Amen. And as we'll be seeing, God's excellence is not just in the graces that He pours out, but also in His judgments all reflect His character. I'm going to be reading, preaching on verses 9 and 10, but reading Revelation 11, 7 through 10, just so you get it in context. When they finish their witness, the beast of prey that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, overcome them, and kill them, and leave their corpses in the street of the great city, which is called Sodom and Egypt, spiritually speaking, even where their Lord was crucified. And those from the peoples, tribes, languages, and ethnic nations look at their corpses three and a half days and will not allow their corpses to be buried, And those who dwell on the earth rejoice over them, and they will enjoy themselves and send gifts to one another because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. Father God, we thank you for your word. It is our desire not just to understand it, but to live it. And so we pray that your Holy Spirit would open the eyes of our understanding, that your Holy Spirit would empower us, sanctify us, and work within us. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. John Huss was a priest in Bohemia who sought to bring reform to the church long before the Protestant Reformation had happened. He lived from 1369 to 1415, so he died 68 years before Martin Luther was even born. And so people forget that there were reformers long before the Protestant Reformation, and he was an incredible reformer. He was such a powerful preacher of the word, which he saw as being the supreme authority over every area of life, that when he preached it, it moved the crowds. In fact, he was perceived as being a threat to the Pope. who got upset with him over the things that he was teaching. God's Word has a habit of doing that. It upsets people who are rationalistic, who do not want to obey God's laws, and many times the messenger gets bitten. He gets attacked. Well, that's what happened with John Huss, the Pope I set a trial, and he couldn't touch him, but he summoned him to the trial, and the emperor summoned him. And he thought, well, the emperor's giving me safe conduct to and from that trial, so you ought to be able to trust the word of an emperor. Well, apparently not. The emperor went back on his word, arrested him, and had him burned at the stake at the age of 42. And the Hussites, who were Protestants before there was a Protestant Reformation, took his death very, very hard. It seemed like such a waste. It seemed that his witness had been cut short. What they didn't realize was that his death actually set a fire going, and it continued to be a witness long after He died. He was given an opportunity to recant before being burned, but he said, what I top with my lips, I seal with my blood. What I taught with my lips, I seal with my blood. In other words, his life was a witness and his death sealed that witness. And that's the way I look at verse three and verses seven through 14. Somebody asked me last week whether the prophets could really be said to prophesy for 1,260 days if those 1260 days end on the day that they were raised from the dead. After all, verse 7 says that they were killed when they had finished their witness, right? That would seem to cut their prophesying, their testimony, short by three and a half days. I think it's a legitimate objection, especially since the measurement was made in days, not just a round number of so many months or three and a half years. And there are two possible answers to that. The first possibility is that their prophesying started four days earlier than I put on my chart. My chart is wrong. That's one possibility. And that would mean that the 1260 days ends on the day that they die. I'm very skeptical of that, but I think it is one possibility. But the approach that I've taken is that their miraculous resurrection, their response to the voice from heaven, and everyone seeing them being caught up constituted one last prophetic act, one prophetic witness to Israel that their words were true. And so even though their verbal testimony ended the day that they died, God allowed their death and their resurrection to be one more miraculous prophetic statement to the truth of their testimony. And by the way, we're gonna be seeing next week in verses 11 through 13 that this prophetic witness had a profound impact upon the entire population. Commentators are divided. Many of them believe that this was a genuine conversion. that happened there. So just as Ezekiel's silent, nonverbal, lying on one side for so many days, lying on another side, and his other pantomimes that didn't have any words expressed with them are called prophetic statements. They were prophecies that his words, they were testimonies that his words were indeed true. I see this as a prophetic act that showed that their words were true. So I still hold the 1260 days ends with their resurrection, not with the day that they died. And when you hold to that position, everything maps out so much more perfectly. And I'll explain that in a bit. Before we apply the passage, I want to give a few more details to set this passage in its historical context. Last week we saw that