“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, 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. And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.’ These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire. And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth. But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here!’ And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come. Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.’ And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, ‘We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign. The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.’ Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.”

The Full Measure of the Lord

Of the many, many ways available for people to waste their time, internet videos seem to make up a significant portion of the trap. I don’t really care what platform it’s offered from – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube – it’s really irrelevant, because the opportunity to burn away literal hours consuming the mental equivalent of cotton candy is everywhere. But, it’s not all political rage-baiting, sitcom clips, and teacup pigs riding unicycles (I’ve never actually seen a teacup pig on a unicycle, but I’m willing to bet it’s out there), if we’re willing to bypass, or at the very least limit the empty, mind-numbing content, there are actually things we can learn. Be it about cooking, science, literature, philosophy, or how to change your own oil, there’s a lot of valuable information, and over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself down a religious debate rabbit hole. I know what I believe, I know why I believe what I believe – but it also stands to reason that if I’m going to tell someone else that what they believe is wrong, it would be helpful to know something about their views. And so I’ve watched Christians have conversations with atheists, Christians have conversations with Muslims, former Muslims discuss their conversion to Christianity, Protestants have conversations with Catholics, and (and this is where I’m going with all this), exposure of theft, fraud, false prophecy, sexual abuse, and a smattering of other blatantly sinful practices within some of America’s largest charismatic churches (because if you’re going to sell false prophecy, it’s got to be in charismatic circles). I watched a “pastor,” stand before his congregation and both twist Scripture and blatantly lie to explain why he had not only reinstated a sexual predator as a senior leader of this church, but also made him president and CEO of their board, ensuring that he had no oversight. Best case scenario, the “pastor,” with his brittle excuses is just a fool, worst case scenario, he’s consciously practicing evil against his own church, but in either case, he has failed to uphold his responsibilities as a church elder, and has sold his congregation out to thinly veiled wolves. And on that particular video, there was a comment that put things harshly into perspective, “How is it that this guy has the discernment of a baseball bat?” Jesus says in Matthew 7:15,

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”

He doesn’t teach, “There’s nothing you can do about this, you’re going to get totally blindsided, and it’s going to be awful.” He goes on to say in verses 16–20,

“You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”

Society has browbeaten many Christians so that we’re terrified to state judgement concerning anything. There are those who keep the truth to themselves, not wanting to be thought of as overly harsh. This is a fair caution, as there are those who loudly berate people, lording their piety over them in a way that’s not remotely Biblical. But we’re not called to keep the truth to ourselves, rather we give witness to who the Truth is. Backing up just a little to Matthew 7:1–5, we see Jesus teach

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

This is a highly quoted passage, and as we’ve discussed before, the world really likes to quote this, stopping with the first verse. Unfortunately, some Christians don’t know what the Word actually says, and stop at the first verse too. We can layer on a little more clarity by looking at Jude 9, which says,

“But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’”

Michael, the archangel, who we see in Daniel named as a “great prince” who is given charge over the people of Israel, and who we see in Revelation 12 war against Satan, won’t pronounce a judgement. But it doesn’t tell us that Michael had nothing to say, that because he lacked the authority to act as judge, to lay condemnation on the enemy, or he acted as though he had no distinction for right or wrong. He knew Satan was evil, he knew that the adversary’s actions were contemptible, but he didn’t appeal to his own sense of justice or righteousness, he appealed to the One who is the standard – he looked to the Lord. We are not called to judge by our own standards, we are not called to discern by our own sense of right and wrong, or to interpret Scripture based around our own desires or the will of our flesh, because doing so in any of these areas would be corrupt, hypocritical, and blasphemous. The very first thing we read from today’s passage is that John is,

“… given a measuring rod, like a staff…”

