Turn with me if you would now
to Revelation chapter 11. Revelation chapter 11. A man made the statement years
ago that Christ is in every text. He said, in every portion of
scripture, there is a road that leads to Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. And he said, our business is
to find that road and get on it. That's our business. In every portion of scripture,
that's our business. That's what we are doing with
this book. we are seeing a picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now, so far we have seen in chapter
one that the Lord Jesus Christ told John to write what was shown
to him. He said, John, I'm gonna show
you some things. I'm gonna tell you some things
and show you these things. And I want you to write the things
that you see I'm gonna show you the things which were. I'm gonna
show you the things which were. I'm gonna show you the things
which are. And I'm gonna show you the things
which will be concerning my sinful people. That's what he said in
chapters two and three. I have somewhat against you.
You're a sinful people. Tell my churches that you're
a sinful people. He said, John, I'm going to show
you the whole story of their redemption, the whole story. And the story began in chapter
four. That's where he started. That's
where John said, I was immediately, I was in the spirit, in the spirit
of God. And the Lord showed John the
God of heaven sitting on his throne. That's the first thing
he saw. And that's what was in the beginning. In the beginning,
God. In the beginning, God was seated
on His throne. They said, David, where's your
God? He said, He's sitting in the heavens, seated on His throne. That's where He's always been.
That's where He was in the beginning. In chapter 5, He showed John
the transaction of the Father placing the names of all the
particular people that he chose to save in his election. The
father held an election, and he chose particular people to
save, and he wrote all of those names down in the Lamb's Book
of Life. And in chapter 5 there, he showed
John all of that transaction taking place, the father taking
those names that were written in that book and placing it in
the hands of God the Son. And he showed John all of heaven
crying, thank God for his election. That's what we're gonna cry for
all eternity. Thank God for his election. In chapter six, the Lord showed
John the rebellion that took place against the King of heaven. the God who was sitting on His
throne. Sin was loosed according to the
purpose of God, the will of God, the power of God. It wasn't an
accident. It wasn't a surprise. John said,
when I saw the lamb loose the seal, on purpose, sin was loosed. Seven seals sealed that book.
to see those names. And he said, sin was loosed,
judgment was loosed, death was loosed. And John saw that a third
of the heavenly host fell with the adversary into this rebellion. The adversary said, I want to
take that throne. And a third of the host fell
with the adversary into this sinful rebellion against God.
All of the host would have fallen into that rebellion had God left
them to themselves. All of the host, but chapter
seven says that God showed John a sealed people, sealed angels,
sealed creatures, kept creatures, every one that God purposed to
keep for himself from that rebellion. Chapter eight, though, said that
every creature who was not kept, God cast all of them as a bolt
of lightning to the earth. Chapter nine said that was the
first woe of man's existence. He said, there's three of them.
And he said, the first one is when sin came to the earth. He
said, woe to the inhabitants of the earth. Sin has come down
to you. Sin is now amongst you. But in chapter 10, John said,
it was also revealed to me that Christ himself came down. Look at chapter 10 verse 1. It
says, I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven clothed
with a cloud and a rainbow was upon his head and his face was
as it were the sun and his feet as pillars of fire. That's Christ
himself. Christ himself came down and
with him, Chapter 10 tells us that he brought the message of
the gospel. This little book was open and
in it, when you receive and eat this little book and take in
this little book, it makes you so bitter within, but it brings
such sweetness to your taste. That's the gospel. It exposes
the bitterness of sin within us and all the sweetness of what
Christ did for us because of that sin. So John said in verse 11, he
said unto me, thou must prophesy again, you must preach before
many peoples and nations and tongues and kings. John said,
I was commanded to preach this glorious news message. This glorious
news that Christ came down by himself And He purged His people
from the sin that had infected them. He came to bear that sin
in His own body on the cross. And He came to shed His blood
to pay that price that would set them free, redeem them back
to the Father. And He said, I was commanded
to preach that. But in chapter 11, He sees that it's gonna be
met with persecution and great resistance. All right, now here's
where we pick up our picture tonight. We start with chapter
11, verse one. It says, and there was given
me a reed like unto a rod. And the angel stood, saying,
Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them
that worship therein. But the court which is without
the temple, leave out, and measure it not, for it is given unto
the Gentiles. And the holy city shall they
tread under foot forty and two months. And I will give power
unto my two witnesses. He said, you go preach and I'm
gonna give power to my two witnesses and they shall prophesy 1,203
score days clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees
and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
And if any man will hurt them, fire proceed out of their mouth
and devour their enemies. And if any man will hurt them,
he must in this manner be killed. Who are these two witnesses?
