Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
10/24/2022
Worship as a Weapon.
I love listening to worship music. It calms my soul. It focuses me on Jesus! It invites the presence of God into my life. I often have a heightened presence of God during that time.
But what it’s not is something I do only when I feel good. Or when everything is going well. It is supposed to be who we are! Regardless of our feelings or circumstances. Yes, that’s hard. Obedience is hard!
I think Worship like prayer has a dual nature. On one hand, it creates a perfect atmosphere to connect with God and on the other hand, it is used to fight against the work of the enemy.
Look at the example in 2 Chronicle 20:
Here is a backdrop: Jehoshaphat had returned to serving God after a near-death experience by aligning with the wrong people. How often has that happened to us? We deserve to have fun. These people are good people that know how to party and have a good time. I know when to cut it off. I know when to say no when it goes over the line. Jehoshaphat narrowly escaped death with hanging with the wrong people. We dumb down our spirits and lay temptation out to our flesh and compromise the things of God for the things of man. It will always be a train wreck.
The people of Moab with the Ammonites, came to battle against Jehoshaphat: This great multitude was a significant threat to Israel.
Yet the sense here is that he feared the LORD, and was more awed at the power and majesty of God than at the destructive force of his enemies. Jehoshaphat set the example through his own personal devotion. He would not call upon the people of Judah to seek the LORD in a way that he did not.
Jehoshaphat called the nation to express their humility and total dependence upon God through a public fast – that is, abstaining from all food for a period of time (typically a day or more) and drinking only water.
In Mark 9:28-29, Jesus explained that prayer and fasting together were a source of significant spiritual power. It isn’t as if prayer and fasting make us more worthy to be blessed or do God’s work; it is that prayer and fasting draw us closer to the heart of God, and they put us more in line with His power. Fasting is a powerful expression of our total dependence on Him.
I do not know what calamity you are facing. I don’t know what the enemy has schemed against you but I know that some things only come out by prayer and fasting. Matt 17:21 Listen to perhaps the most sensible, pious, correct, and one of the most elegant prayers under the old testament dispensation.
vs 5-12 “Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new court, and said: “O LORD God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in Your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand You? Are You not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever? And they dwell in it, and have built You a sanctuary in it for Your name, saying, ‘If disaster comes upon us; sword, judgment, pestilence, or famine; we will stand before this temple and in Your presence (for Your name is in this temple), and cry out to You in our affliction, and You will hear and save.’ And now, here are the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir; whom You would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and did not destroy them; here they are, rewarding us by coming to throw us out of Your possession which You have given us to inherit. O our God, will You not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us;
nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.”
Charles Spurgeon said, “I like to plunge my hand into the promises, and then I find myself able to grasp with a grip of determination the mighty faithfulness of God. An omnipotent plea with God is: ‘Do as thou hast said.’”
Selman said of vs 12: “The final phrase, We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you, is one of the most touching expressions of trust in God to be found anywhere in the Bible.”
Spurgeon went on to say: “They said, ‘Our eyes are upon thee.’ What did they mean by that? They meant, ‘Lord, if help does come, it must come from thee. We are looking to thee for it. It cannot come from anywhere else, so we look to thee. But we believe it will come, men will not look for that which they know will not come. We feel sure it will come, but we do not know how, so we are looking; we do not know when, but we are looking. We do not know what thou wouldest have us to do, but as the servant looks to her mistress, so are we looking to thee, Lord. Lord, we are looking.’”
The Lord told him to go down against them. You will not need to fight. (Wow they didn’t even need to show up to fight, Just bow down and acknowledge him as King of King. He said, “You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the LORD” vs 16-17 .
That is the God I worship, how about you?
Vs 18-19 “Then the Levites of the children of the Kohathites and of the children of the Korahites stood up to praise the LORD God of Israel with voices loud and high”: First they worshipped with the posture of their bodies and hearts;
And then in vs 20-21 it says: So they rose early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the LORD your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.” And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to the LORD, and who should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army and were saying:
“Praise the LORD,
For His mercy endures forever.”
His army was led by an invincible army of praise and worship. Perhaps we need to change the tact we have been taking to battle the circumstances standing in front of us.
Loren Daigle Rescue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYR0xP1j4PY
