Two Witnesses Up - Revelation 11:8-14
Revelation 11:8-14 · Kurt Katzorke · Jul 19, 2009
Revelation (2009), No. 29
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261398891

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right. So verse 8 there, it says, and we've just had the two witnesses get overcome and killed by the Antichrist. And so verse 8 there, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is, or excuse me, which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also the Lord was crucified. What verse is that? Verse 8.

At least I hope so. No handout yet. We're having a printer malfunction. So we'll get a handout after not too long. I've got it up on the screen for the time being. Okay, so we've got these two dead bodies of the witnesses lying in the street. And then it's kind of a gross or gruesome thing to see these two bodies just left laying around in the street. But one of the things to remember is the world's view on these two guys is that they were pretty despised. They did not like them for what they were doing. There's a lot of hatred because they have testified for the 1260 days like we talked about. And they've not only brought their outright enemies to instant death, but also a great many more through water turned into blood, rainless drought, and various other plagues.

So remember, that's some of the things that they have going on during their three and a half years. So when we look at this verse, one of the first things we see there is the great city. And we see that phrase. So can we identify the city from that phrase? Can we tell where they are?

And it turns out the phrase, the great city, is not too helpful by itself. It's used multiple places in the Old Testament. And I actually have, let's see if I can hop back and forth between these things for you guys. Here's a couple of places where that great city is used in the Old Testament and used to describe different cities. Multiple places there, and oddly enough, none of those are describing the same city every time. So, used in different ways throughout the Bible. Well, in conjunction with different cities, I should say. So it's used in a lot of different ways and places in the Bible there, so not helpful by itself to just say, well, it always means this city when we see the great city.

When we turn to the New Testament, we find that the only book that uses the phrase is Revelation, so none of the other books in the New Testament use this phrase. It only uses it to describe cities in the Tribulation Period, so it's not used of any of the Ephesus or Pergamum or any of those cities. It's not used to describe any of those, just used in the Tribulation Period.

And it places an emphasis on a very Jewish focus, since it was a phrase that was only used in the Old Testament. We see that a lot in the Book of Revelation, phrases that are only used in the Old Testament. So it puts a very Jewish focus on the verses themselves.

We've had several instances where we've had scripture point to us that the Tribulation period is again shown not to be a place of focus on the body of Christ, the Church, here on Earth. And Revelation also contrasts the character of earthly cities of man's creation to the New Jerusalem, which is God's creation, and we'll see that in chapters 21 and 22. The real giveaway to which great city John is writing about in verse 8 is where also the Lord was crucified. We know that that Christ was crucified in Jerusalem.

In the picture here that we have, this is the rock of the skull where it's believed that Christ was crucified. You can actually see it looks like a face, which is somewhat creepy all by itself. That's kind of the visual for it. We know that that's roughly where Christ was crucified. We know it was in Jerusalem. In the verse there, the pronoun there refers to the two witnesses. And the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, was the one who was crucified.

John also writes about the city of Jerusalem saying that it's the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt. The word translated mystically or spiritually is a word that It gives a figurative meaning to what it's talking about. So figuratively, Sodom and Egypt are applied to the city here. I guess what we want to look at is what do those two places stand for when we look at the Bible. And it's a good thing to look at. So Sodom, along with Gomorrah, and the surrounding ancient cities were destroyed by the Lord as described in Genesis 19. And we have another picture here. The shallows of the Dead Sea are where Sodom is believed to be right now. So there's another little visual for you of kind of where Sodom is believed to be now. before it was destroyed in the level of the Dead Sea Rose.

There's more to that story than we can go into this morning, but Sodom stands for immorality. Genesis 13 tells us that the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly, and sinners against the Lord. Sodom's immorality was so great that the wickedness is brought up nine times in the New Testament, 2,000 years after Sodom had been destroyed by God.

So it's a very clear symbol of immorality and wickedness. So Egypt obviously is not a city, but it is used as a symbol here because it serves to convey slavery, bondage, materialism, idolatry, and dependence upon earthly resources instead of God himself. So these are the two figurative things that we're getting out of Sodom and Egypt. Egypt conveys slavery, bondage, materialism, idolatry, and dependence upon earthly resources instead of God himself.

