The Sounding of the Seventh Trumpet: Sovereignty and Redemption

Well, it's good to see everyone tonight. As y'all know, we're in the book of Revelation.

And I told you this morning, tonight, I'm going to kind of condense this a little

bit tonight. I hope y'all pray for me, right?

Somebody may have to say, raise your hand and say, hold it up,

brother, hold it up. I don't know, but yeah.

We're in a Revelation chapter 11, verses 15 through 19.

Revelation 11:15–19

And you would think, obviously, with just five or six verses there,

we're not going to take forever, but we are going to break this down because we are going deeper.

And so we're talking about the seventh trumpet in Revelation 11, verses 15 through 19.

Revelation 11:15–19

And so we'll start with the reading of God's word there, okay?

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 sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and

worshiped God saying, 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.

And the nations were enraged, and your wrath came, and the time came for the

dead to be judged, and the time to reward your bondservants,

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 temple of God, which is in heaven, was opened and the ark of his covenant

appeared in his temple and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals

of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm.

Let's pray. Father God, thank you for your word tonight. I pray that you would

open up our hearts, Lord, here as we lay the foundations tonight, Lord, from your word.

And Lord, you'd help us to, Lord, to see what you have for us tonight,

but also, Lord, to just give us renewed courage and hope for tonight in Jesus' name, amen.

So we've got the sounding of the seventh trumpet. It marks a significant milestone

in the book of Revelation, and it sets in motion the final events leading up

to the return of Jesus, right?

The return of the Lord Jesus Christ and the establishment of his earthly millennial kingdom.

Revelation chapter 10, verse seven, if you remember just a few weeks ago,

Revelation 10 · chapter mention

it actually expresses the finality of that seventh trumpet.

Listen to this. It says, in the days of the voice of the seventh angel,

when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished and he preached

to his servants, the prophets.

So that mystery, if you remember, is the full revelation of the consummation of God's plan.

After all, y'all help remind me what has been going on on the earth during this time what chaos.

Judgment. I mean, it has just been, yes, I mean, demonic influence,

demonic wars, right? All that's happening.

And, you know, demons coming up against humans and all this stuff that's happening

of humans worshiping demons.

You've got all this stuff that's going on, all this depravity, all the things.

Some of us probably think, could it get any worse? Okay, probably sat back and

thought at some point in time, boy, could it get any worse than it is today? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yes, it could. And so, but here we see what's going on.

But now the full revelation of the consummation of God's plan is going to take place.

It was prophesied by the Old Testament preachers, but its fullness was never

revealed until the book of Revelation.

That the seventh bowl judgments, those seven bowl judgments which represent

the final outpouring of whose wrath?

God's wrath. And included with the seventh trumpet, they are included with the

seventh trumpet, right?

Those seven bowls included with the seventh trumpet.

You can see that a few chapters over in chapter 15, verse 1,

when he says, then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels.

He had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished.

Now, I have to pause just for a moment and remind us again that all throughout

the tribulation—now, we were talking about in the second half of the tribulation,

the last three and a half years, which Jesus referred to as the what?

The great tribulation, right? But all throughout the tribulation,

what is happening? What is God doing?

Besides, obviously, He's pouring out His wrath to certain extents,

and we're fixing to see it all come together completely in the end.

But what has been happening across the earth?

Revival. There are people who are getting saved, right? There's going to be

many saved throughout the tribulation.

And we even saw last week, we're

talking about, you know, there with the remnant of Israel and all that.

And so it's like, God, even through all the judgments that are falling down

and happening in the world, God is still calling people, look, will you repent?

Repent. He's calling them to repentance. And we saw through these past weeks

that the vast majority of people are saying no.

They're just shaking their fist at God. But we talked about how God's grace,

even in that judgment, but there's going to come, which is what we're pointing

towards now, that's coming to an end.

That's coming to an end. And so here, these seven plagues that finish God's

wrath of the seven bowl judgments.

Listen to this. I'm going to skip to chapter 16, verse 1, so we can put this

in perspective, so you know what we're talking about.

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels,

go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.

