Fear God, and give glory to Him.—Rather than to creeds, sects and clergy.
For the hour of His judgment is come.—The MILLENNIAL DAWN, the dawn of the thousand-year Judgment Day of Christ, is at hand.—Rev. 15:4; 11:18.
And worship Him that made Heaven, and earth, and the sea.—God, our Heavenly Father, the Creator of all things.—Neh. 9:6; Psa. 33:6, 124:8; Acts 14:15; 17:24.
And the fountains of waters.—His Heaven-sent Word.
14:8. And there followed another [angel] A SECOND.—Volume II of Scripture Studies.
Saying, [Babylon is fallen,] is fallen, [that] BABYLON, THE great [city].—Chapters 7 and 9 of Volume II are particularly devoted to this theme. “The name Babylon originally signified God's gate-way; but afterward, in derision, it came to mean mixture or confusion. In the book of Revelation this name is applied specifically to the church nominal, which, from being the gate-way to glory, became a gate-way to error and confusion, a miserable mixture composed chiefly of tares, hypocrites,—a confused mass of worldly profession in which the Lord's jewels are [pg 222] buried, and their true beauty and luster hidden.” (C. 153.) “The name Babylon was applied, not only to the capital city of the Babylonian empire, but also to the empire itself. Babylon, the capital, was the most magnificent, and probably the largest, city of the ancient world. It was built in the ‘form of a square on both sides of the Euphrates river; and, for protection against invaders, it was surrounded by a deep moat filled with water and inclosed within a vast system of double walls, from thirty-two to eighty-five feet thick, and from seventy-five to three hundred feet high. On the summit were low towers, said to have been two hundred and fifty in number, placed along the outer and inner edges of the wall, tower facing tower; and in these walls were a hundred brazen gates, twenty-five on each side, corresponding to the number of streets which intersected each other at right angles. The city was adorned with splendid palaces and temples and the spoils of conquest.’ ” (D. 23; Jer. 51:8; Rev. 18:2.) “This use of the aorist—in the sense of the ‘prophetic preterite’—expresses the certainty of the fall: see chapters 10:7; 11:18; 18:2; and see on chapter 15:1. The language is taken from Isa. 21:9, the verb denoting the violent fall and overthrow of kingdoms—see Ezek. 30:6; and see on chapter 17:10. With the fall of Babylon, the capital of the ungodly world-kingdom, the Old Testament connects the redemption of the people of God.—Isa. 13:19; 47:1; Jer. 51:1-10.”—Cook.
Because [she made all nations drink of] ALL NATIONS HAVE FALLEN THROUGH the wine of the wrath of her fornication.—“The ruin of all the nations of earth is here attributed directly to the fact that ‘Babylon made all the peoples drunk with the wine [spirit, influence] of her fornication’—worldly affiliation.”—C. 164, 104; Jer. 51:7; Rev. 2:20; 17:2, 5; 18:3; 19:2.
14:9. And [the] ANOTHER, A third angel followed them.—Volume III of the Scripture Studies followed I and II.
Saying with a loud voice.—Proclaiming clearly, in chapters 2, 4 and 6.
If any man worship the beast.—The Papacy.