Two Witnesses!

Revelation 11:3-6

Two Witnesses!

Revelation 11:3-6, And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.” ⁴ These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. ⁵ And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. 6 These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy; and they have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they desire. Revelation chapter ¹¹ is another interlude. There are several of them in the book of Revelation. Another interlude before the final fury in a series of judgments that will take place in the future time of tribulation to come on the whole world, a time called the day of the Lord.

We are in this seven-year period called the time of tribulation. A future time just prior to the return of Christ to establish His earthly kingdom. This time began to unfold as seven seals were broken, seven seals that sealed a scroll.

That scroll was the title deed to the earth. As each seal was broken, another phase of judgment occurs, which is part of the plan to take back the earth and the universe from the usurper Satan and give it to the rightful heir to Jesus Christ.

As we have seen seal number six was broken but before number seven, there was an interlude, a pause before the final and most severe judgment, the judgment of the seventh seal. Soon we will be looking at seven bowl judgments.

The seven seal judgments stretch across seven years. The seven bowl judgments happen rapid fire right at the very end of the time period, one right after the other. We will study six of them, and then we will see another interlude. There will be an interlude just before the seventh bowl, as there was before the seventh seal.

Between the seals and the bowls is a series of judgments that don’t take as long as the seals and aren’t as brief as the bowls, called the seven trumpet judgments.

We have gone through six of them, and now we are in the interlude before the seventh. So, in each case there is a pause, or an interlude before the final and seventh judgment. The purpose of the interlude is the same in all three cases.

It is to comfort and encourage the saints alive at that time. Because they will be engulfed in the sixth seals, the six trumpets, and the six bowl judgments to some degree. They are going to be wondering just exactly what is going on and is the Lord still in control.

In each case before the final and worst judgment, the Lord stops to pause long enough to remind them of comforting truth about His care for His own. The seven seals have been opened, the universe is being judged, taken back from the usurper by Jesus Christ. Those opened seals have brought divine wrath in the form of false peace, wars, famines, earthquakes, pestilence, and death.

The seventh seal then released the seven trumpets which included the destruction of a third of the plants, all the grass, a third of the seas, a third of the creatures in them, a third of the ships, a third of the fresh water, one-third of the sun and the moon.

The release of demons bound for millennia in the pit to torment men. 200 million more hellish friends kill a third of all mankind with fire, brimstone and smoke. All of that has already gone by in this brief seven-year period known as the time of tribulation to come upon the earth.

Before the seventh trumpet blows and releases the seven bowls, however, which will be the worst judgment yet, comes this brief respite for the Lord to show His people that He is still caring for them, still effecting His purpose.

This pause is a long one. It takes up Revelation 10:1-11:14. God will have His testimony during that future time. John took a long time to understand it because its bittersweet. ➢ Sweetness, because righteousness will reign and judgment on sinners will come.

➢ Bitterness, because the ungodly will be destroyed. John must write down and prophesy. The record must be kept, so that in that day it can be read by saints who are wondering what is going on. If you are one living during that time, if you were to experience that you would be searching the Scripture for some explanation, and you would find the interlude very comforting.

Because in the midst of all the judgment they would tell you that God is still in control. Revelation 11 looks at two witnesses. These two witnesses will appear to proclaim salvation, to call men to repentance, as well as to warn about judgment.

Until the end of judgment, God will have His witness. He will have His written witness in the book of Revelation which will be chronology everything that is going on. ✓ God is still gracious, ✓ God is still merciful, ✓ God is still working His plan.

Right to the end, the Word of God will be in their hands. God will have His preachers, not only the 144,000 who have been sealed from any harm to preach the gospel. Not only an innumerable number of Gentiles who have been redeemed, many of whom have been martyred.

The nation of Israel which eventually will turn in repentance, looking upon their Messiah and believing. But God will also have in addition to those people to testify to the gospel, a flying angel going through heaven preaching the everlasting gospel.

God will also have two amazing preachers on the earth. They will be there to warn about the judgment. When they are done, the seventh trumpet will blow, and the seven-bowl judgments will come rapid fire, and the Lord will return in flaming judgment to destroy sinners and demons and establish His kingdom on the earth.

Revelation 11:1-2, John is drawn into the vision and given a measuring rod. He is told to rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship in it. Leave out the court, which is outside the temple, do not measure it. Because it has been given to the nations. They will tread underfoot the Holy City for ⁴² months.

