I’m really, really glad to be back with you this morning after being gone for a couple of weekends. Whenever I leave for a time, inevitably I have someone ask me with sort of a worried look on their face, “Gosh, who preaches when you’re not there? Is it hard to find somebody? Does your congregation suffer?” And I always start to giggle! Especially this time. “Yes, the congregation was really inconvenienced. First Jeff Van Duzer preached, and then Dr. John Perkins.” You guys were really, really suffering, weren’t you?!!

We’re back in the middle of the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation…the Apocalypse of St. John. In fact, we’re quite literally in the middle of the book, chapters 10 & 11 out of 22 chapters. This amazing vision given to the writer John, and circulated amongst the churches of Asia Minor in the first/second century. And despite all of the systems of interpretations and the wild speculation about the symbolism of this book over the last 2000 years, I think we’re finding some surprisingly solid things in Revelation. Challenging things, things to live by.

Two weeks ago, Jeff preached through part of the section where trumpets were sounding, and each trumpet brought a catastrophe, a plague, a curse to the people and to the earth, the sounds of judgment and prayers and cries for justice being sent up. This morning as we read in chapters 10 & 11, we find ourselves in an interlude. A space. The sixth trumpet has blown, the seventh and final trumpet has not yet sounded.

Let me give you just a bit of background before we read. John sees again a vision of a mighty angel, who bears a lot of resemblance to the images of Jesus we’ve seen earlier. The angel has a scroll open in his hand, the same scroll whose seven seals were opened earlier in our series. He shouts out, and then it says “the seven thunders sounded.” John prepares to write down what he hears, but he is instructed not to write it down.

I want to read with you beginning with verse 8 of chapter 10, and continuing on into chapter 11. Let me encourage you to listen carefully this morning.

Well, that was clear, wasn’t it?! It’s starting to get crazy. Up to this point, it’s been at least somewhat understandable, a lot of visuals and symbolism but we’ve been able to track somewhat. But now the video goes to a faster speed.

Somebody is making a meal out of a scroll, they’re eating a book.

Instructions are spoken.

A huge temple appears out of nowhere, a measuring tape to measure it.

Two mysterious witnesses pop up.

The material is timedated.

There are olive trees and lampstands and fire coming out of someone’s mouth and plagues being spit out.

A beast from the pit murders.

A great city emerges, but it keeps switching identity.

It’s a problem!

The images seem to stand for one thing one moment, and another thing at a different moment. And time seems to have no chronology at all, things just keep happening, no wonder there’s so many crazy interpretations.

So let’s try to focus in this morning on a few things we can get our arms around.

John is instructed to be a prophet.

A prophet, in Biblical proportions, has little to do with predicting the future but has everything to do with Speaking the Word of God. With being God’s mouthpiece, with communicating God’s will. Speak the Word.

But where will that word come from?

John is told to ask for the scroll the angel is holding…and eat it. Eat the scroll. Devour the Word. If the scroll in some way represents the scriptures (and I think it does), then John is told to ingest it. Absorb the Word that God speaks, let it become a part of you.

That’s a pretty different twist on reading the Bible, isn’t it? We usually think we read the Bible for information, and the reason we want information is so that we can use it. We can use it to win an argument, to prove our point, to make ourselves look good, all sorts of things.

But John isn’t told to read and get information he can pass on, he’s told to eat it, to let it become a part of the very fiber of his being. We eat food, it becomes part of the muscles and tendons and bones that we’re made of. Eat the scroll. Eat the Word of God. I wonder what would happen if we could eat this book...if we could speak, and the Word of God came out.

When we were on vacation, we stayed in a condominium that had cable television, which we don’t and never have had at home. Having cable meant a couple of things:

First, it meant there were a whole lot of great college basketball games on TV!

But second, it meant we had access to all sorts of religious stations. And I flipped between across a couple of different preachers just goin’ at it. Nobody I’d ever heard of. And I have to admit, it just reinforced the worst stereotypes of TV evangelists.

White shoes, cream colored leisure suit, hair slicked back, big Bible in their hands, yelling and shouting for the television audience. “The Bible says…” and then they’d go off on some five minute tangent.

“The Bible says…” and then they’d give what was clearly their own opinion about some controversial topic.

But I was left wondering if they’d really ingested God’s Word, or if it was just being used.

John ate the scroll, it became part of him. He was a prophet. Speak the Word.

