Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of
Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.
I hope the following message challenges, encourages, and
ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.
Let's get into the word this morning.
Okay, well, let's turn with turn to Psalm 149.
Before we do that, I don't think Pastor Adam did this, but I was,
I was. I'm always writing my message
till the time I get up here. I already preached it once, but
I was writing some more things, so I didn't want to do this
twice. But if you have served in the
military, in any, any branch of the military, I want you to
stand. Go ahead and stand if you've
you're present or if you're. Thank you so much.
Amen. Thank you so much for your
service. Yeah, Bless you.
You may be seated. Yeah.
And you know, freedom isn't free.
We we have a tendency to think that the freedoms we enjoy are
the natural state of man. But it is actually a rare
experiment in human history, what we enjoy.
And that's largely because of those who have served to protect
our freedom. So thank you so much for all you
did and all you've done. All right, let's get into the
word this morning. Psalm 149.
All right, we are. I said, I told the first service
that I'm going to be preaching on this next week as well.
I won't Roger will be preaching. But so we're we're we're in,
we're, we're talking about Psalm 2 and Psalm 149.
A couple weeks ago we looked at Psalm 2 and it's fascinating to
me that both the second Psalm in the book of Psalms and the
second to the last Psalm in the book of Psalms are bookends that
go together and it's talking about and praise how we what
Psalms chapter 2 says that the kings of the earth, the rulers
will try to shake off the shackles of the Lord and his
anointed. Psalm 149 says we actually place
them, we hem them in and we shackle them and bend them into
God's will and we do that through praise.
It's an amazing thing. And so these two Psalms go
together. So we're going to continue to
look at this. And I only got through the first
verse this morning. So we're, we're going to be
dealing with this for a while at this rate till, you know, till
2027. But so in 2023, March of 2023, I
finally got to go to Israel. I had never been to Israel.
And I, I hate to admit this, some of you are going to gasp
and think this is horrible, but I, I never really had a real
desire to go to Israel. I had a couple of opportunities
and it just didn't work out. And now that I've been there, I
have a deep desire to go back. How many of you ever been to
Israel? Raise your hand.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's an amazing place with a mate, of
course, tremendous history. And so I went and got to see all
kinds of things. Matter of fact, we were in a a
small village overlooking Gaza that was one of the villages
that was to be attacked seven months later by Hamas.
And I'm glad I was there before that, but it was just an amazing
time. But one of the things we got to
see that is still closed to the public, from what I understand
it's going to be opening soon, was an archaeological discovery
of what's known as the Pilgrim Way or the Pilgrimage Rd.
And it was actually discovered, I want to say, in 2004.
What happened is there was a sewage break in a potato field,
so that when they went to fix it, they hit something.
And in Israel, when you're digging and you hit something,
everything stops. You call in the archaeologist
and you look at what you hit because there is so much history
there. And they discovered what they've
now understand to be the Pilgrim Rd.
And the Pilgrimage Rd. is a pathway.
It's about 25 feet wide, this sandstone pavement way.
It was buried deep beneath the earth.
And it was the the road from the Pool of Siloam, which was a
mikvah where they would wash themselves and be ceremonially
unclean. And then they would ascend to
the Hill of the Lord and worship at the Temple Mount.
And so that was the pilgrimage road.
And it's it they're excavating it now.
You see this picture of it. This is, it is the most
extensive archaeological dig and most advanced archaeological dig
in human history. And you can see they're, they're
digging underground and they're, they're creating these metal
arches so that you can go in there and these huge stones are
part of that pavement. This is a a stairway going off
into a would have been some kind of establishment off the that
way. And then there's a final picture
which is in. I just thought I'd throw that in
there. That's a hole in the ground,
which is the entrance to another level of archaeological dig
thousands of years before this one.
So I mean, it's layer after layer of history in Jerusalem
and all over Israel. But what was interesting is this
is the this was the pathway that people would clot.
They would walk up to the Temple Mount in worship and it's where
they would sing the songs of ascent.
I want to say it starts in Psalm 125 on through there about 15
passages, which were known are known as the songs of ascent.
