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First and foremost, I thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Who opened my eyes to the truth and sustained me during this project. May this work, in some small way, bring You glory. I also am grateful for my wife, Deb. For 13 years she lived with an unbelieving husband while petitioning God on my behalf. Her faithful support and encouragement made this work possible. She also spent many hours proofreading the commentary and providing detailed suggestions.Beryl Cahoon provided invaluable assistance spending many hours proofreading the commentary and the associated slide shows. Steve Lewis reviewed an early draft of the introduction, provided numerous corrections to the associated slide shows, and provided much-appreciated encouragement when the work seemed overwhelming. Even though I have had considerable help in finding and correcting errors, whatever errors remain are my responsibility.Dr. Mal Couch of Tyndale Theological Seminary first suggested the project of producing a detailed course on the Book of Revelation. Preparation for teaching that course eventually led to the production of this commentary. I am also indebted to Dr. Couch and the instructors at Tyndale Seminary for an affordable education in Systematic Theology and Biblical languages.Igor Stelmachenko provided website support so the commentary and associated slide shows could be published for internet use. Mike McCorkle and Hugh and Celia Johnston showed great patience living next door to a recluse for an extended period.Brandon Staggs' excellent SwordSearcher Bible study program greatly facilitated access to my notes while making it possible to efficiently incorporate Scripture information into the commentary. The magnitude of my task was greatly reduced by his excellent program. I also relied heavily upon Libronix Bible Software for work in the original Greek and for access to an extensive set of digital study resources.Connecticut College's Wetmore Print Collection1 provided non-copyrighted images of Albrecht Durer's famous woodcuts.2 Several individuals and ministries granted permission for their copyrighted materials to appear within this commentary. See Special Permission.The developers of the Python programming language are to be thanked for an extremely productive scripting language. Without the Python language, converting the marked-up original text into an extensively cross-referenced, formatted, final version would have been much more difficult. Python was also used to automatically generate the topic and Scripture indexes.I am especially indebted to the many men of God who journeyed through the book of Revelation ahead of me and took the time and effort to leave a path of "breadcrumbs" for those who would follow later. Their down-to-earth, literal interpretation of the book of Revelation blows as a fresh breeze in the midst of an ocean of allegory and symbolic conjecture. Many of these men have already gone on to glory: Barnhouse,3 Bullinger,4 Larkin,5 McClain,6 Newell,7 Scott,8 Seiss,9 Trench,10 and Walvoord.11 Others are still with us: Fruchtenbaum,12 MacArthur,13 Morris,14 Pentecost,15 and Thomas.16 How much poorer we would be without their stewardship of the torch of literal, grammatical-historical interpretation so that we might "keep the words of the prophecy of this book" (Rev. 1:3+; 22:7+)!----

Notes

1 See www.conncoll.edu/visual/wetmore.html.

2 See www.conncoll.edu/visual/Durer-prints/index.html.

3 Donald Grey Barnhouse, Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1971).

4 E. W. Bullinger, Commentary On Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1984, 1935).

5 Clarence Larkin, The Book of Revelation (Glenside, PA: Rev. Clarence Larkin Estate, 1919).

6 Alva J. McClain, The Greatness Of The Kingdom (Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1959).

7 William R. Newell, Revelation: Chapter by Chapter (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1994,c1935).

8 Walter Scott, Exposition of The Revelation (London, England: Pickering & Inglis, n.d.).

9 J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse: Lectures on the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1966).

10 Richard Chenevix Trench, Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1861).

11 John F. Walvoord, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1966).

12 Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, The Footsteps of Messiah, rev ed. (Tustin, CA: Ariel Ministries, 2003).

13 [John MacArthur, Revelation 1-11 : The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1999)], [John MacArthur, Revelation 12-22 : The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 2000)].

14 Henry Morris, The Revelation Record (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1983).

15 J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1958).

16 [Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 1-7 (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1992)] and [Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 8-22 (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1995)].

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