Throughout the book of Revelation previous to this verse there have been angels bearing messages from God. Now John sees another angel messenger coming to this world. My friend, this is not going to be a literal angel flying above the earth that mankind will see. God has always used angels to assist men and to protect men, but He uses men to reach other men and to warn other men. We see this principle with Noah, with Jonah, with the prophets throughout the Old Testament, and even with Jesus.

Jesus came as a man and lived among us, though He was also “God manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16). We learn further, “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Jesus came as a man to reveal heaven’s principles and to reveal God’s righteousness. Jesus did not come as God only; He came as a man to show us what the Father was like. Consistently throughout Scripture we find that God uses men to reach other men.

A messenger is seen flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to every man, woman, and child. This is a worldwide message. The message is the gospel in the setting of the last hours of earth’s history.

There is no new gospel. The gospel of salvation, which will save men from their sins, has been the same since the fall of Adam and Eve and will be the same to the end of time. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

Salvation has always been by grace through faith and has always been the gift of God. In the Old Testament, sacrifice and works never saved anyone. It was by faith in the shed blood and sacrifice of animals representing the coming Messiah, which for that time was the gospel in symbols.

“What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Romans 4:1–3). Abraham was counted righteous not by anything he did, but by believing in God, trusting in God, and by giving his heart, mind, and strength to God.

It is a failure by men at the end of time to accept the gospel because of neglect, rejection, or substitution that will lead them to accept the mark and be eternally lost. Most of mankind will become spiritually confused, for “all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her [Babylon’s] fornication [spiritual adultery]” (Revelation 14:8).

Let us now begin to look at the everlasting gospel, which is centered in Christ, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name.” (John 20:30–31)

We are to have faith; we are to believe in order to be saved. But what is it that we must have faith in? What is it that we are to believe? The life, death, and resurrection of Christ is the focus of our faith. “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3). There is nothing we can do to recommend ourselves to God. We are utterly dependent on Him. Even our faith gains no merit with God, for it is He who sends the Holy Spirit to draw us to the great demonstration of love and the salvation purchased for us on Calvary. It is God’s Holy Spirit that draws a man to perceive His grace and unmerited favor and places a desire in our hearts to entrust our lives, our eternal well–being, to Jesus Christ in complete confidence in what He has done to gain our salvation. This is the essence of the gospel. And it is this that the religion of Babylon counterfeits, or substitutes with religious ritual, works, and the doctrines of men, thus leading men away from God and the good news of the gospel to falsehood, mistakenly believing that they are following Him.

The Good News in the Life of Christ

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. (Luke 4:18–21)

In the synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus read from Isaiah a prophecy telling of His own work and ministry as the Messiah. (See Isaiah 61:1–2.)

Jesus came to preach the gospel to “the poor,” those who recognize their need. And how is it that we recognize our need? It is only by God’s Spirit, which draws us to Him. We cannot accept the gospel or give heed to the three angels’ messages unless God draws our hearts.

God is no respecter of persons but desires to save “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (Revelation 14:6). However, we must be aware that the devil, through the falsehood of unclean spirits and the three-fold religion of Babylon, desires to lead us away from the gospel into a counterfeit system of religion that in the end will separate us from God and eternal life. (See Revelation 16:13–14.)

Jesus went on to say, “He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted.” Jesus’ ministry is to heal the broken emotions and tarnished hopes caused by the bitterness of sin, to heal us emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. The gospel is not simply a theory; it is a power that affects the very life and being of a man.

Jesus, that day long ago in Nazareth, described His work further, stating that He came “to preach deliverance to the captives.” He did not mean those who are held in the prisons of the nations of this world. Rather, this deliverance is from the captivity brought about by the destructive and delusive habits of sin. When we truly believe from the heart and surrender in faith to Jesus, accepting the good news of the everlasting gospel of God’s love and mercy, God will deliver us. The gospel brings deliverance from sin and guilt and condemnation, and “the wages of sin [which] is death” (Romans 6:23), eternal separation from God.

He empowers us, though we are full of sin, for we are delivered and set free as our will is sanctified and renewed and enabled to choose the right, and reject the wrong through the indwelling of Christ within. The deliverance brought to us through the gospel of Christ develops in us strength of character as we yield to Him day by day.

