Seven Worthies, or completely worthy

DEVOTION

THE REVELATION

SEVEN WORTHIES

Rev 5:11-12

11 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. 12 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!"

NIV

What John saw as he numbers as thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand simply means he saw so many that it was not possible to number them. This is how many angels God has at his beck and call. This is how many angels that fill the throne room of heaven. How large heaven is no one can really know, but we can certain that anything God has to do with is magnificent. To prove that we simply have to look at his creation which we are a part of. How magnificent is this earth we live on. It stands the test of time and of mankind. Whatever we do here has no effect on it. Even the great volcanos that spew forth more pollution into the air than all of mankind has ever put into the air and the earth filters it all and cleans itself up as if nothing has ever happened. This is because God make it to do so. This earth will outlast mankind, or at least until God decides to destroy it with fire. So Heaven has to be even greater as the number of angels seems to outnumber the number of man, so many they cannot be counted. This term that John uses here is reflective of what Daniel said as well. We should also note that there is the number seven here too. Seven types or descriptions of how worthy the lamb, Jesus is. He is worthy to receive: power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory and praise. Is there anyone else worthy of this? It would be good for us to consider that Jesus is worthy of all the power there can ever be. He has the power to do whatever he desires to do. He lacks nothing when it comes to power. He is worthy of wealth, an abundance of more than all the wealth of the world. No one could even begin to count his wealth. He is worthy of wisdom. If any of us even thought we had any wisdom it would be like comparing a drop of water to all the oceans of the world when it comes to the amount of wisdom Jesus has. In fact that drop is too much. He is worthy of strength which is enough to accomplish all that he has and will ever need to do. We think about our strength, in fact we have competitions for the world’s strongest man, yet nothing compares to the strength of Jesus. He is worthy of honor. Here is where it starts to get a little dicey. If all of heaven gives Jesus all the honor, how much do we give him? The Greek word implies placing value on, or to esteem something or somebody. How much value do we put on Jesus? How much do we esteem him? He is worthy of the highest value compared to anything or anyone. There is nothing we should place more value on then Jesus. What does putting value on him more than anything or anyone else look like? That is something to ponder on. He is also worthy to have all the glory. Sometimes it is easy for us to take a little glory. When we do something that either we think or others think is really great, we or they give us a little glory for it. It is especially nasty when that happens in church. When someone is lifted up for doing something special and the congregation claps for them giving them some glory, and the individual simply accepts it, without a word about all the glory goes to Jesus, it resembles the world, not the church. We can have no glory, for Jesus is the only one worthy to receive all, not some, but all the glory. He is also worthy to receive all the praise. This is a lot like the glory except this is complete adoration given by all of heaven and earth. This is our very attitude expressed in our language, with our mouth. We praise his very name, we praise him for all that he has done for us. We praise him with our hearts, we our minds, with our voices. It is possible for us to give other people some amount of honor and glory but it would seem impossible to praise another person, yet it seems we find ourselves doing just that. We praise people for their acts, or good deeds. How much more we should praise Jesus for he has done everything for us. He has given us eternal life. Who can ever claim that kind of praise, but Jesus? He is absolutely worthy of everything which are all included in these seven worthies. This means seven or completely worthy.