"And they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.  And I will give to my two witnesses even that they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, dressed in sackcloth."  Rev. 11:2, 3.
 
    Australia's first convicted terrorist was a man named Jack Roche.  Accused of planning to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra in the year 2000, he reportedly had links with al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah (an Islamic terrorist group in Indonesia).  Apparently he was in contact with representatives of both groups as he developed his attack plot.  His trial was front-page news throughout Australia.  A Perth court sentenced him to nine years in prison.
 
    The unusual ting about the case is that Jack Roche did not actually carry out his bombing plan.  The trial gave a glimpse of what might have been, but in actuality no buildings got blown up or damaged, nobody was killed or injured.  Yet at his trial he faced a maximum prison sentence equal to the one he would have been liable for had he actually carried out his plot.  One could say that the conviction was based on a prophecy.  Given Roche's capabilities, his accomplices, and the quality of his planning, the court concluded that it needed to penalize even mere planning.
 
    The verdict sought to send out a signal to other would-be terrorists in Australia that they could fail twice.  They could fail to achieve the political goals of their action and at the same time they could lose their accustomed lifestyle.  This raised the personal stakes in terrorists action and made it less attractive to people such as Roche.
 
    The events of Revelation 11 builds on the close of chapter 10.  Divine agencies tell John that he must prophesy again to "many peoples, nations, languages and kings" (Rev. 10:11, NIV).  God gives him a glimpse into the future.  While the message of the gospel is sweet, many traumatic events would occur before the end would come.
 
    The time periods of 42 months and 1260 days recall Daniel's time prophecies (Dan. 7:25; 12:7).  During that period the people of God will suffer at the hands of many enemies.  At the end of the period the beast from the abyss would kill the two witnesses.  But things do not end badly.  God raises the two witnesses after three and a half days, and they ascend to heaven (Rev. 11:7-13).
 
    Many aspects of these passages are difficult to understand.  But the basic message is clear.  God knows the end from the beginning even better than the Australian court system.  He knows the thoughts of those who oppose Him and His people.  Scanning the future course of history and seeing the consequences of evil action, He assures us in advance that He can deal with them.  The Lord too has a plan, and the outcome is sure.
 
Lord, I want to be faithful to Your plan for the last generation.

  "And they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.  And I will give to my two witnesses even that they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, dressed in sackcloth."  Rev. 11:2, 3.
 
    This morning I went back to school.  High school!  Yes, I suppose I'm a little old for that (I graduated in 1967).  But it involved a higher cause--one called parenting.  One of my children was struggling with high school algebra, and when I looked at the textbook I could see why.  The only problem was that my young person already knows more algebra than I do.  So how do you help a kid who's struggling with a subject when you know less than he or she does about it?  You go back to school!
 
    The class was interesting.  Adding and multiplying powers.  Negative and zero powers.  The subject has something incredibly elegant about it, even though it can be hard to learn--at least for some people.  But what is mathematics?  Is it simply a constructive form of intellectual play?  Or is it a window into some deeper reality of the universe that already existed before we discovered it? 
 
    John Polkinghome argues that mathematicians are discoverers, not inventors.  Through mathematics they explore a reality that already exists.  The prime numbers (numbers that can be divided only by themselves and by 1-2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, and so on), for example, have always been "there," even before we noticed their existence.  But where have they been?  Polkinghome argues that they are part of the fundamental structure of he universe, one existing at a deeper level beyond its physical reality.  In other words, the universe involves more than than objects that we can handle and observe.  Research provides hints that fundamental principles, such as mathematics, truth, and beauty, have a reality beyond what human beings can observe and label.  If the mathematicians are right, why can't there also be a God who transcends everything that science can observe and experiment with?
 
    Polkinghome's insight is fascinating when you realize that God's self-revelation in the Apocalypse is full of numbers, two of them visible in the above text.  Forty-two months, 1260 days, five months, 10 days, and a time, times, and half a time represent some strange and unusual ways of describing the passage of time.  We observe crowds ranging in size from 144,000 to 200 million (imagine what it would take to estimate the size of such a crowd!).  In addition to these numbers we find the repeated use of basic numbers, such as three, four, six, seven, 10, 12, and 24.  Rightly understood, the books of revelation and of nature both witness to the same God--a God of order in the midst of chaos, a God of mercy and justice, a God of both love and wrath.
 
