Two Journeys

I love the stories of church history, of heroes of the faith, men and women who have courageously stood for Christ through 20 centuries, willing to lay down their lives for the advance of the Gospel. The early Christians during the Roman era, for example, were willing to have their blood mingled with the sands of the Colosseum, to stand firm for Christ and not yield to burn that pinch of incense to Caesar. That trail of blood and courage and love and glory has unfolded in every generation since Christ. Most of the greatest stories of the past have yet to be told, but when all is said and done, some of the greatest, most courageous stories of Christian witness have yet to happen.

Revelation provides a glimpse of the future. God gave us the book to tell us what must soon take place to help us understand that terrible times are coming. Revelation 12-13 unfolds the drama behind the scene of then-current events of politics and government. Revelation 12 depicts a dragon, Satan, turning the knobs and pulling the levers and flipping the switches of human history. He has been running the world all along, because he is the prince of this world. In some sense he owns the world and can give it to anyone he wants to. The terrifying end of that chapter makes it plain that he hates the children of God, the followers of Jesus. He is filled with rage against them and he will persecute them.

Revelation 13, one of the most sobering chapters in the book, reveals his weapon of choice, the Beast from the Sea, at the end of the world to enact his hatred for the people of God. He summons the beast, which is a world empire, from the undulating waves of humanity. The wicked empire is ultimately represented by one head of the beast, a single man, who the Antichrist, the one-world ruler. All tribes and languages and peoples and nations will submit to his authority. When he supposedly receives a mortal wound and is in some deceptive way raised from apparent death, he gains the awe and wonder of the world, adding a religious element of worship to his regime.

A second beast, the Beast from the Earth, the false prophet, is brought forth. He points to the Beast from the Sea, the Antichrist, and compels everyone all over the world to bow down and worship him as God. There is no separation of church and state; the most powerful military police state the world has ever seen will perpetrate the worst governmental compulsion there ever has been, forcing individuals to worship the beast. At the end of the chapter the false prophet compels people to receive a mark of allegiance to the beast on the forehead or on the hand; without it they cannot buy or sell. Verse 18 says, “This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.” 

How does Revelation 14 fit into the flow of these events? It is set in the context of understanding the coming beast and outcomes beyond that. Will the beast finally win? Will he drag everyone to hell? Or will there be a company of redeemed who will stand firm with courage and faithful endurance to make it to the other side? The answer to that last question is absolutely, there will be those who endure to the end. The first half of this chapter is a response to the terror of the reign of Antichrist and the greater power of the Gospel to rescue people from it. The image of the proclamation of the Gospel should be forefront in our thinking.

Verse 1 begins with two interpretive challenges. Revelation 14:1 says, “Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.” Where is this Mount Zion, and who are the 144,000?

Mount Zion in the Bible is sometimes physical and earthly and sometimes heavenly and spiritual. Is this a heavenly scene of Mount Zion spoken of in Hebrews 12, “not … a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire” but a heavenly place where the spirits of departed saints go to worship and wait for the resurrection? Or is it an earthly scene of the physical Jerusalem? There are arguments for each.

The angel said in Acts 1 to the disciples who stood watching as Jesus ascended, expecting him to come back immediately, “Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (In the meantime, Jesus gave them work to do.) Zechariah 14:3-4 implies that Jesus will return right there to the same spot on the Mount of Olives, lending support to those who say Revelation 14:1 refers to literal, earthly Jerusalem: “Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations as He fights on a day of battle [Battle of Armageddon]. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem…”

Whether a heavenly or earthly Mount Zion, they are with Jesus, indicating that they are beyond the finish line, praise God. They are either in Heaven eternally or on earth after the Second Coming and they have seen the victory described in Revelation 19. The first five verses are a celebration that God’s people will survive the reign of the Antichrist. Hallelujah!

As for the 144,000, there are two possibilities among evangelical commentators. Some say they represent all of the redeemed in Christ, that verse 1 is spiritually true of all believers. Others say they represent a subset of believers who are tagged as special and unique.

The first time the number 144,000 is mentioned is in Revelation 7:3-4. Revelation 7:3 says, “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God. Then I heard the number of those who are sealed, 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.” There, 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel are sealed as God’s servants.

The word “tribe” is interesting. A few verses later, Revelation 7:7-9 uses it in a broader sense to mean all the redeemed: “After this, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.” A brother or sister in another country would be from a specific people group, or tribe, to which missionaries have been sent. The word “tribe” means something.

Let us stick with hermeneutics and say they are tribes of Israel — Jews — or else this does not mean anything. Romans 11 teaches at the end of redemptive history, right before the Second Coming of Christ, all Israel will be saved. God will take the hardness and blindness away from the minds of the Jews so they will see at last what so many Gentiles could see so clearly. The Law and the prophets clearly point to Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, the Son of David, the Savior of the world. They will repent and believe in Him. Many prophecies talk about this. It makes sense in Revelation 14 that this is the same group of 144,000. They are sealed at the end of time before the Second Coming of Christ from the Jewish tribes and they are unique; they do not represent everyone. 

There are other indications in Revelation 14 that these are not all believers. Verse 4 says “These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they kept themselves pure.” That is the NIV 84 translation. A more literal translation reads, “They did not defile themselves with women, for they remained virgins.” If this were referring to all believers, which includes men and women, it would not make sense to note that they do not defile themselves with women. This is most likely an unmarried group of Jewish men who are chaste, celibate, never having partaken in sexual interaction. They are not immoral — they do not defile themselves sexually; and they choose not to be married.

Verse 1 says the “144,000 … had [the Lamb’s] name and his Father's name written on their foreheads.” They are marked with Jesus’ name, and with the name of the Father, they are believers, this is a direct contrast to the mark of the beast. The mark of the beast identifies those who worship the beast as God, and this seal identifies these 144,000 as those who worship Jesus as God. It is a clear contrast. It seems to be a sense of ownership, like on their foreheads. They think about the Lamb all the time. Their thoughts are dominated with the Lamb, with the glory of God.

Verses 2-3 present a picture of heavenly worship: “And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.” John hears a powerful sound flowing from Heaven, which he likens to a waterfall and a thunder clap, two of the loudest natural sounds on earth. Unlike typical harp music, it is loud; unlike thunder, it is a beautiful melodic sound, like the sound of a harp. (The harp and trumpet are the only two instruments mentioned in the book of Revelation.)

This is reminiscent of Revelation 4, the heavenly scene in which John, invited to go through the door into the heavenly realms where he sees Almighty God seated on His throne, joins the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders encircling the throne in worship. It is refreshing after the horror of Revelation 13 — the Antichrist, the mark of the beast and all the terror and idolatry and wickedness, to know that the “heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.” We yearn to hear that song in place of the dissonance and discordant sounds of our tortured earth.

The phrase “new song” is provocative. It suggests a new arrangement of the synapses or receptors of our soul for a pattern of music no one has ever heard before, but when we hear it, it will move us as never before. It will be a heavenly song which will melt us and satisfy us and delight us.

Verse 3 says, “No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.” This gives us an idea that the 144,000 are a subset of the larger group of the redeemed. They receive an honor. We get to listen to it. John has heard it. But these 144,000 alone have the honor of learning and singing this song. They paid for it with their suffering and courage.

John Piper said in Let the Nations Be Glad, his book about missions, that missions exist where worship does not. The purpose of missions is to create worship for the true living God. Before the Gospel comes and takes hold, there is idolatry — worshiping and serving created things rather than the Creator. When missionaries come to town, idolatry is replaced with genuine worship. Piper says, “There will come a day that missions and evangelism will be done, it will be fulfilled, but worship will go on forever.”

The 144,000 are pure. “These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they kept themselves pure. … No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.” Revelation 14:9-11 describes the sobering reality of eternal conscious torment, and it merits a special focused study. It is wise to link struggle that we may have with sexual sin with the threat of Hell. Jesus did that in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:29: “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” There is an ongoing epidemic of secret sexual sin. It is right for us to fear Hell in light of that. These 144,000 did not defile themselves sexually.

The second part says they were virgins, so it seems they abstained from marriage. I believe the Roman Catholic Church has got it wrong on clerical celibacy, which they have required for centuries. Paul calls forbidding or disparaging marriage as unclean “the doctrine of demons.” Hebrews 13 says, “The marriage bed is undefiled.” Ephesians 5 likens a relationship between Jesus and His church to the complete relationship, including sexual, between the husband and wife. There is nothing impure about marriage; it is a good gift from God, the first human institution He established.

If that is the case, why do these 144,000 redeemed from the Jews not get married? It seems to be a conscious choice for the sake of the mission and in light of what is going on at that time. Jesus says in Matthew 19:12, “... there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Eunuch in that context means they renounced marriage, willingly. They are not commanded to do it by ecclesiastical authority. It is not the doctrine of demons but it is their choice to be single.

Paul extols the practical spiritual value of singleness. In 1 Corinthians 7:32-34 he says, “I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs — how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world — how he can please his wife — and his interests are divided.” These 144,000 did not have divided interests. In 1 Corinthians 7:26 Paul, speaking to single people, goes beyond that: “Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are.” I do not know what present crisis was going on, but it had to do with a spiritual crisis of persecution and difficulty in the world. 

He continues in verse 29-31: What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.” How much more true will those words be a couple of years before Jesus returns, during the reign of the Antichrist? If the time was short when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 7, it will be much shorter then. Perhaps the 144,000 renounced marriage so they could be totally focused on the will of Christ.

It will be very difficult for a married man in those days. Jesus said how difficult it would be for pregnant women and nursing mothers. What about loving husbands and fathers? If there is that level of persecution, your job would be to protect and provide for your family. Water and food will be scarce, the mark of the beast is there, they are hunting down people who will not bow down, and your job would be to take care of your wife and your kids.

Extreme Devotion, a book about the persecuted church over 20 centuries, provides testimonies throughout church history of people who have suffered for the Gospel. Richard Wurmbrand, a missionary to Romania, tells the story from the communist era about Pastor Florescu, who was arrested for being a Christian leader. He was tortured savagely to coerce him to give up the names of his fellow worshipers. He would not yield; he would rather die than give up their names, until they brought in his 14-year-old son, Alexander. They whipped and beat him to get the information from his father. It was more than Pastor Florescu could endure. “…he cried to his son, ‘Alexander, I must say what they want! I can’t bear your beating anymore!’ The son answered, ‘Father, don’t do me the injustice of having a traitor as a parent. Withstand! If they kill me, I will die with the words of Jesus [on my lips]….’ The Communists, enraged, fell upon the child and beat him to death, with blood spattered over the walls of the cell. He died praising God.”

It is understandable how earthly connections would be a weakness; the urge to protect one’s family in a situation like that would divide one’s interests. This is not a denigration of marriage but a choice given the circumstances.

They are totally dedicated. Verse 4 says, “They follow the Lamb wherever he goes.” They are willing to die for Jesus. Where does the Lamb go? He goes to seek and save the lost, and He will be doing that right to the final moment. He will send these men (and angels) to preach the Gospel to people. Though they are the hardest, most wicked generation there ever has been, He is still trying to reach them, still sending people to proclaim the eternal Gospel. These 144,000 are like SEAL Team Six: focused, dedicated, cannot be shut up, willing to die for Jesus in that final few years of human history. Is that not a measurement of His love for wicked rebels who are cursing Him and bowing down to an idol? God loves these men.

Jesus said [Mark 8:34, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:23], “If anyone would be my disciple, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life for my sake and for the Gospel will find it.” He says in John 12:24-26, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself a single seed, but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me. And where I am, there my servant will be also. My father will honor the one who serves me.” These are 144,000 honorable men who are willing to lay down their lives for Jesus.

Revelation 14:4 continues, “They were purchased from among men and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb.” The word “firstfruits” implies that they will be the first offering from among a massive harvest to follow. We cannot say how many will be converted in those final days, but the word implies that these men will be effective witnesses to bring many to Christ.

After the 144,000, three angels appear in midair. They bring pronouncements of warning and judgment: fear the God who made the earth and everything in it, and flee to the only refuge there is, the eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ; the evil world system called Babylon the Great, set up under the Antichrist, has fallen and the judgement of God is on it, so flee from its allurements and its poisonous drink of sexual immorality; and the consequences of worshipping the Antichrist and receiving his mark and bowing down to the idol will be eternal conscious torment.

These three warnings are given by grace from a loving God who is perfectly just. Wrath is most certainly coming, so be warned and flee while there is time. Those who take the warnings seriously will flee to Christ and find a Savior. I believe God will literally send these three angels, but He is not obligated to give any warnings. We have their message already recorded in Scripture, which is sufficient warning.

Verses 6-7 provide the first angel’s message: “Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal Gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth-- to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.’” The worldwide proclamation of the Gospel and the faith that comes from it are the point of redemptive history, so we should be thinking about proclamation of the Gospel with the 144,000.

The angel is a mysterious supplement to the witness of the believers at that point. The word “angel” means “messenger”. This is definitely an angel, not a human messenger. He was given the Gospel to preach. It is tempting to ask the Lord to send angels to preach. There would be no need for missions offerings, missionaries, passports, visas, or TSA. They are relentlessly determined, completely obedient, fearless; they cannot be killed, hurt or arrested; they cannot be stopped.

This is not to say that angels do not participate in the strategy of the spread of the Gospel. The Bible gives many instances of their involvement. Mary was told by an angel that she would bear the Son of God. The day Jesus was born in Bethlehem, angels announced His birth, calling him Son of David, Savior of the world. At the empty tomb after Jesus’ resurrection, an angel rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning; he told the disciples, “He is not here, He is risen.” In the book of Acts, an angel told Cornelius to send messengers to bring Peter to preach. An angel told Philip to go south to the desert road where he preached to the Ethiopian eunuch.

However, the ministry of reconciliation has mostly been entrusted to humans. We cannot be lazy and lean back on angelic intervention for unreached people groups. We have no biblical right to assume that God will send an angel to those people. We are called to reach out to those who have never heard the Gospel. 

Imagine the problem if angels were sent exclusively. When the Roman soldiers saw the angel with an appearance like lightning, they shook with fear and became like dead men. If he had revived them to share the Gospel, they would have been ready to listen. But the supernatural display would remove a lot of the faith needed to believe in a human Savior.

Instead, God sends unimpressive, average, regular people who are easy to despise. Jesus was like that. Isaiah 53:2 says, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” The Apostle Paul was contemptible in appearance. His letters are weighty, but his speaking did not move the needle much. He himself said, “I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling.” That is who God sends to the world, people like you and me — weak, sinful, frail servants. We are told to go preach the Gospel. We cannot rest on the angels.

This angel has the eternal Gospel to preach, meaning God had all this worked out before He said, “Let there be light.” The message of Christ and Him crucified is that all humans have violated God’s laws repeatedly, and those who repent of their sins and trust in the one Savior available for the whole human race rather than in their own works will be forgiven and made new. That Savior is the Son of God, Jesus, who was born of a virgin and lived a sinless life and who died on a cross for the sins of the world.

This angel will proclaim “the eternal Gospel … to those who live on the earth — to every nation, tribe, language and people.” He will preach, but it does not mean they will believe the message. Things will be very difficult by then. The seven trumpet judgments have happened. The ecology of the earth has been ravaged. The one-world ruler is in place. Many have received the mark of the beast already.

He gives a warning to those who refused to believe. Verse 7 says, “He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. [Then he points to creation.] Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.’” Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, so fear the God who has done all of this to the earth.

The second angel proclaims judgment on Babylon and strengthens the message of the first angel. Verse 8 says, “A second angel followed and said, ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.’” Babylon is code for the worldwide organized human system of wickedness set up by Satan that feeds into our desire for the things that trap us. 1 John 2:15-16 cautions, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life comes not from the Father but from the world.” The spirit of Babylon is present now but in the end it will be ramped up, like a dimmer switch turned up. “Babylon the Great” will be on display at that time for the whole world to participate in.

This angel warns that the whole system of Babylon the Great has fallen. In an instant, it will be thrown down by the Second Coming of Christ in His glory. See it before it happens. This system you love, all of the worldly stuff you chase after, the things that allure your heart, are fallen things. The maddening wine, this intoxicating brew of her adulteries is wickedness and it will destroy your soul

The third angel was the most dreadful. Verses 9-11, some of the most fearsome verses in the entire Bible, say,“A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: ‘If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.’” The word “too” indicates that although generations of people did not receive the mark of the beast because they did not live in that time, all those throughout history who have rejected God will be tormented in the same way.

The section ends with a call for endurance and obedience, even to the point of death. Verse 12 says, “This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus.” The 144,000 are a select subset but they still are an example to the rest of us. We are called to be like them in some ways, to imitate their courage and faithful obedience to God’s commands.

It calls for patient endurance on the part of the saint to obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus. That will be the final test of salvation, Jesus said in Matthew 10:22, “All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” You would think you are too weak to face it. Of course you are! How can you face Satan incarnate with all of his power and be courageous?

Jesus gave us comfort. He said in Matthew 10:19-20, “But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” You do not have to write your final words. Some of the greatest statements in church history have been made by dying men and women. Felicitas did not prepare in advance, but the Holy Spirit spoke through her: “While I live, I shall defeat you and if you kill me, I shall defeat you even more.” Jan Hus proclaimed, “What I taught with my life, I now seal with my lips.” Not only will the Spirit tell you what to say, He will give you the courage to stand firm even to the end. You will not fall away if you are a genuine believer in Christ. To God be the glory.

All who remain faithful to the end in the testimony of Jesus and obey His commandments, verse 13, come into their reward. “Then I heard a voice from heaven say, ‘Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit [in agreement with what He inspires. Write the Scripture and the Spirit will testify], ‘they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.’” John wrote it for us Get your strength and your courage and faith from the Scripture. The time of toil and suffering will end. It will be a time of eternal Sabbath rest forever in Heaven and your deeds will follow you in a good way. The Lord will look at your deeds and reward you for whatever was done for His glory, in obedience to His Word, by faith in Jesus, with a loving demeanor.

I have already preached the Gospel. I have begged any of you who are unconverted, while there is time, flee to Christ. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Read these words and realize this is the God we are talking about. You might die this evening; if so, although the end time things will not have happened yet, but your end will have come. Flee to Christ while there is time.

Second, we are not the 144,000, but we can be inspired by them and other heroes and role models. Ask God for the chance to say and do something for His Gospel this week. As you gather with family for Thanksgiving, seek the opportunity to speak boldly to one or more who may be unconverted. Look for opportunity on campus or in the workplace to ask, “Who do you give thanks to on Thanksgiving?” If you receive an answer and the question in return, you have a chance to be a courageous witness for Jesus.

Third, be warned about the dangers of Babylon the Great. I urge any who are drawn into secret sexual sin, male or female, flee the coming wrath. Flee to Christ. God has the power to deliver you, to set you free from habits that corrupt your nature. “‘Come out…and be separate,’ says the Lord.” [2 Corinthians 6:17]

Next week, we will talk about the eternality of Hell. Pray that God would give me the right words to say. I would not choose to preach on it as a topic, but because I exposit verse by verse, skipping over nothing, I am delivered from the choice to ignore it. We should not assume that everyone who assembles here knows the things in this text or believes they are true. We need to ask the Lord to teach us the truth.

Finally, look ahead to the joys of Heaven. I do not know what that new song will sound like but I look forward to hearing it.

Father, thank you for the time we have had to be in your Word today. Thank you for the things that we have learned. Father, please strengthen each of us to be courageous witnesses for Christ, to do the work that you have for us to do. Father, I pray that you give us compassion on those who are still on the outside looking in. Help us to love them, to cherish their souls, and to be willing to speak the truth to them even though it is painful. Thank you for the truth you have spoken to us this morning. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

All over the world, thoughtful people of various cultures and languages take time to reflect on life, asking common deep questions. Questions of life and of origins: Where did the world and all that is part of life come from? Questions of meaning: Why are we here? Questions of purpose, direction and destination: Is there a purpose for my life and life in general? Is there an unfolding purpose in history, a bigger story that I am a part of? Where am I heading; where is humanity heading? Questions of suffering: Why are there natural disasters such as hurricanes that destroy even kill people? What about evil, like an individual, lone gunman shooting in crowds, or attacking nation states invading other countries? Why is there so much suffering? Questions of eternity: What about death and life after death? What happens when we die?

All over the world, people who do not know Christ turn to religions or philosophical systems to find answers; often they find nothing and end up with feelings of depression and despair. As Christians, we believe the Bible has the answer to all of these ultimate questions.

Regarding origins, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and personally, God knit us together intentionally in our mother’s womb. We are here for a reason; it is not a random accident.

Regarding meaning, we were created to know and worship the God who made the universe. That purpose, that reason is enough. It is enough that we can know Him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one that he sent. He gives meaning to life.

Regarding evil, He brings to light the meaning and purpose of evil. We understand why there is evil and death in the world. God created the world beautiful and good. Sin entered the world, and death came in through sin, which has polluted the entire human race. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 

Regarding purpose and direction, we have a destination. There is a purpose to the history of humans who have led purposeful lives, who have handed the baton of the world to us. Now it is our time to lead purposeful lives. There is a story unfolding in our lives that is bigger than us; it extends to the nations of the world in every individual. We are heading somewhere. Eternity is real. It is appointed to each one of us to die once, and after that, to face judgment. Those who have faith in Christ will live eternally, filled with joy, free from all death, mourning, crying, and pain, that will be worth living. Those who have not had their sins forgiven are condemned to Hell, separated from God for eternity.

The true answers to all these questions flow from Scripture. Other religions have prophets and teachers that answer these questions differently. There is a vast system of lies from the mouths of false prophets that people have believed to provide answers to these ultimate questions. False prophets and teachers have been a plague from the beginning of redemptive history. Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses during the time of the Exodus. Balaam the false prophet enticed Israel to sin with the Moabites and led many of them to death because of it. Elijah came against the false prophets of Baal who were leading Israel to worship false gods. Hananiah, the false prophet, contradicted Jeremiah’s clear prophecy of the exile of Babylon with false prophecies.

There are many more than I can recount here. False prophets have plagued the people of God. In the church era, the church has been plagued by false teachers as well. All the famous religions and cults of our world have been started by false prophets and teachers. If you know what to look for, you can see a supernatural, demonic element to many of them. For example, Muhammad had visions of an angel in a cave in Hira in 610 that began the Koran. Joseph Smith was a con man, a dowser who used seer stones to try to find hidden treasure. He then used seer stones to write the Book of Mormon and begin the false religion known as Mormonism. Charles Taze Russell, a 19th century false teacher, retrieved Aryanism from Satan’s deep freezer, microwaved and re-served it through the Watch Tower of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, teaching that Jesus is a created being rather than God.

Mary Baker Eddy, from my hometown of Boston (not proud of the fact), started Christian Science, denying that physical existence is real, including pain and death. She went so far as to have a phone installed in her mausoleum so she could call someone to get her out of there if she was ever falsely buried, because death is not real. My systematic theology professor Roger Nicole got the number and called it. Strangely, it was busy. Make of that what you will.

Cults rise up, deceiving many. They have given rise to some expressions in our culture like “Do not drink the Kool-Aid,” which came from James Jones’ cult in Jonestown, in Guyana. 909 of his followers drank poisoned Kool-Aid and died. The effects of false teaching and false prophecy are horrific. Satan has three main fronts of attack on the church: false teaching, persecution, and pleasure, or sin. False teaching is the most common and most devastating single method of his efforts against the Gospel. It is worse than allurement to the flesh, worse than persecution. False teaching is the worst because it destroys the truth, the message that the church purports. That is why Peter says in 2 Peter 2, “…blackest darkness is reserved for them.” In the second half of Revelation 13, we meet the final false prophet, who will proclaim the final false religion. This will be the most successful false religion in history.

We are in a sequential exposition of the book of Revelation. To sum up what we have experienced thus far, Revelation, the final book of the Bible, is so named from the Greek word apokalupsis, which means an unveiling, pulling back that which we could not see if God did not show us. First and foremost, the Apocalypse, the book of Revelation, reveals Jesus Christ and his greatness. As we read every section, it is helpful to ask, “How does this show me the greatness of Jesus?”

Second, it is a revelation of the future. God gave the author, the Apostle John, these words to show His people “what must soon take place.” “Soon” means next in the order of redemptive history, not in the way we would measure the concept. “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, a thousand years is like a day.” [2 Peter 3:8] Most of the events described were future to John’s era. and many are likely future to us as well 2000 years later. The events John describes find recapitulation in every era of redemptive history. 1 John 2:18 is a key text in eschatology. “You have heard that one, [an Antichrist] is coming and even now many antichrists have come.”  We will have repeated attacks of antichrists, plural, that are not the final Antichrist, but there is one coming. 

The book of Revelation can generally be read sequentially, though not in every detail. We see a heavenly court with God seated on a throne; we see Jesus, the Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world, take a scroll sealed with seven seals from the right hand of God. He begins, in Revelation 6, to break open the seven seals. As he breaks open each seal, events occur on earth. The seals seem to be preparatory, as Jesus says in Matthew 24, “…the beginning of birth pains,” implying that will be increasing agonies and suffering — wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes in various places — until the birth occurs.

A set of judgments, the seven trumpets in Revelation 8 and 9, follows the seal judgments. It is a new and different set of events, not a recap of the previous events. The trumpets unleash assaults on planet earth that are definitely future to us. They are clearly not metaphorical — they are too specific. A third of the green grass and vegetation and trees burns up; a third of the sea turns to blood; and a third of the living creatures in the sea die; a third of the drinking water becomes polluted, unable to be consumed; and a third of the celestial beings are reduced in luminosity, or total celestial light is reduced by a third.

A demonic plague follows, an assault of demons billowing up from the nether reaches of the earth, like smoke out of a furnace. They plague people for five months; people long to die, but are not able to. Then a demonic army, 200 million strong, runs roughshod over the earth and kills a third of the population of the Earth, up to two or three billion people. History has never seen anything of that nature or to that scale.

Revelation 12 shows us behind the scenes, revealing the activities of Satan and his angels, warfare in Heaven, Satan’s banishment from Heaven, thrown to the earth, and his subsequent assault on the people of God on earth. He is portrayed as a dragon. He hates the children of God, those who believe in Jesus, following the testimony of Jesus and obeying God’s commandments, Jews and Gentiles both.

Revelation 13 unveils Satan’s masterpiece, called the Beast from the Sea. Though the word Antichrist does not appear anywhere in the book of Revelation, he seems to be the same individual, a world ruler, who will come and dominate the earth, referred to as the Antichrist in 1 and 2 John, and the man of sin or the man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2.

He will be given power over the entire earth. We have never seen that; the largest empire in history claimed a quarter of the earth’s surface. The Beast from the Sea was called up by the power of the dragon Satan and given power over the earth for a short time — 42 months, or a time, times and half a time, or 1260 days, or three and a half years.

Today we consider a second beast. He is called in Revelation 16:19-20 the false prophet; here he is called the Beast from the Earth. Revelation 13 gives a grotesque parody of the Trinity — Father, Son, Spirit are mimicked by the dragon, the Antichrist and the false prophet. Together they parody the actions of God.

We begin with verse 11 to learn about the Beast from the Earth. “Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth.” He is called a beast and is directly compared and connected with the Beast from the Sea. He is another of the same kind; his origin, however, is from the earth, not the sea. As a beast, he exercises a destructive effect on all who come under his sway. He comes to steal and kill and destroy.

The words the false prophet speaks, more than anything else, is what is destructive. “He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed.”

This is most likely an individual, a person, not a system or a philosophy. Many who interpret this as a system see it as the Roman Catholic system. Certainly the Reformers battled against powers from Rome and Catholicism. But this is still future to us, not in the past. Also, a system or a philosophy cannot be thrown into the lake of fire, but this individual, like the Beast from the Sea and the dragon, is capable of being condemned to the lake of fire, and thus he will be when Christ returns.

The Beast from the Sea had ten horns, but this one has only two. His appearance, like a lamb, points to an outward winsomeness and gentleness. He is not terrifying in appearance like the first beast, but he is a soul-killing monster. Jesus said in Matthew 7:15, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” False teachers tend to appear beautiful and attractive on the outside, like their master Satan, who masquerades as an angel of light. We should not be surprised that his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. He is appealing, attractive, religious, perhaps gentle in some way, but like the Scribes and Pharisees whom Jesus condemns in Matthew 23 as white-washed tombs, he is righteous on the outside, but full of dead men’s bones, unclean on the inside. He may be appealing, but when he opens his mouth, he speaks like a dragon. His language is that of the dragon Satan; he speaks the devil’s words. He is a charismatic speaker and a skillful liar.

Verse 12 says, “He... made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast.” Satan’s ultimate goal, as Isaiah 14 tells us, is to supplant God and be worshiped, so he was cast down.

The ultimate purpose of the Antichrist is the same as Satan: to be worshiped as God. Many world-conquering tyrants have had the same megalomaniac tendency, yearning to be worshiped and adored by the people they dominate, to be seen as a god. Many rulers, such as Alexander the Great, have believed in incarnations, that gods took human form. He believed he was the descendant of gods. Roman emperors held the same polytheistic world view. They commonly sought to be worshiped, which was a major issue in that era in which the Apostle John was writing and would be for another century or more, because that is one thing Christians do not do.

We see even with a small-time ruler like Herod in the book of Acts. Wearing splendid robes, he gives audience to people who want him to supply them with food and are willing to worship him for it. After he speaks, the people say, “‘This is the voice of a god, not of a man.’ Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.” He was a small fish, but he had megalomaniac tendencies. How much more will the final ruler, the Antichrist be. It is the job of the Beast from the Earth, the false prophet, to cause people to worship the Antichrist.

