The outline of the book of Revelation

“Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what will take place later.” Revelation 1:19
Revelation is a book that many Christians stay away from. That’s a shame, because there is a special blessing promised to the reader (Rev. 1:3). But the truth is, the book of Revelation is not that hard to understand, provided you have a reasonable grasp of the symbolism of the Old Testament.
Here, in Rev. 1:19, John is given the outline for the book. He is told to write it in three sections: The things that he had seen, the things that are, and the things that will be ‘after these things.’
The things that he had seen, up to this point, was the vision of Jesus, given in chapter 1. Thus chapter 1 is the first section.
The ‘things that are’, refers to things in the present time. This corresponds to the church age, and thus the second section of the book is the seven letters to the seven churches, which we will go into in more depth in the next few days.
Finally, the things that will be ‘after these things’, are the things that happen after the church age. The phrase ‘after these things’ is the Greek meta tauta - a phrase that we next come across, twice, in Rev. 4:1. This, the third section, comprises the rest of the book and concerns the events of the Tribulation period (or the ‘seventieth week of Daniel’), the Millennium, and eternity after all things are made new.