SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel.
SPEAKER_00: And it's my delight and pleasure to be leading us through chapter 11 of Revelation, the last book in the 66 book library we call the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Special thanks to Matt Pearson for last week leading us through chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: Inspiring and encouraging.
SPEAKER_00: So uh grateful to Pastor Matt.
SPEAKER_00: And uh here we go with chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: Things are just pivoting, and it's going to become more and more exciting and dynamic in all kinds of different ways, as we hear from the seventh trumpet now after this inter brief interlude that we've had.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you'll look with me at that, we'll get rolling here.
SPEAKER_00: And there was given to me a measuring rod like a staff, and someone said, Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship in it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what could that possibly mean?
SPEAKER_00: Measure the temple and all the worshipers that are in it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, what is that?
SPEAKER_00: What could that possibly be all about?
SPEAKER_00: Leave out the court which is outside the temple and do not measure it, for it has been given to the nations, and they will tread underfoot the holy city for 42 months.
SPEAKER_00: So here we go, man.
SPEAKER_00: This uh chapter breaks nicely into three sections, verses one and two.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we'll talk about the worshipers, verses three through fourteen, we'll be talking about the witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, verses 15 through 19, we'll be talking about the return of the rightful king.
SPEAKER_00: But here, as we start off, what is with measuring the temple?
SPEAKER_00: What is that about?
SPEAKER_00: And who's the voice?
SPEAKER_00: We're not really told.
SPEAKER_00: I guess it's passively implied that that would be God telling him to do that, or Christ, perhaps.
SPEAKER_00: But he's to take a measuring rod and measure the altar and measure the temple area and all of the worshippers that are in it, and then not to measure another part, which is everything on the outer court, and uh and and that that's just going to be given over to the nations, and they're gonna be trampling it for 42 months, which is three and a half years, typically in uh Jewish way of measuring things, anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Um, verse three: I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1260 days clothed in sackcloth.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting is that 42 months and 1260 days are actually the same amount of time.
SPEAKER_00: But these two figures, as well as three and a half, tend to be um in apocalyptic language, in pop apocalyptic literature, anyway, um, the sort of symbolic numbers for the um uh the limited amount of time that God allows something to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so these uh two witnesses emerge and they're gonna prophesy, it's gonna be 1260 days, but they're clothed in sackcloth.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why are they clothed in sackcloth?
SPEAKER_00: What are they, what are they mourning?
SPEAKER_00: What are they lamenting?
SPEAKER_00: Um uh these are two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: So there are lots of ideas about who these two witnesses could be.
SPEAKER_00: Um, some think Moses and Elijah representing the law and the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Some people think uh Elijah and Enoch, because these two are going to be both sort of carried up into heaven as well, um, as happened to those two Old Testament figures.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot of different ideas.
SPEAKER_00: Some think Zerubbabel and um and the high priest named Joshua, not the Joshua from when they entered the promised land, but another one.
SPEAKER_00: And so um there's lots of questions here, and and you can you can dig for days in commentaries that think they all know.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just the guy whose mind is blown as he reads through this whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: But here uh in verse 4, it says that these two witnesses are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And we've already been told that the lampstands are an image that represent the church.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: That starts to give us a hint.
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk more about it later.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone desires to harm them, these two witnesses, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours their enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that gives a whole new, whole new uh meaning to dragon breath, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That these guys would actually, you know, when you when you fire proceeds out of their mouths and devours their enemies if anyone tries to harm them.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone would desire to harm them in this manner, he must be killed.
SPEAKER_00: And so God's drawn a line or a circle, perhaps, around these two witnesses, just as he has throughout the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: God showing that he's ultimately in charge, and that if anything um is at odds, sets itself at odds with God or God's purposes, uh, God is sovereign.
SPEAKER_00: He's in charge.
SPEAKER_00: And he might allow some things to happen, but he's going to put limits on them just as he's doing here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so these are the two olive trees, these are the two lampstands, and uh, if anyone desires to harm them, they're in for trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Verse six.
SPEAKER_00: They have the power, these uh two witnesses do, to shut up the sky in order that rain may not fall during the days of their prophesying.
SPEAKER_00: And they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to smite the earth with every plague as often as they desire.
