🔥 AN OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION (PART 2) 🔥

Mike Balloun teaches today. 11-18-23

🔥 AN OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION (PART 2) 🔥

VERSES: Revelation 1:19, 13:2, 22:9-12; Daniel 9:24-27; Hosea 6:1-3

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AN OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION PART 2
(Note that an overview is a summary, therefore for an in-depth understanding of the details chapter-by-chapter, please see our online series entitled “Revelation Revealed.”)

In order to understand the Book of Revelation, it is important to know that it is divided up by the Lord into 3 distinct parts/times, as John is told to: “Write 1) the things which thou sawest, and 2) the things which are, and 3) the things which shall come to pass after these.” The first division being set forth as only that which is recorded in the first Chapter the “things which thou sawest”… That being of the Lord’s eternalness, of His announced purpose of showing His servants things which must come to pass before His Return, and of His appearance as the High Priest Administrator and Intercessor in relation with the heavenly Sanctuary’s ‘Holy Place’ where 7 golden “candlesticks” of the Body of Christ are displayed. (See Hebrews 8:2 where Jesus, our High Priest is described as… “A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true (heavenly) tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.”) But this scene in Revelation 1 in is uniquely distinct from the ancient Jewish Mosaic system, as this Holy of Holies in the heavens is without Ark, Table of Shew Bread, or Altar of incense… possibly because Christ embodies these, whereas the ‘golden candlesticks’ speak to the royal eternal heavenly calling, the wick speaks of Churches and its congregants, and the light of the candlesticks are initially sparked by the light of regeneration, but then obedience to the Word is what keeps the candles continuing to shine. Without obedience/yielding to the oil of the Holy Spirit, He will remove the lampstand.)

The second distinct division in time Jesus defined is “the things which are” (right now), which was to say… that which would continue until a certain point in the future… then attention is brought to those moral and spiritual conditions Jesus revealed in those selected 7 Churches in Chapters 2 & 3. Jesus reveals Himself and speaks to John in this first vision relating to the things which thou sawest and the things which are, and after that, the Angels spoke to John in all his subsequent visions of the things which shall be hereafter, which are recorded by him in the Book of Revelation. Then in the 22nd Chapter, Jesus steps back into the scene and speaks the final words to John when His Return is imminent; that is to say, when those things begin to manifest that the Angels spoke of. Then there will not be time for the lax or lazy servant who is found asleep spiritually to recover himself when he does finally hear the Master Who had been knocking at his door, to escape the great hour of temptation that is coming on all the World. (Revelation 3:10) “And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward/wages is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be” either good or bad. (Revelation 22:10-12 with 11:18) No, the quickness of His return will not allow anyone living to have time to change.

The Book of Revelation is a summary of Christ’s expectations to the Church to overcome. It is not an evangelistic message to the lost, but a warning to His servants to maintain faithfulness throughout His absence. Justification from eternal wrath is exclusively by faith and not reward for works. (Romans 4:4-5) But now the Justified are to be held accountable for works of service, as accounted by the Master. (See the parables in Matthew 25 & Luke 21 which parallel Jesus going away on a journey and returning to judge His servants based on their faithfulness/fruitfulness.)

What constitutes a faithful servant/overcomer or one that is overcome by the Old Man within and the World and satan without, relative to gain or loss of reward and punishment, is somewhat characterized for us in the 7 letters to the Churches recorded in these first 3 Chapters of Revelation. Keep in mind that each of the following exhortations is applicable to any church or any redeemed individual, as His warnings are to the saved…

Ephesus’ servants being gradually defeated was due to “works” without the comprehension and purpose of their first love. Paul’s doctrine of faith without love being meaningless is seen in 1st Corinthians 13 and also Galatians 5:6 which speaks of faith needing to work by love. See also 1st Thessalonians 1:3 and 2nd Thessalonians 1:3 where Paul encourages them in their walk of love… “Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father.” ….“We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity (love) of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth…” These 4 verses are contrasted to the loss of love as the motive to serve. Reverential thankfulness and repentance brings the grace and mercy for renewal and fruitfulness of service. (Luke 3:8) Without this repentance, He will come and remove them from being one of His Churches. First the lamp grows dim, then it goes out.

