Silencing the Enemy

(an extract from - Silencing The Enemy by Robert Gay)

From the lips of children and infants

you have ordained praise

because of your enemies,

to silence the foe and the avenger

Psalm 8:2 (NIV)

Have you ever wondered why God commands and desires our praise? Is it because He has as ego problem? Is He insecure? Does He need our praise? The answer to all these questions is emphatically NO. God does not need our praise. Scripture records that there are creatures in heaven that do nothing but worship Him day and night (Revelation 4:8)

Why then has God ordained our praise? Psalm 8:2 gives us the answer: "because of our enemies." Some people feel they have done the Lord a great service if they spend thirty minutes worshiping Him. The fact is we do not do Him a favour; we do ourselves a favour and the devil great damage. God has not ordained praise because He needs it, but because we need to praise Him.

Ezekiel refers to Lucifer as "the anointed cherub" (Eziekiel 28:13-14). Lucifer was called to lead all of heaven in worship to the most high God ... but he fell because of PRIDE (Isaiah 14:12-15). Because of a prideful heart, Satan fell from heaven, lost his heavenly anointing and was cast to the earth. (Ezekiel 28:16-18).

The wonderful thing God did was to take what Satan was originally anointed to do and allow us, the body of Christ, to use it as a weapon of warfare to destroy the enemy's plans. Psalm 8:2 says that God has ordained praise because of our enemy, to silence the avenger. The word silence is the Hebrew word "shabath" which means "to cause to fail, to repose, suffer to be lacking, to put down, take away."

As we praise the Lord, we cause the enemy to fail. As we lift our voices to God, we defeat the power of Satan that would bring us into bondage. As we enter into worship, we begin to take back what the enemy has stolen from us.

When you understand this, spiritual warfare is no longer drudgery. That's why Paul could say, "Fight the good fight of faith" (1 Timothy 6:12). It is a good fight when you know your enemy is fleeing in terror. We are not running from our enemy; instead we have him on the run. we are not in a defensive position waiting for him to attack. Rather we take the offensive and go after his kingdom aggressively. We are God's commandoes who go in behind the lines recuing those that are held captive. We use spiritual weapons of war to blow up his communications facilities and destroy his method of operation.

Paul said that "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of stronghold" (2 Corinthians 10:9). Praise and worship play an important role in all this because God has ordained our praise to silence him. It is time for the church to arise in this hour and praise the Lord with all it's might. We must become uninhibited in our praise, even as children are (Psalm 8:2 says - "out of the mouth of babes"). Then our weapon of warfare - PRAISE - will be unleashed on the powers of darkness and result in their demise and destruction.