"Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep those things which are written therein: for the time is near."
The verb tÄrÅ (ĻĪ·ĻĪĻ) is not passive. It is not mere assent. It is watching, guarding, holding, observing.
It is the language of active obedience and careful preservation.
Active Obedience: The blessing is conditional. To read and to hear is not enough; one must translate the words into conduct.
Guarding the Truth: To keep is to resist erosionāagainst heresy, against apathy, against compromise.
This is no casual hearing. It is covenantal vigilance.
The text does not bind us to ritual rigidity. It summons us to living imperatives.
Moral and Ethical Imperatives: Patience, faithfulness, resistance to idolatry, purity in the face of persecution.
Prophetic Warnings and Encouragements: Warnings against compromise, promises of endurance and victory.
Dynamic Response: With a dynamic God, keeping is co-creation. Obedience is not mechanical; it is participatory. Each choice aligns with Godās vision, shaping the unfolding Kingdom.
To keep is to act, to resist, to co-labor.
The urgency is declared: the time is near.
Not a calendar prediction, but a proclamation of imminent relevance.
The crises of Revelation are perpetualāidolatry, compromise, persecutionāand therefore the call is always present.
The nearness of time presses the command: to keep now, to guard now, to obey now.
The opportunity is finite. The blessing is conditional. The time is near.