THE SONG OF MOSES AND THE LAMB

THE SONG OF MOSES AND THE LAMB

                Have you ever sat reading Revelation 15 and wondered why all of the redeemed are standing on the Sea of Glass and singing the Song of Moses and the Lamb? To be honest with you I have never asked that question. It is one of my favorite scenes in the Bible. It is the great crowd of the redeemed standing before the throne of God. It is a glorious scene and a glorious song.

                Like I was just saying, the question of why we are singing the Song of Moses and the Lamb had never occurred to me until I had this dream early Sunday morning. It was one of those dreams that need time to interpret, so, even though it woke me up shortly after midnight I did not publish it right away. So now I will try to unpack what the dream was saying, praying that the Holy Spirit will help me to interpret it correctly.  So here goes…

SUNDAY MORNING AT ABOUT 12:30 AM:

                 Just moments ago I woke from a dream in which I was saying the following:

                ”THE TIME IS COMING WHEN A PEOPLE WILL WALK IN BOTH THE TORAH AND IN THE LIVING WORD OF GOD FOR THEY WILL SING THE SONG OF MOSES AND THE LAMB.”

                Over the past few years I have occasionally awakened from a dream where I am preaching something with great conviction. There is something in the dream that I am trying to get across to the people. I am preaching it with great power and conviction and so much so that it wakes me up. And contrary to most dreams which quickly fade away, these dreams stick with me. So I have learned to get up immediately and write these dreams down, for they become the subject that I will write about that day.

                I believe that if the Holy Spirit gave me the dream then He will also help me to unpack it, so I will begin with some questions for which I hope that the Holy Spirit will give clear answers. For instance, why does this say “BOTH THE TORAH AND THE LIVING WORD OF GOD?”  In what sense is the Torah considered to be dead, while the New Testament is considered to be living?

                Even as I ask the question I think I know the answer: The Law as it is written on stone is dead, while the Law written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit is alive.

                The second question I would ask is this: If the living Torah written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit fulfills the dead Torah, then why would there need to be a people who walk in both the “dead and the living Torah?” This is a very tough question

                Is this not a confirmation of what I have been saying lately that the Old Testament provides the DNA for the New Testament and that we must restore the DNA at this time to correct our Gospel which has gone off track and lost some of its important elements? For instance, is God drawing our attention to the feast days in order to correct the doctrine of false grace? Let’s consider these facts:

1.       According to Jesus there is a profound difference between destroying the Law and fulfilling the Law. Matthew 5:17.

2.       In fact Jesus said that not one jot or tittle shall in anywise be removed from the Law until all is fulfilled. Mt. 5:18, Luke 16:17.

3.       Paul is being misquoted today when we say that the Law was done away. For He said: “Do we make void the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary we establish the Law.” Romans 3:31.

4.       Have we failed to make the distinction between the  moral Law of God and the Law contained in ordinances, which involved the sacrifice of animals and the many rituals pointing forward to the true Lamb of God ?

5.       Paul makes this distinction between Ordinances and the eternal Law of God in Col. 2:16, 17 saying: “Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day- things which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”

                My goodness! By the time I am done unpacking this dream I will have offended everyone on every side of the Law issue, so what is God telling us and how do we reconcile these issues between Law and grace, between the living and the dead Torah and what kind of people is God looking for who will walk in both and fulfill both in some way?

                Revelation 15 has long been a favorite scene of mine because it shows God’s people standing on the Sea of Glass in heaven singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. I like to think that Jesus took John forward in time to see the actual event and as such, he is actually seeing us (You and me) standing before the throne singing the songs of the redeemed. But why are we singing the Song of Moses and the Lamb?

                As many times as I have quoted that song, (For I know it by memory) it never occurred to me even once to ask why this crowd is singing the Song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. Is it because they are a mixed crowd of both Jews and Gentiles? Well, maybe. After all, in the previous chapter we see 144,000 standing on Mt. Zion and some say that they are standing in literal Jerusalem here on earth but it goes on to describe this crowd as having been purchased FROM the earth… and that they have been purchased FROM among men as first Fruits to God and to the Lamb. So it sounds to me like their geographical location is heaven.

                Now we know that the 144,000 found in Revelation  7 are Israelites, for they are listed according to their tribes, but we have to ask if the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 14 are the same group or if these are a group of 144,000 from the church? Does one group represent the remnant of Israel, while the other represents the remnant body of Christ? I don’t think I have a definitive answer for that.

                This group of 144,000 is presented just after the Mark of the Beast in Revelation 13 and just before the final messages of the three angels which is followed by the two sickle harvests in Revelation 14. To me it is quite obvious that the crowd standing on the Sea of Glass in chapter 15 represents those who have just been harvested by the first sickle harvest in chapter 14. They have come off victorious from the Beast and from his image and from the number of his name. IN other words, they have not taken the Mark.

