Dismiss the Devil with a Song

00:00:02.000 | APJ listeners, hello. Thanks for joining us again. Today, we talk about warfare singing.

00:00:10.560 | Yes, warfare singing. It emerges from an amazing moment in a battle chronicled for us in 2 Chronicles chapter 20.

00:00:19.520 | There, we're given a scene where Judah's king, Jehoshaphat,

00:00:22.980 | is under attack by foreign nations. And from the worries of war, Jehoshaphat set aside time to pray,

00:00:30.160 | and fast, and lead the people in worshiping God.

00:00:32.880 | And then he directed worshipers to walk in front of the army and to sing this,

00:00:38.000 | "Give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love endures forever."

00:00:43.380 | And when they began to sing and praise, verse 22 says,

00:00:47.120 | "The Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir,

00:00:52.880 | who had come against Judah, so that they were

00:00:56.000 | routed."

00:00:58.140 | Incredible. Singing is not just how we respond to God's grace. Singing is power

00:01:03.980 | for

00:01:05.580 | battle. When we sing, the Holy Spirit works. And that's the theme of a classic John Piper sermon titled,

00:01:12.620 | "Ambushing Satan with Song." It was preached on January 20th, 1995.

00:01:17.840 | And here is my favorite clip.

00:01:21.260 | "Singing is not merely a response to grace.

00:01:28.060 | Singing is a means of grace. Singing is power.

00:01:31.580 | When you sing, the Holy Spirit comes and does something."

00:01:38.060 | Now, if you have read

00:01:41.660 | the book that we've been trying to sell, Dick Eastman's book, "The Hour That Changes the World,"

00:01:46.140 | there's a little chapter in there on singing and your personal devotions, and it tells some stories in there.

00:01:50.620 | You would have remembered two of them. One is of Mary Schlosser,

00:01:53.660 | who was a missionary to China, and it says that Mary used to say, "I sing the doxology and dismiss the devil."

00:02:00.380 | And Amy Carmichael, without any connection with Mary Schlosser, as far as I know,

00:02:04.620 | used to say,

00:02:07.020 | "I believe truly that Satan cannot endure it, and so slips out of the room, more or less,

00:02:12.860 | when there is a true song."

00:02:15.420 | Then listen to Martin Luther.

00:02:17.980 | "Next, after theology, I give to music the highest place and the greatest honor.

00:02:22.460 | I would not change what little I know of music for something great.

00:02:25.500 | Experience proves that next to the Word of God only, music deserves to be extolled

00:02:30.080 | as the mistress and governess of the feelings of the human heart.

00:02:33.420 | We know that to the devil's music is distasteful and insufferable.

00:02:37.040 | My heart bubbles up and overflows in response to music, which has so often

00:02:41.660 | refreshed me and delivered me from dire

00:02:46.060 | plagues."

00:02:47.980 | Just like David did for Saul, remember?

00:02:50.940 | Again and again.

00:02:52.940 | It's no wonder that Satan does his best to keep us from being a singing church.

00:02:58.700 | Satan does his best to keep you from being a singing person.

00:03:03.580 | I don't think these testimonies of Mary Schlosser and Amy Carmichael and Martin Luther,

00:03:09.020 | and I could add William Law and Jonathan Edwards, I was collecting a whole bunch of them yesterday.

00:03:13.260 | I don't think they are pious platitudes

00:03:16.880 | that sort of mean,

00:03:19.660 | "Well, of course everybody feels a little better when they sing."

00:03:22.700 | Sort of an emotional

00:03:25.260 | pill that you can take to add spice to your worship. I don't think that's what they mean. I think what they are saying is

00:03:32.940 | strictly and terribly true.

00:03:36.140 | Satan

00:03:38.220 | flees

00:03:39.340 | before the spiritual singing of God's people. I'll tell you a story why I'm so convinced of that. Four years ago,

00:03:45.660 | I got a phone call

00:03:48.620 | at 1030 at night,

00:03:50.620 | and the person on the other end said, "There's a woman in this apartment who is demon possessed. Would you come over?"

00:03:56.460 | All right, I'll come over.

00:03:59.900 | I called Tom Steller on the phone. "Tom, would you go with me?" "Sure, we go.

00:04:04.140 | Five stay home and pray. I don't know what we'll find." What we find

00:04:07.820 | is an apartment with about

00:04:10.860 | five young Christian women and one young man

00:04:13.740 | who will not let this woman out of this apartment.

