Revelation of Two witnesses/False doctrine of “Man Child
Company”/We need more
Epaphroditus
than Paul
Two groups of Christian witnesses
In Rev, 11:3-12, we get a revelation of two witnesses. The messages in this wonderful book of Revelation are allegorical and need to be interpreted prophetically. No literal meaning ought to be applied to the allegorical symbols and signs. We have been taught that in the last days two witnesses including Elijah would appear; they would bring fire from heaven; they would be ultimately killed by the Antichrist and their dead bodies would be seen by the people of this world, etc.
This passage reveals two kinds of Christian witnesses. Let us note that these two witnesses are not literal two persons in flesh. One group openly witnesses the living Christ through various visible ministries whereas the other group witnesses Him through their invisible ministries. An evangelist belongs to the former category whereas a house-wife, a prayer intercessor, is of the latter category.
Two olive trees and two candlesticks
Their lives would be like “two olive trees and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth”. They are not in the Heaven but are living in Christ Jesus before the God of the earth. Both these groups are the olive trees because their lives are holy and righteous. Their lives radiate the very life of Christ Jesus. Where do they stand? They stand before the God of the earth.
Dear Christian, you ought to be
in either of these groups. If your life
is holy and righteous, you will be indeed of “My two witnesses”. You should live Christ on this earth. If you
are a lukewarm Christian keeping one leg in this world and the other leg in the
Power to prophesy
If you are of “My two witnesses”, you will receive God’s power to “prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days”. God will give you power to prophesy to the world. Being filled with the power of the resurrection of Christ Jesus, you will prophesy unto the dry bones. You will prophesy of God’s healing power to the world. You will prophesy of God’s miracle working power to the world. “Prophesy” means convey through your words of mouth the way of salvation through Christ Jesus to the perishing world. Christ will be preached by you in the power of God. As you preach Christ Jesus, the power of God will be manifested through your words of mouth. It will create new things in the lives of the people who hear your words. All the people of God redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus are indeed prophets of God to the world because they have the message of God concerning salvation through the blood of Christ Jesus.
You should prophesy, clothed in sack cloth. This is all the more important. You should have humility before God and man. Once you lose humility, you cannot prophesy.
No power on this earth can hurt you. If any man hurts you, “fire proceedeth out of” your mouth and devours the enemies of the Cross. If any anti-Christian organization attempts to persecute you, you need not do anything at all to take revenge upon them because fire to destroy them would proceed from our very mouth through which you preach Christ Jesus. You should know that you are of His two witnesses. Until and unless you know the truth that you are of the two God’s witnesses, you cannot have an upper hand over your persecutors and you cannot be a conduit of God’s power. One who persecutes you will be made powerless by the God of the earth and he will be like a dead person.
Prophetic period
You prophesy “a thousand two hundred and threescore days”. Let us not attribute a literal meaning to this number. Prophetically speaking, this period of prophecy or ministry is a life long one. There is no retirement in God’s ministry. I believe the ministry of Billy Graham has almost completed this prophetic period. Many servants of God could not finish their courses successfully. William Branham, a mighty prophet, fell by the wayside due to false doctrines. Many servants of God did run well in the beginning but in due course had backslidden either due to the vanity of this world or due to false doctrines.
Power to shut heaven
If you are of “My two witnesses”, you will have power “to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days” of your prophecy. Christ has given you authority to shut heaven in His Name so that the blessings of God “rain not” upon those who are instruments in the hands of the Devil.
You have power to destroy the
work of the devil by shutting heaven upon those whom he is using for the
extension of his kingdom. Many human beings held in captivity by the devil work
for him. They have all the resources of this earth to promote his kingdom. Please note that God is revealed here as “the
God of the earth”. You ought to command
in the Name of Jesus Christ for the resources of this earth to be taken away from
the Devil and given to the
Power over waters
You have power “over waters to
turn to blood and to smite the earth with all plagues as often as” you
will. Waters of affliction that affect
every person on this earth can be turned into the life giving blood of Jesus
Christ. Every suffering person can be turned over to the
Power to smite with all plagues
You have power “to smite the
earth with all plagues”. You have power to command “all plagues” to afflict the
earth due to divine judgment. God
afflicted the Egyptians with all plagues to deliver His people from the cruel
hands of the Egyptians. Egyptians are typical of the powers of darkness or the
evil spirits that roam about this earth.
Plagues from the
Plagues are the powerful tools in your hands to fight the Antichrist and the False Prophet. Aggressive and travailing prayers, words of prophecy and spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit that you can unleash against the kingdom of the devil.
