We're going to be looking at
Revelation chapter 11 beginning at verse 5. Revelation 11. The title of the message is Resurrection
of God's Witnesses. Resurrection of God's Witnesses.
Last week we learned about what is called the two witnesses of
Revelation. I'm not gonna go back into all
that except to remind you that the two witnesses, if you interpret
these things by the scriptures alone and not by the headlines
or what the dispensationalists, how they interpret scripture,
which is not biblical at all, the two witnesses refers to the
church as the candlestick, the lampstand, setting forth the
light of the gospel, the light of truth in the world, all over
the world, Jew and Gentile. That's how after the Lord ascended
unto glory and he inaugurated the New Testament church at Pentecost
and the people of God with the gospel were scattered throughout
because of persecution. And they went out through the
world and God began to establish his churches all over the known
world at that time. That's why you have the letters
here, the Roman letter, Corinthian letter, Ephesian letter. There's
churches in these places that God established among the Gentiles
because God has a people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue,
and nation. He chose before the foundation
of the world and gave to Christ. Christ redeemed us and he's going
to have his witnesses. But it's not going to be an easy
road. There's going to be trouble and
that's what this is This is talking about, look at verse three of
Revelation 11. We're gonna begin the message
in verse five. He says, I will give power unto my two witnesses. That's the church and the ministers,
the witnesses preaching the gospel. And he says that they shall prophesy
or preach 1,203 score days clothed in sackcloth. That means that
sackcloth indicates the nature of the message because it calls
sinners to repentance. believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
repent of our dead works, latch on to Christ, cling to Christ
for all of salvation, and turn away from self, bear the cross. And he says in verse four, these
are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks standing before
the God of the earth. That's a reference back to Zechariah,
the book of Zechariah. chapter four where he identifies
the olive trees that's the oil of the olives which has to do
with the gospel preached in the power of the holy spirit we have
the oil of the spirit the empowerment of the gospel it's the spirit
who brings sinners to spiritual life, to faith in Christ. Preachers
can't do this. All we do, all we are, we're
like, if you read that back in Zechariah 4, you've got the bowls
of the olive trees, the olive oil going down through a pipe
to the candlestick. And that's preachers preaching
in the power of the Holy Spirit, evangelists, ministers, pastors,
teachers. And the church being fed by the
light of the truth and the power of the Spirit to stand as a lampstand,
a candlestick in this world. You're the light of the world.
So it's talking about the gospel ministry, it's not talking about
two individuals as many believe, but it's talking about the ministry
of the gospel. The gospel is going to be preached
all over this world and I'll show you that in just a minute.
he says and the sackcloth has to do with the nature of the
message being repentance unto God and faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ and it also has to do with the sorrows, the troubles,
and the tribulation and look at verse five. He says, and if
any man will hurt them, now going to be hurt. We talk about the
martyrs, those who died in the service of the gospel, service
of God and Christ. Talk about the persecution and
how Christ told his disciples, he said, in the world you'll
have tribulation, trouble, but be of good cheer for I've overcome
the world. There's going to be persecution,
there's going to be hatred. Sometimes it'll be severe, sometimes
it'll be light. And I'll tell you, I'm always
quick to remind us that we've lived in a time and in a place
where our persecution has been rather light because we do live
in a country where there's a constitution that doesn't enable the government
to come in here and stop us from preaching what we preach. But
now the early disciples didn't have that. They had the Roman
government against them, political powers, That's like the beast
that came up, one of the beasts that come up. They had the religious
majority against them, the Jews and the Gentiles in religion
coming against them. They have Satan, they have Antichrist. We'll see that in just a moment
and then later on in Revelation. And sometimes they were jailed.
Sometimes they lost their jobs, their means of support and were
put out on the street. Sometimes they were killed. And
so he says, but what's going to happen? He says, if any man
will hurt them, fire proceeded out of their mouth and devour
their enemies. And if any man will hurt them,
he must in this manner be killed. Well, what's he talking about?
Are we going to be able to breathe fire out of our mouths and kill
people that stand against the gospel? Well, you know that's
not true. It's never been true that we could walk around as
human dragons spouting out fire, killing people. This is symbolic. And what is fire symbolic of
in the Bible? Well, it's symbolic of the judgment
of God that is given through the word of God. And so those
who stand against the gospel and who try to hurt the two witnesses,
try to destroy the church, what is our weapon? You remember Paul
in 2 Corinthians 10, he said, the weapons of our warfare are
not carnal. It's not guns and knives and
tanks and bombs or even fire coming out of our mouth. It's
the Gospel. It's the Word of God. And that's
how we hurt them. Because we preach God's Word. We have the Bible. And that fire
proceeding out passes judgments on them. Paul said in preaching
the Gospel, we're always victorious. To some we're the saver of life
unto life. That's believers. When they hear
the gospel and the power of the Spirit, they believe it, they
embrace it, they love it. But to others it's the savor
of death unto death. And that's how they'll be killed.
In what manner? Our message kills their message.
Our hope kills their hope. Now they may not realize it at
the time, but when the judgment comes, it'll all be brought out
into the open. And they'll have no choice. but
to bow to it. They won't believe it, they won't
repent. But you remember Philippians chapter two, he says, every knee
shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord. Even his enemies, his enemies
will be his footstool. And they'll be judged according
to their works, and they'll be cast into the lake of fire. That's
what the Bible teaches. Our God is a consuming fire,
scripture says. And that's to everyone that believeth
not. Now to believers, he's still
consuming fire, but his fire of wrath was consumed by Christ
on the cross in our place. He's our surety, our substitute,
our redeemer. So understand that this is symbolic
now. And it says that this is the
way we deal with unbelievers who attack us, unbelievers who
go against us. We go by the word of God. And
you know, even when there's trouble within the church amongst professing
believers, we go to the word of God. And that's what's going
to consume those who are in the wrong. In that sense, you know,
their pride and their arrogance. But look here, it says in verse
six, these have power to shut 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." Again, what's he talking about? It reaches back,
you remember when, I think it was the prophet Elijah, when
he prayed that it rain not in Israel, and I think it was like
two years or something like that or more, that it didn't rain.
And that happened literally back then. And then you turn the waters
into blood. Think about Egypt, you remember
when Moses stuck his rod in the Nile and it turned into blood?
That was, the Nile was their life, you see. And again, it's
talking about, it's talking symbolically here, how that when we preach
the gospel, we who believe, we are showered with the blessings
of God's grace. showers of blessings showers
of blessings we need but when we preach the gospel and Sinners
turn away from it. It's like a dry gulch and It's
death to them. That's what blood signifies waters
turn to blood. It becomes the savor of death
unto death The preaching of the gospel has that effect. It's
no light matter. I You cannot be indifferent to
it and hide behind the shield of indifference. Christ said,
he that is not with me is against me. So understand that this is
a message that's life and death, always when it's preached. It's not something that you can
take or leave. It's not just somebody's opinion.
It's the word of God. Listen to it. The message of
righteousness that you need and that I need but that none of
us by nature or by our works have. This is the lifeline for
sinners who deserve nothing but death and hell. So we preach
Christ crucified and risen from the dead. This is what the Bible's
teaching here in symbolic language. Look at verse seven. Now here's
where we come to something that we need to understand from the
Bible to show us that appearances can be deceiving. And this is
the reason I had Brother Wages read that Romans 8 passage. That
Romans 8 passage is so full of the assurances of the salvation
of God's people and their victory over death and hell in the world. All things work together for
good. All things good and bad. Now
why does it work together for good? Because God's the one who's
doing the working there. You're not working it together.
You don't have that power. I don't have that power. Somebody
said, well, if I had that power, I'd change a lot of things. Well,
if you knew God, you wouldn't change anything. But God has
that power. And it says all things work together
for good. To whom? Does that mean everybody? Well, those who live their lives
in unbelief and die and perish, that's not good. So don't work
together for good for them. Who's it work together for good
to? Those who love God, who are the called according to his purpose. That's sinners saved by grace.
That's believers. They're called by the Holy Spirit
to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works. They understand
the purpose of God. And what is that? The purpose
of God is to glorify Himself in the salvation of sinners.
If your view of salvation gives you any glory, it's wrong. Mark it down. If you can say,
I'm saved because I did this, it's wrong. Or I did that, it's
wrong. But if you say by the grace of
God I am what I am, He chose me. He justified me. He redeemed me. He sent His Spirit
to invincibly, irresistibly call me unto faith in Christ. It's
all of grace, all of God. It glorifies Him. Paul wrote,
God forbid that I should glory save in the cross. We glory in
Christ. I'm a sinner saved by grace.
