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i dunno...i tend to make my primary reading of Revelation not as prophecy, but as anthropology.
In a book warning the 7 churches against idolotry in perilous times...an angel comes to John to tell him this message.
He worships the angel. The angel tells him to get up, that God alone deserves such praise. The angel tells him of the judgement, and that the people will not come out from the idols. God will come down to us in a New Jerusalem, that will have no temple for it's very streets will be a place of worship, no light but that of God.
The angel tells John to be careful of idols, and that this judgement is coming soon.
What does John do? Falls on his face again, and worships the angel. I don't think that this is here to commemorate a fuckup or tell us we're all screwed...i think it's telling us that our very nature is to be mislead by powers and passions that are not holy. It is without God that we are subject to them, and only by God's indwelling that we are free of them. And if we will not come to God, God will come to us.
It's complicated, and the judgement scenes still give me fantastic pause. But i do like that reading of the text just because it makes it, at least in part, about the Good News again.
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For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.
-John 3:16
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