My two witnesses. Revelation 11:3-12

 If you were to ask, I would tell you that my favorite biblical character is the prophet, Samuel. Like Elijah, this man did it all. Because of Israel's pleas for God's help Samuel prayed and the Lord sent lightning strikes, hail, and earthquakes against the Philistines. Look up the dynamics of lightning and you might get this.

Lightning is a discharge of electricity. A single stroke of lightning can heat the air around it to 30,000°C (54,000°F)! This extreme heating causes the air to expand explosively fast. The expansion creates a shock wave that turns into a booming sound wave, known as thunder.
https://tinyurl.com/47d9dvn8

Surprisingly, people have been struck by lightning and lived. But what about the shock wave from a lightning strike?

the brain—even without a direct hit to the head—could be seriously injured by primary blast waves that last just milliseconds. Scientists discovered a distinctive honeycomb pattern of broken and swollen nerve fibers in the brains of five Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans who survived multiple IEDs and died later of other causes. The tiny wounds—different from brain damage caused by car crashes or collision sports—were identified in brain regions that affect decision-making, memory, and reasoning, and maybe “the signature of blast injury,”
https://tinyurl.com/4s3yn7ux

Imagine baseball-sized hailstones raining down upon you while you are running for cover, just to have the earth open up and swallow some of your troops. This is how God responded to Samuel's prayer for help. But the most dramatic aspect of Samuel's life came when he confronted King Saul for sparing the life of King Agag. Samuel hacks King Agag into pieces. So for a while, when Samuel came into town, the town leaders would ask him if he had come in peace.

As a youth I was anything but feared or respected, and the hope that coming to Jesus might change all that was a real thing for me. I will add, when I graduated from high school I was five foot seven; I am now six foot four, and yes, I have used my size to intimidate, but in truth, I did it to keep people from seeing the fear in me. (If you have been abused in any way, it will take your lifetime to try and get past it, and it is a struggle.)

For the reasons that I have pointed out, I have loved the story of God's two witnesses; and thus begins this dive into Revelation 11:3-12.

"Also I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth." These are the two olive trees and the two menorahs standing before the Lord of the earth. If anyone tries to do them harm, fire comes out of their mouth and consumes their enemies—yes, if anyone tries to harm them, that is how he must die. They have the authority to shut up the sky so that no rain falls during the period of their prophesying; also they have the authority to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want. When they finish their witnessing, the beast coming up out of the Abyss will fight against them, overcome them and kill them; and their dead bodies will lie in the main street of the great city whose name, to reflect its spiritual condition, is "Sodom" and "Egypt"—the city where their Lord was executed on a stake. Some from the nations, tribes, languages, and people see their bodies for three-and-a-half days and do not permit the corpses to be placed in a tomb. The people living in the Land rejoice over them, they celebrate and send each other gifts, because these two prophets tormented them so.

Page one.

But after the three-and-a-half days a breath of life from God entered them, they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Then the two heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, "Come up here!" And they went up into heaven in a cloud, while their enemies watched them. (Revelation 11:3-12 CJB)

• “Also I will give power to my two witnesses”

  I have said many times that we are to look for witnesses. In this case, the scripture that would explain who these witnesses are according to the Torah or Tenach (for us Gentiles, that would be the Old Testament.)

  In light of their authority – In Isaiah 8:2 NASB God says, "... I will take to Myself faithful witnesses for testimony, ...” Now, He goes on, in this instance, to name, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. Does the mention of those names exclude this from speaking about God handpicking two ancient prophets that never tasted death? Of course not, and, as you may well know, Jesus, on several occasions, used portions of passages to fit the moment. An example of this comes when Jesus announced His mission on earth.

  The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me Because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners; (2) To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, Isaiah 61:1-2 NASB

  That Sabbath day, He left off a portion as He said nothing about the day of vengeance of our God. Why leave that part off? Because that time was yet to come when His judgment will be unleashed.

  In Malachi, we find a reference to Elijah coming.

  Malachi 4:5-6 NASB "Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. (6) "He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse."

  What is the great and terrible day of the Lord? God's wrath, that time we so foolishly call the tribulation. Has the time of God's wrath come? Absolutely NOT, but soon.

  Witnesses?

