And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. - Revelation 14:3

Today's Scripture Reading (June 10, 2021): Revelation 14

Someone once asked what my favorite song might be. I didn't have a ready answer. The truth is that I have a lot of songs that I like, and I tend to cycle through various artists, listening to one for a while before moving on to another, and my favorite song changes with the artist. Most of my favorite songs and artists are from the seventies and eighties. Is that because the seventies and eighties were the golden age of music? Maybe, but I don't think so. The real reason that I keep returning to this music is that it is the music I listened to when I began to make an emotional connection with the medium. And when I hear some of the music from the seventies today, it takes me back and connects me with some of the same emotions and feelings that I felt when music was just beginning to make its connection with me. 

Every generation has to make its own connection with music. Music seems to exercise a different power over each of us, but somehow, we all seem to make that connection in some way. My relationship with music began by listening to a transistor radio placed under my pillow as I went to sleep. My transistor radio was transformed into a clock radio as I grew older. As I began my journey into music, there was only one AM music station (and no FM stations) to which I enjoyed listening. Over the next decade, that would change drastically with the addition of many other possible sources for the music to which I was connecting. I can still sing many of the lyrics and tunes from those early songs. And I admit that as I get older, it seems, sometimes, to get harder to learn the new songs, and my comfort level is often to go back to singing the older songs. But it is still imperative for every generation to connect with the music of their era, no matter what those songs might be.

John looks at the 144,000 and listens to them sing a new song. John then reports that no one could learn the words of the new song except for the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. I love Charles Spurgeon's explanation for this phenomenon.

"Heaven is not the place to learn that song; it must be learned on the earth. You must learn here the notes of free grace and dying love; and when you have mastered their melody, you will be able to offer to the Lord the tribute of a grateful heart, even in heaven, and blend it with the harmonies eternal."

The song of the Lamb is not one we will be able to learn later; we need to spend the time to learn it now. Only then will we be ready to join in the heavenly choir.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Revelation 15