The Last Trumpet, Part 1

The Seventh Trumpet of Revelation 11:15 picks up on a theme from the book of Joel.

Joel 2:1 calls for blowing the trumpet and sounding the alarm because it is the Day of the LORD. A mighty army is coming to destroy Jerusalem. Joel 2:10-11 describes this Day as accompanied by shaking in heaven and on earth, and the lights of the heavens no longer shining.

This army is the LORD's own army, and it is an army of locusts (Joel 2:4-7). God sends his army so that Judah would repent, rending their hearts and not content merely with going through outward actions (Joel 2:12-14). If the people of Judah will repent, God will drive his mighty army of locusts into the seas (Joel 2:20) and restore what the locusts had devoured (Joel 2:25).

These prophecies were fulfilled before the birth of Christ, but Joel 2:28-32 was fulfilled in AD 30 when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church (Acts 2:14-21).

Revelation 11:16-17 begins to be fulfilled following the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, as he himself stated in Matthew 28:18-19. It is when God begins his conquest of the nations (Revelation 11:15).

Revelation 11:18 declares unequivocally that there is only one return of Christ. It is when believers are rewarded and the wicked are judged.

If your doctrine of last things makes you believe that the Lord Jesus could not return for his own today, your eschatology is wrong. There are mysteries in how things happen because the Bible teaches that large numbers of Jews and Gentiles will embrace the Lord before he returns (Romans 11:25-36), along with a great falling away and persecution (2 Thessalonians 2).

Do you know the Lord?