And they were worship courses that would be sung as they're
walking up this pilgrimage way. And so it was the, it was the
way to ascend the Temple Mount. And so it was interesting,
fascinating. It's closed to the public, but
we got to go because comes with Kufai Christians United for
Israel and that was the organization I ended up going
with. And because of their close
relationship with Israel, we were able to go down into those
tunnels and see them. And, and I they're saying in in
about 20-4 months from the time that I was there, it was
supposed to open up to the public.
I don't know if it is yet, but I just I thought it was
fascinating got back home, but that that was cool.
And then two weeks after I got back, we had Dean Briggs and
Mark Breesbaugh. And some of you will remember
when we had them in and they were teaching.
We did a small conference on ascending the hill of the Lord
and how in worship there is a dynamic where we ascend the hill
of the Lord and we we begin to move in authority that God is
granted to us. It was something that deeply
stirred my heart because of what God has called us to as a
people, as a church. But what I didn't expect is as I
was contemplating this, I was in prayer one day and the Lord
spoke to me about my visit to Israel.
I want to read you. I wrote down some notes from
that. I'm just going to read you what
I felt like the Lord said to me the following week in prayer.
The Lord began to speak to me about the prophetic nature of my
visit visit to the Pilgrimage Rd.
I began to sense that my trip to the excavation site was not an
accident, rather, it was a sign of what the Lord is presently
doing. Here's what I felt him saying.
Now understand that the way this was discovered, there was a
sewage break underneath the ground and you you weigh it.
Scripture says let 1 prophecy and the others judge you weigh
whether this is from the Lord or not.
I believe it was moral. Sewage has begun to be released
into the nations. In response, God is going to
facilitate the revelation of an ancient path.
He is going to once again open the pilgrimage Rd. in the
spirit, a spiritual path opened up in the days of Pontius Pilate
by Jesus himself. What they've what they've
discovered is in excavating this, that that pathway was
built during the time of Pilot. So thus it was in the time of
Christ, and we know that the reason we can ascend the hill of
the Lord and go boldly before the throne of grace is because
of what Jesus, Jesus did. And so although the revelation
is not seen by all right now, He is excavating the pathway to
ascend the hill of the Lord. What a few are being granted
access to will be open to all over the next number of years.
We must excavate this revelation.
And I believe the timing of the conference was key to this.
I really do believe that the Lord is going to teach His
Church to ascend the hill of the Lord.
So what does that mean when the when scripture talks about that?
Is that just mere poetry? Oh, that's nice.
That's cute language. Or is is there a reality that we
are tapping into in worship? If you look at Psalm chapter 2
and Psalm 149, they are talking about ascending in worship and
releasing the word of the Lord through praise.
And both of these passages talk about binding world rulers,
literally bending them into the will of the Lord, forcing them
to do God's bidding. And you and I have a part to
play in this in the form of praise.
Now, when I talk about the unique call on Heartland's life,
on our corporate life together, I want to be very careful when I
talk like that. I'm not saying that Heartland,
I'm not saying that it's the way we do things is better than
other churches. There are certain things we do
that are different. I believe in corporate callings
and I don't believe there's any one church that can do all that
God's called. I don't believe there's a one
stop Jesus shop. I believe we every church
carries different things and that's why the body of Christ is
vast and we need one another. But we do need to understand
what we're called to. Now, I was talking to someone
this week and I was talking about how when I came to
Heartland as the senior pastor, there were things that came with
me because they're on my life. They're part of the call of God
on my life. Same with you.
But there are other things when I arrived that came on my life
because they're on this church. And then there are other things
that I carried for years, and when I got here, it was on this
church as well. And there was a synergy between
the two. One of the things give you an
example, you know, Paul Judah was here last week.
I was telling the elders how when the first time Paul came,
he was praying over me on a Saturday night and he began to
declare. He said, I see eagles with
broken wings landing at Heartland being mended and
relaunching in the ministry. And I thought, that's nice that
Leif shared that with him. So the next day on the way to
church, I said, oh, so life shared that that word with you.
So what you talking about? I said that thing about the
eagles with broken wings. He said, no, life didn't say
anything. I saw it when I was praying for
you. I saw eagles with broken wings.
And I about drove off the road because life had given me that
word a year earlier. He said, this is a this is an
eagle's nest for eagles with broken wings, that ministers
would come here and be restored to ministry.
