This sermon was preached at Sherwood Community Friends Church on Sunday, November 8. You can watch the video of this sermon by clicking below.
In January of 1956, five young missionaries landed a small yellow airplane on a sandbar along the Curaray River in the jungle of Ecuador. They were Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, and Roger Youderian.
For months they had flown over a village of the Waorani people, lowering gifts down to them in a bucket on a rope. The Waorani were feared by everyone around them and almost completely cut off from the outside world, but these five men were on a mission to help them hear about Jesus.
On January 8th, a group of Waorani warriors came out of the trees with spears. Within minutes, all five men were dead.
The news went around the world. Five young men. Wives at home. Little kids. A lot of people said the same thing: What a waste.
But… Was it a waste?
Hold onto that question. We’re coming back to it.
Where We’ve Been
We’re in a teaching series taking us on a journey through the book of Revelation, and every week we ask two questions. Let’s say them together.
What did this mean for the original audience?
What does it mean for us?
We learned Revelation is three things: an apocalypse, a prophecy, and a letter.
Our theme verse for the whole series is:
Revelation 14:4 CSB “These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.”
BIG IDEA SERIES: Revelation is not about predicting the future. It’s about revealing Jesus and forming us into his faithful witnesses in the present.
Last week the main character of the whole book, the Lamb, opened the seals, four colored horses rode out, and a question cliffhung in the air: “Who is able to stand?”
What that meant was who is able to stand against God’s judgment on those who are anti-God, oppressive to humanity in all the world’s injustices, those who live by their sin-nature, and those who persecute his people the Church.
The people who endure as the Lamb’s faithful witnesses are the ones who will stand, because the Lamb walks with them through suffering and brings them home to him.
Did you catch the key words in both of those big ideas? Faithful witnesses. That’s the topic for this week’s message: Warnings and Witnesses.
This morning we’ll see what faithful witnesses do while they’re standing, and what God does with their witness.
Before We Read
Let me say something before we open Revelation chapters 8 through 11 because they hold some of the strangest scenes in the whole Bible.
Trumpets. Burning mountains. Locusts with human faces and women’s hair. Horses with lion’s heads and snakes for tails. A mighty angel with one foot on the land and the other on the sea. Two witnesses breathing fire and getting killed by a beast from the abyss for the whole world to see. Mmmkay…
So let’s put our minds back in the frame of John’s original readers. Remember, a disciple of Jesus named John wrote this to seven real churches under real pressure from Rome, to help them stay faithful to Jesus and not compromise or become complacent. If, and this is a big if, we keep that in mind, these chapters start to make sense.
Followers of Jesus have read these chapters in different ways for two thousand years. What I’m sharing this morning is one view. From what I’ve studied, I believe it’s the most natural reading of how John wrote it and how his first readers heard it, and it’s how Dr. David Mathewson, Scot McKnight, and many other Bible scholars read it.
But again, there are other views, held by people who love Jesus and honor God’s Word. We can hold ours with conviction and hold theirs with respect. Here’s what we can all agree on: Jesus is King, his eternal kingdom is coming, and his people are called to be his faithful witnesses as we wait until he comes. Amen?!
Silence in Heaven
Last week we read in chapters 6 and 7 about the initial stages of Heaven’s judgement breaking out on Earth in the cracking of the first 6 seals. Chapter 8 opens with the seventh seal. After all the noise of seals 1 through 6, the Lamb opens the last seal and… well listen…
Revelation 8:1–5 CSB “When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
Then I saw the seven angels who stand in the presence of God; seven trumpets were given to them.
Another angel, with a golden incense burner, came and stood at the altar. He was given a large amount of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up in the presence of God from the angel’s hand. The angel took the incense burner, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it to the earth; there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.”
Remember last week from chapter 6, the martyrs clinging under the altar prayerfully crying out, “How long, Lord?” Here’s the answer. Their prayers rise like incense, and the trumpets that follow are God’s response (Mathewson).
God listens to and answers the prayers of his people! Could somebody say “Amen?!”
How does that make you feel knowing that all of Heaven gets quiet to hear our prayers? Hold onto that, because we’ll be practicing it before we leave this morning.
Seven Trumpets
Then the first five trumpets start to sound.
