I'm known as DISRAELI in one corner of the internet, where I write on matters theological, so I'm keeping the name for the sake of the continuity. I've studied at Oxford and London universities, with qualifications in History, Divinity, and Church History. I was brought up in the Church of England, drifting away from Christian beliefs as a teenager. I entered college as an avowed atheist, but God found ways of calling me back to a more evangelical faith. I am the son of two schoolteachers and the grandson of another one. The legacy of this kind of bloodline is a built-in "mission to explain". That is what took me online, and this book is part of the result. The premise of this work is that John has two encouraging messages, one for the troubled church of his own time and one for a troubled church in his distant future. The message is carried by the overtones of the book's imagery, an imagery borrowed extensively from the Old Testament. Most of the features of Revelation will not be seen before the return of global persecution, because they describe that persecution and God's response. Yet current events may seem to be catching up with my account of the Four Horsemen, which was available online ten years ago. That is why Revelation calls for the patient endurance of the saints.