And there's not one blessing of salvation, there's not one
blessing that I can say to you, honestly, that I deserved it
and earned it. It's all of Christ. I'm blessed
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. And that's the case. But that
message, brings such a hard message to the world as they see it.
It's not a hard message, it's a beautiful message. But you
think about that, what you read. If God's for me, who can be against
me? Now they may attack me. They
may say all manner of evil against me. The Lord may in his providence
let them get at me physically. God's for me, who can be against
me? They can kill the body, but they can't kill the soul. You
understand that? And he says, who shall anything
to the charge of God's elect? That's God's court, not man's
court. In God's court, my sins are not charged to me, they're
charged to Christ and he paid the debt. I have his righteousness
imputed to me. It's God that justified. He forgives
me of all my sins on the ground of the blood of Jesus Christ.
No other ground. He declares me righteous on the
ground of Christ's righteousness imputed to me, charged to me.
No other ground. So think about it. All that he
says there, he that spared not his own son, how shall he not
with him freely give us all things? Then he says, who is he that
condemneth? It's Christ that died. In men's courts, I may
be condemned, but in God's courts, I'm not condemned. There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ. So who can condemn
us? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather,
that is risen again and is seated at the right hand of the Father
ever living to make intercession for us. As long as he intercedes
for me, pleading the merits of his work, his blood, his righteousness,
I'm safe, no matter what happens to me here on earth. And then
who can separate us from the love of God in Christ? Now think
about this, look at verse seven of Revelation. He said, when
they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth
out of the bottomless pit, this is one of the servants of Satan,
shall make war against them. Now he's gonna talk about that
more in Revelation 12, when Satan, the red dragon comes and all
that, and shall overcome them and kill them. You see that? This beast, this servant of Satan
is allowed for a time to persecute and overcome and even kill the
witnesses of Christ. Now, you know as well as I do,
you read different commentators and they'll have different ideas
on this. But what I believe this is talking
about is what Christ spoke of over in Matthew chapter 24. I
want you to turn there. Matthew 24. Now Christ in this
24th chapter of Matthew, he speaks of two future events. He speaks
of the destruction of Jerusalem, literal Jerusalem, which took
place in AD 70. and the destruction of the temple
that was there then, but he also talks about the end of the world. When Christ shall come again
and gather his elect, his people, that's the rapture now. We believe
in a rapture. That means being caught up, being
taken up. The people of God that are on
earth, the ones who have died and gone to be with the Lord
will come with him in the clouds. And the people of God who are
on earth at that time, they'll be caught up with him. They'll
be taken up. That's the rapture. It's not a secret rapture. The
Bible says the whole world will be amazed and look at it. It's not like you'll be driving
in your car and you'll disappear and there'll be a big wreck or
something like that. That's not what it is. But that's what he's
talking about. And so what he's talking about
in Revelation, especially when we get to the seventh trumpet,
which comes next week, He's talking about the troubles and the trials
and the tribulations that the church will go through, all through
the New Covenant time, the New Testament time. And it's symbolized
by the three and a half years after the death of Christ, his
death, burial, and resurrection, and his ascension, from the time
of Pentecost to the time of Stephen the Evangelist. Remember Stephen
the Evangelist? He stood in Jerusalem and preached, and what did they
do? They stoned him. Well, that time between Christ
ascending unto glory and Stephen being killed was a time of great
persecution for those Jewish believers and Gentile believers
who were in that vicinity. And what he's saying here is
that three and a half years is going to mark what's going to
happen with the church all the way through the New Testament
age up until the second coming of Christ. There's gonna be trouble,
folks. There's gonna be sorrow, there's
gonna be pain. Now I know that doesn't fit with
Joe Osteen's theology, that he's a false prophet. That doesn't
fit with the health and wealth gospel, but they're false prophets
too. And it may be that certain believers
will live a life of luxury for whatever reason, God's purpose,
whatever. But the church as a whole shining the light of the gospel
that men and women by nature hate, there's going to be trouble.
