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Revelation 11:1-2: Security.

“I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, ‘Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, with its worshippers. ² But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.” NIV

Many people find ‘Revelation’ to be the most puzzling book in the Bible, and chapter 11 its most puzzling chapter. Not surprisingly, there are different interpretations of this chapter. (That is true of the whole book of course!)

I’m not saying dogmatically that my viewpoint is correct, but I suggest that these 2 verses point to the ultimate security of the church. Although a part of it will, for a limited time, be ‘’given’’ over to suffering, God has the true measure of the church – His temple (see 1 Corinthians 3:16). He knows all those who are His, and although He will not necessarily keep them from suffering, He will keep them in and through suffering. They cannot be destroyed by it. So the measuring speaks of protection (see also Ezekiel chapters 40-42).

PRAYER: Lord, if I should live through dark days for your church – even the darkest – help me to never forget that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Revelation 10:9-11: ‘Eat this Book’.

“So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, ‘Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but “in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”^[a]’ ¹⁰ I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. ¹¹ Then I was told, ‘You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.’ NIV

One of Eugene Peterson’s many books is entitled: ‘Eat this Book’. The idea is no doubt drawn from this passage in ‘Revelation’. It, in turn, is linked to Ezekiel 2:8 & 3:1-3.  As previously noted, John’s call to be a prophet is affirmed in these verses, and even extended.

‘’By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth…For he spoke and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.’’ Psalm 33: 6 & 9.

God’s Word is a creative Word, and when He puts His words into the mouth of a prophet, they are productive: ‘Prophecy makes things happen…This is how prophecy works.God’s words are to become John’s words in order that they may become reality.’ Tom Wright: ‘Revelation for Everyone’, p.94.

Preachers are not necessarily prophets, but all true preaching contains a prophetic element. Anyone who is to speak God’s Word must first ‘Eat this Book’. You must be nourished by it yourself; digest it; it’s got to become a part of you, if you are to proclaim it effectively to others.

But the Word read and preached is both ‘’sweet’’ and ‘’sour’’. You will have to declare both unpalatable truths as well as popular and pleasing ones. When you think about it, there is a mixture of bitter and sweet in this book of Revelation. We have to face some harsh realities concerning events yet to unfold on the earth before Jesus returns. Yet how sweet it is to know that He is coming back to set everything straight, and there will be a brand new universe.

Revelation 10:1-7: Secret things.

“Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars. ² He was holding a little scroll, which lay open in his hand. He planted his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, ³ and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion. When he shouted, the voices of the seven thunders spoke. ⁴ And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven say, ‘Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down.’⁵ Then the angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven. ⁶ And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, ‘There will be no more delay! ⁷ But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.’ NIV

Just as John inserted a pause between the sixth and seventh seals, so he does between the sixth and seventh trumpets. This interlude is found between 10:1 and 11:14. It’s purpose is threefold:

1. To announce the certainty and nearness of the end once the seventh trumpet is sounded (10:1-7);
2. To show that John’s commission to prophesy was freshly affirmed and even extended (10:8-11);
3. To make plain the task of the church in the time of tribulation, namely to bear witness to Christ before the opponents of His gospel (11:3-13): ‘Here for the first time the figure of the antichrist appears (11:7), and the dual nature of the last tribulation becomes apparent, namely judgments of God upon those who oppose him and war against the church by the followers of antichrist. No promise of escape from the latter is given, but the end of the story is the vindication of the church and conversion of many.’ G.R.Beasley-Murray: ‘New Bible Commentary’, p.1439.

Just a comment on verse 4: Presumably the ‘’seven thunders’’ came from God or Christ (as also the command in the same verse). What the message was and why it was not to be revealed has triggered much head-scratching among scholars through the years. But it reminds me of this verse:

‘’The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law’’ (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Revelation 9:13-21: Unrepentant.

^“13 The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God. ¹⁴ It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’ ¹⁵ And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. ¹⁶ The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number.¹⁷ The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulphur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulphur. ¹⁸ A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulphur that came out of their mouths. ¹⁹ The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.²⁰ The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshipping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood – idols that cannot see or hear or walk. ²¹ Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.” NIV

As you read these verses, remember this truth about God:

‘’He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance’’ (1 Peter 3:9b).