                It is interesting that the Song of Moses recorded in Revelation 15 and the song of Moses recorded in Exodus 15 have almost nothing in common. Rabbi Steven Ben Noon says that the song of Moses recorded in Exodus 15 serves as a prophetic picture of the last days when Yeshua defeats the Horse and rider of Revelation 6, the antichrist. Even in verses 1 and 2 of Exodus 15 it says. I will sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted, the horse and the rider He has hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my Yeshua. (Salvation)

                So when we sing the song of Moses and the Lamb recorded for us in Revelation 15 we will be singing about the mighty works of God in both destroying Pharaoh and his armies in the Red Sea AND for destroying the singular horse and rider of the apocalypse, the antichrist, whom He will also throw into the lake of fire in Revelation 19:20

                But again I ask: Who are these people that the Lord referred to in my dream who will WALK IN BOTH THE TORAH AND THE LIVING WORD OF GOD who will sing the song of Moses and the Lamb?

                There is a remnant people mentioned in Revelation 12:17 and again in Revelation 14:12 who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. So if they keep the Commandments and they bear the testimony of Jesus, is this not a song of Moses (The Commandments) and the Lamb? (The testimony of Jesus, the Lamb of God?)

                I know one thing for sure: Isaiah paints for us a picture of a yet future time immediately after the slaughter of the wrath of God upon the earth and he says:

                “And I will set a sign among them and will send survivors from them to the nations; Tarshish, Put, Lud, Meshech, Rosh, Tubal and Javan, to the distant coastlands that have neither heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they will declare My glory among the nations. Then they  shall bring all your brethren from all the nations as a grain offering to the Lord, on horses, in chariots, on litters, on mules, and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says the Lord, just as the sons of Israel bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord.” I will also take some of them for priests and for Levites,” says the Lord. “For just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I make will endure before Me,” declares the Lord, “So your offspring and your name will endure and it shall be from new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the Lord.” Isa. 66:19-23

                1 Cor. 15:51-53 shows us being caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Likewise 1Thess. 4:14-17 shows us being caught up to heaven. But then Revelation 19:11—16 shows us returning with Jesus to earth at His second coming even as Zechariah 14:1-8 shows Jesus returning with His saints to set foot on the Mt. of Olives to take up His earthly millennial reign from Jerusalem.  And again Revelation 20:4 shows those who have been beheaded for their faith coming to life and reigning with Christ for 1000 years. And Jesus also promises those that overcome in Rev. 2:26 that they will be given authority over the nations and they will rule the nations with a rod of iron. Likewise Revelation 5: 10 says: “Worthy art Thou to take the book and to break its seals; for Thou was slain and did purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nations. And Thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; AND THEY WILL REIGN UPON THE EARTH.” Wow!

                In the end, the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb will be one and the people will be one and we will gather from every nation tribe and tongue and people to worship before the Lord. That which is eternal will endure forever and that which is temporary will be removed forever.

                This Song of Moses and the Lamb may reflect God’s desire written in Ephesians 2:14-18 where it says: “For He Himself is our peace who made both groups ( Jews and Gentiles) into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make two into one new man, thus establishing peace and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity    AND HE CAME AND PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR, for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.”

                This is a highly important text and one that has often been misquoted. It is not the Ten Commandments that are done away with here, but the Law contained in ordinances. That is to say that Jesus took on human flesh so that He could become the true sacrifice to which all of the animal sacrifices and the various types and shadows pointed.

                It is obvious that we can’t do away with the Ten Commandments, for if God had not given them, we would have had to write them ourselves in order to have an ordered civilization. Picture for instance what kind of civilization we would have if there were no law concerning murder, or theft. If there were no law then we would indeed live in an evolutionary world of the survival of the fittest. The strong would get all the food and the weak would starve to death.

                Whatever the case may be, we need to be able to distinguish the difference between the moral Law and the Law of ordinances and animal sacrifices. If we don’t then we preach heresy. If we preach that the whole Law was done away we are not telling the truth. It can’t be done away because it is the basis of judgment and somehow we see pictured in heaven, a redeemed people standing on the Sea of Glass who have reconciled this truth and they sing the Song of Moses and the Lamb.

                Whatever the case may be, we need to invest our lives in things that are eternal in nature for only those things which are eternal will make it into the coming age. So what God calls “Holy” we must not call profane and what He has called profane, we must not call holy and only the Holy Spirit can help us to know the difference.

                Some questions just don’t have simple answers, but I know this: We must by all means both worship and obey the Lord for He is the coming King of kings and Lord of lords and He will judge the nations.  We often talk of offering up sacrifices of praise, but the Lord would remind us that “to obey is better than sacrifice,” (1 Sam. 15:22) for praises that are offered without obedience are hypocritical and empty. Selah