Revelation 11:16 Commentary and Bible Study

The twenty-four elders, representing the church of Christ in Old and New Testaments, also add their voices. Of all those in heaven they alone have known what it is to live in the world and to feel the tyranny of the devil. They know from first-hand experience the cruelty of his kingdom. They fall down before God and worship. They have waited for this moment. They knew that only the wisdom God and the power of God could bring this about. He reserves that decision for himself. He takes every factor into account. The church has cried to God that Christ should come soon, but it has no power to make him come. It knows that it cannot reverse the works of darkness, cannot destroy Satan, or take away the curse, or raise the dead, or judge the world, or create a new heaven and earth. So when God does act, he does instantly what men could never do in all eternity. The size of our gratitude to the Lord is proportional to our inability to do what he alone can do. God is praised using the same name by which he revealed himself in chapter 1.How wonderfully transformed the saints are! Before their conversion when they hated his rule over them and resented his law. What a great transformation has taken place in their hearts. The wonderful thing is that these are the very people who once lived as rebels against God. They are sinners transformed into saints. Only God could work such a transformation. Now they welcome the eternal reign of Christ over them. That rule brings perfect order, perfect justice, perfect peace to his subjects.