How Will The Nations Enter The Kingdom?

AI Transcript

Hey, good morning. Good morning. It's good to work with Revelation 11. That's where we're going to be at. We've got some work to do here. Every week as I prepare these...

and I practice it, it's usually about four times longer than it could possibly be in this setting. So all that to say is, if you like those kids and some things, we have on our website, on the Revelation page, resources for you to go deeper.

for the series.

for a family of heroes in mind in modern day times is the Staines family. Ram Staines, when he was 24 years old, left his family in Queensland, Australia to go and follow Jesus' call to the nations to work among his two passions, sharing Jesus and helping the least of these. so he went to northern India, in a region of India.

up and he said he worked with lepers and that's still a problem even in the world today though and a cure has come over 500 people in this region a day of contracted leprosy. So Graham labored among the

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So 60 villages with about 60,000 people, one school and in school about 60 kids. And he just labored there and shared the gospel and met the needs of the least of these. And along the way, there was some opposition to the worldview of this is their karma and this is the caste system that they're a part of. And so why are you doing that? And many of them were coming to know Jesus and put their faith in Jesus. so opposition grew.

As Staines labored there, later in his life he actually met another single missionary woman named Gladys and they very late in life. had three children. had Esther, we've got Esther and Timothy and...

1999, 10 or 20th, Graham took his two sons to a village called Baropod to go and work with some of the believers in a very small church there. And it was a missions conference, not like our missions conference. They were put up in the high egregious sea and told about how...

He went there and said, how are we going to reach these 60 villages? And there was no place for him to stay. So Graham and his sons set up in their station wagon slash Jeep bed for the night. And in the middle of the night, midnight, 52 Hindu militants, extremists came and they locked the homes of all the people. So they locked the people in their homes and they then surrounded Graham and his sons and his car.

7.05.

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When they found his remains, the next day they saw Grandma's huddled over his two sons as they perished in that fire.

35 years of grand ahead.

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can't imagine the level of...

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13 years old and glad to be back in home to receive that.

And you think about that and maybe you feel really lost. This is what you do. Someone gives their life to following the mission for 35 years and this is their reward.

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Sometimes it can appear as evil as triumph.

It's one thing to suffer in this world just with accidents and medical things and even our own stupid choices, but there's a particular kind of pain that some of you know this, particular kind of pain that it is in following the call of Jesus and you suffer because of it. Not in spite of that, but because of it. That could come in a thousand...

Lord, I thought if I did this, this, and this, then things would go well. I thought we had a deal. It looks like evil is triumphing at times. It looks like we're not making any progress. It looks like we're just taking loss after loss after loss. And the book of Revelation was written to repeal, to pull back the curtain, and to remind us as followers of Jesus.

that there's more going on than meets the eye. There's more happening than we can sense with our five senses or connect with our dots. God doesn't always show us in every circumstance, here's how I'm at work, here's what I'm actually doing. But Revelation is a reminder that there is more going on. God is at work.

So we've been working through this book and we're in this section of threes, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, the seven bulls. actually at the very center of the book here and each one of these like nesting dolls, the next context, the seven seals contain the seven trumpets which contain the seven bulls. And we saw that there's this rhythm to these seven, seven, seven, between the

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the and the seventh one, there's an interlude, there's a pause in each one of them. And you may remember if you were here a couple weeks ago, at the end of the sixth seal, the question the nations were asking in light of the forehorses of the apocalypse, in light of God allowing and releasing judgment on the heart, the question in chapter six, or chapter seven was this, in this interlude. Who can stand?

Who can stand? light of all that is going on in this broken world, who can stand? And we saw in chapter 7 the answer to that question. We can stand. We're the ones that can stand forever.

Because we've been sealed by God, we are saved by God, and we are secure in Him forever. So that was the question and answer. Now we're in the trumpets, and there's this question that has to be answered in chapters 10 and 11. We're only focused on 11, but this question is, okay, in chapter seven, we saw something amazing. He hears that there's 144,000 that are going to be saved, but when he turns and he looks, what does he see? He sees a multitude that he can't

count from every tribe, tongue, and language and nation gathered before the throne. But at the end of the sixth trumpet, if you were here last week, remember, there's mercy in the judgment. There's opportunity to look at the world and the brokenness of this world and be like, I need God. I need to find myself. But we saw at end of chapter nine this very sad conclusion.

