While the world worships the political antichrist and its false prophet of propaganda, John sees the Lamb King standing on Mount Zion (Rev 14:1; cf. Ps 2:6; Heb 12:22-23). Mount Zion is commonly used in the Bible to refer to the eternal city that is designed and built by God (Heb 11:10, 16). Christians on earth have a room reserved in this city during its construction (Heb 11:16; 12:22-23).
Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am you may be also” (John 14:2-3). A “place” is being prepared! Some construction is going on!
Believers in heaven are not sitting around watching Jesus do all the work. They are singing a song about the new creation while they “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” and “serve him day and night in his temple” (Rev 14:2-4; 7:15). What a fabulous description of heaven! God is building the New Jerusalem to fully reflect his glory in and through the faithful works of his people. We are “God’s fellow workers” in this life and “workers together with him” in our life after life (1 Cor 3:9; 2 Cor 6:1).
The Lamb has marked heaven’s citizens with “his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads” (Rev 14:1; cf. 3:12; 7:3). Their beliefs and actions emulate the characteristics of the one they worship. The redeemed are all serving the Lord together in heaven (represented as 12 tribes x 12 apostles x 1000).
John describes heaven-dwellers as those “who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins” (Rev 14:4). What? “Virgins”? The Old Testament prophets often spoke of a future “virgin Israel” whom God would cleanse of idolatrous defilement (e.g., Amos 5:2; Is 37:22; Jer 14:17; 18:13; 31:4, 13, 21). Here in Revelation 14, “virginity” is just another way to describe the pure devotion of believers “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”—another beautiful description of the Church (cf. Rev 21:2). John puts it this way in his epistle: “we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3). The eternal city reflects the life of “the Bride, the Lamb’s wife” (Rev 21:9-10).
“And in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless” (Rev 14:5). What is in mind here is not mere honesty among heaven’s saints, but the integrity of their witness on earth. They are “blameless,” that is, they spoke truth to the dragon’s disinformation campaigns.
And what about us? What makes today’s propaganda so insidious is that it doesn’t just convince people to believe lies; it aims to make truth irrelevant altogether. “Flooding the zone” with twisted data eventually exhausts people of believing in anything. Perhaps the dragon’s strategy is this: people who lose the ability to believe in anything will become intolerant of those who do. It’s our time to fight the good fight, keep the faith, and finish well (2 Tim 4:7).
