23. God Requires a Second Witness

Now most of Christianity insists that this word is not Christ come again in us. They insist that it is not God's will for this word to be fulfilled in those of us upon this earth who hear it. They insist that it is not God's will that His will be done in this earth in the same way it is done in heaven. This accusation is part of the spirit of anti-Christ.

 

And I will give unto My two witnesses, and they shall prophecy.

God has placed His Word on display before the whole universe.  God began by speaking, “Let there be Light.” By doing so, He placed Christ above all things.

But God also placed an accuser into the picture. The serpent was in the garden for God’s purposes and not his own. Many people, finding the joy of the grace and love of God, want to remove the enemy from God’s story. They do not know God, not yet.

When the serpent said, “Did God indeed say,” he spoke anti-Christ into the universe.

Satan challenges the Word God speaks. He places against that Word the contention that what God speaks might be fine in heaven, but it does not prevail in the earth or in man.

Here is how the Word God speaks works. Let’s take a simple word from the New Testament.

And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. Ephesians 5:2

Now, let’s start with what this is not. This is not a nice idea; it is not a suggestion; it is not eloquence; it is not an ideal; it is neither an obligation nor a duty. It is one thing and one thing alone – Christ, the Word God speaks, coming forth out of God into this earth, into this age, into our ears and hearts. It is the seed of God; inside this Word are the very genes of God. When we believe this Word with all our hearts, it reproduces the life that is in it inside of us.

More than that, this word is absolute. It is unsullied perfection. It is God, untainted and incorruptible. It is the Word God speaks spoken into you and into me. “Let there be light,” and there is light.

Now many insist that this word is not Christ come again in us, that it is not God’s will for this word to be fulfilled in those of us upon this earth who hear it, that it is not God’s will that His will be done in this earth in the same way it is done in heaven. This accusation is part of the spirit of anti-Christ.

God Himself brought into the picture, into His story, this accusation against Himself, against the word He speaks.

By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established. 2 Corinthians 13:1 - Deuteronomy 19:15

From the time that the serpent first introduced anti-Christ into the ears of man, God allotted 4000 years until the fullness of times, and then God sent His Word into the earth in human flesh.

Jesus was the first witness that the Word God speaks is true, that it is fulfilled in this age, in this earth, in human flesh. Jesus proved the will of God in His body, a body that was subject to all the weakness of death.

But the witness Jesus provided did not squelch the accusation against God that His Word was fine in heaven, it just can’t be fulfilled in the earth, in human flesh. In fact the opposite happened, and the spirit of anti-Christ rose to new levels of accusation against God.

Now the serpent had a better place to occupy than he had before. Now, he could fill the church and Christian theology with his claim that the Word God speaks cannot be fulfilled in human flesh, not in this age and not in this world.

John says in 1 John that the spirit of anti-Christ is centered around the claim that Jesus, the word God speaks, is not revealed in human flesh.

Now here is the incredible testimony that the church has raised against the witness of Christ that God sent into the world. They claim that the witness of Jesus DOES NOT COUNT. Why? Because, they say, “Jesus was God and not man only, therefore, since He was “different,” God could easily reveal Himself in Jesus, but He still can’t reveal Himself in you and in me.”

But this second accusation against God, that Jesus was “God” and therefore His witness does not count, was also inside of God’s intention.  That is why theologians go to such great effort with such convoluted arguments to “prove” that Jesus was God while He walked on the earth, even though the apostles and Jesus both argued that He was in fact, Man, in whom God dwelt.

For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5

And that is why God wrote into His story, from before He ever began to tell it, the second witness of Christ.

God intends to prove against all railing accusation that His Word, spoken out of His mouth, fulfills all that is in it in all completeness and perfection, inside the earth into which it was spoken, and inside human flesh where it dwells. God intends to prove this great triumph in you and in me.

We are caught in the grip of His determination. And just as God allotted 4000 years until the first witness of Christ, so He has allotted 2000 years, 2 days, for the accusation of anti-Christ to come to its fullness in the church.

This thing is not about us, about whether we are blessed or happy or have hope or faith or a future. It is about God proving in us that the Word that He speaks, Christ Jesus, is fulfilled in all fullness in human flesh.

