The Lord is giving a key that His people need in this day. When the hands hang down and the knees are feeble, it is time for the Lord to bring His strength to His people.
If there is an anointing resting upon us, it is an anointing that we should use to prevail over all the power of the enemy; to be dismayed would be a disgrace. Our hearts turn away from the hopelessness which rests upon the world and the futility that binds all creation.
If such feelings come upon us, we throw them off in the name of the Lord. We shall not be bound by futility. We shall not be bound by discouragement or despair; neither shall we find ourselves overextended and fatigued, weary because of the battle.
We look unto the Lord for the secret of His strength, that secret which the world will not understand. People will wonder where the strength of Samson comes from for they will neither know nor understand.
They will look and ask, “Why do these men have this authority, having never learned letters? How shall we understand all these people who continually prevail and are not dismayed or overwhelmed by the enemy? What is this invisible shield, this standard that is lifted up against the enemy when he comes in like a flood? What is it that causes them not to be terrorized by the things that come upon the earth, so that their heads are lifted up when the world is shaking with fear and trembling for the things that are coming to pass?
When the foundations of the deep are broken up, even when an army would come to invade them, they stand fast in the deliverance of the Lord. What is the key of their immunity? What is the key of their perseverance? How is it that the weak ones prevail when the strong man utterly falls? Why is it that David is still standing when Goliath has been beheaded?” This the Lord must reveal to them.
The Kingdom shall be known for the deliberate joy of the saints of God. In the days of the Parousia, the Scripture in Psalm 16:11 will be very real: … In thy presence is fulness of joy.… As Nehemiah spoke in the days of Jerusalem’s restoration when men’s hearts were weeping, “You shall not weep, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:9, 10).
There has to be a joy that comes from the presence of the Lord. There must be the time when the Lord speaks to us, and His Word abides in us. Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you that in Me your joy might be complete” (John 15:11).
While the sons of men languish in the heaviness that is upon them, and the bitterness of their spirits infects even the cattle of the field, and the seed rots in the clods (Joel 1:16–18), the Lord speaks of bringing His joy (Joel 2:21, 23).
God will bring His joy. It will not be a joy that is created by circumstances or environment, because we will be in the midst of the desolation of all things. It will not be a natural optimism because the wisest men today are not optimists; they are very fearful in heart.
We cannot look upon things in the natural to be encouraged. Some people are predicting that within the next two hundred years man will have utterly destroyed himself. What an optimistic viewpoint!
Psalms 95 through 100 are psalms of the Kingdom. The ninety-fifth Psalm gives praise to the Lord and recognition of His dominion over us as Shepherd and Father. The ninety-sixth Psalm is a call to worship the Lord as the righteous Judge who will judge all the nations, even the earth. Psalm 97 is titled, “The Lord’s Power and Dominion,” again speaking of the Kingdom. The ninety-eighth Psalm praises the Lord because His holy arm has gained for Him the victory and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Psalm 99 is a psalm of exalting the Lord and of the people’s praising His awesome name. The hundredth Psalm calls for all the earth to shout joyfully to the Lord and to come before Him with joyful singing, entering into His gates, into His presence, and into the reality of His delivering power to all of us. I will emphasize these psalms as they relate to joy.
Psalm 95:1–4, 6, 7. O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth.… Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.… Oh, this is beautiful! We are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hands. God is reaching down to us.
Psalm 96:1–5: Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless His name; proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day. Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.
A psalm like this is calling us to worship the Lord because He is righteous. We must realize that this worship of exaltation is really the issue. Satan will assault anything God is bringing forth today, and unless we have our focus right and our commission straight in our minds, we can find ourselves actually doing what Satan wants by giving him a great deal of attention. When we acknowledge his efforts and his battle; we can become too devil-conscious, and this is very dangerous.
What should we do? The more the devil comes against us, the more we should sing to the Lord a new song, proclaim the good tidings, bless His name, and tell of His glory among the nations.
We were not told to go into all the world and tell the nations how terrible the devil is. We are to tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples. It is such a simple emphasis, yet Satan will combat the preaching of this gospel of the Kingdom.
We will be contested bitterly in everything we do when we become the witnesses of the gospel. Though we are tempted to stop and battle Satan, the greatest victories are often won by ignoring Satan’s challenge and resting in the perfect victory of Christ over him. After all, that is the real battle anyway.
Ephesians 6:12 says, “We war not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers.” I would like to see the devils tremble and principalities and powers broken, but I do not want that to be the emphasis. I do not want people to think I am magnifying how bitter the struggle is against Satan. I want to have the joy of the Lord and proclaim Him joyfully while standing in the victory.
This is not a human joy we are talking about; it is a divine joy that only comes through a focus upon the Lord. People who practice His presence will have this joy, because in His presence there is fullness of joy and the joy of the Lord is our strength.
When the annals of the Kingdom are written, they will recount the joyful shouts of glee from the saints and the screams of demons going to the abyss. They will be written in that manner, not by a heavyhearted people who have succumbed to heaviness, bitterness, and fatigue, but by a people who have risen into strength. The joy of the Lord is our strength, and we are to appropriate this joy.
Look at this Psalm of the Kingdom: Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all it contains; let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the Lord, for He is coming; for He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in His faithfulness. Psalm 96:11–13.
Job talks about the time at the beginning of creation when all the sons of God sang for joy (Job 38:6, 7). I would not presume to answer the question of who those sons of God were, but I think it is good for us to remember that such a condition once existed. Some scientists have said that certain natural vibrations have been broken in creation in its present state, and I can believe that is right. Everything of creation that moves has a certain vibration to it. I think we will come to the day when we will begin to loose orchards and forests, and hear the trees of the forest sing for joy and the fields exult. We will hear the mighty symphony of the waves as they roar out the praises of the Lord. I do not think this psalm is just an expression of poetic license; I think it really is going to happen. But first we have to be released from futility, we have to get out of the state where we are oppressed and harassed so that we can sing in the joy of the Lord.