And with it, he is told to measure. Again as with the eating of the scroll we saw last week, there is a similarity to Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 40 he is given a vision of the new temple, and sees a man with an appearance like bronze who measures out the temple with a measuring reed that is roughly ten and a half feet long. Ezekiel is told to look with his eyes, to hear with his ears, and to set his heart upon what he will see, but he doesn’t do the measuring himself. John on the other hand is given the measuring rod and told to take the measurements himself, not just to look and listen, but to approach, and to play an active part. His active participation is emphasized even more by the fact that the rod he’s given is likened to a staff. A staff is order and authority – it was Moses’ staff that God used to first show him the signs he would present before his people, it became the serpent that ate the serpents of Pharaoh’s magicians, it was used to turn the Nile to blood, to part the Red Sea, and to bring forth water from the rock in the wilderness. It was Aaron’s staff that bloomed, confirming that he was the one chosen as high priest. A staff is a tool, a weapon, and walking aid. The fact that John is given something like a staff to measure with is not a random comparison or coincidence. As we delve into today’s passage and ultimately arrive at the seventh and final trumpet, I want us to consider what it means to measure, and be measured by what God has given us, what it means to lean upon His wisdom rather than our own understanding, and who we are in our witness of Him, in our opposition to the world, and in the glory that comes from Him and Him alone.

1. The Measured Witness

“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, 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.”

The entire ending of the book of Ezekiel, chapters 40-48 is devoted to the measurements of the temple, the division of the land, and the provision that God promises to His people. There are designations for the observances of feasts, to temple practices and procedures, and a significant amount of detail is given to the promise made. John is charged with far less detail in a structural sense, tasked to measure the temple and altar, and exclude the entire outer court, but there’s great significance in that he is told to measure those who worship in the temple. It’s fascinating that God once again delivers the people what they have asked for, just as He did from the very beginning of the tribulation with the false peace of the first seal. When we see Jesus cleanse the temple in the gospel accounts, it is largely because of the condition of the outer court. If you look at a breakdown of the temple, there’s the outer court, then the women’s court where, in case the name didn’t give it away, women were permitted, then an inner court where men could worship. The outer court had been given over to salesmen and money changers – those in the business of selling sacrificial animals, and offering the currency to pay the temple tax at exorbitant exchange rates. The entire practice was corrupt, but what made it worse is that the outer court should have been a place of worship for God-fearing non-Jews. The outer court of the temple was still part of the temple, it was still devoted to God, which is why it’s included in the measurements shown to Ezekiel. What the swindlers and extortionists had done was taken up sinful practice on temple grounds, stacking one transgression on top of the other. Jesus took the measure of those found in the temple, and His response is visible in the furious zeal on display during the cleansing, as well as in passages like Matthew 23 where He berates the Pharisees and Scribes for their hardness of heart and crooked teachings. Jesus ends this tirade saying in Matthew 23:37–39,

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

You can’t worship God frivolously or halfheartedly, you can’t honor Him with your tongue and not with your heart. And so we see the area that was once dismissed and handed over to salesmen and money lenders is cut off, it’s given over to the world. There are two ways that we can think about how this is actually happening. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and was never rebuilt. There are those who believe that before the tribulation the Jews will rebuild, and that when this speaks of the outer court being given over and the holy city trampled it means literally. The other school of thought is that this is symbolic, and that we as believers are this temple. This comes from passages like 1 Corinthians 3:16–17,

“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.”

