The Lord is setting before us a way of life. We have been changing constantly, and we have actually come to the place where we are conditioned to change. Before, we changed reluctantly. Even when we were adamant in wanting to change, there were deep, built-in traps in our very nature that were resisting change. Our Lord saw that this was always a part of human nature, and He said, No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better. Luke 5:39, KJV. And we are seeing this, too.
Probably the greatest evidence of this is in the Charismatic movement. People will receive the Holy Spirit and still try to sew a new piece of unshrunken cloth onto an old garment (Luke 5:36). They try to put the new wine in an old wineskin and say, “We’re going to stay with this old Babylonian form and fill it full of new wine; and God bless us, we’re going to be what God wants in the earth.” Then they wonder why their wine bags are popping all over the country. They are bursting because the old wineskins cannot endure the new wine.
The term “wineskins” goes back to the time before the days of glass bottles. When people wanted to make a container, they would sew up a skin very tightly and then pour in the wine. But if they put new wine into an old skin, then as the wine began to work, it would burst the old skin, because the old skin had dried and become brittle.
The same thing is true in the spiritual realm. God is trying to condition us to change. Is there an oil that we could put on some of you old wineskins, a precious ointment of the Kingdom that would bring you into a new state of resilience and flexibility? Wouldn’t you like a spiritual massage with some kind of oil that would make you more pliable to the things of the Lord, so that you would submit more easily to the pressures that He puts on you?
Let us look in the Word for keys that relate to this one idea: What will help us when we are under pressure? What will help us to really change? Not only are we conditioned to change now, but we are eager for it. We want our services to reach a new level. We want to hear the Word and be changed by it. Anything that is a block or an impediment to the free course of the Word of God must be removed from our lives as quickly as we can be rid of it.
First, we will read a passage in the New Testament, and then one in the Old Testament. The New Testament Scripture—Philippians 4:4–8—will underline a principle; the Old Testament passage—II Chronicles 20—shows us a historical analogy that we can apply to our hearts today. This will be simple, yet profoundly basic to shake our thinking and show us clearly what God wants.
To give you a little background, where was Paul when he wrote his Epistle to the Philippians? He was in jail. What is one of the themes of this Epistle? Joy and rejoicing. Paul was never singing a prisoner’s song, moaning and complaining about his circumstances. Instead, there was the joy and the rejoicing under all sorts of adversity.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your forbearing spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. Philippians 4:4–8.
There has to be a focus in your heart, at all times, upon praise to the Lord. You must become so objective that you are worshiping the Lord and rejoicing in Him, even though in your own life the pressures seem to be unbearable and you do not know which way to turn.
When someone gets discouraged, we often say, “Well, he’s been going through quite a bit. He lost his job, and things have been kind of tough, and he’s been under quite a few testings; so he dropped out.” But he did not drop out because of those things; he dropped out because he lost his viewpoint. He no longer could see things as he ought to see them. His vision was distorted until the present scene was not related to the overall picture of what God was really doing in his life; he could not relate the pressures that were upon him to God working out His will in his life. He could not see that all things were working together for good (Romans 8:28), and that he was exactly where God wanted him to be.
How should you pray when you are in trouble? “Lord, I thank You that I’ve got You just where You want me. Amen.” This is exactly the mutual condition we have with God. We have Him with His faithfulness and our laying hold upon it; and we have His dealings with us as He has positioned us, right in that focal point of dealing where our lives have to respond to the perfect will that He has for us. We cannot look at the present scene and become so weary and so harassed that we forget these things.
Everything goes better with praise. That is the idea in this passage to the Philippians. Paul wrote, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving … Philippians 4:6. We understand what supplication is. We have used the word “intercession” so much that we have almost overused it; but do we really grasp the full meaning of it?
Intercession means to pray and to be given to supplication and to continual prayer before the Lord. But you can become so focused upon a situation, or upon an individual you are praying for, that you become almost negative. And the more you pray, the less faith you have, because the very focus of your heart becomes wrong in its focus.
Paul said to pray “with thanksgiving.” Everything goes better with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, because that is what makes you believe that God is injected into every area of your life. God has projected Himself into every phase of your being, and He is the Lord of your life.
Generally, people do not understand what the plan of salvation means. They get the idea that it is a way of escaping hell, and they do not understand that God’s plan was never that negative. It was to bring many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:10). He has to redeem them out of their sin; but sin seems to be a necessary thing to establish the fact that a human being can never be, by his own efforts, what God had in mind for him in the first place. Sin had to come into the world, so that we would understand that God never intended the human race to be a success as a human race (Romans 8:3–4). The purpose of the human race was to produce a divine race, a royal priesthood, a chosen generation, a people who were to come forth with a whole new nature.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. I Peter 2:9.
