And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
The verse foretells open supernatural wonders performed in the sight of men, including calling fire down from heaven to earth as public proof of divine authority. Those wonders are real works of satanic power, not mere human fraud or sleight of hand, and they will deceive many who dismiss them as trickery into receiving them as from God. The doer is the lamb-horned second beast that rises peacefully out of the earth, representing the United States in its civil and religious liberty, yet speaking as a dragon because controlled by satanic power. The wonders are done to deceive earth-dwellers into making and worshiping an image to the first beast, honoring papal authority, receiving its mark to buy or sell, and observing Sunday in place of God's Sabbath. Their final fulfillment comes in the last days before Christ's advent when Satan himself appears as an angel of light with heavenly glory, claims to be lord of earth, and presents the changed Sabbath as the test of loyalty. Safety against this delusion is found only by testing every miracle by the plain Scriptures, standing firm in obedience and the third angel's message, while God manifests true converting power to prepare His people.
Words and Visible Signs
The verse foretells great wonders performed openly before human eyes in the last days, including causing fire to come down from heaven to earth. What John saw on the Isle of Patmos was what would come upon the earth in the last days, done by the working of Satan through the beast and through evil spirits working miracles to gather the rulers and kings of the earth and of the whole world for the battle of God's great day. These wonders belong to the deception by which the lamb-horned power leads people to honor the papacy and its authority, with fabricated miracles used to support Sunday observance in place of any command from God. They will be fulfilled when spiritual wickedness fully develops, when the powers of this earth unite with the powers from beneath and satanic agencies unite with the professed Christian world in opposing God to oppress His people by laws compelling worship according to human opinions.
The manifestations are the work of evil angels representing both saints and sinners who have died and making those representations visible to human eyes, joined to increasing satanic and spiritualist deceptions near the close of time. They will become more frequent and of more startling character as the close of time nears, to allure the unwary and to deceive, if possible, the very elect, and God has made this known beforehand for the benefit of His people living amid the perils of the last days so they need not be astonished at anything in the line of deceptions.
The wonders are real supernatural works empowered by Satan and performed by his agents, not mere human imposture, fraud, trickery, or sleight of hand, and Scripture stands as testimony that such satanic miracle-working power will appear before the second advent of Christ. They are not merely tricks or pretended miracles but genuine miracles that Satan's agents have actual power to do, exposing modern Spiritualism arising in connection with this deception as the direct work of evil angels and a soul-destroying delusion. Those who dismiss such manifestations as only human trickery will be ensnared when confronted with supernatural exhibitions they cannot deny, and will then accept them as the great power of God and as God's work.
The fire from heaven is a spectacular public sign used as proof of divine authority to support the false claim to be God. Satan will come down with great power to work by signs and wonders, bringing fire down from the sky in the presence of his followers and in human sight, while pretending to be Christ and a great medical missionary, and using spiritualized doctrines and scientific theories to undermine faith. It is aimed at those who have allowed themselves to be led away from the only true foundation of the Word of God, seeking to deceive if possible the very elect. Safety from this deception depends on standing firm upon the truths of the Bible and the Word of the everlasting God, meeting him with It is written, which is of more power than the working of miracles, and conquering through the working of the Holy Spirit, which is stronger than miracles or anything else.
The verse is also set within its broader prophetic context without explaining the specific imagery of the wonders or the fire. In that wider setting it belongs to the prediction about the beast with lamb-like horns, whose peaceful professions give way to dragonlike action in using authority to enforce worship of the first beast, with apostasy preparing the way for religious power to control civil government and use state authority to advance its aims and punish dissent. It belongs to the expectation that people outside the little flock, with papists and Protestants uniting and Protestant churches uniting with civil power, will unite to exalt Sunday and enforce its observance by stringent laws against Sabbath-keepers, forming an image to the papacy and leading to national apostasy. It belongs likewise to the vision of the church's final conflict with earthly powers involving the beast and its image, enforced worship under threat of death, and the faithful people's eventual victory.
Wonder-Working Agent Identified
The doer is the second beast coming up out of the earth with two horns like a lamb but speaking as a dragon, exercising all the power of the first beast whose deadly wound was healed and causing the earth to worship the first beast. Its great wonders, even making fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, deceive those who dwell on the earth by miracles done in the sight of the beast and belong to the closing conflict between the Prince of light and the prince of darkness. That deception moves men to make an image to the beast, to give life to the image so that it speaks and causes those who will not worship it to be killed, and to force all small and great, rich and poor, free and bond to receive a mark in the right hand or forehead so that no one can buy or sell without the mark, the name, or the number. This divides the earth into only two parties, the obedient who keep the commandments of God under the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ and the disobedient under the black banner of rebellion.
That lamb-horned beast is the United States in its peaceful rise coming up out of the earth, first appearing gentle like a lamb but later acting with the fierceness of a dragon in religious and civil power. The two horns like a lamb mean Republicanism and Protestantism, the secret of American power and prosperity as an asylum from popery and kingly rule founded on civil and religious liberty. This peaceful power changes to speak with the voice of a dragon and exercises all the power of the first beast, the Papacy, before him, telling earth-dwellers to make an image to the beast and carrying forward the same cruel and blasphemous work attempted through paganism and then through the Papacy after the Papacy was robbed of strength and forced to desist from persecution. Its miraculous signs belong to its campaign to lead the world to worship the papacy and to enforce worship of the beast and its image with receiving of its mark, and its enforcement of Sunday observance will honor papal authority. Spiritualism arose in the United States and spread throughout the world through American mediums as part of this wonder-working.
Its outward profession of heavenly character, features of a lamb, and alliance with heaven hides a dragon heart revealed by action. That heart is instigated, controlled, and united with satanic power, with Satan's power working beneath its lamb-like appearance as an agent of Satan. The signs are therefore part of the deceptive, persecuting activity of a power that appears lamb-like but speaks and acts like a dragon, allied with satanic power. Its work brings persecution on God's people because they keep holy the seventh day, for Satan caused the change of the Sabbath to make God's commands of less force than human laws, and the man of sin who thought to change times and laws and has always oppressed God's people will cause laws enforcing observance of the first day of the week, while God's people stand firm and the Lord works in their behalf showing plainly that He is the God of gods.
Ultimately the wonders are Satan's own work, with Satan himself causing fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men as part of bewitching influences, lying wonders, and miracles that will take the world captive and sweep in the whole world. Near the end he works through his agents and devoted followers to perform great wonders in public view, including making fire come down from heaven, to help deceive people and lead them to make and worship the beast's image. In the final period before the saints' deliverance these followers, as modern spiritualist magicians using rapping and mesmerism, will be permitted to imitate God's work, as Egypt's magicians imitated signs performed through Moses, and this counterfeit will help lead people to explain away Jesus' miracles as the same kind of power and to overthrow the faithful. Satan works by evil angels upon the hearts of men and with everyone not under the control of the Spirit of God, and the time for this work is right at hand and now just beginning, so that those charmed by these influences now or giving them the least countenance now will be ready to be swept right in to act a part with the devil then.
Deceptive Purpose and Results
The wonders are done to deceive those who dwell on the earth and to force a final choice of allegiance between obedience and rebellion. They belong to the last days when evil spirits work miracles to gather the rulers of the world for the battle of God's great day. They will be fulfilled when spiritual wickedness fully develops, when the powers of this earth unite with the powers from beneath and satanic agencies unite with the professed Christian world to oppose God and oppress His people by laws compelling worship according to human opinions. The deception works through Satan's miracle-working by spiritualism, including personating the dead, and moves religious bodies that refuse warning, with Protestant churches uniting with the papal power and the civil power against God's commandment-keeping people. These lying signs accompany the final worldwide warning and help lead the inhabitants of the earth to choose their side. That choice divides the earth into only two parties, those under the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ who keep the commandments of God and those under the black banner of rebellion who disobey.
By those miracles the deceived earth-dwellers are led to make an image to the beast. The image is then given life so that it both speaks and causes all who will not worship it to be killed. These are great and solemn events on the threshold of fulfillment, with greater and still greater external parade of heathen power and heathen deities manifesting signal power before the cities of the world, a delineation already begun to be fulfilled.
The same campaign leads the earth to worship the first beast and to honor papal authority. The first beast is the papacy, whose outward appearance may change to win approval while its character and principles remain unchanged, and the two-horned beast enforces its worship and the worship of its image and the receiving of its mark. The second beast compels the earth and its inhabitants to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed, appearing lamb-like but speaking and acting like a dragon in alliance with satanic power. The image is made only by union of church and state, or by subordinating the civil power to the ecclesiastical power so the state enforces the tenets and requirements of the church, as a Religious Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would do.
The deception enforces receiving the mark, name, or number of the beast in the right hand or forehead, so that no one can buy or sell without it. The forehead signifies the mind and the hand signifies power, so the mark involves allegiance by conviction or through coercion, while God seals His servants in the mind and compulsory worship is accepted only by wicked powers. The prophecy plainly predicts combinations that rob the poorer classes of their just advantages and prevent buying or selling except under certain conditions. Gigantic monopolies and trades unions that grasp business and mark men who refuse to join are a fulfillment of it, controlled by the cruel power of Satan as one of his last efforts and one of the signs of the last days, binding men in bundles ready to be burned. Belonging to them means disregarding the entire Decalogue and violating love to God and neighbor by depriving neighbors of freedom of action, making keeping God's commandments impossible, so God's people must stand apart from the world and get out of the cities, and God will care for those who love Him and keep His commandments.
Fabricated miracles are used to support Sunday observance in place of any command from God. The message of Revelation 14:9-12 is based altogether on these facts, condemning in the strongest terms the action of this beast and the worship it enforces, and calling instead to keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, including the seventh-day Sabbath, so the contrast is between the Sabbath of the Lord and the opposing Sunday sabbath. The prophecy lays out in clear lines the position of God's people for this time in regard to Sunday laws.
Last-Days Timing and Fulfillment
What John saw on the Isle of Patmos was given by Christ as matters of highest importance concerning what will come upon the earth in the last days before the second advent. The wonders foretold are real supernatural works done in the sight of men by Satan's working, including making fire come down from heaven to earth, not mere human imposture, fraud, trickery, or sleight of hand. They include the work of evil angels representing both saints and sinners who have died and making those representations visible to human eyes through modern Spiritualism, joined to the miracles of the spirits of devils that go to the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. These manifestations will be more frequent and of more startling character as the close of time nears, to allure the unwary and to deceive, if possible, the very elect, and God has proved this class for the benefit of His people who live amid the perils of the last days so they need not be astonished at anything in the line of deceptions.
The verse belongs to the closing strife with the image-beast just before the saints' deliverance. Its fulfillment will bring believers into a situation like Jacob's trouble, with fear and distress when a decree threatens those who refuse to worship the image. The wonders and miracles, together with deception and oppression, will be especially evident in that last power's final struggle under the seven last plagues, shortly before it comes to its end and God delivers His people. In that final period Satan's followers and modern spiritualist magicians using rapping and mesmerism will be permitted to imitate God's work, as Egypt's magicians imitated the signs performed through Moses by the devil's power. These signs are meant to deceive God's people and to help lead people to explain away the miracles of Jesus as the same kind of power, as part of a wider effort to overthrow the faithful before their final deliverance.
It belongs to a connected sequence of past, present, and future events continuing through Revelation 14:5, ending with the complete redemption of the 144,000 who have gained victory over the beast and its image and stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion. It belongs to the prophecies of Revelation 12 to 18 that are being fulfilled, and its fulfillment is part of the last message of warning that all are to hear now. It belongs to the solemn third angel's message now to be proclaimed to the world, which combines the first and the second messages and binds them up with the third. That message brings into view the large field of the closing scenes of this earth's history and the great and last warfare between the two classes, those who keep the commandments of God and those who make void the law of God, and it is a communication for all who live in these last days, to be read carefully and prayerfully in order to be understood, while the last message of mercy is to be lifted up as the standard of truth before the people against teachers who teach fables to counteract it.
Its final fulfillment comes when Satan appears in person in the last days as an angel of light with great power and heavenly glory and claims to be lord of the whole earth. He will declare that the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, and as lord of the first day he will present this spurious sabbath as a test of loyalty to him. This work belongs to the other beast coming up out of the earth with two horns like a lamb that speaks as a dragon and exercises all the power of the first beast whose deadly wound was healed, causing the earth to worship the first beast, with great wonders deceiving earth-dwellers by miracles done in the sight of the beast, leading them to make an image to the beast, to give life to the image so it speaks and causes those who will not worship it to be killed, and to cause all to receive a mark in the right hand or forehead without which no one can buy or sell. Its great wonders reach their height in Satan personating Christ's second coming in royal glory with soft pleasant words, proclaiming himself Christ and pronouncing blessing and gladness and honor upon the combined corrupt harmony of earthly powers, fallen churches that rejected light, the papal power that thought to change times and laws and set up a rival sabbath and drank the blood of saints, the Protestant image-beast, and spiritualism. That false blessing rests only on worshipers of the beast, papal Rome, and his image and on those who have received the mark of the beast and of his image, a deception so masterly it would deceive the very elect, leaving as the only hope a remnant who keep the word of Christ's patience and refuse to worship the beast and his image.
The delineation has already begun to be fulfilled. The closing scenes of this world's history are now here, the image to the beast is virtually formed by religious legislation with the spirit of the dragon manifest, and entrance has been made on a new era in which everything moves with before-unknown rapidity, though the further specified actions of the image, including doing great wonders, remain to fully develop. The time for Satan himself causing fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men as part of bewitching influences, lying wonders, and miracles that will take the world captive and sweep in the whole world is right at hand and is now just beginning, for Satan works by evil angels upon the hearts of men and works with everyone who is not under the control of the Spirit of God. Those who are charmed by these influences now or give them the least countenance now will be ready to be swept right in to act a part with the devil then. The visions are present truth to be given now in clear public discourses free from human wisdom and tradition, as a prophecy about the United States, the beast, and its image calling the audience to refuse homage to the beast and its image and to be spoken with power in public meetings before outsiders, for Satan has come down with great power and is now multiplying fallacies and sciences that leave accepters drifting without anchor, having a name to live while dead, needing watchfulness, strengthening what remains, holding fast, and repenting.
The prophecy shows America in jeopardy and rapidly approaching a national apostasy that will end only in national ruin. Legislators abandon the principles of Protestantism to favor Roman apostasy, and the people whom God delivered from the yoke of popery by a national act give vigor to the corrupt faith of Rome and arouse a tyranny that only waits to break out again into cruelty and despotism, while Protestant churches follow the example of that apostate church by seeking the support of the secular power against which their ancestors endured persecution. The rulers of the land take their position above the Creator, bring the claims of the false Sabbath to the front and accept the first day of the week, uniting with the man of sin to restore his lost ascendancy and accepting the religion of the Papacy, and laws enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath bring national apostasy from the principles of republicanism upon which the government was founded and make void the law of God. This brings a most trying position for the commandment-keeping people of God, in which the nation for which God has worked in a marvelous manner and over which He has spread the shield of Omnipotence will abandon Protestant principles and through its legislature give countenance and support to Romanism in limiting religious liberty. When everything looks most forbidding the Lord will reveal His power to His faithful ones and interpose in their behalf, all those who have walked in the light and diffused the light will realize that God interposes, the tyranny of Rome will be exercised, but Christ is refuge.
Forms of False Miracles
The wonder-working includes modern Spiritualism arising in America and spreading worldwide through American mediums, as the deceptive activity of the two-horned beast representing the United States that first appears gentle like a lamb but later acts with dragon fierceness in religious and civil power. It is real supernatural work by Satan and his agents, not mere human imposture, fraud, trickery, or sleight of hand, including bringing fire down from heaven in the sight of men to deceive those dwelling on the earth before the second advent. It is the work of evil angels personating the dead, representing both saints and sinners who have died and making those representations visible to human eyes, with rapping and mesmerism spreading under a religious guise as a soul-destroying delusion. Those who dismiss such manifestations as only human trickery will be ensnared when confronted with supernatural exhibitions they cannot deny, and will accept them as the great power of God. What John saw on Patmos concerning the last days was proved for the benefit of God's people living amid the perils of the last days so they need not be astonished at anything in the line of deceptions.
