Eighteen hours ago, brothers and sisters in New Zealand gathered to worship God. City by city and church by church they joined their voices together to praise him in song, to call out to him in prayer, and to hear from him through the Word. So, too, did believers in the easternmost reaches of Russia. As their worship services drew near to a close, Australians in Sydney, then Adelaide, then Perth began to sing their own calls to worship, as did Christians in Japan and Korea. Next, millions of Chinese believers added their voices, as did Filipinos and Indonesians. By now nearly a quarter of the earth was resounding with the sound of Christian worship.
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Soon Christians in central Russia began to worship together as did believers in Singapore, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Friends in Kolkata, New Delhi, Mumbai and a host of other cities, towns, and villages in India began to sing their praises to God. Then joining the chorus were brothers and sisters from Western Asia. Already “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” had gathered in fellowship to bring their offerings of praise.
Now Eastern Europe and Eastern Africa began to stir—Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, Ukraine, Greece, and Romania. Songs were sung in countless languages and hands were lifted in tiny villages and great cities. The sun continued its journey so continental Europe awoke along with Scandinavia and central Africa. Then Christians in England and Scotland and Iceland and Portugal and Ghana and Nigeria began to worship the one true God in a host of different tongues and expressions.
Just as their songs began to wane, worship broke out in the Americas—first Brazil, then Venezuela, then at “mile 1” of North America, the city of St. John’s on the East Coast of Canada. A thousand songs, ten thousand songs, broke out all once.
Now finally, finally, at 10:01 AM Eastern Standard Time, I rise from my little plastic chair in a little gym in a little school in Toronto, and add I my little voice to the great chorus.
And as I stand to sing this call to worship, I know that before I have received the benediction, believers in Dallas will have begun to sing, and after them friends in Alberta, then California and Alaska. Last of all, the sun’s rays will break the darkness over Hawaii and, they, too will worship. And then, as they sing their doxology, they will sing it for themselves and for me and for every Christian from east to west, from pole to pole.
For one day—one day out of the week—the whole earth will have joined to give God the honor due his name.
Let every creature rise and bring
Peculiar honors to our King;
Angels descend with songs again,
And earth repeat the loud Amen.