over the kings of the earth." When the Jews came up from captivity from Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, and to reëstablish themselves in the holy land, the people of the country opposed and sought to stop them and wrote accusations against them to Babylon to Artaxerxes, asking him to examine the records concerning the past history of Israel, which he did, and found among other things, as he stated in his reply, "There have been mighty kings also over Jerusalem, which have ruled over all countries beyond the river (Euphrates); and toll, tribute and custom was paid unto them" (Ezra 4:20).

This account that was written among the records of Babylon is true, and fully confirmed by the chronicles of Israel and Judah. And as it has been. in the past, so will it be in the future, even as it is contained in the very first passage of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, speaking of her latter day history, before she comes down wonderfully, saying, “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies." (Verse 8) "Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her, despise her, because they have seen her nakedness; yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end, therefore she came down wonderfully." Again in verse 10 it is said, "The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen hath entered into her sanctuary (the Temple), whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation." Thus before Jerusalem falls into this condition here described, she was great among the nations and princess among the provinces, like unto what she was in the days of David and Solomon.

"

THE FALL OF BABYLON (REV. 18)

The cry of the angel referred to in chapter fourteen (verse 8), saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen," is taken up again in chapter 18, saying, “And after these things, I saw another angel come down from heaven having great power, and the earth was lightened with his glory." After the saints of God are made perfect and are as the angels of God in heaven, they ascend and descend as do the angels, as it is said, "And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham (Gen. 17:22). Again, the Lord appeared unto Jacob, and after changing his name from Jacob to Israel, and making the promises to him that he had made before to Abraham, it is added, "And God went up from him in the place where he talked with him (Gen. 35:13). Thus it is that the angels of God by the power of the Spirit of God ascend and descend at their pleasure, and even so will the saints do in the resurrection, for they are the angels that figure in the judgments upon mystical Babylon, and they also are able to lighten the earth with their glory, as it is here stated.

(Verse 2) "And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of

every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies."

""
THE HABITATION OF DEVILS (REV. 18:2)

Jerusalem at this time is full of idols, the work of wicked men's hands. These idols in the Scriptures are called devils, even as it is said in the song of witness, "They sacrificed unto devils, not to God, to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not" (Deut. 32:17). Again in the one hundred and sixth Psalm, it is written, "They did not destroy the nations concerning whom the Lord commanded them, but were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works. And they served their idols, which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood."

Thus the idols of the land of Canaan that the people who lived there worshipped, are in the Scriptures called devils, and Israel sought these devils, to worship them. Therefore the Lord commanded them to offer their sacrifices to him at the door of the Tabernacle by the hand of the priest, saying, "And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring." Again it is written of Jeroboam, king of the ten tribes, saying, "And he ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for the calves which he had made" (II Chron. 11:17). Again Paul says, "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God" (I Cor. 10: 20).

The Philistines who dwelled in the land of Canaan worshipped devils, the works of their own hands; one was called Dagon, but their chief god was called Beelzebub the god of Ekron (II Kings 1:1-6). The scribes and Pharisees in their hatred of Christ and his doctrines called him Beelzebub, and afterward his apostles, as Jesus said, "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?" And when Jesus did miracles, and cast out devils, and healed the children of men of all their infirmities, mental and physical, by the Holy Spirit, the Pharisees charged that he did this through diabolical agency, saying, "This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." This is a sin for which there is no forgiveness in any age. Therefore let all blasphemers take notice that they who account for the miracles that Christ did by the finger of God, saying that he did it through mesmerism or any unclean agency, do so to their everlasting confusion of face, for there is no forgiveness for those that commit this sin.

But there will be devils of a far more injurious character than the idols which will be set up in all the streets of Jerusalem, and also in the Temple in that day. The scribes and Pharisees will abound again in the latter days in Israel as well as they did in the days of Jesus; and he said to them and those that coöperated with them, "Ye are of your father the devil, and his works ye will do." As a rule, all persons who oppose or withstand the

truth are "adversaries," or in other and plainer words they are called devils. Judas was a devil, and so were all the scribes, Pharisees, and rulers of Israel who withstood the Son of God and his teachings, and who put him to death and afterwards persecuted and killed those who preached his doctrines. Jerusalem in the latter days will abound with this kind of devils, chief of whom will be that old serpent, the Devil and Satan, the chief ruler in the Land, the king of Israel.

THE HOLD OF EVERY FOUL SPIRIT' (REV. 18:2)

Prophets are called spirits, therefore John writes saying, "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world." False prophets therefore are foul spirits. Ahab had four hundred of them; Jezebel had at one time four hundred and fifty whom Elijah slew at one time, and did not allow one of them to escape. The Ahabs of Israel and Judah in the latter days will have multitudes of these foul spirits in Jerusalem. It is written of them saying, "From the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land" (Jer. 23: 15). These will withstand the prophets of the Lord, and will persecute them and cause them to be put to death, and they will cry, "Peace and safety" when sudden destruction is at their door, when the faithful servants of the Lord will proclaim in trumpet tones throughout the land, "The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly."

