And welcome back, everybody.
So good to be back this week.
Brother Dennis is running just a little bit late.
He'll be here in a moment.
Uh, we'll get to see him comes uh, springing
in on us in a bit.
But brother Brian, how are you doing tonight?
Man, I'm doing great.
I'm doing better now.
I think this episode might be brought to you by Scooters Coffee.
I don't know.
Woke up this morning, a little drain, but I'm
doing good now, so I've been sipping on that today and but doing good, man.
Just ready to dive into the Word of God and excited about
just the hope that
we have in Jesus today.
Awesome.
I am I am super excited about it.
I know these, uh, like we had said last week, uh, chapter
10, uh, finishes out these, uh,
these angels and the, you know, coming in
and all the stuff they're bringing in.
Hey there, brother Dennis.
Brother Dennis coming in the back.
Perfect timing.
These
retired folks, I'm telling you, man.
They don't even know what time is anymore.
It's just like living in heaven in it.
It really is.
It is.
Oh, it smokes.
I'm sitting there just looking at the news, just scrolling around,
messing around, and you texted me and I'm like, I'm fine.
are you?
Oh.
Oh, it's time for six.
How did that happen?
I love it.
Oh, that is fantastic.
All right.
Well, hey, you made it, and that's the important thing.
You have a good day aside from running late.
Yeah, it's good.
Great.
Fantastic, fantastic.
All right.
I think we are about ready to dive in.
We're starting with Revelation chapter 10, verse one tonight, and we might
we might make it a little bit into chapter 11 because 10's a little bit short.
But yeah, last week we had dropped off with,
um, let me pull this up here.
We had dropped off the very last thing we read, uh,
at the end of chapter 9 was doo-doo all the way down here.
Yeah, we've just seen that we have the...
the plagues
that come out and the horses
and the riders and all that and we ended
up seeing the the rest of humanity that
had not been killed up to this point because we have a 3rd of them wiped
out and then a 3rd of them wiped out.
Then it just keeps happening where you have so much of the world is wiped out at this point.
And what's left at this point is refusing to
repent of the works of their hands and they do
not stop worshiping demons and idols made of gold, silver bronze,
stone, and wood, idols that cannot see, hear, walk about.
They did not repent of their murders, their magic spells or
their sexual immorality of their stealing.
And so you have what's
left at this point is the worst of the worst.
Um, that's what's left on the earth, uh, by
the time you get to Revelation, uh, chapter 10.
And of course, you do still have
some of the some of the people who did
accept during this time are still going to be left because
they are spared from a lot of these plagues and all of these things
as far as the judgment gods pouring out, but
they are not spared from what the judgment man is making against them.
And even in the midst of all that, there's still hope left, right?
Because we still got a couple of preachers that are going to be coming and laying down the word of God.
Yeah, yeah.
On top of the 144,000.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, that's not that.
yeah.
We haven't even gotten to those 2 yet.
But so we we come in with chapter
10 and we're continuing on with these these angels,
these angels that are coming out and making
proclamations and opening scrolls and
just letting everybody know what's going on here.
Yeah.
So that brings us to 101.
10 kind of starts another, one of those, is call it, parenthetical.
It's kind of a kind of a breakaway.
That's right.
Was it 10 through 14, I guess, is somewhere around in there anyway.
It kind of breaks away from the...
the bowls of judgments.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
So, uh, 10 verse one.
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven
clothed with a cloud and the rainbow
was a bone.
His head and his face was, as it were,
the sun and his feet is pillars of fire.
So we get this description.
And let me say this.
There's a couple schools of thoughts here that
as to the identity of this angel.
Some think it to be Christ because of
the description, but others would argue that Christ,
although the incarnate Christ appeared or
was mentioned in the Old Testament as an angel, he's
never mentioned as an angel as we see it in the book of Revelation.
There is no mistaking of who Jesus
is when we see him described in here.
If you side with that school of thought, then we
would see this angel, if we do not see it as Christ,
then we would see this angel as one who directly serves Christ,
because he has certain he has certain attributes
that Christ also has.
So just remember that the whole book that
we're studying in the book of Revelation is the unveiling and
the revealing of the glorified Christ.
That's who we're talking about here.
We know in chapter 5 and verse 2 that we,
we're not talking about Christ and,
and this was, this was a strong angel also, right?
Revelation 5, too.
It says, and I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice
who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof.
Maybe who was that angel?
You know, we don't know really for sure.
Yeah, yeah, we don't, do we?
And I think I think what Christians get caught up in
a little bit too, is that we know the names of a couple of them.
And we kind of say, well, they're all either Michael or Gabriel.
Right, yeah, but that's not true.
There's 1000000s of them.
And there may be some that are more powerful than Michael.
Yeah, we don't know.
But this one is a, he's a,
man, this is a mighty angel.
I side with the other side.
I'm going to go with this is not the Lord because later on we'll see.
We say another verse.
Yes, that's right.
Yeah, exactly.
He does some worshiping.
Exactly.
Or some swearing.
But this guy, this guy, man, what a description, though.
He's got a rainbow on his head, face like the sun, feet like pillars of fire.
Well, I guess we need
to go on before I get too far out there.
Verse two, and he had in his hand a little book, which was open.
He placed his right foot on the seat and is left on the land.
That means he's a...
I think the way I take that is this is a super
powerful angel.
that is in charge of the whole world.
the sea and the land.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Go ahead and read, what was it, verse 3 too?
Verse three.
And he cried out with a loud voice as when a lion roars.
And when he had cried out, the 7 pills of thunder uttered their voices.
Yeah, yeah, so...
I mean, this book is, it's
most likely the same 7 seal book
that was passed from God, the Father to God,
the Son, after Christ opened the 7 seals, he
transferred to this angel
to give to John to eat it, right?
He was going to eat the book.
This is the book of the title deed to
the earth, and it contains the judgments of
the great tribulation, which Jesus is coming in power.
