Hello everybody and welcome in to episode #353 of the Bible 2021 podcast. We are reading Revelation 15 today and our focus is on What Worship Songs Will Be Sung in Heaven? What is the Song of the Lamb? We are a daily 10ish minute podcast, where we will dig in to the truth of the Word of God by reading one Bible chapter a day and discussing it. Welcome to new listeners in. Our goal is to encourage DAILY Bible reading, so you can jump in at any time and join with us. We want to invite as many people as possible to join us in daily Bible reading, so help spread the word and share the podcast! Don’t forget about our web-page, Bible2021.com – contact page, show notes, transcript and more– Click here for our Bible 2021 reading plan\
Revelation 15 is a short chapter – and it represents an interlude of sorts – a break from all of the plagues and judgments that have been poured out on the Earth up until this point in Revelation. Chapter 15 shows the preparations for the next, and final rounds of judgment, which are depicted as the contents of seven different bowls being poured out over the Earth by seven different angels. One highlight of this chapter, to me at least is the visual image we get of the saints playing their harps. Have you ever seen a cartoon or Hallmark card with a depiction of people in Heaven playing a harp? Well, that image is derived from this chapter, because we see the saints of God standing on Heavenly pavement – which looks like a sea of glass mixed with fire – and they are playing their harps and singing TWO amazing songs of worship to God. The first is the song of Moses, which was sung by Moses after God had saved the children of Israel by parting the Red Sea. The second song is called the “Song of the Lamb.” and is a beautiful and amazing worship song:
Great and awe-inspiring are your works,
Lord God, the Almighty;
just and true are your ways,
King of the nations.
4 Lord, who will not fear
and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All the nations will come
and worship before you
because your righteous acts
have been revealed. Revelation 15:3-4
A guy named Kevin Prosch recorded a song in the 80s 0r 90s based on this song, called King of Saints, and it is one of my favorite worship songs. You can check out that song, embedded on our site.
Of this song, and this chapter, Charles Spurgeon wrote:
Do not the victorious hosts which stand upon the sea of glass, having the harps of God, sing the song of Moses, the servant of the Lord, and of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty”? The thoughts of God will even in heaven be above our sublimest thoughts, and his ways even then above our most heavenly ways. How exalted is the Lord! His glory is above the earth and heavens! How tenderly doth he overpower us with the splendour of his goodness; soothing where he might confound. In grace and love, who is like unto thee, O Lord? Among the gods who is like unto thee? Understanding faints in attempting to ascend to thee. Imagination, to which thou hast given a half-creative faculty, cannot beget a thought of equal height to thy thoughts, nor conceive a way which may bear comparison with thy ways. What better can we do, great God, than bow our heads and reverently adore?
C. H. Spurgeon, “God’s Thoughts and Ways Far above Ours,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 23 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1877), 674–675.
and John Newton, of this song, says:
All the abilities, powers, and instincts, that are found amongst creatures, are emanations from his fulness. All changes, successes, disappointments—all that is memorable in the annals of history, all the risings and falls of empires, all the turns in human life—take place according to his plan. In vain men contrive and combine to accomplish their own counsels, unless they are parts of his counsel likewise: the efforts of their utmost strength and wisdom are crossed and reversed by the feeblest and most unthought-of circumstances. But when he has a work to accomplish, and his time is come, however inadequate and weak the means he employs may seem to a carnal eye, the success is infallibly secured: for all things serve him, and are in his hands as clay in the hands of the potter. Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty! just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints! This is the God whom we adore. This is he who invites us to lean upon his almighty arm, and promises to guide us with his unerring eye. He says to you, my Lord, and even to me, “Fear not, I am with thee; be not dismayed, I am thy God; I will strengthen thee, yea I will help thee, yea I will uphold thee, with the right hand of my righteousness.”
John Newton, Richard Cecil, The Works of the John Newton, vol. 1 (London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1824), 476–477.
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Bible Memory passage for the month of December: Revelation 5:12, “They said with a loud voice: Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing!”
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