Episode Transcript
Hello, I'm Doctor Kylie Fisher. Welcome to heavenly harmonies. Two chronicles, chapter 20 contains a Bible story that teaches powerful lessons about spiritual warfare and the issues we face in our world today.
It shows how we as individuals can be victorious in the great controversy terrible battle that is now raging on planet earth. This chapter tells the story of how the Moabites and ammonites, enemies of God, came unprovoked to fight against God's people. Jehoshaphat, the king of Israel at that time, immediately called all the Israelites to fast and pray.
After doing this, notice what Jehoshaphat did when the time came for the battle. We find this in two chronicles, chapter 20, verse 21. And that says, and when he that is Jehoshaphat, had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army.
And to say, praise the Lord for his mercy endurethe forever. Now notice in verses 22 and 23 what happened as the singers began to lift their voices in praise to God. Verse 22 says, and when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord sent ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, which would come against Judah, and they were smitten.
Verse 23 for the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir utterly to slay and destroy them. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, everyone helped to destroy another. What an amazing story.
That day, the singers won the battle. The army didn't even need to fight, because the tribes in the enemy camp turned on one another. The israelite army conquered trusong.
This story has been recorded to show us that we can do the same in the spiritual battles we face in life. Our hymn for today, lead on, o king eternal, tells us more about this. Stay with me to discover how its heavenly harmonies can keep you near to the heart of God.
Lead on, o kingdom eternal. The day of march has come. Henceforth in fields of conquest thy tents shall be our home to days of preparation.
Thy grace hath made us strong. And now, o king eternal, we lift our battle song. Lead on, o king eternal.
Till sin's fierce war shall cease and holiness shall whisper the sweet amen of peace. For not with swords loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drum with deeds of love and mercy, the heavenly kingdom comes. Lead on, o king eternal.
We follow not with fear, for gladness breaks like morning when I ere thy face appears, thy cross is lifted o'er us we journey in its light. The crown awaits the conquest. Lead on, o God of might.
What a stirring hymn to lead off this new season of heavenly harmonies. I have chosen this hymn because it highlights the key purpose of this programme and we are going to explore that today. We will also consider the theme that we will be looking at in this new season.
So there are three main points that I want to focus on from our hymn for today, this amazing song. Lead on, o king eternal. And so it's very clear that the key theme of this song is the great battle between good and evil.
And we can see this from phrases like, henceforth, in fields of conquest, you know, we lift our battle song till sin's fierce war shall cease. So it's really clear this is talking about a battle, and this is relevant to us in the 21st century because our first key point, our first focal point of today, we are living in the final days of the great battle between good and evil. And so we've looked at this in previous programmes.
Revelation chapter twelve tells us that this battle began in heaven, but it has now come down to earth. And earth is in fact, centre stage in this battle. Now, Revelation chapter twelve tells us sort of about this great controversy right from this beginning to the conclusion.
And so let's have a look at revelation 1217. We have read this before, but it's so important, I really want to emphasise it. Revelation chapter twelve, verse 17, the verse that brings us to this, our day, it says there, and the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
So we take our stand on the side of truth, the side of righteousness, the side of God and of Jesus Christ. We will find ourselves battling not just against other human beings who are, you know, bent on sadly doing evil, but which does not mean everyone is, but, you know, those who sadly do choose to do that. But we will also find ourselves battling against evil angels that are, you know, the.
The real instigators of this battle. And so let's have a look at a verse about this. We're going to look in Ephesians chapter six and verses ten to 18.
Ephesians chapter six, verses ten to 18. I'm not going to read the whole passage, but that tells us that we are in this spiritual battle. So it's not the type of battle that we're talking about is not primarily a physical battle, but it is a spiritual battle, because you might be thinking, you know, look, I don't you know, own a gun.
I don't have swords or any of these sort of physical weapons. How can I possibly be in a battle? Well, friend, living in this universe, living on earth, as I say, we are right in the centre of this battle and we all need to realise this and be prepared for this battle. This particular passage tells us the spiritual armour that we need for this battle, because, as verse twelve of Ephesians chapter six says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
And so notice the weapons that we have to fight in this battle. So let's have a look at verses 14 to 17 of Ephesians chapter six, verse 14 says, stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
So notice that the weapons in this battle are truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, salvation, faith and the sword of the spirit. And there the sword of the spirit is defined right here in this passage. The sword of the spirit is the word of God.
And there's other places as well that you could look at. There's other places that we have looked at in other programmes, like Hebrews chapter four, verse twelve, which also talks about the word of God being like a sword. But I want you to notice, and I want to draw out today that all pieces of this armour are connected with God's word in some way, because the question for us is, you know, we have the word of God, but how do we make it a part of our lives? And I believe that there are definitely multiple factors to this.
