Power & Defeat, Humiliation & Triumph

Take your Bibles this morning and turn to Revelation chapter 11. My intention, of course, as I said earlier, is to finish chapter 11 this week and next. And then, because this is a natural break in the book, pick up chapter 12 about the second week of September. We're going to do a little bit something different then. for the summer. I would ask you now to join me in prayer as we ask that God would open up this text to us and transform us by understanding it and move us to serve Him.

God, You are our Father. you are our Father in Jesus, and so we come to you confidently. We sit here today knowing that we are weak, failing folks who, in our battle against sin and the flesh and the devil and the world, have failed many times, and we don't deserve to be here, but you have summoned us here by your grace. You have in your great mercy and your grace given us Jesus and through him you call us to come into your presence and to enjoy you.

You've called us to learn from you. Father, we thank you that you have never given up on us but by your covenant have pledged to remain faithful to us. Now we pray that you would work in us by your spirit of faithfulness in this instance of listening to you. As was prayed earlier, we pray that you help us to discipline our minds and our bodies now for the joy that awaits us in hearing from you.

Grant that we pray for the sake of Jesus, our Lord. Amen. When I was a kid my brother and I often fought even to the point of violence at least as much as boys could inflict violence on one another I remember my father pulling out an old, worn copy of Aesop's Fables, and he read us a story from that old book. It was a story of a couple brothers, or a few brothers, who were always fighting. and in the story the father gives each son a stick and says, see if you can break that stick, and of course each one breaks the stick quite easily.

Then the father takes a bunch of sticks, puts them in a bundle, and gives the bundle to each one of his sons, and each tries to break it, and he can't. Why not? Because they're holding together. The moral of the story was that if we stood together, no one could break us but apart as enemies we'd be easily broken my father wanted us to embrace that story as our own rather than the story we were already embracing which is i'm right and you're wrong and i'm going to beat you up to say to show who's the best he wanted us to embrace that other story rather than the one that we had already owned.

Well, God wants you to embrace a story, a story that will help you resist seduction and withstand the persecution of this age. It is the story of the church, which is his authoritative witness in the world today, and it is found in our text this morning. Many people today want you to accept a different narrative of the church. They have a different view of Christ's church.

But this is the only one that will strengthen you because it is God's story. So let's listen to God's narrative as we find it in Revelation 11 verses 1 through 14. Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff and I was told rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there. But do not measure of the court outside the temple.

Leave that out, for it is given over to the nations and they will trample the holy city for 42 months. And I will grant authority to my two witnesses and they will prophesy for 1 days clothed in sackcloth the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt where their Lord was crucified for three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth. But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them.

Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, Come up here. And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe has passed.

Behold, the third woe is soon to come. Now, let's get our context here. This is an interlude or a parenthesis in the midst of the seven trumpets, the trumpets that introduce God's plagues on the unbelievers or what Revelation consistently calls throughout the book the earth dwellers, those who dwell on the earth. Now remember that you don't think of this chronologically.

Do not think that what's happening in chapter 11 follows chronologically the sixth trumpet. Remember that these chapters are describing for us, or these chapters describing the trumpets are an overview of the entire age, from when Jesus ascended to when Jesus returns. It's an overview of what God does to the unbelievers, to the earth dwellers in this world.

It is an age of plagues used by God to harden the hearts of the persecutors of his people just as the original plagues hardened the persecutors or the Egyptians in the first plagues It's the age where God uses these plagues to prepare for the explosion of his glory when Jesus appears at the great exodus, just as the original plagues prepared God's people for the manifestation of God's glory. So the focus of the trumpets is on the unbelievers or the persecutors of God's people. Now this interlude or this parenthesis is also an overview of the entire age, except for the fact that the focus in the interlude is on the people of God.

It is on believers. So the trumpets are an overview of the entire age with the focus on the unbelievers between the sixth and the seventh trumpet. We have this parenthesis in which the focus is upon God's people, the church. So in the parenthesis, John says, look, I've been telling you what happens to the earth dwellers during this age. So let me interrupt for a moment and tell you what's going on with God's people, the church during this age.

Now, you remember, and if you don't, I'll tell you, well, you've already seen in chapter 11. We've seen last time that these two prophets, these two witnesses, symbolize the church in this age. Why do we say that? Well, we see, first of all, that the church is invincible. That is, the action of measuring the temple symbolizes the presence of God in the temple and the purity of the temple.

