©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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6/7/98
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The Key Players
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Rev. 11:3-13
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6/7/98 The Key Players
Last week our study of the book of Revelation
took us through a whirlwind survey
of chapters 8 through 16 of the book.
(That, by the way, is an all-time record
for me
for number of chapters taught
on a single Sunday.)
Obviously we did not touch
on any of the content in detail,
but we did walk through
an accurate survey of the events
that bring to a close
human history prior to the return of Christ.
In our survey
I encouraged you to read those chapters on your
own.
If you took me up on that suggestion this past week
you discovered several large chunks
in those 9 chapters
that we didn't touch on at all last week.
This week we are going to go back
and fill in a few of the holes.
And let me remind you again
of the approach John has taken
in the his presentation of these events.
First he presents to us
the panoramic overview
of this final world collision between good
and evil,
between God and His people
and Satan and his people.
This is what we looked at last week,
the camera shot from the Goodyear Blimp,
only we weren't looking at the football field,
or the golf course,
we were looking at the great world-wide conflict
between the Creator
and His rebellious creation.
Then we have John focusing in on
close-up shots of the key players
and groups of players
in this great conflict.
Today I want to take us back into
those nine chapters
and the 8 close-up shots
that are presented
within the context of that overall
battle.
1. The first close-up of this section
appears in Rev. 11:3-14.
I'll read the section for us
and then we'll talk a little bit about it.
Rev. 11:3 "And I will grant authority to
my two witnesses, and they will prophesy
for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed
in sackcloth."
Rev. 11:5 And if anyone wants to harm
them, fire flows out of their mouth and
devours their enemies; so if anyone wants
to harm them, he must be killed in this
way.
Rev. 11:6 These have the power to shut up
the sky, so that rain will not fall during
the days of their prophesying; and they
have power over the waters to turn them
into blood, and to strike the earth with
every plague, as often as they desire.
Rev. 11:7 ¶ When they have finished their
testimony, the beast that comes up out of
the abyss will make war with them, and
overcome them and kill them.
Rev. 11:8 And their dead bodies will lie in
the street of the great city which mystically
is called Sodom and Egypt, where also
their Lord was crucified.
Rev. 11:9 Those from the peoples and
tribes and tongues and nations will look at
their dead bodies for three and a half days,
and will not permit their dead bodies to be
laid in a tomb.
Rev. 11:10 And those who dwell on the
earth will rejoice over them and celebrate;
and they will send gifts to one another,
because these two prophets tormented
those who dwell on the earth.
Rev. 11:11 ¶ But after the three and a half
days, the breath of life from God came
into them, and they stood on their feet; and
great fear fell upon those who were
watching them.
Rev. 11:12 And they heard a loud voice
from heaven saying to them, "Come up
here." Then they went up into heaven in the
cloud, and their enemies watched them.
Rev. 11:13 And in that hour there was a
great earthquake, and a tenth of the city
fell; seven thousand people were killed in
the earthquake, and the rest were terrified
and gave glory to the God of heaven.
Now, let me tell you what we know
and what we do not know
about these two fascinating men.
€ We know that they come on the scene at some
point during the final seven years immediately
preceding Christ's return.
€We know their prophetic ministry lasts 1260
days, or 3 1/2 years.
€We know they possess supernatural power far
beyond that of any other prophets in human
history.
They can stop the rain at will.
They can consume people with fire
that pours out of their mouth.
They can turn water into blood.
They can bring all manner of plagues
on the people they prophecy to.
These guys make the Terminator
look like a 1st grader.
€They powerfully confront the people of the
world with their rebellion against God,
€they are hated because of it,
€and their death brings world-wide rejoicing.
That's what we know.
There are also some things we don't know.
€we don't know who they are.
Bible scholars throughout history have thought
perhaps they were Moses and Elijah,
or Moses and Elishua,
or Enoch and Elishua.
The last two were once my preference
because they are the only two in history so far
who went directly to heaven
without dying a natural death,
and because Scripture tells us
that it is appointed unto man to die once,
it seemed only right that these two
would have to come back
and die with the rest of us.
But then this past week
I came across one commentary
that pointed out that the entire last generation
of Christians on earth
will all go directly into the presence of
God without going through physical death so there
is no Biblical reason
why Enoch and Elishua have to be dragged
back.
At the present time
I personally see no compelling reason
why these two prophets
should be anything other than
two Christians who are alive
at this point in history
who are chosen by God for this work.
I also happen to like this perspective
because it helps counter
a common myth that has plagued the Body
of Christ
since the death of the Apostle John.
Have you ever noticed how we always assume
that all the really great men and women of faith
lived in the past,
and that those of us alive today
are sort of the residue
at the bottom of the Christian barrel?
If only we had an Elijah today.
If only we had a John the Baptist.
If only we had a Martin Luther,
or a John Wesley,
or an Apostle Paul.
I think the reason we tend to favor
the idea that these two witnesses
are the resurrected appearances
of some ancient saints from the past
is because we just naturally assume
that it is impossible for truly great
men and women of faith
to come from our own generation.
I want you to know
that kind of thinking
is just another one of Satan's tricks
designed to defeat us.
I also want you to know
that the 2 greatest prophets in all of history,
and the 144,000 greatest evangelists
in all of human history
have yet to appear on the scene,
and they will all come out of either our
generation
or one yet to come.
I'm going to get a little side-tracked here,
but there are some prevalent Christian attitudes
that have concerned me more and more
the older I get,
and these two prophets here in Revelation
have provided me with as good an opportunity
as any
to talk a little bit about them.
I have known for a long time now
that the greatest battles we ever fight
are the ones we fight over our own
perception of ourselves as Christians.
