El Shaddai Ministries

Pastor Mark Biltz: I'm very excited about today's lesson on the Book of Revelation. We're decoding the Book of Revelation. And if you remember last week, we closed off with the beginning, the first few verses of Revelation 14, the sealing of the 144,000. And we saw that their mouths, there was no guile. They had pure mouths. So we talked about last week how important it is to be so careful in these last days in regard to our speech.

So now Revelation 14 picks up again. We're going to start in verse six with several angelic messages. So let's listen to what these angelic messages are. We're going to start with verse six. Here John says, "I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven." "Having the everlasting gospel to preach to those that dwell on the earth." Imagine that. There's going to be an angel flying around the earth preaching in the midst of heaven.

And it says, "He'll be preaching to those that dwell on the earth, to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people." Wow, the everlasting gospel. What is he going to be preaching? And imagine everyone in every language is going to hear it in their own language. I don't know if he's going to be speaking every language, or if he's going to speak in a heavenly language and everyone will understand it in their own. But look at what he's saying. He is yelling out, "Fear God and give glory to Him for the hour of His judgment is come."

And then he says this. "Worship Him that made the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." And then it says, "There follows another angel saying, 'Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city because she made all the other nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.'"

Well, it's fascinating about this. Here, people aren't worshipping the God who made heaven and earth. They're worshipping heaven and earth. We know from Psalms 33:6 that by the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and by the breath of His mouth, all of its host. We have a star breathing God. Can you imagine, oh my goodness, when you look at a piece of art, you see how beautiful it is. Well, my goodness, who gets more of the glory, the art or the artist? Well, we need to realize God is the greatest creator artist of all time. And instead of people worshipping the Creator, they worship what is created. Especially those things that are created by their own hands.

It talks about Babylon is fallen. When do we first hear about Babylon? Well, if you remember in Genesis, it talks about the Tower of Babel, which was in Babylon. When all the languages of all the nations were confused. And now we have an angel speaking to all the nations. And what I find fascinating is from Romans chapter one. Listen to verse 18 through 27 in regard to the Book of Revelation here.

Here it says, "The nations are going to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." Well, how about the wrath of God? Listen to this. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, all unrighteousness of men." "Who by their unrighteousness, what do they do? They suppress the truth." How many of you know people don't want to hear the truth? They want to hear fake news. And the truth tries to come out, "I don't want to hear it."

It says, "What can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it." "His invisible attributes," it says, "namely his eternal power, his divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world." "In the things that have been made." I tell you what, when I go out and look at the stars and the planets, and all the the trees and the mountains, how can anyone say there wasn't a creator? That is just beyond me.

We we see creation, we know someone had to create it. When you see a car, you don't assume that time and chance and matter put those things together. How much more for the universe? It says, "So people are going to be without excuse." "Although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God." They never even gave thanks for everything, this beautiful place He gave us. They became futile in their thinking, their foolish hearts became darkened. They claimed to be wise, but they became fools. And look at this. "They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, and animals, and creeping things." Here we have this phenomenal universe that God created, that we can look at and explore and wonder about who created all this. But instead of being impressed with creation, what do we do? We worship all these stupid idols that man has created.

He says, "They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, and birds, and animals, and creepy crawlers." It says, "Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their own bodies among themselves." And look at this. "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie." "And they worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever."

And it says, "For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions, their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, the men likewise gave up a natural relation with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with other men, receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error."

Now, speaking of God creating the heavens and the earth, and how we should worship Him. Look at Nehemiah. This is chapter nine, verse six. "You are the Lord, You alone." There is no other. And he says, "You are the one who made heaven, and the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the sea and all that is in them." "You preserve all of them, all the host of heaven worships you." I mean, this is incredible. Not only did God create the heavens and the earth, God continually sustains the heaven and the earth. If God were ever to withdraw His hand, we would be done for. The very fact that God still sustains the heaven and the earth in spite of all the rebellion here is amazing to me.

But I think it's fascinating that all the host of heaven it says, "worships God." Wow. Matter of fact, Jeremiah 51. If you remember, history always repeats itself. Look at verse six through eight. Just like it says in Revelation, we're going to see in Jeremiah 51, he says, "Flee from the midst of Babylon." "Let everyone save his life. Don't be cut off when she's punished." "For this is the time of the Lord's vengeance." "The repayment He is rendering to her." "Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord's hand, making all the earth drunk." "The nations drank of her wine, therefore the nations went mad." "Suddenly, Babylon has fallen and has been broken." I tell you right now, the nations of the world are going mad. You look at what's going on. They there's total craziness is going on. And when he says, "It's the time of the Lord's vengeance." If you remember when Yeshua came the first time and he was reading Isaiah. And he said, "It's the time of opening of the prison doors." But he stops just mid-sentence. It also says, "And declaring the day of vengeance." But 2,000 years ago wasn't that time. Now is that time.

