Two prophets in the Book of Revelation
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The two witnesses may be the most mysterious characters in the entire Bible. They have a vital role on the world scene in the near future.
The two witnesses may be the most mysterious characters in the entire Bible. They have a vital role on the world scene in the near future.
Episode 2.44Only 11 verses in Revelation mention them—but the Two Witnesses have sparked centuries of debate. In this episode, we dive into Revelation 11 and explore who these mysterious prophets are, why they breathe fire, and what their dramatic ministry means for the end times. Are they Elijah and Moses returned? Or do they represent something symbolic like the Law and the Prophets—or even the Church itself? From their plagues and prophecies to their shocking death, resurrection, and global broadcasted ascension, the story of the Two Witnesses is one of judgment and mercy, grief and glory. Whether literal figures or prophetic symbols, they embody God's unflinching call to repentance in the darkest hour of human history.Find our videocast here: https://youtu.be/vggP5oFxlKwMerch here: https://take-2-podcast.printify.me/Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/reakt-music/deep-stoneLicense code: 2QZOZ2YHZ5UTE7C8Find more Take 2 Theology content at http://www.take2theology.com
Join Mondo and Graham Keelan as they discuss martyrdom and who the two witnesses in the book of Revelation could be.
Greg Dewey 9-21-25
Faith for the Coming Wilderness (6) (audio) David Eells – 9/21/25 I'm going to continue with our study of faith for the coming wilderness and how to walk above the principles of this world. All of this is to help prepare people to hear the voice of our God in the wilderness, so they can be preserved and provided for as they come out from under the bondage in Egypt. God led His people out of Egypt to learn to walk by faith in Him. (Heb.10:38) But my righteous one shall live by faith: And if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him. We've learned that God is about to raise up the first-fruits. They are a people who have been walking in the wilderness, walking by faith in the Lord. They are trusting in the Lord to be their Savior in all things. They are not ruled by the dictates of the world or religion. And, like Moses and Jesus, who were the first-fruits in their day, God is preparing the first-fruits of our day to bring the larger group of spiritual Israel into their wilderness. That's where we're headed soon, and you have an opportunity right now to be one of those who hears the voice of the Lord in the wilderness, one of those who learns to trust in Him. It's very exciting! So to help encourage others to walk by faith in the Lord, I have some more testimonies to share with you of my own wilderness experiences that gave me courage. And I want to tell you that these testimonies, even though they are very miraculous to me, are going to be commonplace in the days to come, but nothing like the even greater works God is about to do. Jesus told us, (Joh.14:10) Truly, truly, I say to you, He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to my Father. I've seen some wonderful things which are very exciting to me, and some are the greater works. They put faith in my heart to know that God is faithful to His Word, but we have things much, much greater coming. Let me emphasize again that salvation in the wilderness doesn't come through any works of man. The “rest” from our own works is just that: it's the rest from man's works to save himself and to provide for himself. The Lord God has already done it through Jesus Christ. Let me point something out to you. (1Co.1:28) And the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, [yea] and the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the things that are: (29) that no flesh should glory before God. Have you heard that before? Yes! (Eph.2:8) For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God; (9) not of works, that no man should glory. God is very careful; He doesn't want us to be able to take credit for any form of our salvation, which we have seen is very big. When you speak a word of faith or you pray and believe you have received, only God is going to get credit for that. The fulfillment comes supernaturally. This is how God is going to provide for His people in the wilderness. They're going to enter into the rest by trust in God. The “things that are not” that God chose are all of those awesome promises we shared earlier: you have been saved; you were healed; He bare your sins; He reconciled you; you have been crucified; you have been redeemed; you have been perfected; He delivered you out of the power of darkness; and so on. Those things are not seen in the physical realm, but God chose to use those things that “are not,” that He might bring to nothing the things that are. And the “things that are” is the curse we see all around us: the sickness, the demonic possession, the lack, and so on. The “things that are” are all the curses of Deuteronomy 28 upon mankind. The Lord already took care of this because He says so in His Word. We need to believe exactly what He says without adding to it and without taking away from it, which He says brings a curse. (Rev.22:18) I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in this book: (19) and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book. So God chose the things that are not, He chose these promises, to bring to nothing the things that are. For example, a doctor is not a thing that is not and medicine is not a thing that is not, and psychiatry is not a thing that is not. The things that men generally run to for salvation are “things that are,” but God chose the “things that are not” for a very good reason: He chose them so “that no flesh should glory before God.” Jesus taught us to pray, (Mat.6:10) Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Is there any sickness in Heaven? How about demonic possession? How about sin ruling your life? He said, (Col.3:1) If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. (2) Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. (3) For ye died (past tense), and your life is hid with Christ in God. (4) When Christ, [who is] our life, shall be manifested (That is, in the physical realm.), then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory. The glory of God is manifested in us while we look not at the things that are but at the things that are not. So how do we use the “things that are not” to bring to nothing the “things that are”? We do it the same way God does it. (Rom.4:7) … God … calleth the things that are not, as though they were. We just speak them as done; we just command them as done; we claim them as done. And we don't put our trust in the arm of the flesh because in (Jer.17:5) Thus saith the Lord: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. When you trust in the arm of the flesh, you're trusting in what man can do, the strength of man; you're trusting in man's power, but that's a heart that “departs from the Lord.” For example, by the stripes of Jesus (1 Peter 2:24) “ye were healed.” He didn't say “will be,” He said, “were”! And that, of course, negates any of your own works to save yourself because He's already done it and so all we have to do is rest. (Heb.4:1) Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it. We want to enter into all of the rest of God; we want to be at peace in all circumstances because we know our sovereign Lord is in control. We know He's taken care of us already at the cross. (Joh.10:30) When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit. We know He has healed us, we know He has delivered us, we know He has provided for us and so on. We know all these things are already done and it's just a matter of our entering into them through faith. The Good Tidings were also preached to the Jews, but they didn't believe them. (Heb.4:2) For indeed we have had good tidings (That's the Gospel, the Good News.) preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard. (3) For we who have believed do enter into that rest; even as he hath said, As I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. When we believe, we're not just hearing the promise; we're mixing faith with the promise by acting on that promise. When you do that, the miracle comes. A lot of people question, “Yeah, David, we know God can handle these little things, but what about the big things?” Well, I've already shared a few testimonies that I thought would be considered “big things” to most people, but now let me share another one with you. I'm going to tell you how the Lord miraculously healed my youngest son, Justin, without the help of man. Years ago, when Justin was little more than a toddler, we lived in a Christian community outside of Baton Rouge and all of us had our own assembly there. Well, the territory over there was a lot of hard clay, and you just about couldn't get grass to grow in it, but we had plowed it all up around several of the houses there and planted some grass. So when the rain came, the water stayed on top of the ground, and it was nothing but mud. So when that happens, we put planks across the mud so that we could go back and forth to the neighbors and fellowship with them and so on. I had walked over to the neighbors with Justin and when we were coming back, he was walking ahead of me on one of the planks, and I was kind of guiding him in front of me. Suddenly, he started to trip and lunge forward down into the mud. I reached out and grabbed his wrist just as he was falling, and I actually felt his bone snap in my hand, and I could have sworn I heard it, too. You know, that's a strange thing: I didn't know you could hear something like that, but I heard the pop and I felt the snap in my hand and I knew that his arm had broken. It was because I grabbed him at kind of a right angle, and it was my fault. When I picked him up, he was crying, and I just cradled him in my arms. Now, I'd already been walking in my wilderness for quite a few years, and I was constantly seeing miracles, so I was praying to the Lord and thanking the Lord for healing him because it was common for me to be healed by the Lord. And as I was going toward the house on the planks, the thought came into my mind, “I'm not going to say anything to Mary about this because I don't want to put any trial on her. I'm just going to see what the Lord does here.” So when we came in, she asked, “What happened?” I said, “Oh, he was falling and I caught him and his arm was hurt,” which was all true, but I knew a little bit more than what I was saying. So my wife picked him up and took him over to the rocking chair, and she rocked him back and forth until he basically cried himself to sleep. Then she began feeling around on his arm while I was in the room, watching her. She said, “David, his arm's not hurt, it's broken!” I said, “Yeah, I know that, but you know the Lord and you know what He's always done for us. You know He's always healed us and He's not going to fail us now, either.” She said, “Yeah, that's right.” She agreed with me. But when she was feeling around on his arm, he woke up and started crying again, and she rocked him back to sleep. By that time, it was getting late in the evening, so when he fell asleep in her arms, she put him in his bed. The prayer I prayed, was the prayer of faith. You know what faith is: it's calling those things that be not as though they were. (Rom.4:17) ... Even God, who giveth life to the dead, and calleth the things that are not, as though they were. It's believing you have received, as Jesus taught us in (Mar.11:24) Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye received them, and ye shall have them. I prayed the prayer of faith, which was the common way that I prayed. I rarely prayed the prayer that the Bible calls the “prayer of importunity,” which is to ask, seek, and knock. Here it is in (Luk.11:5) And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves; (6) for a friend of mine is come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him; (7) and he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee? (8) I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will arise and give him as many as he needeth. (9) And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. (10) For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. And there's nothing wrong with that; it's one way in which we can receive from God, but I had trained myself to walk in the prayer of faith, and it suited me. It saved a lot of time because you can either pray the prayer of importunity and end up at faith, or you can pray the prayer of faith and start out with faith. And it seems to me like the prayer of faith is the more spiritual because it's the one Jesus prayed. When He ministered to people, He spoke the words of faith and He just let it go, right there. He stood upon what He spoke, and I felt that's what the Lord was training me to do. I didn't feel like I had the time to pray about all the things I had to pray for importunely, day and night, day after day. Frankly, a lot of what people call the “prayer of importunity” is not; it's just thinking they're going to be heard for their “much speaking” as Jesus said. Understand that everything has to end up in faith. (Heb.11:6) And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing [unto him;] for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him. The Bible says that without faith it's impossible to be well-pleasing unto God and a man who is double-minded shouldn't think he's going to receive anything from God. (Jas.1:6) But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. (7) For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; (8) a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways. So I had pretty well trained myself to be stubborn with the devil and to believe I have received. You know, my wife said afterward, “I just knew you weren't going to take him to a doctor.” After Justin went to sleep, we both went to bed, and frankly, I went to sleep, but my wife prayed diligently because she knew I wanted to stay in the wilderness. She knew I wanted to trust in God and to see the works of God. So she prayed diligently, she prayed the prayer of importunity, and I prayed the prayer of faith. And Jesus told us, (Mat.18:19) Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in heaven. So we did finally end up agreeing but it wasn't until about 4:00 in the morning because she prayed until 4:00 in the morning, and then she felt a rest and a peace come over her. The prayer of importunity always has to end up in faith. It's not just pray and pray and pray and God's going to hear you because you talk a lot. Jesus said, (Mat.6:7) But when you pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Some people think they have to wear God down because they're trying to convince Him to do something He doesn't want to do. But the truth is, He wants to do it and He's already done it, and it's not a matter of convincing Him; it's a matter of accepting what His Word says. You're the one who has to be convinced, not God. Well, my wife became convinced around 4:00 in the morning about the same thing I was convinced of the previous evening, so around 4:00 she dozed off until we got up. Earlier, Justin had awakened in the middle of the night, and my wife had gone to get him and put him in bed with us, and he went back to sleep. So when we woke up the next morning, we very carefully got out of bed and left the room with him sleeping. We went into the kitchen, where we were drinking some coffee, and we heard a noise from the bedroom. We peeked in the door and saw Justin was awake. When he saw us, he just started grinning a big grin, so I stepped in, and as I was walking toward the bed, he started running toward me across the bed on all fours! I knew the healing had manifested. He reached his hands up and I grabbed him by his hands and picked him up. I shook him in the air a little, and he just giggled. Then I threw him up in the air and caught him. The Lord had totally healed him! My wife and I came to an agreement around 4:00 A.M. through the prayer of faith and the prayer of importunity. That's when we entered into the rest and the miracle came. Praise God! Everything that God has provided is in the rest. (Heb.4:3) … We who have believed do enter into that rest.... When you truly believe, you act upon it and you stand upon it, and what you feel is peace. You rest because you know that God has done this. (Heb.4:9) There remaineth therefore a sabbath (The Greek word there is sabbatismos.) rest for the people of God. Sabbatismos is not like the word used for “sabbath” anywhere else and it means a “continual” or a “perpetual” rest. You see, God wants us to be at peace all the time because of His promises. (Php 4:6) In nothing be anxious; (which is not