Revelation 11-13 (Pt 3)

Would Mr. Cason, will you open this up with a word of prayer?

I will.

Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you once again for an opportunity to be in our house. Lord, what a privilege it is to sit and learn and study about you and your son. Lord, we thank you for your blessings upon us this past week, keeping us safe.

Lord, we pray for Dale's wife and her family at the loss of, her loss, Lord, this morning. We just ask that you would be with them in a special way. Lord, just bless Mike and Keith and Andy, Lord, as they've come to teach and preach this morning.

Lord, we just thank you for your goodness and your sovereignty and just loving us, Lord. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

The Measuring of the Temple and the Two Witnesses

Revelation chapter 11. Hey, if that gets too cold, I'll put it on 70. Look at her nose getting red. You want me to turn it down, Ms. Cason?

Down?

No, I'm gonna turn it down for sure.

You wanna turn it up?

Yep.

What you want me to do before I get started? Leave it alone.

Okay, leave it alone.

Hey, baby.

We'll just start a fire in the middle of the road.

All right, hey, I'm gonna read 11 and 12 because they're connected by time frames. So just for the next few weeks, that's what we'll be doing. So I won't even tell, I won't even say it again from now on.

Let's begin chapter 11. Then there was given me a measuring rod like a staff, and someone said, get up. Measure the temple of God, the altar, those who worship in it. Leave out the court, which is outside the temple, and do not measure it.

For it has been given to the nations, and they will tread underfoot the holy city for 42 months. And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1 ,260 days, and clothed in sackcloth.

These are the two olive trees and two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the Earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth, devours their enemies, so that if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way.

These have the power to shut up the sky so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying. And they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire.

And they have finished, and when, I'm sorry, and when they have finished the testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them, kill them, and their dead bodies will lie on the street of the great city, which is mystically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

Those from the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days and will not permit their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, celebrate.

They will send gifts to one another because these two prophets which tormented them, those who tormented those who dwell on the earth. But after three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell upon those who were watching.

And they heard a voice, a loud voice from heaven saying, come up here. And they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies watched them. And in that hour, there was a great earthquake. A tenth of the city fell, 7 ,000 people were killed in the earthquake.

And the rest were terrified, and they gave glory to the God of heaven. The second low is past, and behold, the third low is coming quickly. Then the seventh angel sounded. There was a loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

And he will reign forever and ever. And the 24 elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worship God saying, we give you thanks, O Lord, the Almighty. Who are, I'm sorry, who were, and because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign, and the nations were enraged, and your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward your bondservants, the prophets and the saints, and those who fear your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.

And the temple of God, which is in heaven, was opened. Then the ark of the covenant appeared in his temple, and there were flashes of lightning, sounds, peals of thunder, and an earthquake, and a great hailstorm.

And a great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun and moon under her feet, and her head crowned with 12 stars, and she was with a child, and she cried out, being in labor and pain to give birth.

Then another sign appeared in heaven, and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads, ten horns, and his heads were seven diadems, and his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.

And a dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she gave birth, he might devour her child. And she gave birth to a son and a male child who was to rule the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and to his throne.

And the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God so that she would be nourished for 1 ,260 days. And there was war in heaven. Michael, his angels, waging war with the dragon.

The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, and the serpent of old, who was called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.

He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come.

For the accuser of the brethren has been thrown down, he who accused them day and night before the Lord. And they overcame them because of the blood of the lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life, even faced with death.

For this reason, rejoice, O heaven, you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you and having great wrath, knowing that his has only a short time. 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 a great eagle were given to the woman so that she could fly into the wilderness, to her place where she was nourished for a time, time, and half a times from the presence of the serpent.

And the serpent poured out water like a river out of his mouth after the woman so that he might, because of her, be swept away with the flood. But the earth helped the woman. The earth opened its mouth and 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 to the testimony of Jesus.