the phrase in the street in verse eight has a Greek word that indicates that he's talking about the plaza that was right outside the temple walls. And so when the Romans leave their corpses in the street of the great city, they're leaving their corpses just outside the temple walls that all of the Jewish rebels are occupying. They're up on top of those walls looking down on the Romans. And I'm not going to repeat all of the proofs that I gave of that exact location, but the Greek word for street refers to that plaza. But if their bodies were in that plaza, then verses nine and 10 give us some very significant information about the specific time that this happened. And I'll build my argument bit by bit. Notice in verse nine that it wasn't just the Jews who saw them. It says, and those from the peoples, tribes, languages, and ethnic nations look at their corpses three and a half days. Now, because I got so many people like David that have questions on details, I can't leave any detail unturned, right? So this phrase supposedly introduces a problem for my interpretation. My view is that the reference to the peoples, tribes, languages, and ethnic nations is a reference to the Roman legions. But there are a few people who hold to different views of eschatology who actually will use this phrase to try to disprove my position. They assume that Titus's legions are all made up of Italians. Well, that's only one people, one language, one ethnic group. It can't possibly be a reference to the Roman armies here, so it must be a reference to something in the future. Well, they're wrong, and recent research has demonstrated that conclusively. A number of historians and scholars of the Roman legions have said that the Italians actually constituted a small minority of the legions after 68 AD, after Nero died. And at least one legion was completely made up of other ethnic groups. Lawrence Kepi is an expert in Roman history. He's written a scholarly book on the history of the Roman legions. And his research has shown that after AD 68, quote, the legions consisted almost exclusively of provincials. In other words, of the non-Italian peoples of the provinces scattered throughout the Roman Empire. And I've got quotes from scholars like Santos, Uoso, Fang, and Pollard who have said exactly the same thing. And actually Pollard's book goes into great detail of the exact makeup of these various these various legions, and they were from all over the empire. Virtually every nation in the Roman Empire could have been involved. After reviewing the most up-to-date scholarship on the subject, Pollard's conclusion is that in most legions throughout the empire, quote, the legionaries of provincial birth outnumbered the Italians by about four or five to one, And the legions of Cappadocia, Syria, and Egypt were almost entirely made up of non-Italians. Well, those are the three legions. There's more legions there too, but those three are right there in Israel. So when you examine the ethnic makeup of the key legions here, legions three, five, 10, 15, 12, and 18, you begin to realize that they constituted people of many different languages, many different skin colors, many different nations. They represented a very diverse racial background. Josephus mentions a black guy that was a tremendous soldier fighting for Josephus, and it's actually a pretty interesting account that he gives there. In another place, he mentions thousands of Arabs and thousands of Syrians who had discovered that these Jews who were escaping, that Titus had allowed to defect, had swallowed gold, And they thought, whoa, well, we're going to get this gold. So they were disemboweling the Jews by the thousands as they fled and looking through their intestines for all of the gold. Just one night alone, the Syrians and the Arabs disemboweled 2,000 Jews. So that represents quite a few Syrians, quite a few Arabs that were there. So the phrase definitely points to the Roman armies who had penetrated the city in AD 70. Premilles and others who use objections like this have simply not read the most recent scholarship on the subject. But the text also mentions that these Roman armies were looking at the corpses for three and a half days. Well, that would indicate they had to be hanging around those bodies for three and a half days. Well, this indicates it must have been a period of time where the legions are stationary. They're in one place. They're not moving. And that one place is in the plaza outside of the temple walls. And there was indeed one time and one time only when that was possible, where they were stopped and they could not camp any further. They camped out in the plaza. So that really hugely narrows down the time period. The event could not possibly have occurred before May 10 of 1870. I mean, they couldn't even see the bodies in the plaza if they were outside the second and the third walls. So it had to be a time after they penetrated the third and the second walls and there right before the massive walls of the temple. Well they broke through the outer wall called the third wall on ER 7 or May 5. They broke through the second wall on ER 12 or May 10. So these are the kinds of clues that I have to wrestle with as I'm trying to put time mapping and we're putting these on the web. But these are the kinds of things we have to go through and I've been doing this from chapter five all the way through to chapter 11. We've been seeing there is a perfect time sequence. Everything fits the history very, very precisely. Now we've already seen that verses seven through eight show that the beast from the abyss was making war against the prophets. Well, that seems to indicate a passage of time as well. It doesn't just say that they killed them. No, they made war against them, and then they overcame them, and then they killed them, okay? So there's some passage of time if they're making war against them. By the way, that implies that the prophets are fighting back too, doesn't it? They're fighting against the prophets, the prophets are fighting against the Romans, and that should not seem odd. They did exactly the same thing with the Jews in the previous three and a half years. Take a look at verse five. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and consumes their enemies. So if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. These were not pacifist prophets. Like Elijah, they prophetically called down fire on anyone, whether Jew or Gentile, who tried to harm them. Well, these Romans are trying to harm them. Verse nine says that the demon controlling Titus made war against them. Okay, those words made war indicates a process of, it did not just happen in one hour. The next phrase, and overcame them, again shows resistance by the prophets. So they're not turning themselves in. They are resisting and had to be overcome. But if their resistance was resistance in exactly the same way that they resisted the Jews, verse five, then that means some of the Romans must have been killed by fire as well. That's my assumption, but the Romans continued to attack and at some point they overwhelmed these prophets and killed them. Now this next part is reading between the lines, but I think it's a very logical reading between the lines. It is seeking to explain why Titus and the Romans would even bother to war against these prophets. I mean, how would they have even known about those two prophets? We can understand why the demon hated them, but what was going on inside the heads of the flesh and blood armies that this demon was moving? It's a tiny bit of conjecture, but here's how I understand it. Since the prophets were Jewish, the Romans no doubt assumed that the prophets were on the side of the Jewish resistance. When the prophets miraculously killed the Romans with fire, And verse 5 indicates, I think quite clearly, that if the Romans resisted them, then they would have called down fire upon them. So if these two prophets had killed some Romans with that fire, that would have further confirmed in Titus's mind that these prophets were a part of the resistance. In fact, they were a formidable resistance. So Titus wants to make an example of them to those who are on top of the temple walls. He wants to demonstrate, hey, even your miraculous prophets are no match for the Roman armies. We know from secular history that Titus tried to negotiate with these Jews, because he couldn't break through the temple, so he tries to negotiate with them, and it could very well have been that this execution, leaving out these corpses in the plaza to rot, was an attempt to intimidate those Jews. He does this to make an example of them. Now the next question comes up, well then, who would want to bury them? I mean, the Jews hate them and the Romans hate them, and yet the text here, verse nine, implies that there must be some people who want to bury them. Who would do that? There are no Jews around on the plaza, they're all up on the temple. Well, it's my view that the Roman soldiers who were camped on the plaza would want to get rid of the stench of these rotting bodies. In hot climates, you know, just like Lazarus, right, by this time he stinketh, is the way the King James puts it. In hot climates, there would be a stench by this time, and so the Roman soldiers wanted to get rid of them, but the beast, who's that demon, operating through Titus, would not let them. So the second half of verse 9 says, and will not allow their corpses to be buried. Now on the website timeline, I placed the death of the prophets on July 31. That allows for a little time before that in which there is an engagement between the prophets and the Roman armies. Now there's more in this passage I think that really nails down the timing. Verse 10 says, and those who dwell on the earth rejoice over them. Charles, in his commentary, says that that phrase literally means those who dwell in the land. It's the Greek word ges. And 100% of the time, that's always a reference to the Jews, okay? So that means that verse nine refers to the Romans who were camping in the plaza. Verse 10 speaks of the Jews who are now camped out quite high above the Romans. They're looking down on the Romans from the temple walls. And the text seems to indicate that the Jews were not in danger of any imminent death from the Romans. They're rejoicing, they're giving gifts to one another. What's with that? Well, we know from Josephus that the Jews were not in the plaza themselves. They were on the walls, yet they were close enough to the plaza to be able to rejoice over the prophets. And the word for over is very interesting. In Greek grammar, when the Greek word epi is followed by the dative, it's usually a spatial word. The dictionary says, quote, it is a marker of location or surface answering the question of where, and can mean on, upon, or near. When it has a spatial meaning, it always means near and above what it is near to. When you look at the diagrams of Greek, many times they'll do a circle like this and they'll put all of the prepositions around it, very cool diagrams. And different prepositions can mean under, behind, in front of, around, different things like that. Well, a P always appears at the top, Near, but over, okay? So in my mind's eye, I imagine these Jews as being on the wall overlooking the plaza. They're near the body, but also above it. And that means that they can interact with the Romans, but they're safe from the Romans. In fact, Josephus tells us that the Jews and the Romans, they talked with each other quite frequently during that month. Usually hurling insults at each other, but Titus also was trying to negotiate with them. So that's how close they were. They could hear each other, and there was only one month in which all of this was possible, and that is July of 8070. Now, the Romans had tried every way that they could to batter the walls of the temple, to scale the walls, but the temple was impregnable. Titus knew he couldn't get through, and Josephus tells us that Titus several times tried to negotiate a surrender. This killing of the prophets may have been another attempt for Titus to try to prove to the rebels, look, it is futile. If we can kill even your prophets, it is futile. So this was a time in which the Jews would have been confident even though the general populace was dying off like flies from starvation and from and from disease. Those defending the temple were not. Now let me explain the next clause in verse 10 because that may seem incongruous with the position that Jews were in in July but it really is not. Verse 10 says, and those who dwell on the earth rejoice over them and they will enjoy themselves and send gifts to one another because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. Now the objections that comes up is that the Jews were in dire straits and they would not have been rejoicing. For sure, they wouldn't have been enjoying each other, right? Enjoying themselves. But reading Josephus, that's actually not a conclusion you could come to with the rebels who were on top of the temple. Here's how I understand the passage. When they saw the Romans kill the prophets, no doubt as an intimidation factor, It didn't intimidate them at all. They hated the prophets. They're glad that the prophets are dead, but it is very possible that they were mocking the Romans with this exaggerated show of giving gifts to each other, rejoicing hilariously, enjoying themselves in front of the Romans. See, Titus wanted them to be sad, scared, fearful, but they make a show of the exact opposite, and this would have infuriated Titus. And it explains why Josephus documents at that precise time of the week, very precise, Titus immediately did everything he could to get the men to climb the wall, to pound the wall, to risk their lives in any way, to give rewards to people if they could get into that temple. He was desperate to get into that temple. This was the time when a bunch of Romans risked their lives by throwing boards across from the Antonia Fortress onto the temple, and then the Jews faked like they were retreating, like they were running away, so the Romans crowded into the temple, but it was a trap. with all kinds of incendiary devices and every one of the Romans died was burned up except for one who is kind of a fun story of how he was able to escape. But the point is that Titus was desperate during the four days before the temple was burned. He was desperate to get in there because he knew he was running out of time. So I see this exhibition in verse 10 as the Jews rubbing it in Titus' face. They were indeed glad that the prophets were dead, but they were in effect saying, well, thank you so much, Titus, for doing our work for us. We hated those prophets. Thank you, thank you. But whether they were rejoicing, whether it was genuine or was it an attempt to irritate the Romans for what they had done, or whether it was a combination of both. Verse 10 says, and those who dwell on the earth, on the land, it's Geis, it's the land of Israel, those who dwell on the earth rejoice over them and they will enjoy themselves, send gifts to one another because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. Anyway, that's why I say in your outline that the only place from which they would have been safe from the Romans, yet also be near and above and still rejoice, would have been on top of the temple walls toward the end of July. But since the prophets prophesied for the entire three and a half year period, the assumption is that it covers the same three and a half year period that is mentioned elsewhere in the book as compromising the first half of that seven year war. Okay? That's one of the reasons why I believe the 1260 days occurs, ends not with their death, but it ends with the resurrection. Well, if that is true, the terminus is Ab 9 and everything has to fit between Adar 19 of AD 67 and Ab 9 of 70 in the Hebrew calendar. When you couple that fact together with the fact that they are resurrected after three and a half days in verse 11, Then you can count backwards from the resurrection of believers, which occurred on Ab 9, which is August 3. And we'll deal with the resurrection next week, Lord willing. But I at least wanted you to have a little bit of a feel of how I handle deductions and how you can get deductions on timing from even a difficult passage. like this. You can count forwards, you can count backwards from the dates that are solidly anchored in the scripture, and then you can double check your deduced dates with other hints in the passage just like we have been doing. Now next week we're going to look at one other hint that nails this time period down to the last week of July. Verse 13 speaks of a tenth of the city falling, and in parallelism says that 7,000 men were killed. Now, the one clause seems to interpret the other, so if the tenth is defined by the 7,000 as most commentaries believe. It's not a slam dunk. It's not absolutely certain. But most commentaries say, yes, the 7th is the 10th. Well, then that would mean there are only 70,000 Jews that are left in Jerusalem, right? If 7,000 is the 10th? I mean, 70,000 Jews left in Jerusalem. Well, that would not have even been possible even a couple weeks earlier. There would have been over 100,000. And several months earlier, it would have been over a million. I mean, they've been dying off like flies because of not only the rebels killing each other, but starvation and disease and escape from the city. But by the time we get to the end of July, it's right around the 70,000 mark. So that too narrows the scope of when these prophets could die. And all of this I think just beautifully fits into the timescale. Now let's end with some of the practical implications of these verses. First of all, let's look at what we can expect from the world. Verses 7-9 speak of persecution and resistance from the world. Okay, the demon from the pit moved Titus to war against the prophets. Titus may not himself have been self-conscious of why he hated them so much, why he was resisting them, but the demon was, he was very self-conscious, and demons move people to do irrational things and to have irrational hatred when all providential restraints have been removed. Now, what do I mean when I say providential restraints have been removed? Well, the Book of Romans indicates that God has put into society all kinds of restraints that keep people from becoming as bad as they could become. First, it mentions men's consciences restrain them from doing evil things. God has put the law into their hearts, and when they do something bad, their conscience judges them and makes them feel bad, and so it's a kind of restraint. But then Romans goes on to say people don't like that feeling, so they try to harden their conscience, so they suppress their conscience. As one translation of Romans 1.18 says, they hold down their conscience. And it indicates when they do that consistently enough, what happens? Their conscience becomes insensitive, it becomes hardened. And so what would restrain a person who is a psychopath, you know, who has no conscience anymore? Well, his own conscience won't restrain him, but Romans says that the consciences of other people and the opinions of other people might restrain his behavior. and it's a social restraint that's built in. So Romans 2 verse 4 says, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and here's the phrase, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them. This is known as peer pressure, right? The opinions of others can either accuse you or excuse you. It can go either way. But if society gets worse, even that restraint can disappear. So what happens when a society is so calloused to sin as our society is fast becoming? What is a restraint that will restrain the society from just spiraling into iniquity? Well, scripture says, Romans says, it's the civil government. When they have laws that they're enforcing against sin, it's a little bit of a restraint. Even though they want to sin, they maybe won't do it, at least if they're going to get caught. Well, what happens when even the government is commanding evil and promoting evil? Well, then very little restraint is left in society, and that's the direction our country is headed. Persecution can easily break out with intensity when all of those restraints are removed. It's very easy for demons to war through flesh and blood during periods like that. And so the first thing you can expect over time is persecution. Another thing you can expect from the world is analysis. If you've had a powerful testimony, a supernatural testimony, you're gonna be analyzed. These Roman soldiers, if you look at Josephus and Tacitus and Suetonius and the various histories of that period, they could care less about the bodies that were everywhere. They just ignored most Jewish bodies, but they couldn't ignore the bodies of these two prophets. They knew there was something different about these two. They had seen the prophetic, they had seen the miraculous working through those two. And even though they had been instrumental in their death, they were fascinated by these prophets. Verse 9 says that these Gentiles, quote, look at their corpses three and a half days. And the Greek tense indicates they keep looking at those corpses for the full three and a half days. In other words, they cannot take their eyes off of those corpses. Why? We're not told. Maybe they had guilty consciences. Maybe they expected a miracle to happen. I mean, they were superstitious people, but they are looking, they're analyzing. And let me tell you something, if you have a powerful witness in society, you are going to be analyzed like crazy by at least some. The third thing you can expect from at least some is disrespect. The beast from the abyss, it says, will not allow their corpses to be buried. Why? He does everything he can to disrespect God's people. Satan hates, he despises God's people. And while the world may have a degree of admiration for Christians and secret respect for Christians, disrespect over time will eventually arise. The GLBT community has grown with enough influence that even government agencies and agents are beginning to show disrespect for the Christian community. It may be driven by the same demonic impulse. The fourth thing you can expect is mocking. We saw that some of that rejoicing in verse 10 was likely a mocking of both the prophets and the Romans. They didn't have Saturday Night Live or other comedy shows, but this mocking was their form of comic relief, and the text says they enjoyed themselves doing it. A fifth possible response is to be troubled by us. Verse 10 says that they were rejoicing in the prophet's demise, quote, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. Now, why would their prophesying torment them? Well, very literally, it probably tormented them because their prophecy brought things like lack of rain and plagues. death and things that our imprecatory prayers might bring to the world. But even apart from that, the word of God all by itself has the capacity to bring torment to people's consciences. And we're gonna see next week that their consciences seem to be bothered. Well, the same is true of unbelievers who witness your lives. You know, you may be as sweet as could be, and you're mystified, why would that person be so troubled by my lifestyle? Why do they care? Well, your lifestyle may be a rebuke to their lifestyle. Your refusal to be pluralistic may be offensive and troubling to some. Your belief that marriage can only be between a man and a woman may offend some who disagree with you, it's just the way it is. So don't be surprised when people are troubled by you, even though you're a sweetheart, you know, it doesn't matter. Your life, your very testimony can trouble people. A sixth possible response is for hardened people to actually want to kill Christians. Now it doesn't happen very often in America, it does occasionally, but wow, you get into Muslim countries, you get into Hindu countries, oh, you see this impulse being lived out continually, continually. Now this is obviously not an exhaustive list. Some pagans might actually respect and value you, just as King Darius respected and valued Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But even though he respected them, he wanted them, he valued what they could do for his kingdom, there were still others who hated them, envied them, and persecuted them, as the story of the lion's den so clearly shows. Another application relates to burial. Some people could care less what happens to their bodies after they die, but that does not fully reflect the biblical model of treating the body with respect. We are not Gnostics who consider the body unimportant. Obviously, Satan does not consider the body to be unimportant. Otherwise, he wouldn't have shown such disrespect for the body. There is a reason why demonically controlled people cut their bodies. pierce their bodies, abuse their bodies, in various ways show disrespect for their bodies. There is a reason why biblical cultures bury bodies and pagan cultures burn their bodies. There's a reason for that. This is not just neutral issue. And again, I recommend Rodney Schwab's sermon on this whole subject. Satan hates this amazing part of his handiwork. So we are Biblicists who believe, treat the entire creation as belonging to Christ, and believe that the entire creation, including our bodies, must enter into redemption. There is no part of this creation that will not eventually be redeemed, including our bodies. Okay? Even the thorns and thistles are going to be changed. This is going to be a world in which righteousness dwells. And we'll look at the redemption of the body, the resurrection next week, Lord willing. But another application is that the very thing that the prophets valued, the word of God, is a thing that brings torment to unbelievers when they are exposed to it. Hebrews 4 says, For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing So there is the potential for discomfort, right? Piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of whom to whom we must, of him to whom we must give account. Now that's uncomfortable. People don't like their souls open and bare and things in their lives exposed. And so the verse before that says, hey, this can even happen to Christians. When Christians don't want their lives to be exposed to the preaching of the word, they stop. You know, they forsake the assembling of themselves together and they can end up apostatizing. Or they will go to a church that just gives them pabulum, does not powerfully apply the word of God, the law of God into their lives. And it's a dangerous state to be. But those who are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, they love God's law, even when God's law confronts them, they welcome it. Why? Because they want to be right with God. Where the unrighteous despise rebuke and go on the attack when there is rebuke, the wise cherish correction. They say with David, let the righteous strike me. It shall be a kindness. Let him rebuke me. It shall be as excellent oil. Let my head not refuse it. So the difference between the world and the righteous This difference that I've just described is one of the tests of whether you're a genuine believer or not. Do you love God's law or do you always run from it? Do you love the light, even when that light shows cobwebs in your heart? The righteous, they see the cobwebs and they say, oh, thank you, Lord, for showing us cobwebs. They sweep it out. They put it under the blood of Christ. But the unrighteous do not do that. The righteous love the light. The scripture says the unrighteous hate the light because their deeds are evil. So even in terms of your own self-examination, this is one of the tests you can tell, Lord, am I regenerate or not? Do I have a heart that loves your law and wants to be in the light? The last application is that while unbelievers dread death, believers can faith death with absolute faith and confidence. And these witnesses, they went into the lion's den knowing full well they were going to be dying after three and a half years. They knew that they were going to face death, but it did not faze them. They faced it in faith. The way they approached death stood as a testimony to unbelievers. Now, I tend to lean in the direction of commentators who believe that verses 11 through 13 is describing a multitude of Jews coming to faith. I believe all of the remnant there got saved. Their death was not in vain. As a result of these prophets' death, multitudes came to Christ. Now, I started with the story of John Hus. Many people were converted when they saw the joy and the confidence with which he faced death. They longed for the same thing, and his testimony continued long after his death. Almost a hundred years later, Martin Luther was not yet converted, was an academic monk, He was going through the library and he pulled down a volume of sermons, bound sermons. They were John Huss's sermons. He started reading those and it just blew him out of the water. He said, I was overwhelmed with astonishment. I could not understand for what cause they had burnt so great a man. He began thinking poorly of the Pope. So you could see some of the seeds of his own reformation coming in. But what most profoundly affected Martin Luther was the joy and confidence with which Huss was able to face death. He was fearful of death, scared to death of dying. He did not have that confidence, so he hungered for what Huss had. He envied what Huss had. And out in Ethiopia, the funerals of Christians probably led to more conversions than weddings or anything else, and for the same reason. Christians faced death with confidence. In fact, unbelievers, when they had funerals, They're just in agony for weeks, cutting themselves and crying and whatnot. And they go to a Christian funeral expecting the same thing to happen. And these people are singing praises with joy radiating from their faces. And they're talking about the home going to glory of the departed loved one. They're experiencing the joys of heaven. Those weddings, there's a sense about weddings. Those funerals, excuse me, I think we're one last witness, a powerful witness of that believer and testimony to the unbelievers. Just like Huss said, what I taught with my lips, I seal with my blood. That was certainly true of these prophets. May it be true of our own attitudes toward death. Now, after our prayer, we're going to have an opportunity to make that our own prayer in the final hymn, which is to live as Christ by Nathan Clark George. But let's go ahead and thank the Lord for the scripture and ask him to make it a real truth in our hearts. And Father, we do that. We want to not be hypocrites in our Christianity. We want our Christianity to sink down deeply, to take root, to blossom and fruit to your glory. We desire the filling of your Holy Spirit. We want to be more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we pray that you would sanctify us by your truth. that your scriptures would become so richly embedded in our lives that we would have the kind of testimony to a pagan world around us that John has had. Help us, Father, to make a difference. May we be the saver of Christ unto those who are without. We pray these things in Jesus' name.