Jews spent around 400 years in slavery making lots of bricks as described in Exodus chapters 1 and 5. Here's another visual for you. These are some of the brick that was actually found that has the stamp of the Pharaoh on it. So that's kind of the slavery image for you that the Jewish people were placed under to build for the Egyptians, basically.

And then even after the Lord brought the Jews out of Egypt, he had to remind the Jews repeatedly not to depend on Egypt for lots of different things. Material things, spiritual things, political, monetary, all those different things. He had to continue to remind them that you don't need to rely on these guys for that. I'm going to take care of you. But there was a desire to turn back even after he had brought them out of that slavery.

Alright, so those are the two figurative meanings that we get from Sodom and Egypt. Alright, so the bodies of these two witnesses will be left in the streets of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, which at this time represents immorality, bondage, and dependence on everything but the Lord, morally and spiritually, like Sodom and Egypt. So the similar contrast between what Sodom and Egypt were like and what the city of Jerusalem is like at this point in time.

It comes up a lot, it seems like, in Revelation, and it's a good thing to recognize. We've talked a lot about the differences between the Church Age and the Tribulation. However, when we think about Sodom and Egypt, both thousands of years old, but the distractions that these places represent immorality, idolatry, materialism, and dependence upon the world's resources.

These are the same things that can distract us from beholding Christ right now. So we've talked a lot about the differences, but there's some pretty good similarities there too. The distractions are still similar in what is distracting people from the Lord. So there's a lot of differences, but there's some things that just don't seem to change. Even in the time of Egypt and Sodom and those things, these people were distracted by the same things.

So throughout human history, we kind of see the same things distracting them from God, allowing themselves to seek all the different things that we need from the world rather than God. the Lord saved somebody out of it. There's a lot. The daughters, there's the Jews coming out of Egypt in the Exodus. In both cases, the Lord saved some out of it.

Which is kind of an interesting thing that also is what will be the case in Jerusalem. Right. Yeah, another good parallel. Yeah. Did everybody hear that? The parallel there is that in both cases with Sodom and Egypt, the Lord saves someone out of them, and he's going to do the same thing here in the tribulation period. So another good parallel. Any questions or comments on verse 8? Alright, we'll hop into verse 9. So at this point, some people have been converted unkilled. So there's still believers at this time? Absolutely. But the prevailing attitude is that of immorality and disgust or a lack of reverence for God. Right, so verse 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. So we see something really reveals a lot about the mindset of these people. They're so fired up at these two witnesses, so angry at them, that they won't even allow their bodies to be buried.

I can think of a couple instances in history where somebody is treated like that. After World War II, Mussolini was hung up on a garage or something like that and left out for days. Kind of gruesome things like that. The French Revolution where they were running around with heads on sticks and things like that. Kind of the same gruesome mindset that those people were having, the same kind of hatred that they were having towards those people is what's displayed here towards the two witnesses.

The people John refers to are the people of the world. John uses this phrase like this, the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations, to describe the people of the world. It is speaking largely of Gentiles, And of course, it's telling us that this is a global event. So this is something that's being witnessed by not just the people in Jerusalem, but it's something that everyone globally is aware of.

What is even more amazing is that this verse tells us that the people and tribes and tongues and nations, this global population, will look at their bodies for three and a half days. Now if we take the time that John was writing in, we know that in three and a half days, a person could travel maybe 150 miles or so on foot. So getting the news of the death of these two witnesses out to the global, making it a global message in the time for them to come and look at the bodies within three and a half days is hard to imagine. So when John writes this, it probably is not making a lot of sense to these people.

How is this going to become a global event? Few outside of Israel would have a chance to know about it in time to look at the bodies. For this reason, a number of people reading this in our day have said that this verse requires modern communication systems in order for it to take place. In order for the whole world to watch these two witnesses lying dead in the street of Jerusalem, it's going to require the modern communication.

