January 13, 2025
Revelation is the most intriguing book in the Bible. The Apostle Paul wrote about a world that groans and travails for an understanding of where history is headed. Some read the book to try to satisfy their curiosity. Others avoid it because of its frightening judgments and ominous pronouncements. But for the believer, the Apostle John has a vision of the Lord who makes clear how the signs of the times reveal God’s plan for how we are to live in these last days and what we can expect to happen after the rapture of those who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.
Dr. Don Hattaway has written an enlightening, inspiring, and beautifully crafted commentary on the book of Revelation. This last book of the New Testament is a book that every Christian should read, study, and believe. In fact, Revelation 1:3 declares: “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and heeds those things which are written in it: for the time is near.” Furthermore, those who are reluctant to teach and preach the book of Revelation are warned, “Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand” (Revelations 22:10). It is a book worthy of our devoted attention.
The author’s description of the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos became real to me, because I have been there, but his portrayal of the vision of the glorified Christ took me to a new level of understanding of the omniscience, the omnipresence, and the omnipotence of my Savior. John “was in the Spirit” when he received the vision, but it seemed I was transported into the realm of the spirit as I began to read this commentary. Perhaps part of my appreciation for Hattaway’s work is that I have a particular fascination with the book of Revelation and have preached through the book on at least three occasions.
However, the author gave me many new thoughts about the seven churches of Asia Minor and a new appreciation for the phrase “Worthy is the Lamb,” as described in Chapter 5 of Revelation. I became convinced that it would take a lifetime of ministry to put all the pieces of Revelation together in such a precise and beautifully constructed way, but Don Hattaway accomplished that objective with an understanding that could only come from the Lord. (And those who love alliteration, will find the commentary easy to follow and understand).
I suppose I could give you a synopsis of every chapter of Hattaway’s commentary, focus on the horrors of the tribulation, review all of the awful judgments, praise God the Father for the second coming of Christ, highlight the victory of the redeemed at the Battle of Armageddon, but the key to understanding those and many other future events is to tie the prophecies of the Old Testament and New Testament together in such a way that it all fits together like a beautiful mosaic of truth. I am confident that Hattaway has done that most effectively under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
In the concluding chapters, the author has great insight into the great white throne judgment and the consignment of all the unredeemed to an eternal hell described with words like “lake of fire,” “total darkness,” “banishment,” “sorrow,” “weeping,” “gnashing of teeth,” and the place of torment “where the worm dieth not.”
Hattaway rises to the height of both scholarship and homiletical perspicacity throughout the book, but perhaps even more prominently in his description of the new Jerusalem, new heaven, and the new earth.
Hattaway has dedicated the book to his wife, Sonia, their sons, Nathan and Daniel, and to their daughter, Anna Lane, who died an untimely death at age twenty-one during the writing of the book. The fact that the book was written in the crucible of that heartbreaking experience has given the author an understanding of eternity that has eclipsed the capacity of other writers who attempt to describe the end times and our hope of a home in heaven.
Don Hattaway is a Georgia Baptist statesman, who served as pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Cartersville for 17 years before accepting the call to First Baptist Church in Douglas. He holds degrees from Brewton-Parker College (Bachelor of Music Education) and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry.) He is the former president, vice president, and parliamentarian of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. He has also served as a trustee for Brewton-Parker College, Shorter University, and the Christian Index.
I heartily recommend Hattaway’s book and believe it will strengthen your faith and give you a clear expectation of what the end times will be like, and how those who love Christ and have the hope of His return in their hearts will purify themselves, even as He is pure” (1 John 3:3).
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J. Gerald Harris is a retired pastor and journalist who served as editor of The Christian Index for nearly two decades. You can reach him at gharris@loveliftedmehigher.org. Copies of Dr. Hattaway’s book can be purchased online through Amazon or other online book distributors.