  Thankfully, we have a heads up as to who one of the prophets is.

  If you were to ask who the other might be, I would have to lean toward the idea that man is appointed once to die, and there were only two people that the bible tells us did not die, Elijah, who has already been identified, and Enoch; and yes, Enoch is referred to as a prophet. Jude 1:14 tells us Enoch prophesied. Hebrews 11:5 tells us that he was taken up so that he might not see death. You cannot apply these parameters to Moses, as much as you might try. So by witnesses, we have established the authority of these two witnesses.

  “A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed; on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed.” (Deuteronomy 19:15 NASB)

Page two.

• So this begs the question, are they testifying of God's power, and who He is, or are they testifying against Israel and the nations?

  What a great question. I believe the answer is both, but don't expect to hear this answer in church. Our religious mentality perceives testifying as openly speaking about what God has done in your life, with the hope of winning over the lost to Jesus. The testimony services we had in church, were along this same line. While many were interesting the main benefit of these services was that we got to bypass some hell, fire, and brimstone preaching that night.

  With all that in mind what can we expect these two to do?

  Revelation 11:5 AMP

  • “And if anyone attempts to injure them,”

    If? how about no doubt about it. Every Islamic will be trying to kill them. At first, because they may look old and feeble, it would be personal attacks. Since that won't work, it will move on to snipers, rocket-propelled grenades, and perhaps mortars.

  • Fire pours from their mouth and consumes their enemies; if anyone should attempt to harm them, thus he is doomed to be slain.

    An interesting thing about using the Amplified is that they typically give you cross-references, and they did that here. [II Kings 1:10; Jer. 5:14.]

    II Kings 1:10 speaks of Elijah and gives testimony that he had done this before. (One of the reasons that many think Moses would be one the prophets has much to do with the miracles and signs that he performed.)

    Jeremiah 5:14 tells us that God said, “ thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, "Because you have spoken this word, Behold, I am making My words in your mouth fire And this people wood, and it will consume them.” If anything this verse promotes the idea that God's words would be fire in their mouths and that those words would consume those that hear. Honestly, it is a bit of a stretch to use Jeremiah, but the Jews, hearing these words might say, ah yes.

  Revelation 11:6 NASB

  • These have the power to shut up the sky, so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying;

    Why might this be important? Because when they are gone the false prophet does the opposite. He turns the rain back on. Note what the scripture says it does not rain, in at least the region, for the entire time they are prophesying.

  • and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood,

    This should make bells go off in your head. This is what God had Moses do to Egypt. Strangely, the Egyptian priests also turned the remaining water into blood. They took the remaining clean water and ruined to prove their point.

  • and to strike the earth with every plague,

    While the word used does have plague as its main definition, it also means blows, wounds or injury.  

Page three.

Why is this important? Because during the entire time of God's wrath, the earth and the people alive here have been receiving blows, wounds, and injury. There is one other thing, and that is the man-made plagues that the global elite has released upon the earth. God will match you blow for blow. The fact that they can strike the entire earth indicates that there is NO limitation to the Word of God.

• as often as they desire.

  And this tells me that there are NO restrictions placed upon them. You might think that they would only go after those who have tried to harm them, but that is not the case.

We are told, in Revelation 11:3, that their time on the earth in 1260 days.

Revelation 11:7 NASB

• When they have finished their testimony,

  Jesus told us, no one takes my life, I lay it down. They knew their time is done and so did God.

• the beast that comes up out of the abyss

  In a previous post I went into detail about how that this is Satan. You don't have to answer this, but how many names does Satan have? Go back to Revelation 9:11 and study that out. We are jumping ahead but let's look at Revelation 17:8 for a moment.

  Revelation 17:8 NASB "The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come.

  Ask yourself, when Jesus comes back as the warring messiah, only three persons are tossed into the abyss, who are they? The antichrist, the false prophet, and, for a time, Satan. In Revelation 13:2 we see the dragon (Satan) give one of the beasts his power. What power does Satan have? None, outside of deception, but there one other thing and the biggest of all, and that would be the title deed to the earth (he stole that title from Adam.) So when he is giving this beast his power, he is offering him power over the whole earth. Have you ever asked yourself, how is it that one person can seem to gain power over the entire earth? Empowered by Satan himself, the antichrist will make war with them, and, as you can tell by the next bullet point, succeed, or so he thinks.

