being come. The next messenger announces the fall of Babylon: the particulars of this are more fully given us further on; but getting its place in the course of events is of great moment, which is given us here. The beast and his image still continue, but things are now closing in; for the warning is next given, that if any man worship him he shall be made to drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation. This, therefore, is the point of patience and faith now for the saints, keeping entirely aloof from all connection with the beast; for as yet it was a prevailing though judged power.
But now the patience of the saints (who suffered even to death at least) closed. They were the happy ones—they rested from their labours, and their works followed them.
On the announcement of judgment on those that worshipped the beast or his image, or received
the limited sphere so designated: in the crisis, probably, entirely confined to the land. Before the judgment, “the end,” comes, the everlasting Gospel goes out afresh to the nations (many of them, doubtless, in actual idolatry), to announce the coming judgment, and to testify the good news of the coming millennial kingdom and blessedness. These two spheres—earth—and people and tongues and nations and languages—we have noticed as contented in repeated instances.
