We come this morning to the last chapter in the first half of the book of Revelation. I won't say more than that about structure and organization, but it really does finish the first half of the book. It's Revelation chapter 11, and it is page 1210 in your pew Bibles. I'm going to read verses 1 to 10 this morning and the rest of the chapter this afternoon before reading this, I ask God's help. Lord, help us to understand the kind of writing that is still unusual to us. And may your spirit give us much encouragement from it, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Then I was given a reed like a measuring rod. And the angel stood saying, rise and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there. But leave out the court, which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles. And they will tread the holy city underfoot for 42 months. And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy 1,260 days clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. These have power to shut heaven so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy. And they have power over waters to turn them to blood and to strike the earth with all plagues as often as they desire. When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Then those from the peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations will see their dead bodies three and a half days and not allow their dead bodies to be put into graves. And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. I was trying to think what this chapter, both the part we read and the part still to come, remind me of. And what actually popped into my head this morning was, It reminds me of a very famous painting by a fellow called Picasso, whom some of you may know the name or not. And that's the painting Guernica. And I wish for once I had an overhead to put that up there to show it to you because I'm going to be very bad at describing it to you. It is a very famous painting among those for whom old paintings are famous. And when you look at it the first time, you get an initial impression of violence, death and destruction. And then as you look at it, it doesn't hold together. It's a piece of an arm here. It's a horse's head there. It's a building destroyed here. It's an airplane there. And he painted it during the Spanish Civil War 1936 to 1939 that sort of leads into World War II. And it was his outcry against the war and the violence that was destroying his country of Spain. But that sort of juxtaposition of This piece and this piece and this piece reminded me, actually, of this chapter and of other chapters. It's how visions happen. It's how our dreams sometimes are. If you think about your dream, they don't hold together in the logical way that things seem to when we're awake and alive. You have to dream and say, and then this happened, and then this happened. And it isn't a nice, orderly, realistic painting. So, in this chapter, you have, measure the temple, and then you have, but don't measure this, and then suddenly you have, there's going to be war and destruction, the Gentiles are going to destroy things, and then suddenly out pop two witnesses, and they're going to testify for so long, and then all these tremendous powers that they have of fire and no rain and so on one after another go flashing before you and then bang and their testimony is done they get killed. Ah but they have to lie on the street for three and a half days nobody will bury them and then finally everybody rejoices they're dead, they're dead, they're dead. Now verse 11 says I think God brought them back to life. And you just go from one thing to another. And this has made it really hard for Bible commentators and preachers through the years because we keep trying to turn it into a coherent narrative. this and then this and then this and then this, as though it were like 1 Samuel, which is a nice coherent narrative. And it just doesn't get squeezed into that. And so you're going to have to bear with me this morning and bear with the text because this is a vision and there's an overall impression that we get from it. But to try to say, well, when will this particular thing happen and what is this exactly? That gets difficult. Chapter 10 ended with John told to eat the little book. I hope you remember that from last week. He's to eat the little book held by this giant angel in his right hand. and it will be sweet when he tastes it and it will be bitter in his stomach and the next thing we read is and he's told now go ahead and preach You were to prophesy to peoples, nations, tongues, and tribes. Revelation wants to take into account all the different ways humanity gets divided up. Some live in tribes, some live in nations, some it's a language group, some it's a nationality that isn't. So, however it is that you live, you're the object of God's preaching and it is sweet and it is bitter. It's sweet and bitter to the hearer. If the gospel is received and believed, it is a savor to salvation. If the gospel is heard and not believed, it is oppressive, annoying, as we would say, and at some point you just don't want to hear any more of it. And it's the same for the preacher. It's the same for the preacher. What delight when people hear and repent and are saved. And what sorrow and regret. And Ezekiel, who had to do the same thing. Ezekiel was told ahead of time, your ministry is going to be a bitter, bitter ministry, as we would say today. Because you are going to be monumentally unsuccessful in terms of people listening and believing what you have to say. Ezekiel was guaranteed failure. So was Jeremiah. They were both guaranteed failure by the Lord before they began and then said, now go deliver my message. And that is actually what the apostles were guaranteed. When Jesus sent the apostles out two by two, first the 12 and then the 70, remember what he said? You go to a village. You announce peace. If they listen to you, stay there and teach and heal and do miracles. If they don't, if they