So I'm in the 11th chapter of
the book of the Revelation. I'm going to read in Revelation
chapter 11 verses 1 through verse 11. And in fact, I'll read through
14 because I'm going to go back and actually be able to make
a little more headway. Since we did establish some foundational
principles last week, we can make some headway. I can just
comment on some things and then build on them. And I think you'll
grasp that. If I'm able to accomplish that
in an hour, I'll open the floor for few questions before we close
tonight. 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 and they shall prophesy 1,203 score days clothed
in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees
and the two candlesticks that stand before the God of the earth. And if any man will hurt them,
fire proceeds out of their mouth and devour their enemies. And
if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.
These have power to shed heaven that it rain not in the days
of their prophecy and have power over waters to turn them to blood
and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will. And when they shall have finished
their testimony, the beast that ascended out of the bottomless
pit shall make war against them 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. and they of the
people, kindreds, 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 that dwell upon the earth
shall rejoice over them and make merry and shall send gifts one
to another because these two prophets tormented them that
dwelt on the earth. After three days and a half,
the spirit of life from God entered into them And they stood upon
their feet, and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And
they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come
up hither. And they ascended up to heaven
in a cloud. And their enemies beheld them.
In the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part
of the city fell. And in the earthquake were slain
of men seven thousand, and the remnant were affrighted. and
gave glory to the God of heaven. The second was passed and behold,
the third wall comes quickly. Thus is the reading of God's
word. I'll say this first and foremost, just for the record,
I'll develop this more fully when we get into the seven churches
of Asia minor, which will be our series after Hebrews. We
are dealing with the six trumpet right now. We are in the six
trumpet. There are seven trumpets. There
are seven vile judgments and there are seven seals. If you
will pull up my image PowerPoint that the, that the folks have
in their outline, you have the revelation of Jesus Christ, that
right there, you need to get a visual of that grid so I can
show you what I'm talking about, how important it is to understand
the structure of the book of revelation, that grid right there
explains a lot. So I'm going to actually do it
so it can be on record. If you read your, um, your pamphlet,
it will speak specifically to what we're doing, and you can
open your pamphlet up. The front page is something you
can read on your own. But the Revelation of Jesus Christ,
the book of the Revelation, is a gift of God the Father given
to God the Son for the good of his church throughout all of
time. The book of Revelation is a gift
given by God the Father to God the Son for the edification of
the church and the good of the church throughout time. Verse 1 of Revelation chapter
1 underscores this. So go there so you can see this.
Revelation chapter 1 explains to us why it was given. The revelation of Jesus Christ,
you guys see that, right? The book of the revelation has
as its central subject, whom? Jesus Christ. Now watch what
it says, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to grasp the gift
of this revelation and its intentions as given to Christ by his father. the revelation of Jesus Christ,
which God gave unto him. Now who is God in this context?
The father, right? Now I want you to understand
then that what Jesus is about to receive is a gift from the
father to the son. The book of the revelation is
God, the father's own estimation of what will be a privilege to
give to the son who will then pass it on to the church. revelation
of Jesus Christ which God gave to him to do what to show unto
his servants things which must shortly come to pass and he sent
and signified it by his angel unto his servant John verse 1
gives us a whole process of transmission of God's purpose and to Jesus,
and that is the revelation was given to Jesus by the Father.
It's a gift to Jesus because of his triumph at Calvary. Christ
was given the crown rights of the universe by virtue of his
death on Calvary. Now, do you guys remember when
he was often asked by his disciples, when is the kingdom coming? When
shall the promise of the Father be given to us? And Jesus would
say, Now that's in my father's hand to do. Those issues pertain
to my father. When the kingdom will come, how
it will manifest itself, what it will do is in my father's
hands alone. Do you guys remember that kind
of deference? And it indicates, ladies and
gentlemen, that Jesus Christ The second person of the Godhead
being the son of God was deferring the whole of human history and
revelation and purpose to his father. You need to understand
that, that Christ was not operating as a sole fiat in control of
events as if he were not merely the mediator. The covenant is
the father's covenant. The son is the mediator of that
covenant. And he never deferred from being
what we call second in command. He never deferred. He never attributed
to himself or took to himself the right to be viewed as the
one carving out the plan, performing the plan, functioning the plan.
It was always, I came to do my father's what? You need to know
that because that framework of relationship between Christ and
His Father is going to be seen clearly through the whole book
of the Revelation. You need to know that the fact
that Christ is on His throne right now in glory ruling over
the universe is a gift from God the Father to His Son. And that
the whole of the Revelation is a relationship between the Father
and the Son, the Father bestowing upon the Son the authority to
rule over everything. Psalm 2, ask of me And I will
give you the uttermost parts of the earth as an inheritance.
Why? Because Jesus had accomplished
eternal redemption. And what did the father do? He
set his own son, his own king upon his holy hill of Zion, right?
And so why I'm saying this is that you need to know that what
John receives, he receives through the ministry of an angel. The
angel becomes a mediator between John and Christ for John to see
this revelation. This angel and John walk through
the whole of the revelation and John stumbles twice, doesn't
he? Because the revelation is so powerful, John wants to fall
down and worship the angel, doesn't he? He does it twice in Revelation
19 and in 22 and the angel says, do not do it. God is the one
to be worshipped. I am just a vehicle helping you
comprehend what the father has given to the son because of what
Christ accomplished at Calvary. You need to know then that while
Christ is the revelation of the book, the gift of the whole of
the revelation is given to him by his father. And in fact, there
are four major visions. You need to understand this.
Go back to our our PowerPoint for major visions. And I've been
teaching this for years. Four major visions, and subsumed
under those major visions are the seal judgments, trumpet judgments,
and vial judgments that have to be understood. What are the
four major visions? First major vision is Jesus Christ
in the midst of his what? You need to know that. Chapters
one through three describe and depict Jesus as the great high
priest, therefore mediator, as the great high priest, therefore
mediator, in the midst of his what? Now, if we understand the
symbolism, what we are understanding is, is that Christ, who is the
head over all things, is according to Paul's language in Colossians
1, he's the head over all things to the church. The role of Christ
is mediator over the world for the good of his church. That
what he works through primarily is the church. that from his
throne he executes his rule through his what? And in Revelation chapter
1 through 3, the church is seen as the menorah, is she not? She's
seen as the menorah, and as we learned last week, that's an
extraction from the what? The temple, because the temple
is the grand ideal of God, is it not? The temple is the grand
ideal of God. And so from his throne, he works
in the world through his church to bear witness to the world
of the glory of God. The purpose of the church down
here, as Christ's witness, is to bear record to the truth for
Christ to the glory of God. That is the first vision. And
the vision that is first doesn't go away or give way to the second
vision. It corresponds to the second
vision. It's the same way. Ladies and
gentlemen, when we are dealing with covenant principles, we've
been learning this in biblical theology. You know, this, the
opening covenant principle that God gave to Adam and Eve was
that they should do what be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth.
Right? And then we enter into other covenant principles, like
God saying, I'll never destroy the earth. And he puts a rainbow
in the sky. but he takes the first covenant principle and
adds it to the second one, right? So that now Noah must now fulfill
that first covenant principle. And that first covenant principle
gets carried with the second covenant principle of the rainbow
because they are standing principles to the next covenant principle
that was given, which was the building on the arc of the covenant.
