Revelation 7:9-12
9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.10 And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,who sits on the throne,and to the Lamb.”
11 All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,12 saying:
“Amen!Praise and gloryand wisdom and thanks and honourand power and strengthbe to our God for ever and ever.Amen!”
Revelation 7:9-12 WHAT DO WE SAY WHEN WE WORSHIP GOD?
Springford Baptist Church: August 22, 2021.
When are you speechless?
We’ve all had times when we were uncertain what to say. There are circumstances where words are hard to find to express either great sorrow or great joy.
When we come into God’s presence to worship Him for Who He is, what do we say? What can we say when we are swept away by the immensity of Who God is and when we are conscious of the intensity of His love for us?
We want to respond. We want to be able to put into words all that God means to us.
Our desire to express to God how we feel and what we are thinking when we come near to Him is what compels us to try to find words.
It is good when we want to come to our God in worship to have words from Scripture that we can echo as our expression of worship toward God. The Psalms are full of words of worship directed towards God.
Here in the last Book of the New Testament, Revelation, we have record of a vision that John (Jesus’ disciple) received while he was exiled for his faith in Jesus on the island of Patmos.
At the beginning of this Book, we have this explanation:
1“The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John,2 who testifies to everything He saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.” (Revelation 1:1-3)
At various times in the words recorded in Revelation, there are tremendous expressions of worship and praise directed toward God.
This is the case after Jesus the Lamb (the only One found worthy to open the 7 seals, has opened the 6th seal).
John describes that at this time He looked and, “and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” (Rev. 7:9a)
This countless number of people cry out in a loud voice,
“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Rev. 7:10)
The significance of what this huge crowd of people are saying is found in verse 14 where they are identified as those, “who have come out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
They clearly recognize that God is the One who has delivered them. The words that they find to worship God are motivated by their awareness that God is the One who has delivered them. He has now brought them to a place of safety. No One else could save them and so the words on their lips are, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.” (vs.10)
They have come through this time of great tribulation and God has rescued them! Of course they would want to express what matters most to them in recognizing God as their Saviour!
What about us? Do we recognize what God has delivered us from? This includes the daily answers to prayer and God’s care and protection of us. Ultimately, it includes the miraculous gift of salvation. God has delivered us from sin through the power of Jesus the Lamb!!
When we consider what we want to thank God for in a particular week, there are always things both big and small that we can acknowledge and offer our worship and thanks to Him for.
I pray that we will never lose sight of the truth that God has already delivered us and given us the irreplaceable gift of salvation and the assurance of eternity in heaven with Him. This always gives us something to say when we come to God in worship.
Something that intrigues me in our Scripture from Revelation 7 is that the angels of God demonstrate what it is to worship God. This is something very familiar to them. We as human beings can learn from the words of these angels as they express their worship towards God. We read,
They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,12 saying:
“Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honour and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” (Rev. 7:11b, 12)
“Amen” is an affirmation meaning, “So be it.” It is agreeing with what has just been said. The angels agree that salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb. Then they declare their own expression of worship wanting to recognize that praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honour and power and strength belong to our God forever and ever. These things are true of God and God deserves and is worthy of worship now and always.
I am inspired by the words the angels use to worship our God. I can say “Amen” to these words of worship and I trust that you can too.
We see then in this Scripture that we worship God out of our own experience of Who He is and what He has done. We are also drawn into worshipping God as others (in this case angels) find words to express their experience of God and their reasons to worship Him.
Now think about a spectacular sight that you have heard others describe, like for instance, Niagara Falls. You could hear someone else in their own words telling you what it was like to see and to experience this natural wonder of the world.
Hearing someone else describe it is nothing like being there yourself. In the same way, another person’s words describing how amazing God is and how worthy of our worship only really has meaning when we have experienced God for ourselves. For each of us, our personal encounters with God and the wonders of His loving grace, give us words that we can bring to God in worship. At times our words may seem so inadequate, but what will matter to God will be that they are more than words from our lips. They must be words from our hearts pouring out of our love and devotion for God.
Whether our worship is our own words or our echoing of the words of worship of other people or angels, this incredible privilege of recognizing God for who He is and responding to Him with all that we are is worship that pleases God. Our God longs for us to listen for Him as we worship Him. He longs for us to keep on discovering more and more reasons to worship Him both now and forever and ever, for all of eternity!
We thank our God for these summertime opportunities we have had of “LISTENING FOR GOD AS WE WORSHIP GOD”!