Pastor Edgar Mayer;
For more sermons and other writings check out pastors homepage: http://www.geocities.com/mayeredgar
Worship
As Warfare
A particular church asked an evangelist
to speak during a series of meetings. On the first night the hosts met him at
the back door and said: Now this
is your place in the line-up. They
had organized a large entry procession with beautiful organ music. The
evangelist said that it was like being waltzed in. The procession headed toward
the platform, and just as he was about to round the corner of the front pew, he
suddenly felt something grab him by the arm.
He looked around and discovered what it
was. A little elderly woman with silvery hair and gold spectacles jerked her
walking cane around his arm and said:
Come here, Sonny. She motioned
for him with one frail finger, and when he bent down, she said: Are you
praying, Sonny? He answered: Well,
yes, maam, I believe I am. Im the evangelist for the service today.
The evangelist walked to the platform
and sat down, but according to his
testimony he never really preached
that night. He said: I could have preached in hell easier than I could
preach in that place. There was such a stranglehold on that place, you could
barely get your breath, but I tried to preach and give an altar call anyway.
On the way out of the building, the cane
stopped him again. Granny pulled
him down and said: Sonny, either you dont know how to pray, or youre
not praying. Now you meet me here at
The evangelist walked into that building
at three the next afternoon and discovered that eight silver-haired women were
waiting for him. That little granny said:
Weve been praying that God would send us an evangelist. You aint much,
but youll have to do. Weve been praying for revival to break out in this
church, and we have also been praying for God to get a hold of this place and
shake it like a rat terrier shakes a mouse. Now sit down there, Sonny, were
about to pray.
The next thing the evangelist knew was
that there were white hankies everywhere and the sweat was flying. Some of them
were doing some kind of dance, and the rest of them were walking around laying
their hands on the walls. They were screaming at principalities and powers, and
they told the devil: We used to shout in this church, and were gonna shout again! We used to see sinners saved in this
church, and were gonna see them saved
again! Devil, we bind you and cast you out in the name of the Lord Jehovah,
His Son Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit!
They had prayed for about an hour when
all of a sudden, somebody said: Gertrude,
get the bag. One of the women,
presumably Gertrude, pulled a large bag out from underneath the front pew and
produced a giant, economy-sized bottle of cooking oil. Then they told the
evangelist: God told us to anoint this place with oil, and they started pouring oil into their
hands.
The evangelist was still sitting there
in his chair when the grannies went for the pews with globs and handfuls of oil
and they prayed: O God, make it hot in this place. Make it hot! Once they felt that the pews were soaked well enough, they started
anointing the choir seats while praying: God, make it hot! Make it hot! Then they loaded up with oil again and anointed the organ praying
once again: O God, make it hot! Make
it hot! Nothing seemed to escape their attention. All of a sudden they looked
in unison at the evangelist. The granny who started it all got a little curl in
her wrinkled face at the corners of her mouth and a little smile broke out. The
evangelist said that she had prayed so hard that all of the bobby pins had
fallen out of her hair.
He said: That silver hair was plastered down across her
face in streaks of sweat, and she looked like some kind of combat commando. If
I didnt know better, I would have thought she had on army boots. Then all of a
sudden she started swinging that cane and announced: Lets get him, girls!
They converged on him, took that bottle
of cooking oil and dumped it over his head. Then they rubbed it in for good
measure. Those grannies started to speak in tongues as in the book of Acts.
Next thing the evangelist knew, two or three of them had fallen down under the
power of God and were on the floor groaning. All he could do was to sit in the
presence of God and weep. The evangelist was still crying in his seat when the
grannies packed up and left the building. They went through the same process
every day until Sunday morning.
On Sunday once again the church hosts
met the evangelist at the back door and lined up in their religious procession.
The line filed into the building as before, and when the evangelist started
around the corner of the first row, Granny hooked him with that cane again. She
said: Sonny, the Holy Spirit told
us today is the day. Its
gonna get hot in here today, yes, sir.
As soon as the evangelist stepped behind
that pulpit, something happened. When he began to preach, he felt as if he were
standing outside of his own body watching everything that was going on. He was
saying things that he had not planned saying.
Unbeknown to him, a very wealthy man in
the congregation had held that church in absolute bondage. He was sleeping with
another mans wife in the church and then was somehow trying to soothe his
conscience week by week by using his wealth to control the church finances and thus
hold the church under the bondage of his sinful life-style.
Before the preaching evangelist knew
what was going on, he found himself off the platform and well back from the
front among the members of the congregation. With each new sermon point, he
moved along a particular pew toward the center of the row. Then he reached a
point where he quoted from the Bible the confrontation between the prophet
Nathan and King David. In this Bible reading the prophet challenged the King about
his adulterous affair, saying something like this: What would you do if a man had done this and
that? The King responded: Id
have him put to death!
