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From Here to Forever
can be pleasing to God. “This is the love of God, that we keep his
commandments.”
1 John 5:3
; See
Proverbs 28:9
.
A Call to Worship the Creator
The duty to worship God is based upon the fact that He is the
Creator. “O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before
the Lord our maker.”
Psalm 95:6
; See
Psalm 96:5
;
Psalm 100:3
;
Isaiah 40:25, 26
;
45:18
.
In
Revelation 14
, men are called to worship the Creator and
keep the commandments of God. One of these commandments
points to God as the Creator: “The seventh day is the Sabbath
of the Lord thy God: ... for in six days the Lord made heaven
and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh
day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
Exodus 20:10, 11
. The Sabbath, the Lord says, is a “sign, ... that
ye may know that I am the Lord your God.”
Ezekiel 20:20
. Had
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the Sabbath been universally kept, man would have been led to the
Creator as the object of worship. There would never have been an
idolater, atheist, or infidel. Keeping the Sabbath is a sign of loyalty
to “him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains
of waters.” The message which commands men to worship God and
keep His commandments will especially call them to keep the fourth
commandment.
In contrast to those who keep the commandments of God and
the faith of Jesus, the third angel points to another class: “If any
man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his
forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the
wrath of God.”
Revelation 14:9, 10
. What is represented by the
beast, the image, the mark?
The Identity of the Dragon
The prophecy in which these symbols are found begins with
Revelation 12
. The dragon that sought to destroy Christ at His birth
is said to be Satan (
Revelation 12:9
); he moved upon Herod to put the
Saviour to death. But the agent of Satan in making war upon Christ
and His people during the first centuries was the Roman Empire, in