This is the manuscript for a sermon at ROPC (AZ) on Sunday, April 11, 2021.
Introduction
Worship is warfare. More specifically, biblical worship is an exercise of spiritual warfare against the wicked powers opposing the Church in the present age. The struggle between light and darkness is a worship war, whether we will worship the God of heaven and or the creation. We are using Psalm 149 to introduce a theme that is pervasive in Scripture but of which many Christians remain entirely ignorant. That theme is liturgical warfare, the war of worship.
When we think about worship wars we usually think about the style of worship. Will we have a piano and sing psalms and traditional hymns or a praise band with contemporary choruses? Will the pastor wear skinny jeans and prominently display his tattoos or a jacket and tie or a robe? Will the service be casual, choreographed to seem spontaneous, or explicitly liturgical and formal? Some of these issues matter insofar as they reveal our concept of God, worship, and the Church, but these are the most superficial aspects of worship. The fact that this is what we focus on much of the time in discussions of worship indicates we don’t really understand what worship is.
Psalm 149 is a call to exuberant worship in the presence of God. It is offered by people who know who they are, where they are, and how great the God they serve is. It is God-centered, offered in his presence, given to the One who will execute vengeance on the nations. The people who offer it are humble. They are made beautiful by God’s grace, not by their adoption of the world’s standards of what is fashionable or good. They know that they belong to the kingdom of God which will outlast and overcome all nations of the present world. They are singing judgment against their foes, and they praise God for the promise of the justice he will bring. It is not merely ritual; they are rejoicing with sincere hearts. But it is not light-hearted either; they know that God will save his people through judgment, and they sing of what that will mean for the world.
Once this is understood, many of the practices of contemporary worship (rightly) seem shallow, inappropriate, and irreverent. You do not sense that you are in the presence of the world’s judge and punisher as you sing a song that makes Jesus sound like your girlfriend. You will be hard pressed to find the fear and trembling associated with worship and God’s presence in the Bible in many churches today. We don’t want people to fear and tremble--we want them to be comfortable! Not only is the context of worship very different, the content of it is. How many contemporary praise songs have the theological range we find in the psalms? How many are songs of lamentation or imprecatory cries for justice? There are major categories of the Church’s historic praise that entirely disappeared when Christians abandoned the use of the Psalter for exclusive use of uninspired hymns, and the range of themes in our hymnody has grown even narrower in the last one hundred and fifty years. Our worship and our theological understanding is poorer as a result.
Notice the parallelism of v.6: the high praises of God in the mouth of the saints is compared to a two-edged sword of vengeance in their hand. This is an example of synonymous parallelism, the two lines are saying basically the same thing in different terms. But what does that imply? It implies that praising God is comparable to wielding a sword of vengeance, it implies that worship is somehow connected with the judgment of this world, it implies worship is war and worshippers are participating in it.
Rather than discussing any one passage in detail, I want to provide an introduction to this theme that runs through all of Scripture. We will reference many passages, most only briefly, to see how important and pervasive this idea is in both Old and New Testaments. I hope it will give us a greater sense of spiritual warfare that is implicit, and ought to be explicit, in our worship of God. I pray it will give us a deeper sense of what it means to worship and greater reverence in offering it to God, and I pray it will enrich your participation in private, family, and corporate worship.
The War of Worship: Biblical and Historical Perspective
Let’s briefly look at a series of passages in which we see this idea revealed and illustrated. This will not be an exhaustive study of the theme, but I hope it will be a sufficiently complete and useful introduction. Once you understand the idea, you will begin to discover it in many places.
In Joshua 6 we read about the conquest of the city of Jericho. The Lord instructs Israel to march around the city once each day for six days and then seven times on the seventh day. Seven priests blew trumpets, and the Levites carried the ark of the covenant. The rest of the men of war marched in silence until the seventh day. After the seventh circuit on the seventh day, Joshua said, “Shout, for the LORD has given you the city!” The men shouted, and the city walls fell down. I’m sure someone has offered a naturalistic explanation. Maybe the marching feet made stress fractures in the wall and the sonic vibrations of their shout caused the walls to collapse. Or maybe we are supposed to simply dismiss it as ahistorical mythology. This certainly was not a military strategy, and no commander would ever propose something like it today. Jericho was the mightiest city in Canaan, its walls were impregnable, and the city was breached and overcome by worship. Re-read Psalm 149:6-9. Every time the saints praise God, they are marching around the walls of the City of Man. They shout because God has given them the city. And the walls come tumbling down.
