Revelation 5:11-12 // Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!
What a hopeful scene! Is this not the end to which all earthly faith looks to and longs for, that moment when all the redeemed are gathered together around the Lamb and His throne? With great anticipation believers long for this day! But our attention is drawn here not just to the gathering, but to the size of those numbered among the gathered. They are “myriads of myriads” and “thousands of thousands,” a great sea of people to be seen and heard around the everlasting throne. It is no easy task for government leaders to accurately number their citizens for a national census, but we may be very sure that the One who sits upon the throne gazes among the innumerable faces, delighting in their collective voice, and has each and every one numbered in His heart. He has no need of counting the gathered number for He has already engraved their names upon His hands and written them by His blood in His book of life. What more could we desire than to be counted by the Savior as His very own?
But see also that they have gathered around the throne to sing. With hearts of flesh that are filled with the Spirit of Christ they sing the song of the redeemed, a song whose central theme is the worthiness of the slain Lamb. In this life men will often covet when people gather to celebrate another's worthy accomplishments. His heart will whisper to him of his own merit and a jealous lust for the praise of men will seek to devour him. Praise God it will not be so at the coronation of our King! Every heart among the numbered, with eyes beholding our sin-bearing Sacrifice, will be so enthralled by the incomparable weight of this glorious sight that not a single one among them will doubt that the Lamb alone is deserving of such a reception. All envious appetites for acknowledgement and all self-flattering murmurs of the heart will at once seem ill-founded and frivolous. For who can lay claim to honor before Him who is always just and true and gracious? Or who might flaunt their beauty before Him who attracts the nations by His majesty? And who can boast of strength before Him who holds universes together by the power of His word? Let us then turn our faces unto the Lamb and add our voices to the myriad who sing of His unrivaled and everlasting worth!