Hi Barry

Concerning your response to what John wrote about not adding to the prophecy of this book.

I see your position and respect that.But I would like to state my opinion for what it is worth.

When God was giving out the directions for the church and for Israel I believe he knew what books would be accepted as His inspired Word. And our All knowing All powerful God made sure they were put in the Scriptures as we know them. As we rightly divide His Word we see such a unique order to how they were placed. Let me explain.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the four Gospels. They were written to the nation Israel and the message preached was a "Gospel of the Kingdom". When Jesus came the Jews were expecting him  to establish His Kingdom. So when we read the 4 Gospels they mainly pertain to Israel. Once God seen that Israel(and he knew this from the beginning) would not accept Jesus as the Messiah He inspired Luke to write the book of Acts which became a transition from the Gospel of the Kingdom to the Gospel preached by Paul which is The Gospel of Grace.If you notice all the sign gifts(healing, tongues,prophecy etc) ended as the Gospel of Grace took over. You see the apostles were looking for Jesus to rule the earth and set up his earthly Kingdom immediately. This is why Peter quotes Joel saying they were in the last days. They would have been except for the fact Israel rejected Jesus.So God put on hold the last week(7 years) of Daniel and turned his attention to the Gentiles and actually put blinders on the nation Israel.After Steven was stoned to death that was it for now for the nation Israel. We are introduced to Saul later to be named Paul and he is the main focus of the rest of Acts. Then Paul became the Apostle to the Gentiles and preached a new Gospel and he called it "my Gospel" or the Gospel of Grace. This is what Jesus taught him and was a different Gospel than Peter and the Apostles preached.Peter and the apostles preached the Gospel to the circumcised and Paul the Gospel to the uncircumcised.So as amazing as God is the next 13 epistles are written to the churches from Paul and teach salvation by faith only. The Books are Romans,First and Second Corinthians,Galations, Ephesians, Philippians,Colossians,First and Second Thessalonians, First and Second Timothy,Titus and Philemon.The next books are Hebrews, James, First and Second Peter, First Second and Third John, Jude and Revelation. It is quite amazing how the next book after Paul's 13 epistles happen to be writtten to the Jews.And probably the Jews who would be living in the last days.So after the rapture I can see the Jews opening to the book of Hebrews and start reading about Jesus and realizing what they must now be do to be saved. They cannot take the mark of the Beast or they are doomed. They must believe in Jesus AND endure to the end.

Anyway I could go on and on but if someone learns to divide the Word of God as we are told to do there would be so much less confusion. The book of James says "faith without works is dead" But Paul says in Romans he who does not work his faith is counted as righteous. This is not a contradiction but it is written to TWO different groups, The group who is being preached to about the Gospel of the Kingdom(Jews) and the group being preached to about the Gospel of Grace(the Church)

 

So as far as John saying do not add anything to this prophecy, I can imagine he is talking about the entire Word of God which is at LEAST a third prophecy. I would be very careful adding books to our core belief of the inspired Word of God. The Mormons do it. The Jehovah Witness do it. As for the books everyone seems to bring up Enoch and others just look at them as good reading and they can add to helping us understand some things but I would never treat them as inspired by God. The Bible we have is too well put together and when rightly divided it makes a lot of sense. I will go as far to say that we living during the church age need to be careful about getting church doctrine from the Gospels and from the book of Acts as well as the books of Hebrews forward. These books were all written to Israel and will have its fullness after the Church is gone.

 

I hope this makes sense

Mike W