Matter of fact, look at Isaiah. This is chapter 21 and verse nine. "Behold, here comes riders, horsemen in pairs." "And he answers, listen to this, fallen, fallen is Babylon." "And all the carved images of her gods, he shattered to the ground." So here, just like Babylon has fallen in Revelation, we're seeing the precursor in the Book of Isaiah. Who saw what was coming and saw Babylon's fall.

Now, the amazing thing about this Babylon and a lot of Christians argue over who is Babylon, what is Babylon? Is Babylon a political system? Is Babylon a religious system? Is Babylon a city? Is New York Babylon? Is Rome Babylon? Or or they might say, "No, Babylon is a a religion, so Catholicism is Babylon." Well, what you have to remember from Hebrew thought, there are levels of interpretation. Uh there's the plain meaning of the text, there's hint at other meanings, there's allegories, and then there's also the hidden meanings. So we have to realize, rather than fighting back and forth over who is Babylon, what is Babylon. Realize there's a lot of different ways you can look at Babylon. But the main thing is, you know, in one sense to flee, I believe it's referring to more specifically a global world mindset rather than a mindset on the Lord.

And so now we have a third angel. Let's look at Revelation. This is chapter 14. Now we're going to go to 9 through 12, and we have a third angel is following them, the first and the second one. And he's saying with a loud voice, "If anybody worships the beast and his image and receives the mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same is going to drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation." So there's this cup of Babylon full of God's wrath that's being poured out upon all the nations. But looks to me like God's wrath here is specifically being poured on those who accept the mark of the beast and worship the beast, not those who don't.

I can't help but think of Israel during the Exodus, while all the plagues were happening to the Egyptians, nothing was happening to Israel. But they were still there. But look at this. Those that worship the beast and his image, it says, "They're going to be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb." Then it says, "The smoke of their torment is going to ascend up forever and ever." "They'll have no rest day or night." "Whoever worships the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name." And then it says this. "And here is the patience of the saint," "or the saints." Listen. "Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua." There are many people who keep the commandments of God, but they don't have the faith of Yeshua. And there are many who have the faith of Yeshua and don't keep the commandments of God. We want to do both. We want to keep the commandments of God because that's in our heart, and we want to have the testimony of Yeshua.

Here it's talking about this cup of his indignation that's being poured out, this wrath upon the earth. Well, I couldn't help but think of Psalms 75 and verse eight. "In the hand of the Lord," it says, "there is a cup." "With foaming wine." "It's well mixed, and he pours out from it." "And all the wicked of the earth will drain it down to the dregs." God has this mixture of this wine that he is going to make all the nations mad and drunken as he pours out his wrath on them. As a matter of fact, God speaks to Jeremiah about this time. Listen to Jeremiah.

This is chapter 25. And we're going to look at verses 15 through 17. "Thus the Lord, the God of Israel said to me, Jeremiah, 'Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath. Make all the nations to whom I send you, drink it.'" So you see this pattern is repeated over and over and over. Isaiah talks of it, Jeremiah talks of it, John in Revelation talks of it. How God is going to be pouring out his wrath from this cup to all the nations. All the nations.

And then God says this. "These nations, they're going to drink of it, they're going to start staggering, and they're going to be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them."

(clears throat) Jeremiah says, "So I took the cup from the Lord's hand and made all the nations to whom the Lord sent me to drink it." Now, let's go back to Isaiah for a minute. 150 or so years earlier. Chapter 66. This is verse 22 through 24. It says, "For as the new heavens and the new earth that I'll make shall remain before me," says the Lord, "So your offspring and your name will remain." "From new moon to new moon, from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh is going to come to worship before me," says the Lord. And then look at this. "And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me, where their worm will not die, their fire will not be quenched, and they'll be in horror of abhorrence to all flesh." Can you imagine this?

