“Chapter 37.” Neither Lynne nor I wanted to turn off her Kindle. We had mutually agreed that we would listen to an audio book during our two-day drive from Texas to Colorado. I’m not a fan of the author, but I have to say that the 12-hour-long fiction novel captured my imagination. When we pulled up to our destination, we still had an hour left, and both of us were anxious to find out how the book ended.

Let me recommend another book to you — the Bible! While about 40 authors wrote the Bible over roughly a 1,500-year period, the true author of Scripture is God Himself. Its 66 books contain what biblical scholars refer to as “progressive revelation,” which Google AI tells us “is the biblical concept that God did not reveal His entire plan and character all at once, but instead shared truth in gradual stages over hundreds of years.”

From Genesis through Revelation, God has woven a “scarlet thread” of redemption that did not end at the cross. Indeed, it ends in the final book of the Bible: Revelation.

Sadly, too many Christians have not familiarized themselves with God’s closing chapter in His nonfiction novel. It is a history book that tells His Story. In fact, all of history is His Story of redemption through Jesus Christ, and in Revelation, God brings it to a spectacular conclusion: the bad guys lose big time, evil is judged, the King is crowned, and the good guys are made “a kingdom, priests to his God” (Revelation 1:6, ESV).

So, what is it that keeps you from reading the last chapter? Maybe someone gave you a bad book review or told you it was too confusing because of all the symbolism. The authors of the Bible explain all the symbols if you start from the beginning and pick up the plotline. Anyone who just skips to the last chapter of a book has no idea who is who and what has happened previously.

The Apostle John tells us what we need to know about reading this book:

“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending His angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near” (Revelation 1:1–3).

God authored the Book, and we are “blessed” if we “read, hear, and keep” the things written within. Why wouldn’t we read it?

Let me encourage you to start from the beginning of the Bible and watch for that scarlet thread woven throughout Scripture until you get to the spine-tingling conclusion at the end of the Book. You won’t regret it!

What say ye, Man of Valor?
Semper Fidelis!