We live in a dangerous world today, so I thought you would appreciate Mark Moring’s advice on how to stay safe. After doing some “extensive research”, he suggests the following.
Avoid riding in automobiles because they are responsible for 20 percent of all fatal accidents.
Do not stay home, because 17 percent of all accidents occur in the home.
Avoid walking on streets or sidewalks because 14 percent of all accidents occur to pedestrians.
Avoid traveling by air, rail, or water because 16 percent of all accidents involve these forms of transportation.
Of the remaining 33 percent, 32 percent of all deaths occur in hospitals. Above all else, avoid hospitals!
However, he says, “You will be pleased to learn that only .001 percent of all deaths occur in worship services in church, and these are usually related to previous physical disorders. Therefore, logic tells us that the safest place for you to be at any given point in time is at church!” (Mark Moring, Elburn, Illinois; www. PreachingToday.com)
Now, obviously, this is all said tongue-in-cheek, but it does raise an important question: Why worship? Do we worship, because we feel safe and warm in a sanctuary? Or is there another, much grander purpose for our worship?
Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Revelation 19, Revelation 19, where we see the power of worship and what it is designed to accomplish.
Revelation 19:1-4 After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” And again they shouted: “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.” The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who was seated on the throne. And they cried: “Amen, Hallelujah!” – which means, “Praise the Lord!” (ESV)
All of heaven praises the Lord. They shout “HALLELUJAH!”– not once, not twice, but three times in these first four verses. It’s the Heavenly Hallelujah Chorus with another “hallelujah” coming in verse 6.
But why is heaven so excited? Why are they so glad? It’s because God has finally judged that wicked harlot at the end of the Tribulation. He has “condemned the great prostitute,” verse 2 says. In other words, He has paid back the Babylonian empire and this world’s system for the way she treated God’s people over the ages.
Heaven praises God for his righteous judgments. Heaven praises God, because He is absolutely just and fair when it comes to those who mistreat God’s people.
I think about the hundreds of Christians who are being crucified and beheaded by ISIS these days, and I think about those in Paris and around the world who are being slaughtered by their butchery. Those who blew themselves up, thinking they would receive 70 virgins in paradise, found quite the opposite. They’re in a place of conscious torment, and one day they will stand before the Righteous Judge of the Universe, who will cast them into the Lake of Fire forever.
You see, there is coming a day when God will right all wrongs. There is coming a day when God will judge all evildoers. “Vengeance is Mine,” says the Lord, “I will repay” (Rom 12:19). We don’t ever need to seek revenge as God’s people. We don’t ever need to get even, because there is coming a day when God Himself will even the score, and that day may be sooner than you think.
Heaven praises God for His righteous judgments, and they invite us to do the same.
Revelation 19:5 Then a voice came from the throne, saying: “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, both small and great!” (ESV)
Heaven calls upon all of God’s people to praise Him. 1st, praise Him for His righteous judgments.
And then praise Him for his reign. Rejoice, because God is in control.
Revelation 19:6 Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. (ESV)
There is so much shouting. There is so much praise that it sounds like the great Niagara Falls with its tons and tons of water rushing over that giant precipice every second. If you’ve ever been there, you know you have to shout to be heard above the falls. The noise is almost deafening.
That’s what the praise in heaven will be like. It will be awesome and loud, almost deafening in its impact. Millions and millions of God’s angels, and millions and millions of God’s people will be shouting, all of them, at the top of their lungs, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns!”
Let’s have a little rehearsal right now for that awesome praise service to come. On the count of three, I want you to shout with me, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns!” Are you ready? One… Two… Three… “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns!” Again: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns!” One more time: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns!”
Remember that when it seems like your world is out of control. Remember that when it seems like evil-doers get the upper hand. Remember that when you have lost all hope. Our God reigns. He is the Almighty; and because of that, we have nothing to fear.
That’s what Daniel Walker discovered when he tried to infiltrate brothels and gather evidence to rescue women and children from the sex trafficking trade. In his book, God in a Brothel, Walker describes how he overcome his initial fears with a deep-seated confidence in God's sovereign rule—even in a despicable brothel. He writes:
“I had not been conducting investigations into sex trafficking for very long, and being inside a brothel still left me feeling vulnerable and afraid. I was afraid of my sinful nature. I was afraid of perpetrators and corrupt officials who were profiting from organized crime. And I was afraid of going into what I perceived as enemy territory.”
