Revelation 11:1-14

July 26, 2020

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 22:00 in the audio file.

Or, Being on the Wrong Side of Prophecy

At a certain point, trying to be winsome is worthless. I believe in trying to be winsome, trying to demonstrate that something is attractive or appealing, because Solomon said it was wise. Sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness (Proverbs 16:21, 23), and words seasoned with salt increase desire and can be used to change another’s mind (see Colossians 4:6). There come times, however, when it would take an act of God to get someone to realize how dangerous it is to be on the wrong side of prophecy.

In Revelation 11 God raises up two witnesses who prophecy for three and a half years, witnesses who cause nuisance and aggravation among the earth-dwellers (see verse 10) that provoke assaults. For forty-two months the witnesses are given power by God not only to stand before Him as the Lord of the earth (verse 4), and to make powerful testimony as lampstands in a dark place, they also withstand those who desire to harm them. Fire comes from their mouths and consumes their foes (verse 5). They call for dry skies and bloody waters and pray for plagues as often as they desire (verse 6). They are invincible, for as long as God wants.

Verses 7-14 finish this second vision before the seventh trumpet and the third woe.

I have already made a case for why I think the “holy city” in verse 2 is Jerusalem, which we’ll see with a different description in verse 8. It makes sense to me that the “temple of God and the altar” in verse 1 describe a temple-building in Jerusalem, a temple such as Ezekiel prophesied would be rebuilt in the latter days by believing Israelites. “Those who worship there” are converted Jews, likely among those sealed in chapter 7. The temple is not an analogy of the church, and neither are the two witnesses a different analogy for the church, though the church is a witness to the world.

Ding, Dong the Prophets are Dead (verses 7-10)

It takes more than an ordinary mob to deal with the powerful testimony of these two witnesses.

Killing Them Dead

An otherworldly type of character is introduced (I don’t think he’s on the 2020 Scorecard).

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, 8 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.

It must be said that the conquering and killing of these witnesses only comes when they have finished their testimony. God decides when they are done. It bears a similarity to God’s answer about the numbers of martyrs filling up (6:11); the witnesses will get out every word they have been appointed to proclaim.

Only then will the beast that rises from the bottomless pit…make war on them. The beast appears for the first time in the Apocalypse, and has a part on Revelation’s stage 35 more times before his end in the lake of fire (20:10). Since he is named alongside the “dragon,” and the dragon is called the serpent, also called Satan, the beast is not the devil. We’ll see much more about the best in chapter 13, where he is healed of a mortal wound and world worships him, but for now, we learn where he comes from and where his loyalties lie. As with the locust, he comes straight from the pit, from the netherworld. He does hellish work.

That work on earth is warlike. Some argue against the witnesses being two men because you don’t make war against (or “attack” NIV) individuals. But what kind of force does one need if fire comes out of the enemy’s mouth? Plus, we aren’t introduced to other “troops.” There is no army of beasts, no Uglies. God allows the beast to conquer them and kill them.

More than just dead, they are dehuman[...]