The Two Witnesses (2)
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
We pick up this week where we left off a week ago.
In 11:1-2, we saw how the church is protected by God.
He measures it.
He measures its worship and devotion.
He knows who belongs to Him and who doesn’t.
Tonight, we see this interlude between the 6th and 7th trumpets continue on through the first half of chapter 11.
And in it, we will see what the measured church is doing during the time in between the first and second coming of Christ.
During this church age, the church will be a witness for Christ and we will see that witness symbolized in two witnesses in these verses.
And through the symbol of the witnesses, we will understand not only what the church does until Christ returns, we see how the world will respond.
By the time we get down to the end tonight, we will be wrapping up this interlude and preparing for Kingdom Come. The End of the Third Cycle. The blowing of the 7th Trumpet.
Before I read the text, I just want to say that this is another passage that is hotly debated.
And it is packed with all sorts of rich imagery that requires us to keep our Old Testaments handy.
And like so much of the other ten chapters we have read so far, there are numbers and animals and symbols.
And trying to cut through all of that can be confusing and perplexing.
I think what is important is to remember that Revelation is an apocalyptic picture book.
Don’t get lost in the weeds.
Don’t get so bogged down in what this is and what that is, that you lose this vibrant picture God is giving us of His Church until the return of Christ and at the return of Christ.
And if we don’t get bogged down, I think we will walk away understanding:
The Witness of the Church (v. 3-4)
The Suffering of the Church (v. 5-10)
The Exaltation of the Church (11-14)
And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire. And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth. But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come.
THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH (v. 1-4)
THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH (v. 1-4)
We start with authority being granted to two witnesses, who will prophesy for 1260 days, clothed in sackcloth.
While the identity of the two witnesses doesn’t get people quite as emotional as the interpretation of the temple in the first two verses, it is still a subject that leaves people in a lot of disagreement.
Some say that this is Moses and Elijah because of the power and miracles they are associated with in verses 5 and 6.
Other suggest it is Enoch and Elijah because they never died in the OT. So this is them returning to witness for the Lord.
Others say it is just two random witnesses.
And these opinions do not tend to fall down interpretative lines.
What does fall down interpretative lines is whether or not these are literal people or if they are a symbol of a people, much like the temple in the first two verses.
The Left Behind view would say these two witnesses are literal people who preach during the 2nd half of a 7 year Tribulation.
I will argue that, in keeping with understanding of Revelation as a picture book, using Old Testament imagery to communicate the New Covenant to us, these witnesses are not literal
Instead, as with so much in Jewish apocalyptic literature, they are symbolic
I believe they are symbolic of the same thing the temple was symbolic of—the church.
They are presented here to tell us something about the church’s witness in between the 6th and 7th trumpets
The church’s witness in this final period of history before Christ returns and the Day of the Lord comes.
There are two of them because testimony is only confirmed in Hebrew culture if there are two or more witnesses.
On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.
They preaching about salvation, but they are also warning of the judgment that is to come.
That is why they wear sackcloth.
Like Daniel wearing sackcloth as he mourns the spiritual state of the exiled Jewish nation in Daniel 9, they mourn the dying world and how many people in it will continue to reject God despite their warning.
The witnesses are given authority by the Lord to do their prophetic ministry.
This is a reference to the authority of Christ that He has granted to His Church as they fulfill his Great Commission.
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
The church does not preach the full counsel of the Gospel—the warnings of judgment and the good news of salvation, in their own authority.
She preaches it by the authority of Christ.
When she accepts people into her membership and affirms their salvation, the church is binding and loosing, but not in her own authority.
By the authority given to her by Christ as the Kingdom expands and the Great Commission is fulfilled.
And this prophetic ministry will last 1260 days.
I believe this 1260 days is just another way of saying 42 months or 3.5 years, or as we will see in a few moments—3.5 days.
We are talking about about the last half of Daniel’s 70th week.
I taught last week that Daniel 9 pushes us to see Daniel’s 70th week as symbolic.
The first half of the week refers to Jesus’ saving ministry.
