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Article		January 7, 2017
Revelation Explained!

I was just scanning through a book put out by the Restored Church of God. The book is "Revelation Explained at Last!" by David C. Pack

He fails to address the questions I had for many years, that many events described in Revelation do not make sense as literal events, yet most people including this author take them as literal.

Revelation resists interpretation. A mistake like understanding an event as literal when it is symbolic soon spirals into foolishness. I'm convinced that it is designed to lead astray those God does not want to understand it.

One good example of that comes from Chapter 10 of the author's book, which covers Chapter 10 of Revelation. He discusses that chapter in 3 paragraphs but one has nothing to do with anything so I've left it out of the quote below.

Chapter 10 is almost entirely about a 'little book' held in the hand of a 'mighty angel.' This little book is 'sweet as honey' in John's mouth, but 'bitter' in his belly. This is a reference to the book of Ezekiel, but perhaps also working in conjunction with the book of Revelation itself.

Verse 11 reveals that the message of the little book, and the book of Revelation, was to be taken by one (not John because he never did this) to 'peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.' For this to happen again, it must previously happen in a first fulfillment. This occurred, and is now happening 'again.'

The author doesn't explain why he thinks the little book is the book of Ezekiel. Chapter 3:3 of Ezekiel says:

Then he said to me, 'Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.' So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth (NIV)

He makes the common mistake I mentioned in a previous post, that correlation links things together, if they look the same they are the same. Therefore Ezekiel's sweet scroll, which is the book of Ezekiel (more on that later), is also John's sweet and bitter little book.

In a sense, the little book of Revelation is the same scroll that Ezekiel ate.

Being given a scroll or book to eat by God is a symbolic way of saying "here is a prophecy to put inside you to carry to others". The prophecy in the little book is, however, a different prophecy from the one given to Ezekiel. The scroll that Ezekiel eats is all the prophecies that follow in the book of Ezekiel. The little book is all the prophecies that follow in Revelation.

Then the author finds the only value in verse 11 is as a command to take this message (Ezekiel's I guess) to all peoples … again. But here is what verse 11 really says

And he said to me, 'A time is given to you again to prophesy unto the nations and peoples and languages and many Kings'.

It's saying another time has been given to prophesy. By that it means the prophecy of the seven-sealed scroll is ended and the prophecy of the little book is beginning. This is an important and sudden (and subtle) change in the flow of Revelation and critical to having a correct understanding.

This author treats it as a two paragraph speed bump and moves on.