Those last two hymns, I think, express so beautifully how we can have loss, we can have suffering, tribulation, even death, and yet nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. And we still have the victory. Satan cannot win. And only we can let him rob us of our joy. Well, here are two witnesses, Revelation 11, 1 through 14, that we've been examining, who even in their death really have the victory. And I gave you the whole context, but I'm only going to read verses 7 and 8. When they finish their witness, the beast of prey that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, overcome them, and kill them, and leave their corpses in the street of the great city, which is called Sodom and Egypt, spiritually speaking, even where their Lord was crucified. Those from the peoples, tribes, languages, and ethnic nations look at their corpses three and a half days and will not allow their corpses to be buried. And those who dwell on the earth rejoice over them, and they will enjoy themselves and send gifts to one another because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you that every word of your word counts, and we're to live by every word that proceeds out of your mouth. Help us to understand every word, to cherish it, and to live it, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Well last week we got introduced to the beast who made war on the prophets and I mentioned that one of the things that the Apostle John consistently tends to do is to give interpretive clues the first time that a subject or a phrase or a word comes up in the book of Revelation. I don't always point out what he is doing there. But this is something that he has a habit of doing. And verse 8 is the first time that the phrase the great city is used in Revelation. And I believe that this verse has the potential for completely settling a major controversy that rages in the second half of this book and that is the identity of the great city there. And I believe it's referring to exactly the same city. Now I'm going to give a lot more details when we get to those later chapters on the identity of the harlot city Babylon. But this verse and the clues that are in it, I think really opens up the book of Revelation and settles a lot of debate. Now let's read verse eight again. I think you'll see that it's crystal clear that John intends us to see the great city as being Jerusalem. It says, and leave their corpses in the street of the great city, which is called Sodom and Egypt, spiritually speaking, even where their Lord was crucified. The great city is another way of saying the capital city, but there's debate on which capital he is talking about. Some people say he's talking about the capital of Rome, which is Rome, or the capital of some future empire. The way that the city that is being described as spiritually being Sodom and Egypt is identified, because of the way it's identified as the place where Jesus was crucified, their Lord was crucified, I and most commentaries take it as being the capital of Israel, Jerusalem. And the Gospels clearly identify Jerusalem as being the city where Jesus was crucified. Now some people quibble over that. They say, well, in Hebrews it says that we have to go outside the gate with Him, suffer outside the gate. And it's true. Jesus did die outside the gate of the old city. But if you look at the backside of your handout, you'll see on the chart there that there's the new city that existed in the time of Jesus, and he was crucified within the new city, outside the gates of the old city. So both of those really do work out. And let me give you some scriptures that say that Jesus died within the city of Jerusalem. Luke 13, verse 33. Jesus says, nevertheless, I must journey today, tomorrow, and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem. That's a very significant statement. It cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem. So he's not only predicting that he's going to be crucified in Jerusalem, but he says every prophet that he is sending is going to die, perish in Jerusalem. In Matthew 23, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and says, therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify. Some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Now, despite the clear testimony of this and other passages that Jesus says all the prophets he's going to be sending are going to die in Jerusalem, you'd be amazed at the exegetical gymnastics that many commentaries go through trying to prove that this is not talking about Jerusalem here. It's got to be talking about something else. For example, they will say that because the great city in the second half of the book is clearly not Jerusalem, in their view, And because this great city is obviously the same city, and I agree with him there, it's obviously the same city as the second half of the book, this cannot be a reference to Jerusalem. It simply cannot be. So, a mount thinks that this is referring to Rome. He says the two prophets died in Rome. So you might wonder, well, how does he explain the phrase where their Lord was crucified? He says the inclusion of a reference to the crucifixion is not to identify a geographical location, but to illustrate the response of paganism to righteousness. And I read that, and I scratch my head, and I think, huh, it sure doesn't seem like that, but I'll keep reading, and I read through commentary after commentary. And one of the things that I find is that the commentaries that resist preterism, that are non-preterist, have to explain this verse away if they are logically consistent. They have to, or it messes with their eschatology. Leon Morris is another, normally a good commentator, but he does everything he can to avoid the conclusion that this is Jerusalem. He says, some conclude that Jerusalem was in mind, but if the passage is symbolical, as I have maintained, it is unlikely that any one earthly city is meant. The great city is every city and no city. It is civilized man in organized community. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think John explicitly says that the great city is a city and it's the great city where Jesus was crucified and that great city is spiritually being nicknamed by two pagan names, symbolical names. It seems pretty straightforward. Some, like Beal, refuse to see the great city as being a place at all, even though they admit that Jerusalem is repeatedly called the great city in the ancient literature. He says, instead, that it's just the world system. It's a symbol for the world system that is out there. And there are several reasons why I believe that that is not credible. First, the Greek word for where in the phrase, where also their Lord was crucified, is defined by the dictionary this way. It says this word is, quote, a marker of a position in space, unquote. It's a marker of a position in space. He's talking about real geography in real space history, okay? He's pointing to a location. Second, if he wasn't talking about real geography, why on earth would he be talking about their bodies lying in the street for three and a half days? And if it's a system of the world as a whole, it's a symbol of the world as a whole, it doesn't make sense to give all of these different details. And the commentaries actually don't explain what those details mean and their symbology. Third, those two words, the street, that these commentaries have left totally unexplained are actually a key to understanding a timing puzzle in this passage that we will look at next week. I'm just going to give you a tiny preview of where we're going to be going. First, notice that it doesn't say a street in the great city. It says the street in the great city. Second, the Greek word for street is plateios and refers to a particularly broad street or what we call a plaza. As one version translates it, the main street. Now, what difference do those two facts make? On in his commentary says that He Platea is articular. What he means by that, the fact that it has the word V in front of the word city, the fact that it's articular, he says, probably means that it refers to a well-known street or square in either pre-80s, 70s Jerusalem or in Rome. So he examines Rome and he says, well actually that doesn't fit, that doesn't fit. And after ruling out Rome, he starts examining which street in Jerusalem would fit this phrase here. Now because the word platea refers to a particularly broad street, a plaza, he narrows it down to one place. It's the broad plaza right outside the temple ground. You see John is writing, we've seen already, he's writing to Jewish believers and every Jew would be extremely familiar with the plaza that John was referring to. So after spending several pages dealing with the grammar and the archaeology of streets in Jerusalem, Andra's several conclusions from that little phrase. First, he says, it shows John was familiar with the streets of Jerusalem and he expected his readers to be familiar with those streets. This argues for an early dating of the book of Revelation. There's a whole bunch of clues in the book that it's an early dating, but this is one of those. And this is a Jewish book written to Jewish Christians in the first century. They are keenly interested in finding out what's going to happen to their native land, what's going to happen to their city of Jerusalem, and John is telling them in this book. Second, John is telling them the exact street where the bodies were lying. One translation translates this word as the main street, another as the public square, another as a wide street, and Lenski paraphrases it as Broadway, Broadway Street, you know, to put it into modern lingo. But the first century Jews would have known exactly what he was talking about if it was the plaza right outside the temple. But that in turn explains a puzzle that Preterist commentaries have never dealt with. And I think it has to be dealt with. The puzzle is this. How can the Roman beast penetrate the city, because the beast is obviously in his armies, are obviously in the city. How can they penetrate the city, kill the prophets, yet have the Jews of verse 10 be rejoicing and giving gifts to each other? It sure seems like the Jews are not yet conquered there. So how can that be? And furthermore, how can both the Jews and the Romans be looking and seeing those bodies in that street, that plaza from their respective places? And yet that be happening at a time when the Jews are not conquered and they're confident. They seem to be very confident. It seems contradictory. But if you know the history of the war, you know that it's not contradictory at all, at least during one week