And Ephesians 2:18–22,

“For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

People can get really confused reading Revelation because parts are very literal, parts are symbolic, and it’s not always abundantly clear as to which is which, which is why there is such heated debate over certain sections, if not the book as a whole. The first thing we have to cling to throughout all of this is the foundation established in Revelation 1:1, and remember that this all comes back to Christ, it’s all about Him. It’s also helpful to remember that things don’t have to be only literal or symbolic, they can be both. Jerusalem, the literal city is relevant throughout Scripture. It’s where Melchizedek, who is called the “priest of God Most High,” in Genesis 14 was the king of Salem, what would become Jerusalem. This is before Sodom and Gomorrah, it’s before Isaac was born, it’s before Abraham was even called Abraham – this is early Scripture, as Jerusalem is already a place of significance. It remained a point of importance when the people of Israel failed to take it back from the Jebusites during the conquest of the promised land, and it was a great triumph when God delivered the city into David’s hands during his reign as king. The idea that Jerusalem, the literal geographic location where two temples have been built and destroyed, a place that remains contested over between Jews and Muslims to this day, could remain relevant through to the tribulation makes complete sense. However the idea that, for what we’ve read today to be accurate there has to be a third temple built there is unnecessary – we’ve read Scripture that points directly to the children of God being the temple for the Holy Spirit, we know the seal that God has placed on His 144,000, and the spiritual armor that is given to all who place their faith in Him. It makes sense to think that in this time, while the temple that is each believer is preserved, the outer court – the entire western culture that was born and shaped by Christianity – that which enjoys the philosophical framework of God while giving no glory to who He truly is, is handed over to be trampled to pieces. Because as we can see, while Jerusalem may maintain significance, and may one day be redeemed during the thousand year reign, the holy city is no longer regarded as the holy city – Jerusalem that is later in this same passage called Sodom and Egypt. This place, which has been given such prominence, which should be a light upon a high hill, has become a place of darkness and evil, one where the vilest of evils spills forth upon the rest of the world.

“And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.’ These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.”

The two witnesses are yet another debated topic in Revelation. Some hold that the two are again symbolic of all believers. While the temple idea applying to all Christians has Scriptural weight behind it, and at the very least the partial symbolism makes sense, but applying this to the two witnesses doesn’t track for me. The specification that there are two of them doesn’t make sense symbolically, and the language echoes straight from Zechariah 4:11–14, which is specifically referring to two figures,

“Then I said to him, ‘What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?’ And a second time I answered and said to him, ‘What are these two branches of the olive trees, which are beside the two golden pipes from which the golden oil is poured out?’ He said to me, ‘Do you not know what these are?’ I said, ‘No, my lord.’ Then he said, ‘These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.’”

But even if we’re in agreement that there are actually two men who stand as these witnesses, there’s further debate and theories around their identities. Some believe that the two are Enoch and Elijah, the two figures from the Old Testament who never underwent bodily death. Another common teaching is that the two are Moses and Elijah, and I admit, nothing against Enoch, but I find this more compelling. Partly because Moses and Elijah are the two seen speaking with Jesus at the transfiguration, but also because of the abilities they’re granted as they carry out their mission. We’re told that if anyone comes to harm them, “fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes.” We talked last week about the fire of God, the pillar that led the way as God used Moses to usher His people from Egypt, and the fire that Elijah called from heaven, proving God the victor against the empty, pagan idols and conquering the prophets of Baal. What’s more, Exodus 7:20–21 recounts the first plague against Egypt,

“Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood. And the fish in the Nile died, and the Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.”

And 1 Kings 17:1 says,

“Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, ‘As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.’”

So it’s not only their presence at the transfiguration, but their plagues they bring forth that could point to Moses and Elijah. However we’re not told their identities, and there’s significance to that as well. What we are told is their goal, their mission, their entire purpose, which is to bear witness, to testify – their identities, while certainly interesting to speculate over, are ultimately irrelevant because everything that needs to be known about them, their message, and their power is that they are witnesses of God. The outer court is given over to be trampled by the world for a three and a half years (forty-two months), and the two witnesses will testify for the same three and a half years (1,260 days), in direct opposition to the wicked masses. We see the witnesses dressed in sackcloth, humbly as one mourning or in a state of repentance. Their power and their glory isn’t in their attire, just as it’s not in their names, but is found in their testimony. These two stand in the midst of the storm, in the midst of the chaos of an unrestrained, unrepentant, broken and rotting world, and they conquer. They testify for three and a half years, proclaiming the glory of the Living God, and visiting His continued judgment on the people who continue in their rebellion. This is the measure of the witnesses, of those who stand in the name of the Lord.

