Revelation 11:1-19 (Stand Against Every Antichrist, Jeff Kliewer)

♪♪ ♪

Out so freely, from above.

Attitude and praises. For compassion so amazing.

Lord we come to give you thanks for all you've done. ♪

Healing hearts like me.

We're changed. Because of your love.

♪ To your presence.

We remember every blessing. That you poured out so freely from above.

♪ Lifting gratitude and praises.

For compassion so amazing. Lord we've come to give you thanks.

Cause of your love. ♪ Hearts are clean.

Lift you up. We're changed.

Cause of your love. Welcome to our

Cornerstone Virtual Worship Service. We're excited to have you with us this morning. Again, for those of you who are new to us, welcome on board.

And for all of us who have been together, we continue to meet in this virtual way.

Been having conversations with various people. And predominantly, everybody can't wait to be together again.

To see each other. To be able to experience that close fellowship that we have when we're with each other.

Perhaps it's in the sanctuary or perhaps it's going out to have lunch. But for now, God is still sovereign.

And we rejoice in that. And so we come together this morning in worship of him at his throne, albeit it's virtual.

I'm going to take us back to Psalm 22 again this week. If you remember last week as I spoke in Psalm 22, it starts with despair.

David showing his concern, his observation. But he takes it to the

Lord in true desire for God to show him. But it is a song that starts with despair.

Quickly turns to a psalm of remembrance. As he recalls to mind the great things that God has done in his fathers and then eventually into surrender.

Well, Psalm 22 is going to go on and it's going to say in verse 22, I will tell of thy name to my brethren.

In the midst of the assembly, I will praise him. John chapter 1 tells us a lot about the word.

It tells us about the word who was in the beginning with God, who was God, who by him all things were created.

And then as he came in flesh in verses 10 and 11 of John 1, we do see that he came into the world, the world that he made.

But the world did not know him and the world did not receive him. And so here we have

David proclaiming his desire to tell of the name of Yahweh, his desire to proclaim his praises in the assembly.

What a great encouragement it is for even us to be desiring to tell of his name to the brethren and to proclaim his praises to the assembly.

At the annual meeting past Monday, Pastor Jeff identified that we have put together a new vision.

We have a mission statement, love God, love others, but our new vision is to build up and send out.

What an amazing picture it is for the body of Christ, not only to be equipped to be built up, but then to go forth and proclaim the word of God.

I read again Psalm 22, verse 22. I will tell of thy name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly.

I will praise him. Amen to that. Turning to some announcements.

Well, we announced it last week. Today will be the Lord's table. So I encourage you right now, if you're not ready, put this video on pause.

Go ahead and get the cup, get the bread, come back. And in a little bit, we're going to be celebrating the

Lord's table. So this is your opportunity. Go ahead and put us on pause and get ready. And so now

I welcome you back. Last Monday was our virtual annual meeting. What an amazing time that was, as we had over 50 people logged in virtually to the meeting.

We heard the reports from the ministry leads. One of the most common phrases that was used by the ministry leads was the faithfulness of God.

And to be able to proclaim that and to confess that in the midst of what we're going on and to be able to go out and to recognize the faithfulness of God, truly,

I think we all anticipate wonderful things, amazing things that our sovereign

God is going to do in and through us. And so we also talked about how are we going to come out of quarantine?

We mentioned some of the highlights. We anticipate having two services on the

Sunday, maintaining social distance, doing a scan for temperatures before you come in, having masks.

Also, we will be providing a live stream of the second service for those who are perhaps already infirmed or are concerned they have a comorbidity.

They are concerned about being in and amongst people. We will continue to minister to you. Other highlights of our plan coming out will be coming out and you will be kept informed.

Please remember, continue to remember Eleanor Webster. She continues to have symptoms of the coronavirus.

She will have good days and then she will go back down. She will have difficulty in her respiratory, but she is not in danger.

So continue to pray for her and that God continues to protect Bill. Pray for the

Peale family. Rebecca's father just passed away this past week.

He was very sick. He had many issues. But she believes that at the very end, her father proclaimed that he was in comfort with the

Lord. So she has a sense of peace in her heart that her father is now relieved of pain and is now celebrating in the throne of God.

Remember the Ellis family, Kimberly's grandfather has just passed away. So for both families, lift them up in your prayer for God's presence and for God's comfort.

So now let's turn to prayer. Lord God, we turn to you right now thinking about Psalm 22, the profession that we want to tell your name to the brethren in the midst of the assembly.

We desire to praise you. Let that be our prayer. Let that be our bold approach to be proclaiming, to be obedient servants, relying on your

Holy Spirit, to let a dark, dark world that needs to hear the message that we would be your messengers.