The evangelist didnt realize that as he
reached that point in his message, he was standing right in front of that man.
He pointed the finger at the mans chest and under the anointing of the Holy
Spirit, quoted the final Bible verse in the confrontation between David and
Nathan, saying: Thou art the man.
The moment
he said that the people in the congregation gasped in shock. The man he
was pointing at looked as if he was going to tear off the evangelists head, but
when he stood up, something hit him in the stomach and threw him back about
four pews. He got up and began to confess: Ive held this church in bondage, and I havent been right with
God.
Before anyone checked, seven hours had
passed. A revival broke out in that church (Rod Parsley: On The Brink,
This has been a rather long story but
there is much in it for us to learn about worship. Many a time when we worship,
we seem to sing about love and falling in love with Jesus. For instance, the
following lyrics are from the top 10 Christian songs of some time ago (About.Com 2003). I
quote a few lines: He's the air that I breathe; The water I thirst for;
And the ground beneath my feet; He's everything, everything to me (Avalon:
Everything To Me); Its like an ocean breeze blowing on your face; Like a
summer sun with its warm embrace; Like a gentle rain plays a symphony; Thats
what I want my praise to be; Like a fragrant rose in the early spring;
(Phillips, Craig & Dean: My Praise); That's right, yeah (laugh); Woo!;
It's all about, yea yea; It's all about; All about love, love, love, love,
love; It's all about love, love, love (Steven Curtis Chapman: All About
Love); A new day is beginning; And all the birds were singing; The sun was
shining up in the sky; Sometimes the world around me; Is so awesome it astounds
me; It leaves me feeling mystified (Jaci Velasquez: Youre My God); The
water's warm; Its time to live; We will sink and; We will swim; Til' the ocean
turns to sand (Plumb: Sink-n-Swim); Covered by your love divine; Child
of the risen Lord; To hear you say This one's mine; My heart is spoken for
(Mercy Me: Spoken For).
What about these lyrics? How do they strike
you? If we sang these kind of words and made them the
main diet of our worship songs, what could be what would be the
resulting problem and some suggest that we already have this problem in
many churches right now? First of all,
these kind of lyrics and please forgive me for daring to bring gender
into this these kind of lyrics seem to
be more appealing to women. There is so much in them that seems to be about
romance and flowers and the warm embrace of the sun and my heart that is spoken
for and the air that I breathe so that speaking as a man myself now there comes a time when I at least need a
rock song cranked up loud. There is only so much sweetness that some of us men
can handle.
The other danger of the predominance of
these lyrics is that we neglect and
I think that this has already happened as well we have come to neglect another key aspect of worship and that is:
warfare. Worship as warfare. Lets have another look at the grannies of our
story. They had attitude. There was sweat flying and Bobby pins falling out of
their hair hard praying as they screamed at demonic powers and
principalities, a handful of grannies screaming at the devil: We used
to shout in this church, and were gonna shout again. God, make it hot!
This much is clear. These grannies were
on a different track from romantic love lyrics. They were on a war footing with
the result that an evangelist began to preach under the power of the Holy
Spirit words which even surprised
him sin was confronted with a
congregation gasping in shock, a man was flying backwards about four pews and
revival broke out. We need to learn from the grannies.
And can I at this point make a special
appeal to our men? There is much about worship that is manly. The grannies were
warriors but God seems to have placed these same warrior traits even more so in
us men. Im no expert but we men seem to have some natural God-given agression
within us just consider the way we
play football or maybe even drive a car there
is a competitive spirit and often a single-mindedness that is focused on
winning. Imagine that worship can be like a state of origin match where we find
ourselves a few points behind at half-time. Everything is about to intensify. You
need to concentrate, exercise discipline, steel yourself with determination,
lift your game and dont give an inch.
Worship can be so much like that. The
enemy is real and looking at the brokenness of our world we do seem to be a few
points behind or at least not
winning as decisively as wed like to. I
read from the Bible 1 Peter 5:8 hear
whats going on: Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil
prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him,
standing firm in the faith, because you know that your fellow-believers
throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
According to the Bible there is an enemy
there is the devil who prowls around and manages to inflict
sufferings throughout the world. He is a real threat and prowling around
with agression he is actively seeking
out our weaknesses to destroy us making us lose our lives in hell. Satan is making war on us and therefore we
do need to resist him not giving in to fear but standing firm
exercising self-control and staying on the alert. And this happens in worship.
