In Rev. 11:14-18 there is the seventh trumpet. Without the seventh trumpet, God’s economy and His move cannot be finished. By reading chapters eight through eleven, we see that the seven trumpets are truly a great thing. When the seventh trumpet sounds, many things will happen. This trumpet will sound for a period of time, and it will last for eternity, declaring, announcing, and proclaiming God’s eternal plan. In each of the first six trumpets, only one item will transpire, but in the seventh trumpet many things will take place.
The seventh trumpet, as the last one (1 Cor. 15:52), comprises both negative and positive things. The negative things are the wrath of God, which consists of the last plagues of the seven bowls (Rev. 15:1; 16:1-21) as the last woe to the dwellers on the earth (Rev. 8:13; 9:12; 11:14), and the destruction of the destroyers of the earth, which transpires at the Lord’s coming back to earth (Rev. 17:14; 18:1-2; 19:19—20:3). The positive things are the eternal kingdom of Christ, which is the kingdom in its manifestation (11:15, 17); the judgment of the dead, which occurs before the resurrection of the saints (v. 18); and the giving of rewards to the prophets and to the saints, which transpires at the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10) after the resurrection and rapture of the saints (1 Cor. 15:23, 52; 1 Thes. 4:16-17), and at the throne of Christ’s glory (Matt. 25:31-34), to those who feared God’s name (Rev. 14:6-7). Hence, the seventh trumpet comprises all things from the end of the great tribulation to eternity future: the last plagues of the seven bowls (ch. 16); the resurrection and rapture of the saints; the rewarding of the saints; the coming back of Christ to the earth; the destruction of the great Babylon (17:1—19:6); the marriage of the Lamb (Rev. 19:7-10); the destruction of Antichrist, the false prophet, Satan, and their followers (Rev. 19:11-21; 20:1-3); the millennial kingdom (Rev. 20:4-6); the final judgment upon the earth and Satan (Rev. 20:7-10); the final judgment of the dead (Rev. 20:11-15); and the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem for eternity (Rev. 21:1-27; 22:1-5).
Revelation 11:14 says, “The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is coming swiftly.” The third woe, consisting of the seven bowls of God’s wrath (Rev. 16), is a part of the negative contents of the seventh trumpet. Since the trumpeting of the seventh trumpet is recorded after the vision concerning the destruction of Jerusalem for the last three and one-half years (Rev. 11:2), and since the seven bowls will be the last plagues of the consummation of God’s wrath (Rev. 15:1; 16:1), the woe of the seventh trumpet must be the end of the great tribulation (Matt. 24:21).
At the sounding of the seventh trumpet, not only will the great tribulation be ended, but also this age will be closed. The mystery of God will be finished (Rev. 10:7) and the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Rev. 11:15). Then another age, the age of the kingdom, the millennium, will begin.
The seventh trumpet will bring in the kingdom for eternity. Verse 15 says, “And the seventh angel trumpeted; 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.” The phrase “He shall reign forever and ever” refers to the Lord’s reign for eternity in the new heaven and the new earth (22:5). This indicates that the seventh trumpet covers the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem.
The seventh trumpet will include the seven bowls of the wrath of God as the third woe (Rev. 11:14,18; 15:1, 7-8; 16:1-21). Verse 18 says, “And the nations were wroth, and Your wrath came.” “Wrath” here refers to the wrath of the seven bowls in chapter sixteen, which are a part of the negative contents of the seventh trumpet. The last woe consists of the seven bowls of the seventh trumpet. The seven bowls will be the intensification of God’s wrath. With the pouring out of these bowls, His wrath will be exhausted. The bowls will be poured out, not upon the earth or heaven, but upon man, especially upon Antichrist and his kingdom. At the time of the last woe, Antichrist will be fighting against God, and Christ will descend to earth to fight against him with His overcoming army. The seven bowls of the third woe will be like seven bombs dropped from heaven and used by God to demolish Antichrist and his kingdom. Probably all seven bowls will be poured out within a short time. With the pouring out of these seven bowls, the great tribulation will be finished and the age will be closed.