Give us your strength. Give us your Holy Spirit as we do that. We pray for Eleanor.

We pray for Bill and the Peale family and the Ellis family. There has been some pain.

There has been disease. There has been suffering. Other families in our midst that have concerns, we lift them all up to you.

And we continue to lift up the frontline workers. We continue to lift up our country's leaders.

And as our land continues to recover from COVID, and as we think of a time when we are going to join back together again in fellowship one with another, pray for wisdom on how to come out of the quarantine in a way that is safe, but in a way that builds the body up and is glorifying to you.

So now, as Pastor Jeff opens the book of Revelation to us again this morning, we pray for your

Holy Spirit's empowering to him, speaking through him, and that your Holy Spirit would open the eyes of our hearts to learn and to grow in you.

We pray these in Jesus' name. Amen. The love like this, the world had never known.

The altar of our praise, let there be no higher name.

Jesus, Son of God.

You laid down your perfect life. You are the sacrifice.

Jesus, Son of God. You are

Jesus, Son of God. Took our sin.

You bore our shame. You rose to life.

You defeated the grave. A love like this, the world had never known.

You took our sin. You bore our shame.

You rose to life. You defeated the grave.

A love like this, the world had never known.

The altar of our praise, let there be no higher name.

Jesus, Son of God. You laid down your perfect life.

You are the sacrifice. Jesus, Son of God.

You are Jesus, Son of God. Be lifted higher than all you've overcome.

Your name be loud as song.

There is no house worthy now.

The altar of our praise, let there be no higher name.

Jesus, Son of God. You laid down your perfect life.

You are the sacrifice. Jesus, Son of God.

You are Jesus, Son of God. The evening before Jesus went to the cross, he spent that evening with his closest disciples in an upper room, sharing a meal, washing their feet, teaching them of things to come.

And it's in the context of that that Jesus prepares his followers for their ministry so that they will be prepared to go out.

But then in chapter 17 of John, we turn to what we know as Jesus' priestly prayer.

And he starts out by saying, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy Son that the

Son may glorify thee. And so he's preparing them for a reality that what is happening here is all about the glory of the

Father. It is not just a meal. It is not just a time of teaching. But it is a time of growing in a relationship and awareness of the

Father. And so then in verse 17 and 18, he says, Sanctify them in the truth.

Thy word is truth. And as thou didst send me into the world, I also send them into the world.

So here's the picture. We have initially Jesus sharing a meal with them. And they get nourished and they get renewed and revigorated and strengthened.

Then he teaches them of things of truth. And then he gets ready to send them out into the world.

And so this morning, we're gathered together and we're going to be celebrating the Lord's Supper. We're going to be taking of the elements.

It's a time for us to take in the elements. And symbolically, we're taking in that nourishment.

We're taking in that strength that can only come from the creator of all things. It can only come from our sovereign

Lord. So as we take the elements, we are strengthened. We should be renewed in remembrance of him.

And then in a moment, Pastor Jeff is going to come and open the word. He's going to speak to us from Revelation.

And he's going to help us grow even deeper, much as this father took his disciples into deeper truths.

And then we're going to go forth into the world, much as Jesus prayed, As thou didst send me into the world,

I have also sent them into the world. Let's be prepared. As we partake in the elements, let's have our hearts and our minds aware of the calling that we have, of the gift that we have, and the opportunity that we have to partake in what the

Lord Jesus has given to us. Now we're going to be taking the elements in a moment, but I want to turn to 1

Corinthians 11 .28 because there's an exhortation that is, as you prepare to take communion, as you prepare to partake in the

Lord's table, don't do so unworthily. Examine yourself. Examine yourself.

And as you examine yourself in prayer and confession, prepare yourself for the

Lord's table. So I'm going to be quiet for a moment. Allow us to pray. Allow us to be prepared.

So let's pray in examining our hearts. Reading back again in 1

Corinthians 11, starting in verse 23, For what I received from the Lord, what

I also passed on to you. The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said,

This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

Take, eat. Continuing on in verse 25,

In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. Take, drink.

For me. Your blood has washed away my sin.

Jesus, thank you. Father's wrath completely satisfied.

Jesus, thank you. Once your enemy, now seated at your table.

Jesus, thank you.

Perfect sacrifice, I've been brought near. Your enemy, you've made your friend.

Pouring out the riches of your glorious grace.

Your mercies and your kindness, knows no end.

Your blood has washed away my sin. Jesus, thank you.

Father's wrath completely satisfied. Jesus, thank you.

Once your enemy, now seated at your table.

Jesus, thank you.

Lover of my soul, I want to live for you.

Lover of my soul, I want to live for you.

Lover of my soul, I want to live for you.

Your blood has washed away my sin. Jesus, thank you.