And the temple and the holy city in the New Testament consistently represent the church. The lampstands in this book represent the church. So the church is invincible because it has the presence of God and it's going to remain pure. but the church is also vulnerable the outer court is not measured it is trampled and not measuring means that in some way it's not protected that it will suffer and so this will be also a time when the temple, the holy city, God's people the church will suffer And we saw last time that the church has authority.

These two witnesses representing the church are called to proclaim the authoritative word of God. Now, let's pick it up again. In the rest of the vision, John moves from the nature of the church to the ministry of the church. What does God want you to know about the church in this age? What's the story that he wants you to embrace about the church? And in the rest of the chapter, we're going to see five things.

First of all, the church has a ministry of preaching repentance. And then the church has a ministry like Jesus. Thirdly, the church has a ministry of great power. Fourth, the church through that ministry will experience humiliation and vindication. And then lastly, the church has a ministry that results in judgment. Now, this ministry of Christ's church in a world, or this is the ministry of Christ's church in a world, as we have seen in chapters 8 and 9, in a world plagued with famine, bitter suffering, fear and terror, hopelessness, death and despair, demonic forces and hard hearts.

That's the context in which all of this happens. And God wants you to see what the church is like in these dark days. Now this vision ought to give us hope. It ought to give us hope. It's a vision that helps to see us that in an age of evil, God's power works through his church. God's power is working through his church.

It ought to give us hope because we know the whole story from beginning to end. We know what's going to happen. We know what's happening and we know the ultimate triumph and vindication of the church. And it ought to be a vision that gives us clarity. Even the earth dwellers can be religious. And in the confession we just said, every sect wants to call itself the church.

What is the church? This vision ought to give us clarity. And give us the capacity to see what the church of Christ is like. All right So let look at this vision in chapter 11 First of all know that the church has a ministry of preaching repentance In the midst of the evil and the persecuting forces around it, in the midst of the seduction of the Babylon in which we live, the church must proclaim repentance in the name of Christ.

Now why do I say that the church has a message of repentance? We're looking here now at verse 3 and then look at verses 5 through 6. First of all, because standing in the world are these two powerful prophets dressed in sackcloth, granted authority to prophesy. Of course, he's drawing on the imagery of the Old Testament at this point. Because it's granted authority to prophesy and its clothing is sackcloth, this indicates that the message that this is a message of repentance and judgment sackcloth is always about repentance right so these prophets are dressed in sackcloth and they're called to prophesy and if you read the old testament the prophets were all about preaching repentance that was the main theme of their preaching and not only that but there are two particular prophets whose pictures ought to come to our mind because these these two witnesses that represent the church these two witnesses were the two of the greatest preachers of repentance in the old testament moses and elijah now the fire that consumes people and the ability to shut off rain as we read in verses five through six reminds us of whom reminds us of elijah who in the men in the reign of Ahab prayed and the sky became brass for three and a half years.

Three and a half years is a big thing. Remember, we saw three and a half years is the number that represents a time of suffering. All right. So Elijah caused a drought during Ahab's reign of three and a half years. What about this fire coming from his mouth? Well, that's kind of an illusion in the background of this is 2 Kings chapter 1 where Ahaziah, Ahab's successor is looking for Elijah and can't find him So he sends out a company one company with a captain of soldiers to find him So they find Elijah sitting on a hill and the captain says hey I looking for Elijah are you him Are you the man of God And Elijah says If I a man of God may fire come down from heaven and consume you Whole company of 50 guys, 51, including the captain, consumed like that.

Well, Isaiah sends out a second company, 50 guys with a captain. And he comes on Elijah and says, Are you the man of God? And Elijah says, If I'm the man of God, guess what? They're consumed with fire. Third guy comes out and he says, oh, please, please. The king just wants to see you.

OK, he doesn't get consumed. But this is obviously a reference then to Elijah. All right. No rain, fire. Turning water into blood and striking the world with plagues reminds us of Moses. And both of these men, like the church today, stood in the midst of evil kingdoms that hated God's people. and they preached repentance.

That's why we say the church has a message of repentance. So the church today has a ministry of preaching repentance. Now remember the seven churches to whom this is addressed that we already saw in chapter 2 and 3. Some of them are refusing to draw the line. They're getting acclimated to their culture. They're compromising the gospel.

They're not standing for holiness. They're accepting some of the things of the culture, like sacrificing, calling Caesar Lord and so forth. All the things we saw in chapters two and three, they're allowing the sins of that culture to infiltrate and destroy their purity when they should be preaching repentance. I found this in a letter from an Anglican church in England to the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the U.S.

