Answering Hard Questions from Revelation with Mark Hitchcock | January 24, 2026

Steve Conover: Thank you for joining us for The Friends of Israel Today. I'm Steve Conover, executive director of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. With me is our host and teacher, Chris Katulka.

Chris Katulka: Steve, we have a great show today. We have Dr. Mark Hitchcock, who is both pastor at Faith Bible Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, and also professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, joining us today to talk about his new book, The Revelation Answer Book: 125 Common Questions People Ask about Earth's Final Days. And Mark's going to join us to talk about not only his new book, but also looking at the events of what's taking place in the Middle East with Israel and what's going on with Iran right now. So it's going to be great to have Dr. Mark Hitchcock with us to share about his new book and a lot of the events that we're seeing unfold prophetically right before our very eyes.

Steve Conover: But first in the news, Iran's state television broadcast was hacked amid a near total internet blackout with video clips of the exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and images of ongoing anti-government protests briefly airing on multiple channels. Pahlavi used the opportunity to call the Iranian military to break with the Islamic Republic and side with protestors who have been demonstrating against the regime.

Chris Katulka: Well, Steve, here's my take. Polling in Iran shows that only 20% of Iranians support the Islamic Republic, meaning that 80% stand opposed to the Ayatollah's tyrannical rule. Pahlavi’s message to the Iranian military aimed to win their favor for his potential return and to help the 80% of Iranians who long for freedom in their country. 

Chris Katulka: Dr. Mark Hitchcock, it's great to have you on The Friends of Israel Today radio program. Thanks for joining us and taking time to spend talking about your new book, The Revelation Answer Book: 125 Common Questions People Ask about the Earth's Final Days. Great to have you with us, sir.

Mark Hitchcock: Well, thanks for having me. Great to be with you. I'm a real admirer of your ministry, Friends of Israel, so it's a privilege to be with you.

Chris Katulka: I want to jump right in here, Dr. Hitchcock. I want to know what first stirred your heart to write a Q & A style Revelation book instead of a traditional commentary. It's interesting to think what gaps that you were hoping to fill for everyday Christians who might feel intimidated when they get to that last book of the Bible.

Mark Hitchcock: Well, yeah, commentaries can have a lot of information in there that maybe the average person doesn't really want to know or it is kind of presented in a sequential way. By doing questions and answers, you can just answer very specific things and people can move around through question and answer books. I'd like to know the answer to this question or like to know the answer to that question. A commentary, a lot of good commentaries probably contain within them, contain a lot of the answers to these questions, but they're not as accessible. It's harder to find it and they're not just answering those specific questions. So to me it's just, I hope it's a very easy to use, very accessible tool for people to be able to just go find the answers to the questions that they want to know. Hopefully a lot of people will just read it all the way through and want to know the answers to all the questions, but I think that format I'm just hoping is more accessible to people to be able to find answers to very specific questions in the book of Revelation.

Chris Katulka: When did you realize, “You know what, I'm going to gear this more towards answering the questions that people have.” Were you collecting these questions over the years as you were teaching, or was it something that just kind of popped in your mind one day like, I could do this? How did it come about that you would actually gear the entire book toward actually answering the questions that are very relevant to Revelation?

Mark Hitchcock: Well, I've had the privilege at the church I pastor to teach through Revelation twice. I've been there now 34 years, so I've gone through twice. I also teach a course at Dallas Seminary called Daniel and Revelation. And one day what I realized is I thought, I don't know all the answers to the book of Revelation, but I've learned the questions that people ask, so I know the questions and just going through, I hear students as well, people asking you various questions, and so I just began to catalog those and as I would go through my own questions and the questions other people would ask, and so that's how I came up with these questions and I just thought about that as kind of an easy format for people to be able to get ahold of the information.

Chris Katulka: Now being somebody who's taught prophecy for years, and in fact one of my colleagues just went through your Daniel/Revelation class at Dallas Seminary last fall and he said it was a fantastic class. But being somebody who has taught prophecy for years, what are the most common barriers or misconceptions that Christians have when they're approaching Revelation and how does this book the 125 Common Questions when dealing with the book of Revelation, how does it help remove those barriers?

Mark Hitchcock: Well, I think a lot of people are just afraid of the book of Revelation. They're just fearful about what the future holds. There's a lot of imagery and symbolism in the book of Revelation. So I think that pushes people some way away from it. People away from it, they'll think, how do I really understand what all these symbols mean? It's certainly the most symbolic book in the Bible, but I think when people come to realize that there are a lot of symbols, but all of the symbols refer to something that's literal. So they all have, it's called a referent, they refer to something literal. And so it's just understanding. And many times in the context in the Book of Revelation, it'll actually tell you what the symbol refers to.