The Church as the Measuring Rod, the Witnesses, and the Interlude

So last week, we got to the end of verse three, if I remember correct. We talked about these two witnesses and what the two witnesses were doing. What are the two witnesses doing?

You may remember?

They're prophesying for 1 ,260 days in sackcloth. Basically, those two witnesses were preaching repentance. Now, as we have been going through the book, we are right from the beginning in chapter one.

It says that these things were conveyed to John and signified, meaning in signs and images. So we should know that these two witnesses are a literal what? Real two people. Yeah, I mean, for someone to then say that it's a real 42 months or a real 1 ,260 days or a real three and a half years and then say that these witnesses are symbolic, you see the inconsistency of the hermeneutic.

If this whole section is to be interpreted in imagery, that's how we interpret the whole thing. We don't have the right as biblical interpreters unless the text tells us to stop in the middle of the text and go, well, I'm going to interpret this literalistically, okay?

Keith had a guy on, or he was on a podcast, and they were doing basically not a debate, but a conversation with the interpretations of the amil, premil, and all this. And one of the guys said, well, we should interpret the Bible literally until it gets absurd.

And I was like, well, that's, I don't think it's that guy. That's kind of a stupid statement, because one man's absurdity is different than another man's absurdity. So see how subjective that is. Let's don't be subjective with the text.

Let's be objective. So just as when we saw the temple, what did we say the temple being measured was last week, or two weeks ago?

Church.

He did measure the physical building, but he was doing it in such a way as an image. This is, remember, we're in an interlude, correct?

Yes.

I know it's hard sometimes for us to remember that because the study is so long, I get it, okay, is long, but we're in an interlude. What happened in the first interlude? Back between seal six and seven, remember that?

We had 144 ,000, sealed them. Sealed them from what? Not from harm, but sealed them that they were going to be preserved into the final day of redemption. The other picture of the church was what? Anybody remember that one?

The numerable multitude, and where was it?

It was in heaven.

Remember, everybody was praising and worshiping God. So we had two pictures of the church in the first interlude. Now that we've come to the second interlude, we're seeing two pictures of the church. Just as there was the measuring or the numbering of the 144 ,000 to be preserved, when we get to the temple, he measured, what did he measure?

Did he measure the whole temple complex? What did he measure? Just the inner part. And why did he measure just the inner part? Because it's a dwelling place of God, right? Remember that, dwelling place of God.

And what did he say about the other part of the complex? It's going to be trampled down. It's going to be basically destroyed. Did anybody do any, I know it didn't give a side homework, but did anybody go and read Ezekiel 40 through 48?

If you were to read Ezekiel, you just looked across your glasses at me.

What does that mean?

That means I'm in trouble. Nobody read 40 through 48? No, it's a long passage, Ezekiel. Ezekiel's got some weird stuff, I get it. But if you go, you read, that is him measuring this temple. And at the time he was measuring the temple in his vision, the other temple most likely was destroyed, wouldn't you probably agree it was probably destroyed at that point?

Was probably destroyed. But even the temple that he was measuring was in a vision. And he was measuring everything with his big giant rod, just like John C. And he was measuring everything from the door post, to the gates, to where the twelve tribes were going to come in, and all the foundations, and the thickness of the walls, and all this thing.

But when you get to chapter 42, I think it's verse 20. He says, you're measuring that which is to be holy and profane. Everything inside the dwelling place of God, that the temple in which Ezekiel was measuring, that which was inside was holy.

Just like this is holy. This was holy. But everything outside of the dwelling place of God, even in Ezekiel, was profane. So, once again, you want to know more about Revelation? Read your Old Testament.

Read your Old Testament. So, the two pictures of the church that we saw here, we're going to see two pictures of the church in this interlude. One was the temple, and the other's going to be the two witnesses.

Remember why two? Why the representative of two?

Correct.

In the Mosaic legislation, in Deuteronomy chapter 19, they were to confirm either judgment or witness by two or more witnesses.

Okay?

What did Matthew 18 say should be confirmed? Remember what Matthew 18 is? It's actually one of the first times that the church is used in the New Testament, and it's by Jesus, and it has to do with doing some ecclesiology of the church.

Says, hey, if you're going to call someone before the church, and you're going to put them out of the covenant community, it must be confirmed by how many? Two or more. Two or more. So, just a willy-nilly person can't just walk in and say, hey, I've got a problem with this guy.

No, no, no, it takes two.

Even when they did judgment to put someone to death under the Mosaic legislation, how many witnesses did it take?

Two or more.

Two. Who were the first people to throw the bricks to knock the guy out and kill him? The two people that condemned him. So, if I come up to you, Dan, and we're in the Mosaic legislation, not that I want to kill Dan, but something happened.

There was an, you, something happened that deemed execution. Me and Brian were the ones that stood before the Sanhedrin or the court. Condemned him. Me and him were the first ones to walk out to the rock pile, pick up them rocks.

This is how it was. Had to be done by two witnesses. Confirmed as being true. That's what we're seeing here. Two witnesses confirming that the proclamation of the prophesying of these two people was true.

That proclamation was to call people to repentance for this time frame of 1260 days. I believe that 1260 days is not literal because I interpret this whole section symbolically. That symbolic time frame, I believe, is the church age.

I believe that the 1200, I know you're probably getting tired of me saying that. 1260 days, I believe, is the church age.

I believe the 42 months is the church age.

I believe the three and a half years is the church age. Because how long does the church prophesy according to this passage? In 1260 days. How long, and that's why I read chapter 12, how long does the woman that goes off into the wilderness is protected while she is in a time of proclamation?

Okay, so that means this and this and the 42 months, that the bringing into the Gentiles or the time of the Gentiles, which I remember you talking about last week, the time of the Gentiles. What is the time of the Gentiles?

Yeah, but what is the, what was the bringing into the Gentiles? That's the church age. Hey, if you wanna put church age, that's fine with me. But this is when the church is militant. Militant church, going out and doing what it's supposed to do.

And what's the church supposed to go out and do? Not bring out swords and knives and guns, but make disciples, but we're making war against the darkness of this world. What does it say in Ephesians? We wrestle not with principalities and powers, but against rulers of darkness of this age.

Look, we're not raising up arms and fighting against the government. Now I can rest assure you, somebody comes to my little piece of dirt over at 559 13th Avenue South Jacksonville Beach. There's gonna be a fight, okay, if you're gonna try to take my dirt that I live on.

But we're not to raise up arms and try to convert Christianity by the sword. This is not a crusade. This is, that's what Islam does. Islam converts by, you make a Muslim, which means one who is submitted either by a sword or by coercion.

I'm not gonna coerce anybody. I proclaim the word of God, and whose responsibility is it to regenerate the heart, not my call here, the Holy Spirit. So the time of their prophesying, which is not speaking in tongues, it's the proclaiming of the truth of God's word.

That's what the time of prophesying is. Now, that gets us to verse four. Hey, what's cool about this, this tells us who the witnesses are.

Here it is.

These two witnesses are, in verse four, these are the two olive trees and two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the Earth. So, if we wanna know who the lampstand is, and we wanna know who the olive trees are, where do we need to go?

Old Testament, Zechariah. Let's turn to Zechariah real quick. It's a minor prophet, but it's a big minor prophet. You wanna read chapter three too, but man. Chapter four, now this is a vision from Zechariah.

And we'll read, cuz it's only 11 verses, 12, 13, 14 verses, let's read it. And then the angel, everybody there? Then the angel who was speaking with me returned and aroused me as a man who was awakened from his sleep.

And he said to me, what do you see? And he said, I see, and behold, a lampstand, all of gold, with its bowl and a top of it, and its seven lamps, with its seven spouts belonging to each of the lamps, which are at the top of it.