Here’s what happens in chapters 8 and 9. Hail and fire. A third of the sea turned to blood. A star called Wormwood poisons the rivers. The sun and moon are darkened. Locusts pour out of the abyss.
If any of that sounds familiar, it should. John has the book of Exodus in his mind. Hail. Water to blood. Darkness. Locusts. These are the plagues on Egypt (Exodus 7–10). The same way God judged an evil, godless, oppressive empire in Egypt, he judges the one in Rome (Mathewson) and the other empires that come after.
Then the sixth trumpet sounds, and four angels bound at the Euphrates River are released with an army of two hundred million (Revelation 9:14–16). Notice where those angels were bound: the Euphrates River. They’re held there, waiting, “prepared for the hour, day, month, and year” (Revelation 9:15). Nothing moves until God says so.
The Euphrates is one of the four rivers that flowed out of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:14). When Adam and Eve were sent out because of their sin, God placed cherubim (which are mighty guardian spiritual beings) east of the garden to guard the way back (Genesis 3:24). I think John wants us to remember Eden here.
People aren’t getting back to Eden, but God’s bringing Eden to us!
And look at what the trumpets do. Light goes dark. Waters turn to blood. Sea creatures die. It’s the creation story told in Genesis chapter 1 running in reverse. David Mathewson calls it de-creation which is creation “undone in judgment in order to make way for a new creation” (Mathewson). God is clearing the ground to make all things new.
Two things to notice here…
First- The trumpets hit a third of the land, the sea, the waters, and the sky, and the sixth trumpet hits a third of humanity (Revelation 9:15). Last week the seals hit a fourth. Each expression of God’s judgement gets more intense, more people are impacted, and yet, each one is still limited. These are still warning shots being fired to get someone’s attention.
Second- Let’s look at how chapter 9 ends.
Revelation 9:20-21 CSB “The rest of the people, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands to stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see, hear, or walk. And they did not repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.”
After all of that, the people STILL did not repent. Same as Pharaoh back in Egypt when God was trying to get his attention through the plagues he brought through Moses. Same song. Same dance. Pharaoh didn’t repent because his heart was hard, and the nations don’t repent either, even with all the signs and warnings. But God kept the door open for them.
People say they want some sign from God and even when he gives it to them they still reject him. That means God’s judgment alone will not bring people to their knees in repentance. They harbor so much pride and self-worship in their hearts that they follow their hearts to their own destruction, and they keep giving God “the finger” to the day their lives snuff out.
Remember, and this is important, because God is an all-loving God, he never forces anyone to love him, follow him, worship him, or serve him. He has always given us free will to seek him on our own, so will we love him willingly and authentically. When we don’t, it breaks his heart, but he lets us make our own choice. Those who refuse him, he gives over to the consequences of their own choices, which is eternal separation from the Giver of Life (2 Thessalonians 1:9). That’s not what God wants.
Because God is love (1 John 4:8), he lets those he loves choose him or not. He keeps trying to get our attention and warn us, but some will not care right to the end.
So what are the trumpets for? Let’s think of them as divine disciplines (Scot McKnight). Scot McKnight writes, “God’s disciplines turn humans away from their idolatries and sins and toward allegiance to the Lamb” (McKnight). Even in the trumpet judgements, God is calling people home. He patiently keeps the door open.
The Little Scroll
Before the seventh trumpet blows, John hits pause again for another curtain moment.
A mighty angel shows up holding a little scroll. Seven thunders speak, and John is told not to write down what they said (Revelation 10:4).
I think they revealed the exact day Jesus will return. Just kidding! We have no idea. The Biblical text doesn’t say.
Truth is though, John knows something we don’t, and that should keep us humble (Mathewson). Moses said it this way: “The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
So then John is told to take the little scroll and eat it. It tastes sweet as honey and turns bitter in his stomach (Revelation 10:9–10). Ever eaten something that tasted amazing going down and regretted it later? Perhaps something from a late night visit to Taco Bell? Right?!
This eating the scroll scene comes straight out of the OT book of Ezekiel, where God hands the prophet a scroll and tells him to eat it (Ezekiel 2:8–3:3).
Ezekiel 3:3 CSB “‘Son of man,’ he said to me, ‘feed your stomach and fill your belly with this scroll I am giving you.’ So I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.”
