Today we're pleased to share with you an audio essay written and read by Nancy Guthrie, entitled

Ten Things You Should Know About the Book of Revelation.

Nancy's new book is called Blessed, experiencing the promise of the book of Revelation from Crossway.

10 things. from Crossway. Ten things you should know about the book of Revelation by Nancy Guthrie.

Number one, revelation is not hard to understand.

Revelation is a book that many people avoid convinced that it's too hard

to interpret and understand. Now, certainly, there are some challenges to rightly interpreting

some of its vivid imagery and plentiful symbolism. It's a genre of literature apocalyptic that is unfamiliar to most of us,

which requires that we develop some skills for reading it. But Revelation wasn't written for

scholars. It was written for ordinary believers in the first century with the expectation that they would be able

to understand its central message. And that means we are able to understand its central message.

The challenge greater than understanding the book of Revelation may be opening ourselves up to the

adjustments in our lives that this book calls for. Yet this greater challenge is also what promises

the greatest blessing. Number two, revelation is not primarily about the future.

Revelation was written to fortify believers in the first century, and every century since then,

to live out bold allegiance to Christ as they and as we wait for the king of kings to come and establish his kingdom on earth

in all of its glorious fullness. It fortifies us for this by showing us what God has done in the past,

is doing in the present, and will do in the future to preserve and protect his people,

destroy his enemies, and renew his creation. It shows us how to live out the ordinary days

of this present life in ways that will matter into eternity future. Number three, Revelation

enables us to view reality from heaven's perspective. The book of Revelation is John's record

of a series of visions that he was given and instructed to write down for us.

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