of that war, it kind of narrows things down. And my detailed chronology that I've put on the back of your outlines gives you a sneak peek of how perfectly this passage fits in. Now next week, I hope to show how it was during the last week of the war when the Romans were indeed inside the new city section. If you look on the map, you'll see what's new city, what's different quarters of the city. So they were inside the new city and the second quarter section of the city, but they could not gain access to the upper city, the lower city, or to the temple. Every attempt to penetrate the first wall failed. The rebels were celebrating their successes against Titus's incursions, and Titus is very discouraged. He looks like he might even have to give up, but something strange and unexpected happened. In the dark night on August the 2nd, at least on my dating of Ob 8, August the 2nd, a few soldiers scaled the wall of the temple completely, killed the guards who may well have been asleep, took the Jewish soldiers by surprise, took over the temple, and then burned it, burned the temple the next day. What they had not been able to achieve through a month of pounding that wall with their battering rams, it would not budge an inch. What they could not accomplish, they accomplished in a short order, just a matter of hours, by scaling that wall. So it was during the last week of July that this happens and four days later the temple is destroyed and the events of the last section of this chapter happen. timing is perfect. During that time, the Jews are still confident of victory. They still possess the temple, but they can look down at the plaza from the safety of the temple walls. They can look over those walls. They can see the bodies of the prophets. And the Romans are in that plaza, they can obviously see the bodies of those prophets. And it's my guess that they probably executed these prophets in this public square to try to intimidate the Jews and say, look, we've even conquered your prophets, and see if they would give up. But the Jews would not give up. So the history of the war fits the description perfectly here. And there are other reasons we need to take this as a reference to Jerusalem rather than Rome. Third reason is given by Charles in his commentary. He points out that the Greek phrase in verse 10, for those who dwell on the earth, is always used for Jewish Palestinians, not for members of the world. So the context militates against interpreting this as Rome or interpreting it as the world system. And there are a few other reasons. I'm not gonna get into detail. I'll just list them for you very quickly. Fourth reason, he starts this chapter with Jerusalem, right? Fifth reason, we've seen that these two prophets had been prophesied within Jerusalem. Six, Jesus said that no prophet could perish outside Jerusalem, Luke 13, 33. Well, he explicitly sent these prophets. They are his prophets, so they too must die in Jerusalem. He prophesied that they would. Seventh, that this is neither history nor geography as idealists say that it is. Why would John mention that the people would not allow the bodies to be put into the grave. Mention the earthquake. Mention the number of people killed in the earthquake. I mean, if this is just a general symbol of the world system, those details don't make sense. And by the way, maybe I shouldn't get too far advanced. We'll save that for next week. But the 7,000 that he mentions, many commentators say that that reference there in that verse is the 7,000 is the 10th of the city. Well, if 7,000 is a tenth, that means 70,000. Well, that narrows it down to pretty much the last week of Jerusalem. By that time, there was over a million Jews who had died in Jerusalem from the killing of the rebels, the famine, different things that had been going on. And we'll look at that next week. But all of these details seem to be dealing with a real geographical spot in real history, and verse 14 confirms that. It says, the second woe is past, right? Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. That's the language of historical sequence, not of general non-historical principles. See, John did not write this book in order to deliberately confuse his readers. But the way many commentators treat these passages, it does seem like he's deliberately confusing his readers, that he's giving us all kinds of false leads, you know, where we're going down the wrong direction. And in fact, the commentaries who do not see this as being Jerusalem, they are mystified by many things that just don't fit their interpretation. They admit it, right in their commentaries, they admit that they are mystified. As several commentators that I agree with have pointed out, the name Sodom in Egypt can't be symbols of how bad the city where our Lord was crucified had become. If the city where our Lord was crucified is simply a symbol. You can't have a symbol of a symbol, okay? So it's gotta be a symbol of a literal city. So it doesn't matter which way you slice the cake, the last clause of verse eight has to refer to Jerusalem. I've studied every boring argument you could look at in my 99 commentaries. And I just don't see any way around these plain facts. The great city is clearly Jerusalem. Yet, here's point two, John describes Jerusalem by pagan names. He calls Jerusalem Sodom