My surprise recommendation for background material on Revelation would be a book about the Holocaust.
It’s difficult for Americans to get their minds around the reign of terror described in the apocalypse. For example, what is it like when the beast eventually has “authority over every tribe, people, language and nation” (Rev. 13:7)? Individuals who have never lived under a tyrant with absolute power lack the experience to fully understand such a horror.
Holocaust literature is tough sledding. (I know! I’ve read at least a dozen large books about it.) For example, The Holocaust Chronicle describes a chilly morning in early November of 1943.
“Nazi SS men and their collaborators rounded up Jews in Trawnicki, Poniatowa, and Majdanek, Poland. They marched the men, women, and children to large pits. Then, with loudspeakers blaring music to drown out the sounds of gunfire and screams, they shot 18,000 Jews to death. Proud of their day’s work, the sadistic perpetrators called the atrocity Erntefest—‘Harvest Festival.’”
In a few short years, six million Jews were systematically killed by mass shootings, the gas chambers, death marches, starvation, inhuman medical experiments, or by being just plain worked to death. And now, contemporary scholars tell us that that the number was actually much larger than originally thought.
All too many countries closed their doors to those who attempted to flee Hitler’s reach. Likewise, in the end-times, there will be no “sanctuary countries” whatsoever. And, those individuals who refuse to fall in line and receive the mark of the beast will be unable to legally buy or sell anything.
Spending time in Holocaust literature should ensure that your study of Revelation isn’t just academic or centered around prophecy timetables. Even informing yourself by looking up “holocaust” on the Internet would be better than remaining naive to what the world is like when evil gets the upper hand.
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