Also, two olive trees by it, one on the right side, one on the left. And he said to the angel who was speaking, what are these, my Lord? So the angel who was speaking with me answered and said, do you know what these are?

And he said, no. If he'd asked one of us, we'd have been like, yeah, I got an answer. But he said, do you know what these are? And he said, no, my Lord. And he said, this is the word of the Lord, concerning Zerubbabel, saying, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.

What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel, you become a plain, and he will bring forth the top stone with shout of grace and grace of it. Just to let you know, when this is a proclamation that when Zerubbabel came into the land, he was the governor, and we'll talk about it more in just a second.

He was the governor when they came back into the land to rebuild the temple. And what God said is this. When Zerubbabel began, remember who laid the foundations? Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel laid the foundations.

And what did he just say here? He said, Zerubbabel's gonna be the one to complete that, because he's gonna put the capstone on it. So he's saying, what this man started, this man's going to complete, because he was the man that God put in for that purpose.

And the Lord said again to me, saying, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, his hands will finish it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. For who has despised the day of small things?

But these seven will be glad, and they will see the plumb line and the hand of Zerubbabel. These are the eyes of the Lord, which range to and fro throughout the land. Then I said to him, what are these two olive trees on the right of the lampstand and on the left?

And I answered a second time to him and said to him, which are the two olive branches beside the two golden pipes, which empty the golden oil from them, saying, do you not know what these are? And he said, no, my Lord.

And he said this, these are my two anointed ones who stand before the Lord of the earth. You hear that quotation? That quotation is what we just read in Revelation. So he says those two witnesses, olive branch and lampstand, right?

Interesting. Have we already seen lampstand in the book of Revelation? I remember, where do we see it first?

Seven churches.

Seven churches, interesting. How many were faithful?

Two. Two.

Remember the names? Smarter than Philadelphia.

Two.

Olive branch. This represents the faithful witness church, okay? Seven lampstands were supposed to be the glowing light church here. And these represent the priest, because you have two people, and that's why I wanted to go back and read chapter three, because Joshua in chapter three of Zechariah is the priest, okay?

He is the priest. He is the olive branch. He's the one which God raised up, was going to be the guy to be the priest and to be the one to lead God's people back into worship. If you want to go and read chapter three, that's where the devil comes in.

One of the few times Satan is used in the Old Testament, and he comes up, and he's going to accuse Joshua the high priest of, it's translated filthy, but it means he's got poo-poo on his clothes. That's what it means.

It means human excrement on his clothes, and before the devil can open his mouth, God says, shut your mouth. That's my man. I'm going to close him in white clothes, and I'm going to put a cap of a white turban on him, and he's going to do what I've called him to do.

So, you have priest, and what's the church's responsibility we already saw? Prophets. What's the church made up of? Made up of prophets and priests.

That's what we are.

What did it say in the beginning of the book? I'm going to make you, you're supposed to be kingdom of what?

Priests.

We're all kingdoms of, we're a kingdom of priests. Women, you are priests, because you are part of the priesthood of all believers. Everybody in this room that has the Holy Spirit within them is a priest before God.

Everybody in this room that has the Spirit of God in them, you are the prophethood of God. And I'll even go one step further, because we fail to remember that. We're all kings before God. Do we not partake in Jesus' offices?

What's Jesus' threefold office? Prophet, priest, and king. Everybody in this room that has the Holy Spirit within them, and you're part of the true church. You're part of the church that has been sealed by God.

And you have the Holy Spirit living within you until the day of your redemption, when your faith becomes sight. And then God takes our old body, resurrects it, and gives us a glorified body. You are a partaker as a prophet, priest, and king with Christ.

We don't think of it that way. We certainly don't think of us as being kings, do we? Yes, sir?

I think some people have a hard time, I know I just have a hard time thinking of it, because doctrine of adoption isn't fully grasped.

What, it's not fully grasped?

Yeah, it's not fully grasped.