And when John first ate the scroll, it tasted so sweet. But after he ate it…he wanted to throw up. John was finding out about being a prophet, about being a witness for God. It tasted so good at first, that word of God.

Almost every week, I get the privilege of preparing a sermon. I go lock myself away for hours, and I sit down with my Bible, a yellow tablet, a bunch of commentaries, and I tear into the sermon text for Sunday. I ask questions, I puzzle, I sketch, I read what scholars have written, I think, I pray, I listen.

And invariably at some point every week I stop in the middle and I say “This is amazing! I am learning so much! And this is what I get to do, this is my vocation, my community pays me to do this, this is the most amazing thing in the world!”

It tastes so sweet, the Word of God going in.

And then I say “Lord, what should I be talking about on Sunday?”

That’s when I start to get sick. Sometimes it’s a hard word. Sometimes it’s something I know at least some of you aren’t going to want to hear. Many times it’s not something I want to hear, for myself, for my own life, let alone speak to you. “God, why? Why can’t I just gather some good information?”

I bet you’ve had a time where you prayed or read, you felt close to God, and it tasted sweet. And then God gives you this nudge: “You need to talk to your friend. You need to confess something to them, or confront them about something difficult.”

That sweet taste is gone. It tastes bitter going out. But the Word is: Speak the Word.

John is instructed “You must prophesy (speak the word) again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.” It’s for everyone.

Speak the Word.

Live the Word.

Testify to the world that God loves each
and every person.

What does that look like? Here’s a picture in chapter 11:

John is told to go and measure the temple of God, the altar and the people, but not the court outside the temple.

Now, by New Testament times the “temple” was regularly used as an image of the people of God’s, the faith community, the church. Measure it. Encircle it, protect it. The world around it, outside of it, the nations will trample the holy city for 42 months.

42 months? Why such a specific number? It’s…a symbol. 42 months is exactly 3 ½ years, and it’s exactly half of Revelation’s sacred number of completion and wholeness, seven. Those people hostile to God don’t control things forever…but for a good length of time. Not until the end of time, but for a long time. But. God measures his people, protects them. The church remains. Under siege, but it remains. To Speak the Word.

“And I will grant my two witnesses authority to prophesy for 1,260 days (which is 42 months, which is 3 ½ years, which is exactly half of the exactly perfect number seven) wearing sackcloth.”

The “two witnesses” appear out of nowhere.

A “witness” is a courtroom word. Someone who is bearing testimony. Someone who is testifying to the story. Someone who is telling the truth.

Who are they?

• They are two olive trees (anointed).
• They are two lampstands (previously in Revelation,the lampstands are the churches).
• They can speak fire, their opposition can be deadly, they can stop the rain, they can turn waters into blood (like the plagues of Moses in Egypt with the Pharaoh).

Two Witnesses.

Who are they?

The question has kept the biblical scholar industry busy for years and years. Most modern day scholars think they represent the church. I think it’s far richer and more complicated than just that. There are two witnesses because the Old Testament required 2 witnesses for an authentic court of law. The two witnesses are Moses and Elijah, God’s prophets, the ones who were with Jesus on the top of the Mount of Transfiguration, the one who led God’s people out of slavery and the other who was lifted off of the earth.

The two witnesses are the Law and the Prophets, which Jesus said were summarized by “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength…and love your neighbor as yourself.”

The two witnesses are Elijah and John the Baptist, the New Testament counterpart to Elijah who bore testimony to the identity and mission of Jesus.

The two witnesses are the Old and New Testaments.

The two witnesses are the church of Jesus Christ; the church when it is willing to Speak the Word of what God has done in Jesus Christ…but also to live the Word.

You’ll notice the two witnesses wear sackcloth, the visible symbol of repentance. These are two who live the Word, not only speaking it but unashamedly attaching the garb of humility to themselves and living out God’s Word.

I love that these two witnesses do both. They speak it, and they live it out. Because the people of God are called to do both.

But we go back and forth like a pendulum, don’t we? Christians have often been guilty of speaking the word, of calling people to repentance and the grace of Christ…but hypocritically not living it out. We’ve spouted the four spiritual laws while living in cloistered communities away from the hard problems of our culture. We’ve talked about God breaking down barriers of race, but not bothered participating in that in real life. We’ve preached about compassion for the poor, but done nothing to personally close the huge and widening gap between us and the poor, we’ll wait and let the government do that.

