And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. -- Revelation 4:8 (KJV)
They rest not. Present tense, no gaps, no shift change. While you were asleep last night and while you were hunting for your keys this morning, holy, holy, holy went on without a pause.
That cuts against how we usually handle the word worship. Ours is something we begin — gather the people, pick the song, someone counts it in, and the thing starts. Revelation 4 hands you a song already at full volume, running before you arrived and continuing after your attention wanders off. Whatever you do Sunday morning or over a sink on a weekday, you are not starting it. You are joining it.
The words themselves have the same reach. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come — one sentence taking hold of all three tenses and handing them to one person. The creatures are not reporting a mood they happen to be in. They are stating something that has not changed, which is why the line does not wear out.
Who Is Already There
And the room is not one you would have put together. The new song names the crowd: redeemed to God by blood “out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.” Kindred, tongue, people, nation — four ways of saying that most of the people in there are nothing like you and never were.
They are not gathered because their kinds got along. They are there because one death bought all of them, which is the only thing that could hold a crowd like that together.
So the singing does not wait on your mood, and the guest list was not built on your preferences. Two things you did not arrange and cannot improve.
You could stay quiet through all of it. None of it depends on your voice, and the creatures will not miss a syllable.
Somewhere in that room are people whose language you would not recognize, bought the same way you were, who have been at this since before you were born. The song does not need you. There is room in it anyway.