That's a good point as far as adoption, because when we do the order of Seleucus, we often forget adoption. You know what really comes up after justification? It's not sanctification, it's adoption. It's adoption.

It is, in many ways, it is a, I don't want to say forgotten, just overlooked. Look, because of who we are in Christ, He took us from being slaves to sin and made us sons and daughters of the Most High.

That should create within you a desire to be the son or daughter that God has called you to be. And men, that should make you treat your wife better, because you mistreat God's daughter, He'll crack you in the head.

Women, you mistreat God's son, He might do the same to you as well. If we looked at ourselves that way, we might treat each other a little differently. We become priests because we now partake of priestly duty.

We become prophets because we now have been given what? By the Great Commission. We have been given all authority. Jesus called us, maybe last week? Jesus said, when He resurrected, He says, You tell those men to go meet Me on a mountain in Galilee.

We often think that the Great Commission was where Jesus ascended after being there for 40 days. That is not where that took place. If you read the narrative, they actually go to whatever that mountain was that Jesus told them to go in Galilee.

Meet me in that Galilee and I will give you instructions. So they met them in Galilee. Jesus then says, Hey, all authority has been given unto me into heaven and earth. Go preach the gospel. Teach eating, baptize, observing, all things I have commanded you.

Okay?

And He would say, Lo, I am with you always to the end of the age. Now, they did go back to Jerusalem and they waited for 10 days. And Jesus then ascended from the Mount of Olives. Then they went back for 10 days then.

And they waited for the Holy Spirit. But when Jesus gave them the Great Commission, it was in Galilee. And just a little biblical interpretation. In 1 Corinthians 15, where it says that Jesus appeared to 500 people at one time.

In my opinion, I believe that is where that 500 took place. That would have been the only time we know that Jesus was in a place where 500 people could have gathered. I mean, imagine the disciples leaving knowing that Jesus Christ has been resurrected.

They were in Jerusalem. And now they are making their way to Galilee. You may remember how Galilee looked. They were here.

They got to go up here.

As they are making that trek, they are proclaiming the resurrected Son of God. You don't think that there were some people that decided, hey, we got to see this. You want to see the resurrected Son of God?

You want to see the man that was beaten to death, crucified, bled to death, and died. He is resurrected. He told us to meet Him in Galilee. I would imagine there were some people that had to see it. Because when you read that, it says, many still doubted.

Do you think His disciples doubted?

No.

But those that came along were still doubting. Look, we have AI to make it look like a person resurrected. Back then, people just didn't resurrect from the dead, especially a person that had been crucified and laid in a tomb for three days.

Now, the church was measured to be protected. The two witnesses are now going out, carrying out the prophet, priest, and kingship of Christ as they are proclaiming the gospel through this time of 1 ,260 days.

The Fire from the Witnesses’ Mouth and the Power of the Gospel

Now, go back to Revelation chapter 11. And verse 5 says, if anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies. So if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way.

Now, the literal interpretation is that these two witnesses that have the ability to do all these miracles are, if somebody says, Mike Smith is out proclaiming in the time of being a witness for God. And he says, this guy says, I think what you're saying is gibberish.

Fire does not come out of his mouth and consume them. Or somebody comes out and tries to attack a man by his open air preaching, and fire comes out of his mouth like Godzilla. That's not what that's talking about.

It would be cool, though.

It would be awesome. It would be awesome. When that lady came up and spit on me up there, I preached at the opening of the 9 -11 memorial. And they had moved me in several different places because they didn't want me.

They've got 300 people in this little rat race. And they had moved me in, hey, you can't be here, can't be here, can't be here. I just said finally to the police officer, well, where can I stand, you know?

And he said, I want you to stand on that little ledge right there. It was like four inches. I'm like, all right. You don't think I can stand on it? So I stood up there and went to preaching. This lady spit on me.

That would have been a good time. Oh, yeah? You want to spit?

Watch this.