It includes false science, hypnotism, and every conceivable deception, especially apparent healings in which Satan makes people sick and then removes his power so they appear healed, with the healing claimed as a miracle by the power of God when it is the power of the devil. Such lying miracles and healings do not prove a movement comes from God, and they will ensnare those who turn from God's commandments, cast aside truth, and accept false teaching. Because these counterfeit miracles will be performed, God's servants are not to rely on miraculous healing alone, but genuine physical healing is to be joined with teaching the gospel through sanitariums and medical missionary work.
It includes Satan pretending to be Christ and a great medical missionary, using the spectacular public sign of fire from heaven to support his false claim to be God. In its fullest form the deception of the lamb-like beast that is apostate Protestantism forming an image to papal Rome reaches its height in Satan personating Christ's second coming in royal glory with soft pleasant words, proclaiming himself Christ and pronouncing blessing and gladness and honor upon the combined corrupt harmony of earthly powers, fallen churches that rejected light, the papal power that thought to change times and laws and set up a rival sabbath and drank the blood of saints, the Protestant image-beast, and spiritualism. That false blessing rests only on worshipers of the beast, papal Rome, and his image and on those who have received the mark of the beast and of his image, a masterly deception that would deceive the very elect, leaving as the only hope a remnant who keep the word of Christ's patience and refuse to worship the beast and his image. The delusion brings a time of satanic delusion and peril in which Satan in personating Jesus Christ is worshiped as God amid shout upon shout of victory in adoration and praise, with safety only in standing by the truths of the Bible and having the law of God engraved in the heart. He also uses spiritualized doctrines and scientific theories to undermine faith as part of the same deception.
It operates through professed followers of Christ who have lost sight of their Leader and through agents who have departed from the faith to seemingly work miracles, even making fire come down from heaven on earth in the sight of men. They point to the sick healed through them and other marvelous works and claim to have more of the Spirit and power of God than those who keep God's law, but their works are done under the direction of the enemy of righteousness to deceive souls and to turn them away from obedience, truth, and duty, with still more marked manifestations in the near future. Looking for miracles as a sign of divine guidance brings grave danger of deception, because Satan uses such lying wonders to deceive, if possible, the very elect. This wonder-working power is to appear when men are claiming sanctification and holiness, lifting themselves up higher and higher, exalting themselves, boasting of themselves and of their own goodness, and the same deceiving power will make an image to the beast and cause all to receive his mark.
The counterfeit so closely resembles the true that it will be impossible to distinguish between them except by the Holy Scriptures, whose plain utterances reveal Satan's deceptions and by which every statement and every miracle must be tested. These manifestations will be more frequent and of more startling character as the close of time nears, to allure the unwary, with Satan aroused to more intense activity at every revival of God's work and now putting forth his utmost efforts in his final struggle against Christ and His followers. In the final period before the saints' deliverance, modern spiritualist magicians using rapping and mesmerism will be allowed to imitate God's work, as Egypt's magicians imitated signs performed through Moses. These signs will help lead people to explain away the miracles of Jesus as the same kind of power and to attribute Christ's miracles to spirit manifestations and mesmerism. The danger is so strong that if possible even the very elect would be deceived, and safety is to stand as the elect by listening to the Word of God and knowing it is true, by not following human representations but clinging to the mighty One, believing in Him and doing His works.
Satan acts a double part, appearing as the dispenser of great blessings and divine truths and by his lying wonders holding the world under his control, while at the same time indulging his malignity by causing distress and destruction. He accuses God's people as the cause of the fearful convulsions of nature and the strife and bloodshed among men that desolate the earth, and thus excites the spirit of hatred and persecution against them to greater intensity. In contrast to God, who never forces the will or the conscience, Satan employs cruel measures to control the consciences of men and to secure worship to himself, and this work of compulsion is always in favor of human creeds and laws and in defiance of God's holy law.
He employs every object in the earth, in the air, and in the water to confirm his claim to be as God and to be worshiped, claiming to be the Prince of heaven and presenting entrancing views of the kingdom of God and pleasant pictures as his own to bring men under his dominion. Those who yield become intensely active in spreading his greatness and glory, influencing and stimulating one another in confirming the greatness and glory of his kingdom. His power is received as the power of God, the world bows before him, and nearly the whole world wonders after the beast, forming a vast, raging, religiously enthusiastic procession in rebellion and warfare against the Creator and Redeemer in a determined effort to take and occupy the place of the throne of God.
Sabbath Image and Mark
The image to the beast is formed before probation closes and becomes the decisive test for God's people, distinguishing those who obey God's law and refuse the spurious sabbath from those who accept Sunday and receive the mark. It is made only by union of church and state, or by subordinating civil power to ecclesiastical power so the state enforces the tenets and requirements of the church, as a Religious Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would do. In that setting Protestant churches enforcing Sunday observance through civil power form an image to the beast and enforce worship of the beast and its image, following the papacy's example and seeking secular support. Apostasy prepares the way for religious power to control civil government and use state authority to advance its aims and punish dissent.
The conflict centers on compelled worship over the Sabbath, with the seventh-day Sabbath sanctified as the memorial of creation instituted in Eden opposed to a human-instituted false sabbath on Sunday with no scriptural authority. The wonders including fire brought down from heaven before people are signs used by the beast to deceive and enforce that false worship and to oppress those who keep God's commandments. Satan works to destroy the Sabbath of the fourth commandment to erase the memorial of God's works and bring worldwide apostasy against God's law, instituting a spurious sabbath in its place, for breaking one point makes one guilty of all. Leading men and women to disregard the fourth commandment places them on Satan's side, producing among professed Christians idolaters not sealed by God who give to a man-made institution the glory God requires for His Sabbath day and compel others to worship this idol, and who will be visited with retributive judgments poured out without mixture of mercy upon unrepentant despisers of God's law. Satan caused the change of the Sabbath to make God's commands of less force than human laws, and the man of sin who thought to change times and laws and always oppressed God's people will cause laws enforcing observance of the first day, bringing persecution because God's people keep holy the seventh day, while the Lord works for them showing plainly He is God of gods. The mark opposes God's Sabbath seal and represents the counterfeit Sunday sabbath, with the forehead signifying the mind and the hand signifying power, so allegiance comes by conviction or coercion, while God seals His servants in the mind and compulsory worship is accepted only by wicked powers.
The scenes are to be repeated when papists and Protestants unite to exalt Sunday and enforce it by stringent laws against Sabbath-keepers, with the United States helping to bring this about. Religious intolerance gaining control in the United States with church and state uniting to persecute commandment-keepers gives the third message an effect it could not have had before, though its enforcement was once dismissed as impossible. The mother of harlots is separate and distinct from her daughters, her day of power past, while her daughters are the Protestant sects growing as she declined and soon to exercise the persecuting power once manifested by the mother. Nominal churches and nominal Adventists will betray the obscure saints to Catholics to gain Catholic influence, reporting them as disregarding the pope's institution by keeping the Sabbath and disregarding Sunday. Then Catholics will bid Protestants go forward and issue a decree that all who will not observe the first day instead of the seventh shall be slain, and Catholics with their large numbers will stand by Protestants and give their power to the image of the beast, and Protestants will work as their mother worked to destroy the saints, but before their decrees bear fruit the saints will be delivered by the voice of God.
The churches and the world united in trampling God's commandments threaten with death all who obey His precepts, which is the description of the persecuting power in the last period of earth's history. The lamblike-horned beast as the last power to war against church and law tells earth-dwellers to make an image to the beast and causes all small and great, rich and poor, free and bond to receive a mark so none may buy or sell without mark, name, or number, thus Protestantism echoing the dragon's voice follows the Papacy and carries forward the same cruel work attempted through paganism and then the Papacy after it was robbed of strength and forced to desist. Religious bodies refusing warning come under strong deception through spiritualism personating the dead and unite with civil power in persecuting the church, with Protestant churches uniting with papal power against commandment-keepers in a great system exercising spiritual tyranny over conscience. This union of Roman and Protestant persecuting powers brings troubling events rather than peaceful times.
The message of Revelation 14:9-12 is based altogether on these facts, condemning the beast's action and enforced worship in strongest terms and calling to keeping God's commandments and the faith of Jesus including the seventh-day Sabbath, in contrast between the Sabbath of the Lord and Sunday. Anyone joining in worshiping the beast and his image and receiving his mark in forehead or hand will drink the wine of God's wrath poured out without mixture into the cup of indignation and be tormented with fire and brimstone. Knowing what is represented by the beast, the image, and the mark is necessary to understanding that solemn warning, for that beast is an earthly government trampling God's law and persecuting His people in concert with the dragon and leopard-like beast to the close of time when only a remnant keep God's commandments. The solemn third message now to be proclaimed combines the first and second messages, brings into view the closing scenes and the last warfare between keepers of God's commandments and makers void of His law, and must be read carefully and prayerfully while mercy lingers against teachers of fables. In this age of open universal contempt for God's law, those with light rise with the loyal to proclaim warning against worshiping the beast and receiving his mark, under judgment appointed against all who deceive earth-dwellers with fatal lies presented as truth.
The wonders divide the earth into only two parties, those under the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ who keep God's commandments and those under the black banner of rebellion who make void the law. By miracles deceiving earth-dwellers into making an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword and did live, giving life to the image so it speaks and causes all who will not worship it to be killed, and forcing the mark for buying and selling, these great and solemn events stand on the threshold of fulfillment. The papal power with marvelous perseverance has exalted a spurious sabbath with no scriptural authority, the disloyal Protestant world has wondered after the beast, kingdoms have confederated to sustain it, and obedience to Jehovah's Sabbath is called disloyalty to national laws, forcing everyone to loyalty to God or scorn for His law.
In the time of trouble supporters of the Sunday law will claim great miracles, signs and wonders as proof they have truth, claiming angels from heaven talk and walk with them when those messengers are Satan personating the dead as gone to heaven. They will point to this power and to the whole world converted and in harmony with Sunday-keeping, calling it the long-expected temporal millennium, to ridicule the feebleness, smallness, poverty and stricken condition of Sabbath-keepers who stand alone in defiance of land and, as claimed, of God. Having cut off their resources so they cannot buy or sell, they will mock them for independence from the world, charge them with alone claiming to be right, and insist they are dependent on the world and must concede to its customs, practices and laws or go out of it.
The prophecy plainly predicts combinations that rob the poorer classes of just advantages and prevent buying or selling except under certain conditions, fulfilled in gigantic monopolies and trades unions grasping business and marking men who refuse to join. Forming these unions is one of Satan's last efforts and a sign of the last days, a binding in bundles ready to be burned under Satan's cruel control. Belonging to them means disregarding the entire Decalogue and violating love to God and neighbor by depriving neighbors of freedom of action, making keeping God's commandments impossible, so God's people must isolate themselves, stand apart from the world, and get out of the cities, and God will care for those who love Him and keep His commandments. The enemy's determined effort against the fourth commandment is intended to awaken interest in the Sabbath as the decisive last-day test and to open the way for the third angel's message to be proclaimed with power.
Safeguard and Faithful Response
The Scriptures are the safeguard against the last great delusion soon to open in the final struggle, when marvelous works are performed openly in the sight of men and the counterfeit so closely resembles the true that the two cannot be distinguished except by the Bible. The plain utterances of the Bible reveal the devices of darkness, which every possible effort is made to keep men from knowing, and by its testimony every statement and every miracle must be tested. Only those who have made the Bible their study, with prayer, with the law of God engraved in the heart, and with faith put into practice in obedience, will stand the test when the whole world and the fallen churches are carried away. That time of satanic delusion and peril comes at every revival of God's work with more intense activity, and now with utmost efforts, when in personating Christ the deceiver is worshiped as God amid shouts of victory. Miracles and healings alone do not establish truth, for lying wonders including apparent healings ensnare those who turn from the commandments and heed false teaching.
Discernment comes only through obedience to truth and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, which is stronger than miracles or anything else. Each person must go to God for himself and pray for divine enlightenment to know for certain what is truth, so as to distinguish the genuine work of God from the imitative work of the powers of darkness when the angel-of-light deception appears. Those standing firm upon the Word will meet the coming down of Satan with great power, signs, and fire brought from the sky as proof of authority, with the weapon Christ used, It is written, which is of more power than the working of miracles, conquering through the Spirit and obtaining power from the Word. Looking for miracles as a sign of divine guidance brings grave danger, because the enemy works through agents departed from the faith to seemingly work miracles, even to bring fire down, to deceive if possible the very elect. Those who close their eyes to clear light and demand miracles as proof will be answered with numerous miracles confirming them in deception, deceived with evil angels exulting around them, and their situation will be terrible.
Safety is to stand firm on the platform of eternal truth, put on the whole armor of God, remain under the instruction of God as Author of truth, and not be influenced or overcome by whatever the enemy presents as truth amid error overspreading the earth. It is to listen to the Word of God and know it is true, not follow human words or representations but cling to the Mighty One, believe in Him and do His works, trusting His sure promises rather than human words, and so be kept and counted among those washed and made white with provision to cleanse from all sin. Against miracles presented to confirm minds in the belief that the worker is God, all must stand on the platform of truth given in the third angel's message, holding fast the evidences that have confirmed the truth and proclaiming them over and over with a straightforward message until the close, rather than spending precious time on those who change truth into a lie. The Lord will manifest greater converting power like Pentecost and the latter rain to prepare a people to stand the final test, when deceptions are near and try faith to show of what sort it is. When everything looks most forbidding He will interpose and reveal His power in behalf of those who have walked in the light and diffused it, for Christ is refuge in the cleft of the Rock amid dense darkness, with every eye in the unfallen universe bent on these unfolding scenes of the consummation of evil against good.
The lying wonders during the loud cry stand against true miracles, healings, and signs done through consecrated servants as the message goes to the whole earth by thousands of voices, and the two sides working at the same time force the inhabitants of the earth to take their stand. These miracle-working powers seek to make the established facts of faith ineffective and become a test, so the people of God must remain grounded in the truth of His word and hold fast the beginning of confidence and the evidence of truth. House-to-house opening of the Bible prepares minds to receive the Word so many will be ready to make right decisions and confess the truth in the face of formidable difficulties in the coming crisis, and even those who become workers only at the eleventh hour under that pressure will receive equal wages with those who worked through the whole day. The visions contain matters of highest importance to be given free from human wisdom and tradition, as present truth in clear and powerful public discourses, calling hearers to refuse homage to the beast and its image.
Prophetic Warning Proclaimed
The verse belongs to the prophecy of Satan's work through church and state, and it must be definitely explained as God's warning of the perils before His people. It shows what will be in the last days when a people work counter to God, and it exposes the company who have been deceived by miracle-working power.
Its miracle-working powers will perform wonders as a test for God's people and seek to make the established facts of faith ineffective, so God's people must remain grounded in the truth of His word. Near the close of earth's history Satan works miracles with pleasant pictures to confirm minds in the belief that he is God, in the perils of the last days now upon us, in order that if possible the very elect shall be deceived. Against this deception all of God's people must stand on the platform of truth given in the third angel's message, holding fast the evidences that have confirmed the truth in righteousness and proclaiming them over and over again with a straightforward, clear-cut message until the close of history, rather than spending precious time trying to convince those who would change the truth of God into a lie. Satan has come down with great power and is now multiplying fallacies, and many will be deceived by his miracles. Those who accept his science drift from truth without anchor from one delusion to another and have a name that they live while they are dead, needing to be watchful, to strengthen what remains, to hold fast what they received and heard, and to repent.
He will soon be closely connected with wonderful scenes on earth in which he works miracles, including making people sick and then suddenly removing his satanic power so they are regarded as healed. These works of apparent healing will bring Seventh-day Adventists to the test, and many who have had great light will fail to walk in the light because they have not become one with Christ and do not welcome His instruction. He now exercises wonderful miracle-working power and comes as an angel of light with an imitative work of the powers of darkness that counterfeits the genuine work of God. Every person must therefore go to God for themselves and pray for divine enlightenment to know for certain what is truth, so they can distinguish the genuine from the imitation when that deception appears.