Well, look at Matthew 24. Look at verse 11. Well, look
at verse 10, for example. Well, let's go back to verse
9. I had it marked here. Here it is. Here he talks about
how Jerusalem's gonna be destroyed and how trouble's coming. He
said, this is the beginning of sorrows. Verse nine, then shall
they deliver you up to be afflicted, shall kill you. You shall be
hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be
offended and shall betray one another and shall hate one another.
Many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. You see
that? He says, and because iniquity
shall bound, the love of many shall wax cold. What he's talking
about is professing believers who apostatize because they didn't
really believe to begin with and they see this trouble coming
and they flee. And he says, but he that shall
endure to the end, the same shall be said. That endurance is the
preserving grace of God that keeps us faithful. And this gospel
of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness
unto all nations and then shall the end come. Now some say, well,
that hasn't happened yet. Well, I think it has. I think
even on television, the internet, the gospel's been preached through
all nations. So verse 15, he says, when therefore
you shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel
the prophet, stand in the holy place, whoso readeth, let him
understand. Now, when, look at verse 21. He said, there'll be great tribulation,
such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no,
nor ever shall be. And look at verse 22, and except
those days should be shortened, there should be no flesh saved,
but for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened. Then
if any man shall say unto you, lo, here is Christ, there or
there, believe it not, for there shall rise false Christ and false
prophets. and shall show great signs and
wonders insomuch that if it were possible, they shall deceive
the very elect. But, and I'll stop there, according
to Romans chapter eight that Brother Randy read, the elect
of God are not going to be deceived. What he's saying there is this,
is that as we get closer to the second coming of Christ, The
gospel is going to get scarcer and scarcer. And false religion,
mainly what he's talking about is false Christianity. Here's
Christ. There's Christ. Don't believe
him. It's a false Christ. It'll grow exponentially. And
you know what that abomination of desolation is? It goes back
to Daniel. I'm not going to go into all
that. I've already preached that. You'll just get off and message
will go too long. It's men and women standing in
pulpits claiming to preach Christ, but it's a false Christ. That's
the abomination of desolation. That holy place that he's talking
about, symbolized by the temple in Jerusalem, is now the church. And that's not what some call
replacement theology, that's fulfillment theology. The church
is the temple of God, the true church. How do you know if you're
in a true church or a false church? What's preached from the pulpit?
Is it the truth or is it a lie? Is it a true Christ or a false
Christ? True salvation. Now back here
in Revelation 11, that's what this is talking about, about
the death of the two witnesses. As we get closer to the time,
these two witnesses are going to be so scarce, the light of
the gospel, that it's going to, like they're dead, it's going
to appear to the world that they're dead. I don't believe that it's
teaching that there will be no gospel preached at all for a
time, but I believe that it's teaching that it'll be so scarce,
it'll seem like it's dead. Are we living in that day? Maybe. Maybe it'll get worse than what
it is today. We often talk about what's going to happen to the
church when all of us old heads die off. Will the Lord continue
it? I hope he will. I hope some of
you young folks will step up by the grace of God. I know it's
got to be by his grace. If this church is determined
to live on in the gospel up until the time that Christ comes back,
then that's God's will. And I hope that's so. But we
don't know. Where's the church at Ephesus
today? Where's the church at Rome? The only church at Rome
I know of is the false church. False Christ, false gospel. Where's
the church at Corinth? Are there people there who believe
the gospel today? I don't know. Maybe they are.
I hope they are. But I know he said this. He said, up until
that time, the gospel's got to be preached everywhere. And look
at verse eight. The two witnesses, it says, their
dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city. Now
what is this great city? Look on. Which spiritually, now
this tells you this is symbolic language. spiritually is called
Sodom. You know about Sodom? Homosexuality,
fornication, all of that, immorality. And then Egypt, what does Egypt
symbolize? Bondage. Remember when the Hebrew
children were delivered from the bondage of Egypt by Moses,
by God through Moses? But look what it says next. in
verse eight, where also our Lord was crucified. Our Lord wasn't
crucified in Sodom. He wasn't crucified in Egypt.
Yes, he was. But the name of the city was
Jerusalem. But Jerusalem at that time when
our Lord was crucified, they were no better off than Sodom
or Egypt. You understand? fact, later on
they're called Babylon. False religion, false political
governments, immorality, all of it but no gospel. And it says in verse nine, and
they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall
see their dead bodies three days and a half. That's a short period
of time is what that means. I don't believe you can put anything
else on that number. Three days and a half, three
and a half days. And shall not suffer their dead
bodies to be put in graves. Don't bury them, let's look at
them. Let's enjoy the sight. That's what the world's saying.