So here it is. It's making a statement that when these people are prophesying that they will have fire come out of there and devour their enemies. Once again, if you want to know what this text means, we have to look in the Old Testament because it's all rooted in the Old Testament.

Anybody remember what Jeremiah did? Jeremiah 5, verse 14? It says, Jeremiah, you're going to go preach to these people. They're going to have stiffened necks. They're going to have hard hearts. Their faces are going to be like bronze.

But when they go to harm you, my word will be as fire in your mouth and you will consume them.

Come on.

Did Jeremiah walk around?

No.

But what did Jeremiah do? He condemned them with his speech. He condemned them judgment that God was going to consume them on his testimony. And if you don't think so, wait till we read chapter 18 this morning.

I think that's what we're reading. Chapter 18 this morning when we read through Jeremiah. Yeah, it's a tough passage. He calls down judgment on the whole city, everybody involved, and he says, there's no turning back at this point.

It's over. God's made his decision with this city and you're going to be consumed. That's what I believe this passage is talking about.

Why?

Because we don't interpret this literally. Now, if you're a distensational futurist, you know why you have to interpret this literally? Because it ain't happened yet. And because you're beholden to a literalistic interpretation of it, which I think, based on what it says in chapter 1, we're almost forbidden to look at the book that way.

Forbidden. And then he says, if anyone wants to devour them, anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. I believe that is the judgment of God being preached on a recalcitrant, hardened group of people.

And he says, and listen here, the miracles that some of these men have,.

Or two witnesses have.

They have the power to shut up the sky so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying. And they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every plague as often as they desire.

So, we're seeing these witnesses, which I believe is the church. What is it showing that these men have the power of? They have the power of God, okay? From, like Larry said a couple weeks ago, that most people believe this would have been, if you're taking from a literalistic perspective, this would be Elijah, and some people believe it would be Moses.

And I understand how they come to the conclusion, if you're going to interpret this literally. But what this is saying is these two witnesses, which I believe is the church, you don't have to agree with me, but which I believe is the church, they're going out in the power of God with doing signs and wonders, okay, that bring testament to the word of God.

You say, well, they're not doing this. Well, no, they're not doing this. But do you remember what Jesus said when He sent His people out? That He was casting out demons? And He says, hey, even though they came back to Him after the 70 went, they were casting out demons, raising the sick, healing leprosy.

You remember what they said?

Even the devil was their subject.

A subject. And He goes on a statement saying, hey, you know, I saw Satan fall like lightning to the man. He says this too. You're going to do better miracles than that. I don't know about y 'all, but what's a better miracle than casting out a demon, seeing a lame man leap like a deer, seeing a man with a withered hand, new hand, a person with leprosy coming with skin like a baby.

I don't know about y 'all, but at that time, I don't know anything that could have been more miraculous than that. Jesus was pointing to something greater. You know what's greater than actually raising a dead person out of the tomb?

Is the preaching of the gospel with the quickening of the Holy Spirit and God regenerating a dead and trespassed sinner and then granting that person forgiveness, justification, adoption, and then sanctifying that believer until he comes.

If you don't believe that that's more of a miracle than a dead person getting up, your theology is a little skewed. And here's the reason why. We're alienated from God. We come into this world born an enemy.

It says that when the little babies come out of their mother's womb, what do they do? Sorry, no can'ts to the little baby back there.

What do they do?

They speak lies. You don't have to teach her to lie. She's going to lie to you. I know y 'all think she's going to be so cool.

You don't have to teach them to lie. They do it on their own. You don't have to teach no. They're going to tell you no because you told them no.

They're going to be hungry and that bottle's going to be shaking. It's going to be it being. They're going to throw it at you. They're going to say give me more.

Okay.

So when God takes a rebel that's dead in their trespasses and says has no ability to make a move towards God, you know that's what it means to be dead. Meaning that the sinner has no ability to make one fraction of an inch towards God.