hird angel followed them, saying
with a loud voice, 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, which is poured out without mixture
into the cup of his indignation" (verses 8-10).

Here we are brought face to face with some of the most solemn truths
contained in the Book of God. The very powers of apostate Christianity
just described under the symbols of two beasts are now represented
_by the angel_ as Babylon; for, be it observed, the divine message
is against those who worship the beast _and his image_. The image was
made by the second beast. Therefore Babylon includes both Romanism
and Protestantism--the whole realm of formal churchianity; and
beast-worship is here condemned in one of the most terrible
denunciations found in all the Word of God. All the evils inherent
in the false, unscriptural systems of so-called Christianity are here
summed up under the one word _Babylon_, of which we shall have more to
say later.

Two things prominently brought out in these symbols should be
remembered, however--first, that even during the reign of the beast
and his image, God had true people who were carefully distinguished in
the prophecy as those whose names were written in the book of life and
who would not "worship the image of the beast"; and second, that the
symbolic scene now being considered represents these saved individuals
as gathered out into one company with the Lamb on Mount Zion, before
the end of time. The illustration is that of the joyful Israelites
who made their return to Zion after the fall of literal Babylon, where
they were long held in captivity. This is the illustration and the
prophetic description; therefore we may rest assured that just as
truly as time revealed the rise of the papal and Protestant systems,
as set forth in the symbols of the Revelation, just so surely will
there come _before the end of time_ a revival of pure, apostolic
Christianity, a reformation in which the true people of God will take
their stand outside of all forms of the apostasy and carry the full
gospel of the Son of God to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue,
and people."

We have traced in prophetic symbolism the four epochs of the Christian
dispensation represented respectively by the star-crowned woman, the
leopard-beast, the two-horned beast, and the redeemed company gathered
together with the Lamb on Mount