You know, for those of us who are believers in Jesus Christ, the reason the psalmist says "it's not death to die" is because we're not hurt by the second death, right? This mortality will put on immortality, this corruption will put on incorruption. So death, in a sense, is final for the believer. Death is an enemy—a physical death is an enemy that has been defeated by Christ and it will be defeated in our resurrection someday. But it is, and so therefore we meet it with sorrow because it's still an enemy, but we don't sorrow as those who have no hope, because we have a sure hope of eternal life in Jesus Christ.
We're going to look this morning in Revelation chapter 11. You know, many times when we encounter unbelievers, it can be a little shocking sometimes how much—how much disdain they have for the gospel. Like a perfectly nice person who, let's say it's your next-door neighbor who helps you take out your trash occasionally or helps you paint your fence, but if you share the gospel with them, sometimes, like a switch turns—I don't know if you've ever had that experience, I'm sure you have—and they go from being really, really nice to being angry at you. And that happens because their conscience is pricked, and they don't like that. All right? They don't like the idea that they're a sinner. They don't like the idea that they have to answer to God and stand before the Lord someday. And so sometimes that motivates people just to, you know, cut off the conversation. Sometimes that causes them to curse you. Sometimes that causes people to resort to violence. And in certain places in the world, we know that, you know, Christians are violently treated because of hostility toward the gospel. We're going to see an example of that here in Revelation, chapter 11.
"And there was given me a reed like unto a rod." Okay, so a reed is a piece of plant that grows, okay, and they would cut these off and use them as a rod, which would be like a walking stick sort of thing. But then if you cut them to the right length, it becomes a measuring tool, okay? "And the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein." Okay? And so the angel's been talking to him. Verse one of chapter 10, "I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven." And so the angel's been speaking, and so here again, the angel is telling him, I want you to go, and I want you to measure the Temple of God and the altar and them that worship therein.
Now, that's funny, because how do you measure those who worship therein? All right? Sometimes, because it's convenient language-wise, we use a word like "measure," which isn't the word that fits, but it makes sense. So, for example, it makes sense to measure the temple and the altar. Okay, so if I give you a tape measure, and I said, I want you to measure this altar, measure the pulpit, measure the walls of the auditorium, and then measure the people. By that, what the angel is not saying is, "Go and figure out how tall he is." What he's saying is, "How many people are there? Count them off." All right, we would see that's a measurement in a sense, but "measure" is not the word we would normally use for that. But what he's saying is, "Go in there and figure this out with this temple."
Now, this is interesting, because when John is writing this, there is no temple. This is in AD 95. The temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70. Today, there is no temple. There hasn't been a temple in Jerusalem since AD 70. If you go to Israel today and you go to Jerusalem, you know one of the most famous scenes in Jerusalem... you know, if you think about New York City, maybe you think of the Statue of Liberty. If you think of Paris, you think of the Eiffel Tower. If you think of London, you think of Big Ben. When you think of a picture of Jerusalem, you often think of the Dome of the Rock, which is that golden-domed mosque building that sits there on the old Temple Mount. All right, so there is no temple there, there is a mosque there nearby where the temple would have been. They're not in the exact same place, I don't believe, but nearby where that temple would have been, there is a mosque there. But today there's no temple there.
So evidently, what we're seeing here is God, obviously in a vision, is asking John to measure this temple, but what this indicates is that before the coming of Christ, there will be a temple in Jerusalem. All right? That's implying that before the coming of Christ, there will be a temple in Jerusalem. Now, some commentators have tried to work around this by making the temple the church. And what they'll say is, okay, the temple, the people, this is the Christian church all around the world that he's measuring. But that doesn't make sense. How do you measure that with a rod? Like, what's the temple? It's not a church building you're measuring. All right? That's just an attempt to try to say, well, there's no temple there, so...
God—there is this view called replacement theology, which believes that God is done with Israel and that the church today has replaced Israel, and God is applying all of God's plans for Israel now for the church. Okay. But I don't think that... In other words, first of all, so many of the prophecies of the Old Testament make no sense if that was the case. There are so many prophecies and promises in the Old Testament that don't make a lot of sense if that was the case. And when you look at the prophecies that were fulfilled, for example, when we look at a prophecy, for example, about Jesus being born in Bethlehem, was he born in Bethlehem figuratively or literally? He was literally born in Bethlehem, right? When he was born of a virgin—there's a prophecy about his being born of a virgin—was he figuratively born of a virgin, or literally born of a virgin? Literally. Okay, when it talks about him being from the tribe of Judah, was that figurative or literal? Literally, he was from the tribe of Judah. When it talks about him being a descendant of Abraham, was he a descendant of Abraham? Yes. When it says he's going to be a son of David, is that literal or figurative? It all was literal in the sense that that's exactly what happened, right?
