stablishment, they immediately respond with glad hosannas, which
spontaneously and unitedly burst forth from the enraptured hosts of the
ransomed ones, as they find themselves clothed upon with immortality, and
in the joyful presence of their Lord. They are raised from the dead at
this epoch; or are among the living who will then be translated, as says
the apostle:

"Behold I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, _at the last
trump_,"--the last of the seven;--"for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead
shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

The nations who are angry, will be the nations out from whom the righteous
are taken, and who are left to the recompense of their reward;--"when the
Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in
flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his
power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired
in all them that believe," 2 Thess. 1:7-10.

The heathen had raged, and the people imagined a vain thing. The kings of
the earth had set themselves, and the rulers taken counsel against the
Lord, and against his anointed. Now the time of their anger is to end: the
time for the exercise of the wrath of Jehovah upon them, has arrived, and
they are filled with fear, consternation, and shame. The time has come
when the dead are to be avenged,--when those who had been slain for the
word of God, and for the testimony which they held, whose souls under the
altar during the fifth seal, cried with a loud voice, saying,

"How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood
on them that dwell on the earth?" (6:10) find their expectations answered,
and the destroyers, or perverters of the earth, in like manner perverted
and destroyed. This winds up the kingdom of Satan on earth; his reign
terminates, and his subjects are banished. The absence of all the wicked,
with the transfiguration of all the righteous living and resurrection of
the just, leave for subjects only those who have passed the period of
their probation, and are introduced into the everlasting kingdom of God.

The opening of the temple in heaven, and the presentation of the Ark of
the Covenant, symbolize the unfolding