The Seventh Trumpet
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Tonight we get to imagine heaven a bit. We one of the more lengthy views of the eternal age of glory that we have seen in Revelation thus far.
We are at the tail end of the 3rd of 7 cycles in Revelation.
We have seen the first cycle, which includes the 7 churches
We have seen the second cycle, which included the 7 seals
In the third cycle, we have seen God showing us the way things are and the way things will be with the seven trumpets
Much like the seals, the first four trumpets were all grouped together.
In them, we saw how God’s judgments will be active in the world until Christ returns and it will have ramifications for humanity
In the Fifth Trumpet, we saw how Satan and his demonic forces will wreak havoc on the lives of unbelievers until Christ returns
In the Sixth Trumpet, we saw how humanity will tear itself apart with war until Christ comes back
Then we got to this interlude in chapters 10 and 11.
In it, John was commissioned to take God’s revelation to the nations and to internalize it for himself as well
And right after that, the interlude moved to a vision that symbolizes the witness of the church until Christ comes back
We had John measuring the church’s worship and devotion
The church is represented by the temple in 11:1-2
We had John telling us about how the church will witness to the world and the world will attack the church and kill her members and dance over their bodies
And the interlude wrapped up last week with the beginning of the end:
But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. And at 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.
The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come.
The second woe refers to the threes woes pronounced by the eagle in Revelation 8:13
Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!”
With each woe, things have gotten worse. With the passing of the second woe in chapter 11 and the third woe soon to come, we are seeing the end.
In verses 11-14, we have the church being resurrected and raptured.
We have judgment falling on a portion of humanity right off the bat with a giant earthquake
And then you have the rest of humanity begrudgingly giving glory to God.
That leads us to the end of the third cycle. The 7th Trumpet.
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, 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 shall reign forever and ever.” And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying,
“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,
who is and who was,
for you have taken your great power
and begun to reign.
The nations raged,
but your wrath came,
and the time for the dead to be judged,
and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints,
and those who fear your name,
both small and great,
and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”
Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.
THE OPEN HEAVEN (v. 19)
THE OPEN HEAVEN (v. 19)
I don’t know if you long for heaven as a believer in the Lord, but you should. It should be the cry of your heart, the same way a weary traveler who is too tired to go on might cry out, “I just want to get home.”
This should be the cry of the Christian heart. I just want to go home.
In Heaven, we’ll be at home with the God we love and who loves us wholeheartedly.164
Randy Alcorn, Heaven
If you write to me, write to me like this: at Westminster, London. Temporary address: Westminster; permanent address: heaven in Christ. I am but a stranger here, heaven is my home.
Love so Amazing, 139
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
When Charles Spurgeon imagined heaven, he imagined a home where he is fully with Jesus at every moment and in every location.
Above, beneath, around, within, without, everywhere it is heaven. I breathe heaven, I drink heaven, I feel heaven, I think heaven. Everything is heaven. Oh, “what must it be to be there?” To be there is to be with Christ.
Charles Spurgeon
The 7th Trumpet peels back the curtain on the place where Christ is seated.
We get a taste of glory and we are reminded that Christ’s return will not be glorious for everyone.
Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.
The beginning of verse 19 should cause your head to pop right up.
“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened...”
That is incredible.
Like when a realtor opens a property for people to look around and see the grounds, God is opening up heaven and letting us have a look around.
And we start there because that is the key to this passage.
What verse 19 is showing is that when the 7th trumpet sounds, God will put His glorious eternal work on display for the whole universe.
From the beginning, He has been building the temple that we saw at the beginning of chapter 11.
You see a promise after the Fall of humanity in the Garden with the sin of Adam and Eve.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
A child will come from Eve’s line who will step on Satan’s head.
This is Jesus.
We see the lineage in Luke’s Gospel:
the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
And we see the purpose of Christ in coming against Satan in John’s first pastoral letter:
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
Every promise that you see in the Old Testament is fulfilled in this child who will come from Eve’s line:
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
This would include the promises made to Israel concerning:
Land: A place for the people to dwell with God and God to dwell with the people
Lineage: Abraham would have a family who comes from his line that are covenant worshippers of God like him
Blessing: Through Abraham, the whole world will be blessed and if you mess with Abraham, it will not be good for you, you will be cursed.
Throughout the Old Testament, Israel will find the blessings promised to Abraham coming to them if they keep covenant with God by believing Him and obeying Him.
But they kept falling into this brutal cycle where they would repent, then they would sin again, and then God would discipline them and then they would repent.
And then before long, the cycle was starting again.
So in the midst of some of the most hard discipline God lovingly gives them, as they languish in Exile, God speaks through Jeremiah and reminds them that His promises to His people are still true.
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
So it will be a new covenant different than the one made with Moses through the Law at Sinai.
Israel kept breaking that law with their cycle of sin.
Therefore, God will make a new covenant with the house of Israel.
Jesus came to institute that New Covenant.
And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
So His death inaugurates the New Covenant
And the Jewish Apostles are told to go and take the news of Jesus’ death and resurrection and witness in the Spirit to the truth of it in Jerusalem.
But it is not to stay there. The Gospel is to go to all the world. Because now, God is bringing Gentiles in on His promises.
By Acts 10, Peter is in Cornelius’ house, a God-fearing Gentile, preaching Abraham’s faith to a non-Jewish man and that man believes
Why is God now bringing the Gentiles in on this? Why is He bringing people like Cornelius in on the promises? Jesus actually explains this in His parable about the vineyard
And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this Scripture:
“ ‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.
In this parable, God is the man who plants the vineyard and leases it to tenants.
The vineyard represents the Kingdom
The tenants represent Israel.
The servants that are sent to the tenants are the OT prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah
The Son who is sent is Jesus.
The tenants (Israel) kill Him too.
In light of that, God will give the vineyard away to others (ie, the Gentiles) because the Jewish tenants have rejected the cornerstone—Christ—the Son of God
This is why you see the Gospel going from Jerusalem to the nations. God is giving the Kingdom to the Gentiles.
There will still be Jewish people in the Kingdom too. They are the original branches and the Gentiles are grafted in. That is the language of Romans 9-11...
But now the promises to Abraham are being offered to the nations if they would believe God like Abraham by turning from their sin and trusting in Christ.
And now, God is building His church—His living temple—with one living stone at a time.
He is stacking them up with each and every conversion.
And the church that He is building will ultimately receive the Genesis 12 promises because they are Abraham’s children by faith.
Think about what was promised:
A land to dwell with God in—this promise is ultimately fulfilled in Christ who delivers the new heavens and the new earth to us by His saving work.
A lineage—the church itself is the lineage of Abraham because they have the same faith as him. This is not physical heritage, but spiritual heritage. And we are the children of God by the death and rising of Christ.
A blessing to the world—the whole world is blessed through Abraham’s line because Christ is redeeming people from every tribe and nation and tongue to be a part of His church
And when that church is finished and the final living stone is put in place, the end will come and God will show off the work that He has been doing through His Son from the very start.
Glory and hallelujah.
I want to stop and pray right now because the Gospel is so good.
Father, we thank You for the wisdom of Your plan of salvation. It is so rich and glorious that it could only be from You. O Sovereign King—be glorified in our hearts when we think about Your plan. We long for the open house of heaven. We are grateful that we can imagine ourselves standing there. It is a thought we only possess because we are able to lay claim to Your Son’s blessings by faith. Your Son has brought us the blessings of Father Abraham. Give us his faith to continue trusting in Your Son every second of every minute. In Christ’s name, Amen.
Father, we thank You for the wisdom of Your plan of salvation. It is so rich and glorious that it could only be from You. O Sovereign King—be glorified in our hearts when we think about Your plan. We long for the open house of heaven. We are grateful that we can imagine ourselves standing there. It is a thought we only possess because we are able to lay claim to Your Son’s blessings by faith. Your Son has brought us the blessings of Father Abraham. Give us his faith to continue trusting in Your Son every second of every minute. In Christ’s name, Amen.
So what this means is that God is showing off His work.
He is saying, “In my love and my mercy and my wisdom and my kindness and my wrath and my sovereignty—this is what I have been doing through all of history and the work is complete. Take a gander. It’s awesome.”
In the Old Testament, the tabernacle and the temple were paperweights until the Lord would come in the flesh and redeem His people so that they could know Him and love Him.
The temple that is being shown off in verse 19 is the real deal.
It is the complete work of redemption. The architectural representation of Jesus’ bride that He fiercely loves. The one He knows intimately. The one He measures in terms of devotion and worship.
Verse 19 also shows us the ark of the covenant.
The ark was the most obvious sign of God’s presence in the Old Testament.
The lid was the mercy seat.
The priests would sprinkle blood on it to atone for iniquity and pardon Israel
Inside of the ark were the tablets of the Law.
I think it is really tempting to try and say the ark is supposed to be Jesus.
The ark represented the fullness of God’s glory
His law and His mercy
Christ is the radiance of God’s glory according to Hebrews 1 and John says He is full of grace and truth in John 1:14...
But as I’ve said—when Christ is in view in Revelation, I think it is really clear.
Instead, I believe the ark being revealed is just God showing us that He is with His people.
In the OT Temple, the ark was never seen. It was hidden behind a thick curtain in the Most Holy Place.
But now, Christ has inaugurated the Kingdom in His first coming and when He returns, He will consummate it.
There will be no more sin in between God and His children.
God is showing off His church and He is showing that He is with them by including the ark in the vision
Summing up this key verse, I think William Hendriksen is helpful:
Hence, when this ark is now seen, that is, fully revealed, the covenant of grace in all its sweetness is realized in the hearts and lives of God’s children.
When God opens that temple up, it is a message to the whole world:
I did what I said I was going to do.
I did it through my Son.
I built my church.
I am with my people.
The work is complete and the age of glory is underway—forever and for good.
It is God alone who makes heaven to be heaven.
Thomas Brooks
Brooks is right. And verse 19 is God showing us His people dwelling with Him in the heaven He has made.
Now with that said, if God’s people are enjoying His presence after the 7th trumpet blows, what is going on with “those who dwell on the earth?”
Well, the back half of verse 19 confirms they are undergoing the final judgment that was kicking off with the great earthquake in verse 13.
The lightning, rumbling thunder, the earthquake and the heavy hail are consistent of what we see of Final Judgment in the Sixth Seal and the Seventh Bowl.
When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale.
The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake.
While it isn’t as explicit as it is in other places, the language here is meant to be a reminder that Revelation only has one ending.
Jesus wins.
The Church is victorious in Him.
Those who dwell on the earth are cursed for opposing Him and judged with wrath
That’s it—so you must be sure that you are on Christ’s side.
GLORIOUS NOISE (v. 15-18)
GLORIOUS NOISE (v. 15-18)
So with all of that stated, let’s go back to the beginning of the trumpet’s blast in verse 15 and see if we can learn more of what heaven will be like as the Lord is returning.
We have had some dark chapters with demon locusts and what not.
Let’s spend our last few minutes pouring over these exciting words telling us of this great reality to come.
The seventh angel blows the trumpet in verse 15 and there are loud voice in heaven who are speaking.
That is a lot of noise in one verse.
But it is in keeping with the rest of the book. Revelation is a loud book.
From Jesus having a voice that is like the sound of many waters
To the sound of worship around the throne in Revelation 4-5 to the eagle pronouncing three woes in this 3rd cycle.
We are not given a source for the loud voices. We do not know who is calling out. We just know that it is LOUD.