Lord, this math stuff is way over my head.  So are many of the numbers in the book of Revelation.  Help me find Your order in the midst of my own personal chaos today.

   A reed like a measuring rod was given to me, and I was told, "Rise up and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship in it.  But the outer court of the temple set aside and do not measure it, because it is given to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.  Rev. 11:1, 2.
 
    A Gentile walking into the Temple at Jerusalem would have been awed by the huge size of the outer courtyard and the magnificent grandeur of its structure.  He or she was free to circulate around the outermost courtyard (the word translated "nation" above is also the word for Gentiles).  But close to the Temple building itself a stone fence announced, "Any Gentile passing beyond this point will be responsible for his own death, which will surely follow."  It didn't take long to figure out that Gentiles' access to the God of this Temple was extremely limited.
 
    Inside the Gentile barricade was the Court of the Women.  All Jews were welcome here, but that was as far as Jewish women got.  Only Jewish men could enter the innermost court in front of the Temple building itself.  Even Jewish men, however, had limitations.  Only priests could enter the Temple building itself, and even they could not go into the innermost room of the Temple, the Holy of Holies.  Only the high priest could visit it, and then only once a year.
 
    These levels of access taught important lessons about the holiness of God and the barriers that sin creates between Him and the human race.  Relationship with God is not a "buddy-buddy" sort of thing for human beings.  We must approach Him with a humility appropriate to sinners.  Our relationship with God has no room for arrogance.
 
    Amazingly enough, even these lessons in humility often get distorted into arrogance.  People interpreted their right to closer entrance as a license to think of themselves as superior to others.  To make matters even worse, in Jesus' day the Temple staff had turned the one part of the Temple complex that Gentiles could enter into a cruel and greedy marketplace.  And Jesus reacted to the situation with fury, casting the sellers and money exchangers out of the Court of the Gentiles.
 
    Nothing makes Jesus angrier than well-meaning religious people setting up unnecessary barriers to others who want to come to Him.  Have you and I ever done this?  Would you refuse to worship in a church building if the doors were red?  Would you have a hard rime worshipping with someone who was dressed shabbily or had on too much makeup?  Is protecting the church carpet more important than welcoming children?
 
Lord, I repent of the many times I have tried to impose my personal preferences on others.  Help me not to place unnecessary barriers in the way of those who need to find You.

 And the voice which I had heard from heaven spoke with me again: "Take the opened scroll which is in the hand of the angel standing upon the sea and upon the land."  And I went to the angel and said to him, "Give me the scroll."  He said to me, "Take it and eat it.  It will make your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey."  And I took the scroll out of the angel's hand and eat it.  And it was as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, it made my stomach sour.  And he said to me, "You must prophesy again to many peoples, nations, languages, and kings."  Rev. 10: 8-11.
 
    John is not the last person for whom everything turned sour.  God's strategy with him seems to be a way that the Lord often uses to prepare people for a different kind of ministry.
 
    When Gavin was a teenager he attended a prestigious private school.  His classmates were the children of diplomats and the wealthiest people in the country.  As a student he won scholarships, was captain of several sports teams, and received awards for many things.  He never failed at anything he wanted to do.
 
    When he became a pastor, however, everything seemed to turn upside down.  Medical problems hospitalized him, and then he lost his job.  He was continually tired.  Gossip destroyed his reputation.  His girlfriend of several years broke up with him.  It was as if God were systematically taking away everything that he had learned to depend on.
 
    When everything seemed darkest, God completely restored his health and his energy.  But sometime later he found himself complaining about his situation.  From the moment that he began complaining about his situation, his renewed energy began to seep away.  For two months he was angry with God.  "Father, this is not fair" he protested.  "You have taken everything away from me.  I have nothing left!"  The voice of the Holy Spirt was unmistakable: ""Yes, that is the point."
 
    The thought stunned Gavin.  God wanted him to have nothing?  Then he came to realize that he had been trying to do ministry in his own strength.  He was "soured" because God removed his "strengths" so he could realize how much he needed to depend on the Lord.  As with John in Revelation 10, God intended his disappointments to serve as stepping-stones to a different kind of ministry.
 
    Gavin is back in ministry today.  But the core of his service is not in his talent or strength--it is in intimacy with God.  Just as the book of Revelation has had far more influence through the centuries than John could have imagined, so our work for God can exceed our expectations when we do it as the result of an intimate relationship with Him.
 
