SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/14/2015
6:55 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: The
Temple Measured PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation 11:1-2
Message of the
verses: “1 Then there was given me a
measuring rod like a staff; and someone said, "Get up and measure the
temple of God and the altar, and those who worship in it. 2 “Leave out the court which is
outside the temple and do not measure it, for it has been given to the
nations; and they will tread under foot the holy city for forty-two months.”
Let us begin with a quote from my
earlier SD of July 20, 2005 and at the end there is a statement that is made
that I will try and answer in this SD. “At
the time when this book was written the temple in Jerusalem had already been
torn down by Tutus and his Roman Legions in 70 AD so there is no way that John
would have been referring to that temple.
The Temple was first built by Solomon and that was destroyed in 586 BC
and was rebuilt some years later by the returning Jews, and that was the Temple
that was there when Christ was upon the earth.
Christ said that that Temple would be destroyed and it was in 70
AD. The Temple which is spoken of in
Revelations 11 will be rebuilt when antichrist comes to power and it is the
Temple that the antichrist will go into and desecrate as prophesied by the
prophet Daniel and also by the Apostle Paul in 2Thessolians.
“The question is why is John
measuring it? Dr. Wiersbe points out
that when something is measured it is the property of the one who is having it
measured, so this Temple and the city it is in is owned by God. John is told to leave out the outer court and
not to measure it, and is then told that the Gentile nations will tread under
foot the city of Jerusalem for three and a half years, speaking of the last
half of the seven year tribulation period.
I am not read
anything as to why John was told not to measure the outer court.”
I explained in my SD on Ezekiel last
night (5-13-15) that these two verses and chapters 40-43 of Ezekiel have
something in common and because of that I quoted a portion from John MacArthur’s
sermon which he gave on these two verses sometime in the 1990’s. I will use that same quote in this SD and
then we will go on and try to answer why the court of the Gentiles was not
measured.
““John is told to do some measuring
in verse 1. Let's call this the temple measured. There was given me a measuring
rod like a staff and someone said, `Rise and measure the temple of God and the
altar and those who
worship in it.'" Now John had a lot of visions and every once in a while
he got involved in his vision, like in chapter 10 when he had the vision of the
great angel and the little book in the angel's hand, he was told to eat the
little book. Now that's getting involved in the vision. And here again he is
very involved in the vision and he is told by someone, it says, to take this
rod and measure the temple of God.
“Now let's break this verse down
so we can get a grip on it. There was given me...he says, probably by the same
person who also spoke to him, the someone who said, likely an angelic being, if
you go back to 10..chapter 10 verse 8, there you have an angelic being speaking
to him. I think if it were to be God or Christ, they would probably be identified
as such, maybe not but it seems best that an angelic voice is here speaking to
John and also is the one giving him this measuring rod.
“The measuring rod, like a staff, was just that. It was a rod used in
ancient times for measuring. John has just received this prophecy, chapter 10
verse 11, and he has been told that he's supposed to say many more things,
write many more things. It's almost as if chapter 10 verse 11 is a renewed commission
for John to write the book of Revelation. And now as he is ready to write, he
is going to be actually involved in the very vision about which he will write.
And the first thing he's told to do is take a measuring rod. The word is
calamosit refers to a reed that grew in the Jordan Valley, it's the name of a
reed. And they grew down in the lowlands of the Jordan Valley and they grew to
be somewhere between ten and fifteen feet high. They were a hallow stalk, like
a bamboo stalk and because they were so very light they were cut down and cut
into proper lengths and used as measuring instruments like a yardstick. They
were also used, by the way, when they were refined and shaved down with some
kind of an instrument to a point as a pen. We find such use even in the Scripture
and they were used as a walking staff. So they had a lot of use. So here John
is told to take this stick, we don't know how long it was, it's to be used as a
measuring instrument. He says, “Rise, get up and measure the temple of God and
the altar and those who worship in it."
““Now the question obviously is...why
is he doing this? What is the point of this? Well, there are two things
that occur in the Bible with regard to God in measuring out things, one is
judgment and the other is ownership. God in Old Testament history has at times
measured out something for destruction. That is to say He measures it out. It's
a way of saying, "I'm confining My destruction to this particular area, or
this particular city, or this particular location, or this particular people. But
in this case that doesn't seem the best understanding f the measurement. It is
also true that in the Old Testament God also measured out things as being His
own, His own possession, personal possession for the sake of preservation. For
example, in chapter 21 of the book of Revelation you have also very carefully
measuring out of the city, the new Jerusalem. Verse 15 of Revelation 21, the one
who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city and its gates
and its walls. And the measuring is of
the new Jerusalem, the heavenly holy city in which the saints will dwell forever
and ever. And it seems it's in a similar usage of the measuring that John is
instructed to act here, that God wants him to measure out His temple because it
belongs to Him. He's identifying it as His own. That is particularly true
because he says measure the temple and the altar and those who worship in it.
This appears then to be an act of defining the parameters of God's property,
what it is that belongs to Him, or better, who it is that belongs to Him. In
fact it would be easy to understand that God is saying, "I am going to
measure out the people of the temple, the people who worship in it, the people
to whom it belongs, namely Israel." And if you understand that God is
measuring off Israel for some protective, preserving, favored position, then
you get the idea.”
We the answer is kind of given in the last few statements here as we
see that God is mainly concerned with the nation of Israel. Now I have mentioned this in earlier SD’s
that the Tribulation Period is the 70th week of Daniel’s prophecy,
and during that whole prophecy the Lord is dealing with the nation of
Israel. The prophecy is actually seventy
sevens or 490 years and it begins in Nehemiah chapter two and ends in Luke
chapter 19 with seven years left on it.
Daniel writes that the last seven years will start up when the antichrist
makes a covenant with Israel for seven years, the exact amount of time left on
the prophecy. The church will be gone at
the rapture and we believe shortly after that this covenant with Israel will be
made and thus the last seven years begins.
What we see here is God dealing with the nation of Israel here and that
is why John does not measure the court of the Gentiles here. Now this is the short story of these two
verses and we will look into them with more detail in our next SD, and it may
be that some of the things that are written in the next SD will be repeated to
keep up with the flow of it, but that is ok.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: God’s plans are perfect even though they are
hard for us humans to endure at times. God
will continue to save people during the Tribulation Period including Jews and
Gentiles alike. It is my desire to have
people who read these SD’s who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and
Lord to be saved so that they will not have to go through the awfulness of the
Tribulation Period.
My Steps of Faith for Today: My desire is to love the Lord
with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength, and to better learn to live in
the love of the Lord.
Answer to yesterday’s
Bible question: “He drove them out of
the temple” (John 2:15).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said ‘At the ninth hour I
prayed in my house, and, behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing’?”
Answer in our next
SD.
5/14/2015 7:25 AM
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