Now, while we don’t know who is shouting, we do know what they are shouting. We see it in the rest of verse 15:
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”
We haven’t talked a lot about postmillenialism during our study, but this is a verse that a lot of postmillenialists interpret to be talking about Christianity in the political realm.
Postmillenialism teaching that Christ returns after a 1000 year millenial period on the earth.
If you are an amillenialist, you are like, “Close but no cigar on that view.”
If you are a premillenialist, as I imagine most of our church was coming into this study, you just like, “Ew. No sir.”
I am just telling you what they believe!
Part of this doctrinal belief is the idea that the political organizations of the world will be won over by Christians and create a golden age of Christianity on the earth. Once that happens, then Jesus will return.
In some ways, Postmillenialists see it as their job to make this the sort of the world Jesus would want to come back to.
Right now, there are some famous postmillenialists who contend for Christian nationalism.
The idea that it is the church’s job to take over the political realm.
They do this in part, because they believe it will rend the 2nd Coming.
But I reject all of this. I do not believe that v. 15 is referring to the Christianization of the political realm, triggering the millenium, which will then bring about the 2nd Coming.
I don’t think v. 15 refers to this present age at all.
This is heavenly worship in kingdom come at the conclusion of history.
It is quite possible that the words in this verse are an allusion to the song Moses lifted to God after deliverance from Egypt.
Exodus 15:17–18 (ESV)
You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain,
the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode,
the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.
The Lord will reign forever and ever.”
Pharoah will not reign forever and ever. God will reign forever and ever.
That is implied in that song of victory.
There was a showdown and God won. He reigns.
In the same way, here we have the loud voices on heaven on the shore of eternity celebrating the eternal deliverance from Abbadon the Destroyer—Satan. The king over the bottomless pit.
Celebrating the fact that the kingdoms of Satan are now the kingdoms of Christ and Christ shall reign forever and ever. Satan will not.
In John 12:31, Jesus says this about Satan:
John 12:31 (ESV)
Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.
When Jesus said ruler, the word could be translated to prince.
The bottom line is Jesus acknowledges this temporary authority Satan has been given on earth.
It isn’t full authority. He is still bound in many ways.
But it is enough authority that in his demonic ego, certainly he sees himself as the ruler of the earth.
That is why he offers Jesus the kingdom in the wilderness temptation in Matthew and Luke. He thought it was his to offer.
But in truth, Satan is a ruler who only has as much authority as the Ultimate Ruler, God Almighty, will give him.
Satan hates this. He wants all of God’s power. He has been after it from the start.
He wanted it in the garden when he came for Eve’s heart. When he came for Adam’s wife. He was after it when he compelled Cain to rise up and murder his brother.
And we know he was after it when he tried to have the Son of God murdered and the Lord killed for good. He actually thought that was the end result of Calvary.
But it wasn’t. Christ rose. Christ ascended. Christ will return. And Christ will rule forever.
And that is what the loud voices are celebrating.
There was never doubt. They are not surprised by the outcome. But it still deserves a LOUD praise to be lifted to Jesus.
And then we have verses 16-18, which is the song of the 24 elders from Revelation 4 and 5.
Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads.
We do not have time for a real deep dive on this, but I would be happy to send you my notes from that sermon so you can go back and check out the details.
For tonight, let me simply state that I argued these are not angels, but people. And I am basing that on what we see in Revelation 21:12-14
It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed— on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
I believe the elders are the twelve sons of Israel and the twelve Apostles.
The leadership of the Old Covenant Community
The leadership of the New Covenant Community
Jewish people; the natural branches
The apostles who reached the Gentile people; the grafted in branches
One spiritual community with the dividing wall of hostility torn down by Christ who died and has made the two one under His Head and authority
That is who these elders represent—God’s people.
They sing in Revelation 4 as well.
