Measure Those Who Worship - Rumor notes 68

 Revelation 11

1 A reed like a rod was given to me. Someone said, "Rise, and measure God's temple, and the altar, and those who worship in it. 2 Leave out the court which is outside of the temple, and don't measure it, for it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months.

Rise and measure God's temple, and the altar, and those who worship in it - Review

The cities of refuge were 6 out of 48 cities designated for the Levites to live in scattered throughout the land of Israel and symbolize the people of God who will make up the ultimate city of refuge – the New Jerusalem. (Numbers 35:2-6)

Behold, the angel who talked with me went forth, and another angel went out to meet him, and said to him, "Run, speak to this young man, saying, 'Jerusalem will be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of men and livestock in it. For I,' says Yahweh, 'will be to her a wall of fire around it, and I will be the glory in the midst of her. (Zechariah 2:3-5)

The standards of measure involve heart issues and moral condition.

I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plumb line. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will overflow the hiding place. (Isaiah 28:17)

You, son of man, show the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern. (Ezekiel 43:10)

measure God's temple

Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8)

Originally the temple was a sanctuary. The word sanctuary is used today to designate a safe place, an area of protection. Not only the temple but the cities of refuge served as safe places.

In this way God, being determined to show more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, interposed with an oath; that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to take hold of the hope set before us. (Hebrews 6:17-18)

This idea of refuge runs like a thread throughout history and Scripture and is part of the revealing of God's heart and God's ways of relating to sinners in the pattern, not only for the sanctuary but in the social arrangement of God's people.

They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea. It will happen in that day that the nations will seek the root of Jesse, who stands as a banner of the peoples; and his resting place will be glorious. (Isaiah 11:9-10)

Ultimately the heart's of God's children will be a safe city of refuge in which God may find rest, peace, fellowship and joy.

It happened as they went on their way, he entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. She had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. (Luke 10:38-39)

Don't you know that you are a temple of God, and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for God's temple is holy, which you are. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)

What agreement has a temple of God with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, "I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people."

(2 Corinthians 6:16)

God's temple that is in heaven was opened, and the ark of the Lord's covenant was seen in his temple. Lightnings, sounds, thunders, an earthquake, and great hail followed. (Revelation 11:19)

For a more in depth exploration of measuring the altar, see the document on the Altar Syndrome.

measure...those who worship in it

But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshippers. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:23-24)

He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, Christ; from whom all the body, being fitted and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in measure of each individual part, makes the body increase to the building up of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

Again we note that the measuring being referred to in his passage is not the typical kind of measuring we usually think of. This is about character, disposition and likeness – on other words, what is being evaluated, measured, assessed is the condition of all who make up the occupants of the temple of God. In this last passage what becomes clear is that the standard of measure is the fullness of Christ.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light: who in time past were no people, but now are God's people, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10)

For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God. If it begins first with us, what will happen to those who don't obey the Good News of God? (1 Peter 4:17)

Worship is all about identifying with and receiving identity from, sources of value from which we derive perspective, sense of identity, our reason for existence and on which we depend to provide for what we need and want. Human beings will always worship, for it is impossible to be human and not reflect an outside source by how we think, act and relate to ourselves and others. Humans are created to image God, but we are free to choose what god we will believe, emulate, admire and obey. This lies at the very heart of the war we are all involved in that is about who we will choose to serve.

When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the children of men, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For Yahweh's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. (Deuteronomy 32:8-9)

Leave out the court which is outside of the temple, and don't measure it, for it has been given to the nations

Then brought he me into the outer court; and behold, there were chambers and a pavement, made for the court round about: thirty chambers were on the pavement. The pavement was by the side of the gates, answerable to the length of the gates, even the lower pavement. Then he measured the breadth from the forefront of the lower gate to the forefront of the inner court outside, one hundred cubits, both on the east and on the north. The gate of the outer court whose prospect is toward the north, he measured the length of it and the breadth of it. (Ezekiel 40:17-20)

Then said he to me, The north chambers and the south chambers, which are before the separate place, they are the holy chambers, where the priests who are near to Yahweh shall eat the most holy things: there shall they lay the most holy things, and the meal offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offering; for the place is holy. When the priests enter in, then shall they not go out of the holy place into the outer court, but there they shall lay their garments in which they minister; for they are holy: and they shall put on other garments, and shall approach to that which pertains to the people.

Now when he had made an end of measuring the inner house, he brought me forth by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east, and measured it round about. He measured on the east side with the measuring reed five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed round about. He measured on the north side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed round about. He measured on the south side five hundred reeds with the measuring reed. He turned about to the west side, and measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed. He measured it on the four sides: it had a wall round about, the length five hundred, and the breadth five hundred, to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common. (Ezekiel 42:13-20)

This is highly relevant to the instructions we find in Revelation 11 regarding the outer court. There are even more significant clues we have yet to examine here as well, but consider this point about separation between the holy and what is common and think about what that means in reality. What does it really mean that something is holy or common? How do we perceive the meaning of these words, and is it possible that we have been conditioned by traditions and subtle replacements of definitions of words that keep us looking at the wrong things to determine this differentiation?

Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, "Sacrifice and offering you didn't desire, but you prepared a body for me; You had no pleasure in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. Then I said, 'Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of me) to do your will, O God.'" Previously saying, "Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you didn't desire, neither had pleasure in them" (those which are offered according to the law), then he has said, "Behold, I have come to do your will." He takes away the first, that he may establish the second, by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:5-10)

Be extremely cautious about rushing to judgment as to the meaning of this enormously significant passage. Do not ignore the plain, strong emphasis here insisting that God is not pleased with nor desires offerings and sacrifices for sin. This is repeated over and over for very good reason, that reason being that we are so entrenched in lies about God and the nature of sin and how we imagine the problem of evil must be resolved, that we can ignore the plainest statements right in front of us. This is especially true in this case. What this states is the annihilation of an entire system of thinking, living, relating to God that must be replaced with a new way of thinking radically different from the former.

The entire book of Hebrews is an exposé on this very issue. It is a direct assault on the mentality promoted in Satan's counterfeit system designed to keep us afraid of God and imagining that God relates to sinners like we do, rooted in the balance system of good and evil with its motivations of rewards and punishments. Offerings and sacrifices quickly devolved into the mindset of appeasing offended deities and became the standard by which nearly every religion in the world defines how we are to relate to God. This runs so deep in the psyche of humanity that it is extremely difficult to even identify or admit. Yet this doctrine of demons that is at the very heart of paganism has totally taken over the teachings of Christianity until anyone even questioning it becomes the target of strong attacks and is denounced as heretical. Yet it is this core truth about the nature of God's character and how He intends to solve the sin problem that must be clarified and that will be the separating factor between those who worship God as He designed them to do from those who worship a fiction of God as pagans do. This is the difference between the holy and the common, the holy and the profane.

Take note of the meaning of the word leave here that makes this truth even more clear.

Leave, literally: to eject, cast out, drive out, send away.

What does that remind us of in Scripture?

The child [Isaac] grew, and was weaned. Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Therefore she said to Abraham, "Cast out this handmaid and her son! For the son of this handmaid will not be heir with my son, Isaac."

The thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight on account of his son. God said to Abraham, "Don't let it be grievous in your sight because of the boy, and because of your handmaid. In all that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice. For from Isaac will your seed be called. I will also make a nation of the son of the handmaid, because he is your seed."

Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder; and gave her the child, and sent her away. She departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. (Genesis 21:8-14)

Why is this so significant and what does this have to do with not measuring the court of the temple?

Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, don't you listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid, and one by the free woman. However, the son by the handmaid was born according to the flesh, but the son by the free woman was born through promise. These things contain an allegory, for these are two covenants.

One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to the Jerusalem that exists now, for she is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, "Rejoice, you barren who don't bear. Break forth and shout, you that don't travail. For more are the children of the desolate than of her who has a husband."

Now we, brothers, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as then, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. However what does the Scripture say? "Throw out the handmaid and her son, for the son of the handmaid will not inherit with the son of the free woman."

So then, brothers, we are not children of a handmaid, but of the free woman. Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don't be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. (Galatians 4:21 – 5:1)

We must have a mature appreciation of the reality described here and not be confused by the false arguments that use this passage to insist that freedom means liberty to violate the Laws of God with impunity. The entire system of argumentation and theology blanketing the world today is saturated with the wine of Babylon that intoxicates and distorts perceptions about reality. This is why we must know the real truth that sets us free but does not deny the reality of principles of creation that are reflected by the Law of God which is eternal and outlines the very attributes of love.

This measuring process taking place here in Revelation 11 is a correlation to what we call judgment. The reason Peter says that judgment begins at the house of God is because judgment is all about exposing inner motives, thoughts and attitudes with the light of the truth as brought by Jesus. He is the light that has come into the world as a human being, unveiling the truth about our Father's heart, disposition and thoughts. In other words, God sent His own beloved Son to judge the Father, for judgment means to expose, to reveal what has been hidden to make it plain for all to observe and evaluate. Thus the Father is the first to offer Himself to be judged, for He has nothing to hide from us that might incriminate Him.

In this process of judgment where light exposes what is hidden, everyone becomes involved in judgment, for light exposes everything and everyone around it, not just some. This is the true nature of judgment and we must appreciate this to come free of our fears, for judgment is always in our favor as we embrace our true identity as defined by Christ our representative and high priest in heaven. Christ represents God to the universe and to us, and at the same time He also represents humanity to the universe and with God. The separating factor of sin is not God or even Jesus passing arbitrary sentences based on what we do. Rather, judgment is how we choose to relate to the testimony of Jesus about God's heart that becomes the unifying or separating catalyst.

It is Jesus, the Lamb of God, the hero of Revelation and the leader in the entire war between light and darkness, who exposes the truth that God is light and love, and in Him is no darkness at all. It is Jesus who declared that the Father judges no one, and additionally that Jesus did not come to judge or condemn but to save. So what is the factor in true judgment that brings about separation between those who serve God and those who do not? What is it that separates the temple being measured with this reed like a rod, from the outer court that is given over to the Gentiles to be trampled?