After the new heavens and the new earth. Listen to this. "For as the new heavens and the new earth that I will make remain before me." Okay, so we're talking after the millennium. There's the new heaven, there's a new earth. And God says, "From every new moon to new moon and every Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh is going to come and worship before me." Okay. So that means, guess what, we're going to be keeping the new moon for eternity, even after the new heavens and the new earth. Not only that, we're going to be keeping the Sabbath for eternity. But what this means is, every week, once a week, and on every month at the new moon, all flesh is going to come and worship before God. And then he's going to give everyone an open vision of hell. Wow. This is going to be amazing. Talk about a motivating factor not to rebel after the new heavens and the new earth. Remember, we still will have free will. God does not want to have ever happen again what happened with Satan, with what happened on this earth for the last 6,000 years. So God is going to use as a motivating thing after the new heavens and the new earth as a way to make sure rebellion does never happen again, once a month on every new moon and every week, everyone's going to come and worship before the Lord and we're going to be looking into the flames of hell. That is shocking.

Let's go to Revelation 14, verse 13 through 17. John says, "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, 'Write this down.'" "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Yea," says the Spirit, "that they may finally rest from their labors, and their works are going to follow them." John says, "I looked and behold there was a white cloud." "And upon the white cloud was one sitting like the Son of Man, and he had on his head a golden crown." "And he had in his hand a sharp sickle." All right. And it says, "And here comes another angel." "Coming out of the temple, he's crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud." "Thrust in your sickle and reap for the time is come for you to reap for the harvest of the earth is ripe." "And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth and the earth was reaped." "And then another angel comes out of the temple which is in heaven, and he also has a sharp sickle."

Now there's something I'm going to point out here in just a minute, but I want you to follow this. Remember, let's go back to a minute to Daniel, chapter seven, verse 13. He also had these night visions. And he also sees the same thing that John sees with on the clouds of heaven. There comes one like the Son of Man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. This is what John saw. Same thing.

Matter of fact, in Jeremiah 51, verse 33. It says, "Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, the daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden, yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come." I can't help but think when you think about this, Passover is the barley harvest. Pentecost or Shavuot is the wheat harvest. All right. And the Lord fulfilled Passover at Passover with the barley harvest, and he fulfilled Pentecost or Shavuot on Shavuot with the wheat harvest, and that's why there were thousands and thousands being saved in the harvest. But now in these last days, just like the spring feast were fulfilled in the spring and in the summer, guess what, everybody. The fall feast will be fulfilled in the fall. Because that's the next harvest. Israel were farmers, and so God always speaks to the harvest and the end of the world in agricultural terms.

And listen to this. Oh, and also when you think about Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time of harvest. I also can't help but think of the parable in the Gospels where Yeshua is talking about the wheat and the tares. Harvest time comes to both. But if you remember, he told the angel, "Don't go, you know, harvesting yet." "Let the tares grow with the wheat." And then what happens when time of harvest comes. Because you don't want to harvest when the crop's immature. You have to wait till it's mature, which is God is waiting for the church to grow up, to mature, so he can put in the sickle and do the harvesting. But wheat, the big difference between the wheat and the tare, the wheat produces fruit. And when the wheat is mature, it bows because of the fruit. The tare is full of pride, produces no fruit, totally perpendicular, and it's easier to do a harvest where you can separate the wheat from the tares.

And so look at Revelation 14. This is verse 18 through 20. "And another angel now comes out from the altar." "And this is one had power over fire." "And he cries with a loud cry to the one who has the sharp sickle, and he said, 'Thrust in your sharp sickle, gather the clusters of the vine of the earth for her grapes are fully ripe.'" You know what that's telling you? Again, the grape harvest is in the fall. That's why Revelation doesn't talk about wheat, it doesn't talk about barley, it talks about grape. Because these events will happen in the fall. This is why you have to be on God's calendar. This is why you have to understand the Moedim or the feasts of the Lord. Uh for the most part, uh we we know that uh we have hindsight. We can see he fulfilled Passover at Passover, Pentecost at Pentecost. But because the church doesn't know the fall feast, they don't realize, they will happen not only in that season, but on the very day of the Feast of Trumpets, it will be fulfilled. On the very day of Yom Kippur, it will be fulfilled. On the very day of Tabernacles or Sukkot, that holiday will be fulfilled. And unless the church gets on the biblical calendar, they're not going to understand these things. But right here it plainly is telling us the season, which is the fall, when all these things in Revelation are going to really be taking place.