2. The Measured Opposition

“And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them…”

The role of the witnesses was to witness. Once that was finished, once their testimony was complete, they are allowed to be conquered and killed. The matter of beasts can sometimes get confusing in Revelation, as we have the mention of the beast from the bottomless pit here (translated as “abyss,” the same place that the locusts came forth from), then in Revelation 13 there is the first beast from the sea that is the antichrist, and the second beast that is the false prophet, as well as the image of the first beast which the people are made to worship, and the corresponding mark that is the name or number of the beast. We then have the scarlet beast in Revelation 17, upon whom sits the great prostitute that is called Babylon. We’ll obviously address all of these in more detail as we get to each passage, but to try to simplify things a little – the beast we read of today who kills the witnesses, the first beast that is the antichrist, and the scarlet beast in Revelation 17 are all thought to be the same. If we think about it, the antichrist is the human embodiment of the will of Satan, he is a man who doesn’t just foster the spirit of the antichrist that is at work in the world today, but he will fully and extravagantly embody it. Satan is shown as a great red dragon (or “scarlet beast” if you will) in Revelation 12, with seven heads and ten horns, which is the same physical description as the first beast, and the beast in Revelation 17. If you’re wondering how the antichrist is killing the two witnesses in Revelation 11 when he hasn’t come on the scene yet, let me offer something that will either help, or just break your brain all the way. In Revelation 17:7–8 the angel accompanying John says to him,

“Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.”

We have to remember that God exists outside of time, His judgement exists outside of time, and so while Satan is present and active in the world today, and while he will rise up to fruitlessly war against God, his defeat, subsequent judgment, and eternal punishment are already decided. Revelation 1:8 says,

“‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’”

However Satan and his attendant power is described as “was, is not, and is to come.” There are certainly deeds that the enemy has done, and certainly things he will be allowed to do, as the nations pursue their flesh and chase after the tempter, but he also is not – he is a phantom, a shadow, a creeping darkness that when thrust into the light was never there to begin with. His spirit is active and moving in the world today, and it is in this spirit that the two witnesses will be killed at the conclusion of their testimony – but his power is measured, his limit is mercifully restrained, and his end has already been decided.  

“… and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.”

We discussed before the possibility of the trampling of the “holy city” possibly having some symbolism, maybe not being centered on literal Jerusalem, or at the very least, not being limited to just Jerusalem. The death of the witnesses however doesn’t leave the room for symbolic interpretation, we’re told exactly where this takes place. There are many places that could likely be symbolically called Sodom or Egypt, likely fewer that could actually be called both. But that’s not the only descriptor we’re given, and there was only one place where the Lord was crucified, and that was Jerusalem. As we read Jesus say earlier in Matthew 23:37,

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!..”

Those who were supposed to be at the center of God’s people are the ones who killed the prophets, who crucified their Messiah, and it is here in this same place that the two witnesses are killed. It’s staggering to read what is written, to really take in the depth to which the city of David has stooped that in the midst of the suffering of the tribulation they have reached new lows and become the worst of the worst, revealed by the fact that they are called Sodom and Egypt. Sodom that was chaos, that was tainted with perverse sin and debauchery, that wore its rebellion proudly in its wild, carnal desires. This is a pattern that Israel fell into in less than a generation after being delivered into the promised land, with Judges 19 showing the men of Benjamin behaving exactly like the men of Sodom, and inciting a civil war between themselves and the other eleven tribes. Egypt that was tyrannical order, that was slavery under Pharaoh, the hard-hearted and wicked master. A place that despite the hardships endured there, remained a temptation to God’s people because of its perceived stability, from the moment hardships began in the wilderness, into the time of the prophets when Israel was beset by enemies and thought to find support and refuge in Egypt as an ally, rather than turning to God. It was in taking the daughter of Pharaoh as his wife to form an alliance that Solomon first began the decline that would lead his heart from God. Sodom is an idea of complete freedom with no rules, Egypt is an idea of absolute rule with no freedom – they are the two wicked ends of the spectrum, and somehow Jerusalem manages to embody them both. Ezekiel 16 likens Israel, the people who God has raised up and called His bride, to a prostitute – however as God elaborates on the wickedness of His faithless bride, He distinguishes the nation that He called His own from an ordinary harlot, saying in Ezekiel 16:32–34,

“Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. So you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; therefore you were different.”