They are the witnesses of the truth of the Word of God. They are the witnesses of the
truth itself. Our Lord said, if a truth is
going to be established, it has to have at least two witnesses. Who are the two witnesses that
have established the eternal word of God? I mean, it's established,
it's settled, that's it. Who are the two witnesses? To
get to the point, Moses and Elijah. The law and the prophets. Verse six says, these have power
to shut heaven, that it rained not in the days of their prophecy. That's exactly what Elijah did.
You know the story of Elijah. He prayed and it stopped raining.
Finally, God told him to pray again and it started raining.
Verse six goes on to say, and they have power over waters to
turn them to blood and to smite the earth with all plagues as
often as they will. That's exactly what Moses did. Our Lord said, this is what our
Lord said, they have the law and the prophets. Lord, would
you come send somebody back from the dead to go talk to my brothers? Would you do great miracles?
Would you? He said, they have the law and the prophets. That
has established my truth. That's established my word. He
said, if they won't hear them, they won't hear. But verse seven says, when they
shall have finished their testimony, The beast that ascendeth out
of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, war against
the word of God, and shall overcome them and kill them. And their
dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which
spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was
crucified on the earth. And they of the people and kindreds
and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days
and a half and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in
graves. They'll lay there and they'll be seen of men, but they'll be dead to men. And
God's word is, it is. The Word of God is dead to the
natural man. The natural man is dead to the
Word of God and the Word of God is dead to the natural man. It's
alive to God and it's alive to His people. And it is, isn't
it? This is a living Word. But it's dead to the flesh of
natural man. Man hates it. Man rejects it. Man crucifies him, kill him. Isn't that what man said? Man
crucifies him and man crucifies his word. I don't want to hear
that. I don't want to have that. That's
the second great woe of man's existence. If you look at verse
14, the second woe is past. And he said, the third one's
coming quickly. In the beginning was the Word. That's what John
1 says. In the beginning was the Word,
Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. It goes on down to say, and the
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And man rejected him. He came
unto his own and his own received him not. Woe to the inhabitors
of the world. Woe to the inhabitants of the
earth. The first woe was sin has come
down to the earth. Judgment, death, hell, it's come
down to the earth. The second woe is Christ in love
and in mercy and in grace came down to earth and man rejected
him. Man chose the sin. And man chose
the rebellion that came down over him. Light came into the
world and men loved darkness rather than light. But in spite
of all of mankind, God chose darkness. preserved His people
by those two witnesses. And He has, hasn't He? He has
preserved His people by those two witnesses. Chapter 12, verse
1, it says, And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman
clothed with the Son, and that is the righteousness
of the Son of God. A woman clothed with the righteousness
of Christ. It goes on to say, and the moon
was under her feet, that means she was exalted with him, and
upon her head a crown of 12 stars. She reigned with him, but he
was her head. All right, she had on her head
a crown, Christ being her head. We're his body, he's our head.
The body says, put the crown on my head. That's where we're
going to wear the crown on the head. Verse two, and she being
with child cried, travailing in birth and pained to be delivered. And I got some help on this with
the commentaries and not, not just man's opinion on it. I don't
want to hear what any man has to say about it. The scripture
references they gave the scripture references. This woman represents
the people of God. Okay, the people of God, clothed
in the righteousness of Christ, exalted with Him, reigning with
Him. This is the people of God, those who were chosen to travail
with Him. This woman in travail, delivering. Galatians 4 verse 26, don't turn
to it, but it speaks of spiritual Jerusalem. God's entire elect
people, and this is what it says in Galatians 4, 26. God's entire
elect people, she is the mother of us all. I don't know what
that means, but that's what it says. One time our Lord was preaching
in a house, preaching to a bunch of disciples. And a man came
up to him and he said, master, your mother and your brothers
and sisters are outside, your physical family, they're outside
and they wanna talk to you. And he said, who is my mother? And he pointed at all of his
disciples and he said, behold my mother and my brethren. So verse three, this represents
the people of God. Verse three, there appeared another
wonder in heaven and behold a great red dragon. That's the adversary. And he had seven heads and 10
horns and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the
third part of the stars of heaven, the other angels, and it cast
them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the
woman, which was ready to be delivered for to devour her child
as soon as it was born. The adversary was not only the
enemy of Christ, but the enemy of all of his people. Always
has been. In the next few verses here,
they recount the fall of the adversary and all of his rebellion
that was with him. Verse 8, he prevailed. Verse
7, there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon. The dragon fought and his angels.
