Momentum can occur in our personal life. It is a good idea for every believer (and every denomination) to pause frequently and wait to see if the second Witness is still with us, to allow Him to give new guidance—even to lead us aside to rest for a season. In this case we are not asking the Lord to bless what we are doing but rather to find out what He is doing! Otherwise there is only one witness, the mouse; and while there may be a great deal of activity (the mouse running around the log), nothing actually is taking place that is of eternal value in the Kingdom of God.

The reason Christian institutions have tortured and murdered "heretics," have become involved in politics, and have fought one another, seeking in their ambition and envy to excel other Christian groups, is that they have not conducted their business in the Presence of the Lord but in their own fleshly zeal.

The Lord does not fight against Himself!

It will not be so in the days prior to the coming of the Kingdom. God shall empower two witnesses who will present to the churches as well as to every nation on earth a true witness of the Person and will of God. After the witness has been borne, God will permit Antichrist to overcome the witness so the Bride of the Lamb through suffering may be made ready for the Bridegroom, and so sin and lawlessness may come to maturity in preparation for Divine judgment.

The symbolic description, in Revelation, Chapter 11, of the end-time witness as two lampstands and two olive trees is taken from the fourth chapter of the Book of Zechariah.

And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, And behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof: And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof. (Zechariah 4:2,3)

The reason one lampstand was shown in Zechariah and two in Revelation is that the second lampstand, the Christian Church, had not been created at the time of Zechariah.

The lampstands of the Scriptures are always solid gold, representing Christ. In the Scriptures, only Christ and the Christian churches are pictured as lampstands. The churches are golden lampstands because Christ has been born in them. The reason the Church is seen as one lampstand in the eleventh chapter of Revelation, instead of the seven as in Revelation, Chapter Two, is that it is the church within the churches that will bear witness with Christ. The one true Church within the seven churches consists of the overcomers, the victorious saints—those who truly follow the Lord Jesus and are not careless in the things of the Lord.

To be continued.