don't, you just Brush the dust from your shoes and go on to the next village. But it'd be bitter. And I thought some of those probably went off to their home villages, just like Jesus went to Nazareth. Just like some of you have gone to your families. You go to your families and you say, I have been grabbed by the truth. This is so wonderful. I must tell you it. And the family tells you, don't ever bring that up again. And I know some of you have had this experience. And it's bitter. So that's how chapter 10 ends. John is told you've got this sweet bitter book and you are to go preach it. And if John remembers his Old Testament he knows that means there's going to be success and joy and there's going to be failure and sorrow. So chapter 11 begins and John now it's suddenly switched. He's given a measuring rod. a reed like a measuring rod. Now the ancient world didn't have tape measures. If we were doing a dynamic equivalence translation, you'd get a tape measure. All right, so this is the ancient world. You had standard rods of certain lengths, think yardstick, although they were usually longer than that. So you're to go measure the temple. Now what in the world can that possibly mean? Measure the temple, measure the altar, and you're to do that. You know, by the time this book is written, the Christian church has been taught that it is the temple of God. Jesus said to the woman in Samaria, oh yes, we Jews know who we worship. The temple in Jerusalem is the right place, not your temple here on Mount Gerizim. But the time is coming when God will not care where you worship. God wants to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. So, the Christian Church had to deal with, from the very beginning, outside Jerusalem, had to deal with the question, well, where is your temple? You see, because all great religions in the ancient world had their great temples. There was a great temple to Diana in Ephesus. There was a great temple to the Lord in Jerusalem. There was a great temple to Poseidon in some of the Greek cities, and so on, and so on. Christians, where is your temple? The answer was, we are the temple. We are the temple. I think one of the marks of Christian faith beginning to veer off the rails is when the focus goes on, we've got to build ourselves a gigantic temple. I'm thinking about the Mormon temple there in Utah, right? And that becomes the focus. Who are you? We're the ones with that great temple. What Paul says to the Christians in Corinth, don't you know that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit? So Christians, by the time this book is written, they know that the answer is, we, the believers in Jesus Christ, we are the temple. Now, that's just being measured. Now when you measure something, in the ancient world and in our world, it's often prefatory to taking possession of it. If you're going to buy a piece of land, it gets surveyed, it gets measured. When we bought our house, one of the questions, what's one of the questions you always get asked when you buy a house? How many square feet? What's the size of the lot? And so on. And so was in the ancient world too. Measuring was part of ownership. How about the altar? In the ancient world, Jews and pagans alike worshipped at an altar where an animal was sacrificed. And the Christians alone did not have such an altar. Christians are going to be asked, where's your altar? And the writer to the Hebrews says, Our altar is in heaven where Jesus our Lamb went with his blood to make atonement for our sins and so there is no need for an altar here on earth. One of the marks when the church begins to forget that is you want the altar so you start producing it in your buildings. Sometimes people come in and say, where's your altar? We don't have one. This table is a reminder of the Lord's Supper, but it is not an altar. There is no re-sacrificing of Jesus Christ. There is no animal sacrifice, that's for sure. So, he's to measure the altar and the temple. In other words, he's measuring all of the believers, all of the believers in the world, and that measuring means God claims his ownership of them. How about outside the church? You know, the New Testament already talks about those inside and those outside. Believers and non-believers. How about those outside? John is told, you don't measure them. God doesn't claim ownership. It's not that he doesn't rule over everything, but no ownership there. So verse two, but leave out the court. which is outside the temple, and that's the key word, outside the temple, and do not measure it. Why? That's Gentile territory. That's territory that doesn't belong to the Lord. He hasn't claimed it for himself. There are the called and there are those whom God does not call effectively. All may hear the outward call, but only some hear the inward call in which the Holy Spirit takes our hearts and changes them anew and gives us new life. How long? It's given to the Gentiles, how long? 42 months and then a moment later you have 1260 days and then you have three and a half years in the second part of the chapter and probably as I read this you didn't have enough time to do quick mental arithmetic calculations. But I want to point something out about this. Three and a half years is 42 months. 42 months is 12 plus 12 plus 12, that's three years, and six more months gives you 42 months. And 1,260 days is 42 months times 30 days a month. So if you're good at mental arithmetic, you can quickly say, ah, he's right. 42 times 30 comes out at 1260. 42, by the way, one of the things about the book of Revelation is it plays with numbers and gives them a certain significance. 42 turns up in the book of Matthew chapter 1. Did you know that? Chapter 1. Verse 17. So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. From David until the captivity in Babylon are 14 generations. And from captivity in Babylon until the Christ are 14 generations. Now while you're doing your mental arithmetic what's 14 plus 14 plus 14? That's our number 42. That is the Time of preparation. That's the time of getting everything all ready. 