Transcription
Hallelujah, you're most welcome to the presence of the Lord. And today, we shall be sharing on the power of praise and worship, the power of praise and worship. And we shall be sharing from Psalm 149, Psalm 149, verse 1 to 7. Psalm 149, verse one to seven. I would be reading from the easy to read version, easy to read version. Psalm 149, verse one to seven. And he says, "Praise the Lord."
Sing a new song to the Lord, a new song to the Lord. Sing his praise in the assembly of his followers. Let Israel be happy with their maker. Let the people of Zion rejoice with their king. Let them praise him by dancing and playing their tambourines and harps. The Lord is happy with his people. He did a wonderful thing for his humble people. He saved them. Let his followers rejoice in this victory. Let them sing for joy, sing for joy, even in their beds. Let the people shout praise to God. And with a sharp sword in your hand, let them take revenge on the other nations. Let them go punish those people.
Hallelujah. There is so much power in praise. It is one of those deep spiritual mysteries. And in fact, praise is so powerful that it is actually one of those principal targets of satanic attacks. The kingdom of darkness recognizes the potential of praise, heartfelt praise, high praise coming from any son or daughter of God. And as such, it's one of those things they will try to either reduce the momentum or take out the fire completely, stop it from that manifestation.
It is for this purpose that the enemy deliberately brings different issues, offenses, challenges, setbacks, disappointments, betrayers, and all kinds of negative experiences and challenges to God's people, with the ultimate goal of getting them so discouraged that eventually they gradually begin to withdraw from the act of heartfelt praise, heartfelt worship to the Almighty. And if some believers are not very, very sensitive and careful, that fire can even completely go out. The fire of praise could completely go out in the life of a believer.
And when it just begins to happen, you will observe that you virtually only praise God when it's within a collective and official setting. It becomes extremely difficult to find you rise up, stand by yourself, just by yourself, and begin to offer praise, begin to offer worship unto the Lord. Praise eventually goes out of your personal devotion, your daily prayer altar. So you just go straight into prayers without praise, without worship, and you virtually close your session of devotion with the Lord.
The kingdom of darkness recognizes what happens when a child of God begins to raise his or her voice onto the heavens, onto God, in heartfelt praise, heartfelt worship. And there are many scriptural instances that demonstrate the power of praise. In 2 Chronicles chapter 20, we'll see one of those very, very interesting instances where understanding of the power of praise was put into physical expression in a very, very critical time. And to the glory of God, in that particular instance, the moment the people began to praise God, something unprecedented happened that I see today become a major reference point in talking about what is capable of happening anytime a child of God or the children of God render heartfelt praise and worship unto Him.
Praise glorifies God. Psalm 50 verse 23, Psalm 41, 47 verse 1. It glorifies God. It magnifies God. Praise brings us into God's presence. And the fact is, it's the preferred approach by God Himself for His children to come before Him. Let the people praise Him. Let the people render worship unto the Most High.
Praise attracts divine interventions. It attracts divine interventions. In the book of Acts, we see how Paul and Silas rose, woke up at midnight to pray and to offer praise unto the Lord. And they didn't just more praise, they actually rendered unto God on that night, that same night, high praises, because the Bible records that as they prayed and sung praises to God, the prisoners heard them. The prisoners heard them.
I know for some of you listening to me right now, sometimes when you are praying, people can still overhear you praying and they know you are praying. That man is praying again. That lady is praying again. But today, also overhear you praising God. Today, also overhear you worshipping the Almighty, because you observe that after a while, people even in the house where you reside, in the neighborhood, your immediate neighbors will begin to make observations. Because sometimes when they begin to hear high praise from a direction, from a particular direction in the neighborhood where that doesn't happen regularly, they begin to assume that something must have happened. Something good must have happened. Something has been celebrated.
But that is not supposed to be the pattern around in the residence of a true child or daughter of God. Our heartfelt praise and worship ought to be rendered to God on a daily basis, on a daily basis. And like I said earlier, for this reason, the enemy will do everything possible to take away your joy. It will do everything possible to impute on you the spirit of heaviness. This kingdom of darkness and the spirits working with them will continue to overemphasize challenges in your mind. They will continue to re-emphasize the things that are yet to be done, the things that God has not yet done, far above whatever He has done.
And so you observe that if you give in to such thoughts, you continue to delay, you continue to delay, you continue to delay your offer of heartfelt praise unto the Lord, especially privately. Because when we are in a gathering, when we are in the place of worship, there is no way you can avoid offering praise to God because everyone is doing it and it's part of the program, it's part of what is happening at the moment. But the retest is when you are alone.