The sweet is the fulfillment of God’s promises, and the bitter is the message of suffering and judgment it carries (Mathewson).
And it’s true for us too. God asks us to take in his Word so it becomes part of who we are. As it goes in, it always tastes sweet. But as God’s truth confronts and purges within us what is not of him, all that unrighteousness and shame and guilt, we taste the bitterness of sin’s conviction in the bones of our soul. And carrying that Word into a world that doesn’t want it will be bitter too.
Then, after he took in God’s little scroll, recorded as the last verse of chapter 10, John is told to prophesy again (Revelation 10:11) This leads right into chapter 11, which is a section “to encourage the church in its faithful witness in the face of suffering” (Mathewson).
Which brings us to the scene everybody always speculates about. Let’s read it.
The Two Witnesses
Revelation 11:3–13 CSB “I will grant my two witnesses authority to prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands (remember these are churches) that stand before the Lord of the earth.
If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and consumes their enemies; if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. They have authority to close up the sky so that it does not rain during the days of their prophecy. They also have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every plague whenever they want.
When they finish their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war on them, conquer them, and kill them. Their dead bodies will lie in the main street of the great city, which figuratively is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
And some of the peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will view their bodies for three and a half days and not permit their bodies to be put into a tomb. Those who live on the earth will gloat over them and celebrate and send gifts to one another because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.
But after three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet. Great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here.’ They went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies watched them.
At that moment a violent earthquake took place, a tenth of the city fell, and seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake. The survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.”
Who Are They?
So who are the two witnesses? Verse 4 says they are “the two lampstands.” Where have we seen lampstands before? Chapter 1! Jesus stands among the lampstands. And Jesus told John exactly what they are. The lampstands are the churches (Revelation 1:20).
The two witnesses “symbolize the entire witnessing church” (Mathewson). Being lampstands shows they are “standing before God in worship and witness” (McKnight).
Why two? In the Old Testament, Jewish law needed testimony from two witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15) to stand as valid.
Now look at what they do. Shutting the sky so it doesn’t rain? That’s a hyperlink to the OT prophet Elijah (1 Kings 17:1). Turning water to blood and striking the earth with plagues? That’s Moses back in Egypt. And these two witnesses do both, because the whole church carries the prophetic witness of Moses and Elijah (Mathewson).
I understand we're going through this pretty quickly, and we have to because there's so much, but how y'all doing?
These two witnesses wear sackcloth. That tells us their message is a call to repentance (Mathewson) because in the Old Testament, and ancient Near East’s cultural practices, anytime someone repented, they put on sackcloth symbolizing grieving their old life, but looking forward to what’s new.
Here’s the hard part… When they finish their testimony, the wild thing from the abyss kills them. Their bodies lie in the street, and the whole world throws a party. They send each other gifts. Why? Because apparently “these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.”
God’s truth tormented them because everyone in the world, who doesn’t follow the Lamb, lives according to their own desires.
So the Two Witnesses get killed by the beast from the abyss in a city called Sodom and Egypt. Two names straight out of Genesis and Exodus: Sodom was the city God judged with raining fire and brimstone from the sky and Egypt was the first empire that enslaved his people. Egypt enslaved Israel. Assyria and Babylon carried them into exile. Rome persecuted the church in John’s day and oppressed his people.
The reality is, empires are still doing it to God’s people around the world today. Right?! Every empire that sets itself against God’s people carries Egypt’s and Babylon’s name. But remember how the Exodus story ends. God brings his people out.
Where these Two Witnesses were martyred is called the city “where also their Lord was crucified.” What happened to their Lord happens to them. What happened to Jesus? He was mocked, executed, and raised on the third day. Sound familiar? It’s the Easter story of Jesus being told (Mathewson).
And that “breath of life” is what God himself breathed into us to give us life when he created humanity (Genesis 2:7). The same breath God breathed into Adam and Eve’s dust bodies now raises his witnesses. That’s new creation!
Then verse 13 says, “The survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.” That phrase “resonates with the language of conversion.” Something seems to be happening here because there have been a lot of calls to repentance.
John sees persecution leading to “gospeling and conversions of the church’s oppressors” (McKnight). The people who celebrated their silence and death end up giving glory to God.