The last half refers to the age of the church, when the church is on her mission to advance the Kingdom.
The 1260 days are a symbol to tell us that the church will prophesy her authoritative witness for entire age of the church.
At the end of that time, Christ will return and the time for proclamation and repentance will be over.
Now, with all that said, what fuels the witness of these two proclaimers? What is the power behind their testimony? This is where we can look at verse 4.
There are two olives trees and two lampstands before the Lord of the earth.
This language is clearly borrowing from Zechariah 4:2-6
And he said to me, “What do you see?” I said, “I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it. And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.” And I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?”
We have two olive trees just like Revelation 11:4 and we have a lampstand, which has become two in Revelation 11...
Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
Zerubbabel is the kingly figure who serves as governor and is charged to rebuild the temple.
Then he said, “These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.”
Who is the other anointed one? It is a reference back to chapter 3.
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.
This is Joshua the High Priest at the time Israel’s return from Exile
Together, Zechariah 4 sees Zerubbabel—a royal figure, and Joshua, a priestly figure, standing as anointed ones.
Zerubbabel the royal governor will build and Joshua. the holy priest, will lead in worship.
By associating the two witnesses in chapter 11 with these two anointed figures, we are learning that the witnesses are not just prophets, but also have a kingly and priestly aspect to their ministry.
Certainly that squares with what we know of the church in the rest of Revelation, doesn’t it?
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
We are co-heirs of God’s majestic kingdom.
We are priests in the service of the Lord with full access to the Lord through Christ.
And we are prophets proclaiming the salvation of the Lord and warning of judgment.
And as the church filled with royal, priestly witnesses goes about her prophetic ministry for 1260 days, she burns like a lampstand.
Where does a lampstand get its oil?
From olive trees.
If the lampstands are the witnesses—another way of describing the church, then what is the olive oil that keeps our lamps burning?
What is the oil that keeps the flame of our witness blazing in this dark world?
It is the Holy Spirit.
The same Spirit who would help Zerubabbel rebuild Jerusalem. Remember Zechariah 4:6?
Zechariah 4:6 (ESV)
Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
The Church will not proclaim the Gospel during this age and the church will not advance the Kingdom by our own might or power or programs and ideas.
It will be by the same Spirit who empowered the re-building of the walls as Israel left Exile.
The same Spirit who rested on our Lord as He proclaimed liberty to the captives
The same Spirit who empowered the witness of the apostles at Pentecost
He is the One empowering the mission of the church.
All Gospel-preaching churches and certainly THIS church.
THE SUFFERING OF THE CHURCH (v. 5-10)
THE SUFFERING OF THE CHURCH (v. 5-10)
But will the message be accepted?
No. We know that.
We saw it last week.
The church is the measured temple. The outer court is not measured because it belongs spiritual Gentiles—unbelievers who do not know Christ and cannot draw near by the blood of His sacrifice.
But what is the unbelieving world doing during the last half of Daniel’s 70th week? What are they doing during the age of the church?
They are trampling it.
They hate the Gospel and the God at the center of it, so they trample the courts.
If you look at verse 7, we have opposition to the witness of the church again. This time, instead of trampling, we get our first look at one of Christ’s greatest enemies in Revelation—the Beast.
We will really get to know the Beast in Revelation 13...
We do not have time to go deep tonight, but I will quickly say—in the 4th Cycle, we will see Satan and his followers trying to counterfeit the work of God, much like Pharaoh in Exodus.
Satan, the Dragon, will counterfeit God the Father.
The False Prophet will attempt to counterfeit the Holy Spirit.
And the mangy Beast rising from the bottomless pit is meant to counterfeit the Son—Jesus.
So the Beast is Jesus’ direct opposition in the upcoming cycle.
This is a foretaste.
I will pull up one verse from chapter 13—Revelation 13:7
Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation,
Do you see how that verse parallels Revelation 11:7?
And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them,
This is one of the reasons I am so sure that the two witnesses are the church
In both cases, we have the beast killing them with similar language in both verses
If its the church in 13:7, I have no reason to think it isn’t the church in 11:7.