Not to dig into that too far since John doesn't actually describe technology directly, but it is something interesting to consider that we live in a time where, I mean, really this wasn't feasible up until... 50, 60 years ago for news to travel that quickly. Imagine people sending this image on their cell phones. Right. Yeah, it's that simple. YouTube or whatever else where it could just be spread very rapidly, which is not the case in John's day and age. So it's something interesting to take note of.

What it reveals is the Just the horrible character of the Tribulation Period Society is that they will not allow these two witnesses to be buried. So really a horrible character. Some of the other people we talked about, Mussolini or the French Revolution people, those people were under a lot of the people who were being ruled by those leaders, they had good reason to have hatred or angst towards those people.

But in this situation, this is hatred directed right at two people who are God's witnesses. This is hatred directed right at God. So really just showing how horrible their character is and how far from God they are. and kind of just how gross they are. Deuteronomy 21, chapter 21, verses 22 and 23, forbade the Jews from doing such a thing, but the beast is exerting and displaying his power at this point. This is also just gross, leaving dead bodies on public display. I would rather be one of the YouTube people than the people taking the video, because that's probably smelly too. I just don't want to be there. All right, questions or comments on verse 9? Well, the idea of not allowing, like somebody wanted to bury. Right, exactly.

That's a good point to bring out. Not allowing them to be buried does bring out that somebody probably did want them to be buried. Somebody was trying to do the right thing. And then like you brought up previously, you know, there are people who have turned to God during this time period and they are probably, you know, some of those that would be looking to have them buried. So that is a good thing to bring out of the verse, absolutely. Imagine going to a recorded junction not to bury somebody. Yeah. That's an interesting point. Is this legally prohibited? Yeah. Or is this just a bunch of nasty people standing around the body? Yeah, I'm curious. Yeah. I'd love to see how that plays out.

Well, and verse 10 gives us a little bit of insight into that. And it says, 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. So that gives a little more insight into their attitude.

Verse 9, the fact that They did not permit their bodies to be buried. It does show that somebody probably wanted them to be buried. But verse 10 shows that the overwhelming majority of the people rejoiced over them and celebrated. And they sent gifts to one another because these two prophets tormented them.

So it definitely gives a little bit more insight. Verse 10 gives a little more insight into the mindset of these people. So we see here, nobody wants to have the bodies buried because the death of these two witnesses is something the world rejoices over. They even celebrate. Kind of hell's version of a Christmas celebration. It's something that they're celebrating the death of someone. I cannot think of a single holiday where we celebrate the death of someone. Well, there's one. But we know he came back to life. It's a bizarre thing.

Well, after 9-11, weren't they handing out candy in the streets in some of the Muslim countries? Yeah, they were celebrating after that. That's a good point. It's kind of nuts, but... Yeah, that's right. Yeah, his point here was after 9-11 this kind of celebration took place in some of the Muslim areas where they were handing out candy and things along those lines celebrating, you know, like a great victory. That may be another possible clue of predominance in Islam. Right. That that becomes something that's celebrated. Right. So a clue that Islam is one of the dominant traits at that point in time is that death would be celebrated.

Interestingly, is there any other group of people that do that? Is there any other group that does that? Well, I don't know that there's other groups that directly celebrate death. We celebrate, we look back on days like D-Day and things along those lines with with the reverence and respect for what happened, but I don't think we're actually celebrating the death of people that we killed.

It's a celebration. It's a memorial. Possibly some of the cultic. They served the Kool-Aid and the Waco people because their death was an insignificant thing because they were going to an afterlife, which is the same thing as Islam. That it's insignificant because they're looking forward to something greater. I think definitely what we see here is a celebration of the death of an enemy. Very happy to have someone that these people consider an enemy no longer around.

Just kind of crazy. Even sending presents to one another to celebrate just seems bizarre. One interesting thing here, and I think it's a great point. This is the only mention of earthly rejoicing in all of the Tribulation period. really gives you further insight into the mindset of these people. This is the only mention of earthly rejoicing. I just find that crazy.

I think it's also interesting that it's a lack of control. The world wants control and they want to be able to control everything about him. You see the same thing today with the media and business citizens, corporations in America and all this other sort of thing. Everybody wants to have a certain amount of control. Obviously, these two witnesses did away with control. Right. And I think that's a good point.

