"And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and swore by Him that lives forever and ever, that there should be no more delay, but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he has declared to his servants the prophets."

Mystery, what mystery? Well, we are in the book of Revelation in chapter 10. I began reading in verse five, and these angels that are appearing to God sequentially, are telling Him things that are going to happen in the future and John is writing them all down faithfully, so that we will know, what it is that's coming and why it is coming.

Now we have approached, we have come right up against the seventh of the angels that are going to blow trumpets. You've heard of Gabriel blowing his trumpet and the Judgment Day coming. Well, that is where we are. This angel comes forth and puts his trumpet to his lips, and blasts out on the trumpet. This is the time when the mystery of God will be finished.

Whatever it is, this mystery is connected with the seventh trumpet. In fact, as John was leading up to this prophecy, he saw an angel come down from heaven and stand on the earth and on the sea and cried with a loud voice, and when he did, there were seven thunders that cracked, with a voice and they said something, and John took his pen in hand and was ready to write it down and someone said "No, no, don't write what the seven thunders uttered!" And so he didn't. And one suspects, because they made the statement and then immediately it says the time has come, we are not delaying any further. The mystery of God should be finished.

These angels probably had said something about this mystery. John was privileged to hear it. We are not!

What’s The 7th. Trumpet About?

All right, what is the seventh trumpet all about? The seventh trumpet is actually blown in Revelation 11 verse 15, "And the seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.""

Now in case you don't recognize those words, they were included in the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever."

Think about it. This seventh trumpet marks the end of the age. This is the place where it all turns. This is the pivot upon which it turns, the hinge, if you will, where man's time of government is over, all of his kingdoms come to an end, and they suddenly become the property, the possession of the Lord and of His Christ. That's the change that takes place at this time.

In verse 16 of Revelation 11, John continues, "And the four and 20 elders that sat before God on their thrones, fell upon their faces, and worshiped God, {17} Saying, "We give you thanks O Lord God Almighty, who are, and who were, and who are to come, because You have taken to You, Your great power and have reigned."" At last, at last, at last!

You wonder sometimes, where God is in this world? With all the stuff that's going on, with people killing one another, with wars and famines and all of the destructiveness of man, and people say, "O Lord, how long, where are you? How can God allow this type of thing to happen?"

Well, we wanted our freedom. We want to be able to live our lives without a lot of interference from God. When God came and spoke to Israel in the old days, they said, "No, no, no, you speak to us Moses, but don't let God speak to us, lest we die, and people didn't want God around." They don't want God in their lives and don't want Him fooling around in their lives, because, well, you know, He makes demands of them.

Now they say, "The time has come for God to take to Himself his great power, and rule!" Verse 18 of Revelation 11, "And the nations were angry."

Well, wouldn't you think they would be? The time comes when their power is taken away, all the things they worked for, everything they tried to accomplish, the things that they've killed people for, the things that they destroyed nations over, to gain power and authority and now, it's all gone!

Continuing in verse 18, "Yes, the nations were angry, and your wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, that you should give reward to your servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear your name, small and great, and that you should destroy them that destroy the earth."

What's the Seventh Trumpet About?

Now what's the seventh trumpet all about? Well, he lists it here, first of all, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. God takes to Himself His great power and reigns, and although the nations were angry, the time of the dead has come, that they should be judged, that You should give reward to Your servants, the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear your name, small and great, and that you should destroy them that destroy the earth.

Beginning with the last one first. This is the day that should make the environmentalists leap for joy. God is, after all, on their side, in a manner speaking. Now they may not be happy about some of the other reforms God is going to institute but never mind, the destruction of the earth is going to be avenged. I suppose it makes sense when you think about it.

I was watching the movie Apollo 13, a while ago and it's always moving to see those pictures, looking back at the earth from way off in space, this beautiful blue marble floating out there. And you think what a gorgeous creation it is, and that the closer you look, the more beautiful it becomes, and if you're the one that actually made all this, and then, there are people down here polluting it and destroying it, right, left and every other way, well, yes, the time might come when, God would decide to avenge the destruction of the earth. He can't be all that happy with what we've done with it.

So the time has come, and it comes at the seventh trumpet, that God is going to destroy those who are destroying the earth. There is a lot there.