resting) but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. (7) And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus. (Heb.4:1) Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it. We don't want to leave out even one promise of entering into His rest. Now He has promised that He has already healed us and we should be resting in that promise because He said it's done. (1Pe.2:24) … By whose stripes you were healed. Therefore we should be resting, we should be at peace, because God said it's already done. We shouldn't be anxious or troubled or seeking healing. We should be accepting healing as a free gift, just like we accepted salvation as a free gift. How long do you have to seek salvation? Don't you just have to accept salvation, since God has promised it? Yes, of course! And what is healing? Healing is salvation for the body; that's all it is. Many other provisions are salvation for the circumstances that you're in. All you have to do is believe God's Word and you automatically enter into the rest, which is where the provision is. The provision is in the rest. (Exo.31:5) Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work on the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Man works for six days but rests on the seventh and we've entered into that seventh day. Jesus Christ said, (Mar.2:27) … The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: (28) so that the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath. That means, if you abide in Him, you abide in His rest. If you are obeying Him, you are keeping that New Testament Sabbath. If you're believing His Word, you are in that New Testament Sabbath because you are resting. Well, my wife and I joined together in rest around 4:00 A.M. and God was faithful to His Word. We resisted the devil's warnings, threats and fears, and God was faithful! I'm going to tell you about another miracle that is just so wonderful, that for years I literally would start crying when I recounted the story. And it's only been recently that I've been able to recount this story without breaking up. What happened was that when we first moved to Pensacola, there was a lady who came to our house to witness, and we talked with her for a while. She told us where she fellowshipped, and she invited us over there. Well, it was very unusual for me, but I felt led to go, and something strange happened when I walked in the back door of that church. There was a prophetess who stood up in the very front of the church as I was walking in. It was a long, old building, and she never saw me coming in, but she whirled around and she pointed her finger at me and she started prophesying. I didn't know it then but it was the first time this woman had visited the church, too. She started prophesying just a glorious prophecy of how she saw the Word of God living in me, stronger than she'd seen in any man, and so on and so forth, just some glorious things. I didn't know what the Lord was doing at the time, but I found out later that He was opening a door for me because the pastor was very impressed, so he invited me to teach. And I ended up doing most of the teaching there because the Lord just dried up the pastor. He wasn't really a man of the Word anyway, but he was impressed with the Word. One day when I was sharing, this couple came in, and the girl received salvation during that meeting. She was a quiet girl and after the meeting was over, she asked the pastor and me if we could give her some counsel. And, of course, we made sure the church secretary and my wife and several other women were there. Then she told us that she was pregnant and that three days earlier she had gone to the Public Health Unit there in Pensacola, where they had done some tests on her and discovered that her baby had died. Now she was in a church; she'd never been in a church before, but this brought her to church, so to speak. Understand, I'm using the word “church” the way the world uses the word “church.” So this had brought her to church and she got saved, I guess because of the turmoil she was going through. Well, she began to tell us what the real problem was. She said she had purposely aborted this pregnancy because she had been raped by a man of another race, and she didn't want her husband to know about it. This man was a friend of her husband, and she was afraid of what could possibly happen, either to her, or to her husband, or to this man. After she got through telling us this situation, she asked us for advice. Remember, it had been three days since they had put the heartbeat monitor on her, run the sonogram on her, and taken a sample of the amniotic fluid. At any rate, they told her they were certain that her baby was dead and that she was going to have to come back and have a D&C. That's what they had told her at the Public Health Unit, but she never went back. The Lord brought her to that church, and she heard the Word that I shared, and she came to the Lord. So now she was sitting before us, asking us what to do. The first thing that came to my mind was to ask her, Is there somebody that you haven't forgiven in your life?” She thought for a minute and she said, “Yeah, there's just one person I've never really been able to forgive.” I said, “Well, who is that? Tell us.” She answered, “It's a doctor, who I think purposely aborted one of my children when I was on welfare.” When she said that, I pointed out to her, “Do you understand that you've just done the same thing? Don't you think you'd better forgive him?” And she said, “Yeah, you're right!” I said, “Why don't you pray for him?” and so she did. She started praying for him, she asked the Lord to forgive him and she asked the Lord to save him. And when she was finished with her prayer, I asked her, “Would you like to receive the Holy Spirit?” She told me, “Yes, I want everything God has for me.” So we laid hands on her and prayed for her to receive the Holy Spirit. Now, I want you to know that she was a very quiet, very reserved and introverted person, not at all an extroverted person, but when we prayed for her, she became jubilant and started actually dancing and speaking in tongues! And after she had calmed down a little bit, I said to her, “You're a new creation and I don't see any reason why the Lord can't resurrect your baby!” This is the thought that had come into my head. I can't say it was a loud voice; I wasn't greatly impressed, but I actually believe that this is part of our Commission. I have seen quite a few raised from the dead. God is going to commonly raise the dead in the days to come. (Mat.10:1) And he called unto him his twelve disciples, and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of disease and all manner of sickness. (5) These twelve Jesus sent forth, and charged them, saying, Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any city of the Samaritans: (6) but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (7) And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. (8) Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons: freely ye received, freely give. When Jesus sent out His disciples, He sent them out to heal the sick and cast out devils and raise the dead! However, that was only part of it because, when He was leaving, He ordained them to go and make disciples, and to teach them to observe everything that He told those first disciples. (Mat.28:18) And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. (19) Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: (20) teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. That's what He said, which of course means that this was passed on to us, too. I believe that raising the dead is something we're going to see commonly in the days to come. In the days of the ministry of the Man-child and the Two Witnesses company and in the time of the latter rain, we are going to see this commonly. In fact, it's a lot more common in other countries than it is here in the United States because people are so worldly-wise here; they don't come to the Lord as a child. Jesus told the disciples, (Mar.10:15) Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein. Back to this testimony. Well, when I got through saying that the Lord could resurrect her baby, the room mostly emptied. The pastor, the church secretary, and several other people who were there just walked out; they just left. So I invited my wife to come over and lay her hands on her tummy while I prayed, and all the time this was happening, these people were leaving the room. And I commanded the Spirit of life to come back into that baby, in the name of Jesus; it was just a simple and very quick prayer. Then I pointed out a few verses to this sister, who was a brand-new baby Christian and knew nothing about the Scriptures. One of them was (Mar.11:24) … All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive (The Greek word there is past tense, “received.”) them, and ye shall have them. I told her, “Now, you have to walk by faith. You have to accept this as a gift from God. We've prayed and so we believe we've received. Now we just thank God for it and don't let anybody talk you out of it. You see what it says here: “believe you received.” And she said, “Okay!” She was a very childlike person, and really, that's why she received this because she was childlike with the Lord. She knew that she had received something wonderful; she knew she'd been filled with the Holy Spirit, and I think she was full of faith. Now, like I said, during the time I was ministering to her, everybody was just leaving the room. Well, when I was finished ministering to her, my wife and I walked out and started down the hall, when a door opened and the pastor reached out, grabbed my arm, and pulled me into the room. All those people who had left my wife and me alone with the new sister were in there. And the pastor said, “David, God's not going to do that for her!” I replied, “Why do you say that?” He said, “Because she killed that baby!” Well, I told him, “I don't think you understand grace very well. That's a new creation in there; that person is not guilty. Not guilty! She is not guilty for what that other person did a few days ago.” And I said, “Besides, if I want to believe it, just let me believe it.” So I walked out of the room and left him standing there. Another thing I haven't mentioned yet is that she and her husband were actually living there because this was a church that operated a mission, and they were staying at the mission at that time. The next day she called me and she said, “David, I want to go down to the Public Health Unit, but nobody over here wants to take me.” I said, “Well, I'll take you,” and I went down and picked her up. You see, she had decided she wanted to go be checked out again, so I reminded her, “Remember, what we talked about.” And I began to go over again how faith worked, how believing you have received is how the miracle is manifested, and so on, to make sure she understood that. I told her, “Now, remember, no matter what anybody says, you've already heard what God says. Don't let anybody change your mind.” And she nodded her head and said, “Yeah.” Now, when we got down there to the Public Health Unit, she told the doctor that she wanted to be checked out again. I don't discourage that necessarily, but I knew where her faith was; I knew it was young faith. I don't recommend that people go and ask man anything about what God says He's already done. That's because some people can't stand the trial of their faith when man tells them, “No, it's not done.” But it was her decision, and I didn't get in her way. So she told them she wanted to be checked out again, and the first thing they told her was, “You should have come back before now. You can get blood poisoning like this; it's dangerous! You should have had your D&C.” They sent her into a room with a technician who put the heartbeat monitor on her again, and the technician told her again, “Ma'am, this baby is dead and you need to have a D&C now.” So when the technician said that, she replied, “Well, I don't accept that,” and when she said that, the baby came to life, right there! The baby suddenly started moving around, the heartbeat monitor recorded the heartbeat and God did a miracle. This little childlike person did not accept what men said, did not accept the diagnosis from Egypt, but accepted the diagnosis from the Lord, even though she couldn't see it. Here's a baby Christian, just a day old in the Lord. Some people think, “Well, I need to grow up in the Lord before I can see miracles.” No. As a matter of fact, a baby Christian might see miracles more than people who have been in the Lord for 40, 50 or even many years. That's because of the childlike faith that you especially have when you first come to the Lord. A lot of Christians sit in churches and become progressively more discouraged the whole time they're there because they hear so much carnal reasoning about why God can't do these kinds of things anymore today. They sit and listen to that carnal reasoning until they spiritually die. The second church I went into, after having stayed maybe only a month and a half at the first church, believed God's Word more, but I noticed that the new Christians were the ones who were receiving the signs and wonders and miracles from God. The older Christians couldn't even seem to get a healing from God. They'd go to the altar, that's the way they did it at this particular church, to be prayed for time after time. But the young Christians were getting miracles and healings. The young Christians who weren't following only the teaching they were getting in that church, but those who were studying faith were receiving miracles. Well, this little girl had no knowledge of the Word, other than just a few verses I'd shared with her; this is what amazed me. Just how much of the Word do you need to get a miracle? Not very much, but you have to hold to what you know. It's kind of like a mustard seed. You have to hold fast to what you know God has said and deny what man says. If you want a miracle, that's what you have to do. Now, we don't know what God did, but when this baby was born, it was a beautiful baby of the same race as the mom and her husband, and the problem she would have had with her husband was solved. God solved it. I don't know what she might have told him later, but God solved the problem. And I don't know what He did in the womb because you know we can't put anything beyond God, can we? God is awesome! (Eph.3:20) Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, (21) unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen. He can do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think but we need that childlike faith. We need to put our trust in Him and not be moved by what we see, feel or hear. Let me give you another example of how the Lord taught me not to listen to anything but what He spoke in His Covenant. This happened to me many years ago. I started feeling pain and passing a lot of blood. Now, I was walking by faith in the Lord and He'd never failed me, and, truthfully, I had entered into the rest because I had absolutely no fear. I never even questioned what I was going to do. So these symptoms had been happening for two or three days, and I had to make a trip to Louisiana to see some relatives. And there was a friend, a spiritual brother of mine over there. We were both full of faith, and we wanted to live the life of faith, so I asked him to pray with me. That's the only person I had pray for me for that particular trial and when he prayed for me, I came in agreement with his prayer. I received it by faith, right there. Actually, I'd prayed earlier, and the word that came to me was “cancer.” Now, you can't always trust that because the devil will always threaten you with just about anything, just to make you fearful or give up. Well, when I came back to Pensacola, I felt led the next day to go to a Christian bookstore. It wasn't the one I usually went to; it was twice as far away, but I felt to go to that one and I'd only been there a few times. So I went over there, and when I walked in the door, the lady who owned the store and another woman whom I recognized as her prayer partner saw me come in and walked over to me. They said, “David, we've been praying for different ministers that we know, and when we were praying for you, the Lord spoke to us and said that you were having a battle with a spirit of cancer, but that you would win.” Well, that was a confirmation to me, and I told them what had been happening. Then I thanked them for their prayers and came in agreement with them, but then on my way home, I decided that I was going to ask the Lord to give me a Word concerning this situation when I got home. Now saints, you really don't need but one Word, and it's already been spoken. (1Pe.2:24) … By whose stripes ye were healed. God's not going to change His mind. (Num.23:19) God is not a