Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #4 of Revelation, chapter 11, and we are continuing to read Revelation 11:1-3:

And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

In our last Bible study, we were discussing the fact that the “forty two month” period can only identify with the entire duration of the Great Tribulation period.  We found that Revelation 13 has the same “forty two month” reference in connection with the beast and it was given him to continue for forty and two months and he overcame the saints.  Then we found that in Revelation 11, verse 7, the beast ascends out of the bottomless pit and made war against them (the two witnesses) and overcomes and kills them.  This matches the language in Revelation 13 and the only point in which the beast ascends out of the bottomless pit is upon his loosing – when the Lord Jesus loosed him after the figurative thousand years, which represented the 1,955 years of the church age.  Then in 1988 A.D. Satan was loosed and he immediately went into the churches and took his seat as the man of sin.  In doing so (as God’s Spirit had left and departed out of the churches) Satan overcame the camp of the saints; he overcame the holy city.  He continued in his reign for “forty two months,” an actual time of 23 years, starting on May 21, 1988 when judgment began on the house of God, the churches, until May 21, 2011.  It was a full 23 years or 8,400 days. 

Then it goes on to say in Revelation 11:3:

And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

We are going to look at the first part of this verse: “And I will give power unto my two witnesses.”  Who are the two witnesses?  There has been a lot of misunderstanding and confusion regarding the death of the two witnesses, when they finish their testimony and they are overcome and killed.  A lot of this misunderstanding is due an improper understanding of the two witnesses.  People think it is the true believers who are the “two witnesses,” and that is not the case.  The true believers do identify with the “two witnesses,” but they are not the true believers.  Who are they?  First of all, we know they are not actual people.  They were God’s two witnesses for the entire duration of the church age, which lasted almost two thousand years, so they are not actual people, but they are a figure that represents something.  I will state what they represent and then we will show from the Bible why this is so.

The “two witnesses” are a figure used by God to represent the Word of God, the Bible, as it operated within the churches during the 1,260-day period; then after the “three and one half days” when they were lying dead, they rose up again, and then it is representing the Word of God, the Bible, as it operated outside of the churches.  But the “two witnesses” can be understood to be “the law and the prophets.”  For instance, it says in Matthew 7:12:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

This is a reference to the Word of God.  Then it says in Matthew 11:13:

For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.

You see, the Word of God, the Old Testament Bible, prophesied.  Remember, we talked about how all Scripture was given by inspiration of God?  It says in 2 Peter 1:21:

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

The prophecy is the Bible: “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John,” In other words, the Word of God was declared until John and “the law and the prophets” represents the Old Testament Scripture because that was all there was of the Bible “until John,” or until the New Testament period and the coming of the Messiah.

It says in Matthew 22:37-40:

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The entire Bible and the whole of Scripture hang on loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves.  There are numerous verses we could go to, but let us also look at Romans 3:21:

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

The Bible itself is the “witness.”  The Bible is the testimony.  You can see how “the law and the prophets” are the “two witnesses” of God – they witness to the truth which God speaks and they witness to the things which God declares.

It says in Luke 16:29-31:

Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Here, it does not say “the law and the prophets,” but it says “Moses,” because God used Moses to write the first five Books of the Bible, which is known as the Pentateuch or the “law.”  This is a good verse to go to that proves that “Moses” can typify the “law of God.”  Here, he is used synonymously with the “law” and that means that Moses is one of the “two witnesses” that God is using as a figure in our verse in Revelation.

In Matthew 17, we find the interesting account of the Mount of Transfiguration and it is interesting that Jesus is shining brilliantly as the sun as he is “transfigured” before them.  And who appears with him?  There appeared two men with him: Moses and Elijah.  It says in Matthew 17:1-5:

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

Jesus and the “two witnesses,” Moses and Elijah (or Elias, as it is in the Greek), appear together.  Why are they with Him?  It is because, according to the Bible, “they stand by the Lord of the whole earth.”  This is what we read in Zechariah 4, where the phrase the “two witnesses” is drawn from, and it says in Zechariah 4:11-14:

Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof? And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves? And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord. Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.

