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Chapter 11—The Two Witnesses
The suppression of the Scriptures under the dominion of Rome,
the terrible results of that suppression, and the final exaltation of
the word of God, are vividly portrayed by the prophetic pencil. To
John the exile on lonely Patmos was given a view of the 1260 years
during which the papal power was permitted to trample upon God’s
word and oppress his people. Said the angel of the Lord: “The
holy city [the true church] shall they tread under foot forty and two
months. And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall
prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in
sackcloth.” [
Revelation 11:2, 3
.] The periods here mentioned are the
same, alike representing the time in which God’s faithful witnesses
remained in a state of obscurity.
The two witnesses represent the Old and New Testament Scrip-
tures. Both are important testimonies to the origin and perpetuity of
the law of God. Both are witnesses also to the plan of salvation. The
types, sacrifices, and prophecies of the Old Testament point forward
to a Saviour to come. The Gospels and Epistles of the New Testa-
ment tell of a Saviour who has come in the exact manner foretold by
type and prophecy.
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“These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing
before the God of the earth.” [
Revelation 11:4
.] Said the psalmist,
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” [
Psalm
119:105
.]
The papal power sought to hide from the people the word of truth,
and set before them false witnesses to contradict its testimony. When
the Bible was proscribed by religious and secular authority; when its
testimony was perverted, and every effort made that men and demons
could invent to turn the minds of the people from it; when those
who dared proclaim its sacred truths were hunted, betrayed, tortured,
buried in dungeon cells, martyred for their faith, or compelled to
flee to mountain fastnesses and to dens and caves of the earth,—then
indeed did the faithful witnesses prophesy in sackcloth.
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