In 2 Thessalonians 2:4 Paul paraphrase (nearly quotes) Daniel 11, but ascribes it to the man of sin who is coming: “He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”

Therefore, the ultimate goal of the false prophet is false worship of the Antichrist. He will be the worldwide champion, advocate, mouthpiece of the beast from the sea, like the Holy Spirit is for Jesus.

The false prophet has power. In verses 12-14, we see the political, governmental coercive authority of the Antichrist, which he places at the false prophet’s disposal. Verse 12 says “He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed.” The Antichrist is the first ruler in history to wield world-wide power; his power is described in verses 7-8: “…he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast-- all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.” The false prophet is instrumental in causing the worship to happen. He will use the full power of the state in all matters, including religion — no separation of church and state in that final system.

The false prophet will use Antichrist’s governmental power to force the inhabitants of earth to worship the Antichrist. It will be illegal not to do so. He will be able to unleash the military to compel worship. Beyond that, he will be able to unleash the police state — local governing officials — to compel everyone in that community to worship the Antichrist. No one will be able to resist. The intelligence apparatus will also be available to search out who is resisting, who will not submit.

The second power is miraculous, supernatural, spiritual. The focus will be foremost the Antichrist’s miraculous recovery from the wound that he receives. Verse 3 says “One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.” The astonishment of the world is the root, the heart, of the worship. The people are not reluctant; rather, they are astonished and amazed and eager to follow the beast. Verse 12 says, “He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed.” It is supernatural, a miracle in the world’s eyes.

The false prophet will point “the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived” [verse 14] to seal the belief that the Antichrist is God. He will use false, satanic miracles and signs and wonders of this nature, as verse 13 says: “And he performed great and miraculous signs, [the false prophet] even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men."

This calls to mind the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. The nation of Israel was going after a false religion, the worship of the Baals. God raised up Elijah to confront these false prophets. He had them set up a contest between Baal and Yahweh the true God. Each set up an altar for sacrifice. The rules of the game were clear: the prophets of Baal should cry out to their god to send down fire to burn up the sacrifice, and Elijah would call out to the one true God to send down fire. The one who answered by fire would be acknowledged as God,

The prophets of Baal cried and screamed and went on for hours, cutting themselves until the blood was flowing, but no one answered. No fire came down from heaven. Was it because Satan cannot do fire from heaven? No, he can do far more than that. Was it because Satan did not want to do it? No, he would have desired to do it. Why then? It was because God was showing grace to the nation of Israel, restraining Satan and his demonic power so that they would not be able to show that miraculous sign at that key moment, which would have the affections of the Jewish people. Elijah prayed a simple prayer, and fire fell down from heaven and burned up not only the sacrifice but the stones and everything on Elijah’s altar. The people all fell down on their faces and said “The Lord, he is God.”

At the end of time, God will step back and allow Satan free reign for a time. He has been restraining these false prophets and the demons that they unknowingly represent from showing supernatural power that they possess. But at the end he will allow this false prophet to work signs and wonders. This is the very thing the Apostle Paul predicts in 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”

He will allow Satan and the demons perform lying signs and wonders so that people will believe and follow that false system. Do you not see the grace of God throughout centuries in which he restrained the demons from doing this precise thing? How good God has been? But in the end, he's going to pull back and give them over to what they want. They will worship Satan in the end.

The false prophet is effective worldwide. Verse 14 says, “Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth.” We saw in verse 8 that “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast…” Statistically, this will be the most successful religion in history, with more followers than any other religion has had in history. More people will worship the Antichrist during that short amount of time than ever worshiped Christ or Buddha or Allah or any deity. The combination of the terror of coercive governmental power and a winsome attraction because of the Antichrist’s miracles and signs and wonders will guarantee success. He will set himself above every god. Every other religion — Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and even atheism and agnosticism — will be instantly obsolete and illegal. But they simply exchange one satanic lie for another more compelling one.

But there is one group that will refuse to bow down. And I believe only one group. That is those whose names are written in the book of the lamb of God, who is slain from the foundation of the world. Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ will be empowered through the Holy Spirit to say no at the cost of their lives. They'll be given power to refuse, to stand up.

Verse 8, again, says, “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast-- all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.” The elect will be able to resist, because, as 1 John 2:18, 20 tell us: “Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. … But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.” Praise God for that. We are sealed with the Holy Spirit of God, resulting in spiritual discernment of truth.

1 John 2:21 continues, “I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it.” This does not mean we have nothing more to learn. It means that when we hear the truth, we know it because of the anointing from the Spirit. In the same way, when we hear falsehood, we can identify it as such and determine not to follow it.

Jesus said of his followers in John 10:4-5, “…[my] sheep follow [me] because they know [my] voice. … they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” He said in Matthew 24:24-26, “For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect — if that were possible [it is not because we are warned and we have the Spirit]. See, I have told you ahead of time. So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.” We will be able to resist and withstand the lies. This enrages the dragon and the Antichrist. Not satisfied with the majority, they will go after those remaining who will not bow down.

The mind of the tyrant cannot allow even one to resist his orders, especially related to worship of himself. Nebuchadnezzar was not satisfied with the fact that all the officials in Babylon bowed down to his idol in Daniel 3 except Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. He commanded them to bow down or be thrown into the fiery furnace. In his rage, he ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than usual. Those who threw the three into the fire were instantly incinerated. Haman was not satisfied with all the honors and accolades given him in the empire of Persia. Because Mordecai the Jew would not show fear or bow in his presence, none of the honor meant anything to him. This mind of the tyrant is stirred up by jealousy for worship. Antichrist and the false prophet will have this mind.

In verses 14-17, they enact a final solution to weed out resistance and compel all to choose worship or death. The final solution has two steps — the image of the beast that everyone must worship, and the mark of the beast, required for anyone who wants to buy or sell.

Verse 14 says, “Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth. He ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived.” Throughout history, people following false religious systems have set up physical representations, idols, as a focus of their worship. This is forbidden to the Jews in the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20:4 says, “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” This wicked final world religion will have an idol, the most compelling that has ever been made in history. An idol is an object of worship crafted by skill, ingenuity, and imagination; it is artistic. That is the problem: it makes God in man’s image or imagination in opposition to what God did when he made us in His image.

Verse 15 says, “He was given power [implying it was given by God] to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak [it comes to life to become the focus of this new perverted worldwide demonic religion in parody of God breathing life into Adam] and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.” This is the compulsion of the state, the threat of execution for all who will not worship, but also the control of all commerce on the earth.

We come at last to this detail, this number 666. I cannot preach a whole sermon about the mark of the beast without speculating. Some of you would like me to speculate about implanted chips and devices that will give off your GPS position to the government or scan your forehead or your hand. This is one of the most famous details in the whole book of Revelation. Verses 16-18 say, “He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.” Six hundred sixty-six is a more accurate translation. This number is the source of endless speculation, but let us stick to the text and read it in context.

It is in the context of the final era of history, when Antichrist is ruling the earth and the false prophet sets up a world religion compelling people to worship the beast and his image, seeking to weed out those who will not do so. Everyone must receive this mark of the beast. The requirement extends to everyone on earth, no matter what their socio-economic level, whether small or great, rich or poor, free or slave.

It affects their bodies,; it is a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. Without it, people cannot buy or sell, especially food, most likely. The mark of the beast is the mark of his name. It is a brand, like on cattle, indicating ownership by the Antichrist. Those with the mark are his slaves. It is another unsettling parody of the sealing that we have of the Holy Spirit, as in Revelation 7:3, “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” Every time an individual buys or sells anything, he or she acknowledges loyalty to and worship of the Antichrist

“…the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.” An internet search on this topic will yield various theories of conspiracy and identity of the beast. I believe there is truth behind these theories, not as these websites posit, but in that Satan runs schemes and conspiracies as the unseen puppet master.

As with any key issues in the book of Revelation. We must combine current events with exegesis. Scripture alone is not enough. Specific events must happen in space and time on earth for fulfillment of these things. Jesus gave us permission to do this; saying we need more information does not disparage Scripture. Jesus said, for example, in Matthew 24:16-17, “So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel-- let the reader understand — then [when you see that with your eyes] let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” He gives other examples and sums up in verse 33: “Even so, when you see all these things [starting, perhaps, with the seven trumpets], you know that it [Jesus’ return] is near, right at the door.”

“This calls for wisdom. [It also calls for information.] If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast…” Those who attempt to make this calculation join a long line of people who have sought to do so. Using the practice of gematria, assigning numbers to letters to get a number, people have come up with Nero, Caesar, and even Ronald Wilson Reagan when he was president, because his three names had six letters in it. None of these qualify —anyone who is dead while the world continues is not the one.

Isaac Newton tried — his treatises on the Book of Revelation are online — but he was not able to calculate it because he lacked information. If we are not living in that final generation, we will be missing information. But through John, one generation will have the information and will know what it means. It will be one more final clear proof that this man is the Antichrist.

Furthermore, the mark will be voluntary. There will be no ninjas in the middle of the night, putting this thing in your forehead or your hand, sentencing you to eternal Hell without your consent. Revelation 14:11 says that anyone who receives the mark of the beast will be condemned forever. This condemnation is linked to receiving of the mark of the beast. It is a volitional act of will, an act of desire to worship Antichrist. The elect will never give in to it.

Thank God for His grace in forewarning us, that you have been told ahead of time what to look for and that you will be ready. Thank God for his grace in restraining Satan and his demons from false religions and from supernatural displays. Thank God for His protection from following these. Realize that the ones who will be sucked in are those who refused to believe the truth and wanted to believe a lie.

Do not be an unbeliever. Today is the day of grace, the day of salvation. We are in the middle of one of the hardest chapters in the Bible to interpret. If you have no idea what this whole story is about, let me make it clear. Ultimate questions are answered in Jesus. The universe was made for his glory, by his intentional power, by his word. You were knit together in your mother’s womb so that you might have a relationship with Almighty God and love Him, and serve Him. Sin entered the world through Adam but we took on his nature, and as soon as we understood rules, we violated God’s laws. We deserve to die, not just a physical death, but eternal death. We deserve Hell, but God sent his Son to deliver us from condemnation. With the Lord’s Supper, we celebrate that deliverance, a foretaste of joy because Jesus delivered us from condemnation. All you need is to trust in Him, not by works, but by faith. 

Teach your children. Spend time telling them what is coming. This is not the most important facet of theology, but it has been given us many, many times in many ways that we need to know about this.

In the meantime, be discerning. Local churches are responsible for the kind of teaching they get. You are responsible to get rid of false teachers. Paul was put out with the Galatians that they put up with the Judaizers, he was put out with the Corinthians that they put up with people who pushed themselves forward, and slapped them in the face, 2 Corinthians 11. Be Bereans. Study Revelation 13:11-18 to see if I have been faithful to the text. I do not know the exact right interpretation, but there is a difference between stating an idea and false teaching. Go beyond that; look at the character and the life of your teacher. Jesus said, “By their fruits you will know them.” Grapes do not grow on thorn bushes.

Tim Challies published an article on the Gospel Coalition website identifying patterns of false teachers to help us be aware of their presence.

The Heretic teaches doctrine that blatantly contradicts essential teachings of the Christian faith. Cults like Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses or Oneness Pentecostals deny things clearly taught, such as the Trinity. Challies calls Pope Francis a false teacher. Every pope since the Reformation denies justification by grace alone through faith alone, but he advocates, beyond that, a mushy form of universalism. He said,“You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying—and this is the fundamental thing—that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience. Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.” It is false teaching to say that one does not need Jesus or repentance or faith, that one’s conscience is an adequate guide.

The Charlatan is only interested in the Christian faith to the extent that it can fill his wallet. Famous TV preachers like Benny Hinn and Creflo Dollar con people into sending them millions of dollars.

The Prophet tells new revelations and insights from his or her mind. People end up following him or her more than anything else, even Scripture, looking for new revelations and insights. He warned Christians about Sarah Young, who wrote a daily devotional book, Jesus Calling, in words as if spoken directly by Jesus Christ himself directly to the reader. That is dangerous. It creates, in a sense, a new canon of Scripture, a new direct revelation of words of Jesus speaking through the prophetess Sarah Young.

The Abuser uses his position of spiritual leadership to take advantage of other people, claiming he is tending souls. As in 2nd Corinthians 11:20, “…you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps you in the face.” False teachers in general take advantage of people in various ways; the abuser manipulates and domineers women and children and even men to take advantage of and control them financially, sexually, emotionally.

The Divider leaves a wake of factions and divisions, stirring up strife and controversy wherever he goes.

The Tickler tickles people’s ears with things they want to hear. He keeps a positive so he does not offend anyone. When Joel Osteen was asked in an interview why there was no Scripture in his recent book, he answered, “I'm just trying to keep things positive.” When asked about the exclusivity of Christ, he would not assert that Christ alone is Savior.

The Speculator is obsessed with novelty and originality, and loves to speculate about the end times, exact dates of the Lords return, and more.

Be on your guard against such as these.

Father, I thank you for this time we have had in your Word. I ask that you would please enable all of us to be warned and aware of what Satan is trying to do. As we turn to the Lord’s supper, we pray that you would strengthen each of us to partake in a way that is honorable, in a way that feeds and strengthens us in our work with you. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Apostle Paul depicts government as a blessing from God. Government officials are God’s servants to do us good. We are commanded in Romans 13 to submit ourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority that He has established, for there is no authority that exists except what has been established by God. Christians are commanded throughout every generation to submit themselves to God-ordained authorities. 

But in Revelation 13, we have the end of the story, the destiny of human government in its final form on earth. It is a devastating and terrifying story. A beast emerges from the sea which embodies one final world ruler who will use his absolute power to establish himself as God on earth and demand worship from every human being alive.

History has shown how dangerous government by sinful humans is. The pages of the Bible itself are filled with examples. In the story of the Exodus, Pharaoh used his governmental power to enslave and oppress the Jews, forcing them to build their monuments and pyramids. In the book of Nahum, the empire of the terrifying Assyrians, the Nazis of the ancient world, is described. They trampled people with their iron chariots and they invented crucifixion as a torturous way to kill their adversaries, that eventually was used in fulfillment of prophecies about Christ.

The Greek Empire under Alexander the Great spread culture, philosophy, views of democracy, and other things. After Alexander the Great died, however, his generals rose up and acted as tyrants in his wake. The Roman Empire spread economic unity through the Pax Romana but enforced it by the iron will of their legions. After the Roman era, barbarian hordes swept across Europe and destroyed human culture. The Huns, the Mongols and the Vikings left behind no great literary achievements or advancements in human understanding, just the power of might through conquest.

Christendom set up the divine right of kings and the feudal system, which meant that government was only as good as the king. If the king was righteous, then the government would be good; if the king was wicked, then the government would be bad. Most were wicked. In England, the legendary King Arthur and the golden era of Camelot represented the aspirations that we all have for a righteous government, but it was a myth.

The American Revolution sought to break away from the divine right of kings and establish a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Winston Churchill, speaking to the House of Commons in 1947, said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” With his typical wit, he was saying there is no perfect government.

The 20th century saw an experiment of government-mandated generosity by the upper and middle classes to the lower classes called communism, but it has been an economic, moral, and religious failure in every respect. Human government should serve the people in the pattern of Christ, the servant King, but human rulers usually use their powers their positions of power to steal and kill and destroy, to be honored and to live lives of self-indulgence and luxury in this world.  When I was in Cameroon this summer, the whole capital city of Yaounde was shut down for half a day by security forces because the president of Cameroon might use one of those roads in the afternoon. We were not even allowed to be pedestrians on the street. The officials and police were everywhere. In the end, he traveled by helicopter. The Wycliffe missionaries we were with said this happens all the time.

We may not realize until we string events and circumstances together what a big issue this corrupted and sinful human government is in hot spots around the world. We know of some of the more famous leaders like Kim Jong Un in North Korea who has tyrannized his own people for years and threatens other nations with nuclear holocaust. There are demonstrations in Kenya as the local population is enraged over a questionable outcome of a presidential election; ongoing civil war in Syria with ISIS; major movement in Catalonia seeking independence from Spain; a military clamp down because a coup is threatened in Venezuela. The communist government in China is the most virulently anti-Christian since the time of Mao. The crackdowns from Communist officials on our brothers and sisters in Christ are increasing as they seek to assemble in peaceful worship.

All of this is nothing compared to what is coming. In Revelation 13, we will begin to probe the depths of corruption the human soul and government will reach at the very end of history. The most powerful and corrupt of all human rulers will be overthrown only by the Second Coming of the true King of kings and the Lord of lords, Jesus Christ himself. We will meet the Beast from the Sea, also known as the Antichrist. 

If we take a general sequential, linear approach to Revelation, the seven trumpet judgments in Revelation 8 and 9 happen before this Antichrist emerges. These trumpets sound from Heaven and destroy the ecology of the earth — one-third of all the green things on earth are burned up; one-third of the oceans turned to blood; one-third of the sea creatures die; one-third of the fresh drinking water turns to blood; the luminosity of celestial bodies is diminished by one-third. A demonic horde, emerging from the nether reaches of the earth, torment humans for five months. A demon-incited army of 200 million kill a third of the population of the earth, perhaps as many as three billion people. We see staggering levels of suffering on earth unfold with the trumpet judgment.

At that time, many people around the world will be yearning for some leader to emerge to make sense of  it all, to bring some semblance of order and an economy, to facilitate drinking water and a way to resume living under such dire circumstances. They will be right at that point to follow this person, Satan’s dark masterpiece, the greatest delusion that he will have ever foisted on the human race, the Antichrist. For centuries, through all of history, Satan has been the secret power, the puppet master, behind the throne of every rebellious, wicked ruler on earth. 1 John 5:19 says “the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” Satan revealed this truth on the mountain of where he tempted Christ when he showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and said, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus refused, saying “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’” [Luke 4:6, 8]

Satan has organized his dark kingdom with other powerful demonic beings under him, rulers and authorities and powers of this present darkness, who are puppet masters behind lesser thrones on earth. These demonic rulers have effectively but secretly swayed and influenced the decisions of the movers and shakers of human history in every era. At the end of the world, Satan will consolidate all the governments of the world into one massive empire, led by one corrupted man, the beast or Antichrist.

The word “Antichrist” does not appear in the book of Revelation; it only appears in 1 and 2 John. The word Antichrist from the Greek means “substitute Christ” — not “against Christ,” as we might think, although he is that as well. 1 John 2:18 says, “…you have heard that the antichrist is coming…” and 2 Thessalonians 2:3 says, “…that day will not come until … the man of lawlessness is revealed…” There will be one worldwide ruler.

In Revelation 13, we see a repulsive, grotesque parody of the Trinity. Satan (the Dragon), the Antichrist (the Beast from the Sea), and the false prophet (the Beast from the Earth), make up this horrific trio. The dragon acts like God the Father; the Beast from the Sea acts like Jesus Christ, God the Son; and the Beast from the Earth acts like God the Holy Spirit. The dragon desires to be worshipped so he uses the Beast from the Sea to cause men to worship him. The dragon gives his authority to the Beast from the Sea, a mockery of the Great Commission, when Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me...” by God the Father. Like the Father and the Son, the dragon and the beast share a throne and extend it to the ends of the earth. The Beast, the Antichrist, was apparently slain and raised from the dead in a parody of the resurrection. After his apparent resurrection, the Beast will seek to be worshipped as God. The Beast from the Sea will have power to do signs and wonders as Jesus did. Like the Holy Spirit, the Beast from the Earth will not speak of himself but will point to the Antichrist to get people to worship him. This absurd, freakish distortion of the Trinity comes at the end of human history.

We begin with the dragon in verse 1:“And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea.” Revelation 12:9 says, “The great dragon was hurled down-- that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.” The dragon is Satan. Revelation 12:17 says, “Then the dragon was enraged at the woman [generally the people of God but specifically Israel, which gives birth to the people of God] and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring-- those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” The dragon will prosecute a war against Christians.

The persecution will occur through the Beast from the Sea, the Antichrist — Satan’s dark instrument to carry out his hatred and warfare against Christians. He stands on the sea shore and calls the Beast up out of the sea. This calls to mind Daniel 7, the most important commentary on Revelation 13. The prophet Daniel says in Daniel 7:2-3, “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea.” They come up sequentially, one after the other in Daniel 7. In Revelation 13, we have the dragon standing by the shore of the sea, looking out over it.

The sea represents the vast teeming, seething, tumultuous mass of humanity, waiting for a leader to organize them and move them in one direction. Isaiah 57:20 says, “The wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’” More to the point, the angel talking to John about the great whore of Babylon who sits on the waters of the sea explains in Revelation 17:15, “‘The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages.’” The sea represents the mass of humanity. Further, the sea gives the sense of the Abyss — bottomless, fathomless. Out of that region, Revelation 17:8 says, “The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction.”  The sea represents the nether regions out of which demonic forces come.

The Beast is described as the consummation of the flow of human history. Verse 1-2 say, “And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion.” In Daniel 7, we are told plainly the beasts represent human empires. The first in Daniel 7 was a lion with the wings of an eagle, representing Babylon; the second was like a bear, which was Medo-Persia; the third was like a Leopard that had four wings, representing Greece; and the fourth was not identified — it was indescribable, a terrifying beast that trampled everything underfoot, representing Rome.

In Daniel 7, these four beasts come out sequentially and they represent sequential empires that rise and fall, and then the next Empire comes and takes its place. In Revelation, these symbols are combined into one beast rather than in succession. The beast, then, represents a demonic human geo-political realm, a world organized together against the Lord and His people. Up until that final phase no one ruler has dominated all the earth. The seven heads on the beast represent a flow of empires throughout human history that comes into the final form at the end of the world. 1 John 2:18 tells us, “Many antichrist have come.” History has seen a parade of antichrists, but they were not the Antichrist.

The three listed animals of Daniel’s vision are combined into a conglomerate beast, the worst of them all. A leopard represents speed, agility, stealth and cleverness; the feet like a bear represents its ability to trample its enemies with massive power; and the mouth of the lion represents the its roar and its ability to shred, to rip apart its adversaries with ferocious teeth. The worst traits of all wicked empires that have gone before in human history come together in one empire, not in a sequence, at the end.

The beast and the man are also combined. The individual represents the empire. From that point on, the beast is referred to as an individual person. Obviously a single man, no matter how charismatic, what a great speaker, how physically powerful or leader-like, cannot dominate a planet of up to nine billion people. At first he will have minions under him, military power, lackeys who will carry out his orders. But in the end, he becomes the beast, he dominates and moves it and makes it do whatever he wants. The individual, the head of this horrifying empire, becomes the focus.

We are familiar with this way of speaking. During World War II, President Roosevelt spoke specifically of stopping Hitler after a German U-boat fired a torpedo at the USS Kearny, two months before the US entered the war after the Pearl Harbor attack. In a radio address on October 27, 1941, President Roosevelt said, “The forward march of Hitler and of Hitlerism can be stopped - and it will be stopped. ... Hitler's torpedo was directed at every American, whether he lives on our seacoasts or in the innermost part of the Nation, far from the seas and far from the guns and tanks of the marching hordes of would-be conquerors of the world.” You could be a wheat farmer in Kansas — Hitler shot a torpedo at you. This single leader represents the beast, the whole empire, and becomes the beast to some degree. Verses 4 and 8 say, “All those who live on the Earth will worship him.” The Greek is clear. Worship is focused on an individual.

Verse 1 speaks of the authority and the blasphemy of the beast. “He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.” All these are symbols of the power and authority that this empire will have in the end. The horns represent kingly and military power, as do the crowns. But the whole system is blasphemous, an open challenge to God and to His Christ, the true King.

Antichrist will be a king of kings. The 10 horns represent kings, and their diadems represent kingly power. The final world empire will be made up of lesser kings who have been subdued and cowed by the Antichrist and will submit and yield their power to him. Revelation 17:12-13 says, “The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast. They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the beast.”

In the aftermath of the trumpet judgments, the entire world will be destabilized. Imagine the effect, for example, of the poisoning of one-third of all drinkable water on earth. People will migrate en masse in desperation to get drinking water without regard to the implications of crossing national boundaries. Combined with the other disasters and horrors occurring, world leaders will come together to find a solution. At that point, the beast’s initial skills start to emerge. He would be one of many leaders, but by his diplomatic skill, he will maneuver around the others and gain preeminence in various ways, including assassination or Machiavellian intrigue.

Daniel 8:23-24 says “... a stern-faced king, a master of intrigue, will arise. He will become very strong, but not by his own power.” Daniel 11:21, 23, and 32 say similar things about the Antichrist. “He will invade the kingdom when its people feel secure, and he will seize it through intrigue … After coming to an agreement with him, he will act deceitfully, and with only a few people he will rise to power. [He is good at making deals, dark covenants that are broken when it serves him best — reminiscent of the deal between Hitler and Stalin over Poland.] … With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him.” Flattery, intrigue, broken covenants — that is how he begins to gain power. It is not his own power, but soon he controls everything.

Verse 2, “The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.” Satan has been ruling the world in secret through many kings and kingdoms. He divides and conquers, keeping any one nation from being too powerful. He is a murderer; he wants to kill people. It is to his advantage to have a powerful Hitler Germany and a powerful Red Soviet Union so he can kill masses of Germans and Russians. But at the end of the world, he will empower his masterpiece, consolidating world power to give the whole world to this one man. The largest contiguous empire in history was that of Genghis Khan and the Mongols in 1309, encompassing 9 million square miles, or about 16% of the earth’s surface. The largest empire in history was that of the British empire in the 19th century. They ruled about 24% of the surface of the Earth. One-quarter is the most that Satan has ever given to any empire, whether the Romans the Greeks, the Assyrians or the Babylonians, until now.

This man will do the very thing Jesus refused to do on that mountain of temptation — Satan promised him all the kingdoms of the world if he would bow down and worship him. This individual is happy to do that; he worships the dragon, who then gives him authority over the entire world. Verse 7 says “…he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.” It has never been done in history so this has not been fulfilled. We do not need to wonder if so and so is the Antichrist. If a leader gains control over the entire earth, he is, but if a leader does not gain control of every nation, then he may be an antichrist but he is not the Antichrist.

Verse 3 tells of the beast’s supernatural resurrection: “One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.” This is the greatest satanic deception in history. The beast will be able to perform miraculous signs and wonders. Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians 2:9, “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders.” He will empower the Antichrist to do signs and wonders.

Paul also speaks of a powerful delusion, which is effective in convincing the whole world to believe a lie, which may well be this fake resurrection. The greatest miracle that he does is his apparent resurrection from a fatal wound. Verse 12 and 14 say, “… [the false prophet] made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed … [he] ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived.” This resurrection will clinch his popularity and his power and usher his reign into a whole new realm of idolatry and blasphemy.

Verse 3-4 say, “One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast. Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, ‘Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?’” The whole world will be amazed and cowed by this man. After his resurrection, people will realize that resistance is futile. No one, as far as they know, will be able to stop him or defeat him. Obviously, they will not know Christ and His power, but they will think there has never been anyone like this man, and they will be correct. This awe, this sense of wonder, will be essential to Antichrist’s world dominion. What is the point in fighting him? You will lose.

Meanwhile, people are in favor of him. He has done good things for people in their extreme circumstances — he has been able to get food, clothing, shelter and drinkable water and organize us and get everyone going in the right direction. There are both positive and negative inducements to follow him.

People will fear and obey him, but that is not enough for him. He wants to be worshiped as a god. This blasphemous worship is the culmination of both Satan’s rebellion and man’s rebellion. Satan originally wanted to receive worship like the Most High; he wanted to topple God from His throne and take His place. But the entire human race has joined Satan in that evil rebellion. In Genesis 3:5, Satan tells Eve, “You will be like God [so he said] knowing good from evil.” Idolatry often takes human form, as Isaiah 44:13 mocks, “The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in the form of man, of man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.”

Many rulers throughout history have sought to be worshipped as God or gods. Alexander the Great’s coin depicted him with the horns of Zeus-Ammon coming out of his head, a clear sign of deity in their culture. Many Roman emperors openly aspired to worship and to be deified. This was the essence of the imperial cult which was the backdrop of John writing this book. If subjects of Rome would burn a pinch of incense to Caesar, say Caesar is Lord, worship him, add him to their Pantheon, and be in allegiance to the Roman Empire, they could live in relative peace. If not, they were prosecuted.

Incan emperors’ subjects thought that the kings were gods. That was the essence of their ability to hold power over tens of thousands of subjects. Napoleon grabbed the crown from the Pope’s hand and crowned himself, as if to say the Pope had no right to crown him. Until the end of World War II, the Japanese saw their emperors as deities descended from the gods that they thought had founded their island nation.

William Shirer, who wrote The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, said that during the Nuremberg rallies in the dark, the German people looked on Hitler as if he was the Messiah. There was a level of worship for that governmental leader that he had never seen before. This has been the tendency of human nature, to either seek worship or to give it to dominant leaders.

Almost the entire world will fall into this worship of the beast, though not everyone. Verse 8 says, “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast-- all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.” Christians, the elect, will hold back, will not worship the beast. This will cause him to wage active war on both Jewish and Gentile Christians.

He will permit the Jews to rebuild the temple, and at the height of the building process, he will take the place over. 2 Thessalonians 2:4 says, “He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” This is the abomination of desolation. It is exactly at that moment the Jews will realize that old covenant worship will never be re-established, and they will turn at last to Christ, the one they have pierced. They will look on him with tears and believe in him. They will become the enemies of the Antichrist; he will pursue them and they will have to run for their lives (Matthew 24).

