To Praise God – A Way Of Life (Part 3)
The power of praise wins battles in our lives. The power of praise pulls down mighty strongholds. The power of praise puts the enemy in flight. True praise from the heart, attracts God’s attention, and where ever He is, darkness has to flee. In the bible, there are numerous accounts where God’s people were confronted with difficult and in some cases, impossible situations, and it was through the power of praise that they were able to overcome.
The Battle of king Jehoshaphat
2 Chronicles 20 has quite a dramatic account of the power of praise and how it can completely transform a hopeless situation. In this story, a massive and a mighty army was about to come up against King Jehoshaphat. So mighty was this army that King Jehoshaphat was afraid and hastened to consult the Lord. Now this is very instructive. Even though he was afraid, he knew where to go – straight to the Lord; and he prayed. His prayer is also very important. The account from 2 Chronicles 20: 5 – 9 reads, “Then, standing in the Temple of Yahweh in front of the new court among the assembled people of Judah and Jerusalem, Jehoshaphat said, ‘Yahweh, God of our ancestors, are you not God in heaven, and do you not rule all the kingdoms of the nations? Your power and might are such that no one can resist you. Did not you, our God, dispossess the inhabitants of this country for your people Israel and give it to the descendants of Abraham, your friend, for ever? They have lived in it and built you a sanctuary there for your name, saying, “If disaster, war, flood, pestilence or famine befall us, and we stand in front of this Temple, before you — for your name is in this Temple — and cry to you in our distress, then you will listen and rescue us.”
Notice that his prayer started with praise and acknowledging God for who He is. Now remember that in an earlier verse, it was stated that Jehoshaphat was frightened. By his prayer he was saying, “Yes Lord, I am afraid. I have a big problem, but you oh God are much bigger than this problem and I trust in you. I turn my eyes unto you and not on the situation that I am up against.”
I mentioned earlier that you cannot praise that which you do not know. Here we can see that Jehoshaphat clearly knew God. There was no way, giving the circumstances, he could ever have prayed like that without knowing God. In knowing God, he reminded the Lord of who He is and what He did in the past and God’s promise to them.
Then God spoke to them through prophecy, saying to them, “Listen, all Judah and you citizens of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat! Yahweh says this to you, “Do not be afraid, do not be daunted by this vast horde, for the war is not your affair but God’s. Go down against them tomorrow; they are coming up by the Slope of Ziz and you will encounter them at the end of the ravine near the desert of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle. Take up your position, stand firm, and see what salvation Yahweh has in store for you. Judah and Jerusalem, be fearless, be dauntless; march out against them tomorrow and Yahweh will be with you.”
In this passage, God said something very important here. He told Jehoshaphat and the people that the battle was not there’s it was the Lord’s. This is important because many of us when we encounter difficulties in our lives, instead of handing them over to the one who is so much greater than our problems and is able to deal effectively with them, we lay claims on the situations calling them “my problem”, and don’t really surrender them to Him. It does not matter what situations may rise up against us; be it family related situations, be it financial situations, be it health related, related to your job; whet ever it is, as people of faith we need to praise and glorify the Name of God, surrender the situations to Him, then stand back and see the glory of God at work. In faith, we need to start surrendering them to God saying, “Lord this is not mine. It does not belong to me. You handle it please,” and leave them in His most capable care.
As the story of Jehoshaphat continues, after consulting with the people, he appointed some to sing to the Lord and some to praise the holy Appearance, as it went forth at the head of the army. They sang, “Give thanks to the Lord for His mercy endures forever.” At the moment they began their shouts of praise, the Word of God tells us that “Yahweh sprang an ambush on the Ammonites, Moabites and the people of Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and that was the end of them, for the Ammonites and Moabites turned on the people of Mount Seir, and put them under the curse of destruction and then, having finished off the people of Seir, set to work slaughtering one another”.
When Judah came to the place where their mighty opponents were, there were none standing. The valley was filled with corpses. As they praised the Living God; as they praised God, before their very eyes, the mighty opponents whom their feared was completely annihilated without them having to lift a single sword. The real power at work here; what made their praise so powerful, what makes praise of the One True Eternal God so magnanimous is that it says; it bares public witness to the truth that the situations that rise up against us might be big, they may be life threatening, they may be overpowering, it may look rather hopeless and may make us feel rather helpless; but when we praise God in spite of it all and through it all and from the very depths of our being, we testify that we believe in God who is greater, mightier, so much more powerful than the situations, the problems, the challenges that have risen up against us can ever be, and He is the One we place all our hope and our trust in.
King Jehoshaphat publicly testified to the fact that he had placed all of his hope and trust in the Lord, not only by his public praise, but look at how he sent his people out to battle. He clearly had no doubt what-so-ever, that God will do what He said He would do and that was to deliver them from their enemy. He did not place his singers and cantors behind the army; he did not put them in the middle; he put them at the head of the army! He did not even put a line of soldiers at the helm to protect them. It was the praise of the people of God, lifting up their hearts and voices in praise and adoration to the One, True, Eternal, Invincible and Almighty God, that protected his army to the point that they never lifted a single sword against the enemy. They testified, as the Psalmist did when he wrote, “Some trust in chariots, some in horses; ah but we, we put out trust in the Name of the Lord our God.” Psalm 20: 7
King Jehoshaphat’s action in putting those who were leading the praise ahead of the army, says a lot to us Catholics and Christians. Matthew 6: 33 says to us, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the other things will be added to you.” In other words, put God first and foremost in your life and many blessings will flow. Many of us Catholics and Christians do not do that. God is not in the top position in our lives. Many put a number of things, the bank book, your job, your spouse, your children, your car and even your dog; oh and this is a big one, sexual impurities , ahead of God. The Catholic Church has a tremendous blessing in the form of the Holy Eucharist, where God – Emmanuel – is with un in a very real and special way. Yet it is so easy for us to miss this highest form of praise in our church – the Holy Mass. We find all kinds of silly and frivolous excuses why we can’t or did not go, and we put all kinds of things in God’s place, especially the pleasures of the world. Sisters and brothers, when we do this, we are breaking the first commandment , for God himself said,
“I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt, where you lived as slaves. You shall have no other gods to rival me. You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God and I punish a parent’s fault in the children, the grandchildren, and the great-grandchildren among those who hate me; but I act with faithful love towards thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” Exodus 20: 1-5
Many Catholics are afraid or even ashamed of baring public witness to their faith. Many will not bless their meal in public and many will not make the Sign of the Cross in public. Many are ashamed to walk with their bibles and other religious books, but will never leave their cell phones behind. Brothers and sisters, something is very wrong with that demonstration of your faith. If we really lived our Catholic faith as it was meant to be lived, then we would not be reading nor hearing about the horror stories that have become a part of our daily existence. Our public testimony of our faith would transform our world. Saint Paul writes, “This may be a wicked age, but your lives should redeem it.” Ephesians 5: 16.
Jehoshaphat knew God and he trusted Him. That is why he was able to do what he did. To the normal soldier, his instructions in marching our against a mighty enemy would have seemed to be nothing short of ludicrous and the ranting of a madman. However to a soldier of God, it would make perfect sense. Put God first in every situation; praise Him no matter what and see the glory of the Lord.