And then the circumcision given to Abraham. Now, Abraham has
to take up multiplying and replenishing the earth, being sure that God's
not going to destroy the earth again because God has an ultimate
purpose. And that's the coming of whom? You guys got that. So
every covenant model or every covenant form gets attached to
the next covenant form. It doesn't disappear. It gets
subsumed under it because it's part of the advancement of God's
revelation. And that's the same way the book
of Revelation works. Meaning when we deal with Christ Jesus
in the midst of his church, and then we move to chapter four
through chapters 18, we see Jesus on his throne. Chapter four opens
up. speaking to us about a great throne. And then it gives us
this enigmatic language of the one who sits on the throne as
being like Jasper and like Sardis and like fine stones, no image
of a person, only descriptions of glory and bliss described
in the characteristics of fine jewels. because they represent
God's glory. And we are still using Old Testament
language because back in the days of Exodus, when God had
called Moses up to the Mount, he called the elders initially. And when the elders went up into
the Mount, they saw the feet of God. That's what the text
says. And the elders saw the feet of God. They saw the underside
of his feet. That's an anthropomorphical term.
God is not a man. But they saw the feet of God
and it spoke to the feet of God as being likened to fine jewels
and sardines and onyx and all of these glorious stones that
represents the brilliance and glory of God. You guys understand
that we are using hyperbolic symbolism to describe something
that's spiritual in nature. Y'all got that right? It's important
because I don't want to have to talk like this over and over
in a redundant fashion since you grasp that we're dealing
with symbolism. What I'm getting at is nothing
in the book of Revelation is new in terms of this terminology. It has its origins in the Old
Testament. And so you'll read that in the
pamphlet as well. So the next major vision that the people
of God are to grasp, now mark this and mark the comfort of
this idea, mark the comfort that the first vision that John gets
Remember what Revelation chapter 1 said around verse 11? And I
heard a voice behind me, the voice as the sound of a trumpet.
The trumpet represents what? The word of God. And he says,
and I turned to see the voice that spake with me. Now, how
do you see a voice? So now we have to mix the metaphors
because the voice is now being personified, is it not? The voice
is a person. That person is whom? Christ is
the word of God. And so as a trumpet, Christ speaks
clearly and authoritatively to his people. We out of all the
people of the earth ought to hear the voice of God as a trumpet
to us. It's a trumpet to us. It may
not be a trumpet to anyone else, but to us, it's a trumpet. That
means the trumpet which was used in the Exodus journey, because
we're dealing with the Exodus excursion, right? Remember what
God told the children of Israel, make two silver trumpets. And
you use those trumpets to tell the people of God when to go
and when to stop, when to prepare for worship, when to prepare
for warfare, when to prepare to move. In other words, we receive
the authoritative instruction of God's word as a trumpet sound
to us as to our marching orders. So John turns and he sees the
voice that spake with him. And then he sees this glorious
high priest in all of this garb standing in the middle of the
seven golden candlestick. You guys know that, right? And
that vision was to impress the church in the first century with
this reality. Christ has risen from the dead.
He has ascended into heaven, AD 33. And for now, some 60 years,
they have not seen Christ. They have preached the gospel.
They have spread the gospel all over Asia Minor and parts of
Europe and in the Middle East. And they have suffered for the
gospel. They started suffering for the gospel during the Book
of Acts, carried over into the period of time wherein Nero and
the Roman Titus persecuted the church, destroyed the church,
that is the Jewish temple and the whole Jewish city, Jerusalem. And then subsequent to that,
the people of God being scattered abroad have always suffered what? Persecution. That's the depiction
of the book of Revelation, and that's the reason why that revelation
was given. I'm gonna appeal to you as the
people of God, understanding this. If you are the bride of
Christ, and your husband has gone on a long journey, and he
has left you with a job to do, and you are doing your job, and
over time, you start to suffer for the job that you are doing,
wouldn't it be comforting for your husband to send you a letter
to let you know everything's all right? I want it to resonate so we can
connect heaven with earth. The things that Christ is doing
in the spiritual dimension with what's taking place in the earthly
dimension, because the letter is to his bride and it's to let
his bride know, I know it's been some 60 years since you saw me
and I know you've had to deal with the stewardship of my apostles
and they have killed off virtually all my apostles. The only one
left now is John. And so the church has suffered
persecution, even though it's grown, that persecution wears
you down and makes you doubt and makes you wonder until you
get a love letter from your husband letting you know everything's
all right. And I want you to see things through my eyes. So
if you will, by faith, take off the sight of seeing an earthly
perspective, Rise to the level of your dignity and calling as
the bride of Christ and see through my eyes. You'll see yourself
in a different light First of all, I want to let you know that
I am with you That's Christ in the midst of the seven golden
candlestick. I told you that lo I'm with you always to the
end of the world by the Holy Ghost. I am with you I'm in glory
mediating for you as your high priest. I mean we love to talk
about it But when we get in trouble, it's a whole nother story, isn't
it? So he writes a letter and say, listen, are you not the
candlestick? Are you not the light of the world? Are you not
my temple? Is not the high priest always
in the midst of the temple doing this job? Then you can know I'm
with you. Y'all got the picture and I'm
going to clean my church out. Cause that's what we're going
to learn as we deal with the seven churches. But I also want you to know that
I sit on the throne of the universe and I rule the world. That's
the second vision. The same one that's in the midst
of us by his spirit is the one controlling all the affairs of
the world. He's the one that's opening the seals. That's revelation
four and five. And I saw a lamb in the midst
of the throne who came to the ancient of days and took the
scroll out of his hand and opened up the scroll and everybody in
heaven worshiped God because he was able to take the scroll
and open the seven seals. Which means he had authority
over the affairs of human existence to the end of time. And that
events that are transpiring in the world don't happen by happenstance
or by accidents or by capri. They are governed meticulously
according to a will that Christ possesses as the title deed to
the universe. And if the church down here don't
know how to rejoice, read revelation four, the worship service in
revelation four is off the hook. And the joy is that the lamb
was able to actually approach the throne and take the title
deed and open the seals. That's Christ on his throne.
And it goes from revelation four all the way to 18, which means
as you labor to understand those 14 chapters from chapter four
to 18, This is what you must always keep in mind. Christ is
in control of everything that's going on there. He sits at his
father's right hand on his throne with his father dictating the
events. That's why you see in chapter
six, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. And I've been teaching
you that for the longest. Those are the simultaneous transpiring
world events that have been going on since the time of Christ's
ascension to glory. The gospel is preached. There
will be wars and rumors of wars have been still are, aren't they?
But the gospel is still being preached, isn't it? So the gospel
is preached while wars are taking place. There will be famines.
That's the harsh with the scales. We still suffer famines, don't
we? And there will be death. We still suffer death. All four
of those horsemen are merely the affairs of human existence
corresponding simultaneously with the preaching of the gospel.
That's Matthew 24. You guys know that, right? Matthew 24 fits right into Revelation
chapter 6. So when we get to Revelation
chapter 19, how does Jesus appear again? He appears in Revelation
19 coming on a white horse with a sword coming out of his mouth,
a run fire sword. It's a sword of capital punishment
to judge the nations. The next time Christ comes, he's
coming in judgment against the foes of his people and himself.
That's what the people of God have always been looking for.
