Divine Credentials
65
and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and
the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of
her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, 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 unto heaven, and
God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded
you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup
which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified
[68]
herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her:
for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see
no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and
mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for
strong is the Lord God who judgeth her” (
Revelation 18:1-8
).
The whole chapter shows that Babylon that has fallen is the
churches who will not receive the messages of warning the Lord has
given in the first, second, and third angels’ messages. They refused
the truth and accepted a lie. They refused the messages of truth. See
2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
. The message in the eighteenth chapter of
Revelation is plain and clearly defined. “For all nations have drunk
of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth
have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth
are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies” (
Verse 3
).
Anyone who reads this chapter need not be deceived.
How Satan would exult to have a message go broadcast that the
only people whom God has made the repositories of His law are the
ones to whom this message applies. The wine of Babylon is the
exalting of the false and spurious sabbath above the Sabbath which the
Lord Jehovah hath blessed and sanctified for the use of man, also [it is]
the immortality of the soul. These kindred heresies, and the rejection
of the truth, convert the church into Babylon. Kings, merchants, rulers,
and religious teachers are all in corrupt harmony.
The Church Not to Be Broken Up
Again I say, The Lord hath not spoken by any messenger who calls
the church that keeps the commandments of God, Babylon. True, there
are tares with the wheat; but Christ said He would send His angels to
first gather the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather