Revelation’s famous two witnesses are said to “prophecy…clothed in sackcloth” (Revelation 11:3). Sackcloth in the Scripture is an emblem of mourning or great grief, commonly caused by unrepentance and impending judgment. The two witnesses are therefore representative of all who mournfully witness for Christ in the face of the world’s unrepentance and impending judgment.

Our English word “martyr” comes from the Greek word used for “witnesses” here in Revelation Chapter 11. Thus, the two witnesses are also representative of all who bravely preach Christ to a Christ-hating world and would rather lay down their lives than to deny the Christ they preach.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn once said, “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. The lie may take the world, but not through me.”

According to the Bible, the lie will take the world. In 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12, the Apostle Paul predicts: “And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

As represented by Revelation’s two witnesses, the faithful witnesses of Christ are all who say with their dying breath, “The lie may take the world, but not through me.” Unfortunately, there are few such witnesses to be found within today’s evangelical church. Most contemporary churchgoers want to wear the latest fashion, not sackcloth, and are given to merrymaking, not mourning.

Unbeknownst to the majority of professed believers today, happiness is really overrated. The prophets of old went around in sackcloth. Christ Himself was called “a man of sorrows…acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). C. S. Lewis once said, “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” 

The expression “ignorance is bliss” comes from an eighteenth century poem by the English poet Thomas Gray. Gray actually wrote, “Where ignorance is bliss, `Tis folly to be wise.” To be truly happy in the world today, one must be ignorant. Of course, those wise enough to point this out will be considered the real fools.

Don’t be a fool. Face the truth and be faithful to it, even unto death. Be like Jim Elliot, a missionary killed in his attempt to take the Gospel to a violent and remote Indian tribe in Ecuador. Before his death, Elliot wrote in his journal, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

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