Intro / Review:
Victory is Declared. (Revelation 11:1-19)
To Israel: Victory is MEASURED(Rev 11:1-2)
To the World: Victory is DEMONSTRATED (Rev 11:3-14)
In Heaven: Victory is CELEBRATED (Rev 11:15-19)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:00-00:04
Open up your Bibles with me please to Revelation 11.
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Revelation 11, we are going through the book of Revelation verse by verse in a series called "Coming Soon." What is coming soon? Actually, who is coming soon?
00:15-00:16
That's the better way to ask that, right?
00:17-00:18
Jesus Christ is coming soon.
00:19-00:25
And He's given us this revelation to tell us how the world is going to come to an end.
00:25-00:29
And we've been going through the judgments of God being poured out.
00:29-00:36
Revelation chapter 6, Revelation chapter 8, we've seen the seal judgments, and we've seen the trumpet judgments.
00:37-00:46
Revelation chapter 9, we saw demons attacking the earth with the fifth and the sixth trumpets, and we listened to John describe them, horrific images.
00:46-00:50
But the absolute worst part was that people refused to repent.
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And that took us to Revelation chapter 10 that we studied last week.
00:54-00:58
With John, we sort of got a chance to collect ourselves, stepping away from the action.
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And the question we answered last week is, "How are we supposed to feel about all this?
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How are we supposed to feel about God's Word?" And the answer was confident.
01:08-01:14
Remember the angel said, "It's happening, just as God promised in His Word." How do we feel about God's judgment?
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And we saw the answer is bittersweet.
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Yeah, it's awesome.
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God's going to make everything right, and all sin and all suffering are going to be gone forever.
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That is sweet.
01:24-02:20
but that also means that there's going to be eternal suffering apart from the presence of God for those who have rejected Him. And as a follower of Christ, that has to be a little bitter in your stomach. And that brings us to Revelation chapter 11. Well, many years ago, before we had kids, Aaron and I went on a walk. We were living in Butler at the time. We were walking through the town, through our neighborhood. We were walking past this one house, and I hear this little voice say, "Hey you!" Do we know anybody here? "Hey you!" And I saw there was like this five year old little kid sitting in the yard and there was another kid with him but this one kid, little boy, this little boy in particular, like I said about five years old, he's like, "Hey you!" I'm like, "Oh, aren't you just the cutest thing?" And I, we were on the sidewalk and I said, "Hey buddy, what's up?" And he said, "You're a Now you can probably guess how I feel about that word.
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That's what he said though.
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And I couldn't believe my ears.
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I'm like, I looked at Aaron and I looked at the kid.
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I'm like, I'm sorry, what did you say?
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I don't hear so well, so obviously I misheard him.
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I said, what did you say?
02:34-02:35
He goes, you're a wee tod.
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You are a wee tod.
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And I'm like, what?
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Like how do you even respond to that?
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A five year old just picked a fight with me.
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How do you respond to that?
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I just looked at the kid, it's a true story, Aaron can verify this, I just looked at the kid and I said, "You know what?
02:50-02:58
That may be true, but I can eat cookies for breakfast. Now who's laughing, punk?" But I walked away from that and, like I said, you can talk to Aaron about this, totally true.
02:58-03:01
I walked away, I wasn't angry, I wasn't offended.
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What do you think I was doing as I walked away? I was laughing!
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I was laughing, I'm like, "Who does this kid think he is?
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He's provoking me! He's picking a fight with me!
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Does he know who I am? Apparently he doesn't.
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This kid's picking a fight with me. He's five!
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Who does he think he is?
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And it was funny.
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We were laughing.
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They're like, "Why did you tell us this story? Here's why." Because you know, there are three passages in the Bible that says God laughs.
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And in every passage, He's laughing at the same thing.
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I want you to listen closely. I want you to jot these references down.
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I want you to go up and look this up later.
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Psalm 37.13 says, "The Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming." In Psalm 2.4, Psalm 59.8, again, "The Lord laughs." And in the context of those passages, it's about nations.