So therefore, when we get to a passage like in Isaiah that says, "the lion will lay down with the ox and the lamb with the wolf"—sometimes we say the lion and the lamb—but when we have that kind of a prophecy, is that figurative or literal? See, the point is, all the other Old Testament prophecies seem to have been fairly literal in the way they were fulfilled. I think what that prophecy means, personally—I'm not preaching through Isaiah today—but I think what that prophecy means is that someday, how is it that a lion and an ox are going to sit down together? If you're raising cattle, you do not want a lion running around. Okay? If you have sheep, you do not want a wolf roaming around. They will eat them, right? So that means someday, after Jesus returns, there will be a partial reversal of the curse of sin, that some of these animals which are currently hostile to each other won't be that way. In other words, that came because of the curse, and the curse of sin being partially reversed, that won't be the case. And I think that is pretty much a literal statement.
However, what you find in some commentaries is what that means to some people—and I don't think that's what it means. It doesn't matter what it means to you. It means what it means. Basically, people will say, "I read this scripture and to me, it means..." No, no, no, you don't determine the meaning of Scripture. It's not different for every individual. That's just... otherwise, it means nothing. In other words, if a verse can mean anything or everything, then it has no meaning.
So if I say, okay, the Bible says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." What that means to me is that God hates us and that he sent his son because he's a sexist, because he didn't want to send a daughter. And you see how you can twist this? And all kinds of people do this. You come to the Bible and this gets announced... and whoever believes in him will perish, but you don't really have to believe in him, God's not going to make anybody perish anyway. That's what the verse means to me. You just made it mean the opposite of what it's saying. It can't just mean anything, okay? In fact, the meaning of the scriptures are pretty plain. And, it's not that there aren't hard passages of scripture, but the meaning of the scripture is pretty straightforward, pretty plain. Especially the central meaning, the Gospel and so many other things in it, there is not a whole lot of questioning.
It reminds me of Mark Twain, the famous American author. His statement about the scriptures—he was not a Christian, in fact, he was somewhat critical of Christianity—but he said, "It's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that bother me, it's the parts I do." And he was being honest. And what he was saying by that was, some of the things that bothered him in the Bible was the clear meaning of what it said. Not that there were passages that he kind of puzzled over, but that there were some of them that said, "You're a sinner, you're in need of a Savior." That kind of thing bothered him.
And so, I think to completely write Israel out, when here in the book of Revelation we're going to see a lot of Israel... I don't think this is the way to approach this passage or the Bible in general. That God's promises to Israel, when he said to Abraham, "I'll give to you this land, to you and your descendants this land," I, you know, I don't think that just meant that evangelism is going to be done all over the world. I think he was making an actual promise to Abraham, and in fact, it was fulfilled in a partial way—it's not completely in the way it will be, even in the days of David and Solomon. And so I think it's a mistake to leave Israel out. And so to try to make the Israelite temple here, the Lord's temple, into something else, I think, is a mistake.
And then notice what it says in verse 2, "But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months." Now, what does he say? Okay. Measure the temple. Now, I have to be very clear with this word. The word "temple" there means the sanctuary. It's the Greek word, not for the whole complex. So the Israelites had this big complex in Jesus' day, and John would have seen it. It was destroyed by the time he wrote Revelation, but John would have seen it. And there was this large platform where you see pictures of Jerusalem today with the big golden dome, that whole platform, that was the Temple complex.
And Gentiles were allowed in large portions of that, but then there was an area that only—the only way you could pass through a certain gate was to be of Israelite descent. And then there was a gate that you had to be male to pass through, so the women couldn't go so far. First, you had to be an Israelite, but that was called the Court of the Women. And they could walk up some stairs and look over—look over into the area where the worship was being conducted, the sacrifices. And then you have what they called the Court of the Men, and in the area where the priests offered the sacrifices on the brazen altar for the, you know, somebody brought a sin offering there, they'd bring it to the brazen altar.