The Beast is a symbol of the oppressive governments of the world that persecute the church.
We will get into why we believe that is the case in a few weeks.
It comes from the bottomless pit from chapter 9—that is Hell.
That tells us that this state-sponsored hatred of the church is Satanic.
Some see all of this as taking place in the future, but I do not. And I know that isn’t a surprise.
I believe that what the Scriptures are showing us is that as the church witnesses for Christ, Satan will oppose the witness by inciting governing authorities to persecute the church and snuff out the witness.
And this has happened throughout church history.
It is happening now.
It will keep happening until Christ comes back.
For the believers sitting in the Asia Minor churches, they understood the Beast to be Rome—the empire breathing down the neck of the church, demanding they bow down to Caesar as a god
For the followers of John Wycliffe, who were being burned alive for teaching their kids the Lord’s Prayer in English, it was the King of England.
For Afghani believers who are hunted and killed for their faith, it is the extremist Islamic government that allows the Islamic State and the Taliban to run amok and kill our brothers and sisters
And if our country told us we could no longer exercise our religious liberty and gather for worship and proclaim the Gospel, it would be the government of the United States
Even now, Christians in our country experience cases of persecution where they are treated unfairly for their faith by our government in certain contexts and situations
But these enemies of the church should think twice before they start firing at us.
Look at what John writes in verses 5 and 6:
And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.
These verses are why the two witnesses so often are associated with Elijah and Moses.
Verse 5 directly refers to the scene in 1 Kings 18 when Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal and Asherah at Mt. Carmel.
Elijah tells King Ahab to send 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah to Carmel.
So it is hundreds of prophets vs just one
The prophets of Baal set up a sacrifice for their god and they scream at the sky for hours and nothing happens
Elijah suggests their gods are using the bathroom
Elijah then prepares his offering and covers the altar with water to make the whole thing even more dramatic and impressive and God consumes the altar with fire from heaven
There was a showdown and God won. It was not close. His enemies saw His consuming fire rain down and the people of Israel knew the Lord is God.
Verse 6 is all about Moses. It is referring to the miraculous deeds God did through Moses during the Exodus.
It was the same thing. Instead of Ahab and Baal and Asherah, it was Pharaoh and his magicians setting themselves up as being more powerful than God.
In the end, God beats the land and the people down with plagues until they let the people go.
Pharaoh is barely in control in the whole narrative. His heart is literally in the hands of God and is hardened and God’s will.
In the end, Pharaoh’s army are washed away in defeat while God’s people stand victorious on the other side of the Red Sea.
There was a showdown and God won. It was not close. Everyone saw that He is the Lord over all the earth—not Pharaoh.
So then, I don’t see these verses as depicting two literal prophets who will pour literal fire from their mouths and literally strike the earth with plagues if people try to stop their witness.
Instead, I see two symbolic witnesses who represent the church.
And if you want to mess with the witness of the church and try to stop it—like the governments of this world are prone to do—it is a really bad idea.
Because the church preaches in the same spirit as Moses and Elijah, with the same message of repentance as Moses and Elijah, and if you want to come up against it—you will get the same result as the enemies of Moses and Elijah.
God will consume you.
Maybe now—maybe later.
But if you mess with the Church and her witness, you have made yourself a terrible enemy in the God of the Universe.
And yet, verses 8-10 show us that the world will not stop. The Beast will not stopped.
As suicidal as it is, the world tries to fight God and harm His witnessing ambassadors—His Church.
The Beast will kill the witnesses and their bodies are in the streets of the great city in verse 8.
This is about martyrdom.
Over the last 2000 years from Stephen to Paul to Tyndale to the five Nigerian believers beheaded on video by ISIS in December of 2019, the authorities of the world have sought to stop the Gospel by killing those giving its witness.
John says their body is the street of the “great city” that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where Jesus was crucified.
What is this great city whose streets hold the dead bodies of the witnesses?
Well Jerusalem is where Jesus was crucified.
But Jerusalem is symbolically called Sodom and Egypt.
Sodom is the city of sin in the Old Testament.
But Egypt’s mentioning is odd because Egypt is not a city. It is a country.
