Heaven Rejoices, Earth Trembles: Revelation 11:1-19 | Assurance Through Judgment and Grace

How do we respond to the proclamation of Christ’s eternal kingdom? In this powerful sermon from Revelation 11:1-19, we explore how the seventh trumpet declares the ultimate victory of Jesus. We’ll see how God preserves His people, demonstrates His power over death, and proclaims His eternal reign. This message offers assurance for believers, calling us to worship the victorious King and live as faithful witnesses in a broken world.

📖 Scripture Reference: Revelation 11:1-19

✝️ Sermon Points:

📌 God’s Preservation of His People

📌 God’s Victory Over Death

📌 The Triumph of God’s Eternal Kingdom

First Reformed Evangelical Presbyterian Church is a Confessional Presbyterian and Reformed church committed to Christ-centered preaching and scriptural fidelity. We desire to glorify God through faithful worship and growing disciples of Jesus Christ.

💬 Connect with Us: https://connect.efrc.me
Thank you for watching, and may God’s Word transform your life this week.

Transcript:

On August 15th, 1945, the world changed dramatically.

Because that was the day that there was an announcement that

The war was over.

Japan surrendered.

World War II was done, finally over.

So as the news of the surrender of Japan reached the nations that were allied against them, church bells rang.

People gathered in streets and voices joined in a jubilant celebration.

The war was over.

And in towns and cities all over the world, this announcement of peace induced a collective sigh of relief.

You can understand it had been a long war.

People were rejoicing because the war that had taken countless lives and caused immeasurable suffering was finally over.

But I want you to imagine with me for just a moment

those who would have resisted this news.

Maybe there were those who held on to the idea of continuing to fight, or maybe there were those who were struck with fear at the thought of judgment because of their actions during this war.

And while for many, it was a time of great celebration, for others, there had to have been great fear and trembling.

So as we arrive in Revelation 11 today, we hear the sounding of the seventh trumpet.

It's a proclamation of victory that echoes through heaven and earth.

And it's the announcement of a kingdom.

There's beautiful language there.

The kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

A kingdom that will last forever.

And just like on that day back in 1945, this proclamation brings both rejoicing and trembling.

Heaven bursts into worship, declaring the triumph of God, while on earth there's judgment and fear falls on those who have opposed God.

So today, as we explore this passage, we're going to see how this moment of proclamation reveals three powerful truths throughout this chapter.

The first thing we're going to see is God's preservation of his people.

Then we're going to be reminded of his victory over death.

And then we are going to see the ultimate reign over all of creation.

So let's get into this passage together.

And we're going to hear, as we come through it, these words again.

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

What great words for us to be dwelling on.

But this all begins...

with verse one.

And we see John being told to go and measure the temple, the altar, and even those who were worshiping there.

Now our first point today is the preservation of the people of God.

And we see in these verses how God preserves and protects his faithful witnesses.

even in the face of intense opposition.

And we see that this is used to proclaim the truth of God to the world.

So as this chapter starts out, we have John given this measuring rod to measure the temple.

Now this is significant because it helps us understand the date of the writing of the book of Revelation.

Because he is measuring the temple.

There is only one temple,

If he is measuring a temple, it has to be standing.

So if he's going to go and do this, if he's going to measure this sacred building, it has to be there.

Well, the temple was destroyed in the year 70, when the Roman armies came and destroyed it, just as Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.

And so you may remember from those passages some of the language that Jesus uses, because it's pretty well known.

Remember that he said that not one stone would be left upon another.

And that is exactly what happened.

As the fires ravaged the city of Jerusalem and the temple, the gold that was in the temple was melted.

And it melted down and it got in the mortar joints of the temple.

And after the fires had subsided and the gold had hardened once again, the general of the Roman armies told the soldiers they could have whatever they could get.

and they tore the temple apart to get that gold.

Jesus said not one stone would be left upon another, and that is exactly what happened.

And so, this internal evidence here of John being told to measure the temple, it shows us this early writing of Revelation.

Now why do I bring that up?

Because it helps us to understand the circumstances that the early Christians who received this book were facing.

These Christians were facing persecution and tribulation, and they were going to hear of this siege of Jerusalem that Jesus had prophesied.

And the book of Revelation is helping them to make sense of everything that is going on around them in the world.