The seventh trumpet also consists of the eternal kingdom of Christ (Rev. 11:15, 17). Verse 15 says that the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ and that He will reign forever and ever. The kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of Christ at His coming back after His judgment upon the nations (Dan. 7:13-14; 2:44-45). At this time, the twenty-four elders will fall on their faces and worship God, saying, “We thank You, Lord God the Almighty, He who is and who was, because You have taken Your great power and have reigned” (v. 17).
During the course of the seventh trumpet, Christ will judge the dead. Verse 18 says, “The time came for the dead to be judged.” The judgment of the dead mentioned in this verse does not refer to the judgment at the great white throne. Since “for the dead to be judged” is mentioned before “to give the reward to Your slaves,” it cannot refer to the judgment of the dead at the great white throne after the millennium (Rev. 20:11-15). It means that at the close of this age, before the millennium, according to John 5:27-29, the dead will be judged as to who should share in the resurrection of life before the millennium (1 Cor. 15:23; Rev. 20:4-6) and who should be left to the resurrection of condemnation after the millennium (20:11-12). Before Christ resurrects the saints, He will firstly make a judgment among the dead regarding the first resurrection of life and the second resurrection of condemnation. After He makes this decision, the resurrection of the saints will take place.
Once the saints have been resurrected, they will be raptured. First Thessalonians 4 indicates that the dead saints will rise up, not come down. Many Christians hold the mistaken concept that the dead saints are in heaven and that when the Lord Jesus comes, they will descend with Him. Read your Bible again. The saints will not come down; they will rise up and, with the living ones, will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. It is not scriptural to say that the dead saints are now in heaven.
Verse 18 also says that the time has come “to give the reward to Your slaves the prophets, and to the saints and to those who fear Your name, to the small and to the great.” The reward will be given by the Lord to His faithful ones at His coming back (Rev. 22:12; Matt. 16:27). The judgment of the prophets and the saints will take place at the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10). Its purpose will be to determine who among the saved persons will be worthy of a reward and who will need further discipline. The giving of the reward to the prophets and to the saints will occur after the resurrection and rapture of the saints (1 Cor. 15:23, 52; 1 Thes. 4:16-17).
The seventh trumpet of Rev. 11 is the last trumpet of 1 Cor. 15. At the last trumpet, the dead saints will be resurrected and, with the living ones, will be caught up into the air. It is not scriptural to say that the rapture of the majority of the saints will take place before the tribulation. How can anyone say that Christ will come back openly before the tribulation? The Bible is very clear about this. Paul says that the living saints will not precede the dead ones, and that at the last trumpet the dead saints will be resurrected. Everyone must admit that the last trumpet is the seventh trumpet. After the seventh trumpet, there will be no other trumpets. Before the seventh trumpet, there are the fifth and sixth trumpets as the main parts of the great tribulation. Since so many saints will be raptured at the seventh trumpet, which is at the end of the great tribulation, how can anyone say that the rapture of the majority of the saints will be before the tribulation? Do not follow today’s traditional teachings, which are shallow and inaccurate. We need to take the accurate word of the Bible. At the time of the seventh trumpet, the dead saints will be resurrected and the living saints will be raptured with them to the air. Thus, even at that time, Christ will not have come. At the beginning of the sounding of the seventh trumpet, He will still be in the air. After this rapture, Christ will set up His judgment seat to decide who will receive the reward and be a part of His overcoming army and who will need further discipline and punishment.