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Nations doing what?
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And the answer is, it's the equivalent of the nations looking at God and saying, "Hey you, you're a wetod!" And God's like, "Really? Really?" It's like a gnat trying to take down a linebacker.
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The foolishness of a human or even a nation getting in the face of God, picking a fight with God, provoking God, it's pathetic.
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Much more pathetic than a four-year-old picking a fight with an adult man or five-year-old, whatever he was. I didn't ask to see his ID.
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But it's laughable.
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The whole thing is laughable.
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And as we discussed last week, you know, church, I don't enjoy the thought of the end of the wicked.
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But here's something I do enjoy.
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I do enjoy the fact that the Lord isn't bothered by that.
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You realize that?
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The Lord's not sitting in heaven right now, like sweating, like, "Why don't people like me?
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Why don't I have a higher approval rating?
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Why are people so angry about me and my word?" His offer of grace is still on the table for now.
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I'd like to remind you, whether it's on Facebook, or in Hollywood, or it's evolutionary "scientists," or atheistic psychologists, or the wicked that we're going to see in Revelation chapter 11, you can be sure that when man tries to exalt himself over the Almighty, the Lord is laughing the way we laughed when a five-year-old provoked me.
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You think you're more powerful than God?
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You think you know better than God?
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You think God's plan, you think God's Word is going to fail?
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You're going to spit in God's face. Do you know what God's going to do?
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He's going to laugh. And He's going to have the last laugh, because God's victory is not, and never was, and never will be, in question.
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If there's one thing Revelation teaches us, especially Revelation chapter 11, it's this.
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God's already won.
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Revelation is about future events, but you're going to see very clearly in this passage, it's not in question as to what might happen.
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Revelation shows us that the victory, it's already been won. It's over.
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Even before chronologically it started.
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So on your outline, victory is declared.
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You're going to see this clearly in the passage.
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Victory is declared, number one, victory is declared to Israel, victory is measured.
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To Israel victory is measured.
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Like what do you mean by that?
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Well look at Revelation 11.
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It says, "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." Let's stop there. Once again, John is told to participate.
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He's not just watching, sort of like, eat the scroll.
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Now John's sort of given a yardstick, and he's told, "I want you to measure some stuff." This act really flows from chapter 10, verse 11, where God says, "You have more work to do.
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You must again prophesy about many people and nations and languages and kings." It flows right into this.
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Like, what temple is this?
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Well, the temple in the future is going to be built under the guidance protection of the Antichrist in Jerusalem. We're going to talk about him a little more today and a lot over the next coming weeks. The Antichrist is going to rebuild the Temple and he's even going to allow the Jews to sacrifice animals again the way they did in the Old Testament. I'll jot these references down. Daniel talks about this. Daniel 9.24, Daniel 12.11, but eventually, I mean the Antichrist, he's going to look like a good guy on the front end, but eventually he's going to set himself up as the only object of worship.
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Eventually he's going to say, "No, no, no, you worship me now." And Jesus talked about that in Matthew 24, 15. Paul talked about that in 2 Thessalonians 2, 4. Okay, so John was told to measure the temple and those worshiping there. Why? Well, you know when God does things like this, it's not FYI, right? God's not looking for information, but he's teaching something. Well, what's he teaching by having John measuring? Well, the imagery in Revelation in the Old Testament.
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That's why the Old Testament is important to study, because much of the New Testament and a lot of Revelation are very hard to understand without understanding the Old Testament.
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So when you look at - drop these down, we're not going to turn here.
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I'm really trying to condense this, otherwise it was going to be a five-hour sermon.
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It'll still be plenty long.
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But when you look at angelic dialogue and measuring God's property, Zechariah 2, God is promising that He will give you and you very clearly, Zechariah 2, especially the first five verses, God is promising to Israel blessing and protection for Jerusalem.
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And it seems here in Revelation, again comparing it with Zechariah 2, that God is measuring Israel, symbolized by the temple, for blessing, which is remembering His promise throughout the Old Testament that God was ultimately going to restore Israel.
