Revelation chapter 11. And verse 3 will be my text, beginning
in my text in verse 3. And he said, I will give power
unto my two witnesses. And they shall prophesy a thousand,
two hundred, and threescore days clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees,
two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. And if any man will hurt them,
fire proceed out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies.
If any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut up heaven
that it rain not in the days of their prophecy and have power
over waters to turn them to blood and to smite the earth with all
plagues as often as they will. And when they shall have finished
their testimony, The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless
pit shall make war against them and shall overcome them and kill
them. And their dead bodies shall lie
in the street of a great city which spiritually is called Sodom
and Egypt. Here also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people, kindreds
and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days
and a half and shall not suffer their dead bodies be put in graves,
but they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them,
make merry, and shall send gifts one to another, because these
two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after
three days and a half, the Spirit of life from God entered into
them, and they stood upon their feet, And great fear fell upon
them which saw them. And they heard a great voice
from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended
up into heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them. And
the same hour where it was a great earthquake, and a tenth part
of the city fell, and an earthquake were slain of men seven thousand,
and a remnant were affrighted and gave glory to God, the God
of heaven. The tie of the message is simply
the two witnesses. Two witnesses. Now, in the previous
chapter, John, we have discovered, saw an angel descending from
heaven. This angel was clothed with clouds,
crowned with a rainbow, His face was as bright as the sun. His
feet were as pillars of fire, setting them on the land and
on the sea." We saw that this is a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ who condescends
to comfort and assure His people of His victory, of His success,
of His covenant of grace, of His deity, of His power, of His
dominion that stretches from land to sea and over all the
earth. And we saw that in the hand of
Christ was an open book, and this open book was the same book
that He took from the hand of God, the same one that He had
loosed the seven seals from. It is the open book of God's
perfect salvation, purposed in eternity, purchased by Jesus
Christ and given to His people by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. This book reveals to us that
salvation is open. It's open. You remember Noah
was 120 years preaching the gospel and that door of that ark was
open all the days of his preaching until God closed it. And this
gospel is open. It's open. The voice of heaven calls to
sinners and says, take the book. Do you need salvation? Then take
the book. Do you need eternal life? Take
the book. If you need forgiveness of sins,
take the book. The gospel is open and Jesus
Christ and him crucified for sins is the sum and substance
of this book. God does not require us to write
in the book, to add to the book, nor take from the book. The book
is finished. It's complete. It's done. Salvation's
accomplished. Take and eat the book, which
is to come to Christ. It is to believe on him. We know natural man, they like
to add to the book and take from the book. Add to Christ and take
from Christ. That's not what we're to do.
You take the book as it is. You see, we who are absolute
sinners need only an absolute Savior. We can't add nothing
nor would we ever take anything from the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is all. He is all. Therefore, we, like John, go
to Christ and we say, give us the book. We cry at His feet
of Him who has dominion and power over salvation and we say, give
us the book. We need salvation. And Christ says to us, take it
freely. And we, like John, took the book.
And we ate the book. And what was the book to us in
our experience? It was sweet. The salvation of
God is sweet to all who taste. Kahol! Everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. Come buy and bind and milk without
money and without price. Wherefore do you spend your money
for that which satisfieth not? Why do you labor for that which
doesn't satisfy? Hearken unto me. and live. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." What did David
say about the covenant? He says, it's ordered in all
things and sure. Sure, and the experience is that
we'd sweet to our mouth as it was to John the the Lord said
it will be bitter to your Belly, but sweet to your taste and that's
exactly our experience of grace It was it was sweet the sweetness
of God's eternal love the sweetness of Christ eternal redemption
The sweetness of the quickening spirit of life and faith the
sweetness of forgiving sins That's sweet, isn't it? It's sweet to
eat that. Here, eat it. Okay. It's sweet. It's good. My sins are gone. No more to be before the eyes
of God. God Himself cannot find my sins,
seeing Christ put them away forever. It's sweet, but it's also bitter. It's also bitter because this
flesh will fight against The spirit is contrary one to another. It's bitter because the world
is against you. It's bitter because you have
enemies, real enemies. Witness to someone and see if
it's not so. Test it. Go. Go test it. Go to your sisters. Witness.
See if it's not so. Go to your father. Go to your
brother. Go to your sons. Tell them. And see if they do
not try to bite your head off when you tell them of Christ.
