WorthyAnd they sang a new song:
"You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth."
Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang:
"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!"
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
"To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!"
The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped.
* * *
When revival transformed the eighteenth-century Moravians in Herrnhut, Germany, they became enthralled with these verses. A visit from men from far lands across the sea, pleading for missionaries, gave them a way to respond. The Moravian mission was motivated in large part by a theology of mission rooted in the worthiness of God to receive worship; their goal was to present worshipers to Christ.
When they were sailing off to the ends of the earth, places like Greenland, the West Indies, or America, they would make their way to the back of the boat to look back at the dock where their friends and family were waiting after saying goodbye to them, perhaps never to return.
The last thing they would do, by tradition, was to shout out these words:
“May the lamb who was slain receive the reward for his suffering!”
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