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God was ultimately going to bring Israel to repentance.
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Paul talks about that in Romans 9, 10, and 11.
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Verse 2. Okay, so we're measuring the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there.
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Verse 2. "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 forty-two months." So God's marking off Israel for blessing, but He says, "Leave out the outer court." That's the court of the Gentiles.
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Again, this is symbolizing that unbelieving Gentiles are going to be rejected from this promise of blessing and repentance and restoration.
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No mention of the church, by the way.
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Just Israel, unbelieving Gentiles.
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God says, "Let's mark this out. Make it clear." Forty-two months. Forty-two months. What is that?
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Well, that's going to come up a lot in Revelation.
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That's 1,260 days. That's three and a half years.
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Those terms for that amount of time are used a lot throughout Revelation.
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But during the last half of the tribulation, we'll see in Revelation 13, the Antichrist and the God rejecters are going to attack Jerusalem like never before.
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That's why he says they will trample the holy city for 42 months.
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God already knows what's coming.
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And here, you see that God's preparing Israel for that.
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Like, "Hey, I'm measuring it out." John knew the Zechariah prophecy.
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John knew what this meant, measuring this out.
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It's going to get bad in Jerusalem, but God's going to bring salvation to Israel during this time.
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Do you think you're going to destroy God's nation?
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Do you think you're going to eradicate Israel?
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Other people have tried, by the way. I don't know if you heard about that.
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But God already has them measured out.
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He says, "I got blessing in mind for them. I got victory in mind for them." And yeah, they're going to trample the city for three and a half years, but God's showing John and showing Esther His Word that He is going to have the last laugh when it comes to Israel.
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So to Israel, victory is measured.
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Now things get from interesting to extremely interesting.
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Number two, to the world, victory is demonstrated.
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Victory is demonstrated.
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Verse 3, "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.
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You're like, "What is he talking about?" Well, the stage is set, we have these two witnesses come on the scene, and they're going to preach for 1,260 days, again 42 months, 3 1/2 years.
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It says they'll be clothed in sackcloth. That's a sign of humility.
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And when a prophet is clothed in sackcloth, that's a call for repentance.
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But once again, you've heard this sermon a few times already, God is still reaching out to a lost and sinful world with the message of "Come to me for salvation." and he's going to do it through these two witnesses.
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The whole world's going to see them, by the way.
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You're going to see that in a second.
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But these two people are going to be world known.
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You're like, well, why are they called the two olive trees, the two lampstands?
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Again, that comes from the book of Zechariah.
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Jot this down, Zechariah chapter 4.
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You need to read that chapter, and it explains a little bit more about where this imagery comes from.
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And I want to encourage you to read that.
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I want to encourage you to study that.
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It's a lot.
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And again, this would be a couple hour sermon to explain all of that. But my offer stands, if you would like to buy me lunch, I'll explain it to you over lunch. So these two witnesses show up and we don't know emphatically who these two witnesses are. But it's fun to think about, some people say these two witnesses are Moses and Elijah, that God brings them back for this season of history. Some people say no, it's not Moses and Elijah, it's Enoch and Elijah. You're like, well why Enoch? Well, I put these notes and some of the studies of this portion on our church website on a blog.
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If you want to do a little reading on that, it will explain to you why some people think that this is actually the return of either Elijah and Moses or Elijah and Enoch.
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So, that's extra bonus material.
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We're going to keep going, though, in the text here.
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Verse 5, talking about these two witnesses preaching repentance to the whole earth.
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Look at verse 5, "And if anyone would harm them, Fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes.
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If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed.
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They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying." Which is how long? Three and a half years, right? Catch that.
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"And they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they desire." So whoever these two are, whether it's Moses and Elijah, whether it's Enoch and Elijah, whether it's two people we don't know, whoever they are, we do know something about them.
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These two guys make the Avengers look like, in sync.
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I mean, did you see that? They're going to be preaching, and the world is not going to want to hear it, and they're going to assault them.
