Three Angels Messages - second Angel

How the Three Angels Messages of Revelation 14 Relate to the End Times

Second Angel

This is the first mention of Babylon in the book of Revelation. Babylon is called that great city. In prophecy, a city represents a church. In the Old Testament two cities, representing two religious organizations, are singled out. There is Babylon, representing Satan’s center of worship, and Jerusalem, representing Christ’s center of worship. Babylon is the most famous city from ancient Mesopotamia whose ruins lie in modern-day Iraq 59 miles southwest of Baghdad. The name probably comes from the word bav-il or bav-ilim in the Akkadian language of the time. It means 'Gate of God' or `Gate of the Gods'. Daniel and the Revelation - A Verse by Verse Commentary, Review and Herald Publishing Company, Washington, DC, 1955, p829.

The story in Genesis 11 is well known.

Genesis 11:4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5) And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6) And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7) Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

And why did the Lord confound their speech? The big event preceding this was the flood. The universal flood destroyed all but eight souls. The tower of Babel was an attempt to defy God by building so high that another flood would not affect them. So, the Lord confounded their language. When someone said hand me a hammer they got a saw. Work could not continue so the unity they had for nefarious purposes was destroyed. The first official world ruler was Nimrod and he ruled from the city of Babylon. Most, if not all of the false religions of this world, can be traced back to the city of Babylon. Babylon, according to the Bible, would never be rebuilt (Revelation 18:2). There have been feeble attempts, but the Bible stands true. Intoxicating wine represents false doctrine. The wrath of her fornication depicts the anger and intolerance of those who drink the wine, that is, the doctrines, of spiritual Babylon. It makes them intolerant of truth and intolerant of those who hold to the truth. What does wine do to the brain? Among other things, wine causes confusion. Who would disagree that there is confusion in the religious world today? There are hundreds of Protestant denominations, all claiming the truth. There are differences over every major point of doctrine. We just passed the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the Wittenburg Church door in October 1517. Today that same church is moving back into the fold of the Catholic Church.

The same judgment pronounced in Jeremiah 51:8 on ancient Babylon is given to end-time Babylon in Revelation 14:8. And, the same call given in Jeremiah 51:6 and 9 to come out of Babylon is given in Revelation 18:1-5.

There are two calls out of Babylon. Just as Jesus began and ended His ministry on Earth by cleansing the temple, so there are two calls to the churches at the end of time. The first of these calls was made at the beginning of the Advent movement around 1844, and was confined largely to America, whereas the final call will be worldwide and climax in the loud cry just prior to the close of probation.

 Revelation 17 represents Babylon by the symbol of a woman seated on a scarlet colored beast. If therefore the woman Babylon represents the whole of this fallen world, the entire empire of the Devil, what does the beast represent upon which the woman is seated? Is it not a fact that the beast represents the fourth empire of our earth in its Papal form? And, that being the case, is it not a certainty that Babylon does not include the whole wicked world? That the beast and the woman are two distinct symbols, is evident from verse 7. "And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns".

We understand that the fall of Babylon is her rejection by God, that the Holy Spirit leaves her in consequence of her alienation from God and her union with the world, and that thus she is left to the spirits of devils. As an illustration, we will refer to the fall of the Jewish Church, the harlot of Ezekiel 16. This fall is distinctly stated in Rom.11. Its particulars may be gathered from Matt.21:43; 23; 12:43-45. The Three Messages of Revelation 14:6-12 PARTICULARLY THE THIRD ANGEL'S MESSAGE, AND TWO-HORNED BEAST, JOHN N. ANDREWS, REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING CO.: BATTLE CREEK, MICH; CHICAGO, ILL.; TORONTO, ONT.; ATLANTA, GA, 1892, P. 50)

"The founders of Babylon aspired to set up a government entirely independent of God, and had He not intervened, they would eventually have succeeded in banishing righteousness from the earth. For this reason God saw fit to destroy the tower and to scatter its builders.....Over the centuries the city lost more and more of its important and eventually, toward the close of the first century A.D. virtually ceased to exist.... Apparently, toward the close of the 1st century A.D. Christians were already referring to the city and empire of Rome by the cryptic title Babylon. Daniel and the Revelation Sections of Volume 4 and Volume 7 of the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1955, P 829.

