Let's go back to Revelation 11 this evening. Revelation 11,
thank you for that good music, good song. You know, I've been involved
in music and church for lots of years. I love the music itself, but
I'm more interested in the words. And one of the things I think
that is typical of lots of so-called gospel music today, which most
of it doesn't have any gospel in it, but it's a lot of kind
of sentimental stuff. And I guess I'm a little sentimental
about some things, but you know, when it comes to the worship
of God, I want songs that exalt God, don't you? Songs that exalt
Christ Jesus and the purpose of God and the will of God, the
redemptive work of the Lord Jesus. And so I'm thankful for the the
good songs that are sung here. Well, we have a kind of a task
before us this evening in Revelation chapter 11. Our subject is the
two witnesses. That's a subject we want to deal
with here in Revelation chapter 11, one through 14. The two witnesses now throughout
a study of the book of the revelation of the Lord Jesus, we should
always keep these three things in mind. You must never really
forget them. Here's the first thing. On account
of our Lord Jesus having finished the work of redemption that God
gave Him to do, And he did finish it. He said in John 17, I finished
the work thou gavest me to do. And then he said, one of the
seven sayings of our Redeemer on the cross, he said, it is
finished. And so because he finished the
work of redemption, the Lord Jesus has been given universal
authority over everything. You've always got to keep that
in mind, really, in every case, but most especially when you're
studying the book of the revelation of Jesus Christ. In the 10th
chapter, The very first verse, we read this a couple of times,
and we've addressed this subject. John said, I saw another mighty
angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud. A rainbow
was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun. His feet
as pillars of fire. He had in his hand a little book
open. He set his right foot upon the
sea and his left foot upon the earth. That's our great Savior. That's how magnificent He is. His Lordship is over everything. He rules in the armies of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay His
hand or say unto Him, what doest thou? So as you study the book
of the Revelation, you must remember, number one, that because of His
finished work, He's worthy to rule. We have already read back
in chapter 5 that He was worthy to take the book of God's eternal
decrees and then to begin to loose the seven seals thereof
and execute the will of God. That's our Savior. He's always
doing His will. There's never any time on this
earth in which the sovereign will of
our Lord is not being carried out. You've got to remember that,
otherwise you just go to pieces. When you see things happening
in the world that you can't understand, if you forget that He rules,
then you'll be driven to worry and anxiety and even great depression. Secondly, as you study the book
of the Revelation, remember this, the kingdom of God, that is the
church that our Lord chose in grace, this church that He redeemed
by His blood, is always safe. She's always safe in the world.
And she cannot ultimately be defeated. She just can't be defeated. Romans chapter 8, we're more
than the scripture says, conquerors through Him that loved us. We're
more than conquerors because He's the victor. He's won all
the battles. He's won the war. The war was
fought and won at the cross. Don't ever forget that. That's
where the war was fought and won. by our Lord's bloody death
upon the cross of Calvary. Therefore, the Lord's cause,
the cause of God in truth, the kingdom of God, the church of
the Lord Jesus Christ, she's always safe. Doesn't mean she's
not going to come under an attack. It doesn't mean that she's not
going to suffer. Doesn't mean that she's not going
to have times of great tribulation. But she cannot be ultimately
defeated. And then here's the third thing. We will be triumphant in the
end. We're on the victory side. And the reason is because our
Lord Jesus leads the way. He leads us into battles. We
have many battles which we have to fight. There's a battle going
on within us. The battle between the new man
and the old man. There's a battle going on in
the world. A battle between what we might
call generally good and evil. Or righteousness and wickedness. But we are absolutely certain
of this fact, we will be victorious. We will be triumphant in the
end. And you've got to remember these
things. And the reason is because the
enemy today seems to be oh so strong and oh so very powerful. And indeed the enemy is. There
is no denying that there's an enemy out there. There's the
evil one. And then there's the world. The world is not a friend to
grace. The world is not a friend to
God. The world is not a friend to
you. To you who believe the gospel,
the world's not your friend. Don't be deceived by the world.
The world is your enemy. And the world would do away with
us if it had its way. And I'll show you that a little
bit later in this passage of Scripture. We need to be very
much aware that we're on the victory side. Our Lord Jesus
has finished the work of redemption, therefore He rules over all things.