Let’s read the next passage together: 2Chronicles 20:1-24. Judah faced an enormous army, a multitude that threatened their very existence. Perhaps if they had been similarly matched, they would have been tempted to trust their own military resources, but here it was evident they could not win simply by their own power. How did Jehoshaphat prepare the people? He prays. He prays God’s promises back to him. He prays for God to curse and defeat their foes. Then what does he do? He organizes the army liturgically! Who does he put out front? Archers? Mortarmen? Special Forces? He puts the choir in front (v.21). And what happened? God fought for his people (v.29).
In Isaiah 36-37 we have an account of the Assyrian threat against Jerusalem in the reign of King Hezekiah (cf. 2Kg. 18:17-19:37; 2Chr. 32:1-23). The Assyrian King Sennacherib threatened Judah and assured Hezekiah that he would not be able to withstand what Assyria was about to do to the southern kingdom. Notice what Hezekiah did when he received the letter: Isaiah 37:14-20. Now look at what God did in response to Hezekiah’s prayer: Isaiah 37:36-38. Hezekiah could not defeat Assyria on the field of battle. Their army was too large and too powerful to be overcome by military resources or strategy. But Assyria was defeated. How? By prayer. Hezekiah prayed, and 185,000 Assyrian soldiers died. The king prayed, and God carpet bombed the enemy.
We could continue illustrating this idea in the OT, but those three should suffice. Now let’s look at the same theme in the NT. Turn to Acts 4:18-31. Peter and John are being ordered by the civil magistrate not to preach. How did the Church respond? By praying Psalm 2, a messianic song of the rule of Jesus. The psalm says of the opposition of the nations: “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The LORD shall hold them in derision,” and once Christ is enthroned as King, it says: “You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.” The Church prays a war psalm when opposed by civil authorities, and what happened? Their meeting place shook. God rattled the walls. Once again, the walls of the City of Man were about to fall.[1]
During Paul’s second preaching journey, he cast a demon out of a slave girl that was being used by her masters as a fortune teller. Notice what happened next: Acts 16:19-34. Paul and Silas are beaten and put into a prison in stocks. What do they do? They pray and sing hymns. Are you beginning to see a pattern? What kinds of prayers and hymns do you suppose they are singing? What do you expect the response would be? Walls shake, doors open, chains are unlocked, and the nations are overthrown by the gospel of grace. The Philippian jailer and his family are saved.
The entire book of Revelation is an illustration of this theme, but let’s read just two brief portions: Revelation 5:9-11 and 8:1-6. The Church in heaven, like the Church on earth, wages spiritual warfare by worship. They sing and pray for God to judge the wicked, and those songs and prayers are received by God and answered with heaven’s fire: noises, thunder, lightning, and an earthquake. When the Church prays, the walls of the City of Man crumble and fall.
We can also see many examples of this theme in Church history. I will mention just a few. The Huguenots were French Calvinists during the Reformation. The Genevan Psalter published in 1562 used by John Calvin in the Huguenot refugee congregation in Geneva is also referred to as the Huguenot Psalter. Reportedly, the Roman Catholics in France were so disturbed by the psalm singing of the Protestants that they outlawed the singing of certain psalms.[2] Psalm 68 was the battle hymn of the Huguenots. Consider the power of a prayer like Psalm 68:1-4 given this theme.[3]
In 1582 a Presbyterian minister in Scotland named John Durie, who had previously been imprisoned for preaching that offended the magistrate, returned to Ediburgh after being exiled from the city. As he entered the city, a group of Christians met him, a large crowd that grew enormously as they walked through the town to the church singing Psalm 124.
"At the Nether Bow they took up the 124th Psalm, 'Now Israel may say, and that truly,' and sang it in such a pleasant tune, in all the four parts, these being well known to the people, who came up the street bareheaded and singing, till they entered the kirk. This had such a sound and majesty as affected themselves and the huge multitude of beholders who looked… with admiration and amazement. The Duke himself was a witness, and tare his beard for anger, being more affrayed at this sight than anything he had ever seen since he came to Scotland.” --Calderwood’s History qtd. in Hew Scott, Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae: the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the reformation (1915), 52
In 1940 when Allied forces were stranded on the northern coast of France, pinned down by the German army, King George VI called for a National Day of Prayer on Sunday, May 26th. The nation prayed, and God answered their prayer. During the eight days, from May 26th to June 4th, 338,226 Allied soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk. In the aftermath, June 9th was made a day of thanksgiving, and churches rang with the words of Psalm 124.
The Church makes war on the world, the Church prays for the walls of the wicked to fall, the Church seeks the blessing and protection of God in the face of certain disaster, every time she worships in song and prayer. Worship is warfare against spiritual hosts of wickedness. Worship is a powerful weapon, a military strategy, against the forces of darkness in this world. We do battle in and by worship. Worship is not entertainment. Worship is not therapy. Worship is combat. It is how the Church conquers all her foes.
The Role of the Psalms in Liturgical Warfare
Since the Psalms have been the primary hymns and prayers of God’s people for the last three thousand years, it is not surprising that liturgical warfare is primarily, though not exclusively, conducted through singing and praying the Psalter. Though not every example we cited explicitly refers to the Psalms, some of them do, and even several that do not may also include them. Look again at the example of Paul and Silas in Acts 16. They “were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” What hymns were they singing? Do you suppose it was Jesus is a Friend of Mine? Or might it have been Psalm 18? In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry came before Him, even to His ears. Then the earth shook and trembled; The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken, because He was angry (vv.6-7). Maybe it is only a coincidence, but those lines are exactly what happened in the jail that night. They cried out in distress, and the earth shook with his anger!
The Church is twice commanded to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). You may say it is proper to sing uninspired spiritual songs and hymns, and we do, but singing the psalms is mandatory. We don’t get to decide whether we will or won’t. It is a required part of our worship. And neither Ephesians 5 nor Colossians 3 are talking specifically about the worship assembly on the Lord’s Day. We should sing the psalms then too, but we are directly commanded to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to the Lord. Is that part of your devotional time each day? Do you include singing in your family worship? If not, you should begin!
If we are singing the psalms, it won’t be long before we begin running into psalms that are quite militaristic. We do traditionally call God’s people on earth the Church Militant! We are still on the battlefield, still in conflict, and the psalms both remind and equip us for the war. Consider just three examples out of dozens in the Psalter. Read Psalm 144:1-10. At the beginning of the psalm, we sing that God trains our hands for war and our fingers for battle. How do you train your fingers for combat? Verse 9 may answer that question: by playing a ten-stringed harp in praising God! The songs of the Church are battle hymns, and learning to sing and play the psalms is learning how to do battle with the world. This is why we need to take the time to learn to sing the psalms. Learn the tunes. Memorize some of your favorites. And build your daily prayer time around the Psalter.
Look again at Psalm 68:1-4, 17-35. Remember our Reformed forebears in Europe singing this hymn before and after the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in which Roman Catholic rulers ordered the assasination of Huguenot leaders which sparked a wave of anti-Calvinistic violence in which between 5,000-30,000 Protestants were killed, as many as 3,000 in Paris alone. That may be an extreme example, but God’s people have been and are being persecuted in lesser and more severe ways to this day. Right now Christians in China and North Africa are in prison. Churches in China have been raided and sacked. Missionaries in some parts of the world regularly risk their lives to carry the gospel into closed countries. If you think it is easy to get along in the world as a Christian, if you think everything will be just fine if you mind your own business and obey what the government tells you to do, then you are demonstrating a lack of historical awareness, a lack of global awareness, and a lack of familiarity with the Psalter.
Persecution and adversity is not limited to violent episodes like these. In other places civil authorities have closed churches--in Edmonton they literally fenced off and confiscated a church building--in the name of public health. And Christians on Twitter are mocking that congregation and blaming them for losing their property by failing to abide by public health guidelines. Lord, have mercy! You may disagree with a congregation’s decision to assemble at full capacity and sing without masks, but mocking God-fearing believers motivated by conviction and conscience says a lot more about the scoffer than it does about the saint who isn’t wearing a mask.
Since Roe v. Wade in 1973 our government has sanctioned the slaughter of approximately 60 million unborn children. That is ten times the number of Jews usually cited who were murdered by the Third Reich, and it is roughly six times even the highest estimates of Jewish lives lost during the Holocaust. Despite this, there are many Christians who are uncomfortable when they come to Psalm 94:1-3 or Psalm 109:1-20 or Psalm 137. I am not suggesting abortion is the primary thing we ought to be thinking about when we sing and pray those psalms. I would even go so far as to say abortion, as great an evil as it is, is not the worst evil against which we ought to pray. But it baffles me that we can read of churches shuttered, Christians murdered, innocent people abused and tortured, unborn children torn apart inside the womb and vacuumed out, and remain squeamish about praying for the God of justice to bring righteous judgment on this world. If we are paying attention, we might instead need to balance our perspective so we do not only sing such psalms!