Remember chapter 9? Judgment alone didn’t bring the nations to their knees. Here, after God’s people bear faithful witness, and give up their life, they do. God’s Gospel of mercy and grace brings repentance to the nations— to those who are willing to repent. That’s the message of the open scroll.
Their resurrection shows “their witness and suffering was not in vain” (Mathewson).
Even in the opposition of persecution and in the face of suffering, the church’s mission is to be a faithful witness to Christ.
BIG IDEA: God uses our faithful witness to call the world to follow the Lamb.
Who’s on Stage This Week?
Let’s look at who’s on stage this week in the drama of Revelation.
The Seven Trumpet Angels
They stand in the presence of God, and every trumpet they blow answers to the throne.
They’re on Team Lamb!! Hoooraaaahhh!!!
The Locusts and Their King
Out of the abyss come locusts with human faces, women’s hair, and lions’ teeth (Revelation 9:7–8). Weird I know! They stand for demonic beings (Mathewson). Their king is Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek. It means Destroyer, and it may even be a jab at Apollo, one of Rome’s gods (Mathewson).
These guys are definitely on Team Dragon… Boooooooo!!!
But notice there’s a leash. They can’t touch anyone with God’s seal on their forehead (Revelation 9:4), and they get only five months to do their worst, about the lifespan of a locust (Mathewson). Their time is limited and God is the limiter.
Where do we see them today? In anything that torments us and never satisfies, gives us anxiety, and plagues our minds so we find no rest. We often try to mask this with bad coping habits— habits that sting. This scroll feels like it never ends.
The Mighty Angel
He has one foot on the land, the dirt that God used to form humanity, and one foot on the sea, which represents the chaos of the world, and he radiates with a face like the sun (Revelation 10:1–2). This guy is colossal and Christ-like (Mathewson).
And he’s on Team Lamb!! Hoooraaaahhh!!!
The Beast from the Abyss
Here’s a brand new character. John calls it “the beast,” and the Greek word means a wild animal.
The Greek root word [abyssou] here means deep water or an extremely deep, dark place, or a transcendent place of the dead and hostile powers.
This wild thing comes up out of the abyss and makes war on the two witnesses.
John saves the details for chapter 13, where we’ll meet the two wild things doing the dragon’s bidding in two weeks. For now, this beast most likely stood for the Roman Empire in John’s day (Mathewson), the power that sets itself against God and his people.
Yep you guessed right… he’s definitely on Team Dragon… Boooooooo!!!
Where do we see this wild thing today? In every voice that tells us to keep our faith private. Go quiet. It’s just me and Jesus. Blend in. Don’t make it weird.
The Two Witnesses
These are God’s faithful people, lampstands (all the churches) standing before the Lord.
They win by telling the truth about Jesus Christ and staying faithful. They follow the Lamb’s loving sacrifice. They don’t take their enemies’ lives. They lay down their own, the same way the Lamb did. They’re not concerned with fitting in or being associated with any political party. They’re concerned only with faithfulness to Jesus Christ because faithfulness to Jesus is identity, hope, and how we conquer all those on Team Dragon.
The witnesses are on Team Lamb!! Hoooraaaahhh!!!
So let me ask you, as I have all the prior weeks: Which team are you living for?
The Seventh Trumpet
These chapters culminate with the sounding of the seventh trumpet. Let’s read it together.
Revelation 11:15 CSB “The seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.”
There it is! Remember the throne room scene a few weeks ago in chapters 4 and 5? This is where all of Heaven’s worship was heading.
Revelation has nine songs, from the throne room in chapter 4 all the way to the wedding of the Lamb in chapter 19, and this one is the “central chorus” (McKnight).
I believe this is a major hinge in the whole book. Every song before it is building to this, and every song after it is singing it back. Every telling of the story ends right here. The wild things fall. Rome falls. The Lamb reigns forever and ever with those who are his faithful witnesses together with him in his eternal Kingdom. Amen?!
Written to Them, True for Us
So what…? Why or how does any of this stuff that we talked about today matter to us?
So what did this mean for the original audience?
Seven little churches, pressured to stay quiet and blend in. John tells them: keep testifying. Keep being faithful. God sees it, and God will use it.
What does it mean for us? Three things.
