Remembering Revelation
Revelation is the only Book in the Bible that begins by extending a promise of blessing to those who read it and ends by leveling a curse on those who fail to teach it correctly. It's also unique in that it explains in some detail the final act of human and angelic history. Tragically and for a variety of reasons, John's Revelation goes largely unread by modern Christians of every persuasion. Worse, those who do "add or take a away" from its sobering message more often than not. Perhaps the best defense against misunderstanding both Revelation's meta message and its earth shattering predictions is to let the text speak for itself by using a simple and relatively easy mnemonic device to memorize the description and order of it's sixty events.
Revelation List
The small percentage of stout hearted Christians that tackle the challenge of reading or listening to the entire Book of Revelation do so in a variety of ways. Some read a verse or chapter or two at a time. Some incorporate it in a study plan that picks passages from Old and New Testaments to read in conjunction. While Bible study is good in whatever form one chooses, some are better than others.
To appreciate Revelation's full message, reading it from cover to cover at one sitting is highly recommended. Unfortunately, most find this difficult for a variety of reasons. Besides it often blistering content, a chief problem is forgetting much of its difficult to understand or even believe subject matter, from the Devil and War in Heaven to Armageddon and the Mark of the Beast spread over 22 chapters. This is but one reason for memorizing the Cliff Notes, a list of 60 events as they occur in Revelation's timeline (which may or may not always be sequential).
Most would find memorizing such a list daunting, yet by employing a simple mnemonic trick almost anyone can be taught to remember a short description as well as the order of all 60 of Revelation's events!
First thing to note is you already have a memory that rivals and in many ways exceeds a computer. For our purpose we're going to tap one tiny example to come up with an ordered list of 60 things you already know cold! The contents of your home.
Take a minute and imagine entering your house the usual way (front door, garage, sneaking in a window...). Now working clockwise (left to right) identify 10 things in the first room (example: front room). Now name them again clockwise (1-10). Now name them again counter clockwise (from 10-1). Easy Peasy. Now just mentally meander around your house in a clockwise fashion and do the same thing in 6 rooms of your choice. Be sure to pick 10 and only 10 items in each room (The reason for this is to be able to jump back and forth quickly. So if someone asked you what is the 42 event in the Book of Revelation you can skip ahead to the appropriate room and name the 2nd thing!). It should take 20 minutes of so to mentally nail down your list so you can do every room forward and backwards in order or reversed.
Next, simply "peg" each of the 60 items in the Revelation List in order to an item in each room. You can do this by imagining the most outrageous happy or funny, sad or scary "cartoon style" action scene you can think of to go along with brief description of the event.
Start with item #1 and have fun matching an outrageous action scene with the first item you identified in that room. Repeat this for items 2 and 3 and then do them forward and backwards. Keep this up, rehearsing the entire list back and forth every few events you peg. Once you've finished the first room continue doing the same for all 10 items in all 6 rooms!
"Pegging" 10 items per room and naming them forward and backwards my take 15 or 20 minutes per room. Running back and forth through the entire completed list may take 20 - 30 minutes of memorization. Once you have it, I suggest taking a few minutes to rehears the list 3 or 4 times the first day.
Quickly running through the list once or twice the following day and once a week for the first month should easily get the job done. After that once every few months will keep not only the list fresh in your mind but remind you what awaits over 7,000,000,000 souls on earth, just one of the many reasons we should strive to diligent seek and serve our "God who is a consuming fire!"
Revelation's 60 Event List
SEVEN SEALS (6:1)
1) White Horse: Conquers (6:2)
2) Red Horse: War (6:4)
3) Black Horse: Famine (6:5)
4) Pale Horse: Death 1/4th on Earth (6:8)
5) Martyrs (6:9)
6) Earthquake, Sun, Moon, Stars fall, Sky rolled up, Mountains & Islands (6:12)
7) Sealing of the 144,000 (7:4)
8) Great Mixed Multitude (7:9)
9) Silence... Incense/ Prayers Poured on Earth (8:1)
SEVEN TRUMPETS (8:6)
10) 1/3 Earth burnt, all grass and 1/3 trees (8:7)
11) 1/3 Seas to Blood Mt. (8:8)
12) 1/3 Waters Poisoned by a star, 'Wormwood' (8:10)
13) 1/3 Light Darkened (8:12)
14) Locusts from Abys (9:1)
15) 4 Angles Euphrates (9:13)
16) 1/3 Humanity Killed by 200,000,000 calvary (9:15)
17) Angel Roars (10:1)
18) Thunders sealed up (10:4)
19) Angel swears Mystery revealed at 7th trumpet (10:6)
20) John eats scroll (10:10)
21) Two Witnesses (11:1)
22) Killed by Beast (11:7)
SEVENTH TRUMPET (11:15)
23) Pregnant Woman (12:1)
24) Dragon 1/3rd stars (12:3)
25) Child into Heaven (12:5)
26) Michael / Dragon (12:7)
27) Dragon to Earth (12:9)
28) Woman's Haven for 3 1/2 yrs (12:14)
29) Dragon / remnant (12:17)
30) Beast from Sea Dan. 10:7 Wound / Persecution of Church (13:1)
31) Beast from Earth 'Prophet' Lamb/Dragon, Miracles (13:10)
32) Image, 666 (13:11)
33) 144,000 & Lamb (14:1)
34) Angel: Gospel (14:6)
35) Angel: Babylon's (14:8)
36) Angel: Mark (14:9)
37) Son of Man (14:14)
38) Harvest of Earth (14:16)
39) Angel with sickle (14:18)
40) Winepress of God's Wrath (14:20)
SEVEN BOWLS (16:1)
41) Sores / Mark (16:2)
42) Oceans to Blood (16:3)
43) Rivers turn to Blood (16:4)
44) Sun scorching (16:8)
45) Plague of Darkness (16:10)
46) Euphrates dried up for Kings of the East (16:12)
47) Like a Thief (16:15)
48) Armageddon (16:16)
49) Great Earthquake: Islands & mountains gone, 100lb hailstones (16:17)
50) Harlot & Beast (17:1)
Note: Extra info not to be pegged:
Mystery Babylon (17:5)
Cup of Saints Blood (17:6)
Burns with Fire (17:16)
Fall of Babylon (18:1)
Nations Drunk by (18:3)
Famine, Plague, Fire (18:8)
Destroyed in 1 Hour (18:17)
Never inhabited (18:21)
Blood of all Martyrs (18:24)
51) Rider on White Horse and Armies of Heaven
52) Angel in Sun: "Come and Dine"
53) Beast and False Prophet defeated and thrown alive into Lake of Fire
54) Michael binds Devil in bottomless pit
55) 1,000 year reign of Christ
56) Devil released and deceive nations
57) Rebells destroyed by Fire from Heaven
58) Great White Thrown Judgment: Death and Hell into Lake of Fire, Book of Life
59) New Heaven and Earth, no more Sea
60) New Jerusalem: 1,500 miles high, wide and deep, walls made of 12 Layers or Gemstones, Gates of single pearls, Transparent Streets of Gold, from God's Throne flows River and grow Trees of Life, No pain, No night, No sun - Christ is it's light