Now, then inside of that, there was a building. So all of this was open-air. Now you have a building, and in that building, only priests could enter through that door. And that's where the Menorah... you know, at Hanukkah time, the Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah, they have menorahs. There was a menorah in there. That's where that symbol comes from. There was an altar of incense, there was a table of showbread before the Lord. Only priests could go in there. That was the first two-thirds of the sanctuary. All right? And then the back third of it was called the Holiest Place, or the Holy of Holies, and only the high priest could go in there. And he could only go in there once a year. All right, so it got more and more specific as you went further into the complex. So it's not the whole area where the Gentiles could be, but it's narrowing it down to that very specific part of the temple, the sanctuary area of the temple, where the worship took place and was led by the priests. That's what he's having him measure. And he's saying that greater—that greater area out around, don't measure that.
Now, what is this measurement seeming to indicate? The things he's measuring seem to be indicating some level of God's protection. Because notice here he's not protecting... The Lord says he's not going to protect this other area because this city is going to be trodden underfoot by the Gentiles. All right? The Gentile kingdoms are going to tread them underfoot. In other words, there's going to be a time when Gentiles come in and do things in Jerusalem that are damaging and harm people. The Gentile kingdoms.
But when did the Gentile kingdoms begin? Let me invite you to turn to Daniel, because it's very important for us to put this in the context of Daniel, I think, here. As Revelation is very dependent on Daniel and Zechariah. Can you go to Daniel chapter two? What happens in chapter two is Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has a dream. And he says, "Okay, I want you wise men to tell me what dream I had and what it means." And they're like, "Well, tell us the dream, and we'll tell you what it means." He says, "No, no, I'm not playing that game. If you really have the power to interpret it, you have the power to know what it was."
In our English Bible, sometimes he says, "The thing is gone from me," and people think that means he forgot the dream. That "the thing" is the word for a word or a command. "The commandment's gone out. I've already given the commandment. Give me the dream and the interpretation or I'm executing you." Okay? And that's really interesting too, because the Chaldeans, the people that he's calling to interpret the dream... he was out making war, leading the armies of Babylon in conquest when his father died. And they held the throne for him until he got back to Babylon. So the people who put you in power, you're now threatening to execute. That tells you how much absolute power Nebuchadnezzar had. Because today, you know, if you're in Washington, D.C., and somebody helps you get elected, you don't dare cross that person because then you're afraid you won't get reelected, right? Nebuchadnezzar wasn't worried about that.
And so they say, "No king has ever asked this, this is unreasonable. How can we interpret a dream we don't know what it is?" And eventually, the Lord reveals it to Daniel. Daniel, who was taken captive there and trained to be one of the wise men, one of the advisors of the court, he is brought before the king, and he says in verse 31 of Daniel chapter 2, "Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image." Here's your dream. "This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible." Okay, in other words, it caused terror in people. "This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth."
So he says, here's your dream. You saw a big image. The head of it was gold, then its shoulders and its chest were made out of silver, and then its abdomen and thighs were made out of bronze. Those are the metals, they're getting less and less valuable. Then its legs are made out of iron, and its feet are made out of iron and clay. Now, the issue is, though, that even if they get less valuable, it becomes stronger. In the ancient world, they made weapons out of bronze. You didn't make them out of gold, it's too soft. And iron makes an even better weapon if you're going to make a sword. And so they get stronger, but they get less precious, less valuable. He says, this is what you saw, but then you saw this stone, not one made by human hands. It wasn't the work of a human artisan who carved up this stone. It wasn't quarried out. This was a stone made without hands. It comes and crushes this image that you saw. The image becomes dust, and the wind blows that dust away like it was never there.
Verse 36, "This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory." How'd Nebuchadnezzar rule? He was put there by God. Now, don't misunderstand that. That doesn't mean everything Nebuchadnezzar did pleased God. It just means in God's will, He was on the throne. That's what the Psalm says, "promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another." In other words, Xi Jinping is ruler of China right now because it's in God's plan. All right? Donald Trump is president right now because it's in God's plan. And Joe Biden was president previously because it was in God's plan. God is using it. It doesn't mean that those people are getting that because God is rewarding them with how faithful they were. But God is going to use their position there to accomplish what he wants to accomplish. And that's exactly what He was doing. Nebuchadnezzar was there because God put him there.