SPEAKER_00: And so here we see why some people think this might, uh, these two witnesses might represent Moses and Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, Elijah called down fire from heaven, and uh it uh at the when he had that sort of confrontation with the prophets of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: And uh here's uh, you know, and you think back to Moses, and he had uh he had that that staff, that rod, and he was uh he was uh God was using him to uh to to bring about these ten plagues down in Egypt, you see, and because he God wanted to make sure the Pharaoh knew that God wanted to set his people free.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And he wanted Pharaoh also to know that Yahweh was the one true and living God.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why some people might say these two witnesses are some kind of uh uh image of Moses and Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: When they had finished their testimony, that's after 1260 days or after 42 months, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll read more about the beast when we get to chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Brother Scotty Smith is going to teach through that, and I'm really excited about that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and also in chapter 17, we'll read about the beast a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: But here we get this mention of him as well.
SPEAKER_00: The beast, um, when they finish their testimony, the beast will come up out of the abyss, will make war with them and overcome them and kill them.
SPEAKER_00: Again, God has even this beast, and this some people think is the Antichrist, some people think uh other uh interpretations of who the beast might be, but God's ultimately in charge, and that's what's real important for us to continue to remember.
SPEAKER_00: Their dead bodies, as the beast kills the two witnesses, the dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
SPEAKER_00: Their Lord, meaning um the there, there, is the two witnesses, their Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so Jerusalem implied there, uh, Sodom, Egypt, Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And the idea is literally every city that sets itself up in an arrogant way, um, thinking that it has a right uh to self-sovereignty, uh, that it's self-sufficient, that it doesn't need God.
SPEAKER_00: And Jerusalem indeed did that as Jesus rode over the hill of the Mount of Olives that day.
SPEAKER_00: And he was just so heartbroken because Jerusalem, he knew, was going to reject him officially.
SPEAKER_00: Uh technically, the leadership would reject Christ as he brought salvation, God's salvation, on offer to um to them.
SPEAKER_00: And so here, an image of this is that there's these witnesses that come.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the beast kills these witnesses after 42 months of of faithful witnessing, and uh their dead bodies lie in the city, but for three and a half days, it says.
SPEAKER_00: And those from the prophets and tribes and tongues and nations will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days, and will not permit their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's derision, there's disdain, there's contempt shown toward the witnesses of God.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but again, uh it has its uh it's allowed for a certain amount of time as well, three and a half days.
SPEAKER_00: And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry, and they will send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And the idea there is that in all of their wickedness, in all of their darkness, they had come to the point of not only doing wrong, but celebrating doing wrong, and celebrating their their apparent victory over these two witnesses that were speaking on behalf of God and prophesying on behalf of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so you start to see that kind of thing even in our own culture, in our own day, in our own time.
SPEAKER_00: And it's actually been something that's been going on for a long time, as a variety of cultures fall into darker and darker uh practices and sinful activity and a denial of God and rejection of God and God's ways and God's will.
SPEAKER_00: Well, verse 11 says, After three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, that's quite a change, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: There are these people dancing in the streets, exchanging gifts, singing, whooping it up, and having a great time, and just parading through all their, you know, uh licentious activity and all their what they think is a victory over God and a victory over uh all things moral, you know, and they're just excited about all that.
SPEAKER_00: But after three and a half days, those bodies that are lying there that have been abused and derided and disdained, all of a sudden the breath of life from God came into them and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell upon those who were beholding them.
SPEAKER_00: And I suspect that would be the case.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there you are.
SPEAKER_00: Woo! You know, I mean, all of a sudden you just find yourself going, oh no, what how did this happen?
SPEAKER_00: You know, because you know, you remember yourself three and a half days ago, those prophets had the power to turn the water to blood and to bring fire down from the sky, and they were performing all these miracles, and you thought it was all over, and you could just indulge yourself again in unfettered, unbridled indulgence, and now all of a sudden they've risen from the dead, the last and greatest enemy.
SPEAKER_00: The beast had done his worst, but the worst of the beast has been bested by God now, who breathed air into the lungs of these fallen witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: And they heard a loud voice from heaven, the two witnesses did, saying to them, Come up here.
SPEAKER_00: And they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies beheld them.
SPEAKER_00: And again, some folk think the two witnesses are more like Enoch, perhaps, or Elijah, both of whom were, you know, went to heaven without going through natural.
SPEAKER_00: So they're they're similar but dissimilar to these two, because these two witnesses have indeed suffered physical death.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but they were taken up into the heavens, like the like Enoch and like Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: So who who are they them or not?
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't tell you, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: It's just fascinating to me, though.
