Armed for Victory by Alan DiDio

Author:Alan DiDio
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780768461695
Publisher: Destiny Image, Inc.

Militant worship isn’t like regular worship that passively and peaceably seeks God during a slow song. When we enter into militant worship, we are zealously, forcefully, vigorously, combatively, and disturbingly seeking God, because there are external forces and internal conflicts that aspire to keep us out of His presence. Real victory takes place when we remain in His presence. That’s the battle. Once we get in the glory, the Lord fights on our behalf. So, the real struggle is to stay in the glory.

There are forces all around us, 24 hours a day, that are trying to keep us out of the glory of God. If we know that this is true, why do we worship as if it’s not? We ignore the reality of the conflict and, as a result, rarely break through into the presence of God.

Worship with Whips

Jesus wasn’t content to allow anything to keep people from God’s presence, and He got militant about it:

And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: and when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up (John 2:14-17).

The problem was not simply that they were buying and selling. Many merchants were performing a noble service by providing travelers who came long distances with the ability to purchase sacrifices that would have been too difficult to bring with them.

It was not just the dishonesty of many of these sellers. These merchants had taken up the only space that the Gentiles were allowed to use to come and worship at the temple. They were in the way of worship. They were keeping people from invoking the presence of God.

What was Jesus’ response? He took time to fashion a homemade whip and proceeded to increase the borders of God’s habitation.

If God’s house is to be a house of prayer, we must worship with whips when it is a den of thieves. This kind of worship is eaten up with a zeal that cannot be quenched. Those who have broken through to receive from God or do great exploits for Him did so with a militancy that is almost nonexistent in today’s church.

We think that we can get it on our own terms. We say, “God knows my heart.” Yes, God knows that our hearts are deceitfully wicked (see Jer. 17:9). I’m glad that blind Bartimaeus didn’t lazily hope that God knew his heart. The Bible says that he cried out:

And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging.

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