The Beauty in a Song
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The Beauty in a Song
Songs are beautiful. They have beautiful instrumentation and they have vocalists with amazing talent that harmonize with the music and create riffs and runs that excite all who hear them. But a song, a musical melody, a piano rift would be purposeless without words. The words are what distinguish the music from simple background noise. I have realized that when artists arrange songs, they focus heavily on the words. “God is able to do just what He said He would do. He’s gonna fulfill every promise to you. So don’t give up on God because He won’t give up on you. He’s able. And sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us. In order to write words as powerful as these, the author has to have gone through something; something that changed them.
I can think of a Biblical Character by the name of Moses who went through something that changed him. We all know the story. God wanted to set His people free from bondage and the Pharaoh refused to free God’s people. Then God does something extraordinary. He begins to plague Egypt. The first plague is that God turned the Nile river into blood. The ramifications of this plague included the destruction of the one source of water in Egypt. It also caused all the wildlife within the river to die. This means that the main source of water and food was destroyed. And then God sent frogs to plague Egypt. Soon after, God sent lice and flies and diseases to plague humans and livestock. I believe by the seventh plague God had gotten fed up with Pharaoh’s insubordination. The next three plagues began to show the wonder and greatness of God. God hit Egypt with the worst storm that they had ever experienced since they had become established as a nation. He then hit them with locusts that destroyed their crops. Now the last plague was the most devastating of all. God sent an angel to kill the first born son of all who did not believe in Him and follow His command.
There are a few significant things that I have noticed about these plagues. The first thing that I noticed is that the first plague was the way God chose to identify Himself to Pharaoh. What do I mean by this? God chose to identify Himself as the source of life in Egypt. Without the water, without Him, the land would not be able to survive. The crops would die, the livestock would die and the people would ultimately die also. It’s almost as if God flexed His spiritual muscle and said if you don’t do as I command, your land will perish.
The second thing that I realize about these plagues is that not a single plague affected the Hebrew people. This is because the plagues were designed specifically to afflict the Egyptian people. God had done this in an effort to show that His covering hand was on Israel. Also, this was a way to remind pharaoh to release the Hebrew people. In particular, the final plague was very significant in this regard. God had given specific instructions and when followed, the angel of death would not strike in the house. See sometimes in our lives we find ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and we expect to get hit with a plague. We see everyone around us getting hit with plagues and we think its just a matter of time until the plagues hit us also.
· We see our family and friends getting plagued with cancer.
· We see them getting plagued with financial burdens.
· We see them getting plagued with car troubles.
· We see them getting plagued with broken heartedness.
We see them being plagued with broken spirits and we wonder why we haven’t been plagued yet. But we have to realize that God is covering us with His grace. Sometimes bad things happen around us but not to us because God is covering us. And God blocked it. He wouldn’t let it be so. Has anyone ever experienced God blocking it? Has anyone felt God block something that was designed to destroy you? Somebody better give Him a praise for blocking it!
The final thing that I noticed about the plagues is that God is the only escape from your plagues. We all know how the story ends. All the plagues hit Egypt and Pharaoh finally agrees to set the Hebrew people free. He then changes his mind when the Hebrew people began to leave. When the Hebrews got to the red sea, they faced a dilemma. They could not get through the sea for the water was far too high and they had pharaoh’s army chasing after them from behind. So again God had to step in and create a way out of no way to help the Hebrew people escape. Moses raised his rod to the sky and God opened the red sea that all Hebrew people could walk on dry land.
Have any of you been stuck at a red sea in your life? Has there ever been a test that you knew you didn’t study for and you just knew you were going to sink and drawn in that red sea? Have you ever been at the red sea of car troubles? (insert car trouble analogy) Many times we get to our red sea’s but we don’t have the faith to raise our rod and trust that God will bring us through. See the red sea wasn’t an obstacle, it was a miracle waiting to happen and God delivered His people. Now you may be wondering why I am focusing on the Hebrews so heavily. It’s simply because of this; in order to understand the future we must first understand what happened in the past.
Revelation chapter 15 makes a clear distinction between those who conquered the beast who are the followers of God, and those who received the mark of the beast on their hands and foreheads. The scene is painted of a people who have overcome the world. But in the next chapter we see that those who did not overcome the world will receive the full wrath of God.
God will plague the world in the future. Those who received the mark of the beast in their hand and on their foreheads, will receive the seven last plagues poured out by God’s angels. These last seven plagues parallel the Egyptian plagues almost down to a tee. The first plague was a plague of boils. The second plague turned the sea into blood. The third plague turned the rivers and springs into blood. The fourth plague caused the sun to scorch the people. The fifth plague plunged the world into darkness. The sixth plague caused all the water on earth to dry up. The final plague caused a giant storm accompanied by earth quakes that destroys the earth. Now I don’t want to focus too heavily on the plagues outside of the fact that these plagues are intensified versions of the Egyptian plagues. The thing I want to focus on is how do we avoid receiving the mark of the beast and ultimately how do we avoid these last seven plagues?