And when I was reading these verses, I definitely saw a lot of A lot of the world's mindset right now, and I think it's been the world's mindset throughout history really, I mean, Adam wanted control. That was the lie that the serpent told him, that he was going to know and he was going to be in control. That's been man's issue for a long time. I think that it really is boiling up big time during this tribulation period. that picture there. Yeah, absolutely. They wanted to be the final judge of things rather than have God be that. And I think that's man's problem really throughout history. But it's really showing up prevalent in this tribulation period.

Yeah, and the two witnesses described here as prophets are said to torment people. The Greek word for torment in verse 10 is the same word used later in Revelation twice to describe the torment of hell. So very, you know, the plagues and things that these two prophets were bringing forth really, you know, kind of making it feel like hell on earth for these people. very worldly unbelieving people. The world feels like these two witnesses have made their life hell on earth. Perhaps many understand these great calamities are from God, but these two witnesses here on earth are available for people to vent their rage. The Earthlings feel that they are now they can now safely focus their insolent outrage against God on these two witnesses. They're dead.

And I think that's a good way to think of what's going on here. Their outrage is really towards God, but it's showing up on these two witnesses. We also see We see here again a phrase that is only used of people who are on the earth during the tribulation period, those who dwell on the earth.

As we've mentioned before, this is a tribulation-specific phrase because the Church has promised in Revelation 3.10 to be taken out before the hour of testing that comes upon those who dwell on the earth. We can figure that the Church is taken out before that phrase is used to describe the people being tested. The consistent pattern of this phrase in the book of Revelation again makes it clear that the church will be taken out or raptured before the tribulation begins. And that's something we've covered multiple times in this class, but it is something that needs to be well understood. the church, us as believers right now, have no part in this as far as being on the earth is concerned.

The world's thinking during the tribulation period will turn upside down. Rather than recognizing their need to repent, most will be hardened. Rather than listen to God's appeal, For mercy and truth from the two witnesses, the world will rejoice when they have finally been silenced by the beast. Rather than have the bodies taken care of in a civilized society like we would do now, people will want to watch their dead bodies as long as they can. They're not taking a lot of action.

But in the next verse, in verse 11, we see what God has in mind for these two witnesses. But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet, and a great fear fell upon those who were watching them. So these two witnesses have And the eyes of the world tormented them for these three and a half years. They've been overcome and killed by the beast and for three and a half days these people of the world have rejoiced over their death. And now God brings them back to life. And a great fear falls upon those who are watching, which as we talked about earlier, this is a global event, everybody was watching.

So it takes, the Lord waits for three and a half days to bring these two back to life. And an interesting thing in scripture, the Lord seems to make a habit of waiting until people are really, really undeniably dead before resurrecting them. That was the case with Christ, three days in the tomb before he was raised.

Lazarus, I don't know, how many days was Lazarus? I don't remember. But it wasn't like 20 minutes. Yeah. I think it's like four days. Four days or something along those lines. Part of that's because I think the Jewish people believed that it wasn't something three days. Somebody had to actually be dead three days before they could be raised again or something like that. Yeah.

Well, the other thing is, So another interesting point here in verse 11, it states that the resurrection as the breath of life from God. And that phrase, you don't see a lot in scripture. One of the places it's used is in Genesis 2, when the breath of life is given to Adam. It's a phrase that's used only in the Old Testament up to this point. And this is the only time the phrase occurs in the New Testament at all. So a lot more of that Old Testament imagery coming through. Here's three and a half days going by.

There are a lot of times in life where we might be prone to think, why doesn't God do something? Or if the Lord is going to act, he certainly shouldn't be acting by now. You can imagine people saying, boy, believers during this time. Why doesn't God do something? Or even skeptics saying, see, God isn't doing anything. These guys are dead in the doornail. And it kind of makes me think of those times when we think, boy, God should do this or do that, and why is God waiting?

God's got his time, and he will most certainly act, and even miraculously. I think another thing that's interesting here, John doesn't focus on the attitudes of the people who have come to repent during this time period, because you can imagine their reaction to the two witnesses being killed.

