Well, we're going to turn in the Bible tonight to Revelation chapter 11. And I'll tell you now that I'll begin to open up part of this chapter. I won't probably answer all the questions, well, may not even next week, but next time. But we're going to begin to look at it. I shall leave a number of things hanging tonight, which I'll hopefully deal with in more detail next week, but let's at least begin to look at this. We're going to read Revelation 11 and verses 1 to 14. And John writes, as he describes his vision, Then I was given a reed like a measuring rod, and the angel stood saying, Rise and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there. But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles, and they will tread the holy city underfoot for 42 months. And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy 1,260 days clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. These have power to shut heaven so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy. And they have power over waters to turn them to blood and to strike the earth with all plagues as often as they desire. When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom, and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Then those from the peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations will see their dead bodies three and a half days, and not allow their dead bodies to be put into graves. those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them. Make merry and send gifts to one another because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. Now after the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them and they stood on their feet and great fear fell on those who saw them and they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them come up here and they ascended to heaven in a cloud and their enemies saw them. In the same hour, there was a great earthquake and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake, 7,000 people were killed and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. Well, may God bless that passage of his word and we'll seek to have a look at it together for a moment or two this evening. I'm going to, I'll just tell you now, I'm going to refer a little bit later to Zechariah chapter 4, Zechariah Malachi, the next to last book of the Old Testament as well. So just to warn you of that and you might find it helpful to have a finger in there for a little bit later on. Chapter 10, as we have seen, is very much the vision of the angel of the Lord, this mighty angel. And as we considered these things we saw that he is indeed the angel of the Lord and while some do not seem to decide who this great angel is. He is described as the angel of the Lord, which of course echoes some of the words of the Old Testament, don't they? And we, I think, I hope, I hope I demonstrated that I believe, and I think, I think you are, from comments made, or agree with me, that this is indeed the Lion, the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, the pre-incarnate appearance of whom we see in the Old Testament in the Theophanies, but who is described here. This mighty angel, none other than the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the one who plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm, and that's the background. And he has this little scroll, this little book which John is encouraged to eat, to take into his being. The Word of God revealed, not the great scroll of the history of the world, which is in eternity, which is in God's hands as it were, opened by the Lamb, opened by God the Son, the one who fulfills all the purposes of man, but the Word of God, the scroll given to men. given to John to eat, to take into his being, the words of God's truth that he is to take into his being and become part of him. God gives his word, the word of God revealed to us. Now not all of God's counsels are revealed. God has many secret counsels which he has not revealed to us. The Old Testament tells us the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever. And that is tremendously comforting and tremendously assuring. All God's counsels, even those that are not revealed, are certain and sure they are in the scroll that is in his right hand the right hand sorry get the right right hand says he holding up his left hand right hand which is of course the the great scroll of chapters 4 & 5 that was opened by the lamb they are there in the scroll of him who sits upon the throne the lion of the tribe of Judah the root of David who sits on the throne, the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. Well then, John brings us to chapter 11, or we then come in John's vision to these words of chapter 11. Now I have to say that this chapter is an extraordinarily difficult chapter. Please don't worry, I'm not going to try and make it complicated. Well, I hope not. But it is an extraordinarily difficult chapter. And there are many, many different and conflicting interpretations. And when you start reading the commentaries, even the good commentaries, you find some say, this clearly means this. And then you read another commentary and they say, it clearly means this, not that, but this. And then you read another one and there's another. Well, there we are. So some say, obviously it can't be that, it must be this. Well, at the end of the day, you have to just have a look at them. My attitude always, I hope this is right, my attitude always when you come to the scripture is look