man, that he should lie, Neither the son of man, that he should repent: Hath he said, and will he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and will he not make it good? Let me point out something to you. You remember that Balaam was asked by Balak to curse the children of Israel. (Num.22:6) Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land; for I know that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed. And Balaam went to God first. (12) And God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people; for they are blessed. (13) And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes of Balak, Get you into your land; for the Lord refuseth to give me leave to go with you. (15) And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honorable than they. (16) And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me: (17) for I will promote thee unto very great honor, and whatsoever thou sayest unto me I will do: come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people. Now even though Balaam already had his answer, he told Balak's men to wait while he went to God again, hoping for a different answer because he was bribed by the possibility of rewards. (20) And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men are come to call thee, rise up, go with them; but only the word which I speak unto thee, that shalt thou do. (21) And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. So God gave him the answer he wanted to hear; He told Balaam, “Yeah, go ahead,” but when Balaam went, the angel of the Lord was waiting there to kill him. (23) And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand; and the ass turned aside out of the way.... (31) Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand; and he bowed his head, and fell on his face. (32) And the angel of the Lord said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I am come forth for an adversary, because thy way is perverse before me. God was saying, “If you didn't hear the first Word I told you, if you don't want that Word, I'll give you one that you'll like.” So be careful of that! If you don't like the first Word He gives you, don't go asking Him for another one because He might tell you to go ahead, as He did with Balaam, and only Balaam's ass saved him. Anyway, as I said, I was going to ask the Lord for a Word concerning this situation, so when I got home, I just prayed and then I flipped my Bible open and I stuck my finger down by random on Isaiah 38:1, not just on the verse but on this phrase, “Thou shalt die, and not live.” (Isa.38:1) In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live. That was the phrase on which my finger came down. I said, “Wow!” I thought on that for a minute and I told the Lord, “Lord, this is not according to Your Covenant with me; this is not according to Your promise to me. You told me in 1 Peter 2:24 that by the stripes of Jesus I was healed. You told me in Galatians 3:13 that Jesus became a curse for me, that You put my curse on Him. You told me in Colossians 1:22 that reconciliation has been made, there was an exchange, that He has taken my curse and given me His blessing.” I said, “You've taught me never to depart from the New Covenant, Lord, so I don't accept this Word.” You're probably thinking, “Well, that's pretty arrogant.” No, it was really what God wanted from me because He was trying me. He wanted to see if I would depart from what the New Covenant clearly says. I hear people getting answers like this all the time, and they accept them, but they don't realize those answers are contrary to their first Word. God's trying them to see if they will depart from the first Word, and they do because they believe in any so called voice of the Lord that agrees with their flesh more than they believe in the Word. But listen to me here, the true voice of the Lord is what you become familiar with when you read the Word. He's not ever going to depart from the Word. (Heb.13:20) Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus, (21) make you perfect in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. It's called an “eternal covenant,” which means that He's not going to change it. He warns us in (Rev.22:18) I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in this book: (19) and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book. If you add to or take away from the Covenant, the curses of this book are upon you, and He'll take away your part in the tree of life and from the holy city. That's pretty dangerous. So God tells us not to depart from this Word, no matter what. Well, here I was asking the Lord for a sign, and He gave me, “Thou shalt die, and not live.” But I said, “Lord, I just don't accept this. I don't accept it because it's not according to what You've taught me, and I don't believe that's what You want me to do; I don't believe You want me to accept this. So I'm asking You for another Word that's in agreement with what You've taught me.” I don't know why I would have to get that because, frankly, God was just being merciful with me. Obviously, we don't need anything more than what God's already told us concerning the New Covenant, and I've studied it enough, and I've stood on it enough, and I've been healed every time. I've received enough miracles, signs, and wonders; why would I need a Word from the Lord? It was very immature of me. But God was merciful with me the second time because I overcame in that trial; I didn't give in to the temptation, and I didn't accept that Word that was contrary to everything He taught me. So I said, “I'm asking You for another Word, Lord. This time I'm going to believe something that's in agreement with what You've taught me.” And I flipped my Bible open again, not looking at it, and just stuck my finger down right on the phrase, “I shall not die, but live.” (Psa.118:17) I shall not die, but live, And declare the works of the Lord. It's amazing how close those two phrases are but exactly opposite to one another, and they're each in only one place in the Bible. Isn't that amazing? And I told the Lord, “Thank You, Lord. I agree with that! I thank You for that and I receive it, in Jesus' name.” Well, after that, I went on for a week or so and the pain became less and less, and the blood became less and less, until I was manifestly healed. I'd like to exhort you, no matter what you hear, whether you might think it's from God, or whether it's just from people, don't accept it, if it's not according to the Word of God. Don't accept anything. Don't accept anything you see with your eyes, don't accept anything you hear with your ears and especially don't accept your emotions, if any of these things are contrary to what you read in the Word of God, according to the promises of the rest. Enter into the rest. However, that wasn't the end of the story. 15 years later, God tried me again. 15 years later, I started having severe heart pains and, on top of that, I was very cold on the left side of my body. I couldn't get warmed up at all and I knew I had a circulation or a cardiovascular problem, naturally speaking, but I don't accept those things. At the same time this was going on, although I didn't tell these people about my problem, two people in our assembly amazingly each had dreams that I died of a heart attack, and both of them had been pretty accurate in their dreams, too. Now, that would seem like a pretty good confirmation, but I had learned you need to walk by faith; it's not just hear faith, you need to walk by faith. When this started happening, I would go for a walk every once in a while, only a mile or so, because I stay busy all the time, and I just really didn't have time to do much more than that. So I would get out and start walking, and my heart would start acting up, and the devil would tell me, “You're going to be lying out on the side of the road here somewhere, if you don't stop this, with your heart problem,” and so on and so forth. You know how the devil likes to tell you things, and I knew it was the devil, but I just called his bluff. I started jogging and was really working up a sweat. I did that for a little while. Now, my wife had pointed out to me and said, “David, it's been 15 years since that last time you had the threat of death,” and immediately it clicked in my mind that Hezekiah was given 15 more years. (Isa.38:4) Then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, (5) Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. Hezekiah was given those 15 years after the Lord first had told him, (Isa.38:1) … Thus saith the Lord, Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live. Just what I had received as a test. I said to the Lord, “Lord, are You saying to me that You only added 15 years to my life and that I'm Hezekiah, and that this is the time for me to go on to be with You?” And you know what I heard? The Lord said, “Yes, that's right.” So I thought on that and I said, “Well, Lord, I still don't believe that You would have me depart from the promise of the Covenant, so I don't accept that, either.” You ask me, “Does God do such a thing?” What did God do with Abraham? (Gen.22:1) And it came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. (2) And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah. And offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. God was trying Abraham. He wanted to see what Abraham would do and Abraham overcame. He knew that even if he did sacrifice his son, he was going to come back with his son. As a matter of fact, (Gen.22:5) And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder; and we will worship, and come again to you. He knew that God would have to resurrect Isaac from the dead to keep His promise because he knew that God was faithful to keep His promise, and I know that, too. God is faithful to keep His promise. So when the Lord told me that, I meditated on it and I said, “Lord, I can't see any difference in this situation from the last one 15 years ago. It still doesn't please You for me to depart from Your Word, so I just don't accept this.” Of course, I kept on calling the devil's bluff; I kept on jogging, but it had nothing to do with jogging; it had to do with walking by faith. If you're careful because you think that you're having a heart attack or a heart problem, obviously, you're acting in agreement with the curse; you're not acting in agreement with the promise! (Jas.2:17) Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. If you really believe the Word of God, you can walk it out. (Mat.14:28) And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee upon the waters. (29) And he said, Come. And Peter went down from the boat, and walked upon the waters to come to Jesus. Peter believed the Word of God. He stepped out on the water. Miracles come when you act on the Word of God. As you know Peter looked at the waves, got double minded, and started to sink, but Jesus had mercy and saved him. Well, as I continued to walk by faith the heart problem disappeared; Glory to God. (Jas.2:18) Yea, a man will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith apart from thy works, and I by my works will show thee my faith. You can't prove faith unless you can act in agreement with it because people are sometimes very schizophrenic. They say they believe but then all their actions and all their words prove just the opposite. If we want to have completed faith, what we have to do is to act in agreement with what we believe. (Rom.10:10) For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. So, truly, if you've come to believe and trust in the Word of God, start walking it out and you'll see it manifested. The Israelites are a wilderness lesson for us. They had to walk through that wilderness without murmuring, without complaining, and without speaking against the promise. The majority failed the test, but Joshua and Caleb spoke in agreement with the promise. They received the Promised Land; they entered into the land of rest because they agreed with the promise. We're being tried the same way, saints! Every day we're being tried to see whether we're going to agree with what the Bible says. Do you know that you don't have a problem with demons? Do you know that you don't have a problem with sin? Do you know that you don't have a problem with sickness? Do you know that you don't have a problem with provision? We need to remember that the Lord Jesus solved all of those problems for us already when He made reconciliation for us at the cross. What we do have a problem with is walking in agreement with what He said. We're like the children of Israel when they were dying of the fiery serpents in the wilderness. (Num.21:8) And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. (7) And the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. (8) And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a standard: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he seeth it, shall live. (9) And Moses made a serpent of brass, and set it upon the standard: and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked unto the serpent of brass, he lived. They cried unto Moses and Moses cried unto the Lord, and the Lord told Moses to raise them up a serpent on a pole. Of course, the medical profession uses that today to represent them, but really, the serpent on the pole (the caduceus) was a symbol of God's healing power, totally outside that of man. In order to be healed, all the Israelites had to do was get their eyes off the snake bite and on the serpent on the pole. They had to accept what the Bible says about Jesus: (2Co.5:21) Him who knew no sin he made [to be] sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him. (1Pe.2:24) Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed. (Col.2:13) And you, being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, [I say,] did he make alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses; (14) having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. Jesus became accursed for us; He became sin. God put on Him our sin and our curse, and we don't have it anymore. Accept the truth! It's very simple: you are healed, you are delivered from sin, you are blessed. That's the Gospel, that's the very, very Good News of what the Lord has accomplished for us! You don't have to live under the curse anymore. When the Israelites got their eyes off the snake bite and on Jesus, they were miraculously cured. Today, men go to the medical profession because of the very opposite: they don't believe that they were cured at the cross. They believe they have to get cured, and so they run back to Egypt because they don't understand the Gospel, the Good News that Jesus has already solved this problem for them. It is already accomplished. If you believe that God has already done all this for you and all you have to do is accept it, then you can rest from your own works. (Heb.4:1) Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it. (2) For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard. (3) For we who have believed do enter into that rest; even as he hath said, As I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. (4) For he hath said somewhere of the seventh [day] on this wise, And God rested on the seventh day from all his works; (5) and in this [place] again, They shall not enter into my rest. (6) Seeing therefore it remaineth that some should enter thereinto, and they to whom the good tidings were before preached failed to enter in because of disobedience, (7) he again defineth a certain day, To-day, saying in David so long a time afterward (even as hath been said before), To-day if ye shall hear his voice, Harden not your hearts. (8) For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day. (9) There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God. (10) For he that is entered into his rest hath himself also rested from his works, as God did from his. (11) Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no man fall after the same example of disobedience. (12) For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. (13) And there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do. (14) Having then a great high priest, who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. (15) For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like [as we are,] yet without sin. (16) Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need. When we enter into the rest, we're no longer fearful; we don't dwell on the need, we dwell on the provision. And when we enter into the rest from our works, we're at peace with God. However, we must not leave out that willful rebellion against the known will of God will leave you no sacrifice. (Heb 10:26) For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries. Now I must add that some are not willfully sinning but are against their sin and haven't found faith to be delivered. If so study this teaching again.