And so John is told to measure the temple.

and the altar, and those worshiping there, but he is told not to measure the outer court.

He is told that that is to be given over to the nations, and that Jerusalem will be trampled by the nations for 42 months.

Now, that's a substantial amount of time.

It's three and a half years.

Now, we don't want to get ourselves caught up in the weeds here too much with the numbers, so I'm going to try and keep this as simple as possible.

In the book of Daniel, he spoke of weeks of years.

So groups of years grouped by seven years, a week of years.

These were times of judgment.

Well, here we have three and a half years, and so the idea is that it's cut in half, that there is restraint being shown.

There is coming judgment, but God is going to cut it short.

And so essentially, he is cutting this long period of judgment in half.

And so while this is hard news for John to deliver, there's an element of mercy being expressed here because God is showing restraint.

And this alone shows us our first point of God's preservation of his people.

But then we see this even more deeply

because we're told of two witnesses who will make this even more clear for us.

So once again, it's important that we do our best to stick with what the book of Revelation tells us and do our best to interpret it in its context so that we can understand the big picture of what is going on.

This passage, like other parts of Revelation, really lends itself to speculation.

Who will these two witnesses be?

Or who were these two witnesses?

Well, the book of Revelation doesn't tell us.

We might speculate.

We might try to figure out details that we aren't given because it's fascinating.

It's a cool passage.

But it's important that we try to keep our minds from running off and going down paths where the book of Revelation does not intend for us to go.

And so what we're told, what we have here, is that we have these witnesses testifying and prophesying for 1,260 days.

Now, I could have pulled out a piece of paper and done that math.

I could have, honest.

But instead, I opened the calculator app on my computer.

Comes up out...

So what I did was I put that total number in, divided it by 365, and I bet you can guess what the number is without thinking too hard.

It's three and a half years, roughly.

And so they are going to prophesy during this time of cutback judgment that we spoke of before of those 42 months.

Now, there is some difference of opinion here.

on how it's best to understand the two witnesses.

And I want to try and keep it simple and easy.

And so we have to remember that this is apocalyptic language, and so we need to interpret it as the type of literature that it is.

So, these two witnesses could be two individual humans who fulfill this role prior to the fall of Jerusalem.

Could have been that.

These would be Christians who are faithfully speaking the word of the Lord, calling people to repent as the city is being trampled down in this judgment.

The other option is that these are symbolic and they point to the witness of two churches throughout this period of time.

Now, why is that suggested?

Well, look at how they are described here.

They're two olive trees.

They are lampstands.

Think back to the beginning of the book of Revelation.

That's what we want to do because we want to let the book of Revelation interpret itself.

So I'm going to give you a second.

Think back to the imagery we had at the beginning of the book of Revelation with the lampstands.

And you can see then the connection that's being made.

So as the apocalyptic vision of John began, he saw the seven lampstands.

And who was in the midst of the lampstands?

We had this image of Jesus there among them.

And remember, those lampstands were not just lampstands.

They were the seven churches that Revelation was written to.

Well, how many of the churches didn't have terrible accusations against them?

Most of them had all kinds of problems, remember?

There were all these things.

You can remember that language.

It's a very famous passage there at the beginning of Revelation.

You're lukewarm.

You're not hot.

You're not cold.

I'm going to spit you out of my mouth.

There were lots of words of judgment there at the beginning of Revelation.

Well, how many churches were considered to be faithful?

You guessed it.

Two.

Smyrna and Philadelphia.

And so you can see that obvious connection between the opening of the book and the churches with these two witnesses here.

And also the idea of two witnesses is important because under the law, two witnesses were required to establish that someone has broken the law, to give a witness of sinfulness.

In other words, in there being two witnesses, they are true witnesses speaking the truth of what is being experienced, of what the judgment is here.

Now, regardless of whether or not these are two individuals or two churches who are faithful witnesses, we see

The point is the exceptional protection they have from the hand of God.

If anyone harms them, fire comes from their mouth and they consume their foes.

This isn't a superpower or anything.

These aren't particularly...

Particular people endued with the ability to spit out literal fire.

The idea is that they speak a word of judgment and God takes care of that.

God overcomes by the speaking of their word of judgment.

But we also see something important here about these witnesses.

