Await & Arise Teaching: Praying Against Evil

This week in CBS we studied through Psalm 28, 58, 83 & 109.  Your encouraged to go back and read through those chapters if you haven't already before you listen to the teaching.  
David is facing great adversity as he writes these Psalms.  He is looking to God to unleash vengeance on those who have betrayed him.  
In these Psalms we are reminded that we do not fight flesh and blood but that we fight a very real spiritual enemy and that we must lean on our very real God and his power to overcome evil in order to win these battles.  
Today we discuss these Psalms and Ephesians 6.  Putting on the whole armor of God as we gear up daily to battle against evil in this world.  
Prayer and Praise of the one true God are our 1st and last lines of defense against the evil that tries to stand against us.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Welcome to another episode of A Wake and Arise. And just pause in awe of our good God. And as we give our souls just a moment of rest and refresh. Well, it's good to be back. I hope you guys had a wonderful Easter and got to celebrate our Lord. What a miraculous thing that we have, right? We have a Savior that has risen and has saved all of us and offers us a life eternal with Him. And that is, I mean, I could end it there. We could just say Amen and walk away, and that would be all that needs to be spoken, right? Um, but this week, uh, as I was praying, power and prayer and praise, the first and our last line of defense was just ever present on my mind. Ephesians 6, 10 through 12 says, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, put the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not fight against flesh and blood, but against the authorities, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. How many of you know that is true? That is true. When you think you are fighting against someone else, that is not true. You have an enemy that is spiritual, and he needs to fight against your God, not you. So this week, as I prayed over this scripture, this old song by Amy Grant. How many of you know Amy Grant? All right, I was a 90s kiddo. I loved Amy Grant. She was wonderful. I had all of the CDs because they had CDs back then. If you don't know what that is, we can talk later. Um, but there was this song called The Power, and it kept resounding in my head this week, that song. And so I went and I looked it up because I remember it as The Power of God. Like this song was singing about the power of God and how amazing it is, right? And then I read up on this song, and it was like the power of us. And I was like, what? Gross. No, that's dumb. So, um, anyways, when I hear the words singing about the power, I am recognizing that the only thing that can settle unrest in our world is the power of God. That's it. That's the only thing. The only one with true power that can fight unrest or evil or vengeance, has vengeance or can have justice in a situation is our God. We do not fight men, we fight Satan and his dominion. And if we fight Satan, then that means that we need the power of God to stand against him. And that power we have through prayer and praise. And that is our very first and our last line of defense. And let me tell you, as we study this week, we learn that David knew it too, right? Everything that he does is prayer first and praise following, right? So, power, prayer and praise, the first and the last line of defense. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that you have given us your word, that you give us the example of David and Paul, that we might understand how to call on you, and that it is so important that we are on our knees calling on you, leaning on you, because it is not an earthly battle that we fight, Lord, and it is for your glory that we stand. So, Lord, I just pray that it be your words today and not mine. Amen. So in each of the chapters this week, we had this cyclical pattern, and it started like this Hear my pleas, which is the prayer. Don't overlook me, that's the fear, and then blessed be the Lord, that's the praise. So in chapter 28, we see a really simple chapter. David is asking to be heard. He's leaning into God, saying, He is my strength and my shield, and he's asking not to be swept away by the judgment, right, of the wicked. Because he's repented. He has told God of his iniquities, he has turned from those iniquities, he has laid them at God's feet, and he's saying, Hey, there's a lot of evil and wicked things going on, but don't, I'm, I want you to judge it, but don't carry me away in that judgment, Lord. See me. Don't miss me. In Ephesians 6.11, it says, To put on the whole armor of God, that you may stand against the schemes of the devil. In Ephesians 6.16, Paul goes on to say, In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. So David regarded the works of the Lord in his life and in the world around him. He was not like the wicked. And as Paul notes in Romans 1.20, that the wicked are without excuse, because they knew God. They knew God, but they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful, but they became futile in their thoughts and foolish and dark in their hearts. And that's what David is dealing with here too. But David, he is different than the wicked, because he is constantly kneeling