Revelation 14:1-5

Here is seen the Lamb of God standing on Mt. Zion with 144,000 redeemed souls. There was a great anthem in heaven that rose in mighty crescendo like the roar of the sea and the roll of mighty thunder. There were voices of harpers harping with their harps, and singing a new song which none could learn except those redeemed ones around the throne. Then follows the traits of their character. They were "virgins," unpolluted by idolatry. "They follow the Lamb." They were "redeemed from among men," "the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb, etc."

That no one could learn their song was doubtless because it was the song of redemption; the angels might look with admiration and wonder on the work of redemption, but they have no experience of it. They can never sing: "for he hath redeemed us by his blood." The redeemed can sing a song that the angels cannot sing.

But why do we have this scene here at the beginning of the fourteenth chapter? We were in the midst of persecutions on earth and suddenly we are transported to heaven to hear the songs of the redeemed around God's throne. Why this break in the continuity of the story? Now it will be recalled that the same thing appears in the previous section of the book. While the seals were being opened that foretokened the judgments upon Jerusalem, there was a pause made between the sixth and seventh seals, and the curtains of heaven were drawn back and we were permitted to see, in the seventh chapter, the 144,000 redeemed and a great multitude that no man could number with white robes, and palms in their hands, singing their song of redemption, and ascribing salvation unto God which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb. It is plain that here in the fourteenth chapter we have a duplicate of the scene in the seventh chapter; and evidently for the same reason. This is for the encouragement of the persecuted church on earth.

John was writing to Christians who were having their daily trials and temptations. The allurements of heathen immorality were before their eyes every day; the threat of bodily harm, and the pressure of economic privation were goading them to give up their virtue and their faith.

These scenes of heaven and the happiness of the redeemed were to show that God had better things to bestow than the world could afford. These scenes are for the moral effect, and the spiritual incentive to the tempted, persecuted, struggling church.

And this should have the same moral effect upon our hearts today, girding us to meet our temptations, and bear our trials, and to be faithful unto death, enduring as seeing him who is invisible.

If we have been disposed to think that there is nothing practical in Revelation, we have not penetrated its surface. What is the whole book about, but the trials of the Christian on earth, the doom of the wicked, and the glorious reward of those who are faithful unto death? Go and meet your fiery trials as did the faithful in John's day, and you will wear the crown, and wave the palm, and sing a song that the angels cannot sing.