Verses 5-6 say, “The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words…” Notice how strongly the fact that everything he has is given to him is made clear in these verses — he was given a mouth, he was given authority he is given a certain amount of time. All of this has been given, not by the dragon but permitted by God. God is ruling over all of these events.

“The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven.” His mouth is his most powerful weapon. He uses smooth talk and flattery along with lies and deceptive diplomacy. He makes grandiose, eloquent proclamations, and people melt as they hear him speak. Here he speaks proud words and blasphemies and is able, by his speaking ability, to unite the world. Everyone — Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists — at last finds unity, not only political but spiritual, religious unity, in worshipping this one individual.

The little horn’s blasphemy is a prominent feature in Daniel 7:8: “This horn [the Antichrist] had eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth that spoke boastfully.” Daniel 11:36, “He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods.” After his resurrection, this man will become insufferable and arrogant. With his mouth he will lay claim to Heaven, and his mind will be puffed up with blasphemies. Blasphemies are words spoken against the glory of God, either by denigrating God himself or seeking worship as God. This wicked man will likely do both in large doses.

Notice how much of God’s work of salvation is meant to humble us who are saved. It is humbling to be saved by Christ. It is humbling to know that God chose the elect before we had done anything good or bad. It is humbling to be justified by faith in a Savior, who died and rose again centuries before we were born. His righteous obedience to the law becomes our obedience because we do not have sufficient obedience to go to Heaven. We were saved by grace through faith so that no one may boast.

Romans 3:27 says “Where then is boasting? It is excluded.” God chooses to save some who are weak and not influential, the lowest of the low, so that no one can boast before him. It is because of his initiative that we are in Christ Jesus. In the end, when we are standing before Him in our white robes celebrating, we will say, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.” We will be forever worshiping him with no boasting in Heaven except in the Lord. He humbles us by our salvation. It is a sweet thing to be humbled, to be put in our place as a human being and to anticipate spending eternity in that place.

But this arrogant little horn, this Antichrist, lays claim to Heaven with his mouth. He demands worship as God; but the clock is ticking. It will not go on forever. Verse 5 says, “…he was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months” (the second half of the final seven-year period, also referred to as 1260 days, 42 months, or “time, times and half a time.” He is on a strict time leash, as is his master the dragon, who is filled with rage because he knows his time is short.

Verse 6 tells us who he blasphemes: “He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven.”

Verses 7-10 reveal the bitter truth that he is given power to conquer the saints. We need to hear and understand this carefully. Jesus warned his disciples that they would be arrested, dragged before courts and have to give an account, and then would be put to death. He told us in advance because the worst of this is yet to come, though it has been going on for 20 centuries.

Verse 7 says, “He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.” When the beast directly attacks the people of God and is successful in slaughtering many of them it will be the greatest trial of faith the survivors will have ever had. “Where is God? Why has he abandoned us? Take your hand from the fold of your garment and extend it and save us. We're being slaughtered by the tens of thousands.” Throughout the history of the church, the government has persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ and shed their blood from the Roman Era on, a trail of blood for 20 centuries, but it will escalate exponentially at that time.

It is directly predicted in Daniel 7:21 and 25: “As I watched, this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them … He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time.”

The beast has worldwide power and worship. Every nation on the face of the earth will be under his dominion. Because of his wonder-working power he will be worshiped openly as God by everyone but the saints. This will not satisfy him. He will pursue them and wage war against them, beginning with the two witnesses, who overcome any who oppose them with fire from their mouths that devours their enemies. But they cannot overcome the beast; he overcomes them and kills them. Three and a half days later they rise from the dead and ascend to Heaven.

This will be the time for those in Judea to flee, to run for their lives. They will not have time to go get a coat or do anything but flee. Pregnant or nursing mothers at that time will have a hard time running for their lives. Those who are not in Judea will have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Sometimes people were able to hide Jews and deceive the Gestapo, the human police. How is it possible to deceive the devil and his demons? He knows all the hiding places, and the Lord has given the saints over to his hands. Many of them will be captured and slaughtered. Jesus said if those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened.

Verse 8 says, “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast-- all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.” This can be read either that the saints’ names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life or that the Lamb was slain from the creation of the world, depending on the translation. No matter where you put that phrase, both are true. Jesus was thinking of himself as slain from the beginning of human history. Animal sacrifices pointed to him before he came incarnate. He knew that all pointed to his death. And God chose us from the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight, and we will not be deceived because of the detailed nature of this kind of teaching. We are told ahead of time what will happen and we will not be deceived because we have been forewarned.

The warfare will be fierce. Verses 9-10 say, “He who has an ear, let him hear. If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.” This refers to the various ways that the saints will be killed. Ironically, these words usually referred to wicked Israel as judgment by other nations, such as when the Babylonians or the Assyrians invaded. But this is applied to righteous and holy people. God has ordained prescribed ways of dying for each of the millions of martyrs. Precious in the Lord’s sight will be their martyrdom. If you are ordained to die by the sword, then by the sword you will die. If you are to die another way, that is how it will be. This calls for patient endurance, to stand firm. Jesus said in Matthew 10:22 “All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

First, see the limitations of the scope and role of government. Do not worship any government leader. Do not put your ultimate hopes in a political party or an election. Do not have overweening hopes in any one individual. They are all flawed humans, even if brothers or sisters in Christ, and there are many non-Christians in the government to restrain them. But worldwide, the end will not be a utopian human governmental system. Limit esteem for government while submitting to non-immoral commands.

Beyond that, worship the King of kings and Lord of lords. There is a coming king who will be perfectly righteous. He will destroy all his enemies. This is the time to not be his enemy. Flee to Christ now.

If you are here as an unbeliever, God brought you here to hear the Gospel. The Gospel is simple: God, the Creator of the earth, sent his Son, born of the Virgin Mary, who lived a sinless life and died on the cross in the place of sinners. He rose from the dead on the third day; it was not a sham resurrection like the Antichrist, but the tomb was genuinely empty because he was raised again to life. Death has been defeated and if you believe in Jesus, all of your sins past, present and future will be forgiven. But some day, Christ will come back to establish a kingdom that will last forever.

We will celebrate soon with Christmas. Isaiah 9:6-7 says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.” Look forward to the coming king. One purpose of this chapter is show the greatness of Christ. This beast is horrifying, terrifying, powerful, but Jesus will destroy him with the breath of his mouth and the splendor of his coming. It is not a stressor for him. When he comes with the armies of heaven, it will be a quick battle. That is what happens when creature faces creator. With his omnipotent arm, he will win the victory. Martin Luther wrote in A Mighty Fortress is Our God, “One little word shall fell him.”

Understand Satan’s current role as puppet master around the world. Many antichrists are ruling right now.

Study and understand the doctrine of the future. I have given you many details over these past weeks. Study them and pass them on as a warning to your children. This may not happen in our lifetime but it might happen in theirs.

Grow and develop in your prayer life. Take these things to God in prayer. Part of your prayer life should be a concern for the persecuted church. Our brothers and sisters in a large populous East Asian nation are experiencing the greatest persecution they have experienced in decades. It will get worse. 1 Corinthians 12:26 says of the body of Christ, “When one part suffers, the whole body suffers with it. When one part is honored, the whole body is honored with it.” Let us join our suffering brothers and sisters by praying for them and seeking as best we can to alleviate their suffering. 

Lord, thank you for the rich time we have had to enjoy worship, a baptism, the chance to see the faces of brothers and sisters who are joining us with covenant membership, and then to hear the word preached. Lord, we pray that we would drink in these blessings and realize that you have loved us with an everlasting love. You have taught us these things so that we may be ready to live fruitful, holy lives in this present evil age, and to share the Gospel, to take these things and warn people of the coming judgment and warn them to flee to Christ and to live lives filled with hope. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Scripture divides into two great categories — milk and meat. Milk is the simple doctrine of the Bible, the center piece of which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The milk of the Gospel can be organized into four main categories: God, man, Christ, response. We share this with unbelievers. Workers all over the world have gone abroad to try to explain in culturally understandable ways.

First, there is a God who made Heaven and earth, and therefore He has the right to rule as king over everything that He made. As our Ruler, He has given us laws by which we are to live. Those laws are very clear and simple, organized broadly into the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods beside me. You shall not make any idols. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy; do all your work in six days and rest on the seventh, for God made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Jesus taught that though we may not have committed murder physically, if we have murderous hearts we are in danger of the fire of hell. We may not have committed physical adultery, but if we have adulterous hearts, looking at one who is not our spouse lustfully, we are in danger of the fire of hell.

He probed the inner workings of the heart, and then organized all of the law in two great commandments: the first and greatest is to “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” We do not keep these Commandments; we break them every day. It is grace from God to know the truth of that.

The second great category is man, or the human race. We were created in the image of God to have a relationship with Him, to love and serve and walk with Him, but we fell into sin in Adam, our first father, who ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In him the entire human race fell. We were given a sin nature. When we were able to understand the law, we broke it — we violated the Ten Commandments and the  two Commandments; we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. As a result, we are threatened with eternal death and hell. We can not save ourselves; we need a Savior.

The third category is Christ. God sent his Son into the world, born of the virgin Mary; he lived every single day of his life sinless under the law of God. He obeyed every jot and tittle, every detail perfectly. No one but Jesus has fulfilled the two great Commandments. He loved God with all of his heart; he said, “I always do what pleases him.” Always. And He loved his neighbors as himself, especially by going to the cross for us. Though he had committed no sin and there was no deceit in his mouth, he went to the cross and stood under the fiery wrath of God, who is a consuming fire. He was condemned for us: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.” He offers the free gift of righteousness and full forgiveness of all sins to us.

We are able to access that by repentance (turning from our sins) and faith (trusting in Christ). All of our sins can be forgiven. You may know that you have not crossed over from death to life, that you are not a Christian. You have just heard the Gospel, which is milk — that which a child can understand. If you look to the law and know that you are guilty, that you have sinned, and then look to Christ crucified and resurrected with the eyes of your heart, you will see your Savior. You do not have to move a muscle; if you will trust in Jesus, all of your sins will be forgiven. If you genuinely do that, a whole river of righteous acts will start flowing — a commitment to walk in newness of life.

Meat is the harder stuff in the word to understand. Peter said about Paul’s writings in 2 Peter 3:16 that he writes some things “that are hard to understand.” (Ironically, some of the hardest statements in the New Testament are written by Peter.) These are beneficial truths — God wants us to know them, but we need spiritual teeth to chew them and it takes a while to understand. Eschatology, or end time teaching, is meat. Here are six reasons why it is hard to understand.

First, eschatology is hard to understand because God intends it to be hard to understand. It is not an accident. We do not demand that he learn to make it simpler. He intends to speak to us in language difficult to understand. He wants only believers to get it. He could have written out an exact chronology with names and dates. Daniel 11 is a most astonishing chapter, displaying God’s ability in detail to predict the future. There are 106 uses of the helping verb “will” in the NIV (1984 version), indicating future events. God is showing off. He can give meticulous details about future events. But he did not intend to do that. Instead, he speaks in such a way that only believers will be able to understand, and not all believers equally, but those who need to understand the most will.

Second, God has spoken end-time teaching to us in apocalyptic, prophetic, visionary language that is not easy to understand. He uses symbolism — beasts and horns and oceans and winds It is not immediately clear. It needs interpretation, similar to a parable.

Third, he has scattered the salient points and Scriptures in different places, such as Matthew 24, 1 John 2, Daniel 7, and Revelation. It requires the work of theologians to put things together.

Fourth, the issue of type and fulfillment is a problem. History is filled with events that act out a type of fulfillment of various prophecies that are dress rehearsals of the final. Many people want to stop there, as though they are the final fulfillment. The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD was clearly not the end — almost 20 centuries of history have occurred since then. But many godly commentators will claim that Matthew 24 is talking about the prophetic destruction of Jerusalem. As Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man,” we see many prophecies that are acted out in small ways, like dress rehearsals,. Hitler was a dress rehearsal, a type of antichrist, very tragic and difficult, but he died in the bunker and history has continued since his time. He was an antichrist, but not the one final Antichrist.

Fifth, we have a story with complex chronology. It is hard to follow, not easy to understand.

Sixth, current events and exegesis of Scriptures must be married, lined up simultaneously. Many generations have sought to line these things up, but because of so many misfires and predictions that didn't come true, some would discard the whole thing. 

We are looking at the big picture of eschatology to help bring context to our study of Revelation. Christianity is a unique religion in the world and this is apologetic material. When you are talking to Muslims, atheists, or Buddhists, this is a weapon of truth you can use. Christianity is the only prophetic religion in the world, ultimately. Judaism had prophecies, but it is derailed by not seeing their fulfillment in Christ. There are some Islamic pseudo-prophecies, but with research, you see they are not true. Buddhism and Hinduism do not care about current events at all. They are trying to escape this evil world by denial, saying it is all an illusion, so they make no attempt to make predictions of the future. Christianity alone does this. God said repeatedly in the book of Isaiah that He is the only one who can do it. Isaiah 46:10 says, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’” He is talking about Cyrus the Great and Persia, but it is also a general true principle that He is the only one who knows the future.

Isaiah 14:26-27 says, “This is the plan determined for the whole world; this is the hand stretched out over all nations. For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?” God makes a plan, and his sovereign power orchestrates that His plan will certainly take place. Christianity is the only religion that can accomplish His purposes.

In Revelation 12, we saw, in apocalyptic visionary writing, a red dragon — the devil, Satan, that ancient serpent who leads the whole world astray. He pursues a glorious, radiant woman, who is best interpreted as Israel because she gives birth to the male child. From the Jews came the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all. Her radiance and glory imply that the children whom the heavenly Zion gives birth are believers in Christ, Jew and Gentile alike. The dragon, Satan, pursues the woman and her children in Revelation 12:17: “Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring — those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”

That rage has been going on for 20 centuries. There has been tribulation in every single century. That recapitulation — as it was so it will be — happens throughout history, but it ramps up at the end such that Jesus said in Matthew 24:21-22, “For then there will be great distress [or great tribulation] unequaled from the beginning of the world until now — and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” There will be days of tribulation so great nothing like them will have ever been seen in the history of the world. The events of the destruction of Jerusalem in the temple in AD 70 by the Romans do not line up with that pronouncement. The Romans did that all the time. Yes, they killed many Jews, but there remains a far worse future suffering.

That section of Revelation 12 ends with the dragon in Revelation 13:1 standing on the shore of the sea, “a beast coming up out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.” This culminates in the Antichrist who is coming and whom we seek to understand today. The beast is a wicked worldwide empire culminating in one ruler over it who will enact these great persecutions in the name of the devil, though he does not understand that is what he is doing. The image of a beast, terrifying and powerful, emerging from the sea, who assaults the people of God and in some sense is able to conquer them, comes directly from the book of Daniel. 

Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 are clearly connected. Revelation 13 begins with Satan the dragon standing at the seashore summoning the beast from the sea, who ultimately is the Antichrist. That image comes directly from Daniel 7 in which Daniel has a dream of four beasts that come up out of the sea. The sea is turbulent, the winds are ripping the ocean, shredding and churning it, and in succession one beast after another emerges from it.

In Daniel 7, the beasts are interpreted as kingdoms, not individuals, including the fourth beast. But the horns of the fourth beast refer to the ruler of that wicked kingdom. In the end the potentate of that wicked kingdom is associated with the kingdom itself as in World War II in which Hitler was the enemy, as though killing him would end the whole thing. Everyone knew that there was a whole Nazi war machine, a whole empire, that had to be conquered, but Hitler was the head. It will be even more so in the days of the Antichrist. The supernatural control he will have over the empire will be unparalleled in history. In the end, the beast becomes one person but it starts as an empire. If there is not an empire behind him, there is nothing to fear. He is just a guy on the street corner saying things. But if he has a worldwide police state empire behind him, there is something to fear.

The fourth beast is the most terrifying of all. It has 10 horns, like the beast in Revelation 13. In apocalyptic or visionary imagery, the horn is a king, an individual who holds focused power. One of the horns, called the little horn, grows up and supplants the other horns. It has the eyes of a man and speaks boastfully; it ultimately represents the Antichrist. He derives power comes from his mind and his skill and his mouth, not from his own stature. He is a conniver, a deceiver, able to supplant others by assassination and trickery and other devious methods.

Methodologically, I can tell the story — what I think will happen going forward — and not cross reference any Scriptures, but I want to teach you to root everything in Scripture and that is what takes time. If nothing else, I want you to understand methodology and what Scriptures to look at and have you put the story together.

Daniel 7:8 says, “While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth that spoke boastfully.” The eyes represent intelligence and the mouth speaks with arrogance and boastfulness.

In the middle of the vision, we have a significant prophecy about Jesus in the Old Testament. Jesus refers to it repeatedly when He called himself the Son of Man, His favorite title for himself. In doing so, he seems to be pointing his listeners to this portion of Daniel. The vision of what is happening on earth with the beasts and everything is suddenly interrupted to show what is happening meanwhile up in Heaven. We see a throne with Almighty God, the Ancient of Days, seated on it. This is God the Father, the first person of the Trinity. A river of fire flows from the throne. This is the judgment and wrath of God on empires who will persecute His people and who will not worship Him.

This is one of the main lessons of the book of Daniel, which God taught to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4:25: “…the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone He wishes.” No matter what Satan says, that he rules the whole world, he does not. God does, and He rules actively over everything. He is sovereign. It is comforting to us as Christians to ponder this vision of the throne of God and the river of fire flowing from it. The scene goes back to the horn, speaking arrogantly. Verse 11 says, “Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire.” The empire of the horn will be destroyed. It has been destroyed, but that is just a dress rehearsal, and it will be destroyed again with finality. The blazing fire represents Hell, as we see at the end of the book of Revelation.

Isaiah 53 contains the most significant prediction of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice; Daniel 7:13-14 gives us the most significant prediction and prophecy of who Jesus is in His person. “In my vision at night, I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of Heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” The only explanation for this vision is Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, coming into the presence of God the Father, the first person of the Trinity. Jesus receives from God all authority in Heaven and earth, as we know from the Great Commission, and he has the right to set up a kingdom that will never end. All peoples and nations and men of every language will worship him — he is worthy. We believe in the incarnation, that Jesus is both the Son of Man — fully human, and the Son of God — fully God. He is not God the ultimate Father, King God — he is equal to and like Him but a separate person.

What is given to the Son of Man is the very thing the little horn and the dragon want. They are in direct competition for this authority, glory, sovereign power, and for all peoples, nations and men of every language to worship him. But Jesus is will win. The Antichrist will not achieve his goal.

The vision focuses on the fourth beast and the little horn. The key aspects of the little horn are his astonishing arrogance and blasphemy and his small stature. He rises up to dominate using the power God gives him to attack the people of God and slaughter them for a short time. Verses 19 says, “Then I wanted to know the true meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others and most terrifying, with its iron teeth and its bronze claws — the beast that crushed and devoured its victims and trampled under foot whatever was left.” That describes the worldwide empire — Rome was a type of this prophecy, but as it was in the days of Rome, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man, but even worse. Imagine a Gestapo-like police state that can crush any opposition in the world, both armies on the field and individuals and their personal freedoms.

Verses 20-21 continue, “I also wanted to know about the ten horns on his head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell — the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully. As I watched, this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them.” That is the point of Jesus’ various warnings to his disciples: “When you see your brothers and sisters being slaughtered, do not give in to the temptation to abandon your faith in me. Remember that I have told you these things ahead of time. Do not fear. Be strong. I am the Resurrection and the Life. You will live forever. You will be given a martyr’s welcome into Heaven and will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of your Father.”

The beast is given power to wage war against the saints and defeat them physically on earth, “until [(verse 22) what a blessed word that is] the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment [a ruling from the supremest of all Supreme Courts] in favor of the saints of the Most High [your days, oh Antichrist are done], and the time came when they possessed the kingdom.” The little horn wages war and the Antichrist will kill many like he killed the two witnesses in Revelation 11. They were powerful, but God gives the beast from the Abyss the power to rise up, overpowers and kill them.

Verses 23-24 say, “[The angel] gave me this explanation: The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on the earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down, and crushing it. The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings.” The Antichrist will be a king of kings. It makes sense. Right now we have many nations, each with its own potentate, ruler, president or prime minister. He will have the political and military skill to subdue all other kings to consolidate them all under one worldwide government.

Verse 25 continues: “He will speak against the Most High [blasphemy] and oppress His saints and try to change the set times and the laws [he will try but fail to get longer than three-and-a-half years to make changes]. The saints will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time [“a time” is one year, “times” is two years, and “half a time” is half a year; together that is three-and-a-half years]. But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the saints of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom and all rulers [that is us] will worship and obey Him [that is Jesus].” He will be perfected — the King of righteous kings and the Lord of righteous lords who have been saved by grace through faith. These kings and lords are not wicked usurper kings but people who worship him and rule their domains and the new Heaven and the new Earth under him.

Daniel 9 puts the 70 weeks context. Daniel, in exile in Babylon, reads from the scroll of Jeremiah’s prophecy, which gives the clear prediction that the exile will last 70 years. He begins to pray in a marvelous way in Daniel 9:1-19, that God would fulfill His promise that He made in Isaiah and other places to restore the Jews back to the Promised Land and allow them to flourish again.

God dispatches the angel Gabriel to give him the answer, which is the 70 weeks. He gives Daniel more than he bargained for — more than he can understand and more than we can understand. He goes far beyond the restoration of the Jews and the rebuilding of the temple written about in Haggai. He includes not only the time of the first coming of Christ who would be cut off, but also the end that Jesus spoke about — the abomination of desolation — which was future even to Jesus at the time. Daniel receives a timetable of seventy “sevens,” or seventy weeks. A “seven” is a seven-year period. Seventy seven-year periods is 490 years total. But they are divided in an unusual, difficult to understand pattern. That is why this is meat, not milk.

In Daniel 9:24, Gabriel partially unfolds God’s timetable and purpose: “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your Holy City to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy.” Christians see the words “atone for wickedness” and know immediately there has ever been only one atonement for sin and wickedness, which is the blood of Jesus Christ. That phrase refers to redemption through his blood. The other five items on that list include finish transgression, put an end to sin, bring in everlasting righteousness (eschatological glory), seal up vision and prophecy and anoint the Most Holy.

He continues in verse 25: “Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until the Anointed One [or Messiah], the ruler, comes, [that is a timetable between two specific points in time] there will be seven ‘sevens’ and sixty-two ‘sevens’.” It is not clear why the sixty-nine weeks are broken up into seven and sixty-two, but sixty-nine times seven years is 483 years from the issuing of a decree to rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah comes.

Jerusalem was rebuilt in stages, so there would have been a number of such decrees. This particular one would have been issued sometime in the era of Medo-Persian rule. Some try to reverse-engineer to determine the exact time Jesus entered Jerusalem, even up to the eighth decimal point, though very few real-world things are measured with that precision (certainly not apocalyptic visionary prophecy). Like golf, these sixty-nine weeks get us on the green with about a one-inch putt. Was there anybody around 500 years after Persian rulers first decreed that Jerusalem be rebuilt who is worth our attention and study? The book of Hebrews argues that although we do not see the fulfillment of all prophecy, we do know one person who fits this description — Jesus. From the time when Persian rulers started to issue decrees that Jerusalem be rebuilt until Jesus the Messiah comes was 483 years.

What about that last seven — why did he stop at sixty-nine? Verses 25-26 continue: “It [Jerusalem] will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the 62 sevens [equaling 69 sevens] the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing [Jesus was rejected and killed by the Jewish nation; He had no allegiance from the them]. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary [multiple times, not just once]. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.” That general statement is similar to Jesus’ statement in Matthew 24:6 and 8, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars … All these are the beginning of birth pains.”  That covers the intervening time between the 69th week and the final 70th week. History will unfold with wars and rumors of wars and other events.

Verse 27 says, “He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ [a repeated reference to three-and-a-half years — time, times and half a time; 1260 days; 42 months] he will put an end to sacrifice and offering [implying animal sacrifice and offering will be reestablished in a physical temple]. And on a wing  [some versions add “of the temple”] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.” Jesus urged the reader of Daniel to read with understanding, which is not easy. In the middle of this seven-year period still to come, after he makes a covenant to establish animal sacrifice, he will stop sacrifices to set himself up, as Paul says, “in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” [2 Thessalonians 2:4]

In Daniel 10, we meet a mighty angel who gives him a revelation, similar to the mighty angel in the book of Revelation. He gives Daniel all the content for Daniel 11 and 12. The angel says in Daniel 10:14, “Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people [the Jews] in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.” He introduces Daniel to the name of the archangel Michael, whom he designates as the special prince, an archangel who protects the Jews as a nation, the same angel who fights the red dragon in Revelation 12.

Daniel 11 reveals many antichrists but points to one final Antichrist who will come. Daniel 11 covers the history of the Jews under the domination of Gentile kings, first the Persians briefly, and then the Greeks. The Greeks were the successors of the first Greek king, Alexander, who rose to a height of power. At the height of his power he was cut off and his kingdom divided into fourths. He had no sons, so it was given to his four generals.

Two of them in particular rule over what we know as modern day Palestine, or the Promised Land. The kings of the North were the Seleucids who ruled over the Syrian area. The kings of the South were the Ptolemies, who ruled over Egypt. They would meet in battle again and again in Israel or Palestine. The Jews were trampled on by these Greek kings as they fought each other for control. The drama of those battles gives us a picture of the future ultimate Antichrist. In Daniel 11:36-37, one of these literal Greek kings, whom we can identify as Antiochus IV, called Epiphanes because he claimed to be a God, lived about two centuries before Christ. He was arrogant and blasphemous, and openly defiled the Jewish temple by erecting a statue of Zeus and offering pig’s blood in the Holy of Holies. He was not the final Antichrist. He was a minor Greek king who died, and that was that.

But his activities are predicted in both Daniel 8 and Daniel 11. Daniel 11:36-37 seem to go far beyond anything Antiochus ever did: “The king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been determined must take place. [He will be successful until the clock runs out on him.] He will show no regard for the gods of his fathers or for the one desired by women, nor will he regard any god, but will exalt himself above them all.”

Antiochus IV never did that. He actually honored the Greek gods, which is why he set up a statue of Zeus. Paul applies these words from Daniel 11 to a yet-future man of sin in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 with a near-paraphrase: “…for [the day of the Lord] will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness [who must be the Antichrist] is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” That specific arrogant self-worship blasphemy did not happen when the Romans burned Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Titus, who burned it down, did not want it burned and tried to put the fire out, but it had gone too far.

From the book of Hebrews, we know that God will never again accept animal sacrifice. The blood of bulls and goats is done, as far as God is concerned, but that does not mean there will not be a temple built. The man of lawlessness will set himself up in the temple the Jews are honoring, that they want rebuilt, which Paul calls “God’s temple.” He will proclaim himself to be God but is not God, any more than the building is God’s temple; but because the Jews think it is, it is a good platform for incredible blasphemy.

2 Thessalonians 2:8-12 says, “The lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” That is not apocalyptic or visionary. It is an epistle, telling us what will happen. A man of sin is coming who will set himself up in “God’s temple”, proclaim himself to be God, and do signs and wonders. People will be deceived and will worship him. Then Jesus will come back and will destroy him.

At the end of Daniel 12, you have a counting of days. The angels ask how long it will be, a question they ask frequently. In every case, the answer is that we cannot know the exact time of the end. There will be a generation of Christians who will know the exact day of Jesus’ return. This 42 month, or 1,260 day, or 3 1/2 year period has been spelled out repeatedly and so clearly that we are waiting for it to happen. Jesus told us that when the abomination of desolation is set up, to start the clock. We have an exact measure which we do not yet know where to begin, but the starting point will be known when it is time, and then we will know how long until Jesus returns. Even more fascinating, to add to the puzzle, the end of Daniel 12 mentions 1,290 and 1,335 days, 30 and 45 days beyond the 1,260 days respectively.

Daniel wanted to understand what it all meant, but God told him it was not for him to understand and to seal up the prophecy until the time of the end. The people who live then will understand. For those living in the final generation, when they see the abomination of desolation, they can start the clock. Remember that if those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect, they will be shortened. You will get to know how many more days remain because it will be horrible.

Recall how Jesus said “As it was in the days of Noah so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” In Matthew 24:36, he says, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” In Acts 1:6-8, the apostles were told, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Jesus even said, “No one knows, not even the son, but only the father.” We know he knows now; he knew when he ascended to heaven. He is telling us that no one knows now when that day will come.

He was telling his disciples that he would not be returning later that afternoon. They had work to do, to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. We also have work to do. We are building an ark where people can be rescued from the wrath to come. As it was in the days of Noah, there is a place of refuge to go to. The ark we are building is not made of wood nor covered with pitch. It is the Gospel message, an invisible Church, into which you enter to find safety from the wrath to come.

In Genesis 7:4, God said to Noah, “Seven days from now I will send rain on the Earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the Earth every living creature I have made.” A week, a month, a year before that statement was made, did Noah know the exact day of the flood? No. What was he supposed to do? Finish the ark. After that statement was made, did he know the exact time the flood would come? Yes, he was able to count down until the exact day. He knew the day the flood was to come, and so it did 

As it was in the days of Noah, there will be a counting down. It is not for us. We do not see the temple or the abomination of desolation set up in it. It is not the Roman Catholic church or cults or false leaders. Our job is to build the ark, to preach the Gospel, until the Lord returns. But there will be a generation that will need to know. They will understand the 1,260 days, the 1,290 days and the 1,335 days.