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And what happens when they assault them?
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First thing on the list, fire out of the mouth, turning their enemies extra crispy, like, wow!
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Three and a half year drought, like Elijah did previously.
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They can turn water into blood.
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And then it says they unleash every kind of plague whenever they want.
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These guys are hated, they're attacked, but they're far from defenseless.
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Look at verse 7.
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It says, "And when they have 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 that great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt where their Lord was crucified. 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 and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents because these two prophets have been a torment to those who dwell on the earth." So you have to note again God's sovereignty. Nothing happened to them until they were done.
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Did you catch that? They weren't silenced before their ministry was over.
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But in verse 7 we have the introduction of the Beast and this is the first of 36 references to the Beast in Revelation. We're going to talk a lot about the beast, especially when we get to chapters 13 and chapter 17. John would have been very familiar with this character from the book of Daniel, actually. But your Bible says he "came out of the abyss." And some people say, "Well, that's talking about Satan." And no, it's not talking about Satan, because you're going to see in Revelation, Satan is depicted as a dragon. This beast is a world ruler, also called the Antichrist, who imitates Jesus Christ. We're going to see that as we go through Revelation. He ultimately demands worship. And though the Antichrist is a man, apparently he is empowered by, connected to the abyss, the demons from the abyss, something we're going to see as we go through Revelation. I believe, this is just my personal thought, I believe that the Antichrist is Satan's attempt at imitating God.
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Just as in Jesus Christ the fullness of God dwelt bodily, Colossians 2, verse 9, Jesus died, resurrected, the Antichrist is going to try to imitate all of that.
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He can't do it the way God did it, obviously, but the Antichrist is going to continue to imitate things that God has accomplished with this Satan-filled man.
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We'll talk about him down the road.
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But God, in this passage, what do we see?
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God allows the beast to kill the witnesses, and they're going to lay dead in Jerusalem.
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Like, how do we know it's Jerusalem?
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He says Sodom and Egypt, but then he says it's where their Lord was crucified.
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So we know this is Jerusalem.
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And here, Jerusalem is called Sodom and Egypt to describe for us just how wicked Jerusalem will be in these last days, how much wickedness will pervade that city.
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But these two will lay dead, and they'll be on display for the world to see. And you know, it makes a lot of sense to us how that's possible. If you go back a generation or two, somebody could read this and think, "How in the world could the whole world see two dead bodies?" But we totally get that, right?
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It's going to be one of the most downloaded YouTube videos. It's going to be on CNN and every morning show and every newscast. And can we just stop and acknowledge how horrific that scene will be? Two dead bodies laying in the street and the world not only watches, but did you see in this passage the world celebrates their deaths. They throw parties, even to the point that they're exchanging gifts. Like what did you get me for Happy Dead Prophet Day? They're exchanging presents with each other because they're so excited that these two who have been preaching and have been torching the enemies that attack them, they're finally shut up! Somebody finally shut them up! And that just shows us how far gone the world is going to be. But obviously we're heading there. We're going to celebrate two dead preachers laying on the street. So, the prophets are gone, the plagues are over, and at this point the world will shout out the equivalent of "Hey you, you're a WETOG." the world says, "We won. The beast has won, the prophets are dead, and we have the last lap." Well, let's keep reading. Look at verse 11. "But after three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Come up here!' And they They went up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies watched them.
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After three and a half days, their laughter turns to terror.
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I hope they kept their receipt for those gifts that they bought.
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Because they're going to watch God resurrect them and then have a two-man rapture and the question is now who's laughing?
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Now who's celebrating?
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Look at verse 13, "And at that hour there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the The city fell. 7,000 people were killed in the earthquake.
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And the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
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God shows His power again.
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Not only does He resurrect and rapture these two, the Lord just sort of reaches down and grabs the city and just gives it a shake, destroying a tenth of it, killing 7,000 people.
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But it's resulting in many people getting saved.