First- Witness is our calling. Right before Jesus ascended back to the throne of Heaven, he said:
Acts 1:8 CSB “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Scot McKnight describes faithful witnesses as “speaking up and speaking out and sometimes suffering” (McKnight). That’s us. At work. At the ballfield. At the community center. At the grocery store or Starbucks. At the gym or the DMV. And around our own dinner tables.
Second- Witness costs something. The world celebrated when the witnesses went silent. Most of us won’t face spears. We face an eye roll, an awkward pause, someone’s palm gesturing at us, a family member who changes the subject, an exaggerated judgement. So let me ask you: What keeps you silent from sharing your faith?
Third- Witness is never wasted. God uses it to call the world to follow the Lamb. Somebody in your life is waiting to hear what Jesus has done for you.
So here’s our exercise to do this week. Pick at least one of these:
1. Write down the name of one person who needs Jesus, and pray for them by name every day this week.
2. Email me that name, and I’ll pray for them together with you this week.
3. Invite that person to come to church with you next Sunday or a future Sunday.
4. Tell one person a short story of what Jesus has done in your life.
Let’s do this by Wednesday.
Close
So back to our question from the sandbar along the Curaray River in the jungle of Ecuador: Was it a waste?
Less than three years later, Jim Elliot’s wife Elisabeth and Nate Saint’s sister Rachel went to live among the Waorani, the very people who had killed the men they loved. Over time, many Waorani came to faith in Jesus, including some of the men who threw the spears. One of them, Mincaye, became like family to Nate’s son, Steve, who went on to have his own ministry as a faithful witness for Jesus Christ.
Years before he died, Jim Elliot wrote in his journal, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Our life’s purpose is to be with Jesus. Talk about Jesus. Live like Jesus. And help others to live like Jesus.
Are you following the Lamb with your words as well as your heart and your whole life?
Do people clearly know which team you’re living for?
What’s been keeping you quiet from sharing your faith?
Who in your life needs to hear your witness this week, and what’s holding you back?
Send Off
Jude 24–25 CSB “Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.”
Citations
1. Mathewson, David L. A Companion to the Book of Revelation. Cascade Companions. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books. Ch. 5, “Visions of Judgment and Salvation I (Revelation 6–16).” Quoted: chapter 10 functions “to encourage the church in its faithful witness in the face of suffering”; the two witnesses “symbolize the entire witnessing church”; “their witness and suffering was not in vain.” Paraphrased: the silence of 8:1 and the prayers of the saints; the trumpets as a response to those prayers; the trumpets modeled on the Exodus plagues and God’s judgment on Rome; the “de-creation” theme (quoted: creation “undone in judgment in order to make way for a new creation”); the locusts as demonic beings with a five-month limit; Apollyon and Apollo; the mighty angel as colossal and Christ-like; the sweet and bitter scroll (Ezekiel 2:8–3:3); sackcloth as a message of repentance; the beast as Rome in John’s day.
2. Mathewson, David L. The Book of Revelation, Didasko Seminar, May 2025. Principles paraphrased in the pastor’s own words: the two witnesses as the whole church; why two (Deuteronomy 19:15); Moses and Elijah; the three and a half days and Jesus’s resurrection; the seminar big idea for Revelation 10–11; holding this reading as one view among others.
3. McKnight, Scot, with Cody Matchett. Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2023. Ch. 8, “The Faithful Witnesses” (quoted: “speaking up and speaking out and sometimes suffering”). Ch. 10 (the two witnesses as the fifth interlude; “wild things”). Ch. 13, “Divine Judgments or Disciplines?” (quoted: “God’s disciplines turn humans away from their idolatries and sins and toward allegiance to the Lamb”; “standing before God in worship and witness”; “resonates with the language of conversion”; “gospeling and conversions of the church’s oppressors”; “None of the allegiant witnesses draw so much as a knife or a fist”). Revelation 11:15 as the “central chorus.”
4. The 1956 deaths of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, and Roger Youderian, and the later faith of Waorani including Mincaye: see Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor (1957), and Steve Saint, End of the Spear (2005). Jim Elliot’s journal entry (October 28, 1949) is published in Elisabeth Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty (1958).
5. Blackhawk Church, Madison, WI. Revelation Playbill. Used by permission.
6. Scripture quotations are from the Christian Standard Bible (CSB), copyright 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers.
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