Worship for RevivalSample

Holy is Our Lord Almighty

Not all true worship requires music or singing. Worship is moments or hours spent lost in the depths of the living Word of God. A walk in the woods can become a time sanctified away from the trappings of this world and unto God is worship. Silence itself in waiting upon Him is worship. Anything that ushers you into the holy presence of the living Christ and compels you to an acute awareness of your heart—your very being alive, and with awe, gratitude, and wonder as you but glimpse His beauty, holiness, otherness, and majesty—is an open doorway to true worship.

There is an additional experience awaiting a heart hungry for a glimpse of such glory: Holy Ghost–inspired humility and conviction. Isaiah testifies to that truth. In chapter 6 of the book that bears his name, he reveals his extraordinary encounter in the throne room:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two, he covered his face, and with two, he covered his feet, and with two, he flew. One cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.” The posts of the door moved at the voice of him who cried, and the house was filled with smoke. —Isaiah 6:1–4

Such a sight human eyes have rarely beheld. What immortal sounds must have visited Isaiah’s mortal ears! To say he was “changed” would surely rank as one of the greatest understatements ever uttered. These are his words:

Woe is me! For I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.—Isaiah 6:5

Beholding the Lord of glory in worship has the effect of highlighting our own human frailty and failings. It is indeed humbling. Its effect on a church is exactly the same. When a congregation sets itself to worship, it quickly realizes that which Isaiah perceived: we are “a people of unclean lips.” At that moment, the certain response of every true believer is to, without haste, follow the Lord Jesus’ closing command to the Laodiceans:

Therefore be zealous and repent.—Revelation 3:19