But the pendulum has swung the other way as well. Christians sometimes do a good job of living lives of integrity, of being honest and hardworking and caring about people around us…but are afraid to speak God’s word. Afraid to follow the nudge of the Spirit and tell a neighbor who is hurting and lonely that God cares about them. Scared to offer to pray with a colleague who’s having a hard time. Reluctant to speak the healing word of Jesus into a situation.

Some of you have heard of Dr. Francis Collins, one of the world’s leading scientists, who headed up the international Human Genome Project that mapped human DNA. A few weeks ago, Collins spoke at the Presidential Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC, in front of 4500 people from 160 countries. I read the text of what he said this week. He pretty much just…spoke the Word. Told his story with Jesus:

“In my 28 th year, while hiking in the majestic Cascade Mountains in the Pacific Northwest, I could no longer deny my need for forgiveness and new life – and I gave in and became a follower of Jesus.” He’s said much the same thing in Newsweek and Time Magazine interviews recently.

Speaking the Word is living the Word.

But Living the Word is also speaking the Word.

We need both. The two witnesses testify…AND they walk in the shirts of repentance.

Now if we’re scared when we read this, it’s with good reason. “When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them” …and leave their bodies shamelessly in the streets, and for (guess what?!) 3 ½ days people will gloat and celebrate that these pains in the rear, these witnesses, these truth tellers are no longer there to torment them.

Is there danger in following God?

You bet. In some places in the world, persecution is rampant, direct and primitive. If you declare the name of Christ, you will be imprisoned or killed. In some places, it is subtle, indirect and complex, probably more like here. If you speak about Jesus, you might be shunned or looked at as uneducated or foolish.

Is there danger in speaking the word?

You bet. These two are laid out on the street, dead and shamed. It has never looked darker. The heroes of the faith are crushed. It looks like darkness has won. It looks like it’s over.

But these are God’s people, those who spoke the word, and it’s not the end of the story.

We had the amazing privilege of hosting Dr. John Perkins, civil rights leader and founder of many reconciliation ministries last week. I know you enjoyed that.

I was rereading John’s book “Let Justice Roll Down” this week. And I read again the terrible chapters where he tells the story of being beaten within an inch of his life by white policemen in a Mississippi jail for the crime of attending a nonviolent civil rights protest. And how he and many others were then convicted on ridiculous charges that made a dissenting judge say he was ashamed to be part of such a legal system.

And I read about how it looked so bleak at the time, like anything good had been snuffed out. And yet somehow, in God’s mercy, he allowed John and others to forgive, instead of harbor bitterness. God reminded him of Jesus’ own suffering, and His forgiveness. And how slowly, over these many years now, John’s life and words have inspired so many lives. God’s Spirit, refusing to yield the day, blowing through.

In Revelation the breath of life from God raises the two witnesses. The power of God overcomes the worst thing the world can imagine, death. And the end result of the two witnesses speaking, dying, rising? God gets exactly what he wants: repentance. An earthquake comes, 1/10 of the city is killed, but the rest? The other 90%? They gave glory to the God of heaven!

This is upside down. In the Old Testament, in both Amos and Isaiah there are prophecies of doom, but there 90% are destroyed. The remnant is just the 10%. But here it is flipped on its ear. Somehow, God will have His way.

Speaking the word has an impact. Speaking the word of truth, living the love of Jesus sometimes feels like we are operating out of fool’s hope, that it is powerless, that the darkness is too much. But even here, even in the end of times, even when the beast has come from the pit and acted, speaking the word bears fruit. Because God is at work. And God’s will is not that 90% of the world be destroyed, but that all might come to repentance and a saving knowledge of him.

Speaking the Word…has an impact, whether or not we know it, whether or not we see it, whether or not we have to wait years to see it working…the Word of God, Isaiah says, goes out and it will not return empty, but it will accomplish what God intends.

Speak the Word.

Last thing. Can we predict the future based on these numbers and images?

No, I don’t think so. It’s enough for me to know that it’s entirely possible we live in the last days. But I’m drawn back into remembering the original readers of this text, Christian men and women wondering if they were in the last days. Men and women struggling to be Christians in difficult circumstances. Struggling to be faithful when they were shamed by neighbors around them. Struggling to follow Jesus when it was dark and things looked hopeless. What word did they hear from this text?

Eat the Word. Live the Word. Speak the Word. God will have His way.