If it doesn't, there's other places in the Bible where those same symbols are used. So it's kind of a scary book, kind of a mysterious book to many people. But there's a basic outline to this book. There's a flow. It goes from our time all the way to the end, to the new heaven and the new Earth, and I think unfolds chronologically. And again, just understanding either from the context or other parts of the Bible, what these symbols refer to really helps us understand it. And so it kind of takes the mystery out of this book. It's called the Book of Revelation. The word is apokálypsis, which means to take the cover off of something or take the veil off. The problem is for a lot of people, the veil is still on, it's still covered up. But God wants to uncover it for us. And it says in verse three, “blessed is the one who reads those who hear, and the one who heeds the things written in this book.” So obviously God wants us to understand it and there's a special blessing attached to the people who read and hear and practice or heed the things written in this book. So it's really a blessing book and it's so sad that so many people kind of avoid the book of Revelation when there's a promised blessing to those who read and understand it and obey it.

Chris Katulka: Now your book organizes the 125 questions around themes like interpretation, background and chronology as you were just mentioning. How does that structure help believers actually use Revelation in their everyday walk with Christ? This is something we try to communicate here at the Friends of Israel, that prophecy isn't just information for the future, it's actually supposed to change us in the day-to-day life that we have with Christ today. So how does the book help a Christian walk day-to-day with Christ as they’re really getting a lot of these questions that they might have answered in a really easy way to understand through this new book?

Mark Hitchcock: Well, I think it gives people an eternal perspective. That's one of the great things in life is we're living our lives wading through troubles and trials and difficulties. We see the end, we see where everything's ultimately headed, and it gives us hope. I mean, if there's one thing people need in our world today, it's hope, hope for the future. And we see the glorious hope that we have as believers in Jesus Christ. We also see in the Book of Revelation how the truth of the Bible is a hundred percent accurate. Our world today is shaping up exactly like the Bible tells us in the Book of Revelation. But in Revelation, chapters two and three are seven letters written to seven churches, seven churches back in that day. But those letters have an application to us today in our lives, and so there's all kinds of practical application there. We're living in light of Christ coming, but there's a lot in the book of Revelation that tells us how we're to live now. I like to always say, we're looking to the end time, we have to live in the meantime. So the Revelation tells us both things. It tells us a lot about the end time and what's coming in this world to give us hope, but it also tells us how we're to live our lives in the meantime as we await the coming of Christ.

Chris Katulka: Something that's been concerning me as I've been on social media, which is probably the problem to begin with that I'm on social media, is to see how Christians interpret the Book of Revelation and how it's becoming more and more common to really hold to probably a preterist view of the Bible. To see that all of these events were actually fulfilled in 70 AD. We’re done. The book of Revelation is nothing about the future. I would like to know what your thoughts are on the current state of the church and how it understands the book of Revelation. Do you have concerns for how Christians in pews that are being taught from the pulpit are hearing the book of Revelation or maybe even the lack thereof and whether or not it's even piercing the ears of those Christians who are sitting in those seats in churches around our country?

Mark Hitchcock: Well, I think you hit the nail on the head there. I think primarily it's just a book that's just ignored, that's totally neglected. I think most people never really talk about it. There are confusing views out there. You mentioned preterism. The Latin word preter means past. So they see most, if not all of the book of Revelation as happening back in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem. And there are problems with that view, but it does say at the beginning of Revelation, these things are going to happen, are near. That these things are going to happen, and are going to happen quickly. I think those are words of eminency. In other words, they could happen at any time. The problem, the biggest problem with the Preterist view is Preterists believe the book of Revelation was written in 65 AD. And so it is writing about events in 70 AD.

The problem is the early church, almost the universal view was Revelation is written in 95 AD. Well, it can't be written in 95 AD and be predicting things in 70 AD. So their dating of the book is a major problem with the preterist view. That view is date dependent. They have to have a date in about 65 AD for their view to be correct. And I'm certain that view is not correct, and so that's a problem for that view. And so the view that I hold is called the futurist view that chapters four and following are future to our day. But when people read it back in the early church, no one knows in every generation when this is going to happen. So it's presented as you need to be ready because these events could begin at any time in history.

And that's the way I see the book. And again, these symbols are meant to be taken literally. They're not just symbols of symbols. Jesus, in chapter one, there's seven lampstands and says those lampstands are seven churches. In other words, they refer to something literal. And I think when we take the book that way, this futurist understanding of the book becomes very clear because these things, when they're understood in a literal sense, have never happened before. And so it's telling us about the…just as Genesis tells the beginning of the story, where the book of Revelation is the end of the story. It's a complete story that God tells.

