Introduction

Revelation 11:3-10 ESV  And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”  (4)  These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.  (5)  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.  (6)  They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.  (7)  And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them,  (8)  and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.  (9)  For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb,  (10)  and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.

Rebuke, Warning, Discipline: A Blessing To The Saved, A Torment To The Worldy – Part 2 – A Torment to the Worldly.

So, as you can guess from the Title, we are talking about the SECOND part of this very long sermon Title.

Last week we talked about how rebuke, warning, discipline, and conviction are such a BLESSING to the saved.

How these things are gifts from God. How they help us and grow us and show us our Fathers love.

And I challenge you afresh, look for these things in your life and respond to them so you can find the blessings of God in your life. So you can find all that God has for you, to bless you and keep you and prosper you and give you peace and righteousness.

If you missed part one of that sermon, go check it out on Facebook or on the Website CedarRapidsChurch.com

So that was last week, this week we are talking about the other side… the tormented world.

You see, sometime in the future as part of what we sometimes call “the end times” God sends these two witnesses to prophecy to the whole world. That’s what we just read about, these two witnesses…

Now the scripture doesn’t explicitly say what they are prophesying about. All it says is that they were “prophesying”.

Revelation 11:3 ESV  And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”

• But, because of the second rule of Biblical interpretation… “Let Scripture Interpret Scripture”… we can get a pretty good idea about what they were saying.
  • First we know they were clothed in Sackcloth, which Biblical always shows a call to repentance… we read about that in Jonah last week, but this is a theme all throughout the Bible.
  • Second we know that almost ALWAYS God sent major and even minor prophets to warn, rebuke, discipline, and convict…
    • In short, most prophet’s messages were some form of “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand”.
    • Or “God sees all the wickedness you are doing, turn away from it before He comes to judge you”.
      • Now there are certainly positive prophecies in scripture, but the themes that prophets brought were overwhelmingly calls to repent.
  • Finally, we know how the world responded to their prophecy, they were TOURMENTED by it…

Revelation 11:10 ESV  and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.

• If these prophecies were the kind of thing we get out of some of the self help Christianity movements, these kinds of “God is going to bless everyone just because!” kind of things, I don’t think the world would have been tormented.
• So, on the bases of those three things…
  • The prophets were clothed in Sackcloth, Prophets almost always bring a message of warning and repentance, and that the world was tormented by the prophecy…
    • On the basis of those three things I think it is safe to say that these two end time witnesses were prophesying a message of rebuke, warning, discipline and conviction.
• So let’s take some time today, church, too look at that aspect of prophecy… that aspect of the Word of God… the fact that it torments the world.

Point One – The World Mistakes Rebuke For Condemnation

Revelation 11:7-10 ESV  And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them,  (8)  and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.  (9)  For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb,  (10)  and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.

• Our first point this morning is that the world mistakes rebuke for condemnation.
  • Rebuke, warning, discipline, conviction… these are GOOD things to the saved, not bad things, we talked about that last week….
  • But the world often takes these things as bad things….
    • It is why in verse 10 we see that the world was tormented by these witnesses.
    • I don’t think the world was tormented by the plagues, because they will not be attributing the plagues to God or the witnesses, they will find all sorts of other excuses to explain away the plagues.
      • Just like Pharoh did when he had the magicians fake the plagues.
      • Just like our world does now where we look for every reason POSSIBLE for disaster other than our own sin and wickedness.
        • We make up new theories, new professions, new scientific principals to explain things away… to leave God out of it.
      • So they will do with the witnesses.
    • “That wasn’t fire coming out of their mouth, that was a solar eruption caused by global warming!”
    • “That plague isn’t from the witnesses, that came from rotten bananas!”
    • “The water didn’t turn to blood because of the witnesses, they are liars! It turned to blood because of carbon emissions in the atmosphere!”
      • Now I don’t say that to make a political statement about global warming or rotten banana’s, pollution is a real problem and disease comes from all kinds of places… BUT MY POINT IS that the world will NEVER attribute these disasters to God.
• So I don’t think the world is rejoicing over the plagues ending… but rather over the prophesy ending… because the rebuke, the warning, the conviction was TOURMENTING THEM.
• Paul talks about this very thing in his second letter to the Corinthian church:

2 Corinthians 2:15-16 ESV  For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,  (16)  to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