for the straightforward meaning, look for the simple meaning. When people come along with highly technical, complicated explanations of what a passage means, Immediately I think this can't be right, this can't be right, there must be some problem with it. I know that there are difficult parts of scripture and this is a difficult part. But some take it literally, some take it figuratively. Well it seems to me that the least problems come if we take it figuratively, symbolically. That's what we do with the rest of this great book as we have seen. Symbols and signs telling us of what God is doing. And so we're going to do that in line with our interpretation of Revelation generally, all apocalyptic literature, Ezekiel of course, but also Revelation and Daniel and the latter part of Daniel symbolically. This is a symbolic book. Leon Morris says, it is important to take the whole section symbolically, otherwise, he says, difficulties multiply. Well, let's not get into the difficulties, let's see if we can understand this. So, firstly, this evening, notice or consider with me, not notice, but consider with me the temple and the altar in verse one. The angel stood and said, rise and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there. Now of course there is one of the great themes running through the Bible is the whole matter of the temple. There are those who argue, and I would very much follow this thought, that there was a sense that even in, even, especially in the Garden of Eden right at the beginning, there are some of the concepts of God dwelling with his people in the terms that are then later applied to the tabernacle and to the temple. Some have actually said that Eden was in fact the garden temple where God dwelt with his people. In one sense that's quite true, that's quite accurate. Now I think some of the extreme interpretations in that way are a bit far-fetched, but the principle that God dwells with his people is there right back in the beginning, and especially before the fall. God dwells with his people, that's what God created the world for and created people for, that he might enter into fellowship with them. and that's the wonder of it, the glory of it. And quite often when temple and altar are linked together in this kind of way, they refer to the true people of God. In the New Testament, of course, they are the church of God, the church of the living God, and when I mean that I don't mean the church in the sense that we often use it in the local church, but the company of God's people, those who are all the church triumphant, those who are in glory with God, the true believers of God here below. And that of course is a sound biblical analogy. Ephesians chapter 2 and verses 20 to 21 speaks about verse 19, we are no longer strangers or foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God Verse 20, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. And he's talking about believers. as it were, if you'll pardon me being as crude as this, being like bricks in the temple. Well of course we're more than that, we're living stones. Peter talks about that, doesn't he? But we are built up together as a holy temple to the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Holy Spirit. It's a profound and wonderful and most remarkable picture that we get there. And of course it's taken up in other passages in the scriptures. It's taken up by Peter, of course, in 1 Peter. And the other reference I've got written down here is 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 17, where we read these words. If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him for the temple of God is holy which temple you are and he's speaking of the believers now there are those of course who come to this passage and they want to look for a literal temple in a physical city here down on earth below but that raises incredible problems because as we go on in the book of Revelation we get descriptions of different aspects of the temple And when we get to Revelation 21 and verse 21, we read of the gates of the city, this holy city, the city of God, in which this temple is the main construction. And what do we find? We find the gates of the city, 12 gates are made each of one pearl. Now have you ever seen a pearl big enough to be a door? A gate? Have you seen an oyster big enough, capable of producing a pearl that size? This is symbolic. This is picture language. This is showing something of the glory. We talk about the luster of the pearl. The luster of God's grace shining through. It's a wonderful picture of glory. We see a city paved with gold. Again, if the heavenly city is paved with gold, that'll be wonderful. But in a sense, It's one of the occasions where language becomes too poor to describe the wonder, the splendor, the glory of it that is so magnificent. And 11 verse 2 refers to the holy city. They will tread the holy city underfoot. We'll come to that in a moment or two. The holy city. Now back in the early centuries. Augustine, long before people started debating on pre-, post- or amillennialism, and if you don't know what that means, don't worry, but long before that became a great issue, Augustine saw this describing the city of God. and he wrote a book entitled The City of God. Now it's hard going if you want to read it. Anyone who has completely read it needs to have, and taken it in, needs a medal because it's hard going. It's about, I think in the printed editions, it's over a thousand pages and some of it is very