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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Then I was given a measuring stick, and I was told, “Go and measure the Temple of God and the altar, and count the number of worshipers. But do not measure the outer courtyard, for it has been turned over to the nations. They will trample the holy city for 42 months. And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will be clothed in burlap and will prophesy during those 1,260 days.”
These two prophets are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of all the earth. If anyone tries to harm them, fire flashes from their mouths and consumes their enemies. This is how anyone who tries to harm them must die. They have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall for as long as they prophesy. And they have the power to turn the rivers and oceans into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.
Revelation 11:1-6
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
After the sixth trumpet is blown by its appointed angel in Heaven, one third of the world’s population will be killed by a marauding, supernatural army which is set loose on the earth. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of such loss, those who survive will not repent of their sins but continue living in disobedience and disrespect toward God.
As we move from there to chapter 10, we found the first of two events that will precede the sounding of the seventh and final trumpet. There, an angel comes down from Heaven standing on the earth with one foot on land and one in the sea. After pronouncing the coming fulfillment of God’s judgment after the seventh trumpet is blown, John is told by a voice from Heaven to take and eat the small scroll that was resting unrolled in the hand of the angel. We read where John was obedient to this command and as he ate the scroll, it was as sweet as honey while in his mouth but then upset his stomach once it passed there. This represented the goodness of God’s judgment and the bitterness that would come on those who suffered through it.
Today, we move onto chapter 11 where we find the second event that happened before the seventh trumpet will be sounded. As we see in today’s passage, this event will be centered on two unidentified witnesses who we will look at in this short two part series. Let’s start by looking at the first six verses of this chapter:
Then I was given a measuring stick, and I was told, “Go and measure the Temple of God and the altar, and count the number of worshipers. But do not measure the outer courtyard, for it has been turned over to the nations. They will trample the holy city for 42 months. And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will be clothed in burlap and will prophesy during those 1,260 days.”
These two prophets are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of all the earth. If anyone tries to harm them, fire flashes from their mouths and consumes their enemies. This is how anyone who tries to harm them must die. They have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall for as long as they prophesy. And they have the power to turn the rivers and oceans into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.
Here, we find John given a vision of an event yet to come in Jerusalem, where yet another period of persecution would happen. Here, the nations (in some translations, the Gentiles) would come upon “the holy city” and “trample” it for 42 months which if you divide by 30 equals “42 months”. This period correlates to the period of prophesying performed by the “two witnesses” God was sending. Although these two witnesses will be “clothed in burlap”, they shouldn’t be underestimated as weak in any way for the scriptures tell is that God will give them power so that if anyone tried “to harm them”, they would flash fire “from their mouths” which would “consume their enemies”. They also will have “the power to shut the sky so that no rain” would be able to fall “for as long as they prophesy”. They would also be able “to turn the rivers and oceans into blood as well as “strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish”.
Not the kind of people you would want to be against you, for sure.
We’ll read the rest of their story in tomorrow’s message but before that, I didn’t want to finish this lesson without showing a connection back to the Old Testament prophet Zechariah. Here’s what we find in the fourth chapter of the book that bears his name:
Then the angel who talked with me returned and woke me up, like someone awakened from sleep. He asked me, “What do you see?”
I answered, “I see a solid gold lampstand with a bowl at the top and seven lamps on it, with seven channels to the lamps. Also there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.”
Then I asked the angel, “What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?”
Again I asked him, “What are these two olive branches beside the two gold pipes that pour out golden oil?”
He replied, “Do you not know what these are?”
“No, my lord,” I said.
So he said, “These are the two who are anointed to serve the Lord of all the earth.” Vv. 1-3, 11-14
Fast forward now to Revelation, chapter 11 and here we find the “two who are anointed to serve the Lord of all the earth” in the person of the two powerful witnesses, “the two prophets” and the “two lampstands” standing “before the Lord of all the earth”.
Yet once again, we see how the tapestry of the total word of God is interwoven with strands that link the Old and the New Testaments. It’s completely amazing to me and I pray it is to you as well.
I hope you’ll come back to see what happens with these two witnesses in tomorrow’s message and part two of this series.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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