1. Revelation 11:7 (ESV)
  2. Application

God maintains sovereign control

Revelation 11:7 (ESV)

7 And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them,

Revelation 20:7–9 (ESV)

7 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison

The text explains that the two witnesses dying happens under the direction of Jehovah God, under His sovereign control, and at a specific time when God wills it to happen. Revelation 11:7: And when [the two witnesses] shall have finished their testimony…, then the beast rises and kills her. When her witness is finished in the earth, and not a second sooner does this happen! That is, when she has left a full witness against the world and its evil in the anti-Christian kingdom. When the elect have all been gathered – every single one of them gathered, and no more need to be brought in. When her witness is finished, she will as an institute be killed. Man’s cup of iniquity will be full then. He will have killed the true witness of God – a witness that would have saved [him] – and instead worships man in all the earth.

This attack upon the church institute that kills her is the same as the war of Gog and Magog against the church in Revelation 20:1–15:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about. Revelation 20:7–9a, KJV

At the end of the New Testament age, Satan will be loosed to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth. It is talking about the rise of the anti-Christian kingdom. Satan deceives the whole world at the end to unite as one in opposition to Jehovah God. And Gog and Magog come together to battle against the camp of the saints in the earth. Gog and Magog are a nation and leader who fought against Israel back in Ezekiel 38:1–23 and Ezekiel 39:1–29. They represent the nations of the world coming together against the church of Jehovah God. For the first time in history, God will allow Satan to succeed in what he has always wanted: The destruction of the church as an institute of God. And Jesus’ words (His prophecy, really), Ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake (Matthew 24:9) shall fully come true. But only right at the very, very end, before Antichrist’s and Satan’s own destruction.1

Cory Griess