Good morning and welcome to Lionheart Church in Austell, GA. Thank you for joining us for our Saturday service. We are continuing our book of Revelation series that Jesus shared through John with a vision of the End Times and how it connects with where we are today. Today's message is entitled, “Revelation 11: The Two Witnesses.” Remember to to share this message with your family and friends!
September 7, 2025. Vision Sunday 2025. "Two Witnesses." In the book of Revelation.
Pastor Dana Kidder preaching from Revelation 11:3-6 at Redemption Bible Church in Bellefontaine, Ohio.
Join Southwest Radio Ministries for 'Watchman on the Wall,' a daily program featuring Donald Perkins' in-depth study of the Book of Revelation. Explore prophetic scripture, understand the significance of the two witnesses, and learn about current events like the Shroud of Turin through a Biblical lens. Stay informed and spiritually enriched with insights and analysis on end-times prophecy.
In this episode, Brother Mark Abney continues his series through the book of Revelation with a sermon from Revelation 11 titled “The Two Witnesses.” This powerful passage reveals how, even in the darkest times, God raises up faithful witnesses to … Continued
Send us a comment or question!Calvary Chapel Franklin: http://calvarychapelfranklin.com/ Email: info@calvarychapelfranklin.com The Parsons Pad Website: https://parsonspad.com/ Telegram: https://t.me/parsonspadpodcastTwitter/X: https://twitter.com/ccfranklintn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CalvaryChapelFranklin/ Subscribe to the audio podcast: https://parsonspad.buzzsprout.com/ Calvary Chapel Franklin meets at: Sunday mornings: 1724 General George Patton Drive, Brentwood TN 37027 Wednesday evenings: 274 Mallory Station Rd, Franklin TN 37967 (Aspen Grove Christian Church)Mail: PO Box 1993 Spring Hill TN 37174 If you need a Bible, please download the free Gideon's app for iPhone or Android: https://gideons.org/ Calvary Chapel Franklin is a 501c3 tax exempt religious organization. If you would like to donate to support this ministry, please click here: https://calvarychapelfranklin.churchcenter.com/giving
The Lord in the 70th week of Daniel will bring back two men in the past to declare the Gospel. Who will it be?
Sermon: The Two WitnessesSeries: Revelation: Jesus Wins!Scripture: Revelation 11:1-14Speaker: Dr. Jimmy A. LongLocation: Grace Fellowship of GreensboroDate: Sunday, July 13, 2025
What's the true meaning of the Book of Revelation? Is it only about the end times, or have we overlooked its deeper roots in the Old Testament? For centuries, Christians have wrestled with its symbols and prophecies—could it be that we've been missing the bigger picture?This week, Frank welcomes Dr. Chip Bennett, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sarasota, FL along with his mentor and biblical scholar, Dr. Warren Gage, to reveal the often-ignored historical and theological context behind the Book of Revelation. Tune in as Frank, Chip, and Warren explore how early Christians—and the Church Fathers—understood this mysterious book and what modern readers might be missing. Together, they'll tackle questions like:What's the surprising connection between the Book of Joshua, Jesus, and the Book of Revelation?Is Revelation a book of fear or a book of hope?What's the meaning behind the Two Witnesses and Jesus calling Himself “the door”?How are stories like Rahab and Isaac prophetic pictures of Christ?How is Scripture one of our greatest apologetic tools?What did the early church fathers say about the Book of Revelation?Why didn't John Calvin write a commentary on Revelation, and is it a completely futuristic book?Discover how the original recipients of Revelation would have read it, and why modern day readers need to recover a historical hermeneutic to understand it properly. This is a must-hear conversation for any and all Bible readers so don't keep it to yourself--share it with a friend to help them connect the dots!Resources mentioned during the episode:Grace Community Church - https://www.gracesarasota.com/The Revelation Project with Chip & Warren - http://bit.ly/44LbAGLChip on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@drchipbennettDr. Warren Gage on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@drwarrengageChip on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@drchipbennettThe Book of Revelation Explained in 5 Minutes! - https://www.watermarkgospel.com/revelationDr. Gage's Essay on Revelation - https://www.drwarrengage.com/revelation
A new MP3 sermon from Founders Baptist Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Two Witnesses Part 2 Subtitle: Series - Revelation 2024-2025 Speaker: Richard Caldwell Jr. Broadcaster: Founders Baptist Church Event: Sunday - AM Date: 6/29/2025 Bible: Revelation 11:3-14 Length: 58 min.
In this episode of Bible Streams, we dive into the mysterious and often misunderstood world of Revelation chapters 11 and 12. Join Alex, Jo, and Chris as they explore the symbolic imagery of two witnesses, a measuring rod, and a beast from the abyss, all while keeping things light-hearted and engaging.The podcast kicks off with a discussion on the significance of measuring the temple and its worshippers, drawing parallels to Ezekiel and the idea of divine protection. The team then unpacks the identity of the two witnesses, exploring various interpretations from Moses and Elijah to the broader representation of the church. As the conversation unfolds, they tackle the symbolic timeframes of 42 months and 1,260 days, and what these mean for understanding the church's mission amidst tribulation. The episode wraps up with a look at the seventh trumpet, the voices from heaven, and the ultimate victory of God's kingdom.Resources"Revelation (NIV Application Commentary)" by Dr Craig Keener– A detailed analysis that bridges the historical-cultural context and application for today."The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament" by Dr Craig Keener – Offers essential historical and cultural insights on the New Testament, including Revelation."Discipleship on the Edge" by Darrell W. Johnson – A study on Revelation that considers its relevance for Christian discipleship."Reading Revelation Responsibly" by Michael J. Gorman – A user-friendly guide to understanding the apocalyptic message of Revelation without fear or misinterpretation.Big thanks to Tim Whittle for editing and extra production on this podcast. Get more info at Riverlife Church, and find us on Facebook and Instagram.Subscribe to Bible Streams on Apple, Spotify, Google, and Amazon.
A new MP3 sermon from Founders Baptist Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Two Witnesses Subtitle: Series - Revelation 2024-2025 Speaker: Richard Caldwell Jr. Broadcaster: Founders Baptist Church Event: Sunday - AM Date: 6/21/2025 Bible: Revelation 11:1-3 Length: 62 min.
Who are the 144,000? Who are the two witnesses in Revelation? Are the 144,000 Jewish end times evangelists? Are the two witnesses Moses and Elijah or Enoch and Elijah?
Visit http://www.calvarychapeloakharbor.com for more information.
By Joshua Creech - There are two people who appear on the scene as we approach the return of Christ, and they will have a major impact of the world. The two witnesses have a message to humanity, but will they listen. As they preach the Word of God, how does our witnessing today play into the greater plan?
The message of the two witnesses.
God Appoints His witnesses. (v. 1-3)God Empowers His witnesses. (v. 4-6)God allows His witnesses to suffer and die. (v. 7-10)God will vindicate His witnesses. (v. 11-14)
Who are the two witnesses of Revelation 11?
Diving into the two interpretations of who the Two Witnesses are...
1. Killed 2. Glorified 3. Vindicated
Jesus' ministry lasted about 3-and-a-half years, we think. The Two Witnesses of Revelation will preach for just that long. Three-and-a-half years also just happens to be the duration of the drought in Israel during the ministry of Elijah. There are a lot of things coming together in the passage we're about to read. Revelation has been called the "Grand Central Station of Scripture" for good reason. We'll start in Chapter 11. Jim's ready with a message called, Two for Forty-Two. Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand. You can purchase a copy of this message, unsegmented for broadcasting and in its entirety, for $7 on a single CD by calling +1 (800) 984-2313, and of course you can always listen online or download the message for free. RS05142025_0.mp3Scripture References: Revelation 10-11
Revelation - Victory Through Apparent DefeatThe third scene of the 6th Trumpet presents a second consolatory vision: God preserves His witnesses through suffering and death, following the pattern of the slaughtered lamb. YT: https://youtu.be/QtaKh6FXX04
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There are parts of Revelation that are pretty straightforward. There are other parts that are hotly debated. Our passage for this week is one of the latter!At youth group last week, we tackled what is colloquially called "The Two Witnesses". They are given authority to breathe fire from their mouths to consume their foes, as well as shut up the sky and turn water into blood. Many people believe that Revelation is foretelling two literal witnesses who will appear and do these things. But could it be that something else is going on in this passage?So join us as we talk about "The Two Witnesses"! We're glad you're here, let's get into it :)PS - This is a raw teaching from a Wednesday night youth group! We didn't have time to record this one separately, so you're getting it straight from the pulpit.
Victory Unveiled — Part 20 "Two Witnesses" Revelation 11 Cryy Out Christian Fellowship Message: Arnold Perez First time? Visit cryyout.org/new and tell us about yourself!
