Revelation 11-13 (Part 1)

The Heavenly Sign of the Woman, the Dragon, and the Male Child

The Ark of His Covenant appeared in His temple, and there was flashes of lightning, sounds, and peals of thunder, and an earthquake, and a great hailstorm, and a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed in the sun, and the moon was under her feet, and on her head was a crown of twelve stars, and she was with child, and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.

Then another sign appeared in heaven, and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads, ten horns, and on his head were seven diadems, and his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw it to the earth, and the dragon stood over the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she was going to give birth, he might devour her child.

She gave birth to a son, it was a male child, who was to rule over the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and to His throne, and then the woman was fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, so that she would be nourished for 1 ,260 days.

There was war in heaven. Michael and his angels, they waged war with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place for them to be found in heaven, and the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old, who was called Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world, he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now the salvation, the power, the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of the brethren has been thrown down, and he who accuses them before God day and night.

And they overcame him, because of the blood of the lamb, and because of the word of the testimony that they did not love their life, even faced with death. For this reason rejoice, O heaven, you who dwell in it.

Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, and he has great wrath, and he's knowing that his time is short. And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.

But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she would fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time, a time, and a half a time from the presence of the serpent.

And the serpent poured water out like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth, drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth.

So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus. And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore, and I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns, seven heads, and those horns having ten diadems, and his heads had blasphemous.

Names.

And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed.

And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast. They worshipped the dragon because he gave them the authority of the beast. And they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?

There was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies, and the authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. And he opened up his mouth and blasphemies against God, to blaspheme his name, his tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven.

And it was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and the authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him, and all who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name was not written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.

If anyone has an ear, let him hear, and if anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes. If anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must go. Here is the perseverance of the faith of the saints.

Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb that he spoke like a dragon. He exercises all authority of the first beast in his presence. He makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast and whose fatal wound was healed.

He performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven to the earth in the presence of men, and he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which he has been given to him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.

And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to.

Be killed.

And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and the slaves, to be given the mark on the right hand or the forehead. And he provides that no one will be able to buy or sell except the ones who have the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.

And here is wisdom. And let him who understands calculate the number of the beast, for the number is the number of a man, and his number is six hundred, sixty, and six. So all of that we just read is the little prophecy, this little scroll that we started two weeks ago.

The Historicist View and Why It Is No Longer Relevant

There is a, we started, let's put here, here's the Preterist view, and then we'll put the Futurist view, and we'll put Spiritual view, Idealist. You know, we did have the Historicist view, but you may remember what happened to the.

Historicist view and why. It's good to look at to see some of the things that are said, but remember why this is not relevant really anymore. Does anybody remember?

They ran out of time.

Ran out of time.

And if you remember how they ran out of time, did you hear how many times we, 1260 days?

Remember?

Everybody remember that? Do you remember how the Historicist, what they said the 1260 days were? It was a year-to-day formula, which means from the time of the Papacy, which started around 600, from 600, you come to 1860, that's where the Historicist view stopped, because they thought that that was going to be the end of the Papacy.

Does anybody know that the Papacy has not ended?

Okay?

So, and there was also connected with that, that was going to be the coming of Christ around 1840, then they readjusted their calculation, that's in American history, and even in world history, the Great Disappointment.

I don't know if anybody knows what that was, but that's actually something where people sold and went up on this mountain and waited for Christ to return, and he never came.

So, but, we have some images in here that come up, several, you have the Temple.

Oh, you, here it is, you chart lovers. The Temple, under the preterist, yes sir, you fixing to say something, or you just taking.

A breath?

Me?

Yeah.

I seen you.

I thought you were fixing to say something.

Everybody's fixing to say something.

Oh, I just said something.

You're doing fine.

How about that?

Great.

Bye.

The Temple, the Two Witnesses, and the 1,260 Days in the Preterist View

So, I see you take a breath, I was like, I'm fixing to get a tongue lashing. Alright, so, the Temple, under the preterist perspective, Temple, is it standing, or not.

Standing at this point?

Standing.

So, this is a real structure, now, not to get complicated.

You do have, what's early date preterist and late date preterist, and if you're a late date preterist, the Temple would not be standing, okay? But, I think there's only early date, early date, early date, okay, we got maybe one late.

Date in here.

So, still a real structure, okay, under the preterist view. A real structure. Then you have two witnesses. Under the preterist view, are the two witnesses the real deal? Meaning, are these real two dudes?

