"Babylon the Great Has Fallen!" - Conclusion of Endurance for the Holy Ones

Those who have the mark of the wild beast will also be destroyed completely, as if by fire. As the prophecy later reveals,, their dead bodies will be left unburied  for animals and birds to eat.  (Revelation 19:17, 18)  So, clearly, they are not being literally  tortured forever!  How are they "tormented with fire and sulfur"?   In that proclamation  of truth exposes  them and warns  them of God's coming judgment.  Therefore they vilify God's people and, where possible, slyly persuade the political beast to persecute and even kill Jehovah's Witnesses.  As a climax, these opposers will be destroyed as with fire and brimstone.  Then "the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever" in that God's judgment of them will serve as a touchstone of ever again Jehovah's rightful sovereignty is challenged. That issue will have been settled for all eternity.

Who deliver the tormenting message today? Remember, the symbolic locusts have authority to torment the men who do  not have the seal of God on their foreheads.  (Revelation 9:5)   Evidently, these ones under angelic direction are the tormentors. Such as the persistence of the symbolic locusts that "day and night they have no rest, those who worship the wild beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark  of its name." And finally, after their destruction, the monumental evidence of that vindication of Jehovah's sovereignty.  "The smoke of their torment," will ascend forever and ever.  May the John class  endure until that vindication is complete! "Here is where it means endurance for the holy ones, those who observe the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." - REVELATION 14:12.  

Yes, endurance for the holy ones" means that their worshipping Jehovah is exclusive devotion through Jesus Christ.  Their message is not popular. It leads to opposition, persecution, even martyrdom. But they are strengthened  by what John  next reports:  "And I heard a voice out of heaven say: "Happy are the  dead who die in union with the Lord from this time onward.  Yes, says the spirit, let them rest from their labors, for the things that did go right with them." - REVELATION 14:13.

This promise harmonizes well with  Paul's prophesy concerning Jesus' presence:  "Those who are dead in union with Christ will rise first.  Afterward we the living who are surviving  [those of  the anointed ones  who survive in to the Lord's day] will, together with them be caught away in clouds to meet the Lord in the air." (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17) After Satan's ouster from heaven, those who are dead in union with Christ rose first.  (Compare Revelation 6:9-11.)  Afterward, those of the anointed ones who die during the Lord's day are promised a special privilege.  Their resurrection  to spirit in the heaven is instantaneous, "in the twinkling of an eye." (1 Corinthians 15:52)  How  marvelous this is!  And their works of righteousness continue right on in the heavenly realm.

Next time: "Babylon the Great Has Fallen!" -Continued

From the jw.org publications