They will. It's bitter. Christ promises
it will be. But nonetheless, in verse 11
of chapter 10, this is our command, who have eaten the book, thou
must prophesy again before many peoples and nations and tongues
and kings. In other words, go into all the
world and preach the gospel to every creature. Go! Go! And in verse 1 and verse 2 of
chapter 11, this is exactly what it is to preach the gospel. It is to measure. John was given
that rod, you remember, and it measured the temple. He said,
measure the temple and the sanctuary and all that are in them. Measure
them. What does measuring do? It makes
a division. It makes a line of distinction
between that which is precious, the gospel of Christ, and that
which is vile. That which is a freewill works
religion is vile. It's separate. And the gospel
distinguishes these things, separates. All who believe in Christ alone
measure inside. You're safe. All of you outside are condemned without exception. Believer, we must witness. This is our only purpose. John,
you've been here 80 years for what purpose? Witness of Christ. There's no other purpose. Not
for us. We're here to witness of Christ. We're here to testify
of Jesus Christ. Make a distinction. Christ said,
I came not to bring peace, but a sword. And I'll tell you, every
time you preach, it's a division. Makes a division. And you don't
do it in mean-spiritedness. You don't do it in a spirit of
debate. All we do is declare the Gospel.
I don't have to debate this Gospel with anybody. I'm not here to
debate the Gospel. I'm here to simply measure. I can measure that wall and tell
you exactly how many feet and inches it is. Now, you can debate
that with me all you want to. I don't care. You see, my ruler
is the Word of God. This is my ruler. This is what
I measure by, the Word of God. And you can debate with this
Word all you want to. What God says it is, it is. And I don't
care what men think. This causes division. It's caused
a division. And so as we measure this gospel,
it's going to cause division. And so we must go on preaching
this gospel of God's grace to separate true believers from
those who only are false professors, to make a distinction. No Christ are safe and protected
inside this kingdom. Now, these two witnesses. Let's
go ahead and move on. I want to move on now. These
two witnesses in verse 3 says, and I will give power unto my
two witnesses. Two witnesses. Seeing that the
true church is pictured as the sanctuary of God, as the church
protected and secured, we can clearly see then that these witnesses
are symbolic of the church in a different capacity. We see
that these two witnesses of the church are the church militant. You see the church measured,
protected. Now then you have another aspect
of the vision. You see not just the church protected,
you see the church militant. You see the church active. And
this is the active nature of the church, to be His witnesses. Witnesses. Church is symbolized
by these two witnesses. Now the number two is significant
in that the word, by two witnesses, is a thing established. The Word
of God says that of necessity there must be two witnesses.
That's why the Lord sent his disciples out two by two. And let us see then that this
is not literally two witnesses, but rather these represent two
aspects of the church, the minister or the pastor and
those who are the congregants. We, too, make up the whole church. And we both are witnesses. Both
are witnesses. I want you to see this in Acts
chapter 8. Go over there. Acts chapter 8. I alluded to
it this morning in the first message, but I wanted to show something in this
same chapter. Now, when the persecution of
the church came, The church was scattered. The Scripture says,
therefore, in verse 4, they that were scattered abroad went everywhere
preaching the Word. Then Philip went down to the
city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them. Two, in our
language, both the same word. Preached and preaching, same
word. In the original text, it is not
the same word. It is distinctly different. It is distinctly different. The
church went about evangelizing or preaching. And Philip went preaching. Now
what's the distinction? The word first evangelizing. That's what you as believers,
every believer in Christ, every one of us are to do. We are to
go out into our homes, go out into our families, go out among
those people we know and preach. This does not mean you stand
up in the middle of your business and prepare a message. This is
no. But we preach at the opportunity
that God gives us to witness of Christ, to testify. I think of that demoniac of Gadara.
