CHAPTER FIVE

WORSHIP TO ENTER THE HOLY OF HOLIES

Worship and Intercession are hand and hand. And the frontline of spiritual warfare.

As a class of over Three Hundred students from numerous denominations, race And locations around the world joined together in the worship of Jesus, the same thing would happen at the end. People all around the room would begin to drop to their knees crying out to GOD in intercession for others.

One practice that Brownsville has been doing since the beginning of their revival Is having intercessors pray for the whole duration of worship. One teacher of the seminar told us that they put great emphasis on the importance Of this practice but He had no reason why it works, It just does so they go with it!

To give an example of the power God gives us through worship against satanic powers. A group of us came together on 4th of July night in this church to pray for the lost that we would go witness to. After we entered the Lord's presence we piled into my pathfinder and drove to the Lead Hill Park, on our way there we were excited and fired up about what we were about to do! We could practically feel Jesus jumping up and down inside the car with us! But when we arrived and we begun to walk around the crowded park a feeling of heaviness fell on us, we couldn't seem to come up with the courage to approach people. Then the lord stepped in! He guided us to go get Richie's acoustic guitar from the car and march around the entire park singing praise to Jesus. We stopped some where in the middle joined hands and prayed for the people and for discernment. By the time we made a complete circle around the park we had abandoned our pride and ego and every other type of worldly thought and we started following the Holy Spirit's guidance from one lost soul to another.

There are many places in the Bible where worship was used in the beginning of battle. 2nd CHRONICLES 20 tells of how Jehoshaphat King of Judah defeats a large military uprising of Moabites and Ammonites. The first thing the King does is instruct all of Judah to fast, in order to gain the Lord's attention. The next thing he does is exalt and praise the Lord in a prayer. Look in verse 20 and think about the gravity of the situation that these people are in, Here they are facing potential destruction and they began to praise the Lord! Praising the Lord in the face of death!

Great importance was placed on the worship teams preparing for worship in advance by prayer and fasting.

Importance is also placed on the congregation preparing their place of worship in advance Each Friday a group of people will meet in the church late in the evening and worship God for several hours. They never said that there is a set time frame or a certain formula, but they would just praise Jesus until the entire group of people was soaking in God's anointing presence. That could be for 30 minutes or 3 hours. God watches us, as we are worshiping him and what he wants to see is devotion, obedience, hunger, and contrite spirits. Worshiping God is what we humans were originally made for and as Jesus had put it in JOHN 4:23 A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

In 1st PETER 2:7,8,9,10. Peter gives the chosen people a Four Fold reason why they should praise God.

Worship is a way to offer ourselves as sacrifices.

The Teachers demonstrated to us what real worship was all about; they encouraged us to Dance, and Shout to the Lord. To die to our pride and egos and like children of God break loose from all restraints worshiping the Lord with all our hearts. This is what worship is about; it isn't about the music, melody, or the words of the song. Worship needs to become a heart-felt devotion of our time to our Father in Heaven. Worship needs to be the first thing we do when we crawl out of bed every morning. Instead of constantly asking Jesus for something, we should praise him for what he has already done. And what greater way to show our faith in Jesus than to worship him for things received that he hasn't even given us yet. In the book of ACTS chapter 16:25 Paul and Silas are found worshiping God while their bound in chains inside a stinking dungeon. Even in adversity they showed God that they had unmoving faith by giving him thanks and praise! And not only did their chains fall away, but so did the chains of all the other prisoners!

If you fight with yourself during worship trying to stay composed that is a form of fear that you struggle with. It was a greater fear than that, Jehosophat and his kingdom of Judah felt. But by the proclamation and praise of their faithful and victorious Lord they overcame fear and God won the battle for them!

Remember ROMAN S 8:1. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Fear is condemnation!

Another way in which to view worship is to think of it as a way of making one self a living sacrifice. Because it is the Ego that tells you not to let go and really show our father how excited we are to be his children. In ROMANS 12:1 the apostle Paul urges us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is his good, pleasing and perfect will.

So what we sacrifice is our ego or pride and we let ourselves become excited about what Jesus is doing! We shout his praise, and we dance in victory. And every time we do these things we will become more liberated. Chains will fall off of us and we will begin to realize that God's anointing is growing stronger both in our church and our life's.

ISAIAH 56:6 through 8 And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant - these I will bring to my Holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.

According to Johns' vision of Heaven, we directly effect the atmosphere within the throne room of God when we worship God.

REVELATION 4:9,10. Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and Honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being!

Hebrews 9:11 When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.

In the Old Testament a High Priest would offer a blood sacrifice to God each year. He would stand before an 18-inch thick curtain separating him from the Holy of Holies and allow the smell and smoke of this offering to drift upward against the Veil. Then the Spirit of God would take the priest through the curtain and into his presence. God's way of doing things have not changed. Nothing gets God's attention better than our recognition of His son's sacrifice. HEBREWS 13:15. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise - the fruit of lips that confess his name.

For us to enter into the Holy of Holies now we must lift up his son, the blood offering by exalting and giving praise to Jesus Christ. In doing so God's attention is turned on us and he allows us to penetrate the veil and enter into his Glory. Once this happens we become aware of God's will, we experience a taste of His heart for the lost and us. That is why intercession always follows next. We begin to do the same thing that the Old Testament priest did while in the Holy of Holies; we cry out for the atonement of other's sins.

The churches need to become bold in their ways of worship, get hungry!

The only way that our Pastor's sermons can impact us is if we are in the same anointing that he is in. Remember that the Holy Spirit brings conviction, counsel, and discernment. And the way to get into the Holy Spirit or God's anointing is through worship.

Worshiping God does not bring Him to us; rather the act of worship brings us into God's presence. God was already there waiting for his children to arrive.

As we would worship during the seminar we found that the further we would go to praise Jesus, the more His glory filled the room and us. By the second to last day, all 300 students were up dancing and shouting his praise, it was the most freedom we have ever experienced and the most God we have ever felt at one time. Then a silence came over us and the worship team, and people begun to fall to their knees in a powerful wave of intercession. We prayed for every church in the US and over seas, we prayed for the Schools across the globe and for the missions across the world. There was more anointing in that room than what we had felt at any of the Brownsville church services during our visit.

Remember that we are known as God's children. Jesus tells us how we should be in MATTHEW 18:3. And He said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like a child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven

Remember also that the bible tells us in NEHEMIAH 8:10 that the Joy of the Lord is our strength. JOHN 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. HEBREWS 10:19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of GOD, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

I will leave you with this thought. Satan already knows that he has been defeated and yet he spends all his energy and time trying to destroy our lives. He never quits or lets up for a moment, he is focused on his intentions and his goal, yet it is a goal that can never be accomplished for the law of God's Holy Word has condemned his future and striped him of all his power and authority. Truly the only weapon he has against us is our own minds and weak faith. Now how much time do we spend fighting against his lies and worshiping God, how much energy do we expend, how well are we focused on Jesus. Shouldn't the time and energy we give for the Lord be atleast equal to Satan's efforts to destroy us! When you look at it this way you can easily see how procrastination can be our worst enemy. We simply cannot afford to become lazy, this is a war after-all and you would not dare take a seat in the middle of a gun fight so why would you do so in the middle of the war against your spiritual future.

What would you fear losing the most?

Your limited life in the flesh?

Or you're eternal life in the spirit?