"Then Is Finished The Mystery Of God"

Chapter 20

The Seventh Angel Blows His Trumpet

Revelation 11:14-19

NINETEEN centuries ago the apostle John saw in symbols ("signs") what happened after the sixth heavenly angel blew his trumpet. What followed the trumpet blowing was declared to be the second of a series of three woes. The "second woe" came about through the loosing of the "four angels that are bound at the great river Euphrates." — Revelation 9:13-15.

Just after the loosing of the "four angels" two hundred million fierce-looking horses, under riders, charged against a "third of the men" to kill them. Similarly, after God's revived "two witnesses" ascended to heaven and "the city" was damaged by the great "earthquake," hundreds of millions of pieces of Bible literature in favor of God's heavenly kingdom and against the League of Nations and the United Nations were circulated under the guidance of the "two witnesses" class. What a woe that was to Christendom!

Quite properly, then, after the apostle John had reported on the "great earthquake," he could write: "The second woe is past. Look! The third woe is coming quickly." (Revelation 11:14) This "third woe" was left for announcement by the only remaining angel with an unblown trumpet, "the seventh angel." What kind of woe will he announce?

"And the seventh angel blew his trumpet. And loud voices occurred in heaven, saying: 'The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and

of his Christ, and he will rule as king forever and ever.'" — Revelation 11:15.

The expression "the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ" identifies this government as the Messianic kingdom established by the Lord God Jehovah, for "his Christ" or his Messiah shares in it. By this kingdom Jehovah "will rule as king forever and ever."

Kingdom of the world of mankind rightly belongs to Jehovah God. But from 607 B.C.E. onward he had allowed his kingship of the world by means of an anointed descendant of the royal family of King David to lapse, to be interrupted. For how long? For a period of "seven times," seven symbolic "times," or two thousand five hundred and twenty years. (Daniel 4:16, 23, 25) Those "seven times" of unchallenged, uninterrupted rule of the world by Gentile world powers ended around October 4/5 in 1914 C.E. It was then that the kingdom of the world of mankind legitimately did "become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ." Then Jesus the Christ or Messiah in heaven did accept kingship from the Source of all rightful kingship, Jehovah.

Back in the year 29 C.E., in the mountain of temptation, Jesus had refused to accept kingship when Satan the Tempter said to him: "I will give you all this authority and the glory of them [the kingdoms of the inhabited earth], because it has been delivered to me, and to whomever I wish I give it. You, therefore, if you do an act of worship before me, it will all be yours." Unhesitatingly Jesus Christ made his choice against Satan the Devil and for Jehovah God, saying in reply to the Devil: "It is written, 'It is Jehovah your God you must worship, and it is to him alone you must render sacred service.'" (Luke 4:5-8; Matthew 4:8-10) Three and a half years later, shortly before being put to death on a stake, this Jesus said to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, at Jerusalem: "My kingdom is no part of this world. . . . But, as it is, my kingdom is not from this source." (John 18:36) He died because of refusing to accept

kingship over earth at the hands of Satan the Devil, that he might accept kingship in 1914 C.E. at the hands of the Lord God Jehovah, who had made a covenant with him for such kingdom. — Luke 22:28-30; Daniel 7:13, 14.

THE MYSTERY FINISHED

But hold on there! At Revelation 10:7 God's angel solemnly, on oath, declared: "In the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to blow his trumpet, the sacred secret of God according to the good news which he declared to his own slaves the prophets is indeed brought to a finish." Or, according to the American Standard Version: "In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then is finished the mystery of God, according to the good tidings which he declared to his servants the prophets." What now, at the blowing of the seventh trumpet, is this "mystery of God" proved to be?

Well, when the seventh angel did begin to sound, heavenly voices were heard to say with a loud voice: "The kingdom [the kingship, the right and title to reign] of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ [his Messiah]." This proves that the "mystery of God" is the kingdom of the Lord God Jehovah, his ruling as King, by means of his Messiah or Christ. In ancient Israel, during the years 1077 to 607 B.C.E., Jehovah God ruled as king by means of his anointed ones, David and his royal descendants, who sat "upon Jehovah's throne" at Jerusalem. (1 Chronicles 29:23) But now he reigns by his antitypical David, his beloved Son Jesus Christ.

