Selected Scriptures

September 20, 2020

Evening Service

Jonathan Sarr

Training Unto Cultural Advancement

Revelation 14:1-5

September 20, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 17:35 in the audio file.

Or, Let the Redeemed of the Lord Sing So

Our study through the Apocalypse, which, you’ll remember is a word that means “unveiling,” keeps giving us opportunities to be blessed. Those who read and hear and keep the words of the prophecy will be blessed, so says John at both bookends (Revelation 1:3; 22:7). Our pace, approximately a paragraph at a time, is like a brisk walk but not so fast that we’re skipping over things. This is pastoral strategery.

One principle of Bible reading, study, and preaching, that I don’t say out loud much these days is that for every text there is one interpretation with many possible applications. Some of you are blessed to own that principle as if it was a coating over every page of your Bible; you can’t read otherwise. Some of you perhaps have never heard it before.

The interpretation is what it means. There was an original author, moved by the Divine Author, writing to an original audience. The author intended a meaning for his readers to understand. We can acknowledge that none of us might know the correct meaning; being wrong takes barely any effort. We can also acknowledge that some meanings are debatable, as in, there’s evidence for a variety of meanings. Many of those debates can be had in Christian charity. But humility, toward the text and toward one another, does not mean we give up the conviction that the meaning is there, even if we’re ignorant about it.

A number of the 16th century Reformers gave their lives translating the Bible into the common language so that non-scholars could read the Bible for themselves. I was reminded this past week that even the New Testament was written in the common language, Koine Greek; wherever Paul preached he could be understood. The Greek NT isn’t a unique Holy Ghost mountain-top language that waits for academics to climb up to it. Now that we all have our own copies of God’s Word, what a privilege, and a privilege we’re to steward.

I’m moving us through the book of Revelation and asking everyone to consider the meaning. My “rules” are that I wouldn’t demean anyone by assuming what I’m trying to prove with a comment like “If you just read your Bible.” We’re reading it together, asking questions and making observations. My other rule is that I would hardly use the word “literal.” It’s tiresome, and typically patronizing. And, also, I don’t think that means that all the images mean symbols.

We just finished reading about the unholy trinity of the dragon, the sea-beast, and the earth-beast in chapters 12-13. This is satan, the embodied antichrist, and his false prophet. We had heard the sixth trumpet blow, but before the seventh trumpet blows and the seven judgment bowls are dumped over, John has seen these visions that portray why the sinfulness and depravity and spiritual conflict is so awful. It’s part of a long war, with grudges as petty as they are old.

Revelation 13 showed the final grasps for power by the ancient serpent and his successful, albeit temporary, dominion. He is praised for about as long as Trump has been president, three and a half years. The saints are outnumbered and outcast. But the saints still conquer with the Lamb.

Chapter 14 reminds us of the commitment of those who stand with the Lamb, who endure, who love not their lives to death (as in 12:11). We see some of them in this chapter, though there is application for all of us.

THE SEALED (verse 1)

Here is another vision, another “And I saw,” and this is much more encouraging than the previous.

**“Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.” (verse 1)

Instead of the dragon standing on the sand (12:18), ant[...]

Revelation 13:11-18

September 13, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 19:05 in the audio file.

Or, A Trifecta of Ineptitude

If you understand these parts of Revelation to describe future events, as I do, you may wonder how you could reasonably claim an optimistic eschatology. The dragon hates the community connected with the Messiah and chases them into the wilderness in chapter 12. The beast out of the sea parodies the Messiah and conquers many of the saints to their death. Another beast is introduced in this final paragraph of chapter 13, and he appears to be successful in wooing the world into beast worship and putting to death those who refuse. Where is the optimism supposed to fit?

Jesus will return, and will win, eventually, but everyone (who’s orthodox) believes that. We might look longingly over at those who seem so happy believing that these things in Revelation already happened (except for Jesus’ return), that we’re past all this beastly Roman Empire stuff, and all we see today are bumps in the gospel’s path to success.

A couple things: in order to say that all this beastly stuff was fulfilled in the first century, you have to selectively skip over a bunch of the story; the same is true if you only think the beasts are repeating cycles of cruelty throughout history. Even more than that, the angle I really want you to see from this passage: the world does go to hell in a hand-basket, but in a flame of desperation. The reason it seems so bad is due to deceit. Behind the scenes is the truth of failure and ineptitude.

We’re optimistic because we know the truth. We’re optimistic because we know why it’s bad; this is the best the beasts can muster.