He shall come to take vengeance on all them that know not God
and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. In flaming
fire he shall come. That's vision number four. It's
called a major vision. You guys got that? That's where
Christ is revealed in the revelation and an authoritative disposition
to help the church understand. First, I'm with you. Secondly,
I run the universe. Thirdly, I'm coming again. Isn't
that our doctrine? Don't we believe that? And the
fourth one is I am at the center of the new heavens and the new
earth and a brand new Edenic state where everything is made
new all over again. And what flows from me and my
father is the spirit of God who makes all things new. And He
gives us the river of life and trees on the other side of the
river and the people of God and the presence of God seeing Him
face to face and rejoicing in God their Father, no more tears,
no more crying, nothing but rejoicing, nothing but service. And it ends
with a warning, right? It ends with a warning. Blessed
are they that keep His commandments that they might have way right
to the tree of life. And woe unto the man that takes
away from the words of the prophecy of this book. And woe unto him
that adds to the words of the prophecy of this book. The book
of Revelation is a serious book. Now, I lay that out to help you
understand that the book of Revelation is trans-historical. It is not
totally future. It is not totally history. It's
history, it's present, and it's future. This is why Jesus is
said in Hebrews chapter 12 as we move to the 13 chapters chapter
13, by the way Jesus Christ yesterday today and what forevermore He's
the center of all things and He has governed the past. He
is controlling the present and he will control the future that
Synopsis of the book of Revelation. I have just given you was for
the comfort of the church. I to settle her down because
of what she was going through, which is given to us in the first
three chapters, right? His church is going through trouble
in the first three chapters of revelation. Here's the fallacy
that some would teach that once you get past chapter three in
the chapter four, it's not about the church anymore. That's ridiculous. It's all about the church. It's
all about the church. That's why we're in the 11th
chapter. So we're getting ready to go back briefly through some
of the language of the 11th chapter And when we work through the
three chapters, you'll see what I am talking about in Revelation
chapter 11 now As we were looking at last week, I'm just going
to remind you of it. I'm not going to develop it We open with verse
1 and we talked about the measuring of the temple, right? And we
made a distinction between the holy place and the outer temple,
didn't we? You can go back to the previous
PowerPoint, my sister, the previous PowerPoint. I think it'll be
point number one or point number two. We made a distinction when
we look at verse one of Revelation chapter 11. That means you'll
have to go back to the previous PowerPoint in verse one and two.
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. Now
I told you that now John is operating out of a neo-Ezekiel and sort
of prophetic role because Ezekiel had the same vision and the same
call to measure the temple. Do you guys remember that? If
you don't, read your Bibles from Ezekiel 40 to Ezekiel 48. Ezekiel
was in Babylon receiving visions of a brand new temple by God,
even though the temple was already destroyed in 587 BC. There was
no temple in Jerusalem. Ezekiel was in Babylon in the
captivity, receiving a vision from God of the restored temple. And Ezekiel is going with the
angel through every part of the temple, measuring everything
in the temple. I mean, he's measuring everything.
And I told you last week, This would mean we go back to our
previous PowerPoint, the other PowerPoint that you had earlier.
That's right. Go to the first one so we can
move forward. Now go to the second one. All
right. Uh, go with me to the third one.
Let me see where we are. Okay. Stay there. You can stay
right there. So in Ezekiel's vision, Ezekiel is joining the
angel, measuring the altar, measuring the tabernacle, measuring the
holy of holies, measuring the holy place, measuring the articles
of the temple, measuring the outer court, measuring everything. It's a long drawn out tedious
affair from chapters 40 to 48. And what we learned last week
is that measuring signifies what? judging and determining the orthodoxy
of a thing. To measure something is to judge
and determine the rightness of it, the orthodoxy of it, the
correctness of it. Whenever you build something,
don't you already have a prefabricated plan with clear numbers as to
its dimensions, its size, its scale? And then when you go to
make it, don't you see if it corresponds with the scale? Am
I making some sense? If the Arc of the covenant was
to be two and a half feet wide and two and a half feet deep
and two or three and a half feet long. When you make it, aren't
you going to take a rule out to see if you've met the dimensions
that were commanded, especially if God tells you, you better
build this thing exactly like I told you. You don't get to
just kind of do a designer build of your own fabrication. It's
the same with the building of the church. We can't build the
church any kind of way we want to. It's Christ's church. It has to be built according
to his plan, with his rule, and with his measure. And we were
talking about that last week, right? The standard for measurement
is what? The Word of God. The Word of
God, and ultimately it's Christ himself. So the means that we
use to measure is scripture, and the model or the standard
is the person of Christ. We are seeking to build a church
that meets the measure of the man Jesus according to Ephesians
chapter 4, right? We are trying to build a church
that corresponds to the body of Christ. So I told you last
week that there's a distinction between the outer court and the
outer temple and the inner temple and that when you go through
the New Testament particularly from the time of Acts on the
only time you will hear the word higher on used which is a description
of the outer temple are Sometimes the physical temple in Jerusalem
is where the text will be explicitly talking about the physical temple
of Jerusalem Okay, but where it uses the word temple primarily
in the New Testament For instance when it uses it in the in the
book of 1st Corinthians chapter 3 1st Corinthians chapter 6 2nd
Corinthians chapter 6 and everywhere else with the exception we had
that one exception clause remember Everywhere you read of ye are
the temple of the Living God. It's the inner sanctum of the
holy place Where only the priests are allowed to operate? It's
the inner sanctum of the holy place where only the priests
are allowed to operate when God allowed Israel to build the temple
of He allowed them to build the temple with three separate categories. The category of the Gentiles,
the category of the Jews, with a distinction between men and
women, and then the category of the priests. The priests themselves
were in a separate section because the priests were separated unto
God to do the ministry of the temple. No Gentile, no Jewish
man or Jewish woman could go into the Holy of Holies. You
had to be a Levite or a son of Aaron. That was the special work
of the priesthood. Are you guys following me? So
the old Testament simple temple had those divisions for the new
Testament church. Those divisions are broken down.
We are all priests in the house of God. Are we not? What that
means, ladies and gentlemen, when you and I read in revelation
chapter 11, verse one, this language, and there was given unto me a
read like unto a rod and the angel Rising and saying measure
the temple of God and the altar and them that worship therein.
You know what it was stating That you are to measure Those
people who are part of the true work of God the true temple ministry
These would be called God's elect. These would be called true saved
people who are a spiritual priesthood a holy nation doing spiritual
service unto God as Peter describes it as Paul describes it as You
and I are the temple of the living God. Am I making some sense?
That temple is protected by God. The rest of it is left out. This
would be also encouraging to the people in the early church
where John has given the revelation to give to the early church because
only the true people of God are concerned about their welfare
before God. Only the true people of God want
to know if we're on the right track. Only the true people of
God want to know if we are doing that, which God has called us
to do so that God is well pleased with us for our labor sake. Only the true people of God want
to know that God has, um, has our best interest in view and
for them to read. Cause this was to be read in
all the churches. Remember, blessed is he that
read it and hear it. The saints of this book. This
epistle was to be read in all the churches. And when the churches
would hear that epistle read the book of the revelation by
the preacher, they would all get to ask themselves, am I part
of the outer court or the inner court? Am I part of that which
is measured to be protected, to be preserved, to be used,
or am I part of that which is left out to be trodden underfoot
of men? Because we're making a distinction
between superficial Christianity and the external church that
would compromise and actually buy into the Babylonian system
and corrupt the gospel and thus be destroyed. Now, why am I making
that proposition? Because we've already established
that premise in the book of Acts, haven't we? That there's a carnal
secular temple with a false authority that represents the rulers of
the church, the Jewish constituency, who are now in conflict with
the true temple of God represented by the true believers, i.e. the 120 in the upper room, the
apostles who bear the authority of Christ, who are in the very
temple that Christ said is coming down, establishing his new church
in the midst of that temple. Are you guys with me so far?