Israel was a special kind of wicked, a special kind of betrayer, a lover of sin, not just for personal gain and satisfaction, but seemingly a lover of sin for the sake of sin itself – and nothing has changed. Jerusalem is the city that has killed the prophets, that has crucified Christ, that has spurned the love and mercy of God again, and again, and again remains, wallowing in her sin, allied with the enemy, filled with such joy at the death of the witnesses that they start exchanging presents… Take their measure, and see that they are nothing. Count their cries of victory, and see they were all false. This is no triumph for those who would make themselves enemies of holy God, there is only the time before they realize the reality of their position, there is only the joyous cheers of a mob of fools who cannot comprehend the depth of their own wickedness, and the breadth of their own idiocy.

“But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here!’ And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come.”

For three and a half years the world trampled the outer court that was given over to them, and for three and a half years they were tormented by the two witnesses and their glorious testimony, until the two were slain by the beast. The world was given three and a half days to gloat, to celebrate, to refuse to allow the witnesses to be buried, and to parade around in triumph as only fools can. And then, God breathes life into His fallen servants, and they get back up, and all those who celebrated, the peoples and tribes and languages and nations, who looked upon the bodies of the witnesses with delight are filled with fear as their hollow triumph collapses into nothing. What’s most striking here is not that the witnesses are restored to life, it’s not that the people are terrified, or that the witnesses are called up to heaven – it’s what happens in the aftermath of the earthquake, because this is something that we haven’t seen so far from the people of the earth – glory given to God. It’s also strange that it comes now, because despite the fact that an earthquake and the death of 7,000 people is no small matter, it pales in comparison to what has unfolded previously in the tribulation. During the seven seals, as the earth was being shaken apart the people call upon the world to save them from the wrath of God. During the first six trumpets, as the people of the earth are tormented and a third of them slaughtered, we see no repentance, and no relinquishing of any sins. While 7,000 people is certainly no small number, an earthquake of this magnitude may have been something that had actually been experienced by some of the seven churches, and so it’s curious that it’s this event in the tribulation that has the people glorifying God. We could read this and see it as a sort of breaking point, a moment of mass repentance and conversion among the people as they turn toward God and away from the broken and crumbling world, but I believe this gives too much credit to their action. Scripture records examples of populations treating God’s people well, and even giving glory to Him, but not in permanent or lasting ways. At the end of Genesis, chapter 50 shows the Jews, particularly Joseph and his family in excellent standing with the Egyptians. Not only does Pharaoh give his blessing for Joseph to take Jacob’s body back to the land of Canaan to be buried, but there is an entire procession of weeping, mourning Egyptians that accompany them. However, as we begin the next book, Exodus 1:6–12 says,

“Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them. Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, ‘Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.’ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.”

It seems perfectly fair to say that despite their continued pagan practices, the Egyptians offered glory to God in some capacity through the treatment of His people, and yet one generation later, the people of Israel are looked upon with dread and oppressed into slavery by their once neighbors. An even more dynamic example would be seen from the people of Nineveh, shown in the book of Jonah. Jonah 3:4–10 says,

“Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.’ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.”

This isn’t just fond treatment of God’s people, this is mass repentance of a city numbering over 120,000, and the king of an empire – and we know it’s genuine, because God relents, He doesn’t destroy them as He has instructed Jonah to prophesy. But what happens in the years to come? Does all of Assyria become a God-fearing people? Do they set aside their idols, or go even a step further and come under the Law of God? Jonah 4:11 ends the book with God saying to Jonah,

“And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

The people honor God, but they don’t know their right hand from their left. There’s a vague similarity drawn between them and their livestock, because although they honor God, they don’t really know God. It’s a generalized, almost abstract sort of worship. Assyria continues to be a pagan empire, they continue to be an enemy of Israel and Judah, and their empire is ultimately destroyed through the collaborative effort of the Babylonians and the Medes. This is what we see in today’s passage in the aftermath of the earthquake and another 7,000 people dead. The people’s fear and the glory they give to God is genuine, but we can understand it as we understand the respect of the Egyptians, and the repentance of the Assyrians – it’s real, but it’s not lasting. Because this is only the second woe, and the third will see them once again mired in their sin, cursing God for the judgment they’ve brought upon themselves.