In a parody of the Trinity, the dragon gives his authority to a beast from the sea, and now a third being comes to point to the first beast. While this second beast is identified as a false prophet (explicitly as soon as 16:13), he rounds out the unholy trinity, just as the Spirit came to point to the Son.

The Debut of the Earth-Beast (verses 11-12)

A new vision begins as John again says, 11 Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.

We know this is a second beast, a third character, because John says it is another, because it comes from a different place, because it has a different number of horns, because it is represented by another animal, and because it points to “the first beast” in verse 12.

The beast comes out of the earth, which probably meant it was less scary than a beast out of the sea. In the apocryphal book of 1 Enoch, Leviathan is a female monster who lived in the ocean’s abyss and Behemoth was the male monster who lived in a waste wilderness (Mounce). That this second beast only had two horns rather than ten means that it is less forceful, and looking like a lamb suggests that it is less fierce, unlike the leopard-bear-lion. Jesus Himself said that false prophets come in “sheep’s clothing.” The nominal and compromised in faith may not notice.

Nevertheless it spoke like a dragon, like a serpent, like the serpent, charming and deceiving Eve in the garden. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, big mouths and slick tongues. “Whereas the first beast speaks loudly and defiantly against God, the second beast makes the first beast’s claims sound plausible and persuasive” (Beale).

It Works Delegated Authority (verse 12a)

Verse 12 introduces us to the activity of the beast in two general ways which are expanded in verses 13-17. The key word in Greek is ποιέω (poieo), variously translated as “makes” or “causes” or “exercises” or “performs.”

12 It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, meaning that the earth beast works on behalf of and for the pleasure of the first beast; there is only one policy maker. We’ll see more specifically w[...]

Revelation 13:5-10

September 6, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 19:40 in the audio file.

Or, Why the Saints Will Endure the Beast

It is always instructive to see how God handles things. By that I don’t mean how He reacts, I mean how He has organized things in order to show off various aspects of His character, including His wisdom and His patience. If the virtue of endurance had its origin and essence in you, how would you communicate that to others so that they would know it at a deeper level than the two-dimensions of a printed page? You’d probably want to demonstrate it, and for that you’d need something to endure.

The starting point for this discussion is the sovereignty of God. It is not an academic specialty or a polemical fight, it is a pastoral encouragement for every believer’s fight for faith and endurance. The life of a disciple of Christ is costly; it will cost you your life, in one way or in thousands. God made it to be like this. Our need to endure is a given, at least if we want to worship God in His beautiful steadfastness as well as take on His image. James said that when steadfastness has its full effect in us, then we lack nothing.

In the final days, of which we are getting a taste of these days, the world will be driven by the dragon, his agent the beast, and a prophet who is also referred to as a beast. It’s more than interesting, it’s instructive how the Almighty and the Lamb, and their Spirit, deal with the unholy trinity.

No other being in the universe deserves praise like God, no other being in the universe knows when He’s not getting the praise He deserves, and no other being in the universe has the authority to judge the blasphemers. God Himself is the legislator, judge, and executor (not necessarily mapping to members of the Trinity). Why doesn’t He do something about the beast?

It’s not that He doesn’t have the forces. The dragon has been beaten at everything he tried in chapter 12. Having been thrown out of heaven and frustrated in his attempts to attack the woman, the dragon sets up his own messiah-like figure, the final embodiment of the antichrist, who poses as a king. In Revelation 13:1-4 we saw the parody, the numerous ways the beast plays at taking the Lamb’s place. But isn’t the Father’s aim to make much of His Son? How could the Father let this imposter go on? Again, why doesn’t He do something about the beast?

He does. He gives the beast everything he’s got.

The battle between good and evil is not a fair fight, and it’s not because evil cheats. It’s because evil has to steal ideas and borrow strength from the God of good just to fight the good. Evil isn’t autonomous. Evil can’t create or sustain itself. Evil needs good to pervert, and it needs approval to do its perverting. How humiliating.

In Revelation 13:1-4 the beast imitates the Lamb’s glory, and in verses 5-8, the beast receives glory, but the perspective reveals that its only because it’s been delegated to him by God, with limits. Four times John says “it was given” to the beast. Then in verses 9-10 we’ll see how the saints are called to respond, not just to the beast, but to this revelation.

Given to Blaspheme God (verses 5-6)

There’s not just a relationship between the beast and the dragon, Satan, the beast also has a relationship to the state. In the early verses of the chapter we see the many-headed, multi-horned view of of the beast, and in chapter 17 we’ll be told how the heads relate to a number of kings. One of the activities of those rebel rulers is blasphemy, they take names that don’t belong to them. In verse 5 the embodiment of the beast has a big mouth.

