This verse highlights Revelation’s use of prophetic, symbolic imagery to reveal truth. The angel, when translated here from Greek means “messenger”, is a powerful picture of Christ’s faithful followers sharing the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with such Kingdom authority that the earth is illuminated with glory. The glory that fills the earth is the radiant light of God’s character of love. Therefore Revelation 18:1 is just a repeat of the first of the 3 angel’s messages found in Revelation 14:6-7, which is the “everlasting Gospel.” The 1st angel is basically unpacking what happens when people powerfully respond to the Gospel by entering into Christ’s Kingdom of grace now, on earth! He calls to your heart now, like a mother longing for her children, to come in to the Kingdom of Grace now, because…

GRACE LEADS TO LOYAL LOVE

Christ’s free justifying grace doesn’t give you a license to sin. The response of the person who has truly tasted of God’s grace is the complete opposite! It’s like this scene from the movie “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Jim Caviezel’s character Dantes, washes up on the shore opposite the prison he just escaped from and begins to run down the beach in celebration. His celebration of new found freedom is interrupted as he realizes that a band of smugglers and thieves had been watching him just a short distance away. Their leader ends up cornering Dantes into the choice to fight to the death one of his men he was going to have killed, because he stole some of their gold. If Dantes wins and kills this man, whose name is Jacopo, then he gets to live and take Jacopo’s place as one of their men. Dantes swiftly wins the fight and just as he looks like he’s about to kill Jacopo with a knife, he whispers to Jacopo telling him that if he wants to live he needs to lay still. Dantes then requests that the leader allow Jacopo to live and if he does, he will join his men. The leader grants his request and Jacopos life is spared. Jacopo, dumbfounded at the grace he just received from a man he didn’t even know, vows to be Dantes’ man forever. He would follow and serve Dantes from that day forward. This is what happens when you receive the grace of Christ. You are moved to loyal love, which is manifested in obedience. You become a loyal follower of Jesus who has entered into His Kingdom of Grace!

You see, the “everlasting Gospel” of the 3 angels messages is the same “Gospel of the Kingdom” Jesus spoke about in Matthew 24:14, which He said when it is preached in all the world, for a witness, then the end will come. The Gospel of the Kingdom is the Good News of the Kingdom of Grace ushered in by Christ. When you receive this into your heart by faith and enter into a daily relationship with Jesus, then out of gratitude for His grace, love and daily asking for the infilling of the Holy Spirit, your heart is moved to a loyalty to Christ that is increasingly willing to obey whatever He asks. This is why those of us who have received the Gospel and are moved to share it are described this way in Revelation 14:12…

They have entered into the Kingdom of Grace. They continue to trust that they are already saved by grace through Jesus Christ and are thus moved into a loyal love and allegiance to Christ that is manifested in their obeying His commandments.

So honestly ask yourself these questions: Have I truly received the grace of Christ? Is His grace increasingly moving me into a loyal love that willingly obeys His commandments? And flowing out of my love for Jesus, am I making disciples for His Kingdom of grace now? Because merely having your name on the role of the local church, attending worship services and ascribing to the doctrinal beliefs of the right denomination, doesn’t automatically mean that your heart is loyal to the King. Oh, but when you see how much God loves you and how much His grace, like an ocean, has  been poured out on you through Christ, then your loyalty is to Him and you experience a joy that the ups and downs of life cannot take away!

Now we also need to understand that the Gospel of the Kingdom of Grace is in direct conflict with the fallen system of End Time Babylon…