What he didn't know is that my brother had given me that word
five years earlier. And what I didn't know at that
time is there was a pastor that pastored this church some 25
years earlier that got up in the pulpit on a Sunday morning and
said God told me in prayer this week that Heartland it was, it
wasn't called Heartland at the time that this church would be a
healing place for wounded ministers to be restored to
ministry. Now, what do you make of that?
Let every matter be established in the the mouth of two or three
witnesses. God is trying to bring an
awareness to this church. Some of the unique fixtures in
the spirit, some of the unique calling on our our church.
That doesn't make us better. It makes us different and we
need to be about the the Father's business.
Another dimension to what God has called us to as a church is
the unique praise and worship that comes out of this house.
There's something different at times about Heartland.
The way I was trained in Bible school is you launch and praise
you get, you celebrate and praise, and then you landed into
this intimate worship. And it's the slow songs at the
end and you know, everybody's wiping their eyes and then you
get up to preach. There's nothing wrong with that,
that that's a valid way to do it, but that's not how Heartland
usually does it. We start out in intimacy and we
ended praise. Why?
Because it has to do with the call of God on this church.
You see, praise is different than worship.
What the psalmist in Psalm 149 refers to as high praise.
He says in high praise you bind kings with fetters and rulers
with shackles of iron. What is he talking about?
He's talking about this element of warfare that comes in high
praise. You see, worship is there, it's
for an audience of one. When we're in worship, we're
singing straight to Him. It's the IT, it's similar to the
sweet nothings you whisper into the ear of your spouse if you're
married. It's that those intimate
exchanges that we talk there, there, there's, it's just for
Him. That's what worship is.
But praise is different. Praise is the declaration of who
he is, not just towards God but towards the atmosphere, towards
even the rogue rulers and the and the principalities and
powers and heavenly realms. So praise is a way to re
acclimate our mind and recalibrate our minds and also
to impose those truths on the enemy.
There is a warfare element to praise.
So when we're worshipping, we're talking to him about who he is
and we go into this high praise. There are times where we're when
people are shouting and jumping and pumping their fists in the
air. What is that?
Is it just because we like music around here?
Although we do, there's more to it than that.
It's it's enforcing the will of the Lord in praise.
You see, praise is about confronting the false narrative
of the enemy. We come in here and praise is a
protection for our own minds to protect us from a fence because
life begins to crowd in on us and and make us feel like God is
abandoned us. At times the enemy tries to
create a narrative, reinterpret the circumstances of your life
to rob you of victory. And so praise is the way you
establish that victory and you hold the line.
What does Paul say in Ephesians 6 in the evil day, when you've
done all you can stand? And then he says it again, and
when you've done all you can stand, sometimes that's all you
can. But you, all you can do is stand
on that ground and say, I'm telling you, I don't understand
this. I don't know why all this is
happening, but this I know God is good.
And we hold that ground. And that's an act of warfare
because the enemy wants to create a narrative in your mind
to interpret your circumstances and push you off the ground of
victory. And once you give up that
ground, it's a whole different deal.
It's one thing to fight from victory, it's another thing to
fight for it. You have you give up the high
ground and now you're trying to get back to where you were.
And I use that terminology very carefully when I talk about the
narrative. That's where we get the word
narrator. And a narrator, of course, is
when there's a scene on the screen or there's a scene on the
the stage and there's circumstances happening, but
then there's a voice off screen infusing those activities with
meaning, filling in the back story so you know how to
interpret what's going on in front of you.
That's the purpose of a narrator.
And the enemy has a narration for your life and God has a
narration for your life. And depending on who you tune
into will determine whether you live in victory or defeat.
And so when we come in and worship and we, we, there's
times, let me put it this way, your praise is at its most
valuable when you're going through the hardest times
because that's when you need it most.
And that's when you are in the thick of the battle and you're
pressing back the narration of the enemy.
You're imposing the truth upon him.
You're encroaching on his activity and saying I refuse to
listen to your interpretation of my life.
And you're fighting for that ground.
And that means something. And it means something more than
just between your two ears. That's where the first battles
won. That's where the first battles
thought fought in the area of your thoughts.
But the fact is it there's an effect that our praise has that
goes beyond what we believe in between our two ears and so and
praise and worship where it's more than just us having
intimacy with the Lord. There is an external expression
and environmental effect that our praise has.
