Revelation 11
Turn in your copy of the scriptures
to Revelation chapter 11. We’ll read 11, 1 through 19. And just to give you a glimpse
of where we are, we’re in the second cycle of sevens. We looked
at the seven seals through maybe late June, early July. Now we’re
in the seven trumpets. We’ve broken each of these sevens
up into three messages. One usually on the first five
seals or trumpets, then one message on the sixth and then one on
the seventh. And so tonight we’re on the last
of the second round of seven. And so we hear from God’s word.
This is Revelation chapter 11, starting at one. This is John.
And he says, then I was given a measuring rod like a staff
and I was told, rise and measure the temple of God and the altar
and those who worship there, but do not measure the court
outside the temple. Leave that out for it is given
over to the nations and they will trample the holy city for
42 months. And I will grant authority to
my two witnesses and they will prophesy for 1,260 days clothed
in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees
and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.
And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and
consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this
is how he is doomed to be killed. They have the power to shut the
sky that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying.
And they have power over the waters to turn them into blood
and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often
as they desire. And when they have finished their
testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will
make war on them and conquer them and kill them. And their
dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically
is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. For
three and a half days, some from the peoples and the tribes and
the languages and the nations, they will gaze at their dead
bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb. And those
who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them. They will make merry
and exchange presents because these two prophets had been a
torment to those who dwell on the earth. But after three and
a half days, a breath of life from God entered them and they
stood up on their feet and great fear fell on those who saw them.
Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, come
up here. And they went up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies
watched them. And at that hour, there was a great earthquake
and a 10th of the city fell. 7,000 people were killed in the
earthquake and the rest were terrified. and they gave glory
to the God of heaven. The second woe has passed. Behold,
the third woe is soon to come. Then the seventh angel blew his
trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom
of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his
Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. And the 24 elders who
sit on the thrones before God, they fell on their faces and
they worship God saying, we give thanks to you, Lord God almighty,
who is and who was. For you have taken your great
power, and you have begun to reign. The nations raged, but
your wrath came in the time for the dead to be judged, and for
rewarding your servants, the prophets and the saints, and
those who fear your name, both small and great, and for the
destroying, the destroyers of the earth. Then God’s temple
in heaven was opened, and the ark of the covenant was seen
within his temple. And there were flashes of lightning,
rumblings, and peals of thunder, and an earthquake, and heavy
hail. Amen. This is God’s word for
us. Well, if the book of Revelation
is meant to encourage Christians, if it’s meant to encourage the
saints who are living on earth, It’s helpful for us to remember
that Jesus, his apostles, and many others have said in the
word of God these words, in the last days there will be difficulty. Remember a couple of Sundays
ago when Jesus says in his message in Luke, if anyone will follow
after me, he must deny himself, daily take up his cross, and
follow me. Sometimes in the Christian witness,
we forget to read the fine print. We forget to tell people the
way to glory is the way of the cross. And so as revelation is
written to struggling persecuted churches throughout the centuries,
it’s a good reminder. We live in the last days. We
live in the last days between the first coming and the second
coming of the Lord Jesus. And so a question may arise like
this. How should the church think? How should the church think about
dangers and darkness and death and difficulty? We are a persecuted
church, but we are protected. That’s the message of chapter
11 of Revelation. The church is persecuted, but
it is protected. And the first sign of this protection
comes in the first three verses of chapter 11. And so we want
to consider those three verses under the heading of safety.
It speaks in these three verses about John giving a measuring
rod a rod, a staff, a cannon, as it were, a measuring stick.
He goes and he measures the temple of God. He measures the altar.
And he measures everything but the outer courts of the temple
in heaven. He’s told not to measure the
outer courts because that is given over to the pagans. That
is given over to the evil ones. But within the walls of the temple,
within the house of God, The true church is measured. The
true church is given safety and protection. It says that the
wicked people, they will trample the holy city for 42 months. I will grant and I will grant
them, verse three, authority to my two witnesses, and they
will prophesy for 1,260 days. This bit of safety that God has
afforded his church is in order that the church may keep preaching,
keep proclaiming. We see glimpses of this, don’t
we, when we read accounts of persecution in China. What do
Christians in China keep doing even when persecution gets tough?