"And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure."
"Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel..." That's funny, it's not Daniel you should be worshipping. "...and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him. The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret. Then the king made Daniel a great man..."
Now, when did the kingdom of the Gentiles begin? God sets up the kingdom of the Old Testament. He's king over Israel. He leads them out of Egypt. He leads them through mediators. Who's the first mediator? Moses. Who's the second? Joshua, followed by judges, the last of the judges being a prophet named Samuel, followed by who? A king, Saul. God rejects Saul. Who becomes the next king? David. God promises David, because David is a man after God's own heart, he's one who recognizes God is the ultimate king. He's not—he's God's representative. God promises him that his kingdom, you know, one of his descendants will rule forever on his throne. Okay, so God rules that way, but what happens when Israel disobeys God? God says, I'm going to drive you from your land because you've gone after idols instead of the Lord. And God sends them captive to Babylon. And there is no kingdom anymore. In fact, the book of Ezekiel reports that the glory cloud of God that was over the temple in Jerusalem left. It's gone. The glory departed from the temple of Jerusalem, and Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it. They burned the city down, they destroyed the temple. It's not rebuilt until later, until the times of Ezra and Nehemiah, etc. It's rubble.
And so what's going on? Something has changed. God has rejected the kingdom that he set up over Israel, and now he's turned it over to the kingdom of the Gentiles. The first of those kingdoms is Babylon, followed by Persia, that's the silver kingdom, followed by Greece, which is the Bronze kingdom, followed by Rome, which is the iron kingdom, and then what? The remnants of Rome that are left, which is iron and clay. The kingdoms of this Gentile kingdom—we're still in the Gentile kingdom era right now. God's kingdom is not here yet in the sense of ruling on this earth. When that stone comes and crushes all these kingdoms and sets up an eternal kingdom, when Jesus returns, then the kingdoms of the Gentiles will be thrown away and the kingdom of Christ will be established. And that's what's coming. Okay? But there is going to be a time when the Gentile kingdoms tread Jerusalem underfoot. Okay, and look at what it says, for forty and two months. Right, 36 months makes three years, add another six months to that, another half a year, and that gets you 42 months, so that's three and a half years. The tribulation period in Revelation is seven years long, but it's broken into two sections, two three-and-a-half-year sections. So what are we going to see? During this time, the Gentiles will tread on the holy city as it's called here, Jerusalem.
"And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth." All right? You know what that is if you add those days up? You have to understand biblically, there were 30 days in a month. They had a lunar calendar. So they had 360 days in a year rather than 365 and a quarter like we have. And what they would do is they would add a leap month once in a while to get the calendar back up so the seasons worked out. We have a leap day in Leap year to get that quarter day that we keep missing, okay? But they have 360, they have 12 months of 30 days each. And so what we see is if you do these numbers, this is three and a half years. 1,260 days is three and a half years.
And now, who are these? He's gonna go, "I'm going to send two witnesses." Two witnesses. These are not witnesses in the sense of a trial. These are witnesses in the sense of they're coming to give out a message. They're prophets, if you would. "These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth." Now, do you remember Zechariah 4, which was read in our scripture reading? We saw the candlesticks and the olive oil, and there's two people there, right? Zerubbabel, who led the first return to the land after the Babylonians took them captive—the Lord allowed the Persians to allow them to go back to their land—and the man named Zerubbabel, who was a descendant of David, led that return along with the high priest Joshua. And that famous verse, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts," is the Lord saying, it's not—you're going to go back to the land, but it's not going to be by military conquest this time. The Lord's going to work it out. He worked by His Spirit to work in the heart of Cyrus the Great to allow them to go back to their land. Cyrus the Great of Persia. And so he's saying, "this is not a military conquest, but I'm going to use these two men to lead people back to the land and get Israel rooted back in that land and eventually, you're going to rebuild a temple there, etc." It's called the second temple. So these two men are similar in some ways to Zerubbabel and Joshua, and what's similar about them? God's Spirit is working through them. The olive oil, as we mentioned... in fact, it talks about the seven Spirits of God earlier in Revelation a couple of times. And we mentioned that that goes back to Zechariah 4, in reference to Zechariah 4, that the number 7 there, and the olive oil representing the Holy Spirit, that what we see is that the Holy Spirit is going to work through these two men.