The verse foretells open supernatural wonders performed in the sight of men, including calling fire down from heaven to earth as public proof of divine authority. Those wonders are real works of satanic power, not mere human fraud or sleight of hand, and they will deceive many who dismiss them as trickery into receiving them as from God. The doer is the lamb-horned second beast that rises peacefully out of the earth, representing the United States in its civil and religious liberty, yet speaking as a dragon because controlled by satanic power. The wonders are done to deceive earth-dwellers into making and worshiping an image to the first beast, honoring papal authority, receiving its mark to buy or sell, and observing Sunday in place of God's Sabbath. Their final fulfillment comes in the last days before Christ's advent when Satan himself appears as an angel of light with heavenly glory, claims to be lord of earth, and presents the changed Sabbath as the test of loyalty. Safety against this delusion is found only by testing every miracle by the plain Scriptures, standing firm in obedience and the third angel's message, while God manifests true converting power to prepare His people.
Words and Visible Signs
The verse foretells great wonders performed openly before human eyes in the last days, including causing fire to come down from heaven to earth. What John saw on the Isle of Patmos was what would come upon the earth in the last days, done by the working of Satan through the beast and through evil spirits working miracles to gather the rulers and kings of the earth and of the whole world for the battle of God's great day. These wonders belong to the deception by which the lamb-horned power leads people to honor the papacy and its authority, with fabricated miracles used to support Sunday observance in place of any command from God. They will be fulfilled when spiritual wickedness fully develops, when the powers of this earth unite with the powers from beneath and satanic agencies unite with the professed Christian world in opposing God to oppress His people by laws compelling worship according to human opinions.
The manifestations are the work of evil angels representing both saints and sinners who have died and making those representations visible to human eyes, joined to increasing satanic and spiritualist deceptions near the close of time. They will become more frequent and of more startling character as the close of time nears, to allure the unwary and to deceive, if possible, the very elect, and God has made this known beforehand for the benefit of His people living amid the perils of the last days so they need not be astonished at anything in the line of deceptions.
The wonders are real supernatural works empowered by Satan and performed by his agents, not mere human imposture, fraud, trickery, or sleight of hand, and Scripture stands as testimony that such satanic miracle-working power will appear before the second advent of Christ. They are not merely tricks or pretended miracles but genuine miracles that Satan's agents have actual power to do, exposing modern Spiritualism arising in connection with this deception as the direct work of evil angels and a soul-destroying delusion. Those who dismiss such manifestations as only human trickery will be ensnared when confronted with supernatural exhibitions they cannot deny, and will then accept them as the great power of God and as God's work.
The fire from heaven is a spectacular public sign used as proof of divine authority to support the false claim to be God. Satan will come down with great power to work by signs and wonders, bringing fire down from the sky in the presence of his followers and in human sight, while pretending to be Christ and a great medical missionary, and using spiritualized doctrines and scientific theories to undermine faith. It is aimed at those who have allowed themselves to be led away from the only true foundation of the Word of God, seeking to deceive if possible the very elect. Safety from this deception depends on standing firm upon the truths of the Bible and the Word of the everlasting God, meeting him with It is written, which is of more power than the working of miracles, and conquering through the working of the Holy Spirit, which is stronger than miracles or anything else.
The verse is also set within its broader prophetic context without explaining the specific imagery of the wonders or the fire. In that wider setting it belongs to the prediction about the beast with lamb-like horns, whose peaceful professions give way to dragonlike action in using authority to enforce worship of the first beast, with apostasy preparing the way for religious power to control civil government and use state authority to advance its aims and punish dissent. It belongs to the expectation that people outside the little flock, with papists and Protestants uniting and Protestant churches uniting with civil power, will unite to exalt Sunday and enforce its observance by stringent laws against Sabbath-keepers, forming an image to the papacy and leading to national apostasy. It belongs likewise to the vision of the church's final conflict with earthly powers involving the beast and its image, enforced worship under threat of death, and the faithful people's eventual victory.
Wonder-Working Agent Identified
The doer is the second beast coming up out of the earth with two horns like a lamb but speaking as a dragon, exercising all the power of the first beast whose deadly wound was healed and causing the earth to worship the first beast. Its great wonders, even making fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, deceive those who dwell on the earth by miracles done in the sight of the beast and belong to the closing conflict between the Prince of light and the prince of darkness. That deception moves men to make an image to the beast, to give life to the image so that it speaks and causes those who will not worship it to be killed, and to force all small and great, rich and poor, free and bond to receive a mark in the right hand or forehead so that no one can buy or sell without the mark, the name, or the number. This divides the earth into only two parties, the obedient who keep the commandments of God under the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ and the disobedient under the black banner of rebellion.
That lamb-horned beast is the United States in its peaceful rise coming up out of the earth, first appearing gentle like a lamb but later acting with the fierceness of a dragon in religious and civil power. The two horns like a lamb mean Republicanism and Protestantism, the secret of American power and prosperity as an asylum from popery and kingly rule founded on civil and religious liberty. This peaceful power changes to speak with the voice of a dragon and exercises all the power of the first beast, the Papacy, before him, telling earth-dwellers to make an image to the beast and carrying forward the same cruel and blasphemous work attempted through paganism and then through the Papacy after the Papacy was robbed of strength and forced to desist from persecution. Its miraculous signs belong to its campaign to lead the world to worship the papacy and to enforce worship of the beast and its image with receiving of its mark, and its enforcement of Sunday observance will honor papal authority. Spiritualism arose in the United States and spread throughout the world through American mediums as part of this wonder-working.
Its outward profession of heavenly character, features of a lamb, and alliance with heaven hides a dragon heart revealed by action. That heart is instigated, controlled, and united with satanic power, with Satan's power working beneath its lamb-like appearance as an agent of Satan. The signs are therefore part of the deceptive, persecuting activity of a power that appears lamb-like but speaks and acts like a dragon, allied with satanic power. Its work brings persecution on God's people because they keep holy the seventh day, for Satan caused the change of the Sabbath to make God's commands of less force than human laws, and the man of sin who thought to change times and laws and has always oppressed God's people will cause laws enforcing observance of the first day of the week, while God's people stand firm and the Lord works in their behalf showing plainly that He is the God of gods.
Ultimately the wonders are Satan's own work, with Satan himself causing fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men as part of bewitching influences, lying wonders, and miracles that will take the world captive and sweep in the whole world. Near the end he works through his agents and devoted followers to perform great wonders in public view, including making fire come down from heaven, to help deceive people and lead them to make and worship the beast's image. In the final period before the saints' deliverance these followers, as modern spiritualist magicians using rapping and mesmerism, will be permitted to imitate God's work, as Egypt's magicians imitated signs performed through Moses, and this counterfeit will help lead people to explain away Jesus' miracles as the same kind of power and to overthrow the faithful. Satan works by evil angels upon the hearts of men and with everyone not under the control of the Spirit of God, and the time for this work is right at hand and now just beginning, so that those charmed by these influences now or giving them the least countenance now will be ready to be swept right in to act a part with the devil then.
Deceptive Purpose and Results
The wonders are done to deceive those who dwell on the earth and to force a final choice of allegiance between obedience and rebellion. They belong to the last days when evil spirits work miracles to gather the rulers of the world for the battle of God's great day. They will be fulfilled when spiritual wickedness fully develops, when the powers of this earth unite with the powers from beneath and satanic agencies unite with the professed Christian world to oppose God and oppress His people by laws compelling worship according to human opinions. The deception works through Satan's miracle-working by spiritualism, including personating the dead, and moves religious bodies that refuse warning, with Protestant churches uniting with the papal power and the civil power against God's commandment-keeping people. These lying signs accompany the final worldwide warning and help lead the inhabitants of the earth to choose their side. That choice divides the earth into only two parties, those under the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ who keep the commandments of God and those under the black banner of rebellion who disobey.
By those miracles the deceived earth-dwellers are led to make an image to the beast. The image is then given life so that it both speaks and causes all who will not worship it to be killed. These are great and solemn events on the threshold of fulfillment, with greater and still greater external parade of heathen power and heathen deities manifesting signal power before the cities of the world, a delineation already begun to be fulfilled.
