The Song of Faith, Part 3

Greetings, friends and new listeners.

Welcome to our program. I'm Sharon Ottz thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. I think you will truly be blessed, maybe even tickled by our message today, the Song of Faith. I know I had fun ministering it and the congregation was right there with me, including the children. We found out that not only does faith speak, but it also sings. So be blessed by the Song of Faith. So now these people had just come through this, but this time was different.

Having come through the serpent saga, they had their lips zipped. And this is where we're going to pick up the story now. And we are in, let me turn the page back where I was. Okay, we stopped at verse 16. Now let's see what happens in verse 17. And this is I said everything I said today, believe it or not, to get to this verse.

Somebody says I believe it Sharon, that's par for the course for you. Verse 17. Then Israel sang this song.

Somebody say then. Israel sang this song. What did they sing? Spring up, oh well, sing ye to it. Then did they get any water yet? You see anything there about getting any water? Had they drank water yet? No, no water. I don't see no water in there. I don't see no miracle.

I don't see, you know, God doing something miraculous. These people don't have any water yet. These people haven't won the victory yet. These people haven't gotten answers to their prayer yet. Their tongues are hanging down.

Did you ever see a dog on a hot day? That's how their tongues are. They want water. But instead of opening their mouth to murmur, gripe, and complain, they decide, you know what, instead of singing after we get the water, let's try singing before we get the water. Instead of waiting until we get the victory to sing, instead of waiting until God moves, and still waiting until our prayer is answered to sing, to shout, and to dance, how about trying singing, how about trying shouting, how about trying dancing before you get your prayer answered?

So here they are. The people began to sing. And look at verse 18. The princes, hey, the princess means the leaders of all the tribes. They didn't say, hey, somebody go back there and get, you know, get little Johnny and get Joe and get that guy. No, the princes began to dig the well.

And the nobles, the nobles of the people dig the well, by the direction of the lawgiver, which would have been Moses, with their stabs. They took their stabs. They didn't have shovels. They didn't have shovels. They didn't bring shovels out of Egypt. They had stabs.

Do you know how hard it is to dig with a stick? Amen. They took their stabs and they began to dig, and they began to dig, and the whole time they're digging, they're singing, they're singing and a digging, they're digging and a singing, and they're singing to the ground, that blistering sand that's burning their feet. They're singing, oh well, spring up, spring up.

Oh well, spring up, spring up. Hallelujah. Somebody said, don't wait till the battle's over. Shout now.

Hallelujah. Don't wait till the battle's over. Sing now. Don't wait till the battle's over.

Dance now. You see, the other was a song of celebration, a song of thanksgiving, a song of praise. You ought to thank God when he gives you the victory, but this is the song of faith because faith not only speaks, faith sings. How many know 2 Corinthians 4.13 because it's one of the anchors of my message, the creative word, and you don't have to turn there, but 2 Corinthians 4.13 says, we having the same spirit of faith as it is written, I believed, because he's quoting Psalm 116.10, as it is written I believe, therefore have I spoken.

Then he goes on to say, we also believe, and therefore we speak, but I'd like to say we also believe, and we not only speak, but we sing, but we shout, but we dance. Amen. And if you can get a revelation of this and understand that you don't wait until God has moved and answered your prayers, you don't wait until God has opened up the windows of heaven and the rain's falling down, you don't wait till God opens up the earth and then the well is springing up. If you will sing the song of faith, if you will keep on digging, if you will keep on praying, if you will keep on interceding, if you will keep on fasting, if you will keep on meditating on God's word, if you will keep on trusting in the Lord, and all the time that you're digging and waiting on God, you're singing the song of faith.

Hallelujah. I want to say to you, if you've been in a dry place, if you've been in a desert land, if you've been in a spiritual wilderness, it's time for you to sing to your soul, oh, soul spring up, oh well of water within spring up. The scripture says in Isaiah 44, three, I will pour water upon him who is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon thy seed and my blessings upon thine offspring.

Isaiah 35, six, for in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert and the parched ground shall become a pool and the thirsty land springs of water. Sometimes you're going to have to sing while you're still in the battle. Keep confessing God's word. That's digging. Keep praying. That's digging.

Keep interceding. That's digging. Amen.

Keep fasting. That's digging. But sometimes you've got to add something to that. You've got to add some Holy Ghost anointed faith inspired singing. Amen. Praising God who will give you the victory. Paul said, thanks be on the God who always causes me to triumph. And you know, one of my favorite Psalms and I'm sure it's a favorite of most all of you here is Psalm 103. We all know, bless the Lord.