The witness of Christ is not the testimony of most evangelism, which states that if you accept Christ, you will go to heaven someday. “Go to heaven someday” is an integral part of the accusation against God, of the spirit of anti-Christ. When I say that, I do not mean to bring any accusation against any dear believers who have their hope set in “heaven” as a “place” that answers all things and not in Christ inside of them. Jesus is the Savior and He does all things well.

But the fact that Christianity has evolved the doctrine of “heaven” as a replacement for the Word God speaks being fulfilled in them does nothing to hinder or prevent the telling of the great story of God. In fact, that accusation against God is central to God’s whole story.

How Christianity interprets Revelation 11 stands together with the serpent in accusation against God. Until we can get out of that accusation and into the knowledge of Christ – the Word God speaks fulfilled in our human flesh, we cannot know what Revelation 11 is about.

Let me state what the two witnesses are not before sharing my present understanding of what they are.

It is a hideous accusation against the Lord Jesus Christ to claim that these two witnesses are literally Enoch or Moses or Elijah sent back to earth to do in the earth what Christ in us has failed to do.

God says clearly in Hebrews 8 that He found fault with the Old Covenant and set it aside.  But He says of Christ, “This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” To claim that God would then, at the end of the age of human folly, reject the Son of His bosom and revert back to the Old Covenant which was never kept by anyone in order to “prove” Himself in the earth is the depths of anti-Christ nonsense.

“God, You did it back then, but you sure as hell can’t do it in me, not here and not now.” Forgive my choice of words, but this accusation against the Lord Jesus is so insidiously evil that we must have it clear in our hearts how filthy it really is.

But more than that, we must understand that John, in describing the two witnesses, is not describing an elite, above-human aberration in the human experience. He is describing the normal Christian life. There is nothing about these two witnesses that is not true inside everyone in whom Christ dwells.

We are His witnesses. Jesus said we are.

But then, we must look more specifically at this moment in the unfolding of the great story of God. We are right now well into the transition between the age of human folly and the age that is to come.

The key word of the book of Revelation is, of course, “revelation,” or “apokalupsis,” meaning the unveiling of Jesus Christ. But a close second, and essential for that unveiling is the word “martureo” or “martyr.” The modern English word “martyr” has picked up its own slightly different meaning, but the Greek word that is better translated as “witness” or “testimony” is second in the purpose of God only to the “unveiling” of Jesus Christ.

Revelation 11 is the witness, the proof, that the Word God speaks, Christ, is fulfilled in human flesh, in this age and on this earth. Revelation 12 is the unveiling of Jesus Christ.

These are two sides of the same thing. Both Revelation 11:3 and Revelation 12: 5 are speaking of the same thing – Christ in us – the normal Christian life in all that God meant it to be.

So what am I saying?

In the culmination of His story, as the final proof that the Word that comes out of His mouth prevails in the place into which it was spoken, God will have a people, you and me, redeemed from sin and rebellion against God, whose hearts are filled with the love of Jesus, who walk upon this earth, in these dying bodies, in just the same way that Jesus walked, revealing all the fullness of God through them upon this earth in all perfection, exactly as Jesus walked.

Christians can disbelieve such a thing all they want, but they cannot prevent it from happening. They cannot, with all of their arguments, prove God to be a liar. They cannot stop Him from doing what He says through those who believe.

But look at me; I am nothing more than Daniel Yordy. Many people know me very well, I lived in a glass house – Christian community – for many years. They know my shortcomings and my downfallings.  How is it that I dare to believe that I, also, am part of that fulfillment of the Word God speaks?

I want to be with Him. When He PROVES Himself in the earth, I want, with all of my heart, for Him to prove Himself in me. To be anywhere else, to be found incomplete and wanting, when God shows Himself mighty through His own, this is inconceivable to me; it cannot be looked at. Yet I am weak; I fail so many times. Myself, I can do nothing – except one thing.

I say to Jesus, “I belong to You. Let it be to me according to all that You speak.”

 I declare with all confidence and boasting:

“Christ is my life; I have no other life.”

This I can do; and no one can make me stop.