Day 186

15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices shouting in heaven: “The world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,    and he will reign forever and ever.” 16 The twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones before God fell with their faces to the ground and worshipped him. 17 And they said, “We give thanks to you, Lord God, the Almighty,    the one who is and who always was, for now, you have assumed your great power and have begun to reign. 18 The nations were filled with wrath,  but now the time of your wrath has come. It is time to judge the dead and reward your servants the prophets,  as well as your holy people, and all who fear your name,    from the least to the greatest. It is time to destroy all who have caused destruction on the earth.” Rev 11:15 – 18

The 24 elders are an obvious reference to the 24 cycles of Priesthood in the OT Hebrew Sanctuary. In Rev 4:9 we noticed the 24 elders giving continual thanks to God for creation and for His mighty acts of salvation. Now they praise God for His end-time invasion of the kingdom of this world, and for replacing it with His own kingdom, grounded in the monumental acts of Christ. When we fully grasp what Christ has done for us, it changes our attitude toward everything. This is one of the major functions of Revelation. By raising our perspective from our own little world to the grandeur of God’s universe, we become aware of how deeply grateful we should be. 

This passage offers a summary of the final events of earth’s history. There are five main parts to these events. The nations are angry, the wrath of God has come, and also the time to judge the dead, reward the righteous and destroy those who are destroying the earth. Is this a time when the nations are angry? 

God responds in kind to the anger of the nations. The “wrath of God” here is a nutshell summary of the seven last plagues of Revelation 16.  God’s final word in this trumpet is judgment. In the judgment, the wrongs of this world will be made right. The oppressors will be defeated, and the victims will be rescued and vindicated. It will not be a time of pointless violence; it will be a time of setting things straight. 

No matter how you paint it, the Bible is right about the injustices of this world. If this life is all we have to look forward to nothing will ever change. If there is no such thing as judgment or resurrection, there will never be any justice in this world. The Bible writers believed that there was a judgment to come and a resurrection and that is the only hope we have. 

The resurrection and the judgment tell us that, someday, God will set everything right. While His justice may not be visible to many eyes just yet, we are nearer than ever to the time spoken of in this text.