• will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them.

  The antichrist does not allow anyone to touch them as they want to gloat over their dead bodies.

Revelation 11:8 NASB

• 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.

  At this point the two witnesses are lying dead in the street. Imagine that, they think they have killed, or at minimum hurt God.

Page four.

It is possible that Psalm 79 is addressing this very moment in time.

Psalms 79:1-2 NASB A Psalm of Asaph. O God, the nations have invaded Your inheritance; They have defiled Your holy temple; They have laid Jerusalem in ruins. (2) They have given the dead bodies of Your servants for food to the birds of the heavens, The flesh of Your godly ones to the beasts of the earth.

Pay attention to this part, “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.”

When you struggle to understand how Babylon can be resurrected and play an end-times role, consider what God is calling Jerusalem. Funny how God has added, where their Lord was crucified. Even then He was their Lord, but they refused Him, now He is making a harsh point.

Revelation 11:9-10 NASB

• 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.

  Prior to the advent of 24 hours news, this aspect did not make much sense, but we come to the point where you are never without news, even if it is scripted and planned lies. There are webcams everywhere, and the fact that two ancient prophets are giving people havoc, is the news. The antichrist will not permit their dead bodies to be moved.

• (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.

  Those who were hoping for the New World Order, will be having a party because of their deaths. Consider that God has been dishing out His judgments the whole of the time they have been standing in Jerusalem. But while standing there, they have been dishing out God's judgments as well, with NO restraint. No wonder people are celebrating.

Revelation 11:11-12 NASB

• But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet;

  Just a guess, but I suspect the first thing those watching might say, they will know that we have been laughing and will kill us.

  God resurrects them from the dead; they have now met the requirement.

• and great fear fell upon those who were watching them.

  I imagine so.

• 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.

  When God spoke in a loud voice on previous occasions, anyone that heard it said it sounded like thunder, NOT THIS TIME. And God raptured them back up into heaven.

Page five.

Revelation 11:13 NASB

• And in that hour there was a great earthquake,

  Throughout the time of judgment there are several intense earthquakes, some sound as though the continental plates could realign and connect making one land mass, again.

• and a tenth of the city fell;

  Only a tenth? Considering what much of Israel looks like, I would say it looks like rock and adobe construction. Much of Southern California was built from lath, plaster, and red clay bricks. In one of earthquakes many structures in the town of Whittier collapsed.

• seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake,

  Again I reference our Southern California earthquakes. In 1994 we had the Northridge quake which struck at 04:30. Fortunately the early hour still had many people in bed and not on the freeways which buckled and collapsed. Multi-story apartments collapsed, and colleges, eleven hospitals sustained varying levels of damage, and of course phone and electricity went down. Surprisingly, only 60 died, but over 9000 were injured.

  Can you imagine how brutal this quake will be to kill over 7000.

• and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

  “The rest”, these were the global spectators who laughed and partied only moments before. The entirety of God's judgments are meant to drive you to repentance. Apparently, God made a dent in some of them.

For several posts I have referred to chronological timelines. Obviously, not everything fits precisely within a timeline, but, like these two witnesses, they insert easily. Everything about them screams that they come at almost the same time as the construction of the temple. There would be a huge association for the Jews if that happened. The amount of time that they are here is important as well, 1260 days. That is half of the seven years, and what happens at the halfway marker of the seven years? The peace treaty is broken and the false prophet steps forward.

If the false prophet is, as I say, the current high priest that presides over the sacrifices in the new temple, and, he makes a flip, converts to Islam, performs all the signs and wonders that the two witnesses have been performing, then can you see how the ELECT of Israel, the Jewish leadership, might convert and follow along with him?

Islam sees a man like the high priest within their prophecies as well, and strangely, it all makes sense.

I strongly suggest that you turn to Jesus as your savior now, not later. It is going to be unbearably difficult.

