183 - The Seventh Trumpet - The Kingdom Come [B]

The Seventh Trumpet: The Kingdom Come; Rev. 11:15

In Revelation 11:15-19 we shift back to the heavenly scene that looks forward to the second half of the Tribulation period. The focus in chapters 11-14 is on Israel and what is happening in different areas during the Tribulation period ultimately with relationship to Israel. From the writer's perspective he has gone through the first half in terms of the judgment structure; now he is going to go back and bring us up to date with other things that are going on during the time of the seal judgments and the trumpet judgments. We are told that during the first half will be these two witnesses who have a specific role in relation to Israel and the remnant. The real fruit of their ministry, as we have seen, doesn't take place until after they are martyred and after their dead bodies are in view for three days, and then they are resurrected and ascend to heaven. Then we saw in verse 13, "And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven." This is the salvation of the vast majority of Jews living in the land at that time and it is at about this time, after the ascension of the two witnesses, that the Antichrist will desecrate the temple. Up to this point God has protected the inner part of the temple and now the Antichrist is going to desecrate even the holy of holies and will take control. Compared to the first half of the Tribulation virtually no one is going to be responsive to the gospel during the second half, it is a spiritually dark period. The majority of people who are going to respond will respond during the first half; it is in the second half that the mark of the beast will be seen.

We have the two witnesses in chapter eleven and the focus is on the remnant of Israel. Israel is pictured in chapter twelve as the woman who gives birth to the son—that Son of the one who is destined to rule with a rod of iron, Psalm 2: the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. At the end of chapter twelve she is pursued by the dragon who is Satan and she flees into the wilderness. That takes us up to just past what we saw in 11:13, the salvation of a vast number of Jews in Jerusalem. In chapter thirteen the focus is on the dragon, the beast and the earth dwellers. Things become very dark and ominous at this time. There continues to be, though, the outreach of God's grace. There are three angels that are sent to fly through the heavens and to announce the gospel to people to warn them, but the response is hostility. We see the grace of God in that He continues to pursue and pursue and to offer the gospel, but what is left is just the hardened earth dwellers. There is a massive slaughter of believers that occurs during the second half of the Tribulation period.   

Revelation 11:15 ^NASB "Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,  "The kingdom of the world has become {the kingdom} of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever."

When we look at this verse in a KJV or NKJV it reads "the kingdoms of this world" because that is the alternate reading that is in the MSS on which the KJV was based. Textus Receptus was just based on a limited number of Greek MSS that were available in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. So many more have been discovered since then. The majority text and the critical text agree here that this is singular—"the kingdom of the world," because this is the kingdom of Satan. The world is the outer expression of Satan's rulership as the prince of the power of the air, as the god of this age, 2 Corinthians 4:4. It is in the Tribulation that God is finally going to bring human history to a close and to bring judgment upon all of these rebellious groups, whether they are human or angelic. Everything comes to a head in this last half of the Tribulation. This is why it is believed that in this last period both demons and angels will be visible to human beings. It is going to be a bizarre time but it all leads to this final battle, the campaign of Armageddon, during which time the Lord Jesus Christ will completely finish off His enemies, both human and demonic.

"Then the seventh angel sounded…" There are some who come along and say this last trumpet is the trumpet mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:51, 52. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." A mystery is a previously unrevealed truth, and what Paul is revealing is the Rapture at this point. This isn't a second coming verse, it is the Rapture. This isn't the series of judgments that come out of the seventh trumpet in Revelation chapter eleven because the last of the seven trumpet judgments incorporates the seven bowl judgments, and that is going to take approximately three to three and a half years to unfold. So the last trumpet mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 is referring to the last trump, meaning the past event in the present church age, and it is an instantaneous event which occurs—1 Thessalonians 4:13-16.

There is another interesting facet here and that has to do with the Greek tenses of the verb. This is taking place some three and a half years prior to the end of the Tribulation period, so the kingdom isn't coming yet. But it is spoken of in the past tense. "…and there were" – aorist indicative; the aorist just summarizes the action, it doesn't have any reference to its continuation, its length or progression. "…loud voices in heaven, saying." John uses the same verb again, egeneto [e)genetw] which has the idea of something coming into being which didn't exist before. There was silence until the seventh trumpet blasted and then all of a sudden there are these loud voices, a commotion, because there is the realization of what this portends. Finally after centuries, millennia, of rebellion and evil and the sin and the horrors of sin in both angelic and human history, it is going to be brought to a conclusion. "The kingdom of the world has become…" Again, there is an aorist indicative here. It is a past tense verb but it hasn't happened yet; but it is so certain to happen in the future that it is spoken of as if it has already occurred. We find this type of language in both Hebrew and Greek where there is the use of a past tense to speak of a future event as if it has already occurred because the occurrence is so certain. So they speak of the destruction of the kingdom of Satan or the kingdom of this world and the establishment of the kingdom of God and Christ—the mention of the Lord here is the Father (the word "Lord" in Revelation refers almost always to the Father; in only a few exceptions does it refer to the Son). Here we see the distinction: "of our Lord and of His Christ."

What we see in this event is something that is spoken of a lot in hymns that we sing. It also happens with regard to some hymns that focus on the future as if we are not standing here in the middle of the church age but are actually with those twenty-four elders who represent the church standing before the throne of God. One of these is the hymn, Crown Him with many crowns. We are not singing this as church age believers that it is now time to crown the Lord Jesus Christ as the Millennial King because we know that that is not going to happen until the second coming. He is not on the throne of David in heaven right now, He is seated at the right hand of the Father; but there will come a time when the church united, resurrected and rewarded—represented by those twenty-four elders—will be singing a hymn like this. So it is sung today with that futuristic (proleptic) orientation in anticipation of what we will sing when we call upon the Lamb to be crowned and to return to establish His kingdom.

"Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne." The language comes right out of Revelation. It is pre-millennial. "Hark, how the heavenly anthem drowns, All music but its own." We are hearing the writer's meditation on Revelation four and five, passages like Revelation eleven. "Awake my soul, and sing, Of Him who died for thee, And hail Him as thy matchless King, Thro all eternity." The focal point here is what happens at the return of Christ. We are looking forward to that event, putting ourselves in that place, looking with optimism and hope towards that future realization of His kingdom when He returns. The same thing happens in another hymn: All hail the power of Jesus' name, Let angels prostrate fall, Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all." This is taking place at the same time as Crown Him with many crowns. It is looking forward to that time when He will be crowned, when He will receive the kingdom from God, as expressed in Daniel chapter seven and Revelation 19. 

"The kingdom of the world has become {the kingdom} of our Lord and of His Christ…" The word "Christ" is christos [xristoj], which means the anointed one. An anointed one is not necessarily God just because it has the word "messiah" associated with it. Cyrus was called God's anointed one because God appointed him to release the Jews from their exile in Babylon. In fact, the angel in Ezekiel 28 is called "the anointed cherub who covers." What we see here is a doctrine that is taught throughout the Scriptures that looks forward to this establishment of the kingdom of God upon the earth—this is a literal, physical, visible kingdom—and that Jesus Christ will return before that kingdom is established. That is called the pre-Millennial view of prophecy. The kingdom of the world has to be destroyed before the Lord establishes His kingdom. "…and He will reign forever and ever." This fits with numerous Old Testament prophecies.

Psalm 22:17, 28 ^NASB "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, And all the families of the nations will worship before You. For the kingdom is the LORD'S And He rules over the nations." This is an Old Testament passage that refers to the Philippians chapter two passage where every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. It is that recognition of the authority of God that happens at the end of the Tribulation period.

Psalm 72:8-11 ^NASB "May he also rule from sea to sea And from the River to the ends of the earth. Let the nomads of the desert bow before him, And his enemies lick the dust. Let the kings of Tarshish and of the islands bring presents; The kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts. And let all kings bow down before him, All nations serve him."

Isaiah 9:7 ^NASB "There will be no end to the increase of {His} government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this." The kingdom is "forever," not just a thousand years. The Millennial kingdom is just stage one, a sort of preface to the eternal kingdom and the eternal reign of God.

Daniel 2:44 ^NASB "In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and {that} kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. [45] Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future; so the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy." The kingdom of God will destroy the kingdom of man. This is exactly what we see in Revelation 11:15.

In Daniel chapter seven the kingdoms of man are represented as beasts. God looks at them from His perspective. Daniel 7:13, 14 ^NASB "I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days [God the Father] And was presented before Him [Revelation 4]. And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and {men of every} language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed."

Zechariah 14:9-11 ^NASB "And the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be {the only} one, and His name {the only} one. All the land will be changed into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; but Jerusalem will rise and remain on its site from Benjamin's Gate as far as the place of the First Gate to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's wine presses. People will live in it, and there will no longer be a curse, for Jerusalem will dwell in security." Here we see one of those Old Testament passages that used the word "Lord" to incorporate the Trinity; it is not just the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we go too far in trying to break up the Trinity. Jesus said: "I and the Father are one." There is a unity there that what is said of the Son is equally true of the Father. It is the Son, the second person of the Trinity, who is the son of David and who rules on David's throne; it is nevertheless the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ. "The Lord" here is a term that is probably just a pregnant term for the rule of God over the earth. "All the land…" Here the focus shifts to the land of Israel itself. "…but Jerusalem will rise and remain on its site…" There is a tremendous earthquake at the end of the Tribulation and there is this elevation of Jerusalem to a high plain. It is on part of this area that the Millennial temple will be built.

Luke 1:32, 33 ^NASB "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end."

Again and again we see this emphasis on a future kingdom which has a unique beginning as the Father gives it to the Son, and the Son comes and in violence destroys the kingdom of man.

Another passage that is also a backdrop to this is Psalm 2, a prophetic (proleptic) psalm that looks forward to the end time. David is writing as if the events of Psalm two are happening at his time. But it is happening in the future; it is a prophetic certainty, so it is written as if it is happening in the present.  

Psalm 2:1 ^NASB "Why are the nations in an uproar And the peoples devising a vain thing?" What he is describing is the mass of humanity, the allies of the Antichrist at the end of the Tribulation period, which is seeking to establish their kingdom in revolt against God. [2] "The kings of the earth take their stand And the rulers take counsel together Against the LORD and against His Anointed [the same terminology as used in Revelation 11], saying…" There aren't so much the direct quotes from the Old Testament in Revelation as the constant allusion to these Old Testament passages, because Revelation is tying together all the loose ends of prophecy. [3] "Let us tear their fetters apart And cast away their cords from us!" They resist the authority of God, no matter what God does or how clear the evidence is. The orientation of the fallen mind in rebellion against God means that it is set on independence from God. "I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, 'You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. [8] Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, And the {very} ends of the earth as Your possession'." That is what takes place during the Tribulation period; the nations are being given to the Son as His inheritance and possession. [9] "'You shall break them with a rod of iron, You shall shatter them like earthenware.'" We see that this is what is referred to in Revelation 11. He will come and destroy the kingdom of this world and then He will reign forever and ever—Greek: to the ages of the ages. It goes on forever.

Illustrations