The Pulpit Commentary — Revelation — Section 419

II. THE OONFLIOT IS NOT DELINEATED. It has been already, and abundantly. W• are to see in it all the contention long continued between the diverse elements, light and darkneBB, truth and error, righteousness and sin, Christ and Belia], the judgment of human conduct by the true standard of right, the life of Christ. This is the struggle now going forward. III. 'l'HE ISSUE 18 A VICTORIOUS CONQUEST GAINED BY CHRIST AND HIS ARYdY OVER ALL THE POWER OF THE ENEMY. "The beast was taken, and with him the false prophet." Their destruction fa complete a.Iid final. They are cast alive, as in their activity, into a" lake of fire that bnmeth with brimstone." IV. THE INSTRUMENT OP WARFARE SUFFICIENTLY INDICATES THE NATURE OF TBB STRIFE. In a few words is indicated the nature of the weapons (weapon); and so the nature of the strife. He smites the nations with the sword which proceeded out of his mouth: "'l'he sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." With this only weapoll tl1e " rest are killed." V. Tm: FINAL JOY OP ALL in the ascendency of the truth is indicated in the gathering of the fowls of the air to the supper of the great God, called by an angel standing where all can see-in the sun.-R. G. Vere. 1-21.-The Fternal in the tlfl;iver&e, and hu Repr6$6'1itati1Jd to man. "And after these things I heard a great voice of much people," etc. "Babylon" in this book I take as the symbol of moral evil on this earth, or, in other words, of all that is corrupt in human life. From its establishment on this globe, it has been "falling." It is" falling" now, and will continue to fall until its mighty mountain shall become a plain, a.nd there will be found "no place" for it. In the preceding chapter the effect of its fall was seen. How the bad howled lamentations I and how the good shouted its jubilations! Looking at this chapter, not as a verbal critic, a prophetic interpreter, or as a sensuous pietist, but a.s a pr1:1Ctical man, it suggests and portrays to me the Eternal in the universe, and his Representative to man. We have here- I. A SYMBOLIO ASPECT OF THE ETERNAL IN THE UNIVERSE. How does he app!'llr here? As receiving the highest worship. "After these things I heard [as it were] a great voice of much people [a great multitude] in heaven, saying, Alleluia," etc. 1. 1'he worship was widely etXtensive-" much people," "elders" (vers, 1-3), "beasts," "small and great," "a great multitude." In this worship, the "four 1o1nd twenty elders," the representatives of the sainted dead who have reached the heavenly state, and the "four be.,sts,. [living creatures], unfallen spirits through all ages and worlds, all these unite in the one grand "Alleluia," "Praise our God [~ve praise to-our God].'' Worship is the vital breath and inspiration of all holy intelligences. On the Eternal their eyes are fixed with supreme adoration, and their hearts with intensest love turned in impressive devotion, 2. The worship was supremtly deserved. "True and righteous are his judgments" (ver. 2). He is true and righteous, absolutely l!O in himself is he. "He is light, and in him is no darkness at all." Not one dark thought has ever paBBed through his infinite intellect, not one sentiment of evil has ever ruffled the immeasurable sea of his emotionality. The Father of lights is he; all the beams of holy thoughts and ideas stream from him, as rays from the central sun of immeasity. "0 holy Sire, 0 holy Sire, Sole Fount of life and lighi I Thou e.rt the uncreated Fire, Burning in every pme desire Of all who love the right." Not only ta he absolut.ely "true and righteous" in himself, but It is suggest.ed that he is eo in his procedure against the wrong. " He bath judged the great whore rharlot], which did -corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath [he hathJ avenged tiie blood of his -Servants at her hand" (ver. 2). 'l'his "great whore" stands, I think, the same as Babylon, for the moral evil in the world. Her description is given in eh. xvii. It suggests and illustrates three great evils in the world: (1) Political subserviency; (2) worldly tendency; and {3) religkil.18 intolerance. Is he not " true and righteol.18" in crushing such a moral monst.er, such a curse to the earth, BO tl1at her "smoke rose (goeth] up for ever and ever" (ver. 3), which means utter destruction? Now, were  aa._xrx..1..-9L] 'Nm REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVIN:& f6S