And so in the midst of that temple, true believers are being built
up while that old external temple is being judged that old external
temple is going to come down in AD 70 to never be built again
as it is today there is no temple in Jerusalem to affirm the authority
of Christ when he says hereafter you will see the Son of Man coming
in clouds with great glory then you will know who I am when I
have fulfilled all these things prophesying the judgment and
destruction of the temple of Jerusalem. Once the temple was
destroyed, it was very clear that Israel had no divine authority
and mandate. That divine authority and mandate
had been given to whom? The church. Are you hearing me? The church, by the way, that
would be made up of Jew and Gentile. The twain becoming one new man,
so making peace. Isn't that why Christ died? To
break down that middle wall of partition? To bring men and women
together in himself and to make a brand new temple? whose foundation
is Jesus Christ, the cheap cornerstone and the apostles and the prophets
upon whose doctrine we are built up. Am I making some sense? I
want you to follow that logic because it helps you understand
that when Paul was preaching and Paul was teaching throughout
the epistles, he had the same vision. By the way, he was caught
up to the third heavens. And he saw things unspeakable,
but you and I would be utterly ludicrous in our thinking to
assert that what Paul saw when he went to glory was different
than what John saw. They saw the same thing. Am I
making some sense? That's why Paul could tell the
church at Corinth with all of his silly fornicating and adultery
and perversions. You better stop. You better stop. What does darkness have to do
with light? What does the temple of Satan
have to do with the table of Christ? The two are mutually
exclusive. If you persist in your rebellion
against the gospel and allegiance to Christ, you will be judged.
This is what you're reading in verses one and two of Revelation
chapter 11. Am I making some sense? You guys,
can I keep going? This is very important. And so
what we are doing is we are connecting heaven with earth, aren't we?
And we are demonstrating that in the book of Acts chapter 4,
where Peter and John have preached and did a notable miracle and
the gospel is being spread. They're being assaulted by the
leadership, aren't they? Which is what the book of Revelation
is getting ready to describe. Now, I want to go through this
language a little bit hastily, but you're going to pick up on
it. But the court, which is without the temple, leave out and measure
it not, for it's given unto the Gentiles. And the holy city,
what is the holy city? Jerusalem. Shall they tread down
forty and two months? I'll deal with those numbers
in a little bit forty and two months because John is going
to say the same thing three times in this one chapter 42 1260 and times Times and a half of
times. He's gonna say the same thing.
This is all the same language We'll talk about that in a moment.
Listen to what he says and I will give power unto my two witnesses
and that what Jesus said you would receive and Acts chapter
1 verse 8, tarry ye here in Jerusalem till you receive what? Power,
that you may prophesy. Right? Now listen to what he
goes on to say. 1,203 score days clothed in sackcloth. Why is the sackcloth there? Because
it's a sign of both mourning and judgment. When you put on
sackcloth, you were saying that the people to whom you are speaking
are under judgment. Are you hearing me? This is what
the apostles were saying to Israel when they said, if you do not
believe on Christ, you're going to be destroyed. Let me keep
going. These are the two olive trees
and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
Two bearing what? Witness. The olive trees symbolizing
what? The Holy Ghost. The candlestick
we have already affirmed symbolizes what? The church. Now watch the
interaction between the two. You got to get this now. And
if any men will what? Hurt them. See now what it says
is if their intentions are to hurt them, if their purpose is
to hurt them, if they are threatening to hurt them, notice what it
says. Fire proceeds out of their what? Now what comes out of our
mouth? Words. What are the words? Scripture, God's word, right? And you can read it for yourself.
Jeremiah chapter five, verse 14, Jeremiah five, 14. God makes
it very clear. It's not my word like fire and
are not these people like the wood. Therefore I shall burn
them up. Jeremiah, Jeremiah becoming the
weeping prophet and what we call the demolition prophet. He's
the one speaking judgment against Israel, letting them know God's
getting ready to judge you. They hated Jeremiah for it, didn't
they? They cast him into a pit, didn't they? They wanted to kill
him, right? Because of his words, because of his words, because
of his words. And so it goes on to say, if
any man tried to hurt them, they must be killed in this manner.
Now watch what it goes on to say, fire proceeds out of their
mouth and devour their enemies. And if any man will hurt them,
he must in this fashion be killed. So now when God uses the term
fire coming out of the mouth, we are bound by old Testament
language to consider whom Elijah the prophet that's in your outline. Remember, When the Syrians tried
to come and take Elijah in 2nd Kings chapter 1, it said, we're
looking for the man of God. We want to take the man of God.
We want to bind the man of God. He says, if I be a man, a man
of God, let fire come down and consume you. 50 were consumed
right away. Then another band came. So where's
Elijah the prophet? He says, if I be a man of God,
let fire come down and consume you. Remember the sons of thunder?
That's John and Jane. They wanted to take up that ministry
when Jesus and them were going through the neighborhoods, didn't
they? That would clean things up real quick, wouldn't it? That
would clean things up. The metaphor is speaking to the
prophetic element of the word of God, right? The prophetic
element of the word of God. It is no accident that on the
Mount of Transfiguration was both Elijah and whom? Moses. Which brings us into the next
metaphorical category in our text. Listen to what it says.
In verse six, these have power to shed heaven. Who shed heaven
in their days for three and a half years? Elijah. Remember that? He shed heaven for three and
a half years in the days of Jezebel and Ahab. We enjoyed our time
going through the Kings because as we went through the Kings,
we understood that the time of the Kings represent and correspond
to either faithful gospel churches or apostate churches. Every king
in his era, 20 kings in Israel, 20 kings in Judah, the vast majority
of them all wicked, were periods in which the people of God were
struggling with the apostasy in the church. And people died. One of the most egregious eras
are times, was the time of Jezebel and Ahab.
The scripture says Ahab did more evil than just about anyone in
Israel. His evil was marrying his wife Jezebel. Jezebel wasn't
even a Jerusalemite. She was a Zidonian. But she ran
the show, didn't she? And when we get to Revelation
chapter two and we deal with the church at Thyatira, remember
what Jesus says? And you have that false prophetess
Jezebel who is teaching my servants to commit fornication and idolatry. And I'm going to kill her children
with what? Death. That's the spirit of God taking
that Old Testament language where God has sworn to kill the whole
line of Ahab and Jezebel. And he did. Why? Because Jezebel
was one of those ungodly women that was seeking to kill the
what? Seed. As we're learning in our biblical
theology class. And her daughter Athaliah was
just as bad as her. So that the seed royal in the
children of Israel, we had to hide those children, remember?
Protect them from the judgment of the great harlot. And at that
time we call that symbolically the period of feminism's rule. There's no way that a woman should
have been on the throne. God did not provide a place for
the queen to rule over Israel. And it corresponds as I've taught
for so long today, where we have capitulated the Word of God and
have allowed women to become pastors and rulers in the church. Haven't I taught that? So, you
know, you don't get to turn God's program around and set it aside
to accommodate the culture. And this is what we're battling
against today. But we'll see that when we go
through the seven churches. I'm simply saying in order for
you to understand the book of Revelation, you got to understand
Revelation is the culmination of everything from Genesis to
Revelation. and that the new is in the old
and the old contains the new. And in order to comprehend the
new, you have to defer to the old. You can't interpret the
book of Revelation without going back because God is using coded
language in the book of Revelation to speak to his people during
a time when they're being persecuted. It's coded language. It helps
them understand what God is up to, but the pagan on the outside
didn't comprehend it. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Coded language. And the Bible is coded language.
