Worship is Warfare

Whenever we pray, “Thy Kingdom Come”, a host of important questions arise. What do we mean by “Kingdom come” and, how is this Kingdom brought about?

Some talk about the kingdom in ways that frighten their Christian brothers with visions of clergy looking for a witch to burn. Others want to claim that the authority of Jesus is only invisible, mystical, and a matter of the heart.

There is another way to understand the kingdom and that is through the centrality and potency of true worship. This is especially true in times when we are being told that our worship is not essential. It is the most essential activity of our lives.

The church’s worship, rightly understood, is warfare, and it is a mode of battle that unbelief has no effective means of resisting. This is because the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. They cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

This is what our weapons do. But what are those weapons?

When the history of redemption is done, we will find that the world was conquered in the name of Jesus Christ through worship. Through songs of thanksgiving, sacrifice and prayers of praise.

So when the rams’ horns sounded, the people shouted. When they heard the blast of the horn, the people gave a great shout, and the wall collapsed. (Joshua 6:20)

God gave the Hebrews the Promised Land, an inheritance that typified the whole earth. But Joshua had to go in and take it. Likewise, the Lord promised Jehoshaphat would sing His way to victory against a multitude too big to number.

Jehoshaphat appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say, “Give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever.” (2 Chronicles 20:21)

In the same way, God has promised to give His Son all the nations of the world. And so Christ has come into the world and taken it.

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. (Psalm 2:8)

Christians are called to display the reality of that conquest in all the world. Jesus Christ is Lord, not only of spiritual things, but also of politics, art, front end loaders, seraphim, cherries, and all things in between.

But such things are not conquered with a sword. The weapons of our warfare are bread and wine; water and word They are songs of prayer and praise.

We have a battering ram about which the princes of this world know nothing, and every Lord’s Day we take another swing at their gates with it.

We do this when we sit down at a table that He has prepared for us in the presence of our enemies. We do this when we sing about the glories of His righteousness at the top of our lungs.

When the church hears the word preached it is hearing the terms of conquest. The church at the Lord’s table, the church on its knees, and the church whistling, nothing but the blood of Jesus, is the church at war and learning to reign with Christ.