1. Revelation 11:12 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

Why are we told that their enemies watched them?

Revelation 11:12 (ESV)

12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them.

Their enemies had persistently refused to embrace their witness concerning the gospel, to the point of killing them and demonstrating such a triumph by refusing them the honour of a burial. Now these same enemies witness that the God they had spoken about very publicly demonstrates the truthfulness of what the witnesses had said. Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension are played out before their eyes! Efforts to cancel the gospel, or the God of the gospel, or even the witnesses to the gospel, are doomed to fail. Over the centuries of church history, God’s enemies have had to admit that repeatedly.