Speaker: David Mitchell

Passage: Revelation 11:1-14

REVELATION 11:1-14

Good morning, everybody. Good to be with you. I didn’t get that reference to what Gary was saying, 1876? 1776? What is that? They don’t teach that in England. It doesn’t count as history until it’s a thousand years old, you see. We call that the present. All right, we are in Revelation.

And first of all, my name is David. Been part of the teaching team here for a number of years, and my wife and I and our kids have been coming to Vintage for the last ten years or so. Great to be with you. We’re in Revelation and today we’re in Revelation 11. 

We have been studying through Revelation, and in the last few weeks, the first six of seven trumpets, right? So we see this vision is being laid out to John on the Isle of Patmos about what is to come, and he’s shown this vision of these seven trumpets, and the first six trumpets are about the consequences of sin that God is first and foremost going to allow. 

Not all of the things that happen to the people and the world in this vision are God doing it intentionally. They are the consequences that God allows. And we also see in those six trumpets the judgments that God does indeed bring. So there are consequences that He allows, and then there are judgments that He brings.

And then between the sixth and the seventh trumpet– the final trumpet being the seventh– we have this passage in Revelation 11. The seventh trumpet is going to be about the return of the King, which, contrary to popular belief, is not simply a Lord of the Rings movie, but is actually something in the letter of Revelation. 

Okay, so we come into Revelation 11 in that context, and we’ll read together the first fourteen verses of this today. In this passage, we see both the success and the suffering of the testimony of God. That if you and I are going to be disciples of Jesus, apprentices of Him, and have a testimony, there will be times of great success and there will be times of great suffering. And we see that in Revelation 11. So, we want to look at it today, apply it to our lives, and try to at least understand some of the elements of this text. 

REVELATION 11:1-14

So chapter 11, verses 1-14, it says this, “I was given a reed like a measuring rod, and was told, ‘go and measure the temple of God and the altar with its worshippers. But exclude the outer court; do not measure it because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for forty-two months, and I will appoint my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1260 days, clothed in sackcloth.’ They are ‘the two olive trees’ and the two lampstands, and ‘they 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. They have power to shut up the heavens so that it will not rain during the time 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. 

“Now, when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower them and kill them. Their bodies will lie in the public square of the great city– which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt– where also their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days, some from every people, tribe, 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.

“But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck 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 while their enemies looked on. At that very hour, there was a severe earthquake, and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of Heaven. The second woe has passed. The third woe is coming soon.” 

So the agreement I had on teaching this passage is that I’ll read it, and next week, someone will come and explain what it means. This is one of those passages that I think it can be very easy for us to fall into that trap of saying, Hey, this is just about the future. This is just about the end of the world. This doesn’t apply to us. It’s going to be crazy. We don’t really know what it means.  But I don’t think that’s why Revelation was written, first to the seven churches in Asia, and then passed down to us as followers of Jesus. 

THE TEMPLE OF GOD

So first of all, Greg covered some of this last week, and we see that the setting is the Temple of God. And I think that the best interpretation of this is that this is the true Temple of God. This is not a physical temple on earth. This was a true Temple, the Heavenly Temple. 

We see in the Old Testament how the people of God were told to construct a tabernacle because they were on the move. And Hebrews 8 will tell us that the tabernacle was a sketch, a drawing, of the true Temple. And I think in Revelation 11, we find ourselves in the true Temple. We see later on in Revelation 11:19, a picture of God’s Temple revealed; it says, “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened.” So I think that in Revelation 11, we are in the true Temple, and John is told to measure the inner court of that temple. 

1 Corinthians 6:19 will say, “Do you not know that you– me, you, we– are the temple of God.” So what he is measuring here is not this physical building. He is measuring the true Temple made up of believers with God at the center of it. He is measuring the presence, the power, the worship, the prayers of that Temple. 

