III. The Seventh Angel's Message:

Revelation X 5-7.

"The angel... lifted up his right hand."

Still the same Divine Covenant Angel of verse 1. His left hand held the Little Book open, and it remained there open, until John ate it up. "And sware…" The oath bears a close resemblance to that of Daniel xii, 7. There, the Angel stands over the river that represented the Persian Power then dominant; here, the Angel stands upon land and sea, as about to vindicate both unto Himself. The oath is in the most solemn form; God Himself is invoked as witness to its truth. The Little Book

"There shall be delay (R.V. margin, and American) no longer"; i.e.,

unto the finishing of the mystery spoken of in the next clause. In Daniel 12 mention is made of "many days," and of an enigmatic period, "time, times and an half." But here it is plainly and solemnly declared that now only one Trumpet-blast intervenes. This implies that there has been delay; that the previous Trumpet periods have been of long duration; but though nothing is said positively as to the duration of the Seventh Trumpet, it is affirmed that that one is the last.

"In the days of the voice of the seventh angel." The voice of that Angel then was to spread over "days." How many? How long was that Trumpet to last? The Fifth Trumpet extended over about 450 years; the Sixth over more than 700. The Seventh, reckoned (from the outbreak of the Great French Revolution of 1789, has already extended over more than 120 years (when the author wrote). This illustrates the measurement of epochs by Trumpets. The Angel, marking out the true time of the consummation, sware that the mystery of God should be finished, not in the days of the Sixth Trumpet Angel in which His descent had taken place, but in the days of the Seventh.

Accordingly, when that Seventh Trumpet sounded (Revelation XI 16, 17), it was at once recognized by the heavenly hosts as being the last. "Is finished the mystery of God."
Revelation 15:1, the Seven Vials are described as the last plagues, for in them "is finished" the wrath of God, which is declared to have come in this Seventh Trumpet (Rev 11: 18).

"The mystery of God." This is.
(1) God's mystery of Providence, wherein good has so long been overborne by evil;
(2) God's mystery of Prophecy, the solution of which the Church seeks from age to age.

Position in the Calendar of Prophecy

This great oath was heard by St. John, and this impression was made upon him, as a representative man. Accordingly, the next step, in the history of the Reformation, was a deep impression on the mind of Luther and of other Fathers of the Reformation, at this Martin Luther time, of the approach of the consummation.

It was based upon prophetic evidence, and closely connected with those associations which struck upon St. John's ear and mind in the Angel's oath; in this way-the same prophecies that foretold Antichrist's character and doings spoke also of his days as numbered, and affirmed the manner and means of his destruction to be by" the breath of the Lord's mouth," and "the manifestation of his coming." Hence, naturally, the republication of the Gospel of Christ, the exposure of the Papacy, and the abolition of Papal superstition in some places, were regarded as incipient fulfillments of these prophecies.

The idea fixed itself on the mind of the whole Reforming body, as a voice from the spirit of Jesus. The German Reformers grounded their impressions chiefly on the prophecies of Daniel and of St. Paul; those in Switzerland and England soon passed on to this very passage in Revelation 10, and concluded that progress had been made up to that point. The time was not indeed come as yet, but it was nigh at hand. More distinctly than ever before, it was revealed to Christians whereabouts they were in God's grand calendar of prophecy.

An Abiding Impression

It was an abiding impression, and at the same time most influential and practical, precisely that best suited to animate them for the great and difficult work that lay before them, It served admirably to give them courage in all their subsequent conflicts as the Lord's witnesses with Antichrist, the World and Satan. It was a prophetic discovery permanently established in the mind of Protestant Christendom; a fixed impression that the reign of the Papal Antichrist was not at its beginning, nor about its middle, but already far advanced towards its end.

Pareus, Mede, Vitringa, and almost all the principal expositors that followed, on the Continent and in England, kept up the idea as certain, throughout the seventeenth century, that the Reformation had been accomplished under the Sixth Trumpet, and that only the Seventh Trumpet remained to sound. Indeed, it is from this, as from a point of light, that the chief-subsequent Protestant interpreters have since gradually, though painfully and with interruptions, made progress towards the explanation of other parts of the Apocalyptic prophesy.

After the glorious Reformation, though a vast advance was made in prophetic, intelligence, and though sounder views began to prevail as to the future-by the explanation-of the emblems of the Beast and Babylon as representing the Papacy and Papal Rome; by the adoption of the year-day system; and by clearer understanding of the Gothic, Saracenic and Turkish woes-still from the times of Luther, the Magdeburg Centuriators, and Foxe, down to those successively of Brightman and Mede, Vitringa and Daubuz, Sir Isaac and Bishop Newton, many gaps remained to be filled, many important dates to be verified. The chief reason was as Sir Isaac Newton with characteristic sagacity observed because there still remained unfulfilled in history the last predicted revolution, that of the Seventh Trumpet, essential to the clearing up of some most important points of interpretation. Till then, it was no wonder if many mistakes were made, and many matters remained obscure.

Prophetic Interpretation up to this Era

For 700 or 800 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Book of Revelation had been expounded as if it were little more than a repetition of mere commonplace intimations as to the world's wickedness, the Church's sufferings, and God's consequent judgments. It was regarded as a storehouse of figures, whence the expositor could choose according to his fancy. None treated it as if it contained any definite prophecies of coming events, or as if there were any chronological order or succession in its predictions, as in the very similar Visions of Daniel. None seemed to realize the possibility of gathering from it true prophetic teaching as to the things that had already been since St. John saw the Visions in Patmos, or as to the things still to be thereafter.

This was to set aside the chief value of the Book to the Church of Christ, as she steers over the stormy billows of this world's history. Yet so it remained, until at length about A.D. 1200, Joachim Abbas opened the way, however imperfectly, to explaining it as a distinct and definite foreshadowing of the history of the Church and of the world, from Apostolic times to the present and far on beyond. This was followed up, still very imperfectly, but with clearer light and fuller knowledge of actual history, by the expositors of the era of the Reformation.

Those parts of the prophecy especially were opened up to them which more immediately concerned their cause and their era-the glorious light-giving descent of the Covenant Angel, with the opened Gospel in His hand, just when Christendom was in its darkest and most hopeless state; during the period of the Sixth Trumpet, which they could not but understand of the Euphratean Turk-the oath, in this same Vision, that only one Trumpet remained to be sounded, ere the consummation, the predictions concerning tb Beast, and his persecutions of Christ's true Church, the Witnesses in sackcloth raised to protest against him and his whole system and apparently the same mystic period conected with all these 1,260 days, or 42 months, or 3 1/2 times.

This strengthened the conviction in the minds of the Reformers, that this whole prof cy, when rightly understood, was definitely historical, a divine picturing of the fortu of the Church and of the world, from the time of St. John to the consummation, beyond this general conviction they did not much advance. On the fundamental pu of the structure of the Apocalypse, and the order and relation of its several parts, held the most diverse opinions. God had vouchsafed much fresh light, but His time has not yet come for making everything clear.

THE REFORMATION: ITS PROGRESS AND DEFINITION
Revelation X 8-xi. 2

Mighty effects had been produced by the entrance of true Gospel light into the hearts the Reformers, and of the multitudes who saw and felt with them. This Gospel was now to be publicly and officially proclaimed to all, and provision was to be made for raising up and equipping a succession of faithful, Spirit-taught preachers, who should keep the testimony for Christ and for His truth.