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Revelation's "New World Order"

Venom

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I need help today.

There was a speaker invited to our ethnic community. He was an ex-Buddhist turned Christian who was literally obsessed over the book of Revelations. He talked for hours trying to explain what the horrific beasts and symbolic imagery in the book meant (surely an arduous and dubious task). Then right when he alluded to prophecy, I almost lost it. My eyes were rolling to the back of my head every half hour after that. :rolleyes:

I don't know much Burmese, and it was hard for me to follow, but in particular, he mentioned 7 out of 8 things falling and only one standing, a beast with one foot shorter than the other, and something about steel feet and body parts made out of different materials; he made a reference to the well-being of several major nations and empires regarding this--the basis for many conspiracy theories I presume?

I've never seriously read Revelations. Anyone have any good resources to help me explain this woo away?
 
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As a convert, I'll bet he was saying how he was a lapdog of satan being a buddhist and telling you all to accept christ before its too late or you'll burn in hell.:rolleyes:

not to sound trite, but give wikipedia a try.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation

It's funny how all of these Christians who think they've figured it all out and know what all of the symbols in the book mean seem to have conflicting interpretations of what each symbol means.:p

I remember watching a conspiracy video entitled "Gateway Four" by Stewart Best, in which the host, (Best) talks about all of these crazy alien theories and how before he became a christian he "Used to be a skeptic" (The best part of the video is when he says "I'm a skeptic I want PROOF!" :p) and talks about the book of revelation a bit. He mentions animals that "rise out of the water" , one example being a bear with 3 ribs in its mouth. Best said the bear represents Russia, and the 3 ribs were Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.
 
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Don't bother trying. Thomas Paine described Revelation as a "book of riddles that requires a revelation to explain it". Striking images, though.
Ch 14:10 ... they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast ...
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Some angels! Some lamb!
 
Couple of years ago a book came out on Revalations and it's history. ( sorry, don't recall the title just now)
Anyway, though the book was primarily concerned with how Revalations affected subsequent societies including our own, he did dissect the thing pretty well and showed that nearly all the coded imagery referred to the situation at the time, with dissention in the early Church, "false prophets" running around, persecutions....All that.
 
IIIClovisIII said:
There was a speaker invited to our ethnic community. He was an ex-Buddhist turned Christian who was literally obsessed over the book of Revelations. He talked for hours trying to explain what the horrific beasts and symbolic imagery in the book meant (surely an arduous and dubious task). Then right when he alluded to prophecy, I almost lost it. My eyes were rolling to the back of my head every half hour after that. :rolleyes:

I don't know much Burmese, and it was hard for me to follow, but in particular, he mentioned 7 out of 8 things falling and only one standing, a beast with one foot shorter than the other, and something about steel feet and body parts made out of different materials; he made a reference to the well-being of several major nations and empires regarding this--the basis for many conspiracy theories I presume?

I've never seriously read Revelations. Anyone have any good resources to help me explain this woo away?
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Part of the problem is that most of those things don't actually come from Revelation. Evangelical eschatology is reliant on a patchwork of verses and verse fragments taken from all over the Bible.

For example, the stuff about the body parts made of different materials and how it's a symbolic reference to various nations and empires is actually from the Old Testament Book of Daniel (specifically, the second chapter).

If you're interested in Revelation specifically, I recommend Kraybill's Apocalypse and Allegiance: Worship, Politics, and Devotion in the Book of Revelation.

If you're interested in Harry Ironside-style eschatology as a whole (which sounds like what you're describing), I recommend DeMar's End Times Fiction.
 
IIIClovisIII said:
...I've never seriously read Revelations. Anyone have any good resources to help me explain this woo away?
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A rather quick way is to read the very first sentence of the very first paragraph of Revelations:

The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.
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Considering the book was written by 100AD, what does the word 'soon' mean in that introduction? How many places in the bible (if the interpreter likes to do cross-references) does the word 'soon' mean over 100 years from now? Over a thousand?

And if the interpreter pulls the "1 day is as a 1000 years" argument, then how many other time-line interpretations in the bible must be reinterpreted?

Also as noted above, many of the ideas in the book are also from elsewhere in the old testament.
 
There's a whole pile of end-times prophecy in the book of Joel - the moon turning to blood, the people prophecying and seeing visions (which is huge with the Pentecostals), beating ploughshares into swords, sun and moon going dark, etc. Big battle at the end of time during which the LORD saves His people and leads them to paradise.
 
IIIClovisIII said:
I need help today.

There was a speaker invited to our ethnic community. He was an ex-Buddhist turned Christian who was literally obsessed over the book of Revelations. He talked for hours trying to explain what the horrific beasts and symbolic imagery in the book meant (surely an arduous and dubious task). Then right when he alluded to prophecy, I almost lost it. My eyes were rolling to the back of my head every half hour after that. :rolleyes:

I don't know much Burmese, and it was hard for me to follow, but in particular, he mentioned 7 out of 8 things falling and only one standing, a beast with one foot shorter than the other, and something about steel feet and body parts made out of different materials; he made a reference to the well-being of several major nations and empires regarding this--the basis for many conspiracy theories I presume?

I've never seriously read Revelations. Anyone have any good resources to help me explain this woo away?
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The Revelation of John is very complex and difficult. It is full of symbology which would have been understood by its audience in that place and time, but which is much harder for us to reconstruct.

That said, it's not impossible to piece it all together.

It would take a whole book to fully describe the world of that writer and his audience and what he was saying... as others have pointed out, it's crammed with references to other scripture, as well as to contemporary theology and politics.

But I think the most important thing to know is that John -- one of the church leaders who is writing from some sort of exile, whether self-imposed or not -- is writing to an early Christian community who are being persecuted by their neighbors and receiving no protection from the Roman imperial authorities.

There are actually two revelations in the book -- which are conflated by most Christians -- one describing the overthrow of Rome (Babylon) and another describing the End of Days.

In some places, the interpretation of the vision is left tacit, presumably understandable on its face by Christians in Asia Minor in that day. But in many places, the vision is explicitly interpreted for us -- for example, the whore riding the beast is Rome. (Funny that many modern-day evangelical fundamentalists identify her as the Roman Catholic Church instead.)

The empires mentioned are all empires of that day, not of ours.

But of course, that didn't stop an American president from going to war against what he thought was Gog and Magog.
 
Thanks.

Someone was arguing with me about the Illuminati's existence and he tried to tell me that the Roman Catholic Church is the whore because of the red and purple fabric on their robes as well as the golden cups.

:p
 
IIIClovisIII said:
Thanks.

Someone was arguing with me about the Illuminati's existence and he tried to tell me that the Roman Catholic Church is the whore because of the red and purple fabric on their robes as well as the golden cups.

:p
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I am somewhat afraid to ask but: what do golden cups have to do with whores?
 
IIIClovisIII said:
Thanks.

Someone was arguing with me about the Illuminati's existence and he tried to tell me that the Roman Catholic Church is the whore because of the red and purple fabric on their robes as well as the golden cups.

:p
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This is quite a common claim from the Pentecostals. I was once given an entire lecture about the Illuminati.
 
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