The entire Bible must be understood by the mystery number of seven. It reveals the literal perfection in the “Book of Revelation.” The six days of creation, along with a seventh day of rest, was a literal truth. The six thousand years since creation, along with the coming one thousand years of Jesus Christ’s reign on Earth, is a prophetic fact. It cannot or will not fail. It was the Holy Spirit that stated, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (II Peter 3:8).

The greatest mystical number in the Masterpiece of Literature (Book of Revelation) is the number seven. “The Holy Spirit chose this number in His holy revelation to convey or reveal subjects in a whole or complete form. Anything seen with this mystical number is important in every part but great and vast in its totality. It’s always associated as the number of completion, whether large or small, when used in a typological form.” (The Masterpiece, Joseph R. Chambers, Anamalos Publishing, pp. 60-61.)

When the Bible is taken as an infallible book and obeyed explicitly, our lives explode in spiritual joy. It is a living book full of the life of Christ. God’s final revelation was the “Book of Revelation.” It contains the word “seven” forty-four times. If you ignore the perfection of sevens — from the Seven Churches to the Seven Lamps of Fire — you cannot understand this great unveiling of truth. The Book of Revelation is a Masterpiece of Literature. No writer has ever transcended this book nor even come close. It is a house of words, completed and perfect. If you reject this book or misinterpret it, you are not likely to have a firm grip on theology.

Every doctrine in the entire Bible — all sixty-five previous books — is dramatized in this single final revelation. All of God’s commandments are defended. Even the fourth commandment is dramatized in Revelation 1:10. His Godhead of three distinct persons is upheld in unmistakable words. The danger of tampering with the total Word of God is a closing warning. The saints are promised a future that is star-studded and even greater than was given to Adam and Eve in the beginning.

His love for both His Church and the Nation of Israel shines like the sun. Seven letters to the saints in His Church are His last warnings and promises. When a church will model itself after the truth contained in these letters, that church will shine. One of the primary facts in those seven letters is our duty to never allow truth to go undefended. In those letters the Lord describes that His glory permeates the whole text. By His Holy Spirit, He walks in the midst of every true Biblical congregation. His absence is death to any church.

The Book of Revelation is an absolute proof of a Pre-Tribulation Rapture. Post-Millennialists, Pre-Wrath Adherents, Mid-Tribulationists, and Amillennialists reject the Book of Revelation as literal because this book rejects their theology. The Church of Jesus Christ disappears from the earth at the beginning of chapter four and the saints are then called elders. For the rest of the Book of Revelation, they have glorified bodies, wear crowns, and are clothed in white Heavenly garments. The worship of these saints in chapters four and five will be Heavenly. For the first time in history, the saints and angels will worship together.

Even praying as we are now commanded to do will be over and all the prayers of the ages will be united with heavenly incenses and then offered up to the Father. Those prayers will then be united with fire from God’s altar and cast into the earth. Then, judgment of sin takes on a fresh vengeance.

When someone argues over whether the judgment of the Great Tribulation is Seven years, it is because they have missed God’s perfect Book. Everything in the Book of Revelation is offered in the order of sevens. There are seven seals that open God’s book of the earth’s title deed. The seventh seal introduces seven trumpets. The seventh trumpet introduces seven vials. Even the Antichrist is manifested to Israel as a false Christ in the middle of seven years of time. It was Jesus Christ that made that plain when He confirmed Daniel’s prophecy, “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate” (Daniel 9:27).

This book has been marginalized, put on the library shelf, or totally rejected for too long. As a man of the whole Bible, I am determined to see our present generation excited about the Book of Revelation. The Lord promised you a great benefit if you will love and study this great unveiling of the Lord’s glory and of His End Time truths. “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand” (Revelation 1:3).