• When talking about evangelism, when talking about sharing the Gospel to others, Paul says that we as Christians are the aroma of Christ… he says SOME PEOPLE find life in what we bring… people who are saved, people who are born again, people who are going to heaven… this message is like a sweet smelling aroma, it brings life and life more abundantly…
  • But the very same message, the verry same Gospel, the very same warning, and rebuke, and conviction that can be such a blessing of life to the saved…
  • That is the aroma of DEATH to those who are lost. To those who are perishing. To those on their way to hell.
    • THEY HATE THE SMELL OF IT. It disgusts them!
• A blessing to the saved, a tournament to the World.
• The aroma of life to the saved… the aroma of death to the world.
  • WHY?! Because the Gospel DEMANDS a response.
  • The Gospel, the same Gospel we preach every Sunday here at CLC, is not a neutral message that you can listen to for information or entertainment.
    • It’s not some documentary on the History channel that you can watch for an hour and a half and then move on with your life.
    • It demands a RESPONSE. You HAVE to chose to accept it or reject it.
      • And that brings up another big problem… accepting the Gospel means rejecting sin… and people have made their sin their gods, their idols… and no one likes it when you talk bad about their god.
• Remember this verse from Revelation chapter 9… God is bringing the end of the world and the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse… and all of these signs and wonders and plagues and judgments have happened… then in chapter 9 it says this…

Revelation 9:20 ESV  The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk,

• People never want to give up their idols… and in America we have a lot of idols.
  • Among the top are:
    • Greed
    • Power
    • Pleasure
    • And Relationships
• Let me show you how this works, because in America we don’t have statues that we pray to, we don’t have little false gods on altars that we pray to, but we still have these idols, and we expect the same thing from them.
  • You see when someone worships a false god, when they pray to these little statues and images, they are expecting something back.
    • They expect their false god to provide for them, protect them, comfort them, give them peace, and happiness.
      • All things we can only truly get from the REAL God.
        • And everyone wants these things… it is natural to want provision and protection and comfort and peace and happiness.
      • And the TRUE God promises this things, but we must live according to His word and His standards…
        • So if we don’t want to do that we make up a god we like better… we carve an image out of wood and paint it and put it up on an altar and we pray to it.
        • We ask this little statue for peace and love and protection and provision… and we try REALLY hard to believe it will give it to us…
          • That is idolatry.
• But in America we replace the little wooden statue with greed, or power, or pleasure, or relationships… amongst other things.
  • So greed becomes our Idol… we think if we can just have enough money… then we will have peace and protection and provision and happiness.
    • We buy more and more… we neglect our families for the sake of our jobs… we become liars and tricksters and cheats and theifs to try to make more and more money… because GREED has become our god, money has become our idol.
  •  Or power becomes our idol… If people just respected me, if I just was the boss… if people listened and obeyed me! THEN I would have peace and provision and happiness and security!
    • So we do everything we can to find positions of power, we sit on boards and engage in workplace politics. We gossip, we lie, we cheat… just to find more and more power… because that is our god.
  • Pleasure can become an idol… Going from high to high… maybe drugs, maybe alcohol, maybe extra-marital affairs… maybe something as innocent as traveling the world over and over and over… anything that brings temporary pleasure.
    • We ignore God, can’t afford to tithe, can’t go to church, can’t worship, can’t spend time with our families… but we can always spend time and money looking for that next bit of pleasure… because we tell ourselves pleasure brings happiness, pleasure is what life is all about… pleasure becomes our God.
  • And relationships… this is a huge false god in America… Men seek extra marital relationships for pleasure… but many women seek it for relationships… they feel like they can have provision and happiness and security if they just get together with the right man… so they go from man to man, not finding a husband as God intends… looking for the things only God can provide…
    • But relationships can be idolatry without the physical part… people idolize their children… they take them to 18 different sporting events a week, bow down to their every desire, spend tons of money and time on them… because they think that if their kids are happy, then they will be happy and secure…
    • All the while they neglect the things of God… they miss worshiping God in order to play in yet another tournament, or to go to another event, or to do another thing.
    • Parents spend all their time on their kids activities and hobbies and no time at all pouring into a childs spirit, praying with them, worshiping with them, teaching them…
      • Because at the end of the day the parent feels that their relationship with their child is more likely to produce peace, security, and happiness then the true God who gave them those kids in the first place.
    • Same goes with people who idolize their friends… the Bible says don’t have friends who aren’t Christians… we can have acquaintances… but we are strictly told not to have unsaved friends…
      • But we idolize those relationships… we can’t give them up.
• NOW ALL OF THIS BRINGS TOURMENT WHEN THE GOSPEL IS PRESENTED.
  • Because the Gospel says “You can have peace, love, joy, happiness, provision… you can have all of this for eternity. BUT YOU MUST GIVE UP YOUR SINS”.
    • And this tournaments the world not because it is telling them to simply change an action… but because it is telling them to kill their gods!
      • I tell you, you want to make a Muslim angry? Insult the prophet Muhamed!
      • You want to make the average American angry? Insult their sin. It’s the same thing to them.
      • It’s a tournament to them…
• That brings me to point two this morning… and I will try to keep point two short because it is a long Sunday… just bear with me a moment…

Point Two – Our Response When The World is Tormented By The Word

Revelation 11:10 ESV  and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.

