tourbillon — THE PURPOSE OF THE POSTS — REVELATION

Why does Revelation read like a book that went to press with its pages out of order? If the Revelation story is so important, as my book REVELATION—An Epic Drama In Four Acts insists it is, why didn’t God have it written clearly in the first place?

For the sake of transparency, let me be upfront, the answer to why God had Revelation written the way he did is way above my pay grade. However, I can comment on the logic of Revelation’s structure. First, I have to digress…bear with me.

REVELATION—THE TOURBILLON OF BIBLE BOOKS: Watch enthusiasts love mechanical timepieces because of their precision, beauty…and complication. In fact, any feature beyond the hours/minutes display—date, alarms, chronographs etc.—is called a complication. The tourbillon (whirlwind, in French), is the epitome of ultra-complicated wristwatches. They are exquisite pieces of craftsmanship, a marriage of machinery and art. They are addictive; you can’t stop looking at them. All those moving parts, when exposed, seem to function independently yet they are all interconnected. They are also expensive, the starting price for most Swiss tourbillons is $80,000, just in case you’re interested. And what exactly does that have to do with Revelation?

Meteoris Watch by Louis Moinet

Revelation is like a tourbillon. It is time related, pointing to the future, and it’s complicated, lots of complications. The book has seven sets of visions, each one viewing the time of the end from a different perspective. The visions, like the moving parts of a tourbillon, seem to function independently while in reality, they all work together in precise unity.

Revelation is prophetic, a history of the future. And, like any good history, it describes different aspects of the period under consideration. Following is a brief discussion of Revelation’s visions, chapters 6-22 (from REVELATION—An Epic Drama In Four Acts, Chapter 5).

VISIONS THAT DESCRIBE THE LAST DAYS FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES

THE SEVEN-SEALED SCROLL — CHAPTERS 6-11: Events in this set of visions are presented mainly from an earthly perspective; things that people will see and experience. Satan is behind the catastrophic events of seals one – five, but God and Christ take the initiative away from him in seals six and seven.

CHAPTERS 12 & 13 follow Satan’s movements from heaven to earth, where he manipulates human agencies to persecute the saints.

CHAPTER 14 focuses on angelic activity in heaven during the time of the end. Jesus appears on a white cloud to reward the righteous and destroy the wicked.

CHAPTERS 15 & 16 describe the Seven Bowls of Wrath; divine plagues that reiterate messages similar to the seven trumpets (part of the seventh seal of the scroll).

CHAPTERS 17 & 18 focus on the religious and political elements driving the events of the last days and the sudden destruction of Babylon the Great.

CHAPTER 19 focuses mainly on the military aspect; the final battle between Christ and the “kings of the earth.

CHAPTERS 20-22 are an epilogue to the Revelation drama.

Certainly God could have inspired Revelation to be written in any number of ways, but, I think it works perfectly just as it is. If you disassemble the book to examine the visions—the mechanism—it becomes clear how all those complications mesh perfectly to reveal the Revelation story. But, just like a precision watch, it doesn't work unless it’s reassembled. I honestly can’t imagine Revelation doing what it does in any other literary form.

The Meteoris Watch pictured above is valued at just under $4.6 million, Revelation, on the other hand, is priceless.

(WatchGeekTime.com is an excellent podcast on watches: "Heritage, History and why we are so hooked on Horology.")