You may not feel like singing for joy. You may be in a terrible situation. That does not matter. You cannot follow human feelings. When Paul and Silas were beaten and put in prison, they sang psalms unto the Lord at the midnight hour (Acts 16:23–26). Do you remember what happened? The earth quaked, as if it were saying, “Let me sing, too!” Would you like to see something like that happen? You will walk in it.
The ninety-seventh Psalm: The Lord reigns (literally it means that the Lord has assumed Kingship); let the earth rejoice.… The psalmist is calling for joy. I do not think we should come to one another and say with a long face, “Be loosed from your futility. Do not be oppressed any longer.” We do not end futility by saying to the poor earth, “No longer be cursed nor futile.”
When Jesus was riding upon a colt into Jerusalem at the first manifestation of His Kingship, the people of the city started shouting, singing, and waving palm branches. The Pharisees asked Jesus to tell His disciples to be quiet. Jesus answered, “If these would hold their peace, the very rocks would cry out” (Luke 19:35–40). They were that close to the earth being released into the songs of praises and rejoicing. We do not know what we may be hearing or seeing in the days ahead. I think the Lord has something fantastic for us. I would like to see all creation released, starting within us.
The Lord has been speaking to my heart about the many times He has said in the Scriptures, “Come.” He stands and He shouts to Babylon, “Come out of her, My people” (Revelation 18:4). The book of Revelation ends, And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” Revelation 22:17a. Every true citizen of God’s Kingdom lifts his head and says, “Thy Kingdom come. Bring it forth, O Lord.”
The Lord reigns (the Lord has assumed Kingship); let the earth rejoice; let the many islands be glad. Clouds and thick darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. Fire goes before Him, and burns up His adversaries round about. His lightnings lit up the world; the earth saw and trembled. The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the peoples have seen His glory. Psalm 97:1–6. These Psalms are talking about the Kingdom.
Psalm 98 begins, O sing to the Lord a new song. Our songs are changing. We are moving into a new type of song. No longer do we sing songs that have no real joy, songs of wistful hope but no joyful conviction. It is time to break through into the presence of the Lord and into the joy of that reality. It is not a human joy, but the joy that is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Our hearts will be abounding in love, joy and peace—the things of which the world will be bankrupt, even on a human plane, but we will abound in the Lord.
Psalm 98. O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonderful things, His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him. The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations (speaking of the Kingdom). He has remembered His loving-kindness and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout joyfully.… There it is again! We read it in the ninety-fifth Psalm, the ninety-eighth Psalm, and the hundredth Psalm: Shout joyfully!
Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth and sing for joy and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre; with the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn shout joyfully before the King, the Lord. That is the way creation will be loosed! We will be shouting joyfully! We will kick the rock and say, “Sing! Shout!” We will say to the ocean, “Come and roar with us, for we will shout joyfully unto the Lord!” We must get the feeling of the Kingdom. God’s Kingdom will not be of groans and sighs, but of joy in the presence of the Lord.
Shout joyfully before the King, the Lord. Let the sea roar and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it. How beautiful to hear all the trees singing and the ocean roaring! Let the rivers clap their hands; let the mountains sing together for joy before the Lord. Imagine hearing the vibrations of the mountains singing back and forth. The breaking of the futility that has been on all creation should now become a concern for every child of God. Every son has the responsibility of loosing it from futility. For He is coming to judge the earth; He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
The ninety-ninth Psalm continues: The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble; He is enthroned above the cherubim, let the earth shake! The Lord is great in Zion, and He is exulted above all the peoples. Let them praise Thy great and awesome name; holy is He. And the strength of the King loves justice; Thou hast established equity; Thou hast executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exult the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool; holy is He. Psalm 99:1–5.
Here it is again in Psalm 100: Shout joyfully.… The psalmist who wrote these psalms really had the spirit of the Kingdom within him and that release from futility in his own heart. I do not believe he was free of problems; he probably had as many, or more, than we have, but he had something that was greater. He bypassed the age in which he lived and moved into the joyfulness of the Kingdom and began to shout joyfully unto the Lord. When the Kingdom of God is established in the earth, it is not a time of heaviness. It is the time of the disappearing of tears and sorrow and of everything that makes an offense (Revelation 21:4, 27); it is the time of the binding of Satan. We do not realize how much satanic power has driven us into unhappiness, into illusions of defeat, into symptoms and the actual reality of afflictions. We do not know how much sorrow and heaviness Satan is trying to inspire. All creation groans and is in travail, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God (Romans 8:21, 22).
Let us start manifesting our sonship. Let us declare a time of the joy of the Kingdom and enter into prophecy and revelation. The day will come when we start prophesying in a service, and before we finish, a hundred people will be met by the Lord. There is a time for joy and there is a time of release. God is not stirring us to get a fresh new word, but He is causing us, by His Spirit, to inquire into the deep-rooted unbelief hidden below the surface like rocks that could cause shipwreck. He is making us understand the deep-rooted unbelief we have and helping us to get rid of it; and that, of course, is a key of the Kingdom.
Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name. For the Lord is good; His loving-kindness is everlasting, and His faithfulness to all generations. Psalm 100.
Would you like to have the Kingdom joy? You cannot work up to it. Believe God for it. When you worship, enter into His presence. How can you know that you are in His presence? You will be beaming with the joy of the Lord! There must be a joyful uplift in the services until people cannot wait until they come to the house of the Lord for the joy that will be manifested to them and through them.