Apocalypse 19:1-9

"PRAISE OUR GOD ALL YOU HIS SERVANTS..."

A Sermon by the Rev. Peter M. Buss, Jr.

And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready" (Revelation 19:6-7).

A celebration of something very good. It may seem strange, but we begin by asking you to consider being in a football stadium right now—or if football isn’t your thing, to think about being at a tennis match—the U. S. Open, center court, or some other sports arena which would draw thousands of people. Your average professional football game draws some 40,000 fans; other sporting events maybe not so many, but still a lot of people. If that’s something you’ve experienced before, do you remember the volume in that context? You walk into the stadium as the crowd gathers, and there’s this growing level of diverse noises produced by the hundreds of conversations going on around you. But then do you notice what happens? The game begins, and in the course of time the home team scores. Does not that enormous, diverse crowd unite with one voice as it were—a mighty cheer of jubilation? Think of the volume. Think of the power.

Now that kind of event might be one of the last places you would choose to put yourself, but I introduce it to give some sense of the picture presented to us in the book of Revelation, of a multitude of angels praising the Lord. John witnessed this event of thousands of voices uniting into one. It was so powerful in fact that all he could compare it to was the "sound of many waters" (a powerful waterfall), or "the sound of mighty thunderings." They were cheering for something far superior than a touchdown—for a major victory the Lord had achieved in His Kingdom. Listen to what they had to say:
"Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power to the Lord our God!"
"True and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication.…"
"Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!"
"The marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready" (Revelation 19:1-7).

The Writings for the New Church identify this as a new era for the Lord’s Kingdom—a new beginning for His Church, where people would once again be able to worship the Lord their God with understanding and love. And from this perspective of acknowledgment they would be able to live a life of service to the Lord—a life of such dedication that it is likened to the close relationship of husband and wife.

As many people have realized, this is part of the extended prophecy recorded in the book of Revelation, of the time of the Lord’s second coming. In the praise of the angels we hear the glorification of the Lord on account of His judgment on the erroneous faith of the former era, followed by "the proclamation of the [His] Coming, and the New Church from Him" (Apocalypse Revealed 803). This in one sense is the core of what the New Church is about, for we believe that we now live in this new era of greater understanding and light—an era which has been and continues to be ushered in by the Lord our God.

But rather than the event itself, today I’d like us to focus on our praise of the Lord. These angels command us, saying, "Praise our God, all you His servants, and those who fear Him, both small and great!" (Revelation 19:5). From this picture of angels praising God we get a sense of how we should praise Him. He is our God too. He reigns over us just as He does over heaven. He loves us with the same tenderness as He loves even the best of those angels in that multitude. He set up His church for our benefit, which is the reason those angels were praising Him in the first place.

Characteristics of the praise of angels. First, there is a depth of knowledge about the Lord expressed in their words—a level of acknowledgment which we can imagine comes from years of reflection and learning, years of paying attention to the way things work and drawing conclusions based on all that experience. There is a strength of conviction in their words: "The Lord God Omnipotent reigns"—no question about it. "To Him belong salvation and glory and honor and power." Do we not get the sense that this is not something we could ever convince them was otherwise? Equally important to note is the truth taught in the New Church that these angels, or any angels for that matter, are not some separate race of beings created by the Lord as such. Rather they are people who used to live here in this world, just like we do, who followed the Lord to heaven.

Throughout their lives they strived to serve the Lord, and allowed Him to form them into the kind of people who can live in heaven—the people we call angels. What this means is that we too can come, eventually, to this level of acknowledgment of the Lord.

But a second, equally important facet of the praise of the angels is the energy or feeling which is demonstrated. Think of the jubilation and happiness expressed in this scene. We might ask ourselves if we’ve ever felt that excited about anything, let alone about the Lord. Where does it come from? Let’s consider that as well.

So we have a profound acknowledgment of the Lord, and a heartfelt, spontaneous expression of praise from that acknowledgment. One passage in the Writings of the New Church describes this section of Revelation as the "joy of soul and heart" (Apocalypse Revealed 812). Joy is the overriding characteristic, but it has two qualities—one of the soul or understanding, and the other relating to the heart. In other words there is a mental component and "feeling" component to such praise. Together with the ideas they expressed came feelings of celebration, security, peace, love, comfort, hope for the future, and other like things.

The question before us today is, "How do we capture this feeling?"—this affection for our Lord? How do we come to love and appreciate Him with such joy? How do we receive that sense of security and profound peace that comes along with that confidence that He is in charge of everything in our lives?

Cultivating praise. It starts with that mental component—with acknowledgment in our minds of certain things about the Lord. There is this amazing statement made in the reading we heard earlier in the service.

People cannot help praising and glorifying the Lord, that is giving praise and glory to Him, when they acknowledge in heart that there is nothing good in themselves, and that they can do nothing of themselves, and on the other hand, that all good is from the Lord, and that the Lord can do all things (Apocalypse Explained 1210).

"People cannot help praising and glorifying God.…" This statement challenges us to believe that we too can experience that spontaneous, joyful praise of the Lord as is exhibited by the angels. That feeling of joy will arise within us if we can acknowledge certain things. This is a promise.

And what are those things we need to acknowledge which will bring the fulfillment of this promise? There is nothing good in ourselves, and we can do nothing of ourselves. And on the other hand all good is from the Lord, and He can do all things. Think about those words and let’s consider what they mean.

We are helpless in a way.

