Operation Revelation: A Teen's Script to Earth's Final Curtain

By Bernie Calaway and Jan Roadarmel Ledford

Armageddon. Judgement Day. Apocalypse.

You're curious about the "end times," but isn't the Bible's book of Revelation a little too weird to understand?

Your world is a topsy-turvy mix of social strife, political controversy, natural disasters, and terrorism. It's easy to feel threatened and anxious about life'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authors Press
• Release date: Aug 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781643146300

Bernie Calaway

Bernie L. Calaway is a retired Navy chaplain and biblical scholar. Revelation for Regular Readers is his fourth book. Bernie is a native Texan who soon learned he was a better minister than farmer. He lives in the North Carolina mountains where old writer dudes can churn out words, sketch western art, and chase squirrels off the back stoop.Bernie is the author of 9 booksrape crisis counselorcollege and middle school instructorartistpastor Centerpoint Community Fellowship, Franklin, NCSpecialties: pastoring, counseling, biblical research

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Copyright © 2021 by Bernie Calaway and Jan Roadarmel Ledford

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 978-1-64314-629-4 (Paperback)

978-1-64314-630-0 ((E-book)

AuthorsPress

California, USA

www.authorspress.com

Dedications

For Mahala, Malia, Jamie, and Becky: young adults who set the standard.

—BLC

For Collin, who started the whole thing.

—JRL

Acknowledgments

We wish to express our thanks to Bonnie Harvey of The Harvey Literary Agency for her encouragement, suggestions, and belief in this project. The Adult IV Sunday school class of Franklin First Baptist Church prayed faithfully for us, and we’ll never forget that. The Mighty Girl Writers (Londa, Pam, Eva, and Dee) were mighty in their critiquing powers, advice, and support. Our spouses, Paula and Jim, continually put up with our writing habits. We appreciate you, one and all.

Table of Contents

Introduction xiii

Chapter 1 Checking Out the Mystery 1

Chapter 2 Do Angels Get Mail? 9

Chapter 3 Tribin’ Out 27

Chapter 4 Tribin’ to the Extreme 41

Chapter 5 Thy Kingdom Come 53

Chapter 6 The Journey to Perfection 67

Chapter 7 The Story Never Ending 79

BibleSpeak 87

Leader’s Guide 103

Chapter Questions 109

Study Outline 117

Index 149

Introduction

Armageddon. Left behind. Apocalypse.

Admit it, you’re curious about the end times. But why is everyone making such a fuss over the stuff in Revelation? It’s just another book of the Bible, right? Isn’t it full weird beasts and visions that no one really understands anyway? What could it possibly have to do with life as a teenager in the new millennium?

With Operation Revelation, your curiosity will be headed in the right direction. You’ll find answers to questions you didn’t even know you had. And you’ll see that while Revelation is concerned with the future end times, it also has plenty to say about living as a teen in the here-and-now.

Think you won’t know the language? No sweat—BibleSpeak at the end of the book explains those oddball words and names from Abaddon to Wormwood. Worried it might be dry and boring? No way, with all the fast-paced cosmic upheaval coming at you like virtual reality.

Don’t have a teacher? Relax! This book wasn’t written for the adults anyway; it was written for you.

Chapter 1

Checking Out the Mystery

Let’s imagine…

You are home alone. Yes, it’s Saturday night and, yes, you had other and more exciting plans for the evening. Your folks are out—off to dinner or one of those business things or whatever. There’s nothing good on TV. Your pesky little brother is spending the night with his dorky friend. The quiet is deafening except when the hot water heater hums or the neighbor’s dog howls.

You’ve read everything in your own bookshelf, so you wander into the den. The library there boasts half a wall crowded with several dictionaries, a set of encyclopedias from 1974, and a few fat novels by authors you don’t know. Wait. Here’s the thick, black family Bible. A thin covering of dust testifies that it’s been a while since it was moved. But you pull. it down.

The book falls open to the last section—the part they call Revelation. Isn’t this the one your Sunday school teachers. never teach and your pastor never preaches about? Your grandmother once hinted the things in here are weird. You’re almost certain this is the text all those kooks on the news were studying while they waited for their starship ride beyond the galaxies. This could be forbidden territory.

Cool!

Who Reads This Stuff?

You begin to read: Chapter 1, verse 1. Immediately you are swept away by what’s there on the crowded pages. But it doesn’t seem like dry print and paper exactly. Everything comes at you video style—a cinematic action film of sound. and movement in your head. One moment you are soaring with bright angelic beings and the next you’re witnessing a mass murder; now you are contemplating some grand doxology or hymn, then you’re experiencing a cosmic upheaval; here are glorious scenes of a perfect paradise but there you’re thrust into a hellish horror of vengeance and destruction; one moment you’re reading about a quaint first century church and then you’re confronted by a grotesque dragon with seven heads and ten horns.

You are excited and confused. You are enraptured and repelled, and just as surely puzzled. What’s happening here?

What’s happening is that you are reading an eschatological apocalypse.

Huh?

What’s Revelation About?

Eschatology is the study of last things. (For definitions, see Bible Speak at the end of this book.) The term really means furthest out study and deals with times of the end—the shock stop of time, history, and life as we know it.