5 And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. 6 It opened its mouth to utter [...]

Revelation 13:1-4

August 30, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 20:10 in the audio file.

Or, The Great Wannabe

Evil never creates, it only corrupts. Idols are like viruses: they need a carrier. Satan himself lives on borrowed glory, and it makes him furious. Power, when exercised against God, can’t help but reflect God who defines power, not to mention being delegated from Him.

Consider how it works with pleasure. Hell hath invented no pleasure, the best hell can do is pervert pleasure. C.S. Lewis had Uncle Screwtape observe the following:

“Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one.” (The Screwtape Letters, 44)

Now imagine a team of demon writers in the abyss, fever-sweating ideas for the great dragon who wants to be worshiped at a level above his creation grade. The best they can come up with is for the dragon to imitate the true God. Their most innovative efforts are mere plagiarism of the way their Enemy does it; they’ve got nothing original. When the dragon leaves the room, they whine about how unfair it is that the Enemy has all the best ideas.

The dragon has already been jealous of the Almighty and tried to devour the male child, God’s Son. In Revelation 13 the dragon sets up his own son-like character, repeating the pattern he saw in the Messiah. Rather than the “Son of Man” (Matthew 20:28), here is a Beast who has the “number of a man” (Revelation 13:18). The beast is the final Antichrist, he is the Great Wannabe of all time.

The apostle John is the only one in the NT to use the word, ἀντίχριστος, and only in 1st and 2nd John. There are also ψευδόχριστοι, “false christs.” Though he doesn’t use either of those exact words here, the beast is the ultimate embodiment of one who denies the Father and the Son (see 1 John 2:22).

This beast occupies John’s vision in Revelation 13:1-10. There is a second beast introduced in verse 11, a false prophet who points to the beast, like the Spirit came to point to the Son. It is a parody of the Trinity, but not in love or holiness. Parody is an imitation or version that falls short of the real thing, sometimes for (or resulting in) comic effect. A parody is the best the beast can be.

In verses 1-10 there are three paragraphs, the first two are about the beast and the third about believers in dealing with the beast. We’ll start by seeing the beastly parody, an attempted imitation of the male child, in five ways.

A Parody of the Lamb’s Deity (verse 1)

Last we saw with John, the dragon was standing on the shore of the sea (12:18), about to summon this agent of evil forth.

 And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. (verse 1)

The vision observes a creature appearing almost in slow motion, revealing more parts of the multi-headed monster as it rises. That this beast rises out of the sea connects it with the dragon, connects it with the abyss, connects it with the imagery of the deeps, of the unknown, of chaos (though it’s not the kraken). In Revelation 11:7 (and 17:8) the beast arises from “the abyss”; it’s more than the Mediterranean Sea.

The ten horns and seven heads matches a previous description of the dragon who had seven heads (12:3), except that horns and heads are switched in order. The similarity means the dragon and the beast are intimately connected, sort of a “if you’ve seen me you’ve seen him” parallel (John 14:9), even though the dragon and the beast are not the same being.

With the horns of the beast mentioned first, there is an emphasis on power, especially military force. There are ten horns on the fourth beast in[...]

Revelation 12:13-17

August 23, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 20:20 in the audio file.

Or, Why Is All of This Happening?

Good liturgy does more than check the boxes of what someone has said is good to do at church. It’s more than well-arranged hooks to hang meat on, though it does give opportunity for content delivery. Good liturgy is like a recipe for making food that tastes good and fills you up, even though you usually don’t think about all of the individual ingredients while eating dinner.

Good preaching also does more than meet certain standards of public speaking with the additional concern of theological accuracy. Good preaching pleases God as God’s Word is proclaimed, good preaching feeds and equips the saints, it even rebukes and corrects. Good preaching consecrates the living sacrifices as it renews the minds of believers, and it should stimulate faith in the Word which promises blessing.

On an annual basis I take a break from whatever series I’m preaching through and focus on the subject of corporate worship and liturgy. Most of the time the liturgy just works on us, sometimes we attend to how it works on us.

I don’t remember the last time I got specific about why I preach the way that I do, and what I expect to come from it (interestingly enough, was probably during a message about where preaching fits in the liturgy). For sake of some of you who are new to the flock, or growing up in it, here are some of the things always dancing around my mind.