Father, thank you for the details that we have studied in the book of Daniel today, getting ready for Revelation 13. Lord, I thank you for all the things that we can learn from studying this incredible prophet. I thank you for the things that we learned in the book of Revelation. Give us perseverance to be able to chew on the meat and swallow. Help us to put together a chronology and an understanding of what is yet to come. But in the meantime, God, help us to build; help us to be like the missionaries we send overseas; help us to be godly parents. Help us to do our role of leading people to Christ. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Today and next week we will undertake background work in texts other than Revelation to help make Revelation 13 a little clearer when we take it up. There are few theological topics that so inflame the imagination and engage the mind as end times teaching.

In the Book of Isaiah, God claims that unlike all the idols of the world, He is the only One who knows the future and is able to declare the end from the beginning. We saw this repeatedly in the prophecies of Isaiah. Isaiah 46:10 says “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand and I will do all that I please.” Most of the prophecies in Isaiah focus on the first coming of Christ. We can see the overarching flow and direction and purpose of Jesus’ life laid out in Isaiah: Messiah would be born of a virgin, be born in Bethlehem, live a sinless life, do signs and wonders, heal the sick, raise the dead, speak in parables. Predictions of his genealogy included that he would be born a Jew, a descendant of Abraham, a son of David. Even minute details were predicted, such as his death on the cross — how He would be lifted up, how his hands and his feet would be pierced, how his blood would provide the final atonement for sins as the animal sacrificial system symbolized, how he would drink gall at his death (there was a jar of wine vinegar, or gall, at the foot of the cross), how he would be buried in a rich man's tomb, hoe he would be raised from the dead on the third day, how repentance and forgiveness of sins would be preached in His name to the ends of the earth. These things are predicted about the first coming.

But what about the Second Coming? Are details predicted that lead up to the end of the world? The Bible does give details of the future. Christianity, unique among all the religions of the world, makes specific prophecies and has a track record of these prophecies being fulfilled. Many, but not all, of those end time prophecies are found in the book of Revelation. This elaborate system of truth is very difficult to put together. It is even more complex than the three-dimensional puzzle of Big Ben, the clock tower in England, that my daughter Daphne got from my sister for her birthday. Eschatology is like a puzzle, assembling pieces from all over the Bible to put together an orderly system of truth: 2 Thessalonians, Matthew 24, Old Testament,1 John 2, and others.

How is this relevant to our lives? I do not know specifically how understanding the Beast from the Sea and the future Antichrist will affect your life today, but it will have some effect. Eschatology — end time teaching — has the power to shape the way you look at everyday life to realize we are moving to a definite end. That end has been thought out and predicted by the mind of God. It is a glorious end, but we also learn in the book of Revelation that it will be full of suffering and pain and difficulty.

Jesus wants us to know ahead of time so we will be ready. Even though we look around and wonder, as 2 Peter 2 predicted, where this coming that he promised; it seems that everything goes on just as it has since the beginning. Those who say that are fulfilling prophecy by Peter. We must look beyond immediate circumstances to see that we are heading somewhere. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. We are not looking at a circular, cyclical view of history but a linear view. We are heading toward a glorious end, but there will be, as Jesus says in Matthew 24, birth pains before the end. It is good to know in advance that we have some suffering to go through.

Eschatology is a popular subject. The Left Behind series, a fictional eschatological chronicle by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, has sold at least 65 million books. Several of the 16 volumes went to number one on the New York Times Best Seller list. Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth, published in 1970, was that generation’s version of the same thing. He wove together current events, especially Cold War Soviet Union issues, and zeroed in on the relatively recent new establishment of the Jewish nation in Palestine. He predicted that within one generation of the Jews being re-established in 1948 in Palestine, the end would come. Calculating one generation as 40 years spurred many predictions regarding the year 1988, such as “88 reasons the Lord will return in 88.”

However, though inaccurate, we should not think that the methodology of such predictions is intrinsically flawed. It is biblical to apply Scripture to current events. But the establishment of the Jews in Palestine was only one of dozens and dozens of indicators that need to be in place simultaneously. Matthew 24:32-22 says, “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things…” Those who see all the signs together will not be wondering, they will know, if they have studied Scripture — it will not be published in secular media. My job as a teacher of the Word of God is to try to make these things as clear as possible now while I am able.

There is good evidence for saying that the final generation will know the exact number of days till the Lord returns, will be able to count the days. The clearest indication of that is at the end of the Book of Daniel, which we will cover next week. 

We are in the middle of studying the book of Revelation, which unveils things that we would not have any other way of knowing, invisible things from the past, present, and future — God openly says to John, “I will show you what must take place after this…” so there is no doubt that He is unveiling future events. 

We just finished an extraordinary chapter, Revelation 12, in which the activities of a monstrous red dragon are described. Revelation 12:3 says, “Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads.” It is no accident that it sounds like the Beast from the Sea. It is hard to interpret symbolism in apocalyptic literature, but we are told in Revelation 12:9 who the dragon is: “The great dragon was hurled down — that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”

God wants us to know who the red dragon is — Satan — and how powerful he is so that we do not underestimate him. We are aware of his schemes, of his power, of the vast evil conspiracy in the world run by Satan. Bible-reading Christians are not surprised that there is a method to the evil and wickedness in the world. We need to see behind current events to demonic activity. The Bible teaches it. 

On the other hand, Satan is depicted again and again as a defeated foe. God is much more powerful than Satan, who is His frustrated, thwarted enemy, not His equal opposite. It is not a dualistic religion like yin and yang. The good God of the universe is infinitely more powerful than evil, so Satan is thwarted in his effort to kill Jesus before his time, in his effort to take over Heaven with his armies, in his multiple efforts to kill the woman and her children, though he brings much suffering in the world in his attempts.

The section ends with the dragon standing on the shore of the sea, to lead into chapter 13 in which a beast emerges from the sea. There is no doubt that the imagery links to Daniel Chapter 7. But the clearest unfolding of end times events other than the book of Revelation is from Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 24.

My desire is to make these things clear so that you will be ready. In 2 Thessalonians 2, the Apostle Paul said to the Thessalonian church that the end would not come until the man of sin appeared, whom we know as the Antichrist, the man doomed to destruction. He said, “Don't you remember that when I was with you, I kept telling you about these things.” That is pastoral methodology, to tell your people about what the Bible says about the future. Prepare your youth, your children, and prepare them to get their children ready. This information will be vital to their spiritual survival.

Matthew 24, sometimes called the Little Apocalypse, is Jesus’s teaching about the end times. For context, Jesus has just finished in Matthew 23 proclaiming a seven-fold woe on the spiritual leaders of Israel, the Scribes and Pharisees. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees… you hypocrites!” Seven times, he exposes the hypocrisy of those who sit in Moses’ seat to the people whom they lead. He wants the people to understand that they are white-washed tombs — not what they appear to be — and their greatest sin is not recognizing and believing in Jesus, God in the flesh, Messiah, the Son of David. They did not recognize him, and thus they rejected him.

This was predicted very plainly in Isaiah 53: “Lord, who has believed our message?” questioning whether Israel would believe in Jesus. Isaiah 53:3 says “He was despised and rejected by men… and we esteemed Him not.” John 1:11 says, “He came to that which was his own but his own did not receive him.” The Jews’ rejection of Jesus was predicted, but Jesus nonetheless pronounces a prophetic word of judgment. Seven times he says “Woe to you”, then he expresses grief over Jerusalem:“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Behold, your house is left to you desolate. [empty, vacuous] For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” To illustrate and emphasize his point, he walks out of the temple. The essence of the desolation is Jesus leaving. In Ezekiel 10, the shekinah, or dwelling, glory of God moved out of the temple. Jesus linguistically linked his departure to their emptiness and desolation. “Your house is left you desolate for you will not see me again.”

As he walked out the disciples approached him to point out the magnificence of the temple buildings and their “massive stones” [Mark 13:1]. (After Pentecost when the Spirit came on the disciples, they were finally on message, but at this point they simply do not understand.) Jesus replied in Matthew 24:2. “‘Do you see all these things?’ he asked. ‘I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.’”  That is a direct prophecy of the destruction of the temple of the Jews.

The disciples found this troubling, so they came to Jesus privately on the Mount of Olives. His vision of eschatology confused them. Why would the temple be destroyed; was animal sacrifice not to be in place forever? They could not see that Jesus would abolish animal sacrifice by his own death. The temple would not be needed anymore. In their ignorance, they asked Jesus a three-part question.

Verse 24:3 says, “As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately. ‘Tell us,’ they said, ‘when will this [the destruction of the temple] happen? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’” To them, the destruction of the temple, the coming of Jesus, and the end of the age were all one event. One of the complexities of interpreting Matthew 24 is whether Jesus is describing the destruction of the physical temple, which happened about 40 years later in A.D. 70 by the Romans, or something beyond that.

Most likely, he is talking about both: the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 was a dress rehearsal or a type of the big future destruction. Verse 37 contains a key eschatological principle that I teach consistently: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” Dress rehearsals of eschatological events have been through history and will continue to be repeated, but the big events are yet to come. 

Perhaps the clearest and most relevant of these has to do with the “antichrist”. “Anti-” means substitute Christ, or instead of Christ. The Apostle John is the only one who used that term, in 1 and 2 John, referring to the “spirit of the Antichrist.” But the teaching of the Antichrist is found in Daniel 7 and 11, 2 Thessalonians 2, and other places with different terms. 1 John 2:18 says “… you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come.” In other words, first many antichrists will come, and then the one final Antichrist will come.

John does not preclude the final Antichrist by acknowledging false teachers and political leaders but rather predicts him. Jesus says the same in verses 4-5: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.” They will perform signs and wonders and do many things to deceive people and draw them away. The Antichrist, as we will see in Revelation 13, has two aspects: a political/military/police state that applies laws with military force, and a false religious aspect. Throughout history we have seen military leaders who use their powerful, governmental position to persecute the church, and religious leaders who establish self-referential cults of followers who worship them. Both embody the spirit of Antichrist.

There have been and will be many small antichrists who will never be known outside of their small spheres of influence — big fish in small ponds. They dominate small flocks of people by extorting them and taking advantage of them materially, sexually and other ways. There have been and will be ones who are well-known who start world religions with great success. All of those will be consolidated in the end into one person. In the same way that wicked leaders like Hitler, Stalin, or Mao or others have used their power to crush the church, there will be one in the end who will have far more power than any of them ever had. He will demand to be worshiped worldwide.

Jesus goes on to talk about general sufferings that happen in every generation. He says “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars… famines, and earthquakes in various places.” [verses 6-7] That is general language, We could add hurricanes, natural disasters, and such. They will continue to happen. “All these are the beginning of birth pains,” [verse 8]. Worse birth pains will come later, as we are reading about in the book of Revelation.

There will be specific suffering for the people of God all the way through. We will be betrayed and hated and persecuted by various peoples in various places. This has been happening and will continue to happen, but it has all been dress rehearsal thus far. The worst is yet to come. Matthew 24:14 & 37 reveals the one overarching task: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come… As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” In the days before the flood, what was Noah doing? Building an ark, a place of safety and refuge to flee the coming flood. We are building an ark as well, a spiritual one. It is the universal Church through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We preach this Gospel as a testimony to all nations. Everyone will hear about this Gospel. That is the work we are doing.

What are the specific signs that have to do with the end of the world? “‘Tell us,’ they said, ‘when will this happen and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’” Jesus answers this question in verses 15-20: “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination of desolation’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel — let the reader understand — then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.”

He is warning those living in Judea and Jerusalem that when they see the abomination of desolation that Daniel talked about, they should run for their lives. This is likely about both the destruction of the temple in A.D 70 and an event at the end of the world. Christian Jews living in Jerusalem in 70 A.D who were seeing the destruction of the temple should run.

The Greek word for flight in verse 20 is fuge, from which we get fugitive or refugee. You hope that it will not be winter when the weather would slow you down. You hope you are not pregnant such that your physical condition would slow you down. You do not have time to go get a cloak or anything else. Jesus does not say what you are running from, what makes you run for your life, but Revelation 12 does. You are running from the devil, the red dragon. Revelation 13 says at the human level, you are running from the Beast from the Sea and his forces.

Revelation 12:6 says, “The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1260 days.” The woman will be protected in the desert for a set amount of time, 1260 days. Revelation 12:13-14 says, “When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time out of the serpents reach.” The human catalyst for flight will be the Beast from the Sea.

It is not easy to follow a linear pattern of teaching on this; I have already jumped ahead in Revelation. Jesus says in verse 15 to read the book of Daniel; he urges the reader to understand. Do you have wisdom and understanding to get what Daniel is saying? You must combine Daniel’s words with understanding current events. It is not only in the text of Scripture. We are to look around, wait, and try to understand whether we see the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not to be. If so, then either those living in Jerusalem should run, or that is when the clock starts counting 1260 days.

Revelation 13:1, 5-7: “And the dragon stood on the shore of the Sea. And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name… The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. [Three and a half years.] He opened his mouth to blaspheme God and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them.” People will run for their lives, but many lives will be forfeit.

The abomination of desolation, which we will study more next week, is mentioned three times in Daniel. In Daniel 9:27, in the middle of this complex teaching about chronology and 70 weeks, Daniel tells us that “he” —a person of authority — will confirm a covenant with many for one seven — one “week” or symbolic for a seven-year period.“In the middle of the ‘seven’ [three and a half] he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple, [NIV adds the word “temple” from a complex phrase in the original — on the wing of something] he will set up [erect or build in the Hebrew] an abomination that causes desolation until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.” Daniel 11:31 speaks of a Greek king as a foretaste of the final Antichrist: “His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress [clear reference to a physical temple] and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation.” Further, Daniel 12:11 says, “From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1290 days.” There is another piece to the puzzle: 1260, plus 30 days.

Something is set up in a place where sacrifice is offered. In Daniel 11:31, it is definitely a temple. In Old Testament prophetic language, the word abomination typically refers to idols and is commonly used to indicate something that is utterly repulsive to God. It is an idol that is connected to desolation. The NIV and other translations say abomination that causes desolation. I prefer what the actual text says, which is “abomination of desolation.” Desolation is emptiness. My dad, who was a real technology buff, would often say the phrase “nature abhors a vacuum.” If there is a momentary vacuum, something will be pulled in to fill the empty space. Jesus, talking about his exorcism ministry in Matthew 12:43-45, says, “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, [Empty. Desolate.] swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.” After Jesus died and ascended to heaven, Israel was like a vacuum. There was an emptiness, a desolation, that allowed demons to flood back in. This eventually led to the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70.

But at that time, there was no idol set up that everyone worshiped. Titus, the Roman general who was to destroy the temple, did not want it burned, Josephus tells us. He tried to put the fire out; he wanted it saved. Gentiles in the Holy of Holies in that event does not line up with the level of significance of the abomination desolation. There is a greater desecration yet to come. In 2 Thessalonians 2:4, the Apostle Paul says the man of sin who is to come “will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” That is not apocalyptic; that is Paul making a prediction of the future. The end will come after that occurs.

There must be a temple called God’s temple that this individual will set himself up in. I part ways with dispensational premillennialism and other similar teaching on this point. That theological scheme proposes a separate track for the church in Israel in which God in some way is delighted with the re-establishment of the animal sacrificial system for the Jewish nation in particular. I say an absolute, resounding NO to that. The Book of Hebrews makes it clear that the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin, that Jesus put an end to animal sacrifice. When he died, the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, ending the animal sacrificial system forever as a God-blessed way to approach God. He will not accept the blood of animals ever again. It is an insult to his son to suggest otherwise.

But that does not mean it will not happen, or that the unbelieving Jewish nation does not want a physical temple rebuilt. The Jews who go to Jerusalem to wail at the wall are praying for the temple to be rebuilt. There is a mosque there now, but the Antichrist will have the ability to clear away any hindrance. We can hardly imagine how but we are heading toward one world religion, which will focus on him. A penultimate stepping stone of the end is the re-establishment of the Jewish animal sacrificial system. In the middle of the final seven years, he will stop animal sacrifices to God and focus everything on himself. That is the abomination of desolation. Revelation 13 speaks of an idol that the false profit sets up that everyones is supposed to worship; why not there?

When you see something like that, run for your life. Verses 21-22 say, “For then there will be great distress, [“a Great Tribulation” in KJV] unequaled from the beginning of the world until now — and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” That language goes far beyond anything that the Roman soldiers did in 70 A.D., trouble unequaled from the beginning of the world. If you want to understand trouble that has never been seen on earth, read in Revelation about how a third of the oceans turn to blood, a third of the fish die, a third of the plants and trees burn up, a third of the fresh water becomes undrinkable. Those events have never been seen in history. When you see those kinds of things happen, you know the end is near. After that, Christ returns.

Matthew 24:27 says “As lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” The Son of Man had not returned as of 70 A.D. But these events are leading up to the Second Coming of Christ, and it will be obvious and glorious, like lightning flashing across the sky. Faith will be needed no more, and thus neither will salvation. Matthew 24:29-31, “Immediately after the distress of those days, ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ [The book of Revelation] At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

Jesus said, “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know, that it [or he] is near, right at the door.” We are supposed to look at current events. As we head toward fall, the leaves are changing, the temperatures are cooler, the days are shorter. It is a beautiful time. You do not need to wonder whether the new season is approaching. Jesus says the same thing. The Jews being re-established in 1948 is not enough; it is only one of many more signs that need to be in place.

What should we do about all this? Jesus, at the end of Matthew 24, says work hard to be ready at any moment. In verses 44-46, he says, “So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so or doing the right thing when he returns.” Be busy building a spiritual ark by preaching the Gospel. Help people get ready to find a place of refuge when judgment comes. The church should be using God-given spiritual gifts — hospitality, teaching, preaching, administration, helps — doing our work so that the elect can be saved and built up in their faith and the church can be strengthened until the Lord returns. It is not for us to know the days or times the Father has set by His own authority. One generation will be allowed to know exactly when these things will happen but we are not there yet, so our job is to continue to prepare faithfully.

First and most important, run to Christ. God sent his Son as the Savior for the world. There is no other way that our sins can be cleansed but by the blood of Jesus. We do not know the exact time of the end, nor the exact time of our death. Has the Lord promised you tomorrow? You do not know if you will be alive tomorrow. While you have time, flee to Christ. You do not need to do any good works for the forgiveness of your sins, just believe in Jesus. Cast your sins on him. Thank him that he died under the wrath of God, under the law, for your sins. 

If you are already converted, Jesus says be ready, be active, be busy doing the Lord’s work, be focused on what He has called you to do. Be aware of the suffering that we have yet to go through. Jesus said these are just the beginning of birth pains. It will ramp up greatly, so be willing to suffer for the gospel now, here in America, to share the Gospel with a co-worker or a fellow student or a total stranger; be willing to suffer a snarling face, rudeness, walking away or possibly being fired. Be faithful to share the gospel, be praying that the Lord would come and bring his Kingdom. Be ready as God has called us to do.

Lord, thank you for the time we have had to study and for the complexity and beauty of your Word. It is not easy to put all of these things together, but help us to be clear, to understand what is coming, to be ready, to realize we are surrounded by people who do not believe the Bible at all. Some people say they do not believe in an invisible spiritual world or life after death. They think they will simply cease to exist when they die. They do not know that after death comes judgment. God, I pray that you would help us to be faithful to share, to do our good works to encourage one another and build each other up in the body. Lord, we pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

All my life I have been fascinated by wind. When I was a child, my dad took me hiking in one of the mountains in New Hampshire. We went up on a fire observation tower in the middle of the night and stood on the platform. The wind blowing through the ravine near us made a sound unlike any I had ever heard before. It was a deep, rich, full-throated, three-dimensional sound. I was captivated by it.

Recently, we have seen the incredible destructive power of wind with the hurricanes Harvey and Irma that have ripped through Houston, Florida, and the Caribbean Islands. We see the devastation from the power of invisible air molecules that are massed and moving in one direction. A fully mature hurricane is the most powerful event on earth — nothing else comes close — with possibly millions of cubic miles of air moving in one direction at up to 150 miles an hour. I saw photos in 1992 of Hurricane Andrew picking up a school bus and turning it upside down, dropping it on top of a two-story building.

I’ve been reading about Orville and Wilbur Wright. They put together an airplane, which they launched their heavier-than-air (900 pound) craft at Kitty Hawk, making history. Now a fully loaded 747, weighing 900,000 pounds — a thousand times heavier — lifts off with no trouble, supported in part by air.

Every moment of our lives we are surrounded by air molecules that are pressing on our skin at 14.7 pounds per square inch. This is the almost the cumulative force of the weight of a small car pressing on us at every moment. We do not notice it, can barely feel it until we fly on an airplane or ride in a fast elevator  in a tall building and our ears pop with the shifting air pressure. Some of you may be sensitive enough to notice subtle changes in air pressure, but most of us are not.

The movement and action of invisible air molecules and air pressure is like the power of Satan and demons in the world, invisible powers of evil in the heavenly realms and the continual effect of Satan and his demons on us at every moment in our toilsome lives here on earth. Satan is called in Ephesians 2:2 “the prince of the power of the air.” It is an interesting expression.

Angels in other places are likened to winds. Hebrews 1:7 says, “He makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire.” We are so used to demons and their continual afflictions that we do not feel the effects they have on our physical health, minds, spirits, and morale. One day completely free from demonic effects and influence would be the greatest day of our lives. We would have abundant energy and be euphorically happy. Our obedience would be immediately easier in every respect. Someday we will have nothing but days like that. When the devil and his angels are cast into the lake of fire, we will be free forever. But we are not free yet. We need to be mindful of the power of Satan and his demons and the influence they have on our lives.

In 1986, Christian novelist, Frank Peretti published a novel called This Present Darkness, in which he elucidated through fiction a continual warfare between demons and angels on planet earth that is hidden from our eyes but has a continual impact on current events and on how we live. Admittedly, Peretti’s theology is somewhat shaky at points, and his imagination runs wild at other points, especially when he starts describing what the demons and angels look like and aspects of their battle, their warfare, that, putting it gently, go beyond Scripture.

Given society’s normal outlook of materialism, the idea that atoms and physical energy is all there is in the universe, we are swimming in that secular sea all the time. We are rarely mindful of the devil and demons. We need a vast correction, perhaps not so far as Peretti goes, but based in Scripture. Revelation 12 gives us this apocalupsis, an unveiling of future events that we would not know any other way.

Here we see Satan, this red dragon, unveiled before our eyes spiritually, and with him, his angels, or demons. Scripture wants us to be aware of the existence and power of the devil and his demons and their schemes. Ephesians 6:11-13 says, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”

Last week in Revelation 12, we looked back to Satan’s evil actions at the time of the birth of Christ when he acted to move King Herod to slaughter all the baby boys in Bethlehem. Today, we will look back to Satan’s original fall from heaven. We will also look ahead to a future and final battle in the heavenly realms, Satan’s fall from the heavenly realms to earth right before the end of the world, and his vicious, relentless attacks on the people of God on earth. We will peer behind the veil that separates the physical realm from the spiritual. By faith we will see the true power, the malevolent, intelligent, powerful enemy, behind the events that come against the people of God on earth.

Satan is a powerful but defeated foe. One point of this chapter and the point of everything in redemptive history is to show the greatness of God, of Christ. How great is our Savior to be able to defeat such a powerful foe? We end up worshiping Christ and hiding behind him as He does battle for us, because we could never face such a foe alone. We are not alone. Jesus is infinitely more powerful than Satan.

This massive drama unfolds with key figures. The great dramatic presentations in human literary, cinematic and stage endeavors — none of which comes close to the drama of this chapter in Revelation — such as Shakespeare’s tragedies like Hamlet, Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, and MGM’s 1959 movie Ben Hur with Charlton Heston (my all-time favorite movie, which boasted the most expensive studio set at the time — $15 million — before the advent of computer graphics made it easier), spend time on detailed character development to fit with the spectacular sets, incredible music, and epic action.

Satan, the red dragon, is the central focus. Revelation 12:3 says, “Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads.” Verse 9 clearly identifies him: “The great dragon was hurled down-- that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.” We are not left wondering about the mystery of the dragon’s identity.

We meet the woman in verses 1-2, “A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.” This is the nation of Israel exalted and perfected, the heavenly Zion. She gives birth to Jesus and then to children who obey God and follow Jesus. It specifically zeros in on Israel, because there is a future in redemptive history for the physical descendants of Abraham called the Jews. Jesus admonished, in Matthew 24, for the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea to run for their lives when they see the abomination of desolation in the temple and to pray that their flight will not take place on the Sabbath. Those aspects depict a Jewish setting, so it is reasonable to see this woman from whom Jesus came as Israel, but exalted in the heavens with glory.

The fact that she has other children refers to the woman, the heavenly Zion, that we saw in Isaiah many times. Isaiah 66:8, for example, says, “Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.” Zion’s many children in Revelation 12 are believers in Christ, both Jew and Gentile, adding to the image of the perfected Zion.

The male child, in Verse 5, who will rule the whole world with an iron scepter, based on Psalm 2, is definitely Jesus, Son of David, Messiah, King of the World. In Revelation 19, he has that iron scepter with which to strike down the nations.

The storyline follows Satan’s vicious, malicious attacks against Christ and His people and his desire to take over Heaven and earth, to rule the universe through his wickedness. He attacks Christ and God’s people, but he fails at everything he sets out to do, five times in this chapter. He is powerful but ultimately a failure. Last week we saw his failed attack on the male child. He stands in front of the pregnant woman to devour her child as soon as he is born, but the child is snatched up to God and to His throne. This represents the physical attack on baby Jesus when he was born, which resulted in the slaughter of all the baby boys in Bethlehem. In addition to the human side of that, we should also see the demonic devilish aspect of it — Satan was trying to kill Jesus before his time.

Verses 7-12 focus on the war in Heaven and Satan cast down. verse 7 asserts simply, “And there was war in heaven…” The combatants are also identified in verse 7: “Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.” The angels in Heaven are divided, righteous angels versus wicked angels. They fight in the heavenly realms, led by the dragon — Satan — on one side and Michael on the other.

In Jude 9, Michael, one of only two named angels in the Bible (the other being Gabriel) is called an Archangel. The word “arch” in the Greek means ruler. He is an authoritative angel in charge of other angels, fighting against Satan. He is revealed in Daniel 10 and 12 as a special protector of Israel.

What is the nature of angelic warfare? Speculating biblically, trying to stay close to the text, I reject the idea of angel hospitals or wounded on either side. They cannot die, and they each know that the other cannot die. It seems, then, that both angels and demons intend to act toward people. They move out with a purpose and their opposites try to stop or thwart that purpose. That is the nature of the warfare.

The devil and his angels have evil intentions toward human beings but find themselves blocked by good angels. Conversely, the good angels intend to obey God’s commands on humans’ behalf but find themselves blocked by demons. They are unable, for a time, to get through to do what they intend. For example, an angel was dispatched to Daniel to bring him a message, an answer to prayer. However, he is delayed for twenty-one days because the prince of Persia, a demon more powerful than him, thwarts him until Michael comes to block the prince of Persia, like a block in football. The angel is then able to finish his mission to Daniel.

There are no angelic feathers fluttering to the ground or limbs hacked off — that is outside of Scripture. The angel and demon forces act for good or evil both offensively and defensively — wicked intentions blocked by good angels, good intentions blocked by wicked angels. The omnipotent God of the universe seems to stay back and let them battle it out on roughly equal terms, but then He moves forward as only He can to influence the outcome of this battle to achieve His purposes in redemptive history. Everything is right on schedule.

The key detail of this battle is that Satan is not strong enough. Michael is stronger. Perhaps not one-on-one, it could be that Satan is God’s most powerful individual creation — but cumulatively, the devil and his one-third of the angels are not strong enough to defeat Michael and his two-thirds of the angels. Satan is not strong enough so he loses his place in heaven. His punishment is strongly emphasized by repetition: They lose their place in heaven, the great dragon is hurled down to earth with all his angels.

In this text, Satan is called “the great dragon,” a picture of “primeval power of chaos,” as one commentator put it — a massive force for chaos and wickedness. He is the ultimate mastermind behind every non-Christian mental scheme, religion or philosophy that has ever allured people away from Christ. That is the nature of his thoughts — wicked but brilliant, far beyond our intellect and power.

He is also called “that ancient serpent,” clear evidence that the serpent in the garden was the devil talking through that snake. “Ancient” refers back to the beginning of history; he is also called “ancient” because he has affected every single era of redemptive history in which brothers and sisters saved by the blood of Christ have had to fight the devil and his angels through persecution. The term “serpent” takes us to the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve fell into sin through the serpent’s enticement. He is a puppet master behind creative beings, causing them do evil while he stays hidden.

He is called the devil, “diabolos”, which means deceiver. The word “Satan” in Hebrew means accuser or adversary, specifically in a legal sense as in a court trial. He is the accuser, the prosecuting attorney. He leads the whole world astray. When he tempted Jesus on that mountain in Luke 4, he said, “The whole world has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.”

1 John 5:19 says, “We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” He rules the world in the sense of the wickedness that is done on earth. He leads the entire world into sin by temptation and then accuses sinners before the throne of God. Specifically, he leads the world astray from devotion to Christ. His top priority is to deceive the world about Jesus or away from Jesus. 2 Corinthians 4:4, “The god of this age [Satan] has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” His focus is to blind people to prevent them from seeing how glorious Jesus is, how good, how beautiful, what a powerful Savior. This is the one whom Michael and his angels defeated and threw down to the earth.