"And if any man will hurt them..." so they're going to preach, they're going to be on the earth and preach. "If any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed." So if somebody tries to hurt them, they're preaching and somebody doesn't like their preaching and tries to hurt them, God's going to send fire to devour that person. Anybody who tries to hurt them, God's going to bring judgment. Now, we know this happened in the Old Testament, right? What happens when they try to arrest Elijah? Right? These soldiers come and try to arrest Elijah, and fire comes down and consumes them. Finally, the last guy comes and says, "Wait, wait, wait, can you just come with us? You know, we don't want to die." So we see this in the prophets in the Old Testament. Sometimes God protected his prophets with supernatural judgments. And that's exactly what he's going to do with these two men. During that period, that tribulation period, these two witnesses, these two prophets are going to prophesy, and they're going to prophesy and be protected by God.
"And these have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy." They can proclaim a drought, which would cause a famine in many cases, and it will happen. That happened in Elijah's day as well, right? "Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not." "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," right? The Book of James says. So we see that in the ministry of Elijah. "And have power over waters to turn them to blood." And that sounds familiar. When was water turned to blood in the scriptures? In the Exodus, right? Under Moses. "And to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will." And then plagues, where we see plagues before? In the Exodus.
"And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them." So the beast, which we're going to meet in chapter 13 more significantly, the beast, the Antichrist, is going to kill them. Now, because of all these things about them, there are several theories about who are these two guys, right? The earliest church fathers said that they were Enoch and Elijah. Because "it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment." Did Enoch die? No. Did Elijah die? No, he was caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot, right? So therefore, they reasoned that these guys still have to die, so God's going to send them back to the earth and they'll come and prophesy during that time. So that's one theory, that it's Enoch and Elijah because they haven't died yet.
Let me tell you one drawback of that. There's going to be a whole generation of believers who won't die. Right? I mean, what does 1 Thessalonians say? "We shall not prevent them which are asleep... for the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." So there's going to be a whole generation of Christians caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and you don't die, and your body is changed. So, the idea that, well, they have to die because they haven't died yet... well, the point is, you only die once and after that you answer to God. Okay? So, I think it's not necessarily a hard, fast rule since there's going to be a whole bunch of people caught up and changed, that they didn't die, so they must be the ones.
The other is, who did the apostles, including John, see with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration? Moses and Elijah, right? They literally were there. And so, some have reasoned, when you see the kind of miracles they're doing, they look like Moses' and Elijah's miracles. So God's going to bring Moses and Elijah back to come and prophesy for three and a half years for half of the tribulation period, and they will prophesy on the earth and be witnesses to the Lord. And that's a possibility as well. All right, a third possibility, this is the one I tend to favor, is that these are two men who are—we don't know who they are, as far as their names, their identities—but they will have power like unto Old Testament prophets. The fact that they're compared to Zerubbabel and Joshua, and the fact that they're compared to Moses and Elijah seems to indicate that they will be in character like them. They will be prophetic, like the Old Testament prophets, but they will be people of their generation. That's my preferred interpretation, but really any of the three—the text doesn't tell us who they are. We just know they're prophets. So if you hold a different view than I do, that's fine. This is not a matter of like, if you say, "Jesus isn't coming again," you're wrong. The Bible says he is. If you say, "This is Enoch and Elijah," we can have a conversation about it, but I'm not going to be really dogmatic about it. What I do believe, especially as a teacher, there will be two literal prophets, whoever they are, that will be on the earth prophesying, telling the earth to repent, and the earth isn't going to like them very much. And people will try to kill them, and eventually the Antichrist will succeed.
And then what happens? "And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." So in the streets of that great city—what great city? Spiritually, I notice this, that's an indication that it's telling us that these are metaphors. Spiritually, it's called Sodom. Okay, that was a wicked place, God destroyed it with fire. And Egypt was known for its idolatry. So it's spiritually like Sodom and Egypt, "where also our Lord was crucified." Well, where was Jesus crucified? Jerusalem. All right? That's obvious. We know that from the scriptures. So what this is saying is, this is going to happen in Jerusalem. Their bodies are going to be laid in the streets in Jerusalem, where they're killed, and Jerusalem is going to be spiritually like Sodom and Egypt.
