The Two Witnesses

While the world is celebrating the death of these witnesses and while the television cameras are focused upon them, God will breathe life back into them, and the witnesses will stand up on their feet (literally they will “resurrect”). All the networks will regret their cameras’ focus, because they won’t want to give the news.

Hi everyone, I’m Tammy Becker.  Welcome to the Almighty God & Gospel Girl Podcast.  This is week sixteen into our series of Revelation and our podcast today is titled: The Two Witnesses.   My podcast today will be based on the reading of Revelation 11.  And if you would like to follow along with the notes or maybe you would like to find the links to anything mentioned in the podcast today, you can go to the link in the description or by visiting www.youministries.com and visiting the corresponding page.  As we get started today, I would like to remind you of my disclaimer, that as always…do not take my word, or anyone’s word for what you read…get yourself in the Bible and let God discern His Word to you.  I am only human and make many mistakes and do not claim to know or understand everything in the Bible…I just hope by bringing out this study that your interest is sparked enough to get into God’s Word and begin to deep dive on your own.

When will this Tribulation end? During the interlude between the sixth and seventh trumpet, God gives us extra, encouraging information about His plan for the end.

In the next 42 months, the “Time of the Gentiles” will run out. Jesus talked about this last half of the Tribulation in Luke 21:24, saying, “Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” Well, that time is coming quickly. This season when Gentile hostility towards Israel is most intense is when Gentiles will dominate (“trample”) the outer court of the temple and the rest of Jerusalem for 42 months. The Antichrist will break his covenant with Israel in the middle of Daniel’s seventieth week (see Daniel 9:27) and anti-Semitism will peak in intensity.

In his vision, John is given a rod and told to measure how long the Time of the Gentiles will continue, after which judgment will come on them. Every time God directs measurements in either the Old or New Testament, it relates to the nation Israel (see Jeremiah 31:38-39; Zechariah 2). Since you measure your personal property, God’s instructions to measure “the temple” likely means He is resuming possession of it. John isn’t told to measure common things or Gentile things, so measuring the temple indicates God’s favor.

The “temple of God” refers to both the holy place and the holy of holies, not including the courtyards. This is evidently the temple the Jews will build in Jerusalem either before or during the first three and a half years of Daniel’s seventieth week (see Daniel 7:25, 9:27, 12:11). This puts us back on Old Testament ground, for there’s no temple given to the church. (The church is a temple of the Holy Spirit today, see Ephesians 2:21-22.) God also instructs John to measure the altar, referring to the golden altar of prayer since the altar for burnt offering was in the outer court. He was to measure (or count) the worshippers, too—godly Jews who will worship God.

During these 42 months, we also will meet two witnesses who will prophesy in sackcloth for the entire 1260 days. (By the way, Scripture has always required two witnesses to bear testimony to anything before it was to be heard in the Old Testament and the church; see Deuteronomy 17:6 and Matthew 18:16.)

We don’t know exactly who these witnesses are, except that they are human. It might be Elijah since he was predicted to return (Malachi 4:5; Matthew 17:11). These two witnesses are called “lampstands standing before the God of the earth” (v. 4). Elijah was fond of saying, “The Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand” (1 Kings 17:1). These witnesses are two lampstands; they are lights in the world.

John the Baptist may be the second witness. As the forerunner of Christ at His first coming, he was like Elijah in manner and message. Both knew what it was to oppose the forces of darkness and to stand alone for God against impossible odds. They trained well for this task. “Clothed in sackcloth” is becoming both to John the Baptist who would be the witness of the New Testament, and to Elijah who would be the witness of the Old Testament.

These two witnesses likely appeared during the first half of the Tribulation up until the Beast appears. Their work is described in Old Testament language—two olive trees suggest the vision in Zechariah 4 when the lampstands are Joshua and Zerubbabel, whom the Holy Spirit empowered to stand against insurmountable difficulties (see Zechariah 4:6). The Holy Spirit will also be present during the Great Tribulation Period.

These two witnesses are lights before the powers of darkness. The Holy Spirit fills them with miraculous power to bring fire down from heaven (sounds like Elijah in 1 Kings 18:38 and 2 Kings 1:10). John the Baptist also announced the One who would baptize with fire (see Matthew 3:11).

These two witnesses are immortal and immune to all attacks until their mission is completed. (By the way, all of God’s people are immortal until God has accomplished His purpose through them.) God gives them unlimited authority; the same power Christ will have when He returns to the earth. The witnesses can control rainfall on the earth, and they can turn water into blood. They can strike the earth with any plague they wish, as often as they wish. They have God’s confidence and power to do what they think best.

They will prophesy about God for 1260 days, and then their testimony will be complete. Then, and only then, will God allow their lives to be touched. Amid “the week” (halfway through the Tribulation), the Antichrist, also known as “the Beast,” and “the Man of Sin” who is moving to power, will bring back first the Roman Empire. Then, when he gets the whole world under his control, he will overcome and kill these two witnesses. This is a temporary victory of darkness over light, evil over righteousness, hell over heaven, and Satan over God, because God is going to let Satan loose during this period.

These witnesses will live up to their name. They are witnesses, Greek for martyr. They will be killed in the street of Jerusalem, the same sad designation, “where also our Lord was crucified” (v. 8). Their bodies (carcasses) are left on the street like roadkill. (These are crude, cold barbaric days in the Tribulation.)

As their bodies lie in the street, the world will be watching them, startled to hear they are dead. Some will be skeptical. All the television networks will have their cameras trained on their bodies. Three and a half days they will lay there, and the world will celebrate. They hated these witnesses. People will give gifts to each other; it will be the Devil’s Christmas, celebrating the Antichrist’s victory.

Then three and a half days later, something happens—

While the world is celebrating the death of these witnesses and while the television cameras are focused upon them, God will breathe life back into them, and the witnesses will stand up on their feet (literally they will “resurrect”). All the networks will regret their cameras’ focus because they won’t want to give the news.

Then everyone will hear a voice out of heaven saying, “Come up here” (v. 12). And the witnesses will be caught up into heaven in a cloud of glory, just like the ascension and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a sight!

We’re still in the lull between the sixth and the seventh trumpet in this second “woe!”

In that exact hour, a huge earthquake shook Jerusalem (limited just to Jerusalem, just like when Jesus died on the cross in Matthew 27:51-52). One tenth of the city collapsed, killing 7,000—the expression used here means these were people of prominence, who got their names into the headlines when the Antichrist came to power.

Add these 7,000 slain to those already slain. A fourth of the world’s population were killed at first, and then a third of the population of the world—totaling over 50%—and now thousands more. Again, no wonder the Lord Jesus said the days of the Tribulation had to be short or else no one would be left alive.

In the aftermath, some people turn to God, overwhelmed by His power; others are filled with terror; and still others are furious with God because He is judging sin, going against the lie they believed that God never punishes evil.

This ends the second woe. The third woe begins shortly, though not immediately. The blowing of the seventh trumpet ushers us chronologically right to the entrance of eternity, leading us beyond the Great Tribulation into the Millennium. The seventh trumpet likewise opens up to us the seven personalities of chapters 12 and 13.

The third woe begins when Satan, one of the personalities, is cast down to earth. You can just imagine the havoc that will cause.

Next week we will find ourselves at the door of eternity.