🔥 AN OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION (PART 1) 🔥

Mike Balloun teaches today. 11/11/23

🔥 AN OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION (PART 1) 🔥

VERSES: Psalm 2:1-4, 83:4-5; Zechariah 14:2-3; Revelation 1:3,19; Numbers 23:9, 35:11-34

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AN OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION PART 1

“Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.” [Revelation 1:3]

The intent of this prophetic word is to arouse hope in the redeemed and incentivize them in overcoming faith unto a heavenly Kingdom reward that God intends to give to His faithful. This hope, which is set on Christ, would thus purify us redeemed. (1st John 3:3… “And every man that hath this hope in him (hope of heavenly Kingdom reward/hope of glory) purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”)

First, we need to set a solid foundation for what will be the superstructure of the series of lessons entitled, “An Overview of the Book of Revelation.” The understanding of this lesson is foundational and an integral component of grasping the content of future lessons. Let’s begin…

Christianity is a religion. It is Jewish in origin. It is the religion based upon the hearing or reading of the recorded life and teachings of Jesus the Messiah of Israel, Savior of the World, and by subsequent faith in His First and prophesied Second Comings. As the redeemed, we are to be living in anticipation of the blessing of empowerment that we need in order to walk out our lives according to God’s will, keeping those things Written by the Christ-instructed Apostles.

Christianity’s beginnings and future are inseparable but yet are distinct from that of the Jews. (Acts 15:14-17) The Nation of Israel and the Nation of the One New Man prophetically are destined to converge again as End-Times Kingdom prophecies of the Old and New Testament prophets (that are more fully expounded in the Book of Revelation) are fulfilled. Jesus’ words in Revelation 1:3 of “…for the time is a hand” refers to the fact that when those future prophetic things begin to unfold, there will be no more delay. It will happen suddenly and speedily. One week of years (the last 7 years referred to in the Book of Daniel before Israel is restored/Messiah comes) swiftly closes out this Age and will conclude with Christ’s Second Coming.

Before we look at the prophetic future of these two inseparable Nations, it should be very helpful in understanding the Book of Revelation to look back on their histories. For Israel and the Jews’ history, we must go back to Genesis Chapter 9 and Noah and his 3 sons after the Great Flood. Every person on the face of the Earth comes from the lineage of one of these 3 sons; Shem, Ham, or Japheth. Only Shem is declared to have a God. (Verse 26) Ham and Japheth had to dwell in the tents of Shem to have a God and His blessings… for it was Shem who was given the firstborn’s preeminence and right to bless in the only God’s Name.

So it was appointed by God from the beginning of man’s repopulating after the Flood and it will never ever change. Only Shem and his lineage then had God as their God and down through nine generations in direct line from Shem, came Abraham, and from him, his son Isaac and grandson Jacob and his 12 sons, from whom sprang the 12 tribes that became the Nation of Israel. They being the only Nation with God as their God. (Numbers 23:9 says they are to “not be reckoned among the nations.”) God has chosen Israel to represent Him in the Earth and will never repent of the idea. (Romans 11:29) Ishmael and Esau’s lineage is reckoned among the lineage of Ham and Japheth according to Scripture. And any god outside of Israel’s God is a useless vain attempt to circumvent God. The Gentile Nations’ gods are satanically inspired from Babel/Babylon for just that reason. (Psalm 96:5) The only way for the Gentile Nations to have a God is to go to that one Nation with a God. (Genesis 9:27)

So as it is today, while Israel, the only Nation with standing before God on the Earth, is in unbelief, the Gentile Nations find themselves unable to dwell in the ‘tents of Shem’, and have God and His blessings (it is only in the restoration of Israel in the Millennial Kingdom of Christ that the Nations through Israel will have a God).

Today, Israel is ungodly and ‘broken off’ from their heritage, and is surrounded by Babylonianish Nations, which is to say that their god is a mixed worldly governmental and religious system that finds its roots in Mystery Babylon. (Revelation 17:5; Psalm 96:5) This is the same state and god of the United States and every other Nation on the Earth today.

The Nation of Israel remains God’s only first born son on the Earth. (Exodus 4:22-23) First born is a title given to them by God in relation to all the other Nations. Israel holds then God’s title and law of the first born; which is to say they alone have right to rule in the Earth and minister to the Gentile Nations. God, in Genesis 12:2-3 says… “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” What God started in Genesis, He will finish in Revelation.

Currently the Gentile Nations rule in the Earth through their leaders in the power of satan. (Daniel 10, Ephesians 6… “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” - Verse 6) On this continuing, are all satan’s evil conniving schemes and supernatural resources focused. That is… to keep God’s first born from taking their anciently appointed kingly priestly position as God’s Nation in the Earth to rule over, guide, and bless all the Nations. (Ezekiel 36:23-28, Zechariah 8:21-23) To fail is to lose his kingdom.

