Rev 15:2-4, And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had come off victorious from the beast and from his image and from the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God. And they sang the song of Moses the bond-servant of God and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and marvelous are Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King of the nations. "Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou alone art holy; For all the nations will come and worship before Thee, For Thy righteous acts have been revealed." 
	Several weeks ago, when we began to consider this passage, we looked at how our worship is to be filled with those songs of the glory and the victory and the majesty of God. We are not to bring before Him songs just for the sake of hearing how well our voices blend together. We are not to be putting before Him songs just to spend, waiting for those who are sadly late to the service. We are not to choose songs because they delight our children. Songs of praise to God are to be sung to touch the heart of God. He created us with some capacity to be moved by the songs of victory and praise as is He. We saw how He was moved to go before the Israelites in triumph as they proceeded forth with song. We saw that songs of pure worship and praise move the very heart of God and have tremendous value before Him. 
	When the people of God experience His deliverance and His victory, there should be a natural welling up to offer Him thanks through song. We see this as recorded in Judg 5:1-3, when the sons of Israel were delivered from Jabin the king of Canaan. Then Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying, "That the leaders led in Israel, That the people volunteered, Bless the Lord! " Hear, O kings; give ear, O rulers! I — to the Lord, I will sing, I will sing praise to the Lord, the God of Israel. 
It should be a natural, internal stimulus welling up from the depths of our beings to praise God as He is seen by the mighty working of His hands. There is a declaration within our hearts that tells all the creation of the goodness and the splendor and the power that God exercises freely toward those who trust in Him. It is filled with the desire that God would be blessed throughout the entire universe for His mighty deeds among the sons of men. There is evidenced a complete trust in Him to manifest His plan and His purpose to those whose hearts are attuned to Him and who seek Him with all their hearts and minds and souls and strength.  
	The Psalms are wonderfully expressive songs of the heart of the Psalmist as God was considered in all His might and His glory and His wisdom and His comfort and His salvation and His encouragement and His majesty. As but a couple of examples, we have Ps 81:1+2, Sing for joy to God our strength; Shout joyfully to the God of Jacob. Raise a song, strike the timbrel, The sweet sounding lyre with the harp. And Ps 95:1-3, O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, And a great King above all gods… 
Notice a key aspect in these songs. There is joy in singing to God. That is something which we often lack in our hearts. We get caught up in the daily routine, the issues, the problems, and the situations. We allow our eyes and our minds to dictate the terms of how we come before the Lord God Almighty. Rather than being led by the Holy Spirit, we are often dour and sad and merely dutiful in the manner of our worship. All the cares and the concerns of this world set themselves higher in our estimation than the One Who created the heavens and the earth.
	This is something that must be recognized as improper within the presence of God in our time of worship. There is a time to come before Him in seeking Him to deal with us in regard to the daily needs and struggles of this time. I am not saying that we shouldn’t cast our cares and our worries and our frustrations upon Him – Hardly! We are to seek His plan and His purpose and His way in the manner in which we live our daily lives. That is an absolute necessity! However, it is not to be the focus in the time of our being gathered together in corporate worship unto Him! 
	This is the time in which we gather ourselves together and declare the goodness and the splendor of Our Lord and Savior. This is the time in which we give ourselves to complete and utterly self-abandoned praise of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We lose ourselves in the glory of His majesty and we give Him tribute. We come before Him in gladness of heart, letting all the cares and the worries and the strife fall away, outside our gathering together in worship. That is why it is so necessary to prepare ourselves before we come into worship. We should be singing His praises on the way to worship, before we even enter into this place. We are to come together with the singleness of heart that seeks only to place before Him reverent and devoted praise and adoration. If that is our united heart, it will be absolutely filled with joy and life and gladness. 
Our time of corporate praise is to overflow with awe and wonder at the immensity of the so great love of God. It should be characterized with the fullness expressed in 1 Chron 16:8-10. Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; Speak of all His wonders. Glory in His holy name; Let the heart of those who seek the Lord be glad. Gladness should ring forth from our praise in our complete contemplation of Who God is and how beautifully He has given the perfect manifestation of Himself in His wonderful Lovingkindness and tender mercy. There should be a corporate sense of completion in all the accomplishments of the Lord God Almighty. 
	Ps 149:1-4, Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, And His praise in the congregation of the godly ones. Let Israel be glad in his Maker; Let the sons of Zion rejoice in their King. Let them praise His name with dancing; Let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre. For the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation. The satisfaction of God should be evidenced in our time of worship and praise. Simply the truth of our being gathered together in the name of Jesus is an incredible cause of celebration in all the goodness of the Lord. As we rejoice and commemorate Him, our beings ought to well up in reverent adoration and acclamation of the magnificent beauty of the Lord God. We are to give ourselves completely unto Him - absolutely losing ourselves and our thoughts and our motivations and our preconceived notions in the wonderment of His grace and His truth and His love and His goodness. It is only in Jesus, that we can so fully manifest a completely released heart of love and joy in the Lord and unto the Lord. It is a heart set free from the cares and the trials and the frustrations and the circumstances and the entrapments of this realm. 