00:04:17.820 | Glazed eyes,

00:04:19.820 | bitter, with a little pen knife in her hand,

00:04:22.220 | threatening.

00:04:25.000 | For two hours I

00:04:27.340 | talked to this woman, read scripture, and read prayers of deliverance.

00:04:32.000 | It comes to a head where she becomes, starts getting very vile. She knocks the Bible out of my hand,

00:04:39.260 | she rips the paper out of my hand, she pounds on my back.

00:04:43.980 | About one o'clock in the morning when the word of God and the force of evil were at their fever pitch,

00:04:49.580 | one of those young women started to sing.

00:04:52.620 | And what they sang was the little phrase, "Hallelujah."

00:04:57.200 | And

00:04:59.980 | she became vicious,

00:05:01.980 | threatened everyone if we wouldn't stop singing.

00:05:04.060 | She fell on the ground,

00:05:06.860 | screamed for Satan not to leave her, went into convulsions, and then went limp.

00:05:12.860 | When she came to,

00:05:14.860 | she didn't have any idea what had happened. She was willing to take the Bible and read Romans 8 and pray with us.

00:05:22.460 | So if you tell Tom and me

00:05:25.500 | that

00:05:27.740 | battle with Satan in song

00:05:29.740 | is a kind of

00:05:32.380 | pious pill,

00:05:34.380 | we'll say for us that night it felt like life and death.

00:05:38.540 | And it has ever since had that quality about it. It ought to have that quality about it in the church.

00:05:43.580 | I believe that when God moves us to sing from the

00:05:47.500 | from the Holy Spirit, Satan is frustrated in our midst.

00:05:52.380 | But 10 minutes of song at the beginning of a time of prayer

00:05:56.780 | banishes Satan.

00:05:59.800 | It has great

00:06:01.820 | power.

00:06:03.180 | Don't let Satan deceive you out of that

00:06:07.180 | power or privilege by saying,

00:06:09.180 | "I can't sing."

00:06:12.140 | Some of you are thinking that right now. "I can't sing." That's not true.

00:06:15.660 | You can sing. Everybody in this room can sing. Not everybody can sing well.

00:06:19.980 | And not everybody can lead. And not everybody can perform. And not everybody can stay on the notes. Everybody can sing.

00:06:26.380 | If you've got a four-year-old and they come home from Sunday school

00:06:30.220 | and

00:06:32.140 | they say, "Got a song. Can I sing you a song, Daddy?"

00:06:36.060 | Sure. And what comes out of their mouth is three songs, three tunes, and four sets of lyrics.

00:06:41.660 | All jumbled up. And they stop.

00:06:45.980 | What do you feel like? You know what you feel like?

00:06:51.180 | There's a song in my son's heart.

00:06:54.460 | That's all you feel. And if somebody comes along and says, "That's a lousy song,"

00:06:59.580 | you would do just what God did to Moab.

00:07:04.940 | You'd flatten them.

00:07:06.940 | Or you'd shake the jail.

00:07:09.900 | You see, when God hears his children sing,

00:07:13.900 | he looks around and says, "Where's an enemy?"

00:07:17.180 | You don't have to worry about whether you can sing or not.

00:07:22.700 | If you're a daddy and you've ever heard a four-year-old sing,

00:07:26.620 | you'll sing.

00:07:29.820 | That clip was taken from John Piper's sermon on 2 Chronicles 20:1-25,

00:07:34.320 | titled, "Ambushing Satan with Song," preached on January 20, 1985.

00:07:39.280 | The whole message, a classic, is available in the sermon archive right now, free of charge at DesiringGod.org.

00:07:46.880 | This is a clip I found while just listening to Pastor John's sermons.

00:07:51.020 | And if you have a favorite sermon clip of Pastor John's that you found, send it to me.

00:07:54.860 | I'd love to hear it.

00:07:55.580 | Give me the title of the sermon and the timestamps from the audio of when the clip begins and ends.

00:07:59.980 | Tell me why it impacted you.

00:08:01.420 | Give me your name and the closest city to you and email me all of that information at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

00:08:08.080 | And put the word "clip" in the subject line, if you would, please.

00:08:11.260 | What's not uncommon to hear that people listen and read Pastor John's content as a shortcut and a

00:08:18.060 | replacement for

00:08:20.220 | their own personal Bible study. And that is a big

00:08:24.860 | no-no. Pastor John himself will explain why next time on Friday. I'm your host Tony Reinke. I'll see you then.

00:08:31.840 | You

00:08:34.400 | You

00:08:36.400 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Dismiss the Devil with a Song

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