Yes, they see them as real two people, real two witnesses.

The problem with the preterist view, when you, because preterist means, is the Latin for past, meaning this has already taken place. If you say these were real two witnesses, you have to be able to look in history and say, these were the, here's these two guys, okay?

The problem is, the preterist view can't even agree on who those two witnesses are. Some say James, some say John, some say Peter, some say John. Some say Peter, James, sometimes John, okay? So, they're not, there's no consistency on who it is.

So that makes this difficult to be reliable.

Then you have, I'm just going to put three and a half years, because it actually says.

Time, times, and half the times.

Under the preterist view, are these real days? Are they real? Remember, this is actually the same time frame. Under the preterist view, is this going to be real 1 ,260 days?

Yes.

They believe this is real. Really lasted 1 ,260 days, really lasted 42 months, and really lasted three and a half.

Years.

Under the preterist view, whether you begin, under the preterist view, some say it's Nero's Persecution, which started in 64 and went to 68, remember why it started in 64 A .D.? Great Fire. He blamed the fire on the Christians, then he began to persecute the Christians, localized primarily in the Roman city, and then a wonderful thing happened to this guy.

What did he do in 68? He did a service to the society, and he killed himself, okay, he did. He was killing God's people, that was a glorious thing to happen when he died. He quit persecuting God's people, but you also have, under the preterist position, that this also could mean the Jewish Wars.

I put JW, not Jehovah's Witness, Jewish Wars, okay, because the Jewish Wars lasted roughly three and a half years, 1 ,260 days, time, time and a half at times, okay? So depending on where you land on this is going to be how you understand, what did you say it was this morning, the guy said this is the crux of the book, how you understand this section here will determine on how you see the end of the book, can.

So the preterist, see it's a real structure, the temple's still standing, the two witnesses are real two people, but they can't come to a consensus on actually who those people were, and one of the reasons why is because when it says those two dead bodies lie in the street for three and a half days, there is no historical evidence that any, any two witnesses that preached and proclaimed in the holy city, which would be Jerusalem, lied in the street for three and a half days and then all of a sudden, poof, God raised them up.

There's just no, there's no historical evidence for that, which makes this difficult. Really lasted, Nero's persecution didn't really last about three and a half years. The Jewish wars really did last three and a half, those are historical facts.

So that, that does help the preterist view.

The Temple, the Two Witnesses, and the 1,260 Days in the Futurist View

Now the futurist view, you have premillennial, and you'll have two within that, meaning you have the historical premill, and then you have dispensationalists.

These don't always agree. Under the futurist view, is the temple standing when this was written?

No.

So your futurist will always be a late date writing of a book, which means this book has.

To be written after 70 AD, okay? Everybody follow me? I'm not overwhelming people with information yet, am I? This is important, really is important. The futurist hold that the book could not be written because the structure of the temple was not written, it was written in the time of Domitian, somewhere there's debate, but I'll just say between 90 and 96.

That would give you enough time frame to say when the book was written and not between.

90 and 96 AD, which means all this, Nero's persecution was over, the destruction of.

Jerusalem, this would have been after the Council of Jandia, if anybody knows what that is, it would have been after the Jews reconvened and tried to come up with some fancy way of worshiping God, now that the structure of the temple was gone, okay?

So, it will be a real temple, real structure, just not built yet.

Remember, these guys are a lot closer to each other than you think. It's just they're separated by just 2 ,000 years, roughly. They believe that a real future temple will be put on the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is where Herod's lustrous temple was built.

It was destroyed, the only thing left of it now is the wailing wall left by Titus so that at some point they could make another fortified structure if they needed to build up the city. What about the two witnesses?

Real two witnesses?

Yeah?

Yeah!

Real two dudes?

I saw them and left behind.

It's really two people. I mean, this is a literalistic approach. That's why I say these two really aren't that far apart. It's just separated by 2 ,000 years, roughly, depending on when Christ returned.

Real two dudes. Now, who are those two dudes?

Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho! Who said it? I did.

Huh?

I did.

Okay.

Here, we'll put them over here.

Elijah.

Who else? Moses.

Moses.

Is this guy? I've heard of Enoch.

Yeah, you gotta have him.

Elisha. Who else?

Huh?

I've heard so many.

Yeah, I mean, there's been Peter. But the two that makes the futuristic system actually work the best, if you're going to do it, is going to be this guy and this guy.