They have the power to shut the sky and cause a drought.

And they also have the power to turn the water to blood and strike the earth with every kind of plague.

And this is an amazing power and shows us the protection of God.

But before we move on in this chapter, we have to take a moment to do something that's pretty important.

Remember what I've been saying.

Revelation is filled with lots of imagery from the Old Testament.

And in a lot of cases, we miss it.

I think we miss it because it's very subtle.

You have to really be paying attention.

But I also think we miss it, the imagery of the Old Testament, because we're reading too fast.

We're looking forward to getting through the book.

Like I said, we miss a lot of the imagery from the Old Testament when we read Revelation.

But you can't miss what we see here.

And if you haven't gotten it already...

I think I'll see the lights come on for you when I tell you what's happening.

So look at what the witnesses are able to do.

They can stop the sky and they can turn the waters to blood.

Who are these two witnesses like from the Old Testament?

Elijah prophesied that there would not be rain for a long period of time, and it came to pass.

Moses went to Pharaoh, and in the plagues, the water turned to blood.

And so the image we were meant to have, the Old Testament illusion that's being drawn out here, is that these two witnesses are like Elijah and Moses.

In the Old Testament, there are no two greater figures of speaking the word of God.

There's no two greater figures who show the power and protection of God for his people.

So the big point here is that God is faithful to protect and sustain his witnesses.

And this truth encourages us to stand firm in proclaiming the gospel, knowing that God equips us with his power and grace for his purposes.

And so that's the message that's being conveyed to us here.

That these people come and they proclaim this message of repentance and God protects them.

But as we see in this passage, with these two witnesses, God's preservation doesn't mean the absence of suffering or even death.

This passage is pointing us to something greater.

So in Revelation 11, 7 through 12, we see our second point, and we're told of how God's ultimate victory is displayed through the death and resurrection of these faithful witnesses.

So after the testimony is completed, we see something so amazing that your mind likely struggles to imagine what's going on here.

The beast from the bottomless pit makes war and conquers and kills the witnesses.

This is a fantastic thing to try and imagine.

But as you're imagining it, you might be saying to yourself, but wait, Mark, you said that God protects his people.

And now suddenly after their time of God using them as witnesses, after God has gotten what he wants out of them, they can be killed.

So much for God's protection.

Well, the point here is that God's protection is far greater than any harm that can be done to his people on earth.

And we'll see that he is faithful to protect his people through all this oppression and all these attacks.

So these two witnesses are conquered, they're killed, and then they're allowed to lie in the streets.

This is all rather sick and morbid, isn't it?

If you were to stop and imagine this, this is just awful.

It truly seems like the beast, like evil, is winning.

But before we see the victory that God provides, we need to notice something significant here.

Because earlier in this chapter, we're told that John is measuring the temple and that the city is going to be under siege, right?

In fact, the language that is used at the beginning of this chapter is the holy city.

The holy city.

But look at what we're told about the city here.

The great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt.

Now, if you hadn't made the connection that the holy city Jerusalem is now being called Sodom and Egypt, and you're thinking it's some other city,

Revelation wants to be clear.

Where their Lord was crucified, this holy city, where the temple is, is now Sodom.

It is now symbolically called Egypt.

Take a second and take that in for a moment.

The holy city is

Jerusalem is symbolically called Sodom and Egypt.

And once again, some Old Testament imagery in Revelation is very subtle.

This isn't.

This isn't subtle at all.

Run through the stories you've studied in Sunday school or from your personal Bible study time.

Are there greater images of judgment in the Old Testament, or in all of Scripture actually, are there greater images of judgment other than the judgment on Sodom and the plagues on Egypt?

I can't think of any.

Again, let that sink in.

The city that's holy.

The city that was set apart by God is now a desolate place, experiencing the judgment of God for their unbelief in rejecting the Lord of glory, the one whom they crucified.

The holy city becomes Sodom.

That's hard to hear.

When I take a moment and I sit on that idea...

It is one of the most profound weighty statements of judgment that we have seen in Revelation so far and we have seen a lot of statements of judgment.

And with that weightiness we return to the progression of John's vision to understand the fullness of what is happening here.

And we see that the bodies of these witnesses are left there for three and a half days, and people from different tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in the tomb.

And then there's this twisted celebration of their death.

