If you are reading this, odds are that not only do you have more than a passing acquaintance with the Bible, but that you also take it seriously. Odds also are that it makes you a growing anomaly in the Christian world as it exists today. Indeed, in much of the modern church here in the United States, it might even make you unwelcome. That’s not the case here because I know Terry James does take God’s Word as, well, God’s Word along with everything that follows along with such a belief.

Though I have never met Terry in person, I feel that over the many years we have corresponded, that I have gained a loyal friend. From my first contact with him via Rapture Ready, he has gone out of his way to encourage me in my study of the Bible, especially in the realm of Bible Prophecy, and has graciously provided me a venue to share my thoughts by way of various articles I’d written on this subject over nearly ten years for Rapture Ready. Now, he has invited me to once again share some of my thoughts on his new website and I am singularly honored to participate. Thank you very much, Terry. I will try very hard to rise to the occasion! So, that being said, let’s begin from a passage first from the Book of Revelation: (Note: Asterisks have been inserted to further explain the text as needed. Please see notation at the end of this article regarding the source for King James Bible passages used here.)

Revelation {11:3-12} And I will give [power] unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a  thousand two hundred [and] threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies [shall lie] in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

A much earlier passage found in Zechariah may be referring to these mysterious figures as well:

Zechariah {4:11-14} Then answered I*, and said unto him**, What [are] these two olive trees upon the right [side] of the candlestick and upon the left [side] thereof? And I answered again, and said unto him, What [be these] two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden [oil] out of themselves? And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these [be?] And I said, No, my lord. Then said he, These [are] the two anointed ones, that stand by the LORD of the whole earth. * Zechariah      ** an angel

Exactly who these two witnesses are continues to be a source of speculation, but three possibilities top the list.  They are Enoch, Elijah, and Moses. The first two are unique in that they never died but were taken directly off the earth by God:

Genesis {5:24} And Enoch walked with God: and he [was] not; for God took him.

2 Kings {2:11-12} And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, [there appeared] a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw [it,] and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces.

As for Moses, the Bible tells us that he died after seeing the Promised Land and after commissioning Joshua to take over as leader of the Israelites after their forty year journey from Egypt:

Deuteronomy {34:1-6} And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that [is] over against Jericho. And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, And the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar. And the LORD said unto him, This [is] the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see [it] with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And he* buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. *Joshua (Hoshea)

Though Moses did die while Enoch and Elijah did not, he does in fact show up again in person with Elijah during the Transfiguration:

Matthew {17:1-3} And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias* talking with him. *Elijah

Additionally, there are also accounts concerning Elijah in which he called down fire from heaven (1 Kings 18:36-38, 2 Kings 1:1-15) making him a particularly strong candidate.

Perhaps the idea that the witnesses will represent the “Law and the Prophets” also gives a nod once again to Elijah, being a prophet, and to Moses, the giver of the Law. Or it may be two other people entirely. Nevertheless, what we do know is that they will appear, withstand all manner of attacks from their enemies, until the final one the Antichrist unleashes on them  kills them – something the world will celebrate. But the jubilation will be short-lived as they are miraculously resurrected.

With this background now established, let’s take a look at what happens after they are killed and think about what it suggests:

And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.

Not only do these witnesses get killed, but it seems very clear that the entire world knows about it just about in real time. This is nothing out of the ordinary in the Twenty-first Century, but one must remember that when the book of Revelation was written in the end of the First, the speed that news could be transmitted was limited by how fast one (or his or her animal) could walk, or cross by ship to a distant shore. And yet John sees the whole world instantly knowing what has happened and celebrating their demise. But the party doesn’t last very long because in the same manner it sees these once-dead men resurrected and bodily taken into heaven:

And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

The closest thing to instant communication that existed for centuries was restricted to such primitive forms as smoke signals, drum beats, signal fires, or the sounding of various types of horns such as your basic shofars or more technically refined trumpets. Out of sight or out of earshot meant that one was out of luck. It has really only been within the last 200 years that anything resembling actual long-range instantaneous communication has existed, the first being the telegraph perfected by Samuel B. Morse and Alfred Vail in 1837. This in itself required advances in the use, storage and generation of electricity, which up until the 19^th Century was little more than a curiosity.

Two decades and a year later the first trans-Atlantic cable was laid between Trinity Bay, Newfoundland and Valenica, Ireland, but it failed in three weeks. A replacement was laid in1866. (Only in 1956 would a telephone transmission finally cross the Atlantic Ocean to Europe via cable.)

A huge development in the field of communications would follow Marconi’s successful wireless telegraph system in December 1901 from St. John’s Newfoundland to Cornwall, England. No longer was it necessary to run a physical connection between sender and receiver, and from this point on radio technology exploded across the globe. Using shortwave radio, it became possible even for amateur radio operators to communicate across the planet, marking the first time in human history that instant communication not only became possible, but commonplace.

With the advent of television and the space program, sophisticated communication satellites beginning with Telstar 1 in 1962 provided the means not only to transmit audio, but video as well in real-time. With the advent of the Information Age of the past few decades, the ease an accessibility of more and more people to instant communication has exploded. Now we take it all pretty much for granted – unless, of course, something prevents our devices from working!

What fascinates me personally about all of this is that for the Revelation passage above to become literally possible, all of the technological progress above had to take place first. It’s taken about 1900 years for that to happen, but here we are. We see from John’s description that what will transpire will no doubt be seen and heard by virtually the entire world – as it happens – and I have no doubt will be replayed over and over again on the global news media and Internet sites, all of them most likely under the direct control of the future world despot we have come to know as the Antichrist. I can certainly understand him splashing what he thinks is his victory over the two witnesses all over the media to further exalt himself on the world stage but that the resurrection of these two (the last thing he would want displayed) also manages to hit the airwaves shows it to be something so completely sudden and unexpected he does not have time to censor it.

As we can see, we have reached a point where our current state of technological development has made everything we’ve read about the world witnessing the events of Revelation 11:3-12 in actual time completely and literally possible for the first time in human history. It has been my personal belief that the Antichrist will not only use the supernatural abilities given to him by Satan himself, but will avail himself of the “tools at hand” to increasingly tighten his grip on a turbulent planet that will initially receive him with open arms. Next time, we’ll look at another facet of modern technology which will help him take over the world.

*Public Domain Source of Bible Quotations *

All Bible references are from http://www.davince.com/bible and are copied intact from that source.