book backed up by Scripture, . deep insight A prophetic drama that is a brilliant new take on the book of Revelation, Gives readers fresh insight and gives them peace of mind and a great hope for the future, This book starts with a dramatized interpretation of the author John getting the information he received to write the book of Revelations.
The big part of the book is the authors interpretation of the end times,
This is a very interesting and straightforward book, I thought the writing flowed very well and helped make the book an easy read, The authors explanations of the verses in Revelation will help you to better understand this complicated book of the Bible,
I gave this book/stars, I read this book in one sitting and found the explanations very enlightening, I did not agree with all that was written but do respect the authors views and thought he did well at explaining why he thinks what he thinks.
I would give this book to anyone wanting a better understanding of the book of Revelations or just wanting to understand the end times better.
I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the copy of this book I enjoyed reading, I gave an honest review based on my opinion of what I read,
A quick read. Some descriptive lines made me wince, It is like a "bad Bmovie" when Satan is let lose after the millennium, A better book for studying Revelation is The Revelation Record by Henry Morris, I was unable to finish it do personal reasons, But it is good. Revelation A Measured, Contextual but still Literalized Premillennial View
Jim Bakker is to be commended for the perspective presented in this book, acknowledging the immediacy of his message to persecuted Christian churches in
the Roman province of Asia under Emperor Domitian in the last decade of the first century.
Persecution Focus
Bakker comments: "John did not send this book to the seven churches simply to satisfy their curiosity about the future.
He sent to help them survive the persecutions of their day and make it through the dark night of their despair" p.
Bakker and his cowriter provide helpful background for each city to focus our understanding of the letters to the individual churches in this commercial and religious center of the eastern Roman Empire.
They give a summary of the political situation at that time, and open the book by setting up in fiction fashion the situation of the author of Revelation on the isle of Patmos himself for his activity in promoting Jesus Christ as a rival lord to the legally divine Emperor.
John's Situation
Bakker frames each chapter with this background story of John in his visionary and writing experience on his prison island.
Bakker relates John's situation to his own prison experience and the reflections the prison time afforded him,
Even with this welcome practical focus on the Lord's message through the Revelator, Bakker insists on hanging on to the future literal interpretation of events in our endtime future.
He overlays his variation of common sci fi projections on the ancient picture in the Roman Empire upon our times and politics, for his version of turning prophecy into prediction for our time.
He, as is common in this endtime approach, never explains the basis for determining that we know somehow we are now at what has to be the end of history, in order to know how to overlay our events upon Revelation, instead of it still being in some future generation or era.
There is, in fact, no way to know,
Measured and Humble
This winds up being the common stymie point in the logic of every attempt to predict the end based on political events in our time.
The "signs" are repeated and available to any generation, Empire is still Empire in whatever form in whatever era, Bakker takes a measured, thoughtful and humble approach to this topic, a refreshing change from many "prophecy" advocates with bombastic, belligerent, indignant, even gleeful, hateful and dogmatic approaches in so many quarters
He remains a premillennialist, but acknowledges the variations on the ideas about the order of events and when the "rapture" will take place.
He is careful to use qualifying words like perhaps, probably, some people think, regardless of how it happens, and so forth, that show a spirit of charity.
Literalizing
He is careful to note the immediate historical references of Rome, Babylon and the Beast to the Emperor, but still insists on segueing seamlessly into talking about the literalized futuristic Antichrist.
He never expresses doubt that there is a message written for us and our time IN ADDITION to the immediate totallypresent context meaning of the original revelation visions.
I found that amazing and totally unwarranted by the details he does bring out in the text, and the fact that every detail of the text can be accounted for by the immediate historical situation and historical events of thest century when John wrote this Revelation to the beleaguered churches in the Roman province of Asia.
James Orsen Bakker is an American televangelist, a former Assemblies of God minister, and a former host with his then wife Tammy Faye Bakker of The PTL Club, a popular evangelical Christian television program.
A sex scandal led to his resignation from the ministry, Subsequent revelations of accounting fraud brought about his imprisonment and divorce and effectively ended his time in the larger public eye, .