Preoccupation with Revelation

Just the other day, I saw an article in the newspaper about the new "Left Behind" video game. Now, I have to admit that I have not seen this game, much less played it (nor do I really care to), but I was dumbfounded to learn that a key part of the game has players attempt to "convert" the "heathen" or to kill them. Despite the protestations on the part of the game's developer that this killing is self-defense, it does seem mystifying to me that an ostensibly "Christian" game would have contestants killing anyone. What is even more mystifying to me is the fact that people would go so far as to pay good money for this game. Is the preoccupation with the book of Revelation and the end times that strong? (Yesterday, I actually spoke to a man on the phone who chided me for not preaching on Revelation--btw, he was not a member of the congregation! His thinking was that we are living in the last days, when so much of Revelation is being fulfilled before our very eyes, so why wouldn't I be preaching on Revelation. People need to be aware of what's going on, he said.)

Surely, it is a ploy of the devil to get us sidetracked with peripheral and less significant issues like end-times prophecy and the apocalypse so that we overlook the important things like receiving and resting upon Christ alone for our salvation and like keeping His commandments. This is not to suggest that the book of Revelation is not important. It is a part of God's inspired and inerrant Word and, for that reason, is very important. But it is a book that is quite difficult to understand. While it's main point is crystal clear--i.e., Jesus wins in the end!--the particulars of what it says are open to much debate. It is easy to be so preoccupied with deciphering the less clear points of the book of Revelation that we miss the clear points of the gospel.

When I hear so much emphasis on end-times prophecy, I can't help but think of the words of the "men...in white robes" (Acts 1:10-11), who said to the disciples as they were "gazing into heaven" after Jesus had ascended before their eyes: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?" The point seems to be obvious: get on with it. Jesus had just said to these men: "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:7-8). Get on with keeping the Lord's commands, get on with living the Christian life, be concerned with what He has clearly said in His Word rather than with gazing into the heavens and discerning the times or the seasons.

If only the church would heed and understand!