You know, that man is a wonderful picture of salvation. He saved
him from those demons. And, you know, he wanted to go
with Christ. He just assumed. He just started
following those apostles right up in the ship. And Christ said,
oh, wait, wait, wait. No, you can't come in here. Do
you not imagine his heart fell to the floor? What do you mean
I can't come with you? Why can't I come with you? I
want to be with you. He said, no, you must go home. And show what great things God
has done. Now is that not what we all are
to be doing? Show what great things God has
done. And so that's the word in the
context of evangelizing. But Philip, he had another context. His word means to herald. A public
crier. You want to know how the internet
was back in those days? There was a big fat man with
a loud voice and he stood in the middle of the street and
he yelled at the top of his lungs, the news. That's what he did. He declared the news. That's
what preachers do. We declare the news in such a
way that we declare it to multitudes of people, to many people at
one time. Now what's the difference? There's
none. You witness? You preach the gospel
in your capacity and I preach it in mine. But both are used
of God for the furtherance of the gospel. Both are necessary. Do you understand? What if we
close the doors and all that you heard was me? and you never
took anything outside of these doors." What good would that
do? Well, that's selfish. That seems
like selfishness to me. Well, I'm just going to hide
this to myself. No, that's not what the Gospel
is for. Get it out! Get it out! That's what we are. We're witnesses. Believers, let
us then rejoice in our calling, seeing both witnesses are called
and necessary for the furtherance of the gospel, let us then be
faithful in our calling and vocation. You know, I want to be faithful
in my vocation. I do. I spend a lot of time and
energy to prepare messages for this, and I want to be faithful
in that. There are many temptations around
me to pull at me from this work. But I desire to be faithful in
this. And with the same zeal and fervor, you should be desirous
to witness to others. That's your calling. That's your
vocation. Take it very seriously. You are
the witnesses. Do you not see? In our text,
you can put your name there. Go ahead, because it's talking
about you. When I used to look at Revelation,
I always tried to look for somebody else. I was saying, two witnesses,
okay, where are they? Where are they? Christian, go
look in the mirror. That's a witness. That's who
he's talking about. He's talking about you. You are
the witnesses. I am the witness. We should be
fervent in our calling. The gospel we preach, being ourselves
witnesses and partakers of it. You know, we're witnesses because
we've experienced it. We've seen it for ourselves. Isn't that what a witness is?
I mean, you can't have a witness that didn't see anything. You watch those people on the
web and they all want to be witnesses. Didn't see a thing, but they
heard something. Man, I heard a great noise over
here and I ran around the corner. What did you see? I don't know,
but I saw, I heard something. They're ears, but they didn't
see anything. What are the news looking for? Looking for somebody
who saw something. Police are looking for somebody
who saw something. I saw something. I see something. Christ is all.
I see Christ lifted up. I see Christ dead for my sins. I see Christ risen for my justification. I get the news out, believe on
Him, and you shall be saved. That's the message. This Gospel we preach, we're
witnesses of it. You are the two witnesses. So
that's the first point. The second point is this. Notice
the duration of their witness. The duration. And I will give
power to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand,
two hundred, and threescore days. Well, my goodness, what is that?
Twelve hundred and sixty days. This is not a literal twelve
hundred and sixty days. But it is a picture of a long
duration. In fact, It is the same duration
of time that those in the outer court will tread on the people
of God. Look at this up in the verse
before it. And the court that is without the temple, leave
out, measure it not. For it is given to the Gentiles,
and the holy city shall be tread under foot forty and two months. Guess what? Twelve hundred and
sixty days is the same as forty-two months. So how long are these
people going to preach? As long as the church is being
trampled in this gospel age. As long as this gospel age exists,
God's two witnesses will preach. Haven't you seen that to be true
in church history? Has God failed in one generation
to not raise up a man to preach a gospel? He has been faithful.
And when we're gone, God will continue His work until He comes. That's what this duration means. These days are not limited, but
figurative of the whole dispensation of grace. They represent the
time of Christ's departure until His return. And we can see You
can see this in other places. In chapter 12, you can see this.
But we don't have time to turn there right now. Believer, though the siege against
us is great, make no mistake about it, our enemies are strong. They're fierce. And they despise us and our Christ. but they cannot and will not
extinguish this gospel." I read several people about the gospel
of doctrines of, you know, sovereign grace, the five points of Calvinism.