I love studying the Bible. One of my favorite things to do is diagram verses. I love to see the grammatical main point and the syntactical modifiers. I enjoy reading the Bible, reading books about the Bible and commentaries on specific parts of the Bible. I am fanatic about paragraphs, about context, and about considering as much as possible what the original readers would have understood before taking advantage of the larger context of all 66 books, a blessing we have, but one that belongs in its place.

I got to spend eight and a half years in Bible college and seminary, I have been preaching on a regular basis for over twenty years, I know that I have extra accountability as an elder and as a teacher (James 3:1), and I still want you to see the Scripture and understand the text and learn how to read it for yourself. I’m not abdicating my authority, I’m using my authority to get you to see that my authority is attached to the Word, and you can go straight to the Word, too.

Some of you have heard me talk about my attitude on this a lot, or at least a long time ago. Some of you are newish to the flock, and that’s great, and my goal is to affirm that I want you to get the Word, not get my word. It doesn’t mean that you have as much time, or interest, in studying it as I am blessed to do. But we’re only five hundred or so years into God’s people having their own copies. What an opportunity to read it, whenever you want, for yourself. I am responsible to teach, and you are responsible to see if what you’re being told is biblical (Acts 17:11).

When it comes to the book of Revelation, I’m trying to show my work. I’m not offering a special decoder key to understand it. In fact, apart from a dumb amount of reading on coronavirus and capitalism and constitutions, I’ve been spending most of my weeks reading a variety of options and interpretations to test my perspective, verse by paragraph by seal and trumpet and woe. When we come here together, I’m not sharing my opinion, I’m telling you my observations of the text, for sake of interpretation and application. This is true for Revelation, and it is a pattern for whatever you’re reading in the Bible.

I’m convinced that the prominent challenge comes from the fact that what John describes in Revelation has not happened like John describes. We’re either supposed to realize that his la[...]

Revelation 12:7-12

August 16, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 18:10 in the audio file.

Or, Why Is All of This Happening?

We are in a particular generation of a long battle. It is a battle that began within the first few chapters of life on earth, and it is a battle that will continue until the final chapter of history. From the beginning, our enemy has been seeking our harm not mainly by direct assault, but by trying to deceive us into sin and then presenting a case to accuse us with our sin. He doesn’t play fair.

At the beginning of Revelation 12 John sees two signs. The first sign is of a woman, who represents Israel (verse 1), the mother of the male child who will rule the nations (verse 5). The second sign is of a dragon (verse 3), who we learn even more about in this paragraph. There is an angelic clash, and then a great victory and celebration.

This “war…in heaven” has been interpreted as the war at the beginning of history, as a war around the same time as the death and resurrection of the male child, or as a war still to come at the end around the time of the Great Tribulation on earth. The third view is most likely based on the context.

The vision with the signs in chapter 12 does not seem (to me) to be made up of cycles; it is not different perspectives on the same event. There are two events: 1) the dragon’s tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth in verse 4, and now 2) the dragon brings those stars, “his angels,” back to heaven in verse 7. He was angry before the male child was born, and now that the male child has been “caught up to God and to his throne,” the dragon is furious with the woman.

Remember verse 6. The “woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.” This is the same amount of time that the two witnesses gave testimony (chapter 11), the same duration of the Great Tribulation. While this woman is in the wilderness the war in heaven arises. Verse 7 belongs with the 1,260 days, meaning it belongs at the end.

Thrown Down (verses 7-9)

And there became war in heaven, Michael and his angels [began] to wage war with the dragon. And the dragon waged war and also his angels, and they were not strong, neither a place was found for them again in heaven.

We don’t get to see a lot of what happens in heaven, only glimpses in God’s Word. We do know from the book of Job that Satan and the “sons of God” go back and forth between earth and heaven, even presenting themselves before God (Job 1:6; 2:1). It will be significant to recall the sorts of things that Satan brought to God’s attention about Job in a moment.

In Revelation 12 there is a division of spiritual forces that come to heaven with the dragon, presumably to attack the male child who had already ascended there. This is not an ancient battle at the beginning of time since the male child has already come to earth, but this war is related to the 1,260 days when the woman fled into the wilderness (12:6). The dragon and his forces are met, not by the Messiah, but rather by Michael.

Michael is an archangel, named only a couple times in the Old Testament (Daniel 10:13, 21 and 12:1). What is more interesting than the rank he holds, is that he doesn’t attain to the rank of the male child, the Lord’s Anointed Son, and Satan still can’t defeat him. Michael and the devil have already fought before (Jude 9). He is a guardian of Israel.