I mean, they had to just be, you know, what just happened? What is going on here? What is God allowing to happen? That's got to be a little bit unnerving. And I think we see that reaction from the disciples when Christ is crucified. They're gone. I mean, they're hiding. They maybe think they're next, I don't know. But definitely a little bit of what's going on here.

This is probably pre-Mark of the Beast. And I think it's one more confirmation by God. Because it is a picture of Christ's resurrection as well. And so anybody who after this takes the mark of the beast, I think it's just one more confirmation that they know.

Yeah. Yeah. You referenced 310. What was 310? Well, that's, remember when we're talking about, that's the reward that's given to them, right? That's the reward that's given to them, right? Remember when we're going through the churches, they have They have things that are wrong against them, and I hold this against you, and they butt this and butt that. And for those who overcome, I will grant them this. And I believe that is their reward there in that verse. I will remove you from the hour of testing. Remember when we talked about those.

The overcomers are who? It's everybody who believes. And those Those rewards are something that are true of all believers. Even though it's spoken for one church? Right. And when you go through all of the churches, the rewards are something that are true of all believers. They're not something specifically given to a church. It's something that is true of all believers. Who's an overcomer? Somebody who believes in Jesus Christ. If you believe in Jesus Christ, if you've placed your faith upon Him, saving faith, then the rewards to all those churches are already true of you. What's interesting is if you look at those messages to the seven churches, there are things that are true of Christ regardless of the church, and there are things that are given as rewards and promises that are true of all of belief in the church, not just that particular church. That the sayings, you have this, or I hold this against you, or something, those are specific to the church. And I mean that if you overcome, what's it take to overcome belief?

Okay, so these two witnesses are said to have stood on their feet. These very same words and phrases are used in Ezekiel 37, 9, and 10 to describe the restoration of the Jewish people. The scene which John describes here in Revelation 10 is very Jewish, straight out of Old Testament image and word patterns.

John then tells us that a great fear fell upon those who were watching them. The Greek words translated great fear is phobias megos or megas. In the same way that people saw these two witnesses as tormenting them, like the torments of hell, those living down on the earth see the resurrection of these two witnesses as the very torments of hell coming back upon them. What was for three and a half days a great rejoicing has suddenly turned inside out. It has now become a mega fear, intense overpowering, heart-gripping dread for all the world.

I think that one of the other things that really pops out to me about the Tribulation period versus right now is the way that God deals with unbelievers. I would say that God is fairly patient with unbelievers right now. I think what we've seen in the Tribulation period, patience has diminished a little bit. God is acting very differently towards unbelievers during the Tribulation period than He is right now. And I think that's something interesting to notice, that judgment comes quickly during the tribulation period, whereas right now, it's delayed with an opportunity of patience, mercy, and grace for unbelievers.

Well, we are on page four, now that everybody has one. It looks like this formatted a little bit differently, but that's okay. Anyway, and if we look back to verse 9, we see that the whole world was watching these two dead witnesses. But in verse 11, the Greek word for watching is different, and it means speculating, or spectating, I'm sorry.

This word is in the Greek a present active participle. The resurrection would be understood by John's readers as taking place while they were in the process of watching the two dead bodies. So something like spectating makes me think of a sporting event. But they're actively involved in watching this. And that's when the resurrection of these two people, these two witnesses, takes place.

I think that does it for verse 11. Does anybody have questions or thoughts on it? We'll hop into verse 12. I'm going to leave this up here because it's working. So verse 12, And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, Come up here. And they went up into heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. So we have again here one of the many times that John writes of hearing a loud voice. Everybody living down on the earth hears the loud voice from heaven. This loud voice makes the audible invitation to these two witnesses come up here.

This is precisely the same invitation that John heard in Revelation 4.1, but here the whole world hears it, and in 4.1 it seems that only John heard it. Then we see something remarkable. The most remarkable thing happens. These two witnesses go up into heaven in the cloud. We've seen that before in Acts chapter 1, when Christ ascended. And again, their enemies watched this happen, apparently the whole world. So you can again imagine the cell phone falling up into the clouds.

