A little over a month ago, I wrote an article exhorting us to be like Nehemiah. When he was surrounded by the ruins all around him, he trusted God’s promises and had a heart to build. So also, as our government, our schools, and far too many families and churches are in spiritual ruins, the time is for us to trust Christ’s promise that he will build his church, roll up our sleeves, spit on our hands, and build.
What I’d like to do in the next handful of articles is to put flesh to this call to action. How practically do we build?
It must begin with potent worship. The church is the worshipping assembly. But worship is not only our goal. Worship is also a key element of accomplishing our goal. God has called our worship to be militant. And this is a truth that the church must regain: worship is warfare.
Doug Wilson put it this way: “Worship is not a retreat from the church’s work of conquest. Rather, worship is a fundamental ‘strategy’ of the church militant.”
Again and again in Scripture, we see that as the people of God worship God in spirit and in truth, that it is a powerful weapon used by God to crush the forces of wickedness and to establish the Kingdom of God.
In 2 Chronicles 20, a great horde of the forces of the Moabites and Ammonites and Meunites came against Judah and King Jehoshaphat in battle. Jehoshaphat was generally a faithful and reforming king in Judah. He removed the idols from the land (17:6; 19:3) and appointed judges throughout the land (19:5-11). So when these wicked forces came against him, Jehoshaphat’s response was consistent with that faithfulness.
His first response was to assemble all of Judah for a fast and lift up his voice before the Lord in prayer (20:3-12). Then Jahaziel the son of Zechariah stood up and preached the message of the Lord, which was in part: ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s’ (20:15). Jehoshaphat and all of Judah responded to the preaching by bowing their heads to the ground and worshiping the LORD (20:18). Then the next morning when they met their enemies in battle, Jehoshaphat put the Navy Seals out in front, the Special Ops leading the army of Judah. Who were they? The Levitical singers.
2 Chronicles 20:21—“And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the LORD and praise him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say, ‘Give thanks to the LORD, for his steadfast love endures forever.”
In short, the response of Jehoshaphat and Judah was one of worship: prayer, preaching God’s Word, and lifting their voices in song.
And what happened? 2 Chronicles 20:22—“And when they began to sing and praise, the LORD set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed.”
When Judah worshipped, Yahweh became a terror to the surrounding nations (20:29).
Worship is warfare.
When we cry out to God in prayer, it is potent. For example, when Israel ‘cried out’ during their slavery in Egypt, God remembered his covenant and raised up a deliverer who would lead them out of bondage (Exodus 2:23-25; 3:6-9). When Samuel assembled the people at Mizpah, the Philistines attacked Israel. While Samuel offered a sacrifice and cried out to the Lord, the Lord thundered at the Philistines and confused them, allowing Israel to win a great victory (1 Samuel 7:3-11).
Scripture also tells us that God inhabitants the praises of his people (Psalm 22:3). When we lift up our shouts and songs of praise, God is present with us in a mighty way. The first conquest in the Promised Land happened by the priests blowing their trumpets and the people raising their voices in shouts, and the walls of Jericho came tumbling down (Joshua 6). God inhabited their praises and defeated their enemies.
Though the power of worship is evident in the Old Covenant, it is even more so in the New Testament. In Christ, we are positioned with him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6), and when we assemble for worship, we join the heavenly hosts (Hebrews 12:22-24), and our heavenly worship affects the course of earthly history. As we worship in our prayers and praises, God thunders from the heavens, shakes the earth, and scatters our enemies (Revelation 8:1-5).
Why is it that our enemies worldwide have sought to forbid millions of Christians from worshiping this last year? Why is it that the authorities in Alberta imprisoned Pastor James Coates for 35 days for gathering his church for worship? Why is it that Trinity Bible Church in Waterloo, Ontario has been fined over $40 million for gathering for worship? Why is it that over 100 members of Early Rain Covenant Church in China were arrested for gathering for worship?
This has happened because our enemies recognize better than many Christians do that worship is warfare. They recognize its potency. They see that it is an attack against the world and its ungodly system.
We must see the potency of our worship on the Lord’s Day. When we worship, we are not putting our car on cinder blocks and revving our engine, making a lot of noise but accomplishing nothing. No, through our prayers, our praises, and our preaching, we are by the Spirit taking a battering ram against the Gates of Hell and the forces of evil, and God is pleased to use our worship to deal devastating blows.
When we gather for worship on Sunday, we gather for battle. We are gathering in the heavenlies asking God to establish his kingdom, for his will to be accomplished on earth as it is in heaven. We sing God’s battle songs, we plead with God in prayer, and we are fed by the preached Word, and then throughout the week we build in our homes, our marriages, our parenting, our jobs upon that foundation of worship. This is the way the Lord builds, and when we build upon worship, we are not building it vain.