It’s a good thing to be always praising God. While five soloists from the Duke Ellington band danced in the aisles of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., a largely black-tie audience of 1,000 clapped hands to the tune of $12,000 at a musical fund-raiser. “Praise God and dance!” exhorted mellow jazz musician Ellington, and the last section of his Sacred Concert No. 2 began. Band members clapped, thrusting their hands heavenward toward the ceiling high above the arrow-like ribs of the sanctuary. Soon clumps of clappers in the audience joined in, timidly at first, then raising their hands straight up in a fervor of rhythm.1 Clap your hands, stomp your feet, shout unto God, or just raise your hands to Him without doubting, it’s wonderful to be always at the business of praising God.
#S4-047: Why It’s Important to Live A Separated Life [Podcast]
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The Blessing of Judah: What It Reveals about Praising God (70 – co-schedule)
Genesis 49:8–12 (ESV) — 8 “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you. 9 Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him? 10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. 11 Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. 12 His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.
- There are several lessons that we can glean from this passage on the value of living a full and productive life of praising God.
Lesson One: Praising God Breeds Praise
Psalm 69:30–31 (ESV) — 30 I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. 31 This will please the LORD more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs.
- The Hebrew word ‘praise’ here means to extol the greatness of God or God’s works as an act of worship.
- Hone in on the word ‘magnify.’
- The word in Hebrew means to make great in size, scale, magnitude, or importance.
- Magnify means to make bigger.
- Now, when you are praising God, you are not making God bigger.
- God is huge all by Himself.
- No, you cannot make God bigger, but He can become bigger to you.
- So, when you are praising God, He becomes bigger or more real to you.
- If God is distant to you if you feel like you’re not as close to Him as you could be, then praising Him maybe your answer.
- But, not only does God become bigger to you when you magnify Him, but you, in a sense, become bigger to Him.
- That’s what happened to Judah.
- He became more significant and more prominent in the family of Jacob.
- The Lord does stuff for you when you are praising God, know it.
Proverbs 16:7 (ESV) — 7 When a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
Lesson Two: Praising God Breeds a Life of Victory
- Genesis 49:8–12 (ESV) — 8 “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you.
- Praise is a weapon against the forces of darkness.
- The weapon of praise is not some theoretical religious mumbo jumbo.
- The effectiveness of praise is a fact of God’s Word.
- Look at the power of praise as a weapon in Second Chronicles.
2 Chronicles 20:20–21 (ESV) — 20 And they rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. And when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be established; believe his prophets, and you will succeed.” 21 And when he had taken counsel with the people, he 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.”
The Result!
2 Chronicles 20:20–23 (ESV) 22 And when they began to sing and praise, the LORD set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. 23 For the men of Ammon and Moab rose against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, devoting them to destruction, and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they all helped to destroy one another.
- You have to remember when you are praising God; He shows up with His tangible Presence.
Psalm 22:3 (AMP) — 3 But You are holy, O You Who dwell in [the holy place where] the praises of Israel [are offered].
- God dwells in the praises of His people.
- So, when the enemy is attacking you, and amid that attack, you lift your hands to magnify and extol the Lord God from heaven, He is in those praises which puts Him directly on the scene of the enemies attack.
- No wonder why after the children of Israel praised the Lord through song, that a heavenly ambush decimated the people of Ammon and Moab.
- Look at the Psalmist David’s experience with praise.
Psalm 18:3 (AMP) — 3 I will call upon the Lord, Who is to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies.
- Call to remembrance this statement from a previous podcast: ‘praise is the highest expression of faith towards a God you cannot see.’
- When tribulation troubles confront you, call upon the Lord as David did.
- But, do it with praise.
Philippians 4:6 (AMP) — 6 Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God.
Lesson Three: Praising God Identifies You With the Redeemer
- Judah is a lion’s cub or as some translations have it, ‘a lion’s whelp.’
- That reference is Genesis forty-nine and nine.
- A cub is the offspring of its parent, so Judah as a lions whelp does not directly refer to Jesus but to His family.
- You are the offspring of God.
- That fact makes you as a believer in Jesus lion like at your core.
- The Spirit of God rises within you with all the characteristics of a roaring lion.
- The lion is one of the most feared animals in the whole animal kingdom.
- The lion occurs 150 times in scripture.
- The lions of ancient Palestine were the of the Asiatic subspecies and were fierce carnivores that were also found in Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Mesopotamia, and northwest India.2
- In other places in scripture, the righteous are referred to as lions.
Proverbs 28:1 (ESV) — 1 The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.
- That’s the will of God for your life: bold as a lion.
- But boldness is not the only gene a believer of Jesus has in their DNA.
- Lions are known for there ponderous strength.
- Sampson used the lion’s strength in his riddle in Judges 14.
Judges 14:18 (AMP) — 18 And the men of the city said to [Samson] on the seventh day before sundown, What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? And he said to them, If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle.
- Believers should be lion-like in their strength in God.
- Paul admonished us to pray for strength in Ephesians three.
Ephesians 3:16 (AMP) — 16 May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the [Holy] Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality].
- As a believer in Christ, you should always operate from a spirit of strength.
Proverbs 18:14 (AMP) — 14 The strong spirit of a man sustains him in bodily pain or trouble, but a weak and broken spirit who can raise up or bear?
- You should know that the devil tries to imitate all things, God.
- He tries to act like he is the big shot lion.
1 Peter 5:8 (AMP) — 8 Be well balanced (temperate, sober of mind), be vigilant and cautious at all times; for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [in fierce hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and devour.
- But he isn’t the strong and fierce lion full of strength, you are.
1 Peter 5:9 (ESV) — 9 Resist him, firm in your faith…
- If you can resist him, you must have more power than he has.
- When the enemy comes around trying to roar with his hot breath of unbelief remember the story of Sampson and the lion.
- We’ve already referred to it in this post.
- The story can be used as a type of how Jesus defeated Satan and how you can walk in the conquering of Christ.
Judges 14:5–6 (ESV) — 5 Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward him roaring. 6 Then the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.
- The lion roared, and the Spirit of God came upon Sampson.
- The result… a decimated ripped-up jacked-up, lion.
- A broken down carcass, that’s Satan at his best.
- This is how Satan’s devices are rendered useless in your life.
- It happens through the action and the unction of the mighty Spirit of God.
- Boldness and strength, that’s what you have in Christ.
- You have lion blood in your blood.
- So, let the lion in you rise and roar.