Because [she made all nations drink of] ALL NATIONS HAVE FALLEN THROUGH the wine of the wrath of her fornication.—“The ruin of all the nations of earth is here attributed directly to the fact that ‘Babylon made all the peoples drunk with the wine [spirit, influence] of her fornication’—worldly affiliation.”—C. 164, 104; Jer. 51:7; Rev. 2:20; 17:2, 5; 18:3; 19:2.
14:9. And [the] ANOTHER, A third angel followed them.—Volume III of the _Scripture Studies_ followed I and II.
Saying with a loud voice.—Proclaiming clearly, in chapters 2, 4 and 6.
If any man worship the beast.—The Papacy.
And his image.—The Evangelical‐Alliance‐Spiritism combination.—Rev. 13:11, 13, 14, 15; 14:11; 15:2; 16:2, 13; 19:20; 20:10; Matt. 24:24.
And receive his mark In his forehead, or in his hand.—See Rev. 13:16, 17.
14:10. The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.—The Message of Present Truth.
Which is poured out without mixture.—Different from Babylon’s _mixed_ wine.—Isa. 5:20‐22.
Into the cup of His indignation.—“The Lord our God hath put us to silence and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord.”—Jer. 8:14; Isa. 51:17‐20; Jer. 25:26‐28; Rev. 18:6; 16:19; Psa. 60:3; 75:8.
And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone.—Whoever worships, reverences, human institutions and doctrines more than the Word of the Lord has experienced the torment here specified. Doctrines of hell fire and brimstone have been his portion.—Rev. 9:17‐19.
In the presence of the holy angels.—The Harvest workers on this side of the veil.—Matt. 13:39.
And in the presence of the Lamb.—“In the days of the Son of Man;” after the Second Advent has taken place.
14:11. And the smoke of their torment.—“A noun, unlike a verb (or ‘time‐ word,’ as the Germans call it), does not indicate time. So ‘the smoke of their torment’ may mean that of pain endured once for all, and then at an end. There is nothing in this verse that necessarily implies an eternity of suffering. In a similar way the word ‘punishment’ or ‘correction’ in Matt. 25:46 gives in itself no indication of time. Cp. Gen. 19:28; Jude 7.” (Weym.)
“(a) The doctrine is found nowhere in the Old Testament, nor any hint of it. The expression, in the end of Isaiah, about the fire unquenched and the worms not dying, is plainly of the corpses of men upon the physical earth.