And ever since Moses brought Israel out of Egypt, satan has been intent on their destruction because they are God’s People whom God will, at the time of their restoration, be who God appointed them to be; a Ruling Nation and priests, ministering to the Nations. (Deuteronomy 7:6) The Last Days, which are expounded upon in the Book of Revelation, bring the intensity of satan and his unseen forces aligned with the Gentile Nations to pass. Psalm 83:4-5… “They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee…” See also Psalm 2… “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us…” Note that these verses are clearly reflective of what we see in modern-day news. (In Psalm 83, we have the 10-nation confederation and Daniel’s image with 10 toes (Daniel 2:41) and Beast with 10 horns (Daniel 7:7). We find in these the foreshadowing of the End-Time 10-Gentile Nation confederation with the Anti-Christ in Revelation 17:12, this future now-developing confederation being determined to Israel’s final and complete annihilation.)

Historically, we see the Jews’ religious system destroyed in 70 AD, and later, the Jews were slaughtered and driven out of their God-granted country of Israel and scattered among the Gentile Nations in 135AD by the Romans. (In order to wipe the name of Israel from the map, Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the Land of Judea as ‘Palaestina/Palestine’ in honor of Israel’s ancient enemies; the Philistines.) An important thing to note is that the driving out was by God Himself in answer to their unbelief to effect repentance. This is the way God has dealt with Israel over and over again. He uses the Nations to judge His People and then He judges those Nations. This is exactly what will happen in End-Times when He allows “Jacob’s Trouble”, and then Jesus comes to pour out God’s Wrath upon the Nations. Zechariah 14:2-3… “For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.”

The present Nation of Israel is a result of the Zionist movement of the end of the 19th Century… which eventually, through 2 wars, led to the Jews’ intensified efforts and England’s mandate and its assignment of the Land still named ‘Palestine’ to be granted to Israel in May 1948 after the greater part of 2000 years. The Jews had appealed to Man and made a pact with Great Britain to re-establish them back into the Land of Israel, which at the time, was basically desolate, full of swamps and barren deserts, and not inhabited by many people at all, mostly Nomads. The Jews who came battled malaria, and through much labor and sacrifice, planted vineyards and built it up. (The Arabs didn’t even care about the Land until the Jews came and brought life back to it. Then Yasser Arafat moved millions of Egyptians to the area and claimed to be Palestinians.) So while the so-called Palestinian Arabs do not deserve to be there because they are not God’s Chosen People, it is also true that the Israel’s ‘restoration’ was of their own efforts as opposed to God having decreed it. Their return was accomplished by Man and was ‘out of time’ (out of the appointed time). In that as long they, as a people, remain unrepentant in unbelief, they are to remain scattered. As prophecy declares, their Restoration in the Land is the aftereffect of receiving Jesus as their Messiah, and that according to Scripture, won’t be until the time of His Return. It also cannot happen while Christ remains in Heaven as the High Priest ministering for a heavenly Nation after a different order (not one of an Aaronic order). For Christ, our High Priest, has not yet come forth to receive His King’s investiture in order to establish His Kingdom on this Earth. Thus, the Jews are in the Land out of God’s appointed time of their return. All this, taken together, answers to the continuing conflict in the Middle East today.

This return of a remnant of the Jews to Israel has wrongly been understood by the majority of Christendom as the Biblically-prophesied restoration orchestrated by God. (Ezekiel 36-37) The reality being they are there in the Land by the energy and power of Man’s hand. The Jews’ leadership had looked to Man for their help instead of their God, as was often the case in their Biblical history. The scattering of the Jews by God is to effect repentance after which He would supernaturally restore them all to the Land. But the case of this modern-day ‘Aliyah’ (immigration of Jews back to their homeland) of scattered Jews is in a state of a continued unrepentant disbelief in Jesus as the Christ, putting them still laden with their sins, and at odds with God’s declared purposes.

Repentance must come before God’s prophesied Kingdom restoration of Israel can come. (Ezekiel 36-37 can only chronologically follow 38-39) This restoration of Israel can only come after Daniel’s prophesied 70th week of 7 years is unsuspended and completed, wherein is the Prophet Jeremiah’s Jacob’s Trouble/the Great Tribulation, when sorrow-filled repentance in seeing Jesus as Christ fills the hearts of the unbelieving remnant of Jews. (Zechariah 13 & 14) Israel’s restoration will not come until the ‘times of the Gentiles’ (Luke 21:24) and ‘fulness of the Gentiles’ (Romans 11:25) is fulfilled.

Nevertheless, a portion of the Jews today back in the Land where they should not be was known and allowed in the foreknowledge of God. It is what sets the table for the End-Time prophecies of the Old and New Testaments, especially seen in the Book of Revelation, to be fulfilled. This remnant in the land today constitutes the re-gathered Nation of Israel which will make the seven-year covenant with Antichrist. (Daniel 9:27) And this remnant of Jews will later be uprooted from the land, that being for 3 ½ years. (Daniel 8:11-14, Matthew 24:15, Revelation 13:5, 11:2) Note that this can never occur after the Jewish people have been regathered to the land BY GOD in the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. - Isaiah 2:1-4, Jeremiah 32:37-44, Ezekiel 37:19-28; 39:25-29, Micah 4:1-7.

