Apocalypse - What Is It?

Is not Revelation also called apocalypse? That is so, "Revelation" being the English translation of a-po-ka'ly-psis in the Greek text. Many people equate Apocalypse with world destruction by nuclear warfare. In a Texas, U.S.A. city where great numbers of nuclear warheads are made, religiously inclined people have been saying. "We'll be the first to go." Clergymen in that area are reported to have "become convinced that Armageddon is not only inevitable but close at hand, and that the final battle between the forces of good and bad, of God and Satan, will take place as a nuclear holocaust."

But what really is an Apocalypse? Though dictionaries define it by using terms such as "an imminent cosmic catactlysm," the Greek a-po-ka'ly-psis basically means "unveiling" or "uncovering." Thus, the last book of the Bible is properly entitled "A Revelation." Here we find, not a mere fatalistic message of world doom, but an uncovering of divine truths that should build in our hearts a radiant hope and an immovable faith.

True, Armageddon is described in the last book of the Bible as "the war of the great day of God the Almighty." (Revelation 16:14, 16) But it will far different from a nuclear holocaust! Such a holocaust would likely mean the annihilation of all life on earth. On the contrary God's Word give the happy assurance that wicked opposers of God will be destroyed - by forces under God's control. (Psalm 37:9, 10; 145:20) A great crowd of humans, out of all nations will survive the climax of divine judgment at Armageddon. Christ Jesus will then shepherd and guide these to life everlasting in a paradise earth. Do you not want to be one of them? Happily, Revelation shows that you may be! -Revelation 7:9, 14, 17.

Next time:Searching Out Divine Secrets