Smyrna had a mixture of pretentious believers and faithful believers doing the works of Christ even in the face of great persecution. Those who were faithful even unto loss of goods, He declares rich… to be manifest at His Return with the Crown of life.

Those of Pergamum were being defeated by compromising in false doctrines, religious systems, and accompanying moral breakdowns. Hear the Spirit, repent in awakened fear, and overcome in the hope of reward.

In Thyatira, they had become tolerant of the wickedness of the false prophetess that was seducing the faithful in adultery/fornication under the pretense of the benefits of understanding the depths of satan. But some had not succumbed, and are encouraged to hold fast until He Comes. And to those who overcome and do His works unto the end, they shall receive the authority of the heavenly Kingdom and rule over the nations.

Sardis is the example of the danger of remaining ‘merely born again’ (James 1:22). They had heard the maturing Word of service to Christ by the Apostles, but were in need again to hear and repent of defiled garments on the verge of being found asleep. Altogether, they are a lethargic secularized Church. But there were a few who had not defiled garments, who at His Return will be found worthy of glory.

Those of Philadelphia had heard and heeded the warning Words of the Apostles and were fighting the fight of faith, though they were few in number.

Laodicea, being fully leavened in religious doctrines, were overcome, cold in agape, lukewarm in presumptuous character, and calloused to any spiritual sensitivity of Christ not being in their midst.

In these various tests, trials, and temptations set forth in Scripture, the regenerate believer (now and over the many generations since the Master has ascended) is either overcoming with sure promise of reward of Kingdom inheritance or is being overcome by these or any of the other disqualifying sins unrepentantly committed. In that a Christian either overcomes or becomes enslaved to the sin he tolerates in himself. (Romans 6:16… “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” See also 1st Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:19-21, Ephesians 5:3-7 which list a good amount of the things that will disqualify the unrepentant redeemed from the kingdom of heaven reward. Today’s Church does not take to heart “that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

The Lord’s exhortations to the Churches were with the hope of attainment of reward in His Coming Kingdom and avoidance of its loss and any punishment due for unfaithful service. These ‘things which are’ then comparatively extend concurrently to all the Churches of the redeemed over the last 2000 years. That is to say, the moral and spiritual conditions of the ancient Churches in Chapters 2&3 are prophetically a picture of the last 2000 years of Churches. Today, we are yet a part of the things which are, although there are End-Time signs we cannot with Scriptural confidence say we have entered into the 3rd distinct part in time Christ prophesied of. That being said, “the things which are” have been given a certain discernable prophetic terminus point before “the things which shall come to pass after these” shall begin, which are then “those things” set forth in Revelation Chapters 4-22.

‘THE LAST DAYS’
The Last Days is a term that refers to the very last part of this current particular ‘Age’ that began at Christ’s Crucifixion and ends with His Return. The concept of an ‘age’ being the way God speaks to our finite minds, as Eternity is too hard to grasp. The Last Days is a term closely united, if not synonymous, with Christ’s distinct 3rd part of His revelation given to John of “the things which shall come to pass after these”.

The prophesied 70 weeks of Daniel must be the first thing understood by the Bible student to fully understand the meaning of the prophetic Events in the End-Time chronology of the Book of Revelation Chapters 4 through Revelation 20:6. Within the Book of DANIEL are also PROPHETIC VISIONS all pointing towards the ‘Last Days’… which exactly correspond with John’s visions of the Book of Revelation and give us precisely the time of the ending of this Age and the beginning of the next Age. (See our series on “The Book of Daniel” for a further in-depth understanding, but here we will get a basic understanding.)

Daniel 9:24-27
Note that Daniel had asked God the timing as to when Israel will be (permanently) restored. His response was…
(Verse 24) “Seventy weeks (weeks of 7 years each, totaling 490 years) are determined upon thy people (Israel) and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression (of Israel), and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
(25) Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
(26) And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off (die), but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
(27) And he (the prince) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”