The gospel of Christ is to bring “recovery of sight to the blind,” to those whose spiritual understanding has been desensitized and blinded by the delusions of sin and falsehood. When we accept the gospel, there is a transformation of our worldview as we begin to see things with new eyes according to God’s Word.

The gospel of Christ is “to set at liberty them that are bruised.” Sin brings to each one broken dreams, bitter disappointments, and often shattered lives. Mankind, in a vain attempt to heal the bruises caused by sin, often seeks healing in false ideas of God and spirituality, in drugs and alcohol, and in a variety of sensual indulgences and stimulation. All these things and many more only worsen our spiritual and emotional sickness.

The prophet Isaiah describes mankind’s spiritual condition. “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment” (Isaiah 1:5–6).

Despite our condition, God’s longsuffering love cries out through the everlasting gospel given by the angel messengers in these last days. He says to us, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).

Despite God’s timeless message of love in the everlasting gospel, the book of Revelation reveals that most of mankind will accept the beautiful side of evil, a religion that is cloaked in apparent good and beauty but leads us away from God. This religion is represented by a woman, “Mystery Babylon,” representing all the counterfeit religions of the world in the last days. All who reject, neglect, or substitute something for the gospel of Christ will drink of the falsehood coming from the beautiful golden cup of Babylon’s deception. (See Revelation 17:1–5.)

For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. (Hebrews 2:10–11)

Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. (Hebrews 5:8–9)

Represented as angels, God’s last message through His people is a call to the world to believe and accept the gospel. We are to believe in Jesus, His life, His death, and His resurrection. In Christ’s life and teachings we learn what God requires of us, and what heaven’s principles are in contrast to the false paths and religions of men. Jesus, by His life, showed us what God is like, that we might want to serve Him.

Jesus, “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Yet Jesus became a man that He might be our example. Further, He learned obedience in the sense that, day by day in His humanity He, as we do, had to yield to God rather than to the very real temptations and calls to compromise all around Him. Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are. (See Hebrews 4:15.) He suffered the trials and tribulations of man, yet without sin. His life is our great example. In contrast, the religion of Babylon would have us look to men, his institutions, his creeds, his pomp and ceremony, his saints and mediators. However, the everlasting gospel is centered upon Jesus, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Jesus alone is the true way to life and salvation that cannot be found in the clever religious counterfeits and the many lords and gods of this world.

Jesus lived a perfect life that He could be a perfect sacrifice, and His righteous life is accredited to us who believe and have faith. This is why God can save us though we are sinners. God must uphold His law and the eternal, unchanging standard of heaven. Yet He justifies and pardons all who accept the perfect sacrifice and obedient life of His Son in their place.

The Good News Is that the Life of Christ Is to Be Ours

Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. (1 Peter 4:1–2)

For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. (1 Peter 2:21–25)

As we by faith accept the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the life of Jesus is accredited to us, and the death of Jesus pays the debt for our sins. Further, the life of Jesus is worked out in us by faith as His mind becomes our mind, “by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5). Through the revelation of God’s love as seen in Christ, we are drawn to His life and experience His death as we give Him our heart, mind, and strength. This leads us to desire to follow Christ rather than the lusts and sins of men. Yet the counterfeit religion revealed in the book of Revelation offers mankind a means of being saved by his own works, or saved in his sins. These are the fatal attractions of all the false religions that mankind so readily seeks.

The Good News in the Death of Christ

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. (Romans 5:6–10)

The coming of Christ to this world came at the right time and was according to the prophecy of Daniel 9. This prophecy refers to the seventy-week time period when a day equals a year. (See Numbers 14:34.) God marked off 490 years of prophetic time from the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity until Jesus Christ was anointed of the Holy Spirit, when He was baptized by John, marking the start of His three-and-a-half-year ministry. In the midst of that week of seven prophetic years, the Messiah was to be cut off for the sins of mankind.

This “due time” is prophetic time. It was the time that God had ordained and spoken through the prophet hundreds of years before. The prophecies are given that we might know that God is true, and that we would trust Him and trust His Word.