So, then, when and how was this royal "mystery of God" finished? It was finished at the end of the Gentile Times in 1914 and by Jehovah's beginning this kingdom of Himself by means of his Messiah or Christ, the resurrected, glorified Jesus Christ. Thus at last he put his secret purpose into action. His power to rule as King over the world of mankind

was rightfully taken up by himself as the Universal Sovereign. In expression of this he crowned and enthroned his Messiah or Christ in the heavens and at his right hand. (Psalm 110:1, 2) Since then the power to rule as king over the world of mankind has belonged to the Lord God Almighty, Jehovah, and his Messiah or Christ acts for him. From now on Jehovah God the Almighty will rule as King forever and ever, and never again will he permit his rule as King over the earth to be interrupted by the domination of the Gentile nations. This enthronement of his Son Jesus Christ did not have to wait for the completing and resurrecting and glorifying of the true church, the congregation of the 144,000 faithful, spirit-begotten followers of Jesus Christ. In 1914 none of these were as yet in heaven.

After the binding of Satan the Devil and his demons, the enthroned Jesus as the Messiah of Jehovah God will reign for a thousand years. Never again will Satan the Devil be able to establish Gentile domination over the earth, even though he is given the opportunity to do so at the end of the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ and his glorified congregation. — Revelation 20:1-10.

But how is it that this Messianic kingdom of God is a woe, "the third woe"? Is not this Messianic kingdom meant for the blessing of all the families of the earth? (Genesis 12:1-3; 22:18) Yes, indeed. However, to some this finishing of the royal "mystery of God" is a cause of woe, whereas to others it is a cause for thanksgiving to God. This fact was well prefigured by what the apostle John saw after he heard the loud voices in heaven announce that the kingdom of the world had become the kingdom of the Lord God and of his Messiah or Christ and that from then on the Lord God would reign forever and ever by means of his Christ. In Revelation 11:16-18 the apostle John writes:

"And the twenty-four older persons who were seated before God upon their thrones fell upon their faces

and worshiped God, saying: 'We thank you, Jehovah God, the Almighty, the one who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and begun ruling as king. But the nations became wrathful, and your own wrath came, and the appointed time for the dead to be judged, and to give their reward to your slaves the prophets and to the holy ones and to those fearing your name, the small and the great, and to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.'"

According to this vision, the ones that thank Jehovah God the Almighty for making a show of his all-power and taking over the kingship of the world of mankind are the symbolic "twenty-four older persons" who sat on thrones before God. These picture the 144,000 Kingdom joint heirs of Jesus Christ. Only a remnant of these were on earth when Jehovah God took his power to rule as King in 1914. The vast majority of them were still asleep in death, awaiting his coming to the spiritual temple with his Messianic Messenger and then resurrecting them from the dead. (Malachi 3:1; 2 Timothy 4:1) When, in heaven, these resurrected ones learn that Jehovah God the Almighty has taken his great power to reign, they cannot but fall upon their faces and worship him as their God and Supreme King and then thank him for finishing the "mystery of God," his Messianic kingdom, and reigning. As for the faithful anointed remnant yet on earth in the flesh, even now before their coming glorification, they fall in worship before Jehovah God and thank him for beginning his reign by means of his Christ.

On the other hand, the blowing of the seventh trumpet and the finishing of the "mystery of God" is a climactic woe to the nations of the world. Rather than becoming thankful and rendering allegiance to the reigning Sovereign of the Universe, these nations "grew wrathful." How? By imitating the "god of this system of things," Satan the Devil, who expresses his wrath by persecuting. (Revelation 12:13, 17) So in wrath the Gentile nations began persecuting the

earthly ambassadors of the newly begun Messianic kingdom of God. They trampled the "holy city underfoot for forty-two months," from the end of the Gentile Times in 1914 to the spring of 1918. (Revelation 11:2) They used the circumstances of World War I for persecuting God's "two witnesses," during the "thousand two hundred and sixty days" when these were prophesying "dressed in sackcloth." The Gentile nations tried to harm "these two prophets" of Jehovah God. They warred upon these Christian "prophets" until they had conquered them and killed them, figuratively speaking. (Revelation 11:5-8) Thus the nations began giving vent to their wrath at God's kingdom.

To this very day the nations continue wrathful and reveal it by keeping on opposing, oppressing and persecuting the revived "two witnesses," as these courageously continue preaching "this good news of the kingdom," now the good news of the finished "mystery of God." (Matthew 24:14) This, in turn, arouses the wrath of Jehovah God, and shortly now the time will arrive for him to express his own wrath in the "war of the great day of God the Almighty" at the place called in the Hebrew language Har-Magedon (Armageddon, AV). (Revelation 16:14, 16) In that war Jesus Christ as the Messianic King will tread those nations in the "winepress of the anger of the wrath of God the Almighty." (Revelation 19:11-16) For the nations that will be the woe of woes.

