This post is from Pastor Mike of Anchor Fellowship Costa Mesa. This is from his weekly devotional e-mail newsletter that you can (and should) subscribe to by sending an e-mail to "anchorfellowship @ yahoo.com". He runs an excellent Bible-based ministry and has a YouTube channel you can check out as well.
Here is his update from last week:
Fellow Believers...
The Word for today is from Revelation, chapter 11, verse 3, "And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand to hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth."
Seems like a bunch of churches (way too many!) do not teach the Book of Revelation any more. Some churches "spiritualize" it: they teach that the events mentioned in Revelation are not real events that will happen in the future, but are only symbols of this or that (what ever they makeup them to be).
Other churches teach that all of the events of Revelation happened in history and were all fulfilled by the the time General Titus of Rome invaded and conquered Jerusalem in 70 AD. (And the dates should be AD, not CE. "AD" is short for "Anno Domini". Anno Domini is Latin for "in the year of the Lord" referring to the birth of Jesus Christ. "CE" is short for "Common Era": an empty and vain attempt for some to rid any mention of Jesus Christ. But that is another story...).
The truth is that the events, if to be taken literally, are future. Jesus will reign for a thousand years from Jerusalem; it has not happened yet. Satan has not be chained up. We have not had anything close to the trials that the 7 year Tribulation period will bring. They are all future events. And for the first 300 years of the church, the events described in Revelation were taught as future events.
One of those events is in our verse today. Read on from verse 3 to verse 13. It plainly says that the entire world watched the ministry of these two men, their deaths, and their resurrections some 3 1/2 days later. Now, 100 years ago, that was an impossibility, but not now. With the help of the internet, news is immediate. In the Apostle Paul's day, news traveled by ship. It took months, sometimes years, for the news from one region to travel to the end of the earth. Now, the darkest parts of the jungle have internet on their smart phones and watch news as it happens (hopefully, its not "fake news"!).
Revelation is where the early church got many of their worship songs, just as the Hebrews got their songs from the the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament. Revelation was well taught and believed in the church for hundreds of years after Christ's first coming.
You and I should make it our discipline, if we are saved, to read Revelation, beginning to end, regularly. If you have not read it in the last 5 months, sit down with some coffee or tea or diet-Mountain Dew (all favorites in our home), and read it some afternoon. Acquire a good working knowledge of it. Ask questions about it. Get some good books to help understand it (like those written by Walvoord of Dallas Theological and others).
And look around. Its happening today; we are being prepared for the Book of Revelation's fulfillment.
See you Saturday @ 6PM (in person, or on YouTube @ Anchor Fellowship Costa Mesa)
Keeping our eyes on Jesus!
Pastor Mike