Right now we're going to take a little bit of a detour and talk about different views of the rapture. I'm sure a lot of you have heard the different terms. There's pre-tribulation rapture, mid-tribulation rapture, pre-wrath rapture, post-tribulation rapture. At Hollyheels, the term that is used is pre-tribulation rapture. We've described it multiple times. The church will be raptured prior to the tribulation period, pre-tribulation.

And what some people have used the verses that we just read as, they have used it as a manner to support a mid-tribulation rapture. And they say that the verse we just read is when the rapture takes place. They make this rapture event because the two witnesses just got called into heaven by a loud voice that could be the shout of an archangel. The loud voice said, come up here. And that's what's in the shout. The seventh or last trumpet comes right after this, right? Right? What? They went up into heaven in a cloud just like Jesus did. Sounds good. It sounds like this is all making sense. But there are a few problems, quite a few in fact. So when we look at this, some of the major problems with any rapture view proposed to take place after the tribulation begins. I've got different bullet points there for you.

One has to do a real textual tap dance to avoid having the church age Christians subject to being subject to the wrath of God, since scripture promises at least three times that we won't be. So that's one of the big ones. There's at least three places in scripture where it talks about Christians not being part of God's wrath.

While scripture encourages us repeatedly to look for Christ's coming, any rapture after the tribulation starts has us looking for the Antichrist. And that's not our purpose. Our eyes are to be fixed on Jesus, not on anything else, especially if that's the Antichrist.

The rapture, as we're told, will come by surprise. After the tribulation begins, there would be no surprise as to its timing. It would be like clockwork. The book of Revelation pretty much just spells out, if this was the rapture point, then there's no surprise to it because Revelation tells us right where it would happen.

There is no biblical guidance on how Christians should prepare for or deal with the horrors of the tribulation, nor how the church would be specially protected. We don't see that in Revelation. There's no indication of the church being there, nor is there any indication that if the church was there, that it would be protected. And it just seems strange that scripture offers absolutely no guidance on how the church ought to prepare for the tribulation if indeed the church is to endure some or all of it. So if God's intent or will was for us to be there, why wouldn't he have any guidance for us in the pages of scripture? And then we have other problems with the two witnesses going to heaven as the rapture of the church. The two witnesses are definitely individual people, not a group or multitude.

The whole church cannot lie dead in the streets of Jerusalem while the world watches for three and a half days. The death of the whole church and the lying in the streets doesn't fit the rapture well. The entire church will not lie dead for three and a half days before being raptured.

Resurrection only fits those who have died, but doesn't account for those who are alive in Christ when He comes. So scripture specifically talks about or distinguishes the two. So it doesn't make sense that those who are alive would be raptured at this point.

It just doesn't fit. As we've seen, the two witnesses are very Jewish in character and operate out of Jerusalem, but the church, which is a new creation of both Jews and Gentiles, was called to be a witness to the whole world, as Christ said in Acts 180. So it just doesn't fit.

While the sackcloth, these These two witnesses are clothed in, is included over 40 times in the Old Testament. It's never described in the New Testament books of Acts through Jude as being typical of the Church. And if you remember from last week, that sackcloth had to do with mourning. And the Church is not about mourning, it's rejoicing in who we are in Christ.

So basically just a lot of different reasons why the rapture at this point in time does not make sense. However, you will hear people, mid-tribulation rapture supporters, use these verses to describe their views. I mean, according to testimonies, I guess you could say the voice sounded like a trumpet, but it makes no indication here at all. I've never heard a trumpet sound like come up here. Somebody can talk with a trumpet. That's cool, though. Usually what they'll try to pull in is this, you know, towards the end of the trumpet judgments. And so we'll try to pull in that part of it to try to underscore the idea that that fits.

I think the biggest thing with with any rapture that occurs after the Tribulation has started, is it just doesn't fit God's character and His will for the Church. It just doesn't fit what He has in mind for the Church. If you're looking for things that are in the Tribulation period, you're really looking for the wrong stuff. It just doesn't fit with God's character and his will for the church, what he has set up the church to do.