He says, the rest of mankind were not killed by these plagues that echo Exodus. They did not repent of the works of their hands, nor give up worshipping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality.

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So even though there was the opportunity in the judgments of God to turn and repent, they don't. The vast majority of the people across the world, they don't repent. They just continue to, in rebellion they continue to blame God for what's going on in their lives. They don't repent. So then the question becomes, how? How do the nations from every tribe, from the nation, how do they actually come before the throne?

If it's not through the wrath of God, how do they make it into the kingdom of God? This is what chapter 10 and 11 are going to answer. So if you your Bible work in chapter 11, again, as we come to this, as always, the way to understand Revelation is not to look forward and try to speculate how is this going to all play out. The way is to always look backward.

first readers of this book would have had revelation on one hand and the Old Testament another. In fact, it was a spiritual discipline for the people of God, for the Jewish people to be people who remember.

It was built into their rhythms and their liturgy and their calendar to always remember, remember what God has done. The word zakar is this Hebrew word to remember. A hundred times it's used of God, he remembers his covenant with his people. 60 times it's commanded to the people of God, remember God's covenant. So all these festivals and feasts and rhythms of their life was to look back and remember what God has done.

The Jewish people would back into the future as they fixed their lives. We tend to be a forward-saving people, but there's a danger if you look the wrong way. And there's a danger in coming to this book, looking the wrong way. Every now and again, you hear these stories. Americans travel to the UK or Japan or vice versa, and they get hit by a bus. Why?

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Because they're used to looking one way and they step off the road and the bus is coming the other direction. This can happen to us if we don't look the right way. God's people are to be a people that back into the future. In fact, this is not just a Jewish thing. This is what Jesus instituted for God's people. They gather every time. What do we do? We remember his broken body and his shed blood. We back into the future. you have the right perspective, then you can start to understand.

So we remember. With that, as I read through some of this, I want you to think, and then I'm going to ask you, what pops out of you? I want you to think about what you know of the Old Testament. What stories are coming to mind? What is happening there? Because the echoes from the Old Testament in the book of Revelation would have been signs for people to say, what was God doing then and teaching the people then?

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John's going give us two what I'm going call apocalyptic parables. Jesus would often talk in parables. To communicate with you, he'd often put parables together that were different stories to make the same point. I think that's what he's doing here, but I want you to look for the echoes of the Old Testament. So there's the first one, and then the first two verses.

He says, then I was given a measuring rod like a staff. And I was told, rise and measure the temple of God and the altar of those who worship there. So what do we know about the temple? Go ahead, just throw it out.

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Okay, we do know at this point in 96 AD, the temple's destroyed. So he's told to measure a temple. So it must not be the actual temple in Jerusalem.

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That's in the future in chapter 21. said, look back. It's the Old Testament. Why don't we go over the Old Testament about the temple of God? Okay, so manifest the presence of God on earth. What else do we do?

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Yeah, there's measurements, furniture in it. There's a good work there. And what they do there? Yeah, so it was a place of sacrifice, it was a place of worship. So all of these things should stay in your mind. Did you know of any stories in the Old Testament where they were to measure the temple? It's everyone's favorite prophet that no one reads, easy ye. Is he guilty?

No? You don't know Ezekiel? Ezekiel, yeah, you probably don't read it. You know why you don't read Ezekiel? Because it's apocalyptic. You close your eyes and listen to it, you think, oh, is this Revelation? What is going on here? Well, in Ezekiel chapter 40 to 48, there's this man that, our eyes, he's commanded to measure the temple. And at that time, it was to look for...

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John is getting this vision and he's reinterpreting the vision from Ezekiel. So it was a place with the manifest presence of God. It was a place where was sacrifices and worship, where the people of God came. And so he says, measure the temple.

we know in the New Testament about the temple.

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Actually, yeah, Jesus came down, but then Jesus did something else. On repeat in the New Testament, it's the people of God who are referred to as the temple. So, knowing what happens in the temple, knowing who it doesn't, that the measuring of the temple is this symbol of God knowing and protecting his own.

He knows who are his own and he will protect them and ultimately deliver them. And so this is the first thing, we as the temple of God, by the spirit of God, the manifest presence of God, by the worship happens, where the people...