Nonetheless, it is a symbol of rebellion against God.
So what is all this about? If the witnesses are the church, why are they dead in Jerusalem and why is it called Sodom and Egypt?
Here is Joel Beeke on this:
Jerusalem is not to be seen as a literal city, but as a symbol of the place where Christ was crucified. That city is constantly reappearing in history. It appears under different names, such as Sodom, Egypt, Babylon, Rome, New York, Paris and London. The city is a symbol of any place where men and women, egged on by the beast from the pit, shout against Christ, “Crucify Him; Crucify Him!” This opposition appears wherever men and women, motivated by the devil, set themselves up against Christ and His people.
The Church is the Body of Christ. Christ is the Head.
If you want to chop her Head off, who are you really trying to kill? The church or Jesus?
See, the Beast wants to crucify Jesus over and over. But it can’t.
So instead, it attacks His body and then as His church falls dead in the streets, they celebrate it like Christmas.
Look at verses 9 and 10.
“Those who dwell on the earth” refuse to give the witnesses the dignity of a proper burial.
They want the bodies of the witnesses to lie in the streets so they can rejoice and give each other presents and have a big celebration over how the witnesses were killed.
They rejoice because the prophetic Gospel that the witnesses preach were a torment to them.
The Gospel we preach is a torment to the unbelieving world.
It takes authority from them and gives it back to the One it belongs to—God.
It requires them to admit their wrong and to repent—to surrender.
It beckons them to bow their knee to Christ as Lord and give up on their own agenda.
It tells them that their warped morality is way off and that they must agree with God about that and turn from it and surrender to His way of living.
It means they must put their trust in Him and not in themselves or any idol that they love and cherish.
So when the church comes witnessing the world responds with violence toward the message.
It makes no sense. It is a message of love and salvation, but sin has warped them to hear it as a message of hatred.
So they take a sword to the church and then they dance over her corpse in the streets.
I referred to Joel Beeke earlier. His work on Revelation has been indispensible to me.
He offers three examples from recent history of times when the world took the sword to the church and celebrated her apparent death.
From 1928 to 1941, the Soviet Union had an anti-religion campaign where they burned down churches and they imprisoned and killed clergyman.
And as they did it, they celebrated the death of Christianity and the birth of “scientific atheism,” which they taught in their schools and through their media.
Mao, the leader of China for much of the last century, killed somewhere between 40 and 80 million people through all sorts of terrible means.
Many of them were Christians, as the Chinese Communist Party sought to stamp out Christianity in China.
Famously, the French diest Voltaire celebrated that Christianity was almost dead.
One hundred years after he died, Voltaire’s home was being used as a Bible storage facility.
All three of these are examples of how the world wants to kill the church and leave the body of bride of Christ in the streets to be eaten and picked over by the birds.
They want to celebrate her death the way we currently celebrate Christ’s birth—with presents and rejoicing.
This is the way things have been. This is the way things are. And this is how it will be until Jesus comes back.
This is the nature of the church age.
And we know we are dealing with the church age because we have the numbers to guide us:
The witnesses are dead in the streets for 3.5 days.
Again—the last half of Daniel’s 70th week.
1260 days. 42 months. 3.5 years—or 3.5 days.
But what happens AFTER the 3.5 days?
THE EXALTATION OF THE CHURCH (v. 11-14)
THE EXALTATION OF THE CHURCH (v. 11-14)
We finally get some good news here!
They are dancing on our graves and then, after the last half of Daniel’s 70th week ends, Christ will return and resurrect His church.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
They stand up on their feet as God breathes His resurrecting life to them.
It is meant to remind us of Ezekiel 37...
Where the hand of the Lord is upon Ezekiel and there is a valley of dry bones
And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
And when the Church is resurrected, the people who were rejoicing are now afraid.
They see the Church go up to heaven—not in a secret rapture, but in a very public rapture, and they know that they are in trouble (v. 12).
So then, in verse 13, there is a great earthquake a 10th of the city falls and 7000 are killed.
After the earthquake, anyone who is not killed is terrified all over again and they give glory to the God of heaven.
