1. Revelation 11:15 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

At what point in history are we to place the sounding of this trumpet?

Revelation 11:15 (ESV)

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.”

As with so much in the book of Revelation, we are not to place the seventh trumpet in the thin slice of time just before Christ’s return. Jesus had himself told John on Patmos (toward the end of the first century AD) that he would show him “the things that must soon take place” (Revelation 1:1; see also Revelation 4:1). The events of this book give an overview of all that the Lord had ordained should happen over the centuries of his church-gathering work. In fact, part of the action initiated by the blowing of the seventh trumpet is the effort of the devil to destroy Jesus at his birth (Revelation 12:4–5). The events belonging to this trumpet describe elements from all of church history, specifically the devil’s continued efforts in all times and places to destroy the church of God (Revelation 12:13–17).