Verses 10-12 celebrate the victory, “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”

There is great joy in Heaven as Michael wins the battle and the devil is thrown down. The heavens shout in praise and worship with a single loud voice — maybe Michael or a worship angel. The voice celebrates the coming of the salvation, power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ. The angel’s words show the greatness of what we will experience some day, the kingdom of God in Christ on earth forever. We look forward to that.

The celebration specifically rejoices that Satan, the accuser of the brothers — Christian men and women around the world — is cast down. Satan is particularly wicked and hypocritical in that he orchestrates every temptation and allurement that lures people into sin, and then once we actually commit sins, violate God's law and the conscience He has put in us, Satan turns and becomes righteous, quoting the law and accusing us before God. In a sense he is correct — we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. He knows every careless word we have spoken. He can guess at the intentions of our heart, as he does with Job. He accuses us day and night before the throne of God.

These Christians overcame Satan, praise God. By their faith in Christ, they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their witnessing, their testimony. Jesus conquered Satan and the world for us. In John 16:33, Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” He is our conquering king. He destroyed him who held the power of death, the devil, by his death and resurrection. But he speaks to us, His followers, challenging us to overcome. He commands each of us, brothers and sisters in Christ, to be warriors, to overcome the devil.

At the end of each of the letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3, he promises, “To the one who overcomes, I will give treasures and rewards.” We are called on to overcome Satan. The greatest way you can defeat the devil is come to Christ, to believe in Jesus. Believe that He is God, that he died on the cross for your sins, that you are a sinner saved by grace through faith in Christ. If you come to that place in your life, you have overcome the world. You are a conquering victor. 1 John 5:4-5 says, “…everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.” You get the gold medal, the victor’s crown, at the end of this marathon race, just by believing in Jesus. Just by coming to faith in Christ and having your sins forgiven by the blood of the Lamb, you have overcome Satan.

Paul said in Romans 8:35-37, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” We overcome by the blood of the Lamb for ourselves. Our sins have been taken off of us and transferred spiritually onto a substitute, Jesus. He died a bloody death that we deserved, under the wrath of God’s law, and his righteousness transferred to us. We stand pure and holy in Christ. That is how we conquer the devil.

But beyond that, we conquer by preaching the gospel, by the word of our testimony. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes onto you and you'll be my witnesses.” We destroy Satan by preaching the Gospel. You can move the kingdom of darkness back a little by sharing the Gospel with a non-Christian. If they hear and believe, the kingdom of Heaven has advanced just a little bit more. You overcame, and you conquered the devil by the word of your testimony.

Revelation 12:11 says of that second aspect of the ministry, “…they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” Oh, how glorious is the history of the church, of brothers and sisters in Christ of whom this can be said! Perpetua, a Roman high-born lady who came to faith in Christ, was arrested and sentenced to death. She said to the procurator, “While I live, I shall defeat you and if you kill me, I shall defeat you even more.” I cannot wait to meet that lady. Polycarp was threatened with being burned at the stake. It would be a horror to die that way, but he was unafraid. “For 86 years I have served Him and He has never done me wrong. How could I betray my King who loved me?” Jan Hus, in the 15th century, about to be burned at the stake, said, “What I preach with my lips, I now see with my life.” These martyrs did not write their famous last words in advance. The Holy Spirit gave them the words to say.

They said courageous things then died gloriously, with welcomes into heaven with victors’ crowns. The Gospel is advanced by the seed of martyrs who shed their blood so others can come to faith. They did not keep their faith in Jesus secret; they did not love their lives too much in this world. The Apostle Paul, knew in Acts 20 that he would be arrested and beaten in Jerusalem and then probably killed. However, “I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me-- the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.” [Acts 20:24] At the end of time, in the final three and a half years of human history, the number of martyrs, the amount of believers’ blood shed violently, will increase exponentially. The level of courage it will take to stand in the face of Satan and the Antichrist and his henchmen, to be a Christian in those days, will be indescribable.

But the Lord will be up to it; he will bolster his people through the Holy Spirit, strengthening their courage and commitment to Christ. The church will go out gloriously, but it will be a bloody time. Jesus said, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” [Matthew 10:37-38]

What about you and me? This is very convicting: “They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” How much do we shrink back from suffering, whether in the internal journey of holiness or the external journey of gospel advance? We come to a difficult moment and we shrink back and sin, and do not say anything about Jesus. We should all be convicted and take our guilty souls to God and say, “Oh God I am so weak. I am not like these courageous brothers and sisters. Make me courageous. Make me strong in the moment of temptation to be holy for you. Make me strong in the moment of witnessing to be courageous and bold for you.”

Verse 12 proclaims joy in Heaven and woe to the earth. “Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”  It is one of the few scriptural statements about the inner workings of the mind of the devil. We are told that he is angry because he knows his time is short. Woe to the earth and the sea because of the rage of the devil.

When did this battle happen, or when will it happen? It is possible that it goes back to the beginning of time, before Adam and Eve were in the Garden. There are indications of this in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. God created Satan as a beautiful cherub. He put him in the Garden where he became impressed with his own beauty, wisdom and power. Isaiah 14 describes how he decided to try to take over Heaven. He said, “I will ascend and make myself like the most high.” Both passages depict him as being cast down. Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven.” Satan was cast down to the earth a long time ago.

However, it is possible that it refers to a yet future battle in heaven. This future event will cut off the devil’s access to God’s throne to accuse us. In Job 1, Satan appears before the throne and reports to God that he has been roaming the earth. We also see in Job 2 that he has access to the throne to make accusations. He accuses Job not of sin but of his true motive for being such a righteous God-follower.

Zechariah 3:1-5 also depicts Satan’s access to the throne: “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The LORD said to Satan, ‘The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?’ Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Take off his filthy clothes.’ Then he said to Joshua, ‘See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.’ [Then Zachariah, like most of the prophets, cannot keep from involving himself.] Then I said, ‘Put a clean turban on his head.’ So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him, while the angel of the LORD stood by.” What a picture of our salvation, of Satan being totally discredited and cast down as he tries to accuse one of the Lord’s elect, one of His followers. But for now, he has that access, so he is before the throne day and night, accusing our brothers and sisters around the world.

Revelation 12 may refer to a future final battle in the heavenly realms between the Archangel Michael and Satan, when he is thrown down right before the end. That brings us to that three and a half years, 1260 days, when he chases the woman. Eschatology is complex, but the 1260 days — also called a time, times and half a time, or 70 weeks in the book of Daniel — is code for the final phase of human history.

But woe to the earth when the devil is thrown down. It will be the worst time in history. The devil is filled with rage. He has known all along that his time was short, meaning not eternal, and that the lake of fire was meant for him and his angels. That will be preceded by the final phase of this chapter, woe on earth as Satan pursues the woman, and her children. It begins in verse 6: “The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.”

After the woman, Zion, gives birth to the male child, Christ, he is snatched up to heaven where the devil cannot reach him. The devil, not able to reach Christ, focuses his rage on Christ’s followers, just as Paul persecuted the church but was actually persecuting Christ — “‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’… ‘Who are you Lord?’ …’I am Jesus the one you are persecuting.’” Satan cannot harm the head, Jesus, who is in Heaven, so he attacks the body, namely the woman who gave birth to the male child. She flees into the desert for 1260 days.

The devil focuses on the woman, who is still on earth. Verse 13 says, “When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.” Verse 6 shows from the woman’s perspective her protection in the desert, and verse 13 shows the other half of the equation. The devil chases her, so she flees to a protected place. The desert represents a place of refuge or protection. Elijah ran from wicked king Ahab and Jezebel into the desert, where he is fed by ravens by a brook. Later he flees again and is given supernatural food and protection in the desert. It is a place of protection where the devil through the wicked ruler cannot get to him.

In verse 14, the story develops with more detail: “The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent's reach.” This seems to be a metaphor for speed and protection. With wings of an eagle she keeps ahead of her pursuers; speed matters. Jesus says, “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that this will not take place in winter…” [Mark 13:14-18] It is a terrible time of fleeing; there is no time to get any possessions.

Israel is immediately disillusioned, realizing that Judaic animal sacrifice will not be re-established. The Antichrist has taken over the temple and begins to persecute these monotheists, followers of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so they run. At that point, witnesses are able to share Christ or they somehow realize Jesus is their Savior. They become Christian Jews and now Jesus will protect them. 

The image of the eagle evokes hovering and wings of protection. There are many psalms about how God covers us with his wings or his feathers, like a mother eagle lifting up her young from the surface of the earth to carry them out of danger. They will have three and a half years of protection.

The devil spews a river in verse 15: “Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.” We usually think of dragons as fire-breathing but this is a river-spewing dragon. Water flows from his mouth like a river to sweep the woman away. The best way to interpret this is an army of Antichrist’s forces, a long army that goes on for miles and looks like a long river or a serpent, marching out to chase after her in the desert.

This image is the very one given to us in Jeremiah 1, speaking about the Babylonian invasion from the north. Jeremiah saw a pot, boiling with water, tipping over. The hot liquid poured out and became a clear metaphor for the Babylonian troops spilling down from the north destroying Jerusalem. Here, we have the same thing, a river flowing. They are literal soldiers, sent out by the Antichrist to follow the fleeing Jews and slaughter them.

But God controls Heaven and earth. Verse 16 says, “But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.” This reminds me of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram who rebelled against Moses in the days of the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt. Moses said to the people, “If these men die a natural death and suffer the fate of all mankind, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the realm of the dead, then you will know that these men have treated the Lord with contempt.” [Numbers 16:30] That is exactly what happened to those rebels and it seems like that is what happens here. The ground opens up and swallows the river that flows from the mouth of Satan. Thus, he is once again thwarted.

That brings us to verse 17, the final phase. This flight into the desert upon seeing the abomination of desolation is centered on Jerusalem and Judea. However, the woman’s children are not limited to Jewish believers living in Israel. “Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring-- those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” The rest of the woman’s children include believers in Christ all over the world during the time of the Antichrist who will be the focus of Satan’s vicious attacks. Many of them will die martyrs’ deaths.

It will be so bad that it will precipitate the Second Coming of Christ from Heaven to rescue his bride. He said, “If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them.” [Mark 13:20] Jesus will return to rescue his bride and establish His eternal kingdom.

The end Revelation 12 focuses on Satan standing by the sea shore to call up the Beast from the Sea, otherwise known as the Antichrist.

Let us apply these truths to our own lives. First and foremost, flee to Christ now. The devil is active, skillful, and powerful, and he is deluding people who do not trust in Christ yet, blinding their eyes against Jesus. Maybe God brought you here today to open your eyes and to see the glories of God and Christ, to see how beautiful, how powerful and majestic He is.

God sent His Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus, born of a virgin. He lived a sinless life and performed signs and wonders. He healed a man born blind, fed 5000 people with five loaves and two fish, walked on water, spoke to the winds and the waves and they obeyed Him; he raised his friend Lazarus, who had been dead for four days. All of these signs and wonders show His compassion, but they also show his power, his identity. He is God in the flesh, and he came to save sinners like you and me.

I urge you, while there is time, to shake off the chains of deception that are around your soul. Come to Christ and find forgiveness in him. You can overcome the attacks of the devil by the blood of the Lamb, by believing in Jesus.

Christians, you have already fled to Christ, but the devil still accuses you day and night. Do you ever feel his accusations mingled with guilt over sin? The devil means you harm; the Holy Spirit means to heal you. You must discern between the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the accusations of the devil. They are talking about the same things, the violation of your conscience through your sin. You do not deny it; you know you have said and done some things that you should not have, or you have been spiritually lazy, leaving something undone that you ought to have done.

Maybe it has to do with your quiet time or with witnessing. Perhaps there are things in your marriage or what you do on the Internet in secret. Maybe it has to do with how you spend your money, or even how you are not spending it. You know you have sinned, you have violated your conscience and the law of God — the devil is right about that. But he is wrong about you. God will vindicate you one day against this devious accuser by casting him down into the lake of fire.

The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, means to heal you. He presses your conscience, shows you the Word of God, and brings you again to Jesus, to the atoning work of Christ and to the confession of sin. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” [1 John 1:9] Overcome the devil’s accusations by the blood of the Lamb and by the power of the Holy Spirit working in you to live a holy life. If you do not want to confess something later this week, then do not do it. Be holy, put sin to death by the power of the Spirit, and put on your spiritual armor. But the devil is smart. We are not unaware of the his schemes, but so many of us live as though we are. Be aware of what he is trying to do in your life — in your marriage, your work life, your thought life.

Do not love your lives in this world too much. I fear this is our biggest sin we struggle in the affluent, comfortable West.“They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” Do you love your life in this world too much? Start, as Jesus said, “hating your life” in this world a little more each day. Do not look for easy comfortable times in this world; be willing to become unpopular at work if that is what it takes. There are ways to share Christ that are more or less disarming, but are we not called upon to become unpopular is that is what it takes? We should be “shrewd as a serpent” but willing to be humbled in the process. Talk about Christ. Do not love your life so much in this world that you shrink back from serving Christ fully.

Father, thank you for the things we have learned today about the activities of the dragon, the devil, and his angels, the demons. We are assaulted every moment by we chains we cannot see; we feel the pull of magnetic attractions that we cannot see, temptations to sin. Oh, God, help us to stand firm and give us courage. Help us to think like New Testament people, to think like future inhabitants of the new Heaven and the new earth. Help us to be bold and courageous warriors for you. Thank you that you have defeated the devil on our behalf. Help us to live like conquering kings and queens. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

In 1980, Carl Sagan, an atheist, scientist and TV personality, opened a new TV series with these words: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” By the word “cosmos”, he meant the impersonal physical universe of atoms matter and energy. He said laws of science and all that exists in the universe can be explained by matter and energy. This is a philosophical view known as materialism — that material stuff is all there is. By his strong assertion, he was denying the metaphysical, the spiritual world, which we will study this morning from Revelation 12. This is a world of invisible, personal, spiritual beings — the world of God on his throne but also of Satan as an intelligent, real, spiritual being; the world of angels and demons, the heavenly realms.

In Revelation 12, we will walk into that world and look around as well as look back in history to the time when Jesus was born to see behind the veil of the wicked actions of King Herod and the spiritual dimensions of what was going on at that time at Bethlehem. It is revealed as an intelligent but malevolent plot of Satan to kill the Messiah. We will also briefly look even further back to the time when Satan fell from Heaven to earth. This chapter will also take us to the future to the climactic final showdown between the devil and his angels (or demons) and the people of God on earth. We will begin to see the kind of cataclysmic suffering that Satan and his henchmen will put the people of God through.

Preaching through Revelation, I struggle with the question of relevance. 21st century American hearers who are practical, pragmatic people might think, “What does a red dragon have to do with my life?” You may have physical ailments, an overwhelming workload (or even successes), imminent life changes such as expecting a child, or other various scenarios, and you see no way that this chapter can connect. My job is to show how intensely relevant these themes are for you. I will make that case much more clearly at the end of this sermon than right now, but my point is to bring to light the fact that we have an intelligent, personal enemy who seeks to destroy our souls. That could not be more relevant to each of us.

In Revelation 12, we enter a new section in this amazing book. Revelation 6-11 has covered a focus of wrath and judgment that comes from Heaven to earth on human beings who have hated the people of God. In these judgments, they receive the just penalty for their opposition to God and their persecution of the people of God. We will continue to see those themes in future chapters as well. The devil and his demons have not been entirely absent in these chapters. In Revelation 9, we saw the king of the demons, called Abaddon or Apollyon, emerge in billowing smoke out of the Abyss; this king was identified as Satan. Now we will delve into understanding Satan and his demons; we will see their existence and their dark activities unveiled. “Apocalypse” means unveiling, the revealing of things that we cannot see with our physical eyes.

So many incredible invisible things have already been unveiled in this book. Revelation 1-3 shows Christ in his resurrection glory unveiled as the high priest, ministering among the seven golden lamp stands, a symbol of his ongoing conscious energetic ministry to every local church around the world throughout all time. Those seven golden lamp stands represent actual, literal local churches but also extend out to every local church.

Revelation 4 unveiled for us Almighty God seated on his throne in the heavenly realms with concentric circles of worshipers around Him, including twenty-four elders, living creatures, and 100 million angels ready to do his bidding. These constantly worship him for creating the universe.

In Revelation 5, Christ is revealed as the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Lamb who was slain for sinners all over the world, the only one who had the right to take the scroll that was sealed with seven seals from the right hand of God.

In Revelation 6, Christ breaks open those seals. The first six seals bring judgments on earth. I believe these have covered the entire realm of 20 centuries of church history but will culminate in the final cataclysmic end of the universe.

Revelation 7 answers the question asked at the end of Revelation 6 of who will be able to stand in the great day of the wrath of God. This is a relevant question. Who will be able to stand on the day of God’s wrath? The final company of the redeemed is unveiled here, a remnant from the Jews first, and then people from every tribe and language and people and nation. They stand with white robes, saying “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” This is the answer to the question. We yearn to be part of that great company of the redeemed, whose sins have been forgiven by the blood of Christ.

In Revelation 8-9, the seventh seal unleashes the seven trumpets. The trumpets begin specific cataclysmic judgments on the ecology of the earth — on every living, growing green thing, the grass, the trees, the freshwater, the saltwater. Then specific judgments in Revelation 9 are sent on the people of the earth — sores on their bodies, physical affliction by demonic oppression, and finally, death. A third of the human race — perhaps two to three billion people — is slaughtered in a war that seems demonically incited by an army of 200 million strange, supernatural warriors.

Revelation 10 brings a break in the action to show a mighty angel who stands on the earth with one foot on the land and one foot in the sea, with his head up in the clouds. The seven thunders cry out; as John starts to write what he hears, he is instructed not to, symbolizing things that we are not yet allowed to know about the future. The angel gives John a scroll, which John is told to eat. It is sweet in his mouth, but bitter in his stomach. It represents his commission to write many things for every tribe, language, people and nation. I think this represents this concluding book of the Bible, Revelation, which makes clear details about the future so we can know as much as we need to know.

At the end of Revelation 11, the seventh trumpet sounds, unleashing the seven bowl judgments.

Here is another break, a seam in the action, to allow us to look behind the scenes to see Satan and demons and their activity. His number one henchman is the Beast from the Sea, whom we know as the Antichrist. We also meet the false prophet, who comes to tout worldwide worship for the Antichrist and the effects of that following in Revelation 13. We are led to an understanding of the three enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil. We will zero in on the devil and the world for the rest of this section until the Second Coming of Christ. The world will increasingly be the enemy of the people of God and Satan is behind that. He will use government and the Antichrist to bear down and press on the people of God in the most intense wave of persecution ever seen, which will produce in the end the Second Coming of Christ and his rescue of his Bride.

As we focus on the red dragon and his activities, the text makes it clear we are talking about Satan. We do not have to wonder. So often, the details are hard to interpret but this could not be any clearer. Revelation 12:9 says, “The great dragon was hurled down-- that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.” That covers just about every base. C. S. Lewis, in his classic on temptation, The Screwtape Letters, said this at the beginning, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

I have known people who have an unhealthy excessive interest in the occult. I used to live near Salem, Massachusetts. There are people there that take the occult very seriously. Whether they call themselves witches or earth worshippers or some other term, they take this very seriously. This is openly their lifestyle. I saw the same thing in Haiti with voodoo practitioners. We see in the movie industry an increasing interest in the dark supernatural. That is one side of the equation but more commonly, I have been surrounded by materialists, people who do not think much about devils. They make fun of the idea, dismissing it as mythology or a fictional devil on one shoulder, angel on the other. They effectively live as materialists, people who seek to explain everything by science.

The world has a misunderstanding of Satan. Satan desires that we underestimate him and his impact on our lives, on our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being, on our marriages, our parenting, our jobs, our studies. A typical image of Satan is in a red suit with horns and a tail with a pitchfork. This is a mockery and invites underestimating him. He is fine with that. Misunderstanding his native habitat is also common; he is portrayed as though he lives in and rules over Hell and he loves the heat, not bothered by it. In truth, the Lake of Fire is eternal punishment for the devil and his angels; we know because Jesus taught this in the parable about the sheep and goats. He is not there now and he dreads going there. Hell is  not his native habitat.

This chapter speaks of Satan’s great power. He is a powerful being, though nowhere near as powerful as Jesus. We need to be aware of how powerful he is but we need to understand how much more powerful Almighty God is. Satan is the central figure in the general rebellion that is happening right now both in the heavens and on earth. Satan’s tail sweeps a third of the stars, which we know from verse 9 and other Scriptures, represent his angels, and flings them to the ground. He was instrumental in corrupting holy angels and turning them into demons to join in his rebellion against Almighty God.

He is leading the whole world astray; it is under his sway. God wants us to know his power. As Martin Luther wrote in “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”: “For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe. His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate; on earth is not his equal. Did we in our own strength confide [put our trust], our striving would be losing… [We need to know that the devil is very powerful but also to understand the next part of the hymn] were not the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus — it is he! Lord Sabaoth [Hebrew for Lord Almighty] is his name, from age to age the same, and he must [will] win the battle."

At the cross, Jesus Christ, by his death, set us free. Hebrews 2:14 says, “... by Christ’s death he destroyed him who holds the power of death-- that is, the devil, and freed those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” What a mighty victory Jesus won by his own death. We need to understand Satan’s great power, but we also need to see his great defeats. In this chapter, he is a five-time loser. He loses, then he loses some more, and then he loses even more, and then he loses again, and then finally he loses.

First, he tries to devour the male child as soon as he is born, but God snatches the child up to his throne. Then he fights against the archangel Michael and his angels but he loses and is thrown down to the earth. He pursues the woman but God prepares a place for her in the desert where she is kept safe for 1260 days. Then he wants to drown the woman with a torrent that comes out of his mouth but the earth swallows up the river. So filled with rage because he knows his time is short, he directs his attention to the children of the woman, those who obey God’s commands and hold to the testimony of Jesus. He tries to destroy them so they no longer obey God’s commands and give up the testimony of Jesus, but he fails. Praise God. He is a five-time loser in this chapter; but he is vastly more powerful than you and I.

We will focus today on verses 1-6. I preached this for Christmas one time. I do not know why I thought it was an appropriate Christmas message — maybe because of the birth of the male child — but people want shepherds and angels and songs and happiness, not dragons seeking to devouring babies. I will not preach this for Christmas again, but it is not Christmas now and we need to understand exactly what this text is talking about. 

This is a failed assassination. The dragon tries to kill the woman’s son before his time. There are three symbolic figures in this drama. We have the glorious woman in the heavens, the red dragon who is openly interpreted for us in verse 9, and the male child who will rule all the world with the rod of iron, who is snatched up to God’s throne.

The dragon is the easiest of the three to identify. He is Satan, the devil, the ancient serpent. The male child, who is good and righteous, whom Satan hates and fights against, rules the world and is caught up to the throne of God. This must be Christ. But who is the woman who gives birth to the male child, and what is the significance of the 1260 days in which she's protected?

Verse 1 says, “A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” Signs are symbols. A symbolic language uses representations to teach literal truth. With the book of Revelation, we try to get beyond this symbolic language to physical or spiritual reality to understand the signs. This great and wondrous sign, we are told, appeared in Heaven. Though most of the events in this drama occur on earth, the sign of the woman is in Heaven.

The woman is portrayed as glorious. She is clothed with the sun. She is radiantly bright, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. All these symbolize, to some degree, her glory. She is in an exalted, powerful position. The number twelve is significant because it points either to the twelve tribes of Israel or the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. Both are pictured in the new Jerusalem. All we know is this woman is radiantly, brightly glorious in the heavens, and she gives birth to a male child.

Verses 2 and 5 say, “She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth… She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” As we said, this must be Christ; therefore the woman gives birth to Christ in some symbolic spiritual way. Obviously, Jesus’ physical, earthly mother was Mary. We believe in a literal woman — a Jewish woman betrothed to a man named Joseph, lived in Nazareth, and gave birth to Jesus — she was Jesus’ had physical, human mother. He was truly, fully human through his mother Mary. He had no earthly father.

Roman Catholic mystics tend to see the radiant glorified mother of God in Mary and say she is worthy of worship and reverence as a co-redemptrix with Jesus. Protestants have rejected this kind of glorification of Mary. I think she vigorously would do the same. She was a sinner saved by her son. In her song, the Magnificat, she talked about a Savior. She needed a Savior. Jesus was not taking advice from his mother at the wedding at Cana in Galilee on how to run his ministry but from his Father, daily doing what his Father told him. Jesus honored Mary, though she didn't fully understand always who he was. At one point, she came with her other sons to take charge of him because it was said he was out of his mind. However, on the day of Pentecost, she was there in the upper room with the other believers waiting to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. She was a godly woman, a paradigm example for young women on how to carry themselves under a very difficult mission from God. but she was a sinner saved by grace, not a goddess or worthy of being worshiped or in an equal role with Jesus in Heaven.

Many things happen to the woman that did not happen in any way to Mary. I also do not think it can be the church, for how could the church give birth to Jesus? Most likely, this is an idealized form of the Jewish nation of Israel. Romans 9:5 says that the human lineage of Jesus came from Israel. Thus, salvation came from the Jews. In the book of Isaiah, we have that heavenly Zion image. In Isaiah 54, she, who had been barren, gives birth to children all over the world. That is a picture of the heavenly Zion, the Jewish nation, that gives birth to believers.

Paul picks up on this image in Galatians 4 with the allegory of Hagar and Sarah. He says, “Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem because she is in slavery with her children. [The physical Jerusalem, unbelieving, rejecting Christ, is not what he is talking about.] But the Jerusalem that is above is free and she is our mother. [That clicks into the end of the chapter where the devil tries to chase the children of the woman, believers.] For it is written: ‘Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.’” The woman, then, represents Israel in an idealized, heavenly perfected form, giving birth to children for God, but first and foremost, giving birth to Jesus, the Savior of the world.

This would fit into the prophecy of Daniel regarding 1260 days and the statement about the abomination of desolation of Matthew 24. It fits into that final phase of human history in which the focus of persecution will be on converted Jews. All of Israel will be saved and the Antichrist and Satan will focus on the woman and her children as they run for their lives, which he says they need to do in Matthew 24:16, “… let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” The labor pains that she endured up to the birth of Jesus refers to all the devilish persecution of the Jews up until that time, of which there was much.

The second sign, also in Heaven, is the dragon. Verses 3-4 say, “Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.” The heavenly realms are producing earthly results. It is a dynamic throughout the book of Revelation. With these heavenly signs, we look behind the physical scenes of what is happening on earth to view the spiritual drama.

How is he described? First he is called the dragon. Obviously, Satan is not a dragon. He is the first, most powerful fallen angel. The Old Testament implies that Satan was a spectacularly glorious, beautiful, powerful angel. Ezekiel 28:12 and 17 say, “You were the model of perfection full of wisdom and perfect in beauty… Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings.” He was a beautiful guardian cherub in the garden who was thrown to the earth because of wickedness and corruption. Satan also presents himself with a radiant beauty in 2 Corinthians 11:14. “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”

Satan was and can still appear to be beautiful, but his true nature is horrible and wicked and twisted, thus the dragon imagery. Dragons are a fascinating study. I have spent great deal of time studying dragons the last three or four weeks because of the text. I do not know whether dragons existed but I find it interesting that very old artistic representations of dragons are the same in China and Scotland. That is provocative. Whether they existed or not, it provides an image of great power and danger. We have China and England and Scotland, with legends like St. George fighting the dragon and the cross of Saint George on the flag of the United Kingdom. We have fictitious representation of dragons, the most famous of which is the dragon Smaug in Tolkein’s The Hobbit — a fire-breathing flying beast, seemingly impossible to kill. 

Consider the leviathan creature in Job, which he describes as a fire-breathing powerful creature. Job 41:13-33, in part: “Who can strip off its outer coat?… Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth? Its back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; each is so close to the next that no air can pass between... Its snorting throws out flashes of light; its eyes are like the rays of dawn. Flames stream from its mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds. Its breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from its mouth…  [That is four straight verses on fire-breathing. This cannot be a crocodile or alligator or rhinoceros or hippopotamus.] When it rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before its thrashing. The sword that reaches it has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. [Humans cannot kill it.] Nothing on earth is its equal — a creature without fear.”

Satan is likened to a mighty dragon overpowering in his strength, terrifying and thoroughly evil. He is enormous. The size of the dragon heightens the terror one feels when seeing it. It is no ordinary adversary. He is red, the color of fire and of war. He has seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his head. This represents total domination of every nation on earth. He rules the world. Satan tells Jesus, showing him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor, that it all had been given to him and he could give it to whomever he pleased. The Antichrist has been playing the game of divide and conquer because he hates every human being but he will consolidate in the final analysis behind the Antichrist. But he rules all of the wicked kings of the earth. He is the wicked king behind all wicked kings and he is the wicked lord behind all wicked lords.

Ephesians 2:2 says, “…the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” Or 1 John 5:19, “…the whole world is under the sway of the evil one.” The dragon is in charge of the whole world with its rulers under his dark secret sway. He is the puppet master. It is interesting that in the two accounts of of Satan, the text does not directly address Satan. God talks to a king of Tyre or a king of Babylon, but He is talking beyond the human figurehead to the real power behind Tyre and the power behind Babylon — Satan.

“And with his tail, he swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.” As we see in verse 9, these stars represent his angels. We do not tend to call them angels, although the New Testament does frequently — “the devil and his angels.” They are angels but they are fallen and we call them demons. They are personal, intelligent, spiritual beings who wreak havoc on the earth under Satan’s dominion. The one-third number shows that a vast number of angels fell into rebellion, but not all of them. Most of them — two-thirds — remained holy and true to God.