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But that doesn't mean we don't suffer. It doesn't mean that we don't even die on this side of eternity. We will die, but ultimately for the Christian, they are sealed, saved, and secure forever. And this is what he could say in verse two, 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 42 months. And though we are known and measured and protected by God, that there is a kind of raging of the nations against the kingdom of God. This is what we've seen laid out in church history the last 2000 years. There's this raging. Now again, as I said at the beginning, can't go into all the information in detail, but you're going to see some numbers here.

The numbers have symbolic meaning. They happen to do with Daniel chapter 9, if you want to go back and look at that, but you're to see 42 months. You're going to see 1,260 days, which is the same. Do the math on the 30-day month. You're going to see times, times and a half, which means three and a half years. You're going to see three and a half years. You're going to see all this on repeat, and it is representative of the church age. The tribulation.

From the birth of Christ till the second coming of Christ, we are under the pressure. The kingdom of God is clashing with the kingdoms of this world and it represents that. So that's the first sign. God's people will be protected and yet the nations will still rage. As Jesus said, we will give up our lives for the sake of the kingdom.

when we are determined to cure. And now we shift gears to the second apocalyptic parable. Again, look for the echoes of the Old Testament. says, and I will grant you, grant authority to my two witnesses. And they will prophesy for 1,260 days. Float in sacral.

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These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days that they're prophesying, and they have the power of

to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they desire. Don't look forward but look back. What echoes do you see in these verses?

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So we got Elijah, Elijah in the calling down of fire. What else do we see? Exodus in the plagues. We got Moses. Anything else? What does Sappho, Sappho represent? Mourning, what else? Repentance, humility. What else do we have?

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If you knew your prophets, you would know that this is also an echo from Zechariah chapter four. In Zechariah chapter four, Zerubbabel, the king Joshua the Freistar are in the temple and they get this vision of two olive trees and two lampstands. And that they are.

the olive tree and the lampstand. They are a kingdom and a priest. We are repeatedly called both in Revelation and elsewhere in the New Testament that we now are the kingdom and priests of our God. This is a picture of us. What else do we get? What do you get from olive trees? It's not a trick question. Olives. What do you get from olives? Oil. What does oil represent in the Old Testament? It represents a million things, which represents what?

Holy Spirit. Okay. And what about lampstands? What do lampstands do? Where do we see those in the Old Testament? In the temple, so it brings light to the darkness. In the Book Revelation, we also have lampstands mentioned. We'll get to that in a second. So the question then becomes...

Are we talking literal to and only to witnesses for an exact amount of 1,260 days or is there more going on that meets the eye as I've throughout this time? I said yes, I believe there is more. Two witnesses, why two witnesses?

comes from the Old Testament principle that for a matter to be established in any court of law, you needed two witnesses. You needed two to affirm. Jesus would talk about this often in the Gospel of John, the witnesses that would affirm him, John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit, in his works would be witnesses. We'll talk about this in Matthew chapter 18, in the case of church discipline.

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You need witnesses where two or three are gathered in my name in this case. There I am in their presence. So the witnesses represent testimony. But I also think that this is not just too and too specific, though it does represent Elijah and Moses. I don't think this means that God will miraculously resurrect them.

Jerusalem ending for exactly 1260 days sorry that behind the series prophesy and then at the end of that they'll die they're going to be resurrected again a second time and then they'll be resurrected a third time at the final resurrection when we're all resurrected with them so what's going on here well these are

the two that have the Holy Spirit, the two lampstands. This is the greatest thing. In Revelation chapter one, who is called the lampstands? The churches. There's a direct reference. The churches are the lampstands. So we see that this represents us. Again, we are the lampstands. I think in the reference to Exodus and the reference to calling down a fire, it represents Moses and Elijah, but...

Yeah.

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talk about that for a second. Their character. It says they are dressed in sackcloth. That this is a picture of humility. The church is supposed to be a picture of humility. It's a picture of repenting. We are a repenting people calling the world to repentance. We don't stand far off and say, how bad the world is.

