Few books of the Bible puzzle Christians as much as Revelation. Max Doner’s two volume collection of sermons aims to help believers make sense of Revelation so that it can be read for the book of encouragement and comfort that it is (Doner is also offering it free to pastors!). While I am only about halfway through the first volume, it has certainly been exciting a deeper understanding and love of the book of Revelation in me.

Below is Doner’s summary of his approach to interpreting Revelation:

If we are going to rightly understand the book of Revelation, we need to understand the literary style of this book. It uses highly symbolic visual imagery, and the message of the book is in the symbolic meaning of those pictures.

Furthermore, we have to look in the Bible itself, and especially in the Old Testament, to understand the meaning of the symbols, metaphors, and pictorial language that Revelation uses.

Finally, we have to grasp the non-consecutive, cyclical nature of the book of Revelation. It is full of repetition and recapitulation of the same time period again and again. It describes the nature of the spiritual warfare that takes place from various perspectives.

When we put together these seven journeys from the first to the second coming of Christ, we have an overall picture of the nature spiritual warfare that will take place between Christ and Satan and between those who have the seal of God and those who have the mark of the beast. Each of those journeys concludes with the second coming of Christ at the end of the age.

We need to remember the overall theme of the book. The book is the revelation of Jesus Christ and His victory over Satan. It is a book of triumph in which Christ wins and His people win, and Satan loses and his people lose; therefore, even if we do not fully understand every one of these pictures as much as we might, the overall message is abundantly clear. The message is that God’s blessing and deliverance is given to His people, and God’s wrath and punishment falls upon all those who oppose Him and them.

Revelation is a book of triumph and a book of comfort, a book of victory and a book of encouragement, a book whose purpose is to keep us faithful in the spiritual warfare and persecution that we experience. Every generation has had to fight these same battles and endure these same persecutions, and therefore, Revelation is essential for every generation to understand and apply to their time and their struggles.

This means that, in our generation, we can fight our battles with confidence, not only looking back and seeing the triumph of our brethren, but also knowing that we too will triumph and overcome. It is those who have faith in Christ who do overcome and who will overcome. And how shall we overcome? We shall overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of our testimony of our faith in Him.

Pp. 60-61