Someone once said, well, this gospel is older than Calvin. Augustine preached it. And I
go, what? This gospel is older than Augustine. This gospel is as old as time
itself. This gospel is as old as eternity. These men didn't come up with
anything new. They have preached the same gospel for generations. Paul says in Hebrews, this gospel
was preached unto them as well as unto us. This gospel is old. It's not new and it will continue
how long? 1260 days. All the dispensation
of grace until Christ comes. So that's how long we are to
preach. As long as we can. As long as we have life, preach. Thirdly, notice the dress of
these witnesses. They were to preach 1260 days
in Sackcloth. Sackcloth. This is to show us the low estate
of the church as well as its message. See, the church, those called
of God, are not many mighty. Not many noble are called. And God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the things that are wise, and
the weak things of the world to confound the things that are
mighty. How differently does the world
see things than God? They think that if their churches
are big and prosperous and successful and rich, they think that's a
blessing of God. They think that's how they determine
success. That is not how God determines
the success of His church. Matter of fact, His church has
always been small in comparison. Always. They see one wise and mighty
and noble and high in the things of the world, prosperous, rich,
and powerful, and they perceive that that person is blessed,
that he is most likely to be used of God. But God says of those men, He calls those of
low estate. to faith in Christ. Queen Elizabeth,
great monarch, she was. She was a believer in Christ,
as far as I know. And she read that scripture and
praised God. She says, I'm thankful it says,
not many, instead of not any. But I tell you, God uses His
people Though small and insignificant to the world, God uses His people
to shape His kingdom and fulfill the greatest designs of His sovereign
providence, which is to call His people from their sins. That's the greatest thing, that
greatest office and work that we could ever be given to do
is to be used of God to call and comfort His people. And we wear, for our dress, sackcloth
because our message is one of repentance. Repentance. In the Old Testament, you'll
read this many times, they tore their garments and put on sackcloth. Mordecai, when he heard of Haman's
vicious plan to destroy the Jews, the Scripture says he ran his
clothes and put on sackcloth. He wept in bitterness. And even so, do we see and hear
those evil things against God and against our gospel. And what
do we do? We cast off these earthly joys
for tears. We are people of great sorrow. We weep for those that are lost.
We long for them to come to Christ. We long for them to repent. even
as we ourselves are in constant turning from our flesh and this
world. We preach to others, repent and
believe on Christ. And even now, listen, I beseech
you, I beg you, by the mercies of God, that you repent and believe
on Christ. Be reconciled to God. For God
hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. Is that not enough?
Be reconciled to God is our message. Be reconciled. Sinner, if you will be accepted
of God, you must be brought to the same lowest state and put
on the same sackcloth of repentance as we have. Isn't that one thing about us?
We call men to come down. You see, I don't stand above
you and tell you to come up to me. I'm down below you telling
you to come down with me. Come down. Abase yourself and
exalt Christ. Lift Him up. Honor Him. Believe
on Him. This is the message. This is
the picture of the sackcloth that we preach a gospel of repentance
and faith toward Christ. Now, fourthly, notice the power
of these witnesses. I'm sorry, the purpose, the power,
and the protection of these witnesses. Verse 4, and these are the two
olive trees and two candlesticks standing before the God of the
earth. And if any man will hurt them,
fire proceed out of their mouth and devour their enemies. And
if any man will hurt them, he must die, in this manner be killed. These have power to shut up heaven,
that it rain not in the days of their prophecy, and have power
over the waters to turn the blood and to smite the earth with all
the plagues as often as they will. So first of all, the purpose.
In this vision, the Lord says these are two olive trees and
two candlesticks. As I've told you before, the
book of Revelation is often referring to Old Testament visions. This is one in the same of another
Old Testament vision. In Zechariah chapter 4, he saw
a candlestick and olive trees. Same thing. And these candlesticks,
it says in that prophecy, represented two men. Zerubbabel, which was the king
or the governor, and Joshua, the high priest. It represented
these two men. Behold, believer, are we not
kings and priests unto our God? This candlestick and these olive
trees represent us who stand before our God. We stand before
our God excepted sons. If I were king, do you suppose
that I would not give audience to my son? Do you suppose I would
not put down every dignitary and everything so that my son
would have audience with me? You bet I would. How much more God in whom we
stand accepted. And you are a candlestick. What does candlesticks do? They
give light. You are the light of the world. Not you will be when you get
all grown up. Not you will be when you get
better in the gospel. You are just who you are. You are the light of the world. Without God's people, there is
no light. I hope that God give you an understanding
this world spins for you. You get that? This world continues
to move because you are the light of the world. You must preach
His gospel. and His people will come at our
calling. Isn't that something? Oh, it's
special. You are the light of the world.
And these olive trees, these are the branches of grace, the
fruits of the Spirit is often referred to as the oil of the
lamp. How do we have light at all?