I'm so glad we don't get any of their nastiness on us. No. It's like we are those beggars, short of another beggar where bread is. This is...

embrace the character of Moses and Elijah. Not only that, we should embrace the confidence of Moses and Elijah. And it's not a confidence in our own selves, in our own strategies, in our own way of doing things, because both Moses and Elijah...

they turned inward in both cases that they had no confidence. Like they stuttered before God, they didn't think they could make it. They had suffered spiritual depression, all these things in and of themselves. They had no power, no confidence. But when they turned their eyes and faith to God and the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, that they could call down a fire, that they could stop the rain, that they could call down the place.

you

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This is our confidence church. This is the power that will turn the world upside down. The power that resurrected Christ from the grave in his church, in his witnesses, has the power to turn Harvard upside down. name is the moral. The question is...

we engage in? Is the world being turned upside down by redemption Parker or are we upside down by

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like church, this passage is calling us to lean in on faith and trust and tap into the power. We have the power to heal by this spirit. have the power to raise the dead. We have the power to bring dead people to life. The proclamation of the gospel, where's your...

to the witnesses, wherever their confidence was. And then finally, our commission. We see there's power and there's witness. Where else in the Bible do we see this idea of power and witness combined?

If this is the Apostle John, it may or may not be, but even so, he would have had the Gospel of Matthew and the Book of Acts.

seeing this combination of power and witness. Acts chapter one verse eight, and you, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses. We have power to be witnesses in Jerusalem and today in Samaria and to the ends of the earth. We are empowered to be witnesses.

This is our call as followers of Jesus. You're empowered to be a witness. To be a witness is to go and testify on someone's behalf. By the way, you and I are not the ones on trial anymore. Jesus is. Jesus is the one on trial, for he's the one that claimed he is the way, the truth, and the life that no one comes to the Father except through him.

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Jesus is on trial because he has upset the status quo of the world. Jesus is on trial because he said that I will conquer sin, death, and the grave. And he came back and testified to that. Now we are.

to testify, to stand up and testify this is who Jesus is. We have power, we have character, confident power.

And the mission is unstoppable. Even if they kill us as individuals, the mission will not be stopped. We see this as the story continues. And when they have finished their testimony, their witnessing, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit, what will we talk about that? In chapter 14, 13, well, 12, 13,

about this beast, so we won't get into it. The beast that rises from the bottom of this 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 is symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt where the Lord has crucified. Now this is interesting because it's symbolic because Sodom and Egypt and Jerusalem are not in the same place at all. But yet there's something to that. We'll get into that in the coming weeks.

for three and half days, some from the, notice the language here from chapter 7, some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations, the same people that will be gathered before the throne as rescued and redeemed people. At this point, some of those people will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb.

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And those who dwell on the earth, this is John's way of saying, the unbelievers, they will rejoice over and make merry and exchange presents because the two prophets that witnesses us have been a torment to those who dwell on the earth. The world celebrates.

when those who testify to the truth are put to death. This is a celebration that they create a holiday. It's like Christmas for them. If let's exchange presents, when we put them to death, they can't torment us anymore by calling us to repentance. They can't torment us anymore by pointing us to the way, the truth, and the life. Verse 11. But after the 3 1 2 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, to them, Come up here. And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched. And now look what happens after seeing the testimony, the martyrdom. That's, by the way, that's what it means to be a witness. The Greek word is martyrios. We get the word martyr from.

Because in church history, so often those who testify have become the martyrs, now they're still overcoming, they're conquering. The church goes forward, the mission goes forward, and now the people of the earth dwellers are looking at this and they're watching. Look at verse 13.

And at that hour, there was a great earthquake. And a tenth of the city fell. 7,000 people were killed in the earthquake. The rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of Heaven. Now pay attention to the details here. Because if we're thinking Old Testament, what would you expect? You would expect not a tenth of the city to fall. You would expect nine-tenths of the city to

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and only a remnant to remain. There's gospel here, the witness and the martyrdom of the people, the sacrificial service of the people to the nations, a temple.

That means 9,000, 910,000 are saved. 7,000 people were killed. They killed Elijah again. There were 7,000 that were made, but now there are 63,000 that were made. There is a gospel working here, and the rest were terrified. They gave glory to the God of heaven. They finally see. So how will the nations come into the kingdom of God?

a prophetic, persistent, and powerful lamb-like witness of the Church. That's how. They don't come into the Kingdom of God looking at the judgment and wrath of God, but they come looking at the Church who reflects their Savior, the Lion of Judah, that the Lamb was slain.