So since both the seventh trumpet and the seven bowls are said to finish God's

wrath, the bowls must be part of the seventh trumpet judgment. It's all together.

It's coming together. And the last three of the seven trumpet judgments are

so horrific that they are referred to as woes.

In fact, in chapter 8, verse 13, you probably remember this if you've been with

us, John, remember he heard an eagle flying in mid-heaven saying with a loud voice.

Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth because of the remaining blast

of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound.

And after the sounding of the fifth trumpet, John wrote, the first woe is past.

Behold, two woes are still coming after these. That was in chapter nine, verse 12.

Before the sounding of the seventh trumpet, he added, the second woe is past.

Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. That was just in the past chapter we covered in 11 verse 14.

So here tonight, the seventh trumpet sets in motion, again, the final consummation

of God's redemptive plan for the present universe, right?

I mean, during its tenure, so to speak, will come the final fury of the day

of the Lord, of the judgments that will fall, and the final harvest of judgment on the earth.

And guess what else? The Lamb's defeat of the kings of the earth.

That'll be in chapter 17. We're getting there. Culminating in the final climactic

triumph of Christ at Armageddon.

We talked about that when we first started in chapter 19, verses 11 through

21. So the sounding of the seventh trumpet signals God's answer to the prayer

that we read in Matthew 6, verse 10.

Matthew 6:10

It says, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This is when it's going to happen.

That answer actually sweeps through chapters 12 through 22 as God finishes his

mighty work on reclaiming creation from who?

The usurper, which is who?

Satan, you're right. Satan. In fact, if you remember early on on the scroll,

right, you know, the seals and all that, you remember who actually holds the title deed to the earth?

Jesus. That's it. And so I think it should be noted that although the seventh

trumpet is the last in the sequence of the seven trumpets judgments,

it's not to be equated with the last trumpet.

Okay, those are two separate things. And if you remember the last trumpet that

we read about in 1 Corinthians 15, 52.

Remember that 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.

It says in 1 Thessalonians 4.16.

So the seventh trumpet covers an extended period of time, if we just saw, we just talked about.

So it's distinguished from this instantaneous, in a moment, in the twinkling

of an eye event of the last trumpet.

And this, instead of calling for the moment of the rapture of the church,

as the last trumpet does, the seventh trumpet here calls for prolonged waves

of judgment that's going to be falling on the ungodly.

And it does not parallel the trumpet of 1 Corinthians 15, 52,

but it does parallel the trumpet of Joel 2, verses 1 and 2. So let's look at that quickly.

Joel 2:1

Joel 2, 1 and 2 says, if many of you know this passage, it's very familiar,

blow a trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm on my holy mountain.

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming.

Surely it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.

So that seventh trumpet not only announces consuming judgment on unbelievers,

but also the coronation of Jesus.

And in the Old Testament, you probably knew this, some of you may not have,

but in the Old Testament, trumpets were frequently sounded at the coronation of a king.

In fact, during his attempted coup against his father David,

if you remember, Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel,

saying, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then you shall say,

Absalom is king in Hebron.

That's in 2 Samuel 15.

And at the coronation of David's true successor, Solomon, Zadok the priest took

the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon.

Then they blew the trumpet and all the people said, long live King Solomon.

That's in 1 Kings 1. So trumpets also sounded at the coordination of King Jehud

in 2 Kings 9 and King Joash as well.

So the sounding of the seventh trumpet also marks the end of that.

We call it an interlude that follows the sixth trumpet.

Does anybody remember, we talked about this a few weeks ago,

what those interludes allow for God's people to do?

Remember, there are people who are being saved on the earth.

Remember, we've got the 144,000 who are witnesses. You know,

of course, the angel flying in mid-heaven.

We've got those who have been converted who are witnessing, right?

And so, do y'all remember what it's for?

For God's people to remember that they can be encouraged, right?

Be encouraged that God is not finished yet, that he is going to take care of

everything that's going on, for them not to lose heart.

In other words, just take that deep breath. it's kind of like an interlude that

happens in chapter 10, verse 1 through 11, verse 14.

And so, in fact, if we look in the previous chapters that we've covered over

the last few weeks, each of those three series of judgments,

remember, think back for a moment, the seals, trumpets, and bowls.