Chris Katulka: And if you want to be able to get your copy of Dr. Mark Hitchcock's book, The Revelation Answer Book, we're going to have an opportunity for you to do that in a moment. But when we come back, we're going to continue our discussion and we're actually going to talk about some events that are happening currently in light of what the Scriptures teach. And I know that you're saying you've got Dr. Mark Hitchcock on right now. I want to hear what he thinks about Israel, what's going on with Iran in the Middle East from a biblical worldview. Well, we're going to do that, so stick around as we continue our conversation with Dr. Mark Hitchcock.

Steve Conover: Chris, Psalm 23 is probably one of the most familiar and comforting passages in all of Scripture, but there's a lot of depth we often miss in God's Word.

Chris Katulka: And that's exactly why I love our new video series, Psalm 23: Ancient Hebrew Wisdom for Today. Dan Price, one of our great teachers here at The Friends of Israel, takes you verse by verse through David's most well-known Psalm and really opens your eyes to the richness of the shepherd imagery rooted in Israel's culture.

Steve Conover: In this video, you'll begin to see how personal this Psalm really is, how David's walk with the Lord as his shepherd points us directly to Jesus, our Good Shepherd.

Chris Katulka: And Steve, the companion Study Guide is excellent. It includes Scripture, background insights, and thoughtful questions, making it ideal for personal study, family devotions, or small groups in Sunday school.

Steve Conover: If you're looking for deeper trust and encouragement in your walk with the Lord, I can't recommend this study enough. 

Chris Katulka: So you can order your copy of the video series and Study Guide, Psalm 23: Ancient Hebrew Wisdom for Today at foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org. 

Chris Katulka:  Welcome back everybody. We are with Dr. Mark Hitchcock who's the senior pastor of Faith Bible Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, and also a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary in the Bible exposition department. It's a great joy to have him on. We're talking about his new book here, The Revelation Answer Book: 125 Common Questions People Ask About the Earth's Final Days. And you know what, as we're going through this, there's a lot of events that are taking place right now, Dr. Hitchcock, that are probably causing a lot of Christians to wonder, what's God saying in the Scriptures about events that are happening in Israel and especially with Iran. So as you're seeing things unfold with what's going on in the Middle East, how do you see this from a biblical perspective and even I would say a responsible biblical perspective on what's going on in the Middle East?

Mark Hitchcock: Well, the regathering as Jewish people to their land that began in 1948 has been often called the Super Sign of the End Times. There's a lot of signs of the times, but it's the super sign. I mean, they have to be back there in their land. There's so many other prophecies that are dependent on the Jewish people being back in their homeland and almost half the Jews in the world now live in Israel. I mean, it's incredible. They keep returning to that land, and the Bible tells us in the end times that the Jewish people are going to be hated by all nations. Well, I mean, we see just this surging antisemitism in recent days. The Bible talks about a coalition of nations that will invade Israel in the end times. It's “Rosh” (Russia), it's Persia, which is modern day Iran. Four of the names in Ezekiel 38 or modern day Turkey.

So we're seeing these nations that the Bible predicted. Amazingly, Ezekiel predicted this over 2,500 years ago. And we see the Jewish people back in their land, this coalition coming together, and Iran is one of the major players in this, and of course, they're the main agitator for Israel today. We don't know what will happen in Iran in the near future. Will the regime that's there collapse? Will the Revolutionary Guard Corps take over? What will happen? But the Bible doesn't tell us what kind of government Iran will have in the end times. It just simply tells us they're going to be a part of this group that's going to come in to try to wipe Israel out in the end times. We don't look at the Bible through the events in the newspaper or the headlines, but we do look at the headlines through the Bible.

And as we look at our world today, our world today is shaping up and the scenario is coming into place exactly matching what we see in the Bible for the end times. Israel's back in their land, the Jewish people are there, antisemitism, these nations coming together. All of these things are really shaping up and in place. And it's an indicator that the coming of Christ could be very near and it should cause every believer to have an urgency, I think, and a motivation to live for Christ and to witness for Christ in this time in which we find ourselves.

Chris Katulka: Recently I was having a conversation with somebody about Ezekiel 38 and 39 in light of Iran, in light of the fact that it seems like there could be a potential shift in the near future where Iran goes from the Islamic Republic that was once screaming, “Death to Israel”, to potentially the return of the Shah. And who knows what that will look like and the relationship Iran will have with Israel. And so there's confusion. It seems like Iran could be shifting, and this conversation created an opportunity to remind people, and I think maybe you could speak into this as well. The prophet Zechariah says that all nations will go against Israel in the very end. So you've got the battle of Gog and Magog, but then ultimately in the end, no matter how many nations have peace with Israel, the prophet Zechariah seems to give us a bigger image of at some point, all nations will turn against Israel.