It attracts God's favor. Yes, praise attracts the favor of God. Praise is one of the weapons of our warfare. It is one of the weapons of our fear. Psalm 149, verse 5-9 shows us clearly that praise is one of the weapons of our warfare, and God is expecting us to utilize this weapon as often as is necessary. Let the people praise Him. Let the people worship. Let the people give thanks to the Almighty, the Ancient of Days, the Everlasting Father, the One who was, who is, and is to come. He sits in heaven and He does whatever pleases Him. Without Him, we are nothing. And we are what we are today because of Him. Many slept last night, but some didn't wake up this morning. Many entire new month, but some do not go enter the next month. They are no longer alive. It is the same God that keeps us alive in the midst of diverse challenges and adversities.
Praise attracts divine blessings, which brings increase. Psalm 67, verse 1 to 7. David consistently indulged in the act of praise unto the Most High God. And it's quite instructive that of the divers and numerous kings of Israel, one king that was so dear to the heart of God was King David. He was a man so determined to always do whatever was God's will, whatever was God's instruction. But in addition to that, he was a man who consistently gave offered praise, worship unto the Lord, and led his people to do the same.
Praise is an act of spiritual worship. It's an act of spiritual sacrifice. It's an act of spiritual sacrifice. Psalm 50 verse 23, John 4:24, Psalm 29 verse 2. Praise motivates God to fulfill His promises. There are times where you would have prayed exhaustively, and the Spirit of God itself would give you a clear witness that it is done. There are times you will be led into prayers and fasting over certain issues, but a point in time will also come when you will have a leading that it is done. And so the fast should come to an end. The fast you end now.
But it's not every time that you round up a prayer and fast, you round up an intensive prayer session, and at the same time, the answer to that prayer manifests in the physical. So sometimes there are intervals between when you have rounded up your prayers and when the physical manifestation of God's answer to your prayers eventually manifests in the physical. So what do you do within that interval? One of those things expected is that you must have patience. You must have patience. The book of Hebrews teaches us that we have need of patience, that after we have done the will of God, after we have done the will of God, we may receive that which He has promised. So as you patiently expect the physical manifestation of the answer to your prayers, one of those things you should do while exercising patience is to consistently offer unto the Lord heartfelt praise. Heartfelt praise.
It ushers in the physical manifestation of the answer. Are you ready to see and experience the answer, God's answer to those prayers? Praise Him. Worship Him. Praise Him. Praise Him. Praise Him. Something will happen as you keep on praising Him. Something is bound to happen as you keep on praising Him.
King Jehoshaphat obviously understood. Because one king that understood the power of spiritual sacrifices, the power of praise, of worship, of thanksgiving was King David. Another king of Israel that understood this power, the dynamics of praise, and the potential power of praise was King Jehoshaphat. And in 2 Chronicles chapter 20, we see Jehoshaphat act in this spiritual understanding. At the time, the nation was besieged by very powerful enemy nations, knowing fully well that they did not have the physical strength or the military might to take on those enemies and overcome them. He called for a fast. And the people waited upon the Lord in prayers and fasting. And while they were waiting on the Lord, the Spirit of God came upon one of his chosen vessels, one of his priests, who spoke by the Spirit of God of God's imminent intervention in response to their prayer. And the Lord gave them an assurance that He was going to answer their prayer in an unusual way, that in that particular battle, they will not have to even fight. The Lord challenged them to be still and see what He will do as He brings them deliverance and victory.
I would heard this from God. King Jehoshaphat did something unusual. He called forth the choristers, called forth the instrumentalists, called forth the musicians, and in a physical military battle, he put them in front, ahead of the soldiers, ahead of the warriors of Israel, to do what? Not to confront the enemy nations, but to offer, to lead Israel in high praise, lead Israel in heartfelt worship. He was indeed a king that had spiritual understanding of the workings of God. He understood the things that the Spirit of God responds to. And the Bible tells us in verse 22 that as they began to sing praises, something was going to happen. God had given a promise of what He would do, but it had not yet happened. And it's quite instructive that the moment, from the moment they began to praise, that was when the heavens opened. There was evidently an angelic intervention. God released His warrior angels to descend to the land, and He instantly began the deliverance for the nation of Israel. Is that they began that great and awesome victory on behalf of the people and nation of Israel? The power of praise, the power of praise.
