The Seventh Angel's Sound: Revelation Unwrapped

For review, let's read that passage, Revelation 11, and we'll just look at 15 through 19.

It says, 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.

And the 24 elders who sat on their thrones before God fell on their faces and

worshipped God, saying, We give you thanks, O Lord God,

the Almighty, who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.

And the nations were enraged, and your rage came.

And the time came for the dead to be judged and to give reward to your slaves,

the prophets and the saints, and those who fear your name,

the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth,

and the sanctuary of God, which is in heaven,

was opened, and the ark of his covenant appeared in his sanctuary,

and there were flashes of lightning

and sounds and peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hell storm.

And that's the passage we looked at last week. And we said this when we left

last week. And I know every one of you remember this, right?

This is really the theme of Revelation, the triumph of God over Satan as evil

is purged from the world and Christ becomes its holy ruler.

I mean, that's shouting time, right? Hallelujah.

I mean, that is the theme of the book. Like we've read the end and we know who wins, Lee.

I mean, the victory is ours. The victory is the Lord's. It's secure.

And really, as we look here in this verse we were looking at,

the tense of the verb translated has become there is what Greek grammarians actually refer to this.

And I know Brother Ronnie is about to spit this out, but a proleptic aorist, aorist.

And it describes a future event, basically. And Sharon knew that, I know.

And it's so certain, basically, it describes a future event that is so certain,

Sharon, that it can be spoken of as if it has already taken place.

And the perspective of the verb tense there in this passage as we study it,

it looks to a point after the action of that seventh trumpet that we read to

start with in the verse there will have run its course.

And though this event here is future from the point of chronological progress

reached in this particular series of events, It's so certain that the verb form

used views it as already accomplished.

You talk about, hey, this is certain stuff. You know, we say sometimes you got to have faith.

You got to have faith, you know, makes me think of that song,

faith, faith, faith, just a little bit of faith.

But, you know, when we stop and we think about that, our faith is not put in

like, it's not like the blind faith of the world.

It's not like, you know, well, you just got to have faith.

No, it's not a blind faith. It's a faith based upon certainty in God's promises.

And it's the kind of faith that you rest in. Amen. It's just like y'all came in tonight.

None of you sitting here tonight probably questioned the pew before you sat

down in it, that it was going to hold you up. You probably just plopped down in it.

That's having faith, right? I mean, you're resting in it. And that's how God

wants it to be. Rest in his promises. Rest in his word. They are secure here.

And this verb here and the tense of it and all of it, it's as if it's already happened.

It's so sure. You know, the timeless heaven rejoices at this long-awaited day

when Christ is going to accomplish his kingdom, having already arrived.

Although, some time on earth must elapse before that actually happens.

And the phrase here, the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,

it emphasizes two realities. I want us to see them tonight.

That first off is kurios, Lord.

It usually refers to Jesus throughout the New Testament, while in Revelation

here, it more often refers to God the Father.

And so it emphasizes their equality of nature. Now, we can see that.

That phrase also describes the kingdom in its broadest sense,

looking forward to the divine rule over the creation and the new creation that's coming.

So no differentiation is made between the earthly millennial kingdom and the eternal kingdom.

As for example, if you look back, Paul does in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 24 through 28,

1 Corinthians 15:24–28

at the end of the thousand years, the millennial kingdom will merge with the

eternal kingdom in which Christ will reign how long?

Forever and ever.

And once the reign of Christ begins, it'll change form, but never end or be interrupted.

Never end or be interrupted. And I want that glorious truth,

the glorious truth that the Lord Jesus Christ will one day rule the earth just

permeates throughout Scripture, right? It's all over the Bible.

You know, in chapter 15 of Revelation, I'm going to jump just for just a little

snippet of that for a second. John saw something in heaven like a sea of glass,

it says, mixed with fire.

And those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and the number

of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God.

And they sang the song of Moses, the bondservant of God, and the song of the

Lamb, saying, great and marvelous are your works.

O Lord God, the Almighty, righteous and true are your ways, king of the nations.

Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy,

for all the nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.

That's in verses 2 through 4 of chapter 15. We'll get to that more down the road.

But they sang, the fact that they sang the song of Moses, which is found in

Exodus 15, verses 1 through 18, it just indicates that as far back as the Pentateuch

Exodus 15:1–18

scripture anticipated, Those books of the Old Testament, right?