You have a big old book in your hand. It's coded language. And
people don't understand that book unless God gives them a
revelation of his glory. The secret of the Lord is with
them that what? And he will show them his what? That's the word
of God. That's the gospel. It doesn't
make any sense to us until Christ opens it up to us. That's why
a lot of people don't read their Bible. It's a coded book. Am
I making some sense? It's a coded book. It's a coded
book. These have power to shed heaven
that it rain not in the days of their prophecy and they have
power over what? To turn them into blood who did
that? So we have two personages Not their presence of person
but their attributes their characteristics and their offices being described
here The role of Elijah and Moses represents the whole of the Old
Testament revelation, right? We call it the law and the what?
Prophets. The law and the prophets. It
was God's authoritative word revealed to the people of God
from Genesis to Malachi. You guys got that? This is why
Moses' name is not literally in the book of Revelation. This
is why Elijah's name is not up there. You know how some folk
would say that what we're dealing with in Revelation 11 is the
reincarnation of Moses and Elijah, right? That's ludicrous. That's
utterly ludicrous. Somebody tell me, please, why
on earth would God want to send Moses and Elijah back down on
the earth at any time in human history to be killed all over
again? Are you hearing me? We already
have seen them in glory, haven't we? They are operating in their
full glorified state. It's ludicrous to assert that
they would come back in a physical body with all of the mortal weaknesses
and limitations that we have to witness the people and then
be killed. What's taking place here is the
conflict of two authorities, the authority of the word of
God represented by true believers who tell men and women what the
gospel is, and the false authority of leadership in the church opposing
that gospel message as we see in Acts 4. In Acts 4, Peter and
John are preaching the gospel, aren't they? Remember what the
rulers say? In whose name are you doing this?
And by whose authority are you doing this? This is a matter
of conflicting authorities. And the people that are presently
ruling the temple are false authorities. The people who are preaching
the gospel, John James and the others operate out of a true
authority. Their authority is given to them
by whom all authority in heaven and earth has been given unto
me. Therefore, go ye into all the world and do what? And all
they're doing is opening their mouth and saying, thus saith
the Lord. And that's, that is where you and I find out where
the people are legitimate and real about their Christianity.
Start telling the truth about Christ. and about the authority
of scripture. And you'll find out the true
Christians from the false Christians every time. And especially when
it comes to leadership in the church, preach the gospel of
grace, free sovereign grace, and preach the authority of the
whole of scripture. And you'll find out who are the
true Christians and who are not. We have this legacy throughout
all of church history, don't we? where faithful Christians
have been persecuted by the establishment over and over and over and over
again. So what you see in Revelation
chapter 11 is the conflict. Let me ask you the question.
You already know somewhat the tenor nature of the book of Acts,
don't you? Don't you know what's going to happen by the time we
get to Acts chapter eight? Great persecution is coming against
the church. Don't you know what's going to happen by the time we
get to Acts chapter 11? The disciples are being put in jail multiple
times. And by the time we get to chapter 12, some of them are
already killed. The apostle Paul was in on that
while he was Saul of Tarsus, wasn't he? That's what revelation
is talking about. They're being bound by the beast. Who is the beast? The religious
system of that day was Judaism. Let's go on. Let me see if I
can help you understand that a little bit. Verse six, And
they have power over waters to turn them to blood and to smite
the earth with a plague as often as they will. And when they shall
have finished their what? So, and I've taught this for
years too. This is the way God works. This is why you got to
understand the whole concept of witnessing that there is an
end to our witness. There is an end to our witness. And when our witness is done,
when our purpose on earth is done, God will take us out one
way or the other. You have a purpose here. And
when you and I are done with our purpose, we will either go
home through our faith being sealed by death for the glory
of God. And that's the theme of the book
of Revelation. I'm sorry, the theme of the book of Revelation
is this. He that overcometh will I give all of the blessings of
the inheritance that's been given to me. Overcoming means dying
in faith, as you're gonna learn on Sunday. So the letter is written
to the believer to tell them to be faithful even unto what? So the context of the book of
Revelation is cold because it is totally different than the
context in which you and I are living, isn't it? This is why
it's so hard for people in the Western culture to really get
with the book of Revelation, because we aren't dealing with
any heat right now. You and I are in what we call seduction mode,
not persecution mode. We're in seduction mode, carnal
mode, material mode, fleshly mode. We're not suffering persecution,
but if I preach this same message that I'm sharing with you now
in Africa, in China, in the Middle East, those people would be all
over themselves with joy listening to my message. because they would
be suffering and identifying with the book of Revelation so
acutely that they would be thanking God for this kind of exhortation. You and I are kind of like, well,
what does this have to do with you and me? One day it will be
here. And there is no caveat in the
revelation of Jesus Christ. I'm talking about Revelation,
the last book. There is no caveat of us. You don't see any image
in the book of Revelation where we live high on the hog, where
we live opulent, fabulous, materialistic lives, where we triumph over
the world and dominate the world with our carnal, superficial,
materialistic, Western-style Christianity. Everybody's living
large, driving big cars. None of that exists in the book
of Revelation. Am I making some sense, ladies
and gentlemen? That picture that you get projected by these false
prophets to you does not correspond to the word of God. That's false
doctrine. That's false doctrine. Jesus
didn't talk like that. The apostles didn't talk like
that. The faithful men and women who went through all of church
history to the day never talk like that. So when you and I
are judging the goodness of God and the favor of God by how much
money people are making and how many cars they have and how large
they're living, that's a completely flawed measuring stick. You are
using the wrong rod, the wrong measure. The measure should be
the word of God and the standard should be Christ. How much does
that person, that family, that church correspond to Jesus? How much do they look like Christ,
sound like Christ, act like Christ, suffer for Christ? That's where
the Spirit of God is really working. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? That's the standard. Where are the people of God who
are taking on the characteristics of the two witnesses? You know
what my master told me? Listen, don't be surprised if
the world does not love you because it did not love me. If you were
of the world, the world would love you. It goes on to say,
and when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that
ascended up out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them.
Verse seven, part B, the beast in this context, as it is corresponding
to the book of Acts represents whom? Who is the beast in this
context? The rulers of the church, the
rulers of Israel. Do you guys believe that? The
rulers of Israel, I want you to get that. Listen, I want you
to understand the beast, the beast that's rising up out of
the bottomless pit to go after these two witnesses manifest
themselves by false religion. It was the same false religious
system that killed the prophets of old in Israel. It's the same
false religious system that came after Jesus to kill him. Didn't
they kill him? Who were they? The rulers of
the church. How do we know they were beast?
Because they gave their allegiance to Rome. John chapter 20, 19. We have no king but Caesar. This man is not our king. And
by our law, he must die. Are you guys hearing me? So what I'm helping you understand
is you can adopt a false interpretation of the book of Revelation given
to you by your contemporary Tim LaHaye's and all these other
cats that want to turn your eyes away from the apostasy of the
church. Your answers for how to understand
your Bible is in the Bible. So the apostles are not at all
surprised that as they preach the gospel in the temple that
they're now being accosted by the rulers. By the way, when
the Holy of Holies was measured in verse one, rise and measure
the temple and then that worship in it and the altar. Remember
that? What altar is in the Holy of
Holies? The altar of incense. The altar of incense. Why? Because in the Holy of Holies,
the Levitical priesthood and the sons of Aaron spent the preponderance
of their time praying to God. Are you hearing me? The role
of the church is a twofold prong. It's prayer and prophecy. Our role is mediatorial and it's
prophetic. Our role is mediatorial and prophetic. What is a holy priesthood to
do? Go around fixing people's cars and passing out sandwiches.