Just a little snippet of a letter. Dear Bishop Catherine. Well, let's get over that stumbling block first. Dear Bishop Catherine, we rejoice that in your Pentecost letter, the Episcopal Church has reaffirmed its strong affirmation of gay and lesbian people as part of God's good creation and your continued commitment to recognizing, led by the Spirit, that God is calling and fitting gay and lesbian people to be ordained leaders of the Church.

That does not sound like a church that's preaching repentance to me. church of Jesus has a message of repentance not acclamation to the culture in very real way think the church stands as a counterculture wherever it is and whatever its circumstances calls people to repentance It is the voice of God in this world that is plagued with hatred and violence and all the other things we saw in chapter 8 and 9. The church of Jesus Christ is not called to the task of becoming a cul-de-sac of the culture. Just another part of the culture.

It's called to stand in the culture and preach repentance. And so we see these two symbols of repentance that represent the church. Know that the church has a ministry like Jesus. As you watch, as you read through the unfolding story of these two prophets, symbolizing the lifespan of the church, you can't help but notice, as I read about this over this chapter and meditated on it now for a number of weeks, you cannot help but notice that it mirrors the experience of Jesus.

It is the exact mirror of what Jesus went through when you read through this chapter. okay now that shouldn't surprise us because jesus says if the world hates you know that it hated me first a servant is not greater than his master if they persecuted me they will persecute you also you're gonna walk you are gonna walk the same path that i walk that's a consistent testimony in the new testament whatever jesus experienced that's what we're going to experience and what you see here is the exact, it's a mirror of Jesus in his life and his ministry. How so? The church is granted authority to preach.

So is Jesus. Jesus was granted authority to preach. To preach what? To preach repentance. Jesus was also a preacher of repentance. It says, as we're going to see here in a few minutes, it will minister with power.

Jesus ministered with power. The church will experience what appears to be defeat and humiliation. The Lord of glory, this Messiah, in which they'd all put their hopes in, what happened? He was nailed to a tree. You've got to understand what that meant to the Jewish mind. To be nailed to a cross meant you carry the curse of God.

This is Messiah? Humiliated on a cross? Right? Dead. Dead. All their hopes dashed.

Humiliated on the cross. Buried. But what happened? He's raised. He's vindicated. He ascends.

The exact same thing happens in the ministry of the church in this age. It will be a mirror experience of the ministry of Jesus. The church has the same ministry and the same experience as its Lord. and like Jesus the church encapsulates within itself the offices of prophet priest and king look at verse four these are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth now we already see that the church the church's status as prophet we see that in the the two that have been granted authority over the 1260 days so the church is prophetic the two olive trees before the lord refer to both the royal office and the priestly office those two olive trees now here is a swimming in the background is zachariah here okay turn back to the prophet zachariah we've already seen a number of allusions in the book of Revelation to this book.

Okay. Zechariah chapter four. First five verses. And the angel who talked with me came again and woke me like a man who's awakened out of his sleep. And he said to me, what do you see? I said, I see and behold a lampstand all of gold with a bowl on the top of it and seven lamps on it with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it.

And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left. And I said to the angel who talked with me, what are these, my Lord? Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, do you not know what these are? I said, no, my Lord. And then they go on and talk about some things that we come down, drop down now to verse 11.

Then I said to him, what are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand? And the second time I answered and said to him and the second time I answered and said to him what are these two branches of the olive trees which are beside the two golden pipes from which the golden oil is poured out he said to me do you not know what these are I said no my lord then he said these are the two anointed ones who stand by the lord of the whole earth now there again almost exactly what we see in Revelation The olive trees that stand in the presence of the Lord of the earth These are the two anointed ones. Well, who are the two anointed ones for Zechariah?

They are Zerubbabel, the royal preacher, and Joshua, the high priest. Now, if you go over to chapter 6 of Zechariah, notice what happens. Chapter 6, verse 9. build the temple of the Lord. It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord and shall bear royal honor and shall sit and rule on his throne. There is coming, this branch is going to combine the royal office and the priestly office, a priest sitting on a throne.

All right, so we got these two olive trees, Zerubbabel and Joshua, who then are both in some future combined. All right, Now, what do we see in Revelation chapter 5? Do you remember what we saw in Revelation chapter 5, verse 10? Speaking about worthy the Lamb is, and you have made them, that's us, a kingdom and priest to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.