Father's wrath completely satisfied. Jesus, thank you.

Once your enemy, now seated at your table.

Jesus, thank you.

Good morning, let's pray. Lord, as we look to your word this morning, we pray that you would make us strong.

We are in a battle, not against flesh and blood, but against rulers and powers and spiritual forces of this present dark world.

We ask Lord that you would strengthen us to stand and after having done everything to stand.

Lord God, we thank you for your word because that is what makes us strong. We pray that you would fortify us today through your word in Jesus name.

Amen. Yesterday, there was a scheduled flyover from the

Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds. So, us and all of our neighbors were outside looking to the skies.

And we looked and we looked and no Blue Angels came into sight. Evidently, they were too far to the east for our line of sight, which was disappointing, but it made me think as I saw all of the people looking to the skies, oh, that we would look to the skies for the coming of Jesus.

Now, when he ascended from the holy mountain, he said, well, the angel appeared after Jesus ascended and said, why do you stand here looking at the sky?

You're not to do that. Rather, Jesus trained us to look to the hills from which cometh our help.

To look to the signs of the times that his coming is drawing near.

We don't need to be gazing up at the planets, looking up at the sky, hoping that today would be the day, but we do need to be looking for his coming in a metaphorical sense, with spiritual eyes anticipating, hoping that this could be the time and watching the signs of the times.

Jesus rebuked the disciples for not being able to discern the signs of the times.

A farmer is able to look at the sky and notice that there's a coming storm, but we, as Christians, should be able to look at the signs of the times and know that his coming is soon.

If you look around the world today, there are locust plagues in Africa that are decimating crops.

It's like one of the plagues of Egypt. Those locust plagues are expected to move from Africa all the way up into the old empire of Persia, present day

Iran. You see an increase in earthquakes in various places. You see, obviously, a pestilence or a plague, coronavirus, spreading throughout the whole earth.

There are indications, birth pains, that the coming of Jesus is near.

We're looking for the second coming of Christ. One of the clearest indications that the second coming of Christ is drawing near is that there is a rise in the

Antichrist spirit. And this has been intensifying over the last few generations.

Hitler looked like an absolute Antichrist and he fit the bill for a time, but as 1

John 2 says, there will be many Antichrists that come until that final Antichrist. Today, as we look in Revelation chapter 11, we are going to see the

Antichrist. Capital A, Antichrist. But even today, you see the rise of an

Antichrist spirit, a spirit that is opposed to Christ, Christians, Christianity.

One of the indications of that was this week, the magazine from Harvard released an article in which her name was

Elizabeth Bartholet, wrote against homeschooling and saying that it was dangerous and proposed a presumptive ban on homeschooling.

And the reason for it is that 90%, according to her, of homeschoolers are driven by Christian beliefs and desire to remove their kids from mainstream culture.

Going to say that they are extreme religious ideologues who question science and are in favor of white supremacy and female subservience.

So goes the line from Harvard magazine, but you can see just under the surface of that antipathy to homeschooling, homeschooling is not the issue.

The issue here is an Antichrist spirit against the things of Christ.

As the Antichrist spirit rises in the world, 1 John 2, 18, the spirit of Christ strengthens us to stand,

Ephesians 6, 13, and to proclaim his might. As the day draws near, we proclaim more boldly, we stand more firmly, we must stand or else we will be steamrolled at a time like this.

So we come into Revelation chapter 11 today and let's locate ourselves there. The 11th chapter of Revelation occurs between the sixth and then the seventh trumpet, which does blow in the 11th chapter of Romans.

So already in the future events to take place, we have had the seven seal judgments.

The seals of the scroll are broken and with each broken seal came an accompanying judgment on earth.

And then there was an interlude where God sealed 144 ,000 Jewish witnesses to proclaim the gospel during these days and a great celebration takes place in heaven because of the revival, the harvest of souls that comes in.

And then we get to the trumpet judgments of Revelation 8 and 9 and the first four trumpets bring in disastrous things, but they remain natural disasters.

When you get to the fifth and sixth seal, I'm sorry, trumpet, as recorded in Revelation chapter nine, they become increasingly supernatural.

It's kind of tipped off by the fact that you have a talking eagle at the end of Revelation chapter eight.

And then in chapter nine, a antichrist spirit, whose name is

Abaddon or Apollyon is released upon the earth and he is the head of locust demons, which are tormenting people on earth for a period of, well, a wound would last for five months.

And then the next trumpet blows and an army of 200 million comes from the east and brings devastation and great death, killing,

I believe, a third of mankind. Revelation 9, 18. Then in Revelation 10, there is another interlude and here

John is encountered by another angel, this giant angel who comes and tells him to eat the scroll.

And here we have this lesson of receiving or intaking, ingesting the word of God.

