Revelation 11:1-4

The Lamb Judges the Church You Can See

A sermon by Pastor Joe Haynes

Preached on February 3, 2019 at Beacon Church

We saw last week that the next four chapters are loosely patterned after Ezekiel’s “little scroll” prophecy against Jerusalem and the Jews (Eze 2-24). The Jews presumed God was on their side even while the warnings from God’s prophets were ignored. It came as a great shock when Ezekiel showed God would judge them first before He judged the neighbouring nations. More alarming was that God announced He would start judging inside the Temple, with the priests, and then move to the rest of Jerusalem, and finally to the rest of the nations (Eze 8-9). Seeing this in Ezekiel helped me understand a passage in 1st Peter that has troubled me for a long time:

“For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1Pe 4:17 ESV)

Judgement begins at the household of God. The sixth trumpet (in Rev 9) brought us to the middle of the 1400s. The interlude in chapter 10 portrayed an era when God's Gospel would once again be proclaimed on the earth. When you put all this together, a careful reading of the book of Revelation should give the reader the sense that by the time we get to chapter 11, John is describing a church that is like a piece of overripe fruit past the time for picking and rotten on the inside. Talking about the visible Church Augustine said, “there are very many sheep without, and very many wolves within”.[i] Perhaps the church will be perfect in heaven, but on earth even the pastor could be a wolf in sheep's clothing. As Jesus taught us in Matthew 13, the church is like a field where the wheat and weeds grow up together. Only at the Judgement of the Last Day will He separate them, burn all the weeds and gather the wheat (Mt 13:24-30). While any congregation—every congregation—is a bit like that, Revelation predicts a church so far gone, so full of wolves, that the final judgements of Revelation are concentrated on one church. This passage reveals 3 distinguishing marks of the true Church of Jesus Christ.

The True Church Consists of Forgiven Worshippers

“Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, "Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there…” (Rev. 11:1 ESV). Did you notice what John was told to measure? The temple, okay. The altar? That seems a bit weird. And the worshippers? How do you measure worshippers? The symbolism becomes easier to understand when you notice John doesn't do anything with the measuring rod he was given. When did John actually measure the Temple? If you keep reading expecting him to go and measure something, you’re not going to find it. This indicates that the job of measuring, and the Temple itself, are not literal but symbolic. It's also a continuation from chapter 10--remember the chapters and verses aren't part of the original book. In the previous verse, John was commanded to prophesy again: “And I was told, "You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings,” (Rev. 10:11 ESV). So measuring the temple is a way to prophesy against the nations. To judge. Now if John didn't literally measure a literal temple, how does he do what he's told in verse 1? And the answer is, by "again prophesying"--by writing down the vision of the Two Witnesses (verses 3-13), The Woman and the Dragon (ch. 12), A Beast from the sea and a Beast from the land (ch. 13), and Messages of The Three Angels (ch. 14). Each of those scenes are prophecies that "measure the temple": each of them show its limits, its edges, the boundary between what is true and what is false in this "symbolic temple" and the worship that happens there.

If you aren't careful reading Revelation, it's easy to forget to keep symbols distinct from the things they stand for. Even great preachers sometimes see that this Temple and the measuring is symbolic, but then claim it also represents a literal Temple. (Following that example, maybe Christians who have fish symbols on the back of their cars should make sure they always have some cod or salmon with them? Unless the fish symbol stands for something other than fish?) In chapter 8, when John saw a heavenly temple and an angel acting as High Priest, this too is a figure standing for something other than a temple. The real Temple had been destroyed by the Romans 25 years before John was shown this vision. Really, though, the Temple was superseded by Jesus, and then, when He sent the Holy Spirit, by the Church. This word for "temple" in verse 1 is naos (a "dwelling place"); another NT word for "temple" is hieros (a "sacred place"). In the Gospel of John, for example, John always calls the physical Temple building a "sacred place", and only used this word "dwelling place" for the body of Jesus. John’s readers would have understood “the Temple” to symbolize the Church as God's new "dwelling place,” especially since that was already a normal way of using the word “temple” in the New Testament before the Jerusalem Temple was even destroyed—it had already been superseded: "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple."  (1Co 3:16-17 ESV)