The voice of 7 thunders is just to put God's
seal on the thing, that it comes from his son.
Yeah, it really does.
It just shows the mighty power.
It does.
Yeah.
If you've ever wanted God to speak to you audibly.
You probably don't.
No, no, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's it is a powerful thing
that will make you tremble, right?
Oh man, like the Israelites in the wilderness, right?
come to rears.
Don't make him stop.
That's right.
Yeah, and begging it for stock.
Well, you know, that's one of the amazing things to me is the times
that we see God speaking directly,
specifically in the wilderness and there with Moses,
people don't like it.
And even when just the angels start really making
proclamations, everybody starts, you know, cowering.
Everybody starts running away.
Everybody's like, I don't know about this.
And then there are other times where we do see
the angels having a conversation with somebody where they aren't doing
this, but there, to me, there's a clear difference between we're
here proclaiming, and we're saying something that God gave us to specifically
say versus we're here to get your attention, just have a
conversation with you, the very different thing, because you go back to a lot.
And, I mean, those angels stood and they conversed with them, and they ate with them, and
they hung out with, you know, they spent time with him and his family, and
there's no indication there that they were making all
of all of Lott's family
cower in the corner.
Yeah, that was kind of an anomaly, wasn't it?
Yeah, usually, usually when the unholy comes into
some kind of contact with the holy, there's there's something, something happens.
Yeah, well, and and even Jacob or,
uh, yeah, Jacob, you know, when he's wrestling
with the angel and, uh, you know, it's
just like, you know, what in the world?
you know, and the angel's actually telling him, let me go, let me go.
you know, but he's not, he doesn't really start, you know, getting away
from him until the angel reached down, breaks his hip.
And I mean, but even then, the angel was clearly
holding back, but what we're seeing here is an angel
speaking with speaking with this loud voice.
And I think that anytime we see that, that is a proclamation
where the angel is basically filtering
God's God's words for us so that we're not just, you
know, obliterated by the power.
Well, isn't that what the Holy Spirit does for?
Absolutely, that's what Christ does when he intercedes for us because
Christ, the son, tells tells
God the Father, hey, they belong to us, you know, he's
looking through him and he, of course,
he loves us and he sees us as his children.
right?
And so, yeah.
So we're not, we're
not hearing the full judgment of God, are we?
in his voice, so...
10 four?
10 four.
10 4 good, buddy.
And when the 7 Thunders had uttered their voices,
I was about to write, and I heard a voice from
heaven saying unto me, seal up those things which the
7 Thunders uttered and write them not.
So here's John about to write something down.
They're like, no, no, no, no, hold on, hold on.
This is the only place in the book of Revelation where anything's hidden.
Yeah.
What is it that's hidden?
Well, we don't know.
And we would all, I think, do well to just
ride it out.
And because if Christ wanted us to know, I think you would have told us.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and the whole aura of
God, I guess you could say, is filled with mystery, right?
Yeah, mystery mystery in the Bible is not something that's,
well, you got to go try to figure it out on your own kind of thing.
It's something that's hidden that's going to be revealed, right?
And that's what revelation is, the mystery of God at the end times.
But man, I don't know.
Can you imagine?
I always thought about John while
he's seeing all this stuff he's writing.
You just think about that in a practical sense.
It's his hand about fall off.
I mean, how bad can you write?
Yeah, yeah.
I think he was probably, it was
like he was powered by the Holy Spirit too, right?
You know, I mean, it was like, let me let me take your hand because
your human hand can't write this fast.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It had to be something going.
Or this thing, I wonder how long it took for him to
receive this whole thing too, you know?
Oh yeah, yeah, I know.
days.
Yeah, it is.
Which, you know, you look at, of course, entire
human minds, it would be days into God
could have gave it to him in an hour and it felt like dates.
It felt like years, you know, because again, God's
timing in our time and he's without time or space.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and and the
amazing thing about this is here, here, John, is seeing glimpses
of that period where time is gone.
And I mean, his everything is having to be presented
to him in a way that he can understand it and that he can,
can, um, receive it all and for it to make sense so that he can write it down.
So, I mean, even, you know, again, even this stuff that's being revealed,
even the things being shown to him, it's all being filtered down for
the human mind to comprehend it.
I think an experience like this, too, is something that he could
probably go back and write this from memory because it's so interesting.
It's so ingrained.
Yeah, I agree.
Absolutely seeing something that powerful.
Yeah.
And I mean, he does, he opens the book of Revelation.
The thing to remember is he opens it up by saying he was caught up in the spirit
on the Lord's Day.
And, you know, we talked about how, you know, we
think, you know, we kind of have an idea of what that means.
We don't really know exactly what he meant by.
He's caught up in the spirit and it never even talks about him.
Speaking of tongues.
Oh, okay.
No speaking in tongues, no gyrating, none of that.
But I mean, that's the thing is he
gets caught up in the spirit.
Somebody's after him.
And...
Yeah, tell you what.
And like you say, this could have been something that was all
just instantaneous and then he woke up and
and it was all written down.
I don't know what just happened, or it could have been something like you say,
lasted for days and days, you know, possibly several days where he's
just riding and riding with no real break in here.
I personally think that I
tend to lean on what you're saying there.
I think the writing was not something he was physically doing while he's watching it.
I think from his perspective, he was, but then when he
wakes up, it's like, oh, I've got to, now I've got to actually write all this out.
I think it was just, it was, but that was his body's
way and his mind's way of recording all this for a permanent memory
that he then went and wrote down and transcribed exactly.
one sense, it's a vision, right?
His body's still sitting on Patmos.
but his his soul or somewhere else.
Yeah, exactly. almost dead or like a catatonic kind of thing.
his burnt body.
Yeah.
This guy was, he had to have been in pain.
I mean, he was, yeah, he was boiled alive.
So, yeah.
Was that before this?