So, 69 of those 7-year weeks were historically fulfilled, which brings our understanding precisely to blinded Israel’s rejecting and cutting off/crucifying their Messiah as predicted 2000 years ago, as Daniel prophesied in Verse 26. Leaving the 70th week of 7-year periods of Verse 27 yet-to-be fulfilled. Throughout the Bible, Scripture declares the Jews must receive Jesus as their Messiah in order for those restorative things enumerated in the prophecy in Verse 24 above to be fulfilled. So it was in the cutting off/crucifying of their Messiah that the 70th Week of 7 years was suspended until the end of this parenthetical Age (the parenthetical insertion of the 2000-year “age” of mercy and grace, wherein God is calling out a People out of the Gentiles, which is between the 69th week and the final 70th week of Daniel). And when the final 7 years run their course, prophecy assures us the Jews will then receive Jesus as their Messiah and all the things mentioned in Verse 24 will be fulfilled. (Said a different way: 69 Weeks out of the 70 (483 years out of the 490 years) track perfectly from the time Daniel was given that prophecy until the day Messiah was crucified (Daniel 9:26) which leaves the final 70th week of years/seven years unfulfilled.)

Therefore the terminus point of “the things which are” and the Last Days (final 7 years) beginning/“the things which come to pass after these” is the starting of Daniel’s suspended 70th week of 7 years, the Last Days of this Age, before Christ’s Return. And what starts the 70th week of 7 years?
Daniel 9 Verse 27 predicts Israel’s covenant with the prince, and that is precisely the catalyst that begins the 3rd distinct part of Christ’s prophecy, “…for the time is at hand…” for ‘the specific things which shall now come to pass’ that will end this Age. That short time of 7 years (plus a few more days Daniel 12:11-12) is exclusively what is detailed in the Book of Revelation Chapters 4 to Chapter 20 Verse 6.

This 7-year covenant that begins the End of this Age/‘the Last Days’, which apostate Israel makes in the hope of avoiding desolation, is with the “…prince that shall come…” It is he that emerges as the leader of an End-Time 10-Nation confederation that is perceived to hold the End-Time Nation of Israel’s fate in their hands. (Daniel 7:7-8 with Revelation 17:16-17… Daniel 7:7-8 speaks of the Beast and the 10 nations/kingdoms that the Anti-Christ becomes confederated with. Revelation 17:16-17 are corresponding verses of the very same event.) The covenant is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of Israel’s covenant with “Death and Hades.” (Isaiah 28:15) It is so named by the Holy Spirit as “a covenant with death, and with hell” in that the 7-year agreement is made with the satanically resurrected/resuscitated man/the Anti-Christ presently consigned to the Pit/Abyss of Hades. (Revelation 13:2-4; 17:8) Note that it is not absurd or fanciful to believe that the Anti-Christ comes out of literal Hades, considering the precedent that Jesus Christ went to the Pit/Abyss in Hades before and came out at His Resurrection. We thus should be able to believe that satan could offer a man the same authority and glory he had once offered to Jesus in the Wilderness. For it is satan who gives the Anti-Christ “his power, and his seat, and great authority.” (Revelation 13:2) There is a battle for supremacy in this realm, and when Satan is cast down, he goes to extreme measures which compel him to make a pact with a human to resuscitate him, that he may rule the Earth through a human. His objectives are stealth, but his true aim will be to destroy the Chosen People appointed to be God’s Theocratic Government in the Earth and further establish a satanic autocratic worship system on the Earth.

Thus, the final 7 years of Daniel’s 70th week of this Age arrive with the covenant of “Death and Hades” with the prince/Anti-Christ. Biblically, this is the timeline of Daniel’s words that say that he will “…confirm the covenant with many for one week (7 years): and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.” Those with Biblical understanding will expect then the violation of that covenant in the midst or at the 3 ½ year point. (Matthew 24:15, Revelation 12:14, Isaiah 10:20-25; 26:20-21, Revelation 11:2) Both the desolated/Israel and the desolator/the Anti-Christ will be dealt with in terrifying judgements over that last 3 ½ years until finally the KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS WILL APPEAR on the Great Battle scene for Israel and victoriously close out the 70th week of Daniel and this current Age. (Revelation 19:11-21, Matthew 13:30)

IN THIS PRESENT AGE…
So it should be seen that on the one hand, this suspended week of Daniel’s 7 years resulted in this present 2000-year-old Age that answers to the Nation of Israel’s cutting off/crucifying of their Messiah and on the other hand, it is God’s appointed time in bringing forth another Nation from which He will bring true witnesses on the Earth exercised in the unadulterated Gospel of Christ, from the Nation of the One New Man. (Matthew 21:43, Ephesians 2:15, Acts 15:14-17)