42, three and a half years, 1260 days. That was the time of preparation from Abraham until Christ. By the way, Matthew plays with the genealogies to make it come out 14, 14, 14. He leaves out a couple names deliberately just to get the 14s in because that's what he wants to say. God prepared the whole world for the coming of Christ. with this perfect preparation of 14, 14, 14, 42. So the time between promise to Abraham, and you all the nations of the earth will be blessed, and fulfillment, 42 generations. The time for the prophets to prophesy, three and a half years, There'll be the promise, the preparation, and then the fulfillment. And during this time, as evil runs rampant outside the people of God, God gives power to his two witnesses to prophesy during that entire period, 1260 days, the whole 42 months, the whole three and a half years. They will prophesy. clothed in sackcloth as a warning to the world that the end will come. By the way, have you noticed those of you who look at cartoons I don't mean Mickey Mouse cartoons. I mean the New Yorker type cartoons. That a stock figure in those cartoons has pretty well disappeared in the last 10 or 12 years. And that's the figure of the man with the beard and the sign dressed in sackcloth saying, the end is near. And that's because it used to be a standard part of Christian preaching to warn people the end is coming. The world will not last forever. It will not always be as it now is. We will stand before God in judgment. There will come an end. Therefore, get ready. Therefore, repent. Therefore, look to Christ. And the Christian church, by and large, has dropped that part of its message in the last generation. But it's here in Revelation. The two witnesses are to be dressed in sackcloth, and they are prophesying not only peace, but also the coming judgment of God. Why two witnesses? Why two witnesses? The reason is that the Bible's standard for reliable testimony is out of the mouth of two witnesses everything will be established. That's why Jesus sent his apostles out two by two. Now I know the ordinary American way of understanding the two by two is they needed psychological support from each other. All right. Otherwise, you'd be lonely. That's the automatic way Americans think about the two-by-two. And it's not without some truth, of course. It's just nice to have a companion. But that's not the point in the Bible's way of thinking. The point in the Bible's way of thinking is, he says it, and he says it too. John says, I saw the risen Jesus. And Peter says, I also saw the risen Jesus. And James says, Jesus healed this man. And Andrew says, and I was there and I saw him heal this man. Out of the mouth of two witnesses, everything is established. One of the things that's powerful about the scriptures, if you can get through to people, is the united testimony of all these different books to the same God. We so get the united witness of these books that without thinking, what do we call it? The book, which is all the word Bible means. Bible's just a Greek word for book. We call it the book. And we don't quite fully remember it's a library. It's 66 books. We teach that in Sunday school class. Everybody learns it then. All right, 66 books. How many in the Old Testament? Excellent. How many in the New Testament? Good, you subtracted correctly. Alright. And it's a united testimony. You can read Genesis and you can read Revelation and it's obvious we're talking about the same God. There's a united testimony from the Christian Church. Now I want to say something really heavily ecumenical right now. First, I'll quote C.S. Lewis. In his book, Surprised by Joy, in which he talks about his conversion from being an atheist to being a Christian, he says, when you are on the inside of the Christian church, what you see is all the divisions and the arguments and the disagreements. But he says, what you need to understand is, when you're on the outside, it looks like unbelievably monolithic agreement about all the really important things. And I found this when I was an undergraduate. There was a philosophy major that I sometimes ate meals with, and he was a conservative and well-educated and well-instructed Roman Catholic. And he and I would get in arguments with the Marxist students and some of the nothing students. And do you know, in that situation, he and I were allies 100% of the time. Issues of prevenient grace never came up. The issue of transubstantiation never came up. Those people were not interested in the details about Mary. They could care less about the details about Mary. All those things that we, with good reason, talk about and discuss among ourselves as Christians, when we're talking to Muslims, when we're talking to atheists, when we're talking to the secularists that increasingly run our society, from their point of view, you're all the same. If you just take the Apostles' Creed, There's a lot of substance in the Apostles' Creed. A united testimony. Two witnesses. The two olive trees. That's from Zechariah chapter 4. I'm looking at the clock. We won't say any more about it. Two lampstands. The lampstands from Revelations 1, 2, and 3. And the two of the churches are all having the same testimony and witness together. Now, what about this power out of the mouth of the witnesses to burn up its enemies? Maybe you've actually occasionally thought this way. You're talking to somebody and they're really being obnoxious and resistant and you think. Maybe you haven't. I certainly never have. If I could just sort of do dragon fire. But verse 5. If anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. These have power to shut heaven so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy, and they have power over waters to turn them to blood and to strike the earth with all plagues." Now, what's all that about? Well, it's analogous back to the Picasso painting Guernica. If you know your Old Testament, this is a hop, skip, and