Teaching from Elkanah Music Staff Member Rick Stokes
(Note from Jules: Rick is one of the most gifted and anointed worship leaders and teachers NZ has. He is a man of God, wonderfully liberated and experienced in worship and able to communicate the heart of God as a worship leader, teacher and exhorter. He is available to teach on many aspects of worship in your fellowship. He comes with my highest recommendation. Please contact Rick direct: stoked1@maxnet.co.nz Ph03-526-7882 Mob: 021-102-9098 )

What happens when we praise God?

As a child I often wondered why all the singing in church? No one ever explained to me the value - the importance - the absolute necessity of praising God..

Once as a new Christian at a big conference I publicly tried to correct the Garratts (a New Zealand couple who pioneered "Scripture In Song", paving the way for the huge range of contemporary praise and worship music available today), by saying: 'Praise and worship is OK, but what we really need is to preach the gospel.' Years later I got the revelation of the foolishness of this statement, and was able to apologise to them for my mistake. My witness would have remained passionless and powerless, without the relationship and anointing that praise and worship later brought into my life. 

Acts 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me...

The Holy Ghost comes on God's people today - usually during or after a time of praise. He empowers us to be His witnesses.

What is Praise?

* Speaking, Singing, Shouting from our mouths with words that extol, exalt, honour God: eg. 'He is Lord,' 'Praise The Lord!' 'God You're amazing' 

* Dancing in a way that brings glory to God. 

* Playing instruments to His glory

Praise is NOT

* singing to each other. 'Let's do this, and let's do that' 

* songs that focus primarily on one's self - 'me me songs.' e.g. I'm gonna do this.. I'm gonna do that','Gimme this, gimme that' 

* Glorifying ourselves in any way. 

* ENTERTAINMENT!!

I remember one prophetic person relating a time in a service during the singing, when the Lord spoke very clearly to him: 'I do not receive their worship.' God is not into performance and pretence. He much prefers our hearts to be poured out before Him. Even when God rebuked Saul via Samuel (1 Sam 15:30) and tore the kingdom from him, Saul still asked Samuel to honour him before the people, to keep the show going.

As a young Christian I once ended up at a Pentecostal church meeting in Nelson, NZ. The people were singing 'The Lord reigns,' over and over. They were having such a good time, and making lots of noise, that I wondered if they had missed the glass of vinegar before the service, like my previous experience of Christianity.That night I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Praise is the key.

Reading Psalms I used to get sick of the constant exhortation to 'Praise the Lord', until I began to discover some of the benefits of doing so. God NEVER tells us to do anything without a good reason - and there is a very good reason for praise.

Ps103:1 Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. 2Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: 3Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; 4Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; 5Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so thatthy youth is renewed like the eagle's. 

Have you ever wondered just what happens when we begin to praise God? And why is it often so hard to do? We are in a spiritual WAR. If you have been born again into the family of God, and yielded your life to the LORDship of Christ, you have taken sides against satan and his forces in a life and death battle being waged all around us. (If Jesus Christ isn't in the place of being your LORD and Master, you probably aren't saved yet.

Did you know that you have a deadly enemy? One that wants to take what is rightfully yours, kill you and destroy your family? We need to stand up to him and fight the good fight! James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God, RESIST the devil, and he will flee from you. (Not IGNORE the devil!) Notice, we must first SUBMIT to God

God has given us weapons to fight satan's army with, and one of the most important ones is PRAISE.

Ps 149:6-9 Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two edged sword in their hand;7To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; 8To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; 9To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD. 

Satan's army knows too well the power that is released by God when His people truly praise Him. His job is to stop us any way he can.

Psalm 2:1-4 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?2The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 3Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

Our praise to God (especially High Praises) BINDS UP enemy powers. The enemy powers are fighting to cast these cords off.

Resisting us breaking through into victory.

A Story: Struggle in the Square

Once my wife, little boy, and I arrived in Cathedral Square, Christchurch (New Zealand) to lead our usual time of praise, worship and prayer on Friday night - "Worship Without Walls" (as we had been doing for nearly 10 years). There had just been a gang fight, and the atmosphere was loaded with fear and a heavy sense of evil. One glue sniffer was sitting where we usually sang, filling the air with obscenities and blasphemy at the top of his voice. I remember asking the Lord if He was giving me a word that tonight should be cancelled, and we could quietly just go home. Singing Jesus songs in that place felt about as welcome as trying to sell pork chops in a synagogue. But the still, small voice of the Lord was telling me to do what He had already called me to do, so I reluctantly kneeled down on the cold wet ground and got my guitar out of the case. I had just put the verse Psalm 28:6 to music: 'The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song will I praise Him.As we began to sing this song in the midst of that fully hostile atmosphere, our timidity turned into boldness, as the presence of the Lord came down into our midst, and our part of the Square literally emptied in seconds. Suddenly there was a huge peace and sense of warmth and joy there. Gradually, people ventured back into the ground that we had cleared, and we saw God touching them as they sat around and got immersed in His presence.

Sometimes as in PS 103 we have to tell our soul: 'Bless the Lord!' 'I know you don't feel like it, but you need to do it! Now!' Remember, we are a Spirit, that has a Soul, that lives in a Body. Not the other way around!

Who is calling the shots in your life? Your SOUL (sensual, carnal nature, flesh) ...... or your SPIRIT? (God-sensitive part of us that yearns for His approval and fellowship) Rom 8:13,14For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 14For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.Eph 6:12 ....'We WRESTLE......')

