God's Imperial Authority

RV149-02

The Seventh Trumpet

These judgments are so severe that they are described by the word "woe," because they are so intense upon mankind at this point in time. The judgments that come out of the seventh trumpet are portrayed as seven bowls of divine wrath to be poured out on humanity on this earth. After the seventh bowl will have been poured out, the Lord Jesus Christ returns to earth from heaven with His bride, the church, to set up His Millennial Kingdom on the earth. This trumpet judgment is the final of the three woes, and it is going to be the most devastating of all. It is far-reaching in its destructive effects.

John notices that the blowing of the seventh trumpet causes a stir of murmuring of excited voices in heaven. A voice in heaven clearly comes through and declares that the kingdom of man, under the antichrist, will now become the kingdom of God under Jesus Christ forever.

The recent address this past week to Congress by President Bush made repeated references to this kingdom of man, if you were following his speech carefully. He talked about globalism, and repeatedly made reference to a new world order being instituted today. He was declaring that all that is happening in the Middle East, and all that the nations of the world are doing together today, is to form a unity to create a new world order.

When I heard that, I got up; went up into the attic; got my suitcase; and, started packing for the rapture. It is on its way, folks. The president of the United States boldly, on national television, used a term that the Council on Foreign Relations and the international power brokers use regularly. The people who are the proponents of a one-world government are constantly speaking about a new world order. I am amazed that Bush would use that term, but he is conveying to us the euphoric attitude that now exists in Washington concerning the kingdom of man on this earth. All that people have ever hoped for, from the time of the Tower of Babel to the United Nations, is seemingly now about to come to fruition. The kingdom of the world in the tribulation is going to be the fulfillment of this long-held dream.

Saddam Hussein has indeed given the nations of the world a great opportunity to practice operating as a world government – getting acclimated to unity. It's true that the world has not been used to this kind of working together, but Saddam has given them that splendid opportunity. The Council of Foreign Relations members, who are the proponents of world government, and indeed of world socialism, have 350 people currently in the Bush administration. Bush himself was once on their board of directors as a CFR member. You can imagine how the CFR is gloating with glee, and how euphoric it is, for this chance to elevate the United Nations above United States sovereignty.

Keep your eyes open for a movement in the American government to put our military forces in the Persian Gulf under U.N. command. They want to revive what has been an inactive committee in the United Nations called the Military Staff Committee, which was originally designed in the United Nations to control military actions taken by nations of the world in unity. Keep your eyes open for the revival of the UN Military Staff Committee to take over this operation, so that American sovereignty is again undercut one more notch.

Here in heaven, in our text, the 24 elders break out with praise and worship to God the Father for His announcement that He is assuming governmental authority over the whole world. The Son, Jesus Christ will become Lord and Lord of Lords and King of Kings. He will rule with absolute sovereignty. The world will then, in effect, in fact, be ruled by a beneficent dictator with absolute righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Millennial Kingdom of the Lord Jesus will extend right on out into eternity.

The world leaders today want a one-world government, but they certainly don't want one which is ruled by Jesus Christ, and controlled by His moral principles. The whole idea makes world rulers mad today. They get infuriated over the idea that God rules in the affairs of men. They get infuriated over the fact that they must operate on the basis of biblical principles. If their desires (the laws of men) violate the laws of God, they get infuriated that the laws of God come first. The people of the world do not like that idea. They simply want God to butt out, and to let them run their earth.

Everyone that John hears is in heaven, however, is overjoyed, because once the Lord Jesus Christ makes man's kingdom His kingdom, it will never again be under the rule of unregenerate sinners, or under the control of Satan.

The 24 Elders

Worship

Here, they rejoice to honor God as their sovereign Lord, who is about to fulfill what had long ago been declared, in Psalm 2:9 of the Old Testament, which says, "You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earthenware." They know this Scripture, and when the announcement is made: "Jesus is coming to take over the world," they know that He is going to come with a rod of iron, and it's going to be like somebody walking through a pottery shop, and just smashing defective, ugly pots left and right – just crushing them, and beating them to pieces. This is not going to be a velvet-hand glove kind of God. This is going to be a ruler who will be a no-nonsense sovereign.

