Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #20 of Revelation, chapter 11, and we are going to read Revelation 11:11-12:

And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

We are continuing to look at this chapter.  We have been studying the Book of Revelation for several months, going along carefully, verse by verse, and chapter 11 is a very important chapter God has given us to teach us His plan for the churches (the church age would come to an end) and His plan for the Great Tribulation period.

So we read that the “two witnesses” were overcome and killed and their dead bodies were lying in the street for a period of “three and one half days.”  That “three and one half days” typified the first part of the Great Tribulation, which relates to the 2,300 evening mornings in the Book of Daniel and the period of “silence in heaven for about the space of half an hour,” which is spoken of in Revelation 8.  It was a time in which virtually no one was being saved and, yet, the story did not end there, because God goes on to tell us: “And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them.”  This was God’s Spirit empowering the Word of God, once again, after the 2,300 days, which concluded on September 7, 1994, and He began to evangelize the world a second time; He had poured out His Spirit on the day of Pentecost back in 33 A.D. to evangelize the world through the churches for 1,955 years.  Then the death of the “two witnesses” signified the end of that evangelization program and then God revived the “two witnesses” or “two prophets” at the beginning of the second part of the Great Tribulation in September 1994.  September 7, 1994 was the first day of the seventh month in a Jubilee Year and the Bible tells us that the “first day of the seventh month” is very important because it would be the sounding of the trumpet to announce the Jubilee.  Is it not wonderful how God perfectly brings these things together?  It was not only a second outpouring of the Holy Spirit but it indicated a second Jubilee period, which would only last the remainder of the Great Tribulation, a period of about seventeen years, from September 1994 to May 2011.

Let us take a closer look at Revelation 11:11:

And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet;

We looked at that phrase, “stood upon their feet,” in Ezekiel 2 and Acts 26, and we saw from the Bible that to “stand upon the feet” points to being sent with the Word of God.  In Ezekiel’s case he was sent to the house of Israel.  In the Apostle Paul’s case, in Acts 26, he was sent to the Gentiles, the nations of the world.  So to “stand upon their feet” has absolutely nothing to do with the Rapture and going up into heaven, but it has everything to do with God’s people (that are closely aligned with the “two witnesses”), as God empowers His Word, once again, to save outside of the churches during the second part of the Great Tribulation period.  It is the true believers that carry that Word.  It was carried primarily through the electronic medium, the amazing invention which God opened up at the right time. 

The world is over 13,000 years old and for thousands of years, men lived upon the earth and they were limited in their ability to communicate with the rest of mankind.  Slowly, things improved as far as travel and the speed of travel, so communication could reach farther destinations; then there was the telegraph and they could telegraph a person far away.  Then God opened up the electronic medium and the ability to communicate by phone, radio and all sorts of various means and it began to blossom in its technical aspects.   We know what God did because we have the supreme vantage point of looking at things through the Bible.  We know that God had an end time plan to save a great multitude that were scattered among the nations of the world and the Lord arranged things so that the population of the nations “mushroomed” to great numbers and reached in the billions of people for the first time. 

How could all these people be reached?  God’s elect – tens, upon tens of millions – were scattered among the nations.  How could the churches reach all those people?  And even if they could have, most of the churches were not faithful.  Even if they had pooled their resources and went forth with missionaries, perhaps, all these people could have been reached, but they did not do this and this was not God’s plan.  God first judged the corporate body, the New Testament churches and congregations, which numbered about two billion people by the time judgment came upon them.  He finished using them and they would play absolutely no part in the sending forth of His Word to that great multitude He intended to save.  In a sense, it was as if God were saying, “I do not need you.  You have been unfaithful.  You have been unjust.  You have rebelled against my commandments and you have not accomplished the purpose I gave you.  Even though I have a plan to save a great multitude of people and even though the time is very short for me to accomplish this, I have no intention of using you.”  God basically pushed the churches aside and they played no role at all in the great work that God reserved for the last in saving the great multitude. 

Instead, in the Lord’s infinite wisdom, He prepared about 150 years in advance to open up the field of electronics to give men wisdom in that area.  These things were always in the world and could always have been discovered, but God held it back.  It was not the time during the earlier millenniums of the world.  God reserved these discoveries until He needed mankind to have the worldwide capacity for communication at the very time it was necessary to declare the Gospel to all the nations and peoples of the world.  So God orchestrated and controlled circumstances to make this happen.  Of course, men began to think very highly of themselves and to grow in pride because they were discovering all kinds of things that previous generations had not known.  They became “puffed up” in pride at how they had “evolved” and they were not taking giant steps forward in the evolution of mankind.  This also served God’s purposes in preparing the world for the period of final judgment, to allow the world to have its fill of the world itself, as God opened up the electronic medium.  Men used the technology for “evil” purposes, in many instances, but God meant it for good.  He arranged for a faithful ministry like Family Radio and raised it up, whereby just a few people could get together to, first of all, make sure they were very faithful to what the Bible said.  Of course, God was also the doer of that, as He is the one that moves within His people to will and to do of His good pleasure.  Then His people pooled their resources to finance the sending forth of the Gospel over the electronic medium. 

