This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day two of our look together through Revelation chapter 11. We're going
to look at verses three to six today. And as we look at these verses, we have
the opportunity to meet some new characters, some new people involved in what's
happening in these end time events.

Let me begin by reading for you those verses, verses three to six, "And I will
give power 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. If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from
their mouths and devours their enemies.

This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die. These men have power to shut
up the sky so that it will not rain during the time that they are prophesying.
And they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with
every kind of plague as often as they want.

" These are the two witnesses, and we're going to talk about them today, who
they are and how God is going to use them and what they picture for us in this
Revelation of John. But before that, let me go back to times. You noticed at the
beginning they will prophesy for 1,260 days.

Yesterday we talked about 42 months. That's the same as 1,260 days. Both of
those are three and a half years.

If you look at Daniel chapter 9, way back into the Old Testament, Daniel was
talking about seven years, and he was talking about three and a half years. And
here we have in the middle of this tribulation time, and we're talking about
seven seals and seven trumpets and seven bowls, all of a sudden we have these
numbers of days talked about. If you've heard from the book of Revelation and
the study of it that there is a seven-year period of tribulation and that three
and a half years, it's split into two periods of three and a half years, these
are the verses that that comes from.

We wouldn't know that just from the seven bowls and the seven trumpets. Seven is
just a sign of perfection. It doesn't say anywhere that those represent certain
years or that one thing is going to happen one year and another thing the next.

But we do know from these verses that there is a sense of seven years. Seven
years, there's a sense of time in which God is working. And in this time that
God is working, he is working through the lives of people.

He's working in the lives of people and through the lives of people. Even in
these cataclysmic events that are happening, people are being used of God. And
here are two witnesses that God is using.

He is giving these two witnesses the power to preach the good news before God's
final wrath comes upon this earth and all evil is destroyed. They're preaching
the good news to let people know you don't have to be caught up in that
destruction. Now, as you read about these two witnesses, as we've said many
times, understanding the entire Bible is important before you understand the
book of Revelation.

Because anyone who has read the entire Old Testament, as many people in John's
day had, they had a much better familiarity with the Old Testament than we do,
would know that this is a familiar picture from Zechariah chapter 4. Zechariah
chapter 4 verses 1 to 6 says, "Then the angel who had been talking with me
returned and woke me as though I had been asleep. 'What do you see now?

' he asked. And I answered, 'I see a solid gold lampstand with a bowl of oil on
top of it. Around the bowl are seven lamps, each one having seven spouts with
wicks.

And I see two olive trees, one on each side of the bowl. ' And then I asked the
angel, 'What are these, my lord? What do they mean?

' 'Don't you know? ' the angel asked. 'Lord,' I replied.

And then he said to me, 'This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel, 'It is not by
force nor by strength, but by my spirit,' says the Lord Almighty. " Those
verses, Zechariah 4, 1 to 6, are crucial for understanding what's going on here.
Because the revelation of what God's going to do began way back with Zechariah.

God is foreshadowing what he's going to do. He's giving us truth of what's
happening here. In Zechariah, also here in Revelation, you have a lampstand and
you have olive oil.

Two lampstands, that's a picture of light. That is a picture of our witness in
the world. Jesus told us that we are to be a light to the world.

He told us in the Sermon on the Mount, "Don't let your light be hidden. Let it
shine so that all can see. Put the light on the lampstand.

" Here are two witnesses in the midst of these terrible times. They're putting
the light on the lampstand at great risk to themselves because nobody wants to
hear the message they have in these days. There's the lampstand, the two
lampstands, and then there are the two olive trees.

And the olive trees and the olive oil that comes from those trees, the oil is a
picture in Zerubbabel's life, in Zechariah, and also here in Revelation, a
picture of God's spirit. That verse that I just read, "Not by might, not by
power, but by my spirit," says the Lord. That is key to what is happening here.

God, through his spirit, is letting these two witnesses voice the good news.
Now, these are such terrible days that in order to voice the good news, they are
also empowered to protect what they are saying. So they are empowered when some
try to kill them to allow fire to come out of their mouths or to bring about
plagues upon the earth so that the good news can come out of their mouth.

These two witnesses are very familiar with some pictures in the Old Testament.
Some believe that Elijah is one of these two witnesses because Elijah had the
power to stop the rain when he was a prophet in the Old Testament. Some believe
that Moses is the other because plagues were empowered through the ministry of
Moses as the children of Israel were allowed to escape from Egypt, and those ten
plagues were brought upon Egypt.

