2 Chronicles 20:1-17
Warfare and Worship Through Singing
This story brings us to this truth: Spiritual worship and spiritual warfare should be carried out with singing. In verse 19 when all the people fell down to worship, the singers stood up to sing. And in verse 21 when the people went out to meet the enemy, the singers went before them with songs of victory.
And even more than that, I think that the writer wants us to learn from verse 22 that the enemies of God are thrown into confusion by the songs of God's people. Or to put it another way, God has appointed the use of spiritual songs as an effective weapon against his archenemy Satan.
Paul and Silas in the Philippian Prison
There is a similar story in the New Testament that confirms this lesson. In Acts 16 Paul and Silas are not protected by God from the attack of their enemies. But they are spared from death. In verses 22–24 it says that they were stripped and beaten with rods and then put in stocks in the inner chamber of the prison.
Now picture this. You are walking down an alley within Suntec City and suddenly a gang of vicious men surround you. They strip off your clothes and pull out their smooth wooden billy clubs and for 15 or 20 minutes smash you back and forth between them. Then with open wounds and concussions and broken ribs and internal injuries, they drag you over, put irons around your feet, and let you down a manhole for the night. If you thought of nice antiseptic prisons, you wouldn't have any idea of what Paul and Silas endured.
There you are in the middle of the night, having no idea whether you will be hanged or beheaded or flogged again, and what do you do? Pray! We would all pray. We would cry out for help. So did Paul. But that's not all he did. Verse 25 says, "But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them."
Now why were they singing? It was midnight. They were in pain. They were weary. They were cut off from their traveling partners. They were at the hands of unscrupulous men. Sleep from exhaustion, crying, pleading with God for help—these things we could understand. But singing hymns! If anybody were to say to us today, "When you hit bottom, sing hymns to God," we would probably say to them, "Lay off with simplistic solutions. You've obviously never been on the bottom."
But Paul and Silas were at the bottom. And they sang hymns to God. Sometimes the only solutions left in life are simple ones.
Why were they singing? They were singing because they needed a display of God's power. They had learned that singing to God is not merely a response to his grace but also a weapon of spiritual warfare. They had learned like Jehoshaphat and like many of us that the enemies of God are thrown into confusion by the songs of God's people.
And in his great mercy God did for Paul and Silas what he did for Jehoshaphat. Verse 26: "And suddenly there was a great earthquake . . . and immediately all the doors were opened and every one's fetters were unfastened." So we see again that God accepts the offering of praise and makes it an occasion for his power. And we see the truth confirmed, that God has appointed the use of spiritual songs as an effective weapon against his archenemy Satan.
The Holy Spirit is our great hope against Satan. But how does the Holy Spirit fill and empower us? Ephesians 5:18–19 says, "Be filled with the Holy Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody to the Lord with all your heart." The fullness of the Holy Spirit is experienced as a heart filled with singing. So if we fight Satan by the fullness of the Spirit, we fight him with song. Would you raise a song of praise in your prison; your pressure and your pain? The enemy gets confused and God secures your conquest!
Ambushing Satan With Song [Part FOUR] will be posted on Thursday, March 8