When we're worshipping God and we go into the high praise and
we begin to declare the goodness of his character, what we're
doing is we're declaring the excellencies of his nature and
character and imposing them on the narrative of the enemy.
And when the enemy begins to tell us that God has abandoned
you, he really doesn't care if if God really loved you, X
wouldn't be happening in your life.
And you fight and you stand and you declare those things.
You're pushing back the enemy. And there's a breakthrough that
many of you have felt in worship, may not have been able
to articulate it, but all of a sudden it's like you broke
through something and all of a sudden the rarefied or the air's
clear. You can see farther.
Things are clear. You have the victory between
your two ears, and you walk out of that service and you're
looking at things differently. And here's the crazy thing is,
your circumstances haven't changed yet.
You have the same circumstances you had when you walked into
church, when you walked out, but there's something different
going on in your heart. Why?
Because you have secured the victory in high praise.
High praise is warfare. We are enforcing the crown
rights of King Jesus, declaring his goodness on the earth in our
circumstances. We refuse to give into that
false narrative of the enemy. And that is crucial, especially
when you feel like it the least, because that's when the battle
is the thickest. And we take that stand and we
impose that on the enemy. But again, that has it's, it's
goes beyond what's going on between your ears.
There really is an environmental cosmic effect that praise has
that Psalm chapter 2 and Psalm 149 talk about.
And so we need to grasp this because if we don't, what
happens is we come in here and we think, oh, we sing because we
like it. It's like singing these cute
little ditties, you know? Oh, I like that guitar riff, you
know, And it prepares for the worship or for the word.
We just kind of blow past this and we don't realize that we are
doing Kingdom work here. This really matters.
The mindset that you grab, that you come in here and you
understand I'm going to engage heaven and I'm going to impose
heaven's edicts on the earth, and I'm going to shift events in
my life in the place of praise. Some of you were here when Paul
was speaking last a week ago this Saturday on soaking and,
and he, we, we come in, we, we were in soaking.
And then he said, stand up, make some declarations.
And I'm going to tell you I already had some in the holster.
I was ready. I, I pulled him out and I knew I
didn't have to search for something to declare.
There's some things I want to see some movement on in my
personal life. There's some things I want to
see movement on in my family, in our region.
And so there's a place where we ascend the hill of the Lord and
you hit that pocket of authority where you can begin to declare
and move things. And this, this is very, very
important because otherwise what you do is you're just this
little stick tossed to and fro down the little stream of life.
Life happens to you and you can't try to keep a good
attitude while you're being thrown about by the waves.
And God never intended for you to live that way.
No, it's not that we can just Willy nilly just declare
anything we want. Psalm chapter 2 talks about the
decrees. It says there's decrees.
Psalm 149 says that we carry out the sentence written against
them. So both of them, there's
something that's been decided in heaven that you and I pick up on
earth and we begin to declare those things and we use the
authority given to us to do so. Now you hang around here any
time at all, you're going to hear me quote Psalm 8 and
Hebrews chapter 2. This is a big deal because if we
don't understand the principle in those two verses, what we end
up doing is we end up giving away our authority and we let
life happen to us rather than imposing the will of God through
us on the earth. Psalm chapter 8 is very clear.
What is man that you are mindful of him, the Son of man that you
would visit him. You made him a little lower than
the angels and put everything under his feet.
God delegated the earth to man. Yes, we abdicated that through
sin, but we have it back in Christ.
Ephesians chapter 2 chapter one last two verses.
God put everything under Christ's feet.
Comma for the church, the fullness of him who fills
everything in every way and by the way, the reason the church
is the fullness of him and the reason this this the context of
this passage we're going to get into in a minute is the
assembly. The ecclesia is because that's
the fullness of him. Every one of us have a portion a
measure that we bring to the table.
Every church has something they carry and together the body of
Christ is the fullness of him. And so we need one another.
So let's look at this here. Look at look at verse one, if I
can get my computer to cooperate.
Look at this praise the Lord sing to the Lord a new song, his
praise in the assembly of the godly.
So right from the outset, the psalmist, the second to the last
Psalm playing off the second Psalm in the book, he says
praise the Lord. So this is our marching orders,
Praise him. And it's different than worship.
