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In
order to prepare for the pouring out of the seven bowls,
Revelation 12:1–14:5 has carried us readers through
great past battles and great future battles as Satan has
sought to eradicate the people of God composed of
national Israel. In 14:1-5 we have just witnessed the
ultimate victory of the 144,000 Israelite servants of
God as they stand on Mount Zion with the Lamb of God.
With their song still ringing in our ears, we are now
close enough to the judgments resulting from the bowls
of God’s wrath in Revelation 16 to hear four climactic
announcements pertaining to awfulness of those bowls
(Rev 14:6-13).
First Announcement (14:6-7)
The angel who flies in mid-heaven with
this announcement is the first of six angels in this
chapter (see vv. 8, 9, 15, 17, 18). This angel has an
eternal gospel to preach to a worldwide population
composed of every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. His
good news tells all people to give God glory and to
worship Him as Creator of the material universe. His
gospel message has no invitation to believe in Christ as
does the gospel of the grace of God in our day. Rather,
it instructs earth’s inhabitants to fear God who is in
process of bringing judgment on the world. It appeals to
the universal human awareness of an accountability to
God and consequently should lead logically to
self-humiliation and self-surrender to Him. The command
of this gospel recalls the words of Ecclesiastes 12:13:
"Fear God and keep His commandments."
Giving God glory is an idiom that
speaks of repentance by acknowledging His attributes. It
recognizes Him as God and, in the context of Revelation,
refuses to make concessions to the dragon and the false
Christ. To recognize God in this manner reverses the
prevailing state of beast worship described in
Revelation 13.
The reason for fearing God and giving
Him glory is the arrival of the hour of His judgment. A
crucial moment has arrived. It is the last chance for a
person to change allegiance to the God of heaven. He is
the Creator of "the heaven and the earth and sea
and fountains of waters" (14:7b), a description of
Him that alludes to Nehemiah 9:6 and Psalm 33:6-9. This
is an appropriate appeal to natural theology with the
worldwide audience that includes people who perhaps will
have never heard the gospel of God’s grace through the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Second Announcement (14:8)
The second angelic announcement
concerns the fall of Babylon the Great. As with the
remaining announcements, this one builds on its
preceding announcement. It implies a rejection of the
everlasting gospel just preached through the first
announcement. The repetition involved in "has
fallen, has fallen" is a kind of dirge that carries
a tragic emphasis. The tense of the two verbs employed
implies the imminence and certainty of the fall of
Babylon which is included in the climax of the seven
last plagues against the earth, described in Revelation
16.
Revelation 16:17–18:24 describes at
length Babylon the Great and its involvement in the last
of the bowl judgments. The angelic announcement at this
point prior to that description assumes that readers of
Revelation have some preliminary knowledge about the
city before that extended section comes. Unwarranted
concepts about "Babylon" include two ideas,
one that it is a code name for Jerusalem and the other
that it is a way Christians had for disguising their
mentions of Rome. The former suggestion is excluded by
the impossibility of Revelation’s being written and
fulfilled prior to A.D. 70. As for the latter,
"Babylon" did not become a secretive reference
to Rome until the second century A.D. when the
persecution of Christians had spread to the entire Roman
empire.
To limit Babylon to the papacy or to
apostate Christianity, as some do, is too limited. It
symbolizes all false religion in Revelation 17.
The best identification for Babylon is to refer it to
the city by that name on the Euphrates River, as two
mentions of the Euphrates elsewhere in Revelation
indicate (see 9:14; 16:12). Place names have a literal
significance in Revelation 1:9; 2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7,
14, and the writer clarifies whenever he uses as place
name with a nonliteral significance as in 11:8. Babylon
on the Euphrates will be the center of a future,
worldwide, false religion as we will learn when we
arrive at Revelation 17 in our study.