SPEAKER_00: In that hour, there was a great earthquake as they ascend uh up into the clouds, and their enemies are sitting there beholding them.
SPEAKER_00: In that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell, and seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Uh is this is this some conversion on their part?
SPEAKER_00: Um some think so, some think not.
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I know one thing.
SPEAKER_00: The reality of the greatness of God is what's being reported here.
SPEAKER_00: They they come to see the greatness of God and respond in some way, giving glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: Um was that uh efficacious for their salvation?
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't tell you.
SPEAKER_00: We'll have to wait till we get home.
SPEAKER_00: But the second woe is past, John says at verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the third woe is coming quickly.
SPEAKER_00: And so you find yourself going, whoa, like that, you know, your mind is blown again, and and what's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_00: And now you're thinking to yourself, the third woe is coming, and this is gonna be, this is gonna, if that was bad, and it's just compounding, this third woe, what what could possibly be more dramatic, more cataclysmic than this?
SPEAKER_00: And uh what's fascinating is with these different cycles that we're seeing, and I think they're parallels.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think, I don't think they're uh sort of sequential in a chronological order.
SPEAKER_00: I think the seven seals, I think the seven trumpets and the seven bowls are all really telling the same story.
SPEAKER_00: Because by the time you get to the seventh of each of them, what you start to get is the idea that God's in charge of all of history, God's in charge of all of his creation, and that God is trustworthy, and that Jesus is the rightful king, and that he's returning one day to set things right.
SPEAKER_00: And see, this is why we call our study of Revelation the hope of glory.
SPEAKER_00: This is where all of this is heading, you see.
SPEAKER_00: And again, like John, I don't, I don't, I read this, I don't find myself cowering in fear about what's going on in the world, and trying to draw a parallel, a direct connection between what's going on in this world right now, in my life or in our nation or in our culture, whatever it is, and say that, oh, that must be this.
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
SPEAKER_00: This is just God saying he's completely in charge in big, huge images in dramatic fashion, with all kinds of massive numbers that are just beyond our comprehension in so many ways.
SPEAKER_00: That God is sovereign over everything and that he has us, he has his people sealed, measured, if you will, and marked.
SPEAKER_00: We're the ones that are marked with the the sign of God, not the mark of the beast, but with the we belong to him, see.
SPEAKER_00: And that's it, man.
SPEAKER_00: If you belong to him, you can rest in his love.
SPEAKER_00: You can rest in the great comfort uh of his power and his grace lavished upon you, lavished upon me.
SPEAKER_00: So the second woe is past.
SPEAKER_00: We gotta hurry.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the third woe is coming quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: And the seventh angel sounded, and there arose loud voices in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So the seventh trumpet sounds, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's blast from trumpet and this trumpet, and then what do you expect to happen?
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, what you hear is loud voices in heaven saying this, ready?
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: I could just hear the hallelujah chorus chiming right in the background there.
SPEAKER_00: And it says in verse 16, the 24 elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worship God.
SPEAKER_00: They're they're often said to be sitting on these thrones, these 24 elders.
SPEAKER_00: But more often than not, they're on their faces before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the purpose of this book is, is to so overwhelm us with wonder that we fall down and worship Christ, the one who will reign forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: And they, these 24 elders, begin saying this: We give thee thanks, O Lord God the Almighty, who art and who wast, because thou hast taken thy great power and hast begun to reign.
SPEAKER_00: And the nations were enraged, and thy wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to your bondservants, the prophets, and to the saints, and to those who fear your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And so the idea is the elders, the 24 elders are recognizing that God, again, is in control.
SPEAKER_00: He's got all of human history on a leash, he's set boundaries, but the time has come is one of those phrases that indicates there is a time, and God is the one who determines that.
SPEAKER_00: And the 24 elders, minds blown, down on their faces, worshiping the Lord, are recognizing that the time for the great day of the Lord and the return of the rightful king has come.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's time for both judgment and wrath and reward as well.
SPEAKER_00: And that it's all there.
SPEAKER_00: And so all of us that say we long for justice, you see, which we do.
SPEAKER_00: I think most of us would would admit that, would believe that to be true of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: What this is saying is that if you're hoping for, if you're longing for, if you're praying for justice, you can rest assured that God who loves justice, God who is righteous, God is one day gonna set things right, and you can rest in confidence in him that he will one day do that.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're small or great, um uh you know, whether as as those who have been bondservants and prophets and saints, those who fear the name of the Lord, you can rest assured, you can rest confident that he's got it.
