Chapter One/Revelation - It's Happy Climax - 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 mad, 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 also 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 cataclysm," 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 and uncovering of divine truths that should build in our hearts a radiant hope and an unmovable 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 be 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 gives the happy assurance that only the wicked opposers of God will be destroyed-by forces under God's control. (Palm 37:9, 10, 145:20) A great crowd of humans, out of all nations will survive the climax of divine judgment at Armageddon. Jesus Christ will then shepherd and guide those to life everlasting in a paradise earth. Do you want to be one of them? Happily, Revelation shows that you may be! - REVELATION 7:9, 14, 17.

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