In order to proclaim that word, you must again prophesy to many peoples and nations and languages and kings.

And so we come to Revelation chapter 11. And here is where we are introduced to the two witnesses who are amazing.

And again, we're in a very supernatural place in the text where the demonic expression is more overt, but so is the miraculous power of God.

Kind of like the days of Elijah or the days of Moses or the time around Jesus where there is a concentration of miraculous good events taking place, that God is giving supernatural power that's so far beyond the ordinary, it almost seems like something out of the

Avengers. These guys are almost superhero power, but the issue here is that the divide between Newton's laws of nature and the inbreaking of the supernatural is no longer an occasional occurrence as it is today.

Rather, things have become increasingly supernatural. And so you'll see the two witnesses do some pretty amazing things here.

We also see the Antichrist and we see the rebuilt temple, which is where we begin in Revelation 11, 1 and 2.

Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there.

But do not measure the court outside the temple. Leave that out, for it is given over to the nations and they will trample the holy city for 42 months, which is three and a half years, which on the

Jewish calendar, mark this, is also 1 ,260 days. The Jewish calendar, as opposed to the

Gregorian calendar, which we use, has 30 days per month. So it's easier math.

Three and a half years, 42 months. So the issue here, the temple of God. John is told to go measure the temple, but as we all know, our good students of history, the temple has been leveled since 70

AD. And today in Jerusalem, there is an edifice, but it is not the temple of God. It is the dome of the rock.

So how is it that Revelation 11, 1 tells John to go and measure the temple?

Well, easy answer. It gets rebuilt. The rebuilding of the temple.

Now let's talk quickly about the first two temples, how they were built, desecrated, and then destroyed.

Built the first one by Solomon and was desecrated when in Ezekiel chapter 8, you see the priests and the people of God who are supposed to be religious and good are in the temple with their backs to the altar, facing the sun to the east and worshiping the sun.

Ezekiel in chapter 8 is caught up from the Chibar River where he's in exile in Babylon and he's brought in the spirit to observe, digs a hole in the wall, looks in the temple and sees this happening.

The women are weeping for Tammuz, a false god. And these supposed

Israelite religious leaders are actually worshiping the sun.

This between 605 and 587 when Ezekiel is brought into exile and then the fall of the temple, having been desecrated by the religious leaders, the temple falls in 587.

Fast forward now to the second temple. After coming out of exile, the people are exiled for 70 years according to the prophecy of Jeremiah.

They come out of exile to rebuild the temple. The temple is rebuilt but once again it is defiled.

The people of God do not remain faithful to the scriptures and instead they become apostate again, falling back into sin.

And before long God gives them over to surrounding enemies. This time the

Seleucid Empire, the Syrians to the north, come in war against the Egyptians, fail in that effort.

The Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt, they fail and coming back to Jerusalem, the leader of the

Syrians, whose name is Antiochus IV, Epiphanes, Antiochus Epiphanes, leading his army, comes to Jerusalem and desecrates the temple.

We actually had this foretold in Daniel chapter 11 verse 31. Forces from him, that's

Antiochus Epiphanes, shall appear and profane the temple and fortress and shall take away the regular burnt offering and they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate.

An abomination, an abominable thing that makes desolate, that's destroying.

And so it is that the Syrian army destroys the city, massacring the Jewish people and Antiochus Epiphanes takes a pig, an unclean animal, and sacrifices that animal on the temple's altar and proclaims himself to be

God. And so the abomination of desolation, but this is not the final abomination of desolation because Jesus speaks of a coming abomination of desolation that we are to look toward.

And so we come to the third temple. After 70 AD, the temple has been leveled as Jesus foretold that not one stone would be left on another.

Matthew 24, all the stones would be thrown down. Yet there would be a rebuilding of the temple.

In Daniel chapter 9 verse 26 and 27. Go there with me. It's worth just a couple of minutes here to see the beautiful tapestry of God's word.

How the prophetic predictions of God come to pass in time.

Just absolutely astounding. Daniel chapter 9 verse 24 to 27.

We know about the 70 week prophecy. So we're not gonna go over that again. We know that Messiah is cut off and has nothing in verse 26.

But I want to show this morning what's to come regarding the temple. Daniel 9, 26 to 27.

If you're not there yet, that means you gotta either get your phone out and get there or else go get a Bible.

You should have a Bible with you opened so that you can follow along in the scripture. And it says, you can pause it if you need to do that and then start it up again.

Okay, we go. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.

Its end shall come with a flood and to the end there shall be war.

Desolations are decreed. So the people of the prince who is to come, the

Antichrist's people will destroy the temple and the city. This all happens in 70

AD. It's not the end of the story. And he, this refers to the prince who is to come, the

Antichrist shall make a strong covenant with many for one week.