He's not talking about this intimacy thing.
He's talking about warfare where we come in and we make it.
We begin to declare the goodness of God over our circumstances,
over our nations and the nations of the earth.
He says sing to the Lord a new song.
That word, new song is very specific.
It means what it says, a new song, something that's never
been heard or seen before. It's new material.
What he's talking about is prophetic worship, where we
declare what, what is the now of God, not just the knowledge of
God. See, there's a lot of good
things we could release. There's a lot of good things we
can preach on it's, but it's not about the general knowledge.
What is the now of God? What's on God's heart right now?
Prophetic worship is nothing more and nothing less than
singing. What is on the heart of God in
that moment? We're directed by him to release
his word and has an effect. What is the word in season?
And so as we're up, we're in worship.
We're looking for that What what has oil on it and you can feel
it. There's times we'll hit that.
It's paid dirt, man. There's something there's oil on
that thing and it's going to make a difference.
See, the danger is, is that you and I think that what we see
around us is all there is that we come into worship and it's
nice songs and then we hear a nice sermon.
Five points to having a good marriage and we go home.
But in reality, we step in here. We're engaging the spiritual
realm. Hebrews chapter 12 is very
clear. He says you have not come to
Mount Sinai. We're talking about ascending
the hill of the Lord. He says the hill that we ascend
is not Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai was a it was the
the, the mountain where they received the law and there was
condemnation and there was tremendous fear.
They weren't allowed to touch it.
And even Moses, who would talk to God as a friend face to face,
was trembling in fear and thought he would die.
And the writer says that's not the mount we come to, but you
have come to Mount Zion. And Mount Zion, it says, is the
spiritual Jerusalem. So this this idea of the
mountain of the Lord of Mount Zion is this spiritual reality
that the the writer of Hebrews is trying to paint for you and I
and he says a number of things about it.
And what he's talking about is what is the reality that we
encounter when we come together as the body of Christ?
What are we encountering here? One of the things he said we
it's the spirit spirits of men made perfect, the redeemed were
made holy. And he says, I love this phrase
of myriad of fest of angels and festal gathering.
That's a wild phrase. Millions of angels and festal
gatherings. You know, when we gather to
worship, the angelic begins to settle in around us and we join
in worship with them. It's not just us down here.
And we need a grid work for this because if we're if we're not
careful, we just think that we're down here jumping around
trying to get God's attention and God's come some disconnected
way. Every now and then he'll bump
Gabriel. Hey, Gabriel, they're down there
doing it again. Why don't you, you know, answer
a prayer form or something get you know, that's not what's
going on. There is an engagement of heaven
and earth when we gather in his name, when we be, especially
when we begin to praise, because what we're doing is we're
declaring his goodness over against the situations in the
earth. And it's that dynamic that
Scripture says he inhabits, or he enthrones himself.
In the midst of literally high praise is a coronation of the
king. It's us crowning him all over
again. And he comes and he begins to
exert his rule. From the midst of that, he, he
begins to move in and begins to move out and do things in the
earth. But again, if we don't realize
that, we come in, we sing some songs in disconnected ways and
then get ready to hear a nice little sermon, when in reality
we need to come prepared because we've come.
We've stepped in to do Kingdom business.
We come to Mount Zion, the spiritual Jerusalem.
We come and we engage heaven, and God begins to move through
our praise. And that is what this passage is
about. Now, again, these psalms are the
records of prophetic seers, of psalmists.
David was known as a prophet Asaph, one of his primary guys
in the House of prayer. What David established, the
Tabernacle of David Asaph, it says was a seer, meant he saw
things in the Spirit and he ministered as a prophet under
David's direction. And So what the Psalms are is
they are records of what they encountered as they saw things
in the Spirit and they left them behind through scribes for you
and I so that we could find the tracks to discover the same
things. You see, David broke into some
things and then he, he, he articulated those so that we
could enter into the same thing David is.
Let me let me just say that until you are able to articulate
what you've broke into, you haven't really fully learned it
yet. The final, the final building
block of what God does in you is your ability to give it away.
And until you can give it away, you don't really have it yet.
And have you ever heard of the Trivium?
The it's, it's a classical education.
It was, you know, kids learn Latin and it's a dead language,
but it's the base of a lot of different languages.
