Sing a New Song (Revelation 14)
This is not a happy article. I know you are expecting one, because “Sing a New Song” sounds like a happy article. But the “new song” of Revelation is a bright glimpse of sun in a very dark and stormy sea.
Except, the darker the sea and sky, the brighter the gleaming sun. The grimmer the warnings, the more radiant the promises.
Look for the shining gem, listen in this chapter for the joyous “new song.” It is your song, if you are in Christ.
A Magnificent Picture of the Church
Revelation 14:1-5 Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. 2 And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. 3 And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. 4 These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they remained virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were purchased from among mankind and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. 5 No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.
We first met the 144,000 in Revelation 7. Who are they? The twelve sons of Jacob, the Patriarchs, each multiplied to become a great tribe, which together formed a nation of least two million by the time of Moses. Revelation invites us to multiply the twelve-tribe nation by twelve, giving 144 tribes. And then to multiply the entirety by a thousand, which signifies a very large but definite number.
144,000 symbolises the church, the complete and very great number of the saved. Instead of bearing the mark of the Beast, they belong to the Father and have his name on their foreheads. In heaven we will see that the saved, the descendants of Abraham, will indeed be more numerous than the stars of the Milky Way, and the grains of sand on all the world’s white beaches.
From a tremendous sight we turn to an overwhelming sound, the deafening roar and thunder of… harps. When I think of loud I think of a large symphony orchestra, like that which Berlioz scored for his Requiem: massed winds, a hundred strings, four—yes four—brass bands, sixteen timpani, ten pairs of cymbals, and a two-hundred voice choir. Berlioz explained, “If the locale permits, the vocal mass may be doubled or tripled, and the instrumental choirs increased accordingly.”
The heavenly choir is accompanied by harps, the most delicate of instruments. It is the sheer number that makes the thunder.
What a beautiful picture of those “redeemed from the earth” by the blood of the Lamb assembled before the heavenly throne, the four living creatures, and the twenty-four elders. They praise the Lamb wholeheartedly, like David who leapt and danced before the Lord “with all his might.”
The redeemed sing a new song because a new song was needed to celebrate the “new thing” that Christ had done. The Psalms are God-breathed and timeless, yet the Psalmists looked forward to Christ in the mist of types and shadows. We look back to see the crystalline fulfilment. A new song of praise breaks out.
They are those “who did not defile themselves with women.” They did not, like those in verse 8, forsake God and succumb to the seductions of evil Babylon. They “follow the lamb wherever he goes,” a fascinating image reversal. The people follow the Lamb, for the Lamb is the shepherd. Jesus obeyed the Father, suffered for him, and was glorified by him. So will be his disciples, who “share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Romans 8:17). Just as Israel offered the firstfruits of their crops and herds as a thank offering to God, so Jesus offers us as a thank offering to his Father, the firstfruits of his labour. “No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.” This is not what we were by nature, but what the Lamb has made us to be: “Cleansing us by the washing with water through the word, to present us to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:25-27).
B. An Urgent Call of Perseverance
This part contains three sub-sections, introduced by three angels.
Revelation 14:6-7 Then I saw another angel flying in mid-air, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth – to every nation, tribe, language and people. 7 He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.’
The Gospel is eternally unchanging, eternally urgent, eternally beautiful. And it is universally relevant. God’s judgment is imminent. It could fall at any moment with our own death, or the thief-in-the-night return of Christ. So fear God and give him glory, for he made creation, and you.
Revelation 14:8 A second angel followed and said, ‘“Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great,” which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.
Babylon, capital of a vast empire, was gobsmackingly prosperous and gorgeous. The awesome Ishtar Gate, which I once saw in the Pergamum Museum in Berlin, with its glazed blue tiles and golden lions, welcomed the astonished visitor to the single greatest concentration—until Netflix—of the world’s wealth, extravagance, pride, pomp, greed, and lust.