Satan is ready to murder the woman’s child the moment he is born. Verse 4 says, “The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.” Jesus said in John 8:44, “He was a murderer from the beginning … a liar and the father of lies.” Think of Pharaoh’s evil attack on all the Jewish boy babies during the time of bondage in Egypt; Haman’s attack on the Jews in the Book of Esther on the whole Jewish nation; the 20th century anti-Semitic attack by Hitler and the Nazis. Satan hates the woman and anything that comes from the her; he hates the people of God.

Verse 5 says, “She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” There is little doubt this must be Jesus Christ. He is a good human baby, born to rule. His rule cannot be broken. The word “iron” refers to something that cannot be broken. It points to the eternality of Christ’s scepter or rule. His dominion lasts forever and ever.

The language comes directly from Psalm 2, a Messianic Psalm written by David, which talked about the world-wide rebellion against the son of David, ultimately, against Christ. Psalm 2:7-9 says, “I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: He [God the Father] said to me [the Messiah, Christ] ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.’” We will see this image again at the Second Coming of Christ. When the devil and his lead henchman, the Beast from the Sea (the Antichrist), gather an army to exterminate the people of God (the Bride of Christ, believers), Jesus is motivated to come from Heaven to rescue her.

 He will come back in Revelation 19 in all of his glory, bringing military power from heaven. Revelation 19:15-16 says, “Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. ‘He will rule them with an iron scepter.’ [That is a quote from Psalm 2.] “He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” He is the righteous king of all righteous kings, the righteous lord of all righteous lords, and under him we will reign forever. He will topple the wicked king of all wicked kings and the wicked lord of all wicked lords and he will rule in their place forever.

Verses 4-5 say, “The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.” He could not kill Jesus. Satan is pictured at the moment of birth to pounce on this baby and kill it. Knowing the history of Jesus’ birth, this must relate to what wicked King Herod did to try to kill Jesus right after he was born.

The story is told in Matthew 2:1-18. The Magi, or wise men, came from the East following a star. They went to Jerusalem where King Herod was “and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’ When Herod heard this, he was disturbed [to put it mildly], and all Jerusalem with him.” But Herod was “king of the Jews” and would brook no rival.” He asked the Magi to tell him where Jesus was but they were warned in a dream not to go back to him. They returned home by another route. Then God warned Joseph of Herod’s plot to search for the child to try to kill him, so Joseph immediately took Mary and Jesus and fled to Egypt. “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious. And he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.’” It is one of the most disgusting, dastardly acts in redemptive history.

Revelation 12 gives a spiritual background. Herod did not act alone. He is fully accountable for what he did, for the decision he made, but the devil was behind it. They are actually in some ways alike. They are threatened by Jesus. The Magi had said to Herod that Jesus was born King of the Jews but Herod thought of that as his title He was willing to kill many babies to jealously protect his evil rule. Satan knows that Jesus is born King of the world. But that is his title and he is willing to kill many to protect his position and title. Satan is a ravenous beast, thirsty for human blood, slaughtering babies in Egypt in the time of Pharaoh, slaughtering babies in Bethlehem at the time of Herod, trying to kill the serpent slayer that was predicted to be born to the woman.

The serpent is the devil. The snake in the garden of Eden was that ancient serpent, the devil, who came to talk to the woman, Eve. To some degree, they made a covenant together to rebel against God and then draw Adam into it, but God severed that covenant. In Genesis 3:15, God, spoke to the serpent but through him, behind the puppet, to the puppet master, Satan. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” By his death, the serpent slayer crushed Satan.

What the devil was trying to do was to kill Jesus before his time. The dragon was not done at that point. He continues to try to kill Jesus again and again. As Jesus began his public ministry in his hometown of Nazareth, he said something that offended the people, who pushed him to the edge of a cliff to push him off to kill him. He would have had many broken bones and would not have been lifted up and shedding his blood as an atoning sacrifice. He did not die then; he moved through the crowd and went on his way. In John 7, the Pharisees sought to kill him but they could not arrest him because his hour had not yet come. It happens again in John 8. Jesus claims at the end of the chapter, “‘Before Abraham was born, I am.’ And they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself…” That would have broken all his bones. Satan is behind all of these attempts.

Revelation 12 does not mention all of these attempts nor Jesus’ death on the cross which conquered Satan. But Jesus made it plain that neither Satan nor any human being could take his life from him in John 10:18: “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” In John 14:30, he said, “... the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me [no accusation, no power], but he comes so that the world may learn that I… obey do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” When Judas took the bread, identifying him as the betrayer, Satan entered into him. He brings a squad of soldiers back to arrest Jesus. Jesus askes Satan-infested Judas, “Who are you looking for?” The soldiers reply, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said, “I am.” They drew back — including Satan in Judas — and fell to the ground. Isn't that encouraging? Jesus laid down his life. Satan did not take it.

Revelation 12:5 says “And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.” God protected Jesus until the time came for him to die as a substitutionary atonement, a bloody sacrifice without any of his bones broken. Satan failed to kill him — God took him from planet earth. When he ascended through the heavenly realms to God’s throne, he was seated at God’s right hand and intercedes for us.  Satan can do nothing to reach him. Ephesians 1:20-21 says, “God raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” He is infinitely above Satan’s dominions and powers.

God protects the woman in verse 6, “The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.” That refers to the last three-and-a-half years of human history of overt persecution from the devil and his henchmen. At the end of this chapter, he is standing on the shore of the sea waiting to call out the Beast of the Sea.

Verses 7-9 cover the failed revolution. “And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down-- that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” Does this refer to the when Satan was cast down before the garden of Eden, the primordial battle referenced in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14? Or does it refer to a future battle in which Satan will be cast down and lose heavenly access by which he is able to accuse believers before the throne, coming down for one final kick against the people of God, thus ending world history?

Whenever I get to a challenging passage like this, I preach them both. This could refer to both the past and the future events. Previously, Satan tried to take over heaven and was cast down to the earth. Isaiah 14:12 says, “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star [the KJV says Lucifer], son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!” Ezekiel 28, explains why it happened: “You said in your heart ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’  But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit.” [Isaiah 14:13-14] That pride began the wickedness in the universe.

Where did evil come from in a perfectly good universe? I do not know where it originated from but I believe it started when the devil tried to take over heaven. It is also valuable to see the possibility of a future battle in which Satan has no access to the throne of God as he had in the Book of Job and has currently, accusing us day and night before the throne of God. Next time we will discuss verses 13-17, in which the devil bears down on the woman and her children, who hold to the testimony of Jesus and who resist worshiping the Antichrist as he becomes their persecutor.

First, I yearn to preach the Gospel simply. This is not an easy chapter even for advanced Christians who have been studying the Bible a long time to understand. Details are hard. It could be that you are not a Christian — you are lost — and you are searched for a church and found us, or somebody invited you. All this complex detail about the future and about Satan may be confusing. Let me make it simple and clear. The devil hates every human being. Christian or non-Christian, he hates them all. He has crafted a world system that lures humans into sin and death and eternal death in hell. God, because he loves us, sent his Son to take the penalty, the hell we deserve, on himself. All you need to do is acknowledge that you have sinned (violated the commands of God) and to repent (turn from your sins), knowing you are guilty and have no hope of forgiveness apart from Christ. Trust in Christ; find in him a Savior.

Then and only then, only in Christ, can you resist the attacks and accusations of the devil. Flee to him. Find refuge in him. Do not be a materialist, thinking that the universe created and evolved itself. Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” That is what faith is — trust in a personal Creator Savior. By Christ alone you will be able to stand the accusations of the devil. Romans 8:33-35 says, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?”

Second, for Christians wondering about the relevance of the red dragon, the woman, and the male child, here is an analogy. Imagine you are in Congress and plan to put forward legislation that will put a real dent in organized crime. One morning, two men with the FBI come to your office with good information that there is an assassination plot against you and your family. Would you find that relevant? You would be wise to take the threat seriously rather than ignore it because you had purchased tickets to go to a game that night, determined to show no fear. What you know about your plans to go to the game are also known by your enemy. How do you know they do not plan to blow up your car or kidnap your kids? You would be a fool not to take such a warning seriously.

1 Peter 5:8-9 says, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kinds of sufferings.”  That is how this is relevant to you; though in our text in Revelation it is not a lion but a dragon, he coming after you.

Think supernaturally. Imagine there are demons spurring you and your spouse to despise each other and be divided in the face of significant conflict. Imagine the things that pop into your head to say are being fed to you by a demon in Satan’s name who hates you and would love your marriage to end. Imagine the pull you may feel to look at lustful images while surfing the Internet is not just your flesh. There is an intelligent evil being, a presence in the room, luring you, to destroy your soul.

When you struggle with covetousness and greed and are tempted to become a workaholic or earn advanced degrees or esteem for the purpose of a prosperous life rather than for serving God and Christ, imagine the devil is involved in that, feeding you a worldly image of a safe, comfortable self-seeking life. 2 Corinthians 2:11 “…we are not unaware of his schemes.” We need to be mindful. 1 Peter 5:9 says, “Resist him standing firm in the faith…” Faith come from the word of God.

The red dragon is apocalyptic imagery but real. You have a personal enemy who wants to destroy your soul. So fight. Ephesians 6:11 instructs, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.” Lift up the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit. Put on the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of righteousness and fight! Do not give in to temptation and sin and wickedness.

Third, see the evil power behind current events. I am not talking about natural events such as hurricanes and earthquakes. There is no human agency in that. But there are evil things happening all over the world: terrorist cell groups, rogue states that threaten thermonuclear holocausts, states like Myanmar that are purging out Muslims by genocide, Boko Haram, ISIS, Somalian warlords who make life utterly miserable for people in those regions of the world. Do not imagine it is only humans doing bad things. There are demonic forces — the devil himself and his followers — behind these regimes and these wicked people.

Therefore, finally, pray. Matthew 6:13 says, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us [literally] from the evil one.” This is not just general evil; the Greek is personal — the evil one. Pray that God would deliver you from the works and the assaults of the devil

Father, we thank you for the things that we have learned today. We thank you for the way that you have taught us the Word of God. And we pray, oh Lord, that you would please strengthen each one of us to fight, to put on the full armor of God so that we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes. Father, I pray that you would please be working even now in hearts of people that have come here that are not sure they are believers or know that they are not believers, that while there is time, they would cross over from death to life and find life in Christ. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

When Moses was 80 years old, and at that point had become a very obscure person. He was raised in power and prosperity, but he fled after he murdered an Egyptian, and was at that point, at 80 years old, tending his father-in-law's sheep on the back side of the desert; an obscure man tending another man's sheep. He was trying to find pasture and water for the sheep. And at one point, he saw a sight he'd never seen before. He saw a bush that was burning, and it was a kind of a fire. I don't know if it gave off any heat, maybe it did, but he saw the light, the dancing flames, perhaps heard the crackle of it, but the bush wasn't consumed and he'd never seen anything like it. And so he turned aside and said, "I'm gonna go over and see this sight. I've never seen anything like this before." And as he approached, he heard, from the flames of the burning bush, he heard a voice that changed his life, and the first thing that that voice said is, "Do not come any closer, for the ground on which you're standing is holy ground." And then the voice identified himself, "I am the God of your fathers, I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look upon God.

And this is how God called Moses away from tending his father-in-law's sheep to being the human instrument for leading the Jews out of bondage in Egypt into the Promised Land. Amazingly, however, though the Exodus journey from slavery through the Red Sea, through 40 years in the desert, crossing eventually the Jordan River into the Promised Land is worthy of eternal consideration. Nothing is more important than the personal encounter of a sinner with a holy God exemplified in that burning bush. And many of the Jews who made that physical journey never had that encounter by faith. They were not believers, and their bodies were scattered all over the desert. They did not know the God who was physically saving them out of slavery. They did not encounter the God who said, "The ground on which you're standing is holy ground." They didn't have an encounter with God. So what does that mean? "The ground on which you're standing is holy ground."

How can each of us come to a personal experience of that God who lives today? He is not the God of the dead, but the living, he is still our God, how can we stand in the presence of the Creator of the universe and not be consumed by the fire of his holiness? It's a great mystery. We are taught theologically in the Scripture that God, the God of the Bible is omnipresent, that means he is everywhere at once. And he's, in one sense, we could say no more in one place than he is in another. There is nowhere in the universe in which God does not fully exist with all of his attributes.

The psalmist in Psalm 139 teaches this plainly, he says, "Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I sat on the far side of the sea, even there, your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast." It clearly teaches the omnipresence of God; he is everywhere that we could go in the universe.

Jesus Christ made this even more plain in his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. The Jews and Samaritans were divided and debated for centuries over the proper place of worship, where people should make pilgrimages and make their offerings, their animal sacrificial offerings. The Jews said the place was Jerusalem, the Samaritan said it was Mt. Gerizim in Samaria. And so they debated, and this woman wanted Jesus to weigh in on that. But Jesus revealed to her on an amazing level, way beyond I think anyone else's understanding of what he was coming to do. He told this Samaritan woman what was going to happen in the new covenant. There would no longer be any one designated place for worship. He said in John 4:21 and following, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth."

But God has always been omnipresent. And so even in the days of the old covenant, when there was a designated place for worship, even in the days before that of Moses, when Moses was standing there in front of the burning bush, what did it mean that there was a holy place or a most holy place? What did it mean that there was holy ground on which Moses was standing? Why was that ground holy and a quarter of a mile away wasn't holy ground?

We could ask the same thing of Jacob, when he was fleeing from his brother Esau, Esau wanted to kill him, so Jacob ran for his life and he came to a certain patch of ground, exhausted as he was from all of the exertions and his sorrow and running away from his home, he laid down with a rock for his pillow. I think how hard-headed do you have to be to need a rock for your pillow? Which is harder, his head or the rock? I'm not sure.

But God had a lot of work to do in Jacob's heart and he desired to do some of that work that very night, for as he slept with that rock as a pillow, his mind was aflame with light and with a vision, with a dream. And in that dream, he saw a stairway going all the way up to heaven with angels ascending and descending. And there above the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, "I am the Lord, I am the God of your father, Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac." And God promised to give Jacob and his descendants the land on which he was lying, and to greatly multiply his descendants so that they would spread out to the west and east and north and south. And he promised him, all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and through your offspring. And he promised to be with him and to watch over him wherever he went. And when Jacob woke up from his dream, he was filled with awe. And he thought, "Surely, God, the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it.” The Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it. He was afraid, and he said, "How awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God, this is the gateway of heaven." And he set up a pillar there, poured oil on it. So what is holy ground if God is omnipresent? Well, I think it must be tied to our sense of God in the place, our relationship with the God of the universe in that place, our experience of God. And it comes at his initiative, he is choosing to reach out and draw us close in that place.

He's choosing to reveal himself and to bring us closer and to pour his goodness into our souls. It's relational language, the relational distance, it's relational. It's not got to do with God being omnipresent, it has to do with his relationship with each of us. So it says in Psalm 138:6, "Though the Lord is on high, he looks upon the lowly, but the proud, he knows from afar." So there's a distance between God and the proud. So what does that mean, from afar? It's similar to Jesus' terrifying statement in Matthew 7:23. "Many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord on that day, and he says, 'Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers." What does that mean, I never knew you? There, and we're not talking about omnipresence, but omniscience. What's he saying when he says, "I never knew you"? Is he saying, "I don't know anything about you, I don't know your name"? No, he actually, in the verse, he knows that they are evildoers. And another verse says, "He knows every careless word they've ever spoken.” He knows the thoughts and inclinations of their heart when they spoke those careless words, he knows everything about them.

What does he mean then when he says, "I never knew you"? He said, I didn't come into an intimate covenant relationship, a love relationship with you. That's what he's saying. So it is, I think with holy ground, God is everywhere, but especially and immediately and powerfully found in places he chooses, and there he reveals Himself directly to faith-filled hearers of his word, whose tied to his word and to faith and to the power of the Holy Spirit; he reveals himself in a memorable way there.

Now, Jesus was not saying to the Samaritan woman that there will never again be holy ground, he didn't say that. Instead, he's saying that God who is spirit can and will choose to reveal himself any place he wants to, any time he wants to. Anywhere on the planet could become holy ground now.

Now in the new covenant, so in the new covenant, there's no longer a physical temple, there's no longer a physical tabernacle, but there's a new holy place or even most holy place, or like the KJV used to say, "Holy of Holies" and that is the body of Jesus Christ; that's the new temple. So at the beginning of his public ministry in John 2, Jesus was there with a whip, cleansing the temple.

He would do it again at the end of his public ministry, cleansing the temple. But there in John 2 at the beginning of his ministry, the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?" Jesus answered, "Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up." The Jews replied, "It's taken 46 years to build this temple. You're gonna raise it up in three days? But the temple he had spoken of was his body.” John 2:21. And so when Jesus cried out in a loud voice on the cross and gave up his Spirit, the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And that was a physical symbol of a new and living way open for us into the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God. That time was over. The physical temple time was done, it was fulfilled in Jesus, fulfilled. But now the author of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 10:19-22, "Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, open for us through the curtain, that is his body."

Do you hear? Blood, body. By the blood, by the body, we have a new and living way into the presence of God. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. So, brothers and sisters, that is precisely where the Lord's Supper comes in for me. Done properly, it's holy ground. It's encounter with the living God. We draw near to God. He draws us near to him by faith in the Word, by understanding the significance of the once for all body and blood sacrifice that was made for us, we can today, right now, draw close to God and he draw near to us. It can become for us an experience of Almighty God. It can be holy ground.

Now, in order to do that, we're gonna turn briefly to 1 Corinthians 11, and just walk through it. Just setting the context, the Corinthian church was a talented, gifted, but fractious and divided church, lots of sin problems in that church, lots of carnality, immaturity, sin going on, all kinds of doctrinal issues Paul had to walk through with them. But he comes at last to this practical issue of the Lord's Supper. Reading the lines and reading between the lines, we can see some of the problems that are going on with the Lord's Supper. It seems that the Corinthians were acting very irreverently toward the Lord's Supper, didn't take it seriously.

They were behaving carnally, they were even getting drunk on the wine served at the Lord's Supper. Incredible. So Paul drops a theological bombshell on them concerning the significance of what was actually going on for them that they didn't even realize probably, didn't know why certain things were happening. So look at verses 27-30, he says, "Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord." Verse 28, "A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

Verse 30, look at it. "That is why many among you are weak and sick and a number of you have fallen asleep." That's New Testament language for dead. They've died because of their unworthy observance of the Lord's Supper. That's incredible. The Lord takes this ordinance so seriously that he was willing to afflict some of his own people with illness and weakness, and even with death, because they had eaten and they had been drinking in a manner unworthy of the Lord.

So Paul moved with compassion for them, moved by zeal for the Lord, moved by the Spirit of the Lord himself, he wrote these verses to warn them of danger concerning the Lord's Supper, but that's only part of it, that's not even the greater part of it. Speaking positively, he wanted them to come into the fullness of blessing the Lord intended in the Lord's Supper. He wanted them to richly experience the beauty of the Lord's Supper with the sin removed, that's what he wanted. And so it is also for us today, the Lord's Supper. This ordinance was meant to be a river of blessing for us as Christians, but it has also been throughout 20 centuries of church history, a source of division in the body of Christ, sadly. Right from the very beginning it is here in the Corinthian context, but it continued. 

It's good to understand some history, I was raised personally Roman Catholic. I was an altar boy, so I took part in the Mass, and the center piece of the Mass is the offering, so they believe, of the actual body and blood of Christ, they...I wasn't taught all this theology, I learned it after my conversion, but they believed in the doctrine of transubstantiation, which is a complex Greek philosophical basis for how it could actually be the body and blood of Jesus. And so they argued from Aristotle that the substance had changed and had become actually the body and blood of Jesus, even though it still tasted like bread and wine. I didn't know all that, I was just told to ring the bell at a certain point, and when the priest offered up the host, I rang the bell. I'd been a Christian for 10 years before I figured out that that was the moment they thought transubstantiation happened, and the bell was rung so you would know that it had happened.

Martin Luther, the great Reformer of the 16th century, was first a Roman Catholic priest, trembled so violently at the moment that he performed his first Mass, "I'm actually holding the blood, the cup of the blood of Jesus," that he spilled it on the tablecloth there. Even after his evangelical conversion and understood the Gospel, he never gave up on the concept of real presence, that the body and blood were actually there in the Lord's Supper, though not by transubstantiation, he rejected that, he said, "I don't have an explanation, I just believe it's true."

Now, Ulrich Zwingli, who also began as a Catholic priest, he was in Zurich, he was a Swiss Reformer, he had a whole different take on it. Every bit as much born again, strong, powerful Reformer in the Swiss context, he minimized the Lord's Supper rather completely, just maximized the preaching of the Word and said, "It's just a memorial, it's just a way to help us remember, that's all," what some called the bare memorial view of the Lord's Supper. Many evangelical churches follow that bare memorial view. They denigrate the Lord's Supper or diminish it, have it on Sunday evening service quarterly, something like that and to minimize it, not everyone, but many.

Now, Luther and Zwingli, these two powerful Reformers met at a colloquium, meeting together in Marburg in 1529 to try to reconcile their differences on the Lord's Supper. But it only made them worse enemies. Very sad, very bad moment in church history, when they couldn't get along over the Lord's Supper, a meal that should have united them. Half a generation later, John Calvin, a Reformer in Geneva, came along and had a different view. And it's a view that I hold and I want to espouse to you. It’s what I call the spiritual presence view, the “we're standing on holy ground” view. In that way, it's just bread, it's just juice, it's all it is. It does not change, but it's not a bare memorial, not at all. If you take this seriously, if exegetically, you read through 1 Corinthians 11 and you understand how seriously the Lord takes it, and then think positively, 'cause a meal of thanksgiving, you come expecting a spiritual blessing, you come expecting to be fed by it based on your faith in the Word of God.

So what I wanna do here is, I wanna just walk through some things. And this outline I got years ago, from Mark Dever, and I preached it once here in this church about six years ago, and it has to do with the word, "look". And what I want us to do is, I want us to, based on the text, look in different directions, it's gonna come right up off the text. We're gonna look in different directions, and this has always stuck with me, six different directions of looking. Ultimately, we're gonna look to Jesus, we're gonna look to him by faith, we're gonna try to see Jesus spiritually in the Lord's Supper. So the idea of looking to Jesus, we get that from Hebrews 12, it says, "Since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with endurance the race marked out before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfect or of our faith.”nThe same book of Hebrews says, "We see Jesus at the right hand of God."

We don't see him except by faith. That's why there's a whole chapter on faith in that book. So by faith, we're looking to Jesus, that's what we're gonna try to do, and so we're gonna look in different direction, we're gonna look back in the Lord's Supper, we're going to look up, we're going to look within, we're gonna look down, look around and then look forward. All of these flow right from the text. So we're gonna look back at history, at key things in redemptive history, at the time of the Lord's Supper, we're gonna look up to God with thankful hearts, it's a meal of Thanksgiving, we're gonna look within, we're going to examine ourselves like the text tells us to do and see if there's any sin in us, and we're gonna do business with God, looking inward. We're gonna look down at the actual elements and realize how physical they are. And there was a time that Jesus was physical, too, for us dying on the cross, we're gonna see the physicality of it and embrace that.

We're gonna look around, maybe even literally in the sanctuary to other brothers and sisters in Christ who are partaking. But then in our minds, look around the world, and know that we're part of a body of Christ, we're part of a church, worldwide movement of Christians, we're not alone, we're not islands, but we're part of a body. And we're gonna look forward to the Second Coming of Christ and to the new heaven, new earth, all of these just flow from the Lord's Supper. 

So let's begin. First, let's look back. First and foremost, this was a Passover, that Last Supper was a Passover, and so the Jews had built into their calendar a once-a-year remembrance of the Passover deliverance, and the Passover was part of the final trial, the final plague that God brought on Egypt for their enslavement of his people. And so at that time, the Angel of Death moved through Egypt and everywhere that did not have the blood of the Passover lamb sacrifice and painted on the doorpost and lintels, he would go down and kill the first born in that house. But if he saw the blood, he would pass over. And so the Jews were instructed to sacrifice the Passover Lamb and apply the blood, but then they were commanded that this would be a lasting ordinance, and that every year they would go through and remember what God did that night. Passover. In the same way, the Lord's Supper is a time of remembrance. Look at verse 23-26. Jesus said, "This is my body, which is for you, do this in remembrance of me." 

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. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." It's a meal of remembrance, so we're looking back, we're gonna look back to the Passover and how Jesus is the fulfillment of that Passover. We don't do the Passover anymore as Christians, we do the Lord's Supper. We also look back, historically, to the night that Jesus was betrayed. Look at verse 23, "The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed, took bread." So this obviously reminds us of Judas Iscariot, who sat with him at the table and no one knew that he was a devil except Jesus, and how he betrayed Jesus, you can only betray a friend, and so there had been an intimate love relationship between Jesus and all his apostles, and Judas was one of them, but Jesus knew who he was, he knew that he was a devil. But they, he had extended friendship, and so he was betrayed, and so we think about that, and just the events recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the events that led to Jesus' dying for us, we remember them, we look back, but then especially friends, we look back to the cross.

We look back to the giving of the body and the blood of Jesus for us as sinners. The bread symbolizes Christ's physical body. The wine symbolize symbolizes Christ's literal physical blood, and the body and the blood were given for our redemption, and so we think about that, it's a clear recognition. I'm gonna talk more about the physicality of it in a minute, but Romans 6:23 says, “the wages of sin is death.” The soul that sins will die. We deserve to die, the death penalty for our sins. And so Jesus' identification of the bread with his body and of the wine with his blood, focuses our attention on the need for a substitute who would sacrifice himself in our place to pay the penalty for our sins. So we look back and we look back to the new covenant. The Passover was an old covenant animal sacrifice. Leviticus 17 says that the life of the animal is in the blood and is to be poured out, a life given in death for atonement of sins in the old covenant pattern. But the blood of bulls and goats never took away sin. It couldn't do that, it was just a foreshadowing of the actual blood that could take away sin, and that's the blood of the Son of God.

And so, look at verse 25, Jesus institutes a new covenant in his blood, thus ending forever the need for animal sacrifice. 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." So there's the new covenant. So by this new covenant in Christ's blood, the wrath of God is totally satisfied. We are actually forgiven, not just symbolically forgiven, like animal blood, but actually forgiven by the blood of Jesus; it's a new covenant. And then we look back to our personal faith in Jesus. Look back to your own story. Remember how you came to Christ. Examine yourself to see if you're in the faith, and if you are, thank God that you're in the faith. Remember what Jesus did to bring you to himself, remember your own story. And look at how he has sustained and protected your faith from the moment you believe until this day. Think about that. 

Secondly, we look up to God the Father. Whenever Jesus gave thanks for food, he looked up to his Heavenly Father, like in Matthew 14:19, when he fed the 5000, he took the five loaves and the two fish, and then he looked up and gave thanks. We look up. The Last Supper, Jesus took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it." So as we look up in our hearts, we think God the Father crafted before the foundation of the world, a salvation plan for a sinner like me. This whole thing comes from God the Father, so you look up with a heart of thankfulness to God for your salvation, and you look up and you see Jesus, like the author of Hebrew says, "At the right hand of God, your great high priest, interceding continually for you, pleading the merits of his blood shed once for all." We don't believe like the Catholics do, that we're repeating the sacrifice here. No, no, know once for all it was offered, and Jesus is pleading the merits of his blood on your behalf at the right hand of God, see him there, he's praying for you, if you're a child of God. And look up and see the activity of the Holy Spirit, that the spirit is delivering, administering grace to his people all over the world in the name of Jesus, the activity of the Triune God. And as you do, as you look up to Jesus, you're going to do a kind of spiritual eating and drinking. Now, this is a hard concept, but this is what John Calvin taught, there's a spiritual eating and a spiritual drinking.

What does that mean? It says in John 6, Jesus taught that he, his flesh is bread. And he says, "I tell you the truth. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day, for my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him." So I do not believe that the bread and the juice will actually be changed into the body and blood of Jesus, I don't think we need that. But there is a spiritual partaking, or a spiritual eating, or a spiritual nourishment that comes mentally in your soul by recognizing the body and blood of Jesus given for you, in a sense that you need ongoing ministry from the cross to continue you to feed your soul. You're not ever gonna be independent. He's the vine, you're the branch, a different image with the same teaching. So you're gonna be spiritually eating of Jesus. I know it's a hard teaching, it was hard back then, but we can embrace it. And you say, as I eat this and chew this and swallow it, as I drink this and swallow it, it's a symbol to me of a need for ongoing ministry from Jesus to myself. I'm never gonna be independent.

Thirdly, we're gonna look within, we look within to our own sinfulness first and foremost, look at the ugly sinfulness of that Corinthian church. Look at their factions and divisions. Look at them getting drunk. Look at them selfishly rushing ahead and eating more bread than they should have, and others who go without, and feel a sense of shame and guilt that we all share. Don't think, "Oh, I would have been better than those Corinthians. I'm a better man, better woman," I wouldn't do that. Instead, we have to look inward to our own sinfulness. We complain. We murmur. We fail to thank God for his many blessings. We just assume them. We go into patterns of idolatry and lust that are shameful and addictive. We are selfish toward people that we love. We bicker and argue with them. We are not zealous for the kingdom of God. We don't lay down our lives for lost people. We’re not generous with our money toward the poor and needy like we should be. There's so many sins of omission and commission that we should be confessing to God, and this is a good time to do that, to look inward and confess, and we're going to have an opportunity to do that in a moment.