Our role is mediatorial. Didn't we learn last night, ladies,
that when God sets his army up, in the midst of his army is the
tabernacle? that to go to war and win battles
spiritually, we need to be in communion with the true and the
living God, that prayer must precede prophecy so we can win
the battle of the proclamation of the gospel. Do I need to say
that again? Did you get that? That you cannot
expect to win any battle by way of proclamation without first
having communed with God in the context of prayer, That's why
the tabernacle followed them everywhere they went. They were
a holy priesthood first, and then a Royal nation. They are
a holy priesthood first, then a Royal nation. We pray, then
we preach. We cry out to God, then we fight.
We ask God to be merciful, then we tell sinners, you're on your
way to hell, and without Christ, you will perish. Did you hear
me? That's what the true church is
supposed to be about. This is why we know the true church is
jacked up now. It has no idea the critical place
of prayer in the ministry. That's why we don't see the success
that we should see in our families and our relationships on our
jobs. I'm telling you, I'm telling
you, remember what we learned, the two golden candlesticks in
the book of Zachariah chapter three and four. God had said
when the angel said to Zachariah, Zachariah, do you understand
what this is about? Do you understand why there are two olive trees
on the outside of that manure constantly pouring oil into the
candlestick? And Zachariah said, I didn't
know. And the angel went on to say in chapter four, verse six,
not by power nor by might, but by my what? Did you hear that? Not by power, not by human wit,
human will, human wisdom, human technique, human methodology,
human schemes, human techniques. Man-made schemes by which we
try to win people and wound people to Christ No way will a man come
to Christ unless Christ draws him by his spirit you're not
saving anybody by a feel-good message of Smile, we love you. God has a wonderful plan for
your life when you're a hell-bound sinner by the way the message
that these two prophets preached These people did not like their
message Did they? Let me see if I can help you
understand how they felt about their message. Look at it. Verse
seven. And when they shall have finished
their testimony, the beast that ascends up out of the bottomless
pit shall make war against them, right? They shall what? Overcome them. And do what? And their dead bodies shall be
in the street of the great city. The Bible uses the term great
city twice in the book of Revelation. Mean they use he uses it twice
with regards to two different entities. There are two great
cities in the book of Revelation Like there are two great cities
in the Bible The great city in the Bible is Babylon and what? Jerusalem, that's right now watch
what John says in coded language are the angel to John And their
dead bodies shall be in the street of the great city, which is spiritually
called What? Sodom, which is the city of what? Perversion. That's where we are
today. And then what? Egypt, which is
the city of what? Bondage. Right? Egypt is where Israel came out
of. And Sodom and Gomorrah was that
perversion that God told Israel, when you go into the land of
Canaan, do not do after their ways. Right? And I've been teaching it for
years. You and I live in Canaan right
now. This is Canaan. This is Sodom. I mean, we are legislating
a Sodomite culture right now. Do you understand that? And when
the Sodomites and the Egyptians enter into the church, it means
the church is apostate. When your church is filled with
lost sinners, still in bondage to sin, governed by Pharaoh,
operating according to the flesh, and then adopting the perverse
cultural practices of this society, it is not a church of Christ.
Now watch this. If we were to spend the rest
of our time, I could go to Ezekiel 16, and fully unpack Ezekiel
16, of which is the reason for the angel using the term Sodom,
because God called Israel Sodom in Ezekiel 16. She was a whorish
woman, both the ten northern tribes and the two southern tribes,
because they had abandoned covenant with God and embraced the whole
world system. In other words, Israel just gave itself over
to the very same vile lust that the culture was engaged in. And
God says, you are like a whore out of wedlock. Therefore I will
give you to your lovers and they will hate you and they will destroy
you and they will burn you up Are you hearing me? Read it for
yourself Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 38 all the way through the end
of the chapter It corresponds fully with this language. So,
you know what the early church understood Jews and Gentiles
particularly the Jews who were true believers They understood
what John was saying was this that the entity that is being
spiritually encoded language described happens to actually
be the primary people who have always persecuted the Christians
and that's the Jewish church. Are you hearing me? The primary
people that were persecuting the Christians were the Jewish
church. If you stay within the framework of the chronology of
the book of Revelation. So stay with me for a moment.
Am I boring? So stay with me for a moment. Because here's
the reason often I'll say, am I boring you? Because I know
that if I say something that actually rises above the pay
scale of your capacity to have references to it, you won't be
able to keep up and you can get bored. When a thing doesn't have
any kind of reference points for you to be able to affirm
it, You can pretend that you're following. It's like being in
a classroom with a teacher under particular subject house calculus
or are some other kind of discipline and you didn't actually do the
homework and now he's talking and he's talking in coded language. You pretending you understand,
but you're bored to death because you're lost as a goose in a snowstorm. I don't want you to be that way
tonight, but you may very well be because a lot of what I'm
saying, most people don't hear it like this. Are you hearing
me? Now, most of my brothers and sisters at Grace who have
been here for over 10 years, over five years, have heard these
things before. And let me say this as a record so it can be
on record. This is the way pastors would
have spoken 500 years ago about the book of Revelation. Are you
hearing me? In other words, I am not saying
one iota of anything that the faithful godly men have preached
and taught going way back before the Reformation. I'm just the
only reason you don't know is because the study hasn't afforded
itself that kind of depth in your life Are you hearing what
I'm saying? and so as I am dealing with a
historic interpretation of the book of Revelation and I'm dealing
with the date from a crystal centric perspective and Relative
to the church are making application between the heavenly vision and
the earthly vision so that you can see how they correspond That's
why there's such harmony between the Gospels the book of Acts
and the epistles as we lead into the Revelation The epistles don't
say anything different than what I'm saying. They say the same
thing, don't they? They say exactly the same thing. Did I watch this
as we go on? I want to make sure I developed
this a little bit further. So when they are done with their
testimony, they shall be killed. That's why Paul could say in
second Timothy chapter four, around verse seven, I'm done. I'm cool. I ran my race. I finished my course. I fought
a good fight. I kept the faith. He was silent
about the fact that he would be beheaded. He knew he was going
before Nero very shortly. You know what he did? He jumped
over his death into his victory and said, his fourth is laid
up for me a crown. And when I talked to you on Sunday
about living and dying in faith, The key to it, the key to living
and dying in faith is the reward. That's the key to it. The key to it is the reward.
The key to it is the reward. Ladies and gentlemen, you get
to hear it before Sunday, just in case God take you to glory
before you get there. The key to it is the reward.
Why would a man or woman live for Christ and suffer for Christ
and die for Christ The reward. Are you hearing me? His fourth
is laid up for me, a crown of righteousness. A reward. It becomes the impetus and drive.
And I want you to mark this now. Don't look at this as something
that you merited. Look at this as something that
corresponds to the nature of true saving faith. Because if
you have true saving faith, it has as a component, an addendum
attached to faith, One day being with your master who promises
to reward everyone who diligently seeks him. You got that? Do you have that? See, that has
to be, that has to be a component in your perseverance that is
worth suffering. That's what Paul said in Romans
8. I reckon that the suffering of this present time is not even
worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed
in us when Christ comes. That's a reward. That's a reward. And see, this is why your faith
has to be grounded in the gospel. You have to be grounded in the
gospel because to the degree you are ignorant of, are not
cosnate of, aware of what the word of God says, your faith
is diminishing. What's going to cause you to
hold on to Christ with any zeal or passion when you go through
trouble if it's not the reward that comes with seeing him on
the last day? There's no temporary blessing
that's powerful enough to sustain the trials we go through, particularly
our brothers and sisters in the Middle East and in the Far East
and in different parts of the world where they're dying for
Christ. The only reward that can overcome death is eternal
glory. Are you hearing me? The only
reward for which faith is attached to faith is attached to the reward. Do you understand that? Now faith
is the substance of things. What? The reward. Are you hearing me? So if you
and I haven't been taught sufficiently to understand that the nature
of our faith is grounded in the past, finished, perfect work
of Christ, and it's connected to the hope of glory, the hope
of glory, which we talk about all the time, the hope of glory.