The world has not known a person like that for a long time in a righteous way. Yes, it is true that Saddam Hussein, like Assad of Syria, is well-known for pulling a gun out at any moment, and blowing the brains out of those who displease him, or disobey him, or rebel against him, right in front of people. Saddam and Assad have killed many people numerous times on the spot for rebellion against their authority. But this is not the kind of a no-nonsense ruler that Jesus Christ is going to be, because His every move will be will be based upon the Word of God – absolute righteousness. Those who listen to him and those who are subject to Him are going to find nothing but blessing and great prosperity in their lives.

Finally, Lord Jesus Christ is going to be vindicated on earth where, up to this point in time, He will have been ignored; scoffed at; insulted; hated; rejected; and, used as a curse word. The church saints are going to reign with Christ in this earthly kingdom – this kingdom of peace and prosperity. It's going to be governed by righteousness and justice. These elders are overwhelmed by God's grace and by His truth. All of this will then come to pass because Jesus Christ, the God-man, has been exalted to the right hand of God the Father, because of His victory on the cross over Satan.

Thanksgiving

It is in the opening of Romans (you perhaps remember several years ago) that the very first thing that it taught us was that anybody who is not grateful for a blessing from God will have that blessing jerked out from under his feet. Any blessing of God that you do not thank Him for, and for which you are not grateful, He will pull out from under your feet. Our prayer requests are often the expressions of our need, which should not have become needs had we been on the other end of the line thanking Him for our having something that now we're asking Him for. We already had it, but we were never grateful to thank Him for it. Now, when it's gone, we're asking Him for it. We need to become a lot more sensitive to this principle of thanking God.

God Almighty

It's important to understand that we live in a society which does not think that God is almighty. So, if you hear the phrase, "Well, if God were all that powerful, why are children born with diseases: blind; crippled; and, deformed? And why is this terrible thing in the world, and that terrible thing in the world?" Of course, the ignorance of all that is that man put those things in the world, not God. When man disobeyed God, he brought a deteriorating infection into all of creation. Sin brings destruction and death, but a God who is almighty is not going to be frustrated by Saddam Hussein; by President Bush; or, by anybody else in the plans that He has for His Son and for this world.

"We give You thanks, Lord God Almighty, who are, and was" – the eternity of God. He has always been; He is now; and, He will always be in the future. There is no "future who is to come" aspect of God's nature included, because Jesus Christ is now on the scene to reign. And Jesus Christ, who is on the scene to reign has been identified as the one with a future.

In Revelation 1:4, for example, John says to the seven churches that are in Asia, "Grace to you, and peace from Him (referring to Christ), who is, who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before His throne." So, interestingly enough, God here is recognized as the one who has always been; the one who is; and, in the presence of the person of Jesus Christ, the one who always will be.

"Who are and was because." He uses the word "hoti," which introduces us to the reason that these people are so euphoric in heaven – because God has done something: "He has taken His great power." God has now assumed His authority over the earth. It's an event which is so certain that the Holy Spirit speaks of it as already having taken place. The word "taken" looks like this in the Greek Bible: "lambano." You would think that he would speak of it as in the future tense in some way. However, instead, it is interesting that in the Greek Bible he speaks of this in the perfect tense. The perfect tense means that something happens out here, and it goes on forever. Even though it hasn't taken place yet, it's as good as done.

So, you have this amazing statement, an event that God the Holy Spirit is speaking about, which is still in the future, but as far as God is concerned, it already began in the past, and it will be fulfilled inevitably, with no questions about it. He's going to take His power, and He is going to exercise His power. His power is that word "dunamis." The word "dunamis" is the ability to make things happen. It is an inherent capacity of enormous ability to make things happen. It is described as great here because it is omnipotent power. There is no limit to it.

