The Song of the Nations
August 29, 2021
Preached by David McHale
Scripture Reading
Revelation 5:1-14
1 Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. 2 And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” 3 And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, 4 and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. 5 And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
11 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
14 And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.
Just a few weeks ago, many of us got the opportunity to watch the 2020 Olympics. Nearly 200 nations came together to compete. In the opening ceremony, each nation, full of athletes eager to compete, paraded through a stadium. A mosaic of colorful clothing litters the space. There is joy, excitement, hope of victory. Athletes hope to beat the competition and hear the song of their nation sung when they wear the gold medal.
In Revelation 5, we are in the heavenly equivalent of the Olympic stadium. We are catapulted into the throne-room of heaven. If there was ever a place to look that would help us understand the nature of reality and how we ought to think about our lives, our world, the mission of the church, it is the throne-room of heaven. What is happening there is ultimate reality, it testifies to the nature of God’s activity in the world, and what the future holds for us in it.
In Revelation 5 we see that (1) Reality is dire, (2) Jesus is beautiful, and (3) Hope is true.
1. Reality is dire.
The Olympics are ironic. It is peculiar thing that nations parade through a stadium together with joy, while in real life some are mortal enemies. How weird is it that nations who could go to war at any moment have athletes playing ping pong together? It’s weird because ping pong seems a bit futile when the prospect of war is on the table. If the nations represented by those athletes went to war, no one would care about who won in ping pong. Beneath the fun and games of life, there is a much more severe and significant story being told.
Life is not mostly beautiful with a bit of brokenness in it. It is entirely broken, beyond repair, with faint glimmers of beauty breaking through its cracks. Don’t believe me? Why is it that joy is fleeting and sorrow seems permanent? Why is it that hospital beds, divorce papers, and leaking bank accounts seem more real than soccer games, good books, and even a slow meal with friends? Why is it that funerals weigh more than birthdays? The world is not as it ought to be. Even more, it is so far from what we long that it will become, that, when we see it as it is, we are tempted to despair.
In the first verse of Revelation 5 we are introduced to a scroll. The One on the throne holds it in his hands. What is this scroll? This scroll is God’s answer to the direness of reality. It is the future plan of justice, mercy, and redemption. It tells the tale of God fulfilling his promises to bring his righteousness to bear on the world, to redeem a people for himself, and to vanquish sin and death forever.
We hear that the resounding cry in heaven is “Who can open this scroll?” Who is worthy to bring about the fulfillment of these promises? And in verse 3, we read,
3 And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, 4 and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.
John weeps at the thought of this scroll going unopened. He weeps at the thought of reality remaining in bondage to wickedness, decay, and death. We get a hint at a holy despair. If there is no one worthy to open the scroll, then God’s promises to his people will go unfulfilled and the world will languish.
Would we have wept? Do we weep over reality? Some of us answer: absolutely. You’ve experienced loss or the threat of it. Your body is decaying. Your mind is fading. Your heart is rent with a despair that has no meaning.
However, for many of us, we don’t weep over the reality of the world. Why? Because we have built our own little worlds, our own little kingdoms, complete with castles and thrones and icons that move on a screen. Our reality is cozy and comfortable. I don’t even need to leave my house to buy socks, I just press my screen a few times and they are in the mail. Reality isn’t dire to us because we work to keep it from touching us. When even just a little bit does, it is overwhelming and even offensive. We can barely handle being cut off in traffic, losing Wifi, or endure disagreement, without throwing a fit. We are consumed with our own little kingdoms.
Is it any wonder why we remain apathetic about the gospel going to the nations? As long as my kingdom is going well, who cares? God’s mission to the nations does nothing for me and my kingdom. It does nothing to improve my circumstances or boost the hopefulness of my future. In some ways, it promises the opposite. We fail to see the preeminence of God’s mission because it plays second fiddle to our own. The lives of real people are on the line, but we often fail to see their grim and hopeless future without Jesus because we are too busy feeling guilty about our bibles collecting dust on our shelves.
We have brothers and sisters who are being killed (in Afghanistan) because the name of Jesus, their daughters (the same ages as our own) are being stolen to be put into unwanted marriages, or even worse sex trafficking. But many remain steadfast. How is the church in Afghanistan persevering? It isn’t looking at their reality. It is looking at something beyond their reality, something more beautiful than the mayhem in which they are living.
2. Jesus is beautiful.
Some of you may have seen the most recent Avengers movie, Avenger’s Endgame. In it the Avengers, a group of courageous heroes, are on the hunt for an evil villain named Thanos that threatens the cosmos. In one of the last moments of the movie, (if you haven’t seen the movie, this is going to spoil it, sorry, but you have had plenty of time to watch it) Ironman, shockingly and beautifully, sacrifices himself to defeat Thanos. The moment is majestic, inspiring, and heart-wrenching. But, for those of you who have seen the movie, when that scene happened, how many of you were thinking about your own stress, pain, or anxiety? Of course you weren’t, you were caught up into the glory of the moment and the beauty of sacrificial love.
This is a shadow of God’s answer to John’s weeping and the dire state of reality. The answer is one thing: the beauty and majesty of Jesus.
5 “And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
“Weep no more!” Why? Because Jesus is the King of Kings and like a lion, Jesus Christ stands victorious over sin, death, hell, and the devil. Yet, in the next verse, we read, “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain....”
He is a mighty lion-King, but also sacrificial-lamb. He has all the power and majesty of a lion and all the gentleness, purity, and servant-heart of a lamb. And this lion-lamb appears before the heavenly host, 9 they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
An Olympic athlete labors to win and when they do, they are exalted before everyone and declared worthy with the song of their nation. The lion-lamb has proven himself to the One who sits on the throne and to the world, that He is worthy to mediate God’s plan of redemption. And this is the song reverberates through the halls of heaven. There is a cosmic crowd that goes wild when Jesus is victorious.