The temple symbolizes the Jews, and God is measuring out the temple because it belongs to Him. It is symbolizing that the Jews are God’s possession. Despite all the judgment and demons, Satan, and Antichrist overrunning the earth, God will bring Israel to salvation and the kingdom.

Now a new invincible evangelistic force is going to be added. The final two great instruments of the salvation of the nation of Israel, those Jews that are yet not saved. Even during Gentile trampling on the Holy City, the persecution and slaughter of the Jews, Jews will be being saved, and a great

catalyst in their salvation as we shall see in this chapter will be these two amazing preachers. The Jews who have not been converted at the preaching of the 144,000 or the everlasting angel, or the testimony of other converted Jews or converted Gentiles, whatever Jews have not been killed and destroyed, whatever Jews still remain, and their hearts are open will come to faith in their Messiah through the preaching of these two witnesses.

V 13, In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven. These two messengers are crucial, and they play a very important role in the last component of bringing salvation to Israel.

Then Messiah can come, destroy the ungodly, and set up the kingdom promised to Israel and to all who love Christ. V 3, And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.”

1260 days, 42 months, and 3 ½ years.

During that final 3 ½ years while Jerusalem is being trampled by Antichrist and his worldwide Gentile force that are massacring all the Jews they can! During that period these two witnesses will have a powerful witness. Despite pagan oppression God will get His message out so that Israel will believe and many others from among the Gentile nations surely will believe the testimony of these two great preachers.

V 3, “And I will grant authority to My two witnesses.” The personal pronoun, this would have to be one of either two persons: God the Father, or the Lord Jesus Christ. The word “witness,” Martus in the Greek, always refers to persons.

These aren’t books, these aren’t videos, these aren’t motion pictures these are people. The word “witness,” Martus in the Bible gives us our English word “martyr.” The reason we think of a martyr as someone who died is because so many witnesses to the truth of Christ gave their life that the word “witness” became synonymous with dying.

So frequently did they seal their testimony in their blood.

Two is a very important number. Two was the Old Testament number for the confirmation of any testimony. Any time there was testimony it needed to be confirmed by at least two witnesses.

Deuteronomy 17:6, Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness.

Deuteronomy 19:15, Numbers 35:30. Hebrews 10:28,

Matthew 18:16, and John 8:17. Two witnesses granted authority from God the Father and/or from the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are to give testimony to God, testimony to Christ, testimony to the gospel and to God’s judgment. 1. Duty. V 3, “And they will prophesy.”

The word “prophesy” doesn’t have the primary sense of predicting the future, but of standing before someone and preaching.

It could be translated, “They will preach.” They will stand before the world, and they will preach.

What will they preach? Judgment. They will interpret what is going on for the 3 ½ years of their ministry. Three-and-a-half years begins the time of terrifying judgment, the time after the abomination of the desolation when the Antichrist sets up his rule in the world and proclaim himself as God. Demands that everybody worship him as God or die.

The judgment of God, the Antichrist, all the things and through the trumpet judgments will be going on, and these two men will be standing before the world preaching judgment.

• They will be warning about hell to follow.
• They will be warning about Antichrist, about the demons running over the earth, wounding and injuring people and even killing them with fire and brimstone.
• They will be calling men and women to salvation.
• They will be presenting the gospel.
• They will be saying the age of grace is not yet over, the time of mercy has not ceased.

These two preachers will do this for 1260 days, 42 months, 3 ½ years.

Period of their preaching and predicting judgments is the same as the period of trampling of the Holy City. Same as the period of the reign of Antichrist, the hiding of Israel, the time of Jacob’s trouble. It’s the last half, the great tribulation.

2. Attitude. V 3, “They are clothed in sackcloth.” Sackcloth is about as primitive a garment as you can imagine. Sackcloth is rough, coarse, heavy. Sackcloth was used in ancient times uniquely by the prophets.

Isaiah 22:12, And in that day the Lord God of hosts Called for weeping and for mourning, For baldness and for girding with sackcloth.

Jeremiah 6:26, O daughter of my people, Dress in sackcloth And roll about in ashes! Make mourning as for an only son, most bitter lamentation; For the plunderer will suddenly come upon us.

The prophets used it was whenever they were prophesying judgment.

They took a mourning posture, a sad posture, and a posture of humility.

• It was expressive of sadness.
• It was expressive of humility.
• It was expressive of penitence.

When people wanted to repent, they would clothe themselves in sackcloth and put ashes on their head. A true repentant Jew would do.