But as he closed his eyes and prayed, suddenly God completely changed his perspective.
He says, “A still, voice reminded me that ‘greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world’ (1 John 4:4) … Then the words of an old hymn came to mind: ‘This Is My Father's World.’ Again,” he says, “I saw for the first time that the brothel I was standing in was as much a part of God's creation as any beautiful mountain or crystal cathedral, and that God had in no way surrendered it to anyone.”
Walker says, “I knew that God was in that brothel before I arrived, suffering with [victims of sexual trafficking], witnessing [their] defilement night after night and sharing in [their] tears, and that he would remain in the brothel long after I left. Any uncertainty I previously had about walking into such a dark and ‘evil’ place vanished.
“Though not in an audible sense,” Walker says, “I nevertheless heard his command and his call to go boldly in his name to such places as these, to rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and to plead for the widow. (Daniel Walker, God in a Brothel, IVP Books, 2011, pp. 30-31; www.PreachingToday.com)
God has not surrendered any part of His creation to anyone! He is large and in charge wherever He leads us, even if it is into the very gates of hell, which Jesus promised will not prevail against His church.
So don’t be afraid! Praise God for His righteous judgments. Praise God for His reign.
And praise God for what he’s doing in your heart and life today. Praise the Lord for getting you ready to spend eternity with Jesus.
Revelation 19:7 Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. (ESV)
That’s us – the church of Jesus Christ! We’re the bride of Christ.
Revelation 19:8-9 Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” (ESV)
Heaven sees us as a beautiful bride, ready to marry its most loved and respected citizen. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and He has provided for us the finest clothes to wear, bright and clean, fit for a King’s new queen.
Joni Eareckson Tada, who was paralyzed in a diving accident as a teenager, talks about her wedding day.
I felt awkward as my girlfriends strained to shift my paralyzed body into a cumbersome wedding gown. No amount of corseting and binding my body gave me a perfect shape. The dress just didn’t fit well. Then, as I was wheeling into the church, I glanced down and noticed that I’d accidentally run over the hem of my dress, leaving a greasy tire mark. My paralyzed hands couldn’t hold the bouquet of daisies that lay off-center on my lap. And my chair, though decorated for the wedding, was still a big, clunky gray machine with belts, gears, and ball bearings. I certainly didn’t feel like the picture-perfect bride in a bridal magazine.
I inched my chair closer to the last pew to catch a glimpse of Ken in front. There he was, standing tall and stately in his formal attire. I saw him looking for me, craning his neck to look up the aisle. My face flushed, and I suddenly couldn’t wait to be with him. I had seen my beloved. The love in Ken’s face had washed away all my feelings of unworthiness. I was his pure and perfect bride. (This We Believe: The Good News of Jesus Christ for the World, Zondervan, p. 222)
That’s how Jesus sees us, we who are believers in Him. He loves us with the bright eyes of a Bridegroom’s love, and He cannot wait for the day we are united with Him forever.
He’s getting us ready for that day right now. He has provided us with the white wedding dress of His own righteousness, and we are in the process of putting it on. It’s taking some time, but we have God’s guarantee that we will be ready for that day.
Oh praise Him for His righteous judgments. Praise Him for His sovereign reign, and praise Him for getting us ready to spend eternity with Jesus.
WORSHIP THE LORD today and every day.
Revelation 19:10 At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (ESV)
Don’t worship the angels. Worship Jesus, because all of the Bible is about Him. Worship the Lord, and then, go out and…
WIN THE WAR.
Get the victory over evil in your life, and defeat the forces of Satan. That’s how heaven does it. They worship the Lord and then Jesus goes out to conquer ALL His enemies.
Revelation 19:11 I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. (ESV)
That’s Jesus Christ! He is the “Faithful and True” One. He is the One we can depend on, the Ultimate Promise Keeper – a man of real integrity.
Revelation 19:12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. (ESV)
He is incomprehensible. Someone once said, “God is a lot like our pastor. I don’t see him during the week, and I don’t understand him on Sunday’s.” I hope that’s not your opinion of me, but in some ways that’s true of Jesus, our Lord. He is invisible. We can’t see Him, and He sure is hard to understand sometimes. He is incomprehensible.
Revelation 19:13-14 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. (ESV)
That’s us! In verse 8, we are wearing the same clothes for the wedding. Now, we go forth to war in those clothes with our Savior.