Anybody know why?

They never die. And if you're going to hold the Hebrews, where it says it's appointed a man once to die, then to judgment, then these guys never died, so they've got to come back. They've got to die in the street so that then God can raise them up like He raptured the other people before.

The problem with that is even for the dispensationalists that believe in the secret rapture, they fail to remember that there's going to be a whole generation of people that are going to not die. Because it says when he descends with the shout of the archangel, the dead in Christ shall rise, and those that remain...

Yes, sir? No, I was just going to ask you if the assumption of Elijah and Moses...

Yes.

But they're already dead.

Yeah.

Well, he already died. Oh, yeah, because of his miracles, yes. Yeah, his miracles and his miracles made these guys work better. But when I explained it, the two witnesses have these same miracles. Not one's doing one and one's doing another like Elijah and Moses did.

Both of them are doing the same thing. And there's a Greek word that's in there that, well, I don't want to get too far ahead. It says when their dead bodies lie dead in the street, the word psalma there is in the singular.

So it's not individuals. It's one entity.

I'll get there.

I know our English translation so that it reads better says their dead bodies lie dead in the street. If you were going to translate it literally, it would be their dead body lie dead in the street. That just don't sound right, does it?

So our English language makes it read better by saying dead bodies, but it's actually their dead body, which means this is an entity. And you're talking about they make war with two witnesses. Well, they don't really make...

Look, if you're making war with two witnesses, you don't send an army to do that. You just go kill those two people, okay? They make war with these for a long period of time, 1 ,260 days, 42 months, down time and half the time.

So I know that's leaning over to this idea yet, but just hear me out.

We'll get there.

Real dudes, who are they? Once again, no consensus on who they can be. But the benefit to being the futurist, I've said this before, is, hey, it can't be proven yet. You can be wrong because you just say it ain't happened yet.

That's the benefit of being a futurist. All you have to do is say, I was wrong. It just ain't happened yet. Now, literally 1 ,260 days, 42 months, 3 1⁄2 years, or time, time and a half. Is this going to be real time?

Yeah.

Real time. Now, how this time takes place is, this is all depending on the dispensational view of the secret rapture of the church. The secret rapture of the church, what takes place? God's people are taken up.

Then the prophetic timeline for the last seven years of civilization begins. In the middle of that time, of that tribulation, they believe what's called the great tribulation will last 3 1⁄2 years. That's the time that this is for them.

That's how you come to those 3 1⁄2 years. Just to let you know, there's nowhere in scripture of a 7 1⁄2 years tribulation. It's nowhere.

Zero.

You have to do hermeneutical hopscotch to go from here to here to here to here to here to then come up with it. The actual Edward Irving, I don't know if anybody ever heard of him. He would probably be the forerunner to the dispensational idea.

He didn't even come up with the 7 1⁄2 years of tribulation. He always said it was going to be a 3 1⁄2 year tribulation. So at least he was consistent with what the scripture said instead of adding another 7.

The actual another 3 1⁄2 into dispensational eschatology came from John Darby to make his system work. In Daniel's 70 weeks, he had to add another 3 1⁄2 years to make the system work. Anybody remember what I said about systems last week?

Don't let the system dictate what you believe. Let the scripture dictate how you make your system. That's how you do biblical hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpreting scripture.

Don't let your system dictate what you believe. Let the Bible dictate how you understand and make your system. So the temple, both preterist and futurist, is the real McCoy. Just separated by time. Spiritual and idealist.

Anybody remember what that is? If not, we'll ask Janet. She's got a written transcript. She can read it to us. Anybody remember what the spiritualist or idealist view is? We look at the principle or how this symbol, what it points to, and it actually doesn't point to a historical event.

This will be historical when it takes place, but all of these has to do with something that will take place in history. The spiritual view doesn't care anything about historical events, just to let you know.

They're really irrelevant, because these are things that take place over the course of redemptive history. Just to let you know, I've said it time and time again, this is appealing. This is very appealing, because this is the application of the passages of Revelation to where all you're doing is applying Revelation.

You're not actually interpreting it. See, when you interpret it, you have to say, okay, was the temple you're interpreting, was John the writer saying that the temple was up? Well, we would say, from my perspective, I'm saying, yeah, John, the temple was up, okay?

I'm going to interpret it that way, and I'll show you why. But when you apply it, you apply it through the spiritual and idealist view, because that temple that he is going to, that is erect, from my perspective, he's fixing to measure it out, and then he's going to show you which is to stay holy, what's to be profaned, what's going to be destroyed, what's going to be left to be trampled for this time.