The Kingdom of God is always safe. is always being protected,
and she ultimately cannot be defeated, then we will be, in the end,
triumphant. The reason these things have
to be kept in mind is because as you look back through history,
and indeed in the days when John wrote this book, Our Lord's kingdom
on earth, the church of the Lord Jesus, she was going through
very difficult times. This was a time of great martyrdom. This is a time when multitudes,
they sealed their faith with their blood. And even today, As I look about
us, it seems to me that, and I'm sure it seems to you, the
gospel is, well, it is definitely in the minority. We're greatly
outnumbered. And as you look at the, what
I would call the synagogues of Satan, sometimes it can absolutely
kind of overwhelm you. And you get to thinking, boy,
they're a lot more against us than are with us. But when you
get to thinking like that, go back to these three things and
don't be discouraged because the church of our Lord Jesus,
she will be triumphant in the end. You know, as we get to Revelation
chapter 11, this is the last part of John's third vision. It ends at the end of chapter
11. The beginning of chapter 12 begins another vision, the
fourth vision. As chapter 11 begins, as we studied
this morning, John has been told to measure the temple of God.
within which is the altar of God, and this is where the people
of God come to worship. This temple is a picture of those
who are redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus. This temple
is a picture of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's symbolic
of God's people. God's people. You are the temple
of God. That's what we read to begin
the service this evening. The elect of God. We're the sanctuary
of God. God dwells with us. God dwells
among us. And we're very much like, or
can be likened to the temple of Solomon's building. Go back with me, if you would,
to the book of first Kings. Let me just show you a few things about
Solomon's temple. And we know it was absolutely
glorious. This magnificent edifice that
he built for the glory of God. David was not allowed to build
it. This was left up to Solomon,
his son. And here we see in 1 Kings chapter
5 a few things about this mighty temple or this glorious temple.
Number one, it was built with many stones. Look at 1 Kings
5 and 17. And the king commanded, and they
brought great stones. The word great means many or
a multitude of great stones. There's a multitude of stones
used in the building of Solomon's temple. Even so, the Lord is
building his spiritual temple. And you know what? It's made
up of a multitude of stones. In fact, John says, back in the
book of Revelation, it's a multitude which no man can number. Oh,
the Lord has numbered them because He wrote down the names of every
one of these living stones in the Lamb's Book of Life before
the world was made, but it's many, many of them. I know at
any given moment, at any given time during this age, the church
age, the gospel age, at any given time, it seems like it's just
a few of us. But I'll tell you, when we're
all gathered together, all of the elect of God, all of those
given by grace to Jesus Christ to be saved by His bloody death
and sacrifice, when we're gathered all together, we'll be a multitude
which no man can number. The Lord's spiritual temple is
built with a multitude of stones, all of them, due to the Lord's
putting us into the temple. Secondly, like Solomon's temple,
the Lord's temple is built at great expense. Again in verse
17, the king commanded, they brought great stones, and he
says, they were costly, very costly. Expensive. They weren't cheap. It was expensive. These were stones of value, in
other words, like marble, those kind of stones, and granite,
stones that were expensive. Even so, the children of God
were stones which are costly because we're saved by the blood
of the Lord Jesus, saved at great cost. What did it cost God to
save us? The blood of His Son. said to
be in 1 Peter 1, the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. And then thirdly, like the stones
of Solomon's temple, the stones had to be dug out of the quarry. And we had to be dug out of the
quarry of mankind. The stones were dug and therefore
they were dirty. They had to be washed off. We
have to be washed off. We have to be washed with the
blood of the Lamb of God. And then fourthly, like the stones
of Solomon's temple, the Lord's stones are made ready and fit
to be a part of the temple of God. And then He puts us in the
temple. Look at chapter 6 and verse 7.
Chapter 6 of 1 Kings and verse 7, And the house, when it was
in building, was built of stone, made ready before it was brought
thither. before they ever got there. They
were already fashioned. And the guys who were building
the temple, they told these fellows who were going out to the quarries,
well, I need a stone yay big or whatever. And they measured
and said, I want one just exactly that size to fit in this spot. And so they went out there and
got one just like that. So that there was neither hammer,
nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was
in the building. The stones were made ready before
they ever got there. Even so. Our Lord makes the stones
ready. He makes us fit. We fit right
in. That's something. We fit right
in to the temple of God. And we're made fit to fit right
in. Through the righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Scripture says in Ephesians
2 and 21, "...in whom all the building of God fitly framed
together groweth into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are building together
for inhabitation of God through the Spirit." And one other thing,
and then I'll go back to Revelation, like Solomon's temple, the Lord's
temple that he's building, is attributed to himself. You know
who got the glory for this temple? Solomon did. In fact, that's
what we're still calling it tonight. It's been thousands of years.