And what are we going to see here is, "And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves." They're going to leave their bodies out there to be, you know, exposed to the elements as a way to shame them. Throughout the ancient world, it was considered shameful to not bury a body or cremate a body or take care of it in some way. If you wanted to, you know, really shame somebody, you would make sure they didn't have a grave. You would make sure they didn't have any kind of memorial after their death. And you mistreat and abuse their bodies.
I remember many years ago now, it was 30 years ago now, we had sent our military to Somalia, and we went in there to try to make sure that the food that was being brought in the country—because there was a famine—to get to the people who needed it. Because there were warlords running the country and they were confiscating the food, not letting the people get what they needed to go. But during that time, what happened was Al-Qaeda basically had infiltrated some of those groups and decided this would be a good place to bring war with the Americans. Even though we were just there to be Meals on Wheels as the military, they were actually viewed as a hostile power, and so therefore, they were attacked. And so there was a famous book called Black Hawk Down written about it and things. But I remember on the news at the time that they killed several U.S. military personnel and dragged their bodies through the streets and showed it all over the news. All right? Now, why did they do that? To show, "Look what we did to the Americans." It was meant to shame those men and America and everything else, okay? So again, today, if somebody dies and nobody deals with their remains, we would view that as shameful. But especially in the ancient world, this is the way. Why are they doing this? They kill these men and then they won't let them have a proper burial. Why? Because they're so mad about what these men were preaching.
"And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry..." They'll be happy. "These guys are dead! Yay, let's have parties! These preachers are gone! Let's have some parties." "...and shall send gifts one to another..." Let's have Christmas! It's not literally Christmas, but it's going to be such a big party where people are bringing each other gifts. I mean, here's the gift I'm giving you this to commemorate the fact that the Antichrist killed those two rotten preachers. "...because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth." Well, one, they plagued their consciences because they didn't like what they preached, and two, when they tried to hurt them, then God harmed those who tried to hurt them, and so therefore, they didn't like that. So they were very happy when these guys were gone. Very, very happy when these men were killed.
And this is unfortunately the response of the fallen human heart. And we've seen it all through human history, right? I mean, Cain killed Abel. We see righteous people killed in the scriptures. Prophets were killed. It may not be reported in the book of Isaiah for us, but according to tradition, according to Jewish and world tradition, the prophet Isaiah was put inside a hollow log and they sawed the log in half with him inside of it, and they killed him. So you can go through many of the prophets in the Old Testament and see that they were mistreated. I mean, what did Jezebel try to have done to Elijah? She wanted him dead because he preached the truth. And so we see as the gospel truth and repentance is preached, these people on the earth are not happy with that. And so they're very happy when these guys are gone. "Stop bothering us with this preaching," and all of this kind of thing. And that's where their corrupt fallen human heart is. See, the heart is desperately wicked, who can know it? There's one answer to that: the Lord alone knows the heart.
See what we like to do is, we like to pretend as sinners. A native part of our sinfulness is that we put on a veneer of respectability. And we deceive ourselves of our sins. To the point that when we see somebody else doing something, we go, "That was mean, that was terrible." But when we do it, we're like, "I was just kidding. It wasn't... you don't understand, I had a reason to do it." We justify it. The capacity of the human heart to justify our own sin is pretty grand, pretty great. And we're all sinners and we're all guilty of it. And if you've ever been around somebody who has an addiction, for example... I remember there was a man who came to our church during the week, this was several years ago now, and he wanted something to eat and he needed some money. And so I started asking him some questions and I said—and I could tell—I said, "Sir, where are you staying?" He said, "Well, I live in the woods." And I said to him, I sat him down, I said, "Do you have an addiction? Are you struggling with drugs or alcohol or something?" He was honest. He said "Yes, yes, cocaine." And I said—he said, "But I quit." I said, "Really? When did you quit?" "Yesterday." That's always the response of an addict. They quit yesterday. And then they fall back into it, then they quit yesterday, and then they fall back and quit, and they quit... this is a big problem with people with an addiction.
But the fact is here is a man who his life was so spiraled down that he didn't have a place to live, he couldn't keep a job, he didn't have food to eat, because he'd much rather have drugs than food. He was spending his money and his resources on those kinds of things. I've had people come by here and offer to take their EBT card—because the government has given it to them to buy food—and say, "I'll buy you some food at the grocery store and trade it for you for the equivalent dollar value so I can get some money." It's illegal for me to do that, I can explain that to them. You know, I can't do this, it would be illegal. But why did they want to do that? If they just needed food, they'd just buy the food on the EBT card. They want the money because the drug dealer doesn't take an EBT card.