Christ will also reward the God-fearing people. Rev. 11:18 also specifically mentions that a reward will be given “to those who fear Your name.” These God-fearing people are those who heed the eternal gospel to fear God and worship Him, and not to worship the beast or his image (Rev. 14:6-7), and to care for the Lord’s needy people (Matt. 25:33-40). Then, after Christ comes back to earth and establishes the throne of His glory in Jerusalem, the center of His kingdom, He will judge the nations, all the living unbelievers. The New Testament says that Christ has been appointed to judge the living and the dead (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1). When will He judge the living? It will be after He fights the war at Armageddon and destroys Antichrist, the false prophet, and their followers (Rev. 19:11-21). At that time, there will be a large number of unbelievers still living on earth. According to Matt. 25:31-46, Christ will gather all the nations to His throne in Jerusalem and judge them.
Many think that this judgment refers to the judgment exercised upon Christians to determine who is real and who is false. But consider what Matthew 25:31 and 32 say, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He shall sit on His throne of glory; and all the nations shall be gathered before Him.” In the New Testament the word nations refers to the Gentiles. Matthew 25:32 also says, “He shall separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” This judgment will be neither according to the law nor according to the gospel of grace; it will be according to the eternal gospel preached by the angel in Revelation 14:6-7. During the three and one-half years Antichrist will force people to worship his image, an angel in mid-air will proclaim the eternal gospel, telling the people on earth not to worship the image but to fear God and worship Him. Some of the inhabitants of the earth will heed this eternal gospel and they will fear God and worship Him, will not worship the image of the beast, and will also care for the needy Jews and Christians who will be suffering under the persecution of Antichrist. Therefore, in Matthew 25:34-36, the King shall “say to those on His right hand, Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and you gave Me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.” When these righteous ones shall ask the Lord how they could have done this to Him, He shall answer, “Truly I say to you, in so far as you did it to one of these, the least of My brothers, you did it to Me” (Matt. 25:40). These “sheep” will then be transferred into the kingdom to become the nations during the millennium (2:26; 12:5). During these thousand years, the overcoming Christians will be Christ’s co-kings, the saved Jews will be the priests, and these righteous ones will be the people over whom the overcomers shall rule. The “goats,” the evil ones who followed Antichrist and refused to heed the eternal gospel, will be cast into the lake of fire “prepared for the Devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). This will occur during the seventh trumpet, taking place after the whole earth has become Christ’s kingdom.
The seventh trumpet also includes the destroying of the destroyers of the earth. Verse 18 says that Christ will “destroy those who destroy the earth.” The destroyers of the earth include the great Babylon (Rev. 17:2; 18:3), Antichrist (Rev. 13:3), the false prophet (Rev. 13:14), Satan (Rev. 20:7-9), and the people who follow them (Rev. 17:12-24; 19:19; 20:8-9). All of them will be destroyed during the seventh trumpet.
The great Babylon, the false religion, the Roman Catholic Church, must also be considered as a destroyer of the earth. Revelation 17:2 says that “the kings of the earth have committed fornication” with her, and “they who dwell on the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” Since she is a destroyer of the earth and the whole earth has been corrupted by her, the Lord will destroy her.
After destroying the great Babylon, the Lord will destroy Antichrist, the false prophet, and their followers at the war of Armageddon. Antichrist and the false prophet will be cast into the lake of fire, and Satan will be destroyed. Actually, the Lord will deal with Satan twice — firstly by binding him and casting him into the abyss before the millennium and secondly by casting him into the lake of fire after the millennium. Antichrist will be the first to be put into the lake of fire. Antichrist, the false prophet, and their followers, a part of whom will be the “goats” in Matthew 25, will be thrown into the lake of fire prior to Satan (Rev. 19:20; Matt. 25:41), who will be kept in the abyss for a thousand years and who will ultimately be cast into the lake of fire. At the end of the millennium, all the dead unsaved people will also be thrown into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:15). At that time, every negative thing in the universe will have been cleared away.