So in chapter 4, we see that all these offices are combined in the church, prophet, priest, and king. All right? We are a kingdom of priests who reign. So like Jesus, who ministered as prophet, priest, and king, so also does the church. And the same experiences that Jesus had is ours, are ours. Now in verses 5 and 6, we see that we need to know that the church has a ministry of great power.

Like Moses and Elijah, the church has a powerful ministry. You see fire, drought, and plagues falling on idolaters, the earth dwellers, through this ministry. Now, some of you might be saying, wow this is great Let call for a rally on the mall in Washington D And let call down fire and drought and plagues Is that what this is about? Is that what the church is supposed to do?

You know, when I was in seminary, there was this uber charismatic assembly near us called the Glory Barn. It was real famous in the 70s back in Warsaw, Indiana. It's called the Glory Barn. because they met in a barn that they'd refurbished. So that was their meeting place. And I worked with some of the barners. We used to call them barners.

Now the glory barn folks said that they could go out in the name of Jesus, make it rain or stop the rain. They even said they could keep a tornado. In the name of Jesus, they could keep a tornado from hitting. They could redirect tornadoes if they wanted to. So the question is, okay, were they on to something? Could they be a true last days church?

If we're reading this right, what's going on in this passage? All right. Remember, again, this one important interpretive rule for the book of Revelation. These are not photographs, but symbols. All right. These are not photographs, but symbols.

The two prophets are not two guys who are going to be in Jerusalem spouting fire. consuming their enemies, calling down plagues, and for three and a half days, everyone in the world on television is going to watch their bodies in the city of Jerusalem. These are not photographs. These are symbols. So what is he talking about here? Well, let's think about it.

The church's message of repentance sets final judgment in motion for the idolaters who do not repent. So when it says that fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes, what is that all about? Well, you see the same imagery used, for example, in the prophet Jeremiah. Look at Jeremiah chapter 5, verse 14. Now look at this. Okay?

Again, if we get the whole Bible involved in the book of Revelation, we're going to stop these photographic things about the book of Revelation. All right? We're going to start seeing them as symbols and not photographs. Because look, here's what God says to Jeremiah in chapter 5, verse 14 of that book. Therefore thus says the Lord the God of hosts Now watch Because you have spoken this word behold I am making my words in your mouth a fire and this people wood and the fire shall consume them Now, is he saying to Jeremiah, you know what's going to happen?

You're going to preach, and all of a sudden I'm going to change all these people into wood, and when you preach, they're going to just light up and burn. Is that what he's saying? No. What is he saying? He's saying you're going to my people and you're going with a message of judgment and they're going to be like wood and they're going to reject your message.

And your message then is going to consume them. They are going to suffer judgment. It's judgment set in motion. that's what he's talking about here in revelation the church's message of repentance to the earth dwells produces the judgment for their unbelief it sets in motion their final inevitable fiery judgment that's what he's saying just like jeremiah when the judge pronounced and pronounce a sentence on the accused he sets in motion that final inevitable execution of the murderer He's consumed.

That's it. Sentence pronounced. So it sets judgment in motion. The church's message of repentance unleashes the judgment of plagues on the idolatrous world. So what is that all about? All right.

What are the plagues that he's talking about? They're the plagues that we've seen in chapters eight and nine. Remember the plagues of demonic despair and death of fear and terror of hopelessness, of famine, of disruption of the commercial ways of the world, of the kingdoms of this world in the great Babylon. In other words, God brings judgment on the earth through the plagues that we've seen in chapters eight and nine.

God bring judgments on the earth dwellers as we've seen in chapters 8 and 9 through his angels right the angels sound the trumpets the plagues come upon the earth but this interlude remember this interlude tells you why because they've rejected the message of repentance all right the church is in the world for the last 2,000 years proclaiming repentance The idolaters of this world have rejected it. And so there are plagues of hopelessness, despair, these demonic things that we saw last week. There is disruption.

There is war. There is violence. All because they've rejected that message. Listen, through the testimony of Moses and Elijah, God brought judgment on Pharaoh and Ahab because of their rejection of that testimony. They spoke. Plagues came.

So God brings these plagues on unbelievers through the testimony of his church. Have you ever thought about that? That the church is responsible to a certain degree of what's going on in the world? It's God saying, you don't listen, I will send the plagues and they will harden your hearts. And that's judgment. so know that through the message of repentance god has given the church a powerful ministry yet you must also understand the church through that ministry will experience humiliation and vindication verses 7 through 12 now we're not going to read through all this because just take too long so you remember what we read there.

