Note and Comment

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 12, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 36.

1. ANOTHER ANGEL.—We have already found God's last great threefold message symbolized by three mighty angels flying through the midst of heaven. Rev. 14: 6-11. The fact that they are flying through heaven shows how quickly will go to the world that great message. There is not so much a manifestation of power in connection with it as there is of its rapid giving; that is, the symbols of the angels flying through heaven will show, first that it is a message which will be known by all — a message which will call the attention of all to its import, and that it will go to the world rapidly, and in harmony with the terms of that message, to every nation and kindred and tongue and people. So this great threefold message is given. Beginning in 1844, it has reached nearly every mission field and country on the face of the earth. Carried by a small people, it has gone with a loud voice. Having behind it nothing of the power and influence and wealth of the world, it has called the attention of the people to the Word of God and the terms of the message, as no other message has since the days of the apostles. But it is also true that in harmony with the symbols, there has not been the great power manifest with it which hearts have longed for; but in the closing of that

message there will be joined to it the movement represented by the angel of our lesson this week, all the messages swelling into the message of this last angel. This angel is not represented as flying through heaven, but coming down out of heaven, having great authority, and lightening the earth with his glory; that is, the power of this angel will be manifest in the lives and message borne by those who have accepted and are bearing the great threefold message.

2. FALLEN, F A L L E N.—God's children have been in Babylon through all the centuries, in the various divisions of the professed church of Christ. They have been the preserving salt of the body. In all the various schemes and plans and societies and organizations of men there have been true, faithful souls, living according to the best light which they have had, serving God according to their ability. But in the last generation the light of the Gospel will be so fully given to the world that men will be able to discriminate between the true and the false. Those in Babylon will see the character of Babylon. Babylon rejects the message which these bear. Babylon, by rejecting God's Spirit, opens her heart to receive the spirit of the evil one, and therefore becomes a habitation of demons, the hold of every unclean spirit, the cage of every unclean and hateful bird. Consequently the fall beyond redemption. How such revelations as this are manifest again and again in outbreaking corruption in some circles! These instances of outbreaking corruption have become so common that they almost cease to excite comment. We are told, whenever such manifestations are seen, that these are indications of what may be found everywhere. God calls from these things. He would not have His people at His coming identified in any way with sin. He would not have them drunken with the wine of Babylon's fornication, for beyond the drinking of the wine lies wrath which is bound to come.

3. COME FORTH.—Therefore the call from heaven, the voice of Christ, "Come forth, My people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues: for her sins have reached even unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities." It is not from some earthly organization to another earthly organization that God is calling; it is not a mere proselyting campaign that the heralds of Christ will carry forward in the closing years of God's work. It is a call from God to come out from everything that is sinful, everything that is low and base and evil and of a compromising character in any way, and to stand with Him; because "sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." The plagues which will fall upon the earth are simply the letting loose of the wrath which belongs to sin.

4. HER PLAGUES.—These plagues have already been noted in the past. Their time of falling is one prophetic day, or one year; and these plagues will fall when great Babylon sings her song of triumph, and feels that sure prosperity is hers forever; but that prosperity has been built upon apostasy, upon disobedience to God, upon the rejection of God's Word, upon the traditions of men. It is a word of eternal import which our Saviour gives us in Matthew, the close of the 7th chapter: "Every one that heareth these words of Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof." Ringing out to the entire world as never before, in the last days of human probation, will be God's Gospel message, "able to save to the uttermost." That rejected means eternal ruin. This saying of our Lord is of eternal import: "Every plant which My heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up."

Men have been sowing their own seed, placing poisonous plants in the vineyard of the Lord. When the Master of the harvest comes they shall be rooted up. This saying of the apostle is of eternal import: "For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." But Babylon has been building, not upon Christ — the Way, the Truth, the Life — but upon perversions of His truth. In the face of all these things God can do only what He has again and again said that He would do, — come to His own with His own glory, and punish sin and all identified with sin. While Babylon shall look over her great, world-wide federation, at the head of which will be the Papacy, situate, perhaps, in the city of the great King — the earthly Jerusalem — and will say, "I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall in no wise see mourning;" or, in the words of the prophecy of Isaiah, "I am, and there is none else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children," she by that very utterance pronounces her own doom. Now the Church of Rome is a widow; her relationship to the kings of the earth has been severed. When that time comes that the ten last confederated kings of earth shall have one mind and one heart to give their power and strength to the beast, that union will be restored; but that very union means the rejection of Christ. And in the very time when her song is sung, in one day — one year — shall her plagues come — "death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judged her."

5. THE KINGS OF THE EARTH — ONE HOUR.—The 17th chapter has told us that the last confederacy of nations would restore the beast power again, and that this beast power would continue for one hour. One hour in prophetic time is fifteen days — one twenty-fourth part of a year. If we were to reckon it by "twelve hours in the day," it would be one twelfth of a year, or thirty days. The prophecy indicates, if we read it aright, that there will come a time when all the nations of the earth will be bound in this great Babylon, that all the nations of the earth will place at the very head of all religion the Papacy, and that all will be united in placing her as the great mistress of the nations, restoring that power which she once possessed of defining heresy. But within one prophetic hour from that time that this power is possessed, the plagues fall. They shall come suddenly, as Isaiah declares in chapter 47: 9: "But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood; in their full measure shall they come upon thee, in the multitude of thy sorceries, and the great abundance of thine enchantments." These plagues are set before us in the 16th chapter of the Revelation. Then the very kings who have united together to give Babylon her place shall turn against her. And yet, as they see the utter desolation which their turning against her has wrought, they themselves shall weep and wail over her, and say, "Wo, wo, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour is thy judgment come."

