their wagon-loads of gold and silver. Men and women without financial resources are flying to the ends of the earth preaching the everlasting gospel of entire sanctification to all the nations. Last year I traveled twenty-two thousand miles, and did not have twenty-two cents to start with.
8. This angel proclaims the fall of Babylon, which will speedily follow the
heart, liver, kidneys, diaphragm, and stomach, destroying the natural symmetry and developing the taper-wasp waist, is a hideous and horrific mark of the beast. All sorts of jewelry and needless ornamentation are forbidden in the word of God, and belong to the marks of the beast. These are mainly about the face and hands, the unclothed parts of the body.
Now, reader, if you don’t want to be “tormented forever in fire and brimstone,” you must not worship the beast nor his image. The literal meaning of the Greek Scripture for conversion is to “take you out of the world.” The lexical meaning of sanctify is to “take the world out of you.”
Hence you see the regenerating and sanctifying grace of God is the only possible remedy for this universally-prevalent and damnable idolatry which worships the beast and his image; i.e., the world and its fashion.
ENDLESS PUNISHMENT
This problem, which has been called in question by infidels and skeptics of all ages, who, under the cognomen of religion, have written wagon-loads of books to disprove the eternity of the sinner’s punishment, is here settled by the Holy Ghost beyond the possibility of cavil. He here certifies, in reference to those who worship the beast and his image and receive his mark, who really include this entire wicked world, that “the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever.” The eternal
ascension of the smoke symbolizes the endless punishment of the wicked.
Universalists and Restorationists have labored for ages to find a cessation to the adverb, “forever and ever,” when hell will cool off, Satan relax his grip, and the victims of damnation go free. Now, reader, the positive proof of the utter absurdity of this popular dogma, and the unequivocal
confirmation of the Bible doctrine of endless punishment, are now patent and conspicuous before the eye of the candid student. The Greek
translated “forever and ever” is “eis aioonas aioonoon,” the meaning of which is unto ages of ages, or eternities of eternities. Now, if this don’t express endless duration, can you tell me what combination of words would convey such an idea? You find this phrase in the 11th verse of the 14th chapter, and used to describe the duration of the punishment which awaits all the people who worship the beast and his image. In the 7th verse of the 15th chapter, where the English says, “God liveth forever and ever,” the Greek is that same combination of plural nouns which we have
in the 11th verse of the 14th chapter, describing the duration of the sinner’s doom. Hence, it follows as an inevitable conclusion, from the plain and positive word of God, that the punishment of the wicked will he co-eternal with the existence of God. The very same argument which will quench hell-fire and discontinue the retributions of the lost, will inevitably prove that the time will come when God Himself will cease to exist. From these, and many other similar quotations, you see the utter folly,
consummate nonsense, and transparent sophistry of all those facetious dogmas so pompously arrayed to disprove the Bible doctrine of eternal damnation.
WHAT BECOMES OF PEOPLE SO SOON AS THEY DIE?
The saints enter heaven immediately, and the wicked drop suddenly into hell. The intermediate paradise into which the Old Testament saints were gathered was abolished at the resurrection of Christ. (<600318>
1 Peter 3:18;
<490408>
Ephesians 4:8. — See my next volume.) Since Christ, the first-fruit, passed into heaven, accompanied by the sacramental host of Old
Testament saints, the pearly gates have ever stood ajar for all who die in the Lord.
13. “I heard a voice from heaven saying, write: Blessed are the dead from henceforth who die in the Lord.” The Greek word aparti, translated “from henceforth,” means instantaneously, from the very moment. Hence you see the problem is solved and the question is settled. The very moment you die, you are flooded with heavenly bliss, and sweep triumphantly into the glory-land. There, as the Spirit says, “they shall rest from their labors, and their works follow with them.”
THE LORD COMES TO TAKE UP HIS SAINTS 14. In this verse we see the Lord coming in a white cloud with a golden crown upon his head, and a sharp sickle. The 15th verse describes another angel coming out of the temple, and shouting with a loud voice to the Son of man sitting on the cloud, “Thrust in thy sickle and reap, because the hour of reaping has come, and the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.”
16. “The one sitting on the cloud cast His sickle into the earth, and the earth was reaped.” The <661406>
6th verse of this chapter describes the Holiness
movement flying into all parts of the world and preaching the everlasting gospel of entire sanctification and the Lord’s near coming to all nations.
This is the great sowing which has been in progress already twenty years.
It is sowing down all nations with the gospel of holiness, and ringing out the proclamation, “Behold, He cometh!”
<402430>
Matthew 24:30, 31:
“Then shall the sign of the Son of man appear in the skies; then all the tribes of the earth shall mourn, and see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and much glory. He shall send forth His angels with a great sound of a trumpet; they shall gather His elect out of the four winds, from the extremities of the heavens unto the extremities of the same.”
Luke describes the same scene (<422128>
21:28):
“When these things begin to transpire, take courage and lift up your heads, because your redemption drapweth nigh.”
These Scriptures from our Savior’s sermon on the judgments, which He preached on Mt. Olivet the day before He was crucified, vividly and graphically describe the rapture when He shall come and gather His saints from all the ends of the earth, raising the dead and translating the living.”
<400901>
Matthew 9:
“Then two men shall be in the field; one is taken, and one is left.
Two women are grinding in the mill; one is taken, and one is left.”
You see plainly and clearly, from these statements of our Savior, that this cannot describe the final judgment; for then all on the earth, both living and dead, will be taken. Therefore, it must be the premillennial resurrection and judgment, in which He will come and take up His saints with Him into the cloud, as Paul says. There is a striking harmony between the prophecies of Jesus, Paul, and John, each of whom describes Jesus coming in a cloud and gathering out His saints from every laud under heaven. Daniel (<271201>
12:1) also add his testimony: “At that time Thy people shall be delivered, every one that is written in the book.” The connection here shows that it is deliverance from the great tribulations destined to come upon the whole earth, shaking every monarch from his throne, racking all nations with
mighty revolutionary earthquakes, and filling the world with blood, slaughter, and desolation.
With these prophetical corroborations, we return to our text.
16-18. These three verses describe our Savior coming on a cloud and reaping the harvest of the whole earth, which are declared to be fully ripe.
You must bear in mind the logical connection in this chapter between the sowing and the reaping. While in a sense the sowing has been in progress in all bygone ages, the direct and pre-eminent allusion is to the present great and universal sowing by the Lord’s people in the present Holiness movement. How long this gospel sowing shall continue, till the Lord comes to reap His crop of saints, we know not; but the prophetical connection certainly does involve the conclusion that it will not be long.
THE GATHERING OF THE VINTAGE MEANS THE WICKED You will see from this chapter the contrastive results of preaching the gospel. Those who receive the message delivered by the holy evangels personified by the angel in the 6th verse, get saved, sanctified, robed, and ready to meet the Lord descending on the cloud in verse 14, constitute the harvest of saints which the glorified Savior will reap when He comes. Do not forget that these angels all represent heavenly influences, and are executives of the Divine administration. They are respectively the subordinates of the Holy Ghost.
17. “Another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, himself also having a sharp sickle.” This is the angel of Divine retribution, destined to come upon all who reject the gospel of holiness, which is now, by the angel of the 6th verse, being preached in all the earth.
18. You see the angel described in this verse comes from the altar in