verbose, but some of it is wonderful. It's probably all wonderful, but it's, you know, anyway, there we are. But the point he was doing was this, he was writing in the days when the Roman Empire was beginning to decay and the Goths, the Visigoths were beginning to attack the edges of the Empire and things were beginning to, people were beginning to be filled with despair. What is going to happen? The world is going to collapse, society as we know it is coming to a ruination. And Augustine writes this book to encourage people to believe, Christians to believe that God's holy city will never be overthrown and that it is eternal and glorious and whatever happens on this wicked world can never separate true believers from the certainty of the city of God. Let me just give you a couple of quotes. The second one is rather longer and there's a reason why I want to give it to you because I'm going to refer to some of the references he does there a little bit later. But there are a number of books and in book 11 and in chapter 1, he describes it in title, of this part of the work wherein we begin to explain the origin and end of the two cities. And he describes here the city of God. Listen to the, I'm sure you will hear as I read this, the number of references to scripture. The city of God we speak of is the same to which testimony is born by that scripture which excels all the writings of all nations by its divine authority. So what he's doing is he's saying the Bible, the scripture that we have, there may be other scriptures in other religions, there may be other documents which people call scripture, but the scripture that we have is God's word. and he begins by establishing that in this section, born by that scripture which excels all the writings of all the nations by its divine authority, and has brought under its influence all kinds of minds, and this not by casual intellectual movement, but obviously by an express providential arrangement, for there it is written, scripture, glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God, And in another psalm we read, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness, increasing the joy of the whole earth. And a little after in the same psalm, as we have heard so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, God has established it forever. And in another, Psalm 46, there is a river that streams whereof shall make glad the city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved. From these, says Augustine, and similar testimonies, all of which it were tedious to cite, tedious to cite, there are so many of them, that's what he's saying, take too long to do, we have learned that there is a city of God and its founder, capital F, has inspired us with a love which makes us covet its citizenship. Well, that's how he describes it as he takes the scriptures. And then in book X1V, that's 14, isn't it? Chapter 28, see, it's a long book. He says, here's a little section, of the nature of the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly. He's contrasting the city of man, the city of Rome, particularly, the center of the Roman Empire, and the city of God. Accordingly, he says, two cities have been formed by two loves. The earthly, by the love of self, even to the contempt of God. The heavenly, by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men, but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory, the other says to its god, thou art my glory and the lifter up of my head. In the one, the princes and nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling. In the other, the princes and subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying while the former take no thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers. The other says of it to its God, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. And therefore, the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both. And those who have known God glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise. Quoting from Romans one, come back to that a little bit later. professing themselves to be wise, that is, glorying in their own wisdom and being possessed by pride, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things, Romans 1. For they were either leaders or followers of the people and adoring images and worshiping and serving the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever, but Listen to this. In the other city, there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels, as well as holy men, that God may be all in all. That's a great description, isn't it, of the city of God, the temple, the altar, the place where the saints dwell. Secondly, notice this measuring rod in chapter, in verse one, chapter 11, verse one, God is, John is told to measure the temple. Now to measure something in the scriptures usually means to size it up, to get to know it. Ezekiel had a measure, well no he didn't, his angelic guide had a measuring rod, you'll remember, to measure the city. What was he doing? He was to get to know it. He was taken on a tour of it. He was given an understanding of the greatness and the vastness of it. When we begin perhaps to learn about a new subject, somebody might say to us, have you got the measure of it yet? Do you understand the fundamental truths of it? Are you beginning to grasp the concepts? So what is John to do here? He is to measure, he is to measure the truth regarding the church of God, the people of God. Find out with some precision, learn what