Excerpted from THE MASTERPIECE, A Storybook of the Book of Revelation:

The Book of Revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ at the highest level. He, in all of His redemptive person, is the mountain peak of the book. While He and His Father are equal in all matters of the Godhead, He is the revelation of redemption for the entire universe. In the end, the Father will be all in all because Christ will deliver the kingdom to Him. There are many created beings that have a place in this book with the Son, His Father, and the Holy Spirit,—but second to the glory of our God is the glory of His saints. The four beasts are certainly glorious as His Cherubim that are always present when the Father is directing judgment and special activities on His earth. They will be called living creatures or Cherubim as the story progresses. There are other angels that participate and literally multitudes that ring the entire proceed ings with their presence, but His saints are the reason for the book.

“Christ unveiled” has often been the first description of the Book of Revelation. It is indeed “a taking off of the cover” of the glories of the Son of God, but it is more. It is the removing of the veil from Him and from His stupendous plans and prophecies of His works of redemption and judgments and the glory to follow. His total plan for His saints is almost as glorious as He is, because it is His glory that He shares with His Bride. The first chapter reveals His personal glory as the foundation to reveal all the glories of His coming revelation. Never in any one chapter of the entire Word of God has any one person been described with so many adjectives and titles.

A Name That is Above All Names

The Father has given His victorious Son a “Name above every Name” (Philippians 2:9) and this chapter of God’s masterpiece begins with a divine description. Forty-one adjectives and nouns are used to present Him to His chosen saints and His church. Every one of those descriptions was meant for His revelation to us. All the majesty that fills this book must have a divine foundation, and He is that foundation. In these titles and descriptions, He builds a superstructure of a holy house of literature in order that the words that create that house might carry us to the New Jerusalem of perfect existence and fulfillment. There is nothing about this house of words that is not divine and literal. It is all intended to be His story. Truth must flow out of Him because He is the Word of God. Chapter one is a foundational chapter, and represents the greatest display of His character, His triumph, and His glories ever revealed to humankind. It is breathtaking!

Let’s read them without comment. “… from Jesus Christ … Who is the faithful witness … the first begotten of the dead … the prince of the kings of the earth … that loved us … washed us from our sins … in His own blood … He cometh with clouds … every eye shall see Him … they also which pierced Him … all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him … I am … Alpha… Omega … the beginning… the ending … saith the Lord, … which is … which was … which is to come … the Almighty … Alpha … Omega … the first … the last … the Son of man … clothed with a garment down to the foot … girt about the paps with a golden girdle … His head and His hairs were white like wool … His eyes were as a flame of fire … His feet like unto fine brass , as if they burned in a furnace … His voice as the sound of many waters … in His right hand seven stars … out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword … His countenance was as the sun shineth in His strength … the first … the last … I am He that liveth, and was dead … behold, I am alive for evermore … Amen … and have the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1:5-18). “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter” (Revelation 1:19) and send them to the churches.

No such comprehensive description of Christ is found elsewhere in the Bible. He intended that we take this Book as our battle cry and fill our world with the hope of both Him and the pattern of our future. To even consider the church, filled with joy and the Holy Ghost without Christ and His plans for our future is mindless. These are the two things this great work of literary beauty is all about. The first verse sets the purpose in stone. “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John” (Revelation 1:1).

A chilling mood has suddenly gripped the entire world. Even the multitudes, which know nothing of the Holy Bible or Jesus Christ, are tantalized with the feeling that they have missed a Divine event. Reporters are searching to understand what has happened. Phones are ringing off their hooks with hectic callers looking for disappeared friends or loved ones. College students, still gripped with their hangover from parties the night before, are jostled with the startling news. Grandfathers, grandmothers, parents, and some friends that were very different are missing and they have left no trace of their whereabouts.

Within a short time, the reports are coming fast and furious. Cars are simply sitting at stoplights or beside the road — still running — but containing no trace of their drivers. Some have occupants that are stunned into a stupor because their drivers or passengers have disappeared into seemingly thin air. Many cars are involved in massive wrecks but drivers are not found in those vehicles that caused the wrecks. Several planes have crashed. Their pilots did not answer the airport towers as they veered off course and finally went down in fiery crashes. Hospitals are shorthanded because of missing nurses and doctors, while the emergency rooms are stampeded with the injured and the terrified.