They contain an interlude between the sixth and seventh events.

Between the sixth and seventh seals, if you remember, came that interlude of chapter 7.

And between the sixth and seventh bowls will come the brief interlude of chapter

16, verse 15, that we're going to see.

But those times of, I guess you would say, rest a little bit,

serve to comfort and encourage believers amid the terrors of God's judgment,

reassuring them that he has not forgotten them.

And we read about that even in Malachi 3, verse 16 through chapter 4.

Malachi 3:16

The first part of chapter 4 there in Malachi.

And although the seventh trumpet sounds in chapter 11, verse 15,

the judgments associated with it, guess this, this is where we're going to kind

of think for just a moment,

they are not described until chapter 15. Okay.

Let me say that again. The judgments associated with the seventh trumpet are

not really described for us until chapter 15. What chapter are we in tonight? Chapter 12, right?

So chapters 12 through 14, I want you to see this. It's like a digression.

It's going to take us, as we read the book of Revelation, back through the tribulation

to the point of the seventh trumpet by a different path.

They describe the tribulation not from God's perspective, but from whose, do you know?

From Satan's perspective.

Chapters 4 through 11 focused on Christ taking back what is rightfully his by

means of the seal and trumpet judgments.

Chapters 12 through 14 focus on the ultimate human usurper, which we know is the final antichrist,

Satan himself, right, whose career spans the same time period of the seal and

trumpet judgments, by the way.

In fact, the scene here as the seventh trumpet sounds is going to unfold in four different stages.

There'll be praise for sovereignty.

Praise for sovereignty. And then there's going to be like, we're just going

to see here uncontrollable rage, just acts of rage.

We'll look at that. than a plan for judgment and a promise of communion.

And so we can talk about that praise for sovereignty. How am I doing on time?

I think it's 522. Am I good for just a little bit?

Well, let's go a little bit longer here. 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

worshiped God, saying, We give you thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty,

who are and you were, because you have taken your great power and have begun to what?

Reign. You see, though its effects on earth were delayed, as with the seventh

seal in chapter 8 we saw, there was an immediate response here in heaven when

the seventh angel sounded his trumpet.

I mean, he's expressing that exhilaration at what was about to take place.

And there came a loud voices in heaven saying what?

The kingdom of the world has begun, the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,

and he will reign how long?

Forever and ever. Y'all, I know you probably don't need to be reminded,

but we serve a sovereign God.

Amen? Nothing is outside of his control. He's never surprised by anything.

You can't shake him off his throne. How many of you can remember when his plan for salvation.

Redemption, all of it, and this right here, when was this plan made?

Before the world was made.

Yes, before the foundations of the world. This is not something God came up

with because he was surprised that, you know, that Adam and Eve fell in the

Garden of Eden and he had to do something, had to come up with something really quick.

This was decided before time. This was before the foundations of the earth.

God had a plan in place already because God knows it all. He knows it all.

And that should be comforting to us tonight. I want you to know here,

we see this here proclaimed in the book of Revelation.

He's going to reign forever and ever. And that dramatic proclamation is obviously

connected to the events of the seventh trumpet here.

There's unrestrained joy that we see in Scripture here that the power of Satan

is to be forever broken. Amen?

And Jesus Christ is to reign supreme as King of kings and Lord of lords on the earth.

In fact, with the defeat of Satan, the question of sovereignty over the world

will be forever settled.

What Jesus refused to take on Satan's terms, if you remember in Luke chapter

Luke 4 · chapter mention

4, he'll take on whose terms? His own terms.

Heaven rejoices that the long rebellion of the world against God the Father

and the Lord Jesus Christ is about

to end, And the setting up of Christ's long-awaited kingdom is really,

if you will, like the apex of redemptive history.

Boy, we have a God who never fails. He never fails to deliver.

He's in control every step.

Everything that's happening here is part of God's plan.

Remember I told y'all before, there is no plan B.

There's only God's plan. There's no plan B.

And the use here of the singular term kingdom of the world, do you see that

there in the scripture? instead of plural kingdoms, I think it brings out an

important truth to us tonight.