and Egypt. Now he makes clear he's not talking about a literal Sodom or a literal Egypt. Sodom didn't even exist anymore, right? So he's not talking about a literal Sodom, literal Egypt. He says, which is called Sodom and Egypt spiritually speaking. Spiritually, Jerusalem had become a Sodom filled with homosexuality and every kind of perversion as Josephus so well documents in his history. And it shouldn't surprise us when that happens. It's ripe for judgment. Judgment came to Old Testament Jerusalem for exactly the same reason. And back then, what did He do? He likened Jerusalem to Sodom and Gomorrah, just like He did here. In Isaiah 1 verse 10, God said, Give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. So he's warning the Jewish leaders back then, you guys are acting just like Sodom and Gomorrah, which means you're going to be judged just like Sodom and Gomorrah were judged because of your sins. Just like Revelation does, he explicitly calls Jerusalem Sodom. And Ezekiel 16, 49 explains the reason why Jerusalem was now being treated as Sodom. They're engaging in the same sins that Sodom had engaged in. That's the biblical imagery that's behind John's imagery. We got to interpret John's symbolism the way that the Old Testament interprets that symbolism. The Bible tightly connects the name with rebellious Israel. Now, it shouldn't be surprising that he also calls Israel Egypt. God had previously done that when Israel apostatized in Old Testament times and he called his people in the Old Testament to flee from that new Egypt in a new exodus and they would find that old Egypt, the new Egypt, I guess it would be called Jerusalem under judgment. In Ezekiel 23, 8, God called Jerusalem Egypt because she engaged in what? All of the harlotries of Egypt, the worldviews of Egypt, the practices of Egypt. For all practical purposes, they were acting like Egypt. So it's legitimate to call Jerusalem Egypt. And both chapters call Jerusalem a harlot over and over again. So it's no wonder that the second half of the book of Revelation is going to be calling Jerusalem the harlot who rides the beast. The harlot who is Babylon. And you might wonder why does he call Jerusalem Babylon? That's another pagan name, right? Well, he calls her Babylon because she had been engaging in all of the practices and the occultism of Babylon. It's not by accident that modern Jewish Talmud is called the Babylonian Talmud. I mean all of the Jews talk about it as being the Babylonian Talmud. It is filled with Babylonian occult ideas. We call this syncretism where you mix the Bible together with some pagan religion and you come up with a new religion. That's exactly what they had done. And if you read very far in the Babylonian Talmud, which I have, It is an occult book. It was Babylonian to the core. So it's no wonder when you get to chapter 13, he's going to be calling Israel the beast from the land, the Jewish leadership of Israel. The Jewish leadership admired Babylon's wisdom, artwork, medicine, politics, and worldview. Let me just give you one tiny illustration. It's the huge veil that they put to cover the temple gate, 80 feet high, It was 24 feet wide. It was incredibly thick, but that temple veil did not follow the prescriptions that God gave in his law. No. In their adultery, they preferred Babylon's ways. The historian Josephus says it was a Babylonian tapestry embroidered with blue and fine linen and scarlet and purple. By the way, the same fabric that the harlot wears later on in the book in Revelation 17. 1816. And just one other little tidbit along these lines. Recently they've been noticing these frescoes. The archaeology that the Romans memorialized this taking of all of this temple furniture to Rome. Titus took it all to Rome. Every one of those temple furniture pieces has Babylonian occult symbols stamped right into them. In other words, they had idolatry right there in the temple. And we'll look at that in a future sermon. So the point that is being made by those names is that Jerusalem has no more right to be called God's people and a special people than Sodom did, or than Egypt did, or than Babylon did. By 8070, it had become so corrupt that it looked little different than those pagan nations. So just as Sodom, Egypt, and Babylon had all come under God's judgment for their corruptions, Jerusalem had now come under judgment for its corruptions. And very similar corruptions. Symbolism of those names is perfect. Now we'll see in a later chapter that verse 13 seems to indicate that even at the At that late hour, there were Jews who repented. And to me, this just shows how incredibly gracious and patient and kind God is to pagans. So the issue is not that Jews are outside the scope of salvation, as some amillennialist replacement theologies have made it. No, far from it. The issue is that they need salvation before they can be considered God's people. And too many Christians, like John Hagee, have become heretical Zionists who deny that Jews need the gospel. Now, he thinks he's doing it out of love for the Jews. That's not loving. In fact, that's hatred for their soul because it insulates them from the gospel. And so this verse is not an inconvenience that needs to be explained away like so many commentaries do in order to maintain some system of prophecy. Now our prophetical views need