Read with Me
Revelation 11:7-14 (NET)
When they have completed their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will make war with them and conquer them and kill them. 8 Their corpses will lie in the street of the great city that is symbolically called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was also crucified. For three and a half days those from every people, tribe, nation, and language will look at their corpses, because they will not permit them to be placed in a tomb. And those who live on the earth will rejoice over them and celebrate, even sending gifts to each other, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth. But after three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and tremendous fear seized those who were watching them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” So the two prophets went up to heaven in a cloud while their enemies stared at them. Just then a major earthquake took place and a tenth of the city collapsed; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
The second woe has come and gone; the third is coming quickly!
Listen with Me
The faithful and fearless witnesses had enjoyed God’s protection in the midst of the Great Tribulation, the persecution of God’s people by the enemies of the cross. In John’s day, this was centered in the Roman emperor and his faithful followers. Through the witnesses, God had given the clear call to repent and to turn to Jesus for salvation, all in an effort to save any who were holding back out of fear, so that they could come in before the final doom was pronounced.
But the time would finally come for the door to close. At that time, God would withdraw His hand of protection and allow those faithful martyrs to be executed by the enemies of the cross. The seeming death of the last remnants of the Church would be a cause for great celebration among those who had been convinced that all their troubles could be laid at the feet of the Christians who refused to worship the ancient gods and goddesses, and who had who had thus brought all these disasters on them.
But these witnesses would have the last laugh. Even though the Church seemed to have been entirely destroyed, it was only working in secret, waiting for God’s signal to emerge, purified by the trials and more radiant with spiritual power than before. They will be seen as having literally risen from the dead. And the sight of all these powerful Christians will turn the rejoicing of the enemies of the cross into a nightmare of fear and uncertainty. All that they believed about the power of the old gods and their “divine” emperor would be dashed to bits. And that reality was going to send a shockwave through the main city of Rome and its environs.
Some have used the statement that the city where this all happens is “the great city that is symbolically called Sodom and Egypt, where the Lord was also crucified” to identify this as all taking place in Jerusalem. But in God’s sight, and throughout the vision that He gave to John, there are only two great cities, two kingdoms. The city that will endure is the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God. The other, doomed to destruction, is the kingdom of the world, the kingdom which raises itself against God and his Messiah, Jesus, and which crucified him. At the time that John wrote this kingdom was embodied by Rome, which really did share in the sexual perversions of Sodom and the arrogant leadership of Egypt, including the deification of its leaders.
The fall of the false gods and the emperor as symbols of invincible power would be devastating. The people’s confidence in their power and their authority would be completely destroyed by the resurrection and resurgence of the confessing Church, leaving the people no shelter from God’s power and from His plans for their destruction. But an even more catastrophic woe was quickly on its way.
Pray with Me
Father, this is an interesting set of insights! It is also interesting to see that in Your sight there have only ever been two “cities”, two rival kingdoms: Your kingdom, the New Jerusalem, which will last forever, and the kingdom of the world, the foul, corrupt kingdom that is opposed to You and Your agenda. Over the millennia, this kingdom has been incarnated in many earthly kingdoms with many capital cities. But in every case, You have brought them down, leaving Your people to fearlessly testify to Your judgment and to gather those of the remnant who are willing into Your eternal city. Even in very recent times we have seen tyrannical, anti-Christian regimes stricken and brought to their knees by Your power and might. Some are even in the process of falling apart right now. Thank you, Lord, that You have enabled me to live here and now in Your kingdom, in Your divine city, so that whatever happens in this world, I will be with You forever. Amen.