Revelation Chapter 11, Part 49
Revelation Chapter 11
The Seventh Trumpet
As explained by Brother Frank Shallieu in The Keys of Revelation
VERSE 18 “The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, and those who fear Your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth.”
Here it is declared, “The nations were angry, and thy wrath is come.” This is a direct reference to Verse 1 of the Second Psalm, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” and to Verse 5, “Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.”
To repeat: Rev 11:18 reads, “And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come”; that is, God’s wrath follows the previous anger of the nations (people). The Apostle Peter clearly indicates that this Psalm does not apply to the Time of Trouble of the nations of earth at large (as is so commonly taught) but that it had a primary fulfillment at the First Advent; namely, King Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Roman soldiers, and the people of Israel were all involved in Jesus’ death (Acts 4:25–28).
The Psalm, however, has a further application to the Church at this end of the age. What Jesus experienced will also happen to the Church as a part of Jehovah’s Anointed class. It will be thought expedient, as it were, for “one” to die rather than have the whole “nation” perish (John 11:49, 50). In addition to false charges and false witnesses, there will be a wild and tumultuous assembly in connection with the trial.
*Pilate’s Report, whether truth or fiction, does seem to be in harmony with Peter’s applying Psa 2 to Jesus’ death and trial. The people were angry and raging, “Crucify him, crucify him!” (Mark 15:13,14; Luke 23:21,23; John 19:6).
In their insanity they put him to death, even the Lord’s Anointed. So likewise, the last members of the body of Christ will die violently.
No magical rapturing away as some may imagine to avoid this end. The words of our Lord are most implicit in this matter, “Be thou faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life (immortality)” Rev 2:10, –“I said, “You are gods [Elohim, “mighty ones”], and all of you are children of the Most High (Sons of God, begotten of His spirit). But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.” (Psa 82:6, 7), “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” (Psa 116:15)
The heel members (Gen. 3:15) of The Christ will be bruised . . . just prior to Jehovah’s taking to Himself His great power and reigning. He then shall laugh them to scorn and have the persecutors in derision, even speaking to them in His wrath, and vexing them in His sore displeasure— that is, in the world’s Time of Trouble (Psa. 2:4,5).
The phrase “and the time of the dead, that they should be judged” follows immediately. It is reminiscent of Dan 12:1, 2—“And at that time shall Michael stand up, . . .and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time. . . . And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting [age-lasting] contempt.”
*Pilate’s Report to Caesar (Akron, Ohio: Hamilton Publishing House, 1966).
Continued with next post.