Understanding worship as Spiritual Warfare (2)

Every time I read the story about Paul and Silas in jail, I am impressed by the manifestation of a physical occurrence as a result of a spiritual act. If you are not familiar with the story I am referencing, please read through Acts 16: 16 – the end of the chapter.

The story bears no mention of the fact that Paul and Silas were asking God to bail them out of jail. I’m actually more inclined to think that they were “giving thanks in every circumstance” in keeping with Paul’s stance on worshipping no matter what the situation.

I cannot imagine that their worship was particularly melodious. I think it sounded more like an out-of-tune, halting noise by 2 guys. Considering they had just been beaten and thrown in jail for saving a girl from demonic torment, my guess is that they must have been battling the desire to be negative and outraged at the injustice. I know for sure that if it had been Paulo Mugarura in that situation, the atmosphere in the jail cell would have been far more toxic than a bunch of men singing hymns.

The fact of the matter is that on the face of it, there were no ingredients leading up to the massive move of God an evangelistic worship service.

Grumpy beat up men… check!

Jail cell… check!

Injustice … check!

Hymns of praise… what?

I say this A LOT – it is easy to come to a worship service and approach it as a same-old, same-old gathering of lukewarm believers… a gathering that is devoid of passion, energy and above all, the work of the hand of God. The experience of Paul and Silas in their jail cell should be a constant reminder about the fact that no matter how small and insignificant our act of worship may seem, it is a platform for an awesome move of God.

As facilitators of worship, we are in charge of overseeing times that have the potential to be incredible encounters with God. It makes sense that we should approach the times that we have the privilege to facilitate worship with great expectation that a simple act of singing a bunch of songs in the natural can have a tremendous impact on the lives of those that bear witness and even on the physical facility in which we worship. If you think about it, as the worship team, through our worship we could have saved the church a lot of money through the demolition of our old facility! Heh!

I think that the fact that their chains were loosed was a natural manifestation of a greater spiritual loosening:

- The injustice that had been served
- The jailer’s family coming to know God
- The prisoners that were touched – possibly transformed – by the experience
- The slave girl getting freed from demonic oppression
- Possibly other things that are not recorded in this story

2 weeks ago I made mention of David in my first entry on this topic of spiritual warfare. Early on in his life, there is evidence that he too experienced first hand the fact that worship had tremendous power in the spirit real that would then manifest itself in the physical. All he had to do was simply playing his harp and his king - Saul was able to experience release from spiritual oppression.

Looking at illustrations like this throughout scripture convince me more and more that what we do is more than simply providing a good stepping stone/atmosphere for the messages that are preached. Many worship leaders and pastors fall into the trap of making worship just that. It is much more than making church relevant and attractive to people that are on a spiritually seeking journey. Many more people – leaders and facilitators alike – also have this misconception. It is SO MUCH MORE than performing a bunch of well-executed songs. I confess that I have been guilty of this a lot. What we engage in on a week-by-week basis has implications far bigger and greater than we can ever imagine and reach well beyond the natural into the spiritual to loose bonds and bring about a change in people’s hearts and lives.

I do not know whether you know this, but in practically every culture and religion in the world, in order to invoke spiritual power, people engage in worship – specifically music – of the being that they are invoking. It is interesting that even on the other side of the field – the enemy’s side – the same rules apply. Worship allows them too to tap into the spiritual in an attempt to affect what happens in the natural.

Whether you acknowledge it or not is another thing, but the fact of the matter is that we live in a world that starts and ends in the spiritual and what happens on the spiritual playing field has direct influence and implications on what happens in the natural. (Genesis 1: 26, 3:22, Exodus 17, 1 Samuel 16, Revelation 5: 8, etc…) Prayer, praise and worship allow us to reach into, and operate in more than a natural/physical playing field and this is why we talk about “approaching the throne of God” because it is not just a figure of speech, but an actual occurrence. I think that this is the reason why the times of prayer at the end of the service have historically been accompanied by worship and praise because in and of itself, it has the power to break bonds, loose chains and bring about divine intervention in a physical/natural circumstance.

My hope is that it becomes more clear and plain to all of us that what we do has implications far beyond anything that we could even begin to fathom with our puny minds. Praise and worship is an essential and powerful weapon whose use we have the privilege of facilitating. Understanding this even more allows us to operate at a level that we may not have known before because it allows us to come to grips with the fact that we have not even scratched the surface of what is possible when we praise.