Now he used this one, he used that one, he used thousands of
workers to accomplish his purpose, but it was Solomon's house. Look at chapter 6 and verse 14. Chapter 6 and verse 14 of 1 Kings. So Solomon built the house and
you know what he did? He finished it. He finished it. And our Lord Jesus, He's building
His house. He's building the temple of God,
fitting in all of these stones. Which 1 Peter chapter 2 says,
we're living stones. We're not dead stone, we're dead
in and of ourselves, but the Spirit of God makes us alive. We're living stones and our Lord
Jesus is building the house, therefore it's called the Church
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He gets all of the glory. He
uses various ones in the labor of preaching the gospel, of setting
forth the word of faith, He used various men in bringing His only
begotten Son to die on the cross of Calvary. He uses everybody
in some way or fashion in building this church. But make no mistake
about it, it's His church. It's His kingdom. And therefore
He gets the glory of it. So John, go back over here to
Revelation chapter 11, is told to measure the Lord's
church, look her over, look over the temple of God, and he did. Measure her, as we said this
morning, measure her by the Word of God, measure her by the Law
of God, measure her by the Gospel of God, and measure her by the
Righteousness of God. These are the measurements that
are necessary. Does she measure up to perfection? And the answer is yes, she does.
Because it's the Lord's building. It's the Lord's temple. The Lord's
temple. Now we notice this in the second
verse, and Alan read this to us a little bit ago. He says
in the second verse, but the court, which is without the temple,
leave out. That's where the Gentiles were.
Leave that out. The word Gentiles here is used
to refer to those who do not belong to the Lord, who are not
His people, who are not spiritual Israel. They've not been born
of the Spirit of God. They've not experienced the circumcision,
which is of the heart, but they're religious. They're religious. They pretend to be among the
people of God. But they're not the people of
God. They're not spiritual Israel. They're Gentile dogs. They're
still the enemies of the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Despite all
their insistence that they are religious, they still belong
to the world. They're not to be numbered among
the people of God. And the word is, leave them out.
literally casts them out, casts them out. And then it is said,
this is what is said then, for it's given to the Gentiles, look
at the end of verse two, and the holy city shall they tread
under foot 40 in two months. That's interesting, as Alan read
down through this scripture, I wonder if you noticed there
are two cities that are mentioned. There are two cities that are
spoken of in this passage of Scripture in this chapter. In
the second verse, there's the holy city. She's not holy in
and of herself. This is the New Jerusalem. This
is the temple of God. This is the church of our Lord
Jesus. This is the holy city. But in
verse 8, there's another city. It's called the great city. Now that's Babylon. That's false
religion. That's religion without the gospel. That's religion without the grace
of God. And as we go through the rest
of the book of Revelation, especially beginning right here in chapter
11, these two cities are going to be front and center. We're
going to be noticing these two cities because the holy city,
that's the Lord's people. That's the true Jerusalem. This
is the city. That's what Jerusalem means. The city of peace. This is the
city of David. That is David's Lord. David's
Lord. This is Jerusalem. This is the
city of God. This is the city where God has
established His own very special presence. But over against that
city, you see, Satan always has his counterfeit. And he always
will as long as this life goes on, as long as time continues. He has His own city. It's not a holy city. There's
only one holy city. We're made holy through the Lord
Jesus. He is our holiness and He is
our righteousness. And I've quoted this verse a
couple of times today. Who of God is made unto us, that
is the Lord Jesus, is made unto us to be wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification. There's our holiness. He is our
holiness! We're a holy city! And He's our
redemption. But over against that city is
the city that Satan has established. It's a great city. It's the city
of Babylon. And Babylon, it exists along
with a couple of other cities called Sodom and Egypt. And these are like the evil,
ungodly trinity of cities. But God's people, we're the holy
city. We're the holy city. Now keep
in mind that the theme of the book of the Revelation is the
victory of the Lamb of God and His followers over the dragon
and his followers. The war keeps on going on. spiritual
warfare. Throughout this age in which
we have designated, is usually designated the gospel age or
the church age, the warfare will continue. It began really in
earnest with the death of Stephen. Because after that, then the
Jews recognized, hey, this went pretty good. And so then warfare
broke out. Martyrdom was numerous. Persecution arose against the
church of our Lord Jesus. There was opposition against
the Lord's people, which continues to this very day and will continue
on to the day when the Lord Jesus comes back to settle it all.
