” And you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you…and you shall be My witnesses.” Acts 1:8

“And I shall give power to my two witnesses. ” Revelation 11: 3

This will be the last chapter on the whole series of the “Marturia” which for me has been like the Christmas Parallels series a great discovery in the Word where God prepared us for this year, now with this series we know that God is about to put foundations into our lives this year for whatever we shall face. This series may be revisited in the future, but for now this shall be adapted for publication and you will be able to acquire your hard copy. My whole motivation in this series, this site is to approach the Word with the leading of the Spirit and to see theology not just an academic exercise but a leading by Spirit to real truth which equips and undergirds all of our activity as believers.

This teaching came as a “download” from heaven, as I never saw it. I knew I had to be in Revelation 11, yet the way God wants me to approach it is innovative and inspirational. In the way we are going to wrap this up is that we need to establish that there is a transition between Acts 1:8 and Revelation 11:3, how that happens and how we transition today.

Role reversals are the way God brings His transitions to the Church

The classic examples are the songs of Hannah in 1 Samuel, and Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1. We see God bring down rulers and leaders in the moment He reveals His plan and the people through which He executes it. Here we are seeing a role reversal in the verses. The Church must receive the Holy Spirit from the Glorified Christ to open a age of evangelisation and walk through the next 2000 years making a winding history through the many generations of leaders in the Church. Hannah and Mary saw just like their sons grow into reformers and challengers of a religious establishment. And it has never changed. In the corridors of power lies a corruption that grows through each generation until the Lord breathes reform through the whole structure. In Samuel the priesthood must change from Eli to Zadok. This transition takes 4 generations of priests to take place. In Jesus the transition does take 40 years also until the Temple is destroyed in 70AD. The first act is the torn veil, which for God starts a transition to this demolishing 40 years down the road. In Acts 1:8 it is the Church that must start out its evangelisation and must walk out 2000 years without Revelation 11:3 coming to pass. There is coming a role reversal. The reversal we shall see and even we may have the privilege to walk out. The Church in the same way as two babies, Samuel and Jesus, must grow into all things Christ (Ephesians 4) and attain His full stature. This process will mean power comes to our witness…which was given through the Holy Spirit.

When you walk through teleio you come through to pleroma…

The word “teleio” means “perfecting” or “maturing”. The word “pleroma” means fulness and completeness. When I speak of these two words in the process of us being a witness, and having power given to our witness, the context must be seen as “perfecting” through obedience, and “fulness by our steps of faith”. When I was writing “12 Foundations of the Church” I saw that maturity corresponded to a foundation, those things we plant into eternity. We do not preach very often concerning eternity, yet when we look at the book of Revelation we see eternity projected from the now, Revelation is not about tomorrow, it is about today being presented with spiritual seeds to plant today and harvest in the days to come! So once we perfect our walk in the Spirit, producing the fruit, moving in the gifts and knowing His ways we will come to fulness, and in every move of God so we see God act in the moment we come to full pleroma in our witness. Our witness in Revelation 1 is spoken about our encounter with Jesus, in His true Kingly and Glorified state. We must embrace the Christ vision as we are given the witness. Compare Revelation 1 with Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, when he speaks about Jesus, the revelation that is transmitted and the effect it has in Jerusalem. How much more as we speak more and more clearly concerning the kingly Christ. It is this key I am talking about, the witness moulds us to talk, walk, be like Jesus. We are not just a witness by which we speak, but rather the witness comes when the Spirit visits us, immersing us in Him, bringing Jesus to us afresh in a new way. We become what we see! That is the fulness which brings the end time power which turns the tide of where the Church dictates the programme of God upon the earth.

The two witnesses and their power denotes a process of reconciliation and a common end time role!

I have been studying this theme on and off for over 20 years. The Lord has made me in various seasons to come back to this, and has given me more and more insight. The two witnesses in my mind are two covenant peoples, borne out in Revelation 21, the end time vision of the Bride, the New Jerusalem. The foundations being the Church and the Gates being Israel, or spiritual Israel. This Israel perfected by a vision of the Suffering Servant which will equip them and bring them to embrace also the Glorified King. This is found in Zechariah 12:10. Revelation 1:7 also alludes to this process. There is coming a reconciliation because as they embrace their crucified Messiah they will see the Church as their own, also, and together they will walk in the light of the Glorified King. This process brings also the POWER TO THEIR WITNESS. So it is not just personal or collective pleroma, but also a timing issue to when Jesus is revealed to Israel. This will bring a massive reconciliation and will bring the final power to the TWO WITNESSES TO TERRORISE THE EARTH with their witness. What is their witness? The Kingly Messiah!

The power of the Two witnesses, that comes to their witness brings them into the fulness of the One they see and the One they live by

The world has yet to see the fulness of Christ in the way that Revelation 11 speaks about. These two covenant peoples shall be so full of the Kingly Christ that they will terrorise all those who resisted this Messiah, governments will tremble at the authority of these two covenant peoples. They have power over nature, a sign, a characteristic of their authority. They will call down fire, judicially, which shall burn the filth of the lands. Where the Jesus of the Gospels would not call down fire, because of the season of the Gospel, now in a context of judgment He shall call fire forth through His two witnesses. In the description of their being, the oil from the covenant olive trees, their lampstands is their subsistence. We are going to see congregations where the power of God will begin to rise, we shall see signs and wonders, and judgments go forth. This show of power has only one outcome, persecution. Persecution will not come to a defeated Church, or a beaten down Israel, but a people who make the establishments tremble. Just as they crucified the Messiah, they will do this to His People who will reflect Him perfectly.

The martyrdom of the two witnesses will activate the final judgments

The persecution of the two witnesses will result in their deaths, with rejoicing over the earth concerning their deaths, yet God will raise them up, and the world will see them ascend as Jesus did in Acts 1. From there when we read the judgments coming on the earth, it is because the earth and its inhabitants are reserved for the judgments. Whereas the people of the earth believe that persecution will erase spiritual culture over the earth, they are not aware that it accrues judgments so terrifying. The witness given to His people is a guiding light to the timing of God’s programme in the earth.

The witness that comes to us prepares us to become Jesus’ Bride

The witness that comes to us from the Holy Spirit is not for ministry, but it causes us to grow into the Bride that Christ will unify with in the eternal realms. We have reduced so many things in Church life into meeting the now, our meetings geared to gathering tithes, promising prayer for needs, exhorting faith for day to day, survival mode. Yet we need to be preparing God’s people for eternity. As we do this they will be transformed into the Image of the Messiah. As we have neglected this truth we have seen the Presence of God decline in His people, and we wonder why there are so many pastors heavy laden with problems.

As we reach the fulness of our marturia so power will come upon our marturia

The fulness of Marturia comes as we submit to the Holy Spirit in steps of obedience to Him. As we reach the time that God unifies two covenant peoples so the POWER will come upon this collective witness. It has to do with fulness and timing. Let us cry out for this.

Concluding words

I believe as this vision comes clearer we know that God is preparing us fast. I believe that within a generation we are going to see the fulfilment of what I have been sharing over the last 2 months here. It is a crystallisation of what the Bible teaches. It is new for most, revolutionary and revelatory. I hope we can do as John shows us in Revelation 22 unify our cry with the Holy Spirit in that the Bride and the Spirit cry out “Come, come Lord Jesus”.

Shalom.