Revelation 14:6-11

This passage gives us the messages of three angels. The first angel was seen flying and having (the) everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth. Is this the gospel of salvation to the world?, what we usually mean by the term "everlasting gospel?" It might seem so because of the very terms used, "everlasting gospel." Or is his gospel the announcement of the doom and judgment on the persecutor? This view is favored by the words which he actually speaks for he says: "The hour of his (God's) judgment is come," that is on the persecutor. That question perhaps we need not decide too stringently, for maybe one view really involves the other. At any rate, his message was: "Fear God and worship him that made all things, for he is the judge and the hour of his judgment is come." And the following angels will have something more to say about it. Then the second angel followed saying: "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." The last word is a Bible synonym for idolatry, perhaps including also all its vices.

Here we first meet the name Babylon. What was this Babylon, declared to be fallen? Now there is no doubt in my mind that this Babylon was Rome. For in the seventeenth chapter we are shown a woman gaudily dressed, called a harlot, with the name Babylon on her forehead, and the last verse of the chapter 17:18 says: "And the woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth." This is absolutely conclusive that Babylon is the name given to Rome in the Apocalypse and that here we are dealing with the times of Pagan Rome, and not with a future period denominated, "The Tribulation." Rome was called Babylon because sort of a duplicate of old Babylon, in that she was a persecutor of God's people, she was intensely idolatrous, and she was doomed to overthrow for her sins.

The third angel follows the other two declaring the wrath of God upon the worshipers of the beast. They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever.

Just as John showed in the beginning of the chapter the blessedness of those who worshiped the Lamb, so now he shows, with terrible imagery, the punishment of those that worship the beast. For the one eternal blessedness in heaven, for the other, eternal torment in hell.