Overcoming the World by Worshipping God
The Church on earth is, and must be, the Church Militant. The saints are at war. But many well-meaning believers misunderstand the nature of that war, our foe, and how we ought to fight it. The war is not with liberals or conservatives. It is not with actors and agents in the culture war on the left or the right. The battle involves some of these individuals, it includes those corrupting the Church, contaminating the world, and seeking ungodly control. But these are only the visible signs of an invisible conflict. Lest we misidentify our enemy or become too narrowly focused on those immediately in front of us, we need to remember who and what we are really opposing.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. (Eph. 6:10-13)
Paul goes on in the next several verses to describe the Christian’s armor. Many commentators have noted the comparison with a Roman soldier’s equipment, but a smaller number have identified a parallel with the garb of the High Priest.
Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints (Eph. 6:14-18)
What is the belt that encircles our body? Truth. What is our breastplate? Righteousness, not ours but the Lord’s. What is on our feet? The preparation of the gospel of peace. What protects us from the assaults of our enemy? The shield of faith. What covers our head? The helmet of salvation. What is our sword? The Word of God. But don’t overlook v.18. How is the battle fought? What is the nature of our combat? Praying always… in the Spirit… with perseverance… for all the saints. Our armor and weapons are entirely positioned in the front. We are unprotected in retreat. The Church is to press forward, always on the offensive, knowing that the gates of Hell will not survive the pressure and progress of God’s kingdom.
We must not mistake the nature of this war or the means by which it is to be fought. We are watching our society becoming increasingly angry, hateful, and violent. This is true on both the left and right, and we must learn to say: lo-ammi, they are not my people. We may have common concerns with some of those who are fighting a culture war, but we must recognize we belong to a different society and are fighting at a different level.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. (2Cor. 10:3-6)
If you misunderstand who, what, and how you are fighting, you will become increasingly agitated, angry, and discouraged. We don’t need more angry Christians, especially on social media. We need more Christians who understand the times and who are committed to fighting the battle in the right way. That starts by recognizing this war won’t be won by battles in the Supreme Court or at the ballot box. Its outcome does not depend on decisions about masks or vaccines or gun control or systemic racism. This war can only be won, and has been won, by Christ. He crushed the head of the serpent in his death and resurrection, and now Scripture promises us: “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16:20).
God’s Word is our weapon. Preaching it overcomes lies, changes hearts, saves sinners, and equips and empowers the saints. Praying that same Word breaks down the walls of the City of Man and causes the demons to tremble. The world will be changed, if it is changed at all, by the gospel. Nothing else can do it. The world will be saved, if it is saved at all, through the righteous work and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Church will be spared, strengthened, sanctified, and glorified by the Word and Spirit of God, or it will simply become another faction and party that is of the world and destined to perish with it.
Christ’s Church will persevere and prevail, but we are seeing the winnowing and judgment of the visible Church, and “they are not all Israel who are of Israel” (Rom. 9:6). Not everyone or everything in the visible Church is truly of God, and whatever is not will inevitably be purged by the Lord so the true Church may be pure. Some sectors of the visible Church deny we are even at war; they have made peace with the world and become part of the world. Others recognize we are in a life and death struggle but are fighting in anger rather than in faith. Chesterton explained that some men fight because they hate what is in front of them while other men fight because they love what is behind them. We fight from love for God, not hatred of our foes. The Christian does hate the Devil and all that he stands for with the holy hatred of God (Psa. 139:21-22). But he also remembers that some of those presently fighting on the Devil’s side actually belong to our side. Sometimes the Devil’s chief instrument of persecution proves to be God’s chosen instrument for preaching, and Saul who stoned Stephen for preaching the gospel to the Hellenists was eventually martyred for preaching the same gospel to Gentiles.
Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. (Rev. 19:11-16)
This is the banner we fight under, the Lord whom we follow onto the field. This is the One who wins the victory and makes his foes into friends. This is the One who slays the wicked while sending forth his saints with a message of life. We sing because we serve a Savior, and “this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1Jn. 5:4).
