How to access the courtroom of God is a vitally important ingredient that we need to understand as believers. Ezekiel 1 talks about the throne that moves and comes down. It is on four wheels, which are four cherubs that carry the movable ark. This throne is like the throne that is in heaven, but it is different from the one that is called a judgment throne. The reason it is not in heaven but only comes into the spiritual realms is because the devil cannot get into heaven. This throne comes down from heaven and judgments happened before it.
I want to lay a scriptural foundation for this. lets start in Zechariah 3:1 – then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him.
Here is Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing right next to him. The reason Satan is there is to resist Joshua standing before the Lord and Joshua’s petition. So Satan is not actually resisting Joshua, he is resisting what Joshua is doing there. So you have a Scripture that paints a picture of something that goes on in the spirit world.
In 2 Chronicles there is another scene in the courtroom, where God says “who will go and do this?” And a spirit comes before the court.
2 Chronicles 18:18 – then Micaiah said, therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing on his right hand and his left. And the Lord said, who will persuade Ahab king of Israel to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead? So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. The Lord said to him, in what way? So he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, you shall persuade him and also prevail; go out and do so.
A picture is painted here of what the courtroom looks like. It begins with the throne, and the host of heaven on the left-hand side and on the right hand side. Now, you can see the devils have access to this arena. So it is not the throne room of heaven, because devils cannot go into the throne room of heaven, which is the realm of the dominion of God.
In Job we read – Job 1:6 – now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, from where do you come? So Satan answered the Lord and said from going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.
The devil can walk to and fro on the earth and up and down in it, so what is he talking about? From the earth into the spiritual realms. So Satan came to present himself. It says and Satan came also amongst them. Now it is amazing that the people that were around just accepted his role of being there. I do not know about you, but I would have given him a beating! What kind a right does he have to come next to me when I present myself before the Lord? Well, in this context he has every right; because the spirit world works on laws – laws that govern the realm of the spirit.
We find the scene repeated in Job 2: 1 – there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord.
In the first scene it says satan only came amongst the sons of God – Job 1:6. Now in Job 2 it says he came there to present himself before the Lord. What an arrogant cheek! But the reason he can’t present himself is because nothing was done with him in the first instant.
Job 2:2 and the Lord said to Satan.
I tell you I get really mad when God has to speak to the devil! Because we should speak to him; where should we speak to him? Under our feet, and is where he belongs! He has no right in the court. The only reason he is there is because no one has done anything with him in the first place!
Job 2:3 – then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? and still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him without cause. So Satan answered the Lord and said, skin for skin! Yes, All that a man has he will give for his life.
What the devil wants there is permission to go and do something, and the courtroom is a place where permission is granted. This is really important. If you can get to grips with some of these things, you can do something about the issues that go on around your life.
The courtroom is very important. It is where all judgments and decrees are made by the presence of God. The devil has a right to come into the courtroom because we do not go into the courtroom and do our business with God. Now, in the courtroom is where all the activity of right and wrong occurs. It is where permission is granted to do wrong and where permission is refused from doing wrong. What this means is that, if I came in like Job or like Joshua the stand before the Lord and the devil comes in, he has a right to counter-petition my petition before the Lord. Here is the problem. The devil has been turning up in the courtroom but not many believers have been turning up in the courtroom. He makes his petition and there is no one that stands and says to him, no, this is the way it is going to be.
The courtroom is a fixed courtroom. God who sits on the throne is our father, and Jesus, who is the executor of the will of God, is our brother. All who stand around him are from the realm of glory. Now, who do you think is going to win in the courtroom? You think the devil is going to win? Or do you think it will be the court that has been fixed by God that is going to win on our behalf? The reason we do not win is because we do not often turn up at the courtroom.
In Luke, the devil comes to make a petition – Luke 22:31 – and the Lord said, Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren. But he said to him, Lord, I am ready to go with you, both to prison and to death. Then he said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know me.
Where did Jesus see this? How did Jesus know that the devil had a desire to sift Peter as wheat?- In the courtroom. Jesus knew about the courtroom. He knew how to go into the courtroom and he knew how to counter- petition the devil’s desire. I guarantee you, the devil’s desire was to destroy Peter and make him die, not to help him to overcome. You see, you can change things by going into the courtroom. You have a legal mandate it right from God to present yourself in the courtroom. It is amazing what happens in the courtroom. What God wants us to do is to understand there is a legal process that goes on of petition and counter petition. That is what intercession is supposed to be; petition and counter petition.