Apocalyptic is a style of thinking and writing that expresses eschatology very nicely. An apocalyptic writer will seldom state the obvious, preferring to use words cloaked in mysterious symbols. He will never pick a plain word when he can find another more expressive or intense. He will not approach your mind without touching your feelings first. His story is fast-paced, his scenes shift rapidly, and his characters resemble a strange assortment of humans and animals that look and act like normal ones never would.

Revelation, the last book of the Bible, is an apocalypse. In fact, the entire text is sometimes called The Apocalypse. The word revelation means to uncover or reveal something that was previously hidden. So, since Revelation is an eschatological (futuristic) apocalypse (revealing), its intent is to unveil the future. It will do that, however, with plenty of reference to past events as well as to the real-time present. Since we are all interested in what has happened before, we are vitally concerned with what’s happening now, and we are curious about what lies ahead, Revelation can enrich our lives.

It can, that is, if it’s more than a good story. It has to be real and true if we are to trust what it says.

Before we look closely, however, let’s agree to avoid the two most common mistakes about it. First, the title of the work is Revelation, not Revelations. And second, remember that Revelation is unique among all other apocalyptic material in the Bible. It is a factual and relevant guide to faith, morals, and the mysteries of the universe.

Who Wrote It?

Knowing the biographer can only be done by assuming that God is the Grand Author, Jesus is the prime mover and main character, and the Holy Spirit is the source of inspiration. The human player is a fellow named John who (with the help of angels) will act as secretary and occasional participant in the visions. God we know, and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. But who is John?

A few authorities claim the writer might be an unknown John because the name was common then, as it is now. But most scholars insist he is John the Apostle. We meet him in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) as a close companion and beloved disciple of Jesus. He was brother to James and the only apostle to reach old age, since all his friends were killed early on for their faith.

If it was John the Beloved, we know that when he received this Revelation vision he was pretty old, probably in his 80’s. Obviously too, his writing technique is different in Revelation than his other works (the Gospel of John, plus the letters of 1, 2, and 3 John). If we are correct as to name and date, it means we have a strong authority figure to introduce us to the Apocalypse.

To Whom Was It Written?

This letter from God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, angels, and John was sent to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 1:4). They are named later as Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

All seven churches were actual congregations located in what was then the province of Asia Minor, territory conquered by the mighty Roman Empire. Today they would be located in the nation of Turkey. The church leaders were instructed to read the letter aloud to the congregations (Rev. 1:3). As a group, the churches represent all of us who belong to Christ’s great Church, which he calls his bride.

Revelation, then, is written for us.

When and Why Was It Written?

John was a prisoner on the obscure island of Patmos, across the water from Ephesus. He was there, not for a well deserved Mediterranean vacation, but because he had been exiled to this stark forbidden place by the Roman authorities. There he was forced to work as a slave in the mines.

Christians all over the Roman world were being persecuted because they refused to worship the emperor as a god, to honor the pagan deities, or to support the harsh policies of a cruel dictatorship. Christians and Jews were being killed by the thousands, or cast out into wilderness places like Patmos. Perhaps John felt as if he’d been thrown away like last week’s garbage.

Most likely, our author was suffering under the persecutions of Domitian, one of the most cruel and beastly of the Roman emperors. The time of John’s vision, then, would be a bit before 96 A.D. (when Domitian committed suicide). Some suggest the writing was earlier, under Nero (54-68 A.D.), or maybe later under Trajan (98-117 A.D.). In any case, the times were severe and being a believer was a dangerous and uncomfortable lifestyle.

Revelation contained hope and comfort to those undergoing persecution because it assured believers that Jesus would be victorious. It promised the struggling young churches that they could endure. The worshipers might be killed, imprisoned, or enslaved, but they would eventually see the good guys win the Big One. Their faith and loyalty in Christ would sustain them.

Is It True (Like the Rest of the Bible)…or Fantasy (Like Star Wars)?

If Revelation was something other than an apocalypse, perhaps an ordinary letter or a history like most of the rest of the Bible, fewer people would doubt its value. But because apocalypses are so strange and difficult, some folks dismiss Revelation as a fantastic tale or a restless nightmare.

Why do apocalypses exist, and why would God send John a message for the Church in such fantastic language? Why not just speak plainly?

First, apocalypticism and eschatology are dynamic concepts. They allow complex events to move along with energy because they tell their stories with drama. The book you are reading tries to complement Revelation’s action by presenting it as a play in seven acts. Even when we can’t grasp everything they’re saying, we never get bored.

Second, the apocalyptic style provided a measure of protection to believers. For example, if the Revelation letter was intercepted by the Romans, they would find little evidence for punishment simply because they could comprehend so little of it. Only believers possessed the spirit of understanding to unravel its mysteries.

Furthermore, the Holy Spirit does not intend for us to grasp all knowledge in every age and circumstance. While today’s population knows more than a person of the second century B.C., that does not mean we are smarter. It means only that we have more information, and can store and transmit it more efficiently. We likely hold less information about Revelation than future generations will.

Yet it may well be that John’s first readers understood the details of Revelation better than we can. Still, they did not have the benefit of history as we do. The point is that some generations receive truth differently from other generations.

Yes, Revelation is true. But we (and all other readers) have an obligation to dig out the facts. It is written in a fantastic form, but it is not fantasy. To the unbeliever Revelation is a puzzle; to the Christian it is the very word of God.

Can Real People Understand It?

All believers are stupefied at times when they read Revelation. Even our expert John had to call