The message of the second angel in Revelation 14:1-20 is “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” In Revelation 17:1-18, the woman identified as spiritual Babylon, dressed in purple and scarlet, rides upon a scarlet-colored beast, passes around her wine cup, and gets the world drunk with error. Church and state unite. Falsehood prevails. Demons work their miracles to deceive. The world catapults into its final conflict.
At the same time, the people of God are maligned, ridiculed, oppressed, and persecuted, but in Christ and through the power of His Holy Spirit, they are steadfast in their commitment.
Image © Kevin Carden at Goodsalt.com
All the powers of hell and the forces of evil cannot break their loyalty to Christ. They are secure in Him. He is their “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).
God is calling an end-time people back to faithfulness to His Word. Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your Word is truth” (John 17:17, NKJV). The truth of God’s Word, not human opinion or tradition, is the North Star to guide us in this critical hour of earth’s history.
Here is a remarkable statement by Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, the author of the Standard Manual for Baptist Churches. In 1893, he addressed a group of hundreds of Baptist ministers and shocked them as he explained how Sunday came into the Christian church.
“What a pity that it [Sunday] comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, then adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism!” — Edward Hiscox, before a New York ministers’ conference, Nov. 13, 1893.
Read Ezekiel 20:1-20. What is the gist of Ezekiel’s message here, and how does the Sabbath fit in with this call to faithfulness?
Ezekiel 20:1-49 is an earnest appeal for Israel to forsake pagan practices and to worship the Creator instead of their false gods, in this case the “idols of Egypt.” In the message of the three angels, God is making a similar appeal to “worship the Creator,” for “Babylon is fallen.” And, too, as we know, the Sabbath, and faithfulness to it, will play a big role in final events.
| What lessons can we take away for ourselves from what has been written in Ezekiel 20:1-20? (See also 1 Corinthians 10:11.) |
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