Yeah, that was he'd been on the island of Patmos.
That's where he was at when all this took place and I think he'd already been tortured at that time.
Man.
So yeah, I mean, thinking about it that way,
him getting caught up in the spirit.
I, you know, and then it was a reawakening at
the end and then record it.
Yeah.
All right.
Where were we at?
Five, five, 10, five, 10, five.
Good buddy.
Then the angel, whom I saw standing on the sea and
on the land, lifted up his right hand to heaven, and swore
by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven
and the things in it, and the earth and the things in it, and
the sea and the things in it, that there will be delay no longer.
So now we see that this is most likely an angel.
Yeah, absolutely.
He's swearing by God.
Absolutely.
Yes, because the Bible tells us,
well, there are several verses that back that up, aren't there?
Like, he'll swear by not by no better name.
God made a promise to Abraham,
because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself.
John 11 and 3 in the beginning was a
word and words with God, the word was God, the same in the
beginning, was with God.
All things were made by him and for him and without him was no things made.
And then John 8, 58.
Jesus said to them, very, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.
All these things were made by him and without him was
not a thing, anything made, of course, we already read that, but yeah.
And it goes on, Colossians 116, seven.
you know?
We know that, yeah, this was this was an angel.
Yeah.
All right, seven.
Seven.
Verse seven.
Seven, eight?
Whatever.
But in the but in the days of the voice of
the 7th angel, and when he
shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished,
and as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
And the voice which I heard from heaven, spake unto me again
and said, go and take the little book which is open in
the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.
That says it pretty plainly there, don't it?
It does.
Yeah.
the angel.
Yeah, that's right.
So, again, scripture backs up scripture, doesn't it?
It does.
Yeah, it does.
You got to keep reading.
Yeah, absolutely.
Just don't take snippets here and there, piece it together.
It's a jigsaw puzzle.
It's how things get confusing.
It is.
Yeah.
So this all takes place when the 7th
angel was preparing to blow the 7th trumpet.
It would indicate that the trumpet
brings on a conclusion of the great tribulation.
This is when the mystery of God is finally made clear.
You know, there's a lot of facets of the mystery that
we have been given the total answer to.
At least this is a mystery that he wanted to make clear to us.
There's still some things that I
think that will be made clear even after this, right?
still some things are just not clear yet.
So knowing some of these things, he had been sealed
means that he's still got an eternity to share things with us, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, there's a lot to discover too.
You know, and our best scientists still haven't discovered
everything here is about this creation, you know, not even close.
No, uh-uh.
Yes, it's something new every day.
Yeah.
And then he gives this order from heaven
to John to take the book from the angel, right?
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
And verse 9, he says, so I went to the angel, telling him
to give me the little book and he said to me, take it, need it.
It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth, it will be sweet as honey.
So well, I'll keep going here.
I took the little book out of the angel's hand and ate it, and in my mouth, it was sweet as honey.
And when I'd eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.
And they said to me, you must prophesy again concerning many peoples and
nations and tongues and kings.
Eat a book.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Does it kind of go back to what we were talking about though?
Like this is this being ingrained, you know, as
you said, this was not only ingrained in him, it was digested, right?
He digested the word of God and he
couldn't forget this, right?
This was not something that he could just he could just lose, man.
You think that's connected to that?
Maybe?
I think so.
Because this is this is similar to the gospel too, right?
It's similar to the Bible we have today.
It can be sweet as honey with all the promises and all the stuff.
But you can pay your pay with your life for it.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
I mean, he was he was given this instruction
to take this little book and receive the word of God
in faith, right?
I mean, that's really what he was telling him.
Take this and eat this and know that this is what's going to happen.
Now, go out and and and tell
them, tell the world about this.
Um, Jeremiah 1516.
The words were found, and I did eat them, and thy
word was unto me, the joy and rejoicing of
mine heart, for I called by the name,
O Lord God of hosts.
And Jeremiah.
And then in Ezekiel, 31 through three.
Moreover, he said unto me, son of man,
eat that thou findest, eat this roll, and go
speak unto the house of Israel.
So I opened my mouth and he caused me to eat that roll, and
he said unto me, son of man, cause thy belly to
eat and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee.
Then did I, then did I eat it, and
it was in my mouth as, as honey for sweetness.
Um, Psalms 119, 103.
How sweet are thy words unto my taste?
Yea, sweeter than honey in my mouth.
So, I mean, again, the word
of God, backing up the word of God.
His word is sweet because it reveals a
great end for us, right?
But the judgments that will pass before
it gets there bitter, right?
Very bitter.
Yeah.
It's joy.
I mean, you know, that's the thing.
And that's the Christian walk.
Like you said, it starts out.
We have that joy of the forgiveness of our sins and
the knowing that we're going to go to heaven.
And I'm going to be honest, the bitterness to me came
after the salvation part.
The salvation part was all joy and happiness.
And, hey, yeah, this is gone and this weight's lifted, and then the real weight of, oh.
What did he just do for me?
What just happened?
And then it sinks in and there's a little bit of bitterness there and it's not a bad thing.
It's a realization of, of,
um, you know, what we need to do and
what we have to, what we're called to do.
And I think all of this sums it up very well.
You know, going back to this being a vision that John
is experiencing, not just seeing, experiencing with this
whole being, and it's it's that taking and
that absorbing of the word and making it a part,
because when we eat something, we make it a part of us.
And he's taking it and it's becoming a part of who he is.
And it's amazing to me that, you know, he does this.
And then they tell him, hey, okay, it's time to go prophesy.
And, you know, there's all these examples of other prophets being
told, take this and eat it, now prophesy.
Well, I mean, it goes along
with a communion too, right?
When Jesus said, my blood is indeed drinking, my body is food.
Yeah.
And we're internalizing him.
Yeah, yeah.
Take in remembrance of me.
That's the same thing that he's telling John here.
Take and eat this and remember it.
Right?
So digest this.
Digest what I'm telling you, don't forget it, and then share it.
That's something we really need to,
we really need to think about, right?
And maybe something I need to bring out the next time we do communion.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's good stuff there.
Yeah, it is.
And man, I just wish so many more of us would, and I'm
not claiming to be great at this, but would internalize this.
Yeah, yeah, it's got to be real.
God's not looking for us to be spiritual
and moralists and, you know, all these perfect
outside things.
I mean, he called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs.
beautiful on the outside, inside they're dead.
Yeah.
You know, it's, that's not what he's looking for.
No, no.
You know, and I think the church today,
on our quest to be so relatable
and to just
be able to fit in and all the things, you know, that sometimes
we just, man, we just take the spirit completely out of
what we're doing and just letting God move and letting
God do what he does and we're
too worried about, we're too, we're either worried about
being too contemporary or worried about being too traditional and, you know, and
we get caught up in between the 2 of them, right?
And what we've got to do is just filter out the mess, right?
And just, my prayer is the purity of God.
And the hope of Jesus Christ, those are
the things that we can focus on, the truth of the word of God.
We can focus on those things and let the spirit cause us
to worship in the way that he wants us to, right?
I mean, if it's a contemporary song, let's sing
it to the top of our lungs.
If it's a hymnal, let's sing it to the top of our lungs, but
let's cut off, let's cut out the stuff and the arguing and the
bickering back and forth about this is, you know,
this style or this style or that style.
Because again, we're trying to please one crowd
or the other, and we leave out the fact that we're trying to please God here.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, we forget that what
we're called to do is to apply
the word to ourselves first.
Sure.
Yeah.
and then spread it.
Yeah.
And, and, yeah, live it.
every day.
And and when we're so focused on how it looks and
how we look and whether or not we can draw people in.
And don't get me wrong, you want to draw people in.
But at the end of the day, everybody I
know that has gone to church and stayed in church and it's been real to
them.
The thing that actually draws them and keeps them is
not all of the showmanship.
Yeah.
And I'll tell you, man.
I can tell the difference sometimes, just
sometimes, between whether it's real or not, because usually
if somebody's a real church score, they're real religious,
and it ain't really real to them, it ain't really
taking over inside.
They're more about the rules than they are about anything else.
They're more about the appearances about the external stuff.
Yeah, this is how we got to do this.
This is how I gotta do that.
And somebody that's got it real going on most times,
most times is just kind of like, I don't care.
That's a fringe thing, man.
Right, absolutely.
I don't care what colored carpet is.
No, let's throw it out.
Exactly.
Let's worship.
Let's have some true undeniable worship
that we don't hold back from.
So, yeah.
Hey, let's do this.
Jump into 11.
We did a whole chapter.
We did.
I mean, just like that.
Man, where's the time gone?
So,
uh, let's go the 1st maybe a couple of verses there, chapter 11.
Yeah, sounds good.
And there was given me a read like
unto a rod, and the angel stood saying, rise and
measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them
that worship therein, but the court, which is without the temple, leave out.
And the measure and measure it not,
for it is given unto the Gentiles, and the holy
city shall they tread underfoot 40 and too much.
One thing we need to
see here is the time period that we have come to.
So if you look at Luke 2124,
it says, and they shall fall by the edge
of the sword and shall be led away captive in all nations,
and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles
unto the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
Today, the nation
of Israel is still trodden down by the Gentiles.
If you were to go into the old city today,
you'll find many different races there.
I mean, just a lot of different races, a lot of different
religions, but not really a whole lot of Jews.
And they're coming back a little bit more now, but we're
looking at a future time here where God has turned back
to his chosen people, right?
I mean, the church is in heaven, the churches is with him.
And anytime you see,
the beginning of measurements in the Old Testament,
you're going to find that God's about to deal with
Israel in some way.
Jeremiah 31, 38,
39, behold, the days come.
Saith the Lord, that the city shall be built to
the Lord from the tower of Hanil, unto the
gate of the corner, and the measuring line shall yet go forth
over against it upon the hill of Gareb, and
shall compass about to Goath.
Then again in Zechariah, there's about 13
verses there in Zechariah chapter 2, those
1st 13 verses.
I won't read all of them for time's sake.
But yeah, I mean the read or the rod.
It's used a couple of different ways, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
It is.
And I want to throw out too, that for anybody listening,
this chapter is going to get into some stuff.
Yes.
And take
take it literally wherever possible.
right?
I mean, the 2 witnesses are going to see are 2 people.
Yes, they are.
3.5 days is literal.
Days a day, years a year, a month, a month.
The earthquakes an earthquake, 7000 people,
7000 people, just take it literally.
Take it literally.
Right.
And I like this measuring rod, I think, because a little study
on that, especially Zechariah 2.
It's like God tends to tell people to measure his property.
Yes, yes.
He does, yeah.
And he tells them, he tells them, don't measure.
Don't measure.
Well, he's going to say at the next verse, but he
tells them to measure the temple, God, and the altar, and those who worship in it.
Yeah.
Right.
With a rod.
Exactly.
And a rod was a specific length.
I think it was about 20 feet, something like that.
And people don't measure up that.
No, they don't.
Their worship does not measure.
They're in the temple and he's going to measure them as well as
the temple, right?
Yeah.
And there's another interesting thing about this is he's
telling John to go measure this temple.
Well, when John wrote this, the temple had been destroyed.
Yes, that's right.
Right?
It was like, what, 25 years after the temple had been destroyed.
And there's got to be a temple in Jerusalem to be fulfilled.
There's 2nd Thessalonians 2.4.
There's Revelation 13 that we're going to get to.
There's Daniel nine, Daniel 12.
Yes.
There's Matthew 24, which is a reference back to Daniel where
Jesus says something about the abomination of desolation in the temple.
So that temple has got to be there.
Absolutely.
And then the reed or the rod,
again, like I said, there's a couple different ways.
It's used.
One is chastisement or judgment.
Psalms 29.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.
Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
And then the other way that it's used as comfort, right?
Psalms
23 and verse four, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy
rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
So 2 different ways that the rod is either used for
chastisement or the rod is used for comfort.
The temple of God.
Again, like you said, it's a direct reference
to the holy of holies.
And we're looking at an Old Testament system
here in these last days.
So right now we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us and we're the temple.
But this is going to be different.
And Ephesians chapter 2, verse, uh, verse
21, uh, in whom all the building fitly
framed together, groweth unto a holy temple, and the Lord, in whom
ye also were, build it together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.
That's us.
That's where we are now.
But during this time, we're looking at the Old Testament
temple system, aren't we?
The altar is a golden
altar of prayer.
And since the altar, since
the altar for burnt offering, was not in the temple
proper, but it was in the outer court of the temple.
So even the worshipers are to be measured.
And like you said, I just wonder if
God was measuring us right now.
What would our worship be?
Like, what would our measurement be?
if we were trying to, if he was sizing us up
and saying, okay, you know, where do you measure up to today?
Like I said, it'll be the judgment seat of Christ on it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, we'll be measured there.
The court without the temple was
not to be measured.
This would be where the cross of Christ is represented,
given the indication that the cross is still
going to be a message even in heaven.
They're still going to be talking about it, right?
I mean, even now, at
the very end of this whole thing, the cross, well,
the message of the cross will never die because it's what got us there.
Yeah.
And, and, uh, for
it's given into the Gentiles, uh, like you said,
I mean, we talked about it in Luke 2124.
The Gentiles are still ruling at this time,
uh, but it'll be short-lived in 48 months,
uh, where we're looking at right here.
So 3.5 years from this halfway point,
Christ is coming back.
Israel will be in the place that Christ wanted them
to be at that time and he'll be he'll
be confirming his covenant with Israel.
right?
And like you said, chapter 12,
verse 14, 13, 5, Daniel 7, 25, 12, 11.
All those, all those things.
927?
Yep.
So, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's a, did we read two?
Uh, yes.
Yes.
Oh, okay.
Sorry about that.
Yeah, so yeah.
42 months, man.
And this is something we talked about when we looked at Daniel, right?
A prophetic year is 360 days.
And that comes from the flood story where
Moses measured out the months and all these months worked out to so
many days, which worked out of a year or whatever.
And every month had 30 days in it.
So a prophetic year is 360 days.
And so this 42 months goes exactly to 3.5 years.
Yeah, or 1260 days.
So it's going back to that Daniel stuff and this is what this is.
This is a fulfillment of Daniel chapter nine.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
This is this, you know, Daniel gave us the big overview and now we're getting the details.
That's right.
Yeah.
But man, this is powerful stuff, though.
But I'll tell you, I'll tell you, y'all, anybody listening, hang on,
hang on with us because this is going to get some some wild stuff the way it is.
It is.
Twists and turns in here because we're kind
of in another one of those interlude situations.
Right.
You know, and then we're going to hit the bowls.
That's right
Yeah, it's going to break loose again.
The end of chapter 11 kind of gets...
A little dicey.
It's like how does this stuff fit together chronologically?
Right, right.
But I'm here to learn.
Amen.
Me too.
Go with the next verse there.
Yeah, yeah.
Verse three.
And I will grant authority to my 2 witnesses and
they will prophesy for 1260 days clothed in sackcloth.
So this is 42 months, and this is 3,
uh, 360.
This is yeah, 3.5 years.
Yeah, yeah.
years.
Three score days, right?
So yeah, man.
So we know exactly who these 2 witnesses are, right?
No.
No, we don't.
I mean, who
these 2 guys are when it really comes right down to it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Now, my opinion based on scripture is
that one of these witnesses is probably Elijah.
He tells us in Malachi
chapter 4, verse five, behold, I will send you Elijah the
prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
So we can, we may be able to bank on that.
And then Matthew 1711 and Jesus answered
and said to them, Elias, who's Elijah, truly shall
1st come and restore all things.
But as to the identity of the
other witness, someone say it was Moses because
he was there with Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration.
turned the river to blood.
Yeah, yeah.
Others suggest it could be John the Baptist, since he was
the forerunner of Christ.
In the New Testament, Elijah
would be the witness of the Old Testament, but Elijah,
and John would have been the sackcloth
wearers.
you know, so I would try...
Yeah, yeah, or Enoch.
Yeah.
Yeah, with God.
Right.
Just like Elijah.
You know, but I don't know.
I'm not going to try to guess without scripture to back it up.
But, you know, hey, I think.
and I don't know, man.
I've always thought it was Elijah and, you know, just because they both got raptured,
you know, but really, there's not a lot to base that
on because there's going to be 1000000s raptured right before all this happens.
And you're not coming back.
And we look at John the Baptist.
He was Elijah who was to come.
Jesus told his disciples.
If you if you can hear it, he was Elijah, who's to come.
I think and nobody, there's no reincarnation.
No.
It's not going to literally be Moses or Elijah or any of these guys.
I think it's going to be 2 regular guys that are completely sold out.
to God.
Yeah, very well.
God's just going to like light them up.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, because it's hard, which I don't want to get ahead of
us here, but it's hard to look at, okay, you know,
Moses and Elijah, are they, um,
are they 2 guys that's already got their, their, their glorified
bodies, you know, at this point in this time and then they come
back and then we know that they're, guess what?
They're going to die and then they're going to come back to life.
So it's, you know, yeah.
I think both these guys will have that spirit about them.
Yeah, yeah.
But, I mean, at least these guys could be walking around right now.
That's right
Yeah, they could be.
Could be.
They could be.
And these next verses, what they're able to do.
Oh, man, yeah, yeah.
are we on verse four?
Oh, yeah.
There are the 2 olive trees.
