Richard Booker - The Overcomers (Understanding the Book of Revelation)

B OOKS BY D R. RICHARD B OOKER

Discovering the Miracle of the Scarlet Thread in Every Book of the Bible

Celebrating Jesus in the Biblical Feasts

Radical Islams War Against Christianity and the West

Living in His Presence

The Miracle of the Scarlet Thread Revised

Blow the Trumpet in Zion

A VAILABLE F ROM D ESTINY I MAGE P UBLISHERS

Copyright 2011Dr. Richard Booker

All rights reserved. This book is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted and encouraged. Permission will be granted upon request. Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Please note that Destiny Images publishing style capitalizes certain pronouns in Scripture that refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and may differ from some publishers styles. Take note that the name satan and related names are not capitalized. We choose not to acknowledge him, even to the point of violating grammatical rules.

DESTINY IMAGE PUBLISHERS, INC.

P.O. Box 310, Shippensburg, PA 17257-0310

Speaking to the Purposes of God for This Generation and for the Generations to Come.

This book and all other Destiny Image, Revival Press, MercyPlace, Fresh Bread, Destiny Image Fiction, and Treasure House books are available at Christian bookstores and distributors worldwide.

For a U.S. bookstore nearest you, call 1-800-722-6774 .

For more information on foreign distributors, call 717-532-3040 .

Reach us on the Internet: www.destinyimage.com .

ISBN 13 TP: 978-0-7684-3749-2

ISBN 13 Ebook: 978-0-7684-9006-0

For Worldwide Distribution, Printed in the U.S.A.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 /15 14 13 12 11

T O Peggy, my wife and covenant partner of more than 45 years, who has faithfully served the Lord with me with unselfish love and support. Whatever I have been able to accomplish is because of her sacrifices and servants heart. There are many great women in the world, but Peggy surpasses them all. She is the best Christian I know and a true overcomer.

I also want to thank my friends at Destiny Image, especially Don Nori, for being faithful to his vision of speaking to the purposes of God for this generation and for the generations to come.

I want to acknowledge two of my students: Angela James, who gave so much of her time editing the manuscript, and Mark Sessions, who prepared the map and charts. Thank you both for your excellent work.

Contents

W HEN John was on the island of Patmos, the Lord gave him a revelation of Jesus, the exalted Son of Man, and of Gods people overcoming satanic opposition and before the throne of God. In spite of tremendous persecution, John saw in the Spirit that the faithful followers of the Lord were victorious. They overcame satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. Furthermore, John was given revelation to see the spiritual warfare in Heaven that was being played out on the earth. He saw the outcome of this spiritual battle as well as prophetic events that would take place in the endtimes before the coming of the Lord.

John saw that God would totally and completely destroy His enemies and resurrect His own people to live with Him forever in a new Heaven, a new earth and a New Jerusalem. Regardless of the trials and tribulations Gods people must endure, our destiny is certain and sure. Jesus is returning, and we will rule and reign with Him in a world free of satan, sin, and death. In the challenging days ahead, believers can joyfully commit their souls to God, who is faithful to keep His Word of promise.

As John wrote at the end of his vision:

And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:3-4).

So the Book of Revelation is not a book of doom and gloom, but of the victory of the Lamb and those who follow Him. The purpose of the Lords revelation to John was to unveil or disclose to him what John could not know without divine assistance. The Lord gave John his vision to encourage and comfort his immediate readers as well as believers throughout the ages. What eventually became the Book of Revelation was clearly intended to be understood by John and his first-century readers.

However, with the passage of time, this book that God intended for us to understand became, without a doubt, the most mysterious book in the Bible. For almost 2,000 years, Christian scholars and everyday believers have tried to understand its message. Because the Book of Revelation is an apocalyptic vision filled with otherworldly symbols and descriptions of strange creatures, Gods people have not always agreed on its meaning. This has led to a number of different interpretations of Johns words.

Since there are so many books written on Johns revelation, with so many different interpretations, why would I feel burdened to add to the confusion? It was certainly not my intention to write a book on the Book of Revelation. With more than 30 other books in print, I was ready to take a break from book writing. I wrote this book because there is an urgent need to explain Johns revelation with the following four points of view that have not been adequately included in most commentaries on the Book of Revelation.

First, almost all books written to explain the Book of Revelation are written with a Western cultural worldview rather than a biblical worldview. There are some exceptions. What I mean by this is that the writer interprets the Book of Revelation through Western eyes rather than through the Hebraic eyes of a Middle Eastern person. John was not a Western theologian. He was a Jewish seer. This means that he understood and wrote his revelation in terms of his own history and culture. His history and culture is the Hebrew Biblewhat Christians have always called the Old Testament. In this book, I prefer to use the phrase Hebrew Bible.

In order to understand the Book of Revelation, we must read it through the eyes of a Jewish man rather than through the eyes of a Western theologian. For example, when John sees Jesus in Heaven, he describes Him in Jewish terms, not Western Christian terms. To get the fullest meaning of Johns vision of Jesus, we need to know Jesus, the Jewish Son of Man. To John, Jesus is the Cloud Man of the Book of Daniel.

Second, since the Book of Revelation is the last book in the Bible, we must have a good understanding of all the other books in the Bible. We cannot understand the Book of Revelation if we do not have a good understanding of Genesis through Jude, as well as some basic knowledge of the literature written between the Testaments, and of Greek mythology. We must not read Johns revelation as if it were written in modern times isolated from the rest of the Bible. The best way to understand the Book of Revelation is to begin with Genesis. For instance, when John explains the eternal home of believers in the last two chapters of the Book of Revelation, he assumes that the reader will be familiar with the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis.