p. 3986. The Angel-Proclamation in Midheaven
“And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having aionian good news to proclaim to those who dwell upon the earth, even every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people, saying, with a loud voice, Fear the Deity, and give to him glory; for the Hour of his judgment hath arrived; and do homage to him who made the heaven, and the earth and sea and fountains of waters.”
Under the Mosaic Law, which is “the pattern of the things in the heavens,” the Pentecostian Feast of Firstfruits of the third month was succeeded in the first day of the seventh month by the Memorial of the blowing of trumpets, a Sabbath of holy convocation—inviting to a holy rest and assembly. Between this Memorial and the offering of “an offering made by fire unto Yahweh,” was an interval of ten days. This tenth day of the seventh month was יום הכפרים, yom hakkiphpurim, a Day of Coverings—a day on which the sins of the past were being covered over by fiery expiation. In the English Version this is styled the Day of Atonement. But before this day of affliction, in which all who did not afflict themselves on account of their transgressions, were to be cut off from Yahweh’s people, the trumpets blew a memorial blast, to remind the people that the hour, or month, of the annual judgment and covering of sins had arrived.
The Sons of Aaron, the priests, were appointed to blow the trumpets in the day of their gladness, in their solemn days, over their burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of their peace offerings—Lev. xxiii. 24; Numb. x. 8, 10.
The antitype of this arrangement is found in this fourteenth chapter—the Pentecost is celebrated in the inauguration of the Deity’s kings and priests on Mount Zion—the Bread of the Firstfruits. Then comes the memorial proclamation through midheaven by these priests of the Deity, reminding the world that the hour of judicial retribution so long threatened has arrived; and inviting men to afflict their souls, in turning from their iniquities, to the reverential fear and worship of Him who made all things. When this proclamation has been made to the end of the world, the Jubilee Blast of the Day of Coverings, on the tenth day of the seventh month, is then blown—a Jubilee to Israel, proclaiming their return to their country, and consequent avengement upon all their enemies, who worship the beast and his image, and receive his sign in their foreheads, or in their hands. This is “the Day of Vengeance in the heart” of the Lamb, contemporary with “the Year of his redeemed”—Isai. lxiii. 4; the works of which are detailed in Apoc. xiv. 8-11, 14-20; xvi. 16-21; xvii. 14; xviii; xix. 1-3, 11-21; xx. 1-4, 14.
The Angel who makes the memorial proclamation is symbolical of p. 399 the royal priests of the Melchizedec Household. The Mosaic type requires that the silver trumpets be blown by priests of the High Priest’s family. But the priesthood being changed the Aaronic priests are ineligible for the sounding of this proclamation in midheaven. Hence, the priestly trumpeters have to be provided from another source; and there is no other source of supply but the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus, whom he has made kings and priests for the Deity. The proclamation is therefore made by as many of the 144,000 as the work to be performed may demand. Among these will be the apostle John, as the representative of a class. In the tenth chapter he tells us that after he had digested the little scroll of judgment, the Spirit told him that he “must prophesy again before many peoples and nations and tongues, and kings.” To do this he must rise from the dead, be judged, and quickened, when he will be fitted for the work. But it is too much for one man to accomplish in the short space allotted for the proclamation. Others of like qualifications will therefore be associated with him in the work; so that it may be carried on in different countries at the same time. The apostles had their colaboring attendants and subordinates when they sounded the gospel trumpet in old time. In the new proclamation the same condition may obtain. Be this as it may, it is “those that escape,” or the saved remnant, that are sent, as sounders of the truth, to the nations that have not heard the fame nor seen the glory of Yahweh; and they shall declare his glory to the Gentiles—Isaiah lxvi. 19. This is the plurality represented by the Angel—one messenger emblematic of a multitude; as it is written in Ps. lxviii. 11, “Adonai will give the word; those who bear the tidings are a great host.”
The proclamation is to be made through “midheaven.” This is “the Air” into which the judgments of the Seventh Vial are to be poured after the proclamation of the message, or word given, is finished. It is the political aërial of Babylon the Great, which, instead of being as now the highest heaven of the political world, will occupy a middle station between the worshipers of the beast, and the new throne established on Mount Zion. The Midheaven is the political firmament occupied by all the ranks, orders, and degrees, of the worldrulers—the supreme and subordinate governors of those “many people, nations, and tongues” before whom John is to prophesy again. This will be an exceedingly interesting time when the clergy of all orders, “the spirituals of wickedness in the heavenlies,” shall be confronted by the apostles and saints, and proved to be liars and impostors before the world. And richly do they deserve to be exposed to this “shame and contempt.” They will no longer be permitted to deceive the hearts of the simple with good words and fair speeches p. 400 with impunity. The sheep’s clothing will be stripped off them, and the wolf undisguised will be revealed. High and pompous ecclesiastical titles will then be at a discount; and regarded only by those who come to obey the proclamation, as the tinsel bespanglement of vain and foolish men. The occupation of the clerical False Prophet of the world will be gone; for the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low; and Yahweh alone will come to be exalted in that day—Isaiah ii. 17.
The situation is illustrated by 1 Chron. xxi. 16, where it is stated that David saw the Angel of Yahweh standing between the earth and the heaven—in midheaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out, as he was just going to afflict Jerusalem with an impending judicial visitation. His position there was exhibited to David, that he might have time and occasion for obtaining the deliverance of the city from the wrath to come; so that the hovering of the Angel was to show, that there was room for escape on terms to be proposed, just as the Deity was going to inflict the punishment. So with the great host in midheaven on their proclamation of the good news. The destruction of Babylon, and the overthrow of the governments of the world, are decreed. Nothing can save them from abrogation and obliteration. The proclamation invites mankind to abandon these spiritual and temporal institutions, in commanding them to “Fear the Deity, and give glory to Him.” It affords them time and opportunity for saving themselves from the impending calamities of the Hour of divine judgment. If any transfer their allegiance from their clerical and civil rulers to the Lamb-Power, they will doubtless be exempted from the fire and brimstone torment, which is to destroy the Beast and his False Prophet—ch. xix. 20; xiv. 9, 10: but if they refuse to abjure these authorities, the plagues written in this prophecy for their destruction will assuredly consume the rebellious.
The reader will not confound this angel flying through midheaven with that said also to fly through midheaven in ch. viii. 13. The difference in their proclamations indicates a difference in the time, agents, and circumstances of the two. The proclamation of ch. viii. preceded the sounding of the fifth trumpet; and was made by those who were able to discern the signs of the times in which they lived; while that in the fourteenth is made by agents represented by John after their resurrection and inauguration as kings and priests for the Deity. There was only superlative “woe” proclaimed in the first; but in this remembrance of the Hour of Judgment, there is also an announcement of good news.
This good news is styled αιωνιον, a word which I have not translated; but only transferred. The Angel-Host has “aionian good news to p. 401 proclaim.” It is styled aionian, I conceive, because it announces “things not seen” pertaining to the αιων, aiōn, or COURSE, during which all nations will be “blessed in Abraham and his Seed.” This course is not to last for ever, but for a thousand years, styled in Dan. vii. 12, “a season and a time.” At the end of this Course of Centuries, the nations revolt, and judgment comes upon them to extermination—ch. xx. 9. For this reason I do not translate the word in this text “everlasting,” as in the English Version. The proclamation is the announcement of MILLENNIAL GOOD NEWS; namely, that the resurrection, immortalization, and inauguration, of the called, and chosen, and faithful firstfruits, have been accomplished by Jesus Christ; who, having returned in power and great glory, has set up the ancient throne of his father David on Mount Zion: that being established there, he invites the allegiance of all nations to himself, as King of the whole earth by the grace of his Eternal Father; who has appointed Him to execute judgment and justice in the earth, and to rule the world in righteousness: that he is prepared to destroy the powers that corrupt and oppress the nations; and to wipe away tears from off all faces, and to take away the rebuke of his people, Israel, from off all the earth. That his purpose is to change the face of the world; and to enlighten mankind with the true knowledge from the rising to the setting sun. That, as mankind have been for a long series of ages in the bottomless abyss of ignorance and superstition, in commiseration of their helplessness, he invites them to hearken diligently unto him; and to come and buy wine and milk of him, without money and without price. That, if they will accept this invitation to the feast he has prepared for all peoples, they shall live under their own vines and fig-trees in peace, and none shall make them afraid. But if on the contrary, they determine still to worship the Beast and his Image, and to receive the Sign in their foreheads, or in their hands, then they shall be made to drink of the wine of the wrath of the Deity which hath been prepared without mixture in the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy Angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.
A proclamation of this kind, made by such “ambassadors of Jesus Christ,” and attested by signs and wonders of a character to establish their claims to the confidence and respect of the nations and their rulers, cannot fail of arresting attention as the all-absorbing topic of the day. The message itself, and the reception it meets with by the world-rulers of church and state, will doubtless eclipse and supersede all other news. The “leading journals” of Europe and America, will be confounded; and seeing that the editorial staff of the world, like, p. 402 “the spirituals” of the clerical kingdom, have no oil in their vessels, their leading articles upon this wonderful topic can only be the reflex of the darkness that covers the earth, and the gross darkness of the people. As folly and falsehood are their stock in trade, they will doubtless counsel rejection of the message, and hostility to all claims emanating from such questionable authority.” As they live by trying to please the majority, they will trim their sails to catch the popular breeze. Their counsel will be a bridle in the jaws of the people causing them to err. The editors, the clergy, and the civil rulers, of the midheaven will be the ruin of society: so that under the guidance of their policy the armies of the nations will go forth as a whirlwind to scatter Him—Hab. iii. 14. It is not in human nature, much less in its political organization, to surrender power, wealth, and honor, at discretion. It does not part with these things without a struggle to retain them. On such a proclamation coming to the pope and “crowned heads” of Europe, from a Jew on Mount Zion, claiming to be Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews, are they likely to acknowledge him, to place their kingdoms at his disposal, and cast their crowns at his feet? We know certainly that they will not; for it is testified that all nations shall compass him about like bees; but they shall be quenched as the fire of thorns; for in the name of Yahweh he will destroy them—Ps. cxviii. 10-12; Apoc. xix. 19-21.
Seeing that it is the purpose of the Deity to give the nations to Jesus and his Brethren for an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for their possession (Ps. ii. 6-8; Apoc. ii. 26) the proclamation, or prophesying again, to kings and nations, in the words, “Fear the Deity, and give honor to him,” implies the surrender of all wealth, dominion, honor, and power under the whole heaven to them. Will the peoples of the American Continent be willing to do this; especially in view of the fact, that no unrighteous man will be permitted to hold the meanest office under their supremacy? What will they do with “the Monroe doctrine” then? Is the King of Israel to be interdicted from annexing Canada, Mexico, and the so-called United States to his dominions? Will he regard the screams of the American Eagle, or the roar of the British Lion? Not a whit. What are these powers to him before whom a fire goes, aud burns up his enemies: whose lightnings enlighten the world! At whose presence the earth trembles, and the hills thereof melt like wax!
Now as to the precise time after Christ’s advent and the justification of his household by Spirit, in which this proclamation through midheaven shall be made, it may be remarked, that it is immediately consequent upon the smiting of the Assyro-Gogian image upon the feet by the Stone Power, and before the grinding of its metallic p. 403 and clay fragments to powder—Dan. ii. 34, 35; Mat. xxi. 44. It will therefore be in the interval between the Armageddon overthrow of the Sixth Vial, and the outpouring of divine wrath upon “the Air” of the Seventh. This interval will be the period of this remarkable angel-proclamation. The Armageddon discomfiture of the belligerents in the land of Israel; that is, of the Lion-power of Sheba, Dedan and Tarshish, and of its antagonist the Assyro-Gogian confederacy of the North, at Bozrah and elsewhere (Ezek. xxxviii. 13, 18-23; Isai. lxiii. 1; Dan. xi. 41-45)—will put Yahweh Tz’vaoth in possession of Jerusalem the Holy City, which he occupies as the Lamb with the 144,000. Standing thus upon Mount Zion, the Eternal Spirit, in multitudinous manifestation, is “in His dwelling place without fear, as dry heat impending lightning, as a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest”—Isai. xviii. 4. He is “still” as the calm and sultry atmosphere which precedes the tempest; and stands as the uplifted ensign upon the mountains—Isai. xi. 10, 12; ready for the manifestation of those terrible judgments in the earth under the outpouring of which “the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness”—Isai. xxvi. 9. In this still dry heat of impending vengeance, the pentecostian proclamation of liberty and return is made; after which “the great trumpet is blown” by Yahweh Tz’vaoth—Isai. xviii. 3; xxvii. 13; Zech. ix. 14;—the jubilee trumpet of the judgment of the great day. The angel-proclamation in midheaven is this pentecostian proclamation briefly preceding the jubilee trumpet of “the Day of Atonement,” when the Eternal Spirit casts up accounts with the nations, and exacts from them the settlement that is due. The proclamation in midheaven is pentecostian, not judicial and vengeful. It announces the approach of judgment as impending, not in actual manifestation; and therefore invites return to God as the condition of liberty, or escape from the wrath to come.
As to how long the period of proclamation will continue, it is not possible to speak with certainty. The work to be done indicates that it will not be an instantaneous operation. It is a work of “prophesying before many peoples and nations, and tongues, and kings.” This will take time, and possibly years. The Deity is never in a hurry, but deliberate, effective, sure. We need not be surprised if ten years were consumed in the proclamation and the development of its results. Between the “memorial of blowing of trumpets” on the first day of the seventh month, and the Day of Atonement, there was an interval of ten days; after this pattern it may, therefore, be, that between the beginning of the proclamation in midheaven, and the commencement of the Second Angel judgment upon Babylon (ch. xiv. 3), there will be an interval of ten years. This would leave p. 404 an “Hour,” or month of years, that is, thirty years, for the judgment to sit in slaying the fourth beast of Daniel, and destroying his body-politic in the burning flame—ch. vii. 11. These forty years after the manifestation of the Son of David and his mighty ones on Mount Zion, are the period of “the building again of the tabernacle of David, and of the setting up of its ruins, as it was in the days of old—Acts xv. 16; Amos ix. 11—the exodal period of the gathering together under one king of all the tribes of the House of Jacob—Mic. vii. 15.
These forty years will be the most important and terrible of the world’s history. They are the period of the world’s transition from what it calls “self-government,” to the government of Christ and his Brethren. The most noteworthy developments of this transition period are depicted in the fourteenth, part of the sixteenth and seventeenth, the eighteenth, nineteenth, and part of the twentieth chapters of the Apocalypse. They exhibit the setting up of the Kingdom of David by the Eloahh of the Heavens—Dan. ii. 44: by which the kingdom is restored again to Israel—Acts i. 6. The work of these forty years was foreshadowed in the reign of David. His forty years’ reign was to that of Solomon’s peaceful administration over Israel and the Gentiles, as a judicial preparation; for before he could “reign over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt,” these kingdoms had to be subdued by his father David. After the same pattern it will be with the greater than Solomon. Forty years of judgment are consumed in preparing the millennial reign of peace and righteousness; which, as the chapters indicated show, will not be introduced and established by clerical preaching, nor by “the benevolent institutions of the day,” but by “judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.”
Solomon reigned over the whole twelve tribes from the decease of his father and predecessor. This, however, was not the case with David from the death of Saul. Solomon and David were types of the Christ, who was to descend from them after the flesh, in respect of his career as a hero and conqueror, and the Prince of Peace. “Yahweh,” says Moses, “is a Man of war; Yahweh is his name”—Exod. xv. 3. David’s career was illustrative of that of the Man Yahweh, styled by Paul, “the Man Christ Jesus,” as the founder of the reign of peace. Hence, as David reigned several years over Judah before he became the recognized sovereign of the whole nation; it behooves that his Son and Lord reign as King of Judah before he become monarch of all the tribes of Israel and kingdoms of the earth. This typical indication is sustained by the testimony p. 405 in Zech. xii. 7, that “Yahweh shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah.” The victory of Bozrah will be fatal to Gentile supremacy in the land of Israel. In the day of this discomfiture its invaders will be beaten off by Yahweh from the channel of the river (Euphrates) unto the stream of Egypt (the Nile); after which he will gather them one by one from Assyria and Egypt to worship him in Jerusalem—Isai. xxvii. 12, 13.
This gathering of Israelites of the tribe of Judah, “one of a city and two of a family” (Jer. iii. 14) to Zion, will result from the angel-proclamation in midheaven. Being fed by pastors according to Yahweh’s own heart with knowledge and understanding, the veil will be removed from the minds of many, who will become willing (Ps. cx. 3) to emigrate from among the nations and return to their father land. Yahweh, the Man of War, will bring them there—“I will bring you,” saith he, “to Zion.” He will do this by the influence of his victorious power. Having expelled the Anglo-Indian Lion from the land, that power will probably receive with reverence the angel-proclamation, and consent to place its marine at the disposal of “the Man Christ Jesus,” styled in the English Version “the Lord of hosts.” This, indeed, will certainly be the case. He will command the ships of Tarshish, and they will obey; for what is testified they do, is done in obedience to his will. The last chapter of Isaiah and the nineteenth verse, testifies of the angel-proclamation to Tarshish, and the next verse records the result. The “sounders of the truth” are effective bowmen. Their words move the nations of Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal and Javan, to do the will of Yahweh, and to bring his people as an offering to Him in Jerusalem. Thus they “fly as a cloud, and as doves to their windows,” in the fleet ships of Tarshish, which convey the sons of Zion from far with their silver and gold, to the place where the Name of Yahweh is enthroned—Isai. x. 8, 9; xviii; Jer. iii. 17.
Thus the Angel-proclamation recruits the population of the little kingdom of Judah, which, in its beginning, is smaller than the little kingdom of Greece—Matt. xiii. 31, 32. During this decade, the settlers in the midst of the land are “at rest, dwelling safely without walls, and having neither bars nor gates”—Ezek. xxxviii. 11, 12; and are in league with the wide-shawdowing land beyond the rivers of Khush—“Sheba, Dedan, and the Merchants of Tarshish”—which holds a similar relation to the kingdom of Judah under the “greater than Solomon,” that Tyre did in the days of Hiram to the kingdom of David’s Son. The peoples of the British Isles afar off from Jerusalem, p. 406 having accepted the proclamation, the government will have been transferred from the hands of sinners such as now possess it, to the Saints; so that the constitution of the United Kingdom will be no longer the old British, but “the law which goes forth from Zion”—Isai. ii. 3. This will account for the harmony and concert of action between Israel and Britain in the latter days.
But a like result does not obtain in relation to all the powers to which the proclamation is addressed. Matthew xxv. 32 shows the separation of the nations into two classes in the day when the Son of Man shall come in his glory. This separation results from the conclusions at which they arrive with respect to the subject-matter of the proclamation. One class rejects the Aionian Good News, and refuses to fear Him who claims to be the God, or “Elohim of the whole earth” (Isai. liv. 5), to give glory to him, and to do him homage. The other class of nations comes to an opposite decision, and without further controversy “wait for His law”—Isai. xlii. 4. Thus the proclamation in midheaven becomes the occasion of the division of the nations into sheep-nations and goat-nations. Of the latter class will certainly be those comprehended in the bodies politic symbolized by the Ten Horns, the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Dragon. I say certainly, for they are all represented apocalyptically in actual warfare with the Lamb-Power. Thus, in ch. xvii. 14, the ten horns are said to make war with the Lamb; and in ch. xix. 19-21, the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies, oppose themselves in sanguinary conflict against him and his forces; the False Prophet goes into perdition with the beast; and the Dragon is chained in the abyss—ch. xx. 2, 3. These are symbolical of the goat-nations—of Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Hungary, Austria, Germany, and Russia. Ere this, Turkey will have been “dried up,” and Holland, Denmark and Sweden, probably annexed to Germany or Russia, as part of the confederacy of Gog. The sheep-nations will be separated from all these as the allies of the Shepherd of Israel. These He sets on his right hand with the lost sheep of the flock of Judah, which, as a repentant prodigal, will be returning to “the Great Shepherd of the Sheep.” All of this fold he feeds, and gathers, and carries, and gently leads (Isai. xl. 2), because they have become joined to him by faith, and are blessed in and with Abraham, His friend—Zech. ii. 11; Gal. iii. 8, 9.
But the Holy One of Israel is not the Shepherd of the Goats. Their shepherd is the False Prophet of the catholic world, who claims to be “the God of the Earth,” successor of St. Peter, and Vicar of Jesus Christ. This Shepherd of the Goats is the lawless antagonist of the GREAT SHEPHERD OF THE SHEEP; and will be found stirring p. 407 the goats up to the rejection of the angel-proclamation, and to the declaration of war against the Chief of the flock, the house of Judah. The issue, however, will not be doubtful. The rejection of his proclamation by the goats and their shepherds, and their preparations for war, will arouse his indignation; as it is written in Zech. x. 3, “Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I punished the goats.” The when and the how, are expounded in the succeeding sentences, saying, “For Yahweh Tz’vaoth (He who shall be hosts—the Eternal Power) hath visited his flock, the House of Judah, and hath made them as his goodly horse in the battle. And they shall be as mighty men, who tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle: and they shall fight, because Yahweh is with them;” “and shall be seen over them.”
The acceptance of the angel-proclamation by the British Isles will plant the Lamb-Power in all their dependencies. Sheba, Dedan, the Hindoo Tarshish, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, British North America, and the West Indies, will be “ends of the earth” and “isles afar off,” from which the Gentiles shall come to the Great Shepherd and to whom they shall say, “Surely, our fathers have inherited lies, vanities, and things in which there is no profit”—Jer. xvi. 4, 9. This honest renunciation of “the wisdom of our ancestors,” then, by angel-proclaimers of the truth, proved to be folly; will prepare them for a hearty coöperation with Judah, in slaying the beast, and giving his body politic to the burning flame. The day of eternal doom will then have arrived for republics throughout the world. The fate of the United States, so-called, will depend upon the response they may return to the proclamation, which is sure to be announced throughout the Western Hemisphere. If they reject it, Judah and his allies in British America, as the forces of the Rainbowed Angel standing upon the earth and sea, whose progress is as pillars of fire, will be at hand to enforce obedience with the two-edged sword of divine indignation. The only alternative in this unparalleled “time of trouble” for North and South America, will be submission or desolation. Annexation to the little kingdom of Judah, in accordance with the law proceeding from Zion, will be an indispensable condition, without which neither this, nor any other country, can obtain exemption from war, pestilence, famine, and desolation. We can hardly expect that the United States will transfer themselves to the dominion of Judah’s Lion peaceably. If wise men were in place and power, they would doubtless be prompt to “serve Yahweh with fear, to rejoice with trembling, and to kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and they perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little”—Ps. ii. 11, 12. But experience teaches, that wise and prudent men p. 408 do not find their way into office, and where fools reign the people perish. The prospects of the country are dark and threatening; and it is much to be feared that model-republicans will not be disposed to accept their destiny until they have been broken with weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
The judgment which succeeds the Pentecostian proclamation in mid-heaven is “national,” and executed by Christ and the Saints. But before the proclamation begins there is also judgment. This, however, is not national, but “individual”—a judgment having relation to the ancient apostolical proclamation. The Son of Man presides judicially at both these gatherings before him; and in each sitting there is his right hand, and his left. The right hand is synonymous with friendship, favor, alliance, peace, and reward; while the left is indicative of their opposites. Nations on the Son of Man’s right hand are “joined to Yahweh as his people”—the subjects of his empire; while individuals on the King’s right hand, are associates with him in the glory, honor, and power, of his dominion. They share with him in the throne, as exhibited in Apoc. iv.
But in the judgment of the King’s household some will have to pass to the left, where “shame and contempt” await them. They arrive at this left hand after being “cast out” from the divine presence “into the outer darkness, where are wailing and gnashing of teeth.” This left hand is in the country occupied by the goat nations, which, as the embodiment of all that is hostile to the kingdom prepared for the blessed of the Father, are styled by Jesus, “the Devil and his Angels.” These are the same as Daniel’s fourth beast, which is styled apocalyptically, “the Dragon, the Old Serpent, which is the Devil and Satan.” The fourteenth chapter, from the eighth verse to the eleventh inclusive, treats of the κολασιν αιωνιον, the aiön-torment, decreed for the Devil and his adherents; and into which they are commanded to “depart,” who are adjudged unfit to appear among the 144,000 with the Lamb on Mount Zion. Thus the future national judgment of the great day affords scope for the “sorer punishment” of those “wicked and slothful servants,” who are unprofitable for the Master’s use. Such is the fate of those who “come forth to a resurrection of condemnation,” for neglecting to improve the talents entrusted to their care. The reader can avail himself of these hints concerning the right and left hands of the Great Shepherd, in aid of a “spiritual understanding” of the twenty-fifth of Matthew; and of the relative position of the two classes indicated in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.
In conclusion of this section it may be added, that the acceptance of the proclamation by the British “Isles afar off”—“the Mart of Nations p. 409”—places all the wealth of the British Empire at the disposal of the Lamb and his 144,000. These are the subject of the forty-fifth psalm, where they are treated of prophetically as a divine and mighty king rejoicing with his bride and her companions. In the first chapter of Hebrews, Paul identifies this king with Christ Jesus, who has not yet been manifested in the circumstances set forth in the psalm. When the time arrives for the scene exhibited in Apoc. xix. 11, he will, in the words of David, “Gird his sword upon his thigh with his glory and his majesty. And in his majesty he will ride prosperously because of truth and meekness, and righteousness: and his right hand will teach him terrible things. His arrows will be sharp in the heart of the King’s enemies (the goat-nations), whereby the people fall under him.” When the union predicted between Christ and his Brethren hath ensued, and their throne established on Mount Zion, it is declared in the twelfth verse of the psalm, that “the Daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift.” This shows that in the day when Christ shall make “the blessed of the Father” princes in all the earth (ver. 16), there will be a Merchant-Power among “the powers that be,” to which the prophetic title of “the Daughter of Tyre” will be applicable. This can be no other than Britain, the mart of modern nations, which inherits the wealth and commerce of her ancient mother; who, after being forgotten seventy years, revived and sang as a harlot; and like her British Daughter, “committed fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth,” The merchandise and revenue of the revived Tyrian Mother passed from her to Alexandria, Venice, Lisbon, and at length to Britannia; who holds on to them as her own peculiar and especial inheritance. She hopes to monopolize them as long as the sun and moon endure. Though this is objected to by other nations, and among these the United States, they have not the ability, and never will have, to divert them to their own ports and coffers. The decree of heaven is against them; for “the abundance of the sea shall be turned unto Zion, and the wealth of the nations shall come to her:” “for the nation and kingdom that will not serve the city of Yahweh, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel, shall perish, and be utterly wasted”—Isai. lx. 5, 11, 12, 14. Thus the commerce and riches of the world, instead of migrating westward, are to return to the Holy Land, where Tyre of old used to rejoice with Israel, when Solomon and Hiram were in league. And this will come to pass when Britain shall have exchanged her present rulers for “those who dwell before Yahweh”—when the nations of the British Empire are ruled by the Lamb and his 144,000 on Mount Zion—by the Eternal Power incarnate in Jesus and his Brethren “glorified together”— p. 410 Rom viii. 17. Then, in the words of the prophet, “The merchandise and hire of Tyre shall be holiness to Yahweh; it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them who dwell before Yahweh, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing”—Isai. xxiii. 18. Thus, “the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just;” “for to the sinner God giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that He may give to him that is good before God”—Prov. xv. 22; Eccles. ii. 26. How vast has been the travail through which the Daughter of Tyre has passed in hewing her way to her present greatness! What oceans of blood she has shed, what tears and groans she has extorted from her laboring and ill-fed millions devoted to the creation of wealth! It is gathered from all the face of the earth, and heaped up in store; but not for the capitalists, who pride themselves in its possession; nor for the impoverished multitudes, who as mere beasts of burden toil without cheer in its accumulation. No, it is for none of these; it is “for the just who dwell before Yahweh”—“the poor in this world, rich in faith,” then in possession of the kingdom promised to the obedient—James ii. 5.
7. The Second Angel
“And another angel followed, saying, Fallen, fallen hath Babylon, the Great City, because she hath made all nations drink of the wine of the raging of her fornication”—Ver. 8.
I have styled this angel “the Second,” because the one that succeeds it is called “a third.” The first angel, which must, of course, precede the second, is the messengerhood engaged in “drawing the bow,” or sounding the good news of the æon (αιων) in mid-heaven, after the manifestation of the Son of Deity upon Mount Zion. The second angel is constituted of the party of action by which the Roman Question can alone be solved. The purpose of their mission is the overthrow of Babylon, whose fall is proclaimed in the aorist, or indefinite tense, επεσεν, επεσε, which declares the event without specifying the exact time. This, however, is certain, that the Roman Babylon will not fall until the proclamation in mid-heaven shall have been announced, saying, “Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached until the heaven (αχρι του ουρανου), and the Deity remembers her iniquities”—ch. xviii. 5. The people here addressed are the eight thousand Jews in Rome, and the tens of thousands in the kingdoms of the beast; who, if they remain in her, are warned, that they will be treated as the enemies of the Great Shepherd of the Sheep. p. 411 The initiation of the second angel judgment is synchronous with the Seventh Vial, in the outpouring of which “great Babylon comes in remembrance before the Deity, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath”—ch. xvi. 19. The effect of this is the fall from which she never recovers; and which is proclaimed by the second angel.
I have said, that the second angelhood is constituted of the party of action. This party solves all questions beyond the ability of human governments to settle. It consists of the Spirit in coöperation with the Saints, who in ch. xviii. 8, is styled “the Lord God,” or Yahweh Elohim; in ver. 20, “the Heaven,” or “holy apostles and prophets;” and in ver. 4, 6, 7, “my people.” The Saints, to whom judgment is given under the whole heaven, in command of the hosts of Judah and their allies, are the constituents of the second angel power. It is their mission to give torment and sorrow to Babylon in a double proportion to the cruelties she has inflicted upon them; and not to withdraw their hand until they have destroyed her from the earth.
The Babylon whose fall is proclaimed by the second angel, is the city consisting of ten parts, or kingdoms (ch. xi. 13); whose Queen, as yet unwidowed, is the Mother of Harlots enthroned in Rome—ch. xvii. 5, 18. This ch. xiv. 8, is the first place where the name occurs in the Apocalypse; but, as we have seen, not the first place where it is alluded to. In ch. xi. 8, it is “styled spiritually Sodom and Egypt;” because its wickedness is equal to theirs; and the judgments decreed against it, as terrible and disastrous. She is as Sodom, for her fornication is raging; and as Egypt, for she has made all nations drink of its wine. Hence the plagues of the second angel in all the fierceness of the wrath of God.
The initiation of the second angel tormentation of the worshipers of the beast and his image is the inauguration of the day of revenges, when Yahweh whets his glittering sword, and his hand takes hold of judgment. It is the opening of the Hour of Judgment upon the rebellious goats, in which Yahweh, the Man of War, will render vengeance to his enemies, and reward them that hate him. Some idea may be formed of this vengeful recompense from Deut. xxxii. 42, in which He saith, “I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.” This will be “a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation to that same time” (Dan. xii. 1)—the antitype of the great pentecostian day of atonement, in which the trumpet of the jubilee shall sound—Lev. xxv. 9. The second and third angels of this p. 412 fourteenth chapter are the executors of “the judgment written” in this “great day of God Almighty”—ch. xvi. 14: a day in which an offering shall be made by fire to Yahweh unto the total and complete consumption of the apocalyptic beasts, which as the sin of the political world, shall be destroyed by fire and sword.
The whole burnt offering of these beasts is a grand condemnation in the flesh of the sin-powers. They are to be put to death by being slain with Yahweh’s sword; and tormented with fire and brimstone in the burning lake, in the presence of the holy angels, or messengers, and in the presence of the Lamb, who kill and offer the sacrifice to the Eternal Power of the universe—ch. xiv. 10; xix. 20, 21.
But this “day of vengeance” in which the Great Shepherd who is a priest upon his throne (Zech. vi. 13) punishes the goats, is also “the year of his redeemed”—Isai. lxiii. 4. He is the redeemer of the two classes of mankind; these are first, “his brethren” whom he has taken out from the nations for his name (Acts xv. 14): and secondly, the many nations who shall be joined to Him as his people—Zech. ii. 11. Of this second class are the twelve tribes of the house of Jacob. The nation of Israel is to be the first-born, or chief son of the national family, being the beloved nation for the fathers’ sake—Rom. xi. 28. The first class are redeemed from the earth, and stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion, and follow him in all his wars and enterprizes “withersoever he goeth.” The redemption of the second class is the work of the Eternal Power through Christ and his brethren. “He saves the tents of Judah first,” and strengthens Judah’s house (Zech. xii. 7; x. 7); and then saves the house of Joseph, or the ten tribes of the kingdom of Ephraim. This salvation or redemption of Jacob is developed in the Jubilee, when “the Great Trumpet is blown” against the goats; and all Israelites are invited to “return every man to his possession.”
The day of the second and third angels is “a time of trouble” to all nations—to Israel as well as the rest; but there is this difference with respect to them, expressed in the declaration to Daniel that “at that time thy people shall be delivered every one that shall be found written in the book.” Daniel was an Israelite and a saint. Hence his people are Israelites and saints, both of which classes are delivered in “the time of the end;” “when Yahweh shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning”—Isai. iv. 4. It is the day in which the captivity of Israel and Judah is to be brought against their own land, consequent upon the breaking of the yoke of the House of Esau from off their neck, that foreigners may no more serve p. 413 themselves of them; but that they may serve Yahweh their Elohim, and David their king, whom the Eternal Power hath already raised up for them in raising up the crucified “King of the Jews” from the dead.
But this great national redemption is only arrived at through a terribly severe refining process. It is styled in Joel, “the day of Yahweh, great and very terrible; and who can abide it?”—ch. ii. 11. The goat-nations will be unable to abide it; and all the dross of Jacob will be consumed. All the rebels will be purged out of the great army of resurrected dry bones, now scattered and “very dry” in all the countries of their dispersion where they are politically entombed; but in the time of the second and third angels, passing under the rod of discipline in the Wilderness of the peoples—Ezek. xx. 33-38; xxxvii. 1-14. The prophet Malachi asks the same question as Joel. “Who may abide,” saith he, “the day of his coming? And who shall stand when He (the Messenger of the Covenant) appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap; and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto Yahweh an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto Yahweh, as in the days of old, and as in former years”—ch. i. 1-4.
This day so great and very terrible, is “the Hour of his Judgment” proclaimed by the first angel in midheaven. The judgments or plagues inflicted are styled “torment with fire and brimstone;” and those who are tormented, “them who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the sign of his name.” They are the plagues which cause Babylon the great city to fall. She falls, because of her wickedness in church and state; and of her sanguinary and merciless oppression of the saints and witnesses of Jesus, and of all the Jews and others she has slain upon the earth—ch. xvii. 6; xviii. 24. Jeremiah contemplating the terribleness of these “latter days” says, “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith Yahweh Tz’vaoth, that I will break his yoke (the yoke of Esau’s house) from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of Jacob. But they shall serve Yahweh their Elohim, and David their king whom I will raise up unto them. Therefore, fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith Yahweh; neither be dismayed, O Israel; for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid. For I am with thee, saith Yahweh, to p. 414 save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee, in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.”
Nations are political organizations of men: to make a full end of such is to dissolve and abolish all national bodies founded and built up by the violence and craftiness of the wicked. A full end is to be made of all the nations whither Yahweh has scattered the Jews. This declaration is fatal to the independence and political existence of the United States, as well as that of all nationalities. The Second and Third Angels, which are identical with the Rainbowed Angel of the tenth chapter, in the great and terrible day of atonement, execute this divine purpose of reducing mankind to a common and universal brotherhood; and of subjecting them to the imperial and regal sovereignty of Jesus and his Brethren. The Israelitish Nationality, however, is not destroyed. In this day of judgment, Israelites are “corrected in measure,” and the rebellious among them destroyed: but a remnant will survive the refining process of this terrible day, and its constituents will every man return to his possessions in the land of the Holy One of Israel. Because, therefore, for the sake of his name, “all they that devour Jacob shall be devoured; and all his adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity (ch. xiii. 10); and they that spoil him shall be a spoil, and all that prey upon him will I give for a prey. For I will restore health unto Jacob, and I will heal him of his wounds; because they call Zion an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after. In the latter days Israel shall consider it”—Jer. xxx.
Now the Lamb-Power, as the Man of war, Yahweh, will do all this after the example of Joshua in his war upon the Canaanites; which illustrates the manner in which Yahweh fought in the day of battle (Zech. xiv. 3). Christ Jesus, the King of the Jews, with the 144,000, as the commanders of the armies of Israel, are “the Holy Angels” and “the Lamb” in whose presence the worshipers of the beast and his image are tormented in the lake of fire burning with brimstone. As the prophet like unto Moses, he will serve these as the great lawgiver served Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, whose story is narrated in Deut. iii., iv. When He opens his eyes upon the house of Judah, “he will make the governors of Judah (the Saints) like a hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left.” Judah will then be the sword, and the bow, in the hand of the Lamb; and the house of Joseph, the ten tribes of the old Ephraim kingdom, His arrow which shall go p. 415 forth as the lightning. When this bow is drawn, its arrows will be sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; as it is written, “to-day do I declare that I will render double for thee; when I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece (the goats), and made thee (the Lamb Power in Zion) as the sword of a mighty man. And Yahweh shall be seen over them, and his arrow (Ephraim) shall go forth as the lightning: and Adonai Yahweh shall blow with a trumpet, and shall go forth with the whirlwinds of the south. And Yahweh Tz’vaoth shall defend them. And Yahweh their Elohim shall save them in that day as the flock of his people; for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon His land.” “And they shall be as mighty men who tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle: and they shall fight because Yahweh is with them: and they shall be as though I had not cast them off. And they of Ephraim shall be as a mighty man: yea, their children shall see it, and be glad. And I will hiss for them and gather them. And I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember me in far countries: and they shall live with their children, and turn again. I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and room shall not be found for them”—Zech. ix., x.
Thus, on returning home from their dispersion after they stand upon their feet as a great army, they will have to fight their way through all the countries of the house of Esau. In this jubilee return, under the Second and Third Angels “the house of Jacob,” says Obadiah, “shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the House of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau. For Saviours shall come up on Mount Zion (the Lamb with the 144,000) to judge the Mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be Yahweh’s.”
In this way, Babylon and the goat-nations are “made to drink of the wine of the wrath of the Deity, prepared without mixture in the cup of his indignation.” Esau will have had the dominion over Jacob long enough; and the time will now have arrived to prove to mankind “that there is a God that judgeth in the earth.” Esau has lived by his sword, but not righteously. He crucified the king of Israel, persecuted and killed his brethren, corrupted the faith, trod under foot the Holy City forty and two months, and poured out the blood of Jacob like water upon the ground. But they who war against Zion and her sons “shall be as nothing, as a thing of p. 416 nought.” Therefore, “fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith Yahweh, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains (or empires) and beat them small, and shalt make the hills (or smaller states) as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in Yahweh, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel”— Isai. xli. 11-16. This has never come to pass since it was recorded by the prophet; for hitherto Jacob has been under the heel of Esau, whose metallic image stands unbroken upon its feet of iron and miry clay. The work of the Second and Third Angels is to grind to powder the various metals of which it is composed; and to do the work so effectually that no place be found for the things they represent—Dan. ii. 35.
8. The Third Angel
“And a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any one worship the Beast and his Image, and receive a sign upon his forehead, and upon his hand: 10. He also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of the Deity, which hath been prepared without mixture in the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the Holy Angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. 11. “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth until the æons of æons: and they have no respite day and night, who worship the Beast and his Image, and whosoever receiveth the sign of his name.”
“And a third angel followed them;” that is, the two angels treated of in the sixth and seventh sections. His following them indicates, that Babylon the great city has fallen before the third angel-power proceeds to finish the plagues of the last stage of “the Hour of Judgment.” In other words, the terrible overthrow predicted in the eighteenth chapter will be complete. Rome will be where Sodom and Gomorrah are, and for a like reason—because of the filthy conversation and unlawful deeds of the spirituals of wickedness in the heavenlies, who are reserved unto a day of judgment to be punished—2 Pet. ii. 6-9. There will then be no “Name of Blasphemy” or Papal Dynasty, enthroned upon the Seven Heads, or mountains. Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests and deacons; St. Peter, basilicas, and churches, and monastic “dens of foul spirits: and all unclean and hateful birds;” with all “the dainty and goodly things lusted after” by the beastly soul of the drunken harlot of the earth—all these abominations will have departed; and, “as a great millstone cast into the sea,” will all have subsided into the volcanic abyss, to “be found no more at all.” This glorious and complete destruction of the temporal and spiritual papal power will have been consummated by the Second Angel which proclaims the fall of Babylon. p. 417 But something more is necessary than the destruction of the Papacy to the complete enlightening of the earth with the glory of the angel, who descends out of the heaven having great power—ch. xviii. 1. There still remain “the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her;” and “the merchants of the earth,” who trade in the dainty and goodly things peculiar to the bazaars, dedicated by them to guardian saints, and which they call “churches.” These kings and priests survive the Sodom overthrow of “the Eternal City.” They still occupy their position “afar off” in the ten streets of the Great City; for after Rome has been “utterly burned with fire” by the power of the Lord God who judgeth her, they are said to stand afar off for fear of her torment, and to bewail and lament for her. “Alas, alas,” they exclaim, “that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come”—ver. 4, 10, 11-19. But the lamentations of her ecclesiastics are the most mournful and grievous, because the fall of the Papacy by the power of the Lamb, ruins their imposture and thievery throughout the world—“the merchants, or great men, of the earth, by whose sorceries all the nations are deceived, shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more”—ver. 11, 23.
This class of traffickers in the bodies and souls of men (and the sympathizers with the Papacy and “the Eternal City” are not the only class of traffickers in such wares) in the text under consideration, are the men “who worship the beast and his image, and receive a sign in their forehead, or upon their hand;” termed in verse 11, “the sign of his name.” The calamity which befalls their “holy city” evidently fails to transfer their love and worship to the Lamb Power, or Stone of her destruction. They “weep and mourn over her,” because her fall ruins their vested interests. Their mourning is not so much their love of the city and its body ecclesiastic, as of themselves. “Brother,” said one priest to another, “what a profitable thing this fable of Jesus Christ has been to us!” This is the spirit of the craft—they weep and mourn, not because they discover that the catholic superstition is a bald and wicked humbug; but because they can no longer utilize it to their own aggrandizement in wealth and power—“for no man buyeth their merchandise any more.” This is the secret of their grief!
A common danger cements the union of the kings and princes of the late Babylon’s dominion. The Drunken Harlot priesthood, the Eighth Head of the scarlet-colored Beast, and the Ten Horns, “have one mind, and give their power and strength unto the beast” in aid of the common cause. The Eighth Head is the Dictator p. 418 of the confederacy, styled in ch. xx. 2, “the Dragon, that old Serpent, which is the Devil and Satan.” The Harlot Priesthood is the False Prophet of the situation, that works miracles before the Beast, and deceives them that had received the sign of the beast, and them that worshiped his image before it was destroyed by the judgments of the Second Angel—ch. xix. 20. When “christian nations” go to war, the clergy are always there to prophesy success; and to assure the combatants that the God of battles, who gives the victory, is on their side. True to their calling and character they will be the chaplains of the military establishments of the beast in the field; and praying to their god of battles, and prophesying victory from their “sacred desks” and “altars” over the Israelitish Antichrist! As usual, they deceive the governments, and all who trust them. By their prophesyings they deceive the worshipers of the beast, and harden their hearts for the capture and destruction to be inflicted on them by the Third Angel-power. The Beast and kings of the goat-nations determine to make war against the King of the Jews, and to meet his forces in the field. It is not likely that they will attribute the recent overthrow of “the Eternal City” to power exerted by his will. They will no doubt consider it accidental, and but another phenomenon to be added to the overthrow of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The terrible catastrophe only inflames their wrath, and causes them to “make war upon the Lamb.” The Napoleons, the Victor Emanuels, the Francis Josephs, and the Alexanders, of the day, gather together their armies like swarms of bees, intending to scatter his troops with the whirlwind of their host—“they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing is as to devour the poor secretly”—Hab. iii. 14. They will think to take him by surprise. But the Eternal Father is on his side; there will therefore be to him no cause of fear. Let the reader study Ps. cxviii., which treats of “the Stone which the builders refused,” and he will find the nature of the situation under the third angel manifestation. “All nations compassed me about like bees;” but, as he inquires in the sixth verse, “what can man do unto me?” These armies will rush like the rushing of mighty waters, but “the Lamb shall overcome them” (Apoc. xvii. 14), “They shall be quenched as the fire of thorns; for by the name of Yahweh will I destroy them.” By this Name they are “rebuked, and chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like thistle-down before the whirlwind—by this Name, “the King of kings and Lord of lords,” the ten horns are overcome. They are conquered by the Lamb with Seven Horns and Seven Eyes; because He is the king almighty: “and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.” Such disaster as this, p. 419 saith the prophet, “is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that scatter us”—Isai. xvii. 12-4.
Thus in “the great day of God Almighty,” by the invincible troops of the King of Israel, is the beast and false-prophet polity “taken and cast alive into a lake of fire.” This third angel judgment, which, like the second, belongs to the plagues of the Seventh Vial, slays Daniel’s fourth beast, destroys its body politic, and gives him to the burning flame—ch. vii. 11. By this process the Latin Catholic superstition is eradicated from the kingdoms of Western Europe, which by conquest “become the kingdoms of Yahweh, and of his Christ”—ch. xi. 15. The third angel judgments, however, are not expended with this result. Their smoke continues to ascend εις αιωνας αιωνων, to cycles of cycles, or courses of time which constitute what is commonly styled “the Millennium,” because it is a period of a thousand years duration. The smoke of third angel “torment” continues to ascend to the “establishment of “the economy of the fulness of the times,” by which time there will be no more Latin and Greek catholics, Protestants, and Moslems to be subdued. This will be a glorious and blessed consummation of “the war of the great day of God Almighty” in which Israel will have done valiantly—Numb. xxiv. 18; chasing their enemies who fall before them by the sword—five chasing a hundred, and a hundred of them putting ten thousand to flight—Lev. xxvi. 8.
The purpose of the second and third angel-judgments is fourfold; first, to avenge the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus shed by the spiritual and temporal rulers of the Græco-Latin nations; secondly, to render vengeance to the rebellious who refuse to obey the gospel announced in the First Angel-proclamation; thirdly, to develope the mercy decreed for Yahweh’s land and the twelve tribes of Israel; and, fourthly, that all adversaries being subdued, the surviving population of the earth may rejoice as the reconciled people of the Holy One of Israel, in whom, and in His father Abraham, all the families of the earth are blessed. This fourfold purpose is indicated in Deut. xxxii., in the words, “To me belongeth vengeance and recompense. Yahweh shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone. See now that I, even I am He (the Promised Seed), and that there are none of elohim (אין אלהים) with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. For I lift up my hand to the heavens (Apoc. x. 5, 6), and say, I am the Living One of the Olahm (or Millennium). If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and I will reward them that hate me. I will make mine p. 420 arrows (the Ten Tribes) drunk with blood, and my sword (Judah) shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain, and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.” Therefore, “O ye nations, His people, cause ye to rejoice; for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will bo merciful to His Land and to His people.”
When these judgments of the Second and Third Angels are all exhausted, and the smoke of them consequently ceases to ascend, mankind will then come to know that “there is none like the AIL of Yeshurun (the Strength of Israel) riding the heavens in thy help, and with his majesty the clouds. The Elohim of the East אלהי קדם, elohai kedem, (Apoc. xvi. 12), a refuge, and underneath the Powers of Olahm (the Lamb with the 144,000). He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee, and shall say, Destroy! Then Israel shall dwell in safety alone. The Fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew.” Then it may be truly said, “Happy art thou, O Israel; who is like unto thee, O people saved by Yahweh, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thine exaltation! Also thine enemies shall be proved liars to thee, and thou shalt tread upon their high places”—Deut. xxxiii. 26-29.
The “smoke” of verse 11 which ascends, is the symbol of the glory and power of Deity in burning operation against the worshipers of the beast. In ch. xv. 8, it is styled “smoke from the glory of Deity, and from his power.,” In this place, “the temple” is said to be “filled with” this smoke. The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple—ch. xxi. 22. The smoke is, therefore, His wrath; and while it flames, “no one is able to enter into the nave;” for the nave is the Most Holy Heavenly State, in which the nations hang the trumpet in the hall, and practise war no more.
9. The Patience of the Saints
“Here is the patience of the saints; here, they who keep the commandments of the Deity, and the faith of Jesus.”—Ver. 12.
This is parallel with ch xiii. 10, in a certain degree. In this text, the words have reference to the subject-matter of “the patience and the faith;” while in verse 12, it indicates the persons themselves who are specially related to this patience and faith.
The word ὧδε, hodĕ, rendered “here,” is as if one should say εν τωδε, that is, τοπω, in this place: τα ὧδε, signifies the things here, that is, the things transacted in this place.
“He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity.” Hence, p. 421 in the third angel-judgment, “the Beast is taken, and with him the Pseudo prophet”—ch. xix. 20. The things represented by these symbols constitute a power that has led the saints and witnesses captive, and killed them with the sword. Therefore, the power “that killeth with the sword, by the sword must be killed;” and that, too, by the sword wielded by the saints—Ps. cxlix. 6-9. Hence, also, in that section of the third angel-judgment represented in the eleventh verse, and further illustrated in the sickle scenes from the fourteenth to the twentieth verses inclusive, the remnant of the hostile power of the blasphemers (ch. xvi. 21) is slain with the sword of the “Faithful and True One,” the Commander-in-Chief, “who judges and makes war in righteousness”—ch. xix. 11.
What, then, are the saints waiting for, and what do they believe in? In other words, what is their patience and faith as the Brethren of Christ? The answer is, that they believe in and are waiting for the slaying of Daniel’s fourth beast, the destruction of his body politic, and the giving of it to the burning flame; and for the giving of the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, to the people consisting of the saints of the Most High Ones—Dan. vii. 11, 27; and apocalyptically exhibited in ch. xiv., xv.
In the twelfth verse, the “here” leaves the reader without question as to who these saints are. They are those who have the faith of Jesus. True, “The Mother of Harlots and of all the Abominations of the earth,” the Harlots and Abominations themselves—Latins, Greeks, State-Church and Dissenting Protestants of every name and denomination of blasphemy in the Court of the Gentiles—all of them claim to have “the faith of Jesus!” Of this there is no doubt. It is easy to make claims, but not so easy to establish them. The text before us, however, determines the question against them all. They who keep the faith of Jesus are there declared to be those who “keep the commandments of the Deity”—the obedient. They are all of them the reverse of this. The spirit of obedience to the divine laws is not in them. The only spirit that is their familiar spirit, is “the spirit that works in the children of disobedience,” who “are by nature the children of wrath”—Eph. ii. 2, 3. The “christians of every name and denomination of Christendom,” as the phrase is, are not the saints; for they neither “keep the commandments of the Deity,” nor “the faith of Jesus.” They are piously alien from them all. Their own published confession of themselves is true—they are, as they say, “miserable offenders, who have erred and strayed from the Almighty’s ways; and have too much followed the the devices and desires of their own hearts, and offended against his p. 422 holy laws; having left undone those things which they ought to have done; and done those things which they ought not to have done; and there is no health in them.” This is a “general confession” made every Sunday morning by the whole congregation of the Anglican State superstition throughout the British Isles, North America and the Indies; everywhere, in short, where episcopalianism is found. The miserable offenders who thus stigmatize themselves as being utterly destitute of spiritual health, are recognized as good and orthodox christians by all their pious contemporaries, though somewhat too aristocratic and overbearing. In thus recognizing them they are partakers with them. Listen to the individual outpourings of State-Harlot adherents and Dissenting Earth-Abomination members, and the same vein of self-condemnation will be found to run through them all. They all place themselves in the category of miserable offenders in whom is no health. This being their own testimony concerning their “inward man,” we have no right to dispute it. We accept it as the truth, and nothing but the truth. This confession, however, is utterly incompatible with the claim of being the “keepers of the commandments of the Deity and the faith of Jesus.” The keepers of these do not err and stray from the Father’s ways like lost sheep, but they walk in his ways because they keep his commandments and the faith of Jesus; and being his sheep, “they know his voice, and a stranger they will not follow.” No, “miserable offenders” have no identity with these; but are of them “who worship the beast and his image, and receive the sign of his name—the unhappy subjects of the judgments of third angel power.
That crucial rhantists (besprinkled infant sprinklers) are in no way related to “the saints,” is clear from their total ignorance of the signification of the things symbolized in ch. xiii. 1-10; xiv. 1-20. Their greatest luminary, Rev. Mr. Elliott, gives nearly the whole of this fourteenth chapter the go by, and the little he does speculate upon, from ver. 1 to 5, he expounds as finding its accomplishment in the time and events of the Lutheran Rebellion! The saints are waiting for the things represented in the first eleven verses of this chapter; the besprinkled subjects of the sign of the beast’s name are not. Hence, “the patience” symbolized εν ὧδε τοπω, in this place, is not their patience. They are waiting to “go to heaven” in Transkyania, where there is neither time nor space! It takes the credulity of the Beast’s worshipers to believe in a place of such ample dimensions as “heaven,” where there is no space! But nothing is too absurd for the “patience” of them who keep not the faith of Jesus.
But in this vision of the first, second and third angels are brought p. 423 to light the saints themselves. “Here,” or in this place of the Apocalypse, are seen the saints in the execution of “the judgment written.” This is equivalent to declaring that “the Holy Angels and the Lamb,” of ver. 10, are symbolical of Jesus and his Brethren, and identical with the Lamb and 144,000 of the first verse. These at the head of their forces are the power symbolized by the second and third angels. They begin their career in “prophesying again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings,” as the first angel making proclamation in midheaven; and they finish it in binding the Dragon, and celebrating their victory over the beast, and over his image, and over the sign and number of his name, standing upon the sea of glass, having the harps of the Deity—Apoc. xv. 2. In all their career “the nations rage, and the kingdoms are moved; but He uttered his voice, and the earth melted.” When their work of judgment is in progress, it will be said, “Come, behold the works of Yahweh, who hath set desolations in the earth. He is making wars to cease to end of the earth; he will break the bow, and will cut the spear in sunder; and will burn the chariots in the fire. Be still, and know that I am Elohim. I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted in the earth. Yahweh Tz’vaoth (He who shall be hosts) is with us; a strong place for us is the Elohim of Jacob”—Ps. xlvi. 6-11.