The people who dwell on earth are overjoyed that they don't have to hear the witnesses and their call of repentance anymore.

And as morbid and as wrong as this seems to us, when we think about it, you can understand this.

We don't like calls to repentance.

We don't like people telling us that we need to stop what we're doing.

We don't like it.

So you can understand why these people are celebrating.

Finally, those witnesses who are telling us to turn to God, the ones who are telling us to repent of our sins, they're gone.

We don't have to hear about it anymore.

We can go back to our sin and our unbelief and not worry about the idea of judgment anymore.

And notice what is said here.

It says that the witnesses had been a torment to them.

The witnesses were speaking a prophetic word.

They aren't out there putting them in prison.

They aren't torturing them.

But yet it says they were tormented.

They were tormented by a call to repentance.

And you can understand that language.

A call to repentance is hard.

It's hard to hear.

And despite the apparent triumph of evil in these circumstances, we see that God's victory does shine through this dark moment.

Because after three and a half days, the breath of life from God enters the witnesses, and they stand on their feet, silencing their enemies and instilling great fear in them.

And you can understand why.

They were rejoicing in the silencing of this call to repentance, but now the truth of that call to repentance has been shown to them in the resurrection of these witnesses.

The message of the witnesses is confirmed in the fact that God brings them to life.

If they disliked the message and were scared before, just imagine the emotion that this would evoke.

But this resurrection here shows more than just the validity of the message of the witnesses.

What has happened demonstrates that God, his purposes cannot be thwarted.

And so it points us to an ultimate victory as this chapter closes up.

And so we turn to verses 13 through 19 where we see our final point.

This victory is proclaimed on a cosmic scale and reveals the triumph of God's eternal reign.

So as judgment falls upon them, there's an earthquake and a tenth of the city crumbles.

We see that 7,000 are killed and the rest give glory to the God of heaven.

So there's no doubt in the minds of those experiencing this that this is the wrath of God.

They understand what is happening.

They know this isn't random happenstance.

This isn't a random act of nature.

Because they know that this is from God.

They gave glory to him.

They know it's a work of judgment.

So this statement made in verse 14 here is chilling.

Because we've seen a lot of images of judgment and God's wrath in the book of Revelation.

And imagine that you're reading this.

Someone's reading it to you out loud.

You've never heard it before.

You have no idea how much of the book is left.

You don't know if you're in chapter 11 and the 13th chapter's the end or if there's a whole bunch more left to come.

Imagine that you're hearing it for the first time.

And as you were hearing it, you'd probably continually be thinking as you make your way through the book,

Okay, the next judgment's the last one, right?

Because it's been this escalating level of God's power and majesty and judgment.

You'd be thinking we're almost there.

But then verse 14 here refreshes your memories.

There were going to be three roles.

And as awful as this judgment that we have seen is, there is more to come.

It's nowhere near done.

All this wrath and judgment that we've seen, it's just two of three woes.

God's power and reign are going to continue to be on display, and it's meant to continually call us to repentance and cause us to trust in Christ alone for our salvation.

As this judgment falls, we fall on Christ because we have no other hope.

There's no way to stand in the judgment.

You must trust in the one who is on the throne and in the power of the blood of the lamb who was slain.

And that reminder of the third woe yet to come triggers the seventh angel to blow the trumpet and the statement that is made here is absolutely glorious.

The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

I can't be the only one who just heard the Hallelujah Chorus.

The handle moved to that point in the Hallelujah Chorus.

That is the crescendo.

Here you see it in its fullness.

The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

The earth has trembled in fear of God and judgment has come, but it is all for his glory and all for the salvation of the people of God.

Christ is overcome.

Our God reigns.

Christ is Lord and he is King.

He reigns forever and ever.

And we see amazing words of worship from the elders as they fall on their faces.

They give thanks to Almighty God, the one who is and who was, the one who has begun to reign.

Now, of course, God has always reigned, right?

Why is it significant that this is being said now?

Because there's been a change.

There's a change in the way that we see the world now.

Remember, the city that was the center for God's people, that was continually desired to be the center of an earthly kingdom,

Think back to Palm Sunday when Jesus came into town.

They wanted him to set up an earthly kingdom, save us now.

They had no idea that he was coming to save them for their sins.

