Hey Bruce,
 
Thanks for pointing out and reminding us of how there is a special blessing to all who read and take to heart the book of Revelation.
 
I remember the first time I heard someone read from that book. I was 12 years old (1972) at a camp with my Lutheran church and a speaker read from and taught on what was in Revelation and I was so scared and really took it to heart and from that time on I was interested in end times things. I have been "blessed" because along with this "fear" (the same kind that moved Noah to build the ark and others who believed God to do whatever God instructed them to do etc.) there also comes eventually, a complete letting go of this world and a looking on the things of eternity. I agree with you that unless there has been this kind of taking to heart this book and its message, a person will not receive the blessing that it speaks of.
 
Also, I would offer this suggestion about your other post where you state that:
 
The 'Parable of the Ten Virgins' indicates that fifty-percent of the Church will be raptured as the 'Bride of Christ', and fifty-percent will be left behind to become tribulation-saints
 
It has been my belief that the number of "five" wise and "five" foolish is more a distinction of how these groups dealt with grace since the number for grace is 5. So rather than think that it means literally half of the church gets in and half doesn't, I think that it is not pointing to a percentage at all but to types of church members as determined by how they dealt with God's grace. Did they respond to God's grace or did they fail of the grace of God or fall from grace?
 
One of the reasons that I believe this is because of Jesus' parable about the unjust steward. This unjust steward makes deals with his master's debtors where he allows them to take their bill and erase their true debt of 100 measures of oil, in one case; and 100 bushels of wheat in the next. For the oil debt, he tells the debtor to write down that he only owes 50 measures. This is 50% reduction of his true debt, correct? The next guy has his true debt reduced from 100 measures of wheet to fourscore which is of course 80 measures. At first this seems uninteresting until you realize that 80 is a reduction of 100 by 20, which is 1 fith part of the whole debt. (100 - 20 = 80) = (100 - 1/5 = 80) Once again there is the number of grace associated with a lessening of the total debt owed to the master. Why do I find this interesting? Because I believe that this is Jesus telling us how Satan is tricking people into missing out on salvation and the rapture. Yet these people are still very religious.
 
Satan is the unjust steward. He was fired from being in charge of the currency of heaven (worship) because he was caught "embezzeling" this worship for himself instead of giving it to God to whom it rightfully belonged. Satan came up with this plan to make to himself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness so that when he fails, they will receive him into everlasting habitations. Satan wants others to go to hell with him. His deal is with anyone that will not accept God's free gift of salvation through Jesus' finished work, but instead seeks to find some other way in and thereby maintain their independance from God's rule over their life. Every false religion that Satan offers provides its followers a sense of lessening of one's debt before God but never a complete forgiveness of their debt. Only true faith in Jesus offers that. Therefore true grace, which all wise virgins have obtained, is shown or represented as FIVE wise virgins. False grace, which all others who would approach God apart from Jesus' gift of complete frogiveness of debt, are partaking of, is shown as FIVE foolish virgins who failed of God's true grace and have fallen for Satan's trick of dead works to try and reduce their debt through this false grace, or mammon of unrighteousness.
 
There is really a lot more to this that could be said, but I may have lost many with this already so that's enough for now.
 
Barry Amundsen