THE MUSIC ROOM“And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne….” –Revelation 14:2, 3a
“Heavenly music” to my husband means Southern Gospel songs, including “It’s Your First Day in Heaven.” One of my top picks (besides the hymn “Be Thou My Vision”) is Handel’s Messiah. As an amateur violinist, stumbling through my part for that work in worship concerts, I sometimes wonder how it would be to play it perfectly in a heavenly orchestra. Then there’s my son, with a basement music studio where he “jams” with friends playing an array of guitars, electronic keyboards, and drums. He wouldn’t mind picking an electric guitar for heaven’s worship band--with as many amplifiers and sound effect pedals as possible! My daughter, a violinist, would sign up for sacred string quartets. Mitch from my church would wail a soulful praise harmonica.
If the music and instruments we know on earth existed in heaven, its “Music Room” would be enormous beyond understanding. We don’t know just what God plans musically for Heaven, but we know it’s an important part. It’s been significant on earth from the beginning. Widespread tradition claims music was the first language that God spoke to create the universe. Poet Christina Rossetti remarked that Heaven is revealed to earth as the homeland of music. (1)
The Bible says on the day the earth’s foundations were set, “the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy”(Job 38:7). Jubal, the seventh generation from Adam, was called “the father of all who play the harp and flute”(Gen. 4:22). Thousands of years of music later, Solomon’s temple had a staff of 288 priestly musicians just for worship music (1 Chron. 25:7). Imagine that for your church! Truly, God valued music in worship.
The Bible says Heaven’s worship music will be musically exciting and loud. John’s vision included loud thunder peals, roars like rushing waters, trumpets, and harps, along with innumerable believers and angelic beings praising God. “Then I heard every creature in Heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea,” John wrote, “and all that is in him, singing, ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’”(Rev. 5:13). The last book of the Bible calls this “a new song” (Rev. 14:3). Whatever their lyrics and music lines, Heaven’s songs will never grow old. That’s great news for those who mentally disconnect while singing the same old choruses and hymns at church. In Heaven, too, we’ll finally put to rest those church divisions over whether we should have traditional hymns or contemporary choruses.
One Bible teacher noted that some who claim to have had visions of Heaven while “dead” (they were later revived) described its music as entirely different from earthly music. They said it was “like comparing a toddler’s banging on a toy xylophone with a symphony orchestra.” (2)
Could some of earth’s inspired worship music be a part of Heaven’s worship? We don’t know, but we do know that some great Christian music has bridged diverse cultures. The late J. Oswald Sanders, a well-loved Bible teacher, told of traveling three days through China’s mountains by horseback to a primitive village where a conference drew a thousand people. To his surprise, the program included a performance of “The Hallelujah Chorus” (from Handel’s Messiah) sung in Chinese along with other praise songs. (3)
Even more profound, has Heaven’s music, hidden in our hearts, become expressed through earthly songs? Years after spearing five missionaries attempting a friendly contact, Waodoni Indians of Ecuador, now Christians, recalled hearing strange music in the treetops as the missionaries died. One Waodoni woman said she heard the same “strange music” when she listened to her missionary-friend’s record of Christian choir music. Decades later, a still-living warrior from the time of the murders heard a recording of a music arrangement based on the hymn “Every Tribe, Every Nation.” In his native tongue, he declared, “manami ihindabopa” [“just as I heard it”]—meaning it matched the tree-top angel choir he heard that fateful day. (4)
As you anticipate the Music Room, recall these lines from the hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”: “Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise./Teach me some melodious sonnet,/Sung by flaming tongues above.” In your spirit, clear your throat, wet your reed, warm up your horn, tune that stringed instrument. Get ready for the matchless Heavenly praise concert that will release unfettered joy in worship.
Prayer: Dear God, even if my “joyful noise” of praise to you on earth left a lot to be desired, I can’t wait to do it the right way in Heaven! Amen.
(1) J. Oswald Sanders, Heaven: Better by Far (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Discovery House Publishers, 1993), p. 106.
(2) Peter Kreeft, “What Will Heaven Be Like?”, Christianity Today, http://ctlibrary.com/print.html?id=7409, accessed June 27, 2006.
(3) Sanders, pp. 106, 7
(4) Stephen Saint, “Angels, Yes, I Think It Was Angels,” January 30, 2002, from http://www.itecusa.org/itec_024.htm, accessed July 3, 2008.
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