And that's not just to pick on people with addictions. It's all kinds of things. We tend to justify and think we're a lot better people than we are when we're sinners. And that's not to say that we're all, you know, serial killers, but it is to say every one of us has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Every one of us is a sinner who's rebelled against God. We've all turned to our own way and we justify our sin and act like we didn't do anything wrong. That's what's natively in our heart.
Go all the way back to Adam and Eve. When the Lord comes into the garden, he's used to going to walk with Adam in the cool of the day and fellowship with him, he says, "Adam, where are you?" He knows exactly where Adam is. And Adam says, "I'm hiding. I'm ashamed." "Why are you ashamed?" "Because I'm naked." "Well, how do you know you're naked? You ate from the tree, didn't you?" "Yes... but that woman you gave me! It wasn't me, God, it was Eve. And it's your fault, you made her. The woman you gave me." And He says to Eve, "What did you do?" And she says, "That serpent!" So what is their natural—is their natural response to say, "We have sinned, we deserve judgment, forgive us"? No, their natural response is, "Yeah, we did it, but you don't understand. We had to. We couldn't help it." See, that's the minimization that's native to the sinfulness of our humanity. All of us as humans—the only human that ever lived that wasn't a sinner... obviously Adam and Eve weren't created sinners, but they became sinners after their sin. But the only one who never sinned was Jesus. All the rest of us are sinners and we come under God's judgment because of our sinfulness.
And so we don't like when people tell us to repent. We don't like when we hear the gospel. But the good news of the gospel says, even though we're sinners who deserve condemnation, the good news of the gospel is that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We couldn't save ourselves. There was nothing we could do to undo our sin. There was nothing we could do to pay for our sins. But God loved us so much that He sent his Son, the second person of the Triune Godhead, the Son, Jesus Christ, who lived on the earth a perfectly righteous life. He died on a cross for our sins. He didn't die on the cross because he was a sinner, because he had done wrong. He bore our sins in his body on that tree, and he died. He was laid in a grave. After three days, he came out of that tomb and he conquered death. Because Jesus has died and risen again, we can have the sure hope of eternal life, that all who will come unto him and believe will be saved. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If we come in repentant faith to Jesus Christ—by repentance, I don't mean penance or doing good works, I mean that heart of contrition towards sin that says, "Lord, I'm a sinner. I've tried to do this my own way. It's wrong. I deserve condemnation. My only hope is Jesus Christ." If we will come in repentant faith in Jesus Christ, the Bible says we have eternal life. Maybe you're here with us today, you've never come to faith in Christ. I want to invite you today. After this service is over, please find me, you can find one of the elders... in fact, most of our church members could help you or take you to somebody who could help you. But we'd love to show you from the Bible how you can know Christ and through knowing Christ, life eternal. Don't let your own fallen sinful heart hold you away from this, because there is hope, but the only hope is in Jesus.
Now, what do we see here in verse 11? "And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them." Now, this is going to be amazing. They've been dead for three and a half days, and they come back to life. There's only one that has the power to do that. They come back to life, God raises them from the dead, and people see it. All right? And how do they respond? "And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither." So God calls them to heaven. "And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them." God catches them up to heaven like the ascension of Jesus. It's evidently slow enough that you can watch them go up. This is going to be seen. I mean, come on, today with the way that we can cover everything with Internet and satellites and everything else... if there are these guys that everybody hates and they get killed and their bodies are just laid in the streets for three and a half days, the world will be glued to this. They'll be watching it. They'll be having parties, doing all these kinds of things. And all of a sudden, boom, they're alive. And then the next thing you know, they're hearing a voice from heaven that says, "Come up here," and they go up to heaven. This would be terrifying if you're one of the ones who's on the other end. Because you thought you had defeated these guys, and it turns out you haven't.
Not only that, "And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven." Seven thousand people died in Jerusalem from an earthquake, because there's an earthquake at the same time when these men are called to heaven. So God's kind of letting them know that he's in charge. But notice what the earthquake does. We see people repenting after the earthquake. They give glory to God. There are people who repent because of this. In other words, the preaching of these two witnesses isn't completely in vain. People have been hearing it. They might rejoice when they're dead, but when they see this miracle and the earthquake and the judgment of God, there is some repentance that takes place.