They wanted him to go and get rid of the Romans and reign from Jerusalem.

That's what they wanted.

They wanted an earthly kingdom.

But with the destruction of Jerusalem...

we see that this earthly city has been replaced with a heavenly kingdom, with a victorious Messiah reigning at the right hand of the Father.

The people have looked for the Messiah to take the seat in Jerusalem, but this victory is over all the earth, not just one little plot of land in the Middle East, it is over all the earth.

In fact, we see that Jerusalem is destroyed.

And the temple is left desolate.

And we'll see that at the end of this passage.

But first we need to take a quick look at these words of praise here.

The 24 elders tell us that the nations raged, but they were nothing compared to the power of God.

As Psalm 2 states, the nations rage, but all that plotting is in vain.

The nations were nothing compared to the wrath of God.

He is over all things.

He will judge the dead.

He will reward the saints.

He has power over all things.

Even the destroyers of earth will be destroyed.

He is sovereign.

He is powerful.

He is the true king.

And a lot has happened in this chapter.

And through the whole time working on this message, there were multiple times where I thought about breaking it up to two shorter passages.

But I couldn't get away from the full picture here.

And so that's why we want to go all the way to verse 19 and look at this whole chapter together.

Because when we started out this chapter, John was measuring the temple.

But now we have a vision of a new temple.

And the measuring not only established that the temple was still standing,

but that it was a vital part of the city.

People came there to offer sacrifices and to fulfill their ritual obligations.

But through the events of this chapter, we have a vision of a new temple.

A temple not centered in a particular city, but a temple in heaven.

The city has been trampled.

The temple destroyed.

But that was the plan all along.

The temple was but a type.

It was but a shadow pointing to what God was doing for his people.

But now, we're not talking about a particular ethnic group who were centered in a particular nation, in a particular city.

Now, it's a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

And the king is seated in heaven, not Jerusalem.

And the temple is in heaven, not Jerusalem.

It's not just for one particular people, it's for us.

For all the nations of the earth.

And we know why the temple was no longer needed.

We know why Jesus prophesied that the temple would be destroyed.

Because he was the true temple.

And here at the end of Revelation 11, we get a glimpse into heaven.

And what do we see?

The Ark of the Covenant.

The temple measured at the beginning of this chapter is no more, but there's a better and greater temple in heaven.

So as the chapter closes up, we see the authority of this vision with visual demonstrations of God's power.

What do we have here?

We have lightning, rumbling, peals of thunder, an earthquake, heavy hail.

And so what are these signs doing?

They're telling us that this new temple is the will of God, that he has done all these things.

He is the one who's caused this to come to pass, and that we have a great king in heaven who reigns, and we have a great high priest in Jesus who gave himself for our sins.

No more sacrifices in that building in Jerusalem.

There hasn't been a sacrifice since the temple was destroyed in the year 70.

Why was the temple destroyed?

Because the sacrifice of the Lamb, the Lamb of God, won victory over sin, death, and hell.

No more continual sacrifices are needed in that temple for the forgiveness of sin.

And so the temple is left desolate.

And there's now a new temple in heaven that gives us confidence in the love of God for his people.

And we see that he reigns over us forever and ever.

Nothing can cause this to end.

This is eternal because it is in heaven.

So as we reflect on Revelation 11, there's a lot here.

But I want us to take heart in the victory of Jesus.

Because it secures for us our eternal hope.

No matter how turbulent the world may seem, Christ is king.

He reigns.

His kingdom will never be shaken.

And the destruction of the earthly temple reminds us of the assurance that isn't found in structures or rituals, but instead is found in the finished work of Christ, the true temple.

His death and resurrection have conquered sin, death, and hell.

And he now intercedes for us as our great high priest.

So, trust in this unshakable truth.

The victory has been won.

And as his people, we belong to a kingdom that will never end.

The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

And he will reign forever and ever.

Amen.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, we are blessed to have your word and to have these images that we can see and understand.

We pray that we would continually look to you as our king in heaven, that we would continually understand the victory that was won by the lamb.

And may this good news cause us to speak of our king, because he is the king who not only reigns over us, but he suffered and died to save us from our sin.

Each and every day, may we desire to spread this good news that your glory might be made known in all the earth.

It's in the name of Jesus that we pray.

Amen.