Now sometimes the opposition is not as severe as it is at
other times. In John's day it was very severe.
And he writes this to the seven churches of Asia Minor, and copies
of this letter were sent to each of the churches of Asia Minor
in order to boost their spirits, their morale, lest they become
so dejected as they see various members of their congregation
taken away from them. Husbands taken away from wives,
children taken away from mom and dad, pastors removed from
congregations, from churches, and martyred. Put to death. Put to death. And as they saw
this going on, obviously it would be easy to become down in spirits. But that which they needed to
remember and that which we still need to remember is the message
of the book of Revelation is the victory of the Lamb and His
followers over the dragon and his followers. We're on the winning
side. And here's what the enemies of
the gospel do. They watch it tread underfoot
the holy city for in two months. The holy city, that's the people
of God. And what do the enemies of the
gospel do? They tread underfoot. They walk
all over the people of God. This is the persecution that
arose after the martyrdom of Stephen, the persecution that
the saints of God were enduring when John wrote this toward the
end of the first century, the persecution that has continued
sometimes to a greater degree and sometimes to a lesser degree
all the way through the millennium, even up to tonight. And there
are places throughout the world where the saints of God meet
together in fear. That is, they meet in private
because the governments of the world are in opposition to the
things of God. In fact, Egypt represents the
political powers of the world. Babylon, that's the religious
influences and the religious powers of the world. Sodom, that's
the immoral, perverse powers of the world. And Egypt, that's
the political powers of the world. They're the big three. The big
three. These are all in opposition to
the people of God. And we see it around us. Just
look. All you have to do is open your
eyes and you'll see religions are against us. There's so much
perverseness and ungodliness and immorality. That's against
us. False religion is against us.
And I'll tell you something else is against us. Political powers.
They're against the people of God. Make no mistake about it. Don't ever lose sight of this. Those who don't love the gospel
are always in opposition to those who do love the gospel. That's
false religion. That's immorality. And that's
the political enterprises of the world. And this is what they
do. They tread underfoot God's people. And the scripture says they do
it for 42 months. Now, you're wondering what is this?
So do I. I'll tell you what I come up
with. 42 months is one half of seven. One half of seven years. is in the Bible a very symbolical
number. And surely we've learned this
as we've studied the book of the Revelation, that there's
lots and lots of symbolism here. The number seven in the Bible,
the general meaning is perfection, completion, to be full, to have
enough, to be satisfied. Therefore it's seven days in
a week, seven colors of the rainbow, seven pieces of furniture in
the tabernacle, Aaron on the day of atonement, and this is
interesting, you study this in Leviticus 16, on the day of atonement
he goes into the holy of holies, he sprinkles the mercy seed once. Do you know that? Once. Because how many times did Christ
die? Once. Once. But then he sprinkled before
the mercy seat seven times. Seven times. Perfect cleansing. Perfect atonement. Elijah told
Nahum to dip seven times in the Jordan River. Complete cleansing
in the blood of the Lord Jesus. Our Lord Jesus taught his disciples
to pray seven petitions. How many sayings of our Lord
on the cross are recorded? Seven. Exact number. No more, no less. Perfect, complete. Nothing to be added to it. In
the book of the Revelation, the book is sealed with seven seals.
There are the seven trumpet judgments, seven vows of Revelation, seven
mighty thunderings back in chapter 10. That's the fullness of the
Word of God. In the book of Hebrews, seven
times better, seven better things in Hebrew. in the book of Hebrews. So, as we get to the book of
the Revelation, we don't want to veer away from that. Does
that make sense? If that's what the symbolism
meant throughout the Bible, why would it be any different at
this point? So I believe the seven years
represents the fullness of the time between our Lord's first
coming and his second coming, there it is. Seven years, that's
the fullness of the time between his first advent and his second
advent. One half of that, three and a
half years, also set forth as 42 months or 1260 days, it's
set forth in various times. One half of that, three and a
half years, that's the life, the death, the ministry of our
Lord Jesus. And then the rest of, since then,
we're in the midst of this three and a half years, 42 months,
1260 days. It's a fullness of time between
our Lord's first coming and His second coming. Of this much we may be certain,
it's a long time. You say, and I know some of you,
including me, I was brought up in dispensationalism, brought
up pre-trib rapture and things of that nature. And if you don't
understand those things, I'm glad your mind hadn't been filled
with them. I'm thankful for that. But the seven years is a symbolic
number. It's the fullness of that time
period between the first coming and the second coming of our
Lord Jesus. The first three and a half years,
my, that's the time of redemption. That's the time of reconciliation. That's the time of the removal
of our sins. That's the time of establishing
righteousness. And now we're in the rest of
it. And throughout, for the rest of the way, The rest of the way,
the enemy is always going to be treading underfoot the temple
of God. Now that you can be certain.
