Decoding End Times Prophecy

Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God." For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
(Rev 19:10 ESV)

To understand end times prophecy, you must first understand the testimony of Jesus - who He is, all that He did and is doing, and why. I believe all of that is summed up in the two greatest commandments - love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. These commandments are what prophecy depends, or "hangs" on. Understanding them, as I have explained in BLT, leads you to the revelation that the relationship we have with Jesus is a marriage. His love story is what the whole Bible is about! Throughout His love story, you can find clues to this mystery, but to see them, you have to know who the main characters are. God purposely hid clues about them in His Word so that we would search them out. The Holy Spirit helps us to find these clues so that we can decode the mystery.

And He said to them, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And when He was alone, they who were about Him, with the Twelve, asked Him concerning the parable. And He said to them, To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. But to those outside, all these things are given in parables so that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.
(Mar 4:9-12 MKJV)

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (from Rev 2:7 MKJV)

Jesus wants us to know Him and He wants us to understand the events preceding His return for His Bride.

And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
(Luk 24:25-27 ESV)

Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
(Isa 46:9-10 KJV)

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.
(Rev 1:1-3 ESV)

In the book of Revelation, Jesus gave specific information for His Church to hear and understand about end times. This is in the form of seven letters given to seven churches. We discovered in "The Division of the Kingdom" that the Church is a divided body, just like the nation of Israel was divided. Why seven? Well, I have been studying that with E-Sword and I will give an explanation of that in the near future. But in my next blog post, I want to take a closer look at the letters that Jesus gave to His Church.