We should do it in light of the seriousness of sin. Look at verses 27- 29, "Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Look at verse 28, "A man, a person ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup." I'm just saying, look inward and examine. "For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself." So we don't eat flippant or lightly, we bow in our hearts and search our hearts for sinfulness, and we bring out those sins and allow Christ's all-sufficient blood to cover everyone. We're told in this text, "Judge ourselves so that God won't have to do it." You should take that seriously. If we judge ourselves, then the Lord won't have to do it. So Paul says in another place, in the same epistle, "I beat my body and make it my slave so after preaching to others, I won't be disqualified." So get serious about whatever sin is in your life and judge yourself in reference, and God won't have to discipline you. You won't have to become weak or sick or fall asleep.

We also look inward to repentance and faith, which are graces of God. If you are a repentant sinner, that's a grace that God's worked in you, so thank God for that spirit of repentance and that faith that you know that Jesus is the Son of God, and he died for you. Find that repentance in faith. Look to the testimony of the Spirit that you actually are a child of God, the Spirit testifying with your Spirit that you are a child of God. So therefore, we're looking inwardly to ensure that we are eating in a manner worthy of the Lord. This is especially true of a gospel hypocrite, an unconverted church member able to play the game and deceive elders and other people, but you're not really converted, going through the motions, and you live it out through the week. Pastor needs to warn people about gospel hypocrisy. Let this be an opportunity to look inward and say, "Am I genuinely in the faith?"

And certainly true of unbelievers. Unbelievers are not welcome at the Lord's table. You'd be eating, drinking judgment on yourself. Instead, what I want you to do, hear the Gospel, God sent his Son for sinners like you and me. We're all sinners. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” we are sinners. God sent a Savior, trust in him. Don't partake of the bread and the juice, but just believe in Jesus, look to him for the forgiveness of your sins, and then testify to it by water baptism, and then next time partake.

Fourth, we look down, you're gonna have in your hand, bread and a cup, these physical elements tell you that you needed a physical savior. We're not like the Greek philosophers that think, "Body is evil, spirit is good." “The Word became flesh.” And Colossians 1 says plainly, "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body, through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." Now, that physical body and blood, the flesh and blood, was given once for all, never to be repeated. The author to Hebrews is so clear about this. But it did happen once. And as you eat the physical bread, chew it and swallow it, and you drink the juice and you swallow it, you should think of the physicality of your Savior and how he once for all died for you, went through agony for you, shed real blood for you. And with your physical hands, look at your own hands, some day God's going to give you resurrection hands, a resurrection body. You're gonna actually be in a resurrected physical world, in a resurrected physical body, seeing a resurrected physical Savior someday.

Fifth, look around to the body of Christ. You're not the only person God is saving. He is working in brothers and sisters. And isn't that beautiful? There won't be any loners or hermits in heaven. We are part of a beautiful mass body of Christ around the world, and this local church is a physical, visible sign of that. So sneak a peek at someone in the pew. Look down, look left, look right, they might be looking at you. All right? Looking left, looking right, we're surrounded by people. It says in verse 33, “So then my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other.” First time I as a new convert in Christ partook in a Protestant Lord's Supper as a Catholic, you eat it right away, as soon as you get it, you eat it, so I did that. I was so embarrassed, I was the only one who ate in the entire sanctuary. I didn't know this verse, verse 33, "Wait for each other." But there's a reason we wait till everybody has...

We try to harmonize it and synchronize, so we look, give nods to the deacons, they come and when we're all ready, then we eat together. And it's just a symbol of, like it says in 1 Corinthians 10, "We partake of one loaf, so there's one body." So there's that sense of unity that we have, look around, and look around to the fellowship that we have with each other. If you're aware of any sin going on your life, any dis-fellowship, anything going on, make it right. We're also aware, as we look around to an unbelieving, watching world, we are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes by this, but also by the Gospel. We've got a responsibility to the watching, unbelieving world to proclaim the Lord's death. 

And then finally, looking forward to the future coming of Christ. Look again at verse 26, "For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." Now, we're learning all about that in the book of Revelation. I intend, God willing, to resume that study next week, but we know Jesus is coming back, and this homely symbolic feast saturated with powerful ministry of the Spirit will someday give way to the reality of a returning king and a banquet in heaven, and we're gonna feast in the kingdom. "Many," Matthew 8:11, "are gonna come from the east and the west and will take their place at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. We're gonna sit and feast. I don't think that's all we're gonna be doing, but I just think... I see regular feasting in our future. All right, we're gonna come back together, the new Jerusalem, and then go back out to the new earth and work, and then come back and feast some more, and we won't get fat, we don't get... That'll be really good. Well, just feast and feast, and we won't have to work it off. It'll be wonderful.

Ultimately, we're looking ahead to our own resurrection, to the feast of our resurrection, as it says in Isaiah 25, "On this mountain, the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine, the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain, he will destroy the shroud that unfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations, he will swallow up death forever." So the destruction of death and the resurrection is portrayed in Isaiah 25:6-8 as a banquet, and we're gonna feast. 

All right, summary. I desire that your experience by faith in the Word of God would be like on holy ground now. I've invited you to look back to the history of the Passover and Christ. I've invited you to look up in thankfulness to God and to see the activity of Christ, your mediator. I've urged you to look inward to your own sins, to deal honestly with your sins, and to be certain that you're born again, but if you are to be thankful for that, and to know that the Spirit is in you; to look down in an understanding way to the actual bread and actual juice, knowing that a body was broken for you, blood was shed for you; to look around to the body of Christ, the fact that you are part of a worldwide movement of Christians; and look ahead to the second coming of Christ.

So what we're gonna do now is have a time of prayer that I'm gonna lead in three parts, briefly, just 30 seconds, 45 seconds in each one, of silent prayer, and then I'll end that time and go to the next one, and then we'll partake in the Lord's Supper. So let's pray together. First, I'd like to call on you to worship God, so this is like looking upward, I want you to be mindful of the greatness of the Triune God and pray, worship prayer first and foremost, so quietly in your heart, reverence and worship God.

Almighty God, we recognize that you are holy, holy, holy, and that 100 million angels stand in your presence and they cover their faces, and they cry out about your holiness. Oh God, you are a great God, you are a consuming fire, and you are also the father of the prodigal, who comes back broken and sinful. We thank you for your infinite greatness and majesty and your infinite kindness and grace to us.

We worship you, God, and praise you and thank you. Now we're gonna go to a time of confession of sin. Look first and foremost toward your conscience, if there's anything that you've been doing, any habit, any pattern, any addiction, anything that you've done, anything that conscience is saying to you that needs to be dealt with, and also look horizontally, if there's anyone that might have anything against you, if there's any brokenness in a relationship, confess it now and resolve to repent and to make things right. Let's confess our sins quietly to God.

Father, we acknowledge that we have sinned in what we have said and done and what we have should have done and didn't do, and we are mindful of the depth of our brokenness and our sinfulness. We ask your forgiveness, we confess our sin to you, O Lord, knowing that you are faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Oh God, wash us and cleanse us. Father, if there's any unforgiveness or broken relationships in our family or in the church or any others that we're aware of, God give us the determination to leave our gift at the altar and go, be reconciled. Oh God, I pray that you would help us, help us oh Lord, to be pure and to fight sin by the power of the Spirit in Jesus' name.

And now thirdly, finally, we want to lift up our hearts in thankfulness. Think first and foremost of the fact that every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms is yours in Christ. Thank God for your forgiveness, thank God for Jesus, thank God for your adoption as a son or daughter of the living God, and then be thankful for lesser blessings. 

Father, we know that Scripture teaches us that every good and perfect gift is from you, every gift we've ever received, but we also acknowledge some gifts are infinitely greater than others, you give them all, but some are unspeakably valuable and precious. You are the God who did not spare your own son, but gave him up for us all; there is no greater gift. Thank you for sending Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for dying for us. Thank you, Spirit, for taking the blood of Jesus and applying it to us for the forgiveness of our sins, and thank you now for the chance we will have to partake in the Lord's Supper, in your name, we pray. Amen.

I'd like to invite the deacons to come now and help serve the table.

Recently, I was in England ministering to some of our International Mission Board missionaries. I had a day in London before I left to visit places I have always wanted to see, including the British Library. It houses one of the oldest bound Bibles in the world, called the Codex Sinaiticus (because it was found on Mount Sinai) — the whole Bible in Greek. I also saw an original first edition King James Bible, and even older, a Tyndale Bible, one of six left in the world.

I also saw an original autograph manuscript of Handel’s Messiah, specifically the Hallelujah Chorus. I was in awe. I love that piece. Some of you share a love for classical music, others not so much, but you may know the incredible story of how Handel composed this piece over 24 days. A friend recounted that he would not open the door, would not eat — he was swimming in a sea of paper, surrounded by notes, tears streaming down his face. He said, “Whether I was in the body or out of the body as I wrote it, I know not. God knows. But I think I did see all Heaven opened before me and the Great God Himself.”

The most famous part of Messiah is the Hallelujah Chorus. Most people do not know about is that the entire text of Messiah is Scripture. Charles Jennens, who wrote the text for Messiah, used Scriptures that testified prophetically to the coming, the person and the work of Christ. The Hallelujah Chorus quotes three verses from the book of Revelation. We will discuss two in the future, if the Lord wills: one from Revelation 19:6, “And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, ‘Hallelujah: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.’”; one from Revelation 19:16, speaking of Christ, “On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.”

The third is the text we will discuss today, Revelation 11:15: “The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.’”  For 276 years, music lovers have thrilled to hear these three texts set to this incredible music. In 1743, when King George II heard it for the first time at the Hallelujah Chorus, he rose and stood for its duration. It is now tradition to rise for the Hallelujah Chorus, out of respect for the greatness of the theme.

My desire is that you would have heavenly meditations of the greatness of Christ, that you would be recaptured back into a fervent love for Christ from whatever has been pulling on your soul this week. The world, the flesh, the devil pull on us all the time; we are prone to wander all the time, prone to drift away from Christ.  The ministry of the Word of God is primarily what draws us back, recapturing us again in the grips of Christ and grace. That is what I pray will happen as you listen.

Let us set context for the sounding of the seventh trumpet. The Apostle John was in exile on the island of Patmos, a small rocky island of the coast of modern-day Turkey, for preaching the Word of God, the testimony of Jesus. He had a vision of the resurrected glorified Christ moving through seven golden lamp stands. Later, a voice invited him to rise from the surface of the earth to enter through a doorway into the heavenly realms. He was enabled to do that by the power of the Holy Spirit. When he went through the doorway, he saw the central reality of the universe, a throne with Almighty God seated on it.

In that vision, Almighty God had in his right hand a scroll with writing on both sides, sealed with seven seals. Jesus Christ alone was worthy to take the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne, to break open its seven seals. As Christ opens the seals, successive judgments pour out on the earth. As the  seventh seal is opened, there is silence in Heaven for half an hour, followed by seven angels with seven trumpets emerging from the seventh seal. These seven trumpets unleash a series of horrific judgments on planet earth, such as has never been seen ever in human history. They are depicted as the direct answer to cries from suffering, martyred saints, the people of God, for vengeance and justice.

Their prayers are incense, the smoke of which rises before the heavenly altar. An angel fill a golden censer with coals from the incense and hurls it to the earth in answer to the cries for justice and vengeance. The first trumpet sends fires to rage on the surface of the earth, burning up a third of all of the trees and vegetation and all the green grass. The second trumpet turns a third of the sea to blood, kills a third of the sea creatures, and sinks a third of the ships. The third trumpet poisons a third of the fresh water on planet earth, rendering it bitter. The fourth trumpet reduces a third of the celestial beings — the sun, the moon and the stars — in their heavenly luminosity.

When the fifth angel sounds his trumpet, he releases from the Abyss billowing smoke and a demonic invasion, producing an unimaginable level of torment, pain, and agony. It was like a locust swarm but with power to sting like scorpions. Those who reject God are tormented for five months. The sixth angel unleashes with his trumpet a terrifying demonic army, 200 million strong, to rampage over the surface of the earth to kill a third of the human race, perhaps two or three billion people.

Despite all of these incredible judgments being poured out on planet earth, we have this incredibly sad statement at the end of Revelation 9:20: “The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent” of their wickedness. Despite that level of agony and judgment, the people are still hardened in their sins.

Just as an interlude happened between the sixth and seventh seals, there is also break in the action between the sixth and seventh trumpets. Revelation 10 shows a mighty, massive, powerful, radiant angel standing with one foot on the dry land and one foot in the sea, his head in the clouds. In his right hand is a scroll lying open with writing on it. John is commanded to take the scroll and eat it. It is sweet in his mouth but bitter in his stomach. Then he is commanded, or rather recommissioned, to prophesy to many nations and languages and peoples and tribes. He is sent as a prophetic messenger to the world through the writing that he will do. Thus, the scroll represents the written Scripture.

In the first half of Revelation 11, two flesh and blood witnesses take their place in this moment in redemptive history to explain God’s purpose for these plagues of judgment and to provide a final warning to urge people to repent and flee to Christ. The witnesses’ testimonies combine with John’s writings to make it clear to all. After the witnesses are killed and resurrected, the seventh angel sounds his trumpet.

Just as the seventh seal seems to unfold or unleash the seven trumpets, so the seventh trumpet is will unfold or unleash the seven bowls. The description of those appear later, in Revelation 16. With those seven bowls come the final judgments at the very end of human history. It is telescoping action, like those little Russian dolls which are opened to reveal increasingly smaller dolls. The judgments cover similar but not identical ground, so they are clearly not simultaneous but subsequent.

Before we get to the seven bowls, we will go behind the scenes in Revelation 12 and 13 to see Satan the red dragon, his demons, and then the Antichrist and his world system. We will look into “this present darkness” [Ephesians 6:12] that will escalate to a degree we can scarcely imagine. We will seek to understand the career of Satan and that of the Beast from the Sea the Beast from the Earth, as well as the evil world system that Satan has set up in which we already live but which will reach its worst level, which God calls Babylon, the Great Whore in this end time. We will examine the world and the devil and the powers that are assaulting the people of God right to the end, which will lead us to Revelation 19, the Second Coming of Christ.

Let us begin with Revelation 11:15, “The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.’” The seventh angel sounds his trumpet. Much of this awesome book involves waiting for God’s timing. As we read, it seems to be happening all at once, but in reality there is an unfolding over time.

God has conceived meticulous timing for everything he does. The unfolding sequences as John sees them correspond in a complex way to a timetable of judgments that God has already worked out in his mind to come later. For John these are visionary, not actually happening before him. He recorded what he saw, and we, by faith, can also see it happening even though it has not happened yet. The account of numbering the seals and the trumpets in order gives a sense of wise sequencing by God, who is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. His order is perfect and right.

The seventh trumpet and the consummation of the coming Kingdom of Christ are decisive. Now that all this judgment has occurred, at last the seventh angel sounds his trumpet. With that blast it is as though heaven is saying it is finished; it is as good as accomplished, even though there are many chapters left in the book of Revelation. Imagine watching a game in which something so decisive happens on the field that you realize the game is over; there is no way the other team can recover. That is the feel here: the declaration of the seventh trumpet is so decisive that there is no way the powers of evil will recover.

Immediately John hears loud voices, in contrast to the seventh seal which results in silence for half an hour in Heaven. Powerful angels and elders and the redeemed celebrate with all their might. Elsewhere, the sound of their voices is compared to a mighty waterfall, like Niagara Falls, an overpowering, cascading sound. They are not shy or holding back; they are excited.

What do they celebrate? Verse 15 says, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.” The kingdom of the world represents the force that is in obvious control of the earth. It is singular — not the “kingdoms” of the world, but the kingdom of the world. The human race is a single unit. We all descend from one man, Adam. Through him, the whole human race was given planet earth as a stewardship, one kingdom of this world. But Satan usurped Adam’s place and took over the kingdom of the world. Adam surrendered the keys of that kingdom to Satan, so Satan is in some dark ways the god of this age or the king of this present kingdom.

He rules in devious ways as the power, the puppet master, behind all the thrones of dictators and tyrants. When he takes Christ up a mountain to tempt him in Luke 4:5-8, he shows him in an instant all the kingdoms (plural) of the world, with their glory and riches. “And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.’” The kingdoms become one entity in Satan’s hands. He offers it to Jesus, who refuses, answering heroically, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

Satan has been ruling in secret behind various thrones, over the various large and small kingdoms and fiefdoms and countries of the world all along, pitting one against the other, causing one to rise and another to fall. He does that for his own wicked and evil purposes. We will learn more about that in Revelation 12.

Christ refused Satan’s offer of all the kingdoms of the world on his wicked terms, that Christ would bow down and worship him instead of God. Instead, Christ submitted to his Father, doing His will, and his Father has given him the world. This is what the angels and elders and all the redeemed are celebrating in Revelation 11, that the Father is giving the world to the Son in his own time and in his own way.

It says, “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” indicating that it is a finished work even though it has not happened yet. These words were written twenty centuries ago, but there is a sense of certainty in the prophetic past tense. The prophets often speak about future events as though they have already happened. For example, Isaiah 53:5-6 says, “But he [Jesus] was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah wrote those words seven centuries before Jesus was born, yet he uses the past tense. For us, it has happened in the past, but for Isaiah the prophet, it was a future event that he described as past.

This statement proclaims the fulfillment of the very thing we, as disciples of Christ, have been praying for throughout our Christian lives in the Lord’s prayer: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” How many hundreds of millions of times have those words been said to God? Here at last, God has answered all those prayers; the time has come.

A “kingdom” is the place where a ruler openly, evidently rules. This verse refers to the time when God is clearly ruling on earth. Currently He is already the king of the world. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof…” [Psalm 24:1] It is His and He rules it now, though not openly. He is secretly maneuvering free-will beings to do His will, whether they acknowledge Him or not. Thus Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.” His will is not presently done on earth as it is in Heaven, but after the Second Coming, all will see. The seventh trumpet will quickly set in motion the final judgments that will culminate in the destruction of Satan’s wicked kingdom and of the Antichrist.

Here at last we also see a fulfillment of the pledge that the Father made to the Son to give him the world. Psalm 110 shows powerfully how God makes it plain that He will give all the world to the Kingdom of His Son. Psalm 110:1-2 says, “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies.” After Christ died, rose again and ascended, Hebrews tells us he went through the Heavenly realms to the right hand of God. He is seated there and has been for twenty centuries. During that time, God has been extending Christ’s scepter to the ends of the earth. He is ruling in the midst of his enemies in secret permeation. It is not evident and obvious. Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman took and hid in kruptós — Greek meaning encrypted — in a large amount of flour until it permeated the whole dough. That has been happening for twenty centuries. But God intends a more open obvious glory for his Son because he was willing to leave Heavenly glory and make himself nothing to be found as a servant and to be obedient even to the point of death on a cross. God said He would give Christ “the name that is above every name” and guarantee “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” [Philippians 2:9-11]

The Eternity of God’s Kingdom

Revelation 11:15 shows the eternality of God’s reign: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.” All human kingdoms terminate in death. In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of a statue with a head of gold and chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, feet partly iron, partly clay. He did not know what it meant, so Daniel interpreted it for him. These various precious and other metals represented a span of history from the Babylonian empire through the Medo-Persian Empire, through the Greeks and the Romans — they represent human kingdoms.

But then the focus comes in on the feet of clay. Having feet of clay refers to a weakness in a great man or leader, like an Achilles heel. The coming kingdom of Christ strikes the statue on its feet of clay, smashing them and collapsing the entire statue as a result. Daniel 2:34-35 says, “While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.”

The chaff is particles of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay — a pile of nothing, like sawdust. All the human kingdoms of the world, all evidence of their glory, are like dust, which is blown away in a whirlwind. There is nothing left; the threshing floor is clean. The rock that strikes the statue and the feet of clay becomes a huge mountain that filled the whole earth. The rock represents the kingdom of Christ; unlike all of those human kingdoms, it will last forever. Daniel 2:44 says, “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.”

The feet of clay is the mortality of the leaders. God said to Adam, “You will sink back down into the dust from which you came for dust you are and to dust you will return.” We will die, but Jesus has triumphed over death. He cannot die again, so He will reign forever and ever. Human kingdoms are dust in the wind, just as Isaiah said in Isaiah 40:22-24, “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.”

Every morning, I read a biography to my kids of Adoniram Judson. He was a missionary in the 1820s to Burma. He sailed up the Irrawaddy River, along the jungles of Burma, to see the king, or to “prostrate himself at the golden feet” as it was called. Along the river, he saw many former ancient royal cities of previous Burmese kings. In Burma, when a son took the throne, he would build his own royal city rather than ruling in his father’s royal city. Within 10-20 years or less the jungle would capture former royal cities and turn them back to nothing. This represented a cautionary tale to each ruler of Burma: someday you will die and your royal city will be reduced to jungle again. The Kingdom of God and of Christ, however, will last for all eternity. The final conquest of this royal Kingdom will be achieved only by the immeasurable greatness of God’s sovereign power.

The 24 elders join the praise. Verses 16-17 say, “And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying: ‘We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.’” They are prostrating themselves before God in joyful worship, thanking Him for the open display of His sovereign power, which is essential to seizing back the kingdom of the world from Satan and from the Antichrist — the wicked human rulers. The elders celebrate the awesome power of God to finally establish Christ’s reign on earth. My understanding of history is that God raises up monsters, such as Pharaoh who enslaved the Jews, allows them to have a wide range of power, and then crushes them as a display of His power. Romans 9:17 says, “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’” This is true of all tyrants in history who have had massive power, but the greatest monster, the beast, is yet to come.

Verse 17 says, “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign.” This is a great display of His power. Satan, Antichrist, and all the human opposition will not hand it to Him; He must take it from them. Most people read this verse without pause, but we need to realize that this is about omnipotence — infinite power. If we asked God “Was that particularly difficult for you to do?” What would He say? It would be like asking Jesus, “Of all your healings, which was the hardest ?” It is a ridiculous question. They were equally easy for him; he can do anything. Or if we asked the raging inferno that is the sun, “Which is hardest for you to ignite, a matchstick, a twig, a branch, a tree or a forest?” what would it say? None would be difficult. That is a picture of God’s omnipotence.

But from our perspective, as created beings, this is a huge accomplishment. The power of Satan, of the Red Dragon, and of the demons, and of the beast, and of the world-conquering empire that he will set up will be the most powerful the world has ever seen, directly attacking the people of God and slaughtering them. From our perspective, it will take immense power to set this kingdom up, and God will do it. The elders fall on their faces to worship and give Him thanks for it. They have yearned for that in their hearts, that God would use Him omnipotence of yours to clean this world up. At last He does it.

But the joy of heaven is not shared by the inhabitants of the earth. Verse 18 says, “The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great-- and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”

The coming of God’s kingdom enrages the people of the earth. They have not been praying, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The kingdom of God and of Christ is repulsive to them, to every fiber of their being. It is the very thing they do not want. They do not find Jesus’ yoke easy and his burden light. They are not excited that a thrice holy God actively reigns over every aspect of His kingdom, not thrilled that God is light and in Him, there is no darkness at all. They are not attracted to the person and work of Jesus Christ. They hate this work of God and are filled with rage.

This rage is clearly depicted in Psalm 2. Here we see twenty centuries of human opposition to Christ and his Kingdom. Psalm 2:1-3 says, “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. ‘Let us break their chains,’ they say, ‘and throw off their fetters.’” They do not consider his yoke easy; they want to throw it off. The kings of the earth, who have always been enemies of Christ, have taken their power and authority at every stage of history and fought against the Lord and against His Christ. Psalm 2:4 gives God's reaction, “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.” He laughs in judgment and derision. If you all of you banded together to combine your power, I would still laugh. If all of the demons, every one were together against me, if every created being took their stand against me, I would still laugh. Omnipotence.

This is God’s decree and action after that laughter: “He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, ‘I have installed my King on Zion, my holy mountain.’ I will proclaim the LORD’s decree: He said to me, ‘You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.’”

Then the psalmist gives some advice: “Therefore, you kings be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling. Kiss his son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.”

This rage-filled opposition to Christ and His kingdom will reach its final act in those last chapters in the book of Revelation. We will see it in the coming of the Antichrist and his blasphemous reign and in the great escalation of persecution. The overwhelming majority of Christian martyrs that will have lived have not yet been murdered. There is a huge number of martyrs yet to come.

We will see it in the way that the world and its leaders, its sub-kings under the Antichrist, will gather for one last battle against the people of God at Armageddon. One last time they will fight. Their rage is a replica of the dragon, Satan’s, rage, that we will see in the next chapter. Revelation 12:12. He, Satan, “is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”

Finally, verse 18 gives us Judgment Day, eternal rewards and endless wrath. “The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great-- and for destroying those who destroy the earth.” Judgment Day is coming. The seventh trumpet heralds the events that will lead rapidly to the Day of the Lord and judgment on the wicked forces of evil.

Many verses talk about the day of the Lord or Judgment Day. Hebrews 4:13 says, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” Jesus said that on the Day of Judgment we must give an account for every careless word that we have spoken. The time will have come at last for that judgment.

God has been waiting patiently for that day to come and predicting again and again that it will come. Later in the book, we will have Judgment Day clearly depicted. Revelation 20:12, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”

All of us who are genuine believers in Christ will be rewarded by God for any good deed you did, done by faith, done for the glory of God, done with a loving demeanor. He will reward anything, no matter how great or small. He will reward great courage shown in going to an unreached people group and taking your life in your hands, maybe dying that that group might come to faith in Christ; or small things like giving a cup of cold water to somebody in need. God does not forget anything.  Hebrews 6:10 says, “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him…” He will reward the saints and prophets and all those who have served him faithfully.

He will also destroy those who destroy the earth. This shows the special anger that God has reserved for the wicked of the earth whose sins have resulted in the destruction of His beautiful planet. After God made this beautiful world and everything was arranged just how he wanted it to be, it was so beautiful. The oceans and the rivers and the lakes and the mountains and all of the sea creatures and all of the air breathing animals, and insects, and birds — everything was beautiful. God saw all that He had made and behold, it was very good.

Who are those who destroy the earth? The entire human race, for one, because in Adam we sinned, we fell, and God cursed the earth as a result. Romans 8:20-21 says, “…the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” But this verse — “The time has come … for destroying those who destroy the earth.” — might also zero in on people who have, in a specific way, destroyed aspects of the earth with ecological disasters through industrial greed or policies that have ravaged some aspect of the planet, polluting the sky, the earth, the water. God will judge people who destroy the earth and He will make in its place a beautiful new world.

In verse 19, we see Heaven’s temple unveiled: “Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant.” In the language of the Old Covenant, Moses’ tabernacle and the Ark, the golden box that he made of acacia wood inlaid and overlaid with gold, were a type and a shadow and a symbol of a heavenly temple. So also was Solomon’s temple. Hebrews 8 tells us that the Levitical priesthood in the sanctuary is a copy, a replica of the heavenly reality.

This is not like in Steven Spielberg’s movie in which the ark was found at Tannis and stored in a shipping crate in a warehouse in Washington D.C. I believe that God is in the habit and process of destroying his physical replicas of heavenly realities, such as the ark and the bronze serpent. God’s temple in heaven is the genuine reality of what the ark symbolizes: the place where one hears God’s voice and has communion with Him, where the glory cloud was over the mercy seat, where He spoke to Moses and to the high priest, where the blood was poured out by the high priest once a year,  where the actual stone tablets of the law of Moses and the jar of manna were. All of those items and actions represent communion — intimate, close fellowship — of God with atoned-for sinners. This is what is seen in heaven in verse 19, bringing the sense of fear and judgment that comes with flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, earthquakes and a great hailstorm.

Week after week I preach astonishing things from this book, and for me, the most important thing you can do is delight in the coming king and kingdom. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you [that means let me be your king, stop fighting my kingly rule. Bow your neck, let me put my yoke on your neck] and learn from me for I am gentle and humble at heart and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Do not fight my kingdom; delight in my kingdom. Submit to Christ. If you have never trusted in Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, do it right now. Christ is the Son of God; He died on the cross in your place as an atoning sacrifice. Trust in Him and come to Christ.

For believers, our job is to delight in that kingdom ever more, to celebrate it, yearn for it, look forward to it. One of the big differences between Christians and non-Christians is we are looking forward to and cannot wait for this kingdom to come. Non-Christians are enraged at the coming Kingdom. We need to pray, as never before: Oh God, may your name be held in honor, may it be hallowed all over the world, and may your kingdom come, and may your will at last be done on earth in the same way that it is being done right now in heaven.

And then we need to live like this. “So do not worry, saying ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” [Matthew 6:31-33] What does it mean to seek first His kingdom? It means to pray for it to come, to evangelize and embrace missions to talk to lost people about this, and to look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.

I am looking forward to the international picnic tomorrow because I never get an easier chance to share the gospel to people from all over the world. I do not have to get on a plane. People from all over the world come to a picnic that we host, eating our food, so they will have to listen to at least some of us talking to them about Jesus. It never gets easier. This is worldwide evangelism in one picnic place. If you do not come to the picnic, pray tomorrow around noon when we will be sharing the gospel with people from all over the world. And if you cannot come, find somebody this week whom you think is lost and share the Gospel with them. 

Finally, feed the delight that you have in the coming kingdom — get excited, look forward to it, celebrate it. Think about the Hallelujah Chorus: “The kingdom of this world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, hallelujah, and he will reign forever and ever.” Make those your prayer this afternoon.

