When we sing as believers, we sing of happy things most often. At least that is true in our modern culture. We like to sing of God’s grace. We like to sing of his faithfulness to us and his comforting love. Songs on Christian radio like to sing of the way that the writers assume God views us and to claim victories over all sorts of issues.
But a look at Scripture tells us that the people of God often sin about things that might not make the pop station very popular. God’s word includes songs of sorrow and lament. God’s word includes songs of imprecation, of crying out for God to judge the wicked and oppressor. And God’s word includes many a song that declares that God is right in all his actions.
Revelation 15:1–4 – 15 Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished.
2 And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. 3 And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,
“Great and amazing are your deeds,
O Lord God the Almighty!
Just and true are your ways,
O King of the nations!
4 Who will not fear, O Lord,
and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
In Revelation 15, we see a gathering of the saints of God. This chapter opens by declaring to us that God is about to pour out his wrath on the world for its evil. And we see that the people of God, forgiven in Christ, are set apart from that fury of god. And as the people of God are set apart, witnessing what the Lord will do, they sing.
Note the point of the song. Without a full exposition, I think we can see the truth that feels so strange to our minds. They see the judgment of god coming, and they declare that God is absolutely good and right and holy in all his ways. These people are not giving themselves the right of judgment over God. They are not declaring that God owes them an explanation for his actions. They are not faulting God for not doing things in the way that they expect. They just see who God is, what God is doing, and they know that all that the Lord is and does is right.
I am surely not suggesting that Christians become morbidly obsessed with wrath, judgment, and death. We are a people called by God to communicate the good news of his grace and to make disciples of all nations. We do not find joy in the death of the wicked. But, we also must be a people who are not somehow different than the saints that we see in Revelation 15. We will pray God’s mercy over the lost world. But we will also sing of the holiness of God when his judgment comes. Our God is perfect and right. That must be our first assumption. The God who has revealed himself in Scripture is our Maker, our Master, and our Judge. May we worship him, singing of his grace and his judgment with equal awe.
Pastor Travis Peterson 