It is the oil of the Spirit that flows through us. Spirit of God worketh in you
both to will and do of His good pleasure. You see, you're not
acting alone. That's good, isn't it? You're
not alone. When you witness, you're not
alone. You're not alone. Spirit of God testifies. And
you know what? Have you ever witnessed to somebody,
your mouth just closed? Spirit of God worketh in you
to shut your mouth because He doesn't want them to hear it. Then you have this overflowing
abundance of liberty. Spirit of God worketh in you
and opens your mouth so that you can preach. Isn't that something?
You are the candlestick. You are the olive tree out of
which the Spirit of God flows. Isn't that something? This is
you, believer. And listen, we are given not
only a purpose to be liked and to spread grace into this world,
but we are also given power and protection. Look at that. He
said, and if any man hurt them, fire proceeded out of their mouth.
If any man hurt them, this is how they must be killed in this
manner. Just as the Lord said to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 5, In Jeremiah 5, he said this,
"...because you speak this Word, the Word of God, while they perceive
it to be nothing but vain wind, because the Holy Spirit is not
in them, this same Word that the world despises is the very
Word that is fire out of your mouth, and it devours them, devours
their lives." Truth always. Eats up the lie. And listen, this is a message
they will desire to hurt you. They will. What is our defense? God said. God said. What else is there? But God said. This is our foundation,
even the Word of God. Thus saith the Lord. Believers,
seeing our Word as the Word of God, then what is the vain opinions
and dreams and superstitions of man against the Word of God?
God said, My Word is as fire to the chaff. That's what God's Word is. It
consumes their lives. Why do you think atheists hate
you so much? They don't hate little children
for believing in a tooth fairy. Why do they hate you? Believing
in God they say don't exist. Because your Word burns their
souls. Your word is as fire out of your
mouth. Let us therefore speak with clarity,
with boldness, for our word to theirs is as fire to the chaff.
It shall stand and their word shall be burned up." And all
the saints of God are in agreement with this. Salvation is of the
Lord. And all other Gospels of free
will, works, religion are vain and empty. And by His Word, listen, you
are protected. If you preach this Word and they
kill you, what is that? What has that done? What has
that done to the Word? They hated Wycliffe so much that
they killed him. Then, years later, they hated
him so much they dug up his bones and burned them. They hated him
so much. What did that do to his word?
Nothing. Matter of fact, his word even
now in their ears in the midst of hell is burning their ears. It's the worm that dieth not.
And they must be killed in this manner by the Word of God. And listen, you are given power.
Believer, you have power. Power is given unto them, listen,
to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy,
and the power over waters to turn to blood and to smite the
earth with the plagues as often as they will." Now, who was it that withheld rain?
Was that not Elijah? Who was it that made the waters
blood? Moses and all the plagues? What is he referring to? These
men had a specific command of God. How foolish would Elijah have
been and went out there and withheld the rain from heaven if God hadn't
told him to do it? If you go out tomorrow and you
say, I have power, I'm going to stop it from raining, you
know what you'll look like a fool? Because you have no such authority. You have no such command. This
is a picture. This is a type. And what it is,
is as Elijah had received commandment to shut heaven, even so he by
faith did it, as Moses received commandment to strike the water
and make it blood. He did it by faith. Even so do
we who preach the gospel have power. Not over literal rain or literal
water, but rather over judgment, discernment. We have power to judge and condemn
all those that reject our message. Listen, if a man refused to believe
our gospel, if he rejects our Christ as He is revealed in the
Holy Scripture, That man is condemned. Now, I
have every authority to tell you that. I have the authority. God's grace is withheld from
all those who are outside Christ. I say that with boldness and
with confidence and with power. Authority. I read an article this week.
Somebody wrote this and said, a man can live like hell, hate the gospel, and then at
his funeral, everybody's always saying, well, he's in heaven.
I have authority and power to tell you that's a lie. And so
do you. You should tell them that's a
lie. That's not true. If a man lived like hell, he's
in hell. There's no doubt about it. You have that authority. Go to
Matthew chapter 16. I want to show it to you. Matthew
chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16, verse 19.
This is our power. He says, I will give unto thee
the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind
on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose
on earth shall be loosed in heaven. What is he saying? He's saying,
when we preach the gospel, it is just as bound here as it is
in heaven. Just as sure as it is here, it
is in heaven. And so what I bind is what God's
Word tells me to bind. I only measure it by God's Word.
Go to John chapter 20. John chapter 20. I can get there. Verse 21, And
Jesus said unto them, Peace be unto you, as my Father has sent
me, even so I send you. And when he has said this, he
breathed on them and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.