This helps us interpret what measuring the Temple means: John's task is to show the limits, the boundaries, of the temple, altar, and worshippers. To define what the true temple is--the dwelling place of God, the Church. To define what the true altar is--the way that believers are forgiven, saved, and become part of the Church. To define what true worship is and so to show who the true worshippers are, the true Church. After showing what the true Church of Jesus Christ is, John will show what it is not: “but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months,” (Rev. 11:2 ESV). The image is of the outer court in the old Temple, called "the Court of the Gentiles" (or "nations"). And in verse 2, that word "leave out" is literally "throw out"--the effect of John's prophetic unveiling of the true Church will be to expose and expel the False Church. The Church, like Augustine said, has wolves mixed in with the sheep; Jesus said the weeds grow together with the wheat. This means that the Church we can see might not be what it appears. John was sent to prophesy the judgement of false worship posing as Christian.

In Revelation 11-14, the chapters that "measure the Church", the members, the worshippers in the True Church are defined as those who depend on the blood of the Lamb. In 12:11, they overcome "by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony"; in 13:18, "their names are written... In the book of life of the Lamb who was slain"; in 14:4, they are the "undefiled" who "follow the Lamb wherever He goes", who "have been redeemed from mankind" for the Lamb. The symbol of the altar in the Temple says in one picture what a thousand sermons preach: that the only way to be part of the True Church is to be cleansed and redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, saved by His death, and to follow Him forever. John's prophetic ministry will expose and expel, will throw out, pretenders, wolves, religious people who go to church but don't rest their faith exclusively on the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus.

John was told to "throw out" and to "not measure" the outer court of the "nations" because it had been given over to them, along with the whole symbolic city of Jerusalem, to be trampled down. [read v2b] The significance of this is huge--it's like those easter eggs included in recent movies. It says a lot more than you might think. First remember that this area outside the main temple represents the Church as we can see it--including true worshippers and false worshippers. In other words, the worldly, impure, false Christianity will trample the visible Church and subdue it. For how long? For 42 months. Jesus just connected the overrunning of the true Church with the domination of the beast from Daniel 7:25 [read]. Daniel's prophecy foretold that when the Roman Empire was replaced by 10 lesser kingdoms, another different sort of kingdom would rise up among them and the holy people of God would be dominated by him for three-and-a-half "times". If each of those times is a symbolic Jewish year, it equals 42 symbolic months. Theologians usually call this ruler the Antichrist. Jesus was sending John to expel the church of the Antichrist. The first way John does this is by prophesying about Two Witnesses…

The True Church Convicts by Its Witness

“And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth,” (Rev. 11:3 ESV). Three points stand out in this verse: The legal role of the witnesses, the length of their witnessing, and the lament of their witness. First century Jewish readers could not have missed the Old Testament importance of the number of these witnesses.

·         "A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established." (Deu 19:15 ESV)

·         " On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness." (Deu 17:6 ESV)

·         "Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses." (2Co 13:1 ESV)

The testimony of just one witness was not admissible in court. Two witnesses is the bare minimum. Why would God send only two witnesses? Because at the time predicted by this prophecy, true Christianity would be so badly overrun/trampled by the false Church of the Antichrist that true Christian worship would be almost extinct (verse 8 predicts they will eventually be wiped out altogether).

The length of their witness confirms the connection with the false Church of the Antichrist. 1260 days is exactly 42 months if you count by the so-called Jewish year of 12 30-day months. It’s also exactly 3.5 years on that calendar system. I want you to stretch your imagination though, and picture this as a much longer period of time by many more than just two individuals. Verse 4 will show why these can’t be just two men, but let me first explain the meaning of the “1260 days”. Since this is a vision of signs, a prophecy of 1260 days should be understood in line with the common rule in Old Testament predictions: When God punished Israel in the wilderness, He sentenced them to a year of wandering for each day of their disobedience, Numbers 14:34 says, “…a year for each day you shall bear your iniquity forty years”. The prophet Ezekiel was given the same scale of a year for each symbolic day in his prophecy against Israel and Judah in Ezekiel 4:5-6. And Daniel’s prediction of 490 days before which Messiah would come was fulfilled as a year for each symbolic day (Dan 9:24-27). This means Jesus was going to ensure that a Christian remnant would testify against the false Church of the Antichrist for 1260 years. And they would do so “in sackcloth”—in lament and in repentance. The humble repentance of the true Church would be a painful contrast with the proud, bold corruption of false Christianity.