If anyone listens to my sayings, and doesn't believe, I don't judge him. For I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects me, and doesn't receive my sayings, has one who judges him. The word that I spoke, the same will judge him in the last day. (John 12:47-48)

Yahweh's voice calls to the city, and wisdom sees your name: "Listen to the rod, and he who appointed it." (Micah 6:9)

It is becoming more and more clear in this study how this separation will affect each one of us. It is our choices, our decisions as to how seriously we take the words of Jesus that determines the outcome of our judgment that separates who is part of the temple and who will be left outside.

it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months

The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things: for she has seen that the nations are entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you did command that they should not enter into your assembly. (Lamentations 1:10)

Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land, and wrath to this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (Luke 21:23-24)

Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be, unless the departure comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction, he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God.

Don't you remember that, when I was still with you, I told you these things? Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way. Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the manifestation of his coming; even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn't receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Because of this, God sends them a working of error [a strong delusion], that they should believe a lie; that they all might be judged who didn't believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-12)

Does this mean that God sends people a strong delusion to believe a lie? Is God complicit in the rejection of truth on the part of those who are lost? This is a question that has troubled many and must be addressed directly. What is going on here?

God never compels anyone to believe the lie. What happens is that when His offers of grace are persistently rejected and repulsed, the outcome appears as if He did. Our continued rejections of His offers of mercy, grace and truth about Him means that we use our will – our piece of divine authority – to repulse His Spirit and harden our heart against love. The more we do this the more He is forced in respect for our freedom of choice, to withdraw His Spirit that alone provides any effective internal resistance against the enchanting power of the father of lies. Once God's Spirit is compelled to withdraw from us, there is no effective inhibition left within us to resist evil or to repent, for repentance is a gift from God (Acts 11:18; 2 Timothy 2:25; James 1:17) that must be embraced willingly. Repentance is not something we can work up in ourselves but has to be accepted and acted upon. When we persistently refuse to give God's Spirit access to our heart, we hand over to the enemy the authority of our will, and he casts his spell over our soul until our capacity to repent becomes permanently disabled (1John 5:16). Thus the strong delusion is the enchanting power of evil that moves into every vacancy created by the withdrawal of the presence of God in the heart.

But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron; (1 Timothy 4:1-2)

Branding with a hot iron is an allusion to how cattle are branded to signify to all who possesses them.

But know this, that in the last days, grievous times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, no lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding a form of godliness, but having denied the power thereof. Turn away from these, also. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months

Does this time prophecy also give us clues for understanding the meaning of the measuring process and what the result might be of separating the holy from the common? Notice that Jesus in predicting the fall of physical Jerusalem, intermingled this with events that would happen much later when spiritual Jerusalem would fall as well. He referenced fulfillment of the times of the Gentiles. This likely corresponds to the period during the Dark Ages when sinister doctrines of Satan infected the citadel of apostate Christianity that ruled the Western world with ruthless tyranny. Roman apostate Christianity absorbed pagan concepts of God so thoroughly that the gospel lost its light of love, becoming a legalistic reign of terror. This is after the working of Satan, for Satan always seeks to infiltrate those who know the truth but hold it in the context of pleasure in unrighteousness.

It is this specter of a distorted, dark version of the gospel treading down the holy city of God that enters the temple of God's children to hold them hostage. This matrix of enchanting and threatening lies compose the inebriating wine of Babylon that induces confusion and darkness. It is corrected by making a distinction between the false and the true, the light and the shadows, restoring the true temple to what it means to be holy to the Lord and and cleansing it of the demonic doctrines of demons held by Gentiles. This is when the measuring reed like a rod brings separation between the truly holy and what has been profaned and amalgamated with error. This is why the outer court is released to be occupied by the Gentiles, for they have corrupted the pure simplicity of the gospel by pagan concepts that are incompatible with the revelation of God's goodness in our Savior Jesus Christ.

This confrontation between the false gospels promoted by religion and the truth of God is seen in the chapter of Micah 6 where God contends that a sacrifice mentality was never His intent as part of true worship. What we find in the two witnesses we are coming to in the following verses is not God's original design, but rather a mixed message testimony resulting from confusion brought in by the enemy that affected minds of God's followers throughout the Old Testament period. With the arrival of the pure gospel in the life and teachings of Jesus, the darkness is challenged and the veil removed from the hearts of all who are willing to listen to the One who appointed the rod, the only valid measuring tool of those who compose the true temple of God on earth.

The holy city that was trod underfoot for 1260 years involved the lives of devoted followers of the Lamb who were severely persecuted. It is true followers of the Lamb who make up the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven at the end of this book. This is radically different from the old Jerusalem that Paul says is in bondage with her children like Hagar. The measuring of the temple is the process of separation between these two cities just as there had to be a separation between the two first sons of Abraham, so that the inheritance would decidedly reside with the son of promise.

Will this number of 42 months be repeated in these last days of history? I am not convinced it will not be so, though I am reluctant to make definite speculations about when or how. I suspect that numbers used for previous long-term prophecies that again show up in Revelation may well be recycled, only this time without the multiplying factor of the day for a year principle. But that is another discussion we are not ready to take on at this point.