The Three Messages of Revelation 14:6-12 PARTICULARLY THE THIRD ANGEL'S MESSAGE, AND TWO-HORNED BEAST, JOHN N. ANDREWS, REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING CO.: BATTLE CREEK, MICH; CHICAGO, ILL.; TORONTO, ONT.; ATLANTA, GA, 1892, P. 51)

There are many things that make up the wine of Roman Babylon. The following is a list taken from The Wine of Roman Babylon, Mary E. Walsh, Leaves of Autumn Books, Payson, Arizona, 1987)

• ✔ Tradition P.20 "A rule of faith, or a competent guide to heaven, must be able to instruct in all truths necessary for salvation. Now the Scriptures alone do not contain all the truths which a Christian is bound to believe, nor do they explicitly enjoin all the duties which he is obliged to practice". Quoted from The Faith of our Fathers, James Cardinal Gibbons, 110th revised edition, pp 89,90.


• ✔ Infant Baptism P.32 "Whoever shall affirm, that newborn infants, even though sprung from baptized parents, out not to be baptized, let him be accursed.


• ✔ Confession P.42 "Whoever shall deny that sacramental confession was instituted by divine command, or that it is necessary to salvation; or shall affirm that that practice of secretly confessing to the priest alone, as it has been ever observed from the beginning by the {Roman} Catholic Church, and it still observed, is foreign to the institution and command of Christ, and it a human invention; let him be accursed."


• ✔ Penance P.52 "In this sacrament sins are forgiven by the priest's absolution, joined with contrition , confession and satisfaction on the part of the penitent....It also remits the eternal, and at least a part of the temporal, punishment due to our past sins." Quoted from Francis J. Butler, Holy Family Catechism No. 3. P. 257.


• ✔ Mass P.62 The bread and wine, the consecrated stone, a priest, is all that is needed now, for at any moment it is in his power to call the Lord of glory with holy words down upon the earth, to bless him with his lips, to hold Him in his hands, to receive Him into his mouth, and to distribute Him to the faithful, whilst at the same time the angels stand about him in reverent awe to honour Him who is sacrificed. The power of the priest, exclaims St. Bernardine of Sienna, surpasses the power of the blessed virgin; Mary brought the Son of God only once into this world, the priest can do so daily." Quoted from William Doyle, Shall I Be a Priest? P. 14


• ✔ Purgatory P.78 "The souls who go to purgatory are saved. They are certain of heaven, and shall reach it as soon as they are prepared for it...But as yet they are not pure and holy enough."


• ✔ Peter and the Rock P.89 "Jesus our Lord founded but one church, which He was pleased to build on Peter. Therefore, any church that does not recognize Peter as its foundation stone is not the church of Christ, and therefore cannot stand, for it is not the work of God." Quoted from Cardinal James Gibbons, Faith of Our Fathers P. 100.


• ✔ Peter and the Keys P.111 "While the {Roman} Church lasts, Peter (and his successors) will hold its keys...He admits to and excludes from the church in his Master's name. Quoted from William B. Addis and Thomas Arnold, A Catholic Dictionary, p. 669, art. "Pope".


• ✔ Immaculate Conception P.128 The immaculate conception was not formulated as a doctrine until 1854. "The doctrine which hold that the blessed Virgin Mary, at the very first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ,the Saviour of mankind, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful." Bertrand I. Conway, The Question Box Answers


• ✔ Immortality of the Soul P.174 "The belief and teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is that man is inherently immortal, and that after death he lives on in the form of an immortal soul."


• ✔ Eternal Torment in Hell P.180 "Hell may be defined as the place and state in which the devils and such human beings as die in enmity with God suffer eternal torments."


• ✔ Sunday Observance P.213 "The (Roman) Catholic Church for over 1,000 years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday." Quoted from The Catholic Mirror, September 23, 1893.
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