THE TIME FOR JUDGING AND GIVING REWARD

Besides woe for the enemy nations, the finishing of the "mystery of God" ushers in "the appointed time for the dead to be judged, and to give their reward to your slaves the prophets and to the holy ones and to those fearing your name, the small and the great." (Revelation 11:18) That means resurrection from the dead!

But when? Not accidentally, the time of the ministry of Jesus Christ from his baptism in water to

his resurrection from the dead corresponds with "forty-two months," or a "thousand two hundred and sixty days," from about Tishri 15 of the year 29 C.E. to Nisan 16 of the year 33 C.E. (Daniel 9:24-27) Just six days before his resurrection, or on Monday, Nisan 10, Jesus entered into the temple at Jerusalem and executed God's judgment there by cleansing the temple of those doing commercial business and making money there. (Matthew 21:12, 13; Mark 11:11, 15-17) In a similar manner, forty-two months or a thousand two hundred and sixty days from the end of the Gentile Times in 1914 C.E., the glorified Jesus Christ accompanied his heavenly Father Jehovah God to the spiritual temple to start a judgment work. (Malachi 3:1-5) Then would come "the appointed time for the dead to be judged." Since the proper order of things is "for the judgment to start with the house of God," the first ones to be resurrected would be "the holy ones," that is, those of the 144,000 Kingdom joint heirs "who have fallen asleep in death through Jesus." — 1 Peter 4:17; 1 Thessalonians 4: 14-16.

Many of those who were thus sleeping in death through Jesus at the time that he came to the temple in 1918 C.E. were Christian prophets. So these could be included within the expression "your slaves the prophets," to whom reward was to be given. Remember how the anointed remnant, the "two witnesses" of God, prophesied "dressed in sackcloth" and were called "these two prophets." (Revelation 11:3, 10) From the time that those who had "fallen asleep in death through Jesus" were resurrected to life as divine spirit creatures in heaven, the happiness spoken of in Revelation 14:13 applies to those of the anointed remnant who "die in union with the Lord from this time onward." Those of the anointed remnant thus dying faithful are "happy" because they do not have to sleep for any length of time in death but are instantaneously resurrected to heavenly life as spirit creatures clothed with the "divine nature." Once this

fact was a mystery or "sacred secret." — 1 Corinthians 15:50-54; 2 Peter 1:4.

Thus in due time after the finishing of the "mystery of God" the "first resurrection" of the 144,000 anointed followers of Jesus the Messiah begins to take place, and it will not be completed until the last one of these faithful ones has ended his earthly course in human death and is instantaneously raised to heavenly spirit life. (1 Corinthians 15:42-49; Revelation 20:4-6) However, at God's chosen time after his victory at Armageddon and after the binding and abyssing of Satan the Devil and his demons, the resurrection of the world of mankind will begin. Then there will take place the resurrection of those who were God's dedicated "slaves" and who served as his inspired prophets before the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But these are not the only ones to be resurrected to human life on earth under the Messianic kingdom of Jesus the Son of God. Jesus died as the propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, and at the proper time those to whom the benefit of this sacrifice applies will be raised from death to life on earth. (1 John 2:1, 2; John 1:29, 36; 1 Timothy 2:5, 6) This will include "the small and the great."

In that wonderful time of resurrection "those fearing your name, the small and the great," will be given their reward. The divine judgment will be expressed toward these resurrected ones on earth. Their having been small or great in power, position or influence in this present life will not be what will count in their behalf or against them. What will merit the glorious reward of everlasting life in an earthly paradise home will be their fearing God's name, Jehovah. — Revelation 20:11, 12.

Particularly since the year 1914 C.E. the world of mankind has patently been transforming its earthly home into no earth-wide paradise of pleasure, no Garden of Eden. Since that year fallen mankind has been acting more ruinously toward the earth than ever

before, more and more making it unfit to live in and more and more dangerous to live in. Men high in commercial, political and military circles of the nations act as if they owned the earth. But the earth really belongs to no man or group of men or bloc of nations. It belongs to Jehovah God. He is its Creator. (Revelation 4:11) He is its rightful Ruler. (Psalm 24:1, 2, 7-10) When he created and settled perfect man upon this earth, he instructed the perfect man and his wife to subdue the earth and make it everywhere like the Garden of Eden in which He had created them. (Genesis 1:26-28; 2:7-24) Almighty God still holds to that original purpose, but, outrageously since 1914, selfish, sinful mankind has foolhardily been working against God's purpose.

