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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Who Are the Two Witnesses?, #3
And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. (Revelation 11:7)
This does not mean all the saints will be slain. Rather, the Book of Revelation is viewing the army of saints as "two witnesses." The driving of the Spirit-filled testimony from the cities of the earth is portrayed in symbolic form as the killing of the two olive trees, the two lampstands.
Some of the Lord's witnesses will be slain. Many of the Lord's elect will be hidden away by the Lord and will still be alive on the earth when the Lord Jesus returns.
And the woman [the Church] 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 [three and a half years]. (Revelation 12:6)
Perhaps the type of Obadiah hiding the hundred prophets in a cave is referring to the protecting and nourishing of the Lord's witnesses (prophets) by the "sheep nations" during the troubles of Daniel's seventieth week (Matthew 25:35,36). It may be that the strongest of the victorious saints, as represented by Elijah, will continue to reveal God in the earth throughout the "seven-year" (whether literal or figurative) period.
The events of the lives of Elijah and Elisha in several instances are symbolic of the double-portion witness of the last days.
To begin with, it may be noticed that the two witnesses stand before the God of the earth (Revelation 11:4).
These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks [lampstands] standing before the God of the earth. (Revelation 11:4)
Of all the Old Testament prophets, only Elijah and Elisha used the expression, "the Lord... before whom I stand" (I Kings 17:1, II Kings 3:14).
In Elijah's life we have the three and one half year drought, typifying the destructive aspect of the testimony that will be borne by the saints during the first half of the week. We already have mentioned the two sets of fifty prophets hidden in the cave. Most of us may have heard of the fiery judgment that fell on two companies of fifty men each (II Kings 1:10), speaking of the judgments executed at the hands of the Spirit-filled witnesses of Revelation, Chapter 11. Elijah's ascension into the heavens reminds us of the ascension of the two witnesses into the heaven.
Elijah is the prophet who is to be sent before the great and terrible Day of the Lord. Jesus referred to John the Baptist as "Elijah" who is to come, although John worked no miracles.
The Elijah-Elisha forerunner of the next coming of the Lord indeed will work the greatest miracles in the history of the world. Many of those miracles will be destructive (just as some of the miracles of Elijah and Elisha were destructive) because of the wickedness of the nations, and because of the fact that the world must come to realize the Day of the Lord indeed will be "great and dreadful."
To be continued.