Antichrist. It is doubtless in view of these soul-ruining heresies, that
the beloved disciple tendered the caution,--"Little children, keep
yourselves from idols." (1 John v. 21.)

We would expect the tenth chapter to begin with the sounding of the
seventh trumpet; but we find it is not so. Indeed, we shall not find any
direct intimation of the work of the seventh angel till we come to the
fourteenth verse of the eleventh chapter. The sixth trumpet continues to
reverberate throughout Christendom for centuries; and during the
intermediate time, our attention is called to another scene, which the
Lord Jesus deemed necessary as preparatory.




CHAPTER X.


This chapter and the greater part of the next, from the first to the
fourteenth verse inclusive, is of the nature of a parenthesis; for the
fifteenth verse of the 11th chapter evidently connects the narrative or
series of events with the ninth chapter. The ninth chapter closes with
an intimation of impenitence on the part of those who had been punished
by the plagues of the preceding trumpets. Then it follows, as we have
seen, that they are to be still farther visited by the infliction of the
closing judgment symbolized by the seventh trumpet. The immediate
design, therefore, of interrupting the natural order of the narrative is
to place before us the actual condition of society when the seventh
trumpet sounds.