Since Jehovah God has taken to himself his great power to rule as King through his Messiah, the time has come for Him to reverse matters. His unchanged purpose to have a paradise home for men who fear his name must be realized at his due time, which is steadily getting nearer. How will he proceed? By expressing his wrath toward the ruiners of the earth. His time has come, not only to reward his "holy ones" and his slaves, the prophets, and all those fearing his name, but also "to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." (Revelation 11:18) This will mean the everlasting ruin of such ones. The "war of the great day of God the Almighty" will accomplish this needed cleansing of the earth of all those ruinous ones. Thereafter, under the Messianic kingdom of God, all those fearing his name will be colaborers with Him in bringing to never-fading Paradise beauty all the inhabited earth.

TRUMPETLIKE ANNOUNCEMENT WORLD WIDE

Wonderfully good news all this! But when was the appropriate time to give worldwide publication to this as by the pealing of a trumpet? When, in these modern days, was it the time for the "seventh angel" to blow his trumpet and loud voices to announce that

the Lord God had come to power as King? — Revelation 11:15.

In the year 1928 C.E. the beginning was made, not of the marvelous things announced, but of the worldwide announcement of such things. To a marked degree, it began with the seventh of a series of annual Bible Student conventions at which resolutions of world importance were adopted and other Christian exploits were performed. This seventh and last of those annual conventions was held in Detroit, Michigan, July 30 through August 6, 1928. On the morning of Sunday, August 5, the public lecture "Ruler for the People" was delivered by the then president of the International Bible Students Association. This was heard, not only by the immediately visible audience of 12,000, but by a countless invisible audience listening in on the till then largest network of radio stations ever linked together in mankind's history, 107 of them, requiring 33,500 miles of telephone lines and 91,400 miles of telegraph lines. This message about divine government for the people was even beamed by shortwave to "the land down under," Australia, and New Zealand.

This speech having such an extensive audible coverage of the earth was delivered really in support of a resolution that was first read at the appointed hour to that vast listening body. It was entitled "Declaration Against Satan and for Jehovah." In its eight paragraphs it stated that Jehovah God is the King of Eternity and true Friend and Benefactor of all creation; that because Satan will not give up his wicked rule over mankind, Jehovah God with his executive officer Jesus Christ will wage the war of Armageddon and destroy the visible organization of Satan and will establish righteousness on earth by Christ and bring everlasting blessings to all men; and that therefore the due time had come for lovers of righteousness to take their stand for Jehovah God and serve him that they might receive his boundless blessings.

At the close of the supporting public address this resolution was heartily adopted by a rousing voice vote. Not only were lengthy reports of this resolution and supporting speech later published in the magazines The Golden Age and The Watch Tower, but the resolution and speech were circulated in millions of copies of the booklet The People's Friend, in a number of languages.

In precise harmony with the meaning of this historic event, on Friday, August 3, at this Detroit convention there was released to the public the 368-page book entitled "Government." In a matter of fourteen years this Bible-study aid was to reach a circulation of 2,680,747 copies in 19 languages. Stressing the meaning of this significant time, the opening words of the opening chapter were: "The year 1914 marked the turning point in the affairs of men. Since then, as never before, the people have appreciated the necessity for a stable government." In its chapter 8 on the subject "Theocracy" the book Government said: "What form of government will then control the peoples of earth? That government will be a pure theocracy. For centuries the whole creation has groaned and suffered in pain, waiting for the manifestation of that government. (Romans 8:19) . . . It was in 1914 that God began to exercise his authority over the affairs of the world through his beloved Son whom he then placed upon his holy throne." — Pages 242, 247, 248.