SPEAKER_00: Remember when I was a little kid, he used to, you know, we take a trip and you know my mom was driving, and just there was some great confidence you always had.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you didn't have to worry about anything because you know she's in charge, she's got it, mom's got it, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And uh love that uh image.
SPEAKER_00: But in all of history, we can trust and rest in this God of the Bible who even at the end when things are gonna get really rough, um there the Lord is still in charge.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 19, we can't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: Check this out.
SPEAKER_00: And the temple of God, which is in heaven, and see, we've we've read about another temple, this other temple that was measured.
SPEAKER_00: Is that the one?
SPEAKER_00: Are these the same temple, or there's a was that a different temple?
SPEAKER_00: Um, lots, lots of speculation there.
SPEAKER_00: But the temple of God, which is in heaven, was opened, and the ark of his covenant appeared in his temple, which is awesome.
SPEAKER_00: That ark that represented the presence of God always going with his people.
SPEAKER_00: Um in the Old Testament, it it held the you know, it had held some of the uh like the the staff or the rod of Aaron, it held the Ten Commandments and all these symbols of God's law and God's power uh to deliver and God's provision, the showbread that it contained as well.
SPEAKER_00: And uh as the children of Israel went through the wilderness, wandering through the wilderness as they came into the promised land, there went the ark in front of them, again, reminding them of God's great presence and his promises to be with them.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here the temple of God, which is in heaven, was open, and the ark of his covenant appeared in his temple, and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm.
SPEAKER_00: And just, you know, just like at Mount Sinai, you see, um all of creation begins to rumble and flash, and and and and it's all just a sign that God is powerful and almighty and that he's doing something.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so uh if you trust in him, if you have confidence in him, see, you need not be afraid of him.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the fear of the Lord is what leads us to life.
SPEAKER_00: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the fear of the Lord um is is the beginning of knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Book of Proverbs is just filled with lots of phrases and and sayings of great wisdom that remind us that to fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But when you have an un uh unhealthy fear of of what's going on in the world around you, it's usually because we've forgotten to fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's we've forgotten to think of him.
SPEAKER_00: As the Almighty and the All-Powerful One.
SPEAKER_00: And we put our confidence in our in our own our own city, our own name, our own ability to control the future, our own ability to set things right.
SPEAKER_00: All of those things.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we've got to trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't self-sufficient.
SPEAKER_00: We are on the creature side of creation.
SPEAKER_00: We're not the creators.
SPEAKER_00: He is.
SPEAKER_00: He alone is.
SPEAKER_00: And the great news is He's also the Redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: He's also the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: We have so many symbols in this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: I want to throw this quote by Robert Munz up first.
SPEAKER_00: Symbolism is not a denial of historicity, but a figurative method of communicating reality.
SPEAKER_00: Apocalyptic language has as one of its basic characteristics the cryptic and symbolic use of words and phrases.
SPEAKER_00: And so again, here in Revelation 11, we have three parts to the chapter.
SPEAKER_00: We see the worshipers in verses one and two, and they're marked off and measured by the Apostle John at the behest or bidding of God.
SPEAKER_00: The witnesses, verses three through 14, the two witnesses, and they come and they're faithful even unto death.
SPEAKER_00: And then God raises them back up from the dead, which is just amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And the return of the rightful king, described in verses 15 through 19 so powerfully.
SPEAKER_00: So again, I'll remind you, one's approach to interpretation becomes important here.
SPEAKER_00: Which temple is this a reference to?
SPEAKER_00: What time period does it represent?
SPEAKER_00: There's a variety of views on this.
SPEAKER_00: Good thinking, well uh meaning Bible scholars and uh uh have come down on different sides of all of these kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: Uh if Revelation is reporting, for instance, uh the in the preterist view, things that have already been accomplished before or before the time of its original writing by the Apostle John and somewhere around uh mid-90s uh AD, if everything is a reference to what's happened in the past, then perhaps this looks back to 167 and 164 BC, um, when the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Jewish temple.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and and or perhaps to 70 AD, just you know, uh two-score uh years before the writing of Revelation, when you had the complete uh destruction of Jerusalem and the temple um under uh the then Roman general, soon to be Emperor Titus.
SPEAKER_00: Um but man, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I I think if you paint that yourself into that corner, you're gonna have to be able to stay there and through all of this.
