Hallelujah! Just plain Hallelujah

Revelation 19: 1: "I heard a sound like massed choirs in Heaven singing, 'Hallelujah! The Salvation and glory and power are God's -- his judgments true, his judgments just."

The scene in my mind is one of beauty and power. "Then more singing: Hallelujah! The smoke from her burning billows up to high Heaven forever and ever and ever."

His might.
His love.
His strength.
His grace.
His power.
His mercy.

All pouring our and up and into our being. Imagine. Just imagine.
Glory, glory, glory.
Hallelujah.

While this week we fuss and we fight about health care and foreign bombs and evil such as we've never known or seen, what we should (must?) remember is the splendor of the king, clothed in majesty. Remember the earth is his, and he who wraps himself in light is simply waiting for us to tremble at his voice, which when there was nothing simply spoke and there was...

How great and wonderful and amazing is our God? Our Jesus, whose tears we are not even worthy of drying on a cheek that is so tender we would shrivel at its touch, is the lamb and is the lion and is so great we can't fathom. And His Spirit, the forgotten Lord, is waiting to make an appearance that would both surprise and shock those who know Him not.

I was talking to a Bible study last night and I said that I couldn't explain how the blood of Jesus saved us, and by that I meant I don't know the mechanism of salvation. Blood running down the forehead, the hands, the feet, the side doesn't normally provide eternal salvation to someone. It's normally just blood.

I was challenged with theology that I certainly support. "He was the spotless lamb of God. He was the substitution for our sins. He paid for our sins." Person after person challenged my statement that I couldn't explain it.

I told them all they said was absolutely true (cause it was). I told them, however, what I meant was I don't know how a phone works, but that doesn't stop me from believing that when I hear a voice coming from somewhere else, it does work.

That is faith. And it is that faith which, I believe, triggers the grace God gives -- freely.

O glorious day. The skies split, Jesus comes, we rise, and smoke billows to high heaven.

Look, everything isn't always hunky dory, whatever that is. I know things could well be better in my life, in my ministry, right now.

But this I know: sometime about the middle of a sermon I felt wasn't working yesterday, the Holy Spirit arrived, changed those listening and changed the one talking and it wasn't church, it was worship.

"Hallelujah. Amen. Yes! Hallelujah!

"From the Throne came a shout, a command:
'Praise our God, all you servants, All you who fear him, small and great!"

Have a very blessed Monday, the gateway to a very blessed week.