So, does the temple really need to be standing, and I use that specifically, does the temple need to be standing for this to be a relevant interpretation?

No, not necessary.

Not necessary. Whether you're a late date, whether you're an early date, whether you're whatever date you are, temple's not necessary, okay? Because is John seeing a real temple in his vision?

Yeah.

He's telling him to go measure the temple. He is actually seeing the temple. He's actually seeing a real temple, and whether that temple has been destroyed, or whether that temple was erect, in a vision, you can still see what God wants you to see.

Look, man, we've already seen bears in apocalyptic literature talk. We've already seen eagles flying across the sky talking. I mean, this is the kind of stuff you can see in apocalyptic literature. I believe in John's vision he saw Herod's temple, but it really doesn't matter if that temple was up or not.

That's the temple he saw.

Understand?

Okay.

Two witnesses. Are they real. Two witnesses? Do they need to be real two people?

No, not necessary.

Does it really need to be 1 ,260 days, 42 months, 3 1⁄2 years?

Except?

No, not necessary.

But if we are going to use this interpretation of the little scroll, the part that we're in from 11 to 13, then we have to now identify what that temple is, what does it represent. We have to figure out who the two witnesses are, what's their role, their purpose, and what's going to be their end, and we've got to figure out why did he use day, month, and year to describe the same period of time three different times so that we can come to what does this mean.

Now, I'm a partial preterist, early date. I'm an early date partial preterist amillennial, so that means that puts me in a very small group of people, okay? Very small. I'm in a minority, and I'm aware of that.

But when I come to this passage, I don't interpret it by a partial preterist. I interpret it by this, and here's the reason why. When the book was written, John's first part, it had to deal specifically with the destruction of Jerusalem, the coming of Titus and the overthrow by the Romans over the Jewish people as the stamp of God's approval.

His Messiah had come. You had rejected him. You broke the first covenant, and part of that first covenant was in Leviticus 26. Now I'm going to haul you off into slavery. I'm going to send war into you.

I'm going to send civil war to you. You're going to eat your own children. You're going to do all of these things I said you were going to do for breaking the first covenant. Now the embodiment of the old, the fulfillment of the old and the embodiment of the new, Jesus the Messiah has come.

You have rejected him. Now that's eternal condemnation, okay? So that's how I interpret the book primarily. But when you get to the chapter 10, he says, Now I want you to prophesy again about many nations.

Now that scope went from being primarily about Jerusalem to now expanded it for a longer period of time.

Okay?

That longer period of time is going to be what I believe to be the inter-advent time. That inter-advent time will deal with bringing in the Gentiles because he says that when the seventh trumpet is blown, anybody remember what we read it says?

The mystery of God will be complete. What did Paul say the mystery of God was complete? I've said it for two weeks now in Ephesians. What's the mystery of God? Yeah, but there's no distinction. The Jews and Gentiles will be brought in together, being one people, one baptism, one faith.

And it begins in Ephesians chapter 3. He talks about how that is going to be brought in. That was the mystery that was really unknown in the Old Testament, meaning mystery not like Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.

You remember that as a kid?

We're not talking about those.

We're not talking about Sherlock Holmes. We're talking about something that was not able to be known because God had not yet revealed it. That's the mystery. Well, under the preaching of the prophets and the coming of the Spirit and now the preaching of the apostles, now we're seeing that which God had already prophesied in type and shadow when Baal is bringing in the Gentiles.

And when that's complete, when the time of the Gentiles is complete,.

What's going to happen?

The dead in Christ shall rise first. And why? Because He will blow that last trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise, but those that remain will rise up and go with Him and we will be with Him forever and ever and ever.

Measuring the Temple and the Court of the Gentiles

Now, we've got ten minutes, five minutes. All right.

So, let's measure the temple.

We'll try to measure the temple. John's giving a measuring rod. He's not giving like a Stanley 35-foot tape measure. A measuring rod was a huge stick. Anybody ever here work at a gas station before?

You did? Okay.

I worked at a gas station when I was 14. And when you go in and you measure the gas, they gave you this gigantic stick and it was called a measuring rod. And you would stick it all the way down to the bottom of the tank in the ground and it would tell you how much gas in it.