Mark Hitchcock: That's right. And I always say that we know what the Bible ultimately says will happen, but there may be a lot of twists and turns about how we get there. I remember back in the early nineties when the Soviet Union collapsed and fell apart. People were saying, “oh, these people about Gog and Magog and Russia being part of these events that are happening in the future, that's all gone by the wayside.” Well, look at Russia today with Vladimir Putin. So there can be some temporary shifts in these things, but ultimately the Bible says, these are the nations that are going to participate in this. And again, it doesn't tell us what their government's going to be like or how that can change. So things can change quickly in our world today and think about when the rapture takes place and all the believers on this earth disappear in a moment of time.

You talk about a lot of shifting scenarios that are going to take place, how that's going to change the world and how it can change it so suddenly. And we see today how the world can just change dramatically, very quickly. And so things are moving in that direction. And so we don't want to allow maybe, well, what's happening in Iran if there's regime change and it's going to somehow upset God's plan. God's plan is on track. And so there may be some things that shift around, but ultimately we know what will take place, and that's the confidence and comfort we can have. We watch these current events as they're happening. They're interesting, but everything's not settled yet the way it's going to be ultimately in the end times when these events occur.

Chris Katulka: You quote Donald Barnhouse in your book, and I like at the very end, he says, “The book of Revelation is the book for the present hour.” It's not just something for the past, it's something for the present hour. But my question is, how should Christians think biblically about especially what's unfolding in the Middle East, Israel, Iran, without jumping to premature prophetic conclusions? I think sometimes this can get us in trouble where we begin to make assumptions about events that are taking place. How do you responsibly interpret the Scriptures prophetically, Dr. Hitchcock, as an expert in this field?

Mark Hitchcock: Well, I think we have to lay out what the Bible says is going to happen. That's certain. What the Bible says will happen will happen. What we don't know is all the buildup and the lead up to that. And I think it's fine to speculate about that as long as we let people know that it's speculation.

Here's the Bible, the Bible's certain what it says. How this will take place, we don't really know how it will happen. So we're looking at events as things shift, and so I think it's fine to say, look, this scenario that we've seen now could lead to this. But I think that's fine to do that as long as we let people know the difference between what's our speculation and what the Bible says will ultimately take place. And God knows you have a mind. We use it. We see what's happening in our world. God knows we're going to wonder about those things. So I don't think it's wrong to look at these things and say, well, if this happens, this is interesting. That happens, that's interesting. I don't think it's wrong to do that, but we want to make sure that we don't mix our speculation with what the Bible says will for sure take place. I think we want to keep those two things separate from one another because we can know what the Bible says about what will ultimately happen in the future, and that's what we want to anchor our lives to.

Chris Katulka: Well, we've been speaking with Dr. Mark Hitchcock whose new book, The Revelation Answer Book: 125 Common Questions People Ask About the Earth's Final Days, is actually available here at the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. We want to remind you that you can get your copy by going to foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org. And I hope sometime in the near future, Dr. Hitchcock, we'll have you back on again to talk about some events that are taking place in Israel. Maybe we'll see what unfolds with Iran and have a further conversation as what the Scriptures also share about these important events that are taking place in our time. And I love what you said earlier as well. Israel is the linchpin in understanding biblical prophecy. I always tell people the same thing, sir. I say, you know what? I don't know exactly how things are playing out currently, but I can tell you, I always say, you live in the splash section of biblical prophecy. It's splashing on you right now because you are living in a time period where the Jewish people are back in the land according to what God's promises had already laid out for us. So I, again, thank you so much for being with us and looking forward to being able to share your insights with our people again.

Mark Hitchcock: Well, thank you so much. God bless you.

Chris Katulka: God bless.

Steve Conover: Thank you so much for joining us for today's episode of The Friends of Israel Today. We want to thank Dr. Mark Hitchcock for being with us today. If you would like to order his new book, The Revelation Answer Book: 125 Common Questions People Ask About the Earth's Final Days, visit our website at foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org. Chris, where are we headed next week?

Chris Katulka: Yeah, we're going to have Dr. Mike Stallard, who's the Vice President of International Ministries here at the Friends of Israel. He's going to be joining us to talk about his latest article in Israel My Glory, “Raise Up, Rebuild, and Restore: A Look at Amos Chapter 9.” Actually, Steve, I like to think one of my favorite sections of Amos is when God promises a restoration of Israel and the Jewish people, so we're excited to have Dr. Mike Stallard on with us.

Steve Conover: As mentioned, our web address is foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org. Our mailing address is FOI Radio, PO Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey, 08099. Again, that's FOI Radio, PO Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey, 08099. You can call our listener line. That number is 888-343-6940. Again, that's 888-343-6940. Today's program was engineered by Bob Beebe, edited by Jeremy Strong, who also composed and performs our theme music. Lisa Small is our executive producer. Sarah Fern is our associate producer. Our host and teacher is Chris Katulka, and I'm Steve Conover, executive director of The Friends of Israel. The Friends of Israel Today is a production of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. Passion for God's Word. Compassion for God's Chosen People.