… and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:23–24.
… and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him. Colossians 3:10.
“Well, where does it all lead to?”
Every one of us is to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). This is the predestined plan of God. Therefore, God has to bring everyone to a constant awareness of failure on the human level. He has to emphasize this. There will always have to be pressures that you cannot meet. There have to be needs for which you cannot find an answer. There have to be deep problems in your nature that will have no solution.
There is no way, not on a human level, that you can solve your problems, meet your needs, or be anything but an absolute failure.
We are constantly being pressured by God to appropriate more of Him in our lives. It is a divine takeover. He has to increase; we have to decrease (John 3:30). Constantly that pressure is there.
And so there is only one thing to do: Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord. Say, “Hallelujah, Jesus! You’ve got me just where You want me. I’m dangling, but You’re the One who holds me.”
This is the kind of truth that you can apply anytime, anyplace. There is an old story about a king who said he would give wealth to a famous wise man of the East, if that man could tell the king something he could live by all the time—when he was happy, when he was sad, anytime. So the wise man engraved upon a scroll, “And this, too, shall pass away.” In every pleasure, the king was reminded that it was a transitory thing. In every trouble, he was reminded that it would not last long. All of these things would pass away. The man won a great reward—he was a very wise man; but any of us could have told the king that. However, I am telling you something superior to that.
I am telling you that the greatest is yet to come. And you can always apply that truth.
The greater things of God are yet to come. In whatever you are going through, whatever pressures you are facing, look up and say, “Hallelujah, the greater things of God are yet to come.” And when you are on the mountaintop of blessing, and you are dancing and shouting and wanting to build three tabernacles (Matthew 17:4), then say to yourself, “The greater things of God are yet to come.”
This is something we can live by. We can praise the Lord, but we should add one phrase to that: “I praise Thee, Lord, for the greater things of God are yet to come.” Always the wisdom of God will teach you to praise. “In everything give thanks” (I Thessalonians 5:18; Ephesians 5:20), always praising God in everything—everything! Everything! Because everything goes better with praise.
This is a principle that underlies change. The change will be easily accomplished. You say, “Well, I would rather sing the blues.” If you sing the blues, you will be up to your ears in the Slough of Despond, if you remember The Pilgrim’s Progress; and someone will have to dig you out. The thing for you to do is to learn how not to murmur or complain, but to say, “I thank Thee, Lord, that You work everything after the counsel of Your own will” (Ephesians 1:11).
Do you believe that God would deliver a man over to defeat? You had better believe it. Some cocky Pharisee comes along, as in the parable that Jesus told, and boasts how good he is, saying, “I thank You, God, that I’m not like other people.” He doesn’t really thank God; he just calls attention to the fact that he has done such a good job (Luke 18:9–14). The Lord looks down on that man and perhaps He sends some angels to pull the rug out from under him, so that he falls flat on his face. When he gets up, he is very indignant, “I don’t see how I could have fallen into that sin. Oh, the devil made me do it!” But the Lord looks down at him and says, “No, I did it.” Why would the Lord do such a thing to a man?
The only hope for a man in eternity is that he will not rely upon human righteousness, but upon the righteousness that is imparted by faith. God has to make him fail on the human level so that he can succeed on the divine level.
I wonder how many people have gotten too cocky on the human level, without humbly praising and worshiping God, and they failed.
Is this a new kind of teaching? No, it is just the teaching which explains what happens to you. Have you ever had the Lord pull the rug out from under you? And you were so bothered and embarrassed, because you had thought you were invincible! This is why the Word says, Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. I Corinthians 10:12, KJV. It also speaks about how the Lord resists the proud (James 4:6). Or, to translate it in free, modern slang, “The Lord pulls the rug out from under the proud.” He deals with them!
But oh, how the Lord is always blessing the humble man and woman who loves Him and says, “Lord, I’m nothing. I just love You and praise You.” The Lord keeps an invisible rain of glory coming down upon that heart. And when that man or woman walks away, they are not aware of it, but the Lord has made another deposit of Himself.
“There has no temptation taken you,” the Lord says, “but such as is common to man. And God will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able to bear” (I Corinthians 10:13).