You smite the earth that is ruled by the Devil who “was cast out into the earth” (Rev.12:9). Please note that you are not smiting the human beings living on this earth. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Gal.6:12). In other words, you smite the kingdom of the devil on this earth with all plagues at your will. At your will, you can play havoc with the kingdom of the devil on this earth.
Beast making war
As and when you cease to witness the living Christ, “the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against” you and shall overcome and kill you. The Antichrist will attack those witnesses “when they shall have finished their testimony” and not before that. As long as you are on this earth, you should prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sack cloth to them that dwell on this earth. So long as the words of eternal life proceed from your mouth, the devil cannot come nigh to you because fire proceeds from your mouth and because you wage an offensive war against the devil. Once you cease to prophesy or speak words of life, the devil has an upper hand over you with the result that you have to wage a defensive war. The devil overcomes and kills you in a spiritual manner. You will reach a stage where you lose your faith in God and will thus become a dead Christian. You will experience a spiritual death. You will not be a live Christian but a dead Christian.
Dead bodies of Christian witnesses
The dead bodies of these two
Christian witnesses “shall lie in the street of the great city which is
spiritually called
The whole world “shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves”. If the witnessing Christians have backslidden and overcome by the devil, the latter would take the maximum advantage out of this great fall by telling the whole world about their fall. If any Christian minister used by God mightily has backslidden and become spiritually dead, the devil would grab this golden opportunity and do maximum publicity propaganda in the whole world. He would not allow their dead bodies to be buried. He would not allow the matter to be forgotten by the people through his sustained propaganda publicity.
Rejoicing over the death of Christian witnesses
Those who “dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt upon the earth”. Who are they that “dwell upon the earth”? These are the people that are attached to this earth. In other words, they are the enemies of the Cross. These are not the people of God who live as strangers in this world. The two witnesses tormented them by shutting heaven on them. These people of the earth who were engaged in promoting the kingdom of the devil were put to heavy losses by these two witnesses. These two prophets have brought divine judgment on the kingdom of the devil, which has in turn affected their material prosperity.
These people rejoice over the fall of “My two witnesses”. They make merry and send gifts to one another. When the people of god have ceased to work for God, the devil takes hold of the people that dwell upon the earth and makes them worship him and idols. These people in captivity send gifts to one another. Gifts for the people of this earth are worldly riches and idols where gifts for the people of God are the Holy Spirit. During the period of slackening of evangelical work, there will be proliferation of idol worships by the people of this earth. This will spread like a wild fire.
Revival after three days and a half
After three days and a half, the Spirit of God revives these dead witnesses. Three days and a half mean a very short period of death against the long period of prophecy. Every Christian backslides at one point of time or the other in his/her life. This period of spiritual death is very short.
The revived Christian witnesses stand upon their feet. “Great fear fell upon them which saw them” when dead Christians are revived. The people that dwell upon this earth are going to see a great revival of our churches in the whole world.
The revived Christian witnesses heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, “Come up hither”. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. During the revival that is going to be witnessed by the whole world, the revived Christians will ascend up to heaven so as to be seated in the heavenly places with God. They will be covered with the glory of God. Their ascension into the heaven and their seats in the heavenly places will surprise their enemies. They will behold the exalted position of the revived Christians.
False doctrine of Man Child Company
There is a false doctrine
prevalent in most of the churches in the
In this passage, we see “a woman
clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of
twelve stars”. No doubt, this woman
represents the nation of
This man child cannot be a group of servants of God or apostles who would make a debut in the last days. God has already set the apostles in the first place to the Body of Christ, the Church. The Church is not going to give birth to a special group of apostles or revivalists in these last days. No human group should take the place of the only Begotten Son of God. Let us be very careful about this pernicious doctrine. No apostle in the last days is going to be greater than any of the apostles who existed during the New Testament period. Apostles are always apostles. There cannot be any extraordinary apostles meant for the last days. Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever.
We further find that this Man Child was caught up unto God, and to His throne. True, the resurrected Christ was caught up unto God and to His throne. We do not find here how the Man Child grew, suffered crucifixion and attained resurrection. However, we do find the beginning and the end here. The birth of the Man Child and His final ascension into the Heaven! That is all. What happened in between is a matter of the history or the gospel. The book of Revelation is a prophetic book – allegorical in its content. We cannot find the entire biography of Jesus here.
The dragon stood before the pregnant woman and was about to devour her child as soon as it was born. This was literally fulfilled when the dragon used Herod to attempt to kill the infant Jesus.