Father, thank you for the time we have had to celebrate, to rejoice, to delight in the coming Kingdom. I pray that you would give us a zeal and an energy and a delight such as we have never had before, based on the Scripture, that we would be so evidently, clearly filled with joy and hope, and that we would allow that to move us to share the Gospel with people as we have opportunity. Father, we thank you for these things, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

As I listened to Ben read our passage for today, I was struck by the challenge of preaching on it. Even as of this morning I was reading commentaries, wondering what I would do with the two witnesses. I worked on this sermon while I was in Bulgaria at an area group meeting; I was completely immersed in “two witnesses” all the time. The missionaries in Bulgaria were not thinking about the two witnesses and had no idea what I was talking about.

I want to begin this sermon in an unusual way with three application-oriented illustrations, though you have not even heard the sermon yet. These are more general applications on why we should read the book of Revelation, and especially chapters like this which have difficult sections with have so many details that are hard to understand.

The first illustration comes from the story of Rebekah when she was pregnant with twins. The twins were jostling inside her womb and she did not know what was happening to her. She inquired of the Lord, “Why is happening to me?” The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb…” [Genesis 25:22-23] He gave her a prophecy about her children, whom we know were Jacob and Esau. The first reason we should read the book of Revelation is that as we experience life, we will have trouble — anguish, persecution, affliction, trial, difficulty — and all the more as we are faithful as witnesses to Christ. The more faithful we are, the more trouble and persecution will come to us in this world. We know that. We can say, “What is happening to me?” not only in relation to ourselves but more so to our brothers and sisters around the world who are being persecuted or going through hard times. We go to the Lord and he gives us the explanation, which is far weightier and far longer lasting than we can possibly imagine. Reason number one to read about the two witnesses is to understand our own life.

Second illustration: My father was from Miami, Florida and when I was a child, we went one time for Christmas down to Miami from Massachusetts, my home state. I forget how old I was, but I was little. We got packed up in the car and started rolling south. As we crossed the state line into Connecticut, I asked the famous question of that age child: “Are we almost there?.” That is an irritating question for a father who knows we are nowhere near almost there. I have no idea what my dad said to me. We made a similar trip to Daytona Beach for Spring Break when I was at MIT with Campus Crusade. I knew that we were almost there as the weather got warmer and warmer. Traveling from New England, from Massachusetts, you could tell as the trip unfolded where you were.

My point is that we Christians believe in a linear view of history. We do not believe in karma and endless cycles. We believe there is a point A and a point B. In Revelation 22:13, Jesus said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” We are going somewhere, and the Lord has, in his wisdom, given us this incredible book to tell us details about where we are going, that we might know the things that must soon take place. That is what it says at the beginning of the book. We can know the future. You might wonder what this has to do with you for today or tomorrow. Perhaps nothing directly, although studying the book of Revelation tends to shape and color the way you see your everyday life. So it does have an impact on whatever your day holds tomorrow, whether you are a student, a stay-at-home mom, or a man with a certain job working with your hands or with your mind.

Whatever you do tomorrow, the book of Revelation, as you immerse yourself, your mind and soul in it, will color the way you see things. You will see the world differently, realizing how temporary everything is as we move to a final Omega day. Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the first and last, the beginning and the end, has already figured that day out. He had it planned out before the foundation of the world, and he has chosen to give us some details about what it will look like. It is very powerful.

The third illustration comes from a question I wrestle with a great deal, and that is, “Why is this book so complicated and difficult?” The image in my mind is of a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. I do not know that I have ever done a 1000 piece puzzle, but I have done some big ones. The way I approach jigsaw puzzles must frustrate my family — I set all the pieces out in a matrix and go through systematically like a machine. It is boring and awful.

Most of you would likely look at the cover to see what the final picture looks like — there is a sky, a sea, one of those old mills, some trees. You would collect all the tree pieces together, all the river pieces together, all the stone pieces together, and fit the smaller elements together first. So today, we will try to gather together like pieces and start to fit them together. We are not going to cut off little nubs or fill in little empty spaces with speculation or imagination; we will try to make them fit like they should.

So I am asking you this morning to work hard with me on this text. It will not be easy, but we will try to assemble some sub-pictures and then see how they fit together with other sub-pictures and the big picture. I could take the easy way out and look at only the big picture on the two witnesses, as you heard Ben read about. There will be two witnesses (or are now, depending on how you look at it) standing before the Lord of all the earth, proclaiming and prophesying in the power of God. They have a hard time; they are persecuted and put to death, but they rise and ascend to Heaven and glory.

The big picture is this: We are called on to witness to Jesus Christ. The ministry of reconciliation has been given to us. We are still set in a hostile world. Satan, whom we will talk much about in the next number of weeks, will oppose us, will fight us, using government for that purpose, so the church will be witnessing to Christ in a hostile world. We will have a hard time but we will be faithful, and in the end our enemies will be judged by the wrath of God if they do not repent, while we ourselves will be in heaven. That is the big picture, and I do not know any evangelical that would not sign off on that big picture.

Here is one additional illustration. We are flying at 35,000 feet. There is the sun — the bright round yellow ball; there is the blue sky; there are the white puffy things — clouds. Through the occasional break in the cloud, we see some green down there — earth. That is the big picture. But friends, are you interested in the details? Do they matter? Yes, they do. We will exegete these 14 verses to look at the details. I cannot agree with many conservative Calvinistic commentators that discuss the big picture and say, “This is a representation of the church in its suffering witness in the world and of the final judgment of the enemies of God.” I do not think the details line up with that big picture.

It is literally about two individuals who at some point will stand on the Earth in Jerusalem, testify before the Antichrist, and die at his hand, but will rise after three and a half days to ascend to heaven. That will have a certain impact, specifically on the Jewish nation, that I will talk about today. Do your best to follow with me — if all I am covering is the big picture, then the sermon would be over and we would be going into applications now, such as “Be faithful witnesses, be praying, etc.” That would be easy to do, but I will not do that. The details say that there will some day be two individuals. I have already answered why you should care about them, though I will add to that application at the end.

Before I walk through this, understand what we mean by the prophetic witness of the world, the fact that the ministry or message of reconciliation has been entrusted to us, the disciples of Jesus Christ. This is significant because salvation of lost people depends on this. This is what we heard from Jonathan’s baptism today, what we believe — we are surrounded by lost people everyday. Every one of those sinners is under the wrath of God right now. Those who are not Christians are presently under the wrath of God, which abides on them (John 3:36). The only answer is the gospel of Christ.

[Romans 10:13-15] “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? [That’s the point.] And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” The key to our salvation is the ability to accept the word of God through human messengers. In 1 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul says to the Thessalonian believers, “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.” The Bible and sermons are not merely human words but a living active powerful word from God. It can change your heart and soul.

What is a prophet? These two are prophets with power to prophesy. A prophet is an individual who stands up, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and says, “Thus says the Lord.” He says the words of the Lord directly. The office was instituted for the nation of Israel after they had come out of bondage in Egypt and through the Red Sea. They came to Mount Sinai where they received the Ten Commandments, the Law of God. As God descended on Mount Sinai in fire and cloud, shaking the ground beneath them, he spoke the Ten Commandments. The people were so terrified to hear the voice of God that they pleaded with Moses. “Please, would you go up the mountain and stand in the presence of God and hear His words and come down and tell us? We will listen to you.” God said, “What these people have said is good.” The prophet would stand in the presence of God. God said in Deuteronomy, “I will raise up a prophet like you, and he will speak to the people.” God actually raised up many prophets — Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel —  who spoke the word of God.

But consistently the Jewish people would not listen to them. Again and again the Jewish nation refused to heed the Word of God. Stephen charged Israel with this crime in Acts 7:51-52. He said to the Sanhedrin representing the whole Jewish nation, “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? And now you have betrayed and murdered [the Son of God].” That is the culmination of their rejection of the message, the word of God through the prophets: they killed Christ, together with the Gentile leader, Pontius Pilate.

Throughout the Old Testament we have clear evidence of the Jewish nation refusing to listen to the prophets whom God sent. As the Northern Kingdom of Israel was about to be deported by the Assyrians, this summary statement happens in 2 Kings 17:13-15: “The LORD warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers: "Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees... But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their fathers, who did not trust in the LORD their God. They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their fathers and the warnings he had given them. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless.” All the more, as Stephen pointed out, when the culmination of the prophetic ministry, Jesus, stood before them. They would not heed him but handed him over to the Gentiles to be killed.

I believe these two witnesses are a portion of God’s final warning to the Jewish nation to turn and trust in Christ, and I believe that they will be effective. In the end, God will take hardness or blindness away from the Jewish nation, and they will turn and believe in Christ. That has to happen before he appears in the clouds. It has to happen by hearing the word preached.  I think that these two witnesses will stand at a key final moment with a final opportunity to testify, and I think it will be effective.

Let’s begin with Revelation 11:1-2, in which the temple is measured. We see God’s meticulous control here. “I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, ‘Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, and count the worshipers there. But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.’”

As often happens in the book of Revelation, John is drawn into the visionary, apocalyptic action. In Revelation 4, he is invited to go up through a doorway to heaven. In Revelation 5, he weeps and weeps because no one is found worthy to take the scroll from the right hand of God until Jesus appears and takes it. In Revelation 10 he is commanded to take the scroll which lay open in the hand of the mighty angel, and to eat it. He is likewise involved here, given work to do.

He is given a reed like a measuring rod. The task here is of measuring and counting. The Greek word for reed implies a tubular long plant that would grow in marshy areas, sometimes used as a measuring stick. It could grow as long as 10 feet, very lightweight and stiff. He is told to measure the temple of God and the altar, and then he is told to count the worshipers there. In the vision of Ezekiel, in chapters 40-48, which I consider to be nine of the hardest chapters in the Bible to interpret, the prophet is present while an angel measures an idealized prophetic temple with a measuring stick. He also measures the walls, the courtyards, the land surrounding the temple, and the river of life flowing from that temple, which gets deeper and wider as it goes, and Ezekiel reports those measurements. Here in Revelation, we do not hear the results, only that John is told to measure.

What is this temple that he is to measure? It is a very difficult question to answer. I believe that Revelation was the last book of the Bible to be written. Most scholars put it at the very end of the first century, around 80 or 90 AD. John was a very old man. By that time then, the Jewish temple would have been destroyed two decades prior by the Romans, so there is no earthly temple in John’s day.

Those who hold to a literal view say that this temple is built by the Jews under the reign of the Antichrist. Some call it the tribulation temple, which will be built during the last seven years of human history and is where the Jews will renew the animal sacrificial system. Though I do believe that will happen, it is very important to realize that it is repugnant to God. I do not hold with dispensational theology that say there are two tracks, one for the Jews and one for the rest. When Jesus died on the cross the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. God signified by doing so that the new and living way into the Holy of Holies is open through Jesus, and therefore, animal sacrifice was obsolete and aging and would soon pass away (Hebrews 8). The blood of bulls and goats has never taken away sin. It was symbolic. The need for symbolism is done now that Jesus has come.

But someone at some point sewed that curtain back up. I guarantee Jewish hands did it. They re-established animal sacrifice for at least several decades after Jesus, through the 40s, 50s, 60s, on to 70 AD. Why? Because they did not believe in Jesus, that he was anything but a deceiver of the people, or that the animal sacrificial system was finished. They killed Stephen for saying so, and they would do the same to the Apostle Paul for saying that the animal sacrificial system had been fulfilled in Jesus. It is obsolete; we do not need it anymore. Hebrews 9:26 says, “…now [Christ] has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Once. For all. Done.

The temple in Revelation 11 is called the Temple of God. That is significant. I do not think God wants his name attached to that physical temple in the Book of Revelation. This must be a heavenly sanctuary, the true temple in Heaven. This is the way the word “temple” is usually used in the book of Revelation. The tabernacle (the tent) and Solomon’s temple (a physical building that was built) both were built according to a heavenly pattern that was shown, first to Moses then to David, of how to build it. Those were earthly copies of a heavenly reality. The author to Hebrews says in 8:5, “They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven.” The true temple is up in heaven. Revelation 11:19 says, “Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a great hailstorm.”

That is the heavenly temple. If this is a heavenly temple, what is the outer court, the Court of the Gentiles, that will be trampled by the gentiles for 42 months? I believe that is the earthly version, Jerusalem. I will talk more about that in a moment. 

Measuring implies God’s careful knowledge and protection and his provision of scope and limitation. God is a God of details and mathematics. Some may argue that God is only artistic to the exclusion of precision mathematics, or vice versa. Both are true. There is so much beauty but also order and precision. Scripture says even the very hairs of your head are numbered.

In this context, John is telling believers not to fear their persecutors. God knows the numbers of hairs on your head and will protect you. This also refers to election, that there is a specific number of people whom God will save; none will be lost. This is reassurance, not random, as though God does not know what is happening. God knows exactly by name all that he will save, all whom the Father gives to Jesus, who will com to Christ. There is also a sense of delimitation, of provision through boundaries which he has set that up for all of creation. Job 38:8-11 says, “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?”

When you go to the seashore in North Carolina or Cape Cod or anywhere in the world, you see a thin boundary of sand and dune grass —that is not protecting you from flooding. It is the will of God by the word of God that puts a limit to things. Here in Revelation 11 is a sense of the limitation and protection of the people of God versus the satanic forces that will engulf the earth at that point. John says that the Court of the Gentiles has been given over to them to be trampled for 42 months, referring to the worst part of the reign of Antichrist.

Here is my big picture interpretation. Revelation 11 has two parts. The measurement of the temple and the counting of the worshipers — part one. The work of the two witnesses in Jerusalem — part two. Many take a figurative approach, saying it is in general talking about the witness of Christians in the world and the persecution they endure, their final glory, and the final judgment of the enemies. All of those things are true, but I think that is insufficient to explain the details of this chapter. Therefore, I will take a literal interpretation here.

The details, for example fire coming out of the mouths of the prophets or their ability to strike the earth with plagues, do not line up with general Christian witness over 20 centuries. Nothing like that has happened. Our desire usually is the conversion of our enemies, so we turn the other cheek, not consume them with fire. Therefore, I believe this is a final phase of witness in which God is openly displaying His wrath. Verse 14 is situated between the second and third woe, which lines it up with the seven trumpet judgments. I will talk more about that in a moment.

Another key in interpretation, especially regarding Jerusalem and the temple, comes from 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, which is not apocalyptic, not prophetic visionary language, but rather an epistle written to a New Testament church by Paul. The Thessalonians were being told by false teachers that the end had already come and they had missed the day of the Lord, they'd missed it like a train like a ship that had sailed. The people were greatly discouraged, having missed the day of the Lord. No — it is not possible to miss the Day of the Lord, so Paul says this to the Thessalonians: “…that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed… the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”

It is interesting phraseology. The phrase “God’s temple” is used differently than in Revelation 11. Antichrist will set himself up in, supposedly, “God’s temple”, proclaiming himself to be, supposedly, “God”. I put those in quotes because they are equally invalid. He is as much God as he is in God’s temple. It is significant and meaningful. The end will not come until that happens. The man of lawlessness is the Antichrist that is coming of 1 John 2:18. “… you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come.” There are many dress rehearsals but one final Antichrist coming who is the focus of Revelation 13. This one specifically rises up and kills these two witnesses. Based on prophecy from Daniel and on Jesus’ statement here, at the end of the world a powerful ruler will rise up and make a covenant with the Jews for the rebuilding of the temple and the establishment of the animal sacrificial system. I am walking a middle ground between Reform commentators that do not talk about details of the future at all and dispensational types that talk about many details (allowing for a separate plan for the Jews), to say that this temple will be in no way pleasing to God, but it will be built at some future point.

The tribulation temple is the place where the Jews will resume animal sacrifice, but halfway through the final seven year period, the Antichrist will break His covenant with them and put an end to animal sacrifice and set himself up as God within that temple. The true temple is in heaven where Christ went to present his own blood. It will culminate in the second coming of Christ, in which Jesus will destroy the Antichrist by the breath of His mouth. 2 Thessalonians 2:8, “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.” This is an epistle, telling you what will happen; it is not apocalyptic.

Now we focus on the two witnesses in verse 3: “And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” They are sent by Almighty God to prophesy, to speak forth his words. God is sending them to planet earth, which is hurting and reeling from being judged. They are situated between the second and third woe. As we saw in Revelation 8 and 9, the seven trumpets came from the seven seals. Six of the seven trumpets have been blown at this point in the account.

The first trumpet was hail and fire mixed with blood, burning up a third of the earth and the trees and all the green grass. The second trumpet was a huge blazing mountain that fell into the sea, turning a third of the sea into blood and killing a third of all living creatures in the sea and destroying a third of the ships. The third trumpet was the blazing star named Wormwood, which fell on fresh water and poisoned a third of the water supply. The fourth trumpet was the sun, the moon, and the stars, darkened to a third of their usual illumination or intensity. The fifth trumpet was demons pouring up out of the abyss, the abode and place of punishment of demons, released to afflict and torment human beings for five months, like a plague of locusts but stinging like scorpions. The sixth trumpet resulted in a (likely) mixed demonic and human army spreading over the surface of the earth, which killed one-third of the population of the earth. These events have been absolutely staggering. But without someone interpreting them for the people, saying, “This is happening because of your sins”, they will not know to view it as a religious event. Thus, these two witnesses are a grace from God to unbelievers, who do not have the Bible, to explain what is happening.

Their task will be difficult. They will tell suffering people who are in agony and torment that they are suffering because of their own sins, but the God who is sending these afflictions will welcome them back and forgive them if they will only turn to Christ. That is the message. You can imagine it will not be well-received. It will be a hard message to give.

Not only that, I believe there is an additional wrinkle that fits into the overall eschatological scheme. The two witnesses will tell the Jews that the temple that is being rebuilt is worthless, and that they should turn from these vain things and from animal sacrifice and trust in Jesus. That will not be popular with the Jews. Needless to say, the Antichrist, the ultimate control freak, will not appreciate these two telling the truth about who he is and pleading with people to come to Christ. He will do what he can to assault them. When they are finished prophesying, the Antichrist, the beast from the abyss, will rise up and kill them.

These two are sent out as a pair, patterned after Jesus sending out his disciples two by two. They reflect the general pattern in the Bible that every matter must be established by the testimony of at least two witnesses. They are also able at the human level to encourage one another. It is hard, day after day for 1260 days.

In verse 3, God empowers them: “And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days.” This is like Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses.” The real power of the prophets will be in their words from their mouths. Jeremiah 23:29 says, “‘Is not my word like fire,’ declares the LORD, "and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” God’s word is powerful like a fire and a hammer. The two witnesses will have a powerful presence. They will be bold and unafraid and will stand firm though surrounded by rage and hostility. It reminds me of the ministry of Jeremiah, who was sent with a very unpopular message at the end of that phase of Judah’s history. In Jeremiah 15:20-21, God says to Jeremiah, “‘I will make you a wall to this people, a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but will not overcome you, for I am with you to rescue and save you,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will save you from the hands of the wicked and deliver you from the grasp of the cruel.’” How much more these two witnesses? God also gives them supernatural powers to do miracles, as we will see in just a moment.

Where are they located? For me this is one of the easier parts, though not every commentator agrees. They will be ministering in the city of Jerusalem. Verse 8 says, “… where also their Lord was crucified.” Given that Jesus, who was their Lord, was crucified, there are only two options: it refers either to planet earth or the city of Jerusalem. Yes, he was crucified on earth, but it seems to be more specific. This refers to the city of Jerusalem. Why is it called Sodom? At that point it is a wicked immoral place. Why is it called Egypt? Again, the same thing. The Jews remember their bondage, their slavery in Egypt. As the Apostle Paul says, the physical Jerusalem is in bondage with her children. Thus, the location of the witnesses is a symbol of wickedness and bondage and where their Lord was crucified. Furthermore, the Antichrist will be there. Commentators say that it is not Jerusalem because of the term “great city”. They usually interpret that as Rome, the city of military power. The Antichrist definitely has a military-governmental power aspect, that's true, but he also has a religious aspect. He wants to be feared and obeyed, but also worshiped as God. That puts him, in the providence of God, in Jerusalem.

They will prophesy in the city of Jerusalem for a certain length of time. The time measured out for their ministry is 1260 days. That same span of time is given to us in four different ways: 1260 days; 42 months, with the standard solar month being 30 days; time, times and half a time, meaning three and a half years; and Daniel’s 70th week — he describes 70 “sevens” in which Jesus is cut off in the 69th “seven”, then one last “seven” at the end of time. The Hebrew translation of Daniel 9 uses the term “halfway”: “In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice…” Half of seven is three and a half.

Elijah shut up the sky for three and a half years. We see this number again and again: time, times and half a time, in Daniel 12:7; the woman in Revelation 12 who gives birth to the male child flees into the desert to be protected for 1260 days. In Verse 2 of this chapter, the Gentiles “trample on the holy city for 42 months.” This is a consistent length of time.

The only question is whether this length of time occurs in the first half or the second half of the seven year period. It makes sense that it is the first half. They prophesy in relative peace, while the temple is being built, while things are being established. Then the Antichrist clamps down on them and the horror starts in the second half.

Verse 3 says they are “clothed in sackcloth.” Sackcloth is a sign of mourning and grieving over the seriousness of the sin of the nation, of the people. Elijah wore it continually as he prophesied to the people, as did Isaiah.

Their demeanor is also serious, in keeping with their clothing. They will preach a message something like this:

“Hear now, you inhabitants of the earth, listen to what we have to say. You are suffering as no generation has ever suffered in history. You are suffering ecological disasters, torment and death — a third of earth’s population has died. None of these things is accidental. They are sent as judgments from Almighty God, the God who created Heaven and earth, the sea and everything in it, the earth and everything in it, the sky and everything that flies through it. This God you have offended by your violation of his laws. You are idolaters, wicked and sinful."

“But God, in his grace, is giving you an opportunity. You are not dead; you are alive and can hear what we say. He sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, under the wrath of God, to take away the penalty of sin. If you believe in him, trust in him, all your sins will be forgiven; you will not suffer the real torment, eternity in hell."

“And you Jews, who are here for the building of the temple, do not think that God is pleased with this. This is an abomination of desolation. The temple itself is displeasing to God. God sent his son as the final sacrifice. The blood of bulls and goats will not save you. You do not need to turn to these vain empty things, or to go back to an obsolete law that has passed away. Come to Christ and trust in him. Do not trust in what this ruler is doing. He is deceiving you. Believe in Jesus.”

Verse 4 calls the witnesses “…the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.” The Lord of the earth is either God or the Antichrist. They stand before both, in a sense. They stand before God and truly serve him, but they also stand in front of this wicked man and boldly proclaim the truth. The image of the two olive trees and lampstands is from Zechariah 4. The message is a symbol of Israel’s ministry in the world to be a light, a golden lampstand, to the world, an oil flowing. The real message is this: “‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.” [Zechariah 4:6] Only by the Spirit of God and by the Word of God will any transformation and salvation happen. They stand there in the power of the Lord, and by the power of the Spirit they preach.

Who are they? John MacArthur has said that he would volunteer to be one of the two. The simple answer is the text does not tell us who they are. The way they are able to judge the earth and strike it with various plagues points to two key individuals: Moses, who is able to turn the water of the Nile into blood and strike the land of Egypt with plagues; and Elijah who calls down fire. In 2 Kings 1:9-10, wicked king Ahaziah sends a captain with 50 men to capture Elijah. The captain says, “Man of God, the king says, ‘Come down!’ Elijah answered, ‘If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!’ Then fire fll from heaven and consumed the captain and his men. A second captain goes with the same demeanor and attitude, yielding the same result. The third captain sent by the king is a wiser man. I picture him on his knees saying, “Elijah, if you wouldn’t mind, please have respect for my life. I have a wife and kids. I want to eat dinner at my home tonight. Would you mind coming?” Elijah complies and gives the hard message to the king. Given the fire Elijah calls down from heaven, many people think the witnesses must be Moses and Elijah. Those two also appear with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. At this point it is all speculation; however, they will definitely be real individuals.

Verses 5-6 say, “If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die. These men have power to shut up the sky so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.” Again, this is not the character and nature of Christian witness for twenty centuries. Christians, such as John Hus and William Tyndale, are the ones who are burned at the stake, persecuted and killed, not the ones who bring the fire. In the book of Luke, James and John asked Jesus if they should call down fire when a Samaritan village would not let them enter. But Jesus rebuked them. In his Incarnation, the son of man did not come into the world to destroy lives but to save them.

That is not the case with his Second Coming. At that time, he will come to judge and kill, as Revelation 19 makes clear. Prior to that, there is a clear display of God’s wrath as a final warning to the sinful human race. These two fit into that display. Their ministry is different than ours. We are like Stephen — as we are stoned and sink to our death, we say, “Lord, please do not hold this sin against them. Please let some of them come to Christ” — some like Saul of Tarsus. We want our persecutors to come to Christ. But at that time, those who physically attack these two (not simply those who mock or do not believe their message), fire comes out of their mouth to consume their attackers. Whether literally (which will be possible) or figuratively, (I do not think a literal sword comes out of Jesus’ mouth to slay his enemies), they have the power to do so either way.

They also have the power to shut up the sky so that it will not rain. This is a grievous plague — after Wormwood has polluted a third of the water, now they are not getting rain. This is the final prophetic warning to the Jewish nation: “…so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.’” [Romans 11:26-27]

Verse 7 says, “Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them.” We will meet the beast again in Revelation 13, where he is not called the “Beast from the Abyss" but the “Beast from the Sea”, though I think they are one and the same, the Antichrist. John already knows who the beast is but he gives us a foretaste here. The beast that we meet two chapters from now is the one that rises up, overpowers them and kills them.

God is in the process of raising up monsters, mighty Leviathan sea creatures and dragons, Goliath figures, and then defeating them. The final monster that will rise up, humanly speaking, will be this Antichrist. His power will be evident in that he defeats these two witnesses, actually able to kill genuine people of God. But this is not the final word. He himself will be destroyed by the breath of Jesus’ mouth and by the splendor of his coming. How great will our joy be when Christ’s power is displayed at that time. This will be the fulfillment of the horn in Daniel 7:21 that “was waging war against the saints and defeating them.” It says “saints,” plural. He will wage war not only against these two, but against all the saints on earth at that point. That does not preclude a literal interpretation here. He will wage war on these two and defeat them, and they will die.

The witnesses will then be dishonored. Verses 8-10: “Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.” This wicked world, so filled with hatred for God and his people, will overflow with dishonor and disrespect by not letting these two be buried, and  with joy such that they actually send each other gifts to celebrate their death. One commentator, who interpreted this text figuratively, said mockingly, “What, will the whole world watch by television?!” At the time that person, who is a good brother and scholar, wrote his commentary, television was the primary medium for news. Now we can livestream any event, any time for all to see on their phones. That is a big part of 21st century culture. It is not so hard now to imagine that the death of these two will be captured on livestream and that the whole world will be able to gaze on their bodies in some sense and celebrate. 

After three and a half days, they rise again from the dead. Terror seizes those who see their resurrection. Verses 11-12 say, “But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck 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, while their enemies looked on.”

Why are they resurrected? To vindicate their message. Jesus, it says in Romans 4:25, was raised to life for our justification. Resurrection is the vindication of Christ and everyone who believes in him.

Verse 13 says, “At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed [clear judgment on that part of the city]. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and [here is the point] the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.” Praise God. Some people will get the message. Who? Let’s start with the Jewish nation. Something must turn them. They are bitterly disappointed by the Antichrist, and the animal sacrifice will not happen now. Perhaps they are able to listen to the message that these two have been preaching now for 1260 days and will turn to Christ.

Finally, Revelation 11:14 says, “The second woe has passed; the third woe is coming soon.”

First, I have preached the Gospel to you this morning. You will go outside, as we do every week, and everything will look normal, like it always does. You must decide if you believe the Word of God that says these things will happen. How will understanding the details of the two witnesses help you in your life tomorrow? I don't know, but if you are lost, I would urge that you flee to Christ. You do not know when the Antichrist and all these details will happen, but you also do not know when you're gonna die. This very day might be your last day on earth, so come to Christ, trust in him while there is still time.

Second, for those who are already Christians, having crossed over from death to life, our job is to witness to those who have not crossed over yet. We show a striking lack of courage and boldness. Pray to the God who will give these folks incredible boldness to give you boldness this week to share the Gospel, to say something to somebody. Try asking someone at work or school if they have ever read the Book of Revelation. Have a conversation, talk about the Gospel.

Finally, understand my three illustrations: When we ask why something is happening, recognize that God is at work. The suffering we go through is part of God’s plan. When we ask where we are heading and if we are there yet, recognize that crossing the border into Connecticut is not the same as arriving in Miami. We have a long way to go, but in time, perhaps within our generation or our children’s, it will come. So parents, tell your children the details things to prepare them. And start to put the puzzle together. Reread this passage and all of this book. There is a blessing given to everyone who reads and understands the words of the Book of Revelation.

Close with me in prayer. Lord, thank you for the time we have had to go through these very complicated challenging verses. I thank you for the things that we have learned. I thank you for the celebration that we have had in worship. I thank You for Wes and his wife Annie being with us today. Thank you for the grace we see in their lives. Thank you for the baptism. And Lord, I pray that as we go from here, that you would please enable us, Lord, to be witnesses, enable us to be bold and courageous. We know that we will not be as bold and courageous as we could be, but Lord, give us more boldness than we have ever shown before. Help us to reach out to the perishing and to share the message of life. We thank you for these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.