Imperial Authority

Can you imagine an earth like that – where God's law from Scripture becomes man's law? Everything that God says, "This is how you do things," is the way governments will say, "This is how you do things." Everything that God's Word says, "You won't do this," governments will say, "You don't do this." It's a world that we can hardly imagine. The Millennial Messianic Kingdom of Jesus Christ has been delayed, of course, until the completion of the church.

The apostles themselves wondered about this – the arrival of the kingdom, and they asked Jesus in Acts 1:6-8 about that: "When are you going to set up the Davidic kingdom?" They all knew about the Davidic Covenant. They all knew about the promise, and they were confused now that Jesus had been crucified, and He had been raised from the dead. They understood that the sins of the world had been paid for, and that now they were covered (atonement had been made), but what about the kingdom? Acts 1:6: "So, when they had come together." They're seeing Jesus for the last time. In a few minutes after these verses, He leaves them and goes up to heaven. They're asking Him, "Lord, is it at this time you're restoring the kingdom to Israel?" This is a very important question. It indicates to us that the disciples understood that God had not fulfilled His promises to the nation. At this point in time, if that were the case (that God had not fulfilled his promises to the nation), then Jesus had to give some indication that this was coming down the line. But if the church age was to fulfill the promises to Israel, then Jesus had to make that clear. Very definitely, He did not tell them that the church age now takes over, and there's no more for Israel.

Instead, He indicated: "It is not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth." Verse seven very clearly tells you that God has not abandoned the Jews; that He has not thrown aside the Davidic Covenant; and, that God is still going to fulfill all those promises to make the Jews the leading nation on the earth, and to put all of the world under the control of Jesus Christ. All that is still coming.

Verse 7 clearly tells you that. All it says is, "Boys, I can't tell you the timetable. God the Father has that as one of His secrets." Christ was saying that even He, in His humanity, didn't know when. He only knew that, somewhere down the line, it was going to happen.

Now, what we're reading here in the book of the Revelation is the arrival of that time when this great thing is about to happen: this thing that the disciples were so eager to know about – the establishing of the rule of God upon this earth. The timetable is with the Father, but it will be executed.

"In the meantime," Jesus says, "your concern is to build the church by witnessing for Me – to prepare this new body of believers who will form the royal family of God through all of the millennium and through all the era of eternity."

So, what do we Christians do? We Christians pray with John Revelation 22:20. You may have noticed that these were the words with which we concluded our study in the book of Romans: "He who testifies to these things, says, 'Yes, I am coming quickly.' Amen. Come Lord Jesus." And as far as I'm concerned, this afternoon wouldn't be too soon: "Come Lord Jesus."

In verse 18, we have the reaction of the world when they discover that their control over mankind is slipping away. God is coming in to frustrate their plans.

Saddam Hussein and Kuwait

With the control of Kuwait, he now controls 30% of the world's oil. When we had the oil crisis back in 1973, the United States was all up in arms, because we had something like 30% or 35% of foreign oil that we were dependent upon, and that could be cut off immediately. Today we are 50% dependent. So, much for our national government's efforts to make us energy independent. With control of Kuwait, he now has 30% of the world's oil. He didn't think anybody would care about his going into Kuwait. His troops had an operation plan to sweep into Saudi Arabia and take over those oil fields. Once he was in place with his huge army; tanks; airplanes; and, poison gas, it would be very hard to dislodge him, and he would have controlled 50% of the world's oil.

Israel

So, here we have, in verse 18, an expression of what you're seeing in your day – the anger and the enragement of the nations of the world against the person of Christ: "And the nations were enraged." The word "nations" here is the Greek word "ethnos," which stands here for the gentile nations – the political rulers who govern national entities at the time of the tribulation, and, in fact, today, are going to react indignantly against Jesus Christ the King. What verse 18 deals with is the transition from the kingdom of man on earth to the kingdom of God on this earth. This makes the rulers of the world downright mad. It says that they are "orgizo." The word "orgizo" in the New Testament Greek is a word for a settled attitude. It is not just a momentary outburst of anger.

