REVELATION & WORSHIP 2

REVELATION AND WORSHIP 2

I have continued to think a lot about worship a lot.

Let’s look again at the song of Moses.

"Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty!

Just and true are Your ways, O King of the nations!

Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name?

For You alone are holy.

For all nations shall come and worship before You,

for Your judgments have been manifested."

Moses immediately exalts the Lord for his works and his ways. In the first line he uses three different names of God. Of course Moses didn’t compose the song in Greek and I don’t know Hebrew well enough to venture a reverse translation, the originally Hebrew would be interesting. One thing I have noticed in most highly anointed worship songs is that they start out in the present glorifying God and quickly launch us into the future, the eskaton, the eternal world. A contemporary example is THE REVELATION SONG by Jennie Lee Riddle  that went viral through an album by Kari Jobe.

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Holy, holy is He
We Sing a new song to Him who sits on
Heaven's mercy seat/

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come
With all creation I sing praise to the King of kings
You are my everything and I will adore You

Clothed in rainbows of living color
Flashes of lighting rolls of thunder
Blessing and honor strength and glory and power be
To You the only wise King.

Filled with wonder awestruck wonder
At the mention of Your name
Jesus Your name is power, breath and living water
Such a marvelous mystery

Listen and watch at the link below – see how the song begins in the past—in some sense in eternity past, through present earthly worship and culminates in heavenly worship before the very throne of God.

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Holy, holy is He.
We Sing a new song to Him who sits on
Heaven's mercy seat.”

Then it moves into the present,

“With all creation I sing praise to the King of kings”

Finally culminating is the glorious finale before the throne in heaven.

“Clothed in rainbows of living color
Flashes of lighting rolls of thunder
Blessing and honor strength and glory and power be
To You the only wise King.”

Christ is king now but His kingship is presently veiled. When He returns to earth his kingship will be obvious and indisputable. He will not return as a meek suffering servant. He will rule with a rod of iron!

“His head and His hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters; He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, "Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.’” (1:14-18) 

Those who have a problem with the sovereign rulership of Jesus Christ will have difficulty with His return to earth. If your theology is one that tries to domesticate God and make him compatible with post modern thinking, the Apocalypse ( book of Revelation) is written to get you accustomed to what he will be like upon arrival here on earth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rFxJ2xTVK0

REVELATION AND WORSHIP

In recent months I have read the book of Revelation several times. I used to read the book like most folks do, in order to find out about the future. One of the first books I read as a new believer was The Late Great Planet Earth; by Hal Lindsey; Over the years most of what Hal teaches has morphed several times and the same concept has been expanded into twenty-some volumes in the Left Behind series. Historically these attempts to find answers to the nagging questions around when will Jesus come back and when will the rapture take place, have always ended up sadly lacking in reality. From Justin and Irenaeus on through the reformers and in recent days the advent of teaching on a pre-tribulation rapture, many have predicted dates and times and everyone has proved to be fallacious. But lately I have been trying to go beyond the speculative and to begin to see what I have decided is a more important narrative, that of worship and the emergence of a picture of the glorious Son of God coming as the judge of the whole earth.

Worship is found in twenty one different places in the Revelation. Five times we find the elders, angels and the living creatures worshiping Christ. We find the resurrected saints worshiping Christ. We find, four times the inhabitants of the earth worshiping demons, idols and the beast. We see the martyrdom of faithful who refuse to worship the beast. Later we see that wrath is poured out on those who worship the beast.

After that we find the song of Moses:

"Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty!

Just and true are Your ways, O King of the nations!

Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name?

For You alone are holy.

For all nations shall come and worship before You,

for Your judgments have been manifested." (15:3,4)

a song that is still being sung by those in heaven! Imagine that? I have often thought about Moses spending 40 years in the Sinai desert after God called him to be the leader of Israel and what happened to him during that time. I will have to take that up at a later date but to my knowledge no other human has ever composed a hymn that has been sung by the heavenly choir.

Worship is the divider, not just in the Revelation but in all history. Why, because God needs to be worshiped? Hardly, he has no needs, but we have the need. True worship draws us into the sublime realities of God and his Son Jesus Christ that are inexpressible in mere prosaic language. It allows us to enter into His presence in new and profound levels.

Some think that the temptation to worship the beast will only take place in the end of times but it is happening right now.

To be continued—