Aren't prophecy and Revelation a code book selling fear of the end?

🔥The question: “If you calculate the numbers in the Bible, can you know the day the world ends and what happens next?”

🛡️The Church's answer: The prophets of the Bible spoke God's word to expose the idolatry and injustice of their own day and to call people back to the covenant. There are promises about the future too, but they do not hand out a timetable the way fortune-telling does. The beasts, numbers, and cosmic imagery of apocalyptic literature are symbolic language that carried hope to persecuted believers: evil is finally defeated and God is victorious.

🎨An analogy — a lamp that lights the danger and turns the course

A lighthouse beam does not divine which wave a ship will meet a few seconds from now; it signals the danger and turns the ship toward safety. Prophecy too is a word that calls to repentance and hope rather than satisfying curiosity.

This analogy shows that the purpose of prophecy lies not in getting the details of the future right but in changing the direction you are going now. Just as a lighthouse does not stand in for the whole voyage, you must not build a table of dates and events out of a single symbol.

🧐If they press further: “What if someone says the end comes on a particular date and demands money or that you flee?” — Jesus said no one knows the day or the hour. If someone uses fear to demand money, a break with your family, or absolute obedience, tell a trusted adult and the appropriate authorities, and keep your distance.

✨In one sentence: “Biblical prophecy isn't a fortune or a coded date for the end. It's the lamp of God's word calling you to turn from injustice and to hope in God's victory.”