Return of the Man-Child (6) (audio) David Eells – 4/6/25 We know that in the Gospels, the Lord has shown us that the things that happened in those times are going to happen again around the world. In fact, He gave us these as types and shadows of prophecies which shall come to pass in our days. Praise the Lord! God has hidden so many wonderful things in His Word. Father, we thank You for opening our eyes and bringing us into agreement with You. You say, “How can two walk together except they be agreed?” So, Lord, it is so awesome to see what You are doing so that we can cooperate with You and be used as vessels of Your glory in these coming days. We are just so happy to hear about the great revival You have planned for us that is almost upon us, Lord. We want to be partakers in that and let You use us in it. We thank You so much, Lord, in Jesus' name. I'd like to go back and talk a little bit more about the John the Baptist ministry because there's much still to cover. (Mat.3:1) And in those days cometh John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, saying, (2) Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (3) For this is he that was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the Lord, Make his paths straight (or “make a straight path for Him”). John's job was to prepare people for the coming of Jesus, and there is a corporate John the Baptist ministry in our day whose job it is to prepare for the coming of Jesus in the Man-child. Remember, Jesus said He was coming again on the morning of the third day (Hosea 6:2), which is where we are now. We're at the third millennial day from Jesus, when He came the first time as the rain, as the latter rain that watereth the earth (Hos.6:3). He came as the former rain, and now He is coming as the latter rain in a corporate body of people. We'll return to that text, but first, let's look at this. (Luk.1:12) And Zacharias was troubled when he saw [him,] and fear fell upon him. (13) But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: because thy supplication is heard, and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. (14) And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. (15) For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and he shall drink no wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. There is also a fulfillment of that in our time. Remember that Paul spoke about being separated from my mother's womb (Gal.1:15), meaning he was being born out of the Jewish religion. In John's case, it could be taken that way as well, although Luke literally meant “from his (John the Baptist's) mother's womb.” I believe this John the Baptist ministry in our day is going to be the spiritual fulfillment of that corporate body. I believe that they will be anointed from their spiritual “mother's womb”, or, in other words, they are delivered out of their religion. The woman in Revelation 12 who birthed the Man-child and other later seeds represents the Church who brings forth these seeds as they grow up and mature. Luke goes on to describe what we know to be a great revival that is coming because this John the Baptist ministry is on the verge of coming forth, probably after the next great judgment. Luke continues, And many of the children of Israel shall he turn unto the Lord their God (Luk.1:16). Notice that it states “many of the children of Israel,” so this refers to those who were considered to be God's people. However, they were not who they thought they were. Jesus had a great problem with people like that, who believed they were right with God because of their religion. But He said that the Father had sent Him to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24). In our day, we have the same situation. There are a lot of lost sheep in Christianity, and the Man-child ministry of our day is going to be sent to them as the fulfillment of that in our day. (1Co.10:11) Now these things happened unto them by way of example; and they were written for our admonition (referring to Christians), upon whom the ends of the ages are come. It says, “Many of the children of Israel shall He turn unto the Lord their God.” That's a great revival! (Luk.1:17) And he shall go before his face (that is, Jesus' face, or in our day, it would be the Man-child's face) in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children … What He means by that, I believe the Lord showed me, and this is also in Malachi, to “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,” is that we need the heart that our fathers had. We need to have the diligence and discipleship that our early Church fathers had. God is going to restore what has been lost to the Church for the last 2000 years. He said in Malachi that if He did not do this, He would have to smite the earth with a curse (Mal.4:6). (Luk.1:17) And he shall go before his face in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient [to walk] in the wisdom of the just … This will be the result of the John the Baptist ministry in our day. People will be seeking righteousness, purity, holiness, and repentance. This was the main message that John had, to “make ready for the Lord” a people prepared for Him. His ministry will be to prepare hearts to recognize Jesus. Interestingly, most Christians could not recognize Jesus if He walked in the door. That's the whole reason for this repentance. We don't have eyes to see and ears to hear unless we have repented, which is the ministry of John the Baptist, who came to turn the people back to the Lord. If you turn to the Lord, you can hear and you can see; you can recognize someone spiritual. But not if you're dull of hearing and have closed eyes like Jesus talks about when He says, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given (Mat.13:11). He was referring to His own people here who had become blind and hard of hearing, and who did not recognize Jesus. They didn't know the importance of His words and didn't lay any importance on the sanctification that was in those words. Also, it says, This is He that was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight (Mat.3:3). In other words, “make a straight path for your connection with the Lord and His coming into your life.” This is a part of Isaiah. (Isa.40:1) Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. (2) Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem; and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. It sounds like that's when John came because this is a prophecy of John, which we'll see when we look at the next verses. They had just come through a time of judgment, and this probably softened them up to be ready to repent when John preached and baptized in the river. He said that they had received double for all their sins. As we read on, we are going to see this again. (Isa.40:3) The voice of one that crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the Lord … The way to the Lord is in the wilderness. It is not in the city; it is not in apostasy; it is not in Babylon. The way to the Lord is in the wilderness, as Moses told Pharaoh (Exodus 10) because you cannot serve God in Egypt. We have to go into the wilderness to serve God and that's exactly what is going to happen here. We're going into a wilderness where people will once again learn to walk by faith. (Hab.2:4) … But the righteous shall live by his faith. (Heb.10:38) But my righteous one shall live by faith … (Isa.40:3) The voice of one that crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the Lord; make level in the desert a highway for our God. In other words, make a way for His entrance into your life. You have to get all the stones out of the way; you have to remove anything that is between you and God. That's what the John the Baptist ministry is going to be all about. (Isa.40:4) Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low (God is saying about this coming time, that when a person is humbled, then they'll be exalted and when a person is exalted, then they'll be humbled.); and the uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain: (Isa.40:5) and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. It was prophesied of John to speak this, and in the letter, Isaiah was referring to the coming of Jesus. But Jesus said He was coming again on the morning of the third day, at the latter rain, and He's going to come in His Man-child company first. His purpose is to fill His whole body with His glory. You know that we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory (2Co.3:18). “Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord” is the real Gospel and the people have forgotten that it's the Good News. They've forgotten that the Lord has done this; it is not us. We have faith in Him. (Isa.40:6) The voice of one saying, Cry. And one said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. (7) The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath (or the “spirit”; it's the same word) of the Lord blewit upon it; surely the people is grass. (8) The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever. (9) O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up on a high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold, your God! This is prophesied of John the Baptist. “Behold, your God!” The Lord is coming, folks! This is an exciting thing about the days to come. We're going to see the Lord again. No, not in His first physical body, but it's going to be Him manifested in His people. This is the great joy that God's people are going to have, and this is why no one will make them afraid in the wilderness because God's people are those who do truly desire Him and invite Him into their hearts to truly live, not as religion says, but for the truth. The next verse speaks of His coming. (Isa.40:10) Behold, the Lord God will come as a mighty one, and his arm will rule for him … (Isa.53:1) … To whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? That was Jesus and it is still Jesus today. Jesus in you is still the arm of the Lord that strengthens His hands to do His work, and He calls us His hands in Isaiah 53:10. (Isa.40:10) Behold, the Lord God will come as a mighty one, and his arm will rule for him: Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. Notice that His recompense is before Him. That sounds like what we just read, that Jerusalem has paid double for her sins. It sounds as if judgment is coming before the Lord comes, and I believe that the Lord is showing us exactly that through many revelations, dreams, and visions. We'll return to that topic shortly, but it says, Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the earth (that is where we are), Say ye to the daughter of Zion (The daughter is born-again Zion, the New Jerusalem.), Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him (Isa.62:11). We can see that in two ways: First, we know that Jesus is coming in the Man-child as the white horse rider (Revelation 6:2) to bring judgment, like Moses came to bring judgment. But, and this is very interesting, it could also mean that there will be judgment before He comes, as we just read in Isaiah 40:2. (Isa.40:11) He will feed his flock like a shepherd (Ezekiel 34 refers to that – that He will shepherd His own sheep, His own flock.), he will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom, [and] will gently lead those that have their young. That sounds great, doesn't it? Praise the Lord! Glory to God! John the Baptist isn't such a bad guy. He's going to bring the beginning of a massive world revival. (Mat.3:4) Now John himself had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey. (5) Then went out unto him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about the Jordan. That sounds like a revival exactly as Luke 1 prophesied of John, that there would be a great move of repentance in God's people. What would cause God's people to repent like this? I believe, according to Isaiah 26, that one of the main things that moves God's people toward repentance is judgment. A very shaking judgment is coming, not only to America, but also to the world, and I believe that this may be the beginning of a John the Baptist ministry, which many will listen to. Something has to happen for God's people to listen and it is spoken about in Isaiah. (Isa.26:8) Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee. So I think God is going to catch people's attention with judgment and then He's going to bring the John the Baptist ministry, which will have a message of repentance. (Mat.3:5) Then went out unto him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about the Jordan; (6) and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Notice that “Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about the Jordan went out unto him, and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” (Mat.3:7) But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said unto them, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? (8) Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance: (9) and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. We see here that there were two kinds of people who came to the John the Baptist revival. Those who were worthy and those who were not worthy. So, according to Jesus, even those who were actually sons of their father, the devil (John 8:44), were coming out there to that revival. Now, it just so happens that we received a revelation that really fits this John the Baptist revival, the repentant burning up of the wood, hay, and stubble, and the two kinds of people there. Kendall Remmick received this on February 7, 2010. My comments are in parentheses. I was walking down an old, familiar street with a friend whom I never did see in the dream. I knew the person standing next to me was a friend, but I did not know his identity. (It could have been the Lord. Who knows?) The street is the one I used to walk home on every day from school when I was in the first and second grades. (I think he's going to give us a revelation here of the path of immaturity, as you'll realize shortly.) My friend and I walked by one house that had some low evergreen bushes about two feet high, and there was a woman sitting in a chair in the midst of the bushes. She was pregnant and had her hands on either side of her stomach in anticipation of giving birth. In appearance, she was actually a silhouette of a woman, yet still three-dimensional. Inside the silhouette was black darkness, like deep space with no stars. Staring at her was like looking at a portal into darkness. (This is talking about the apostate, immature Church in whom is the absence of God's light. It is space, a vacuum, the absence of many things, but especially God's light. The Church is in bad shape, andi it's not the glorious Church that it's soon to become. God has a plan and He is going to tell you about that here.) When we walked past her, either my friend or I said, “She's about to give birth to twins.” (The interpretation that came to me as I read this is that the twins represent the end-time Jacobs and Esaus born to the immature Church. Remember Jacob and Esau wrestled in the womb, And the children struggled together within her (Gen.25:22), and they were opposites, weren't they? Jacob is the father of the 12 patriarchs, just as Jesus was the “father” of the 12 patriarch apostles. In our day, the endtime Man-child will be used to raise up the patriarch apostles to the end-time Church. So there are parallels there and history always repeats, so we should expect this. Esau represents those who have sold their birthright, as Paul said in Hebrews 12:16. These two types will be separated at birth, and Esau will persecute Jacob, who is a type of the Man-child. Jacob was the father of the 12 patriarchs, and the Man-child will also raise up the patriarchs in our day. These two different types are being born to this Church, very similar to what we saw in Matthew 3. Some sold their birthright because they were sons of Abraham, and there is the true seed of promise.) At this point, we looked away and continued to walk forward a few steps. I then stopped and noticed that I had a very small lawnmower in my right hand. The woman who was in the small hedge was behind us now, and the yard had grown very big. The grass needed to be mowed, but it wasn't green. It was golden yellow-brown, like wheat. And I realized that we were there to mow the lawn. (Now we're back to what we just read: (Isa.40:6) The voice of one saying, Cry. And one said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass … So the yard of the woman, who represents the Church, has a large, grassy lawn, which represents lots of flesh. (Isa.40:6) The voice of one saying, Cry. And one said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. (7) The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath (or the “spirit”; it's the same word) of the Lord bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass. (8) The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever. This is truly going to be a revival because of the Spirit of God breathing upon the flesh, withering it up. This is a part of the John the Baptist revelation of Isaiah 40. This is what we need in preparation for the coming of the Lord into our lives in a greater way than we have ever known, in the latter rain movement.) I looked down at the little lawnmower in my hand. The top of it looked like a regular lawnmower, but the bottom side, where the blades were, looked like a house fan with a safety screen on it. (My interpretation is that a corporate John the Baptist ministry will breathe out the winds of the Spirit. That will cut down the flesh of the Church in repentance to prepare for the coming of the Man-child ministry.) I began to laugh and said, “I can't mow this lawn with this little thing. This lawn is huge!” (Meaning that flesh is abundant in the worldwide Church. This is a worldwide John the Baptist ministry coming to a worldwide Church and their job is cutting the grass. I recently had a lady tell me that she saw me mowing her lawn and I said, “That means I'm cutting your flesh.” This should be the work of every minister, to cut down the flesh to make room for the coming of the Lord.) My friend said, “Well, sit down on the grass.” (I believe that this represents that these ministers are going to be tested. They haven't been anointed yet, so they'll have to be tested. I believe they're being tested right now, that John the Baptists and the future Man-childs are out there right now. The thing is, they haven't been anointed. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but evangelists like John the Baptist can say less and see more people come to an altar or any other form of receiving the Lord. Their message is very simple, but people just seem to flock to them. It's a gift, an anointing that God gives. These people could be preaching away right now, but it's Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts (Zec.4:6). Great revivals come by the Spirit of God. He is going to grant repentance, the Bible says. He can grant it to anybody. He doesn't even need your help to do it. A great revival is going to be just that; it's going to be a lot of people coming to repentance and wondering what happened. There's nothing from the outside you can observe that would tell you why this is happening, but you know that it's a move of God.) When they set the mower down in the grass, it cut surprisingly well. But we realized that the lawnmower was way too small, so we agreed that we needed to go home and get a bigger lawnmower. (When the anointing comes on the worldwide John the Baptist ministries from Heaven, which is our real home because this world is not our home and we're going back home, the people will be prepared for the coming of the Man-child ministries. (Mat.11:10) This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send My messenger before thy face, Who shall prepare thy way before thee. Malachi 3:1 calls him “messenger.” We once had a brother come and share, and the Lord had been telling me for weeks beforehand that this brother was a John the Baptist, and so when I told Brother Brad to put a banner up on the site to let everyone know he was coming, Brad said that the Lord had spoken to him that this was a John the Baptist. I said, “I know that; the Lord has spoken the same thing to me.” And then, the first thing that the brother said when he opened his mouth was that he was a messenger. I said, “Aha! You just confirmed something for me.” Of course, he didn't know that he was a John the Baptist. A lot of people don't know who they are, but it doesn't matter that you don't know who you are. It matters that you follow the Will of God until you find yourself in the Will of God. Praise the Lord! He can do this!) When I was writing this, a verse came to me. (Amo.7:2) And it came to pass that, when they made an end of eating the grass … (In Daniel 4, the Beast Nebuchadnezzar, who was the head of the Babylonian Empire, had been given over to the mind of a beast and had devoured much flesh. But when he was delivered over to the mind of the beast, he devoured the flesh of the field for seven years, representing the nations that he was conquering. The nations of the Beast were conquered. Why is God raising up the Beast? He's raising up the Beast to cut the grass. He's not raising up just the John the Baptists who preach repentance, but He's also raising up the Beasts that put you on the cross in the first place. People don't want to see the Beast. They don't have any idea what the meaning and the purpose of the Beast is. They don't understand that God raises up the Beast to put His people on the cross; in other words, “to cut the grass,” so that they will humble themselves before God.) (There's only one escape from the Beast, folks, and people are going to realize that it's going to be the Highway of Holiness. The Beast can't go on the Highway of Holiness. If you're walking holy before the Lord, Isaiah 35 says the Highway of Holiness goes to Zion, the City of God, the holy city, the mountain of God's presence, where also the Beast cannot tread. There is a place of safety from the Beast. God is going to make people understand that and that's why people are going to flock to Zion. We know that the John the Baptist ministry is baptized for the death of the flesh before the Man-child brings the latter rain.) The lawnmower is the ministry before the latter rain. (He had that right because I had that revelation as I was reading from the top down, and I didn't know he had that there, but the ministry before the latter rain is the John the Baptist ministry. The dry grass is the saints who will die to the flesh. John the Baptist came in the anointing of Elijah, the Bible says. He will also come again in our time, to fulfill this revelation.) According to Jesus, Elijah comes twice. (Mat.17:10) And his disciples asked Him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come? (11) And he answered and said, Elijah indeed cometh, and shall restore all things: (12) but I say unto you, that Elijah is come already (So He said that Elijah was future and that Elijah had come already.), and they knew him not, but did unto him whatsoever they would. Even so shall the Son of man also suffer of them. (Mat.17:13) Then understood the disciples that He spake unto them of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was Elijah (spiritually), who had come the first time, and now we have another John the Baptist Elijah that is coming. According to Jesus, he is coming twice. Our text in Matthew 3 is an interesting revelation of a great revival and wave of repentance. We have had revivals, but a revival always starts with repentance, not just questionable signs and wonders. And for wise people, they are not even questionable. John the Baptist preached against such Babylonish hypocrisy as the Saul leadership, which we saw and understood must die before the David leadership could come. I was talking with a brother one time about the John the Baptist ministry or evangelists in general, about how different they were, in that they generally stuck with the basics. The brother told me that the Lord had been telling him to get back to the basics, and I recognized that was what the Lord had taught me about evangelists or John the Baptist-type ministries. They're speaking to a people who do not have eyes to see or ears to hear, but through the preaching of repentance God is going to give them eyes and ears. They need to get the basics first in order to come into the Kingdom. The John the Baptists and evangelists both are speaking to people who are not yet fully manifested coming into the Kingdom, and also to apostate ministries, to bring them to repentance. You cannot bring a deep word; in fact, a deep word will just hinder their work. John the Baptist had a real simple message of repentance, which is more than just crying at an altar. It is changing your mind, turning, going the other way. The Bible says, For godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, [a repentance] which bringeth no regret: but the sorrow of the world worketh death (2Co.7:10). That means you might repent, but you'll regret it and go right back where you came from. The sorrow of the world is that way, but real repentance changes a person. It does not matter if you cry or not. Repentance is not necessarily crying; it's changing your mind enough to where you reject your old way of thinking, which is the main problem. Another text in Matthew 11 speaks about John the Baptist's simple ministry, and perhaps he didn't yet understand a few things. It seems very plain here. (Mat.11:1) And it came to pass when Jesus had finished commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and preach in their cities. (2) Now when John heard in the prison the works of the Christ, he sent by his disciples (3) and said unto him, Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another? Now, why did he say that? It may be that Jesus was not living up to expectations, not that Jesus wasn't already doing great work. Maybe in John's eyes He wasn't living up to the expectations of what they thought the Messiah was going to bring. I'm referring to the religious crowd of his day; they didn't expect Him to come this way or act this way. John likely had some of that in him because he asked the question through his disciples, “Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?” (Mat.11:4) And Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and tell John the things which ye hear and see: (5) the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them. (6) And blessed is he, whosoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in me. Well, that was a mild reproof for John, to tell John, “You shouldn't stumble; don't stumble in Me.” Jesus was the “stone of stumbling” (Romans 9:33) and people did stumble over Jesus. But He warned John not to stumble over Him because there was a big difference between their ministries. John preached repentance and Jesus was an enigmatic teacher of the deep things of God. He had deep revelations of these things. We never had any sign that John ever went beyond the basic preaching of faith and repentance, which is what is needed to prepare the way for the coming of the teaching. People are not even interested in that unless they have changed their mind and turned to God. We hear many times of people who, after repenting and turning to God, ask Him to lead them to truth, and God did that for them. He led them to truth because they had repented and truly became a disciple, but they needed some “food.” The important thing is that when John is through with you, you're ready for Jesus. That is what's coming in our day. When an evangelist is through with you, you're ready for a teacher. So God is laying the foundation, and He always does a very good job of that. (Mat.11:7) And as these went their way, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to behold? a reed shaken with the wind? (8) But what went ye out to see? a man clothed in soft [raiment]? Behold, they that wear soft [raiment] are in king's houses. John was not a fancy person at all, was he? He certainly did not eat fancy food. (Mat.11:9) But wherefore went ye out? to see a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet. This is a great prophet. (10) This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, Who shall prepare thy way before thee. As we'll see a little further down in the text, John was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, according to Jesus, not because he spoke a lot of great things, but because of the anointing and the preparation and the job that he had to do. Once again, God is choosing a people through whom He is going to do a great work. Many of God's people are going to turn to God through this ministry, a worldwide ministry. (Mat.11:11) Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist: yet he that is but little in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. In Jesus' day, John came at the end of the Old Covenant and was an Old Covenant prophet who was, at that time, preparing for a New Covenant; it was the old order preparing for the new order. The old and new orders are slightly different in our day but still have to follow according to the pattern. The old order in our day is the former rain ministry, and I know not many people have even come into that. This is really sad because, if you just read the Bible and pay attention to it, not getting distracted by religion, you cannot help but realize that you're supposed to be filled with God's Holy Spirit. I believe the John the Baptist ministries that are coming in our day are going to fulfill being in the end of an old order, to prepare the way for the coming of a new order, which is the Man-child ministry. The John the Baptist in our day is going to come as the greatest prophet of the former rain and be a great ministry, bringing in multitudes of people. He will have the gifts of the former rain and be a former rain prophet, but the Man-child ministry is coming with the latter rain. That's the anointing that will fall upon the Man-child. The anointing that fell upon Jesus was the former rain, but the latter rain will fall upon the Man-child. We know that Jesus said He was coming again after two days on the morning of the third day, as the latter rain (Hosea 6:2-3). So you see, Jesus is coming again, but this time He's coming as the new order for our day. He came as the new order for His day last time, and He's coming as the new order this time, as well, but He's coming after a John the Baptist ministry, which will be the greatest of the old order former rain. We know that the prophecy says that the rain will come, the former rain and the latter rain, in the first [month] (Joe.2:23). We see that there's a revival coming and it's going to be a revival of the former rain and the latter rain. The latter rain is going to supersede the former rain, and John the Baptist said just that. (Joh.3:30) He must increase, but I must decrease. In other words, “Don't get your eyes on me too long, boys, because there is coming One whose shoe latchets, I am not worthy to undo” (John 1:27). So John's disciples started getting the revelation of Who Jesus was, and they started following Him. John freely admitted that he was not the Messiah, but that the One Who was coming was greater. (Mat.11:12) And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force. How much more is this going to be true in the coming revival? Why do we have to take the Kingdom by force? Because there is a whole army standing against you, one over which you have been given authority. (Luk.10:19) Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall in any wise hurt you. He gives us authority, but we have to fight a spiritual warfare to take the Kingdom of Heaven. It has been given, but you still have to take it with your “sword” (Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12). When God sent the children of Israel to take the Promised Land, they had to take it with their sword. God said, “You go in there with your sword, and I will be with you.” Basically, that's where we are today. We have to take the Kingdom with our sword. Why? Because there's a second heaven before the third Heaven. We dwell in the first heaven, but the second heaven is filled with the principalities, powers, and world-rulers of darkness (Ephesians 6:12) that do everything they can to keep us from reaching the third Heaven. We don't take the Kingdom from God; we're taking it from these spiritual [hosts] of wickedness in the heavenly [places] (Eph.6:12). By the way, Paul was a type of the Man-child who entered the third Heaven. He said that he fought the good fight and finished the race (2 Timothy 4:7). We are fighting a fight to take the Kingdom of God, but we must take it here. People think that you don't enter the Kingdom on Earth, but you