Two Practical Applications
Let me close this series of devotionals with two practical applications.
1. Use Songs in Your Personal Devotions
Use songs in your personal devotional life to help you ambush Satan. Sing to the Lord. Sing in worship knowing fully well that your singing will disarm the enemy. I promise you it will bring a new power to your fight of faith. Satan cannot bear the singing of the saints. You can drive him away with song. And don't fall for his lie that you can't sing. Everybody can sing. Not everybody can perform. Not everybody can lead. Not everybody can read music or even stay on the right keys. But everybody can sing to God.
When a four year old comes home from Children’s Church and announces that he wants to sing you a new song, and what you hear is a mixture of three tunes and four different sets of lyrics, how do you feel as a parent? I'll tell you: you feel wonderful, because there is a song in the heart of your child. And if any enemy ever came along and opposed that song, you would flatten him—like God did the Moabites and the Philippian jail. God loves to hear your song, no matter how badly you sing. And woe to your enemies when you sing to your Father in heaven!
2. Know That the Ministry of Song In Worship Is Warfare
Second, God has ordained that the gifted singers among us be appointed for spiritual leadership in worship. David appointed the Levites of the family of Kohath to the ministry of music. They were to serve in the house of God to bring a continual offering of praise and worship to the Lord. They were to lead and assist the people in singing to God. And, as we saw in 2 Chronicles 20 their work is warfare. When they began to sing, the Lord set an ambush against the enemy.
And so it is in the local church. This worship team is not there to turn worship into a nice aesthetic experience for the pleasure of unspiritual artsy types. The worship leaders and musicians and support singers have not been called as a kind of musical artists in residence. They have been called as army commanders. The enemy is Satan and the warfare is song. And their business Sunday after Sunday is to take charge of their congregation at the front ranks of the army and to lead us to God in worship, to each other in love, and into the world to plunder the death camps of Satan. Christ has given us a promise far greater than the promise of Jahaziel to Jehoshaphat: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me; go make disciples . . . I will be with you to the end of the age . . . I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (Matthew 28:18–20; John 11:25).
The Triumphant Song of Martyrs
January 8, 1956, Jim Elliot and four other young missionaries approached the jungle edge where the Auca Indians lived. Their last recorded act according to Elizabeth Elliot in her book Through Gates Of Splendour was to sing a hymn together:
We go in faith, our own great weakness feeling,
And needing more each day thy grace to know,
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing,
We rest on thee, and in thy name we go.
All five of them were killed that afternoon. But they, too, were protected by God—protected from a fate far worse than death. They were protected from cowardice and unbelief and fear. And I think it would be fair to say—protected with song. Why do I say that? Because the seed they sowed with their sacrificial death that day was incorruptible seed and that seed was planted with song – and the devil could not destroy it! Satan is immobilized by song.
We have two great weapons in worship: the Word of God and song. So let us give heed to the Word of God and let us sing with all our heart. Amen