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That's why it says, "The rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven." I believe that giving glory to the God of heaven is a euphemism for repenting and becoming a follower of God through Jesus Christ.
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Then the third woe is coming, verse 14, "The second woe is past, behold, the third woe is soon to come." The first woe was the locust, scorpion, demon attack, chapter 9, verse 1.
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The second woe, chapter 9, verse 13, was the 200 million horsemen demon things.
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The third woe is the seventh trumpet that is about to sound, and that's going to bring the seven bowl judgments that we're going to be getting.
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I know that's a lot of stuff, but believe me, that's about 2% of the stuff that I've studied this week.
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I just want to stop here for a second.
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I want us to think about a question that I've been thinking about this week.
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These two prophets, right?
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We can't emphatically say who we are.
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We can talk about that.
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Talk about that in your small group.
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It's an interesting conversation.
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Look at the blog.
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Let's talk about what the text does say.
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Okay, so they're here on the scene, it's the end days, they're preaching repentance.
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The question that I was thinking about this week, why did God allow them to be killed if He was just going to resurrect them?
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I mean, okay, so like, "Well, that's what He did with Jesus." Yeah, but see, that makes more sense to me because Jesus had to die for my sin, right?
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And for your sin.
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The wages of sin is death.
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Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin.
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So I kind of get why Jesus had to die in my place to bear the penalty for my sin and raise from the dead to give me eternal life.
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I get that. The death and resurrection of Jesus is absolutely essential to everything we believe as a church.
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I get that.
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But what about these two?
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They weren't purchasing my salvation or anybody's.
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So why did God let them be killed if he was just going to resurrect them?
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There's a lot of reasons.
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But here's one.
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Please hear me, I know this has been a very academic exercise going through and trying to piece these together, but I want you to hear this, if you hear nothing else today.
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Why did God allow them to be killed if He was going to resurrect them?
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Because it's a graphic reminder that it doesn't matter how wicked the world gets.
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It doesn't matter how bad things look.
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It doesn't matter how much evil seems to be winning the day today in 2019.
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God is going to have the victory.
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And I think that's the main point of God allowing them to be killed and then resurrecting them.
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Because at the time they were killed, did you see what the world did?
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We killed them! We win! You lose!
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And what does God do?
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When the world does that, what does God do? Remind me.
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He laughs. The world's like, "We win! We're buying presents! We're having parties!
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Happy Dead Prophet Day!" And God's up in heaven like...
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God's like, "Okay. Okay. Is it my turn? Is it my move? Watch this." Resurrected! Ascended! Earthquake!
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And do you realize, church, God is doing this repeatedly in your life.
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Everything in your life that looks like a defeat is God setting the ball on the tee for ultimate victory.
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Everything in your life that looks bad, that's disappointing, that's crushing, that's discouraging, every time in your life that the prophets are killed and the world celebrates, God's just waiting for the right time.
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In this case it was three and a half days.
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For you, maybe it's three and a half days, maybe it's three and a half years.
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I don't know.
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But when God's allowing these things to happen, He's setting the stage to say, "Hey, hey, hey, wait.
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They thought they won.
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My people might have thought that they were defeated, but I want you to watch this because I'm about to do something that's going to completely blow your mind." So when things seem bad in your life, when evil seems to be winning in your life, keep your eyes open, because God is about to demonstrate victory.
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So to the world, victory is demonstrated.
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And I believe that's the whole point of these prophets, preaching repentance and showing the world it doesn't matter what you do.
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Death won't even stop the purposes of God.
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And they should have learned that at Calvary.
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Number three, finally, in heaven victory is celebrated.
24:09-24:30
"Then 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 his Christ, and he He shall reign forever and ever." And the 24 elders, remember we talked about them, Revelation 4, representatives of the church.
24:30-24:48
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.
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The nations raged, but your wrath came.
24:52-25:08
And 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 and heaven, victory is celebrated." Like, well, wait a minute.
25:09-25:12
Shouldn't this be at the end of Revelation?
25:12-25:14
Because it says stuff hasn't happened yet.
