Revelation structural guide

This is a basic structural guide for reading the Book of Revelation as a series of sections describing reality in several layers. It’s based on the book Apocalypse by Jacques Ellul (among other resources) and is the basis of a sermon series I’m preaching at Gainesville Vineyard this summer (you can listen here, or subscribe here). I’m encouraging our folks to read through and listen to Revelation several times as we work through some of what the Spirit has for us in the last document of the New Testament. I’m posting this chart here (and as a downloadable PDF) as a quick help in that reading.

REVELATION: Structural Guide

Section

Layer

Image of Christ

Promises

7 Letters

Church

Omnipotent Lord

Promises to Churches

7 Seals

History

Living Slaughtered Lamb

Promises to History

7 Trumpets

Incarnation

——

——

7 Bowls

Judgment

Lamb/Son of Man

Fulfillment of History Promises

7 Visions

New Creation

Word of God/Omnipotent Lord

Fulfillment of Church Promises

My God! We’ve made an audience out of them. And they were an army!

John Wimber, as quoted in Carol Wimber, The Way It Was, 180-1:

During the period of the prophetic era and on into the new renewal, our people quit starting small groups, they quit prophesying, they quit healing the sick, they quit casting out demons, because they were waiting for the Big Bang, the Big Revival, the Big Thing. They were waiting for the apostles to come into office and for things to get into the right place. I thought, “My God! We’ve made an audience out of them. And they were an army!” We in effect told them, “You can’t do anything. You aren’t talented enough. You’re not gifted enough. You’re not holy enough. You’re not prepared enough. Stand back and let somebody who is, do it!”
We did it by, not so much by precept, but by example. In effect, I said, “Time out” and it went against everything I believe in, in terms of freeing the Church to minister. You see, at one time in the Vineyard we kind of had an “everybody can play” attitude. I would say things like, “Well, if you know the Lord at all, get up. Let’s minister. If you don’t know the Lord, you soon will because when you realize that you can’t do anything until the Lord moves, you’ll want to know him.” So that sounded a little reckless but really all I was saying was, “everybody can play.” Let’s do it together.
Everybody can worship. Everybody can pray. Everybody can prophesy. Everybody can heal. Everybody can win the lost. Everybody can feed the poor, and on and on. If anything, people felt included. It wasn’t so bad. I’m not defensive at all about what I’ve done except I sometimes think I need to explain why I’ve undone certain things and I’ve had to pull back on certain things because they were altering us, changing us from who we were and what I felt that we were called to be.