a remez or drash). To date, I've read numerous interpretations by both (including some detailed posts from OrthodoxPresbyterian in which he laid out the preterist interpretations of Revelation) and to date, I have yet to find one that is consistant with both of the principles above.

BTW, lining phrases up in a chart as you have done from various prophecies to demonstrate a timeline seems awfully "Western" in its approach to me.

If I didn't take that kind of logical approach, you'd claim I was just engaging in private interpretation and speculation. I'm darned if I do and darned if I don't, it seems.

The "sun, moon and stars" had other meaning in Scripture besides the literal cosmic entities.

True. Context is key:

Another question that must be answered is whether the incredible and unprecedented events described in the sixth seal will be fulfilled literally, or whether like the four horses, there is a symbolic intent. One could cite a great number of good, conservative scholars and commentators throughout the centuries who have tried to uncover the sixth’s seal allegorical meaning, ranging in opinion from the fall of Jerusalem to the fall of the Roman Empire to the persecution of the saints. Some will go so far as to present a false dilemma: Either we must view the “stars” here as being emblematic of the fall of the nations, or we must assume them to be “literal” stars, somehow traveled hundreds of light years to impact upon the earth (or, given their size, it would be more like the other way around).
Now, we have to ask ourselves, is it really illegitimate to consider “stars” to refer to heavenly bodies other than what we consider the scientific definition of “stars” today? Not at all! What contrived hermeneutic would seek to impose the meaning of a modern English word on an ancient Koine Greek one? The Greek word aster is used of planets and other luminous celestial objects, thus our word “asteroid.” Even if we consider the word “meteor,” the Greek word was formed from meta- and aeirein, the latter meaning "to lift up" (English air is related), and referred to anything in the heavens. Hence, a meteor came from the heavens, and meteorology is the study of the goings-on in that portion of the heavens nearest us. Likewise, the Hebrew word for “star,” kokab, is used of not just the fixed stars such as we think of them, but also of the planets and any other bright celestial object.
Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that when Yeshua speaks of the sun and moon darkening and the aster falling from the sky—and here, the reader should note that the Olivet Discourse reads as a simple description of events rather than a series of symbolic images—that we should understand aster in its original meaning rather than forcibly attaching to it the scientific meaning of “star” as we understand it today. Thus, many bright, celestial objects will fall to the earth—and if Yeshua was being “literal” there, then there is no reason to conclude that the same events which are described in the sixth seal—the darkening of the heavens, the earthquake, the meteor storm, and the opening of the sky—will be literal events that precede the glorious hope, the visible appearance of our Lord to take us home.

Ditto the description of the same event in Joel, the Psalms, Isaiah, etc.

Nice. Seiss has become one of my favorite commentators.

I am not questioning the canonical status of the book of Revelation. I am merely stating a historic fact. The book was accepted into the canon but there were some who had misgivings about it precisely because within decades of its writing its passages were already obscure.

To be blunt, that's utterly irrelevant. The book has apostolic authorship, as attested by those closest to the Apostle whose writings we have. There were many things the Church didn't understand about Scripture by the Second Century, in no small part due to the split that came between the Church and Israel.

Frankly, the only reason that I can see for you to bring it up is to question the value of studying Revelation.

And yes the end of history is part of the Faith but even the Apostles were told that precise information about this was not available to them (Acts 1:7)and the Church has wisely maintained a respect for the reality of Christ's return while avoiding dogmatic statements about one scheme or another.

The exact thing that the Apostles were told was, "And He said to them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in His own authority," in response to their question about when the Kingdom would be restored to Israel. This goes along with, "But of that day and hour no one knows, no, not the angels of Heaven, but only My Father" as forbidding date-setting, which I carefully avoid. That's not the same as forbidding study of eschatology.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread and to date every person who has posited a scheme regarding the end times other than an affirmation that Christ will indeed return, judge, and rule have one thing in common. They are all wrong and many, like Adventists, the Watchtower, and others are down right dangerous.

The thing they were all wrong on in common is that they all tried to set the date of the Lord's return. I do not.

How many churches have been senselessly split by end times quarrels?

That's irrelevant. How many have been split over soteriology? How many have been split over leadership? How many have been split over choosing the color of the carpet in the sanctuary?

The fact that a Biblical subject is controversial by no means justifies ignoring it, for "all Scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfected, thoroughly furnished to every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Simply put, if you are not studying prophecy in addition to--and not to the exclusion of--every other subject God puts to us in His Word (soteriology, holy living, spiritual warfare, worship, etc.), you are not learning or teaching the whole council of God, nor are you being fully equipped.

If that is your choice, then that is between you and God. But don't try to discourage others with pious-sounding but unBiblical chatter about "where angels fear to tread." If God did not want us to study and understand Revelation, He wouldn't have given it to us, especially not with the promise, "Blessed is the one who reads and hears the words of this prophecy, and the ones keeping the things written in it, for the time is near."

"It's apparent from the contexts that "day of the Lord" has primary reference to the immediate temportal judgment"

I don't mean to interrupt this discussion (and you will probably say "then don't")but "Day of the Lord" has always been a classic formula the apocalyptic return of God when by the supra natural power of His being judgment comes and all creation is made new. You trivialize its meaning by failure to recognize the force of the Day and lose sight of the great Hope of the church and blunt the coming terror for the lost. Yes, there are days of judgment but they are nothing compared to the apocalyptic Day of the Lord foretold in Scripture.

Interrupt away. You're so much more pithy than I am.

Whoops. Missed your post. Sorry. I disagree with Sproul's preterism, of course--sorry, but those who were in Christ in 70 AD simply weren't "caught up" anywhere, let alone with the Lord.

But where I think we would find common ground is that we both see the potential danger of escapism in pretrib, particularly as it's popularly conceived. ("Oh, we would never have to suffer for the faith; the good Lord will take us up before anything really bad happens.")