These are the 2 olive trees and the 2 candlesticks standing before the
god of the earth.
And 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.
Um, Zachariah,
chapter 4, hey.
That's good stuff, eh?
Yeah, yeah, he, uh, I hate
to read all this, but we Man, you can just probably just read verse 14.
Yeah, yeah, let's do that.
And I say, no, my lord, then
he said, these are the 2 anointed ones that stand
by the lord of the whole earth.
So if you want to go if you want to go back and read it.
Go back to verse one.
those 14 verses there.
yeah, yeah, you're exactly right.
The 2 anointed ones.
Stand by the Lord about it.
Yeah.
Who are these guys?
They're worthy, right?
I mean, they've got great power and
they they both are
immortal almost to a certain point, right?
I mean, they're for their purpose to serve.
And the immortality comes from the power of God,
of course, it's more like they're sealed until their job is done.
Their power.
It comes to the Holy Spirit.
Oh, absolutely.
This is where we see the Holy Spirit working.
This is where we see the Holy Spirit.
not residing in the church as it
does now, but the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit coming and as he done.
Because how are the 144,000 sealed.
They're sealed by the Holy Spirit of God, right?
Same way we are today.
And then we see these 2 witnesses out there,
and the Holy Spirit's doing a great work in them, and he's empowering them to be able to do what they're doing.
Yeah, and the crazy thing is that these
guys, except the Holy Spirit willingly.
They yield to it.
Just like we're supposed to do, right?
These are normal, ordinary average human beings, just like me and you.
Right.
They're just there's people.
But to yield to it.
Yeah, yeah.
Give it.
Imagine what we could do if we yield into the Holy Spirit, right?
Or to the Holy Ghost.
Let's just say the Holy Ghost, you know?
There's power in that word.
First King's
1838.
Also, the fact of fire devouring their
enemies would further suggest that
this could be Elijah
or somebody with the spirit of Elijah, like you said, 1st
Kings 1838, then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the sacrifice
and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench.
So it'll be something like the spirit of Elijah,
on that person, wouldn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
Now, the Holy Spirit.
And again, where do I get his power from?
The Holy Spirit, right?
So whoever this is, they're allowing the Holy Spirit
to use them like Elijah allowed the Holy Spirit
to use them like Moses, allowed the Holy Spirit to use him, right?
So, yeah.
Well, and I always, I always, every time I see this, and I,
you know, always my mind goes directly where, you know,
what y'all are saying, they're allowing the Holy Spirit to use them.
But I always go back to what Christ told the disciples.
And if you just had the faith of a mustard seed.
You can say to this mountain bee casting, that this is what
mustard seed faith looks like.
Yeah, yeah.
Except it's not a mustard.
See.
This is what real faith.
It's not a mustard seed.
They got faith the size of a football stadium because they're just not.
I mean, they're just doing exactly what the spirit moves them to do exactly
what God commands.
They're not questioning it.
And as people are coming against them, they're going, no, no, no.
And their enemies are just falling in front of them.
I mean, God is anointing these people.
When people talk about the anointed of God, you're
expected to act like this, you're expected to behave the way they are.
You're expected to go and move and not be
moved by the things of the world and not be coward, you
know, not cower in front of the attacks that Satan throws at you.
And far too often.
That's not what we see.
And I see a lot of people.
And I will say this.
A lot of people want to go to this and
point out, these are the anointing to God.
See, nobody can come up against them.
Anybody that's anointed to God, oh, you got, you can't ever be
saying nothing about somebody that's out here doing these awful things because they're anointed to God.
I'm like, Yeah.
No, these guys aren't acting like that.
Yeah, yeah.
No, they they come to preach the gospel
and people are coming against them for preaching the gospel.
Exactly.
Truth.
There is nobody, there is nobody out here attack,
able to attack them from, uh,
a standpoint of they actually did something that that was
dishonorable or or sinful
in front of everybody to the point that they're out here just living, living
life however they want to, and then going and saying, oh,
yeah, we're going to prophesy.
no that's not what they're doing.
They're sold.
as you put it, what'd you say?
They're sold out.
Sold out.
I sold out.
And what we really believe is what really comes out, you know?
And these guys have just completely, completely
gone into the Lord's hands.
I mean, and man, get the noise out, right?
Get the noise out of our lives out of our heads and we
could be strong Christians like this.
I mean, God's not going to cost us to have fire flowing
out of their mouth and kill people more likely.
That's probably not his will.
That's for certain time in a certain place.
Right, right, right.
But other things, man, we can make...
Comes
out everywhere, but yeah.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
But to
have that same stance where you're standing unafraid
when the attacks come.
I mean, that is something that we do have the power to do and we do, we are called to do.
And we don't we don't know what kind of difference that when
we're sold out, what kind of what kind of crazy stuff is happening in
the spiritual world that we can't see.
Exactly.
We have no we have no way to see it right now.
It's called a sword of the spirit for a reason.
There's some wild stuff happening that we're
going to find out about one of these days.
that's right
through prayers and whatever else we're doing.
Yes.
You know, the Bible refers to the
number of times that you entertain an angel unaware and things like that, but
I'm, I, there's battles.
It's going on constantly.
It's constantly happening.
And I think when we're moving like we should with God,
with God's spirit and we're going where the spirit leads us and we're
doing what God called us to do, Satan's losing ground.
It's just that simple.
Around you and in the things that you do, he's losing ground.
Well, those battles are to stop us.
They're to stop the church, the the,
the, the bride of Christ from moving forward and and
sharing the gospel and and telling the world about Jesus, right?
And then the other the other battle that's
going on is for the souls of those that are lost that
they would never be saved.
And if he can quieten the church, then he can he can keep people from being saved.
And so yeah, that battle is just is constantly going on around us.
But that's why we can't stop, right?
No matter what happens, no matter what we go through as a church, no
matter what kind of tragedy or troubles or trials that hit us.
