"Praise Promotes Provision...!"

Define: praise (Webster): To express approval; to glorify.

I. Jehoshaphat-“Seed”

A. Moab went to battle against Jehoshaphat under the leadership of Mesha, who had gained Moab’s independence from the Omri dynasty of Israel soon after Ahab died. The battle mentioned here took place when Ahab’s son Ahaziah was king of Israel. The defeat of Jehoshaphat’s enemies in Israel only meant the rise of other enemies outside Israel. This situation would test Jehoshaphat’s faith.

B. Jehoshaphat’s reforms were not hollow religiosity, and they did not break under the strain of sour circumstances. As soon as he heard of bad news from the north, Jehoshaphat sought God and proclaimed a fast. He knew that success required God’s favor. And if God was for them, they could not lose.

C. Jehoshaphat recalled God’s care for his people Israel in the past, when he had led them to victory over their Canaanite foes.

II. ~Praise~

A. Psalms 34:1-5 ~

“I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make a boast in the Lord, the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and be glad and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked unto him, and were enlightened: and their faces were not ashamed.”

Praise is magnifying and exalting the Lord in our hearts. Praise is glorifying the Lord with the fruit of our lips. When we begin to praise God with all our heart, we lose sight of the magnitude of our problems as we gain a vision of the greatness of our Lord.

In order to truly praise the God, we must learn to go beyond our human limitations and ourselves. Many times when the enemies of Israel would encamp around them, they would tell Joshua to send out the tribe of Judah first. Judah means praise. Judah would go out before the enemies of Israel, armed with nothing but instruments of PRAISE.

When the tribe of Judah would begin to praise God with their whole heart, God would set ambushment among the enemy, and confuse them. The same principle happens in the spirit realm. When we really begin to praise God, our praise literally confounds the enemy, and demonic forces begin to withdraw their power and influence.

2 Corinthians 10:3-4; “For though we walk in the flesh we do not war after the flesh: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Praise and worship is the most profound way of expressing our love to the Father. God loves to be praised and worshipped. However, in order to praise God, we must understand the power that praise and worship wield. Praise and worship can break demonic strongholds that have bound some of us. Praise and the Word of God are able to pull down strongholds. There is power in praise and worship. Let us pause here to examine this spiritual concept of praise as a weapon against spiritual strongholds.

First, let us define strongholds. Strongholds are roadblocks or stumbling blocks that prevent God’s people from truly releasing themselves in praise and worship to God. There are several strongholds but we will only talk about one. The erection of strongholds takes place in our thought-process.

For example, suppose you were visiting a new church where their method of praise and worship is somewhat different from yours. Immediately, your mind tells you that their way is wrong, or worse still, that they are not saved. This is a stronghold. Remember that a stronghold is a belief system that is contrary to what Gods’ Word says. You see, in this case, your church has spoken against being too expensive in worship and praise. To them praise and worship does not have to be loud and noisy, or it don’t take all that.

I have noticed that many people in the church do not know how to worship or praise the Father. We get nervous when someone during service gets too loud and starts to worship God differently from our normal style. We want to worship God in low voices and that’s only on Sunday mornings in our lofted buildings. We must appear “respectable.” But in the clubs at baseball or football games, the same people will yell and make as much noise as they can without getting the least nervous or losing their “respectability.”

The Lord loves to hear us praise His holy name and doesn’t get nervous when we either become too loud or too quiet. It is we who discriminate about how to praise God. We must be very cautious about this area of our lives. If we allow Satan to build strongholds we create more roadblocks in our minds that prevent us from praising God freely. Someone once said, “a free person is a dangerous person because they do not allow anyone to dictate what they say or do except the Lord!”