There are three commands that we must follow in order to avoid the mark of the beast and ultimately to avoid the seven last plagues. These three commands are found in Revelation chapter 14. The first command is found in verse 7. This command tells us to “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.” Something that stood out to me is that this angel is said to be carrying the everlasting Gospel. This references back to the beginning of sin on earth. When man fell, God told mankind that we would conquer the devil and in order for this to happen, God had to set up a sacrificial system. In the old Testament, the sacrificial system was found in the sanctuary. Humanity would confess their sins over a lamb, slay it and sprinkle its blood on the veil in the temple. Once a year the temple would be cleansed and all the sins of the people would be forgiven. But this wasn’t the final plan for salvation. God then sent His Son Jesus, the blameless lamb of God to take on the sins of the world. This everlasting Gospel tells us that the God who created humanity is the same God who came down to earth and hung on a cross to save us from our sins!
I have realized that the only way to truly fear God is to have a relationship with His Son Jesus Christ. There are two aspects of a relationship with Christ. The first aspect is reverencing Jesus. The Greek word for reverence means to have such an awe or respect for a person as to involve a measure of fear.
· Church folk, do we have a genuine reverence for Christ?
· Do we respect and adore Jesus or do we focus on more trivial matters?
· Are we more focused on our jobs than our Jesus?
· Are we more focused on keeping the Sabbath than keeping a relationship with Jesus?
· We need to get our focus back on reverencing Jesus and respecting what He has done for us.
The second aspect of a relationship with Christ is to worship Jesus. The Greek word for worship means to express by attitude and possibly by position one’s allegiance to and regard for a deity. A more literal translation would be to fall down on your face, humble yourself and praise Jesus for who He is and for what He’s done. Hasn’t He been good to you? He keeps food on your table and clothes on your back. He keeps gas in your car. He keeps you in good health and He keeps your sanity. And ultimately He gave you salvation. He went to Calvary. To save a wretch like you and me. They hung Him high. They Stretched Him wide. He hung His head. For me He died. And this is why I worship Him. You need to fall down and worship Him!
The second command is that Babylon has fallen! It’s important to understand what Babylon is symbolic of. Babylon symbolizes a nation that is against God and it also symbolizes a nation that does not keep God’s commandments. The angel is telling us to get out of this Babylonian mindset. This mindset of lawlessness. We need to get out of this mindset of hatred, of lust, of fornication and we need to get into a mindset of prayer, and love for God and fellow man.
The third and final message is not to accept the mark of the beast. The beauty in this command is that if we are already cultivating a relationship with Christ, and we have come out of the Babylonian mindset, then we don’t have to worry about not worshipping the beast. The good news is that because you are doing these things you don’t have to worry about receiving the mark of the beast. But just in case you aren’t doing these things, this message is designed as a last forceful reminder to get back on track with your relationship with Jesus and to get yourself out of the mindset of Babylon. It’s also a reminder to keep enduring and striving with Christ in order that you may withstand the devil and his attacks against you. Now we finally land back in our text for the day. And here we see the crowd of people who overcame the mark of the beast worshipping God for bringing them through their earthly journey.
See there are a few things that I recognized from reading this text. Firstly, I recognize that worship is a continuous action. This means that our worship started on earth while we were going through the trials and tribulations and it will extend into the future even after we have been redeemed and no longer have trials. This is because we worship Jesus because of the sacrifice He made for us. We also worship Him with the expectancy that He will come back for us and take us to heaven. And we will worship Him in the future because He came through on His word. He told us that He would deliver us from sin and we will worship Him because He came through on His promise. He told us that He was going to prepare a dwelling place for us and now we finally see that He was true and just. This is why we shall worship His name on that day.
Secondly, I realized in the text that our worship will be likened to the way Moses worshipped after God delivered the Israelites from Egypt. Now let me break this thing down. The Israelites were in bondage in Egypt. They were slaves of pharaoh. They did not have free will. They did not have freedom. Currently we are like the Israelites in Egypt.
· We are in bondage to sin
· In bondage to hatred
· In bondage to pre-marital sex
· In bondage to cheating on that test
· In bondage to finances
· In bondage to getting cleared
· We are in bondage and God will deliver us from this bondage!
When God delivers us from this bondage, we will be so overtaken by who we were and how God brought us from our old state of bondage into the newness of life that we would worship Him whole heartedly. This love and adoration for what God has done is what caused Moses to write these words.
“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
the horse and his rider[a] he has thrown into the sea.
2 The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
my father's God, and I will exalt him.
Because we have gone through something, we will have the joy to praise Jesus for bringing us through!
Finally, from the text I realize that we worship the One who is the ultimate judge. And because of this fact, we can rest assured that Jesus is with us and our relationship with Him gives us access to His kingdom. It’s almost as if we are playing on the golden state warriors. We have the most stacked team in the league because we have our star player Jesus. And even furthermore, we have the referees on our side also because God is the ultimate referee. We can worship with confidence because the team is stacked, the refs are on our side and in the end we have a guaranteed victory!
In closing, We too shall write words to a song of praise and adoration for God. On the day we step on that glassy sea, and we meet Jesus face to face and we realize all He has done for us. We will praise Him continuously. Praise Him without ceasing. When we overcome we will realize that God has been good to us. He has shown us that He is able to deliver us. He has shown us the steps we must take to overcome this world. And finally He has shown us that we are free to worship because He is the ultimate judge. When we finally realize these things, we can sing a new song. A song that no man outside of the human race can sing because we will overcome. We shall overcome someday!