Well, for, for centuries, what was called the Trivium, it was
the way in which children were were taught.
And the Trivium, it starts out with memorizing many facts, then
it's argumentation and then it's giving it away teaching others.
And so it's a progression. And it's, it's fascinating
because it really matches the stages of a child, a little
child. They can memorize volumes of
material. That's why you just teach them
songs about all this stuff. I can still remember Conjunction
Junction. What's that fun?
How many? You know what I'm talking about?
See, it's you could sing along with me.
How do I remember that? Because it was put to music.
I was a little kid. I learned that stuff.
Or a noun is a person, plays or thing.
You know all those. So you have all these songs.
Some of you are looking at me. Whoa, you dated yourself.
So you you learn, but then it's that debate.
How many of you had kids that will debate you?
They're in that stage, but in under that mindset that that
ancient way of training children.
They believe that until you can give it away, you haven't really
learned it. And that's true.
So much so that Philemon tells us, and I want to say it's verse
six of the book of Philemon. He says I would that you would
share your faith comma so that you know what you have.
In other words, it's in the process of giving it away that
you learn. I had a Bible school professor.
He said one time he was asking the Lord or the Lord asked him.
He said, do you know why I called you to ministry?
And he thought, man, I guess because I'm so committed, I'm
naturally insightful. Lord, why was it?
He said the Lord spoke this to him and it was very humble of
him to do so. He said the Lord said it was the
only way to keep you holy, to keep you handling holy things.
There's something about forcing, giving it away.
It causes you to really kind of press it out and articulate it
and learn it and grasp it. And So what God does in your
life is meant to be given away to others.
And it's in the giving that you get further revelation and
understanding. And so David broke into some
things. And then what he did is he
systematized his form of worship.
David discovered some things about God, and he created this
whole system called the Tabernacle of David.
He broke the rules. Moses had the three court
system, got it from God himself. God said build it according to
the blueprint. And God took Moses in these
encounters and showed them there's a three court system,
the the whole outer court, the holy place and the holiest of
all and how it's all supposed to work.
And David is looking at that saying, but it's not fair.
I'm left on the outside. You got to look at Psalm 132.
I wish we had some time to look into Psalm 132.
It is an amazing passage. But David says this.
He said we heard about it in Ifathra.
I came upon it in the fields of jar.
What David was saying is that is a young boy living in Bethlehem,
which is another word for Ifathra, another another phrase
That's that's if father was Bethlehem.
David was saying as a young boy, I was raised in a father in
Bethlehem and I'd heard a rumor that the ark of God, this box
that God said I will dwell between the cherubim.
It was literally a throne that they would carry and God would
go with them and they knew this is a meeting place.
And David heard a rumor. See, Saul had taken it into
battle. It got captured because they
weren't honoring the presence of the Lord.
And the Philistines broke out, depending on your translation,
if they broke out in tumors or some translations say they broke
out in hemorrhoids, they didn't want it anymore.
We don't know which. Suffice it to say, if you don't
honor the presence, being in the presence is an uncomfortable
thing. So they sent it back and they,
the, some of the Israelites opened it and were killed.
And so they took it out and they put it in the fields of jar or
another word for Koriath, Jerem. And that's where the ark dwelt,
I want to say for about 20 years.
But David gives us a little insight in Psalm 132.
He said, he said, listen, when I was a young guy, I heard there
was a rumor that the ark, the creator of the universe, sits on
that box, and it was in my region.
And David said, I got to get there.
See, this explains a lot about David.
There's something in David's heart that said, if God's there,
I've got to get there and I've got to check this thing out.
He said, I heard about it in Bethlehem and I came upon it in
Kariath Jerem and it ruined David for the rest of his life.
The first thing he did when he ascended the throne, he said
I've got to get that arc to me. I've got to put it smack dab in
the center of my regime and everything is going to orbit
around the presence of God. And he called it the Tabernacle
of David. And it didn't have a three court
system. It had one court and they didn't
have a veil to protect them. You know what protected them?
Intercessors who we just sang it day and night, night and day,
would worship the Lord. David hired on his own dime
hundreds of worship leaders and intercessors and prophets and
scribes. And they would just worship God
day and night. And they would go into these
encounters and they would write them down.
