AP

Revelation 11:15   The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.”

The Book of Revelation gives a quite frightening picture of what happens in a world of people that rebel against their Creator.  The most frightening thing for us is that many of the word pictures Revelation paints are of things that we see happening around us today.  The ‘kingdom of the world’ is a realm where Man the creature sets himself up as the autonomous ruler, defying the rightful authority of the Creator to whom he is accountable.  The ‘prince of this world’, Satan (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), is the one who convinced us to claim this autonomy in the first place (Genesis 3:1-4), and we have been making a mess of things on the basis of this claim ever since!

God’s judgements against this rebellion have been clear, just and articulated throughout history, although ‘autonomous’ Man fails to recognise God’s sovereign control over ALL history, and he therefore LEARNS NOTHING from God’s gracious ‘warning shots’.  Sadly, the Sovereign Creator’s FINAL Judgement will be even more devastating than the warning shots, and Man will be without excuse, and the Lord Jesus Christ will return in power and reign forever.

Taking all these things into account, the Book of Revelation is very comforting for believers.  Here, as the seventh and last trumpet is sounded, the loud voices in heaven proclaimed the final chapter in the Creator’s story: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.”  Later, in 13:8 and 17:8, it will be revealed to John that this Christ, the Lord Jesus, is “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” and that those who have put their trust in him as Saviour, and who have forfeited their claim to autonomy and have submitted to him as Lord of their lives, have had their names “written in the book of life from the creation of the world”.  In these ‘last days’ as God’s final Judgement draws near, these words are not only a great comfort but also a stimulus for evangelism.