He is told that the outer court– Greg touched on this last week– the outer court is given to the Gentiles. Now, the word for Gentiles there is the word “ethnos,” which means “the nations” or “the Gentiles.” So he’s not talking about non-Jews. He’s talking about non-believers, those who do not believe in the Lamb and have not given their lives to Him. And what John is told is, Do not pay attention to that. Do not measure that. That is not to be your focus in this moment before the return of the King. 

And so in his epistle, in 1 John, he will write this; he will say, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world.” We are to be those whose focus and attention is on the inner court, and we are not to love the outer court. 

We are not to love the things of this world, meaning we are to love the people of this world. We are not to love the things of this world, but our focus and attention is to be on the inner court, is to be on Him, and Him Who is at the center of all of that– that is God. Okay, so that’s a quick thing on the setting. 

THE TWO WITNESSES

Now, I want to talk about the sort of meat of the text. And so here we meet two witnesses. We see in Deuteronomy chapters 17 and 19 that the testimony of two witnesses is required in a court of law for justice to be served. So what we are seeing here in Revelation 11 is that when it says two witnesses, the picture we are giving here is a picture of testimony, a picture of testimony that can be trusted, and that will withstand the test of time. We see this also in Mark 6, when Jesus sends out His disciples two by two. We see it later in Matthew 18, when Jesus points to the essential need of two in testimony. 

So when we read in Revelation 11 there were two witnesses, what that means is this is about testimony that can be trusted. This is about testimony that is faithful. This is about testimony that it will stand the test of time. 

INTERPRETATION OF THE THREE AND A HALF YEARS

Speaking of time, we see in Revelation 11 how it has this repetition of three and a half years. And again, I grew up in a very literal translation of that time and that may be what this means. It may well indeed be a literal three-and-a-half-year period. Remember, the sixth trumpet has sounded. The seventh trumpet– the return of the King– is to come. And there’s a period of time in between that before the return of the King, which Revelation 11 describes as three and a half years. 

We read Revelation parallel, side by side with the book of Daniel, because Daniel is also this prophetic word about not only the present of the people of Israel in Babylon, but also the future. And in Daniel, we see what Dustin would call a “Danielic measurement,” where he writes in Daniel 7, “a time, two times, and a half time.” I.e., three and a half.

So in other words, it appears to be in prophetic language that three and a half doesn’t necessarily mean literally three and a half years. It appears to mean a short, denoted period of time. You’re gonna be tested on this later, so don’t forget any of this stuff. Okay? 

THREE INTERPRETATIONS OF THE WITNESSES

But then the question comes, who are these two witnesses? And this is where we are definitely stepping into a place of interpretation, right? And the headline of all of this is, I’m going to get to the end of this and say I’m not really sure. So when you go home, and somebody says, Hey, how was church? You can repeat that: I’m not really sure. They’ll wonder what you were doing. How was the teaching? Not really sure.

But we’re going to do our best. And what we’re going to do is lay out three interpretations, and then we’re going to ask the question that we have to ask through any interpretation. So what? What does that mean? Because we are not here just to get head knowledge, right? We’re not here to win Bible trivia on Tuesday night. We are here to have a testimony that is true and faithful, and that stands the test of time. 

So, who were these two witnesses? There is the futurist view, which says that these two witnesses are most likely Moses and Elijah, brought back to earth in physical form to testify for this period of three and a half years. There’s been a belief of this from early Christians in the first century for a couple of reasons: one is in Malachi 4, the Lord says to the people, “I will send to you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” 

And also in Revelation 11, we see a couple of distinguishing factors about these two witnesses. It says of them, “They will shut up the heavens so that it cannot rain” which was something that Elijah participated in with God in the Old Testament. And then we see that they will bring plagues upon the land, and they will turn the river into blood, which is something that Moses did through the power of God in Egypt. 

So, I’ll jump to the headline here. I tend to believe a different interpretation of this, but I recognize the fact that for thousands of years, this has been a very, very common and rigorous belief about who these two witnesses are. And look, here’s the thing: if Moses and Elijah show up tomorrow and I’m wrong, I will gladly admit that I was wrong, okay? I will be first in line to say, guys, I don’t know what to tell you, but I’m sorry. I had that wrong. 

