Revelation 15:3,4

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:

Great and wonderful are your works, O Lord, God the Almighty; Just and true are your ways, King of the nations. Who shall not fear and glorify your name, O Lord? Because you alone are holy; Because all the nations will come and worship before you; Because your righteous judgments have been made plain for all to see.

The victorious martyrs sing two songs. They sing the song of the Lamb which, as we have seen, is the song which they alone could learn (Revelation 14:3). They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God. This was the song which Moses sang in triumph to God after the safe crossing of the Red Sea. It is in Exodus 15:1-19. "The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.... Who is like thee, 0 Lord, among the gods, who is like thee, majestic in holiness, terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders?... The Lord will reign for ever and ever." This song was stamped upon the memory of the Jews. It was sung at every Sabbath evening service in the synagogue. At every Jewish service the recital of the Shema (compare the verb, H8085), the creed of Israel, was followed by two prayers--it still is--and one of these prayers refers to this song: "True it is that thou art Jehovah our God, and the God of our fathers, our King, and the King of our fathers, our Saviour, and the Saviour of our fathers, our Creator, the Rock of our Salvation, our Help and our Deliverer. Thy name is from everlasting, and there is no God beside thee. A new song did they that were delivered sing to thy name by the sea-shore; together did all praise and own thee King, and say, Jehovah shall reign, world without end! Blessed be the Lord who saveth Israel." The song of Moses commemorated the greatest deliverance in the history of God's people Israel, and the victorious martyrs, brought through the sea of persecution to the promised land of heaven, sing that song.

But the martyrs have their own song. Two things stand out about it.

(i) It is almost entirely composed of quotations from the Old Testament. We set down first the words in the song and below them the Old Testament passages of which they remind us.

Great and wonderful are your works.

O Lord, how great are thy works! (Psalms 92:5); The works of the Lord are great (Psalms 111:2); he has done marvellous (wonderful) things (Psalms 98:1); Wonderful are thy works (Psalms 139:14).

Just and true are your ways.

The Lord is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings (Psalms 145:17).

Who shall not fear and glorify your name, O Lord

All the nations thou hast made shall come and bow down before Thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name (Psalms 86:9).

You alone are holy.

There is none holy like the Lord (1 Samuel 2:2); Let them praise thy great and terrible name! Holy is he! (Psalms 99:3); Holy and terrible is his name (Psalms 111:9).

All the nations will come and worship before you.

All the nations thou hast made shall come and bow down before thee, O Lord (Psalms 86:9).

Your righteous judgments are made manifest.

The Lord has made known his victory, he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations (Psalms 98:2).

A passage like this lets us see how steeped in the Old Testament John was.

(ii) There is another thing which must strike anyone about the song of the triumphant martyrs. There is not one single word in it about their own achievement; from beginning to end the song is a lyric outburst on the greatness of God.

Heaven is a place where men forget themselves and remember only God. As R. H. Charles finely puts it: "In the perfect vision of God self is wholly forgotten." H. B. Swete puts it this way: "In the presence of God the martyrs forget themselves; their thoughts are absorbed by the new wonders that surround them; the glory of God and the mighty scheme of things in which their own sufferings form an infinitesimal part are opening before them; they begin to see the great issue of the world-drama, and we hear the doxology with which they greet their first unclouded vision of God and his works."

THE AVENGING ANGELS (Revelation 15:5-7)