Peter begins his 2nd letter by saying,
2 Pet. 1:1 Simon Peter, a bond-servant and
apostle of Jesus Christ, ¶ To those who
have received a faith of the same kind as
ours, by the righteousness of our God and
Savior, Jesus Christ:
He made that opening statement
because he knew
what most of us would do
with our own evaluation
of ourselves as Christians.
We would look at Peter
and John
and Paul
and we would say to ourselves,
"Of course, I could never know a walk with God
like they did,
because they were apostles,
they knew Jesus in the flesh,
their whole Christian experience
was unlike anything I could ever know."
And right from the start
Peter wanted us to know
that all such thinking is a lie from the pit of
hell.
He says we have received a faith
of the same kind as his.
And that phrase "same kind"
means an exact duplicate,
identical in every respect.
He is telling us
that there is no difference whatsoever
between the type of Christian walk he knew
and the type given to us today.
Peter was just a man like us in every respect,
indwelt by the same Holy Spirit
given to every believer throughout history.
The role assigned to him was unique
for his time and place in history,
just as the role
assigned to these two prophets
in the Book of Revelation
will be unique,
but the means by which Peter fulfilled his role
and the means by which these prophets
will fulfill their role
is no different than the means by which
each of us are equipped by God
to fulfill the role assigned to us.
Paul deals with this same issue
when he says in Rom. 8:11,
Rom. 8:11 But if the Spirit of Him who
raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead
will also give life to your mortal bodies
through His Spirit who indwells you.
Seldom does Paul repeat himself.
But here in this one verse
he tells us two times that it was the Holy Spirit
that accomplished all that was involved in
the bodily resurrection of Christ.
And then he repeats two times
that this is this same Holy Spirit
that now dwells in us.
He takes the greatest single work of God
in all of human history,
and then reminds us that
the same agent that accomplished that work
is now at work within us.
Now, I want to try to say something here
that will probably not come out right
and cause more confusion
than it does help.
But I'm going to give it a try anyway.
I believe our prevailing concept
of effective Christian living
has been shaped not by the truth God reveals
to us about ourselves in Scripture,
but by the definition our culture has given us
for mental health
and effective living.
Our modern American culture tells us
that we are a mass of emotionally
and psychologically scarred individuals,
suffering from the victimization and abuses we
experienced
in our dysfunctional home backgrounds,
and that the best we can hope for
is to find some effective tools
that will help us to cope with
and overcome those damaged areas in
our lives.
We live in a culture
that takes great pride in facing honestly
the baggage we are packing around from our
past.
The problem is
that as Christians we have bought into
our culture's mentality
that that baggage is the key factor
that really determines who I am
and what I can expect out of life,
even life with God.
We see ourselves as severely damaged goods
doing our best to cope with our damaged areas
so that they don't destroy us.
Do you remember that poster
that was so popular a few years back -
it showed a little kitten
hanging from a branch by about 3 claws,
with this look of helpless terror on its face,
and the caption underneath read,
"HANG IN THERE".
That is the mentality our culture has offered us as the
goal for successful living.
It doesn't surprise me
that we as a Christian culture
tend to believe
that all the truly great men and women
of faith
lived in the past,
and that the best our generation can hope for
is to hang in there
until the Lord returns.
Let me read you God's alternative
to that hanging-kitten perspective on life.
Ps. 40:2 He brought me up out of the pit
of destruction, out of the miry clay, And
He set my feet upon a rock making my
footsteps firm.
Ps. 40:3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God; Many will see
and fear And will trust in the Lord.
You see,
He doesn't just talk to us
about hanging in there
by three claws.
He talks to us about
placing our feet on solid rock,
with all the strength
and security that foundation can give us.
True, there is often a rather messy process
of pulling us out of the muck
and the mire we have been wallowing in,
but the end result of that process
is to establish a solid foundation under our feet
and a powerful, positive proclamation
out of our mouth.
It is impossible for a person
ever to live beyond
their own self-perception.
In other words, I will always ultimately become the
person I really believe I am.
The thing that troubles me so deeply
about what I see going on
in our Christian culture today
is that we have given the society around
us
the right to tell us who we are
and who we can become
rather than reserving that right
for the only One who has the ability
to tell us the truth - God Himself.
God says to each of us:
"You are my holy one,
you are my ambassador.
You are my royal priest,
filled with my Holy Spirit,
a member of a chosen race of people.
I have already made you adequate
as a servant of the new covenant in my blood.
I carefully selected you
for this time,
and this place in history."
Now here is the tricky part -
As Christians we are to face honestly
who we once were
with whatever baggage that involves
while at the same time
allowing God and God alone
to tell us who we now are.
We are not the tragic victims
of an abusive past,
we are the sons and daughters of the living God,
chosen by Him to represent
His life,
His healing,
and His power to this generation,
indwelt by His spirit,
well equipped for the work assigned to us.
Paul says it well:
2 Cor. 3:5 Not that we are adequate in
ourselves to consider anything as coming
from ourselves, but our adequacy is from
God,
2 Cor. 3:6 who also made us adequate as
servants of a new covenant...
Now, I got into all of that
because I believe these two prophets
presented to us in Rev. 11
are not some great saints
dragged up from the ancient past
because God could not find anyone
sufficiently qualified for the role today.
I believe these two men
very likely
have already been born
and are alive on this planet right now.
They will grow up in dysfunctional homes
just like the rest of us have,
with parents who make all sorts of mistakes
just like we do with our children.
But they will differ from many modern Christians
in one major respect.
When they come to the Lord
they will not allow our culture
to shape their understanding
of who they are.
Rather, they will allow our God
to tell them who they are -
and they will believe what He says,
and in that belief
they will be equipped
for the work God has for them,
just as each of us
have been equipped
for the role God has for each of us.
We didn't get far in our study
of the key personalities
in the book of Revelation,
but we'll finish that up next week.