A Story: Night shift at Radio Rhema

In the early 90s I was a radio announcer for Radio Rhema, a nationwide Christian network in New Zealand. After going through a very difficult day, involving a painful broken relationship, a bit of persecution, and a lot of demonic oppression (it felt like all the praying Christians in the country had turned their radios off and were channelling into the television's sewer-side offerings). Perhaps the closest I've ever been to wanting to turn away from God. After finishing off my shift at midnight, shutting down the studio and locking the building, I was poised with one hand on my car's door handle, and one hand on the roof, when I clearly heard the devil's voice, repeating the line he used via Job's wife; 'C'mon, curse God and die.' 

Now much as I really wanted in my anger and pain to unleash a tirade of venom at God for all I was going through, I wanted to hurt the devil more. So right there, I made a decision to try to praise God (much as my flesh loathed the idea) all the way home to Lyttelton, about 25 minutes' drive. As I began, 'Praise You Lord,' in a wimpy, unconvinced tone, the devil was mocking me via my own thoughts: 'You hypocrite! You don't really mean it. Give up!' As I persisted, doggedly pressing in to the God I knew through years of experience to be good, loving, and real, the devil's tone began to change. A nervous sound came into his voice, as he begged me to stop this nonsense right away. As I continued, my voice began to get stronger and more confident, as I began to remember scriptures from the Bible and use them. By the time I got to the Lyttelton Tunnel I was in full shout, my car's interior being flooded with praises coming so fast that my mouth could hardly keep up with them. By the time I stepped out of the car at my rented house I was in victory. Another valuable lesson learned.

Remember Jehoshaphat's army? (2 Chron 20) Totally outnumbered by three different nations teamed up against them. As they began to sing and to praise, God set ambushes against their enemies. Wiped them out. Three days worth of plunder to take away. Awesome. I could carry quite a bit in three days. One of the reasons God allows the enemy's attacks is so you and I can plunder his kingdom, after first dealing with the areas of weakness in our lives that God was exposing. (Ps 17:13,14) The devil must have innumerable regrets. 

You want victories? Then get ready to fight some battles. Every time the devil attacks you, he is taking a huge risk that you will respond God's way, and win a big victory, having a testimony to share with others. Of course, he would prefer you to follow what your flesh wants, and lose big time to him.Or Joshua and his army outside the walls of Jericho...(Josh 6:20) 'So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.'

Psalm 8:1,2O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. 

Matt 21:16Jesus quotes the same verse to the chief priests and scribes, Yea; have ye never read,Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? Jesus is the Word of God, so He is authorised to re-translate "strength" to "praise" here.

So how are praise and strength related here? Because the JOY OF THE LORD (which comes as we praise God) IS OUR STRENGTH!! (Neh 8:10) PRAISE IS A VITAL WEAPON against the enemy!

Praise Brings God's Blessing

God programmed us with a desire to praise and exalt someone or something, so if it isn't God, it is usually an idol of some sort. Maybe even ourselves.... Since the great migration over the past 50 years or so from the land into the city, people find less and less inspiration for praising God. Instead of the beauty and grandeur of God's creation, most of us are now surrounded by the glory of man. Concrete jungles, skyscrapers, modern design...... The trouble is; we can only see with our natural eyes the natural, physical realm around us ...... 

...The thousands of unbelieving, self-pleasing people all around us .....

We need to take our main focus off the temporary, passing things of this life, and focus on the ETERNAL spiritual realm all around us. (2Cor 4:18 'While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.' ) When we DECIDE to begin praising God, whether out of the overflow of joy and thankfulness for His blessing, or offering the Sacrifice of Praise in difficult circumstances, we are stepping out in faith, and saying: I believe in the power and greatness of God, and that what He says in His Word is true. 

God honours the praises He hears. I believe He values them by the genuineness and cost of the praise we bring. David, a man after God's own heart, refused to offer a sacrifice on a threshing floor that didn't cost him anything. (2 Sam 24:24)

I reckon that when things are going well and we praise God, He might just value it, say, at one thousand dollars. But when things are tough, and we still manage to praise Him, that could be worth, say, a million dollars to God. God calls this the Sacrifice of Praise. (Heb 13:15)

Did you know that God Himself comes and inhabit our praises? 

Ps 22:2 'But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.'

When God hears genuine praise, He comes and INHABITS the atmosphere of praise and worship - His Anointing becomes available to us. 

The Anointing - the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit (represented most times you see oil mentioned in the Bible) brings a change to the atmosphere around us, enabling faith, prophecy, healings, miracles, etc to take place. No wonder there has been such a battle over worship in the Church. Satan hates the Anointing. He'll do anything it takes to try and stop you getting there.

Is 10:27... and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.

God's anointing comes when we praise Him, and the anointing destroys satan's yokes off us. The anointing often brings an understanding of the true nature of things concerning us.

Ps 36:9 For with Thee is the fountain of life: in Thy light shall we see light. 

Summary

* We are in a war against a devious, totally evil enemy. 

* Praise is one of the weapons of our warfare. 

* Praise brings the presence of God into our situation, as God inhabits our praise. 

* Praise executes judgement on the kingdom of darkness. 

* We must make a decision to praise God, in all situations, regardless of how we feel. 

* Praise is vital for all believers in Jesus. 

Praise the Lord! 

Write:Rick Stokes, 233 Edwards Road, RD2, Upper Moutere, 7175, New Zealand

Email: stokes@family.net.nz or stoked1@maxnet.co.nz www.bootsinall.co.nz