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David Steele's, The Two Witnesses, is a great companion volume to his Notes on the Apocalypse (Revelation). Here Steele zeros in on and works primarily from the text of Revelation 11:13, "I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophecy."
Steele deals with testimony-bearing, Antichrist, Popery, the beasts of Revelation, the mark of the beast, 666, the image of the beast, civil and ecclesiastical apostasy, Reformation, covenanting, heresy, schism, terms of communion, slavery, sectarianism, Mormonism, Independency, freemasonry, history, worship, idolatry, Britain, the United States, Canada, mystical Babylon, the last days, the ultimate victory of the church and a host of other subjects!
As is usually the case with Steele, he makes the doctrines of Scripture eminently practical. For example, note how the faithful witnesses are continually called to testify against open opposition to the Lord's Covenanted Zion and the attainments of biblical Reformation (in "the faith which was once delivered unto the saints"); and against whom this testimony is directed: "(T)hese witnesses are called and commissioned to testify especially against Antichrist -- a false christ, and therefore an opposing christ. But Christ is to be considered either personally or mystically; either abstractly in his personal rights and prerogatives, or in the concrete, in the rights and immunities of his church.
There is this prejudice, too prevalent, against Christians testifying against Christians! This we are often told, is contrary to the law of charity. We have not so learned Christ. They are not all Israel which are of Israel. Much of the business of these two prophets is to oppose prophets -- to prophesy against the shepherds, Ezek. 34:2. Moses with his miracles must confront the magicians with their enchantments, Exod. 8:19. Elijah must confront the prophets of Baal, 1 Kings 18:25. Paul must counteract false apostles, 2 Cor. 11:13.
In short, the direct object of these witnesses' testimony is apostate christendom -- those who depart from the faith, 1 Tim. 4:1 -- who have gone out from fellowship and renounced the doctrines of the apostolic church, 1 John 2:19. Their special work is to testify against error and its propagators and abettors, together with ungodliness, the natural fruit of error, rather than against pagans." (The Two Witnesses, p. 14). "(T)hese two witnesses have always testified -- not formally against pagans or infidels as such; but -- against apostate Christians, as composing an organized and complex system of opposition to the Lord and his Anointed.
And just here, the witnesses have detected the secret of Antichrist's successful enterprise among the human family..."Many false prophets are gone out into the world... this is a deceiver and an Antichrist," 2 John 7. The combination is ostensibly on the side and in the interest of Christ, and the elements of which Antichrist is composed were obviously professing Christians, "They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us, " I John 2:19.
Here is the apostasy, and so the witnesses are fully borne out in asserting that Antichrist is a great Christian apostasy! To trace the origin and development, in the organization and modifications of this enemy of all righteousness, is the special work of Christ's witnesses." (The Two Witnesses, pp. 17-18).
Moreover, having taken his own place "in the wilderness" (i.e. having separated himself from, and having been ostracized by the "civilization" of the obstinately defecting RPCNA and other unfaithful denominations of his day [2 Thes. 3:6;14-15; Rev. 12:6; 17:3]), it was given to Steele to see and expound those grand old principles of our covenanted forefathers (who sat at Westminster and in the best Reformed churches during both the first and second Reformations -- the Scottish Presbyterians being granted the greatest measure of light as a settled body from 1638-1649).
Thus, if you are interested in Reformation eschatology, with some of the strongest possible application, individually and corporately (in keeping with the body of Reformed truth), it is unlikely that you will find a better introduction to these topics than this! As an additional bonus we have added Steele's 19 page debate with James M. Willson (a prominent RPCNA minister) to this book, along with a number of other pertinent documents. Since Steele references this theological clash in his preface to the Two Witnesses this makes a fitting appendix to add to this work.
We hope that you obtain and study this fine work -- and that you will find it edifying, as well as a useful weapon in your battle with the beasts of Revelation.
46 pages.
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