They keep preaching. They keep proclaiming. They keep
going. Now contrast that with America.
What do we do in America, very sadly, when persecution comes?
We just change our doctrine. We just change our message. We
get politically correct. And what God is saying to Christians
here is, look, I’m going to keep you safe. I’ve measured out my
people. I’ve measured out my temple.
I’ve measured out my flock and I will keep them safe in order
that they might keep proclaiming the word of God. Well, that’s
just a brief word about safety. God measures out his temple and
keeps it. But the next thing we’d see in
verses four through six are these two witnesses. And he speaks
in verse four of these two olive trees, these two lamp stands. I remember back in chapters two
and three, when God was speaking the seven letters to the seven
churches, he told them often he would threaten them. If you
do what I say, you’ll be blessed. But if you don’t do what I say,
if you fail to be a biblical church, I’ll remove your lampstand. I’ll remove your witness. And
so here in this second portion in verses four through six, when
he speaks of the two witnesses, he speaks of them as olive trees,
but also as lampstands, lights, that stand before the Lord of
the earth, lights to the nations, the light of the gospel. And
he goes on to speak, if anyone would harm them, fire pours out
from their mouth and it consumes their foes. If anyone would harm
them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. And notice the
message of these lampstands. They have the power to shut the
sky. Much like the witness of Elijah
in the days of his prophecy, he could pray and it would not
rain and pray and rain would return. And then he goes on to
speak about the second the second, the powers of the waters to turn
them into blood, the ministry of Moses. And so God is not gonna
leave himself without witness in this world. How many of you,
you don’t have to say it out loud, have fear and panic in
you when the doorbell rings and you either look through the window,
you peek out the peephole, or you have one of those fancy camera
doorbells, and you see it’s the Jehovah’s Witness. Or maybe it’s
a door-to-door salesman. I don’t know which is worse.
But you hide. You hope they will go away. We don’t like to be witnessed
to. We don’t like to be sold things.
But the good news of the gospel is that we, as Christians, we
profess a faith in Jesus, but we also live a faith in Jesus. How many people who live in a
circle around your house know that’s a Christian home? That’s
a Christian family. There are Christian values in
that home. We may not like it, we may not believe it, but we
can tell it. We can see it. It is evident. And just as the church gives
witness, you know, we are called to give witness to the word and
the ways of almighty God. And what God is saying in this
passage is, I’m going to protect my church. There’s going to be
hardship. There’s going to be persecution, but I will not be
left without a witness. Sometimes we say in our human
reasoning, Oh God, um, Our church is really needed.
Jesus, you need us badly. We’re such a good church. You
need us so badly that if we weren’t to exist, we might say something
like this, Burlington would not have a faithful witness. Well,
that’s a bit presumptuous, isn’t it? God will always have his
witness. He will always have his lampstands,
his olive trees to bear witness and to proclaim a message with
the power of Moses and the power of Elijah. But there’s a positive
side we should think of. We may think some days, oh, we’re
small. Oh, we’re insignificant. There’s
the mega church on this corner and the bigger church down there.
There’s this church that has this and this church that has
that. But here’s a real question. Do
they have the power of the witness of Moses who could turn water
into blood? Do they have the power of the
witness of God’s word that could speak and it would rain or not
rain or new life could be breathed into dead dry bones? Well, God needs a witness and
he has it here in these two witnesses. And we remember the words that
were written in the book of Acts, in Luke’s words, in his second
book to Theophilus, in Acts chapter one, verse eight, you will be
my witnesses to the ends of the earth. And so we remember God’s
people are safe. God is not left without witness. But then you come to verse seven
and there’s a beast. And we’re reminded of Genesis
chapter three, where Satan, the serpent says, or God says to
Satan, the serpent, you and the offspring of Eve will have this
continual battle. You’ll nip at his heel and you’ll
bruise his heel. But one day he will crush, he
will crush your head. And so we see as the beast rises
up in verses seven through 10, it says, they have finished their
testimony. The beast rises from the bottomless
pit. He’ll make war on them. He’ll make war on the saints.