When somebody does something and they tick you off, there's a momentary outburst of anger, and it passes. That's not what this word signifies. There is a different Greek word for that. This word "orgizo" means a settled attitude of rage; of indignation; and, of anger. This is what these people feel about Jesus Christ. It is the gentile attitude toward the Lord Jesus Christ at the time of the turnover of world political authority to Him.

It is in the passive voice in the Greek, which means that these world rulers are not the ones who are originating this anger, but rather it is being welled up within them by some other force. That force is Satan himself. Satan is causing these people simply to go out of control in their mad wild anger against the Jews and against Jesus Christ. Remember that this is what the world's final Armageddon battle is going to be over. It is going to be over the Jew. It is going to be concerned with destroying the Jew. You're going to have a repetition of Hitler and Nazi Germany all over again. You're going to have the same reaction that Hitler did, to where he would literally foam at the mouth as he spoke about the Jew, and his indignation and his anger against the Jewish people, and his determination to destroy them.

In contrast to this anger of the world, we have the subjection of the 24 elders who are overjoyed over the fact that Jesus is coming to reign. The gentile nations have resented God's laws and His Son throughout history. They are mad at God; they're mad at His Bible; and, they're mad at His born-again people. And the person who is madder than any of the rest of them is Satan himself.

You Christians need to start praying for an enormous amount of increased personal protection in the final days of the intensification of the angelic conflict in which we live today. Satan will destroy any believer that God allows him to bring down. Do not give him the chance. Do not be sloppy in your spiritual life. Do not assume that you are immortal. Be sure to anticipate that you need God's preservation upon you. And the younger you are, the more you better think about that, because you think that there's nothing that can touch you in the capacities of your youth. Satan is a killer. Jesus told us that he's a murderer from the beginning. And those who are making a contribution and an impact to the Kingdom of God, in preparation for its insertion into this earth, are people that Satan is going to get in a frenzy of anger at. He's not only mad at the Jews, but he's mad at all of you followers of the Jew Jesus. You are on the receiving end of his wrath.

This anger against God is going to mount during the seven-year tribulation period, as the intensity of the judgments increases. The anger of God will finally reach a high point of white heat. Unsaved people do not like being shown up to be fools in their conduct of world affairs. That's exactly what has happened repeatedly throughout human history. People have been shown to be fools who were supposedly great, incisive, intelligent people leading this world. This antagonism, this white-heat hatred toward God, of course, began with Cain, and it rapidly focused into Nimrod's Tower of Babel, which was the first attempt at a unified world – a world government against the authority of God. Nebuchadnezzar came along, when he was the world ruler, and he was told by Daniel, "You, O King, on that image that you saw out there on the plain, made up of various metals – you saw that the head was gold. That is you, Nebuchadnezzar. You are the head of gold. You are the magnificent, brilliant world ruler now. But down below comes a chest made of silver (an inferior metal), and, Nebuchadnezzar, it represents a kingdom which, though inferior to yours, is going to bring you down.

Boy, did that make Nebuchadnezzar mad? He went out there, and he ordered an image made of himself of solid gold from top to bottom, and he put it out there on the plain. He said, "I'm going to demonstrate to you that I'm gold from head to foot, and nobody is going to bring me down." Boy, did he learn the hard way? For seven years, God turned him out into the field; he lived like an animal; his hair grew down; his fingernails grew long; he rubbed in the dirt; and, he ate what he could like an animal. Then God said, "Now, give him his senses back, Daniel." His senses came back, and he looked himself in the mirror, and he realized what he'd been up to and what had been going on. Then he said, "There is a god in heaven, and He rules in the affairs of men."

