Our Guest Perry Stone
PERRY: Bless the Lord! We want to welcome you to this Mentoring Session. We’re going to be dealing today, I’m Perry Stone, we’re going to be dealing with a book that has been rejected by some in our culture today because of perhaps the difficulty of not understanding the symbolism of it, or perhaps because people think it’s a negative Book or perhaps because people think it’s already been fulfilled. And that is the Book of Revelation. And the Book of Revelation, a little bit history about the Book. Was written by the Apostle John. And it’s real interesting because I want to go back and tell you a statement that Christ made. Christ made a statement in which He said: “There are some of you standing here which shall not taste death until you see the Son of man coming in the Kingdom.” Now some people believe that because Jesus made that statement that all of His prophecies about the time of the End had to happen by the destruction of the Temple in the year 70. But then if you take the statement that Jesus made and go to John 21 where He is there with His disciples. Remember that He gives a prediction to Peter that Peter would live to be an old man. And Peter says to John, he looks at John the Apostle, and says: “What about this man?” And Jesus makes this statement: He says, “What is it to you if he tarry or he’s still living when I come?” The next verse written by John says, “Then went this saying abroad among the disciples that that disciple should not die.” But Jesus did not say he would not die, he just said what is it to you if he tarry ‘til I come. Based on that verse there are people that feel like all of the prophecies had to be fulfilled in the time of John. So in other words this came up with the doctrine that we hear today called “preterism.” Where people take those two verses and they say well you know the Book of Revelation had to already been fulfilled because Jesus said “All of this will come on one generation” and Jesus said “This generation shall not pass until all these things are fulfilled.” Now if you don’t understand what Jesus is saying there you would think that the Book of Revelation was written before the destruction of the Temple or you would think that the Book of Revelation’s already been fulfilled. But notice what I am about to tell you. According to early church fathers and even scholars who know history, the Book of Revelation was written by John on the Isle of Patmos where he was a political prisoner around the year 95 A.D. After the Emperor who had him arrested died, John was allowed to be released from the Island. Now someone said “why do you think he had to write it in symbolism?” Let me give you one example why he had to write it in symbolism. Because if you read Revelation chapter 17 and 18, it talks about a “Mystery Babylon,” a city ruling over the kings of the earth that’s going to be destroyed. John, in fact in the time of Jesus, when the Jews were speaking against Rome they always called it Babylon. They coded it. And the reason they coded it is any statement by a Jew against Rome or the Roman Empire was instant persecution, jail and death time. So God allowed John to veil it as Babylon so that no one who would be a Roman who would look at that scroll would keep that scroll and burn it. I mean think about this for a moment.
