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Friday Evening Worship
Suffering Witnesses: To What End? (Rev. 11:1–14)
—David Holwerda, preaching
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Human suffering, a theme in the book of Revelation, "can be explained only as an eruption of the disorder of created reality," said David Holwerda. The suffering of the witnesses in Revelation 11 illustrates Revelation's "themes both of great tribulation and of the security of God's people."

Much of the imagery and events of chapter 11 is troubling and confusing, but in verse 3, an extraordinary measure of protection of God's people is introduced. It "lies in God's hands, not ours"—and rightly so, lest God's people misuse it, Holwerda said. Nonetheless, "the suffering and witnessing church does indeed have access to this power through prayer."

The death of the witnesses (v.7) is cause for great celebration in the city (v.9-10), "but the deaths of the Lord's witnesses cannot be the end of the matter," Holwerda said. The breath of life enters the witnesses' dead bodies, in an allusion to Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones, and God sends an earthquake in judgment of the persecutors (not the final judgment, as is sometimes interpreted, but an act in the interlude before the return of Christ).

Holwerda posited that the worship of God by the persecutors in verse 13 is not just a response of terror to the earthquake, and a response to the testimony of the witnesses they killed; an acknoledgment and celebration of the truth to which they testified and for which they suffered. This may apply to present-day persecution of the church, through which the church can flourish—in Russia, for instance, where the suffering of the church under Soviet rule eventually gave way to the church's fruition after Communism's collapse. Martyrdom is not only a "sign that the end is near," Holwerda said, but also an occasion when "history is allowed to continue," so that the testimony of suffering witnesses may bring more hearers to the truth before Christ comes back.

"Martyrdom is not what it appears to be," according to Revelation 11, Holwerda said. 'It appears to be the cruel cessation of witnesses." It actually enables their testimony, as "a demonstration of the peace of Christ's kingdom. God uses the martyred church to break through evil empires ... and prepare the way for a peaceable world [and] kingdom."

Holwerda closed by asking, "Are we prepared—and more importantly, are we preparing—the Western church for such a future?"

—Nathan Bierma