“Oh, God, I thought I was a man of steel; but I can’t bear this.” “That is true, but you can bear it if you appropriate a little more of Me. With the temptation I will make a way of escape. And there is only one way out of this—you’re never going to rise to the next level unless you throw out some weight.”
“Oh, Lord, I will; I will. What do I throw out?”
“Here’s a lot of the old flesh. Just throw it out. Throw it out, and rise up to the next level.”
He will make a way of escape, that you can be able to bear it. And each time that He puts you in a corner, you come out with more of the Lord and with less of you than went into the corner.
Are you determined that you are going to be given more to praising the Lord, and that you are going to recognize His hand in your life more and more? Every one of us is experiencing this. We kept saying, “God’s going to meet us; God’s going to meet us.” Now everyone is finding that they are more reliant upon the Lord, and less self-confident. There is more faith and more praise and more worship, and the Word keeps coming forth all the more. Oh, we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and in due time He will exalt us (I Peter 5:6). He is bringing us forth.
This is what happened in the twentieth chapter of II Chronicles. There we see the story of a man who found himself in all kinds of trouble, and he learned how to praise God under pressure.
II Chronicles 20:2–5: Then some came and reported to Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea, out of Syria and behold, they are in Hazazon-tamar (that is En-gedi).” And Jehoshaphat was afraid and turned his attention to seek the Lord; and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. So Judah gathered together to seek help from the Lord; they even came from all the cities of Judah to seek the Lord. Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord before the new court, and he began to pray.
We will read Jehoshaphat’s prayer, because every prayer should be filled with this sort of persistence. God is not forgetful. But He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and He responds best when you say, “Here it is in the fine print of Your Covenants to us.” The blessings happen when people say, “This is what You have said all along. Now do it, O God.” He tries to teach us how to pray and not to faint, and He tells us about a widow who continually petitioned the judge to avenge her. The judge finally said, “I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me” (Luke 18:1–7). The Greek reads, “Lest she hit me under the eye.”
In other words, God is saying, “Assault Me. Go ahead, assault Me.” He encouraged Jacob to wrestle with Him (Genesis 32:24–32).
You didn’t know this was going to be like a wrestling match, did you? But God entices you to come and lay hold upon His faithfulness. He is reluctant, but not because He does not want to do it—He wants to do it very much. But He assumes reluctance to draw out your faith and your laying hold upon His faithfulness.
Let’s look at the way Jehoshaphat prayed. Notice all his questions. Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord before the new court, and he said, “O Lord, the God of our fathers, art Thou not God in the heavens? And art Thou not ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in Thy hand so that no one can stand against Thee. Didst Thou not, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before Thy people Israel, and give it to the descendants of Abraham Thy friend forever? And they lived in it and have built Thee a sanctuary there for Thy name, saying, ‘Should evil come upon us, the sword, or judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before Thee (for Thy name is in this house) and cry to Thee in our distress, and Thou wilt hear and deliver us.’
“And now behold, the sons of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom Thou didst not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt (they turned aside from them and did not destroy them), behold how they are rewarding us, by coming to drive us out from Thy possession which Thou hast given us as an inheritance. O our God, wilt Thou not judge them? For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on Thee.” II Chronicles 20:5–12.
One of the greatest things in your praying that can happen is that you have that proper focus on the Lord. You cannot be continually praising the Lord without that focus. If you are looking at all the troubles and you say, “I praise You, Lord; I praise You, Lord,” that is like whistling your way through a cemetery. Jesus said, “When these things begin to come to pass, lift up your eyes, lift up your head, for your redemption draws nigh” (Luke 21:28). Put your focus up high: “I praise You, Lord, that You’re coming again.” You have the promise of God that one day the lion will lie down with the lamb (Isaiah 11:6; 65:25), but do not look at the roaring lion roaming about seeking whom he may devour (I Peter 5:8). Just keep reminding God. And in so doing, your praise and your worship come up to the Lord. Everything goes better with praise.
What happened after Jehoshaphat prayed? And all Judah was standing before the Lord, with their infants, their wives, and their children. Then in the midst of the assembly the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah … and he said, “… Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s.’” II Chronicles 20:13–15.
It is good to have a prophet who can set your sense of values straight. You say, “I’m under assault!” It is not your battle. “I’m in warfare!” It is not your battle. You must remember to keep your objective. The battle is not yours; it is the Lord’s. And in the book of Revelation, when the time finally comes to finish everything, we see that there is One who comes on a white horse and He has a name written, “The Word of God”; and out of His mouth goes a sharp, two-edged sword (Revelation 19:11–16). He is going to consume the beast and the false prophet and all those who worship the beast—everything (Revelation 19:19–21). It is all going to go. And in the wake of the One on the white horse comes a great army on white horses. But He is the conqueror. We are just going along for the ride. It is not our battle; the battle is His.