They're glad. that the gospel is scarce. And
I'll tell you the biggest comment that's made with those who are
glad. Look at y'all's numbers and look at ours. That's what
they say. We've got hundreds, thousands
in our church. Look how many we have. Well,
I'd like to have thousands, wouldn't you? But we don't have them. The Bible says the Lord adds
to his church as he sees fit. And it says in verse 10, and
they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them and make
merry. They're having a party because
the two witnesses are dead. And they'll send gifts one to
another because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on
the earth. How did they torment them? Preaching
the gospel. preaching a message that man
by nature hates because it exposes him for what he is. Dead, lost,
evil deeds. The light has come into the world
and men love darkness and hate the light because their deeds
are evil. Christ told his disciples, marvel
not if the world hates you. It hated me before it hated you.
He said, they'll throw you out of their synagogues and think
they're doing God a service and they'll kill you thinking they're
doing God's work. Look at verse 11. Here's something
to rejoice in. And after three days and a half,
that short period of time, the spirit of life from God entered
into them. Here's a resurrection of the
two witnesses. Here's a resurrection of the
truth. And they stood upon their feet and great fear fell upon
them which saw them. This is the resurrection of the
two witnesses. This victory of the beast over
the church is short-lived. Now it may seem like a long time
to us, but it's a short period of time. Remember like over in
Matthew 24, he said, except the Lord has shortened these days,
there'd be no one saved. But God has a people. Some of
them, have been brought into the light of the truth, into
the church. Others are still lost sheep wandering
out there. But God's not willing that any
of them should perish, but they should all come to repentance.
And He's going to bring them there. And understand it. Lord Jesus Christ, the church
and all the redeemed individuals who make up that church will
live spiritually and eternally, continue spiritually and eternally
by the power and grace of God in Christ who is our life and
what appeared to be dead is alive. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God in Christ, not even tribulation. And look at
verse 12, he says, and they heard a great voice from heaven. Now
that great voice from heaven, who is that? That's God. That's
the authority and the power of God. God speaks. And they heard
that great voice say, come up hither, come up here. Now, people are divided over
what that means. Some say that's the last rapture,
Christ comes back. Some say, well, it's not, it's
just a resurrection of the church to preach for a while longer.
I don't know the truth about that. I just know this, that
the two witnesses who look dead to the world and whom the world
thought that victory was won, they're deceived. The world is. You cannot kill the gospel. You
cannot kill the church. Christ said the gates of hell
will not prevail against the church. And I say, Lord, don't
let me be a doorknob or a cog or a peephole in that gate to
bring it down. They ascended up to heaven in
a cloud. That seems to me to be what the rapture is. We know
it could just simply mean that he turns their eyes towards heaven
because that's where salvation is from. But either way, it says
their enemies beheld them. This is no secret thing. Their
enemies beheld them. Verse 13, in the same hour, Was
there a great earthquake and the 10th part of the city fell?
This is why some believe it's just a, it's not the actual end
of the age. But sometimes in the Bible, the
number 10 is a representative of the whole, so you can go either
way. It doesn't matter. The issue
is there was an earthquake where it says a 10th part of the city
fell and in the earthquake were slain a men 7,000. 7,000 is a
number of completeness. 7,000 represents the whole complete
population of the elect of God. You remember when Elijah thought
he was the only one, he said, I have 7,000 men who have not
bowed the knee to Baal. Well, here 7,000 is the complete
number of the non-elect. It says 7,000 and the remnant
were afraid and they gave glory to the God of heaven. Now, how
did they give glory to the God of heaven? They were forced to
bow. Philippians chapter 2, every
knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord. Now what's our hope in all of
this? Our only hope is to run to Christ,
flee from the wrath to come, flee to Christ. Where do you
want to be? Well, I want to be where I've
got a lot of friends. I want to be where they got a
lot of, I want to be where Christ is preached. I want to be where
God is glorified in every attribute of his nature as both a just
God and a savior. And that only comes by his grace
through the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then he concludes this section by saying, the second woe was
passed. This was the second woe. And behold, the third woe cometh
quickly.