I would not be surprised to see old Nebuchadnezzar up there in heaven with the rest of us. I would not be surprised that he came to regeneration after that experience. The fact of the matter is that Nebuchadnezzar learned the hard way that God does rule, and that God's authority cannot be bypassed. The Jews spit in the face of Jesus Christ, their Creator (their King), and they said, "We will not have this man to rule over us." The Jews have continued to spit in the face of Jesus, in declaring they will not have this man to rule over them. But He is going to very shortly.

And Russia today tries to dismiss God into oblivion by persecuting believers. So, you have the sad pictures we saw on television recently, where religion can now be treated more openly. Parents can tell their kids about God. They can teach them spiritual things without going to jail. Here we have mothers and fathers saying, "We know that there's something more than just the materialism that the communists have told us is all that exists in the world. There is a spiritual dimension, and we know that there is a God, but we don't know what to tell our children. We don't know how to teach them." You have parents who don't know anything about God, and they don't a Bible that they can get hold of to even learn, let alone to have anybody instruct them. But is Russia going to be victorious over God? Not on your life. She's very carefully keeping her army intact. She's very carefully keeping her armament factories working.

Only stupid Americans, listening to our government, think that communism is dead, and that the ambition to rule the world has been set aside. The average American isn't aware of the fact that the assembly lines are still pouring out tanks and airplanes and weapons of war every day in Russia on a major scale. We know from Scripture that the time will come when Russia will try to use that, as she rallies with Arab nations, and decides to make her move against the people of Israel, and come sweeping down from the north to destroy the Jew, with one more attempt to push him into the sea. That time is going to be a time of great horror, because God is going to come in and destroy the Russian army Himself. So, the Bible tells us that a sixth of the force that they came in with will limp back to Russia. When they get back to Russia, they're going to discover that they're coming back to a devastated country that God from heaven Himself destroyed. Russia is going to learn the hard way that you cannot shake your fist in the face of God.

Years ago, we used to see posters plastered all over Russia, in school classrooms, with a great Russian man shaking his fist, and looking up, and saying, We're going to bring God down from this heaven." That was a chilling poster. That was a chilling thing to read: "We're going to bring God down from His heaven."

Well, here John is hearing these 24 elders thanking the Lord God for finally making His move. They wanted this for a long time – to take over the reins of authority over the earth. The nations respond with enragement. The result is that they're conniving and consulting with one another as to how they can stop this. I want you to turn over to Psalm 2:1-3, which is the great psalm that predicts this very condition, and is a psalm that coordinates with this passage in Revelation. Why are the nations in an uproar? This psalm is talking about the tribulation. This psalm is speaking about attitudes finally openly expressed without any hesitancy against God in the tribulation, but which have been smoldering and building up even while the church is still here on this earth, even today as we speak. Why are the nations (or the gentiles) in an uproar?

"And the peoples devising a vain thing. The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against His anointed: 'Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us." Here is a plan to overthrow God the Father and His anointed messiah Savior Jesus Christ. These rulers choose to consult with each other on how to defeat God the Father and God the Son. How big of a fool can you be if you're going to have a council of war with other fools? Here are fools consulting with fools. Have you ever run into people like that? All those people who have such confidence on how you go to heaven: how did they learn that? Well, they learned it from somebody else – fools consulting with fools.

I think this is really ironic. The kings of the earth (the rulers) take council together. The gentile nations of the tribulation decide to break free of God's sovereign authority, and they're going to do it by establishing a government of their own over the whole earth. Today, the gentile rulers indeed ignore God. They certainly ignore Scripture. They are doing their own humanism. How does God react? God is sitting there on His throne in heaven. He is in the original heavenly temple, of which the temple on earth is a replica. God is there in His holy of holies, and He's looking down on these clowns. In verse 4, we have God emotional response described to us in what theologically we call an anthropomorphism. "Anthropos" is the Greek word for man, and an "anthropomorphism" is where God is being described as if he were a human being reacting. This is not exactly true of the way God reacts, but it is a picture of God reacting in the way we can understand as human beings.