Now it says in verse 19 of Revelation 11, "Now the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in the temple the ark of his covenant, and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings and an earthquake, and great hail."

All right, what is the mystery of God that is finished here? God has left man with a lot of mysteries to solve. The fact is, as you work your way through the Bible you find there mysteries about this and mysteries about the other thing, but when they really start talking about them, it's usually because it's time to reveal them! Now I only know of one place in the Bible where mysteries and this last trumpet are combined. Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 15.

In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, he has encountered a curious heresy. At least it seems curious to us looking back over it all these years. Someone had come along and said, "Well, the resurrection is passed already." Paul had a lot to say about the resurrection in first Corinthians 15.

Beginning in verse 50 of first Corinthians 15, Paul says something very striking, he says, "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, any more than corruption can inherit incorruption."

So what he is saying is, that you can't enter, whatever the kingdom of God is, you can't get into it like you are right now, you are flesh and blood, you depend on the flesh and blood, that's who you are and you can't then inherit the kingdom.

Now Paul continues in verse 51 to say this. "Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, {52} In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

Now the connection between this statement and the book of Revelation is overwhelming, when He said, "that you would be raised, that we will be changed at the last trumpet." We are not just talking about any trumpet, we are talking about the final trumpet, in a series of trumpets, and you got nowhere in the Bible to go for that, except the book of Revelation.

So what we have just read out of Revelation, when the angel blew the seventh trumpet, we have come to the moment in time when God is going to, to use the words that He used back in the book of Revelation itself, He said, "We give thanks to you, oh God, because you have taken to You, Your great power and have reigned, and the time of the dead has come, that they should be judged, and that You should give reward to your servants, the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear Your name, small and great."

How do you do that? When do you do it? The first thing you have to do is bring them all back to life, bring them up before God in judgment, and to present them before Him to receive their reward, for what they have done and for what they have accomplished and for their faithfulness in this life.

Verse 51 of 1 Corinthians 15, "Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep."

All of us are not going to get a chance to die. There will be people who are still alive, on the planet, walking back and forth who, in whom is the spirit of God. At the moment that last trumpet is blown, all the dead (in Christ) will rise, all those who are alive (in Christ) will be changed at the last trumpet. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

To Be Mortal Is To Be Able To Die

That's shouldn't be much of a mystery but sometimes it seems that it is.

Paul continues to say verse 53, "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."

Now would you think about that, just for a moment, to be mortal is to be able to die, because if you can't die, you're not mortal. That's what the word means. So this mortal, this human being who is able to die, must put on immortality. It's like a cloak, a jacket, a coat, that you can actually slip your arms down the sleeves and put on. It is not something that you already have or are.

Now I know that I'm running in the face of a lot of very strong and cherished beliefs on many people's part. They believe that they are immortal, (They have an immortal soul), that we as human beings are going to live forever, one way or the other, that if we have been good in this life we are going to go to heaven, if we have been bad in this life, we are going to go to hell, and that under certain circumstances we may go to some in between, to a holding place, but the fact is that man who is mortal can die, and therefore when his body dies, he has to go someplace.

Well, what the Scripture says is, "This mortal," this human being who is capable of dying, "has got to put immortality on," it's not something that we have inherent within ourselves.

Verse 54, "So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then and only then, shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, "death is swallowed up in victory.""

Now the resurrection may not seem like much of a mystery to you, but it was, until Paul expounded it in first Corinthians 15. Not very many people really seem to understand it. They believed in the resurrection of the dead. There were those who certainly believe that the dead would come back to life again. In fact, it was a major issue between some of the theologians of Christ's own day. Paul encountered them, in fact, he got himself in trouble with one group (the Sadducees) and in favor with another group (the Pharisees) by saying he believed in the resurrection from the dead.

Resurrection May Be a Mystery

But the resurrection may be a bigger mystery than you think. Try this, ask some people you know, "Do you believe in the resurrection of the dead?" Most Christian people would say, "O yeah, of course I do!" Then ask them, "Do you believe that people go to heaven or hell, or in some cases purgatory, immediately at death?" Many people will tell you, "Yes, I believe they do." Now if you get a 'yes' on both questions, then simply ask them, "Okay, then, why does there need to be a resurrection, if they have already gone to their eternal reward?"