Revelation 19:15 Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. (ESV)
Jesus is not only a man of integrity. Jesus is not only incomprehensible. Jesus is invincible. His Word is like a large sword. All He has to do is speak, and whole nations are eliminated.
Revelation 19:16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. (ESV)
Jesus is Lord, the King of the Universe.
In Bible days, when a Roman General returned from a successful military campaign, he and his legions paraded up the main street of Rome. It was called the Via Sacra, which led from the Forum to the Temple of Jupiter. The General himself was mounted on a white horse, and he rode at the head of his troops. Then came the wagon-loads of plunder that he had taken from the conquered nation. The chained captives followed last in the parade. They were marching towards their execution. (Merrill C. Tenny, The Book of Revelation, p.94)
That’s exactly the picture we have here in Revelation 19. Jesus is the Conquering General, returning to this earth on a white horse, where he will lead his enemies away to their execution.
Revelation 19:17-20 And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great.” Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. (ESV)
The first two enemies Jesus will eliminate are the beast and his false prophet, i.e, the antichrist and his PR man.
Revelation 19:21 The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh. (ESV)
When Christ first came to this earth, He was on a search and rescue mission. He came to “seek and to save that which was lost.” When Jesus comes again, He will be on a search and destroy mission. He will come to seek and destroy all those who oppose Him.
Jesus will get the victory over all His enemies! But it all starts with a praise service in heaven. And that’s the way it has always been.
Praise always precedes power. Worship is always a prelude to victory. In the Old Testament, the priests and the Levites, along with the singers of Israel, marched before her armies into victory. Here, in Revelation 19, the Heavenly Hallelujah Chorus precedes the armies of heaven as they march to victory on this earth.
That’s why the worship of the church is so important. If we don’t gather to worship, we have no power. You need to be here, Sunday after Sunday, to experience victory over sin in your own life. You cannot live the Christian life all by yourself. You need the corporate worship experience of the body of Christ. There is no power without it.
In addition, we as a church need you to be here, week after week. We, as a church, cannot expect to prevail against the gates of Hell if we don’t worship together. We cannot enter Satan’s territory and rescue people out of the Kingdom of Darkness without the power that our corporate worship brings. There is no power without worship!
Amy Carmichael put it this way: “I believe that if we are to be and to do for others what God means us to be and to do, we must not let Adoration and Worship slip into second place, ‘For it is the central service asked by God of human souls; and its neglect is responsible for much lack of spiritual depth and power.’
“Perhaps we may find here the reason why we so often run dry. We do not give time enough to what makes for depth, and so we are shallow; a wind, quite a little wind, can ruffle our surface; a little hot sun, and all the moisture in us evaporates. It should not be so.” (Amy Carmichael, “Edges of His Ways,” Christianity Today, Vol.39, no.13)
Worship is what gives us depth. Worship is what gives us the power to really live. So worship the Lord, as often as possible, and then go out and win the war.
Several years ago (2005), Chinese officials from the Public Security Bureau in China burst into a Sunday school room at a local church. They found 30 children inside and herded them into a van. Despite the scary situation, one child started to sing. In a few moments, the van was filled with song.
Upon arrival at the police station, the children marched bravely into the interrogation room, still singing to the Lord. The Chinese officers attempted to force the children to write, “I do not believe in Jesus,” telling them that they had to write it 100 times before they would be released. Instead of obeying, the children wrote: “I believe in Jesus today. I will believe in Jesus tomorrow. I will believe in Jesus forever!”
Exasperated, the officials called the children's parents, some of whom did deny Christ. However, one widowed believer absolutely refused to deny Jesus when she came to pick up her twin sons. The officers threatened her, saying, “If you do not deny Jesus, we will not release your sons.”
The widow replied, “Well, I guess you will just have to keep them, because without Jesus, there would be no way for me to take care of them!”
With no avenues left open to them, the officials said, “Take your sons and go!” (thevoice@persecution.com, 11-8-05)
There is power in worship. Those Chinese officials couldn’t handle singing children. They couldn’t handle Christian parents who praised the Lord no matter what. They were powerless in the context of praise.
At the sign of triumph, Satan’s host doth flee;
On then Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
Brothers, lift your voices, loud your anthems raise!
Worship the Lord and experience His power in your own life.