If we believe that this is the truth and we know that we
live in a fallen world and bad things are going to happen to good people and all
those things, if we truly believe that as a
church, then we can't stop.
We just got to keep going forward and forward and forward and forward and
not be stopped in our tracks, right?
Take out take out the evil one.
I remember I was watching some clip on Facebook
or somewhere of an ex-Georgia player,
bulldogs, football, you know.
Yeah, the dogs.
Yeah.
But
he was he was saying in running back room.
These guys had a had a motto, but, you know, when Nick Chubb and
Gurley and some of those some of those guys were there and he said, instead
of running out of bounds, when somebody's about to attack you, take one of them with you.
Yeah.
Take one of them with you.
Make them put you out of bounds, right?
And then we need to be living our Christian lives exactly the same way.
Absolutely.
Take them with you.
right.
They're going to push you out of bounds, push you out of the game.
Yeah absolutely.
We got to have this fight in spirit about it.
Oh, you should, yeah.
Man, we're so wimpy.
Yeah we are.
It's like, oh, it's a bad thing happen.
I'm going to go sit in my room for 12.
Yeah, let me cry.
Or I had a bad week.
You know, I just don't feel very spiritual today.
Warriors, man.
And it's kind of what my thoughts were Sunday when, I mean,
that we get so caught up on what God can
do, what God has done, and that we,
we, we can not to think about what he, what he, what he'll do right now, right?
Yeah.
in your life.
And so, yeah, just because bad
times come does not mean we stop.
We just keep going forward.
Yeah.
I think I think that's where we tackle them, right?
Take one with you.
Amen.
Or two.
Yeah.
verse six, verse six.
These have the power to shut up the sky so that rain will
not fall during the days that are prophesying and they have
power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the
earth with every plague as often as they desire.
And that crazy?
These are the most powerful prophets that have ever lived.
It is, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
All these things they're able to do.
And it's like they've got the foreknowledge to do it, right?
I mean, when you look back at Moses and Elijah,
it was like, okay, you know, God's telling them, okay, here's what you need to do now.
here what you need to do now.
Here's what I'm going to do now.
God says here, I'm just going to give you this, right?
Christ said, I'm going to give you this power.
And you know what you need to do with it?
Now go do it.
Yeah.
And they got that radio tuned in exactly right.
They did.
The noise is being blocked out and they're just perfectly in tune.
Yeah, so we see several other suggestions
that, you know, I mean, there's indications
who it could be, who it's not, but all we know is these
men have great power through Jesus Christ.
Yeah.
That's what we know.
Hey, man, that's what we got to focus on too, is that it's
Jesus power, not theirs.
That's right.
right.
Verse seven.
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 just as when Christ
earthly ministry was finished when he died, and now we see
the what we think or
what the enemy thinks is the end of these 2 men.
But they do not die until their work is done.
Just like Christ, right?
And Christ allows it to happen.
He allows it to finish up.
Of course, we know that this victory that
Satan thinks he has or the enemy thinks he has, is
short-lived, and these 2 men, they're going to live up
to their name as witness, which is the Greek word for
Mardas, which we get our word martyr from.
And they're going to glorify God in this.
And God's going to glorify himself in this.
Yeah, and then them dying.
That's right.
And, man, that's crazy.
And there's there's actually in Revelation, I can't remember what
chapter and verse are, but there's 3 different references to beasts
in Revelation.
2 of them are in chapter 13, I think.
But this one says the beast that comes up out of the bottomless pit.
That's Satan.
Yeah, yeah.
And then there's a beast that comes up out of the sea, which
is the Antichrist.
Yeah.
Then there's a beast that comes up out of the earth, which is the false Christ.
A false prophet.
yeah
Yeah.
false religious leader, right?
Yeah, yeah.
We might, let's see, what time is it?
705.
Let me get one more at least.
I know.
I don't know what happened.
Just vanished.
Gosh, seems like I just got here.
Let's
go into verse eight.
11 8?
And their dead bodies shall line the street,
the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt,
where also our Lord is crucified.
And they of the people, and the kindreds, and they
of the people, and the kindreds and tongues and nations shall see
their dead bodies 3 days and a half and
shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put into grace.
And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them and make merry
and shall send gifts one to another because these
2 prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.
And after 3 days and a half , the spirit of
life from God entered into them and they stood
up on their feet, great fear fell upon them, which saw them.
And I'm going to read verse 12 and we can stop there,
and they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, come up hither,
and they ascended up to heaven in a cloud, and their
enemies beheld them.
I'm talking about this is some good stuff right here.
I mean, these men were despised by the world.
They were left to rot in the streets and and
then we see this great city Jerusalem.
Isaiah 110.
Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear under the
law of God, ye people of Gomorrah.
So Isaiah's talking about to Israel here
referring to them like Sodom.
I mean, it's also called Egypt
in verse 8 because of the world's influence on it, right?
So we see those similarities.
And it's Jerusalem.
It is.
Yeah.
absolutely.
Yeah.
And man, can we can we read 13?
Sure.
Yeah.
It says, and in that hour, there was a great earthquake and a 10th that the city fell.
7000 people were killed in the earthquake and the rest were
terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
Amen.
The 2nd war was passed.
Behold, the 3rd is coming quickly.
Amen.
Glory to God.
But they didn't you don't you don't hear mention of Jesus.
You don't hear mention of the lamb.
They give glory to God.
That's right.
Just kind of a general.
He is.
They repent.
They they do.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, here their bodies are on display for everybody
to see, probably through television and media.
And, and, you know, they wouldn't
even take a chance on an empty tomb, they willing to leave them here on display.
And so they begin to have a party, don't they?
I mean, they again, they're fired up.
They partying this holiday, man.
Yeah, these guys are gone.
And these 2 men, they preached the gospel
and they preached it with power and authority.
They didn't hold back.
And because of that, it didn't make them very popular.
