RULE IN THE MIDST OF YOUR ENEMIES

Praise Awaits You in Zion!

Pastor Tayo Adeyemi

                                                                  Sunday 05 June 2011

Foundation Scriptures: Psalm 65: 1; Psalm 110-1-2

Our service today, the fifth day of Deeper and Higher 2011, our month of prayer and fasting, has been dedicated as a Praise Party and so I am going to be talking to you briefly about praise. The background to this is that I was recalling the great promises that God made during Deeper & Higher 2010, in particular His promise that there would be an 18 month window of opportunity within which He would move dramatically in our lives. In prayer, I reminded God that 11 months had passed and that there were only 7 months of this season left. God responded by asking me whether or not I trusted Him to do what He had said He would do, to which I replied “Absolutely, Lord!” “In which case”, God said “why don’t you praise me as if I’ve already done it?!”  And thus our Praise Party was birthed!

God has given us a clear mandate to enter into this month with praise – to praise Him for answered prayer as if we already had the answers to our prayers. But before we do that, I think it is important to shed a bit of light on our theme for this month.  Psalm 110:1-2 says “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of Your enemies!”  This is a Messianic Psalm – meaning that it refers primarily to our Lord Jesus Christ. If you’re wondering how I knew that, just go and read Matthew 22:43-45.

Now, anything that God gave to Jesus is also yours to claim. Why?  - Because we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Ephesians 2: 4-6 says that “we sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” and so where it says ‘The Lord said to my Lord’, you can change it to read ‘The Lord said to me!’ So, what is God saying to you in this season? Let me show you very quickly, five things that belong to you in this passage:

YOUR POSTURE: Sit. Not stand, not pace up and down, not cower in fear; but sit. Sitting is a posture of resting. It’s a posture that says ‘Everything is under control’. But also, sitting is a posture of ruling. Kings rule from a seat. Lawgivers decree from a seat. Judges decide from a seat. When you sit with Christ, you rest in Him, you rule with Him and you reign with Him.

YOUR POSITION: Sit at My right hand. The right hand is the place of dignity and honour; the right hand is the place of defence and protection. Psalms 121:5 says ‘The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.’ Also, the right hand is the place of blessing and favour. Every blessing that comes from God to you will pass through His right hand. And finally, the right hand is the place of dominion and power. All through scripture, the right hand of God always speaks of His power, His might and His dominion. When you sit at God’s right hand, you rest, you reign and you rule with Him in a place of dignity and honour; defence and protection; blessing and favour; and dominion and power.

YOUR PROMISE: Sit at My right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Conjure up an image of two pieces of furniture – a seat and a footstool. The seat is the resting place, the reigning place; and the footstool is the subduing place. Now, notice you don’t have to do anything; God is saying “I will make your enemies your footstool. Your job is to make your way to my right hand and sit down there. I will do the rest. I will gather all your enemies, seen and unseen, and I will make them your footstool.”

Poverty? Your footstool! Sickness?  Your footstool! Death? Your footstool! Cancer? Your footstool. Recession? Your footstool! Tragedy? Your footstool! Whatever your enemies may be called, they are your footstool. You know, there is sitting; and there is sitting and putting your feet on a footstool. It means you are completely relaxed. No stress, no fuss, no struggle. The battle has been decided, and the victory has been won!

YOUR POWER: Rule in the midst of your enemies. You know, you need to stop praying to God to kill your enemies because if He does so you’ll have no footstool and have no-one to bow at your feet!  Notice that in Psalm 23: 5 we are told ‘You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.’

In the days that kings went to war, they deliberately kept some of their enemies alive and brought them back as trophies of war. Sometimes, the humiliation of your enemies is worse than their destruction. “Rule in the midst of your enemies” means establish your dominion over them, subdue them, triumph over them, enforce your authority over them.

But what would give you the audacity to rule when you are surrounded by enemies? Well, that brings me to the real focus of my message today.

YOUR PALACE: The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion. The rod of your strength speaks of the sceptre of your rulership. A sceptre is a ceremonial staff held by a king as a symbol of authority. It is an instrument of power with which kings rule. All through scripture, the rod or the sceptre always spoke of royal authority, power and dominion. God put a rod in the hand of Moses, and for the rest of his ministry, he did awesome things with that rod. It was only when king Ahasuerus held out his golden sceptre to Esther that she was permitted to come into his presence.

Long before kings wore crowns, they held sceptres as the symbol of their power and dominion. Not everyone is allowed to carry a sceptre. To hold a sceptre in your hand, you must either be a king or have the delegated authority to represent a king.  And the king’s sceptre is recognised throughout the entire realm of his dominion.  When the sceptre of the king arrives in a part of his realm, the people must bow and pay attention as if the king himself were there. A king could be sitting in his palace, and his sceptre will command the same authority as his  physical presence, thousands of miles away, to the farthest reaches of his domain. Now, this scripture says the Lord will send the rod of your strength or the sceptre of your rulership from Zion. So the rod of your strength will proceed from where? From Zion.