And look at this. So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth, gathers the vine of the earth, cast it into the great wine press of the wrath of God. And the wine press was trodden without the city, and look at this, the blood comes out of the wine press even to the horse's bridles by the space of a 1,600 furlongs. Okay. Look at this. Horse's bridle. Horse is taller than I am, you know, the bridle's, it's going to be up there. So it's that deep. But do you know how far 1,600 furlongs is? Anybody want to make a guess? It's 184 miles. We are talking from a Washington point of view, you can look at your own city and and draw a map. But from Seattle all the way to Moses Lake is only 177 miles. That is how far the blood is going to be. If you want to go south, if you want to go south, it's like almost to Portland, from Seattle to Portland is about 180 miles. Uh to me this is absolutely incredible. That's how deep and how far the blood is going to be. 184 miles. Wow. Wow. I mean that's that's like the whole length of Israel.

Look at Isaiah 63. Let's go to verse one through six. "Who is this who comes from Edom, in crimson garments from Bozrah." "He who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength." And then it says, "It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save." And then the question comes, "Well, why is your apparel so red and your garments like one who has been treading in the wine press?" Wow, that's what we just got done reading in Revelation. And he says, "I've trodden the wine press alone, and from the nations no one was with me. I trod them in my anger, I trampled them in my wrath. Their life blood is spattered on my garments and stained all of my apparel." "For the day of vengeance was in my heart." "My year of redemption has come." "And I looked, but there was no one to help." "I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold." "So my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me." "I trampled down the peoples or the nations in my anger, I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their life blood on the earth." Wow. This is incredible. But do you see how Isaiah, Jeremiah, Revelation, they all tie together? They all tie together. This is why we have to connect the dots on these things.

Then what do we find? Revelation chapter 15. Verse one. Then he sees another sign in heaven. It was great, it was amazing. Seven angels are there with seven plagues, which are the last. "For with them the wrath of God is finished." Thank God.

Well, take a look at this. We're going to jump back to Second Chronicles. This is chapter 36, 11 through 16, amazing verses. Zedekiah was king, and he's only 21 years old. Can you imagine, a 21-year-old king? He's just a kid. How many of you know, teenagers are pretty rebellious? Here he is, just past the teenage years, he's only 21. When he began to reign, that's when he started reigning, was 21 years old. He reigns 11 years, so he reigns until he's 32 years old. And it says, "He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God." "He never humbled himself before Jeremiah the Prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the Lord." Not only that, not only did he rebel against God, it says here, "He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar." "Who had made him swear by God." It says, "He stiffened his neck, he hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel." You got to remember, his dad was King Josiah. This is incredible.

Not only that, listen to this, all the officers of the priests and the people likewise. "Were exceedingly unfaithful." Not a little bit. They were exceedingly unfaithful. The priests for heaven's sake. And they followed, it says, "All the abominations of the other nations." They even polluted the house of the Lord that he had made holy in Jerusalem. The Lord, the God of their fathers, had sent persistently to them by his messengers. So God has always sending his prophets, the messengers, telling them to quit, to turn back to Him, to repent. But look at what it says here in Second Chronicles. "But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his own people until there was no remedy." God's greatest problem is not with the heathen. His greatest problem is with his own people who rebel against him and won't do what he says. This reminds me of another parable, this is in Luke. Chapter 20, verse 9 and 10. Yeshua begins to tell the people a parable, he says, "A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and then went into another country for a long while." "When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard, but the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed." Wow. That's exactly, if you remember, Isaiah 5 is the parable of the vineyard, where God said he planted Israel as a vineyard, and he took all this tender care removing all the thorns, the thistles, the rocks, and he looked for it to bring forth grapes, but what happened? It brought forth wild grapes. And so God had to destroy his vineyard. And I think it's interesting that you know, Yeshua wasn't an Israeli, and he lived in Israel, and it talks about he goes into another country. Well, Yeshua left, and now he's been going to all of the nations and uh for a long while, and now the time has come, he's coming back to Israel. And let's see how he's treated. Let's look at Psalms 78. This is verse 36 through 40. Look at this. Concerning God. "They flattered him with their mouth." "They lied to him with their tongues." "Their heart was not steadfast toward him. They were not faithful to his covenant." "And yet this is the most unbelievable thing in the Bible." What does it say? "Yet God, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity, he did not destroy them. He restrained his anger often and did not stir up all of his wrath. He remembered they were only but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again." "But how often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert." Can you imagine? We can grieve God. We can break his heart. We too often we see God as some mighty powerful computer or something with all this brain power. We don't see God as grieving from a broken heart. Uh that's one of the things that totally rocked my world and changed my life. When I saw how uh in Noah's day, it it talks about he saw that man's heart was only evil continually and it grieved at his heart. Do you know the word grieve there implies difficulty in breathing? Think of a child who's just sobbing out of control and is gasping for breath. That's how our God felt at at man's evil. We need to realize you can break God's heart. That that's just mind blowing. I you know, I used to think, well, God is so tough and he's so impersonal. How can we do that? No, guess what? Where do you think we get our heartbreak from? We were made in his image. Think of the greatest heartbreak you could have, multiply that times a billion, and that will give you some idea of God's heartbreak. Toward having to even judge his own kids because of their rebellion.