The True Church Is Characterized by Light and Good Works

“These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth,” (Rev. 11:4 ESV). This additional description of the Two Witnesses comes from Zechariah 4, a prophecy given when Jewish refugees from Babylon were struggling to rebuild the Temple in the ruins of the city of Jerusalem. God had called them to rebuild the Temple, but they faced overwhelming obstacles. Humanly, the work they were trying to do was impossible. Then Zechariah has a vision where he sees a golden lampstand with two olive trees to the side--the lampstand stands for the Church, that they will be God's light and finish the Temple, not on human strength, but by the empowering of the Holy Spirit (Zech 4:7). Then Zechariah asked what the olive trees mean, and the angel explained that these olive trees are a constant source of oil flowing from their branches into the lampstands so that the light never goes out: they stand for the men through whom the Spirit of God makes the Church able to stand. The rebuilding of the Temple was led by two men, the priest Joshua, and the governor Zerubbabel. “Then he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts,” and, “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it,” (Zech. 4:6, 9a ESV) The Spirit of God made their light shine, and that light included Spirit-empowered work—the building of the new temple (c.f. Ezra 5:2). But having a temple with no light is what got the first temple destroyed. That same Holy Spirit empowerment for “light”—testifying about the knowledge of God by His Word—and “good works” is a basic part of the lampstand and olive tree symbolism we should expect to see in the Two Witnesses. Also that Christ alone is their King, and He will vindicate them (v4b).

Finally—and I left this point for last because it’s one that might surprise many readers of Revelation-- John is shown, in verse 4, that The Two Witnesses would combine Zechariah’s lampstand and olive trees together. This is not a prediction then about two individual men. Verse 4 predicts they will be olive trees “and” lampstands. This is a prediction about the true Church. Zechariah’s olive trees were two individuals—Joshua and Zerubbabel, yes. But the lampstand was the whole congregation, the “church”. And these two witnesses, verse 4 says, are both. One more clue is enough to prove that The Two Witnesses are the true Christian Church empowered by the Spirit to shine the light and do good works. In the book of Revelation itself, Jesus said that Lampstands are a symbol for churches: “As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches,” (Rev. 1:20 ESV).  (Stars=angels; lampstands=churches, so to interpret these two lampstands as individual men would be to contradict how Jesus interprets lampstands in chapter 1.)

There are a lot of books about the marks of a healthy church. And that’s an important topic. But that’s not what this passage is about really: this is a passage that predicts a time when Jesus would use John’s prophecies to “measure” the true Church, to show who is in it and who is not, and to show that the true church will stand out from the false church by its worship, by its witness, and by its works. Next week we will learn more about the Two Witnesses and how this prophecy was fulfilled—including the identity of the Church of Antichrist. But for now you can see that like 3 strands in these verses, the Temple in verses 1-2, the Two Witnesses in verse 3, the two olive trees and lampstands in verse 4, weave together to form a single cord: A true Church with forgiven worshippers, with a convicting witness, and with light and good works. John was predicting a time when almost everyone would be fooled by the false church of Antichrist; when these prophecies would be instrumental in revealing the difference between the true Church and an impostor religion.

Until next week, though, I want you to remember what I said earlier about true worshippers: you must put your whole faith in the forgiveness of sin made possible by the blood of the Lamb, by Jesus Christ. You must commit to following the Lamb, following Jesus. You must believe in Him in order to have peace that your name too is written in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. Because, as I quoted from 1 Peter at the beginning of this sermon:

“For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1Pe 4:17 ESV)