But we want to talk about how this programme and the theme and the purpose of this programme, which is music. How can music, you know, help us to stand for truth, to stand on the side of God, to stand for righteousness? I believe the key link is by connecting us to the word of God. So we're going to explore this today.
So let's have a look at how every piece of this armour is connected to the word of God. So the first piece of armour is this belt of truth. And actually in.
Oh, yes, there it is. First Peter, chapter one. And verse 13 says, they gird up the loins of your mind.
So we need to focus our minds on truth. And John chapter 17 and verse 17 says, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth.
So the truths. So the Bible is truth. It's a key component of truth.
The Bible talks about other things also that are truth. Like God's law is truth, Jesus is truth. There are various components, but we see here clearly that the Bible is the truth.
And, you know, God's word, God's word. The Bible is the truth and in fact it's the standard by which other truths are tested. So we see that this first weapon, the belt of truth, is very clearly connected with the word of God and with the truths, with particularly the truth of God's word.
Now notice also John chapter 15, verse three. This brings us to the second piece of our armour. John chapter 15, verse three says, now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
That was Jesus speaking there. And this brings us to righteousness. So it is through the word of God that we are cleansed from our sin.
And notice also second Timothy 316, which says that scripture is profitable for a range of things, doctrine and so forth. But it says scripture is profitable for instruction in righteousness. So not only does the word of God cleanse us from sin, the word of God instructs us how our lives can be changed, how we can live righteous lives.
You know, as people that are naturally in love with sin. What a terrible thing when the wages of sin is death. We need to flee from that.
We need to run to Jesus, we need to run to his word so that we can have cleansing from sin and so that also we can our lives, our characters can be changed and we can do that which is right. Live out the. Live out righteousness, live out Christ's life in us.
So let's move on now to the third piece of armour, which is peace. And John chapter 16 and verse 33. Jesus is speaking here, John chapter 16 and verse 33.
And Jesus says here, John chapter 16, verse 33. Jesus says here these things I have spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace. So through the word of God we can have peace.
Jesus also says the very next words in the world, ye shall have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. So even in the midst of spiritual battles, even, you know, when we're just solely tempted to do wrong, we can still have peace through the word of God by fixing our mind on God and on his word.
Now notice also coming to the fourth piece of the armour, notice also the book of James. James chapter one and verse 21, it says, receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls. So that's talking about salvation, right? Salvation is being saved.
So the word of God is able to save us. It is, you know, it's such a key part of this helmet of salvation. Now coming on to the shield of faith.
The shield of faith. Now, Hebrews eleven one, very well known verse says, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And faith is actually taking God at his word.
It's believing God's promises, believing his word before we have outward evidence that it will be fulfilled is, you know, believing what we don't see. As that verse said from Hebrews eleven one. Now in Jesus miracles of healing that he worked while he was here on earth, we can see examples of this.
And so, for instance, we have the centurion servant, Matthew, chapter eight, verses eight and ten. The centurion said to Jesus, speak the word only and my servant shall be healed. And Jesus said, I've not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
So this centurion, who's a Roman, believed that Christ's word could heal his servant. His mind grasped the promise of that word and it was through that that his servant had healing. So he believed before he saw also the nobleman came to Christ and Jesus said, you know, he believed the word that Jesus spoke.
And from that moment his servant was healed. So that's found in John four and verse 50. John 450, speaking about the nobleman's son, also is healed by the word of God.
And so particularly the word of God is a shield for us from the fiery darts of Satan. And psalm 91 four says that his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. And so the truth of God's word, those things are a shield to us living in these last days.
So we can see that every single part of this armour, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace, the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, and of course, the sword of the spirit, all of these things are so intimately connected with the word of God. But how can we make God's word a part of our life? How can we use God's word to be victorious in the battles that we face? So this brings us to the second point that I really want to highlight, which is a powerful weapon in this battle. So let's have a look at Colossians 316, Colossians 316.
Now notice what this verse says. It says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. So here we see that this verse is talking about just what we need.
It's talking about the word of Christ, the word of God, the belt of truth and the sword of the spirit. And so the verse says that this word can dwell in us, we can assimilate it, it can become a transforming power in our lives. Now, how can this happen? Notice the rest of the verse.
How does this happen? Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And so this verse brings out that it is through song that we can make the word of God a really intimate part of our lives. Song has amazing power, and that's brought out in our hymn for today, because the last line of the first verse says, now, o king eternal, we lift our battle song.