The world turns to Jesus when they see the church overcoming in the same way Jesus overcame this. And it means through mercy and grace. There's just something powerful. When we lay down our lives before people, even if they kill us, we still win. Let's go back to prayer.

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So I witnessed testimony of that night because there were some villagers that saw it and one came to Gladys and said, and I can't verify this, I can't verify this, just said when the flames were going up on that tree, I saw it.

seen or in mind.

I believe in that moment, God was welcoming my husband and my sons.

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Can you imagine that moment?

that moment where Graham and his sons enter into glory and in waiting for them at the doorway of heaven is the most radical cross-cultural missionary the world has ever seen. He heaven in glory and lives among us and he understands. He understands what it's like to be surrounded by an angry mob at

He understands what it's like to be tortured and to die from a simple message of love, grace, and mercy. He gets all that. And it would make perfect sense to them in that moment that they would give his life, give their lives to him. And it makes perfect sense to Jesus that they would give their lives for him.

still has nail stars in his hand. he said, welcome Timothy, welcome Philip, welcome Brad. I'm so glad you're here in the body of his head.

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still seems like kind of a waste.

No one has said anything about dying.

Jesus did. He would come after me and must take up your crops. That's all it means. So we shouldn't be surprised.

I don't think maybe anyone here is probably gonna die, but we shouldn't be surprised.

Well, seems like a way as well. 35 years, he still had so much more work to do. Still had people to say, he still had all this, like, why would God do that? It doesn't make sense. was like...

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But as news came back to Gladys and Hester, to this day Gladys will say, something of a spirit came upon me and immediately filled my heart with mercy and grace.

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And this is a mercy and grace and forgiveness that the caste system of karma and works and all that. I've never seen before the likes of this kind of mercy and grace in the country of India. And so the mercy and grace that Gladys began to extend made its way all the way to the prime minister of India.

When he heard that he said, I want Gladys' words to be printed on the front page of every newspaper in India.

most populated country in the world. Over a billion people. I want them all to hear the words of this Christian missionary. On the front page, guy who labors 34 years in Northern India doesn't know if he's making a difference at all. And on the front page, his sacrificial death, land-like death, on the front page, his wife's words, say this, and I quote.

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I have one great desire that each citizen of this country should establish a personal relationship with Jesus Christ who gave his life for their sins. Let us burn hatred and spread the flame of Christ.

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I'm glad you take that exchange.

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God can move, continues to move through the late Gladys and Esther State for another five years until Esther was 18 before they moved back. But in those five years, so much began to happen. And this came across the AP Newswire. You won't get this at CNN or Fox News or anything, but it said this, five and half years, the Grand Touring Desire was to build a referral hospital in the area. It says, five and half years after the brutal killing of Australian missionaries,

his dream project of a referral hospital was inaugurated.

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Thanks for watching!

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This past July, Christianity Today ran another article on this kind of reflecting of the aftermath of interviewing some of Graham's Indian friends from that region. And the spread of Christianity among those 60 villages, that one village of Barapada where they died, are now three churches most...

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This is the story a gunshot

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I'll move the nation.

sacrificial and faithful land-like goodness to the nations who rage against the human race.

How will Parker come to know if you got...

find out.

We all call to recall that one simple thing, to be faithful witnesses. To have the kind of character, the confidence, the commission of Moses and Elijah.

My prayer as your pastor is that God would raise up some of you to go to the nations. I know that won't be all of you, won't be many of you, it be one or two of you. My prayer is for that. And maybe even now the Spirit is moving in you. This week on Wednesday, I got an email from this guy named David. He ever get an email where it's like, must have had some interaction with this guy. It took me a while as I'm reading it. What is this guy saying? I don't know. Well, what is he doing?

so much for planning that scene. I want you to know I'm on the mission field now and I just traced it back to your email. like, who are you? I don't know who you are. That's when you scroll up to the, correspondence did I possibly have with this guy? It was December 15, 2020. He had applied for a pastoral residency at redemption park. was graduating in seminary and I said, hey.

said, David, but the role's already been filled. I said, what, have you considered going to the mission field? If you wanna talk about that sometime, I'm not about to talk to you. That's all I said. See, I'm kind of embarrassed, like, hey, you can have a job in America, but you should go away.

know your evil just stirred something in.

And I decided to And I'm here now. I just wanted to...

But put a rest.

Thank you.

that Christ is glorified and we...