Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Hi, Zane.

Well…the big hand on the clock has just passed 12…so it is now afternoon. How could the morning evaporate that fast?! Oh well…I’ll try to cope.

I have no idea what you do with these devotionals. But I double-dog dare you to see if you can read this one and then say, “So what!” As I do my best to visualize and imagine the scene John is describing, I can hardly stay silently sitting in this chair!

May the Lord direct your mind, spirit, and paths by revelation knowledge…without which you…can you guess what I want to say?

Love and prayers—Tua (Ray)

There sure is a lot of celestial singing and praising going on in this chapter. Three songs by three different groups are recorded. I don’t know if the first song causes the second song, and the second causes the third, but there is definitely a succession with expanding volume and intensity that reaches a mind-boggling crescendo in the third.

1. The first song is presented by a comparatively small group of 24 elders, all playing heavenly guitars (harps) around the throne of God. I sure wish I could buy one of their CDs.
2. The second song engages a huge number of angels. They are described as “thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand,” all encircling the throne. Just for the fun of it, I punched 3,000 into my calculator to represent the “thousands upon thousands,” then multiplied that by 10,000, and again by 10,000, making the angel choir to be roughly 300 billion. That’s BIG! Talk about a musical extravaganza! But wait—there’s more!
3. The last song is bigger yet—engaging ALL CREATURES EVERYWHERE IN ALL TIME. Awesome! As I consider the scope and magnitude of this dramatic finale, the words of Paul in Philippians 2:9-11 come to mind: “Therefore God has exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess (and sing) that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

So what’s the cause for all this singing and praising? I can only assume that these beings are experiencing a spontaneous combustion of divine revelation—making them to see and know more fully what we only see and know in part. They all recognize the marvelous master plan of the Almighty that focuses on humans and their being so graciously redeemed from sin and destruction by the substitutionary death and shed blood of the Lamb.

The last verse of the chapter reads: “The four living creatures said, ‘Amen,’ and the elders fell down and worshiped” (v.14). Question: Who could possibly be a passive spectator of all this and just sit there?