The same campaign leads the earth to worship the first beast and to honor papal authority. The first beast is the papacy, whose outward appearance may change to win approval while its character and principles remain unchanged, and the two-horned beast enforces its worship and the worship of its image and the receiving of its mark. The second beast compels the earth and its inhabitants to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed, appearing lamb-like but speaking and acting like a dragon in alliance with satanic power. The image is made only by union of church and state, or by subordinating the civil power to the ecclesiastical power so the state enforces the tenets and requirements of the church, as a Religious Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would do.
The deception enforces receiving the mark, name, or number of the beast in the right hand or forehead, so that no one can buy or sell without it. The forehead signifies the mind and the hand signifies power, so the mark involves allegiance by conviction or through coercion, while God seals His servants in the mind and compulsory worship is accepted only by wicked powers. The prophecy plainly predicts combinations that rob the poorer classes of their just advantages and prevent buying or selling except under certain conditions. Gigantic monopolies and trades unions that grasp business and mark men who refuse to join are a fulfillment of it, controlled by the cruel power of Satan as one of his last efforts and one of the signs of the last days, binding men in bundles ready to be burned. Belonging to them means disregarding the entire Decalogue and violating love to God and neighbor by depriving neighbors of freedom of action, making keeping God's commandments impossible, so God's people must stand apart from the world and get out of the cities, and God will care for those who love Him and keep His commandments.
Fabricated miracles are used to support Sunday observance in place of any command from God. The message of Revelation 14:9-12 is based altogether on these facts, condemning in the strongest terms the action of this beast and the worship it enforces, and calling instead to keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, including the seventh-day Sabbath, so the contrast is between the Sabbath of the Lord and the opposing Sunday sabbath. The prophecy lays out in clear lines the position of God's people for this time in regard to Sunday laws.
Last-Days Timing and Fulfillment
What John saw on the Isle of Patmos was given by Christ as matters of highest importance concerning what will come upon the earth in the last days before the second advent. The wonders foretold are real supernatural works done in the sight of men by Satan's working, including making fire come down from heaven to earth, not mere human imposture, fraud, trickery, or sleight of hand. They include the work of evil angels representing both saints and sinners who have died and making those representations visible to human eyes through modern Spiritualism, joined to the miracles of the spirits of devils that go to the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. These manifestations will be more frequent and of more startling character as the close of time nears, to allure the unwary and to deceive, if possible, the very elect, and God has proved this class for the benefit of His people who live amid the perils of the last days so they need not be astonished at anything in the line of deceptions.
The verse belongs to the closing strife with the image-beast just before the saints' deliverance. Its fulfillment will bring believers into a situation like Jacob's trouble, with fear and distress when a decree threatens those who refuse to worship the image. The wonders and miracles, together with deception and oppression, will be especially evident in that last power's final struggle under the seven last plagues, shortly before it comes to its end and God delivers His people. In that final period Satan's followers and modern spiritualist magicians using rapping and mesmerism will be permitted to imitate God's work, as Egypt's magicians imitated the signs performed through Moses by the devil's power. These signs are meant to deceive God's people and to help lead people to explain away the miracles of Jesus as the same kind of power, as part of a wider effort to overthrow the faithful before their final deliverance.
It belongs to a connected sequence of past, present, and future events continuing through Revelation 14:5, ending with the complete redemption of the 144,000 who have gained victory over the beast and its image and stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion. It belongs to the prophecies of Revelation 12 to 18 that are being fulfilled, and its fulfillment is part of the last message of warning that all are to hear now. It belongs to the solemn third angel's message now to be proclaimed to the world, which combines the first and the second messages and binds them up with the third. That message brings into view the large field of the closing scenes of this earth's history and the great and last warfare between the two classes, those who keep the commandments of God and those who make void the law of God, and it is a communication for all who live in these last days, to be read carefully and prayerfully in order to be understood, while the last message of mercy is to be lifted up as the standard of truth before the people against teachers who teach fables to counteract it.
Its final fulfillment comes when Satan appears in person in the last days as an angel of light with great power and heavenly glory and claims to be lord of the whole earth. He will declare that the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, and as lord of the first day he will present this spurious sabbath as a test of loyalty to him. This work belongs to the other beast coming up out of the earth with two horns like a lamb that speaks as a dragon and exercises all the power of the first beast whose deadly wound was healed, causing the earth to worship the first beast, with great wonders deceiving earth-dwellers by miracles done in the sight of the beast, leading them to make an image to the beast, to give life to the image so it speaks and causes those who will not worship it to be killed, and to cause all to receive a mark in the right hand or forehead without which no one can buy or sell. Its great wonders reach their height in Satan personating Christ's second coming in royal glory with soft pleasant words, proclaiming himself Christ and pronouncing blessing and gladness and honor upon the combined corrupt harmony of earthly powers, fallen churches that rejected light, the papal power that thought to change times and laws and set up a rival sabbath and drank the blood of saints, the Protestant image-beast, and spiritualism. That false blessing rests only on worshipers of the beast, papal Rome, and his image and on those who have received the mark of the beast and of his image, a deception so masterly it would deceive the very elect, leaving as the only hope a remnant who keep the word of Christ's patience and refuse to worship the beast and his image.
The delineation has already begun to be fulfilled. The closing scenes of this world's history are now here, the image to the beast is virtually formed by religious legislation with the spirit of the dragon manifest, and entrance has been made on a new era in which everything moves with before-unknown rapidity, though the further specified actions of the image, including doing great wonders, remain to fully develop. The time for Satan himself causing fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men as part of bewitching influences, lying wonders, and miracles that will take the world captive and sweep in the whole world is right at hand and is now just beginning, for Satan works by evil angels upon the hearts of men and works with everyone who is not under the control of the Spirit of God. Those who are charmed by these influences now or give them the least countenance now will be ready to be swept right in to act a part with the devil then. The visions are present truth to be given now in clear public discourses free from human wisdom and tradition, as a prophecy about the United States, the beast, and its image calling the audience to refuse homage to the beast and its image and to be spoken with power in public meetings before outsiders, for Satan has come down with great power and is now multiplying fallacies and sciences that leave accepters drifting without anchor, having a name to live while dead, needing watchfulness, strengthening what remains, holding fast, and repenting.
The prophecy shows America in jeopardy and rapidly approaching a national apostasy that will end only in national ruin. Legislators abandon the principles of Protestantism to favor Roman apostasy, and the people whom God delivered from the yoke of popery by a national act give vigor to the corrupt faith of Rome and arouse a tyranny that only waits to break out again into cruelty and despotism, while Protestant churches follow the example of that apostate church by seeking the support of the secular power against which their ancestors endured persecution. The rulers of the land take their position above the Creator, bring the claims of the false Sabbath to the front and accept the first day of the week, uniting with the man of sin to restore his lost ascendancy and accepting the religion of the Papacy, and laws enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath bring national apostasy from the principles of republicanism upon which the government was founded and make void the law of God. This brings a most trying position for the commandment-keeping people of God, in which the nation for which God has worked in a marvelous manner and over which He has spread the shield of Omnipotence will abandon Protestant principles and through its legislature give countenance and support to Romanism in limiting religious liberty. When everything looks most forbidding the Lord will reveal His power to His faithful ones and interpose in their behalf, all those who have walked in the light and diffused the light will realize that God interposes, the tyranny of Rome will be exercised, but Christ is refuge.
Forms of False Miracles
The wonder-working includes modern Spiritualism arising in America and spreading worldwide through American mediums, as the deceptive activity of the two-horned beast representing the United States that first appears gentle like a lamb but later acts with dragon fierceness in religious and civil power. It is real supernatural work by Satan and his agents, not mere human imposture, fraud, trickery, or sleight of hand, including bringing fire down from heaven in the sight of men to deceive those dwelling on the earth before the second advent. It is the work of evil angels personating the dead, representing both saints and sinners who have died and making those representations visible to human eyes, with rapping and mesmerism spreading under a religious guise as a soul-destroying delusion. Those who dismiss such manifestations as only human trickery will be ensnared when confronted with supernatural exhibitions they cannot deny, and will accept them as the great power of God. What John saw on Patmos concerning the last days was proved for the benefit of God's people living amid the perils of the last days so they need not be astonished at anything in the line of deceptions.