They prevailed not, neither was their place found anymore. Verse 13, when the dragon saw
that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman, which
brought forth the man-child, immediately started persecuting. And verse 15 says, the serpent
cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that
he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. God's water of the Word is his
truth. The water of the Word. The adversary's
water of his flood are his lies. And he has flooded lies at the
people of God. He's flooded lies at every soul
on this earth. In John 8, verse 44, our Lord
said, He's the father of lies. Lies, lies, lies. Verse 16, And
the earth helped the woman and the earth opened her mouth and
swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
This world has swallowed up his lies. And I want the world to
know that. The world has swallowed up the
lies. And we're about to see what they
are. Verse 17, the dragon was wroth with the woman and went
to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments
of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Now this is
what I want us to really get a hold up tonight. This right
here. Chapter 13, verse one. And I
stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of
the sea, having seven heads and 10 horns and upon his horns,
10 crowns and upon his heads, the name, all of these heads
and all of these, the name of blasphemy. All of these different
forms of blasphemy, all of these different heads, all of these
different religions, all of them had the same name, blasphemy. All of them, they had the exact
same name. Here is his great lie, all right? Here is the blasphemy
on God, here it is. Verse 2, the beast which I saw
was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of
a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon
gave him his power and his seat and great authority. False religion,
the blasphemy on God. The adversary has given great
power and great authority to the seat of false religion. Lies, lies, blasphemy, blasphemy. And verse 3 says, I saw one of
his heads, as it were, wounded to death. His deadly wound was
healed. All the world wondered after
the beast. They worshipped the dragon, which gave power unto
the beast. They worshipped the beast, saying,
Who is like unto the beast? Who's able to make war with him?
There was given unto him a mouth speaking great things, and blasphemies,
and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his
name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And
it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome
them. And power was given him over
all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. and all that dwell upon
the earth shall worship Him whose names are not written in the
book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."
Every soul who is not kept by the power of God in the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ is going to fall to Him. That's the only
hope is that God has kept us by His covenant, in His blood,
and that He will continue to keep us all the way to the end.
Every soul that God did not purpose to spare from the blasphemy will
fall for it. And we'll be taken by it and
we'll worship it. Every soul. But verse nine says,
if any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity
shall go into captivity. He that killeth with the sword
must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and faith
of the saints. The end of this blasphemy is
certain death. Whoever falls for and whoever
holds to this blasphemy, the end of that man will be certain
destruction. And here is the blasphemy, all right? Here's
the lie that has flooded the earth. Verse 11. And I beheld
another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns
like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. Two horns. God's people only have one horn,
Christ. Only one horn. the horn of their
salvation. All through the Psalms, David
kept crying, you are the horn of my salvation. That's what
Samuel's mother, Hannah, prayed. You're the horn of my salvation. Horn means strength. God's people know that they only
have one strength. They only have one horn, but
man by nature, men and women who are being held captive to
the blasphemy and lies of the adversary, they don't want only
one horn. They want and they have two horns. Christ, He's one of them, they'll
say, oh yeah, Jesus Christ died on the cross. Absolutely, Christ
and me. Christ, His work, and their work. God's grace and man's works,
grace and works. Here's the blasphemy, grace and
works. And the works that man tries
to add, they can appear to be great works. They honestly can. Look at verse 13. He doeth, or
verse 12, he exercises all the power of the first beast before
him, causeth the earth and them that dwell therein to worship
the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. He doeth great
wonders so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the
earth in the sight of men. and deceiveth them that dwell
on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power
to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on
the earth that they should make an image to the beast which had
the wound by a sword and did live." This blasphemy is a powerful
deceiver, a subtle deceiver. Our Lord said, if it were possible,
the very elect would be deceived. They weren't being kept by the
power of God in the blood of the Lamb. Even the very elect
would be deceived. Verse 15, And he had power to
give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the
beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship
the image of the beast should be killed. There is a true captivity. to those who've been deceived
by the lie of man's works. And it's most people on this
earth. It's a true captivity. A fear takes hold of men and
women that if they don't add their works, they believe I'm
gonna die in my sins. I'm scared, a fear has taken
hold of me. I've got to add my works to this. I must add my own works to this.
