The Message of Revelation (The Bible Speaks Today | BST)

by Michael Wilcock

Publisher:

IVP

, 1975

Overview

What is the book of Revelation? Does it describe in veiled language events of its writer's own day, or is it largely a prophecy of events still to come? Is it a chart of the whole of history from Christ's first coming to his second? Or does it deal chiefly with principles which are always valid in Christian experience?

And what is a twentieth-century reader to do with creatures covered with eyes, locusts like horses, seven bowls of wrath, war in heaven, various beasts and a dragon?

Michael Wilcock maintains that when God's words, declarations, arguments and reasonings had all been spoken, God gave the church "a gorgeous picture book." Wilcok lifts the curtain on Revelation's drama in eight scenes, helping our imaginations as well as our minds grasp the key concepts of this fascinating and enigmatic New Testament book.

Contents

Top Highlights

“But in her keenness for the truth, the church at Ephesus has lost her love, ‘the one quality without which all others are worthless’.² It is noteworthy that only in the first and last of the seven Letters is a church threatened with actual destruction, and in each case the reason is the unnerving, purely negative one, that it lacks fervent devotion. ‘You have abandoned the love you had at first’, says Christ. Do not misunderstand me; ‘you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate’; I commend your zeal. But where is your love? For on that your very survival as a church depends.” (Page 44)

“Then what about the innumerable crowd of verse 9? What is the relation between them and the 144,000? They are one and the same.” (Page 80)

“In brief, Satan is working here through the pressures of non-Christian society. He persecutes” (Page 47)

“There is still the promise of life in paradise for the individual who remembers from what he has fallen, and returns to his first works and his first love. But let the loveless church beware. ‘If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing’ (1 Cor. 13:2).” (Page 44)

“May it be that seven represents not the entirety of a thing, but the essence of it?” (Page 62)

Product Details

• Title: The Message of Revelation
• Author: Michael Wilcock
• Series: The Bible Speaks Today
• Publisher: IVP
• Print Publication Date: 1975
• Logos Release Date: 2007
• Pages: 240
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Bible. N.T. Revelation › Commentaries
• Resource ID: LLS:BSTUS87RE
• Resource Type: Bible Commentary
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-08-29T21:23:02Z

About Michael Wilcock

Michael Wilcock was formerly director of pastoral studies at Trinity College, Bristol. He retired from many years of pastoring churches in the United Kingdom, most recently St. Nicholas’ Church, Durham. He is the author of The Message of Revelation and The Message of Luke.