Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Last week we covered an entire chapter of Revelation in one night, but we won’t be able to do that this week.

It is tempting to tackle the second half of this interlude all at once, but I believe the first couple of verses of chapter 11 require us to deal with them separately.

The reason that we need to do this is that Revelation 11:1-2 brings us to a point of major divergence.

I put my cards on the table with you all back in September that I would be teaching through Revelation from the “Idealist Perspective.”

And I have done that.

I have taught Revelation as a book that is not so much chronological, but a book showing you the same events from seven different perspectives in seven different cycles.

I have taught it with the understanding that much of what we see in the book is happening right now.

I have taught it as being a picture book that is filled with images requiring us to go back to the Old Testament in order to understand their meaning.

And I have taught it as a book that can be understood with just that—your Old Testament in hand.

While some diagrams might be helpful, we don’t need charts and timelines

We need the same thing that the original audience in Asia Minor needed—the Holy Spirit and our Old Testament

This idealist perspective is quite different from the futurist and preterist perspective.

The futurist perspective, which includes the popular Left Behind view, otherwise known as dispensationalism, sees most of the book as occuring in the future.

The preterist perspective sees much of the book as being fulfilled in 70 AD.

I don’t think we have too many preterists in the room tonight.

Maybe a couple.

But I know we have plenty of futurists.

And I hope you have noticed that I haven’t argued with you much.

I don’t have interest in arguing about whether or not the Left Behind view is correct.

If we get to the end of this study and you all understand Revelation from the Idealist Perspective, disagree with it, but gleaned a bunch of great knowledge and application along the way—praise God!

If we get to the end of this study and you have been convinced that this is the correct way to understand Revelation, and you also gleaned a bunch of knowledge and application along the way—praise God!

Dr. John MacArthur has had as much of an influence in how I teach and preach and think about the Bible as anyone on earth.

He would say I am totally wrong because he is a futurist—a dispensationalist.

My friend Peter Hess is teaching through Revelation at Christ Fellowship in Williamsburg.

He is teaching from the futurist perspective.

But then there are men from JI Packer all the way back to Augustine who would agree with my approach.

I say all of this just to remind us that this great content for learning and growing and understanding but it should not be content we fight about as Christians.

And all of that disclaimer was necessary because this point of divergence tonight is about the temple and whether or not it needs to be re-built in Jerusalem before Jesus returns.

And people get very emotional about this because it touches politics and it can impact how we view the physical nation of Israel.

And since this can be an emotionally charged issue, I wanted to take time with it.

And I also think that these two verses have an incredible application that you can get excited about whether or not you agree with the Idealist approach in understanding these verses.

CONTEXT

A little reminder of the context.

We are getting toward the end of the third of seven cycles in Revelation.

The first used the seven churches of Asia Minor to show us how things would be until Jesus returns and how the church will be rewarded if she remains faithful.

The second used the seven seals to show us what history would be like until Christ returns.

Now the third cycle uses the seven trumpets to do the same thing.

We have seen six of the seven trumpets.

We are now in this interlude which takes place in chapter 10 and the first half of chapter 11.

In chapter 10, the interlude served to show how this is the final reprieve.

This time in between the 6th and 7th trumpets is the final opportunity to repent.

John is to eat the scroll, internalize the message himself and then take it to the nations and tell them

In chapter 11, we are going to see how the church goes about being a witness for Christ during this time in between the 6th and 7th trumpets.

How we will proclaim and we will also suffer.

Let’s pick up the passage in chapter 11 and read the first two verses.

THE VIEWS & THE TEMPLE

Part of the reason I wanted to take time with this is because I don’t want to just teach the Idealist View tonight.

I don’t have the time to give every view on every verse of Revelation.

I also think that would make for a miserable sermon series.

You want me to preach, so I am preaching from the perspective that seems to make the most sense to me.

However, at a major point of divergence like this, I think it is worth it to stop and parse out the views.

So I will do that tonight since these verses can be so controversial.

Let me actually start with the view that I think most of us have little interest in.

That is the Preterist View.

Many Preterists read this and say that all of this is about the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.

I won’t spend too much time on it, but I will say that in order to believe that, you have to believe that John wrote all of Revelation before 70 AD and that Revelation is mainly about the church suffering under Nero.

He reigned from from 54 to 68 AD.

The problem with that view is that the early church uniformly agreed that Revelation was written after 90 AD.

And we haven’t really discovered any reason to disagree with them.

So I don’t think we need to spend too much time dealing with that view, but I do think we should stop and deal with the Futurist view.

First of all, let’s remember that there are two types of futurists.

There are dispensationalists, who see two separate plans of salvation for Israel and the church.

Then there are historical/classic premillennialists who do not believe there are two programs of salvation.

They would see the Church as THE New Covenant people of God, filled with Jews and Gentiles

And a historic/classic premillennialist would actually agree with me on the interpretation of this passage.

They would NOT on Revelation 20.

We will get there later this year—Lord willing.

They would disagree with the Futurist Dispensational view or the Left Behind View.

This text is speaking about three areas—the temple, the altar and the outer court.

The dispensational view sees this as a literal building that will be constructed in the future.

This refers to the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place, not the entire temple complex.

A rebuilt temple will exist during the time of the Tribulation.

-John MacArthur

This belief is very much connected to the idea that when God speaks about Israel, he means Israel and not the church.

When He speaks about the church, He is talking about the church and not Israel.

And in light of that, since the two are separate bodies, God is doing different and unique things for each.

That is why I say that dispensationalism sees two fundamentally different programs of salvation in how God is dealing with Israel and the church.

Dispensationalists argue that the temple that John is measuring in chapter 11 is a literal building that will be rebuilt on Mount Zion at some point in the future by a re-constituted Israelite state.

As of right now, the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque are occupying that space, so if dispensationalists are correct, those structures will have to be destroyed and then replaced by a Jewish temple before Jesus comes back.

Here is Joel Beeke talking about this:

When the Jewish state of Israel was established in 1948, and when Jerusalem was captured by Israel in the Six Day War of 1967, dispensationalists viewed these events as signs of the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

This is one reason why the futurist view became popular among many evangelicals in the 20th century.

I am not convinced that John is measuring a literal temple in this text.

And for me that has to do with the context of Revelation, as well as what the temple means in the Bible as a whole.

The first temple you really see in the Scriptures is Eden.

I say that because Eden shows us worship before the Fall.

God in perfect relationship with His creation—in particular with Adam and Eve, pouring out joy upon them as they obey Him.

Adam and Eve serving God without the stain of sin.

But after being ousted from Eden, we see God using the tabernacle to dwell among His people.

And then, Solomon was allowed by God to do that which his father David longed to do—he built a permanent temple.

A permanent place for the people to meet with God.

In the building of the tabernacle and the temple, the people of God were seeking to recover what was lost in Eden—a place to joyfully serve and worship God

A place to rest in the reality that we are His people and He is our God.

But when Christ comes, He fulfills and replaces the temple, because as God, He is dwelling with man.

John 1:14 says

The Greek word for dwelt literally means “To shelter with,” or “to tabernacle with.”

And Christ not only fulfills the temple, but fulfills the sacrificial system and brings it to and end.

You see both of these realities in Hebrews 9—Christ as the fulfillment of the tabernacle, and by extension the temple, and Christ as the fulfillment of the sacrificial system.

And then, what have we seen in Luke on Sundays?