Revelation Revealed part 6

Last time we closed out with a mighty Angel who is none other than Christ Himself, descending from heaven. He is seen by John having one foot in the sea and another foot on the land. He announces that “time is no longer.”

At this point, history as we have known it is coming to a close. This event takes place mid-point through the Great Tribulation. The end-time days, here designated as the “days of the voice of the seventh angel,” indicates that the last half of the Great Tribulation will quickly occur.

The mighty Angel, or Christ, holds in His hand a small book that has already been opened:

The Little Book

Revelation 10:8-11 – “8 Then the voice which I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, “Go, take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the earth.” 9So I went to the angel and said to him, “Give me the little book.” And he said to me, “Take and eat it; and it will make your stomach bitter, but it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth.” 10 Then I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter. 11 And he said to me, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings.”

Clearly, this mysterious little book contains the events about to be described. John is to literally ingest it, absorbing the information contained in the book into his mind and being. Sweet are the promises and plans of God, but often the judgments and justice of God, also predicted, are bitter in results. What John is about to see taking place on earth is bitter indeed. And clearly, verse 11 is a prediction that John’s Revelation would go to the entire world, as indeed it has!

THE REBUILT TEMPLE

As we come to Chapter 11 it’s important to note that from Chapters 11-14, John pauses in the chronological sequence of things and zooms in on some key events going on in the Tribulation. It’s like going 60 mph down a highway with sights and towns and sounds zipping by and someone says, “Slow down and get off, let’s drive around the streets of this town and see the sights.” John is slowing down and allowing us to see some close-up highlights of the first 3 ½ years of the Tribulation.

First, he focuses on the TEMPLE, which is crucial to end-time events. Revelations 11:1-2 – “1Then I was given a measuring stick, and I was told, “Go and measure the Temple of God and the altar, and count the number of worshipers. 2 But do not measure the outer courtyard, for it has been turned over to the nations. They will trample the holy city for 42 months.”

Background

When Abraham was told by God to offer Isaac, he went to the top of Mount Moriah. There, the drama of Isaac being spared took place. Later, King Solomon ordered his engineers to literally cut the top off of Mount Moriah. In an amazing engineering feat they accomplished it. They then built a wall around it and filled it with dirt like a big sandbox. On top of this they built Solomon’s temple.

When the Jews were taken into Babylonian captivity, the Temple was destroyed in 587 BC. Fifty years later, construction of a new temple was begun in 537 BC. After a 17 year hiatus work resumed in 520 BC. The temple was completed in 516 BC and dedicated in 515 BC. So, 72 years after the Temple was destroyed, it was rebuilt and dedicated.

Five centuries later, this Second Temple was renovated by Herod the Great in about 20 BC. This was known as Herod's Temple. It was subsequently destroyed again by the Romans in 70 AD per Jesus’ prediction in:

Matthew 24: 1-2 “As Jesus was leaving the Temple grounds, his disciples pointed out to him the various Temple buildings. 2 But he responded, “Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”

The Jewish people were scattered at this time to the four corners of the earth, a people without a country, exactly according to Moses’ prediction: Deuteronomy. 28: 64-67 “64For the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone!” “65There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the Lord will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair. 66 Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive. 67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were night!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you.”

Jewish history utterly fulfills this prediction. There has never been a place or time in which they were not persecuted, despised and rejected.

In the meantime, Islam was born around 700 A.D. Islam claims that at the end of his life, Mohammad rode into Jerusalem and ascended into heaven on a horse from the very spot where the Jewish Temple had been!

The believers in Mohammad, the Muslims, eventually built a structure on that very spot and called it the Dome of the Rock. The Dome of the Rock has stood on the site of the Temple since the late 7th Century A. D.

Now meanwhile, God had promised through His prophets that the Jewish people would one day be restored to their homeland. Against all odds, after being relentlessly persecuted, despised, scattered and homeless, Israel became a nation again in 1948.

And in the famous 6-day war in 1967, they took Jerusalem again. Since that time the vitriol, hatred, war and bloodshed between Arab and Jew has been unrelenting. The crux of the problem is that it is a battle over the land.

But let’s be clear; there is no question that God gave that land to the Jewish people via Abraham, beginning all the way back to Genesis 12 in the covenant God made with him. Genesis 12:1“The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.” Genesis 12:7 “Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘I will give this land to your descendants.’”

All of this now brings us to Revelation 11: 1 “Then I was given a measuring stick, and I was told, ‘Go and measure the Temple of God and the altar, and count the number of worshipers.’”

Catch this: This verse predicts that the temple will again exist in the last days. You can’t measure something that’s not there. The Jewish people will build the temple again right where it used to be! This also presupposes that the old Jewish sacrifices and temple worship will also be reinstituted. John is told to “count the number of worshippers.”

We will see in later chapters that the Antichrist will make a peace treaty with Israel. He will finally solve the age old Arab-Israeli conflict. No doubt one of the carrots he places in front of the Jews will be to allow them to practice their Old Testament rituals and worship.

But, though temple worship is Jerusalem will be restored, it will be interrupted once more by an invasion of Gentiles. Revelation 11:2 “But do not measure the outer courtyard, for it has been turned over to the nations (ethnos). They will trample the holy city for 42 months (the 2nd half of the Tribulation).” And who will these Gentile invaders be? The forces of Antichrist, who will dominate the Middle East and Jerusalem for 42 months, a period of 3 ½ years.

Summary: At the beginning of the Tribulation, Antichrist will make a peace treaty with Israel. The Prophet Daniel predicted, "'The ruler (Antichrist) will make a treaty with the people for a period of one set of seven (seven year peace treaty).” No doubt about it, a peace pact between Arabs and Jews will finally be realized, but at the hands of Antichrist!

