Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #31 of Revelation, chapter 11, and we are going to be reading Revelation 11:15-17:
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 for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
This is one of the more glorious passages in the Bible. This is a description of the triumphant exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ at the end of time in the Day of Judgment. When the seventh angel sounds, it is the last trump. It is Judgment Day. At that point in time, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”
The question for us is: When does this take place? Does this speak of the very end of the prolonged period of Judgment Day, the last day of the 1,600 days? Does it refer to the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles on the last day of this earth’s existence? Do the kingdoms of this world become, at that point, the kingdom of our Lord and then he reigns for ever and ever? The answer is, “No.” This is speaking of Judgment Day, at the point of the beginning of Judgment Day and throughout Judgment Day to the completion of Judgment Day. That is what is in view in this verse because that is when the seventh angel sounds; the last trumpet began to sound and “soundeth long,” getting louder and louder, beginning May 21, 2011, and it continues to sound throughout these after that tribulation, until the last day and then the trumpet blast will be completed – the world then ends at the end of that last trump. Then the Lord Jesus Christ comes and there is the resurrection of the dead saints and the rapture of the living saints of God. All go to be with the Lord, as God destroys this present creation and creates a new heaven and a new earth.
Therefore, when we read, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever,” we know it took place on May 21, 2011. This is an amazing thing to think about because we did not “see” any difference. We did not notice any change of leadership. You would think you would certainly notice if the control or rule of the kingdoms of this world were turned over to the Lord Jesus Christ. After all, Satan had been the one ruling up until the point Christ was victorious and now Jesus rules ever all Satan ruled over and, certainly, we would think there would be a drastic change.
But, first, let us look at how the Bible does declare that Satan was the god of this world and he did rule over the kingdoms of this world. In Matthew, chapter 4, when Christ was being tempted in the wilderness, we read in Matthew 4:7-9:
Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
So Satan showed Christ all the kingdoms of this world and their glory and he tells Jesus, “If you worship me, I will give you all this. You will be ruler over all these if you submit to me and bow before me.” What incredible arrogance. It just shows the pride and evil depths of Satan’s nature that he would even dare to think, let alone to ask the Lord of Glory to bow before him. What a terrible thing. It reveals the depth of the rebellion of a fallen creature. Yes, Satan is a fallen angel, but is man any better? We were created in the likeness and image of God and created to worship God and, yet, we attempt to usurp the sovereignty of our Creator, the Almighty God? And we determine that we know better than He does and we will do what we want to do and we will transgress His law, again, and again. Does that not reveal the same type of arrogance and the same type of incredible pride? Here, Satan is at only admitting it; this is what he wants: he wants to be God and he wants to the one that all bow down to, even the true God, and man is certainly no better in our natural condition. But the important thing here is that Satan is conducting himself in the presence of Christ as if he were the ruler of all the kingdoms of the world and Jesus does not correct him concerning this. We find in the parallel passage in Luke 4:4-7:
And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
Satan is a liar and the “father of lies,” but he tends to speak at least some truth and then twist that truth. Here, he is saying that the kingdoms of the world were delivered unto him, and that is correct because when he deceived Eve and Adam and they listened to the serpent and believed the lie over the truth of God and sinned in open rebellion against the Law of God and ate of the tree, then mankind became servants to sin and to Satan. All that man ruled over became his. God had given man dominion over the creation, but all that man had ruled over, Satan now ruled over. How could man continue to be the supreme ruler of the creation when he was now in subjection to Satan?
So Satan won the battle and man was now in servitude to him; what man had ruled over, Satan now ruled over, so Satan ruled over the kingdoms of this world. This would have been the case throughout the history of the world since the Garden of Eden. But something happened during the Great Tribulation period when Satan’s rule increased and grew even greater. In Revelation 13, we read of the beast that comes up out of the sea and God gives him rule over the churches. Also, in Revelation 13, it says he is given rule over the people of the world in a greater way than ever before. It says in Revelation 13:7-8:
And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Satan’s rule and his kingdom of darkness multiplied and grew to heights never before known. During the Great Tribulation, the entire corporate body of the churches was his. Just think of the number of churches that were in the world across the face of the earth in just about every nation. The people in these congregations numbered about two billion and God turned them over to the beast. He gave them over to Satan, the man of sin, and Satan took his seat in the temple, showing himself to be God and to be worshipped as God. Remember, that is what it says in 2Thessalonians 2:4:
Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God
In the Bible, to “sit” means to rule. Kings are seated upon thrones. They “sit” to rule over their provinces and over the lands they have conquered. The man of sin, Satan, “sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” He was given 100% rule over the corporate body, the outward representation of the kingdom of God to the people of the earth. The entire earthly church (the one that you see with your physical eyes on the street corners) was completely turned over to him, so his dominion increased enormously.
Prior to this, Satan had infiltrated churches, but the churches were a place that belonged to God when the Lord Jesus Christ was in the midst of the congregations. Satan could turn a congregation or denomination away from the truth, but overall God maintained the integrity of the corporate body through His very presence until the end of the church age when God departed out of the midst of the churches. Then Satan had free reign there. It was all his and his kingdom grew and expanded everywhere you looked. Where could a poor child of God turn? The world was multiplying in sin and the churches were entirely given over to Satan and were suffering from strong delusion. Where could the poor people of God go, except to the Word of God? It was just them and the Bible, so God commanded His people to flee to the mountains, to go to the Bible itself and find refuge in the world of God. All else had been turned over to Satan, typified by the king of Babylon. As the king of Babylon conquered nation after nation, including Judah, and Satan’s rule would continue until the end of the Great Tribulation period, because it was only given to Satan to rule over the churches and the world for “forty and two months,” it says in Revelation 14. That “forty and two months” typified the duration of the Great Tribulation and then a drastic change would take place and we can read of this in an historical parable in 2Chronicles 36:21:
To fulfil the word of JEHOVAH by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.