to submit to the clear text of scripture. As John has done repeatedly in this book, the first mention of a subject is accompanied by some interpretive clues of how to interpret that phrase in the rest of the book. We call it the principle of first mention, and it beautifully opens up the book of Revelation when you follow those clues. So the phrase, the great city, is always a reference to either Jerusalem below or Jerusalem above. And in the second half, he's going to over and over be contrasting those two cities. The Jerusalem below is called the filthy harlot. The Jerusalem above is called the spotless bride of Christ. The city below submits to the beast and then is destroyed by the beast. The great city above submits to Jesus and is blessed by Jesus, is victorious in Jesus. The great city below is the woman, the harlot, who is drunk with the blood of the saints, who's riding on top of that ugly beast until, of course, the beast turns around and devours her. Whereas the great city above is a woman adorned as a bride for her husband Jesus. It's critical that we see the great city as being apostate Jerusalem. And this is consistent with the Old Testament usage of that phrase. In Jeremiah 22 verse 8, God prophesied that Jerusalem would be so utterly destroyed, quote, that many nations will pass by this city and everyone will say to his neighbor, why has the Lord done so to this great city? And you can notice there that there's many nations even back then that we're witnessing the destruction of the great city. Lamentations 1.1 laments the destruction of Jerusalem, a great city among all nations. But as you consider the original audience, remember we said we have to consider who is he writing to of Jewish Christians, it's helpful to know that the first century Jews were quite familiar with using this phrase to describe Jerusalem. The Sibylline Oracles speak of Jerusalem as the great city three times. Josephus calls Jerusalem the great city five times. Hegesippus laments the destruction of Jerusalem saying, where is the great city of Jerusalem? The Jewish pseudepigrapha calls Jerusalem the great city another five times. So the usage, that's just not out of the ordinary at all. In the first century they were familiar with that. But it's also helpful to see that this is totally consistent with Christ's prophecies that no prophet would die outside of Jerusalem. Now obviously that fact should be factored into the whole discussions of whether there's continuing prophecy after Jerusalem is destroyed, but we'll just leave that aside for now. Just consider what he says in Luke 13, verse 33. Nevertheless, I must journey today, tomorrow, and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem. That's a pretty absolute statement. It cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem. So if these two prophets died in Rome, that would seem to contradict Christ's statement. But if you look at the chart at the bottom back of your outlines, you'll see that I have listed 22 striking parallels between the great city Jerusalem in this chapter and the great city Harlot Babylon in the later chapters. They're one in the same city. I'm just going to very quickly summarize and read over them. Both are called the Great City. Both have pagan names. Both have the name as a symbol, and the symbol reflects their spiritual nature. Both are destined to destruction. Have prophets witnessing against them. Have prophets and saints killed in their midst. Have the death of prophets witnessed by the nations. Experience a great earthquake, as well as lightnings, noises, and thunderings. Is that a coincidence? I think not. They both have great hail, plagues, water turned to blood, the land judged along with the city. They're both in the wilderness. Both have three and a half year crisis, have the heavens rejoicing over the judgments, have woes pronounced on both earth and sea. Both have loud voices crying out about God's salvation. Both are connected with the avenging the death of the saints. Both have the lamb overcoming the enemy and Jesus declared as king of the nations. And when we get to those chapters, we're going to be seeing there's a whole lot of other arguments that identify Babylon with Jerusalem. So when you link later arguments, when you link the arguments I've already given together with these striking parallels, I think it's a slam dunk that we must see the great city throughout this book as being identical. John intended this first mention principle to help us interpret the rest of the book. And we do actually get messed up if we don't tightly hold to that interpretive clue. So what are the practical ramifications of this? Well, the rest of the points draw those out. That Jerusalem is compared to Sodom and Egypt shows that Jerusalem has left its proper, its true identity and has become united with the spiritual enemy. This has happened to many other godly nations. They were God's people, and then they apostatized, and God gave them the same kind of judgment. In fact, as many commentaries point out, Jerusalem had become a hub of evil influence throughout the empire. As we'll see in later chapters, she controlled Rome to a great degree, especially through her international banking. Rome eventually got fed up with her, and the beast turned on her and devoured her. But the point of this book