Thousands of Jerusalemites were exiled to Babylon in 586 BC, and in Revelation it is a symbol of all that is worldly and anti-God. The wine of Babylon promises pleasure but is, literally, “the wine of the passion of porneia (sexual immorality).” NIV 2011 waxes lyrical here, translating passion as “madness” and porneia as “adultery.” The wine of Babylon’s adultery promises pleasure, and delivers madness.
Revelation 14:9-11 A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: ‘If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, 10 they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.’
Whoever succumbs to Babylon’s seductions, the equivalent of receiving the 666 mark of the Beast, will find that there are in fact two cups of wine. The person who refuses to repent of drinking the wine of Babylon’s adultery must drink the second, “the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath.”
Here is a daring parallel with verse 8, “the wine of the passion (thumos) of porneia.” Verse 10 refers to “the wine of the passion (thumos) of God.”
What is it like to drink that cup of God’s fury? It is like being burned with burning sulphur. Who brings this torment? The Lamb and his angels. Jesus executes the just wrath of God upon unrepentant sinners, all day and all night, forever and ever.
Hell is real, and hell is forever. Many are there now. Many more are headed there. It is no cruelty to warn about this. If hell is real then it is cruel not to.
Revelation 14:12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus.
The picture of hell is not gratuitous. Godless pleasures parade before us, pulling us from Christ. Persecution hardships array behind us, pushing us from Christ. The fact of God’s fierce, unrelenting, eternal judgment of sin warns us to stand firm within this deadly pushing and pulling.
Revelation 14:13 Then I heard a voice from heaven say, ‘Write this: blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labour, for their deeds will follow them.’
Blessed are those who remain firm and die in the Lord. They will enter not torture, but rest. I will come back to this.
C. A Terrifying Picture of Judgment
Revelation 14:14-20 I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15 Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, ‘Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.’ 16 So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested. 17 Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. 18 Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, ‘Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.’ 19 The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. 20 They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia.
In a vineyard, workers wield sharp sickles to lop ripe bunches of grapes from the vine. They throw them into a winepress: a large stone trough with a tap at the bottom. Barefoot labourers, (or revellers!) trample the berries, breaking the skins and crushing out the juice. This may still be seen today in un-mechanised farms.
This is a blood-curdling tableau of final judgment. The godless are like bunches of grapes: fat, sweet, and ripe. Christ will return with a sickle. He will lop the bunches and trample them in a winepress of judgment. The blood will flow and rise as high as a horse’s bridle “for a distance of 1,600 stadia,” about 300 kilometres. Draw a line from Hobart to Devonport, square that line, and raise the square by a metre and half to make a rectangular prism that would hold 135 million tons of blood. That is the measure of God’s ferocity for sin.
The Light
Note that the winepress was “outside the city.” Jesus Christ was crucified outside the city. His blood flowed from his hands and feet and spear-punctured heart. He drank the wine of God’s fury, poured full strength into the cup of his wrath.
That’s why in the Garden, on the eve of his death, he was in anguish and his sweat poured out like great drops of blood. That’s why he begged his Father, “If you are willing, take this cup from me!” That’s why the sky was black over Golgotha. That’s why Jesus cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!”
Having drunk Babylon’s wine, we earned the cup of the wine of God’s fury. But he drank it for us. Having worshipped the creature rather than the creator we deserved to be trampled in the winepress of God’s fury. Our blood should have flowed. But he lay in that winepress in our place. He was trampled in our stead. His blood flowed instead of ours. We should have burned with sulphur, and the smoke of our torment should have risen to heaven. But he was tormented in our place, and the smoke of his torment reached up to heaven, and God smelled it, and knew that all the sins of all his people, the 144,000, were paid for. Every single one.
That is why the Bible says, “Blessed are those who die in the Lord!” They are the happy ones! They are the ones we ought to congratulate! They will die without fear. They will die with joyful expectation, knowing that “to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
So cling to Christ, see his sacrifice, and sing praises like torrents of crashing thunder. Belt out that new song of praise for what he did for you on Calvary.