That challenging message, in defiance of Satan's world rule, which then was trumpeted forth, has continued to peal throughout the years till now and its volume is increasing. By printed page and by public lectures it has sounded throughout the whole earth. Hundreds of millions have heard and read about it. Thirty years after the momentous year of 1914 there was published the book "The Kingdom Is at Hand." In 1963 in an around-the-world international assembly there was released the book "Babylon the Great Has Fallen!" God's Kingdom Rules! These books and

other Kingdom literature are increasingly being presented to the people at their homes in at least 200 lands and in 165 languages, for use in home Bible study regarding God's Messianic kingdom. No wonder the nations have become wrathful, to the extent of persecuting the Kingdom proclaimers! Let them vent their wrath in this way! The time is now almost upon us for God's own wrath to explode. Then he will forever ruin those who are ruining the earth, after which his will shall come to be done in earth as it is in heaven.

GOD RULES AS KING

In this time of disquieting turbulence of the nations one stabilizing fact of universal importance must never be lost from sight: God Almighty rules on his throne of universal sovereignty! This fact was put on view by what the apostle John saw in vision at this juncture after the seventh angel blew his trumpet. Describing it, John writes: "And the temple sanctuary of God that is in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple sanctuary. And there occurred lightnings and voices and thunders and an earthquake and a great hail." — Revelation 11:19.

A wonderful sight was this! The "ark of the covenant" of Jehovah God had not been seen by a high priest of Israel in the Most Holy of the temple since the destruction of earthly Jerusalem and her temple by the Babylonians in the year 607 B.C.E. (Numbers 10:33-36; 14:44; 1 Kings 3:15; 6:19; 8:1-21; 2 Chronicles 35:1-3; 36:17-21) At that time the ark of the covenant disappeared and its whereabouts became unknown. It was not transported to heaven, for it was made of acacia wood and gold, material things, and it was symbolic of heavenly realities, whereas heaven itself is the location of those very realities. (Hebrews 9:1-5, 23-26; 10:1) When that material ark of the covenant disappeared at the temple's destruction, Jehovah God ceased to reign over

Israel by means of his anointed kings of the royal family of David. His kingdom in the line of David was ruined. — Ezekiel 21:24-27.

Fittingly, the ark's top cover, surmounted by two golden cherubs, pictured the throne of Jehovah God the King. From there Jehovah God spoke to his prophet Moses. (Numbers 7:89) Before it Israel's high priest sprinkled the blood of the Atonement Day sacrifices, Jehovah God then appearing in a cloud over the ark's cover. (Leviticus 16:1-3, 14, 15) The four sides of the Most Holy of the temple sanctuary were decorated with figures of cherubs. (Exodus 26:1, 31-33; 36:8, 35; 1 Kings 6:23-35) True to these pictorial things, Jehovah God was said to sit upon the cherubs (Psalms 80:1; 99:1; Isaiah 37:16) This matches the vision that the apostle John had of Jehovah God seated upon his heavenly throne. (Revelation 4:6-8) Since the golden lid of the ancient ark of the covenant had such a royal meaning, the appearing of God's ark of the covenant in the heavenly temple sanctuary after the seventh angel blew his trumpet meant that Jehovah God was once more reigning

by means of his Messiah, the Anointed One.

The temple sanctuary of God that was opened to John's view to show his ark therein was not the spiritual temple which is made up of the 144,000 living stones built up on Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone. (1 Peter 2:5-9; Ephesians 2:20-22) No, but it is the temple sanctuary that Jehovah God put up, and into which Jesus Christ the High Priest entered before ever he founded his Christian congregation on Pentecost of 33 C.E. (Hebrews 8:2; 9: 11-14) It is the exclusive holy area of the heaven of the heavens where Jehovah sits enthroned, surrounded by his official cherubs.

Two thousand five hundred and twenty years from when the golden ark of the covenant vanished as a sign of terminating God's reign over the kingdom of Israel, the end of the Gentile Times came, namely, in 1914 C.E. At that time the antitypical "ark of his covenant" was set forth in the opened temple sanctuary of God in heaven. Thus he pictured that he reigned again by means of his Messianic Priest-King, Jesus Christ. This was in magnificent agreement with what loud voices were saying after the seventh angel blew his trumpet: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ." (Revelation 11:15) The mystery of God was indeed finished!

In John's vision the proof of God's reigning in his heavenly temple was evidenced by the awesome display of more than human forces such as lightnings and superhuman voices, thunders, an earthquake and a great hailstorm. Since 1914 C.E., the things symbolized by such earthly phenomena occurred through the agency of Jehovah's visible organization, his faithful anointed remnant. Such phenomenal things as accomplished by means of these anointed Christians could only have God's wondrous power as an explanation for them. All these spectacular things verify that Jehovah is in his heavenly throne reigning.