The witness will continue throughout the first half of Daniel's seventieth week. Then God will permit the witness to be overcome. Some of those who participated in the latter-rain revival will fall because of the lust of the flesh (Sodom), the lust of the eyes (Egypt), and the pride of life (Jerusalem). Others will be tortured, killed, or driven out of the cities into wilderness areas.

Those of the Christian churches who are righteous in heart and remain true to God will be driven into the wilderness and will be fed there by the Lord, being assisted by the stronger saints.

And 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 [3 ½ years, the second half of the "week"]. (Revelation 12:6)

God's testimony to the earth has ended. The "sacrifice" and the "oblation" (grain offering) have ceased (Daniel 9:27).

The ceasing of the sacrifice may mean it will not be possible to receive Christ for salvation during the last half of the prophetic week. The ceasing of the "oblation" (grain offering) may be speaking of the feast of Pentecost (Leviticus 23:15-21). The feast of Pentecost included a wave offering of two loaves baked with "fine flour" (in celebration of the wheat harvest). Since the two witnesses of Revelation, Chapter 11 refer back to the two wave loaves of Pentecost, we believe the ceasing of the sacrifice and the grain offering signifies the worldwide, latter-rain, Pentecostal outpouring will cease in the middle of Daniel's "week."

The Gospel of the Kingdom has gone to every nation as a witness and now the end of the age is at hand.

Here indeed is a sobering thought: from this point forward the people of the nations no longer will be able to pray to God.

Spiritual darkness will reign over the earth. Heaven will be closed. The witness of Christ will have departed from the cities of the earth, including the Christian churches still operating in those cities. The "dead bodies," the churches and Christian schools, will lie in the "street" of lust, covetousness, and pride.

The Gospel of the Kingdom no longer will be proclaimed to the peoples of the earth. The work of the Spirit from then until the Lord returns will be one of nourishing and protecting the saints who have fled from the face of Antichrist.

However, there still will be "deliverance in Zion," as we shall see.

Notice that Joseph's true and faithful witness to Pharaoh resulted in his being made a king over Egypt. In like manner, those who faithfully and truly bear the end-time witness to the nations will have Christ, the King, born in them. They will rule the saved nations with a rod of iron. This is the meaning of the twelfth chapter of Revelation.

To be continued.