So I hope from now on, when you sing this hymn or when you hear this hymn and when you hear about this battle song, that you will think, yes, hymns, spiritual songs, psalms, all of these things are amazing weapons. That song is an amazing weapon that we can use in this battle between good and evil, and it can help us to fix our minds on the truths of God's word now. So, but just how can we use song? Well, that's what we're hoping to explore in.
I mean, that's what we've been exploring in past programmes and that's what we will be exploring in future programmes. So this is just such an exciting journey for us. But the Bible contains many examples.
We don't have time to go into all of them today, but I'm just gonna briefly mention them. Maybe you can start thinking about them yourself. So we've already looked at the story of Jehoshaphat.
We saw that song has power to drive back. The forces of darkness and songs of praise invite the presence of God and holy angels. That's how we can conquer evil forces.
Now, we've looked at in other episodes as well how there is music in heaven. We also see from the Bible that music was used in the earthly sanctuary. Music has been used to celebrate important events in this earth's history, such as creation and the birth of Christ.
The angels sang at both of those. Music was used by Paul and Silas when they were in prison and it even opened the prison doors. So music has absolutely tremendous power.
And, you know, we might wonder, you know, why is song so powerful? Well, do you know? Researchers today acknowledge the power of music. You know, there are articles, academic articles that have been written and people have done research into this and they've found that music has direct physiological and psychological effects. It can directly affect heartbeat, blood pressure, your mood, it can help to soothe anxiety and depression and things like this.
However, these researchers acknowledge that they know little of the mechanisms by which music achieves these amazing results. Well, I would like to suggest to you, friend, we do not have to wait for scientists and researchers to find out how to use music because we have something even more amazing than scientific research. And look, I have a degree in science.
I'm not against studying God's creation and seeking to find out more about God's creation, to understand more about goddess through his creation. But something that is even better than that is the word of God. And these amazing stories in the Bible can help us to know how we can use song in the spiritual battles that we face.
And so song can help us to learn and remember truth. Now, one of my favourite chapters in the Bible is psalm 119. Psalm 100 1954 says, thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.
Statutes is an old word that we don't use a lot of the time these days, but it basically means laws. So God's laws. According to the psalmist who wrote psalm 119, God's laws can be our song while we're here on earth.
This is the time of our pilgrimage. And so song can help us. Besides these other uses of song that I've mentioned can help us to learn and to remember truth.
But I would like to remind you, we learn in previous episodes that we need not just general truth, but we need to have present truth. And that brings us to. .3
so song, I believe, can help to prepare us for the conflict before us by helping us to learn present truth. And so that is what we are going to be doing in this season. Now, I have titled this season historical foundations of present truth because what we're going to look at in our focus songs for this season is we're going to look at the time period from approximately 6000 years ago, when the battle between good and evil began up to the year 1798, the start of the time of the end.
And because that's such an important time. And many of the truths that we need to know today have their foundation in the early part of the reformation. And so we want to explore this.
We want to get an amazing historical foundation for present truth and we're going to learn this through song so that I hope you can remember these songs and that they will remind you of these truths that that we need to know about and that have relevance for today we're going to look at the relevance of these truths for today. And then that will bring us to the third 3rd verse of our song today, which is lid on, o king eternal. We follow not with fear.
And so, you know, it may seem scary sometimes to think about these forces of evil, but through God's strength we can conquer. We can gain that crown at the end by considering the cross of Christ. So I hope that you can think about these things as we listen now to the Mormon Tabernacle choir sing our hymn for today.
Lead on, o king eternal. Lead on, o king eternal. Hence what it is of conquest I can shall be above.
Through days of rainfall my grace has made us fall, and holy shall we for my peace, for gladness rain I know I cross it with hash grace of the rest in the lord. Psalm 119, verse eleven says thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. One of the best ways we can hide God's word in our hearts is in sacred song.
Let's pray for God's help to do this. Dear God, we are so grateful for the many blessings that you have given us, dear Lord, even though we are so unworthy of your love, you have not left us here to just perish in sin, dear Lord, but you sent Jesus to save us and you've given us these amazing weapons that we can use in this battle against evil. And weapon of song is one of the most powerful and one of the most delightful.
So please help us, dear Lord, to make use of this spiritual weapon to access the truths of God's word so that we can bring them into our lives, put them into practise in our lives and be victorious in the conflict with evil. And we pray these things, please, in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
So thank you so much for joining me today on heavenly harmonies. Remember, you can find past episodes on our website three abnaustralia.org dot au.
And if you go to that website, click the listen button and then you can select heavenly harmonies from the list of programmes. Now we also would absolutely love to hear from you, so you can email us at radio three abnaustralia.org dot au.
Please join me again next time to explore more heavenly harmonies, but until then, may you stay close to the heart of God through song.