If your faith is not connected to the hope of glory, being grounded
in sound doctrine, you won't be able to endure. Are you guys
hearing me? See, I'm sharing with you a perspective
of biblical truth that helps you reconcile what our people
go through, not in America, but around the world. See what I'm
getting at? Because we're deluded in America.
I'm telling you our Christianity in America is furious and false. It has no semblance of biblical
truth to it. It does not correspond with the
Word of God. Listen, think about it. Think about all the messages
you listen to. Think about all the messages
you listen to. They don't transport you to heaven. They don't prepare
you for suffering. They don't cause you to long
for glory. They don't send you to Jesus
Christ as the object of the hope of your glory. They only deal
with pragmatic, temporal, emotional, psychological things. Am I telling
the truth? It's pittance. It's pittance. It does not prepare you for suffering.
It does not prepare you to suffer for Christ. Much of what you're
hearing in the preaching today is not from the revelation of
Jesus Christ. It's a man-made gospel dealing
with earthly temporal needs. It is a false gospel. We need
his help because most people are feeding on that diet. When
our testimony is up, God can take us to glory. He can take
us to glory if we are called upon to be martyrs, He can take
us to glory by allowing us to go through the natural process
of depletion and sickness and then we die of cancer, whatever
the case may be, right? He can take us to glory by allowing
an accident to occur. Our testimony is done. And when
your testimony is done, there is a sense of resolution there. And you are ready to go. The
problem is most people are not familiar with and resolved in
terms of knowing what their purpose is now. let alone being ready
to consummate their purpose and be prepared to leave this world.
Most Christians are so deficient in their knowledge of their calling
as witnesses, they don't even know if they're in the will of
God right now. Let alone being ready to leave and go to glory,
having done what God has called them to. Remember what the Hebrew
writer said in chapter 10 verse 38? After you have done the will
of God, you might receive the promise. Remember that? The presumption
of that text is we know what God's will is. Are you hearing
me? That's the presumption. And I'm
telling you a whole lot of Christians going to be caught with their
drawers down as a revelation. Chapter 16, verse 15. If you
wondering why I'm saying that behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is the one that is watching
and keeps his garment lest he walked naked and they see his
shame. Got it. So it goes on to say
this. He shall make war against them
and shall overcome them and kill them and their dead bodies shall
be in the street of the great city Which is spiritually called
Sodom and Egypt where our Lord was what? Where was he crucified? That's right Jerusalem But God
causes Sodom and Egypt What a nomenclature for the place that's supposed
to be the ideal of God's glory. I Now we're using coded language
to show us that the temporal material building in Palestine
is not the place where God has set his glory. We already talked
about that last week though, didn't we? You and I have to
be careful that we aren't getting caught up in physical buildings
or material temples or even physical lands. This is why I don't adopt
a premillennial dispensational theology. I don't adopt it. I
do not adopt the idea that God is going to somehow set up a
special group of race called national Israel to rule and reign
in the millennium in Israel in the temple with the priesthood
and the sacrifices restoring all of the old covenant terminology
and practices as it were to destroy the gospel. I don't believe none
of that. Now you guys hear me? It doesn't
even remotely tempt me to embrace that. It makes no sense. And
in fact, it's a structure and model for the Antichrist system. From what I understand, Antichrist
is going to come in, sitting in the temple of God, showing
himself as if he was God. And he does that in every false
church where he rules in the leadership, teaching men false
doctrine and false teaching. Are you hearing me? And so when
people get shifted away, shifted away from Christ and from the
gospel and from spiritual reality and from heaven and the glory
of God and the intangibles of the promise of the new covenant
to materialism and earthly things and earthly problems, earthly
promises, earthly blessings, enamored by and caught up with
what the preacher has and the ministry has and the church has
done. That's false religion. Are you hearing me? That's the
most blatant and plainness of it. It gets more subtle. I'm
just saying to you, you can check yourself as to whether or not
you have a proper plumb line for biblical truth if you are
enamored by the materialism and all of the gaudy appearance of
these big edifices with all these people that are living large
and high and you somehow actually believe God is actually working
in that. You must ask yourself the question,
when you listen to those ministries, where is Christ? Where is Christ? Where is the
gospel of God? Where is the word of God? Is
a holy God being preached? Is a simple people being exposed? Is it exclusive cross work being
proclaimed? Is a final judgment being declared? Do you understand what I just
said? A holy God, a simple people,
an exclusive cross work and a final judgment. Do you understand that
all four of those particular doctrinal truths are despised
and rejected by this present postmodern culture? Men don't
believe in a holy God. They certainly don't believe
that they are hell bound sinners, totally and helplessly depraved. If they believe that they were
helplessly depraved, they'd know that they need to be converted,
that we need to be born again. That we need to be rescued from
our iniquity and placed in a state of righteousness that someone
else has accomplished for us. That would be a radical need.
That would be a radical thing that we would preach incessantly.
God's holy, we're sinful. Christ is the remedy. And apart
from Christ, you're going to face God in judgment. They despise
every one of those doctrines. Did you guys hear what I just
said? This here is how you can test
him. Do you believe God is holy? Do you believe that you are hellishly
sinful? Do you believe Christ is the
only way? Do you believe that every soul
must stand before the judgment of God and give an answer on
the last day? Hear what I'm saying? This is
how you'll find out whether or not the mind has been renewed
and been persuaded by the Holy Ghost of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment. Of sin, of righteousness, of
judgment. And until a soul is gripped with their eternity,
Christ is not glorious to you. He cannot be glorious to you
until you see yourself as Isaiah did. Woe is me. You guys are
hearing me right. Now watch what the text said.
Now when they kill these folks right outside the church, verse
nine, the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall
see their dead bodies three days. You know what that means? No
honorable death. You know, in most cultures, when
people die, guess what you do? You go through a ceremony and
you bury them. The hatred and animosity of false religion against
the truth of the gospel is so, so toxic that they leave the
bodies out there to rot as a testimony to the world that we overcame
those preachers. Did you guys get that? This is
the antagonism and antipathy and hatred of false religion
against true gospel preaching. That they wanna leave it out
there. See, they wanna leave the dead body of the church out there
so the world can see that we have successfully killed the
witness. By the way, just in case you
think I'm exaggerating, that is the policy development that's
taking place even in our country right now to kill the gospel. to silence the gospel. See, the
dead body simply means they don't have life in them and therefore
they're not proclaiming. And when a church is dead, it
has no influence, it has no voice, it has no trumpet, it has no
gospel to preach because it's dead. Are you guys hearing me?
Without the spirit of God, there's no preaching, no life, no salvation,
and no judgment because the word of God is a two-edged sword.
So when the world has successfully killed the two witnesses, after
they have finished their testimony. And I've told you this before,
from the days of Jesus Christ, all the way to the present, the
two witnesses representing the church, John the Baptist and
Jesus were killed, weren't they? John was killed, but what did
God do? Raise up Jesus. Jesus was killed. But what did God do? Raise up
the apostles. The apostles were killed. What
did God do? Raise up preachers in the church. Every generation
where they kill him, God raises him up. Where they kill him,
God raises him up. Where they kill him, God raises
him up. Do you guys understand that? This is why we believe
in the resurrection. And this is why Jesus says the
gates of hell will not prevail. Because I live, you shall live
also. When our testimony is up, we will die, but another group
of faithful gospel preaching men and women will rise up in
their stead until the world comes to an end. Are you hearing me? Now listen to the language. The
bodies were in the, in the open field for three and a half days,
right? So we have called that a contracted version of the three
and a half years. It's called a contracted version
of the three and a half years. I'm not going to get into it
now, but the three and a half years simply is the period of
time for the ministry of the church that corresponds with
the last half of the last week of the whole New Testament period.