The “threescore and ten years” is seventy years and this seventy-year period is a type and figure of the Great Tribulation that came at the end of time. We lived through it from May 21, 1988 through May 21, 2011, an exact twenty three-year Great Tribulation period. Then it says in 2Chronicles 36:22-23:
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, JEHOVAH stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath JEHOVAH God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? JEHOVAH his God be with him, and let him go up.
Cyrus is a type of Christ. There is no doubt about that because the Book of Isaiah refers to him as God’s anointed, which is the Hebrew word for “Messiah,” and God called him “my shepherd.” That is a picture of Christ, the “good Shepherd.” Cyrus conquered Babylon, which typifies the kingdom of Satan. Cyrus puts the king of Babylon to death on the very night the Medes and Persians took Babylon; then all that the king of Babylon ruled over was turned over to the Medes and Persians so that King Cyrus now ruled over all. The Medes and the Persians were a great kingdom in their own right, but once they conquered Babylon, it greatly grew their kingdom. This is why the statement was made by Cyrus, “All the kingdoms of the earth hath JEHOVAH God of heaven given me.” This teaches that at the end of the Great Tribulation (at the end of the seventy years), Satan is deposed from ruling over all that he had previously ruled, from his rule in the churches to his rule in the world. He had offered to Jesus in the wilderness, “Bow down to me and I will give you all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them.” Of course, God does not need Satan to give Him anything, but God had a plan to take the kingdoms from him – to take it by force through the victory of the battle of Judgment Day when God saved all His people who had been captives in the kingdom of Satan. He rescued them and delivered them all and, finally, God could end that spiritual battle that had been going on for thousands of years. God could now bring the final judgment upon Satan and it began with putting him down and taking away the rule that Satan had finally obtained over the churches and over the world.
This is an enormous blow to the pride of Satan. How do you “injure” a spirit being or a fallen angel? At the end of Judgment Day, God will finally destroy him and he will die that way. But on May 21, 2011, in a spiritual judgment, God hit him where it hurt the most and that was in his “pride” and arrogance and in his desire to be like God and to be the supreme King of kings and the ruler of all. God first gave him what he wanted for the “little season” of the Great Tribulation. God was saying, “Very well, you will take your seat as the man of sin and make an image to the beast and all (the unsaved) must bow down to the image of the beast. You can have your “day in the sun” when you are worshipped like God.” But God’s plan was to then take that from him and this was a grievous blow to Satan and to his pride; he has lost all official capacity to rule in this world; the rule that he won over mankind in the Garden of Eden has been taken away. The rule that was given him in the Great Tribulation is also taken away. He still exists and he still goes about this world as a roaring lion, but he has been killed in the sense that he has lost his dominion over the kingdoms of this world.
The Book of Esther paints a picture of this situation through the historical record of a man named Haman who came to a position of power under King Ahasuerus. The king lifted him up to a high standing and then on a certain date everything fell apart for Haman. Haman was called the adversary of the Jews and the Hebrew word “adversary” is that word “Satan.” He is the adversary of the people of God and of God Himself. He was ever-prospering and increasing in power until a particular day, and the Book of Esther reveals that day as being the “seventeenth day of the second month.” That was the turning point for Haman. What is so important about the “seventeenth day of the second month”? Well, that is the day that matches the day when the flood began, in Genesis, chapter 7. God began to pour out the waters of the flood on the “seventeenth day of the second month” in Noah’s 600th year. That is the date that was the underlying Hebrew calendar date for May 21, 2011, and we find that Haman, a type of Satan, is incredibly defeated on that very day of 2/17, as it says in the Book of Esther.
If you remember how this happened on that day, it started the night before when the king could not sleep. He wondered who was in the court because it had been read to him that Mordecai, a type of Christ, had done an act of valor in saving the king’s life by turning over information concerning two men that wanted to kill the king. So the king wanted to honor Mordecai, the Jew, so he asked who was in the court. Haman was waiting in the court because he had come to speak to the king about hanging Mordecai upon the gallows, but before Haman could speak, the king said to him, “What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour?” Haman thought in his heart, “Now who would the king delight to do honour more than to myself?” This is an excellent example of the pride of Satan and Haman was a very proud man and it illustrated the mindset of Satan. Haman responded that the king let the king’s clothing, the king’s crown, and so forth, be placed upon this man and let one of the great rulers under the king lead the man on the king’s horse through the city and proclaim, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour.” Notice how Haman (thinking he was the man to be honored) wanted this honor to be that the man to be clothed in the king’s robe and the king’s crown because it shows Satan’s desire to be like God, just as Haman wanted to be honored as a king. But the king ruins Haman’s day and tells him to go and do so unto Mordecai the Jew and Haman’s countenance fell. Yet, obediently, he does find Mordecai the Jew and everything the king had said Haman performed upon Mordecai. So we see that on the beginning of the day of 2/17, Haman is put down and Mordecai is exalted. It is just like the King of Babylon is slain and Cyrus is exalted to be king over all the kingdoms of the world. Things went “from bad to worse” for Haman because he was soon invited to the banquet of wine with Esther and the king. Then Esther makes intercession for the lives of her people to King Ahasuerus because there is an evil man that wants to kill the Jews. The king is stunned; it is as if he knew nothing about it. He says, “Tell me, who is the man?” Esther tells him, “The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman.” The king rises up in fury and wrath to get his guards and Haman falls on the bed to plead for his life to Queen Esther, but it is too late. The king returns and Haman is taken and hung on the very gallows he had prepared for Mordecai the Jew.