But notice what it says at the end of its ministry. It says clearly when they have finished their testimony at the end of the three and a half years. A conquering beast appears that looks like he kills the church. Now we start opening the little bit of that can of worms called who is the beast? Here's his first appearance. Here's his first appearance.

Now in the book of Revelation, two beasts appear. And this is one of them. One beast appears from the sea. And one beast appears from the earth. Now, the second beast is also equated with the prophet who serves the first beast. So you have two beasts, one from the sea, one from the earth, with one beast, the one from the earth, also equated with the prophet that serves the first beast Now when you read the rest of the book you have the serpent the beast and the prophet forming in kind of an unholy trinity as we proceed through the book Now John doesn't go into great detail about which beast this is, so I'm not going to either yet.

I'm just going to take what he says. A beast appears, most likely the beast from the sea. and at the end of the age this beast wars against conquers and kills the church now i don't believe in the testament the rest of scripture that the church will be annihilated the church will not be annihilated but its role as messenger and preacher and witness of repentance will be silenced. And it's not going to be kind of the silence like right now, if we look at the church in North Korea, it's silence right now, right?

You don't hear much about the church in North Korea. The persecution is so intense. That church is so far underground. You don't hear anything, very little about that church. Well, this isn't just going to be a sporadic silence here and there. This is evidently a universal silence.

It's going to get so bad that the church will look as if it's killed right and it will suffer in dignity and humiliation before the entire world it says how so let's just look at that it says and when they finish their testimony the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called sodom and egypt where their lord was crucified for three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb. All right. They're going to suffer in dignity and humiliation.

Not happens in the great city. Now, don't confuse this great city. Don't think he's talking about Jerusalem here because he's not. He says, but wait a minute, says where the Lord was crucified. Look, the great city, every time that term is used in this book, it's speaking of Babylon. All right?

And we're going to come to Babylon later, but let me just bring it forward here a little bit. Babylon is the culture of comfort and riches and ease and getting rich and not caring about that and just living a comfortable living for now That the Babylon It like America today for us right It's this great city called Babylon and it's like Sodom because of its wickedness and like Egypt because of its persecution. And the Jerusalem of Jesus' day is part of that Babylon because it was like Sodom and Egypt. in its wickedness it persecuted, killed, and humiliated the Lord of glory.

So he's saying they will die in Babylon, the city where Jesus died, which is like Sodom in Egypt. You know, Jesus died in the great Babylon. And Jerusalem was part of that because of all the comfort. You know, don't, Jesus, leave us alone. Don't shake us up with your message of repentance. We don't like it.

We like the comfort. We like the ease we have. You're shaking our world. Leave us alone. All right. And like Jesus, the church will appear defeated and notice is it appears defeated.

It appears dead for three and a half days. I think that that's an allusion to the three days that Jesus was in the grave. This is what says three and a half. OK, come on. This is literature. A little bit of a little bit of play here.

All right. It's three and a half days as opposed to three and a half weeks small. it's going to look humiliated and defeated for a very short period of time as opposed to the whole three and a half years. The whole age, just a little part of that age. And it will be humiliated because they will not be buried. Now remember, in the culture of that day, if you did not bury someone, you were heaping scorn and humiliation on that person.

That's what was happening. That's why they refused to be buried. And in fact, what you see happening here is exactly what we read in Psalm 79 this morning. Let's look at Psalm 79. This is a picture of that. Let me refresh your memory.

You heard that this morning. psalm 79 oh god the nations have come into your inheritance they have defiled what your holy temple courts being trampled they have laid jerusalem in your in ruins jerusalem all right in the new testament they laid your church if you will if we want to draw out the picture in ruins they have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the heavens for food the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us. There's the picture.

You leave them unburied. Jerusalem's in ruins. People are unburied. They're being humiliated. They're a taunt to the other nations. And it goes on.

The rest of the psalm, we're not going to read it, but the rest of the psalm is, don't let them get away with that. Vindicate us. Do something about that, which is what happens in Revelation chapter 11. So this speaks of the utter humiliation of the church at that period, much like Jesus. And the world's going to make merry. And it's going to celebrate because its tormentor has been silenced.

The prophetic message of the church to the earth dwellers is repent or you will face judgment. So when it's silenced, when it looks like they're successful over the message of repentance, they're celebrating. Why? Because they're saying they were wrong. There is no judgment coming. See, I don't see people tormented today.