I don't know that these verses specifically say this, but it is an interesting
thought. And what is most interesting to me about that thought is that Jesus
met, you might remember, Jesus met with Moses and Elijah at the Mount of
Transfiguration. And there's just a thought in some who study the Bible that
they were talking about things to come.

They were talking about what heaven would be like, they were talking about what
Jesus's death would be like and what it would mean, but they were also talking
about even this moment and what it meant. There's no proof of this at all in the
Bible. That's one of those speculations based on Bible verses, but it is an
interesting one.

Whoever these two witnesses are, they do come with the same kind of example of
Elijah and Moses. They have great courage in a time that nobody wanted to hear
what they had to say. And their example to us is this, it is simply this, keep
on witnessing, keep on telling the good news.

Even in the midst of the strongest opposition, even when no one else wants to
hear, you keep on witnessing, you keep on telling the good news because you just
don't know. You just don't know who might need to hear or how God might want to
use your witness. The truth of the matter is this, God wants to use your voice
in any and every circumstance.

And when you and I realize that he always wants a witness in every circumstance
of life, then we're going to allow him to use us in every circumstance. And
these circumstances were difficult ones in that day. How difficult?

I'll read for you verses 7 to 10, listen to what happens. Now when they had
finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will attack
them and overpower and kill them. Their bodies will lie in the street of the
great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord
was crucified.

For three and a half days, men from every people, tribe and language and nation
will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. The inhabitants of the earth
will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because
these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth. Now first, reading
these verses, I know the question many people had, because it was the number one
question in our research team, is why is Jerusalem called Sodom and Egypt here?

It talks about the place where their Lord was crucified, a place figuratively
called Sodom and Egypt. Sodom, you remember from the Old Testament, was a place
of sin, rampant sin. Lot tried to live there and tried to be blessed there, but
realized that his life was just taken down there, taken down to a place of great
wickedness.

And Egypt was a place of slavery for the Jewish people. And now here is
Jerusalem, the holy city, being called Sodom and Egypt. This would have been
very difficult to read for Jewish believers.

Their holy city had now become a place of sin. But it's an honest verse about
what happens in this world. The holiness that we have isn't found in a place,
it's found in God's Spirit.

And even here, this most holy place, this place where Jesus gave his life for
us, even this place is turned from him. And why? Because it's been influenced
to.

You see in these verses that a beast comes up from the abyss. The beast of the
abyss is Satan, and Satan will motivate people to do his work, including a
person we're going to see later in the book of Revelation who is called also the
beast or the antichrist. In these verses, as we first see the beast at work in a
personal way, he's going to try to silence these witnesses by killing them.

Now, as this happens, as these witnesses are killed, I want you to remember back
to the beginning of these verses, verse seven. When they had finished their
testimony, that verse begins. When they'd finished the work that God had given
them to do, when their testimony is finished, then, then and only then was Satan
allowed to work so that they would be killed.

God is still in charge. And by the way, God is not finished with the story of
these two witnesses. These two witnesses are witnessing so that people have the
opportunity to come to know Christ.

Someone on our research team asked, "I wonder, I always wonder if people will
still be able to acknowledge God up until the last moment. " I'm hoping so. Of
course they will be able to acknowledge God.

This is the very reason why the witnesses are witnessing. Now, we see in the
book of Revelation that many that most turn away, but the witnesses are
witnessing so that some can acknowledge God and turn to him. Many do not.

In fact, when these witnesses die, these verses tell us that people will have a
great party. They will celebrate like it's Christmas by giving each other gifts
because they think that silencing the ones who are bringing the good news, the
good news of not only God's grace, but also God's judgment, God's change, that
somehow that if they silence the witness, it'll stop God's work. It will not.

They totally confuse what God's about and what God's doing. That happens in your
life too as a follower of Christ sometimes. People confuse your voice and your
witness with God's power.

They might try to silence you, but they cannot silence his power. Tomorrow we're
going to find out that the death of these two witnesses is certainly not the end
of the story. But for today, I want to pray for you and for your sharing of the
good news.

Lord, I pray for each person listening to this right now that just personally it
help us to see how we can tell the good news to people that are around us. Help
us to be unafraid. Help us to, through your spirit, be able to set that fear
aside, not by might, not by power, but by your spirit.

Help the right opportunity to come. And when it comes, help the right words to
come. And as those words come out, Lord, use them to change people's lives.

Father, give us the opportunity, give us the courage, and by your spirit, work
through us to let people know the good news of your love. Help us to see how we
can do that today. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen.