I want to begin with a story in the Bible found in 2 Kings 1:1-15. It’s about a king named Ahaziah, he was the king of Israel, and there was a prophet by the name of Elijah. King Ahaziah had injured himself by falling through a piece of lattice and he sent messengers to consult Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, who was thought to have power over prophecy, to see if he would recover from his injuries. But the messengers never made it there. That’s because an angel of God told the prophet Elijah to intercept these messengers and ask them, “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?” And when Elijah met them he told them to tell King Ahaziah that he would certainly not recover from his injury.
Now King Ahaziah knew exactly who this messenger from God was. So, King Ahaziah, not happy with Elijah, sent 50 messengers to Elijah who said to him, “O man of God, the king says, ‘Come down.” To which Elijah replied, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.’ Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men.” This happened again, with the next fifty men also being consumed by fire. God destroyed those by fire who opposed the message of His anointed messenger.
You’re probably wondering why I am telling you all this? It’s because this story is a foreshadowing of what we are talking about today. Over the past few Sunday’s we have discovered that in the last half of the tribulation two witnesses will appear. They have no name. They come under the authority of Christ to bear witness about Jesus, prophecy about God’s judgment, and urge people to repent of their sins and believe in Jesus for salvation. We learned that their time to preach is limited to 1,260 days, which is all there is remaining of the tribulation period. We learned that they are appointed for such a time as then. That they are the two olive trees who will come anointed by God. That they will come as lampstands, to bring the light of the gospel and penetrate the darkness of the kingdom of the Antichrist.
But this morning we are going to discover that anyone who attempts to do these two witnesses harm will be consumed by fire. We’ll focus our efforts on Revelation 11:5 – “And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed.” From this verse we can make four implications.
It implies that people are going to receive these two witnesses as hostiles and try to do them harm.
John says two times: “if anyone would harm them”. Another clue that people will be wanting to do these two witnesses harm is the word “foes”. More specifically the text says, “their foes”. A foe is anyone who feels enmity, hatred, or malice towards another. A foe is someone who is an adversary of another. A foe is someone who is the enemy of someone else.
Why would anyone want to do them harm? Well, if you know anything about Old Testament prophets, then you know their messages were not sugar-coated. The reason people will want to do them harm is because they will not care to hear the message they speak. That’s because their message will be the gospel truth. People will not care to hear about the supremacy of Christ. They will not care to hear that Jesus is the Son of God and is God. They will not care to hear that there is only one path to God and only one way to be saved, which is by faith alone in Christ alone. They will not care to hear that they are sinners who are separated from God, who have fallen short of the glory of God, and on the road that leads to hell. They will not care to be warned of God’s judgment and wrath on those who refuse to believe upon Christ. And they will not care to hear they need to repent of their sins and turn to Jesus.
In many ways, this is much like today.
People today do not care to hear the gospel. In fact, we are seeing increasing hostility towards the gospel. In 2016 TIME Magazine did a whole article titled “Regular Christians Are No Longer Welcome In American Culture”. In the article it was noted how a Marine placed a Bible verse on her desk and was therefore court-martialed, how a football coach in Washington was placed on leave because he said a prayer on the field after the game, how a New Jersey teacher was suspended for giving a student a Bible, how a fire chief in Atlanta was fired for publishing a book defending Christian moral teaching, and how Americans are increasingly viewing those who hold to traditional Christian teachings are labeled as bigots and haters. In fact, just this week a high school football coach was in court because he prayed on the sideline. And just this week I read an article about growing Christianphobia in America, which is animosity or hatred toward Christians.
I bring all this to light to say: that we are living in a time when hostility is growing for traditional Christianity. We even see this rising in the church. People do not want to hear the traditional teachings of Scripture. They do not want sound doctrine. They do not want to hear messages that convict them of their evil deeds. They want a sugar-coated, ear scratching, feel good, self-help sermonette. They want to be entertained. They do not want to be told they need to repent. They do not want to be told their works do not save them. They do not want to be told there is only one path to God. They do not want to be told there is absolute truth and absolute morality; that there really is such a thing as absolute wrong and absolute right. They do not want to be told that if they continue in their sin and do not believe upon the Lord Jesus for salvation they are going to go to hell. People want to worship God as they like, believe what they want to believe, and live their life how they choose, even in the church. And it’s only going to get worse as we draw nearer to the rapture.
This verse also implies that the two witnesses cannot be harmed.
The key word being “would” which also means tries, which also means people will attempt to harm them, but cannot. So for 1,260 days, which is the remainder of the tribulation, nobody, although they will try, will be allowed to do them harm. As they stand, proclaiming the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, warning the people of God’s wrath to come, and as they stand calling people to repent of their sins, not one person, not even the Antichrist, will be permitted to hurt them. These men are granted, by Jesus, to preach the Word of God for a specific number of days, and nobody will be able to do anything about it. They may try to shoot them, stab them, or even drop a bomb on them, but they will fail. They will remain standing declaring the message of God’s kingdom for as long as God has determined.
It implies these two witnesses will have the power to do harm to anyone who attempts to harm them.
John said, “If anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes.” You may be tempted to ask, will these men really pour out fire from their mouths? While there are many that believe this is just meant to be taken figuratively, I do not. The Bible should always be taken literally, except for when we know Jesus is speaking in a parable. But this is not a parable. Therefore, I believe we should absolutely take this literally. We have no other reason not to. When John writes that fire will pour out of the mouth of these two witnesses and consume those who attempt to do them harm, I believe that fire will pour out of the mouths of these two witnesses and consume anyone who attempts to do them harm.
It implies that anyone that attempts to do them harm is destined to suffer a fiery judgment.
Again, John said, “If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed.” The key word here is “doomed”. That word means fate. It means destiny. It means to suffer an unavoidable ill fortune. It means to be condemned. It means to be ruined. It means to suffer an unfavorable judgment. Also notice there is no other way for people who wish to do the two witnesses harm to die except by fire, because John says, “this is how he is…to be killed”.
What this means is that any person who attempts to kill these two witnesses must die by fire. They are fated to die by fire. They are destined to die by fire. It means that God has ordained for them to die in no other way except to be consumed alive by fire, which comes out of the mouths of these two witnesses. That is what John means when he says “this is how he is doomed to be killed”.
Now as I thought about all of this, I thought about the many times fire is used in the Scriptures.
This is what made me think about that story from 2 Kings 1. But I also thought about Sodom and Gomorroah in Genesis 19. As Lot, his wife, and his daughters fled the city of Sodom to head to the hills of Zoar, God rained sulfur and fire from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah because of the wickedness being done in those cities, namely, homosexuality. And as God rained sulfur and fire on Sodom, everything was destroyed including: men, women, children, livestock, and vegetation. Nothing was left to inhabit those cities.
I was also reminded of Numbers 16. To make a long story short Korah and 250 other men of Israel opposed Moses, because they thought Moses was going too far. They thought Moses and Aaron were exalting themselves as holier than everybody else. Inevitably, God sent fire from heaven and consumed all 250 men.
And I was reminded of the prophet Jeremiah. God called Jeremiah to call out Israel for their idolatry. To accuse Israel of their having forsaken God. To accuse Israel of their faithlessness. To accuse Israel of their wickedness. To preach repentance to the nation of Israel. To call Israel to return to the LORD. But Israel did not listen to the Word God spoke through Jeremiah. Therefore, God said to the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 5:14, “Because you have spoken this word, behold, I am making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and fire shall consume them.” What that means is that since the people continued to ignore the Word of God spoken by Jeremiah, the Word of God would now become the means of fiery judgment. It means that the people of Israel would be judged by the Word of God spoken by Jeremiah, which they refused to listen to, and therefore would be the very Word that led to their eternal condemnation.
You may ask why fire? Why would God destroy Sodom with sulfur and fire? Why would God consume all 250 of those who opposed Moses with fire from heaven? Why would God consume the two parties of 50 men who went to oppose Elijah by fire? Why would God give these two witnesses the power to kill anyone who attempts to do them harm by fire?
It’s because fire represents God’s judgment on those who would oppose God’s anointed messengers like Elijah and Jeremiah and these two witnesses from speaking the message of God’s kingdom. It’s because fire represents God’s judgment on all those who have heard the Word of God, heard the message of repentance, have heard the good news of salvation, but still refuse to repent of their sins and continue in their wicked ways, as it was with Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s because fire represents God’s judgment on all those who have heard that Jesus is the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah, and the only means of salvation; but continue to deny the divinity of Jesus and continue to deny that he is the way of salvation, while continuing to live their lives in utter sin.
And so will it be with these two witnesses. The two witnesses will be permitted by God to consume their enemies by fire, because they are attempting to prevent the Word of God from going forth. They will be consumed by fire because they are rejecting and opposing the very message that can save them. Therefore, they shall stand condemned and will be doomed by the very message they refuse to accept, but is the very message that can save their life.
As I close, I just want to say you have a responsibility to what you hear.
When the two witnesses come proclaiming the Word of God, people in those days can choose how they respond. They can either accept what the two witnesses are preaching or reject it. In the same way, how you respond to the Word of God is your responsibility. You can either accept it or deny it.
Unfortunately today, as I said earlier, we live in a nation where hostility is increasing towards traditional Christianity. We live in a nation where many in the church have become very progressive when it comes to the doctrine of God’s Word. We live in a nation where there are so many today who absolutely refuse to accept the only message that can save them; and they will suffer for it.
Those who oppose the message of God’s kingdom today, the very message than save their life, if they do not repent, one day shall be doomed. Everyone who continues to reject the divinity of Jesus Christ, if they do not repent, will suffer an unavoidable fate. Everyone who hears the message of the gospel but continues to refuse to accept it, while willfully continuing in a lifestyle of wickedness, if they do not repent, will suffer an unfavorable judgment. We call this unfavorable judgment hell.
And while I know many in the church are denying there is a hell these days, I believe hell is a real place. I believe hell is a literal lake of fire. I believe it’s the place where everyone who refuses to repent of their sin, refuses to accept the divinity of Jesus, refuses to accept the gospel, and refuses to live a life surrendered to the Lordship of Christ shall be. I believe it is the place where everyone whose name is not recorded in the book of life for refusing Christ will spend an eternity being tormented by fire day and night.
I also believe it brings God no pleasure to send anyone there. I believe God finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked. I believe God finds pleasure when the wicked person repents of their sins, looks to Jesus for salvation, and surrenders to Jesus’ Lordship. That’s why God sends the world preachers, evangelists, and the church, to declare the message of His kingdom, so that no one will have to go to hell. But, like I said, unfortunately, many people do not wish to hear it, which will prove costly. And my question to you all this morning is: what are you going to do? Are you going to accept the message of Jesus Christ or reject it? Are you going to accept the gospel or refuse it? Are you going to surrender your life to Christ or oppose Him? Are you going to believe in the divinity of Christ or deny it? Those are all questions you must ask yourself, but I will tell you how you answer those questions, determine your eternal fate, and I pray that it is with Christ in heaven.