It seems that there is a massive pause. Rev 11:1-4

 So, here we are, beginning to read Revelation chapter 11. It seems like just minutes ago that we read

Revelation 10:6-7 NASB and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, WHO CREATED HEAVEN AND THE THINGS IN IT, AND THE EARTH AND THE THINGS IN IT, AND THE SEA AND THE THINGS IN IT, that there will be delay no longer, (7) but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as He preached to His servants the prophets.

The transition between verses six and seven is the word but; that word could indicate anything coming immediately after this conversation or another future event. The usage of the term “delay” should eliminate any future events. The problem we escapees from the nations have is that we have the worst time separating ourselves from the church age we live, as we apply our mindset and current issues to the book of Revelation. If I think in terms of the immediate and overall context, the conversation is taking place during the time of the seven trumpets; and what they bring to the earth begins in chapter eight.

• Hail, mixed with fire and blood;

• A third of the sea becomes blood, and a third of the sea life dies.

• One-third of all the ships on the sea were destroyed.

• One-third of the water sources become undrinkable, and many people died.

• A third of the sun became darkened along with the moon.

I suspect, you get the picture, yet this is only how this “trumpet” phase begins. Any of these events could lead to devastating results. Having already, in our chronology, experienced the seal judgments, the bowl judgments, and now the trumpet judgments, you might think that those who are going to repent and come to the Lord have done so.

And yet, John is still under a directive to -

Revelation 10:11 CEV Then some voices said, "Keep on telling what will happen to the people of many nations, races, and languages, and also to kings."

Considering where John is when this vision occurs, how is he going to make verse 11 happen?

I suppose, depending on your age and how painful it is to get up and walk, you should rejoice. However, this thought process makes me think about the many ways you could keep on telling what will happen and to whom, and writing could be one of them.

On that note, what is the next thing that John does?

He writes out what he saw and heard, with minor exceptions – like the information he was commanded NOT to share. Yet almost two thousand years later, someone like me is still writing about understanding the Revelation.

Now we have moved into chapter eleven, and it seems that there is a monumental interruption. I say this because, even though “there will be no more delays,” and yet the seventh trumpet does not come until Revelation 11:15. At this point, we need to understand WHY God inserted this coming information about measuring the temple and the two witnesses. These two witnesses are a mystery to most but vital to Israel's repentance. Remember context, and try to think like a Jew.

Page one.

Revelation 11:1-4 CJB I was given a measuring rod like a stick and told, "Get up, and measure the Temple of God and the altar, and count how many people are worshiping there! (2) But the court outside the Temple, leave that out; don't measure it; because it has been given to the Goyim (Gentiles,) and they will trample over the holy city for forty-two months. (3) "Also I will give power to my two witnesses; and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth." (4) These are the two olive trees and the two menorahs standing before the Lord of the earth.

At the time of this vision was there a temple?

No, it had been destroyed in 70 A.D., and the Bible Knowledge Commentary tells us that “Most evangelical scholars affirm that Revelation was written in a.d. 95 or 96. This is based on accounts of the early church fathers that the Apostle John had been exiled on Patmos Island during the reign of Domitian who died in a.d. 96. John was then allowed to return to Ephesus.”

John, was well aware that the temple was gone, and would not be thinking in terms of Solomon's nor Herod's temple so those would not apply to Revelation 11:1,2. But a future temple, in the millennial kingdom, would, and he had learned of that temple from Ezekiel chapters 40-42, 45.

Ezekiel had been taken captive into Babylon. Since the captivity was to last seventy years, the chances of Ezekiel seeing home again was slim to none. Under these circumstances, the Lord gives him a vision.

Ezekiel 40:1 CEV Twenty-five years after King Jehoiachin and the rest of us had been led away as prisoners to Babylonia, and fourteen years after the Babylonians had captured Jerusalem, the LORD's power took control of me on the tenth day of the first month. The LORD showed me some visions in which I was carried to the top of a high mountain in Jerusalem. I looked to the south and saw what looked like a city full of buildings.

• “But don't measure the courtyard outside the temple building. Leave it out. It has been given to those people who don't know God, and they will trample all over the holy city for forty-two months.” Revelation 11:2.

The outer court was the only place women could go, and, it was where Jesus overthrew the tables of the money-changers and sellers of sacrificial animals.

In the previous post I showed you this passage.