a jump through the Old Testament. Elijah calls down fire from heaven upon the 50 soldiers sent to arresting, and they are consumed. Moses says, I haul my staff over the water, and the Nile turns to blood, and follow other plagues. Elijah says to the king, there will be no rain except by my word for these years. When the king finally finds Elijah, he says, I have found you who trouble Israel. Pharaoh says to Moses, ah, you have come to cause trouble. One of my sons called up some years back and he's in a rooming situation where he'd run into somebody who was upset that he was a Christian and they'd had a discussion back and forth about Christian things. Issues of the sexual revolution got involved. I'll leave out the details. The son was upset. I said to the son, you need to understand something. He's more afraid of you than you are of him. He is more afraid of you than you are of him. Why do our relatives, some of them say to us, know more of this? It's because the word of God hurts them when they reject it. there's a reason the scriptures are called the sword of God. There is in all people a knowledge that they're going to have to deal with God and if they're hiding from this they don't want to have to face the truth. It hurts them to hear the gospel and have it pressed on them. If they If their eyes are opened, that's one thing. But if they choose, if they choose not to listen, they need to come up with some way to protect themselves. Because it feels like they're getting burnt. It feels like the rain isn't falling on them right now. It feels like there's a plague. And so you and I have both run into people, they have their different strategies, but the goal in the end is to shut your mouth. Shut your mouth. Why? Because it hurts. And here we have all these scriptural images. You see, this is a vision. So interpreters who take this literally and imagine two particular historical witnesses, I don't think, get the point of how visions work. But we need to understand, when we testify, we bring the message of peace and salvation. And where it is rejected, it hurts. Sometimes, sometimes people are so angered they want to actually kill the messenger. And the passage here says that as long as God intends for the message to continue, He protects. You know, God said to Jeremiah, I'll protect you here in Jerusalem. So when Jeremiah got arrested and thrown into a pit with mud, his life was spared, but he had God's word, you'll live. And of course, eventually he got pulled out of the pit. But eventually, what did God allow to happen to so many of his prophets? Well, you have it in Jesus' words. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem that kills the prophets. How often I would have gathered you as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you would not. And now your house will be left to you desolate. None die before the time that God has set. But at the time God has set, then he gives his prophets over to the power of their enemies. Is this only happening in ancient times? Does this only happen in biblical times? No, this happens in our day also. This has happened all through the 20th century. This is happening right on into our century. I think I told you the article in World that just got my attention because it just rips your heart out. These North Koreans who had escaped up into China, down into Southeast Asia, I think it was Malaysia, and a Christian group helping them. Many of them escape, have no idea of Christ, but it's Christians all the way along helping them. And this group, the goal is to help them, and many of them are converted, and then they get them to South Korea. And these five were the best that they'd had. They were the most spiritual. They were the most earnest. These were the most soundly converted of these North Koreans. And suddenly, those helping them had to deal with the fact that the government of Malaysia suddenly clamped down and said, no, no, no, no, no, no, and they got sent back to North Korea. And you say, how long will they survive? And the answer is they will survive as long as God wants them to survive. And then there'll be happiness and rejoicing among those who hate the gospel, and there's such an evil government that hates the gospel in North Korea, and they will be killed. And they may have their bodies left unburied as a sign of disrespect and a sign of hatred. as well as we know things of the Twelve Apostles, all but John died violently. This is the first half of the chapter. We'll look at the second half this afternoon. It's a chapter saying, the Church testifies. It testifies with two voices, in other words, with unity. Because we all have the same truth, and people are not making it up on their own. We send out missionaries. We've sent missionaries to Sudan. None have died so far, but surely we are aware they might well. In the midst of our troubles, sometimes in the midst of our peace, we can lose sight of the authority and power of the Word of God and of the missionary calling of the Church. The missionary calling of the Church That's why it is so important that we in this congregation remember to support and pray for missionaries that we're connected to. You do pray for Zach and Liesl, surely, and for Cephas in Nigeria, a far more dangerous place. What a brave man. And for those in Uganda that some of us support, and you know people in the Sudan, that is a dangerous place now. They're now in the midst of a country flirting with civil war again. And I could go on. And we share with them their testimony as we pray for them and as we support them. This is what this chapter is talking about. the witnesses, the united testimony of the church, sweet to those who hear and bitter to those who don't. And the word hurts, the word hurts where it is rejected, even while it heals where it is received. When the nations rage and the elites sneer, it is good to remember this vision. My favorite sneer. Joseph Stalin. How many divisions does the Pope have? And Stalin's world is gone. Amen.