SPEAKER_00: And so much of the uh Book of Revelation seems to me to be talking about some things that could be seen to be past, some things that could be seen to be near to the present time of its writing, and then some other things that just seem like way into the future and to the end of time itself.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a photo, by the way, of the relief uh from the arch of Titus in Rome, depicting uh Titus's victory in the battle against Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the seven candle lampstand or the Jewish menorah in that picture.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the Ark of the Covenant.
SPEAKER_00: This arch was built by the Emperor Domitian in the first year that he reigned.
SPEAKER_00: He reigned from uh 81 to 96 A.D.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Domitian was the um son of uh Emperor Vespasian.
SPEAKER_00: And Domitian was the younger brother of the Emperor Titus, who reigned from 79 to 81.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so the the uh the younger brother Domitian wants to honor his older brother Titus for having destroyed the Jewish temple and then puts up that arch there in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: One of the reasons, again, why some people think Rome's the great city that's mentioned here in Revelation 11.
SPEAKER_00: Is it Rome?
SPEAKER_00: Is it Sodom?
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's even called Egypt here, and it's even sort of inferred that perhaps it's Jerusalem here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, what is true?
SPEAKER_00: What is it, which temple are we talking about?
SPEAKER_00: You know, in New Testament times, even the Apostle Paul talks about the temple in a different kind of way, not so much talking about the temple in Jerusalem, but talking about you as a believer, me as a believer, and that our bodies are the temple of the Lord, and that we are God's temple.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1 Corinthians 3.16.
SPEAKER_00: Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
SPEAKER_00: Or 1 Corinthians 6.19.
SPEAKER_00: Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?
SPEAKER_00: You are not your own.
SPEAKER_00: And that is such an important thing for us to be reminded of again and again and again, especially in our own day and time when so many people have attempted to usurp God and to take the reins away from God when it comes to uh discovering who they are.
SPEAKER_00: And um uh our uh our identity is actually a gift from God.
SPEAKER_00: It's not something for us, the burden isn't on us to discover this.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we belong to God.
SPEAKER_00: We're told right here, you are not your own, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And and the minute you go off into thinking you belong to yourself, all kinds of mischief happens, you know, in your heart and in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: And all kinds of things can go wrong with life and the way you see it.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 6, 16, what agreement is the temple of God with idols?
SPEAKER_00: For we are the temple of the living God.
SPEAKER_00: As God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, I will be their God, and they will be my people.
SPEAKER_00: So, in some ways, again, I see this measuring as a parallel to the sealing that we read about in Revelation chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: Sealing meaning S-E-A-L-I-N-G, not C-E-I-L-I-N-G.
SPEAKER_00: Here, the measuring doesn't symbolize preservation from physical harm, but a prophetic guarantee that none of the faithful worshippers of Jesus of Nazareth will perish eternally, even though they may face physical destruction as the two witnesses did at the hand of the beast from the abyss.
SPEAKER_00: What we learn here, even in this chapter, is that they are witnesses of a God who can raise the dead.
SPEAKER_00: So while the beast does his worst, um, his worst is reversed by the best that God can do.
SPEAKER_00: He can, his best is way better than the worst the beast can offer.
SPEAKER_00: So with Revelation 11, we have the worshippers in verses 1 and 2, the witnesses, verses 3 through 14, and the return of the rightful king.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the witnesses, just a few words on that again.
SPEAKER_00: Um, as I say, some have said Moses and Elijah, some Zerubbabel and and uh and Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: Um, who are they?
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I think the I think the olive trees that seem to um represent a little bit of uh throughout scripture anyway, uh the idea of peace going all the way back to Noah, Jesus being the Prince of Peace, um, Jesus saying in Revelation uh chapter one, I think it's verse 17, where he tells John explicitly the lamp stands, those are the churches.
SPEAKER_00: So that's pretty clear right there.
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of feel like the two witnesses really are a symbol of uh of the word of salvation, God's peace on offer through the witness of the church and all of God's people.
SPEAKER_00: And you could you could even say whether whether during John's time in that first century they heard that as those those who were Jewish who had become Christians, and those who are Gentile who had become Christians, but now together the collective people of God.
SPEAKER_00: Um I think that's a legitimate way to look at the two witnesses, the ongoing work of the of the gospel community as they um proclaim and declare uh the great news of the gospel and of the return of the rightful king.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Eugene Peterson says this our inadequacy does not incapacitate us.
SPEAKER_00: So as we struggle to try and figure out what all this means, as we struggle to witness in this world, our inadequacy does not incapacitate us.
