There is a battle for the souls of men and the glory of God. This war started before creation. It is a spiritual war and difficult for us to understand. Scripture shows us glimpses of this war and scripture also says, "My people are destroyed by lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6) Many believers and church families are vulnerable because of their lack of awareness that we are in spiritual warfare. Now, we should not ever get out of balance with this subject to where we are over emphasizing satan and his demons. We know the Victor and the Victory is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. Hallelujah!
Worship is the point at which this great battle began. The worship theme continues throughout all of Scripture and according to Revelation 5:11-14 is the culmination of God's great work throughout all history. All of history will end in Worship!
The issue of worship is the great battle between good and evil being waged, because worship is all about giving God the glory and honor due His name. We read in the Word that satan has always been jealous of God being worshipped. He felt he deserved to be worshipped even as God. Satan became so self-deceived that he decided to wage war against God's glory.
The prophet Isaiah speaks of the reasons behind satan's ejection from heaven: "You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High'". (Isaiah 14:13-14) He even went so far as to ask Jesus to bow down and worship him in Matthew 4. This is why God hates pride. It is the ultimate arrogance that he demanded the Son of God to worship him.
With lies and deceptions, false gods and idols, satan will lead people to worship any and everything except the Most High God.
We must exalt God and proclaim the truth. We are on offense, not defense. We don't need to pursue some mystical experience, we just need to stand on the truth. I Cor. 10: 4-5 states, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strong-holds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
When we pray for our church's worship and when we come together and praise and exalt His name we are in complete offense against satan. Therefore, don't be surprised when he seeks to do everything he can to keep us from praying and praising.
I love the way the Message puts Luke 11:23, "This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you're not on My side, you're the enemy; if you're not helping, you're making things worse." JESUS mjm
