Near the end of Revelation, the Lord said to his apostle John, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near.” This is in connection with what Daniel was told after he received his prophetic visions towards the end of the Old Testament, visions touching the future, visions of severe persecution of God’s covenant people by brute world-powers, specifically the one led by Antiochus Epiphanes who ruled from 175-164 BC.

We may consider this oppressor the forerunner of the man of lawlessness, the anti-Christ. This king sought to replace the only true religion with the pagan customs of the Greeks. Worship of the only true God had to be suspended. All the religious ceremonies were strictly forbidden. In fact, the prophet Daniel gave such an accurate picture of what was going to happen that many present-day “scholars” theorize that the second part of the book Daniel must have been written by someone else. However, we who believe that the Bible is divinely inspired, and that God is the God of the ages, will immediately accept that Daniel is the author of the whole book.

Daniel is charged not to publicize his prophecy. Unlike John at the end of Revelation, Daniel is told to seal up the words until the hour appointed by God. It was still going to be many years, at least three centuries, before this prophecy was going to be fulfilled. That’s why Daniel had to roll up the scroll and seal it, until some time in the distant future, when the Lord God wanted to open it up for a specific purpose. He wanted to convince his people living in that future time that He is the God of the ages, and that He is the One who is in control of all world events. They would have to learn to understand that his prophetic Word was true and trustworthy. It would prove to his people that this one-time sealed prophecy did not have its origin in Daniel, but that it had come from Him, the eternal and ever-present God. For Daniel, too, had been carried along by the Holy Spirit in what he was told to record and seal.

Well, there is no talk of sealing the testimony of the Lord as given in the book of Revelation. The apostle John not only had to record everything the Lord told and showed him, but He also received the word to reveal it all. This meant that there was no longer any part of Scripture hidden. There was now a completely open Bible. Nothing was allowed to be kept back from his people, from the Church of Christ.

In the New Testament, the members of the Church had to know all that God had revealed over the course of the ages, from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22. This Revelation of God, as recorded in the Bible, is now open from cover to cover. It is to be kept open in the Church, so that the whole counsel of God will continue to be proclaimed from Lord’s Day to Lord’s Day. This one undivided Word of God will be kept open at home, and will be read both collectively by the family around the table and personally from day to day in our “inner” room.

Only in that way will we be able to accept and know the truth of the saying “the time is near.” Only in that way will we have some understanding of what the Lord wills and permits to take place. Only in that way will we be able to observe the wonderful workings of the Son of Man, in the gathering and preservation of his catholic universal church. Only in that way will we be able to discern what the man of lawlessness is presently allowed to achieve. Only someone who knows of the open Bible, who under all circumstances keeps it open, will be able to hear the footsteps of our Lord and Saviour coming closer. And it is only he who will then await his Saviour’s appearance with ardent desire.

Therefore, let us show in word and deed that we treasure this one complete Revelation of God, by keeping it open in every sphere of life, to his glory and our own salvation.