All of the world's diverse national, political, social, cultural,

linguistic, and religious groups are in reality one kingdom under one king.

And that king is known in Scripture by many names and titles,

including the accuser in Revelation 12, the adversary,

Belial, the dragon, the evil one, the God of this world, the prince of the power of the air,

the roaring lion, the ruler of the demons.

We see the ruler of this world, the serpent of old, the tempter,

and most commonly, the devil, right?

In Matthew 4, 1, and Satan, of course, in 1 Timothy 5. But though God scattered

this kingdom, where did he scatter this kingdom?

Do you remember back in Genesis 11, verses 1 through 9?

Genesis 11:1–9

Where did he scatter it?

The Tower of Babel.

Satan still rules over the pieces of the once united kingdom.

And while God ordains human governments for the well-being of man,

It talks about in Romans 13, those same governments refuse to submit to him

or acknowledge his sovereignty.

We see that in Acts chapter 4. They are essentially part of whose kingdom?

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Satan's kingdom.

And by the way, I know y'all know this again, but we are not,

as Christians, we are not of this world.

We're strangers. We're aliens, right? We are not of this world.

And so we have a whole, our homeland is elsewhere. And I tell you what,

here is we see this, that Jesus affirms here that Satan, though a usurper and not the rightful king,

is the present ruler of the world.

In response to those who blasphemously accuse him of being in lead with Satan,

Jesus asked this question.

He asked it rhetorically, if you remember Matthew 12.

He said, if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself.

How then will his kingdom stand?

Three times, y'all, in John's gospel, Jesus called Satan the ruler of this world.

John 12, John 14, John 16.

And he did at Babel, as he did at Babel, Satan will rule in the future over

a united fallen mankind in one visible kingdom under Antichrist,

the beast of chapter 13 that we're about to see under his leadership.

And Satan will not relinquish his kingdom without a struggle.

But I have to remind y'all, who allowed Satan to have this kingdom to start with?

And in a desperate and doomed effort to take control of this world,

God is not allow him to overrun it with hordes of demons like we talked about

during the fifth and sixth trumpet judgments.

But his efforts are not going to keep, y'all got to get this tonight as we wrap

up, his efforts are not going to keep the true king from returning and establishing his earthly kingdom.

Jesus Christ, Eastwood, will return to sit on the throne of his father,

David. It says in 2 Samuel 7.

And he takes over the whole world from this satanically controlled people who

now possess it here in the Great Tribulation.

And that's really the theme of Revelation, the triumph of God over Satan as

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

Now, I'm going to stop there for tonight. I think that's a good place to stop.

But I want to ask y'all something tonight.

When you stop and you think about this here, and you think about what God is

going to do here at the end of time and how he's going to do this and how that

God has triumphed over Satan in its entirety, right?

And when that final war comes, right, and Christ comes, Again, how does he defeat?

How does he defeat? What does he have to do?

Do y'all remember? Does he have to pull out the sword and we all go fighting?

He's a mess. It's a worse one. He's a mess. Why is that?

Because he's sovereign. He's king. He's king.

Y'all, if we just were reminded of that, and we're going to dive deeper into

this over these weeks, but if we're just reminded of the God we serve and his

control and his sovereignty here,

even in a horrific time here, as this is going to get, and of course today as

well, but this is even more so,

he is sovereign.

And ultimately in the end, all it's going to take is the word of his mouth.

And done. Battle's over. Battle's over.

That's an awesome God. We serve an awesome God.

I hope that encouraged us too, because I know all of us probably,

we do, even in this day and age, look around sometimes and we're discouraged

by our culture and by things that are happening and the evil in our world.

Even though we realize it's going to get worse and worse and worse,

it's still sometimes discouraging, right?

And we want to have that zeal to share our faith and to let people know of what

Christ has done for them.

But be assured, let's just encourage you tonight to know that your king reigns.

There is no time he does not reign. He reigns.

And that doesn't matter. If you're facing something tonight in your own life,

it doesn't matter what it is. You can be assured that your king reigns.

He reigns. He is sovereign. He is Lord of all.

And that should be comforting to every single one of us.