Remember that Revelation is a prophetic, apocalyptic book. This type of material is, by its very nature, confusing to us. To accept this as a literal blueprint of the God's design in the dimension of time and space that we understand is to limit God.

Remember the time it was written. We are not in the 1st century. We do not have ready access to all the information that John and his readers possessed. Much of the language is cryptic and symbolic. The translation and understanding of that material comes hard to us. We shouldn't worry about that. Quite frankly, that is not our concern. John was writing to first century people, and his specific concerns, and specific warnings were for specific people. To try and bodily transport John's situation to another place and time nearly 2000 years later makes very poor Biblical scholarship and clouds our ability to hear the word of God speaking to us today.

Remember the strong word of hope and grace contained here. If I have one intense personal objective it is to confront the legalistic negativism of such writings and thoughts expressed by the phrase "The late, great, planet earth" and have you see the overwhelming presence of God's mercy and love present here. There are continued calls for repentance, the destruction is continually delayed, and even in the end, the gates are left open, and the light is always on. The message needs to be a call for repentance and hope, rather than damnation: "It's Not Too Late, Great Planet Earth". God does offer great hope through Jesus Christ for his creation.

Having said all that, remember that the Revelation to John is for us! We do live in the 20th century, but as people of faith, the message of Christ is no less real for us. We each face our own beasts, we are each faced with our own temptations to idolatries, we are each in need of a strong word of hope. It is here. God is in control. We have not been left to deal with life and its evils on our own. There is hope and comfort for us in our trials. There is the promise of life eternal. All of those things can never be dimmed by time, or distance, or changed situations. The message was real for John, and its real for us!