“That sounds so good. Then we can relax.”
No, because He has chosen you to be the instrument and channel through whom the sword, proceeds out of his mouth is uttered. You are involved with the battle, but it is not your battle. It is the same as it was in 2 chronicles 20. You are the one whom God is using, but it is His battle.
We must get this truth in our minds, because it is very important. It does not take away from us the initiative to move. When devils are stirred up against us, we will prevail against them; but we must always remember that we are God’s representatives. It is the Lord’s battle.
“ ‘Tomorrow go down against them.’ ” Those words seem contradictory. Jahaziel had just said, “The battle is not yours but God’s.” Then he said, “Tomorrow you go down against them.”
You say, “If it’s not my battle, I’m going to go the other way.” No, if God has a Word to speak to Nineveh, don’t catch a boat going the other direction, as Jonah did. If you do, God will send something to turn you around (Jonah 1:1–3, 17).
Jahaziel continued: “ ‘Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the valley in front of the wilderness of Jeruel. You need not fight in this battle.’ ” II Chronicles 20:16–17.
The New Testament lists the battles as they really are. The Scripture says, Fight the good fight of faith … I Timothy 6:12.
The battle really is not so much against Satan as it is against your own unbelief. It is faith that prevails.
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. I John 5:4.
Faith believes in the complete victory that God has given.
But thanks be to God, who glues us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. I Corinthians 15:57.
Faith believes in Christ’s perfect provision that He won over all the power of the enemy.
“Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall injure you.” Luke 10:19.
He sat down at the right hand of the Father, having prevailed over principalities and powers and having made an open show of them at His cross.
When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him. Colossians 2:15.
Faith has to believe that. And this is the struggle: to believe in God’s victory in every situation.
You do not need to fight in this battle, although you will have quite a battle with your unbelief. But it will go better with praise. When the enemy comes against you like a flood (Isaiah 59:19, KJV), and you begin wrestling with him, the best thing to do is to make yourself as immune as possible to his grasp. Grease yourself with praise. Make yourself as slippery as a greased pig. Not one devil can hold onto a man who is praising God.
Jahaziel said, “ ‘You need not fight in this battle; station yourselves, stand and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out to face them, for the Lord is with you.” And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. And the Levites, from the sons of the Kohathites and of the sons of the Korahites, stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel, with a very loud voice. II Chronicles 20:17–19.
Do you like their way of praising God—“with a very loud voice”? It was not that God was deaf; but there were probably some very insistent devils at their sides, and they wanted them to hear the praises of the Lord too. This is why we shout aloud—we want the world to hear the victory of the Lord. The Lord hears us even in our thoughts. He knows what we are going to say before we ever utter it.
Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, Thou dost know it all. Psalm 139:4.
But it is good to be vehement, because then you summon up everything within your being. You may start praising God quietly from the top of your head; but if you become very vociferous about it, it goes all the way down. And then you can say, Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Psalm 103:1. Everything within begins to bless Him.
And they rose early in the morning and went out to the wilderness of Tekoa; and when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Listen to me, O Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, put your trust in the Lord your God, and you will be established. Put your trust in His prophets and succeed.” II Chronicles 20:20.
Trusting in the Lord also has to mean trusting in divine order, and believing. Did you know that you can have such a faith that you can actually control the ministries over you? Let me qualify that statement. It does not mean that you take the authority to rise above them, but it means that you can actually draw out by faith what should be there. This is what Paul was talking about when he said, “Pray for those who are over you” (I Timothy 2:1–2). How could they obey that under the Roman government? How could they pray for Nero? He was persecuting the Christians and getting ready to burn Rome and blame them for it. How can we pray for those who are over us if they are devil-possessed men?
If everything goes wrong in our government, the Kingdom people could start binding this country over to the will of God. I am going to believe for a revival. I know a great deal has to come down, and we are prophesying that too. But I believe God can save this country. I believe God can be glorified in the Stars and Stripes flying right into the Kingdom.
Let’s start praying and believing. Men who have never done it before will stand up and speak to us Words from God. They will be surprised at what they speak. They may not even realize that they are bringing forth a Word from God.