Waging Spiritual Warfare in Prayers and Psalms
“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms” (Jas. 5:13). These two activities are not as different as you may imagine. Everyday, in either case, we will find ourselves in the psalms. Whether we are suffering or cheerful or cheerfully suffering, the psalms will give us the words we need to pray to and praise the living God.
The Bible describes every believer as a priest (1Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6), and the Reformation helped recover and emphasize the priesthood of the believer. We are made priests by God in Christ, indwelt by the Spirit, called to offer sacrifices of praise, thanksgiving, and prayer daily in God’s holy Temple, the Church. This is what priests do, they offer sacrifices, they live a life devoted to prayer. How does the Christian soldier fight? Through perseverance in prayer. Prayer, preaching the gospel, and maintaining public worship are the primary ways we affect the world and advance the cause of the kingdom of Christ. These are not all that we may do in the name of liberty and justice, but they are the primary ways we participate in Christ’s conquest of the world.
Monastic traditions, both ancient and modern, sang the entire Psalter in prayer to God every week or every two weeks. The Book of Common Prayer simplified this ancient structure of daily prayer for the Church by organizing morning and evening prayer covering all 150 psalms every month. Yet sadly, as many of you can testify from your own experience prior to coming to ROPC, many believers have never been taught to pray the psalms, many have never even heard of it, and they certainly have not been told the centrality and importance of this discipline in spiritual warfare.
Like Paul and Silas imprisoned in Philippi, the Church on earth is to fight injustice, endure suffering, and advance God’s kingdom through song and prayer. Cry to God in the present distress, and expect that the earth will shake with his anger as he hears his children’s pleas. The psalms have been called “the war chants of the Prince of Peace.” We make war by worship and not with the world’s weapons. As we saw in Revelation 8, the Church’s prayers go up before the throne of God and heavenly fire comes down. The kingdom of Christ is advancing in the world, and neither the walls of the City of Man nor the gates of Death and Hell can withstand its assault.
If we build our lives around prayer, worship, and the people of God, and if we structure that life of prayer around the Psalms, we will not become bitter, angry, or despairing. We will have a “cheerful militancy,” a happy and hopeful outlook as we contend against the forces of darkness in this world. We will remember that the battle belongs to the Lord and the victory is his, not ours to win or not. We will know the outcome is not in doubt. We may experience hard times, we may not live to see the glorious nature of whatever God intends to do next, but we will see the final glory of Christ’s consummated kingdom, and that is enough to sustain us.
Final Recommendations and Conclusion
I want to close by offering a few recommendations. First, recognize that you are at war, but it is a spiritual war, not merely a political or cultural conflict. Second, understand that in Christ you are a warrior-priest, called to engage the enemy and fight for God’s kingdom by offering daily sacrifices of praise, thanksgiving, supplication, and intercession. Third, pray like a priest engaged in war. Pray against the darkness, the demonic. Pray for the Lord’s Church. Pray for the salvation of the world through the judgment of those that are destroying it. Fourth, pray the psalms, all of them, regularly and repeatedly. I am not seeking to bind your conscience by telling you what that must look like, but I am encouraging you to use the Psalter the way it was meant to be.
Vindicate me, O God, And plead my cause against an ungodly nation;
Oh, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!
For You are the God of my strength; Why do You cast me off?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Oh, send out Your light and Your truth!
Let them lead me; Let them bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your tabernacle.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy; And on the harp I will praise You,
O God, my God.
Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.
(Psalm 43)
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[1] Consider also Acts 7. As Stephen dies he prays God would not charge his persecutors with their sin. God answers by converting the ringleader, Saul, so that his sins were not counted against him.
[2] “You know that Psalm 68, ‘Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered,’ was the marching song of the French Reformation. They would sing it as they went into battle. The Huguenots in France would sing it all the time. Of course, they didn’t have air conditioning then, so the windows were open and all the Catholics heard it, and it made all the Catholics so afraid that eventually the king outlawed singing Psalm 68 in public. So they’d go around whistling. And they had to outlaw whistling that melody. Now, people are not afraid when they hear us sing ‘’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.’ They are not worried about you.” --James Jordan, “Introduction to Worship”
[3] “Music was the secret weapon of popular reformation. Singing or even humming or whistling the telltale [Genevan psalm] tunes spread where preaching dared not go, and where books might be incriminating. The political effect was startling.” --Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, 638