Look at Revelation 15:2. "I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire." Wow, remember that sea of glass? We talked about it before. "And also those who have conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands." There are going to be overcomers. Who have to be here on earth during this time to overcome the beast and its image and his number. You don't overcome by being snatched out, you only overcome by having to go through it. Okay? So here these people that are overcomers, they're going to be standing at this sea of glass with harps of God in their hand.

Matter of fact, look at verse 3 and 4 of Revelation 15. What are they singing? "The song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the lamb." I think that this doesn't mean they're singing two different songs, that means the song they're singing is both the song of Moses and the song of the lamb. And what are they saying? "Great and amazing are your deeds, oh Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, oh king of the nations." "Who will not fear, oh Lord and magnify your name?" "You alone are holy." "All the nations are going to come and worship you because of all your righteous acts that have been revealed." Everything that God does, even His wrath is done in righteousness. Here we see they're singing the song of Moses, saying, "Just and true are your ways." Well, let's go back and look at the song of Moses. Deuteronomy 31, verse 30, and says, "Moses spoke all the words of this song until they were finished in the ears of all the assembly of Israel." Well, let's look at Deuteronomy 32, verse 3 and 4. "For I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Ascribe greatness to our God." "The rock, His work is perfect, for all of His ways are justice, a God of faithfulness without iniquity, just and right is He." It's amazing.

Even in spite of all the wrath, people are going to be yelling out, "You're not fair!" But no. Everything that God does. He has held back His wrath for 6,000 years. And he wants to get it over with, it'll be poured out and done, but guess what, it'll be done in the right measure, at the right time, to the right people, in the right way. And everyone will have to acknowledge that he is totally just. Matter of fact, look at Psalms 111, verse 2 through 4. "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have delight therein." "His work is glory and majesty, and His righteousness endures forever." "He has made a memorial for all of his wonderful works. The Lord is gracious, and the Lord is full of compassion." As a matter of fact, Hosea 14:9. "Who is wise, let him understand these things. Who is prudent, let him know them." "The ways of the Lord are right, and the just walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them." So when you look at the Torah, the laws of God that are just and right. Okay? What happens? Those who are righteous can walk in the Torah, but those who are unrighteous are the ones who stumble with the law. They say the law's done away with. Why? Because it causes them to stumble. Psalms 86, 9 through 11. "All nations, whom you have made, are going to come and prostrate themselves before you, oh Lord, and they will glorify your name." "For you are great, you do wondrous things. You are God alone." And then it says, "Teach me, oh Lord, your ways, that I may walk in your truth. Make one my heart to fear your name." Wow, what a prayer we need to make, God, make my heart one with yours, that I may fear your name.

We're going to close again. Look at this from Isaiah 66:23. "It'll come to pass from one new moon to another, from one Sabbath to another, all flesh is going to come and worship before me," says the Lord. We need to get it in our mind, the Sabbath is not done away with. The new moons are not done away with. And if we want to walk uprighteously and not stumble in God's commands, but have a heart to be one with him, to meet with him at his appointed times, then we need to follow his calendar, not the Roman pagan calendar that the world uses. We need that calendar. We need the Roman pagan calendar because that's the world we live in. But guess what, we're in the world, but we're not of it. We use it for the worldly things, but we want to speak to God. We need to be on his calendar. With that said, let's pray and we can have the prayer team come forward. Uh and if you want prayer, come on up and have prayer. But let's let's take a moment and pray. Avinu Malkeinu, our Father, our King. We just thank you so much for your Torah, for your word, and I pray, Lord, as we decode this Book of Revelation and we see all the connections to the Torah and to Isaiah, and to Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Hosea, all these prophets. That God, you would begin to put all of the little uh puzzle pieces together. That we could have a clearer picture of what you're speaking to the church in these last days. And we thank you so much in Yeshua's name. Amen.