The earthquake you see here is a sign to us that the 2nd Coming is happening.
The end is underway.
At the blowing of the 7th Trumpet, we have Kingdom Come.
The judgment of Satan and evil and the beginning of the new heavens and the new earth—the eternal age of glory.
We know this is the end because it follows the pattern of the seals and the bowls.
The sixth seal was the seal that marked the end. The 2nd Coming.
What happens when it is opened?
When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood,
The same goes for 7th bowl, which represents the 2nd Coming
The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake.
So the same thing is happening here. The earthquake in verse 13 signals the end. The Day of the Lord.
When the Day of the Lord occurs, we are told that 7000 are killed and 10th of the city fell.
The 7000 is probably a reference to the remnant that do not worship Baal in the days of Elijah
Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
The 10th is probably a reference to the faithful remnant in the days of Isaiah and Amos
For thus says the Lord God:
“The city that went out a thousand
shall have a hundred left,
and that which went out a hundred
shall have ten left
to the house of Israel.”
And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains
when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.
These are symbolic numbers showing us how things have flipped on their head in judgment.
1/10th and 7000 are hopeful numbers that represent a repentant and contrite remnant who are redeemed.
But now these are numbers of death.
They do not represent a redeemed remnant, but the firstfruits of judged unbelievers in the world.
Before Final Judgment even falls, God is taking people out with a natural disaster.
Verse 13 says that anyone who does not die is terrified and gives glory to God.
I don’t think this means what we might think right off the bat.
Initially this looks like worship, but is that really the response of the unbelieving world in Revelation?
No—they respond to God’s judgment with fear and hardheartedness, not worship.
And do we really see this taught in the Bible anywhere? That just before final judgment comes, a portion of humanity is killed and then everyone left repents and worships?
Not at all. In Revelation, it is truly just the opposite. Again we look to the pattern of the seals and the bowls to help us with the trumpets.
When the earthquake comes and the Day of the Lord follows with the opening of the 6th seal, what do people do?
Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
Their response is to begrudgingly recognize that God belongs on His throne.
Through gritted teeth they admit Jesus is the Lamb.
But they don’t worship. They ask for creation to crush them so they can hide.
They would rather die by the very creation they worship than by the hand of their Creator.
When the earthquake comes in chapter 16 with the 7th bowl, how do the people of the earth respond?
And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.
As creation is coming undone and hail is killing people as it falls from the sky—people are talking to God by cursing at Him.
So then, in keeping with that pattern, I don’t think the glory in 11:13 is worship. I think it is the people who dwell on the earth bowing their knee to Christ the Lord in judgment.
They are admitting who He is, but it is not joyful.
They glorify Christ in a submissive admittance—not a faith-filled confession.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess.
You either bow in worshipful surrender or bitter judgment, but you will bow to Him as Lord and God WILL get the glory.
But as horrible as it is that many will perish in their sins and their rebellion, how much do we rejoice knowing that the church will be vindicated?
How much do we rejoice knowing that we are co-heirs with Christ and as a kingdom of priests, we will reign with Him forever.
Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
In the same way that the Dragon used the Beast to pierce the Lamb and then rejoiced thinking the Lamb was slain, the Dragon uses the Beast to pierce the Lamb’s Bride, the Church.
And they rejoice thinking Christ’s body has been killed.
But in the same manner that our Lord was raised, we will be raised.
And while they danced over our bodies in the streets, in the end, we will be the ones dancing.
They will be the ones bowing in defeat.
We will have life. They will have death.
We will overcome, they will be overcome.
We are victors in Christ. They are conquered.
So do not lose hope when they cut off the heads of our family members or tell us we can’t preach.
Don’t lose hope when it seems like the church is being persecuted and the light is going out.
Don’t lose hope when you feel like the darkness is overcoming God’s people.
It will not.
The sting of death is gone and we will be vindicated in the same pattern of Christ.
We witness like Him.
We suffer like Him.
But in the end, we are reigning with Him.
Therefore, be faithful. Do not lose hope.
In two weeks, we see heaven.