Revelation 10-11, "He Shall Reign Forever and Ever"

I don’t know if you know this, but this is election week in the U.S. We have important decisions to make about who will lead us. As a leader in the church, it still surprises me that people care about what I think, especially around politics. And most of you have already made up your minds about the elections. So I think it’s safe enough for me to finally tell you how I try to think biblically about voting and politics. Then we will see how that fits in with our passage today.

If we start at the end and work backwards, we see in Revelation 11 where all politics on earth is headed.

Revelation 11:15 (ESV)

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

In the end, God the Father and God the Son will reign forever and ever in the perfect unity of God the Spirit. What is the nature of God’s kingdom, and how does that shape our view of politics? Here’s the first thing I think about when voting for a candidate.

God rules with righteousness and justice, steadfast love and truth.

Psalm 89:14 (ESV)

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love (חֶ֫סֶד , love demonstrated through commitment or kindness) and faithfulness (אֱמֶת, truth or trustworthiness) go before you.

Every politician’s tenure becomes known for something. What is God’s administration known for? God always does what is right and blesses those who do right. He is just, and always acts according to His pure judgments, and blesses those who live according to those judgments. His nature is love, חֶ֫סֶד, a Hebrew word that means something like “committed love demonstrated through mercy and kindness”. Everything He does, He does in love. And He is truth personified. Therefore you can trust Him completely. God expects a human leader to embody these character qualities. Character matters.

Jesus contrasts two ways of leading in John 10:10

John 10:10 (ESV)

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Which reminds me of something else we read in Revelation 11.

Revelation 11:16–18 (ESV)

And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying,

“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign.

The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints,

and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”

The last phrase, God will destroy the destroyers of the earth implies that some people will use what power is given to them to destroy. Does the person I am voting for reflect the destroyers of the earth or the character of Christ, who came to give abundant life? Which leads to the second factor we should consider.

2. God created every human being in His image for abundant life.

Genesis 1:26–27 (ESV)

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Every human life, from conception to natural death is sacred and worthy of unalienable rights. The unborn person, the disabled person, and the infirm elderly person are worthy of the same rights as anyone else.

We have a spiritual enemy that would steal, kill, and destroy our children any way he can. If not in the womb, he will delude them through media into either measuring themselves by unrealistic ideals or thinking they can determine their own identity rather than live in their God-given identity. Either of these delusions results in destruction. They are wasting their lives trying to be someone they aren’t, robbing them of their self-worth, leading to depression, despair, or emptiness.

We also derive from this passage God’s commandment that we care for creation.

Genesis 1:28 (ESV)

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

When we care for the earth, rather than destroy it in our selfishness, God is glorified as Creator and humans can flourish with abundant life.

That might seem like an unachievable ideal. Politics deals with the reality that some people don’t have the ability to flourish because of the brokenness of our world. This leads to our third consideration.

3. God grants vulnerable people special protections under His law.

Deuteronomy 10:18–19 (ESV)

He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner (alien, immigrant, foreigner, stranger), giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Proverbs 19:17 (ESV)

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.

God takes a personal interest in the wellbeing of these groups that are typically vulnerable in any society. He blesses those who care for these people. And He uses these groups to help us understand the gospel.

This requires wisdom. We have difficult choices to make in our politics. Caring for one group often seems to be at odds with caring for another. And our political climate right now pits Christian principles against each other in the two party system. So, we need wisdom, and we want wise leaders. Which is our fourth consideration when we vote.

4. There is a wisdom from above and a wisdom from earth.

We want wise civic leaders. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote a diagnostic for us. In chapter 3 of his letter to the churches, he wrote,

James 3:13–18 (ESV)

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

These two kinds of wisdom are reflected all through the book of revelation. The beast and his followers, the “earth-dweller”, rule by earthly wisdom. The followers of Jesus will be marked by the wisdom from above.

Revelation 11 quotes from Psalm 2, but most of chapters 10 and 11 is an allusion to the apocalyptic prophets Ezekiel and Daniel.

Daniel 12:1–3 (ESV)

“And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.

And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.

The “time of trouble” is a time of sifting people. Some will double down on their sins that destroy the earth. Some will shine like stars because of their wisdom and their ability to turn many to righteousness. Daniel says this will be the last three and a half years of human history. Those days are yet to come.

But in our own time, we derive the wisdom we can use. When times of trouble come upon us, we look for leaders to lead. Will they have wisdom from above that is

James 3:17 (ESV)

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

Will they turn many to righteousness? Can you find anyone like that? Vote for them.

