Revelation 11
3And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will be clothed in burlap and will prophesy during those 1,260 days. . . . 5If anyone tries to harm them, fire flashes from their mouths and consumes their enemies. This is how anyone who tries to harm them must die. They have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall for as long as they prophesy. 6And they have the power to turn the rivers and oceans into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.7When they complete their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the bottomless pit will declare war against them, and he will conquer them and kill them. 8And their bodies will lie in the main street of Jerusalem, the city that is figuratively called “Sodom” and “Egypt,” the city where their Lord was crucified. 9And for three and a half days, all peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will stare at their bodies. No one will be allowed to bury them. 10All the people who belong to this world will gloat over them and give presents to each other to celebrate the death of the two prophets who had tormented them. 11But after three and a half days, God breathed life into them, and they stood up! Terror struck all who were staring at them. 12Then a loud voice from heaven called to the two prophets, “Come up here!” And they rose to heaven in a cloud as their enemies watched. 13At the same time there was a terrible earthquake that destroyed a tenth of the city. Seven thousand people died in that earthquake, and everyone else was terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
Revelation 11:3-13
Revelation 12
10Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has come at last—salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth—the one who accuses them before our God day and night. 11And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die. 12Therefore, rejoice, O heavens! And you who live in the heavens, rejoice! But terror will come on the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you in great anger, knowing that he has little time.” . . .
. . . 17And the dragon was angry at the woman and declared war against the rest of her children—all who keep God’s commandments and maintain their testimony for Jesus.
Revelation 12:10-12, 17
I have come now to the point of summing up all we have been pondering under the title of this Gem-series Facing Death Not Afraid to Die. The astute ones among you will notice I’m sure that there are some verses I have omitted. Not because I have a secret agenda but more to draw together the relevant verses in a way to highlight the flow of the text.
Have you picked up on the fact that the way this text is structured forces us to realise the two witnesses could be us? Do you now see that the wrath of the devil is due to the fact he knows he lost the war in heaven? As a result, it is a fait accompli, a foregone conclusion, that he will also lose the war over the people of God on earth. But the angrier the devil gets, the more the atrocities on earth grow more outrageous. I have come to that conclusion having finished reading the book I told you about in the previous Gem – Left to Tell by Immaculée Ilibagiza. The atrocities committed by the Hutu tribesmen were part of the government’s plan toward Ethnic Balance. What a classic euphemism that was, a little like the Nazis Final Solution. It just keeps happening. The devil has declared war on the woman’s children, i.e. God’s children. As you well know, history is full of such euphemisms, nice appealing terms which when used can dehumanize and disenfranchise any ethnic group of people and deem it acceptable to exterminate them. The devil wants to do that to the people of God. Beware! The final solution or the ethnic balance or religious ecumenism may one day be applied to you. No wonder they tell us not to mix religion and politics.
Now allow me to turn our thoughts toward the prime two questions which arise from this portion of the text of Revelation 11 and 12.
- Why would God allow the two witnesses to be harmed when he had promised they would not be harmed?
- Why would God allow the death of the first pastor in Iran in order to save the 900 men and their families?
1. Why were the Witnesses Harmed?
To think the witnesses were harmed it is an assumption on our part. I remember when I first heard Dominggus’s and Yohanis’s testimonies I asked them if they felt pain or discomfort. Both said no. They didn’t feel anything. The moment they were struck it was like they left their bodies and were present with the LORD. Despite having experienced horrific injuries which brought death, neither of them felt pain or discomfort of any kind. Domi (Dominggus) said he was present in his spirit body with no feeling of pain or anything like that. When he returned to his body beside the road and was placed on the metal floor of the public vehicle, he was then aware of his physical body again. Yohanis said in his testimony, “During all of these tortures I felt no pain and I didn’t even bleed.” That was after lying there in the forest with four deep spear wounds, and a wound to his neck which had cut his spinal cord. But even given the severity of his wounds there was not a sign of blood. That fact defies logic and remember, he lay in that state for eight days. In Domi’s case, there was blood everywhere. He was losing both blood in huge quantities as well as spinal and brain fluid. His body lay there for five and a half hours looking like he was dead and he should have been.