Now I can see why, if the guy down in hell roasting, jumping around from one hot brick to the other, that the idea of a resurrection, if for no other reason, interrupt what is going through would be welcome, but the person who has already gone to be with the Lord and is up in heaven and sitting at the feet of the master and dining on milk and honey, and is away from all the pains and suffering of this life, what does he need a resurrection for?

Now you begin to see perhaps, what I mean when I say, that there is a slight mystery here. There are things that people don't necessarily fully understand.

Well Paul, also wrote of this to the Colossians. In his letter to the Colossians is, I think kind of interesting in this regard.

He wrote to the Colossians and said this in, Colossians 1 verse 21, "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind, by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled, {22} In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblamable and unreproveable in his sight."

In other words, He (Jesus) has died in your place, and because He has died in your place, He has taken all of your sins, He has cleansed you of them, so that you now can be unblamable. No one can reprove you, and you can come before the Father as though you were totally clean, because indeed, because of His sacrifice, you are!

He does have a condition on that, verse 23, "If you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and you're not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you have heard."

Now what is the hope of the gospel? What is this that we have heard that gives us so much hope?

"Which was preached to every creature under heaven, where I, Paul is made a minister, {24} Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church, {25} whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me, to fulfill the word of God."

Paul writes these long sentences and it's hard sometimes to follow him all the way. But now Paul gets to the point, {26} "Even the mystery, which has been hid from ages and from generations, but is now made manifest to the saints."

Now we tend to take it for granted now, because we've heard it by the words of Paul, but here he is writing the Colossians and he says, {26} "There is a mystery that has been hidden from ages and generations, but only now is being made manifest to his saints, {27} "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles.""

What is it? What is it? What's the mystery? "It is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

Now there are a lot of biblical terms that preachers throw around as though you and I understand them. We can be sitting listening to a sermon and he can talk about 'sanctification,' and all these wonderful words, and then they'll throw out one like 'glorification' and we sit there and blink, and look and we go right on as though we understood what he was talking about.

Now, 'glory' is a funny word and Paul's going to have some things to say about it in first Corinthians 15. We will go back there in just a moment. But, 'glory' as it's used in the Bible speaks of something that is a source of light. It is something that shines. You know the sun has glory, the moon has reflected glory, glory is power, it is shining, it is pretty marvelous.

Now the implication of what Paul is saying is, that we are going to be changed into something rather different from what we are right now! We are what we are. We know what we are. The time is coming, when we are going to changed into something different from that.

Now, people have a lot of questions about the resurrection. They know somehow that we are going to be changed into something different from what we are, but there's a lot of uncertainty about what that something might turn out to be.

What could it be? Well, I know people have asked, for example, "Will we know one another in the resurrection?" Now I never really had that question, so I'm always a little puzzled when people ask it, because to me, a part of what makes me who I am is, my identity, I know myself. I know who I am. I have got all my past experiences. I have all the things I've been through. I've got my list of jokes that I tell my friends, I've got my history, my background, all these things go together is to determine who I am! If I don't have any of that in the kingdom of God, what's this exercise all about? Why are we going through all these things down here, if all that's going to be discarded, and we are going to be somebody that we had never been before, but if that's what we're going to be, we would be there, we will look around meeting a whole bunch of people, but we won't even know who we are, much less know who anybody else is.

Now it seems logical, but listen to Paul, back in first Corinthians 15 again in verse 35, "Somebody's going to say to me, "Well, how are the dead raised up? What kind of a body will they have?""

Paul unfortunately occasionally lost his patience with people like that as he did in this case.

Paul says, {36} "You fool, that which you sow is not quickened, except to die, {37} And that which you sow, you don't sow the body that will be, you sow bare grain, it may be wheat or some other grain, {38} But God gives it a body as it has pleased Him, and to every seed its own body."

Are you following me? Are you with Paul on this? You have a little grain of wheat, it's has a little genetic code in it, and when you put the wheat in the ground, you don't put in the ground what you're actually going to get, you put the grain of wheat. Now out of the grain of wheat, you get a stock that comes up, that will ultimately produce many other grains of wheat. Are you with me?