Ezekiel 8:5-9 NASB Then He said to me, "Son of man, raise your eyes now toward the north." So I raised my eyes toward the north, and behold, to the north of the altar gate was this idol of jealousy at the entrance. (6) And He said to me, "Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel are committing here, so that I would be far from My sanctuary? But yet you will see still greater abominations." (7) Then He brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. (8) He said to me, "Son of man, now dig through the wall." So I dug through the wall, and behold, an entrance. (9) And He said to me, "Go in and see the wicked abominations that they are committing here."

As far as God was concerned the courtyard was filled with abominations at the hands of the nations (ethnic groups). What then are abominations?

According to Webster's Dictionary: defilement, pollution - in a physical sense, or evil doctrines and practices - which are moral defilements, idols and idolatry, (all of which) are called abominations. So God is giving us, once again, a definition of why He has poured out His wrath upon Israel and the nations;

Page two.

in all of this He wishes to see repentance, but for many, it never comes. We have been using the term nations and gentiles quite freely, perhaps we need to go over how this word was perceived by the Jews. Nation and Gentiles were synonymous terms, however, the Greek term is ethnos. That should sound familiar as it is a base from which we get ethnicity. Sadly, ethnicity is wrapped up in racism, and everyone practices some form of racism. By Jewish standards, it referred to anyone outside of the Jewish religion. Since the time of Christ and the age of grace, “the nations” refers to anyone who is not in Christ. We, by the way, became a part of Christ's body of believers when we accepted Him and the life He gave for us. Nations then simply boils down to the haters outside of Christ.

Do you know that even within religions there are many haters?

We might assume the Gentiles would be the abomination, but no, it's aliens (I jest, sort of.) Look at what Jeremiah tells us.

Jeremiah 51:51 NASB We are ashamed because we have heard reproach; Disgrace has covered our faces, For aliens have entered The holy places of the LORD'S house.

Aliens seems to be a hot topic lately. Here it is the Hebrew word zur and means strangers, enemies, illegitimate, adulteress, and outsiders. Maybe it would help you understood if you consider that because Mary stood her ground and insisted that God was Jesus's Father, that Jesus was deemed to be a mumzer (an illegitimate child.) Do you think for a second that the tightly knit community believed Mary's story? If you never watched The Chosen, there is a scene when Jesus, and all the disciples, walked into a local synagogue. The priest was reading, with what seemed like a vile anger, Deuteronomy 23.

Deuteronomy 23:2 NASB "No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the LORD; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the LORD.

By this standard Jesus could not and should not have entered a Synagogue, nor be taught in the Rabbinical schools; and yet Jesus, at age 12, stood His ground with the learned men in the temple. Jesus birth, by all standards, should have made Jesus the alien because he was thought by most to be illegitimate. Fascinating, and yet He was well educated in the scriptures. Some would use the lame reasoning that He was God and therefore, had special understanding or privilege. The problem with that kind of thinking is that the majority of us only accept that He was God as head knowledge, and then, only because we have heard someone say it; and yet, many will fight with you if you say that Jesus had NO special privilege and had to be taught just as the pharisees were. There is a logical explanation for this but this is not the time or place.

Moving on with Revelation 11:3,4.

“Also I will give power to my two witnesses; and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth." (4) These are the two olive trees and the two menorahs standing before the Lord of the earth.”

I find the introduction of the two witnesses uncomfortable as I try to make them fit into MY scheme of things. (Yes, that's what we do, and because we are prone to do that, we have to force ourselves to pay attention to context and let scripture define scripture.)

How and why is any of this information that we see in Revelation 11:1-4 significant?

I hope this short dive into the potential chronological events associated with Revelation 11:1-4 that initiate the rapture and immediately after that might help.

Page three.

• The rapture of the church must be the first thing that happens, and then the antichrist comes on the scene. 2 Thessalonians 2:3 Geneva “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a departing first, and then that man of sin be disclosed, even the son of perdition,” (I made it a bit more readable.) I used the Geneva bible because it was one of the first printed translations and they got it right. 

• The Revelation makes me believe that God's judgments begin shortly after the church is removed, and with the opening of the first seal (Revelation 6:1) we get the antichrist – the rider on the white horse. A common understanding is that a person scripture calls the antichrist, will make a peace treaty with many. It does not specify Israel and is foolish to think so. The Muslims will not listen to someone who is not a Muslim, and since the majority of players in this war are Muslims, well you do the math.