It includes false science, hypnotism, and every conceivable deception, especially apparent healings in which Satan makes people sick and then removes his power so they appear healed, with the healing claimed as a miracle by the power of God when it is the power of the devil. Such lying miracles and healings do not prove a movement comes from God, and they will ensnare those who turn from God's commandments, cast aside truth, and accept false teaching. Because these counterfeit miracles will be performed, God's servants are not to rely on miraculous healing alone, but genuine physical healing is to be joined with teaching the gospel through sanitariums and medical missionary work.
It includes Satan pretending to be Christ and a great medical missionary, using the spectacular public sign of fire from heaven to support his false claim to be God. In its fullest form the deception of the lamb-like beast that is apostate Protestantism forming an image to papal Rome reaches its height in Satan personating Christ's second coming in royal glory with soft pleasant words, proclaiming himself Christ and pronouncing blessing and gladness and honor upon the combined corrupt harmony of earthly powers, fallen churches that rejected light, the papal power that thought to change times and laws and set up a rival sabbath and drank the blood of saints, the Protestant image-beast, and spiritualism. That false blessing rests only on worshipers of the beast, papal Rome, and his image and on those who have received the mark of the beast and of his image, a masterly deception that would deceive the very elect, leaving as the only hope a remnant who keep the word of Christ's patience and refuse to worship the beast and his image. The delusion brings a time of satanic delusion and peril in which Satan in personating Jesus Christ is worshiped as God amid shout upon shout of victory in adoration and praise, with safety only in standing by the truths of the Bible and having the law of God engraved in the heart. He also uses spiritualized doctrines and scientific theories to undermine faith as part of the same deception.
It operates through professed followers of Christ who have lost sight of their Leader and through agents who have departed from the faith to seemingly work miracles, even making fire come down from heaven on earth in the sight of men. They point to the sick healed through them and other marvelous works and claim to have more of the Spirit and power of God than those who keep God's law, but their works are done under the direction of the enemy of righteousness to deceive souls and to turn them away from obedience, truth, and duty, with still more marked manifestations in the near future. Looking for miracles as a sign of divine guidance brings grave danger of deception, because Satan uses such lying wonders to deceive, if possible, the very elect. This wonder-working power is to appear when men are claiming sanctification and holiness, lifting themselves up higher and higher, exalting themselves, boasting of themselves and of their own goodness, and the same deceiving power will make an image to the beast and cause all to receive his mark.
The counterfeit so closely resembles the true that it will be impossible to distinguish between them except by the Holy Scriptures, whose plain utterances reveal Satan's deceptions and by which every statement and every miracle must be tested. These manifestations will be more frequent and of more startling character as the close of time nears, to allure the unwary, with Satan aroused to more intense activity at every revival of God's work and now putting forth his utmost efforts in his final struggle against Christ and His followers. In the final period before the saints' deliverance, modern spiritualist magicians using rapping and mesmerism will be allowed to imitate God's work, as Egypt's magicians imitated signs performed through Moses. These signs will help lead people to explain away the miracles of Jesus as the same kind of power and to attribute Christ's miracles to spirit manifestations and mesmerism. The danger is so strong that if possible even the very elect would be deceived, and safety is to stand as the elect by listening to the Word of God and knowing it is true, by not following human representations but clinging to the mighty One, believing in Him and doing His works.
Satan acts a double part, appearing as the dispenser of great blessings and divine truths and by his lying wonders holding the world under his control, while at the same time indulging his malignity by causing distress and destruction. He accuses God's people as the cause of the fearful convulsions of nature and the strife and bloodshed among men that desolate the earth, and thus excites the spirit of hatred and persecution against them to greater intensity. In contrast to God, who never forces the will or the conscience, Satan employs cruel measures to control the consciences of men and to secure worship to himself, and this work of compulsion is always in favor of human creeds and laws and in defiance of God's holy law.
He employs every object in the earth, in the air, and in the water to confirm his claim to be as God and to be worshiped, claiming to be the Prince of heaven and presenting entrancing views of the kingdom of God and pleasant pictures as his own to bring men under his dominion. Those who yield become intensely active in spreading his greatness and glory, influencing and stimulating one another in confirming the greatness and glory of his kingdom. His power is received as the power of God, the world bows before him, and nearly the whole world wonders after the beast, forming a vast, raging, religiously enthusiastic procession in rebellion and warfare against the Creator and Redeemer in a determined effort to take and occupy the place of the throne of God.
Sabbath Image and Mark
The image to the beast is formed before probation closes and becomes the decisive test for God's people, distinguishing those who obey God's law and refuse the spurious sabbath from those who accept Sunday and receive the mark. It is made only by union of church and state, or by subordinating civil power to ecclesiastical power so the state enforces the tenets and requirements of the church, as a Religious Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would do. In that setting Protestant churches enforcing Sunday observance through civil power form an image to the beast and enforce worship of the beast and its image, following the papacy's example and seeking secular support. Apostasy prepares the way for religious power to control civil government and use state authority to advance its aims and punish dissent.
The conflict centers on compelled worship over the Sabbath, with the seventh-day Sabbath sanctified as the memorial of creation instituted in Eden opposed to a human-instituted false sabbath on Sunday with no scriptural authority. The wonders including fire brought down from heaven before people are signs used by the beast to deceive and enforce that false worship and to oppress those who keep God's commandments. Satan works to destroy the Sabbath of the fourth commandment to erase the memorial of God's works and bring worldwide apostasy against God's law, instituting a spurious sabbath in its place, for breaking one point makes one guilty of all. Leading men and women to disregard the fourth commandment places them on Satan's side, producing among professed Christians idolaters not sealed by God who give to a man-made institution the glory God requires for His Sabbath day and compel others to worship this idol, and who will be visited with retributive judgments poured out without mixture of mercy upon unrepentant despisers of God's law. Satan caused the change of the Sabbath to make God's commands of less force than human laws, and the man of sin who thought to change times and laws and always oppressed God's people will cause laws enforcing observance of the first day, bringing persecution because God's people keep holy the seventh day, while the Lord works for them showing plainly He is God of gods. The mark opposes God's Sabbath seal and represents the counterfeit Sunday sabbath, with the forehead signifying the mind and the hand signifying power, so allegiance comes by conviction or coercion, while God seals His servants in the mind and compulsory worship is accepted only by wicked powers.
The scenes are to be repeated when papists and Protestants unite to exalt Sunday and enforce it by stringent laws against Sabbath-keepers, with the United States helping to bring this about. Religious intolerance gaining control in the United States with church and state uniting to persecute commandment-keepers gives the third message an effect it could not have had before, though its enforcement was once dismissed as impossible. The mother of harlots is separate and distinct from her daughters, her day of power past, while her daughters are the Protestant sects growing as she declined and soon to exercise the persecuting power once manifested by the mother. Nominal churches and nominal Adventists will betray the obscure saints to Catholics to gain Catholic influence, reporting them as disregarding the pope's institution by keeping the Sabbath and disregarding Sunday. Then Catholics will bid Protestants go forward and issue a decree that all who will not observe the first day instead of the seventh shall be slain, and Catholics with their large numbers will stand by Protestants and give their power to the image of the beast, and Protestants will work as their mother worked to destroy the saints, but before their decrees bear fruit the saints will be delivered by the voice of God.
The churches and the world united in trampling God's commandments threaten with death all who obey His precepts, which is the description of the persecuting power in the last period of earth's history. The lamblike-horned beast as the last power to war against church and law tells earth-dwellers to make an image to the beast and causes all small and great, rich and poor, free and bond to receive a mark so none may buy or sell without mark, name, or number, thus Protestantism echoing the dragon's voice follows the Papacy and carries forward the same cruel work attempted through paganism and then the Papacy after it was robbed of strength and forced to desist. Religious bodies refusing warning come under strong deception through spiritualism personating the dead and unite with civil power in persecuting the church, with Protestant churches uniting with papal power against commandment-keepers in a great system exercising spiritual tyranny over conscience. This union of Roman and Protestant persecuting powers brings troubling events rather than peaceful times.
