The proclamation of the message of Rev. 18:1–4 , represented as proclaimed by an angel who came “down from heaven, having great power,” and with whose glory “the earth was lightened.” The phrase reflects the statement that this angel “cried mightily with a strong voice.” The message proclaimed by the angel is God’s final call to those of His people still in mystical Babylon to “come out of her” in order to avoid being “partakers of her sins, and . . . of her plagues.” This message is evidently given prior to the close of probation, inasmuch as there is still an opportunity for people to find salvation by fleeing from Babylon. It is also Heaven’s final appeal to humanity, the last such message recorded in Scripture, for it immediately precedes the fearful scenes of divine retribution that mark the transition from the kingdoms of this world to the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Seventh-day Adventists understand that the angel of Rev. 18 unites his voice with that of the third angel of Rev. 14:9–11 , in view of the fact that the message proclaimed by the latter, in its context, is also God’s last message to man and immediately precedes the coming of Christ and the final judgments of God upon this earth. This angel also spoke “with a loud voice.” Accordingly, Seventh-day Adventists sometimes blend the two into one message, to which they refer as “the loud cry of the third angel.” The first angel of Rev. 14 announces the hour of divine judgment; the second angel, the spiritual fall of mystical Babylon. The third angel warns against Babylon’s counterfeit gospel.
“The work of this angel comes in at the right time to join in the last great work of the third angel’s message as it swells to a loud cry” ( EW 277).
“These announcements [ Rev. 18:1–4 ], uniting with the third angel’s message [ Rev. 14:9–11 ], constitute the final warning to be given to the inhabitants of earth” ( GC 604).
“It is a message from Heaven uttering a final warning against a corrupt and backslidden Christianity, and going forth with such power that the whole earth is lightened with its glory” (James White, in Review and Herald 55:40, Jan. 15, 1880). “The third message is to ripen the harvest of the earth” ( ibid . 18:20, June 11, 1861).
As for the literal application of this symbolic prophecy, Uriah Smith wrote: “The angel is not a literal angel, and we are not to suppose that we are to hear a literal voice sounding through the land giving the warning of this proclamation. It is to be simply the truth making its way into all parts of the earth” ( ibid . 51:36, Jan. 31, 1878).
Ellen White described this future development in more detail as follows: “Servants of God, with their faces lighted up and shining with holy consecration, will hasten from place to place to proclaim the message from heaven. By thousands of voices, all over the earth, the warning will be given. . . . Thus the inhabitants of earth will be brought to take their stand” ( GC 612).
People everywhere will come out of the apostate churches that compose mystical Babylon and unite with God’s remnant people ( EW 33). All who “had not heard and rejected the three messages obeyed the call and left the fallen churches” ( ibid . 278).
Of the crisis in which the loud cry culminates, Mrs. White wrote further: “Fearful is the issue to which the world is to be brought. The powers of earth, uniting to war against the commandments of God, will decree that all, ‘both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond,’ shall conform to the customs of the church by the observance of the false sabbath. All who refuse compliance will be visited with civil penalties, and it will finally be declared that they are deserving of death. On the other hand, the law of God enjoining the Creator’s rest-day demands obedience, and threatens wrath against all who transgress its precepts. With the issue thus clearly brought before him, whoever shall trample upon God’s law to obey a human enactment receives the mark of the beast; he accepts the sign of allegiance to the power which he chooses to obey instead of God” ( GC 604).
Compare Rev. 13:13–17 . “When this last loud blast of the gospel trumpet is given,” wrote M. E. Cornell, “probation will end, and the eternal decree go forth [ Rev. 22:11 cited]. The destiny of all will then be irrevocably fixed” ( Review and Herald 6:72, Oct. 10, 1854). Probation closes, and the seven last plagues fall. See also Latter Rain ; Three Angels’ Messages .