So the forces of heaven are usually mobilized into action by praise, by praise. Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready to begin to use this key more than ever before, especially in the midst of discouragement, in the midst of offense, in the midst of all that the enemy is doing directly or indirectly to weigh down your spirit? Because some of those things you are exposed to are for an ultimate purpose, and one of them is to get you to become so discouraged and ultimately even depressed that on your own, you no longer offer praise and worship unto the Lord. The Lord restore your joy. The Lord restore your peace. And every spirit of sadness, heaviness, that the enemy had planted and stationed permanently around your heart, around your mind, today we bind and cast them out in the name of Jesus Christ. Let the Lord hear you say a powerful amen to that.
In James chapter 4 verse 3, we are made to understand that you can sometimes pray amiss, pray out of context, pray out of the will of God. And as human entities, this happens a lot, except we become less sentimental and we become more sensitive to the leadings we have in the spirit, more sensitive to God's word, God's word concerning different issues we may be prompted to pray about. Our Lord Jesus Christ, every time He prayed, God answered. But the only time He prayed and that prayer was not answered was when He prayed just prior to His arrest, leading ultimately to His crucifixion and His death. When He was, He went into the garden of Gethsemane in Matthew chapter 26, and He prayed that God would take that cup of trials, that experience of serious stress He was about to go into, away from Him. But that was one prayer that God did not answer because it was not in His perfect will for that to happen. Jesus was bound to go through that trial.
But for we human entities, many times we are exposed, many times we are exposed, many times we are exposed to a lot of things, a lot of expectations, a lot of desires that may sometimes be out of the will of God. Since we ask and we receive not because we pray amiss. But I have good news for you. When it comes to, when it now comes to the issue of praise, you can pray amiss, but you can never praise amiss. Every time you offer praise, it is on target. It is received by heaven. It is received by God. Every time you offer praise, you are right on target. What you have offered to God is received, and it will always come, be received with a blessing, a response from the presence of the Lord.
I know the only thing that God cannot do for Himself is to praise Himself. So we have the responsibility. All His creation has a responsibility to praise God. That God has created has a responsibility to praise God. And that is why even in the heavens, before the throne of God, the heavenly beings consistently, on the daily basis, offer praise and worship unto the Most High God. The angels of God consistently offer praise and worship to God. I need to interest you that other innate creations of God also offer praise unto Him. We have been created, among other things, to consistently offer praise and worship to the Most High God. Thank God for what He has done. Thank God consistently. Give Him thanks for what He has done. And let's also consistently thank Him, praise Him for who He is. Praise Him for who He is. He's dependable. He's reliable. All power belongs to Him. He holds the key of David. A door He has closed, no man can open. Though He has decided to open, irrevocably, no man can shut that door. Praise Him for who He is. Praise Him for who He is.
I know any time praise turns given is offered, things will happen. The atmosphere of praise, the atmosphere of worship and thanksgiving is an atmosphere for potential miracles, potential manifestation of the Spirit of God, potential manifestation of the power of God. The Lord brings me revival today, revival, fresh revival into every altar of praise of everyone listening to this message. Can the Lord hear you say a powerful amen? Lord, we pray that You will impute upon everyone the garment of praise. Let Your oil of gladness come afresh upon each and every one. Let there be a fresh revival, the altar of praise, the altar of worship. And Lord, we also pray that Your healing hand, let Your healing hand touch that son, touch that daughter, touch that loved one faced with that health issue. Lord, we pray that Your hand of restoration will touch Your son, touch Your daughter right now. Touch that family, touch that home, restoring everything that the devil has stolen, everything that the devil has pulled down, everything that the devil has destroyed. Lord, let Your power, grace of restoration, bring forth a double portion of restoration onto that family listening right now. Lord, we pray that this hour, by Your mercy and favor, You will command deliverance as You did for Jehoshaphat and Israel, as You did for Paul and Silas. Lord, command deliverance, command angelic interventions on behalf of Your sons and daughters. Whatever has been the hard cry of this man, this woman listening to this message, Lord, let there be a timely divine solution. Thank You because every time we praise You, every time we worship, every time we pray, You always hear us. We receive God's answer. We receive God's blessing. We receive God's intervention. We receive God's solution. We receive God's direction. This blessed day in Jesus' name, we have received.
Hallelujah. Without any doubt, I can confirm to you that the Lord, the Spirit of God has just moved upon you, moved around you, moved around your home, moved around and upon your family, and the Lord has just impacted a new blessing, and there shall be physical evidence. Please join us as we come to you very soon again with God's moment, God's message for the moment from Jesus Evangelical Assembly, the House of Answered Prayers. God bless you richly in Jesus' name.