Lord, keep me open to new directions by whatever means You choose.  Help me to recognize Your hand in the "sour" expressions of life.

 And the voice which I had heard from heaven spoke with me again: "Take the opened scroll which is in the hand of the angel standing upon the sea and upon the land."  And I went to the angel and said to him, "Give me the scroll."  He said to me, "Take it and eat it.  It will make your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey."  And I took the scroll out of the angel's hand and ate it.  And it was as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, it made my stomach sour.  Rev. 10:8-10.
 
    This little acted parable expresses John's disappointment.  He saw that his book would not bring the end.  But at the time of the end, his book would prophesy again by means of another people (Rev. 10:11).  In the context of Revelation 10:5-7, John's experience is also a forecast of another disappointment at the close of Daniel's time prophecies--a group of people who thought the end would come and it did not.  To have hopes of Jesus' return raised and dashed would be a bitter experience for God's faithful people at any time.
 
    Many people believe that second disappointment occurred in the year 1844.  Thousands of Americans believed that Jesus would return on October 22 of that year.  On that day they eagerly expected to see Jesus Himself approaching in the clouds, surrounded by all the holy angels.  They looked forward to meeting all the dear friends that death had torn from them.  With all their trials and sufferings over and caught up in the air to meet their coming Lord, they would inhabit mansions in the golden city, the New Jerusalem.
 
    Feel the passion of the words of one of the participants, Hiram Edson: "Our expectations were raised high, and thus we looked for our coming Lord until the clock tolled twelve midnight.  The day had then passed and our disappointment became a certainty.  Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before.  It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison.  We wept, and wept, till the day dawn.
 
    "I mused in my own heart, saying, 'My advent experience has been the richest and brightest of all my Christian experience.  If this had proved a failure, what was the rest of my Christian experience worth?  Has the Bible proved a failure?  Is there no God, no heaven, no religion, no golden city, no paradise?  Is all this but a cunningly devised fable?  Is there no reality to our fondest hope and expectation of these things?'  And thus we had something to grieve and weep over, if all our fond hopes were lost.  And as I said, we wept till the day dawn."
 
Lord, help me face the disappointments of each day in the knowledge that You have foreseen them and provided what I need to survive.

 "Time will be no more."  But in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound,the mystery of God is finished, which He proclaimed as good news through His servants the prophets.  Rev. 10:6, 7.
 
    When John wrote Revelation 10, he had Daniel 12 in mind.  Daniel 12 talks about sealing up the words of the prophecy until the "time of the end" (Dan. 12:4).  Then in Daniel 12:7 someone lifts up his hands and swears by the One who lives forever and ever (Rev. 10:5, 6) that there will be "time, times, and half a time."  It sounds almost exactly like Revelation 10, except that in Revelation the phrase "time will be no more" replaces the cryptic time period.
 
    The point of Revelation 10 seems to be that the time prophecies of Daniel have run their course.  Revelation 10 brings us to the point when God would unseal the book of Daniel and God's final message (the "mystery of God") would go to the world.  Both texts have a strong sense of an appointed time.  So the sixth trumpet brings us to a period in earth's history in which the final events are about to take place.
 
    During the nineteenth century students of the Bible ransacked the books of Daniel and Revelation, trying to understand where humanity stood in the course of human history.  After careful study, some of them concluded that the time prophecies of Daniel would end around the year 1844.  They naturally assumed that the phrase "time would be no more" meant the end of the world, the second coming of Jesus.  However, they missed one tiny word in Revelation 10:7--"but."
 
    In the Greek language this particular word for "but" portrays a strong contrast, even more emphatic than the English "but."  It tells us that the time prophecies of Daniel did not bring the world to the very end, but only to the "time of the end."
 
    In a way this is nothing new.  God has always portrayed the end as near (see Rev. 1:3).  At the same time God's Word has always contained the seeds of an even deeper understanding.  The disciples of Jesus, for example, thought that He would come immediately after His resurrection (Acts 1:6-8).  But He then explained to them that the gospel had to go to the whole world first.
 
    The Millerites in the nineteenth century, likewise, thought that the closing up of Daniel's time prophecies had brought them to the end of the world.  But God's people still had a mission to accomplish first (Rev. 10:11; 14:6, 7).  So the bottom line for the Christian life is not timing the end, but living the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps: "Semper Fidelis"--Always Faithful.
 