When the plagues fell on Egypt, clearly manifesting the presence and power of God and His anger against sin, what did Pharaoh do? He hardened his heart – and more than once at that. As we have seen, in this section of ‘Revelation’ there are are echoes of the Egyptian plagues. But Pharaoh’s response is typical of mankind’s general attitude towards God (20, 21). Whenever God sends His judgments on the world, it is intended to bring people to repentance. But we humans repeatedly turn our backs and dig in our heels (20,21).

‘’The remaining men and women who weren’t killed by these weapons went on their merry way – didn’t change their way of life, didn’t quit worshiping demons, didn’t quit centring their lives around lumps of gold and silver and brass, hunks of stone and wood that couldn’t see or hear or move. There wasn’t a sign of change of heart. They plunged right on in their murderous, occult, promiscuous, and thieving ways.’’ ‘The Message’.

I need to say again that we may not fully understand all these symbols and images now. Somebody put it like this: it’s as though John is saying, ‘Imagine your worst nightmares; then double them, and realise these things must happen for evil to be fully exposed and finally defeated.’

The reference to ‘’the golden altar that is before God’’ (13) reminds us of the cries of the martyrs in heaven (6:9, 10), and the prayers of the saints on earth (8:4, 5). In all that is going to happen, God is going to work His purposes out, in answer to the prayers of His people.

Commenting on these verses G.B.Caird suggested ‘that the powers of evil have an immense reserve army, from which they can be steadily reinforced, so that no earthly order can find security from attacks from beyond the frontier, except in the final victory of God. In a world in which evil is virulent and tenacious, the programme of the gospel must not be expected to produce a steady whittling away of Satan’s power, until he is reduced to impotence, but rather a steady hardening of resistance, leading inexorably to a last great battle.’

PRAYER: Lord, there is much I do not understand. But this I do know: You are in control: you answer prayer: you want people to repent; and evil will not have the final say in human history. ‘’Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.’’ (Revelation 19:6b)

Revelation 9:1-12: Nightmare.

“The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. ² When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. ³ And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. ⁴ They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. ⁵ They were not allowed to kill them but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes. ⁶ During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.⁷ The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. ⁸ Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. ⁹ They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. ¹⁰ They had tails with stings, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. ¹¹ They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).¹² The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.” NIV

This really is the stuff of nightmares isn’t it? It feels like horror movie material. You can let your imagination run riot here. Someone referred to these ‘insects on steroids’. Scary! You want to go and hide behind the sofa as the terrible scene unfolds. Normally, locusts eat vegetation and do no harm to people, but these demonic locusts ignore vegetation and attack humans. More precisely, they target ‘’those who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads’’ as opposed to those who have the mark of the beast (see 13:16). The clouds ‘’like the smoke from a gigantic furnace’’ (2-4) is intended to convey the impression of an advancing cloud of locusts. The comparison of these demon hordes to locusts echoes the vision of Joel 2:1-10. But in addition to what we read there, these locusts have power to inflict pain like scorpions (9:10).

I refer to them as demonic because the scene opens with ‘’a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth’’ (1). He is a fallen angel, but nevertheless an instrument in God’s Hands. He has authority.He is ‘’given the key to the shaft of the Abyss.’’ The Abyss had come to denote the abode of demonic beings. In 20:1-3 it is the place into which Satan is thrown and imprisoned. So here, with reference to the ‘’key’’, we see that God is firmly in charge of the place.

Who/what are these locusts? John ‘lavishes more detailed description on these super-locusts than on any other creature in this vivid book. So much so, in fact, that many modern readers, struck by the almost mechanical appearance of the creatures in verses 7-10, have tried to identify them as this or that kind of modern military machine; an attack helicopter, for instance. This seems a typical case of trying to tie down John’s symbolism and thereby almost to domesticate it…The point is…The fifth angel has unleashed something truly monstrous, truly hellish.’ Tom Wright: ‘Revelation for Everyone’, pp.85, 86.

Whatever the symbolism here means, we are meant to see that the power of the man-torturing locusts is limited (5 – ‘’five months’’ is the normal life span of a locust). God and the Lamb are fully in charge of history, but for evil to finally be conquered, it has to first of all be allowed to come fully out of its dark, smelly cave, into the open, and do its worst.

For those who know they are sealed by God, this is the all important reality. It isn’t a guarantee that we will be spared all possible pain. But the Lord knows His own, and He will bring them safely home.

Revelation 8:6-13: Radical surgery.

^” Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them.⁷ The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.⁸ The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, ⁹ a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.¹⁰ The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water – ¹¹ the name of the star is Wormwood.^[a] A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.¹² The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.¹³ As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in mid-air call out in a loud voice: ‘Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!’NIV

Here is a further helpful quote on this passage from Tom Wright:

This is ‘about God’s drastic action to purify the world, to cut it back as one would with a tree that had become dangerously diseased, removing the deadly cancer so that the rest may be saved…A little modification will not be enough. Only major surgery will do…we are seeing a major rerun of the plagues with which God afflicted the Egyptians in the end of the Israelites’ four hundred years of slavery…The plagues which John now envisages would resonate, in the minds of his hearers, with the ancient Egyptian plagues, and assure them of the same result…He is not repeating them one by one, but we cannot miss the echoes. When, eventually, we find the rescued people ‘singing the song of Moses, and the song of the lamb’ in 15.3, we ought not to be surprised. This is perhaps the major key to some of the most difficult passages in the book.’ ‘Revelation for Everyone’, from pp.81-83.

An encouragement to keep going.

I’m not focussing on one particular part of ‘Revelation’ today, but I share this with you as an encouragement to keep going:

‘Just a few weeks ago, at our church gathering, we read the entire book of Revelation out loud. I started by reading Revelation 1:3: ‘’Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.’’  Isn’t it ridiculous that God promises a blessing to anyone who reads Revelation out loud yet no one actually does this? So we took turns reading a chapter each until all twenty-two chapters were read. It was powerful. The Word of God read simply and without embellishment brought us to a deeper and purer form of worship than anything I could have said.’ Francis Chan: ‘Letters to the Church’, p.59.

Revelation 8:7: Scorched earth.

⁷ The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.” NIV

A recent article in ‘Time’ magazine, about the Australian drought, included these words:

‘The country has experienced 9 of the 10 warmest years on record since 2005, and a heat wave in January broke records across Australia…Australia isn’t alone. Average temperatures are surging across the globe. By the end of the century according to the IPCC, drought will become more common and severe across the planet’s midlatitudes and subtropics – a cross section of the globe that includes the Mediterranean, the southwest U.S., the Western part of South America, and Southern Africa.’

Someone commented: ‘It’s a harbinger of things to come.’  (The IPPC, by the way, is the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change).

I’m not saying that this verse in Revelation is about global warming. But increasingly we are hearing apocalyptic warnings from scientific experts, and some of these seem to tally with certain apocalyptic pictures in Revelation. It is true that the Bible is as up to date as today’s newspaper.

One way God judges is by letting people have their own way when they give Him up; when they turn their backs to Him (see Romans 1:24, 26 and 28). Who knows, then, what we may yet reap from all the bad we have sown?

Revelation 8:6-13: Pruning.

“Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them.⁷ The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.⁸ The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, ⁹ a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.¹⁰ The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water – ¹¹ the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.¹² The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.¹³ As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in mid-air call out in a loud voice: ‘Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!’” NIV

A general comment should help us as we look at the remainder of chapter 8, and then chapter 9:  ‘According to John’s revelation, God sent these seven plagues upon the earth in order to lead people to repentance. These plagues were meant to destroy only a part of the earth, not the entire earth. However, men did not repent; instead, their hearts became even harder. Just as in Egypt the heart of the Pharaoh was hardened when God sent plagues upon the Egyptians, so it will be at the end of the world. At that time, when the final tribulations come, men’s hearts will become even more hardened, and they will begin to revile God. And just as God led His people, the Jews, out of Egypt, and into the land He had promised them, so at the end of the world God will lead all believers out of the final tribulation and into His presence in heaven.’ Tom Hale: ‘The Applied New Testament Commentary’, p.976.

As you read today’s passage you will no doubt ‘hear’ echoes from the book of Exodus, and the story of the plagues sent on Egypt.

Note too that the repeated thirds are not to be taken literally. They refer to a pruning, a cutting back. As already intimated, the aim is to produce the fruit of repentance, but this is not forthcoming; and as you will see from the last verse, there is worse still to come.

It has been said that some people want to serve God only in an advisory capacity! Many in their number would no doubt suggest to Him that He shouldn’t behave in such a strong-handed manner. But God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and we often fail to take into consideration ‘the exceeding sinfulness of sin.’

This Is God’s world, and He has every right to do whatever it takes to cleanse it from all evil.