The churches played no role or part in this.  The churches did not support that ministry and, in fact, they became more and more against that ministry as time went on.  God did a wonderful thing in this and He even advanced technology to the point where an individual person could use the electronic medium.  You did not even have to be a ministry any more or to buy some big radio towers – that is very expensive.  But God even made provision so that faithful individuals could reach large numbers of people all over the world through the internet and social media.  Let us say there is a believer living on the East coast of the United States and they can go to work, like normal, and then they can come home from work and get on their computer in their own home – there is no travel involved and no large expenditure of funds.   They can just log in and they can get on Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Groups, or many other applications, and they can place on their own “page” a statement of the Gospel; their friends and family and others can see it and, so, they have just shared the Gospel with these people.  It really is just incredible what God has worked out in these final days, as far as opportunities for sharing the Word of God that were never available before this time. 

You know, before this time when God was working through the churches, if you wanted to be heard, you had to be a pastor or you had to be someone who had been given permission to preach from the pulpit.  Occasionally, there might be someone preaching in a field, but for the most part the churches were where the Gospel was located, but now that the church age is over, there is no location, except for the electronic medium.

When the “two witnesses” stood upon their feet and God sent them, they were being sent in a similar way as before, but it was vastly different in how the message of the Bible was carried.  Even though the Lord’s people would be involved “hands on” in distributing tracts, for the most part, the message was carried electronically.  Finally, it would be picked up by the world’s news media and carried even further as the Great Tribulation period came to a close.

Again, we read here in Revelation 11:11:

And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.

“Great fear fell upon them which saw them.”  This language of “fear” that fell on the people that saw the “two witnesses” is actually a good thing – it is positive language.  It is letting us know that when the “two witnesses” stood upon their feet, which is language of the Gospel going forth into the world, it was not unnoticed.   Not only did they see the “two witnesses,” but great fear came upon them because of it.  The word “fear” can be taken in various ways.  Normally, it has a connotation of something negative, as when you fear something, but in the Bible, the fear of God is a good thing; fear of the Lord is the beginning of the wisdom, it tells us in Proverbs.  We read in Acts 9:31:

Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.

“Walking in the fear of the Lord,” for a child of God, is a good thing.  When God saves someone, they are granted that new heart and new spirit in the inner man and they are granted “fear” of God.  The fear of God is a strong desire to do the will of God and to keep His commandments.  It is a fear of offending God by sinning against Him, not because we think we might lose our salvation, but we have been given a very healthy, fearful respect for God.  On the other hand, the people of the world do not have that kind of fear of God.  We read of the wicked, in Romans 3:18:

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

For instance, just think of the message of Jonah when God sent him to the city of Nineveh.  Jonah went into the city a day’s journey and cried, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”  The people of Nineveh heard the message and took action, from the king on down, and they began to sit in sackcloth and ashes, crying mightily to God.  Who could tell if God, peradventure, would turn from the evil He intended against them?  God did turn and that example of the Ninevites shows us the “fear of God.”  They hearkened to His Word.

On the other hand, think about the world’s reaction, overall, in the media or people in your own neighborhood, or people in the churches, when they heard that May 21, 2011 was Judgment Day.  There was mockery.   There was reviling.  There was a dismissing of it.  There were jokes about it and there was disputing with it, especially from the churches: “No man knows the day or hour.  That is not possible.”  Then they ignored it from then on and just pushed it aside because their church said, “No man knows the day or hour.”  There was no fear of God and that was the evidence.  There was another kind of fear, a deep down fear, but there was no respect or hearkening to the Word of God.  There was no “fear” in the sense of obedience to what God was saying and going to Him to cry for mercy: “Oh, God, I have heard that judgment is coming and the door to heaven will shut on May 21, 2011.  Oh, Lord, have mercy upon me.” 

At that point someone could have cried for mercy.  EBible Fellowship encouraged people to go to God while He may be found and beseech Him; and if anyone tells you to stop crying for mercy, just cry all the more.  There were people that did not like the idea of crying out for mercy.   No matter what the truth of the Bible is in a particular season, when you proclaim it, you are going to have critics and you are going to have those that argue with God; it is not arguing with us, but arguing with God.  There were individuals that did not like that we emphasized crying for mercy so much, but now the season has changed – the day of salvation has ended – and EBible no longer encourages people to cry for mercy in that way.  If anyone were to go to God, they would have to recognize the day we are in, saying, “Oh, Lord, I know you shut the door on May 21, 2011, but could it be that ‘having had mercy,’ it could be possible you saved me before you shut the door?”  That is the only way that God allows someone to come to Him at this particular time.  There is no fear of God in the eyes of men.  The way the world reacted to the news of what God was about to do was evidence of that.

Let us just look at another verse concerning “fear” in Luke 1:50:

And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

Here, God brings the two ideas together.  Those that He has mercy upon do “fear him from generation to generation.”  The term “generation to generation” means forever and it directs us to eternity future, from this world to the eternal generation to come.  His mercy is on them that fear Him.  In our verse in Revelation 11:11, it says, “and great fear fell upon them which saw them,” and “them” refers to the “two witnesses.”  We could say it another way, “and great fear fell upon them so they could hear the Words of the Bible,” since “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”  He saved them and had mercy upon them.  This is a verse that is describing the response of the great multitude to the message from God from the Bible in the days leading up to May 21, 2011, when the warning trumpet sound was proclaimed to all the earth, and all of the remaining souls whose names were recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life heard and were saved.  God bestowed grace and mercy upon them and, as a result, they feared the Lord: “Great fear fell upon them.”