Lord, I want nothing more than to be found faithful when You come.

The angel which I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven and swore by the one who lives for ever and ever--who created heaven and the things which are in it, the earth and the things which are in it, and the sea and the things which are in it--"Time will be no more."  But in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God is finished, which He proclaimed as good news through His servants the prophets. Rev. 10:5-7.
 
    My friend Jim was walking through the American cemetery overlooking the Normandy beaches in northern France.  Thousands of American soldiers lost their lives on June 6, 1944, and during the days that followed.  Young boys, full of hope and promise, would risk all in a land far away from their family, homes, and friends in order to liberate a distant country from the evil empire that was Nazi Germany.
 
    As he walked among thousands of neatly lined white crosses, one in particular caught Jim's attention.  It read:
 
                                                Burnell W. Coolen
                                                Pvt. 8 Inf. 4 Div.
                                                Massachusetts, June 21, 1944
 
    He realized with reverential awe that the soldier had died exactly six years before his own birth.  Because Private Coolen was willing to die on Jim's birthday, Jim was born free instead of under the tyranny of the swastika.  As Burnell W. Coolen lay dying in Normandy, he could not have possibly imagined that more than 60 years later his name and heroic deed would appear in a book read all over the world.  But that is how acts of dedication often receive their reward.  Long after the actor has passed from the stage of life, his or her acts of courage still inspire others.
 
    In the New Testament the "mystery of God" is the gospel, something hidden in ages past but brought to light through the proclamation of Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25, 26).  According to the book of Revelation, a great final proclamation of the gospel will take place just before the blowing of the last trumpet.  That gospel tells us that another was willing to die for you and me, far away from His home, so that we could live in freedom and make a difference in this world.
 
Lord, I want to walk in the footsteps of the One who died for me.  I take up His marching orders as I approach the final events of earth's history.  Help me to keep in step with His cadence today.

 And [the angel] cried out with a loud voice like the roar of a lion.  And when he cried out, the seven thunders uttered their own voices.  And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Seal up what the seven thunders said and do not write them down."  Rev. 10:3, 4.
 
    When people come face to face with their limitations of understanding, they often find themselves tempted to give up trying to understand the Bible.  Fortunately, most of us are too curious to quit.  Something about the human spirit persists in asking questions and demanding answers.  But as we study the Bible we face the further danger of making it say what we want it to.  Struggling with the temptation to use its authority to promote our own opinions, we focus on evidence that agrees with us and ignore anything that disagrees.
 
    A better way to approach the Bible is to take a big picture approach to the text.  Read broadly through it rather than selectively focusing on any part of it.  Try to discover what each Bible writer meant, rather than imposing ideas from our own time and place.  Seek to be open to the whole text, rather than picking and choosing whatever looks good to us at first glance.  As a result we will ground our understanding on what is clear, rather than trying to make the less-clear things say what we want them to.
 
    How did I learn this method?  One day in Brooklyn, New York, I had a visit from a Jehovah's Witness.  I decided to spend some time studying the Bible with him to see what his group was all about.  An interesting thing happened.  We disagreed over every Bible text that we looked at.  In frustration one day I suggested something radical.  "If the Bible is the ultimate source of truth," I said, "then no organization should be allowed to control what the Bible says."
 
    He agreed with that.  So I suggested that we lay aside all books and articles about the Bible and just read the New Testament through from beginning to end.  When we finished we asked ourselves the question, "Do my beliefs reflect the central themes of the New Testament, or do they represent what someone else has taught me?"  We both discovered that the Bible, broadly read, was a very different book from what it seemed to be when you take a text here and a text there and put them together.  His mind suddenly opened to Bible study as never before.
 
    Now, I don't know what our encounter did for that Jehovah's Witness in the long term, but I know it changed my life.  I learned to test every opinion I held about the Bible with the plain teachings of the text in its widest context.  As I began to do this, I became amazed at what I had missed.  As God says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8, NIV).
 
Lord, help me to read the Bible in such a way as to leave open the possibility that I might learn something!  Feed me with all the truth I can handle, then help me to obey.

   And [the angel] cried out with a loud voice like the roar of a lion.  And when he cried out, the seven thunders uttered their own voices.  And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven, saying, "Seal up what the seven thunders said and do not write them down."  Rev. 10:3, 4.
 