(From another Scriptural perspective of the same timeline, is that which is set forth by the Prophet Hosea: the 7-year period unsuspended answers to the Tribulation Period after these 2000 years/ 2 ‘Days’ (2nd Peter 3:8… “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”) in which Israel was broken off, after which He will bring Israel’s remnant to repentance in the beginning of the 3rd Day …which corresponds with the beginning of the 7th Day/Millennium from Re-Creation. (Hosea 6:1-3 & Zechariah 13:8-9… “Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days (2000 years after their rejection of Jesus and Israel’s being cut off) will he revive us: in the third day (bringing in the Millennium) he will raise us up (Israel will be restored), and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.”)
And from another Scriptural perspective, in that 7-year Tribulation period, in the seals, trumpets, and vials judgements, in the closing out of this Age of Grace and Mercy and in establishing the coming Age of Justice, God then will revenge all the blood shed on the Earth. And in that bloody exacting justice, He will fulfill His ancient Covenant Words (seen in Genesis 9:5-6, Deuteronomy 32:41-43, Matthew 23:35 where God speaks of the principal of blood for blood and avenging the blood of His servants). He will avenge down to the last drop for every drop of spilled innocent blood that has accumulated since the time of Abel, which God takes into account.

That 7-year period will end also with the prophetic convergence of 1) ‘the fulness of the Gentiles’ having come into the Nation of the One New Man (Romans 11:25) and 2) ‘the times of the Gentiles’ when the ruling scepter of God in the Earth that He took from rebellious Israel in the days of Jeremiah and granted to the Gentile rulers (beginning with Nebuchadnezzar), will finally terminate. (Daniel 2:37-38 with Luke 21:24) In that repentant Israel, at the end of the 7-year great tribulation, receives Jesus as God’s Messiah; their sins then forever put away, in that their souls will be saved (Jeremiah 31:31-35, Hebrews 10:38-39), and as a People and Nation will be established forever as God’s chosen Nation among all the Gentile Nations and take back the scepter of authority in the Earth, and rule over the Nations in Christ’s Millennial Kingdom as God’s long-awaited Theocratic Government Nation on the Earth. Wherein there will be no more Churches of the Nation of the One New Man on the Earth.

THE LAMB OF GOD’S INVESTITURE AS KING FORETOLD
Beginning with Revelation Chapters 4:2 through Revelation 5:14 we have the events depicting Jesus obtaining His investiture as King over this Realm’s Kingdom in the unseen heavenly Realm before He begins to open the Seals. And then, moving forward, we have the 7-year period in which the further prophesied fast-paced events of the middle Chapters happen until His Kingdom is fully obtained in Revelation 20:6. So it is that those prophetic events of the Book of Revelation exactly correspond with the prophetic events of Daniel’s 7th Chapter, beginning with 9th Verse in the ‘setting up’ of those same thrones and then moving over that same 7-year period until concluding at the same point with Christ’s Kingdom realization, Verses 7-28 of Daniel… “Hitherto is the end of the matter”.

The accounts are the same in that they both deal with the same 7 years and events that End this current Age which bring forth the 3 “first born” Sons of God to Rule in this Realm in the next Age of His Millennial Kingdom: the Son of Man/Son of God, the First Born of physical Israel to rule on the Earth, and the adopted First Born/Bride out of the ‘Body’ of Christ to co-rule with Christ from the heaven of this Earthly Realm. In Daniel Chapter 7, these 3 firstborn sons are articulated as 1) the Son of Man takes the kingdom - Verses 13 & 14, “the saints of the most High (places) (the Bride of Christ) take the (heavenly part of the) Kingdom” (Verses 18,22,25), and 3) the Kingdom “under the whole heaven (on the Earth) shall be given to the people (the Jews who are subservient) of the saints of the most High (places)” (Verse 28). The same corresponding 3 “first born” Sons in the Book of Revelation are 1)“The Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, the Lamb, Faithful and True, King of Kings and Lord of Lords” 2) “the overcomers, the man-child, the first fruits, the harvest, His Wife, the Blessed and holy… priests of God”; these being then the worthy heavenly ruling contingent ‘saints’ out of the Nation of the One New Man 3) the faithful non-Christian Jews referred to as “the woman” in Revelation 12:14 and “the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God” (in Revelation 12:17,14:12), and referred to as “the servants of our God” in Revelation 7:3-4. These End-of-this-Age events, recorded in Old and New Testament Prophecy, has God’s one main theme in view; the Son of Man’s replacement Theocratic Government for this Realm; in both its heavenly and Earthly parts.