6. MERCHANDISE.—It is said of Satan, under the figure of the king of Tyre, in the 28th chapter of Ezekiel: "By the abundance of thy TRAFFIC they filled the midst of thee with violence." "By the multitude of thine iniquities, in the unrighteousness of thy TRAFFIC, thou hast profaned thy sanctuaries." And because of that unholy traffic it is said, "Therefore have I brought forth a fire from the midst of thee; it hath devoured thee, and I have turned thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee." The great city of Tyre was possessed of the same spirit of merchandise that is set forth in the 27th chapter of Ezekiel. Her traffickers were found everywhere, and

she became so corrupt and so exalted that it became necessary that God should humble her. So great Babylon, which has been called "modern Tyre," not one city now, but a federation which takes in all the earth, shall deal in the same kind of traffic. How graphically is suggested the commercialism of the present day, the commercialism that overrides all honor, all integrity, a commercialism that seeks to possess all the nations of the earth, gather to itself every commodity in which men may deal, even to the bodies and souls of men, a commercialism which forgets God, and makes first the god of gold! All these are to a greater or less extent bound up in Babylon; and when the great combination falls, then are the individual merchants represented as saying, "Wo, wo, the great city, she that was arrayed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone and pearl! for in one hour so great riches is made desolate."

7. SHIPMASTERS.—The great transportation facilities of ancient times were represented by ships. All land transportation was by beasts of burden, always in small quantities. The large quantities were moved by ships upon the sea, and therefore the ships stand for great transportation, masses of merchandise, large traffic of every character. They also are affected by the great fall of Babylon, and they say, "Wo, wo, the great city, wherein all that had their ships in the sea were made rich by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate." Five times this "one hour" is mentioned in the book of Revelation. First as the hour during which time God's children will pass through the greatest tribulation, for against them is enlisted all of apostasy. Yet God promises to keep them, because they have kept the word of His patience. Rev. 3: 10. Secondly is the one hour of Revelation 17, during which time the kings of the earth "receive power one hour with the beast." Thirdly, three times in the chapter under consideration. At the close of that hour those who have been profited by Babylon shall say, "In one hour is all her prosperity ended, her riches come to naught, and she made desolate."

The word "hour" may be used as an indefinite time when not modified; but when definitely modified, it refers to a definite time, as the "half hour" of Rev. 8: 1. We would not speak of a half of an indefinite time; the half hour limits the time to what is meant by a half hour. It is clear and definite. And so the term "hour," limited by a numeral adjective, means a definite time. Language is meaningless if this is not so.

8. REJOICE.—The awful doom of Babylon is the triumph of the children of God. It is worth while for us to turn from the sad and awful picture of judgment to the picture of deserved triumph, to look upon Babylon as God would have us look upon sin; for Babylon is the great aggregation of sin, the identification of systems with sin, and the system, world-wide and magnificent as it is, falls, because identified with sin; but through all the centuries of the past, that system has been oppressive, cruel, persecuting to the true people of God, the humble, the meek, the devoted, those who lifted voice against sin and all its wickedness. Now they can rejoice. "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye saints, and ye apostles, and ye prophets; for God hath judged your judgment on her." That is the very judgment that she has rendered upon them — the sentence which she has pronounced upon them as innocent comes back in the infinite justice of God upon her.

9. FOUND NO MORE AT ALL.—God's universe shall be forever free from the specious devices of men which assume to save souls. The mighty angel casts the millstone into the sea, saying, "Thus shall it be with Babylon."

The Revelation of Jesus Christ

(Continued from page 7)

All the beauty and all the glory is given — the music, the craftsmen, the industries, all have passed away. Her sorcery and deceptions are manifested, and the guilt of all the ages which she takes upon herself, by rejecting God's means of salvation, is found against her. Just the same as the Jewish church, by rejecting Christ, took upon her the blood of all the prophets that had been slain that proclaimed Christ's coming and character, just so the great Babylonian combinations of earth take upon themselves the guilt of all the world when they endorse the principles of the evil of the past and reject the only means of salvation in Christ. They have taken themselves outside of God's plan, and must necessarily perish.

We plead with our readers, whoever they are, wherever they are, by whatsoever name they may be called, to turn from all traditions of men, from all things that are out of harmony with the teachings of the Word, from everything which would separate from the Lord Jesus Christ or make of none effect in their hearts His teaching, and yield themselves to Him, wholly to Him. He warns us beforehand, in order that we may be saved. He tells us the doom of Babylon, that we may not identify ourselves with Babylon. He tells us of the utter destruction of sin, that we may not be identified with the sin. All these warnings are given not to condemn some church, or some organization merely, or at all, but to show to just what such organizations will come that leave Christ out of their reckoning, and the awful doom which will await the individuals who identify themselves with them. If any of us are in this great Babylon which is depicted before us in this wonderful chapter, let us listen to the voice of God, "Come out of her, My people."