	Ps 105:1-3, Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; Speak of all His wonders. Glory in His holy name; Let the heart of those who seek the Lord be glad. To glory in His holy name is to set Him high above everything else in our lives. Is it so hard? Is it so unreasonable? Is it so unfathomable to think that we can gather together in His name and corporately honor Him, Alone, each Sunday morning? After all, He has opened all of eternity for us in Jesus Christ. He deserves so much more than a couple of hours each week. He deserves every moment of every day of our lives now and forever. We should consider and approach Him in the reality of the honor and the privilege we have been given to be able to come into His presence with all the fellow saints – to rejoice together in Who He is and all that He has done - to simply glory in His holy name!
	Ps 135:1-3, Praise the Lord! Praise the name of the Lord; Praise Him, O servants of the Lord, You who stand in the house of the Lord, In the courts of the house of our God! Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; Sing praises to His name, for it is lovely. It is lovely to praise the Lord. In praise, the loveliness of Jesus is proclaimed and set forth and witnessed. In worship, the loveliness that is ours in Christ is demonstrated to the Father. In songs of adoration, the loveliness of the guidance of the Holy Spirit is celebrated and declared to all of creation. In the praise of the saints, the Church is witnessed by God as giving herself fully and wholly unto His Son. It is a manifestation of the loveliness of His character and nature by which she has been redeemed. Picture the loveliness of the bride on her wedding day in the eyes of the groom. That unique moment in time on this earth is but a mere passing reflection of the brilliant and eternal vision of loveliness presented to God by His redeemed and glorified saints. The Church, in Christ, is lovely in the heart and the eyes of God beyond any earthly comprehension or comparison.
	The Apostle Paul addresses the value and the necessity of our corporate singing together in worship in 1 Cor 14:15-17. What is the outcome then? I shall pray with the spirit and I shall pray with the mind also; I shall sing with the spirit and I shall sing with the mind also. Otherwise if you bless in the spirit only, how will the one who fills the place of the ungifted say the "Amen" at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying? For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified. 
When we come together to praise God, there is to be an edification that takes place. It is not the motive, nor it is the goal, but it is the result of true worship. All those gathered together should be receiving of the fruit of true worship. It will cause us to rejoice together and to share together in the goodness of God. There will be an evidenced uplifting within the Body and a significant change in the whole demeanor of the Church. All who join in should be blessed in the commemoration and the declaration of God’s goodness and mercy and grace. There will be a joined sense that God’s heart is touched with the purity and the reverence and the love that flows freely and fully unto Him. Hearts will register the satisfaction that God receives as His Son is honored above all else in the heart and mind of His Beloved Bride, His Church.
	The Apostle Paul continues with his admonition in worship in Eph 5:17-21. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. 
A grand part of our fellowship together in Christ is centered in …psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord… The melody of our hearts is to be shared with one another as we are gathered in Christ’s name. Our fellowship lacks completeness and definition when we do not join our hearts with the beloved of God in songs of worship, psalms of praise, and hymns of reverence and honor to God. The melody that God has instilled into our hearts needs to find its implementation and realization as it is joined with the hearts of fellow saints in tribute to the Lord. 
	As well, there are to be choruses of thanksgiving that characterize our time together. This allows us to meld our hearts into the joy of pronouncing and affirming the goodness of the Lord. It becomes an encouragement to all in the merciful dealings of God in the individual and corporate lives of the Church.  As we take upon ourselves the burdens of others in intercessory prayer, so also do we join ourselves into the delight and the joyfulness of our fellow saints as God’s ruling and overruling is made known. 
	Ps 147:1-12, Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God; For it is pleasant and praise is becoming. The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted, And binds up their wounds. He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them. Great is our Lord, and abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite. The Lord supports the afflicted; He brings down the wicked to the ground.  Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; Sing praises to our God on the lyre, Who covers the heavens with clouds, Who provides rain for the earth, Who makes grass to grow on the mountains. He gives to the beast its food, And to the young ravens which cry. He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He does not take pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord favors those who fear Him, Those who wait for His lovingkindness. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! 
	The Lord is blessed by the sincere praises of His people. He is honored in the corporate heart that is melded together through Jesus Christ, into a more and more perfect expression of praise. Our place on this earth is defined by the manner in which we come before God in our worship. If we give ourselves unto Him in worship this day, we will be taught the value that He places upon us as His redeemed Church. To do anything less is a dishonor to our Lord Jesus Christ. It is making our interests and our ideas and our plans and our motives more valuable and more important than God’s. It is the practice of placing ourselves above God in the worship of idolatry, the idol of self. 
Let that high place be torn down! Let God have all the honor and praise and adoration and worship and glory that He is due from us! Let our hearts join as one and burst forth in the victorious songs of Moses and of the Lamb! And let us do so in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Our Savior, Our Beloved Husband. So be it!
And I saw, as it were, a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had come off victorious from the beast and from his image and from the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God. And they sang the song of Moses the bond-servant of God and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and marvelous are Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King of the nations. "Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou alone art holy; For all the nations will come and worship before Thee, For Thy righteous acts have been revealed." Amen.

This morning’s benediction is 1 Chron 29:11-13. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Thine is the dominion, O Lord, and Thou dost exalt Thyself as head over all. Both riches and honor come from Thee, and Thou dost rule over all, and in Thy hand is power and might; and it lies in Thy hand to make great, and to strengthen everyone. Now therefore, our God, we thank Thee, and praise Thy glorious name. Amen.