Revelation 11:9-11 - Terror struck those who saw them

11:9,10

The three and a half days ties in with three and half years. Remember that the great multitude came from “every people, tribe, language and tongue”, so do the people who gazed upon the bodies of the dead witnesses. And they gloated over the death of them, celebrating by sending each other presents. It is like Christmas! So there is a great divide. There is a divide between those who worship God and those who hate Him. There is also a great divide between those who once hated Him, but then repented and believed. Can this gloating happen? The answer is yes, for we see hints of it around the world. In countries where people are rejected if they renounce Islam or Hinduism and follow Christ ths sort of thing can happen. In the West we are getting close to it. Witness the “celebrations'' when laws are passed to make it easier to abort human life.

11:11

“After three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them”. The witnesses, the church, were not dead forever. They stood on their feet, and the world was terrified. We can see a pattern here of how things should go with the church. The church bears witness. The world reacts against it and oppresses the church, with varying degrees of ferocity. It looks like the church is dead, but it isn't, and it rises again. If we take the symbolic line, as I tend to do, this is giving the hearers some understanding of how things go. If we are in the stage where the church is a powerful witness, we must know that a time may come when there is severe opposition. If we are in the midst of the severe opposition stage, even the “defeated” stage, we need to know that the church will rise again.