Right now, it's understandable all throughout human history and the message of the Bible is not everybody who hears the message repents. Unfortunately, that's the case. Did Cain repent of his sin? Not really. Not significantly. Are there times when we see repentance in people? Yes. But is it everybody? No. Okay, in the wilderness generation, in the wilderness, and the Lord is leading them in the wilderness, are they all repenting? No, there's a lot of times they're grumbling against God, right? And some repent of that, and some don't. But the fact is, as the truth of the Gospel message is preached and as the truth of the scriptures are preached, there are people who hear and repent. The work of the Holy Spirit happens in their lives, and they come under conviction by the work of the Holy Spirit, and they repent. And we thank God, that's great news. And there are some who don't.
But here we're going to see... See, I think what we need to understand is because we see all these judgments in preparation for Jesus' return, we tend to see this and we think there's nothing spiritually going on during this time. But that's not the case. I mean, there's going to be 144,000 people called by God to preach and be God's representatives that God protects. And there's going to be many, many, many others. I mean, you see this multitude in heaven who were killed during the tribulation period. These huge multitudes with voices like roaring waters, and they're saying, "Worthy is the Lamb," and they died during the tribulation. There are spiritual things going on. So don't think the tribulation period when that time comes will mean that there is no spiritual work of God going on. That's not the case. There will be people who hear and repent. The gospel doesn't cease to be preached, and the good news of Christ doesn't cease to exist because this judgment is come. It's an unusual time.
"The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly." So here we get to verse 14, and we see, there's been proclaimed that there's going to be three woes, and the second woe has now gone past with this earthquake and these two witnesses.
This is really a marvelous passage of Scripture. Obviously, all scripture is... "All scripture is given by inspiration of God." But we have this wonderful passage of scripture, one that tells us that, you know, God is protecting... God's protection's on this part of the temple he's measured. He allows the other part of it to be trodden underfoot. And he protects those witnesses for a while, and then they do get killed. But even then, it's not death to die for them. God raises them and brings them to heaven. And then there's even the hopefulness of some repent and glorify God. So this isn't a completely hopeless thing.
And what we see here is, you know, the beast is not powerful enough. He is not powerful enough to stop God. He might get more power than other humans, and might be able to kill these two witnesses, but he can't stop God's plan. The Antichrist would love to stop God's plan. He'll be able to harm believers, those who profess faith in Christ, but he won't be able to stop God's plan. And it's wonderful news, because one of the things we see in this passage, it's like a small model of it, but it's like the whole book of Revelation is saying this, and that is there's going to be some terrible things that happen, but in the end, God wins.
You know, I think of that song, "This Is My Father's World." "O let me ne'er forget, That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet." Okay, so, yes, in this life, we see sometimes that righteousness is not exalted, and sometimes wicked people seem to win temporarily. But in the end, God wins. Righteousness wins. Truth wins, holiness wins, in the end. And judgment comes ultimately on the wicked. Because we know the end of the beast. You get to chapter 19, and the beast and the false prophet are cast alive into the lake of fire. So his end is known. Satan's end is known. He's going to the Lake of Fire someday. He's going to be defeated. It hasn't happened yet, but it's coming.
And so we can take hope as believers. This is meant for us to take hope. Yes, there's a message here for us to learn about not having hard hearts for the preaching of God's word and the preaching of repentance. But there's also a message that for those of us who hope in Jesus Christ, that hope isn't just... "don't worry, be happy." That hope is there's a sure truth that Jesus is coming again, and he's going to win. You don't want to be on the other side, even though it looks like they're winning right now. They lose. Satan, the Antichrist, the world's kingdom... the kingdoms of the Gentiles, they're going to be crushed by that rock that was cut without hands. The kingdom of Jesus will crush it, and Jesus will return and set up his kingdom. And that's what this passage is telling us. So there's a lot of hope. I mean, there's a lot here that's miraculous, and there's a lot here that's amazing here, but we're not supposed to focus just on the miraculous and amazing, although we never discount them, but to focus on the overall message. All right? God hasn't forgotten his people, God's going to win. The Lord's going to win. Let's pray.