“Lord, who will not fear and glorify Your name? Because You alone are holy, for all the nations will come and worship before You because Your righteous acts have been revealed” (Revelation 15:4 HCSB).
The song of the victorious multitude of Revelation 15:2 now ends with the great crescendo of verse four: “All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed” (NIV). This verse offers an opportunity to revisit the wide-ranging topic of worship.
As mentioned in our earlier look at Revelation chapter five, the Biblical concept of worship encompasses a loving attitude of reverence for God accompanied by an external expression of honor, humility, and respect. “Worship” also conveys the idea of attributing worth to someone or something. That definition is reportedly derived from the Old English word worthscipe, or “worth-ship,” a word that described a “condition of being worthy.” (1)
With these definitions in mind, we can say that “worship” is not limited to the domain of the religious. You see, everyone possesses something that fulfills the “condition of being worthy” in his or her life. Whatever occupies the highest position of worth in our lives is that which serves as the ultimate object of our worship.
Whenever we dismiss God as the object of our worship, we must replace Him with something else to fill that position. That “something else” doesn’t have to be a spiritual belief or religious conviction. For instance, we might substitute a person, an object, a concept, or ourselves as the focus of our worship. In fact, the Biblical book of Romans devotes a significant portion of chapter one to a discussion of that very subject.
The point is that we attribute the highest position of worth to anything we value, love, honor, respect, or fear the most. If God does not occupy that position, then something of lesser value will inevitably fill the void and prompt a violation of the first Commandment.
Finally, we should note that John, the author of Revelation, will make the mistake of attempting to worship an angelic being later in this book. That quickly led to a corrective response: “…No, don’t worship me. I am a servant of God, just like you and your brothers and sisters who testify about their faith in Jesus. Worship only God…” (Revelation 19:10 NLT). If John was capable of such an error, we should be more diligent in seeking to avoid a similar mistake.
Therefore, we should consider this subject carefully, for as Jesus said in the midst of His wilderness temptation, “…’It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve'” (Luke 4:8 ESV).
(1) What does worship mean? (n.d.). https://www.definitions.net/definition/worship