Now we know from the context that one week is a seven year period. For seven years, a strong covenant, a covenant of peace.

And for half of the week, he shall put an end to the sacrifice and offering.

So for the first half of the week, the Jewish people are allowed again to make sacrifices and offerings in the temple.

How could this be? Well, it must be rebuilt. And part of what brings the

Antichrist into fame is that he will bring peace to the Middle East.

It seems impossible. The Jewish people and the Palestinians have been fighting from the beginning, actually going all the way back to the time of Ishmael and Isaac.

And this war between Arabs and Jewish people has been raging.

But who will this figure be? The Antichrist, who comes and brings peace, makes a strong covenant, and allows the

Jewish people to have a temple and to offer sacrifices.

Now we know that the Jewish people today are back in their promised land since 1948.

Of course, the dome of the rock still sits upon the Temple Mount. But the

Temple Institute in Jerusalem has been making the ritual items that are required for operating the temple.

They have over 90 of those items already produced. In fact, they already have a red heifer for sacrifice.

They have everything that's needed. And there are some people that say that as you look at the geography of the

Temple Mount, the place itself, there are places on the Temple Mount where the temple was.

There's debate as to where that was, such that a temple could be built side by side with the dome of the rock, even today, if the

Jewish government went forward with that. In the time of the Antichrist, we see a strong covenant is made.

But notice, on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate.

Jesus spoke of this abomination of desolations. Halfway through the seven year period, at the three and a half year mark, the

Antichrist will come and he will put an end to the sacrifice.

He will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations, if you read what

Antiochus Epiphanes did in Daniel chapter 11, you see that after he sacrifices the pig on the altar, he makes himself as if he is

God. And that is precisely what the Antichrist will do until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.

So we need that context. We need to see the beautiful fabric of God's word.

If the word of God were as theologically liberal teachers claim it to be, it would only be the writings of men.

In their location, at their present time, writing in their own circumstances.

And those things would be independent and it would be a mishmash. But as it is, the word of God is a beautiful tapestry.

And you see these threads, these ideas, resurfacing again and again, creating a beautiful pattern that only

God could have written. That's the case with this idea of the temple.

As the temple in the wilderness was represented by a tabernacle.

God tabernacling among his people in a special holy of holies. And then

David having it in his heart to build a structure that was fit for the worship of God.

And God blessing that desire, but him not being the one to do it. To Solomon coming along and being the one to build the temple.

Then it's desecration and destruction. It's rebuilding, desecration and destruction. Finally, the

Jewish people now rebuild the temple of God. Now, we have to be careful not to celebrate the rebuilding of the temple.

Not to cheer too loudly that the Jewish people are on the verge of doing that. Because what we know as Christians who read the

New Testament, we understand what Jesus said in his day. Destroy this temple and on the third day,

I will raise it up. And the Jewish leaders laughed at him and mocked him. And that was one of the basis for his condemnation in the trial.

He says he can rebuild the temple in three days. Blasphemy, they cried.

But they did not understand that he was speaking about his own body. The body of Jesus is the temple of God because in Christ dwells the fullness of God bodily.

He is the temple. All of the temple metaphor in the Old Testament was pointing forward to him.

And the death of Jesus on the cross, the desecration of the temple, the tearing down of his body and the raising of him up again is the consummation of that promise.

And now he promises to live in us and make the church his temple. He in us and us in him.

And so this is the temple that we look to, our Christ. So as the

Jewish people continue to rebuild and they have this plan to rebuild Revelation 11, it's there, it's the temple of God because it's made according to the pattern of heaven.

This isn't the worship of some false god in a false religious system.

They are following the pattern of the Old Testament. It's just that they've missed their Messiah.

Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there.

But do not measure the outer court. It's been given to the Gentiles. So this distinction between Jewish people in the temple and the outer court given to the

Gentiles, nothing could be clearer to indicate that God continues to have a program, a plan for the

Jewish people. He continues to operate for ethnic Israel to bring them together into their promised land and ultimately for them to meet their

Messiah and mourn for the one that they have pierced. We're gonna see that here at the end of the chapter. But verse three to six, notice it's time that we be introduced to the two witnesses.

And I will grant authority to my two witnesses and they will prophesy for 1 ,260 days clothed in sackcloth.

These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.

And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes.

If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. That's what you get.

If you try to harm him, this is how you die. They will shoot fire from their mouth. Now I know it sounds extreme, but it happened before.

Second Kings chapter one, when Elijah was attacked by enemies, fire consumed the enemies and they would send band after band of soldiers in the same thing.

This is what happens to you if you try to kill Elijah. Verse six, they have the power to shut the sky that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying.