From now to the end of time, the enemies of the gospel will
not let up. Not Babylon, not Sodom, and not
Egypt. Not the religious powers, not
the immoral perverse powers, And not the political powers
either. All of them together treading
underfoot the people of God. They always have and they always
will. Because they're anti-God and
anti-Christ. So we're in this period of time
right now when the enemies of the gospel are still treading
underfoot the people of God. But the Lord has witnesses. Even
in the midst of all of this, He still has His two witnesses. And these are mentioned here.
John's attention is focused on these two witnesses who are given
a message to preach. What do you think the message
is? It's the message of redemption. It's what God's preachers have
been preaching all along. We preach Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. The message is no different.
Well, who are the messengers? Well, I'm gonna go with some
of the old writers who say these are the representatives of our
Lord's Church. That is, pastors and evangelists
who've been given a message to preach. And we stick with this
message. Two preachers. And you know,
it's not unusual. The Lord, even going way back
in the Old Testament, He had men two by two. When you think
of Moses, there's also Aaron. Moses and Aaron. Those two go
together. You think of Paul, there's Paul
and Silas. Paul and Barnabas. Paul and Timothy. These men went out, the Lord
sent, how did he send his 12 disciples out? Two by two. Simon,
Peter and Andrew. We've been learning this in our
Bible class. James and John. Two by two He
sent them out when He chose 70 disciples. How did He send those
out? Two by two. And so two represents
the ministers of the Lord who are part of the church going
forth with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He likens
them in verse 4, to two olive trees and two candlesticks, because
they have the grace of God, they have the oil of the Holy Spirit,
and they shed forth the light of the gospel. Our Lord Jesus
looked at His disciples and He said, you are the light of the
world. Go forth and shine the light
brightly. And I tell you, the Lord protects
His people, He says in verse 5, if anybody hurts them, fire's
going to come out of their mouth and devour their enemies. That's
the Word of God's going to destroy them. If any man hurt them, he
must be killed. These have power to shut heaven.
God's people pray, pray. Lord, shut up the heavens. Like
Elijah did. Shut the heavens up. Prayed again,
the heavens opened. Now look at verse 7. When they have finished their
testimony, when they have finished their witnesses of the record
that God has given, when they have finished their testimony,
the beast rears his ugly head. We saw him earlier back in chapter
9, and here's the beast again. when they have finished their
testimony, and listen, I don't know what God has ordained for
you to do during your lifetime, but I'll guarantee you this,
you will finish it. I don't care, the opposition
may be great against you, the opposition may be great and is
great against any church it stands for and preaches the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ, but we will finish our mission because
we're His people. We're His people. And when we're finished, the
beast is going to make war against them and overcome them and kill
them. Now here's when I take that to be. There are periods
during this gospel age when it seems like the Lord's church
is just about put out of business. And the light seems to just flicker. And it doesn't seem like there
are many people at all who hold to the truth. Kind of like that
now, isn't it? Kind of like that now. And you
know who rejoices when the truth is kind of put down and doesn't
seem to be many people preaching the gospel? Here's who rejoices,
verse 8, their dead bodies shall lie in the street of Babylon,
which is false religion. And Sodom, that's perverse, ungodly
immorality. And Egypt, that's the political
powers which also crucified our Lord. Who do you think crucified
the Lord? False religion, wicked men, political
powers. That's who crucified our Lord.
And we know this is symbolic language because it says where
our Lord was crucified. Well, He wasn't crucified in
Babylon. This is a picture, young people.