is that Israel had become just as hostile to God, to God's law, to God's people, as the Romans were. And so to speak of a Judeo-Christian consensus is naive and wrongheaded. In fact, I agree with the majority of Reformed people when they say that the names Jew, Jerusalem, Israel, holy people, saints, etc. cannot be properly ascribed to the Talmudists. In John 8, the Jews claim to be children of Abraham. Jesus denied it. He said, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. You are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. In Revelation 2 verse 9, John said about the Talmudists of his own day, I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. He repeats that in chapter 3 verse 9. In fact, when we get to the beast from the land in chapter 13, we're going to be seeing that the Jewish leadership of that day was just as demonically controlled, they're the beast from the land, as Rome was, the beast from the sea, okay? Here's what Paul says in Romans, for he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God. But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel." And now this does not mean that you need to be mean-spirited to tell them this. Far from it. You should love them enough to tell them that they are far from God, in need of salvation, call them to repentance, and call them to the forgiveness of God's grace, which can save them. But the heresy of evangelicals like John Hagee, who treats Jews as if they are saved without the gospel, does an insult to Christ. It does a disservice to the Talmudists themselves and actually shows a hatred for their soul by insulating them from the gospel. John wants us to look at the nation of Israel today and the so-called Jews in our land today through spiritual eyes. And spiritually, they are Sodom and Egypt, in desperate need of God's grace and the saving work of the Holy Spirit. And this book will go on to say that God is able to save them. Now, I'm not saying you can't call them Jews. They call themselves Jews, right? So I'm not saying you can't call them that, but you just need to realize they're not really where God wants Jews to be. They are no different than Sodom and Egypt. Now, of course, Scripture prophesies that Egypt and Israel will be saved in the future, right? That's a topic for another time. I've already touched on the next point, that this prepares us to properly interpret the rest of the book. And this is where even preterists like Bonson, Greg Bonson, like Moses Stewart, have gone wrong. They have failed to recognize this principle of first mention, and it's led them astray in the second half of the book. They're good men. But all it takes is to be off by a few degrees when your ship is heading from America to England, and you're going to miss England by miles. And that's exactly what's happened in their commentaries. So chapters 11 through 19 are not dealing with the second coming at the end of history. They're dealing with the spiritual coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven in AD 70. The issues surrounding the great city must be during a time when Rome is still warring against Jerusalem. And the terminus of this chapter cannot be any later than AD 70. And we know that from many facts. Other facts we've already looked at, such as the fact that the killing of the prophets is at the end of Titus's three and a half year war. It's at the end of that time. Verse three clearly says, I will give authority to my two witnesses. They will prophesy 1,260 days clothed in sackcloth. And verse seven says, when they finished their witness, The beast of prey that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, overcome them, and kill them. Verses 8 through 10 indicates that it has to be during a part of the war when Rome has penetrated the city, and yet the Jews are optimistic. The resurrection of the prophets is three and a half days later, which ties in with the first resurrection that happens in verses 15 through 19. I believe the date for that is Ab 9 of 8070. And we'll look at verses 8 through 10 next week. But for now, I think it's sufficient. We've demonstrated in this chapter, and this is such a confusing chapter for many people, that we've been going through this slowly, but we've had to demonstrate the timing of the chapter, the identity of the two prophets, the identity of the beast, and now we've identified the identity of the of the great cities. So what I'm going to do right now, because we've gotten bogged down in the technical details, I'm going to race through verses 7 through 8 again and try to give some of the practical ramifications of these phrases. Verse 7 says, when they finish their witness, everyone has a work to do on earth. And until that work is finished, you don't need to fear death. But the flip side of that coin is that we should be passionate to finish the work that God has given us to do. We need to know what our calling is, number one, and be passionate about finishing that. The next phrase indicates that God's people are called to spiritual warfare. Satan is a real enemy who needs to be taken seriously. The beast of prey that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, overcome them, and kill them. Now later we're going to be seeing that Satan does win Individual battles. God himself says that the beast overcame them. So he