Revelation: A Call to Worship

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!”

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”

The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped. Revelation 5:11-14.

I am a singer. You won’t find my face on an album cover, or my voice on your iPod, but I am a singer. A worshipper. I have been a leader or member of a worship team in churches, special events, and para church ministries. It’s not as easy as it may look: worship, like every other calling in the life of a Christian, demands preparation, prayer, and practice.

But nothing gives me greater joy than to participate in praising God, and to help lead God’s people in worshipping. Perhaps that is why the verses above from Revelation 5, have special significance for me. There will be a time when I and every believer will experience the scene described of the ongoing worship in heaven, by angels, elders and the living creatures.

Verse 12 contains one of the most powerful proclamations ever made, and is found in some of my favorite worship songs, like the “Revelation Song” we sang this past Sunday at Brighton Presbyterian Church. It is a little taste of heaven.

True worship draws us into God's presence in a particular way that cannot be created by man. And when it happens, we should be humbled and God exalted. Isaiah discovered this when God allowed him to see what centuries later the Apostle John would see and then write about in the Book of Revelation: 

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.  And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Isaiah 6:1-5.