The moment when the Lord Jesus Christ would become the king of the world.

The king of the world. Psalm 2, it's referred to as one of the messianic psalms,

the passages whose imagery and language just permeates this section of Revelation.

It's all throughout it. It also predicts the coming earthly reign of Christ.

Let me read a passage from that, just so you see how this connects.

But as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain.

I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord.

He said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you.

Ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance.

At the very ends of the earth is your possession. You shall break them with

a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earthenware.

In verses six through nine of that passage. See, the prophets,

they also look forward to that time when the Messiah would establish his earthly

reign of that glorious day,

you know, and Isaiah wrote of it and, you know, all the Daniel wrote of it,

you know, and in fact, I look at a passage there.

He wrote concerning that same day. And some of you that did the Daniel study

with us, you probably remember some of this.

He says, you King Nebuchadnezzar continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands.

And it struck the statue of on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them.

Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed all

at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors.

And the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found.

But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

That's all the prophecy of all this, what's going to take place.

In fact, he goes on to say in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will

set up a kingdom, there we go, that 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, how long?

Forever. 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. That's in Daniel chapter 2.

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

Wow, don't y'all see? All throughout the Old Testament even,

all these prophecies that pointed towards this time.

You know, the vaunted empires of world history, that might refer to the statue, right?

Will be shattered by the Messiah's kingdom. That's the stone cut out without hands.

They will crumble to dust, in other words, and blow away. But his kingdom,

Christ's kingdom, will last again. How long?

Forever. Forever.

And that is so true. In fact, in another vision recorded in Daniel chapter 7, Daniel said,

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

he said, 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.

Boy, we sang that song earlier, didn't we?

And was presented before him, and to him was given dominion,

glory, and a kingdom, that all the people's nation and men of every language might serve him.

His dominion, get this, y'all, is an everlasting dominion which will not pass

away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

Wow. Y'all, we got a great God. We serve a great God. We serve a God who is a victor.

He has conquered. And he goes on to say, but the saints of the highest one will

receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever for all ages to come.

The ancient of days came and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the highest one.

And the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom. Wow.

I'll tell you what, y'all, this gets you excited when you look at this prophecy.

I'm going to read one more verse there. In verse 27, it says,

then the sovereignty, the dominion, and the greatness of all the kingdoms under

the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the highest one.

His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey him.

So looking forward to Messiah's kingdom, Micah also wrote about this.

He also wrote, in fact, if you want to look at it later in Micah chapter 4 verses 1 through 3,

Micah 4:1–3

but summing up a lengthy discussion of the day of the Lord and the coming of

Christ's earthly kingdom, Zechariah also wrote, and the Lord will be king over all the earth.

In that day, the Lord will be the only one in his name, the Holy One.

Aren't you grateful? Aren't you grateful? In fact, when the angel Gabriel announced

the birth of Jesus to Mary, he told her something.

He told her that he would someday be the great king over the earth. Wow.

And behold, this is what he said. And behold, you will conceive in your womb

and bear a son and you shall name him what?

Jesus. 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. How long?

Forever. And his kingdom will have no end. That's in Luke chapter 1, 31 to 33.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

It's all through the Bible, y'all. We win.

I mean, our God is awesome. He reigns. He is sovereign over all.

And the monumental moment in redemptive history that's anticipated in all the

Old Testament prophecies, in the announcement of Christ's birth,

in the preview of Christ's coming glory at the transfiguration,

in Christ's teaching and miracles that he performed, and the covenant promises

to Israel, and the promise to believers that they will reign with who?

With Christ, right? In the promise to the 12 disciples that they would judge

the 12 tribes of Israel, and in the promise of Jesus that he would return in

glory, we'll be imminent.

And that's going to cause, y'all, if we see in this passage,

all heaven to praise God for the wonder of his sovereign plan that Christ should reign.

Again, it's got to blow our minds again. When was this plan established again?

Before the foundations of the world. Zeroing in on one particular group in heaven,

offering praise, John notes this here, that the 24 elders, look at it in this

passage, who sit on their thrones before God,

what did they do? They stood to their feet. What does it say?

They fell on their faces. And what did they do? They worshiped God.

Y'all, as representatives of the glorified raptured church, These elders here

had been eagerly awaiting for Christ to take back the earth from Satan,

from the usurper, right?