Oh my soul and all that is within me. Bless his name. Bless the Lord. Oh my soul and forget not all of his benefits. And he goes on and names them.

Why is you? We have David speaking to his soul instead of just saying, Oh Lord, I bless your name and I thank you for all your benefits. He's saying, so bless the Lord.

So bless the Lord. Why? Sometimes you don't feel like blessing God. Sometimes you're discouraged. Sometimes you're despondent. Sometimes there's a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes.

Sometimes all you've heard is bad reports and you don't have any expectation of good looking in the natural, but you don't keep looking in the natural. You begin to look under the Lord and you encourage your own self and you say, so bless the Lord. So rejoice in the Lord. So sing the song of faith. Amen.

I dare you to try it. I tell you, if you will start singing the song of faith, it won't be very long. That one song will follow another and another will follow that one. And for you know what, you'll just be singing songs and you'll be singing songs you forgot you knew. Amen.

You might even start singing. How did Moses cross the Red Sea? Well, the Lord blew a wind and went, hop, hop, hop, and the wind did blow enough, enough, enough.

Amen. You will sing yourself into victory. As I said, Psalm 105, 106 and 107, some of the longer Psalms in there, they're all looking back. They're looking back and summarizing the Israelites in the wilderness. And Psalm 107 verse 31 says, oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works. And this is a song Psalm obviously set to music because we won't read the whole thing.

It's way too long. But every few verses they repeat, oh, that men would praise the Lord for his wonderful works to the children of men. And then they would give a few more wonderful works. And I like the one in verse 35.

It fits in. It says he turns the wilderness into standing water and the dry grounds into water springs. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his wonderful works to the children of men. And I hope that you see in the spirit, maybe you've been through something, maybe you've been through a catastrophic illness or someone close to you has been. That is a severe trial, a severe trial.

Your trial may even be worse than that. You may have lost a loved one close to you. And that is like being in the wilderness with no compass and nothing. You feel totally lost. Amen. Or you may feel like that you're just adrift and you don't have any direction. But I tell you that if you will sing the victory song, if you will sing the victory song, you will find out that faith in your spirit will come up like a spring.

And once the spring gets to flowing, you can't shut it down. Amen. I love what Jesus said in John 4 14. The water that I shall give unto you shall be a well of water springing up unto everlasting life.

Singing before the victory is an act of faith. Very quickly, let's turn to Second Chronicles, the 20th chapter. Now we're getting far, far, far down the road in the history of the Israelites.

This is a story you're all well familiar with, so I will paraphrase a lot of it. At this situation, the enemies of God, and we'll recognize the names immediately as the same ones we read here in Numbers. We're God now in Second Chronicles 20, but way down the road.

This is towards the ends of the kings before they went into exile. And we read that Moab and Amnon and Mount Seir came up against Israel, a great multitude. And the scripture says in Second Chronicles 20, I think it's verse three that yeah, verse three and Jehoshaphat feared. He was afraid because they were outnumbered by three nations.

Amen. And they were mighty men. And so he feared.

But here's what you do when you're attacked by fear. Verse three. He gathered the people together. And Judah gathered themselves together. That's verse four.

Well, let me back up to verse three. He set himself to seek the Lord and proclaim to fast throughout all Judah. So he was afraid, but he said, you know, I'm not in this by myself.

He got brothers and sisters. He got men and women of like precious faith. He said, come on, we got to go and pray and fast together. Amen. And so they gathered together. And what did they do? Verse four, to ask help of the Lord.

They came out from all of their cities and they came together. And that's what you do when you're being attacked by a spirit of fear. If you're trying to get the victory and this thing is harassing and vexing you and you're trying to do it all yourself and keep it in, you know, to yourself, because sometimes we're ashamed to admit we're being attacked by fear. Aren't you some might great, mighty, great spiritual Christian? What do you mean you're being attacked by fear? You know yourself. How many times has a preacher gotten up here and said, if you're battling spirit of fear, come up and half a church comes up.

You're like, huh? It's not unusual. It's very common. It's one of Satan's number one weapons. Most of the time it's ungrounded and unfounded. If you thought about, really thought about what you're afraid of, you realize that you shouldn't be. But while you're in it, you don't see it that way.

You feel that terrible, terrible, oppressing spirit of fear. And so what do you do? You go get brothers and sisters to help you to pray and ask help of God. And so that's what he did. And then if we go on, we find out that they begin to pray. Let's look at verse five. And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and said, Oh Lord God of our fathers. I love this.

