Whatever views, therefore, a person may take of the first and second messages, and at whatever time he may apply them, it is very certain that the third and last one covers the closing hours of time, and reaches down to the second coming of Christ.

And what is the burden of this message?
It is a denunciation of the unmingled wrath of God against these who worship the beast and his image.

But this worship of the beast and his image is the very work which the two-horned beast endeavors to enforce upon the people.

The third message, then, is a warning against the work of the two-horned beast.

And as there would be no propriety in supposing this warning to be given after that work was performed; as it could appropriately be given only when the two-horned beast was about to enforce, and while he was endeavoring to enforce, that worship; and as the second coming of Christ immediately succeeds the proclamation of this message, it follows that the duties enjoined by this message, and the decrees enforced by the two-horned beast, constitute the last test to be brought to bear upon the world; and hence the two-homed beast performs his work, not ages in the past, but among the last generation of men.
The second passage, which shows that the work of the two-horned beast is performed just before the close of time, is found in Rev.15:2, which we have shown to refer to the same company spoken of in chapter 14:1-5.
Here is a company who have gotten the victory over the beast and his image and the mark and the number of his name; in other words, they have been in direct conflict with the two-horned beast, which endeavors to enforce the worship of the beast and the reception of his mark.