So that could be the case, that’s been the most long-standing interpretation. There is also the interpretation that these two witnesses are more of a symbolic picture because it says there are two lampstands and that this is a symbolic picture of Jews and Gentiles together as one and witness a testimony of who God is.

So we see that it could be this symbolic representation, and what it’s telling us is that today, here and now, this testimony is still alive and well, right? In other words, we’re not reading Revelation 11, just waiting for the return of Moses and Elijah– we are in the midst of it. And it began then when this letter was written after the sixth trumpet, and it is still ongoing until the return of the King. And so it is a symbolic picture of the church– the Body of Christ– as a witness of Who God is and a call to repentance to the nations. 

And lastly, in our teaching team on Thursday, Steve suggested this idea. I mention Steve so that he gets the credit, but also, if you find this heretical, you know who to email. It’s this idea of, hey, remember that the language of lampstands throughout the New Testament and Revelation represents a church, right? We see that in Revelation, the seven churches are seven lampstands and two of them remain faithful: Smyrna and Philadelphia. And not only did they remain faithful, but they were told that they were to be martyred. That indeed happens to these witnesses. 

So I don’t know for sure which of these views is true, but what I do know is that we can glean lessons from this and say whether this is the testimony that’s coming through Moses and Elijah in the future, whether it’s the testimony that was coming of Smyrna and Philadelphia in the past, or whether it is the testimony of the church– the Body of Christ– today, that we need to learn what makes up a faithful and true testimony. 

THE WITNESSES ARE DESCRIBED AS HAVING ONE MOUTH AND ONE BODY

So, what else do we learn about the witnesses? I know this is a little more heady at the moment than a lot of the messages I like to teach. We’re gonna try and sink down here into the heart. What else do we learn about these witnesses? Well, what we learn in the text is that they spoke with one mouth, and they stood and died as one body. 

Now, in the English versions of this, and in the version we had up on the screen, verse 5 and verse 6, we’ll see the plural. It says, “Fire comes out from their mouths,” right? With an “S.” There’s a plural, right? And we see that when they are martyred, it says “their bodies,” plural. But when you look at the actual text– or when Dustin looks at the original text and tells me this– we find that the language is singular. And this is important again, not just heady.

So, the language for the word for “body” is ptōma. It’s the singular noun for “body.” So it doesn’t say the two witnesses, “their bodies were killed;” it says “their body was killed.” When it comes to their mouth, it’s the Greek word stomatos. Stomatos is a singular noun for “mouth.” Fire didn’t come out of their mouths– plural– fire came out of their mouth.

The testimony of God is a singular function of a people in unity. Whether this was Moses and Elijah, or whether this was Smyrna and Philadelphia, or whether this is us today, the Body of Christ– which surely, even if it is Moses and Elijah, it has to apply to us– effective testimony on the earth today will only be effective, will only be trusted, will only have impact, if it comes from one mouth and one body, and we are called to be united in our testimony. 

We see in Ephesians 4, “There is one body, one church, one unity of the faith.” We are called to be united. We are called as a church, as disciples of Jesus, to have one mouth, and therefore we are called to have the same mouth as the witnesses in Revelation 11. In other words, if something different is coming out of my mouth than what is coming out of their mouth, I am not one mouth with them, right? I am not united. 

FIERCE AND POWERFUL TESTIMONY

What we read in Revelation 11, therefore, is from that one mouth, from that one body, their testimony was fierce and powerful. It says fire comes out of their mouth. This was not just a soft witness. This was not just a pushover testimony. This was the kind of testimony that fire came out of their mouth. We see in Jeremiah 4, God will speak to him and say, “My words will be as fire in your mouth.” If you and I are going to have a testimony today in Northern Colorado that is as one with the witnesses in Revelation 11, we need to be filled with fire. 

What does fire do? Fire burns up chaff. Fire purifies. Fire cleanses. Fire breaks down and then strengthens. Fire consumes. And if our testimony is going to be the kind of testimony that consumes the world around us, then we must first be consumed by the Word of God. We must first be filled with the fire of God. 

So, we see fire as well in Revelation 8, which I think we were in about four years ago or so, something like that. It tells us what fire is. “The angel gathered up the incense and the smoke and the fire from the altar, which were the prayers of the saints, and threw the fire down on the ground, down to the earth.” 

In other words, when you and I pray, our prayers are sent to the altar of God, and they catch fire, and the angel gathers them up and throws them back down on the earth to bring cleansing and purification and strengthening and consumption. 

When those men and women in our church and in our community in Northern Colorado go out to the sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood and pray, they are bringing fire from Heaven. That is what they are bringing. If you’ve been out to pray at Planned Parenthood over the last forty days, I want you to stand up; and church, I don’t want you to golf clap, I want you to cheer that they brought the fire of God. If you’ve prayed the last forty days outside Planned Parenthood, stand up. 

Jesus will say in Luke 6:45, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” If your heart is on fire, the abundance of that fire will come out through your words. And that is the kind of testimony that we are called to have in 2024 and on, regardless of who wins the election, regardless of who is in power. We are called to serve the God Who is in power, and that fire would come from our mouths because it comes from the abundance of our hearts. And so testimony is fierce and powerful. Also, testimony is intended and designed to lead to repentance. 

TESTIMONY GUIDES OTHERS TO REPENTANCE

We see the testimony, the two witnesses, they are clothed in sackcloth, and their testimony is a call to repentance. It says in the Scriptures, in Romans 2:4, God’s kindness leads us to repentance. If your kindness, if my kindness, is not leading somebody to repentance, then it is not kindness. It might be enabling. It could be something like that, but it’s not the kindness of God. And so our testimony is to be a testimony of repentance. 

Say, Well, how do I do that? If your testimony is the kindness of God, it is the kindness that God brought to you and the repentance that you stepped into. I know this, and you know this, when you’ve been at places of repentance in your life, that it is the kindest thing that God ever did, that it saves your life, it might save your family’s life. And so the testimony here is a testimony of repentance. 

Now, let me unpack that a little bit because if you’re anything like me, you think, oh, gosh, I’m going to have to walk around Fort Collins telling people to repent. I don’t want to be that guy or girl. I don’t know how to do that. Let me dig in and talk about what it means. 

EARTHLY SORROW AND GODLY SORROW

In 2 Corinthians 7, I think we see a picture of what true repentance looks like. Paul articulates for the church there the distinction between earthly sorrow and Godly sorrow. In verse 9, he says, “I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended, and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” 

What’s the difference? Earthly sorrow is that sorrow that leads to shame and leads to death, and in our culture, especially over the last decade or so, we have been seeking to drive out shame. And I agree with this. I think this is right. I think that we are to be set free from shame, from that earthly sorrow. 

But the problem is, in the church and in America and beyond, by throwing out earthly sorrow, we have thrown out Godly sorrow too. We are designed, we are instructed to feel sorrow for our sin. We are instructed to feel Godly sorrow that leads to repentance. 

And so often, our testimony– not just individually, but as a church– is that, hey, you don’t need to feel bad about that thing because God loves you. That’s not kindness. What’s kind is to say, You know what? God convicted me and led me to repent of my sin, and it changed my life and I long for that for you too. That’s kindness and that’s Godly sorrow. And America in 2024 and beyond does not need any more earthly sorrow, but it needs all the Godly sorrow that He can bring. 

And so our testimony is to lead people to repentance. And I would suggest that the way our testimony does that is by telling the story of God’s kindness in your own life. Your testimony– yes, it’s about your repentance– but it’s far more about God’s kindness, and the kindest thing God does is when He convicts us in such a way that it turns our life. 