Their joyous cry of praise, as we see in this passage, is filled with gratitude.

You talk about a Thanksgiving day. This is it right here.

I mean, look what they say again here in this passage. We give you what? Thanks.

We give you thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were.

Because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.

Y'all, the King is coming.

I'm just telling you, the King is going to reign. And that reflects their,

they're just exhilarated, their exhilaration that their prayers for the kingdom

to come have been answered.

Think about all the way back to Matthew 6, 10, thy kingdom come,

thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is it right here when it happens on earth.

You see, the elders' praise focused on three of God's attributes.

We did a whole study not long ago on the attributes of God. If you missed that,

you can go to the website. It's there.

In fact, if you go to the sermon podcast page, we have a nice little playlist

there, all those sermons on the attributes of God.

But the three attributes here, first of all, he's almighty, right? Right.

He describes God's sovereign, omnipotent, irresistible power,

right? We talked about these things.

And nine of its 10 New Testament uses are in Revelation, this particular attribute.

It has the sense of God exercising his all-embracing, all-encompassing will

by means of his irresistible power.

What I mean by that, I mean whatever God says will come to pass will come to pass.

It doesn't matter what happens. nothing can thwart his plans.

It's not like humans, right? I can say something's going to come to pass tomorrow, and guess what?

I may have good intentions, but there could be something that stops that from coming to pass.

But with God, when he says something's going to happen, it is going to happen.

It's already done. You can view it. It's already taken place,

even if it hadn't yet. It's not sure it's going to happen.

And so, and the phrase who are and who were here in this passage,

It just expresses God's eternality, his eternity, right?

As the living God, the living God, God had no beginning and he'll have no end, right?

He was in that he has existed from eternity past.

He is in that he exists now and for all eternity future.

We talked about in Sunday school this morning, the fact that who is God?

That question, who is God?

And one thing we realized is the simple fact that he is far above us.

He's the creator who spoke this world into existence, who spoke us into existence,

and there's a huge gap between us and God, right?

I mean, if you look at this, this way of expressing God's eternity was used

three times previously in Revelation, in chapter 1 and chapter 8 and chapter 4.

And I think significantly, those three other occurrences add the phrase,

who is to come, who is to come.

And since the present passage here that we're reading tonight,

it views Christ as already having come and established his kingdom.

And that phrase is not repeated here.

And really, deceptively, the Antichrist is described in similar terms.

Okay, this is kind of like the deceptive version of this, as Satan attempts

to actually concoct a poor imitation of the eternal king of the universe.

We'll see that over in chapter 17 a little bit later down the road.

But you know, it reminds me, and I just got to say, it'll be a side note here.

Satan is just not original, is he? He's always copycat, right?

I mean, he's always corrupting something good.

But the elders also praised God for his sovereignty because he had taken his

great power and what he begun to reign.

And that perfect tense of this verb here, translated, you have taken,

you have taken, it really signifies that permanence of God's sovereign rule.

Nobody gave it to him he took it it's his it's his it's his will and the words

of psalm 24 verse 1 the earth is the lord's and all it contains the world and

Psalms 24:1

those who dwell in it reminds me of that hymn this is my father's world,

man the earth is the lord's all it proclaims there in scripture all it contains

the world and those who dwell in it.

If you ever wondered who you belong to, if you ever wondered who you're accountable

to, it tells us right there in the Bible.

But you see here, this is realized as Christ reigns in absolute power and authority over the earth.

All attempts, I want you all to see this tonight, all attempts to equate his

glorious reign of Christ over the whole earth with any past event or with the

church is utterly foreign.

It's utterly contradictory to the clear teaching of scripture.

I tell you what, there's no way this text can be fulfilled except by the universe,

reign of Jesus Christ over the whole earth as the prophets had for so long predicted.

Y'all, it's going to happen. It's as sure as this world, it's as sure as us

sitting here tonight, it's going to happen.

Well, there is some other things

that's going to happen. Do I have a little bit more time? Am I good?

Got attached? All right. We'll try to get a little bit of this.

Look what it says in verse 18, the first part, and the nations were happy about

all this. They were celebrating. What does it say?

All the nations were enraged. Wow, that's pretty intense, right?

Enraged, right? The seventh trumpet vision reveals that no longer afraid,

the impenitent nations were defiant.

They were enraged at the prospect of Christ's kingdom being established over the whole earth.