This is what you do. You brag on God. Art not thou God in heaven and rule us thou not over all the kingdoms of the heathen and in thine hand, there is not power and might so that none is able to withstand thee. Art thou not our God who did us drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel and gave us to the seed of Abraham thy friend forever. And they dwelt therein and have built thee a sanctuary therein for thy name saying if when evil comes upon us the sword judgment pestilence or famine or we stand before that we will stand before thy house and in thy presence for thy name is in this house and we'll cry unto thee in our affliction then thou will hear and will help us. And now the children of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt. And that's another story. But they turned from them and destroyed them not because they mistreated them when Israel came out they would not let them pass through their land Israel didn't want to stay Israel just wanted to pass through and Israel even offered to pay them money for letting them come through knowing well we'll probably be drinking some of your water and you know eating some of your grass but they said no you can't come through. And they wanted they got angry and wanted to it you know to retaliate and invade them and God said no leave them to me let them in my hands but the animosity persists behold I say how they rewarded us to come to cast us out of our possession which thou had given us to inherit getting back to bragging on God oh our God will thou not judge them for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us we have no might we have no strength we have no resources we have no wherewithal to withstand these enemies and I love this neither know we what to do don't ever be ashamed to tell God I don't know what to do that's the best thing you can say I don't know what to do God but don't whine when you say it make sure you're not whining we don't know what to do here's the answer but our eye but our eyes are upon thee hallelujah and so they began to remind God of what he did in the past how he brought them out in spite of the devil's attempts to keep them from coming in they boasted on God about all the past victories reminding God and then after they had done all that they put their request to the Lord they confessed they did not know what to do the Bible says God resists the proud but oh he gives grace to the humble when you know you need grace because you know I do not know what to do get low get real low because he said in Matthew 28 18 lo I am with you some of you will get it when you get home and so they said our eyes are on you and that's what God was waiting to hear because as soon as they said that verse 13 and all Judas stood before the Lord with their little ones their wives and their children now see I love this because you see here he specifically says wives and children and if they weren't there he would have just said in all the people okay then upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah the son of Benaiah the son of Jahiel the son of Mattaniah a Levite you could have just told us that the sons of Asaph now who are the sons of Asaph the choir members the singers amen you look through the Psalms a lot of them don't say David a lot of them say Asaph and the came the spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation now imagine this imagine this God didn't pick a prophet God didn't pick a preacher God didn't pick a bishop he didn't pick a reverend wonderful he picked a choir member a choir member and the Holy Ghost came on him and he said harken ye all Judah and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem and thou King Jehoshaphat thus sayeth the Lord unto you be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude for the battle is not yours but God's and tomorrow go ye down against them behold they come up by the cliff of Ziz and you shall find them at the end of the brook before the wilderness of Jeruel and you shall not need to fight in this battle set yourselves and stand ye still and see the salvation of the Lord with you oh Judah and Jerusalem fear not nor be dismayed tomorrow go out against them for the Lord will be with you amen the Lord will be with you now lest we get the idea that they had to do absolutely nothing but just go down there and stand if we stopped here we might think that they didn't have to do anything else all they had to do was just stand there but let's see what what he says in the next verse and the Levite okay where would I leave off 18 and Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground and all Judah before the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord worshiping the Lord and the Levites and the children of the half bites and the children of Christ they're all Levites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high and they rose early in the morning they went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa and as they went forth Jehoshaphat stood and said hear me oh Judah and ye hadn't some Jerusalem listen believe in the Lord your God so shall ye be established believe his prophets and so shall you prosper you see they still had to do something God said you don't have to fight no no weapons you don't have to fight but you do have to believe my word you have to believe my promises and you've got to believe my prophets and sometimes all you have is this that's all you've got to stand on and the enemy is surrounding you but you have got to believe the written word and then because we're New Testament saints especially how much more when we have the Holy Spirit poured out upon us we have received the Spirit with all of his nine gifts operating in the church amen sometimes God gives us a prophetic word he said if you believe the written word you're going to be established you're going to be founded I don't want to hear nothing from anybody that's not rooted in the word you're not ready to do anything until you get founded and rooted in the word and then after you get rooted and founded in the word sometimes God will give in addition to the written word he'll give a spoken word he'll give an inspired word he'll give a word of wisdom a word of knowledge prophecy tongues interpretation of tongues God will give and if you believe the written word you'll be rooted grounded and established the enemy will not be able to move you with a lie and then when you get the inspired word and you believe it how many times has God