    John experiences the seven thunders and finds much in them that he would like to record, but the heavenly voice tells him not to write it down.  The thunders evidently reveal matters that are not yet ours to know.  The hidden things belong to God alone (Deut. 29:29).  No matter how much we study, no matter how brilliant we may be, we know only in part until Jesus comes (1 Cor. 13:9).  We should be candid about our limitations of understanding and not speak dogmatically about uncertain matters.
 
    Particularly with the book of Revelation, many teachers of prophecy like to fill in too many detail on which the text does not directly comment.  Prophetic speculation often takes the place of obedience to the clear teachings of the Word.  Instead of hearing and obeying the text, we use the Bible to satisfy our curiosity about the future.  In so doing we add to the message of Scripture (Rev. 22:18).
 
    Many put the blame for terrorism on religion.  In the words of a protest sign that appeared on September 12, 2001: "No Religion, No War."  The sign expresses the conviction that if you could get rid of religious authority and sacred texts, the world would be a better and safer place.  In a world torn by division and hatred, any religion that adds to the divisions or fuels the hatred is part of the problem rather than the solution.
 
    But would the elimination of religion make the world a safer place? a more tolerant place?  History offers a resounding no to both questions.  The architects of the French Revolution and Russian Communism both saw the intolerance of the "Christian" West and sought to solve the problem by eliminating the Christian faith.  But reaction against religion tends to create a new exclusion that breeds more violence in the future ("We have to stop those narrow-minded people").  To paraphrase the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: "The line between good and evil does not run between 'us' and 'them' but through the heart of every human being."
 
    I believe that in a terrified world we don't need less faith but better faith.  We don't need less spiritual guidance--we require better spiritual guidance.  Instead of "no sacred texts" we could start with a lot more humility in how we handle the Bible.  The very greatness of God envisioned in the bible warns us against the tendency to think we have gained absolute clarity in our understanding of Him.
 
Lord, open my eyes and my heart to the limitations in my understanding of You.

   And I saw another mighty angel coming down out of heaven dressed in a cloud, and there was a rainbow upon his head, his face was like the sun, his feet were like pillars of fire, and he had a scroll in his hand which had been previously opened.  He placed his right foot upon the sea and his left foot upon he land, and he cried out with a loud voice like the roar of a lion.  And when he cried out, the seven thunders uttered their own voices.  Rev. 10:1-3.
 
    Many commentators see this mighty angel as a reference to Jesus.  We find here strong parallels to the one "like a son of man" of Revelation 1:12-20.  The angel seems to be the same figure who appeared to John on Patmos.  Like the Old Testament Yahweh, He makes the clouds His chariot (Ps. 104:3).  His appearance also reminds us of the way Jesus looked at His transfiguration in Matthew 17:2.  So this mighty angel represents Jesus Christ.  As the Lamb, Jesus held a sealed scroll in Revelation 5, and now as a mighty angel here He clutches an open scroll.  He is the most admirable person who has ever walked this earth.
 
    As I write, the pro golfer Tiger Woods has excited considerable admiration.  Spending three days of intense military training at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, he woke early for four-mile jogs, fired weapons, even jumped twice from a plane.  Why?  Because he wanted to appreciate the kind of sacrifice and service his father had contributed to his country while in the military.  People were amazed that a multimillionaire celebrity would put himself through so much agony in order to experience how life looks in someone else's shoes.
 
    But then another news headline put the admiration for Woods into perspective.  Pat Tillman, a former NFL defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals, turned down a three-year, $3.6 million contract and joined the Army.  When he made his decision, he refused media requests to cover his enlistment, basic training, or deployment.  He wanted no special consideration or attention, preferring to be treated like any other soldier.  Tillman was serving along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan when insurgents attacked his patrol.  At just 27 years of age, Tillman died in the firefight.
 
    The two stories put fame and heroism into perspective.  We often glorify celebrities for their great success in relatively trivial matters.  The real heroes risk their lives in support of causes far greater than themselves.  The greatest Hero of all is the one who died that all of us might live.  He deserves the highest place in our admiration and affection.
 
Lord, I am ashamed when I realize how often I have admired the achievements of others to the neglect of all You have done for me.  Forgive my misdirected focus.  I choose to place You first in my personal Hall of Fame.