The prophets have spoken, and we can count on them to give us the results of the End-Time great battle. The 10 Gentile Nations in confederation with the greater Pharaoh/Anti-Christ will more greatly persecute End-Time Israel. But Israel will finally be brought to an everlasting repentance, in the light of their Deliverer, and all Gentile power will be destroyed, which will result in a greater exodus than that of Israel out of Egypt. Satan will be chained in the Abyss of Hades, and the Nation of Israel will again receive God’s authority in the Earth.

But presently, satan is doing his best to destroy Israel by using the surrounding Gentile Nations over which he has control. It is a supernatural battle with supernatural beings that man has little to no ability to affect. See the laws of the “avenger of the blood” in Numbers 35:11-34 in regards to the penalty for the person accused of murder. The laws state that the one guilty of shedding the blood of another man must have his blood shed in order to answer to that blood and its defiling effect upon the land. Those laws also speak of the ‘cities of refuge’ “…to which a person who has killed someone accidentally may flee. They will be places of refuge from the avenger, so that anyone accused of murder may not die before they stand trial before the assembly.” Israel, having slain the Lord (Acts 3:17; Luke 23:34) albeit ignorantly (Father forgive them they know not what they do), was therefore not guilty of murder; but of manslaughter. According to the laws of Numbers 35, the guilty party is to be legally exiled from the land (their inheritance) and must remain outside it “…unto the death of the high priest." And if they enter back into their inheritance before such time, the Avenger may slay them. Being that the Jews have come back into the Land before their appointed time, legally, satan, in the role of the revenger of blood, is pursuing them. And so it continues until the ‘death/termination’ of Jesus’ current High Priest Ministry, where He steps out of that Ministry and descends into the Kingly/Priestly Ministry of Melchizedek. Israel then sees the One they have slain at His Coming, and turns to Christ, and then the Blood of the Passover Lamb is applied to the living Israelites, and the Exodus from all Gentile Nations occurs.

All that being said, though Israel was set side for these 2000 years due to their rejection of Christ, God has not been left without a National Witness in the Earth. “Therefore say I unto you, The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” [Matthew 21:43]

Christians had first been called to the “Commonwealth of Israel’, to come under the ‘tents of Shem’’… “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” [Ephesians 2:12] That ‘coming under the tents of Shem’ (God’s anointed firstborn) answered to the great commission of Matthew 28:18-20… “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” So the Great Commission’s call to the Apostles was a repetition of the call from Genesis 12:3 to bless all of the familes/nations of the Earth. Had the Jews, as a Nation, accepted the Atonement of Christ, He would have set up His Kingdom and all Gentiles would have been prosyletized into the “Commonwealth of Israel”. What happens in the Millennium could have happened at Pentecost. That is the ancient order of Genesis 9 that will fully be realized in the Millennial Kingdom, that the Gentiles come into the blessings of God through the Nation of Israel.

The Nation of the One New Man was formed not in this Earth (being in this World but not OF this World) and is not to be accounted among the Gentile Nations, being of the lineage of Shem through Jesus; the Seed of Abraham, but formed in the heavenly Realm, where the worthies of that Nation will eternally reside and rule in this Realm from its heaven. They are brought out of the lineage of Shem in that they are the spiritual Seed of Abraham. (Galatians 3:29) But just as Abraham had other sons who were found unworthy to share in the Glory of restored Israel, whose inheritance is then found among the Gentile Nations… so does Jesus have unworthy servants whose inheritance will not be in the Glory of the heavenly Realm, but be among the Gentile Nations eternally upon the New Earth. In that an accountability in overcoming has to be met in order to inherit the Promises He holds out.

That Nation “more worthy” of the heavenly Kingdom inheritance, because of its overcoming fruits Christ prophesied of, was not officially formed until after Israel’s persistent rejection of Jesus as their Messiah. And in around 62 AD, Paul spoke the Holy Spirit-inspired Words of, “Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.” [Acts 28:28]

These out of the Nation of the One New Man are now to be God’s/Christ’s Witnesses of the Kingdom coming by overcoming the gods of this world. They are not to rule in life, but to sacrifice a self-pleasing life here in faithful loving service of Jesus. They are called now to be that ADOPTED first born heavenly son to rule with THE First Born (Christ) in the heavens in His Coming Millennial Kingdom, as then God’s restored first born son Israel will rule on the Earth.

(Let’s pause to consider something… What value will we place on being considered Firstborn sons? Will we be like Esau whom God hated for despising his firstborn rights, selling it for a mere pot of stew? For surely the Lukewarm Laodicean spiritual Esau who values the temporary pleasures of this life above his own inheritance, will be spewed out of Christ’s mouth and disinherited as a firstborn son, not having the right to a kingly and priestly ministry in the heavens.)

And so it is that the Book of Revelation tracks God’s Three First-Born Sons (Jesus, Israel, and the worthies of the One New Man) in this Age, and beyond.