Who does that sound like? Elijah. He shut the sky for three years.

James five refers to this and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood.

Who does that sound like? Moses turning the Nile river into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they desire.

So now we get to ask, who are the two witnesses? Many people, many commentators will say

Moses and Elijah. Because of the parallel here in the miracles that are performed.

Elijah was translated to heaven, caught up to the Lord, so he never died. Moses' body disappeared mysteriously so no one knew where it was.

So maybe this is Moses and Elijah come back in the flesh. I disagree with that interpretation.

There's no reason to say that this is some kind of reincarnated or reestablished

Moses and Elijah. They come in the spirit of Moses and the spirit of Elijah in the sense that the same spirit that animates

Elijah in the Old Testament is filling these believers now. Some also have said that it's

Enoch and Elijah because Enoch was caught up. And so I'm not outlawing that as being heretical or anything, as if that's mine to say.

I'm not saying that that's necessarily wrong, but I see these as ordinary believers powered by the

Holy Spirit. And isn't that the case? You see the parallel in Revelation 11, 4 to the two olive trees and the two lampstands.

This is language right out of Zechariah 4. And it applied not to Moses and Elijah, but to Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest.

Having come out of exile, it was theirs to rebuild. But in their flesh, they were afraid of the surrounding nations.

They were trampled by the Gentiles until there came a word from Haggai.

Is it time to live in your paneled houses while the house of God remains a ruin? And responding to the preaching of Haggai, Zerubbabel and Joshua rose up with power and strength from the

Holy Spirit and built the temple as they should have. They stood in the strength that God supplies.

And the issue here is from Zechariah 4, the parallel to Zerubbabel and Zechariah, and Joshua, I should say.

Mark this. If you're missing everything else I'm saying, mark this. Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit says the

Lord of hosts. The two witnesses stand in supernatural, spirit -given power.

And if you, brother and sister, want to stand against the onslaught against Christianity in our day, you need the spirit of the living

God. You need to be filled with power from on high, touched with fire that enters you and sits in your belly.

You may not breathe fire unless you have bad breath. That's a different kind of breathing fire.

You need spiritual fire, power inside of you to resist the antichrist spirit.

That's what I get from the two witnesses. These are men who do not bend. When Ezekiel was called to be a prophet, he was told, this people to whom you preach will have hard heads, hard heads and hard faces.

They will scowl at you, but I will make your face harder and your head harder than theirs.

Ezekiel chapter three. And that, brothers and sisters, is how we must stand against a godless culture as it encroaches upon the church.

Fearless, stronger, because we stand in the spirit of the living God, not by our own strength.

Bunyan said, the best prayer I ever prayed was filled with as much sin as could damn the world to hell.

Bunyan knew nothing of power that came from himself. Even his prayers, he understood, were so racked with sinful intentions and motives and a mixture of human weakness and frailty and even rebelliousness that still resides because of our sin nature.

Bunyan said, it's enough to damn the world to hell. He put no confidence in the flesh and neither should we.

We have nothing to stand and neither did the two witnesses or Ezekiel or Zerubbabel or Joshua or Moses or Elijah.

They stood in the power that God supplies and so we must make our stand in the power of the

Holy Spirit. Amen. I can hear you saying it. So we go on.

And when they had finished their testimony, we're at verse seven. I underline finished in my

Bible. The beast that had risen from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them.

We saw this bottomless pit open in Revelation 9 and a demon spirit come out from the bottomless pit.

Now we learn that this spirit is possessing a man. That man is the

Antichrist. The beast he's called. He'll appear nine other times in the rest of the book of Revelation.

The beast is the Antichrist spoken of in Daniel 9, 26 and 27.

And when they had finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them.

And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called

Sodom and Egypt where their Lord was crucified. And for three and a half days, some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb.

It looks like defeat for the two witnesses. Just like it looked like defeat when

Christ was laid in a tomb. It looks like defeat except for verse seven where it says, and when they had finished their testimony.

Paul understood that until God had called him home, that his testimony was finished and he had discharged the duty of his ministry, he was invincible, unbreakable.

And so it is with us. Paul says in Acts 20, 24, but I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself.

If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the

Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

We're here to preach the gospel of the grace of God, that it is God who saves, to proclaim his might, that God has come in the flesh, in the person

Jesus Christ. And he has accomplished redemption on our behalf by dying the death that we deserve.

He rose from the dead and sits as king at the right hand of the father. This Jesus, he is the king.

We proclaim this gospel of grace that it's him alone that has the power to save. He alone can take a dead heart and make it alive.

This is the gospel of grace that we proclaim. And as long as we're here, we are here to proclaim that.

And until we're done testifying, no power and no weapon formed against us can touch us.

That's why I'm not afraid of coronavirus. I'm not afraid of any man or any woman or any weapon.