I have wrestled with demon spirits in the courtroom. Not physically, not fighting with them, but with petition: no! The Bible says it is by the blood. The Bible says I am redeemed by the blood. Now, who is going to win? If I was not standing there in the courtroom to present myself before the Lord and the devil came there whispering – what has God got to work with? Nothing. What God wants us to understand is that there is a courtroom. There is a throne of judgment and we have a right to come and make our petition before the courtroom to destroy the works of the enemy and change what the devil is doing. It happens in the courtroom. We can change what the devil is doing and we can change it by being in the courtroom.
Jesus changed what would happen to Simon Peter’s life and he changed that in the courtroom. He changed it, firstly, because he was a son of God. You and I are sons of God. Secondly, he knew about the courtroom. He went there, experienced it and did something about what was going on. I have not been in the courtroom yet when Jesus comes and makes petition, although the Bible says that he stands and makes petition for us day and night before the Lord. I’ve not seen Jesus speaking for me yet but I know this: all he has to do is stand there and sigh and satan just goes backwards and crawls out of the courtroom. If that happens with Jesus, and we are little Jesus’s, how much more does God want to release to the church today? You see, it happens in the courtroom.
I want to go back into Zachariah three again. I want to do this part because the Old Testament tells us how to come into the courtroom. It is a simple process, it is not hard.
Zachariah 3:1 – then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire? Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the angel. Then he answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, take away the filthy garments from him. And to him he said, see, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes. And I said, let them put a clean turban on his head. So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the Angel of the Lord stood by.
When we turn up in the courtroom, God kind of tricks the devil because when we turn up, he has to turn up too. The devil does not have a choice. It says that Joshua came and stood there, and the devil stood there resisting. You see, every time we turn up in the courtroom the devil has to stand up and come into the courtroom. And here is the greatest thing I like about it: when we turn up in our filthy garments and the devil rubs his hands and things, ha ha, I’ve got them. then the first thing God does in the courtroom is to say, new garments! This is why we win in the courtroom. It is because of the new garments. Then it says he put a fair Mitre (which is a crown) upon his head. When you wear a crown it is a symbol of the invested authority in your life as a Prince of God. So when you come into the courtroom, you may turn up filthy.
That is God’s disguise for you. He wants the devil to turn up there too. You know why? Because he loves beating up on him! You have got to love the things that God loves, and I love beating up on the devil. Where do you do it? In the courtroom. It is great! You get there and thump him. Then you can start to make your petition and when he starts to speak you put your foot on his neck and you squeeze! You need to understand this, this is the fun part of being a believer! This is the kind of thing that happens in the courtroom. The moment you turn up, god endues you with a garment. The garment is called the garment of righteousness. That is what Adam lost, except his whole body was righteous. so we turn up in court God begins to get rights back to his children.
1 John 2:1 – my little children, these things are write you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he himself is the propitiation for our sins, not for ours only but also for the whole world.
When we sin we have an advocate. An advocate means someone who takes our case before a courtroom. The moment we sin the devil turns up in the courtroom because he accuses us before the father day and night. That is what the Bible says. But if we sin we have an advocate Jesus Christ, the righteous. So Jesus is standing there as our advocate waiting.
In Hebrews 3:1, it shows us what God is waiting to see happen. It says that Jesus is the high priest of our confession. The word confession comes from a Greek word homologia which means to confess the same thing. The moment you speak confession of your sin, Jesus confesses that sin before the father and it is under the blood and the devil has got no further right to accuse you. Then Jesus has some fun with the devil because he can stand on the devil on our behalf!
Now, one shall put a 1000 to flight, two shall put 10,000 to flight. When you turn up in the courtroom you have Jesus, the high priest of your confession standing there. When you are speaking to God, Jesus is saying the same thing in agreement – the blood has cleansed you. If we confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin – one John 1:7. This is what Jesus has done. He took the sin of the whole world on himself and made an open show of the devil, triumphing over him. He totally and absolutely’s spoiled every principality and power – Isaiah 53:6/first Peter 2:24/Colossians 2:15.
Hebrews 7:25 says Jesus makes intercession. Read Hebrew seven, eight and nine from the aspect of the role Jesus plays in the courtroom and you will get a much clearer idea of what he does with your confession. You get a much clearer idea of what he does when he is in the courtroom and even how he prayed for Simon.