Listen, my friend, God demonstrated “His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus died our death. Whatever your religion or culture, no matter what your race, Jesus died for you. For every individual is subject to the condemnation and death penalty of sin. The Bible reveals the wages of sin is death and all men have sinned. All of us have come short of the glory of God. (See Romans 6:23; Romans 3:23.) We have come short of God’s perfect standard, of His law. We are in rebellion; thus, we need the gospel to transform us. We need the gospel to save us from the just condemnation and wrath of God.

The everlasting gospel, through the angel’s loud voice, indicates the intensity and great importance of the message that is calling the people of this planet to look upon Jesus, to know, understand, and receive Him as Savior, and to accept His death and sacrifice. However, what does much of the world do? We try to save ourselves by works, by following man-made religion to gain acceptance with God.

Many people have a false concept that says, “All I have to do is make a profession of God; it does not have to affect my life.” The world is being conditioned to accept the false religion of Mystery Babylon. The crisis of the last days is over worship. “Shall I obey God or shall I obey man?” What we do with Christ, with the gospel, determines our destiny.

Those who accept the falsehood of salvation in sin or salvation by works will end up receiving the mark of the beast. They will reject the gospel or put something else in its place, rejecting God even as they claim to be serving Him.

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

God sent Jesus as a sacrifice and substitute for us. He was actually made sin when, upon the cross, He felt the wrath of God due for mankind’s sin: your sins and mine. He experienced the guilt and condemnation of every man. Jesus died for all, this includes you and I. The good news of the death of Christ is that He can free mankind from the guilt, condemnation, and eternal damnation that are the result of sin.

My friend, there is no other means of salvation other than Jesus. Every other attempt to gain acceptance with God and gain eternal life and the happiness all mankind desires, as sincere as it may be, is a false path. If our religion and spirituality ignores, sets aside, or substitutes the death of Jesus for any another means of acceptance with God, it can only lead to eternal loss, for we are yet in our sins, subject to the justice of God and the wages for our sins, which is death. Mankind cannot merit God’s favor by anything he does, and God cannot save man in sin. The only remedy is grace, God’s unmerited favor and kindness accepted by faith.

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. (1 Peter 1:18–19)

The word redeem means “to buy back.” We were on our way to destruction, but Jesus came, lived a perfect life, and died upon the cross of Calvary, taking upon Himself our guilt and our sins, that He might buy us back from the sentence of death and deliver us so that we might have life. We can believe it or disbelieve it, yet it is true.

Mankind may try to gain acceptance with God, but his efforts are all doomed to failure. Nothing we can do will redeem our souls, no amount of good works, no pilgrimages, no religious zeal, sincerity, or profession, no amount of humanitarian charity. There is no intercessor, in heaven or on earth, that can substitute for the gospel of Jesus Christ. No human devising will replace the salvation that is in Jesus alone. This is why those who neglect, reject, or substitute something else in the place of the gospel end up as Revelation 14 describes, becoming part of the system of Babylon, a global system of false religion.

We can be fervent in praying five times a day, we can be ardent in adoring the Host for hours at a time, and we can be zealous in giving service to our religious practices. We can piously and dutifully go on pilgrimages and be obedient to the doctrines and creeds of churches. Yet it is all in vain. There is no other gospel; there is no means of salvation other than in Christ. Christ’s death is accredited to us if we believe that He took our place in dying our death. Jesus was our substitute in experiencing our condemnation. We can pass from death unto life if we accept the gospel, the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ for us.

Christ’s Death Is to be Ours

Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:12–14)

We are redeemed from sin through Jesus’ shed blood and His death. Further, we are delivered from the power of darkness. This is a real experience, my friend. We are delivered from the darkness of sin and Satan’s kingdom. We are translated into “the kingdom of His dear Son.” If there is a kingdom, there must be a king. The acceptance of the gospel leads us to make Jesus our King, Lord, and Master.

Jesus, in His life as a man, “made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). His life is to be ours, for we are told, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (2:5). Jesus went further, for “as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (2:8). Therefore, if we accept Christ as Redeemer we must accept Him as King. Then not only is His death credited to our account, but “the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead” (2 Corinthians 5:14). What does that mean? “They which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (verse 15).