Jehoshaphat said, “Trust His prophets and succeed.” You can help your people a great deal; you can bring forth one hundred percent more anointing in them by just drawing it out by faith: “I believe for that apostle to be an apostle. I believe for that prophet to be a prophet. I believe for that man of God to come forth.” Submission was never to be suppression. Our submission is a very active, aggressive thing. We are believing.
Do you believe in divine order? The Lord waits for someone like the centurion who came to Jesus, asking that his servant be healed. Jesus said, “I will come and heal him,” but the centurion replied, “No, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof. Just speak the word, and my servant will be healed. I am a man under authority. When I tell someone to jump, he jumps. Speak the word, and that boy will be healed” (Matthew 8:5–13). This is the way it was done. This is aggressive submission—aggressive submission. This is the kind of submission of which Jesus said, “I have not seen such faith, no, not in all of Israel” (Matthew 8:10).
Let’s go after this kind of faith. There is such a thing as people being fearful: “Well, I’m afraid that our leaders are going to fall into sin. Maybe they’re doing some wrong things. How do we know what’s going on behind closed doors?”
Have faith to bind things over to the will of God. This isn’t another religious movement. This isn’t any promotion scheme of Babylon. This is a move in the earth which came forth by a Word from God, and we have faith in it; we believe what God is saying.
We pray, “All right, Lord, it’s one thing for You to reveal divine order to us. Now we are going to believe for divine order and believe for our church to be in that order. We are going to believe in everything You have revealed to come forth. We are going to walk in it.”
The Lord raised up our brethren, and we will have a very definite, positive declaration of love and oneness with them. We will walk that way! When something comes that seems contrary, we will say, “Hallelujah, we have faith that binds this over to everything that God has said to us.” So believe His prophets; listen to them.
What did Jehoshaphat do next? And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who sang to the Lord … There are those who have beautiful voices, but they are not singing to the Lord. When they finish their psalm, you have the feeling that they really would like to take a collection or sell tickets—that their psalm was not really to the Lord; it was just that they had to do their thing. It would be better if they were like those whom Jehoshaphat appointed: … he appointed those who sang to the Lord and those who praised Him in holy attire, as they went out before the army and said, “Give thanks to the Lord, for His lovingkindness is everlasting.” II Chronicles 20:21.
What kind of militant song was that— “Forward march into battle”? No, it was just praise to the Lord. We are heading for the next step in the militant expression of what God is bringing forth. We have heard messages about the army of the Lord, and we are believing that Babylon will come down (Revelation 18). We are believing that every enemy is going to be defeated.
Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9–11.
For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. And when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all. I Corinthians 15:25, 28.
But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. Hebrews 10:12–13.
But as we believe for this to happen, we can be focused too much on the enemy; and our faith can take on a bloodthirsty air that it should not. Let’s believe that we are going to praise God—that there will be nothing more forceful. The vanguard of all militant action is in praise. Everything goes better with praise.
The singers said, “Give thanks to the Lord, for His lovingkindness is everlasting.” And when they began singing and praising, the Lord set ambushes against the sons of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; so they were routed (literally “struck down”). For the sons of Ammon and Moab rose up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir destroying them completely, and when they had finished with the inhabitants of Seir, they helped to destroy one another. II Chronicles 20:21b–23.
The Lord Jesus said, “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand” (Matthew 12:25). This was at the time when the Pharisees said that He had cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. He replied, “If I am doing that by the devil, by whom do your sons cast them out? Don’t you know that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand?” (Matthew 12:24–28.) His argument was, “Would the devil cast out demons?” Abraham Lincoln quoted this Scripture in his speeches during the Civil War; he said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” This principle is very true. And at this particular time, while we are praising the Lord, the kingdom of Satan will be divided against itself. It is not going to stand!
The principle is there: “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.” And therefore, whenever we prophesy and see God bring something down, we will see that one of the devil’s crowd destroyed someone else who was working for Satan. They will rub each other out, because that kingdom cannot stand. When we see that God has delivered the forces of Satan over to destroying themselves, we will know that Satan’s kingdom has come down and God’s Kingdom is prevailing over all.
This is logical and true, for we read, … they helped to destroy one another. II Chronicles 20:23.
I have seen some of this taking place, and I am very much persuaded that we should persist in our praising the Lord. We should be very careful that we do not speak against other movements, nor highlight their hypocrisies and their inconsistencies. We have only to praise the Lord. I have observed, many times, that these movements that are spiritually off are destroying each other anyway; they surely don’t need any push from us. Give heed to what I am saying.
“Well, they fight us and they make false charges. We should answer back.”