The sad part about that is our Lord said in chapter 22 of this
particular book, He said, if any man adds any work to the
declaration of what I have finished alone, all the plagues of this
book are going to be added to that man. But men and women are
blind to that. They're blind to that truth.
They're captive to the lie and they think that their eternal
life is dependent on their works. That's what people think. Somehow
it's dependent on my works. Verse 16 says through this lie,
through this blasphemous lie, he calls it all both small and
great, rich and poor, free in bond to receive a mark in their
right hand or in their foreheads. We just read a moment ago that
God's saints receive a seal in their foreheads. That's what
God's saints receive. But those who are captive to
the blasphemy, they receive a mark in their foreheads. The seal
is the covenant of the Spirit of God, covenant of blood. The
mark is the work of men's hands. The mind of works, I gotta do
works, I gotta work with my hands. Concerning every thought there
is of religion, salvation, worship, I gotta worship with my hands.
He said he's not worshiped with men's hands. Cain, you know, Abel and Cain,
Cain and Abel, Cain received a mark. What does Cain represent in the
story of Cain and Abel? Man's works. Man's works, the
works of man's hands, not the seal of Christ's blood, which
is what Abel represents. Cain represents the work of man's
hands, that self righteous. He brought his own fruit that
he had done. He was so proud of it. that self-righteous
work of men's hand. Verse 16, and he calls it all
both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond to receive
a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads and that no
man might buy or sell save he that had the mark or the name
of the beast or the number of his name. The blasphemous lie
says whoever does not have the mark of works will never be able
to buy or sell. Buy or sell what? Salvation. The living water that Isaiah
55 told us about. He said, ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, nothing in
his right hand. Come ye, buy and eat. Our Lord
said, buy the truth and sell it not. He said, buy from me
gold tried in the fire. Buy from me what has already
been refined, already endured the refiner's fire. The blasphemous
lie says you're never gonna be able to buy salvation if you
don't have the mark of your own works, if you don't earn it. If you don't bring something
of your own to buy it with. Verse 18 says, here is wisdom. Here is wisdom. Here's the truth
of the matter. Let him that hath understanding
count the number of the beast. The lie, this blasphemy. Let
him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, for
it is the number of a man, and his number is 600, three score,
and six. Six, six, six. I have no idea
what that number means. And I'm gonna tell you, this
is the critical moment of the message. I have no idea what that number
is. But I can tell you with absolute
certainty what it is not. It is not seven. It's not. Seven is the number
of perfection. Seven is the number of completion. And no matter how hard man tries,
he's never going to reach it. Never. He will be ever learning
and he'll never come to a knowledge. He'll spend his life working
to obtain a perfection, a completion before God, a perfect righteousness. And no matter how hard he tries,
he'll never attain it. He will always fall short. He will be weighed in the balances
and found lacking every time. Over and over and over, it will
be six, six, six. Lacking, lacking, lacking. Never attaining seven. Seven
can only be attained one way. A perfect righteousness, a perfect
salvation, a perfect redemption can only be bought with one price. The precious blood of this lamb
that this book over and over and over points us to, the lamb
slain, the lamb slain, the lamb slain. The seal of His blood
that the Spirit of God gives to His saints. This is the word
that seals them. The Spirit says, you are bought
with a price. There's no need to buy and sell.
You've already been bought. You're bought. Your horn, your
strength, your salvation, Christ Jesus, your Lord, shed his own
precious blood and bought you to himself. The price of redemption
has already been made. The transaction is done. God is satisfied. He said it's
a perfect redemption. He said, it's complete. He said,
don't work. Rest is finished. Rest in him, rest in his work. That's wisdom. That's wisdom. Let him that hath understanding
count his own works to be dung. And let that man look to Christ.
and let him win Christ and be found in him, not having his
own righteousness, which is of the works of the law, but that
righteousness, which is of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's wisdom. It's not grace
and works. It's grace alone. Christ alone. John said, that's what I saw. That's what was revealed to me.
I pray that's what we see. I sincerely do. I pray God will
reveal that to us. If he does, if he reveals that
to us, then we will sing with the redeemed, as chapter 14,
verse three says, a brand new song. They all started singing
a brand new song. And Lord willing, next time we'll
look at that song. And we'll look at what the Lord
had to endure for us to be able to sing that song. All right,
let's all stand together.