We find that the woman “fled into
the wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God that they should feed her
there a thousand two hundred and threescore days”.
Persecution of Jews began from
the time when the armies of Titus destroyed the Solomon’s temple in A.D.
70. The prophecy of Jesus that the
In verses 13-16, we find the further persecution of the woman by the Devil. Even now Israel as a nation is being persecuted by the Devil through the Arab and some other nations. The devil cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman. But the God of the earth caused the earth to open its mouth and to swallow up the flood.
In verse 17, we find "the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ". Who is this remnant of her seed? Her seed is Christ Jesus, the Man Child. The Church, the Body of Christ is the remnant of the Man Child. It is the Church that ultimately emerged as the remnant of the seed of Israel after the ascension of the Man Child into the Heaven. It is those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. The dragon was wroth with the woman but could not destroy her. Then the dragon turned its ire towards the remnant of her seed and went to make war with the latter.
We find here that the tail of the great red dragon, the Devil, drew and cast to the earth “the third part of the stars of heaven”. This gives us a revelation of how the Devil causes the downfall of one third of the saints who were shining as the stars of heaven. It is through his trailing tail only but not through his hands nor through his horns nor through his mouth, does he bring them down the heaven.
The devil works through subtle and deceitful ways. We can call it his “tail” ministry. He excels in his cunning crafts. He does not fight openly with the saints of God. He mixes an ounce of falsehood with the milk of the Word. He makes the saints believe his pernicious doctrines that he quotes from the Bible only. This is the height of deception.
What are the consequences of believing such false doctrine of man child Company? The people of God would not take upon themselves the burden of evangelization because they have been taught to be part of this man child company or to wait for the birth of the man child company. If an individual claiming to be of the man-child company or some group with some supernatural power make a debut in the name of this man-child company, many would be deceived because they were on the look out for signs and wonders. The people of God are taught such pernicious doctrines so that they may expect or look for something supernatural.
Jesus warned His disciples: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Math.24:24). If we look for “signs and wonders” through any individual or any group claiming to be of the man-child company, we may be deceived.
We need more Epaphroditus than Paul
Paul was an apostle of Christ Jesus who wrote many epistles which
formed part of the New Testament. He had received awesome revelations about the
mystical Body of Christ. When we study about the life and ministry of this
great apostle, we tend to forget his co-workers. We look into his epistles for
apostolic doctrines but do not look at the last paragraphs of his epistles where
he has mentioned about his co-workers. The epistles of Paul were incomplete and
would lose their meaning if we ignore his co-workers. Paul's apostolic ministry
was not an independent and individual one. It was a body ministry or a team
work. Paul regarded every one in his team as his brother/sister and loved them
from the depth of his heart.
Many of these co-workers were not known by their offices. Their offices or
ministries were neither defined nor revealed in the Pauline epistles. For Paul,
his co-workers were more than the officially designated ministers of God like
apostles, prophets, evangelists, etc.
Paul remembered the name of every co-worker and trusted him or her fully.
However, he was deserted by some of them like Alexander, the coppersmith who
did him much evil (2 Tim.4:14).
About a couple namely "Priscilla and Aquilla",
Paul introduced them "my helpers in Christ Jesus" "who have for
my life laid down their own necks; unto whom not only
I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles" (Rom.16:4).
About one Perris, he wrote "Salute the beloved Persis,
which labored much in the Lord" (Rom.16:12).
About Epaphroditus, Paul described in Phil.3:25-30
"my brother, and companion in labor, and fellow soldier". "He
was sick nigh unto death". Paul exhorted Philippians to receive him in the
Lord with all gladness "because for the work of Christ he was high unto
death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me".
About Epaphroditus, Paul further wrote in Col.4:12,
"Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of
Christ…always laboring fervently for you in prayers that ye may stand perfect
and complete in all the will of God…
For I bear him record, that he hath a great zeal for you……"
How much did Paul trust his fellow workers? He trusted them fully. These days,
many ministers of God have great establishments all over their nations or all
over the world. Do they treat their co-workers as their brethren/sisters in the
Lord and companions in labor or merely their subordinate staff/employees?
Epaphoditus was a prayer warrior and loved
the Lord to such an extent that he was nigh unto death. He did not write any
epistle. He was not known by any ministerial designation but was known by his
work which resulted in his nearing the jaws of death.
There are thousands of people of God like Epaphoditus,
Priscilla and Aquilla, whom we do not know in the
Christian world.
Many aspire to be Paul or Peter but do not aspire to be Epaphroditus.
The Church needs more Epaphoditus, Priscilla and Aquilla than Paul.
(Job Anbalagan)