before the Lord. And because of that constant prayer and his heart postured to God, to trust God, to place it all at God's feet, and to constantly turn and trust him. He has asked God, purge me of any unholiness. I want to seek after what you have for me, Lord. And I know that what's being done around me is not of you and needs to be handled. So he was not swept away by the wicked. He's not lost in their judgment. Instead, he prayed against that evil. And you and I have that same call in our lives too: to recognize the world around us and to pray against the evil that would try and overcome us, or try and tempt us, or try and knock us out of God's eyes, right? Try to derail us into not trusting our Lord. But that's not going to win because the power, the power is in the prayer and the praise, which are our first and last line of defense. So in that song, The Power, the first verse reads this way: A king is crying on his throne. He had a queen, but now she's gone. What is this magic that we seek from mighty strong to mighty weak? So you guys remember back to Esther, right? And King Xerxes, he had a queen. Her name was Vashti. And Vashti was very pregnant and she was very beautiful. And one night, after like a three or four-day drunk fest, King Xerxes, who was not very bright, he called for his wife to be presented to him. And many of you might not know this, but when it says in her crown, it meant that was all. Just her crown. And Queen Vashti said no. No, thank you. I'll stay here with the other queens and princesses. I'm not coming to see you. Well, of course, he was his pride was hurt. He was upset. He was so mad, and he looked to his advisors, and his advisors said, banish her. You should get rid of her. And in his drunken stupor and pride and drunk on his own power, he said, Yes, banish her. Well, in that day, a king could not revoke what he had said. So since he set the decree, she was gone. Well, when he came out of his drunken stupor, guess what? He was sad. Because he actually really liked her. But now he didn't have a queen. So he went to his advisors, not the wisest advisors, but he went to them and he said, What should we do now? And they said, Oh, king, don't be sad. Just forget Vashti. We'll get you another queen. We'll search all the land for the beautiful virgins, and we will bring you a better queen. In Psalm 58, it's believed that this is very similar in that Saul was getting advice from judges and advisors around him. And these judges and advisors had decided that what the best thing to do for David was to call him an outlaw and to condemn him to death. And so what does David do? David challenges their ruling by asking, Do you judge uprightly? No, you judge with wickedness in your heart. Even the ones who should have fought for him and spoken up in his defense were silent in wickedness. Their silence was wickedness. So he says, Let them vanish like a snail in slime. Let them vanish like snail in slime. How many of you have lived in the South or have been around snails? I was raised in Missouri as a kid, and so we love to pour salt on the snails. It was really gross. But we would pour salt on them and we'd watch them dissolve. I'm sure it was a really bad day for the snails, but we thought it was pretty fun. But that's what he's saying. He's saying, let them dissolve, as if they were never even here. He says, as if it was a stillborn child, not even so much as just death, but not even being born. That's a pretty harsh judgment. But that's his judgment for not even just the ones who spoke against him, but the ones who he trusted who should have said something and they stayed silent. He found that as wickedness as well. So David, he was hurt, he was betrayed, but he was given this gift to see truth. He got to see who these men actually were. He got to see their true heart. And he got to see the wickedness and their fall for a perceived power in Saul. And that's all it was. Their fear was that Saul was the actual power, and if they spoke up, they might lose their head. And so they stayed silent. They did not trust God. They did not place their hope in the true power, in God. They trusted a perceived power, and that was to their failure. So David, or excuse me, Ephesians 6.14 says, Therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, so David took his grievance as a newfound vision and the truth of what God had called him to, and this wickedness of those who had advised against him, and he prayed. And he prayed to God for God's judgment to be invoked. He was like, I know who to take this to. I know who could actually enact justice. I know who I serve. And he went to God and he prayed. And in eighty-three and says it uses the phrase, make them like the whirling dust that blows and is never seen again. So he sees them for who they truly are. They serve themselves. And because they serve themselves, they serve evil. That's harsh. And this evil was intent on ruining not just David, but God's nation, Israel. All for the sake of pride and power. But it would not be that way. So David prayed, and he prayed for the nation against the evil that threatened it, and for God's glory to be known throughout all of it. Power. Prayer and praise. Those are our first and our last line of defense. Ephesians 6 18 says, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication, to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. And then in verse 19 it says, And also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth to boldly proclaim the mystery of the gospel. And how cool is that! That's Ephesians 6 19. But in 83, chapter 83, and chapter 109, David prays for the nation. So we are praying in supplication for all the saints. So he's praying for the nation, and then himself, and that God would deal on its behalf, and that the words from his mouth would give thanks and praise to God. Isn't that cool? It's reiterated in Ephesians by Paul. That's a picture of how it should look for us. That we would hit our knees and that we would pray for our nation, that we would pray for the people in it, and that God's glory would be known, and that the words that come out of our mouth would make the gospel known and praise God. Isn't that cool? That's how we fight. David understood the real battle battle. He understood where the real power came from. He understood that prayer and praise were the first and the last lines of defense. He got it. And he would keep in that position so that he could be perfectly in the will of the Lord throughout all of this time of struggle and battle against the enemy. He was fighting something bigger than Saul. So he needed a God who was bigger than the evil that sought not just to destroy him, but to destroy Israel. And God's plan for us. You and I, we see what happens around us in a very narrow lens. We do not see all of the battling going on around us. And I believe it is for a very good reason. Because I think if we saw beyond that veil, we'd give up. I'm pretty sure, I mean, I know I'll speak for myself. If I saw beyond that veil, I'd probably go, ah, I'm out. I mean, I thought we were doing good, God, but I can't, that's scary, right? If we knew what truly was battling around us, but God shows us exactly what we need to see, and he shows us our call so that we can be where on our knees, praying and praising, so that we can be giving it all to him and trusting him. That is how we battle with him. Because he's the one with the power and he's the one with the plan. And guess what? He's already defeated the foe. We need not worry. But know that you are not battling against man, you are not battling against flesh and blood. Nope. You are battling against a very real spiritual evil. And because of that, you have to, have to, have to be praying and positioned with a heart, trusting a very real God. So armor up, put on your spiritual armor. Pray. Give it to God and then praise Him because the battle's already won. We already know the victory that we have. You don't fight flesh and blood. And you don't fight alone. Look beside you. They are fighting with you. And you fight for the most amazing God. You're on the winning side. So this week, stand strong, fight the battle on your knees. Prayer and praise. They're your first and your last line of defense. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much. You are such a good God. Lord, thank you for giving us the example of David and the words from Paul to remind us we too put on our spiritual armor as David put on his armor and his spiritual armor to battle so that all that you had planned could come into fruition. Lord, we continue to battle so that all that you have planned can come to fruition. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for your word. Amen.

unknown 19:05

Thanks, guys.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Thanks for joining me today. If your soul was refreshed by this pause in the word, then I hope that you'll continue to join me weekly for these await and arise meditations. My hope is that this podcast phase will be a retrieve for you to just take a pause away from the world, to be refreshed in the word, and to await in the presence of a good God. Would you go to the comment section and leave a word or a scripture that's lifted you up this week? I really do love to see how God is working in all of our lives. And my desire is to see that this space just grows as a community of people who come together and encourage each other in the word. I want to see him working in all of us. It's just such a sweet reminder that we are all in this together. And God, he goes before us. So until next time, I'm praying your heart stays anchored in his truth. A Wait and Arise podcasts are available on all podcast players. If you would like to see Ang, me, as I teach weekly live, click on my YouTube channel or go to my webpage, AngelaRaber.com, and you can find those episodes there. Meditations come out each week on Thursday, and live teachings are weekly on Monday, and I post those on Tuesday. We hope that you'll subscribe and feel free to share this episode with family and friends and on social media. For more information for connecting with a community Bible study in your area, you can also click those links below. You can join a connect group online, or you can find a community Bible study in your town or in your area that you can join in person. It is so important to be in the Word, meditating on it and studying it for yourself. So it is my encouragement to you to find a Bible teaching church and an in depth Bible study and dig in. Thanks for listening. Now, await in his presence and arise to his call.