So, if you’re at a place today where your heart is crying out for repentance, I want you to absorb the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 7, where he says, “Become sorrowful as God intended that that sorrow would bring repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret.”

TESTIMONY IS DESPISED BY THE WORLD

Okay, here’s the good news: testimony is despised by the world. I have to look at my own testimony, and I have to look in the mirror, and I have the blessing of living in America in 2024– far better than 1775. I get to live in America in 2024. My testimony, no matter how bold it is, no matter how true it is, it isn’t going to get me killed. Might get me canceled. 

But the test of my testimony, the test of our testimony, is that if we were placed into Revelation 11, would our testimony be a torment to darkness? Would our testimony be an offense to evil? Would our testimony be despised by the world? 

We see in Revelation 11 how those who testify are killed, they are martyred, and they are dishonored, their bodies are left in the public square. And it says the people rejoiced; they gloated over them, and they exchanged gifts. Why? Because that testimony had been tormenting them and tormenting them, and they just wanted it to stop, and they gloated over them. 

You know, in Zephaniah, it says, “The Lord your God, He dances over you.” We have a choice. We can either choose to be loved by the world, or we can choose and we can say our testimony is going to be so bold and so true that we will be gloated over by the world and danced over by God. Danced over in love, danced over in celebration, danced over in delight. 

TESTIMONY LOOKS VULNERABLE

The word of God in Revelation 11 is a torment to the kingdom of darkness. It is fire from Heaven, and the darkness is consumed by it. In this chapter, testimony looks really, really vulnerable. The Kingdom of God looks really vulnerable, right? This representation of these witnesses standing before a tormented world, testifying a testimony of repentance, the kindness of God to lead them to repentance, to turn their lives before the return of the King. 

This is a testimony that looks really, really vulnerable. And church, if we are going to have a testimony that is true and noble in 2024 and 25 and beyond, then we are going to feel defeated. We are going to feel suffering. We are going to feel gloated over. We are going to feel despised. We are going to feel rejected.  

TESTIMONY IS RESURRECTED

But lastly, church, the testimony is resurrected. If you’ve ever seen the latest version of Narnia, where Aslan is killed, and the demonic forces are just celebrating over the death, this is the picture we get in Revelation 11. It says that the breath of God filled them, and they immediately stood tall. It is amazing, and it is confounding and confusing in different ways that God allows His testimony to be silenced for a period of time; He allows His testimony to be defeated for a period of time. 

But we see in Revelation 11, just like we see Jesus under darkness, breathing His last breath and placed into a tomb and the kingdoms of darkness gloating and celebrating. Yes, there is a time of defeat, but then the resurrection power of God is evident. 

BE FILLED WITH FIRE

And so, the best direction that I think we can take from Revelation 11 is that we are to be filled with the fire of God. Consume yourself with the Word of God, and it will consume you. Get the Bible in One Year app. Get the Dwell app. Get the Bible Project app. Get something; just be filled with fire. Because if you’re anything like me, you say, oh gosh, first of all, this guy’s gone five minutes long. And secondly, he’s telling me I got to go out and start giving a testimony of repentance. I don’t know how to do that. Be filled with fire and make yourself available. 

Don’t wait until you become an expert of how to testify of God, just be filled with fire. And that will be a testimony that is offensive to darkness, but it’s a testimony that even when it shrinks, even when it falls, God says no and breathes life and it stands tall again. 

Let’s stand together and pray. Father God, first and foremost, as Your people, we repent. We repent for the places of cowardice and timidity; we repent for the places where we have compromised Your Word. We repent of where we have dove head first into earthly sorrow and missed Godly sorrow. We repent. Would You fill us with fire today? Would You fill us with unity today, that we as a group of believers, and every believer here in Northern Colorado and beyond and in this country and in this world, would speak and testify with one voice that speaks of the kindness that You bring, God, to lead us to repentance. We love You, and we worship You. In Jesus name, amen.