So verse 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. So here we have all the people who were totally absorbed with this amazing thing that they all watched take place. These two witnesses who had been dead for three and a half days as they watched, the two witnesses were resurrected and taken up to heaven as they watched, and within the very hour a huge earthquake hit Jerusalem.

John feels that he's made it clear enough in verse 8 that he does not give clues on what the meaning of the great city. Nor does he call it the great city here, just the city. There was at that hour a great earthquake, a seismos magos in the Greek, and one-tenth of the city of Jerusalem fell in that hour. This verse says the 7,000 people in Jerusalem die in the Great Earthquake. The current population of Jerusalem is 600,000. So it wouldn't be a huge percentage of the population dying, something over 1% by today's count. But it would definitely get some people's attention. It's close to home.

And then what I have up here, excuse me, is a history of some of the earthquakes that have taken place in Israel. These known earthquakes have produced a total displacement of the Arabian and African plates in the order of only three or four meters. Based upon the plate movements observed elsewhere around the world, 2,000 years of history should have produced a displacement of about 14 meters. The large amount of unrelieved stress around 10 meters in the African rift zone today implies that a major earthquake is long overdue in the Holy Land. Which is just kind of interesting that the geology, the natural history of the area, it's not in line with other areas that have gone through these earthquakes. So basically what we get out of this is Jerusalem is due for a big earthquake. Could be this one. That brings us to the last portion of this verse.

And the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. If within an hour you saw two witnesses from God who had been dead for three and a half days suddenly resurrected and taken to heaven before your eyes, then you experienced a huge earthquake that took a tenth of the city, perhaps that would finally get your attention. So we can certainly relate to John's telling us that the rest were terrified. Perhaps what is a little surprising for us, and we've talked about the attitude of these people, is that those who were terrified gave glory to God of Heaven, to the God of Heaven.

Could it be that after all the ominous and ghastly things that had taken place on the planet Earth that somebody was finally listening? Since we don't hear the words of repentance and trust in the Lord, In these words, perhaps this is like the demons in Mark chapter 5 with the slave girl, with the spirit of deviation in Acts 15. Even the demons know, understand and fear, but that doesn't mean they give reverence and repentance. appealing to God and praying and all sorts of things.

But it seems like it all faded away. Well, and what's the definition of God to those people? Is it the biblical God or is it just an understanding that there's something bigger than me going on here? I don't want to actually give him I don't want to actually turn power, and I don't want to tell him he's in charge, but I recognize that he is.

Verse 14, the second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. As you recall from Revelation chapter 8 verse 13, it is announced that the three trumpet judgments were called the three woes. Next week we will look upon the seventh trumpet judgment, the third woe. If we look back at the passages we've covered these last two weeks, at the lives of these two witnesses, we've seen that these two were called by God to a very special appointment.

It was certainly not a popular appointment. The world will hate these two immensely. I doubt many, if any of us, would want to take on their despised role. kind of appealing to your situation right now in that statement. Do you want to take on the position of a despised role or are you just kind of going with the flow?

Will not the Lord even show His continuing mercy and appeal to His grace by the very message of these witnesses to the world? Won't God provide every need of these two witnesses? But won't the Lord be faithful to them in every way? The Lord will deal with these two witnesses in different ways from ourselves, yet is not the Lord's character shown to be the same with them as with us. He provides everything that we need. Those statements of question. He's faithful to them in every way. He provides everything they need.

He deals with us in the same way. The Lord will give life to these two witnesses after they are physically dead. If not, the Lord will provide His very life for us even now. So similar, these two witnesses are dealt with in different ways, yet there's a lot of parallels to how the Lord deals with us. Well, that's all I've got. Does anybody have any questions or comments before we wrap up? Alright. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your time this morning.

It's just so wonderful to see your character remain the same regardless of the situation that's going on. You may deal with people in slightly different manners throughout time, yet your character is not something that's changing. I for one am grateful that I can understand that Myself as a believer of this church age, you do not have wrath intended for me. That's pretty reassuring, really, that I don't have to be a part of your judgment and wrath that's being poured out during the tribulation period. I am grateful for your provision for me, that it's your life that keeps me from those things. We thank you for our time. In Jesus' name, amen.