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”
Here, they sing about the sovereign control of God throughout history and how from the fall of Adam to the triumph of Christ, God’s purposes will not be thwarted and He will win. Nothing stops Him. Nothing impedes His decreed will.
They give thanks to God, the One who is and was for the fact that He has taken His great power and begun His eternal rule.
The nations tried to stop this. Verse 18 tells us that and is a definite reference to Psalm 2...
Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
In this Psalm, the nations are raging against God and His Anointed.
While the Psalm is about David in the immediate, in Acts, Peter interprets this passage to be about Jesus.
He is the Anointed. The Messiah.
“Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Much like Satan thinks he can destroy God, so do the nations he inspires with his demonic thoughts and desires.
But God holds them in derision. He mocks them.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
So the Satan and the nations try to rival God, they won’t win. He will win because His Son, the Victor, is enthroned as the King.
And if the nations do not want to be crushed under God’s wrath, they must turn to the Son in faith. They must “kiss the Son.”
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
The inheritance of the Son is the nations. The kingdoms of this world from v. 15.
The ends of the earth are His possession.
He will rule over them forever and the rulers of the earth—as well as everyone under their rule—must turn from sin, serve the Lord with trembling and Kiss the Son in faith.
Otherwise, you will perish under His wrath.
But if you take refuge in the Son, you will be blessed.
King David saw the return of Christ from afar through a prophetic and poetic lens and he relayed that to us under the inspiration of the Spirit in the Scriptures.
But here in Revelation 11, with the blowing of the 7th trumpet, what David saw from afar has come near.
It is so close that we can hear it.
So close that we can see heaven opened up and God dwelling with His people.
So the time has arrived. The nations raged throughout the 3rd cycle.
They raged as the earth came apart and their economies and lives were impacted by His judgments in the world.
They raged against one another in war as God allowed humanity to be given over to their sin.
They rage against Christ as they follow the Beast and kill the church in the streets.
But now, their rage is falling under God’s wrath.
It is time for judgment.
Those who dwell on the earth will receive their punishment, along with the prince of darkness that they followed.
And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Revelation 20:7-10 is an elaborated picture of the judgment spoken of by the elders in Revelation 11:18...
But not only will the rage of the nations be judged, the faithfulness of the church will be rewarded.
Chapters 2 and 3 were filled with promises for the churches who would be faithful and overcome, despite serious persecution and suffering and challenges
Those promises are coming to pass in verse 18.
For everyone who fears God, great and small will be rewarded as Satan and all those who have chosen to destroy creation with him, will perish.
For believers, heaven is opened.
For unbelievers, there are the signs of judgment—lightning, thunder, earthquake and hail.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
ILLUSTRATION: I remember a friend of mine telling me about his dying grandfather.
He took his family to visit him because they knew it would be one of the last times they saw him.
Grandpa mustered all his strength to get out of bed and sit at the dinner table with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
My friend asked his Grandpa, “What are you looking forward to the most about heaven?”
My friend’s daughters answered for him and said, “Grandma! You can’t wait to see Grandma!”
And his grandfather said, “Are you crazy? I want to see Jesus!”
See—heaven will be filled with people with loud voices who love Jesus.
It will be filled with a church giving thanks on the shore of eternity for salvation and deliverance
It will be filled people who long to be in God’s presence forever.
If you do not love Jesus with a loud voice now...
If you do not give thanks to Him now...
If you do not long to be with Him now...
How can you say you are heaven-bound because that is your home? You can’t.
You would have to say your life looks more suited for the kingdoms of this world than the Kingdom of the Son.
Well then agree with God you are wrong and repent.
Kiss the Son, lest you die in His wrath.
Because the reward will only come to those who are His servants and His saints
Repent tonight.
Are you a servant? Are you a saint?
Do you love the Lord Jesus?
If the answer is yes, then pray for the kingdom to come.
For the destroyers to be destroyed and for the Lord to take His great power and begin His eternal reign. Maranatha.