And so they kill them.
But now the power of God is being put on display.
God let them die in a public place in a public
manner, didn't bury them, left them on the street to
write, so that God could do what only God could do.
And now all these cameras.
Think about this.
All these cameras that watch them die that are displaying
this and the news is on there going, the profits that
cause so many issues and so many problems, the evil profits
that were out here oppressing us and bringing us down.
out of their mouths.
Yeah, fire coming out of their mouths trying to destroy us.
Now they're gone and now they're dead.
And then here all these cameras are still on these
bodies that are laying there rotting and they're saying, look at them.
They're dead, they're gone.
Where's their power now?
And then all of a sudden, boom, God says, here it is.
Here it is.
Get up.
man.
I mean, I bet you that every cameraman and every news
station are wishing that they didn't have a camera on them now.
Absolutely.
And this is not like, this is not like the rapture where, you know, he says, come up here.
Right.
Just these 2 guys.
And this looks a lot instead of like the rapture where it's a twinkling of an eye.
These guys are going up like Jesus did.
Like, hey, ascending in the clouds.
Yeah, yeah.
Look at us.
You're going to see this is on display now, right?
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's a difference in the rapture and we're going in a moment and twinking
of an eye and people are sitting there trying to figure out what's going on.
There'll be no doubt what's happening.
They going to watch it.
cameras will be on these boards.
Yeah, yeah.
I almost like calling you know, I almost like
calling them out of the grave, right?
I mean, that, hey, come up hither,
you know, come back to life.
You got some precedent for that too in Lazarus, don't we?
Yeah, absolutely.
We do.
Hey, when he says come up, we're going to come up.
Nothing can stay dead with the voice of God.
Thank God.
You know, and it says, it says they heard it.
Do you think that is literally everybody on the earth
hears that voice?
Yeah, I think so.
Here's that shout.
Here's that come up, boys.
and then they're looking.
Hey, wait a minute, what's going on over there?
Yeah.
Hey, those guys we just killed.
Yeah. left laying in the street to rot.
Yeah.
And these guys had the breath of God come back into them and they're they
sit up, stand up, and then they hear...
Yep.
Off they go.
Amen.
Oh, that's awesome man.
And people are going to see this and just be amazed.
Amazed.
This is not something Antichrist can do.
It's not something the false prophet can do.
It's not something Satan can do.
That's right.
They can't breathe life into anybody.
He breathes death into people.
That's right.
And we're going to see something similar happen to the Antichrist in a little bit, aren't we?
And he's going to, there's where a lot of the
smoke and mirrors are going to come in.
But there's something about Satan.
Like you said, he cannot he cannot give life.
He is not a life giver.
There's a lot of taker.
right?
His his purpose
is to steal, kill and destroy.
That's right.
So, yeah.
Amen.
Oh, man.
You better mention what verse we're on.
We are starting on verse 15 of chapter 11.
Yeah.
11, 15 next week.
Oh, man.
I tell you, that is such a,
oh, that's a good place to start.
Stop.
Because, man, that is so exciting
to know that once again,
over and over,
Satan comes against God, Satan comes against Christ.
Satan comes against the church and he thinks he's won.
Yeah.
Hey, these prophets are causing problems.
I'm just going to go out here.
I'm going deal with them.
I'm going to kill them.
They're gone.
I'm done with it.
Three days later.
Do you know when
you think about that, how much that's got to gall him
to know that he killed Christ.
And 3 days later, he stood up and walked out of the grave.
And then here he is.
He kills these guys 3.5 days later, they stand up and then they ascend into heaven.
Oh, that's gotta burn him up.
I mean, it's I mean, that is God displaying to him.
I have the power here, man.
He's been chasing that seed since the beginning, right?
I mean, from Adam and Eve.
He's been chasing that seed trying to stomp it out, trying to destroy
it, you know, and man,
he keeps getting bruised by the heel of Jesus, doesn't he?
And he fails and fails and fails.
Yeah, that is crust.
That's right.
Man.
Well, next week we will pick up with Revelation
1115, Revelation
chapter 11, verse 15, and
the last trumpet blows.
Yeah.
Oh, the 3rd woe is coming.
It is.
The last verse there.
3rd woe.
the last trumpet blow, and then we get into some,
I mean, we've seen the rough stuff and now
we start getting into the, it's more details.
Yeah, we get we get into some details.
We get into, we get over the, the,
the general overview and the, the high level view and
we start getting into a few details.
We start seeing some blood information.
Yeah, we start seeing the information about what's
going to happen to the Antichrist,
to the false prophet, to the beast.
And we get to see it spelled out in no uncertain terms.
I mean, this is not something that's a mystery to us.
This is not something that God tells John to, hey, don't write about that.
This is something that he wants us to
understand and know how this all ends.
And that's where we're headed with this.
So, uh, Revelation 11,
15, and we will pick back up there next week and
uh, brother uh, Dennis, since you came
in late, we'll let you dismiss tonight.
Sorry, man.
Mr. Tardy.
All right, let's pray.
Father, thank you so much for giving us your word, Father, that
you give us hope.
Father, we don't know where we'd be without you
revealing these things to us, and Father, we give you thanks.
Thanks from the bottom of our hearts to know that you
are all powerful, you're sovereign, you're in
control, and you've never lost control, that, Lord, you're working
all things together for our good and your glory.
Father, I pray that these things would happen soon,
that you would come to get us soon, Father, that before that,
Father, I pray for revival.
Father, let this country come back to you somehow,
some way that hearts would be turned to you and lives saved
by the 1000000s.
Father, I pray for every listener that they
would turn to you in a deeper and closer way, Father, that we
tune the noise of this world out.
Father, that we draw closer to you and be more
like these 2 witnesses.
Father, we want to serve you.
We want to love you more.
Father give us grace to believe you more.
And Father, I pray for your protection until
we come back here again in Jesus' name.
Amen.