I heard perhaps one of the best sermons I have ever heard at the Preaching Teaching Convention at Ozark Christian College. The sermon, by Jeff Walling, is available for purchase as a download at http://catapes.com/viewresults.cfm?cid=143 for $5. He is a very visual preacher, so the audio won't be quite as impacting as watching it. I bought the DVD at the convention and brought it home to share with my kids.
The reason I thought this message was so well done is that it accomplishes the important but difficult elements of outstanding preaching. First of all, it taught the text really well. So much preaching these days is about the text or around the text, but not in and of the text. Second, it was convicting, and filled with application. And third, it was completely engaging. Jeff Walling has a way of keeping your attention like few guys can. And he did it within a reasonable time frame. Preaching is difficult. Preaching and being Biblical is very difficult. Preaching, being Biblical, and pounding home conviction and application is extremely difficult. To do all that and to be interesting and funny is near impossible. If you can accomplish all that and be done in your allotted time, its nothing short of a miracle.
He started in Revelation 10 with the idea that once the truth is unveiled to you, you can't unknow it. The idea of eating the little scroll in Revelation 10 is the ingestion of the Word - God's truth being such a part of us, that we can't separate ourselves from it. But it turns sour - there is bad news with the good news. Some people won't believe God's truth. Those people choose to not follow Him, and their judgment is brought upon them - another theme of Revelation. That's the sour, sick feeling in your stomach. That is the message that the modern emergent church doesn't want to follow or teach. Some people will burn forever in hell. That may be the most politically incorrect thing you could possibly say these days.
Heard any sermons about the truth and the doctrine of hell? Why not? Because it is a hard, hard message to stomach.
In Revelation 11 the two witnesses appear. They are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth (vs 4). Because Revelation already called the Church the lampstands earlier, (See Rev. 1:20), we know that John is talking about the Church. There are two because of the Old Testament imagery of the necessity of at least two witnesses. Jesus sent his disciples two by two. The Church is you, and the Church is me. There are two of them, but they act as one.
There are images there of Moses and Elijah - witnesses for God who brought the unwavering message of God -"I am God and there is no other."
They had a message of judgment for those who did not honor God and a message of blessing for those who did. That did not change between Old Testament witnesses and New Testament witnesses. Those who wanted to listen and hear did hear and those who didn't want to hear didn't hear it. Fire coming from their mouths represents this message - (and forget the wacky Left Behind books that picture these guys as human fire breathing dragons - that's totally bizarre!) The Church throughout the centuries is the two witnesses.
The nasty part, and the part that makes me ask lots of questions starts in verse 7: 7Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. 8Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. 9For three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. 10The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth. 11But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. 12Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, "Come up here." And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.
There is enough in this section to blog about for a month, so let's start at verse 7. "When they had finished their testimony..." So, exactly when would that be? When is the Church done testifying about Christ? When is she done preaching the gospel? Or carrying the good news to the ends of the earth? I think it is pretty clear here that it is the end! Verse 12 sounds very much like 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Someone might say here, "hey, wait a second...uh, where is the Lord?" How about verse 12 - the voice from heaven.
Side note - in case you are wondering why the end is here in the middle of Revelation - that's because the end is all through Revelation - imagine the same story being told multiple times in different ways with a focus on different things. If you try to force Revelation to be a linear, chronological thing, then it will be horribly confusing and totally misrepresented, in my humble opinion. There are many parallel passages within Revelation. I need to do a blog post just on that concept.
So, the implication here is that at the time of the end, the Church will experience an unprecedented persecution. We really don't have much connection to that in the American Church, but believers all over the world have been dealing with this for many, many years. So, I believe, that we need to be ready for severe, overwhelming persecution. We need to teach our children to be ready and willing to sacrifice everything for Christ. To give up what we can't keep in order to gain what we can't lose, to paraphrase Jim Eliot.
The reason for this timing is also in verse 7, which is a parallel verse with Revelation 20:1-3. At the end, immediately before Christ comes again, Satan is allowed almost completely free reign for a very short time - "he is filled with fury because he knows that his time is short." (Rev. 12:12). Satan will overpower, attack, and seemingly destroy the Church - why then? Because the Church has finished its testimony.
Another side note here - Christian, have you reached that place? Have you finished your time of testimony about the Lord? (You haven't, because if you had, you would be dead, and dead people don't read blogs.) If we aren't dead yet, then God still has a purpose for us here to bring Him glory and to testify to his greatness. Why do we waste so much time with completely worthless pursuits? (Speaking to myself here.) Maybe we don't believe these verses? Maybe we don't believe what we are supposed to be testifying about? Maybe the world has distracted us so much that we have forgotten that we are here to give glory to God and testimony about Him?
Now, back to our program: Verse 9 says for three and half days, people will gloat, send each other gifts, refuse the dead bodies burial, and generally have a party because the Church is dead and gone. It seems that Satan has won, but God always has the final word and the victory, and you see that clearly in verse 11.
Revelation is a book of victory for the Christ follower. Even death can't be defeated! People often think of these great battles between God and Satan - Armageddon and all that. There's no great final battle - Jesus comes, flicks Satan and the worldly system into the fires of hell and it's all over. The final victory is assured. I'm not worried about that.
What I am dwelling on is this: am I prepared for the nastiness that will happen before that final victory? Do I have the courage and conviction to testify to the awesomeness of Christ until the time that the testimony is finished? And then, will I be ready to face the trials that will surely come? How many of my children will be prepared for that day? How many people who are in my areas of influence know how important it is to be ready for trials and persecution?
We have done the Church a great disservice by calling them to be ready ONLY for the second coming of Christ. I used to think of that day as being this "great, gettin' up morning" when we would see the sky crack open and the hear the trumpet blast as we were ending our leisurely breakfast. Revelation 11 is a little more "nasty" than that. We need to encourage each other to be ready not only for Christ's second coming, but for the suffering and persecution that, I believe, will surely come before the second coming.
I wonder why we can't just end our testimony and go to heaven? Why the little nasty interlude with Satan running amuck?
I guess it is because God won't get as much glory that way. And that is what it is all about. There is a billboard in Springfield advertising a car dealership that says, "It's all about you!" That might sound good in advertising, but that won't play well at the time of the end.
Comments are definitely welcome. Let's encourage each other to be the witness for Christ that we need to be.