The message of Revelation 14:9-12 is based altogether on these facts, condemning the beast's action and enforced worship in strongest terms and calling to keeping God's commandments and the faith of Jesus including the seventh-day Sabbath, in contrast between the Sabbath of the Lord and Sunday. Anyone joining in worshiping the beast and his image and receiving his mark in forehead or hand will drink the wine of God's wrath poured out without mixture into the cup of indignation and be tormented with fire and brimstone. Knowing what is represented by the beast, the image, and the mark is necessary to understanding that solemn warning, for that beast is an earthly government trampling God's law and persecuting His people in concert with the dragon and leopard-like beast to the close of time when only a remnant keep God's commandments. The solemn third message now to be proclaimed combines the first and second messages, brings into view the closing scenes and the last warfare between keepers of God's commandments and makers void of His law, and must be read carefully and prayerfully while mercy lingers against teachers of fables. In this age of open universal contempt for God's law, those with light rise with the loyal to proclaim warning against worshiping the beast and receiving his mark, under judgment appointed against all who deceive earth-dwellers with fatal lies presented as truth.
The wonders divide the earth into only two parties, those under the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ who keep God's commandments and those under the black banner of rebellion who make void the law. By miracles deceiving earth-dwellers into making an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword and did live, giving life to the image so it speaks and causes all who will not worship it to be killed, and forcing the mark for buying and selling, these great and solemn events stand on the threshold of fulfillment. The papal power with marvelous perseverance has exalted a spurious sabbath with no scriptural authority, the disloyal Protestant world has wondered after the beast, kingdoms have confederated to sustain it, and obedience to Jehovah's Sabbath is called disloyalty to national laws, forcing everyone to loyalty to God or scorn for His law.
In the time of trouble supporters of the Sunday law will claim great miracles, signs and wonders as proof they have truth, claiming angels from heaven talk and walk with them when those messengers are Satan personating the dead as gone to heaven. They will point to this power and to the whole world converted and in harmony with Sunday-keeping, calling it the long-expected temporal millennium, to ridicule the feebleness, smallness, poverty and stricken condition of Sabbath-keepers who stand alone in defiance of land and, as claimed, of God. Having cut off their resources so they cannot buy or sell, they will mock them for independence from the world, charge them with alone claiming to be right, and insist they are dependent on the world and must concede to its customs, practices and laws or go out of it.
The prophecy plainly predicts combinations that rob the poorer classes of just advantages and prevent buying or selling except under certain conditions, fulfilled in gigantic monopolies and trades unions grasping business and marking men who refuse to join. Forming these unions is one of Satan's last efforts and a sign of the last days, a binding in bundles ready to be burned under Satan's cruel control. Belonging to them means disregarding the entire Decalogue and violating love to God and neighbor by depriving neighbors of freedom of action, making keeping God's commandments impossible, so God's people must isolate themselves, stand apart from the world, and get out of the cities, and God will care for those who love Him and keep His commandments. The enemy's determined effort against the fourth commandment is intended to awaken interest in the Sabbath as the decisive last-day test and to open the way for the third angel's message to be proclaimed with power.
Safeguard and Faithful Response
The Scriptures are the safeguard against the last great delusion soon to open in the final struggle, when marvelous works are performed openly in the sight of men and the counterfeit so closely resembles the true that the two cannot be distinguished except by the Bible. The plain utterances of the Bible reveal the devices of darkness, which every possible effort is made to keep men from knowing, and by its testimony every statement and every miracle must be tested. Only those who have made the Bible their study, with prayer, with the law of God engraved in the heart, and with faith put into practice in obedience, will stand the test when the whole world and the fallen churches are carried away. That time of satanic delusion and peril comes at every revival of God's work with more intense activity, and now with utmost efforts, when in personating Christ the deceiver is worshiped as God amid shouts of victory. Miracles and healings alone do not establish truth, for lying wonders including apparent healings ensnare those who turn from the commandments and heed false teaching.
Discernment comes only through obedience to truth and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, which is stronger than miracles or anything else. Each person must go to God for himself and pray for divine enlightenment to know for certain what is truth, so as to distinguish the genuine work of God from the imitative work of the powers of darkness when the angel-of-light deception appears. Those standing firm upon the Word will meet the coming down of Satan with great power, signs, and fire brought from the sky as proof of authority, with the weapon Christ used, It is written, which is of more power than the working of miracles, conquering through the Spirit and obtaining power from the Word. Looking for miracles as a sign of divine guidance brings grave danger, because the enemy works through agents departed from the faith to seemingly work miracles, even to bring fire down, to deceive if possible the very elect. Those who close their eyes to clear light and demand miracles as proof will be answered with numerous miracles confirming them in deception, deceived with evil angels exulting around them, and their situation will be terrible.
Safety is to stand firm on the platform of eternal truth, put on the whole armor of God, remain under the instruction of God as Author of truth, and not be influenced or overcome by whatever the enemy presents as truth amid error overspreading the earth. It is to listen to the Word of God and know it is true, not follow human words or representations but cling to the Mighty One, believe in Him and do His works, trusting His sure promises rather than human words, and so be kept and counted among those washed and made white with provision to cleanse from all sin. Against miracles presented to confirm minds in the belief that the worker is God, all must stand on the platform of truth given in the third angel's message, holding fast the evidences that have confirmed the truth and proclaiming them over and over with a straightforward message until the close, rather than spending precious time on those who change truth into a lie. The Lord will manifest greater converting power like Pentecost and the latter rain to prepare a people to stand the final test, when deceptions are near and try faith to show of what sort it is. When everything looks most forbidding He will interpose and reveal His power in behalf of those who have walked in the light and diffused it, for Christ is refuge in the cleft of the Rock amid dense darkness, with every eye in the unfallen universe bent on these unfolding scenes of the consummation of evil against good.
The lying wonders during the loud cry stand against true miracles, healings, and signs done through consecrated servants as the message goes to the whole earth by thousands of voices, and the two sides working at the same time force the inhabitants of the earth to take their stand. These miracle-working powers seek to make the established facts of faith ineffective and become a test, so the people of God must remain grounded in the truth of His word and hold fast the beginning of confidence and the evidence of truth. House-to-house opening of the Bible prepares minds to receive the Word so many will be ready to make right decisions and confess the truth in the face of formidable difficulties in the coming crisis, and even those who become workers only at the eleventh hour under that pressure will receive equal wages with those who worked through the whole day. The visions contain matters of highest importance to be given free from human wisdom and tradition, as present truth in clear and powerful public discourses, calling hearers to refuse homage to the beast and its image.
Prophetic Warning Proclaimed
The verse belongs to the prophecy of Satan's work through church and state, and it must be definitely explained as God's warning of the perils before His people. It shows what will be in the last days when a people work counter to God, and it exposes the company who have been deceived by miracle-working power.
Its miracle-working powers will perform wonders as a test for God's people and seek to make the established facts of faith ineffective, so God's people must remain grounded in the truth of His word. Near the close of earth's history Satan works miracles with pleasant pictures to confirm minds in the belief that he is God, in the perils of the last days now upon us, in order that if possible the very elect shall be deceived. Against this deception all of God's people must stand on the platform of truth given in the third angel's message, holding fast the evidences that have confirmed the truth in righteousness and proclaiming them over and over again with a straightforward, clear-cut message until the close of history, rather than spending precious time trying to convince those who would change the truth of God into a lie. Satan has come down with great power and is now multiplying fallacies, and many will be deceived by his miracles. Those who accept his science drift from truth without anchor from one delusion to another and have a name that they live while they are dead, needing to be watchful, to strengthen what remains, to hold fast what they received and heard, and to repent.
He will soon be closely connected with wonderful scenes on earth in which he works miracles, including making people sick and then suddenly removing his satanic power so they are regarded as healed. These works of apparent healing will bring Seventh-day Adventists to the test, and many who have had great light will fail to walk in the light because they have not become one with Christ and do not welcome His instruction. He now exercises wonderful miracle-working power and comes as an angel of light with an imitative work of the powers of darkness that counterfeits the genuine work of God. Every person must therefore go to God for themselves and pray for divine enlightenment to know for certain what is truth, so they can distinguish the genuine from the imitation when that deception appears.