“At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.” (Daniel 12:1)

Michael has angels; they are called his. We could say that [...]

Revelation 12:1-6

August 9, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 18:30 in the audio file.

Or, Why Is All of This Happening?

Who wants to be left behind? If you don’t know, Left Behind is a series of (16!) rapture fiction books, some of which became bestsellers. They were roundly mocked by serious literature people, as well as by those with different eschatology. But my question is not about what you want to read, it’s about how you want to be perceived.

Do you want other people to think that you are loving? You should (John 13:35). Do you want other people to think that you are hopeful? You should (1 Peter 3:15). Do you want other people to think that you are reasonable? You should (Philippians 4:5), even as “the Lord is at hand.”

But do you also want them to think that you are on always on edge, that you act like you are in an invisible war, that you believe there are spiritual forces at work, that have been at work, that conspire together in a way to remake, and ruin, humanity? All of the above is what Bible believing Christians know, even if we prefer not to think, or talk too much about it because we’re afraid others will call us unstable, or loony, or irrelevant. We might as well be with the Left Behind guys.

In Revelation 12 we’ve not gone off the edge of the map, but here there be monsters. We look toward the second half of the Apocalypse, and this chapter is not only in the center of the book, it relates to the central conflict of all time. Here is the deep source of universal bitterness and strife. Here is a story in three sections, that answers why all of this trouble is happening. There is an underlying conflict for all the problems God’s people endured in the OT, for the persecution of God’s Messiah, and also for a coming generation of believers.

We may hesitate to attribute too much to the devil. People who are always talking about the devil are often a bit sensational/dramatic, Charismatic, conspiratic. But our modern “maturity” and worldview that rejects angels and demons and gods and devils, comes from unbelief, not belief.

As Martin Luther wrote in “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” we have an ancient foe who seeks to work us woe. He is named and described and portrayed in Revelation 12 as a “great red dragon,” the devil, the accuser of the brethren. He has been seeking to devour for a long time and he is, and will be, furious (his wrath in verse 12, furious in verse 17), even though the end of his story has already been written.

Revelation 12 reminds us that we are in a long battle that we didn’t enlist in, but that we cannot escape from. There has been a long animosity against God and His people. Part of the purpose of the chapter is to help “Christian readers perceive that behind their earthly persecutors stand forces of spiritual evil, led by the devil himself.” But our troubles happen “not because Satan is too powerful for them but because he has been decisively overthrown” (Beale). We have reason to conquer, because who wants to compromise with the loser?

In verses 1-6 we’re introduced to the main characters of the vision, verses 7-12 describe a war between angelic forces, and 13-17 tell us more about persecution.

More Than a Woman (verses 1-2)

Two “signs” appear in this paragraph. The word sign is an interpretive clue. Of course not every author needs to be so obvious and point out his analogies, illustrations, and symbols. But repeatedly in Revelation that’s exactly what John does, as here. Those who take Revelation as dominated by symbols put themselves in a corner where these comments about signs are as superfluous as trying to make something more white by pouring bleach on snow.

This great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. Does this remind you of anything yo[...]

Revelation 11:15-19

August 2, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 16:00 in the audio file.

Or, Blessed Are All Those Who Rejoice in His Reign

What is the hope of every Christian? There are different ways to describe it, but “the outcome of [our] faith” is “the salvation of [our] souls” (1 Peter 1:9). “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2). We want to be “complete in Christ” (Colossians 1:28). All of those are included in the promise of the gospel, they belong with our eternal life. And also, we want a life with the Lord and for the Lord. We want fellowship with Christ, to be face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12) and know His love and live in His presence.

You may say it some other way. But faith, as it is informed by God’s Word, has a picture of a way it will be. We might not dwell on our future because we’re distracted, or because we’re afraid we’ve got the details wrong, or even because we’re discouraged and begin to doubt. This is part of why God gave us the book of Revelation.

After this morning we’ll be halfway through the book, at least according to chapter divisions. What have you gotten so far? I suspect it’s a mixed blessing. I’ve heard that some don’t enjoy what seems to be an excessively detailed and academic lecture series. I know there are others who would say it’s not scholarly enough. (Maybe there is a group for whom it’s “just right.”) I also get that you may not always get the feels that any given paragraph is the gas you need for your week. Does anticipating a hoard of demon locust encourage you to fold the final load of laundry? Does the fact that I think it’s actually a hoard of demon locust irritate you every time you think about it while you’re doing the laundry?