given you an inspired word and you let the devil talk you out of it how many times has God given you a prophecy or a word of encouragement and then the devil said that was just the vessel and oh that was just this that was just that if you want to prosper in that word you've got to believe it you've got to believe it and hold fast you never believe a word over the written word you never believe a word that does not agree with the written word because we have a sure more word of prophecy the word of God but when it is in line with God's word and if you do have the spirit of God in you it will bear witness amen because God will witness and God will confirm and then you shall prosper so it wasn't like they did nothing they had to believe and then what did they do verse 20 and they rose up early in the morning oh I already read that verse 21 and when he had consulted with the people he appointed singers unto the Lord that should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out somebody tell me the next word what did they do before the army and to say what praise the Lord for his mercy endureth forever and when they begin to sing and to praise the Lord set in that and ambushments against the children of Amnon Moab and Mount Seir which were come against Judah and they were smitten so here we have another example of singing before the victory it says they went before the army now we can take that preposition two ways obviously they went in front of them before as in front the singers went first and then the army the army were there for show they were there for show God said you don't have to fight they didn't have on their their fatigues and their camouflage they had on their brass button and their hats when you march in a parade they weren't there with their with all of their arms they were there for a victory parade they weren't waiting until they had the victory to have the parade how many know that after the victory they would always parade down the main streets of the city but they were there to have the victory parade before there was a victory amen and God says I don't want you to wait till the battle is over I want you to sing now I don't want you to wait until the enemy has been smitten I want you to shout now I don't want you to wait until you got your prayer answered I want you to rejoice and celebrate now and the first thing they did was they fell on their face and they worshiped the Lord number one they worshiped the Lord and I say to you that when God is in the center of your worship he'll be in the center of your warfare you just be centered on worshiping God and singing the victory song amen and he thought the singers all together and the choir director and all of the saints and they began to sing and to rejoice and to shout and when they did that in the midst of their singing God sent ambushments and what is that an ambushment means to be hiding in the bushes waiting in the bushes unseen unnoticed nobody knows you're there the invisible angels of God they were waiting they were waiting until every one of them was in the middle of their victory song they were singing praise the Lord for his mercy endureth forever praise the Lord for his goodness endureth forever praise the Lord for he is good praise the Lord because he's gracious and merciful praise the Lord because he's triumphed gloriously and while they're in the middle of singing and worshiping God God released the angels and the angels came out of the bushes and went after all of the army and slew every one of them hallelujah because when God's in the middle of your worship he'll be right in the middle of your warfare hallelujah because faith not only knows how to speak faith knows how to sing and instead of you singing that song look what the Lord has done look what the Lord has done you're going to be singing look what the Lord will do look what the Lord will do he'll heal your body he'll save your soul he'll heal your mind he'll step in right on time I'm going to praise his name each day he's still the same I'm going to praise him not only for what he's done but look what the Lord will do amen do you believe it this morning jump up on your feet God said believe my word every one of you has a particular word that perhaps God is trying to activate in your life right now it may be a word for healing it may be a word for deliverance it may be a word for financial breakthrough it may be a word for your loved ones your family your children to be saved for your marriage to be healed amen God's given you that word you gotta believe it and now God has sent me to give you an inspired word of the Lord to tell you that you need to sing now you need to shout now you need to delight in the Lord now hallelujah amen amen I trust you're being blessed by this delightful message the song of faith in Old Testament times God instructed Moses and later David to put his word to music this made it easier for the people to remember even today we teach our kids their ABCs and song the song of Moses was sung by the people after their glorious Red Sea crossing Miriam and the women sang and danced the horse and the rider are cast into the sea you know it's easy to sing when you've just won a huge victory like that but unfortunately the Israelites fell into chronic murmuring each time they faced a hardship such as having no water when one incident it resulted in God sending fiery serpents that bit them and some died this left an indelible mark on their memory and the next time they needed water they began to sing before they received their answer while the men were digging the women were singing and the water burst forth there is a great lesson here for all of us don't wait till the battle's over sing now shout now dance now God will send angels to chase the enemy like the chaff before the wind like he did when Jehoshaphat and the choir went out to face the enemy they sang the victory song while the angels won the battle don't miss out on an anointed blessing for yourself and others why not order the song of faith on cd for a love gift of ten dollars or more for the radio ministry request offer sk 168 that's sk 168 mail to rg hardy ministries po box 1744 baltimore maryland 21203 or order online at rgharty.org where you will also find many other anointed sermons by my father brother hardy and myself but to order by mail send a minimum love gift of ten dollars request offer sk 168 to po box 1744 baltimore maryland 21203 till next time this is sharon not singing maranatha you