God is like. Understand his grace, this great God, of power and might and authority and wrath against sin is a God of love and a God of mercy. Understand this. Measure it up as it were. Get the measure of it. Find out with some precision and learn what God is revealing about his people. The altar, the place of true worship, the place where true worshippers worship this Lord in spirit and in truth. But don't measure the outer court. Why? Well, there are two reasons, possibly, probably, in the context, because the outer court speaks of the visible church, which is a mixture of the true and the false. There are many people Sadly, in churches today, and there are churches that call themselves churches, which maybe do not teach the truth, the visible church is much larger than the true church. And sadly, there are also outsiders who will trample on the truth, and they will treat the holy city with respect. The end of verse two, they will tread the holy city underfoot, for 42 months. But it occurs to me, it seems to me that there is also another aspect to the reason for not measuring the outer court. And I think there is a hint, maybe I'm reading into the passage and if you disagree with me I'm not going to fall out with you, bless you, but there is a hint that the final number of the elect people, the true people of God, is a number without understanding. It is so vast, it is so great, it is beyond counting. The Bible says that at the last there will be a number around the throne whom no man can number. And so John is told not to measure because you can't get the measure of it. Partly because of the mixture of the visible church. but also because the number of God's final elect is beyond measurement. God knows, and God has the measurement, but it's beyond the understanding for us here below. The Lord knows them all. They may be scattered among the ungodly, but God knows his own. They can't be measured by human beings. They may face great opposition by the Gentiles, and in verse 2 the Gentiles are speaking of the ungodly, as they trample on the holy city, but they can never be lost. If you're a child of God, God knows you, and God has you safe. But rise and measure the temple. Measure the true holy city. Maybe make sure you've determined the truth for yourself. Don't let the world trample over your mind and heart. Measure the truth, you'll find it utterly reliable. Don't be satisfied until you have measured the truth for yourself and found it to be utterly reliable and trustworthy. In other words, make sure that you are among the true worshippers of the Most High God. The standard has been given to us. I was given a reed like a measuring rod. We have a fixed standard. to measure those who claim the truth. There is no doubt about its authority. We will all be measured according to God's standard. Remember the scroll of chapter 10, the word of God? This is the standard by which we will be judged. The true church of Jesus Christ is measured by his holy word. And only as the church adheres to the word of God Is it the true church? Move from this standard and we risk being trampled by the ungodly. Why does the world largely reject the church these days, particularly in the West? Is it not because so many churches have rejected this standard? I don't know about you, my friends, but when you read some of these pontifications by some of these men in high places in some of the churches and establishments in our country, Don't you cringe, don't you tremble as they pour scorn upon the teaching of God's Word sometimes? Now I'm not saying everybody does, but there are those who come out with things and you think, how can you be a bishop, an archbishop or whatever, and say things like that? How can you say that you speak on behalf of the Church of God and speak such blasphemies? Well, I don't need to give you examples, we know, don't we? Now, we have to be careful with numbers. There are numbers here, aren't there? There are 42 months mentioned here in verse 2, and there are 1,260 days mentioned in verse 2. 42 months is 3 1�2 years. 42 times 30 days, if roughly the month is 30 days, that's 1,260, which is in verse 3. What we have here is a fixed and certain and a known time. If you want to look specifically for 42 months or 1,260 days, I think you're not going to find it. We're using symbols. What we're being told by this is God knows the time. God knows it precisely. Precisely. A fixed and known and certain time. A time that will come to an end. Thank God that although there have been many times in church history when the church has become corrupt and trampled down and rejected and defeated, The work of God goes on and God in his grace revives his work and raises up his witnesses and she has triumphed again. You see this in the Old Testament, don't we? We see it over and over again in the life of the Israelites. Victory, followed by slackness, followed by defeat, followed by repentance, followed by restoration, and then victory again. That cycle is repeated, especially in the book of Judges, in the period of the Judges, but at other times as well. And it was true in the New Testament, and often in history since then. We talk about the dark ages, don't we? When things were dark, and we talk about the light of the Reformation, and we talk about the light of the 18th century revival. times of darkness, times of grace. These things happen. Thirdly, notice, we'll come back to these next time in more detail, the two witnesses, the two witnesses. Who are the two