Revelation 14:9-12 - Homilies By D. Thomas

Soul prostitution and soul loyalty.

"And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God," etc. In this part of John's wonderful mental vision, or dream, on the island of Patmos, we can find illustrations of two great subjects.

I. SOUL PROSTITUTION . "And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud [great] voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive [receiveth] his mark in his forehead, and in his hand," etc. (verse 9). The "beast and his image." What meaneth this? Does it mean some king or pope? Or some great wrong institution, civil or religious? No one knows, and it matters not. I take the expression as a symbol of wrong in its spirit and forms. Two things are suggested in connection with this.

1 . That the prostitution of the soul to wrong is an alarming crime. Here is a warning. "The angel followed, saying with a loud voice." Amongst the teeming populations of this earth there is nothing more terrible and alarming than to see human souls made in the image of God, rendering a practical devotion of all its spiritual powers to the morally unworthy, "the world, the flesh, and the devil;" because, according to a law of mind, the object of the soul's devotion transfigures it into its own character. Hence the human spirit gets buried in the fleshly, absorbed in the selfish and the worldly. Thus everywhere we find minds that should expand into seraphs sinking into grubs, worshipping the "beast;" sordid sycophants, not soaring saints; the miserable creatures, not the mighty masters of circumstances.

2 . That the prostitution of the soul to wrong always incurs lamentable suffering. It is said, "The same [he also] shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture [prepared unmixed] into the cup of his indignation [anger]; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb" (verse 10). The metaphors here are borrowed from the sacred books of the Hebrew people, and they convey the idea of suffering of an alarming kind, suggesting:

II. SOUL LOYALTY . "Here is the patience of the saints" (verse 12). "The meaning here," says Moses Stuart, "is either thus: here then in the dreadful punishment of the wicked every Christian may see of what avail his patience and obedient spirit and faith in Christ are; or here is a disclosure respecting the wicked which is adapted to encourage a patient endurance of the evils of persecution, and a constancy in obedience to the Divine commands and to the Christian faith." What is patience? It is not insensibility. Stone people are lauded for their patience who should be denounced for their stoicism and indifference. Patience implies at least two things.

1 . The existence of trials. Where the path of life is all smooth, flowery, and pleasant, where all the winds of life are temperate, bright, and balmy, where all the echoes of life are free from discordant notes, and beating the sweetest melodies, where, in fact, life is entirely free from trial, there is no room for patience. Patience lives only in difficulty and danger, in storms and tempests.

2 . The highest mental power. Man's highest power of mind is seen, not in unsurpassed mechanical inventions, or the sublimest productions of art, not in the most baffling and confounding strategies of bloody war, hell's own creation, but in the successful effort to govern all the impulses and master all the boisterous passions of the human soul. "The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power." This is a remarkable expression. It seems as if the Prophet Nahum meant that God is slow to anger because he is great in power; if he had less power he would be less patient. A man may be slow to auger and slow to deal out vengeance because he lacks power to do so. But God is slow to anger because he has abundance of power. His power of self control is infinite. Truly does Solomon say, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." £ The greater the sinner and the greater the sneak, the better able to take cities; but it requires the greatest man to govern his own soul.

"Be patient, oh be patient! Put your ear against the earth,

Listen there how noiselessly the germ of the seed has birth;

How noiselessly and gently it upheaves its little way,

Till it parts the scarcely broken ground, and the blade stands up in day!

"Be patient, oh be patient! The germs of mighty thought

Must have their silent undergrowth, must underground be wrought.

But as sure as there's a power that makes the grass appear,

Our land shall be green with liberty, the blade time shall be here.

"Be patient, oh be patient! Go and watch the wheat ears grow,

So imperceptibly that ye can mark nor change nor throe,

Day after day, day after day, till the ear is fully grown.

And then again, day after day, till the ripened field is brown.

"Be patient, oh be patient! Though yet your hopes are green,

The harvest fields of freedom shall be crowned with sunny sheen;

Be ripening, be ripening, mature your silent way,

Till the whole bread land is tongued with fire on freedom's harvest day."

(R. C. Trench.)

D.T.