As long as the Lord wants me here preaching, I will preach. And when he is done with me, he can take me home.

Verse seven, it says, and when they had finished their testimony, the Antichrist thinks he overpowered them, but in truth,

God was finished preserving them for that day, a day that was written before the foundation of the world.

Wow, this is like the 144 ,000. They were marked so that no weapon formed against them could touch them.

They were invincible until God calls them home. So it was with the two witnesses, and so it is with us.

We cannot be touched. What's interesting about this too is that the whole world sees this happening.

How could that be? In the ESV, I don't like the translation. In verse nine, it says, for three and a half days, some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations.

And the implication from the some from could be that there are people in Jerusalem from a variety of Gentile nations, and they're the ones that see the dead bodies on the ground.

But that's not the context. In fact, the word some is not in the Greek manuscript. We just have the word ek, from.

And so the King James Version and the NASB, they translated it those from, meaning from all over the world.

People from all over the world see this. How could the whole world see the dead bodies of the two witnesses lying in Jerusalem?

Answer, television, the internet, Facebook, social media. When John wrote this apocalypse, the world could not observe.

But notice, moving on now to verse 10, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them.

A worldwide party. I call this anti -Christmas. It's in celebration of the

Antichrist, and not of his birth, but of his murder. Celebrating that the

Antichrist has murdered the ones that they're sick and tired of. These two prophets, as the

Jews were worshiping and making animal sacrifice in the temple, they stood outside of the temple and they proclaimed

Christ as the finished sacrifice of God, the Lamb of God, and therefore condemned the animal sacrifice happening in the temple.

These prophets rejected the Antichrist and his system of government and his one -world religion, and the world hated the prophets for it.

They wanted to kill him again and again, but the supernatural power of God, fire from their mouths, prevented that from happening.

Now, it's anti -Christmas. Chapter 11, verse 10, those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.

The spirit of Antichrist reigns in false religion now.

Many celebrate Christmas without celebrating Christ. It's very easy to hang lights on your house and to be festive in the

Christmas season, but unless you worship Christ, you are celebrating so -called

Christmas in the spirit of Antichrist. There are many so -called preachers who occupy pulpits, but do not believe that Jesus died as a substitute for sin.

Many of the teachings of Christianity are readily embraced by the world.

God is love. But dare we say that God is love and God is just.

In his love, he gave a sacrifice for sin that satisfied his wrath against sin, that God is a judge.

Many people will take the love of God and reject the justice of God and so exchange the truth of God for a lie, creating a

God made in their image rather than the true God. And this is the

God that's preached across many pulpits in America today. It is a God that does not judge sin.

It is a God that gives to people whatever they want. And when you present to them the true

God of Scripture, the one that we're reading about here in the book of Revelation, they will say, I could never worship a

God like that. A God that judges sin and calls things sin.

A God who is righteous. And the truth is, they're right.

They would never worship and they cannot worship because it's not within their moral ability to do that.

The gospel of grace must come to them. Change that heart of stone to a heart of flesh that feels and believes.

And yet they still preach Christ. They still celebrate anti -Christmas.

Although they think they're worshiping the true God. I heard a great analogy for this form of understanding the death of Jesus Christ.

Many people say that Jesus died on the cross. But if you ask them, well, why did he die?

The farthest that they can go is to say to demonstrate love. To somehow show us love.

But what they will absolutely deny is that Jesus died to satisfy the wrath of God against sin on behalf of sinners who turn to him in faith.

Does that analogy of love work apart from substitutionary atonement?

No, it does not. Here's the analogy. There are two people who love one another.

One is on a boat and about to depart. The boat is leaving the dock and he yells out to his lover on the shore,

Honey, I love you. And she cries back to the boat, I love you more.

And he cries back to the shore, I love you to the moon and back. And she cries back,

I love you to the moon and back a thousand times. And they exchange their gestures of love and they call to one another.

And then as the boat begins to disappear, one of them takes a hand grenade and says,

I love you this much and pulls the pin and blows himself up.

And so he demonstrates love. And the person watching who loves this one says,

No, no, that's just, that's not love. That's just stupid.

You just blew yourself up. That's the most horrible thing you could ever have done to me.

That's the opposite of love. And I say that any gospel that denies the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ is that kind of gospel.

What kind of love is it that blows oneself up without a purpose?

But when Jesus died on the cross willingly, he laid down his life for his friends.

In other words, he died for the purpose of smothering a grenade to save the life of his friends.

He dove on the grenade and gave his body to spare those whom he loved.

And that is the purest definition of love. Greater love has no one than this, the one who lays down his life for his friends.

And this is how Jesus says, he loves you. He goes to the cross and he takes a death, not that he deserved, but that we deserve and a death that we would die apart from him.