I don’t think so. Should we all gather together to have a meeting about the things that are happening against us?
No, we should just praise the Lord. This is exactly the scriptural pattern. This is exactly what they did in II Chronicles 20.
Verse 24 tells us that when the army of Judah came to the lookout of the wilderness, they saw that no one had escaped. That lookout of the wilderness is what the Lord brings the praisers to.
The viewpoint of a praiser is excellent. Would you like to come to the summit and have a look at everything? Then keep praising the Lord. The men who grumble find themselves in a big hole.
Do you resolve, “I’m not going to grumble anymore. I’m going to praise the Lord.” Good. Keep praising the Lord, and soon you will find yourself with a viewpoint that gives you the greatest advantage in the world. Only the men and women who praise the Lord will be the prophets who can predict the things of the Lord. The prophets of gloom will come, prophets of despair and destruction, and they will contribute to men’s hearts failing for fear (Luke 21:26). But may we be the prophets who are filled with praise, because we are prophets of the Kingdom.
When Judah came to the lookout of the wilderness, they looked toward the multitude; and behold, they were corpses lying on the ground, and no one had escaped. And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take their spoil, they found much among them, including goods, garments, and valuable things which they took for themselves, more than they could carry. And they were three days taking the spoil because there was so much. II Chronicles 20:24–25.
It took them three days to gather the spoils. They had not even been counting on that, but all their enemies were dead, so of course the thing to do was to go down and strip off the gold and everything they had. Even when the dead are buried in this country, rarely is anything of value placed with the corpse. If that person had valuables, they would be given to their loved ones and friends. The Lord let the people of Judah do the same thing. As they buried the corpses of their enemies, they took the spoil.
That is what God wants you to do—He wants you to bury your enemies, to put an end to them. How can you do that? You can do good to those who despitefully use you (Luke 6:28). You can love your enemies. You can take care of them (Matthew 5:44). One of two things will happen: You will either slay them with kindness (Romans 12:20); or else they will turn and become a friend, and that, also, is the death of an enemy.
Then on the fourth day they assembled in the valley of Beracah, for there they blessed the Lord. Therefore they have named that place “The Valley of Beracah” until today. And they came to Jerusalem with harps, lyres, and trumpets to the house of the Lord. And the dread of God was on all the kingdoms of the lands when they heard that the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel. II Chronicles 20:26, 28–29.
By our continual praise and continual worship, we are actually going to create something more than we realize. If you want the presence of the Lord with you, give yourself to praise. In the midst of the pressures, give yourself to praise. When things are definitely aligned against you, seek God and give yourself to praise.
The next steps before us will not be taken without a great deal of praise. The people who are praising God are the ones who will move right on.
Don’t fall in the wilderness because you are a murmurer. But when you come to the wilderness, be praising God; and you will see that the enemy’s whole force has collapsed.
Psalm 22:3–5 reads: Yet Thou art holy, O Thou who art enthroned upon the praises of Israel. In Thee our fathers trusted; they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them. To Thee they cried out, and were delivered; in Thee they trusted, and were not disappointed.
This is exactly what happened in II Chronicles 20. As they praised the Lord, He was enthroned upon their praises. He came to inhabit their very praises. Does God seem to be distant from you? Praise Him, because that is the throne He will come to sit upon. Fill the house of the Lord with praises, and you will find that the Lord will be enthroned in that assembly. Give your heart to the Lord. Praise Him all the day long. Set your heart to be a praiser of the Lord.
“Well, I praise the Lord for just so long, and then I get tired.”
Go on further and give Him a sacrifice of praise.
Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. Hebrews 13:15.
You have not given the Lord a sacrifice of praise as long as you are praising Him in an easy flow, and you are blessed in it. When you have run the whole scale of praises and you are tired, then give a sacrifice of praise, and keep on praising Him. Oh, that people would understand that they can praise God and literally project themselves from one spiritual level to another, up into the very presence of the Lord. And there He is enthroned upon their praises.
The worshiper who continually praises God must have his focus on the Lord and His Word, not on his circumstances.
God puts pressures on us so that we will appropriate more of Him in our lives. He loves being God.
Whatever we experience, mountains or valleys, we believe, “The greater things of God are yet to come.”
God continually showers His invisible rain of glory on the humble.
God inhabits the praises of His people, and continually makes a deposit of Himself within them.
God likes to wrestle; those whom He cripples, He changes into a Prince with God.
When God says, “The battle is not yours but the Lord’s,” you know that your fight will be with unbelief.