• If the world is going to be tormented by the Word of God, by rebuke, and discipline, and warning, and conviction… if this is going to be SUCH a torment to them that they make a gift giving holiday out of the death of God’s prophets or witnesses… Then how exactly are we supposed to respond as Christians?
  • We know that there will be many who mistake conviction for condemnation…
    • How are we to move on from that, what are we to do…
• I believe the Bible lays out at least three responses for the Christian when it comes to the world being tormented by the Word.
• I am going to list them all for you right now, then we will go through them 1 by 1.

(The following should be on 1 slide that I will reference a few times. Thanks!)

Three Responses to a World Tormented by The Word

1. Protect Your Pearls
   Don’t Cast Your pearls before swine
2. Move On
   Shake off the dust from your feet
3. Don’t Give Up
   Find new soil to plant seeds
4. Now I am not going to preach a sermon on all three of these things but I am just going to give you a scripture and a thought or two…
5. When the world is tormented by the Word… by the prophecy… by the warning, the rebuke, the discipline… the conviction… what do we do?
6. Step one, PROTECT YOUR PEARLS!

Matthew 7:6 ESV  “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

• In other words, if you present the Gospel to someone, and they are tormented by it… then STOP trying to preach the Gospel to them.
  • I am not saying “give up on them”, especially if it is a loved one… continue to pray and intercede and war on their behalf… my Great Grandmother prayed for me by name everyday for 16 years before I got saved… but she never shoved the Gospel down my throat.
  • Remember, it is a torment to the unbeliever… so stop tormenting them.
    • You are not a better preacher than the Holy Spirit… you share the Gospel with them and if they reject it, they reject it… don’t force it over and over and over… you are giving holy things, what the Bible calls pearls, you are giving them to the pigs to eat. You are wasting your energy and your time… and you are going to end up hurt!
    • And more over, you are wasting your time and energy on someone who has already chosen to be tormented by the Gospel… the more time you spend their tormenting them, trying desperately to convince them…. That’s time you could have been using to preach the Gospel to someone else who may actually listen!
• So step one, protect your pearls.
• Step two, MOVE ON.
  • When someone is offended by the gospel, just move on. Don’t take it personally, don’t be offended, don’t get frustrated… just move on.

Matthew 10:11-14 ESV  And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart.  (12)  As you enter the house, greet it.  (13)  And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.  (14)  And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.

• Ok, fine, they don’t want the gospel, they have made their decision… I am not going to take it personally, I am going to trust God and move on…
• So step one, protect your pearls, step two: move on…
• Finally, step three… DON’T GIVE UP.
  • What I mean by this is that just because some people… nah… just because MOST people are tormented by the Gospel, by the Word… just because MOST people are tormented does not mean that ALL people will be.
  • So don’t get discouraged… don’t give up… just keep preaching the word… keep making disciples… keep doing what God has called you to do.
    • It’s the essence of the parable of the Sower found in.

Matthew 13:3-8 ESV  And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow.  (4)  And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.  (5)  Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil,  (6)  but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away.  (7)  Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.  (8)  Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

• The picture here is a man spreading seed ALL over… just spreading, spreading, spreading seed.
  • And most of the seed falls on soil that is bad… on shallow soil, or rocky soil, or weedy soil… MOST of the seed ends up not producing a harvest…
  • But there is one area out of it all that there is victory!

Matthew 13:8 ESV  Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

• Now if you know the parable, the seed is the Word of God, and the soil is peoples hearts… this is about preaching the Gospel… much like the Two Witnesses will be doing. Warning, and rebuking, and convicting…
  • But here is the thing… the Christian is commanded to sow the seed, to spread the word… we are not commanded to seek out good soil.
  • We sow the seed on ALL soil, and we trust that SOME will find good soil. That some will find a harvest.

Conclusion

So if the world is tormented by the gospel, and we are called to preach the gospel… what are we to do? You are to:

Protect Your Pearls
Don’t Cast Your pearls before swine

Move On
Shake off the dust from your feet

Don’t Give Up
Find new soil to plant seeds

And in so doing you will find good soil eventually, and people will be saved, and God will be glorified…

It is why God sent the witnesses in the first place, not to be a tournament to the world… though they certainly were… but to spread the word that SOME might be saved.

1 Corinthians 9:22b ESV  I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.

• The two witnesses of Revelation will be mighty prophets, and they will preach the Word of God… and it will torment the world… but I wonder… will some be saved?
• Gospel Call