If we would understand prophecy, we must be familiar with the entire content of the seventh seal. This is the secret to knowing the prophecy of this book. When I was young, I thought that the seventh trumpet merely consisted of the seven bowls and that the seven trumpets were the unique content of the seventh seal. Holding that concept, I found it difficult to grasp the whole book of Revelation. However, after a number of years, I saw that the seven trumpets are the unique content of the seventh seal, but that the seven bowls are simply a part of the content of the seventh trumpet. The seventh trumpet includes a great deal more than just the seven bowls. As we have pointed out, the seventh trumpet includes both negative and positive things.
Verse 19 unfolds the scene in heaven after the trumpeting of the seventh trumpet. This verse says, “And the temple of God which is in heaven was opened, and the ark of His covenant was seen and His temple; and there were lightnings and voices and thunders and an earthquake and great hail.”Four earthquakes are predicted in this book. The first (6:12) is in the sixth seal, the second (8:5) is before the seven trumpets, the third (11:13) is between the sixth and seventh trumpets, and the fourth (v. 19) is both here in the seventh trumpet and in the seventh bowl (16:18-20), which constitutes the close of the negative content of the seventh trumpet.
Here in this verse, which is continued by 15:5, we see that the temple of God was opened. The throne with the rainbow in 4:2-3 is the center of all the judgments executed over the earth in chapters six through eleven on the negative side; whereas the temple with the ark is the center of all God’s accomplishments in the universe carried out in chapters twelve through twenty-two on the positive side. The throne with the rainbow, the center of the first section, is for God’s judgment. The temple with the ark, the center of the second section, is for God’s building. Firstly, on the negative side, we have God’s judgment, and secondly, on the positive side, we have God’s building. For God’s judgment, the throne with the rainbow is the center, and for God’s building, His temple with His ark is the center.
God’s judgment is fully accomplished in the first section of the book. The main thought of the second section is God’s building. Who will be the temple? God’s people, mainly the church. Who is the ark? Christ. Therefore, the center of God’s building in eternity will be Christ and the church. We are not under the throne with the rainbow — we are in the temple with God. We are not under God’s judgment — we are in God’s building. Antichrist and the unbelievers will all be under God’s throne with the rainbow, but we are here in the temple with the ark, in God’s building with Christ.
What light the Lord has shown us! After the sounding of the seven trumpets in the first section, all the mysteries will be over, all the judgments will be carried out, and all the exercise of God’s administration will be completed. Only one thing will remain to be continued — God’s building. Because of this, the view, the scene, the sight, in heaven is changed from the throne with the rainbow to the temple with the ark. What do you see today — the throne with the rainbow or the temple with the ark? We see the temple with the ark. We see Christ and the church. This vision is not for us to be holy or spiritual; rather, it is for us to be built up. We all must see the temple with the ark for God’s building.
When the temple of God in heaven is opened and the ark of His covenant is seen in His temple, there are lightnings, voices, thunders, an earthquake, and great hail (v. 19). This is the same as what will transpire after the pouring out of the seventh bowl (Rev. 16:17-21). Lightnings, voices, and thunders are solemn declarations of God’s wrath in His judgment. The earthquake and the great hail are the actual judgment. By the earthquake, which will be the greatest in history, the cities, including the earthly Jerusalem and Rome, Babylon the Great, will be shaken and will fall (16:19). By the great hail, men will suffer the exceeding great plague (16:21). This will be the end of the great tribulation.
The book of Revelation is divided into two sections. The first section, consisting of chapters one through eleven, affords us a brief sketch, a general view of things. Since it is merely a sketch, it does not contain the details. Therefore, the following section, consisting of chapters twelve through twenty-two, gives us the details of the main items contained in the first section. Every chapter contains some details. For example, without chapters twenty-one and twenty-two, we would never know the details of the New Jerusalem mentioned in 3:12. The two sections of Revelation resemble the first and second chapters of Genesis. Genesis 1 gives a general record of God’s creation, especially of the creation of man. Genesis 2 supplies the details concerning God’s creation of man. Just as we need Genesis 2 to supplement the general picture of Genesis 1, so we need the second section of Revelation to supply the details of the crucial items mentioned in a general way in the first section.