Listen, have you ever noticed that when you bring up what Jesus says, people get mad? Do you ever notice that? you know, I look at what's going on in the religious world, for example, the Presbyterian Church of the United States recently removed its clause from its book of order that says chastity is required for anyone who wants to be ordained in the ministry. Now we're just talking about homosexuality.

Now we're talking about, you don't have to be faithful to your wife. Right? Now, the people within that denomination who are saying, hey, that's wrong, that goes contrary to what Jesus taught. do people say, you know, that is one kind of an opinion. We need to consider that. No, they get angry. And what happens when you start telling people, and you'll be hearing it from this pulpit when we get that far in this book, you know what, we live pretty comfortable lives.

We spend a lot of our money on our comfort. We spend humongous amounts of money on what we don't need. We live fat, rich, luxurious lives, and Jesus hates that. You watch people get angry then. You see the tormentor gone, silenced, and they're going to celebrate. Because they say, guess they were wrong.

There's no judgment, because lurking back in that, if they're right, I'm in big trouble. Right? But now with the silence, it's not there. But then the celebration turns to terror. It turns to terror when suddenly the messengers, the church, hear the summons from God, and they're resurrected. And just like Jesus, they're vindicated by that resurrection.

And just like Jesus, they ascend. And notice, they ascend in a cloud. Do you understand this? When it says they ascend in a cloud, it's talking about the same cloud that we saw in chapter 10. This is the Shekinah glory of God. This is that cloud that led the people through the wilderness.

That is the cloud into which they ascend. That is the cloud, by the way, into which Jesus ascended in Acts chapter 1. Do you know that? it's the cloud that shows God's presence and when they see that happening I know there's a physical resurrection coming but I think this is symbolic of the fact that they're raised and they're ascended and everybody says wow they were right and the earth dwellers are seized with horror as they realize that the message of repentance was true and judgment indeed has arrived and there is no escape and so through the message of the church the church will experience humiliation but ultimately vindication and then finally you must see that the church has a ministry that results in judgment we come to verse 13 now don't you look at that at that hour there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the city fell seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven Once more we hear of a great earthquake and that always signals the end The end.

All right. Now again it's symbolic. I'm not sure that this is a literal earthquake but it certainly is a cosmic quaking that signals the imminent arrival of judgment. We've seen it once before. In chapter 6 verse 12 you You remember at the end of the seals? Earthquake.

The end has come. We're going to see it again. We come back to the trumpets next week. Look at the last verse of chapter 11. Then God's temple in heaven was opened and the Ark of His Covenant was seen within His temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder.

Note, an earthquake. The end of the age is signaled by this cosmic quaking. We're going to see the same thing in chapter 16 at the end of the bowl judgments. The end of the age has come. Huge earthquake, symbolic of this huge shaking. And it appears that when God initiates that final judgment, catastrophe strikes.

A significant portion of the ungodly die. And the survivors, in their terrified state, are going to proclaim the glory of God and the lordship of Jesus. It says here in verse 13, And the rest were terrified and gave glory to God. And of course, this is not the cry of salvation, but the desperate cry of the conquered who realize now to their dismay that Jesus is Lord.

And it's too late to repent. And you see here fulfilled what the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians chapter 2. Therefore God exalted Christ to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father That's what's happening.

The message of the church, or the ministry of the church, brings judgment. Now, that is the story that you must embrace. The story of Christ's church. The story you must embrace is the story of power, the story of defeat and humiliation, but also a story of ultimate triumph, vindication, and judgment. you know what it's the same story as jesus replay replayed in the world today it's his story listen do you realize that the church and its ministry in the name of christ does and experiences exactly what he did and what he experienced.

We have to embrace this story because it's Jesus' story as well. There is hope in embracing this story because the one who has already run the course guarantees our successful race Let pray Father there are so many competing narratives about what the church is and what it does. Lord God, help us to embrace this one. Lord God, this is the true story. This is the narrative. this is how you want us to understand the ministry of this church and the ministry of the church all over the world Father as we at least as we live in this seductive alluring culture we pray that we would know this story that we would own this narrative so that we are not seduced.

And Father, if there's persecution coming, help us to own this as well to withstand the onslaught of suffering. Lord God, You have given this to us not to satisfy our curiosity. You have given this that we will live in light of Your truth. God help us help us to have clarity as to what we're about and give us hope in this world that is so set against you this world full of idolaters and earth dwellers who hate the name of Jesus help us to own this so that we will stand and be faithful grant it we pray for the glory of your marvelous name we pray this in our Lord Jesus name Amen