Maybe you wonder, some Sundays more than others, what good this is doing. You could be in your seventies, you could be seven, you could be wrangling a seven-month old, you could be afraid that I’m about to make a numerical joke about the symbolism of the number seven.

I believe that even now, in the crazy-sounding and unrelenting prophecies of the end times, God is giving us courage to conquer. We need at least a little time each week to get our heads into a God-given vision of the future where He rights the wrongs and rewards the righteous and rules over His kingdom giving blessing to those who rejoice in His reign. You may be the youngest believer among us, or the busiest, or bruised. You may not remember all the intricacies of the seals and trumpets and bowls, but if you can sing like the great multitude that He shall reign forever and ever, it will be hard to knock you over.

We’ve come to the seventh trumpet, which I believe includes the seven bowls to be poured out in the following chapters.

A Declaration (verse 15)

As the final trumpet blows, John sees what will be the final reality on earth. When the seventh seal was broken there was silence in heaven for half an hour (Revelation 8:1). This is not hushed.

15 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 of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

The lyrics may sound more familiar to you from Handel’s Messiah, especially the “Hallelujah Chorus.” Handel’s oratorio does make a glorious impression, but the original vision even more so. These loud voices were saying, not singing per se (though vigorous chanting supposedly spreads coronavirus anyway).

Contrary to the assertions of many commentators, the point of the prophecies of Revelation is not how the church is fulfilling the role of Israel in God’s plan. The point of the prophecies is that Jesus is coming again to reign on earth over a kingdom of Jews and Gentiles of every nation.

The kingdom of the world is seen as one great empire. (Some Greek [...]

Revelation 11:1-14

July 26, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 22:00 in the audio file.

Or, Being on the Wrong Side of Prophecy

At a certain point, trying to be winsome is worthless. I believe in trying to be winsome, trying to demonstrate that something is attractive or appealing, because Solomon said it was wise. Sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness (Proverbs 16:21, 23), and words seasoned with salt increase desire and can be used to change another’s mind (see Colossians 4:6). There come times, however, when it would take an act of God to get someone to realize how dangerous it is to be on the wrong side of prophecy.

In Revelation 11 God raises up two witnesses who prophecy for three and a half years, witnesses who cause nuisance and aggravation among the earth-dwellers (see verse 10) that provoke assaults. For forty-two months the witnesses are given power by God not only to stand before Him as the Lord of the earth (verse 4), and to make powerful testimony as lampstands in a dark place, they also withstand those who desire to harm them. Fire comes from their mouths and consumes their foes (verse 5). They call for dry skies and bloody waters and pray for plagues as often as they desire (verse 6). They are invincible, for as long as God wants.

Verses 7-14 finish this second vision before the seventh trumpet and the third woe.

I have already made a case for why I think the “holy city” in verse 2 is Jerusalem, which we’ll see with a different description in verse 8. It makes sense to me that the “temple of God and the altar” in verse 1 describe a temple-building in Jerusalem, a temple such as Ezekiel prophesied would be rebuilt in the latter days by believing Israelites. “Those who worship there” are converted Jews, likely among those sealed in chapter 7. The temple is not an analogy of the church, and neither are the two witnesses a different analogy for the church, though the church is a witness to the world.

Ding, Dong the Prophets are Dead (verses 7-10)

It takes more than an ordinary mob to deal with the powerful testimony of these two witnesses.

Killing Them Dead

An otherworldly type of character is introduced (I don’t think he’s on the 2020 Scorecard).

7 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, 8 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.

It must be said that the conquering and killing of these witnesses only comes when they have finished their testimony. God decides when they are done. It bears a similarity to God’s answer about the numbers of martyrs filling up (6:11); the witnesses will get out every word they have been appointed to proclaim.

Only then will the beast that rises from the bottomless pit…make war on them. The beast appears for the first time in the Apocalypse, and has a part on Revelation’s stage 35 more times before his end in the lake of fire (20:10). Since he is named alongside the “dragon,” and the dragon is called the serpent, also called Satan, the beast is not the devil. We’ll see much more about the best in chapter 13, where he is healed of a mortal wound and world worships him, but for now, we learn where he comes from and where his loyalties lie. As with the locust, he comes straight from the pit, from the netherworld. He does hellish work.

That work on earth is warlike. Some argue against the witnesses being two men because you don’t make war against (or “attack” NIV) individuals. But what kind of force does one need if fire comes out of the enemy’s mouth? Plus, we aren’t introduced to other “troops.” There is no army of beasts, no Uglies. God allows the beast to conquer them and kill them.

More than just dead, they are dehuman[...]