He’ll conquer them and kill them. Their dead bodies will lie in
the street. This will help you sleep well. In the great city
that is symbolically called Sodom in Egypt, where their Lord was
crucified. For three and a half days, some of the peoples and
the tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead
bodies. They’ll refuse to let them be placed in a tomb. And
then it goes on to say, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice
over them and make merry and exchange presents because of
these two prophets. You know, people think that they
can kill the church. They think they can stamp it
out. They think that one martyr at a time, they can kill the
witness of the church. But friends, God has a bigger
plan. Satan may be angry. Satan may be mad. Satan may know
his doom. How do we sing it? Lo, his doom
is sure. One little word shall fail him. He is desperate to stop Christ. He is desperate to stop his kingdom. I don’t know how often you think
about this, but do you ever pray for the
success of our church? Thy kingdom come, Lord. Thy will
be done. But do you ever pray the converse
of that, the opposite of that? The kingdom of Satan needs to
fail. The kingdom of Satan needs to
not prosper. The kingdom of Satan needs to
be defeated, and it needs to be put to its final end. We like to say, thy kingdom come.
We like to say, Lord, grow our church. But do we ever say, but
doom Satan. End his work now. Do not give
Satan success. Here’s the beast. these verses
in 7 through 10. He is desperate to stop Christ
in his kingdom. He is vicious. He is a killer. He is a troublemaker. There’s the ministry of the beast. And then finally, we have the
return of the Lord Jesus, and it’s very interesting in verses
11 through 14. You have echoes in this section
on the return of Christ. You have the echoes of That wonderful
story of the Valley of Dry Bones, remember in Ezekiel, can these
bones live? Well, yes, Lord, they can live.
We get that old spiritual song, them bones, them bones, can them
bones live? And it says in verse 11 of those
who were killed and left lying in the street, after three and
a half days, a breath of life from God that entered these corpses,
these dead bodies. They stood up on their feet and
great fear fell on those who saw them. partied into the night,
as it were. We’ve killed the church, we’ve
killed the witness. It says, they heard a loud voice from
heaven saying to these who were raised up, come up here. And
they went up to heaven in a cloud, their enemies watched them. And
at that hour, there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the
city fell. 7,000 people were killed in the earthquake
and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
The second woe, has passed. Persecution is over. The strife
is done. And then we land at the seventh
trumpet, the final blow of the horn. It says, And it goes on
to speak of the worship of the 24 elders. It goes on to speak of God’s
temple in heaven was opened. And guess what? No more Indiana
Jones, right? The temple was opened and the
Ark of the Covenant was seen within the temple. That’s why
he couldn’t find it. Y’all know that, right? You’ve seen all
the movies, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Raiders
of the Lost Ark. Why couldn’t he find it? Because
it’s in heaven. It’s not down here on earth.
It’s not hidden in some temple in the Middle East. But God’s
temple in heaven was opened and there was the Ark of the Covenant
seen within the temple. So what do all these things teach
us? How do all these things, how do they comfort us? Well,
simply put, we see God remaining faithful to his promises. We
see God remaining faithful and true to his word. And though
the world seems to fall apart all around us, God has his church
measured out. and he keeps his church. God
has his witness. The message of salvation through
faith in Jesus, but also judgment through hostility toward Jesus
is announced and preached and proclaimed. And so we see the
wonderful promise come true as the seventh trumpet is blown,
that the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, the temple above
is opened. And if we have faith in Jesus
and we persevere to the end through his good gifts, that’s where
we will be. I had a grandmother who used
to have a bunch of funny little sayings and she would always
say something like this, they can kill you, but they can’t
eat you. And that’s a good reminder as
we look at Revelation chapter 11, we may be persecuted in our
day. And they may kill us, but they
can’t eat us because we belong to God and he will raise us up
and exalt us before our enemies and bring us into his heavenly
home. What a great truth that is. Let’s give thanks to God.
Lord, we thank you for this little picture of the end times and
to be found in Christ is a wonderful and blessed thing. Help us to
have faith and hope and trust in you. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.