When our children were young, I sometimes used a “heads-up” call as I read a story to them. “Now listen carefully to what comes next,” I would say. I did this because some parts of a story are key to under­standing the whole.

As we read the story of the ­seventh trumpet call, we need to pay close attention and ­listen carefully. This part of God’s ­story is key to understanding who we are and what we are called to do in this world. As God’s witnesses, we need to know that God’s kingdom is advancing right now, even though it may seem at times that the world is thoroughly corrupt and controlled by the forces of evil.

This part of God’s story is shouted by “loud voices in heaven” and reinforced by the twenty-four elders seated around God’s throne. Listen carefully to what heaven announces: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.”

We need to listen carefully because heaven’s reason for rejoicing is often missed. In our everyday lives, we tend to think that God’s kingdom will come someday and that Jesus, the Messiah, will then “reign forever and ever.”

But the announcement is not in the future tense. The ­seventh trumpet call an­nounces that God’s kingdom claims the kingdom of this world now. And this present reality ­changes everything for all who live by faith in Jesus.