25:14-25:15
And heaven's like, yeah, it has.
25:16-25:16
It has.
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The world just didn't get the memo yet.
25:19-25:24
The seven trumpet sounds and the judgments that go with that are the seven bold judgments.
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They're described in Revelation 15.
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We'll get there. Lord willing.
25:28-25:31
Revelation 12-14 is a break in the action.
25:32-25:34
But here, John gets a peek into heaven.
25:35-25:50
You see where it says, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ." Interestingly, that phrase "has become" in the Greek describes a future event that's so certain It's talked about in the past tense.
25:51-25:52
It's already happened.
25:52-25:54
And as the trumpet sounds, celebration breaks out.
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God's victory is certain.
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You had to have seen that in Revelation 18.
25:59-26:00
It says the nations raged.
26:01-26:03
In Psalm 2, the nations rage.
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What does God do when that happens?
26:05-26:06
He laughs.
26:06-26:07
Look at verse 19.
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Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of His covenant was seen within His temple.
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of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail." So John sees God's temple in heaven that exists now, it won't in eternity, but he sees his temple and he sees his Ark of the Covenant and he hears the familiar sounds of judgment, right? Lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, earthquake, hail, these are all things that we've seen associated with judgment. What can you compare that to?
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I thought about, we talked about God revving the engine, and this scene here is almost like, it's almost like you go to a car show, and this guy has like the ultimate souped up muscle car.
26:51-26:52
What kind of car would that be?
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Go ahead and shout it out.
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A Camaro.
26:54-26:57
I thought for sure that would result in a fight here.
26:57-27:01
All right, we're gonna go with Camaro, and I'll just deal with the nasty emails tomorrow about that.
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But this guy has the ultimate souped up Camaro, and he has the hood up, and he's
27:08-27:09
(growls)
27:10-27:18
That's sort of what John sees as he looks again into heaven and he sees not just God's temple but the ark of His covenant.
27:18-27:31
God's again revving the engine because when we get back at the chronological order of things in Revelation 15, the stuff that we've covered so far is going to seem tame compared to what's coming because it gets worse and worse.
27:32-27:36
In heaven, victory is already being celebrated.
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at times when we walk by sight, I'm going to be honest with you, it looks like the enemy won.
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Would you agree that it appears that way sometimes?
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Gay marriage, abortion, the Ten Commandments taken down from a public square again, reading stories about Christ's people being persecuted all over the world.
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And when we walk by sight, sometimes we're like, wow, evil's winning.
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But, as we walk by faith, in Revelation today, we sort of look over John's shoulder as the curtain is pulled back and we get to peek into heaven.
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We see that ultimate victory, it's already been declared.
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And they've already started celebrating.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven today, we thank You for the truth of Your Word.
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The victory is done!
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Victory is done!
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You've demonstrated victory ultimately through the cross of Jesus Christ.
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His death and His resurrection.
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He has defeated sin.
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He has defeated Satan.
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Father, today as we walk through this world and see everything that's happening, sometimes we feel like things are out of control.
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Evil is winning.
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But God, I thank You for this passage that reminds us, You're already putting up the decorations for the party of the victory that's ahead.
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People are already worshiping You and celebrating You and praising You now the victory that's ahead.
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Father, I pray today, as Your people, we would live and talk and act as victorious people.
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Through Christ our Lord we pray, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Revelation 11
GROUP
How does Zechariah (chapters 2 and 4) help you understand Revelation 11?
According to the Bible, what makes God laugh (Psalm 2:4, 37:13, 59:8 - you may want to look at the context for fuller understanding)? How do you reconcile this with the truth that God “has no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezekiel 33:11)?
Why would God allow the 2 Witnesses to be killed, only to resurrect them (11:7, 11)? Why not just keep them invincible? What does this tell you about God - and the trials in your own life?
Read the blog on our website that supplements the sermon. Who do YOU think the “2 Witnesses” are?
BREAKOUT
Pray prayers of thanksgiving!