If the course of mankind has been predetermined by God, according to Revelation, then what is the reason for people to get out of bed and live life?
While a general idea of predestination has occurred sporadically over the last 2,000 years in some Christian theology, (most notably and pervasively in the thoughts and followers of Calvin), the idea that Revelation is some sort of blueprint for the actual “last days” is extremely recent, having been pretty much invented in the nineteenth century U.S. among a limited group of Protestants (who took some of Revelation and married it to a couple of out-of-context phrases in the letters of Paul and John and created a whole, new eschatological belief system).
Since the number of people who actually believe this recent development are a rather small (if vocal) part of the Christian community (and rather few of them post here), you may have to seek elsewhere for a good answer to your question.
From what I’ve seen and heard, most Christian denominations treat Revelation as mostly, if not totally, figurative.
In fact, many of the expressions referring to man are quite vague. Phrases like “the vast multitude,” “a great crowd,” “their number is as the sands of the sea,” cast a heavy shadow of doubt on any “predestination” teaching that a sect may try to present.
If you’re referring to the number of 144,000 (12,000 each from 12 tribes) being sealed from among men, notice that the next few verses, Rev 7:9, 10 mention an un-numbered vast multitude or great crowd also in good standing before God and The Lamb. Thus, no predestination taught in Revelation.
Unless your church teaches predestination and you decide to believe it. In that case, more power to ya.
You have the name of the book wrong. It’s Revelations, not Revelation.
[sub]I’ve always wanted to say that[/sub]
Now that’s funny, Eakers!
(For those having trouble following along, at home: many people make the short title Revelations upon which point they are frequently corrected when they post on the SDMB. Peepers got it right, and Bryan supplied the necessary “correction” anyway.)
The book is known, in the Greek, as [symbol]Apokaluyis Iwannou[/symbol] (Apokalupsis Ioannou–Revelation of John) which is, indeed, singular, not plural.
Because it was predeterminded???
Grim
[sup]hating the thought that God might have planned what happened to me today so far…[/sup]
Ah, but what if it’s predetermined that you should just stay home in bed? 
Brain… melting… now…
That’s okay. It was predetermined that your brain would melt.
That happened to me once…
…or was it twice?
I sympathize with this vexing question. The book of Revelations reads like someone describing a really intense ‘End of the World’ Dream after dropping a little too much acid. The 7 disasters brought down upon mankind sevenfold. Tales of false prophets and itentity of the damned and beasts, earthquakes, floods, famine, disease, stars falling from the sky and the dead rising from their graves for all to be judged. If this is all to come, who’s going to be left to witness Heaven settling on the Earth? The 12 tribes? A chosen few? Will any of them be our distant desendants a thousand years from now? There’s another reason for not getting out of bed. If everything I do and contribute to society will all be swept away and destroyed, what is the point of having been born in the first place?
Predetermined? This is not a problem. God is the only one who knows mankinds future, leave that problem to God. You’d be wasting your time trying to capture God’s secrets of the future. They are not for any of us to know. Have a life and do good by it anyways.
IMO- the book of revelations is not a time machine into man’s future.
Then you would have - the fact that you didn’t means that it wasn’t.
Life is much simpler when you’re a fatalist!!
Grim
Revelation (aka the Apocalypse) is one of the least-understood books of the NT. Nobody knows who John of Patmos was, and the whole thing is badly translated as well. Most Bible scholars interpret the book as a poetic renedering of the times of the emperor Nero(Nero is supposed to be the beast with the number “666”). It records the tribulations of the Christain communities of Rome and Asia Minor in the firts century AD.
So, the events described in Revelation have come and gone; no reason to fear for the future!
The events in Revelation have not occured!
Or did I miss the 2 witnesses being lifted up into Heaven with the whole world watching?
Or all the mountains crashing down?
Or people not being allowed to buy or sell?
As stated it interpreted as being poetic licence describing somthing that happened before. You know like the ancient greek stories about the battle of Troy. Based on fact but it was history written with extra flair.
Huh. There were no orcs in Northern New York, nor are there any in east central North Carolina, to the best of my knowledge.
Balrogs seem scarce, at least outside the Republican National Committee. Most elves have gone to Hollywood or points west. (;))
Does that mean that the contents of Tolkien’s three-volume epic have absolutely no meaning today? Or is the point that every person, no matter how little or of no apparent influence in the world, can have a major effect if he or she chooses to undertake his/her moral duty and live out the role that the One above all names has chosen for him/her, totally meaningless in a postmodern ethically-relative world?
I’ve said it before – every conservative evangelical Christian can point to a score of Old Testament statements that appear to them to be speaking of Jesus and His salvific work – and any Orthodox Jew can explain precisely how that does not describe the promised Messiah who (according to them) has not yet come.
I have a great deal of confidence that someone will come, and come soon, in the spirit of Jesus, and teach as He did – and that most Christians will reject Him at that time, because He doesn’t fit their image of what the Second Coming is supposed to be all about. Just as a humble, compassionate-to-the-outcast rabbi who allowed Himself to be tortured to death for His beliefs and teachings doesn’t fit what the teachers of the Law believe that the Messiah would do.
Elsewhere, cjhoworth quoted Matthew 25:31-46
Pointless speculation about the topics of predestination and eschatology may be fun for bull sessions, but that passage is quite explicit where a person’s duty lies – and I see few even among ethical atheists who have a serious problem with the main content of that passage.
Huh? Why soon? How could you have such confidence? People have been waiting for him for some millenias, so he could come, say in 4 765 AD…And I can’t perceive any reason which would support the “soon” theory…
Plus, this coming, according to the bible, is supposed to be unexpected. So, your confidence seems misplaced to me…
Sad to say… I have a friend, who since he believes we are in “the last days”, will not invest in stock, 401K, pension funds, etc., as he feels it will be money wasted after he is raptured.
sigh
MeanJoe
Speaking as a non-Christian…
Since I’m not a Christian, I’m not bound to or governed by Christianity’s rules. Therefore, Revelations has no meaning (or effect) to me.
Consider it this way, how many Christians consider the implications of the Buddhist philosophy of reincarnation on their lives? To them, Buddhist philosophy is of no relevance; they’re not Buddhist. Its the same way with me and Christian “End Time” philosophy.