When John writes, "who made all
nations drink," he means that this great city used
coercive power over earth’s inhabitants in causing
them to choose a path that they would not have chosen
without her influence. By yielding to Babylon’s
influence, they have incurred the wrath of God which is
bound to respond to every kind of excess that expresses
unfaithfulness to God. Revelation frequently attributes
"fornication" or "unfaithfulness" to
Babylon (see 17:1, 2, 5, 15, 16; 18:3, 9; 19:2), an
unfaithfulness that will demonstrate itself in the
worship of false gods.
Third Announcement (14:9-12)
Note the progression: from the first
announcement that commands the fear and worship of God
to the second announcement that tells the fall of
Babylon for not fearing and worshiping God to the third
announcement that graphically describes the eternal
punishment of those allied with fallen Babylon in their
repudiation of the truth. Listeners to the announcements
should realize the folly of yielding to the threats of
the second beast regarding boycott and death (Rev.
13:11-17). This third announcement brings an awareness
of the worse fate that awaits those who worship the
first beast of Revelation 13:1-8: "Waverer, beware!
The suffering you may avoid if you worship the beast is
immeasurably smaller than the eternal punishment you
will otherwise incur for worshiping him instead of the
God who created all things."
The beast will expect undistracted
loyalty from everyone, reinforcing his expectation with
the threat of death to each person refusing to comply.
Outward indications of that loyalty must include worship
of the beast and his image and acceptance of his mark of
identification on the forehead or the hand. Yet for
anyone to grant that homage will result in dire
consequences. A person who does grant it will eventually
experience the vehement fury and utmost intensity of God’s
anger. Against that person, God will release the white
heat of His wrath that He has delayed from bringing upon
a rebellious world for so long. Drinking from the cup of
His wrath is equivalent to eternal torment in fire and
brimstone spoken of later in Revelation (19:10; 20:10;
21:8). An endless trail of smoke from their torment will
keep on ascending forever. This third announcement
contains what is probably the most horrible picture of
eternal punishment in the entire book.
The announcement closes with a
reminder of the all-importance of endurance and
perseverance. To any weak saint who may consider
defecting to beast-worship, this is a word to remind him
that being killed by the beast is better than suffering
eternal torment in company with the beast. Living faith
in Jesus will keep the saints obedient of God’s
commandments and sustain them in the face of severe
persecution.
Fourth Announcement (14:13)
The fourth announcement comes not from
an angel, but through a voice from heaven. It furnishes
a positive incentive for loyalty to complement the
negative one just given: "Blessed are those who die
in the Lord from now on." Here, the voice from
heaven is a divine pronouncement as it was earlier at
Revelation 10:4, 8; 11:12.
The voice commands John to write the
second of seven beatitudes in Revelation (see also 1:3;
16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14). In this instance, the dead
receive a special blessing not pronounced for anyone
else. By remaining faithful to the point of being
martyred by the beast, these saints can anticipate the
heavenly bliss experienced by the 144,000 in 14:1-5 and
by overcomers in 15:2-4.
"The dead" are doubtless the
victims executed at the prompting of the beast (see Rev.
13:15). The temporal indication found in "from now
on" therefore refers to the future period during
the last half of Daniel’s seventieth week that is the
subject of much of this part of Revelation. At death
those victims "will rest from their labors" in
contrast with the beast worshipers who, when they die,
will "have no rest day and night." The blessed
ones’ works, including their spiritual attitude,
steadfastness of faith, obedience to God’s commands,
and firm resistance to the pressures of the false
Christ, will continue with them. No one can separate
them from what they have done, even after death.
As we think ahead to these saints of
the future, we as present-day believers have bushels to
learn from them and their example. Their faithfulness to
Christ in times of greatest duress makes our efforts to
remain steadfast look so puny. May God help us to remain
true to Him and His Word in times of uncertainty and in
the face of any opposition we may face in standing for
His righteousness and truth.
Note: For more details
about the four announcements of Revelation 14, see my
discussion in Revelation 8–22 (Moody
Press, 1995), pages 201-217. To order this volume, you
may contact Grace Books International at (800) GRACE15
or <www.gbibooks.com>.
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