Notice, we are not told the limit of how far it will reach. God does not place any boundaries on how far your strength will go. But He tells us categorically where it will start from – Zion (see Psalms 110:2).  

Now, if Zion is where my strength comes from, I need to find out all I can about Zion.  Zion is an old fashioned word that you hardly hear in church nowadays; but let me tell you a little bit about Zion: The word ‘Zion’ does not appear in the bible until the time of David when he took it at a stronghold (see 2 Samuel 5:7). Until this time, it was the headquarters of the Jebusites but when David captured it, he made it the centre of worship in Israel. He built a tabernacle and commissioned twenty-four hour worship there.

Until this time, the only place of worship that the children of Israel knew was the tabernacle of Moses, which was positioned on Mount Gibeah. But from the time that the Philistines captured the Ark of Covenant, that tabernacle began to fall to ruins. So, when David brought back the Ark, he placed it on Mount Zion and established a new order of worship in Israel. Here, there was no outer court, no holy place, and no holy of holies. There was no circumstance or ceremony, none of the fancy fabric of Moses’ tabernacle; just a box under a plain tent. The signature feature of Zion was worship – and oh, did they worship there! For some peculiar reason, God’s heart was drawn towards Zion; He always spoke favourably about it - you could almost hear the fondness and the longing in His voice. And also, you find that He connected many blessings to Zion. It was almost as if God was saying, ‘You will find My hand in many places, but My heart will always be in Zion’ God was so fond of Zion, that it became known as the dwelling place of God and I believe the reason for this is that He knew that praise was always waiting for Him in Zion.

Let’s look quickly at some of the blessings associated with Zion: (i)Zion is the dwelling place of God (Psalm 132: 13-15); (ii) Zion is the place of salvation (Isaiah 46: 13) (iii) Zion is the place of answered prayer, help and strength (Psalm 20: 1-2) (iv) Zion is the place of deliverance, holiness and restoration (Obadiah 17) (v) Zion is the place of strength (Psalm 84: 3) (vi) Zion is the place of the commanded blessing (Psalm 128: 5 & Psalm 133:3) (vii) Zion is the place of revelation (Isaiah 2: 3)

I believe that David tapped into a secret that you and I can benefit from today. If you want to get God’s attention, give Him praise. If you want to experience the presence and power of God in your life, give Him praise. If you want answers to your prayers, give God praise. If you need deliverance, give God praise. If you have come to the end of your tether and you don’t know where else to turn, give God praise. If you are weak and you need strength, give God praise. If you are desperate and you need help, give God praise. If you want to walk in the covenant blessings of God, give Him praise. If you want to rule in the midst of your enemies, give God praise. If you want to draw strength out of Zion, bring praise into Zion. The only way to enter His gates is with thanksgiving in your heart, the only way to come into His courts is with praise.

When everything else fails, and you don’t know what else to do, just open your mouth and start to praise God. If there is a Jericho wall that stands between you and your promise, start to praise God – and watch that wall come down. When you are stuck between a rock and a hard place, open your mouth and praise God. When you have prayed and prayed and prayed, and you can’t pray anymore, just start to praise God. If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, just start to praise God.

There is something about the praise of a believer that God can’t resist. God will leap over a thousand people who are playing church; and He will come to the aid of one worshipper who truly knows how to praise Him. A Syro-Phoenician woman, who was a stranger to the covenant of Israel, worshipped her way to her daughter’s deliverance. The madman of Gadara was possessed by a legion of demons; and all those demons could not keep him from worshipping. And the moment he started to worship, that was it – they had to be evicted. Jehoshaphat said “We have no might against this great company, nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You.” Then they started to praise God. God came down and confounded their enemies. They turned against one another and wiped each other out. Paul and Silas worshipped their way out of a Philippian jail. You can worship your way out of any situation; and you can worship your way into any blessing.

David ruled in the midst of his enemies because he knew how to worship God. The trouble with most of us is we want to wait until we get our breakthrough before we praise God. But there is such a thing as pre-emptive praise - it is when you praise God in advance. And I have discovered that when praise breaks forth in your spirit, heaven opens and something breaks forth. In Genesis 7: 11 we see ‘all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.’  And so I challenge you – break up your fountains of praise!  Empty your reserves of adoration! Pour out thanksgiving for what He has already done.

Tell the Lord ‘Praise is awaiting you O God in Zion’‘ and rule in the midst of your enemies!