This is symbolism. And if you try to make everything
in the book of Revelation literal, you're going to get yourself
in a world of hurt. We've got to look at this and think of
it in terms of the glory of Christ Jesus. He has purchased our redemption. He is the Lord of glory. He's
exercising His will. He's bringing His church to a
good end and all of His people that He redeemed by His blood
will land safe and sound on the other side. We're more than conquerors
through Him that loved us. That's the way we've got to view
the book of the Revelation. And I'll tell you, when truth
is put down, it's like back in the book of Amos, men will have
to search long and hard to find gospel churches, to find the
Word of God. I can't tell you how many times
I hear from people by internet, send me emails, and they'll tell
me, we're watching, we watch on the internet, because we don't
have anywhere to go to church. Just this last week, I got an
email from a gentleman. I don't even know where he lives.
And he said, I wish you'd come where I live and start a church. He said, there's nobody preaching
the gospel here. I wrote him back and I said,
where do you live? Where do you live? I don't even know where
you live. But this was his great concern and I can name place
after place, city after city where people live who watch us
or who watch other sovereign grace preachers and this is what
they say, there's nowhere for us to go. There's nowhere for
us, this is a day of spiritual famine. And God has blessed us
so abundantly. Well, quickly, verse 9, And they
of the people, and the kindred, and the tongues, and the nations,
will see their dead bodies, they'll see truth put down, truth in
the minority. And verse 10, it's like there's
a celebration. They that dwell upon the earth
shall rejoice over them and make merry. They'll send gifts to
one another. Isn't it wonderful we don't have
to put up with those sovereign grace people anymore? There's
another church closed down. There's somebody else that stopped
preaching. This preacher died or he's gone. And they make merry. There's a celebration. The enemy
is very happy. When churches that are very small
preach the gospel just wind up closing their doors. And here's the reason, because
the two prophets tormented them. It wasn't the men themselves,
it's their message. People didn't like their message.
It tormented them. It's like, see, false religion,
you know, false religion, they can't stand sovereign grace preaching. And this is what they'll say,
if what you're saying is right, you're saying I'm not saved then.
And that just torments them. And I'll tell you what, if what
we're saying is right, that it's of the Lord's will, it's of the
Lord's grace, it's of the Lord's blood, and they're saying it's
man's will, and man's works, and man's deeds. Let me tell
you something, yes, we are saved, and no, they're not. And that
torments them. It torments them. And they're
rejoicing, they're rejoicing. But they make Mary too soon. Because verse 11, and after three
and a half days, three days and a half, the Spirit of life from
God enters into them. In other words, there's a revival. There's a revival. They stood
upon their feet. And this is what I take away
from that. Toward the end of the age, the Lord is going to
gather more people into His kingdom. You see, He's always saving His
people. But I believe toward the end,
there's going to be an influx. There's going to be more people
coming in, coming in. And great fear is going to fall
upon the heathen, upon those that hate God. And then watch this. And they
heard a great voice from heaven saying, Come up, Heather. You know what that is? That's
the end. That's the end. Come up hither.
That's 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 being fulfilled. Come up hither
and they ascended up into heaven in a cloud. 1 Thessalonians 4. Watch it. And their enemies beheld
them. Nothing secretive about this. I don't have any problem with
the word rapture. The word rapture means caught up. But if you think
there's going to be a secretive rapture, you're wrong about that. Because when this happens, they
ascended up to heaven in a cloud, their enemies beheld them. Or as John said back in Revelation
chapter 1, every eye shall see Him when He comes. And just before that happens,
verse 13, the same hour there was a great earthquake and the
tent part of the city fell and the earthquake was slain 7,000. The remnant were frightened and
gave glory to the God of heaven. Earthquake, what's that? The
foundations of false religion began to shake. They began to
shake. And I'll tell you what, if you're
into false religion, maybe I'm preaching to somebody who's watching
on the internet tonight, and you're into false religion, and
you happen to come across our program tonight in the providence
of God watching this, I hope that the earthquake comes to
you right now. Oh, that God would shake you
and shake you loose from your law keeping and Sabbath keeping
and your legality and your works and just shake you real good
and pour the grace of God into your heart. Wouldn't that be
wonderful? Oh, that's what's going to happen. And I'll tell
you, there's a remnant in the verse 13. There's a remnant that's
going to be affrighted and see some of these things happening.
And they're going to give glory to God. It's a remnant according
to the election of grace. And the second woe is past. And
behold, the third woe, she's coming quickly. Don't be fearful, saints of God.
We're more than conquerors through Christ Jesus who loved us. We'll talk about the last part
of this chapter, the Lord willing, next Lord's Day morning.