witnesses and what are they doing? Well, there have been many suggestions, and we'll look at some of the possibilities next time. Some have suggested that the two witnesses are the Old and New Testaments. and the church of the Old Testament and the church of the New Testament. Some have suggested that the two witnesses are the law and the prophets. Some have said that they're the word and the sacraments. Some have said that the two witnesses are the two churches of the seven churches that were uncompromised in the letters to the seven churches. Five of them were compromised and had great judgments. There were two churches, you may remember, that had no condemnation. Some have said, well, that's what they are. Well, we don't know. Well, what we can say is this, that in the mouth of two witnesses, the Bible says, every word will be established. And whoever these two witnesses are, and I say, I'll come back to them in more detail next time, it is certainly a sign of the sure and certain nature of deliverance when it comes. God has his own people. And those who are his witnesses, even if there are only two left in any age, the church will not die because it's in the hands of God. And his two witnesses are symbolized by the two olive trees and the two lampstands mentioned in verses 2 and 3. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. And that of course is taken up, well that is reflected in those words in Zechariah, Zechariah chapter 4 particularly and on into chapter 5 but particularly in Chapter 4. In chapter 3 of Zechariah, Joshua the high priest, Joshua the son of Jezedek, is standing before the Lord and Satan stands to oppose him. And the Lord rebukes Satan and tells him that Joshua is a brand plucked from the burning. Joshua is clothed with filthy garments and his filthy garments are taken away and he is cleansed and he is made pure. I have removed your iniquity from you, clothed you with rich robes and a clean turban and so on. And then the Lord speaks about the coming branch, his servant the Messiah, it's a messianic statement taking up the words of Jeremiah. And then in chapter four we have this vision of the lampstand and the lamps and the pipes and the olive trees by it, and here is a picture of olive trees that give fruit and give oil, regularly olive oil from these olive trees, and somehow, and as you read the chapter and understand it, we can't actually fully picture it, but in some way, the olive trees, these two olive trees are permanently supplying oil to these two lampstands. so that the light never goes out, and it's a picture of the power of God. And God says it is by my spirit, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit. And God puts his blessing upon Joshua, as the high priest, and Zerubbabel, who becomes the leader of the people. if you know something about Zerubbabel, well, in a remarkable way, he takes over the royal line. He's in both Matthew's genealogy and Luke's genealogy. The condemnation that came upon Caniah, Jeconiah in Jeremiah's prophecy, where God comes to him and says, enough is enough. No longer will a son of David sit upon the throne of Israel. So what's happened to God's promise? Well, it is as though the line takes a loop, and it goes still through a son of David, and we find that Zerubbabel becomes the one through whom the line is restored. And although he doesn't sit on the throne, he becomes the ruler, and he takes over the position. and the line continues, and Matthew shows how that continues through to Joseph, and Luke shows how that continues through to Mary. And in the most remarkable way, God's divine promise given to David, which is, as it were, cut off in the days of Jeremiah, is restored, and a most remarkable picture is given of that. So that's the significance of Zerubbabel there. I'll go into that in another time. But as we look at this, in verse 2 of Zechariah 4, we see the lampstand and the seven lamps. Verse 3 speaks about the olive trees. And then in verse 11, Zechariah 4 verse 11, then I answered and said to him, what are these two olive trees at the right of the lampstand and to the left? And I further answered and said to him, what are these two olive branches that drip into the receptacles of the gold pipes and so on? Then he answered me and said, Do you not know? He said, These are the two anointed ones who stand before the Lord of the whole earth. And we have the two witnesses and they are connected with the olive trees and the lampstands in Revelation 11. So the picture we have or the vision that Zechariah has in chapter 4 is taken up in John's vision here in Revelation chapter 11. And so if you turn back to chapter 11 verse 4, we find the olive trees, speaking of the oil, symbolic of the power of the Holy Spirit If you try to destroy the church and its true messengers, you will be destroyed. In verse 4, we have... I've got my verses wrong, haven't I? Verse 5, isn't it? It's verse 3, verse 4, verse 5. We find fire. Our God is a consuming fire and that reminds us of the fire proceeding from the mouth of these witnesses. It reminds us of Elijah and the prophets of Baal and how Elijah is ratified by the fire of God coming upon the sacrifice. And then in verse 6 we have the rain. No rain falls. They have the power to stop the rain. They have power over the waters to turn them to blood. And that's taken up of course in Isaiah 55 when God sends the rain, when God sends the dew upon the earth and how this is God's sovereign control as to what