What does Revelation 10:7 mean?

The prior verse makes an ominous claim: there will be no more delay. Scripture speaks of God restraining evil (2 Thessalonians 2:7), or waiting (2 Peter 3:9). At some point in the end times, it seems, God will entirely remove His restraints. Events from that point forward will progress at their "natural" pace, without being slowed or curbed by God.

This verse tells us God's mystery will be fulfilled in the days of the sounding of the seventh trumpet. God's timing is always correct. He will bring everything to His appointed conclusion during the days of the seventh trumpet. He will fulfill the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus' second coming and the establishment of His kingdom. Until then Satan and his followers will oppose God and His people. They will employ the services of sinners to spread wickedness and to deceive many.

Second Thessalonians 2:7 tells us "the mystery of lawlessness is already at work." Lawlessness will reach its peak in the tribulation when "the man of lawlessness is revealed" (2 Thessalonians 2:3). But when Jesus returns to earth in a blaze of glory, He will cast the lawless one— referred to in Revelation as "the beast"—and his accomplice, "the false prophet," into the lake of fire and bind Satan in the bottomless pit for a thousand years before casting him into the lake of fire (Revelation 19:20—20:10).