It may come as a surprise but one of the
greatest warriors in the Bible was also one of the greatest worshippers. God
said that in David he had found a man after his own heart. When this man was
still a shepherd-boy he protected his sheep from bears and lions by killing
these beasts in close combat
explaining in the Bible 1 Samuel 17:35:
When the lion or bear turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it
and killed it. David was a mans
man a man to be reckoned with but
at the same time in the fields he
composed and played worship songs on his harp. A warrior and a worshipper are
cut from the same cloth.
Later the brave shepherd-boy years before he ascended to the throne himself became involved in the war with the Philistines
by killing their best elite soldier, Goliath a giant of a man. Further down the track he became the
personal body-guard of the king a position which was reserved for the
best fighter in the kings army. David
was a warrior but once again at the same time he was a worshipper most of
the worship songs in the Bible the Psalms come from him.
There is no time to explore this in
detail but consider just one snippet from his life. In one instance we can see most
clearly the winning power of worship. There was a time when the king was
plagued by an evil spirit a demon. Whenever the demon would attack him, David
was called upon to play his harp and the music of this worshipper of God would manage
to subdue the demon. I read from the Bible 1 Samuel 16:23: Whenever
the spirit
came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief
would come to Saul;
and the evil spirit would leave him.
This same lesson is taught repeatedly in
the Bible: Worship as warfare manages to overcome the enemy. At another time when confronted by a vast army the people of
Victory came but the kind of worship beforehand
is not for the fainthearted. Who would want to belong to the group of men that
would go out at the head of everyone else marching towards the enemy armed with
nothing but the weapons of praise and worship? These men needed to be men of courage,
steely determination, unwavering loyalty to God, commitment to a leap of faith
that was daring,
These men were tough worshippers.
And may we become the same and may we
rediscover the warfare aspect of worship lifting our hands with the same kind
of attitude and a faith that has an edge to it Hebrews 11:33-34:
through faith [they]
conquered kingdoms
[through faith they] became powerful in battle and routed
foreign armies
Can we see now that
worship must be more than just feeling emotions of love and singing love songs.
There are fears to be conquered. There are mind-sets to be disciplined and an
enemy is to be confronted with the holiness of God just as the appointed
men from before were to praise God for the splendor of his holiness. One last Bible verse about this Psalm
149:6: May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged
sword in their hands. A warrior and
a worshipper are cut from the same cloth.
At this point I may clear up one or two
possible misconceptions. When we make war in worship we are not training up suicide
bombers for a Christian jihad. That should be obvious but we better spell out
again what Jesus said Matthew 5:44:
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you [ worship for them].
The Bible makes clear that Ephesians
6:12:
our struggle is not against flesh and
blood [not against people], but
against the powers of this dark world and
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. We fight against what holds people in bondage
Galatians
Next to clear up another possible misconception when we worship as an act of warfare, then we do not always need to be
preoccupied with the enemy. It is so much better if not always best to look at Jesus look at Jesus from whence victory comes. He is the one
that is going to do the fighting for us. As we praise Jesus for the power of
his sacrifice on the cross and as we in worship behold something so glorious as
the power of his blood that was shed on the cross of his death for the
forgiveness of our sins with so much love from him towards us sinners as we praise Jesus for all of that and worship
up a storm then victory comes from him. Why be consumed with the enemy when
Jesus is Lord?
For that reason the worshippers from
before at the head of the army did not count the opposition or even target the
opposition with specific prayer requests. They simply praised God for the
splendor of his holiness and in the same way all of heaven and all of earth
simply sang about Jesus in another part of the Bible Revelations 5 I
read the passage to you:
[Jesus,] you are
worthy
with your blood you purchased people for God
Worthy is the Lamb
[Jesus Christ] who was slain
Then in
response to this kind of worship, the
seals of history and salvation were opened. The enemy never even rated a
mention.
Now are we ready for war? Do we know
that we are in a war and do we know that the war is about worship and waged in
worship? In closing consider Jesus himself I read from the Bible Matthew
4:8-10: Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed
him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. He said: All this I
will give you, if you will bow down and worship me. Jesus said to him: Away
from me, Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.
The devil wants all of us to bow down before
him and worship him anything to
distract us from God but we know how
dangerous that is. There is warfare in worship and therefore with courage,
exercising discipline, steeling ourselves with determination, lifting our game
and not giving an inch, we worship like one of the greatest worshippers and
warriors in the Bible David whom we mentioned before 1 Samuel 6:14-16:
[He] danced before the Lord with all of his might
brought up the ark of
the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet
David [he was]
leaping and whirling before the Lord [with all of his might]
Can we do the same? Worship with all of
our might and win the war? Amen.