Revelation Now :
Daily Devotional Bible Studies in Revelation
Next | Previous | Contact Ron | Introduction | Foreword | Index | Tellout
Flying Angels bring the Gospel : Day 52 
Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water." A second angel followed and said, "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries." A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name." (Revelation 14:6-11)
The Angel's Midair Flight
"The angel flying in midair " was necessary so that all could hear the eternal gospel. The angel is calling them to repentance. The angel asserts that it is God who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water and is in control. Babylon was a great city in Mesopotamia renowned for corruption and luxury. They were the greatest enemy of Israel and swept through the nation of Israel on several occasions taking slaves and forcibly resettling the people.
A warning has already been given of the power of the beast and of the mark that the beast will seek to set upon all people (1). Now there is warning to those who fail in that time of trial.
The Everlasting Gospel to the Nations
One of the signs which were to precede the end was that the gospel would be preached in "to every nation" for a witness to all nations (2). Here is the fulfillment of that prophecy. The angel comes with the message of the gospel to all races and tribes and tongues and peoples. The angel comes with an "eternal gospel" "Eternal" means that the gospel is valid for ever, that even in a world which is crashing to its doom its truth still stands.
It may seem strange that the angel with "the eternal gospel" is followed immediately by the angels of doom. But the gospel has of necessity a double-edged quality. It is good news for those who receive it but it is judgment to those who reject it. And the condemnation of those who reject it is all the greater because they were given the chance to accept it. The words of the angel are interesting. They are a summons to worship the God, the Creator of all things.
Fear God and Give Him Glory
It is significant that this is the fiercest warning of all. Of all dooms, as the Revelation sees it, the doom of the apostate is worst. The reason is that the Church was battling for its very existence. If it was to continue, the individual Christian must be prepared to face suffering and trial, imprisonment and death. "Fear God and give him glory" If the individual Christian yielded, the Church died. In our day, the individual Christian is still of paramount importance, but his function now is not usually to protect the faith by being ready to die for it, but to commend it by being diligent to live for it.
The Apostate
The doom of the apostate is thought of in word pictures of Sodom and Gomorrah, the most terrible judgment that ever fell on this earth. "Lo, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace" (3). John echoes the words of Isaiah describing the day of the Lord's vengeance: "And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into brimstone; her land shall become burning pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up for ever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever" (4).
Revenge
The wicked will be destroyed in the presence of "the holy angels and of the Lamb." As we have seen before, part of the blessedness of heaven was to see the suffering of the sinner in hell. When Chrysostom was encouraging Olympias to steadfastness, he encouraged her by promising that in due time she would see the divine torture of the persecutors, just as Lazarus saw Dives tormented in flames.
We may dislike this line of thought; we may condemn it as sub-Christian, and indeed it is. But we have no real right to speak until we have gone through the same sufferings as the early Christian. Many a time the heathen had looked down from the crowded seats of the arena on the sufferings of the Christians, and the early Christians were sustained by the thought that some day the divine justice of heaven would adjust the balance of earth's injustices.
The Fall of Rome called Babylon
The doom of Rome is then prophesied. Throughout Revelation, Rome is described as "Babylon", a description which was common between the Testaments. In the ancient days Babylon to the prophets had been the very incarnation of power, lust, luxury and sin. To the early Jewish Christians, Babylon seemed to have been reborn in the lust, luxury and immorality of Rome.
The fall of "Babylon" to Cyrus the Persian king had been one of the shattering events of ancient history. The very words which the Revelation uses are echoes of those in which the ancient prophets had foretold. "Fallen, fallen is Babylon," said Isaiah, "and all the images of her gods he has shattered to the ground" (5). "Suddenly Babylon has fallen," said Jeremiah, "and been broken" (6).
"Babylon" is said to have made all the nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. In this phrase, Old Testament conceptions have been used. "Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord's hand, making all the earth drunken. The nations drank of her wine, therefore, the nations went mad." (7) The idea is that Babylon had been a corrupting force which had lured the nations into a kind of insane immorality. The background is of a prostitute persuading a man into immorality by filling him full of wine, so that he could no longer resist her wiles. Rome has been like some glittering prostitute seducing the world.
"Babylon" made the nations drink of the wine which seduces people to fornication and which brings as its consequence the wrath of God. Behind all this remains the eternal truth that the nation or the person whose influence is to evil will not escape the avenging wrath of God.
Words to meditate on
Would you seek revenge if you had suffered terrible persecution?
Words to pray
The Word of the Lord lasts forever ... and forever ... and forever....
Notes
(1) Revelation 13 (2) Matthew 24:14 (3) Genesis 19:28 (4) Isaiah 34:8-10 (5) Isaiah 21:9 (6) Jeremiah 51:8 (7) Jeremiah 51:7
"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place."
