Revelation 14: Revelation 14: Drunken Jerusalem Falls, Purified Zion Rests in Christ

Rev. Nate Ruback, pastor of Grace Chapel in Bellefontaine Neighbors, Missouri, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Revelation 14.

“I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder[, ...] like the sound of harpists playing on their harps.” The army of 144,000 saints returns in chapter 14, singing a heavenly song that no one else can learn. This celebration represents rest, Christ’s perpetual Sabbath.

Christ the Lamb gives rest from Mount Zion, unlike the false rest of “Babylon the great.” In apostate Jerusalem, the long-haired zealots promised rest through violence, and the two-faced collaborators through compromise. In faith, the church finds rest and purification in Christ’s blood shed for us, even in the face of persecution. We neither seek conflict nor do we avoid it, but we trust even amidst death and bloodshed that Christ has conquered and won for us the heavenly Jerusalem.