III. The Message of Revelation 14 Would Heal Babylon, or Bring God’s People to Unity.
In the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah the king, he sent Seraiah as a messenger to Babylon, and Jeremiah the prophet sent by his hand a message which he was to read to all the people of Babylon. This we find recorded in Jeremiah, chapters 50, 51. Here God describes its fallen condition and foretells its certain destruction, giving them a sign. They were to hear a rumor, and then, in one year, was to come another rumor and the destruction.
This prophecy was remarkably fulfilled; for as Cyrus marched toward Babylon, the first rumor came. At the Gyndes he lost one of the sacred horses in that stream and in a rage he declared that he would make it so that a maiden could cross it. Then he encamped with his entire army and set them to work digging channels on either side thus dividing and subdividing until he accomplished his purpose. This occupied so much time that he did not continue his march toward Babylon until the next spring, a year later. Then came the second rumor and the destruction.
In Jer. 51: 8, 9, God says, “We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed.” “Babylon is suddenly fallen.” In Isa. 21: 4-9, God shows that Babylon would be engaged in feasting and revelry, in the midst of which a great alarm would come and then the cry, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” Ancient Babylon is used in the Scripture as a type of the mystical Babylon of the last days. And as there were two warnings to that city, so there will be two to this Babylon, followed by her destruction. The first of these was given in the great advent movement in 1844 which went to all the world and gave the first alarm of Christ’s coming. But as we see by Rev. 18: 1-7, this message is to be repeated with great power, followed by the falling of the plagues.
As ancient Babylon was engaged in feasting and revelry, so it is to-day. Eating, drinking, feasting, and entertainments are the rage everywhere. And many of the churches, in order to serve the worldly spirit which prevails, have even provided the church building with kitchen and dining-rooms. The voice of feasting and revelry is heard in her, and this will continue until the voice of doom shall startle and make afraid the sinners in Zion, and cause fearfulness to surprise the hypocrite. As God would have healed ancient Babylon (Isa. 33: 14), so He would heal the Babylon of to-day.
The Healing Remedy.
In the healing message of Rev. 14: 6-12, an angel is seen flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth. The Gospel is God’s remedy for sin and all its terrible results. God’s remedy must prove effectual, for God would not mock sin-sick souls by offering them a remedy which would not meet their needs.
Through the prophet Isaiah He says, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” “Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul shall live.” Isa. 55: 1, 3. And of Jesus, Isaiah prophetically said: “The Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” Isa. 61: 1. And indeed when Jesus came into the world to fulfil this mission, what a sad condition prevailed in the Jewish nation. The leaders had lost sight of the significance of the typical work, and to a great extent the temple service was a round of meaningless forms. The place which God had designed to be the light of the world was almost a body of darkness, and so darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people. Strife and confusion prevailed everywhere. Men’s hearts were controlled by jealousy and ambition. Bewildered and confused, the masses were sweeping on to ruin.
Outside of the Jewish nation the world was given over to the darkness of paganism or the seductive light of Greek civilization and science falsely so called. Into this world of darkness, turmoil, and discord, Jesus sent a few followers with the everlasting Gospel. Gathering converts from all classes and conditions of society, from the high and the low, the rich and the poor, from the priest and the people, from all the different cults and sects, these advocates of the Gospel established churches everywhere and the description given of these companies of believers stands forth as a positive evidence of the power of the Gospel to break down middle walls of partition, and to destroy caste, to root out envy and jealousy, and to cement in one harmonious whole all who would believe. For we read that “the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.” “Neither was there any among them that lacked.” And the apostle Paul, in writing to the church at Colosse, thanks God for the love which they had toward all saints. And he also remembers with thanksgiving to God the work of faith and labor of love on the part of the church at Thessalonica.
What the Gospel did in the days of the apostle, it will do and is doing to-day for all who fully accept it. And this Gospel will develop a Philadelphia church which will wait, filled with the spirit of brotherly love, for the coming of Jesus. The Gospel is always a saving message, and from Abel’s day to our own, it has been the power of God unto salvation to every one who would believe.
The Unfolding of His Plan.
But there have been new features introduced in the preaching of the Gospel from time to time as God’s plan has developed, so the Gospel has been unfolding. Truth is always truth. But each new feature introduced was in a special sense a present truth and a special test of loyalty to the generation to whom it was first preached. These new features when once brought out may in time cease to be special tests, but they will forever remain facts, and will be believed by succeeding loyal generations.
In Noah’s day the proclamation of the coming Flood was then present testing truth. The Flood remains a fact, but has ceased to be a testing-point truth.
In the days of John the Baptist the first advent of the Messiah near was the testing present truth. Apollos accepted it and began to proclaim it with power. A number of years later he was still doing it, but he had not kept abreast with the development of God’s plan. So Aquila and Priscilla took him and introduced him in the way of the Lord more fully, and then he began to proclaim with power, not a Messiah soon to come, but one which had already come and had fulfilled the Scriptures. A crucified and risen Saviour had become the present testing truth.
But some of these believers in a Saviour who had triumphed over death and the grave, saw Him ascend to heaven in glory, and the angels said to them, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” And so altho His glorious ascension still remains a fact, yet with the true believer His second advent in power and majesty has been the event toward which they have looked with longing eyes and joyful anticipation. But before He comes in the clouds of heaven, He must receive His kingdom; for He said: “A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return; . . . and when he was returned, having received his kingdom,” he called his servants to reckon with them, etc. Luke 19: 12-15.
The revelator, immediately following the third angel’s message, saw Him coming upon a white cloud with a kingly crown upon His head and seated upon the throne of His glory. Rev. 14: 14; Matt. 25: 31. And so the everlasting Gospel of the great message is not only the Gospel of a crucified and risen Saviour, as preached by Peter, Paul, and Apollos, but must contain the announcement that Christ is about to take His kingdom and to return to this earth; and these special features are present testing truth for this generation. This constitutes the5Gospel of the kingdom, which the Saviour said would be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then the end would come. Matt. 24: 14.
So when this threefold message shall be preached in all the world to all nations as a witness, then Jesus will come to receive His loyal subjects and to give them an abundant entrance into His everlasting kingdom.
[The next article in this series is upon the injunction of this Gospel message, “Fear God.”]