do. (Luk.17:20) And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God cometh, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: (21) neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you. So He says, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force (Mat.11:12). Remember the authority that the Lord gave you. You have a right to everything that the Lord says is yours in this Book, but that doesn't mean you're going to get it if you don't take up your sword and fight. For everything that God has given you, you may have to fight. Don't expect God to just lay it in your hand. You may have to speak faith, act faith, and repent to receive it. (Luk.17:13) For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. (14) And if ye are willing to receive [it,] this is Elijah, that is to come. (15) He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Praise the Lord! And so it is, we are about to enter into more of the Kingdom than we have ever experienced, or anybody has experienced, except the Lord. We're going to enter into it right here. And for some people to receive the former rain, repent of their sins, and become true disciples, it's going to be because of John's ministry. Then the Man-child ministry shall come, which is the latter rain. During the first 3½ years of Jesus' ministry, He was the only One Who had the former rain. When He was baptized by John in the river, He came up and the Spirit of God came upon Him; that was the former rain. At the end of His 3½-year ministry, He breathed on His disciples and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit (Joh.20:22). Their former rain came out of Jesus and in our day, it's a perfect parallel because the John the Baptist ministry in our day is going to have the former rain, while the Man-child ministry in whom Jesus lives is going to have the latter rain for the first 3½ years. At the end of that time, they're going to pass on their mantle to their disciples. Why didn't the disciples need it during the first 3½ years? It's because they were being trained under Jesus' authority. He said that He would send them “another Comforter” (Greek: Paraclete; John 14:16). Jesus was also a Paraclete, meaning “One who stands beside and helps.” But the Holy Spirit was also a Paraclete, and Jesus went away in order to send the Holy Spirit, Who would manifest Him in those disciples. So for the first 3½ years, Jesus' disciples were given authority by Him to go and do the things that they would do. They needed the other Paraclete when Jesus left in order to continue with the anointing and the power. Jesus was the only One Who had the former rain for the first 3½ years, but He imparted that mantle to them, as Elijah had done to Elisha (2 Kings 2:13), who turned and faced 42 youths who were mauled by two bears (2 Kings 2:23-24). The bears were the Beast, and the 42 youths represented the 42 months of the last 3½ years. We're seeing the parallel there of passing on this anointing, this mantle. Elijah passed his mantle to Elisha, who went out and performed more miracles than Elijah ever did. So did the disciples of Jesus; they went out and did greater works than Jesus (John 14:12) because they were multiplied. This was Jesus in all of them, going out and performing the same works that Jesus was doing, so it was multiplied into many greater works. This is going to be repeated again and the reason this revival is going to spread all over the world is because of a geometric progression, or the “stadium effect” we've spoken of before. The stadium effect is a circle inside a circle inside a circle, and each circle that receives the words spoken in the center passes it on to a larger circle. Everyone who receives the Word passes it on to more than one person, creating a progressively larger circle. Geometric progression is going to turn the world upside-down in these coming days, just as it did for these disciples. The Man-child ministry is going to teach under the latter rain for the first 3½ years and will impart that to the disciples, who are going to go on in the second 3½ years to raise up the five-fold ministry (Ephesians 4:11), and so on and so forth. We saw in Acts 16 that Jesus was still with them in Spirit, just as Moses went halfway through the wilderness and had to put a veil on his face because there was a glorified man underneath. Then Moses went with the Israelites the rest of the way through the wilderness, which represents the last 3½ years of the Tribulation. We know that the wilderness is, according to Revelation 12 and 17, the first and second 3½ years of the Tribulation. So, every Man-child type in Scripture adds more and more detail to the final revelation. Praise God! He's going to do an awesome miracle, an awesome revival, that will start with John the Baptist and be carried on through Jesus and the Two Witnesses because they're the ones who were trained by Jesus. He sent them out two-by-two, in every place that He was about to go. Where is He going? The whole world, For as the lightning cometh forth from the east, and is seen even unto the west; so shall be the coming of the Son of man (Mat.24:27). That anointing will be passed from these ministries throughout the Church in this way and Jesus is going to raise up a body in His image. He will raise up the body of Christ. We have been calling ourselves the body of Christ for a long time, but Jesus lives in the body of Christ, and He ministers from the body of Christ, so we're going to really see the body of Christ in the earth. Jesus will be famous from here on out. For the last 2000 years, His name has been small among the nations, but not so from here onward. The Lord is going to manifest His glory in this earth and people will fear the name of the Lord. They are either going to love Him or fear Him, but He is coming again, though not in the way the Pharisees and the Sadducees think. He didn't come the last time the way they thought He would, either. Once again, God has hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes (Mat.11:25). Praise God! The Lord has a great plan to once again hide these things from the Pharisees and the Sadducees of our day. They will not understand it; they will not believe it; they cannot see Him, and they do not know Him. But, as Jesus said, those who come as a child to the Kingdom of God will do awesome wonders in the power of God, like He did through those ignorant fishermen. They were like babes to the great theologians who looked down on them, but these were the true believers, the true people of God. And in our day, it's going to be God coming in simplicity through John the Baptist. You couldn't imagine John the Baptist in a suit and tie in the wilderness, could you? He was a simple man here for a very important purpose, and I will guarantee you that's exactly what is going to happen. Praise God! Thank You, Lord, for doing a mighty work. Amen! The things God has spoken in Matthew are prophetic of something to come in the future. The prophet Isaiah also said the same thing: (Isa.7:14) Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign (The Hebrew word there is uwth, meaning “a sign of something to come.”): behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Jesus' birth to the virgin Mary was for a sign and we've discovered that Jesus' ministry was a sign of the coming Man-child ministry. When we look in the Gospels, we can also see a prophetic word about the coming days. Our study has reached the part where Jesus was anointed of the Holy Spirit, so we'll continue there. (Mat.3:16) And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him; (17) and lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This, too, is a prophecy of the things to come. As you know, Jesus spoke to us in John 16 and said that He was going to come again as a baby born to a woman, “a woman when she is in travail” (John 16:21). When we look all the way through the Bible, we come to Revelation 12:2 and there's the woman in travail with the Man-child. After the sign that Jesus gave us here in Matthew, we know the Man-child is a corporate body coming forth in our day. It's interesting that everything that happened in the former rain is going to happen in the latter rain and this Spirit of God falling upon Jesus at this particular time was the outpouring of the former rain of the Holy Spirit that Joel prophesied would restore all things to the people of God (Joel 2:23). The former rain was given to Jesus first, who taught His disciples for 3½ years and then breathed on them, saying, Receive ye the Holy Spirit (Joh.20:22). Ten days later, a mighty, rushing wind came into their presence and baptized all of them in the Holy Spirit and they received the former rain. But Jesus had it first and was the One Who breathed it on the disciples. Paul said that Jesus is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence (Col.1:18). And He is going to have the preeminence this time, as well. Many people leave Him out of their Manchild theology, but the point is that it is the Lord Who is coming to do this. The Lord came with the former rain, and He is the One coming with the latter rain, although He's coming in a different body. It is still Him coming to do it. He came in the body of the Son of David, the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15). I know people want to make that the “seed of God,” but That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (Joh.3:6). Jesus was declared to be of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom.1:3), but declared [to be] the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness (4). God was the Father of the spiritual man Jesus, the Son of God, Who came from Heaven, and it was Mary's seed that was the son of David. Jesus said, a body didst thou prepare for me (Heb.10:5), and that body was from man. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Once again, the Lord is going to take on a human body in these days and the body gets no credit; it is the Lord Who gets the credit. But the Lord is coming to start the latter rain and though you've heard this before, I'll share it with you again briefly. (Hos.6:2) After two days will he revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before him. (3) And let us know, let us follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is sure as the morning; and he will come unto us as the rain, as the latter rain that watereth the earth. “He will come unto us … as the latter rain that watereth the earth.” This is referring to the epiphany of Jesus, not the parousia of Jesus. The parousia is the physical coming of Jesus, but this latter rain is the epiphany of Jesus coming in His body. The first-fruits who are going to receive this blessing are called the Man-child ministry and it's on the morning of the “third day,” exactly what we see here in the text. It is Jesus who is coming to anoint His people and to, once again, sit upon the throne of David, as Luke 1:32 tells us; Jesus sat upon the throne of David. The Bible also tells us, by the way, that the Man-child is going to be caught up unto God, and unto his throne (Rev.12:5). A lot of people do not realize that the throne the Man-child is caught up to is not some throne up in Heaven, way out yonder. It's the Kingdom of Heaven here. The “throne” that Jesus was caught up to is that He was given the throne of David to rule over Israel and He even came in the triumphal procession into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:9; John 12:13), where it was quoted, Behold, thy King cometh … (Mat.21:5; Joh.12:15). Of course, He wasn't treated like a King, was He? He was a King Who was born of the seed of David and was to sit on David's throne and rule Israel. The Bible tells us, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king (Jer.23:5), and that David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel (Jer.33:17). So, once again, the Man-child is caught up to the throne, but I want to tell you Who rules on that throne: it is not the Man-child; it is Jesus! Jesus is coming as the latter rain to rule. Here's another verse that pertains to this: (2Ch.9:8) Blessed be the Lord thy God, who delighted in thee, to set thee on his throne, to be king for the Lord thy God. He's talking about the throne of David. We are still talking about flesh, aren't we? Who is that Spirit in David? Paul spoke about the Spirit of Christ, which was in the prophets and that Spirit of Christ was pointing toward the suffering of Christ in our day. So, who was in David who manifested that righteousness and goodness? It was Christ. He has always been on the throne; nobody else is going to sit on the throne. Oh, yes, there will be fleshly bodies that rule, just like there are in the Church today. There's the five-fold ministry that God raised up, and those are now our leaders in the Church. They rule, yet they really only have a gift that comes from the Lord, and it's the Lord manifested in them to Whom we are submitting. Paul said, Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ (1Co.11:1). In other words, “Follow me as I follow the Lord.” The latter rain is in complete parallel to the former rain and the Lord is coming to rule in a body, to raise up the whole Church into His Image, the glory of God. (2Co.3:18) But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. That's the Gospel! I believe that the Man-child is the first-fruits in our day to reach sun glory. There is “star glory,” there is “moon glory,” and there is “sun glory,” the three glories that Paul spoke about in 1 Corinthians 15:40-41. He said that we grow through each of them in stages to come to maturity in Christ, Who is sun glory Notice that one of the key words spoken in the verses that we looked at from Hosea 6:3 is “rain.” (Hos.6:3) He will come unto us as the rain, as the latter rain that watereth the earth. This “rain” keys in on quite a few verses, especially in the Old Testament. Those verses give us little clues as to what's going to happen in the latter rain, not only for the Church, but also in the Tribulation, because the latter rain happens in the Tribulation, which is “on the morning of the third day,” the third thousand years from when Jesus came. Now let's look at Micah 5. The chapter starts out speaking about Jesus. (Mic.5:2) But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel (that was Jesus); whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. (3) Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she who travaileth hath brought forth (That's the woman bringing forth the Man-child in Revelation 12. He has given them up, but they are going to come back.): then the residue of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. However, the children of Israel in the New Testament are not those who are circumcised in flesh but circumcised in heart. That's what Paul tells us in Romans 2:28-29. His brethren are going to come back to the children of Israel, the ones who are grafted into the olive tree. As the Bible tells us, they're going to be grafted again back into their own olive tree that they were broken off from because of unbelief (Romans 11:23). This is what He's referring to right here, but the wonderful thing, the thing that excites me, is this: (Mic.5:4) And he shall stand, and shall feed [his flock] in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God: and they shall abide; for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth. This is the Lord coming as the latter rain, at the time that the woman brings forth the Man-child, and it says He is going to feed His flock. That excites me! The Lord is coming, folks! I love to think about His coming. He's coming to feed us and minister to us. The Lord is angry with the shepherds and what they have done unto His flock, as He tells you all through the Old Testament. Some key verses that refer to the latter rain begin a little further down. (Mic.5:7) And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples as dew from the Lord, as showers upon the grass (There it is again, “showers upon the grass.”), that tarry not for man, nor wait for the sons of men. Wow! They are not dependent on this world, are they? People who love the latter rain are just carried by it. Without the Spirit of God, it is such a struggle to live and do His work and to minister as He called us to minister. It's a struggle without the Word of God. He makes it easy. We're supposed to give Him our burdens (Matthew 