There is a sudden sense in the very atmosphere that any resistance to wickedness and evil is gone. Evil spirits, still invisible but giddy with freedom, are manifesting their dark moods on human faces. Persons that are already possessed with spirits have become brave in their hatred for everyone. Mobs of hoodlums have begun to break into homes and businesses. They are destroying everything in their paths. The police have lost all control because they are outnumbered and utterly helpless. They have realized that they are dealing with sub-humans that would rather kill than live.

People that know the truth of what has happened are quickly aware that the worse is yet to come. The political leaders and law enforcement agencies begin to establish a total police state. Curfews are put in place to clear all streets as police resort to shooting without warning. Total state control is the only possible means of restoring order. Grocery stores are already empty from vandals and shoplifters grabbing everything in sight and loading their cars. Clerks that resist are simply trampled by the melee. It will take days to restore order.

A newscaster finally decides to try and report the events. He begins, “This is a News Alert. Reports are coming to us by the hundreds. Thousands, maybe millions, of people are missing. It’s like they have vanished. Their clothes and shoes, actually everything on their person, were left behind. There are husbands and wives searching for their families. Young people are searching for mothers and fathers. Some teenagers and children are missing. Their parents are utterly insane with fear.

Some parents with missing teens and older juniors are reporting that they were very serious and beautifully religious. In every case it was the best of the lot that are gone. One family called to say that they rushed to find their mother and father, but they were gone. Nothing was changed in the home. Their clothes were in the chairs where they were eating a meal. Their Bible was open to Matthew 24. The verse they saw underlined said, “Two shall be in the field, one shall be taken and the other left.”

Here’s another report, “All of these people were deeply religious, they were not just religious they were kind, loving, Godly, and deeply faithful to their churches. They dressed in old-fashion and modest apparel. Every one of them had often told their families and friends about an event which they called the Rapture, where Jesus Christ would come in the mid-air and they would be caught up to meet him. Could this be true or is this a religious hoax? A Dr. Young just came in from the first church downtown. “Dr. Young, what has happened?” “Mr. Smith, this is all a bizarre story but there is an answer. I’ve been studying the new Eastern religions and making people disappear is an old trick the great pagan priests have done often. They call it astral traveling.

“Some of these people will show back up and others will be locked in paranormal suspension. Tell everybody to just settle down. There is no fear to those that are not overly religious. Be calm, you will be okay. Just thank God you were not one of these crazies.”

Listen, friends, here is another report on the world channel. This report is from the Church of Rome. The Pope has sent a message to every priest to go to the news station and warn everyone against religious hysteria. This great pope, our father of the faith, is the vicar of Jesus Christ. He has the best advice. The pope said that the teaching of Rapture was wrong and that these poor mentally deficient people were too literal in interpreting the Bible. They may be hiding. If they are missing, it will be great for our new day of evangelism. Remember, Mary, the mother of God, could magically appear and disappear. She has been appearing all over the world. If these people are gone, she is responsible. They would not listen to her messages, so she has eliminated them. Now, we can really take the world for the great lord that is about to reveal himself.

But here is another minister. Rev. David Jones, you look white as a ghost. What’s wrong? “My dear friends, I knew better. All my denomination quit preaching the Rapture, so I did. In fact, I studied and came up with an attack on the Rapture. My heart knew better. This was the real thing. Jesus has come and I’ve missed the greatest event in church prophecy. I’m telling everybody that will listen, if you will repent, you will have to be a martyr. I’m lost! I’m lost! It is because I denied the truth that I heard from a young child in my family’s home.”

Suddenly, the reporter stops and reads a note that is passed to him. He turns ashen as he reads, “My teenage son just called to say that his mother, my wife, is missing!”

He has not come, but He is coming! Listen to the angels that appeared when He ascended in the air, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts1:11).