The Grand Announcement

Revelation 11:15-19

The Grand Announcement

Intro: From 1932 to 1934 Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker went on a crime spree that included killing, stealing cars, robbing gas stations, banks, and grocery stores and escaping from prison. The spree spanned across Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and North Carolina.

While some of society treated Bonnie and Clyde like celebrities, one website referred to them as depression era Kardashians, others were most likely terrified of meeting them or their gang in their Local Piggly Wiggly, a local grocery store, and becoming one of their victims. With the depression causing poverty, and unemployment, It seemed like there may be no end to a bad situation and it may get worse if criminals could run roughshod over the countryside.

The Texas Ranger Museum sheds some light on the facts.they say, Bonnie and Clyde were not necessarily loved in their day. People were terrified of them because they had a tendency to start shooting if anything looked wrong. By the time they died, they had killed at least 12 people, mostly law enforcement officers but also some shopkeepers who simply got in their way. In today’s terminology, they were serial killers.

The escape from a Texas prison in January of 1934, brought Retired Texas Ranger Frank Hamer into the manhunt that was already busy and full of police from a lot of agencies such as local and state police and the FBI.

The Texas Ranger and other Lawmen and Bonnie and Clyde were set on a collision course that would decide if law and order would win out or their reign of terror and crime continued.

And so we see in our world it seems like the world or the evil in the world is just going to keep going. With the seventh trumpet looming, it sounds like more bad news.

This section of Revelation stars the final Act of God’s plan and it is announced with the Seventh trumpet.

Read Verses:

Main Point: Rejoice! The Kingdom of God Transforms the World

I. The King is Everlasting (15)

15 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.”

It is easy to get wrapped up in the kingdom and it is an important aspect. But what or really, who we need to focus on is the King.

The scenes shift from the events on earth back to what John sees in heaven. And we are told the Seventh Angel blows his trumpet, but instead of sending woes or plagues, but this is a great announcement that The Kingdom of the world becomes or transforms into the Kingdom of Our Lord.

Like the Bonny and Clyde crime spree, evil ends, it cannot go on forever. Most people do not enjoy living in or under evil and the ones who do have given their lives over to the evil one. Then people who fear God Pray to Him for it to end We heard the saints ask How Long will the calamities continue.

With the Seventh Trumpet we have the answer to the prayer.

In the Lord’s model prayer, one of the petitions is “Your will be done / on earth as it is in heaven,” following appropriately the petition “Your kingdom come” (Matt 6:10). It could be argued that “on earth as it is in heaven” is the conclusive explanatory phrase of what that petition means. Heaven’s announcement and celebration now focuses on the answer to that prayer and announces that in some new and obvious sense never before experienced the coming of Christ and the establishment of his kingdom will be a fulfillment of the promised reign of the Son of David.

Jesus said Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. And with his life death and resurrection, the Kingdom is here and yet, not completely realized just yet.

Gregory Beale says Jesus’s life launched the fulfillment of the eschatology already-not yet new-creations reign, bestowed by grace through faith and resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to advance this new creational reign and resulting in judgment for the unbelieving unto the triune God’s glory.

This is the idea of Verse 15 and it announces the everlasting Kingdom. God did not create the word and then finally come back at the end to clean up and take over the house again. He has been here. The Bible appears in cycles with revelations as To who God is.

The seventh trumpet can also be linked to the Story of Jericho when on the seventh day the trumpets blew and the city walls fell. This was God’s work. As part of His everlasting plan.

The Bible is clear though that God is everlasting.

Isaiah 40:28 ESV

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

Psalm 90:2 ESV

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Daniel Calls the One he meets, who is Jesus, the Ancient of Days.

You don’t live forever and correlate and control the universe if you are weak. You can only do those things if you are mighty.

II. The King is Mighty (16-17)

16 And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 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 elders in the throne room again recognize Who God is for Who he is. He is the lord God almighty. He is the one we look to for things we need. We look to God to save us because as the song says, he is mighty to save.

The celestial proclamation of the coming of Christ’s kingdom has a salutary effect on the 24 elders. Until this moment they are pictured as seated on their thrones before God; but when the announcement comes, these 24 elders abandoned their thrones and fell on their faces and worshipped God.

The Greek word for “Fell” (epesan) is the same word that appears in v. 13 where a significant part of the city of Jerusalem “fell.” With this picture in mind, one can appreciate the sudden action of the 24 elders in abandoning their thrones to prostrate themselves before the God of the universe, whom they proceed to worship.

The word translated “almighty” is the Greek word pantokratōr, which has a sense of irresistible power, a word employed relatively seldom in classical Greek. Michaelis says, “The reference is not so much to God’s activity in creation as to his supremacy over all things.

This irresistible power of God captivates those of us who answer the call. We are drawn to him like moths to a flame, yet we do not burn up.

John 6:44 ESV

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

John 12:32 ESV

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Psalm 145:18 ESV

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

Frank Hamer Got the call to catch Bonnie and Clyde and the barrow gang because He was known to be capable of getting the Job done.

A lot of other police officers were unsuccessful in bringing them to justice. But Frank was smart and capable. He looked for patterns and knew that they always came home. So he staked out their houses near Dallas, developed contacts and knew where they were headed next. Which was Bienville Parish Louisiana.

The final conflict was set in motion.

The apostles were drawn to Jesus Christ and they waited and watched as he performed miracles and they ate and drank with him on the last night of his life before his trial and crucifixion. They thought they had followed the right person until he died and they thought he was not as mighty as they thought. But he rose again three days later to conquer.

III. The King Conquers (18-19)

18 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.”

19 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 elder’s song continues and it is almost like a commentary of time. The nations raged but your wrath came, it is now time for the end times to be fulfilled.

The nations have always been raging, because Satan is always raging against God. We get some background of that battle in chapter 12.

The battle continued into the Garden of Eden, and then with the Pharaoh when he tried to kill the male children, But God preserved Moses in order to free His people. The battle stretched across time within God’s people because at an found a new attack plan. Destroying them from the inside out, by working in the dough like yeast.

In Jesus' time, He used Herod to act like Pharaoh to kill Jesus, but God knew the plan, because Satan only has so much ability or ingenuity. He isn’t very creative.

God conquered death at the resurrection and is now waiting for the final battle.

The final judgment takes place at the Bema seat, which is on top of the Ark.

The ark represents not only judgment but also the seat of forgiveness and God’s presence with His people. The mercy seat is on top of it.

And there is a theory if you visualize Luke’s description of the Easter Tomb, it represents the Ark.

Application:

Continue to Hope

1 Peter 1:13

13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.

1 Thessalonians 1:3

3 We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Continue to Fight or resist the enemy

2 Timothy 4:7 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

Ephesians 6:12 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."

Jacob wrestled with God but he had been wrestling with a lot of others before this. His name means “supplanter" or “deceiver." After Jacob had wrestled with God, he realized that “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered" (Gen 32:20). Jacob’s name was later changed to Israel as God said “you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed" (Gen 32:28). Today, we wrestle against an unseen enemy. Satan and his demons are spirit beings but very powerful ones too and because of this, it is necessary to put on “the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil" (Eph 6:11).

Continue to Trust

Psalm 56:3-4

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?

Psalm 37:5

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.

Conclusion:

Frank Hamer and is team brought order to a chaotic situation and waged a quick war against the Barrow Gang.

Today’s Passage is the beginning of the end and How God has planned out His final stages to bring His kingdom into existence and restore the perfect order to His world, that was ruined by Satan. But All of this shows us God’s power and sovereignty over all of His creation.

We must hold fast to God and the covenant he has made with us.