Zechariah 4:2-6, 11-14 (NIV), “‘What do you see?’ I answered, ‘I see a solid gold lampstand with a bowl at the top and seven lamps on it, with seven channels to the lamps. Also there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.’ I asked the angel who talked with me, ‘What are these, my lord?’ 5 He answered…‘This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty…Then I asked the angel, ‘What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?’… ‘What are these two olive branches beside the two gold pipes that pour out golden oil?’ He replied, ‘Do you not know what these are?’ ‘No, my lord,’ I said. So he said, ‘These are the two who are anointed to serve the Lord of all the earth.’”
In this age, we are dependent on the written word which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. (Psalm 119:105.) In the vision of Zechariah 4, the prophet saw a golden lampstand between two olive trees. Olive oil flowed through the golden channels into the lamps. The Angel explained that these lamps did not burn by human wisdom or knowledge, “not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit; saith the Lord of hosts.”
The prophet was further told that these are the two who are anointed, (the Hebrew means sons of oil) that serve the Lord of the whole earth. These sons of oil are also called two witnesses in Revelation 11:3-4, “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.” The witnesses (olive trees or anointed ones) are the Old and New Testaments – the sources of light from which the church must draw her supply of oil. The witnesses were to be clothed in sackcloth (symbolic of mourning and probably of the clothing in a dead language, Latin) during 1260 years (539-1799 A.D.), while they testified for God throughout papacy’s reign.