happens. For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven and does not return there but waters the earth and makes it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It will not return to me void, but shall accomplish what I please, and so on. But sometimes God withholds his blessing from unrepentant and willful men. So we have those incredible words, don't we, in Amos, when God speaks about the judgment that comes upon those who reject his word, And it's significant. We were reading the other day, was it last Sunday or was it Sunday before, we were reading about coming from the North and the South and the East and the West. And I thought about that then when I was reading it. Was it, I'm not sure whether it was one of the readings we had in the morning. Rob, did you, I think, was it? That's right. To look, that's right. North, South, East and West. And it's specifically North, South, East and West. And whenever that comes in the Bible, I think that might be the first occasion it comes. I think that's what triggered my mind. That whenever it comes in the Bible, it speaks of order and logic. North, South, East and West. What happens in Amos 8? Well here are people who God has sent a famine of the hearing of the words of the Lord. And here people are so distracted they don't even know what they're doing, they're desperate for a word from God. And so they don't wander from north to south and east to west, they wander from sea to sea and north to east and run to and fro seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it. And it's God's judgment. The normal order for South, East and West is destroyed. And there is spiritual famine because of their unrepentant and ungodly and willful arrogance against God, resulting in spiritual famine. Is that our state in our land today? The streams of life and the water of life has been polluted. And if you reject God's truth, the time will come when God gives us up. Augustine quoted from Romans 1, the end of Romans 1, speaking of when God gives up the ungodly, and contrasts that with the true city of God. So in Revelation 11, verse 6, we have a picture of judgment, and the devil rages against them. And in verses 7 to 8 there is great opposition against the truth and sometimes even times of persecution and ridicule of materialistic and godless men. And in verse 8 we have Sodom and Egypt and the place of the Lord's crucifixion. Each of those places, all of those places, symbolic of the worst that the godless world will do against the true Church of Jesus Christ. You know that. You know what happened in the judgment upon Sodom. You know how Egypt, how Pharaoh was judged and was swept away when the waters came back on the Red Sea. And you know, obviously, about the Lord's crucifixion, the worst that evil men could do. against the work of God. But, verses 11, 9 and 10, only for a short time, three and a half days, fixed, known to God, nothing takes him by surprise. And so in verses 11, chapter 11, verses 12 to 14, God has everything under his control. He is not surprised. He is not inconvenienced. He is not damaged in any way. by what the devil and fallen mankind to do to his world and his people. Evil will never finally triumph, for God can do the seemingly impossible. Remember how the people of God were delivered from Egypt. Remember Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones. God does that which seems to be impossible. and remember the resurrection. There is at the last for all God's true servants the resurrection, eternity, final judgment, glory. The true church will triumph. Zechariah 4, 6, not by might nor by power but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts. Now, we haven't dealt with everything in this chapter. We're gonna come back to it next time and we'll talk a bit more about it. But how glorious it is to be on the winning side. Now, we're only a few here tonight. We may feel discouraged, particularly about what's happened in recent days. But if we're in Christ, my friends, however few we are, we're not down to two yet. Please, God, we don't go down that low. But even if we do, God is still our God. And we are on the, can I say reverently, we are on His side. He's on our side. And how glorious to be on the winning side. How dreadful to be on the losing side. Well, may God give us grace to understand these things and be encouraged in these desperately difficult and wicked days. And hopefully next time we'll open this up a little bit more I'll say a bit more about the two witnesses, because I know I've left a lot of loose ends this evening, but hopefully that will help you. Let's pray. Our blessed and glorious God, we thank you. We trust by the grace of God, we are members of the holy city of God. that we have been redeemed and rescued from the world and all the wickedness of the world. And while we still live in this world and while we still find that the sins of life still cling to us so closely, and we strive more and more to live holy and godly lives, encourage us, our God, we pray. And may the words of this glorious vision of the confidence we have in the things of God be our experience. And as we come back to this chapter, God willing, in a future occasion, when we come to see the wonder of the glory of your grace, that indeed you are the one who indeed rules forever and the glory of what you have done for your people may come home to us with ever-increasing wonder and gratitude and thanks. We bless your holy name. Hear our prayer and do us good. For Jesus' sake. Amen.