At the end of the first 3 ½ years, the Antichrist will stop all of it and commit what scripture calls “the abomination of desolation.” Daniel predicted:

Daniel 9:27 "The ruler will make a treaty with the people for a period of one set of ‘seven’ (seven years), but after half this time, he will put an end to the sacrifices and offerings. And as a climax to all his terrible deeds, he will set up a sacrilegious object that causes desecration (abomination of desolation), until the fate decreed for this defiler is finally poured out on him.”

The Abomination of Desolation

What is the “Abomination of desolation”? In 167 B.C. a Greek ruler by the name of Antiochus Epiphanies set up an altar to Zeus over the altar of burnt offerings in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. He also sacrificed a pig on the altar in the Temple in Jerusalem. This event is known as the abomination of desolation.

Jesus spoke about this very thing:Matthew 24:15 “The day is coming when you will see what Daniel the prophet spoke about—the sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing in the Holy Place.” (Reader, pay attention!)

But in Matthew 24:15, Jesus was speaking some 200 years after the abomination of desolation described above had already occurred. So, Jesus must have been prophesying that some time in the future another abomination of desolation would occur in a Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

Revelation 13:14 describes Antichrist making some kind of image which all are forced to worship. Turning the temple of the living God into a place of worship for the Antichrist is truly an “abomination.”

For the first 3 ½ years, the new world leader will maintain warm and friendly relations with Israel, guaranteeing their integrity and autonomy. He will be a world-wide hero. Finally, the Arab-Israeli conflict will have been solved! But then he will break his treaty, invade Jerusalem, slay two witnesses we will look at next, and continue his evil domination for the final 42 months.

LESSON: You can’t make a deal with the devil and not get burned!

During the first 3 ½ years, the antichrist will have a thorn in his side in the form of two witnesses who prophesy about the awesome judgments of God that are coming.

John writes in:Revelation 11:3 -6 – “And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will be clothed in burlap (Like John the Baptist) and will prophesy during those 1,260 days (the first 3 ½ years).” “These two prophets are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of all the earth. 5 If anyone tries to harm them, fire flashes from their mouths and consumes their enemies. This is how anyone who tries to harm them must die (supernatural protection).” 6 “They have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall for as long as they prophesy (Like Elijah).” “And they have the power to turn the rivers and oceans into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish (Like Moses).”

Since it was Moses and Elijah that appeared to Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration, this is likely them again.

When the Antichrist breaks his treaty with Israel and invades Jerusalem, the two witnesses are finally slain. Revelation 11:7 “When they complete their testimony, the beast (Antichrist) that comes up out of the bottomless pit will declare war against them, and he will conquer them and kill them.”

Notice next how John uncannily predicts the ability of our present-day world to view something world-wide via television and the internet.

Revelation 11:8-9 - “8 And their bodies will lie in the main street of Jerusalem, the city that is figuratively called “Sodom” and “Egypt,” the city where their Lord was crucified. 9 And for three and a half days, all peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will stare at their bodies…”

This passage alone mystified Bible scholars for centuries. “How could this be?” they wondered. That is, until the advent of satellite television and 24/7 news channels. And notice next how a world experiencing Great Tribulation rejoices over the death of the righteous.

Revelation 11:9-10 - “9 …No one will be allowed to bury them. 10 All the people who belong to this world will gloat over them and give presents to each other to celebrate the death of the two prophets who had tormented them.”

But the world-wide celebration won’t last long! Revelation 11:11-12 – “11 But after three and a half days, God breathed life into them, and they stood up! Terror struck all who were staring at them. 12 Then a loud voice from heaven called to the two prophets, “Come up here!” And they rose to heaven in a cloud as their enemies watched.”

These two witnesses will be resurrected from the dead while the whole world continues to watch. The moment this happens, an earthquake rocks the city. Revelation 11:13 “At the same time there was a terrible earthquake that destroyed a tenth of the city. Seven thousand people died in that earthquake, and everyone else was terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.”

Then John warns:

Revelation 11:14 “The second terror is past (the 6th Trumpet), but look, the third terror (the 7th Trumpet) is coming quickly.”

Remember how we said at the beginning of this series that the action often shifts from earth to heaven and back again. At this point in Ch. 11, John is taken up into heaven to see the 7th angel blow his trumpet. Revelation 11:15 “Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices shouting in heaven: ‘The world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.’”

This last trumpet will encompass the whole time period of 42 months, described in detail all the way through Chapter 19. As we’ve already mentioned, this final 1,260 days is called in 10:7 “the days of the voice of the seventh angel.”

In heaven, John again sees the 24 elders representing the raptured, glorified saints and the resurrected New Testament saints. They are rejoicing, worshipping, and proclaiming that the time of rewards in heaven is at hand.

At the same time, the hour of judgments on earth is in process.Revelation 11 16-18 – “16 The twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones before God fell with their faces to the ground and worshiped him. 17 And they said,

“We give thanks to you, Lord God, the Almighty, the one who is and who always was, for now you have assumed your great power and have begun to reign.

18 The nations were filled with wrath, but now the time of your wrath has come. It is time to judge the dead and reward your servants the prophets, as well as your holy people,

and all who fear your name, from the least to the greatest. It is time to destroy all who have caused destruction on the earth.”

After this, the following chapters describe the conclusion of history. Civilization as we know it will destroy itself, and the Lord Jesus Christ will intervene in majesty and glory!

Revelation 11:19 “Then, in heaven, the Temple of God was opened and the Ark of his covenant could be seen inside the Temple. Lightning flashed, thunder crashed and roared, and there was an earthquake and a terrible hailstorm.”