Matthew 11:21, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

Luke 10:13, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

These two prophets, and their attitude is humility. Their attitude is sorrow, sadness. They are not dressed in festival garments. They are not happy on the coming judgment and damnation. It is then worn by these two express the great sorrow and mourning they feel over the wicked world, the judgment of God

falling constantly around them in the seal, the trumpet, and the bowl judgments.

• They are mourning over the desecration of the temple.
• They are mourning over the ascendancy of Antichrist.
• They are mourning over the devastation of Jerusalem.

Jacob put on sackcloth when his sons came and said that his brother Joseph had been slain by wild beasts. When David heard of the cruel murder of Abner, the captain of his host, he rent his garments, and to mourn over Abner he put on sackcloth.

In the terrible famine in Samaria, two mothers had agreed that on one day the first mother would boil her son. Because they were starving would eat the first mother’s son. Then when that child was devoured, they would eat the other woman’s son. But one of the women hid her son when the first baby was eaten, and in their altercation, they had brought their quarrel to the king of Samaria. In desperation in the midst of the terrible famine the king was seen walking along the top of his wall.

How could he resolve such a horrific issue? He tore his clothes in unspeakable sorrow, and the people below looked and saw that he wore the garment of sackcloth underneath his royal robe.

When Sennacherib the clever and the able military genius of the winged bull of Asher swept down and carried away the northern kingdom of Israel, he then placed his armies around Jerusalem as men would hold a piece of iron in a vice. Hezekiah with a heavy heart went up to the house of the Lord, and he was clothed in sackcloth.

It’s a garment of mourning. It’s a garment of sorrow. It’s a garment of sadness. 3. Identity. V 4, These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. The description of these two witnesses as two olive trees and two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth is right out of the prophecy of Zechariah.

John has drawn on Zechariah’s prophecy before. John refers to the unique discussion in Zechariah chapters 3 and 4. Two olive trees and two lampstands that stand before the Lord is all terminology that is part of the vision of Zechariah 3 and 4.

Zechariah the prophet had some amazing visions from God. We have gone through the book of Zechariah. Zechariah visions are both near and far fulfilment. There is a near historic fulfilment and a far future messianic fulfilment.

The prophecies that came by way of vision to Zechariah reveal to him matters related to the rebuilding of the temple in his own time as well as the restoration of the kingdom in the end time. The things revealed to Zechariah focused historically on the rebuilding of the temple in his own time.

Zechariah was alive between Ezra and Nehemiah when the rebuilding of the temple took place historically. But those prophecies not only focused on that time, but they looked forward to the full restoration of the kingdom in the end time, the kingdom promised to Israel when the Messiah would reign.

Zechariah lived between Ezra and Nehemiah. The rebuilding of the temple had been approved in Ezra’s time but was not being done. God used Zechariah to get them moving to encourage two men to lead the building and the restoration. Those two men were very important men.

One was a priest and the other was a ruler. ➢ Joshua the High Priest. ➢ Zerubbabel the governor or the ruler. Zechariah to motivate Joshua and Zerubbabel to get on with the business of building the temple. Joshua had a vested interest he was the high priest.

Zerubbabel he was the ruler of the land. The Jews of Zechariah’s time knew they had sinned, and they feared they had no basis for God’s favour. They knew God would not tolerate their evil, faithless, vacillating hearts. They were sure God was through with them.

They were sure they would never see the temple rebuilt. They were sure they would never be restored to the place of blessing. God gives a vision to Zechariah to encourage them, to show them that the promise of restoration was still in place.

Zechariah 3:1, Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him.

Joshua as high priest is the representative for the nation. The high priest was the representative before God of the whole nation. Joshua then is the symbol of the nation of Israel. He is standing before the Lord. He was there pleading the cause of his people like any good priest. Begging God to be gracious, merciful, forgiving, and to restore the people, to give them back their temple and city.

But Satan was there too. The book of Revelation says that he is the accuser of the brethren night and day before the throne of God. Satan was accusing Joshua. Satan is standing right there at the right hand of God accusing Joshua.

Zechariah 3:2, And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” Amazingly, the wicked, fallen archangel of God is standing at the right hand of God accusing Joshua, and the people he represents of being so sinful they are unworthy of God’s favour.

God rebuked Satan for questioning His promise to restore Israel.

Zechariah 3:3, Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel. Joshua was a sinful man like all men. In this vision he sees Joshua in a filthy garment. There is no hiding his sin and he needs to be cleansed.