"A CAGE OF UNCLEAN AND HATEFUL BIRDS (REV. 18:2)

The Lord says of his evil family, " For among my people are found wicked men. They lay in wait as he that setteth snares, they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit." Their law made a distinction between fowls; the eagle, the vulture, the raven, the hawk, the owl, the cormorant and other like birds were unclean carnivorous birds, that were not to be eaten by the children of Israel, but were to be held as an abomination. These unclean birds are the symbols by which the degenerate children of Israel in the latter days are represented. Therefore Jerusalem, that is, mystical Babylon at the time of her destruction, is called "a a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." The city of Jerusalem is called Babylon because her people have become idolaters like unto the Babylonians. Jeremiah speaks of them under the symbol of Babylon, saying of her (50: 38), "A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up, for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols." Again, "The nations have drunken of her wine, therefore the nations are mad."

And though the ten commandments which the Lord spake to all Israel with his own voice out of the midst of the fire, began with this command, saying, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," and although this and like commands were multiplied almost times without number, as the Lord spake by the mouth of Jeremiah (44:4), saying, "Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early, and sending them, saying, O do not this abominable thing that I hate; but they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, to burn no incense unto other gods."

And as they did in times past, so the prophets speak expressly saying that they will do so again in times to come, and more also.

COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE" (REV. 18:4)

The woman that fled into the wilderness, or in other words, the remnant of Israel, the hundred forty and four thousand who will be entrenched and encamped in the city of David and who will stand at that time with the Lamb upon Mount Zion, before Jerusalem is destroyed, and their beautiful house where their fathers praised the Lord is burned up with fire, are called upon to come out of Babylon that they be not partakers of her sins and that they receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

So also speaketh the Prophet Jeremiah of these same things, saying (51:6), "Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul; be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance, he will render unto her a recompense." The righteous will flee the city before she is overthrown with violence, even as it is said, “And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and threw it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city, Babylon, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all."

REWARD HER EVEN AS SHE REWARDED YOU (REV. 18:6-8)

Reward her even as she hath rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works; in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her, for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her." Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees and rulers in Israel in his day, Ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generations of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city; that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation" (Matt. 23: 32-36).

That wicked and adulterous generation that lived in the days of Jesus were like unto the stiffnecked children of wickedness that were manifest in Israel from the beginning, even as Stephen charged against them, “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers" (Acts 7:51). This generation of murderers who have always re

sisted the Holy Spirit, will reappear and be manifested again in the later days. and will be of the same people, and in the same country, and in the same city, the city of Jerusalem, and they will then fill up to running over the measure of their fathers. They will transcend the deeds of their ancestors and slay the righteous by wholesale, insomuch that the harlot that rides the scarlet colored beast is said to be drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. But this will be the climax and end of their wickedness; Israel will then have come to her years, the days of recompense, as saith the Lord. by the hand of Ezekiel (22:2-4); “Thou son of man wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? yea, thou shalt show her all her abominations. Then say thou, Thus saith the Lord God, The city shed deth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come; and maketh idols against herself to defile herself. Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed; and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years."

The voice from heaven said, "Reward her as she hath rewarded you." But to whom is this spoken? The Scriptures that we have cited show that all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the beginning will be required of the rebellious house of Israel. The righteous therefore from the beginning will be raised from the dead, and will be employed as the executioners of the judgments written upon this persecutor and murderer of the righteous, this bloody city, her wicked rulers, and people. Therefore it is said in verse 20, "Rejoice over her, thou heaven and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged you on her." The advice given to the Roman Christians by Paul is this, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (12: 19). Therefore when the righteous have finished their course, have kept the faith, and have died in the Lord, many of them by the hand of the persecutor, and when they are raised from the dead immortal and are as the angels, they will then be sent forth as the angels have been in the past, to punish and destroy the wicked by the command of God, even as Paul spake to the church at Corinth, saying, "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?" (I Cor. 6:2). The holy apostles and prophets who have suffered death by the hand of the enemy and the avenger, when raised from the dead, will be conspicuous among those who will be engaged to execute judgment upon the children of wickedness in the earth.

SHE SHALL BE UTTERLY BURNED WITH FIRE (REV. 18:8)

Jerusalem was burned down by the hand of the king of Babylon, and the Temple destroyed, and her people fell by the sword and by captivity. The city and Temple were rebuilt on the return of the captivity of Judah from Babylon; and for the wickedness of its inhabitants it was destroyed again by the Romans after the days of Christ and the apostles. But in those times there was only the house of Judah in the land. But the next, and last time that Jerusalem and her Temple will be consumed and destroyed by the enemy will be when the whole twelve tribes will be dwelling in the land, when the whole house of Israel will fall by the famine, by the pestilence, and by the sword, when Judah and Israel will make their last stand together in