That enrage there, I know y'all

wondering this, it actually suggests a deep-seated, ongoing hostility.

This was not just a momentary emotional fit of temper or something like that,

but is actually a settled, burning resentment against God Almighty.

Eventually they will assemble armies to fight who? God.

Boy, just saying that, Brother Ronnie, it makes it like, really?

Really? We're going to fight God, right?

The creator of the universe, the one who spoke us into existence,

we're going to win this war.

But yeah, right. With no desire, though, to repent of sin, angry resentment

here and hostility against heaven, we'll talk about that in chapter 16,

will drive the nations to gather for destruction at a place called what?

Armageddon.

And the divine judgments people will experience during the tribulation should

cause them to turn from their sins and submit to God.

In fact, we scratch our heads probably tonight wondering why these things,

why haven't people repented like we would think they would? Yes,

some people do come to Christ.

You know, many people will come, but why hasn't people turned,

just said, yes, Lord, you know, please forgive me.

Well, tragically, even under such frightening judgment, as we've seen in warnings of eternal hell,

most of them will refuse

to repent and will instead what harden

their hearts you know

romans 2 verses 1 through 10 teaches that men refuse to repent in spite of god's

Romans 2:1–10

goodness we talked about that this morning too didn't we it's god's goodness

that lead us his kindness that leads us to repentance that's what it's meant

to lead us to but god is also the judge.

And he's also holy. They'll be like Pharaoh here who kept hardening his heart.

It tells us that repeatedly, Exodus 8, 15, 19, 32, on throughout,

and even talks about it in Samuel.

Until the point, they hardened their heart, they hardened their heart,

until the point, guess what, when God judicially fixed his heart in that hardened condition.

God hardened their heart then. That's a scary place, y'all, for someone to be,

when they've hardened their hearts so much against the Lord that one day God hardens their heart.

And when that happens, there is no hope.

You see, the unbelieving world will apparently reach that point at the final

outpouring of God's wrath during the events of this seventh trumpet.

Their rage and their hostility towards God, we'll see this in chapter 19 down

the road, will reach a fever pitch, and they'll gather to fight against him

at the battle on the plain of, is it, Megiddo, I believe.

The spirits of demons performing signs will go out to the kings of the whole

world to gather them together for the war of the great day of God the Almighty,

and they gather them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har Megidon.

And they will, by then, they're going to be beyond, y'all. I want y'all to see this, the day of grace.

Remember I said today is the day of grace. And even in the tribulation,

there's going to be grace extended. People are going to be saved all throughout.

But now it's going to come to this point where the day of grace will be no more.

There will be no salvation, y'all. This is truthfully, and I'll close here,

but there'll be no salvation at Armageddon.

You see, the world's desperate last-dish effort to keep Christ from establishing

his kingdom here is going to fail, right?

I mean, that's an understatement.

And they will utterly be destroyed. Listen to this.

And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to

make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army.

And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs

in his presence by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the

beast and those who worshiped his image.

These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire, which burns with brimstone,

and the rest were killed with the sword, which came from the mouth of him who sat on the throne.

And all the birds were filled with their flesh.

Y'all, when God makes war, it is thorough.

There are no survivors. And these unbelieving, those unbelieving rejecters will

have wasted their opportunity to repent what they acknowledged as God's judgments.

They knew it was his judgments.

Instead, they're going to plunge into the depths of hostility,

be enraged and rejection, and where are they going to be punished at? In eternal hell.

And how about y'all tonight but i

don't wish that on anyone i pray

people will repent i want people to repent but y'all we still have a job to

do we have to get out there and i say this every week we need to not be slack

in sharing the gospel we need to make the most of every opportunity as scripture

tells us you know to share his love to share the gospel to share the good news,

and no it's not you know it's not all uh easy to do because it is confrontational

it does go against the grain it goes against human pride and human nature,

because it's that age-old thing y'all all the time we think that we somehow

are going to do enough good to save ourself or we're going to be good enough

to do this or that or the other We got our own thing worked out.

But y'all, people need to hear the biblical gospel. Few is going to be that

find it, but y'all, that doesn't mean we don't share it.

That doesn't mean we don't reach out here and tell people the love of Christ,

the salvation of the Lord.

Let them know the full gospel, the biblical gospel.

Many are going to reject it.

Many are going to turn away. But there will be some who will be saved.

And that is worth it that is worth it amen.