Remember I showed you earlier, the 1260 days that the two witnesses
will prophesy is the same as three and a half years, right?
Because 42 months, 1260 days, a time and time and a half, it's
three and a half years. How many of y'all don't know
that? Raise your hand. Okay, so y'all don't know okay, so
you got to go back and go to work This is what we call tautology and theology
and it's a device of saying the same thing in different ways
to affirm the nature of the prophecy He's saying the same thing in
different ways The 42 months corresponds to Daniel chapter
12 where Daniel was told and they show they shall suffer persecution
for 42 months Not literal 42 months. It's a symbol of the
last half of the last week Our Lord Jesus Christ did ministry
for three and a half years, didn't he? John the Baptist did ministry
for three and a half years. And the New Testament church
is doing ministry symbolically for three and a half years. The
three and a half days means that we die only temporarily. That where they kill us, they
only kill us for a small period of time because you know, the
text fortunately does not leave us in a state where we're dead,
does it? Does it leave us there? See what Christ is doing when
he sends a letter to the church? He's telling them, now you might
die here on earth, but I want you to know that you rise to
newness of life. If you suffer with me, you will
what? Reign with me. You see that? And they can see
in the imagery of the persecution of the church that yes, we do
die, but we rise again. Are you hearing? So listen to
the language and we'll be done here. Listen to it. And they
of the people, kindred, tongues, and nations that see their dead
bodies three and a half days, Shall not suffer their dead bodies
to be put in graves and they that dwelt upon the earth shall
rejoice over them make merry And shall send gifts to one another
but you know, they're happy Watch it. Watch this now because those
two prophets Tormented them that dwelt on the earth Does the gospel? torment you See what I'm saying
does the Word of God torment you See, isn't this one of the
strangest things? Isn't this one of the strangest
things? Watch this. You meet professing Christians, and you
start talking about the Word of God, and you actually, because
you have enough acumen to explain the gospel, And you start explaining
the nature of the glory of God and the redemptive work of Christ
and the beauties of Christ and the glories of Christ and the
doctrine of justification, sanctification, all of these beautiful redemptive
truths. And you talk about the depravity of man and his necessity
to stand before a holy God. And people start backing away
from you. Church folk, religious folk of whom it should have been
said, how love I thy law, it is my meditation all the day
long. I love thy word more than I do my familiar food. Your word
is sweet to me like a honeycomb. Are you hearing me? The believer
ought to have a natural love for the word of God. Like if
your spirit is right, we could go on for hours right now because
the spirit, when it is in accord with the word of God, absorbs
the word as life, as nutrient, as water, as bread, as food,
as meat, as milk. Am I making some sense? And like
the two boys leaving from Jerusalem to go back home to Emmaus in
Christ after he had preached from Genesis to Malachi, he made
like he was going to leave. They said, no, no, no, no, no.
You got to stay with us. We're going to go home. We're
going to feed you. And we want you to keep expounding the scriptures
to us. Did not our hearts burn as he
opened the word to us and showed us his glory. And as soon as
they got it, guess what they did. They ran with it. As soon
as they got it, they got up and ran with it. Ask what the word
of God is supposed to do make you want to go tell somebody
about Christ We messed up in this generation, aren't we? Listen
to the next verse and after three days and a half the spirit of
life from God entered into them and they stood upon their feet
and Great fear fell upon all of them which saw it why because
they thought they had finally done away with the witness and
They thought they had done away with the witness. What they didn't
realize is that Christ is the true and the living God. And
the body of Christ possesses the same portion of the divine
nature that Christ does so that if you can kill the body, it
means you can kill the head. But because you cannot kill the
head, you cannot kill the body. It's just in God's own mercy
to to to help the masses understand they don't know what they're
doing. He let their bodies lay there for three days to raise
it up again. It's pointing ultimately to the
what? The resurrection. Which is the hope of every believer,
is it? The resurrection is the hope of every believer. One day
the whole of God's body shall rise up to be with Christ forever,
right? We are in the sixth trumpet.
We're in the sixth trumpet, meaning there's only one more trumpet
blow to go, right? That last trumpet blow is judgment. That's why the language is saying
what it's saying. Listen to it. And they heard a great voice
from heaven saying unto them, what? Come up hither. And they
ascended up into heaven in a what? Remember, as the head, so as
the body. We are merely extension of him
who loved us and gave his life for us, who also was crucified,
dead, buried and rose again and ascended into heaven. So he said
that where I am you shall be also this was his prayer in John
17 And if it's that real to Christ it ought to be that real to us
that no one can do anything to us Unless God wants them to do
it and we have the promise of the resurrection. We are victors
in Christ We triumph in Christ. We will always rise in Christ
so long as we suffer with Christ Do you see the language? They
send it up into heaven and their enemies beheld them." Isn't that
amazing? In the same hour, there was a
great what? So I told you, Peter was praying when he was threatened,
remember? He prayed. The earthquake did
it to let God know that he was with them, that they were to
continue preaching. Doesn't matter what they go through,
keep preaching. I'll build my church. Listen
to it in a third, a 10th part of the city filled in the earthquake. And they were slain. How many
men? Ladies and gentlemen, we're dealing with symbolism. You understand
that? The number seven times a thousand,
meaning a perfect number. And it's symbolizing God's authority
over the wicked to let the wicked know that when you kill my servants,
just the two of them, I kill 7,000 of you. You can't win. These are the symbolic numbers
of the Old Testament. You know that. Don't get caught
up in a literal interpretation. And the remnant were frightened.
Who are the remnant? These are the folks who live in the end
times. And the remnant were frightened.
And they did what? Gave glory to God. Is that right? That must
stop right there. And I'll just give you a key.
Nowhere else in the book of Revelation. Does the wicked world give glory
to God? Nowhere else. But right here. And the implications of them
giving glory to God right here is that they became saved. Are
you hearing me? They became saved because of
the witness of the believers who suffered for Christ, died
for Christ, and then were to be made visibly to triumph in
Christ. This is what persuaded them,
the people who had persecuted them, that these people are of
God. Are you hearing me? Let's pray. So Father, thank you for the
time. Thank you for my brothers and sisters. Thank us. Thank you
for this brief excursion through Revelation chapter 11. As we
go back through the book of Acts, may these insights follow us
all the way through to help us understand how you see it from
above and how the people of God made their way through that early
church foundational work and how we are to be committed as
well to serving you no matter what the cost may be. We do thank
you, oh God. for the providence of not going
through any suffering at this time. We really do. We are not
morbid. We are not sadomasochists. We are not asking for trouble.
But what we do want to do is be faithful to you. We do want
to tell the truth as it is in Christ. We do want to avoid the
seductions of ease, the seduction of comfort. We don't want to
be like the Laodicean church. Neither do we want to be like
the church at Sardis, where we have a name that we're alive,
but we're dead. We want to be like the church at Smyrna, and
we want to be like the church at Philadelphia. We want to be
able to suffer, and we also want to be able to witness you open
doors for us which cannot be shut, and grant us the grace
to go into those doors and tell everybody about Jesus Christ.
As we go our way, give us traveling mercies. Prepare us to worship
you on Sunday. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. God bless you.