And the death that we die is the death of sin. It is not a hand grenade. It's a sin grenade.

Sin will blow you up and destroy you and send your eternal soul to eternal punishment.

But God, Jesus interposed and took that grenade for us, dying the death that we deserve.

This is the message of Christmas. This is the message that religions across the world reject.

Every religion has some system of love and good deeds, but they do not have a savior.

And many who preach Christ have emptied him of his saving work. It's anti -Christian religion.

It's anti -Christmas. Verse 11, we're almost done. The good news here, but after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them.

Death is not the end. There is resurrection. Jesus rose from the dead and so he's able to raise us too.

There is eternal life with God the Father because we serve a God who raises the dead.

These are raised from the dead. They stood on their feet and great fear fell on those who saw them.

Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, come up here. And they went up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies watched them.

Now see this beautiful tapestry of God. The Jewish people that have for so long rejected their

Messiah. Verse 13, and at that hour there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the city fell.

7 ,000 people were killed in the earthquake and the rest, underline that, the rest of the

Jewish people in Jerusalem were terrified and gave glory to the

God of heaven. They turn to the one that the two witnesses had been preaching and that they had been rejecting.

Now finally, in the fear of this earthquake, seeing the resurrection of the two witnesses, they believe in their

Christ. It coincides now with the Antichrist putting an end to their sacrifice.

Desecrating their temple. They have no temple left. Now the Antichrist is proclaiming himself

God. Abomination of desolations. This is exactly what was foretold in Romans chapter 11 where it says, lest you be wise in your own sight.

I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers. A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the

Gentiles has come in. The Israelites have been partially hardened for a time.

There are some who believe, but most do not. There is coming a time when the fullness of the

Gentiles has come in. He will revive his people and so Israel will be saved.

They will look upon the one that they pierced and mourn for him and they will believe. Lastly, Revelation 11, 15 and following, the seventh angel blew his trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our

Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. And the 24 elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped

God saying, we give thanks to you, Lord God almighty who is and who was for you have taken your great power and begun to reign.

The nations raged, Psalm 2, 1. Why do the nations rage? But your wrath came,

Psalm 2, verse 5. He laughs at the raging of the nations. He's unfazed by it.

The time for the dead to be judged and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints and those who fear your name, both small and great and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.

Now look at verse 19. Then God's temple in heaven was opened and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple.

There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and heavy hail. So these things happen on earth, but in heaven, the true temple.

Hebrews chapter 8, verse 5 tells us that the earthly temple was made after the pattern of the heavenly.

That's why Moses was given such precise instructions for the tabernacle and Solomon for the building of the temple.

It was made after the pattern in heaven. The genuine in heaven is unfazed and unshaken by the events of earth.

And so it is as we stand here as witnesses. Our God is sovereign over all.

His temple is unfazed. As earthly people build an earthly human temple on earth, it's

God who's controlling all in heaven and we can trust in him.

And so my exhortation today, as I kind of tie all this together, is to be like the two witnesses, fearless, unfazed and testifying, proclaim his might.

Be like Luther standing before the Roman Catholic Church, the weight of the world against him,

Luther contra mundum, Luther against the world. Stand on the truth of God's word, no matter what rages against you.

In our day, the days will grow increasingly evil. The spirit of Antichrist will rise in our days, but the spirit of the living

God in us is greater than he who is in the world. You have the power from the spirit of God to go out proclaiming and so go.

Go out and tell the world that Jesus is the Christ. He died and he rose. He's coming again.

Share this on Facebook. Share this message. Share it, email this link to your friends.

Be bold with the gospel. Tell the world that Jesus is king and Jesus is coming again.

Let's pray. So Lord, we ask now, because we know it's not by might nor by power, but by your spirit, we ask that you would fill us with your precious

Holy Spirit. Give us power from on high to proclaim your might, to proclaim salvation, to proclaim the gospel of grace.

We know that the rebuilt temple is coming, the two witnesses, the Antichrist, all of these things are coming, and yet we are not afraid.

For greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. You rose from the dead, conqueror of fear, our

Prince of Peace, drawing us near. Jesus, our hope, living for all who will receive who we believe.

Sing that together, together again. Jesus, hope of the nations.

Jesus, you are the source of heaven's hope on earth.

Jesus, light of Jesus, truth in your circumstance.

You are the source of heaven's light on earth.

In history, you lived and died, you broke the chains, you rose to life.

You are the hope living in us. You are the rock in whom we trust.

You are the light shining for all to see.

You rose from the dead, conqueror of fear, our Prince of Peace, drawing us near.

Jesus, our hope, living for all who will receive who we believe.

who we believe. who we believe.