won the battle, but he did not win the war. In fact, God uses their deaths as a part of the process of winning the war as a whole. So when missionaries die overseas, some people are so grieved that Satan has won the victory. No, even in our death, we are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us. Verse eight, and leave their corpses in the city. Now for a Jew, this was an incredible shame. To not bury the body was an incredible indignity. They treated their bodies with care, even in death. And we need to treat the bodies of our loved ones who die as if they are the property of the Lord. Okay, we need to treat it as a stewardship trust. Even in death, we honor God by honoring the bodies of the saints. And this is one of the reasons we believe in burial, not cremation. And if you've never considered this, you've got to listen to Rodney's sermon against cremation and in favor of burial. I think it's an important topic. But here's the point. When our bodies get mistreated by other people, we're not gonna mistreat our bodies, right? But when they get mistreated by other people, We don't need to worry about it. God can still resurrect even things that are missing, because he knows our DNA. He knows exactly what blueprint to put together. The next phrase says, of the great city. Now Jerusalem was the capital city of Israel. And this is one of the things, Satan always goes after the capital cities. There's a reason why homosexuality is rife in every capital of every state of our union. It's one of the places, it's demonic hordes that tend to go to those capitals. We need to be aware of it when we engage in spiritual warfare. It's a strategic leverage point in society. He goes on, which is called Sodom and Egypt. Now Joseph tells us, excuse me, Josephus, the historian tells us, But the Jewish leaders of that time, as wicked as they were, thought that God would never allow them to suffer defeat and for sure would never allow the temple to go under. This is his temple, after all. They were absolutely confident that they were going to win this. Like our modern politicians, they probably would have sung our national anthem. You know, or something similar. God bless our Israel, land of the free. And God would say, it is not a land of the free. In fact, God's not going to bless them. It's an illusion. And the same is true in America. We like Israel have become like Sodom and Egypt. And as such, we are fit for judgment. It goes on spiritually speaking. Whatever people might call society, God has His own spiritual evaluation. Americans may think our nation is free. God would say otherwise. We're in bondage, bondage to the tyranny of Satan and of sin. When the Pharisees told Jesus, we're not in bondage, they were forgetting that they actually were in bondage to Rome, but more importantly, Jesus points out, they're in bondage to Satan and sin. Americans may call our nation one nation under God. God says otherwise. You know, it's a slander when they use that phrase because they're not acting as a nation under God. So it's important that our labels and our language conform to scriptural and spiritual thinking. It goes on to say, even where their Lord, they had a Lord. the Lord Jesus Christ, and it doesn't matter how important you are. You may be more important than those two prophets who died in Jerusalem, yet you are really a bond slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are here to do His will. When we pray, it's not to get our will done in heaven. Our prayers must be to get God's will done on earth as it is in heaven, just like we prayed in the Lord's prayer earlier. Always see yourself as having a Lord to whom you must answer. It's Him that we serve. It ends by saying, where their Lord was crucified. If crucifixion was part of the plan of God's only begotten Son, death to self should be considered to be a part of God's plan for us. And if Christ's death was the means of His victory, We shouldn't be surprised when in chapter 12 he says that they overcome Satan even through their death. We shouldn't fear death, not at all. It is Christ's kingdom and His righteousness which we are called to seek after all. And if we're seeking His kingdom and His righteousness, we're willing to sacrifice our own agendas, then we can trust Him to provide everything that we need for life and for godliness, for life and all eternity. All the things that the Gentiles seek after are things that should not consume our lives. God will richly provide those things when we're sold out to his kingdom. In fact, I probably can't quote it exactly, but I put on the Facebook, Vodipakam quote the day before, something to the effect that God's not opposed to us owning things. He's opposed to things owning us, right? So that should be our passion. Seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to us. So entrust yourselves to God's care just like those prophets did. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. And we thank you that it is perfect. That we can count on every phrase, every word, every letter. And it is our desire not only to understand your word, but to be transformed by it. And I pray that as we go through this book, it would stir up the faith and the hope of this, your people, and our love for each other as we seek to serve you and your kingdom. In Jesus' name we pray.