Zechariah 3:4-5, Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, “Take away the filthy garments from him.” And to him He said, “See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.” 5 And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the Angel of the Lord stood by. Here is the forgiveness. Here is the cleansing. Here is the removal of guilt from Joshua.

God is saying, “I am going to forgive My people. I am going to forgive this nation. I am reiterating My promise of salvation and covenant. And if My people meet My conditions, I will restore them.”

Zechariah 3:6-7, Then the Angel of the Lord admonished Joshua, saying, ⁷ “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘If you will walk in My ways, And if you will keep My command, Then you shall also judge My

house, And likewise have charge of My courts; I will give you places to walk Among these who stand here.

Who are they? Angels. God is saying that if you will just obey Me and walk in My ways and do My service, I will allow you to govern My house and take charge of My courts. I will grant you access to holy angels. I will restore you as a nation. I will give you back your identity and back your kingdom and back your temple. I will restore you as My priest nation, even as I have restored your own high priest.

It is all based on God’s free, sovereign, electing love, and not for any merit or work yet they must be obedient. Such grace does not excuse disobedience, it demands it.

Zechariah 3:8, ‘Hear, O Joshua, the high priest, You and your companions who sit before you, For they are a wondrous sign; For behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.

Who is this? The Messiah. We have jumped from history present in Zechariah’s time to the very end.

Zechariah 3:9-10, For behold, the stone That I have laid before Joshua: Upon the stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave its inscription,’ Says the Lord of hosts, ‘And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. ¹⁰ In that day,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘Everyone will invite his neighbour Under his vine and under his fig tree.’ ”

The promise that the Messiah will come, called the BRANCH. The promise that the Messiah will set up His kingdom, God in one day at the coming of Jesus Christ will remove iniquity. In that day He will set up His kingdom, and everyone will invite his neighbour to sit under His vine and under His fig tree.

What is that? Peace and Holiness. Zechariah is seeing then is a near fulfilment and a far fulfilment. So, God chooses Joshua the high priest. He chooses Joshua to stand before Him as the cleansed and forgiven servant in the new temple to be built in a new Israel, a new Israel come back from its captivity.

It is all symbolic of an ultimate, final restoration and eternal glory in the kingdom that Messiah will bring at His second coming.

Now Joshua knows that restoration is promised where there is obedience, and he can begin to move the people toward that restoration. Another key player is the ruler by the name of Zerubbabel.

Zechariah 4:1-3, Now the angel who talked with me came back and wakened me, as a man who is wakened out of his sleep. ² And he said to me, “What do you see?” So I said, “I am looking, and there is a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. ³ Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left.” Did you notice there we run into the lampstands and the olive trees, just as it said in Revelation chapter 11?

What he is describing here is the menorah, the Jewish candle with the seven lights on it, one in the middle, and then the three on each side. The bowl is an oil vessel. Above this an automated menorah, because there is a bowl up there that constantly drips oil flowing into the lamps by gravity.

This is the vision he sees it has seven spouts. The bowl comes down, it divides into seven spouts, each of those spouts dispersing oil constantly to the seven lamps.

Then there are two olive trees. What kind of oil did they burn in a lamp? Olive oil. The two olive trees are producing the oil that goes into the bowl that is disseminated out of the seven spouts that goes into the lamps to keep the light burning.

Automatic oil supply with no human agency. God is going to keep this whole thing moving without any human involvement.

Zechariah 4:4-6, So I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me, saying, “What are these, my lord?” 5 Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” And I said, “No, my lord.” ⁶ So he answered and 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.

God is saying that I want Zerubbabel to know that without any human might, and power, God is going to keep the nation of Israel alive. God is going to keep the lamp lit. God is going to flow the oil from the two olive trees.

Zechariah 4:7-10, ‘Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain! And he shall bring forth the capstone With shouts of “Grace, grace to it!” ’ ” ⁸ Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ⁹ “The hands of Zerubbabel Have laid the foundation of this temple; His hands shall also finish it. Then you will know That the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you. ¹⁰ For who has despised the day of small things? For these seven rejoice to see The plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. They are the eyes of the Lord, Which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth.”

What he is saying is there are two olive trees are going to be the divine instruments by which God keeps Israel alighted. Those two olive trees represent Joshua and Zerubbabel. Two men whom God would use to restore Israel.

