Read or listen The Book of Revelation, chapter 11 online (ESV, YouVersion)

John measures the temple 11:1-2

John is given a rod and is told to measure the temple. The command is hardly just a simple measurement. It is an action with a message. The book of Zechariah contains a vision of the measuring of the city of Jerusalem (Zech 2:5-9). In the vision, God promises: "I will be to her a wall of fire all around it (Jerusalem)." So God promises to protect the city. The same idea is probably in the Book of Revelation. The temple is measured – in other words, God promises to protect it from destruction. By measuring the temple, it is marked for protection. The same thing was said in the 7th chapter of Revelation: God protects those marked with a seal in the storm that shakes the world.

What then is the temple that God protects? It cannot be the temple in Jerusalem. The mighty temple built by Herod the Great had already been destroyed by the time the Book of Revelation was written. In 70 AD, the Roman army destroyed the temple to the ground as Jesus had predicted (e.g. Mt 24:1-2) - only the Wailing Wall remained standing.

"The temple of God and the altar and those who worship there" probably refers to the Church of Christ, the people of God in this world. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the Church of God is also called the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16 and Eph 2:21). The message of verse 1 is probably this: The Church of Christ will not be destroyed, even though the Devil attacks it with great power. God keeps His Church alive. Jesus gave the same promise:

..."on this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
(Matthew 16:18)

Of course, this does not mean that a local church cannot die or that a Christian cannot abandon the faith. There are warning examples of this in the early chapters of Revelation. But the Church of Christ as a whole, worldwide, will not die. At least in some corner of the world there will still be a living Christian church when Jesus returns to earth in glory. God protects His own so that the Devil cannot destroy the entire Church.

John is forbidden to measure the outer court of the temple. So God will not protect it. Perhaps this refers to people who are interested in the Christian faith and have a positive attitude towards Jesus, but do not themselves live in faith in Jesus and therefore do not belong to the church.

What happens to them when the Devil attacks the church? They are given over to be trampled by foreign nations, and in that chaos, positive thoughts about Jesus and Christianity disappear. There are numerous examples of this in the history of the Church. When Christians have been persecuted, the positive attitude that was felt towards Jesus and his followers has quickly been forgotten.

The period of time mentioned in verse 2 — 42 months — occurs many times in the book of Revelation: “three and a half years,” “a thousand two hundred and sixty days,” “a time and times and half a time.” The period of time is always associated with the work of the Devil. The purpose of this number 42 is probably not to indicate the length of the period, but rather that during this time the Devil is allowed to riot and that God has determined how long the Devil's activities can continue. When the time determined by God ends, the Devil's attack will end, even if he wants to continue it.

The temple in Jerusalem was desecrated for about three and a half years in 167-164 BC, according to the prophecy of the book of Daniel (Dan 7:25). During this time, the pagan king brought images of idols into the temple and demanded that they be worshipped, and commanded that pigs be sacrificed in the temple, which was an abomination to the Jews. From this chapter three and a half has also come into the book of Revelation to describe the period when the Evil One is allowed to rage in a special way.

Two Witnesses 11:3-14

John hears a voice speaking of two witnesses. There is a passage in the book of Zechariah that is referenced here (Zech. 4). Who are the witnesses?