Revelation 8:13 And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the middle of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe… And I saw, and I heard an eagle, flying in mid heaven,... Woe, woe, woe, for them that dwell on the earth! The true reading of the text is given in the Revised Version. It was not "an angel flying," but a solitary eagle or vulture, that St. John saw. Hovering high overhead, a mere speck in the sky, and its harsh cry sounding as if it uttered over and over again the ominous words, "Woe, woe, woe!" Now in vision, but often in reality, he had doubtless seen such hovering bird, and heard its bitter cry. And when we think of this vision, and remember who they were on whom the judgments of God were coming, we are reminded of our Lord's words, "Wheresoever the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together" (Matthew 24:28). For he and his apostle had the same scenes in view, the same sinful people, and the same dread judgments of God. Both beheld both the body and the bird - the eagle of judgment and the corruption that it would seize upon. When our Lord spoke, and yet more when his apostle wrote, the ill-omened bird was clearly visible, and its woeful cry could be distinctly heard. What the Lord said St. John saw. "For in the lands of the East, when a wild beast falls in the desert, or a horse or camel on the highway, there is for a time no stir in heaven. But far above human ken the vulture is floating poised on his wings and looking downward. His eye soon distinguishes the motionless thing, for he hunts by an eyesight unequalled in power among all living things, and like a stone he drops through miles of air. Others floating in the same upper region see their brother's descent, and know its meaning. One dark speck after another grows swiftly upon the horizon, and in a few moments fifty vultures are around the carrion. Now, thus inevitable, swift, unerring, as the vultures' descent on the carcase, is the judgment coming of the Son of man to corrupt communities and corrupt men" (Stopford Brooke). Given the body, the bird will not be far off; where the carcase, there the vulture. In God's government it has ever been so, is now, and will be in all ages, in all lands, and under all circumstances. I. THIS EAGLE HAS OFTEN BEEN SEEN. It has long hovered over and at last descended upon: 1. Corrupt communities. As the inhabitants of the earth in Noah's day, on whom "the Flood came and swept them all away;" the cities of the plain ere the fire storm felt; the Canaanitish nations whose judgment was long delayed "until the iniquity of the Amorites was full." It hung over Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah, over Babylon in the old age of Daniel, and over the Jewish nation when St. John beheld it "in mid heaven." And over Rome the eagles of judgment were indeed gathering. For she had become so corrupt and hateful to God and man that there was nothing for it but to let the long delayed sentence be executed, and in the pages of this Book of the Revelation, and in those of the secular historian, he who will may read of, perhaps, the most tremendous fulfilment the worm has as yet ever seen of the inexorable law that "wheresoever the carcase is, there," etc. "Rome shall perish - write that word In the blood that she hath spilt; Perish hopeless and abhorred, Deep in ruin as in guilt." Yet further illustrations. The Reformation, which was the judgment of the Catholic Church; the French Revolution, etc. 2. Corrupt men. "The mills of God," says the poet," grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small." Many imagine that the great laws of God will be, no doubt, fulfilled amid nations and Churches and other bodies of men, but they will not take note of individuals. That, however, is not true, though many think it is. Look over the lives of the many bad men and women of whom the Bible tells; but where amid them all can the sinner find any encouragement to go on in his sin? Are they not all of them illustrations of God's law of judgment? And so universally is this law recognized that no poorest novelist will write his wretchedest story, and no tawdry theatre dare represent on its stage a drama which ignores or fails to pay homage to this law. They all know and confess that over the vile and bad the vulture of judgment hovers, and will swoop down on them ere long. And today this law is at work. See that blear eyed, ragged, shivering, and every way disreputable looking wretch who is reeling out of the gin shop, and, as he staggers along, poisoning the air with his foul breath and yet fouler words - what a wreck the man is! Health gone; and character, and home, and friends, and livelihood, and all that made life worth having, gone; and life itself going likewise. The vultures of judgment have plucked him bare of all, and they are at their awful work still. Go into the wards of our hospitals, and amid many whom misfortunes and not sin have brought there, you will yet see not a few dying a miserable death, horrible to look at, to listen to, to speak or even think of. Go to the cells of our prisons, to lunatic asylums, to convict yards, or where mounting the steps of the gallows on which they are to suffer the last penalty of the law, - in all such places, and amid all such scenes, and branded as it were on the brow of all such transgressors you may read the eternal law, "Wheresoever the carcase is, there," etc. That eagle St. John saw, and - II. IT IS GOOD THAT IT SHOULD BE SEEN. In the physical world, if there were no scavengers, no agents whereby what is corrupt and corrupting could be rendered harmless, life could not go on. And so in the moral world, floods and sulphur fires, and Joshua-led armies, hosts from Babylon or from Rome, French Revolutions and the like, - it is awful, terrible, but still beneficent and essential work that they do upon the moral and spiritual corruptions against whom they have been sent. But blessed is that sinful community and that sinful man who sees the eagle in mid heaven, and fears and turns from his wickedness and so lives. III. MEN SOMETIMES THINK THEY SEE IT WHEN THEY DO NOT. Poor Job - his friends, his comforters, would have it that his dreadful sufferings were judgments of God upon him. It was the common and cruel, though baseless, belief of their day. "Lord, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was horn blind?" There we find the same notion yet living on, even in our Lord's day. And it is not dead yet. But, thank God, there are many sorrows and distresses which are not judgments at all, any more than the hard lesson which a master may set his pupil to learn is a sign of his displeasure. It is not so, but a means of discipline and improvement and honour to the pupil; therefore, and for no other reason, is it given. And so with not a few of the sorrows God sends to us, as he sent such to Job. IV. AND OFTEN FAIL TO SEE IT WHEN THEY MIGHT AND SHOULD. Job, and many another since, failed to see it. He asserts that there are villains - godless, cruel, all that is bad - and yet they prosper wonderfully. "They are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. There are no bands in their death, and their strength is firm:" so said another perplexed one. There seems to be the corrupt and corrupting carcase, but no vulture descends upon it. The body there, that is certain, but not the bird. But let such perplexed ones remember: 1. The bird may be invisible. It may be so far up in the sky, so far away, that our limited eyesight cannot travel so far, it is out of our range. That may be. Or: 2. It may be restrained. God is "long suffering, not willing that any should perish." Or: 3. It may have already descended, and be doing its work, and you not know it. Conscience may rend and tear like a vulture, and the man may carry a very hell within him - thousands do - that makes all outward prosperity a mockery, and powerless to relieve. There is not one drop of water in it all wherewith he can cool his tongue, so tormented in this fire is he. Read 'Macbeth.' And: 4. If it come not now it will fasten on him the moment he reaches the next world's shore. Ah, yes; if a man have made his soul carrion like, the eagle of judgment will find him sooner or later in trouble; from without or within, here or yonder - there is no escape. Remember, then: (1) They are fools who make a mock at sin. (2) Turn from it, and pray for the heart to love and dread the Lord, and to diligently live after his commandments. - S.C. Parallel Verses KJV: And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound! |
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