  Doesn't the fact that there is a call for peace imply that there will be another hellish war going on? Everything I see tells me that this war will be against Israel, and there is a great chance that the mosque that is on the temple mount will get destroyed.

• Moments after the removal of the church people will be trying to kill each other. Revelation 6:2,3, the second seal is broken and the rider on the red horse takes peace from the earth. Some might say, that this is nothing new, just look at the news. Yeah, I get that, but the escalation in the number of killings will be horrific.

• In the midst of all this, the temple in Jerusalem will have to be built, but something has to be done about that Mosque before that can happen. War may take care of that, or the firestorm that Ezekiel 38,39 speaks of. The temple will only function, as the Jews expect, for 1260 days - give or take, and then the abomination that Daniel informed us about will be set up, and the people will be forced to worship the image. There might be months in between the onslaughts, but who can say. Many think building the temple would be time-consuming, not really, for two reasons: First, they can use a temporary structure that can be put up overnight. Secondly, because the design and concrete walls are already made, they merely need to be bolted together. Everything is ready, including the high priest, a fairly young man named Rabbi Baruch Kahane. An article from August tells us about him.

  https://www.israel365news.com/74772/sanhedrin-appoints-high-priest-preparation-third-temple/

Ah, finally, the two witnesses.

• Let’s assume that the two witnesses have arrived from heaven at the same time as the construction of the temple. The two witnesses are only here for 1260 days; considering what they have come out of their mouths, they might help serve as force protection for the temple and those making sacrifices. Why say that? Because with their deaths, we have the false prophet shoved down our throats, and he acts similarly to these prophets of God; for example, the prophets stop the rain, and the false prophet turns it back on again. The false prophet also becomes the enforcer of Sharia law. It seems that the death of God's prophets enables the last half of the seven years to take place.

Page four.

While I would love to talk about these two witnesses briefly, the conversation about the two witnesses is a post in itself, and I will pass until the next post.

• As the third seal is opened, food becomes more scarce, and we all get hit with hyperinflation. So, if you can find any food, you won't be able to afford it. Revelation 6:5,6.

• “When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, "Come." I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.” Revelation 6:7-8. How are these riders killing? Sword, famine, pestilence, and by beasts of the earth. Pestilence, according to The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, is defined as any sudden fatal epidemic. The Greek word is thánatos and means death. The question is, aren't we currently dealing with a so-called pandemic with a “deadly” Covid virus?

If you are reading along with me in your bibles, then you are aware that God is NOT scheduling these events on the calendar for our direct benefit. He does, however, have a calendar if we are paying attention, and we are deeply entrenched in His calendar right now.

Having spent my life in the church, I have seen everything, and not all of it was good. Several “teachers” have tried to come up with chronological views. One resource on my computer is Rev. Clarence Larkin's Book of Charts. If this was supposed to make sense and be helpful to me, then why can I NOT grasp most of what I see there?

I am not so unlike you; I want to understand and clearly explain what I see there. Having been attacked by a pastor who said, no one understands the Revelation, I have taken the position that says, I do; and if I don't, then I will have to rely on doing my homework and the guidance of the Holy Spirit to come up with an answer. (By the way, I do not have to answers immediately and will allow myself time to come up with one.) Study your bibles and lean on the Holy Spirit. Don’t allow someone else to tell you what it means; most of the time, what they are saying is garbage. After several weeks of explaining the Revelation, one such pastor merely noted that the twelve elders were the church. He did not explain why; trust me, it needed an explanation; not just because I say so, but because there is little to define how or why the twelve are the church. Oh, it’s there in scripture, and it took Pastor John MacArthur to explain it, and I can hardly stand the man because he is so mean.

We, the church, are on the edge of eternity right now. Those who are not part of the church are going to have the worst time possible. Just the little bit that I have pointed out here should make that plain.

Put your faith in Jesus Christ. He died for your sins and rose again so that you might have a life with the Father. None of this is automatic and asks that you put your faith in Him. If you do that, you will be His forever, and you will live in His peaceful kingdom.