I love going into the courtroom. I love going there, because we win! We win in the courtroom. You so not win when you are on your earth. Too many intercessors have been caught and trapped on the earth trying to eventually go to heaven instead of realizing they can go to heaven immediately, do transactions and win! We win, hallelujah!
Revelation 12:11 says that they overcome him by three things. Firstly, by the blood of the Lamb. The only way you are going to defeat and overcome is by the blood of the Lamb. You have to take that blood and apply to your life. The only way you are going to experience the realm of the kingdom is by that blood, because it is only the blood that gives you the right standing in that realm. It is the blood that makes you righteous.
The second is by the word of their testimony. Now, my testimony is not that I have sinned; my testimony is that I have overcome by the blood. My testimony is not that I am struggling in my life; my testimony is that I have the victory because Jesus has given it to me. I just have not caught up with that revelation yet. I might be struggling, but that is not what God is interested in. He is interested in your focus. What you look at you are going to become, because you turn into the very thing you gaze at. Can you see why it is important to see God? Because you change into the image of the things you look at. The Bible says think about things which are holy, acceptable and pure – Philippians 4:8. The word “think” means to dwell on in your mind and captivate your imagination. It is not just looking with your eyes. We have taken this in the natural for too long. It is about a spirit realm encounter. What God is looking for is the reality of heaven in your life.
So, we have the blood and the word of their testimony. Thirdly, it says they love not their lives to death. the death there means the cross. It does not mean you physically die. What a waste of time if you’re going to be transformed by the blood and transfigured because of the testimony of Christ in your life and he takes you home. He does not want to take you home once you become a son of God, he wants to display you to the world ( out the door goes the rapture theory! Sorry if you believe in that).
What he is looking for is your death on the cross in correlation with Christ’s resurrection from the cross. As you die, your sin becomes one with him on the cross and, in that death, we identify. Jesus is looking for the reality of the resurrection life and you can only have resurrection life if you experience the cross. You need to chase God. There is no way around it. Three things: the blood, the testimony ( and we’ve talked about what you confess with your mouth ) and the cross. All these things come out of Revelation 12:11.
So, how do I get into the courtroom? Very easily, as we see in Psalm 100. I love this psalm, I learned so much from it.
Psalm 100:1 – make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is God; it is he who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. (Which is in Eden). enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise. Be thankful to him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations.
There are three things there. The first is to make a joyful noise. You need to make a choice to make a joyful noise. In verse two it says come before his presence with singing. With many churches that is where it stops. We have nice singsong time, we come before his presence and God says, hello, why are you here? And we carry on with our service! You come before the Lord with singing and that is all it is – just getting us to a place where we can come before the Lord, not him before us.
I just want to clarify something. I said that instead of God always coming down, it is time for us to go up. God will still come down in his grace and his mercy. But there is a higher level – that is where you go up.
The second point is that we get into his gate with thanksgiving. Not our gate, his gate. When the Bible talks about God’s gate it is the entry into the realm of the courtroom of God. When you come into a gate you come in expressing and expecting victory. There is no other reason why a king would come in through a gate into another city unless it is to conquer it. Usually they would carry their spoils of victory through the gates as a procession to show the people that they have won. They take all the spoils of war.
The devil does the same thing when the sons of God fall. He steals their trophy and their crown. He then takes it into the catacombs of the earth, before the demon spirit world, as a procession and shows his victory over the church again. Those days are coming to an end. The reason they are coming to an end is because the courtroom is becoming known.
When we come out of the courtroom we come out with victory. The only reason you go into the courtroom is because you win; there is no other reason. God wants you there to make intercession, pray and do business. So we come before him with singing, we enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. That is the third element. The way you enter this courtroom of God is with praise. When the Bible talks about praise there, it means a strong, loud, persistent, rejoicing shout, clapping, celebrating in jumping and making the greatest noise that you can make!
The reason the word says that it is because praise releases the realm of heaven to move on your behalf. This is the very thing you need to practice, because what I want to happen is for us to go in and out of the courtroom. If you learn that, you can choose to go in there anytime you like. You can choose to go into the courtroom and you can choose to come out of the courtroom. You can choose to go in and do some business and you can choose to come out of it. Often I like standing by the door to the courtroom to watch what devils go in and listen; oh I do not like that one. Slap! Next one! You see, whoever has the gate has the authority of what goes in and comes out, isn’t that true? So you need to learn about the gate of God.