Whosoever's sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them. Whosoever's
sins you shall retain, they are retained." What does that mean?
Does that mean that you get to forgive sins or keep sins on
men? It's not what he's saying. That's
not what he's saying. Only God forgives sins. But as
we preach the gospel, As we preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we
say this, if you believe on Christ, your sins are remitted. I have
the authority to tell you that. I have the power to tell you
that. They are gone. They are gone. I don't feel it.
That doesn't matter. They're gone. I have the authority. They are remitted forever. That's good news. And if you're
outside of Christ, I tell you, your sins are not remitted. Your
sins remain on you, and you will die in them if you will not repent
and believe. That is the power we have. The
power we have is to denounce and know what is precious, to
separate the precious from the vile. And listen, number five,
the end of the gospel is predicted. Go back to your text. Verses
7 through 10. The end of the gospel age is
ordained. God has ordained our salvation
from eternity, ordained Christ redeem us, ordained the Spirit
calls us and keeps us. He has ordained and fulfilled
all our salvation in Christ and appointed us to be as witnesses
of the gospel. He has ordained all the days
of grace, 1,260 days, He has ordained them. But listen, those
days are coming to an end. This gospel kingdom shall be
preached in all the world unto all nations. Then shall the end
come. Soon the beast, the Antichrist,
the false religion of this world shall rise up. What is here called
spiritual Sodom and Egypt shall arise up and shall destroy the
church or seemingly destroy the church. it shall appear as dead." Consider the greatness of the true church has been in
decline since its conception. Has it not? Peter preached and
5,000 on the first day. That's amazing! But as we go through history,
we see that yes, the gospel is spread, but it's only in smaller, less grandiose things. But as we look in every age,
the church is small and few. And listen, the apostle says
before the end, a great apostasy must take place. I'm telling
you, before the Lord comes, it is going to appear as though
the church is laid out dead. There is going to be so few of
us left. And what is going to be the reaction
of the world? They're going to celebrate! They're
going to rejoice! Isn't that what atheists, they
stand around and jump up, God's dead, God's dead, we've got it,
science is on our side. They're liars, but they're rejoicing. They think they've killed the
church. They think they've destroyed the church. They're dancing on
the corpses of the church. False Christ and false religion
will arise and do wonders and signs that if it were possible,
they should deceive the very elect. Yet, we must not be deceived. The church may appear dead, but
we know this, it isn't. It isn't. Why? Because the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it. Remember, believer, this is a
symbolic picture and it simply means that the church and its
preachers will be almost totally eradicated from the earth. The
church will appear as dead corpses without power before the Lord
return. The voice of the church will
be smothered and drowned by false religion. I can almost see it even now,
can you? In our day. We are never to be deceived into
thinking that the church is dead. Why? Because Christ comes in
verse 11, after three days and a half, the Spirit of life of
God entered into them, and they stood on their feet, and great
fear fell upon them which saw them. Throughout church history, It's
happened this way. It's seen that the church is
dead and that God sends men in revival. We pray that God would send that
today. But there is coming a time when
that will no longer be the case. It will just The church will
seemingly be dead and then Christ will raise it up from the dead.
And you know what? Everyone will see it. Everyone
will see it. And when the church is gone,
when the church is left the building, then the scripture says, and
the same hour, There was a great earthquake, and the tenth part
of the city fell, and the earthquake and the 7,000 slain men, 7,000
remnant, were affrighted and gave glory to God. And the second
woe is past. Behold, the third woe cometh."
In other words, what's left? When the church is taken out
of the world, what's left? The last trumpet, final judgment. That's all that's left. There
is no more hope. The door of hope is closed. And so shall we ever be with
the Lord. Which is good for us. Good news
for us. Good news for the witnesses of
Christ. You are the witnesses. You are the witnesses of God. You are to witness all the days
of your life. You are to witness in sackcloth
preaching the gospel of repentance. You are the light of the world.
You are the temple of God in which the Holy Spirit pours out
His grace. If anybody hurts you, the Word
of God is your defense. You have power and authority
by the Word of God to tell men the truth of the gospel of Christ. And even though the church may
appear dead, God says, all is well. All is well. Say ye to
the righteous, it shall be well with him. It shall be well. Because one day he will take
us home to be with him. May God bless this to your heart.
I pray you will.