• Joshua would be the instrument of the spiritual revival.
• Zerubbabel would be the instrument of the rebuilding.
• Zerubbabel would rebuild the temple by God’s power.
• Joshua would bring about the revival.

Between them, priest and king, they brought about the restoration of Israel to God, and the restoration of Israel to its definition as a kingdom.

Zechariah 4:11-14, ‘Then I answered and said to him, “What are these two olive trees—at the right of the lampstand and at its left?” ¹² And I further answered and said to him, “What are these two olive branches that drip [c]into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the golden oil drains?” ¹³ Then he answered me and said, “Do you not know what these are?” And I said, “No, my lord.” ¹⁴ So he said, “These are the two anointed ones, who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth.” Two oil trees that produce oil. Two branches. Two pipes. Two anointed ones standing by the Lord, through whom the supply of the Spirit flows continually to bring salvation and restoration.

Who are they? Joshua and Zerubbabel. Back to Revelation. When we read that God has two witnesses in the end time called two olive trees and two lampstands, we now know exactly what that means. God is getting ready for the salvation and the restoration of the people of Israel.

God is in the midst of renewal. God is in the midst of restoration, as He was in the days of Joshua and Zerubbabel. Only this time the new temple will be the Millennial temple. The new commitment will be national salvation.

The new worship will be centred on the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Magnificent imagery. Joshua and Zerubbabel were God’s instruments for the ancient restoration of Israel. They were olive trees, golden pipes through whom the Holy Spirit’s power was flowing.

So will the final two witnesses be: olive trees, golden pipes. It won’t be by human power or human might that they will be used to bring about the restoration. These two play that primary and culminating role in bringing Israel to salvation. They become the most powerful preachers to bring redemption to the last part of the remnant.

Who are they? They could be Moses and Elijah returned to the earth.

V 5-6, And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. ⁶ These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy; and they have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they desire.

They bring fire, drought, water turned to blood, and smiting the earth with every plague are very similar to judgments inflicted in the Old Testament by Moses and Elijah. Elijah during his life brought down fire from heaven.

2 Kings chapter 1, so that it consumed the enemies of God. He also shut off rain from heaven, 1 Kings 17, James 5:17. Moses turned water into blood and smote the people of Egypt with all kinds of plagues, according to Exodus 7 - 10.

The second reason it might be Moses and Elijah. Prophecy has some predictions regarding them in the future.

Malachi 4:1, “For behold, the day is coming, Burning like an oven, And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up,” Says the Lord of hosts, “That will leave them neither root nor branch.

Malachi 4:5-6, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

⁶ And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” The Jews believed that before the end at the setting up of the kingdom, Moses would come, and they based it on

Deuteronomy 18:15 to 18, “That prophet like unto Moses.” Both of those traditional and typical Jewish expectations seem to be combined in John 1:21.

John 1:21, And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” So there has always been the belief among the Jews that Moses and Elijah would come back. Both Moses and Elijah were seen in the preview of the second coming.

The transfiguration. In Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9, when the disciples were taken up in the mountain, Jesus was transfigured before them, and they saw Him in a preview of His second coming glory Moses and Elijah appeared.

Both Moses and Elijah were used by God to bring supernatural means of suffering on people for the purpose of stimulating repentance. ➢ Moses represents the law ➢ Elijah represents the prophets. Both Moses and Elijah left this life in unusual ways.

Elijah didn’t die, he went up to heaven in a chariot of fire, 2 Kings 2. Moses’ body was never found, and it was disputed over. God wanting to retain for His own purposes.

Why would God want it? Maybe He wanted it so He could use it again. Elijah never died. What about the statements in the Gospels that if people had believed in Jesus Christ, John the Baptist would have been that, Elijah?

Matthew 11:13-14, For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. ¹⁴ And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. If you had believed, then John would have been the Elijah. In other words, if you had believed in Christ and He set up His

kingdom, then John would have fulfilled the prophecy that Elijah was going to come. In the very description of John in Luke 1 it says He came in the spirit and the power of Elijah. Some say it couldn’t possibly be Moses and Elijah, because Moses died, and it’s appointed unto man once to die, and you can’t die twice.

Wrong. That argument won’t work. Lazarus died twice. So did everybody else who was raised from the dead. The length of the drought that Elijah brought is exactly the same as the length of the drought that these two witnesses bring.

Elijah is good at three-and-a-half-day deals. Not just that, but three-and-half-year droughts. For that’s the nature of this drought and the one which he brought.