SPEAKER_00: Because we cannot say it all does not mean that we are exempt from saying what we can, but it does suggest a certain humility, which is not always evident in persons who dare to witness to their Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great way to say it.
SPEAKER_00: Takes the burden off of you and the burden off of me.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not about our ability, it's just about our availability, as people have said before.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about my ability to answer every question you might have about the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: I can't even answer my questions about the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm like John.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm on my knees with the empty hands of faith up, and I'm just mind-blown, eyes popping out, heart thumping as I read this, um, filled to overflowing with wonder and worship of the right of the rightful king and looking forward to his return.
SPEAKER_00: What's the big picture and the big idea behind Revelation 11 and all of the book of Revelation?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we've got to keep reeling our focus back in towards Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we can't get caught up trying to figure out, all right, well, why does it say 1260 days in one verse, and in the other verse, it says 42 months.
SPEAKER_00: And in the other place, it's three and a half years or three and a half days.
SPEAKER_00: Which is it?
SPEAKER_00: And you see, the idea there is just that whichever answer you come up with, that's not the point.
SPEAKER_00: That's the symbol that's pointing to, or the sign that's pointing to something else.
SPEAKER_00: That's what signs do, they point to something other than themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and one of the things that continues to be shown to us over and over again through these three cycles, and we'll see it even more uh with the with the bowls, but as we've looked at the seven seals, and now we've seen the seven trumpets and the cycles of God's wrath meted out on a wicked world, a world that has just decided to go its own way.
SPEAKER_00: Over and over and over again, the wise warnings of scripture are offered to us over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: And we see we see this even in this chapter, um, where the where where the the two witnesses are raised back to life, and a bunch of the people who remain there are like, oh, and they start to give glory to God, you know.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know exactly what it means, but it means I know this: God is more powerful than my last and greatest enemy, more powerful than our last and greatest enemy, death itself.
SPEAKER_00: Why wouldn't I want to turn to the Lord now?
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Apostle Paul again, writing to his young protege Timothy in 2 Timothy 3, 1 through 5, described some of the wise warnings of God in Scripture about some of the end times.
SPEAKER_00: Realize this, the Apostle Paul said, in the last days, difficult times will come.
SPEAKER_00: Men will be lovers of self.
SPEAKER_00: Gotta stop there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've used the illustration a bunch of times, but have you noticed how we're just all narcissists in our day and time?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the minute you look at anybody, you basically see somebody, we're all steeped in narcissism.
SPEAKER_00: And and as I've said before, with our magazines, we see it.
SPEAKER_00: It used to be it was Life magazine, then it got to be people, then it got to be self magazine.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just we're in love with self, lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, the verse says, and the Apostle Paul being so clear with Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: Arrogance, wow, and that's not attractive on anybody, is it?
SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, especially me.
SPEAKER_00: Revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Apostle Paul says to Timothy, avoid such men as these.
SPEAKER_00: Holy means to be separated, to be um set apart, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: And uh man, the warnings are clear from Scripture, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00: Look, whatever these symbolic numbers may mean, uh, I suggest that they have some application to us in our time, uh, whether they had application to some distant past or some uh near past or some near future or some upcoming future, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: I still think we need to keep our eyes wide open and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, um, who called to us to do what with the self.
SPEAKER_00: He said, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.
SPEAKER_00: And the picture of these two witnesses being slain, um literally taking up their cross, taking up death, and following Jesus in death, but also following Jesus in life.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the God of the Bible can raise the dead, and that's why you want to put your hope, your confidence, and your faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Derek Thomas, uh, one of my other favorite commentaries on Revelation, says, Whatever may be happening in the world, and however the church may be affected by it, there's no question as to God's care for his own.
SPEAKER_00: He superintends and governs his flock.
SPEAKER_00: His control is irresistible, his love is unremitting.
SPEAKER_00: So we are told clearly that bearing witness and serving Christ faithfully may stir the rancor of the unrepentant and unrighteous.
SPEAKER_00: Resistance, rejection, persecution, and suffering may follow.
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: We may falter, we may fail, we may fall, but here we are assured that we will rise again, not because of something we do, but because of something God can do and has done before.
SPEAKER_00: So the chapter closes with the uh sounding of the seventh trumpet blast and the second cycle of God's righteous judgment having been meted out on all of those who resist God and reject God.
SPEAKER_00: And we are given a majestic display of the return of the rightful king to his creation.