3. The Measured Fulfillment

“Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.’”

I used to have a flawed understanding of the Lord’s prayer. It wasn’t that I had anything against it exactly, but I felt like it was unnecessary. It was too structured, too rigid – I have a personal relationship with God, I want to be able to pray genuinely, organically, I don’t want to be boxed in, just reciting a prayer. I didn’t really get it, I didn’t grasp that the format Jesus is presenting is literally teaching us how to pray, that if we pray that, not in recitation, but honestly, earnestly, it is a complete prayer. It begins, as is only right, by glorifying God – but from the opening, you also acknowledge your own position, not addressing God in a detached or distant way, but calling Him as your Father. The first thing you actually ask for, the first petition you make isn’t for forgiveness, it’s not for provision, or healing, or mercy, or insight. Matthew 6:10 says,

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

This world belongs to God in that He made it, He has ultimate dominion over it, but it’s not His kingdom at the present. Genesis 1:28–30 says,

“And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so.”

You could see this in a sense as God giving the earth to man, and His passing the kingdom to those created in His image. And then, a chapter later, we yield to temptation, sin, and essentially hand the kingdom over to Satan. This is why Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:4,

“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

And in Ephesians 2:1–3,

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

The dynamic is probably best explained by Jesus as He speaks to the disciples in the upper room, just hours before His crucifixion, saying in John 14:30–31,

“I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.”

Satan has no claim on Christ, no power over God, and yet this world is his domain – until it’s not. We have watched up to this point as the world was handed over to itself, as it essentially suffered at its own hands, under its own wickedness, as God first removed Himself, and then gave the world more of what it had already coveted. But the seventh trumpet marks a shift, God is no longer removed, but is coming forward, and His wrath, glimpsed in the unstoppable testimony of His two witnesses, seen further as we read of the seven bowls, and culminating in the final judgment, is so much greater than what was suffered up to this point.

“And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, ‘We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign. The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.’”

What we see from the praises of the twenty-four elders is the final judgment heralded, this is describing what is actively beginning to unfold, but is also prophetic for what will come. Not just the nations who have trampled the holy city and persecuted God’s people, not just the demons who have ravaged the planet – it’s all of them, they all face just destruction at the hand of holy God.

“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.”

Mark 15:37–38 says,

“And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.”

The temple veil was what separated the innermost sanctum, the holy of holies, where the ark of the covenant was kept from the rest of the temple. It was into this place that only the high priest could go, and only once a year to make atonement for his own sin as well as that of the people of Israel. The tearing of the veil was a testament to what Jesus had accomplished on the cross – the separation between God and man was no longer needed, the debt was paid so that those who have been made children of God could stand before their Father, blameless. The opening of the temple in heaven carries a similar weight, as we see there is no veil, we’re looking straight in at the ark of the covenant. For the believer, this is an awesome sight, as our God moves forward to claim the earth as His kingdom, and deliver judgment upon those who have warred against Him in their sin. The measured time of His distance has come to an end, and God is coming against the earth in new and terrifying ways, His justice leveled against the wicked, and His victory guaranteed for those who seek refuge in Him. To His children, rest is coming, reprieve is coming – and for the enemy, for the wicked, for those who have hated God and delighted in depravity that would put Sodom and Egypt to shame, the third woe awaits. There is still time, but we watch as hearts grow all the harder. There is still time, but it is measured, and it draws ever nearer to a close. Because the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of the Lord, and His justice will not be withheld.

Pastor Chris’ sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WQl2rM03dg