But how did He prove himself? How did he show himself worthy? He was slain. Our cosmic victor won through defeat. He conquered through being conquered. His worthiness is otherworldly, because self-sacrificial love is foreign to a world in which self-preservation is how we win in life. How idiotic would it be for an Olympian to say they are going to win by being last?
His defeat was a ransom. The nations were kidnapped and enslaved to sin, death, and the devil. A ransom was required, not one of money, but blood. Jesus chose to pay it in full. He switched places with us. He purchased our freedom by submitting to death. We are His people now. The people that he has purchased for himself transcends every boundary line, every language barrier, every accent, every skin color, every geographical location. Right now, He is calling a people out from among all peoples – a diverse, multinational, global community of people who love Jesus more than anything. He has made and is making a new nation, a new tribe – a new kingdom.
This is true salvation. It is the crumbling of our own kingdom and the raising up of a new one. A bigger one. A better one. This kingdom is one of priests, with full access to the presence of God. They will reign over the earth and participate in the redemption and prospering of God’s creation for all eternity. We are invited into this epic story of cosmic redemption.
So, why is it that we more enthralled with the Marvel Universe than this story? Why does the Lord of the Rings feel more real than the Bible, which testifies to this story? In part, because we don’t read the Bible for what it actually is. We read the Bible like a self-help book that is designed to improve our experience of our own world, rather than a glorious window into God’s grand and global mission of mercy. His mission isn’t myth, but history! It isn’t legend, but fact. It is as true as the events happening in Afghanistan right now. In some ways, it is truer.
Notice that the scroll is already written. The future is prepared. This epic mission that Christ has won is already set in stone. It will happen. It is happening. We think about missions primarily as something to do, but maybe more than anything, it is something to see! Not from your arm chair, but in the thick of it. We are invited to participate in something that is already prepared. God is on the move in the world, and we’re being left behind. We will remain behind if we don’t see that reality is dire, Jesus is beautiful, and hope is true (#3).
3. Hope is true.
It is a common occurrence in our home that I make a promise to my wife to do the dishes. When I do, my wife has a choice to believe it or not. If she doesn’t believe me, she will discard it as irrelevant and do them on her own. But if she believes that my promise will come true, she anticipates the dishes will be done and now she is free to rest. This is hope that is built on trust. A promise is worthy of hope only if the person who made the promise has proven themselves to be trustworthy and capable of making good on their promise.
Jesus has done just that. He has proven himself by the power of his sacrificial love. He was slain. However, if Jesus remained slain, remained in the grave, then the promises he has made are irrelevant because he is no longer alive to fulfill them. Death would have proven itself more worthy than him. If Jesus is dead, our future is incredibly bleak.
Yet, John does see a dead lamb in Revelation 5. He sees a lamb standing, as though it had been slain. Though the Christ our lamb was slain, he stands alive and well. He does not lie in the grave, but lives in heaven before the One who sits on the throne, no more to die, receiving the accolade of God and the heavenly host. If he lives and we are members of his purchased people, our future is not bleak, but incredibly bright. Jesus’ life is our life. His future is our future. This kind of hope makes us want to sing. In Revelation 7, we hear the people of God singing in response this good news. Look at Revelation 7:9-12
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels…the elders and the four living creatures…fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Consider what it will be like to sing these words with brothers and sisters, who love the same Jesus we love, from every nation and language brought together before God’s throne. Brothers and sisters from Brazil, Mozambique, China, Greenland, Burundi, Egypt, Iran, Israel, India, Australia, Mexico, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Nepal, Paraguay, Peru, Iraq, Russia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Thailand, Syria, Senegal, Namibia, Moldova, Monaco, Guyana… who speak languages such as English, Hindi, Swahili, Bengali, Spanish, Mandarin, Portuguese, Indonesian.
Together, we will sing the song of heaven: “Worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb and the One who sits upon the throne.” This is the closing ceremony of history and the opening ceremony to eternity! Because Jesus lives, this is sure. Our hope is true. We will receive the promise held out in Revelation 7:15-17.
15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat.
17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Our hope is not that our own kingdoms will prosper, but that the nations will live forever before God to work for him without hunger, thirst, or the pain of the blazing sun on a hot day. This is a reversal of the curse in Genesis 3. We will be no more banished from Eden, but the One who justly banished us will shelter us in just love. No more will we be lost nomads in the desert, but we will be shepherded by the Lion of Judah, the lamb who gave everything for us. In this hope, God’s people are satisfied, all that has brought us tears will be redeemed into something that will serve to glorify Christ’s power to bring life out of death.
Would your life look any different if this wasn’t true? If it is true, what are we doing about it? Your neighbors, co-workers, family members who don’t know Jesus are languishing and will not be shepherded by the living Jesus, but will bear cheeks wet with tears for eternity with no good news.
Real people in the Philippines, Romania, Turkey, Honduras are in the same predicament. Consider praying for our missionary partners there or reaching out to them to encourage them in what they are doing. We have foreign nations represented here in our church, men and women who need practical help and encouragement, teaching about the gospel. There are young boys and girls who don’t know Jesus who are coming to faith in Jesus through Center for Champions, and students through YoungLife. There is not a lack of opportunity. Only a lack of motivation. And Revelation 5 offers storehouses of it for us. In Christ, mission isn’t drudgery, but an adventure into the majestic mission of God. Let’s join him in it.
Family Discussion Questions
How have you seen the direness of reality? How do you escape from reality?
What is beautiful about Jesus? How does his beauty change how you think about missions?
What is so meaningful about the hope offered in Revelation 7? How would believing that this hope is true change your life?
