Revelation 10:5-7

"And the angel which. saw stand upon the sea, and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: 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 hath declared to his servants the prophets."--10:5-7.

The reader will observe that this follows immediately after the seven thunders uttered their voices. It seems to be in the nature of. response. The seven-hilled power had always been. persecuting power, claimed universal dominion, and that its kingdom would be eternal. In response to the anathemas, thunders, and persecutions, called forth by the Reformation, the great angel who stands on both sea and land lifted his hand and uttered his solemn oath that the period of probation, persecution and suffering on the part of the Church, soon shall end. In chap. 6:11, the suffering martyrs of Pagan persecution are told that they should "rest. little season (chronos), until their fellow-servants and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." That second great period of persecution, here predicted, came when the seven thunders uttered their voices to anathematize the Reformation; but then the apocalyptic angel gives the suffering church the assurance of. solemn oath that time (chronos, the same word which is used in chap. 6:11,) should come, to. close when the seventh angel, the only remaining angel, should begin to sound. He does not affirm that time shall end until the last trumpet has blown. As that is the next great epoch in the world's history, outlined by the trumpets, it is affirmed that the days of tribulation are drawing to. close, and that the long-looked-for day of triumph, when Christ shall reign with his saints over every enemy, is near at hand. Nor does he affirm that absolute time shall end, but the great period of human history, stretching from the first sin to the glorious consummation when the kingdoms of the earth shall become the kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ. This is evident from the declaration that, when the angel sounds and time shall end, then "the mystery of God shall be finished, as he hath declared to his servants, the prophets." Then shall all the mystery of God, the mystery of godliness, of redemption through Christ, the whole history of the grace of God as manifested in the struggling Church, be completed as the prophets have declared in portraying its history and that of the world.