The gate of God is the entry to the courtroom and you can stand there and have dominion over the gate. If you do not stand there, someone else will! And I could say, oh, I think I will let that devil in, or I will let this one in. The sons of God do not know what they are doing. I will stand in their way and make them feel like they are sinners who cannot come before God! So the devils go right on through! This is how the devil wins against us. He condemns us and accuses us and we believe him. We feel condemned and accused and we do not go to the courts, not realizing that if we did, God would point to us and say new garments, just like that!
I love going to the courtroom. I love it because you can bring any aspect of your life, any aspect of the life of another, a city or region before the courtroom of God. You can slap the devil around a bit, kick them out and decree what needs to happen. You do not stand here in the natural on earth and pray, you do it in the spirit, in the courtroom, before the living God. This courtroom is where judgment is decreed, where judgment is released and where the elders sit and bring judgment to decree that the righteous rule will prevail. The courtroom is also where the angels of God are released on assignment to see it come to pass on the earth. It is done in the courtroom, not on the earth. As intercessors we spend so much time praying down here and it has been good, but we have not always had the victory. We have to learn another way. This is another way to pray.
Activation
The judgment of God came on the wall of Jericho – Joshua 6:20. That wall still stands, did you know that? The wall is still solid, what happened is it sank into the ground. They’re walking around the wall of Jericho shattered the structure of the earth underneath, which was like limestone, and then when they shouted and stamped their feet it shattered that layer and the whole wall sank into the ground. That is why the Bible says every man could go straight every which way. When there is a really high wall you cannot go straight over it. The wall sank, excavations have been done and it still exist today! But it is in the ground. God will make everything bow the knee with a shout of triumph. When we shout like this it activates the spirit world for victory. It activates the realm of heaven to bring victory on earth for the sons of the living God. So we are going to go into the courtroom and to shout! The Way of entry is by shouting. If you are not used to doing this, hallelujah!
I want you to clap and shout and keep it sustained for at least two minutes. For most people, you will last about 30 seconds, so we are going to exercise your spirit and make you last two minutes. I want you to work on doing it. If you’re in a group, work on joining in, one with another. Remember we talked about how I link with this gate( person), we link with this gate, we link with this gate and we have an exponential increase of the glory in the praises of God. When you shout I want you to express yourself with gratitude, with thanksgiving and celebration. The reason you are celebrating is because when you turn up there you have the victory! Then after two minutes what I am going to get you to do is to take an issue in an area of your life and we are going to take that issue into the courtroom. We are going to pray over it, shout over it, decree victory over it and the devils defeat – so they will not want to come out again! So we will practice going in and out. I want you to put everything that is inside of you into this. I want you to take your spirit and put it into the atmosphere behind your praise as an offering to the presence of God for two minutes. Go ahead and shout!
Didn’t that feel good? Now I want you to take an area of your life that you have wrestled with. I want you to go to court, inside your mind, and I want you to come before the presence of God shouting and decreeing into this realm. Decree the victory of the presence of the Lord by the blood, by the word of your testimony by choosing to die to that area of your life. That is how we are going to overcome. I want you to begin to do the same thing and to hold it for one minute. One minute is not long, we have just done it for two minutes. I want you to hold it for one minute, then decree a victory in the courtroom of the living God over the chosen area of your life.
This will totally change the atmosphere in the room. This kind of thing affects a city and a nation. I want you to do this for your nation. You see, this is not just about you, your ministry, your pastors and your churches – this is about your nation. I want you to go into the courtroom for your nation. I want you to hold your nation before the living God in prayer like this, decreeing the presence of God over the nation, decreeing the victory God over every spiritual force, every wicked thing that has sought devices into your nation. Just begin to decree the victory of God into it. So we are going to do the same thing for one minute. Cry out with victory for the nation! let the spirit world hear. The Bible says in the high places of God, God sends surprise attacks against the enemy that he did not see it coming – second Chronicles 20:22. This is what we are doing today, hallelujah!
Father, we love our nation. Lord, you have given us a land, and today, father, it belongs to the seed of the righteous. Amen.
I suggest you practice some of this. Just get in and practice again with two or three other people. Practice in your own personal life. Practice this process. It is just another key of entering the realm of the kingdom. You see, what we have done, whether you feel it or not, is entered the realm of the spirit. We come before the courtroom of God with a cry of praise that lifts the ability of Jesus to be able to act on some of the issues in our personal lives and nation. Remember I said first in Jerusalem, then in Samaria. You must practice in your own life first. Achieve victories in your own life. Then you can take other people there. Amen