But if you can’t find that candidate, you just be that person. Not that you should run for office. But we have been called to be ambassadors for Christ. To bear witness to the Lamb of God who sits on the throne and will return to judge the nations.

When we get to Revelation 10-11, the focus is on prophets and preachers. John is given a scroll from an angel that looks a lot like the glorified Jesus Christ we saw in chapter 1. He is told to do something weird.

Revelation 10:9–10 (ESV)

So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, “Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.”

And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter.

That’s pretty weird, but obviously it’s a metaphor for John’s calling as a prophet, which becomes clear in verse 11,

Revelation 10:11 (ESV)

And I was told, “You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”

John’s message will be sweet because he gets to preach the word of God, the hope of King Jesus. But it is bitter for a couple of reasons. First, it is a political message of destruction for the kingdoms of the world. Second, it is connected to the suffering of Christians.

A couple more weird things happen in Revelation 11. John, in a repeat of the prophet Ezekiel, is told to measure the temple of God. In apocalyptic imagery, the temple is the people of God, the church. The church, in its worship of God and the Lamb, measure up to be God’s dwelling place.

But John is also told

Revelation 11:2 (ESV)

but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.

The time of the church in the world has not reached its full measure. Just as we saw in Daniel, there will be three and a half years in which the followers of Jesus, pictured as a holy city among the nations, will be persecuted. It is the time Jesus called the great tribulation.

(I will add at this point that there are brothers and sisters in this church who believe this period is half of a seven year period Daniel prophesied that will come at the end of time in which God will complete His dealings with the nation of Israel specifically. They believe the church as we know it will be taken to heaven at the beginning of this time, and the 144,000 witnesses, the martyrs from the tribulation will be Jewish people who come to faith in Jesus because of that rapture and its effects. You can derive this from several factors. The church of Philadelphia is promised that

Revelation 3:10 (ESV)

Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.

And from the fact that the church is really not mentioned as such after chapter 3. They see the words of Jesus to John in chapter 4, “Come up here” as calling all faithful believers to heaven. The ensuing tribulation is the outpouring of God’s wrath on the earth, and Christians are promised

1 Thessalonians 5:9–10 (ESV)

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.

I held this same view for a long time. And it is one appropriate way to interpret the scriptures. Having said that,)

The three and a half years of trampling of the nations on the courts of the temple coincides with the witness of two more prophets. John takes imagery from the apocalyptic prophet Zechariah to describe these prophets as a light to the world, lamps continually filled with oil to burn. In fact, their mouths can pour fire, they have power over the heavens, like the prophet Elijah and can inflict plagues like the prophet Moses. They are the end time heralds of the coming kingdom of God.

But at the very end of three and half years, they too will succumb to the persecution of followers of the Lamb, and they will be killed by the beast. But after three and half days, God will raise them to new life and call them to heaven. And the people who dwell on earth will find this terrifying.

Here’s the message. When we see the pattern of Revelation 10-11, we have the preacher commissioned to preach a message that is sweet because it is good news. To paraphrase

Revelation 11:15 (ESV)

“The kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

But this message is a word of warning to the kingdom of the world. To the beast, to Babylon, to all those whom Revelation calls “those who dwell on the earth”. In other words, for those that reject God’s reign and live as a law to themselves, who find all their satisfaction in what this world offers only, when the kingdom of God comes, they will have nothing left. And those who have destroyed the earth with their idolatry, murders, sorceries, sexual immorality and thefts (9:20-21), they will be destroyed.

For the preacher, the prophet, the church, we follow the way of Jesus. The world ruled by Babylon does not want the kingdom of God. So it will reject, persecute, kill those who preach the coming kingdom. But suffering and death always lead to resurrection and glory.

Jesus established the pattern for His followers. He did not respond to insults with insults. He humbled Himself to die on a cross for the sins of the world. Then He was raised and exalted to glory. When we respond to persecution or mistreatment with humility, love, and a willingness to suffer for the sake of Jesus’ name, we bear faithful witness. This is our victory over the world, sin, and the devil.

Let’s not get lost in the political climate that pits one side against the other, when neither side truly represents the fullness of God’s kingdom and His priorities and values. Let’s pray for wisdom, seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God, and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We preach monarchy, the coming kingdom of Jesus. And we follow the Lamb of God who gave His life to ransom us and redeem sinners. The law of love will be the only law when He shall reign forever and ever.