SPEAKER_00: And it's similar to what we saw at Mount Sinai with all the thunder and all the lightning and all that stuff, but I got a feeling it's a much, much bigger uh blast of the trumpet, much, much bigger lightning and fireballs and all that, all the hailstorms, all that stuff that we see over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ is going to return someday, and it will be unavoidable.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it will be uh you just won't be able to miss it.
SPEAKER_00: And uh uh it will be glorious and personal.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming himself, uh the king.
SPEAKER_00: How appropriate that we would end this way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Len Sweet, an interesting fellow.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he said apocalyptic is not about doom and gloom.
SPEAKER_00: It's about bloom and zoom.
SPEAKER_00: It's about pulling back the curtain and revealing something.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not about something we could discover on our own, but something that God could reveal to us.
SPEAKER_00: And my friends, it's God revealing to us through this ancient book, The Hope of Glory.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Old Testament prophet Daniel foresaw some of these same things, and that their fulfillment would be found in God's anointed Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, also known as the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_00: He uh referred to himself, especially in the Gospel of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: That's probably his most often chosen self-reference, the son of man.
SPEAKER_00: And that goes back to Daniel chapter seven.
SPEAKER_00: Let me post it up on the screen for you.
SPEAKER_00: I kept looking in the night visions.
SPEAKER_00: See, Daniel had uh there's so many connections between the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming, and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him.
SPEAKER_00: And to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.
SPEAKER_00: His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: All right, I'm starting to get ahead of myself a little bit here, but I believe verses 15 to 19, that's exactly what this is pointing us to.
SPEAKER_00: Um and and, you know, I I want to rejoice in that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I want you to rejoice in it as well.
SPEAKER_00: And uh the day is coming when we'll read all about it in chapters uh 21 and 22, this uh the return of the king, and and uh it's gonna be beautiful and glorious.
SPEAKER_00: Some people burst when they think about these kinds of things, and you may have you may have heard these uh these words uh in verse 15 the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Back in the uh 18th century, the German-born uh composer George Frederick Handel couldn't wait.
SPEAKER_00: Um, he had to write something, he had to express something.
SPEAKER_00: And it's been said that he did this in 24 days.
SPEAKER_00: He wrote Handel's Messiah, what we call Handel's Messiah, uh premiered in 1742.
SPEAKER_00: And then uh when when it when it premiered, it was said, at least the legend is anyway, that they told all the women to not wear hoop skirts.
SPEAKER_00: That was evidently what they wore during that time, and for all the men to leave their swords at home because so many people would come and be gathering to hear uh this live performance.
SPEAKER_00: And that the first the first performance, I believe, was in Dublin, and then the first performance in London, uh the legend has it, that George, King George uh II was there, and then when it got to the Hallelujah chorus, he just had to stand.
SPEAKER_00: And that tradition has been carried on.
SPEAKER_00: Uh for me, it's illustrative of the fact that for some of us, anyway, um, when you hear those kinds of words, um, the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's just there's there's there's John, you know, there's the revelation, you know, it's just the saints from heaven shouting it out, you know.
SPEAKER_00: They're just bursting with worship and praise and with glory uh to God, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And Handel picks up on all of that and writes that, and it's so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: I was in Paris, Kim and I were in Paris one uh around Christmas time one year, and we went to hear Handel's Messiah performed at a church.
SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't believe it when they got to the hallelujah chorus, nobody stood.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget that.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's not their tradition in Paris.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean to say anything about the the French or anything, but uh maybe it's just not their tradition.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't used to it or whatever in their particular world and their sphere and their their culture, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But to me, it it it it it illustrated something that's that could happen to me and could happen to us.
SPEAKER_00: That we, when we consider, when we're presented with something as glorious, as the truth of the gospel, and as of the exciting return of the rightful king, that we might just ho-hum or become indifferent to all of that.
SPEAKER_00: What might happen to our souls and our hearts when we close them off from this glorious and transcendent news of the gospel and the return of the ancient of days?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, don't let it happen to you, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: Um as you study, and I hope you'll just read ahead, continue to read ahead, keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the Son of Man, who went before the ancient of days, you know, God Himself just, you know, giving his imprimatur to Jesus while he was walking on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.
SPEAKER_00: And and and uh and there in the the great heavenly vision that we've been studying, we see the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, with the lamb who was slain, standing right before the throne, seated at the right hand of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: There's God the Son, you know, powerful, powerful.