Without the Lord and constant reminders about our spiritual duties, we will tend to think about and do some pretty awful things.

We are dependent on the Lord for all that is good in our lives.

The Lord is the cause of anything good in our lives.

Every kind thought and warm feeling is evidence of the Lord at work in our lives.

Anything good which has happened in our lives is a gift from the Lord.

There is nothing the Lord cannot do for us.

These are just a few of the outcomes of this one statement of belief. They call us to consider the reality that we need the Lord in our lives to be able to experience any genuine or lasting happiness. They open the door of our minds to the Lord. In fact that’s what this passage goes on to say: "When people are in this acknowledgment they put aside their own concerns which belong to selfish love, and open all things of their minds, and thus make room for the Divine to flow in with goodness and with power" (Ibid.).

What I see the Lord asking us to do by means of this teaching is to take in these concepts and use them in our lives. Try them out and see if it isn’t true that the a life of service and dedication to the Lord brings true happiness, and that a life apart from the Lord leads to misery and hardship. Of course we will never be able to escape all that is bad about this flawed world of ours, but the truth will be borne out in so many ways. We will notice that our marriages, if that’s something we’re blessed with, are a gift from the Lord, and that it is He who renews our love for the other person. We will come to see that it is the Lord who inspires all the kind gestures or heroic deeds which we value so much in other people. We will give credit to the Lord for the wise things we say which help our children or contribute to the lives of people we love in constructive ways. We will be able to see His providence at work as we look back over the events of our lives and reflect on all the ways He has sustained us and led us.

Let me explore one other outcome in a little more detail. I believe this set of teachings—that there is nothing good in ourselves, and that we can do nothing of ourselves, and on the other hand that all good is from the Lord and that He can co all things—can give us a tremendous sense of peace when we come up against some of the hard events of life. Wouldn’t it help to know, and truly believe that we don’t have to solve all the issues in the lives of the people we love, or that we don’t have to fix all the problems in the Church by ourselves, or that we do not have to ensure, in the sense of taking sole responsibility, that everything in our lives go smoothly? Don’t these ideas call us to consider that we should leave some of that problem-solving to the Lord, or that He is someone we can turn to for answers? Doesn’t it call us to believe that He has a view of it that maybe we don’t, and that He might be doing so much to cause things to work out in the long run that we’re unaware of? If it is someone else we’re concerned about, doesn’t this cause us to reflect that the Lord has the ability to inspire that person to make wise choices by means other than our efforts? Of course one of the ways He might work is by using the care and love that we might express toward that person—in fact it is He who inspires it. But He is in charge of the situation, so that we don’t have to shoulder the responsibility entirely by ourselves. Again, think of the peace which comes from knowing—truly knowing that the Lord is there to help.

Do we not see how pervasive this set of simple ideas is? Do we not see how those angels from our story could come to their level of praise by means of these very same sets of realizations? For them the Lord is everything! And so He can become for us, if we will but consider the truth of these words, and put them to the test in our own lives.

The only thing remaining to mention is the final benefit which comes from such an acknowledgment: it is that spontaneous praise we talked about. As the door of our mind is opened to acknowledge more and more the truth of these statements, the Lord does indeed flow in. He not only brings enlightenment, but that feeling of praise—that wonderful love and appreciation which wells up inside of us. The two qualities—the mental acknowledgment and the feeling of inspiration and love—are inseparable. Again, as we heard, "People cannot help praising and glorifying the Lord when they acknowledge [these things] in heart."

So we return one more time to the picture of angels praising the Lord. We can notice the fullness of acknowledgment, and the intensity of joy they exhibited. This is an expression that we should strive for in our own lives. We too are called to acknowledge the Lord for any good thing we notice. We too are asked to consider that everything good in our lives is from Him—to believe that the Lord caused it to happen, and from that perspective to say a prayer of thanks to Him. The promise is that the more we can make a habit of doing this, the stronger our belief in the Lord will become, and our trust in His providence will be strengthened. We will find ourselves less lost, less often depressed, and more often filled with echoes of that profound excitement and joy exhibited by the angels. We will feel this internal pull to devote ourselves more fully to the Lord. And as we do, our spontaneous response of praise will grow inside us until we too are able to declare with joy: "Salvation and glory and honor and power to the Lord our God! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready" (Revelation 19:1, 6-7). Amen.

Lessons: Revelation 19:1-9; Apocalypse Explained 1210


Apocalypse Explained 1210
...[The words] "Praise our God, all you His servants," mean worship of the Lord by those who are in truths... In many passages in the Word the expression "praise God" means to confess Him with the heart and with the lips, so also to worship. "To praise God" has a similar meaning as "Hallelujah," because "Hallelujah" [literally] means "praise God," and so also means the voice of joy and gladness in confessions of God and in the worship of God.

"To praise God" means confession and worship for the reason that the Lord has no wish to be praised and glorified from any love for Himself, but only from His love for human beings. People cannot help praising and glorifying the Lord, that is, giving praise and glory to Him, when they acknowledge in heart that there is nothing of good in themselves, and that they can do nothing of themselves, and on the other hand, that all good is from the Lord, and that the Lord can do all things. When people are in this acknowledgment they put aside their own concerns, which belongs to selfish love, and open all things of their minds, and thus makes room for the Divine to flow in with goodness and with power.

This is why it is necessary for a person to be in humility before the Lord, and why humility can be from no other source than recognition of our character and acknowledgment of the Lord. Reception [of the Lord] takes place according to this acknowledgment.