To be saved by the death of Christ and from the guilt and condemnation of sin means that “our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Romans 6:6). This is the power of Christ’s death; it not only frees us from the guilt of sin, but also enables us to overcome sin as we surrender heart, mind, and strength to Him, making Him Savior and King.

Many at the end of time will acknowledge various lords and gods. Others will declare Jesus as Lord, though they have not accepted His death in their own lives, leading them to “fear God, and give glory to Him” (Revelation 14:7). Therefore, they fall under the delusions and falsehood of Babylon.

But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:11–14)

Jesus’ death is credited to us, so let us praise God for that. If we truly have faith in the death of Jesus, He begins to work out in us a transformation of character. The death of Christ, when it’s accepted and believed, becomes our death, leading to the cleansing of our conscience. This is the work of God upon the heart of a man as he yields his will in self-surrender; a death, as it were. Then day by day we “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

The forgiveness of sin is not the only result of the death of Jesus. He made the sacrifice for our sins, not only so that the guilt and condemnation of sins might be removed, but also that He might restore us to Himself. The human heart, moved by the love of Christ and the power of the gospel, makes a willing surrender, which is death. By death we become “obedient children, not fashioning [ourselves] according to the former lusts in [our] ignorance: but as He which hath called you is holy,” so we are called and enabled to be “holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Peter 1:14–15).

The Good News in the Resurrection of Christ

… [Jesus] was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 4:25; 5:1)

[Jesus] was betrayed and put to death because of our misdeeds and was raised to secure our justification (our acquittal). (Romans 4:25 AMP)

Many of the religions of the world recognize that Jesus was a good man but do not accept Him as the Son of God, as the sacrifice and Savior for all mankind.

Just believing in Jesus’ life is nothing unless you believe He was the revelation of God, and that His righteous life is credited to those who believe in Him. Just believing that Jesus existed and was a good man or a prophet has no saving virtue.

Many people believe that Jesus lived and died, but not that He was resurrected. Yes, He was a good man, they say, perhaps even a messenger of God, but He did not rise from the grave. If Jesus is still in the grave, my friend, regardless of what religious belief or philosophy you subscribe to, “your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).

The reality is that salvation is only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus was God manifest in the flesh. He showed us how to live, and He showed us what God was like. This man, the God man, who took upon Himself the guilt and woe and condemnation for the sins of the whole world, was raised from the grave for our acquittal. This is the gospel, the good news of salvation:

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. (1 Peter 1:3–6)

Jesus is not a dead or dying Savior, He is a risen Savior. Further, Jesus wants to give us His life. If we believe in Him, Jesus will credit to us His death so that we do not have to die eternally. In addition, Jesus, who was raised again, wants to give us resurrection life now, a new empowered life to live for God and to give Him glory.

The Good News Is that the Resurrection Life of Christ Is to Be Ours

Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses. (Colossians 2:12–13)

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4–6)

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. (Romans 6:9–12)

The resurrection power that brought Christ from the grave is the same power that delivers us who are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Christ is “the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25), and the power of His resurrection sets us “free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). Through Christ, the dominion of evil in our hearts may be broken, and through faith the soul can be kept from sin. We are to be “crucified with Christ”; this means we share His death. Further, we are to share in His resurrection. “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

It is by virtue of this union with Christ, by faith now in this life, that we are to come forth from the grave—not simply as a demonstration of the power of Christ, but because, through faith, His resurrection life has become ours.

Revelation 14 shows us the outcomes of those who reject the gospel and those who accept it. This gospel of the kingdom, which is to go to the whole world with a loud voice, is God’s last message. The rejection of the gospel through neglect or substitution will eventually lead to the mark of the beast and eternal loss. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5:11).

Eternal life is not in human works; it’s not in pilgrimages; it is not in the intercession of Mary; it is not in anything that man can do. No church affiliation, religious zeal, or time spent in purgatory or a hundred reincarnations will gain for anyone eternal life. Without Jesus’ perfect life being credited to us, without Jesus taking our place and paying for our sins by His death, and without Jesus’ resurrection life becoming ours by faith, we are lost. Truly, Jesus is the gospel and the message that is to go to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.