This is the figure God is using as Moses and Elijah “stand by the Lord” on the Mount of Transfiguration.  Moses is completely identified with the “law” and He is the one God gave the law and the Jews grew up identifying Moses with the law. Elijah was one of the greatest of the prophets of God.  Together they represent the Word of God, the Scriptures: the law and the prophets.  Elijah is a single prophet, but he is picturing all the prophets.  You have Moses who wrote the law and then you have the prophets which God moved to write the rest of the Old Testament Bible, so Elijah typifies those prophets.  We can know that the “two witnesses” represent Moses and Elijah when we read a little further into Revelation 11.  First, we see in Revelation 11:3 the reference to the “two witnesses” and then verse 4 says of them: “These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth,” and this identifies with what we just read in Zechariah 4; then it says in Revelation 11:5-6: And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy:

Who does this remind us of?  It reminds us of Elijah.  Elijah is the prophet that “shut heaven” in 1 Kings 17:1:

And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As JEHOVAH God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.

In the New Testament, in the Epistle of James, God also mentions the shutting of heaven in James 5:17:

Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

So the “two witnesses” are said to have the power to shut heaven that it rain not in the days of their prophecy and we have seen that Elijah and Moses are the perfect candidates to represent these two witnesses, since God speaks of “the law and the prophets.”  This information concerning “shutting heaven” fits Elijah perfectly.  It is what he is most known for in bringing this dearth, where there was no rain for a period of three years and six months.

What about the remainder of the verse in Revelation 11:6?  It says in Revelation 11:6:

These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

Who identifies with this kind of language?  That would be Moses, because in Exodus 7, we see that God sent Moses to deliver His people Israel and to confront Pharaoh and demand their release, and we read in Exodus 7:17-18:

Thus saith JEHOVAH, In this thou shalt know that I am JEHVOAH:: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall lothe to drink of the water of the river.

Moses stretched forth the rod and turned the river of Egypt into blood.  It also says of Moses in Exodus 9:13-14:

And JEHOVAH said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith JEHOVAH God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me. For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth.

God used Moses to turn water to blood and God used Moses to bring plagues upon Egypt and this matches perfectly with Revelation 11:6.  We have the shutting of heaven that it rain not, which identifies with Elijah; and we have turning the water to blood and smiting the earth with all plagues, which identifies with Moses.  These two are “the law and the prophets.”  God speaks and uses His Word to brings judgment upon men and “the law and the prophets” typifies the Word of God up until the point of the completion of the Bible, but they are being used in Revelation 11 to represent the entire Word (the completed Bible).

So God says in Revelation 11:3: “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.”  Again, the Bible is prophecy and wherever the Bible is there is “prophesying,” so in this verse the “two witnesses” will prophesy for “a thousand two hundred and threescore days.”  We discussed this a while back, but this is also a figure of the entire church age, the 1,955 years from 33 A.D. to 1988 A.D.  We can know that this is the case, if we turn to Revelation 12:5-6:

And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

This is the same length of time that Revelation 11:3 is speaking of and the “woman” is the body of the true believers that were in the churches and congregations of the world; God wanted His people in the churches during the church age.  I remember this one person who kept saying, “Oh, I knew the church age was over long ago.”  Then she gave a date that was earlier than the end of the church age.  If a person was not going to church prior to May 21, 1988, in all likelihood, they were being disobedient to God, unless they could not go.  God wanted His people in the churches during the church age; the Holy Spirit was in the midst and it was where the Word of God was located and God had given power unto the “two witnesses,” Moses and Elijah (representatives of the Word of God), so that there could be blessing to the churches of the world through the witness of the Scriptures.

But, then the “1,260” days came to a close and the church age ended.  Of course, we are familiar with that because we have gone through it.  We have gone through the Great Tribulation and we have “come out on the other side.”  We are now living in the days after the Great Tribulation and now the judgment has transitioned from the churches to all the earth.

We will continue looking at the “two witnesses” when we get together in our next Bible study.  But, just for now, remember that the “two witnesses” are not the body of believers, but “Moses and Elijah,” which represent the Word of God.  Then later on, when the “two witnesses” are killed and lying dead in the street for “three and one half days,” we will not be confused and think, “Oh, this is us, the true believers.  Our testimony is finished.”  God removed His Spirit from the midst of the churches and even though they continued to have the Bible, they did not have the “power” behind the Bible; they did not have the blessing upon the Bible.  It was a “dead” church at that point, once the Holy Spirit came out of the midst.