You ever seen one of those? That's actually what a measuring rod looked like in ancient times. And if you want to go read Ezekiel 40 -48, he's not told to measure the temple that's in view in Ezekiel.

An angel comes and measures it for him. He's measuring everything. The thickness of the walls, the foundations, and all kinds of stuff. So when John's told to measure this temple,.

Here you would have Fortress Antonia. Over here you would have the North Portico.

This is the Temple Mount, which is still there today. What's on top of the Temple Mount today? Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. You would come through this gate here. Then you would have Solomon's Porch or his portico.

Then you would have Gentile colonnades.

Just to let you know, this is 35 acres. 35 acres. Huge. You never been there? Crazy huge. So you have Solomon's portico. Then you have the royal porticos down here.

We often think, and I'm going to say why,.

That this whole place was considered the temple. I'm going to explain to you why we often think that.

That's a generic name. Generic.

When it says that Jesus cleansed the temple, technically speaking, you know what the temple is?

Right here.

But when Jesus cleansed the temple, He actually cleansed, I think Keith made this clear when he was in chapter 2 of John, He actually cleansed the court of the Gentiles. But from a Jewish perspective, this was the place of the worship of God.

Anybody could come to here. Anybody could come to here. This was the court of the Gentiles. Anybody could come. But once you came through this little gate here,.

This was the court of women.

Who could come here? Only Jewish women.

Not anybody.

Look, man, you just didn't meander.

Anybody could just meander wherever they wanted. They could hear. Remember in Acts chapter 21, 22, when Paul was bringing those two men back from Ephesus, they were going to pay their vow, and they said he brought two Gentiles onto the Temple Mount,.

And a riot broke out.

Anybody remember that? And they basically had to crowd-serve Paul out of there so he wouldn't get killed. It's because they thought that Paul brought Gentiles through this gate, gate of Nicanor, into this very small court here, court of the men.

As we get in here, what happens? Just in the tabernacle, you narrow down who had privilege to be somewhere. So as you came through here,.

You had the court of the men.

There would have been the brazen altar here. You would have had the laver where you do your washing. Then you would go through here. This would be the holy place.

And this is the inner sanctuary.

Why was this called the most holy place? Because that is the only place that God dwelt on all of this structure. Where did God dwell? In that little, old, tiny, little room that had the Ark of the Covenant, that had a jar of manna, depending on what you're thinking, the jar of manna had the Ten Commandments, which was the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark, and Aaron's rod that bundled was in this little room.

And then you had,.

Right before you go into that room, we've already seen this. John has already seen an altar. What was under the altar earlier in chapter 5? The prayers of the saints. Then we see, we saw right here, the golden altar before you go into the Holy of Holies.

And what did the golden altar represent? Once again, the prayers of the people. And then once you came in here, this is where God dwelled and a man could only come in there one time a year for a very short amount of time and he better get in there, get his business done, and get out.

Or, bzzzt, okay? Very possibility if he didn't do his ritualistic,.

And I know people don't like that,.

The ritualistic things that he did, but they were, if he didn't do them like he was supposed to,.

He was going to die.

The Greek word for here, I'm just going to transliterate it,.

Is naos.

That is the dwelling place of God.

Okay?

So if we're going to understand that this whole structure is generically sometimes called the temple, it's not, the naos is the place where God dwelled.

Now, once Jesus was crucified, he was buried, resurrected,.

I'll even go so far as to say once he was crucified, even before, but just so we're not too complicated, once Jesus was crucified, was this any longer the holy place?

No. No.

I'll even go, for argument's sake, I would say it hadn't been the holy place once Jesus said, I'm out. Remember what he said on the temple mount in chapter 23 before he went across? When the glory of God left, just like it did in Ezekiel, remember in Ezekiel, he saw the glory of God and it went from the temple to the Mount of Olives through the Kidron Valley.

What did Jesus do? The same thing. Jesus said, you want your house? Now your house is less desolate. And what did Jesus do? He made that 2 ,160 feet descent down through the Kidron Valley, went right back up another 2 ,000 feet up to the Mount of Olives and he turned around and he preached condemnation on this whole place because of the rejection of him.

So the holy place is still the dwelling place of God, just not here.

Right?

Where's the dwelling place of God now?

What's that?

In the heart of the believer. That's right.

So,.

When we come to the temple, and we've got to go, when we come to the temple, it's not a real structure,.

It's the dwelling place of God.

And where is that?

You.

If you want to know where you are in Revelation, there you are.