LORD GOD OMNIPOTENT

The word ‘omnipotent’ is of Latin origin, meaning literally ‘all powerful’. Although it appears only once in the King James Version of the Bible, the original Greek word is used some ten times in the New Testament, being translated on the other nine occasions as ‘almighty’. The setting of this thrilling title of the Lord is the heart-stirring’Hallelujah Chorus’ that resounds throughout heaven when Babylon is finally overthrown and the Lord Jesus is about to make His glorious return to the earth to establish His kingdom. The four hallelujahs that follow the fall of Babylon are punctuated by a voice coming out of the throne, saying, ‘Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great’, v. 5. Immediately there is a tremendous, swelling hymn of praise, the like of which has never been heard before. And who is the precentor for this great hymn? Who leads the praise of the redeemed? It is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, His lovely voice setting the pitch and the pace as all the ransomed souls unite in the final, crashing’Alleluia’! And why the great shout of the redeemed? Because ‘the Lord God omnipotent reigneth’.

There was another occasion when the Lord Jesus led the singing in the midst of His own, and that scene was so different from this one. He had just kept the Passover in the upper room, and after Judas the betrayer had left, the Lord spoke to His loved ones of the continuing memorial to Himself. ‘And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives’, Mark 14. 26. That hymn would probably have been Psalm 118, the last of the six psalms of the ‘Hallel’ meaning ‘praise’, the root also of ‘alleluia’. Contemplate that touching scene as the Lord Jesus, the shadow of the cross looming over Him, sang with His own, ‘This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it’, Ps. 118. 24. Soon He would experience the terrible sufferings of the cross. He would be alone in His agony and shame, desolate when forsaken by man and by God. Let our hearts ring with alleluias today as we remember that the Man of the cross is now the Man on the throne, and soon it will be known that ‘the Lord God omnipotent reigneth’!