11:28-30). It's Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts (Zec.4:6). It will get done by God's Spirit. We have now wasted almost 2000 years and made very little progress, as far as Christianity being born in the earth, as Isaiah 26 tells us. In just a very short time, the anointing of God is going to do its work. The Lord Jesus is coming with that anointing to sit once more on the throne of David and rule over His born-again people. (Mic.5:8) And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples (We are spread throughout the world among the beasts of the field, the Beast being the nations of lost mankind.), as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep; who, if he go through, treadeth down and teareth in pieces, and there is none to deliver. (9) Let thy hand be lifted up above thine adversaries, and let all thine enemies be cut off. He is referring to the Lord here, the Lord in His people. The Lord stands and feeds His flock, and the Lord raises up “seven shepherds, and eight principal men,” or “princes among men,” as stated in Micah 5:5. The seven shepherds are like the apostle John, who was also caught up to the throne as a type of the Man-child, but he gave a revelation of the end time to seven angels, who were then to bring it to the Church. The word “angel” is the same word as “messenger,” and it's used in the New Testament for not only heavenly-type angels or messengers but also earthly ministers. John is giving his revelation to seven ministers, who go forth to the seven churches. This is what Jesus did. He raised up disciples to go forth to the 12 tribes because He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. John raised up seven ministers to go forth and bring the message of the end time to the seven churches. Here in this text, we see the same thing. We see the seven princes among men, and the eighth is Jesus in the midst. We also see here that they are going to be used to bring judgment in the earth, that they will be like a lion and not like lambs. Jesus came as a Lamb and He sent out His sheep to be lambs in the midst of wolves (Luke 10:3), but now He is saying they will be like lions. Not only are they going to bring the Gospel, but they are also going to bring judgment, like the Two Witnesses company brought judgment upon the earth. The Two Witnesses represent the disciples of Jesus because Jesus sent them forth two-by-two, corporately, to the places He was supposed to go, and the same thing is going to happen to the Man-child ministers: they are going to send forth witnesses, two-by-two, and they are going to speak judgments. It is like Revelation 11 on the earth and upon the wicked. No, it's not going to be like a lamb this time. It's going to be the Lamb and the Lion this time. There is judgment coming with the latter rain movement because the end is near. All nations are going to persecute the saints, but God is not going to leave them defenseless. He is raising up a Man-child ministry, who is raising up a Two Witness ministry, which is raising up a five-fold ministry. Remember the disciples that Jesus sent out ordained a five-fold ministry to lead and guide the Church. This is what we're referring to that will happen again in our day. The Spirit that is upon Jesus, the mantle that is upon Him, He put upon His disciples, and they put it upon the five-fold ministry, and so on. This same thing is going to happen. The anointing that is upon Jesus coming as the latter rain is going to be put upon His disciples, etc. This anointing is the latter rain. It's the power of the Holy Spirit. There's another way that God speaks about coming judgment. (Rev.6:1) And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals (the first seal), and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, Come. (2) And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and he that sat thereon had a bow; and there was given unto him a crown (this is the crown of David): and he came forth conquering, and to conquer. Notice that he had a bow but no arrows, and this is the first judgment. I have shared before that this is not really referring to the Antichrist, nor literally Christ. It's referring to the Man-child ministry, which is coming with judgment. Moses was the Man-child ministry in his day and he loosed all of the “horses” of judgment in his day. All of them followed his ministry. All of the judgments that fell upon Egypt came right out of Moses' mouth, and this is the same thing that's about to happen, according to type and shadow. The Man-child is the first judgment and because of his ministry, all those other horse judgments and the other seals are loosed upon the earth. This white horse rider is none other than the Lord in His Man-child. We can see the same thing here: (Zec.10:1) Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain (We need to be praying for that now because it is very near.), [even of] the Lord that maketh lightnings; and he will give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field. There are ‘the showers' on the grass again. Peter said, All flesh is as grass (1Pe.1:24), and yet, the Lord said that He was going to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh (Acts 2:17). That refers to the Church because that is “all flesh,” men and women out of all nations. He is pouring out His rain upon the “grass of the field,” which Jesus said was the world (Matthew 13:38). This gives you the timing that we are talking about in the latter rain; this is a prophecy of our time. If we go back one chapter, we read, For I have bent Judah for me, I have filled the bow with Ephraim (Zec.9:13). What does Judah represent? Well, Jerusalem the Bride came from Judah, and David was from Jerusalem, and David ruled over the Bride in Jerusalem over the rest of Israel. He says, “I have filled the bow with Ephraim,” and the name “Ephraim” means “the fullness of nations.” That refers to what we just studied in Revelation; it's a different parable, but it means the same thing. A remnant of Jacob or Israel was going to be used by God and was going to receive the anointing of the Man-child through the seven shepherds, who went to the churches, etc. So how is this going to spread all over the world in just seven short years? It will be like a geometric progression, starting with a 144,000-member Man-child, first-fruits people with an anointing. And that anointing is nothing to belittle; look at the miracles that Jesus did. And then consider the miracles that Jesus is going to do because The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former (Hag.2:9). The miracles of the Man-child through the Two Witnesses, through the five-fold ministry, and through the Church will spread very quickly. God is doing a quick work here, for the Lord will execute [his] word upon the earth, finishing it and cutting it short (Rom.9:28) in righteousness. He will fill His bow with Ephraim. Notice also that the Man-child who rode upon the white horse had a bow, but he did not have any arrows. He had already sent forth His arrows. The Bible says that our children are our arrows. (Psa.127:4) As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, So are the children of youth. Jesus called His disciples “children” (John 21:5) and He sent them forth. He drew the bow and sent them forth as His arrows to bring His anointed, His works, and His ministry all around the world. The exact same thing is going to happen again. (Zec.9:13) For I have bent Judah for me, I have filled the bow with Ephraim; and I will stir up thy sons, O Zion (the Bride), against thy sons, O Greece (the Beast at that particular time), and will make thee as the sword of a mighty man. Anytime one of the Beasts (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece, Rome, etc.) is mentioned in the Bible, it's a type and a shadow of the end time. Well, He says He would stir up sons, so there's a war preparing to happen here. Let's see what He says about this white horse rider. (Zec.10:1) Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain, [even of] the Lord that maketh lightnings; and he will give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field. (2) For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams, they comfort in vain. He's referring to the ministry that is there when the Man-child comes. It's the same as the ministry that was there when Jesus came. They were into a lot of falsehood – a lot of false prophets, false shepherds – and they had dealt corruptly. The Lord was judging them, but He did not judge them like He is about to judge this time because it is the Lion who is coming this time. (Zec.10:2) For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams, they comfort in vain: therefore they go their way like sheep, they are afflicted, because there is no shepherd. Remember, the Lord is mourning because there is not a shepherd in Israel. They are like sheep scattered without a shepherd. Of course, they had shepherds, but God was not calling them “shepherds” and that's the problem. So the Lord sent His Own right arm, the Lord Jesus. (Zec.10:3) Mine anger is kindled against the shepherds, and I will punish the he-goats; for the Lord of hosts hath visited his flock, the house of Judah, and will make them as his goodly horse in the battle. You know, all those horses in Revelation 6 represent the harnessing of the flesh to do work. They were all judgments, but God was using different flesh to bring each kind of judgment. The kind of flesh that the Man-child is riding here is talking about Judah. David's authority was first received by the Bride because the capital city was Zion, which represents the Bride, and David was king in Zion. The house of Judah will be “his goodly horse in the battle.” (Zec.10:4) From him shall come forth the corner-stone (which we know has happened), from him the nail (which we also know has happened), from him the battle bow … (And we know that happened. He sent forth Judah and Ephraim as the arrows. Judah is once again going to be in leadership, including the Lord Himself, Who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. They will raise up the whole Church and that's what Ephraim represents as the “fullness of nations.”), from him every ruler together. (Zec.10:5) And they shall be as mighty men, treading down [their enemies] in the mire of the streets in the battle … A lot of people do not know the authority God has given His people, especially in a time when grace is being taken from some. There is going to come a time during the Tribulation period when nobody else will repent. In fact, God will turn away from the Gentiles and He will turn to the remnant of the Jews that He is going to bring in, like He said He was going to do, back in Romans 11. Once again, this white horse rider is going to bring judgment in the earth, like Moses did with the judgments he brought. (Zec.10:5) And they shall be as mighty men, treading down [their enemies] in the mire of the streets in the battle; and they shall fight, because the Lord is with them … That's another meaning of “Immanuel.” Remember the sign that the woman would conceive and bring forth a son and they would call His name “Immanuel,” meaning “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14)? Once again, “God is with us” because the Man-child is going to be born to the woman and God is going to be with us again. This is not saying that men will be God. It's saying that God is coming to do His works. If that offends anyone out there listening, the Bible says through Paul, Or know ye not as to your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you? unless indeed ye be reprobate (2Co.13:5). To the extent that you are bearing the fruit of Jesus, 30-, 60- and 100-fold, as in the Parable of the Sower, to that extent Jesus lives in you. We're just talking about Him coming in maturity in some people first in order to lead the rest into the same maturity. It's still Jesus, and He is still the Son of God. He is still God. (Zec.10:5) And they shall be as mighty men, treading down [their enemies] in the mire of the streets in the battle; and they shall fight, because the Lord is with them; and the riders on horses shall be confounded. Now, what is this referring to? God is leading the horsemen, yes, but they don't have any effect upon God's people. If you remember, in the Exodus, the judgments that fell upon Egypt, God separated His people in Goshen from those judgments (Exodus 8:22). So the riders on horses will be confounded in one aspect and that is concerning God's people because they are under the Passover; they are not under the curse. (Zec.10:6) And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them back (Back from where? Bring them back from Babylon, back from bondage. They were the first ones to come out of bondage and build the city of God.); for I have mercy upon them; and they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the Lord their God, and I will hear them. (7) And [they of] Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine; yea, t
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On today's Bible Answer Man broadcast (04/04/25), Hank answers the following questions:Do all Pentecostals believe in the Oneness doctrine? Is Oneness a cult? Bobby - Wilmington, NC (0:56)If we no longer must keep the Sabbath, can you tell me why in the Book of Acts do we find Jesus' disciples keeping the Sabbath? Terry - Royal, IA (3:19)What is your view on the new heaven and new earth? Randy - Omaha, NE (5:33)Can you comment on Jesus' words about going and preparing a place for us? Randy - Omaha, NE (7:51)According to 2 Thessalonians 2:1, can Christ return at any time, or must He wait until the rise of Antichrist? Richard - Gaston, IN (15:11)Who are the two witnesses in Revelation 11? Are they actual people? Is this not referring to an actual event? Larry - Collierville, TN (19:09)
On today's Bible Answer Man broadcast (03/24/25), Hank answers the following questions:Do you know anything about Joel Hemphill? Friend agrees with his teachings. Hemphill rejects the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus. Anthony - Mamaroneck, NY (0:51)Does Matthew 24:14 relate to the two witnesses in the Book of Revelation? Vinny - Tulsa, OK (3:54)My wife's family is Roman Catholic. A pastor told me that they all go to heaven, but they all pray differently. Is this correct? Dominick - American Canyon, CA (15:12)Do you know anything about Gerald Schroeder, who wrote God According to God? Lou - St. Louis, MO (19:08)What do you think about Marcus Borg? He points out conflicts between the Gospels. Is he a supporter of the Bible or not? Ed - Piscataway, NJ (22:38)How should I answer my Jewish friend who contends that they are God's chosen people so how could they possibly be lost? Susanne - Washington, DC (24:14)
Message from Mickey Connolly on March 9, 2025
In Revelation 11, we are given a depiction of the second half of the tribulation, the moment in the end times narrative where two men, two prophets, will be used to open the eyes of the Jewish people to the reality that Jesus Christ is the Messiah.Revelation 11:3 says, “And I will give [power] unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred [and] threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.”These two witnesses will spend three and a half years performing miracles like the prophets and apostles of old – with command over the weather, power over plagues, the ability to breathe fire, and will even be raised from the dead!These two unnamed men, called “olive trees” in Zechariah 4, stand tall as central figures in the story of Israel's redemption and the second advent of Christ – but who are they? Can we know? Is it important to our understanding of the Bible? To chat about the identity of the two witnesses, provost Brandon Briscoe has invited Sam Miles, president of the Living Faith Bible Institute and biblical studies instructor, onto the show.Visit https://lfbi.org/learnmore
In this episode the Prophecy Pros discuss two mysterious figures who may be the first key figures of the end-times who arrive on the scene after the rapture of the Church. *LATEST BOOK RELEASES FROM THE PROPHECY PROS** The End of the World According to Jesus of Nazareth — Jeff Kinley The Non-Prophet's Guide to the Book of Daniel — Todd Hampson The Prophecy Pros' Illustrated Guide to Tough Questions About the End Times — Jeff Kinley, Todd Hampson God's Grand Finale — Jeff Kinley For more resources, visit HarvestProphecyHQ.com