So, verse 4 says, "He who sits in the heavens laughs." The Lord scoffs at them. Can you imagine God in His throne, shaking His head, and saying, "I can't believe it? I can't believe the way these guys are acting again. You would think they would have learned." And then all of heaven is reverberating with the laughter of God. And all of the angels are joining Him. When the king laughs, everybody laughs. Everybody can't believe these clowns here on this earth – that they're going to take over with their measly plans and their puny world rulers.

People today act in the same way, as laughable fools, because they do not know the essence of God. That's the problem with the average person. That's the problem that you and I as Christians have when we come into problems in life. If we would sit down and write out the ten basic factors that compose the essence of God, it would answer a lot of our questions, and enable us to meet the crises. Well, these people forgot "the three Os:" that He is omnipresent; that He is omniscient; and, most of all, that he omnipotent ("pantokrator"). Because they do not know this about God, they will act as fools in making a plan to bring him down.

We are talking about people who are looking at God as someone with whom they can contend, and they can beat him. We're not talking about somebody that's just on our own level, such that, if you outwit Him, you'll bring Him down. These people really believe that God is nothing more than some exalted human being. Of course, what do the Mormons say? That's what the Mormons teach. God is nothing but an exalted human being. The Mormons have satanic doctrine. This is the concept that Satan instills in the nations of the world. He's just a little superior human being. And you're a human being. They think that if you get your forces together, and you get your best efforts, you can bring Him down. To us as Christians, it seems inconceivable that anybody would even dream that that would be possible.

Revelation 11:18 declares God's response in response to the wrath of man. The nations were enraged. They planned to bring God down. They planned to frustrate His plans to let His Son rule the earth – "And Your wrath came." Remember the nations of the world had an "orgizo." They were enraged against God. Here in the Greek Bible, we have a little play on words, and God comes back with a response – with "orge." It a different form of the same word. These nations of the world have a settled antagonism toward God. It's not going to go away; it's going to be there; it's going to eat away; and, it's solid. God reacts with the same kind of settled wrathful indignation. It's a different form of the same word. It refers to God's burning, steady anger against the evil of the world rulers.

However, the wrath of the worlds' rulers against God is impotent, but God's wrath against mankind is omnipotent. That's the difference. The wrath of the rulers of this earth is an expression of the evil of their sin nature. The wrath of God is a holy expression of His absolute righteousness. They're going to treat God with wrath? God knows something about having an indignation from which He will not be moved against an evil.

People are wishy-washy about their attitudes toward evil: "Do you want to violate the moral code of God. Well, you're such a nice person. I mean, you're so sociable. It's so much fun going to McDonald's with you. I can't hold it against you just because you're a homosexual or a lesbian. I mean, hey, we're both human beings, aren't we?" There's no settled wrath and anger in Christians against moral evil. We compromise it, and we readjusted, and we move it around so that we can live with it. God knows what it is to have a settled wrath against evil. His wrath is an omnipotent expression.

Revelation 6:16-17 say that the wrath of God is going to be severely felt by these people that now oppose God. Here's their reaction: "And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.' For the great day of their wrath has come. Who is able to stand?" And the answer is "Nobody." There, in those two verses, the wrath of God will become so enormous that people will absolutely literally go crazy. They'll be out of their minds with the agony and the pain. Man's wrath against God is the old sin nature in operation. God's wrath against man is a holy, absolute righteousness in action.

So, what we have here is a godless world, raging (of all things) against its own Creator. In Psalm 2, the psalmist then takes up again what God's anger is going to do in the tribulation. It's amazing that here, thousands of years ago in the book of Psalm, we have this precise picture of the rage of God, and His contempt and scorn over the last laughableness of the Saddam Husseins of this earth who are trying to control humanity apart from God. It results in God's anger. And the expression of God's anger then, that is described for us in Psalm 2, merits any serious minded person giving a second thought to when you think that God is some kind of weakling, and that you can declare yourself some sovereign, independent creature against Him. We shall take up the story at that point next time.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1990

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