So Daniel and Revelation, taken together, fully expound the meaning of the Last Days of this Age, and that chiefly for Jesus’ investiture as King of this Realm (note that the word Investiture means “the ceremony of installing a new monarch; the ceremonial act of clothing someone in the insignia of an office; the formal promotion of a person to an office or rank”… therefore, the thrones being set up in the heavens associated with this Earth at the beginning of the last 7-year period, after which Jesus begins to open the seals spoken of in Revelation, He then will be moving into His Kingly office in addition to His priestly office of Intermediary). The climax of the events of the ‘Last Days’/Last 7 years brings forth Christ’s worthies to rule in His Millennial Theocratic Government out of two, distinct groups: Jews and Christians. Those who are to be finally realized and revealed out of the whole saved/redeemed household of God since Adam; which the ‘Woman and her seed’ of the 12th Chapter fully symbolizes. That is the Chapter that reveals how Jesus will reward His faithful in promised rescue “from (ek; out of) the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.” (Revelation 3:10) And at the end of Daniel’s 70th week of 7 years answers also to that hour of temptation/Jacob’s Trouble/the great Tribulation/time of trouble. Then the faithful surviving remnant seed of Abraham, the servants of God, will repent and receive Christ as Israel’s Messiah who will join all God’s faithful Jews down through time, who are now waiting in Hades/Abrahams’ Bosom to be resurrected, unto the ruling/priestly inheritance of the promised Earthly portion of Jesus’ Kingdom in this Realm. (Daniel 12:1-3, Genesis 12:2-3)

And when those Last Days set in, those living Christians who are religiously presumptuous (Laodicean) in nature and spiritually asleep/un-watching, will then be startled when the ‘overcoming’ are caught up as the “Manchild/First-fruits” offering (Revelation 3:10; 12:5), and they are being confronted with the great “hour of temptation.” They, then being awakened from their spiritual religious darkness, are exhorted to endure patiently, in that many will be martyred who will not succumb to the Anti-Christ, and will then at the last be found worthy be a part of the End-Time Great Harvest. (Revelation 14:14-16 with Revelation 16:15) That is to say, the Harvest catching up of the faithful living and dead in Christ in the First Resurrection, who will then be raised up to meet the Lord in the Air (the first heaven) just before the final and 7th vial of God’s Wrath is poured out on His enemies. The time of the marriage of the Lamb has come… those who had made garments of righteousness receive their inheritance in the heavenly portion of Christ’s Kingdom, where satan now rules from over the Earth. (1st Thessalonians 4:16-17, Revelation 19:7; 20:4-6)

The majority of Old Testament and New Testament prophecies are yet to be fulfilled in this seven-year period. So it is necessary to understand this key End-Time prophetically revealing connection between the Book of Revelation and Daniel’s prophecies; particularly the Investiture of Christ in the 7th Chapter, and then the 9th Chapter’s suspended 70th Week of desolation, which is also Jeremiah’s prophesied “Jacob’s Trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7) and the Lord’s “great tribulation” (Matthew 24:21-22), that of prophesied severe Judgement that must come upon the Jews who will remain blinded in unbelief until the end of the Age, when a remnant is to be spared. (Zechariah 13-14, Revelation 12:6; 13-17) This runs concurrently with the chastening purging of the un-watching and un-ripened Christians. (Revelation 14:12-13, Luke 21:34-36) These Judgements on His two unfaithful groups coincide (unto to a declared point between the 6th and 7th of God’s Vial Judgements on His enemies reach a crescendo), but with God’s different ruling objectives in view, that of the Earthly and heavenly inheritances. These judgements proceed during the opening of the Seals... the 7th which includes the 7 Trumpets, and the last Trumpet which develops into the 7 Vials, completing God’s Wrath and chastening purgings.