Mark Burgin spoke this morning from 2 Corinthians 4:7-9, 16-18, verses which remind us that God’s treasure is stored in earthen vessels (jars of clay.) How can people contain the power of God? It is a mystery, but God tells us that His Holy Spirit lives within us; He entrusts His treasure to our human frailty. We may often feel at the end of ourselves (hard-pressed, perplexed and so on), but actually there is a constraining power within us that enables us to carry on so that we are not crushed. We may feel we have no resources to meet the demands made upon us, but we need not despair because there is always hope in God. God’s power within us means we do not lose heart; we have spiritual sustenance.

The power of God is greater than any external power; it is a power that gives us hope even in trials (1 Pet 1:6). If we have hope, then we can slow down in our busy lives; there is no longer the same hurry to get everything done, because we realise not everything depends on us. Society is desperate to rest but dare not, feeling everything depends on us; God’s people, however, can rest in hope and can live in hope. Isaiah reminds us that hope does not disappoint us (Is 49:23) and therefore we have the inner strength to face whatever life may throw at us.

The two witnesses in Revelation 11:3-12 are prophets who proclaim God’s word for a specified period of time, clothed in sackcloth (representing mourning, repentance and judgment.) Their identity has been debated for years, with three views dominating:

1) They are Moses and Elijah (since the miracles of turning water into blood or destroying enemies with fire are reminiscent of these prophets’ ministry)
2) They are Elijah and Enoch (since neither person tasted death, Genesis 5:23; 2 Kings 2:11), returned to earth to complete their ministry.
3) They are two unknown people whom God will raise up at this time to do His work. God is perfectly capable of taking two “ordinary” believers and enabling them to perform the same signs and wonders that Moses and Elijah did. There is nothing in Revelation 11 that requires us to assume a “famous” identity for the two witnesses.

It is unwise to be dogmatic about the identity of these two witnesses, but their uncompromising witness for God provides a model for us to follow. Their apparent defeat at the hands of the Beast and their subsequent resurrection reminds us that Christ has also modelled for us a path we must all tread. As Paul reminds us, ‘as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.’ (1 Cor 15:22-23) There is a temptation for us to ‘zone out’ as we read Revelation, to be dazed by the fantastical images and numbers which overwhelm us and to feel that this can have no relevance to our daily lives. The truth is that death and resurrection are part of the fabric of life and we can have confidence that our lives are in God’s hands as much as the lives of these two witnesses. Their witness, commitment and courage (being filled with the Holy Spirit as the ‘olive tree’ analogy reminds us) should inspire us to live for Christ and to rest secure in His power.

Revelation 11:1-14 has been described as one of the most difficult passages in the Bible to understand, but it is worth remembering that any prophecy foretelling the future can seem baffling to us at the time (hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing!) In the time of Jesus, even the religious leaders struggled to understand the different prophetic writings about the Messiah, whereas the New Testament writers, filled with the Holy Spirit, explain these passages to us with remarkable simplicity and clarity. Whilst we may not be able to imagine another temple in Jerusalem (especially because at present the site of the original temple is the site of the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim mosque) or understand who the ‘two witnesses’ who speak out during the Tribulation could be, this should not make us doubt the accuracy of God’s word. What is now shrouded in mystery will one day be made known by God Himself. Whether these things are to be interpreted literally or symbolically should not necessarily cause us confusion; we need to be able to trust God for all that we do not fully understand.

These verses describe supernatural events, with the two witnesses having the power to do miraculous signs and bringing God’s message of judgment to His people. They face death but also experience resurrection, reminding us once again that God is Sovereign over all, and death cannot have the last word in His presence (or for His servants.) The passage alludes to many passages in the Old Testament (including Daniel 9, Zechariah 4 as well as references to Moses and Elijah, who represent for us the Law and the Prophets), reminding us that the whole of Scripture is involved in the story of God and that each part influences another.

In his first lecture on the psychological significance of the Bible, psychologist Jordan Peterson shared an image with the audience that he called “one of the coolest things that he had ever seen.”[1] It was a visual representation of the entire Bible, which showed how the text of Scripture interacts with itself. The bar graph on the bottom represents all the chapters in the Bible, while the nearly 65,000 textual cross-references are depicted by coloured arcs, which correspond to the distance between chapters. It’s an amazing example of the connected narrative within the Bible and how it speaks to and interprets itself, and as we study the final book of the Bible, we see that it cannot possibly be understood without reference to the rest of Scripture. As we spend time studying the Bible, we see more of its connected narrative and can therefore trust that God will bring to completion all that He has designed and planned.

[1] https://philosophadam.wordpress.com/2018/05/16/the-first-hyperlinked-text-the-bible-and-its-63779-cross-references/