So what we saw in the ground is not necessarily what we get, but it is the same in important ways. The genetic code is there. Now Paul then says in verse 39, "All flesh is not the same flesh, there's a flesh of men, there is another flesh of beasts, there's another fish, another kind of birds, all of us are not the same. {40}There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial, now the celestial body, take the sun, bodies terrestrial, take the moon, the glory of the celestial is one, the glory of the terrestrial is another."

They don't shine at the same rate.

{41} "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for one star differs from another star in glory."

Then Paul makes this important statement, he says, {42} "So also is the resurrection of the dead."

Now isn't that interesting. Then in the resurrection from the dead, we can anticipate that we will differ from one another in glory, in appearance, brightness. Take your pick. But of all the things there might be, we will be distinguishable from one another in the resurrection.

Paul says, {42} "It is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. {43} It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. {44} It shall be sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."

So, wouldn't you say then, it's fair to say, that what we are now, is not what we will be.

So we are going to be glorified. It's a marvelous theological term, it doesn't seem to many people to say a lot to them, but what it means is that we are going to be born of God, in the sense born of the dead that we will come forth as a new life form, to use one of the things we like to pick from science fiction, that we will be, what shall we say, formed of pure energy as God is.

Paul takes this theme and develops it through his resurrection chapter, but John also talks about it. He talks about it in terms that are rather, I think more explicit, even than what Paul said.

In his first epistle, John says this in chapter 3, verse one, "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God, therefore the world doesn't know us, because it didn't know Him."

Now, I am my father's son. I am like him. He was tall, I am tall. He had a base voice. I have a bass voice. I bear his name, you know, maybe he's human and I'm human. Now I learned that I am to be a son of God, that I am to be like Him. What in the world does that mean?

Verse 1 again, "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us." This is an astonishing thing, that we should be called the sons of God. I know we use that term all the time, but do we understand, that it moves us into the family of God. Well look at what He says we are going to be!

Verse 2, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."

Now you know there are other places in the Bible where it says that no man can look on God and live. Men were always terrified by the possibility of actually seeing God. It's exciting to comprehend seeing God. It's a thrilling thing to consider seeing God, and yet it must be like, for people who understood, for people who grasp what it was that God was talking about and the nature of God at all, but it must've been sort of like coming into the presence of some sort of highly radioactive material. You can look at it, you can be where it is, but if you stay long, you will die.

So men who thought they had seen God were scared to death, because they thought they were going to die. Of course, the fact is, had they seen Him as He was, they probably would simply have died, where they stood, because of His enormous power.

It is a funny thing about this, there's almost a presumption in people's minds that when they read these things about seeing God and dying, and that it is that somehow God will kill you if you see Him. In other words, that it requires God to do something for you to die. They don't think in terms of the fact that you have come into the presence of something so powerful that the power will kill you, just being near it, will destroy flesh.

Now maybe you can understand then why Paul said, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Corruption cannot inherit incorruption." There is no way that God can be corrupted, no way that a spirit being can be corrupted. Corruption is a human thing.

Verse 2, "We shall see Him as He is."

And in order to see Him as He is, we have to be like Him. The suggestion is that the human eye could not stand the view that there must be some form of spiritual eye by which we then would be able to look upon God and to experience God and to see Him as He is.

Now there is a marvelous truth buried in all of this, that some Christians over the generations have understood. My impression is an awful lot of people have simply lost sight of it.

Back in the very beginning, God said, "Let us create man in our image, and after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). In these early chapters of Genesis, there are a lot of times where God speaks of things being created, after their kind, and the things that are made, reproduce after their kind. There is a kind of cattle, a kind of birds, and a kind of man.

What I think may not have been realized is that there is a God kind, and in making man what God was creating was something after His own kind. I think if we could just get our mind around that, it should make our hair stand up. We are going to be family with God and God does not intend for His family to be losers.

Until next time, this is Ronald Dart and You were Born to Win!

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This article was transcribed with

minor editing from a Born to Win Radio Program by: Ronald L. Dart

Titled: The Book of Revelation -Program #14

Transcribed by: bb 5-5-24