And we have them in the forms of Psalms.
And it explains why the Kingdom exponentially increased under
David's regime, because David entertained the presence of God.
David was hungry. And what he discovered in
private, he created a system that other people could enter
into. And it became known as the
Tabernacle of David. And by the way, it's the one
that God said, I will rebuild. God isn't interested in
rebuilding the temple of Solomon or the tent, the Tabernacle of
Moses. What he wants is the Tabernacle
of David, where night and day he's entertained.
So when the psalmist says, come, bless the Lord, all you servants
of the Lord who stand by night in the House of the Lord, it's
referring to those that David had hired and around the clock.
They were entertaining. They were, they were around that
ark worshipping the Lord. And God began to move powerfully
in the nation of Israel, and it expanded and their enemies fell
before them. And many of these psalms were
psalms that they received and encounters, and they declared
over their enemies that we will bind those kings with fetters in
these rulers with shackles of iron, says God says in Psalm 2.
As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill, saying that
God's going to rule from that place.
Zion is just a very small mountain in Jerusalem, right
outside not too far from that tunnel.
They discovered it in another potato patch in an old garbage
dump. They were looking for the
David's palace and what was known as Mount Zion, and they
discovered it literally outside the city wall.
And I remember seeing that we went, we went through David's
palace. And there's reasons they know
it's David's palace because some of the carvings that were talked
about in Second Chronicle or First Chronicles and so forth.
And I remember looking at that and reading about Mount Zion.
As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.
Mount Zion is the, the, the envy of all the other mountains.
There's no greater mountain and I'm looking at things go, wow,
that's pretty generous, Lord, that's almost borders on forgive
me, Lord, dishonest. You know what's calling that
great? It's just a little Knoll.
Well, obviously the conclusion is God has a different metric by
which he measures things. Wasn't the size of the mountain,
it was the impact. And it was a place where David,
God said, I've set my king on Zion, my holy hill.
And now that Zion has become a metaphor for the Kingdom of God
in the governmental mountain. And it's what you and I are to
ascend the hill of the Lord in praise.
And once we get to those places where we catch the word of the
Lord and we begin to release them into the earth over our
families, over our situations in government, over the nations.
And that is the purpose of high praise.
So we don't have to get we don't have time to get into the rest
of this passage. We will next week.
Roger will be here and then we'll jump back into this.
But suffice it to say, listen this thing of high praise is
crucial. And if we get a grid work for
what's going on realize when we gather there's a reason it says
verse one sing to the Lord a new song.
His praise where in the assembly of the godly, you know, the
Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament.
You know what that word assembly is?
Ecclesia. It's the New Testament word that
we translate church. It's a governmental ruling body
that exerts legislative rule in a region.
And so where do we do the high praise?
You see, there's, there's authority given to the body of
Christ that's not given to the individual.
And there's something about when we gather, when, when the the
ecclesia is in session and we begin to declare the goodness of
God. We come in in intimacy and we're
beginning to talk to him. And then we begin to that.
We begin to mount, you know, begin to ascend the hill of Lord
and we begin to declare his goodness over our circumstances.
And we begin to declare his, his character and his nature,
contrary to everything that's pressing in upon us, contrary to
what culture saying, contrary to to even what our present
experience may be, and contrary to what the enemy wants to how
he wants to interpret our circumstance.
And we take that stand and we press it back.
And we hit those spots of authority and it's where we
catch the word of the Lord. And I want to encourage you,
there are times on Sunday mornings where we're in worship
and God wants to drop a word in your heart.
And you begin to declare that over your family.
You begin to declare that over your situation.
Over your job, your circumstance, or even the
nations of the earth. There are times we'll do that
corporately when we get up and we begin to do business.
I remember one Sunday morning we were in worship and also my wife
leaned over. She said we need to pray for the
president right now. This is a number of years ago
and I knew it, man. We began to go into that praying
for the president and man, something shifted in the air.
You see, God wants to release those things.
He wants to bend kings and rulers into his will.
There are times where we're to pray over China and move the
ruler of China and make him bow to God's will.
Not, not something that we just, you know, we're, we're slinging
hash and saying anything we want.
We're catching the word of the Lord.
And through his ekklesia, he begins to turn human affairs.
Amen. Let's go ahead and stand.
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