Chapter 11, up to verse 13, is occupied with “the two witnesses” and continues the parenthesis between the sixth and seventh trumpets. Verse 14 to the end concerns the seventh trumpet.
The vision here pertains to “the holy city,” over which Jesus wept when He beheld it. The temple of God is to be measured, and the altar, and those who worship in it. Thus will God take account of His beloved and tried saints of that time of unprecedented trial. They will have been cast out of the temple itself; whose sole use at this time will be the display of the Antichrist, the “second beast” or, “man of sin”—“the son of perdition”—who “sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thess. 2:3-4). The first beast, the diabolical head of the revived Roman Empire, will have caused the Jewish sacrifice and oblation to cease (Dan. 9:27) and the “court which is without the temple” will be in the hands of the Gentiles. When we come to Chapter 13 we shall have more complete details regarding these two “beasts.” Meantime, let us read Isaiah 28:15—“we have made a convenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.” This is the covenant referred to in Daniel 9:27. It is made by the coming Roman head with “many,” that is with the mass of the unbelieving Jews. But from Isaiah 28:18 we learn that “your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand.” In our chapter we see the Holy City trodden under foot by the Gentiles forty and two months, or three and one half years—the last half of Daniel’s seventieth week. This is precisely the time during which the first Roman beast of Revelation 13 holds sway (Rev. 13:5). It is anticipating, but also necessary, to give here one or two of his evil features. “He opened his mouth in blasphemy against God,” and he makes “war with the saints” (Rev. 13:5-7). He is against the God of heaven, and his ally—Antichrist—in Jerusalem, sets himself forth as the God of the earth, to which, in Chapter 10, we saw Christ laid claim. This reminds us of the Lord’s words—“I am come in My Father’s Name, and ye receive Me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive” (John 5:43).
In times past God left not Himself without witness nor does He now. In Old Testament times the testimony of two persons was required to provide adequate witness (see Deut. 17:6). The same applied in New Testament times (see, for example, 1 Tim. 5.19) and Jesus said “It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true” (John 8:17). So here we read “I will give power unto My two witnesses.” It has always been a source of wonderment to me that God has given such grace and power to His witnesses in every age as to sustain them in their testimony even to the laying down their lives for His Name’s sake. Here the two witnesses are clothed in sackcloth. Their testimony is rendered in deepest sorrow in that awful time. Their service continues for exactly the time during which the Roman beast is allowed to exercise his sway. They are two lamps shining in the darkness, sustained by the power of the Spirit of God (candlesticks and olive trees). They are specially equipped for their protection, otherwise they would not have been allowed to live to carry on their testimony. This will be backed up by powers equal to those given to Moses and Elijah—namely fire and plagues. In God’s appointed time they finish their testimony. How beautiful! God enables them to carry through to the end and make a good finish. We recall the Lord’s words, “this man began to build and was not able to finish” (Luke 14:30)—also the words of dear Paul, “I have finished my course” (2 Tim. 4:7). The revived Roman Empire will be utterly diabolical in character. As shown here, its head ascends out of the abyss, makes war against the witnesses, and is permitted to kill them. This agrees with Revelation 13:7. Ignominiously, their bodies are left without burial as far as their enemies are concerned, but God has a purpose in it. Worthy of note is the appellation given to Jerusalem, namely, spiritually Sodom and Egypt. Sodom is evil; Egypt oppressed God’s people. Both these features will be in evidence during the days of testimony of the two witnesses. No doubt exists as to the name of the city. It was here their Lord was crucified. Christ, then was their Lord, and their testimony was to Him as the One to whom the earth belonged, the One whom God “hath appointed heir of all things” (Heb. 1:2). The rejoicing of their enemies is cut short. The witnesses come alive again and are called up to heaven, whither they ascend in a cloud of glory, in full view of all their foes. What a blessed end to their service of witness, suffering during those three and one half years. The service of the Lord Jesus on earth lasted for the same length of time at the end of which they “killed the Lord Jesus.” There is a beautiful finish to the Gospel of Mark, which gospel portrays Christ as God’s perfect Servant here below. In the last chapter we read “the Lord . . . was taken up in to heaven, and sat at the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19 JND). The intervention of divine power in the resurrection of the two witnesses is marked by an earthquake—an actual one here, I believe, which brings death in its wake. Those who escape are frightened and forced to acknowledge the God of heaven as the cause. But they will not acknowledge Him as the God of the earth, in which capacity He is here acting.
We have seen the blessed end of the three and one half years of testimony by the witnesses. During the same period the Beast from the abyss lives out his evil reign and comes to his end, and “none shall help him.” It will thus be noted that the tenure of the Beast and the time of the two witnesses is the same three and one half years. Their witness is confined to Jerusalem, where the Antichrist holds sway causing men to worship the Beast. During all the period of the Beast’s power and persecution they are divinely shielded so that God has two men to testify against the Beast in the religious capital of the apostate West, and wielding miraculous powers to identify them as the servants of the True God. They are not allowed to be slain until their testimony is finished. But when this occurs the Beast’s time has run out too. The two witnesses go to heaven. As for the Beast we read that he was taken, and cast alive into a lake of fire, burning with brimstone (see Rev. 19:20). The last mention of him in the Bible is where, together with the devil and the false prophet (Antichrist), “they shall be tormented day and night for the ages of ages” (Rev. 20:10 JND). Let the reader note carefully that all this is parenthetical and well in advance of our subject. But that is the way it is presented in the Revelation. As already mentioned the prophetic parts of the Revelation (not those parts concerning the church) are not arranged in chronological order. With this in mind it is now time to consider the third woe trumpet, which commences with the fourteenth verse.
The third woe, referred to in the last verse of the eighth chapter, here comes quickly. The seventh angel sounds his trumpet, announcing that “the kingdom of the world of our Lord and of His Christ is come.” All heaven is attentive. The saints, having the mind of Christ, bow in intelligent worship and suitable thanksgiving, for the moment has at last come when the Lord God Almighty has taken His great power and will “reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously” (Isa. 24:23). This is now the kingdom which Peter, James and John were permitted to see in the holy mount from which Jesus descended only to die for our sins. It was the kingdom for which Joseph of Arimathea waited. Now he, and all the saints of old will share the blessing of eating bread in the kingdom of God. This is the kingdom spoken of in the second chapter of Daniel. The God of heaven will set up this kingdom. It will never be destroyed, and our Lord Jesus Christ who will administer it, will have no successor! “The government shall be upon His shoulder” (Isa. 9:6) and “He shall not fail nor be discouraged” (Isa. 42:4).
Christ “is able even to subdue all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3:21), and His saints will share with Him in this—“he that overcometh . . . to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of My Father” (Rev. 2:26-27). Psalm 2 gives us the record of Christ’s receiving this from His Father.
But if heaven and the saints rejoice “the inhabiters of the earth” are angry! The sounding of the seventh trumpet brings woe to them, even God’s wrath. What a solemn word is that “the Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who do iniquity” (Matt. 13:41).
There are three statements in the eighteenth verse which are connected with Christ’s taking the kingdom which require comment.
The Time of the Dead That They Should be Judged
In 2 Timothy 4:1 we read “the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom.” The judgment of the living nations will take place at the beginning of His kingdom as our Lord Jesus Christ has Himself foretold in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew’s gospel—refer to the thirty-first to thirty-fourth and following verses. The judgment of the dead, that is those who died in their sins, will take place at the end of His millennial reign of one thousand years. “For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:25-26). “Where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear” (1 Peter 4:18) when death and hades, which terminated their career on earth, are “cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:15), and themselves also?
And That Thou Shouldest Give Reward Unto Thy servants the Prophets and to the Saints
We are told that “to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward” (Prov. 11:18). In the goodness and mercy of our God His servants are to be found among the Gentiles, as in Israel too. Among the Gentiles we think of Job, Rahab, Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite, Ruth the Moabitess, Ebed Melech the Ethiopian, and others. The Lord too was not unmindful of His servants the prophets in Israel when He said to His disciples “other men labored and ye are entered into their labors” (John 4:38).
For our instruction in the days of the church on earth, we can turn to Matthew 23:14-30. God’s sovereignty is emphasized here, as shown in His giving His servants five, or two, or even one talent with which all are responsible to trade in the Master’s absence.
In the parable of Luke 19:12-27, we see the subject more from the side of our responsibility to trade with what each has been given. In this connection two verses of Scripture speak for themselves:
“Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor” (1 Cor. 3:8).
“He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he who soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully” (2 Cor. 9:6).
And Shouldest Destroy Them who Destroy the Earth
I have long thought that after the rapture of the church, many nations will make use of armaments which will destroy men and mar the earth. The Lord will put an end to this too with a view to every man sitting under his own vine and fig tree.