I assume the Two Witnesses would experience something similar. We assume they must suffer dreadfully, but that is purely speculation on our part. God, it seems, is perfectly able to spare His martyrs and His saints the pain of suffering when they might be expected to feel it. The same is true of Immaculée Ilibagiza. In her book she wrote “During the frequent searches the killers made of [the] house while hunting for me, every second I spent crouching in my secret bathroom hideaway seemed to last a year. But the moment I opened my heart to God in prayer . . . I was transported to a place of peace where time ceased to exist, my heart was touched by eternity, my fear replaced with forgiveness and my doubt dispelled by the certainty that I would forever be a beloved child of the LORD.” [p. 210/211] That may defy imagination, but it is nonetheless true.
2. Why Would God Allow a Servant of His To Die? / Why doesn’t God Protect Them All?
I have been focused on martyr stories over the last month and have gained an appreciation of the combination of those who die as martyrs coupled with protection stories which add contrast within the same group of victims. Consider the stories shared in God Stories 28, 29 and 30 which all come out of Maluku.
Look at the accounts of these testimonies, all come from of the same unprovoked attack committed on January 20th, 1999 at a Bible Camp run by one church which will remain nameless. As you can gather from the God Stories, six in total lost their lives as martyrs. The total group of Christians involved from the one church was 120. Roy’s brother ran off into the forest and encountered the angel. Others escaped into the sea or the forest while a number of them were apprehended, including those caught in the village where the machetes were turning in the attackers’ hands. One, the lecturer, was struck a machete blow and was left for dead but she survived as told in God Story 30. The young women sang themselves out of the likelihood of being raped and slaughtered while the remainder were protected by the light blinding those intent on doing them harm.
Why these differences? Why are some brutally killed, while others experience the Saviour’s protection? I think it mirrors the flow of the text in Revelation Chapters 11 and 12. It is like this whole scenario is choreographed for maximum effect. It feels like it is a staged series of events to maximise the surprise of the shock of what is to happen. I believe God uses martyrdom to grab the attention of resistant humans to the point where they can grasp the fact that they don’t have other realistic alternatives. Either they decide now to make the only rational decision left to them or to be lost forever. To get through to some people God seems to have to use extreme measures. The verses which comes to mind is this one:
Jesus replied, “Now the time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity. Anyone who wants to serve me must follow me, because my servants must be where I am. And the Father will honor anyone who serves me.
John 12:23-26
There is another side to the stories as well. The Human Rights Watch have documented a number of incidents where Christians attacked Muslims first in an effort to be the first to strike to avoid being killed when the threat was imminent. The watchdogs who followed up the Malukan atrocities, on each side of the religious divide, also found there was another factor involved. There were provocateurs who acted as Christian or Muslim but in reality were neither. Some were politicists who were hoping to use the situation to stir up hatred and violence to suit their own agenda. Some were criminals or pramen who were seeking to use the veil of civil unrest to profit from as a result of their own subterfuge. Some were Muslims acting like Christians to stir up the resentment of other Muslims. Or Christians setting fire to the homes of Christians in close proximity to the homes of Muslims, so that a conflagration was started and blamed on the Muslims. In the end the authorities found the results of their investigations were inconclusive and so no action was taken against the real perpetrators, which many blamed on political agendas.
Again I would suggest as the LORD’s people we ought to heed the advice stated in Luke 22 and found in the these accounts in Gem 1227 and 2295. Enough of this talk about the need to be the first to strike. I would like again to add the comment made by Nate Saint to his son Steve when he was five and asked why the men didn’t use guns against the Waorani. https://www.bereaninsights.org/nugget/god-answers-why-through-the-death-of-eight-saints/.
We would never kill the Aucas because they are not ready for heaven but we are.
Nate Saint
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
Luke 23:34
“Stand up killer and explain to this girl why you murdered her mother and butchered her brother.” Felicien was sobbing. I could feel his shame. He looked up at me for only a moment, but our eyes met. I reached out, touched his hands lightly and said, “I forgive you.”
Immaculée Ilibagiza
Semana was furious, “What was that all about, Imamaculée? I brought him to you to question . . . to spit on if you wanted to. But you forgave him! How could you do that?”
Left to Tell p 204 Immaculée Ilibagiza
How could she do that? How could anyone do that? Find out in the last Gem of this series in the next Gem. The Ultimate Miracle.
I planned to stop at this point but I find there is one more slant on the story worth telling. One more perspective to be added before I close this Gem mini-series. I have given you enough hints as to what this other perspective is already. If you think you know, tell me in an email to [email protected]. Let’s see if you are astute enough to catch the little hints I have dropped. What side of the story is as yet left untold? What is the ultimate miracle?